Disco Elysium Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Jenkem]

 

[bataille]

To be honest, I don't agree about forgoing Encyclopedia on the first playthrough. So far, even with mere 3 points in it, it has disclosed an enormous amount of history and a number of random tidbits, varying from mildly interesting to some very good stuff, both inconsequential and essential. There has also been a few *Impossible* E. checks about some cosmological concepts of this world, and I'd like to pass them oh so much. There are some characters you can learn the world's history from, but having an internalized agent of Trivia feels much more organic and immersive.

I kinda regret not dumping physique entirely to get intellect to 4, too.

 

[Butter]

It's probably more fun to play a dumbfuck who doesn't even know where he lives, let alone anything about the world at large.

 

[bataille]

It's probably more fun to play a dumbfuck who doesn't even know where he lives, let alone anything about the world at large.

In a usual RPG affair, sure. Here, it'd too wasteful to miss out on some of the intricacy and detail. There's a lot more than just shits and giggles under the hood, but hey, it's a viable way to play the game. I'm about to finish the first day (the end of the preview build) and start a stupid hulk precisely for shits and exactly for giggles. I think it's an inherently disengaged and cold approach, hence why I'm saying that it'd be somewhat damaging to your relationship with the world to start off with a dummy. The game actively discourages the player's emotional detachment.

 

[Prime Junta]

I think it's an inherently disengaged and cold approach, hence why I'm saying that it'd be somewhat damaging to your relationship with the world to start off with a dummy. The game actively discourages the player's emotional detachment.

I don't think any of the stats leave you detached. Your connection of the world is just different every time. With Intellect you get a mass of trivia and clever interpretations of what you see; with Psyche you connect with the people; with Physique you have a visceral, direct connection to both people and places; with Motorics you have a fantastic eye for detail and are able to make difficult shit look easy. So from where I'm standing a preference for Encyclopedia says something about the way you see and interpret the world, not so much whether it's the best way to begin your engagement with Revachol.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

It's probably more fun to play a dumbfuck who doesn't even know where he lives, let alone anything about the world at large.

In a usual RPG affair, sure. Here, it'd too wasteful to miss out on some of the intricacy and detail. There's a lot more than just shits and giggles under the hood, but hey, it's a viable way to play the game. I'm about to finish the first day (the end of the preview build) and start a stupid hulk precisely for shits and exactly for giggles. I think it's an inherently disengaged and cold approach, hence why I'm saying that it'd be somewhat damaging to your relationship with the world to start off with a dummy. The game actively discourages the player's emotional detachment.

High Fysique shows you lots of cool shit. Especially Shivers.

High psyche can do weird stuff, too. I put a bunch of points into authority and my authority skill tried very hard to convince me that I needed to shove my thumb up my ass to assert my dominance. Didn’t to it, but I kinda wish I had.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's probably more fun to play a dumbfuck who doesn't even know where he lives, let alone anything about the world at large.

My plan exactly. Beat confessions out of everybody but be too stupid to actually understand them, so I have to beat them again, and again, and again.

This way I will actually have some combat.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Since people ITT are so concerned about my feelings (which is very sweet of you), I'll open up a bit more.

When I first went to Estonia in 2017 and played that early pre-alpha preview build, I was gobsmacked. It was stunningly good, and it was new. It was on a completely different level than the usual cookie-cutter stuff we see, even from most indies. It had a focused, coherent look and feel, in the art, the sound, the text, even though it was rough and even though it was early. I tried to express this in the preview I subsequently wrote as "simultaneously a re-invention and a return to the roots of the genre." From that point on I desperately wanted the game to succeed. It wasn't because of Marat Sar's BDE, Kras Mazov's cool tattoos, Helen's red-headed hawtness, or Kasparov being a very good boy (I'm his mom's alt, remember?), or even the bust of Lenin overseeing the five-year plan. It was because of the game.

The only thing that worried me a little was the studio's capability to actually get shit done: they had one or two experienced programmers, but even they had limited experience actually delivering software. So I offered to come over and talk about the nuts and bolts of actually getting shit done when you're working on software, if they thought it would be helpful. They did, so I went there for a day. We sat in a dusty room with paint flaking off the walls and a whiteboard, there was Jaagup the (then) programming lead, a bunch of producers, one real Estonian-cynical programmer, and a few more people. I didn't have a PowerPoint or anything, we just talked, going back and forth over problems they'd been having, problems I thought they would eventually have, and some ways of dealing with those problems that I had found over the years to be helpful. I heard later that they had adopted some of those ideas and said that they actually did work, which was cool.

Later on they had some other problems and I had a few pretty long video calls with a few of the people there. Those times I didn't really have much in terms of concrete advice to give, it was mostly them talking through the problems and arriving somewhere, but they said later that it helped so maybe it did.

I also had the opportunity to see how the game was coming along. It never strayed the least bit from the vision that came through crystal clear in that early pre-alpha build, it just got bigger and deeper and more polished. Eventually I intentionally stopped following: I don't actually know anything about the game past day 2, because I want to play most of it fresh on release like the rest of you guys.

If it had shown signs of becoming something other than I hoped it would become, I would have lost interest. I have zero financial skin in the game, in fact if you're counting the beans I'm on the losing side here as I've paid for my own damn boat fare and food and what have you, the only compensation I expect I'll probably get is a free game. I'm in this because I really like the game. It's the game I've been waiting for, desperately hoping somebody will make, ever since I first finished Planescape: Torment. Of course I also want you to love it, and I want it to be fantastically successful and turn all of ZA/UM into the decadent champagne socialists they deserve to be, but that's secondary. Ultimately I just want this game to be made so I can play it, and replay it, and replay it all over again.

That is the beginning and the end of my agenda vis a vis Disco Elysium and ZA/UM. There are no ulterior motives, just a burning desire to see this game made, so I can play it. If that nets me a Fanboy tag, I will wear it with pride.

Slay.

 

[bataille]

I think it's an inherently disengaged and cold approach, hence why I'm saying that it'd be somewhat damaging to your relationship with the world to start off with a dummy. The game actively discourages the player's emotional detachment.

I don't think any of the stats leave you detached. Your connection of the world is just different every time. With Intellect you get a mass of trivia and clever interpretations of what you see; with Psyche you connect with the people; with Physique you have a visceral, direct connection to both people and places; with Motorics you have a fantastic eye for detail and are able to make difficult shit look easy. So from where I'm standing a preference for Encyclopedia says something about the way you see and interpret the world, not so much whether it's the best way to begin your engagement with Revachol.

Yeah, I'm probably reading the game wrong, because I haven't played as a highly physical cop yet. I had assumed that not having mental skills would make a hole in the narrative and leave you with breaking stuff and bashing skulls in for some shallow fun, but maybe it's gonna be as neat and thorough as a high psyche, medium intelligence run. Actually, from what little I've seen of Half Light and Shivers so far (like, 3 and 1 checks respectively), most likely a high phys cop is not really "dumb." We'll see.

 

[Prime Junta]

Since you're still just tooling around in the preview build, why not go for Physique + Psyche and dump Intellect to 1? You might be surprised.

 

[bataille]

Since you're still just tooling around in the preview build, why not go for Physique + Psyche and dump Intellect to 1? You might be surprised.

That's precisely what I'm planning to do.

 

[fantadomat]

Since you're still just tooling around in the preview build, why not go for Physique + Psyche and dump Intellect to 1? You might be surprised.

Have you? Is it well written?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The confusing part about this game is that to be a communist from Estonia of all places you would need to have a severe intellectual disability, massive cognitive impairment and irreparable brain damage. And yet I'm being told that people with all these conditions produced writing of quality never seen before.

Clearly something doesn't add up here, so either they are larping as lefties to suck up to gaming press or writing isn't as good as advertised.

and then they say I have an agenda :grumble:

Comrade, what agenda? I support communism 100% and I'm sure ZA/UM will endorse me when I redistribute some Disco Elysium wealth to myself from PirateBay instead of paying for it like a filthy capitalist pig.

Someone took harsher side of Capitalism (and de-ownering that came with it) badly.

 

[Prime Junta]

Have you? Is it well written?

I did. It was.

 

[luj1]

Tag them appropriately. The whole appeal of this place is that it remains relatively unpolluted by astroturfers, influencers and all the other human waste. And I'd rather not see us give all that away for a couple of codes.

Don't be naive. It's like you don't remember the desperate effort to boost Dumpsterfire sales by publishing a "cult RPG retrospective" of a 2 year old game. That shit was pinned for like 6 months.

 

[Prime Junta]

It's like you don't remember the desperate effort to boost Dumpsterfire sales by publishing a "cult RPG retrospective" of a 2 year old game . That shit was pinned for 6 months.

Just to clear up any misunderstandings, I did not write said retrospective.

 

[Delterius]

Obviously. Hence Prime Junta has repeatedly declared his love for the game & will not write a Codex review. And anybody giving details of the game at this point have obviously been provided code by ZA/UM. What's there to pose?

Prime Junta declared his love for this game long before he was given anything by ZA/UM. That ain't an issue. But giving codes to dicksuckers on the forum is another story, that's money changing hands and they've been employed as influencers. Tag them appropriately. The whole appeal of this place is that it remains relatively unpolluted by astroturfers, influencers and all the other human waste. And I'd rather not see us give all that away for a couple of codes.

i mean one thing is to boost a game for 500 dollars or something, but then what would be the point of boosting a bad game for a copy of said bad game

 

[fantadomat]

Have you? Is it well written?

I did. It was.

So how do you feel as a nazi now?

 

[Whisper]

Pillars of Eternity 2 was not just horrible game. It was mediocre in everything. I can forgive bad story, horrible bland combat system - but not being mediocre in everything.

Who in Codex said that PoE2 was an incline, may i ask?

 

[Terenty]

The first thing i will do is stay butt naked and see npcs reactions. This will be the true test of incline

 

[fantadomat]

Pillars of Eternity 2 was not just horrible game. It was mediocre in everything. I can forgive bad story, horrible bland combat system - but not being mediocre in everything.

Who in Codex said that PoE2 was an incline, may i ask?

Prime Junta was a fan,then switched to being a hater,then a fan again. Now i have no idea if he hates it or loves it. There were a few other retards,but most of them are insignificant. And i do agree,the game was mediocre in everything,the codex threads were 10 times better than the game. Here,at least you could see some good writing.

 

[vortex]

So every thread turns into some kind of Pillars discussion.

 

[Whisper]

/The voice of one crying in the wilderness MODE ON

I just wonder. Pillars of Eternity 2 kickstarter campaign. From googling they got 4.4 mil USD, while asking for 1.1. mil USD.

Where all extra money went to?

Why not invest into incline games like Underrail, Solasta and this one? Whats wrong with people, whats wrong with world we all live in?

p.s. Not to mention games like Dragon age 2 and etc. shit.

/The voice of one crying in the wilderness MODE OFF

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Kasparov do you like Brockhampton? (and I'm wishing you the best of luck with the game launch!) Thx, heart emoji

 

[RNGsus]

If anyone cares about my skin in the game, well, I really have none. The game has blown me away and I wanted to share my enthusiasm for it in a friendly way.

I believe Fluent. He is a troll, but I do believe he loves everything he plays with.