Arkane's Dishonored

About the top of the tower...

Spoiler:

The high chaos ending takes place there. I think it's a more dramatic ending than what you probably get with low chaos. You could youtube it.

There is nothing wrong with the art style, it is the low resolution textures. It makes the game look flat. Borderlands made a similar choice, but the game was so twitchy and fast that the pixels just flew by. Dishonored is a game that encourages exploration of every inch, which puts the graphics under the microscope.

It's good to see this game pop back up; definitely my 2012 GOTY.
Did they ever announce a release date for the next round of DLC for this game? I remember being so enraged with the PR surrounding the first announced DLC (Dunwich leaderboard magic achievement trophy endless runner survival mode deathmatch headshot super bestiality time trials I think it was called) that I uninstalled the game after finishing it in a fit of irrational pique. Are they still making the single player story-extending DLC, or did that get canned? I'd certainly like a bit more creepin' & peepin' around the mean streets of the city.

It's got blocky low resolution environments and character models that look straight out of the original Half Life.

Huh, that wasn't my experience of it at all. I thought it looked outstanding.

If you were on the PC, were you running on unusually low graphic settings? Or do you have an AMD card? I always used to get rendering oddities, like that face highlighting thing you mention, with my 5870. It was never really serious, but occasionally looked a little odd.

Oh, and:

I am very much enjoying it, because I keep playing, but I just feel icky after every session.

Yeah, that's what has kept me away from a replay... everything is just so relentlessly awful. It was an extraordinary game, but I find the city so repellent that I've stalled out on two replay attempts.

Puce Moose wrote:

It's good to see this game pop back up; definitely my 2012 GOTY.
Did they ever announce a release date for the next round of DLC for this game? I remember being so enraged with the PR surrounding the first announced DLC (Dunwich leaderboard magic achievement trophy endless runner survival mode deathmatch headshot super bestiality time trials I think it was called) that I uninstalled the game after finishing it in a fit of irrational pique. Are they still making the single player story-extending DLC, or did that get canned? I'd certainly like a bit more creepin' & peepin' around the mean streets of the city.

It's apparently still coming. No release date yet but the list of trophies did pop up for the PS3.

Trophy Listings Point to Dishonored’s Next DLC, “Other Side of the Coin”

Looks like you get to play as Daud.

I loaded this up again last week after having not touched it since November. Getting back into it was easy, but I had a moment where I felt like it hadn't been long enough to make it feel fresh again. So I dove into the options and took a look at what I could tweak: HUD elements, difficulty (kept it at normal because I don't care), heck, even the brightness. What did it for me was turning off the guard alert icons over their heads. What a difference such a small change can make.

Nicholaas wrote:

I loaded this up again last week after having not touched it since November. Getting back into it was easy, but I had a moment where I felt like it hadn't been long enough to make it feel fresh again. So I dove into the options and took a look at what I could tweak: HUD elements, difficulty (kept it at normal because I don't care), heck, even the brightness. What did it for me was turning off the guard alert icons over their heads. What a difference such a small change can make.

Nice tip. I never uninstalled after I finished it because I want to go back and do a high-chaos run someday. Turning off the alerts is a great idea because I only plan on hiding for a short time while I plan out how best to engage everyone.

I'm also going to turn off all quest indicators as well.

PaladinTom wrote:
Nicholaas wrote:

I loaded this up again last week after having not touched it since November. Getting back into it was easy, but I had a moment where I felt like it hadn't been long enough to make it feel fresh again. So I dove into the options and took a look at what I could tweak: HUD elements, difficulty (kept it at normal because I don't care), heck, even the brightness. What did it for me was turning off the guard alert icons over their heads. What a difference such a small change can make.

Nice tip. I never uninstalled after I finished it because I want to go back and do a high-chaos run someday. Turning off the alerts is a great idea because I only plan on hiding for a short time while I plan out how best to engage everyone.

I'm also going to turn off all quest indicators as well.

I turned off pretty much all of the HUD (the guard alert icons were too much—they already have their "Huh?" etc barks, and there are the piano string stings; and who needs the stealth indicator when the screen edges darken and you can see how Corvo's holding his sword), but ended up turning the objective markers back on. This game is going to take me long enough at the rate I play. I'd have loved a Thief-style map, but failing a map, Dishonored's markers aren't too egregious. They're not as hand-holdingly pinpoint precise as Skyrim's, and keep me pointed in the right direction while letting me go off and explore in the meantime.

I finished the low-chaos ending with no markers. There were a couple places where the quest objective location was a bit unclear, but I personally preferred going without overall. When I do it again as high-chaos I'll probably try leaving them on and see if that makes a huge difference as to how I feel.

Gremlin wrote:

There were a couple places where the quest objective location was a bit unclear, but I personally preferred going without overall.

Pre-baby I would have continued without, but now I'm too short on time to spend a whole evening looking for, for instance, the light controls on Kaldwin's Bridge—it was when I was already scouring the very beginning of the level that I decided I could probably stand to expedite things a tiny bit.

Given that part of my motivation was not wanting to rush through the game, that's totally understandable. I think my only issue with the toggleable objective markers is that it let them be a bit vague/sloppy about where exactly the thing I was supposed to do was. I'd have preferred it if they had defaulted to markers to off, or at least forced all of the playtesters to mostly test with them off. But I do think it's probably a good thing that they're in there in the end.

The first Daud DLC, Knife of Dunwall, is arriving April 16th for $10.

Daud's adventures will take him through Dunwall's Legal District and the Rothwild Slaughterhouse, a factory filled with gigantic whale carcasses. He'll also return to the Whaler's base in the Flooded District and experience "key events" from the assassin's perspective, including the moment that changed Dunwall forever. Just like Dishonored, each mission can be approached in a variety of ways, and the choices Daud makes can set him on the path to redemption or lead him even further into darkness.

The Knife of Dunwall is the first chapter in the story of Daud, which will conclude in the future, final add-on, The Brigmore Witches. Look for it to come out on April 16 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, at 800 Microsoft points or $9.99.

I finished my high-chaos run of this game last weekend. I spent basically all of Tuesday night getting through the first mission trying to go for non-lethal & undetected. I really wish there was a way to check if I have failed either of those parameters.

I beat the first level twice before moving on. The first time, I apparently killed someone. I knocked out most guards and left them off the ground so rats would be less likely to get them. The second time I had to redo the blast-door room about 5 times. I kept trying to stash those guards in the dumpster but one would always die from the explosion. I ended up just leaving them on the opposite end of the room in a corner. Finished the mission and was apparently detected at some point. If I had blink or time-bend I would reattempt the level a third time but I decided that getting them individually was good enough for me.

Will Dauds playthrough be influenced by low/high chaos choices of the player? That'd be kinda neat.

I'm looking forward to playing as Daud. I just finished the mission where...

Spoiler:

...you can rob him or kill him. I managed to rob him, yoink the key from his desk, and blink outta there before being caught. It only took me two tries (the first time my 1-month old slapped the controller and stabbed Daud. So, yeah.).

I find him to be an interesting character, and his story is one I'd love to explore. Plus, the Rothwild Slaughterhouse sounds like it'll be a blast. Gigantic whale carcasses? Yes, please. I love all the lore regarding the whaling culture of Dunwall, and I hope they litter that place with books and notes.

Might want to keep an eye on that kid.

They did a lot with the whaling culture. I'm looking forward to more, and maybe eventually seeing a live whale out at sea. The Outsider isn't done with that place, and I want to know more about the backstory.

I thought I read somewhere that there was speculation that the Outsider was actually a sentient super whale.

I'm surprised PETA hasn't gone nuts about this game, thinking about it now.

Demosthenes wrote:

I thought I read somewhere that there was speculation that the Outsider was actually a sentient super whale.

I'm surprised PETA hasn't gone nuts about this game, thinking about it now.

Um, they have: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/arti...

Which is a fascinating article for talking about the historical whaling culture in general.

When you get to Daud you can also...

Spoiler:

Attack him head on and have an epic magic assassin battle. You can also still choose to let him go at the end of the fight or slice his throat and throw him down into the water. (In case you didn't know, almost all the assassination targets have a unique death animation when you assassinate them from the front. For Daud's you have to make sure that you do the whole fight to get to that point.)

Latrine wrote:

When you get to Daud you can also...

Spoiler:

Attack him head on and have an epic magic assassin battle. You can also still choose to let him go at the end of the fight or slice his throat and throw him down into the water. (In case you didn't know, almost all the assassination targets have a unique death animation when you assassinate them from the front. For Daud's you have to make sure that you do the whole fight to get to that point.)

Spoiler:

Last time I killed him, I never got the option to spare him. If I recall correctly, I tried to stop time and attempt the nonlethal path, but he was all like, "nuh-uh, sucker, your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me" and we did the dance of death. That he was effectively immune to my magic was a genuinely nice surprise.

Nicholaas wrote:
Spoiler:

Last time I killed him, I never got the option to spare him. If I recall correctly, I tried to stop time and attempt the nonlethal path, but he was all like, "nuh-uh, sucker, your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me" and we did the dance of death. That he was effectively immune to my magic was a genuinely nice surprise.

Spoiler:

Yeah, I was pleasantly shocked by that bit. Time-stop and run into pick-pocket and shock.

Actually, the whole predictable-losing-your-equipment bit was one of my most fun bits of the game, as I when head to head with magic teleporting assassins in a non-lethal run. It was really hard, especially the first bit with two guards right on top of you, but for me it was worth it.

Spoiler:

Yeah, I think it actually is possible to sometimes still kill him before you get to the scripted end of the fight. You have to make sure that you don't kill him before he runs outside. When you wound him outside he teleports and falls beside a wall. He'll talk to you for a bit and that's where you can either go for the custom kill animation or let him go and he'll teleport away.

I was up on a balcony, aiming a sleep dart at a guard standing in the street. With him square in my zoom-sight, I pulled the trigger—he bent down—and the dart sailed over his back and clattered on the cobblestones behind him, as he straightened up, completely oblivious. Deep in the shadows a masked assassin could be heard to whisper, "What the f*ck."

-----

I also had a marginally interesting incident while taking care of the Lord Regent. He was in his room, where I intended to get the thing. So I snuck in, choked him out (side note: the Strong Arms bone charm is so awesome), and dropped him on his bed. After getting the thing, I poked around his room and his interior balcony. Turning to go back in the room, there was General Tullius (or whatever) and another guard, swords drawn—thwip, thwip, and two sleep darts helped me keep my composure. On the bed they went too.

I thought I'd explore a bit further into the tower, past the glass double-doors of that reading room/antechamber. The guard who makes the round deep into that antechamber got some strong arms, and onto the bed went he. Another guard comes into that room too, so he also got choked out and dumped on that now very crowded bed.

Later I went up to that one room with the thing I got. On my way back down, there was the Lord Regent in the hallway, being arrested! As if he hadn't been knocked out and woken up on a bed of snoozing underlings! (Okay, so he was programmed to be there, that's fine, but it was still humourously incongruous.)

And in the end, despite it all, the stats screen said I had ghosted the level (only the second level I had since Campbell).

-----

I think I have two proper missions left, so to follow up so far, my no-Runes/non-lethal is going pretty well. Basic Blink, patience, and an eye for the vertical (the verticality in this game is really great) is, for my preferred style, a really enjoyable way to play this game. Any notion that this isn't how the game is "supposed" to be played is rubbish—there are routes all over the levels to encourage all sorts of approaches, including the most minimally-magical way. Just look up, waaaaay up, and there'll be a way through.

As for non-lethal, I've only killed two people—the Pendleton twins, as I missed the nonlethal option and didn't have the patience that evening to scour the level for it. But that's a good an excuse as any to replay the game after.

Gravey wrote:

(side note: the Strong Arms bone charm is so awesome)...

Later I went up to that one room with the thing I got. On my way back down, there was the Lord Regent in the hallway, being arrested! As if he hadn't been knocked out and woken up on a bed of snoozing underlings! (Okay, so he was programmed to be there, that's fine, but it was still humourously incongruous.)

First of all, Strong Arms? Hell yes. I missed it completely the first go-around, and this time (as a mostly non-lethal player) it's easily become one of my most valued bone charms.

I also just had the exact same situation happen with the Lord Regent. I had sent him packing to dream land, and when I came back from doing the thing with the thing from his room, bam, there he was, up and about.

During that level, did you...

Spoiler:

..handle the executioner? Now, I make a point to save my blade only for those "oh sh*t" moments when I fumble a stealth knockout or something, but man, this guy was just asking for it. My blade dranketh deep that day.

I just got to Kingsparrow Island (low chaos) this morning. I don't remember how I went about it last time, but it seems like I'm having a much smoother go of it. I guess it's because I'm not really concerned at this point with getting as much coin/treasure as humanly possible; I have all my gear upgraded, and fully stocked with more darts, bullets, grenades, mines, and potions than I have any intention of using. I feel more free to just explore and traverse as sensibly and carefully as possible, not so much as thoroughly as possible.

Nicholaas wrote:

During that level, did you...

Spoiler:

..handle the executioner? Now, I make a point to save my blade only for those "oh sh*t" moments when I fumble a stealth knockout or something, but man, this guy was just asking for it. My blade dranketh deep that day.

Spoiler:

Even though I botched 100% non-lethal by killing the Pendletons, I haven't killed anyone otherwise. I figured the executioner was just some poor slob doing his job; and anyway, by the time the Lord Regent was getting arrested, it was 9:55pm and the new episode of Vikings was going to be on in five minutes. So I skeddadled back to Samuel just in time for the show to start.

I came across those two particular assassins in the Flooded District last night. You know which ones. The two that had me thinking Please say it, please say it, please say it.

Spoiler:

"Very good. I did not see you approach."

So good.

Hi, me again, again.

Finished the game last night, low chaos, Mostly Flesh And Steel, and only two kills (the Pendletons thanks to impatience, d'oh). I didn't do any Granny Rags or Slackjaw side missions (qv. Pendletons, d'oh), so if there was backstory there about the Outsider or the Heart then I don't know it. As far as I know, the Outsider is some magical Good Charlotte member, and the Heart is just this thing maybe the Empress maybe just a tricorder.

Reading back a few pages, I don't have much to add to Gremlin's and Yonder's spoiler'ed wall-of-text posts, other than largely agree with them.

Spoiler:

In terms of play, the final act and finale of the game was *hilarious sound of a balloon deflating*. Havelock just stood stock still in front of the fireplace, so even in terms of game mechanics (let alone the narrative) he was less engaging than the standard patrolling Watch guard. I basically waltzed up to him, grabbed the key, blinked to the door, open, THE END. *sound of fart*

The betrayal was telegraphed round about Havelock's fifth diary entry, so it was little surprise. I was coincidentally reading a biography of Stalin (Edvard Radzinsky's) while playing, so Havelock's motivation was clear. If he became convinced that he knew the proper way forward for Gristol, then Martin, Pendleton and Corvo (Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, etc), no matter how loyal they were, would be liabilities. They could oppose him, ally against him, or repudiate him and vilify his actions in the coup. They had to go, to secure Gristol's future (in Havelock's hands).

Gameplay-wise, all-stealth no-kills (no-powers no-UI) was huge fun. I don't get the pushback I received earlier in the thread over desiring to play this way. The game catered to it superlatively. Dishonored is an eminent stealth experience, up there with the best with them, and sorely needed in a video game landscape that can at best offer hobbled "stealth-action" compromises. That Dishonored is also a stealth-action compromise is even more remarkable.

So I suppose the next step is try out all those powers and murders and side missions and murders I eschewed the first time. This is the remix.

Also, PaladinTom:

Spoiler:

Star Trek VI, but if there's an earlier, more literary source then I don't know it. Maybe one in the original Klingon?

My only reservation about not using powers would have been that blinking around the place is so much fun. Still, fun is the important thing, so if you enjoyed not using it I can hardly see a problem. Definitely worth another playthrough though, there's a lot of verticality/rooftop stuff that you probably didn't see the first time around - I went a little nuts on blink with my first playthrough and barely touched the ground on a lot of levels.

Sonicator wrote:

My only reservation about not using powers would have been that blinking around the place is so much fun. Still, fun is the important thing, so if you enjoyed not using it I can hardly see a problem. Definitely worth another playthrough though, there's a lot of verticality/rooftop stuff that you probably didn't see the first time around - I went a little nuts on blink with my first playthrough and barely touched the ground on a lot of levels.

Oh! Okay, quick clarification: Blink I is totally allowed with a no-power (i.e. Mostly Flesh And Steel) run. It's the only obligatory power, and as you say, it's also indispensable since Dishonored is built around it.

And yes, since Dishonored's stealth is based on line of sight, and not shadows, I always stayed as high as I could as often as I could (and in the game).

Bone charms are also allowed, so I was rocking:

1) Fast choking
2) Move faster carrying bodies
3) Move faster with weapon drawn
4) Recover mana from water
5) Recover health from water
6) Mana potions sometimes provide full mana

and upgraded stealth boots.