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Sekenr posted:Dragon: we will save the world in a really weird way This isn't quite it. The Dragon's overarching goal can best be summed up as "perfect our predictive models in order to essentially control all causality through precise, subtle actions that, due to chaos theory, create the desired result". In that way, they're similar to the Illuminati in that their goal is power, but where the Illuminati seek out very obvious, overt power for the sake of self-aggrandizement and hedonism, the Dragon is content going completely under the radar and taking smug satisfaction at knowing they're the ones pulling all the strings, even if nobody else realizes it. If this were Monopoly, the Illuminati want to win the game, while the Dragon wants to become Parker Brothers.
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Jul 9, 2021 21:31
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EclecticTastes posted:This isn't quite it. The Dragon's overarching goal can best be summed up as "perfect our predictive models in order to essentially control all causality through precise, subtle actions that, due to chaos theory, create the desired result". In that way, they're similar to the Illuminati in that their goal is power, but where the Illuminati seek out very obvious, overt power for the sake of self-aggrandizement and hedonism, the Dragon is content going completely under the radar and taking smug satisfaction at knowing they're the ones pulling all the strings, even if nobody else realizes it. If this were Monopoly, the Illuminati want to win the game, while the Dragon wants to become Parker Brothers. Dragon posted:We, as always, are the third element - the third jewel in which the world will take final and everlasting refuge.
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Jul 10, 2021 04:10
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All that indicates is that you didn't actually play as a Dragon character. As someone who did, I actually experienced how they were written. They talk a big game about "peace through order" in, like, two quests, but it all boils down to them making all the real decisions through their chaos theory models, which would technically have the benefit of the world being safe, but only because literally nothing would ever happen that wasn't predetermined based upon said models. The Dragon only wants to "save" the world in order to rule it from the shadows, which is pretty much the same as the Illuminati (though the Illuminati aren't remotely as subtle and the Dragon don't really care about their reputation in the same way). EDIT: Actually, I kinda have to digress here about Funcom's bizarrely inconsistent writing for a moment. So, a lot of what the Dragon is about is that they disdain the notion of, like, overt, rigid control, like the kind you get from the Templars and Illuminati. However, at the same time, their entire notion of using predictive models and chaos theory to nudge everything into their preferred configuration is just a different form of that same control, no matter what kind of spin they try to put on it. I don't know if Funcom intended for them to be kind of full of poo poo in that regard, but it's not exactly hard to notice how, for all their praise of "chaos", the ultimate goal is hijacking the universe's RNG so they can ensure things go the way they want. EclecticTastes fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Jul 10, 2021 |
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Jul 10, 2021 05:20
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I played as a dragon character and disagree with a bunch of your writeup. First of all protecting the world is a nr 1 priority, otherwise everything else is pointless. Secondly they arent really ruling from shadows, its not dragons fault that other factions are too blind and foolish to see what they are doing and how things really work. If everybody insists on being squabbling idiots at least dragon tries to make them useful idiots.
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Jul 10, 2021 06:21
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Sekenr posted:I played as a dragon character and disagree with a bunch of your writeup. First of all protecting the world is a nr 1 priority, otherwise everything else is pointless. Secondly they arent really ruling from shadows, its not dragons fault that other factions are too blind and foolish to see what they are doing and how things really work. If everybody insists on being squabbling idiots at least dragon tries to make them useful idiots. See, that's just it, is the Dragon's whole spiel is spin. At the end of the day, everything they do is to maintain control of events, and it's to protect the world because the world is both where they live and also what they intend to control. Nearly every one of their debriefs can be summarized as "Good job ensuring that X variable has the value we need for Y long-term scheme*" no matter what the actual outcome of the quest was (the exceptions being the rare quest where their debrief is more like "Oh poo poo we didn't account for that variable, we better update our models"). The Dragon is a bunch of smug know-it-alls constantly declaring victory no matter what happens because they claim it'll somehow benefit them somewhere down the line, and that's why I like them. They're not as brazenly selfish as the Illuminati, but claiming that "saving the world" is their main goal is a pretty big misread. Saving the world, for them, is just a necessity because they need the world to keep existing so they can continue influencing it. *The scheme in question will often be left vague and/or undefined.
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Jul 10, 2021 06:44
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To be fair we also haven't met the chaos elemental character, as that's Tokyo content. And unless you are dragon you don't get a lot of advanced perspective on how that guy operates.
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Jul 10, 2021 07:23
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As a side note, I've finished all story content on my main. All that's left is grinding item power for the last two missions and hoping they release new content someday.
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Jul 10, 2021 13:14
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Speaking of other factions being blind, I think I caught funcoms original intent Jinku clan affiliated with templars literally regularly borrowed a van from Fear Nothing Foundation station in the neighbourhood. They are loving clueless.
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Jul 11, 2021 16:27
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Savage Coast pt 1 Let's talk about Hell https://wiki.crygaia.org/view/Lore:The_Hell_Dimensions
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Jul 12, 2021 21:07
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Hell Raised
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Jul 13, 2021 07:55
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On the Dragon being based in Korea - their lore entries specifically mention that Seoul is just their current semi-public base of operations within the last few decades, and they move regularly. IIRC it's implied that their actual permanent headquarters, that the PC never gets to see, is in Tibet.
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Jul 13, 2021 18:46
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And yes, it was full frontal demon tits.
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Jul 13, 2021 20:00
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So, Hell is basically ruins and Wicker decided he'd Make Hell Great Again? Definitely an interesting take on it, though I'm not sure where it's going. I do like that Wicker (and I'm guessing his friends like that demon girl) is a faction that may or may not be hostile, which is a definite twist on the usual "everybody in Hell is pure evil" schtick in fiction (I really like Wicker's little speech about "losing your humanity" involves dumping a lot of evil too). Also I gather Hell invading is less "Rahrr spread evil!" and more a Mad Max society trying to loot what it can from Earth. Final boss in the dungeon had a cool look, I can't fault their designs thus far really.
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Jul 14, 2021 06:28
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MadDogMike posted:So, Hell is basically ruins and Wicker decided he'd Make Hell Great Again? Definitely an interesting take on it, though I'm not sure where it's going. I do like that Wicker (and I'm guessing his friends like that demon girl) is a faction that may or may not be hostile, which is a definite twist on the usual "everybody in Hell is pure evil" schtick in fiction (I really like Wicker's little speech about "losing your humanity" involves dumping a lot of evil too). Also I gather Hell invading is less "Rahrr spread evil!" and more a Mad Max society trying to loot what it can from Earth. Final boss in the dungeon had a cool look, I can't fault their designs thus far really. Pretty much. It used to be a nice place until the Host decided its not gonna fit their purposes and abondoned the project, leaving it without anima. Now they subsist on what seeps through the cracks from Earth with hell overlords fighting over it. Wicker felt compassion to them and aims to be their messiah who says that there's got to be a better way. This story will continue over 2 more hell-related dungeons, but even after playing them multiple times I still feel its kind of murky how he wants everything to play out.
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Jul 14, 2021 09:56
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Sekenr posted:Pretty much. It used to be a nice place until the Host decided its not gonna fit their purposes and abandoned the project, leaving it without anima. Now they subsist on what seeps through the cracks from Earth with hell overlords fighting over it. Wicker felt compassion to them and aims to be their messiah who says that there's got to be a better way. This story will continue over 2 more hell-related dungeons, but even after playing them multiple times I still feel its kind of murky how he wants everything to play out. Still makes more sense that whatever the hell World of Warcraft is doing with The Jailer and Sylvanas.
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Jul 14, 2021 20:03
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Savage Coast pt2 In todays video, I admit to having never read Discworld.
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Jul 20, 2021 21:09
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I did some searching on the ak'ab last night and didn't come up with much. We don't know much about Mayan mythology and religion, and my best guess is that the ak'ab are based on Camazotz, the Mayan god of darkness and death. Camazotz was specifically an evil bat god and had a legion of bat devils. I don't know if New England has bats, might be too cold for that, in which case shifting them from bats to moths (the game's explicitly mentioned that they're moth monsters) would make sense.
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Jul 21, 2021 12:22
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Regarding the Black House, the timer for the achievement doesn't start until you cross the property line, so just run alongside the fence til you get to the back porch/Well, then cross over, making sure you're running pretty much the whole way. I think you can do it with Sprint II (certainly can with III). When you get to the stream to empty the ashes, look up towards the cliff face for Carrie's sendoff. Another interesting thing, when you click on the candle in the basement for the Lore, hang around for a bit to see some potentially lethal effects. Also, if you die (or /reset) and head back to the house, check out the front entrance for the reason why you keep getting knocked back when trying to enter that way.  As far as Discworld goes, Terry Pratchett is an excellent writer for humor and fantasy/sci-fi, and I'd recommend for an introduction to Discworld by starting out with any of the following: Mort, Wyrd Sisters, Pyramids, Guards! Guards!, Reaper Man, or Wee Free Men. Pterry also collaborated with Neil Gaiman on Good Omens, a comedy about the Apocalypse, which got a tv series back in 2019.
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Jul 21, 2021 19:23
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I've started poking at this game again on my new computer, playing as a Dragon since the LP is doing the Templars, and the Dragon's response to the first Filth guy in Kingsmouth, in the stealth mission about the cameras, is amusing. "Tentacles do not come from the head without reasons. Please provide information about reasons." Edit: Since there isn't a thread for this game in the MMO HMO, may as well note my thoughts on the Dragon here. I'm still in the first zone and have done the initial Kingsmouth stuff (up through the priest and fortune teller, and finding Joe Slater). The Dragon's after-action reports are mostly not actually enigmatic so far. They're generally appreciative of the information you're getting for them, provide some explanation and context for the weird poo poo you've seen, and enjoy snarking at people they think are dumb like the Morninglight. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Jul 23, 2021 |
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Jul 21, 2021 23:57
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Yeah, IMO Dragon debriefs are very enjoyable. They are essentially your analyst sitting in a lovely internet cafe who knows where pretending to be playing Starcraft shares with you, the field agent, their ponderings upon the stuff you discover. There is also a bunch of other stuff going on for Dragon players, such as their direct superiors not super happy about your handler sharing too much with you, whos job is not to think but to run around creating consequences. But than again maybe not? And than superiors of superiors not happy with the former thus the fate of Bong Cha and what is the involvement of the floor sweeper of dragon inner sanctum? This all was cool as gently caress. IMO the Dragon is the coolest faction. EclecticTastes posted:See, that's just it, is the Dragon's whole spiel is spin. At the end of the day, everything they do is to maintain control of events, and it's to protect the world because the world is both where they live and also what they intend to control. Nearly every one of their debriefs can be summarized as "Good job ensuring that X variable has the value we need for Y long-term scheme*" no matter what the actual outcome of the quest was (the exceptions being the rare quest where their debrief is more like "Oh poo poo we didn't account for that variable, we better update our models"). The Dragon is a bunch of smug know-it-alls constantly declaring victory no matter what happens because they claim it'll somehow benefit them somewhere down the line, and that's why I like them. They're not as brazenly selfish as the Illuminati, but claiming that "saving the world" is their main goal is a pretty big misread. Saving the world, for them, is just a necessity because they need the world to keep existing so they can continue influencing it. Look, what you just did there is to reduce them to very mathematically inclined Illuminati. Maybe you aught to have played the Illuminati? Funcom created a good impression of things being deeper than even their very deep and ecrypted lore, yet you try to categorize into categories that you understand and reductionist simplify or purge things that you don't. Sekenr fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jul 24, 2021 |
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Jul 24, 2021 23:02
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Sekenr posted:Look, what you just did there is to reduce them to very mathematically inclined Illuminati. That's an incorrect reading of what I said to begin with. The base premise of The Secret World is that all three factions aim to control the world, and they each have their own approach. I was comparing the Dragon and Illuminati mainly because the Templars are a lot more overt, having that whole "semipublic organization with conspiracy stuff beneath the surface" vibe. The differences lie in how and why each faction wants to control the world. The Templars actively want to protect the world (often in rather authoritarian fashion) and tend to rely on fairly "old world" means of control (connections with old money aristocrats, putting members into high government office directly, etc.). The Illuminati just want to revel in their power, and put a lot more effort into infiltrating big business, buying out politicians, and manipulating information through the media and internet. The Dragon is motivated primarily by the desire to know everything, and not like in an encyclopedia way, but in a Laplace's Demon way, which is why they're working on making a "perfect" model of chaos theory, so that there won't be a single molecule they can't somehow account for or anticipate, and their approach is mostly to just use their existing predictive models to make poo poo happen without ever getting directly involved. The end result for the Dragon is a fully planned (or planned for) reality, one that wouldn't look or feel any different to a non-Dragon, but literally nothing would occur that their models didn't account for. Their whole introduction has them telling the player about how they manipulate events in order to improve their models, so that they can manipulate events even more effectively. The Illuminati and Templars are both trying to win the game, while the Dragon is looking to become the game. All the in-the-moment stuff about your handler and so on is interesting, but doesn't really speak to the broader motivations of the faction as a whole. I think you're just taking Bong Cha's somewhat good-natured personality and assuming she's representative of the faction as a whole, when what happens to her is hard proof that this is not the case. It also helps that the Dragon doesn't get all fashy like the Templars do, nor are they huge assholes like the Illuminati, but that's mostly because, specific faction representatives aside, they trend more towards just being detached and aloof.
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Jul 25, 2021 08:51
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EclecticTastes posted:That's an incorrect reading of what I said to begin with. The base premise of The Secret World is that all three factions aim to control the world, and they each have their own approach. I was comparing the Dragon and Illuminati mainly because the Templars are a lot more overt, having that whole "semipublic organization with conspiracy stuff beneath the surface" vibe. The differences lie in how and why each faction wants to control the world. The Templars actively want to protect the world (often in rather authoritarian fashion) and tend to rely on fairly "old world" means of control (connections with old money aristocrats, putting members into high government office directly, etc.). The Illuminati just want to revel in their power, and put a lot more effort into infiltrating big business, buying out politicians, and manipulating information through the media and internet. The Dragon is motivated primarily by the desire to know everything, and not like in an encyclopedia way, but in a Laplace's Demon way, which is why they're working on making a "perfect" model of chaos theory, so that there won't be a single molecule they can't somehow account for or anticipate, and their approach is mostly to just use their existing predictive models to make poo poo happen without ever getting directly involved. Look, first of all you still misunderstand, of course they use the laws of reality, why wouldn't they? Secondly, they are the first to obey them. You are trying to categorize, of course they try to control the world and maybe already do. It is obvious, why do you type a million words to explain a simple concept? But what baffled me the most where in my posts did I create an impression that Bong Cha is benevolent or that I see her as representative of Dragon? She is out of her depth. She clearly misunderstood how things work. One time when she tried to assert authority, was immediately interrupted by the sweeper and later removed entirely. She simply failed at her job and was removed while I got it right.
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Jul 25, 2021 12:16
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My big problem with the game is that it crashes a lot. Official forums confirm that the game just does not like Nvidia cards, no ETA on a fix. It's crashed in the middle of story cutscenes so many times that while I've now gotten ahead of where the LP is at, I'm tentatively calling it quits on the game until and unless this gets fixed.
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Jul 25, 2021 18:31
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Sounds like funcom alright. If there is any public interest i'll take over.
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Jul 25, 2021 19:57
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The more I see of this game the sadder I get that urban fantasy is such a under utilized genre in games. I tried to play this game but gave up a few hours in due to the dodgy gameplay and terrible animations/graphics. If Funcom were to start over with a single player RPG set in the Secret Worlds I´d be all over it day one since I find the world and the lore just fascinating to read about.
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Jul 25, 2021 22:29
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Sylphosaurus posted:The more I see of this game the sadder I get that urban fantasy is such a under utilized genre in games. I tried to play this game but gave up a few hours in due to the dodgy gameplay and terrible animations/graphics. If Funcom were to start over with a single player RPG set in the Secret Worlds I´d be all over it day one since I find the world and the lore just fascinating to read about. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, TSW always felt like an MMO that really wanted to be a single-player game, much like how Borderlands is a single-player game that clearly wishes it were an MMO. I'm pretty sure stuff like Dungeons, Lairs, etc. only exist because Funcom knows players expect them, and if they thought they could get away with it in the current genre climate, they'd have omitted them entirely.
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Jul 25, 2021 22:47
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Savage Coast pt3 Rollarcoaster!
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Jul 27, 2021 00:50
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I'm now a fair bit ahead of the LP, but if you saw a lady running around in a black dress, that was probably me - especially if there was blood magic in use. This whole part of Solomon Island feels like a love letter to classic horror, really. Haunted amusement park, creepy monsters in the woods that little kids fought because the adults didn't believe them, the scarecrows, Jack'O'Lantern, and more to come. I also looked up the turn-in dialogue on a wiki, and the Illuminati confirm that this place wasn't their idea. They have more efficient ways of harvesting anima with fewer side effects already, thank you. Nathaniel Winters built this place because as a famous and successful businessman, he encountered the Illuminati and the occult, and wanted to join. The Illuminati decided he had nothing to offer them and told him to piss off - and told him he couldn't even use magic in the first place. So he became obsessed with the occult and a way to harvest magic to make himself a sorcerer.
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Jul 27, 2021 03:00
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One of the most dire flaws of Secret World was the incredibly limited character customization options. As in, in terms of faces and hair and so on. Clothing and accessories were quite extensive, but let down by the above.
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Jul 27, 2021 11:44
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Cythereal posted:I also looked up the turn-in dialogue on a wiki, and the Illuminati confirm that this place wasn't their idea. They have more efficient ways of harvesting anima with fewer side effects already, thank you. Ah, so the rides are either basically sacrificial altars to gather power via human sacrifice, or because the park isn't up to OSHA paranormal code all the magic energy it's supposed to be gathering has occasional leaks which make people die. Or possibly both, I suppose. I wonder how much energy it actually gathered considering that Illuminati comment; it has to have been somewhat effective to get the Phoenicians interested I suppose.
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Jul 29, 2021 04:15
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I'm catching up with the videos but I really wanted to raise that the dungeons in this game are fantastic, not just from a flavour perspective (which they do really well) but also in terms of the mechanics. I played mostly during original TSW, and haven't really touched Legends, but Mycroft is in a way doing them a disservice by running through normal mode as a max level character. Not to say that this is a bad approach, since it does what's needed in showcasing the story parts of these instances without boring dungeon grinds with incompetent randoms, but actually playing these things in Nightmare mode (the closest equivalent would be WOW Heroics or Mythic) is a heck of a lot of fun. In the most recent one (Hell Raised) the game teaches you about group content in a really beautiful way, and it's no surprise that the attack area notifications are increasingly becoming a standard part of MMO visual design. The first boss uses these spires to deploy lingering Area of Effect damage, and it's all about teaching your group how to kite bosses. The second boss, Corroder, has a corridor of flame that moves up alongside him, and is purely a DPS check for the group. The third boss in the forge combines these two skills straight away, by making the group kite the boss around, while it makes each area unsafe to stand on after a while. Traumadriver, the 4th boss, is all about reinforcing the AOE aspect you learnt about during the first boss. Recursia, the fifth boss, is all about add management – building your situational awareness and threat management as each add spawns, and not just tunnel-visioning on the main target. Not only this, you're also having to do it while paying attention to the safe spaces in the ground AOE. Machine Tyrant is the final exam for much of what you've learned during this dungeon. Because he's only vulnerable after standing in an anima well, your tank needs to be au fait with kiting bosses (which you've done with two bosses to get to this point), and your DPS need to be on point with dodging ground-based AOEs (which, to add an extra layer, now move, or get layed out in intricate timed patterns). We don't really see it in the video, but the boss also gives out stacking health drain debuffs, which makes your healer need to split their attention from just target-focused heal casts to strategically maintaining debuff levels – balancing how many stacks is survivable for the DPS vs keeping up direct healing on the tank. None of these elements alone are particularly new for MMO group content, but at the time they were just an absolute blast to play.
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Aug 1, 2021 11:18
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I really enjoyed all of the dungeons when I played old Secret World, the one with the Cosmonaut was pretty great. I got a cool shotgun skin from Hell Raised for my Constantine-ripoff thats probably still equipped on him.
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Aug 2, 2021 00:30
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Savage Coast pt 4 Fake Steven King
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Aug 4, 2021 08:03
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I little note as someone who's started playing because of this LP - the quest turn-in text when the Bees hack your phone is different based on faction. Whereas with the Templars the Bees just comment on Sonnac being bored at his desk, for the Dragon the Bees say that you've dropped off the Dragon's grid momentarily, sending them into a brief frenzy, courtesy of the Bees. The Bees enjoy chaos theory, too.  One point in Seoul's favor as a hub, if you're a Dragon, is that it's very small and compact. New York and especially London are rather more sprawling. MadDogMike posted:it has to have been somewhat effective to get the Phoenicians interested I suppose. The impression I'm getting from the game is that the Phoenicians are minor players in the occult world who think they're big players. Every time I've met the Phoenicians so far, it's been them getting so far in over their head they can't see daylight, and being slaughtered either by me or by whatever they hoped to steal. One straight up goes "They've called in the Bees. We're hosed." Cythereal fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Aug 4, 2021 |
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Aug 4, 2021 14:27
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just got done recording the footage for the next video. 1 hr 22 min. Innsmouth Academy is long.
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Aug 6, 2021 17:34
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Mycroft Holmes posted:just got done recording the footage for the next video. 1 hr 22 min. Innsmouth Academy is long. But it's got some of the best characters. Including nature's revenge on sarcasm. 
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Aug 6, 2021 19:11
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Innsmouth Academy is my favorite part of the game for sure, with my favorite horror actor ever.
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Aug 8, 2021 22:09
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Innsmouth Academy
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Aug 11, 2021 00:49
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There is definitely a day/night cycle throughout the game. But a lot of areas have special weather conditions so it can be hard to notice. The name of the first quest at the Academy, "The Rec Center Cannot Hold", is a reference to the poem "The Second Coming" by Irish poet W. B. Yeats about the feeling of apocalypse in Ireland in the late 1910s between the end of WW1 and the Spanish Flu pandemic. My take on the war golem being a chump compared to what's implied to have happened the last time it was activated is that that time it took everyone by surprise when it presumably went berserk. This time, you were prepared and went in to kill it. Low key one of my favorite jokes in the game so far as I've played is the note on the blueprints in the "Science and the Arts" quest: "Hormones, ley lines, unfortunate combination." The Dragon debrief on the wraith in the slide projector is amusing. The Dragon don't like Montag at all, and think it hurts him far more to keep him alive than to let him take the easy way out of ritual death right now. On Carrie - I never knew you could run away from her! I used the ward generator exactly as intended, by this point the game had schooled me pretty well in looking at that bar and Carter gives you a verbal warning every time she's about to go carrie. Another funny detail is that she still uses the old, pre-Legends spell effects. Her magical flying hammer is the old version of the Mjolnir elementalism spell, the new version is you raising a magic hammer and lightning zaps the target from above. Also, the Dragon debrief on Beaumont is "Huh. We expected him to disassemble you at a molecular level. You're still alive. How odd." Cythereal fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Aug 11, 2021 |
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Aug 11, 2021 14:51
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Cythereal posted:My take on the war golem being a chump compared to what's implied to have happened the last time it was activated is that that time it took everyone by surprise when it presumably went berserk. This time, you were prepared and went in to kill it.
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Aug 11, 2021 15:59
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