I remember loving the council, and also last episode not being very good.
I somehow deleted the swansong out of my brain. I don’t even remember the release lol.
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Not really, they would also kill you and take all the credit all the same. In that universe, trusting ANY organization is a one way ticket to death.
IMO there’s a lot of things to consider with the way that the Night Road Prince treats the MC.
Lettow is already pretty weird for a vampire. They’re a Gangrel Prince in the Camarilla after the vast majority of the clan has left the sect, and they’re already on the very cusp of throwing everything away to chase after the Beckoning. Not surprising they do things differently than other Princes. And on top of that, you’re potentially the childe of one of their allies/acquaintances/contacts, and so offing you might cause more problems than it’s worth.
Above all else, though, the nature of the job means that the Prince has to treat the MC with a surprising amount of respect compared to other vampires. Travel is dangerous in the Modern Nights, and the Camarilla no longer trusts electronic communcations. This makes the Courier into a sort of de-facto diplomat and troubleshooter. If you’re sending somebody like that on long-ranging independent missions with zero oversight you’d be an idiot to treat them badly. The Prince wants you to think well enough of him that you will go there and do the job properly despite the fact that nobody is going to be looking over your shoulder. He doesn’t want you tempted to join plots against him, botch the job intentionally just to screw him over, or to bail entirely on the job and leave him hanging while you head off across the country.
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The thing is that the usual Vampire response to that is to blood bond their asses so they literally have no choice in the matter.
Eh, maybe. PCs typically get to avoid that kind of thing so that the player has some agency in how the character is played. So I feel like it’s a pretty standard genre convention that PCs won’t be bloodbound even when that might make the most sense for somebody in that role.
That’s not to say that PCs never get bloodbound, it’s just usually not as a default part of the storyline. You’ve generally got to screw up by the numbers to get into a 2+ drink bloodbond.
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Yeah, obviously PCs generally avoid that but it’s pretty clear they are the exception, not the rule.
I hate it when the most conveniently placed / accessible shopkeeper on the map has the shittiest prices.
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Blame inflation, house rent and lack of regular costumers
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I choose to blame the developers instead. 
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Why? They insert a real life reaction to real life serious problems. They even insert greed and speculation, like a real life scammer would do
My guess is it’s to encourage exploration, but.
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Constant nitpick that keeps haunting me - characters that don’t change your name to reflect their opinion about you. No variation of, say, Ilya depending on the speaker - lover of a character named like that won’t call him Ilyusha or Lyunya, a character he has very fraternising relationship with won’t call him Ilyuha, he will constantly stay Ilya, Ilya and Ilya for everyone, no matter the relationships he has with others.
I know that this wish is largely impractical and mainly impossible, but it’d be quite sweet to have such little details for characters you’ve cultivated relationships with. Makes it feel… more earned, in a sense.
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This can work if the character has a set name, but it won’t necessarily work if the player gets to choose the name. For example, my name is Anna. There’s no way to shorten that. And I’m not the biggest fan of pet names (babe and baby are especially weird), so that would leave someone with just using my name
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Some games will do things like this if you pick from the preset names, or as an easter egg kind of thing if you enter a specific name, but it’s too hard to do in general with player-entered names so a lot of authors don’t bother with that kind of system at all.
I, personally, like to use the pre-selected names most of the time, in case there are things like this that pop up.
Pedantry compels me to mention that, IIRC, ‘Anna’ does have a Russian diminutive, ‘Anya’.
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I feel like if this could be corrected by, say, having downtime where you could spend time with multiple characters, and having scenes that limit your choices — you are doing a task in which you can take Bob or Clarisse, but not Sam — even if you are romancing Sam, because it doesn’t make sense to take Sam for whatever reason. Or even just having story beats in which specific characters and their relationship to the MC and others in the group get to shine, regardless of player choice.
I don’t think it’s completely impractical — what I’m trying is having variable for first and last name, one for what childhood friends/family call you, and one for how you introduce yourself to others. Can always use one for the LI.
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Of course!
There are other ways to do so. Like endless backtracking FOR ARMOR PARTS I suppose…
Not gonna lie, I hate the exploration part of games. Like, I just want to get to the actual game part. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t like open worlds. There are chunks of time where you’re just meant to walk around. The other reason is that I get lost 
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I thought I was the only one to do this! Of course, I have a bad habit of not sticking to the paths you’re supposed to and wander around the middle of the woods or whatever. Doing that gets me lost constantly, lol.
And me playing an open world game after getting told I have to get this message to someone immediately: goes part of the way and sees a cave “Ooh, a cave!!” forgets about the mission and wanders around for several in-game days
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So, I’m a perfectionist. I love 100%-ing my games. But rarely there is an incentive to do that because the process is just too dull, and progression and rewards are meaningless.
I love open-worldness as a concept, but too many games execute it badly for me to fully enjoy it. This obsession with constant biggering creates worlds that are way too vast and empty with nothing of substance to do in between main missions. Majority of quests is just repetitive filler content that exists to waste your time so that the pr team can brag about how MUCH there is to do (I could never 100% an assassin’s creed game, there’s just no point, and it pains me)!
Plus, it’s not an easy task to insert a shitload of side quests into an open world that won’t mess up the overall pacing and will supplement the experience in a meaningful way instead of distracting from the main game, especially if it’s supposed to be a story driven one (bioware’s attempts at open worlds just don’t mesh with what their games are supposed to be). Developers often just don’t have enough time and direction to be able to do that. ALSO, imo vast open worlds with side quests and exploration just don’t fit some stories (fallout 4 anyone?).
If you give me an open world game that is more contained and concise, with side missions that go alongside with the main ones that fit the overall themes and narrative and don’t distract from the main goal, or interesting enough gameplay that doesn’t feel like it’s only there to waste my time, I’ll gladly take it.
Also, fuck loading screens.
13 Likes
This reminded me of how odd an open world is with some game stories. I can get past the nonsensical side quests because sometimes you just need a silly little break (magically rolling balls around was the highlight of my Hogwarts: Legacy playthrough). I just can’t get past having the majority of the side quests not making sense with the storyline (for example, the storyline being a time crunch).
Take Mass Effect 3 for example. ME3 wasn’t really an open world but man, it felt ridiculous to be scanning planets while the Galaxy was being invaded by super-Aliens. Especially since the previous game actually has consequences if you do too many side quests at a certain part in the game. The only thing I hate worse in games is escort quests.
I couldn’t find the comic about Fallout 4 where the Sole Survivor is shown coming out with the goal to look for Shaun but ends with them all geared up in a ridiculous outfit and being asked by Preston if they were still looking for their son (complete with a “Shaun who?” at the end) but here’s the Breath of the Wild one which always makes me laugh.
But when it comes to CoG stuff, I think the thing I dislike the most is that I’m shoe-horned into going a certain way in certain games. I understand that it can be daunting to the authors write out different options and paths for personalities but there have been games where it feels like I have to play an inherently selfless character. Sometimes I just want to have the option to choose an a-hole type answer. Or a character that always chooses to ignore the problems. Sure, it might make for a short story (depending on the game) but it makes it feel like more fun.
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