Dishonored; Why are more people not talking about it? [Archive]

Seatbelt

2014-01-20, 06:32 PM

The game was fine. The setting is cool. The stealth is neat. The magic powers were fun. But you're confusing a game with open-ended problems and an open-ended game. "How do I kill the next mission objective" is not the same as "what should I make my character do next?"

Dishonored is on rails as much as any other game is. Skyrim and such have rails too, but there are SO MANY TRAINS to choose from.

We played it. Some of us played it enough to get all four endings. Some of us may have not yet beaten it... But we all played the same game. My Skyrim was not your Skyrim and your Mass Effect was not my Mass Effect. But we both eliminated all the targets in Dishonored.

Manticoran

2014-01-20, 06:37 PM

Problem is it's nowhere near as open world as Skyrim, and there's not nearly as much modding support. Dishonored will always just be Dishonored, and won't be Skywind or anything like that kind of crazy ****.

shadow_archmagi

2014-01-20, 06:52 PM

I've just finished my fourth Run through of Dishonored, finally getting the good ending, and also just Finished Knife of Dunwall.

Why does this game not have a much larger fanbase? It's like Skyrim, or Assassin's creed, but so much better. I've never seen a game with more ways to accomplish an objective than this.

So, General Dishonored discussion?

I'll agree with you that Dishonored is gorgeous and amazing and I love it.

I'll echo what everyone else has said: Skyrim has a huge world and most people sink hundreds of hours into it. I'd be surprised if I broke fifty hours in Dishonored. You can't really keep having conversations about Dishonored for years and years after the game came out without having a million things to discuss.

Also, there was plenty of buzz about Dishonored in the posh games-as-art community. The dual-nature of man as symbolized by the wearing of the mask, Corvo's power to judge due to his role as an outsider, the core conflict between wanting to tear down a society which is inevitably corrupt versus the desire to make the world a better place for your daughter...

ALSO

On my third DLC playthrough, I was so happy.

On my first playthrough, I was super stealth, and so when my 2nd in command betrayed me she was like "You're becoming a wuss, Daud! You don't have what it takes to kill anymore!"

On my second playthrough, I was super murder, and so when she betrayed me she was like "You're losing your touch, Daud! You used to be able to kill a man without ruffling his hair. Now you're just another butcher. What happened to grace, to skill?"

On my third playthrough, I killed some, spared some, used my best judgement. When it came time for the betrayal, she's just like "Daud, I... have no real complaints about your handling of recent events. Good work as always. Can't believe I was thinking about betraying you."

HOW OFTEN IS IT THAT A GAME LETS YOU PLEASE AN NPC

Guancyto

2014-01-20, 07:40 PM

Played it twice. It's neat.

However, the characters and story aren't colorful or compelling enough for it to be more than just a murder-mode stealth puzzle, honestly.

(Also the bad endings are way better; Kingsparrow Island Low Chaos was kind of boring.)

The fan analysis surrounding the game is way more interesting than the storyline itself. (I particularly liked the one that talked about Corvo and the Loyalists in the context of British honor culture as compared to the contemporaneous Italian culture of vendetta.)

Landis963

2014-01-20, 08:15 PM

The fan analysis surrounding the game is way more interesting than the storyline itself. (I particularly liked the one that talked about Corvo and the Loyalists in the context of British honor culture as compared to the contemporaneous Italian culture of vendetta.)

Did you see the fan theory that the Outsider is actually trying to keep the world from dissolving into the Void, and that granting powers not only provides him with an diverting sideshow, but also allows him to keep a better handle on its stability?

warty goblin

2014-01-20, 08:21 PM

It came out what, two years ago now? Most two year old games don't get talked about that much. It also featured lengthy periods of people talking, and goddamn were those terrible. I never got that far mind, it felt like it was way too designed - guards having the conversations you needed to hear, vast systems of ductwork allowing easy traversal of entire buildings, etc.

And crouching in the undergrowth, watching between the leaf sprites as two guards repeat the same hand gestures at each other and discuss EXACTLY WHERE YOU CAN FIND THE OBJECTIVE and ALSO WE ARE EVIL is the worst way to deliver information to a player since the audio log.

Destro_Yersul

2014-01-20, 08:23 PM

Cristo Meyers

2014-01-20, 08:26 PM

It was amusing, at least somewhat interesting, and a pretty good game all around. It just lacked something to make it stick. The perception that it didn't live up to it's pre-release hype didn't help matters any.

IthilanorStPete

2014-01-20, 09:41 PM

Echoing what others have said, it's a relatively short game whose selling point is its gameplay more than its narrative or themes. It's a load of fun to play, but there's only so much you can say about Blinking around, freezing time, and killing guards.

Kesnit

2014-01-20, 09:55 PM

I got it for the 360, and my wife and I both played it. Due to time issues, neither of us have finished it. The I picked it up on the Steam Winter Sale, but haven't gotten to it yet.

I like the challenge of doing pure stealth. It can get tedious, but in the end, it is worth it.

Guancyto

2014-01-20, 11:12 PM

One thing about the gameplay, I don't know if this has been mitigated any in the DLC, but... height.

Height is stupidly overpowered in Dishonored. This and the enormous number of super convenient ledges and improved Blink letting you use them willy-nilly... the game really ceases to be nearly as challenging when you figure out that nobody ever looks up.

Did you see the fan theory that the Outsider is actually trying to keep the world from dissolving into the Void, and that granting powers not only provides him with an diverting sideshow, but also allows him to keep a better handle on its stability?

Not fan theories, those are a dime a dozen and Dishonored doesn't lend itself well to particularly interesting epileptic trees.

Here, I'll link you the piece. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/criticalintel/10133-Corvo-Is-Not-An-Honorable-Man)

(Even though iirc the final verdict is that there's kind of the shades of this conflict, but the game doesn't execute it well at all.)

Kaun

2014-01-20, 11:30 PM

it was a fun game but i couldn't be bothered finishing it in the end. It became a bit rinse and repeat by the end and the story never grabbed me.

Landis963

2014-01-21, 01:58 AM

One thing about the gameplay, I don't know if this has been mitigated any in the DLC, but... height.

Height is stupidly overpowered in Dishonored. This and the enormous number of super convenient ledges and improved Blink letting you use them willy-nilly... the game really ceases to be nearly as challenging when you figure out that nobody ever looks up.

There are a couple of places in the DLC where Daud can be spotted by an inconvenient guy looking out a 3rd-story window, but yeah, height is OP.

Not fan theories, those are a dime a dozen and Dishonored doesn't lend itself well to particularly interesting epileptic trees.

True, but that's one of the more interesting of the lot I've found, anyway. :smallsigh:

Here, I'll link you the piece. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/criticalintel/10133-Corvo-Is-Not-An-Honorable-Man)

(Even though iirc the final verdict is that there's kind of the shades of this conflict, but the game doesn't execute it well at all.)

I've read that, and it is very interesting, esp. with regard to how Treavor Pendleton acts throughout the vanilla game. However, I would argue that it is a fan theory like all the others (albeit a much more in-depth and well-researched one than the contents of your average TV tropes WMG page). Unless I'm forgetting something and the guy who wrote that article was in a position to affect the lore.

Avilan the Grey

2014-01-21, 02:29 AM

I bought it when it was on sale on Steam when it was still fairly new and I have yet to start it past the intro.

Not sure why, it just seems virtually every other game I have is more interesting. The same happened with Deus Ex: Human Revolution (although I played that further, about half-way through): Mass Effect 2 was so much more fun to play, that I forgot about the game and have never played it since.

factotum

2014-01-21, 02:45 AM

Dishonored was interesting, but IMHO it failed in the primary point of a stealth game--namely, that your character is fragile and you really, desperately don't want to be seen because you know you'll be handed your butt in a sling if you are. Corvo is simply a killing machine who is perfectly capable of slaughtering his way through any number of guards; I remember when I inadvertently alerted the guards to my presence in the mission where you go back to the pub after being betrayed, and I just stood in the door of my old room killing them as they came up to the doorway. There must have been 8 or 9 bodies there by the time I finished. In addition, the levels always felt fairly enclosed and there weren't nearly as many ways to get through them as you thought there were.

Don't get me wrong, it was a fun game--beat the main game in both low and high chaos, and both DLCs in low because I'd got a bit sick of killing things by then--but even then I reckon my total playtime was no more than 30 hours, which puts it nowhere near Skyrim (200 hours at time of writing).

Eldan

2014-01-21, 04:36 AM

I'll agree with that. I did a playthrough where I simply walked up to every guard I saw and shot him in the face with a pistol. Worked pretty well, in the first half or so.

Driderman

2014-01-21, 12:14 PM

I played it on Xbox 360. No Point of View scaling. My eyes were trapped in a small box with no peripheral vision. All the awesome ambience and Deus Ex-reminiscent mission structures couldn't save it from that.

Landis963

2014-01-21, 02:56 PM

I'll agree with that. I did a playthrough where I simply walked up to every guard I saw and shot him in the face with a pistol. Worked pretty well, in the first half or so.

Ah yes, the "Loudest Man in Dunwall" playthrough. One of the few variants that lasts through the entire game ("No Magic" runs up against a too-long gap when scaling the Dunwall Tower waterlock, "Oh dear what a terrible accident" falls apart after the conspirators turn on you).

BTW, I'm thinking of a High-Chaos, "Mostly Flesh and Steel" playthrough for my next run (to be played in tandem with a Low-Chaos playthrough of the DLCs). Are there any suggestions as to how I go about that?

obryn

2014-01-21, 03:35 PM

Every time I play Dishonored, it makes me realize how much I'd rather be stealthing and sniping through Skyrim. :smallsmile:

Calemyr

2014-01-21, 03:50 PM

I really enjoyed the game, particularly the fact that the non-lethal routes for most targets was often the cruelest. It really fit a perfect trifecta of guile, malice, and a focus on the city's best interests (low chaos). Since I read Corvo as the girl's father, I just envisioned this deep, consuming rage and desire to make them suffer curtailed by a need to keep his daughter's realm as intact as possible. The non-lethal solutions were wonderful for that, and honestly I always felt like a crossbow bolt in the back of the head would have been kinder than the things I actually did to them. And they were often so inventive...

The downside of it is that the game has only limited replayability. I could never bring myself to take the chaos path seriously and I explored most of the creative solutions the first time around. Once you've crashed the same party six different ways, the charm largely wears off.

The biggest gripe I had was that I wish you could have equipped the heart in your left hand. I never used the sword, so it was always annoying that I had to juggle everything I did in one hand while the other did nothing. Well, that sword's unfolding animation was pretty cool, so not nothing, I guess.

I will say one of my happiest finds for Skyrim were based on Dishonered. Outsider magic and Corvo's sword are too cool to limit to just one game.

shadowxknight

2014-01-21, 03:51 PM

What I really liked about the game is the setting that they created. I can't wait for a sequel or spinoff in the same world so more of it can be explored.

Callos_DeTerran

2014-01-21, 04:38 PM

I know why I'm not talking about it, I couldn't be bothered to finish it. The story honestly didn't do anything for me and the gameplay was interesting, but I was given a whole bunch of interesting murder gadgets then whapped on the nose when I wanted to use them and not turn the world into a cesspool (nor did there seem to be a good connection between killing people and the world conversely becoming worse). Honestly, it's already a cesspool and there's not nearly enough of a good reason in the intro to make me want to change it. I'm a spiteful person, but the beginning, surprisingly, did nothing to actually make me feel spiteful and the forced attempt to make me bond to the little girl or care about the voiceless protagonist just...made me all the more bored. And if a game bores me, I don't play it.

Guancyto

2014-01-21, 09:37 PM

Yeah. I think if Dishonored had spent more quality time (both in development and in game) on their characters, including the main character, the story would be much more poignant.

As it is, most of the development characters get is when you're going to murder them (or squeezing the heart for info), and the betrayals that occur are just kind of... flat.

I mean, "it'll grant us legitimacy"? Really? Not "he's going to murder us all if we keep him around and we're starkers terrified"?

Seatbelt

2014-01-21, 09:57 PM

legitimacy is actually a really big deal in real world politics and it's a completely rational and reasonable motivation.

Guancyto

2014-01-21, 10:27 PM

It sure is. Particularly in the day and age that the game is set.

But it's not compelling. It's not a very 'human' reason.

A big betrayal needs to be dramatic! Even if your character is coldly set aside like a set of left-handed golf clubs, they really need to sell it better than Dishonored did.

Also, it doesn't really make sense in the sense of keeping you alive. If a guy wants a trophy for his new regime, he can't do much better than the assassin's head on display.

If he's just starkers terrified you'll murder everyone, that's when dumping in the river and whaler assassins and whatnot become much more reasonable and rational.

Landis963

2014-01-22, 12:41 AM

Also, it doesn't really make sense in the sense of keeping you alive. If a guy wants a trophy for his new regime, he can't do much better than the assassin's head on display.

If he's just starkers terrified you'll murder everyone, that's when dumping in the river and whaler assassins and whatnot become much more reasonable and rational.

What they should have done is have another of the conspirators, say, Pendleton, counsel, say, Havelock that Corvo could be kept alive as a boogeyman for people to rally against in Low Chaos, which would justify the just-under-lethal dosage of poison as well. (Esp. if Emily's going to be the puppet empress - The Rightful Heir returns and rallies the people against the Hated Masked Assassin) As for High Chaos, they can just be starkers terrified, and want to wash their hands of him ASAP.

Of course, there's some kinks to that idea, but it's better than what we got.

factotum

2014-01-22, 02:47 AM

which would justify the just-under-lethal dosage of poison as well.

That's justified by the poison being administered by Samuel Beechworth, who isn't as corrupt as the rest of them--although the fact he shortly thereafter betrays you if you're playing High Chaos doesn't make any sense.

I think I generally agree with Guancyto--the characterisation in the game wasn't stellar, and it was difficult to care about anybody in it. Samuel was probably the most relatable character in the game, and his entire purpose was to transport you to the next mission!

Whoracle

2014-01-22, 11:18 AM

Tried to play it, got bored about 3 hours in. I blame my expectations, though, not the game. I expected "Thief light", which it isn't. The story wasn't bad, it just didn't catch me, the gameplay was ok, but too unfocused for my tastes, and it generally feels like a badly executed Thief run. Also, the various powers made me feel too powerful, too fast.

Just my 2 cents.

Closet_Skeleton

2014-01-22, 11:50 AM

I gave up after barely starting it. I mean to go back but just haven't felt like it,

The story just isn't arranged in a way to make me care and its morally confused in a bad way rather than an interesting way.

The art design is way too close to Half-life 2 to the point that it really doesn't feel like a pseudo-historical world. Also why is this small island chain an 'empire', that doesn't seem thought out at all.

Landis963

2014-01-22, 12:25 PM

The art design is way too close to Half-life 2 to the point that it really doesn't feel like a pseudo-historical world. Also why is this small island chain an 'empire', that doesn't seem thought out at all.

Because there's more than one nation ruled over by the person on the throne of Dunwall. That's the simple answer.

Calemyr

2014-01-22, 12:34 PM

Because there's more than one nation ruled over by the person on the throne of Dunwall. That's the simple answer.

Right. An empire is a collecting of distinctive cultures pulled together under the direction of one dominant culture. Often these non-dominant cultures are included in an empire primarily to serve as a buffer region between the dominant culture and potential threats. It has nothing to do with actual size or power or evil. (Seriously, fictional empires are evil almost as reliably as people with goatees.)

Whoracle

2014-01-22, 12:51 PM

[...](Seriously, fictional empires are evil almost as reliably as people with goatees.)

Hey! That's goateeism right there. Watch it! *strokes magnificent goatee*

huttj509

2014-01-22, 02:15 PM

Right. An empire is a collecting of distinctive cultures pulled together under the direction of one dominant culture. Often these non-dominant cultures are included in an empire primarily to serve as a buffer region between the dominant culture and potential threats. It has nothing to do with actual size or power or evil. (Seriously, fictional empires are evil almost as reliably as people with goatees.)

exactly. I mean, IRL, we'd never have a world-spanning empire ruled by a relatively small island nation, right?

You know, I think the sun STILL never sets on the British Empire due to a small island in the pacific.

IthilanorStPete

2014-01-22, 02:28 PM

exactly. I mean, IRL, we'd never have a world-spanning empire ruled by a relatively small island nation, right?

You know, I think the sun STILL never sets on the British Empire due to a small island in the pacific.

The problem is more that there isn't a huge world to be ruled over by the Empire. The Isles seem fairly small, and the only land outside of them is Pandyssia, which hasn't been explored or settled much.

Calemyr

2014-01-22, 02:46 PM

The problem is more that there isn't a huge world to be ruled over by the Empire. The Isles seem fairly small, and the only land outside of them is Pandyssia, which hasn't been explored or settled much.

If there's not much of a world and she rules most of it, she still rules most of the world.

Closet_Skeleton

2014-01-22, 07:23 PM

exactly. I mean, IRL, we'd never have a world-spanning empire ruled by a relatively small island nation, right?

The King-Emperor of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Empire of India was not the Emperor of an island nation. The British Empire did not have an Emperor, neither did the Spanish Empire or the (non-Napoleonic) French Empire as all of these consisted of over-seas territories not part of the crown of the Kingdom that controlled them.

This is the Dishonoured World map

http://www.gameinformer.com/p/dishonored_world_map.aspx

There are no national borders on that map, so maybe Dunwall is the capital of a large realm that extends beyond The Isles, but for all we know the Empress' country is just Dunwall, even if we can assume she controls the whole islands

An empire is a collecting of distinctive cultures pulled together under the direction of one dominant culture.

An Empire can be a lot of different things.

An Empire in name only is still an Empire, but the Dishonoured setting doesn't seem to have a why, its just set in a country City with an Empress.

Destro_Yersul

2014-01-22, 10:02 PM

There are no national borders on that map, so maybe Dunwall is the capital of a large realm that extends beyond The Isles, but for all we know the Empress' country is just Dunwall, even if we can assume she controls the whole islands.

Her full title is 'Empress of the Isles.' It's safe to say she controls all of them.

factotum

2014-01-23, 02:41 AM

Of course, there's no scale on that map, so it's impossible to tell just how big the Isles are--if Pandyssia is the size of Africa then those isles would actually be pretty large. Plus, as the British Empire proved, you don't have to be big if you have superior technology to everyone else!

Jermell

2014-01-25, 02:05 PM

The game was pretty awesome. Finished low chaos and I really liked it despite a bit of lackluster characterization. The reason people don't talk about it more is because it's a 2 year old game with limited replayability.

Triaxx

2014-01-25, 06:04 PM

Rather than expecting Thief Lite, I was expecting Deus Ex Steampunk edition and that's precisely what I got. Everything was kind of predictable, but at the end of the day, I kind of enjoyed that freedom of not having to care WHY I was rescuing the princess, and instead being able to focus on the actual rescuing.

Rodin

2014-01-25, 09:35 PM

I played the game as a Thief-type game, and was not disappointed. It was very enjoyable for the run through the game that I had.

The big problem was already mentioned above though - Blink is just SO broken in a stealth type game unless you have characters that can counter it or AI that is capable of dealing with a character teleporting all over the place.

The aesthetic was great, and there were a lot of positives in the level design that the Thief series could learn from (especially the 3rd game, less so the 2nd). But at the end of the day, it was not Thief and I'm far less interested in playing an assassin than I am in playing a rogue-ish thief who steals everything that isn't nailed down and on fire.