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Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


I gotta admit, 'slay the fake duke before he explodes' is the first and almost certainly last thing I've enjoyed about this game so far.

oh, uh.

update on previous page.

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By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


Why did he turn into a boulder though?

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



Oh, hey, now that the king isn't cursed, and now that we're apparently a representative of the rebellion, we can negotiate in good faith and resolve the whole matter. Right? ...right? No? Just going to completely forget the ENTIRE FRAMING DEVICE OF THE GAME? Okay then.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

:psyduck:

I want to comment on this game but I genuinely have no idea how to talk about it. It's utterly amazing how disconnected and nonsensical everything is.

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Randalor posted:

Oh, hey, now that the king isn't cursed, and now that we're apparently a representative of the rebellion, we can negotiate in good faith and resolve the whole matter. Right? ...right? No? Just going to completely forget the ENTIRE FRAMING DEVICE OF THE GAME? Okay then.

Like the writers would actually bother with writing up even an overarching summary of the plot they could reference later instead of just winging the poo poo out of everything. "What did the Rillow want out of the king again? Can't have just been taxes... Oh I know, an alliance! Yeah that sounds right, people liked having that sort of poo poo all the time between different countries. What? War? What are you talking about? Look just put it in okay, we've already been working on this for ages and we're almost on the home stretch of the last chapter!"

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





The Bad Man

Explopyro posted:

I want to comment on this game but I genuinely have no idea how to talk about it. It's utterly amazing how disconnected and nonsensical everything is.

You're gonna love today's update!

Last time on Black Geyser, causality loving broke down and we picked up some woman who may or may not be a Zoria cultist to go cure the plague in the Traitor Town that both the Eastern Empires and Isilbright are now allied against without any negotiation.

Also an exploding demon guy uncursed the king.

I have no loving idea how any of this works.



Isla is probably one of the contenders for "worst character in the game". Mechanically she's acceptable and can blow people up with magic (though you can't change her spell loadout because gently caress you), but because she's one of those lazy fantasy characters who knows all the plot and context but only doles it out in pieces because the devs want to keep the mystery box.

Now I want to remind you that per the Steam Achievement stats, only 10% of players have completed chapter 3. There is no way anyone is seeing this plot and going ""I need to know more", you are only finishing the game because you're masochistic. Hell, I only finished the game because of this thread.



By the way, there's no journal entry on Isla and the interact button is disabled. I hope you weren't looking for some kind of explanation that she was just infiltrating the Zoria cult to sabotage them or anything logical like that, because it's not here.



The writers suddenly realize that we're on Chapter 4 of 5 and we don't know what the gently caress the "Final Pact" is referring to, much less whatever the hell a Black Geyser actually is.

: Everywhere I go, I seem to be at the center of the action.

: And you have no idea how envious that would make some people.

Did I mention you get a game over if Isla dies?



: He didn't offer a lot of details. He called everyone fools, said nothing could prevent the 'final pact', and that King Velianrick's reign was over. Oh yeah, and that chaos would rule in his place. That's about it.



I can just imagine the Black Geyser writers right now.
"We need to exposit on the Final Pact and the artists are whining we didn't use the snow area."
"Hmm... what if we had Isla make the player go to Snow Town for some exposition?"
"Yea but then people are going to think our special OC magical sexy wise waifu is a monster who abandons plague victims to die"
"What if Deron-Guld shut all the gates for absolutely no reason?"
"Brilliant! I'm gonna go write another time travel quest!"

: People are dying from the plague in Deron-Guld right now.



I... no! NO!

: But why?



So is he like a disease expert or medicine maker or something? No. Are you going to share your reasons with the class? No.

: But that's in the opposite direction!



Unlike with Lord Frelsi we're not even given the option to postpone the clumsy railroading.

: Very well, to Freynagar we go!



You have been in this party for a minute and already you are making a terrible impression.

TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: Hey, you saw that poo poo with the exploding monster trying to kill the king, right?

: It was some of the dumbest poo poo I've ever seen in my life.

: He said something about a Pact, right? Proper noun and everything?

: Yes! It was like the writers were trying to shoehorn in some kind of greater threat at the last minute, but they were too incompetent to set it up through the rest of the game so we instead got things like Frick, Jade, and Sea Hag talking about tits.

: That does it! We need to go north to Snow Town instead of dealing with the plague! It's OK, because Deron-Guld has closed all their gates so we can't get in anyway, and I'm too much of a special waifu to let people just die for my own whims!

: Are you loving serious? I was directly asked by Lord Frelsi, the head of the war council himself, to bring you back! They will let us in! No!

: This is very important! It's not just bullshit! Honest!

: Are you going to tell me why?

: No. Tee hee!

: No, this is - I mean, CHOO CHOO! CHOO CHOO! SNOW TOWN!

: "I knew you'd be reasonable!"



Maybe we can commiserate with Hamlin.

: Why are you so determined to join the Thieves Guild anyway?



Oh, no, he just has a very tragic backstory.

: Ye gods, how horrible!

: Indeed.

: Thanks to my ready charm, I was soon adopted by a trio of street urchins. It was a hardscrabble few years but we watched each others' backs, kept ourselves alive at least. A few years back I managed to find real employment, for yet another rich bastard. Isilbright is rife with them. My street family did not approve of my owning a second shirt and sleeping on fresh straw, and I myself couldn't stand my employer.

Hmm... a trio of street urchins... three people delivering the painting... nah.



Earlier in the game posted:



It's really bizarre to me that Hamlin is having this much trouble getting into the Thieves Guild when he works directly for one of the King's advisors and could feed them all sorts of information.

Then again, we're helping him do this because, uh... there's XP?

TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: God drat Hamlin, this Isla chick is a real - ugh. Why do you want to join the Thieves Guild?

: As it turns out, I'm an orphan just like the Pirates of Penzance. A bad man killed my parents, so I managed to survive on the streets despite demonstrating the thieving abilities of a bunch of bricks. Then I got a job, and my hobo friends were real mad, so I fuckin quit! Now I want to join the Guild so I never have to bow down to noblemen and have food security.

: My guy, you literally asked to rejoin the party because I was a noble and could protect you from the muggers.

: *farrrrrrt*

This raises all sorts of questions, like "does Hamlin hate us for being a noble too", "are we not feeding him", etc. Say what you want about status, but we literally helped Hamlin interrogate a Duchess to her face and got away with it. The idea of having "freedom" by joining a criminal organization sure is... an idea.



Anyway to get to Snow Town we need to go through the mountains.



Under the "throw it in" principle, the forest is full of ice elementals. This Hunter runs off screaming.

Inta will be soloing the elementals to save arrows and spell slots.



This guy has a whole quest line I just can't be enthused to care about.



The fights aren't interesting, but at least they're not hard.



I'll spare you the blathering. These guys are bandits who want 1000 gp, but they have a whole spiel about how they're from Other Snow Town and hate Snow Town We're Supposed To Go To because the plot town got a magical shield against the weather that, uh, lets the snow through or something. We can't persuade them and they think they're hot poo poo because they've got a frost giant.



We gently caress em up.



There's a moderate wrinkle in that they have ice spells that can actually kinda hurt Inta, but their mages are made of tissue paper and die to a combination of fireballs and Hamlin shooting them in the face.



They are kind enough to drop this "famous Feldegug relic" because, uh, idk.



Freynagar sucks and has nothing.



Isla opens with this.



You know, Isla, you're really not helping your case by making it seem like you dragged us up here to get some dick.

: Uh...



It would probably help if Isla didn't look like a vampire or some poo poo.

:catholic:: Since you're still here, I suppose I must ask - What do you want?



I want you all to remember this is Chapter 4 of 5 and this is the first we are hearing of it. It has never been mentioned before now, and the only vague thing we have is that the cults are motivated to keep the war going for, uh, reasons.



: Many a man of the gods has been forced to drink by the truths he must face. Please, tell my friend what she wants to know and we will bother you no more. (Theology)

:catholic:: Yes, I cannot deny that. Very well.

Don't ask how Isla knows that Drykkr knows this. One of her attack quotes is "Die, mortals!" Is she a god? Some kind of renegade demon? A never before mentioned angel of Alnarius? Some kind of lich? Who the gently caress knows!



: I would like to get a look at such a place myself.



But wait! Why did the demon dude talk about the Final Pact? Do Zornilsa and Rothgor not know that their pact is going to fail? Did the exploding demon dude know about the prophecy?

: What comes after that? Does the sun go out too?



Oh, so he told literally everyone? I guess that's how Isla knows.

: Go on.

This is also the only indication we have that the Alnarian church might be corrupt, and as you might guess literally nothing is done with it. Remember, priests in this game can dream for visions from their god.



Yea, apparently the Alnarian church knew that this curse of greed - which is heavily implied to have caused the war - was coming and did absolutely nothing to mitigate it. There are churches of Alnarius in both cities and Velianrick straight up says his kingly powers stem from Alnarius. No one seems to have the idea to ask the church to mediate the dispute, and they're apparently fine just letting the gods of evil wander around and do whatever.

: Is that all you learned of the prophecy? Was there nothing else?



This temple is one of the worst parts of the game.

: Could you repeat that please, Drykkr?

:catholic:: The temple of Alvimelkedic. That's all I know.



: This is a bad place to drink yourself unconscious, because of the cold. You should remember that.

:catholic:: Huh. If you think death worries me, you weren't listening at all.



This had nothing to do with the plague. We could have found this man at any time. We could have done this after curing the people of Deron-Guld. You are the loving worst, Isla.

TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: Hey wanna gently caress?

:catholic:: What time wasting bullshit is this?

: Seriously...

: Now that I have your attention, can you tell me about the... Pact Prophecy?

:catholic:: Oh no! It is 2spooky4u.

: Sometimes, in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, a man has to look at bad writing and say "gently caress this poo poo."

:catholic:: This prophecy is... very spooky! I found it in the depths of the Alnarius church libraries! The gods Rothgor the devil-god and Zornilsa the GREED goddess will form a Team of Evil and spread chaos and greed throughout Yerengal! Then their pact will fail, and a worse evil will rise! I was very spooked, but my superiors at the Alnarius church told me to shut the gently caress up about it. But I decided that would be a betrayal of Alnarius, the king of the gods who literally sits on his rear end and does nothing while evil gods walk the earth. So I became a doomsday priest and then I got kicked out. Now I'm a worthless drunk! Oh, by the way, you need to go to the Temple of Alzaboomafukedick, the worst dungeon in the game.

: Now that tons of people are dead in Deron-Guld, let's finally go deal with the plague!



This town has nothing except garbage side quests so we leave.



I stop by the crone's cottage to see if maybe she has anything to say but she's disappeared. On to Deron-Guld!



The townsfolk are all hostile! Le gasp!



: No, I was planning on a romantic interlude for just the two of us. The horde of raging infected, attacking everyone in sight, was just a lure.

Sometimes I feel like there is one lone sane writer who realizes what a loving incoherent mess they created and went out of their way to ensure none of it was taken seriously.

: Don't ever let anyone say you don't know how to treat a lady, Inta Rume.

: Very well. Look alert and let's move on.

TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: Oh my god! A zombie plague! Is this why you brought me?

: No, it's so we could gently caress in an alley surrounded by raging infected.

: That... that would work on me!

: Let's move on. It's not like we could have done anything different to prevent this!

You know, when we left the city this wasn't happening. Maybe if we hadn't wasted all that time traveling north to ask a drunk guy about poo poo we could have gotten from the Alnarius church at any loving time we could have prevented this.

gently caress you, Isla.



The survivors are barred up inside.



There are a lot of tedious fights with infected people, ghouls, and the occasional mage. I'll cut out most of them, as Inta just kind of solos her way through all this crap.



Isla examines the bodies and comes to this stunning conclusion after three screens of text. Now, half these people have been mutated into loving ghouls - you know, the undead summonable with Rothgor's unnatural magic - so I have no idea why we needed to go through so much crap to get this utterly useless woman.



Seeing as our character recognizes the ghouls' bones are useful for potions I'm not sure what to say.



Hilariously, Isla levels up but we're not allowed to level her up because she knows every spellweaver spell of V or less in the game.



Remember the maid in the library that Lord Frelsi was teaching to read?

: Who are you?



: Try to stay still and perhaps I can help you.

:biglips:: I'm not going anywhere.



You're telling me in a game where Jade can learn to resurrect the dead, the temples of Alnarius can resurrect the dead, and we can buy resurrection staves in stores, we can't help this woman who's still fully conscious and able to talk?

: What in heaven's name is going on here?



Wow! The obviously bad man betrayed everyone? Who could have seen this coming?



Yes, Isla, thank you. I don't know what we'd do without you, probably be higher level as you're taking our XP.

: Thank you for your strength. Your information will help us find a solution for this.

Hilariously, we're not given the opportunity to ask her name so we can remember her despite her obvious sadness at no one mourning her.

:biglips:: I only wish... I only... :: sigh ::

: That's it. She is done.

TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

:biglips:: Hey, it's me, the girl from the library who Lord Frelsi was teaching to read. I'm dying now, and no one will mourn me...

: I've got two mages with me who can cast healing spells, maybe...

: I'm sorry, but the plot demands her death.

: Can you at least tell us what happened?

:biglips:: It was loving Aldnar! He betrayed Deron-Guld too! He coup'd the war council and everyone's turning into Resident Evil extras!

: Thank you. That should help us stop this.

: She's fuckin dead!





These guys tell us the guildhall is closed by order of Aldnar and that Aldnar has ordered us killed on sight.



They don't make it.



A few more tedious soldier fights later and, well... you just need to see this.



The entire game has, as far as I can tell, been building up to this. Aldnar was introduced as the closest thing this game has to a main antagonist. Also that halberd guy walks to the left. Remember this for later.



Uh, what the gently caress?

: Ye gods, what have you done?



: But why, man? Why did you do it?



Earlier in the game posted:

: I've learned a few things you see, things your priests and man-at-arms could never teach. I have gained a new perspective, seen the truth of this world

: What proof did you have of Lord Frelsi's corruption?



I really regret not taking option 2.

: How did Lord Frelsi die?



: I see. What do you intend to do next?



What?

No, seriously, what? Where is this coming from? If you remember, our last interaction with Aldnar was this:

Earlier in the game posted:



Now, the game uses "Espen" or "Lady Espen" as the default voice acted player character descriptor instead of "Fatebinder" or "Employee", but Aldnar shouldn't be using it here! He's the eldest heir to the Espen house, and the king stripped him of his birthright and if you don't call him a patricidal outlaw he'll whine more about it. I think he's turning on the charm here, but those soldiers from a few screens ago had orders to kill us on sight.



I mentioned that there was a truly idiotic choice that let you kill the king earlier. This is it. We can, if you so choose, ally with Aldnar, the man who murdered and betrayed both his own father AND the Deron-Guld rebellion in the hopes of becoming betrayal victim number three from a guy who's openly stated his hatred and resentment of us, murdered everyone who lived in our childhood home, instructed his men to kill us on sight, and loudly brags about worshipping Satan to the father he murders. The man has been built up as a villain all game who we've been given cause to despise personally. Nevertheless, I am going to leave the vote to the thread, because it's funny.

What are we telling Aldnar?

For bonus points I want to see someone try and actually justify why in the world our character would think joining Team Aldnar is a good idea.

Arcanuse
Mar 15, 2019

Go to hell Aldnar. :fuckoff:

Probably means not killing the king, but I cannot fathom a circumstance, high greed or low, good or evil, where we would want to work with him.
Kill him and take over the operation for (???) reason, now that I can see. But work with him? Nope.

E:Y'know what? I can see "signing on" with Aldar, with the intent to leave him for dead later, take over the operation, sort out the local situation, and then turn around and head to the king.
From there either we kill the king too leaving the kingdom to squabble over who is next in line while we consolidate further, or make a claim on all the territory we "conquered" formerly belonging to all the rebels.
The king, in their questionable wisdom, will be easily convinced to either be in a readily assassinate-able position or go 'yeah, sure, ok' to our claims.

...And if the murder plan fails or the king is resurrected, we blame a exploding doppleganger that got away. No reason there couldn't be a second one, right?

Arcanuse fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Jul 24, 2022

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


TheGreatEvilKing posted:

What are we telling Aldnar?

For bonus points I want to see someone try and actually justify why in the world our character would think joining Team Aldnar is a good idea.

Well, who else is left? The king is bugfuck insane and has also done a lot of bad poo poo, and this little creep has murdered or imprisoned the other option. And it's not like we were remotely attached to our father, the man who refused to acknowledge us and made us work as a maid all our life. Plus Aldenar killing him ended up making us a noble.

Maybe we're planning to double cross him and take his inexplicable amount of power away from him.

For real though, kill the little shitbag.

Xarn
Jun 26, 2015
It's good idea to join Aldnar because, uhhhhh, there is no way he would betray us again, because, uhhh, we are family, and family is important.

Yep, that's it.


Anyway murder his rear end. Then tell us in spoilers if the game is at least done good enough for the choice to gently caress us over if we take the stupid option.

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
What is this mess you’re serving up for the internet?

I at least manage to sort of like two of the characters. Sea Hag, for being a really interesting concept, albeit mishandled badly. At least she’s mishandled in the way where she’s just kind of forgotten rather than…. other ways. And Jade for being kind of weird in the ‘human disaster’ way. She’s probably one of the best written characters for being largely consistent throughout.

DACK FAYDEN
Feb 25, 2013

Bear Witness
lmao gently caress this guy

what on earth made the creators think this was a reasonable plot pivot point to have exist

dervival
Apr 23, 2014


It's a good idea to join Aldnar because in this game good means bad. How the hell is this game so short while still being this terrible? At least most games try to mask their mediocrity with padding.

Gank that nerd.

A Real Horse
Oct 26, 2013


TheGreatEvilKing posted:


What are we telling Aldnar?

For bonus points I want to see someone try and actually justify why in the world our character would think joining Team Aldnar is a good idea.

She has become aware that she is in Black Geyser and that by joining the man who will obviously kill her as soon as they kill the king, she will be free of this game. Whereas if she kills him now she will probably have to go and kill a bunch more cultists/demons/gods, taking up more time. There will probably even be more sidequests.

Kill the jerk.

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

gently caress. Off. Aldnar.

He truly is the Black Geezer I've been expecting to see.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



Make two saves, join the dick just long enough to reach a point where you can save the game just before killing the king so you can have the catharsis of killing the king whenever you remember the loving "plot" of this game, then load the second save and show your "dearest brother" how to properly kill someone with a sword.

BraveLittleToaster
May 5, 2019
Retain what little sense we have left and refuse Aldnar.

Leraika
Jun 14, 2015

Luckily, I *did* save your old avatar. Fucked around and found out indeed.
ughhhh yeah killing the king isn't worth this. shove the little punk in a locker (but show the king's death as an extra)

Nick Buntline
Dec 20, 2007
Doesn't know the impossible.

I vote we join Aldnar, on the ground that when he inevitably betrays us and we kill him, we can pull the classic Tokugawa move of "every terrible thing that I did was the fault of all the dead people I was mistakenly following for unrelated reasons, and anyway as the only person still alive I declare myself Emperor." God knows we can't be any worse at it then everyone we've seen here.

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

We already turned down the superior stupid option and this jackass doesn't deserve to get any sort of victory for his treachery, no matter how short-lived it could be after we kill the king. Slay this jumped up peasant.

BisbyWorl
Jan 12, 2019

Knowledge is pain plus observation.


End him. :black101:

SIGSEGV
Nov 4, 2010


Oh, this is a beautiful example of "poo poo we need to include an evil path" in action. Kill the little prick.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

So, uh, it's obvious what direction the voting is going (and I'm not going to fight the trend), but is there any way you can describe or show what happens if you do join Aldnar against all reason and what the game's telling you to do? It's such a ridiculous choice to offer, especially without any buildup, that whatever happens has to be interesting in some way or another.

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Explopyro posted:

So, uh, it's obvious what direction the voting is going (and I'm not going to fight the trend), but is there any way you can describe or show what happens if you do join Aldnar against all reason and what the game's telling you to do? It's such a ridiculous choice to offer, especially without any buildup, that whatever happens has to be interesting in some way or another.

There's enough demand that there will probably be a bonus update for the King Battle, yea

OneWingedDevil
Aug 27, 2012
I'll play almost-literal devil's advocate and say join Aldnar since I don't (fully) believe the game wouldn't let you kill him sometime afterward.

For an in-character reason, I would have to assume that the king was not exactly uncursed when we slew the fake Duke. Instead, the curse of GREED shifted from the king to Inta Rume. Now, GREED would not normally be a reason to join up with someone who has a proven track record of killing almost all his family members (yourself presently excluded) and has made no secret of his distaste for you, but GREED also makes people kill others to put blood into wine because it's cheaper or something. So yes, Inta Rume could join with Aldnar.

There are ways to spin even a GREEDy Inta to not join Aldnar, the GREED meter doesn't reflect this shifted curse I'm sure, it goes contrary to us being chosen by the gods for resisting GREED etc. etc. However, narrative and mechanical coherence are atypical in this game, and thus any coherent arguments to the contrary can be ignored as out-of-character. :v:

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



In-universe, if you were being GREEDy, you could also argue that overthrowing the king, with your half-brother being a useful idiot fallguy if it fails and a quick speed-bump to depose of if it succeeds, is the "logical" conclusion to the evil storyline. You've taken the throne, united the kingdom and rebels, AND secured an alliance with the elephants who can help secure your power base.

And I'm sure that paragraph I thought up and shat out in 10 minutes is more work and effort than the game's actual writers took.

Kacie
Nov 11, 2010

Imagining a Brave New World
Ramrod XTreme
I don't think Inta needs to succumb to GREED in order to gamble on joining brother dearest.

She's seen that everyone on both sides is awful, and if they weren't awful, they're dead. What's to say the King won't go all paranoid again and have her killed, later?

She can even play the Divine card, saying she's come to bring order after a terrible time of curses and plagues, and is divinely foreordained to rule - she's been told she's meant to save the world, it might have easily gone to her head, especially since everyone else has been terminally dense.

It's a very risky ploy since there's pretty much zero reason to think half-brother won't have her offed afterwards. But after how many times she's had the rug pulled out from under her and all the betrayals and shenanigans she may actually find it the safer course to make sure the King, any uppity nobles, and her wretched brother are all dead. Push all the bad stuff on to brother, come out smelling like roses (or threatening anyone who says otherwise).

That said, kill the treacherous brother, because he's sure to stab us in the back before we can stab him.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

lets kill the king

stupid game requires stupid responses

RelentlessImp
Mar 15, 2011

OneWingedDevil posted:

Main thing I'm getting from this is that in most cases, turning down a reward really does mean turning down a reward. No better loot later, you just spent your time doing something out of the goodness of your heart and maybe the ill-defined benefit of lowering GREED. There was an exception early on, but nothing in this update mentions that.

It's an approach that has potential to really mess with us as players! We're all used to turning down rewards when offered to get some other, usually better reward at a later point. Flipping that around or peppering in the ability to turn down rewards at almost every opportunity and never giving a later benefit would cause strong emotions when people finally realize that yes, they've been actively sacrificing rewards for no mechanical benefit. It'd need to be a game that puts in some memorable moments to it though, as that strong reaction is likely to be very, very negative if the player cares about that sort of thing at all. Emotional payoffs are the main thing I can think of balancing against it.

This is obviously not the game to attempt such a high-wire act.

The more I see of the Greed mechanic, the more I know they're cribbing Icewind Dale in which Paladin and Monk party leaders (or rather, the person who spoke to questgivers) refused rewards because they were Lawful or some poo poo, itself a misinterpretation of the amount of wealth AD&D Paladins and Monks are allowed to have without violating their codes (spoilers: they were allowed to have a decent amount of money to feed, clothe and shelter themselves and their underlings, and an excess of about 3 times their monthly expenditures for emergencies in the case of the Paladin and a few days' worth of expenditures for the Monk).


quote:

t's not like you can't gate the main quest behind raising money, Baldur's Gate 2 literally did that by having the Shadow Thieves charge you an exorbitant sum to help them win their gang war.

This game really is just Infinity Engine RPGs But Worse.

quote:


This was a weird sequence, though. It's has elements of Sierra Adventure games, with you having to divine whatever the gently caress the developer was thinking, on, or doing at the time they came up with the puzzle, and also of tabletop GMs putting a puzzle in front of their players and getting frustrated when they don't get it right away, or worse, making fun of them for it when the puzzle is obtuse. The last bit, however, describing the melon, is pure gold of a tabletop GM making poo poo up on the fly to make it sound impressive.

It has no place in a paid-for experience unless said experiencing is emulating that, though.

quote:

The game throws more dialogue at us. Helg wants to know why Sea Hag knows dwarven sea shanties. Sea Hag can't remember anything. I want to know why the lyrics of a sea shanty are "doo doo dee doo."

Why do dwarves, who even in this game covet the deep, dark places of the earth, have sea shanties?

quote:




:psyduck: I don't know if it was anyone else or if I've played Icewind Dale too many times but "tavern in the frozen north that plays host to a bunch of exposition" immediately made me think of the starting tavern and they look so very similar, even down to the angle they're at.

Anyways, kill the shitbag king - he stole our loving birthright and called us a halfwit. One could maybe be forgiven, but both?

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Voting is closed, we're ganking Aldnar.

Update tonight!

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Death of Motivation

Welcome back! Last time Aldnar, the untrustworthy bad man who worships Satan and betrayed both his father and Lord Frelsi asked us if we were stupid enough to join him. Goons voted no. There was going to be a bonus part of this update where we killed the king until I realized it was actually much later in the game and you have to go play through the Temple of Almekfuckyoudick first. That temple loving sucks. I'll see if I can squeeze it in as a bonus update, patience permitting.



Keep an eye on that guy. I'm restarting Aldnar's dialogue to show off the... interesting.. setup to the fight.



See those two soldiers at the bottom? They don't move.



Instead of negotiating from the doorframe like ostensibly smart people, we of course go in to blather with Aldnar.



Dialogue is the same as last time except I call him a megatraitor.





He gives us his spiel about leading Isilmerald to a prosperous future or whatever, so we give him a deserved reply.

: The only future that lies before you is death at my hand.

: Haha! Eat that, kinslayer!



TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: Yo Lady Espen, whatup.

: What the gently caress?

: I did a coup! Lord Frelsi was a god drat moron who didn't realize I had literally nothing to offer the rebellion except strategic fuckups and poor PR.

: But... why?

: Lord Frelsi was totally possessed by demons! And stuff! Because he denied it, but that's exactly what a demon worshipper would say!

: Weren't you bragging about being possessed by Satan at the beginning of the game? gently caress it. Wow, now you're a double traitor.

: Suddenly, despite showing nothing but disdain for you all game, you stealing my birthright after I murdered our father in front of you, and me looking like a pervert at a porn theater as well as ordering you to be killed on sight five minutes ago, I feel compelled to ask you to join my team.

: DIE, HO!

: Ha ha gently caress you patricide.

: BAWWWWWW!



We are forced to sit through Aldnar and his "elite" guards calling upon the power of Satan, which, as far as I can tell, does nothing to make him more survivable. Of course, the game doesn't have a "dispel magic" spell, but it does have this carefully placed guard in position to bisect Jade.

It's the little things like this that show you just how much respect the developers have for their playerbase. Coming up with a coherent reason to join the rebellion that murdered your father? Meh. lovely enemy placement designed to murder your mages after you're cutscene forced into a terrible position? Make every single developer work on this!



Now, the guy who went to the left comes back to ambush the mages as well. This isn't a hard fight, exactly - Inta is hardcore enough to solo all of these morons as mage spell damage in this game is... actually kind of garbage.



The problem is they tear through Bjalla really fast because we don't have anyone who can pull those idiots off her AND there are virtually no buff spells worth a drat in this game. Reload!



The achievement for joining Aldnar has the lowest completion percentage on Steam and it's not hard to see why.



Anyway the optimal strategy is to run everyone back to the door and force the warriors into the chokepoint. Unfortunately Aldnar's mages have a rush of blood to the brains and hit the mage corps with confusion.



Then we end up with the same general strategy: Inta tanks, Jade craps out summons, Bjalla and Isla do okish AoE damage, Hamlin shoots whatever, if anyone gets too low cast healing mist, and grind the enemy down.



Aldnar is surprisingly murderable.



The absolute worst character in the game opens her worthless mouth after the fight is over.



She plays the same cutscene magic animation we've seen when our nonmagical warrior was somehow able to call on Almighty God to fail to uncurse Jade.



So this is our next big plot revelation: the plague was caused by Aldnar spreading it via demonic influence and being an invisible carrier. Now, you might have questions such as "Aldnar seemed pretty elitist, why did the commoners get it and not the war council", "why didn't Aldnar spread the plague to Lord Frelsi and kill him that way", "how did Aldnar plan to conquer Isilmerald having destroyed the mines and the economic power of Deron-Guld" and the answer is: Black Geyser!

: How did Aldnar possibly come to be so riddled with disease?



No. It's not ironic. You literally opened the game with him ranting about how he discovered the real truth of Sa- I mean, Rothgor. Then you had our character act stupid and tell absolutely no one about this, even though the guy challenged us in front of the War Council and quite frankly that should have been enough to discredit him.

Now our only option is to verbally fellate Isla on her amazing skills of script reading.

: How can you possibly know all that?



I think she's supposed to be a demigod or something, but it's a mystery I don't particularly care about.

: What should we do about all this?



Thus, after our climactic battle with the only thing resembling an antagonist in the game, the developers realize they don't have a plot so they send us on a lame messenger quest.

Because the immortal exposition demigoddess apparently knows how to time travel but doesn't have a carrier pigeon.

: Meet me in the Curious Cat once you are back. I'll try my best to help those that can still be helped while you are away.



TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: Oh no! The turbo bad man was possessed by demons to spread the plague!

: How did you know? Did you read the script?

: Uh, no. I'm all powerful and mysterious and stuff! Honest!

: Sure whatever you useless XP steali-

:spergin:: Um, I believe you mean to say "Wow, Isla! I want you to bear my children after we have sexy hot sexy sex!"

: What sins have I committed, oh Lord? Fine, what idiotic exposition do you have for me now?

: I need you to run all the way across the kingdom to the Garden of Delights and have the medics send some extra hands. What do you mean, Bjalla can also cast healing spells, or you could have brought Sea Hag or Siracca? Pffft! Meet me in the bar when you get back, I'll be drinking while you waste your ti - er, healing the people of this city. Oh, and you should take Aldnar's cursed sword. Tee hee!



The sword is cursed because it was infected with the magical evil energies that infused Aldnar the bad man.



Granted, it's -1 physique and +4 dex, but Sea Hag can also just uncurse it when we pick her back up because Isla is out of the party. Forever.



On the way out we need to kill some ghouls.



Anyway, we travel to the capital to grab Sea Hag, and I'm going to be making a bunch of detours to grind up some more power before we hit the Temple of Almefuckadick or whatever it's called.



Anyway, Jade needed to get uncursed and told us to hit the Temple of Alnarius. Let's do that, because having her and her legions of the undead is going to make things somewhat easier.

Of course, we can't talk to the nameless "High Priest of Alnarius," we need to talk to the other characters around him.



I did not edit this dialog in any way. Note that we begin by talking to Priestess Genevieve.

: A friend of mine is suffering the effects of a rather tenacious curse.



:psyduck:

Wha- why - we just talked to Priestess Genevieve! Why are you doing this!



The dumbass literally walks across the room to where Inta and Genevieve are talking.



How did you know this? I think they went over to Jade but it's hard to tell.



: Please, I hope you can do something for Jade. We don't know where else to turn.



For the record, one of Jade's combat barks is "But what if there are people over there?" The thread has been commenting that Jade and Sea Hag deserve a better game, and I can't deny that assessment.

:biglips:: Of course. Step into the light... Oh my. There is a bitter malice about this artifact. How did you come by such a tool of evil?

: If we need to get into the details, could we perhaps go somewhere private?

:biglips:: No, never mind that. We shall have to speak with the High Priest. He's a busy man, but I'm sure he will make time for such a... horrid thing.



It's funny that Acolyte Moron and Priestess Genevieve get names but the high priest, who is presumably a major political as well as religious figure, is just called "High Priest".

: Yes, my name is Jade. I am the one cursed.



: Can you tell me anything about the nature of the wizard who cursed it?



: There's something you can do, I hope?



You can apparently not pay if you have Siracca but I will gladly pay 5000 gold to never have that awful cleric in my party again. We also have 30000 gold after this and absolutely no use for it. I can't tell if that's a genius if inadvertent commentary on excess greed or just the developers being lame.

: Very well. I will pay it, if it means Jade's freedom.

: I will never forget this, Inta Rume. You are a true friend.

:catholic:: Come, Jade, this will take some time.



The high priest reuses the Cutscene Fire animation again.

: Oh ye gods, look! It's over! I'm free! I feel like I could float away without that curse on my brow. I have to start planning how to repay you. All of you.

:catholic:: May Alnarius help you steer clear of such unholiness in the future. Good bye.

TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

:biglips:: Hi, it's me, Priestess Genevieve. What do you need at the Temple of Alnarius?

: Can you uncurse my friend over here?

:doit:: Oh man, this requires Priestess Genevieve! Let me run across the room and get her! Notice me! Notice me, my sweet one! You are the wind beneath my wings! You would make me very happy if you would let me suckle that humongous ra-

:biglips:: Oh, you're cursed?

: Yes. This curse sucks so bad it could feature in a vacuum commercial.

:biglips:: Hmm. Well, I'd better refer you to the High Priest because he's the only one who can uncurse you.

:catholic: Hello, my child. I see you are cursed. It is a turbo bad curse, and only I can remove it, but for 5000 gold.

: Hang on, I've seen Sea Hag do that poo poo for free. I know you don't need materials, and you guys serve the god of love and healing, right? Shouldn't you just... do it? Is the church supposed to be corrupt? Drykkr kind of hinted at it. Are we to assume you're hit by the curse of greed?

:catholic:: Hell if I know, this is Black Geyser! You could have brought Siracca.

: Hereyougo5000goldkaching!

:catholic:: Here's my five second uncurse animation. I can get a lot of hookers for 5000 gold!

: I'm cured! I'm free! I'm not going to die! Thank you all so much! I'll figure out a way to repay you, I swear it!

:catholic:: Go, and sin no more.



The Eye of Calamity is removed from Jade's head, but now that it's uncursed we can but it right back on.





We can pester Jade some more.

: How did the cursed diadem come into your possession in the first place?



: Who could have dreamed the thing would be cursed?

: Indeed. I feel like my string of bad romances started right around the time I found the diadem. And it was not long after that I decided to put all my efforts into necromancy. Curious...

Jade has a story about a pet squirrel she tried to resurrect as a child. It's not even clear that this is the wrong thing to do, as the level 7 Unnatural spell, Twisted Requiem, lets you pull off a full resurrection and then mock the Changing God for being a useless dweeb.



: What are you hoping for now that the curse has been lifted?



Hell yes, lady who solves our problems by throwing skeletons at them.

: Yes, I do enjoy your company.

: Great, then let's go!

TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: How did you find that cursed diadem anyway?

: Oh, I was exploring a busted snow elf tomb because it had really cool art, then I found a secret chamber with an evil dude who was buried alone for presumably his many crimes. I grabbed the diadem and then had a bunch of lovely relationships. Weirdly, that's when I also decided to become a necromancer.

: Now what's your plan?

: Can I... can I stay in the party?

: Jade, you solve all our problems by throwing skeletons at them. Of course you can stay in the party.



I'm not sure if being indecisive broke Hamlin's quest. It wouldn't shock me. On my first playthrough after we left the King's castle for the trial, he did the chapter 2 thing where he left the party to sell the painting.



We are actually going to do one last sidequest, not because it's particularly interesting, but because it gets us the highest damage weapon in the game. Said weapon is not necessary, but going into that god awful temple with low DPS is just a long and unforgiving slog.



Crimson Crossing is the third site we were told could be a stronghold. As strongholds are not implemented in this game, it really doesn't matter. It is full of NPCs who offer us sidequests. We don't care because Black Geyser sidequests are boring, terrible, and usually not very rewarding.



For some reason this lovely fox is scripted to kill Pepper the cat. I reload and waste his rear end, saving Pepper the cat. It doesn't matter but I take what I can get in this game.



This guy has a whole menagerie of tame scorpions and spiders we can choose to whine about, or we can just ignore. The latter means less playing Black Geyser, so...



This is the upstairs of a house with two wizards in it, whose possessions we can unlock and steal for no GREED penalty because the GREED system is dumb.



They have a magic belt that makes you resist horny and shoots plague. I don't even know.



These guys have another fetch quest. I actually have half their papers, but I pull the pro move of telling them destroying legal documents will get them in more trouble and I'm not going to do it. This gets us 832 XP and lets me dodge another sidequest. Score!



The blacksmith is out of his smithy, but we can steal this heavy battleplate we don't actually need to sell for money and no GREED.



I don't understand how this jug can fit a bow and arrows.



Anyway, this "den of miscreants" is where we want to go.



It's full of good poo poo to steal, but I'm holding off on teaching our mages any spells for... reasons.



Sometimes the NPCs warn you as you make off with stolen money, and sometimes the entire area goes aggro.



This guy is an important political figure who has no commentary on the war.



He has a quest to kill the smith because the smith supposedly has gone mad with GREED. I don't care, that's not why we're here.



I'm kind of impressed at how lame the GREED curse is. Don't worry, we'll see a real mechanical effect of the GREED this update!



We want the mysterious item, but I order Hamlin to steal everything in the cabinet.



This turns the entire town hostile, and quite frankly I don't care.



They die like chumps and drop loads of loot.



This has a whole bunch of lore about a "Xurxur Beast" you don't care about, but what's important is that it's half of the most powerful weapon in the game.



poo poo, they even have this spell for Jade.



I then realize fighting the entire town is more tedious than it sounds, reload, steal only the hilt, and get away with a warning from Salazar. Whatever. I looked up his quest and you get railroaded into killing the guy and then picking how much GREED you want. We don't get the Twisted Requiem scroll, but that's OK.



On the way to grab the blade from an ogre cave we run into these people talking about the liquor thieves. I legitimately do not care.



These guys have another quest and I tell them to gently caress off because it's boring.



We're really here to steal the blade of Alakai from their house.



Now, you might think we could take it to Tolbard, but we need a slab of Rilvite. Crower in Deron-Guld sells that, so we grab it off camera and then go to Tolbard.



On the way out of the ogre cave we notice something interesting. See, we murdered some bandits on the way in and left a bunch of leather armor because it weighs a lot and we have more money than we could ever really use.

However, our GREED is higher because we're in the fifth chapter of this sordid "story", and the game spawns these guys.



I admit it, I laughed.



Testing? What?



They run off, leaving behind some diaper men as we continue on our way.



To Tolbard's!



Well, ok, since we're in the area, we'll deliver Isla's stupid message, and THEN to Tolbard's!



Tolbard flips out because it's a legendary weapon but also because he can test his skill by repairing it. He wants 5000 gold, and you know what? That's fine.



He fixes up Alakai and now Inta can do stupid amounts of damage. Let's take a look.



Not only does the weapon do the most damage in the game, but it makes the wielder immune to most bullshit crowd control enemies will try to hit you with.



Blah blah blah lore. Let's get back to Isla.





: There's always a bit of a spark in the air when we come together. (Bargain and Persuasion)

I don't know why I'm hitting on Isla. Probably to see if we can get some cringy "romantic" dialog.

: Yes, I think we make a good pair. I certainly admire the, uh, *endurance* you exhibit in combat.



: Do you think the plague dying down is linked to Aldnar's death?

: Undoubtedly.

: I think you'll agree the very timely demise of both Lord Aldnar and the illness was a bit too strong for coincidence. A careful examination of the cadaver supported my early suspicions: the disease was magical in nature and Aldnar was the prime plague carrier.



Are you going to give them a cursed sword too?

: If this world is about to end, what say you and I find a way to leave it behind, together. (Bargain and Persuasion)

Like drinking the Kool-Aid?

The game railroads us into caring about the Pact Prophecy here when it's been awkwardly shoehorned in. Suddenly Isla cares about saving the people of this city when a few days ago she made us abandon them to go listen to a drunk guy ramble about a prophecy.



There are even more questions here. If the church of Alnarius knew about this and did nothing, should we assume Alnarius is going to stop it? Why is Isla the only one who cares about this?

: Perhaps it's time you told me what you actually know for certain about the Pact Prophecy.



But wait! The exploding demon dude said it was the "Final Pact". Did he know it would be disrupted? Is there another prophecy... ah, gently caress it, it's Black Geyser.



Did Zornilsa and Rothgor really plunge Yerengal into chaos? They plunged Isilmerald into chaos, but we never hear anything from the other areas on the map. The chaos seems to be a civil war that we basically ended. Deron-Guld can no longer fight and has lost its leaders. The king is mysteriously uncursed by the power of exploding demons and confusion.



So is the Pendulum reducing the curse of GREED? Why was this plot point idiotically foreshadowed in a time travel quest? Why has no one mentioned this prophecy at all?

: Why does the Pact Prophecy concern you so much?

If it's prophesized, can we stop it? From whose perspective is "a worse catastrophe?" Has anyone ever stopped a prophecy? Looking at Greek myths, the avertable prophecies are all stuff like "if you attack the Persians, a great empire will be destroyed", but the Pact Prophecy says what will happen. Does this prophecy bind Alnarius? Why don't we ask him for help?



That's not what the prophecy says. The prophecy says, in your own words, that a "worse catastrophe" will happen. Rothgor and Zornilsa started a civil war and a plague, but the worst of that seems to be over and both cities are still standing.

: What do you think we should do?

The best part of this entire narrative is that we didn't need Isla at all. The player character has every motivation to kill Aldnar after his coup, and if we'd killed him fast enough the city would have recovered. All she's done is inject a narrative about this prophecy that feels lazily tacked on to the main plot.



: I'll head for this Temple of Alvinec- Almelkivic - I'll go check out the temple thing.

: Godspeed. I shall look forward to your return.

TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: Wow, thanks for running that boring fetch quest for me, Inta Rume!

: Yo wanna gently caress?

: Mmm, such a BIG persuasion score you have...

: Anyway, killing Aldnar lifted the plague! Remember in The Phantom Menace how blowing up the droid control ship shut down the droid army? Well, this is just like that, but with Aldnar and plagues! However, I won't actually do anything useful because the city needs my, uh, guidance! Good one, Isla! Now you can go back to drinking!

: Uh, the world is about to explode, wanna gently caress and drink Jim Jones Kool-Aid?

: Once we deal with the Pact Prophecy, sure!

: Ok, clearly, I can't keep you from expositing everywhere, tell me about this stupid loving prophecy.

: Rothgor da DEVIL-GOD and Zornilsa, the goddess of GREED, will make a hot sexy pact together to plunge Yerengal into chaos, but then their pact will be stopped and THE DARK MOON WILL RISE! DUN DUN DUNNNNN!

: When you did that stupid time travel quest that destroyed all your magic items, I learned that the Pendulum - a magical spirit that protects Yerengal and has never been mentioned - is going to die as a result!

: Who cares? It's a prophecy, right? We can't do anything to stop it? Might as well make our peace with Alnarius and go -

: You stop that right now, young lady! One of the developers came up with this point while he smoked enough weed to kill a fully grown orca, and by golly, you will finish it!

: Fiiiine. I guess I'll go to that Temple of Almefuckadick or whatever it's called.

: I'll be right here standing around. Have funnn!

Next time: Bjalla's quest comes back to bite us in the nuts.

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BmEGm-mraE "bad" instead of "dark" but this is immediately what I thought of first. This game is stupid but I'll take giggles anywhere I can get them.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


How is the length of the main quest in comparison to Baldur's Gate? It's hard to get a proper feel when the plot is so threadbare.

RelentlessImp
Mar 15, 2011
Yeah this looks even shorter than Icewind Dale.

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


Ignatius M. Meen posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BmEGm-mraE "bad" instead of "dark" but this is immediately what I thought of first. This game is stupid but I'll take giggles anywhere I can get them.

Damnit, I was going to post that :argh:

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
This is the worst game you LPed that I managed to still kind of skim read.

That qualifier is because your actual worst was ATOM, and I had to stop reading that one because it was annoying me too badly.

I still hate this game, don’t get me wrong. But… I think the very sparse snaps of things I actually independently like are keeping me in there? Jade is legitimately funny, Sea Hag is being squandered but not butchered if that makes sense, and I actually liked that one dryad tree poison quest as an idea. I might steal that for my campaign now that I think about it. Just, y’know, not implemented like crap (hopefully). In ATOM, there was legitimately no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

This latest chapter is very quickly sliding downhill though, which is honestly a surprise. This is even worse than the earlier railroading because we’re spending more time around time travel plot waifu and getting uncomfortable glimpses from the writers in addition to the crap plotting.

DACK FAYDEN
Feb 25, 2013

Bear Witness

TheGreatEvilKing posted:



I don't understand how this jug can fit a bow and arrows.
this is an unauthorized jug, citizen

what a clunky word to mean "you are stealing"

LJN92
Mar 5, 2014

So I haven't been paying perfect attention, and searching has turned up nothing; have we found out why the game is called "Black Geyser"? Is there a reason? Is it just a fantasy name for no particular reason?

TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





LJN92 posted:

So I haven't been paying perfect attention, and searching has turned up nothing; have we found out why the game is called "Black Geyser"? Is there a reason? Is it just a fantasy name for no particular reason?

We have not. We get told what a Black Geyser is just before the final dungeon.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



Is the entire game just an analogy for the current geopolitical state of capitalism as it relates to oil production and supply and how dominant production countries use their means of production to destabilize countries dependant on said source of oil?

I hope not, because loving hell that's a terrible analogy to have associated with this game (that statement is true for any analogy associated with this game).

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TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





The Black Geyser

Welcome back! Last time on Black Geyser, Isla told us there was an entire other plot after we defeated the main villain and also our main motivation to do anything. Today we're going to descend into a land of confusion and complete loving idiocy.



First, however, we need to yoink these poisoned arrows from a barrel in the Curious Cat. A better game would have this imply something. I have no idea why these are here.



We're still going to the Temple of Almefuckadick, but I remembered that you can just go to the Pendulum and you don't have to fight through waves of tedious encounters.



The Pendulum apparently lives on top of a mountain with a convenient path so parties following idiotic time-waifu railroading can climb the stairs and get exposition. Are you ready?



The Pendulum looks like every evil mage in this game. He is even wearing "cultist robes".



We are about to travel to a land without logic.

: Nice view. Wish I had time to just stand here and take it all in.



Put your pants back on you sick gently caress.

: All right. What is coming?



I know a lot of you are rolling your eyes already, but I want to point out our character has the exact same thought. The writing for this section realizes how dull and cliched it is and thus we are given the option to turn it into bad slapstick.

: Can't you just give me the whole story at one time?

: The Dark Moon is an event which will spell the doom of Yerengal.

This is of course written like an encyclopedia entry. "A fart is a methane expulsion from an animal's anus".

: And now nothing may be done to stop it.

But... why? Could we have done something earlier? I stole the time stone off Isla, can we use that?



No idea why they do that Jade, you're actually fairly chipper.

: Then I guess I'm wasting my time.

Much like the people who made this game!



: You're going to tell me what to do about the Pact Prophecy and save Yerengal?



: Okay. What is the disaster that is prophesied to occur when the Pact is broken?



What the gently caress are you talking about? Excessive greed, pride, or bloodlust fall under "madness" pretty easily. This game gave as an example of greed a bunch of farmers killing people to put their blood into wine and that would somehow make them more money.



But... what if we didn't do that? Things are getting better. The king is uncursed. The civil war is basically over. The plague is receding. Aldnar is dead.



: Me? How will I be responsible?

This is absolute horseshit but whatever.



But... wait. If we can't change this and it's decreed by fate or whatever how is it our fault? Earlier you said it couldn't be stopped now. Could we have stop- gently caress it. Why do I bother?



: What exactly is the Pact?

: Long ago, as the races of Yerengal were being formed, their selfish, animal instincts subsided. Some of the gods were full of joy as their creations flourished. Others were disinterested. Still others reacted with alarm.

: Zornilsa, Goddess of Greed and Rothgor the Devil-God watched as greed and chaos gave way to charity and order. Without influence in mortal affairs, these entities grew weak. Thus they formed an alliance to fight back the slowly encroaching order.

You know, I hate to be that guy, but greed and chaos aren't necessarily bad. Excessive greed and chaos are, but no one ever said "gently caress that man who went to engineering school because he wanted to earn more money than flipping burgers!" Likewise, "chaos" is probably regular people's only recourse against people like Aldnar and King House Thief.

These concepts are far too interesting for this lovely game.



So, yes, that's the Black Geyser. It's a portal to hell where a bunch of the spirits of the damned show up and turn people greedy by, um, stuff. It's not even clear this plan is working, because the greed girl showed up on behalf of Zornilsa to offer us obviously bullshit NFTs, and that's not a play you make when you're winning.

: What must I do?



This castle is right outside the capital. Are you telling me that with a civil war on no one bothered to investigate a potentially useful fortification?



: How can a mere mortal break a pact between two gods?



: How do I find divine assistance?



Wow, thanks shitlord. You're the worst.

Now, you might be thinking "what about Alnarius? Isn't he the king of the gods who explicitly invested the king and all those churches?" Maybe you were insane enough to learn this game's lore and read that Alnarius was the mightiest of the gods because he was so widely worshiped.

Alnarius is not going to do jack poo poo all game.

: Assuming I locate the Black Geyser, what happens then?

: You yourself must enter the Geyser.



Jade gives nearly as few fucks as I do.



Ok, I get it, but aren't you the high priestess of the Sea God? He sends you visions and stuff right? Could we ask him for help? No.



I see Hamlin is an rear end man.

: Enter it? You said the Geyser was a rift between Yerengal and... the realm of Rothgor, the devil-god.

I really wish I'd taken option 2. It's astounding, really. It's like one of the writers was out to sabotage the rest.



: What happens once the rift is closed?



: Why is every one of the world's damned problems perched on my shoulders? Is there a stamp on my face that says "dullard"?

: Finish what you must do in this world before you venture to the other. There will be but one chance, and even should you succeed, I do not know if you will return.

I thought we were prophesized to succeed?



gently caress off and die you condescending rear end.

: Go now. Do what must be done.

: We will not speak again.

Naturally, instead of disappearing or whatever he sticks around and you can speak with him again.



TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:

: I am cryptic. And ominous.

: Look, can you gently caress off with all that dumbass crap and tell me what the plot is supposed to be? Aldnar's dead, the war is over, the plague is receding, and GREED hasn't really done much aside from some scripted encounters and inflation.

: The Dark Moon! "The Dark Moon is an event which will spell the doom of Yerengal". Now it's unstoppable and going to happen!

: God drat this is some pretentious horseshit.

: Ask your questions.

: Can we actually stop the Pact Prophecy?

: I will tell you how to break the Pact, but there will be spooky consequences!

: Ok, fine, what are these "spooky consequences"?

: If you break the pact, you will drat the world to madness, which is much worse than a manic greed that makes people kill each other to put blood in wine because, um, "madness strives for nothing", which is WORSE than striving for money by murder!

: Anyway, you have to break the pact, but it will also DESTROY THE WORLD WITH MADNESS!!!! DUM DUM DUM!

: Oh, and it will be all your fault, because you broke the pact.

: Wait, why would I be responsible? That's fuckin dumb.

: Your actions will start the age of madness! It's super bad! It can't be avoided, so it's entirely your fault!

: Well, you've been as consistent as anything else in this game so far. What's the Pact?

: Well, you know how in Dungeons and Dragons gods get more powerful as people worship them? That's a thing here too! It turns out people were too nice and charitable, so Zornilsa the GREED goddess and Rothgor the devil-god got drunk and formed a TEAM OF EVIL! They were growing super weak, but then they created a portal to hell that let out demons to spread greed with magic - as you know, something weak entities can easily do - and then they'd get really powerful because there was all this greed and chaos!

: How exactly am I supposed to stop this?

: You, a mortal with a sword, must somehow cause the Goddess of Greed and the Devil to break their pact when they could use their powers at their weakest to split the land with civil war. There's a castle right near the capital, literally just down the road, where the Black Geyser - a portal to hell - is. You must shut the portal!

: All my talents are with a sword. How am I supposed to do that?

: You need a god's help. I don't know where you can get it. Ta-ta!

: Ok, so I can get... I dunno, one of those forgotten gods Jade briefly mentioned to strike the portal with a thunderbolt or something?

: Nah, you're going to have to go into the portal and into Hell.

: God drat this is some pretentious horseshit.

: Well I guess it's a good thing I don't know any gods that could help us. I haven't seen anything this stupid in all my undead existence.

: I will make a bad joke about stealing!

: But... why?

: *farts loudly*

: This is loving stupid! Who are you, anyway, the only reference we've had was from that Isla girl we literally met in a murderous cult that did human sacrifice. Why should I believe anything you say? How are you going to make me go through the Black Geyser? If it's worse for the world if I do, why don't we just go buy a house with this 25000 gold we have and just, I dunno, retire? Wh-

:spergin:: Of course I will go through the rift and do the thing you've told me will be a catalyst for a reign of darkness and madness! Durrrrr!

: For what it's worth, that's the final dungeon of this game, and you won't have to suffer any more tedious fetch quests or bad writing until they inevitably make Black Geyser 2: Sexy Madness Time!



The game wants us to go back to Isla but she's just going to send us to the Temple of poo poo Garbage, so off we go to the Temple of poo poo Garbage that has the actual text of the Pact Prophecy. Is it going to tell us anything new? Nope



The game loads these scorpions within striking distance of our mages, because coming up with lazy gotchas that poo poo on the player is easy and writing a competent story takes real effort no one wanted to make.



These three undead misers have a quest where this lady got one less gold piece when they split a hoard and now you can kill them all for their treasure. I pass because it's boring, and, hilariously for a game about greed, we don't actually need their treasure.



There are also empty huts with nothing in them. I don't know why.



Unfortunately we can't get to the Temple proper until we grind through pointless scorpion encounters.



I then get the bright idea to uncurse Inta's armor as Sea Hag is higher level now and discover something horrifying. The armor only gives 30% resistance, down from the 40% from before.

I figure the guide is wrong - it's supposed to go up to 50% physical resistances - and reload a save.



It turns out the developers did a complete armor revamp in the latest patch and you can't just stroll through the game with 100% physical resistance anymore. It's not just armor, either.



This used to be 10% physical resistance, now it's 3%. I'd be more concerned if there was anything actually good for the slot, but as it stands its a pretty vicious nerf to all three people actually playing this game.

There's something in the patch notes about rebalancing two-handed weapons. This is Inta with the Crimson Kiss, the weapon you can either buy in Deron-Guld or get off the adventurers outside Time Travel Farm:



This is Inta with the legendary weapon we got last update.



Look at how little difference the damage range is! Remember, the first (non-legendary) weapon actually has a high chance to drain life on hit while Alakai gives a bunch of immunities, but still, it's kind of hilarious that the legendary weapon does so little more damage. Note also that the Kiss gives +2 physique while Alakai gives 3 - we could probably find a ring or something to make up the difference. What a loving joke!



Anyway, now that the developers have patched out the resistances we're back to the standard Infinity Engine "have your casters blow their resources than click the rest button". Riveting! These lizardmen are melee monsters, but they're melee monsters who actually attrition our resources.

Except we're not on a clock or anything, so the only resource that gets attrited is my patience.



There's a boss fight outside the temple. It's just a bunch of melee guys. Pre-patch Inta could have soloed it, as it stands we go for the standard "dump summons and autoattack until everyone is dead".



This poor chimera tried to stop us from going to this lovely temple.



He is avenged by this loading screen.



I realize in horror that I didn't pick any level-up base energy spells for Jade. The game doesn't actually divide them up into base and elevated energy spells on level up. I haven't been feeding the mages scrolls for reasons you're about to see in this update.



This temple is full of undead, and you can tell the game was inspired by Baldur's Gate because of how unpleasant they are to fight. In Baldur's Gate 2 any time you went into a temple full of undead you ran into a bunch of level drain... unless you were smart and brought Korgan or the protection from negative energy spell.

In Black Geyser you just get hammered by invisible ghosts spamming crowd control spells.



See that lovely sand dune in the middle of the same-colored tile? That is an Oriental spell that does AoE damage and knockdown. It's one of the few spells in the game that does AoE crowd control, and while it's mercifully once a fight these fuckers have tons of resistances.



The end result isn't ever really in doubt. You're not in danger of wiping to these things, you're just in danger of reloading because you lost a character and the Staff of the New Dawn - the resurrection staff - is buggy as hell. It is, however, a more tedious grind than the rest of this game. I'm cutting out the rest of these, but rest assured there are a ton of these boring ghost+mummy encounters. That's the nature of Black Geyser. While the enemies assault your characters, the game assaults your brain.



One of these jerks is hanging around and reminds me I could be watching Grace Park pretend to be a sexy robot instead.



The dungeon's "puzzle" is to collect four of these idols and match them with four altars.



This is Rothgor's.



These guys would be a lot more interesting if they forced you to actually change your strategy.



The way this encounter is supposed to work is that when you set foot into the center area a bunch of mummies come out of those sarcophagi and attack you.



However, the scorpion can easily be baited into a safe zone and murdered. Naturally, it drops nothing. You might be asking questions like "which god is the scorpion sacred to," "will murdering a sacred animal incur the wrath of the god who values it", "could we do something nice for the scorpion to gain divine assistance", and I must once again remind you we are being railroaded into going to literal hell to convince two gods to break a pact that benefits both of them immensely because a creature in an evil wizard costume told us to do it.



Alright. Here's the feature of today's update. Remember how I said doing Bjalla's quest would gently caress us over in the long run?



My information was slightly wrong. If you're set up correctly, you can grab the Tilindia statue from behind the corpse and just leave and not have to deal with what's about to happen.

Unfortunately, I have to show it off.



This is at least partially gated behind a conversation with Jade.

: Is something troubling you, Jade?



Yeah, it's the wolf again. Both Bjalla and Jade found magic hats with wolf spirits inside them that are linked to the F Word Snow Elves, and Bjalla's quest was all about stealing from libraries and harassing old women for wolf lore, while Jade was just trying to remove the curse from the magic evil diadem that maybe screwed up her life.

: Do you have any idea of why you would dream of a wolf?



To sum up both Bjalla and Jade's quests led here to the temple.



Upon completing that conversation a ghost attacks! If we defeat the ghost she becomes an NPC.



: As my final task in the mortal realm, I am ready to impart my wisdom upon a worthy daughter... Though since there are two of you, I am unsure how to proceed.

Can you teach them both? No

: Two of what? Since the Third Eye chose me, it only makes sense-



I was going to bitch out the game for not making sense, but I think Jade is trying to say that Morvern said they're both candidates? Whatever.



For some reason, despite Espen having little knowledge of these traditions or even the presence to mind to ask why the matriarch can't teach both the women, this is our choice.

: Ladies, please. Let me intervene. Jade, why do you believe you deserve the matriarch's wisdom over Bjalla?



Now, the next dialogue is different. In my original playthrough we never made it to the herbalist and Bjalla was yelling about Jade wanting to be a "queen of darkness" or some nonsense.

Now?

: Bjalla, why do you think Morvern should choose you?



So, I am going to call for a vote, but with some caveats because I want to discuss this astoundingly lovely twist. This quest was not in the game at release. You only get this choice if you've completed enough of Jade and Bjalla's questlines to make this pointless ghost appear. I have a save right before talking to Jade, so it's entirely possible to ignore Morvern entirely and move on.

This choice kicks out whichever mage you don't choose from the party forever. If you take the bottom option you can switch the unselected woman into the party if you kicked the first out (so if we picked Bjalla, we could send Bjalla packing and grab Jade). These two women are the only two mages in the game, so if you wanted to have a double mage party composition tough poo poo. I'd go so far as to say they're the best companions in the game mechanically, with Helgenhar as a third and everyone else as "tolerable". Losing either one of Bjalla or Jade is a huge hit to party effectiveness, especially if you already recruited all the companions, decided this was going to be your final party and now you have to go back and grind someone who's behind. We have not seen all the companions.

The next question is "what do I get for completing this quest that makes up for the loss of a mage" and the answer is that...whichever girl you pick gets a hat upgrade. I am not joking. Bjalla got a 1/day wolf summon that summons the three eyed wolf and it's absolutely not worth it. You'd think trading away an entire mage would get you something like doubled spell slots or something paradigm breaking like max damage on spells. You would be wrong.

Needless to say, there's a lot wrong with the writing as well. Bjalla and Jade have absolutely no interaction except one of the party dialogues where Bjalla asks Jade where she learned magic and Jade replies she didn't go to an academy, it's all talent. Bjalla gets pissy. That's... it. One conversation far back in Amanuel's Hoard. Now, Baldur's Gate 2 had similar dynamics where Keldorn and Viconia hated each other and it could culminate in a fight to the death, but they also actually started sniping at each other first and the game made it very clear they did not like or respect one another. While it's clear that both Bjalla and Jade want to go to this temple because of wolf hat related reasons, there's no real reason the ghost can't teach them both or that you can't talk one of them into accepting the other getting her way. This also doesn't happen unless you do their quests, so the reward for engaging with more of the game is losing a party member and their expensive gear you've put time and effort into developing. I hope you didn't teach the girl you didn't pick any of the unique scrolls they both can learn.

At least Bjalla gets some characterization.

Decisions lie before us

Are we going to pick Bjalla, Jade, let the ghost pick, or reload and skip this dumb poo poo?

TheGreatEvilKing fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Aug 7, 2022

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