The Outer Worlds Catch-All

fangblackbone wrote:

The scope of their projects at Black Isle and Obsidian has always lent itself to more bugs to fix. Think about all the freedom they give the player with things like dialogue choices and offering non violent solutions to quests.

Yeah, it is the same with Bethesda games. It doesn't really excuse the game breaking bugs and crashes they have sometimes. But quests and npc interactions are bound to have bugs and unintended interactions - and the games often being ~100 hour long probably doesn't help the QA either. It is really just most of this kind of RPGs. Divinity Original Sin 2, which came out around the same time as POE1, was one of the most bugged games I have ever played. It was still awesome and sold exceptionally well, so I guess a buggy game isn't an instant loss (if there was any doubt after Skyrim).

Day 1 on xbox one x for me. Praise be game pass! Playing new vegas over and over again is fun But finally a new game from obsidian!

Obsidian definitely has upper management issues but attracts extremely talented and caring people in spite of that. Chris Avellone has spoken to this at length. His former partners are scummy, embezzlers, liars, etc. Has nothing but nice things for anyone underneath them and is excited for Obsidian’s projects because they are the only gaming company that makes those types of games. He’s not a 100% reliable source on the subject but with Sawyer saying similar but more muted things, I’m inclined to believe it. Sawyer still works their in a senior roll as well.

They created a new process for Dungeon Siege 3. It’s a very average game but there were a bunch of interviews pointing out that was because they focused many recourses on revamped their entire QA. Since that, the vast majority of problems in their games have either been design or balance related.

Black Isle was plagued with overbearing management, incredible amount of bugs, and unfinished games. The only surprising thing is it took Obsidian as long as they did to sort it all out.

Now that Obsidian is owned by Microsoft, there’s potential for the leadership and management to improve. Either externally or internally by oversight and diffusion of pressure.

The Outer Worlds: Unfinished - Giant Bomb

It should be noted that it’s a pre-recorded video where Dan doesn’t remember anything. Luckily Vinny and Alex did a bit of research and are familiar with previous Obsidian games. Abby isn’t but asks some good questions as someone with no knowledge of the genre or history of the developer.

It’s a lot better than their Borderlands 3 recorded video where Abby and Dan basically waste everyone’s time.

Wow, no updates since August on this. Has the hype on this game blasted it into obscurity already? Set for an October 25th release, but will it be worth picking up? What little free time I have for gaming is pretty much only Borderlands 3 at this point.

Very much looking forward to it. But October 25th is still far away.

I'm still excited! Just not much to say, I have Game Pass so I'll be getting it no matter what. I don't really need any more info about it, I just want to play it.

Rainsmercy wrote:

Wow, no updates since August on this. Has the hype on this game blasted it into obscurity already? Set for an October 25th release, but will it be worth picking up? What little free time I have for gaming is pretty much only Borderlands 3 at this point.

I put a few videos in the gaming video thread here https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...

And I just watched this one and the verdict he reached is "it is an Obsidian game in the best ways. Interesting characters, story and gameplay.

I PLAYED THE OUTER WORLDS - My Brutally Honest Opinion

Thanks all, was talking to my wife about this earlier as we were both interested in playing it, but hadn't really heard much lately. Borderlands was blasting all kinds of stuff out leading up to the game and it just seems like I hadn't heard much lately. I'll watch that video tonight from home.

Rainsmercy wrote:

Wow, no updates since August on this. Has the hype on this game blasted it into obscurity already? Set for an October 25th release, but will it be worth picking up? What little free time I have for gaming is pretty much only Borderlands 3 at this point.

Doing the same as you in that I'm just playing Borderlands 3. I am guaranteed to get this once it comes out but not before I've exhausted my single player enjoyment of Borderlands 3. I know what I want to know about The Outer Worlds and am happy to just hop in with limited knowledge.

Part of it is that both August and September drowned me in stuff to play and I'm still trying to catch up. The other is I'm now in a financial situation where I dunno if I can afford it this month. So I might have to hold off on The Outer Worlds, but I still want to play it. It's possible I'll just save it for the Christmas list.

Similar situation but I'm happily playing Ghost Recon. Means that I'm not so drawn to jump into this day 1, so I can sit and watch the reviews, let some patches fix the usual bugs and stability issues etc. I hope it does extremely well!

Wife bought me Greedfall. I'm slow as sh*t at RPGs nowadays so I'm good until next year rolls around. Then I'll get the game.

I'm very interested in this, hope it turns out well and hope it does well.

This aesthetic is one of my (lesser) jams, so I'm very interested, but between Destiny and Apex Legends just dropping tons of new content, it will probably be a while before I get to this. Looks good, though!

This is the first game I've pre-ordered in a long time, in part because I have a shiny new laptop to play new games on.

Not sure jumping in day one on an Obsidian game is the best idea, but I'm going to try anyway.

DevilDancer wrote:

This is the first game I've pre-ordered in a long time, in part because I have a shiny new laptop to play new games on.

Not sure jumping in day one on an Obsidian game is the best idea, but I'm going to try anyway.

I'll do my annual Obsidian reputation defender and point out that they haven't released a buggy game since Fallout: New Vegas. There have been balance changes and such but everything from Dungeon Siege III (2011) has been extremely solid (Dungeon Siege III, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire).

anticipation building! not gonna pre-order but will probably get it day one unless the day one reviews are awful. tagging the thread cause i will def want to talk about it.

FYI, Game Pass subscribers on Xbox, though this doesn't show up on the Game Pass tab yet, you can go to the Xbox store and find the game there and just choose "Install". Right now it's just a 100MB file, but I assume it will update to the preload when it gets a little closer.

Just purchased, got an exrta £1 off from Fanatical so caved in. This is looking very, very good!

We got a new trailer!

Additionally, Obsidian responds to some of Microsoft's comments regarding the future of The Outer Worlds as an IP.

Giant Bomb has an hour+ Quick Look EX up

I'd hoped that this meant the embargo was up (I've heard various podcasters this week indicate they're playing the game but can't talk about it yet), but early in the video Brad asks the developers he's speaking to if he still has to stick to the embargo in terms of speaking about his in-depth experience with the game and they say yes. So I guess we'll hear more sometime next week?

I think I heard someone on today's Giant Beastcast say that the embargo was up on the 22nd. So we should hear more starting then.

I am getting very strong Mass Effect vibes. Seems like Bioware is giving way to Obsidian and the Greedfall devs. Sad for Bioware but win for gamers.

About 15 minutes into the Giant Bomb video - "the game is short enough we are are seeing people start again right away and try different choices"

YES!!! Finally an RPG that is short so I can actually try different characters! I am *not* going to replay at 80+ hour RPG to see a melee character is cooler than a big weapons type. I just don't have the time.

I am very happy with this news.

*other thoughts as watching the Giant Bomb video.

- I love how vibrant the world is.
- combat appears very basic. Not sure I am sold on it.

They said the same thing about Tyranny and a full play through of that still took 40 hours.

The bits they are showing off are beautiful. I love the tongue in cheek corporate dystopia vibe. I wonder if the bullet time stuff gets more complex as you skill up.

Vector wrote:

They said the same thing about Tyranny and a full play through of that still took 40 hours.

Which, as far as I'm concerned, is a blessing for an RPG in this day and age.

I mean, I'd love more 20-25 hour RPG's, but as long as it's not 60-100 then it's far easier to tackle.

Yeah 20 hour rpgs are great. Hell if it is a quality 12-15 hours, I'd go for that too provided it is flexible enough like what was shown in that video. (I am not a fan of killing NPCs but to know there was some depth and thought behind it is way more encouraging)

I'm secretly hoping it's in the mold of Alpha Protocol, which was 15-20 hours and had a lot of reactivity and variability.