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And More posted:My main issue with Alice changing her mind when we change ours is that the illusion of free will is destroyed. You can pick either thing, but Alice will always pick betray when we ally, and will always ally when we betray. Except that's not what happens during the second AB vote - that time, Alice picks Betray no matter which option we choose. Which begs the obvious question - why does she pull this switching trick during the first AB vote, but not the second?
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Feb 10, 2014 19:09
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And More posted:My main issue with Alice changing her mind when we change ours is that the illusion of free will is destroyed. You can pick either thing, but Alice will always pick betray when we ally, and will always ally when we betray. There can never be a scenario in which we both ally because that would just work out too smoothly. (At least I'd assume so because there is no third path.) You realize this is a videogame version of a choose-your-own-adventure novel, right? I'm not sure "free will" is the term you're looking for here.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:13
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This honestly only makes me hate her more. Anyway, Sigma just got more points, right? Screw all of them. We did the right thing.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:18
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Ghostwoods posted:The objection is not that it unexpectedly makes us look bad. The objection is that it's betraying the narrative. If the game treats its own events as arbitrary, then effectively the writers are saying "screw you sucker, everything you do is utterly meaningless." I don't even disagree with the intent of your post, but I think it's incredibly disingenuous to think that storytelling can be distilled into a set of simple "rules" or a certain "structure" without considering context or intent. Even still, cheating the reader is a time-honored tradition in all sorts of classic stories. There's a reason the unreliable narrator is a thing after all.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:19
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W.T. Fits posted:I'm with you. Picking Betray always made me feel like a complete shitheel. There was one time, when I first started playing, when I did it and thought I wouldn't have to feel bad about it... and then the game made me feel bad about it anyway. Oh hey, remember this post? Yeah, this is the point I was talking about. When I played this game, my first route was Cyan Door > Ally and then I hit the "Alice and Quark both have Radical-6 but there's only one bottle of the cure" plot lock. Since I didn't know where I needed to go next, I decided to go back and Betray Alice because, hey, I know she's going to betray me, so no need to feel bad about it, right? And then this happened. All I'll say further on the matter is everyone getting mad about this needs to chill out and have some faith in the writers. Anyway, I eventually got the info I needed to get past the "only one bottle" plot lock, went to Ally since Alice was unconscious and would auto-Ally. But... W.T. Fits posted:Ah, this moment. I remember this moment so well from when I played this game. I was so mad. Seriously, this game is fantastic at loving with your expectations. Just relax and enjoy the ride. 
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Feb 10, 2014 19:26
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DaveWoo posted:Except that's not what happens during the second AB vote - that time, Alice picks Betray no matter which option we choose. Which begs the obvious question - why does she pull this switching trick during the first AB vote, but not the second? You said earlier that she does the same morphogenics trick as Sigma. The "switching trick" implies that she already knows what we're going to pick in advance. How would that work if she acts by the same rules as Sigma? Wouldn't there have to be at least one scenario where we ally successfully? Bruceski posted:You realize this is a videogame version of a choose-your-own-adventure novel, right? I'm not sure "free will" is the term you're looking for here. Well, maybe the word I'm looking for is agency. If I was reading a choose-your-own-adventure novel and, no matter what path I picked, I'd always lose, I'd stop reading. There needs to be a sense of agency or your decisions become pointless. 999 was pretty clever, though, so I'm giving VLR the benefit of the doubt.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:26
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Seriously, save your big posts about your feelings about the game overall for the end of the game. VLR hasn't even begun opening up it's bag of tricks yet.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:31
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W.T. Fits posted:And then this happened. All I'll say further on the matter is everyone getting mad about this needs to chill out and have some faith in the writers. If I recall, people said this about 999 as well, and the writers gave us a magical girl who can see multiple alternate universes 9 years in the future, because that was easier that solving an easy Sudoku puzzle herself. It was inexplicable even by the rules set up for their magical morphogenic field thing. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 19:38
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I don't know what's going on at all but I predict Alice will be as angry at Sigma as usual. This has got to be as confusing for Sigma as it is for me, though; I wonder if there'll be an explanation next update?
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Feb 10, 2014 19:38
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Ghostwoods posted:The objection is not that it unexpectedly makes us look bad. The objection is that it's betraying the narrative. If the game treats its own events as arbitrary, then effectively the writers are saying "screw you sucker, everything you do is utterly meaningless." It's tricky to talk about this post because the story hasn't been revealed yet, but I do want to mention one writing trick: - Break the rules if you know why they're rules and why you're breaking them You can come up with lots of rules ("The road to hell is paved with adverbs", "don't use speech qualifiers, he said heartily") but if you at least understand why that is the general case, you get to play around with them. We're talking about a game where we can go back and do different things in the story, in a format that lets the story itself possibly change (as we've seen). It's possible there's a reason. It's also possible that it's really stupid. It's just early to pass judgment.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:46
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I'm going to reserve judgement on the whole "change the characters votes based on what you chose" thing for the moment, in the hope maybe some crazy morphogenic field stuff addresses it or something-there was the Schrödinger's cat book remember, maybe it's a hint to this situation. It's pretty satisfying though, with so many people wanting to betray Alice for what she did to us when we allied, and now we get to do it right back.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:47
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Well, there's only one thing to do now: Feign ignorance and claim Phi made us do it. The morphogenetic field is causing us to slowly turn into Dio.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:55
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All this talk about the rules of storytelling reminds me of this file from earlier on It's my favorite file in the game because the writer breaks most of these rules in all of his stories.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:57
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 You had my interest, VLR, but now you have my attention. I suspected this might happen eventually, and the discussion of Schrodinger's cat on another path was a big tip-off. But it's still pretty great. Also, despite Alice pouring her heart out, I'm happy with this outcome. We're finally betraying people, and it feels good, man. The cyan path is the "somebody is getting screwed" path, I guess!
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Feb 10, 2014 19:57
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I understand the argument that it's early to pass judgment because it might end up making sense in the fullness of time, but it leaves a bad enough taste in my mouth that I don't think I'm willing to keep reading with a little voice in the back of my mind constantly reminding me that they haven't dug themselves out of this hole yet. I think I'm out.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:58
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DarkHamsterlord posted:All this talk about the rules of storytelling reminds me of this file from earlier on Hell, how many of these have been broken by this game already HMS Boromir posted:I understand the argument that it's early to pass judgment because it might end up making sense in the fullness of time, but it leaves a bad enough taste in my mouth that I don't think I'm willing to keep reading with a little voice in the back of my mind constantly reminding me that they haven't dug themselves out of this hole yet. I think I'm out. Well, godspeed then, I love VLR but it's most definitely not for everyone.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:01
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We've seen Sigma pull knowledge out of the Visual Novel ether, it is possible that others can do it as well. Besides that, we've also seen in 999 that events can be nebulous until observations force them into a certain shape. June's fate and Seven's past were up in the air until, suddenly, they weren't. If we haven't seen it through Sigma's POV, then it could be different when Sigma makes a different decision, and could have influenced Alice's (and, our) decision. The rooms behind the Yellow and Magenta doors, and the events that occurred behind them, may have changed. Maybe the rabbit turns up and says something hilarious to Clover and Alice picks up on the positive vibes. Or maybe Alice didn't even make a decision. When Sigma and Phi arrived, the Warehouse was already empty. Maybe Alice auto-allyed because K hit her on the head with a big fuckin rock he found in the wherever-it-was-he-went-I-don't-remember that wasn't there last time. And I don't recall anything suggesting that this can't apply to events from before the beginning of the game, also! Backstories could have changed. Perhaps its easier to trust a pair of strangers if, for example, your Dad wasn't killed by a group of terrorists? What I'm saying is that the scope for the story to go utterly batshit is incredibly wide, even before you introduce the possibility of multiple characters being able to see through the window in the fourth wall. poo poo's hosed, yo. In other news: I'm glad that we got around to making a different choice on a Round 1 AB game. We know from our other runs that the combination of door choice and AB Game choice results in a different set of coloured bracelets, so I'm interested to see if the AB choice alone gives us different options from here out. e: fewer redundant bullshit words. not none though Some Strange Flea fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 20:01
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And More posted:Well, maybe the word I'm looking for is agency. If I was reading a choose-your-own-adventure novel and, no matter what path I picked, I'd always lose, I'd stop reading. There needs to be a sense of agency or your decisions become pointless. This isn't as simple as the game going "heads I win, tails you lose," unless literally every ending on this path is a game over that gives us no new information. What is probably going to happen is that Alice now distrusts us, which means we'll be spending time with different characters and gaining different insights compared to what we've previously seen. Until we actually see what's different on this path, it's too early to accuse the game of loving us over.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:48
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I'm surprised no-one's bringing up the Schrödinger's Cat book from one of the earlier routes. In hindsight, someone betraying us in one time-line and allying at that exact same moment in another time-line was foreshadowed. For the people who still want to say it's terrible writing, I'd like to bring up a counterpoint: The teams change after each vote 'randomly'. Regardless of whether your bracelet colour is changed according to a psuedo-randomly or truly randomly generated result, if you were to go back in time (as the player has) and get another result generated, you'd be given the same colour as you were in the other time-line (unless I've made a grave error in my understanding of how random number generators work, that is). The game has not been doing this, instead allowing us to experience teaming up with different groups after each vote, so if you want to say the game has bad writing because of Schrödinger's Alice, you must also do so for the Schrödinger's Bracelets. The Watercrown fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 20:52
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Austrian mook posted:Hell, how many of these have been broken by this game already 2: Broken. Sigma's ability to recall other routes. 3: Too early to call. 4: Broken, multiple times, at great length. 5: Broken for the same reason as 2. 6: Broken if you count 2 and 5. 7: Too early to call. 8: The one rule they seem to stick to, since Sigma tells whoever he's with about whatever he finds, often to his own detriment. 9: Broken. Who Sigma's 'watson' is varies from route to route, but all of them are keeping secrets, save maybe Luna. 10: Too early to call. Twins/Doubles could explain the 'everyone dies' route, though. EDIT: Also, anyone who's going to quit reading over this is silly. They are a silly person. I say this as someone who criticized the decision earlier - they broke this rule for a reason. This isn't some sort of 'hole' they accidentally stumbled into, it was clearly a deliberate writing decision. Whether or not that decision is justified is up for you to decide, and you're free to quit reading if you wanna, but don't act like it's some horrendous mistake. Writing is a nebulous concept that there's no easy answer to, and if no writers dared to break out of the mold and do something that's generally against accepted convention, the only literature that would exist would be reprints of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Endorph fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 21:05
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Endorph posted:10: Too early to call. Twins/Doubles could explain the 'everyone dies' route, though. We did just get introduced to the concept of biological clones, and there's always the robots - maybe someone could have been snatched (or escaped?) and replaced with a robot duplicate rather than being a robot all along, assuming the GAULEM even was trying to say there was a robot among one of the players (as far as I know that was never confirmed, we're just working off of an assumed end of the sentence). I'm just really hoping that 7 doesn't get lumped into the "break all the rules!" idea - hopefully that secret note is the game's version of releasing a greased up pig #1, #2, and #4 vvv: True, then unless there's some mysterious twins running around the complex it looks like only a small amount of the rules were actually broken so far rather than presumably lots - better to look at that secret note as a defense against the "Ugh, this plot twist now makes all of the writing in this game horrible!" comments by basically saying "Yeah, we know exactly what the 'rules' are and you'll find out eventually that breaking them doesn't mean the story is broken on the level of a literotica post" Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 21:11
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Sentient Data posted:We did just get introduced to the concept of biological clones Though considering the route-based nature of the game, it's possible the player could get to a route that is impacted by the clones or the gaulems before the concept is introduced.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:13
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The Watercrown posted:so if you want to say the game has bad writing because of Schrödinger's Alice, you must also do so for the Schrödinger's Bracelets. That's wrong. There's a difference between a person and a computer algorithm designed to make random choices. A random algorithm is expected to come up with different results - that's the point. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 21:13
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:That's wrong. There's a difference between a person and a computer algorithm designed to make random choices. A random algorithm is expected to come up with different results - that's the point. To my knowledge, the output of any such program would only appear random. If you were to reset the variables used to generate the output (such as by going back in time to before the output was generated), then you'd get the same result as before. Once again, if this is not how random generators work, please tell me how they do work, so I can correct my previous post.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:31
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The Watercrown posted:To my knowledge, the output of any such program would only appear random. If you were to reset the variables used to generate the output (such as by going back in time to before the output was generated), then you'd get the same result as before. Once again, if this is not how random generators work, please tell me how they do work, so I can correct my previous post. Only if the same system generated results at the exact same time (which we can't prove), or they used the shittiest random number generator ever. Also the way Zero III said that they were random ("no patterns or anything!") implied that he was lying and that it's not quite random.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:36
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Alice was probably just sitting there in the AB room going "huh, my head feels funny, I don't know why I'm feeling so guilty for betraying Sigma all of a sudden," and is now thinking "WHAT THE HELL I knew he was going to ally, this is so unfair!"
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Feb 10, 2014 21:41
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Ghostwoods posted:The objection is not that it unexpectedly makes us look bad. The objection is that it's betraying the narrative. If the game treats its own events as arbitrary, then effectively the writers are saying "screw you sucker, everything you do is utterly meaningless." I'd disagree. This isn't a typical and direct narrative; it's not like the Alice got shot, and then the game said TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK, and then the next episode opens up with Alice dodging the bullet. Kind of the entire point is to have different things happen with different choices. I think a large part of the argument here is that people are saying the vote is the only thing that changed, so everything else should be the same. But this is clearly untrue. The corpse being there or not changes. As posted above, the numbers on the bracelets change. In 999, the door choices weren't the only things that changed around; the visible narrative was stated to be only part of a whole infinity of alternate universes going on at once, with only the universes needed to save June affecting each other. I think the argument that "there's nothing else different, so it's bad writing!" isn't a very good one, anyways, but I can see where people are coming from there. As it remains, though, it's really irrelevant.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:41
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Virtue's Last Reward: The game where you can never feel good about whatever you vote.Vil posted:Schrodinger's treacherous bitch. Honestly, I wasn't even all that angry after Alice's backstory, but I still think this should be the title of the thread.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:43
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:Virtue's Last Reward: The game where you can never feel good about whatever you vote. There's always Luna
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Feb 10, 2014 21:43
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Austrian mook posted:There's always Luna Yes, but when we voted to Ally with Luna because she was nice and it felt right, almost everyone died and then we hit a plot lock. 
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Feb 10, 2014 21:47
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:The problem with this analogy is that VLR (and 999, for that matter) doesn't work like a traditional CYOA. In a traditional CYOA you take a single path that either ends in a "win" or a "loss." In 999, on the other hand, in order to "win" the game, you explicitly had to previously go through a path that ended with you "losing," what with June's disappearance in the Safe ending. We've already had to do something similar with the plot locks in this game, as well. My entire train of thought is sort of spread out over the last two pages, so let me just quote what I responded to initially: DaveWoo posted:The best theory I can some up with is that Alice has access to the same "morphogenetic weewoo" that Sigma does. She picked Ally because, in another timeline, she saw Sigma picking Ally. The assumption that Alice has the same morphogenetic field ability as Sigma implies that there are two people who see possible outcomes to their actions. They can change their plans accordingly. This also means they can't possibly predict each other's actions. However, every time Sigma picks ally, Alice picks betray. Every time he picks betray, Alice chooses to ally. There is never a scenario that involves both picking ally. In my mind, there are two possible interpretations of this: A. The assumption is incorrect. Alice cannot know what Sigma will choose before the vote has ended with the help of the morphogenetic-field ability alone. Her decision must be influenced by Sigma's vote itself, and not by an alternate reality thingy. B. The assumption is correct. If we keep picking ally Alice will eventually pick ally as well. We know based on the options tree that B can never happen. If the assumption was correct, then the game would be keeping a viable option from us. In this scenario, it is taking away our agency. To sum this mess up: Alice probably doesn't have the same ability as Sigma.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:48
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And More posted:However, every time Sigma picks ally, Alice picks betray. Every time he picks betray, Alice chooses to ally. There is never a scenario that involves both picking ally. How do you even know this is the case anyway? We've discovered in past threads that there are actually more boxes than those that are originally in the map - the real threads go longer than we could have seen through the starting flow map, who's to say that it can't also go wider? Maybe there are invisible "plot locks" - if more people than Siggy can see into the past, then maybe if you complete the threads and go back to certain AB games the other people will also go in with flashbacks of their own and allow for different voting combinations. Maybe once we finish up with the Alice path and she realizes that we really were working for the best interests of the group or even directly explain that our own betrayal was due to a flashback, we could return to the vote yet another time and unlock an Ally/Ally "True" path vvv: Right, just that the hypothetical second ally (or second betray for betray/betray) wouldn't be unlocked and available until some requirement triggered later in the path was reached Sentient Data fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 21:54
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Sentient Data posted:How do you even know this is the case anyway? Fedule didn't let us pick ally again, so I'm going to assume this will never be an option. The last game also only unlocked new options as we went along. (At least as far as I can remember. Maybe I should read it again.) This is very different from just letting us pick the same thing over and over until we succeed. edit: ^^^ My point is that this should work from the get go if it were true. There is no new requirement needed for this to happen. It's simply a question of likelihood. Alice has done something different once, why would she not do it again? We would have to be able to pick ally twice on this branch with differing results right now, not when the game allows us to do so. And More fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 22:01
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John Lee posted:I'd disagree. This isn't a typical and direct narrative; it's not like the Alice got shot, and then the game said TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK, and then the next episode opens up with Alice dodging the bullet. Kind of the entire point is to have different things happen with different choices. This is where the paths split. The point after everyone is already in the AB rooms. No differences in corpses. No differences in bracelets. The bracelet colors haven't even changed yet, or at least we haven't been shown the changes. So Alice has something strange going on.
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Feb 10, 2014 22:13
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A big twist happens and people are pre-emptively calling it bad writing and threatening to leave I don't get it. This scene made me pretty much glued to the screen.
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Feb 10, 2014 22:21
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Kgummy posted:The thing is the vote is the only thing that changed in this instance. Nothing has been revealed to be different this time. Agreed! But I wasn't arguing that because those things happened (in this chronological path), this situation is different; I was putting forth the argument that because it's possible for those things to be different without any reasonable way for them to be affected by the choices made (in those paths), that things are more complicated than "change Sigma's actions are certain points, and different things happen." It's certainly close to that, but there's crazy multiple-timeline shenanigans going on. At least, that's the most likely explanation, what with 999 and all. "Magic time rewind/savestates/determinism" is a good thing that can lead to good stories, and I would argue should be used in most CYOA games, but this one is trying to specifically subvert that, as 999 did before it. Using the Safe Ending -> True Ending thing, but on a larger scale.
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Feb 10, 2014 22:26
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I imagine the only thing that would cause more uproar than this would be if we had to Betray Luna later on and it turns out that she Betrayed us too. But yeah, Alice switching her vote seems really dumb. Hopefully Sigma can dump the 'well look, K and Clover also Betrayed' excuse on her.
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Feb 10, 2014 22:38
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I certainly have no intention of leaving (I want to see what happens next!) but I no longer have any interest in voting to ally or betray anymore. If every option is a kick in the dick, you might as well just flip a coin and brace yourself rather than expend any effort on trying to figure out which way you should be going.
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Feb 10, 2014 22:41
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Just so I'm clear: We just flipped the decision which ended up with Dio and Quark coming out of the AB room acting real weird, right?
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Feb 10, 2014 22:44
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Sentient Data posted:Right, just that the hypothetical second ally (or second betray for betray/betray) wouldn't be unlocked and available until some requirement triggered later in the path was reached My point is that this should work from the get go if it were true. There is no new requirement needed for this to happen. It's simply a question of likelihood. Alice has done something different once, why would she not do it again? We'd have to be able to pick ally twice on this branch with differing results right now, not when the game allows us to do so.
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Feb 10, 2014 22:57
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