UrbaNebula

Roll on June 2022... probably, maybe

So, based on the extremely limited information we have regarding Avowed, one thing we know for certain is that it will be played in first person. No information on whether third person will be an option. Personally I hope it will be, but it's not a deal breaker for me like it is for others (Those who suffer from motion sickness, etc) One thing I'm most curious about is whether or not we will still get the option to play as the same races as in Pillars 1 and 2. This obviously includes races of varying stature, with the Aumaua, Dwarves and Orlans. From a first person perspective alone this will have a number of things to consider. The height of the camera above ground level, the movement restrictions and combat in general. It also has to take into account the racial and political agendas throughout Eora. Personally, I'm not a big fan of games with conflicting information. Skyrim for instance, makes a point to mention that the Khajiit race are not trusted in Skyrim and are not allowed inside the cities throughout the region. However, if the player is a Khajiit, nobody bats an eyelid. If you're going to push the narrative that certain races don't belong, at least enforce that on the player as well, right? Obsidian has a reputation for considerable player freedom, but I have to wonder if making Avowed specifically a first person RPG will restrict this sort of thing. Perhaps we can only play as a human. Maybe we even play a predetermined character this time around, and the player freedom comes in the form of that character's history and how their choices change them going forward. I'm curious. What are your expectations in terms of the player character or the playable races in Avowed.

Currently I'm wrapping up a Divinity Original Sin 2 coop campaign with a couple of friends. I've also just started Pillars of Eternity 2 and I'm loving it. Playing a lot of Civ6 with my friends these days as well. I'm also regularly playing two games that are currently in development and I can't talk about... as well as my own Half-Life mod and any others that release and take my fancy. Phew

I've only worked on FPS games, but I the main story is one of the first things to be completed, on paper at least. My understanding based on previous Obsidian interviews is that after the vertical slice is completed, a horizontal slice is worked on. The story would need to be basically complete before the main questline (or one of the potential paths through it) could be properly blocked out.

I wasn't expecting any new info at the Game Awards to be honest. The game was announced at E3 and I suspect the next time we see it will be at E3. Microsoft owns both Obsidian Entertainment AND Bethesda Game Studios. We already know that Starfield is coming on 11.11.22. Not wanting to split sales between the two games, I expect we will get a release date for Avowed during E3 2022 and it will be aiming for release around Q1/Q2 2023. On the bright side, if that's remotely accurate, then we're only 6 months away from seeing some gameplay. The downside is we may be waiting a year and a half or longer to... play... some gameplay.

Having recently finished The Outer Worlds +DLC AND the first Pillars of Eternity, my main criticism of TOW is that it made it a little too easy to please everyone in most cases. Some of the choices I made in Pillars gave me an ending that was overall positive, but a lot of people who didn't truly deserve it got a raw deal. The only people to get a raw deal in my TOW playthrough were the Byzantines and they definitely had it coming since they were a cartoonishly oblivious to everything. I hope Avowed continues with the overall darker tone that presents me with genuinely tough choices. Furthermore, I hope TOW2 has more impactful quest outcomes.

Based purely on the order in which they were announced, I would say Avowed is likely further into development. If reports from two months ago are to be believed, Avowed is likely currently in an alpha state. We also know that both Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 (and Josh's game) are currently "playable" based on one of Josh's tweets, but playable in no way means anything near completion. TOW2 and Josh's game could simply be vertical slices, and that's a very early stage in development.

Yeah, Bethesda certainly fixed Fallout 3 with that... Rather than a satisfying conclusion that changed the face of the capital wasteland for the better or worst, it added a series of mediocre battles and a game that never ends until your interest fizzles away. I truly hate when a game just keeps going after the story concludes. Completely removes any impact the outcome of the main quest had, because more often than not it means that it had no impact at all.

Well, all I can say is, "Hell yes!" The downside is that it hasn't even been three days since the announcement and I am already hungry for more information... Starving in fact.

I'm curious as to whether they actually mean first person perspective, or if they're simply clarifying that you will be controlling just your character. It's not a party management/isometric RPG, it's from your character's perspective? I'm really grabbing at straws here, but as I've said, as a primarily first person player, I really miss third person when it's not there as an option, especially if there is a decent amount of character customisation. Seems a shame to spend time creating a character that you never see again.

I once tweeted that I thought a first person RPG set in the Pillar's universe would go down very well. I guess now we'll see. That being said, what is with the sudden aversion to Third Person Perspective in RPGs these days? While I do prefer to play RPGs mainly in First Person, I do like to switch to third person during longer hikes and to check out my character's looks when I change up my armour. I also feel for those who get motion sickness, as my sister suffers with it terribly and it put an end to many a fun gaming session back in the day.

I wanted to take a moment to just summarise my thoughts on The Outer Worlds. As it stands, I last played the game in December as I played it with Gamepass and didn't feel a need to renew my subscription once I was finished with the game. First off, as always, I would like to start out by saying that I did thoroughly enjoy the game and I will definitely pick it up when it releases on Steam later this year (Hopefully with some DLC to enhance the experience). However, overall I would say that the game was "good." What follows are a few points that in my eyes caused the overall experience fall just short of "incredible." I am aware that a lot of these elements are subject to time and budget constraints, but I will still mention them in spite of that as Obsidian will be heading into this potential franchise with a larger budget in future. 1. An overall lifeless feeling: The Outer Worlds does not feel like an RPG in the sense that I am used to. A lot of the mechanics made it feel more like an MMORPG without other players; It was as though I had stumbled upon an entire empty server that should host hundreds of other people. The majority of human NPCs in the game act like noticeboards with personalities. They are always stood rooted to their position, ready to hand out and conclude quests. They make me think of the characters you would encounter in World of Warcraft and the like. The remainder of humans that mill about and at least follow a very basic schedule are completely oblivious to the player. This is all too apparent when the player makes choices. Edgewater for example, even though NPCs relocate over time based on your choices, it never feels like you've made an impact. You never stumble across a couple of plant workers trying to fight off creatures outside the town or anything like that. The same applies to the enemies. They are rooted to their spawn locations along with other enemies of the same type. When attacked they will charge at you or engage from a distance. If you flee, they will eventually band back to their original location and regain their health. Again, identical to an MMORPG. You never see these NPCs clash with one another, there is no hunting behaviour and it feels incredibly artificial. Some of the best moments I've had in any genre of game are when something dynamic and unexpected happens. For example, imagine scoping out a marauder blockade and planning your attack. Then, just as you're about to charge in, BAM. A couple of mantisaurs lumber into view and start attacking them. You can let the battle pan out and then take on the weakened victor, or go full bore and jump into the fray, starting a crazy three sided battle. 2. Corporations. A massive missed opportunity: Right from the first trailer, one thing I was really looking forward to was the faction reputation systems. I was looking forward to picking a side or playing them off against one another. However, when jumping into the game I was thoroughly disappointed to see that most factions are entirely separate from one another, occupying different world spaces. I would have LOVED to see two or more corporations sharing the same space and having to get along, clashing over the slightest thing and coming to blows over products. Imagine a Spacer's Choice and Cleo worker getting into a brawl over skin cream or something equally trivial. The player could wade in and intervene, using their reputation with either corporation to resolve or escalate the situation. 3. At little more RP in my G: One thing that I really enjoyed was the stat checks in dialogue, allowing my character to make quips and offer solutions based on their strengths. That has been severely lacking in other franchises recently, which I won't name. However, there are a couple things I would like to see to take this further. First of all, bring back the joke dialogue options for failed checks. A player with low charisma should be able to make inappropriate or cringe inducing comments when presented with a charm check. A weaker character should be able to draw attention to their noodle-like build when presented with a strength check and so on.. Yes, this means more dialogue, but the outcome could be hilarious. I also don't recall many situations where stats could be used to find an alternate solution to a quest objective. More of that would be very nice indeed. That's everything. I enjoyed the game immensely, but couldn't bring myself to play a second character beyond reaching Groundbreaker because it just felt so samey. The combat and characters doesn't really show significant based on your build. Maybe some of these points will be addressed, even if only slightly in the upcoming DLC this year. However, I am really excited to see what can be done with this universe in future instalments.

God damn... Where can I pick up whatever it was you were on while posting this?

I'd regularly used body attribute+ items and speed increases whenever I was over-encumbered. Simply so that I could go from a torturous slow stroll to a full on Olympic sprint towards the nearest vendor.

There is a key difference between actively making a game unmoddable and simply not having the time and resources to develop and release the modding tools. I believe with TOW, Obsidian is in the latter camp. They are in favour of modding, they just couldn't dedicate resources to making it possible.

Pardon my ignorance, but I've seen this issue raised before and I simply do not get it... I've played a fair amount of First Person Shooters and RPGs and I cannot say I have ever picked up on any game having an off centre crosshair. To me that would mean that my shots are not going where I am pointing. I see the crosshair on the screen and I simply move that over the thing I want activated / deactivated / dead / in my pocket... I have literally never see any game with a noticeably misaligned crosshair. Maybe I'm weird.

I just picked up a 60+ hour Divinity Original Sin 2 playthrough with my friend after he spent three months away in Japan. We had no memory of the world changing event we had apparently JUST put into effect and couldn't remember any of our abilities or character traits. It was largely hilarious.

I'm sure there are technical reasons for the floating hands. The most obvious one that comes to mind is awkward and unnatural movement. It also runs the risk of creating a disconnect with the player, with the game showing Alyx's arm in a position you know your own arm isn't.

Well I assume you're now playing a patched game?

Honestly, having not even played Disco Elysium but having seen the first few minutes of it, I can see it doing very well in the awards. It completely flew under my rader until it was covered by Many A True Nerd. I loved The Outer Worlds as an RPG, don't get me wrong, but the concepts in DE seem a little more unique and interesting. It reminds of the point and click adventures I used to love back in the day, but with an RPG crashing right through the middle of it. Other than that, RE2MAKE was the only other game that caught my eye this year and I was done with it in a week.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see DLC. However, I'd be more than happy for them to come out swinging with a sequel created with a much higher budget.

I played the original a year after its release and became obsessed. With the modding scene, I still play it regularly today. I'm even still working on a Half-Life mod! I grabbed the sequel on the day it released and forced my way through it at 15 FPS on a rig that was NOT equipped to deal with it. As a long time Half-Life fan, I'm pretty bummed that this is a VR exclusive. Even if I had the cash for a VR setup, I simply do not have the space. I'm going to have to watch somebody else play through it. Should this spell the start of a VR exclusive continuation of the series then I guess it's no longer a series for me.

The only time I ever experienced CTDs was when accessing stealth sections with companions. I instinctively started sending them back to the ship whenever we needed to access a restricted area. Never had another issue since then. Just a heads up in case that's what you're experiencing.

The player character's motivation in an RPG is very easy to mess up and Fallout 4 messed it up in just about every way. You're immediately introduced to a child and spouse that you don't care about, and they are just as quickly whisked away from you before you can even build any kind of connection. Your character's motivation is then to find this random baby that you as a player do not give a **** about. The instant you start side-questing, your character is fundamentally broken. Even before this, you as a player know that Vault-Tec is not on the level and everything in Vault 111 has a sense of unease and misdirection that your character and their spouse... doesn't even notice. The Outer Worlds introduction on the other hand sees you meeting characters and learning about the colony WITH your character. The intro cinematic teaches you, the player, everything the character would have known before being frozen (ten year trip, Halcyon colony, destiny awaits, yada yada yada.) You are then given motive. You and everyone aboard your colony ship (Your friends and family depending purely on your head canon and dialogue choices) are trapped and you're their only hope... Or, you were simply shot into space by some raving mad, outlaw scientist and you want to turn him in. As a new player, Edgewater and it's inhabitants are there to teach you about the universe and how its systems work.

I don't think anybody truly saw this topping New Vegas. It's an ambitious game which was developed with a severely limited budget. Limited to the point that even the third person camera wasn't included. I'm just eager to see Obsidian really dial it up to 11 with follow up titles in the series. At this point I think it is clear that we're going to be getting a sequel at the bare minimum. The Outer Worlds feels like a solid foundation. Hopefully every aspect will get more time, money and attention with Microsoft's backing.