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While there may have been something internally, I always like to remind that BZ was developed in the middle of covid shutdowns. Which probably exaggerated any internal stuff going on.
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Sep 22, 2022 21:46
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Comrade Koba posted:Did they ever give any details about why they decided to change almost everything about the BZ storyline from how it was initially planned and presented in the first EA release? I believe it was pretty public, no inside baseball here, that people didn’t like having lots of other NPCs around because it compromised the sense of loneliness. The original story had a space station in orbit supporting you and supply rockets and stuff. It was more crowded. Again this is REALLY not behind the scenes info, just what I’d heard from friends who played the EA versions.
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Sep 22, 2022 22:02
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OgNar posted:While there may have been something internally, I always like to remind that BZ was developed in the middle of covid shutdowns. The biggest problem was switching writers part way through development and then still trying to have both stories in the game at the same time. It's always going to be weird that the entire point of you being on the planet is to find out what happened to your sister, but it just gets abandoned at a certain point after the AL-AN story takes over. Not even a "wait, I still have to figure out what happened to my sister" message gating off the ending, your character apparently forgets about her primary motivation as well.
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Sep 22, 2022 22:36
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I still don't even get some of the later plot. Sister goes and sets a bomb off near the frozen leviathan, despite having the cure, and kills herself and the security person. Why do that? Why is the path clear to the leviathan after a bomb was set off in the cave? Unless I missed something, none of that makes sense.
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Sep 22, 2022 22:48
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Parallelwoody posted:I still don't even get some of the later plot. Sister goes and sets a bomb off near the frozen leviathan, despite having the cure, and kills herself and the security person. Why do that? Why is the path clear to the leviathan after a bomb was set off in the cave? Unless I missed something, none of that makes sense. Given the presence of lights and the investigation notes I think Alterra did some cleanup while they were figuring out what went down.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:01
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Parallelwoody posted:I still don't even get some of the later plot. Sister goes and sets a bomb off near the frozen leviathan, despite having the cure, and kills herself and the security person. Why do that? Why is the path clear to the leviathan after a bomb was set off in the cave? Unless I missed something, none of that makes sense. From what I recall it was an accident. Altera was trying to do sketchy stuff with the bacteria so Sam was going to blow up the research facility to put a stop to it after being convinced by Marguerite. She got caught by the security guy during her attempt and ended up hastily detonating the explosive and killing both of them. She felt the need to do this because despite having a cure, she was worried Altera would mutate the bacteria into something that would be unaffected by the antidote. It makes sense in the context of the larger story, leaving it as an optional side quest doesn't. If you're going to have two main stories you have to resolve both of them.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:04
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While we’re at it can anyone explain why the Precursor species in BZ was written to be telepathic when a major story beat of the first game is that the Sea Emperor couldn’t communicate with them telepathically like she can with the player? That doesn’t make sense to me.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:05
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Endless Trash posted:While we’re at it can anyone explain why the Precursor species in BZ was written to be telepathic when a major story beat of the first game is that the Sea Emperor couldn’t communicate with them telepathically like she can with the player? That doesn’t make sense to me. I want to say that the PDA refers to Precursor super wi-fi comms as "telepathy" which is kinda right technically, but the Sea Emperor has the more magical-y ESP/empathic type we are used to thinking of when we hear the word. The Sea Emperor was unable to mind talk with them bc the Precursors were basically Alterra-level selfish/self-absorbed assholes as well as meat-machine hybrids.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:17
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Yeah I thought the precursor guys are AIs or uploads or something, it's not telepathy so much as they all exist on the space internet.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:19
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Well in either case I’d still think them more capable of inter-species communication than some human guy. They’re supposed to be amalgamations of lots of species, wise and ancient and stuff. Surely telepathy is something they’d consider. I just don’t buy that the race we are presented with in BZ is the species that hosed up on 4546b, doesn’t really track for me.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:24
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Endless Trash posted:Well in either case I’d still think them more capable of inter-species communication than some human guy. They’re supposed to be amalgamations of lots of species, wise and ancient and stuff. Surely telepathy is something they’d consider. The one we meet on 4546b has had umpteen millennia of loneliness, the prospect of imminent death, and the guilt of being the one who damned their people to rethink their life choices and general philosophy. I would not take that as representative of what they acted like at their height and surrounded by fellow researchers.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:28
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Endless Trash posted:I just don’t buy that the race we are presented with in BZ is the species that hosed up on 4546b, doesn’t really track for me. That part doesn't really make sense. The precursors are supposed to operate as a sort of AI hivemind which can beam into crafted bodies like the one you make for AL-AN at the end, yet AL-AN is somehow an individual entity who was able to defy orders from the hivemind which resulted in the bacteria getting free. I think it's just a matter of inconsistent writing.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:33
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I read it more as the emotional fish not being able to get a handle on the chilly precursor mind, and the precursors not having "real" mind meld type telepathy, even if they used some kind of biological/psionic component for strictly utilitarian purposes. Not sure they'd even consider that a sentient magic-talking feelings fish could even be a thing, rather than just another animal test subject to be used and discarded. Also the are ancient and smart, but maybe not wise.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:34
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Complications posted:The one we meet on 4546b has had umpteen millennia of loneliness, the prospect of imminent death, and the guilt of being the one who damned their people to rethink their life choices and general philosophy. I would not take that as representative of what they acted like at their height and surrounded by fellow researchers. I’m not talking about how they’d act, I’m talking about what they’re capable of, which isn’t a matter of anecdote. We can see they’re incredible capable, clearly chimeric, technologically powerful. Yes they might not have been English sounding butler types with lots of manners but if the existence of their species is on the line surely they’d have at some point thought “have we tried telepathy?” But the SE clearly says “they did not hear me” - not “they heard me and they were malicious and didn’t care that I was sentient”. It was an oversight, it would seem. One I personally don’t buy that they’d make
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Sep 22, 2022 23:38
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I mean I can’t complain. Writing a sequel to a game/book/movie that has a Precursor/Ancients/Forerunner race that is consistent and interesting and satisfying is basically impossible
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Sep 22, 2022 23:44
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Endless Trash posted:I mean I can’t complain. Writing a sequel to a game/book/movie that has a Precursor/Ancients/Forerunner race that is consistent and interesting and satisfying is basically impossible It's not 
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Sep 22, 2022 23:46
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General Battuta posted:It's not Aren't you literally helping write the next Subnautica? 
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Sep 22, 2022 23:49
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People are arguing that the brain-hijacking rear end in a top hat who makes you forget about your sister was nice/good? He's the (presumed) sole survivor of a race that:
The leviathans wouldn't talk to them because they're jerks. I figured the first thing that happens after the game ends is he goes around borging Alterra and conquering the galaxy looking for his rear end in a top hat siblings. The next Subnautica game you're heading to a new water planet to find another ancient race's anti-AI super weapon so you can save humanity.
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Sep 22, 2022 23:58
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He does not make you forget about your sister lol but I’ll just repeat my point that malice != incompetence of that scale, imo
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Sep 23, 2022 00:01
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NoEyedSquareGuy posted:That part doesn't really make sense. The precursors are supposed to operate as a sort of AI hivemind which can beam into crafted bodies like the one you make for AL-AN at the end, yet AL-AN is somehow an individual entity who was able to defy orders from the hivemind which resulted in the bacteria getting free. I think it's just a matter of inconsistent writing. They're not a hivemind, they're just a bunch of individuals who can upload and download themselves into bodies. This was actually established in the first game if you find their little bases that aren't important to the plot. And then Beyond Zero establishes that their bodies are the same kind of engineered biomechanical mix as their spooky robit minions. Pretty overengineered to be honest. So I would assume that the Sea Emperor couldn't communicate with them just because they probably deleted and exised whatever aspect of themselves that natural psychic receptiveness works on because they're just too artificial. That seems like how these things normally work thematically. Especially since these days the idea of psychic powers as some kind of inevitable future evolution of future humanity and any other advanced race is largely dead so psychic powers get treated as another spiritual kinda thing. uPen posted:People are arguing that the brain-hijacking rear end in a top hat who makes you forget about your sister was nice/good? He's the (presumed) sole survivor of a race that: I think it's a bit of a leap to say that extending throughout the galaxy and a high population would've meant they were inherently violent and destructive. It doesn't really seem like they did much (intentionally) damaging to the Subnautica planet. Apparently they snuck around on Earth too without making much of an impression. I feel like with the amount of cynicism for human society the game has, there's gotta be some kind of positives to the aliens. That seems to be how these things normally go. Although figuring out the themes is kinda hard with the amount of fuckery the story went through.
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Sep 23, 2022 06:03
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SlothfulCobra posted:They're not a hivemind, they're just a bunch of individuals who can upload and download themselves into bodies. This was actually established in the first game if you find their little bases that aren't important to the plot. quote:VOICE: We understand this arrangement is undesirable to you. quote:AL-AN: We exist as data. We all are aware of each other's thoughts and needs. Scientific endeavors are accomplished much more smoothly this way. I guess you can look at that both ways. If you have a bunch of individual entities existing within a network where they can all share thoughts instantly the distinction between individual and hivemind is kind of blurry. AL-AN is only acting as an individual because he's been cut off from the rest.
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Sep 23, 2022 07:04
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General Battuta posted:I believe it was pretty public, no inside baseball here, that people didn’t like having lots of other NPCs around because it compromised the sense of loneliness. The original story had a space station in orbit supporting you and supply rockets and stuff. It was more crowded. I remember playing the early EA and enjoying it a lot more than what it later turned into because it wasn't exactly like the original. 
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Sep 23, 2022 07:28
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Precursors seem to have some core intellect as a digital entity but get a unique perspective and outlook when embodied as whatever flavor of biomech they choose to have doing meatspace things. Like the waterworld guys on one planet, some dudes on a desert planet, and the core worlders are going to be same-y by human perspective, but they aren't literal Borg where they are just components. It just feels like they're written as farther along the trajectory as where megacorp humanity is headed (which is why they suck)
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Sep 23, 2022 08:38
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I just wanna say that the Degasi (OG) and Mercury (BZ) were my favourite parts of their respective games. I realize you might not be able to go for a hat trick of 'read these logs from years ago and get creeped out' story, but I love them  Even though I've played a number of games before Subnautica with them, for whatever reason the Degasi story and logs just stuck with me. Well written, very well acted (Marguerit kinda hams it up sometimes), and it has that almost palpable sadness to it, especially in the final log. Also, finding the life pod logs was really neat, especially given the fact that they were all made while you were out cold for 3 hours at the beginning. YOU WERE RIGHT THERE, and no one survived.
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Sep 23, 2022 12:28
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They just made the below zero map super claustrophobic for whatever reason. The only really open space in the entire map is the iceberg area and there isn't really a reason to go there.
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Sep 23, 2022 22:12
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There are a bunch of areas in BZ that you just visit once, pick up a scan, then never have to visit again. The map is a star, one central hub then you bounce out to check out areas. So much of the map detail is spent on things you might occasionally glance at maybe. The original had much more backtracking, at least for me. Figuring out that the Lost river has at least 3 major entrances, even little things like the tube from the Aurora down to the Lava zone. I set up bases at each new depth and worked my way forward. I'm not sure if it's just inherent to the game and I'd have done the same if BZ was first. But I had a major base in twisty bridges and never bothered making any other big ones.
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Sep 23, 2022 22:39
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Eifert Posting posted:They just made the below zero map super claustrophobic for whatever reason. The only really open space in the entire map is the iceberg area and there isn't really a reason to go there. Well, that and the whole open-ocean edge, where you can’t really tell where the bounds are until some bullshit comes out of nowhere. At least in the OG game it was quite clear when you were at the precipice. Because there was a precipice.
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Sep 23, 2022 22:40
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JawnV6 posted:Figuring out that the Lost river has at least 3 major entrances, even little things like the tube from the Aurora down to the Lava zone. Wait, the what? 😮
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Sep 23, 2022 22:42
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Bad Munki posted:Because there was a precipice. And several warnings.
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Sep 23, 2022 22:47
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Bad Munki posted:Wait, the what? 😮 I think I'm describing it poorly, but there's two ways down to the lava. One's at ~950M right after the big tree with the blue floating rays, the other's a tunnel that emerges around the mountains by the Aurora? It might be the Inactive lava zone it dumps you into. I don't think anyone would use the second one "first," that's where a lot of folks see their first reaper leviathan and since it's a straight shot it'll crush vehicles that haven't been the other way. I think it's great the map is complex enough to have that kind of connection that players can be unaware of. In BZ they'd slap a gizmo in there and force you to see it.
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Sep 23, 2022 23:02
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Bad Munki posted:Wait, the what? 😮 Googled it, they took it out sometime during early access
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Sep 23, 2022 23:03
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There is a 2nd (faster) entrance to that area, it's in the northeast arm of the Lost River, past the "Starry Night" room and inside a room with a juvie Ghost, there's a sinkhole that goes like 300 meters straight down and drops you right next to another sinkhole down to lower lava. I didn't find it until I had almost beaten the game, because one side of the tunnel is the destroyed research facility and I thought that was a dead end for some reason, and the other is the open ocean entrance in the Mountains, and my standard reaction to seeing a Reaper was to piss my pants and haul rear end in the opposite direction.
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Sep 23, 2022 23:36
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The first of those is the way I first discovered and always went. I liked it because it basically bypassed the haunted biome, scooting past the ghost was easy, dropping down the hole was a cinch once you got used to it, and it put me out right next to the tree, where we all built a base.
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Sep 23, 2022 23:40
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See I could swear early on I died trying to explore a tunnel that was in the side of the mountain on the other side of the Aurora, and I never could find it again. Good to know I'm not crazy
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Sep 24, 2022 01:46
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I started Below Zero last night. Just a quick dive in to kick off the game, not a full pl oh god it's five hours later. Good to see they at least listened enough to give us the battery charger right from the start. (although looks like they weren't smart enough to give us the power cell charger too) I need to replace my sucky initial base with a long-term one, time to have anxiety about where to put it. Off the shore near the delta beacon seems like it has a bunch of nice thermal vents and lots of resources, but I'd want to find a gap not too near some of the roary boys there. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Sep 25, 2022 |
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Sep 25, 2022 06:47
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MikeJF posted:Good to see they at least listened enough to give us the battery charger right from the start. (although looks like they weren't smart enough to give us the power cell charger too) It depends which breadcrumbs you follow. A lot of those kinds of upgrades actually come up relatively quickly. Two playthroughs in a row, I had a slightly annoying time with seatruck modules
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Sep 25, 2022 07:49
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Finding the ultra high capacity tank fragments before finding the high capacity tank data box was apparently a common occurrence and I’m glad I wasn’t the only one.
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Sep 25, 2022 07:52
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Oh that area you find the Ultra-Tanks in sucks too. I can never find everything I need from it without a scanner base looking for fragments.
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Sep 25, 2022 07:55
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We'll add a (absurdly small-capacity) storage module to the seatruck! One big box? Oh no no no, why would we do that when we can split it pointlessly into five tiny ones!
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Sep 25, 2022 17:44
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I can see the point behind the seatruck. It's like build your own vessel, kind of. I just don't care that much about it. I don't dislike it, but I don't love it. It's just... there. The idea seems way cooler on paper.
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Sep 26, 2022 11:49
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