Disco Elysium Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Jimmious]

Best Indie Game NOMINATION?
What kind of heresy is this? Which filth "won" the title??

 

[frajaq]

Uh-oh, turns out Disco Elysium is problematic https://www.gamesradar.com/pax-east-2018-best-games/3/

I have some concerns about Disco Elysium because its fictional world is made up of things both new and borrowed. Some are fun, like the popularity of disco music. Others are awful, like rampant racism and distressingly casual use of real-life slurs for gay people.

(tbf the article was "best of PAX East" so grats... I guess)

wow are you telling me we are going to meet shitty people doing detective work? imagine that

 

[Fenix]

This thread alone makes me ... happy? and forget all the sorrows and sadness.
I won't survive if something went wrong with codex or game.
And I know, that someday I won't survive something.
...

 

[Haba]

wow are you telling me we are going to meet shitty people doing detective work? imagine that

Spoiler

Yeah, like negros and spics.

I wonder how long before killing in games becomes problematic and awful. 2019?

 

[Prime Junta]

I won't survive if something went wrong with codex or game.

no pressure, guys

 

[Doktor Best]

This thread alone makes me ... happy? and forget all the sorrows and sadness.
I won't survive if something went wrong with codex or game.
And I know, that someday I won't survive something.
...

 

[Prime Junta]

Sucks to be you, Team Sisyphus.

 

[Background Character]

Great news everyone

 

[unfairlight]

Others are awful, like rampant racism and distressingly casual use of real-life slurs for gay people.

Sorry Kasparov, I am a believer in this game now. Let's kiss and make up, no homo.

 

[Kasparov]

Others are awful, like rampant racism and distressingly casual use of real-life slurs for gay people.

Sorry Kasparov, I am a believer in this game now. Let's kiss and make up, no homo.

What´s this kissing and hugging. I go all the way, man.

Sucks to be you, Team Sisyphus.

I think Robert just enjoys undermining my credibility. Also it seems like you have some real push with ZA/UM :D

 

[Prime Junta]

I think Robert just enjoys undermining my credibility. Also it seems like you have some real push in ZA/UM :D

It's refreshing to be the one causing turbulence for marketing reasons for once. Are you all really based in Britain now or some/most of you still in Tallinn?

 

[Kasparov]

I´m flying to London today - to get ready for the EGX Rezzed mayhem. A lot of us are still where you saw us last.

 

[Prime Junta]

I have a question about reactivity and C&C Kasparov, Marat Sar and others.

It's clear there's a ton of VtM:B style reactivity in Disco Elysium, in that your choices have a massive impact on how you perceive the world, how people in it react to you, and what approaches are available to you when exploring it. In VtM:B however your choices barely impact the main storyline at all, the only material differences appearing in the endgame video and whether you do only one or both of the endgame fight missions.

My question is, do your choices also impact the world and open up or close off areas or branches in the story? Examples of this type of C&C can be found in The Witcher 1 and 2, Arcanum, Fallout 1, 2, and NV, Gothic 2, and Dragon Age: Origins (among others).

 

[LESS T_T]

(He is publishing director of Larian and ex-Focus Home producer.)

 

[Alienman]

Whatever happens, do not let the Larian writers touch your game.

 

[frajaq]

But do take their money if possible, yes

 

[Fenix]

That's really me.

 

[agris]

Whatever happens, do not let the Larian writers touch your game.

edit: or their art directors and system designers.

 

[Marat Sar]

What happens if a character has very high suggestion skill but very low rethoric and encyclopedia skills? They just say wololo to persuade?

Suggestion is more of a sleazeball, a horny doormat and a fawner. It flatters and picks up on flattery. Can be quite useful from time to time. Can also leave a weird impression of you. Rhetoric is more of an annoying nitpicker who's haranguing with petty stuff. It's always argumentative and rarely persuasive. We don't really have a hard "persuade" gate to pass. You know, to reach the win condition in the quest. Things are more fluid. But having both Rhet and Sugg should have you covered for the diplomat. Especially if you throw in some Half Light for aggression, plus Empathy to pick up on signs. A dry Rhetoric guy -- expect to get into a lot of arguments if you don't have Empathy and Suggestion to butter things up. You know that 21 year old slightly drunk guy at the party? Smoking on the balcony, arguing with everyone because they just discovered politics? That guy may even score a win every now and then but people certainly don't think he's charismatic.

But wouldn't 1 intellect and 5 psyche guarantee this result? Basically a guy with 5 intellect and tons of rhethoric + encyclopedia but very low psyche is like an uninspiring politician I am curios about the opposite case.

A used car salesman who ends up hitting on the customer's wife basically. Still gets the car sold if they pick the right options.

I have a question about reactivity and C&C Kasparov, Marat Sar and others.

It's clear there's a ton of VtM:B style reactivity in Disco Elysium, in that your choices have a massive impact on how you perceive the world, how people in it react to you, and what approaches are available to you when exploring it. In VtM:B however your choices barely impact the main storyline at all, the only material differences appearing in the endgame video and whether you do only one or both of the endgame fight missions.

My question is, do your choices also impact the world and open up or close off areas or branches in the story? Examples of this type of C&C can be found in The Witcher 1 and 2, Arcanum, Fallout 1, 2, and NV, Gothic 2, and Dragon Age: Origins (among others).

Our main goal was to

1) Encourage at least 3 very juicy play-throughs
2) Make sure the guys who only have time for one get a full feeling experience too.

So -- we don't cut you out of any large areas, or make you miss interesting characters. But how you get to these places and people, what you get out of them, what loot (thougths, items) and what emotional content, is wildly varied. There is a central diplomatic scene where you interrogate two parties in parallel, that can be played through 4, maybe 5 times without seeing all of the secret paths in it. And there are smaller areas (with pretty art) you won't see without certain skills. Even idiotically expensive combat animation sequences you won't see, because you don't have high Physical Instrument. I think the game is option rich enough at all times so we don't have to get our replay value from Island A / Island B.

You asked if your choices impact the main storyline? A lot, but not in a macro-branching way. Mostly through what skills you have levelled up, and what style of play you favor (what your thought cabinet says about you: superstar cop / mazovian socio-economocs), what stupid or clever things you say. not "kill this guy / let him live" stuff. I like unexpected, pulling the rug out from under your feet style scenes because you said or did something stupid to a random person 14 hours ago. Not coming there and seeing that this person is now DEAD. I think we have some of the insanest micro-level c&c I've seen in a crpg, and decent macro. But you can't skip to the end or drastically shuffle the main story.

To use other games as signposts: there is no Witcher 2 town-fuckery. There are Fallout 1 / 2 style different solution paths to quests that then later open up different content in other quests (which the fallouts rarely if ever did). There is Planescape Torment style side-quest galore, with quests thematically coalescing into a single (personal) story. And there is one pretty drastic case of DA:O style oh my god werewolves / elves in this scene, because you did that before type C&C. But only that one -- because we wanted a very visible RED / BLUE moment in there too.

EDIT: you guys have to promise you will never ask me about C&C philosophy again if you want to see the game finished. I can go on forever about this stuff.

 

[Prime Junta]

EDIT: you guys have to promise you will never ask me about C&C philosophy again if you want to see the game finished. I can go on forever about this stuff.

OK, but I won't promise I won't ask about it in a post-release interview, assuming you haven't taken the money and run to a remote island in the South Pacific.

Also, thanks. Sounds splendid.

 

[Kasparov]

Here’s another writeup for your displeasure by someone who got to play the game. By Evan “kingbabyduck” Bourgault himself: LINK

Disco Elysium doesn't want to be that average run-of-the-mill RPG experience. Right from the get-go, you are transported into a world that looks like an oil canvas painted alongside a rusty big rig. Its protagonist is someone you have no idea if you should root for or attempt to force upon a downward spiral of debauchery and painful realization. And yet, even when the most rancid of ideas and motives start to ooze out, Zaum Studios manages to keep pulling you in with the world it has created.

 

[Kaivokz]

Not gonna lie... I'm getting pumped for this...

ZA/UM... what did you do to me...?

 

[ArchAngel]

This game just might be the new PST we have been waiting for.. it also might do as well financially
(considering shit like Fortnite and Blizzard stuff is most popular)

 

[Prime Junta]

It's funny what difference it makes if there's a bunch of people who do something because they really WANT to do something and believe they have something unique and important and interesting to say.

Rather than the usual focus-group-calibrated potboiler thing that is.

 

[ArchAngel]

It's funny what difference it makes if there's a bunch of people who do something because they really WANT to do something and believe they have something unique and important and interesting to say.

Rather than the usual focus-group-calibrated potboiler thing that is.

Yes and lets hope that approach manages to give them enough sales. We never got a new game from same team that brought us PST, but ZA/UM could give us more such awesome games.