algroth

Not big on CGI shorts but this one's cool I guess:

I don't know how truthful or accurate the numbers are nowadays, but SteamSpy does state 500k-1M for both Deadfire and Tyranny (and Pathfinder: Kingmaker for that matter). Maybe The Outer Worlds' buzz helped boost the sales some? Again though, I understand they're not entirely trustworthy nowadays either.

You need to learn what a fact is, and what an argument is as well. You didn't provide an argument, you provided a *statement*. You didn't argue in favour of that statement, simply said it and declared it a fact despite it being an opinion. See this: "PFKM being true spiritual successor to BG is once again not my opinion but a fact that is widely agreed upon,since no other game got even close to that" "Widely agreed" by whom? By what parametres that could be considered fact and not a matter of opinion? *Why* do you believe this? You accuse Xzar of going for the "cheapest strawman" but it's you who seems to be clutching at straws and being senselessly dismissive in turn.

Kingmaker being "an amazing game" isn't the "only true fact" because it's a matter of opinion, as is the matter of whether commercial success or failure determines the quality of a game. And who here is proclaiming themselves a "single player game pro" exactly?

Same here. I've so far clocked 47 hours into the game, up to roughly the same spot as you.

I find it very amusing that the game is full to the brim of corporate satire and anti-capitalist rhetoric, but it's with the inclusion of LGBT characters that we draw the line and have to call the devs out for "forcing their political agenda". Seriously, what gives?

It remains to be seen if it does. Whether it's underplaying the game's failure for the sake of publicly saving face or else, Josh Sawyer and a few others have said Deadfire performed "okay" relative to their expectations - and with the first Pillars being a success there's probably some interest in trying again, especially with Microsoft now offering their support. There's also strong hints elsewhere that a new Pillars is already in production, though whether that's a direct sequel to Deadfire or an entirely different project based on the setting/IP, we'll have to wait and see.

Not quite. Being "better" helps, but many other factors have far greater prevalence over whether a product sells, especially if "better" is entirely a question of subjective value and, say, not performance or features or the likes. Most cinephiles wouldn't argue that the better slice of life films are far better than any superhero film, yet even the worst superhero films tend to do ten times the amount the best of the former do. Reasons can be a broader interest and investment in a genre amidst casual audiences, but also the likes of marketing, brand awareness, brand loyalty and so on. Even if Transformers or The Amazing Spider-Man were widely derided, people still showed up to each new film in these franchises in greater quantities than they did Pacific Rim or Hellboy, despite these being generally considered better films, let alone the likes of The Florida Project or Shoplifters to name some of the most successful slice of life films of the past few years - and this is because everyone knows what Spider-Man and Transformers are, people will show up to these regardless of how good they are, and people will be aware of their existence more than any mid-budget masterpiece simply because they have more resources to invest in marketing and the likes. In the case of Kingmaker and Deadfire, neither game was particularly big budget and both aimed at a rather specific niche - but which IP do you reckon has the greater brand awareness, Pillars of Eternity or Pathfinder? Which company do you reckon has the greater financial backing, Obsidian on their own or Owlcat with the backing of Paizo (KS/Fig numbers aside)? My understanding is that this is the first proper CRPG with the Pathfinder licence, and if so it's entirely within reason that regardless of how good or bad it would turn out, Pathfinder would attract attention and interest based off its brand alone. When quality falls entirely down to taste, there can always exist very specific niches or audiences that hold their own idiosyncratic parametres to what constitutes a "good product" - the way classic arcade FPS enthusiasts and military shooter fans hold very different standards over what makes a good FPS despite both working within a pretty similar genre for example. What seems "tactical" or "realist" to one group seems "drab" or "stilted" to the other, whereas the other might abhor saturated colour palettes and "run and gun" playstyles and consider them garish or unimmersive or the likes. To go back to the first comparison I made, even if the common consensus amidst cinephiles is that Shoplifters is a far better film than anything Michael Bay's ever produced, Michael Bay without a doubt has an audience which couldn't care about his action sequences being incomprehensible, flashy guff; or the jingoistic, fetishistic approach to the military; or the frequently racist and sexist caricatures that exist in place of actual characters - they jive with the garishly maximalist spectacle that he often props up, it's "epic", it's "awesome". That's what they're looking for and what they get, and they would likely be bored stiff by what Shoplifters has to offer. So, again, even if "quality" can be a determining factor for the success or endurance of anything, the fact that "quality" is so fluid and abstract as a variable makes it practically moot. Same as there's an audience for Shoplifters and there's an audience for Transformers and there's an audience for Deadfire and there's an audience for Call of Duty, there's also an audience for The Room or Goat Simulator since they too offer a great experience for their own idiosyncratic niche, according to what that niche looks for. It certainly doesn't make them better products, despite likely having sold more than many other far better and more competent examples out there. And of course the opposite isn't true either. Just because something is "niche", it isn't entitled to being "better" than something more popular or mainstream. Success and quality are at the end of the day pretty independent to one another.

I've heard very good things about it from friends who've seen it, and I'm very intrigued. Some compared it to the likes of Béla Tarr or Theo Angelopoulos which goes without saying that is very high praise indeed, and also likely means it's bound to be a challenging and sombre experience (my understanding is that the film's also four hours long to boot). I'll try getting around to it myself, though as you say, it's certainly one to watch in the right frame of mind.

They've been responding to bug reports and the likes, it's safe to assume a patch is underway even if there's no estimated date of release yet.

Ellie, the second coming of St. Waidwen

I feel like in this newest incarnation of the band, Gira does feel like he's in the "Jim Morrison" position a fair bit - he seems like the weakest aspect of a lot of his tracks, and yet the music is undoubtedly his vision too. It's a bit of an "unfortunate compromise" perhaps (not a terrible one by any means), but I do find that instrumentally few acts out there pack the punch and pick the kind of momentum Swans do, and with as much colour and texture as they do either.

I see it as strike 2, so to speak. Fallout 4 did well enough from a financial standpoint to warrant a direct sequel, even if fans were lacklustre about it. Despite the ****show that Fallout 76 has been, it's easy to presume it was a failed spinoff more so than a failure of the franchise, or due to lack of interest in the IP (I doubt Bethesda/Zenimax would acknowledge a fault in their horrible business practices). Now, if the next main game fails, I do reckon that could spell the end of the franchise.

Why so grumpy?

Spoiler for the first quest...

No internet connection required. This isn't a live service type deal, thank goodness.

Hope you enjoy!

Here's the HLTB scores for each Obsidian game: Star Wars: Nights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords: 30-51 hours Neverwinter Nights 2: 59-114 hours Alpha Protocol: 13-25 hours Fallout: New Vegas: 27-132 hours Dungeon Siege III: 14-26 hours South Park: The Stick of Truth: 11-19 hours Pillars of Eternity: 35-99 hours Tyranny: 20-42 hours Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire: 40-76 hours The Outer Worlds: 10-28 hours Obsidian do seem to alternate between mid-length and long games based on the above, yet it's arguable that the games they're best known for tend to be the longer ones (i.e. Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, Neverwinter Nights 2, with KOTOR 2 being the outlier) so perception tends to skew towards those as the norm for them. In truth, it seems The Outer Worlds is no shorter than other games they've made like The Stick of Truth or Alpha Protocol, though it is quite a ways shorter than the two it's regularly compared to from their catalogue. That said, I reckon I'm about 40% of the way through the game and I've so far player for 22 hours myself. I do recognize I tend to be *very* lax in my playthroughs however. Still, your mileage may vary.

I haven't finished the game yet, but just to chime in here, I'd say Cainarsky's approach to many of their projects has absolutely been subversive, and The Outer Worlds so far isn't any less so. This is a game that in its opening mission is already representing a late-stage capitalist Hell where suicide is depicted as "vandalism" for the destruction of "company property", i.e. a worker. It's a plague-ridden town because the entire community is being worked past the point of exhaustion and have been indoctrinated since birth to assume that to fight their exhaustion they must simply work harder. I see nothing here that isn't overtly combative and subversive, and likewise quite dark. The satire provides a dose of comic relief without a doubt, but much like Fallout it doesn't preclude the subtext (or overtext for that matter) being quite scathing and meaty, and having its own dramatic impact as well.

I love the colour palette, though I also don't think a saturation slider on the graphics settings would be a bad idea. Personally I feel it fits the pulpy space adventure feel really well, and also really helps it stand out against the plethora of drab AA/AAA FPSes out there. Generally speaking the game's aesthetic is wonderful for me.

I'd like to see options for both stealth and TTD to activate whilst holding their buttons/keys instead of being a matter of toggling them. Separately if possible so as to allow each player to better customize their controls. TTD especially feels very clunky when made as a toggle.

I figured it could be fun to have a thread dedicated to whatever memes and funny stuff has arisen from the game since its release. So, let's see 'em! Here's one to start with: