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If you die in a way that breaks the loop, I think all that happens is it kicks you back to the title menu and maybe doesn't record anything you learned during that loop.
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Feb 1, 2024 11:14
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Dabir posted:If you die in a way that breaks the loop, I think all that happens is it kicks you back to the title menu and maybe doesn't record anything you learned during that loop. I think it does because (Jerusalem don't read) the first time I got to that station from ash twin I took the warp core off lmao but the ship log did record the stuff I found there
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Feb 1, 2024 12:06
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Yeah, when you gently caress up (and I think people should be spoiling this and Jerusalem not looking), even though it should be an rear end in a top hat, the game is very nice about letting you know it should be and then patting you on the head and pretending you didn't gently caress up so bad. There are a surprising number of ways to get that response from the game - I managed it during the tutorial, for example! - and some people intentionally try to find all of them. It is a very generous and kind game. But it's more fun when you don't know that and the fear is real. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Feb 1, 2024 |
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Feb 1, 2024 14:36
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14.3 billion years later... This is one of the best games I have ever played in my life. Got a little teary-eyed at the end there. Thank you all for your helpful encouragement and especially for keeping me spoiler free. I'm so glad I played this game, it's a goddamn masterpiece.
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Feb 1, 2024 15:01
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Jerusalem posted:14.3 billion years later... Thank you for sharing your experience with us, it was really fun to follow your thought process. Would be fun to see your final thoughts on what happened once you've processed it a bit. Are you going to play the DLC too? I personally love it and could not recommend it enough.
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Feb 1, 2024 15:12
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GlyphGryph posted:Yeah, when you gently caress up (and I think people should be spoiling this and Jerusalem not looking), even though it should be an rear end in a top hat, the game is very nice about letting you know it should be and then patting you on the head and pretending you didn't gently caress up so bad. True. I was honestly about ready to uninstall the game when I made a dumb mistake and blew my ship up in dark bramble, warp core in hand. Thank god the game just said 'lol you're dead but we're nice just start the loop again'. I was expecting a full save deletion when it took me back to the menu. If I hadn't had that fear I wouldn't have had half the experience desperately trying to jetpack to the vessel scared of my own shadow before
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Feb 1, 2024 15:38
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ThomasPaine posted:True. I was honestly about ready to uninstall the game when I made a dumb mistake and blew my ship up in dark bramble, warp core in hand. Thank god the game just said 'lol you're dead but we're nice just start the loop again'. I was expecting a full save deletion when it took me back to the menu. My last loop is seared into my brain, I had chills running down my spine during that sequence. Jerusalem posted:14.3 billion years later... 
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Feb 1, 2024 15:56
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ThomasPaine posted:True. I was honestly about ready to uninstall the game when I made a dumb mistake and blew my ship up in dark bramble, warp core in hand. Thank god the game just said 'lol you're dead but we're nice just start the loop again'. I was expecting a full save deletion when it took me back to the menu. Due to the nature of the game you don't actually lose that much though. Quick trip to the Tracking Module to refresh your memory of the coordinates and you're basically back to where you were at the end of the loop, only your ship doesn't know it. It's not as if you lose a bunch of Experience Points. Sassy Sasquatch posted:My last loop is seared into my brain, I had chills running down my spine during that sequence. Yeah, it's intense in the best way
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Feb 1, 2024 16:18
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Man with Hat posted:Due to the nature of the game you don't actually lose that much though. Quick trip to the Tracking Module to refresh your memory of the coordinates and you're basically back to where you were at the end of the loop, only your ship doesn't know it. It's not as if you lose a bunch of Experience Points. At some point they patched in something that removes the need to commit the coordinates to memory- if you have seen the coordinates before, when you activate the mothership's coordinate entry panel you get a little popup with the patterns in it. Pretty sure it works if you saw the coordinates in a previous loop too
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Feb 1, 2024 16:24
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:My last loop is seared into my brain, I had chills running down my spine during that sequence.  As soon as that music kicks in it’s like, “oh, gently caress. This is it.”
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Feb 1, 2024 19:18
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I'm surprised by every youtuber who gets to that moment and CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE between the two themes.
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Feb 1, 2024 21:51
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Teledahn posted:I'm surprised by every youtuber who gets to that moment and CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE between the two themes. On this note it took About Oliver over 10 episodes of his LP to start figuring out the sound cue announcing the end of the loop. (and this guy is otherwise incredibly perceptive) People just process things differently.
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Feb 1, 2024 22:51
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Yeah found that surprising when I watched other people play, I don't consider myself to be particularly musical but I picked up that the end times music was the warning cue on Loop 1 basically because it lined up with the events too well. I always just put it down to most streamers and youtubers having the game volume way down for the clarity of their mics. From what I remember [game end spoilers] When I picked up the core in Ash Twin, I took it outside and was kind of considering "oh poo poo, do I take this to the vessel?" and the music kicked in with that thrumming, hopeful rendition of End Times it was like the game was telling me "that's exactly what you're going to do. Get in your ship and go. We''re all counting on you!" It was nerve wracking, of course, but it it was also a confidence boost, a sense that what you were doing was right, what the universe wanted. I feel a little sad for folks who don't pick up on the tone of that theme, and just think they're hearing the same one. But everyone gets something different out of different parts of the game.
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Feb 1, 2024 23:27
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every time I get the urge to fly around in Outer Wilds for a loop or two, I always end up exploring Giant's Deep and the Orbital Probe Cannon. Best planet.
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Feb 1, 2024 23:37
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It took me a while to associate the thing we're talking about with the thing it represents because of the Other ambient music in the game that kicks in sometimes would throw me off, and the fact that of first five or six times playing the game I either died before getting to the point where I'd even notice the thing it represents or decided to explore somewhere that would put me in a situation where I had no way of seeing the thing it represents happen.
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Feb 2, 2024 00:30
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Jerusalem posted:14.3 billion years later...
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Feb 2, 2024 01:12
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Okay this is gonna be kinda rambling and incoherent because it's basically me plucking out the thoughts that have been racing around my head since finishing the game. The basic gist of it is gonna be that it was a beautiful, incredibly executed, spectacular way to wrap up the game. I can't recall many more intense experiences I've had playing games than the whole sequence from removing the advanced warp core from the Ash Twin Project and the race to Dark Bramble. My hands were actually shaking a little as I navigated past the Anglerfish, and the sheer exhilaration as I reached the vessel and raced down the corridors to the main bridge was a feeling I think it will be a long, long time before I experience anything like it again. There was a moment of pure panic when the codes I entered didn't work and I thought I had screwed something up. I had assumed I needed to move the ball to the other pit afterwards but that did nothing, and there was a moment of utter despair thinking I had read the situation wrong. Thankfully I didn't panic, I rechecked the codes I had entered and tried making the "L" in a slightly different way, and this time it worked thank gently caress. Arriving back on the Quantum Moon past the blockades that prevented any further access had me on the edge of my seat. I had another moment of near panic when I arrived at the giant crater and could see the pathway to the Eye directly above me but my jetpack wasn't getting me any higher. I ran around a bit and realized that the crater was acting like the magnetic walls in the Nomai buildings, and the exhilaration just grew from them as I got closer to the top. The fall into the "Eye" and the subsequent trip in VR was amazing, though I have to admit not being able to resist comparing it to the Time Vortex in Doctor Who  , and arrival was when things got truly, truly beautiful.I don't know if the Eye was sentient, whether the things I was seeing and experiencing were the work of a great consciousness or simply reflections of myself and my memories as filtered through the uncertainty status of the Eye as an object. I don't think it matters, at some point the two become indistinguishable, but I love that the game gets you asking questions like that, and that so many of the questions I found myself asking naturally were the same musings you find from the various Nomai along the way. But whether the Eye is God or the primal force of Creation or simply a quantum state that allows all possible things to exist at once until observation snaps one into firm and final reality... it's beautiful. The notes you find in the "Observatory" suggest a kind and hopeful nature, which again may simply be a reflection of you as a Hearthian but which I choose to see as the Eye communicating its thoughts in the only way it really can with you. It has a sweet melancholy for the Nomai who came so close but never quite reached it, and I adore, just simply adore that a point is made of reaching out into the distance and the past to collect the reflection of Solanum to be there for what comes next. It even has a sense of humor, with a remark about how it will "miss" the Anglerfish the least  If the Eye is pure uncertainty, and the Universe has ended (I was wrong that the Nomai caused it, the universe really was just nearing the end of its life naturally), then my observation of it from inside of it is what is going to determine the fate of the Universe, or rather what its next state will be. So it is perfect and beautiful that before that final observation/entry can happen, there is a moment to reflect on the past and what is important. And what was ultimately important? Friends. Companionship. Exploration. The thirst for knowledge. Music. You have a final moment of togetherness, and everybody understands that no matter what happens next, something DOES happen next. The universe has ended? Then the universe can begin again. All things are possible, and that is how the Eye is older than the Universe, because when the universe ends the Eye continues to exist because unobserved it cannot NOT exist, and being observed allows the universe to exist again in a new state... and the Eye is always there, and as the universe nears its next end some race of explorers and thinkers will pick up a signal leading them towards the Eye, and unable to resist the fascinating appeal of trying to understand what it is and how it can exist, life begins again. Always life, always hope, always a chance for something new. Approaching the new Big Bang, becoming a final inexorable part of The Eye and helping lock in a new state for the Universe, and that final shot showing a new race around a campfire, sharing companionship and music, looking to the stars, feeling that pull of exploration and the need to understand... God, what a perfect ending. The music is amazing, the visuals are used perfectly, it's an experience I can never have again for the first time, but I will forever cherish that first time. What a game. What an experience. Astonishing. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Feb 2, 2024 |
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Feb 2, 2024 06:43
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There's a line in the Sun Station on one of the status rings of "Star has reached end of natural life cycle. Now approaching red giant stage. WARNING: Evacuate Sun Station." - did you see that one on your way through? Or did you assume that the 'natural' death was accelerated. (There's a conversation recorded in Ash Twin where they hint it a bit futher while talking about the Sun Station too: "I believe we can still find a way to create a supernova, my friend. Don’t lose hope!" "You can wait for the sun to explode on its natural timeline if you prefer, Idaea, but you’ll need to find some way to halt our aging process.) Re, Ghost Matter and what happened: There's a little bit of art from when the Nomai visited Timber Hearth that shows that the Hearthians back then were still amphibious and underwater, and it's possible to observe on one of the islands on Giant's Deep that Ghost Matter goes inert underwater. If you talk to Reibeck after going to the Interloper she straight out says "Stars above, it’s lucky we hadn’t evolved to live on land yet.". That one tends to miss a lot of people, though, because the timeframes are too short for evolution, but I guess the idea was that evolution is as condensed as everything else in this universe
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Feb 2, 2024 07:11
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Right up until the end of the game I kept asking myself what caused the Sun to supernova, assuming maybe the sun station's initial firing just had a delayed reaction, and it wasn't until the end of the game that I realized that nope, the sun was just naturally at the end of its life and this is what kicked off the probe starting its loops. I should have picked up on this earlier when I found the messages from the modern Nomai in other galaxies saying all the suns were going out, but at that point I was still convinced of my theory that the timeloops were pumping time back into the Universe and aging it exponentially each time. I did a final run around talking to everybody/exploring everything before I did my final run and that's how I found out the Hearthians were in their pre-evolved aquatic forms when the Ghost Matter wiped out the Nomai, and had to remind myself by looking at that first site of Ghost Matter from the start of the game that it explicitly lays out that the Ghost Matter evaporates over time. I'm very glad I did that, because I had a final chat with Gabbro and this triggered an achievement for completing the Ship's Log, which is the side benefit of being the type of person who becomes obsessed with making sure I've explored EVERYTHING before I move on from a place, sometimes to my detriment! Re: Gabbro and the first paragraph: I did sometimes struggle to wrap my head around whether I was traveling back in time or not, and Gabbro laid it out about as simply as he could in his musings that our bodies weren't time-traveling, we were just getting the benefit of retaining what we learned in the 22 minutes between the probe firing and the sun going supernova. That certainly makes the most sense given of course it would work that way for the probe, but I guess somehow being a person made me think of it in different terms. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Feb 2, 2024 |
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Feb 2, 2024 07:19
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Jerusalem posted:Right up until the end of the game I kept asking myself what caused the Sun to supernova, assuming maybe the sun station's initial firing just had a delayed reaction, and it wasn't until the end of the game that I realized that nope, the sun was just naturally at the end of its life and this is what kicked off the probe starting its loops. I should have picked up on this earlier when I found the messages from the modern Nomai in other galaxies saying all the suns were going out, but at that point I was still convinced of my theory that the timeloops were pumping time back into the Universe and aging it exponentially each time. There's something extra poignant about learning that nothing is causing the sun and other stars to go nova, it's just... their time to go. You can argue until the stars go out about what the "best" game ever made is, but for me, Outer Wilds is the best realization of its own specific vision of what it's trying to be that I've ever played. It's not the biggest or the longest or the highest production values or anything like that, but every single bit is crafted with such care and attention that it all fits together like a precision engineered watch. The music, the writing, the gameplay, the visual style, everything is just so spot-on. Wait, have you gotten the DLC yet? You absolutely need to. Get thee to the Stranger!
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Feb 2, 2024 07:44
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Jerusalem posted:Re: Gabbro and the first paragraph: I did sometimes struggle to wrap my head around whether I was traveling back in time or not, and Gabbro laid it out about as simply as he could in his musings that our bodies weren't time-traveling, we were just getting the benefit of retaining what we learned in the 22 minutes between the probe firing and the sun going supernova. That certainly makes the most sense given of course it would work that way for the probe, but I guess somehow being a person made me think of it in different terms. It is actually possible to cause some actual, physical, not-just-information time travel to happen in the game. It's worth it. (Also, technically each time you warp you're travelling 0.00000000001 seconds back in time or something but that's so small it doesn't cause any causality issues.)
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Feb 2, 2024 07:54
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I managed to track down a red light that had been bugging me for ages which in turn lead me back to Timber Hearth and a radio station that was "under construction", and I couldn't find anything else to do with those. Based on a description I read of the DLC, I am assuming these are in place to interact with the DLC if you have it (which I don't)? I want to give the game a bit of a rest for a little bit to let that ending percolate a little more in my head, but definitely am keen to pick up the DLC sooner rather than later and explore a little more in this wonderful world.
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Feb 2, 2024 07:55
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That's where the ball gets rolling in the DLC, yes. I don't think there's any problem in taking a break before returning to the game for the DLC. It's a different enough experience that forgetting some parts of the base game is not a big deal. Just make sure you keep your save from the main game.
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Feb 2, 2024 08:59
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Yeah, the DLC is very much a complementary but distinct experience compared to the base game. It's a completely different vibe and atmosphere, but still a part of the same larger story. Sort of like the second season of The Wire.
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Feb 2, 2024 10:07
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Wingnut Ninja posted:You can argue until the stars go out about what the "best" game ever made is, but for me, Outer Wilds is the best realization of its own specific vision of what it's trying to be that I've ever played. It's not the biggest or the longest or the highest production values or anything like that, but every single bit is crafted with such care and attention that it all fits together like a precision engineered watch. The music, the writing, the gameplay, the visual style, everything is just so spot-on. It’s particularly incredible that the universe was mostly already built as part of the lead developer’s CS doctorate, and the story was woven to fit into the already-existing universe only after Mobius got involved in turning it into a commercial product. It’s honestly intimidating how well it worked. I need to watch the making-of documentary again.
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Feb 2, 2024 14:33
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Poque posted:It’s particularly incredible that the universe was mostly already built as part of the lead developer’s CS doctorate, and the story was woven to fit into the already-existing universe only after Mobius got involved in turning it into a commercial product. It’s honestly intimidating how well it worked. It was actually even weirder than that - the universe wasn't really "built" so much as the lead dev had a half-dozen different prototypes based on completely different ideas that he'd made during the course of his university career, and they somehow managed to find a way to not only use all of them, but make them so coherent with each other that it's hard to imagine the game with one of those elements removed.
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Feb 2, 2024 15:06
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Jerusalem posted:thoughts on the Eye One link about the Eye lore that I can't piece together, and might not be directly addressed in-game at all: (and I won't spoil anything from the expansion here) When the Nomai heard the Signal, what led them to believe that the Eye was older than the universe? Like, they weren't wrong, but what properties could the signal have, or what information could it contain that would lead them to believe its source is older than the universe?
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Feb 2, 2024 15:33
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MikeJF posted:Re, Ghost Matter and what happened: There's a little bit of art from when the Nomai visited Timber Hearth that shows that the Hearthians back then were still amphibious and underwater, and it's possible to observe on one of the islands on Giant's Deep that Ghost Matter goes inert underwater. If you talk to Reibeck after going to the Interloper she straight out says "Stars above, it’s lucky we hadn’t evolved to live on land yet.". That one tends to miss a lot of people, though, because the timeframes are too short for evolution, but I guess the idea was that evolution is as condensed as everything else in this universe Huh that's the first time I've seen someone call a Hearthian "she". They all use they/them (unlike the Nomai who use gendered pronouns) but everyone always defaults to he/him without noticing.
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Feb 2, 2024 15:49
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Jerusalem posted:I managed to track down a red light that had been bugging me for ages which in turn lead me back to Timber Hearth and a radio station that was "under construction", and I couldn't find anything else to do with those. Based on a description I read of the DLC, I am assuming these are in place to interact with the DLC if you have it (which I don't)? Ugh... I'm gonna have to be that guy again and point out that it might also be totally cool to not play the DLC.  It retains very few of the base game qualities and mostly boils down to frustrating tedium. The story it tries to tell has a couple good moments but do manage your expectations if you decide to buy it. It is very, very far from being on par with what you just experienced.
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Feb 2, 2024 21:48
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and the claw won! posted:One link about the Eye lore that I can't piece together, and might not be directly addressed in-game at all: (and I won't spoil anything from the expansion here) I think just don't worry about it. I'm not aware of any property signals can have that would allow for that, but also it's clear that physics doesn't work quite the same in Outer Wilds as it does in the real world.
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Feb 2, 2024 21:51
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:Ugh... I'm gonna have to be that guy again and point out that it might also be totally cool to not play the DLC. I enjoyed the DLC but this is totally valid. I ended up using a guide for some stuff, (Jerusalem don't read yet) not to get the actual solutions, but to make it easier to get to the parts where I could try for solutions. As an example, in the Starlit Cove, I knew that I wanted to figure out the very end bit down the stairs on my own, but just navigating the wooden walkways and finding the little teleporters was incredibly obnoxious, so I ultimately followed a guide that got me there so I had more time to try and figure out their patterns. I feel fortunate that I figured out the Endless Canyon shortcut myself because after like ten straight "deaths" inside the mansion I was ready to quit. I liked it a lot but it took more liberties with the player's time than I am generally comfortable with, so I didn't feel bad about using the guide in those ways.
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Feb 2, 2024 22:17
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:Ugh... I'm gonna have to be that guy again and point out that it might also be totally cool to not play the DLC. I feel like you're stating opinion as fact here, and I want to say that I felt different. It's very good overall, and in my opinion has a lot of really cool moments on par with or better than things from the base game. However, it also has things I felt were much, MUCH lower in addition to those things. So my read is that the highs are very high (the people who made the base game did not lose their touch when making new "moments of discovery" in the content, which is what I loved the most about the base game) but the lows were lower than anything I'd experienced before Enough to frustrate me signifcantly and make me want to quit at times. But once I got through it, it felt worth it.
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Feb 2, 2024 22:24
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The DLC also has some very good tracks accompanying it. "The River" and "Echoes of the Eye" being highlights.
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Feb 2, 2024 22:39
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Jerusalem posted:it's an experience I can never have again for the first time, but I will forever cherish that first time. I actually have a good friend who wanted to stream the game, and being able to poke them with questions and hint at things and get their thoughts in real time is such a good time, as long as you're able to be patient when they're being stubborn and not try to play the game for them. We did the same thing with The Witness, where we agreed that I'd only give them very basic hints, like telling them if they didn't know about a mechanic yet or were stuck on the wrong idea for too long or something. That was also a really good time. I had a lot of fun with repeating the hint "Spoiler: This one is possible". I also did not make them try to finish all the line puzzles, because some of them are just too obnoxious or convoluted.
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Feb 2, 2024 23:38
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I personally went into the DLC completely blind and really loved it. I didn’t think it had any real lows, certainly nothing that I’d warn someone who loved the base game away from it for. It’s different from the base game in some ways but I would still hold off on guides or hints unless you’re really stuck.
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Feb 2, 2024 23:52
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The DLC is very polarizing. Some people really love it, some people can’t stand it, but I think even the most staunch defenders generally agree that it has some flaws. That said, I have trouble agreeing with “you shouldn’t even try it because its flawed”, especially in a game as unique as Outer Wilds. This isn’t an extra set of multiplayer levels or a half-assed side campaign in a first-person shooter. Echoes of the Eye is the only “more Outer Wilds” we’re ever going to get. Even if you dislike the DLC so much that you stop partway through, at least you’ll have experienced some of it and can form your own opinion on it.
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Feb 3, 2024 03:21
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I'm someone that absolutely hates the DLC and even I think that there is a good portion of it that is really strong, namely the whole process of finding the stranger and conceptualizing where it is in the solar system, and the first couple loops inside setting up all the questions. Its the second part where you turn the questions into answers, thats deeply unsatisfying.
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Feb 3, 2024 03:38
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God it finally came out for the switch. I’ve been waiting for this for years. Time to buy this as a gift for a bunch of people 
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Feb 3, 2024 04:30
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I strongly disliked a couple of gameplay mechanics central to the DLC, and I get the impression a lot of people feel the same way, but I did like the discovery of how the lore ties into the base game and builds on it. That aspect was well done and enjoyable. I specifically appreciated how (DLC spoilers) you never learn to translate much of the written language of the Bird Persons. After the Nomai translator scanned some text and went "nope," I assumed I'd explore around and eventually find a way to update my translator for the new text, and the game did well to shatter this expectation. The slide reels served the same infodump purpose as Nomai text, but I appreciated how the reels demanded a little more brainpower to put the information together. In conclusion, Echoes of the Eye is a land of contrasts.
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Feb 3, 2024 04:31
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I would rank getting into the Stranger, realizing "holy poo poo, it's a Rama and I'm going to explore it" up there with any of the high points in the base game.
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Feb 3, 2024 06:34
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