VN Ren'Py Ravager [v5.2.0] [4MinuteWarning]

[TowerEpik]

Is there a walkthrough for the game?

Yes, it's bundled with the game files, but here's a link in case you want to see it:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[qwermhv]

Installations said:
" 1. Extract and run. "
So why it is opening my Steam account and don't let me play the game?

 

[Tosk]

Enid best wife.

Amen. Sing those praises for our glorious broodmother

 

[TowerEpik]

Installations said:
" 1. Extract and run. "
So why it is opening my Steam account and don't let me play the game?

Probably because it's a steam build of the game, the executable might be a shim that just tells steam to run it. It's like that only with Windows, on my Linux machine it runs fine without need to crack Steam DRM.
Beware the dev is retarded and has put in his own brain damaged mockery of a DRM system that refuses to run the game if there are any .bat files in the directory. So first make sure there are no such files (in case you followed older guides).
Now, do you see `Ravager.py` in that directory? That's the actual game, you need to run it with python that's bundled at `lib/py3-windows-x86_64/python.exe`. Here's a script that should run it for you

cd %~dp0 
start /b lib\py3-windows-x86_64\python.exe Ravager.py

Just put it in a file like "ravager.cmd" in the directory and run it. It works on my machine. Just don't give it ".bat" extension.

 

[tristan118]

do we know how close we are to going out of early access ?

 

[someguy55]

Is it just me or is this new 5.2 update just HUGELY underwhelming LOL

1 - still TONS of missing voiced dialogue in the act 1 & 2 + act 4 & 5
2 - 5 GB???? yet not 4 GB of new content????
3 - new sound effects suck
4 - new music sucks

 

[TowerEpik]

Is it just me or is this new 5.2 update just HUGELY underwhelming LOL

1 - still TONS of missing voiced dialogue in the act 1 & 2 + act 4 & 5
2 - 5 GB???? yet not 4 GB of new content????
3 - new sound effects suck
4 - new music sucks

 

[Lareit]

Is it just me or is this new 5.2 update just HUGELY underwhelming LOL

1 - still TONS of missing voiced dialogue in the act 1 & 2 + act 4 & 5
2 - 5 GB???? yet not 4 GB of new content????
3 - new sound effects suck
4 - new music sucks

They've hit the point all games that did what they did with branching paths and multiple states for all their characters have. Trying to figure out how to write variations for every single one.

For Example, the Lair Choice alone has 9 choices they have to consider between 2 world states.
2 of those choices, de-powered Mine and Temple result in no NPC but that is still something they must track.
De-powered Malygar still exists but just barely.
Then there is Happy and Angry states for Protean,Infernal and Warlock and Cataclysm and No-Cataclysm states for them as well.

It not only requires MORE writing just to break even, it's also a lot more complex and difficult to write when you're changing your train of thought about what to write.

So I am not at all expecting expedient work and you shouldn't either.

 

[TowerEpik]

They've hit the point all games that did what they did with branching paths and multiple states for all their characters have. Trying to figure out how to write variations for every single one.

For Example, the Lair Choice alone has 9 choices they have to consider between 2 world states.
2 of those choices, de-powered Mine and Temple result in no NPC but that is still something they must track.
De-powered Malygar still exists but just barely.
Then there is Happy and Angry states for Protean,Infernal and Warlock and Cataclysm and No-Cataclysm states for them as well.

It not only requires MORE writing just to break even, it's also a lot more complex and difficult to write when you're changing your train of thought about what to write.

So I am not at all expecting expedient work and you shouldn't either.

To be fair, nobody told them to spread themselves thin like this. It's a valid design critique that they overstretched themselves by having this many mutually exclusive world states that people don't really care about which in turn leads to any single play-through having less content than it otherwise would have had it been a more focused experience. If you imagine development time as a water, the game as a swimming pool, the wider the pool is the shallower the depths must be.
That's being kind to them. Harsher criticism would be that they have "lost the plot", they are no longer active with the community here supposedly because they are "too busy" and would rather spend more time on the game development, despite the fact reading the replies only takes about 5 minutes a day. Such precious time is instead spent on asinine DRM measures that insult the intelligence of the players, mucking about with things that don't matter like sound effect tweaking, changing scenes that nobody asked for, etc.
I don't think these thoughts come from a place of "hating" the game, but more from grief, lamenting it's potential. If nobody cared about the game, nobody would complain about it, as is with many things.

 

[someguy55]

To be fair, nobody told them to spread themselves thin like this. It's a valid design critique that they overstretched themselves by having this many mutually exclusive world states that people don't really care about which in turn leads to any single play-through having less content than it otherwise would have had it been a more focused experience. If you imagine development time as a water, the game as a swimming pool, the wider the pool is the shallower the depths must be.
That's being kind to them. Harsher criticism would be that they have "lost the plot", they are no longer active with the community here supposedly because they are "too busy" and would rather spend more time on the game development, despite the fact reading the replies only takes about 5 minutes a day. Such precious time is instead spent on asinine DRM measures that insult the intelligence of the players, mucking about with things that don't matter like sound effect tweaking, changing scenes that nobody asked for, etc.
I don't think these thoughts come from a place of "hating" the game, but more from grief, lamenting it's potential. If nobody cared about the game, nobody would complain about it, as is with many things.

lemme put it this way man, I feel like the devs have become an "AAA studio";
sluggish
bloated
dismissive of customers

and yeah they're too focused on replayability rather than 1 solid playthrough

and to be brutally honest the legacy artstyle (animated scenes) really clashes, and the dev time has been so long that the existing art looks different from each other. and the amount of time and money they've gotten to this point, could've released 1 or 2 photoreal indie RPG games lol - seems like the dev team is just wasting time everyday...

 

[someguy55]

View attachment 4307538

but explain y the file x5 bigger

 

[Nobles]

I dont mind having choices and give different outcomes and the such... but it needs to all flow back to the same destination. Otherwise as people above said, theres so many branches it just turns into alot of work.

For example, the apocalypse was always going to happen one way or another, its just how you got there .... Not have a path were it didnt exsist... Thats kinda what I mean.

 

[Lareit]

I dont mind having choices and give different outcomes and the such... but it needs to all flow back to the same destination. Otherwise as people above said, theres so many branches it just turns into alot of work.

For example, the apocalypse was always going to happen one way or another, its just how you got there .... Not have a path were it didnt exsist... Thats kinda what I mean.

Then people would complain about how their choices don't matter. People will whine regardless.
It's a lose/lose for the devs. They choose the more interesting but difficult path.

 

[TowerEpik]

Then people would complain about how their choices don't matter. People will whine regardless.
It's a lose/lose for the devs. They choose the more interesting but difficult path.

Problem is, a lot of those variants you mentioned are things that literally nobody cares about. Why would you choose any given lair, and then not empower the faction there? Now you might say, what if you don't want to give up any captives, but the issue is because there are 3 lairs now there are 3 variants of "I don't want to give up anybody" that the game has to account for. These choices aren't meaningful, it's just unnecessary complexity.
Besides, this is just an ignorant mentality that only serves to dismiss any flaws the game might have. If your mindset is "people will complain anyway", there is no reason to improve, no point in feedback.

I dont mind having choices and give different outcomes and the such... but it needs to all flow back to the same destination. Otherwise as people above said, theres so many branches it just turns into alot of work.

For example, the apocalypse was always going to happen one way or another, its just how you got there .... Not have a path were it didnt exsist... Thats kinda what I mean.

Fully agree, the apocalypse is too big of a deal to make it optional because the entire game just forks, it requires a lot of effort and time to develop which is going to make not picking it seem like just missing out on content, like what leafus said before. We can still have player agency if the focus will be on making choices in how to deal with the apocalypse, rather than it being just a thing that happens. It helps to give it an overarching narrative too, that everything has led to this, rather than the game being about random shit that the dragon does.

 

[Lareit]

Problem is, a lot of those variants you mentioned are things that literally nobody cares about. Why would you choose any given lair, and then not empower the faction there? Now you might say, what if you don't want to give up any captives, but the issue is because there are 3 lairs now there are 3 variants of "I don't want to give up anybody" that the game has to account for. These choices aren't meaningful, it's just unnecessary complexity.
Besides, this is just an ignorant mentality that only serves to dismiss any flaws the game might have. If your mindset is "people will complain anyway", there is no reason to improve, no point in feedback.


Fully agree, the apocalypse is too big of a deal to make it optional because the entire game just forks, it requires a lot of effort and time to develop which is going to make not picking it seem like just missing out on content, like what leafus said before. We can still have player agency if the focus will be on making choices in how to deal with the apocalypse, rather than it being just a thing that happens. It helps to give it an overarching narrative too, that everything has led to this, rather than the game being about random shit that the dragon does.

So yes, like I said. You want things to be YOUR way or else you're going to whine.

 

[TowerEpik]

So yes, like I said. You want things to be YOUR way or else you're going to whine.

Not only immature, but also illiterate! Really don't know what you're getting out of this game if you're supposedly in it only for the plot yet can't read.

 

[someguy55]

I dont mind having choices and give different outcomes and the such... but it needs to all flow back to the same destination. Otherwise as people above said, theres so many branches it just turns into alot of work.

For example, the apocalypse was always going to happen one way or another, its just how you got there .... Not have a path were it didnt exsist... Thats kinda what I mean.

nah bro choices need to matter - one of the things i hated about SWTOR is whatever you say leads to the same outcome

the solution is the dev team needs to put their heads down and work... cause i get the feeling that aint the case and they just leisurely going, (cause if they complete it the money stops - patreon/subscription is ironically counterproductive for games)

 

[TowerEpik]

nah bro choices need to matter - one of the things i hated about SWTOR is whatever you say leads to the same outcome

the solution is the dev team needs to put their heads down and work... cause i get the feeling that aint the case and they just leisurely going

If only you could solve everything with "just work more" - it doesn't matter how hard you work if the effort is spent on unproductive things. If you have a million different paths to keep track of, this is just what happens because you have to split your attention on each one. If it leads to some being neglected and having no content, or multiple overlap and accomplish the same goals, why have them at all? At some point, you're just gonna end up working on multiple games in one because none of the different paths have anything to do with each other.

cause if they complete it the money stops - patreon/subscription is ironically counterproductive for games

God forbid they just start work on a new game. Or that voice actors and artists get paid.

 

[GrandPaBrowning]

I know that we only have his actions to go off, but my point was that its hard to imagine him being possessed by a demon when he's inclined to help people and avoid harm and there being no signs of any kind of internal struggle over it. And I am familiar with 40k but this is really making huge leaps that this is all might be some sort of part of a grand plan by a demon to do something nefarious by doing good deeds, just apply Occam's Razor to this and you see it doesn't seem plausible.

I think, I can skip this part. Given Fikedever's brilliant comment, this point seems mute now.

It's not about whether someone is "meant for breeding" but more whether they are "capable" of doing it, and the vast majority in the dragon's harem are, all kobolds are the spawn of his. This is something that Issa can't do, so maybe his hatred from kobolds stems partially from that.

Yeah, can be. But I can't say much about it - honestly, more of a speculation, really.

No, I don't think you get it. The people in-story do not write the story, the developer/writer does. We are the ones reading it. The people in the story are irrelevant when we come to ask, why did you create a world like this, what setup for, what purpose does this setting facilitate? The tropes are tools, used to achieve a goal, nothing more. Characters as they are could have been written in an innumerable amount of different ways and the objective of this line of questioning is asking yourself why did it land on specifically this outcome.

EDIT: To clarify, I mean in the sense the apocalypse is objectively a *thing* because we can see it has effects on the world, I don't mean it in the sense of it actually ending it. You can change your point of view to that the apocalypse is start of something new or whatever, but I don't mean that, I mean what does this all lead to, what can you "get" out of the world being constructed in this kind of light. So far, I haven't seen anything good.

Breaking news! Devs wrote the story instead of Bad Dragon! Also, 'gardener's approach' - some stories kinda write themselves. Author is, weirdly enough, not always in complete control of what he writes. Writing takes your hand and run with you - that's probably the best allegory of how it is done that I can muster.

I don't think this is that relevant, however. And it could be turned the other way, since authors are obviously vague in-narrative on the Cataclysm on purpose. Yes, they wrote the story, which is told to us through characters and descriptions. Specifically, characters with vague portents of doom and vague descriptions that the end is nigh. What details we do get, we aren't getting beforehand. Heck, I'm not even sure we get anything but the vaguest doomsayings before Malice becomes a thing.

And once again - no warnings on the Deerie-Ann!

Artists can do all they want, but it does not make their art good. Freedom of the artist is not directly proportional to the work's quality, but rather it simply enables the artist to do certain things that they otherwise might have not been able to. Sometimes, it leads to incredible works of art, and sometimes it leads to complete garbage, that is what it means to be free. I don't think something like that makes sense to be celebrated in the sense of being universally good, you will simply end up with a bunch of "le random" works that are bizarre but pointless and meaningless. What happened to Marie-Anne is just gross and uncalled for, sometimes you have to take a step back and reconsider what you're doing. There's a reason why the Star Wars prequels were generally considered poorly written compared to the original trilogy, it's because in the original you had people who would come and say "no" to George Lucas's poor ideas while the prequel was just him completely unfiltered which led into it being less cohesive. I want to enjoy Ravager but it's sometimes hard to when you have to deal with content you despise, that would just be better saved for its own game made for its own crowd rather than this kind of wide appeal that is frustrating at times.

I am mostly pro-freedom even when it harms the quality - except when it drops the quality to the gutter, of course. The goal of any art, be it game or painting, is expression of one's self, ideas and the world around. I will easily trade some quality for uniqueness.

Like, Call of Duty is series choke-full of high-quality games. Very bland, boring, unoriginal games I struggle to enjoy and even when I manage to, they mostly leave bad aftertaste. Sour candy - the game series.

On the other hand, Stalker is a veritable piece of post-Soviet junk. The workings of its engine is a mystery to even the wisest of mystiques and sages. Bugs and glitches are called "extra-anomalies" because they are just as frequent. An hour with no crashes is nice, two hours - luxury, three - how did you get so lucky, buddy?

Yet, it is so full of SOUL. It's unique, it stands out and it's thoroughly enjoyable.

I am in Camp Stalker, not Camp CoD. Fuck CoD. Fuck blandness. Give me junk I can be inspired by. Give me an interesting art, dammit!

I am also a huge Prequel Trilogy fan for that same reason. Like those junky movies more than the OG ones - precisely because they have: "George Lucas' mind" written all over them. It's a delve into someone's soul, man!

That's what art is for, not CONSOOM.

Though, I would like some fine balance between freedom and quality, of course.

Other than that - well, to each their own.

But it was. Literally every character that had dialogue about Cataclysm, was talking about dragon dooming everyone, and/or bringing the end of the world.
But of course players collectively ignored all the warnings, handwawing them away for one reason or another.
And now the playerbase became that "surprised pikachu face" meme manifest.

Not that many char's, no precise warning, most given after the Cataclysm became inevitable.

What do you mean "no warning"? That "boy turning into a bird" event has been there for actual years at this point.

I wasn't judging the topic from meta-narrative point, of course. In-narrative you have a few general warning when you try to make Malice, a few after she becomes a thing and then bird-boy just happens and you get "reality is melting" kind of speech from someone, IIRC.

Again - vague portents of doom, yes.

 

[GrandPaBrowning]

> Don't have malice

A. Heresy of the highest order. This game sole reason for existing is Malice.
Malice is Love. Malice is Life. Malice is the best character by far. This game should be renamed to include her name in the title. Something like "Malice's Story"

Exactly, my maliciphiliac brother! Any playthrough without Malice is heresy! We should have Malice, Malice and more Malice!

There is no thing as too much Malice, right? Right?!

LOLZ. So glad I went to ScrewCube and listened to that!

Yeah, kinda epic, right? And it stucks to your head quite well.