Interesting that no-one is DOING anything about the cataclysm. I assume this means that no one lived in the south so they're happy for it to cataclysm itself to bits as long as it doesn't impact on the status quo.
Anyway, since I KNOW the Toronto must be on this continent somewhere it seems almost certain that the cataclysm is it landing and turning into an invincible planet eating robot.
"Honestly, those Dji Cantos must be either not nearly as clever as they make out or REALLY lazy if a world eating metal organism latches onto the side of the planet and all they can be bothered to do is send out 4 people to have a look at it. Talk about head-in-the-sand!" Muses Siobhan as the team stroll around a complicated forest of stone pillars and cacti.
"Shut up! They're just really busy secretly ruling the world is all!" Hoff retorts defensively.
"You know..." starts Dirr "...I'm not completely sure that I LIKE having secret rulers. Just because they're descendants of the original mixed-species settlements from 2000 years ago, I don't like that it means they're allowed to manipulate everyone..."
"Well be fair Dirr - they don't seem to do a lot of manipulating." Tom points out. "They have one old guy who keeps getting re-incarnated in Nakiridani and the leader of the druids amongst them - but the rest of them aren't connected with life outside their palace. And they don't really seem to DO anything to the people. They're not oppressing them or using them to amass huge personal wealth. It seems to me they're more of a club of secret layabouts with access to a pleasure island."
"NO! They're very important to keeping the planet in balance!"
"You seem very sure of that Hoff..."
"...I just... I think they deserve a little more respect from us is all. They're dedicated to peace and happiness for all!"
"Yeah. That's what they say they're about. But to be honest... They SEEM like they just live it up on a palatial continent of their own and sneak around via magical portals they don't tell anyone else about and... Listen, have we been going round in circles?"
Tom makes a good point. The path through the rocks is really complicated and after quite a lot of aimless meandering it looks like we've arrived back at the mystical eye in the rocks that marks where the portal cave we used to get here is.
"Well... Now... I don't think can have..." muses Hoff. "And yet - why would there be a second eye on a different rock? It doesn't make sense..."
Certainly there is a secret symbol of the Dji Cantos on this boulder. But wouldn't we be able to see the city wall from here if it was the same one?
"This is ridiculous" huffs Siobhan sitting heavily down in the sand. "Have we really be wandering around all this time just to have got back to where we started?"
Hoff isn't sure. Stepping up to the rocks he runs his fingers over the carving of an eye. None of the other Dji Cantos ever mentioned there being another portal cave here. And these eyes aren't used for anything else so what can it mean?
Well there's only one way to find out. Pulling the necklace he has that allows him to access the teleport caves out of his shirt where it's been resting on his boobies (since it's a huge dinner-plate sized stone eye and his boobs are firm and full and amazingly well supported considering he passes for a man - the amulet can't really sit attractively between them. If he was keen on being alluring he'd probably be quite frustrated by the fact that he has to balance this thing on his cleavage like a tea tray on a bouncy shelf. Even resigned as he is to being mistaken as an old man, it's quit annoying to have it knocking him on the chin whenever he has to run anywhere) he holds it up to the rock face.
The boulder opens up exactly as expected and the team step inside.
"Hold on... this ISN'T the cave we came here via... where's the teleporting vortex of the goddess?"
Hoff doesn't answer. This is a totally different cave - but somehow marked as a Dji Cantos teleport hub. The passage ahead not-only doesn't hold a pillar of brilliant light that could take them wherever they wanted, but stretches deep into the ground, totally unlike the regularly bored out chamber she was expecting. Indeed the darkness ahead stretches well beyond the penetration of his flaming torch.
"I thought that maybe this was going to be an old abandoned teleport cave... but it doesn't seem to be anything like one..."
"Well lets see where it goes! We're more than a match for any trouble that might come our way!" Siobhan overconfidently announces as she strides forwards and is devoured by a hoover-face monster.
"Oh crumbs" announces Tom as it chomps him down too.
This hoover-face beast is exactly like the ones the team encountered in Kontos's evil alchemical vivisection labs - only this one's sort of yellow and much MUCH tougher. How did a creature created by Kontos's - evil political manipulator - end up here in a double-secret Dji Cantos cave? Between them Dirr and Hoff (although to be brutally honest, Dirr did most of the work) fend the beast off.
Hoff, it turns out, has some healing magic skills he'd been hitherto keeping to himself. But he runs out of magic points during the fight. This means that, when Dirr has cut the beast's bag open and fished the skinless bodies of Tom and Siobhan out from amongst the carpet fluff and pennies, they are un-able to revive them.
"We should take these guys back and get them healed up somewhere" Dirr suggests. "These beasties's weaker cousins gave us enough trouble last time round - and there was 6 of us then! Just the two of us don't stand a chance. Especially since one of us is you"
Hoff is too preoccupied to notice this jibe. And besides, it's pretty much deserved - he might have a crystal throwing axe, but he's rubbish with it and is dressed like a clothes horse in a shirt factory where none of the machines can decide what sized person they're habidashing for. AND he's run out of juice re: magic.
"...You say you've seen these creatures before?" he asks.
"Um... Well BLATANTLY Hoff! You were there! In Kontos's basement. He was breeding them in his labs? Come on - I know that one was a different colour, but couldn't you recognise the mess of tubes and brushes that made up what should've been its face?"
Kontos? Who is Kontos? Hoff only recently got Dirr's trust so decides not to start asking questions like this that reveal that he's not who he says he is.
"We should keep going... We MUST know what's in here!" He says.
"Seriously Hoff? What for?"
"There's something deeply wrong about this place... What is it? Why is it here? Why was this monster here? What's the link between the Dji Cantos and mr Kontos.... Cantos, Kontos, Kantos, Contos... It even SOUNDS like there's a link... Can that mean anything?"
Without really waiting for Dirr to come round to his train of thinking, Hoff presses on into the darkness.
"Oh great! Leave me to drag these two peeled onions why don't you!" shouts his companion trying to grip their recently hoovered up team-mates by what should've been the scruffs of their necks (but which were now sort of like trying to pick up a slab of bacon that's just slightly wider than the span of your hand).
The cave isn't home to just one monster. It's huge and FULL of the things.
There's really only one way to deal with it - fleeing! Every fight the team gets into they flee immediatly. Thankfully, since the hoover-attachment monsters don't have ranged attacks this means the daring duo can slip through without taking any damage - but is this really a sensible tactic?
As I was playing I was guessing that this was some kind of secret area cave - it SURELY can't be that ACTUAL way forwards! It doesn't make sense for a Dji Cantos cave to be full of monsters instead of a portal. At least, it doesn't make sense that the correct route to the Toronto (assuming that's what the cataclysm was) would go through one. As such - I reckon it's fine to skirt past some fights - these creatures are just more badass than usual since this is a bonus area. And besides, I've skirted monsters before. In the ancient underground war-torn ruins of Arjano. I saw plenty of monsters there that I didn't even TRY to take on.
Dodging, rolling and skittering around the place - Hoff and Dirr eventually spot a barred door leading out of the caverns. Running up to it they get it open and escape the monster room.
But where have they escaped to? They find themselves outside in another part of the boulder maze. Turning to look behind them they see that this entrance to the cave is also marked as a Dji Cantos eye-cavern.
"Where are we?" asks Dirr.
"I dunno - it seems like we've come a long way from the city through that passage..."
"I think I can see a way south through the boulders..."
Heading south, Hoff and Dirr find their way onto some prairies. Huge tracts of open grassland spread out ahead of them. 4 screens worth of the stuff to be exact.
I wish at this point that I'd've been able to look through the character's eyes. The savannah is completely flat and so they'd've been able to see across it to the sea in all directions and known that there was NOTHING THERE.
As it was, viewing the scene from above, I spent ages - AGES - exploring this vast wasteland. Seriously, this area is probably as big as the northern desert - if not bigger! But it's 100% featureless and (as far as I can see at this point) POINTLESS!
Hoff and Dirr wander around for DAYS, dragging the ever mouldering bodies of their companions with them through the dirt and pampas grass - looking for either a settlement or evidence of a cataclysm and finding nothing. They even reach the southern coast of the continent without passing anything of note at all.
I know that previously I've been quite a fan of the exploring in this game. I loved wandering round the pleasure island of the Dji Cantos. I enjoyed mapping out the whole of the first continent. But at least in those places there was a point to it - either level-up flowers or magic-ammo berries to find. It seems this continent has very little to entice you to walk around it except a locked prison where you can trigger a load of murders by well-meaningly releasing a murderess - although naturally my characters don't know that since that never happened remember?
Honestly - I was totally stumped by what the point of this place was. It almost feels like I'm not supposed to have been able to get here at this point and that a plot point later in the game would fill up a lot of this space (possibly with a landed space ship or Brigadoon or something).
Eventually Dirr throws down the now filthy and fly wridden bodies she's been dragging and exclaims "listen Hoff. I don't even know what you're looking for out here? We need to go back and get these two fixed up - if it's even possible any more. I've tried to stop their bodies getting too out of shape - I managed to pocket one of Tom's eyes when it fell out but I don't know what happened to the other..."
Hoff looks at Dirr who, being an Iskai, is completly naked and subsequently doesn't have pockets to put things in. There is a brief period of intense calculation as he decides if it's a good idea to ask exactly what she means by "pocketed" the eye - but in the extended pause Dirr carries on, leaving the question un-asked.
"We're going back now. And YOU'RE carrying these two for a change. I'm sick of my hands being covered in bacon slime all the time".
So many questions still to answer. This abandoned kingdom that can only be reached by a Dji Cantos monster cavern... what does it all mean? Hoff's still not satisfied but can concede that starving themselves to death out here isn't helping anyone.
They hike back to the monster passage and enter through the eye-cave.
But as they go in they're swarmed by monsters again and in the confusion end up heading the wrong way. By the time they notice they've gone south instead of north it's too late - but it's ok because there's another exit up ahead! Running out as before (still fleeing any monsters that take an interest in them) the two step once again into the blazing sunshine in yet another part of the continent.
"Hey look!" cries Tom, leaping upright and acting as though he hasn't been dead for the last several weeks being dragged skinlessly around the dusty far horizons of the desert continent. "There in the sky! It's a pod from the Toronto!"
And lo-and-behold he's right! Swooping into view is a hovering ship exactly like the one Tom and Hoff arrived in all that time ago!
The thing lands and Tom scampers in through the automatically opening doors!
"Come on" he calls back to the other guys - Siobhan also standing up now and trying to brush the ants out of her exposed ligaments.
Looking round he notices there's no pilot on board though. That's strange.
He glances back to the others who - being all natives of Albion (with the sort-of exception of Hoff) are stood awestruck by the magical metal box that's just dropped out of the sky. Somehow zombie-Tom's enthusiasm doesn't really make getting into it seem any more of an inviting prospect...
Suddenly the ship doors close.
"No! Wait! My companions! And Hoff! *ack choke* What??!! Gas!!! *ack splutter puke weep* Why??!!"
Tom doubles over and the whole world goes dark.
> secret layabouts with access to a pleasure island
ReplyDeleteYou're just jealous :)
> balance this thing on his cleavage like a tea tray on a bouncy shelf
Man, I never would have guessed that someday I would read such a sentence in a text about Albion. Or, you know, at all. :D
> Especially since one of us is you
You really gotta love those characters.
I've got to admit, I've never thought much about the fact that those monsters were created by Kontos. I just considered them to be a species of monster that he summoned instead of inventing them, so I didn't see a problem with them appearing somewhere else. Sort of like the demon-type creatures appearing in many places (though some of those places you have yet to visit).
The Dji Cantos eye symbol on the rock is just plain confusing, though. I guess there's no better way to explain it than to say that the developers couldn't be bothered to create another sprite for this entrance.
That you're having that much trouble with these monsters is a pretty bad sign. The enemies are soon gonna get really tough even for a party that swats the creatures in this cave like flies.
> NOTHING THERE
> POINTLESS!
> I managed to pocket one of Tom's eyes when it fell out but I don't know what happened to the other...
Wow, you're not coping too well with the emptiness :/
I stepped out of that cave, thought "This looks too deserty for my taste", went back in and took the other exit. Lucky me, I guess :/
> Tom doubles over and the whole world goes dark.
And finally everything will be revealed...
(Which would be more thrilling if you hadn't guessed most of it back in the first or second blog post)
Yep. I'm sure that the devs just needed a way for there to be a secret passage in the rocks that didn't require any extra work on their part. But from the player's perspective (well, MY perspective) the implications are much much more interesting. Similarly the hoover-faced beasties being there!
ReplyDeleteThe thing with the desert though is - how could you KNOW there wasn't something important / useful out there? I mean, last time I wandered for ages off the beaten path I found that secret town (through the windy pass on the continent of the druids where that ace shop was). Apart from this island, the game's been training me to expect there to be SOMETHING worth having out in the far-flung reaches - even if it was something as simple as the magic berries for Sira. I think that this would be one of my questions for the Devs - why was this area here? Was it meant to have something useful there that people missed? Was it meant to be a red herring? Was it just there because someone thought "we need to show how big the continent is" and didn't consider how annoying it would be to players? I'm not cross, I'm just mystified. If it was meant to be that this area was going to have a town in it, but then that bit got dropped, why leave the door out of the cave in the game? Why not just delete it all away?
Yeah - I fear the plot's pretty much inevitable at this point. Amoeka's a baddy, corporations are baddies, robo-piloted trap-podules are baddies. I don't expect the twist to be that surprising - but it WILL be interested to see how the details pan out. I'm surprised that there's a Tom-only section coming up - even if the larger plot is predictable, it's still a cool change of pace to have your team left behind!
> The thing with the desert though is - how could you KNOW there wasn't something important / useful out there?
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I knew was that my trip through the northern half of the continent was unpleasant enough for my taste. I usually am a completionist when it comes to exploration, but in this case I just wasn't willing to bear any more of it :/
I guess that sort of reaction was more or less expected by the developers. Don't know if they intended it that way, but it had one positive effect in that it made the desert appear more mysterious and dangerous than it really was.
At this point I should probably mention that an uncle of mine almost died for real back then because he lost his way in a desert, so that kind of helped to set the mood in my young mind.
Wow - that really WOULD put you off the desert sections in Albion! That's pretty dramatic!!!
ReplyDeleteClosest I could come was one time me and my dad got lost on a mountain looking for a stone circle. Only actually we weren't really very lost (I reckon it must be basically not possible to ever be dangerously lost in England - there's just not enough space!) so this probably instilled in my young mind that it's ok to just go wandering around enormous prairies because you'll end up somewhere useful in the end. More fool me!
Haha, that's pretty great. Probably would have been the same for me if my parents had liked hiking, Germany's similarly densely packed with civilization :)
ReplyDeleteDamn, now I wonder if there's ever been a study by one of those crazy sociologists about the (lack of) correlation between birth place and tendency to roam around in computer games.
I know you're joking - but I genuinly WOULD be interested to see if there were links between different regions cultures and their play styles. Europe would be an amazing place to do this kind of study since all the countries retain strong senses of distinct identities, fashions and cultures. Wouldn't it be interesting to find out if English people are more likely to "harvest" the little sisters in Bioshock than the Spanish? Is there any difference between France and Lithuania in terms of the number of people who don't use the BFG until they get to final boss instead of just setting it off the moment they get it? I'd like to see popularity charts for all the NPCs in Baldur's Gate showing which countries they were biggest in - did most German players keep Imoen? Were the Dutch more keen on Tiax? Is there anywhere in Europe where people didn't like Minsc?
ReplyDeleteBut maybe this is because I'm quite a boring games developer.
It was only half a joke - I'm a physics student with special interest in data analysis, after all. This sort of thing often is thrilling to me!
ReplyDelete(Though from what I've seen most sociologists have trouble grasping the simplest concepts of statistics - with hilarious results. So I couldn't resist riffing on them)
> did most German players keep Imoen?
I certainly would have if I ever got that far into the main story without hitting some bad bug. Her German voice was angelic in the best of ways; she couldn't have sucked enough at fighting to outweigh that :D
I ditched her pretty much immediately - similarly Khalid and Jaheira, the married couple who are meant to look after you. No way was I keeping the characters you start out with! I wanted to make my OWN party!
ReplyDeleteAlthough I did keep Minsc because he was awesome, so I didn't break TOO much from the mould...