Kingdom Come: Deliverance

[Art Blade]

who knows, it's certainly possible but I really don't know. I think he can't blame me, he wouldn't know it was me because I sneaked up on him from behind and choked him until he passed out. He never saw it coming, literally. So he might wake up with a sore throat and just in his underwear, then realise someone must have robbed him, but that's that. Unless I was wearing his armour if we ever meet again, he'll never know it was me. I felt a bit bad, truth be told, when I robbed him, because he was a gentleman. Then again, I thought it would be really stupid not to do it, we were alone in the middle of nowhere and those were hard times.. better help myself before someone else sparks the same idea. And I didn't kill him, just erm, helped him by taking away his awful burden of a heavy armour.

[Art Blade]

by the way, millers were the fences back in the day, they were known to be a bit shady. So that's how I sell stolen goods. There's that one miller I keep returning to. He says he'd take care of goods I might find and keep the stuff safe in case someone might miss it. I think it's some kind of finder's fee I get from him. Wink, wink. I may then buy it back from him (for a horrendous price compared to what he paid me) but by then, it won't count as stolen anymore. Some kind of money laundering.

[LowPolyOWG]

 

[PZ]

I like using poisons in video games 

[Art Blade]

Here's another story. Henry (me) had two old friends who too escaped / survived the massacre during which his parents were killed. I found them all across the map and it was some kind of intuition or instinct or whatever, by pure chance, that I actually came across them. Turned out that they were unemployed and owed money to a monk because one of the two (Fritz) had beaten up the monk who had cured their wounds so he said they'd have to pay for the treatment. I intimidated the monk (convincing him I'd really beat him up so badly he was pretty scared) which made him abate my friends' debts. Now I was supposed to find w0#k for them and that I did, it was some miller who needed carpenters. After a week I was supposed to check how my friends were doing. Turned out that the foreman Thomas was treating them badly and they weren't happy at all. That is the base of the story that's coming.

At first I talked to one friend, Fritz, who wanted to beat up that foreman and leave. Then I talked to Matthew who fancied the miller's daughter and he too didn't like the foreman (who also fancied the daughter) but wanted to stay. Now I was to find a solution for them.

I actually played through that with several different approaches, using savegames (which I wouldn't have had at that point without the cheat mod).

First I managed to convince Thomas that all they needed was money to pay a debt so leaving them alone so they could w0#k faster (undisturbed) would be all he had to do and he should then pay up and send them away. Fritz wasn't too happy because of a missed brawl, Matthew wasn't too happy because he'd have to leave. They thanked me anyway because at least for the time they'd have to stay, Thomas would leave them alone.

Then I tried the approach Fritz suggested (telling a lie to Thomas about a game of dice over at another mill to lure him away so Fritz could beat him up without people around) but couldn't convince Thomas to go play dice. Instead, I ended up beating him up and that was bad news for my friends as they were about to get fired.

Then I managed to convince Thomas to meet at a place outside the village for an honorable fistfight with my friends and myself and he was allowed to bring two friends of his. If we won, Thomas was supposed to leave my friends alone, and if he won he would be allowed to send them away. We had three pairs beating the snot out of one another, I was the one who defeated Thomas. Fritz was happy, Matthew not so much but it was still OK for him and they thanked me.

Then I decided to talk to the miller first and asked him whether or not he was satisfied with the w0#k of my friends he had hired them for, and I learned a lot of different things. Turns out that Thomas wasn't going to be a good miller, not talented at all but the only guy who had stayed after the miller's son had died in an accident. Thomas was there when the wagon with stones for the mill rolled over and killed the son, tried to get help but was too late. Ever since he'd been the foreman. The miller would even allow him to marry his daughter because that would ensure that Thomas stayed. I also learned that Thomas had sent away more than half a dozen workers over time and had always been the only guy remaining. I suggested he did that on purpose to get the daughter and the mill without competitors in his way, the miller however didn't want to see reason and refused to continue the conversation. However, the daughter showed up telling me that she had overheard the conversation. She said that Thomas indeed did that on purpose and her father wasn't the brightest anymore at his age. She told me about the accident and added a new detail, her brother had been robbed while Thomas was trying to get help. A red scarf was stolen, the one she had given her brother as some kind of good luck charm. When I asked Thomas about it, he struggled and said it must have dropped into the mud and still be somewhere out there. I thought he was lying.

At that point I accidentally screwed up because again I ended up in a fistfight with him and he fired my friends. I did consider looking around at the mill for that scarf, lock-picking and checking out a few boxes, but no scarf was there.

I tried again, for some reason the version with the 3x3 honour fight -- ah yes, that was supposed to take place in the evening and the first time around I spent the time reading books until late evening which resulted the fight to end in the night, I couldn't see anything. So I reloaded, read only one book and we went to the location early evening, still daylight when we finished. Funny enough, this time I actually knocked out Thomas and I was able to loot the unconscious guy and surprise, he had the red scarf on him (marked as a quest item) and I took everything. When I got back to the mill, I wanted to show the scarf to the miller's daughter but I didn't get the option to do so.

That led to the last try. After talking to my friends, I went through the chats with the miller and the daughter so the scarf was mentioned, and THEN was the moment to pick-pocket Thomas. In broad daylight, everyone around, on his home turf at the mill. A bit tricky but I managed undetected, and I only nicked the scarf off him. NOW the option to talk to the daughter again was available and I told her Thomas had "dropped" the scarf and I went right to her with it without confronting him first. She said she'd deal with it, took the scarf and went to Thomas and sent him away (as in she fired him) -- mission accomplished, yet again, but this time it was actually different: there was no reason for my friends to leave the mill anymore, no bullying by Thomas, and Matthew was now free to court the daughter and both friends were actually happy that I managed to get rid of Thomas. That was the best outcome possible in my opinion.

Crazy how many ways there were to solve that little side quest, how many different options I was offered. Also, the scarf thingy.. I only found out about it by chance and another weird chance (knocking out Thomas and being able to loot him while my friends were still fighting) that actually let me find the scarf on Thomas.. And you see, it did pay off that I had learned pick-pocketing and lock-picking, without those skills, there wouldn't have been any way to get that scarf. So I used my shady skills to actually do something good with them

[LowPolyOWG]

  That's a very interesting game you have there

[PZ]

That's quite a story 

I doubt I'd be able to remember all the details needed to play properly 

[fragger]

Good story, Art It seems that save mod is worth having...

With that level of detail and variation in just a side quest, it appears that you'll be in for a nice long playthrough Good value for money.

[PZ]

Definitely good entertainment value for the money. In my area going to a movie is about $14 for a picture that is no more than 2 hours long for an effective hourly price of $7. Video games cost about $60 - I've already spent more than 100 hours in Origins for an entertainment value of 60 cents per hour. You guys that have spent thousands of hours in a game are most certainly getting the most value per dollar likely than any other form of entertainment.

[BinnZ]

1.6 cents per hour in my case... GTA

[PZ]

I know you and AB have probably the best bang for the buck of most of our members 

Imagine only having to pay 1.6 cents/hour to go to a movie 

[fragger]

Movie prices are about the same here. They can range anywhere between $14 AUD ($11 USD) to $27 AUD ($21 USD). Typically, the higher prices are in the cities. Not that I go to the movies much these days, I've kind of soured on that. The last time I went to the cinema was to see the final Lord of the Rings movie

[PZ]

I too do not go to the movies any longer for a variety of reasons, among them the price. I'd rather wait until it comes out on  DVD or DirectTv.  That way AI can enjoy the movie in the privacy of my home, with all the good food and drink I would want, rather than being in a large stinky room full of rude noisy people. 

[Art Blade]

cheers, guys, for the comments

There was just a 5.7GB update to version 1.3.1
Yes, 5.7 GIGAbytes. They fixed a good deal of problems and added saving game improvements:

The game now has Save and Exit feature.
Saving is much more robust and saves won't get corrupted even if the game crashes while saving.
Performance improved
LoD switching tweaked, reducing pop-in and improving texture streaming.
Stuttering in some areas reduced.
Slightly smoother framerate on Vsync 30. (Consoles and some PCs)
Improved lockpicking
New interface design makes it much easier to hold the sweet spot while turning the lock.
Easy and Very Easy trunks are now easier to lockpick when playing with controller. (Mouse difficulty unchanged)
Improved pickpocketing
You will no longer get caught if you stop at the beginning of the minigame. (Unless someone sees you)
The risk indicator is now much more precise. When green, you are sure not to get caught.
Alchemy bench will no longer shoot you into the air.
The last quest with Lord Capon is now visible on the map when he is ready to assign it to you.
Guards won't frisk you so often.
Your horse shouldn't get stuck when jumping fences.
Horse items are cleaned along with player items in bathhouses.
You can see when looking at a bed whether it will save your game.
You can sleep on beds without having to sit down first.
Levelling up stealth by sneaking past enemies is more consistent.
Sneaking past sleeping NPCs is now easier.
Some easily accessible trunks with extremely good loot have been removed.
Cave mushrooms can now be found in many other damp places.
You can no longer autocook potions that you haven't brewed by hand at least once before.
German voiceovers will no longer cut off in mid-sentence in cutscenes.
Late game player strength tweaked
Some combat perks that were unintentionally overpowered were tuned down.
Weapons scale less with high-level stats.
It should now be much harder to kill high-level enemies with one hit. (Unless they're helmetless. Stupid Runt...)
Other combat system tweaks
"Untargeted attack" exploit fixed.
Enemy combat archery AI improved.
Guards now react to combat more aggressively.
And many other minor tweaks.
(PC only) It is now possible to select different types of anti-aliasing.
(PC only) It is now possible to set VSync to 30 or 60, or disable it completely.
(PC only) Steam Cloud saving enabled.
And over 300 other fixes in various quests.
Improved CPU load balancing - better performance.
Turkish subtitles added.

[PZ]

Wow, that's lots of improvements