|
... so he spent YOUR money on transforming into a fishperson and he has the hall to poo poo all over you?
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2018 23:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 10:33 |
|
|
like i said, it's legit very weird to me that this game lets you gleefully murder the legitimate-if-way-overbearing law enforcement in town with basically no repercussions and substantial rewards, but when a dude who stole money from you in order to become a mer-man shows up the only thing you can do is stand there and let him be pissy
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 00:07
|
|
|
Siegkrow posted:... so he spent YOUR money on transforming into a fishperson and he has the hall to poo poo all over you? I think it was his father's money.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 00:10
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:I think it was his father's money. even if it was, he set it aside for Philip. misappropriation of funds is bad regardless. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Nov 2, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 00:20
|
|
|
Pierzak posted:I looked around in the encounter files so I'll just post my findings. And that right there explains so much I wondered about! Apparently I've never gone to see Cale while having Medic. Honestly, I'm with Coolguye on this one. If I'm going to have to run from the cops anyway, I should have been able to start by breaking his knee... well, he has other things I can break. I let three people die just so I could steal a backpack, Phillip's not always a good person when the chips are down. gently caress me. I have encountered cannibals, an arena where hungry people and slaves are made to fight killer robots, murderous cultists, people who would stab me in the back so they could steal my shoes, a hopelessly corrupt and uncaring government that seems to be powered by bureaucracy, and yet this rear end in a top hat is the one I wish I could murder.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 00:21
|
|
|
So wait, Philip couldn't break into Cale's apartment building but he could just walk into the one next door? (In the balcony-jumping path.) Shouldn't all the buildings have impenetrable front doors? If it's just the one, what's so important that it needs one? Or did the building next door have a convenient broken lock and I missed it? Seems like a detail without a reason.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 00:35
|
|
|
queserasera posted:So wait, Philip couldn't break into Cale's apartment building but he could just walk into the one next door? (In the balcony-jumping path.) Shouldn't all the buildings have impenetrable front doors? If it's just the one, what's so important that it needs one? Or did the building next door have a convenient broken lock and I missed it? Seems like a detail without a reason. I skipped including that image, and maybe I shouldn't have because it had the very detail you're looking for. The front door to the building next door was propped open because somebody was moving furniture.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 00:40
|
|
|
Truthkeeper posted:gently caress me. I have encountered cannibals, an arena where hungry people and slaves are made to fight killer robots, murderous cultists, people who would stab me in the back so they could steal my shoes, a hopelessly corrupt and uncaring government that seems to be powered by bureaucracy, and yet this rear end in a top hat is the one I wish I could murder. Same. I have less sympathy for him than for the random looters whom *I* bludgeoned to death for their shoes in full visceral detail. Especially since some looters are actually decent guys if you have a chance to talk to them. gently caress, even the Merga Wraith is more likable, and it's a creepy stalker/murderer and a blob of darkness in a mask. Also, you should totally troll SkyCorps bikers with the mechanical doll. Pierzak fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Nov 2, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 00:45
|
|
|
What does your rap sheet look like if you wait the 1 year to get into DMC legit and get arrested for using the intercom?
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 01:06
|
|
|
Pierzak posted:Also, you should totally troll SkyCorps bikers with the mechanical doll. While fun, there's a far more important use I'm holding onto the doll for. And I'm pretty sure you still need Hiding to make that plan work with them anyway. Deathwind posted:What does your rap sheet look like if you wait the 1 year to get into DMC legit and get arrested for using the intercom? Sadly, there is no way to actually get a legit entry pass, because bureaucracy. You can only get working passes from Hatter or the junk market (you can also obtain a pass from the Hades Glade sometimes, but it always gets you kicked out immediately when you try to use it). Next update coming up. I'd forgotten how crazy the inhabitants of Saginaw are. Which, I mean, mental institution, but still.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 06:05
|
|
|
The Naked Truth Last time, I promised you adventure and excitement as Phillip enters the Saginaw Mental Institution, where he was once a patient, now an amnesiac looking for answers about his past. There’s just this one little problem with that. Remember this? ”From the last update” posted:
Yeah, the reason there’s a lot of them around here is because the SMI is also their primary church. Phillip is a pilgrim in an unholy land. Luckily, there is a way out of this that doesn’t involve dying horribly. You have to be very careful, and it helps to plan ahead. The first step:  I stuffed all my gear in a stand of trees in the next hex up. This isn’t always necessary, but helps if things go poorly.  I can only assume that Phillip is now naked as the day he was born. No reference is ever made in-game as to whether or not underwear still exists, presumably so you can decide this for yourself.  This is technically another skill check. Fighting the guards brings the full might of the cult down on you, and a quick death. If I had Tracking or Hiding, I could use them to sneak in, with various results. Both eventually lead to more spooky stuff, Tracking requires having another Gizhik stick to avoid being killed by some sort of spirit, but Philip does manage to regain some of his memories. Hiding is similar, except you run into the ghost of a little girl who helps you escape the spirit and then restores some memories (less than from the Tracking path). Those are both less than ideal routes, restoring fewer memories, rewarding less loot, and being inferior from a story perspective. No, for once the smart money is on not using your skills at all. Instead, I’m converting to a new religion. They murder people, I murder people, they wear hospital gowns, Phillip woke up in one, seems like a good fit.  And this is why I stripped down first. If things go well, you get your stuff back at the end of this, but how often can you count on things going to plan?  Back to start it is then.  And now nobody needs to imagine they can see Phillip’s junk.  Here we have what I lovingly refer to as “the bad option”, “the worse option”, and “holy gently caress what is wrong with you you loving idiot?” Honestly, that last description fits them all pretty well. The froggers test your purity to see if you’re worthy of joining their church. By torture. Your options here are waterboarding, being shoved in an oven, or taking a round in the electric chair. The chair will kill you outright without Tough, and causes pretty horrible internal injuries if you live through it. The oven is survivable, but again, injuries. Waterboarding is bad, but it’s the least horrible thing on this poo poo buffet.  This is really what makes it bad from a gameplay perspective. Yeah sure, waterboarding sucks for Phillip, but it doesn’t have any effect on Truthkeeper. Being waterboarded with nasty-rear end rainwater, on the other hand, can give Phillip gastroenteritis if he accidentally swallows any of it, which does affect Truthkeeper.  Oddly enough, the dev bothered to write two versions of this segment, depending on whether or not Phillip swallows the water. I never noticed that before until I was doing it several times in a row tonight.  You can tell them Phillip’s real name, or pull a name out of his rear end, Isaac Hall. There was an Isaac Hall in the American Revolution, associated with Paul Revere’s ride, I’m not sure if that’s the connection they were going for, if there’s another I’m missing, or if it’s just a random choice. In this case, I gave them his real name. It’s not like they know Phillip from Adam, right?  Huh. Well. That is a thing.  Turns out Phillip is Frog Jesus, and the King is going to help him regain his memories. Sweet.  Also turns out there’s dissension in the ranks.  It’s about now when you should start becoming very curious in the holy scriptures of the Blue Frog church and how Phillip fits into them. It’s when I start piecing stuff together my first time getting here, at least.  I am not a psychiatrist and not prepared to make broad claims about how effective or not regressive hypnosis might be. But I question if the King has a license for this.  Lovely. The implication I’m getting here is electroshock therapy, though I suppose there are other treatments in mental institutions where they might need to stick something between your teeth. We know from Cale that somehow Phillip was able to get out of here with the help of Caledad, and had some kind of grand plan in mind which involved being frozen at Gyges. The timeline is still pretty spotty.  This right here is an incredibly important decision, and not just because one choice leads to a game over. You have four options: Tell him the Church of the Blue Frog is doomed Tell him to believe in the Blue Frog Tell him you have no answers Tell him the Church needs a new king. This answer will get you killed, game over, please insert Bitcoin to continue. Tell him you have no answers doesn’t get you killed, only kicked out. But you do get some interesting holy texts…   The holy book of the Blue Frog is written on, among other things, Phillip’s discharge paperwork, which is why he’s such a prominent figure in their religion. This also shores up the timeline a little, Phillip was committed after he went to the Anishinaabe and got the talisman. This is about as informative as things get here, but it isn’t the best sequence.  Interestingly, this path and a couple others result in King Elias leaving Saginaw and wandering the world map for a bit. Hmmm… But what if instead we choose to tell Elias that he needs to believe?  Well, this is one of many times when you might wish you could tell a video game character to screw themselves… and that’s an actual option here!  Not such a great idea, it turns out.  There is a brief screen where it explains that they’re locking you up, but it fades so quickly into the “you dead” screen that you’ll have to take my word for it. So maybe don’t go with your instincts there.  So instead, we’ll tell the king something that sounds more meaningful and profound, but ultimately means nothing. The bishop is totally right about Phillip.  This one gets… a little more interesting. We start with another three way choice: Tell Elias that you can be trusted Tell Elias to decide for himself Challenge the Bishop to a purity trial These are all good choices (for varying values of good) If you tell Elias to trust you:  Imprisoned and then dead again. The wiki says there is a way to survive this and be released, apparently random chance based, but I’ve never seen it happen. Maybe try letting the king make the choice himself then:  Oh gently caress me what have I done.  So, Elias is barely on the edge of just snapping on shooting the place up, and the whole cult falls off that edge with him. This is one of the routes where you don’t get your stuff back. Okay, those both got pretty bad. Clearly, the safe answer here is to challenge the Bishop to trial by  Apparently there is a system in place for this exact series of events. How convenient.  And once again this looney bin is a giant balloon of crazy ready to pop.   Depending on your skills, you might have to decide for yourself whether or not he’s really worried or faking. But I have Trapping and Eagle Eye.  Probably for the best, Phillip can’t survive a Trial of Light.   Phillip’s already been waterboarded once today, what’s another round?  And then Elias had a heart attack.  In pretty much all the ways that matter, this was completely pointless. It doesn’t matter who happens to run the Church, except that now we’ll never know what Elias was going to do when Phillip beat the Bishop. We get to pick a reward from a short list: Phillip’s discharge papers (the holy texts) To be made the new bishop (absolutely loving not, but you get a consolation prize of a sash that marks you as “Do Not Kill This Man”) A cache of drugs and nanomachine healing kits A hunting rifle with ammo and nightvision goggles   Huh. Well. Never seen that one before. I guess that means Eddie’s not going to be an issue. Little concerned about getting a delivery from another Merga Wraith though. This is an alright result, but I kinda feel bad about getting Elias killed. Besides, I’m after a bigger prize. So let’s back way the gently caress up.  “Elias, your whole loving religion is hosed up. Best to burn everything to the ground now.”  Apparently, the Frog cult is based around a prophecy written on Phillip’s paperwork about a flood that they’ll survive. You get to either tell Elias that the prophecy is real but the flood already came and went, or that it’s a lie. Either way, he’ll choose to leave the church forever. But I’m going to tell him the straight up truth: it’s all a lie.  From this, we can at least determine that the cult was stated by Elias’ father, and that Eddie’s not much of a believer. My first time playing, I thought that because the holy stuff was written on Phillip’s papers, that he was the one that wrote it and started all this. But that doesn’t really add up at all.  I did this route to get the Blue Rot cure. It’s important, but still not the real prize. Although… why would this random leader of a murder cult have the cure for a horrible fatal disease that even the most advanced civilized area can’t handle (in fact, if you show up at the clinic in DMC with full on Blue Rot stage 2 or higher, they kick you out and shut the place down for two weeks for decontamination)? Also, you’ll note I’m fully dressed. I did this last run without leaving all my stuff in the woods. So that I could get dressed as soon as I left the building. King Elias has left the SMI again (and randomly ran into another cultist wandering the area, unimportant).  My nightvision gives me the initiative in almost every night battle, able to start close or far as I choose. I’m going into melee, but Elias carries a loving automatic shotgun.  The object here is to pulp his head before he can hit me, because a 12 gauge of buckshot will ruin Phillip’s day.  Elias is very well equipped, mugging him for his stuff is totally worth the effort. But the real prize is his key fob, and his phone… which is locked. My laptop with cracking software is back in Detroit. drat and blast. Looks like a hike back there then. And by “back there”, I mean “let’s do a loop around the map, hit the ATN and Gyges, then back to Detroit”. I was hoping that maybe Stoat’s flash drive was still lying on the ground outside Zom Zom’s, but no luck there.  Technically speaking, I’m more or less at peace with the Frogs now. Insofar as they attempt to talk when I run into them. I still kill them all, because they’re still a horrible murdercult. On the plus side, the Blue Rot vaccine means I don’t need to worry about getting into melee with them now.  Apparently the game heard my earlier comment about not getting a lot of the random events and decided to throw me a few. The thing with random events is that you might expect that the game wants you to act a certain way. Maybe you’ll be punished for being evil and murdering everybody you come across so you can steal their stuff? Or maybe you’ll be punished for your idealism if you stop to help everybody you see? Nope! There’s no rhyme or reason, poo poo just happens and life is hell. In this case, there are squatters trapped in this broken down tank. I have four options: Try and pull enough rubble off for them to be able to escape Bang on the outside of the tank to give them false hope, then leave Just leave Shove whatever garbage I can find in the air intakes to give them the quickest death I can There’s no real right or wrong response to this one. At worst, you’ll just feel bad if you try to help them, because you can’t. Phillip doesn’t have the ability to move enough rubble to make a difference. If you try to dig them out or if you mercy kill them, you get tired from the effort, any other response is no change. If you tried to help, you get tired for no effect and Phillip escapes just as a gang of slavers spots the tank. So maybe the people survived, but is that really a good thing?  Then I ran into this injured man, an injured gun for hire. Again, you get four options: Try and help take care of his foot Give him a shoe Get the hell out of the path of that rifle Try and kill him and steal the rifle In this case, you actually can help and are rewarded for doing so. If you take care of his injured foot (which oddly doesn’t require Medic, just basic first aid stuff), the ronin gives you some bullets or some candy. Giving him a shoe lets you leave with your life. If you dodge out of the way, he takes the shot and misses. If you try to kill him you get shot and bail. In the game data, this encounter is called “Good 1.1”, it’s easy to tell from that what the intended course of action is. Besides, helping people you meet in the world makes this post-apocalyptic hellhole less hellish, right?  He gave me a handful of rifle bullets, which are useless to me, but worth $100. My circle did eventually lead me back to Detroit, where I was able to use my laptop to hack into King Elias’ phone.  He has the same GPS software that’s commonly found on a lot of devices, but the address book is unique, and interesting…  Well now, that’s worth a look.  And this is why it’s very annoying that I forgot to bring the laptop with me. Clearbone Valley is right by Saginaw.  It’s an easy enough place to get to. I wonder what kind of horrible, twisted menace could be lurking in a place so dangerous I can only find out about it from killing the King and hacking his phone?  Horrible!  You need to be wearing the Frogger uniform to get through here. Luckily, there was a cultist nearby I was able to kill and steal his sash. NEXT TIME: The terrible secret of Clearbone Valley What happened to the world? Werewolf attacks in New Mexico Cutbacks led to streetlights being removed in most of Detroit Police overstretched in Michigan, supplemented by private security Detroit built walls to cut itself off from the outside world Smallpox outbreak, started with Coast Guardsmen in South Carolina and spread from there Crop seeds made by a thinly veiled stand-in for Monsanto (Agrisanto) have become so integral to feeding the world that the company got the seed vault at Svalbard shut down so their seeds’ genomes couldn’t be contaminated China started a super soldier program, news of this getting out caused the people to rebel Agrisanto’s superwheat got out of control, needed to be controlled by the army bombing the entire Michigan-Indiana-Ohio border with Super-Agent Orange, creating a deadly toxic no-mans land Mass wildlife extinctions becoming a weekly occurrence in Arkansas Space colonies on the moons of Jupiter underwent brutal revolutions and civil wars
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2018 23:35
|
|
|
How long in-game does it take to get from Detroit to Saginaw, cause that's like 80-100 miles. And where are all the dang highways?
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 00:26
|
|
|
Do you need a Frog Cult outfit to get inside, or to even approach_
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 00:53
|
|
|
100 HOGS AGREE posted:How long in-game does it take to get from Detroit to Saginaw, cause that's like 80-100 miles. And where are all the dang highways? I didn't post it with the other newspaper articles because it was kind of a minor thing compared to the rest of the world going to hell stuff, but the highways got too expensive to maintain so the state tore them all down to gravel. So not really much change from the highways we know and love. Over time, those stretches of gravel likely turned into the nice long flat stretches of easy terrain Phillip travels fastest on. As for travel time... well, it's a hell of a lot faster than it really should be. As long as I keep Phillip in good shape, well-fed and hydrated, with plenty of sleep, and not carrying too much, he can move four hexes per hour (5 if i wasn't such a drat packrat who obsessively carries everything on me), with two moves needed to get through forests, hills, or rubble. Saginaw is roughly 40-50 hexes north by northwest from Detroit, so call it about twelve hours walking, maybe half again as much given patches of rough terrain. Even if we assume that SMI is just in Saginaw County and not the town, and take the lowest end estimate (about 80 miles from Detroit to Birch Run, the closest bit of Saginaw County), Phillip still motors along at about 6-8 miles per hour and can keep up that pace for 16-20 hours a day. That's assuming that Detroit Megacity only covers roughly the current day Metro area, which seems reasonable, it's definitely bigger than actual modern Detroit. PurpleXVI posted:Do you need a Frog Cult outfit to get inside, or to even approach_ Just to get in. I didn't have a sash the first time I approached, and had to walk a couple hexes and kill a cultist to get one before I could enter.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 01:39
|
|
|
I was under the impression that Detroit currently looked like the set of a zombie movie.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 01:47
|
|
|
Im confused on just how hosed everything is. It seems to go from everything being hosed to everything is kinda fine besides the walled city and the enviromental disaster outside it. I guess its post post apocalyptic.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 02:05
|
|
|
Do the Cultists make you take off your protective charm when joining?
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 02:10
|
|
|
Telsa Cola posted:Im confused on just how hosed everything is. It seems to go from everything being hosed to everything is kinda fine besides the walled city and the enviromental disaster outside it. I guess its post post apocalyptic. It is p. Much the same as Detroit is today :B
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 02:20
|
|
|
You seem to be doing pretty well in combat with just a club and no relevant starting skills.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 02:29
|
|
|
Siegkrow posted:I was under the impression that Detroit currently looked like the set of a zombie movie. Oh no. Detroit looks like this.  It's basically Robocop meets Las Vegas. It's everything else in Michigan that looks like a zombie movie. Telsa Cola posted:Im confused on just how hosed everything is. It seems to go from everything being hosed to everything is kinda fine besides the walled city and the enviromental disaster outside it. I guess its post post apocalyptic. The multiple apocalypses happened, they're over. Society is building back up, it's just slow going. Eventually, the dogmen will either be wiped out or domesticated, the Froggers will get a TV station, the melonheads will be enslaved as peasant laborers, and society will reclaim the lost territory I've been adventuring through. Rockopolis posted:Do the Cultists make you take off your protective charm when joining? As I'm given to recall, no. At least I don't remember dying horribly the very first time I went there where I got the path where Elias goes nuts and starts shooting everything and I had to bail naked. The Lone Badger posted:You seem to be doing pretty well in combat with just a club and no relevant starting skills. Keep in mind the Anishiinabe war club is probably the single best blunt weapon in the game, maybe tied with the crowbar (crowbar has superior range, but the warclub puts out more damage). I can keep a lot of opponents stunlocked long enough to pulverize some internal organs. Piercing weapons are generally the best, and inflicting a lot of bleeding wounds with a cutting weapon is always a sound strategy. But I lucked out in being able to get a decent set of gear together before having to do a lot of fighting. I got super lucky with that first Enfield Horror, that could have very quickly gone wrong. A run like this with no combat skills (Strong, Tough, Melee, Ranged) is super possible, but requires being very careful, equipping yourself well, and not being afraid to run like a little sissy. Of course, now I have both legendary skills and nightvision, so most fights, especially at night, are easy-peezy if I don't try and get fancy. Still got my lungs perforated the first time up against Elias.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 03:00
|
|
|
Oh no I meant IRL.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 03:38
|
|
|
I can't imagine anyone beating this without disabling permadeath.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 04:40
|
|
|
It's no worse than any given roguelike. Given the variety of playstyles and reliance on certain items to reach the endgame, I see more than a few similarities to Nethack. Then again, I've never managed to beat Nethack.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 05:48
|
|
|
Nethack is a terrible game (that is still foundational to the genre and worth exploring as a historical curiosity if nothing else, since it was built around assuming you are a UNIX sysadmin who'll comb the source files for secrets) that has so much information hidden from the player. Stone Soup is much more modern and in line with correct thought. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 08:29
|
|
|
Yeah "too much like Nethack" is my main issue with this game really. The survival part of the game doesn't last all that long if you know what you're doing and then you're basically walking around between various set pieces.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 09:42
|
|
|
Truthkeeper posted:As I'm given to recall, no. At least I don't remember dying horribly the very first time I went there where I got the path where Elias goes nuts and starts shooting everything and I had to bail naked. Is there actually ever any clue or explanation as to why a Merga Wraith annihilates Eddie at the end of that one sequence, though?
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 10:20
|
|
|
Mechanical Ape posted:I can't imagine anyone beating this without disabling permadeath. wait what YOU CAN DISABLE PERMADEATH IN THIS GAME!?
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 10:56
|
|
|
Same way you do in Nethack. Copying and renaming save files.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 11:46
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:Same way you do in Nethack. Cheating with both hands. FTFY (Not that I disagree with the sentiment expressed above)
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 14:23
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Is there actually ever any clue or explanation as to why a Merga Wraith annihilates Eddie at the end of that one sequence, though? The last time I said there was absolutely no more information about something, somebody came along and broke open the game data with a crowbar to scavenge the relevant dialogue, so I'm not going to say that there's absolutely nothing. But to the best of my knowledge, there's no more details to Bishop Eddie's death by Wraith. I have many thoughts on what's going on here, but I'll sit on them until the next update when we get the last couple bits of Elias' story. Lazy Bear posted:FTFY The hell you say. I only need one hand for it! ... Because I wrote a couple quick and dirty batch files I just need to run for backing up the save or restoring the backup.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 20:45
|
|
|
I like this game a lot but I would recommend everyone cheat the permanent somehow just because getting a view into any of the lore basically requires a lot of CYOA-type choices with a lot of instant game overs. I don’t know how many playthroughs it would require to piece together the story with permadeath on but it would be a lot. If you’re cautious and knowledgeable about the game the permadeath isn’t too bad for the survival portion. There are a lot of strategies that work well for that part, but all the story-relevant encounters seem to have one golden path and a milllion traps and it’s not at all obvious which is which.
|
|
#
?
Nov 3, 2018 23:45
|
|
|
I've never been to the mental hospital or this vault (and being a vault might explain why they're all nutters) and I can't wait to see where you go next.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2018 00:36
|
|
|
Slow Ride, Take it Easy Alright, last time, I murdered King Elias, leader of the Church of the Blue Frog, and stole all his cool poo poo. Most of it I sold off, but I held onto his keys and his cellphone, and checked the address book to find Clearbone Valley. And now we will discover what terrible secret he was hiding in that valley. I start by pushing the white button next to the door.  Um… oh. Not quite what one might have expected.  Turns out the terrible secret King Elias was hiding was his family. Thankfully, I don’t have to deal with the incredibly awkward question of how he died. You can easily excuse yourself here and leave, having informed the family of Elias’ death. Other options include: Asking for information about Elias Asking how Samantha and Elias met Asking about the children Asking about the Church of the Blue Frog Annoyingly, you only get the one question. There’s no critical information here like with Cale or at the SMI, so I’ll briefly sum things up.  Samantha and the kids believe that Elias was a medicine courier who spent all his time traveling between Detroit and outlying survivor enclaves making deliveries. He was only home for a couple days a month, and did his best to be a good husband and father while he was there, but the son at least is a little angry over his practically-missing dad. And the family knows nothing about the Church, not even that they exist. If you ask any question instead of just leaving, Samantha invites Phillip in. At this point, you can talk to the kids for more non-vital information about the late King.  Interestingly, this whole scene is written with the assumption that you didn’t necessarily kill Elias yourself. If he has his heart attack and Liza takes over the Church, she still moves on the worldmap just like Elias and you can kill her to get Elias’ phone and keys. You can also obtain them if Elias gets killed by looters or dogmen or any other NPCS he might run across.  Overall, a seemingly normal house. Your three options here are to talk to the son, Paul, or the daughter, Erin, or to go down to the basement.  I’m still not sorry I offed their dad, but I am sorry they have to suffer because of it.  After the writing specifically pointed out that nothing in the interior décor was blue, this jumps out at me, but I’m not sure if it means anything at all.  Gonna violate his wishes anyway.  Paul has daddy issues, and they’re just going to get worse because of me. We know Elias’ father was involved in the Church, I wonder if Elias was eventually going to induct his own children.  This is the main reason I’m here though. This is what the keys are for, you need Elias’ key fob to get in.   Nothing bad could possibly be in a room like this, right?  Oh. Oh my.  Oh dear.  The full haul. To sum up: Elias gave me a single vial of Blue Rot vaccine when he kicked me out of SMI. All the Frog Cultists are infected with Blue Rot and are super-contagious. And in case you forgot or didn’t notice, because last update was super-dense, Bishop Eddie was in charge of administering injections. There are two ways this could go. There’s a good option: Elias was working on a cure for the Blue Rot and recently succeeded. That’s why he has giant drums full of the vaccine. In this scenario, the injections other cultists receive could be earlier versions of the cure that need multiple treatments, or maybe the cure is being slowly distributed. The other, the theory that I tend to believe: Elias created the Blue Rot and the cure. He’s been allowing the disease to spread as quickly as he can, using the cultists as infection vectors. Once he’s started an epidemic, suddenly he appears on the scene with a cure, and gains power, money, and influence, not just for himself, but for the Church, possibly making them look like an actual legitimate religion and not a bunch of lunatics who waterboard and electrocute each other for shits and giggles. Or maybe he stopped somebody else who had invented the cure from being able to distribute it, and is sitting on it for his own personal use, maybe to save the cultists after they get enough other people sick. This is my pet theory: Elias made his own flood, the Blue Rot, and intended only for his followers to survive the outbreak. If you believe the first version, I'm a horrible murderer who caved a man's skull in so I could stop him from wiping out a deadly disease because I want to make a bit of profit. If you believe the second, I just saved the world from a dangerous religious fanatic. But that’s all speculation. The really important thing to know about this basement? If you have Medic and you get here, you are set for life. You can take one of these barrels and one vial each of the virus and vaccine to Hatter and make a deal to sell them through him. It takes a week but makes you an easy $4000, drat good money. But a Medic can do even better, and can work out a more profitable scenario with Hatter (not too different from the one I just suggested Elias might have been up to) with a larger payday. $200000. That is more money than you could probably ever hope to spend in this game. Enough that Phillip could probably buy is way back into civilized society if that option was available. The downside? You have to haul one of these 100+ kg barrels back to Detroit. That nice easy jaunt up here becomes absolutely grueling with that much weight involved. I’m limited to 2 moves per turn, and getting hungry, thirsty, or tired at all weakens Phillip enough that I can’t move at all anymore. It’s doable, but a pain in the rear end. You have to work for that money.  Along the way, I ran into another random encounter, this one with a hurt dog. I like dogs. I feel like most people like dogs. This is another of those “Do the idealistic good thing or the practical evil thing or do nothing” options: Try and help the dog, using some nearby water and rags to bandage it Give it a pet and leave Throw rocks to try and get it to go away Kill and eat it From a practical standpoint, there’s no bad answer here. The dog is jumpy and snaps at you if you try to help it, and nothing good or bad happens regardless of your choices. You get some meat if you kill it, and it’s not like I haven’t killed and eaten countless dogs by this point, but not until after they attack me.  He’s not a bad dog, he’s just in a rough situation. It’s not like Phillip’s in a position to point fingers.  For the optimal payday, you need to bring both vials and the barrel up to Hatter, and show him all three at once. I think that only matters for the big payout with Medic, and you only need the barrel and a vial of virus for the non-Medic reward, but I brought all three anyway.  Nice to be able to get one over on Hatter for once. He never expected anything like this to get pulled out of the ruins.   You need to make a big leap of faith here. By this point you’ve at least met Hatter and gotten the bracelet from him, either by doing the Seven Gables Road job or by impressing him some other way, but trusting him with something like this is big. But he is good to his word. He has to be, in his line of work.  It is actually really hard to just pass time in this game. You can only sleep when you’re tired enough (doubly for Mr. Insomniac over here), and you need to do exerting things to get tired. You can pass time by resting, but you can only do that when you’re injured. It’s enough of an issue that one modder actually included a ball you could use to hurt yourself so you could rest off the injury to pass time.  Speaking of health, a stop at the clinic indicates that I finally overcame my defoliant exposure. Defoliant exposure can turn into Blue Rot, so the vaccine may have been involved there, but the vaccine doesn’t cure exposure on its own. More like I hit the point where level 2 exposure tried to turn into Blue Rot and my immunity kicked in then. Nice to have my health back in order again and not have to worry about my lungs dissolving or something. I think I’m still vulnerable to the defoliant if I go back into the swamp. Luckily, I’ve run into so many high-ranking cultists (the ranking ones, like the bishop, wear gas masks as a sign of office) that I’m well prepared to pop back into the swamp if I feel like it. If only there was something for me to do. Something that takes a long time. Maybe a place to go that several people have taken an interest in as of late. Literally the last place left for me to travel to, the only thing I haven’t done. Yeah, I guess it’s time to go scope out Camp Grayling. Not gonna do anything yet, just get the lay of the land.  I know this one’s supposed to be another example of Not!Monsanto being crazy and evil and what-madness-has-science-wrought, but frankly, it sounds good to me. Vat-grown meat would be an overall net-positive at every level. On the other hand, I’m sure there’s another newspaper out there somewhere explaining how this is responsible for the melonheads or the dogmen or something. On my way north, I ran into this fascinating individual.  drat it it’s an internet Libertarian. Actually, this More on them in a bit.  The random encounters are coming en masse ever since I complained about not seeing them. There’s no helping this poor guy. He’s going to die and there’s nothing to be done for it. Unfortunately, this is a situation with no good or bad answer, either from a moral or practical standpoint. Morally, it’s up to you if the right thing to do is put him out of his misery or leave him alone. Practically, there’s nothing to be gained here at all by doing anything. There’s a bottle of water you can steal… which is tainted and worthless. Giving the sick guy the water, or trying to off him, or the super-evil option of “infected man covered in pus? I can bottle that poo poo!” can all get you exposed to his disease. So unless you want to risk dying of smallpox, just leave.  Yeah I’m an idiot. Seems to have turned out okay this time though.  Haven’t run into a dogman in a while. They’re more common as you move further north, unsurprisingly.  Broad spear might very well be the best melee weapon. Without a combat skill, I’m limited to buying them, and their durability is poo poo, but I’ll enjoy this one while it lasts.  Rich tourist lost in the wilderness. Rich enough to be fat in the post-post-apocalypse. There’s no way to help this guy even if you did want to, and why would you want to? You can give him some supplies, and he’ll bitch at you. You can point him in the right direction, and he’ll bitch at you. You can rob him, at least then he doesn’t bitch at you, but he also has nothing I want.  Odds are good he’ll be dead long before that becomes a concern anyway.  At long last, the objective. Camp Grayling. In the real world, home to the national guard, largest training facility in the country. Tanks, artillery, helicopters, planes, UAVs, the works. You’d think anything here would have been stripped when the world went to hell, either by the government trying to keep order or later by scavengers, like Phillip. And yet Stoat and Hatter both seemed certain nobody’s been able to get in. Stoat wanted me to get some data off the computers here that would allow his guys to get in and steal some high-tech robots, I didn’t bother picking up his flash drive, so that’s out. Hatter wanted mme to plug in a mysterious device from an unknown but rich and powerful entity. And there’s still a third party to meet…  Lovely place!  You might recall we’ve heard before about Camp Grayling’s ADS (Active Denial System). It’s real technology that the military has taken some flak over. In theory, it’s a non-lethal deterrent that causes no actual damage but hurts like hell. In practice, it can cause some pretty severe burns to it’s victims, and there’s a lot of issues for the user as well. Here, you might notice, it’s so much worse.  Another chance to use augmented vision to look around. I could use any of my dozen scopes and binoculars… or just focus my telescopic vision.  Huh, I guess that, plus all the corpses, indicates that nobody’s successfully gotten in to loot the place. So that’s at least two levels of security, first the electric fence, than the ADS. And God only knows what else. Well, God and me. But there’s also this odd clearing nearby I can check out.  There are three things you can tell this jumpy woman with a gun, another of Martha’s Army. You could say you’re just passing through, and she’ll let you leave. You could say you’re here to scavenge, and you’ll have to fight her off, and a dozen of her friends besides. Or you could say…  That was admittedly my reaction to that town when I spent a couple days there some years back. Northern lower Michigan is kinda dull most of the time.  Naturally, she responds to my completely insane statement with relief.  Because she was expecting somebody to come along and say that, because the Army has been looking for a lunatic to take on this suicide mission. And I just volunteered. Goody.  Okay, I’m not fond of the NSA or PRISM either, but this is not the way to handle that problem. Actually, what the hell? PRISM is about collecting and storing information about people’s communications over the internet. Are you telling me the loving internet still exists?  This mission seems pretty clear and straightforward, and it’s not like Martha could be lying to me, right? Right? (With Eagle Eye or Trapping)  Phillip’s no sucker, but he’s also not stupid enough to get shot calling her out on this. That’s as much information as I’m able to gather here, and so it’s back to Detroit to gather up what materials I’ll need to pull this off. Naturally, as soon as I happen to be close to DMC again:  I’m starting to think I might have a problem. Still, the rewards are nice.  Particularly this. It’s a full nanomachine treatment from the clinic, except it’s portable. Can hold 3 charges, the 2 it has will probably last me through the end.  Also stopped for one last big hearty expensive meal. It’s not like I can’t afford it (though Hatter still hasn’t gotten back to his office yet). Incidentally, a Cadillac Burger is just a big fancy hamburger from a bar in New York City that got a lot of buzz from Nat King Cole talking it up in the 50s. I have no idea with this monstrosity is supposed to be. The only time around here I’ve seen macaroni and burgers get combined is this place that does a hamburger on a patty made of fried macaroni and cheese.  Getting the burger (the most expensive meal at the Red Gnome, or in the game for that matter) is the only time Phillip will bother checking out the pictures. This place just got creepy quick. I mean, this is Detroit, people will riot over anything, but this still seems like a dark series of events to have on display.  Once again, I pay and leave a tip. Probably for the last time. Next time, it’s off to Grayling to do some business. And end things, one way or another. But first, the first and only thread vote! You’ve seen Hatter’s request:  And you’ve seen Martha’s: I would put Stoat’s request up, but since I didn’t get his flashdrive, it’s not an option. It’s not technically doable anyway. So I put it up to you fine readers: Will Phillip put is trust in Hatter and the mysterious unnamed but wealthy backer? We have no idea what Hatter’s device will actually do, although he refers to it as a bug. So maybe somebody wants to take control of Camp Grayling’s computers? Will Phillip side with the Will Phillip flip the bird to everybody he’s met so far? Martha did say that Gralying was part of PRISM, which means there’s a shitload of information stored there. If Phillip can access it somehow, there might be further clues to his lost path. Maybe they even have a backup of the New Earth Ostracon that he doesn’t have to travel to another dimension to read! Pick your preferred option, gentle goons. What happened to the world? Werewolf attacks in New Mexico Cutbacks led to streetlights being removed in most of Detroit Police overstretched in Michigan, supplemented by private security Detroit built walls to cut itself off from the outside world Smallpox outbreak, started with Coast Guardsmen in South Carolina and spread from there Crop seeds made by a thinly veiled stand-in for Monsanto (Agrisanto) have become so integral to feeding the world that the company got the seed vault at Svalbard shut down so their seeds’ genomes couldn’t be contaminated China started a super soldier program, news of this getting out caused the people to rebel Agrisanto’s superwheat got out of control, needed to be controlled by the army bombing the entire Michigan-Indiana-Ohio border with Super-Agent Orange, creating a deadly toxic no-mans land Mass wildlife extinctions becoming a weekly occurrence in Arkansas Space colonies on the moons of Jupiter underwent brutal revolutions and civil wars
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2018 02:55
|
|
|
who cares if the government is spying on people in the post-apocalyptic wasteland? there's no government here to begin with. by contrast, hatter is trying to get paid and promised to get you paid as well. that's a happy ending! hatter is the obvious choice.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2018 03:24
|
|
|
Hatter has been like, one of the most reasonable people we've dealt with all game.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2018 03:33
|
|
|
There is only one person you look out for in the post-apocalypse. That person is Number One. You need to find your past. It's the most important thing. Find PRISM.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2018 03:38
|
|
|
Hatter has been up front and honest with us the entire time, which is more than we can say about Martha and her anti-tech bros. Plus between the vaccine and this we'll be set for life, probably, or at least have a comfy RV to live out of in the parkade!
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2018 03:41
|
|
|
Kitfox88 posted:Hatter has been up front and honest with us the entire time, which is more than we can say about Martha and her anti-tech bros. Plus between the vaccine and this we'll be set for life, probably, or at least have a comfy RV to live out of in the parkade! Hatter might be trustworthy, but I don't trust his client. Let's do this for ourselves
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2018 04:22
|
|
|
Is there any real choice? The Martha people are libertarians and therefore at best dumb at worst insane. The Hatter client is rich and so be definition evil but especially so in a post-post-apocalyptic setting. We go our own way, as is the only moral choice.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2018 04:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 10:33 |
|
|
Hatter's been cool, but we're about to get a boatload of money so we won't need his services in the future. Let's go in for ourselves.
|
|
#
?
Nov 4, 2018 04:49
|
|
