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

[Skinwalker]

To me the problem with ER's world is the ratio of random weirdness to grounded characters. Yeah, DS1 has the weird snake men, and some other weird shit like a bunch of the bosses (why the fuck is Quelagg a spider lady? The game doesn't even have spiders!) but it also has a ton of areas that are perfectly sensible, like the entirety of Anor Londo.

A giant cathedral city in unfathomably tall mountains with enormous giants guarding the hallways, where you are lifted up by a pair of brain gargoyles, which is the home of this realm's gods, and where you navigate by operating a giant spinning bridge, is "perfectly sensible" and grounded to you? Not to mention a giant breasted lady on a couch who upon closer inspection turns out to be an illusion cast by a spiky-helmet wearing guy with snake legs.

Soulsscrubs seem to be extremely inconsistent in what their tiny brains find "random weirdness vs grounded". Nothing in these games is "grounded", everything is mythical and dreamlike/nightmarish. I feel sorry for you if you can't be immersed in a game unless it replicates the drudgery of the mundane world, and pops up a thousand-world description for every "unusual" thing that you discover.

 

[9ted6]

To me the problem with ER's world is the ratio of random weirdness to grounded characters. Yeah, DS1 has the weird snake men, and some other weird shit like a bunch of the bosses (why the fuck is Quelagg a spider lady? The game doesn't even have spiders!) but it also has a ton of areas that are perfectly sensible, like the entirety of Anor Londo.

A giant cathedral city in unfathomably tall mountains with enormous giants guarding the hallways, where you are lifted up by a pair of brain gargoyles, which is the home of this realm's gods, is "perfectly sensible" and grounded to you?

You forgot the part where it's all intentionally dreamlike because it's a magical illusion. Same reason there's a giant titty lady you talk to, she's designed to entice potential Chosen Undead because it's all being run as a facade by Gwyndo. In reality the city's mostly dark and almost completely devoid of life.

It's a big city in the mountains because it was built by giants. Stuff like that's believable in fantasy, same for dwarves making huge underground cities because it's at least somewhat based in reality and practicality.

Teleporting to the surface of Mars to fight a gigantic knight who rides a tiny horse isn't practical, explained or believable at all, it's entirely dreamlike weird nonsense which doesn't really work because the entire game is dreamlike nonsense. At least in DS1 you could explain some of the weirder things with the fact that Lordran is distorted because of the fire dying out while the rest of the world is a pretty normal fantasy setting where nothing particularly crazy goes on. There's a contrast of normalcy to the weirdness which ER lacks.

 

[MasPingon]

Yeah, DS1 has the weird snake men, and some other weird shit like a bunch of the bosses (why the fuck is Quelagg a spider lady? The game doesn't even have spiders!) but it also has a ton of areas that are perfectly sensible, like the entirety of Anor Londo.

In ER you can't go 10 feet without asking 'what the fuck?' Why catacombs guarded by giant automated chariots? Why is this guy gluing bodyparts onto himself? Why these mages wear rocks for hats? Why these caravans going nowhere carrying nothing? Why this random demihuman in a cave has a fucking sword made of the fucking elden ring? Why are giant, animated mausoleums a thing? Or the 10 fingered spider hands?

That's a good way to put it. When everything is weird and fantastical, nothing is.

This statement is only half truth. Take Planescape Torment and Tides of Numenera, one does it right, the other does it wrong. In both everything is weird and fantastical, the difference is the first slowly introduces you to the game world and doesn't try to crowd you with all incredible stuff. It's odd, but you as a player can understand the laws of this universe, it works perfectly fine by it's own logic so you don't feel alienated. Elden Ring weirdness is similar, this universe also have clear laws that player can uncover if he wants, game doesn't forces you to do it. You can as well hack and slash through the game if you are not interested in it and still enjoy it. Even if you don't dig much into the story, the game tells you enough to keep the world believable and keep you engaged - elden ring destroyed, everything is fucked now, go kill those guys who took runes, fix it.

Wait, wut? Are you really comparing ER to Planescape?

Silva critically failed reading comprehension check and took 3 hit points, knocked down and hurt himself.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Souls stuff is just action figurines/tabletop minis type of stuff, don't overthink it. TBH overthinking Souls stuff is what leads us to hacks like vaati having a career

 

[Skinwalker]

You forgot the part where it's all intentionally dreamlike because it's a magical illusion. Same reason there's a giant titty lady you talk to, she's designed to entice potential Chosen Undead because it's all being run as a facade by Gwyndo. In reality the city's mostly dark and almost completely devoid of life.

The illusion replicates what the city was before its downfall. Gwyndolin did not invent the sun, or giant warriors, or his sister out of thin air.

It's a big city in the mountains because it was built by giants. Stuff like that's believable in fantasy, same for dwarves making huge underground cities because it's at least somewhat based in reality and practicality.

Teleporting to the surface of Mars to fight a gigantic knight who rides a tiny horse isn't practical, explained or believable at all, it's entirely dreamlike weird nonsense which doesn't really work because the entire game is dreamlike nonsense

You keep comparing apples to oranges. Why not compare locations to locations, and boss fights to boss fights? And where did you find yourself teleporting to the surface of Mars? Are you tripping out?

At least in DS1 you could explain some of the weirder things with the fact that Lordran is distorted because of the fire dying out while the rest of the world is a pretty normal fantasy setting where nothing particularly crazy goes on.

And in Elden Ring you you could explain some of the weirder things with the fact that the Lands Between are distorted because of the Elden Ring shattering while the rest of the world is a pretty normal fantasy setting where nothing particularly crazy goes on.

Except that the whole world is affected by the fire going out (Northern Undead Asylum is far from Lordran), as well as by the Elden Ring shattering. It's exactly the same scenario, you just keep arbitrarily coming up with rationalizations for one while just as arbitrarily being snooty and dismissive of the other. Perfect example of nostalgia-driven grognardism.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

I can't imagine a Jappo filmmaker making a straight up narrative, great epic story movie like the Lord of the Rings. It'd be all fucked up and half the movie would be long close ups on eyes or characters slowly sharpening their swords.

Exactly. The kind of stuff that we'd never do.

 

[9ted6]

You forgot the part where it's all intentionally dreamlike because it's a magical illusion. Same reason there's a giant titty lady you talk to, she's designed to entice potential Chosen Undead because it's all being run as a facade by Gwyndo. In reality the city's mostly dark and almost completely devoid of life.

The illusion replicates what the city was before its downfall. Gwyndolin did not invent the sun, or giant warriors, or his sister out of thin air.

There weren't monsters walking around fighting people before the downfall and his sister obviously wasn't gigantic compared to him. It's obvious Gwyndo exaggerated or embellished alot of details and added things of his own.

It's a big city in the mountains because it was built by giants. Stuff like that's believable in fantasy, same for dwarves making huge underground cities because it's at least somewhat based in reality and practicality.

Teleporting to the surface of Mars to fight a gigantic knight who rides a tiny horse isn't practical, explained or believable at all, it's entirely dreamlike weird nonsense which doesn't really work because the entire game is dreamlike nonsense

You keep comparing apples to oranges. Why not compare locations to locations, and boss fights to boss fights? And where did you find yourself teleporting to the surface of Mars? Are you tripping out?

At least in DS1 you could explain some of the weirder things with the fact that Lordran is distorted because of the fire dying out while the rest of the world is a pretty normal fantasy setting where nothing particularly crazy goes on.

And in Elden Ring you you could explain some of the weirder things with the fact that the Lands Between are distorted because of the Elden Ring shattering while the rest of the world is a pretty normal fantasy setting where nothing particularly crazy goes on.

Except that the whole world is affected by the fire going out (Northern Undead Asylum is far from Lordran), as well as by the Elden Ring shattering. It's exactly the same scenario, you just keep arbitrarily coming up with rationalizations for one while just as arbitrarily being snooty and dismissive of the other. Perfect example of nostalgia-driven grognardism.

The rest of ER's world is barely even mentioned let alone fleshed out compared to DS1 where we've got a decent amount of sidelore about the rest of the world and NPCs who traveled from it just like you did to Lordran. None of them imply anything is happening elsewhere as noticeably as in Lordran and if anything with Logan and the other mage there's enough normalcy that some organizations are still more concerned with politicking instead of the fire going out.

Also is the distance of the asylum and Lordran ever stated? It's close enough that you can fly back and forth in a presumably short time and you can see the mountains from Lordran. It's also close enough to have two demon guards and demons are apparently unique to the Lordran region.

 

[Silva]

Yeah, DS world is much more (and better) fleshed out than ER, if that's what you guys are arguing about.

But kybrradong comprehension today's is really shitnsobai don't know.

 

[Skinwalker]

There weren't monsters walking around fighting people before the downfall and his sister obviously wasn't gigantic compared to him. It's obvious Gwyndo exaggerated or embellished alot of details and added things of his own.

That's very much your opinion, and an incorrect one at that. The giant knights and silver knights clearly look like they belong in that place. And the brain gargoyles look like they don't, but iirc they don't disappear if you kill Gwyndolin, so they're actually real, lul. And we have no idea how big the real Gwynavere is, but probably much bigger than Gwyndolin. That whole city looks like it was built for giant-sized people.

Yeah, so that's Caelid. Red deserts exist even in the real world, just take a look at Australia.

The rest of ER's world is barely even mentioned let alone fleshed out compared to DS1 where we've got a decent amount of sidelore about the rest of the world and NPCs who traveled from it just like you did to Lordran. None of them imply anything is happening elsewhere as noticeably as in Lordran and if anything with Logan and the other mage there's enough normalcy that some organizations are still more concerned with politicking instead of the fire going out.

This is completely besides the point. It's a basic fact of DS lore than the fire fading means the undead curse is spreading in the entire world, not just Lordran. There are some mentions of places outside of the Lands Between, e.g. the Land of Reeds, the Badlands where Hoarah Loux came from and where he returned to with his tribe after his exile, Fia's homeland where "deathbed companions" come from, the home of the Numen, etc.

Also is the distance of the asylum and Lordran ever stated? It's close enough that you can fly back and forth in a presumably short time and you can see the mountains from Lordran.

You get to Lordran by curling up in a fetal position and then being picked up by a giant crow. That's your grounded normalcy for you, tard.

Just give up this idea of "in the good old days there was Dark Souls which was mostly grounded with some special rare magical things sprinkled on top, but now the bad mean Elden Ring is filled with nothing but weirdness!!", it is blatantly false. Dark Souls is 90% surreal from the very get-go.

The starting area of Undead Burg is an undead city surrounded by an enormous wall that is as tall as a mountain, with a ramshackle village built on the side of it, and the sliver of land between this wall and that of an adjacent city that's never mentioned is filled with so much sewage that it's a giant slug-infested swamp, and has an entrance to both hell Lost Izalith and the Great Hollow/Ash Lake, which is the most surreal place in any video game to memory.

Limgrave actually seems more normal and grounded compared to that.

You were just less of a crusty old fart when Dark Souls came out, and were able to appreciate its setting for what it is.

 

[Nathir]

Aesthetics is definitely an element of the FromSoft magic. Especially when compared to current year westoid pastel colored, plastic looking Pixar shit.

Which I think is another area ER fails at honestly. So much of the game is washed over in an FNV piss filter.

Jesus Christ just stop shitting up this thread already you mongoloid.

 

[Multidirectional]

Aesthetics is definitely an element of the FromSoft magic. Especially when compared to current year westoid pastel colored, plastic looking Pixar shit.

Which I think is another area ER fails at honestly. So much of the game is washed over in an FNV piss filter.

Something must be wrong with your monitor. Beautiful awe inspiring views are one legit thing open world in ER has going for it. It's a far cry from washed out crap of DS III.

 

[Ravielsk]

You get to Lordran by curling up in a fetal position and then being picked up by a giant crow. That's your grounded normalcy for you, tard.

Again, repeating a mistake does not somehow make it a "not mistake". Souls series always had this problem of having major elements/parts of its worldbuilding artificially obscured for no good reason. The point everyone has been making is that in Souls games this mistake was relatively minor because they were not set in an open world.

You could suspend your disbelief by simply accepting that you are in just a particularly fucked up part of the world. You can justify having no one to ask questions about the timeline or what certain things are or are not. You can even make the point that your character being a native of the lands already knows most of these things and therefore feels no need to question them(very possible for sorcerer classes and clerics).

But once you move into the open world that excuse falls apart. In Elden Ring were are not in some possibly particularly fucked up part of the lands between were in the lands themselves. We are explicitly not natives to the land, at best we are expats who came back after a very long time. So the bar you have to clear with the world building is simply set much higher.

Its not a question of whether Dark Souls was super poggers grounded in reality and Elden Ring is not. Its a question the scope of ER not being compatible with its obtuse story and world building.

 

[Skinwalker]

Again, repeating a mistake does not somehow make it a "not mistake".

It's not a mistake though. We've been over this.

 

[Ravielsk]

It's not a mistake though. We've been over this.

Where?

 

[Silverfish]

hey that movie's goated fuck u

I love it, but I also dig Jap stuff.

 

[Elttharion]

 

[cvv]

No wonder she went kookoo, imagine her spine and hips problems.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

You forgot the part where it's all intentionally dreamlike because it's a magical illusion. Same reason there's a giant titty lady you talk to, she's designed to entice potential Chosen Undead because it's all being run as a facade by Gwyndo. In reality the city's mostly dark and almost completely devoid of life.

The illusion replicates what the city was before its downfall. Gwyndolin did not invent the sun, or giant warriors, or his sister out of thin air.

Gwynevere even appears in both a painting and a statue, as confirmation that the appearance of the illusion of her is generally correct:

 

[Skinwalker]

And her non-illusory couch is clearly sized for a giant woman.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I mean, I don't consider giants to be all that crazy to begin with. It's well within the bounds of generic fantasy. Same with giant, hostile animals, people throwing fireballs and magic healing potions.

The guy gluing bodyparts onto himself for no discernable benefit needs an explanation. Like, something something acquire the powers of dragons... but he obviously didn't, and most of those body parts are from other people the same size as him or even smaller. It's not even at the level of 'I stuck my brain on the side of a giant' logic. It's just straight up 'lol, this is gross and this guy must be crazy!'

The turtle thing is far worse. He's the only one in the whole fucking game, so it's not like there's a race of sentient turtles and he happens to be one of them. And the fact that he talks isn't the only weird thing, they had to tack on that he's also the head of a fucking church, wears a fancy hat somehow AND he's an amazing spellcaster? Fuck it, why not make him a master swordsman and pilot of the world's only airship while you're at it? Give him a gun too, that'll make him memorable!

Lets not pretend this shit is at the same level in DS1. Probably the weirdest shit there is the covenants, like the talking cat and the wormheads and Frampt/Kaathe (at least those two are established as some kind of weird ancient race). Sif fights you with a sword, okay, weird. But she's also grounded in something familiar: A dog waiting at it's owner's grave, being territorial over it.

The design of ER was very clearly just coming up with random shit and shoving it wherever they felt things were a little empty. In DS1 you have various random monsters with the vague explanation of 'demons.' Flimsy, but whatever, demons are inherently a chaotic and random sort of creature, and they have a place they came from and are related to the flame of chaos. In ER you have shit that kinda fits, like the puppets made by mages and the bugs made from the rot, and you've got shit that doesn't belong, like the giant hands, a turtle pope, T-Rex dogs, worm faces, and so on. It's the mark of a team that didn't want to throw away any ideas or content they had, regardless of whether or not it fit with what they had. And even that could be excused to a point with excuses like them being illusions (painted world is a good example) but they just... didn't bother with so much of it. Like, there is no way in fucking hell the guy who designed that cool sword mage of rune fragments did it with the intention to have it left in a random cave with zero context. It was clearly supposed to be attached to some sort of boss or questline that was never finished. ER is like this woven rug that looks amazing in the middle and gets frayed and crappy once you reach the edges.

 

[Old Hans]

The guy gluing bodyparts onto himself for no discernable benefit needs an explanation.

I does have a benefit. he can carry more axes.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Godrick?His backstory is that he's grafting for show, quite literally

 

[Child of Malkav]

No wonder she went kookoo, imagine her spine and hips problems.

Yeah that's exactly what I'm imagining.

 

[9ted6]

The guy gluing bodyparts onto himself for no discernable benefit needs an explanation. Like, something something acquire the powers of dragons... but he obviously didn't, and most of those body parts are from other people the same size as him or even smaller. It's not even at the level of 'I stuck my brain on the side of a giant' logic. It's just straight up 'lol, this is gross and this guy must be crazy!'

The turtle thing is far worse. He's the only one in the whole fucking game, so it's not like there's a race of sentient turtles and he happens to be one of them. And the fact that he talks isn't the only weird thing, they had to tack on that he's also the head of a fucking church, wears a fancy hat somehow AND he's an amazing spellcaster? Fuck it, why not make him a master swordsman and pilot of the world's only airship while you're at it? Give him a gun too, that'll make him memorable!

Lets not pretend this shit is at the same level in DS1. Probably the weirdest shit there is the covenants, like the talking cat and the wormheads and Frampt/Kaathe (at least those two are established as some kind of weird ancient race). Sif fights you with a sword, okay, weird. But she's also grounded in something familiar: A dog waiting at it's owner's grave, being territorial over it.

The design of ER was very clearly just coming up with random shit and shoving it wherever they felt things were a little empty. In DS1 you have various random monsters with the vague explanation of 'demons.' Flimsy, but whatever, demons are inherently a chaotic and random sort of creature, and they have a place they came from and are related to the flame of chaos. In ER you have shit that kinda fits, like the puppets made by mages and the bugs made from the rot, and you've got shit that doesn't belong, like the giant hands, a turtle pope, T-Rex dogs, worm faces, and so on. It's the mark of a team that didn't want to throw away any ideas or content they had, regardless of whether or not it fit with what they had. And even that could be excused to a point with excuses like them being illusions (painted world is a good example) but they just... didn't bother with so much of it. Like, there is no way in fucking hell the guy who designed that cool sword mage of rune fragments did it with the intention to have it left in a random cave with zero context. It was clearly supposed to be attached to some sort of boss or questline that was never finished. ER is like this woven rug that looks amazing in the middle and gets frayed and crappy once you reach the edges.

The big fat cultists who wear flabby skin coats and roll around as an attack because uh so weird haha fat people funny haha.

 

[Skinwalker]

The guy gluing bodyparts onto himself for no discernable benefit needs an explanation. Like, something something acquire the powers of dragons... but he obviously didn't

Except for breathing an enormous amount of fire out of his dragon arm. Er, head.

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