Raff

Dishonored - or - GIFs By Breckon

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I might be in the part of that venn diagram that thinks both types of gameplay are equally awesome for wildly different reasons.

I love you. I am perpetually frustrated at people who refuse to acknowledge that there is more than one way to skin a cat, as it were. I've actually not really been following opinions about this game. I just wanted to agree with you, in a roundabout way.

I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE how people are beating this game in four hours. I mean, I guess I do, but why would you WANT to? I spent two hours on the "tutorial" (up to meeting the Upgrade Man) alone. I'm so excited to continue playing tonight. Lately I've been feeling a bit weird about playing Video Games, in that I want to do it, but nothing's really pulling me in, besides Dota 2 and DayZ. This is doing it for me. This is doing it for me hard.

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Are there any fellow Austinites here? A lot of Arkane folk were at the Arboretum gamestop last night for the midnight launch. I got to meet and chat with one Nick Breckon.

It was probably the most fun I've had in a Gamestop. :P

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Hah, and here I thought it would be released on Friday. I haven't pirated a game in a long while, but this stuff really does give me that impulse. I'm not going to follow up on it, but it's easy to think that if they are unwilling to let me buy and play the game when other people can...

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Hah, and here I thought it would be released on Friday. I haven't pirated a game in a long while, but this stuff really does give me that impulse. I'm not going to follow up on it, but it's easy to think that if they are unwilling to let me buy and play the game when other people can...

Agreed to the max. Having seperate launch dates on games that are sold digitally is insane. Why couldn't they have made it an international launch on the 12th instead and not making the rest of the world feel like second class customers?

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I don't understand the ire about this.

I'm giddy about the game - so giddy, it's the 1st one I ever pre-ordered or pre-launched in my life - and sure, I'm a bit jealous that some people can play it early; but come on, it's only a few hours: the game's still going to be as good in a few hours.

This is going to be partial, judgmental and maybe unfair but if I can understand impatient tantrums from kids, adults acting as if such a delay was critical and somehow hurtful is really irritating me: IT'S A GAME, don't get your priority backwards.

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A few hours I could live with. Three days is not a few hours. The delay might not be critical, and nobody will die, but comparing complaints about it to impatient childish tantrums is unfair.

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I don't understand the ire about this.

I'm giddy about the game - so giddy, it's the 1st one I ever pre-ordered or pre-launched in my life - and sure, I'm a bit jealous that some people can play it early; but come on, it's only a few hours: the game's still going to be as good in a few hours.

This is going to be partial, judgmental and maybe unfair but if I can understand impatient tantrums from kids, adults acting as if such a delay was critical and somehow hurtful is really irritating me: IT'S A GAME, don't get your priority backwards.

I get to wait a few days early because I live somewhere else. In the age of the internet and digital distribution that doesn't make sense to me in the slightest. Sure, it would be logical to have a delay if they had to localize it before they release it in a specific country but I speak English (most gamers do) and don't mind that my games only have one language. I've already bought XCOM and pre-loaded it on steam but I am still frustrated with the current way publishers treat different countries.

Have I smashed my screen and broken my fists in sheer anger over this? No, because I am not that upset about it. If I had been, I probably wouldn't have bought the game or played it but to warrant such actions there as to be something really messed up. I just want to be valued the same as any other customer who has money. Is that so wrong? Why couldn't they have pushed back the release in the USA to match the rest of the world?

Now I think the launch delay is due to logistics of delivering all the physical discs to retailers in the rest of the world. To make the physical and digital markets be on the same playing field in these countries they make the launch date the same. I understand why a company would do this but I still dislike them for doing it.

I hope that makes sense.

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Toblix you're probably right; I might have read the "2nd rate customer" bit with more outrage than Gditz had in mind when he wrote.

Still...

Why couldn't they have pushed back the release in the USA to match the rest of the world?

That sentence is along the line of what I thought was tantrum-ish: you can't have it so nobody should?

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I wonder what the venn diagram is of "people complaining about hiding in shadow in Dishonored being frustratingly unclear," versus "people complaining that Mark of the Ninja isn't immersive because it clearly demarcates hidden and visible through non-diegetic UI."

I'd be in both. Then again, there are plenty, PLENTY of stealth games that feel just fine without non-diegetic stealth/non-stealth indications. I never, EVER had a problem in Splinter Cell, or Thief, or Deus Ex. But I do have a problem with it here, which is a fair complain I'd say considering those 3 series I've mentioned have had his down just fine through all of their games.

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Splinter Cell and Thief effectively had non-diegetic stealth indicators. Splinter Cell's is straight up non-diegetic and Thief's is a magical glowing stone that hovers in front of your face that might as well be a stealth meter. And I had wacky stealth things happen to me in Deus Ex all the time, so YMMV I suppose.

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I wonder what the venn diagram is of "people complaining about hiding in shadow in Dishonored being frustratingly unclear," versus "people complaining that Mark of the Ninja isn't immersive because it clearly demarcates hidden and visible through non-diegetic UI."

Well I was the only person talking about that in the Mark of the Ninja thread n I've not played Dishonored, so so far it's just one circle.

It's probably the opposite people.

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That sentence is along the line of what I thought was tantrum-ish: you can't have it so nobody should?

They would just have to wait the same amount of time like everybody else. Besides "it's only a few hours: the game's still going to be as good in a few hours".

In my reply, I was just stating another solution to the problem of logistics and release dates. Hell, I'd still be frustrated if the roles were reversed with me getting it ahead of everyone else, and this is the key part, with no explanation. Do I feel entitled to one? Of course not but a company should aim to please their customers, not treat some of them as if they are less important.

What if the delay had been one or two months instead of 3 days? Isn't in the publishers interest to ensure that piracy is kept to a minimum? If fans are given the option of waiting to pay for a product or playing it now for "free" through piracy, I think many sales would be and are going to be lost.

Did I know about the difference in launch dates when I bought the game? Yes, and I accept that it's the way publishers usually do things but I still don't think it's good. I provide feedback, not demands, on how they can improve their image to me, as a paying customer. If that is childish of me, so be it.

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I love you. I am perpetually frustrated at people who refuse to acknowledge that there is more than one way to skin a cat, as it were. I've actually not really been following opinions about this game. I just wanted to agree with you, in a roundabout way.

I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE how people are beating this game in four hours. I mean, I guess I do, but why would you WANT to? I spent two hours on the "tutorial" (up to meeting the Upgrade Man) alone. I'm so excited to continue playing tonight. Lately I've been feeling a bit weird about playing Video Games, in that I want to do it, but nothing's really pulling me in, besides Dota 2 and DayZ. This is doing it for me. This is doing it for me hard.

He beat it in four hours because he literally ran from mission start to objective, without fighting anyone but the objectives.

I want to note that this is not a magical shadows stealth game, it's a cover stealth game, and if you're not in cover and just in shadows you're probably going to get spotted. Vertical LoS is also acceptable cover. At least until a guard stretches by arching his back and looks directly at the light fixture I'm perched on. :zoid:

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People who pre-order games or buy them at launch pay a hefty premium. Mistreating those customers cannot be anything but bad business and lack of respect.

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EU vs US release dates is not mistreating customers. :wacko:

It's shit, yeah, but 99% of the time it can't be helped.

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There are definitely some AI glitches I've noticed.

Some NPCs that auto hate me (and if I run into them accidentally they get hurt and run away alerting guards)

Some NPCs that should be fighting each other but don't. And stand there, not looking at each other, but not returning to their predefined paths. It was kind of funny because it was a weeper kind of caressing the shoulder of a bottle gang thug who was spouting barks about 'i'm gonna kill ya when I find ya' and not turning around or moving at all.

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I think my biggest problem with this game is Blink.

If they didn't have Blink, at all, it would be a much more interesting game. As it is, I can just bypass the entire level using it most of the time. It feels like a cheat, but I feel bad not using it. Maybe I'll try to stop and just never use it at all. Might make the game a lot more interesting.

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Ok, I just tried it without Blink.

Wow, this game feels so much more badass than with it. The Royal Physician mission, and I ended up coming up through the watermill underneath and jumping off to sneak inside. Before I probably would have zapped around and knocked out every other guard in the place (non violently of course) while going up some BS roundabout route with no challenge whatsoever.

I could, I suspect, just bump it up to Very Hard. But I doubt there'd be enough guards with enough AI to make it a challenge. I suppose I could try, but I feel confident in saying that not playing with Blink made the entire thing a lot more engaging. Having to drag down the physicians body via a series of discovered ledges, hoping I wasn't going to die, knocking out several guards with sleep bolts before they could raise the alarms. Before I'd have just blinked down some place and been done with it. This just seems like another example of showing that it's near impossible to have a stealth game combined with any sort of high level power fantasy. They're just at opposing values with each other; and is the reason I really didn't like Mark of the Ninja or think it was a stealth game at all.

It's the difference between being a badass stealthy assassin sneaking around a heavily guarded place and being fucking Nightcrawler, popping into everywhere "oh hey how's it going" and popping back out like you were taking a jaunty mid-morning stroll down a London park with tea in your hand and wondering what the geese are up to.

Edit- To make it clear, I'm doing this on hard with no alarms and no kills. I'm not sure why I'm finding it so much easier than others to use blink without any trouble, but it seems I am. Just like I'm not sure why anyone has found Borderlands 2, even on New Game+, to be difficult. Then again maybe it's because I've not found the story of either to be totally engaging and thus am concentrating on being as efficient as possible in completing the actual challenge involved, instead of losing myself in the game like in stories that I do like.

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I feel like a fucking badass with blink, and I'm playing on Very Hard, and I have plenty of trouble if I'm not careful. But then I'm also going complete no-kill, no-alarm.

But then I'm a huge proponent of freedom of movement, and without blink, Dishonored sucks at freedom of movement.

This is my favorite game in a long while.

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But then I'm a huge proponent of freedom of movement, and without blink, Dishonored sucks at freedom of movement.

Okay, so are you are completely insane, good to know.

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Interesting that you'd say that without blink it lacks freedom of movement - I find that Corvo is extremely agile when it comes to climbing up things, he is able to possess animals/people to get around, including reaching other places via vents via rats, he can stop time and walk past guards, etc. Seems like you have quite a bit of mobility even apart from blinking.

edit: and Orv beat me.

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Okay, so are you are completely insane, good to know.

Well, I don't really mean completely worthless. But comparatively speaking. Blink is super fast and can get you almost anywhere (as far as I've played).

EDIT: Although speed isn't necessarily required for freedom of movement, as evidenced by Assassin's Creed. LET ME REPHRASE. I'm a huge proponent of FAST freedom of movement, and blink yadda yadadadadddd. It's not right for every game, but it works really, really well for this one.

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