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goatface posted:Answer it all honestly as far as you can determine in the context of the game.
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Jul 31, 2023 14:35
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TheDavies posted:What common sense? The one that led you to play this game in the first place? Clearly inadequate. Therefore, use a guide.
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Aug 5, 2023 05:14
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Well followed the guide for the last recording and it turns out the guide was wrong. I think I can fix it but I'll have to do the whole test segment again. More updates as events warrant.
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Aug 14, 2023 02:50
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That's exactly what this game deserves, a wrong guide.
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Aug 14, 2023 03:53
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Well followed the guide for the last recording and it turns out the guide was wrong. I think I can fix it but I'll have to do the whole test segment again.  Tower of both Dumb and Wrong!
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Aug 14, 2023 06:38
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The Calm Before The Dumb Welcome back! Last time on Tower of Time we had to answer some questions for a bunch of energy beings who would maybe help us or something. Goons voted to use a guide. Unfortunately the guide was wrong, but I have enough stuff to show off that we'll do the test the "bad way" and then go back and do it right. It's also kind of a joke. You guys remember Black Geyser and how nothing anybody said or did made any sense whatsoever? Well, this is by the same guy! Let's go!  If you remember, the last question asked by the Daeva was whether or not everything "in your world" was predestined. My instinct is to say yes as these guys are video game characters under two degrees of mind control, but the thread voted to answer every one of these questions with "I don't know" so here we are.  This makes the Daeva very mad and we get thrown into another Tower of Time battle.  Now, these Daeva are all supposed to be corrupted by Tower Avatar but they're being used by the Daeva in these trials. Who knows!  The one good thing I will say about this game is that the music is good at evoking a melancholy atmosphere. Of course, this battle is as boring as all the rest. Skip! What's the next question?   : Stars are glistening in the distance like droplets in the ocean of nothingness. In the middle, a response matrix is humming pleasantly.But you can't see individual droplets in the ocean. This is a terrible metaphor. : Suddenly, a lone Daeva appears in front of the party and they hear a deep booming voice. : We know you now. We know your physical form and the shadow you cast as you move through our domain. The time for the first true test has come. Be attentive now.: Three paths to choose, three paths as mirrors of your inner self. Answer the question, light the symbols truthfully and the way will open. Here we see the standard trap of the fantasy author that knows they want to do mysticism but lusts after the boring magic systems of Brandon Sanderson. Thus we get stuff like this, where the ancient aliens spew pseudo-mystical crap designed to seem wise and all knowing but it just turns incoherent. : If you would consider us the Enemy, would you have destroyed us if given a chance?Well, there's one possible answer for this, and that's mashing the O symbol for "confusion".  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This leads to another dull battle. Do note the presence of the experimental mechs. These are NOT corrupted by Tower Avatar but apparently hang around with all the CORRUPTED mechs anyway. Also, they have an AoE daze (stun) attack because of course they do.  Kaela does her best Necron Immortal impression and Tesla stunlocks everyone. Next!  We've discussed this before but I want to point out that every single answer to this question has been lame. The Tower Avatar wants to kill us all to stop Proteus. Proteus is the power at the bottom of the tower who wants something stupid.  One tedious Daeva fight just wasn't enough I see.  : Did you think my power so insignificant? Did you think simply leaving the tower would save you from my grasp? : Ah donna understand, how is she here? : She must be the corruptor, the one the Daeva mentioned.You leave the Zerg out of this right now!  : Indeed, using her influence to control their own mechanisms.: As they set plans in motion to destroy me, I too reach out with plans of my own. As powerful as they are, their machines are vulnerable to my influence.I don't understand why the Daeva sit here and do nothing about it. I guess they overloaded the tower's mana collection systems. but everything we've seen of the Daeva makes them look hilariously weak. They even said they'd just friggin hide from the Organthe instead of fighting them. : You chose unwisely. These machine creatures will not provide the salvation you seek. I will see to that.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Unlike all the other Daeva mechs, this guy explicitly doesn't have the "corrupted... by TOWER AVATAR(tm)" text even though Tower won't shut up about her even plan or whatever bullshit.  Like so. Whatever, it's Tower of Time combat, skip!  We go back into the Tower Dimension and continue slogging.  Dull procgen loot!  I don't understand why there are so many legendary items with lame drawbacks when the purples all are just free buffs.  Shut up about Sleath!  Seriously he's boring and has no bearing on the "plot".  That's right, homies, it's time for more Days of Old!   Remember, last time the elves broke out magic to destroy all the evil robots the aliens sent because I don't know man. Magic lets the evil aliens in to eat everyone.  gently caress This Font posted:that they also started to revert to magic. : They tapped into vast reserves of power collected and stored across many centuries.: Fearful forces were unleashed at the attackers. People no longer bound by any laws and filled with an all-consuming hatred.: However the land was being destroyed in the process.Nothing states "horrific destruction" like dull passive voice. : Seas boiled, mountains were crushed and volcanos erupted.: Even the moon was shattered and the planet became unstable. Yet no one seemed to care.: All that mattered was the overwhelming power and being able to direct this force at the heart of the enemy...I don't actually hate this as an idea. Yeah, it was stupid of the Artarans to go get all the magic instead of launching nukes or strike aircraft, but it ties back to the game's overwhelming theme of hubris. The Artarans think they can control the planet destroying magic to end the war, and it turns out that it wrecks the planet because they're obsessed with hatred. : Then one day everything stopped. No new enemies appeared. No new attack came. : People looked around and only then realized what they had done to their world. The damage was terrible.: Most cities lay in ruins, volcanoes erupted, blanketing the earth with ash, storm clouds rolled day and night.: Far above the ground a black portal appeared, a window to Organthe world.: A sign that enough energy had been transformed and a bridge was possible. : Proteus knew that it would take some time for the portal to be fully opened.: When he visited the universe of the Organthe he learned about the differences in the law of physics.: This bridge could not be destroyed but it could be contained, and the entrance point blocked.: He also knew that they had about five years before the connection become [sic] fully formed.: Five years to devise a plan to save the world or...: ...five years before everything and everyone was consumed. Naturally the peanut gallery has nothing to say. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
It's kind of hard for me to tell whether or not we're supposed to trust these visions. We can easily find examples of inconsistencies - mana predating the arrival of the organthe, all the soldiers in these visions using swords when Kaela tells us the main infantry weapon was guns, or how the visions tell us that there weren't enough resources to use technology to fight but they were able to mass produce guns. The recurring theme is how great Proteus is. Earlier visions posted:
It's not clear whether this is an omniscient narrator or not, but we know these exist in setting as the characters used to respond to them. We may get answers to this, but it's hard NOT to read between the lines here. Proteus is the first magi, responsible for regulating magic use. Notice that "the people" decided to just yeet the laws out the window and nothing was said about Proteus trying to stop them or them using technology or anything like that. It's kind of weird to me that they apparently had no resources to use technology to fight but had an entire robot and gun factory. In a better game, we could start poking holes in the visions to try to figure out what's really going on. In this game nothing is consistent anyway, so it's very hard to discern what is supposed to be raising alarm bells and what is just the incompetence of the authors with things like quantum rabbits. Oh well. Onward!  Into the void!  Never mind, there's dull procgen loot to be had.  This is probably the game telling me I have to go interact with the build system again.  : Large swirls of light and fire stream across the room, condensing into unrecognizable symbols and glyphs for little more than a second before dispersing into a show of spark of flame. : There is no other way back, we must push on.: Kane steps into the room first, followed by Maeve and then the others. As they make their way through the room, a gigantic tome floats by against the current of the other flying objects. Its pages open and close, mimicking the winged flight of a bird. : What in the blazes? : The symbols are magicum ritualis incarnum. Very old... very powerful. This never works and I wish developers would stop trying to do it. If you're going to show this stuff at least have some visual component. It's like they were all inspired by the parts of Xenogears where people talked in front of a black screen and concluded that's what people liked. : (struggling) There, the far side of the room-an archway.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This starts a "go hunt for boring crap" quest.  The boredom is REAL!   OW. Gillia, the bard written in academic formal needs a comma, and I assume we meant to write "manner". : Take it if you must, but keep moving!: Following the shieldguard's advice your party eventually makes it to the archway exit with little more than a few scrapes, bruises and heavy with a few uneventful scrolls and books.: With one last look at the tumultuous room your party turns and begins to head off when Rakhem stops and looks back.: Are ye nae coming. Mech? : Please stand by.: What's wrong with him, Chief?: Ah dunno, he just stopped moving.: Active wireless network link discovered. Interfacing.: What's he going on about now?: I'm sorry my friends, but this room has an active communication line. I must remain behind.The sad thing is that Mech the maintenance robot has probably the most common sense out of the entire party. : Why, lad? Why would ye leave us now?: I have been unable to establish a network link since the first days of my creation. Somehow this room has a signal compatible with my system. Downloading update. I cannot pass up the opportunity to integrate this new update and information into my processor. Boron you are literally here because the magic idiots blocked out the sun to blow up evil robots. The entire intro was all about how the sun was gone and we couldn't grow food. I don't understand why you are talking about the sun being constantly there in this context.  Good bye Mech, you were actually pretty all right all things considered. : If he wants to stay, let him... come on.: I guess this is it, laddie. Ye've been a fine companion. Ah'll be tellin' ma children's children about ye for years to come.: Realizing attempting to sway Mech's mind is futile, your party says its goodbyes and continues on.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
   Joy. Earlier in the game, when we first made it to Daeva Dimension posted:This is literally from the first time we met the Daeva in their energy form. : You passed through the pathways. That was not certain. We are pleased.: Time for the last test before the grand trial. There was one thing about you which was a puzzle to us. We were troubled, uncertain, confused. Now we see the strings attached and we know.I thought you weren't allowed to be uncertain or any of those things because it threw the trinity out of balance. Whatever. Get ready for extreme stupidity soon. : Do you know? Look into yourself, answer truthfully and the prize shall be bestowed up you. Contradict yourself and perish. When you are ready, light the symbol, as you have been shown before. Now, the obvious answer is "no" because these guys get mentally manipulated faster than a football, but the thread wanted us to reply with confused uncertainty to all of these questions, so here we go!   It's not really clear which two forces they're talking about. Off the top of my head I see Lord Youspock, Proteus the Totally Not Evil Shadow Mage, and then there was some babbling about Tower Avatar secretly controlling people that we may or may not write off as Proteus trying to gently caress with the player. Naturally, that's completely unimportant and no one in the party feels the need to ask the Daeva any follow up questions. It's not even the first time NPCs have said stuff like this, it just gets ignored because we need to keep the characters dumpster diving deeper into the tower. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 The reward for answering "correctly" is this staff that hurts you every time you attack with it. Trash!  Oh, boy, what stupid poo poo do you want, Proteus? : Struggling to regain control, you realize it is not the world itself which is slowing, but your champions themselves. They move more and more slowly with each passing breath. When they finally come to a standstill, a strange yet familiar force rises up against your concentration.  : Why do you affect them so? They don't deserve to be turned on and off like some... constructs. Can you not let them be?I think I've mentioned this before, but now the game is getting blatant that Proteus really doesn't care about others despite all his protests that he's doing this for the future or whatever.  Of course, like every Proteus section, he completely ignores the objections of You and goes on with his own stupid bullshit. : How so?They literally ruin this guy's mystery with the introduction of him asking to be judged. I know I tend to point out things that are being foreshadowed and connect the pieces earlier in these LPs, but I don't think there was much mystery left to this guy on my first playthrough aside from how the inevitable confrontation at the Tower bottom would play out.  What? The Daeva have been mostly communicating in English. There was that period where they scrambled the emotions of the party, but the guy getting stabbed and going "huh. Unexpected hostility" really makes me confused as to how the Daeva are supposed to be these weird emotional beings. : I will not add to such influences and force decisions on them. Proteus seems really invested in getting us to control others. I have a theory that it ties in with getting a sympathetic judgment at the end, but that scene really needs to be seen to be believed.  This, however, is total bullshit. : Without waiting for a reply, the pressure in your mind eases and your champions once again move and speak normally. The discussion, thought[sic] short, was surprisingly taxing. Maintaining the connection to your party grows increasingly difficult.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
It's all nonsense! It's all just nonsense! We know the choice has never been ours, because the opening prologue with Kid You makes it very clear you never had a choice but to come to this tower. The very first playable segment gets us this line from Proteus: The Very First Update posted:
Those two aren't sequential, but it should be a sign that we never really had free will. Heck, the Daeva just told us a few minutes ago that we're being manipulated, the Tower Avatar warned us that Proteus would take our free will, just like all the "others", and I think a few of the sidequest statues have pointed out that we're being controlled. Now, Proteus wants us to judge him as the game intro - not even the campaign intro, but the intro cutscene when you boot the game. The Intro posted:Of course, this isn't a fair judgment at all both because Proteus is hilariously messing with our heads but it's also very clear he has absolutely no respect for the player character. He just called us "boy" for one, but look at the other crap he's said over the course of the game. Earlier in the game posted:This is nonsense. He just managed to turn off his own sister a few minutes ago, and his own actual writings are all about how other people need to sacrifice for the greater good. Proteus' computer logs posted:I mentioned fascism earlier, the game has a lot to say about how only Proteus has a shot at fighting the Organthe because he's willing to make the tough decisions that are needed to fight the aliens and call for mass sacrifice and blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. The visions tell us Proteus was known for his wisdom and was the last guy with his loyal magi who stood against the Organthe portal as the world just decided to all use the magic that... left people comatose and caused them to have horrible visions of getting eaten by aliens. Proteus is the hard man making hard decisions to stop all the Organthe. Yet despite all this, Proteus' current avatar uses the same black and purple palette that has been exclusively associated with one enemy and one enemy only. Earlier in the game posted:We'll talk more about this as we get further into the game. Next Time: The Grand Trial... of DUMB!
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Aug 15, 2023 17:59
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Sure would be nice if characters managed to form some opinions on this Proteus gu- MIND CONTROL.
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Aug 15, 2023 18:17
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Trial of Trolleys! Welcome back! Last time on Tower of Time the Daeva awkwardly asked us about free will before revealing they knew the party was being manipulated by fifty different mind controllers. Today we're actually going to do the grand trial that the Daeva have been hanging over our heads the entire time, and we have a serious problem. The characters are barely characterized at all and most of what we have is both skeletal and stupid. Kane is an honorable knight "secretly" in love with Maeve, except for all that time he spent getting horny for Tower Avatar and the time he stabbed a robot declaring loudly that he FORSWORE HONOR FOREVER. Boron is a pacifist who routinely flies into a homicidal rage and murders people. Maeve likes stealing and being unethical except when she doesn't. The Daeva are going to test us on whether we can be true to the character traits of these caricatures. Fortunately Proteus has decided they're too thinly sketched and told us that the final arbiter of who these characters really are is going to be us, the player. I am going to die of angry conniptions and you guys will have to read something good. I hear that TeeQueue guy has some good LPs. In the meantime, let's continue the charade, shall we?  There's a fountain. It gives Maeve more mana. Sure, why not.  : Beyond this door awaits your trial.: After all this and we haven't even started yet?: Quiet, High-courier. : Yes, we are.  Here we go. : The Daeva construct's eyes then dim. Its body goes limp and a small wisp of energy flees from it, vanishing in thin air.: Wait... do you feel...  : You are as confused as the rest of the party. You can feel your link to the missing champions but it is distant, as if behind an invisible veil.: What in the name...? Kane? Aeric? Stop hiding, this nae funny at all.Rakhem has been through all kinds of teleportation bullshit, but  .: A lone Daeva appears in front of your reduced party and announces in solemn tone.: The Grand Trial has begun. Do not be alarmed. Your companions are being judged now. : As outraged Whisper is issuing her demand, you feel a strange pull on your mind and then you notice that is[sic] being forced to focus on a different place. You have no ability to resist this unknown force. God drat it Proteus. : You are too drained to respond. : They don't want you to influence the outcome of their little game, or they may fear you... perhaps both.: But as powerful as they are, they are narrow minded beings. Here, boy, I give you a portion of my power. Whether or not you use it to influence your champions, is up to you... but I will not allow the Daeva to steal that choice from you. Naturally we don't have the opportunity to let Maeve speak for herself here. : Myself.So I follow this guide. This will explain the mistake you see before you.  : As Maeve steps through the door, she enters a chamber filled from floor to ceiling with riches--incredibly detailed recreations of light, illuminated and partially transparent. Though they are not quite real, the marksman is still in awe.There's a recurring theme of the Daeva's lovely holograms supposedly tempting these characters. It's very strange to me. I don't know if Proteus is letting us see through the Daeva's lies or what exactly is going on here, but I would expect a street smart character not to react in awe but to assume they're getting scammed. : The riches before you are real. They are a cache of dwarven wealth in a tomb long forgotten.: Maeve reaches down and actually plucks one of the gemstones of light from its resting place. The stone is nearly as big as her palm. As she inspects the treasure, an armored figure appears amid the treasure. He walks toward Maeve drawing a sword, nearly as large as his body. Why not? Because this is a hypothetical dumbass trolley ride, that's why!  : Maeve wells up with temptation unlike anything you have ever felt. Her desire is...intoxicating. But something is holding Maeve back. The faith both you and Kane have in her. The guide says to fight the warrior, so... : Fight the warrior.Here's the thing. The Daeva philosophy is stupid and incoherent. The "trinity" is that desire, intent, and action must all be in harmony, but humans (and various humanoid fantasy races) don't work like that. We can see here that Maeve desperately wants the money but also wants to not disappoint You and Kane... and that's how every dilemma is going to play out. This means we have a stupid test where formula is as follows: the Daeva ask you a simple question (what do you want for dinner) and then turn it into a dumb trolley problem (you said tacos, but what if the tacos had... warfarin????). The expected answer is that you still eat the tacos because that shows your trinity is in balance or whatever stupid poo poo, even when it doesn't make sense. Maeve serves herself. She is not going to be benefited by having a bunch of gold because the planet is literally dying, everyone is starving to death, and evil aliens are going to eat everyone. It makes more sense for Maeve to help deal with the aliens and space bullshit as a self-interested individual than it does for her to take the holographic gold and gently caress off, especially because I have no idea how long her life would be after everything collapses. Of course, thanks to this new information we can never actually have our trinity be in harmony, and this smacks of hypocritical bullshit from a bunch of lovely aliens who were turned into batteries.  Unfortunately I've chosen poorly, and we won't see the results for a little while.  Not only did we fail this dumbass test but now we have to go do a solo fight, not against the big warrior, but against a bunch of random golems we've already seen. Please... please don't do this, game.  Fortunately these guys are from a few levels ago and Maeve is able to gun them down before they get to her. I sure hope you trained Maeve or you're probably hosed!  : ...at once. Or you shall feel the wrath of the Shadow Queen! : You try to calm their furious, and at the same time worried, minds. After a short while, they regain enough composure to move forward again.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 I sure hope you leveled Rakhem and Boron because they are now mandatory for the party. You might be noticing something critical is missing from our lineup here.  Specifically, with the loss of Kane and Aeric, we no longer have any healers. We don't have anyone who can really hold aggro either as Kane had most of the taunts and whatnot. Rakhem and Boron are legitimately the worst characters in the game. This isn't to say that you can't get use out of them, but if I had to guess these two are the most commonly benched. We won't be doing this quest, it's more dull fetch quest poo poo. The screen fades out and it's time for Kane's trial, which is real loving dumb!  You have to remember that this is all going to be judged on Nick Macari logic. Now, Kane might have something to say on this considering he had a huge "I renounce my values" moment literally twenty minutes ago, but you have to remember this is still the land of Black Geyser, where people thank you for being dragged into a civil war caused by Satan. : Never. Duty must always come first.: Enter the door and be judged. But...Maeve was first. See what I mean? I don't know if this is necessarily all on Mr. Macari, but I do know he's the big story guy for both of this and Black Geyser, and neither one of those games can get basic poo poo like this correct. : Panicked, you focus all your remaining energy and will on Kane... but there is no change, only duller and softer stimuli. Exhausted you slump down in your crystal throne in defeat, but as you close your eyes a sudden tension grips every fiber of your body. I didn't cut anything out. I THINK Proteus was originally supposed to interject his bullshit there, but they fired Maeve's trial first so I have no idea. Now, a guild is a collection of private merchants and artisans and stuff, and this is the royal guard which presumably owe allegiance to... the king, but what do I know? : Dubrey, the master-at-arms stands talking to an unfamiliar guard. Both men appear not as normal humans, but as incredibly detailed recreations of light, illuminated and partially transparent. This part is very strange to me. Are we supposed to believe the Daeva are lying? Why is there a whole town in reality but with hologram actors (and a hologram wagon)? Whatever.  : The young guard Articus competes for the position of King's Champion in your absence. It is a lofty title but one with many restrictions. One infraction and his name will be revoked.: I remember the process well. What does this have to do with me?: Watch. Listen.I just realized how much these assholes resemble Navi.  I'm not making portraits for these jackoffs, sorry!  I legitimately can't tell what the hell that one is supposed to be.  : Sir, I-- : Blast it boy, are you really going to throw everything you've worked so hard for away over a woman?: (nervous) ... Sir, I-- The guy was already late. What more do you want? : Outside, a second guard waits to supply evidence. We can sway Dubrey's decision with a simple suggestion.: Decide now. Shall we let evidence come forth, denying Articus his rank and likely resulting in dismissal from the King's Guard?: Do his passions excuse his lapses in duty?: I-I-I don't see what this has to do with me, I-- Then what the gently caress is the point of this? Kane clearly has two conflicting desires and it is impossible to satisfy them both.  Ok, let's step back a little. Articus is legitimately showing up late for work because he's hanging out with this woman. This is something that would get you fired from a McDonalds much less an elite bodyguard military unit. We have seen absolutely no conflict in Kane doing his duty. In fact, he's with the expedition because of a direct royal command and he's been the character most gung-ho about doing the will of Youspock. Earlier in the game posted:No one has even suggested that Kane isn't doing his duty or letting the others down. Yes, he's clearly awkwardly expressed his feelings for Maeve - after Tower hilariously rejected him - but Kane is literally on the front line taking the beating for everyone else. Yes, I'm aware of that whole thing with him renouncing his vows or whatever but that was nominally in the service of getting to the bottom of the tower. So he said. It will never come up again. : You sense the nervousness and shame of your champion. Struggling with the dilemma, just as the mysterious voice predicted. The correct answer is to condemn, as we previously stated nothing can stand between us and duty. : Condemn the man.: The master-at-arms shakes his head and slams his fist down on the table in frustration. : Guard!: Another King's guard rushes into the chamber, passing a scroll to Dubrey. Without reading it, Dubrey shakes it angrily in the air.: Fool boy, I tried to warn you. This is a signed affadavit from the bishop noting times and locaitons of your courtship! Did you think the King would not find out? Take him away. We unceremoniously return to the Tower of Dumb. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This is just a joke.  I was going to bitch about how we had to use this lovely party to do this boring fight, but I think it bears talking about what an absolute joke the trial is. As written, Kane can never bring his desires to bear with his actions because he apparently has conflicting desires between his love of Maeve and the King's Guard oath to be a virgin apparently. Of course, Kane actually kind of solved this canonically: Just a few minutes ago posted:Remember this? Remember when Kane had his big dramatic moment about how he had to abandon his principles and make hard choices to succeed in a situation where he very much did not need to do that? The guy's already revoked his oaths to the king, so duty shouldn't even be a factor in whether or not his trinity's aligned.  But, because this is Tower of Time and we can't even keep to a minimum of consistency about basic plot events, let alone character motivations, we get stupid garbage like this. Kane revoked his Kingsguard oaths which presumably includes his chastity, not because of his "duty" but because he couldn't handle the inevitable betrayal by Tower Avatar.  Once again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the sheer inconsistencies override everything this plot is trying to do. The game wants to be a mystery so desperately, but part of the plotting of the mystery genre is that inconsistencies need to be seen as part of the solution and catching those discrepancies leads the reader and the fictional protagonist in catching the real culprit. Meanwhile it's impossible to take anything here at face value because everything is so sloppily put together, and it shatters suspension of disbelief into little pieces.   I don't know. I don't know what Aeric's opinion on theft is because the guy's defining personality trait is elf racism. Let's follow the guide again. : Of course not. Theft is immoral.: Enter the door and be judged.  "A small, gnomish creatures". : Mixed in with the herbs is a large, Life Oak Seed. A true seed. The very object Aeric is searching for.There's a whole subplot later about this. It's very uninteresting.  I don't even know what this means. I don't know why they went with the weird hologram bullshit here, but it doesn't work and it robs these trials of any gravity they somehow retained. : A Life Oak Seed! Creature of the wood, you must part with this item. Name your price and you shall have it.The sad thing is this is still better than Numenera's "temptation" scene. : Alas poor druid, these creatures not see or hear you[sic]. The window we look through works in only one direction.: This--this is a trick... an illusion. : Will you take that which is not yours? Give us the word, and we will bring it across time and space to the tower. But be warned. You know not what intentions this creature has for the seed.: You sense deep regret from your champion. As Aeric struggles with the dilemma, you can sense his thoughts much more clearly than usually. : Do not steal the seed.: Aeric reaches towards the Life Oak Seed image of light, as if to snatch it from the barrel. The small creatures[sic] perks up and turns, looking in Aeric's direction, forcing the elf to hesitate. After a slight pause of indecision, Aeric withdraws his hand and steps back.: Stealing is wrong, even in these most dire circumstances. I will not accept this gift you offer, as grand and precious as it is, for it is not yours to offer.: As you wish.: The illuminated imagery of the forest vanishes, leaving Aeric in a cold, stone chamber. A look of anquish[sic] plain on his face. Wait, there are trolls and goblins? Where? Were they in the war with the Organthe? Where are they now? Did the five races exterminate them? They probably went to the same place as the "rulers of four elements" or whatever stupid poo poo. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 I don't even know.  I can really only take so much of these things, and this is a fairly long update, so we'll be back for the next set of trials next time. Next Time: Homicidal rage pacifism and TROLLEYS!
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Aug 17, 2023 21:54
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This section feels like the writer's self-indulgence, but they're so bad at this it's just laughable.
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Aug 17, 2023 22:21
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Stealing is always wrong because this game continues to steal my few remaining functioning neurons
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Aug 17, 2023 22:39
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Slaan posted:Stealing is always wrong because this game continues to steal my few remaining functioning neurons 
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Aug 17, 2023 23:50
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quote:I am going to die of angry conniptions and you guys will have to read something good. Forget it, TGEK, it's And now I feel bad I told you to use a guide.
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Aug 18, 2023 03:37
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Is any of this going to matter? Will the...whoever the antagonist was again, think better/worse of us for our trolley problem experience? Or is this meaningless padding?
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Aug 18, 2023 03:45
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This decides whether we get the help of what should be the most powerful civilization in the settings. So padding, might give some loot and stat boost I guess? 
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Aug 18, 2023 06:09
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From what I can see, Rakhem has the hybrid problem, where they stuck his abilities on different stats and therefore he can't really accomplish anything. He's also tankier but not really, which is definitely a stat dilution thing. Boron's problem seems to be that there's no reason to be a melee over a ranged. A melee DPS needs to be stronger than the ranged DPS in output, or significantly tankier, or a straight up tank/DPS. Since there's always a cost to having to be in melee range. And they don't seem to have accounted for that here.
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Aug 18, 2023 07:21
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This section is standout shite, even for this game.
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Aug 18, 2023 12:09
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If ever a game had choices objectively worse than a "but thou must"....
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Aug 18, 2023 13:04
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This entire section relies on believing that people act in accordance with strict codes instead of constantly making choices based on the information at hand (basically no one truly believes that stealing is never justified, they just differ on when it is). A well-written game might use this as a basis for calling out these guys as being too disconnected from reality to judge people--it's easy to reduce everything to trolley problem when you're a being a pure energy or whatever and never have to make a real decision about your future. Hell, a mediocre game would use this a test for You instead of the characters, to see if they've been paying attention and really understand the party and their motivations. But of course this is a bad game so instead we get "would you never" and then "but WHAT IF" style questions that are comically stupid.
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Aug 18, 2023 14:07
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goatface posted:This section is standout shite, even for this game. 
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Aug 18, 2023 14:19
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I can see some things ending up jumbled around over time as the game nears release and is maybe rushed and poorly managed (like Maeve's trial being first). Editing can go like that. But so much of this is inconsistent that it's clear hardly any effort was made to keep it coherent. You get "a time long past, but real" and the fart-sniffing phrase "a past which has not yet come to pass" almost immediately after, for example. It's also unclear to me if the 'centuries' of stored-up magic that was released in the last DoO is meant to be the strategic reserve of the tiny amounts of magic that existed long ago, or if the incursion of the Organthe was going on for that long, but as with so much, I expect that it's just there because the phrase sounds good. It's almost like someone took a bunch of sentences they liked from a thousand fantasy sci-fi stories and picked at random to produce this.
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Aug 18, 2023 17:11
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I said it once and I'll say it again: This is not acceptable writing for a teenager's first DnD campaign, before the internet helped find ideas.
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Aug 18, 2023 17:37
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By popular demand posted:I said it once and I'll say it again: This is not acceptable writing for a teenager's first DnD campaign, before the internet helped find ideas. My first teenage D&D campaign as DM, the party went into a cave and fought centipedes, then returned to town and set it on fire. If I made this into a D&D campaign, the players would set it all on fire out of spite.
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Aug 18, 2023 19:32
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Hey, anything's fine in D&D as long as everyone's having fun. Unfortunately, with this game...
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Aug 18, 2023 19:49
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Let the Incoherence Wash Over You Welcome back! I've been distracted by good games coming out lately, but now we can continue our exciting adventure of the Daeva judging our characters for, um, stuff.  I'm not sure if there was a fight or not, I took this footage a while ago. : Do not be alarmed. The Grand Trial continues. Your companions are being judged now. They play the animation of the characters teleporting out after saying this, because everything in this game is sloppy.  People in the thread have been posting about how they miss Dark Deity, and I'm getting to the point where I kind of agree. This is a bad game, but it's not a bad game in an interesting way. : You try to comfort Kaela, yet her mind resists you. Your vision blurs and you are again being pulled away to a different place.The bad games we've done in the past at least tried to do something interesting, and while most of them crashed and burned on impact you can at least see where things were going.  I did not like ATOM, but it at least tried to tell a surrealist conspiracy story. It tried to do it badly and offensively, but it tried.  I don't even know. These tests are not very interesting, and ultimately having the player intervene in them is completely pointless. : Aye.It's kind of unfair to compare this trash to Baldur's Gate III, but Shadowheart and the Nightsong is a way better implementation of the companion morality test thing. : Enter the door, and be judged. Of course, the real question is whether the perfect metal is in the interests of the dwarves. Remember, Artara is supposed to be a land ruined by hubristic magic idiots using the power of the evil aliens to blow up evil alien robots because they got big mad and tried to fight them with swords. I don't know how well engineered metal compensates for the lack of food, but I don't understand a lot of this game. : Is it? Cannae be? By Vallio's hammer, it is?It's just uninspiring. We've already seen the formula. Say thing. Daeva ask if you're sure about thing if a puppy would die. Say yes. : Indeed it is. A brick of Adamantine. It is yours to take.Of course, this entire portion is undermined by having it all be weird blue holograms instead of whatever, but nothing about the Daeva is interesting or makes sense. : Before the Daeva finish speaking, Rakhem leans against the stack of metal, hugging and kissing it in shock and disbelief.: The portal on the left leads to the throne room. Here you can make arrangements with the master of expedition and return the metal to your people. But take heed - the portal to the tower is open for only three minutes. After this, it vanishes and leaves no means to remove the metal from this place.: Ah cannae thank you enough.  Now this is an outright loving lie.  : Will you abandon your ultimate prize in their time of need? Or return to your people a hero and legend?  : Return to fight alongside Kane and the others.: Rakhem looks to the portal of his friends losing their battle against the corrupted Daeva. He then looks back to the metal with a face heavy with sadness. : Ohhh, ah donna think anyone will believe ah had me hands on it.: Rakhem runs to the portal containing his friends, draws his axe and dives through in a flying attack.: But ma friends will never forget the day Rakhem, Son of Rogheim, fought one last time by their side! I'm not sure how much it's been hinted before but the Daeva are actively lying about all this crap.   Don't worry, Spock's admiration for Kaela goes absolutely nowhere.  : So be it. I WILL find the place where you reside Daeva and then you will have some explaining to do.: I just hope I will not meet any of those blasted constructs on the way.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This button leads to a superboss or something? I don't even know, nor do I care. It's another run around and find things quest.  POWAH  Y'all remember Boron, right? It is entirely possible to miss him and I kind of wish that I did.   : No, being true to who I am is the gift I give to my people. They would not want it any other way.: Enter the door and be judged. : Though it appears as projected light, not physical stone, the frostling has no doubts to the nature of vision before his eyes. : Next to the giant stone, dark holes open up in midair and one-by-one, stranger never seen before constructs emerge. The mechanisms begin assembling a giant metal hammer three times the size of Boron himself.: These Organthe constructs are assaulting your capital city, intent on destroying the frostling Archon stone once and for all.: Never! My people will defend the Archon to their last breath.: They no longer have a say. Frostling defenses are occupied elsewhere and the intruders go unnoticed. It is only a matter of time before the stone is destroyed. Unless... you intervene. I hate this characterization so much. Again, Boron's actual in game abilities are to go into an uncontrollable homicidal rage and kill stuff. You can see on the surface where it's supposed to be going - Boron hates that part of himself and struggles to reconcile his poorly characterized poetic nature with his capacity for horrifying axe murder, but one again the usual writing crew is not up to the task and we get crap like this. It's also especially idiotic as Boron isn't actually killing living things, but evil thoughts turned into robots by the aliens designed specifically to provoke people into violent overreactions. The game isn't going to tie this together, but again, Boron has no qualms about killing people in the service of the expedition. Hell, look how Boron introduces himself. Boron's introduction posted:
Again, the very second sentence is that he describes himself as a Blademaster. This is not a man easily characterized as uncomfortable with violence. : Will you sacrifice all the pacifist ideals you hold dearly for your people?An aversion to unnecessary violence isn't pacifism. Hell, let's go back to the one scene where Boron recoiled from violence. Earlier in the game posted:The incompetently conveyed idea is that the frostling became inured to violence and sadistic (instead of just being vengeful or whatever). Boron isn't a pacifist. Unfortunately, these people can't write for poo poo.  God I hate this.  : No. I must remain true to who I am. If the Archon falls, so be it.: As you wish.: The imagery of light slowly dims until it fades completely, leaving the room in total darkness. A moment later, soft light returns and Boron finds himself standing once again among his companions.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Kaela continues wandering aimlessly in the hope of triggering more cutscenes.  ,No game.  Don't loving do this.  Clunk!  Alright, it's a solo battle with Kaela. We somewhat mercifully get the same enemies from last floor, but also this combat system is loving boring and taking away 3/4 of our options doesn't make it good.  It's so boring that this is in fact the only screenshot I took of it.  Surviving the assault on the psyche causes us to flip to the next cutscene.   : I have vowed my loyalty to the shieldguard's and marksman's Lord.: Enter the door and be judged. : The Book Of Lost Shadows!? So this comes out of nowhere and doesn't gel with the narrative at all. : Correct. We recovered the book in lower levels of the tower long ago. The knowledge it holds is rudimentary. We expect you will find it... enlightening.Once again, it's a lovely blue hologram and the Daeva have lied before.   And once again I become extremely confused. Why didn't anyone use this in the war? Wouldn't a pocket god or two have been able to fight the Organthe on roughly equal terms?  For that matter, where is the power coming from? We've established the Organthe invented mana except when they didn't. Is this another temptation of the aliens? Is this a pre-alien magic thing? If it's the alien magic, why do you need a book? Everything we've seen in the days of old cutscenes are that the magic was so effortless it could get you anything you want and replace technology overnight.  It is completely baffling to me that no attempt is made to tie all this together. I don't like pointless worldbuilding that is done for the sake of it, but these kinds of fictional worlds should coalesce into something that reinforces what the story's about.  However, that's not the purpose of this scene. The purpose is to tempt Whisper with power at the cost of running over a friend with a trolley. : A high price to pay... unless it's that fool of a little man. May I choose the dwarf?: If you accept the book, a victim will be chosen at random. The choice is yours. There is a very cynical school of thought where trading a champion to get to the bottom of the tower is a worthwhile trade, but the game is about to shoot itself in the dick. You can probably guess why.   Whisper has sworn allegiance to us. She just stated that she's loyal to us. We are the ones giving her the command whether or not to do this. By all rights this should be impossible to fail, but this is Nick Macari land and nothing matters. : Remain loyal to the quest and refuse the book.Of course, this also means that we kinda just stripped her of her free will to make a dumb point to a bunch of energy beings so weak they get turned into batteries on a regular basis. : Whisper's face grows taut with devious thoughts and schemes. She reaches out to grab the tomb[sic], but pauses. Her face softens as she becomes lost in deep thought.: Turning to black vapor, the mystic suddenly slides back across the room. Her demeanor becoming stern and emboldened.: The Queen of Shadows cannot be bribed by any treasure great or small.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Back to Kaela.  It's kind of hilarious how they have all the other PCs as "unknown" during this segment.  Also, despite being the only party member, she nerfs her own movement speed because we didn't let her kill Mech. I hate this game.  Probably should have saved this for another character but we can't do that this run for reasons you'll see shortly.  Another dull portal.  We played along with this pointless game and now it's time for our just desserts.  : Maeve Marlow, your trinity is not balanced!: Aeric, your trinity is in balance. The game pans over to the next three champions.  Funnily enough they don't give him "Son of Rogheim" despite inventing new surnames for Kane and Maeve. : Boron, your trinity is in balance.: Whisper, your trinity is in balance. : Your trinities are not in perfect harmony. You are still young and have much to learn. You are not ready for the knowledge and power we possess... Go now, return to your world in peace... but do not seek us out again. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Guess what? I'm not going to go back and redo any of that poo poo. Sure, I hosed up, but you know what? This entire sequence doesn't matter. The reward for dealing with this trinity bullshit is that you get to run around the Daeva Zone and backtrack and do things like unlock a superboss and look for loot. You might be asking given that this game is maybe sorta kinda about the sins of the fathers being visited upon their children, does showing that you can accept the Daeva (or vice versa) affect the ending at all? Nah. This is the last you see of the Daeva. We got three floors of buildup and all we got out of it was this stupid trial that affects nothing. We've learned almost nothing about our characters, and that was a tall order because these characters stand for nothing and maybe have one trait apiece. The only thing you can say is that jumping through hoops for the Daeva reinforces the feeling of being manipulated by power players, but it doesn't matter because almost every quest we've undertaken in the tower has been a complete loving waste of time. At least the Daeva didn't have a toilet they asked the characters to fix!  It's typical really. We're seven floors in. This is still a disjointed mess of a "story" served to paying customers on a platter. Why would this be any different?  At this point the game would be better as a pure dungeon crawler with a minimalist story, but this is an innovative story-rich RPG apparently.  More aimless wandering.  Is this Sleath poo poo going to amount to anything worthwhile? No.   Read: these dumbfucks had an entire industrial civilization and resorted to fighting the evil robots with swords.  Speaking of evil robots, these loving dicks are the floor boss.  I have a ton of screenshots which are basically "these guys dickstomp me with AoE missiles". We'll get em next update. gently caress this game. Next Time: Into the plot weeds!
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Sep 11, 2023 02:03
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: You shut the gently caress up.
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Wait. Are you serious? The only benefit to passing that bullshit test is the ability to backtrack and fight a superboss? Not even a stat boost or items or gold or anything?! 
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Sep 11, 2023 04:24
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I don't want to turn this thread into politics chat or anything, but the Daeva trials sort of remind me of the poo poo you used to hear in the early 2000s and the era of "enhanced interrogation". You know, questions like "oh, you say you're against torture? Well what would you do if a terrorist was about to do another 9/11 and the only way to get the information to stop him was to torture a captive? What would you do then? Huh? Huh???" The trials are the same thing: placing each of the characters in an absurd hypothetical in an attempt to force them to compromise their beliefs, all in the service of making some dumbass point that isn't even valid because the hypothetical is never going to happen to the person in the first place. Just like no random schlub in the real world is ever going to be in a position to decide whether or not to torture someone, none of the characters are ever going to be in the positions that the Daeva trials place them in, and so using them as a statement on the characters'... well, character, is worthless. And we're expected to believe that the Daeva are enlightened when in reality they're no better than politics trolls.
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Sep 11, 2023 04:51
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Shei-kun posted:Wait. Are you serious? There is a bunch of loot and a few unique items. I do not care because all the loot in this game is boring procgen bullshit, and the uniques are poo poo like swords that drain your HP when you hit people.
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Sep 11, 2023 05:23
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Kaela nerfing her own speed when she's fighting by herself is honestly hilarious.
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Sep 11, 2023 05:30
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I somehow forgot that the game's rewards are also bad, so getting rewarded for doing it right wouldn't even matter.
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Sep 11, 2023 05:31
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This game is amazing in its ability to do nothing right, nothing at all. I'm pretty sure even those sadistic 80's CRPGs that let you discover that you missed something important many hours into it and you had to start the whole process all over again were much better. Also monochrome wireframe dungeons are nothing to write about but this discount asset assortment offends me, that mythical metal is described as being formed to bricks and the art guy just used generic rock #6
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Sep 11, 2023 06:11
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deep
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Sep 11, 2023 10:42
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:I don't want to turn this thread into politics chat or anything, but the Daeva trials sort of remind me of the poo poo you used to hear in the early 2000s and the era of "enhanced interrogation". You know, questions like "oh, you say you're against torture? Well what would you do if a terrorist was about to do another 9/11 and the only way to get the information to stop him was to torture a captive? What would you do then? Huh? Huh???" It's even worse than that because the entire idea is presented as a test of the characters without the player character's influence, but the player still decides both A) what the stated "value" is and B) what the character actually does. There are so many ways this could have worked. It could have been a test to see if the player was paying attention and knew what they'd do without their input. It could have been a test to see if the player understands the values of the party (in as much as any of them really have any). It could even have been a simple relationship check to see who liked you and who didn't. But the entire idea is fundamentally undermined by the fact that it's just asking the player to do the thing they said they'd do 30 seconds ago, but with some illusory reward/temptation in the way, so it doesn't even work as a trolley problem because there's no real stakes.
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Sep 11, 2023 20:31
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It's Like Poetry, It Rhymes Welcome back! Last time we wasted a bunch of updates on the world's most inept energy beings flailing around like idiots as they tried to show something about the characters. Today the game is going to talk about sacrifice. Strap yourselves in folks, this is gonna be bad.  It turns out this fight is real easy if you lure these three morons off the bridge. You know what's not easy? Maintaining my sanity for this. Yeah, that's fuckin Black Geyser DLC. We're so screwed.  This can go on Kaela or something. Incidentally, you know what the Tier 4 material is? Adamantine. So we have gone from Rakhem being tempted by all the adamantine to make... I dunno, bongs to just finding it lying around as random crap all over the tower's lower floors. Bravo!  : Ah had it in me hands. Enough adamantine to alter the destiny of dwarvenkind evermore.Really? : Don't be absurd. It was a lie, deceit... a distorted test of character... nothing more.: Was none of it real?: Ah'd like to huv a last word with one of those floating bits of talking energy. See what kind of character he shows when ma axe splits his field in two.: Don't be so short sighted. The tests may have been illusions, but that did not make them unreal. The truth lies in ourselves. It was... insightful.: Insightful? Extracting personal thoughts and putting us to impossible tests. This is no behavior of an ally. I agree with, Master Smith[sic]. The Daeva are our enemies and we must prepare to meet them again on the field of battle.You literally lost nothing from this complete and utter waste of time.  I had forgotten we had a pointless moral choice.  I'm sorry everyone, but I'm just gonna honor the couple of people who said they always wanted these idiots to decide, because this is a pointless false choice that changes loving nothing but tiny buffs and debuffs. : Let party decide... however long it takes. : Realizing the Daeva have transcended personal egos and social status, another Daeva conflict seems unlikely despite your champions' procrastination. You allow them to come to their own conclusions about the strange beings of energy... An argument that is short-lived, as your champions agree by majority; the tests were a positive experience. Aren't you a mystic? : Well said, your Excellency. We must accept things for as they truly are, not as we wish them to be.I wish this was a good and interesting game, but I have come to accept it's poo poo.  What are you talking about? You never went through any of the Daeva trials. You awkwardly went through the random asset hallway shooting robots and whining. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 I do not think I will.  Maybe the level loading screen will have something interesting to sa -  Oh. I guess we're not doing that narrator loading poo poo. Fine, I guess?  : I wonder how much further it is to the bottom...: What under the split-moon are you doing down there? The Ancients don't deserve respect anyway.  "Kalea". Nitpicking aside, it is entirely the fault of the Ancients that Artara got into this mess. They let their hatred and incompetence consume them - remember, the elves broke the no magic rule because they were using loving swords - and hellblasted the planet with magic. Even before that they literally abandoned all their technology for magic bullshit. I am shocked not one of these characters has gotten mad at Kaela for being the last of the people who hosed everything up.  Of course it is. Kaela's not just some rando, she's fairly high up in the hierarchy as a master engineer and someone connected to Proteus.  Hoo boy. This line. This loving line. I cannot tell if this is what the game actually believes, and we're going to get back to it in our discussion of sacrifice. : Tell us, Patron... Do you recall these grand halls?: Unfortunately, not... It's so clean here though, almost like a museum. It must have been a very important place.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This could apply to the player easily.  Oh no!  Never mind. : Surprisingly resilient creatures, aren't you.: This conflict is waiting for the bloom in winter's mid-moon. Can we not speak of peace and understanding, and avoid further bloodshed. [yes, there's a period.] Tower Avatar's sprite is bigger than Boron's. : You misjudge and underestimate us time and time again... your pride will be your downfall.  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Naturally none of the party members bother to question who "him" is or why that would be a bad thing. Remember, the game literally opens with Kane and Maeve questioning basic RPG poo poo like skeletons. It's not like curiosity has been stripped out of the party as far as I can tell. It's just bad writing. Of course, they've asked Tower Avatar about the bottom of the tower before and she's told them to gently caress off, so who even knows at this point. We snip the battle because it's boring as poo poo and exists to pad this clusterfuck of a "story" out longer.  The only interesting thing is this loading screen. Remember it for later.  There's a dull fetch quest to flip 3 levers to activate this teleporter. I'm cutting out the mewling of the local remedial reasoning class.   This is the chamber where the magi council met. I do not care.  ...they literally had nuclear weapons and modern transistor chips. How were these robots ineffective against an enemy an entire city full of elves thought could be defeated by swords?  Uuuuuugh.  Why would the orcs deliberately design crude looking weapons? : Rakhem heaves his axe onto his shoulder entering a combat ready stance.: Orcs! Ah'd recognize them in any costume.: Prepare to charge. Our movement will gain us the initiative.: Wait, King's Champion... They may be orcs, but they are clearly not the same creatures as before. Should we not try and talk to them. Perhaps we can avoid bloodshed.: I don't know, they don't look very friendly.: It would be nice to have an ally in here for once.: Unlikely... (rolls her eyes then looks to Maeve suspiciously) but, perhaps worth the gamble. Surprisingly, the orcs have a good reason for this TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Despite the narration telling us the orcs attack, they will obligingly wait for us to walk over there to start fighting.  Fetchy fetchy!  What could this be referring to? Read on and find out! Back to the orcs.    I guess they use megaphones to power up magic. Wait a minute, how can the orcs use magic if they're from another dimension? I thought all the magic was put into this dimension by alie - gently caress it.  Like all Tower of Time fights it's a boring slog.  : What's wrong K?: The battle went in our favor, what could be wrong? The game engine can't actually show this, and no one is familiar enough with orc culture to actually understand what they're saying. I guess I'd forgotten that Kane renouncing his virtues comes up again, but honestly Kane being super easy to talk into diplomacy doesn't strike me as a guy who's OK abandoning honor to sneak attack people.  Maeve is greedy, but I can't say that I agree with what I wrote about her being evil earlier. Yeah, she kills the ghost guy and wants to loot a war memorial, sure. : This isn't about me, K... this is about you. You're letting this Tower Avatar, this tower change you... : I have fought alongside many soldiers, K. They are all the same... filled with bravado and bloodlust. All but you, Kane Gundric. You've always been different. Your unwavering ideas have been... an example. Even for those who were on a different path. Your light was a beacon.: But now, seeing you like this... Maybe... I was wrong all along.: Maeve pulls away and turns to walk off.: This light you speak of, High-Courier. It is but the mirror I hold before me. It always has been... since the day we met. And if you were to leave now, my world truly would become a place of darkness. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
The game realizes we have 3 more actual floors and that it's time for PLOT!   We've seen this before when Kaela was released. This is going to confuse me in a few seconds.  So Tower Avatar released Kaela. Why? Why release Kaela only to try to kill her? Is it spite against Proteus? If the goal is to kill her to hurt Proteus, why not just kill her in the stasis crypt? Why do I bother asking this? : I have no control over them... only influence. Perhaps no more than a convincing argument, as if they were but beside me in this very throne room.This is rationalization of the highest order. It's also just a weird position for a player avatar like "You" to take and it shows why this second person poo poo doesn't work. Someone like Byleth can get away with this because they're still a separate entity from the player, this is just nonsense. : Then you are even more foolish than I thought, for the less control you exert, the more he will have.What is this poo poo? : Who? Whom are you talking about?: As if you could come all this way without knowing...: Blast it, tell me who it is! Woweee! The thing is, it's basically spoiled by that intro about needing to be judged. We'll get to that, I promise. : Proteus?: Not that-- : I have warned you of the Tower Avatar. Do not entertain her tricks... it only gives them more power.I dunno, it sounded like she was about to spill the beans on you before you cut in. : Where is she?: Gone... for now. I have seen to it. See this part is nonsense, but not for the reasons that You say it is. Proteus is indeed untrustworthy as he conditions this child to come back to the tower, hides himself behind a mask of shadow, and uses magical coercion on the player characters while encouraging You to do so as well. The sense you should be getting is that Proteus is obviously untrustworthy from how he presents himself, and a better narrative would acknowledge that this is due to the characters' desperation rather than them buying whatever Proteus is selling. Instead we get Kane's blind faith in You, You being somewhat skeptical but compelled to see this through, and the rest of the party being called by Proteus via dreams or false prophecies or implanted memories or whatever the gently caress. This isn't some upfront guy who's been straight with you the whole time, this guy has "deceiver" written all over him.  This doesn't help! This is the go-to tactic of lovely manipulators everywhere. : But why would she be so intent on stopping me? Oh, I hate this. On a meta level Proteus is saying that he can't tell us because it would ruin the game. Proteus hasn't kept his word - the deal was that Artara would be saved if we made it to the bottom, and neither of those things have happened. Tower Avatar has hindered us because she thinks real bad poo poo is going to happen if we do what this guy wants. Nothing Proteus has told us has made it in any way clear that's not going to happen, and he was the one who messed with the evil aliens in the first place! : Tell me this. Are you truly Proteus... the First Magus? TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
The game is pretty heavily signposting you shouldn't trust Proteus, but wait, there's more! Keep reading to find out!  So, yeah. The thousand slaughtered Magi who did the Sacrifice. Keep reading.  There is gonna be a lot of lore dumped on me, so I will dump it on you.     POWAH  BOREDOM    I'm omitting most of the dialog here, but the game wants you to remember to set the times relevant to whatever. I don't care to do it right now.  Aeric makes a joke, Kaela asks about the puzzle, Rakhem is astounded, and I am sick of this dialogue.  Not sure if this is an example or if we do have to set the order of the events. I do not care either way, we'll deal with this next update.  The Great Sacrifice is relevant to today's update. Stay tuned!  There's loot in the council library, but I spend a bunch of time dodging the boring, grindy combats.  Wouldn't Kaela know?   This is the third or fourth time we've found the manabirds scroll.   Has Rakhem ever showboated like this before? No. Has be been portrayed as the kind of loving idiot to do something like this with lethal weaponry? No. At least Whisper loving with him is kind of consistent.   TheGreatEvilKing summary posted: After so many levels that kid represents me. Let's snip out the actual combat because it's boring rear end poo poo.  We've seen this map so many floors ago. It's just dull.    NO! NO MORE WATER FIXING! NONE OF YOU ARE PLUMBERS! STOP IT! : Unsightly patches of amber colored moss and dark brown vines enshroud the entire fountain as if announcing claim to it for the last hundred years. A slight trickle of discolored, foamy water pours from the fountain's highest spout, spilling down along stone shaped mermaids into the basin below. : Numerous books lie strewn about the fountain basin, long rotted and decayed. Disturbing the floating remnants of knowledge sends bright orange and white frogs scurrying for new cover.: Careful, those Water Walkers are highly toxic. : You know, K... I don't like the idea that she's out to stop us any more than you... but I've been thinking, maybe you're judging her too harshly. If she was created by the magi, maybe she simply doesn't have a choice. : Just don't take it so personally, is all I'm trying to say.: Seeing the compassion and concern in Maeve's eyes, the shieldguard's anger towards the Avatar wanes. He signs[sic] deeply and nods to the marksman.: All right, so what are we waiting for, let's get goin'.: At first light of dawn, the shadows play tricks on the eyes.: Do you see something, Man of the North?I've mentioned it before but I hate these titles. Which, yes, Kaela's question of "do you see something we don't" is a valid one, but this is Nick Macari land so it's all a steaming pile.  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 This boss fight is kind of new so unfortunately I need to talk about it.  There are three mana golems lasering the fountain. If the fountain hits 0 we lose the game. I don't know man.  The golems summon adds and can turn invulnerable on some trigger I wasn't able to figure out.  It takes me a few tries and I have a sneaking suspicion next update opens with me crafting crap.  I don't know, thread. I really don't.  There are a bunch of fountains here.  I don't think I will.  NOW we can get into the sacrifice crap.  Do you remember way back when I kind of said this game could come across as pro-fascism? This is why. The game fetishizes Proteus a lot and his defining trait is asking others to sacrifice their lives on his behalf.  : No, no of course not. But maybe the fountains could be symbolic of the Magi's sacrifice.: A test of dedication and perseverance. Only the anointed ones will pass.: Or it could just be a cleverly disguised trap. The Avatar's attempts to get rid of directly[sic] have failed, perhaps she offers us a way to stop ourselves... permanently.: We can draw straws...: Aye, ah'm for one not keen on intentionally poisoning ma self.: Of course you're not... cowards rarely are.Just gently caress already you two.   I don't care. I know I'm supposed to be having a vote, but this is meaningless, especially as the fountains ask for confirmation. : Let the party decide. : Once again you find yourself at the center of your champions as they argue on their course of action. However, this time at least, the matter at hand is far from trivial. What if the sacrifice of the fountain demands a life.[sic] No, you have no right to ask that of your volunteers.: Besides, even if the price to pay is far less, choosing who suffers will surely create animosity towards you. For these reasons, you release your focus and allow your party to come to its own decision.: Your champions gather before the fountain. They examine their surroundings in silence, until Kane finally speaks up. No, actually, you won't. Here's what happens when you click on one.   This is more than an entire level's worth of stats. No. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 While the party explores this terminally dull secret area I'm going to come back to this theme of sacrifice. We've seen it before, where Proteus asked the elementals to sacrifice so he could put an evil robot in space jail, we've heard mention of the Great Sacrifice (the current calendar is "A.S.", for "After Sacrifice") and now we see the truth - Proteus killed 1000 magi as a garish human sacrifice to himself.  The irony of course, is that in doing so Proteus has become what he claims to despise. Earlier in the game posted:The Organthe are a bunch of evil energy aliens that gained godlike powers that came with the desire to consume everyone. Their visual colors are black and purple (see above). Proteus spends most of the game shrouded in an identical black with purple glowing eyes, and even when he reveals himself his eyes glow with the same purple color.  You might be tempted to point out that the game characterizes Proteus' sacrifices vs the Organthe ruthlessly eating the whoever crosses their path, but the Organthe had sacrifices too. Earlier in the game posted: The end result is that Proteus begins to look awfully like the Organthe. He's using their donated powers - created by the sacrifice of Organthe lives, no less - to ask others to sacrifice their lives so he can gain even more power.  : Are you all right?The consequence is that when the narration expects us to treat Proteus as the hero who made the Hard Choices to fight the aliens it comes across as blatant lying and nonsense. It's not clear how much we should trust the vision cutscenes - the Days of Old and the opening "I need you to judge me nonsense - but we can confirm some of this independently, such as the return expedition writing about the Organthe. : I'm fine... I think.: What happened-did you recognize the statue? Has your memory returned? Compounding this is the fact that Proteus has absolutely no faith in anyone to seek him out without copious amounts of mind control. Youspock is under mind control as a child, Proteus drags all the party members in with false visions and mind fuckery. When confronted he immediately gets defensive and tries to make You use the same methods as he does.   : Let her keep her secrets if she chooses... She has done nothing but aid us so far and if her memory is returning all the better.: We will see.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 I legitimately can't tell if the game's writers are going all in on the idea that Proteus hosed up everything because he became what he despised most, or whether or not they truly believe Proteus is a put upon hero who was forced by the overwhelming power of the Organthe to make hard choices.  gently caress off Sleath. The latter interpretation ignores that as First Magus, Proteus was responsible for curtailing the use of magic and failed utterly during the construct war.    Thus we end up with Artara's best and brightest being thrown under the bus, except Proteus of course.  Then this big gently caress off techno-orc kicks my rear end and I decide to end the update. Next Time: Clocks and more cult of death nonsense.
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Sep 18, 2023 00:50
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: WAAAAAGH!
: Of course. This game has what, three characters who aren't in your party? Those water statues don't count.
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quote:Yeah, that's fuckin Black Geyser DLC. We're so screwed.
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Sep 18, 2023 04:59
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Why are you doing this to yourself? To someone else, I could understand, but to yourself?
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Sep 18, 2023 07:51
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Why do they keep writing things they're blatantly unable to reflect in the maps? Oh no, a couple dozen books! I've given up on so much of the bullshit in this game but this image still stuck out even by bullshit standards.
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Sep 18, 2023 13:11
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Oh, more Black Geyser! That one had as many as two characters that were fun at least some of the time, and I genuinely mean that as a positive, here I have nobody I find funny or interesting, I even have trouble finding even a single dimension to the characters we have.
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Sep 18, 2023 22:03
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It's a real monkey's paw situation, where you wish for anything other than Tower of Time, and you get Black Geyser DLC. Next will either be a Numenara sequel, or the ATOM devs get up to something.
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Sep 19, 2023 00:00
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I'd wish you something good instead but we've clearly seen that Encased was too good and didn't stick.
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Sep 19, 2023 00:01
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In a better written game with more character development, I could actually see this going in interesting directions. Your characters aren't really sure who to trust and are realizing that they're surrounded by more powerful beings using them as pawns (Youspock, Proteus, Avatar)...but the world outside is so turbo-hosed* that they can't really do anything but press on, hoping like hell there's answers at the bottom of the tower and at least one of these people is on the level. *Did you forget the part of the intro where it told us that the world cannot grow food and has monthly floods that wash away all the soil? The game sure did! TheDavies posted:Why are you doing this to yourself? To someone else, I could understand, but to yourself?
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Sep 19, 2023 03:12
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