Game News Disco Elysium Released

[Deleted Member 22431]

The bad thing about Lurker King and Goral is that they make me feel bad about being an AoD fanboy.

The good thing about Lurker King and Goral is that they make me feel good about being a DE fanboy.

That's the difference. As far as I'm concerned, you are a non-entity with nothing interesting to say. You can like or dislike whatever you want because you are irrelevant. Also, I'm a DE fanboy and I didn't play the game yet. How does that make you feel, you resented idiot?

 

[Lithium Flower]

The bad thing about Lurker King and Goral is that they make me feel bad about being an AoD fanboy.

The good thing about Lurker King and Goral is that they make me feel good about being a DE fanboy.

That's the difference. As far as I'm concerned, you are a non-entity with nothing interesting to say. You can like or dislike whatever you want because you are irrelevant. Also, I'm a DE fanboy and I didn't play the game yet. How does that make you feel, you resented idiot?

"What? Look, I'm flattered by your bizarre interest about my personal admiration for some developers. If you want to get a kick out of it, be my guest. Whatever. People tend to have a superficial view of things. It is not because I have a particular admiration for some developers, that I’m stalker. I also have admiration for some movie directors, writers, mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, athletes, chess players, and even some codex posters. In other words, I’m just like everybody else. People made threads about Avellone that look like a shrine and I don’t see you or anybody else accusing his fans of being stalkers. Maybe it’s because you don’t understand why someone would be so enthusiast about ITS games without being deranged. It’s a failure of imagination. Moreover, my obsession about discussions involving the design of AoD it’s motivated by the same reason I obsess with discussions about PoE design. Intellectual curiosity. But since I happen to also endorse AoD system, the whole thing is dismissed as fanboysm, which is a superficial caricature of my motivations. I’m not a poor wretched who idolize other people’s work, because I also have my own work, mind you. You know what? I take it back. It is not a failure of imagination, it’s double standards and intolerance towards other people’s tastes. It seems that you have this absurd notion that I need to be crazy and fanatic to show the same appreciation to some developers that most people here already express towards other developers. Probably because you think this is unwarranted. So you need to mock and punish me because I should not be allowed to have a different taste, or at least not allowed to openly express this taste. Meanwhile, everybody else can do the same thing with the "right" developers."

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Tl;dr

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I'm glad people brought up gating in AoD.

In AoD painstakingly working around limitations of your build was the whole point of playing. I want to have that praetor who's a diplomat but can still fight, so I'm gonna restart 5 times and do minor adjustment to the build until I get it right. That's the gameplay.

In DE, the gameplay is to casually larp with the build you picked, while reading some decent prose. If the character you larped with for 20 hours runs into invisible walls, that's a problem. No one is going to restart the game and do some minor adjustments to the build and read million words 5 times until they get it right.

 

[Prime Junta]

If the character you larped with for 20 hours runs into invisible walls, that's a problem.

Has somebody hit a soft block after the first day?

 

[Mortmal]

Pro:

- The game is a lot of fun and genuinly funny on many occasions.
- Uses a new RPG mechanic never seen before and does it well (the conflicting urges or voices in your head).
- Graphics and music are excellent.
- A lot of options on how you behave: down-to-earth, crazy as fuck, drug addict, racist, communist, end-of-the world prophet.

Con:

- At about 25-40 hours for one playthrough it is a bit expensive, in my opinion.
- C&C seems quite limited, it's certainly nowhere close to AoD regarding replayability.
- People who are used to almost non-stop combat in RPG's (like aweigh) may not like it, as it does play quite similar to an adventure game.
- The ending kind of underdelivers.

8.5/10

Kinda agree, except the ending was pretty cool the whole setup, lore and background you learn bit by bit, stuff that doesnt seems connected at all and was for flavor ,the side quests you did finally culminate in that last moment and it all make sense and interconnect.

 

[ZVERMIX]

didn't find a way to beat the encounter without losing Morale

Is there? I thought it was designed around morale loss.

 

[Prime Junta]

didn't find a way to beat the encounter without losing Morale

Is there? I thought it was designed around morale loss.

Depends on your build. I think I lost 1 point of morale and 1 health with my current charname (5/1/1/5).

 

[AwesomeButton]

On Friday, I acquired this game by means of a financial transaction with the legal entity known as "GOG sp. z. o. o."

I wanted to write impressions earlier but I was too hooked to devote time to you here. Also, I was afraid I'd see some spoiler accidentally, which was the reason I stayed away from the game's thread until release.

First impressions from playing up to day 3, exploring the book shop, the apartment building, speaking to Ev-fart, getting straight with the Disco Dancer chick, winning over Cuno:
- The writing is among the best I've seen in gaming. Approaches the quality of really good detective fiction. Which is more than can be said about most detective fiction.
- Lots of roleplaying and character expression possibilities for the player.
- If the writing is literature, the graphics are art. This is the closest to "games as an art form" that I've seen yet, while still remaining a game.
- The graphics and writing provide a backdrop for the player's imagination. The game uses the player's imagination a lot, which again reminded me of a good book. But the atmosphere set by the graphics is very coherent and perfectly fitting the detective story. Za/Um knew what kind of story and experience they wanted to give, not necessarily what kind of game they want to make from it, but it ended up being an RPG.

- That being said, if the writing doesn't grip you, nothing can save the experience for you. You will quickly get bored clicking through dialogue trees.
- It's also easy to approach the game with wrong expectations, similar to how most people were approaching AoD. Some players quickly correct this, but more stubborn ones like most inhabiting the Codex will not and will just endlessly shitpost about how the game is bad.
- This brings me to the next point - the game's elitist approach. It doesn't care how much of a retard you are. I wholeheartedly approve. If your idea of a good mystery/adventure is Dan Brown, The Name of The Rose is simply not for you. Another feature that reminded me of AoD, and which will raise the bar too high for many players.
- Unavoidably, the game loses much of its mystery and appeal once you've been through the story, I guess? Unless there are multiple end states where the attraction is in finding them all.

But is DE better or worse than AoD?
The fact this question even comes up already puts DE in the high league of RPGs. IMO it does some things better - the things it focuses on, at the expense of lacking a gameified combat system. It certainly gives a lot more freedom to the player and presents him with more uncertainty. The time limit, the lack of gating do a lot towards that. So in the end it depends on what kind of problems you prefer to be faced with in a game. The positive is that both games are about problem-solving, which makes both worth playing thoroughly.

 

[Daidre]

- This brings me to the next point - the game's elitist approach. It doesn't care how much of a retard you are. I wholeheartedly approve. If your idea of a good mystery/adventure is Dan Brown, The Name of The Rose is simply not for you. Another feature that reminded me of AoD, and which will raise the bar too high for many players.

Exaggeration if I ever seen one. I also thought that all that fine deductions and extra info you get from skill checks are extremely important at first but illusion disappears with replays. There is a lot of places where the same "pieces" become available and what is obscure clue on day 1 is spelled right into your face on the day 3 to move linear, in its heart, plot.

Imho, DE is a game for people who "does not play computer games". I takes some extreme lacking of reading comprehension not to crawl to the final, at least with a some shitty ending. Reminded me a "Life is Strange" a bit but for adults, RPG and with best writing a had seen in the game since P:T.

Would not lie that a loved every minute, but I definitely loved it for 3/4 of time I spent reading playing it.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Exaggeration if I ever seen one. I also thought that all that fine deductions and extra info you get from skill checks are extremely important at first but illusion disappears with replays. There is a lot of places where the same "pieces" become available and what is obscure clue on day 1 is spelled right into your face on the day 3 to move linear, in its heart, plot.

I suspected it would be like that, most games utilize illusion of choice. But what you have quoted I meant more in terms of elitism in the style of the dialogues and prose.

 

[Daidre]

Exaggeration if I ever seen one. I also thought that all that fine deductions and extra info you get from skill checks are extremely important at first but illusion disappears with replays. There is a lot of places where the same "pieces" become available and what is obscure clue on day 1 is spelled right into your face on the day 3 to move linear, in its heart, plot.

I suspected it would be like that, most games utilize illusion of choice. But what you have quoted I meant more in terms of elitism in the style of the dialogues and prose.

DE concurrent player's count peaked at 5,157 this weekend. AoD never went past 703 at release. DE also has uniformly good critical reception and I could easily see at the top of "Game of the Year" lists.

So you are probably overstating its literature elitism too. There is nice chunk of general audience who likes their games "sophisticated' but is not very proficient at playing them. It is not the high prose that scares off people from the AoD, it is, honest imho, awkward and ugly graphics and overdesigned RPG system.

 

[Prime Junta]

It is not the high prose that scares off people from the AoD, it is, honest imho, awkward and ugly graphics and overdesigned RPG system.

I never managed to get past the start in AoD, although I've attempted it a few times and it's still on my backlog. The main reason is that the early game doesn't have a narrative hook that gives me a reason to do anything. I'm just dicking around doing whatever. It's not interesting. The secondary reason is the ugly graphics. What I saw of the RPG system looked terrific and is the main reason I still intend to give it another go. (I also played a fair bit in the combat sandbox tutorial thingy and thought that was terrific as well.)

But yeah, mostly it's the weak start.

 

[Van-d-all]

I never managed to get past the start in AoD, although I've attempted it a few times and it's still on my backlog. The main reason is that the early game doesn't have a narrative hook that gives me a reason to do anything. I'm just dicking around doing whatever. It's not interesting. The secondary reason is the ugly graphics. What I saw of the RPG system looked terrific and is the main reason I still intend to give it another go. (I also played a fair bit in the combat sandbox tutorial thingy and thought that was terrific as well.)

I don't care much for graphics, (I play ASCII games ffs) but, yeah for a "paid" game, AoD graphics are atrocious. At start the game didn't really hook me until I started to get bits and pieces about the world. Restarted it for max lore character, and whoa...

What I mean to say is - unlike DE, AoD isn't even about writing, it's about finding truth in this totally wild setting.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

But is DE better or worse than AoD?

It is worse because AoD has tons of combat, weapons and armor! Aod >>>>>>>>>>>> DE

It is not the high prose that scares off people from the AoD, it is, honest imho, awkward and ugly graphics and overdesigned RPG system.

I never managed to get past the start in AoD, although I've attempted it a few times and it's still on my backlog.

Graphic whore.

AoD graphics are atrocious.

AoD graphics are fine! I bet you have nex gen consoles at home and keep playing every new shooter that comes out.

 

[Van-d-all]

AoD graphics are fine! I bet you have nex gen consoles at home and keep playing every new shooter that comes out.

I have a GF1080 gen gaming PC, and most taxing games I use it to play are Kenshi and Rimworld.

 

[AwesomeButton]

DE concurrent player's count peaked at 5,157 this weekend. AoD never went past 703 at release.

So much the better then. Though pretty graphics will do that to a game's reception.

DE also has uniformly good critical reception and I could easily see at the top of "Game of the Year" lists.

I hope we see it there.

I can see the argument for AoD not sparking mainstream interest because of its graphics. I can only imagine what it would have been if with the already great writing drawing a picture of the world, AoD had graphics on par with Deadfire or DE. But for us here, the 90s gaming generation, graphics like AoD's shouldn't be a deal breaker.

It's really subjective, for me pixel art is a deal breaker for graphics. Of new indie games with pixel graphics, I've only played Serpent in the Staglands. I didn't mind Darklands or the old Monkey island games, but a new game with pixel graphics is just... too much, idk.

 

[Van-d-all]

I can only imagine what it would have been if with the already great writing drawing a picture of the world, AoD had graphics on par with Deadfire or DE

We'll see with Colony Ship.

It's really subjective, for me pixel art is a deal breaker for graphics. Of new indie games with pixel graphics, I've only played Serpent in the Staglands. I didn't mind Darklands or the old Monkey island games, but a new game with pixel graphics is just... too much, idk.

Yeah it's not about graphics per se, but more of an Graphics/ReleaseDate ratio.

 

[Prime Junta]

AoD graphics are fine! I bet you have nex gen consoles at home and keep playing every new shooter that comes out.

It's not just the technical quality of the graphics although they are NWN1-bad, which has to be a low point in the history of RPGs. It's also the art direction. Everything looks like it's covered in a fine layer of shit. Also the 2D portraits and inventory art, which are gorgeous, clash with the 3D visuals, which are ... yeah, well, not the prettiest.

Not a showstopper for me either and I don't know if I would've gotten any further if it had been prettier, but it is a turn-off.

I guess I've gotten spoiled but I do kind of expect a game to sell itself to me within the first hour or so. I don't know if I'd manage to get into FO1, FO2, or Arcanum either if I hadn't played them before; those games have rubbish openings too.

tl;dr it's not you AoD, it's me

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't know if I'd manage to get into FO1, FO2, or Arcanum either if I hadn't played them before; those games have rubbish openings too.

There are multiple reasons for this to be the case nowadays, I won't go on a tangent about them now, though I think Arcanum has a pretty good opening even by today's standards.

I remember the first time I got my wife interested in Arcanum - "It's isometric, it's turn based, it has LOTR's races in a Victorian-themed setting". Ok. We sit down, she creates a character, gets attacked by wolves. A critical miss causes her to fall on the ground and lose her weapon which was a "mind - blown" moment for her, causes laughter to this day. Eventually she dropped Arcanum but that was mostly because of me constantly hovering over her shoulder with comments like "Now how could you not see that?" That was 4 years ago, I think. She's been interested in restarting her Arcanum playthrough again, I'll have to see about installing the latest version for her. But I've had no complaints about graphics or about the game pacing, mostly about the UI.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

She's been interested in restarting her Arcanum playthrough again.

Post pics, please.

 

[AwesomeButton]

She's been interested in restarting her Arcanum playthrough again.

Post pics, please.

When she does, we might make it into a hilarious blind lets play (only on the codex ofc).

 

[Luckmann]

But my point is, you can invest a skill point or two in your weak spots to avoid dying.

That's not necessarily true. Not everyone saves their skill points like that, and the game very much presents itself as a "anything goes" type of deal.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Exaggeration if I ever seen one. I also thought that all that fine deductions and extra info you get from skill checks are extremely important at first but illusion disappears with replays. There is a lot of places where the same "pieces" become available and what is obscure clue on day 1 is spelled right into your face on the day 3 to move linear, in its heart, plot.

I suspected it would be like that, most games utilize illusion of choice. But what you have quoted I meant more in terms of elitism in the style of the dialogues and prose.

DE concurrent player's count peaked at 5,157 this weekend. AoD never went past 703 at release. DE also has uniformly good critical reception and I could easily see at the top of "Game of the Year" lists.

So you are probably overstating its literature elitism too. There is nice chunk of general audience who likes their games "sophisticated' but is not very proficient at playing them. It is not the high prose that scares off people from the AoD, it is, honest imho, awkward and ugly graphics and overdesigned RPG system.

High prose. LMAO. The writing in AoD is absolute garbage. Utter boring try-hard shit written by someone with no talent but delusions of grandeur. Kinda fitting how the game's fanboys are usually teenagers who want to look hardcore because omg AoD so difficult. Often overlapping with Dark Souls fanboys. Just shitheads who started playing games a couple of years ago and think a game that doesn't play by itself is automatically hardcore and they are some sort of super humans for playing it.

 

[zeitgeist]

https://kultuur.err.ee/295884/za-um-kommunistid-moodustavad-juba-poole-eesti-elanikkonnast

Hmm.