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dmboogie
Oct 4, 2013

Wingnut Ninja posted:

Right now I'm working on figuring out how to unlock the sarcophagus with the three seals. Do you ever actually find the three codes associated with those seals, or are they burned away everywhere? I thought they would be listed in the "secret" archives you find but nope.

if you actually want to know the answer to this:

The three codes do not exist anywhere in the game.

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Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

dmboogie posted:

if you actually want to know the answer to this:

The three codes do not exist anywhere in the game.

Technically the code for the left bridge exists, as you have to put one in to solve that puzzle.

dmboogie
Oct 4, 2013

Cojawfee posted:

Technically the code for the left bridge exists, as you have to put one in to solve that puzzle.

i guess! :v:

Wingnut Ninja
Jan 11, 2003

Mostly Harmless

dmboogie posted:

if you actually want to know the answer to this:

The three codes do not exist anywhere in the game.
Yeah, that was kind of what I figured.

Cojawfee posted:

Technically the code for the left bridge exists, as you have to put one in to solve that puzzle.
Interesting, that's the one that I haven't figured out yet.

mastajake
Oct 3, 2005

My blade is unBENDING!

Wingnut Ninja posted:

Yeah, that was kind of what I figured.

Interesting, that's the one that I haven't figured out yet.

In a certain way of thinking, the stealth sections each present you with a different key. Each is useful for that puzzle.

Polderjoch
Jun 27, 2019

May the sacred flame guide me... Or something like that.

Cojawfee posted:

Technically the code for the left bridge exists, as you have to put one in to solve that puzzle.

Technically that's the only one for which a real code doesn't exist; there's datamined codes for the three locks, and the codes actually do work on the other two locks, but the datamined code for the third one does nothing :^)

minato
Jun 7, 2004

cutty cain't hang, say 7-up.
Taco Defender
Has anyone come across a decent summation of the DLC story? Having it told out-of-order and in drips-and-drabs, I feel I'm missing out on some important details. From what I can tell:


An ElkOwl observed the Eye from their own solar system, and convinced the rest of their species to journey to it. It was a 1-way trip; the effort basically took all their planet's resources, destroying it in the process.
They get to this solar system, and start worshipping the Eye. They set up temples, at least.
One of them has a vision that the eye is Bad, Actually, and convinces the rest to torch the temples and build a device to block the Eye.
The rest of the ElkOwls are sad; they miss their nice home planet, but they destroyed it getting here, so they invent The Matrix. They can upload their brains to it so they can survive beyond their body's death.
A different ElkOwl one day decides to just... turn the blocker device off for some reason. He is captured and put into prison.


I think that's basically accurate, but there are some things I didn't quite get (and forgive me in advance because I'm a huge dumbass and probably missed any answers):

- why did that one ElkOwl have the "Eye is bad" vision? Was it caused by anything specific?
- was the imprisoned ElkOwl the same one that convinced the others to come here in the first place? (I guess I could answer this myself by re-watching the slides, I think the imprisoned ElkOwl was easily identifiable because they had a broken antler?)
- why did the prisoner turn off the Eye blocker?
- why did the other ElkOwls go to the effort of destroying the projector reels?
- what happened to the Eye blocker? The game implies that it was a device external to the Stranger... so maybe it's still out there?
- what's the deal with the green solar sails? It's implied that they know how to escape the supernova; are the green sails deploying (around 6 minutes into the cycle) preparation for that? But if they can escape the supernova, why didn't they? Because they're all physically dead?
- Did them messing with the Eye have anything to do with the Nomai's detection of the Eye?


As further evidence that I'm a huge dumbass, I made the following gently caress-ups:

- Escaping ElkOwls by focusing on them and backing away. This of course failed because they move at the same speed as you when you're focusing, and I'd invariably back myself into a corner or off a cliff.
- Getting killed by the Ghost Matter in the canyon on the way to the Abandoned Temple, and incorrectly assuming that this meant the canyon was impassable.
- Convincing myself that the photo anomaly was in the 248 or 350 degree photos, and spending way too much time calculating the # of degrees changed per second so I figure out how long to wait for 248/350 degrees to roll around.
- Spending aaaages trying to use my scout's lamp to light the first projector I found. Amazingly it actually worked... kinda. It lit the lower half of the image faintly, so I figured it was just a matter of the right positioning.

Arrhythmia
Jul 22, 2011

minato posted:



An ElkOwl observed the Eye from their own solar system, and convinced the rest of their species to journey to it. It was a 1-way trip; the effort basically took all their planet's resources, destroying it in the process.
They get to this solar system, and start worshipping the Eye. They set up temples, at least.
One of them has a vision that the eye is Bad, Actually, and convinces the rest to torch the temples and build a device to block the Eye.
The rest of the ElkOwls are sad; they miss their nice home planet, but they destroyed it getting here, so they invent The Matrix. They can upload their brains to it so they can survive beyond their body's death.
A different ElkOwl one day decides to just... turn the blocker device off for some reason. He is captured and put into prison.


Your summary is pretty accurate.

quote:


- why did that one ElkOwl have the "Eye is bad" vision? Was it caused by anything specific?


Who knows. Little to no textual evidence.

quote:



- was the imprisoned ElkOwl the same one that convinced the others to come here in the first place? (I guess I could answer this myself by re-watching the slides, I think the imprisoned ElkOwl was easily identifiable because they had a broken antler?)


No, for the reasons you say.

quote:


- why did the prisoner turn off the Eye blocker?


There's only a little about this in the full game ending: being afraid of poo poo "wasn't how the elk used to be"


quote:


- why did the other ElkOwls go to the effort of destroying the projector reels?


Probably because they didn't want to be remembered as enomormous fuckups that destroyed their world to go see the death star.

quote:



- what happened to the Eye blocker? The game implies that it was a device external to the Stranger... so maybe it's still out there?


It is. They turned it back on after locking up the prisoner of course. You can see it before you warp onto the eye's surface in the OG ending.


quote:


- what's the deal with the green solar sails? It's implied that they know how to escape the supernova; are the green sails deploying (around 6 minutes into the cycle) preparation for that? But if they can escape the supernova, why didn't they? Because they're all physically dead?


They do escape the supernova. If you hang around on the Stranger then you get the "went too far away from the ash twin project" reset, rather than the "died in a fiery explosion" reset.


quote:


- Did them messing with the Eye have anything to do with the Nomai's detection of the Eye?


Yes. The chain of events goes something like "prisoner turns the eye back on, nomai hear the eye, nomai come to the solar system, elkowls turn the eye back off, nomai get very confused"

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
I think you got it right for the most part. As for your questions:


- I think they studied the eye and learned that it was meant for resetting the universe, which they didn't want to do. They seem to be really nostalgic, what with them recording a bunch of things on the reels, and they didn't want to their work to be destroyed
- I don't think so, I think that one was a child when they discovered it or something.
- I'm guessing maybe the prisoner wanted to give everyone else in the universe a chance to discover the eye and draw their own conclusions about it, since the elk people were pretty much making a decision for everyone else
- I think they destroyed the reels because they didn't want anyone stumbling onto their ship and discover what it was they were blocking. They kept just enough to let someone discover that and how they came to arrive in that system, but tried to remove any physical evidence of the reason why. Though, they are still very nostalgic and couldn't actually delete everything, so they saved the reels in their archives.
- I think it's still there, people have mentioned you can see it while beating the main game now, I didn't get a chance to look.
- I think the ship does escape the nova, but you still reset anyway because of the nomai statue.
- The nomai detected the eye specifically because the prisoner turned off the blocker for a time and the nomai suddenly discovered it, but then it disappeared (was blocked again) by the time they got to the source of the signal.

I think the elk people like their own history and what they've accomplished, and they don't want their civilization to turn to dust. I think you can take their representation of the eye discovery slides to be how they felt was happening. We know that the eye of the universe acts as a reset button. Whoever gets to the signal is allowed to restart the universe in their own image, whatever that is. The elk people interpreted that as someone using the eye of the universe will end up erasing everything they had created, so they interpreted that as their civilization turning to dust and then new life sprouting from their bones. People seem to interpret that as the elk people thinking the eye literally kills them, but that's just how the elk people view what the eye does to their history.

minato
Jun 7, 2004

cutty cain't hang, say 7-up.
Taco Defender
That is very helpful, thanks to the both of you!

dmboogie
Oct 4, 2013

minato posted:

- why did that one ElkOwl have the "Eye is bad" vision? Was it caused by anything specific?

this one's definitely up for interpretation - my thought was that, by analyzing the eye, they understood its purpose and place in the universe, but misunderstand its true meaning.

the OwlDeer fixate on the death while ignoring the part of the vision that shows new life sprouting and flourishing in the skulls that were left behind, and in the process almost ensure that the end of the universe is truly the end of everything.

the eye isn't bad. the eye isn't good. but the eye is an essential part of the cycle of the universe.

minato
Jun 7, 2004

cutty cain't hang, say 7-up.
Taco Defender
A youtube video of all 3 possible endings confirms it. If you look at the new exhibit in the Observatory while doing the regular ending, it says:


This species traveled from a nearby star system in search of the Eye of the universe, but, horrified by what they discovered, decided to block the Eye's signal so that no one else would ever find it.

One individual, however, rebelled against the decision, and was able to briefly release the Eye's signal back into space before being caught and imprisoned in solitude for this betrayal.



I also found a guy doing a speedrun of all achievements in 21.59 :eyepop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhS-wllJGqI

mortons stork
Oct 13, 2012
also after they imprisoned the poor bastard, they specifically torched the controls to the Eye blocker. Neat little detail

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

mortons stork posted:

also after they imprisoned the poor bastard, they specifically torched the controls to the Eye blocker. Neat little detail

I think they also torched the controls for raising the diving bell so he couldn't easily be brought back up.

Kin
Nov 4, 2003

Sometimes, in a city this dirty, you need a real hero.
So, I'm probably just preaching to the choir, but I'm one stealth section down (presumably of 4) and I'm already tired of this.

It's not so much about the things you have to avoid in there, it's the tedium of gameplay and visuals that run contrary to the base game for me.

Like the thing I loved the most about the core game is that it's about discovery, exploration and seeing things. poo poo, it's literally the very first thing the game does to get you motivated when you see a tiny explosion way off in space.

But the DLC? It's all darkness and shadows and fumbling about (taken to the extreme during the stealth sections). The environments are just caves and wooden platforms for all I know and while there's some interesting puzzles it's just not hooking me in the same way the main game did.

Teledahn
May 14, 2009

What is that bear doing there?


I have finally found the time to play this DLC and can now re-join the thread in spoiler land.

My thoughts:
- The intro section was very well done. The first puzzle of discovering and navigating to the DLC location was neat. Also an answer to how the Hearthians have such a sweet map system built into their woodtech.

- I very much LOVED the first reveal, after the spooky intro, when we drop down out of a dark room into a bright river rafting ring habitat.

- It is sadly much more self contained then main game, but that makes sense somewhat, being DLC. Also due to the nature of the residents of The Stranger.

- I managed to live through with the stealth mechanics as is, without touching the 'Reduced Frights' option. Until you learn what's going on the 'Dream' world is pretty spooky but learning all methods to deal with those issues was a good progression. I agree with some prior sentiments that some of the tools and mechanics could have been better explained, but had a very spooky atmosphere.

- The reveal of 'it's a simulation' was neat for me. I had seen the wiring on the roof of the island tower so knew there was some sort of technical link between the sites but wasn't sure how it worked. I walked away from my lantern before finding that 'error report' slide, that was a great moment. Like others I was thinking 'you can't blow out my lantern if it's not here' and was momentarily floored by the discovery. The other glitch-tech was neat. Suicide by fire to pass alarms took me a bit to figure, and was definitely an effective moment once I figured out all the green-firepits have working bells and couldn't otherwise silence them.

- I made the mistake of starting a new expedition for the DLC, having gone in pretty much completely blind. This turned out to be a mistake but how was I to know. The new file part I mean, going in blind is absolutely the right move. If any folks are reading this but haven't yet bought or started the DLC, stop what you're doing and go experience it. Yes you, no stop reading this and go play it. It's good. Thank you.

- Some folks here didn't like the stealth sequences. I guess I can see what's been said and agree those complaints are at least partly valid. Things are very dark, until you learn how liberal you can be with your light. The Owldeer are definitely spooky the first few times but I got used to it and adapted. Shining your focused light on them and seeing how goofy they are and watching their patrols from debug mode definitely made that happen faster. As we all learned this is something that can be avoided. The initial atmospheric terror scary spooky sneaking was a fun experience to start, but like others I have a pretty bad sense of navigating in pitch black with only the sounds of footsteps and starry skyline to guide me. I think this needs a tweak or patch but am not sure how to improve it while keeping the first experience intact. Perhaps I'll hit the toggle and see what that's like, as I'm not sure it will entirely address the frustrations a new player might feel.

- I think I'm echoing a previous sentiment when I say that the DLC captured some of the feeling of discovery from the original game, but lacked some of the depth of connection I felt to the Nomai. Not having named characters, not being able to read the language, having the intended path be so squirrely and yet direct, having all the hints be visual 'here's how you do it' instead of more exploration and adventuring, all of these made it feel ... slightly less than the base experience. This is fair for DLC, but I recall a few spots where the exploration in the base game rewarded the player with lore or little features. Everything in the DLC is effectively exposition or breadcrumbs. I still very much enjoyed it and it still hit a lot of the same notes. Very thought provoking though.


And a question or theory, very spoiler: Did anyone else form the impression that there were two distinct groups of Owldeer, a schism from the discovery of 'the purpose' of the eye? One of my earliest theory was that something of a civil war had occurred, explaining all the abandoned ruins. I'm now half sure this is wrong, but it stuck with me for a long time. Seeing burned temples to the eye and the redacted slides and just how keen some of the inhabitants were about setting fire to their history in giant heaps, and their counterparts who seemed to have secret passages, technological experiments and a this shared dream of their past. I had the mental image of two distinct groups, not just in iconography of the sites; the nostalgics trying to recreate their ancestral home and the revisionists keen to redact mistakes and censor parts of their history they find objectionable. I feel like this is partly supported in the slides, I think in the complete eye-signal slide; after the horror of the discovery one group leaves to wallow in the sadness of a departed past and the second group gets downright sinister about revising history. I perhaps should go rewatch some slides, but I think the interpretation of two distinct groups may be valid, but that conflict between them may be my inference only. We only find corpses in the compu-tombs, no evidence of remains anywhere else, suggesting everyone went into the crypts with no holdouts. However, one of the incidental items found about is a spear tipped with antler, which led me to think of armed decline into chaos, the implications of making a weapon from the bodies of your fellow people perhaps better unexamined. I remember finding one early in exploring and thinking "Why would the people living in a space habitat need that sort of weapon?" Fishing is certainly possible, given the close connection to the rivers, and on reflection likely, given the lack of farmland in the ecosystem. I do wonder about their unity, as all the slide burning was done after scanning and archiving, but the burned libraries had the feel of things done at least partly in secret, or perhaps so I might assume about the society that would build an interstellar spacecraft. I probably should see the updated end of the main game before writing more. Theories abound.


E:

I agree with you about your last point and felt a bit of that myself.
Regarding your frustrations I suggest you take heart that things seem harder than they actually are, and when possible try to learn the environment and to try toggling between the two modes of your tool when in need.

Teledahn fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Oct 11, 2021

Kin
Nov 4, 2003

Sometimes, in a city this dirty, you need a real hero.
Well that's the thing. It's not that it's hard, just... tedious.

I've never found games that make you fumble about in the dark, barely being able to see anything, that much fun.

That's where most of my frustrations come from with this. Maze like environments that are just more tedious when all the lights are turned out.

There was a section where I knew what to do but couldn't get it done because I just couldn't see anything to get my bearings.

Blowing out all of the lights to get access to the well.

I had to look up a guide for that and even when I did, I still couldn't see the actual things it was referencing.

I dunno if it helps but I might have to try turning up the brightness on the game or something.

ThomasPaine
Feb 4, 2009

We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.
DLC was fun but it's wild to think the Nomai, a hyper advanced species capable of harnessing the power of black holes, building orbital cannons and time machines and low orbit stations around the sun, turned up in the solar system and built a whole society across it, but never once noticed the stranger as they were zipping about

ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Oct 11, 2021

Pararoid
Dec 6, 2005

Te Waipounamu pride
That was amazing. I'll buy as many The Outer Wilds expansions as they care to make.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

I think I'm in the last section of the dlc. I've uncovered the location of three things now I just have to wander around in the dark to find them. I'm feeling a little exhausted though. At least in the base game you can take a break and crash into a different planet. Having completed the base games exploration, now I'm presented with the one task, figure out what the hell these creepy glowy guys are up to and where they've hidden all the stuff. Being hyperfocused on it is a bit tiring.

beep by grandpa
May 5, 2004

ThomasPaine posted:

DLC was fun but it's wild to think the Nomai, a hyper advanced species capable of harnessing the power of black holes, building orbital cannons and time machines and low orbit stations around the sun, turned up in the solar system and built a whole society across it, but never once noticed the stranger as they were zipping about

Something that I think came across well in the writing is the Nomai become extremely hyper-focused on whatever their current goal is. If it wasn't something they could just jump out and start working on/exploring, then it may as well not even be there. I was thinking the same thing as you but since it's literally invisible they'd probably never ever come across it until ... uh oh, plot hole- the orbital cannon should have definitely blown the Stranger the gently caress up one of those 9 million times :laugh:

Organza Quiz
Nov 7, 2009


beep by grandpa posted:

Something that I think came across well in the writing is the Nomai become extremely hyper-focused on whatever their current goal is. If it wasn't something they could just jump out and start working on/exploring, then it may as well not even be there. I was thinking the same thing as you but since it's literally invisible they'd probably never ever come across it until ... uh oh, plot hole- the orbital cannon should have definitely blown the Stranger the gently caress up one of those 9 million times :laugh:

It probably did, it only started firing well after they were dead! And there was no one around to remember the loops until it found the Eye and connected to the player.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013

Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.
That would be an amazing easter egg, though. If you visit on loop 120 or something all you find is wreckage and no Stranger, everything is back to normal next loop.

Cup Runneth Over
Aug 8, 2009

She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate


Kin posted:

So, I'm probably just preaching to the choir, but I'm one stealth section down (presumably of 4) and I'm already tired of this.

There are only 2 stealth sections.

Scholtz
Aug 24, 2007

Zorchin' some Flemoids

beep by grandpa posted:

Something that I think came across well in the writing is the Nomai become extremely hyper-focused on whatever their current goal is. If it wasn't something they could just jump out and start working on/exploring, then it may as well not even be there. I was thinking the same thing as you but since it's literally invisible they'd probably never ever come across it until ... uh oh, plot hole- the orbital cannon should have definitely blown the Stranger the gently caress up one of those 9 million times :laugh:

If you accelerate towards the Stranger as fast as possible, it seems to arrest your momentum when you zone into the ship area. Maybe this would be an explanation for why it doesn't get zapped by the cannon ever?

Cup Runneth Over
Aug 8, 2009

She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate


Considering they have flamethrowers and cloaking technology and their ship accounts automatically for nearby supernovas I'm sure the residents of the Stranger were prepared to have cannons fired at them.

haveblue
Aug 15, 2005



Toilet Rascal
The probe would be handled by micrometeor defenses :v:

Ursine Catastrophe
Nov 9, 2009

It's a lovely morning in the void and you are a horrible lady-in-waiting.



don't ask how i know

Dinosaur Gum

Scholtz posted:

If you accelerate towards the Stranger as fast as possible, it seems to arrest your momentum when you zone into the ship area. Maybe this would be an explanation for why it doesn't get zapped by the cannon ever?

that's just loading zone meta-physics in the same vein as the dark bramble transitions

Cup Runneth Over
Aug 8, 2009

She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate


Ursine Catastrophe posted:

that's just loading zone meta-physics in the same vein as the dark bramble transitions

I am 1000% confident that the Outer Wilds devs could maintain momentum through those transitions if they wanted to.

Scholtz
Aug 24, 2007

Zorchin' some Flemoids

Ursine Catastrophe posted:

that's just loading zone meta-physics in the same vein as the dark bramble transitions

Orbital probe has to load into the zone same as I do :colbert:

breadshaped
Apr 1, 2010


Soiled Meat

Cup Runneth Over posted:

There are only 2 1 stealth sections.

Correction

I feel bad for people who struggled through the Endless Canyon stealth section because there is a non-glitch bypass for it:

Bedshaped posted:

Have people been using stealth to complete zone 3 "Endless Canyon"?

There's a massive bypass you can do there by lowering the boat elevator when lit, making it dark and then returning to the canyon by boat from the Starlit Cove.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013

Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.
I'd already found the secret bridge at that point but yeah, that seems like it was the intended way to do it honestly.

Khanstant
Apr 5, 2007

bop bop perano posted:


I saw a few people complaining about how the cycle was too short in the main game, but I never felt that way, even if I was super close to getting to something but the sun blew up right before I could read the last hint, I didn't mind because it was fun getting there, and it helped me become familiar with the layout of the world. But for some reason, I wished that the cycle was a bit longer or if time dilated in the stranger, which wouldn't make sense, but I wouldn't have minded if they stretched the cycle out to half an hour while you were inside the stranger and I think it was mainly that it was difficult to get a sense of the layout of the [spoiler]dream world because it was so dark, or that I was scared of getting caught the first few times, or just making the connection that the dream world and the real world were connected, and not just figuring that out, but also making sense of where I entered in the real world and where that meant I was in the dream world.


First time in the dream world I was definitely hoping time was slowed or maybe even stopped. I get why that can't be now, but I still think wish there was an "inverted song of time" for this to double your playtime, maybe even just as an accessibility option, but the nature of the game would not let that work I don't think. Actually, it wasn't enough time that was ever really my issue, it was that every loop you had to jump through the same tedious hoops: up elevator, suit up, pilot ship, land in hole dont explode randomly on invisible blades pls, activate light puzzle door, push raft, hop in raft, land raft, grab lantern, hop on raft --> ok loop starts "now" a couple minutes into the loop already wasted on the commute you gotta make every single time. Either have the game shave off a minute or two and just load me in on stranger, or maybe just let me record a run start and have my character just auto-do that each loop so I can start off on my raft with lantern without the hassle. I booted the game up this weekend because I wanted to finally see the infamous sections I skipped and the new ending, but I exploded when flying to the stranger and my the frustration memory of having to do all that again just to get started annoyed me away from playing anymore. Nothing in the base game ever made me feel that negative of a feeling for the game, because there was never any point where I had to spend several dozen loops doing the exact same things to the same single planet/area.

haveblue
Aug 15, 2005



Toilet Rascal

Khanstant posted:

activate light puzzle door, push raft, hop in raft, land raft, grab lantern, hop on raft --> ok loop starts "now" a couple minutes into the loop already wasted on the commute you gotta make every single time.

Depending on what you want to do inside the Stranger, going in through the hull breach can be a lot faster. I was more annoyed at every time I had to run through the endless canyon lodge to unlock the river rafts

minato
Jun 7, 2004

cutty cain't hang, say 7-up.
Taco Defender

Teledahn posted:

- I think I'm echoing a previous sentiment when I say that the DLC captured some of the feeling of discovery from the original game, but lacked some of the depth of connection I felt to the Nomai.
I think this is 100% because the Nomai storyline had a lot of dialog and likable (almost sweet) personalities. There was no villain, in the traditional sense. Hell, there was even a dating sub-plot. The DLC has nothing like that to build that connection. But they totally could have.

Also the projections you find showing how the ElkOwl's hide the 3 vault combo plates, the artists really went out of their way to make those ElkOwls look evil. But according to the story, they were not evil per-se; they were just scared that the Eye would destroy them (and rightly so!) and angry at the rebel for temporarily unblocking it. So that jostled my feelings a little bit; was I supposed to think these were villains or not?

Cup Runneth Over
Aug 8, 2009

She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate


minato posted:

I think this is 100% because the Nomai storyline had a lot of dialog and likable (almost sweet) personalities. There was no villain, in the traditional sense. Hell, there was even a dating sub-plot. The DLC has nothing like that to build that connection. But they totally could have.

Also the projections you find showing how the ElkOwl's hide the 3 vault combo plates, the artists really went out of their way to make those ElkOwls look evil. But according to the story, they were not evil per-se; they were just scared that the Eye would destroy them (and rightly so!) and angry at the rebel for temporarily unblocking it. So that jostled my feelings a little bit; was I supposed to think these were villains or not?

From the standpoint of traditional storytelling, they are antagonists. Their actions drive the main game's plot. The point of the DLC is that they're actually fairly sympathetic. I don't think they were supposed to be characterized as evil, just scared and ignorant -- something the Prisoner was disappointed in.

Khanstant posted:

First time in the dream world I was definitely hoping time was slowed or maybe even stopped. I get why that can't be now, but I still think wish there was an "inverted song of time" for this to double your playtime, maybe even just as an accessibility option, but the nature of the game would not let that work I don't think. Actually, it wasn't enough time that was ever really my issue, it was that every loop you had to jump through the same tedious hoops: up elevator, suit up, pilot ship, land in hole dont explode randomly on invisible blades pls, activate light puzzle door, push raft, hop in raft, land raft, grab lantern, hop on raft --> ok loop starts "now" a couple minutes into the loop already wasted on the commute you gotta make every single time. Either have the game shave off a minute or two and just load me in on stranger, or maybe just let me record a run start and have my character just auto-do that each loop so I can start off on my raft with lantern without the hassle. I booted the game up this weekend because I wanted to finally see the infamous sections I skipped and the new ending, but I exploded when flying to the stranger and my the frustration memory of having to do all that again just to get started annoyed me away from playing anymore. Nothing in the base game ever made me feel that negative of a feeling for the game, because there was never any point where I had to spend several dozen loops doing the exact same things to the same single planet/area.

This sentiment has appeared a lot in the last few pages and it's really funny to me because people were saying that the events in the real world are dilated in the simulation and you get several more minutes of sim time than you do in the normal loop. So they did exactly this, but no one noticed and it didn't help.

Khanstant
Apr 5, 2007
Haha I always meant to hop in ASAP and time it, but timing things while doing nothing is terribly boring and I had already spent a whole loop waiting somewhere waiting for power to flicker and hoping that did something lol. It was specifically the hassle routine of starting a loop that drained me, once inside it was chill again, but with the heavy anticipation that "I hope I solve this asap so I don't have to fly here again again again again"

imhotep
Nov 16, 2009

REDBAR INTENSIFIES
I think too many of the slides felt like they were just clues instead of the Nomai writing which expertly blended hints about what to do next into it’s story telling, and that it felt as if it were actual dialogue the Nomai would have had in the context of the story and it never felt, (or very rarely if it did) like they broke that rule which is why it’s so great. The DLC also does this until it starts to have slides are just there to show you how to solve the three puzzles, and where those three hints are, etc. The slides make sense at the start, because they show you that they watched them after they used all the resources on their home planet and found out the eye of the universe wasn’t what they had hoped it was as well as the VR simulation of their planet, and they have a large archive of slides that we don’t see, so it seems like they were an intensely nostalgic race that liked home movies a lot. But they sure do have a lot of specific instructions on how to release the one guy who they wanted to imprison for eternity.

Wingnut Ninja
Jan 11, 2003

Mostly Harmless
I think you get a few extra minutes on the Stranger in general because there's a bit of a gap between the supernova going off and the "out of range" reset. If there's any difference inside the dream world it has to be fairly minor.

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Cup Runneth Over
Aug 8, 2009

She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate


bop bop perano posted:

I think too many of the slides felt like they were just clues instead of the Nomai writing which expertly blended hints about what to do next into it’s story telling, and that it felt as if it were actual dialogue the Nomai would have had in the context of the story and it never felt, (or very rarely if it did) like they broke that rule which is why it’s so great. The DLC also does this until it starts to have slides are just there to show you how to solve the three puzzles, and where those three hints are, etc. The slides make sense at the start, because they show you that they watched them after they used all the resources on their home planet and found out the eye of the universe wasn’t what they had hoped it was as well as the VR simulation of their planet, and they have a large archive of slides that we don’t see, so it seems like they were an intensely nostalgic race that liked home movies a lot. But they sure do have a lot of specific instructions on how to release the one guy who they wanted to imprison for eternity.

Are you sure you're not confusing slides with the memory projections? :)

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