From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Elttharion]

How much is GRRM felt in the storytelling, or was it mostly just marketing?

There's a dude called "Dung Eater"

 

[vota DC]

How much is GRRM felt in the storytelling, or was it mostly just marketing?

There's a dude called "Dung Eater"

The dung eater part Is nazi. He Is red (so a Stalin follower) and I found him banging his head against a wailing wall. I liberated him but nothing happened, tree was already burnt.

 

[Dadd]

Dung eating is an old tradition, goes back to DS1 at least, where giants carry dung pie and you can feed dung pies to Frampt for souls.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[MajorMace]

you can feed dung pies to Frampt for souls.

You learn shit about their games even 15 years after release...

 

[Caim]

How much is GRRM felt in the storytelling, or was it mostly just marketing?

There's a dude called "Dung Eater"

Here's some Dung Eater lore:

Spoiler

In Japanese folklore the soul is stored in the anus, which explains a lot about Japan.

 

[Cryomancer]

Played this game and OMG. Is literally the best modern RPG by far. Loved spellcasting in this game. I had a huge trouble in the Fire Giant recently, died like 8 times but killed him by getting close to his feets and spamming "Adula's moonblade" while the horse, in hsi second phase, I used a summon to distract him and comet Azur and the item which gives unlimited fp for 10 seconds. His fire damage was too insane. I have 40 vit, about 1.4k hp and fire boosting gear + defensive talisman and he could still 2hk me. Now I'm exploring the concentrated snowfield.

This gmae is a masterpiece.

 

[Skinwalker]

Is it fun to play as a pure sorcerer in Elden Ring?

For context: I've played a number of souls games as a pure melee never-touched-a-boob-ranged-weapon character, and would like to switch it up if I ever decide to pick up Elder Nig. Is it a good idea?

 

[Cryomancer]

I liked a lot. Honestly, is the best sorcery of souls series except for mods like Convergence.

 

[Caim]

Is it fun to play as a pure sorcerer in Elden Ring?

For context: I've played a number of souls games as a pure melee never-touched-a-boob-ranged-weapon character, and would like to switch it up if I ever decide to pick up Elder Nig. Is it a good idea?

Pure sorcerer is fun, but like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 your spells work on an FP bar which you restore by turning some of your healing flasks into mana flasks. There's ways around this with a weapon you can get relatively early from a boss that might be a bit tricky for a new player or a talisman you can get later in the game, but until then you are limited in how many spells you can cast. As for the actual spells there's a nice selection, and you're not limited to just magic damage. There's several melee weapons that scale nicely off of Intelligence, ranging from simple swords to big fuck-off pieces of architecture. There's a nice selection of magical-themed elden bling available as well, ranging from robes to suits of armor and an interesting take on the traditional wizard headwear. Sorcery starts off a bit slow, but once you get going there's some really nice stuff avaible ranging from magic bolts and magic swords to trick shots, spells with status effects, throwing rocks, a big bonk and the fan favorite shoop da whoop.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Pure sorcerer is fun, but like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 your spells work on an FP bar which you restore by turning some of your healing flasks into mana flasks.

In Demon's Souls, you stockpile consumables (Fresh Spice and Old Spice) that restore Magic Points, then cast as many spells as you want.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Pure sorcerer is fun, but like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 your spells work on an FP bar which you restore by turning some of your healing flasks into mana flasks.

In Demon's Souls, you stockpile consumables (Fresh Spice and Old Spice) that restore Magic Points, then cast as many spells as you want.

Magic man can cast all the spells.

 

[MajorMace]

Just downed the fire giant. I assume I'm very close to the end now. Snowy mountain peaks were the best area in the game for me. Felt like visiting the first chapters from IWD a la FromSoftware. The fire giant fight itself felt very good.
Overall the game was very pleasant. Almost everyting related to its open world ranged from shit to meh though. Only notable exception being the scenery and atmospheres, which benefit from it.

I like how the world is sunless. Didn't investigate as to what exactly happens for it to feature a day/night cycle though. Since there's no sun. The tree basically is the sun at this point, and it doesn't disappear by night.
That big ass tree should be mentioned in every school of game design btw. One good way to put something at the centre of the whole adventure is to literally put it at the centre of the adventure. Simple as.

Also this game feels very humbling. When you're 50 hours in and you're still encountering new enemies with surprising movesets or gimmicks... I realised after more than a decade of these games, I can't even quite measure the scope of the dev that went into this one.
It's a pretty grand fucking game.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

It's probably related to Radahn's fuckery with gravity magic. ALL of the stars in the sky stop because of him. Stars in general are a huge deal in ER's world and the source of (at least the most popular form of) magic.

 

[MajorMace]

Also I might read too much into this but I noticed that two enemies which seem borrowed originally from Middle Kingdom of Egypt (the cat-boss in some tombs and the royal mummy looking dudes at Miquella's Tree, summoned by those spirit-calling snails) have very jerky movements. They're also very static and tend to assume and keep the same pose at all time.
Animation is one of the things FS does very well (with no regard to gameplay, hitboxes etc. I mean, from a strictly motion-focused approach), and these two dudes specifically are stiff as fuck.
So I wonder whether they purposefully made them feel like animated hieroglyphs. Because it works pretty well if that was the intention.

Stars in general are a huge deal in ER's world and the source of (at least the most popular form of) magic.

I didn't realise this. Also I like how every school of magic has some presence through some faction in game. That's a very nice touch.
I know they always did something like this in previous games, but if I'm not wrong, that's the first one which does it for all spells (barred BB but BB had very few "spells" anyway).

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Also I might read too much into this but I noticed that two enemies which seem borrowed originally from Middle Kingdom of Egypt (the cat-boss in some tombs and the royal mummy looking dudes at Miquella's Tree, summoned by those spirit-calling snails) have very jerky movements. They're also very static and tend to assume and keep the same pose at all time.
Animation is one of the things FS does very well (with no regard to gameplay, hitboxes etc. I mean, from a strictly motion-focused approach), and these two dudes specifically are stiff as fuck.
So I wonder whether they purposefully made them feel like animated hieroglyphs. Because it works pretty well if that was the intention.

Stars in general are a huge deal in ER's world and the source of (at least the most popular form of) magic.

I didn't realise this. Also I like how every school of magic has some presence through some faction in game. That's a very nice touch.
I know they always did something like this in previous games, but if I'm not wrong, that's the first one which does it for all spells (barred BB but BB had very few "spells" anyway).

Rennala is queen of the full moon, for starters. Sellen's quest gives more insight into the relevance of the sky and the stars for a lot of Elden Ring's magic. Part of that quest involves finding two mages who are being kept as prisoners because they went too far, and they half mutated into celestial beings, not the angelic meaning, but the "meteorite" aspect of it. Sellen is on her way to mutate herself (and it's what you see at the end of her quest), plus she directly states that some sorceries draw power from stars and gemstones, which are inferred to be shards of meteorites fallen from the sky. Gravity magic is another obvious application of this kind of magic. It all has medieval astronomy feels to it, instead of it being just a deus ex machina, new age "essence of the beings" type shit, which I find to be kinda cool.

 

[MajorMace]

Oh yeah I found these two wizards. Didn't make a connection with the stars though. Talking about Sellen and since I'm done with the game soon : Was her questline supposed to end as abruptily as it did for me ?

Spoiler

She revealed that her true self was the one shackled south of the peninsula and gave me her sorceress soul. Then time passed by and at some point I received a prompt saying that the soul's battery ran off or something along those lines, and Jerren slew her. Now I have her soul in my bag and I assume can't do anything with it (?)

I can see what you mean about the astronomical tone. Now I regret they don't refer to alterations as siderations.

 

[Cryomancer]

So far, my favorite spell is the Adula's Moonblade. It materializes a giantic snow sword which stags even dragons easily and throw a arc of cold which inflicts frostburn into enemies. Also conjures very fast. Getting it was not easy as I had to kill a powerful dragon at the end of Renna's quest. I recommend for everyone planning to play it as an caster to do the Renna quest and please. Don't spoil about how it will gonna affect my ending.

I also loved the Darkmoon greatsword, is the new MLGS, it has a new frostburn effect.

I always only engage in melee in FS games after I get the MLGS.

The level design in this game is 10/10. Lots of secrets, cool places to explore and verticality.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Oh yeah I found these two wizards. Didn't make a connection with the stars though. Talking about Sellen and since I'm done with the game soon : Was her questline supposed to end as abruptily as it did for me ?

Spoiler

She revealed that her true self was the one shackled south of the peninsula and gave me her sorceress soul. Then time passed by and at some point I received a prompt saying that the soul's battery ran off or something along those lines, and Jerren slew her. Now I have her soul in my bag and I assume can't do anything with it (?)

I can see what you mean about the astronomical tone. Now I regret they don't refer to alterations as siderations.

Sellen

You're supposed to give her a new body and join her in her fight against Jerren (although i don't remember in which order you're supposed to do so). Her new body can be found in a secret room belonging to Seluvis, probably in the same tower he's in. Mages use re/animation to have servants (like the multi-armed puppets you see all over the place) to do menial tasks like defense or whatever. Seluvis might just be a good ol pervert though because he has a full size Sellen replica hidden from the world. Then, she stays at Rennala's, and then you see her turned into a Graven Sorcerer (the ball).

 

[Cyberarmy]

Oh yeah I found these two wizards. Didn't make a connection with the stars though. Talking about Sellen and since I'm done with the game soon : Was her questline supposed to end as abruptily as it did for me ?

Spoiler

She revealed that her true self was the one shackled south of the peninsula and gave me her sorceress soul. Then time passed by and at some point I received a prompt saying that the soul's battery ran off or something along those lines, and Jerren slew her. Now I have her soul in my bag and I assume can't do anything with it (?)

I can see what you mean about the astronomical tone. Now I regret they don't refer to alterations as siderations.

Sellen

You're supposed to give her a new body and join her in her fight against Jerren (although i don't remember in which order you're supposed to do so). Her new body can be found in a secret room belonging to Seluvis, probably in the same tower he's in. Mages use re/animation to have servants (like the multi-armed puppets you see all over the place) to do menial tasks like defense or whatever. Seluvis might just be a good ol pervert though because he has a full size Sellen replica hidden from the world. Then, she stays at Rennala's, and then you see her turned into a Graven Sorcerer (the ball).

puppetlocation

Not in the same tower with him but close. There is ruin nearby with a illusion wall, that's where is the sickos lab is.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Even the traps have bullshit tracking

 

[Lyric Suite]

Even the traps have bullshit tracking

It's not a trap, the ball is sentient by design.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

 

[MajorMace]

However silly it sounds, it's an actual enemy with an hp meter and shit. It can aggro you etc.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Let's not ignore that the ball behaved like that, dropped the player, only to have enemies still attack the player and kill them by turning them into a pincushion. Just in case!