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In some fanfic where they survive, they are! No, I’m not posting links. It’s just amusing to me that after the game works so hard to subvert typical ya tropes, someone edits them back in. People...
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Jun 10, 2020 19:12
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 12:48 |
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I have to admit that having the named characters being murked this early in the story really threw me for a loop there when I started playing this game. You don´t expect developers to to go through the trouble of giving NPC´s names, unique appearance and so many spoken lines before just murdering them. Bravo, I say.
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Jun 10, 2020 19:17
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I wasn't surprised at the setup being subverted. That weapon though. That was a surprise and the writers used it really well.
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Jun 10, 2020 19:59
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Flair posted:Bold Predictions about the story: +1 on that prediction, though the story can always have Rost survive that explosion. Though if Rost comes back as a cyborg, I am still counting that as Rost has died. Sylphosaurus posted:I have to admit that having the named characters being murked this early in the story really threw me for a loop there when I started playing this game. You don´t expect developers to to go through the trouble of giving NPC´s names, unique appearance and so many spoken lines before just murdering them. Bravo, I say. Having named characters die this early is not really a subversion. They were just properly introduced with detailed yet generic character models — Aloy, Rost, Erend, Olin, and Irid (though I suspect Irid's model is a generic sun priest character model) are the only ones who look distinctive in that other characters have shared characters models with a slight difference in reskin/retexture — and Rost had some red flags about his end. I am still waiting to actually be surprised. I do like the contrasting government system introduceds. On one hand, you can live in an oligarchy of matriarchs who are given power based on their fertility, and on the other, you can live under a divine rights of kings monarchy — a motif of real-life history. Though based on both accounts, their post-post apocalyptic societies have not been striving for too long. At this point, it should be pretty clear to Aloy that the technology of the ruins have more to give than just a better UI/UX living experience.
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Jun 10, 2020 21:35
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Some good slides in this video.
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Jun 10, 2020 22:56
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 Minigun + a solid photo mode makes for one of the most  things in the game, I always lose about ten minutes taking too many selfies when I hit this part.
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Jun 10, 2020 23:49
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That cutscene really left a bad taste in my mouth. You go from someone who hunts robot dinosaurs and oh yeah, just killed like what? 20 people in as many minutes to some helpless lump who just sorta flails as a guy chokes you. You really should have gone into the cutscene with the gun, blapped a bunch of dudes and then have evil von meanbad rock up, maybe get shot a couple times, disarm you anyway and then gunbitch Rost to death with the minigun. Actually set him up as a scary dude instead of giving him cutscene powers. Since people are posting guesses for the story though, mine is this: Far future, post apocalypse, but one caused by the tribes ancestors. Humanity had progressed to the point where machines did pretty much everything, and a bunch of luddites decided they were the only true humans left because big tough survivalists, grr! They did something to massively gently caress up the machines, but they didn't get it quite right or enough, and there was enough of the old systems left to network up and start trying to preserve everything it could and or defend itself, with the giant megabot thing the first attempt. Lots of resources wasted on something that didn't work, so it went over to designing increasingly dangerous smaller units. The all mother was one of the original luddites, possibly the last, and had access to resources that allowed her to take the megabot down and it all slid slowly into mythology after that.
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Jun 11, 2020 00:13
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I am guessing her history is like the Wild Arms character Rudy Roughknight.
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Jun 11, 2020 21:10
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So, perhaps not much of a surprise, https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/1271186995797204996 Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq594XmpPBg Trailer out. No idea about spoilers. Cooked Auto fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jun 11, 2020 |
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Jun 11, 2020 22:08
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Cooked Auto posted:So, perhaps not much of a surprise, Whoa, poo poo! Somehow I thought it was a one and done, so that's awesome.
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Jun 11, 2020 22:31
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I really like Crispin Freeman, so I'm certainly hoping that character turns out to be more interesting than "big murder dickhead" in the long run.
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Jun 11, 2020 22:55
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Cooked Auto posted:So, perhaps not much of a surprise,
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Jun 11, 2020 23:14
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azren posted:I really like Crispin Freeman, so I'm certainly hoping that character turns out to be more interesting than "big murder dickhead" in the long run. Don’t worry.  Thx for posting that trailer. Game looks awesome. I will be playing it 4 sure!
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Jun 12, 2020 00:46
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Maybe it's just me but Aloy looks exactly the same in the sequel? I would've liked maybe a bit more dramatic redesign.
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Jun 12, 2020 09:21
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Was expecting her to have a scar on her face to show she's older and even more badass now. Meteors and a strange red weed though? Horizon Zero Dawn 3 confirmed to be set on Mars then.
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Jun 12, 2020 18:48
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Mountain mama After we didn't die, we woke up inside a bunker. Don't have any of our stuff, including our Focus. Luckily they're all right nearby. It appears the slaughter at the Proving was meant for us and the rest just collateral. We look like some middle-aged lady with a crappy sweater? Also when I run into Olin I'm going to kick his rear end  Teersa finds us and introduces us to our mom. Well, sort of. Turns out Aloy was just found on the floor in front of some big fuckoff door. And has a 99% DNA match to middle-aged lady, which is not good enough to get us in. This is why she was cast out, because people aren't used to the concept of babies spontaneously appearing I guess. Works in our favor this time though, as we get made a Seeker. I should've thrown in a Cassandra joke. So now we can leave Nora lands without being permanently punished. The dickhead who has a huge stick up his rear end is now the war chief because half the tribe got slaughtered trying to get revenge for the other half of the tribe getting slaughtered. We do get to rub it in his face but it's short lived as we get introduced to a new rear end in a top hat monster. These corruptors suck. They have about a bajillion attacks and make any other machines in their vicinity go nuts. After a sloppy but ultimately successful fight, we get a new ability which is very good: overrides. This allows you to make machines friendly, allowing you to ride them or act as allies. A sneaky person can make great use of this ability. Corrupted machines are invulnerable to this, alas. They do take additional damage from fire so if you know you're going to be facing some it's a good idea to have fire stuff ready to go. And this is the basic plot of HZD. We want to find the assholes who tried to kill us and figure out who the woman is. Why do we look like her? Why did a bunch of random shitheads want her dead and by extension, us? What the gently caress is going on here? The story will take you in some pretty unexpected directions in pursuit of those questions. It's great, can't wait.
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Jun 13, 2020 00:50
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I like the mounts pretty well in this game, you have some decent actions you can do without stopping to jump off, and it entertains me that you can just create new interchangeable robocows pretty much at will.SubponticatePoster posted:Why do we look like her? 
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Jun 13, 2020 01:43
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And now we know the possible origin of the tribe name Nora- they came out of the former NORAD HQ bunker in the Colorado Rockies. This is never confirmed in game, but you'd expect such a structure to be a Fallout vault in this sort of universe, so it's become a common fan theory. Aloy's birth- Yeah, restricting your sacred mountain temple to only women who have probably gone through menopause (as we learned last episode, Matriarchs have to be grandmothers or great grandmothers) kinda precludes some woman just having a baby in there and abandoning her. Or is it a huge Nora taboo for a woman to abandon a baby? Again, what is the tribe policy on orphans or unclaimed kids? Has this situation never come up before? And, seriously, has nobody ever tried to open that special door before Aloy? You gotta admire Teersa thinking up an explanation for it not opening that makes sense with Nora religion, though. I also like her moral stance- "if things don't make sense to me, it must be beyond my understanding and that's ok". Resh- My theory on him is he's the head of the guards at Mother's Watch and thus his main job is to keep outcasts and apostates out of the secret sacred bunker. Thus he doesn't see much combat and can foster his jerk power trip persona. If he was head of the sacred mountain guards when Aloy was found, he probably assured Lansra nobody got past his men to abandon her inside the mountain and being reminded someone did the opposite of what he said thus grates on him every time he sees Aloy. BTW, it's good SP got the Power Cell in the sacred mountain now- Resh puts up a plot wall if you try to get back inside the village after fighting the first Corrupter. It lasts for a significant portion of the game and this has frustrated a lot of players. The dialogue if you try and breach it is- "Sorry, Resh ordered the gate kept closed to Outcasts!" "But I'm a Seeker now! I go where I want!" "Resh doesn't care!" SP's dismissal of our lookalike as "some middle aged lady with a crappy sweater" is quite amusing to me for some reason. LOL. Missed Dialogue- If you try to exit the mountain instead of following Teersa, a guard stops you and says you can only leave with Teersa as escort. Thus you can't miss her exposition- unless you're far away from it like SP was at times. The war party was defeated because the enemy can somehow corrupt machines and convert them to their side, and this was not expected. We didn't miss much else far as the exposition goes. You can also try to get back into the mountain after exiting, but a guard stops you and says the exception that permitted your entry is over now. If you're wearing the outfit Teb made for you when you talk to him in Mother's Watch, he will comment on it. You can speed up the dialogue with Resh by telling him you're a Seeker right off. You can also remind him you fought beside the young Braves that died at the Proving (heart) or challenge him to a duel (fist), but it all amounts to the same outcome. The Corrupter interrupts your confrontation. After you get far enough away from Mother's Watch, the plot wall goes up.Sorry to correct you, SP, but I think you need to buy the Mounted Pickup Skill (only available once the game's DLC came out and not in the original game) to pick up stuff while mounted. That and having to constantly press X to move quickly while riding kept me off horseback much of the game. 
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Jun 13, 2020 02:08
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Two things: the confirmation that Rost got roasted, and holy poo poo that's a lot of candles, bee's wax or animal tallow, but the Nora seem to be hunters rather than have their own herds.
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Jun 13, 2020 02:43
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The Nora-NORAD connection seems obvious. What is less obvious is do the machines replicate somehow? Is there an in-game explanation or is there inexplicable abundance a gameplay concession?
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Jun 13, 2020 02:50
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You see, when a mommy machine and a daddy machine love each other very much,
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Jun 13, 2020 02:52
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kw0134 posted:The Nora-NORAD connection seems obvious. What is less obvious is do the machines replicate somehow? Is there an in-game explanation or is there inexplicable abundance a gameplay concession?
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Jun 13, 2020 03:05
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Resh and Lansra aren't wholly wrong in implying that recent horrific events are because of Aloy's presence. Based on the recordings, she is the target of the assault, and everyone else was collateral damage. Though, if that was the point, the unknown killer did not do his job properly and only left her breathless in the snow with a slowly ticking bomb.Flair posted:Bold Predictions about the story: I am just going to +1 on that prediction and assume that Aloy is a clone of that unknown woman. Also, sounds like the machine has some biometric security connected to the unknown woman's genes and to whoever Ted is. Perhaps only her and Ted's genes can control the machines. achtungnight posted:Sorry to correct you, SP, but I think you need to buy the Mounted Pickup Skill (only available once the game's DLC came out and not in the original game) to pick up stuff while mounted. That and having to constantly press X to move quickly while riding kept me off horseback much of the game. I hope that will be included in the GLORIOUS PC port.
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Jun 13, 2020 03:09
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Seriously, who keeps all those candles lit? Also, when did Aloy learn to ride a horse?
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Jun 13, 2020 03:15
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AltaBrown posted:Seriously, who keeps all those candles lit? Probably whatever Matriarch has upset Lansra lately has candle-lighting duty. More incredibly, Aloy just naturally has Horseback Archery- a skill that allowed Mongol hordes to conquer much of Eurasia back in the day. The machine probably contributes, keeping her naturally balanced. But she'd need a seriously trained horse to pull that off were the horse not a machine. My hope is in Horizon 2 we'll get some more mounted moves- jousting charge maneuver with a spear, automated circle strafe, that sort of thing. Horse to horse assassination moves like in Assassin's Creed 2 might also be cool, but seems like a stretch.
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Jun 13, 2020 03:42
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Now that we're a
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Jun 13, 2020 04:10
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I'm sorry if I sound a broken record, but I wish the game had more faith in its world building and visual storytelling without Aloy having to sub rosa narrate everything. Like you're knocked out and lose all your stuff. A quest indicator is on screen saying "get your stuff". Aloy then says "I need to find my stuff" (simplified for hyperbole). Like, we didn't need the narration. It's like the opposite of show don't tell, it's show AND tell. That said though, man some neat poo poo. I mentioned the strong visual storytelling and that Resh scene on the wall introducing the threat is efficient and effective. I also quite like Teb, his voice actor has this terrifying sincerity that you don't really know the source of. You guys mentioned subverting YA expectations (win the proving, become the best girl, show up everyone in the village, etc) but to me that almost seems accidental when adhering to a video game trope: the hero's village is destroyed and/or they have to leave because of disaster.
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Jun 13, 2020 04:37
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it's especially unsurprising given that it's in Guerrilla Games' nature for nearly everyone but the protagonist to die in their games.
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Jun 13, 2020 05:11
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At least we know what the other kinds of machines are called when we meet them. They even showed their image. With the way that the machines destroyed structures in that attack, does that make only those kinds destructible or are there other kinds that can also break?
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Jun 13, 2020 05:48
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Scalding Coffee- All you gotta do to get a machine's name and technical readouts including what you can harvest from it and its weakpoints is scan it with your Focus. It's pretty cool. As far as destructible environments, yes, they will come up again. You'll see how as we continue through the game. It takes a big machine to do environmental damage (the only ones we've seen so far capable of it are the Corrupter and the Sawtooth) but it can play a role in fights for sure.
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Jun 13, 2020 06:00
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Flair posted:
To those who have studied literature theory or the like; is there a particular name given to the situation where the reader knows something that a character/characters in a work cannot?
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Jun 13, 2020 06:06
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Samovar posted:To those who have studied literature theory or the like; is there a particular name given to the situation where the reader knows something that a character/characters in a work cannot? I believe it's 'Dramatic Irony'.
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Jun 13, 2020 06:32
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OddHaberdasher posted:I believe it's 'Dramatic Irony'. Scaramouche posted:I'm sorry if I sound a broken record, but I wish the game had more faith in its world building and visual storytelling without Aloy having to sub rosa narrate everything. Like you're knocked out and lose all your stuff. A quest indicator is on screen saying "get your stuff". Aloy then says "I need to find my stuff" (simplified for hyperbole). Like, we didn't need the narration. It's like the opposite of show don't tell, it's show AND tell. The thing with tropes is that they're patterns. Human brains are really good at pattern recognition, sometimes to a fault. There are endless semantic arguments to be made about what constitutes which trope and if something fits a certain trope and whatnot. Overall it's mostly just a label for 'things that happen in stories.' So I wouldn't delve to much into it, referencing tropes is a handy shorthand for saying what's going on (and subverting young adult fiction stuff is worth commenting about.)
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Jun 13, 2020 07:13
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When Aloy enters the chamber with the "Identyscan"-door, there is something like a metal "pinecone" hanging from the ceiling. This is the the tip of one of those octopus arms of that giant metal squid sitting there on the moutain, isn't it?  Edit: Oh... "Where All-mother defeated slayed the metal devil." This wasn't just a figure of speech. OutofSight fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Jun 13, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 09:16
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Scaramouche posted:I'm sorry if I sound a broken record, but I wish the game had more faith in its world building and visual storytelling without Aloy having to sub rosa narrate everything. Like you're knocked out and lose all your stuff. A quest indicator is on screen saying "get your stuff". Aloy then says "I need to find my stuff" (simplified for hyperbole). Like, we didn't need the narration. It's like the opposite of show don't tell, it's show AND tell. "This is the part where he kills us!" "Hi. This is the part where I kill you." (Chapter title pops up) THE PART WHERE HE KILLS YOU
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Jun 13, 2020 09:59
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Zopotantor posted:"This is the part where he kills us!" Achievement Unlocked: The Part Where He Kills You Achievement Description: This is that part.
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Jun 13, 2020 10:21
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achtungnight posted:And, seriously, has nobody ever tried to open that special door before Aloy? You gotta admire Teersa thinking up an explanation for it not opening that makes sense with Nora religion, though. I also like her moral stance- "if things don't make sense to me, it must be beyond my understanding and that's ok". I assume people have tried to open the door (or at least, walked up to it since they don't seem to realise it's a door per se), and it either doesn't speak or says something else to people who aren't a 99.99% match for someone in its corrupted database. Agreed on Teersa, indeed I really like how all the religious stuff operates in the game, you can absolutely see how a large door with a feminine voice inside the mountain where a tribe believes they originate from would become a mother goddess. You can also infer why non-matriarchs aren't allowed in here--there's a clear contradiction between "all ruins are evil" and "this particular ruin we came out of is holy", but only the matriarchs need to carry that cognitive dissonance. Aloy's scepticism is very convenient for us as the player especially as we learn more about the world, but from the perspective of the characters in the story, most of their religious/spiritual explanations make sense, which gives the various religions we see an air of authenticity that many other fictional religions in video games lack.
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Jun 13, 2020 11:20
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The argument that it's deliberately subverting YA expectations is because if we just wanted to do the "flatten village" opener, they could have easily cut Bast/Vala entirely. They go through the entire process of introducing Bast, re-introducing him, giving him a model, voice acting, etc., put up a counter part in Vala, then go and splatter them with a minigun almost immediately. You could argue it's trying to heighten the stakes, but you could restructure the story without the resources allocated to introducing two characters like that and then killed not more then five minutes later. Killing Rost is the emotional anchor for the sequence, which it carries out very well, so you can't say you're left without an emotional stake here. Note too how much of the game up to this point was about winning the Proving; that particular prize now a complete irrelevancy. Beating rivals, winning the Important Athletic Contest, making friends -- this is like the first four books of the Harry Potter series. The game gives that to you and then says, "nah" which is kind of funny. Of course it could be accidental, or they might have planned something different with this sequence and it was cut, or any number of things. It could also be a gross mismanagement of the project early on 
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Jun 13, 2020 13:36
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kw0134 posted:Beating rivals, winning the Important Athletic Contest, making friends -- this is like the first four books of the Harry Potter series. The game gives that to you and then says, "nah" which is kind of funny. Aloy did still get to be Seeker just because she was there, though
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Jun 13, 2020 13:40
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 12:48 |
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She's a seeker because she is the Child of Destiny™ who didn't get gunned down along with the rest of her class. How she does on the Proving is ultimately irrelevant; notice that the reason she's back in the mountain isn't because she won and she's claiming her prize, it's because the matriarchs thought she was dying and such customs allow her presence near her "birth place." The entire setup was a narrative feint.
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Jun 13, 2020 14:48
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