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

[Roguey]

We certainly agree here. Not sure if this is relevant to the original suggestion that an RPG is 'lazy' if it doesn't a) let you murder each and/or every character and b) provide full scripting and narrative support for all possible consequences of murdering each and/or every character.

But if the range includes outright evil, then it's dubious to put limits on whom you can kill for no reason other than a lazy designer didn't feel like supporting it.

If you're allowed to play a blank slate character and if the game supports making many outright-evil choices in dialogue, then it is laziness to not allow the killing of the persons of your choosing.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

You're suggesting that RPGs should never have limits to their scope. Got it.

Yes.

 

[Zombra]

You're suggesting that RPGs should never have limits to their scope. Got it.

Yes.

Cool. Be sure to let the devs of all upcoming RPGs know that their projects should not have a scope. I'm sure they'll be grateful you reminded them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

You're suggesting that RPGs should never have limits to their scope. Got it.

Yes.

Cool. Be sure to let the devs of all upcoming RPGs know that their projects should not have a scope. I'm sure they'll be grateful you reminded them.

Extensive scope tends to create a better RPG overall than one that is limited in scope, even if the former has more systems that aren't fully realized.
This thread itself is a prime example of the latter.

 

[Grunker]

Like I wrote about Bloodlines, a game sells immersion by being consistent with its fiction contract and adhering strictly to a coherent setting that abides by the rules it tells you are fundamental - if its themes and gameplay are otherwise compelling.

As I recall, in Bloodlines you can kill everyone you meet except in Elysium areas; this is because doing so would either result in your immediate destruction or a plot-breaking blood hunt called against you. This is a perfectly acceptable reason for not being able to kill everyone.

Wait what. That's the farthest airbussing cross continents of goal posts I've seen on the Codex in my 22,858 posts. The debate was very simple - "should all nps be killable" - and my position was "they don't have to be." Now suddenly your position is "they don't have to be"? What exactly is our disagreement, then?

And like I said, you could argue for the implementation of many systems of that account. Again, the question is not whether killable NPCs is virtuous - all player freedom that doesn't break the fiction contract is, more or less - it is whether it is worth the cost to implement.

If there is 0 cost I completely agree that it should always be implemented, because why not.

My entire point since we began this discussion was that given how little you actually use the system and how little value it brings, it is an odd system for so many Codexers to choose as one of the fundamental tenets that must be in all RPGs.

BRO GOODB POINTS

HERE IS THE REAL REASON YOU SHOGK BE ABLE TO KILL EVERYONE

GAMES THAT ALOW THIS USUUULY HAVE A FREEDOM OF CHOICE AND DESIGN THAT ALLOW APPLYING THE MECHANICS CREATIVELY

THISB OFTEN MEANS MULTIPLE SOLUTIONS TO POOBKLRMS AND FREEDOM IN APPLYING GAMGE MECHANICS

INDIRECTLY IT ALSO SUPPORTS DIFFERENT FACTIONS CAUSE NOT ALL TOWNS OR QUEST GIVERS OR MERCHANTS ARE GOOD PEOPLE OR PEOPLE ON YOUR SIDE

TERRAIN DESTRUCTION IF IT WAS ALLOWED SHOUFKD LET YOU DESTROY A TOWN

YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO STEAL THE MERCHANTS ENTIURE INVENTORY IF YOU CAN STEAL OR KILL MERCHANT

TO PREVENT THIS YOU WOULD HAVE TOWN GUARDS TO KILL OR EVEN BETTER NO ONE WILL HELP YOU IN YOUR QUESTN BECAUSE YOU ARE A HORRIBLE CUNT

WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO CHOICES AND CONSEQOUINCES

PLUS LOLLLOLOLLOL I HAVE FOND MEMORIES OF KILLING EVERY MOTHERFUCKER IN NEW RENO AND LOLLOLOL TRINSIC CAUSE A MOTHERFUCKER WOULDNT GIVE ME A SHRINE MANTRA

I MM7 a worse game because you can't kill shopkeepers? Does it break a fundamental rule of RPG design by having unkillable shopkeepers?

 

[Roguey]

Now suddenly your position is "they don't have to be"?

That was always my position, as long as the narrative supports it.

What exactly is our disagreement, then?

You don't see the value in it and I do?

 

[Wesp5]

As I recall, in Bloodlines you can kill everyone you meet except in Elysium areas; this is because doing so would either result in your immediate destruction or a plot-breaking blood hunt called against you. This is a perfectly acceptable reason for not being able to kill everyone.

Bloodlines used other reasonable methods too, like in early game you can attack high level NPCs but they will destroy you. And while you can kill some vendors, at least two are unreachable so they will still be available during the endgame when you might need them.

Also to me a big part of any good game, RPG or otherwise is a good story. And just killing everybody is certainly not going to help with that! Just play a first person shooter instead if you just want to kill things...

 

[Zombra]

Roguey, let's take that concrete example that Grunker offered.

Might and Magic 7 allows character promotion to explicitly Evil classes: Liches, Black Knights, even a class called Villain. Clearly, if any adventurers would murder innocents, it would be these guys, yet non-"mobile" NPCs remain unkillable. Would you say that this is because the developers were simply "lazy"? Was this behavior out of scope for the kind of game they wanted to have? Or was there another reason?

 

[Grunker]

Now suddenly your position is "they don't have to be"?

That was always my position, as long as the narrative supports it.

What exactly is our disagreement, then?

You don't see the value in it and I do?

Nah, I just argued against it being very valuable, or a must-have. You using wording such as "I should be able to" and citing BLOBERT for "A BRO SHGOULD BE ABLE TO KILL OR TALK TO ANY MOTHERFUCKER" let me to believe this was your position. It seems we just misunderstood each other, and you do not agree with rusty.

Also to me a big part of any good game, RPG or otherwise is a good story.

not a lot of games or rpgs meet that criteria. I recommend playing more murder hobo games

 

[Roguey]

Roguey, let's take that concrete example that Grunker offered.

Might and Magic 7 allows character promotion to explicitly Evil classes: Liches, Black Knights, even a class called Villain. Clearly, if any adventurers would murder innocents, it would be these guys, yet non-encounter NPCs remain unkillable. Would you say that this is because the developers were simply "lazy"? Was this behavior out of scope for the kind of game they wanted to have? Or was there another reason?

I don't know but I have zero interest in playing M&M 7 on account of its ugly 3D graphics and awkward realtime/turnbased combat.

I do recall being able to murder townspeople to my heart's content during the few minutes I played M&M VI so it sounds like a downgrade to me.

 

[Grunker]

Roguey, let's take that concrete example that Grunker offered.

Might and Magic 7 allows character promotion to explicitly Evil classes: Liches, Black Knights, even a class called Villain. Clearly, if any adventurers would murder innocents, it would be these guys, yet non-encounter NPCs remain unkillable. Would you say that this is because the developers were simply "lazy"? Was this behavior out of scope for the kind of game they wanted to have? Or was there another reason?

I don't know but I have zero interest in playing M&M 7 on account of its ugly 3D graphics and awkward realtime/turnbased combat.

I do recall being able to murder townspeople to my heart's content during the few minutes I played M&M VI so it sounds like a downgrade to me.

You can in MM7 as well. But just like MM6 you can't murder shopkeepers and quest givers since they are not implemented as actual NPCs - they are 2D images in building screens.

 

[Grunker]

Also, you're missing out. WoX is probably the best MM by objective standards, but 7 is my personal favourite. It has the best systems and the most polish. I'm surprised that you're a graphics whore though.

 

[Cael]

I wonder how much howls of outrage someone would get if he were to create a game where you play a classic hero of the heart-of-gold type.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Running around murdering civilians is fun in 2-3 first games you play that has this feature. After that you have experienced everything it has to offer.

 

[Yosharian]

Come on guys, this thread is supposed to be about The Outer Worlds



On second thoughts, carry on

 

[Nano]

Sometimes I like booting up GTA and murdering everything in sight for a few minutes. Great stress relief.

 

[Cadmus]

Guys is this shit? I'm looking for a game to play so maybe DOS2 or this?

 

[Ash]

I played this game. Once I turned it off after completion I had an epiphany and discovered I was gay and created a twitter account for making socio-political statements, and further still, realized I had terrible taste in games prior and meaningful games like TOW is the way forward.

Spoiler

In all seriousness the game isn't completely terrible but I STRONGLY recommend skipping over it. It's just not very good in every aspect of design. There's so many better games you could be playing.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Guys is this shit? I'm looking for a game to play so maybe DOS2 or this?

I picked this and the expansions up on a deep sale. It's not completely terrible, but it's not great. It's nice to look at and has some interesting ideas. Some parts are funny and others are try hard, but the biggest issue with it is that it's completely boringly easy. It's like the entire game was based around games journalist difficulty at the highest level and then scaled down from there. It'd be better if I was 5 and playing my first RPG, but now this is awful. I think that's the main thing it'd take to save it though is a difficulty pass.

Note that I'm playing a speech/thief/tech guy with minimal combat skills and I still find the combat ridiculously easy.

So if you want something that's somewhat interesting storywise but not at all challenging gameplaywise, then sure. If not, I'd probably skip it and hope they actually do a difficulty pass for the sequel.

 

[Yosharian]

Guys is this shit? I'm looking for a game to play so maybe DOS2 or this?

I picked this and the expansions up on a deep sale. It's not completely terrible, but it's not great. It's nice to look at and has some interesting ideas. Some parts are funny and others are try hard, but the biggest issue with it is that it's completely boringly easy. It's like the entire game was based around games journalist difficulty at the highest level and then scaled down from there. It'd be better if I was 5 and playing my first RPG, but now this is awful. I think that's the main thing it'd take to save it though is a difficulty pass.

Note that I'm playing a speech/thief/tech guy with minimal combat skills and I still find the combat ridiculously easy.

So if you want something that's somewhat interesting storywise but not at all challenging gameplaywise, then sure. If not, I'd probably skip it and hope they actually do a difficulty pass for the sequel.

Yup, there is zero challenge in the game and it's a huge problem

 

[Wesp5]

Yup, there is zero challenge in the game and it's a huge problem

Exactly. And this is not only a problem from the gameplay side of things, also for world building. The setup is already quite weak to begin with and then you have all these hacking and lockpicking devices lying around all over the place? That's just ridiculous...

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yup, there is zero challenge in the game and it's a huge problem

Yeah they made the same mistake with Deadfire but at least Deadfire eventually fixed it with patches.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

With regards to all this killing whomever, I have two answers of games that did it:

1. Arcanum
2. Underrail (Six and Tanner are insanely tough but doable with some builds).

Aside from that, what I've heard about TOW is that it has no challenge, and that was the earliest complaint I recall hearing of. That's honestly the worst part about any particular game, especially a FPS styled one, that you can have. Deus Ex had INSANE challenge early on, until you got badass enough that you could breeze thru shit. But even then, if you wanted, you could create a broken character. And then, realistic difficulty added another flavor to it of near instant death in some cases. Then there's GMDX, which makes a guy want to go back and replay again.

That game was a gem as well due to unintentional ways of doing things which the devs didn't foresee but were possible due to the engine mechanics. Now, it was a railroaded story, but the insane level of replayability had to do with a certain level of interactivity and mild reactivity PLUS new ways to fight enemies, etc. thanks to the awesome options given by way of augmentations and skills.

 

[Blaine]

I'm not sure if "(almost) too strong to kill" entirely qualifies, especially since both Six and Tanner are supranormal individuals by nature. I don't necessarily think that the protagonist must be capable of becoming the martially strongest individual in the entire game world in order to achieve peak freedom.

This is especially true in certain settings—Lovecraftian ones, for example... though I admit that's a somewhat self-defeating example, given that Tchort is clearly Lovecraftian. It gets my point across, though.

By the same token, "Can't kill it because you can't even 'find' it" (God, for example) probably doesn't qualify.

What really qualify are relatively normal characters who get up again after playing dead, or characters wearing an invisible damage-nullifying body sock.

 

[Inconceivable]

I played The Outer Worlds recently, and while it is a good game, I couldn't help being disappointed because everyone was comparing it favorably to Bethesda's Fallout, which raised a lot of false expectations. The Outer Worlds isn't an RPG at all. More like a cross between a looter-shooter and Bioshock. It's a FPS first and foremost, consisting of long and sometimes too drawn out shooting sections, with some interesting conversation sections in between. And that is pretty much it.

Many like to rip on Bethesda, but the reality is that people love their games because they are so complex, which makes the games very immersive. NPC's are unique and have daily schedules, going about their lives. There's interesting item mechanics, and several crafting mechanics, like alchemy, enchantments, smithing. You can buy houses and decorate them to a certain degree. There is a huge variety of weapons, spells and enemies to fight. Tons of locations to explore with hidden treasures of which most are accessible from the beginning of the game. Crime and punishment mechanics and guilds, unique quests that yield unique rewards... Beth games are vastly more complex than your average game.

The Outer Worlds has almost nothing of that. NPC's stand on the same spot 24/7, items are limited to armor, weapons and boosters. There's only 5 or 6 types of enemies to fight. It's a much, much simpler type of game. Comparing it favorably to Fallout is grossly misleading.
It's a good game for what it is, but given the choice, I would prefer replaying Fallout 3, NV, 4, or any recent Elder Scrolls game any time.
One good example that highlights The Outer Worlds' lack of mechanics is that in some sections of the game, it taunts you with an important item, letting you know that it is located in a certain container. But it's actually impossible to steal it from that container without being detected, because it's in full line of sight of a plot-relevant NPC plus guards. And while you can sneak and steal in the game, there is absolutely no game mechanic to distract people or get them to move away, and since they stand on the same spot forever, the only way to get to the chest is to kill them. That is just lame.
I know the developers decided to make every NPC killable and then added in lots and lots of different conversations to still make the plot work. I don't think this design choice was worth it. I'd rather they put in some essential NPC's and instead had focused more on fleshing out game mechanics.

Any way... once you get to terms that the game is just a shooter with conversations, it is enjoyable. Murder on Eridanos is definitively the highlight of the game, since it de-emphasizes combat a bit and puts the focus more on conversations and investigation.