Oddworld Questions & Answers VIII

[Wil]

That would be the only way to make them follow Abe. I'm not sure ghost traps existed as a concept at the same time as Mudombies.

[JayDee]

I agree if JAW do ever make an AE HD I'd love to see mudombies make an appearance.

Anyway, how tall are chroniclers? I'd assume about the same height as a glukkon but I'm not too sure.

[Scrabaniac]

If abe slapped a Mudombie, wouldn't it smash to dust? Aha. I really want to see this idea developed! You could lure them with meat chunks! And if they reach abe they can bite him and he decomposes alive :P

[Cloudman]

I'm just after finding out about the whole Scuba Toad thing that came up last year. Were they finally implemented in the PC update? I only have it on PS3 at the moment.

[Nate]

I'm just after finding out about the whole Scuba Toad thing that came up last year. Were they finally implemented in the PC update? I only have it on PS3 at the moment.

No. That Scuba Toad revelation was just JAW being cock-teases. All they actually had was a Scuba Toad model walking around within a development version of the game - if I recall correctly, they just swapped around a Grubb model with a Scuba Toad one, so its AI and behaviour was just like a Grubb's.

[Cloudman]

No. That Scuba Toad revelation was just JAW being cock-teases. All they actually had was a Scuba Toad model walking around within a development version of the game - if I recall correctly, they just swapped around a Grubb model with a Scuba Toad one, so its AI and behaviour was just like a Grubb's.

Ahh, I kinda expected as much. Still cool to see.
I suppose I'll ask another related question; was dialogue recorded for the Scuba Toads? Or was their inclusion cancelled before the voice-acting stage?

[Wil]

No. That Scuba Toad revelation was just JAW being cock-teases. All they actually had was a Scuba Toad model walking around within a development version of the game - if I recall correctly, they just swapped around a Grubb model with a Scuba Toad one, so its AI and behaviour was just like a Grubb's.

Sort of. We put a Scuba Toad in Gizzard Gulch, but it had next to no AI and used a Grubb voice. It stood still and watched the player, and got annoyed if you hit it. If you hit it off the navmesh, it would hobble back on. It had its own animation, a hilarious limping gallop.

There are different native voices in the project that are either Scuba Toads or an alternative to Grubbs. You can hear it when you first enter the Grubb village after rescuing Eugene Ius.

[Jbot123]

Has OWI decided what Squeek looks like? Has there been any concept art for Squeek's Oddysee? I know there hasn't been any released to the public, but have they done it without showing us?

[Josh]

All we know of Squeek is that they're low on the food chain/have some kind of symbiosis ability.

Doubtful that JAW or OWI will tell us anything for a few years, closer to when (if) Squeek is ever made, because Wil is a butthole and hates us all.

[Wil]

It's true!

[Pikab]

What's the deal with the 90 employees left in brewery that remain unchanged as a number in SoulStorm Brewery? I only noticed that now when I finished AE again, but looking from a video it seems it has nothing to do with me not saving enough muds (those 90 being actually outside the 300 muds...)!



Hmm...

[Wil]

Same reason it doesn't go down anywhere else in the game. Necrum Mines will always have 75 employees; Slig Barracks will always have 49.

[Nepsotic]

Why does it do that, though? It's really annoying considering it went down in AO.

[Wil]

Because you still have the 'Employees This Area' bit to go down. The 'Mudokons This Level' number is additional information.

[Bullet Magnet]

I always found it confusing, especially since I couldn't always tell where I'd missed one. Worse were the unmarked doors that locked behind you. If I was scouring the place for secret mudokons and I reached the end of the zulag having missed some, I couldn't even back track.

[EpiphanyDragon]

What happens to newborn sligs? As in where are they trained? I know they have next to no training with their weapons and equipment but there must be somewhere they are taught how to be loyal lackeys and have their nurturing behaviour squished out.

[STM]

Slig Barracks?

[Vyrien]

or Slaughter School?

[Jbot123]

They are trained in slaughter school, and shipped off to the slig barracks where they are given weapons and sold. If you think about it, they are slaves.

[Wil]

In whatever birthing facility Skillya runs. There's no concrete realization of what it would be, but conditions are harsh. Most die of starvation or infighting or are crushed under the weight of the writhing masses so that only the strongest make it to shipping. Their nurturing behaviour isn't actively suppressed, there's just no way it could form in those conditions.

Slig mating and birthing is disgusting. I'm not even sure we should be showing it, it's just horribly, horribly vile. Why did you ask me about this after I'd just eaten? D=

[Bullet Magnet]

That image puts me in mind of a bait bag of maggots.

[Josh]

It kinda makes me think of that episode of Futurama where they find out Slurm is produced from a giant slug's butthole
but instead of tasty refreshing soda there's sliglets

[EpiphanyDragon]

Their nurturing behaviour isn't actively suppressed, there's just no way it could form in those conditions.

Huh, I always thought they underwent some kind of brainwashing program or something similar by the Glukkens. So, how would they feel about a slig who did have a gentle nature or was sympathetic?

[Wil]

Probably in the worse way a dogmatically, unrepentantly masculinity-worshipping bunch of jocks would treat an effeminate person: with violent harrassment in the best case scenario.

[STM]

I've got a business related question for Wil or Nate. Obviously the Magog Cartel is a collection of smaller companies, but how solid is the cartel? Obviously if you look at real life cartels, most fall apart after nine or 10 years because the opportunity to maximise supernormal profit outweighs the benefits of maintaining it. I would assume that even in Oddworld, basic psychology and game theory dictates that eventually the Magog Cartel would collapse in upon itself as individual glukkons break its laws for their own greedy purposes. Unless the MC is a new organisation and is currently very strong?

[Wil]

I don't know, to be perfectly honest. Definitely longer than a decade, I'd say it's been around for at least a century or two. If it is as young as that, then it's just the latest front, or possibly just another rung in the ladder of chumpery, in the millennia-long plotting of the planet's elite oppressors.

[STM]

Hmm, well I suppose family ties might render the cartel a lot stronger, I think the longest lasting cartel IRL lasted for something like 130 years (minus potential time before it was discovered).

I was just wondering because I've been studying cartels and collusion today and all I could think of was the Magog Cartel. xP

[Jbot123]

On TOGG there is a picture of an armored big bro slig that has the caption "spray n' pray". Um....What?

[MeechMunchie]

I presume it's their firing "technique".

Spray bullets everywhere, pray that you hit the right thing.

[Jbot123]

I thought it had something to do with them hunting down christian urban artists.