The Outer Worlds: New Vegas, but it's Firefly and also Capitalism is Evil

[factotum]

Regarding Macreed:

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I'd already got the quest to kill him from the guard woman near the entrance, so I actually just shot him at range without ever speaking to him...didn't even know he *had* dialogue until I saw ManyATrueNerd's playthrough on Youtube!

[EDIT] OK, just finished the game. Got to level 30 and my play time was around 27.5 hours, judging by the last save I made, so not the longest RPG I've ever played--pretty sure I did most of the sidequests available, too. Still, it was fun, and the way the story developed had me hooked. Definitely want to replay selecting different options at some point, though!

[Balmas]

Stayed up until 3 AM on friday to finish the game, and don't regret it in the slightest. I think I nailed all but two of the quests--one that I failed because the quest-giver wouldn't talk to me and apparently I needed to go back to him to get the quest, and the second I failed because

Spoiler: End-game stuff

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while I might have been willing to let a town fall apart due to corporate negligence, I'm not about to go in and murder everyone there myself. Yeesh, talk about consequences to your actions.

[factotum]

I didn't fail that second one because I never took it in the first place? I simply flat-out refused.

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Of course, that didn't turn out well for the Adjutant, who found the hard way that drawing a gun on a heavily-armed group of people who've taken down Mantiqueens and the like isn't a great survival strategy.

[Spore]

Spoiler: Regarding the Groundbreaker Companion

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Did I miss something majorly or does this guy just not have a good backstory? Or is there more to come?

[Anteros]

So far I feel OW is a decent space western but I feel the writing is ... off? Am I the only one that sees the obvious direction the writers want to push the player?

Once I've accepted that "sub average" intelligence does not mean caveman speak, I am really coming to terms with my dumb brute. A major problem imho is the quite obvious choice that the writers made when they wrote the deserters vs. spacer's choice conflict.

In a direct comparison to New Vegas and the conflict between the Legion (evil slavers who have a point because technology doomed the planet to an apocalypse) and NRC (goody twoshoes guys who are actually more totalitarian than they'd admit), the conflict as written just falls flat. Sure, Emerald Vale has its fair share of company driven problems, but there are upsides to being securely equipped by an offworld trading corporation. It's just these qualities are hidden in speech checks and not immediately obvious. Similarily the deserters are not perfectly good. Their leader just wants revenge and uses it on the backs of the people but immediately obvious is just "deserters good, company evil".

I don't even know Balmas' (spoilered) factoids yet but it feels like the narrator made the choice for you. And this in a game where player choice should matter is incredibly irritating to me. Compare it to another guided choice in a game made by a company who Obsidian threw incredible shade on. Skyrim's civil war. Or more specific the first choice of going with the rebel or the Imperial. It seems obvious to go with the guy that rebels against the system that wanted you killed for crossing the border. But through subtle hints it is shown that maybe imperial power is better for Skyrim than an uprising against the oppressors because it equips the empire better to resist the Thalmor. It is a similar situation but see that the narrator does not "guide" your choice more than through the prologue.

I don't feel like the Legion vs NCR was the nuanced choice you're making it out to be. Your first interaction with the Legion is them massacring and crucifying an entire town for no good reason. The Legion may make some good points, but I wouldn't know because you'd have to be a complete psychopath to even consider hearing them out.

[factotum]

Spoiler: Regarding the Groundbreaker Companion

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Did I miss something majorly or does this guy just not have a good backstory? Or is there more to come?

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Did you do his companion quest on Scylla? He probably only tells you about it if you happen to travel there while he's on your team, though, that's usually how those work.

[Balmas]

[EDIT] OK, just finished the game. Got to level 30 and my play time was around 27.5 hours, judging by the last save I made, so not the longest RPG I've ever played--pretty sure I did most of the sidequests available, too. Still, it was fun, and the way the story developed had me hooked. Definitely want to replay selecting different options at some point, though!

The last save I had was listed as around 50 hours, but that was on a save where I basically never fast traveled beyond summoning the ship to the town I was at on Monarch.

I didn't fail that second one because I never took it in the first place? I simply flat-out refused.

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Of course, that didn't turn out well for the Adjutant, who found the hard way that drawing a gun on a heavily-armed group of people who've taken down Mantiqueens and the like isn't a great survival strategy.

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Yeah, but I figured that if I wanted to get paid for quasi-selling out Phineas, then I needed to talk to the secretary, and that wouldn't be possible if I started shooting. So I said yes, reassured Parvati, got my reward, and then shot the Adjutante.

Spoiler: Regarding the Groundbreaker Companion

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Did I miss something majorly or does this guy just not have a good backstory? Or is there more to come?

Spoiler: RE Felix

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Honestly, I don't think it's so much that his backstory is bad so much as it is that his personality consists of only one or two notes. He's the stupid football kid with a bad case of hero worship and a revolutionary streak.

I remember that on arriving at Monarch, I decided that, what the hey, I'd been using basically nothing but Ellie and Parvati since Groundbreaker, so it was time that Max and Felix got some love. By the time I arrived at Stellar Bay, I was so sick and tired of Felix that I was rushing to get Nyoka, purely so I could have an in-character excuse to dump Felix. I didn't go back to Felix until I got his companion quest, and even then I made sure to do that all in one fell swoop and dump him back in the ship again.

It's just he has one note, and he harps on that one note for all he's worth. I was sitting there, watching him mouth off about how corporations are evil, in a corporation headquarters, surrounded by corporate guards, and just wanted to throttle him. You are the reason we can't have nice things, Felix.

Spoiler: RE: Max

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So, am I the only one that was moderately disappointed by the end of Max's companion quest? You go help this priest find the answers to the universe, only to find it to be "there aren't any, you don't exist, embrace nihilism"? Feels kind of a crappy end to a quest.

Although, "Smoke Drugs, Kill Your Inner Self" is a good Wild Wasteland line, I suppose.

[Rodin]

I didn't fail that second one because I never took it in the first place? I simply flat-out refused.

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Of course, that didn't turn out well for the Adjutant, who found the hard way that drawing a gun on a heavily-armed group of people who've taken down Mantiqueens and the like isn't a great survival strategy.

I had to look up what you guys were talking about here. I thought I had completed the game pretty thoroughly myself, but apparently my choices meant that this conversation never even happened.

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I never actually met Akande in person - I pretended to sell out Phineas, but warned him in advance what they were up to. When she invited me to come talk, I said "screw that" and went off to rescue Phineas instead. When I encountered her again at Labyrinth, I speech-checked her into the ground and convinced her to flee without us ever being in the same room.

Now that I've completed the game, I feel my initial impression was pretty accurate - a fusion-food game that incorporates elements from a ton of different sources to make a darn tasty dish while never surpassing any of the sources of inspiration in their specialty.

The one big let down has been difficulty. Normal mode is stupidly easy. Supernova is properly difficult, but introduces a bunch of unwanted "features" that are sloppily implemented. Parvati died in my first fight after recruiting her, and not a particularly hard one at that. I couldn't reload because you can only save on your ship, which is a dumb feature when LARGE amounts of content happens in towns. There's no good indicator to let you know when you're hungry or thirsty, and you can get sleep deprived before you have access to your bedroom on your ship - which is the only place you can sleep despite there being hotels that serve no other purpose than for you to sleep.

I'm going to try restarting on the next hardest difficulty and hope it's tough enough, I guess. Supernova mode seems like it wasn't properly thought out.

[factotum]

There's no good indicator to let you know when you're hungry or thirsty, and you can get sleep deprived before you have access to your bedroom on your ship - which is the only place you can sleep despite there being hotels that serve no other purpose than for you to sleep.

I have no intention of trying Supernova because, IMHO, adding the requirement to eat and drink in an RPG is just adding pointless busywork that doesn't add to the experience in any way, but I'm pretty sure there's a bed in the hold of the Unreliable opposite the workbench, so you can sleep on that one--there are also beds available in random places all over Emerald Vale, too.

[LuckGuy]

Finished it last night. Great game, really enjoyed it. I chose Heavy Weapons, because I wanted to see if it did miniguns better than Fallout. It did, I loved all my types of heavy weapons, but the grenade launcher takes first place.

I wish there were more banter between companions, but I'd probably always want more. That's my favorite stuff in games like KOTOR.

The perks are boring, weakest part of the game. I was never tempted to take a weakness to get a perk point.

I played on hard difficulty. The first planet was fun and difficult, and there was one group of three raiders I could never beat before I left. Pretty much everything else was a cakewalk.

The unique weapons were strange, because by the time I reached most of them they were inferior to the version 2 weapons. It seems they should scale to your level when you find them.

[Avilan the Grey]

I have a few compaints.

First of all, I am now lvl 12 and do really like the game, but:

1. Short, and with limited replayability if you don't want to be an ******* (which I never play as).
2. Similar problems with weapons as ME1: Guns as Vendor Trash, but also illogical sudden tiers (At lvl 12 I suddenly got "Light Assault Rifles") that do 1.5 times the damage of my modded heavy Assault Rifle)
3. Everybody will eventually be a 40k Supersoldier (heavy Armor or bust for companions)
4. Some of the writing does not take in consideration other parts of the writing (spoiler after the list re Edgewater solution)
5. They obviously gave one companion 90% of the time and love. Parvati is the only one I care about for that reason.

Spoiler: Spoiler regarding Edgewater solution

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I took the third option of rerouting power to Edgewater but then replacing the leader so the Cannary got replaced by a garden and everyone got medicine and whatnot. Yet the game tells me I totally crushed the dreams of everyone there and I am 100% a company man.

Spoiler: RE Felix

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Honestly, I don't think it's so much that his backstory is bad so much as it is that his personality consists of only one or two notes. He's the stupid football kid with a bad case of hero worship and a revolutionary streak.

I remember that on arriving at Monarch, I decided that, what the hey, I'd been using basically nothing but Ellie and Parvati since Groundbreaker, so it was time that Max and Felix got some love. By the time I arrived at Stellar Bay, I was so sick and tired of Felix that I was rushing to get Nyoka, purely so I could have an in-character excuse to dump Felix. I didn't go back to Felix until I got his companion quest, and even then I made sure to do that all in one fell swoop and dump him back in the ship again.

It's just he has one note, and he harps on that one note for all he's worth. I was sitting there, watching him mouth off about how corporations are evil, in a corporation headquarters, surrounded by corporate guards, and just wanted to throttle him. You are the reason we can't have nice things, Felix.

Spoiler: RE: Max

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So, am I the only one that was moderately disappointed by the end of Max's companion quest? You go help this priest find the answers to the universe, only to find it to be "there aren't any, you don't exist, embrace nihilism"? Feels kind of a crappy end to a quest.

Although, "Smoke Drugs, Kill Your Inner Self" is a good Wild Wasteland line, I suppose.

Spoiler: Regarding Felix and Max

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I have not recruited Felix yet, I just caught his introduction "fight" and just got turned off. "Angry hockey supporter" is not a "creative" trope. My only reaction from that intro was to not bother recruiting him at all.

Max: Well I find him utterly bland. He keeps asking when we should go to Monarch and I am like "Since I won't ever talk to you or have you in my party, why do you ask?"

...but then as I said it is obvious they spent 90% of the writing budget and inspiration on Parvati.

[Rodin]

I have no intention of trying Supernova because, IMHO, adding the requirement to eat and drink in an RPG is just adding pointless busywork that doesn't add to the experience in any way, but I'm pretty sure there's a bed in the hold of the Unreliable opposite the workbench, so you can sleep on that one--there are also beds available in random places all over Emerald Vale, too.

Oh, there are beds all over Emerald Vale.

You just can't sleep in them.

Supernova has this totally random requirement that you can only sleep aboard your ship. I wasn't aware of the bed in the cargo hold, and you can sleep there.

It still means that you will be out in the world, possibly standing IN A HOTEL, and the game will still make you fast travel back to your ship if you want to get rid of the debuff. And then, because fast travel is disabled, you will have to walk your happy ass back to wherever you were before.

It's utterly pointless, and I don't understand why they implemented it that way. Sure, limit fast travel somehow so that it's point-to-point instead of from anywhere in the world. But removing it while creating an arbitrary requirement that forces you to regularly return to one specific point on the map? Good grief.

Also agreed about Parvati vs. the other companions. Ellie in particular has a shockingly low amount of content associated with her.

[LaZodiac]

I have a few compaints.

First of all, I am now lvl 12 and do really like the game, but:

1. Short, and with limited replayability if you don't want to be an ******* (which I never play as).
2. Similar problems with weapons as ME1: Guns as Vendor Trash, but also illogical sudden tiers (At lvl 12 I suddenly got "Light Assault Rifles") that do 1.5 times the damage of my modded heavy Assault Rifle)
3. Everybody will eventually be a 40k Supersoldier (heavy Armor or bust for companions)
4. Some of the writing does not take in consideration other parts of the writing (spoiler after the list re Edgewater solution)
5. They obviously gave one companion 90% of the time and love. Parvati is the only one I care about for that reason.

Spoiler: Spoiler regarding Edgewater solution

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I took the third option of rerouting power to Edgewater but then replacing the leader so the Cannary got replaced by a garden and everyone got medicine and whatnot. Yet the game tells me I totally crushed the dreams of everyone there and I am 100% a company man.

Spoiler: Regarding Felix and Max

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I have not recruited Felix yet, I just caught his introduction "fight" and just got turned off. "Angry hockey supporter" is not a "creative" trope. My only reaction from that intro was to not bother recruiting him at all.

Max: Well I find him utterly bland. He keeps asking when we should go to Monarch and I am like "Since I won't ever talk to you or have you in my party, why do you ask?"

...but then as I said it is obvious they spent 90% of the writing budget and inspiration on Parvati.

So here's the thing;

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you destroyed their commune and made them go back to the wage-slave life. Yes they have a pretty garden, and yes the person in charge is different.

But they're still shackled to the capitalist ****ery that got them into this mess in the first place. You crushed their dreams because you and Parvarti decided a wishy washy "both sides are good" mentality was better, and more games need to be brave enough to go "hey sometimes this aint it chief."

One side is literally killing people because it's profitable for them in the long run. There is no gray here, no matter how much the cool ace lesbian thinks so.

[Avilan the Grey]

So here's the thing;

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you destroyed their commune and made them go back to the wage-slave life. Yes they have a pretty garden, and yes the person in charge is different.

But they're still shackled to the capitalist ****ery that got them into this mess in the first place. You crushed their dreams because you and Parvarti decided a wishy washy "both sides are good" mentality was better, and more games need to be brave enough to go "hey sometimes this aint it chief."

One side is literally killing people because it's profitable for them in the long run. There is no gray here, no matter how much the cool ace lesbian thinks so.

Spoiler: On the other hand

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The alternative is to condemn about 50% of the population to death or to join the raving lunatics. Ms "High and Mighty", as right as she might be, literary refuses to let most workers join her society. As much as I enjoy sticking it to corporations, I am not okay with the Revolution offing half the population.

[LaZodiac]

Spoiler: On the other hand

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The alternative is to condemn about 50% of the population to death or to join the raving lunatics. Ms "High and Mighty", as right as she might be, literary refuses to let most workers join her society. As much as I enjoy sticking it to corporations, I am not okay with the Revolution offing half the population.

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Is there a way to replace her without killing their hope?

[Avilan the Grey]

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Is there a way to replace her without killing their hope?

Nope.
I am also suspecting that if picked the other option the sign on your wall will tell you you are a horrible person because of that, too. hamfisted writing, basically.

[factotum]

Just to note, if you choose to route power to the deserters (endgame spoilers):

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The end game "what happened" cards make it clear that Adelaide made good on her threat to turn away most of Edgewater's population, so they're mostly dead. Not sure that being dead is so much better for them than being crushed under the corporate heel, especially since you've destroyed the Board in the "good" ending and thus forced a major reorganisation of the corps.

[xroads]

Excellent! I was wondering when an Outer Worlds thread was going to pop-up.

For my two cents, I'm loving the game. But yes, the marauder AI needs some serious help. For example, if I can turn marauder aggro off with a good persuasion check, it stays off... even if I go around systematically killing off marauders.

Fortunately, I'm heavily invested in the persuasion skills, so this flaw works to my favor.

Side note: I love how the load screen art will change based on decisions you make in the game.

[Yuki Akuma]

Spoiler: Edgewater Main Quest

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Basically, there is no perfect solution. Every option has downsides, even the 'third option' of just killing Reed* and letting Adelaide take over Edgewater. I guess it's to teach you that you have to live with the consequences of your actions even if you don't totally like them?

_{* Yes I know you can convince him to leave. He still dies.}

[Gecks]

I really like this game- I am a big fan of the short-medium length, minimum filler style RPG in general, and I really enjoy this game's humour and style. While the anti-corporation satire isn't exactly subtle, the overall story and consequences seem nuanced enough to satisfy, even if you don't choose to play on the side of "right". I finished a play-through as a pro-freedom rebel, and am now enjoying a second playthrough as a corporate trigger-man and tight-lipped psychopath.

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In my second, "evil" playthrough, I refused to recruit Felix, finding his very staged-feeling fight on the docks followed up with a hard-sell request to join my crew super suspicious. I then sniped him dead from across the cargo bay (to be safe) and left. I can't wait to see what comes up during his portion of the end credits!

[xroads]

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In my second, "evil" playthrough, I refused to recruit Felix, finding his very staged-feeling fight on the docks followed up with a hard-sell request to join my crew super suspicious. I then sniped him dead from across the cargo bay (to be safe) and left. I can't wait to see what comes up during his portion of the end credits!

I got to admit, I only took him aboard because I knew he was a companion and I wanted to get any side quests & achievements associated with him. Otherwise there would be no way I would of hired him. His introduction was a bit hamfisted and...

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...I don't make it a practice to hire crew who swing at their former employers with baseball bats!

[Avilan the Grey]

I really like this game- I am a big fan of the short-medium length, minimum filler style RPG in general, and I really enjoy this game's humour and style. While the anti-corporation satire isn't exactly subtle, the overall story and consequences seem nuanced enough to satisfy, even if you don't choose to play on the side of "right". I finished a play-through as a pro-freedom rebel, and am now enjoying a second playthrough as a corporate trigger-man and tight-lipped psychopath.

Spoiler

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In my second, "evil" playthrough, I refused to recruit Felix, finding his very staged-feeling fight on the docks followed up with a hard-sell request to join my crew super suspicious. I then sniped him dead from across the cargo bay (to be safe) and left. I can't wait to see what comes up during his portion of the end credits!

My problem is that I really can't bring myself to play a badguy. Ever. So basically I will only be able to do three playthrus: This one with long guns, one with melee weapons and then one with heavy guns. Choices will be pretty identical all three playthrus.

Edit: regarding the title: According to the devs two HUGE sources for inspiration for the game is Firefly and Futurama, and it really shows.

[Yuki Akuma]

I got to admit, I only took him aboard because I knew he was a companion and I wanted to get any side quests & achievements associated with him. Otherwise there would be no way I would of hired him. His introduction was a bit hamfisted and...

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...I don't make it a practice to hire crew who swing at their former employers with baseball bats!

Well then, good news!

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Tossball sticks are lacrosse sticks, not baseball bats. :D

[Spore]

regarding the title: According to the devs two HUGE sources for inspiration for the game is Firefly and Futurama, and it really shows.

So the only reason for suicide booths not existing is the rating and/or the idea that suicide steals workforce from the companies?

[Squark]

So the only reason for suicide booths not existing is the rating and/or the idea that suicide steals workforce from the companies?

Probably the latter. The game doesn't shy away from discussing suicide, but there's a rather bleak bit of comedy* in Edgewater about how the workers get fined if one of their own commits suicide.

*Comedy in as much as the wildly different perspective the audience and/or the PC will have compared to the brainwashed townsfolk create some rather... interesting lines.

[Lord Raziere]

*Comedy in as much as the wildly different perspective the audience and/or the PC will have compared to the brainwashed townsfolk create some rather... interesting lines.

Yeah there is a lot of culture shock comedy in this, at least in the first town. it starts getting a bit more relatable when you get on the Groundbreaker though.

Me, I'm curious as to how the game handles a "kill em all" run when I do my second time around.

[factotum]

I definitely intend a bad guy run (although not "kill them all", never see the point in those) at some point, and I also plan to do a melee-only character with low Int who has to select the Dumb dialogue option whenever one is offered--that's kind of my "hard without selecting Hard difficulty" run, though. At the moment I'm playing a game of Stellaris as an amuse-bouche before jumping back in, though.

[xroads]

Well then, good news!

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Tossball sticks are lacrosse sticks, not baseball bats. :D

Heh. A bit of a moot point once he starts a swinging.

[Avilan the Grey]

Yeah there is a lot of culture shock comedy in this, at least in the first town. it starts getting a bit more relatable when you get on the Groundbreaker though.

Me, I'm curious as to how the game handles a "kill em all" run when I do my second time around.

Note that the people from Edgewater all talk like they're an 19th century town. They are very specifically an extreme version of a 19th century town built around a single industry; I am sure it was the same in America and England, but I recognize it from here too. The Company Store, the Company Pub, the Company... The workers are recycled almost literary even IRL where the salary you paid them were just enough to afford the rent of the company owned housing + the food they (by contract even IRL) had to legally only buy from the company store...

The Groundbreaker is more modern, despite being the one colony ship that made it. Note how the Board's office look a little off being all Art Deco among the rest of the ship?

[xroads]

Note that the people from Edgewater all talk like they're an 19th century town. They are very specifically an extreme version of a 19th century town built around a single industry; I am sure it was the same in America and England, but I recognize it from here too. The Company Store, the Company Pub, the Company... The workers are recycled almost literary even IRL where the salary you paid them were just enough to afford the rent of the company owned housing + the food they (by contract even IRL) had to legally only buy from the company store...

The Groundbreaker is more modern, despite being the one colony ship that made it. Note how the Board's office look a little off being all Art Deco among the rest of the ship?

Yep. It happened in America too. Heck, we still have communities that one could almost call a company town. Though I don't think they're incorporated. And now there is more governance that defines what they can get away with. So no more paying employees in company scrip for example.