Jackalgirl

What a very interesting observation, thank you -- you've given me a lot to think about. (This is not snarky--I mean it.) I think that if I had to hold up some outliers, I'd note that Sophia Akande is an antagonist (if you're anti-Board, that is), and Phineas Welles is a protagonist (again, if you're anti-Board). There are some other examples of quests where you have male protagonists and female antagonists, or at least jerks (I'm thinking of "Cupid of the Laboratory" and the Early Retirement Program quests -- though they are very much side quests and not tied into the main arc or subarcs like getting in good with SubLight). However, none of this IMO invalidates your point, which is (correct me if I'm wrong!) that generally speaking, major male characters (in particular, the antagonists) are portrayed in a more tropey fashion in the game. I will point out, though, that from my own personal experience*, I at no point got any sense that "the colony's broken because of men and the solution is to kick out the men and put women in charge**". I always had the personal impression that the people in charge of the colony (including Sophia Akande) were a bunch of people who placed no value on the inherent value of people (non-elite people are resources, to be used and discarded when no longer useful to those in power) and who valued utilitarian ethics, and it never crossed my mind that they were that way because of their (apparent) gender***. Again, other people might draw different conclusions according to their own experience -- it's just an observation on my part related to my own experience. * Your mileage may vary ** In the Board Ending, you essentially put Sophia in charge (as I understand it -- please anyone correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't played the Board Ending yet, myself). My understanding from the Good Ending is that your character is more or less in charge (unless you choose the Ice Cream ending), leaving a group of people probably including Phineas, Junlei, Zora, and maybe some others (I don't believe it's explicitly laid out, but I might be forgetting) as your "small counsel". If your player-Captain is not female (and you haven't chosen the Ice Cream ending), then that means the colony is now being lead or at least directed by a not-female person. *** And I might not have noticed it due to implicit bias, to be sure. Thank you for the post! -=-=-=-=- Edited to add: I didn't want you or anyone else to think I was minimizing or glossing over your other salient point, which is that by portraying this kind of behavior as being largely carried out by men, it could reinforce/normalize negative stereotypes about men, which can be incredibly damaging to actual men. I agree. I was just trying to get to my points.

I've noticed this also. Sometimes she says something, but now it seems that all of her "welcome aboard" barks that announced some kind of other companion interaction (such as Max/Felix/Ellie arguing) aren't happening.

Well, I ran all over the Vale and explored as much as I could and did not find anything. That doesn't mean he's not there, of course. However, it doesn't surprise me, because if you were to find his body, it would kind of be a spoiler for later.

That's a great question! I haven't found it, but I haven't gone looking for it, either. I realize I have some places I haven't been to in the Vale on my latest run-through; I'll go back and wander around and if I find it, I'll come back here and post about it. : )

Oh yes, that is some really really realness right there! LOL

Tumblr: < long speculative discussion of pets in The Outer Worlds, pet-based commerce & culture, pets that NPCs and personal characters might have, and in particular pet sprats, sprat breeding and showing > Brain: You know, there once was a magazine called "Rat Fancy"... Me: NO. I AM NOT MOCKING UP A COVER OF A -- < several hours later > Me: GODSDAMMIT

Oooo, this is a good, good catch. I'm immediately taken straight to Game of Thrones where Cersei gets in league with the Sparrows and it does not turn out particularly well for her. Although I imagine that the relationship between OSI and the (other) corporations is more stable and collaborative. I think that Spacer’s Choice would like to think that OSI is its loyal (and domesticated) defender, and I’m sure OSI likes that Spacer’s Choice (and the other corporations) would think that, but I’m absolutely sure that OSI has its own agenda, too. In my own headcannon thinking, OSI has a sizable intelligence arm that it occasionally brings to bear to the benefit of individual corporations (or of HHC as a whole), but I think it absolutely has its own agenda as well. (Back to Game of Thrones: vibes of Varys.) Thank you for pointing this out!

(1) Agree for needing to eat & sleep in other modes. It would be a nice add to the DLC if a) it isn't already and b) isn't too late to add into the game.

Maybe not a hamster (though I admit that would be cool), but it would be great to have a Ship's Sprat. : )

If you press on the Options button, you should get a menu; select "load". Those are your saves. The game autosaves at several points, so you should see several of those, and you may have to scroll down to get to any saves you have made. But you have to make the saves to see them -- Options > Save > New save (or you can overwrite an old one).

I see I'm of the same mind as everyone else here -- I saw a lot of stuff in the noclip documentary that I'd love to actually see in the game, and I'm intrigued by the stuff that was cut out -- the 6-month project, the expanded Terra 2 map. For some reason, I really have Hephaestus on my mind, though. I'd love to see what they do with that. I keep thinking of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars" series and wonder if they'll have something like Terminator -- the city that rides on rails so that it's always on the night-side of the planet (as the sun heats up the rails behind it, they expand, and "squeeze" the city along the cooler night-side rails). Also, we've seen canines, primates, insects, reptiles, and something like birds, as animal foes. Where are the cats at? I would love to see some cats. I did some speculating on my own...

I've noticed that on the PS4 at least, the character name field is limited to 16 characters. Could you expand it to 32? My character's name is longer and I'd love to use it, for all of the four or five opportunities to see it in-game, and it might be fun to play a game with "Arthur Septimus Higglesworth III" (Occupation: tossball mascot). Thanks for considering it!

If you belong to the Venn-diagram intersection of "TOW fan" and "Military", what little snippets of unique-to-your-world dialogue would you love to see happening in the background in future installments of TOW? You know, those things that people in your branch always seem to say? I'm thinking something like: or or, of course, any Chief Petty Officer starting a verbal counseling of any kind with the wielding of said knifehand and "Shipmate -- " I'd love to hear from other military folks as to the kinds of verbal or visual memes that you experience in your day-to-day that you'd love to show up in the game! [ Edited to add: I should mention that this is US Navy. Absolutely would love to hear from other branches and other countries' militaries. ]

Are you talking about permanent deaths for you, or for your companions (or both)? For the latter, that's supernova difficulty, so you can do that. And if you're talking about romancing NPCs, yes, well, there are a lot of us who are in line with you on that one. ; )

Just wanting to note that I found the Community Guidelines for IP use for Pillars of Eternity (here: https://eternity.obsidian.net/eternity/legal/ip-use); however, there's nothing specific to The Outer Worlds and I'm not sure where Obsidian stands wrt licensing (especially with the Microsoft acquisition).