[Megathread] The Outer Worlds - Developed by Obsidian

[Kathandira]

Anyone not enjoying first person found themselves enjoying The Outer Worlds? I'm interested because I hear a lot of positives about the game, but first person is a huge immersion breaker for me for an RPG game. I really can't take seriously a static gun sticking out of the bottom of my screen. Shooter-RPG perfection for me is Mass Effect and especially how well it was done in Andromeda (although the game as a whole sucked). So any opinions on that aspect of the gameplay?

Hold down the reload button, and you can put your gun away. That is the saving grace of feeling like i'm holding up everyone I meet, lol.

[Dextroden]

What i mean is the game should have started before we even got to Edgewater. It should have started on earth with us getting ready to go into hibernation with some family or friends. Spend a good 10 or 15 minutes on that and then when we wake up 70 years later it would mean something. Since the game doesn't do that i don't care about that ship full of people and i don't care about the guy that wakes us what, whatever his name is. On earth we could set up some stuff like knowing how to use a gun so it's not so jarring when a first year doctor knows how to shot people no problem.

That's what i mean when games start off to fast and don't show us anything. Dragon Age 2 does this by having you start the game running from the blight. You should have started from lothering and spent some time their before things go wrong.

I can agree from the angle of better setting up what the world turned to. Was it as technologically advanced as it is now or did technology explode in 60 years? Were corporations just starting to become greedy syncophants? Were there more before they were bought out/destroyed by the current big names?

A little set up to help really sell that shit is fucked because it's always been fucked or finally hit a breaking point.

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Hold down the reload button, and you can put your gun away. That is the saving grace of feeling like i'm holding up everyone I meet, lol.

Upside: The game doesn't seem to have a mechanic that punishes your dialogue for having a gun out. Making it less problematic for the talk/draw button to be the same.

Downside: It still feels weird to talk to someone with a gun out because hitting x drew the gun before starting the dialogue.

[Endus]

What i mean is the game should have started before we even got to Edgewater. It should have started on earth with us getting ready to go into hibernation with some family or friends. Spend a good 10 or 15 minutes on that and then when we wake up 70 years later it would mean something.

Why would any of that inform anything in the story we've got?

You weren't families being sent on a noble journey; you were a nobody being packed off by corporate overlords back on Earth. Family and friends are probably all back on Earth (and long dead), and even if some happened to be on the Hope, you're not going to free them until the end. They'd just be a vague motivation. Instead, the game frees you of that, to play whatever character you want to. You can have friends and family on the Hope. Or not. Your choice.

That's a good thing.

Nothing about the status quo on Earth 70 years ago would contribute meaningfully to the story being told. The standard advice with writing stories is to start with the action, with the trigger moment that sets the story off. You don't meander around with backstory stuff before interesting things start to happen.

Since the game doesn't do that i don't care about that ship full of people and i don't care about the guy that wakes us what, whatever his name is. On earth we could set up some stuff like knowing how to use a gun so it's not so jarring when a first year doctor knows how to shot people no problem.

You're free to play that kind of character if you want to.

You're complaining that the game lets you roleplay whatever character you want to.

That's what i mean when games start off to fast and don't show us anything. Dragon Age 2 does this by having you start the game running from the blight. You should have started from lothering and spent some time their before things go wrong.

You won't find a lot of support for that from writers. The general advice is to start with a high point of tension (not necessarily action), not at a point where the story dithers around infodumping context. One of Vonnegut's 8 tips on writing was to "start as close to the end as possible".

This is particularly true in a roleplaying game, because we don't have to know who the main character is; the player is the one doing that. Giving as little structure as possible to that character is desirable, not a flaw.

[Rendark]

Why would any of that inform anything in the story we've got?

You weren't families being sent on a noble journey; you were a nobody being packed off by corporate overlords back on Earth. Family and friends are probably all back on Earth (and long dead), and even if some happened to be on the Hope, you're not going to free them until the end. They'd just be a vague motivation. Instead, the game frees you of that, to play whatever character you want to. You can have friends and family on the Hope. Or not. Your choice.

That's a good thing.

Nothing about the status quo on Earth 70 years ago would contribute meaningfully to the story being told. The standard advice with writing stories is to start with the action, with the trigger moment that sets the story off. You don't meander around with backstory stuff before interesting things start to happen.



You're free to play that kind of character if you want to.

You're complaining that the game lets you roleplay whatever character you want to.



You won't find a lot of support for that from writers. The general advice is to start with a high point of tension (not necessarily action), not at a point where the story dithers around infodumping context. One of Vonnegut's 8 tips on writing was to "start as close to the end as possible".

This is particularly true in a roleplaying game, because we don't have to know who the main character is; the player is the one doing that. Giving as little structure as possible to that character is desirable, not a flaw.

If like you're character being a boring blank slate then good for you but i don't. Maybe in a movie starting at the high point works but not in a game and any "writer" that say that is a hack.

[StillMcfuu]

I'm torn on that because his intro with Parvati paints him as a man completely oblivious to things going on around him. Even breaking it down simply, he can't figure out she's telling him the cannery machinery isn't designed to handle sprats.

That's pretty much what I mean by him being a good-intentioned fool.
He isn't a bad person, he's not even willfully ignorant, he is in a position he shouldn't have been in and ultimately following a rule book made by others the best he can. You encounter a number of pretty stupid people, like the first guard captain you run across is incredibly easy to get her to run off to her death. Reed only knows that they aren't catching enough of that fish to fill the cans and they need to use other products. And he eats the same food that they produce, he isn't avoiding it or having things made special for him, he eats it. Probably because the company tells him it's safe, regardless of the pain around him. And when he finds out that the people can be healthy, but it's going to require shutting down the cannery, he agrees to it. I think the one big problem is that the player character is the only person that isn't spewing company BS to him, the PC is honest and gives him the information he needs to make a different decision.

[Rendark]

I'd have taken a 2 minute cutscene explaining that. A quick world building clip would have been fine. I'd rather not play through the prequel.

But really though, the fact that you don't know anything about what is going on isn't so bad. The fact that we aren't already predisposed to any ideals helps with us deciding what is right and wrong. If we were influenced too much, then it would feel like we are being railroaded into particular actions, and if we deviate, then we are just going against the grain for the sake of being contrarians. The way it is now, there is no grain to follow. We are quite untainted by any exposition of what is right or wrong.

It's not about not know what's going on, that's fine. It's about now knowing anything about the world or who you are.

[Kathandira]

What i mean is the game should have started before we even got to Edgewater. It should have started on earth with us getting ready to go into hibernation with some family or friends. Spend a good 10 or 15 minutes on that and then when we wake up 70 years later it would mean something. Since the game doesn't do that i don't care about that ship full of people and i don't care about the guy that wakes us what, whatever his name is. On earth we could set up some stuff like knowing how to use a gun so it's not so jarring when a first year doctor knows how to shot people no problem.

That's what i mean when games start off to fast and don't show us anything. Dragon Age 2 does this by having you start the game running from the blight. You should have started from lothering and spent some time their before things go wrong.

Revisit the first few moments of the game. Tells you who you and the rest of those on the Hope are. Why you are here. And what Halcyon is like. In the first 15 seconds, it states "You will become the master of your own destiny". Subtle foreshadowing, but it basically tells you that you can be whoever you want to be.

[Rendark]

Revisit the first few moments of the game. Tells you who you and the rest of those on the Hope are. Why you are here. And what Halcyon is like. In the first 15 seconds, it states "You will become the master of your own destiny". Subtle foreshadowing, but it basically tells you that you can be whoever you want to be.

Cool but telling me that is not going to make me remember it where as letting me play it would. Like talking to a friend before you both go off into space would make me want to save the hope but right now i don't care about it.

[Kathandira]

Cool but telling me that is not going to make me remember it where as letting me play it would. Like talking to a friend before you both go off into space would make me want to save the hope but right now i don't care about it.

That's fair. Since it was super short and the first thing you hear, it is easy to forget after 20+ hours of hundreds of conversations and side quests.

[Mirishka]

Cool, glad to know there's a bit of depth to the combat.

One thing that concerns me is the length of the game/amount of content. According to Howlongtobeat.com, average main story completion is a little below 11 hours. Does that chime with others' experience here?

If you try and finish all the story/quests, you're looking at 25-30 hours. I'm at around 20 so far and I still have quite a bit left to do.

Obsidian likes games that don't overstay their welcome. I guess I don't blame them given the 'obviously padding' filler/radiant content we see in games like Odyssey and Fallout 4. Hell even New Vegas had a distinct 'the game is over' state unless you modded it to play beyond that.

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Cool but telling me that is not going to make me remember it where as letting me play it would. Like talking to a friend before you both go off into space would make me want to save the hope but right now i don't care about it.

You don't have to care about it, you can literally betray the guy who thawed you out to save the Hope. Like you can sell him out (and ruin any chance of saving those people) about an hour into the game.

[Kathandira]

You don't have to care about it, you can literally betray the guy who thawed you out to save the Hope. Like you can sell him out (and ruin any chance of saving those people) about an hour into the game.

Did you do that successfully? I was trying to, but kept coming to dead ends.

I'm taking the corporate shill route. I really wanted to sell him out so I could be in good favor with The Board, lol.

[Rendark]

You don't have to care about it, you can literally betray the guy who thawed you out to save the Hope. Like you can sell him out (and ruin any chance of saving those people) about an hour into the game.

Well thanks for telling me that. I guess i don't need to play the rest of the game now.

[Endus]

If like you're character being a boring blank slate then good for you but i don't. Maybe in a movie starting at the high point works but not in a game and any "writer" that say that is a hack.

You can't have a roleplaying game where the player builds the character they want without letting that character be a "blank slate". The player is explicitly part of the story-writing process. That's the point of these kinds of games.

You're just saying you don't like the genre. Well, fine. That doesn't make it "bad" or "wrong", it just means you don't like RPGs where you can make your own character.

[Kathandira]

You can't have a roleplaying game where the player builds the character they want without letting that character be a "blank slate". The player is explicitly part of the story-writing process. That's the point of these kinds of games.

You're just saying you don't like the genre. Well, fine. That doesn't make it "bad" or "wrong", it just means you don't like RPGs where you can make your own character.

I think what is being asked for, is simply a little more motivation, or reason to exist in the world. Which I can understand, but for those of us who don't mind, this game is perfectly fine giving us such a wide open free reign to decide what our existence is meant to be.

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For example, In Skyrim, we are allowed to decide who we are, but in the end we are told who we are, The Dragon Born. In Fallout 4, we are allowed to choose who we are, but we also are told who we are, A father on a quest to find his son. In the Outer Worlds, we are a colonist, which is very open ended. We don't have any sort of predetermined objective. Which I rather like, but I can understand how that is not satisfying to some people.

On second thought, I guess we do have a predetermined objective. To rescue the rest of the colonists adrift on The Hope. But that is pretty back seat as it doesn't seem to matter if we do that or not, lol.

[Endus]

I think what is being asked for, is simply a little more motivation, or reason to exist in the world. Which I can understand, but for those of us who don't mind, this game is perfectly fine giving us such a wide open free reign to decide what our existence is meant to be.

That's what I'm getting at, though.

They can't provide that motivation without inherently restricting player freedom to imagine their own character. Look at the response to Fallout 4's main quest; almost nobody like the "find your son" motivation, especially given the eventual outcome. It technically "motivates", but in practice, you're forced to be that angry parent character, and it comes up in conversations with NPCs all the time. And a lot of people hated that; Fallout: NV in particular let you be whoeverthefuck you wanted to be. You didn't even have to be who you'd been; being shot in the head could be treated as a "reset button" for your character's personality/beliefs/etc.

For example, In Skyrim, we are allowed to decide who we are, but in the end we are told who we are, The Dragon Born.

That says what you are, not who you are. It means you have a special ability. What you choose to do with it, that's up to the player, completely. A lot of people have expectations, but you don't have to follow any of 'em.

[Dextroden]

Did you do that successfully? I was trying to, but kept coming to dead ends.

I'm taking the corporate shill route. I really wanted to sell him out so I could be in good favor with The Board, lol.

I avoided that. I don't know how much the games remember, but I'm going to pretend it will remember that I attempted to sell him out so he doesn't mention that and try to Fontaine me.

[Kathandira]

I avoided that. I don't know how much the games remember, but I'm going to pretend it will remember that I attempted to sell him out so he doesn't mention that and try to Fontaine me.

If I get the chance to do it, i'll post it here. I really want to put him behind bars.

I also want to try a genocide run. I think that is going to be play through 2. Set the game on Easy, and murder every single person I see. 0 Quest completion, and see if I can get to a Credit Screen.

[ralilioth]

You can buy it on the Xbox store for pc too, ya know

You're an idiot, look at my previous post... i bought it on the xbox store for pc and it wasn't letting me install it.

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Except you can get it outside of the Epic Store. You can sign up for the Xbox Game Pass on PC that is right now running a special for only $1 for the first month, $4.99 a month after, or you can just purchase it outright through the Microsoft store for retail price.

All this "Epic store sucks, so I am going to pirate it" crap is just a bunch of cheapskates trying to justify their actions. Doing so would only hurt the publisher anyways, not Epic.

You should have really read my first post.... I literally bought it like the way you said and it was broken on the Xbox app store for some people and customer support told me to wait. So please before posting something read what i was talking about??????

Yea its literally the worst. I bought it yesterday with the game pass, played it for 7 hours. Wanted to play again this afternoon and it just didn't want to launch. Reinstalled the app and then all of a sudden the game is gone like i had to reinstall it but that is impossible atm. Customer support says they know about the issue and literally have no option other then wait. Really wish it was just on steam....

Really sucks it fucking breaks on the weekend for some people while others get to enjoy it. Got nothing else to play now.

[Rendark]

You can't have a roleplaying game where the player builds the character they want without letting that character be a "blank slate". The player is explicitly part of the story-writing process. That's the point of these kinds of games.

You're just saying you don't like the genre. Well, fine. That doesn't make it "bad" or "wrong", it just means you don't like RPGs where you can make your own character.

Again being a 100% blank slate is boring. You need something to make you care about who you are. It shouldn't be my job to come up with everything.

[Endus]

Again being a 100% blank slate is boring. You need something to make you care about who you are. It shouldn't be my job to come up with everything.

Like I said, all you're doing here is explaining that you don't like RPGs with player-created characters.

That's a subjective preference on your part, not a game design issue.