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Wheeee posted:Where's your sense of morbid curiosity? i'd be most worried that the game wouldn't be worth the bandwidth. most games that aren't very good i intend to go back to them at some point and just never get around to it until the game gets uninstalled months later. outer worlds was a game where had the active thought "WOW this is boring" and just immediately quit and uninstalled, like walking out of a movie theater. outer worlds wasn't bad or good, it was just nothing
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Apr 15, 2020 17:58
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I feel like it’s easier than ever to determine if a game is right for you. There will be loads of video all over Twitch/YouTube before the game is even live, plenty of talk around it etc. Worst case it’s $5 to try it on GamePass if you just want to go in blind and see what’s up.
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Apr 15, 2020 18:13
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I think the dip in writing might just come down to Boyarsky and Cain being kinda lovely writers and not having a real vision for the game beyond the Gilded Age aesthetic. If the leads are poor the product will suffer. There's occasional good writing buried under all the chaff, but it doesn't gel together at any point.
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Apr 15, 2020 18:15
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For me personally I think this particular setting and tone probably just can’t be written in a way that I’ll really enjoy. I don’t know why but it seems way harder to make compelling sci-fi worlds than fantasy.
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Apr 15, 2020 18:32
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I haven't found Outer Worlds super offensive or anything, but after putting a few hours into it my urge to return to it just isn't there and I don't think I've touched it in three months. There's nothing wrong with it so much as it's so dedicated to replicating New Vegas and doing pretty much nothing else that it's very dry.
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Apr 15, 2020 18:38
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Anno posted:I feel like it’s easier than ever to determine if a game is right for you. There will be loads of video all over Twitch/YouTube before the game is even live, plenty of talk around it etc. Worst case it’s $5 to try it on GamePass if you just want to go in blind and see what’s up. all of that pre-release video content though would have missed the entirely vacant and weightless mechanics, which was my biggest complaint with the game. i was able to try it for cheap which was good as i discovered that i greatly disliked the game and would have been mad irl if i paid full price for it Wicked Them Beats posted:I think the dip in writing might just come down to Boyarsky and Cain being kinda lovely writers and not having a real vision for the game beyond the Gilded Age aesthetic. If the leads are poor the product will suffer. yeah, there's no vision. they just sort of picked "gilded age" off the shelf of rarely used asthetic/setting combinations and threw it loosely over a disjointed pile of half-complete systems. it could have been space western for all the difference it made to the game's thin plot but that would have invited unfavorable comparisons to other space western media Mr. Fall Down Terror fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Apr 15, 2020 |
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Apr 15, 2020 19:14
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luxury handset posted:all of that pre-release video content though would have missed the entirely vacant and weightless mechanics, which was my biggest complaint with the game. i was able to try it for cheap which was good as i discovered that i greatly disliked the game and would have been mad irl if i paid full price for it Maybe the combat, though that looks pretty bad in video. But the general hollowness of all the RPG systems comes across pretty well in video imo.
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Apr 15, 2020 19:25
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Megazver posted:First of all, please leave Disco Elysium crew alone. Let them continue working on actually good games instead. Did I really miss something with this? I fired it up, wandered around and talked to some people. Talked to someone I think in a wheelchair in the lobby and got so bummed out I guess I died. Uninstalled.
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Apr 15, 2020 19:47
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AlternateAccount posted:Did I really miss something with this? I fired it up, wandered around and talked to some people. Talked to someone I think in a wheelchair in the lobby and got so bummed out I guess I died. Uninstalled. It's Twitter: The Game
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Apr 15, 2020 19:52
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AlternateAccount posted:Did I really miss something with this? I fired it up, wandered around and talked to some people. Talked to someone I think in a wheelchair in the lobby and got so bummed out I guess I died. Uninstalled. It's probably the most challenging piece of videogame writing since Planescape: Torment, but it's better because it doesn't make you wrestle with a tacked on combat system between conversations. Play it again but bump up the stats that give you more mental/physical health and use healing items liberally. It's really really really good.
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Apr 15, 2020 20:15
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disco elysium may not be the game for you, and that's fine, but it is widely and correctly hailed as being the most well-crafted and innovative rpg in decades. it really is that good the reason it keeps getting brought up in this thread is because the games were released pretty close together and outer worlds is exactly as bland and unimaginative as disco elysium is vibrant and groundbreaking. every part of disco is well-made, fitting together into an artistic statement and complex narrative which speaks to real human struggles with traumatic history. outer worlds is exactly not any of that in any way i'm not going to do the goon thing where i question someone's tastes or morality for not liking disco. it is a challenge to play and there are plenty of people who don't want this complicated sad-assery for an entertainment product. but it is difficult to describe just how genre pushing the game is without sounding preachy Mr. Fall Down Terror fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Apr 15, 2020 |
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Apr 15, 2020 21:01
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Disco is good but its style is not something I want to see replicated elsewhere, because it's the kind of fiction where the protagonist reaches for a doorknob only to be paralyzed by indiscretion for ten minutes.
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Apr 15, 2020 21:46
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Disco Elyseum is a genuine masterpiece but you really can't translate its writing one-for-one to anything that isn't it. In many ways it resembles an interactive novel more than a game but with incredibly strong writing and immensely clever use of stats to make it feel more 'game'. It wouldn't matter if the Disco Elysium writers worked on a traditional RPG because they wouldn't be able to do the same things in it with the same style. The writing and sense of choice is what carries it and adding shooting segments in between those would add little to nothing. Some of the ideas DE had can and should be used elsewhere but I can't really say it can change RPGs because at its heart it's a well-designed and well-written story in an RPG framework but there are a not-insignificant number of people who like RPGs for numbers go up and power fantasy and DE is mostly incompatible with that. It's about as far away from power fantasy as you can get. (And that is a good thing.)
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Apr 15, 2020 22:09
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AlternateAccount posted:Did I really miss something with this? I fired it up, wandered around and talked to some people. Talked to someone I think in a wheelchair in the lobby and got so bummed out I guess I died. Uninstalled. The video gamey elements of Disco Elysium which most people think of and expect in an RPG have been streamlined and abstracted into the dialogue system to the point of it nearly being a complex visual novel in a beautiful Planescape: Torment skin. It's the best RPG, and if you're going by narrative experience, probably the best game ever made, but it stays in its very specific lane and if doing a shitload of reading isn't something you're down with it is not your game. In all fairness to the topic of this thread, even mediocre writing is not easy to do, and an Outer Worlds 2 could be good if Obsidian put any effort into it; Outer Worlds feels like some people at the company came up with a cool idea, sketched it out, then handed it off to a bunch of new hires and loaned staff from other projects.
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Apr 15, 2020 22:11
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Wheeee posted:Outer Worlds feels like some people at the company came up with a cool idea, sketched it out, then handed it off to a bunch of new hires and loaned staff from other projects. I think this is kind of what Tyranny and especially the Deadfire DLCs were, and those were all really good!
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Apr 15, 2020 23:49
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Outer Worlds feels like a game written and conceived by dudes who have been out of practice for 10 years, which isn't too far off from reality.
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Apr 15, 2020 23:55
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There's something about the writing that kind of makes it seem like it was done by people who never had any interesting life experiences, or maybe people who need to play less video games and read more books at least. I really wanted to like the game but somehow I never believed in the characters or the stakes, I didn't feel any emotional connection, everything felt kinda weightless and mechanical. All the characters seemed a little too archetypal, like you could look at them and somehow see behind the curtain and sense the writer's thinking.
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Apr 17, 2020 21:42
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Sodomy Hussein posted:I haven't found Outer Worlds super offensive or anything, but after putting a few hours into it my urge to return to it just isn't there and I don't think I've touched it in three months. There's nothing wrong with it so much as it's so dedicated to replicating New Vegas and doing pretty much nothing else that it's very dry. outer worlds would be a much better game if it just replicated new vegas. for one the game is linear as hell and has basically no interactivity
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Apr 18, 2020 23:12
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thekeeshman posted:There's something about the writing that kind of makes it seem like it was done by people who never had any interesting life experiences, or maybe people who need to play less video games and read more books at least. I really wanted to like the game but somehow I never believed in the characters or the stakes, I didn't feel any emotional connection, everything felt kinda weightless and mechanical. All the characters seemed a little too archetypal, like you could look at them and somehow see behind the curtain and sense the writer's thinking. a big reason for this is that the main plot of the game sucks big time. the entirety of the plot is "find some chemicals so we can revive all the smart people and they can solve all the problems for us". the climax of the game is moving a spaceship around a bit. that stuff should have been like the prologue of the game
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Apr 18, 2020 23:24
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Sodomy Hussein posted:I haven't found Outer Worlds super offensive or anything, but after putting a few hours into it my urge to return to it just isn't there and I don't think I've touched it in three months. There's nothing wrong with it so much as it's so dedicated to replicating New Vegas and doing pretty much nothing else that it's very dry. the core idea is good, its just 1. they keep chasing NV dragon without getting what made the game work so well plus not having alot of what made it decent and 2. they play it safe with quests and ideas and poo poo. i like the art design and the characters and some of the world building ideas but its just kinda there.
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Apr 19, 2020 00:06
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Anno posted:For me personally I think this particular setting and tone probably just can’t be written in a way that I’ll really enjoy. I don’t know why but it seems way harder to make compelling sci-fi worlds than fantasy. I don't think it's even that, to be honest. This game is just a bad game, it would be just as bad and boring if you were flying your magic horse around on a quest to choose between helping the racist elves or the fascist dwarves instead of a space ship.
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Apr 19, 2020 02:30
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Just remembering how in Outer Worlds they hype up Mantiqueens as horrible murder machines you’ll need a battalion to take down and the first time you see one you easily hose it down with a lovely rifle Compare to how even normal deathclaws are treated in New Vegas
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Apr 19, 2020 02:46
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My understanding is the writers for this game were not Obsidian's best but their B team. New Vegas had: Josh Sawyer, John Gonzalez, Chris Avellone, Charles Staples designing the game. I have no idea who wrote or designed the Outer Wilds. But I really want to blame new writers and designers. I'm hoping Obsidian isn't going downhill I'd give them another chance but it wouldn't be an instant buy for me next time.
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Apr 19, 2020 16:52
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DropsySufferer posted:My understanding is the writers for this game were not Obsidian's best but their B team. New Vegas had: Josh Sawyer, John Gonzalez, Chris Avellone, Charles Staples designing the game. Outer Worlds.  Ok so writing and narrative design. Cain and Boyarsky were the leads, but based on the interviews I saw from them and what ended up in the game it turns out they're not very good at it. For example, I remember them talking about giving the narrative a final pass to make sure that choices aren't too clearly good or bad, so they're to blame for the "oh hey this looks like the clearly correct choice for the player to make so, uh, oh I know let's just say that the person you help is actually a Nazi" kind of stuff. Most of the writers previously wrote on other stuff, either for Obsidian or other companies. Carrie Patel and Megan Stark both worked on Pillars of Eternity, with Patel being very involved in Deadfire. I don't know how much Patel contributed to Outer Worlds; she might have been brought on later since Obsidian usually bounces staff between projects as needed. Chris L'etoile was another writer and he previously worked at Bioware on Mass Effect 1/2. Paul Kirsch previously wrote on Deadfire and Tyranny. Kate Dollarhyde was another writer and she's responsible for Parvati. She previously wrote on Pillars and we can assume, based on Parvati, that she's a huge Joss Whedon fan. There are other names if you go searching for the credits but most of them claim to be WGA/BAFTA/Nebula award nominated (either Obsidian uses that sort of thing as a hiring metric or anyone who writes short science fiction can at least get a nomination), and they all appear to have worked on some other video games in at least a minor role, with a lot of them claiming Deadfire in their credits. Based on the names it's probably not the deepest writing bench, but if I'm being fair I'd say most of the individual writing is actually fine. I don't actually have too much complaint with how most of the characters are written or how dialogue flows, or even with knock-offs of other characters like Parvati because she has a unique twist and fits well into the setting (I'd argue that Parvati fits into The Outer Worlds setting much better than, say, Veronica fit in to New Vegas). The real issue is that none of the dialogue really gels together. The companions interactions feel sort of flat, the quests all stand apart without any real impact on each other or the world, and Boyarsky was trapped in an older design mindset where reactivity means making a quest's outcome surprise you (oh wow, I put the sheriff in charge of Junktown but that was bad, but if I put the crime boss Gizmo in charge, that's good! Whoa!) as opposed to making the world and its outcomes feel interconnected. Honestly I wonder if he's ever played New Vegas.
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Apr 19, 2020 17:30
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thekeeshman posted:There's something about the writing that kind of makes it seem like it was done by people who never had any interesting life experiences, or maybe people who need to play less video games and read more books at least. I really wanted to like the game but somehow I never believed in the characters or the stakes, I didn't feel any emotional connection, everything felt kinda weightless and mechanical. All the characters seemed a little too archetypal, like you could look at them and somehow see behind the curtain and sense the writer's thinking. I feel like this about a lot of different media and this was very refreshing to read.
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Apr 19, 2020 20:57
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Pattonesque posted:Just remembering how in Outer Worlds they hype up Mantiqueens as horrible murder machines you’ll need a battalion to take down and the first time you see one you easily hose it down with a lovely rifle I found those giant apes to be more annoying enemies because of they'd chuck rocks loaded with that N-ray poo poo. Once you've gotten yourself a Dead-Eye Assault Rifle, or a variant, you can easily take down a Mantiqueen hilariously easily - shoot them in the weakspot, blind them, and then take out a leg to hobble them, and your companions will do the rest.
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Apr 19, 2020 21:13
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thekeeshman posted:There's something about the writing that kind of makes it seem like it was done by people who never had any interesting life experiences, or maybe people who need to play less video games and read more books at least. I really wanted to like the game but somehow I never believed in the characters or the stakes, I didn't feel any emotional connection, everything felt kinda weightless and mechanical. All the characters seemed a little too archetypal, like you could look at them and somehow see behind the curtain and sense the writer's thinking. this is the curse of Joss Whedon
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Apr 19, 2020 21:32
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Tried it out on Gamepass, my complaint is a lot more superficial. I really don't like the color choices/art direction in this. I feel it makes everything look blotchy and ugly.jpg)
nexus6 fucked around with this message at 10:39 on May 1, 2020 |
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May 1, 2020 10:37
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I do agree that it looks very Instagrammy, but that bugs me less than the writing, quest structure, lack of world reactivity, etc.
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May 1, 2020 22:16
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I like the art style, for the most part.
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May 1, 2020 22:31
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tbh the planets didn’t look different enough
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May 1, 2020 22:52
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Yeah, it's not a AAA game, we've been over this. But the one aesthetic they used was alright, imo.
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May 1, 2020 23:13
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Pattonesque posted:tbh the planets didn’t look different enough One of the places where you can see they definitely ran out of time or money and stretched the paint a bit too far
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May 1, 2020 23:22
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I've been playing through Rage 2 recently, and honestly, while it does share a fair few of the issues that Outer Worlds had, at least the combat was pretty fun.
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May 2, 2020 05:43
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Megazver posted:I like the art style, for the most part. Yeah, it was done well
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May 2, 2020 21:38
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The planets looked OK, too bad they forgot to place any content on them.
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May 2, 2020 21:50
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steinrokkan posted:The planets looked OK, too bad they forgot to place any content on them. Having an upgradable vehicle option (or options) to navigate planets would have made a massive difference, and would have helped make things feel less like an absolute slog to get through (*cough* Monarch *cough*), namely because for all the loot and enemies they cram into each map, none of it is interesting. You might find the odd Legendary weapon, but they usually end up being inferior to something that you can buy from a vending machine, largely because the modification options are arbitrarily limited. Just about every settlement you could visit felt like you were only getting a part of what was planned, and honestly, I would have liked to be able to interact more with some of them, or see some tangible difference with sidequest progression, as well as things like clearing out a failed settlement and reclaiming it for MSI or The Iconoclasts on Monarch, or getting access to a residence on The Groundbreaker, stuff like that.
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May 3, 2020 03:17
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I keep thinking about this game's plot and I think what's really driving me bananas is that they were trying to do the New Vegas thing, but they made Welles too obviously the good guy, as compared to the board which is literally mulching the poor. The reason New Vegas works is because House is kinda lovely in his own way, so it could make sense that you would go with a different option like solo or NCR without being "evil". But in this game from a moral perspective there's no real choice, and they never seem to set up much conflict between the companies, which also means the rep system is useless. I'm pretty sure I had almost perfect rep with almost every company and faction until the endgame started forcing my board rep down. It would have been much better if the person who revived you was working for another company with its own agenda, like say they were actually planning on depopulating a planet and replacing those people with the revived colonists because they believed the new people would be more productive and didn't want to build new infrastructure. Then you would actually have to think about whether you should be helping the people who had helped you. Hell, the people who revived you should have told you when you woke up that you were legally salvage and therefore belonged to them, instead of asking you nicely for help with their noble crusade. That way you would have to escape and would have reason to talk to the other factions and tell them about the revival project. Maybe another company would give you the option take it over and do things differently, and then a third company would shut down the revival project entirely. Obsidian hire me please.
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May 4, 2020 01:55
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Yea, i've said it before that gear and loot in this game is super boring. New Vegas just has tons and tons and tons of guns and t some overlap and the with the only real difference is ammo type, but it let you choose stuff you liked, and there was progression but it wasn't clear. TOW has clear progression, and even then its pointless because just keep tinkering the first Vermin you find and it will be the strongest gun you can find, and still just destroy everything in the game. I only had problems at the end because i had modded mine with Z rays and they suck against robots. Crazy sci fi setting should have tons of crazy sci fi weapons. Outside of the science weapons, which honestly are fun for a few minutes but then just get tiresome. You got bullet pew pews and energy pew pews, and that's about it.
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May 4, 2020 04:27
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[quote="thekeeshman" post="504590063"] I keep thinking about this game's plot and I think what's really driving me bananas is that they were trying to do the New Vegas thing, but they made Welles too obviously the good guy, as compared to the board which is literally mulching the poor. The reason New Vegas works is because House is kinda lovely in his own way, so it could make sense that you would go with a different option like solo or NCR without being "evil". But in this game from a moral perspective there's no real choice, and they never seem to set up much conflict between the companies, which also means the rep system is useless. I'm pretty sure I had almost perfect rep with almost every company and faction until the endgame started forcing my board rep down. /quote] They explicitly did a both-side-y writing pass on script. It's one of many reasons why the writing is so juvenile.
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May 4, 2020 10:30
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