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

[Skinwalker]

And so I donned my mushroom outfit and trotted the Lake of Rot with its horrid basilisks, centipeople, the Astel, and finally ascended to the Moonlit Altar. This time, when I found Ranni lifeless by the corpse of her Two Fingers, I decided NOT to put the ring on her finger. Seems like a fitting ending for a selfish little witch who sacrificed Godwyn and left behind her mother, childhood friends and mentor, in pursuit of personal freedom and power.

Remain lifeless by the carved-up body of your adversary... forever.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

And as if we didn't already have enough evidence that Crispy/liberal is a terrible person he goes and does that.

 

[Skinwalker]

#JusticeForGodwyn

#SnowWitchesAreColdBitches

 

[Caim]

And so I donned my mushroom outfit and trotted the Lake of Rot with its horrid basilisks, centipeople, the Astel, and finally ascended to the Moonlit Altar. This time, when I found Ranni lifeless by the corpse of her Two Fingers, I decided NOT to put the ring on her finger. Seems like a fitting ending for a selfish little witch who sacrificed Godwyn and left behind her mother, childhood friends and mentor, in pursuit of personal freedom and power.

Remain lifeless by the carved-up body of your adversary... forever.

Put the ring on her anyway and go with the Goldmask ending.

You not only proverbially leave her at the altar, you impose a divine order to which everyone, even Ranni, has to conform.

 

[Silva]

Now that a little time has passed after I finished this, I don't have the least desire to get back, nor do I remember fondly of any piece of lore. Don't even know if I'll check the DLC, well, maybe when it's worth a banana down the road.

This is the most pedestrian From title ever. A pure (and bad at it) number crunching affair, with little to no élan.

 

[cvv]

Yeah I wouldn't dream of replaying the vanilla.

But I AM interested in some of the total overhaul mods like Convergence or Reborn. I'll probably check out Reborn when it's finished, I really dig what its trying to do, especially with entire reworked levels and areas.

 

[REhorror]

GRRM's contributions began and ended with Dung Eater.

And the sword that's the Iron Throne on a handle.

And the multiple dynasties based on incest.

That isn't something GRRM invented.

Hell, is he still working in the expansion? They don't seem to advertise him anymore.

I don't like GRRM because he's the fat and unethical version of Tolkien.

 

[Silva]

Yeah I wouldn't dream of replaying the vanilla.

But I AM interested in some of the total overhaul mods like Convergence or Reborn. I'll probably check out Reborn when it's finished, I really dig what its trying to do, especially with entire reworked levels and areas.

I'm on PS5 so that would be impossible in my case. Regardless, what usually hooks me to these games is the worldbuilding and ambience (call me a storyfag), something ER never did for me. In fact, I would be more inclined to check those mods for DS1/2/3 than ER.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

GRRM's contributions began and ended with Dung Eater.

And the sword that's the Iron Throne on a handle.

And the multiple dynasties based on incest.

That isn't something GRRM invented.

Hell, is he still working in the expansion? They don't seem to advertise him anymore.

I don't like GRRM because he's the fat and unethical version of Tolkien.

From what I understand he basically wrote the equivalent of Toliken's Silmarillion but for the Elden Ring setting. That was the extent of his involvement, just the world's history, characters, family trees and major events. Everything that happens post-Shattering is all Miyazaki's story. GRRM had no idea that Rykard was going to be a giant snake demon, for example.

Pretty smart move on Miyazaki's part to not have him any more involved in the creative process than that, since I also greatly dislike the tone of his stories. His "work" on the game started and ended in ER's pre-production.

According to recent interviews everything in the expansion is also based on the backstory written by GRRM, including this new child of Marika and Radagon that we didn't know about before.

 

[cvv]

From what I understand he basically wrote the equivalent of Toliken's Silmarillion but for the Elden Ring setting. That was the extent of his involvement, just the world's history, characters, family trees and major events.

Plus, knowing Miyazaki and Japs' ability to understand, process and depict European-based history in general, I'm guessing Martin's original setting is to the final lore what a castle is to a bouncy castle. With a toxic coat of paint and spikes underneath.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

I'm not sure I fully understand your analogy, but okay. In my estimation, Japs do basically everything Western-fantasy far better than Westerners themselves.
To me, Miyazaki's creative relationship with GRRM is more akin to refining crude, raw material into gemstones.

 

[Sweeper]

Bros, remember that @Lyric Suite is a retired 81 yo limp fatso with no social life or pussy to fuck.

You should respect your elders.

 

[Lyric Suite]

GRRM's involvement in this game was probably a mistake. Modern westoid authors don't have any sensibility for myth anymore. There's too much psychological and individualistic projection to allow for the kind of impersonal, almost esoteric approach a Fromsoft game requires.

 

[gabel]

What Muhzakui made out of it is just as bad.
Lore is absolutely degenerate.

 

[cvv]

Modern westoid authors don't have any sensibility for myth anymore.

I'd argue modern Japs aren't much better. Not as bad as us but plenty currentard and plenty degenerate.

Agreed with Martin being a mistake but not because Martin is bad. In my book the ER lore is by far the most banal shit boring, probably due to some cross-cultural scrambling. If you strip it off the traditional FS stylishness and vagueness you're left with a sad collection of barebones soap opera tropes.

Person A craves something, person B loves person C therefore persons D and E kill person F and G because person M doesn't love person XYZ. Give me a fucking break. What fucking decline from Sekiro, let alone Bloodborne.

 

[Barbarian]

The parts I liked about the lore and characters I suspect were all Myazaki's doing.

The bits about "magic" being "color out of space but with crystals" or the lovecraftian bits about the setting's "deities" being these weird and unscrutable extradimensional entities. Also the plagues and horrors. All stuff reminiscent of Bloodborne.

The interfamily drama and conspiracies I agree that are mostly bullshit. I assume in fatso Martin's drafts the deities/entities didn't have a lovecraftian angle as well, specially going by the names he chose("greater will", "golden order" and etc).

 

[Child of Malkav]

There's too much psychological and individualistic projection to allow for the kind of impersonal, almost esoteric approach a Fromsoft game requires.

Hm, you think that the Outsider in Dishonored 1 fits that description? The calm in his voice, almost robotic, alien curiosity he has while watching you deal with your targets? As compared to his version in D2 as an emo, edgy, teenager kid?

 

[Lyric Suite]

There's too much psychological and individualistic projection to allow for the kind of impersonal, almost esoteric approach a Fromsoft game requires.

Hm, you think that the Outsider in Dishonored 1 fits that description? The calm in his voice, almost robotic, alien curiosity he has while watching you deal with your targets? As compared to his version in D2 as an emo, edgy, teenager kid?

I didn't play any of them so i have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Latelistener]

I've completed Dark Souls with a medium roll armor set and a claymore. Will it work here too?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I mean, game world looks nice and all, but that giant ass tree is really annoying.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I'd argue modern Japs aren't much better. Not as bad as us but plenty currentard and plenty degenerate.

Agreed with Martin being a mistake but not because Martin is bad. In my book the ER lore is by far the most banal shit boring, probably due to some cross-cultural scrambling. If you strip it off the traditional FS stylishness and vagueness you're left with a sad collection of barebones soap opera tropes.

Any one defending Japanese writing and saying it's superior to Western stuff needs to look at the amount of light novels and VNs Japan releases barely above fanfic.net's quality. I read Martin's books and found them incredibly boring, except he'd write 1 or 2 characters you would get invested in and have to slog through the rest of the crap to get to their chapters again.

Martin was never anything more than a marketing ploy. He free lanced the background for content they already had planned from what we know. His name attached brought the game additional attention but it's unlikely it brought in many more sales. If you weren't interested in From games before Martin's fanbase were not going to get along well with them. Elden Ring's intro is so badly botched I can't imagine being new to gaming, running into the Tree sentinel and then Margott. It would have put me off gaming for life if I thought the base line of difficulty was 2 very difficult bosses you weren't equipped to deal with.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Any one defending Japanese writing and saying it's superior to Western stuff needs to look at the amount of light novels and VNs Japan releases barely above fanfic.net's quality.

I mean, the same is true of western stuff. Goosebumps isn't exactly high art. Anyone who spent a lot of time reading random books as a kid would recall that 95% of everything is crap, wherever it's from.

I'd say the important difference is that the big japanese companies occasionally let some good writing into the games, while the western ones are all so managed by marketing and focus groups you never get anything but grey slop for the lowest common denominator.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I didn't play any of them so i have no idea what you are talking about.

Here you go, starts at 00:30.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Any one defending Japanese writing and saying it's superior to Western stuff needs to look at the amount of light novels and VNs Japan releases barely above fanfic.net's quality.

I mean, the same is true of western stuff. Goosebumps isn't exactly high art. Anyone who spent a lot of time reading random books as a kid would recall that 95% of everything is crap, wherever it's from.

I'd say the important difference is that the big japanese companies occasionally let some good writing into the games, while the western ones are all so managed by marketing and focus groups you never get anything but grey slop for the lowest common denominator.

Both are equally shitty. There are occasional good releases from both but both are plagued by bad writing in their own ways. No one needs another Moe blob and cunt love interest love triangle in a JRPG ever again and I bet 10 more will release this year.

I'm thinking of setting up a DLC character but I don't know where I want to draw the line. You can get to Mogh pretty early on but the DLC is going to require all the upgrades if past ones are to be expected. I don't want to finish the game and then go into it, I can't remember where the last flask upgrades. On the flip side do I want to deal with From's DLC bullshit? Every DLC ups the anime aspects of the base game. Ivory King, Sister Frieda and I dread to think what Maliketh is going to be topped with. I don't want spoilers because it would ruin the experience for me, but do I want to pay full price again for a DLC I expect to be tedious as all hell?

 

[Cheesedragon117]

You're coming into it with to many expectations. Just beat Radahn and Mohg using a build you've never tried before and you'll be fine.

There's actually a slight chance you  won't need a +25 weapon going into the DLC, as Miyazaki said there will be a new level/difficulty scaling system in place. I can't disagree on the anime-ness remark though. Just look at Messmer, I could see him having the most anime second phase in Fromsoft history.