Disco Elysium

Yeah, holding on to hope that the writing remains up to snuff but it's always gonna be a bitter pill considering the first game was such a labor of love and personal passion project.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Oct 1st 2022 at 12:40:13 PM

I mean it won't, because they got rid of soul for money. Its very ironic case of art imiating life. Frick why most corporations constantly screw over their own employers

Yeah after this I have zero interest in a sequel.

I am enraged and disgusted in equal measure.

x3 Because corporations are run by people.

Yeah after reading more about this what little optimism I expressed earlier is dashed; I didn't fully get the picture from the posts here and the handful of tweets I'd seen that the company is fully gutted of pretty much the entire creative team and being screwed over purely for a quick buck.

@kkhohoho: I am going off of summaries I've seen.

Then that's your problem. If you're interested, you should give it a chance or watch someone else play it. Hearing about it secondhand does not capture the full experience.

Honestly, get it. You sound like it's up your alley and the only thing giving you pause is your fear that it's misery porn, which I and everyone else here can assure you it isn't, assuming you don't actively, deliberately gun for the worst ending and play your character as a total jerk who has learned nothing from his mistakes (which you can do if you feel like it!)

It's more... melancholy than depressing. A sort of wistful sadness that's tinged with acceptance and traces of hope for tomorrow. They aren't putting you and your character through the wringer for the sole purpose of making you as depressed as possible, they're making a point and telling a story about hope in the face of despair and determination in the face of failure. And, as I and others have pointed out, making absolutely hilarious jokes in the meantime to cheer you up.

It's a beautiful story about how life knocks you down, but you can always at least try to get back up, and you should. Unless, again, you actively choose to gun for the worst ending.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Oct 1st 2022 at 5:15:11 AM

Yeah, this is a real shitshow. I'm very sad to hear about this.

Edited by RedSavant on Oct 1st 2022 at 6:41:22 AM

the only real silver lining is that apparently the fired core members have formed their own company

ive heard that za/um personnel are also already leaving; hopefully their stupid "live service" game fails ultra-hard

"Hey kids, we know you're worried about the state of the game and company after all that drama last year, but don't worry, we understand you clearly! Here, have a meme-filled photomode update!"

It really is incredible how the disastrous circumstances behind the scenes at ZA/UM keep proving the game's thesis about the corrupting nature capitalism

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Mar 16th 2023 at 2:30:59 AM

Just started playing this magnificently weird game.

I want to get in on this as well after playing Scarlet Hollow.

But I've got a shit ton of games to clear.

How is the legal case proceeding anyway?

Wow, that was probably one of my all time favorite video games.

https://beforewegoblog.com/video-game-review-disco-elysium-the-final-cut/

I have some minor complaints but a rare 10 out of 10 and may be better than Planescape: Torment.

My issues?

• The absence of anarchism vs. communism. It's understandable as the differences are probably blurrier in Eastern Europe.
• Could have used more religion in the game and learning more about Dolores Dei. If I could have added that as an ideology or at least a Thought, I would have been more interested. Playing Bible Thumper Harry would have been interesting because plenty of guys use religion to deal with alcohol for better and worse.
• We needed an abandoned disco to visit at some point. They could have put it in the Commercial Area.
• Honestly, the dice rolling might have been better to just remove and make it a full on adventure game.
• No follow up to Cunonesse's murder of a child or police officer.

What I did love?

• This is most beautiful rebuttal to games being nonpolitical ever made. chef's kiss
  • The piss take on fascism is fantastic, especially the fact it associates unrelated groups with nationalism, misogyny, and hyper conservatism. I also note it surprisingly humanizes Rene, Measurehead, and Gary. All three of them aren't the monsters that only a few characters are. But it's still a stupid embarrassing ideaology primarily built on racism and sexism.
  • The Coalition is just fucking awful and you can't really figure out what they're for because they're a little bit of everything. But a little bit of fascism and liberalism is a little bit of sewage.
  • The fact Harry manages to possibly save the world by making a disco/electronic dance music nightclub and thus tame the Pale versus the Harry who tries to use the authorities. Which is good and bad as a message if you associate it with privatization.
• I like the game doesn't shy away from the excesses of communism and oppression even as it does have such a sympathetic view of them.
• Cuno and Kim need to be your three man party in the sequel that will, sadly, I'm sure, never happen.
• I wanted to adopt Cindy the Skull.
• Harry as a male bisexual protagonist was nicely handled. Perhaps him and Kim? Nah, wouldn't want to spoil such a beautiful friendship.
• Klassje is a wonderful Femme Fatale who is completely uninterested in Harry.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 23rd 2023 at 12:26:51 PM

It really is a uniquely marvelous game.

Having a more direct focus on religion would've been interesting, but I think it's understandably out of focus due to the way it's wrapped up in Harry's personal issues.

What kind of build did you go for? And did you do all of the political vision quests?

1. Very probable. I actually did like how they proceeded to tie in religion as they did with Harry's adoration of his wife and equating her with the Madonna/Christ figure. It shows exactly why Harry is so messed up and why his marriage failed as he put her on a pedestal in about the most literal destructive way he could.

2. I screwed up my first playthrough by not internalizing communism and thus missing out on some content I should have otherwise gotten and enjoyed. It was, unsurprisingly as an anarchist, the first Thought I got in the game. I also couldn't bring myself to play the Fascist or Ultraliberal playthroughs. Moralism proved to be an elaborate game-over, though. Not cool game. Not cool.

3. Build-wise, I did:

• Intellect: 4
• Psyche: 4
• Physique: 2
• Motorics: 2

This meant my gameplay was almost invariably massive Inland Empire, Epsirit Du Corps, Shivers, and other stuff early on. Unfortunately, I hit a number of walls I didn't like and a few I just save scummed through (The Church was ridiculous because there's not really a lot of good ways to enjoy all the content there if you fail).

Also, I had no idea how to get Egghead talking without a Guide Damnit.

I did get to be a Wasteland of Reality user, though but wasted a point getting rid of Advanced Race Theory because internalizing that made my Harry feel still get a bunch of racist OPTIONS that I knew he was good to get rid of. I also didn't realize I didn't need to take it to get rid of my alcoholism.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 23rd 2023 at 1:52:01 AM

This feels very much like writing Forgotten Realms without Ed Greenwood. Its possible but this is very much the personal passion project of SOMEONE so that without the originals, you can't do it again.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/zaum-resolves-legal-dispute-with-disco-elysium-producer-kaur-kender

As far as I understand it, two guys who held a minority stake in the company bought some production assets from one part of the company and then resold them to a different part of the company for a lot more money, and then use that money to buy a majority stake in the company, so they could basically just control all the company's decisions, and then fired most of the original development team including Kurvitz. Earlier today, the company claimed that the wrongful firing lawsuit against them have been dropped, but apparently it hasn't.

But the stolen money thing has been resolved.

Yeah, it's a whole nightmare maze of allegations and backroom bullshit, but nonetheless the end result is the driving creative force behind the game being ousted and, from the sound of it, the company shifting from "leftist indie art collective that decided to do a videogame" to "standard libertarian game dev startup" which is a major loss for PR and a potential bad omen for the sequel. I still can't get over the fact that they added a photomode with funny poses and meme filters to try and win back fans.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 24th 2023 at 10:22:53 AM

Yeah it's just between the two rich boys. Writing team is gone. Remind me, doesn't the game point out capital often steals others' hard work and is completely shortsighted in how they'd rather make money now at the cost of future goodwill?

given that the Pale and the Innocents is implied to be someone or something beaming back ideas to specific persons to cause technological and ideological progress at the cost of what's effectively anti-reality radiation...

An investigation (with interviews) into the Disco Elysium legal FUBAR.

The TL;DR from what I've seen (haven't had time to get through the full video) is that it was pretty obviously a coup by the money people who wanted to milk the game's success for maximum profit and merchandising, but some of the ousted creatives were genuinely difficult to work with and toxic in their leadership, which unfortunately provided a very good excuse for it.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Jun 3rd 2023 at 6:28:05 AM

Indeed a case of art imitate life really.

"I don't think the game is going out of its way to proselytize for communism or whitewash old communist regimes. That's not the kind of sympathy I mean."

For what I get, is not trying to whitewash communism regime neither their death toll at all but it have a sort of....nostalgic sympathic to it, unlike facism that treat as a stupid ideologic that want to achive something awfull, it treat communism as sort of "it could have being" a sort of old flame you still see from time to time.

Which while good it can be see said is a little too.....soft of sorts, too nostalgic about a time and not wonder exactly how it crash into shit and blood.