Kingdom Come: Deliverance

[BinnZ]

...AI can enjoy the movie in the privacy of my home...

I keep the AI inside my PC all the time. Careful inviting them over PZ, they might glitch on the sofa

[Art Blade]

I had noticed that typo but I couldn't come up with anything useful and congratz, you just nailed it

[fragger]

You guys are terrible

...And phones. Phones keep me away from the movies too. Even if people aren't actually talking on them, I hate seeing those glowing little screens moving about in my peripheral vision while I'm trying to watch a movie Dunno why those people bother coming to the movies if they're going to pay more attention to their hand-held devices.

That was a big patch for KC:D. Looks like they addressed a lot of issues. This one made me laugh actually:

"Alchemy bench will no longer shoot you into the air".

It's probably good that they fixed that

[Art Blade]

yeah

I never came across that glitch but I watched a guy in a YT vid getting hit by an enemy and that sent him flying straight up into the air.

Some 20 metres.

And he survived the landing without a scratch.

[PZ]

 

[Art Blade]

After doing something here and there, now finally a little story again for you guys.

As a side mission, I had accepted to dispose of a handful of bandits encamped somewhere not far away in the forest and to bring the leader's spurs as proof that I had killed him. Well, I'd done that before. This time I had poison with me. I arrived at night, moved all the glistering and rattling parts of my wardrobe into the horse's saddlebags. The remaining attire and a few extra parts turned me into a silent silhouette.

Light armour and dark clothes, and poison at the ready, I was death incarnate. It was pitch black and then I heard someone talking ahead of me. Trying to get closer I nearly knocked over a guard who had just stopped there for a breather on his round. It was so dark that I really hadn't seen him. Night time in this game is really, really black, you can't see where you're going without a torch. And I nearly ran into a guard.. whoa, that was almost it.

Well, eventually he resumed his patrol and the guys I had heard before were apparently going to sleep. I moved around in the bushes and hid in the shrubberies, virtually non-existent, and then I could reach the pot over the fire with food in it. I knew they'd all eat from the pot for breakfast because I had observed that elsewhere before. So I dropped a bottle of poison into it and slowly and silently crawled away back into the woods. No one had seen me.

Now I was sitting at a ledge of a stone cliff below which was the encampment of the bandits. I had a good view but I couldn't see everything due to the angle and foliage down and around the camp. And it was still night. I didn't want to risk anything by making the time pass by waiting or sleeping. So I had to wait, indeed. And got bored. So I tried to find the one guard who had stopped then, and I found him. I followed him for a while until it finally dawned which was when I returned to my ledge.

Before I could reach the ledge, someone from the camp yelled something like, "raise the alarm! He's here, come here, quick!" And here I thought they had spotted me which gave me quite a start. I made sure I wasn't being surrounded and strangely enough, I couldn't see anybody. So I crawled to the ledge and noticed first one man, then another one, sitting on a bench, eating from.. the pot. Ah.. so the first guy who ate from the pot died, someone saw the body and called for help. I'm afraid there's no help comin', lads After the commotion everything and everyone still on their feet settled down for some breakfast. Rinse and repeat, it was hilarious

A message popped up informing me that the leader of the camp was killed, mission accomplished, nice one, cheers. It wasn't so easy to spot the five bodies, everyone probably face down and flat on the ground, sprawled into the foliage, they really weren't easily to spot. I tried some educated guesses like, "if he ate here, he might have limped over here and then probably fell down this slope." Then I followed the slope and indeed, there he was. Same kind of thing with the other guys, two were close together and the third not far but four and five really were in weird places.

It was actually quite cool. I had poisoned a camp of five well-armed bandits at night with just one vial of poison that I can brew myself and come morning, I had to simply reap what I grimly sowed.

There was one more bandit camp and it was daytime, so I clobbered the living daylights out of their leader until the spark of his life was gone. The rest of the bandits who had watched ran away screaming for help. I looted the boss and went into the bushes to hide from the runaway bandits. I thought, "where could they go? Nowhere but back to their camp, so let's wait. They'll come.."

Which is how the remaining four ended up getting stabbed in the back, like clockwork.. easy loot, thank you very much and good-bye.

[LowPolyOWG]

 

Nice story

[PZ]

Indeed - nice one - the poisoning sounds like how I go into camps in Origins 

[Art Blade]

cheers, guys

Poisoning isn't as easy as in Origins. You need to administer poison to a weapon or have someone digest it (drop poison into a food pot or poison a wineskin, that sort of thing) so it is less effective than in Origins. Here there are no corpses that literally vent off poisonous vapour in amounts that kill half a garrison just like that. Origins also uses infected people infecting others which doesn't exist in KCD, at least I haven't come across any toxic substance yet that spreads like a disease when administered accordingly.

In general, this game is way more a simulator than an arcade action game which is the reason why almost everything is either dangerous or difficult or both.

Unless you spend your days sitting in a comfy chair reading romantic books while being surrounded and protected by huge castle walls and fit guards in glistering armour.

KCD makes you realise that you are just one person and that your health and life depend on not doing anything stupid, not overestimating yourself and wearing appropriate garments and armour. It means, if you don't act like a blind fool, you're likely going to have a good day. However, if you get into trouble, don't let it be anything involving town guards or castle guards. You wouldn't stand a chance and end up in prison which comes along with losing good reputation and on top, becoming infamous. Instead, let it be something involving bandits. You can have your share of action almost whenever you want, just travel through forests a lot and you will run into a few bandits. This is when solid plate armour with everything you've got on display to boast your wealth might be helpful as a means of impression (some might run away from you) and as a means of defence against multiple enemies. This is also when you realise that very light armour that doesn't produce a lot of noise and particularly at dusk or night, dark clothes would have helped you to run into hiding and then to stalk the bandits.

Choices.. 

[PZ]

hmmm... that brings to mid an idea - make some kind of viral biological available in the game 

[Art Blade]

of course, and genetically engineered so that everyone infected brings me their money, patents of nobility, last wills, their daughters, horses, keys to their homes and castles.. and make me king.

Anything else?  You wish, but it's not going to be that easy in KCD

[PZ]

of course, and genetically engineered so that everyone infected brings me their money, patents of nobility, last wills, their daughters, horses, keys to their homes and castles.. and make me king.

 

[fragger]

Nice ripping yarns there, Art

The only other game I can think of which had proper dark nights - like "I can't see jack without my flashlight" dark - was Stalker: Call of Pripyat. In most games, night is just dimmer daytime. In the Far Cry games, there was hardly any difference. FO4 is a bit better, but it's still - well, not night.

Oh, there was Doom 3, which had lots of pitch-dark areas, but they were all indoors. That game just plain stank anyway, I gave up after about an hour. Got sick of getting the damn flashlight out - and when you were holding your flashlight, you couldn't hold a weapon, so if you got jumped you either had to swap the flashlight for your weapon, shoot in the dark and hope for the best, or try to beat some big demonic monster to death with your bitty little flashlight. I hated that game.

[Art Blade]

thank you, fragger  -- ripping yarns, eh? nice one

KCD is different from those horror titles. There are no monsters. And I use darkness like this: have a background light like a fireplace, and observe the darkness between that light source and yourself. Anything that moves on its own can't be good. Animals aren't sneaking around at night, they will be running around between dawn and dusk.

If I want to see something more, if only to walk faster instead of into trees, I use a torch. Of course, everyone around will see me from afar while I'm blinded except within the well-lit sphere, drawn into the darkness by the torch. And that's not how I want to get into a sword fight. I'd much rather put away the torch so I can use both hands in a fight and as long as it's twilight, there's a fair chance of winning, but at night I wouldn't have a chance.

Although the AI can't normally see you in the dark, there's that one exception that will teach you not to mess with it: once they know you're an enemy because they literally had a run-in with you, they will all see you and keep that perk seeking you. There's no way out but their death and at night, that's unlikely.

In other words, night time is good as long as you stay out of fights. Better stay in bed at night unless you're up for some shady w0#k.

[PZ]

It is good that the FC2 mercs aren't in the game