Watching my daughter running thru OW2 like a Mario speed run.
I told her, you are missing 80% of the game by not talking to everyone…like that encampment…where the dude is yelling at a teammate not to go out there…and the explosion…because he stepped on……BLAM BLOOHIE….yeah, on a landmine…like you just did….
While in other games this might be totally fine, the mission design in OW2 is done in such a way that all the sidequests add to and enrich the main quests in some way. There’s never too many and they all seem to feed into eachother in satisfying or rewarding ways.
It’s rare I’ve returned to a main quest in a game and the game has thanked me for ignoring it for so long with bonus options and rewards.
I really hope Bethesda are taking notes <3
The problem for Valve is that PC games are designed and written to run under Windows - a highly complex proprietary operating system.
It is possible to to run a PC under the free O.S. Linux, but Linux lacks the support for Windows games.
For many years there has been a community created Windows emulator - WINE. Historically, WINE would run some Windows games, but they were often slow and unreliable, and some wouldn’t run at all. WINE was very much an amateur affair.
The “Steam Box” offered a few years back wasn’t really a hardware innovation - what Valve tried to do was professionally modify a version of Linux (much as Google did with Android), and couple that with a professionally modified version of WINE. To some extent they succeeded - they produced a PC operating system that would reliably play some Windows games. They called it “Steam OS”, hired a couple of PC hardware manufacturers to make PCs that would run it, and that was the “Steam Box”.
Trouble was the Steam Box wouldn’t run all Windows games, some of the games it would run didn’t run very well, and it was no cheaper than an entry level gaming PC - so it didn’t sell very well, and eventually disappeared.
I never really thought about it this way, but this has more and more been eroded and broken by the need to support the playstation as a platform. It gave rise to multiplatform engines that are not reliant on windows. So in a way, we can thank the PS for the fact that games nowadays have become a lot easier to run on Linux. Windows supremacy when it comes to video games is indeed at an end. So this might be a good time to try and launch this thing again…
I think it’s a stroke of genius. Here in the US, trying to build a PC has become a very expensive endeavor. It is also nerve-wracking for people who are not very tech savvy. And buying an off the shelf PC usually ends in less than desirable results.
I think they are gonna sell….of course, we have not seen the price yet….
There’s a great deal of truth in what you say, and the Playstation is a dominant force in the field at the moment. I think the move towards multi-platform development environments is as much to do with maturity within the industry, and a realisation, as sailors say, that “A Rising Tide Raises All Boats”.
In fact, the impetus behind the development of the original Steam Box was not the Playstation, but the belief that Microsoft would try to monopolise the PC gaming market. Windows 10 and 11 give Microsoft the ability to prevent selected software from ever running on their systems - it can be locked out at BIOS level. Valve had a genuine fear that Microsoft would use this capability to prevent Steam from running on Windows computers unless Valve paid Microsoft a percentage of their profits on games sold.
Reddit Reveal (2024):
Public Launch:
https://ahwoo.com/posts/019a8091-b519-7fd6-b0e8-cda461864d8b
Funding, Info, Forum & Free Download (pre-alpha):
https://ahwoo.com/store/KPbAA1Au/kitten-space-agency
Developers:
I mean, it’s not exactly a KSP killer. KSP is old, and KSP II committed suicide already and there’s nothing left to kill there.
So the original creator is quite simply making a new one, since otherwise there ain’t gonna be. He announced it over at Orbiter Forum back on Friday, just as the first playable build of the original KSP ever was announced there many, many years ago, so this isn’t exactly news to me.
It’s not going to be the feature bloated mess that KSP 2 turned into (which was developed entirely without consulting the original creators). If I understood it right, it’s going to be pretty much the feature set of the old KSP, but with shiny new graphics (and a shiny new engine - Unity really has always been KSP’s most prominent problem) and, if I got that correctly, a real-scale solar system this time.
No idea yet what the story with the kitten is, though. For some reason or other, I assume, humanity has bought the Farm and the Kitties have become inteligent… I guess they a re a cute and public domain enough replacement for the now iconic kerbals which are locked behind the IP…
Cel shaded perhaps?
Preview cuts off but it’s about someone buying a physical copy of Spore in October.
One of nine physical games bought in the month of October, which is even more fascinating to me datawise than what the headline led with.
I am now very intrigued by these tracked physical monthly sales. It feels like each one has a story to tell.
Jeffiot makes very good videos. They aren’t always game related but they’re always entertaining and edited well.
Today it is game related so I’m double posting in the games and game-related thread 
Did anyone here play or remember Imps? I do recall seeing them next to MTG booster packs at the checkout in GAME stores but my knowledge began and ended at a cursory glance.
Don’t recall imps but definitely recall Spore…no, it wasn’t me.
Xbox 360 is 20? I’m over it already. I just found out the first console our parents bought us turned 40 the other day.
It was definitely old gen tech when they bought it for us in 1991 and I think the following year we got a Mega-Drive (Genesis in the US)
Just rolled credits on Outerworlds 2 last night.
I hit some quest bugs but I’d already waited two weeks with no fix (though they had mentioned they were aware of these ones in particular) so I decided to just press on.
Mild game mechanic spoilers below, I’ll blur the big story ones.
The bug was related to Tristan’s companion mission. I finished it, but he would not debrief in the incognito, thus leaving it marked as unfinished. An NPC who is supposed to leave the Arbiter Training Grounds on Paradise Island, never left. I can go there and see he is now walked back to and remains stuck in an inaccessible room.
I got Tristan’s worst ending and holy crap it was heartbreaking. Considering he had done everything to become the better version of himself, none of the dialogue that came with that surfaced, and he even went against my wishes as a result, in the final moments/boss encounter.
The other bug I hit was related to Sub Rosa. Towards the end, they’ll ask you for a copy of some data from a satellite before you hand it over to The Order.
Afterwards you’re supposed to return to the Sub Rosa agent for additional dialogue related to giving both sides the info.
However the Sub Rosa agent responds as if I never gave them the copy of the data after delivering it to The Order and it completely cuts you off from any sub Rosa progression or end game story cards that come with it.
So my ending was, a little worse than it should have been, but ultimately I was happy with everything else.
I couldn’t convince Aza to reform the Rift Cult, I’m not sure why but I read somewhere it should have been an option considering everything I’d done and how I treated her.
So she remained an Acolyte…
Ultimately she opened a rift and jumped into it. As did all of her followers.
I had the option to ask Auntie Cleo to sacrifice herself at the end for Amos (a touching end if you’ve seen the Secret Level episode) but ultimately I felt like De Vries was the “canon” choice. It made the most sense as it started with her. So I went with that option.
I got both sides to forge an alliance, I convinced them the order should control the archive, that skip drive tech should be shared but used sparingly because of rifts and I can’t remember what the third thing was.
I thought I’d picked all the right choices for the alliance.
But it didn’t seem to pan out that way in the ending.
Ruth went all in on the archive and it convinced her that aunties choice would need to be destroyed from within. She ultimately ended up killing Auntie Cleo, if the ending card was anything to go off, or at least is in possession of her still living head in a jar.
Before this, Auntie Cleo made a public appearance and made prosthetics and bubble helmets become the latest fashion. It seems she also worked together with the order to make Arcadia great for everyone though also, beat any competition by opening up rifts on them.
Niles became leader of the Earth Directorate agents but earth is still dark.
Ivres rose high in the ranks of Aunties Choice and the grafting program became the first health benefit freely available to all employees that want one.
VAL inspired the production of more VAL units and they are now sent on dangerous missions instead of field agents.
Tristan ended up becoming a janitor deep within a protectorate homeworld after being disgraced and never truly got over not knowing what happened to the Sovereign or his friend (he totally did find this info out in my game though… Stupid bug! This one annoyed me)
Marsel gave up her violent ways and became outgoing and sociable.
There was a few others related to side quests on the planets where I got all the good outcomes but I don’t recall the particulars. The protectorate people who I convinced to move before the Vox Relay crushed their town all led great lives after forgetting their dogma and trading it for Aunties Choice Dogma was one I sort of remember.
I think I got near enough to the best ending you can get, bugs aside. Although I imagine sacrificing myself and letting De Vries go on to do things I life might have also led to a better ending but who knows, maybe she just becomes a recluse if you don’t?
If anyone let De Vries live at the end please let me know how that went 
Oh and how could I forget my favourite. There’s an end game Card for the Giant Mantis that’s been promoted to a commander. It’s adorable.
I think I’ll run the ending again and capture the screen this time for a more robust look into my ending. Cos I’m only half remembering a late night drive to the end here.
Edit:
Here’s my ending in its entirety.
Blurring some third game theorising below…
I hope it performs well enough to get a third game as it laid down some hints as to what that might be about. It seems like they’re setting up the arrival of sentient Alien Species in the third game with some of the reveals during the final act.
From the archive you discover that skip drives are being used in far flung reaches of the galaxy that humans have yet to even go to. And we know the matriarch didn’t create the skip drives, she “found” them.
It would seem some ancient race left the tech for new sentience to find, and it almost feels intentional that they have that flaw with the rifts when overused. Almost like it was left there with the intent of dooming any sentience that dares travel the stars.
It also feels like the faith of earth would be the perfect thing to explore in the third game of an assumed trilogy.
Please don’t shut down Obsidian if sales aren’t good enough like you always do to every studio you buy Microsoft… Please 
Did not have any quests bugs but I am on Xbox.
Tristan tried to reform the remaining Protectorates but they kinda just lost their way with no one to dictate to them. Not a great ending but not all that bad either. They just went on with their lives
I got the same ending as you for Aza though I did everything correctly too.
Auntie and Ruth held to the peace agreement though Ruth got pretty much absorbed by the Archive.
I was fairly happy with my ending as well.
My daughter has gone full Directorate and isn’t helping any sides and forging no alliances. Waiting to see her ending
I’ve never managed it. After many attempts, I assumed it was impossible - just put there to frustrate the player (and it did).
Did they accidentally play the first game? 
