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

[Prime Junta]

I doubt developers suicidal enough to price it 40$ in CIS.

Russians gonna pirate it anyway, so why not make them feel they're getting good value for their larceny?

 

[ZVERMIX]

I doubt developers suicidal enough to price it 40$ in CIS.

Steam and GOG have regional pricing for CIS. For example, in Russia games usually cost from -40% to -70% of the dollar equivalent.

Russians gonna pirate it anyway, so why not make them feel they're getting good value for their larceny?

Can't be bothered to find the source, but I'm pretty sure Russia is second to USA in # of games sold on Steam. Regional pricing helped combat Russian PC piracy a lot.

 

[Daidre]

Russians gonna pirate it anyway, so why not make them feel they're getting good value for their larceny?

It does not have Russian translation. 99,(9)% Russian gamers would never bother to pirate it for a couple of months at least.

 

[HoboForEternity]

so popular streamers are playing the game but you can't buy it, can't preorder it and nobody knows how much it costs
main char in charge of marketing before he passed out drunk

"members of the media got to enjoy a promotional material first" have been happening since mass media is a thing

they have said the price will be $40 altho it is unclear what the regional variation will be, but you can always check steamdb for steam regional pricing default rates, assuming they just use the default rate

 

[Quillon]

So far the game seems to be doing OK in its mission to offend everybody. At last count:

- liberals, because it has "faggot" and race theory in it
- freeze peachers, because "faggot" -> "f****t"
- fash, because the race theory asserts the supremacy of haplogroup E1b1b rather than R1
- feminists, because "Inexplicable Feminist Agenda" is clearly problematic
- capitalists, because they're commies
- commies, because they're financed by a capitalist swine of the first order <--- yeah this fucking stung, although I shut up about it like a man, oh wait I'm grumbling about it now
* RPG fans, because no tactical combat
* Adventure game fans, because you can fail

Who's left?

Edit: Added RPG fans and adventure game fans, as per Jenkem's suggestion

Girls because you have to play as a gross drunk dude

i am a gross drunk dude and play as a cute girls constantly, you should be able to do the same

Gross drunk dude model doesn't look flexible enough for high physique/motorics score tho. I wouldn't be able suspend my disbelief with such stats assigned to him.

He doesn't look particularly intelligent either but you never know.

 

[barghwata]

I doubt developers suicidal enough to price it 40$ in CIS.

Russians gonna pirate it anyway, so why not make them feel they're getting good value for their larceny?

Hey! ......... it's not larceny it's communism.

 

[Haba]

"Pile of Eternite", "Night City"

I WONDER WHAT THOSE REFERENCES COULD BE.

Anyone tried cheating their way through of some of the early game impossible checks? Can they actually be passed?

 

[Prime Junta]

Just rolled boxcars on one of them as a matter of fact, no cheating or savescumming.

 

[the mole]

"Pile of Eternite", "Night City"

I WONDER WHAT THOSE REFERENCES COULD BE.

Anyone tried cheating their way through of some of the early game impossible checks? Can they actually be passed?

i dont think any of them are impossible, you would just need to max a skill

 

[Quillon]

Decided to watch a bit more...lost my shit at volumetric shit compressor

 

[Prime Junta]

i dont think any of them are impossible, you would just need to max a skill

or roll [:::][:::]

 

[Curratum]

god damn this game is going to be a HUGE hit

Not at 40 EUR, it won't.

 

[Daidre]

Talking about Steam:

This game is really English-only or someone forgot to update the page?
Russians kinda used to it, but French and German-speaking countries could get offended.

 

[Kasparov]

Talking about Steam:

This game is really English-only or someone forgot to update the page?
Russians kinda used to it, but French and German-speaking countries could get offended.

Dude. One. Million. Words. Of very ZA/UM writing. Doesn't happen over night.

Another review with critical strikes in the comments:
EUROGAMER

Disco Elysium is an RPG of overwhelming proportions
Insane in the membrane.

Ahead of the release of Disco Elysium next week, developer Studio Za/um shared some insight into the sheer size of its game: playthroughs should average 60 hours, with completionists looking at 90 hours. It consists of a million words. Impressive stuff, especially as a first project for a small indie developer, and even more impressive is that, after roughly seven hours with the preview build, I've seen much of quality in all that quantity.

Disco Elysium is a top-down RPG inspired by pen and paper roleplaying games, but instead of a high fantasy setting, you find yourself as a detective in a grimy, downtrodden harbour district in the city of Revachol, sometime in the 50s. It begins in classic noir fashion: you find yourself in the skin of a man who's lost all of his memories, fighting your way back to the world of the living after a likely alcohol-induced heart attack. A whole gaggle of voices try to convince you to just not bother with it all, and it takes a short while to figure out that it's my own brain talking to me, all the different parts of my personality chiming in.

I went with the thinker, both because this is a proper Sherlockian type and a character with one really bad stat leads to 'interesting' situations.

It's overwhelming, but it's this approach that gives Disco Elysium its flair. You're basically in charge of your character's entire brain. Almost all actions require a stat check, powered by a dice throw. Where other games only have checks for rudimentary skill categories such as perception and strength, here you dig deeper - your fashion-forwardness is as much of a skill as your endurance, logic and empathy. There's 24 skills in total across four categories describing your physical and mental state. I failed my first check when I tried to get the detective to accept the ruined crater he once called his face in the mirror.

I still haven't found out the detective's name, but I've reunited him with his highly unenthusiastic partner on the case, Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi. I've also chatted to a lot of racists, lost a boule ball and hit a fourteen year-old in the face, all in trying to get a corpse down from a tree. The conversations I have with characters are deep, and often downright ridiculous. They make me forget what questions I'm supposed to ask. You can tell I'm nowhere near actually solving the case, and that's as much due to Disco Elysium's sheer density as it this due to my digital brain chiming in on conversations unasked. Hey, it goes, hey, how do you feel about becoming a fascist? After shooting that thought down, my character starts pondering free-market socialism.

Something as simple as your first look into the mirror can go a myriad different ways, none of them good.

The problem is that with so much going on it becomes very difficult to focus on the things you should be doing. Every task has several different ways to solve them, but currently I'm stuck with about 15 open tasks and no clear idea how to proceed. Talking to more people has so far only turned up more stuff I don't want to do. Please, I want to tell my invisible DM, your players are getting bogged down and frustrated. The inhabitants of Revachol are also as kind as my low-empathy detective with the elephant memory is - I've been called a pig, an idiot and much much worse, and the atmosphere is getting to me. There's so much more to see of Disco Elysium, but as fascinating as that amount of interconnected content is, I'm starting to think there might be something like too much of a good thing. Better boost my endurance stat before I continue playing.

And in the comments:

markodisrm 3 hours ago

I played around 5 hours of Disco Elysium and I quite agree with your article.

It's a quite ambitious game and it really hooked me so far thanks to its fresh RPG ideas and presentation. I enjoy a lot all of the inner conversations that are dictated from the level of each of the 24 unique skills. Especially the skill Inland Empire that makes your imagination go rampant (talking sometimes and inexplicably with your tie). Also the visuals are quite unique, making it look like an oil painting. I believe that Za/um has created something special with an interesting twist in the RPG formula (with conversational and observation skills being more important than action oriented skills, both in the amount of them and their usability).

Be that as it may I also feel that the vast amount of distractions might sidetrack you a bit and make you lose focus. There you have a hanged man and I spent my whole first in-game day having myriads of irrelevant conversations that in the end totally neglected the main mystery. I get that it's my choice to do that, but in a sense it's also the design of the game that easily detracts you from the main quest.

Another issue I has to do with the trope of the completely amnesiac protagonist, which is not implemented very well . Here you are supposed to be a detective (decrepit as he may be) that lost completely his memory due to huge amounts of alcohol. That's all fine but it leads to some unrealistic and immersion breaking conversations that happens a bit too often to feel like small comedic touches. I mean, you can't really have on your side a faithful subordinate (essentially) partner (and from another precinct at that) that you have just met, following you without much question when your character admits openly that he doesn't remember his name, that he is a police officer, how any of the institutions works in this society, or going as far as not knowing about the concept of money. The memory loss has been implemented to have the important exposition for the workings of this society but then again it's not implemented in sync with the character's profession and purpose.

But anyway. Apart from that gripe of mine Disco Elysium still possess good writing skills that works in tandem with the clever RPG systems. Moreover the text heavy story actually doesn't feel at all tiresome, thanks to the myriad of interesting inner dialogues (between the different stats e.g. Logic arguing with Conceptualisation in your mind) and well written conversations with other characters (it may have some not very natural exposition but still it's intriguing to learn more about this society, the murder case and the background of your character).

Can't wait for the rest of the mystery to unlock upon the release date!

markodisrm 1 hour ago

@captain-T-dawg Couple of years ago I finished Planescape: Torment for the first time, a game that I thoroughly enjoyed and didn't make me feel overwhelmed or tired at any point. On the other hand I played Pillars of Eternity last year on the PC and I couldn't really continue after 7-8 hours because the conversations and huge texts kept going a bit too much and I couldn't feel at ease with the vast amount of skills between the 5-6 party members (even after 8 hours I felt that I need to reread every ability before using it...).


Disco Elysium on the other hand is a lot more approachable. Of course it's text heavy with lots of skills but it's presented in an easy and clear way to follow. When you play it you'll realise that hidden dice rolls are happening constantly (during the conversations) making sure that, for example, if you have a high perception skill your character will notice a slight mannerism of another character, opening new dialogue choices automatically. Other times the game will present you with a choice tied with an accuracy percentage letting you choose if you'll take it (e.g. 56% chance of intimidating someone for a confession or 77% chance of convincing someone to share a secret and maybe 30% change of breaking down a door if you are strong enough. My frail character almost died after kicking a trash can trying to open it, because I had the lowest rating possible on his physique).

The way the 24 skills are named and how they work is pretty intuitive and you will not feel lost interpreting them again and again before using them, leveling them up, or understanding why they where activated. As such, from the start you'll know almost exactly on which skills to focus, according to the playstyle/character you'll like to have in the game. A really good thing is that through the myriad of conversations (with other characters or in the character's mind) you constantly feel the impact of your skills, something that elevates the replayability very high as well.

At least on the first five hours of playing the game I can tell you for sure that you will not feel overwhelmed about the way the game works. As long as you like lots of reading, in a game that still feels like a game and not as an interactive novel, I think you'll be fine. If you'll end up liking the quality of the writing or its subject is another matter of course. Hope this helps!

 

[luinthoron]

Russians kinda used to it, but French and German-speaking countries could get offended.

If they can't handle the English, I guess they'll need to learn Chinese.

 

[Prime Junta]

No quest compass, whatever are we going to do

 

[Wunderbar]

Should I add Poles, because of POTAAT or are they immune?

what the hell is POTAAT

 

[vortex]

Gross drunk dude model doesn't look flexible enough for high physique/motorics score tho. I wouldn't be able suspend my disbelief with such stats assigned to him.

But it totally does bro.

 

[Wunderbar]

Dude. One. Million. Words. Of very ZA/UM writing. Doesn't happen over night.

but where is Estonian language

 

[JarlFrank]

I do actually know some who always play as a female character because that's what they prefer to look at.

I always play as a female character because that's what I'd prefer to be, but Disco Elysium is the first RPG that lets me play as what I actually am - a gross drunk dude.

 

[Kasparov]

Dude. One. Million. Words. Of very ZA/UM writing. Doesn't happen over night.

but where is Estonian language

Perhaps the fine folk at the Estonian Institute don't consider our art Estonian enough. You're welcome to write them a complaint.

 

[Mikeal]

Also:

Guys because you have to play as a gross drunk dude

I do actually know some who always play as a female character because that's what they prefer to look at.

Hey I want to play as a gross drunk dude.

Spoiler

This is my future.

 

[Daidre]

Dude. One. Million. Words. Of very ZA/UM writing. Doesn't happen over night.

Why everyone try to "dude" me?

I am Russian girl with girlish username and I intend to buy this game to play as gross drunk dude and read one million words in English written by Estonians (no offense here!).

 

[Prime Junta]

I am Russian girl

oh shit, you're going to regret divulging that piece of information

 

[Kasparov]

Dude. One. Million. Words. Of very ZA/UM writing. Doesn't happen over night.

Why everyone try to "dude" me?

I am Russian girl with girlish username and I intend to buy this game to play as gross drunk dude and read one million words in English written by Estonians (no offense here!).

Dudette