Actually, you can. At the end of the game, you unlock a shop that lets you convert money for xp at a 1:1 rate. Also, you can buy ability points with real-world money at any point during the game. But I’m not sure whether you can buy levels before the xp cash-in is available.
Close. You buy drachmas with real world money and then buy ex with your drachmas.
-Tom
I… got this. The history nerd in me won out.
I think i might like this better than Horizon Zero Dawn. The world building is immense. But even more than that is the sense that i poke around and things happen. I see something in the mountains, and i go over there to see what’s going on. I wander around the city for an hour. I’m pretty much wandering around like a heavily armed tourist. I am however a sucker for landscape based games anyway.
One thing i discovered spontaneously was the vultures. I notice there were vultures in the amazing looking desert outskirts of Siwa. I grabbed a body and hauled it over to the vulture tree. The vultures … circled around and landed to eat the body. Achievement unlocked. I climb the outskirts of Siwa. It feels like i’m in some biblical 60s film. I expect to find a burning bush out here. Instead I find a cave entrance. It feels more cave-like than ever before. The stabby stabby is less interesting. But, in these sorts of games, i always play on hard or very hard. There’s no need to rush through content to see what’s over the hill. I saw what looked like a temple or monastery off in the distance on the rocky hills behind Siwa. I’ll explore over there next time.
A couple things i’ve discovered - i have to turn Brightness down to 2 notches above zero point to make the nights look dark enough during night time, but crank it back to the middle during the day. Also, play with the audio settings presets. Whatever “night” mode does, it makes the game louder and easier to hear.
Ok - for obvious reasons I didn’ know about the after the end of the game. Weird - As for ability points, that I did know, but that is separate from the option of purchasing levels. Thats still not purchasing a level, though.
Is this the first Assassin’s Creed game where exploration matters? I know that in others you can explore and find a chest or some collectible, but those are all revealed when you go to one of those scouting points anyway. In Origins can you explore and just find interesting things going on?
Yeah the ? marks on the map are points of interest and must be physically visited, you get XP for just visiting!
The Eagle synchronization points are for fast travel and a sweet 360 view of the area, they also give XP for sync-ing them.
Hmm… i’m not sure i’m competent enough in AC game design to say. I haven’t played any AC game from the recent releases (Paris or London). TBH i’m literally just wandering around following my fancy at this point. There do seem to be “things” out there to discover, but this is after only one evening of play! I’ve been experimenting with turning the UI completely off though; i’m not sure i can do it all the time.
They also boost the eagle’s scanning abilities.
Yeah as mentioned you get question marks - when you physically reach the location, an icon indicates “some loot is in this area”, and tells you how many pieces there are. You then use the eagle to search the area and locate the specific loot objectives. Or just blunder through manually searching I guess.
There’s also a ‘pulse’ you can use that highlights nearby loot on the hud.
This pulse thankfully doesn’t work for the rare weapon collection hunts - where you find papyrus scrolls that give you a written clue about where something powerful is hidden in a region, and you have to locate it from the clues.
Yeah, this is definitely not optimal in my opinion. That was my one main complaint about The Witcher 3. Those detective mission where you just follow the red trail was so pointless to me. Make it interesting to find clues, don’t just make me follow breadcrumbs - nothing interesting about that. TW3 had so many other things going for it though to make it one of my favorite games ever.
If games like this game visual cues that weren’t some icon or highlighted bits that would be so much better. Better yet if it could be something to solve or figure out base on clues - not just mindless searching.
Well you can turn that icon stuff off I believe (or maybe you can’t? I’ve not tried, but there’s hud options at least), and not use the pulse feature. Not use the bird if you’re insane. :)
This thing is so immense that I’m happy to use it. Use the bird to locate the treasure and tag the guards, then it’s about planning the best way to get all the loot (and kill a captain), then executing.
Exploring the environment is rewarding in itself, just for the sights you see, the scale, and the attention to detail. It’s phenomenal.
This game has similar “detective” areas as well. :)
That’s what the papyrus things give you. Most regions have one of them to find.
I quite like this aspect of the game, however it’s fairly limited - but add too many and you’d be stumbling over them accidentally, negating the puzzle solving aspect somewhat I guess. Or it would make the rare loot less rare.
Well, those may be fun at least!
Another thing I miss - not being able to “save” a stray horse. Like in Red Dead Redemption where you just hitch the horse you want to a post.
I find so many cool horses out in the field with killed owners, but I can’t make them mine :(
Yeah, or like Zelda where you actually have to catch and tame the horses, then take them to a stable to make them yours. :)
That’s what you had to do with wild horses in Red Dead as well! :D
Loved that part.
Camels are better, ride camels .
Sure but I still can’t “hitch” a camel! :)
Do the hotspots trigger if you don’t have the papyrus? I’m guessing they don’t. Also, they seem to be in fairly out of the way places. I’d love to have more, and I’d particularly love it for them to be part of the game proper. Or at least that idea of having to use clues and the landscape to find something. Unfortunately, finding yet another piece of gear I’m just going to break down into crafting mats isn’t much of a reward.
-Tom
That sounds kinda cool. Stop making me want to play a dumb Zelda game.
-Tom
The camel’s significantly slower, isn’t it? I wish the camel didn’t get obsoleted so quickly. He had way more personality than just another dumb horse.
-Tom
That reminds me of the first Saints Row. The first thing I did was to steal every single car I could get my hands on and drive it to my garage so that I would have a copy of that car on demand any time I wanted.
That is, until I ran into a garage capacity upper limit. That sucked. I think I could only store 50 types of cars or something like that.
What’s really funny is that I had skipped Saints Row 3, and when I started Saints Row 4, I was doing the same thing, stealing all the cars I could, and storing them in the matrix (limitless this time) garage. And then I started stealing space bikes and space ships and forgot all about the cars. And then 10 minutes after that, I got super powers so that I never needed vehicles again. Oh man, that was such a kick ass progression. Good times.