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xyzzysqrlLast time, Ashe fought a draenai and wandered all over Hollywood looking for terrible porn. Now she stands at the threshhold...
So the thing... hi, by the way ... the thing about this next part of the game is that it's the Nosferatu Warrens. Over the years I've seen a LOT of reactions to this section. I've seen people claim they replay the game right up to this bit and then quit and uninstall. I've seen people claim it regularly stops them dead. I've seen people advocate noclip to just get through as fast as possible. I've seen people scream and sob and rend garments.
I have seen very, very few people claim they ENJOY this part, or that they enjoyed doing it more than once. I have never done it. So... Time to see what the big deal is. Since this isn't exactly an RP-heavy zone (it is literally all combat and physical puzzles) I'll be back in a bit.
Mood Music while you wait?
Okay, having danced the great grim fuck-you fandango that is the Nosferatu Warrens, I can start to pin down why people hate it.
A: It's a sewer level. "Oh huzzah, let's climb down into the tight, dark, enclosed spaces that smell like poo and fight horrible monsters that cause septic wounds while we wade around in murky water!" joyfully exclaimed nobody ever in human history.
B: It's a COMPLICATED sewer level. While it's pretty linear, and there aren't TOO many ways to get hopelessly lost, you still end up running the full gambit of ideas. You have to clamber through tight little pipes, shove barrels into whirring blades, fiddle with a complex pump system that provides too little feedback about when it's a good idea to try swimming, futz with switches, evade boss fights, get chased by giant hideous monsters while solving a maze ...
C: There are some REALLY ICKY monsters down there. Tzimisce creatures are just kinda shoved together with no regard for how they're supposed to function, as far as I can tell. Up until now, the enemies have largely made sense, but I'm not real clear on how "enormous 500-pound naked fat dude with eyes where his nipples should be, also his arm is a poisonous claw that shoots green stuff" fits into the vampire ecosystem.
The biggest one, though, is D: More than halfway through the game it represents a sudden reversal of concept. Up until this point, the game has been ideologically pretty strong on the concept of "stay hidden, you're a political creature of the night, be social, pick locks, be stealthy, don't kill".
Ashe's character setup as a melee-heavy combat monster with strong social powers makes her distinctly odd, and yet strongly suited to playing through the Sewers Of Endless Growly Things. I imagine if you've put very few points into combat, you're in deep trouble here... And the game ENCOURAGES YOU to make non-combat skills your focus to this point.
Today's LARP Trek kinda points out the problem with this.
That said, when an obviously-combat-focused RPG tells me "You can play through this game without killing anyone!" I mentally append "by making a character who is near-cripplingly overspecialized and reloading several thousand times!" to the claim. I'm not PROTESTING nonviolent solutions, but I do prepare for trouble and (in particularly violent games like this) make it double.
Anyway.
At the very bottom of the blocked-off Nosferatu Sewer Section is: A giant missile-silo style door, locked by a keycard switch. (Hope you found that card, or it's back into the maze with you!) Also, a cute little gag on one of the PC terminals down there. A little ways into the warrens proper I find the guy who is likely responsible: Mitnick. Kind of every anti-social hacker stereotype in the book all rolled into one guy, but he does manage to politely ask for help upgrading some topside servers. We'll get an email about that later.
But first: Gary. Gary Golden, former actor, now nosferatu. He cheerfully informs us of our next task: Finding out who he sold the sarcophagus to. Because he did sell it. Of course he doesn't have it. Jerking us around is the new VAMPIRE NATIONAL PASTIME. It's more popular than baseball! Come buy some popcorn and peanuts and a bloody mary and watch Ashe leap through hoops on command!
Gary is pretty much able to appear and vanish at will, or I might take this sledgehammer to him for a while. Or maybe just hit myself in the face with it, as he lays out Ashe's next mission: Go chat up the kuei-jin in Chinatown. Gary perkily explains all the reasons this is suicidal: Kuei-jin are LIKE vampires, but Not. They're from the far east, and the "kindred" (local vampires) are kind of at war with them. But fear not! Ashe is too much of a novelty for them to kill! Anyway, he sent an agent to contact them but he never came back, find out where he went please. Bye!
As a final insult, the tunnel out of Gary's lair comes out in the graveyard back in Hollywood, about ten feet from where we found the videotape in Ms Swan's grave. Ashe stops for a few moments under the full moon to think about her place in vampire society. There has GOT to be a way to cut in line, doesn't there? To get up a few steps without having to fight for every single tier?
At least Isaac likes us. When we give him the good news about running the weird fleshcrafter out of town, he insinuates that we should stop in later for a proper rewarding. I'm gonna have to hold him to that. Then it's back downtown to the lair/apartment to check our emails.
Jesus unholy buttflapping christ, why do we have 17 emails?!
A bunch of junk, but here's what I pick out:
-- Bert Tung wants to talk about a job.
-- The Prince wants me to lower the cost of a diner he wants by making sure a food critic gives them a bad review.
-- Beckett wants me to go to the library and investigate some oddness there. "Try not to blow anything up."
-- Mitnick wants me to get a network hub active in Santa Monica by breaking into a computer store.
-- Jeanette Voerman is really bored and lonely and felt like sending Ashe a booty call.
In a blinding flash, Ashe realizes she doesn't HAVE to cut in line for vampire society, because she IS the line. She is the duct tape holding these people together. Not a goddamn one of them can find their own ass unless she provides a map.
Okay, Jeanette can. Jeanette can probably find ANYbody's ass without a map, one or two-handed. To test this theory, Ashe drops by the Asylum. Turns out, yes, this theory is 100% accurate.
The other sidequests can wait until tomorrow. Then: SIDEQUESTIVAL BEGINS. AGAIN.
So the thing... hi, by the way ... the thing about this next part of the game is that it's the Nosferatu Warrens. Over the years I've seen a LOT of reactions to this section. I've seen people claim they replay the game right up to this bit and then quit and uninstall. I've seen people claim it regularly stops them dead. I've seen people advocate noclip to just get through as fast as possible. I've seen people scream and sob and rend garments.
I have seen very, very few people claim they ENJOY this part, or that they enjoyed doing it more than once. I have never done it. So... Time to see what the big deal is. Since this isn't exactly an RP-heavy zone (it is literally all combat and physical puzzles) I'll be back in a bit.
Mood Music while you wait?
Okay, having danced the great grim fuck-you fandango that is the Nosferatu Warrens, I can start to pin down why people hate it.
A: It's a sewer level. "Oh huzzah, let's climb down into the tight, dark, enclosed spaces that smell like poo and fight horrible monsters that cause septic wounds while we wade around in murky water!" joyfully exclaimed nobody ever in human history.
B: It's a COMPLICATED sewer level. While it's pretty linear, and there aren't TOO many ways to get hopelessly lost, you still end up running the full gambit of ideas. You have to clamber through tight little pipes, shove barrels into whirring blades, fiddle with a complex pump system that provides too little feedback about when it's a good idea to try swimming, futz with switches, evade boss fights, get chased by giant hideous monsters while solving a maze ...
C: There are some REALLY ICKY monsters down there. Tzimisce creatures are just kinda shoved together with no regard for how they're supposed to function, as far as I can tell. Up until now, the enemies have largely made sense, but I'm not real clear on how "enormous 500-pound naked fat dude with eyes where his nipples should be, also his arm is a poisonous claw that shoots green stuff" fits into the vampire ecosystem.
The biggest one, though, is D: More than halfway through the game it represents a sudden reversal of concept. Up until this point, the game has been ideologically pretty strong on the concept of "stay hidden, you're a political creature of the night, be social, pick locks, be stealthy, don't kill".
Ashe's character setup as a melee-heavy combat monster with strong social powers makes her distinctly odd, and yet strongly suited to playing through the Sewers Of Endless Growly Things. I imagine if you've put very few points into combat, you're in deep trouble here... And the game ENCOURAGES YOU to make non-combat skills your focus to this point.
Today's LARP Trek kinda points out the problem with this.
That said, when an obviously-combat-focused RPG tells me "You can play through this game without killing anyone!" I mentally append "by making a character who is near-cripplingly overspecialized and reloading several thousand times!" to the claim. I'm not PROTESTING nonviolent solutions, but I do prepare for trouble and (in particularly violent games like this) make it double.
Anyway.
At the very bottom of the blocked-off Nosferatu Sewer Section is: A giant missile-silo style door, locked by a keycard switch. (Hope you found that card, or it's back into the maze with you!) Also, a cute little gag on one of the PC terminals down there. A little ways into the warrens proper I find the guy who is likely responsible: Mitnick. Kind of every anti-social hacker stereotype in the book all rolled into one guy, but he does manage to politely ask for help upgrading some topside servers. We'll get an email about that later.
But first: Gary. Gary Golden, former actor, now nosferatu. He cheerfully informs us of our next task: Finding out who he sold the sarcophagus to. Because he did sell it. Of course he doesn't have it. Jerking us around is the new VAMPIRE NATIONAL PASTIME. It's more popular than baseball! Come buy some popcorn and peanuts and a bloody mary and watch Ashe leap through hoops on command!
Gary is pretty much able to appear and vanish at will, or I might take this sledgehammer to him for a while. Or maybe just hit myself in the face with it, as he lays out Ashe's next mission: Go chat up the kuei-jin in Chinatown. Gary perkily explains all the reasons this is suicidal: Kuei-jin are LIKE vampires, but Not. They're from the far east, and the "kindred" (local vampires) are kind of at war with them. But fear not! Ashe is too much of a novelty for them to kill! Anyway, he sent an agent to contact them but he never came back, find out where he went please. Bye!
As a final insult, the tunnel out of Gary's lair comes out in the graveyard back in Hollywood, about ten feet from where we found the videotape in Ms Swan's grave. Ashe stops for a few moments under the full moon to think about her place in vampire society. There has GOT to be a way to cut in line, doesn't there? To get up a few steps without having to fight for every single tier?
At least Isaac likes us. When we give him the good news about running the weird fleshcrafter out of town, he insinuates that we should stop in later for a proper rewarding. I'm gonna have to hold him to that. Then it's back downtown to the lair/apartment to check our emails.
Jesus unholy buttflapping christ, why do we have 17 emails?!
A bunch of junk, but here's what I pick out:
-- Bert Tung wants to talk about a job.
-- The Prince wants me to lower the cost of a diner he wants by making sure a food critic gives them a bad review.
-- Beckett wants me to go to the library and investigate some oddness there. "Try not to blow anything up."
-- Mitnick wants me to get a network hub active in Santa Monica by breaking into a computer store.
-- Jeanette Voerman is really bored and lonely and felt like sending Ashe a booty call.
In a blinding flash, Ashe realizes she doesn't HAVE to cut in line for vampire society, because she IS the line. She is the duct tape holding these people together. Not a goddamn one of them can find their own ass unless she provides a map.
Okay, Jeanette can. Jeanette can probably find ANYbody's ass without a map, one or two-handed. To test this theory, Ashe drops by the Asylum. Turns out, yes, this theory is 100% accurate.
The other sidequests can wait until tomorrow. Then: SIDEQUESTIVAL BEGINS. AGAIN.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-10 11:08 pm (UTC)In other words, is he a Free Kevin Mitnick?
--dangbunni
no subject
Date: 2013-12-10 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 07:23 pm (UTC)my comment didn't show up. Grrrr... well I'm not writing all that over again.
Anyway, just wanted to say excellent blog!
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 07:29 pm (UTC)