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Hwurmp
May 20, 2005

The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones got weird in later seasons

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Reveilled
Apr 19, 2007

Take up your rifles

Scalding Coffee posted:

Do they say where things are taking place or is it a fantasy planet?

I'm not sure it's possible to answer this without spoilers. Currently no direct location information has been provided. However, you might be able to infer a little from the audio logs in the ruin in the first episode.

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
You’re welcome, SP. As I told you via pm, I’m only going to post such paths when we get to the point where spoilers no longer apply. It’s a very fine line and I trust you to smack me down if I step off it. Thus I have nothing specific to the game to post right now and may not for a while. It will all be reactive to posts from our LPer, and considering how far reaching some of the dialogue choices are in this game, it may be a bit before we see anything. I’m also posting in text summary- making videos is beyond my current skills. And I may miss something too- I’ve only done a couple playthroughs of HZD and watched a few other LPs online. If others want to add something- well, I hope you follow the same line I do and I’ll let SP grant permission or not.

As for the question from Outofsight, I don’t know if SP plans on doing fist Aloy or not (not all fist responses can be called renegade). I’m letting her make that call. I’ll just summarize the alternative dialogues when we get to the point of no spoilers as best I can judge. If I am wrong in this, I’ll err on the side of caution and accept punishment if necessary. I have seen others do specific recurring response runs online, and many have just gone with what sounds most appropriate too. I hope I’ve seen enough of the game to do the alternative routes justice.

Oh, you weren’t asking me? Sorry. Just had to publicly lay out my plans.

Scaramouche
Mar 26, 2001

SPACE FACE! SPACE FACE!

SirSamVimes posted:

This game legitimately has one of the best openings in video game history imo.

I disagree a bit. It works in a rough and ready fashion, but it's going for this continuous cinematic thing like God of War, but then it kind of grinds to a halt as soon as a character speaks to themselves and says things no person in the milieu would. Like Rost speaking to the baby, Aloy talking to herself in the metal world, etc. It's not reprehensible or anything, but it feels clunky that they'd choose the "character who already knows this says it aloud" method. Structurally it appears to be a relatively straightforward coming of age story (have no exposure to this game's plot/themes) and it does hit the marks it needs to hit. Visually though, some great stuff. And of course I'm going to watch it all.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde

Scalding Coffee posted:

Do they say where things are taking place or is it a fantasy planet?

Reveilled posted:

I'm not sure it's possible to answer this without spoilers. Currently no direct location information has been provided. However, you might be able to infer a little from the audio logs in the ruin in the first episode.
Nah, it's fine. (Formerly) USA, Earth. In spite of the weirdness, the game is set in the real world. There's no magic. Everything has an explanation.

Sally
Jan 9, 2007


Don't post Small Dash!
ha! Earth exists in the Killzone universe so there's still a possibility this is all part of a greater Guerrilla Games universe!

Hwurmp
May 20, 2005

Rico was the first outcast

Captain Hygiene
Sep 17, 2007

You mess with the crabbo...



Awesome...I skipped this one for a long time but it turned out to be in the top few on the console, and a real all-timer. Love the setting and environment a whole lot, looking forward to seeing it again.


Also despite playing it at least three times I somehow have literally no memory of Weird Chubby Baby Aloy, I almost thought it was a weird comedy bit for a second :psyduck:

Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

Scalding Coffee posted:

Do they say where things are taking place or is it a fantasy planet?

You will ask many questions like this and surprisingly most will be answered.

cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather
This is coming to PC at some point right? Really want to play it then.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde

cant cook creole bream posted:

This is coming to PC at some point right? Really want to play it then.
Yes, summer if I’m not mistaken.

Megillah Gorilla
Sep 22, 2003

If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.



Bread Liar
Yiss.

Finally going to get to see this game done by someone who can play games well and be interesting at the same time.

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Ok, I reviewed the first two videos and decided I can say a few things as far as alternative paths. The opening tutorial missions really don’t have any other way they can proceed. There is a decision point on how to deal with the bully throwing rocks at you, but I’ll address that later. You can probably guess why.

As far as Odd Grata’s quest, there is some alternate dialogue. You can approach her with meat already in your inventory as SP did or without it. If you don’t have any meat, fyi it takes 5 pieces to complete the quest. It doesn’t all have to come from rabbits, though the dialogue says it does. It doesn’t all have to be the same type either. There are 4 types of meat the game can give you, all come from hunting wildlife. The game has boars, foxes, rabbits, raccoons, rats, geese, turkeys, and fish you can hunt. The DLC area adds goats, badgers, owls, squirrels, and possibly some other species I haven’t noticed. All these animals provide meat when slain. They can also provide bones & skins (like meat, used for crafting or selling) and occasionally talismans (sell for shards only) as rare drops. All enemy loot in the game is like this. I won’t bother listing all the types of loot the game provides but as SP said, it’s all good for selling and most is good for crafting too. Machines are the Buffalo to Nora’s tribe.

Getting back to Grata, there are other fetch quests in the game where you automatically turn in the item if you have them already when accepting the quest. The game sometimes doesn’t give you a choice to do so- be ready. I don’t think you can find the prayer beads before Grata asks for them but I’ve never tried. Kinda hard to find specific items in the game without a waypoint sometimes. There are more fetch quests in our future.

We can also go back and check on Grata throughout most of the game if we like- she’ll still be praying up on her hill. Most of the game quest givers are still hanging out where you find them after their quests and you can reminisce on the quest if you chat with a few of them.

And yes, we are in the post-apocalypse USA. Specifically the western Colorado, southeastern Utah, northwestern Arizona tristate area. I used to live in that area, so this game had some special meaning for me when I recognized certain landmarks later on. No spoilers on that right now, we haven’t seen them yet.

achtungnight fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jun 1, 2020

Captain Hygiene
Sep 17, 2007

You mess with the crabbo...



achtungnight posted:

And yes, we are in the post-apocalypse USA. Specifically the western Colorado, southeastern Utah, northwestern Arizona tristate area. I used to live in that area, so this game had some special meaning for me when I recognized certain landmarks later on. No spoilers on that right now, we haven’t seen them yet.

Yeah, this is what really made the whole thing something special to me rather than just a really good adventure game. Looking forward to seeing some things in particular again a bit further down the road.

SirSamVimes
Jul 21, 2008

~* Challenge *~


One thing I like about this game is that it's not post apocalypse, it's post post apocalypse. Society has rebuilt itself.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde
Checklist checked

Taking care of the rest of the sidequests we got. There's a screamy young girl, a shopping trip, and a psychological counseling session. Hopefully to everyone's delight I actually start shooting things in this video.

I think these sidequests are designed to give the player a better impression of the Nora, since all our interactions with them have sucked rear end. Here we are attempting to join this tribe and if Aloy doesn't get a few good examples she might just win her Proving, get her info and then promptly start stabbing people to get exiled again. And you wouldn't blame her. We buy our Tripcaster, which is a fun weapon to use. It's best laid down over a machine's patrol path so they stumble into it. For the adroit and brave you can also use it during live combat which while risky makes you feel like a real badass. As we get better versions we'll also be able to equip more ammo types. There are some other weapons we don't pick up in this video, but I did some grinding off-camera and bought them all so we're not limited in our options as the game progresses.

Next time we meet up with Rost for his final lesson before our Proving.

Flair
Apr 5, 2016
Am I allowed to make bold predictions? I am unsure if that counts as spoilers if I am going into this LP blind, but there is quite a bit of foreshadowing.

edit: Converted a sentence into a question

Flair fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Jun 2, 2020

JT Jag
Aug 30, 2009

#1 Jaguars Sunk Cost Fallacy-Haver
Oh heck I've been waiting for this LP ever since I requested it at the end of the Mass Effect 3 one

Megillah Gorilla
Sep 22, 2003

If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.



Bread Liar
Goddamn, Chekov's giant mountain squid monster mech.

You can see it from everywhere, just taunting us.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde

Flair posted:

Am I allowed to make bold predictions? I am unsure if that counts as spoilers if I am going into this LP blind, but there is quite a bit of foreshadowing.

edit: Converted a sentence into a question
You're welcome to speculate. Just keep in mind that we're about 2 hours into a 60 hour game - there's a lot more to foreshadow.

Did some recording last night. The footage I'm using now was done some months ago, so eventually you're going to see Aloy's combat skills take a steep nosedive for no apparent reason. :v:

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
As long as the story is coherent enough to follow, it's ok if our combat skills are inconsistent. God knows cutscenes create such a discrepancy from gameplay all the time.

Alternate Paths- Not too many to talk about yet. The first side quest covered in update #3 is very linear. Find the father (Thok), find the hysterical daughter (Arana) and save her from the Watcher pack, track the Scrapper with the spear, kill the Scrapper, get the spear, return it to Thok & Arana where you first picked up the quest. You can visit Thok in between steps- he'll remind you what you still need to do. It's just a basic rescue and fetch mission.

The other side quest available this early, The Forgotten, is also linear in its path. You do have some differing dialogue depending on how you choose to counsel Brom, though. SP showed off the most unique way to do it, with compassion. Both "get a hold of yourself" and "come closer so I don't have to shout" also get him to pay attention, but for both these choices he just says how his sister always told him to pay attention to the speakers he can see more than those he can't, thus he should listen to you. Then his sister shows up and you gotta pick how it ends. If you choose to emphasize Brom being a danger to others, Olara sighs and says you're probably right, people always said her brother had a weak mind, she's taken care of him since she was six, but now it's best he go away, at least she's getting to say goodbye. Brom supports this idea, leaves, and then Olara wants to be alone. Saying "he needs you" and letting her visit him even though he remains in the wilderness, as SP chose to do in the video, feels far more satisfying in my opinion. And there is a follow up to either path, but we won't see that for a very long time. The reward of a random loot box is the same either way. Like SP, I generally go for letting family stay together. I only know about the other path from other people's youtube LPS where it was picked.

Seeing a case like Brom's- obvious mental illness causing trouble- makes one doubt that the Nora's shunning system is really a good way to treat people, deserving or not. Ditto for what happened with our introductory merchant, Karst- his only crime was curiosity and wandering into the wrong place. Brom did manslaughter, but Karst didn't. Their punishment was the same.

Aloy has lived as an outcast her whole life not knowing why- it's no wonder she's constantly talking to herself and feeling alone. At least she's not schizophrenic, I guess. I don't have much experience with shunning in real life, I know some fanatical religions practice it but this story is my first experience watching its effects on screen. I wonder if it's a realistic depiction. I also wonder- with all the Nora's talk about respecting mothers and how "motherless" is their big insult, what's their policy on orphans? If a woman dies in childbirth, do they put the baby up for adoption or does the child end up like Aloy- if they survive? I know, videogames don't usually answer this sort of question, but still, I gotta wonder.

On a lighter note, the Scrapper is a type of enemy I've not seen much in other games. It's a scavenger, befitting its design as a robot hyena. They actually seek out machine corpses and cut them up with their lasers and mouth saw blades for recycling. You can get the game to spawn packs of Scrappers by killing lots of other machines. Let them eat the corpses and you can then kill the Scrappers for loot types you can't easily get other ways. But of course this also costs you loot from any machine corpses the Scrappers eat before you search them. It's a strange system. Quite a unique way to make a memorable video game enemy.

Flair- I wouldn't make too many bold predictions yet. All we know right now is that past civilization ended some time ago and lots of humans died off by mass suicide. The reasons why that seemed a valid choice, what happened to the ruined cities we see all around us, where these robot animals came from, how long ago the apocalypse happened and what happened exactly- we don't know any of that yet. Your bold predictions could be very wrong. But make them if you feel you should. The game may vindicate or surprise you. :)

Flair
Apr 5, 2016
Bold Predictions about the story:

* War happened between humans in an advanced, futuristic time on Earth where they had created autonomous war machines. In the catastrophe of war, knowledge of mental health and how to stop the machines were lost, and the surviving humans made a pact of keeping the history sealed away so as to prevent the utilization of the war machines. The matriarchs learn and past on the secrets of history.
* The side quests are building up Aloy as an articulate, sociable character who is more capable than the other braves despite being an outcast. She will be remembered as the bravest brave of all time; cave paintings, legends told around the campfire, or something like that will perpetuate for years to come.
* Aloy is either a designer baby/clone who has no mother, or she is the child of mother who has done deeds as unforgiving as Rost's supposed deeds.
* Rost took the fall for someone else, or he came across a very, very secret metal ruin that he could not make sense of. As a result, he is an outcast for life.
* Rost dies.

Alright, I will keep tally of how right/wrong I am. I am always down for a nuance story that surprises me.

Hwurmp
May 20, 2005

Rost accidentally did the Extra Forbidden Finger Wag of the Ancients or some bullshit

Brom wouldn't have been exiled if he'd remembered to run back to his house and call base after he killed that dude

Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jun 2, 2020

OutofSight
May 4, 2017

Flair posted:

Bold Predictions about the story:
* The side quests are building up Aloy as an articulate, sociable character who is more capable than the other braves despite being an outcast. She will be remembered as the bravest brave of all time; cave paintings, legends told around the campfire, or something like that will perpetuate for years to come.

Can we even call that a prediction? Aloy is the protagonist of the game and appears prominently on the box cover. Protagonists in fiction rarely come in mediocre.

(Also "cave paintings" is kinda rude. I pretty sure the tribe already reached "rustic wooden hovel" age. Some nice wood carvings and heroic patchwork quilts should be expected.)

Sylphosaurus
Sep 6, 2007
Based on what we´ve seen of most of the Matriarchs and the punishments doled out by them I think we can all say that they can take a long walk on a short pier.

Flair
Apr 5, 2016

OutofSight posted:

Can we even call that a prediction? Aloy is the protagonist of the game and appears prominently on the box cover. Protagonists in fiction rarely come in mediocre.

Like I said, I am always down for nuance stories that surprise. So far, her success has been supported by her earpiece, and she certainly will acquire more technology that builds her legend. But it would be a bit nuance to have a section of the game force you to play without your technological toys to see that Aloy is mediocre without them.

Arcomage
Nov 10, 2012

Sylphosaurus posted:

Based on what we´ve seen of most of the Matriarchs and the punishments doled out by them I think we can all say that they can take a long walk on a short pier.

To be fair, the apocalypse did happen. For the people who survived, I'd imagine that passing on a message along the lines of 'For the love of any and all deities, do not repeat this' would be high priority. I honestly have no idea how it got the way it is in game, but it's pretty easy to see a general decision path that would make 'we do not go to the places of the old world, and we will shun the ones who do' seem like a sensible and relatively mild stricture. Add a few generations, and you might end up with the current state of things?

Reveilled
Apr 19, 2007

Take up your rifles

Sylphosaurus posted:

Based on what we´ve seen of most of the Matriarchs and the punishments doled out by them I think we can all say that they can take a long walk on a short pier.

I think you can tell from the naming ceremony at least that one of them seems to be alright, or at least, a bit better than the others.

SIGSEGV
Nov 4, 2010


That's only if she's in a minority and couldn't prevent the outcast-ing. She could be of the opinion that her mother having died in childbirth, or whatever, is reason enough for twenty years of exile, clearly, but the forms must be respected and a proper naming is to occur anyhow.

Reveilled
Apr 19, 2007

Take up your rifles
I do kind of wonder, if Aloy was entrusted to Rost at birth, where did her milk come from?

Slaan
Mar 16, 2009



ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH
Machines of course :v:

Captain Hygiene
Sep 17, 2007

You mess with the crabbo...



Robocows can produce milk too :colbert:

Cloacamazing!
Apr 18, 2018

Too cute to be evil
Aloy was raised on the flesh of slain robot dinos.

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
I imagine the matriarchs got milk to Aloy somehow. I’ve seen fanfics where they appoint a nursemaid until she can be weaned (the woman doesn’t speak or look at Rost or the baby, just does her task). Or perhaps Rost somehow obtains milk from the wild. Female pigs and raccoons... this might actually explain a lot about Aloy’s personality. Try not to think about it too much.

Oh and for those who don’t know, the thread title references another role of Aloy’s voice actress Ashley Burch- Tiny Tina in the Borderlands games. I need to play more of those personally.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde
School's out forever

We have all of our stuff so we go to meet up with Rost. He gets guards to let them out of Mother's Embrace and makes a cryptic remark. Then some destroyed lodges. And we meet the culprit - a new enemy type. Sawtooths are real assholes. Very fast, very aggressive, do a lot of damage. Still we manage to take it out and Rost gives us his lesson, which tbh doesn't make much sense. I feel like this is one of the moments where they missed the mark - it's not very emotional, doesn't resonate with what we've experienced so far, and really has no context. Many of the other major character beats have all of those things in spades. At any rate, the lesson is over and we're given a chance to finish up any sidequests. Not only did those all get finished, but I did a fair amount of grinding on top of it. Killing stuff is always fun so it never feels like a chore to me.

Then we head on over to where the Proving will be held. Rost tells Aloy he's loving off to parts unknown, since she's not gonna obey the rules about talking to outcasts. He gives her the charm she wore during her naming that belonged to his daughter and disappears. Aloy tries to enter Mother's Heart and the guards are dicks, trying to turn her away. Luckily Teersa was waiting for us and makes sure they know we're welcome. We meet the boy we saved at the beginning, who now makes clothes and gives us some. After some wandering around we go to where some emissaries from another tribe are trying to give a speech and get some world building in the process.

There are 3 main tribes running around the area. Nora, the Carja, and the Ossram. Carja used to murder folks for fun and profit, but the old king got ganked by his son and now they're trying to rebuild relations. Ossram are kinda the equivalent of dwarves - they smith stuff and drink a lot. We also discover another person with a focus, but he doesn't want to talk much to us. Erend clumsily hits on Aloy but she's oblivious. This goes on throughout the whole game (not just Erend) and it's great. Aloy doesn't give a poo poo about romance, so at least you never have to worry about that awkwardness in a playthrough.

Next time: The Proving!

E: should be fixed now

SubponticatePoster fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Jun 4, 2020

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Did you cut out your commentary track in this video for some reason? It seemed a lot different from the previous ones. I think I prefer commentary to lack thereof, but you do what you think best. If this is how the LP will proceed now, that's fine.

Rost's final lesson to Aloy was that you shouldn't just get good at hunting down dangerous machines to serve yourself but to help others- protect them from said dangerous machines. I agree the game doesn't really put forth the lesson well. The Nora tribe has not done a lot to help Aloy grow up, why should she care about them? It might be an easier lesson if the Nora had more of an established duty for their Outcasts- in India and Japan such people are the ones who do dirty jobs like butchering, tanning, garbage collection, and mortuary operation. Maybe in the Nora world they could be the ones who take on the more dangerous hunts- there have to be some conservative Nora who think the Sawtooth, a new dangerous monster, is All-Mother's judgement upon them. Killing it would be rejecting that judgement. Then again, if an Outcast fights it and they die, no big deal. And if the Outcast wins, maybe this too can be All-Mother's judgement. Is there no way to atone for being an Outcast other than serving out your sentence or the Proving? Maybe they should have thought about things more.

A lot of it is just Rost's personality. An outcast hero mentor isn't the best source of inspiration. The way he sets up the lesson also makes it seem more like a test of skill against a dangerous machine than a test of purpose. Maybe if we had actually visibly saved a life in taking the Sawtooth down the way we saved Teb as a kid? Or maybe they wanted us to develop the psychology of a hero as we played through the game.

I like the worldbuilding in the game a lot. You really feel like the different tribes are people living their lives. I'm also glad they didn't go all Evil Empire with the Carja- that would have been real easy but a good king trying to overcome the sins of the last bad one makes for a more interesting different story. Am I the only fan who would have been down for an RPG playing out the rebellion of said good king in the HZD world?

Having no Romance Options in the game was different but I agree it's nice not to have to worry about that sort of awkwardness. Doesn't stop fanfic writers though- plenty of ship fics out there for Aloy and various other characters if you know where to look. Erend is a good character IMO, if less endearing on repeat playthrus. The big guy, noble drunk type. Every fantasy story needs at least one of these.

Alternate Paths- How you say goodbye to Rost is different based on your choice of response obviously. I personally like the fist best- Aloy gets mad, says good riddance, drops the necklace and then picks it up again as soon as the confused Rost walks away. Very moody teenager. The heart shows more compassion and understanding than I think Aloy has developed yet. Saying I'll track and find you is a good middle ground, I guess.

Glad you didn't miss the Nora Mother's creation myth during your village exploration. Such stories are great world building and as you might guess this one is very important to the game plot. There are also a few fun village details- some local bands and the drunk guy climbing on a house. I actually thought the latter was a quest when I first saw it. :)

Teb is a good character, the nice guy of the Nora tribe. He's also a good intro to outfit shopping, though you gotta wonder how he knew Aloy's measurements. Anyone else notice the Predator alien homage in the Silent Hunter outfit?

Sylphosaurus
Sep 6, 2007
Yeah, did your commentary get removed by mistake in this video? I hope so, since it wouldn´t be the same if we didn´t have you quipping and commenting about the game while playing.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde
Well it should have a commentary track! Um, let me see if I can fix.

Megillah Gorilla
Sep 22, 2003

If only all of life's problems could be solved by smoking a professor of ancient evil texts.



Bread Liar
I was wondering why you weren't talking. Thought it was a stylistic choice.

Also, Rost looks weird as hell as a generic human in the machine vision.

Megillah Gorilla fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jun 4, 2020

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achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Do machines see all humans that way? No wonder they think they can take us.

Let us know when the video’s fixed. I may have more comments in response to your comments.

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