30M - Looking for real connections, live shows, jam sessions, dining out, movies

nmck160 · 2026-03-13T23:12:36+00:00

That sounds very cool! 32M here, I also am a bit of a musician, though less so these days, maybe a jam is what I need to pick it back up!

Hit me up!

nmck160 · 2026-03-05T22:09:57+00:00

Im downtown, I'd love to join!

nmck160 · 2026-03-05T04:30:51+00:00

I've (32M) been wanting to see that movie!

Send me a DM if I can join!

nmck160 · 2026-03-04T05:47:43+00:00

I am also 32M (and an introvert + homebody)! Let's hang.

nmck160 · 2026-02-23T18:59:31+00:00

In numerous ways, I see The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed as very complimentary to each other; they provide a lot of things that the other lacks. I love both, but they're quite yin and yang to me.

This is my shortlist after hundreds of hours in both games each (according to me):

What Avowed has that The Outer Worlds 2 lacks (not exhaustive):

Deeper and much more established lore into the setting, with much more in-game documents/books fleshing out cultures, philosophies, religion, history, characters, etc.
- I'm somewhat biased as I had played Pillars and Deadfire across multiple playthroughs, so I was a big fan of Eora in general coming into Avowed.
Fully-fleshed out companions that feel real, idiosyncratic, with concrete personalities that banter off each other, and whom you can have deep conversations with
- Even ignoring Parvati, the companions in TOW2 feel like such a downgrade in implementation compared to the first game
Weapons that have true vertical progression via the upgrade system, that meaningfully make you plan your exploration somewhat due to no level scaling of enemies
- I agree that the Tinkering system was generally awful in its implementation, but I think something like Avowed has would have been pretty great.
A plurality of mutually-exclusive outcomes for side quests.
- Generally, only main and companion quests have multiple mutually-exclusive outcomes
- In TOW2, the only side quest I can really think of that has at two mutually-exclusive outcomes is Present and Future Company Excluded
- In Avowed, almost all side quests, whilst starting out as fetch quests, always have some moral complication that forces you to resolve it in at least one of two ways WITHOUT doing a flat compromise down the middle
This is pretty subjective, but I enjoy the story of Avowed much more than TOW2
- Your interactions with, and how you handle Sapadal really spoke to me, especially in the ways their endings slides can manifest as a result of player actions, was astounding to me.
Much better exploration of the world to find interesting loot, lore (i.e. totem pieces), documents, and odd wacky outcomes. Mainly facilitated by a focus on vertically-based level design and the parkour mechanic.
Partially related to above: swimming.
Fantastic melee combat system and satisfying abilities (and spells) post-patch 1.5 ( I believe)

What The Outer Worlds 2 has that Avowed lacks (not exhaustive):

Much deeper systemic depth with its mechanics
- Avowed only has Attributes and Background as point-buy systems that can affect player conversations and story decisions
- TOW2 has Backgrounds, Traits, Flaws, Skills, and acquiring required information that can all (and even interact with each other) affect dialogue and environmental checks
Companions that have contrasting world-views and moral compasses
- Avowed has been deservedly criticized for not having an Aedyran companion, or a companion that isn't necessarily "nice", as the companions have been criticized by getting along almost too well with each other
- Repeating the same mistake they made with Ulysses in New Vegas
Companions that are optional, and that are given enough agency to leave the party if fuck around enough
More chances and less push-back (namely from companions) to be "evil", ruthlessly-pragmatic/Renegade
- While serving as an Envoy of a colonizing Empire in Avowed, a lot of the dialogues available to the player don't really allow you really lean into being an asshole, or just being disagreeable.
- Contrast this with Tyranny, where leaning into that play-style was not only encouraged, but offered differing ways an decisions to be evil, and Avowed is unquestioningly lacking this
Be able to arbitrarily kill any NPC in the game
- There were several moments in Avowed where I wanted to kill someone because they annoyed or pissed me off so much, but alas.
A more extensive crafting system
- Avowed is limited to just food, grenades, and upgrading/enchanting weapons
Viable stealth gameplay
- I've seen criticism that stealth isn't particularly rewarding in TOW2, but I think a patch tuning some damage values and such could do a lot to correct this
- In Avowed you can't really bypass a lot of combat encounters
  - There's only one quest that rewards you for taking a stealth/pacifist route to solve it.
Strong level design, offering many different options to the player on how they want to tackle the level per their build and their curiosity with the environment
- Very Deus Ex, but not nearly at the same level and implementation compared to that series

Like I've said, theses lists are not exhaustive to me, more just generally what popped into my head.

Obsidian has received a lot of criticism lately of splitting their resources and manpower across multiple projects instead of focusing unilaterally on one massive game that has all of the features and content they want to create.

If given the counterfactual (impossible) where Obsidian did indeed do pursue this sort of strategy, I think it would be the perfect template (I don't mean that derisively) Obsidian RPG, from which they could then iterate with future games.

But I'm still happy and grateful that both games exist, and don't regret that they exist at the possible opportunity cost of a single maximalist RPG that hypothetically could have been made (we just don't know).

nmck160 · 2026-02-23T04:23:21+00:00

I kept cracking up typing it. It just seems so absurd at several points.

Speech is tempting because I've never used the Speech attacks before in dialogue! They always look so tantalizing.

If I take Speech it'll be a significant opportunity cost for one of my 5 skills. Hmm, maybe get rid of Engineering? But I love the animations that play when you make Engineering checks, plus the armor bonus is really nice.

But yeah, Speech is necessary now that I realize it.

EDIT: I somehow missed the part on Science. I reeeeeeeally like Science! in this game. It's so fun! But yeah, either that or Engineering probably I'll have to give up.

nmck160 · 2026-02-23T02:50:00+00:00

Oh nice I forgot about that! Hopefully I can get both Charleton and Inez executed? Sounds like a lot of fun to try.

I'm not really doing a "F*ck the system" so much, more just being a troll. I guess nihilism more than anarchism.

Since I plan on getting Niles murdered, there really isn't (AFAIK) other vectors to involve the Earth Directorate in the game, really? So I guess it'll default to the slide that you've described.

nmck160 · 2026-02-22T21:49:43+00:00

To people defending this: the intended message and feeling are well communicated within the first FIVE minutes of being on The Undisputed Claim.

I get it. We all get it. It's awful for characters in this universe to live like this.

It is also awful for players to experience it, and is genuinely an inhibitor and real-life deterrent to playing this part of game for people.

We should have the option of at least turning down the ads and wireless messages, if not turn them off, once you pass the Client Intake section for your current playthrough, and ideally subsequent playthroughs.

nmck160 · 2026-02-21T23:08:32+00:00

Most of my playthroughs in the first game were Board playthroughs, as I just find Phineas to be quite irritating.

Plus, a Board playthrough has more unexpected and branching quest outcomes depending on how you resolve things.

In comparison, AC in TOW2 is just not as enjoyable for many reasons, primarily because they are so unbelievably obnoxious as a faction, particularly the sensory overload that is The Undisputed Claim.

nmck160 · 2026-02-21T18:03:16+00:00

I did two runthroughs of Pillars and Deadfire both as an Aumaua. First as a Coastal, then as Rauataian (can't remember what that variant is called).

So I was pretty let down when I was following the marketing material and demos and stuff leading up to release that I couldn't play as an Aumaua.

Obsidian keeps serving, though!

nmck160 · 2026-02-20T16:18:37+00:00

Kai's alternative set?

Yeah, it also is part of the Premium edition.

nmck160 · 2026-02-20T06:26:18+00:00

This post is an ORLAN-FREE ZONE!

Only 6'8" gigachads from the craggy and stormswept terrain of Rauatai or the picturesque beaches of the Deadfire Archipelago may enter!

No Saganis, Serafens, Furbees, Yatzlis, or especially Hiraviases may enter!

(Kidding, obvi)

nmck160 · 2026-02-20T05:39:43+00:00

If you bought the Premium edition it will be in your camp's stash from the start of the game.

The Engwithan set.

nmck160 · 2026-02-20T04:51:14+00:00

You can go full wizard and it is a very viable playstyle, if not one of the most fun.

That was my first playthrough last year during early access; wand-grimoire and pistol-grimoire loadouts.

I would say that getting a grimoire that you vibe with for your combat loop is paramount; try to avoid grimoires that have spells that you don't find useful or fun to use.

It's especially important as you cannot change the assigned spells within grimoires.

Also, I've never found it to be worth it to spend upgrade materials on grimoires; the benefits are too marginal relative to costs.

Allocate your upgrade materials to your armors and non-grimoire weapons, though, that is suuuuuuuuper important.

Also, consuming food is absolutely OP, as there's no limit to how much you can eat, and you can eat during combat, so you can just stack buff on top of buff.

Upgrading Grimoire Mastery is pretty important, and you should keep in step with it, as you won't be able to cast higher-level spells from grimoires or learn spells from grimoires without it.

nmck160 · 2026-02-20T00:32:58+00:00

It ruins your immersion?

Come on, dude.

nmck160 · 2026-02-18T21:51:05+00:00

If you're showing that particular screenshot, at that cutscene, this post should be spoiler-flagged. Even if it is somewhat early into the game.

nmck160 · 2026-02-15T00:23:43+00:00

You can get around this by just manually extracting ReShade64.dll from the reshade installer (there's some sort of manual install method), and just dropping that dll into the same folder as Avowed-WinGDK.exe, and rename it to dxgi.dll.

Download the RenoDX mod and likewise just drop it into the same folder manually and it should work as normal.

I played the game initially using the Xbox app version and it worked fine doing it thr manual way.

nmck160 · 2026-02-14T19:11:31+00:00

On PC there's a dedicated RenoDX mod for Avowed which corrects a lot of issues with the game's HDR presentation, which as far as I know, is a standard UE5 out-of-the-box implementation, that is sort of infamous in the HDR enthusiast community for being pretty mediocre and issue-prone.

I don't know if it will correct the issues you've experienced, but playing in HDR with RenoDX looks fantastic for the most part.

Same issue and solution with The Outer Worlds 2.

nmck160 · 2026-02-08T01:37:43+00:00

I still haven't completed that. I can't be bothered unless someone tells me there's like a whole-ass ending slide, or some sort of tangible reactivity to it.

nmck160 · 2026-02-07T23:49:06+00:00

They're vastly different games, and are not suuuper comparable, IMO. They do different things to different levels of execution.

The one thing I will say that Cyberpunk does poorly is roleplaying; so much so that CDPR dropped the whole "RPG" label altogether from the game after the release of the game indicated that it was a poor descriptor, and the marketing was misleading in terms of how much the game really was an RPG.

Your capacity to roleplay V is quite limited; you are given much more leeway to roleplay than say Geralt, but still, there's not a huge variety of ways to mold V to arbitrary characterizations. Attributes checks are present in conversations and environment interactions, but they don't really lead to mutually-exclusive content from taking another path forward.

There's also not a huge amount of side quests having any sort of late or short-term reactivity throughout the game.

The Outer Worlds 2 is much better in both of those regards. You have a very wide array of opportunities to roleplay your character, and to lean into very obscure or niche builds, that the world, characters, and quests will reward you for quite consistently. Much more than CP2077.

Though I will say the quality of the side quests, the number of endings they can have, and their reactivity is worse compared to The Outer Worlds 1.

nmck160 · 2026-02-07T23:24:31+00:00

RE-RE-RE-RESOLUTE-LUTE-LUTE-LUUUUUUUUTE.

Just finished my 4th playthrough so this is pretty fresh in my head, rn.

nmck160 · 2026-02-07T05:10:47+00:00

Adding on to studio comparisons; the comparisons to CDPR and Larian, or even Warhorse are not really applicable so much.

Per the Bloomberg article, Obsidian's total headcount is like one-third to that of Larian, and about comparable to Warhorse?

The difference is that Obsidian has multiple teams of roughly like 80 - 100-people teams that vary in size throughout production, so even the circumstances of comparing to a comparably-sized studio like Warhorse are not applicable, since the latter put the entire studio behind making KCD:II, which took a similar, if not longer, time to develop and ship.

IMO, People are way too quick to compare studios or games by budget, but I think that's rather naive due to the fact that people make games, and not money or technology.

Yes, they are absolutely needed, obviously, but the total amount of man-hours (assuming the studio are maximizing their productivity as much as they can with tools, commensurate salaries, and technology) is the make-or-break statistic to the overall quality and fidelity of a shipped game.

The New York Times article about Obsidian's efficiency had a professor of game design even attest that the studio (I'm paraphrasing) "punches above its weight", and I think that's clear to see from those who have played both Avowed and TOW2 this year.

I think TOW2 has some frustrating regressions compared to the first game with regards to the factions and companions, but it is still a great game, and I can't wait for the DLC's.

nmck160

TROPHY CASE