What will we do with a drunken whaler? (A Dishonored Thread)

[Arcanum]

Early in the morning. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkP9XeGHvfY)

So I'm surprised there isn't a Dishonored thread now that the game is out. I played the game at a friend's house for a bit and holy crap is it fun. I thought that the teleport power would be overpowered, and it kind of is, but it's still really fun to get high up and sneak around above everyone's heads,

Another cool thing is how your actions in one mission affect future missions. If you play it stealthy and non-lethal, not much changes. However if you kill people, then that leads to more rats as the bodies are disposed, which leads to more weepers (near-death plague victims) and the plague spread just gets worse and worse.

But by far the greatest thing in this game is The Heart. The Heart is an item the Outsider gives you (the guy who gave you your magic powers) that helps you find runes (used to unlock/upgrade powers) and bone charms (small passive bonuses when equipped). But the best feature of the Heart is the woman who it once belonged to. If you use the heart while holding it (rightclick on PC) then you will hear the voice of a woman tell you about the area you're currently in. She has more lines than I expected, but not as many as I would like now that I've become addicted to hearing everything she has to say. What's even better than the flavor and insight she gives you about the area, is that the Heart can read the thoughts of others. So you can get even more insight into certain characters key to the story, or even random NPCs that you're sneaking past.

At one point I used the Heart on a guard as I was sneaking by, and the Heart said "He will kill twice more before taking his own life," and "There is already much blood on his hands." And this was just a random guard. I was doing a non-lethal playthrough of that mission, and the guard was in a pretty crowded spot, but I still stopped for a moment and contemplated killing him. Just so he wouldn't be able to kill two innocent NPCs that I would never meet and were of no consequence to the game.

The Heart has helped give a face to the usually faceless NPCs, and as a result I was more invested in the world of Dishonored than I've been in almost any other game.

Now I just need the time and money so I can get this game for myself.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Now I just need the time and money so I can get this game for myself.

This is the same position I find myself in (I think I've probably said this about every new release lately). This game looks amazing and I want it now. But I am once again low on fundage and it makes me sad.:(

Being poor sucks.

When I do get it though, I am going to do what I did in Thief and try for a pure Perfect Ghost Run. I will remain unseen, never set off even 1 single alert, never kill or leave any evidence that I was ever there. It will be ridiculously difficult, but the satisfaction will be immense.

[Doc ock rokc]

Guh I want to play this game so badly...But I have no cash And my brother barrowed my PS3...6 months ago.

[Arcanum]

Going to address Bells' post here since the threads will most likely get merged.


My first experience with it is a mixed one. As it is with many. Most of our worries are there as the game is clearly a bit "gutted" and "clean" on the whole freedom and stealth thing.

First of all it still feel like you can hang your body wide open across space and enemies will not notice you. Then again, standing right behind them just one second too late WILL alert every enemy on the map to your exact position. The game tries to push you and warn you to be as pacifist as possible. Avoid killing (it matters) But the options you have to go around NOT killing people is like playing Batman Arkham Asylum with no vertical play. It's hard, and not necessarily super rewarding.

Pretty much the opposite of the experience I had. I was almost always using Dark Vision, so I could see where guys were looking and never put myself into a spot where they could see me. As for the freedom, there are a lot of paths in the game, more than most other stealth games I've played. You can choose the "optimal" path and be boring, or you can get creative on your own. The game isn't going to hold your hand through the level, and I admire it for that.

As for the pacifism, going to disagree with you again. I enjoyed imposing that kind of limitation on myself. Hell, I rarely used tranquilizer darts because I like getting up close an personal to choke someone out. That self-imposed challenge of avoiding guards entirely, or only choking out guards that I absolutely needed to dispose of made my time with the game very rewarding.

One thing that got me of guard was this... To Choke enemies out (no lethal kill) you press Crtl... Try to navigate with WASD and press and hold crtl on the stop. You also use F to hold enemies and drag them to the shadows.

...seriously, try to navigate with WASD and quickly hold Crtil and Then F........

First thing I did, before I even started playing, was look at the key bindings. At first I changed stealth mode (basically crouch) to Ctrl, and block/choke to one of my side mouse buttons. I then changed stealth to X because I found out you can do a slide by sprinting and then holding crouch, and holding W, Shift, and Ctrl all at once is a pain in the ass (I don't use C because that's my push-to-talk key on Mumble). But anyway, moving the Choke/Block key to my mouse was extremely convenient. So basically what I'm saying is that yes the default keyboard controls are a bit weird, but you can change them easily so it's not really an issue.


very little vertical play (in a game that has a teleport spell)

What? Seriously, what? I mean, maybe this changes after the first two assassination missions, but I was above everyone 80% of the time. I would blink onto a lamp post, and from there onto a ledge, and then move around the building until I found an open window, and from there I would blink onto these chandelier-type-lights and blink from one light to the next without setting foot onto the floor proper.

And on the next mission I blinked around on the rooftops and entered the Golden Cat from the top floor, and the inside of the Golden Cat is rife with rafters and fancy grating and other crap along the ceiling that you can walk along.

So yeah, not sure what you're talking about unless everything changes in the later missions.

[Bells]

Well, truth be told i DID enjoy the game quite a lot. But i got a bit frustrated the way i had to navigate early on. I felt like i was too grounded. Maybe i'm the one that needs to advance a bit further.

To the game's praises the voice acting and characterization is very nice, but it was funny early on when Corvo is meeting the queen and the 100% absolutely evil guy is passing by you i was just thinking to myself

"Y'know... i already know you're evil. You look evil, you talk evil, you walk evil... like... you're evil. There is just no fucking way in heaven or earth that our encounter will end without you being revealed to be evil!"

and lo' and behold, 3 minutes later... he is evil!

What a twist!

[Nikose Tyris]

I have this game.

I love this game.

I can't fucking play this game.

No seriously, I got it and immediately said, "I'm going to need to play this 100% stealthy." and after a solid two hours of trying, I just couldn't manage to stay hidden. I'm excellent at combat, and if I was willing to play this game as a combat type person, I'd be excellent. But I'm watching as Mike plays through it (it took him about 4 hours to reach the point I reached in 2) and he was pulling successful perfect ghost missions.

I'm just not the sneaky mindset, I guess.

[Magus]

Is it really the heir apparent to Thief we've been waiting for (Thi4f notwithstanding)?

Also I've heard the missions are quite replayable. Does it have a Hitman: Blood Money level of addiction towards completing the mission in various ways, or the same level of addiction that happens when you try to complete very mission with the Silent Assassin rating?

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Clearly you are meant for wanton slaughter and mayhem, nikose.


Thinkin of gettin this game tonight!

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I am glad to hear that everyone else is trying (and mostly succeeding) in ghosting the game. It bodes well for my future enjoyment. Cos the problem with trying to do that on Thief was that, whilst fun, it was always incredibly frustrating to play that way. To this day I've never managed to complete Thief 2s "Life of the Party" level because it would require me to break ghost, and at that point I feel like I've already lost.

[Arcanum]

I am glad to hear that everyone else is trying (and mostly succeeding) in ghosting the game. It bodes well for my future enjoyment. Cos the problem with trying to do that on Thief was that, whilst fun, it was always incredibly frustrating to play that way. To this day I've never managed to complete Thief 2s "Life of the Party" level because it would require me to break ghost, and at that point I feel like I've already lost.

Well, at the end of the level you get a screen saying how many people you killed, how many bodies were found, and more importantly, a check box saying if you were detected or not.

And the devs have said it's entirely possible to play the game without killing anyone, and that there are no forced fights like Deus Ex: HR.

[Bells]

So, sad times for me... about the Granny Rags optional mission

I got the side mission to infect the bootleg cure with the plague that was being made by a bunch of these street thugs and at first i was all like "Yeah, i'm the hero... these thugs are selling bootleg cures, exploiting the people in their time of need. I'm revenge incarnated!! I'll show them good!!"

So i go to the distillery and (without killing a single soul) manage to reach their Bootleg production. I have the option here to create the bootleg cure or to taint it with the plague.... so like, feeling all Brave and Bold i contaminate it.

Then, on the desk next to the vat, there is the accounting book for the bootleg business.... i check it out and there is all these people and places and the title "next batch" over it, ordering crates of the stuff...

So... like... in my quest to stop the plague, i think i just spread it like wildfire beyond the horizon...

[Arcanum]

It's funny because the reason they are making the bootleg elixir is because Sokolov's and Piero's elixirs are too expensive for most people to afford. And the bootleg stuff works as good as the official stuff (which isn't saying much since nobody knows for sure if the elixirs actually offer a resistance to the plague, and it is definitely not a cure).

[Bells]

Which means....

Due to probably not paying attention, i turned a harmless placebo into a plague enhancer in exchange for a rune given to me by a crazy lady

I'm the bestest hero ever!

[Aldurin]

Ok, I beat the game and took a crack at a pacifist run (Deus Ex: HR taught me that trying to do full stealth and full pacifist in the same run is bullshit stupid) and after completing the Overseer mission I see the largest flaw with this game yet.

You know how rats will eventually magically appear to devour the corpses of dudes you kill after a few minutes? Well apparently they do that with UNCONSCIOUS corpses, and this doesn't affect your kill thing (there were 3 hide points in a high-traffic part of the mission I was using, and five unconscious dudes disappeared, and I would hear the rats eating if I was nearby (I must have stashed half a dozen dudes in that area) and then I saw it happen to one of them.

So not killing people is supposed to make you the good guy and keep the world from being darker, but being EATEN ALIVE BY RATS to maybe wake up in the last seconds of your life to feel it happen has to be far worse than the precise or quick deaths that are everything that isn't the "Summon Rats" power.

This alone almost ruins it for me, since not only is the system nonsensical now (the world gets worse with the not-as-bad approach to dying), but now people that I used to choke out and feel good about not-killing just end up getting the worst death possible in that setting.

[Nikose Tyris]

A true pacifist run does not leave them to be devoured; you either don't knock them out nad slink past (How we did the overseer mission) or you stash the bodies somewhere safe; up on ledges or inside of dumpsters is best.

[Aldurin]

A true pacifist run does not leave them to be devoured; you either don't knock them out nad slink past (How we did the overseer mission) or you stash the bodies somewhere safe; up on ledges or inside of dumpsters is best.

That's the thing, the only "safe" guy I knocked out was Curnow because I put him in the location that triggered the script of "now this guy doesn't die" as part of the quest, which does not apply to random dudes. I would put unconscious dudes on ledges and ceiling lamps and all sorts of crazy places just for them to be found by the city's "cleaning service".

Also not knocking out guys could possibly work, but it'd be extremely difficult and impractical, requiring excessive use of Blink, Possession and Slow Time 2 that I prefer to save by choking the obstacle. It would just be nice if they had the non-lethal option not result in the incapacitated being devoured like that.

[Bells]

i don`t know if this affects anything in the long run, but i had my share of people that i would knock unconscious and (by my own fault) i would clumsy drop in a lake, over a ledge or rail...

[Nikose Tyris]

Posession makes the thing you were in explode.

[Nikose Tyris]

Oh and also, no magic pacifist ghost run was completed in my house.

FUCK

THAT

FOREVER

[Aldurin]

Posession makes the thing you were in explode.

Unless they're a people. Then they just get dizzy and you reappear behind them. It's the ultimate stealth game solution to "thinning the herd" and dealing with the classic two-guards-that-stare-at-each-other problem. Time stop is the more dramatic and heavy-handed way to do it, but possession gives that feel of precision and manipulation.