Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

Hateyou said:

When you are comparing games, styles, mechanics and you compare Witcher 3 to elden ring you have to say it does not have the story element the W3 had. That’s what the entire game was built upon, quests with specific objectives, characters, and dialogue. Elden Ring has none of that. That’s all I was saying.

Yes ER has lore and there’s a general backdrop and story of what occurred in the past and what’s occurring now, but you have to fill in all the blanks yourself. It’s still great but saying it has a story when comparing it to W3 you’re just way off base. All the dark souls games are minimalist story type games and they’re all great, but someone going in expecting W3 level of characters and dialogue would be completely wrong.

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I mean, sure? It just sounded like people were saying that ER didn't really have a "story" when it absolutely does. I mean, we can argue about how "in-depth" it is all day long in comparison to W3, but that's an argument for a different thread probably.

Especially since I think W3's story as a whole is overrated as shit, change my mind.

Story: Die a lot. Kill Bosses. Create Elden Ring - Become Elden Lord. Save world.

Soygen said:

I was already pretty much over them, but after this game, I'll never play another cookie cutter Ubisoft open world game again. I just wish I had more free time to play!

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I wonder if the few devs who still have souls at places like Ubi are ultra salty about how everyone's gushing over Elden Ring.

Faux said:

I'm still only 5 hours in but having a lot more fun now. I'm level 17 and boosted dex so I could use the twinblade. I think I am 17 str and 20 dex currently and just been exploring Limgrave.
I have only finished 1 catacomb with the burial dog boss, and found that other cave that will take me to the island to the west, but I need to actually buy a torch to get through there.

Coolest thing I have seen so far are those behemoths pulling the giant wagons by means of a spear through their chests.

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Hearing you imply you have the twinblade made me finally look it up. 60 hours, hadn't found it yet...

I'm now raging at the trap that send me to the crystal mines, because it definitely 100% derailed me from finding it. Fuckers!!!

Deathwing said:

Seeing this thread constantly bumped is painful enough!

I asked about narrative because I feel that's George RR Martin's strength. He knows how to develop characters, build realistic stakes, move plots along, etc. Unless your character is stuck in fucking Astapor or Mireen. Thus, him working on a game that seemingly contains very little of that(I've never played From Software games) seemed like an odd choice. They should have gotten Steven Erikson.

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They used him to create a backstory for the world. Lore, etc. Then their own From guys built all of the current-day characters and stuff pulling heavily from his background lore. It has apparently worked out quite well, because this is honestly the first time I've given two shits about a FromSoft game story. I've appreciated that it existed in Dark Souls etc, but was always just "meh."

Elden Ring though, I'm very interested in what's going on in the game as I play through it.

ER's story is compelling and the world-building is interesting because it's so different from traditional open-world games. It's a dystopian horror set in a fractured world with NPCs stuck in a disassociative fugue whose only purpose is to make vague yet poetic remarks to the player. There's just not many games like that outside of, well, From Software games.

What it doesn't have is any characters whose lives you give a shit about. The devs don't need to make Tommy McFatterson ask you for 50 bearasses for his dying wife, because Tommy McFatterson has no life, he's just there doing fuck all till the next tarnished comes for him to say hi to. The

, but there's probably only a handful of those character-driven storylines in ER as there are in fuckin Goldshire and I'm not really missing it.
If someone were to attempt a similar level of depth to say, the next Kingdom Come: Deliverance, it'd be flat and boring and feel like it was missing depth.

Drajakur said:

• I ignored mounted combat for the first 6-7 hours thinking there was no way it would work. And then I started using it and I think it is a blast. Probably even better than the mounted combat in Ghost of T. I adore running down mobs on my horse and taking down dragons, etc. So fun. Makes me feel badass.

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They do a great job balancing the mounted combat and the "group" combat with your summon. You can go into a dungeon, spend a bunch of time on foot enjoying that traditional Dark Souls dungeon experience, then get a break from that having a bit less serious mounted combat, then there will be "siege" areas where you can whip out your wolves or whatever and have a 4v10 against trash. In Dark Souls you'll go from shithole castle to bullshit bog to desperate dungeon and it gets tiring being under gaming duress all the time.

Drajakur said:

Not surprisingly I'm loving this game. Probably #2 behind Demon's Souls but mostly because I'm very nostalgic about my first experience playing that game.

• I love the open world. It is so fun to explore. There's a genuine sense of wonder and danger that most open world games are sorely lacking now. I've been doing a mix of exploration and killing bosses. It is very rewarding to find a low-level boss to beat the crap out of.
• Magrit was tough but I haven't really struggled yet with anything else. I've killed 12-15 or so other Great Enemies or whatever. I am playing completely blind using a Greatsword build. I one shot Red Wolf and have died only a handful of times to most other bosses, mini-bosses, dungeon-bosses, trees, etc. I'd say 75% of the map is "revealed". I'd imagine things are going to get tougher from now on. They always do. I'm at the Queen of The Moon fight now.
• I'm always getting jealous of the build and weapons that require all the stats I don't have. And yet I'm pretty sure if I switched (don't know how to do that yet) I'd probably just miss the approach I've been having. Some of the bosses seem just so easy to cheese with magic so I'll probably try that on my next playthrough.
• I ignored mounted combat for the first 6-7 hours thinking there was no way it would work. And then I started using it and I think it is a blast. Probably even better than the mounted combat in Ghost of T. I adore running down mobs on my horse and taking down dragons, etc. So fun. Makes me feel badass.
• I've noticed some of the environmental hazards seem more tame than usual. There are a few places where I thought "well, I'm dead for sure now" but then I wasn't. One instance: there was a trap platform with a spiked roof you had to roll under. So I did that and started dicking around. I then thought I was absolutely fucked because for sure the platform was going to lower and crush me. But it didn't. Nor did it have spikes on the underside of the platform. Huh. Same feeling generally about the toxic zones I've been through. And now you can often clearly see where the water is going to drop to infinity and kill you instantly. That's nice.
• I'm enjoying watching pro streamers suck at this game. It is petty, but it gives me joy.

Good times. Figuring my confidence is about to get boot-smashed.

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did you fight


he has razor thin margins for attacking for most builds, including greatsword. I'm not sure how many other bosses are like that.

Kirun said:

For the people saying that Elden Ring doesn't "have a story", you couldn't be more wrong. The difference is that it DEMONSTRATES its story, it doesn't EXPLICATE it. It's so refreshing to have a game that just gives you little tidbits of lore, a metric FUCKLOAD of ambiance, atmosphere, scale, etc. and lets your mind fill in the rest. I'm certain my mind has filled in much cooler blanks about the story of Stormveil than what that fat fuck Martin would've "explained".

I'm not fucking 8, I don't need a game to tell me every fucking second of every fucking day and explain every single inch of the world. I really don't care what happened to that piece of tree bark 3,983 years ago.

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Yeh, I agree. I already filled in the blank (read: made it all up in my head) that Stormveil was afflicted with some kind of virus that made everyone go insane and genocide each other, hence the piles of bodies and all the defensive equipment set up to try and keep the afflicted out. Little did they know, the virus was coming from inside the house, and originated in that sketchy basement. So it got them unawares and eventually even the guards were stricken by it, and now the only people still standing are the infected guards.