Greedfall

Regarding morality systems being too simplistic these days;

In Inquisition, one of the options to convince Leliana not to kill the man who betrayed her agents, was to point out that he had information that could still prove useful to them.

Sparing him from a quick death was not really the "saintly" option here, as his life will most likely only continue as long as he has actionable intelligence to give them.

None of the Dragon Age games had a morality system. BioWare even dropped it for MEA, which means SWTOR is the only game that still use it and even that game recent content has gotten way more grey.

Anyway, I don't think GreedFall has a morality system as Spiders never used one. Not even in Bound by Flame, despite the demon possession progression setup being perfect for it.

Problem is, there's no single imperialist mindset. If we take the relationship between Europeans and Native Americans as a reference point, it varied wildly from place to place. Mexico and Peru had large pre-columbian populations that survived the demographic collapse and were subsequently co-opted by the Spanish viceroyalties. In Canada, the French and the locals got along fairly well, probably because the former were mostly men, were interested in proselytizing, and relied on trade with the latter for survival. In both of these cases, miscegenation was commonplace and at least tolerated. In what would become the United States, the modus operandi was to exterminate or drive off the locals, but that's not necessarily the norm.

So I finally got caught up on some news which has dropped recently and it looks pretty...good.

Positives:
Once again it certainly looks...ambitious. It really has a Witcher 3 feel to it...just set in more modern ages, kind of a hodgepodge of technology and stuff which is something I have been hoping for and am even trying to do on my own. But that is neither here nor there.

The combat looks potentially good. It will be curious though if they can still pull it off though given it looked maybe a bit on the clunky side...and we all know how I hate clunky combat.

I do like the idea of giving us several different paths to try and solve our problems, diplomacy, combat, and trying to navigate inter connected conflicts and complicated political machnations. I think it would be a great idea if games gave us more options then 'kill everyone in sight'.

Minor detail: I really like the idea of the game giving us a 'travel time' on the Fast Travel. Its something I've always wanted to know ever since I picked up on Skyrim exactly how much time you would need to go between spot A and spot B.

Another potential minor detail: I think I like the implications of what i saw...but I'm not sure. Basically it seems you can go to your camp as its loading and mess around with things. Don't know how much you will be able to do in this loading state and it might get old...but its a nice idea to actually be able to do *something* while the game loads.

That crafting system looks...familiar.

Could be something where their ambition does not live up to their execution...but I do certainly like the idea, possibly, of 'every quest has importance'. Of course this could mean there are literally no side quests/ activities...which I wouldn't neccessarily approve of, and it would be really bizarre for a modern RPG...or the intent is to have these quests flesh out the setting/ plot which is something more up my alley. Though while I like the idea this also sounds like marketing speak where practically everyone says this.

Negatives:

No bows

Listicle Dialogue choices.

Only 5 companions and able to take two of them out into the field seems risky given all they are promising. I mean of course this could be another example of market speak but things like perma death and betrayal could leave you without a party very quickly.

General Notes: Obviously huge differences between playing and seeing something but this game could actually be hugely important to the genre going forward and might be worth a pick up. The question is can they pull off all these systems fluidly because with my playing ACOD of late I've been wanting a tactical party based game with the stealth mechanics from HZD or AC: OD. The question is can any one game have all *that* in it because people seem to be of the opinion a game can either be tactical or it can be an ARPG not both. It can either have stealth in it...or not. But Greedfall the gameplay demo shows exactly what I want...a party based tactical/ action RPG with stealth mechanics. Exactly what I want in DA 4...the question is how well all these systems will work together...and I need to play the game for that.

Other than that I am really excited about alterntive ways to solve problems with dialogue and stuff. We need more of that in our RPGs and not less and especially after having some dipping of the toes with that in Odyssey...using Paralysis arrows and knocking people out...it would be nice to intimidate or charm our way through problems more. Maybe tieing that into attribute scores like...well I'm sure you get the idea.

More interview from the escapism magazine (not the same as Kymira posted and they got the release date wrong they fixed it).

It mention in it that GreedFall budget is 5m Euros. For comparison, POE2:Deadfire had a budget of 14m (double POE1's budget) and Divinity Original Sin 1 was around 6m. I'm not sure of France game developer salary, but that's a small budget even for AA.

The second female companion (male only romance option)

Someone on Reddit made a pic with 3 companion stats window, probably picked from a fast sequences in a recent video.

Some interesting things in there. I wonder if magic rings are required to cast magic (they are part of the skill web like other weapons). Afra never looks happy too.

Looks like GreedFall have caught the eye of the mainstream with the latest trailer.

I've been looking around the internet about GreedFall and many new people just learned about the game. But at the same time some people's behavior regarding the game are so weird to me. It's clear now that the mainstream have started to associate aesthetics with complete game feature list and content based on similar looking game already released.

There is a bunch of people who think GreedFall is a new Assassin's Creed (or AC clone), because it looks like Black Flag. The 17th century aesthetics is enough to conclude the game is going to be an AC game apparently. The fact that the gameplay trailers are nothing like AC gameplay doesn't appear to matter at all.

I've seen people call the game a Souls-like and I'm all  . 

The best though is the people who think the game is being made by BioWare/CDProjekt with the full AAA budget as this is the only way I can understanding them saying things like "DAO was released 10 years ago, this game should have more content/features than it" or them expecting a bigger better The Witcher 3 otherwise they aren't going to bother with it.


The game reception is just going to be painful to watch now... I kinda feel sorry for Spiders now.

I saw it described as "a new pirates game" in a few places using AC Black Flag or Risen2/3 as a comparative. It's one of the most blatant aesthetic  = content/gameplay/features jump people are doing. I can't wait for them to realize they are going to be mostly running around an island trying to find a cure for a plague and navigating the local political power keg instead. 

Speaking of the plague, I was looking at screenshots of the game and Síora seems to have the "mark" in some of them but not all. Then, I started to wonder if the malichor "plague" isn't actually a form of ascension into "plant people" found on the island. Which would explain why you are sent there to cure it...