|
Someone please me what happens if I decide to shoot the drat kid. And not miss, mind you... I chickened out because Kim asked me to keep my cool, but then she called me a pussy
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 20:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 19:54 |
|
|
Paranoid Peanut posted:Someone please me what happens if I decide to shoot the drat kid. And not miss, mind you... I chickened out because Kim asked me to keep my cool, but then she called me a pussy game over
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 20:22
|
|
|
While the "Dolores Dei is actually an avatar of an RTS player" is a clever idea and I like it, I'm not really into the whole "game meta-comments on itself being a game" thing, to be completely honest I mean, DE obviously has a lot to say about great many things - including the theory of history as a sequence of Great Men dragging the rest of us unwashed peasants along for the ride; Innocences being something like the logical conclusion of this line of thought. There's also the themes of destiny and fate and predeterminism that kind of intertwine and permeate throughout the narrative. However, I don't think that looking for strands of this sort-of post-modernist, self-aware, ironic self-reading does these themes (and Disco Elysium in general) justice - while it does throw some meta-commentary in (the Doomed Commercial Area and dialogue lists and all that), the vast majority of the narrative is well-grounded and emotionally-sincere and works on its own terms, so to speak. I don't feel it needs the extra scaffolding of the game being aware that it's a game and the characters being somewhat aware of it too. I'd even go as far as to say this reading is a tad reductive. Personal opinion and all that, of course. Kojima did not write this game for god's sake 
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 20:28
|
|
|
Yeah, Dolores Dei is written in a very fruitfully ambiguous way. I was genuinely impressed at how they got this across effectively with a relatively spare amount of information (one church, some swears, the dreams)
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 21:38
|
|
|
Animal-Mother posted:Joyce says they're realizing the world is disc shaped, like a CD or a hard drive. One line that got me emotionally was when Dora says "My love for him is a copy of my love for you." Because it's true. It's just copied code. I read what Joyce says as - the planet used to be a sphere, and the parts of it that still exist are more or less where they were when the whole sphere still existed, but pale having eaten over two-thirds of it already makes it hard to see the original shape this conclusion is based on assuming that the intro is correct and the world must be a giant ball, because otherwise, where else would the apes duke it out?
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 21:53
|
|
|
Animal-Mother posted:Joyce says they're realizing the world is disc shaped, like a CD or a hard drive. Also it’s called DISCo Elysium 
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 22:11
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:Question to people who have finished the game multiple times: are there two different outcomes to meeting the phasmid in the ending and using Inland Empire? My interaction using was beautifully haunting, here I was conversing(?) with a strange alien creature, innocent of all the madness of civilized Innosentric society, interrogating our meanings of our shared evolutions. If its pheromones set the Deserter over the edge, it was an accident of biology. And it is a tragedy that we shall all share the same fate under the weight of the Pale. The phasmid is absolutely on your side and on the side of the entirety of humanity and hopes they solve the problem it's referring to. It didn't do anything to the deserter on purpose, it just exudes pheromones or whatever as a natural thing. The only other option I'm aware of for meeting the phasmid is loving up the fight and letting Kim get shot so Cuno joins you on the island. In which case you don't get to take a photograph to prove it. Big Taint posted:Ya that was the vibe that I got from the game, the Pale is just all the other junk on my hard drive that isn’t DE, and it is constantly expanding and encroaching and eventually I will run out of space and delete DE to install some inferior game. And the Paledriver is sneaking out and watching movies on my Plex server. This is a fun take and I like it. But the guy who wrote DE built this world during some tabletop gaming sessions so even if it's a good take it's not what they were going for. Paranoid Peanut posted:Someone please me what happens if I decide to shoot the drat kid. And not miss, mind you... I chickened out because Kim asked me to keep my cool, but then she called me a pussy Game over, newspaper headline saying insane cop murders child. cumshitter fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jun 27, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 22:46
|
|
|
DE being a product of PnP gaming makes me believe even more that a wacky ironic reading is possible for it. This game doesn't shy away from any level of profundity or profanity, and the vibes all unite for me.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 23:32
|
|
|
Yeah as far as I'm aware, the phasmid conversation only really changes with the final line, it will tell you to 'forget her' based on your political alignment. Of course as others have said you can bring Cuno instead of Kim but it doesn't substantially change besides not being able to take a photo, and I can't imagine the conversation radically changes if you don't take the pheromones, but I suppose that's something to try.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 23:33
|
|
|
the ending without receiving the pheromones is extremely cool and good and everyone should play it to know what true emptiness feels like
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 23:37
|
|
|
UnknownMercenary posted:Yeah as far as I'm aware, the phasmid conversation only really changes with the final line, it will tell you to 'forget her' based on your political alignment. Of course as others have said you can bring Cuno instead of Kim but it doesn't substantially change besides not being able to take a photo, and I can't imagine the conversation radically changes if you don't take the pheromones, but I suppose that's something to try. the conversation is in fact radically altered, by not happening
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 02:07
|
|
|
dmboogie posted:the conversation is in fact radically altered, by not happening the phasmid still shows up if cuno's around, and cuno appropriately loses his poo poo over it. he still vouches for you with your squad about its appearance, but he understandably can't dispel their skepticism the way kim does
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 02:54
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:the phasmid still shows up if cuno's around, and cuno appropriately loses his poo poo over it. he still vouches for you with your squad about its appearance, but he understandably can't dispel their skepticism the way kim does theyre talking about the pheromones
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 03:18
|
|
|
nurmie posted:While the "Dolores Dei is actually an avatar of an RTS player" is a clever idea and I like it, I'm not really into the whole "game meta-comments on itself being a game" thing, to be completely honest As with a lot of this type of fiction, you can’t ‘solve’ it like an equation like ‘this means this, and that means that, so therefore…’. They may have had a meaning in mind for many of the elements (or more likely a few meanings that it evokes) but I also expect ZAUM would accept any other interesting reading that they hadn’t thought of. Straight-up allegory tends to lead to a very one-dimensional work and this game wouldn’t have proved so interesting and rich a setting if you could just say ‘here’s what it means’ and be done with it Not that I’m singling out anyone here, our culture has a real problem with deliberate ambiguity, hence the proliferation of ‘_____ Explained’ YouTube videos for anything even remotely obtuse. Sharing ideas is fun and interesting but give up on a concrete meaning
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 08:18
|
|
|
holy poo poo, the encounter with the phasmid doesn't happen if you don't get sprayed with pheromones?? I had posted that and also told people irl to make sure they chose to get sprayed with pheromones during that quest then felt like an idiot because I thought that I'd read that it happens no matter what. It's kind of wild because I don't think I've ever seen a post or heard from anyone who didn't experience that at the end of the game.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 09:33
|
|
|
Imhotep posted:holy poo poo, the encounter with the phasmid doesn't happen if you don't get sprayed with pheromones?? I had posted that and also told people irl to make sure they chose to get sprayed with pheromones during that quest then felt like an idiot because I thought that I'd read that it happens no matter what. It's kind of wild because I don't think I've ever seen a post or heard from anyone who didn't experience that at the end of the game. the phasmid still shows up, but you can't succeed the interaction check with it, which is why someone up thread said you experience true emptiness. i also remember reading that you can't use your tub after getting the pheremones becauase it washes them off, but i don't know how true that is Roobanguy fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Jun 28, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 09:37
|
|
|
Roobanguy posted:the phasmid still shows up, but you can't succeed the interaction check with it. i also remember reading that you can't use your tub after getting the pheremones becauase it washes them off, but i don't know how true that is
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 09:39
|
|
|
Imhotep posted:holy poo poo, the encounter with the phasmid doesn't happen if you don't get sprayed with pheromones?? I had posted that and also told people irl to make sure they chose to get sprayed with pheromones during that quest then felt like an idiot because I thought that I'd read that it happens no matter what. It's kind of wild because I don't think I've ever seen a post or heard from anyone who didn't experience that at the end of the game. you still see the phasmid but it runs away immediately, no heartfelt telepathic communication that happened to me my first playthrough, and while the finale was so jam-packed with stuff I didn’t realize I’d missed out at the time, a replay was honestly worth it just to finally see that conversation
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 09:39
|
|
|
I am pretty new to the game and it is fantastic. I’m not sure I understand the concept of internalization though. If I spend time thinking about a concept that I really don’t agree with and then internalizes it, does that mean my character will accept that way of thinking as ”ok” and might, say, turn into a racist rear end in a top hat? So should you be careful of what you internalize?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 10:07
|
|
|
Yeah kind of. I don't think there are any thoughts that force you to act in certain ways, they just change your stats or open up new options. If worst comes to worst, you can always spend a skill point to replace a thought with a new one.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 10:11
|
|
|
gallilee posted:I am pretty new to the game and it is fantastic. I’m not sure I understand the concept of internalization though. If I spend time thinking about a concept that I really don’t agree with and then internalizes it, does that mean my character will accept that way of thinking as ”ok” and might, say, turn into a racist rear end in a top hat? That's the lesson of one of the first thoughts you're asked to internalise being an abhorrent one. You can forget thoughts by spending a skill point if you want. Internalising a thought is a gamble because the effects of the thought may not be desirable, however this is a game where failing is part of it so just let your guy take the thoughts you think he would and if they have consequences then cest la vie.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 10:16
|
|
|
gallilee posted:I am pretty new to the game and it is fantastic. I’m not sure I understand the concept of internalization though. If I spend time thinking about a concept that I really don’t agree with and then internalizes it, does that mean my character will accept that way of thinking as ”ok” and might, say, turn into a racist rear end in a top hat?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 10:33
|
|
|
Part of internalising a thought means thinking about a concept really hard for a while, but the description you get at the end isn't always one that subscribes to the truth of the concept. For example, the solution text for Advanced Race Theory just suggests that you've solved the "great Race Mystery" but then let's you choose what HDB thinks the answer is in the following conversation with Measurehead. Of course, even if you still disagree with him its still embarrassing to have internalised the thought, because you just spent a lot of time seriously thinking about a patently racist and stupid idea.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 11:37
|
|
|
Thanks for the replies, this just makes the game that much more awesome. I have also been playing this as a classic RPG in where I exhaust all the dialogue options before moving on, something tells me that’s not the way this game works and can really alter others perception of your character if you do. Should I just pick what I want and then ”proceed” when I’m happy with the answers? (Sorry, such stupid newbie questions)
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 11:43
|
|
|
Obessively exhausting all dialogue options will absolutely lead you to say dumb and assholeish things you probably didn't intend so its not always the best idea.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 11:54
|
|
|
It can pick you up for it fairly fast too: Me, dumbly: 'and the workers will all look like me' (fine upstanding socialist man of the people,) Evrart: 'fine Harry, and all the workers will be white' Me: Oh, no wait that's n- Game: Hey, you've been saying some fairly fascist things lately, shall we seal the deal?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 12:15
|
|
|
nurmie posted:While the "Dolores Dei is actually an avatar of an RTS player" is a clever idea and I like it, I'm not really into the whole "game meta-comments on itself being a game" thing, to be completely honest It's more that Great Man Theory of history is pretty much exactly what games like Civilization run on, so where one ends and the other begins is a fuzzy thing. (and I may greatly undermine my argument by mentioning the Speedball Let's Play of Civilization V: Peace Walker was what gave me the idea there. Great Man History is also an element in that franchise, and an examined one) The tabletop roleplay elements also dovetail with a fair amount of themes in the game, and especially its similarities to Planescape: Torment- a game that also features an amnesiac protagonist who spends the game figuring out his past to varying degrees and grappling with the people representing who he once was at various points in his history. (Goes well with my theory that the different political alignments you can choose are because the protagonist has been all of those at one point in his past) FrickenMoron posted:Obessively exhausting all dialogue options will absolutely lead you to say dumb and assholeish things you probably didn't intend so its not always the best idea. Yeah, it's said a lot, but DE requires a shift in perspective, because it's pretty much built to gently caress with typical adventure game/RPG conventions that players expect. Many of your options have consequences, and you can choose to say or not to say them- and those choices matter. A lot of the fun in the game is letting the dice fall as they may, and playing out the consequences of your choices. Vagabong posted:Part of internalising a thought means thinking about a concept really hard for a while, but the description you get at the end isn't always one that subscribes to the truth of the concept. For example, the solution text for Advanced Race Theory just suggests that you've solved the "great Race Mystery" but then let's you choose what HDB thinks the answer is in the following conversation with Measurehead. And a few characters do comment on becoming his 'race pupil', though not anything major as far as I've seen. (otherwise, it's not a bad thought to internalise given the skill bonus it gives you, compared to the upsides and downsides of other Thoughts, and it's one of the two ways to unlock another very significant one) Thoughts don't often outright restrict your options; you can take every single political Thought at once, for example. (and there's ending dialogue specific to if you somehow have near-equal amounts of communist, fascist, centrist and capitalist beliefs) There's actually a few Thoughts that are basically troll/comedy options. There's a reason you're able to remove them and internalise a new one.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 12:20
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:Yeah, it's said a lot, but DE requires a shift in perspective, because it's pretty much built to gently caress with typical adventure game/RPG conventions that players expect. Many of your options have consequences, and you can choose to say or not to say them- and those choices matter. A lot of the fun in the game is letting the dice fall as they may, and playing out the consequences of your choices. Sometimes, sometimes you can safely exhaust all possible dialogue options without repercussions, other times some of those dialogue options will set you down a path you would not prefer, and give you a malus on your red/white checks. But usually these options are prompted by a passive check giving you advice "look you do not need to say every possible option". The game doesn't quite live up to all expectations, you can't progress though the Tribunal without bloodshed, and the best option is to literally Shoot First and cap that scab leader before he can cap the hardies. It's a bit of a shame in that regards.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 14:11
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:The game doesn't quite live up to all expectations, you can't progress though the Tribunal without bloodshed, and the best option is to literally Shoot First and cap that scab leader before he can cap the hardies. It's a bit of a shame in that regards. imo, the lack of options to completely avoid bloodshed and violence is by design; the game is making a point. The thing is, sometimes there are situations where violence can't be avoided. There are people who will absolutely refuse to be reasoned with, especially if they feel they can get away with it. The mercs are horrible, horrible people. Further enabled and encouraged by their employers - the forces of capital, who are happy to use them to further their own ends. I feel that the game did an exceptionally-good job at conveying this and actually humanising the mercs while not shying away from just how abhorrent they are as human beings. People like that won't listen to you, no matter how well-spoken or good or empathetic you are, unfortunately. nurmie fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Jun 28, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 14:52
|
|
|
The game even calls you out for picking all the dialogue options sometimes. For example with Sileng when you’re talking about drugs you have the option to say that they’re either cool or not cool and if you pick both he’ll remark that you literally just said the other thing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 16:26
|
|
|
Phobophilia posted:On the note of Dolores Dei, her characterization put me through some low grade terror: here was a divine entity who descended upon civilization, "uplifted" it by maximizing our utility to an optimal amount of wheat and pigs and just enough social welfare, without ever liberating us from our shackles. Stuff we would have come up with ourselves, eventually. This made me think that Dolores might literally be an embodiment of capital, because this description is not a million miles away from how someone well into markets might describe them and how they have acted upon the world. I wondered if there was a parallel between the Deserter talking about capital taking off its human face and the final dream you have about Dolores, who is not even human? IMO that makes her a lot scarier than someone playing a video game
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 16:36
|
|
|
vegetables posted:This made me think that Dolores might literally be an embodiment of capital, because this description is not a million miles away from how someone well into markets might describe them and how they have acted upon the world. I wondered if there was a parallel between the Deserter talking about capital taking off its human face and the final dream you have about Dolores, who is not even human? IMO that makes her a lot scarier than someone playing a video game But I think if she was "just" capitalism, or Capital itself, Kim Kitsuragi would not have reverence towards her. And if I recall, he does.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 16:46
|
|
|
gallilee posted:Thanks for the replies, this just makes the game that much more awesome. There are some subtly different kinds of dialogue that affect the answer to this question. For the most part, if there's a bottom option for "(Proceed.)" or similar, you should exhaust the other options. It's meant to be a looping point in the conversation, which is why there's an explicitly labeled option to advance. There are other times when you're making a single choice (e.g. politically coded responses, copotype responses), and won't get the option to exhaust the others. You can feel out the difference as you play, but I don't agree with the people saying "no don't pick everything!" because there are many conversation points where that's the whole point, just like in a traditional RPG.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 18:16
|
|
|
Nessus posted:On this topic: I would look at it more as the spirit of the age, which is an age of capitalism. Presumably in the in-world accounting, if Revachol's revolution had worked well and been exported, they would mark Kras Mazov or a communard leader as an Innocent. So in this case there might be harmony with the real world version of uhhh that thing Marx said where you go from ancient primitive forms through feudalism into capitalism and then into socialism and, well, we know what comes after that. What I think makes Dolores Dei scary is the implication of being Outside in whatever form and having Intervened, because there is absolutely no information on where she would have come from. So a lot of this is probably from my own genre-media-sodden brain interpreting what is before me. This kind of feeds into my own experience of the game as someone born in the late 80s who grew up in a world where the End of History was kind of assumed, only for it to slowly fall apart from the financial crisis onwards. I think Delores made a lot of sense to me as a kind of interpretation of that world and the game made sense of coming to terms with realising it was an illusion, so it was interesting seeing this thread who is slightly older interpreting it in quite a different way. But I felt this game summed up how I felt as an adult Millennial more than really anything else I’d encountered, despite being about a man who’d be slightly too old to be a Millennial if he lived in a world where that even made sense. Something that added to that sense of general dislocation which I’ve not seen mentioned in the thread: I like how the game sort of half-suggests this is one of these supernatural “it’s the real world only everyone is dead” stories at the start, then no, it’s just a real world like ours. But then in a further twist no, the real world like ours is full of weird and beautiful things, there is something strange about reality after all. It’s just the same sort of strangeness as exists in the real world, but done in a different way.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 18:22
|
|
|
The answer as always is: it depends. Yeah, if there's a proceed option you're free to say everything until you want to go forward but people will notice if you express ideas that contradict each other. This is also often really funny so that's not necessarily a reason to avoid it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 18:22
|
|
|
Roobanguy posted:the phasmid still shows up, but you can't succeed the interaction check with it, which is why someone up thread said you experience true emptiness. i also remember reading that you can't use your tub after getting the pheremones becauase it washes them off, but i don't know how true that is This happened to me on my first playthrough. I had taken a bath earlier at some point, not connecting it in my head to the whole pheromones thing. I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to savescum the roll before realizing it was labeled as an "Inevitable Failure" or whatever. So I totally missed the phasmid conversation on my first completion, until I dug back into the game files to change the pheromones flag. The ending really, really doesn't have the same impact without it—I'd even say that that conversation IS the ending, and the wrap-up after you leave the island is just... kind of a denouement, I guess. christmas boots posted:The answer as always is: it depends. Yeah, if there's a proceed option you're free to say everything until you want to go forward but people will notice if you express ideas that contradict each other. This is also often really funny so that's not necessarily a reason to avoid it. I'd add that the game basically only ever recognizes this in the form of a couple of throwaway lines. You're not hurting your experience or outcome by giving some contradictory responses.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 18:22
|
|
|
That's also true. It's really more of a wink from the writers that they know what you're doing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 18:25
|
|
|
christmas boots posted:That's also true. It's really more of a wink from the writers that they know what you're doing. Same with Kim calling you out for sprinting madly around crimescenes. quote:
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 18:51
|
|
|
the whole pick-every-dialogue-option question can also pay off massively in the endgame dream-Dora can yell at you for treating human interaction as a bloodless process of going down lists of dialogue. also you can indignantly respond that they're not dialogue lists, they're dialogue trees
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2021 19:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 19:54 |
|
|
vegetables posted:This kind of feeds into my own experience of the game as someone born in the late 80s who grew up in a world where the End of History was kind of assumed, only for it to slowly fall apart from the financial crisis onwards. I think Delores made a lot of sense to me as a kind of interpretation of that world and the game made sense of coming to terms with realising it was an illusion, so it was interesting seeing this thread who is slightly older interpreting it in quite a different way. But I felt this game summed up how I felt as an adult Millennial more than really anything else I’d encountered, despite being about a man who’d be slightly too old to be a Millennial if he lived in a world where that even made sense. This is a great post that encapsulates why I loved the game so much and why it resonated so much with me. It's genuinely a masterpiece of storytelling IMO and your second paragraph really nails the reason why. +1 to everything you wrote above. Also, strongly suggest you don't read the post if you haven't already played (and beaten) the game, because experiencing this phenomenon through playing the game itself is a much more powerful experience than reading about it..
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2021 21:01
|
|
