Random video game news... RNG is your friend!

[HoonDing]

Is that Greta Thunberg

[Sven_]

80 bloody bucks for TOW2!!!!!!!!!1

The push for Game Pass gets harder still.  

 

edit: Just wanted to create an opportunity to bring in Tim Curry, mind. I think the price rages regarding games are pure first world luxury, as there's an abundance of offers and choices everywhere, every day of the week, month, year. Mount Everests Of Shame exist for reason, after all. Hooray for the capitalism... I guess.  

Edited Monday at 04:04 PM by Sven_

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

Just watched the Direct for TOW2. It seems to be a much deeper and richer RPG experience than Avowed. Having not yet played Avowed, though, am I right about this? And if I'm right, why? Was Xbox Games more willing to give TOW2 the budget it needed than Avowed?

I would say Outer Worlds1 was a deeper and richer RPG experience than Avowed.

I am not 100% but Outer Worlds2 is currently the biggest recent Obsidian project. Also OW1 was a success, and it is a sequel, so they can build on what they done in the first game. It also probably wasn't originally designed to be a coop game, and haven't (as far as I known) been rebooted in development, so that probably helps as well. I struggle to muster excitement for Outer Worlds2 - I enjoyed the original just fine, and I expect the same will be for the sequel. That said, all they have said and shown looks good - I would be delighted to be surprised. I still expect it to be a very "mainstream" RPG. 

Edited Monday at 04:07 PM by Wormerine

[Sven_]

1 hour ago, Wormerine said:

I still expect it to be a very "mainstream" RPG. 

Biggest flaw of the first game. You have this premise -- and then you play it this safe and family friendly that quests basically solve themselves, perks are mostly fairly uninteresting (+10kg to carry weight, +20% to melee damage, wow), the capitalism=bad joke is fairly light and on repeat -- and one planet was basically Chinese MMO central (Monarch, with tons of fetch jobs and copypaste mobs of enemies, ADVICE: invest in running speed and just run past the ****ers, they're tedious).

I chuckled at the board computer though, there's a few decent places and from the raw elements, it's 100% my type of game. The execution was just fairly vanilla overall by Obsi standards... Almost like a proof of concept. Still have to try the DLC admittedly, which are said to have improved a few things already.


Still, Pentiment was the actually passion project that had been bubbling in the mind of someone for years. Whereas legend has it that for TOW Feargus tasked Tim with pitching game ideas -- and kept rejecting all of them until Tim called him to suggest what Feargus had been waiting for all along: "Fallout.. in space!" And the difference shows either way. Watching the full direct on TOW2 now, as with a sequel and more money, there's a chance it's all evolved beyond that.

Edited Monday at 05:10 PM by Sven_

[Malcador]

 

[kanisatha]

22 hours ago, Wormerine said:

I would say Outer Worlds1 was a deeper and richer RPG experience than Avowed.

I am not 100% but Outer Worlds2 is currently the biggest recent Obsidian project. Also OW1 was a success, and it is a sequel, so they can build on what they done in the first game. It also probably wasn't originally designed to be a coop game, and haven't (as far as I known) been rebooted in development, so that probably helps as well. I struggle to muster excitement for Outer Worlds2 - I enjoyed the original just fine, and I expect the same will be for the sequel. That said, all they have said and shown looks good - I would be delighted to be surprised. I still expect it to be a very "mainstream" RPG. 

This may also explain Patel's departure. Seems to me that of their current three active franchises, Avowed was given the lowest budgeting priority: TOW got the biggest budget, Grounded also got a pretty decent budget, and Avowed got the smallest budget (as the least important project for the studio). 

[Wormerine]

20 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

This may also explain Patel's departure. Seems to me that of their current three active franchises, Avowed was given the lowest budgeting priority: TOW got the biggest budget, Grounded also got a pretty decent budget, and Avowed got the smallest budget (as the least important project for the studio). 

Oh your know, she might have changes studios for personal reasons, or got a better offer, or whatever. 

First of all, I am pretty sure Grounded was a tiny project (under 20 people?) at least initially. From what I played of it, it is a very focused title, which might make it simply cheaper to produce than an RPG. 2ndly - Avowed is a pretty good actually. It is just not very RPGy - it's an open world action combat thingy - RPG elements are very light. It seems it was done by choice, rather than financial constrain - as they were working on Avowed combat was turning out pretty well so they leaned on it. I would say it doesn't quite find full identity - but it's normal for what is essentially new IP that went through birthing pains. I am sure that if they were ever to make a sequel, they would make it better. It's not a sprawling RPG, but I don't think it was ever meant to be - it was a coop game, which switched gears and turned into singleplayer actionRPG. It turned out ok. 

I actually think Obsidian has been on a roll in recent years - Avowed had more mixed reception, but Pentiment, Outer Worlds and Grounded seemed to all find their audiences. My disappointment is very selfish and personal - I used to be Obsidian's target audience, and it doesn't seem to be the case anymore - at the very least I am not the only or main target audience. 

[kanisatha]

4 hours ago, Wormerine said:

My disappointment is very selfish and personal - I used to be Obsidian's target audience, and it doesn't seem to be the case anymore

Yes, this is where I'm coming from as well.

Oh, and just to note, my comment about budgets was (speculatively) about their current games, not past games. So, TOW2 and Grounded 2.

Edited Tuesday at 07:11 PM by kanisatha

[Wormerine]

Solasta 2 will be using 2024 ruleset. Good, bad? 

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1096530/view/515211974718523887?l=english

 

[melkathi]

I don't mind?

[Mamoulian War]

Repost into the proper thread

What a lovely year. Bamco has announced on their latest Tales of Festival, that they will announce this summer new Takes of Remaster for 30th anniversary. The hottest contenders are Tales of Xillia 1 and Takes of the Abyss. My choice would be the Abyss, but knowing how Bamco likes free money for least ammount of hassle, it will be probably Xillia

[kanisatha]

16 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Solasta 2 will be using 2024 ruleset. Good, bad? 

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1096530/view/515211974718523887?l=english

Ha! You beat me to it. Was gonna' post the same thing. I think many of the rule changes are good. Some not so good. But in their attached survey, which I filled yesterday, there is the option to support TA also keeping some parts of the 2014 ruleset and modifying things they don't like in the 2024 ruleset. I strongly supported that option.

[Sven_]

On 6/10/2025 at 5:01 PM, Wormerine said:

 

I actually think Obsidian has been on a roll in recent years - Avowed had more mixed reception, but Pentiment, Outer Worlds and Grounded seemed to all find their audiences. My disappointment is very selfish and personal - I used to be Obsidian's target audience

That was me and Bioware, like ca. post NWN.  

One of the reasons I didn't buy into Avowed... I may one day, but it has a very Bioware feel to it. And that's not a route I'd want. From its production chasing market trends (Phase 1 -> Phase 2 -> reboot) to where it eventually seemed to have ended up. "Moar action" had been Bioware's answer to everything for two decades, after all: "When you press a button, something awesome has to happen."  Germany's GameStar liked it, but they described the game's strengths as rather atypical for Obsidian as well. 

I understand that Obs were unsure where to go with Eora after Deadfire. But I'd hoped for something bigger into RPG, and be it say a Vegas or Bloodlines-Like. Or a Skyrim with actual depth to it, like systems proper and consequences to your actions (and a more condensed game world that would have been manageable). Of course, the push for multiplayer during the mid to late 2010s had poisoned many a well, see also Arkane and Redfall...

I think it's a good thing that some of the bigger successes in recent years have shown to have some system depth to them (like KCD2, BG3, et all). Like them or hate them, these are projects that weren't scared to carry their RPG tag proud and loud. That doesn't mean that every game needs to be super indepth. But the vice versa applies also. I have a feeling the super compressed action/adventure/RPG-Like space may solve a few things here all by itself. Even Ubisoft can't do without some looting and leveling anymore, after all. You're walking into a super crowded room here. Meanwhile a Belgian dude in armor can walk right in, and turn heads simply because there's nobody quite like him in there.

Edited Wednesday at 11:32 PM by Sven_

[rjshae]

On 6/10/2025 at 2:48 PM, Wormerine said:

Solasta 2 will be using 2024 ruleset. Good, bad? 

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1096530/view/515211974718523887?l=english

The delta seems to be various small tweaks. The one I did notice is that the half-elf and half-orc are not in the new SRD. WTF?

Edited Thursday at 05:17 AM by rjshae

[Wormerine]

7 hours ago, rjshae said:

The one I did notice is that the half-elf and half-orc are not in the new SRD. WTF?

Yes, one of the survey question was if players would want them to keep those races.

[Mamoulian War]

7 hours ago, rjshae said:

The delta seems to be various small tweaks. The one I did notice is that the half-elf and half-orc are not in the new SRD. WTF?

Being fantasy half-race is apparently racist in current year

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Yes, one of the survey question was if players would want them to keep those races.

Yup. And I was emphatic in saying 'yes'. That right there is one of my biggest negatives about the new SRD.