Dishonored - game by Arkane studio

[Ladro]

Finished yesterday: AWESOME.

 

IMHO every bit of this game it's based on Thief world and gameplay. It's a brillant evolution of some features (especially the action fight possibilities) of our lovely game. For a taffer, this game it's like to back home in a new way. I liked a lot the level design, really awesome, you have to play/explore the majority of the level, but it's natural to do so, not forced. However the story, it's not at the level of the rest of the game, and it's a pity: and the end you have to

save a little girl

and that's not so interesting or original. It has be better to focus on the vengeance theme in the game, and also the supernatural/magic side of the game, that's really bad developed, IMHO.

 

The teleport it's a a cool idea in the gameplay, but at the end you really abuse of and it turn to be some kind of cheat, IMHO.

 

Anyway, really a great game. If you love Thief, this game from the guys of Arkane Studios (that really appear as a modern LG to me, if you see the stories of the two founder Colantonio and Smith...) it's like a special mod :-D

[Ladro]

For those who played this game, is it true just have 4 missions? What do you think of the game? Do you recommend to buy it?

 

1) Not, it's not true. It's not a "long" game, in the sense of the story. It's not Skyrim, to understand. IMHO it's balanced, but you can really replay a lot of time the levels

2) If you like Thief, you'll love it

3) Yes! But if you wait a little bit more, I think you'll save a lot of money especially if you buy the game in bundle with the new expansion ("City Trials" is out now, I think)

 

Another supercool thing of the game: the graphics it's really powerful and artistic, but you can play the game also with a really old computer!

[demagogue]

Did you notice any influence from our FM scene, considering Digital Nightfall and Purah were level designers?

 

Here's what they worked on & some thoughts:

 

Digi did the bridge and Purah did the mansion party. I thought Digi's was clever for making the bridge feel totally open on both sides, while still being able to portal off the other side whenever you're on one side. He did that IIRC by sidewinding the corridors from one side of the bridge to the other, like an S shape, so it felt open but could allow portals.

 

The mansion party I thought was very influenced by our scene, excepting all the NPCs, but sort of an homage to life of the party, and we've been doing mansion FMs forever. Purah's experience in Calendra's Legacy came out in his city work for that mission too.

 

 

I left it in spoilers since, when I brought up some questions to Digi before I played he said he wanted players to not think about the designers when they play the first time, so they just disappear & let the game speak for itself, which I agree with. But it's fun to think about and look for tokens of their personality or style after you've played.

[stumpy]

the bridge level looks like it was designed around medieval london bridge and the industrial revolution tower bridge, as tower bridge without its stone work is just a metal framework underneath, while london bridge used to have houses on it during the medieval period, london bridge is now in a desert in america, and tower bridge is still on the river in london.

[simplen00b]

Is there any way to turn/rotate left & right (as opposed to strafe) using keyboard commands? (Given that both this game and Mirror's Edge have only 'strafe' as a keyboard option, I suspect I already know the answer but hey, you never know....)

[Fidcal]

The lack of keyboard turning was what put me off Oblivion and a factor in my getting an Xbox a few years ago. You might google for mouse emulators I suppose or a joypad.

[simplen00b]

The lack of keyboard turning was what put me off Oblivion and a factor in my getting an Xbox a few years ago. You might google for mouse emulators I suppose or a joypad.

Glad it's not just me who misses keyboard turning. This & Mirror's Edge are the first 'modern' first-person-pov games I've bought for years so I'm evidently out of touch with these new-fangled gaming conventions. Re joypads - I did look at the Microsoft Xbox controller for PC on Amazon last night. May start a thread asking how others play games on their PC/laptop and see what suggestions they have.

[Obsttorte]

I always uses mouse and keyboard for games that have nothing to do with sports or so. I once tried out my gamepad on Skyrim, and find it terrible manuvering. Don't know how anybody can play such games like this, but maybe one has just to get used to.

 

RE joypad: It is really strange what names are given to those things by native speakers. In germany, we call those things gamepads. And mobile telephones are called handy here (so both english expression, but not the same as the english speaking people use).

 

I have an XBOX PC controller.It's a logitech F510. I think I paid 30-40 € for it when I bought it three or four years ago, and it is still working pretty smooth. What is quite good about it is that only the front positioned shoulder pads are buttons, the two behind them are whips. This is quite nice when playing race games. In addition you can switch between direct and xinput via a lever on the backside. There is also an wireless version of this model, but I think it is a bit more expensive.

 

The cable length is two meters and the force feedback is relatively stronge and fine-tuned. It is suited for large hands.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Obsttorte

[simplen00b]

The cable length is two meters and the force feedback is relatively stronge and fine-tuned. It is suited for large hands.

Force feedback I don't really care about but 'suited for large hands' sounds good. (I think this is why standard WASD-style playing doesn't work for me - I have to contort my fingers to hover over the right keys and it's Quite Painful.)

 

Anyway, have started a separate thread about this (which hopefully won't descend into a KBM vs gamepad flame war)

[simplen00b]

Finally getting the chance to spend some time on this. Really, really struggled at first to get to grips with the way they implemented stealth, but remembered how difficult I found it to learn Thief-style stealth in the first place and stuck with it. So far: mostly enjoying it, sometimes a great deal, especially the outdoor missions (yes, the vertical gameplay is great). No, it doesn't have the burrow-into-your-bones, total immersion, I'm-not-just-playing-this-game-I'm-in-it quality of Thief, but - it's fun (albeit quite dark, twisted fun at times). I'm happy.

 

Confession: I sneered, scoffed, scorned and derided the very concept of DarkVision when I saw a video of it in action; after continually getting busted on indoor missions when I just couldn't tell whether a guard was in sight of me taking down another guard, I relented and now can't live without it. IMHO: -

 

Dark Vision = hiding in the shadows/I can see you but you can't see me (but only on level one; see below)

Blink = rope arrow (but can be misused)

Agility = great fun all round, despite feeling like I'm tied to a giant invisible kangaroo at times.

 

I got almost to the end of the masked ball mission but then decided to restart from scratch. Reason: I had got the Dark Vision level two upgrade. Awful. Like having TDM show_loot on permanently. Seeing living things - fine. Seeing every single 'useful item' - too hand-holding. (Maybe there was an .ini file tweak that would have downgraded it without restarting, but couldn't find anything on any forums. No-one seemed interested in downgrading any powers for some reason.)

 

Playing on hard (I'm a slow learner), gonna see how far I can get with level one Blink, DV and Agility and no other powers.

 

EDIT: Just found this on the TTLG DH thread. I cried laughing: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/12/24/the-text-adventures-that-never-were-dishonored/

Edited January 31, 2013 by simplen00b

[simplen00b]

Also came across this (Three Extreme Approaches to DH):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ22nBdeugY

He follows up his "Oh Dear What A Terrible Accident" idea with his 'No Trace' series, which starts here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXv748NFKVY

Some of his assassinations are ingenious. Voiceover also very funny.

[simplen00b]

New DLC announced: http://uk.ign.com/ar...a132e6410000005

[demagogue]

our own (well, of TTLG fame) digital nightfall did work on this (mapping I imagine). so that's another plus.

[Shadowhide]

the new DLC is better than the original game,but its way too short (took me 4 hours in complete stealth along with getting almost every rune and finding non lethal solutions)

 

its harder than the original game,Daud plays differnt from Corvo,not sure if its true but he feels a bit weaker and slower than Corvo,he also speaks along the way just like Garrett

story is very intriguing,cant wait for the final DLC.Hope it will be longer

[Professor Paul1290]

I'm only near the beginning of the Knife of Dunwall DLC so far, but I did find something rather amusing.

 

*Spoiler Warning*

 

There is this one guard rather early in the first proper mission that has an interesting pattern. He's in the room with the safe right below and towards the factory from the room where you get a note from Granny asking for a whale eye, and. There's a door to the area in front of the factory and a balcony overlooking the water.

 

This guard is rather interesting because he has a rather complex patrol pattern despite the fact he spends almost all his time in that one room. He goes between a point outside the door (sometimes talking with the guard outside), standing at the balcony, standing at the table in the middle of the room, and standing near the safe.

Most of his patrol (I'd guess around 3/4 of it) takes him between the balcony and the point just outside the door and the other portion (guessing the other 1/4 of the patrol) takes him to the other side of the middle table and to the safe.

 

Now the portion that takes him between the door and the balcony is a bit interesting because he goes back and forth a few times and it goes through a couple variations in that time. Half the time he makes it all the way from the balcony to the door then back again.

 

The other half of the time he doesn't make it all the way from the balcony to the door. He looks like he's going to go all the way to the door, but in the middle he suddenly turns 180 and goes back to the balcony. No, he doesn't stop, and stare at the door for a bit, then turn around as you'd expect the guards to do most of the time. He literally does a fast 180 turn mid-walk and goes back the balcony without stopping. This bit seems explicitly designed to have a chance of instantly catching people who try to trail him as he leaves the balcony.

 

This guy almost caught me on my first run, though luckily before trying to enter that room I noticed his oddly inconsistent interval at the balcony and that kind of tipped me off that something was really "off" about him. Because of that I approached him with more caution than usual and ended up being thankful I did when I saw how weird his pattern really was.

 

(I'm actually recording this run and will have it uploaded when I'm finished and I remember making some rather funny comments about this guard in the recording.)

Edited April 19, 2013 by Professor Paul1290

[PPoe]

Ive finally find some time to play this, Im on the bridge and there is only thing I can say: AMAZING..!

 

Im playing without killing, tryiing to get everywhere and collect everything and have so much fun.. The mission design is perfect. And I love blink=)

[demagogue]

Yes, this is the best game I played in the last year.

[Professor Paul1290]

I got distracted by other games and stuff for a while, but I've gotten back to finishing The Knife of Dunwall DLC.

 

I'm on the third mission and at this point I think I can say that I like The Knife of Dunwall's missions more than the main campaign.

 

Daud's toolset is a lot like Corvo's but it's even more stealth-oriented. I'm especially liking the placable stun mines, dust bombs, and other non-lethal options he has.

 

I also really like the guard patrols in this DLC. I mentioned earlier that I suspected some of the guard patterns were either very complex or have some random bits in them. At this point I'm starting leaning towards the latter because the guards have continued to be unusually unpredictable in this DLC compared to the main game.

There are also often more guards in this DLC per given area than in the main game. The Dishonored main campaign often had mostly lone guards and guards in pairs, The Knife of Dunwall leans more towards having guards in groups of 2 or 3 or more which often makes them more difficult to isolate and take out one by one.

 

I've been playing on Hard since the Very Hard mode is locked the first time through, though Hard in the DLC seems just as difficult or maybe more difficult than Very Hard in the main campaign.

 

On a side note, I've stopped recording this first run as it was getting a bit too finicky trying to record a blind run this long and it's been impairing my enjoyment of my first run of game somewhat. (also since a lot of people play and record this game already anyway, it's not as high a priority for me as my TDM or ArmA videos)

 

Here's what I did record though:

Edited June 9, 2013 by Professor Paul1290

[stumpy]

the only thing I've noticed in the patrol routes in the dlc is that you can actually stand in a couple of spots each area and every guard in those area's will walk through one of those two spots if you knockout the guard who previously walked through that spot, then the group of guards will reduce by one as they fill the empty patrol route. so in the end you can clear an area of guards, and they even placed the big trash can's near those spots for easy unconscious body storage.

[Oldjim]

I just found out about this game - I don't know how I missed it - but at £7.99 it seems to be a snip http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/dishonored-pc-cd-key

Any comments

[Sir Taffsalot]

Great game. Definately check it out. I think the best thing about Dishonoured for me was its ability to create a very unique and beautiful setting that I could completely immerse myself in which is exactly why I think I fell in love with T1.

 

I really hope there is a sequel but it looks like Arkane Studios are content to just keep releasing DLC.

[Professor Paul1290]

the only thing I've noticed in the patrol routes in the dlc is that you can actually stand in a couple of spots each area and every guard in those area's will walk through one of those two spots if you knockout the guard who previously walked through that spot, then the group of guards will reduce by one as they fill the empty patrol route. so in the end you can clear an area of guards, and they even placed the big trash can's near those spots for easy unconscious body storage.

 

Hahahaha I love that. XD

 

I did notice that the guards would "fill in" for each other, but since I was trying to minimize knock-outs on my first run I didn't think to try to exploit the behavior that way.

[Oldjim]

I am a miserable failure at stealthing judging by the parts up to getting out of the sewers

Now I have the crossbow perhaps I will improve but I doubt it

[simplen00b]

If you try to use Thief stealth tactics in DH, you'll get clobbered constantly/pretty frustrated (I did anyway). Shadows don't hide you. Best tactic when possible (and it often is possible, especially outside but even indoors quite often) is

 

get high up

or, hide behind things (duh).

It took me a while but I got used to the DH stealth system eventually. (I got borderline obsessed with the game for a few months; ended up having other issues with it which make it unlikely I'll ever play it again, but that's another story...)

[Arcturus]

Dishonered can be played for free till the end of the week on Steam.