Yeah this made me laugh, thanks rexo! :)
My minions, I am happy and pround to give you Tales of Maj'Eyal 1.1.5 ! See http://te4.org/
Your launcher should automatically update your game so no need to redownload it all (on Windows).
Enjoy and have fun in Eyal!
This update already hit the servers some hours ago but I had to get out and then sleep so I couldn't post until now :/
Don't forget to help ToME by with donations ( http://te4.org/donate ) !
Release highlights:
- Some fixes
Expanded changelist:
- Fixed unarmed display of combat speed on gloves/gauntlets
- Fix Temporal Form prodigy
- When the game refuses to load a savefile due to the stone warden addons being offline, it will let you force it to load -- at your own risk
- Made the portal in the Slazish Fens more visible in ASCII mode
- Fixed Bill's Tree Trunk
- Changed the way the Steam builds are done, this may help reduce the download size on new patches (not thsi one thougth)
- I've had enough trying to justify the breeding pits. Or seeing un-intended, by me - the maker of the game, references to real world terrible events. It's gone now.
Have fun!
- darkgod's blog
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MOARRR
Im glad to see frequent updates. I would be happiest person in the world, if we could get more classes to unlock ! :)
Breeding pits
What's the story with breeding pits?
What was wrong about it?
Oh Lord
My guess would be a lot of whiny politically correct types that don't like players having optional quests in a fantasy game that don't line up with their morals in real life.
RIP in pieces Orc Breeding Pits
The testament to how you weren't afraid to create horrifying scenes of young sedated orcish women being injected with corrupted blood, given regeneration and healing infusions, and having their abdomens subject to chronomantic magic, despite the reactions of others will not be forgotten, and the choice of killing children and babies that would try to kill you when you get older will be missed as well. We'll also miss the loot, the experience, and that occasional solipsist rare orc baby that casted nightmare then inner demons on you to kill you before you killed the other babies and children between you and him.
;_;
please fixing map reseting bug
i can't go back to reknols dats make me insane.
So sad
MIDDLE FINGER to all those who complained about Breeding Pits. This dungeon was the most emotionally involving event of the game, the story told there really made an impact on you, at least it did touch me in a personal way... Too bad it has to go because someone was too stupid to grasp it...
Eh...
Maybe this game was better off without Steam?....
PS: Is it possible to mod it back?
people are like that
Yeah I never made it to the breeding pits sadly. It's just a problem of modern poltical correctness to whine online and anonymously about things. Read about it every day - don't say this word, don't show this crime. If they wanted to play a kiddy game there are countless numbers of them. Roguelikes are for mature minds.
Also, because there were so-called eugenetic experiments in history why not feature them in a game. It's not like those things are encouraged -people might even read about such things afterwords.
Intersting moral dilemmas are so scarce in modern entertainment or esp. games.
Yeah, a little offtop, but it
Yeah, a little offtop, but it fits very well in this situation:
This winter, an awesome game was released, made over five years by some random people from iichan imageboard (like 4chan of yours). It was originally going to be an eroge (you know, basically porn) but they changed it into a very deep and emotionally touching visual novel, with awesome music, graphics and story. Surprisingly, with it being a hobby project of a bunch of random people, it ended up extremely well. Reception is extremely positive. People here and there are telling stories how this game changed their lives... If you're curious, it's called Everlasting Summer, it's in russian only right now, but community is translating it into english and we hope for an english release in forseeable future.
Well, in this game, probably THE most emotionally touching moment is in one of the story arcs with a rather shy girl, where if you mess up your relationship with her, it ends up with a misunderstanding after you make love, where protagonist leaves her for 15 minutes, and she commits suicide (cuts her veins). The protagonist comes back only in time to hear her dying words, about how she was facing misunderstandings, pity and sorrow for all her life, how she was alone all the time, and just couldn't bear it anymore. He understands what he has done, and eventually realises his life is now meaningless because this was his true love, and because of him it ended up horribly, and thus he commits suicide too, hoping to "meet her there...". There's no "guro" or other kind of nasty pictures shown on the screen - the text and the music creates a huge emotional impact, up to the point that many men confessed crying when reading it. Those are the guys that normally mass murder humanoids in FPSes and laugh at Happy Tree Friends cartoons...
This one ending only (and the game has about 13 endings, about 9 of them unique) already makes the game worth playing, it is such a masterpiece, because it actually teaches people something! The value of a single word, the fragile state of people's psychology. It teaches you to feel for other person, to try to predict how your harsh actions can harm other people beyond your understanding. It teaches you to CARE about people you love, lest you'd be left with a terrible and irreversible outcome. Well, at least it opened my eyes on how I'm ruining my marriage, and other people on forums report how it made them reconsider their actions in their lives too.
Guess what, if this would be released as a commercial product, or actually gain any sort of popularity (and persons who made it would not be anonymous), it would probably be banned for "promoting suicide" in Russia under our laws, and I suspect in other countries too, with it's authors fined or jailed. Because OH MY GOD, A PROTAGONIST COMMITED SUICIDE SO THIS IS WHAT YOU TEACH PEOPLE WHO READ YOUR VISUAL NOVEL!
This is really, really stupid. I can't even begin to comprehend how blind must the people be, those who think that way... I mean, I get it when people are outraged by a game where doing something bad is done for fun - like, Postal series (though even that has it's merit, let him pop heads in the game so he doesn't go popping heads in real life). But when the game tells you a story and clearly shows you something awful, immoral or disgusting, and lets you experience it firsthand - probably even being in the driving seat - isn't this one of the best ways to actually teach gamers about morality? While in absense of such education, games that are deemed to be "clean of taint" actually teach the opposite - how killing is just "earning loot and xp", how killing is fun, taking away any burden of guilt for what is really a horrible act...
When I was very small, and was starting to play PC games, it was at my mother's working place, and I was playing Dark Forces (FPS shooter set in Star Wars universe), and her coworker asked me: "Why are you shooting them (the imperial storm troopers)"? And I answered "Because that's the point of the game!" And he said "What if they have friends? Families? What if that was someone's father or someone's mother in that armor suit? What if that would be your father or mother?" And I said "But if I don't shoot first they'll shoot me!" And he said "But you haven't tried even once! You always shoot first, how can you know they will shoot you first if you never even give them a chance? Isn't that cruel?"...
Of course, this went nowhere, because I trusted him, tried not to shoot, and of course got shot, and told him "See I told you they'd shoot me" but point stays. Moments like these, that let the player experience the reality of what they are playing - the reality of war, the reality of survival in harsh conditions, the reality of "dark arts", the reality of horror, the reality of sorrow and guilt - they are a really important part of a mature story. More than that, they are educational and actually influence people in a good way. They make people reconsider their actions, and influence them beyond the game, by teaching them that there is a moral choice almost in any action we take, and acting carelessly is definetly not mature, and not okay, and can lead to real harm. While games that are "clear" of this, that don't let the player experience anything "naughty" and "nasty" like torture, suicide, mutilation, murder of inoccents, etc. - they just teach you that it's fine to kill, it's no prob, they're enemies, they wear red shirts, they got guns - they can be shot/stabbed with no hesitation, blown up to pieces en masse, and hell, you even get extra goodies if you murder them in a fancy way!... "ULTRA KILL!"... blweh....
PS: Hypocricy everywhere. People revere and praise Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, yet in no modern adaptaion would you be allowed to screen Holmes using drugs like he does in the books, for basically recreational purposes, noo, that would be deemed "promotion of drug abuse". No, Holmes can only either be a recovering drug addict that regrets his use of drugs and helps other get off drugs (Elementary), or just a smoker (Sherlock) who is, of course, quitting...
PPS: I actually think it's the other way around. This all "unethical" and "immoral" blabber is just a facade, what people really want is to ensure that noone takes the fun away from their game. They want to be able to continue to mass murder thieves, thugs, assasins, necromancers, orcs, goblins, trolls, terrorists, nazis, russkies, maniacs and all sort of other "enemy npcs", without any guilt, without any second thought, they don't want someone to spoil their fun by reminding them that they're actually commiting murder, that they're taking someone's life away from them... Entertainment. Nothing else.
Holy Crap.
I completely agree with most points, but you know, most people consider three paragraphs to be a wall of text. Might want to include a TL;DR somewhere.
Well said!
Agree on almost every point you made :)
I think there is a very easy
I think there is a very easy and solid solution which should make everyone happy: make Breeding Pit an addon which can be turned on/off and make it disabled by default. People who know and care about it can just enable it and whiners can leave it disabled. There should also be a short description so people new to the game can decide whether they want it or not. BAM, problem solved.
Thank god for Jim Sterling
just as...
The Call of Duty "No Russian" mission was optional.
Alternatively, could we all
Alternatively, could we all stop going on about this? Darkgod's expressed how uncomfortable he is with all the arguing about the area was making him on both sides; the thread about it on the forums was locked, in a hope that people stop going on and on; he's made a decision to remove and replace it, in the hopes that this would disarm all this nonsense.
Seriously, how long are you going to carry a torch for an area that took up about twenty minutes of a playthrough? Let it be, the literary world will somehow have to live without this amazingly 'emotionally involving' area in a CRPG.
If you feel you have to express your disgust at political correctness gone mad in a world of hypocrisy, take it over to Reddit or somewhere, or perhaps email it to letters@dailymail.co.uk; they appear to love that kind of thing. But at least let it go on here for Darkgod's peace of mind.
So is removing this chunk of
So is removing this chunk of gameplay and XP going to make it harder for the races with higher experience requirements to get to the end of the game and final boss and survive? I have never made it past about 3/4 of the ways...
It has very nearly no effect
It has very nearly no effect on the grand scheme of things
Don't we have to deal with
Don't we have to deal with all orc patrols now instead of having an option to thin them out quite a bit?
Yes you do, more chance of
Yes you do, more chance of loot !
It's your story! Don't compromise it!
I'm disappointed you backed down on this one, darkgod. It would have been better to remain silent, and let the vocal minority be aggravated over fictional orc sexual horror all by themselves.
This is the internet. It is where people go to champion causes that aren't worth recognition or time. I hope you put it back, simply because you made it, and it was a small part of the story you wrote for your world. Then, I hope you never make the mistake of acknowledging the kind of people who get spend their time getting upset over harmless nonsense.
To all of you reading this who were part of the "omg orc baby killerz i luv mah level 100 orc shaman wtf this is racist" gaggle: Go outside and occupy your sense of injustice with something meaningful. This is a world with actual, meaningful horrors that need attention. You people need a reality check upside your nerd heads.
Hear hear!
A well-written, succinct summary of the situation; one I agree with wholeheartedly.
Having never yet made it to
Having never yet made it to the zone in question, I can only say I'm sorry I won't be able to experience it. Count me in on those who would like to see DG's full vision realized, it is HIS game afterall.
Personally, those who have issues about things like this in a game where you run around killing/dying/mutilating/dying/slashing/hacking/slaughtering/dying again etc etc should go play a different game. It isn't supposed to be a politically correct or happy world and it isn't supposed to be a friendly game made for everyone. Those who have issues with the zone should skip it, rather than ruin it for those who don't. I would like to see the zone returned to the game at some point.
Just passed the breading pits on 1.0.5
...and then the Vor pride, and read the Orc's account of the war, and I must say, I've never felt so uncomfortable about my characters action's in a video game before. That is a testament to the writing for the whole game, and the far east zones especially. Going from feeling surprisingly conflicted about the whole genocide thing (considering it's a video game), to reading the orc history and finding out that yeah, my character could justifiably be considered a monster (and to rub salt in an old wound, my character was a halfling), was a pretty profound experience. It's the sort of thing that shows just how powerful an art form video games are.
Having said that, I'm not trying to badger DG to put it back in. I fully understand that there are people who want to play this game, and don't want to have that specific sort of experience. Genocide really has and continues to happen in the real world. These topics are not escapism, and ToME isn't advertised as an art game about the moral relativism of war, or the rational behind why people commit genocide. Clearly, DG's willingness to pull the section shows that this is not the the way he primarily thinks of the game either. That many fans of this game weren't offended by the zone, doesn't somehow negate the fact that some people obviously were, or make their reasons invalid. No decent person likes to have offend other people, regardless of their intentions. I don't assume DG had much fun making this decision, and I don't think pressuring him to go through it all again is the same as sticking up for him.
I just wanted to say that while I'm not offended that the zone is removed, I'm glad I had a chance to play through it. It made me feel bad about what I was doing. That's not something that a book, or a movie, or a painting can do. It's what makes good video games something special.
Thanks.
As for the pits...
Maybe I'm a bit strange but I enjoyed the zone my self. Only got to do it once and to me it really painted a bigger picture of the orcs and the length they were willing to go to protect their own intrests and species. It was dark, it was disturbing, and it was fun.
The creatures there would do Shub-Niggurath proud which is worth bonus points to me.
It also gave me something to point my P&P DM to and say 'Look it's been done in a game why can't I do it in character?' reguarding the creation of a near limitless army produced by magicaly tortured 'assistants' that could be recycled by necromancy after expiration for twice the effect. >.> <.<
If people are so bent out of shape by an area just add a 'censor' option to the game settings to allow people to turn off the zone without it effecting other player's games. A designer and writer should NEVER have to fear people's reaction to their work and if there is negetive reaction the best middle ground is one that doesn't change your vision or ideas.
I'm tired so the level of sense I'm making might not be on the upper teirs at this point but yea... sad to see the zone go really.