#when the devs just cut your questline

[mortallyperfecttimemachine]

Iorveth during Witcher 3, presumably.

Pandas for reference

[lastoneout]

Hey everyone, just wanted to warn Coral Island players who may be photosensitive to be careful going into the underwater caves! There's currently a MASSIVE bug going on with them that seems to be due to the cave maps loading on top of the overworld map.

I took a video of the bug(warning for some small mermaid questline spoilers and a major photosensitivity warning from 2:32-2:45 and from 3:16-3:54!!):

(Edit: This apparently came about because of the new update, it's not related to the Winter Fair, and it is happening to all of the underwater caves!)

As I said, it seems like it's an issue with the cave system loading on top of the overworld map. Whenever I go in I lose my dive gear and can move around like I'm not underwater, but all of the water sounds are still playing. Going back onto land is tricky, I got stuck at one point near one of the big black boxes, the best bet, if this happens to you, is to just go to bed immediately, as rolling the day over and/or reloading the game seems to reset everything. I've gone into the caves multiple times like this and so far there doesn't seem to be a risk of it corrupting your save, but I am going to avoid pushing it just in case.

I mostly wanted to warn everyone because if you push too far into the caves you can get some pretty serious glitching that might trigger people's epilepsy/photosensitivity issues. I also was just hoping to give the devs more info on what's going on so they can fix it. Def be careful when watching the video if you are photosensitive!

I'll include some screenshots I took under the cut for anyone who doesn't want to watch the video.

[katyspersonal]

Henriett thoughts

Henriett honestly has such a cool interaction potential, no less than some other NPCs with the hunter, if only devs gave her dialogue. As far as promo materials and merch suggest, the Hunter arrives from foreign land but adapts to Yharnam and starts wearing Hunter Set - same as what Henriett wears, only her set has cape and top hat instead of the cap! This is the type of a normal hunter descending from the one that Gehrman started, as suggested by this set drawing strong inspiration from Old Hunters clothes! They're hunters that still care about the hunt and refuse to abandon it, carrying on the quest of their ancestors...

Henriett easily could work as one of the characters that helps the hunter to get into what the heck is going on, a lot like Alfred, Eileen or Valtr! More importantly? This interaction is basically anti-Alfred. Henriett is a summon against Emilia, Ludwig and Laurence, who are all important Healing Church members, and she uses Church weapons, suggesting she might have once sided with the Healing Church but saw through their bullshit and turned against them! Whereas Alfred talks your ear about "holiness" of the Church and its former leaders, Henriett could instead talk about the opposite! A function that ended up passed to Simon, which is fine, but aside of balancing gameplay and storytelling, just in one's imagination? She is very anti-Alfred encounter for our Hunter x)

(Source: ( x ))

Interestingly, there is a cut situation where we'd find her dead (presumably that's how she'd become a summon in Hunter's Nightmare). Hunter's Nightmare is also ONLY available after defeating Emilia, so like... hmmm I wonder why? Maybe they were planning to have Henriett actually die or be dying after Emilia is defeated? That Soulsborne thing where you reload the area only to find out that an NPC you liked is dying for a dumb reason or something sfdjhhd

But also imagine if that was Alfred's fault, or even something foreshadowing Bloody Crow (that he waited for her to be weak after Emilia's battle and snuck up on her to backstab like a rat that he is, since blood dregs he is seeking ARE found in the blood of hunters). Former is sure less preferred though since it repeats Simon and Brador situation with the 'church idiot kills a local loredigger that saw through the institution's bullshit despite having once been the staff', sooooo yeah. (On the other hand, since when Soulsborne is opposed to 'history repeats itself' situations?) I think they simply could work as kinda opposing NPCs who are both very open about Yharnam's lore despite everyone else not liking to talk with the outsiders! Maybe even contrasting: Alfred is acting very friendly and warm towards Hunter and turns out to be a deranged fanatic under that mask, so imagine if Henriett, despite providing lore to us all the same, was actually kinda snarky and reeking of 'git gud' attitude, to reveal having been a good person in the end of her questline that doesn't deserve to die?

Her passing the lore-dropper function via Nightmare is of course tricky because, again, we already have Simon to do that... But imagine if whereas Simon follows us down to the Church's most terrible secret, Henriett instead talks with us about Old Hunters stuff, such as Oto Workshop and how it rolled into Powder Kegs instead and why, some legendary ones, how they started and were overshadowed by Ludwig's hunters, all that. She must have studied them a lot to take the mantle of their style despite them going extinct save for few NPCs like Henryk or Djura, and could provide interesting information!

Also imagine Hunterriet shipping as "rival" ship to Alfhunter fdhhfds Bloodborne provides some dilemmas of 'nice vs evil' ships like Hunter x Arianna or Hunter x Adella, Hunter x Simon or Hunter x Brador, etc.

(I will be real though, Eld3n Ring might have spoiled me with more dialogue, interactions and unciphered lore than what I am used to, so that's why I suddenly want her to talk and to be important for the Hunter hahah.)

[violet-dragongirl]

Alright I got time to explain something.

Yes, fuck the Legion in New Vegas (especially Vulpus and his larpin ass).

But also...

*sigh*

The design of how the Legion was supposed to be more fleshed out instead of out right convincing the player (right from the start if you went through the dialogue) that they're only slave driver larping misogynist asshats with a great logistic strategy and bodies to throw at the dam.

More below the cut cos also I have a Love/Hate relationship for this game and not because it was one of the most annoying games to manually install mods for (I did find a solution to at least make vanilla modding so much faster and easier).

Like...Sawyer wanted that and was denied of making a game that sat between the events of FO3 and FO1 and 2, and had a lot of hard/harsh truths that were deeper than what the game delivered. And of course more that he and the devs wanted to put into the game but were ultimately cut out.

The DLC in ways (particularly Lonesome Road and Dead Money) was supposed to at least open a doorway to those questions with viable answers (along with the fact that Ulysses was also supposed to be a companion that is sympathetic to the Legion). But it did so in a manner at the time that still left so much to be questioned and answered for.

I wasn't expecting a War and Peace novel of the complexities of the harsh truths that the writers and devs tried to flesh out over an 18 month period of development. However, I was expecting something more after Fallout 1 and 2, and to have that press and push the envelope just enough to say that there's more to the post-post apoc ordeal that is the Fallout Universe.

Like the game is already not black n white/cut and dry in its narrative even if that narrative was...still not that great.

With all that said, having known of what it could've been still kinda sucks in ways because now it's burned into my head that the Legion is Just Bad With No Nuanced Explanation.

Wait...back up two feet...

It is nuanced but it's cut short. And unless you take the dive and side with them, you'll see that nuance but again, even with some of the later game dialogue that can sway the player to side with them (I'm more or less thinking of when you get to the strip and a disguised Legion messenger comes up and gives you a letter which will partake in a parlay with Caesar*), and even with how Cass tells you (again, kind of a mid-game event/questline) that she even admits that logistically she'd rather deal with the Legion than the NCR solely because they Get Shit Done and know the logistical, and social contract of Don't Fuck With Your Supply Line...

It's still not enough to give the player pause and see what truly makes the Legion tick in my personal opinion--especially given how it's said in the game that they're a band of many conquered tribes that lived east of the Colorado. So like...

¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯ you're kind of left going Legion Bad.

I still don't like them as a faction, I really don't, but I'm not gonna lie and state that it's never crossed my mind to explore what the game offered as far as siding with the Legion. Maybe I'll do it fully at some point. Emphasis on maybe.

It was already hard enough to deal with the fact that convincing Ulysses to Stop with the whole setting the whole world on fire again was like talking to a giant fire ant that wants to be in an open ended container =\.

The NCR ain't out of this either as they were also supposed to be more nuanced. And in ways they are a more nuanced faction than the Legion in base game/vanilla. The dialogue where the arms dealer at the 188 Trading Post was a clear sign that not everyone was walking the straight and narrow. She had issues with how top brass were ordering her to so something that was more extreme for the reprimand she delivered to them. Along with the fact that greenhorns were 2 weeks out of training and were thrown into the field Just Like That.

Cass is a hardcore NCR sympathizer/patriot. Fine (You're hot Cass, but I'm still docking points girl, they're racketeering cops systematically and seem to be an offset of the Enclave which like...Yikes? Come on Cass think for a second).

But even she sees the issue with this war of the NCR being too spread thin for controlling the hoover damn which can provide electricity and clean water, resources that, yes, ARE very rare given how it's in...you know...a 200 year old post-nuke winter post-apocalypse.

So the game gives the player incentives to dig in further to either or both sides but not enough to really get things to be truly compelling and at the very least, complex enough to be convincing. At least for me. (Not saying they have to convince me and me alone...that'd be dumb.)

In both modded and vanilla playthroughs of the game, as much as I fucked over the NCR (cos I did see them as cops and too close for comfort of feeling like they're Enclave Lite) I also sided with them as far as the whole war between the Bull and the Bear.

Outside of that choice, it was either the Khans, or the Kings. the Followers were...weird so I was always whatever about em.

I never really went into the arc of Jacobstown and the Remnants, partly because before I even got a chance to mod the game, playing on Classic Vanilla and not Fixed Vanilla, the game crashed if I even dared to venture farther beyond the usual main quest route (partly due to save file bloating and easy corruption of the file if it crashed before a save. That and I NEVER trusted the autosave function at all in the game).

And the Brotherhood of Steel…

*Actually thinking it through*...hmm...

Nah…fuck them.

I love you Veronica, you're a neat character, but like...girl your faction is...Not Good Company AT ALL and I'm glad you're aware of that but yeah, hard nope and pass for me still hope it all works for ya :)

I do wish there was more and maybe with the JSawyer overhaul and a few other mods, it can give more, but even then, the inescapable white narrative of it all still...leaves me feeling...meh about the whole game.

With Sawyer wanting a FONV 2 not set directly in New Vegas but in an area in close proximity to New Vegas, well I hope it can get greenlit. At the very least it'll be better to mod manually than the fucking shit I had to deal with (Gamebryo Engine...eugh...I can't imagine how hard it was to work with the engine at the time...well it was an attempt and I see that so still, good on the devs for giving their all...fuck the execs who pushed too hard).

I would get into more of how the game has a good subtle allegory (beyond Dead Money) about Letting Go, and also get into the deets and my opinion about the Honest Hearts DLC but again...for a different time.

*I'm NOT pronouncing his name as Kai-Zar...I don't do that (ㆆ_ㆆ)

[oldcyberpunk2077truth]

its funny how pinkydude and smallsandayu get so much pride out of the thought of working at cd projekt red given all the bullshit that goes on in that studio. as if whats already common knowledge isnt bad enough to deter them id like to see their reaction to that cut questline (that got very far into development) where the devs thought it would be funny to have v walk into a valentino bar wearing a jacket covered in racial slurs. or when phantom liberty comes out and you may or may not need to visit a "[g slur] stand" in the pacifica stadium market. or how often slurs were flung around in early scripts in general (the f slur in particular several times,homophobia seems to be pinky and small's favorite thing to call out above all else). or the multiple weird blatantly anti abortion narratives you can dig up (again,just wait for phantom liberty). you can "oh but it was cut for a reason not all the devs are like that wa wa wa" all you want i guess but again i ask why do they idolize them so much? same goes to everyone else here who cant take criticism of their best friend multi million dollar AAA studio,really. thats another huge problem with this fandom that no one ever talks about

I never thought about that honestly and seeing your comment it makes me realize that it is an issue indeed. I think I'll do the same and wait for the DLC to see.

[pissvortex]

Big f for fallout nv fans getting a massive content mod that's 7 years in the making but some fucking pedo worked on it and the team had to kick the guy off, recall the mod, and work to cut his sorry questline out. Hope the cunt that put the word shit in chokes

ive heard all about the fallout new vegas frontier mod drama and it was very clearly dogshit from the beginning. the devs were defending all of the overt rape fetish content they included in the mod (not including the foot fetish and zoophilia content), including defending the fact that you can put a slave collar on the teenage girl companion and make her call you “master” but then when it turns out one of the devs was actually drawing pedo shit they have the nerve to be shocked.

people please for the love of god drain the cum out of your ears before you make a video game mod, i promise you if people want horny mods they will seek them out and not just hope that they’re included in a massive expansion DLC. the frontier would be much better off as just a standalone vehicle mod, the other shit sucks

[esoscreenshots]

What are your impressions of Blackwood are you enjoying it or is it lack luster for you?

I've been hearing a lot of mixed opinions on it-- I definitely am seeing a lot more criticism and irritation with Blackwood than with Greymoor. I warn you I have not started the main quest, done any of the public dungeons, the trial, or entered the major cities. (When I adventure in a new zone, I usually do world bosses/anchors/storms first, then delves & delve quests, then public dungeons, then areas of interest e.g. cities, pathfinder spots, crafting places, then squeeze out as much as I possibly can from every location, then do the main questline.)

Under the cut since this might get long? Also spoilers for minor quests.

COMPANIONS:

I think the companions system is great-- definitely a little grindy, and I have not seen a single piece of companion gear in my adventures so far-- but both of the characters are incredibly endearing. It's a lot more fleshed out than I thought it would be in terms of abilities, but there's only one other character to manage beside yourself, so it's not overwhelming. Costume and mount customization was nice, and I definitely did not expect it. The commentary they deliver is varied enough and I genuinely feel great when I unlock special dialogue-- I've ulted many times, and once Bastian said something to the effect of "Huh! Show-off!" and I've been smiling thinking about it ever since.

PERFORMANCE/MINUTIA:

Performance is fine; I've been stuck on one infinite loading screen, but other than that, I've had no issues with performance. There are a few occasional dev issues like spelling mistakes or missing map geometry, but they're banging these zones out like lightning and the pandemic is on, so it's understandable a few things get through the cracks.

COLLECTABLES:

I really hate the tapestry collectable so far. There are, as far as I'm aware, no hints or riddles to where they are, and they're usually in far-flung obscure corners of the map. I've only found three legitimately so far. I really wish it was more like Summerset/Wrothgar/Murkmire and you get a little riddle for each piece. Please let me know if there IS one and I've just missed it and then I'll totally remove this point.

(As an aside, I think the zones for finding the digging spots are way too big in some maps, though this one isn't as bad as I've seen. But like, damn, it should not take me five minutes of painstakingly combing the landscape to find the spot! Especially with all the perks in play! It's a weird/frustrating difficulty spike versus the ease of the divination and the digging minigame.)

ENVIRONMENT:

The environment is really nice. Seeing a return of old Argonian plants make a return alongside new animals and features was pretty cool. I do not care for Imperials (they're pretty close to Bretons as my least-favorite ES race), but even so, the interweaving of architectures and cultures has had... an interesting effect on the landscape. It's kind of cool to see wooden buildings and stone intermesh, and seeing how the landscape blends. I think it's cool. I also like the continuation of the Grapple Bow as a game mechanic. Nothing makes me feel as bad-ass as leaping over a cliff's edge to my certain doom only to grapple to my safety.

MINOR QUESTS:

The minor quests I have done I really enjoyed. The one where one of Hermaeus Mora's servants was desperately trying to escape into the real world, plus the intrigue of the sleepy town's mystery (and adventuring with Alchemy!) was really nice and had me on the edge of my seat entertained. The return of the Blackfeather Court was much enjoyed and I forgot how much I liked the Duke. The "brother was transformed into a pig" bit was also hilarious. Interacting with Nocturnal after thwarting her plans previously was... interesting. There are probably other things I'm forgetting, but I've mostly found the writing and premise of the minor quest to be a cut above those we got previously.

(I really want to advance in the Bog Dog quest, but I don't know how and I don't want to look it up until I'm really, really done with the zone and I still haven't found it.)

QUANTITY:

I've been impressed with the amount of content, though I've seen many who were disappointed or irritated that it was only "eight hours of content" and moved on once they were finished. I've gone through eight hours myself and I haven't touched any of the main story, public dungeons, dailies, 75% of the quests, and probably about half the delves. Granted, this is from the idiot who spent 80 hours in Vvardenfell when they were starting out, so, grain of salt, perhaps. I can easily see 20-30+ hours of content in this expansion. That does fall shy of my usual "a dollar per hour of enjoyment" for most video-games, but whatever; either during the next ESO trial I'll play the second expansion for free and make up the loss, or I'll find something to do. Maybe I'll play through with another character-- I have a Redguard who would really like Mirri.

VERDICT:

Negatives: The fucking tapestry haunts my dreams. Companions are maybe a little grindy in terms of level-up, and their weapons are difficult to get.

Neutrals: I have no idea if the story is any good, or if the dungeons are any interesting. Performance can sometimes be an issue, but othertimes run as smooth as butter.

Positives: I love the companion system, the commentary, the rapport system, etc. The side-quests are fun and interesting so far, and the return of the grapple bow makes my heart happy.

Overall: Got some flaws. Could possibly be considered overpriced given the amount of content, depending on how much you want to play. I think it was worth my forty bucks- I’ve been enjoying it, anyway- and that maybe the whingers might be bandwagoning.

I could feel differently if the main story turns out badly, though...

[warsofasoiaf]

Its been awhile since you've done any character analysis on Fallout New Vegas, but would you be willing to go into one for some of the minor characters? I'm actually curios of your opinion on Silus the captured centurion and his motivations.

I’m more than happy to, although this won’t be about Silus so much as it will be about the quest Silus Treatment. It’s one of my favorite quests in the game, since it does a great deal just with dialogue and some creative use with the engine to create an engaging quest that showcases some of the failures of the NCR and the Legion. Given that the central theme is about picking a faction, warts and all, having a quest that puts the two main faction of New Vegas on full display is an absolutely good idea. The game is too old for spoilers, but it’s a long analysis so I’ll put a cut in.

Silus Treatment starts off simple enough, going to Camp McCarran, in the old McCarran International Airport, now the regional command post of Colonel Hsu. McCarran is not in a great spot when you first get there; there are periodic Fiend attacks, tensions in Freeside are causing havoc for NCR civilians, the overstretched NCR supply lines are making it difficult even for their central point of operations, and there’s a strong possibility that they’ve been infiltrated. It’s all Colonel Hsu can do to keep order and function in the base. Perfect protagonist fodder, in other words, for a nice quest hub.

It’s a tough needle to thread in any RPG to build a quest hub where there’s stuff for a character to do. If everyone is incapable of solving even the most basic of problems, it gives a great deal of quests for the player to do but it makes the quest-givers look incompetent, especially if the quest-givers are supposed to be capable figures in their own right. Conversely, if the NPC’s are competent, then the quests would be solved and that would close out on content for the player. There’s plenty of ways to settle this, and the devs do an adequate job here. The war effort means prioritization, and Hsu is dealing with being torn from both angles. He can’t just hunt down the Fiends, because he needs to organize patrols and deal with NCR settlers in the area. He can’t just pacify Freeside because it will engender hostility with House and so he’s delaying the order from his butcher superiors like Moore to go in with fire and sword. He doesn’t have a solution to the Kings but he’s trying to find one, which as far as writing goes is a good solution. Hsu is a decent man but overworked. He’s hoping that he can develop a solution in time before Cassandra Moore decides to pull rank and go on the warpath against all who oppose the NCR, which leaves a convenient spot for the player.

It’s this person that gives us our introduction to the Silus Treatment questline. Hsu has a valuable prize: Silus, a captured Legion centurion! Typically centurions always commit suicide rather than be captured to deny any useful intelligence to the enemy, so to capture a centurion alive should be quite a find. But it’s not going so well. Lt Carrie Boyd, in charge of base security, can’t get Silus to talk. Again, perfect quest writing to get the PC involved in the plot. Normally such a sensitive operation would never be given to an unknown civilian contractor, even for a bureaucratic mess like the NCR. Frontier desperation, hitting a wall via official channels, and the fact that the character is the protagonist in a sprawling open world help it pass ludonarrative muster.

Boyd is a real piece of work, she’s openly sadistic hiding beneath of veneer of civility. She considers the humane treatment of POW’s as an impediment, and so looks for ways around it. Notably, while she wants information from Silus to deliver to her superiors, she’ll settle for just having Silus beaten so bloody that he can’t speak anymore, calling it “entertainment.” This is a person who simply should not be in charge of interrogating a prisoner, she is neither humane nor effective at her job, but here she is by virtue simply of being the chief MP on base.

Not that Silus, the prisoner and the other side of this duo, is better. He openly revels in the barbaric practices of the Legion’s slavery system, even trying to ensure that the slaves can never achieve some level of comfort by tightening the collars and making it difficult for them to feel at ease while eating or drinking. Even if Silus is mostly saying those things simply to get a rise out of Lieutenant Boyd, he knows what the Legion is up to and enjoys it. Silus is arrogant to an extreme degree, he is filled with confidence that he can outlast any interrogation by the feeble NCR without giving up any intelligence, that he could easily escape NCR confinement and that he is so valuable to the Legion that following Caesar’s order would be a waste. Good fodder then, for the protagonist to bring him down to size.

Silus Treatment as a quest is relatively simple. Boyd signs off on the Courier beating the ever-living tar out of Silus and then steps out for a smoke, letting the player do whatever he or she wants to the prisoner. Silus, sneering, dismisses the Courier as just another piece of NCR trash, and it’s up to the player with how to succeed. Violence is always an option, you can beat Silus, and eventually gets something useful, that the base itself will be the target of Legion destruction. Silus admits that his fantasy of escape was always a fantasy, he was dead to Caesar just as surely as he as if he had committed suicide before capture. 

Yet if the Courier has points in Speech or Intelligence, he can completely upend Boyd’s methods and actually deliver a worthwhile interrogation. The first technique, with speech, uses an interrogation technique known as Pride-and-ego-down, where the interrogator routinely belittles and demeans the prisoner, usually their technical competence or soldierly qualities, in an attempt to get the prisoner to “redeem” themselves by explaining a piece of useful intelligence that would explain the deficiency as opposed to it just being a terrible personal quality. The Courier mocks Silus as a coward (bravery being a key soldierly virtue) and he defends himself by stating his bravery and that suicide is a poor death for a soldier of his intelligence and caliber, then saying how good a soldier he is for a “self-appointed megalomaniacal dictator.” Silus then spills that Caesar held his unit for three days because of “headaches,” in actuality, it’s Caesar’s brain tumor. The technique works to an exceptionally high degree, not only does Silus divulge that McCarran has been infiltrated as in the violence ending, but also that the Legion is suffering a crisis of command due to Caesar’s illness. The Courier gets a lot of useful intelligence out of Silus and doesn’t compromise the humane treatment of prisoners in the process. If it actually caused some self-reflection in Boyd, that’d be a complete win, but I suppose we can’t have everything.

My favorite option is the intelligence option, because the Courier goes full-on PSYOPS, posing as a Legion assassin sent to kill Silus for his failure to commit suicide on Caesar’s order. Silus denies it at first, but as the Courier continues to sell the performance, Silus begins to express real terror at the thought that the Courier is actually a frumentarius sent to kill Silus before he divulges anything to the NCR. The Courier fully sells the deal using Latin phrases as the language of Caesar’s elites. The Courier can quote Cicero, “legum servi sumus” - we are all slaves to the law, in what is perhaps a perfect example of Caesar’s philosophy of totalitarian obedience. The full quote "Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus” - we are slaves to the law so that we might be free, means little in Caesar’s totalitarian state where all are subject to his whims and contingency plans for Caesar’s incapacity aren’t even considered. Of course, the Roman Republic was hardly a free state, but Caesar really takes the cake with his dictatorship. If Caesar’s dictum holds true: “Corruptio optimi pessima” - the corruption of the greatest is the worst outcome. how much worse is it when Caesar himself is corrupted? But totalitarians rarely raise the possibility that they themselves are corrupt, because the good of the dictator is the good of the state. After all, L'etat c'est moi is the dictum of any dictator, not just a Sun King.

Of course, fitting New Vegas, you can side with Silus, and facilitate his escape. There, you feign beating him to unconsciousness and slip him a silenced pistol, then Silus makes good his escape, killing the guard sent to bring him back to his cell and sneaking out. Of all the endings, this one isn’t as satisfying. Some of it, of course, is that you never interact or see Silus again, so there’s never any reward to the quest except for the knowledge that the base is infiltrated, which in the pro-Legion side of the quest I Put a Spell on You allows you to complete Curtis’s sabotage operation (and a far better Legion quest, in my opinion, with the NCR quest side being even better given the multiple outcomes), but also it’s not referenced again with Caesar. What would Caesar’s reaction be to the Courier springing Silus? He is quite fond of reciting a litany of the Courier’s accomplishments in Act 2 at Fortification Hill.

If I could improve Silus Treatment, I think I would have made it so the violent path wouldn’t have produced enough valuable intel, and the player needs to do some more detective work to actually get to I Put a Spell on You, or even being mislead by Curtis and becoming the unwitting patsy of the Legion. But overall, I think it was an incredible quest and a testament to the writing in the game.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[rpgmgames]

April’s Featured Game: Nobody's Home

DEVELOPER(S): oates ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Survival Horror SUMMARY: After a night of extreme drinking and partying, you wake up in stranger's bed to discover... Nobody's Home.

Buy the game here! Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *oates: Hi, this is oates! I'm a pixel artist and game developer, I've started making games with rpgmaker in 2016 with VX Ace and now currently using MV for recent projects. Previous projects I've worked on were the FNaF-inspired Souls-like One Night at the Steeze, my first rpgmaker game and it's prequel, the FNaF-inspired roguelike No Delivery. Other games I've worked on include the fangames Day Dreaming Derpy, made in VX Ace and Spike's Day Off, made in MV and the latest in a series of previous fangames previously developed on Adobe Flash.

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *oates: Nobody's Home is largely based on my experiments to find and apply horrific elements in modern situations or phenomena. The scenario being explored here in Nobody's Home is the aftermath of some crazy party. Sound design is especially important when crafting a horror scenario, so I often look to music to draw inspiration. Much of the atmosphere and house design was inspired by music and imagery associated with '70s yacht rock (a sub-genre of soft rock). Another important note is a lot of the general mood and 'weirdness' was inspired by a band I listen a lot to, Dance Gavin Dance, specifically their "deathstar" album. However they have a tendency in all their albums to switch genres mid-song, often going from their post-hardcore sound to funk, pop, and even rap; aside from that, some of the subject matter covered can range from disturbing to unpleasant to nonsensical, but combined with the amazing music, it creates an experience that pulls the listener in all different directions. It got to the point that I was naming events in the game after some their tracks so I had to be careful not to inadvertently make a fangame haha But there are some easter eggs in Nobody's Home that were intentionally left in, and I'm fairly certain players have identified it already.

How long did you work on your project? *oates: I used much of the same framework left over from my previous project No Delivery for this development cycle, so the hassle for setting up asset pipelines was very much mitigated. I started in earnest, making assets back in January this year so it took roughly 2+ months to finish development for this project.

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *oates: Aside from the previous music inspirations, I was really intrigued with the way Resident Evil 7's Beginning Hour demo was able to pick up where Konami's cancelled PT left off in terms of survival horror games to look forward to back in 2017. Prior to later updates, the initial demo really only included a few set pieces, basic item interaction, and almost no puzzles from the full game. It was largely able to pull off scaring players from almost atmosphere alone (if you exclude the Jack Baker and ghost encounters). It was later in the full game that it was able to show off it's metroidvania-esque design to its fullest. After my previous project, I wanted to step away from roguelike design for a bit and focus a little more on an exploration-based experience, so I took a few notes from the way RE7 and RE2: Remake handled map design and progression.

Did you come across any challenges during development? How did you overcome or work around them? *oates: I was coming off a severe cold last year and it took most of January for me to recover, so it was a little hard to start full-on development immediately like I normally would on top of other career matters. And looking at events today, it's even more imperative that developers practice healthy habits during development.

Did any aspects of your project change over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *oates: I've had the idea for Nobody's Home as a concept for a while, but filling in those gaps with actual gameplay between centerpieces was a big variable. I went back and forth between the turn-based item combat from the previous project to cutting out combat entirely. While I didn't implement it, I also brainstormed a few concepts for overworld action and combat ala Zelda, but it seemed too complex given the time frame I set for myself. Eventually I settled on a middle ground between full combat and separate encounters, with "enemies" acting as essentially a toll gate. The rest of the game followed suit with various tolls and "mouse traps" for the player to trigger at their own behest. This wasn't necessarily the design I had in mind at first, but it helped to concisely fill a relatively small location with specifically "deadly" content.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *oates: I largely work solo for both development and art, but I do regularly work with a few musicians for an original soundtrack. I first started working with other composers for the fangame Day Dreaming Derpy, where after the initial demo was released, I received emails from a few musicians volunteering to contribute some tracks for the game. In all, the original soundtrack contained 9 tracks in total, with 3 tracks from each composer; each of them doing an amazing job and, in my opinion brought the project back then to a higher degree of quality. This was how I met some of the composers I still work with today and they all have some really great work! TheNGVirus @NGVirusNG1 Kaminakat @thekaminakat dRedder @HornyGremlin

What is the best part of developing a game? *oates: It's a toss up between the initial brainstorming/research and the first run-through when you have your desired maps linked together. For the brainstorming, it's pretty fun to learn about subject matter you want to do justice to as well as stretching your creative muscles for the first time in service to a certain concept. However this obviously wears off when you devote too much time to a particular concept, but it's still enjoyable nevertheless. For making that run-through, it doesn't necessarily mean to have all the events implemented, but to experience your game the way players will experience it for the first time does give a sense of completion/cohesion to what you, as a developer, are trying to accomplish. It essentially puts what you're working on into a different perspective for you.

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *oates: I do keep an eye out for what other rpgmaker projects are doing, and to see what others can do with the engine helps get the creative juices flowing; it's also fun to try to mentally reverse engineer how certain mechanics or effects were made. And it's always great to see fellow devs showcase what's possible with the engine.

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *oates: Nobody's Home has a relatively small cast of characters, whom you do interact with but never see, this is largely to done to create a sense of "un-relatability", but if I had to pick a character, it'd be "car guy", the guy you find stuck in the car. They have a good line, " ...there'd be a good reason for this, but there isn't..." Story of my life.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *oates: There were a few areas I would have liked to expand on or add, specifically- the attic + roof, the front lawn, behind the walls, and an entire second floor. Unfortunately that meant potentially adding more questlines and NPCs while the first set of questlines were pretty interwoven so it would have been way more complex, also again, given the time frame I set, it would have extended the development cycle way beyond what I had time for. But if I had implemented those extra areas, the game's length would also go way beyond the 30 min - 1 hr it takes to complete the game as it is now.

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *oates: I'd like to do both really, each installment of the VCRPG line of games is definitely a stand-alone story, or an isolated incident, but I would love to explore the aftermath of the game's events and how the passage of time ravages and twists the story into urban legend. I like to treat places and environments like characters as well, capable of making memories, being misunderstood, preserved, destroyed, and ultimately capable of change.

What do you most look forward to upon finishing the game? *oates: Both the fan reaction and free time honestly speaking. Once the development cycle finishes and the game is published, your work isn't really finished as there's always a chance someone's feedback can apply to immediate changes or patches you can implement, even during the release period. Marketing is also another large step to take into consideration after release, this includes tweeting, sending keys for lets plays, etc. Watching playthroughs is also a really good way to collect data on what parts of your design fall through and what fail to land. But after all that is said and done, some free time really helps the brain recuperate.

Was there something you were afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *oates: Just whether or not I handled the game's subject matter tastefully. Like horror cinema, everything done is in service the the themes and message of the piece as a whole.

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *oates: The game engine is essentially a tool, and like any tool you can find plenty of creative ways to get the same result. And don't be afraid to research whatever it is you need help with, it also helps to be specific with what you want.

Question from last month's featured dev @moca-pz: If you can collaborate with any game developer in the world, who would it be? What would be their role(s) and what would be your role(s)? *oates: Game developer I'd like to work with: Hidetaka Miyazaki His role: Story Lead and Director My role: Drinking buddy Game we're working on: SciFi Souls

We mods would like to thank oates for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Nobody's Home if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[jackdawyt]

Dragon Age: Inquisition is one of my favourite games of all time. I love everything about this game, from the compelling hero’s journey, to the roster of lovable characters, to making the Inquisitor my very own unique protagonist. Few games compare to the experiences and tremendous moments that Inquisition provides, not to mention the Trespasser DLC which revealed the true intention of the game’s villain, and paved the story forward for future titles.  

I think it’s rather telling how good this game is, considering we’re still talking about it nearly 6 years later after launch, discovering new theories and mysterious hidden deep within the lore. Heck, if Dragon Age: Inquisition was a mediocre experience, I don’t think I’d have a YouTube channel today with thousands of recurring views weekly talking about the game, and where the story is going to go since the events of Inquisition.  

However, there is something critical that I feel is necessary to discuss regarding Dragon Age Inquisition’s original marketing demos and the expectations they set for the finished game.  

Following up to the launch of Dragon Age: Inquisition, I used to obsessively re-watch the first original gameplay demo shown at Pax Prime 2013. At the time the game was in its pre-alpha build, however, there were many impressive features and dynamics showing just a glimpse of what we’d come to expect once we got our hands on the game.  

In retrospect, these promises were scrapped before the finished project released.

This post is not meant to be a negative outlook, poking holes at BioWare’s effort, but an investigation and critique into BioWare’s game design, more specifically, the cuts the developers made tackling Inquisition’s complicated release, and how they’ve learned since.  

For the uninitiated, Dragon Age: Inquisition released in November, 2014, a month after the next generation of consoles launched. As the game was jammed in-between two gaming generations, it was designed to ship on both the previous generation of consoles (Xbox 360/PS3) and the current generation (XB1/PS4).

In order for the game to predominantly run on the lower spec consoles, many gameplay cuts, downgrades and setbacks were made to the final project.  

I’m not talking about conceptual ideas in pre-production that were drafted for the game, like The Architect making a cameo appearance in a “Here Lies The Abyss” alternative twist, or the Hero of Ferelden, Hawke and The Inquisitor meeting up in a potential drafted prologue. Of course, there were plenty of ideas, concepts and story threads that were canned and reworked because the developers had better, and frankly more relevant plans for the game.

I’m talking about actual features and mechanics that were incorporated and designed into the vertical slice demo that was shown off to the fans at Pax Prime 2013, and then were removed later on just before launch.

I would like to point out that the gameplay I’m going to show was alpha footage, and the developers made sure we all understood that it could easily change, nobody lied to us. If anything, BioWare were so eager to show off the next Dragon Age game, that perhaps this was the biggest detriment to the project.

I’ll have the full Pax gameplay demo linked for those who want to watch it fully. But without further ado, I’m going to be revealing the Dragon Age: Inquisition we almost got.  

Cut Content:  

The demo starts with a significant cut, originally Dragon Age: Inquisition would’ve featured stunning party member cutscenes when entering new areas for the first time.  We see Varric, Cassandra and Vivienne discussing how prepared they are since the Inquisition formed. Varric banters that he’s outnumbered by the ladies once again.  

We can assume that these dynamic banter cutscenes based on your party members were replaced with Scout Harding’s area report.  

The models and textures for the characters and armours look very different too. Cassandra has a more angled facial structure, like her original concept art. And, the Inquisitor’s armour and textures don’t even exist in the final game, I remember attempting to recreate this look, a thousand times over, however, no fabrics in the game have this orange texture.

Helmets also appear in conversations, which is a huge pet peeve of mine, I’m still upset to this day that we can’t see helmets in conversations and there’s no mod to fix it. However, they added this feature in Mass Effect: Andromeda, so maybe we’ll see it in the future.  

In general, this demo showed that there was going to be a lot more cutscenes when entering new areas, in party banter, and for minor conversations with smaller characters.  

Upon inspecting the gameplay, we can see the camera’s placement was significantly adjusted. The demo had a third-person feel, whereas the game ended up with a pulled back camera, probably to suite the tactical camera for combat. Fortunately, there are mods that actually fix this issue.  

The UI has evolved since the demo, there used to be a Skyrim-esqe navigation compass that was replaced with a radar. And the party member icons are different, but that’s just nit-picking.  

The combat is more or less the same, however, it does seem more reactive and heftier in the demo. Most likely because the camera is more zoomed into the action. There are some tweaks though, the enemies react more to the Inquisitor’s attacks, the stumble, flail and even run away, as opposed to just taking the damage and then attacking you back.  

However, minor these cuts may seem to you; they did change the game a fair amount adding more immersion to the overall experience.  

Even so, the most obvious and upsetting cut when watching this demo regards the entirety of Crestwood, the area has been dramatically reduced in the final game.  

In this demo, the Inquisitor is given a conflict. One of the Inquisition’s soldiers asks the player how does the Inquisitor want to handle their armies' movements throughout the area.  

The Inquisitor could send the Inquisition army to save the town of Crestwood.  

They could lead the soldiers to tend to the nearby wounded.

Or they could bolster every solider to the Keep, leaving both the wounded and the town of Crestwood.  

Each choice had a consequence, and both Mike Laidlaw and Mark Darrah spoke on having multiple ways to approach the situation. For instance, in the demo’s scenario the Inquisitor decides to leave the town while it’s under siege, instead, they find a secret entrance towards the Keep. Using Antivan Fire, they burn the invaders’ boats which would prevent them from escaping after their attack. The Inquisition take the Keep, and head back to the ransacked town filled with newly fresh corpses. A dynamic cutscene of Varric mourning the dead plays out, adding emotional impact and weight to the decision the Inquisitor just made.  

And this was just a side questline...

The demo ends with the developers reiterated the tactical and dynamic approaches when showing the Inquisition taking over the Keep at The Western Approach.  

According to Mark Darrah, you could weaken enemy defences by doing things like drawing out the troops or poisoning their wells.  

Then, once you claimed the keep for yourself, you’d get a quest called ‘This Water Tastes Funny’, in which your Keep's well was poisoned and you’d have to go find fresh water.

The Keep’s themselves were originally designed to have a lot more influence and reactivity throughout the world. Once captured, the Inquisitor could choose a dynamic choice for the Keep’s overall goal, if you had enough Inquisition agents. 

The Keep could be specialised based on the Inquisition’s advisors. You could choose to run your Keep as a Military outpost, boosting fortifications. It could be a Keep of espionage and secrets, for information gathering, or you could make it a Keep of connections and merchants for diplomatic purposes. Each different speciality had a different advantage and aesthetic to suit its purpose.  

Adding more choices and roleplaying values for making the Inquisition your own army, having a say in what aspects it should grow in.  

That sums up the majority of the cuts made since this demo. I will say it’s unfortunate seeing these unfinished features that shaped the game in a completely different direction, that inevitably couldn’t make it into the finished project.  

But I think it’s wrong to pin the blame of this cut content on anyone because the developers were tackling a console generation shift, and they wanted everyone to have the opportunity to play the game without having to get a new console. Can you really blame them for that?  

Perhaps many of these features may be designed into a future title since the developers wanted them so much in Inquisition? And speaking of the future title, at least the next Dragon Age game won’t be coming out in between a console generation, it is being designed strictly for next-gen, so there shouldn't be any console setbacks and limitations.  

Even still, when Dragon Age 4 does eventually get a gameplay reveal, don’t set your expectations in stone based on that reveal. The finished project will look very different. These days gameplay previews aren’t always accurate, and that’s just a dilemma of the entire games industry, not just EA and BioWare.  

Wrapping up on a positive note, BioWare have learned from this experience, and they’re approaching Dragon Age 4 with a “show, don’t tell” strategy. They will be proceeding with caution when marketing and revealing the next Dragon Age game, and that may play a part in why we haven't and won't see anything official for a while.  

I don’t think I could end on a better note then the Narrative Director, John Epler’s message about Inquisition’s development. John said: “A good 90% of 'bad' decisions are, in fact, the best decision at the time. Game dev is all about making the best decision you can at the time, with the resources you have. A lot of stuff you thought was weird or awkward came down to a gut call of 'this is the best I can make this and I trust it's good enough'. Sometimes we're right, sometimes not.”

BioWare decided to make these cuts to Inquisition because they realised it was the right thing to do for the entire project, perhaps they felt they couldn’t deliver these features to their full capacity, or they wanted a change of direction. They believe these decisions were made for the greater good of the game, and I commend them for that.  

Dragon Age Inquisition is an incredible RPG with tons of personality, that not many games can even mimic. Although the game had some minor setbacks with the fair amount of content that was cut, the game is just as amazing without those initial features.  

Like I said, perhaps we’ll see these mechanics in the next game, if not, then at least it has been a learning experience for BioWare, that they can utilise for the development of Dragon Age 4.  

In any regard, let me know your thoughts down below on this gameplay demo relating to the finished game, and don’t forget to check out my latest news update!

[porta-decumana]

Some Random 5.2 Thoughts

Under the cut because spoilers!

Ruby Weapon/Sorrow of Werlyt

I like how they have been including the EX fight series (I know technically the EX fights aren’t the “canon” fights but for a lack of a better way to phrase it, I’m calling them the EX fight series) and making them more integral to the MSQ.  I know they first kind of did this with the Four Lords quest, which I actually thought was one of the better quests in Stormblood.  The story branched out from the MSQ and they did the same with the Werlyt quests, which I think is cool.  My one gripe about the Warring Triad quests from HW is that they felt important but they were kind of removed from the main story, so I think overall this way of storytelling just feels better?  It feels like... everything is more connected?  Which I really like.

I know Gaius in this quest series has been kind of controversial and I have my opinions on the discourse but I’m not gonna talk about it because I don’t feel like adding fuel to the fire.  Overall, I thought the Ruby Weapon fight was tragic to replay when I did inevitably get the fight in Duty Finder.  That poor girl. ;__;  

An FCmate commented to me about sometimes how it feels like the devs can’t “let go of Coil”, which I do agree-- there’s a lot of homages to Coil in the game.  The latter half of Ruby Weapon is def a big homage to T9 and I kind of wish it hadn’t been, if I’m honest.  I like when they interconnect fights with similar mechanics for lore reasons, but having Nael show back up was kinda off-putting this time.  It felt like they just wanted to add Nael to add Nael and eh.  I could’ve done without it but I did enjoy the fight a lot.  Nael showing up was a huge gasp moment for sure.

I feel like each fight with this series is gonna wreck my heart lmao, I don’t wanna see Gaius have to watch his kids die one by one ;__;

If they make the Duskwight evil, so help me God, I am going to scream. 

Gaius is distractingly hot.

I cannot wait to see what they do with the Sapphire Weapon.  Are we gonna get to fire a cannon at it?  Is someone else gonna pop out a la Nael style?  

The nod to Oversoul from FFX-2 was not missed on me, good job SE.

Eden’s Verse

Thancred being a protective dad figure to Ryne has me feeling feelings every time.  I was kinda lukewarm towards Thancred til HW and his growth just continues to impress me.  The day that he has to say bye to Ryne is gonna break my heart, I just know it.

Gaia was a huge surprise to me.  I didn’t think she was gonna act like that?  I was expecting someone more reserved and with full knowledge of what she was doing.  But tbh?  I was not disappointed.  She provided a really good foil to Ryne and I hope they enjoy their coffee biscuits because they earned them.

Every time someone bitches about Gaia’s lips in shout chat, I wanna scream lmao, sometimes people just have big lips, it’s not a novel concept people.

Gaia yelling at the end of E8 about wanting to see what tomorrow will bring inspired my depressed ass to go outside so thank you for your motivation, Gaia.

Ryne fusing with Shiva was kind of weird to me, but the concept of a merged Hydaelyn/Shiva like fight was neat.  I don’t really like the Redress mechanic.  I feel like there’s a implications and it doesn’t take a lot of digging to really see those implications. I know some people are trying to justify it because she’s fusing with the idea of a thousands of years old person but to me, it’s physically still Ryne and that... makes me feel weird about the mechanic.  Like they really didn’t have to add that in.  I worry that may add more fuel to the already on-fire dumpster bin of pedophiles in this game that lewd on her.

THAT BEING SAID... all of the songs were bangers, bless you Soken.  Shiva’s theme has been playing nonstop in my apartment and I cannot wait for the official lyrics to be released!

MSQ

Funnily enough, I was kinda meh about the MSQ lmao.  I feel like this + 5.1 was a lot of build and there hasn’t been much payoff, not like we got at the end of 5.0.  I feel like it’s time we get answers for something at least, not more questions.  The Echo being part of our Amaurotine heritage didn’t feel exactly groundbreaking-- it felt obvious.  Elidibus being “Ardbert” was also obvious.  It just confirmed what we already kind of figured.

Urianger trying to walk on water made me laugh out loud but then feel horrible because there’s some dark implications there.

Venat as a namedrop made me soft gasp too because the similarities between the Occuria from FFXII and the Amaurotines were never obvious to me but now they are.  Venat seems to be playing a similar role as they did in XII-- disobeying the ruling elite, or Convocation.  As a big XII nerd, I was very hype about Venat being in XIV.

The Rak’tika part felt kind of pointless if I’m honest, but it was fun.  I felt like it was there to buff the story and didn’t supplement it well.  Except the bit with Runar.  Poor Runar.  That being said, I didn’t mind returning to the Greatwood because I love that area.

I am far from a Zenos stan but I’m curious about his visions of the Final Days.  I feel like this was the most surprising part of the MSQ tbh.

Qitari

I just started this questline but holy crap, La Hee becoming canon was the best thing about this patch hands down.

[beautiesandheadcanons]

In my longer, lore-related posts, I’ve covered a few different things, including the history of Lord Raiden in Mortal Kombat, biographies of Dorian Pavus and Maeveris Tilani from the Dragon Age universe, and the history of the Qunari people and culture, also from Dragon Age. But so far I haven’t touched anything or anyone from Fallout, and so today I’m going to remedy that.

The very first Fallout game I ever played was 4 (I know, I know, I did go back and play 3 and New Vegas, don’t worry fellow fans) and as such some of my strongest ties are with that particular game. And while one character in particular isn’t the first companion you encounter, he quickly became my favourite (and I also continually curse Todd Howard for not making him romanceable!).

Nick Valentine has an interesting history. His memories and personality come from a pre-war detective of the same name who, after the traumatic death of his fiancée Jennifer Lands at the hands of infamous mobster Eddie Winter, submits himself to an experiment at the Commonwealth Institute of Technology (the remnants of which later became the Institute) that scanned his brain as part of treatment for PTSD. What happened to the original Nick is unknown, but whether he died during the initial nuclear bombing in 2077 or died sometime after, he is long gone by the time the events of Fallout 4 takes place in 2287. The Nick we get to meet in game is one of two prototype synths leftover from when the Institute was experimenting with expanding and furthering their synth program. His “brother” DiMA’s AI was allowed to develop a personality naturally, while Institute scientists attempted to implant the memories and personality of the original Nick into the prototype that would become our in-game companion. Since it was an unknown procedure at the time, the scientists had issues with the transplantation, and while sometimes it would seem to take, other times it wouldn’t. In observing what seemed to be the torture of his brother, DiMA escaped the Institute with Nick in tow to spare him further abuse. Unfortunately, after their escape, the personality and memories took root a little too hard, synth Nick thought he was really the original Nick, and in his confusion he attacked DiMA and forced his brother to knock him out and leave him.

While later on, the population of the Commonwealth would be extremely suspicious of synths and anything Institute-related, at this point in time they didn’t know much and so he was greeted with a mix of awe, curiousity, and a little fear at the unknown. In talking with Nick, he’ll tell the Sole Survivor of a kid he befriended known only as Jim, and that he was the first human contact he had post-Institute. In another story, he’ll tell of how he was permitted in Diamond City (a settlement known for its anti-synth and anti-ghoul stance) by rescuing the Mayor’s kidnapped daughter. Though he didn’t realise who she was when he stumbled upon her kidnappers, and despite not having a weapon, he was able to bluff his way into getting the abductors to leave by pretending to activate a bomb inside himself and just saying “beep” repeatedly as if in countdown. One he returned the daughter to the Mayor, he gave him a house as thanks and for the first time since he woke up, he had a sense of stability. He initially worked around town as a handyman, but because of his detective skills that kept being brought up and used, over time he stopped fixing things and became a detective full time.

It was one of his cases that lead to him meeting the Sole Survivor in an old Vault. In following a lead on a woman named Darla who was believed to be kidnapped – spoiler, she was not, she ran away with her gangster boyfriend – he was captured by Skinny Malone’s gang and imprisoned in the hideout they’d made out of Vault 114 nestled in the Park Street subway station. The Sole Survivor breaks him out and escapes with him, and upon leaving the Vault and meeting back up at his office, they reveal that they need him to help them find their missing son. Nick will assist them in their endevour, interviewing them and revealing the identity of the person who shot their spouse and stole their son, taking them to the house of known mercenary Conrad Kellogg and then summoning Dogmeat to help the Sole Survivor track him down (if they aren’t already travelling with Dogmeat). After the Sole Survivor confronts Kellogg at Fort Hagen, he will lead them to Doctor Amari and also volunteer to host Kellogg’s memories so that the fate of the Sole Survivor’s son can be ascertained and confirmed.

His personal quest, called “Long Time Coming”, involves finishing the old case that the original Nick had been involved in regarding the gangster Eddie Winter. After tracking down all 10 holotapes involving Winter, it reveals the code that will work on the keypad outside Winter’s bunker in Andrew Station. Upon arriving at the bunker and opening it, instead of being empty, the bunker will be revealed to be inhabited by Winter himself … ghoulified, of course, but alive nonetheless. Nick’s affinity will increase if the Sole Survivor allows him to kill Eddie instead of killing him themselves. After the shootout is over, Nick will retrace his steps to a road outside a run-down sandwich shop, the place where Jennifer Lands was murdered over 200 years before. While not the original Nick, he’s given some closure by wrapping up one of old Nick’s “loose ends”. He still has some issues with his identity, with knowing who he is separate from the pre-war detective, but the Sole Survivor has a chance to reassure him that he is his own man apart from the old Nick.

While not required, if allowed to accompany the Sole Survivor in the DLC “Far Harbor”, he has a significant emotional importance to the questline. The beginning involves following up on a message from a former associate of Nick’s, Kenji Nakano, whose daughter has run off and he wants he found and retuned. All signs point to the island of Far Harbor, and once Nick and the Sole Survivor arrive, they are pointed in the direction of Acadia, a settlement founded and run entirely by synths who escaped the Institute. Some of them refused a memory wipe offered by the Railroad, others had a memory wipe that didn’t take well and suffer side effects from it, and others still figured out they were synth and are trying to come to terms with who and what they are and their identity. The leader of the settlement is DiMA, Nick’s brother, who immediately recognises Nick on sight but who Nick doesn’t remember. During the course of the main quest, the Sole Survivor is able to find proof of their relationship, and Nick accepts the truth and even starts to form a bond with DiMA by talking with him every time they enter Acadia. While he won’t approve if the Sole Survivor doesn’t hold DiMA accountable for murder, he seems to comes to terms with the decision and it doesn’t seem to affect his relationship with his brother too much … though this could also just be something the devs overlooked.

While outwardly he may just look like an old synth that’s starting to fall apart, Nick is full of charisma and personality and has an amazingly witty and sarcastic sense of humour. Especially when taken on board the Prydwen and surrounded by Brotherhood soldiers who hate synths and everything associated with the Institute, he won’t hold back if someone outright insults him. Sometimes it’s just a simple deflection … for instance, if a Brotherhood soldier mutters, “Abomination” then Nick will respond with, “Well, good afternoon to you, too.” He’s not afraid to get a little more aggressive when told, “You disgust me” and he’ll reply with, “Not much of a sight yourself.” He’ll even point out their hypocrisy when told, “No machine should have free will”, he’ll say, “Why? You jealous you had to turn yours in?” I also personally like the response to, “Don’t get any ideas, synth” when he’ll reply, “From you folks? I wouldn’t know where to look.” That humour helps to cover up his insecurities related to his conflicted feelings about his identity and who he is, and I wish that an in-game romance would help reassure him of who he is and his worth, similar to the way a romantic relationship between the Sole Survivor and John Hancock unfolds and develops. Unfortunately, Todd Howard and the Bethesda team denied us this chance, however mod authors have given us a chance to play it out with cut audio files spliced together to form the dialogue. Even without the mod, however, Nick always becomes one of my best friends, a voice of reason and a guiding hand to a Sole Survivor who so desperately needs it, but who will also call them out if they do something he disapproves of. Everyone needs a friend like Nick, and if you haven’t found one yet, I hope you will soon. <3

[zydrateacademy]

First Impressions - Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord

(Do I still have anyone reading my stuff? Been a while! I’m sure there’s plenty of games I could have been doing reviews and impressions on... But frankly Tumblr got a bit boring. Them axing nudity was just the start, after that it just became less interesting to browse. Anyway, I’m still active on the likes of Steam and Discord, so if you want to poke me there... lemme know! Anyway...)

This is most certainly an early access review, and it's possible that half of the things I write here will be rendered moot in the coming months. I am also in the process of ordering some new RAM for my computer so this game will likely perform better in another week or two. With those things in mind, I don't want to waste too much time writing a full article-sized review. Instead, I'll just start listing off things I do and don't like. I love the battles! I mean, it's the major gameplay loop of the whole game so it damn well better be enjoyable. The combat itself is a mixed bag, my swings or shots often don't connect when I think they should but that could be a stuttering issue.

I think the ordering of troops could be done with a smoother UI. I'm not sure how, but there is a hell of a learning curve when you want to start ordering each and every type of unit (between infantry, cavalry, and archers)... Trying to tell them all to do different things before your enemies horse army rides up your anus is a chore and a half. And you will eventually have to get them to do other things. Since you're not going to have a full set of cavalry right out of the gate, I found that forcing everyone to charge would leave my dozens of units of infantry behind while my eight or so horse riders get annihilated. So there's that. I like how the game has immediate mod support. There's already a robust community patch and several things available on the Nexus website that can certainly attribute to some quality of life. Simple things like Mixed Gender Troops, and reputation gain when you take out looters. That mode makes chasing looters down slightly more worth your time rather than just training up unused weapon skills (they're not good for much else pretty quickly). My favorite mod so far might be the one that allows cleave damage, without it all of your weapons only hit one enemy at a time. It's saved my ass more than once.

I love the sieges. The mechanics surrounding them have been hit or miss but when it goes well, it feels GREAT. At one point, I was flanking my nation's army (I didn't attach myself to his main force), protecting them while they built up their siege camp. Then I decided to hit the castle and "wait" for the siege to begin, but at the last second... The main army breaks off to fight some defending force, leaving me with the immediate task of fighting off the castle's beefy militia. I lost massively. I like how you don't lose all of your loot when you 'fail', but you do however lose every single one of your troops. I've had to recover about three times now, which is a tedious chore sometimes. On the flip side of that, I am typically an archery. So I helped a battering ram get through by headshot sniping an entire wall's worth of archers. I've been in a single, somewhat evenly matched siege with both armies in the 400's and it was an incredibly intense endeavor. Knowing that reinforcements are a finite resource makes watching the enemy's bar go down all the more satisfying. This is essentially what the Civil War questline in Skyrim was supposed to be, but just didn't have the engine or mechanics to handle it. I like how I'm not a walking god, even with decent armor. I can cut down large swaths of looters on my own (again, thanks to the "cut through everything" mod) but against anything else I actually have to position properly or else I can watch my health melt from arrows. The AI isn't the smartest, but they're not dumb either. I once flanked behind an enemy force but their backline were actually turning around, and backpedaling with their shields up, making my headshots harder to get even though my superior army was advancing on them. What a great feeling to be victorious against an enemy that actually thinks about things like that. I like how dying isn't an instant game over, at least so far. I did uncheck that option. Instead, I'm just captured and hauled away before the game gives me a chance to escape and run off. I don't like graphics, and kind of wish it was prettier for a 2020 game. The foliage and sun shafts are nice and all but the models look a decade old. I've failed an escort quest because I couldn't tell who was who in the town skirmish because the clothing and facial features aren't usually distinct enough.

While I am somewhat indifferent on the XP and leveling system (though there are mods to 'fix' that as well), I actually don't like the percentages on some of the perks. One of the first weapon perks you can get is increasing your damage by... 4%? That's almost nothing in the early game when you're hitting for 20's. At best a few perks in is only giving you 2-4 points of bonus damage, and I know that because the damage alerts in the corner actually tell you. That's... almost worthless in the grand scheme of things. So I wish some of the perks had more meat to them. Speaking of, yes, the game is buggy. I haven't suffered many crashes but I have had a ton of performance issues, which I alluded to in the beginning. Some of the quests don't function properly, and some of the perks don't work without mods (like being able to use Longbows on horseback). Again, the plague of early access. The good news is, beneath the problems is a functional and incredibly fun game. I don't fully understand what is making me enjoy this so much, but I'll have plenty of time of introspection in the coming months as the devs continue to work on fixing things. I do not regret this purchase at all, and that's coming from someone who has been burned by early access a few too many times.

[mtaportia]

THE OFFICIAL RELEASE

Alright guys, it’s finally happened! Today at 9am GMT, My Time at Portia left Early Access, which, of course, included a big content update (3.9GB) as well! 

Since there’s always a lot of stuff in the Changelist, I decided to once again make an ordered overview of the changes and include a little FAQ for the future of Portia as well! :) Remember, I’m not affilated with Pathea or Team17 in any way, but I will, of course, only use the official information I can find all over the web.

The changes are under the cut, and, as always, have fun playing!

1) Storyline & NPC Missions | 

1.1) MAIN STORY & NEW QUESTLINES ☆ The main story- and questline has now been completely finished! A “summary UI” has been added to the end of the game. ☆ (New) sidequests for Ack, Alice, Arlo, Emily, Ginger, Sam and a newly introduced character, Penny the singer, have been added.

1.2) ADJUSTMENTS TO EXISTING MISSIONS

1.2.1) Adjusted expiration time for... ☆ ...the “Portia Bridge” mission (7 days) ☆ ...the “Tree Farm” mission (doesn’t expire) ☆ ...the “Lift” mission (doesn’t expire). ☆ ...South Block mission (requirement time & difficulty has been changed). ☆ ...the conversation with Gust after completing the mission “The Second Key” - it now has a time limit and can’t be repeated if you miss that.

1.2.2) Adjusted aquiring/trigger times for... ☆ ...the “Museum” mission. ☆ ...the “Harbor Construction” mission. ☆ ...the availability of the 2nd Relic Scanner upgrade (Ack has to be fixed).

1.2.3) Adjusted item requirements or consumption for... ☆ ...the ”Umbrellas Are Important“ mission (20 -> 10). ☆ ...the “The Desert Wind“ mission. 1.2.4) Other Adjustments ☆ The “Portia Bridge” mission got a new description that doesn’t differ from the actual mission you have to fulfill. ☆ The mission “To Fix A Pipe” now got a reminder. ☆ Adjusted mission rewards. ☆ Optimised the experience for some Gust, Mint, Emily, and Arlo sidequests.

2) Relationships & Communication |

2.1) REGULAR RELATIONSHIPS ☆ Dana can now be befriended. Yay! ☆ Since you now have to pay the Tree Farm & Mining Company, perks of Dawa and Dana will lower the cost of the Tree Farm and Mining Company respectively. ☆ Reaching a certain relationship with Merlin gives you the ability to rearrange stuff in the museum. ☆ The way Ack works for you has changed. Once you reach a certain relationship level with him, you’ll have to manually hire him - a paid service. Some actions require chips (cooking, planting). ☆ Meeting times for Ack and Mint have been adjusted. ☆ Added new relationship levels with Pinky, Scraps, and QQ. Furthermore, you can purchase an item to “un-adopt” them. ☆ NPC’s favorite items and gifts they want have been adjusted.

2.2) ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS ☆ You can now visit the beach to chat on dates! ☆ Alice has now an interaction with Jack after getting married. ☆ Gust received new conversations for when you propose, confess, date, and send gifts. ☆ No other event will overlap with the wedding date anymore. A wedding scene photo will be added to your photo album. ☆ Player's spouse will call player "Darling". ☆ Post-marriage features have been added, including anniversary missions, birthday parties (player & spouse) and side quests! ☆ The option of having or adopting a baby with your partner is now a possibility, and items related to it have been added (see “items”). As a requirement for having a baby, your partner can now go up to 12 hearts (”devotion”). ☆ If you break up, your relationship status will fall back to “friends”, if you divorce, the status will fall back to “strangers”.

3) Builder/Player Customization |

☆ You will now be able to choose a birthday for your builder (for existing characters the option will appear once you load a save). ☆ Furthermore, beards and facial decorations have been added (can be changed at the hairsalon), and there are new clothing options available. ☆ Lip colors have been adjusted.

4) Minigames & Events |

4.1) EVENTS ☆ Added party events (requires banket table), which gives you an opportunity to greatly increase relationship points with the townspeople. ☆ Some events and holidays can consume stamina now!

4.2) MINI-GAMES ☆ Fishing now features king fishes (+ a collection for them in the museum) and has a time overlay. ☆ The swing-minigame can now be played alone! ☆ The inspection-minigame features new items. ☆ While cooking you can get food directly without waiting. (Not a mini-game per se, but eh...)

5) Building, Exploring, Mining, Fighting, Museum |

5.1) BUILDING ☆ Assembly diagrams received in missions can be bought (Research Centre). ☆ New diagrams and crafting recipees have also been added. ☆ The Tree Farm and Mining Company now runs on a subscription instead of providing materials for free. 5.2) EXPLORING & MINING ☆ More treasure chests have been added! ☆ A flying mount (robopig) has been added. ☆ Adjusted the upgrade availability for the 2nd Relic Scanner. ☆ Players can mine all categories of mines and find new relics in the abandoned ruins in the swamp area. ☆ Video tapes that can be used watched by using the TV have been added to the abandoned ruins as well. 5.3) FIGHTING & MONSTERS ☆ It is now a possibility to order something to eat for a single person, which can restore your HP and gives you buffs! ☆ If your HP drops to 0, you will no longer have to start the day over, but rather respawn outside your house. ☆ Adjusted the drop rate and the reward rate of several items ☆ Several monsters have been added (Desert & Swamp). ☆ Llamas now have daily routines (like sleeping), more routines for other monsters will be added as well. ☆ Adjusted the number of monsters in several rooms inside the hazardous dungeon and the overall distribution of monsters. 5.4) MUSEUM / DONATING ☆ Donating 60 items to the museum now gives you a new reward. ☆ You can donate “king fish” to the museum now. ☆ You are able to rearrange items you’ve donated by befriending Merlin.

6) Items |

☆ A television has been added which is able to play the video tapes now found in abandoned ruins! ☆ Added new clothing options (as I’ve already mentioned). ☆ New items include wedding furniture (lamp, couch, etc.), a yoga mat and closet, plant-rank, weapon-rack for classification purposes. ☆ Dyeing items now requires you to have pigments in your hand. ☆ The sell condition of several main story related items have been adjusted.

7) User Interface & Settings |

7.1) MENU UI & INFO/TUTORIALS ☆ There are now more main menu scenes & tips in the loading screen. ☆ Loading screens while getting into the dungeons have been updated. ☆ The sliders in settings now have numbers above them. ☆ A fighting guide has been added.

7.2) MAP & CALENDAR ☆ The map UI has been updated! Dee-dee-stops have been named, the fishing spots have been added to the map, as well as a filter system to toggle what you want to see on your map (characters, monsters, dee-dee-stops, etc.)! ☆ The calendar now features the date of your wedding anniversary, as well as your birthday date.

7.3) IN-GAME UI / OVERLAY ☆ You’ll now get reminders for horse rental expiration, ruin payment expiration and meetings. ☆ The reminder for the mission “To Fix A Pipe” has been adjusted. The player will received a reminder for the mission. ☆ A time display has been added for fishing. ☆ Naming function has been added to the storing box interface.

7.4) PHOTOALBUM ☆ More cutscene photos have been added, including a wedding picture. ☆ Various cutscenes can now be replayed again! ☆ NPC will not hold an umbrella when taking a group photo. 7.5) SETTINGS ☆ Game-speed can be adjusted, which extends the in-game day. ☆ You can turn voice acting on and off (you’ll hear a typewriter effect instead).

8) Others (Graphics, Animations, Music) |

8.1) VISUAL CHANGES ☆ Adjusted appearance of several items as well as the ground texture in town. ☆ Adjusted the mission icons above NPCs head to not appear while in mission. ☆ For the Winter Solstice, the buff visuals for the hotpot have been adjusted, as well as Sophie’s position (next to Emily). ☆ Decorations have been added to the church (for weddings). ☆ Several animations have been added (placing furniture, Civil Corps patrole, playing drums, attacking animation for Mint, new player-falls-off-swing-anim) ☆ New cutscene photos (the ones you can access in your photo album) have been added, including a wedding cutscene photo, NPC will not hold an umbrella when taking a group photo.

8.2) MUSIC/SOUND CHANGES ☆ Added one new piece of music for “inside the house”. ☆ Adjusted length of the Autumn Festival music (lasts entire day) ☆ Added multiple new sound effects, as well as new voiceover. ☆ Adjusted volume of several sound effects.

8.3) OTHERS ☆ NPCs in the house will not say goodbye. ☆ Pathfinding for NPCs inside and outside of town has been optimized. ☆ Optimized controller use & added Nvidia functions.

I did not include bug fixes, those can be found here!

Do I have to repurchase if I already played Early Alpha?

Definitely not! The game’s all yours :)

Will my save file from the Early Alpha Version still work?

Yes, your save files will definitely continue to work! Save files from the demo versions on the other hand are still not transferable to the main game.

What now? Will we ever get more content?

The devs themselves have said that there are still updates to come, especially some updates that will feature more content for the bachelors and bachelorettes (small side missions). More side quests will be added, more dialogues, and furthermore, the voiceover is not done.  And the best thing: There’s Sandrock DLC planned.

Where is the voiceover for [character]? Why is it missing? Is it a bug?

Don’t worry, it’s not a bug or problem on your end. The voiceover has just not been fully added for every character. There will be further updates that add the rest of the voice acting though!

Now that the game is out... where are my backer rewards? 

For this one I’ll just quote one of the devs: “We'll be sending out DLC keys for you in the next few days.“ The digital content for backers will be released soon now, the actual, physical content will come after that. Be patient, things take time.

Will a translations be available for...

...German? Already in the game :D ...Japanese? It’s already in the game, a few translations are missing though. ...Korean? Yep, they’re working on it for console release. ...Russian? About 50% done. ...Turkish? They’re looking to get it into the game, already working on the translation process!

Will there be a (fully functional) Mac version or a Linux version?

A functioning, not-buggy Mac version is already in the making! For Linux there’s nothing planned right now.

END OF POST | Thanks for reading! ;v;

[archonreviews]

The Archon’s Review of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a fantasy role-playing game developed by Big Huge Games and published by Electronic Arts. In the fantasy realm of Amalur, Fate has dictated the comings and goings of all things. Particularly sensitive to the workings of Fate are the immortal Fae, whom are divided into the Summer Court and the Winter Court. However, tragedy strikes when a rebellious Winter Fae named Gadflow decides that the current Winter King isn’t doing enough murder, and that he should be king instead. After killing the Winter King and usurping his throne, Gadflow and his followers, the Tuatha Deohn, go to war against the mortal races of Elf, Gnome, and Human. The mortals seem doomed, as while the Tuatha can be killed, they reincarnate quite quickly and return to fight, whereas the mortals die when they are killed. To circumvent this disadvantage, a Gnome by the name of Fomorous Hughes creates the Well of Souls, a device meant to resurrect the dead. You are its first apparent success, and in the process of reviving, you become unbound from Fate, and basically ruin it for everyone. Now, you are the last hope for mortal-kind to defeat the villainous Gadflow and his Tuatha followers, restoring balance to the Fae Courts and preserving the realm of Amalur.

I first heard of Kingdoms of Amalur back in the mid-2000′s, just around when I was playing Oblivion obsessively. It was contemporary with another third-person fantasy thingie, Two Worlds, which the GameStop employee recommended against, before trying to shill for GameInformer. I suppose my point here is that I picked up KoA:R because I was curious to see what I had missed all those years ago. And yes, I am aware of the controversy surrounding the game’s creation and the dismantling of Big Huge Games, but I must confess to not being too familiar with the happenings.

The first thing one may notice in this game is the graphics. They’re actually pretty damn good, with beautiful vistas and vibrant landscapes. The characters are surprisingly expressive, even if that expressiveness does result in some humorous facial expressions. The character models are a little funny though; all the men, at least, have what I like to call “Ground Beef Body”. I ended up naming my character “Flaskkott Djur”, or “Pork Animal” in Swedish because he immediately reminded me of a hunk of ground beef (I got the word “Flaskkott” confused with the word “Nottkott” which is “Beef”. There’s your Swedish lesson for the day).

(Just look at that chin! And he’s got the neck of an ox to boot!)

Speaking of vistas, the diversity of environments is greater than I might have expected; although, get ready to see plenty of magical forests. There are, however, plenty of deserts, beaches, swamps, and arid landscapes to explore, all with plenty of monsters to kill and things to loot. All the environments are quite pretty and vibrant to behold and great emphasis has been placed on making each area feel like its own self-contained region. Even the magical forests feel different enough from one-another that you’re not likely to get lost.

(Upward shot of one of the game’s major cities. Go all the way south, along a beach and across a desert and through a forest, and you’ll find a Greco-Roman city ruled by Gnomes, as opposed to this necropolis-looking thing.)

Character creation is interesting. You only have two choices at the start; race and deity to worship. Funnily enough, you can choose to be an atheist, and it may be the best choice in my opinion, not because I’m some trilby-wearing “Dark Enlightenment” nutter, but because being an atheist gives you a permanent +1% experience point boost, and I’m always a slut for levelling up. All the other deities give you different boosts, and each of the four playable races gives you certain bonuses to non-combat skills.

When I say that you only have two choices at the start, I was leading up to something. See, KoA:R sort of has you create your character throughout the entire game. Every time you level up, you get a point for non-combat skills and for combat abilities. You could easily make the case that all RPG’s do something similar, having the player build up their character over the course of the game, but the difference is that KoA:R basically gives you nothing to begin with, save for a few points in all the beginning combat skills, plus a few points in non-combat skills dependent upon your chose race. Most other RPG’s would at least give you a bit more than that, if only to establish a direction. KoA:R is unique in that building your character is a persistent, fluid process, which keeps it engaging; in addition, the ability to refund all your points for a small fee allows you to go back and try a different build should you get curious/ fed-up.

One side-note I’d like to make mention of: If you’re the sort of person who gives a shit about difficulty curve, don’t buy the “Weapons and Armor Bundle” DLC. As the name would suggest, it creates a chest in the first town filled with weapons and armors for you to grab and use at your leisure. And while you’ll get/craft better equipment in time, it’s still better than the equipment you would otherwise have at the time, and it throws the balance off for a bit.

Speaking of crafting, the game actually has a pretty rad crafting system which allows you to create equipment, potions, and socketable gems. And frankly, once you put enough points into the requisite skills, you can craft some frankly ridiculous things. After a while, I was salvaging nearly all my equipment for the spare parts, rather than selling it. Gold wasn’t much of an issue anyway, and I wanted to see if I could craft an even more effective murder tool.

If it seems like I’ve been avoiding the topic of combat for a while, it’s because I’ve been avoiding the topic of combat for a while. Honestly, I think it’s one of the weaker elements. It’s slow and cumbersome, and it’s completely possible to be hit for a full combo because you couldn’t get your fucking shield up in time because you were already swinging at a different enemy. Whenever I swung my sword, I was committed for roughly the next half-hour. Also, for those of you more used to Dark Souls styled dodge-rolling, I should warn you that the dodge-roll in this game does not seem to have any invincibility frames; it just zips in a direction real quick is all.

(Spiders rather quickly became my arch-nemeses. They always came in groups, attacked somewhat unpredictably, and where often harder to kill than might be expected.)

To be fair, once you level up a bit and develop your own tactics, combat becomes easier. Learning your enemies’ attack patterns and learning abilities that stagger them, or prevent you from being staggered will help immensely.

If the plot synopsis up there seemed kind of involved and a little faffy, it’s because that’s how the game is. Ostensibly, the whole thing is based on old Irish and Scottish myths about the fae, and while the influence is clearly there, and it’s clear that the devs at least did a modicum of research on the mythologies they use. I like the idea of fighting Fate, the rapacious bastard. Although, there’s a bit where it’s implied that you’re appearance (remember, your character exists outside the web of Fate) was itself predicted by Fate. As others have pointed out, that point is kind of mad, but it’s not as big a deal as it sounds, and there’s evidence to suggest that perhaps Fate has simply rewritten itself to fit you in.

(The antagonist either screaming in madness or receiving amazing head. I’ll let you decide.)

Now, I have a bit of a confession to make. I spent almost my entire time playing this on sidequests. Much work has been done to ensure that the sidequest chains are engaging, from helping the resident mercenary guild fight an invading demon lord and his army of elven followers, to saving a small village from a rogue Fae and her spider minions. I had a lot of fun on all the sidequests; I almost forgot about the critical path. By the time I got back, I was massively overlevelled and had a set of powerful equipment to back me up.

Here’s a weird thing apropos of nothing: while the human ladies are dressed normally (boob-plates notwithstanding), the elven ladies are almost always in some kind of revealing top, often a deep V-neck. I have no idea why this is; there’s no lore reason for it. Maybe Big Huge consisted entirely of elf-misogynists? It’s bizarre is all.

(She’s just dressed like this. No idea why, especially when a normal human wearing leather armor has it look like regular leather armor.)

Now, some people have compared this game to Skyrim; certain reviewers even calling it “Baby’s first Skyrim“ I don’t necessarily think the comparison is a fair one. Whereas Skyrim is very much a standard fantasy RPG in the vein of its forebears, KoA leans more heavily on semi-frenetic combat action, even bumping up against the (admittedly nebulous) action-adventure genre in the subway car. Crafting is different as well. Whereas Skyrim has you stock up on ores and ingots to craft with, this game has you salvaging your old weapons to find screws and grips and rivets, which gives the crafting a different feel, even if they are functionally very similar. While Skyrim is admittedly a more detailed, immersive experience (glitches notwithstanding), KoA is about as complicated as it needs to be. It gets in all the features it needs to be a pretty good game in its runtime.

And Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a pretty good game. Levelling up is more addictive than it is in most RPG’s, and great pains have been taken to make sure that each quest is fun and interesting, not just the main questline. Despite the reputation it’s accrued as a cut-rate Skyrim or “That one game what got a bunch of people in trouble and now it’s owned by Rhode Island,” I’d recommend it to anyone who likes somewhat complex fantasy worlds and/or anyone who likes their RPG’s a little bit on the actiony side. I may come back to it. After all, I’m more than half-way to the level cap and I’m not even close to the end of the main quest.

All in all, it’s a damn fine game. Would love to complete it some time.

(A back shot of a male character. I told you these people are made of ground beef.)

[prettycooregrey]

So after setting up a 100+ plugin modlist for Raka, I started their official Skyrim SE run with SkygerfalI. This is really long. Like, really really long. And it’s packed with spoilers, so my fingers are crossed that the cut works on mobile because otherwise I am so, SO sorry to mobile users.

Links: Legendary - Special Edition

What a hell of a mod. It was so much easier to swallow than Daggerfall proper, I’ll give it that! For one, the 3D map in Daggerfall drives me batty. I can’t read it at all, and the samey graphics in every dungeon make them really hard to navigate. For another, Daggerfall notably averts the “take your time” trope where players are allowed to fuck off and do whatever they want while the main quest stays politely paused in the background - almost every single quest is timed, and exceeding the time limit is an automatic fail. It’s possible to lock yourself out of the main quest this way.

Thankfully, the Skygerfall mod recreates all the main quest dungeons with a significantly more helpful Skyrim-style local map. The mod page describes the dungeons as hand crafted, and... well, I’d personally describe it as LOVINGLY put together. The attention to detail is exquisite, and it absolutely feels like a recreation of the dungeons. In fact, it’s so carefully and thoroughly remade that for the most part, the original walkthroughs on UESP came in handy for the few places I got stuck (ahem... Direnni Tower). There’s so many twisting corridors, right angles, and those big huge pyramid-esque centerpieces. My unabashed favorites are the little diagonal rooms hidden within other small rooms, tucked into corners in and of themselves. My own playthrough of Daggerfall made me look forward to those spaces as good places to rest or find loot.

There is not much going on outside the cities or dungeons though! Since it was, for the most part, a single dev putting the whole thing together in their spare time, it’s just the main quest. Even the main towns are largely empty, save for tavern owners (who act as general good merchants), a blacksmith in Daggerfall proper, and any NPCs directly related to the main questline. Ironically, Scourg Barrow is one of the most populated places in the entire game, if only by volume of nonhostile NPCs! The palaces also have merchants and guards around, and there’s a... cheerful little kid over at Wayrest who would love to meet your Agent.

That means no questlines for any of the side factions, very few extra merchants to buy your high volume of crap (though you wont actually need more than one or two at a time), no side dungeons to explore, and nothing in the landscape between the map markers. There’s not even any generic NPCs to populate the towns, and almost no interiors.

Still, it’s entirely worth playing, if you want the basic runthrough of Daggerfall’s main quest in a familiar, modern engine. Particular props goes to some of the scenery and levels. Where there’s very little going on outside of your quest targets, the places that have been built are stunning. Shedungent’s exterior in specific enchanted me, looking exactly like a medieval castle with plenty of nooks and crannies to poke into (though no loot, unfortunately... not that I need any extra with how much garbage I haul out of those dungeons). Another particular detail that I loved were... pigs, actually. I loved the pigs. There’s a few dungeons that contain pigs, which existed in Daggerfall.

I love them. They’re darling.

I dunno, the fact that Oracus0 put so much time and effort into making sure that Skygerfall was a true to the original as possible, down to the animals passively hanging out, really brought me into it. Sure, I wish there weren’t giant scorpions in any game ever, but I can also appreciate that since they were in the original, they were there in Skygerfall (and that they dropped a Raka certified safe alchemical ingredient). And who doesn’t get excited when they see the loot pile model tucked behind a locked door?

I also ADORED - spoiler alert - Aetherius, which turned the game into a full-fledged puzzle platformer. Note to anybody playing through the Room of Fire? You can and will fall off if you’re not careful! But the scenery there is also gorgeous, with a stunning backdrop of swirling stars and galaxies, hellfire, and a wonderfully dapper Sheogorath (whose voice actor does a great job, by the way, of holding true to Sheogorath’s canon voice).

Bonus points for having (and I must emphasize) FULL VOICE ACTING. Every NPC available in the game has a voice. All of the custom NPCs have custom voice acting, and every voice actor did a real bang up job. There wasn’t a single character I encountered whose voice didn’t match them.

It’s also way more... cartoony? Than Skyrim, and it shows a lot in places where custom and vanilla 3D assets were used right next to each other. There’s a lot of blocky, and almost plastic-y walls, floors, sconces, etc that made some of the rough-and-tumble stuff stick out, but it’s not actually enough to take you out of the game unless you’re a really picky bastard imo. It works really well for being a faithful recreation of Daggerfall, which looked like... well. This:

I had a habit of taking pictures of any cool animals I saw in Daggerfall, especially if I haven’t seen them in TES before. Speaking of this awesome camel picture, not to fear if you’re worried about hauling all your crap out of the dungeons like I am (my partner has a hard time watching me play Skyrim with the way I lug out everything that isn’t nailed down to hawk later)...

There’s a mount waiting for you near Sentinel!

...(: That’s right. You get a camel. No need to buy it, it’s not tagged as theft (as of 11/12/19, a little under a month post initial release). It works exactly like a horse - hop on and it’ll help you bounce between map markers, even if you’re overencumbered by several hundred pounds of loose swords, gemstones, potions, and your enemies’ underwear. It looks AMAZING, and though you kind of clip through his hump a little bit, it’s again not really an issue unless you’re overtly picky.

The only thing I absolutely cannot stand is... mythril.

Mythril in this mod is... blue. The armor is gray, but the weapons and shield are blue. Not a silver blue or a dark slate blue in the way you’d expect from something metallic. No, I’m talking about Hawaiian Punch Blue Typhoon, I’m talking blue raspberry Airheads, I’m talking about Lapis lazuli from Minecraft and/or Steven Universe, Cornflower Blue Crayola, “her cerulean orbs” fuckin BLUE. That was the ONLY thing that really stuck in my craw. Raka is an archer, but in the event of an emergency they dual-wield daggers and for a period the best one I had on hand aside from the ebony dagger was mythril and I hated it. I resented it. Every time Raka had to get into close quarters I grumbled with distaste as soon as that goddamn Manic Panic deep dream knife popped out on my screen. I replaced it with adamantium as soon as I was able to.

Everything else was copacetic! As with the set dressing, a lot of the custom armor and weapons were kind of cartoony and might stick out in Skyrim proper, but they’re pretty charming in that way. If for no other reason than collection purposes, I took one of everything with me to Skyrim at the end of the questline with the intent to maybe display it in one of Raka’s player homes. Especially the adamantium, which out of everything fits in the best with vanilla Skyrim’s assets (as far as I can tell, don’t quote me on that, please!).

Again, it’s a very lovingly made tribute to the original game, with a lot of time and effort put into it. A lot of modder resources were used in order to achieve this end, and what an end it is. For all of the places where there might be criticism, it’s still a fantastic piece of work that deserves a lot of praise and appreciation, especially since it was largely a single dev working and learning by themselves to put it together. It’s still hours of content to work through, having taken me about 4 days to get through via my playstyle, even when it primarily involved jumping between map markers and delving into dungeons. God only knows I’d have never gotten to the actual main quest of Daggerfall in the original engine, and likely not even in Daggerfall Unity, as I was too busy messing around, getting headaches from the procedurally generated dungeons, and trying to climb the ranks of the Mage’s Guild and Thieves Guild. Not to say that that isn’t a fun and completely valid way to play the game. But Skygerfall allowed me to play through the actual main quest, kept me engaged with voiced characters and a streamlined series of events, and a thorough and faithful recreation.

A lot of people mentioned wanting more stuff between the towns and cities currently in the mod, but personally, going forward, I’d love to see what already exists be expanded. I’d love to see more shop interiors, some generic NPCs to chat with or ask about rumors from (or even just to fill out the space! I’m not picky!), and maybe some basic structure for some of the guilds.

That being said, it’s still a complete mod in and of itself. It has all the components anyone could reasonably ask for. It has its dungeons, it has its armors and weapons, it has custom spells, potions, and ingredients. It makes use of monsters from the Mihail mods, populating the underground with lots of scary and lore-appropriate foes to fight. It has very little to explore outside of that, but still offers a LOT, and I was able to enjoy the main quest of Daggerfall in a way that was comfortable and easily playable for myself, which is more than can be said for the clunky DOS the original game is built in. I would not be mad if Oracus0 decided to close it up, call it good, support bugs for a while, and moved on. They’ve done plenty in the way of Skygerfall, and though I’d love to see more I’m also incredibly happy with what I got! I’m pleased as punch, got to roleplay my little idiot moron bosmer in their original context, and then was able to seamlessly integrate them into the world of Skyrim (via Live Another Life, which is supported by Skygerfall) to enjoy the rest of their modlist. I can’t recommend it enough, especially if you want to get a feel for Daggerfall with some of the comfort and convenience of a better engine and less stingy limitations.