Elden Ring - George R.R. Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki

Ah yes, I assume this would consists of the pre-orders and early access games i bought, but haven’t played. :D

I also have avoided watching actual gameplay videos. Half the fun is the new exploration.

Yeah. I never really used the cane although I did use a similar DLC weapon called the Beast Cutter on my (unfinished) second playthrough.

watching a blind playthrough of Dark Souls 3. Makes me want to play it again, but it will burn me out for Elden Ring. Can’t wait for it.

I love watching blind play thrus of DS games. Seeing someone’s first reaction to something is timeless.

interestingly nobody talks about GRRMs contribution to the game, I wonder if it was even worth it for Fromsoft to get him involved. I doubt it that the Elden Ring lore will be “better” than what we had before. Myazaki came up with some great names for his lore, a lot of it was left to the imagination of the player.

Anyways, preordered for console. Hope they shut the doors for hackers

Yes, from the very beginning the GRRM involvement was the weakest bit for me. I had almost forgotten about it.

GRRM’s involvement was pretty light anyway, right? He did like a two-page treatment on the overall world’s lore or something like that. I don’t think he’s responsible for any of the details.

It seems to me like maybe it was a cynical marketing play (I think Elden Ring was announced when the Game of Thrones show was in its heyday) or maybe Miyazaki is just a legit big fan and wanted to work with him in some small way.

maybe Miyazaki opened his drawer and realized that he used up all of his lore ideas within 5-6 games and needed someone else to come up with new lore. I will read the item descriptions scrupulously…

GRRM couldn’t have been to involved because they managed to finish the game.

GRRM discussed his involvement in an interview that upthread. Here it is, post 112:

https://i.imgur.com/8fNhqby.gif

Ok I have to know, source for this?

I actually just made that gif this morning from this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEaXQKy8APU

New game coming from the guy who did Friends of Ringo Ishikawa and Arrest of a stone Buddha:

I saw that gif and thought, “huh, that looks like Friends of Ringo Ishikawa” and now I learn that he’s put out a game since then and is soon to release another. More hyped for that than Elden Ring, to be honest.

Some interesting comments regarding the game’s difficulty are discussed, as well as other topics of potential interest.

I feel like our approach to these games, not just Elden Ring, is to design them to encourage the player to overcome adversity. We don’t try to force difficulty or make things hard for the sake of it. We want players to use their cunning, study the game, memorize what’s happening, and learn from their mistakes. We don’t want players to feel like the game is unfairly punishing, but rather that there’s a chance to win a difficult encounter and make progress. We understand that Souls-like games are regularly associated with impossible levels of difficulty with high barriers to entry. But we try to design the games to make the cycle of repeatedly trying to overcome these challenges enjoyable in itself. So we hope that with Elden Ring and the new options it provides, it will be a success in that respect.

In Elden Ring, we have not intentionally tried to lower the game’s difficulty, but I think more players will finish it this time. As I mentioned, the player’s level of freedom to progress through the world or return to a challenge later are all elements that I feel will help people get through the game at a more leisurely pace. Also, there isn’t a focus on pure action. The player has more agency to dictate their approach against, for example, the field bosses in the overworld and how they utilize stealth in various situations. We’ve even reduced the number of hoops that you have to jump through to enjoy it in multiplayer. So we hope the players embrace that idea of receiving help from others. And we feel like the overall clear rate will go up this time because of these things.

The real question is will Tom make it past the tutorial boss?

Interesting!

Yeah, that’s a good sign. I never wanted to go through the hoops. And when I did, like for the dragon in Dark Souls DLC area, no one ever came to help me.

I kind of enjoyed the soapstone system, although I’ve never liked tying multiplayer to a consumable item, but what I really found annoying was the bell system in Bloodborne.