NTC3'S PROFILE

author=Corfaisus

author=NTC3
Makal, formerly 2nd largest city. Life is relatively normal there because it's protected by soldiers of a country across the pond, which used to be the enemy once & wasn't as badly hit in the Calamity, so they still have centralised government which can afford to send in occassional gunships & such. You need their help to get to whatever is in Borealis, where some hard choices will have to be made.

Why would the enemy country simply not take over the more severely hit country? What reason do they have to be cooperating now (aside from resources, which they could've just ransacked)?

Because full occupations are costly in the real world, especially when you share no land border and it has to be done through sea (where the routes are still unsafe, both due to the pre-Calamity mines and the all-new monsters) or air (far too expensive). And if successful, they leave you in charge of all the reconstruction, as opposed to spending treasure on fixing your own stuff (less severely hit ≠ unscathed). Not to mention, they might be the most advanced country on their continent, but they are not the only one there either, and going too far in on the foreign adventures will inevitably leave them vulnerable to attacks closer at home.

Same goes for the resources - not much point in owning an oilfield or whatever when transporting said oil back safely will cost more then what it's worth. (Especially since most of the mines were north of the capital & relatively close to the impact site, and so getting to them requires one to contend with the stronger monsters and some of the worst conditions.) As such, their intervention is more about power projection for now - the ability to intimidate & humiliate former enemies and impress the people at home with footage of their feats (long-distance communication is still suppressed globally by whatever caused Calamity in the first place.)

Lastly, Makal is home to a minority community that's small in Autenon but influential in their country, so the soldiers stationed there are really protecting them first. Their military is hoping that once Calamity is dealt with, Autenon will become a client state, with a new capital in Makal and led by members of the said minority. They'll thus help your party, as long as you go along with their plans. You can settle for this kind of a future, or you can try double-crossing them eventually, which may or may not go well.

Hope this explains everything.

Well, Nihilo is a post-apocalyptic world (on a somewhat lighter side of the spectrum), where the central nation of Autenon was mostly like a typical Western country before it was hit hardest by the Calamity some 10-15 years ago. Now, all the territory around the former capital of Borealis is shrouded in darkness, nobody (human) goes in or out, and the survivors of other regions of Autenon are huddled in small settlements in the post-Calamity desert, barely in contact with each other.

So, your seaside hometown is in decent shape at the start, as it was about as far from the capital as possible. Your people have no idea what happened to other places because of this remoteness, though, so they send out the two protagonists (Estus and Nikolai) to make contact. (There's also internal squabbles involved, since many assume it's a suicide mission and our characters were sent on it for a reason.) The first place they encounter is a former mining town that used its caverns as an underground shelter, and people still refuse to emerge until they know it won't happen again (and because the engineer who rebuilt the caverns couldn't resist exploiting their gratitude and became a cult leader of sorts.)

The next is a small city, Skuud, that is now controlled by a former Mad Max-style gang who settled down, had kids, got responsibilities of actually having all kinds of people under their care, and are now fighting a radical & idealistic insurgency against them (you get entangled in that, and can ultimately back either side). Then, you are in the vast expanses with hardly any humans, where you eventually stumble upon Makal, formerly 2nd largest city. Life is relatively normal there because it's protected by soldiers of a country across the pond, which used to be the enemy once & wasn't as badly hit in the Calamity, so they still have centralised government which can afford to send in occassional gunships & such. You need their help to get to whatever is in Borealis, where some hard choices will have to be made.

I also planned for a DPRK-style country somewhere to the south-east on the same continent, which doesn't exactly have much to do with anything yet, besides being a place on the world map cordoned-off by barbed wire & automated turrets, and providing some backstory for a few characters. There are potentially references to inaccessible places on other continents as well and...I think you can tell why the game has been on Hiatus for a while.

When I clicked on this status, I actually thought it was about Jim Sterling giving it 2/10. Otherwise, I don't care, since I literally haven't heard of JonTron before this thing happened, and I still haven't seen a single one of his videos.

As for the "sick society" thing... it's actually perfectly in line with the "elite overproduction" theory of Turchin, the creator of cliodynamics approach to sociology. Basically, as the inequality rises, being seen as the elite becomes a lot more important and more people strive to do so, meaning that there are several "potential elites" for every person actually seen as elite in their field, and so this both feeds into "anti-establishment" revolts, and itensifies pressure on existing elites in any given field to fail, in the hope they can be replaced. Recent elections have shown it doesn't actually take all that much capability to be elected US governor or president. Similarly, both the myriad of aspiring YouTubers and many people in "normal" jobs think professional YouTubers' success is random and they are eminently replaceable, so they do not mind seeing them fail once a good reason for it appears.

author=SoftestKitten
A game about time travel,not that many here.

Have you already tried A Hint of a Tint?

Ancient Space OST appears really underrated.