Game News Brian Heins introduces Tyranny's Disfavored faction at Polygon

[Infinitron]

It really does feel like I jumped back to 2007-8 into a Dragon Age: Origins thread.

Why, did Bioware make a big deal out of the reverse-Hundred Years War pseudo-historical stuff before the game's release?

 

[Roguey]

Why, did Bioware make a big deal out of the reverse-Hundred Years War pseudo-historical stuff before the game's release?

Not that I recall, just gripes about the setting and lore.

 

[MRY]

No, no, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying hat they came across the theory that the Hittites or Assyrians dominated with iron weapons because iron would shatter bronze, and then learned later that that was wrong.

 

[Infinitron]

No, no, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying hat they came across the theory that the Hittites or Assyrians dominated with iron weapons because iron would shatter bronze, and then learned later that that was wrong.

Right, and your basis for that is vague references to "irreplaceable iron armor" in a short story, that undercut the alternative explanation for iron's superiority. That doesn't seem conclusive to me, though.

Well, if you can think of a polite way to ask about it, maybe we can find out the truth in an interview someday.

 

[tuluse]

The only thing that makes this potentially utterly brilliant is if it means that the game's combat is a literal simulation of the battles going on. So, like, when you see that siege in the demo where it's like 10 vs. 10, that's not a symbolic sampling of the battle, it's literally two entire nations' armies fighting to the death. When you see a town of like twenty five NPCs, that's literally the entire population of the nation. No one else can do quests because there is no one else. When you summon up four skeletons, you have, at long last, enslaved an entire nation with necromancy.

Finally something about this game has amused me.

(although actually some kind of super low density population setting could be interesting.)

 

[Bohrain]

Finally something about this game has amused me.

(although actually some kind of super low density population setting could be interesting.)

Clearly we need a stone age setting CRPG where the entire population of the game world is less than a hundred half-starved hunter-gatherers.

 

[MRY]

No, no, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying hat they came across the theory that the Hittites or Assyrians dominated with iron weapons because iron would shatter bronze, and then learned later that that was wrong.

Right, and your basis for that is vague references to "irreplaceable iron armor" in a short story, that undercut the alternative explanation for iron's superiority. That doesn't seem conclusive to me, though.

Well, if you can think of a polite way to ask about it, maybe we can find out the truth in an interview someday.

My bases are:
- iron is used as a metaphor for strength and toughness in the game's naming conventions
- elite soldiers are equipped in iron, not bronze
- the lore calls iron armor rare
- a story says that there is an iron shortage because of a disruption in the supply chain, which is exactly the problem they assign to bronze in marketing
- there is a large army in Kyros's forces, the Howling Choir, but it is not equipped with iron; by contrast, there is a small elite army that IS equipped with iron
- the project lead specifically mentions the misconception about iron vs bronze but projects it onto other people

Can you identify one thing in any story, lore, or plot point that supports iron as plentiful but low quality? Because the only place I've seen it is in marketing rationalizations.

 

[Infinitron]

Most of your points seem kind of circumstantial to me, except this one:

- there is a large army in Kyros's forces, the Scarlet Chorus, but it is not equipped with iron

Source? My assumption would be that they are equipped with iron weapons but not iron armor, which is probably harder to produce.

There could also be different qualities of iron, with the Disfavored getting the best variant, but I'd rather not go in hypothetical directions in this debate. It's not important enough.

EDIT: Oh, I see, it's another short story.

- the project lead specifically mentions the misconception about iron vs bronze but projects it onto other people

Haha, you are a lawyer.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Clearly we need a stone age setting CRPG where the entire population of the game world is less than a hundred half-starved hunter-gatherers.

Half measures. I want a CRPG where the entire population consists of one guy with mulitple personality disorder.

 

[an Administrator]

Clearly we need a stone age setting CRPG where the entire population of the game world is less than a hundred half-starved hunter-gatherers.

Half measures. I want a CRPG where the entire population consists of one guy with mulitple personality disorder.

I want an RPG where the entire population is consisted of one person with gender identity issues.

 

[Sannom]

- a story says that there is an iron shortage because of a disruption in the supply chain, which is exactly the problem they assign to bronze in marketing

Keep in mind, this is a few hundred years after the beginning of Kyros' conquest. By this time, his smiths probably refined how to work their iron and bronze was fazed out as more and more sources of iron were discovered and Kyros' smiths kept training with that material.

- there is a large army in Kyros's forces, the Howling Choir, but it is not equipped with iron; by contrast, there is a small elite army that IS equipped with iron

I don't think the Scarlet Chorus is equipped with anything. The Voices of Nerat thought them up as a horde of conscript who needs to find their own weapons and equipment if they want to survive and get up in the ranks, pitchforks and boat oars are apparently fair game in that group. Only the elites, the Crimson Spears, seem equipped with strong armor and weapons.

But yeah, MRY, I think there is an element of badly thought-out marketing talk to the whole thing. For example, the in-game description of Life Magic says that Kyros' development and monopoly of that kind of magic probably helped significantly in his empire's expansion, so it's not just iron that explains how Kyros managed to conquer everything so quickly.

 

[Mozg]

I don't really understand why they want to give it a gloss of technological history in the first place. I mean, in history the candidates for Sauron-hood were leaders of tribes and peoples that would have been a titanic source of latent strength even if e.g. Genghis Khan never came along - not unreasonably for the second best version of Genghis Khan, in fact. Almost all of them likely lived as a guy holding a tiger by the tail, not as supervillains.

 

[oscar]

These devs or their PR interns or whatever really should shut the fuck up about the (totally incorrect) 'historical justifications' for their gameplay mechanics as they somehow manage to fuck up really basic stuff even a mildly historically interested 12 year old would know (hoplites were well-armoured guys with spears and shields who fought in dense formations not lightly armed javelinists i.e peltasts) and seemed to have tripped up over their own confused and bizarre ignorance. Even on the very unlikely off chance that no one on this team knew a thing about antiquity a five minute trip to Wikipedia could have cleared up all they needed to know.

No one would care in the slightest except they keep patting themselves on the back at how realistic and historically-based everything here is.

 

[Zanzoken]

If there's one thing I know about fantasy it's that you can't possibly have enough cool sounding names.

Take a cool adjective and attach it to a cool noun = coolest. Or two cool sounding nouns works too.

Scarlet Chorus
Stoneshield
Crescent Runners
Iron Walkers
Earthshakers
Graven Ashe

/5

 

[MRY]

The best line of the game is when Kyros nukes the Disfavored when they join the uprising against him and Whispers of Nerat crows, "We've laid Graven Ashe in an ashen grave." Who will give me odds?

 

[DeepOcean]

If there's one thing I know about fantasy it's that you can't possibly have enough cool sounding names.

Take a cool adjective and attach it to a cool noun = coolest. Or two cool sounding nouns works too.

Scarlet Chorus
Stoneshield
Crescent Runners
Iron Walkers
Earthshakers
Graven Ashe

/5

By my experience, the amount of cool adjectives is inversely proportional to the quality of writing. Very few writers are really talented lenguage erudites to make cool sounding names that don't feel like they were invented by dorks. Iron Walkers... Earth shakers... that is weaboo level shit right there. Simple, straightfoward, that describe the function on a single name that is easy to pronounce like Companion cavalry is how I like it. I would prefer something life fireball throwers anyday of the week than Fury bringers of doom or any dork shit like that.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, I'm not really bothered with the naming conventions, as long as they try keep the number of syllables low and don't start too many names with the same letter. That always infuriates me. Epic fantasy tends to be sprayed with so many names that you eventually start glossing over them, but there always needs to be some genius who thinks that Daring Warriors, Doomed Widows and Dick Wavers serving in the same army is a brilliant idea.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

This is worse than homebrew D&D.

Do they even know what a Hoplite is?

Obsidian needs to rethink life and play some Riddle of Steel.

 

[DeepOcean]

The only thing that makes this potentially utterly brilliant is if it means that the game's combat is a literal simulation of the battles going on. So, like, when you see that siege in the demo where it's like 10 vs. 10, that's not a symbolic sampling of the battle, it's literally two entire nations' armies fighting to the death. When you see a town of like twenty five NPCs, that's literally the entire population of the nation. No one else can do quests because there is no one else. When you summon up four skeletons, you have, at long last, enslaved an entire nation with necromancy.

That would be an interesting take of the chosen one, peasant to glory tale, you are the chosen one because you are the only loser available and the only one so useless the village is willing to sacrifice.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

That would be an interesting take of the chosen one, peasant to glory tale, you are the chosen one because you are the only loser available and the only one so useless the village is willing to sacrifice.

You mean like this?

 

[Bohrain]

I want an RPG where the entire population is consisted of one person with gender identity issues.

The dialogue system will have a persistent puzzle mechanics where you have to choose the correct pronoun or the fruit will turn into a vegetable.

These devs or their PR interns or whatever really should shut the fuck up about the (totally incorrect) 'historical justifications' for their gameplay mechanics as they somehow manage to fuck up really basic stuff even a mildly historically interested 12 year old would know (hoplites were well-armoured guys with spears and shields who fought in dense formations not lightly armed javelinists i.e peltasts) and seemed to have tripped up over their own confused and bizarre ignorance. Even on the very unlikely off chance that no one on this team knew a thing about antiquity a five minute trip to Wikipedia could have cleared up all they needed to know.

No one would care in the slightest except they keep patting themselves on the back at how realistic and historically-based everything here is.

Hell, even an illiterate mook like me has the faint idea that hoplites have spears and shields 'n shit because of Civilization.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Yeah, I'm not really bothered with the naming conventions, as long as they try keep the number of syllables low and don't start too many names with the same letter. That always infuriates me. Epic fantasy tends to be sprayed with so many names that you eventually start glossing over them, but there always needs to be some genius who thinks that Daring Warriors, Doomed Widows and Dick Wavers serving in the same army is a brilliant idea.

...

 

[Schizophrenic monolog]

Oh, also, another thing

The shields they carry are massive iron tower shields that are very heavy to carry around.

Do these people even make a MODICUM of research?

Or, perhaps more accurately, do they even have a modicum of common sense?

Since when was historical accuracy important in fantasy RPGs? What do you say to glass and gold armors?

OMG!!!

That means... yes!
That means that Dragon scale armors did EXIST!!!!

To finally know for sure that Dragons ruled the skies in the bronze age is mind blowing!!!!

it's a shame that humanity got them extinct.

Well, at least we invented Crpg to remind us this beautiful period of time....

So, according to the Codex - Tyranny is basically a documented Crpg.

Way to go Obsidian, you've just invented a new sub-genre!!!!

 

[FeelTheRads]

guise I'm developing a game in which people eat soup with a fork but that's ok because it's fantasy

 

[Schizophrenic monolog]

guise I'm developing a game in which people eat soup with a fork but that's ok because it's fantasy

I agree with your point.

Even if its a fantasy game, it's still need to "make sense".

If a spoon exist in the world, why the hell you eat soup with a fork?!

But, There's a different between "logical world" and "Historically accurate".

And i got the feeling, that some folks here hate this game because in reality things were different...