Thanks for the kind words, Tim :) My favorite modifier the playthrough generator would spit out was "Roll a d6 whenever you start a new quest; on a 1, kill the quest giver immediately." Nothing better than hearing the die roll on a tester's desk and waiting to hear a sigh of relief or a string of curses...
Is there any possible way to put that generator online somewhere? I'd probably even use it even for other games, it sounds like a fun way you guys had to QA test and like a good way out of my normal comfort zone with RPGs.
@@paxmorgana I don't have a good way to share the applet anywhere, but here's an "analog" version that should be easy to recreate, even with just rolling dice or something. ------ Pick 2 Skills from the following to tag: - Ranged - Melee - Leadership - Stealth - Defense - Tech - Dialog Pick 1 Attribute from the following to set to either Very High or Below Average: - Strength - Dexterity - Intelligence - Perception - Charm - Temperament Pick Difficulty: - Story - Medium - Hard - SuperNova Pick 1 main story path option: - Side with Phineas - Side with the Board - Pursue the Scientist and Board paths, ultimately siding with the Board - Pursue the Scientist and Board paths, ultimately siding with Phineas Pick 1 "Quest Flavor" option: - Complete as many side quests as you can - Complete as many faction quests as you can - Complete as many companion quests as you can - Try to botch every quest you get Pick 1 Emerald Vale option: - Send power to the Deserters - Send power to Edgewater - Send power to Edgewater and have Adelaide replace Reed - Send power to Edgewater and have the Deserters return to Edgewater without Adelaide - Wipe out everyone in Edgewater - Wipe out the Deserters - Wipe out everyone in Emerald Vale (including Reed and Adelaide) Pick 1 Groundbreaker option: - Kill Junlei - Fix the radiators for Junlei - Do not fix the radiators for Junlei Pick 1 option for getting to Monarch: - Get the navkey to Stellar Bay - Skip the navkey for Stellar Bay and go straight to Cascadia Pick 1 Monarch option: - Put MSI in charge of Monarch - Put the Iconoclasts in charge of Monarch - Have MSI and the Iconoclasts work together - Kill the MSI and Iconoclast leaders - Do not resolve the MSI/Iconoclast conflict Pick 1 SubLight option: - Complete the SubLight faction questline - Get to the end of the SubLight questline but refuse to kill Dr. Chartrand - Do not complete the SubLight questline - Kill Lilya Hagen Pick as many Modifiers as you want: - Try to buy and sell something to every vendor in the game - Install every mod you find - Roll a d6 whenever you start a new quest; on a 1, kill the quest giver immediately - Try to end the game with as many bits as possible - Take every drug you find as soon as you get it - Whenever loading a map, get rid of one of your equipped weapons - Explore every nook and cranny of [Emerald Vale/Groundbreaker/Byzantium/Scylla/Monarch/Tartarus/Roseway] - Only use [Joch/T&L/Spacer's Choice/Hammersmith] ranged weapons and/or [T&L/Spacer's Choice/Aramid Ballistics] melee weapons
Thanks. I like making them too. Each morning I sit down and think "what should I talk about today". Sometimes I decide on a topic and then go run and change my shirt to match it.
@@CainOnGames Your videos are always a delight to watch Tim. Each day I'm excited to see a new video be it on game creation, the hidden lore of the games you've done, or just what could have come about. Your channel is already a top 10 of mine now. Great job, keep at it!
That QA app sounds like it would be a good New Game+ idea for open-ended games. Once you beat the game, a "build me a story" option becomes unlocked, and selecting it, it spits out a randomized roleplay character and even story path to play as. If selected, the game keeps tabs on how close to what rules it gives you and ranks you on how close to the story you kept your character. The highest rank would be "and so it was written," and the lowest rank would be "surely that's not what really happened?" It would really entice players to try what might be crazy paths or situations outside their comfort zone.
@@renaigh yeah but relegating it to an optional challenge rather than a baked in requirement would allow returning players to be given a guideline if they didn't want to come up with a complicated challenge on their own. Plus locking it behind New Game+ would mean that no one would be able to experience the game that way first time, and therefore wouldn't feel like it's a hard requirement to enjoy the game as it's intended to be (like some diehards insist survival mode in the newer Fallout's is) Edit: Not to mention, the game would still allow you to deviate from the path it chose, it's just your ranking would lower, so if you really didn't like part of what it told you to do, you could just not do it at the expense of the game giving you a slightly less bigger thumbs up. If you keep the incentive of that mode low, but the option to play it challenging to unlock, you're likely ensuring that most of who will want to play that mode are people who already enjoy the game for what it is anyways. (and as such probably either won't mind the smaller thumbs up, or if they do, would rather abide by the rules they chose to accept and find experiencing that more enjoyable anyways) Admittedly though, it does sound like a chunk of extra work for something that might not be worth the effort, I'm not trying to big this up as a perfect idea, but I did want to say I very much agree with the original commenter about it being a good idea and explain why.
I would love for new game + to include start up and world tendency options like how strategy games let you customize your run. Any game with custom difficulty or tendency sliders to play with is something that's always fun for me.
I find myself checking the subscriber count every now and again and it's great to see it going up all the time. The videos are always informative and entertaining and it's so nice to see more people watching.
I know the pain of the bug testing thingie, the following statement is beyond off topic but i feel like sharing it (for the first time) on the internet: In 2004 I worked as tech-support for a friend's Cybercafe, since the place was for gaming only and i had a lot of spare time I ended up making my own game on RPG Maker XP, just for fun. It was an "Alone in the Dark-ish" kind of junk with heavy emphasis on story and dialogs. It took me six months to produce it and when I showed the final product to my friend he was deligted since he loved Survival too. The amount of bugs found just in the early steps were insane, in many instances an enemy could hit you, take zero damage and still kill you in one shot. So i spend about a month looking for the fuckups I made when I decided to manualy change the engine's hit/damage values while still receiving input from him. At one point he sugested that we should put this as "open beta" and install it on every machine in the Cybercafe. The following weeks I received many written reports from costumers about game breaking bugs, but all was done in the right way, they described where, how and why it happened, so I could backtrack those issues with some kind of ease. Around one month later an "official patch" was released (after many nighty builds) and most of the problems got fixed. Another month passed and the game was actualy ready for public consumption, but since I was doing this all alone in my spare time, I was already burned by the experience so my estimates of a sequel got wiped out as soon as I got the "hey it works now!" from the "play testers." Long story short, my friend called every costumer who participated in the tests and gave them a month of free-play in the Cyber, wich not only made me very happy for them, but alsot they did deserve it after putting up with the junk I made. I don't remember when but one day owners of other Cybers in town went into our business asking for copies of the game and after some talks with my friend i agreed on selling "licenses" to them. Suffice to say that I made a LOT of cash, enough to buy a new PC for myself and prepare an Expansion Pack for the game itself. However during the last stages of development of that expansion a virus went rogue in the Cyber and butchered every machine connected to the network, every piece of work done was lost that night and in the following days I decided to cancel any further development since I had to start from scratch. Sadly, the only surviving physical copy of the game was lost after the CD developed some strange fongus that made it unreadable and since no "cloud" backups existed and the fact that I was horrible backing up stuff, the game itself turned into "lost media" 4-ish years after its release. Still the experience of making it, been over worked and even over stressed was in retrospective: amazing, specialy the folks who wihout a doubt decided to help me test the issues of the game out of the goodness of their hearts, those people choosed helping me instead of playing Call of Duty (the fisrt one when it was NEW) or Opposing Force, that is something that still amazes me and I will never forget how they put themselves in the line when a complete stranger needed a hand. Sorry for the wall of text and this boring story but at least for once I thought I should share it since this video brought back some lost memories.
You know, I've been so conditioned to the idea you can't kill everyone I never even realized that was a thing you could do in Outer Worlds. Now I have to try this. This reminds me of when I did something similar in Invisible War as Harvey Smith made a big deal that you could murder every character in the game. It led to one of the most surreal things I've ever seen in a video game, where I killed an NPCs daughter in front of him and then threw her dead body at him. The NPCs response? "You are being very rude". Stuck with me ever since.
@@CainOnGames Still not as great as Arcanum though, where not only can you be naked but Arcanum is still - I believe - one of the ONLY games that ever reacts to it. The Mayor of that town when you charge into his office and he screams at you to "Stop shaking your syphilitic piece at me" has been a refrain of mine for *many* years. The amount of joy games you've made have given me in my life is incalculable.
The Outer Worlds was the cleanest game on launch I've played in years. It made it so easy to enjoy it right out of the box. Very professional, and much appreciated!
@@lepersonnage371 The game doesn't have the best reputation because people love to compare it to other fantastic games and it always loses against those. It sucks, but that's how it works. Only thing that can change that is to keep working on the IP until it gets really good.
Tim! Y’all should release the random character build/story path generator! I think I would have so much fun like that! I just discovered your channel a few days ago and ive been watching them constantly. I had to drive about 10 hours round trip this weekend and since i have youtube premium, i could just listen to your videos with my phone screen off. I just made a continuous playlist before i started driving. The drives went by so fast and i had a great time. I had my nephew with me who is 14 and just getting into RPGs and i think your videos may have made him find his new favorite genre and developers! Love ya tim! Thanks for being a great guy and making great games!
Outer Worlds was remarkably stable and ran great on release! Always very impressive for an RPG with branching decision paths to ship with relatively few bugs like broken quest flags, etc.
Thank you for the video. I would love to hear your thoughts on how to balance different play styles. Especially, how you balance generalist vs specialist characters. Thanks again!
I started playing Outer Worlds recently for the first time and i love it so much. The way it's written, how reactive the companions are, how many types of ways you can play, the world building, and so on. I get that feeling rarely in games when it just gets under my skin and i can't let go of playing. Thank you for that game
I remember seeing Leonard say, quite a few times, that y’all had to “make one too many cuts.” I’m aware quite a bit had to be scared back from the design, like the mining company planet and the Captain companion, but was there anything you wish they didn’t have to cut?
I got inside a building in OW that had nothing inside it, untextured. Then I had to reload because I couldn't get out. The door lead inside but there was no door leading outside.
In my experience you all did a bang-up job because I’ve rarely played such a solid and well made game. I can not remember a single bug initially on Xbox One X or later on Series X. I felt it was surely an expert job of work. My impression was that I was playing a game made by Masters Of The Art. Just my humble opinion. Your experience shows.
I'll do you one better as a day one player of the Outer Worlds: I played for 5 hours on the very first day of launch the moment it launched and I didn't have any crashes I also did not encounter any bugs whatsoever. Your QA process and team succeeded across the board. I did encounter a hard crash a week later.
This is the stuff that goes into making choice and consequence games. I figured some process analogous to this must be behind so many of the games that I love. I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with Obsidian's processes. They've managed to ship two games and two dlc during the pandemic, all pretty successfully. They seem to have transitioned to doing a lot of remote work without too many problems. I just hope some of this process knowledge is being shared because some of the other Microsoft studios are having some problems.
Tim, I'm really enjoying your videos. Thank you for making them and for fallout one and two. I played them in my early teens. They are (for the good) a huge part of my moral compass to this day. Thank you!
The idea aboutbl the QA testing program actually sounds really interesting from the viewpoint of a regular player honestly. I'm so reluctant to try out different playstyles and i feel like im missing out sometimes. So it would be cool to add as an extra mode, acting a bit like a roguelike experience.
As someone who has done professional QA, I love seeing your support for us folks and your desire for communication of things you think are important to test.
I'm playing through The Outer Worlds once again and loving it. So many weird and cool things to uncover that I completely missed the first time through. Very interested in the sequel!
I beat the full game and DLC on supernova last weekend. Highly recommend a second playthrough! It feels like binging a good TV show playing through it again. I did use mods to allow quick save and FT but did so rarely. I got to almost level 50 by the end. I went generalist and ended up Sneaky Talky Sniper.
Glad to find this on CZcams, instantly subscribed! Absolutely in love with The Outer Worlds franchise, and can't wait to see where it goes in the future. ☺️
Thanks Tim! My new daily routine is watching your videos! Just a fan of games and enjoy all the insights you are sharing. Very fond memories of playing Vampire as a teenager. Glad to see you enjoying semi retirement. You earned it!
When it comes to logos of companies in Outer Worlds, I loved your ideas, but it also reminded me of certain Czech brand of meat products and I highly recommend looking up the logo for Kostelecke Uzeniny. It always makes me giggle and it is real, sold in stores even today.
Hey Tim I haven't commented before but always been a big fan of yours with the fallout series and just love the way your brain works. It's been a treat with these videos to pick your brain and get to know the ins and outs of the games you've made. Also I was just curious, you said previously you weren't at obsidian anymore I believe, do you have any involvement with the outer worlds 2? Like bringing insights and such at least or do you have your sights on other projects? If you read this thank you you're a great guy!
Hey Tim, thank you for releasing all of your experiences in videos! It has been super interesting hearing all of what you have done. I especially love you talking with your other compatriots! If you wouldn’t mind, would you go into detail on what it is like getting into QA and how to get into it? I would appreciate it greatly!
I'm about to finish my second playthrough and I have to say, the DLCs in this game are among some of the most engaging and fun to play since Fallout New Vegas and the companions, especially the Vicar and Nyoka, I've fallen in love with.. The Outer Worlds has some truly wonderful stories and amazing moments in it and I've grown to really adore it. I hoping Obsidian knocks it out of the park with the sequel.
As an (relatively?) old man, I really appreciate story mode. I play games to relax, I am competitive enough that if I get stuck I get super frustrated and it ruins any potential relaxation. Also THANK YOU for all the amazing games you have been a part of, Fallout remains my favorite game world, 1 and 2 being my all time favorite games.
QA Tester here, It's great to hear you talk about QA in a good light. As we are unfortunately, more often than not, very underappreciated by Dev/Production etc so it's really nice to see you appreciate the internal QA's you've worked with. I'm sure they appreciate it too :) Outer Worlds and the DLCs were also fantastic, very much looking forward the sequel :)
i heard about you so much throughout the years as im a massive fan of the fallout series, i never thought you'd be this outgoing and entertaining to listen to.
Internal playtesting is such a huge factor in why valve has some of the best, tightest, slam dunk games outthere. I heard portal was going through daily playtests even when they only had half of the first cell done lmfao. So i belive internal playtesting def oughta be standard. I also heard a lot of cyberpunk2077's issue came from outsourced playtesing so it seems to be the case.
I played Outer Worlds once when it came out and then my PS4 went the way of the dodo recently after 8 years of service. Itching to buy it again one day. What I remember was just how smooth & stable the whole experience was.
I just finished watching Vampire Bloodlines mp video and you said in the beginning about answering comments. A suggestion is you could make a video on a handful of those questions here and there to make it possibly easier for you. Anyways great video and I'm super excited for The Outer Worlds 2
Ya I was actually surprised when outer worlds released it was so bug free. The only critique I had for Outer Worlds is that I wish it was bigger I finished it too soon :)
Comment a bit late but As somebody who's main profession is QA I appreciate the shoutout to internal QA Getting a lot of useless bugs or duplicate bugs from external QA is quite common but can be avoided if the QA coordinator is really good and have time and space to do the job (usually QA is under budgeted and overworked and QA lead/coordinator has barely time to do internal work, at least in my experience) And I really appreciate your recommendation and your attitude to actually play the game you are working on or you are responsible for as often I have seen people in top position of development studios who did not or straight forward refused to play the game they are responsible for. And playing it differently because confirmation bias is something I've seen quite a lot too. And in general let me thank you for your videos as they are great source of stories from the inside of game dev and knowledge
I worked at old THQ studio, we had internal QA - it was my first job before moving into art dev. We were more involved in the 'A' bugs, and helped organize the outside QA reports that came in. Out console publisher builds passed first time...Devs need more of this, not more QA outsourcing.
I love TOW. Currently on my 7th playthrough with SCE. However, trying to get through on SCE is an absolute *pain* right now. EDIT: It's gotten a lot better. Still wish PD and Virtuos took more time before release :(
Hey Tim, great video and enjoying the series you've created! Very interesting to have a "peak behind the curtain" so to speak of some of the greatest RPGs ever made and get your insights and lessons. Sorry if you have been asked this question but what's your take on devs playing other games while developing their own? Does it spark new ideas or potentially create problems? Thanks!
Loved The Outer Worlds, just like New Vegas. I found I mistakenly (if it is a mistake) landed on the Monarch at Cascadia Landing Pad. First time being to that world. I go up through Sulfur Pits, etc... Finally ended up at Stellar Bay. The creatures were so high level it felt. Once I made it to Stellar Bay. The rest of the creatures in the game felt soo easy going to Fallbrook, etc... lol! Again, loved the game.
I almost always play as one character: "All The Above". You give yourself as many points as you need, so you can tackle every mission in every way you fancy. I like the option to experience anything during a single playthrough.
I think sadly, at the end of the day, the thing I didn't like about OW was the writing. The game play was fine, though I never really found a playstyle. I was 100% enjoying, but I never hated anything either. But the writing I could never really come around on.
The Outer Worlds left me wanting more, I liked the Companions but their individual stories felt a little lacking. The endings were underwhelming. My favourite area was Monarch and Sanjar was a delight, I don't normally do Kill All playthroughs but the rebels were so obnoxious I had to make an exception.
Thanks for another great video, Tim! Funny, but it seems I too play as a sneaky sniper in most of the games! And I think it is because of high risk->high reward ratio :)
I was very impressed that in my whole playthrough I only encountered one bug which had to do with the game crashing as you enter a doorway in the prison on the last level and the solution online was to start shooting before you enter
I wish these builds were Built-in and had their own little grid of icons you could choose from to play the game and after it's over It has a checkmark so you basically have built in sixteen default modes into the game. And each character has their own roster of save files So you can easily have multiple play throughs going at the same time if you want.
It's like one of those profound Sesame Street stories you kind of laugh at but actually shape the world, industry, geopolitics... "Our word of the day today kids is, _Communication!_ "
I love your work, the games you made brought so much joy and excitement for me playing it in past 20 years or so. The Outer Worlds is not bad game in any shape or form but it is extremely mediocre. Please when you make new games with Obsidian ( sequel to this or Avowed or anything that you guys are working on) go bold, go bold like its 90's thats what made old Fallout still relevant today and it's been 2-3 years since The Outer Worlds and people already forgot about it. I wish you the good health and hope you will make many great games in future!
Tim, any chance you could share your insights into state management in non-linear games? Especially, given that branching dialogues are often done by scripters or even writers these days who are not the most experienced software developers. A Myriad of bool flags quickly leads to exponential combinatorial explosion, so I’d be really interested what you learned over the years about this aspect of great RPGs. I was considering complex state machines, relational databases, formal logical rules in Prolog style etc to describe the world and simplify automatic state transitions but still don’t think I can nail a practical solution. Thanks!
The Nosferatu story reminds me when I was woring as QA for a game where I hated the dagger weapon. I initially didn't want to test it and the lead game desiger and I came to the agreement I could test it as long as I could tak shit about it in the addendum of the bug report. It was weirdly cathartic.
Hey! Kinda 4 months late so not sure youll see this, but i want to say im currently on my 3rd playthrough, doing a evil playthrough where i do everything for money, focusing more on handguns and im really enjoying it alot! Planning on playing it at least 2 mores time (5 in total) 4th in supernova sniper stealth build. And the 5th as a supernova Mad scientist which in going to max out in science weapons 😅 Great work def one of my fav games of all time cant for for part 2!!
Science weapons are what Starfield is missing. Outer Worlds was fun and after enjoying my time in SF I plan to go back to do another run and check out the DLC.
Hello Tim! I wanted to ask you how do you come up with Ideas?How do you make such realistic and interesting stories.If I want to make a game, what questions do I ask myself in order to make something entertaining story wise?
I implore you to play through OW2 with a hunter s thompson build. Always choose the sarcastic or sassy dialogue option, sneak everywhere (even when unnecessary), wear the least appropriate clothes in the game and, of course, take every drug you find, always, no exceptions. Also high luck.
Bugs are often like a fly in the soup, you don't really notice when it's absent, but boy do you notice that crunch when it's present. It's only with contrast between games, especially from different developers, at different points in those developers lives and careers, that you really notice a stable, bug free game. Also, thank you, I really appreciate these videos, I specifically like your Chats videos, but these are enjoyable, and fun.
I personally don't play a character, when playing RPG games, I play myself, or a representation of myself in that world, more similar to a self insert, like in fanfiction circles, though never forget, that some literary classics like Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, which were essentially a biblical fanfiction self insert series. So, I don't really change my play style, maybe I improve it, find better ways to do the same thing in a new run, or change up the weapons or armours I use, but the political or social interactions in the game very rarely change from run to run.
I do like the passion and vigour you talk about the things you create. But it is a shame that I really can't feel the same about actually playing the Outer Worlds. I hope you keep making video games though, and videos about making games.
If you ever get to make another RPG, I'd love if it was in third person . I'm physically unable to play first person games for a long period of time without getting sick so I frustratingly couldn't play Outer Worlds even though it looked amazing.
It's really cool to see all the attention that went into this game. I wish that I liked it more than I did. Here's hoping that Outer Worlds 2 is more enjoyable for me!
It was a brilliant game, still replay it from time to time. My only criticism is that i tend to max out really really quick. Best weapons, best everything. And after that it sort of becomes too easy.
I'll admit I played the Outer Worlds straight through till finished. I have yet to revisit it and I did pick up the DLC afterwards so my next engagement is even better. Now I think I'll leave my comfort zone and choose the opposite of my initial responses when tasked with options. Just to see what happens . . . .
In Outer Worlds (had 3 playthroughs so far, planning to do solo kill everything lawful, so they get quests and later kill questgiver) I always play on Supernova, blame the fact I get more flaws and that means more perks. I do hope TOW2 gets a lot of ways to play the game and endings! Speaking of TOW, do you have some thing/s in game that now (years after it came out) you wish the thing would be done differently?
I haven't made any game that has features I don't want to change later. In The Outer Worlds, I would have made different and more impactful perks, done flaws differently (with perks made just for particular flaws), and worked more on varied weapon progression.
I'm only putting this here, because I can't find a more subdued way of contacting people, and you've mentioned you get youtube comments. A big matter in Outer Worlds 1 that I think you should tinker with for Outer Worlds 2 is dialogue options locking other dialogue options out. There are moments where seemingly complementary dialogue "How are you," "how about this particular matter." lock eachother out. This is I feel, a major hinderance for roleplaying. When I for example can't at the same time try to be nice to ADA but also akcnowledge a contradiction in the pc's relationship with her. Of course opposite dialogue "drink up kiddo" / "don't do drugs kid" should be mutually exclusive. But sometimes in the outer worlds mutually complimentary dialogue, like emotionally consoling people but also asking about major things escluded eachoter out. In fallout new vegas you could straight up go back and retake a cool / neutral / mean dialogue options, and I can understand why a creator wouldn't want that. But it would be really cool, if in the moment you could say several things to a character that aren't mutually contradictory, like in Disco Elysium, this would broaden the horison of Outer worlds as a roleplaying in the game.
Yeah I used to joke about The Outer Worlds that I'm almost surprised that Obsidian made it, since it was so stable, and had so few bugs, and it was actually finished! Perhaps not fair, but it's just a joke, if I were to be fair it might not work as a joke.
I was not going to buy outer worlds just because I'm busy, but I'm buying it now that I've listened to like 30 videos talking about fallout 1 in the last week. I need to do some roleplaying.
I noticed that the game didn't seem to take itself very seriously, and at times, I found myself a bit perplexed by the direction it took. While I don't consider it a bad game, it may not align with my personal preferences.
Would you recommend someone to play Outer Worlds normal edition or Spacer's Choice edition? I know Obsidian and you had nothing to do with the latter, so I gotta wonder which one is closer to your vision.
I've played through the outer worlds 3 times and plan to revisit it every couple of years or so. Having the randomizer to determine how you play would actually be a really fun way to do it.
I can't even imagine how hard it must be to playtest a game like The Outer Worlds. I'm not a coder but I've been gaming since I was about 5 years old so I got some idea. I don't know why but I kinda bounced off the Outer Worlds, I bought in on sale on an impulse if anything just because I wanted to support "those kind of games". I got about 8 or 9 hours in and for some reason it just wasn't "grabbing" me so I dropped it, (I'm 36 now, so I often put down games that aren't quite pushing all my buttons). I really can't put my finger on why........ I'd still probably pick up a sequal and give it a whirl.
Tim, first half of 2023 had many games release with many bugs and very poor technical state. At the same time these were AAA (AA) games with budgets and big publishers behind them. Why do you think it has happened? Did the the politics about QA has changed? Is it because of some budget politics changes?
Saw it was obsidian-made but after going through with about half of the game I estimate, a numbness sets in. Like after two years I can't remember hardly anything about that game. Total memory loop in that regard. There's something off about the game, might be through selected filters but also settings like spaceships and planets, didn't have that epic cinematic quality which Mass Effect 2 was known for in 2010 and later. Mass Effect 2 got almost everything right from amount of shade to atmospheric effects. The writing was also on par with a good movie. Your company made a game of that quality and scope with Alpha Protocol. It was criticized for being a little rough in some aspects but I and others who liked it think it's one of the best comparitively and as an action-rpg spy-thriller. Also kotor 2, memorable, also inspires to think deeper in life about the universe and humanity, my experience as well.
I mean, it has much more in common feelwise with New Vegas than Mass Effect, nor does it take itself all that seriously, so none of that surprises me. The stakes are small - the fate of a dysfunctional colony - and not the galaxy, or even humanity, after all.
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Thanks for the kind words, Tim :)
My favorite modifier the playthrough generator would spit out was "Roll a d6 whenever you start a new quest; on a 1, kill the quest giver immediately." Nothing better than hearing the die roll on a tester's desk and waiting to hear a sigh of relief or a string of curses...
That playthrough generator was genius, Taylor!
Is there any possible way to put that generator online somewhere? I'd probably even use it even for other games, it sounds like a fun way you guys had to QA test and like a good way out of my normal comfort zone with RPGs.
@@paxmorgana I don't have a good way to share the applet anywhere, but here's an "analog" version that should be easy to recreate, even with just rolling dice or something.
------
Pick 2 Skills from the following to tag:
- Ranged
- Melee
- Leadership
- Stealth
- Defense
- Tech
- Dialog
Pick 1 Attribute from the following to set to either Very High or Below Average:
- Strength
- Dexterity
- Intelligence
- Perception
- Charm
- Temperament
Pick Difficulty:
- Story
- Medium
- Hard
- SuperNova
Pick 1 main story path option:
- Side with Phineas
- Side with the Board
- Pursue the Scientist and Board paths, ultimately siding with the Board
- Pursue the Scientist and Board paths, ultimately siding with Phineas
Pick 1 "Quest Flavor" option:
- Complete as many side quests as you can
- Complete as many faction quests as you can
- Complete as many companion quests as you can
- Try to botch every quest you get
Pick 1 Emerald Vale option:
- Send power to the Deserters
- Send power to Edgewater
- Send power to Edgewater and have Adelaide replace Reed
- Send power to Edgewater and have the Deserters return to Edgewater without Adelaide
- Wipe out everyone in Edgewater
- Wipe out the Deserters
- Wipe out everyone in Emerald Vale (including Reed and Adelaide)
Pick 1 Groundbreaker option:
- Kill Junlei
- Fix the radiators for Junlei
- Do not fix the radiators for Junlei
Pick 1 option for getting to Monarch:
- Get the navkey to Stellar Bay
- Skip the navkey for Stellar Bay and go straight to Cascadia
Pick 1 Monarch option:
- Put MSI in charge of Monarch
- Put the Iconoclasts in charge of Monarch
- Have MSI and the Iconoclasts work together
- Kill the MSI and Iconoclast leaders
- Do not resolve the MSI/Iconoclast conflict
Pick 1 SubLight option:
- Complete the SubLight faction questline
- Get to the end of the SubLight questline but refuse to kill Dr. Chartrand
- Do not complete the SubLight questline
- Kill Lilya Hagen
Pick as many Modifiers as you want:
- Try to buy and sell something to every vendor in the game
- Install every mod you find
- Roll a d6 whenever you start a new quest; on a 1, kill the quest giver immediately
- Try to end the game with as many bits as possible
- Take every drug you find as soon as you get it
- Whenever loading a map, get rid of one of your equipped weapons
- Explore every nook and cranny of [Emerald Vale/Groundbreaker/Byzantium/Scylla/Monarch/Tartarus/Roseway]
- Only use [Joch/T&L/Spacer's Choice/Hammersmith] ranged weapons and/or [T&L/Spacer's Choice/Aramid Ballistics] melee weapons
@@paxmorgana Same
@@paxmorgana omg, yes!! I have character creation paralysis, and this would be amazing.
It's such a delight to see your video pop up each day, Tim!
Thanks. I like making them too. Each morning I sit down and think "what should I talk about today". Sometimes I decide on a topic and then go run and change my shirt to match it.
@@CainOnGames Your videos are always a delight to watch Tim. Each day I'm excited to see a new video be it on game creation, the hidden lore of the games you've done, or just what could have come about. Your channel is already a top 10 of mine now. Great job, keep at it!
@@CainOnGames Hahahaha. Nice touch on the shirt that matches the topic. Your attention to detail also reflects on your work. Keep it up, Tim.
That QA app sounds like it would be a good New Game+ idea for open-ended games. Once you beat the game, a "build me a story" option becomes unlocked, and selecting it, it spits out a randomized roleplay character and even story path to play as. If selected, the game keeps tabs on how close to what rules it gives you and ranks you on how close to the story you kept your character. The highest rank would be "and so it was written," and the lowest rank would be "surely that's not what really happened?"
It would really entice players to try what might be crazy paths or situations outside their comfort zone.
that just sounds like a set character that everyone hates about Fallout 4.
@@renaigh yeah but relegating it to an optional challenge rather than a baked in requirement would allow returning players to be given a guideline if they didn't want to come up with a complicated challenge on their own.
Plus locking it behind New Game+ would mean that no one would be able to experience the game that way first time, and therefore wouldn't feel like it's a hard requirement to enjoy the game as it's intended to be (like some diehards insist survival mode in the newer Fallout's is)
Edit: Not to mention, the game would still allow you to deviate from the path it chose, it's just your ranking would lower, so if you really didn't like part of what it told you to do, you could just not do it at the expense of the game giving you a slightly less bigger thumbs up. If you keep the incentive of that mode low, but the option to play it challenging to unlock, you're likely ensuring that most of who will want to play that mode are people who already enjoy the game for what it is anyways. (and as such probably either won't mind the smaller thumbs up, or if they do, would rather abide by the rules they chose to accept and find experiencing that more enjoyable anyways)
Admittedly though, it does sound like a chunk of extra work for something that might not be worth the effort, I'm not trying to big this up as a perfect idea, but I did want to say I very much agree with the original commenter about it being a good idea and explain why.
I would love for new game + to include start up and world tendency options like how strategy games let you customize your run. Any game with custom difficulty or tendency sliders to play with is something that's always fun for me.
that VTMB Nosferatu thing is absolutely ridiculous holy hell
It's heartwarming to see that the number of subscribers grows on a daily basis. Way to go!
I find myself checking the subscriber count every now and again and it's great to see it going up all the time. The videos are always informative and entertaining and it's so nice to see more people watching.
I know the pain of the bug testing thingie, the following statement is beyond off topic but i feel like sharing it (for the first time) on the internet:
In 2004 I worked as tech-support for a friend's Cybercafe, since the place was for gaming only and i had a lot of spare time I ended up making my own game on RPG Maker XP, just for fun. It was an "Alone in the Dark-ish" kind of junk with heavy emphasis on story and dialogs. It took me six months to produce it and when I showed the final product to my friend he was deligted since he loved Survival too.
The amount of bugs found just in the early steps were insane, in many instances an enemy could hit you, take zero damage and still kill you in one shot. So i spend about a month looking for the fuckups I made when I decided to manualy change the engine's hit/damage values while still receiving input from him. At one point he sugested that we should put this as "open beta" and install it on every machine in the Cybercafe.
The following weeks I received many written reports from costumers about game breaking bugs, but all was done in the right way, they described where, how and why it happened, so I could backtrack those issues with some kind of ease. Around one month later an "official patch" was released (after many nighty builds) and most of the problems got fixed. Another month passed and the game was actualy ready for public consumption, but since I was doing this all alone in my spare time, I was already burned by the experience so my estimates of a sequel got wiped out as soon as I got the "hey it works now!" from the "play testers."
Long story short, my friend called every costumer who participated in the tests and gave them a month of free-play in the Cyber, wich not only made me very happy for them, but alsot they did deserve it after putting up with the junk I made.
I don't remember when but one day owners of other Cybers in town went into our business asking for copies of the game and after some talks with my friend i agreed on selling "licenses" to them. Suffice to say that I made a LOT of cash, enough to buy a new PC for myself and prepare an Expansion Pack for the game itself.
However during the last stages of development of that expansion a virus went rogue in the Cyber and butchered every machine connected to the network, every piece of work done was lost that night and in the following days I decided to cancel any further development since I had to start from scratch.
Sadly, the only surviving physical copy of the game was lost after the CD developed some strange fongus that made it unreadable and since no "cloud" backups existed and the fact that I was horrible backing up stuff, the game itself turned into "lost media" 4-ish years after its release. Still the experience of making it, been over worked and even over stressed was in retrospective: amazing, specialy the folks who wihout a doubt decided to help me test the issues of the game out of the goodness of their hearts, those people choosed helping me instead of playing Call of Duty (the fisrt one when it was NEW) or Opposing Force, that is something that still amazes me and I will never forget how they put themselves in the line when a complete stranger needed a hand.
Sorry for the wall of text and this boring story but at least for once I thought I should share it since this video brought back some lost memories.
Thanks for sharing
You know, I've been so conditioned to the idea you can't kill everyone I never even realized that was a thing you could do in Outer Worlds.
Now I have to try this. This reminds me of when I did something similar in Invisible War as Harvey Smith made a big deal that you could murder every character in the game. It led to one of the most surreal things I've ever seen in a video game, where I killed an NPCs daughter in front of him and then threw her dead body at him. The NPCs response? "You are being very rude".
Stuck with me ever since.
Well, to be totally honest, that was kinda rude
@@CainOnGames Still not as great as Arcanum though, where not only can you be naked but Arcanum is still - I believe - one of the ONLY games that ever reacts to it.
The Mayor of that town when you charge into his office and he screams at you to "Stop shaking your syphilitic piece at me" has been a refrain of mine for *many* years.
The amount of joy games you've made have given me in my life is incalculable.
@@TurtlesismI played and replayed arcanum so much when it came out and I never found out the game reacts to nakedness😂
@@Turtlesism I think Skyrim NPCs will react to it as well.
The Outer Worlds was the cleanest game on launch I've played in years. It made it so easy to enjoy it right out of the box. Very professional, and much appreciated!
Unfortunately the (ironically titled) Spacer's Choice edition was terribly optimized on launch.
Probably easier to make a clean game when it’s so hollow
oof@@niklashegg
@@niklashegg hollow? its a lot better rpg than any bethesda game, especially after morrowind
@@lepersonnage371 The game doesn't have the best reputation because people love to compare it to other fantastic games and it always loses against those.
It sucks, but that's how it works. Only thing that can change that is to keep working on the IP until it gets really good.
Tim! Y’all should release the random character build/story path generator! I think I would have so much fun like that!
I just discovered your channel a few days ago and ive been watching them constantly. I had to drive about 10 hours round trip this weekend and since i have youtube premium, i could just listen to your videos with my phone screen off. I just made a continuous playlist before i started driving. The drives went by so fast and i had a great time. I had my nephew with me who is 14 and just getting into RPGs and i think your videos may have made him find his new favorite genre and developers!
Love ya tim! Thanks for being a great guy and making great games!
Can't wait to play The Outer Worlds 2, hopefully you are involved in the development tim! ❤
He's contract-working on it according to him.
Outer Worlds was remarkably stable and ran great on release! Always very impressive for an RPG with branching decision paths to ship with relatively few bugs like broken quest flags, etc.
The thumbnail is Tim threatening a hostage in the new Mission Impossible film.
Whenever I upload a video, CZcams offers me three thumbnails to use. I try to pick a funny one, if there is one.
Thank you for the video. I would love to hear your thoughts on how to balance different play styles. Especially, how you balance generalist vs specialist characters.
Thanks again!
I will add that to the list!
Playing the expansions for Outer Worlds for the first time. Fantastic game and Peril on Gorgon is superb so far - very atmospheric.
I hope you’re playing a dumb character, because trying to solve Murder On Eridanos that way is chefs kiss!
@@CainOnGames I'll definitely have to try that, then! 😅
I started playing Outer Worlds recently for the first time and i love it so much. The way it's written, how reactive the companions are, how many types of ways you can play, the world building, and so on. I get that feeling rarely in games when it just gets under my skin and i can't let go of playing. Thank you for that game
I remember seeing Leonard say, quite a few times, that y’all had to “make one too many cuts.” I’m aware quite a bit had to be scared back from the design, like the mining company planet and the Captain companion, but was there anything you wish they didn’t have to cut?
I also remember seeing Terra 2’s open world stuff somewhere.
I got inside a building in OW that had nothing inside it, untextured. Then I had to reload because I couldn't get out. The door lead inside but there was no door leading outside.
In my experience you all did a bang-up job because I’ve rarely played such a solid and well made game. I can not remember a single bug initially on Xbox One X or later on Series X.
I felt it was surely an expert job of work.
My impression was that I was playing a game made by Masters Of The Art. Just my humble opinion.
Your experience shows.
These videos are addicting. Looking forward to the next one every day!
I'll do you one better as a day one player of the Outer Worlds: I played for 5 hours on the very first day of launch the moment it launched and I didn't have any crashes I also did not encounter any bugs whatsoever.
Your QA process and team succeeded across the board. I did encounter a hard crash a week later.
This is the stuff that goes into making choice and consequence games. I figured some process analogous to this must be behind so many of the games that I love.
I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with Obsidian's processes. They've managed to ship two games and two dlc during the pandemic, all pretty successfully. They seem to have transitioned to doing a lot of remote work without too many problems.
I just hope some of this process knowledge is being shared because some of the other Microsoft studios are having some problems.
Tim, I'm really enjoying your videos. Thank you for making them and for fallout one and two. I played them in my early teens. They are (for the good) a huge part of my moral compass to this day. Thank you!
The idea aboutbl the QA testing program actually sounds really interesting from the viewpoint of a regular player honestly. I'm so reluctant to try out different playstyles and i feel like im missing out sometimes. So it would be cool to add as an extra mode, acting a bit like a roguelike experience.
This is such a fun anecdote. Love waking up to a new video from you Tim, it's become a ritual to watch with my morning coffee.
As someone who has done professional QA, I love seeing your support for us folks and your desire for communication of things you think are important to test.
I'm playing through The Outer Worlds once again and loving it. So many weird and cool things to uncover that I completely missed the first time through. Very interested in the sequel!
I beat the full game and DLC on supernova last weekend. Highly recommend a second playthrough! It feels like binging a good TV show playing through it again. I did use mods to allow quick save and FT but did so rarely. I got to almost level 50 by the end. I went generalist and ended up Sneaky Talky Sniper.
Glad to find this on CZcams, instantly subscribed! Absolutely in love with The Outer Worlds franchise, and can't wait to see where it goes in the future. ☺️
Thanks Tim! My new daily routine is watching your videos! Just a fan of games and enjoy all the insights you are sharing. Very fond memories of playing Vampire as a teenager.
Glad to see you enjoying semi retirement. You earned it!
Another great video, thank you for providing your insights in such an easy to digest format!
I love your videos so much!
I have Outerworlds, but haven't played yet...def more motivated to get it higher up on my to play list
When it comes to logos of companies in Outer Worlds, I loved your ideas, but it also reminded me of certain Czech brand of meat products and I highly recommend looking up the logo for Kostelecke Uzeniny. It always makes me giggle and it is real, sold in stores even today.
Hey Tim I haven't commented before but always been a big fan of yours with the fallout series and just love the way your brain works. It's been a treat with these videos to pick your brain and get to know the ins and outs of the games you've made. Also I was just curious, you said previously you weren't at obsidian anymore I believe, do you have any involvement with the outer worlds 2? Like bringing insights and such at least or do you have your sights on other projects? If you read this thank you you're a great guy!
Hey Tim, thank you for releasing all of your experiences in videos! It has been super interesting hearing all of what you have done. I especially love you talking with your other compatriots! If you wouldn’t mind, would you go into detail on what it is like getting into QA and how to get into it? I would appreciate it greatly!
I'm about to finish my second playthrough and I have to say, the DLCs in this game are among some of the most engaging and fun to play since Fallout New Vegas and the companions, especially the Vicar and Nyoka, I've fallen in love with.. The Outer Worlds has some truly wonderful stories and amazing moments in it and I've grown to really adore it. I hoping Obsidian knocks it out of the park with the sequel.
As an (relatively?) old man, I really appreciate story mode. I play games to relax, I am competitive enough that if I get stuck I get super frustrated and it ruins any potential relaxation. Also THANK YOU for all the amazing games you have been a part of, Fallout remains my favorite game world, 1 and 2 being my all time favorite games.
QA Tester here, It's great to hear you talk about QA in a good light. As we are unfortunately, more often than not, very underappreciated by Dev/Production etc so it's really nice to see you appreciate the internal QA's you've worked with. I'm sure they appreciate it too :) Outer Worlds and the DLCs were also fantastic, very much looking forward the sequel :)
i heard about you so much throughout the years as im a massive fan of the fallout series, i never thought you'd be this outgoing and entertaining to listen to.
Internal playtesting is such a huge factor in why valve has some of the best, tightest, slam dunk games outthere. I heard portal was going through daily playtests even when they only had half of the first cell done lmfao. So i belive internal playtesting def oughta be standard. I also heard a lot of cyberpunk2077's issue came from outsourced playtesing so it seems to be the case.
Such a great game! I appreciate the effort and dedication it takes to make such a fun, funny and entertaining game. Thanks!
I played Outer Worlds once when it came out and then my PS4 went the way of the dodo recently after 8 years of service. Itching to buy it again one day. What I remember was just how smooth & stable the whole experience was.
I just finished watching Vampire Bloodlines mp video and you said in the beginning about answering comments. A suggestion is you could make a video on a handful of those questions here and there to make it possibly easier for you. Anyways great video and I'm super excited for The Outer Worlds 2
Ya I was actually surprised when outer worlds released it was so bug free. The only critique I had for Outer Worlds is that I wish it was bigger I finished it too soon :)
I wish it was bigger too. We had to cut many areas, some completely, and some were just reduced in size (one by more than 70%).
@@CainOnGames Hope some of these are being worked into the sequel!
Comment a bit late but
As somebody who's main profession is QA I appreciate the shoutout to internal QA
Getting a lot of useless bugs or duplicate bugs from external QA is quite common but can be avoided if the QA coordinator is really good and have time and space to do the job (usually QA is under budgeted and overworked and QA lead/coordinator has barely time to do internal work, at least in my experience)
And I really appreciate your recommendation and your attitude to actually play the game you are working on or you are responsible for as often I have seen people in top position of development studios who did not or straight forward refused to play the game they are responsible for. And playing it differently because confirmation bias is something I've seen quite a lot too.
And in general let me thank you for your videos as they are great source of stories from the inside of game dev and knowledge
I worked at old THQ studio, we had internal QA - it was my first job before moving into art dev. We were more involved in the 'A' bugs, and helped organize the outside QA reports that came in. Out console publisher builds passed first time...Devs need more of this, not more QA outsourcing.
I love TOW. Currently on my 7th playthrough with SCE.
However, trying to get through on SCE is an absolute *pain* right now.
EDIT: It's gotten a lot better. Still wish PD and Virtuos took more time before release :(
Hey Tim, great video and enjoying the series you've created! Very interesting to have a "peak behind the curtain" so to speak of some of the greatest RPGs ever made and get your insights and lessons. Sorry if you have been asked this question but what's your take on devs playing other games while developing their own? Does it spark new ideas or potentially create problems? Thanks!
I think the final product shows everyone's love snd passion for this project.
you've worked on so many of my all time favorite games, wow
Loved The Outer Worlds, just like New Vegas. I found I mistakenly (if it is a mistake) landed on the Monarch at Cascadia Landing Pad. First time being to that world. I go up through Sulfur Pits, etc... Finally ended up at Stellar Bay. The creatures were so high level it felt. Once I made it to Stellar Bay. The rest of the creatures in the game felt soo easy going to Fallbrook, etc... lol! Again, loved the game.
I almost always play as one character: "All The Above". You give yourself as many points as you need, so you can tackle every mission in every way you fancy. I like the option to experience anything during a single playthrough.
I think sadly, at the end of the day, the thing I didn't like about OW was the writing. The game play was fine, though I never really found a playstyle. I was 100% enjoying, but I never hated anything either. But the writing I could never really come around on.
The Outer Worlds left me wanting more, I liked the Companions but their individual stories felt a little lacking. The endings were underwhelming. My favourite area was Monarch and Sanjar was a delight, I don't normally do Kill All playthroughs but the rebels were so obnoxious I had to make an exception.
Thanks for another great video, Tim! Funny, but it seems I too play as a sneaky sniper in most of the games! And I think it is because of high risk->high reward ratio :)
I was very impressed that in my whole playthrough I only encountered one bug which had to do with the game crashing as you enter a doorway in the prison on the last level and the solution online was to start shooting before you enter
I wish these builds were Built-in and had their own little grid of icons you could choose from to play the game and after it's over It has a checkmark so you basically have built in sixteen default modes into the game. And each character has their own roster of save files So you can easily have multiple play throughs going at the same time if you want.
Gotta say the art direction on this game was out of this world (pun intended)
Far out I didn't know you worked on Outer Worlds. That game was inspiring
It's like one of those profound Sesame Street stories you kind of laugh at but actually shape the world, industry, geopolitics... "Our word of the day today kids is, _Communication!_ "
Love these kinds of stories
OK! That's enough! I'm installing Outer Worlds again now. Thank you for inspiration :)
Just downloaded the ultimate edition. Looking forward to jumping back into this world!
I love your work, the games you made brought so much joy and excitement for me playing it in past 20 years or so. The Outer Worlds is not bad game in any shape or form but it is extremely mediocre. Please when you make new games with Obsidian ( sequel to this or Avowed or anything that you guys are working on) go bold, go bold like its 90's thats what made old Fallout still relevant today and it's been 2-3 years since The Outer Worlds and people already forgot about it. I wish you the good health and hope you will make many great games in future!
Tim, any chance you could share your insights into state management in non-linear games? Especially, given that branching dialogues are often done by scripters or even writers these days who are not the most experienced software developers. A Myriad of bool flags quickly leads to exponential combinatorial explosion, so I’d be really interested what you learned over the years about this aspect of great RPGs. I was considering complex state machines, relational databases, formal logical rules in Prolog style etc to describe the world and simplify automatic state transitions but still don’t think I can nail a practical solution. Thanks!
The Nosferatu story reminds me when I was woring as QA for a game where I hated the dagger weapon. I initially didn't want to test it and the lead game desiger and I came to the agreement I could test it as long as I could tak shit about it in the addendum of the bug report. It was weirdly cathartic.
Supernova, no companions, melee science. Was a blast
Stealthy sniper you say? Same here. And yup, convinced me to play one more time
Hey! Kinda 4 months late so not sure youll see this, but i want to say im currently on my 3rd playthrough, doing a evil playthrough where i do everything for money, focusing more on handguns and im really enjoying it alot!
Planning on playing it at least 2 mores time (5 in total)
4th in supernova sniper stealth build.
And the 5th as a supernova Mad scientist which in going to max out in science weapons 😅
Great work def one of my fav games of all time cant for for part 2!!
Super cool video!
Science weapons are what Starfield is missing.
Outer Worlds was fun and after enjoying my time in SF I plan to go back to do another run and check out the DLC.
Hello Tim! I wanted to ask you how do you come up with Ideas?How do you make such realistic and interesting stories.If I want to make a game, what questions do I ask myself in order to make something entertaining story wise?
I implore you to play through OW2 with a hunter s thompson build. Always choose the sarcastic or sassy dialogue option, sneak everywhere (even when unnecessary), wear the least appropriate clothes in the game and, of course, take every drug you find, always, no exceptions. Also high luck.
Bugs are often like a fly in the soup, you don't really notice when it's absent, but boy do you notice that crunch when it's present. It's only with contrast between games, especially from different developers, at different points in those developers lives and careers, that you really notice a stable, bug free game. Also, thank you, I really appreciate these videos, I specifically like your Chats videos, but these are enjoyable, and fun.
I personally don't play a character, when playing RPG games, I play myself, or a representation of myself in that world, more similar to a self insert, like in fanfiction circles, though never forget, that some literary classics like Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, which were essentially a biblical fanfiction self insert series. So, I don't really change my play style, maybe I improve it, find better ways to do the same thing in a new run, or change up the weapons or armours I use, but the political or social interactions in the game very rarely change from run to run.
I do like the passion and vigour you talk about the things you create. But it is a shame that I really can't feel the same about actually playing the Outer Worlds. I hope you keep making video games though, and videos about making games.
If you ever get to make another RPG, I'd love if it was in third person . I'm physically unable to play first person games for a long period of time without getting sick so I frustratingly couldn't play Outer Worlds even though it looked amazing.
It's really cool to see all the attention that went into this game. I wish that I liked it more than I did. Here's hoping that Outer Worlds 2 is more enjoyable for me!
Tim I love the talk about games, but when are you gonna make the ultimate chocolate tier list?
The PC Port does have lots of studder based on view distance/loading objects sometimes but other than that 0 problems
I just put Outer Worlds on my Wish List. Any game that had this kind of love and attention in development must be worth a try. Thanks.
Hey Tim you should do some videos playing your games, would be awesome!!!
It was a brilliant game, still replay it from time to time. My only criticism is that i tend to max out really really quick. Best weapons, best everything. And after that it sort of becomes too easy.
Yeah, I played outer world at launch and i don't think I encountered a single bug. Excellent QA!
Playing through the Outer Worlds with 1 Intelligence is basically playing as Fry from Futurama lol
i would love to see that program get released, itd be so fun for me since im so bad at making decisions i wouldnt normally make
I'll admit I played the Outer Worlds straight through till finished. I have yet to revisit it and I did pick up the DLC afterwards so my next engagement is even better. Now I think I'll leave my comfort zone and choose the opposite of my initial responses when tasked with options. Just to see what happens . . . .
In Outer Worlds (had 3 playthroughs so far, planning to do solo kill everything lawful, so they get quests and later kill questgiver) I always play on Supernova, blame the fact I get more flaws and that means more perks. I do hope TOW2 gets a lot of ways to play the game and endings!
Speaking of TOW, do you have some thing/s in game that now (years after it came out) you wish the thing would be done differently?
I haven't made any game that has features I don't want to change later. In The Outer Worlds, I would have made different and more impactful perks, done flaws differently (with perks made just for particular flaws), and worked more on varied weapon progression.
@@CainOnGames That kind of perks, would be great! I do hope TOW2 would deliver some of this :)
Lmao crazy the nosferatu part, I’ve only ever played the game once and got assigned nosferatu.
I thought outer worlds was a bit too dialog heavy for me. Maybe I will try as your producer and just go for mayhem.
I'm only putting this here, because I can't find a more subdued way of contacting people, and you've mentioned you get youtube comments. A big matter in Outer Worlds 1 that I think you should tinker with for Outer Worlds 2 is dialogue options locking other dialogue options out. There are moments where seemingly complementary dialogue "How are you," "how about this particular matter." lock eachother out. This is I feel, a major hinderance for roleplaying. When I for example can't at the same time try to be nice to ADA but also akcnowledge a contradiction in the pc's relationship with her. Of course opposite dialogue "drink up kiddo" / "don't do drugs kid" should be mutually exclusive. But sometimes in the outer worlds mutually complimentary dialogue, like emotionally consoling people but also asking about major things escluded eachoter out.
In fallout new vegas you could straight up go back and retake a cool / neutral / mean dialogue options, and I can understand why a creator wouldn't want that. But it would be really cool, if in the moment you could say several things to a character that aren't mutually contradictory, like in Disco Elysium, this would broaden the horison of Outer worlds as a roleplaying in the game.
Yeah I used to joke about The Outer Worlds that I'm almost surprised that Obsidian made it, since it was so stable, and had so few bugs, and it was actually finished!
Perhaps not fair, but it's just a joke, if I were to be fair it might not work as a joke.
I was not going to buy outer worlds just because I'm busy, but I'm buying it now that I've listened to like 30 videos talking about fallout 1 in the last week. I need to do some roleplaying.
I am playing it right now. Thaaaaaanx!!!!!!!!!
Who sees a game where you can play a Nosferatu and decides to not play a Nosferatu?
Question: what faction in all of fallout would you want to be in?
I noticed that the game didn't seem to take itself very seriously, and at times, I found myself a bit perplexed by the direction it took. While I don't consider it a bad game, it may not align with my personal preferences.
I just wish there was more flavourtext for gear, perks and skills. Fallout had a ton of those
Would you recommend someone to play Outer Worlds normal edition or Spacer's Choice edition? I know Obsidian and you had nothing to do with the latter, so I gotta wonder which one is closer to your vision.
Normal.
My brain tells me "play normal" but my heart cannot ignore moving mouth in Spacer's Choice Moon Man helmet.
I've played through the outer worlds 3 times and plan to revisit it every couple of years or so. Having the randomizer to determine how you play would actually be a really fun way to do it.
I can't even imagine how hard it must be to playtest a game like The Outer Worlds. I'm not a coder but I've been gaming since I was about 5 years old so I got some idea.
I don't know why but I kinda bounced off the Outer Worlds, I bought in on sale on an impulse if anything just because I wanted to support "those kind of games". I got about 8 or 9 hours in and for some reason it just wasn't "grabbing" me so I dropped it, (I'm 36 now, so I often put down games that aren't quite pushing all my buttons). I really can't put my finger on why........ I'd still probably pick up a sequal and give it a whirl.
Tim, first half of 2023 had many games release with many bugs and very poor technical state. At the same time these were AAA (AA) games with budgets and big publishers behind them. Why do you think it has happened? Did the the politics about QA has changed? Is it because of some budget politics changes?
Saw it was obsidian-made but after going through with about half of the game I estimate, a numbness sets in. Like after two years I can't remember hardly anything about that game. Total memory loop in that regard. There's something off about the game, might be through selected filters but also settings like spaceships and planets, didn't have that epic cinematic quality which Mass Effect 2 was known for in 2010 and later.
Mass Effect 2 got almost everything right from amount of shade to atmospheric effects. The writing was also on par with a good movie. Your company made a game of that quality and scope with Alpha Protocol. It was criticized for being a little rough in some aspects but I and others who liked it think it's one of the best comparitively and as an action-rpg spy-thriller. Also kotor 2, memorable, also inspires to think deeper in life about the universe and humanity, my experience as well.
I mean, it has much more in common feelwise with New Vegas than Mass Effect, nor does it take itself all that seriously, so none of that surprises me. The stakes are small - the fate of a dysfunctional colony - and not the galaxy, or even humanity, after all.