XP Hides in the Footsteps of the Magpie

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children, combat, companions, Divinity: Original Sin, morality, music, plot, story, theme

Some spoilers for things around the Phantom Forest in Divinity: Original Sin

Butch:

DUDE stuff. And I don’t want to forget, so info dump to start.

Take. Madora. To. Hunter’s Edge. Because it leads to Mount Saint Themage.

Don’t go right to the town. Take her, start at the bridge there, right when you enter the phantom forest.

I did a bunch with that. And now I’m making whiskey. And I have poison cheese.

Oh! And I had a troll tell me about a human who made it to the troll king. He said that this human is a sorcerer (no u, he pointed that out) and has a lair in the desert plains of the Lucella forest. You know where that could be? Cuz I don’t.

I also very much want to discuss the skeleton who wanted a new skull. Very much.

Ok. Now I won’t forget. Much. Though, more likely, you’ll be all “so what did you want to say?” and I’ll be all “Huh?”

Feminina:

All right! Madora! I’m trying to talk Mr. O’ into going back to Cyseal to pick up new companions. He’s reluctant because we have a good balance of skills in our party already, so adding another melee fighter and/or wizard in exchange for the archer and/or rogue will just throw us off. Which is true, we are well-balanced, but we’re going to have about 14 levels worth of skills to build these people, so I figure we can make Madora an archer and Jahan a sneaky lock-picking master if that’s what we need (and it is).

We’ll get there.

We made whiskey! That was so great. Also poisoned cheese. Did you get a result from the poisoned cheese?

We gave the skeleton a new skull. He turned into the mayor. Interesting…

Did you talk to the silent dog there?

A sorcerer on the desert plains? Hm. I don’t think we met him. See, I knew there was something in the desert we hadn’t done! Unless he was that bard dude who was telling stories to the animals, although he wasn’t really in the desert. More of a little forest oasis.

We…wandered around in the Phantom Forest. It’s really a bit overleveled for us (everything is 18), but we poked around a bit and then ran off. Back to Hunter’s Edge to give a key to a dude, if we can find said dude.

Butch:

Oh, is that armory key? That isn’t in the town at the end of some blood tracks that I started following before I got distracted?

Shit.

Yeah, I kinda feel the same way in terms of skills, but companion quests, man. Story. Mr. O is very practical. And yes, you do get a bazillion levels of everything to do whatever with, so it isn’t like she should stay a tank or him a wizard. Very flexible. And Madora’s story arc is really, REALLY good.

Sigh. No. No I did not get a result from the poisoned cheese. Why? Because I was off to give whoever the poison cheese, and kinda got turned around, and ran into the end of Madora’s quest (which is how I know it’s really, really good) and I really wasn’t ready for the end of Madora’s quest, so I died.

And realized I hadn’t saved since BEFORE I made the damn whiskey.

And it loaded and I was in a field of barley and I said fuck that. So I’ll make whiskey again when I boot it back up. And not stumble into the end of a quest I am not prepared to finish.

Yeah, I did the same thing with the skeleton. Very interesting. Because we were all “DUDE no! The soul isn’t anywhere! It’s who you are! You’ll always be you!” and then he wasn’t. We were totally wrong. And…what’s more…I thought he was a complete asshole AFTER he changed.

There are two levels on which we could discuss this. One is a very lengthy way we could discuss this, if, in fact, you’ve gotten some cutscenes that I have. Which I don’t think you have.

But the other: I’m STILL on the Scarlett is nuts thing. Here, we have a situation where we were all “Who you are is absolute.” And I agreed! (I as in me, Butch.) Of COURSE who you are is absolute. Anyone would believe that, I think.

But it wasn’t. Turns out, at least in this reality, that “who you are” is something that can be changed, almost completely, with, dare I say it, surgical precision. Almost…medically. And, moreover, it isn’t the heart or something else where “you” are, it’s your head. Change your head, change “you.” Change your reality. Because he didn’t just turn into the mayor: he turned into a rather deluded mayor. He wasn’t saying “Hey! What has happened to my wonderful city? There’s….HEY!” He seemed to be under the impression that nothing much, if anything, had changed, when it obviously had, whereas the skeleton dude understood where he was in relation to the game world just fine. When he changed his head, his brain, his mind, he because someone else with a totally different view of reality.

Hm.

Talked to the silent dog: Sure did. And the “sad deer” in the forest who also indicated that he had his voice taken in the same place. And I didn’t put two and two together until I was in bed that night trying to fall asleep (thinking about the damn game).

I didn’t have Wolgraff with me. When I go back to age the whiskey (benefit of having to redo shit, you know where you’ll be) I think I’m gonna swap him in for Bairdotr. And talk to that dog again.

Archibald the troll (the one with the kid he’s teaching) told me that the only human who’s met the troll king was a sorcerer who set up a lair in the desert plains of Lucella, which has to be spider town, right? I haven’t found any other plains. Ooo! And he knew the sorcerers name, which was Marandino or something, which rang bells. I think he was the sorcerer who wrote the spell that either put up or took down the barrier to Icara’s house in the forest way back when. The one you hear about from the mushrooms. I think. It was a very familiar sounding name.

Maybe I’ll talk to Icara when I age the whiskey, too.

Cuz I wanna find the one human that met the troll king and ask him a couple of questions.

Feminina:

Yeah, the armory key. Which is not in the place where you go by following the bloodstains…although definitely follow the bloodstains when you get a chance.

The key is not in the Phantom Forest, either, no worries. It’s in Hunter’s Edge, we’ve just been carrying it around for a while and then were like “hey, let’s do THIS thing off our list!”

Good point about the ‘change of head’–that is thematically suggestive. Although it kind of implies that ‘medication’ can mess you up as easily as it can help you, considering the skeleton seemed pretty with it at first and then became, as you say, a fairly delusional mayor. “Oh, we’ve been having a bit of disruption what with all the mass slaughter, but things are really very nice here!”

Another way to read it, though, would be to say that indeed, who ‘you’ are DOESN’T change, but that while the skeleton seemed to think ‘he’ was his body, in fact he’s just his skull–that we didn’t give ‘him’ a new skull, we actually gave his body to another person.

There’s kind of the same point there in terms of “who you are is in your head,” but the meaning is a bit different depending on whether we see it as “we dramatically changed one individual so that his character became quite different but he is still that individual” (which is how he himself seemed to be thinking of it, but he as well as we could be wrong) vs. “we took one individual off his body and gave the body to someone else.”

Undead Nick is an interesting parallel case here, because his body DID seem to recognize and desire to reunite with his head, suggesting that the essence of ‘Nick’ is in fact contained both in his head and his body. I’m not really sure what that implies about this dude, though–the body didn’t really express any opinion, so it did seem to be perhaps purely a vehicle for the head. Maybe because there’s no flesh left? Maybe ‘you’ are your head and flesh, but not your other bones?

Anyway, we haven’t seen any cutscenes lately, so no lengthy spoilers.

That sucks about having to make the whiskey all over again. I’m sorry. You’re good at stumbling on the end of peoples’ quests, though, huh?

Ah, the sorcerer Maradino! We’ve come across a few mentions of him. Makes sense we’ll have to find him. And…dude…Archibald…

Sigh. Remember I said there was a thing that made me feel like we were horrible people? Yeah. We killed Archibald. Right in front of his kid. Who then stands there wailing “daddy, wake up! they’re getting away! daddy, why won’t you get up?” for…I don’t know, probably the rest of the game.

It was awful. But he wanted a toll and we didn’t have that much money at the time, and then we couldn’t just walk away even though we didn’t even WANT to cross his bridge, it turned into a fight, so what could we do but fight him? We’re so terrible, though. We’re going to turn out to be the avatar of cruel death. It was nightmarish. Sigh. I blame Mr. O’–I would have just reloaded, but he only does that if Bairdotr has all the good arrows. Ha.

But definitely talk to the dog when you have Wolgraff with you. He’ll be interested.

Incidentally, in our world that dog is dead now, due to a tragic accident. Of course. Because everything we touch turns to death. It’s not even a joke anymore, I think we genuinely represent the footsteps of doom to all we come near.

Butch:

Are you serious? You’re not doing this on purpose?

Dude. I’m starting to fear you.

Oh I shall investigate the trail of blood. Always follow bloodstains.

T SHIRT!!!!

But that was another thing I stumbled on! I was just toodling and Scarlett was all “I found something!” and then another, and I thought “You know? This screams ‘quest.’ And, as my log has not updated, this is a quest I do not yet have.

I have a feeling I do now. But I have to make more damn whiskey.

And Well, that’s something I’ve been pondering as well, not so much “medicine” as “stuff.” The spiders there, they were giving their people there some substance or other. A “poison.” But we could just reduce that to “drug” or “substance.” Some chemical, we shall say, that we could read as symbolic of medicine or illicit drug fairly easily. And those wackos were a) more immaculate than the immaculates in terms of their zeal and b) people you very much did not want to be, if the game world is real or it isn’t. It was really the first we’ve seen a thing where “medicine” or something CAN mess you up.

But remember: if Scarlett is a delusional person, being “cured” or “medicated” isn’t a good thing to her.

This against the backdrop of being given a quest where we make whiskey. Whiskey very much exists in our world, and we admit (very reluctantly admit cuz we like it) can cause you problems in the real world, including depression or hallucinations or whatever in certain people (not us). But in Scarlett’s world, whiskey HELPS her. Makes the orcs, which are trying to “remove” her from this world, easier to beat.

I’m not sure that contrast, that linear progression from spiders (level 14) to Hunter’s edge and skeleton and whiskey wasn’t an accident.

(You know, as a tangent, one of these days when we don’t have anything else to talk about, as it will take all day, maybe two, we should dish on the symbolism of blood in a game about sin. I am reminded of this as the most powerful medicine of the game is, literally, blood. We’ll talk. Later. Too busy with good stuff today.)

And since you haven’t seen any lengthy cutscenes, I’m not going to respond to any of the rest of your notes. We’ll talk. Later.

We’re gonna have some mad bloggage when you finally see all that.

Yeah Archibald! He seems to be the guy. But what did we miss out there? Did you kill the spider queen? Cuz I didn’t. Yet.

DUDE! I was wondering what that horrible thing you mentioned was. Shit, I didn’t do it as I didn’t want to kill the kid, but DUDE that’s even worse!!!! SO much worse!

Again, NAUGHTY Mr. O! Not only not a purist, choosy about it! Bad!

Dude, I’m deeply upset and want to hug my kids knowing it happened in your game. I would have reloaded. I would have found a way around that. Period.

Which…hm. Remember last week? The other time I was all “Nope?” Tranquility Lane? It was my “noping” making a kid cry. And killing him instead.

Which here, ok, you didn’t kill him, but I would have noped a crying kid despite the fact that a) dad was a killer, which usually is instant “yeah I’m gonna kill him” (Shit, you have to walk past the bodies of his innocent victims to get to him!) and b) he’s teaching said kid to BE A KILLER. Archibald and his kid will continue to slaughter countless innocents. How many game bad guys have we killed for that or less?

And yet, you feel guilty and I would have reloaded.

And we didn’t feel guilty or reload even though we now know that trolls can have cute kids and be good dads (who train their kids to slaughter innocents) and there were probably kids who’s lives we ruined. But the kid was THERE, so we were/would have been upset.

Man, I like games. What else makes you ask these questions?

Feminina:

Man, we are not doing this on purpose. We can’t help ourselves. We’re doom to all! I kind of fear us myself.

But Alfie and his humans are still alive! For now. At this rate we’re probably going to unwittingly make some decision that will result in Silverglen being burned to the ground, and they’ll be toasted in the ashes.

Crying kids are the worst thing imaginable. The ultimate horror game would just be full of crying children. I would nope that so hard it would never get out of the plastic wrap. Or into my house in the first place, actually.

But yeah, there are a lot of good questions around that knee-jerk reaction. Because hey, Archibald DID start this fight. And he HAS killed many other people for the same ‘crime’ of not having money for his toll. And his son is going to do the same thing. This is bad!

But making the kid sad is awful. And the troll WAS just doing his job, as he was ordered to do by the troll king whom we must eventually find and steal from. Killing all those people wasn’t personal, anymore than it’s personal when WE kill a bunch of things that are in the way of us doing our job of pursuing some quest. Or collecting some loot. Whichever.

And I don’t think we’ve fought the actual spider queen, but as for those cultists…so we told them “hey, good luck with that” and turned to leave, and then all the eggs hatched. And then the spiders attacked us, and most of the cultists also attacked us, although a couple of them seemed to have second thoughts (interesting) and attacked the spiders instead. That was the long drawn-out battle that we WON at great cost, and then the last of the spiders exploded when it died and killed Delios, the only surviving PC, so we still had to do it again. But eventually we prevailed, by which point all the cultists were long dead (because everyone around us dies).

Then we moved on and ran into even MORE spiders, and that’s when we stopped exploring that part of the desert and wandered off and found Zixzax. So I think the spider queen is still out there, probably standing between us and Maradino.

We need to go back there. And to the mines. And to Cyseal. And to Silverglen. And to the goblin village. And to Hiberheim.

Butch:

It’s starting to get rather uncanny.

Probably everyone will die in the end. Especially as you keep clinging to it. And it’ll come late! Like, the absolute endgame will be “Burn Silverglen, kill everything” and you’ll be all “So close! Yet so appropriate!”

Hey, I paid the troll. I wasn’t all “DIE FOR THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE I JUST WALKED BY!” It was all good. Shit, I was kinda glad, cuz Scarlett heals when she walks through blood and she was kinda hurt.

Thanks for clubbing innocents guys! Here’s your money! Good luck with the child rearing!

And I’m the good guy. Hmm.

Shit you haven’t been to the mines YET? Dude! Next. Promise.

I think that spider is important. It had that silver health bar that says “I either can’t die or must die, or first one then the other.” And she didn’t move. So she’s likely plopped in front of Marandino. Who DID “disappear.” He’s probably in there unable to get out. Cuz big spider.

Makes sense.

Feminina:

Indeed, it makes sense that if you go somewhere and a giant possibly unkillable spider plops down in front of your cave or whatever, you find yourself maybe not going out again anytime soon.

Ha. “Here’s your money, good sir. A fine young troll you’re raising! I wish you both much continued joy of slaughtering the hapless losers who can’t afford your exorbitant fees!”

Yeah…there really wasn’t a ‘good guy’ option there.

It’s so true! In fact, probably the last thing will be “burn Silverglen and kill everything, or walk away?” and we’ll say “obviously, walk away,” but we’ll actually click on “burn and kill” without even meaning to, because we’re so invested in the narrative.

Sorry, everyone. You can’t fight destiny. Or a series of unfortunate coincidences that forms a neat, destiny-like story if you ignore all the people we HAVEN’T actually killed.

Like…uh…that lonely troll! Yeah! And Ralfie! And the romantic couple in Hunter’s Edge, although we’ll probably be responsible for their deaths later.

Butch:

Pretty much! “Oh, and could you leave some blood around? Might be hurt next time I come by….”

Dude, I found that couple, but can’t get them to do anything because even when you sneak up on them they clam up. I have it in my quest list, and I WANT to tell them to go be happy, but it won’t let me!

Cuz I’m very romantic.

Ok, so remade the whiskey, talked to dudes, etc. Wolgraff sure is interested in mute animals. Took him to both. The deer made him all “MUST KILL SOURCERERS!” and the dog gave him hope cuz I said “Maybe there’s a cure….” Icara didn’t even give me a dialog option for Marnadino. I guess we’re just supposed to go explore the desert and stuff. Now I’m about to chat up the rat catcher.

Feminina:

I think with those two I stood back and listened to them from a distance, and then went up and talked to them and had an option to say “I overheard you talking about etc.” and they confessed their feelings. I was looting that house near them and I could hear them talking from their campfire. Try that.

I told them I’d keep their secret, but as I said, I’m sure we’ll be responsible for their deaths later because at some point this whole situation is going to blow up. The orcs are going to attack the Immaculates, or vice versa (or we’re going to attack one or the other of them) and all hell will break loose.

And I don’t even know which side I’d feel like supporting, because we’re all relatively chummy at the moment, but I can’t quite forget that they all cheerfully participated in the slaughter and/or enslaving of everyone in this town, so…kind of they all suck (even if the mountain men do sound like Sean Bean) and I hope they all die. With the possible exception of those two lovebirds, if their love has made them see the world in a new light and they decide to quit slaughtering and enslaving people.

Basically, I’d be happy to see them go off to live in a vine-covered cottage baking warm cakes together, but if they insist on sticking with their tribes, I’m pretty sure they’re going to die. Even if I don’t personally kill them. Maybe one of them will kill the other in the heat of battle, and then collapse in anguished wailing! That would be dramatic and heart-wrenching. Although not as much so as that troll kid.

Yeah, for Wolgraff’s story, we’re going to wind up hunting something in the Phantom Forest for sure. But not right away, because everything in there is really tough.

Butch:

Ok, I’ll try lurking. I keep coming up the stairs.

Nah. You’ll be fighting, and the fight will be over, and they’ll be the two left, and they’ll be all “Now we can be togeth-” and the one oil barrel will blow up cuz you’re on fire and you’ll walk to close and they’ll die. Or something.

And I think the game is fooling us, as the human leader is far more sympathetic than the orc leader, but watch: there’ll be a twist. That’s…well…do Madora’s thing. Go from there.

Still. Things are STILL tough in the Phantom Forest. And we’ve been playing this for many, many hours. Fuck those SPIDERS are tough. I’m what, level 14? Maybe still 13. And the spiders are 14 (and were killing the hell out of me last I was there), the Sacred Stone dudes are 15, and everything here is 16. And you say the Phantom Forest is 18.

The fuck.

And if I can’t kill shit, how am I gonna level? Making the whiskey was a mere 8150, and that doesn’t hit bottom. I’m still, like 98000 points away from leveling (seriously).

This is a puzzler, it is. Maybe I’ll get something for the cheese/rat thing?

Feminina:

Well, see, maybe here’s where our magpie approach pays off. We’re behind you in terms of story, but we’ve been to a lot of random places poking around while not following the plot, and I guess we must have fought a lot of things and collected some experience along the way.

We’re 16, and we were taking on 17th level things in the Phantom Forest and doing OK (the difference between levels does seem to get a bit less pronounced as you get higher up, although the hordes of 18th level dudes were still more than we wanted to mess with).

So, I don’t know…maybe go magpie some? At this point I don’t even remember where we’ve been that you haven’t been, but we’ve been wandering a lot.

Butch:

I dunno, man, magpie where? I’ve been pretty much all over Lucella, done the hell out of hiberheim….I mean, there’s spider town….I don’t know where else to magpie! Shit, I even did more of Hiberheim than you did!

Go back to the trap house and blow up the ooze. Ha.

Feminina:

DO IT!

We were going to do that and never got around to it. I bet there’s mad XP involved. Ha.

But yeah, that’s the thing, I don’t even know where we’ve been that you haven’t, but dude, we’ve been doing SOMETHING all this time that you’re following the story and we aren’t. We’ve been wandering around, getting in fights, looting stuff…is there any darkness left on your maps at all?

Or maybe it’s all the people we’ve left dead in our wake. Maybe being the harbinger of doom is good XP.

Butch:

I don’t think there’s a lot of black. I genuinely have no idea where I haven’t been. There’s a lot of phantom forest, there’s a cave near Hunter’s Edge…have I missed some caves?

It’s so weird. I sure feel like I’m being thorough. My maps look well explored. I don’t get it.

Feminina:

Yes…it’s kind of a mystery. I mean, it’s not as if we haven’t been playing, and it’s not as if whenever we play we just kind of putter around in one place, do some shopping, and call it a night. (I mean, sometimes we do, but not all the time.)

So in order to have filled all this time that we’ve both been playing with stuff that ISN’T the story stuff you’ve done…we had to have been doing something. But I can’t think of anywhere we’ve been that you haven’t, now that you’ve made it to Hunter’s Edge and this map. (Half of this map is still dark for us as well, since we haven’t been all through the Phantom Forest.)

You’ve been through Hiberheim (even more than we have). You’ve been thoroughly around Cyseal (certainly as much as we have). You’ve been in Luculla Forest, probably almost as much as we have, though we might have done a bit more in the desert. And you probably have about what we have in Hunter’s Edge/the Phantom Forest.

And yet, we’ve picked up two levels worth of XP from somewhere that wasn’t the main story. Maybe some caves, as you say. I don’t know. Wish I could help you.

Magpieing pays off, but we don’t know exactly how.

Butch:

We sure don’t. No way the couple of spider fights you did was two levels of XP. Plus, I imagine my cutscenes and stuff gave me some XP you didn’t get! It’s so weird.

The hell, game!

Feminina:

No, we definitely didn’t do two levels’ worth of spider fights.

We went partway along the path where we have to go to stop the attack on the end of time, that was good for a bit of XP before we ran into the stuff we can’t hit without tenebrium. Not two levels, but some. Maybe try that, just for something to hit.

Unrelated note about magpies: I like that the characters, when exploring bird’s nests, will actually comment “I was hoping that was a magpie’s nest.” Because everyone knows the magpies find good loot!

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Surprisingly Concise Commentary

Tags

companions, Divinity: Original Sin, romance, story

Very minor spoilers for the existence of some side plots in Divinity: Original Sin

Butch:

So did some stuff. But not productive stuff. There wasn’t any nudity (see? I know we’re busy, so I got Friday on track early).

So I talked to the weird spider dudes, and convinced them to leave! Told them that they should spread the word of the spider queen and shit, and off they ran! But that made all the eggs hatch and I promptly died. So I reloaded said “Fuck it, I’m not even supposed to be here” and trucked off to somewhere else I’m probably not supposed to be.

Got into a tussle, freed a slave, he said something not very nice about Madora who I should really go get cuz story.

Then into the goblin totem weirdo place. You been there? Cuz if you have we’ll dish. If you haven’t, I won’t spoil. This is a place where something is rather annoyingly telling goblins to dance all the fucking time.

And that was it.

No nudity. (Twofer!)

Feminina:

Yes! The totem is annoyingly repetitive. That’s the thing that Ralfie told us would be useful if we could figure out how to make it tell them to do whatever WE wanted them to. We haven’t figured that out, though.

We were oddly productive. Followed up on a couple of side quests, got some stuff done. Not in the mines, obviously, because clearly we will never go back there since we know that’s where the main plot is, but we got some stuff done.

No nudity, though.

Hunter’s Edge does have some romance, though!

Butch:

ROMANCE! Between who and who? Cuz I was gonna go get Madora cuz she keeps coming up and I listen to the game.

At least I know you’ll eventually do the mines.

I figured out how to hijack the totem!

Did you talk to the totem? Oh, you had to, right? To get out?

And dude……the LOOT from hijacking the totem…I usually don’t get all religious on loot, but SEVEN master level skill books and 9950 gold! 9950!

So kinda worth it.

Feminina:

Nice! We’ll totally put hijacking the totem on our to do list. I do love me some skill books. And a lot of gold.

The romance is a total side quest thing, between two characters you’ve yet to meet. But it’s there.

People do keep talking about Madora (by which I mean, it’s happened about twice, but repetition!) so I think maybe it would mean something to have her there, although we haven’t needed her for anything yet.

Butch:

You know, Ralphie told you EXACTLY how to do it. Like, he was spot on.

Good skill books.

In another place, I got “charm” as a skill! 100% chance to charm! As a skill!!!!

So great.

But what do you expect? Scarlett has…charms.

They talk about Madora, and not in good terms! The slave was all “Our protector, Madora, abandoned us!” I’m kinda glad she wasn’t there. But she’s gotta own up, here!

Cuz that’s interesting. Usually, NPCs are either heroic or rakish rogues. But failures who ran and caused people to be sold as slaves? That’s not typical NPC fare. Makes me curious.

Feminina:

Yeah, people don’t seem to think too highly of Madora. Which, as you say, is interesting.

 

You’re Not Dying With All That Good Loot!

Tags

character, companions, Divinity: Original Sin, food, mechanics, plot, religion, role playing, theme

Spoilers for Bairdotr’s story in Divinity: Original Sin

Butch:

I got nothing. Mrs. McP has had early meetings every day this week. Up at 445 every day. Again today. It caught up to me last night. I love this game, I do, but I was half asleep and having to think about where I was supposed to go and planning fights and processing bloggage just made me go…..no.

It happens.

Hopefully it gave you a chance to get the spell.

So very tired.

And, on top of it all, the kids are home tomorrow! Ain’t that just the specialest thing?

Feminina:

The very specialest! O’Jr. has a half day, and then the grandparents are picking him up for the afternoon, but Grigio will be home all day. Therefore, so will I.

Gave us a chance to get the spell…hahahahahaha. No. We were in Hunter’s Edge, so we thought “hey, let’s check in this hatch that’s full of exploding fire! Oh, and let’s go visit the prison and get in a big fight with the guards!”

Turns out we CAN do separate combats on the split screen, but it’s not really a very good idea. So yeah, we played, but we accomplished little of note.

Although we could talk about what we did the night before, which was finish up the fight with Jareth. We didn’t discuss that at all yesterday.

I was willing to accept the way the dice rolled, as it were, and lose Bairdotr figuring she’d made her choice, but Mr. O’ said no, we’ve spent too much time with her developing her skills, and she has all of our good arrows.

So we restarted the fight and instead of having that conversation, left Bairdotr outside and just attacked Jareth. Unprovoked, other than the fact that he was standing there with a heap of bleeding corpses. So, circumstantially provoked, although he COULD theoretically have just been a horrified passerby, or even a grieving relative looking for a lost loved one, or something.

Anyway, Bairdotr came in, helped us defeat him, and had absolutely nothing to say about it afterwards, so it looks like we’ve basically lost the chance to ever get a conclusion to her story (she’s just saying the same “I’m on the trail, Source Hunter!” stuff she always does). On the other hand, we didn’t have to kill her. Sooo…a mixed bag, I suppose. I like closure, but then, I also like not killing my companions.

And I feel a little bad about it because we robbed her of the opportunity to make that choice, but then, it was totally the wrong choice! But then also, how patronizing and controlling of us to assume that we know the absolute correct choice and have the right to make it for someone if she doesn’t make it for herself.

Doesn’t a functioning, adult person have the right to make their own choice, even if it’s a bad one? (And Bairdotr is at least physically adult, although one could argue her lack of experience in the human world makes her comparable in some ways to a child…for whom we might have the right to make decisions.)

And it absolutely is the wrong choice, in the game-world (setting aside your insanity theory, which could have her breaking free from delusion). Jareth’s comments made it clear that he didn’t actually care about Bairdotr, he just saw her as a sort of amusing pet. He also seemed to suggest that he was intrigued by her immunity to rot and might be going to experiment on her, making her not even a pet but a lab animal. It’s objectively a bad choice, to go with that guy! It’s not just that he’s OUR enemy: he’s not really her friend, either, no matter how she thought of him.

And then, too, since apparently we inspired the commitment to ‘obedience’ that caused her to make that choice, maybe it’s actually our responsibility to interfere before she suffers the consequences. It was our fault she was going to go with him, so arguably we’re justified in making sure she doesn’t get the chance…to make the bad decision we somehow convinced her to make…

Ethically, the whole thing is a bit of a mess. But we didn’t have to kill her, and we still have access to all the good arrows, so I guess I can’t feel too much regret.

I feel a little guilt for having cheated off the internet, but I think Mr. O’ was perturbed enough that if we’d innocently fought it through and had to kill her, he would likely have come up with “let’s reload, leave her somewhere, and go try killing him before they get a chance to talk” anyway.

Butch:

Oh you’re kidding? Mr O? He of the “D&D is pure and sacred and no do overs and I killed three of you but fuck you cuz story?” THAT Mr O?

Jeez. Mr O, I barely recognize you anymore.

Dude. You guys are metagaming in an almost [name I won’t say but you know who I mean]esque way.

We talked about how COOL it was that unknown actions have consequences and you just completely took that out of the game!

Now I’m all riled up.

Look….all that’s true about how he would have wanted to reload even if you hadn’t checked the internet. But I’m still riled and here’s why.

The game itself was designed to take that “choice” out of your hands. By just deciding “Well, I’m gonna take control here to get what I want,” you fundamentally changed the intent of the game BOTH in terms of narrative and emotional impact on the player. The game wanted you to feel what you felt the first time: horror, maybe guilt that your choices led to this. You surgically removed that from the game itself, and, in so doing, altered it as a piece of art.

I mean, if you took out and rewrote five chapters of Moby Dick, it would no longer BE Moby Dick. If Mr. O went to an art museum and said “Well, that painting is nice except for the upper left part, let me just take out my paint and fix that….” that would change the intent of the artist. You might not LIKE what the artist did, but that’s art for you.

Cuz this wasn’t cheating on the internet. Cheating on the internet is being stumped on a puzzle and checking for the solution so you can move on. This is saying “I don’t like the end to the story that the writers wrote, so fuck it cuz I’m perturbed and she has my arrows.”

And before people get all “But games are interactive so I should be able to do what I want how I want,” no. SOME games are like that. Minecraft is like that. Skyrim is like that. But this game isn’t like that.

And yes, you could game the game and get the result you want, but just because the Louvre might say “Well, I GUESS you can touch up the Mona Lisa,” that doesn’t mean you should. If you don’t like her smile, leave it be, and bitch about it on a blog.

Naughty, naughty Mr. O!

Ok, I’m done being riled.

Naughty Mr. O.

Feminina:

I’m kind of hurt on Skyrim’s behalf that you apparently feel it’s totally fine to rerun scenarios forever until you get the result you want in THAT game, but not THIS one. People worked hard on Skyrim, you know! And at least it occasionally gave you quest markers to give you hints about where the heck you should go next for what.

Also, I do get what you’re saying, but I think there’s a level of flexibility that comes from the fundamental difference between almost any video game and D&D, which is that in a video game you expect to fail and re-do things. You expect to lose fights and die horribly and then keep trying until you win them.

Again, I don’t really disagree with you about there being some things you’re ‘supposed’ to reload until you get what you want and some things you aren’t, but inherent in the fact that you don’t have to accept death, is the argument that it’s reasonable to refuse to accept other unfavorable outcomes as well, if the game provides a way to avoid them.

And sure, “why are you playing the game at all if you’re not going to follow the rules” is a very fair point, but the ‘rules’ themselves are so flexible that it’s hard to draw a very clear line. It’s much more a “we know it when we see it” sort of thing, which will necessarily appear in different places to different people. Mr. O’ runs Bairdotr, so I figured it was his call. We’ll see what I decide if this comes up with Wolgraff.

It’s also interesting to look at this in terms of the game’s major “sin” theme–we’ve talked a bit about how something might be a sin only if you know it is (we didn’t know we COULD talk to the zombie troll, so we just killed it: was that as wrong, since we acted in ignorance, as it would have been if we’d known we could talk to it but chosen not to?). In this case, we’re really only talking about this being ‘wrong’ because we knew what we were doing.

If we had, say, been traveling with Madora instead of Bairdotr and wandered into the cave, thought “this Jareth is obviously a bad dude, let’s spare Bairdotr the trouble of learning he wasn’t the loving mentor she imagined” and killed him, without knowing that she would have a choice to make if she were there, and then we later found out–we certainly wouldn’t blame ourselves for cheating to get the outcome we wanted. Even though it was essentially the one we did get.

The ‘sin’ here is in knowing what you’re doing, not in the actual deed. And it’s probably a stretch to read this into it, but we could even wonder if that might not be something the designers intended, as a larger point on sin. I mean, they COULD have just made Jareth not show up unless Bairdotr was there, or show up but merely murmer about how he wondered what had happened to her and not be able to be attacked unless she was there. If they’d wanted this to be something big and inescapable, they could have. I kind of wonder how much they really expect people to do ‘alone’ and how much they’re assuming people will be looking things up, and whether they’re intentionally allowing things to be ‘cheatable’ to let you think about that. We’ve talked a fair bit about how our characters are only dubiously ‘good’–maybe the game is intentionally also allowing for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ choices for the player AS A PLAYER. (And it turns out, we’re no better than the characters in this sense.)

Again, that’s probably a stretch since that’s a lot to have in mind when you sit there making your game. In reality, they probably just didn’t care that much about this particular story, so they let it do whatever. But reading into things is what we do, so there it is.

Anyway, you can have this argument with Mr. O’ when you bring a gallon of booze to our house someday! It’s going to be great.

Butch:

I think I’ll decline that argument with Mr. O. I’ll stick to the booze.

Good stuff on sin. We’re doing well today!

As for Bairdotr/character death…I agree about games letting you reload when YOUR CHARACTER (more on this in a minute) dies. It would be either impossible or very frustrating to make a new character each time. And I get that personal connection to YOUR CHARACTER.

What’s weird is that I don’t think of Bairdotr, Wolgraff, Madora and Jahan as MY characters. Sure, I like them, and I control them, but I don’t feel they’re “mine” any more than Garrus or Drack or Nick Valentine or or or. While the loss of those characters would be said (remember poor Mordin?) it wouldn’t be the same hit as losing MY character.

So the fact you said “Mr. O runs Bairdotr so its his call” imparts some degree of ownership in the sense of attachment to a character, in the same way we get attached to Evelyn or Jessica or Ryder (man, I DO play a lot of women). That line you guys have, that “I’ll play her, you play him” dynamic, I think, makes them feel more “yours” and, thus, more attached to them in terms of wanting them to live than you would be in a bioware or bethesda game, where we were sad about Mordin, but didn’t reload and do all sorts of shit in order to make SURE he lived. Shit, you left Leliana dead for your first playthrough of DAO!

As I am playing this alone, much like one plays a bioware game, I have the same relation to the characters as I have in those games. So I think, once again, this is a co-op vs. solo dynamic, which is pretty cool.

Oh, and screw Skyrim.

Feminina:

Ha! Poor Skyrim. Never any love from Butch.

Let’s all stick to the booze. But yeah, I think there’s probably something to that theory. We really do each have “our” companion that we always run and that we’ve carefully equipped and built up over the levels. We kind of randomly got the ones we have because he was the one who started the conversation with Bairdotr and so when we took her on she ‘attached’ to his character, and then I started talking to Wolgraff and he joined on my side of the screen (in co-op, even when you’re not in split screen, one PC and companion icon are displayed on the right, and the other on the left). And we’ve pretty much considered those to be our second characters ever since.

We tried swapping once, but it was just odd. Like, “I don’t know any of her cool tricks! She’s not fighting as effectively for me!”

So yeah, the automatic “no, I’m not letting her die” reaction may have been partly based on the sense that she’s HIS character, in a way that, you’re quite right, you never really feel that Drack or Peebee or whoever is YOUR character (even though you give them skills and levels too). And yeah, I can easily imagine that this dynamic would not be the same if it were just me with four characters to run.

Hm.

Butch:

It’s funny how there are all these very subtle differences in how the game works for us.

Cuz I would have been sad, but that would be it.

I think the only time I’d really try to reload/redo is if I thought I’d be missing A LOT of story. Even though there was a way for Mordin to live, I knew his story was up, so letting him end it was ok. I did redo the end of ME2, but that was because I didn’t want to miss sidquests in three. Here, Bairdotr’s story is likely over no matter what, so I’ll be ok with whatever.

But again, she doesn’t feel MINE.

Feminina:

Yeah, it’s interesting for blog purposes that we’re doing it both as a co-op and a solo game. I mean, you’re probably right: if I were playing it alone I wouldn’t have a particularly strong connection to any one of the companions, because there would be two of them and two of me and it’s hard enough keeping a sense of connection with the two of me.

And that’s is an angle of the game that we don’t have–it must be a lot easier to get your head around the idea that these two are the same person when they are, in fact, the same person. I intellectually suspect that we’re the same person, but just running around getting in fights and stuff, it’s obvious to me that we’re not, so there’s an interesting disconnect.

So just as well Mrs. McP isn’t into it, I guess. Better for the blog!

Butch:

Ah but I think it’s a cooler twist if they’re the same person if you’re playing coop. “You thought you were independent? Ha!” Whereas I am the same person in real life (I’m so tired that sentence makes perfect sense), so it won’t be as heavy.

Mrs. McP is never home so I’d still be in Cyseal beach.

Feminina:

It makes sense to me too! We’re probably both insane.

Butch:

I’m just very, very tired.

So, you know, fine line.

I thought we did quite well today, though! Despite the fatigue and insanity!

Which will only compound tomorrow. You’re just chillin’ at home. I am not, because I am not a vegetarian. See, the best ham on earth is at this place in Groton. I want ham. And I want to fill my freezer with stuff you don’t eat. So I’m dropping Meaty off at school, then taking the other two way the fuck out to Groton to wait in line for a ham, probably behind a whole mess of Greek people buying whole lambs (it’s one of the few places in MA that does whole lambs, you see, so they come from far and wide).

It’s gonna be great.

Worth it for the ham, though. And the bacon. And the steaks. And the…well, it’s worth it. Trust me.

Despite my sinful, hedonistic, heathen lifestyle, I can celebrate ham.

Or because of my lifestyle. One or the other.

Wandering Around Bumping Into Fights

Tags

Divinity: Original Sin, loot, making games, plot, story

Some confused spoilers for random bits of Divinity: Original Sin

Butch:

Ok, I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to be doing right now. Linear game my ass.

So I made the spell. Great. Yay! And I have to find…a guy. You likely haven’t been told of the guy, or maybe you have, I don’t know. But I made the spell! And now I have to go check out Hunter’s Edge and find a guy.

But I didn’t want to go to Hunter’s Edge quite yet. Why? Cuz I had all this unexplored desert!

So I explored. For no real reason, other than it was there and you did it.

I found a bard’s little camp, which was interesting and kinda cool. I didn’t have the money for the psychic, which was too bad as I wanted to compare it to the stuff from the statue and the bull. Then trucked…..up to find Zixzax! And the plane’s being attacked.

Dude, he SAYS “The Shelter plane cannot further expand until this is dealt with.” Explicitly! Which pretty much means, as per cutscenes/rooms/PLOT that there’s your problem. Laid low by the magpie!

So I tried to chug in there, as Bairdotr does have a tenebrium weapon but it didn’t go well.

So I thought: Troll cave! And I had some ideas. And I tried them. And…they might be right, and I might be doing my ideas wrong, but probably not, as I pulled them out of thin air and the morass that it my mind, not anything in the game. None of them worked, and I wasted a ton of time trying them.

So I just said fuck it and went back to the desert and met some dudes who want to be eaten by spiders and that’s where I am.

What the hell am I supposed to be doing? Going after the…guy? Trying to get troll stuff so I can do tenebrium? I don’t even KNOW if the troll cave will lead to me being able to DO tenebrium!

Shit.

Feminina:

Yeah. We feel like that a lot. Where are we supposed to go now, game?

WHAT ARE WE EVEN DOING?

We have 50 open quests and no idea where to go next on any of them. These are the times I might like a little more handholding.

I’d forgotten that Zixzax said the shelter wouldn’t expand…yeah, that makes sense. And yeah, we headed on in there anyway, fought some Immaculates because that seemed like the least immediately fatal path of the three he suggested. We got a fair way in, until we met some Void things we couldn’t touch without tenebrium, so that was the end of that.

Then we wandered off to other things.

We met the bard…also didn’t pay the psychic.

Met the people who wanted to be eaten by spiders. Spoiler: those people are going to be eaten by spiders. We just kind of said, “well, you seem to have made your decision, so good luck!” which I thought was slightly amusing.

The more practical dialogue choice would have been “you’re all mad, run for your lives!” but we didn’t want to antagonize them in case they attacked us and had eerie spider powers or something.

But dude, damned if I know what you should be doing. Keep fighting spiders, I guess.

I only vaguely know what we should be doing, because it’s stuff you’ve done (go back to the mines). You could try doing what we’ve done and go look for Hunter’s Edge, or just magpie like hell all around Luculla Forest…that’s good for a few fights and some XP.

I feel like we need to get to the troll king so we can steal some tenebrium from him so we can go to Brandon to learn to use tenebrium so we can go fight the things that are preventing us from shutting down the attack on the end of time, so that’s the ‘linear’ storyline I think is there, but I don’t have any idea how to go about it.

Butch:

Really? I’m down to…very few open quests. And most are a) main quest, b) source hunter’s journey and c) three you don’t have yet that center around all that stuff at the end of time. Then I have Bairdotr’s, the troll king bit, something about some miner named Ben, the “where art thou Cassandra” bit….and little else. Which is adding to the “What do I do?” bit. And I FEEL like I should be close, here, cuz those void thingies are only level 15 and I’m 14, so I should be getting tenebrium soon, right? I’m finding it in loot!

I…guess? Keep fighting spiders? Is there something questy in there or is it just, you know, a part of the map with a weird spider cult?

XP is always welcome, I suppose.

Man…I did have that troll tell me the “real” entrance to the troll cave is in the land of Faery, and that’s hiberheim, right? There’s no other land of Faery that we’ve found, right? Have you somehow gotten into fall or spring or summer? Cuz I sure as hell haven’t. He said that “unless you go through Faery, the way will be blocked and all the gold grey.” Yup. Can’t argue there.

So my ideas were “Go to hiberheim and see if I missed anything.” I started out towards the one place I couldn’t figure out: the part of Boreas’ place that was outside and was just this big balcony thing covered in lava. I figured “Well, usually something like that has something important tied to it!” So I fucked around with that and tried to put barrels and shit places, but to no avail. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

So plan B was try to go to the same coordinates on the hiberheim map as the entrance to the cave on the Lucella map. So I got the x/y coordinates from the quest marker, then went to hiberheim to see if anything matched. And..well…there did seem to be…something there. One of those stands of trees in the snowy part. And it seemed to have, like, I dunno, a hole and some lava down there. And I thought: “Whoo hoo! I was right! Gotta be something around here somewhere!” because it sure looked like something. But I toodled all around searching and found bupkis.

So that’s what I did when wasting time.

Feminina:

Ooh, those are both good ideas, though! But yeah, I got nothin’ there. Though it does seem like that part of Boreas’ castle garden or whatever it was MUST be something. It extends off toward the edge of the map there, right? But we couldn’t do anything with it either.

You have few quests? What on earth? We have literally an entire screen full. Of course, we’ve been to Hunter’s Edge and stuff. There’s stuff there. I wouldn’t have thought it would make that much difference, though.

As for the spiders, I don’t know, maybe there’s something questy there. It seemed like there should be, right? The spider cult was…meh…not that questy. But we thought there’d be something, so we kept poking around. Ran into some spiders we couldn’t defeat (could now, I expect), and found Zixzax. Maybe Zixzax was the only questy bit.

So, OK, you’re right, it’s not linear. I don’t know what I was thinking.

The questy bits I know about that you haven’t seen yet are around Hunter’s Edge. The desert is kind of a “maybe we should go back there and we’ll find something we missed” area for me. As is half of Hiberheim.

Speaking of which, considering how thoroughly we had to cheat off the internet to get to that treasure room (which we still haven’t actually done…no wonder we have all these open quests), having to speak to things hidden under leaves and all, I feel both that it’s very likely we missed something useful to the plot (either in Hiberheim, the desert, or who knows where), AND that we could very well continue to miss it for weeks at this rate.

So…I don’t know. Poke around. Fight some things. Get some levels. Maybe you’ll stumble on the plot point we missed (it worked for Jareth!). There’s got to be something out there that means something, right?

Maybe go to the goblin village. They didn’t really tell us anything useful, but that was a while ago. Maybe they’ll have more info for you.

Butch:

Ooo shit! I forgot all about that! I’ll go check it out.

But Hiberheim, yeah! That’s the thing! It extends, and there’s a lever that opens the door back into the mine place where you first come into hiberheim. And there’s all that lava! A big balcony of lava to nowhere. Must be something.

And there’s no other part of Faery that we expect to find, right? RIGHT?

Well, I’ve been dutifully mopping things up. And I’m saying once I filter out the completed ones. Sure, with the completed ones it’s full, but I turn those off. Too confusing.

I did sneak by (nothing here but bushes!) a “queen spider” that had that silvery “boss” health bar. Usually you kill those at quest ends, right? Right?

I think I did all of hiberheim! I certainly stared at the map yesterday looking for shit I missed and found nothing. Even junior stared! Yeah, there were the trapped dudes you missed, who were interesting but not “ooo I now know how to move the plot” vital. There was the treasure room, which was nice, and had a star stone, and, like a diary or something, but I don’t THINK that diary was earth shattering (might have been, though, don’t remember….) Anyway, that’s an easy one to cross off your list, and maybe you’ll find a troll cave!

I dunno, though. Our cheating hasn’t really led to vital stuff. We’ve done the vital stuff to this point without cheating (or I have). This is the first time we’re kinda stumped on main quest shit. Or is it even main quest? I mean, I made the spell, and the game told me to go to Hunter’s Edge, which is the other way. The main quest was the other way. I went here just cuz you did. This really isn’t main quest at all. So we’ve been cheating around the edges, mostly.

Feminina:

No! We haven’t found any other realm of faerie. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there, because this game is large, but we haven’t found it. I think you’re right, we’ve got to get in there somehow.

It’s not the wishing well, we already wished to make the volcanos stop and that didn’t do anything to the lava. And the load screen tip specifically says that lava cannot be changed or defended against. We can’t go through it.

There’s got to be some way around. Or something.

Butch:

Still…it’s weird that in that balcony of lava, there were traps set up, much the same way as traps that chug out poison clouds and stuff. I tried plopping barrels on them, as one does, and all that happened was the barrels burned up.

Hmm. I haven’t used my wish! But I can’t imagine something this important would come down to a coin flip, pick one and you’re right, pick the other and you’re completely fucked on an important quest.

We’re missing something.

But we may be too early for it. After all, I only know about the door being in Faery cuz I won a rock paper scissors with that bridge troll who had spitting pets. Had I lost that, I wouldn’t know. And, again, no way a huge plot thing comes down to “win at rock paper scissors or be completely fucked.”

So maybe we’re not supposed to know this yet. Or something. The demons ARE level 15, and that’s just the ones I can see, and I am not level 15.

Feminina:

Yeah, true…there may well be something we’re just not ready for yet. After all, we wandered around Cyseal for a good while saying “what the heck?” and “where do we go now?” and eventually it came together after we were high enough level and had looked in enough places and shared enough notes.

But you’re right, no way a critical plot point was totally missable like that.

And we’re level 16 now so technically we’re tough enough to face those demons–we just don’t have anything that can hurt them. But you said the hired hands you could get in the Hall of Heroes went up to level 20-something, so maybe we’re just supposed to wander around and get in fights and clear random quests until we’re tougher.

Butch:

Or we’re missing something. One or the other.

Because you may well be “ahead” of me. I’m trudging along doing all the stuff in relative order. You aren’t.

So maybe, like, “find troll” is step four, and you’ve done 1 and 3 and it won’t let you have step four until you do 1, 3 AND 2. I’ve done one and two, so if I get to three and it opens up or something and you’re all “WHAT? You’re insane!” then we know.

So maybe just mop up the mine, make the death knight spell, see if filling in your plot gaps opens up new plot. Knock some shit off that quest list. Game might be waiting for you to do that.

Feminina:

Yeah, could be. Certainly mopping up some of the points we skipped before may fill in some gaps.

Probably we missed something. Somewhere. There’s a lot of ‘where’ to cover, so it doesn’t seem unlikely.

Butch:

I’ll bet that I have to get to Hunter’s Edge, and you need to do the mine. Usually, if you can’t figure something in a game, it’s elsewhere (my issue right now) and if a game really wants you to do quests that will let you kill a certain thing, it’s because the next phase requires you to kill said thing. And we know the game is doing that, because we need a thing (Tenebrium) to kill a thing (those demons). So it wouldn’t be a stretch to think we’ll have to kill a death knight or three, and soon, and the game isn’t letting you DO that until you can.

Because even though the Death Knights are a key part of Leandra’s plan, there was absolutely NOTHING in the “Great, you have the spell” part that even suggested that the endgame is anytime soon. It wasn’t a “Great! The Spell! No go end the threat forever!” It was “Great. The spell. Moving on…..”

So you’re gonna have to kill a lot of death knights, I think. Get the spell.

Feminina:

Yeah. We gotta get the spell.

But speaking of death knights, we must have just fundamentally misunderstood that sequence when the game gave it to us, because we heard “need spell to kill death knights. Therefore, if there are death knights here, we should go away until we have the spell.”

Where in fact it was saying “need spell to kill death knights, but don’t mind these death knights that are here, just go right on by them or you can’t even get the spell.”

I mean, I respect that. I like that not everything is about killing everything right this minute (some things we’ll come back and kill later!). But I don’t think it was necessarily an unreasonable assumption to say “OK, if we can’t kill these things now we must be supposed to come back later.”

Without having compared notes, we STILL would have no idea that part of the spell is actually past the death knights in the mine. It might take us two months to finally get desperate enough to think “well, maybe it’s back in the mine…?”

Or probably we would have cheated off the internet eventually. Maybe they just figured everyone would?

I don’t know. I like the game, but it sure doesn’t give you a lot to go on a lot of the time.

Butch:

Well, I dunno. Maybe you’re just looking at it as a (open world, IRONY!) video game. If you look at it as a D&D campaign, then saying “fuck this, I’ll be back” (common in video games) isn’t what you do. Can you imagine if we kept doing that to Mr. O when he was DMing? You’d be divorced. There was always SOMETHING you could do.

I also think that you guys (and me sometimes) forget about stealth. Stealth is pretty key. I think this game wanted us to sneak more.

And I thought it was pretty clear, so maybe it’s just you.

Because I dunno, man, I think things have been pretty straightforward. Usually, when we get confused (like today) it’s because we’ve stumbled onto a place the game didn’t want us to stumble into. You could almost hear the game being “Oh COME ON! HERE? I told you: EAST you dummy!” That’s on us, really.

Cuz, like I said, I knew the mine was where to go to get that. There’s been a lot of me going “Dude, how did you MISS that?” Which isn’t like you. Or Mr. O. So maybe there’s something about playing on split screen. Like, you see some stuff, he sees other stuff, and it doesn’t come together in your minds. I’m seeing everything all at the same time and I’m missing far less.

Feminina:

Hm. That may be true. It can definitely be hard to fully catch what’s going on on the other side of the split screen sometimes.

It’s fun to play together, but it is quite different from playing a game alone, where everything is presented to a single focus point, which is me. (Or him. Or you. Whatever.)

Well, we’ll get there in the end. Probably.

Butch:

So when you do dialog (that isn’t between the two of you), it’s on one side of the screen? Or does it take over and plop itself in the middle?

Feminina:

It’s on the side of the screen ‘belonging’ to whoever initiated the conversation. This leaves the other person free to do some shopping or equipment shuffling or whatever on the other screen, but that does increase the risk of missing something.

Butch:

Ah well THERE’S your problem. That sounds impossible.

Feminina:

Yeah, it’s definitely a complicating factor. I think that’s partly why we tend to wander off looking for fights. Fights are simpler, you know? A ton of long conversations on multiple screens is a little hard on the attention span.

Overall, it’s a good game as a co-op. I’m enjoying it. But I think it’s true that together we’re maybe a bit less focused than either of us would be alone.

Butch:

Gotta be. Cuz stuff isn’t that complicated.

I can see Zixzax:

Z: What are you DOING here? You must gooooo to where the weeeeaver said. The very fate of RRRRRivellooooon depends on it….
You: You never said that.
Z: I sooooo did.
You: No, you didn’t. If I hadn’t talked to Butch I’d never have known.
Z: Who’s Buuuuuutch?
You: You know. Runs Scarlett and Roderick? Hottie in the impractical armor?
Z: So [points at Mr. O] that’s not Buuuuuutch?
You: No. Why?
Z: Cuz I told him eeeeeeverything.
You: Ah! Makes sense.
Z: He didn’t teeeeellll you?
You: I don’t know. Maybe he tried. I was looting. Need a log?

Feminina:

That sounds about right, actually. Especially the bit about the log. You’ve captured the true essence of my character!

No Fair! I Didn’t Know That Decision Would MATTER!

Tags

companions, Divinity: Original Sin, plot, romance, theme

Spoilers for Bairdotr’s storyline in Divinity: Original Sin

Butch:

Turned down the difficulty. Don’t judge. I’m not proud. But it just wasn’t gonna happen if I didn’t.

So did that, got into Leandra’s place there, almost didn’t find the blood, which would have been an irony (what? I found a map or something and Roderick was all “We should tell our friends at the end of time about this,” so I ALMOST left, and then said “Well, maybe loot a little more HELLO!”).

And then went back to the end of time. And….stuff.

I’m gonna assume that a) you are not being followed around by a WHOLE LOT of imps at the end of time, b) a big fiery demon that will rearrange your ability points is not something you’ve seen, c) you still haven’t seen an elemental room and d) you still haven’t seen the first two cutscenes I’ve mentioned, and, therefore, haven’t seen the third.

And before you say “You’re insane,” there’s STILL nothing attacking the end of time, so YOU’RE insane!

So I have the paper and the blood. And imps. BOY do I have imps. And I have themes out the wazoo (HOLY HELL do I have themes) that I can’t talk about cuz you managed to magpie into some shit and found zixzax and got the plane attacked. Where the HELL were you when that happened?

And, as a tie back, if I can write this post, and we’re doing things so differently, and I can say “Where the HELL were you when that happened?” it’s an open world game.

Feminina:

Oh, well, OF COURSE you’re ahead on themes and cutscenes if you’re playing on EASY, like a HOBBYIST instead of a VERY SERIOUS GAMER like we are. Ha!

We played. We went back to Sacred Stone and found Jareth! You’re right, he was pretty much right there. We saw the bloody river the first time and kind of thought “gross” but didn’t investigate further. (Because hey, while gross, a bloody river is not the weirdest thing we see in any given day.)

So we got in the fight with Jareth and his gory beasts and Bairdotr (what the hell, Bairdotr?), and lost a few times, and were getting close to actually winning when Grigio woke up in a screaming fit and wouldn’t calm down for an hour, so…yeah. We didn’t finish that. But we saved where we were, almost winning we think (love saving mid-combat!), and will get back to that tonight with any luck.

We’re hoping once we defeat Jareth we can win Bairdotr back to our side, but if not, I guess she made her choice. She seemed kind of charmed there, though, didn’t she? All that “yes…yes Jareth.” She didn’t seem really herself. Although there was also “traveling with the Source Hunters has taught me the virtue of obedience”? It has? Because we’re so law-abiding, what with the picking locks everywhere and stealing everything we can carry the minute no one’s watching?

Is that what happened for you, that Bairdotr turned on you? Because I’m wondering if maybe it was based on our previous decisions, like if we’d somehow encouraged freedom of thought more, she would have challenged him and stayed with us instead. Honestly, I don’t know how we would have done that since I don’t remember any major decision points where we were like “yeah, doing as you’re told is the best!” or anything, but it could have been a bunch of subtle things. (Like how Geralt needed to have encouraged Ciri’s independence at various points in TW3, or she wouldn’t come back.)

We HAVE always tended to do what Arhu suggested, eventually, but he’s not even our boss, so is that ‘obedience’? I dunno, man.

Anyway, what did your Bairdotr do?

Interesting stuff. I hope we don’t have to kill her, that would suck. Although I suppose that would wrap up her story sufficiently that Mr. O’ would agree to travel with Madora instead. Ha.

Butch:

Ok, I set myself up for that.

I’m ahead of you because I don’t magpie so much!

Yup, Sacred Stone. See, I thought “Hey! Weird river! Loot!”

I’m surprised you didn’t.

Bairdotr: Uh…..what?

Well, remember, I did that chat, and I fought, and I died, and I didn’t go back, so I don’t know what happens after the fight either, so you’re on your own on that one. I’m curious to compare notes because:

No. My Bairdotr didn’t do that. She said some very, VERY themey stuff, but she pretty much said the opposite. “Traveling with them has shown me that I can stand on my own and [I’ll just say this as you’re not gonna get this dialog] TELL MY OWN STORY AND FORGE MY OWN REALITY.” I’m kinda cheesed you didn’t get that, as it tied into all sorts of things I wanted to say. So yeah, must be based on earlier stuff. I wonder what. I’ve been very dismissive of religion thus far, or anything spiritual really, as I am playing it as Scarlett refusing to accept there’s anything other than this because I’m clinging to that.

As for what happens after, we’ll have to talk. Later.

Hmm. This is making me think that someday either Jahan will bolt or try to kill me. Better leave him up there with Madora. I’ve pissed the hell out of him, I think.

Feminina:

Oh man, INTERESTING! Now I’m afraid we ARE going to lose Bairdotr. If she could choose not to turn on us, then probably once she’s turned, she’s going to stay that way. Although we’ll still try killing Jareth first and see if we can talk to her.

Whoa. Heavy, man. Suddenly all our decisions are much more important than we realized–even though we don’t know in exactly what WAY they’re important. It’s not one of those moments where we think, “I know Drack will be furious if I save the salerian pathfinder instead of the krogan scouts, but I think it’s the best call so I’ll do it anyway.” It’s much more like the Geralt and Ciri thing, where you don’t even realize that a choice is significant until much later.

Wow. Dude. What have we done to Bairdotr to make her think we value obedience? Something, I guess. No doubt something that is spread out over a lot of time and/or is much too far in the past to go back and undo.

Hm. I wonder what happens if we confront Jareth but Bairdotr’s not even with us? Would he just not be there? Or could we fight him and kill him and then…Bairdotr would turn on us anyway because we killed her cherished mentor when she wasn’t even around?

And when is Wolgraff’s big decision point going to come, and what choice will HE make based on random things we decided weeks ago!?

Hm. Heavy.

Butch:

Dude that would SUCK. I like Bairdotr! Wolgraff likes Bairdotr! (Has he gotten all moony over her yet? He’s moony over her for me.)

The delayed consequence is a great game mechanic. I think it is, anyway. I know some RPG purists would disagree, being all “But I want to be her friend and tell my story” etc., but the fact is that we do things that we don’t know matter all the time. If you’re going to make a dynamic world and let the PC be a part of it, then this is how you have to do it, even if it means losing a character you like. Bioware has always been too eager to make it easy for you to make so and so happy or romance so and so, which is good for interactive storytelling, but not so much for role playing.

Probably a lot of little somethings added up. And if it was so subtle you missed it, then you could reload a million times and not find out.

But…here we go again with the comparing notes. And let’s get some theme out of this:

I had no idea that her turning on me was a possibility. Had I been playing this without you, I would not be wondering what I did to make her do what she did. I would just assume that she was doing it, the way game characters do. There were no hints of that! Even when you talk to her, there’s never an end of the conversation that’s “She shakes her head at you in obvious disgust” or she says “I completely agree! I will so die for you!” Nothing that indicated you made the “right” or “wrong” choice, the way there was in, say, bioware games (DAO even had that plus/minus system!).

So keeping the player in the dark must’ve been intentional. The game didn’t really want you to know that what was happening there was because of you. You were supposed to chug through that scene blissfully unaware that YOU MATTERED TO THE OUTCOME. But you did.

And that’s not what games do, usually. Usually, the PC is the sole arbiter of everything that’s happening, and is aware of everything that’s happening, right down to “Ok, she liked that gift +4, and if I get her to +50 she’ll be into me.” The PC assumes that either a) he’s in control or b) whatever happened was bound to happen anyway. There’s never a wonder of “Wait….did that happen because of me or not?”

And now I’m wondering if anything else happened because of me. Not because of things like the charmed orc. Had we both made the same choice, it was obvious that was a CHOICE WITH CONSEQUENCES. But obviously there were not choices with consequences that presented as such. And that wonder is rare in a game.

I’m pondering how that fits into bigger themes, if at all.

See? Now we’re all wondering and stuff. But again…had we not been playing together, or if we had made the same choices, neither one of us would be asking that question. We wouldn’t know there would be a “Wolgraff decision point” because we wouldn’t have known we just had a “Bairdotr decision point.”

Very heavy. And good game design.

Feminina:

Hm. The internet says it may also make a difference whether the source hunter she’s attached to is more Independent or Obedient on that scale. Maybe WE’RE obedient (or Mr. O’, who runs Bairdotr, is–I’m the one who usually does all the stealing). I’ll have to look at my rating.

I mean, I guess we have pretty much tried to be law-abiding, other than all the lockpicking and stealing. We haven’t picked pockets or murdered anyone. We stopped the guy in the market from stealing a fish (did you get that choice?). Hm.

Oh–and the internet says you can keep Bairdotr if you just attack Jareth without talking to him, which doesn’t seem quite right (“yay, we just found my mentor, oh, we’re killing him, OK, no problem!”) but might be worth a try.

That’s if we want to cheat off the internet, of course.

Hm.

Butch:

I let the guy keep the fish.

I think that whole independent/obedient thing comes from the conversations you have with each other. Sometimes I see those words pop up (or “bold/cautious,” “spiritual/pragmatic” “romantic/…whatever cuz I’m always romantic”) after Scarlett and Roderick chat.

See, you are, once again, undermining everything cuz you’re playing with me. Again, if we were playing without the other, we wouldn’t even think of cheating off the internet as we would just assume this is a plot point.

I can’t recall a game that was so affected by playing it at the same time as you in terms of how we saw it/experienced it. It makes it both interesting and odd to talk about the game, because I don’t think the developers meant it to be experienced like we are experiencing it.

Feminina:

Well, true, they didn’t expect us to be playing it simultaneously and comparing notes, but cheating off the internet is rampant and I’m sure they know that. And we were kind of blindsided by Bairdotr’s decision, so I wouldn’t be surprised if, even if we were both playing it the same way and had similar characters so we got the same result, one of us might not think “I’ll check the internet and see if there was any way to convince her to stay.” If only because it’s super weird to have a companion travel with you loyally for months and then turn on you without warning as part of their unescapable character arc.

Butch:

Fair. That would be a twist worth investigating. Which would lead us to this.

But in terms of moving the plot forward, you don’t have the “spell” yet, do you? Because you don’t have the paper, right? Cuz now I have both, and a marking on a map, and another temple. Is that finally what’s gonna lead me through the desert and stuff?

I still have no idea where you were when the whole zixzax/attack thing went down. I certainly have not been wherever that is.

Feminina:

We were just wandering around in the desert, man! I mean, yeah, it wasn’t specifically ON the beaten path, but it wasn’t something we had to fight past 10 overpowered monsters and pull some weird teleportation tricks to get to. It was just out there, perfectly findable if you happened to be wandering in the desert fighting spiders. Which, I will note, were about the same level as us, so there was no strong indication that we shouldn’t be there.

You should be down with this, Mr. “I’m surprised you didn’t explore every corner of the bloody river.” I mean, yeah, I’m surprised we didn’t explore the bloody river too, because poking into things is what we normally do, and that being so, poking into things in the desert was a perfectly logical course of action.

Considering how not-difficult it was, I’m surprised more people don’t precipitate the attack on the end of time this early!

But no, we don’t have the spell. Although we do have a temple marked on the map. I guess we need to do back to the mines next, to get the piece of paper.

Butch:

Yeah, I get the sense that the spell is kinda key to the temple. I think.

Hey, I TRIED to magpie out that way, and got dead with some frequency. “About” the same level is not anywhere close to “The same level” in this game. I was level 12 when I went out there, now I’m 14. They were 14. Big difference. I don’t know how you’ve managed to beat things that are better than you.

Maybe you’ve been playing on easy all this time……..I’m onto you…..

The river made even less sense because there it was, and it lead to a fight that got you dead without any gating whatsoever! “Hey! Plot point! You’re dead!” WHAT?

Ironically, the trophy for it popped. So I have a trophy for stumbling upon something that killed me, then running. Games, man.

I’m sure I’ll find it soon.

Though I do wonder how all these fucking imps are gonna handle it. Did I mention there are a shit ton of imps, now?

Feminina:

You did mention the imps. We know something about the imps! But they aren’t following us. Yet.

Ha! That is pretty great that you got the trophy. So, in theory, you could get platinum in this game without ever actually going back and defeating Jareth! I mean, if there were any chance of either of us getting platinum anyway.

“Yeah, I saw him. That was enough.”

I’m curious how the imps will handle…something you’re bound to come across at some point, where you’ll learn something about the imps. We’ll talk. Later.

It’s possible we’ve been on easy all along. We’ve never changed it, so maybe we absently set it to easy when we started and never looked at it again. Could have happened.

And yeah, there were 14th level spiders out there, which we left alone, but there were some that were our level as well. We didn’t have to fight off anything absurdly difficult to find the place with Zixzax, is all I’m saying. There were no exceptionally heroic efforts made. We wandered, we fought some things, we ran away from some other things, we poked around, we found a big gatelike thing and there was Zixzax all “the end of time is under attack and you must do something to save it! Incidentally, it’s nothing you can do right now because you can’t use tenebrium, so good luck with that, come back later, bye.”

You know. Standard game plot development. Or so we thought.

Butch:

So you thought. Or I’m insane.

The imps are irksome. They’re doing that “saying dialog over and over at the same time” thing that this game does that is irritating. Which, I suppose, is in character, but it’s still irksome.

You can go into options and make sure if you want to check your settings. If you’re in “classic” mode, then you’re ok. But you likely are. Explorer mode is EASY. Like, you won’t get to half health even against things a level up on you. When I dropped the difficulty last night it was just “Bang bang! Dead. Bang bang! You, too!”

Ah, shit. Tenebrium, huh? Shit. I still am not sure how one learns to use that. I tried to add a level in it, like Bairdotr has, but couldn’t. I’d sure LIKE to use tenebrium…. I went to Brandon expecting him to teach me, and he only gave me a box and told me to go fuck with the troll king’s shit. Which I haven’t done, cuz I can’t figure out the troll cave, or I can, but I don’t want to deal with it yet.

Feminina:

Yes! That’s all Brandon did for us, too. We’re annoyed because we found some tenebrium somewhere else and took it to him, but he ignored it, so apparently it HAS to be specifically stolen from the troll king. Whose cave we haven’t figured out, so we haven’t gone in there either. But just FYI, if at some point you find some tenebrium somewhere else, don’t bother taking it to Brandon. He’s not interested.

But I think you must have to deal with the troll king and get his tenebrium and take it to Brandon before you can learn to use it. I.e., before you can fight certain things in certain places.

Oh man, the imps say things over and over at the same time? Ugh. I’m suddenly glad I haven’t found them yet. Though…potentially interesting in terms of some decision that’s probably going to come up at some point.

We have definitely not been experiencing any combat as “bang bang, you’re dead.” Wolgraff still dies in half our fights, and Jareth, who is either our level or one above (I forget if we’re 15 or 16), killed us three times last night. So either we’re not on explorer/easy, or we’re truly, stupendously bad at combat in this game. Which I suppose is always possible.

Butch:

Nah, man. Last night, like, Wolgraff did one Bang bang with a couple wands, as one does, and Mangoth was down a third of his health. If that ain’t happening, you’re in classic.

The troll king, well…..I know there’s a way in…somewhere else. I just don’t know WHERE somewhere else. I have a vague idea. It’s somewhere in a big place, let’s just say that.

Great. Just great.

I’ll settle for being able to use weapons! I found a MASSIVE bow that would wreck people, but only Bairdotr can use it and she’s not strong enough.

And interesting in that the imps are all bonkers. Like, not “cute little silly imp” bonkers, but creepy bonkers. They see stuff that isn’t there. One keeps asking “I wonder how to vaporize a human…” over and over. One is convinced she’s repeatedly flying to the moon and she’s too fast to see, and one keeps asking her “What’s the moon?”

See where I’m going here?

Feminina:

That definitely ain’t happening. We could have used a little of that happening with ol’ Jareth, but no. He has proved irritatingly resistant to losing a third of his health. And those damn boars with their ‘spit snot’ attack. Hate those things!

But lest we get too far afield, you mentioned you were going to get all themey about how your Bairdotr was glad that the PCs had shown her how to tell her own story, right? Which was going to tie into your insanity theory because…she could now leave your delusional world/story and make up one of her own? Where were you going with that?

Because obviously the thematic resonance is a little different since this is based on PC decisions rather than being something that happens in every game, but it could certainly still hook into your theory.

Maybe there’s even something there about how by demonstrating the values of obedience, the PC can encourage her to accept the word of the doctor (in your reading) and turn to fight on the side of ‘evil’, whereas your more determinedly insane PC, stressing independence, is trapping a fellow patient deeper in hallucination?

Or were you thinking something else there?

Butch:

That’s pretty much it. But I figure we’ll know more when we complete the quest. I think I’m making an assumption that she’ll just stay with me after it’s all over. We’re used to companion quests being, in some way, “loyalty” quests. Do it, and the companion is all “Thank you! I shall die for you and maybe bang you!” But, narratively, it would also make sense for her to say “Thank you for resolving this for me. I will forever be grateful, but my path is elsewhere” and going away anyway. Which I wouldn’t put past this game.

I’ve been suspecting that Bairdotr is also nuts. Or, I should say, a real person in our world who is nuts. Cuz we’ve seen at least one real person from our world (the guy who saw the snowmen, etc) who Roderick explicitly said “he is touched by madness.” We met Bairdotr when she was confined. We chose to bring her into our “story.” She is also the only character we’ve run with who is being targeted/has been targeted by the immaculates to be “cured” or whatever. And here we have her at a crossroads either to accept the “knowledge” and the “normal” and all that (and, thus, turn on crazy Scarlett) or accept Scarlett’s way and “tell her own story and MAKE HER OWN REALITY.” I mean, she SAID that!

And I think it’s telling that Jareth seems to have been an immaculate this whole time. I’ve been going on the idea that this whole “knowledge/truth/normal/destroying your world” is medicine, right? It would hold that a fellow real (in our world) person WOULD have her own relationship with her own doctor before meeting Scarlett, and this crossroads as to whether to listen to said doctor or not is the choice of either “dying” to Scarlett or to “embrace the right to make her own reality.” I have a feeling we’ll know more about this after we actually finish this shit. I have a rather dark feeling you’re going to kill her (thus her leaving Scarlett’s world, and you know how I feel about that). I’m curious what she’ll do when she goes off to write her own story in mine. She might leave anyway! We’ll talk. Later.

Thematic resonance being different…it is and it isn’t. Yes, our decisions affected her choice, but, in the end, it’s still her choice. There isn’t a moment when Jareth is all “Choose!” and she looks at us and we advise her. We influence/inspire her, the way an acquaintance/friend, especially one going through the same thing in life, would. So yes, gamewise it’s based on us, but narratively it isn’t, especially if we were blissfully unaware that our choices mattered at all, which we were until this morning.

Feminina:

Hm. That would be pretty interesting, if you defeat Jareth and then she says “thanks, bye.” Because you’re right, game companions pretty much never do that, and yet it would actually make perfect sense for them to.

“I had a problem, you helped me solve it, I’m going to go live my life now.”

Butch:

Plus it would make even more sense in this game, the idea that there is no “right” way to end the companion quests. You’re going to lose her either way.

Now I don’t want to go back there. Don’t want to break Wolgraff’s fragile heart.

Feminina:

My Wolgraff seems fairly indifferent to her, so at least we’ve got that going for us if we have to kill her. I’m not sure either of them has ever referred to the other.

*Wolgraff shrugs and moves on.*

Although I don’t know, he was pretty moody after we killed that goblin about whom we had the lengthy discussion the other day. Wondering if we were the bad guys or whatever. (Well might he wonder!) We told him “sometimes we have to do bad things! It’s complicated! There’s no pure hero!”

He may find this too much to bear.

Butch:

Really? There was one bit where Bairdotr was waxing poetic (I think it was when we first got to the desert, before we died often) and it went ***Wolgraff, as always, is enraptured by Bairdotr’s every word. He hopes that, someday, he can be as eloquent as she is.***

I don’t think Bairdotr has said anything about him, though. Poor guy.

Y’all’s some cold hearted source hunters.

Feminina:

Yeah, we’re all business. Probably why Bairdotr learned to be obedient from us.

“Stop mooning and do your job, Wolgraff,” we would snap, if he dared express any sentiment. I don’t remember that coming up, though. Maybe it was triggered by someplace we haven’t been yet? Except we have been to the desert, at some length, as discussed earlier today.

Maybe it happened and we were too busy cursing the fact that we were slowed to pay attention.

Again, cold hearts. All business.

Butch:

Dude, he CAN’T express sentiment! This was a thought balloon thing!

I’m still a romantic even after the canary in a coal mine pass. Must be my armor. And Bairdotr’s. Ahem.

By the way, did you try putting Wolgraff in an armor that said “Immune to Muted?” I did. Didn’t work. Worth a try, though.

Feminina:

I was assuming he was expressing it with soulful looks. There’s more to expression than speech, you know. Way to belittle the expressive contributions of every mute person ever!

Yeah, I wouldn’t imagine it would work. We’ve learned a little something about that too. Eventually we’ll follow up on it, and probably wind up having to kill Wolgraff.

OMG, I just realized how weirdly perfect this thing with Bairdotr is for the way the game has been going for us overall. EVERYONE winds up dead around us! Even our companions aren’t safe!

Damn. We’re poison.

Butch:

You’re awful.

By the way, do you mind the times Wolgraff “talks?” I was doing a button puzzle thing, and he said, upon pushing a button “Let’s see what that did” in a voice that sounded like his voice. It was odd.

Feminina:

We’re a harbinger of doom to all who encounter us. Stormcrows, they call us. Ours are the footsteps across your grave that send that sudden shudder down your spine. We are the black cat in your path, the ladder under which you carelessly walk, the broken mirror reflecting your imminent destruction.

FEAR US.

But we totally mean well! And Alfie survived, after all.

I don’t MIND it when he ‘talks,’ but it is a little odd.

Butch:

Shit. I didn’t fear you before but now I do.

But yes, you do mean well. You’re just bad at meaning well.

Feminina:

It’s not our fault! We are the unwitting pawn of some unholy force. Or maybe just the carriers of some very bad luck to which we personally are immune.

I’m sure Typhoid Mary didn’t MEAN to infect all those people.

Warning: Insufficient Magpie

Tags

challenge level, Divinity: Original Sin, plot, story, theme

Some minor spoilers for Sacred Stone area in Divinity: Original Sin

Butch:

Well, played some. Explored Sacred Stone. Met a couple of elementals and laughed that one wanted to start an artisanal soap company. Decided I wasn’t ready to fight the head of the place. So I went and killed evil bulbs and fought a couple of slavers and I just got to the main temple. So no real themes.

Well, I DID get themes, but prematurely. Cuz I found Jareth! You know, who Bairdotr is looking for? And there was talking! And themes! LOTS of themes! And then there was a fight that promptly destroyed me. Like, DESTROYED me. So there was a reload and me leaving and I’ll come back and get those themes in about three or four levels. That kind of destroyed.

We’ll talk. Later. Much later.

Feminina:

Well, you did more than we did, which was pretty much nothing.

Found Jareth, eh? We heard about him being there, but didn’t actually see him. We heard he’d been there and then gone off with…you know. Person.

We didn’t get in any fights in Sacred Stone either, just pretended to be Immaculates, and wandered, chatted, shopped. You know. Did you check out the prison? We felt bad about those people, but also not sure we could beat all the guards, so again…pretended, chatted. Went away. We’ll be back, prisoners! You’ll probably all be dead by then, but maybe not.

Butch:

Kind of you not to do anything. But is something wrong? It’s the weekend, man!

I don’t know person, or who he ran off with or anything. I stumbled across him, really. It was a “So what’s over here….hey who’s that guy oh it’s you” kind of deal. Totally random stumbling. I’m kinda surprised you didn’t.

I saw the prison, but it was behind a door that was don’t touch red, and there were dudes all over the place so I didn’t go through the door. I’ll go back. I’m sure I’ll have to at some point. The whole place had a “So…level 15 yet? No? Buh-bye” vibe.

Certainly the one fight I did get into ended very poorly. And quickly.

I’ll stick to this temple. I’m almost level 14. I’ll get there tonight. Maybe.

Those prisoners will be alive. It’s how games do. Everyone waits for the PC to do much of anything. If I was a prisoner, I’d be all “Hey, we’re cool. They won’t touch us until the PC shows up damn there she is. What? You’ll come back for us? No…that’s cool….we’re good….”

Feminina:

Nah, we’re good, it was just one thing and another. Mr. O’ had a parent party to go to, then the next night the kids weren’t sleepy, etc.

 

That’s funny that you could just stumble across Jareth. I felt like we poked around that town pretty thoroughly, but I guess not. We heard he’d left with the Conduit and we figured we’d need to find them both.

And don’t worry about the locked door to the prison–there’s another entrance, off on the side there, that isn’t locked. You can just stroll right in. Also, true that the prisoners will no doubt still be there when we get back. Which reminds me we’re now level 16, and could probably think about doing that.

Maybe we’ll find Jareth this time!

Butch:

Sorta like EVERY DAMN WEEKEND OF MINE not bitter. I only get Fridays in these days. That’s when I played. Not during an actual weekend.

 

You should have another kid just to get ALL the fun you can. Ha.

I should say Jareth is near the town, not in it. It’s a serious “Wonder what’s over here” thing. I’m sure if you’ve heard about him, it’s only a matter of time before the game gives you the info, so I won’t spoil yet. But he’s damn close! And findable! Just REALLY magpie.

Feminina:

DUDE! Brilliant thought! Another kid would make our lives complete!

Maybe we get lucky and it’s twins. Can you even imagine the joy!!!!???

No. You cannot. Neither can I. That is not going to happen. The house and two squabbling children is enough fun for us, honest.

Yeah, maybe the time is right for another visit to Sacred Stone. We’ve done…some things since then. Some things that maybe will provoke some more action there.

As soon as we’re done with whatever it is we were doing days ago when we played. Exploring someplace, as one does when a game is large.

It’s not even open world! It’s just huge.

Butch:

Dude, when we went in for Meatball’s first ultrasound, we both were like “Just tell us it’s only one.” The tech was all “Don’t you want to know its gender?” “No. Just tell us there’s only one.” “Or if its healthy?” “Who cares? How many are there?” “Or if-” “LOOK IS IT FUCKING TWINS?

You’ve finally wised up.

Maybe you should return to Sacred Stone. It sure felt like a place where shit was gonna go down at some point. Not just side quest shit, either.

And well…hmm…IS it open world? Yes, there’s a lot of herding in the sense of the game really trying to talk you out of going places, or putting lots of bad baddies places, but you can ignore all that (or fight through it if you’re good), or even go in wildly different directions without ignoring all that (as we have at multiple points). Usually, we’re in different places because you’re ahead of me, but we’ve done different stuff in different orders. I mean, yes, you can’t climb (or jump sideways up) every mountain or anything, but it sure does have a lot of freedom.

Feminina:

Yeah, dude…the first one, you’re like “enh, twins would be a lot of work, but whatever, not the end of the world.”

After that, it would be pretty much the end of the world. I sure had my fingers crossed for that ultrasound with Grigio. “Definitely just one? Whew!”

Hm. That is a good question. IS it open world?

My instinct is to read it as not, because of the often-narrow strips of accessible ground in between all the rocks and things, and because of all the places you can’t go until you can defeat thus and such or find the thingamabob, but you’re right, these are tricks that open worlds employ all the time to make sure you don’t get places too soon. And we do have the option to roam around a lot and do things in different order.

Hm. I suppose we’ll have to work out exactly how we define ‘open world.’ That’s good for some discussion. If we don’t get bored and wander off.

Butch:

Well, it sure as fuck isn’t open world now.

Got into the temple, met Mangoth, yadda yadda, killed dudes.

Looted the library. It takes forever to loot a library, have you noticed?

Got stuck on the button puzzle, then figured it out with the book.

But…

Met Mangoth AGAIN and now I’m facing five level 14 dudes and I’m level 13 and there’s no way around this.

Hmm.

Much thinking. Or turning down the difficulty.

This is NOT open world.

Feminina:

Ah–Mangoth. Yes. He summons a lot of things. That was a nasty fight. We survived it, but it wasn’t pretty.

So, perhaps not open world (although you can leave), but also not a very good example of a well-planned closed world, since in that case you wouldn’t be in this fight until you were 15th level yourself.

Butch:

Yup…I’m still 13. This is the problem.

Just tried again. Nope. Wolgraff, beast that he is, killed the fire guy and two of the void supplicants, but it wasn’t enough.

Feminina:

This is a serious problem. Good hustle by Wolgraff, though!

I think we managed mostly by summoning things, but it was a long, hard fight.

Sometimes all you can do is ‘flee’ and come back later. Unless you can’t stay alive long enough to flee, which is perhaps the most serious problem of all. We almost had that happen once. Valena has a low initiative, and everyone else fled before the monsters attacked, but they got to move before I did…I had to just stand there hoping to survive long enough to have a turn so I could run for it. Then was of course too close to flee, but happily was able to turn invisible, which allowed me to move a few steps away and activate ‘flee.’

Sometimes even escaping is a process!

Butch:

But then I’ll have to come all the way back! Flee takes you to the nearest waypoint and that’s FAR.

Nope. Difficulty slider it is.

But I have one more idea….

I still think Scarlett is nuts. I think “death” is being cured. Here’s a guy who thinks death is good, it’ll take us back to a normal time. He asks her to understand and join him. “Source” is medicine and she rejects it. And the immaculates? They’re in a library. Full of knowledge, that sun stuff. Trying to pull her out of eden.

If you saw the cutscenes I’ve seen…stuff. Happens.

By the way, did you meet the ghost librarian? From the “past?”

Feminina:

Oh yes. Met the librarian.

“I can’t be bothered with the details of who’s coming in here for what” or whatever.

Random side note: I kind of love the way stacks of books are always wobbling from side to side like blades of grass in the wind, but never fall over. That’s some careful stacking!

Your points about libraries and Eden and knowledge are intriguing. But it’s not just that “death is good”–there’s a whole storyline there about how the death of lesser creatures, specifically, are good in service to the greater cause. How does this idea of sacrificing others tie into the idea that the sacrificed have been cured?

Is it just the character’s spin on the fact that people are leaving the delusion? A way to feel important, that it’s all about her/him in the end? We could read it that way if we accept that the sacrifices are leading up to this obliteration of the (delusional) world, and if we assume that to the world’s creator, obliterating the world is very personal and is therefore ‘about her/him’.

Or perhaps it’s simply that the insane PC can only explain the attempts to cure her/him by calling them an evil cult, because what other reason could anyone have?

Butch:

Well, it also goes to your idea of everything being unstuck in time. But…

Shit, I REALLY wish you knew what I knew about the end of time!!!!

I think more the second thing you said. But also, I read that Source/conduit/etc are medicine/doctors. I’ve said before that the torture racks look like hospital beds. If you’re in hospital, doctors are removing people from the hospital by curing them, right? And, if in your weird delusion, you fear that (that is, “getting cured” ruining your “world,”) you may well see it that way. These “evil” people “removing” people from your “world” and saying it’s good. These doctors/nurses/learned ones who know the “truth” are bringing them to some place where things are “normal.”

Hold this thought until you meet…someone.

And as for “obliterating the world is very personal and wants it to be about him/her,” hold that thought. We’ll talk. Later.

Feminina:

Lalalala, I don’t know anything about the end of time! Dum-de-dum-dum-dum [cheerful whistling].

But yeah, your theory could work. I do still think there’s something about the idea that people disappearing from the world are being sacrificed, rather than simply killed.

I mean, a deluded person easily could see doctors as evil beings who just wandered around killing/snatching away people–other patients could disappear in a sinister-seeming way without this specific story explanation of sacrifice. Of being removed for some particular purpose.

So if this is all a delusion, then the deluded person is likely telling this specific, sacrifice-heavy story because it has some personal meaning.

Or you’re insane. We haven’t brought up that possibility recently, but I still think it’s quite plausible.

Butch:

Well, I can be right and crazy.

T SHIRT!!!

Do you or don’t you know something? Did you learn something? Some cutscenes, some letters perchance?

Well, the people BEING sacrificed don’t seem at all happy about it. This isn’t some society that is all “The highest thing I can do is sacrificing myself to the goddess! What a blessing to be chosen!” They think they’re just being killed. I just did the whole fight where they were all “They’ll bleed us like PIGS (emphasis mine)” and said “Please! I’m not READY TO DIE (again, emphasis mine)” so many times I almost was like “Bairdotr, static cloud those idiots so they shut up.” And READY to die is loaded, too. They don’t say “I don’t want to die.”

LALALALALA I know nothing. NOTHING!

LA!

Feminina:

Ooh, that IS a T shirt!

No, sorry, we actually don’t know anything about the end of time. We’ll go back soon! Or in about 7 months.

Butch:

I know so much!

And yet, only level 13 and getting whupped. It’s a trade off.

Feminina:

Trade offs. It is the nature of life and video games.

Butch:

Well, I got one more idea. Then it’s lowering the difficulty time.

Feminina:

I respect your determination to press forward. We’ve been much more inclined to just say “hell with it, we’ll see you later big tough dudes” and run off.

As has been demonstrated by the fact that you defeated Braccus and got through the mines before us, even though we reached them both first.

Running off. It’s what we do.

Butch:

Which is why I have a narrative that makes somewhat more sense. Your game has obviously given up.

“Oh, fuck it, they’re not gonna do chapters 2, 5, and 7 through 9. Better just skip to the part with the thing.”

Feminina:

Which is great, because I love the part with the thing!

Although one could also make the argument that the narrative is supposed to be kind of jumpy (especially if the PC is insane), and you’re forcing it to make linear sense by charging ahead in places where the game is kind of telling you “go away already, man, this is too hard!”

Perhaps in the end it’s OUR game that is thematically consistent, while yours has struggled all along to impose order on a story that fundamentally doesn’t make any sense.

That’s what I’m going with, anyway.

Butch:

You do that. You do that.

Needless Chicken Death, Part 2

Tags

combat, companions, Divinity: Original Sin, loot, plot, story

Spoilers for the Immaculate proving ground in Divinity: Original Sin

Butch:

Note comparin’ time cuz all that was weird.

So did the levers (thanks for the hint, that would’ve taken me forever), got through, the star stone went all “Fwbong” (that’s the best heal XP noise translation I can do, you know what I mean), there was a room with pillows everywhere, talked to Loic and things got awkward.

He was all “Wait…you’re healthy? This is so weird….” and ran off. Then I had a choice with a chicken. I spared it, because I wasn’t sick. Then I got to leave, he shows up, we fight. I think, “Shit. I was supposed to be undercover. Better do that again. Sorry chicken.” So I reload. I kill the chicken. But same deal. “DEFILER OF STAR STONE!” Fight. So much for cover. And I died. So I reloaded, DIDN’T kill the chicken (cuz if there’s gonna be a fight, why kill a chicken, too?) and fought and fought until I won. This got me a couple of keys, one of which was to the hatch in his church. So I went there, and found some stuff, couple of blood stones, and a portal that seems to have taken me to the other side of the map near a marker called “star stone.”

Was all this supposed to happen? Cuz a) you had rot and I didn’t and it seemed to bother him that I didn’t and b) I know you spent a great deal of time in the desert fighting spiders and I didn’t and now I’m on the other side of the map from all that. Did my Bairdotr trick mess me up here? Why were you in the desert?

I kinda think this is ok, though, cuz the one fight I did have with spiders they were level 14 and I’m still 13.

But my cover’s blown! Isn’t it? Is it? My log says “We’ll have to keep pretending we passed the trial.” But how’s that gonna go?

Them: Hey where’s Loic?
Us: Dunno.
Them: He was down in the trial temple. Didn’t you just do that?
Us: Uh…..yes?
Them: Did you pass?
Us: Yes! Certainly. Totally passed.
Them: Oh, good, then Loic should be done. Kevin, could you run down, tell Loic we got bagels and we can start the budget meeting whenever-
Us: NO! I mean….uh….I think Loic….uh….just…..we passed!
Them: What’s going on here……
Us: Uh….it was part of the trials…helping him deal with…his thing…with..uh….gluten! Yes. He’s SO over gluten. So we’ll just have his bagels and move on….
Them: Yeah…I’m starting to think…..

Feminina:

I think your Bairdotr trick was irrelevant to the plot, because that’s exactly what happened to us, only the dramatic healing noise cured us of rot.

Which (we assumed) is what made Loic freak out with “you’re healthy, how can that be?” and run off. And then come back and fight us.

But before he ran off, I collected every damn one of those pillows and sold them to him! And then collected them off his charred corpse later and sold them to someone else. It’s a beautiful cycle.

We didn’t even bother to reload, though, because we figured our cover was busted when he ran off, and we were ready for a fight. I declined to sacrifice the chicken, which then ran around getting in the way of the fighting and was killed by one of the Immaculates’ blast attacks near the end of the battle.

Siiiiigh…I tried to save that chicken! But, like everything else we touch, it wound up dead. And then if you pick up its corpse, the description is “the corpse of a chicken that didn’t have to die.”

I KNOW IT DIDN’T, game. And if it had had the sense to stay out of the middle of the raging combat, it wouldn’t have!

Leave me alone! It’s not my fault!

Anyway, as for our cover being wrecked, I think somehow no one figured out that we were the ones who killed Loic and all those other people? Because we’ve successfully passed as Immaculates ever since. Apparently we picked up some amulets, because we’ll meet some Immaculates and be challenged and have the option to say “my amulet should prove I’m one of you” and they instantly accept it.

I’m not sure if these ‘amulets’ are actual items that we could accidentally sell, or if they’re now just kind of part of our characters (we didn’t intentionally equip anything, so maybe it’s just a magical aura?), but just in case, I wouldn’t sell any amulets for a while.

So assuming your Bairdotr trick was irrelevant and that the game intended you to be healed of rot at that altar…interesting, right? Because Loic DIDN’T expect the altar to heal you (presumably he expected to make you sacrifice a chicken to be healed), and yet for some reason it did.

So…what is that altar? Why did it heal us when it wasn’t ‘supposed’ to? There’s something going on here that the Immaculates (as well as we) don’t completely understand. Is there some power involved here that’s trying to dodge the Conduit’s influence by demonstrating itself to us in a way that’s dramatically contrary to her program? Or is it more of us being special and different, and we have the ability to tap into the same power, but without needing the intermediary step of sacrificing something?

I don’t know yet. But it’s interesting.

Butch:

Ah. Figured that might be a thing. I couldn’t tell if there was a way to Loic without going by that stone. Guess not. Or we both missed it.

That’s pretty great. I can see that.

You: Hey wanna buy some pillows?
Loic: ***looks down into the room*** Hey, now that you mention it, we do seem to be pretty low on pillows…..Better take care of that. Might not be done killing you by nap time, and the initiates get so cranky….

Dude, you are death incarnate. Even the damn chicken????

“The corpse of a chicken that didn’t have to die” is pretty fucking awesome. I kinda love this game. Interestingly, on the reload when I did kill the chicken, it didn’t say that. Just “corpse of a chicken.” He did curse me that a giant rooster would come and poke out my eyes. I kinda wonder if that would’ve happened. I guess we’ll never know.

Ooo! Good to know. Strangely, I have been wearing mine, as they give you +1 to strength, which is pretty helpful in the whole weapon department. And extra HP. So I’m good. I think.

Ooo! I didn’t even put that together about the altar!

I MIGHT have a theory on that, as I know a couple cutscenes worth of things you don’t know, but nothing that answers that. Just some stuff that would lead to WILD SPECUALTION! Very long winded WILD SPECULATION! Probably good we can’t go there on a Friday.

Though again, am I in the right place? Cuz you said you were wading through spiders, and I am very much NOT wading through spiders. Am I supposed to be wading through spiders? Where were you going in spiderland?

Cuz I’m nervous: the portal in Loic’s basement zapped me to another thing that looks like a way point but I don’t think it is. I think I need to be in Loic’s basement to use it.

I’m confused. Not that I WANT to fight spiders, but you know me: fear I’m missing something.

Feminina:

Oh yeah…the spiders were earlier for us. When we went out up there looking for that cave, we kind of got sidetracked and wandered off into the wastes. There were spiders. There was annoying, slowed fighting where we barely got any action points. There was a place where we met Zixzax and heard about an attack on the end of time. But it was all peripheral to the Immaculates thing. Don’t worry about it, you can go back anytime.

AFTER the Immaculates thing, we, like you, checked out the basement (which we had actually already checked out, because we picked the lock and sneaked down there earlier), and went through the portal, and started looking around that general area. So that is definitely the way to proceed.

Or it’s A way to proceed. You could also go back and explore the wastes and look for spiders and Zixzax. It’s all good.

Butch:

Well, am I gonna have reason to go back to the wasted later? For story themey reasons?

Have you done where I am?

And how’d you do it? I was outleveled and I’ve gotten all that mine xp!

Feminina:

Are you in the Phantom Forest? Is that where the basement portal dumps you out? Because we started exploring around the forest and that’s kind of where we still are.

It seems like there MUST be a plot reason to go back to the sandy wastes at some point since that’s where we met Zixzax and heard about the attack on time and all, which seems a bit important–but we haven’t run into that reason yet. Though there is a marker for a temple or something up there in the still-dark portion of the map, isn’t there? And where there is a marker, sooner or later there will be a quest to that marker. So yeah, it’s probably safe to say you’ll go back there at some point.

Possibly when you’re tougher and/or more ready for the end of time to be under attack.

Butch:

I don’t know! I’m near a marker called “sacred stone,” which is pretty vague. I think Bairdotr wants to go there to find her friend.

Well…somewhere I have to find that blood, right? That’s gotta be nearby…..

Ok. Didn’t notice that. Cuz those spiders sure killed me dead. That spider fight was UGLY.

Speaking of which, you should probably do the mines before you get too overpowered.

Feminina:

Yeah, we fought a few spiders OK, and then we started running into ones where we just said “OK, later legsy.” Even the ones that were our level were brutal…that poison attack, and the way they can disappear under the ground and then pop up in front of you (and then attack and disappear AGAIN–how many action points do those things have, anyway?).

So, yeah. Go back later, it’ll be fine. The blood is…more over where you are now.

Butch:

Ah. So you didn’t get to any major end point of spiderville? Good to know.

Cuz that whole “slow” thing really sucked.

Feminina:

Being slowed sucks a lot. You can’t do ANYTHING! Even ‘haste’ doesn’t help very much! I hate it, but I also have to salute it as a rather clever way of making things more challenging in slightly different way than just “tougher enemies.” (I mean, it did that too.)

And yeah, I’m pretty sure there are still some spiders out there that we need to eventually go back and fight. I’m thinking of at least one fight we abandoned.

We shall return!

Eventually.

Butch:

Sounds good.

You still haven’t even met Jahan, have you?

So much to do!

Feminina:

Oh, we’ve MET him. Several times, as we regularly go back to the library for this or that. We’ve never traveled with him, though. Nor Madora. I suggested we switch to one or both of them, just for the variety, but Mr. O’ said no, let’s try to finish up one person’s quest first. Which is not usually how it works in games, but whatever. I can’t argue with the fact that our party as established has settled in and works well together.

Butch:

He does have stuff to say.

I ran with Madora a while. She’s cool. And I imagine has a quest.

I agree with you. Silly Mr. O’.

Feminina:

She’s from Hunter’s Edge, right?

We reached Hunter’s Edge. Might have been interesting if she’d been with us…

Butch:

Well, go get her. She’s available.

Feminina:

Yeah, we could go get her…but Mr. O’ would rather finish the stories of the people we already know. I guess. I dunno, man.

We’re going to finally finish up with Wolgraff and/or Bairdotr and go back to get one of the others and it’ll be all “so I need to find”–“yup, found that” –“OK, then I must bring it to”–“Oh, that guy, OK”–“now we must locate the”–“yeah, have that”–“and that explains my anguished past!”

I imagine it will be slightly less satisfying.

Although to be honest it’s not as if there’s much sense that we’re building toward a major emotional payoff with Wolgraff and Bairdotr either, so perhaps it doesn’t really matter.

The companion quests are definitely not a huge focus in this game.

Butch:

Jahan’s promises quite a bit. Theme wise.

Mr. O’s just weird, man.

Oh–so in the hall of rot, there was a dead body. He was, I guess, a member of the fabulous five, and he had a note. But I couldn’t find whatever the note said. Did you?

On that, don’t bother buying secret maps. I did, and it led me right to something I found long, long ago. Waste of money.

It is true that if you get a companion late (say, Jahan) you do get quite the info dump. Like “First, I shall tell you my initial shit…then the stuff I would have used to increase suspense at level 7…then the reveal at level 12 oh this isn’t how I planned it at all.”

Kinda a let down.

Feminina:

Right, right, that guy in the Hall of Rot. We did find him. And no, we couldn’t find anything nearby that seemed to be his treasure. I think we poked around a bit and then figured “whatever” and moved on. I mean, we were kind of dying of rot, so we had stuff on our minds.

Maybe it’ll turn up somewhere. And yeah, I actually spent a ton of money on that painter’s maps in Cyseal, and they led us to things we had already found. Unfortunate. I suppose these maps would be good for people who don’t already poke into every corner of the map, but…we’re talking about us, here.

Butch:

I did the same thing! And I didn’t even have rot! Pretty useless. It probably wasn’t anything really earth shattering.

We are. That we are.

There should be a nudity map.

This game is starting to make Friday difficult.

There’s romance in the sequel! Lots of it! I checked!

Feminina:

Well, that’s a relief. Because yeah, things are rough here on the nudity-Friday front. Though nice work tossing it in just now.

Butch:

What’s the point of playing games, really, if we can’t do nudity Friday?

Feminina:

Well…I mean, there are the themes, and the stories, and the looting and setting things on fire. I’d still do it.

But nudity Friday is definitely up there too.

Butch:

Well, those things get days one through six of the week, that they do.

But still….

Feminina:

Oh, undoubtedly. Still.

Don’t Cry! I Can’t Stand It When NPCs Cry

Tags

character, children, combat, Divinity: Original Sin, mechanics, morality, plot

Spoilers for the bit with the goblin and Ralfie, and for the Immaculate proving ground in Divinity: Original Sin

Butch:

Played a bit. Nothing all that themey. Ran into a goblin with an unhappy pack animal. Talked them both up, got into one of those long, garbage time fights with the goblin, who kept healing despite the fact I was gonna win. Won. So I know about spider queens and goblin totems. Stumbled on a crowd of spiders, and thought they were holding captives, but no, those weren’t captives, they were bad guys. Died.

Went to the cave instead. Fighting slowed sucks.

Got to the cave. Kept getting rot. Figured “Maybe I’m supposed to have rot!” Got to the room with the scales. Was infuriated, and dying of rot. Reloaded. Managed to get through the rot room without getting rot. Was STILL infuriated by the room with the scales. Like, INFURIATED. It didn’t help that Junior was there, and Mrs. McP came home, and they’re BOTH kibitzing all “Maybe use some cheese! Or that vase! Or or or!”

But at least I didn’t have rot.

Finished it, Junior and Mrs. McP were all “Go see what’s in the next room!” and I wanted to say “NO MY GAME MINE MINE MINE” but I did, and there were levers and they said “Ooo let’s try-” and I said “No. Not doing fucking levers after all that” and stopped. They were confused about my aversions to levers. But lines must be drawn.

But at least I didn’t have rot.

Feminina:

Dude–I’m impressed you managed to get through there without getting rot. How did you manage that? We pretty much walked in, got rot, figured “I guess we’re supposed to have rot so that we can be cured later on–must be part of the test” and pressed on. Silly us, accepting the circumstances!

But you don’t really die very quickly from it, so a regeneration every few minutes kept us in fine shape for the next rooms with the scales and the levers and what-not. Ha–those scales WERE annoying. I spent a lot of time running around, setting down pumpkins and things, picking them up, moving them around. Regenerating from time to time. At least we didn’t have O’Jr. looking over our shoulders making helpful suggestions.

We also talked to the pack animal (Ralfie! has to be related to Alfie, right? And yet it was not an option to make that connection, for some reason) and, at its request, fought the goblin.

I felt kind of bad about that, to be honest. I mean, the goblin didn’t do anything to us–he was just going about his business, with a pack animal, such as anyone might have, and we attacked him. And yes, we justified it as freeing an enslaved creature, and freeing slaves is definitely good, but if that’s our motivation, then where are our other attempts to fight for the rights of animals? Why aren’t we attacking people for selling roasted pigs? Why didn’t we attack ALFIE’s owners?

Mostly, I think, because Ralfie asked us to and Alfie didn’t (and possibly also some racial/social prejudice, since Ralfie’s owner was a goblin who was rude to us, and Alfie’s owners were human and polite). But would we by that token go ahead and murder the next chef whose intended chicken dinner says “please, save me, kill that guy”? I don’t know. And perhaps it’s rather pointed to note that in fact the chicken we saved (or not–you monster) presumably DIDN’T ask us to kill the guy, just to let it escape. (As you may recall, I didn’t have Pet Pal at that point, so I didn’t talk to it.)

Also, Alfie and Ralfie, while apparently seen as just ordinary, if unusual-looking animals by their owners, are not familiar to us, so maybe it’s easier for us to read them as “sentient being with full rights to ask not to be enslaved for someone else’s purposes,” where we would have a harder time accepting that argument from a chicken.

Is this the game not pushing us too hard on this?

Anyway, that whole event made me kind of uncomfortable–which is not really a criticism of the game. I kind of like that it’s raising, even obliquely, some shaky ethical issues. (Also, more on that theme of “are we actually good?”) If I were to criticize, it would probably be because the raising IS so oblique. Why not go ahead and present us with that chicken who asks us to slaughter the farmers who steal her eggs? Make us actually think about where we’re drawing these lines.

It seemed intentional, though, that there was no option to try anything other than attacking. We couldn’t try to buy Ralfie from him, or persuade him of the error of his ways in mistreating another living creature, or even tell him WHY we were attacking and give him the option to release the animal. You’d think “let Ralfie go or we’ll have to fight” would have been a fair warning–but no, it’s all fine and then you just attack him. The game seems to want you to be aware that you are definitely making an unprovoked attack on an unsuspecting creature, there: that’s how they’ve framed the choice.

It’s also interesting to think about how we would have approached that if we couldn’t talk to animals. We’d have literally no excuse for attacking the goblin in that case, and yet no doubt some people did, just because loot and XP. And no doubt some other people who couldn’t talk to animals strolled blithely on, leaving the goblin and Ralfie to their own devices, unaware that Ralfie wanted to be freed.

And did you have Wolgraff with you? He had a reaction to this that was also kind of interesting.

A thought-provoking interlude, for an encounter with a traveling merchant.

Butch:

I noticed the first several times I did it that Bairdotr, for some reason, wasn’t getting the rot. She has a rank in Tenebrium, so maybe she’s cool with that. I thought she was just making saving throws, but eventually I just said “Hell with it. Run, do the pyramids” and it worked. Bairdotr to the rescue!

But I think it was part of the test. Despite me getting through there unharmed, my log says “We’ve made it in but we’re infected with rot! This must be one of the burdens!” So, I think I gamed the game. But hey! I just thought it through, man!

True, it’s not lethal, but every damn minute everyone grunts and the health bars appear and that’s infuriating. Especially when trying to solve puzzles.

So annoying, those scales. Especially as there was one that I could get to 101% percent. That was just insulting. It’s another case of flaws that game puzzles make: There should be a way that, once you know what you need to do, it’s easy to do. Garbage time in fights is annoying, garbage time in puzzles is infuriating. LOTS of time saying “Yeah, yeah I get it! I know!” last night. Hate that.

Hmm. Good point about Ralfie. Indeed, even Wolgraff felt bad. He was all looking at his face reflected in the blood (eww) feeling guilty, and we had a little Scarlett/Roderick chat with him.

I don’t know. That goblin was kinda an asshole. But your point is taken. For all we know the ham people are assholes, too. And, true, Alfie’s owners weren’t all that nice to him, either. Hmm.

I’ll never know about the chicken, but that’s certainly a thing. Maybe this game was made by vegetarians. Ha.

There is that, with familiar/unfamiliar animals. And I didn’t meet any of those things when I couldn’t talk to them, so my own personal experience with them is “they can talk.” Which does imbue them with some sympathy.

And I dunno, man. I think it’s pushing kind of hard.

Well…now I kinda wish I had talked to that chicken. And maybe we will get there! I’m rather curious to meet the were-sheep.

But games are good at making us stand back and think about why some things bug us and some don’t. The only time, I mean the ONLY time a game asked me to do something that I refused to do, like turn it off, don’t save, never play again do, was a bit in Fallout 3 where you become a kid, and you have to make another kid cry. You do this by convincing him he’s going to military school because he wets the bed, or by bullying him. This is awful, and I wouldn’t do it. Now, this was 60 hours or so into a game where I killed the living shit out of everything. But I wouldn’t, WOULDN’T do that to this kid.

So for three days I looked around for ways to get out of this level without doing that to this kid. And I found one! It was, basically, ending the whole simulation, which, sadly, killed everyone, INCLUDING THE KID. Then I said “Phew,” saved, kept playing.

This, to me, was the GOOD OUTCOME.

I still wonder on that.

And this is a similar “why does that bug me and not this?” thing that games do so well. It’s one of the great things about the only art form that makes you choose.

And I don’t mind the obliqueness. That outcome in FO3? It didn’t occur to me for days after that the good outcome involved killing him. There wasn’t a “Kill/not kill” choice in the game. You don’t see him die. There was no “you monster” or “good choice” moment. It let the player let it sink in. And that’s cool.

I bet I would have walked on had I not been able to talk to Ralphie. I probably would’ve thought the goblin was an asshole, but I would’ve walked on.

Very excellent, though. This game does a lot right. It’s why I forgive the garbage time.

Feminina:

Oh yeah, that makes sense. Bairdotr and the pyramids. I don’t see that that’s even ‘cheating,’ it’s just paying attention. We also noticed that she was immune, but not until we’d gone some way into the thing. “Hey…I haven’t had to regenerate YOU…” We weren’t bothered enough by the annoyance of rot to try to think of ways to turn it to our advantage, though.

Wow…interesting callback to FO3 nightmares and ethical dilemmas. And very interesting that the outcome you perceived as “good” was the one that involved the kid (and everyone else) being dead. I mean, normally we assume kids would rather be crying than dead, but if you have to be MEAN?

That’s the thing about us and games: we hate not being NICE to people. The things that most trouble us are not the murder of hundreds of dudes, but the murder of one dude who didn’t quite get the chance to declare war on us first. That’s just not FAIR!

Or the being mean to some kid. (Which I agree, I would totally hate. I’m not trying to hassle you about your decision.)

I got so curious about whether or not the chicken in Cyseal asked you to kill the chef that I checked the internet, but I can’t find any record of what the chicken actually says in the references to that quest. (Though apparently the chicken’s name was Jack.) Somebody probably would have mentioned it, though (if for no other reason than that it would potentially involve combat), so I’m assuming Jack did NOT ask you to kill the cook.

Butch:

Oh I was annoyed. I was there trying to balance things with hams and hearing grunts and stuff. No. Just, no.

In a game where, by that point (it was late) I had done all sorts of awful things without batting an eyelash. You didn’t play it, but you’ve played enough Fallout to know they aren’t shy about violence. And FO3 made 4 look like a Mario game.

And dude, it wasn’t just mean. The whole level was in black and white, like some 1950’s comedy gone nightmare. So here’s this kid in a beanie, saying “Please don’t make me go, I’ll stop wetting the bed, I promise,” while crying. And….no. But it put you in that bind! Go with this, or kill everyone. One of the best RPG levels ever. Tranquility Lane. Google it.

God DAMN that game was good. Game that convinced me games were art. But I digress.

Oh it was wrenching. And they did everything they could to make it wrenching. And you were a kid, too! (It’s complicated). So you had to be a childhood bully! Which made it WORSE! And the “kill everyone” option, you had to find this secret place, pull back the curtain, as it were, and solve a very “normal” (for the game) puzzle. So you had to either bully a kid AS A KID, or “grow up,” act like a “grown up” and kill everyone, which really, REALLY brought home all sorts of stuff in a game about the loss of innocence both for an individual and the American dream.

God DAMN that game was good. I digress.

Huh. Well, I’m glad animals can’t really talk. I like pork too much.

Feminina:

Sadly, I think it’s fair to say I will simply never get to Fallout 3. Time, new things, etc.

Maybe in the home.

Butch:

Well, to be honest, I’m not sure it holds up. Those dated Bethesda visuals. It’s from 2008 or so, after all.

Can’t play ’em all.

Especially since Divinity won’t end.

Did you get any playin’ in last night?

Feminina:

Man, 2008. A decade is a long time in game visuals.

We did play a bit, but didn’t do a whole lot. We’re kind of looking for the last weresheep. Not because it’s important to the main plot (as far as I know), just because.

Butch:

Well, who wouldn’t? I’m gonna go find him.

Speaking of stuff on other planes, you ever figure out what’s up with that troll cave? It obviously matters, cuz I had to walk right by it.

Feminina:

We haven’t! We desperately want to get in there because we have a quest to steal some tenebrium from the troll king so that Brendan will help us learn to use tenebrium without getting rot so we can fight things that are only vulnerable to tenebrium so we can go back to places–but we can’t figure out how to get past that statue. Or what is up with all that weird ‘gray gold.’

It’s a mystery.

One of many.

This game is large.

Butch:

Ooo! That would be handy! I have that quest!

I know…sorta…how to get in, but damned if I know where to get in. That very nice troll (that I killed cuz he was an asshole) mentioned it.

Always chat dudes up before you kill them.

Yeah, rot kinda sucks.

Though I’m also not looking forward to these levers.

Feminina:

Yeah, the levers…just look around before you pull any. Look for…subtle clues. On the wall, maybe. It’s gonna be great.

Butch:

Yeah, sorta figured. It’s like the “Hall of Observation” or something.

Subtle, huh? Great. I’m too distracted by Scarlett’s outfit.

Ha.

Feminina:

It’s about as subtle as Scarlett’s outfit. You’re good. But save first, and if you pull the wrong lever, just reload. You don’t HAVE to reload, but…just reload.

Butch:

I sorta figured that out.

Remember my rant about being watched/kibitzed? They were all “What happens if you pull the lever? I want to find out what happens! Pull the lever!” And I knew something bad would happen, so I just pulled it, said “There. Bad thing. Too tired to fight. We’re done, ok?”

Sometimes you just gotta pull the damn lever.

You saying Scarlett is somehow attracting attention?

Feminina:

You said it first!

Yup. Bad thing. Thing you can’t hurt because it’s immune to everything. Thing that if you ‘flee’ from and then come all the way back through those rooms, will still be waiting for you.

Just reload.

Butch:

I HATE that. At least give us a chance.

Feminina:

Yeah, there was not much of a chance there. I mean, probably there is SOME WAY one could defeat that thing, like if you’ve done xy and z first or whatever, but…just reload.

Let’s Not Get Into Another Petty Quarrel About Who’s Sane

Tags

Divinity: Original Sin, plot

Some spoilers for Divinity: Original Sin plot points

Butch:

No, YOU’RE insane! So there!

You know how the plan was “go to the plane, stern words, then truck along with things?” Well, it turned out to be “Go to the plane.”

Why? Cuz when I got there, Zixzax immediately started talking, there was a new room, then another new room, people to chat up in the new rooms, another cutscene about….things….and a bunch of new dialog options. None of which were stern words.

An hour later, I decided “truck along with things” could wait. An HOUR! And DUDE! More themes in that hour than in some whole games we’ve played and we CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT CUZ YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT!

And to make things weirder, I STILL don’t have that “Get Icara to tell you more of her sister’s plans” thing you have (even though she has now told me to go join the Immaculates, which I guess is what you’re doing. Why she told you that before the mines is beyond me) and there is certainly not something attacking my plane. My plane is fine. Nothing bothering it at all.

So I have fascinating themes, and you have a trophy that says you’ve gotten Icara to say things she hasn’t said to me, and you have a rather laconic something kinda attacking things.

Very strange.

So how did you get on the path you’re on? Cuz it was all very linear to me.

Icara: Go to mine.
Me: Cool. (Finishes quest, triggers next dialog)
Icara: Go to Immaculates.

You know, as games do.

You obviously triggered her saying SOMETHING. How did that go? Cuz she didn’t say a damn thing about the Immaculates/joining them until the mines were done.

Feminina:

Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!! I don’t know which one of us is sane!

It’s going to turn out that we’re both equally insane, just trapped in our own delusions.

So. Lots of plot, eh? But nothing about ‘more on her sister’s plans.’ Interesting. Hm. Well, as best I recall our path was something like:

Icara: Go to the mines

Us:

• Go toward the mines but can’t immediately figure out how to get there, take the wrong path, get sidetracked wandering around in the sandy wastes, as one does
• Run into Zixzax somewhere out there in the sandy wastes, which apparently triggers the “end of time is under attack!!!!” part of the game
• Reach the mines, run away from the death knights
• Revisit the end of time on multiple occasions in between wandering around clearing the map, but fail to get the plot you mentioned because it’s under attack: at some point, pick up the suggestion to infiltrate the Immaculates
• Go infiltrate the Immaculates
• As a result of said infiltration, learn stuff that, I think, triggers the ‘more about her sister’s plans’ talk
• Hear about a spell to defeat the death knights and head off to look for that

Which brings us more or less to today. Not EXACTLY linear. But we’re getting the job done! In our own, circuitous fashion.

Or we’re insane. Probably that one.

Butch:

Or both.

Probably both.

Funny you should say that about our separate delusions…… Do the mines. Get the plot I got. We’ll talk. Later.

And nope, I didn’t get anything. Well, not that trophy you have. You have a trophy called “Headlines” that says “Get Icara to tell you more about her sister’s plans.” It’s logo is a scroll thingy. I was totally expecting to get it when she talked about joining the immaculates, and nada. And no attack. Weird.

But your progress…Ah ha! Yes, I haven’t run into Zixzax in the “real world” in ages. Since Evelyn, I think.

I blame myself for your repeated failures at the end of time. But, in my defense, didn’t know the attack thing….

Ah, see, I know about that spell. And not just from a rat. I probably have the thing you don’t have, and you probably have the thing I don’t have. I think it’s one of those deals, to make sure you do both. I think. I wouldn’t be surprised.

Feminina:

Are you looking for a vial of blood, by any chance? Because we have a vial of blood. I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

I also blame myself…our end of time was already under attack when you said you’d gone to the mirror place or wherever, but I didn’t want to mention that because of spoilers. If only we’d shared notes more fully, we would have…known things sooner. Which would have…not changed anything about what we were both doing, I guess, so no worries.

I suppose we might not have gone back to the end of time quite as often looking fruitlessly for statues to talk to, but on the other hand one of the times we went back we DID get more information, so it’s all good. The only real downside was that I became slightly more convinced you’re insane, and that was bound to happen sooner or later anyway.

Because we’re almost certainly both insane, and at some point there will be no more hiding it.

Butch:

Indeed I am. Are you looking for a piece of paper to write on? Because I have a fantastic piece of paper. I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

Sigh. I hope you get all of this plot. Though, if you do get it in one big data dump, it’s gonna be hard to blog. Lots there to wade through.

Are we hiding it? I didn’t know.

Feminina:

We were probably only hiding it from ourselves. Though not very successfully even then.

We ARE looking for a piece of paper! If only there were a way to join our games together, we could get this DONE.

Man, I hope maybe we got a hint of some of the information in the data dump earlier, because you’re right, it’s hard to discuss that much information when it comes all at once.

We got a little confused even trying to work out the details of the Jake’s murder plot on the blog, and that was a (relatively) tiny little storyline.

Well, we’ll do our best. It’s what we do.

Unless we’re derailing into nudity discussions.

Butch:

Speak for yourself. I know you’re bonkers.

Well, then! That explains a lot. I didn’t know I was looking for said paper, and I found it and Scarlett was all “I could write quite the spell with this!” and I thought “Uh…you mean it’s different from…like…everything else we’ve found? There might be a quest about this….”

Yeah. Shit, just what I got last night would’ve been a lot. There’s…some hints? Kinda? I guess? Not really. There’s a lot going on.

And the Jake confusion was because we saw different things at different times. At least I know that when you finally see all this stuff I can be like “Ah, yes. That.”

We do our best. And our best is good.

Feminina:

So true! So basically, no matter what we’ll be fine.

Confused and trapped in our own delusions, but fine.

Helpful Tips, Vague Rambling, and Practical Attire

Tags

combat, Divinity: Original Sin, fashion, loot, plot, romance

Spoilers for some plot in Divinity: Original Sin

Butch:

LISTEN. VERY. CAREFULLY.

In the mines, there is a big door. Things will happen. We talked on that.

Then there will be a series of mirrors and jumps you can take. There are three areas you MUST visit, and they can be missed. The crypt, the library, and the high priest’s office. ESPECIALLY THE HIGH PRIESTS OFFICE!!!!!!

This is important as you must visit EACH MIRROR to see all the options, and, potentially, backtrack.

And if you go to the surface the MINE COLLAPSES AND YOU CANNOT GET BACK AND WILL MISS A SHIT LOAD OF PLOT.

Seriously.

I don’t usually warn. But this needs a warning. Cuz you can miss a shitload of plot.

I just got a shit ton of plot.

Feminina:

Thanks for the warning! Crypt, library, high priest’s office. Noted. Are you sure that was all? You didn’t accidentally miss one yourself? Ha. Sorry.

We shall return to the mines! One day.

Last night we also got some plot. Some plot of the “oh hey, here’s a COMPLETELY NEW set of players showing up in this drama from a COMPLETELY NEW place!” variety.

This game is large. We’re still enjoying it!–but it’s large. It would be one of those massive, sprawling D&D campaigns that unfolds over the course of several years. We’re just lucky we don’t actually have to schedule five different people every time we play.

Butch:

Might want to go soon. There’s….well…let’s just say I’m gonna go back and have some words with the folks at the end of time. Stern, stern words.

Plot.

Are you serious? Like, NEW new? New PLACE?

I, too, am enjoying it. I started, for a minute, to get a “deep roads” slog feel in the mines (why is it always mines?), but a) that was sorta my fault cuz I just didn’t see the bridge I had to cross and ran around in circles being stupid and b) as soon as I started to feel it I got to where I had to get, so it was a very short lived feeling.

Considering this game is large, and we’ve been playing it a long time, the fact that I’ve felt very little slog (the sneaking past goblins got a little long, but only a little) is a testament to the game, it is.

Five? We always had more than five. And, when you play it as a video game, you don’t have to stop for half an hour while everyone ponders pizza.

Feminina:

Completely new. These people seem to be from another plane/world/whatever, and not an elemental/seasonal one.

Just in case we hadn’t picked up on the multiple-worlds thing yet, after Hiberheim and the muttering dude in the prison (we went back and tried to talk to him again after Boreas was dead, but nothing), one of them basically comes out and says “we’re from the plane of [name] and we’re looking for [noun].”

So…that’s an interesting twist that we’re not sure what to do with at the moment, but that I’m 99% sure will result in us having to make a wrenching moral choice at some point.

Dudes, we were just looking for a wizard! We just want to make a spell to kill some death knights so we can…oh, never mind. Tell me about your plane and why you’re looking for [noun].

Siiiigh. We have also, in the course of our recent wanderings, come across hints of Bairdotr’s and Wolgraff’s quests, as well as a mention of Madora that would probably mean something to us if we traveled with her. Of course, nothing as straightforward as “go over there to learn about that,” but hints.

Butch:

Whoa. Just…whoa. Do you GO there? Is there a whole other map?

I look forward to themeage. And a lot more of this game.

Hey, speaking of which….

You mentioned a LONG ways back that you did something that made you feel like horrible people, a BIG DECISION. I’ve been doing all sorts of shit, and haven’t gotten one of those in some time. Did I miss something? Or is this on your different line of…well…everything?

Isn’t that how it always is? Happens to me all the time. Dudes show up all “We’re from another plane” and I’m all “Dudes, I’m trying to fold the laundry here,” and then they look all mopey and I have to put off all my chores, and then it’s Monday and the floor isn’t mopped and I have to run around all day Tuesday and really fuck those planar asshats.

Oh right! That shit! I figure that I’m gonna take Madora when/if I get to Hunter’s Ridge, cuz she’s from there, right? Wolgraff, I have no idea about anything with Wolgraff. Bairdotr’s thing has been on my quest list since I found Bairdotr and nothing has changed. And I have Jahan! Who will have a thing, I’m sure.

Though I think that when I got back to have STERN WORDS on the Shelter Plane I’m gonna give Jahan a time out and pick Wolgraff back up (unless I’m close to Hunter’s Ridge…am I?). Jahan is a death magnet, and doesn’t have any skills (lockpicking) to make up for it. Nor is he charming.

Which raises something that I would think is metaphor except it’s innate to all role playing games going right back to D&D: Intelligence is the least important skill. It SHOULD be important, right? Intelligence! We LIKE intelligence! But in RPGs, so much matters so much more. Poor Jahan.

I think it’s because no matter how we strive for immersion, intelligence is not something you can take away from the player. A number doesn’t make us any smarter or dumber. We’re gonna solve the puzzles and plan the battles no matter what the INT score is on the characters we’re controlling. And yet games ALWAYS give you the “smart” character to run with in your party. And…well….no.

Feminina:

No, we didn’t go to this other plane. We just talked to these people who told us about it and why we were there and then the conversation petered out and we said “I’ll take my leave” and wandered away. They asked us if we knew where [nouns] were, but we didn’t, and otherwise they seemed uninterested in us. And they had no money and nothing to sell. BOR-ing. Except for the whole “we’re from the plane ruled by [ruler] and we need to [accomplish goal].”

I’m sure we’ll run into them again one of these days. Possibly in less cordial (or at least semi-cordial) circumstances.

So the thing that made me feel like a horrible person…hm. That’s…over down toward the lower right of the Luculla Forest map, if I recall correctly. (Which is only about half likely, if that, given my historically limited success rate with remembering where things are on maps.) Kind of around where the orcs and goblins are hanging out. There’s a deer there that can’t talk. Did you meet that deer? I’m pretty sure you’ll know what I’m talking about when you get there.

Internet, help me out here…OK, it’s “east of the Luculla Forest – Goblin Village portal.” So I was actually fairly right.

Hunter’s Edge…we’re actually right around Hunter’s Edge now, but it’s a fairly long way from the mines. You’ll probably have to work through quite a bit of stuff before you get to it. I wouldn’t worry about going to get Madora right away.

And it’s so true about Intelligence as a stat. Because you’re right, the game can give you awesome climbing skills and make you fantastic in combat and let you sneak like you’re invisible and generally make you an awesome badass in every way, but it can’t actually make you smarter. Whatever ‘smart’ you have in your actual head is pretty much what you’re stuck with. The most common way to make ‘intelligence’ matter is to make skills and/or magic dependent on it, and in this game, where anyone can cast spells off scrolls, even that doesn’t count for all that much. I have my intelligence way up because it affects my spell reset time and some magic items require high intelligence to use…and maybe it affects how many points I can put into skills? I don’t know. Anyway, it’s my primary thing, but it’s honestly not that exciting even to me.

I think actually in D&D, where you get more languages and more spells and more skills based on intelligence, it at least meant something you could ‘feel’ a bit more. It’s very abstract in this game. (Although to be honest, all of the attributes seem to be about very small percentages of improvement.)

It would be interesting to see a game that attempted to make intelligence mean something in actual gameplay terms, but how would it work? If your character has a high intelligence, you’re given puzzles that are really simple, but if you have a low intelligence they’re ridiculously difficult? Sometimes you see that presented as basically just a skill check: “your intelligence is not high enough for this” or whatever. But as you say, that doesn’t get at the sense of accomplishment the way it does if you add some strength and can now do 10 more points damage in combat, or add dexterity and can now throw grenades more accurately, or whatever. (I got Wolgraff the talent where he never misses with grenades. Worth it.)

Oh, and I wouldn’t really call the thing that made me feel like a horrible person a BIG DECISION in terms of affecting the course of the game or anything. It was actually a fairly small decision. Which is perhaps interesting thematically.

You’ll know what I mean when you get there.

Butch:

HA! “We are travelers from another place..a place of wonder beyond description where-“
“Yeah, nice, got any charming arrows?”
“Um…no.”
“Then take it easy, man. I’m out.”

Well, haven’t gotten to the goblin village. Kinda nervous about that. I can see the portal on my map, but can’t get to it yet. I think that’s up and around through what looks rather sandy on the map. It’s past sandy stuff, isn’t it?

Scrolls and skill books, and skill books seem to be related to levels of whatever you get from abilities. (I thought three got you MASTER but NOOOOO. I bought all these books for Bairdotr and can’t use any of them. I HATE that.)

The attributes are about small percentages EXCEPT when you get something awesome and you need strength 10 or dexterity 11 to use it. Then it sits there in your inventory taunting you.

It would be damn tricky. Probably past where games are now, at least in one this big.

Feminina:

Yeah, us being in the same place at the same time didn’t last long. Even being in the same place at different times is becoming doubtful.

But we’ll get to where we’re all going. We’ll sort it out. Almost certainly.

It’s gonna be great.

Speaking of charm arrows and Wolgraff’s grenade skills, I had him throwing “love bombs” last night. AWESOME. Hurl the grenade at three enemies, charm two of them, let them fight among themselves for a turn or so while we pick away at someone else. Charm is the best.

Charm and summoned things. I LOVE to summon things. “You! Undead soldier! Go distract that guy so he doesn’t shoot at me. Sorry you’re on fire now, but better you than me. Thanks!” And I can summon four different things now, so as soon as one is down, I can bring in another.

Basically I guess I love anything that makes other people or things do the fighting while I hang back. Which is appropriate considering my frail wizard body and the enchanted robe which is all that protects me.

Ooh–Wolgraff just got the ability to summon one of those little bomb skeletons. It worked great. “Run right up to that thing and then when it hits you–BOOM!”

Skill books are the best. Except when you buy them and then realize you can’t use them yet. I have a couple of those hanging around as well. I don’t want to sell them back because I’ll lose money on the deal, plus sooner or later I probably will be able to use it, but in the meantime it just hangs out in my inventory, taunting me.

Oh, speaking of inventory, did you figure out how to get rid of the empty slots? We talked once long ago about how you have this inventory screen with blank slots scattered throughout, and have both probably solved the problem since but forgot to mention it.

Oh, and speaking of things I forgot to mention (I’m getting way far afield here, but roll with it), you always notice sound: do you sometimes notice that the sound effects cut out during combat? So that instead of the fight sounds, you just have the background music, giving a rather eerie sense of distance from the battle on the screen? Or is that just us?

Butch:

We WILL both get there! Cuz we complete things! Usually.

Ooo! I just found a couple of those grenades! Can’t wait!

Dude, Scarlett has summon undead soldier, Nick, fire elementals and….as of last night…wait for it….”Undead armored decapitator.” Decapitator! Sorry, ARMORED decapitator! I maligned him. Roderick even has Ice Elemental so I just fill the damn battlefield with my dudes.

I got some good robes, though. Like armor 60 robes. You can do ok with robes.

That’s how I feel about skill books! These ones I got for Bairdotr sound magnificent, and they were expensive, so I’ll lose a TON on the deal. I just have to remember to use them.

I like to use the “sort” option (L3). You can pick “latest added,” which is SO helpful, and then you can ignore everything else. Or “Gold value” if you’re at a merchant. So nice.

I have noticed that! There’s a lot of little touches that add to the weirdness/insanity feel. Like the very quiet “vocal” part on the tavern song. You ever hear that? I only noticed it when I played with headphones…..

Feminina:

I use “sort/latest added” ALL THE TIME. Especially when I need to find the unidentified items we just picked up so I can identify them.

There’s also that option at the bottom to “remove empty” or whatever, which tidies everything up a bit.

Definitely get Wolgraff that bomb dude. We bought it in Silverglen, from…I think from that weird lady, Vomitia (ew) who sits in that side room off the tavern. Completely worth the money. And so true, the more of you that can summon things, the more things you can have filling the battlefield and wreaking havoc among the enemy!

Neither Bairdotr nor Delios has an actual summon skill, but they both get it off scrolls from time to time as needed. Scrolls good. Delios has picked up a few for that Undead Armored Decapitator. That’s when we need the good stuff.

OK, so further about the vanishing sound…do you notice that it seems to happen particularly in battles that involve the Immaculates and/or the Conduit in some way? The first time we noticed it was in that cave when we were pursuing the Conduit, the one where we found Jake and all that. Weird, silent battles. And then a couple of times since, I think in battles that were also about following the trail of the Conduit (fighting Immaculates here or there), we’ve seen it again. I’m not sure if I’m making that up that it’s associated with the Conduit, and it’s actually just random, or if it IS associated with her, and is meant to tell us…something.

Something like “your senses can deceive you” or “things you’ve come to expect about the way the world works no longer apply,” or…something. I don’t know. Could be something, though. Keep an ear out for if it happens in some random, non-Conduit battle, which would disprove my theory.

Butch:

Ah, see, I always identify when I’m picking stuff up. This led to a bit of humor yesterday, as Scarlett was deep, deep in the mines, behind the big door, and everyone else was dutifully, safely waiting way at the entrance. I hit “Identify” and it’s all “Object identified by Bairdotr.” Like….what? Well, ok. Hell of a magnifying glass.

And, since we’re all over the place today (I blame more yesterday’s random holiday), tip: Tried to use the teleporter pyramid in the mines and Bairdotr said rather matter of factly: “That won’t work here.” And it didn’t. Weird.

Which…well…I know a tad more about those things now….

Ooo! Is the decapitator awesome? Cuz I can do that every fight now! Whoo hoo!

Another reason to do the mines. That’s a nice treat at the end.

Feminina:

Interesting about the pyramids. I look forward to knowing more. And being able to summon an Undead Armored Decapitator (he’s pretty badass–basically just a tougher version of the Undead Warrior, but he has a ‘taunt’ ability that will make people attack him specifically, which is my kind of talent for other people to have). Eventually.

I haven’t noticed the tavern song. Probably because we don’t play with headphones. You know I don’t use headphones anyway, and with two of us playing that would just be a mess.

But I’ll try listening very closely next time we go and see if I can make out anything.

Butch:

Just turn it up kinda loud. It’s not words, per se, just one of those details where they take a trope and make it just weird enough to be creepy. And subtle.

Feminina:

Interesting! I shall listen. Eventually. Probably.

Whether this will be before or after we go back to the mines, I cannot say.

Butch:

Go to mines. Split up. Be sneaky. And don’t forget about that totem!

Cuz plot!

The song is not that important. It’s just a weird little detail. It creeps me out. Like a lot of this game.

Feminina:

The thing about that is, we probably won’t split up and have one of us go be sneaky, because that’s boring for the other one if it takes more than a couple of minutes (which it sounds as if this might).

It’s all very well to leave 75% of the party relaxing with a sandwich if you’re the one controlling the single person who’s doing something, but I don’t want to be the one who’s NOT doing something for 10 minutes (which in game time is an eternity). I hate having both my characters dead in a combat, and that usually only takes a few minutes to finish (by the time we’re both dead, anyway). This, along with scheduling, is kind of a downside of cooperative playing–you have to make sure you’re both keeping busy or…yawn.

I guess maybe if only one of us could play one night…but even then, no one wants to be left out and miss what happened. I mean, I don’t and I assume Mr. O’ also doesn’t.

So probably we’ll press on with our current project of trying to find the spell to defeat the death knights, and then go back once we have it and fight our way in all together. Because teamwork! But if that doesn’t work, I am reassured by the promise that sneaking is an option.

Butch:

I’m…not sure “getting the spell” is gonna work. I don’t think. Maybe it won’t. Cuz…well…stuff.

Once you know where to go in the mines it’s pretty quick. If you win your rock paper scissors. I took too long cuz I was stupid. If you’re not stupid it’s not that bad.

Feminina:

Interesting. Well, we’ll prepare ourselves for disappointment, then.

Oh–speaking of quests, you’ll enjoy this one: we’re currently looking for well water so we can make whiskey. Booze forever!

I shouldn’t be flippant, it’s actually not all that lighthearted a tale. But the fact remains that we must make whiskey. Which, like every other thing we have to do in this game, turns out to be extremely complicated.

Butch:

Hey! We’ve met wells! Nice wells! Who ask for a LOT of money!

Booze forever!

Oh and yeah, the mines are not something to do alone. Stuff. Happens.

Feminina:

Yeah, we’ll surely talk to one of those wells again sometime. Bound to happen.

We’re both pretty into it, so playing alone hasn’t really come up. I think we’re committed to it as a joint project at this point.

It’s very romantic.

Butch:

Awww….that’s the sappiest thing I’ve ever seen between you two. You should amp it up a little. Candles, wine, extra killin’.

Feminina:

We do get out the wine sometimes on the weekend! “Hey baby…how about we stay up late…get in an extra fight with those mechanical chickens?”

I’ve rarely heard anything so alluring.

Speaking of romance, nothing in the way of banter between our characters lately at all. I’m not sure if proximity is making the heart grow less fond, or if they’re gradually realizing they’re the same person, or what. Are yours still flirty? Ours haven’t even had one of those exclamation-point conversations in what seems like weeks.

Butch:

This is generally the point in our conversations where I find myself fervently hoping we’re still talking about the same thing.

Let’s just move on here.

I haven’t had an exclamation point one in a while. Not since Scarlett hit Roderick with a nail bomb (so romantic). BUT I did have a couple of in game banter ones that were almost as awkward as flirting over mechanical chickens. Roderick gave Scarlett something from his inventory and Scarlett said “Do you want me to reach in your pocket to get it?” (HELLO!) and when we were in the mines Scarlett said something and Roderick responded “Do you want to be my canary?” which is by far the worst pick up line ever.

“Baby, you’re so beautiful, and your voice so melodious, and it would mean the world to me if you died easily so I can get the fuck out of here.”

I mean, Roderick….dude. Scarlett’s trying here! The outfit! The pocket thing! (HELLO!) And you refuse to take off your helmet and come up with lines like “Do you want to be my canary.”

Dude.

Feminina:

Ouch. Roderick! Man. That’s not how it’s done. “Do you want to be my canary” indeed. Scarlett would be better off with Wolgraff. At least he always politely awaits your query every time you accidentally call to him when you meant to be opening a chest or talking to a merchant or something. No carefully handwritten notes about canaries need apply.

Perhaps just as well our characters seem to be ignoring each other.

Butch:

I know. I’m finally getting to romance myself and I’m screwing it all up.

T SHIRT!!!!!

He should just stick to the basics: “Hey baby…let’s open the wine…get into some extra fights with mechanical chickens.”

Feminina:

Yeah! Come on, Roderick, it’s not mechanical poultry science. Stick with the things ladies love.

Fiery combat and summoning undead.

Butch:

At least he hasn’t resorted to the smelly panties.

Soup! He can do a nice soup. Maybe Scarlett likes soup!

Did you find the recipe for pumpkin soup? “It’s so much more than throwing a pumpkin in a pot! Oh…wait…it isn’t. Just throw a pumpkin in a pot.”

Oh Divinity you so silly.

Feminina:

I didn’t find that! But silly. So silly. Along the lines of the recipe for tomato sauce being a tomato and a hammer.

Make us laugh! Then confuse us. Then creep us out. That’s Divinity.

Butch:

HA! Is it? That’s kinda awesome.

I haven’t used crafting except to put arrowheads on arrow shafts (which is very, very handy), but I did make a couple pots of soup. You never know what will win the heart of a flirty, possibly crazy hottie who things leather mesh is armor. How does she get into that, anyway?

You see the screenshots? Damn, girl.

Feminina:

Both practical and comfortable. Exactly what I wear when I go wandering in the wilderness looking for things that want to kill me.

Butch:

And when you want to be fire resistant!

I’m trying to figure out if it would be more absurd if that was ice resistant.

Horizon was pretty silly baring Aloy’s midriff in the fire armor, but at least her snow armor looked warm.

Feminina:

Very, VERY fire resistant. One opposes fire in all its forms, with that outfit.

Butch:

(I’m doing this cuz we didn’t do nudity on Friday cuz we’re off lately. It’s all for the blog.)

The fact that they did bother to give the characters feet does make the whole “heels when naked” thing all the weirder.

All I can think of is that Scarlett does seem to have very tight ankles. Did you notice that even very sensible metal boots seem to have a bit of a heel when Scarlett or Bairdotr wears them? Maybe she’d be all up on tiptoe without the heels. Which would be very uncomfortable! It’s a practical thing. Have to feel comfy in romantic situations.

You know, I wonder what Bairdotr and Wolgraff have underneath it all. I bet Wolgraff is a yellow stars guy.

Better to Friday late than not to Friday at all.

T SHIRT!!!!

Or is this early Friday? I can’t tell.