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Phigs posted:Imagine a poignant play performed really badly, so badly you cannot get past the performance and suspend your disbelief. In that case it wouldn't matter what the play was about or how good the writing was; you're not going to connect to the characters, you're not going to connect to the story, and it's all going to fall completely flat. It doesn't mean you lack empathy, but that the performance failed to connect with you such that it could engage your empathy. It's not entirely on the audience to empathize with a piece, the piece has to also meet the audience where they're at. This is me with your posting
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Jun 19, 2023 20:21
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but it's not a story performed badly. it's just a story that, at the end, reminds you that it is a story. per your own words, this was enough to make you dislike the whole thing
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Jun 19, 2023 20:27
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Lt. Danger posted:but it's not a story performed badly. it's just a story that, at the end, reminds you that it is a story. per your own words, this was enough to make you dislike the whole thing If you make fun of someone for crying at a movie because it's "just a movie" you're an rear end in a top hat. If you condescendingly pat someone on the head and say good job for crying at a movie even though it was "just a movie"...
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Jun 19, 2023 20:31
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But they do neither? All the ending does is ask for your thoughts on what you've just experienced. What you thought and what Yu thought also 
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Jun 19, 2023 20:36
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Phigs posted:Imagine a poignant play performed really badly, so badly you cannot get past the performance and suspend your disbelief. In that case it wouldn't matter what the play was about or how good the writing was; you're not going to connect to the characters, you're not going to connect to the story, and it's all going to fall completely flat. It doesn't mean you lack empathy, but that the performance failed to connect with you such that it could engage your empathy. It's not entirely on the audience to empathize with a piece, the piece has to also meet the audience where they're at.
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Jun 19, 2023 20:36
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John Murdoch posted:If you make fun of someone for crying at a movie because it's "just a movie" you're an rear end in a top hat. If you condescendingly pat someone on the head and say good job for crying at a movie even though it was "just a movie"... I'm going to condescendingly pat you on the head with the wrench from Prey (2017)
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Jun 19, 2023 20:36
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Lt. Danger posted:but it's not a story performed badly. it's just a story that, at the end, reminds you that it is a story. per your own words, this was enough to make you dislike the whole thing Right, but the point I was trying to make is that there are things that can break the audience's connection such that the underlying story doesn't matter. And Prey shifts the ground under your feet and then doesn't give any time for you to adjust to the change. I guess some people just adjust to the change and are fine with it. But for myself that apparently breaks my connection to the story and makes for a very unsatisfying ending. Also I didn't dislike the whole thing, I just liked it less than I would have without the ending.
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Jun 19, 2023 20:37
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Phigs posted:Right, but the point I was trying to make is that there are things that can break the audience's connection such that the underlying story doesn't matter. And Prey shifts the ground under your feet and then doesn't give any time for you to adjust to the change. I guess some people just adjust to the change and are fine with it. But for myself that apparently breaks my connection to the story and makes for a very unsatisfying ending. The first time I played it, the ending did leave me pretty disappointed, not so much by the actual ending on its own, but because the last few hours of playtime had been less fun than the rest of the game. I've replayed Prey at least 5 times since, and while it is a different experience from going in blind, I can't say it's less enjoyable. I'm someone who regularly rereads murder mysteries because I love seeing how the writer goes about setting up the eventual reveal, so I may be in an odd minority on this one.
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Jun 19, 2023 20:42
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itry posted:But they do neither? All the ending does is ask for your thoughts on what you've just experienced. Did only I get the special ending where they evaluate each and every choice you made over the course of the game and decide if you've figured out that whole empathy thing?
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Jun 19, 2023 20:42
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John Murdoch posted:Did only I get the special ending where they evaluate each and every choice you made over the course of the game and decide if you've figured out that whole empathy thing? I think that mostly serves as a synopsis of your play time. Presumably for people who take weeks to finish games a couple of hours at a time. Hard to reflect if you don't remember what happened. Edit: Like those classic Fallout slideshows. itry fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Jun 19, 2023 |
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Jun 19, 2023 20:49
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okay. bluntly, I have a very different approach where "suspension of disbelief" is an obstacle to engagement rather than something to aspire to. I engage with a work because its form and/or content interests me - that's my connection. being reminded it is just a story doesn't threaten that connection, though I suppose becoming dull, false or trite does if someone fails to connect to a story then honestly I would say that's half on the person at least. more than half, possibly, because a text is a dumb unthinking thing, while people can change the way they think I would disagree with the idea that Prey shifts ground at all. all the ending does is provide context. everything you did still happened, and keeps the same meaning, intact. all that happens is you get more information about what's going on
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Jun 19, 2023 20:52
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Choosing an ending reveal like Prey was always gonna result in a certain amount of the audience feeling disaffected, I'm sure the devs knew this going in but accepted that as a necessary side effect of the story they wanted to tell. A more generic story and ending would have been more satisfying to some but also wouldn't have resulted in people still vigorously debating it 6 years later, so I'd say it's a success in terms of causing strong reactions either way. It's a shame that recency bias affected Phigs' enjoyment of it but I don't think anyone's going to persuade the other that the ending is bad/good, actually. Good art should be divisive.
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Jun 19, 2023 20:56
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itry posted:I think that mostly serves as a synopsis of your play time. Presumably for people who take weeks to finish games a couple of hours at a time. Hard to reflect if you don't remember what happened. It's literally the entire basis of the twist, the ending, and ultimately the game as a whole. It's definitely not just a convenient synopsis of events for the sake of reminding the player of what they did. And Fallout's end slides weren't just a synopsis of what you did either. 
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Jun 19, 2023 21:12
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John Murdoch posted:It's literally the entire basis of the twist, the ending, and ultimately the game as a whole. It's definitely not just a convenient synopsis of events for the sake of reminding the player of what they did. I don't really see it as a Shyamalan twist because it's repeatedly and heavily lampshaded throughtout the game. Anyway, I didn't say "just". That scene serves both as a recap and as a way to recontextualise events. The Fallout slideshows serve both as a recap and a show of ramifications. It was the closest/first example that came to mind.
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Jun 19, 2023 21:23
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Lt. Danger posted:okay. bluntly, I have a very different approach where "suspension of disbelief" is an obstacle to engagement rather than something to aspire to. I engage with a work because its form and/or content interests me - that's my connection. being reminded it is just a story doesn't threaten that connection, though I suppose becoming dull, false or trite does I (think I) completely understand your perspective but I'm definitely built differently. I'm not sure saying it's "on me" that I lost the connection so much that it just different people react to things differently. There's certainly enough people who feel the same that I don't feel especially weird over it. What makes Prey interesting to talk about is how it affects people very differently. Even the combat and exploration I've heard wildly different takes on. Part of why I would say that it's arguably a bad ending is because of where Arkane is now. I agree with Butterfly Valley that divisiveness is not a bad thing in a work of art. But if not appealing to a large enough audience has lead Arkane to where it is now then maybe they needed a different approach. I don't think the ending specifically had much to do with it, but in hindsight Arkane needed at least a slightly more mass appeal approach to their work in general. I'd say making the combat more satisfying and the enemies more "normal" would probably have had the biggest impacts. Maybe even making the main enemy zombies, as much as I'm not a huge fan personally.
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Jun 19, 2023 21:23
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Phigs posted:Part of why I would say that it's arguably a bad ending is because of where Arkane is now. I agree with Butterfly Valley that divisiveness is not a bad thing in a work of art. But if not appealing to a large enough audience has lead Arkane to where it is now then maybe they needed a different approach. I don't think the ending specifically had much to do with it, but in hindsight Arkane needed at least a slightly more mass appeal approach to their work in general. I'd say making the combat more satisfying and the enemies more "normal" would probably have had the biggest impacts. Maybe even making the main enemy zombies, as much as I'm not a huge fan personally. this is deranged wtf
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Jun 19, 2023 21:24
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Yeah, I'm not sure Prey's ending is the reason Arkane Austin has been forced to make co-op games. Edit: But yeah, the gunplay could have been better. And the enemies more responsive. But I believe the major reason for Prey "underperforming" was a complete lack of marketing and the horrible name. itry fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jun 19, 2023 |
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Jun 19, 2023 21:26
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I mean I specifically said I didn't think it was because of the ending. Just that I think Arkane needed to think more about how general audiences would take to things in their games than they did. That divisiveness might make good art, but it doesn't necessarily make for great sales. And I'm not saying it was the only thing, like marketing as you mention. I think you're potentially reading too much into what I'm saying there. It's not meant to be a super strong point, just an aside really.
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Jun 19, 2023 21:30
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Ok, fair enough. I will not stand for any suggestion of zomies though 
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Jun 19, 2023 21:35
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While totally hypothetical it's interesting to ponder how an Arkane-developed game in an established IP would sell. I think the wider gaming public enjoys immersive sim style gameplay a lot more than the sales for Dishonored, Prey etc would suggest - BotW and TotK scratching a lot of the same itches and being critical and commercial smashes, for example. Shame that a combination of original IP, poor marketing and publisher bullshit seems to have put paid to their future prospects.
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Jun 19, 2023 21:43
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Lt. Danger posted:I would disagree with the idea that Prey shifts ground at all. all the ending does is provide context. everything you did still happened, and keeps the same meaning, intact. all that happens is you get more information about what's going on Yeah this is what's confusing me. If the in game books were included for a reason then one of the good endings is basically "canon" since the typhon's decision making and reasoning should be more or less identical to the actual Morgan's. Whatever it does in a recreation of Morgan's memories should be what Morgan actually did, and since every major living character survived then the corresponding ending is the actual course of events.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:37
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turn off the TV posted:Yeah this is what's confusing me. If the in game books were included for a reason then one of the good endings is basically "canon" since the typhon's decision making and reasoning should be more or less identical to the actual Morgan's. Whatever it does in a recreation of Morgan's memories should be what Morgan actually did, and since every major living character survived then the corresponding ending is the actual course of events. Maybe I've wildly misunderstood something, because the only concrete fact I take from the ending is Alex survived. Not even "Morgan saved Alex" or "Alex survived the events on Talos 1" just literally Alex did not die between point A and point B.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:44
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the other major characters are all represented by operators. i don't know if they're meant to be remote proxies of the characters or programmed clone operators like January.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:50
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I think it works either way -- if Morgan saves Talos 1, they're proxies, but if he blows it up, they're programmed assistants .
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Jun 19, 2023 22:55
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I didn't think the ending supports all the actions being what literally happened. When they assess the Typhon they say things like "they did X which could mean Y", implying they're just testing for empathy, not for recreation precision. If they were they'd say "they did X which Morgan also did" or similar. It wouldn't really make sense to judge the actions of the Typhon if the simulation was on rails.
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Jun 19, 2023 23:00
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Butterfly Valley posted:While totally hypothetical it's interesting to ponder how an Arkane-developed game in an established IP would sell. I think the wider gaming public enjoys immersive sim style gameplay a lot more than the sales for Dishonored, Prey etc would suggest - BotW and TotK scratching a lot of the same itches and being critical and commercial smashes, for example. Shame that a combination of original IP, poor marketing and publisher bullshit seems to have put paid to their future prospects. Not totally hypothetical - Arkane had a Half Life 2 expansion in development, but it was canned. There's a mini documentary on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMygnmB9Zw8
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Jun 19, 2023 23:07
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aniviron posted:Not totally hypothetical - Arkane had a Half Life 2 expansion in development, but it was canned. There's a mini documentary on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMygnmB9Zw8 
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Jun 19, 2023 23:17
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John Murdoch posted:Maybe I've wildly misunderstood something, because the only concrete fact I take from the ending is Alex survived. Not even "Morgan saved Alex" or "Alex survived the events on Talos 1" just literally Alex did not die between point A and point B. One of the books talks about how hybrotic recreations of humans created via a connectome are more or less mentally identical to their originator. They make the same decisions and have close to the same personality. The premise of the ending is that they made a connectome of Morgan and used a neuromod containing human cells to recreate Morgan's brain in the human Typhon. They could have just the book that talks about using connectome scans to recreate dead people for no reason though, I guess. Alex tells the player that the simulation is specifically a "reconstruction" created from Morgan's memories, so there's no reason to think that there's a major deviation between what happens in the simulation and what actually happened. Alex is obviously alive, and Morgan has to have survived if they were able to do a brain scan later. IIRC the only outcome where Morgan and Alex both live is the one where they escape on the shuttle. turn off the TV fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jun 19, 2023 |
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Jun 19, 2023 23:25
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turn off the TV posted:IIRC the only outcome where Morgan and Alex both live is the one where they escape on the shuttle. What about the Nullwave Transmitter?
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Jun 19, 2023 23:36
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We know for a fact that they're mapping Morgan's memories onto the Typhon as part of the whole 'trying to introduce human morality and Empathy to it'. But like how in Mooncrash you can deviate in the simulation it seems like it has some amount of freedom to make choices within that set of memories. How that works we don't exactly know, but we do know that the simulated coral and stuff isn't entirely on purpose and wasn't Meant to be there. But it's likely that the Talos 1 event actually happened, and probably went down within the broad strokes of the narrative, with Morgan and Alex's experimentation and neuromod gently caress ups coming to a head, and Morgan having to act as hero to the station. The implication I seemed to get is that the coral network on earth in the end probably means that Morgan saved the escape pod and let them flee, but it was the wrong choice and something went with them, and things got out of control, normal fighting didnt work. So now the last ditch effort is trying to see if they can combat the typhon threat a new way, by introducing Empathy to them. I think Alex picked the time period he did, if he had a choice, because it really asked the Typhon many questions through the simulation. Would it fight other Typhon to defend itself? Would it fight other Typhons to defend other humans? Would it kill humans who were hostile, as if they were just more typhon, or Would it try to save/protect them/unconscious them? Would it prioritize saving itself, saving humanity, or just killing all its enemies? Personally I think Prey 2 would have been a mistake to make, and I'm glad it never did get made. At least an exact sequel. The open endedness of rhe ending is good, and I'd rather be left with that than have it confirmed or denied that it worked. A game of fighting the typhon on earth wouldn't really be all that interesting compared to the idea that yeah, maybe the ultimate solution was teaching the coral 'hivemind' to feel Empathy for other beings. Overall good fun game.
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Jun 19, 2023 23:39
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John Murdoch posted:What about the Nullwave Transmitter? I guess that my issue with that outcome doesn't really make a lot of sense with the ending, but I completely forgot that existed.
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Jun 20, 2023 00:06
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Butterfly Valley posted:While totally hypothetical it's interesting to ponder how an Arkane-developed game in an established IP would sell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS49Dazin3E
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Jun 20, 2023 00:20
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turn off the TV posted:I guess that my issue with that outcome doesn't really make a lot of sense with the ending, but I completely forgot that existed. Guess which ending I picked?  Tbh, I might not be quite as riled by the ending if Alex just clearly explained how we got from Talos to the current situation. Even if it changed depending on what ending you picked or other factors like the escape pod. Basically every time I've seen the ending discussed, people are quick to provide their own explanations for how even the seemingly "good" endings could go wrong. I even have my own for the nullwave one! There just doesn't seem to be a good reason for things to exist in what I find to be a both too ambiguous and too specific state. Same kinda thing with the Operators. If those characters are killed, there you go, easy answer. If they survived, well, suddenly you have to start writing your own explanation for why they only appear as Operators, of which there are many viable interpretations. Why not just have them appear in-person?  Ironically, if they had tripled down on the mind screw elements and made the ending more ambiguous I might've liked it better, because then I wouldn't be waylaid by trying to piece together how anything shown connects back to what happened on Talos.
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Jun 20, 2023 00:56
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If you go back to the early days of the thread there was a lot of discussion about Bethesda making GBS threads the bed on actually marketing Prey, coupled with IGN initially giving it an extremely low score due to a crash bug. Those combined with a relative lack of mass market interest in immersive sims are probably chief culprits to look at why Arkane Austin got forced to do Redfall afterwards, not a semi-controversial ending people weren’t going to hear about unless they were already looking at the title.
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Jun 20, 2023 01:31
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games with early performance issues are annoying because you forever hear about it or see the effects even though X years later it's completely irrelevant.
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Jun 20, 2023 01:33
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Serephina posted:Well yes and no? There's at least one email from Morgan expressing outrage at the inhumanities, so not all memory-wipe'd Morgan's are acting the same, which causes discussion with the scientists and Alex. The Morgan who personally fed Mikhaila's political prisoner father to the Typhons was presumably an even earlier iteration.
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Jun 20, 2023 01:39
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why have games not continued to innovate in the space of pratfall interactions. why can i not make an orc's pants pants fall down so he trips, rolls down a hill, and falls into an open manhole?
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Jun 20, 2023 01:42
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I don’t remember any of the story elements, but I sure remember how tight and fun the gameplay was.
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Jun 20, 2023 01:48
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John Murdoch posted:Guess which ending I picked? They are operators because they died in the real history of events and they were only “saved” in the simulation. The reality is that Morgan was not a super soldier and lost a lot of people. But in the sim you can do whatever. It ends up being very similar to Mooncrash in that sense.
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Jun 20, 2023 01:50
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Mike the TV posted:They are operators because they died in the real history of events and they were only “saved” in the simulation. The reality is that Morgan was not a super soldier and lost a lot of people. But in the sim you can do whatever. It ends up being very similar to Mooncrash in that sense. Not according to multiple other people itt, which is how we got here. :p
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Jun 20, 2023 02:02
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