The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition - Obsidian's first-person sci-fi RPG set in a corporate space colony

[cvv]

Imagine playing Outer Worlds of all games on Switch of all platforms.

A perfect combo from our zero-T future.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Is Switch the only thing you have other than an ancient PC? Because it would look and play much better on literally anything else.

Sadly yes.. I kinda broken now and PS4s are really expensive in my country still.
I mean i could've get a PS4 but got a switch instead mainly because SMTV and Three Houses.

 

[agris]

For some reason, this made me think of the outer worlds.

Most of the games, and RPGs especially, have very compressed world. So basically every 50 meters there's something; dungeons, enemies, an encounters, monsters - something.

And then this.

Many other games, this is also an important point, many other games have a lot of basically artificial combat encounters. Because they want to prolong the gameplay, so that they have so much combat because they think the game would otherwise be boring or too short.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

I got Xbox Game Pass for Gears Tactics, and this is included as well. So I gave it a spin.

What a bland, unremarkable, shallow, boring, crap this is. Couldn't be made to care about a single companion, nor the main questline, nor the ship. Combat is F3 level meh. Everything looks like it's made from plastic, especially faces. Spending a quid on this would be too much.

 

[DalekFlay]

Most of the games, and RPGs especially, have very compressed world. So basically every 50 meters there's something; dungeons, enemies, an encounters, monsters - something.

There's so many unrealistic things about RPGs you have to accept though, for gameplay reasons. Randoms strangers telling you their life story, a town filled with 10 people asking you do to stuff, running around all day in plate armor, whatever... I just consider this another one of them. What's the alternative? Big worlds filled with nothing? Witcher 3 has wide swaths of land good for nothing but grabbing loot and I found it pretty boring, honestly. There is a balance to be found, sure, but I don't think Outer Worlds was any worse at it than New Vegas really. It just had smaller zones for budget reasons.

 

[Nano]

There's so many unrealistic things about RPGs you have to accept though, for gameplay reasons.

Sounds like an excuse to me.

Randoms strangers telling you their life story, a town filled with 10 people asking you do to stuff, running around all day in plate armor, whatever...

Murdering your way through hundreds of enemies without any consequences and with no NPCs being horrified by what a mass murderer you are.

 

[cvv]

You always gotta have gamey elements in vidya, like health regen (nobody would wait weeks of real time to heal their wounds, duh). But not everything has to be embellished or awesomized. Anyone who played Kingdom Come knows the more realistic countryside without the "30 seconds rule" is even more awesome because it's more immersive. That was Vavra's point.

 

[Zombra]

Outer Worlds, as far as I got, was jarringly compressed in a way I found off-putting. Plenty of games use negative space to wonderful effect and this density was certainly not necessary nor called for here. One can say with validity that the compression is for "gameplay reasons", but that doesn't automatically make that gameplay good. I tend to think this is, if anything, not an attempt to design "well", but instead to sell better to a lower common denominator with a shorter attention span. I'm happy to buy the low budget theory as well. In either case, not something we should be pleased about.

 

[DalekFlay]

Well if we look at Monarch, the most well realized place in Outer Worlds, and compare it to New Vegas... is it that more compressed? I'm not saying no, I'm thinking through it in my head. It's obviously smaller of course, but I'm speaking land-to-location ratio. I suppose it does have three cities in a pretty small fucking area, and you're never far from a batch of buildings. Areas that make you feel like you're "out in the woods" so to speak are rare. So maybe you have a point. I wouldn't say Bethesda style games are that much different though really. Just much bigger.

 

[Silverfish]

Imagine playing Outer Worlds of all games on Switch of all platforms.

A perfect combo from our zero-T future.

"Welcome to my Intelligence / Charm pacifist run of the Outer Worlds."

-streamer in knee-high socks.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Randoms strangers telling you their life story, a town filled with 10 people asking you do to stuff,

What's the alternative? Big worlds filled with nothing?

Hubs.
A hub with 10-15 fleshed out people makes sense. An entire ""city"" that's like 5 building and 10 people is just too much for suspension of disbelief.

 

[Infinitron]

The Monarch map isn't huge, but in relative terms it's certainly not crowded. All three towns are on a north-to-south line along the eastern edge of the map. Cascadia in the southwest is basically a big dungeon, and the entire northwest quadrant of the map on the other side of the gorge is an uninhabited happy hunting ground.

If the game was larger they could have found room for another faction there, though what would have been better is for there to have been multiple outposts for each faction. This is what really sets apart Fallout: New Vegas apart - the NCR is everywhere, there's not just the one "NCR town" where you do all the quests to max your reputation and then never see them again.

I think the area that makes you feel the most like you're "out in the woods" is the mountains in the center of the map, when you're travelling to meet the Information Broker.

 

[Wesp5]

A hub with 10-15 fleshed out people makes sense. An entire ""city"" that's like 5 building and 10 people is just too much for suspension of disbelief.

I recently got the Assassins Creed Discovery freebies and I am amazed about the large detailed maps with hundreds of NPCs moving about doing their thing. Can't the Unreal engine do this?

 

[DalekFlay]

Hubs.
A hub with 10-15 fleshed out people makes sense. An entire ""city"" that's like 5 building and 10 people is just too much for suspension of disbelief.

I agree, I think I mentioned before the Deus Ex setup is my favorite for this type of game. Even then though you have gameplay contrivances like vans blocking the street or closed tunnels or whatever else. In the end there's a "gamification" in every game. I don't think Outer Worlds is particularly bad at this for its genre. Its problems in that area are firmly rooted in not having the budget to build a bigger and more elaborate world, IMO.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

A hub with 10-15 fleshed out people makes sense. An entire ""city"" that's like 5 building and 10 people is just too much for suspension of disbelief.

I recently got the Assassins Creed Discovery freebies and I am amazed about the large detailed maps with hundreds of NPCs moving about doing their thing. Can't the Unreal engine do this?

I don't think it makes sense in most games. One of the major parts of Assassin's Creed is the amount of effort they put into reconstructing historical cities and such. But it also takes a lot of development effort to make cities that big. And even one of the most well funded developers in the world with (presumably) an army of developers who have been doing this for years make cities that are in general, scaled down for convenience/development constraints.
Does a big city full of nameless NPCs you can't really interact with actually add anything to most games?

 

[KVVRR]

Well if we look at Monarch, the most well realized place in Outer Worlds, and compare it to New Vegas... is it that more compressed? I'm not saying no, I'm thinking through it in my head. It's obviously smaller of course, but I'm speaking land-to-location ratio. I suppose it does have three cities in a pretty small fucking area, and you're never far from a batch of buildings. Areas that make you feel like you're "out in the woods" so to speak are rare. So maybe you have a point. I wouldn't say Bethesda style games are that much different though really. Just much bigger.

It's a shame that Monarch has the best gameplay in the whole game (if you ignore Phineas' warnings and go into it at a lower level) but the worst writing/factions by far. It's not even that bad, just... boring. I couldn't bring myself to even speak to the Iconoclast's leader in my first save.
Hell it doesn't really have all that much reactivity neither, one would think that an isolated town in the middle of murder planet would notice the new guy who just came out of the woods murdering/sneaking their way through the bandits and beasts that are constantly killing even the people inside the walls of the town, but no one bats an eye. One guy even offered to do the papers for my ship when I hadn't even landed in town.

Does a big city full of nameless NPCs you can't really interact with actually add anything to most games?

it does as long as you can kill em

 

[Zer0wing]

certified

This tag has so much class for a simple offense.

 

[cvv]

Does a big city full of nameless NPCs you can't really interact with actually add anything to most games?

Sure, it's flavour. The original AssCreed leaned heavily on this, as did Witcher 3 in Novigrad.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Does a big city full of nameless NPCs you can't really interact with actually add anything to most games?

Sure, it's flavour. The original AssCreed leaned heavily on this, as did Witcher 3 in Novigrad.

Novigrad was incredibly tiny compared to its description in the books.

 

[DalekFlay]

Sure, it's flavour. The original AssCreed leaned heavily on this, as did Witcher 3 in Novigrad.

Flavor is all well and good, but the cities in Witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed are filled with people who are all useless unless a quest directs you to them specifically. You don't need to have everyone have a story like Skyrim does, that leads to super small "cities," but I do think there's a balance to be had. Piranha Bytes tends to find that balance, though they focus on smaller settlements. I think you could do that with a capital city if you separate it into smaller hubs, as Rusty mentioned, rather than try to portray the city as a whole. Dragon Age Origins did this with Denerim and it was successful IMO.

Though I think the bulk of "gamers" have spoken and like the big empty open worlds of Assassin's Creed.

 

[Zombra]

Flavor is all well and good, but the cities in Witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed are filled with people who are all useless unless a quest directs you to them specifically.

Did you also complain about too many "useless" blades of grass in Gothic 1 and 2? A believable environment doesn't have to all be there because of you and your Chosen ass quest.

 

[DalekFlay]

Did you also complain about too many "useless" blades of grass in Gothic 1 and 2? A believable environment doesn't have to all be there because of you and your Chosen ass quest.

Your comparison is accurate, but not a positive. I don't expect reactivity and involvement with grass. Novigrad is a big painting, a background like grass. Exploring it gives you nothing, as anything interesting is tied to a quest. Just like Assassin's Creed it's a big empty void of graphics. I'm fine with the concept of immersive cities of course, but I also want my exploring of them to mean something. For all of Witcher 3's huge open map and bazillion question marks, there's really fuck all reason to do anything but quests. I prefer the Piranha Bytes method where there's reason to explore, both in cities and outside them, because everything is hand crafted and more involved.

 

[cvv]

I prefer the Piranha Bytes method where there's reason to explore, both in cities and outside them, because everything is hand crafted and more involved.

You can't do really big cities with the PB/Warhorse method. With the current level of technology you can only hope for some flavour with dozens of empty NPCs without any AI like Witcher 3.

 

[Zombra]

Your comparison is accurate, but not a positive. I don't expect reactivity and involvement with grass. Novigrad is a big painting, a background like grass. Exploring it gives you nothing, as anything interesting is tied to a quest. Just like Assassin's Creed it's a big empty void of graphics. I'm fine with the concept of immersive cities of course, but I also want my exploring of them to mean something. For all of Witcher 3's huge open map and bazillion question marks, there's really fuck all reason to do anything but quests. I prefer the Piranha Bytes method where there's reason to explore, both in cities and outside them, because everything is hand crafted and more involved.

It's fine to prefer sandbox games to more focused experiences, but you're talking out of both sides of your mouth here. Witcher 3 is absolutely packed with content - the fact that most of the proper stories are in quest format doesn't change the fact that exploration will find you a million things to do. If you don't like fighting monsters, finding treasures, gathering resources, or pursuing scripted quest content, what the fuck exactly do you expect?

 

[DalekFlay]

It's fine to prefer sandbox games to more focused experiences, but you're talking out of both sides of your mouth here. Witcher 3 is absolutely packed with content - the fact that most of the proper stories are in quest format doesn't change the fact that exploration will find you a million things to do. If you don't like fighting monsters, finding treasures, gathering resources, or pursuing scripted quest content, what the fuck exactly do you expect?

Witcher 3 is packed with content, yes... and everything outside of the story quests is banal and pointless. Oh boy, leveled loot in a chest. Oh boy, random crafting materials in a chest. Oh boy, leveled monsters that protect more random leveled loot I'll never use. Woopty-fucking-doo. Assassin's Creed is the same, and Dragon Age Inquisition, and a host of others. Busy work simulations with no real exploration, just checking markers off a map for random nonsense that doesn't matter. The story quests in them are fun, sure, as long as you don't mind playing follow-the-marker, but the exploration is terrible and pointless. A walk through a painting with no depth. Piranha Bytes offers a reason to go exploring... hand-placed loot that has value, hand-crafted dungeons and caves, stuff you desperately need to find and sell because actual skill advancement is based on it, etc. It's a much better system for exploration enjoyment.

Cvv is right that you can't do a massive open city with that kind of depth, Bethesda's last two Elder Scrolls games being prime examples, which is exactly why Rusty and I are advocating for the hub system if you want to go that grand. Deus Ex's New York/Detroit, or Dragon Age's Denerim, are good examples. You're in the big city, but in a focused area of it, allowing for great exploration reward and characters who have actual roles and things to say. Witcher 1 did that too, come to think of it, with Vizima, and it was fine. Witcher 2 opted instead for smaller towns, which was fine. Witcher 3 went for grand scale, but no depth, resulting in a shallow ocean.