Arkane Studios: Dishonored / Deus Ex / Thief - One of the gaming industry's most unfortunate victims.

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Evil Peter Griffin said:
Dont forget it's better to knock out a woman and give her to her creepy stalker so she'll spend the rest of her life on his island getting raped.
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that ones horrid, the twins where they get their tongues cut out, eyes gouged out and set to work themselves to death in a mine where they cant identify themselves is gruesome, getting the preist excommunicated turns him into a weeper you can find in the final level which absolutely is higher chaos since chaos spawns more rats in levels so its equivolent to plague spreading. Wiping jindosh's brain is beyond cruel and incredibly shortsighted. Sealing delilah both times is fine shes a witch. From corvos perspective sparing daud is stupid unless you wanna make the dumb "revenge bad" argument, of course post dlc we sympathize with daud.

also side note, maybe easter egg, pretty sure the landscape at the beginning of prey on the helicopter is Karnaca.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
In the end it's just one guy murdering in a city that's probably with citizenship in the millions and at the verge of civil war and plague, the amount of damage he can do alone is really small, and it's all part of the mandatory 2010's games morality system that was way too simplistic and nonsensical with its results.

I don't think most games nowadays even allow you the illusion of choice between being good and bad.
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Morality systems in games generally fail because they always end up being filling up your good/evil meter. It kind of works if it's reputation meters with multiple factions like in the good Fallouts.

Ironically, what's likely the first game to have a developed morality system, Ultima IV, might be the only one that did it right because being good is the whole point of the game, doing good requires giving up things and making things harder for yourself (no cheating blind old women), and some moral requirements are contradictory (Valor's kill every enemy vs. Compassion's let fleeing enemies get away). It can still be cheesed to hell and back because it's a video game.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
In the end it's just one guy murdering in a city that's probably with citizenship in the millions and at the verge of civil war and plague, the amount of damage he can do alone is really small, and it's all part of the mandatory 2010's games morality system that was way too simplistic and nonsensical with its results.
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Imagine if someone went around and started killing the CEO's of giant corporations, politicians, and the biggest globalist elites during COVID. That's basically what Corvo does and if he turns into a murdering maniac in the process once he seizes power, then society will naturally degrade further. It's not 100% accurate or realistic, but it doesn't have to be either.

wtfNeedSignUp said:
I don't think most games nowadays even allow you the illusion of choice between being good and bad.
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The morality system in Red Dead 2 was absolutely pathetic.
 
The chaos system being implemented the way it was would always be messy because it was a story of revenge from the get go. You have a coterie of sociopaths that you have to remove and the justice system is fucked so you're getting your hands dirty no matter what. The fact that low chaos is so gruesome in its own way is meant to cement that you're paying evil to evil but quietly enough to not get the rest of the city spooked. You can just stealth kill the targets and nobody else if you don't want to ruin their lives too much and you'd still get the low chaos ending.
 
Shadfan666xxx000 said:
The fact that low chaos is so gruesome in its own way is meant to cement that you're paying evil to evil but quietly enough to not get the rest of the city spooked.
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This is what I meant when I said that the high/low chaos endings are mostly focused on the societal impact of Corvo's actions. I do believe there has to be a point where Corvo's psyche breaks from stacking up those piles of bodies. Although that's never defined in the game due to Corvo being a silent protagonist..
 
The Pulverizer said:
This is what I meant when I said that the high/low chaos endings are mostly focused on the societal impact of Corvo's actions. I do believe there has to be a point where Corvo's psyche breaks from stacking up those piles of bodies. Although that's never defined in the game due to Corvo being a silent protagonist..
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It's not even that. I do low chaos mainly because the guards don't even know what fucking happened. One of the first conversations you hear if you're sneaky enough is two guards talking about how they miss the empress and are sad about her death. I don't want to kill somebody for being duped. At the same time I could care less what happens to the conspirators and if tossing a bitch to an island with a stalker causes less trouble for everyone than shanking her then I'll most likely go with the former, especially since she explicitly funds all of the conspiracy's bullshit.
 
Henri Barbusse said:
Morality systems in games generally fail because they always end up being filling up your good/evil meter. It kind of works if it's reputation meters with multiple factions like in the good Fallouts.

Ironically, what's likely the first game to have a developed morality system, Ultima IV, might be the only one that did it right because being good is the whole point of the game, doing good requires giving up things and making things harder for yourself (no cheating blind old women), and some moral requirements are contradictory (Valor's kill every enemy vs. Compassion's let fleeing enemies get away). It can still be cheesed to hell and back because it's a video game.
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The failing of morality in gaming is that games cannot punish players effectively for making good/bad choices without angering them. So what if the game is harder for doing the good thing, you play a game for a challenge anyways.
The Pulverizer said:
Imagine if someone went around and started killing the CEO's of giant corporations, politicians, and the biggest globalist elites during COVID. That's basically what Corvo does and if he turns into a murdering maniac in the process once he seizes power, then society will naturally degrade further. It's not 100% accurate or realistic, but it doesn't have to be either.
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But you kill them in both the paths, the main difference is how many of their mooks die in the process, which in itself can happen because you just suck at stealth rather than actively seeking violence.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
The failing of morality in gaming is that games cannot punish players effectively for making good/bad choices without angering them.
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Mankind Divided has to be the worst example I can think of about this: you are called Attila the Hun and murder by your coworkers and the cops if you kill armed terrorist, who were actively shooting at said cops 20 minutes before, and save the woman at the end of the first mission by killing that Mexican guy. I don't know whats the point of making half your augmentations/power/spells lethal if the game will call me a cunt for using them. Thief at least had the balls to put a "NO KILLING" sign on it's highest difficulty and plenty of spiders to blow up with your fire arrows in you're frustrated.
 
I think the Dishonored DLC was the peak of what the series can offer. Being able to play Daud as an established character really brought me in far more effectively than being asked to play Corvo whose only defining character trait is "good at swords", "warm towards Emily" and having fucked the Empress. The Corrupt bonecharms were also really cool and fooling around with Statuesque was a lot of fun. My only real gripe is that the ending of the DLC didn't respect what you did in your playthrough of the main game and only cared about your chaos meter. It would have felt really good if the closing cutscene was either the duel and its outcome or Daud stewing in his office when he realizes Corvo has escaped and the key on his belt is gone.
 
The Bovinian Derivative said:
Mankind Divided has to be the worst example I can think of about this: you are called Attila the Hun and murder by your coworkers and the cops if you kill armed terrorist, who were actively shooting at said cops 20 minutes before, and save the woman at the end of the first mission by killing that Mexican guy. I don't know whats the point of making half your augmentations/power/spells lethal if the game will call me a cunt for using them. Thief at least had the balls to put a "NO KILLING" sign on it's highest difficulty and plenty of spiders to blow up with your fire arrows in you're frustrated.
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I see that you too are a fan of Accursed Farms. I think Spec Ops the Line was worse with forcing you to use phosphorus artillery and "accidentally" killing a refugee camp.

In general whenever a game railroads/misleads you to action and then moralizes about it is terrible.
 
The Bovinian Derivative said:
Thief at least had the balls to put a "NO KILLING" sign on it's highest difficulty and plenty of spiders to blow up with your fire arrows in you're frustrated.
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Thief also didn't frame the "No Killing" as a morality thing, but as a mixture of expediency (killing people would create trouble later) and pride (Garrett is good enough that he doesn't need to kill people).

Non-lethal is supposed to be more difficult, but I think a lot of players eventually figured out how to hit the sweet spot that knocks out even a fully alert and attacking guard.
 
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#ad? Harvey... why??
 
The Pulverizer said:
would've liked Dishonored 2 to focus more on Daud
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Sorry bro, Anita said no more white male protagonists.

The chaos system has never been perfect because the game built around options, the majority of which are lethal, punishes you for using them. At the same time it does make sense that if you go around committing wanton murder the world becomes darker and more fucked up.

I'm not sure how you'd fix it aside from having to add a lot more nuance to the system. Covertly removing bodies and shit lowering overall chaos. I don't know.
The Bovinian Derivative said:
Mankind Divided has to be the worst example I can think of about this
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In fairness the game only gets really preachy like this in that one scenario and it's all ancillary dialogue that doesn't really affect anything outside of that. Pritchard is an asshole that gives Adam shit no matter what he does. If you are pacifistic he derisively calls you Gandhi. All the cops are pissed because they're being held back for a Corpo stooge to go in, though it's true that I don't think any cop would ever give two fucks about apprehending bad guys non lethally.
Henri Barbusse said:
Thief also didn't frame the "No Killing" as a morality thing, but as a mixture of expediency (killing people would create trouble later) and pride (Garrett is good enough that he doesn't need to kill people)
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This is what Thief gets right that Dishonored doesn't. Thief is in the title, it's a game about stealing, not killing. Dishonored is a game about murder that heavily encourages murder.

I made a new game called Neck Stabber 2000, but you're the bad guy if you stab necks. Look at how deep I am.
 
The Pulverizer said:
View attachment 5392806

#ad? Harvey... why??
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Christ. I guess Arkane/Bethesda/Microsoft decided to throw some money in trying to drum up attention now that their "Game Update 2" dropped yesterday? Talk about too little, too late. It's funny that the most recent post on the Steam news hub for the game was the first patch, back in June. No community showcase, no announcements about sales or showcasing BTS stuff or future plans. Just: launch, patch one, patch two. They'd probably get more community good will with weekly messages than they will with dragfag sponsorship streams.

But don't worry guys, they finally added enemies in the open-world in their open world game and made it so gun-toting enemies will move so they don't shoot their allies in the back of the head. Redfall's good now!
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Mr.Miyagi said:
Christ. I guess Arkane/Bethesda/Microsoft decided to throw some money in trying to drum up attention now that their "Game Update 2" dropped yesterday? Talk about too little, too late. It's funny that the most recent post on the Steam news hub for the game was the first patch, back in June. No community showcase, no announcements about sales or showcasing BTS stuff or future plans. Just: launch, patch one, patch two. They'd probably get more community good will with weekly messages than they will with dragfag sponsorship streams.

But don't worry guys, they finally added enemies in the open-world in their open world game and made it so gun-toting enemies will move so they don't shoot their allies in the back of the head. Redfall's good now!
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Gotta love how the Developer for Redfall is not 'Arkane Studios' but 'Arkane Austin' while Prey that was also made by the Austin team is 'Arkane Studios'. Someone is trying to distance themselves hard.
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I think 1 was better in terms of world building and story. 2, the premise sucks, invalidated Daud's redemption, and ultimately recycled an antagonist. We got a new location, why can't we get a new enemy? And what they did to the Outsider is just...

2 was much better mechanically. Introduced power upgrades that made logical sense and nerfed the OP double jump.
Evil Peter Griffin said:
Dont forget it's better to knock out a woman and give her to her creepy stalker so she'll spend the rest of her life on his island getting raped.
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I think that was the entire point of the non-lethals. Yeah, you didn't kill them, but what awaited them was arguably worse than death.
The Pulverizer said:
How did this feminist cunt gain so much pull within the company?

So that explains why the DLC was trash. This brilliant set of decisions has of course allowed Harvey Smith create the masterpiece that goes by the name of Redfall!

Read these character backgrounds from Redfall to see what Harvey Smith meant by "interesting, nuanced roles":
View attachment 5363034View attachment 5363036
"SHE IS A BADASS BIOMEDICALISTIC NIGGER PHD COMBAT SCIENTIST STEM ENGINEER THAT WAS RAPED BY A CHUDDY VAMPIRE BUT THE STUPID INCEL CHUD ACCIDENTALLY GAVE HER HIS POWERS WHILE RAPING HER AND NOW SHE IS USING THEM TO KILL ALL VAMPIRE INCEL CHUDS!!!"

Jesus Christ, Harvey! These read like a fucking tumblr fanfic. Don't worry, gamers! No original ideas will come out from this studio anymore.
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I wonder if this is what happened to the character bios in R6S?
 
Mega Black said:
I made a new game called Neck Stabber 2000, but you're the bad guy if you stab necks. Look at how deep I am.
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reminds me of "game is called killing floor, the floor doesn't kill you/you're not killing the floor".

The Pulverizer said:
"SHE IS A BADASS BIOMEDICALISTIC NIGGER PHD COMBAT SCIENTIST STEM ENGINEER THAT WAS RAPED BY A CHUDDY VAMPIRE BUT THE STUPID INCEL CHUD ACCIDENTALLY GAVE HER HIS POWERS WHILE RAPING HER AND NOW SHE IS USING THEM TO KILL ALL VAMPIRE INCEL CHUDS!!!"
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hold the fucking phone, that's basically the backstory of lamae after getting raped by molag bal to become the first vampire.
 
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