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Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


Generic American posted:

Preview chat: I can't believe they're actually going to hold the thing with Beskha's master against you based on that preview. The logic there is so baffling that I have no idea how a rational person could think that way. "Justice is for Meereen, not for you"... except the fact that Daenerys is the one instigating the whole thing in the first place, purely because she feels sad about people who have directly suffered from it. You know, people like Beskha? :jerkbag:

Again, Dany doesn't want all the former slaves to murder all their former masters, because that'd be a bloodbath probably killing a lot of innocent families and those who didn't own slaves but weren't slaves themselves. It'd be all to easy to lose control of the situation if you just let everyone take revenge, a problem that's actually playing out in the show and the books.

As for the game not giving you enough opportunities to stand up to the Whitehills, biding your time, feigning weakness and playing along is a smart play, because your house really isn't strong enough to fight the Whitehills yet. Of course the game doesn't just let you charge off and crush them at the first insult, they're trying to build some tension - Roderick first appears physically broken, but he's growing stronger with every episode and might well be fighting again by the end of the season, an arc that mirrors House Forrester's.

I was actually weirdly thrown off when I tried to turn down the Glenmore soldiers and refuse Elena's help, because the game basically forced you to accept them anyway and then had you overthrow Gryff, which I thought was way too premature - and I was right, because it brought Ramsay down on your House. The choice should've been between using the Glenmore soldiers to capture Gryff and prevent the wedding or allow the wedding to go forward uninterrupted (she'd already turned Roderick down in my game) and keep playing the long game until Mira and Asher come through or something happens to distract the Boltons (Stannis, for example).

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Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


Red Red Blue posted:

Gwyn mentions that their mother died shortly after Gryff was born, but I don't think she implies that the childbirth killed her, though

I thought that was implied by his older brothers picking on him and his dad having to stand up for him as family, sort of how Tywin kept Tyrion because he's still a Lannister, but it might've been unrelated.

Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


BillBear posted:

I liked the ep but fuccccck, stop trying to shove the show characters into the game and if you must at least make sure they respond accurately, like seriously... Dany getting mad over some slaver getting murdered by his ex slave? Do they even watch the show or read the books :wtc:.

For like the third time, Dany has explicitly tried to prevent the freed slaves from massacring the Masters because vigilante action will probably end in every non-slave in Mereen being killed, whether they're a fat, rich slave owner or the child of a poor free-man. She's tried to position herself as the dispenser of justice who decides when people will be executed and that's hard to do if you don't come down on people who take it into their own hands. Have you watched the show where literally this happened?

Since I left the Glenmore soldiers in Ironrath, I'm curious if it's going to turn out that Ramsay's men sacked the keep and killed them all in my absence. Going to echo that Ramsay sucks because you do know you can't really touch him, although they should at least put in another game-over choice where you can kill him and Colonel Campbell's voice chimes in to say "Rodrick, no! You've created a time paradox!"

The only thing that's really bugged me so far is I'm trying to find a diplomatic solution to the Whitehill situation and wanted to follow what Gwyn said about laying low and biding my time, but this episode basically forces you to take action. Gwyn even chides you for rejecting her plan, which is confusing to me because she didn't even know you'd done anything when she scolds you (is that a bug?). My guess for the finale (for Rodrick, at least) is there'll be a big choice about either marrying Eleaena to get Glenmore support to fight the Whitehills, or Gwyn to unite the houses and end the feud. Or, possibly, marrying Gwyn is something Asher could do.


Oh, and did anyone who had Rodrick rejected by Eleaena in the earlier episode act standoffish in this one? I found it pretty underhanded of her to try and lean on Rodrick's feelings for help after she'd specifically rejected helping him earlier.

Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


Karnegal posted:

You're continuously failing to distinguish between her actually taking over cities and her attempting to rule after the fact. Slaves turning on masters IS part of how she takes over cities in the first place. You're making a bad comparison to the TV show where she explicitly says "don't murder this dude" and then the guy murders him anyway. That has no bearing on what everyone else is talking about.

BillBear posted:

She only does this AFTER the invasion though, she doesn't care about what happens during it and if she knew Beshka was his ex slave she would probably pat her on the shoulder and say "well done" since that's what Dany views as justice.

It's absolutely relevant during the invasion. Although rising up against the masters and their soldiers was necessary by the slaves in order for Dany to take the city, and a certain amount of vigilante justice by the slaves was effectively unavoidable (like that one guy in the show who gets cornered in an alley by a mob), in Mereen at least Dany's policy was clearly not "kill all the masters" or there wouldn't have been a master left in the city by the end of the day. At best I'd see her begrudgingly tolerating any murders that weren't strictly necessary to take the city, but when there's a specific culprit she may need to set an example or else every slave will think that it's okay to go off and kill their former master if they feel like it, and if that's what she wanted she'd have done it.

This probably goes double for her own troops, which is what Beshka and Asher were during that mission, and Beshka almost blew the whole thing by running off on her own. Disobeying orders and risking justice for all the city's slaves just to get her own revenge is probably going to come up next episode.

Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


Yeah, this latest episode wasn't really holding me. I think this late in a season that indicates the game hasn't succeeded, which is a pity because I'd like to like it a whole lot more than I do.

The ending choice is pretty good and I thought about it for a while, but by that point I could feel that I just wasn't as invested in that choice as I should've been. If a prior game had given me the choice to save either Lee or Clementine, or Rhys or Fiona, I'd have thought it was a much bigger deal even while dreading that Telltale probably couldn't follow through on a determinant choice that big.

I feel like the game could've been stronger if it had stuck to Roderick and Asher, building up to this choice. Gared and Mira struggle for relevance and the fact that it's so hard to imagine them doing anything in their respective areas in time to impact the outcome of the Ironrath/White Hills plot is worrying - either that means their payoffs are meant to be long-term, so they won't happen until a season 2 that may or may not be coming, or else they'll be contrived and deus-ex-machina-y. Or they're just supposed to be plot threads taking place on their own and don't connect back to the main story.

I saved Asher, partly because it seemed like a good cap for Roderick and partly because Asher's storyline has more interesting plot threads and making him Lord puts most of those front and center - will he marry Gwen to unite their Houses in peace? Will he be able to control his pit fighters? Will Beshka stick with him? Will his old House accept him after so long away? I wasn't even having Roderick pursue Elaena anyway since she rebuffed him at first and I decided to have him respect that, so plot-wise I'm not really losing anything.

Also the traitor thing was the worst. It's so petty and shallow, makes no sense with the other things they're willing to do (someone working for Whitehill will happily kill him in the game over scene?) and can especially make a fool of Gared if his uncle turns traitor. "I have to do this for my family!" indeed.

Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


They might not be dead, I could see a second season focusing less on Ironrath and Highpoint. The cast for those areas has been whittled down and will probably be whittled further in the next episode, so if the ending option is something like Crush Whitehills/Marry Gwen to Unite Houses they can just talk about what went down between the Houses in passing next season and focus on new characters or plotlines.

Mira's probably not long for King's Landing, if she survives. I could see her bugging out with her (single!) merchant pal or heading for home. Gared's thing probably has the biggest next-season potential since it's part of the ~mystery~ of going North of the Wall. A second season with a different cast and just passing references/cameos to the events and people of the previous season is what people said they could've tried with the Walking Dead, and it'd definitely fit with the style of Game of Thrones.

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Dolash
Oct 23, 2008

aNYWAY,
tHAT'S REALLY ALL THERE IS,
tO REPORT ON THE SUBJECT,
oF ME GETTING HURT,


A first for a Telltale game, this one took me a lot of effort to work up the will to actually play it. I'm going to agree with the general criticisms and say that it was their worst to date.

This feels like Telltale's first real failure. The Walking Dead Season 2 was more a case of failing to live up to potential, where there were frustrating plot turns and signs that the writers had fumbled or awkwardly rewritten sections, but it wasn't bad, it just didn't meet the high bar of Season One. The Wolf Among Us had issues but was also still fun and clever enough to hold interest. Even the Minecraft game is just kind of inoffensive, and I won't hear a bad word said about Tales From The Borderlands.

Which makes word of a second season of this pretty meh. Telltale already finds putting on second seasons difficult and they didn't make their job easy with this ending. So Ryon and Beshka always ride off, Ironrath is always destroyed, one of either Gryff or Ludd dies and the other stays Lord Whitehill, one of either Roderick or Asher barely survives and escapes to meet up with Talia (and the traitor if alive), Mira is either dead or in a forced marriage where she can be used against her surviving family, Gared is either coming south or staying in the north... that's a lot of variables to build a whole sequel around, but if they don't make use of them then it'll feel pointless.

And so much of the story was pointless, at least so far (an awful thing to add to the end of a season). Gared's mission never really mattered or helped the Forresters (whom his uncle, the man who sent him on the mission, might've betrayed and been executed by in the meantime). Nothing Mira did made a difference either and I can't really believe that her surviving will matter in the future. If Asher died then his story was pointless since his whole army gets wiped out losing the big battle anyway. We accomplished nothing but lose and have nothing to show for it - it's really hard to drum up investment in our hero's lowest point in a situation like that.

When it comes to accomplishments/payoff, you get to kill one Whitehill, you saved Ryon and Talia and maybe Mira can sell everyone out to survive or else die with her dignity while helping her friends (but not her family). Not enough return on investment.

Edit: Also surprised nobody commented on Asher breaking guest right. I agree it's weird Asher had the ambush and Roderick attacked the camp, it felt like giving Roderick the chance to reverse Red Wedding his enemies would've been poetic.


Edit2: VVVV Sorry, thought the tagging phase was over, my mistake.

Dolash fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Nov 29, 2015

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