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Dishonored - or - GIFs By Breckon

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Mission 2-3 (the bathhouse, whichever mission that was) spoilers:

The non-lethal method of disposing of the brothers seemed like a very poorly-explained contrivance that was also, quite frankly, something no one should actually ever agree to. The brothers have their tongues cut off, and are sent off to work in their mines- why? Because this minor character, whom Corvo met an hour ago, says that they're unfair to their workers? And everyone gets on Twitter and goes, "Wow! Poetic justice!" as if they're somehow righting the world by irresponsibly judging and condemning characters who are deemed evil by one or two lines of dialogue and nothing more. Games still don't reflect any honest morality. What if someone was following Corvo around and dealing "poetic justice" for every city guard he murdered? Being a masked character that, very literally, sneaks around and decides who lives and who dies (note: it's not a real decision because the brothers have to die to advance the story) and in what horrifying manner just grinds my conscience.

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If you listened to some of the audio diaries from Lord Pendleton while you were at the Hound's Pit you'd get more background on the characters and understand why you'd choose that route. I'm not sure it's fair to blame a game for offering you an option (one which it doesn't force you to take) that doesn't seem sufficiently motivated when there's plenty of motivation hidden around.

As for the whole "what if someone punished Corvo for all the guards he murdered," well, yes? So don't murder guards? The game gives you a choice, after all.

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I solidly missed those, but regardless, there's no way a collection of any recorded audiologs could ever actually convince me to condemn someone like that. Additionally, is not the alternate option just to kill them? How much motivation is enough to kill someone?

In games, the answer is none. All you need is to give the player the capabilities and a little quest objective arrow for them to kill and steal and cut out tongues. That irritates me. The game then rewards the player and we all go on our merry way. I guess that my objection has very little to do with Dishonored itself.

Also, I tried my hardest not to kill anyone, but I still ended up accidentally killing a few guards (I'm really not sure how). It's bound to happen because the game's objectives are inherently sought violently.

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If anything dishonored pretty much asks you to choose between bad and bad when it comes to the targets. Your only real choice is not murdering guards. You're not wrong about games not really handling morality well, but I never really felt like dishonored was trying to tackle that problem at all.

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I've done my first play-through in hardest mode/low chaos and I liked it a lot: Dishonored has clearly a huge amount of elements that work well, feel fresh and are effortlessly pulled off.

But I feel like talking about what's bothered me, because it's a bit of an intricate and unique matter and discussing it here should help me articulate it fully.

So, the main element that seems off is that, even though the game rewards heavily players for imagining a solution within a mix of 5 different play-styles, it doesn't really care about evaluating the execution. If you scheme a plan, you will succeed in applying it or if you don't, then it means a better solution within that style exists: aside from the first mission, you will not have to setup plan B or care about the the scarcity or limitations or you weapons and powers (at least in blink/stealth mode).

Rewarding only intent could be a conscious design choice on their part, but I'm wondering if it isn't more a side effect of the general creative direction.

If their main point was to never deny a particular approach no matter where players put their point in; then the game can't hinge its difficulty on the use of resources that the player chose to built his progression on (ammo or powers).

It is quite grand to be able to do stealth or combat even if it isn't your forte, but the way Dishonored does it robbed me of the sense that I had to work with what I had; that my earlier decisions mattered. That's probably why the game grows less and less challenging with time (I really zapped through the Lighthouse mission).

I can't envision a solution to that - at least not one that wouldn't weaken the creative direction - which is why I can't really blame the game for not succeeding in that area. But it's an interesting failure nonetheless; and I wonder how Arkane tackled it.

I also agree with Fripplebubby: too many of the non-lethal options are about doing trivial, unrelated tasks which have no downside whatsoever: they are easy to discover, not difficult to execute and they do not bear any long term consequences. They also do not require your final involvement to complete them, which is frustrating. I think it is probably easier to choose the non-lethal option and escape, than to starte a fight and go away safely (the final mission is a pinnacle of that).

I'm probably going to restart the game because it's still quite great and I feel like I've missed a huge amount of info on the Outsider and the Universe by blinking through the levels.

When I do, I'll add some constraints that would have made the initial experience better: disable the HUD objective display to explore more of the world and find things on my own, only allow myself level 1 of the powers and picking up no blue vials - to replicate how stressful and complicated the first mission was.

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So, the main element that seems off is that, even though the game rewards heavily players for imagining a solution within a mix of 5 different play-styles, it doesn't really care about evaluating the execution. If you scheme a plan, you will succeed in applying it or if you don't, then it means a better solution within that style exists: aside from the first mission, you will not have to setup plan B or care about the the scarcity or limitations or you weapons and powers (at least in blink/stealth mode).

Rewarding only intent could be a conscious design choice on their part, but I'm wondering if it isn't more a side effect of the general creative direction.

If their main point was to never deny a particular approach no matter where players put their point in; then the game can't hinge its difficulty on the use of resources that the player chose to built his progression on (ammo or powers).

It is quite grand to be able to do stealth or combat even if it isn't your forte, but the way Dishonored does it robbed me of the sense that I had to work with what I had; that my earlier decisions mattered. That's probably why the game grows less and less challenging with time (I really zapped through the Lighthouse mission).

I can't envision a solution to that - at least not one that wouldn't weaken the creative direction - which is why I can't really blame the game for not succeeding in that area. But it's an interesting failure nonetheless; and I wonder how Arkane tackled it.

I think Tycho from Penny Arcade's problems with the game are similar to yours. Feedback for your gameplay choices isn't immediate. Like you said, you either get by or you don't. And really, you're a superhero in this game. It can be shockingly easy at times. I think the important question here though is to ask "shockingly easy to do what?" If you're trying to get from point A to point B it doesn't take long at all, and if you use all the resources available to you it isn't exactly challenging. [even less challenging with all the UI stuff on]

This is where the player's self-direction and expression come in. There's an obvious incentive for not killing people - less chaos. Death begets death in this game, and there are definitely consequences for your actions. Those consequences manifest in the world and plot. Knowing you're responsible for all this, and especially if you buy into the story, your gameplay decisions do take on weight. Then you set your own goals, knowing how they might affect the world. Difficulty comes in meeting those goals, and improvising (while staying true to your goals/principles) when things go tits up.

I can see not buying into the story and game world, though I do enjoy them myself. I think giving the player so much power means leaning on the richness of the story world and relying on the player to have a stake in it.

If the character interactions weren't static, as in if quests and requests arose from your interacting with characters instead of them just telling you what to do, I wonder if this problem would be solved for you.

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Just finished the game. I played how I wanted to play which is relatively stealthy and avoiding as much conflict as I could. I still probably ended up killing about 10 guys or so.

That said, there are some later parts in the game where I think it could be very interesting if you went in to not giving a fuck mode and just killed a ton of guys.

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I think Tycho from Penny Arcade's problems with the game are similar to yours.

Err, I can't extract a clear point out of all the stylism he put in this piece :erm: ; but if I understand what he's saying, I don't agree with his description of the punishement loop and I don't think he's talking about the same aspect.

Difficulty comes in meeting those goals, and improvising (while staying true to your goals/principles) when things go tits up.

I see your point, but I don't think the game support that very well, and I think it's because it doesn't count the characters I killed during my failed attempts.

Let me explain: overall, I only killed about half a dozen guy - but that's only in the successfull branch. In the first 2 thirds of the game, there were times when I fucked up, tried to fight my way out and butchered a huge amount of people before ultimately failing.

Since I mainly used autosave, when this kind of shit happened; I was set back quite a lot and thus, not being commited to the decision that led me there, I usually try to find a sneakier way.

It often exists and is significantly easier than the approach I previously adopted; which explain why, in the end, my body count is very low.

But taking those alternate timelines into account, I think I'd be around 50+, which makes me a bloody murder.

In the end, it isn't difficult to have the game remember that I fit my own standard - but if it did remember the CorvoI I was before I succeeded, then it would make me consider my course of actions more carefully and the execution would be pretty complicated.

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In the end, it isn't difficult to have the game remember that I fit my own standard - but if it did remember the CorvoI I was before I succeeded, then it would make me consider my course of actions more carefully and the execution would be pretty complicated.

This approach could be interesting in the context of the kind of morality Dishonored tries to set up. The major consequences of High/Low chaos are your influence on Emily, and the tone of the last mission. Both of these are more reflections of your personality than any explicit action you take, so it would actually fit within the constraints of the game to judge you based on all of your actions, and not just the actions you succeeded at.

On the other hand, this would lead to awful situations where, when pressed with conflict, you simply give up and die because you dare not take a life.

One thing that bothers me to no end about this game (and Deus Ex Human Revolution before it) is the poor ways of communicating information to the player. Every since the floating objective marker was introduced, even developers of games such as these design with the assumption that the player has a homing beacon pointing where they need to go. Thus, there is no information given in any other way. For example, in DXHR, things like "disable the radio towers", leaving you to meticulously crawl over an area looking for 5 unmarked objects of interest. Or in this game, dropping you in a space, often with no map or description of your objectives. How am I supposed to no where Sokolov's house is? Am I to believe that the Loyalists have no intelligence agency that could have sketched out a rough map?

The last thing I want is magical GPS like in DXHR, but why not paper maps like in Thief, or the ship level of Deus Ex 1? I very rarely feel okay saying this, but it seems like lazy game design and I think games suffer for it.

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It seems like the objective markers weren't there earlier in the game's production. I bet they wanted you to find your way around via a combination of the stationary in-game maps and notes/overheard conversations, but people got too confused, so they added the markers.

If the markers were always intended to be there, then why bother leaving a note saying that so-and-so is going to be on the third floor?

Because of those other clues, I think turning off the markers is a totally viable approach, though I'm leaving them on because I'm stupid and lazy.

Thief 2 had the best maps:

Gedo7.jpg

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It seems like the objective markers weren't there earlier in the game's production. I bet they wanted you to find your way around via a combination of the stationary in-game maps and notes/overheard conversations, but people got too confused, so they added the markers.

If the markers were always intended to be there, then why bother leaving a note saying that so-and-so is going to be on the third floor?

Because of those other clues, I think turning off the markers is a totally viable approach, though I'm leaving them on because I'm stupid and lazy.

That's definitely true for some things, and this game isn't as bad about it as Deus Ex. But it does often feel to me like there's huge gaps in info. Again I use the Sokolov example. Four maps to the bridge and no way of knowing (besides video game metaknowledge that forward = good) that Sokolov's house is in the North End, despite that being something Corvo would obviously have been told. Even when you find the paper map, your only indication is that there is a nicer-looking atrium in the North End.

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Err, I can't extract a clear point out of all the stylism he put in this piece :erm: ; but if I understand what he's saying, I don't agree with his description of the punishement loop and I don't think he's talking about the same aspect.

Since I mainly used autosave, when this kind of shit happened; I was set back quite a lot and thus, not being commited to the decision that led me there, I usually try to find a sneakier way.

In the end, it isn't difficult to have the game remember that I fit my own standard - but if it did remember the CorvoI I was before I succeeded, then it would make me consider my course of actions more carefully and the execution would be pretty complicated.

You're right, I also got confused by his style.

So if I'm following you correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, you're saying that you would like to be judged based on the times when you fucked up, because there's always an easier stealthier way that negates that drama?

But why weren't you committed to the decision that led you there? Upon failing, did you just try a completely different course of action? Did you feel as though it invalidated your earlier actions at all?

Because of those other clues, I think turning off the markers is a totally viable approach, though I'm leaving them on because I'm stupid and lazy.

My first play through I disabled all the UI stuff. It really isn't at all difficult if you do that. There are plenty of cues in the game world without having to have them replicated in the interface. Also, there's always the mission clues/hints.

One thing that bothers me to no end about this game (and Deus Ex Human Revolution before it) is the poor ways of communicating information to the player. Every since the floating objective marker was introduced, even developers of games such as these design with the assumption that the player has a homing beacon pointing where they need to go. Thus, there is no information given in any other way. For example, in DXHR, things like "disable the radio towers", leaving you to meticulously crawl over an area looking for 5 unmarked objects of interest. Or in this game, dropping you in a space, often with no map or description of your objectives. How am I supposed to no where Sokolov's house is? Am I to believe that the Loyalists have no intelligence agency that could have sketched out a rough map?

I can only disagree with you here. I think there's plenty of information given between the game world and the objective/mission screen. This game is more about exploration than it is about knowing exactly what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. Pressing j gives you a shortlist of a few things you can do. It leaves it up to you to figure out how. Information is hardly ever spoon fed to you - it comes from overheard conversations, notes left behind, recorded audio logs, books, and other diegetic material. But there's plenty of it there, and on my second playthrough I'm realizing a good bit of it is redundant (I imagine on purpose).

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I wish customizable map was a standard thing; because I would love to put annotation and todo all over those.

On the other hand, this would lead to awful situations where, when pressed with conflict, you simply give up and die because you dare not take a life.

You'd need to make staying a live worth it in its own way; but frankly, I wouldn't mind having players adopt a mindset in which they'd rather give their own life rather than taking an NPC's. That would be fairly unprecedented.

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I wish customizable map was a standard thing; because I would love to put annotation and todo all over those.

This is one of the things I love about the first system shock, and I also wish more games let you do that.

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So if I'm following you correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, you're saying that you would like to be judged based on the times when you fucked up, because there's always an easier stealthier way that negates that drama?

Like I said, I'm not exactly sure how to fix that problems. Having the game remember the alternate timeline may be a solution but I doubt it.

The bigger picture is that I wish that the game was enticing me to have a trial and error loop at the level of each path, rather than on the process of choosing which path fits my profile best. Does that make sense?

Cue bullship analogy : It's like attempting a recipe for an entrée, and instead of retrying the same recipe if you fail, you just pick another recipe altogether... it's a valid approach, but it's not the same experience as trying to better the execution of your first pick. :fart:

But why weren't you committed to the decision that led you there? Upon failing, did you just try a completely different course of action? Did you feel as though it invalidated your earlier actions at all

Yes to the last two question,rarely repeated twice the same approach. I wasn't commited because the game gave me the feeling very early on that, if I couldn't achieve something easily, it was not because the design of that path demanded better execution, but because I hadn't found the way that fitted my playstyle best. And it turned that when I did find it, it required very little skill in the execution.

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Like I said, I'm not exactly sure how to fix that problems. Having the game remember the alternate timeline may be a solution but I doubt it.

The bigger picture is that I wish that the game was enticing me to have a trial and error loop at the level of each path, rather than on the process of choosing which path fits my profile best. Does that make sense?

Cue bullship analogy : It's like attempting a recipe for an entrée, and instead of retrying the same recipe if you fail, you just pick another recipe altogether... it's a valid approach, but it's not the same experience as trying to better the execution of your first pick. :fart:

I get what you're saying. I actually found myself having the same problem with DX:HR, especially toward the middle, because I didn't care at all how I executed the mission as long as I got it done. Human Revolution was a lot more difficult though, which made up for it.

To use your analogy: the other day I was making biscuits. I couldn't decide between a recipe of buttermilk biscuits or another, non-buttermilk kind. I didn't have buttermilk, which is why the other way looked like the better choice. But I know buttermilk biscuits are really where it's at. So I went over to a neighbor's house and asked for some buttermilk. Then I made the buttermilk biscuits.

Making biscuits isn't hard. It was the kind of biscuits, and my will to make them, that made having biscuits a great experience. I stayed true to myself and my love for buttermilk biscuits and with a little effort, was rewarded.

Would it have been so different if I had made the other kind of biscuit? Probably not. But I made the decision to make those biscuits, and I pulled through, and the biscuits were amazing.

As I am with buttermilk biscuits, I think you aren't​ with a certain play-style in this game. Now I don't mean to tell you what you do or don't feel so feel free to tell me to shut up. But I think you're missing a sort of self-direction, a willingness to explore a certain path and a certain path only, even when it's difficult. I will agree with you that the game doesn't intrinsically entice you to master a certain playstyle - it just gives you the tools, lets you find the information, and then makes changes to the game world according to your actions.

I think there is incentive to trying the same path over again though. Of course there are achievements and self-made challenges outside the story world. As well, the game measures how many people you kill which corresponds to the chaos level. But inside the story world, if you make an investment in the characters and your effects on them, and if you try to do things like find all the runes while staying true to your principles, I think there's significant challenge for any style of playthrough.

The game does require that you ask of yourself "Who am I? What, as a being in this world, do I believe is the right course of action?" Gameplay decisions take on more weight when you have a sense of self within the game world. That being said, if the game doesn't do enough to try to build that sense of self, that may be where its ultimate failure lies.

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I thought it was interesting that Corvo isn't a silent protagonist, he just doesn't have spoken dialogue. I also found myself much more affected by the world and allowed the game decisions I made fit into it than some other people did it seems. What if you choose to take the non-lethal objective on the Golden Cat just because you have sympathy for the character that asked you to do it? You're clearly close with Emily, and that affected how I wanted her to see me compared to the rest of the world, etc.

I was also a little surprised with the plot "twist"

Not because I didn't expect to be betrayed, but because I didn't actually expect to be betrayed by ALL THREE of them. What they did to the staff was brutal as well, and although there's game rationale for who survived I thought it was explained well.

I found myself second-guessing some of my own decisions because they made playthrough sense but I wasn't sure they fit in the morality of the Corvo I created. I'm on the last level, and the only thing I've been explicitly disappointed with was that they surface the game mechanics of your "chaos level" right at the end. They did such a wonderful job of keeping everything at a world level and not referencing game mechanics right up until that point, and it was kind of sad that it shows up as a banner across your screen.

OH the other thing that made me annoyed is that once the overseers with the music boxes start playing, apparently you can't sleep dart them? What the fuck, you guys.

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Just got out of the sewers and am wandering around the safehouse distillery. I think I might be expecting The Wire-level macro plot from this game. How disappointed will I be? How much should I lower my expectations?

Also, I am starting to realize that my annoyance with PS3 games is largely due to not being able to read any of the interface or the narrative or see which way distant guards are facing on my quaint tube-based televizing machine. :shifty: As much as I enjoy pointedly not participating in consumerism by holding on to it, it is starting to be a liability to my participation in culture. Keeping it real is hard on the eyes! Plus PS3 and PS2 games on CRTs don't look that drastically different from one another… :fart:

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Just got out of the sewers and am wandering around the safehouse distillery. I think I might be expecting The Wire-level macro plot from this game. How disappointed will I be? How much should I lower my expectations?

The strengths of the game are very much in the world, its environmental storytelling, and the freedom and immersion that comes from wandering around the levels. The plot itself is hardly better than the plot in your average video game, which is to say, it's pretty bad.

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I think the plot is generic, but the characters are great if you allow them to be by exploring the world. Except for the voice acting. I think most of them are bland, but Piero's is outright bad and it frustrates me.

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Aw dang! Shame about The Wire bit—that kind of comprehensive inter-factional narrative would be perfect for a sneaky game where you break into places and partake of people's private documents and conversations. I guess this is not that game. I have been enjoying the environmental stuff so far tho. If the world ends up feeling anywhere nearly as rich as that of Arx Fatalis (another ultimately shitty story with a rad world), I'll be happy.

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I think the plot is generic, but the characters are great if you allow them to be by exploring the world. Except for the voice acting. I think most of them are bland, but Piero's is outright bad and it frustrates me.

Really? I love Piero. But then, I already loved Brad Dourif, so maybe I just gave him a pass automatically.

I think the voice acting is fine all around. Not much of it jumps out at you, but that's OK… it's a lot better than being taken out of it by bad acting. For a while, I thought all the Carrie Fisher characters were voiced by Carol Burnett. She totally sounds like her now!

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I was never very taken with the plot. My choice to play through minimizing death as much as possible and just being sneaky/stealthy/fewer kills had nothing to do with how I thought Emily or any other character and mostly to due with thats how I always like playing these games given the choice. And I found it a bit disappointing though I understand why that me going out of my way to talk to everyone and hear everything they say really doesn't matter at all to anything at the end of the day. I.E. you just returned from a mission and before you go to sleep you just find everyone. It expands the story a bit the narrative is so narrowly focused that it doesn't matter too much.

I know they have DLC planned but there is something to me that when playing wistfully looked at the coastline with houses and big buildings out in the distance and wanted to just explore more.

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I can't find the article but somebody linked me to one where Raph said he'd like to see more RPG elements in a sequel. More fulfilling character interactions would be under that purview I think.

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