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Atomical

Logic Artists
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Greetings Codex! So the cat is out of the bag, Expeditions: Viking is announced. Our first screenshots should be coming out around Gamescom time (August). Untill then we are happy to discuss what's new and different about Ex: Viking vs. Ex: Conquistador. Since we just started development a couple of months ago, there will be some stuff that we will only be able to discuss vaguely (for the moment) as it hasn't been prototyped or tested yet, but we'll tell you about our ideas.

A big thanks to all of you that gave us your support on Expeditions: Conquistador: defending the game against the naysayers, backing us on Kickstarter, sharing it our there in the world beyond, and generally keeping us humble.
 

Jack Dandy

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Divinity: Original Sin 2
Since this takes place in the Viking age, I suppose there'll be even less focus on ranged combat?
That's good - it was useless in the first game.
 

Konjad

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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Maybe it's been said somewhere already, but I don't follow the game closely enough to read every piece of news or interview, so let me ask:

Where will this game take place? Vinland? Scandinavia? Britannia?
 

Atomical

Logic Artists
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Since this takes place in the Viking age, I suppose there'll be even less focus on ranged combat?
That's good - it was useless in the first game.

I must protest! It's not useless in Conquistador, soldiers are definitely not as good as hunters (take a pot shot but dont rely on ranged with them, they are your tank after all), and if you spec range focused passives when you level up hunters they get pretty stronk. I would take one or two into battle (once levelled) in Ironman and Insane with great results. However, I also did a lot of QA on the game so maybe it's not fair of me to say since I got that intimate knowledge of the system. Having said that, we will strive to make this part of combat less useless :P

Maybe it's been said somewhere already, but I don't follow the game closely enough to read every piece of news or interview, so let me ask:

Where will this game take place? Vinland? Scandinavia? Britannia?

Plans are for it will take place in your homeland (Scandinavia), and the British Isles.
 

Atomical

Logic Artists
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I don't love you anymore, you sold yourself to the viking lobby and left the poor, lonely bandeirantes alone. Think of the Bandeirantes! That gold won't find itself and these natives won't suicide, you know?

Anyway, just Britain and Scandia? No going Varangian or raiding France?

There will be plenty of treasure, and villages to plunder... erm trade with as a Viking.
 

kazgar

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While we wait for more game information, might as well fill in some time...

What's Logic Artists' favourite smørrebrød place in Copenhagen?

Multiple answers allowed (don't want to start any arguments that end up in schisms)


 

Atomical

Logic Artists
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While we wait for more game information, might as well fill in some time...

What's Logic Artists' favourite smørrebrød place in Copenhagen?

Multiple answers allowed (don't want to start any arguments that end up in schisms)

The embarrassing truth is I don't personally have a fav. spot for smørrebrød as I am from Canada. While I have enjoyed these grain-bread heavy open faced sandwiches at parties and stuff, eating out in CPH is generally so expensive that I avoid smørrebrød joints. but I can say that IMHO the best legit sandwich place in CPH is Smagsløget. It's a hole in the wall sandwich joint that doesn't overwhelm you with mayo as most places here do and the sandwiches are tasty and big. And if you're looking for burgers in CPH Burger Palace is my spot.

No inland trade routes through Eastern Europe ?

Nopes. But it's a real good idea for and expansion. Time wise we're starting the game a few years before the Viking raid on Lindisfarne, considered by many to be the start of the Viking age. In that way we are doing something similar to Expeditions: Conquistador in that we put the player on the edge of a serious turning point in history. In Conquistador we put you in the New world 5 years before Cortez conquers the Aztec Empire. In Expeditions: Viking the time period and events we put before you revolve around this Britannia setting.
 

Zetor

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So... the player gets to invadevisit England, eh? Playing reverse Defender of the Crown could be fun, especially if I can kick the ass of that jerk Robin Hood.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Can the player char fight now? Will the Player char also be subject to morale gains and losses due to personality traits?
 

Avonaeon

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The player char can fight yes. I'm not sure we'll make the player character subject to morale increase/decrease as you're the one making the decisions after all. I think if the game told you how you felt about certain situations, that might get really awkward.
 

Avonaeon

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We haven't decided on anything concrete at this point, but considering how big a part slave trading was for the vikings, I hope we can portray this aspect in some way.
 

Neanderthal

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  • Perhaps visits to Hedeby to buy and sell Thralls, or sacrifices at the Blot if the player opts to follow the Aesir and Vanir.
  • Will you include the Skaldic art of Kenning poetry, I liked that a poem could often soothe ruffled feathers and be a cheap alternative to tribute in King of Dragon Pass.
  • What function will the Futhark have in this largely illiterate society, can rune carving allow a bonus to fame or something, will a rune wise Viking be singled out.
  • Though not venturing to the far corners of the viking travels, will there be signs of those expeditions? Silk shirts, Byzantine Cataphract armour, foreign coins, woundwolfs of the finest steel etc.
  • Are we going to see some of those great nicknames: Belly Shaker, Snake in the Eye, Boneless, Shaggy - Finehair and such?
  • Can our characters legitimise their actions through quoting the sayings of the High One?
  • What's your take on the Berserkrgang, genetic predisposition or chemical stimulants?
  • Knowledge of the Edda's and sagas, can this factor into the game somehow.
  • Anyone reading the sagas hears of luck and fate, will these play a mechanical role somehow.
  • Will the famous vanity of the Vikings be reflected, their fine woolen clothes, combed hair and beards and general standards of cleanliness unheard of in Christian men?
  • What of the strangely liberal nature of their society, such as divorce open to either party, freedom of religion, the great Things where any man can speak his mind and bring forth a case? Though admittedly the latter was most often solved by force of arms.

Props on Conquistador, great game.
 
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Harpsichord

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What's your take on the Berserkrgang, genetic predisposition or chemical stimulants?


So neither, the idea of a berserker being a guy who gets super pissed is likely a romantic era fantasy. By the time the viking age came around, berserkers were a holdout of an older shamanic tradition that had been reappropriated toward ritual combat.
 

Neanderthal

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You know i've heard what that blokes stating before, that Berserker means Bear shirted, but from my limited knowledge of Old Norse that would be Bjorn Skirt or Sark. It's funny that he mentions Egil's Saga as I would say that maybe the Skallagrimsson was a battle rager, he is known for his black moods and then bouts of violence, so intense that he killed his first man at the age of eight with an axe after a heated bout of some kind of ball game like Hurley. Personally my own take is that it was mainly a form of psychological posturing, but that there were actual battle ragers, men who drive themselves into a killing frenzy and could not be put down easily like Colonel H. Jones in the Falklands and many other military folk through the ages.

However he's wrong about battle rage not being known among the Celts, Cuchulain is well known for his battle rages mythologically, though of course he's bang on correct about there not being units of them or Celts weilding picks.
 

Harpsichord

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Well first off, before I work too hard to defend his interpretation of berserkers(which I think is only true to the viking age), I'll bring our attention back to the fact that the primary sources we have to draw on in this matter are poems. So being as you are familiar with kennings, there isn't much need to dwell on how one thing may mean something completely different from the literal reading, or perhaps have numerous meanings.
You know i've heard what that blokes stating before, that Berserker means Bear shirted, but from my limited knowledge of Old Norse that would be Bjorn Skirt or Sark.
Bjorn is the literary word for bear, and was a very common name. Like many names today, diminutive forms existed, in this case, Bersi.

As for sark, well it's arguably pronounced the same as serk. I feel pretty comfortable saying that the divergence in spelling is something that happened over time.
It's funny that he mentions Egil's Saga as I would say that maybe the Skallagrimsson was a battle rager, he is known for his black moods and then bouts of violence, so intense that he killed his first man at the age of eight with an axe after a heated bout of some kind of ball game like Hurley.
While I think that Egil Skallagrimson was a real person who did many of the things mentioned in Egil's Saga during his lifetime, I feel rather well convinced that the character depicted in the saga is largely fictional, and serves to convey a mythic/literary theme. I think Egil(as a character), is primarily a vehicle for communicating the strengths(and ultimately, the failings) of pre-christian virtue as it was conceived in the viking age. He just checks too many of the boxes, berserker(which is commonly translated as 'shapeshifter' in this story, and I would argue accurately as he encounters a guy shapeshifted into a bird later in the story), skald, rune writer(and thus spellcaster, as we see in his encounter at the farmhouse involving the guy who wrote runes not knowing what they meant), and indomitable hardass.

But there are people who have made entire careers out of coming up with different arguments and interpretations for the story, so there's no telling.
Personally my own take is that it was mainly a form of psychological posturing, but that there were actual battle ragers, men who drive themselves into a killing frenzy and could not be put down easily like Colonel H. Jones in the Falklands and many other military folk through the ages.
Well yes, and I don't agree fully with what lindybiege is saying, at least not in spirit, even if he's presenting a valid argument in his own context. There were people who entered altered states of mind for the purpose of killing, but I think that it was in a manner which wildly diverges from simply sitting down and taking drugs or having a propensity to get super pissed and wild.

Because...
Cuchulain
...you're correct in lindybiege being incorrect about his saying that berserkers have nothing to do with celts, or well sort of. Because it's accurate to say that berserkers have nothing to do with Celts. However, it's only accurate in a legalistic sense that relies on semantics.

But, I'm very glad you brought Cuchulain up, because it makes it easy for me to sum my argument up pretty neatly.

See, Cuchulain's battle rages are accompanied by grotesque mutations which are in my view a psychological metamorphosis which Cuchulain(and all human beings for that matter) must undergo to confront the experience of life. The reason I feel that the 'bear-skin' interpretation is more valid is precisely because we see this theme of transformation appear across pretty much all European mythologies and extending far beyond that. People would wear the skin of a fierce animal so they could take on the spirit or psychological aspect of that animal, and *sometimes* that meant getting super pissed, but it would be reductive to say that the entire practice *was* getting super pissed.

Which could be construed as pedantic to say so much about, but even within the very specific context of game design we're having this discussion in, I think it would be really neat to see somebody convey the distinction between a pagan bear shaman and a beefcake that throws fits.
 

Job Creator

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Well first off, before I work too hard to defend his interpretation of berserkers(which I think is only true to the viking age), I'll bring our attention back to the fact that the primary sources we have to draw on in this matter are poems. So being as you are familiar with kennings, there isn't much need to dwell on how one thing may mean something completely different from the literal reading, or perhaps have numerous meanings.

Bjorn is the literary word for bear, and was a very common name. Like many names today, diminutive forms existed, in this case, Bersi.

As for sark, well it's arguably pronounced the same as serk. I feel pretty comfortable saying that the divergence in spelling is something that happened over time.

While I think that Egil Skallagrimson was a real person who did many of the things mentioned in Egil's Saga during his lifetime, I feel rather well convinced that the character depicted in the saga is largely fictional, and serves to convey a mythic/literary theme. I think Egil(as a character), is primarily a vehicle for communicating the strengths(and ultimately, the failings) of pre-christian virtue as it was conceived in the viking age. He just checks too many of the boxes, berserker(which is commonly translated as 'shapeshifter' in this story, and I would argue accurately as he encounters a guy shapeshifted into a bird later in the story), skald, rune writer(and thus spellcaster, as we see in his encounter at the farmhouse involving the guy who wrote runes not knowing what they meant), and indomitable hardass.

But there are people who have made entire careers out of coming up with different arguments and interpretations for the story, so there's no telling.

Well yes, and I don't agree fully with what lindybiege is saying, at least not in spirit, even if he's presenting a valid argument in his own context. There were people who entered altered states of mind for the purpose of killing, but I think that it was in a manner which wildly diverges from simply sitting down and taking drugs or having a propensity to get super pissed and wild.

Because...

...you're correct in lindybiege being incorrect about his saying that berserkers have nothing to do with celts, or well sort of. Because it's accurate to say that berserkers have nothing to do with Celts. However, it's only accurate in a legalistic sense that relies on semantics.

But, I'm very glad you brought Cuchulain up, because it makes it easy for me to sum my argument up pretty neatly.

See, Cuchulain's battle rages are accompanied by grotesque mutations which are in my view a psychological metamorphosis which Cuchulain(and all human beings for that matter) must undergo to confront the experience of life. The reason I feel that the 'bear-skin' interpretation is more valid is precisely because we see this theme of transformation appear across pretty much all European mythologies and extending far beyond that. People would wear the skin of a fierce animal so they could take on the spirit or psychological aspect of that animal, and *sometimes* that meant getting super pissed, but it would be reductive to say that the entire practice *was* getting super pissed.

Which could be construed as pedantic to say so much about, but even within the very specific context of game design we're having this discussion in, I think it would be really neat to see somebody convey the distinction between a pagan bear shaman and a beefcake that throws fits.
Hey, could you make your news feed receivable in the privacy settings so I don't have to search your posts separately?
 
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Neanderthal

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Well first off, before I work too hard to defend his interpretation of berserkers(which I think is only true to the viking age), I'll bring our attention back to the fact that the primary sources we have to draw on in this matter are poems. So being as you are familiar with kennings, there isn't much need to dwell on how one thing may mean something completely different from the literal reading, or perhaps have numerous meanings.

Bjorn is the literary word for bear, and was a very common name. Like many names today, diminutive forms existed, in this case, Bersi.

As for sark, well it's arguably pronounced the same as serk. I feel pretty comfortable saying that the divergence in spelling is something that happened over time.

While I think that Egil Skallagrimson was a real person who did many of the things mentioned in Egil's Saga during his lifetime, I feel rather well convinced that the character depicted in the saga is largely fictional, and serves to convey a mythic/literary theme. I think Egil(as a character), is primarily a vehicle for communicating the strengths(and ultimately, the failings) of pre-christian virtue as it was conceived in the viking age. He just checks too many of the boxes, berserker(which is commonly translated as 'shapeshifter' in this story, and I would argue accurately as he encounters a guy shapeshifted into a bird later in the story), skald, rune writer(and thus spellcaster, as we see in his encounter at the farmhouse involving the guy who wrote runes not knowing what they meant), and indomitable hardass.

But there are people who have made entire careers out of coming up with different arguments and interpretations for the story, so there's no telling.

Well yes, and I don't agree fully with what lindybiege is saying, at least not in spirit, even if he's presenting a valid argument in his own context. There were people who entered altered states of mind for the purpose of killing, but I think that it was in a manner which wildly diverges from simply sitting down and taking drugs or having a propensity to get super pissed and wild.

Because...

...you're correct in lindybiege being incorrect about his saying that berserkers have nothing to do with celts, or well sort of. Because it's accurate to say that berserkers have nothing to do with Celts. However, it's only accurate in a legalistic sense that relies on semantics.

But, I'm very glad you brought Cuchulain up, because it makes it easy for me to sum my argument up pretty neatly.

See, Cuchulain's battle rages are accompanied by grotesque mutations which are in my view a psychological metamorphosis which Cuchulain(and all human beings for that matter) must undergo to confront the experience of life. The reason I feel that the 'bear-skin' interpretation is more valid is precisely because we see this theme of transformation appear across pretty much all European mythologies and extending far beyond that. People would wear the skin of a fierce animal so they could take on the spirit or psychological aspect of that animal, and *sometimes* that meant getting super pissed, but it would be reductive to say that the entire practice *was* getting super pissed.

Which could be construed as pedantic to say so much about, but even within the very specific context of game design we're having this discussion in, I think it would be really neat to see somebody convey the distinction between a pagan bear shaman and a beefcake that throws fits.

I can see where Berserk could be a corrupted slang of bear clothed, over time words change and this is plausible I think, though not exactly proven.

I always think in the Sagas that it is quite easy to tell when the Skald was bullshitting, and I imagine that his audience were even more able to do so, and certainly though Egil seems to have been a real person and a noted Icelandic landowner, it's entirely possible that he had a little of Snorri's chest thumping in his make-up. An effort to make a folklorish hero for the burgeoning nation, which sorely needed one in the chaotic Sturlung Age.

I'm not against the idea of bear clothed individuals being ritualistic champions, drawing on an old lycanthropic or hjam leaper tradition that had none of the Christian negativity to it, and did not seek to demonise wild creatures like the wolf, raven or bear, but instead seek to learn from them. Freki, Geri, Hugin and Munin etc. I can imagine that the lime haired manes of the Celts were an easier form of this animal summoning bit, along with the old Horned God Kerunnos stag skull on head imagery that would later form the Herne the Hunter myth. However equally I think that maybe there were individuals who were just battle ragers, who could drive themselves into killing furies in combat, though I would imagine they would have serious psychological problems outside of battle.

I think I remember in Harald's saga that the king had a group of so called Berserks on one of his ships, all clad in mail which "no iron could bite" which I always though of as maybe being some form of Byzantine armour. In that description there is almost no mention made of either battle rage or bear clothing, they just seem like veteran champions so I think that it may just be a title in the Viking age.

In essence I agree with you though, the idea of the bare chested fur clad hulk is a little too simple, and probably about as authentic as a Victorian horned helmet. It'll be interesting to see what they go with in Expeditions.
 

Job Creator

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Re: etymology, the sark/serk word (not to be confused with shirt/skirt) had an i-umlauted short a, which can freely be transcribed with an e
sark (n.)
"shirt, body garment of linen or cotton for either sex," late Old English serc "shirt, corselet, coat of mail," surviving as a Scottish and northern dialect word, from Old Norse serkr, cognate with Old English serk (see berserk). But Gordon lists it as a loan-word from Latin sarcia; other sources are silent on the point. Lithuanian sarkas "shirt," Old Church Slavonic sraka "tunic," Russian soročka, Finnish sarkki "shirt" perhaps are all from Germanic.
 

Neanderthal

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You know i've been doin a lot o travellin for work lately an somethin leaps out at me from local area, we've got all these names from Norse up here in Yorkshire, loadsa villages an towns wi -Thorpe or -By at end on em, dales, fosses an fells all over place, up in York you've got street names like Goodramgate - Guthrum's Street in Old Norse an all these an other signs o Danelaw.

I have to ask mesen why? In other countries such as Normandy in France Vikings adapted to where they were on a much greater level, by time o William the Bastard you could mistake sons o Ganga Hrolf for prototype French nobility, though an unusually bloodthirsty an virile lot. They spoke French, they dressed French an seemed to have adapted to that culture. In fact this seems to be rule wherever they went beside British Isles, they adapted an adopted local culture, language an mores, yet here in Blighty they seemed to have brought their home over wholesale, an treated Isles as a homeland of sorts.

Why is this? I've read numerous books on subject an can't find a definitive explanation. Some reckon its because o length that Danelaw endured in some form, or because o mixed English an Norse dynasties that held throne before 1066. My own pet theory is that because o previous invasions o Germanic folk, Angles, Jutes, yadda yadda, that ocurred after Rome had left, an is tied up in Arthurian mythos, that Vikings thought of England as a homeland rather than foreign soil.

What do your lot reckon?
 
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Neanderthal

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Old English an Old Norse have a fair bit on overlap, could imagine em gettin by in each others tongue fairly decent, whereas Latin an Slavic languages musta seemed really strange.
 

Harpsichord

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Anglo-Saxon Christendom was pretty much just window dressing, all of the same virtues and vices were exalted and condemned respectively, their upper classes were structured in a nearly identical manner, they fought the same way with the same weapons, and as already mentioned the languages were probably mutually intelligible to a large degree. Futhark was even in use to some significant degree by the time the Viking age hit.

So yeah my take is that they were pretty much the same culture beyond most superficial differences. It's like comparing Modern Scots with the English, the differences seem obvious to the two groups involved, but the rest of the world wouldn't be able to tell one apart from the other in most circumstances.
 

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