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Junior Adventurer's Guild - October: Deus Ex + Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption SPOOKY HALLOWEEN DOUBLE FEATURE

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What game should we play in October?

Poll ended at September 30th, 2024, 22:47

Baldur's Gate
2
4%
Deus Ex
20
43%
Icewind Dale 2
2
4%
Knights of the Chalice
2
4%
Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption
20
43%
 
Total votes: 46

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Post by Red7 »

Tweed wrote: October 9th, 2024, 21:44
Vergil wrote: October 9th, 2024, 21:43
Tweed wrote: October 9th, 2024, 21:41


If you don't play the game, you don't have a say btw.
You have an equal number of guild badges as me btw
Actually I forgot I have more because I asked for my Starwind one to be hidden :lol:
I've covered games, you know.
vergil was covered by more things and fluids im sure
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Post by Luckmann »

► The Long Road to Hong Kong
And as I leave for Hong Kong and conclude for the day, I thought I'd share where I'm at:
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Post by Trickster »

What program can I use to take screenshots in the vtmr? ShareX didn't work.
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Post by Finarfin »

Trickster wrote: October 11th, 2024, 09:35
What program can I use to take screenshots in the vtmr? ShareX didn't work.
Just do manual Screenshots. Alt + Prints Screen and then copy past into Paint
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Post by Jordy »

I use Lightshot for screengrabs.
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Post by Trickster »

Finarfin wrote: October 11th, 2024, 09:42
Trickster wrote: October 11th, 2024, 09:35
What program can I use to take screenshots in the vtmr? ShareX didn't work.
Just do manual Screenshots. Alt + Prints Screen and then copy past into Paint
For some reason, it's not working.
Jordy wrote: October 11th, 2024, 10:09
I use Lightshot for screengrabs.
Not working in this game either.
Last edited by Trickster on October 11th, 2024, 10:26, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Tweed »

I use Bandicam most of the time, but then I bought a license for that a really long time ago. I don't really recommend being a paypiggy.
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Post by Jordy »

Trickster wrote: October 11th, 2024, 10:13
Finarfin wrote: October 11th, 2024, 09:42
Trickster wrote: October 11th, 2024, 09:35
What program can I use to take screenshots in the vtmr? ShareX didn't work.
Just do manual Screenshots. Alt + Prints Screen and then copy past into Paint
For some reason, it's not working.
Jordy wrote: October 11th, 2024, 10:09
I use Lightshot for screengrabs.
Not working in this game either.
All you do is press print screen and use the cursor to select the area you want to copy. Then you can copy, save, upload to a url and various other options.
Shift + Print Screen instantly saves the screen.

Not played vtmr but can't see why anything would stop it from working.
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Post by Trickster »

I found a solution. Surprisingly, the game has this option without any additional tools. All you have to do is press f12 and search in game folder.

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I love it when things like this are added to games by default.
Last edited by Trickster on October 11th, 2024, 11:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Finarfin »

Trickster wrote: October 11th, 2024, 11:24
I found a solution. Surprisingly, the game has this option without any additional tools. All you have to do is press f12 and search in game folder.

Image


I love it when things like this are added to games by default.
Image

Hmm, seems like my UI is kinda ****** compared to yours
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Post by Trickster »

Finarfin wrote: October 11th, 2024, 11:46
Trickster wrote: October 11th, 2024, 11:24
I found a solution. Surprisingly, the game has this option without any additional tools. All you have to do is press f12 and search in game folder.

Image


I love it when things like this are added to games by default.
Image

Hmm, seems like my UI is kinda ****** compared to yours
Hmm, maybe change the resolution?
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Post by Jordy »

Trickster wrote: October 11th, 2024, 11:24
I found a solution. Surprisingly, the game has this option without any additional tools. All you have to do is press f12 and search in game folder.

Image


I love it when things like this are added to games by default.
If you're playing it through Steam then that's just a normal Steam thing.
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Post by Trickster »

In teutonic knight base right now. Things got a lot easier when Christof learned Blood Magic (Theft of Vitae) and Wilhem learned resurrection (Awaken)


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Edit 1:

Just escaped the Teutons and bought some cool armor. Now we're balling.

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Last edited by Trickster on October 12th, 2024, 07:53, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by Luckmann »

► Hong Kong Hijinks!
Big if true.
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Last edited by Luckmann on October 12th, 2024, 09:31, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Tweed »

If you're doing a low-tech run the dragon's tooth sword is the best lockpick in the game.
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Post by Luckmann »

► To Hell! Again!
They can't keep getting away with it!
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Last edited by Luckmann on October 12th, 2024, 20:56, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by SpellSword »

I've made it to the part where you are double crossed and captured.
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The loot so far hasn't been that interesting and the combat is simplisticImage but I'm having fun regardless. Image

My combat strategy so far is just grabbing every enemy with the feed skill taking them out of the fight and letting Feral Claws make short work of anything else that is non-humanoid.
Last edited by SpellSword on October 13th, 2024, 18:11, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by AmericanMonarchist »

Both games won? I will be chaotic and play Deus Ex despite voting for VTM.
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Post by Luckmann »

► To Paris, with love
It is hard to overstate just what an amazing part of Deus Ex the music and ambiance is.


Aside from the main theme, I can't say that I ever remembered any of the music in Deus Ex, and I think that goes for most people. But the recurring leitmotif, weaved into scene-appropriate themes, throughout the entire game, it just adds an amazing edge to wherever you are. For something that is ultimately a fairly focused game and experience, Deus Ex has a surprising number of different facets to it when put under a microscope, ensuring that despite the gameplay often boiling down to something formulaic, it never feels formulaic; from the "welcome to the job" atmosphere of UNATCO, to the "secret agent man" after being captured and taken to UNATCO, to the oppressive atmosphere of a Paris under siege. And the ambiance and the theme music is just excellently woven into and an expression of this, while always tying back to the same type of music, with the recurring leitmotif and recurring percussion.

There could've been rock-y elevator music at UNATCO, industrial punk in the warehouse district, and orchestral wailing in Paris, and none of that would have been out of place, but there's not. Instead there's something that manages to be both different and yet the same, and never jarring, not even once.

It's just so ******* good.
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Post by Trickster »

Continue my suffering in dark ages. Haus de Hexe. The last room in the library is terrible.
3 Tremere Lords which can one shot you and even if they didn't, you can't do anything with them. Their one hit will be enough to make the entire party fall into annoying insanity mechanics and start eating themselves instead of following your commands.
The only solution I found is to use Entrancement to mind control them and to make them fight each other.

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It's not a satisfying victory. But we have what we have.

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Edit 1:
Finally got through all three locations. It's time for final boss.

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Edit 2:

So many efforts.

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And for what? "Sorry Christof your nun is in another castle". Also,
► Show Spoiler
I swear, the game trolling us. We've killed more vampires than the entire Holy Inquisition, and we're no closer to Anezka than we were before. Which means the bloody crusade continues. And we're a long way from redemption.

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Last edited by Trickster on October 15th, 2024, 16:57, edited 7 times in total.
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Post by Tweed »

Luckmann wrote: October 14th, 2024, 08:53
Aside from the main theme, I can't say that I ever remembered any of the music in Deus Ex, and I think that goes for most people.
You have insulted me sir.
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Post by Luckmann »

► Vanden*berg*, what a cohencidence
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Post by Trickster »

Lmao, the guy here wasn't joking about cuckoldry. As I understand it, our nun was corrupted by evil vampire clan Tzimisce
► Show Spoiler
The dialog gives a transparent hint about how exactly she was turned to the dark side and corrupted.
► Show Spoiler
Feels bad man. I think we need to warn players about this kind of plot detail.

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Cristof is like: I don't give a **** what you say, woman. You're coming with me.

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Falling wall clearly doesn't like vampire love stories and trying to end this.

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And yet, for our Christof, the Dark Ages are finally over. It's time to awaken to the 20th century.

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Update 1:
Whereas the difficulty used to be ridiculously hard, now we're literally a terminator. Maybe such a weird balance was created by the developers intentionally to give us a sense of progress, because we were a neonate and now we're an ancient vampire from the dark ages, I don't know.

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Last edited by Trickster on October 15th, 2024, 22:05, edited 17 times in total.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

@Trickster your image uploads broke, the postimg upload sucks
gave you vault access if you want to host your stuff there, feel free to use it for whatever
https://vault.rpghq.org/
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Post by Trickster »

rusty_shackleford wrote: October 15th, 2024, 18:45
@Trickster your image uploads broke, the postimg upload sucks
gave you vault access if you want to host your stuff there, feel free to use it for whatever
https://vault.rpghq.org/
Thank you. I'll appreciate it. :mrgreen:
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Post by Luckmann »

► Finale
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Done.

It is hard for me to overstate just how much I love Deus Ex. @rusty_shackleford said earlier, either in this thread or in the chat, that Deus Ex wasn't really special, and that the 90's were just full of conspiracy stuff, and it was popular for its time. I think that that is partly true - I don't think Deus Ex could have, or at least would have, been made at any other time, and we see modern failures in Mankind Divided and Human Revolution; games that are "OK" but that doesn't carry the spirit of Deus Ex very well, and fails to captivate.

But I also think that that is wrong, and does a disservice to Deus Ex. Deus Ex isn't great just because its "conspiracies", but because of how it blends real-life existing conspiracy theories into its narrative and mixes it with actual facts that relate to these supposed conspiracies, with a heavy dose of genuine social criticism mixed in; and that's genuine criticism based on genuine facts - not what passes for "social criticism" in the post-Occupy Wall Street era - and it manages to do so from multiple different angles. Not always necessarily very in-depth, but the Illuminati's approach is presented as valid, without digging itself down into the demonstrable failures of the old world it helped create, but there's also the NSF's criticism of big government and capitalist corruption, all of it interspersed with philosophical ideas relating to government.

While "conspiracies" were popular in the era of the original Deus Ex, I can't think of anything else that did this, in terms of popular media. X-Files had "conspiracies", but it ultimately didn't extend farther than "aliens" and "coverups"; it didn't exactly namedrop the Rockefellers or the Trilateral Commission. The Net (1995) had hackers and a shady corporation and bribery, but it didn't discuss problems of unhindered mass surveillance. And this was even pre-Patriot Act, pre-"AI", pre-boomer net, pre-so much. In many ways, I think that Deus Ex hits the right notes for the same reasons why Dan Brown's book were so popular - a near-perfect blend of the real and the fictional, but I'd argue that Deus Ex goes the extra mile by discussing things that surround those real tidbits, tying it all together.

It doesn't pretend to "teach a lesson" or "have a message", and is never condescending to the player, either. It's as much an exploration as it is a coherent story, and I think that it's sad that the world was never truly expanded upon, as Deus Ex left ample room for more.

As for the GMDX mod that I was playing through, I think it's a solid 7/10. I would say that it largely stays true to the original game in most aspects, with some genuine objectively good improvements in there that never detracts from "the original experience". Most of the time I had to think long and hard whether this is how something worked in the original game or not, and which areas were new and which weren't. At other times, things stand out like a sore thumb, and is sometimes a bit buggy, so I cannot in good conscience recommend it to a completely new player, but I can absolutely recommend it to an old one looking to play through the game again without being taken out of the feeling of the original, unmodded game, which is not something I can say for Revision when I played it years ago.

Anyway, on to Vampire on monday or so. Going to be interesting, as I have never played it.
Last edited by Luckmann on October 16th, 2024, 17:02, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Vergil »

This made me light headed and I need to go lay down.
I'm just stating the facts.
Question is are you going to gargle the truth or swallow?
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Thank you for your attention to this matter!
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