I refuse to spoil it, that would be like telling you who killed Laura Palmer if you get the reference. :D Let's just say that what seems totally uninteresting and unimportant to Cutter at the beginning ends up being the most important thing ever. Cutter and the talans have mutual interests and this gets revealed to you when you get your first mon. You've played 4 hours and still did not get the first mon? What were you doing, looking at your twon-ha's a**? :D

LOL! I get your point, though I wouldn't go as far as comparing Outcast with Twin Peaks. The only thing remotely comparable, in the realm of video games, is Deadly Premonition -- which I love, by the way. Alan Wake is a relatively distant second, due to the whole Stephen King side of it.

[EDIT] As to what I've been doing... well, talking to people and trying to figure out what to do next, figuring out the layout of the region, dying pretty much every time I engage in combat with more than three enemies, etc. I don't even have a twon-ha because I honestly don't understand what item am I supposed to have or how to get it, so, there's that, too. I also fell off a mountain I had clumsily climbed just to get some materials.

You are right, I shouldn't have made those assumptions about your motivation. I apologize. My apologies to groze as well.

As both Sance231 and I have said, the story does get a lot more interesting, but I also do not wish to spoil it because the reveal is the best part. Let's just say that the opening is intentionally cliched so that that cliche can be turned on its head later. It's a really good twist.

Having said that, I worry it may not be enough for you and groze... neither of you seem to be enjoying the exploration, conversations, or combat much, whereas I did. In fact, I even kind of liked Cutter, even though he's a bit ridiculous. These days it seems game protagonists are often macho, grizzled, super-serious space marines, and I thought it was nice to play as a guy who would crack a joke every once in a while. Especially since his backstory -- ex-Navy Seal with all sorts of combat skills -- suggested he's be exactly that macho, grizzled, super-serious guy I'm so sick of.

Even if you do like where the story goes, it may not outweigh your issues with the other aspects of the game. But it's at least worth seeing what the first twist is. As I said earlier, it comes when you find your first Mon. But It definitely took me longer than four hours to get my first Mon, since I was spending time exploring and talking to people... Sance231 must have gone through a lot faster than I did.

But maybe that's good advice: if you're struggling but you want to see that plot twist before you give up, just make a beeline for one of the Mons. Then see if you want to keep playing. I hope you do.

I only mention the petty things that infuriate me unproportionally, but the core problem is I do not enjoy the setting, the character, the writing style, the pacing, the unnecessary lamp shading, hell, even the voxel graphics put me off (more detailed geometry than polygon-based games back in 1999, but at the cost of visual fidelity which matters more to me). So far I've not found any good stuff to focus on. The worst sin for any entertainment is to be boring. The game not only fails to capture my imagination and the will to explore it's world and lore, but it pushes the few buttons I have to make me curse and pace back and forth, figuratively. I like many games, I even have a live and let live approach to Call of Duty. I have some guilty pleasures on my list of terrible games I enjoyed playing. Outcast and Fallout 3 are stand out examples in that I've attempted to like the games, tried to enjoy, really wanted them to be excellent but instead found myself bored by the core idea and infuriated with all the little things that goes against my tastes and sensibilities.

Fallout 3 took some 20+ hours of my time before I admitted that my initial impression of the failed attempt at Fallout humor with the G.O.A.T was to set the tone for the rest of the game, that the game is never going to be good or enjoyable. Outcast, I've only been able to stand in short sessions and I don't know how far I've gotten in the past, though I've never left the first accessible region or found a Mon so my experience is certainly not equivalent to many man-hours.

I like games that do not hold my hand and expect me to think for myself, but I think Outcast really could have had a more focused opening before tossing you out a Daoka to see the open world. Before I've even seen an enemy and only heard the names of a major and minor antagonist (Fae Rhan and Kroax) and only heard about the McGuffins (Mons) by name without any real description, the game leaves me to go exploring. I have no incentive to explore this setting. Strictly speaking, my character does not have any real enemies yet, no concrete evidence that anything he has been told is real. To introduce the setting, the plot and the major characters in the open world is a very bad idea. I hope this is something the team has learned and will change if they ever go into full production on the Outcast remake. Have the player actually play through some events that get them emotionally invested in the setting and the stakes, then when they know what to expect and understand the world, only then set them free to go anywhere they want.

The first 30 minutes should not be made up of mostly a pre-rendered intro, long conversations and a basic gameplay tutorial. The first 30 minutes should be a first-hand taster of what's at stake, who your friends and enemies are and what this world is. It wouldn't be so bad to lead the player to the first major plot point, maybe even all the way to the first Mon, and then when you have the player curious to see more: BAM! Open world awesomeness. Like what you just saw? There are another 20+ hours of this for you to approach as you want.

This actually helps. Sounds like Arcanum, which is a very good connection to make. I've been alternating between Outcast and FTL to ease the burden but maybe I'll put what little alone-time I have solely on Outcast from now on. Also, apology accepted, you already regretted your post before I responded. It happens to me too when I'm passionate about things and people test my otherwise good patience.

Man I really I hope the story goes bonkers eventually because I don't like it at all when it is playing it straight. The miserable jokes just might work if that happens. For now, I really don't know why Slade would facetiously ask if he was mistaken for a New York subway car. If I ever happen upon a mysteriously present subway car in the open world I'd say the game has won back my favour.

I completely agree with you on that: Ranzaar (the intro) should have been bigger and more like the small version of the full game (more questing, some real combat and at least one puzzle). The other big problem with it is that while it seems like you get too much information you'll struggle because they gave you too little info from the actually useful.

Zokrim, the first talan you speak with should actually do these:
- Explain better what the recreators and the shamaz do in a region, then SHOW YOU in Ranzaar itself because you'll just forget about it
- Tell you that your most valuable weapons / upgrades and items can be found among the various merchants in Talanzaar
- Should tell you about twon-has and should remind you to buy one ASAP in Shamazaar

Anyway groze, to use a twon-ha first you'll have to buy one from one of the talans in the Shamazaar village. The talan will give you an item called the GUI and tell you where you can find your twon-ha (it's random, it will be in at the center of the village or near the daoka ("stargate") which leads to Talanzaar (more simply: next to the village)). You get near the twon-has, select the GUI in your backpack and when you do that it will follow you. Then you can mount and ride it.

It's in this video how:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NDey_C0Wqs

I should reiterate Sance231's advice to go to Talanzaar sooner rather than later. There's a gate leading there from the village in Shamazar (the first big area, with all the riss fields). You'll be able to buy lots of new stuff, including new weapons, there. That makes things easier and more fun.

I also made the mistake of sticking it out in Shamazaar for too long before I headed to Talanzaar. When I finally went there I realized I should be exploring the other areas more rather than trying to tackle them one at a time.

I thank you both, Waltorious and Sance, for the tips and passion for this game, but I honestly can't spend a single minute more with it. I just can't.

I'm willing to admit I'm the dumb one and that the game is 'too good and complex' for me. Maybe that's the case. I won't say it's a bad game anymore, that's just my opinion -- an opinion of someone who clearly isn't intelligent enough to appreciate this masterpiece of video gaming. For what it's worth, I genuinely tried to get into it. I put 7 hours into Outcast, that's more than I did for Shadow Man. So, I'm uninstalling Outcast and giving Shadow Man a second chance, as well, just to be fair -- if I try Outcast for seven hours, the least I can do is try Shadow Man for at least four or five. It also frees me some space to install Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, which I got this week and am now going to try.

I'm really sorry for being part of the video gaming plebs and not having the enlightenment to fully appreciate the magnum opus that is Outcast: Best Video Game Ever -- Belgian Stargate Edition With Probably Some Planet Of The Apes Thrown Into It If I Am Not Mistaken (and pardon the sarcasm, it's been a long day of playing this game, to no avail. The most frustrating thing is that I really tried to like it). I think Waltorious is right, even if I had gotten to the first twist, the exploration, conversations and combat anger and frustrate me so much that it would probably do nothing for me. And I can kind of see it coming, it's something like Avatar or Planet of the Apes, some conversations hint at that, at least. But a twist like that wouldn't be enough to make me want to play this. I'm better off finding a Let's Play on YouTube and watch someone getting their first Mon (which, by the way, I tried already, but there doesn't seem to be much Outcast stuff on YouTube. For a game so great, the community around it sure is microscopic. I mean... even the Eternal Darkness community is larger than this one, for crying out loud!).

I wish this Kickstarter the best of luck, and, again, I'm sorry for bringing so much negativity into this thread. Don't take anything I've said as an attack, I'm just a dumb kid who doesn't like complex, challenging games. Outcast probably is like what Denis Dyack says of Too Human: too good and complex for gamers to truly appreciate. A work of art that only a few are able to fully comprehend.

If you don't like the game, that's fair. No need to be apologetic. We just wanted to be sure you weren't dismissing the game before you gave it a fair chance. But it sounds like you have given it a chance and it's just not your kind of game, and that's fine.

A lot of that has to do with timing. Youtube wasn't around in 1999 for the original release of Outcast, and since then the game has been both out of print (unable to buy anywhere) and very difficult to run on modern machines. It wasn't until the GOG release that there was a way to both buy it and run it reliably. Which is part of why the remake will be useful, since it will let more people play the game with modern resolutions and whatnot, and minimal fuss.

Sadly the Kickstarter campaign is not going so well. If there are other Outcast fans reading this, please consider donating!

The game got out of the concept category on Greenlight and now it's among the games so support it!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=253011564

Just to throw a perspective of a person who played Outcast for the first time a couple of years ago (so I've been exposed to a lot of other open world games in the meantime) and absolutely loved the hell out of it:

Why? First of all, it's basically StarGate. I love StarGate, all right? I always wanted to play StarGate: the game, and I feel that Outcast captures a LOT of what I liked about SG so much, including exploration of an alien world (which is not alien enough to be intimidating tho.)

A lot of your complains seem to stem from the fact that the game dumps a lot of information on you. I do have background in playing a lot of RPGs, so information dumps are exactly what I'm used to, and I really liked what I have heard in Outcast - what I have heard, and later on, how those problems or misconceptions came to be. Story of Outcast is relatively deep, if not well presented (and you're right, the VA is ... Not great.) The main storyline is not great, sure, but I'm the kind of guy who loves worldbuilding, and Outcast does a stellar job with that.

While I'm at the topic of worldbuilding, it's not just the detailed story-based background that's impressive - the locations themselves are fantastic as well. They're absolutely stunning, voxel graphics giving them this ageless, unique feeling, joy to explore with a lot of hidden areas and generally stuff to find, and fantastic progression, where at the beginning, you're just not quite and equipped enough to take on larger patrols or groups of enemies - which is why you come back with vengeance later on. Add to that the absolutely amazing soundtrack and you get locations which I could explore over and over again.

Just... I don't think I'll forget how I have entered Talanzaar for the first time all that soon. It was... First, I'm in this region heavily growing rice, and suddenly, after stepping trough the portal, I see this huge, living desert city, that I would have never expected to see in an open-world game in general, let alone this old. And it's filled with NPCs and various quests, some of them even physics-based (sort of)! And even hearing this music, yummy. There were not all that many games I have ever felt this immersed in, and I have played tons of RPGs.

Now that's another thing, immersion. First of all, most NPCs have -some- sort of schedule - they work fields, they transport goods, that kind of stuff. And the game's world actively changes as you play - like militia training in regions you have liberated. With the worldbuilding mentioned earlier, I didn't really have to go far to feel very immersed. Sure, there were some bits which were flatout stupid, but... I can forgive those.

With that out of the way, you're right - gameplay is serviceable at best, shooting is a bit meh, and a fair share of dialogues is not all that well-written. Writing is decent, don't get me wrong, but it's definitely not the best part of the game, no sir. I... sort of didn't care, tho. I have played it as StarGate the videogame - and what I expect out of that is exploring new worlds and new cultures, and that's exactly what I got. And it was wonderful.

Thank you for being diplomatic and not at all condescending in a thread about a Kickstarter for the reboot of a game that many of us love dearly.

Good god. It's so distressing that this sentiment has been resounding so loudly in this thread. I only hope that I can give a satisfactory answer for why this game is one of my fondest gaming memories.

I picked up Outcast for six dollars in the bargain bin of my local game store before it was a Gamestop, and possibly even before it was an EBGames. My expectations for it weren't high, but the box promised an entertaining adventure and a 'living, breathing world' or some such marketing fluff, and my interest was piqued.

What I got was an entertaining adventure and, believe it or not, what felt to me like a truly living, breathing world. I don't remember getting frustrated by the clumsy controls, or getting bored by the initial tutorial, or being annoyed by the awkward exposition, or rolling my eyes at Cutter's clichés. I will not try to argue that these aren't flaws, because they are. But I didn't care. Whatever isn't clicking for you DID click for me, escapism-seeking teen that I was, and I was entranced.

You want a concrete aspect of it that deserves praise? The Talan themselves. Every one is an active agent in the world. Their plight, their culture, their language, and the impact that you have on them as the player and protagonist of this story are what makes this game compelling for me, even today. The world is the backdrop, but the Talan are the focus in every aspect of this game's design. The game gives Cutter his own dramatic purpose, yes, but everything that I did as a player was for them.

I remember playing this game to the end and coming out of it like a dream that sticks with you for days. The plot, clichéd and predictable as it is, left me emotionally drained. Though nearly every game tells you that you're saving the world, Outcast was one of only a handful in which I actually felt like I saved a world. I can count on one hand how many games have done that, and few of them, if any, could pass the requirements that the two of you have set up in this thread for what makes a game concretely enjoyable.

Christ.

And now it's clear that the Kickstarted will not be successful. You have been proven objectively correct. Outcast is not worth saving. But I still love it.

Nah, a deeply flawed Kickstarter campaign proves nothing of that.

Just had a look at the KS page in regards of general information on why Outcast is great. This is the feature list they have:

Non-linear game play in free-roaming environments over 6 worlds
Combats against clever reactive AI
Fully voiced interactive dialog trees for ALL characters (including NPCs)
Awesome symphonic music with a 80 piece orchestra and 40 choir
20+ hours of highly engrossing adventure

This is supposed to get people who don't know the game excited?! :D I imagine they just go "OMG 40 people choir I want this game!" :D There are some huge spelling and grammatical mistakes in there too (COMBATS?!) but seriously, the KS page manages to capture absolutely nothing of why Outcast is actually a great game.

I agree with this sentiment completely.

And yes, it doesn't look like the Kickstarter is going to make it, and Sance231 makes a good argument for why. Those bullet points are only impressive when one considers the game was released in 1999. Today, most games have those things. But they don't really match the experience of Outcast, the feeling of a real living, breathing world that's actually worth saving. Explaining that to new players is hard, but the team didn't do a very good job.

Still, i hope they're able to complete the project anyway, somehow.

For what it's worth, despite whatever personal feelings I may have towards the game itself, it still saddens me to see a project fail. I have no solutions, there's no "sure science" when it comes to Kickstarter campaigns, and I don't know for certain what went wrong.

I think what I said still stands, these devs are way too detached from reality and their community, and while being that way in the 90's was actually a good thing, in the way it allowed developers to be truly innovative and come out with products like Outcast and others, in this day and age it's bad -- you need to at least be a little aware of what your community wants, and unfortunately you have to be decent at advertising and PR. The guy talking in the videos was far from being passionate and excited about their own project, he sounded bored and uninterested in what they were doing. That doesn't help. The pitch video was a failure, that's not how you sell your game.

I hope they realize that the Outcast community is just not as big as they thought it was, and that remaking a game that has nothing new to offer new gamers is not as exciting as they believed it to be. My suggestion would be to make their own fund raising campaign, via their own website, using PayPal or whatever they think of, and extending the period for until the main funding goal is reached. Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc. are not the platforms this project needs, the devs are way too off of reality to be able to manage a crowd sourcing campaign via one of those "regular" means.

I wish them all the best, I truly do, because even though I couldn't care less about this game, I respect all the fans out there that want to see it made, and I, too, have been in the position of wanting to see a game I love come to be and its Kickstarter failing miserably due to a lot of factors, but mostly the devs not being prepared for it. The people who love Outcast deserve this to come out, so I can only wish for the guys at Fresh3D to get their stuff together and manage to lead a successful campaign for all of you fans.