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I am fairly far into the EotE DLC, and I have gone from "annoyed" to "angry," and I want to rant about it. Major spoilers for the DLC ahead: First of all, I was slightly annoyed at how fiddly it is to carry around slide reels, then also have to put them down so I can carry a lantern to the projector as well. Hearthians have two hands. I was much more annoyed by the dark sections in the "dream" world. To take away my thrusters is annoying, but reasonable; I see how they want to gatekeep areas without having to worry about the player cleverly jetting over them. But in combination with the rest, quite annoying. Absolutely cruel of them to take away your flashlight, and replace it with an inferior one that makes you walk slower when you use it. And no scout! Scout is love, scout is life. Scout is the solution to all problems in the base game. And above all, they give you limited light, and then fill the place with unprotected ledges that drop you into the water, which kicks you out of the "dream" world, wasting your time, which you have less of because of the dam breaking halfway through the loop. And you need all that time, because the darkness makes navigation much more difficult; you can't get an overall lay of the land via your eyeballs. These issues all compound on one another to make the "dream" world super annoying; the base game was fairly effortless to control and navigate and this is the exact opposite. It was clearly a deliberate choice, but it's one that I hate. Meanwhile, the story of these owldeer aliens is far less interesting than the Nomai, probably because you don't ever get much in the way of clues about their mental state. The slide reels feel much more like direct videogamey clues to videogamey puzzles, rather than a look into the lives of characters which also happen to have clues in them. And then I got to the point where I visited all the reel-burning areas, and got clues to where the three codes for the weird coffin/vault thingy are. So I started checking them out. And they all involve stealth. First of all, stealth sections in videogames usually suck rear end. But more importantly, in this game, hiding means removing your light source - so you can't see where the gently caress you're going when you're trying to navigate around. In particular, I just got done trying to get to the well. I turned out the lights as per the clue in the reel, and saw an owldeer alien taking an elevator. I still didn't really understand where they were going exactly, so I was caught by surprise when I went down through the little cave leading up to the bridge to the well; they spotted me, poof, back to the beginning. And so I tried again, this time carefully concealing my lantern so I wouldn't be spotted but of course that also meant I couldn't see where the gently caress I was going, so I walked off into the water. And then the third time, I literally bumped directly into the owldeer alien in the blind dark. On the fourth attempt, the tower collapsed and extinguished the campfire before I even got there, meaning that if I want to attempt it again, I have to reset the loop, fly to The Stranger, pick up an artifact, boat to the tower, go through the mini stealth section leading to the burned house, go through the cave to extinguish the lights, and then go walk back to attempt the stealth section again. So loving frustrating! So I am loving done with this poo poo unless y'all tell me that (a) the story gets significantly more interesting, which I doubt given that I know you never learn to translate their text, and also (b) the stealth sections are really short and there's just these three. Or perhaps (c) I am a huge idiot and missing some kind of fundamental game mechanic that makes it less rear end. It's a shame, because The Stranger is a really cool environment and I was mostly enjoying the non-"dream" world part of the DLC, even if it wasn't as compelling as the base game. I still have all kinds of questions about the owldeer aliens that I want answered, and now I'll probably just watch lore videos on youtube or something. Like for example, how come there even are owldeer assholes making me do stealth in the "dream" world, if they're all dead in the real world? We've all heard "if u die in the matrix u die in real life" but shouldn't you also die in the matrix if your real life body dies? Can't I solve all my problems by blowing out their corpses' artifacts' fires in the real world? Would that be murder? Would it matter if it was, considering there's a time loop and they'll all be alive again in under 22 minutes?
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Aug 21, 2023 00:12
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Arrhythmia posted:Literally all 3 things are true lmfao well don't just post "lmfao," tell me why i'm a huge idiot
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Aug 21, 2023 00:21
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ColdPie posted:Fwiw that's exactly where I quit too. After two play sessions of zero progress and zero fun, I decided there are better games I could be playing. It's an especially sour note since the base game was so amazing. Glad I'm not the only one. Regy Rusty posted:Turn on "reduced frights" and never be frustrated at the stealth sections again beep by grandpa posted:The consensus here since the dlc launch is to enable "reduced frights", please turn that on in the options menu. I'm pretty purist when it comes to dev intent and i did my entire dlc run with it off. It sucked. Redid it with it turned on and enjoyed it so much more it's not even close. The dlc is great! I forgot about that; scary doesn't bother me so I mentally filed that under "don't care, ignore". I looked it up and it seems like it's actually a "make the stealth sections really easy" button, so I will try that, thanks! malnourish posted:Have you seen the matrix? I can't think of anything I could be doing differently to become Neo with the information I have so far, idk.
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Aug 21, 2023 00:57
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oh don't you worry, i'm already there re: the base game. Added it to my "vicariously reliving puzzle games" twitch rotation alongside Fez and The Witness. watched some dude last night who figured out the rule of quantum imaging before leaving Timber Hearth for the first time.
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Aug 21, 2023 01:28
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beep by grandpa posted:losing it or blowing it up is always so tragic and memorable on the contrary, I spent much of the game yeeting my ship into whatever planet i was trying to get to and jumping out of the ship while it was still moving, completely unconcerned what would happen to it, in order to arrive at my destination 2.3 seconds faster
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Aug 22, 2023 03:46
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I'm ranting again. Sorry for the negativity. Please feel free skip this post if you don't want to hear it, but know that I am only this angry and disappointed because I loving loved the base game. And I'm only posting my sad story because beep by grandpa asked me to.beep by grandpa posted:When you're done Please tell us how much it improved your DLC experience How much did the "reduced frights" option improve it? Not really at all. I'm just too loving terrible, apparently, at bumbling around in the loving dark. Overall my thoughts are still overwhelmingly negative. None of my concerns I mentioned previously stopped being concerns; "reduced frights" just gave me more time to gently caress up and die repeatedly. The dream world/darkness/stealth mechanics are possibly the worst (intentional) game mechanics I've ever experienced in a videogame. I am putting this about 90% on the game design being poo poo, with the remaining 10% is for me being colossally bad at not immediately losing my bearings as soon as I hit the "conceal" button. I'm sure I could have been better at it if I was more patient, more methodical, more careful. But the game did not demonstrate to me that it was worthy of that level of attention, and I was unable to give it. So I cheated, extensively. First, I was trying to ignore the spoiler I accidentally read about how to go into Neo-vision; but I eventually got frustrated and used Neo-vision to bypass the first stealth section (which, ironically, teaches you about Neo-vision). Then, I read a guide that told me that the owldeer at the "party" disappear if you wait for the dam to break, extinguishing their fires; I feel kinda ashamed I didn't think of that considering I had posted this: DontMockMySmock posted:Can't I solve all my problems by blowing out their corpses' artifacts' fires in the real world? but in my defense I wasn't really trying to think of solutions before looking at the guide, anyway. To make use of that though, you need to know about this one island that opens the door to get to the "party" from other fires, which I just straight up didn't notice for some reason; exploring in the dark is loving rear end so that one is at least 80% the game's fault imo. It occurred to me that the well might be bypassed the same way; that works but there's not enough time to explore the bottom of the well after the tower collapses. I tried a couple more times but eventually I got real loving frustrated and straight up installed a mod to make the owldeer not aggro. At this point I probably could have done the final bit on my own now that the stealth was done, but I was so loving tired of it that I read a guide about the last bit to make sure that I finished the DLC with the minimum amount of faff. Finally, here at the end, the story stops being quite so uninteresting. Which is to say, the story goes from having zero characters to having one character. There's potential here, but it really feels half-baked. I would have liked to see, for example, how/why the owldeer came to the consensus that the Eye should be concealed, or anything, really, about those people other than "they angy". I do like the fact that we get an answer to one of the unanswered questions from the base game (why the Eye signal was so brief for the Nomai). Did the base game ending over again too; it was nice but didn't add much. Overall I'm glad to have witnessed the story parts, even if they're half-baked; I just wish I hadn't gone through the gameplay to get to them. Besides all that I am really loving sick of starting every loop with the exact same sequence of actions: fly to the Stranger, land in docking bay, shove raft, navigate to the ghost matter house, jump out, jump up, pick up artifact, walk back, shove raft, navigate the raft s l o w l y to one of three destinations (usually the furthest one, as it is the one that doesn't ever die to the dam break), get out of raft and go inside, set the artifact down, move two lanterns, pick the artifact back up, walk down spiral stairs, and rest at the green campfire. Every. Single. Time. For roughly 80% of the time I spent with the DLC. Anyway, I am sure after reading all that, I'm sure some of you are thinking, "  wow, what an idiot, so bad at videogames that he had to cheat like four different ways. I didn't have any trouble!" Yeah, good for you. I cheated not only the game, but myself. I didn't grow. I didn't improve. I took a shortcut and gained nothing. I experienced a hollow victory. Nothing was risked and nothing was gained. And I have zero loving regrets. S tier base game, F tier DLC.
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Aug 22, 2023 11:19
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Yeah, I definitely agree that the DLC as a whole felt more video-gamey. In the base game you have this sense that you're uncovering these snippets of conversation that are interesting from a story and world-building perspective, but incidentally they also happen to have puzzle clues in them. In the DLC it felt like more than half the slide reels had no story purpose at all - they were merely direct, overt hints at specific game elements. Like, why the gently caress is there a slide reel of an owldeer walking up some spiral stairs, pointing at a door, and turning out the lights to open it? Why were they doing that, other than for the benefit of me, the human being playing this videogame?
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Aug 22, 2023 13:26
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ColdPie posted:I would've probably put up with it if the punishment for failure was something like rewinding time to the point you entered the sim instead of basically requiring you to restart the entire cycle. Yeah if I didn't lose loop time every time I walked into the water or whatever, I might have played the DLC legit or mostly legit. It was the huge waste of my time at the start of every loop that made the DLC insufferable. If I could just try the stealth section 6-8 times back to back, I'd probably get it down, but if after 2 tries I have to reset the loop, then fuuuuck that. Even the party scene that's a puzzle rather than a proper stealth section is insufferable because of the loop reset; I never bothered to explore around there and conclusively determine that it was unwinnable without some outside influence because it was such a pain in the loving rear end to get back to that area multiple times for exploration purposes.
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Aug 22, 2023 21:04
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Fair Bear Maiden posted:To be fair, they're trying to snuff your lantern not harm you, so that's the fastest way to do it. so you never tried walking up to them without holding your lantern? they break your loving neck
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Aug 23, 2023 21:37
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The Cheshire Cat posted:Sure, but the odds of a Hearthian (or anyone) stumbling on the eye right as the universe is ending are incredibly slim Well, maybe not. I have a wildly speculative theory that the hatchling entering the Eye is what causes the end of the universe. One of the owlk's slideshows seems to show death emanating out of the Eye, and they seem to blame this prophesied end of the universe on the Eye, and don't want anyone to enter it. So maybe what they understand is this: if someone enters the eye, then the universe will end. Of course, we know that the universe is dying before the hatchling enters the Eye; Chert witnesses tons of supernovas, the other Nomai clans talk with one another about the universe ending (as read in the Vessel), etc. But we also know that in this universe, causality can go backwards. What is the nature of time travel in this universe? Are there nine million timelines full of nine million dead universes where the ATP fired a probe and nothing happened and then the universe died without anyone entering the eye? Or is there only one "real" timeline, and the others don't truly exist? If that's the case, then maybe the hatchling entering the Eye at the end of the game does cause the end of the universe. The "death wave" that the slideshow shows is travelling backwards in time, making all the stars go supernova and ending the universe, with the "first" one (last, in time) being the Hearthians' sun. Of course, the hatchling only chooses to enter the Eye because the universe is ending, so it's one of them uncaused-self-fulfilling-prophecy-type of time loops, where A causes B and B causes A (aka a "bootstrap paradox"). Under this scheme, "the odds of someone stumbling on the eye right as the universe is ending" is precisely 100% because that's how it works. The main reasons I believe this might be true are that it explains the astonishing temporal coincidence of the end of the universe and the first conscious being entering the Eye, and because it explains why the owlks seemed to think that the Eye causes the end of the universe and why they wanted to stop others from entering it. But I admit that there's not a lot of solid evidence.
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Oct 1, 2023 06:39
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Lemony posted:I agree about the sped up perception of time inside the eye and it waiting until the actual heat death. The problem with that idea is that Chert and the distant Nomai clans whose messages are in the Vessel both agree that the universe is dying, in real time, before the hatchling enters the Eye. The end of the universe is definitely actively happening during the time loop.
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Oct 1, 2023 23:26
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I found this video helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RcFUFH2_ek Lemony posted:If it's taking you three minutes to get into the dream world from the time you reach the Stranger, I feel like you may not have fully explored the Stranger. They are almost certainly including the time spent getting to the stranger, as well - why wouldn't they? Three minutes sounds about right; longer if you're going to the furthest campfire. It's very frustrating, especially since you have to stumble around in the dark and the slightest misstep dumps you out of the dreamworld, often wasting enough time that you've got to restart the loop. I felt that EotE disrespects the player's time quite a bit in the name of verisimilitude, which as a tradeoff is not necessarily that bad, I guess, but it can get grating when exacerbated by the other bad gameplay elements.
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Nov 4, 2023 22:28
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Other than Outer Wilds, my top five list of "puzzle games that i wish i could erase my memory of and experience again" is, in no particular order, Antichamber, Braid, Fez, Portal, and The Witness. The only one of those that I'd say is particularly like Outer Wilds is Fez, which has a big focus on exploration and platforming, but that's mixed in with a bunch of mind-bending puzzle-y poo poo. But it's still not really like OW; archaeology isn't the main thing you're doing in the game (understanding the history of Fez's world doesn't help you solve puzzles, though there is deciphering to be done), nor is the world as coherent, consistent, and interconnected as OW's. Basically, it's a lot more game-y and less verisimilitudinous. But there is archaeology to be done, at least, in an interesting world that you're encouraged to explore.
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Jan 16, 2024 22:41
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Elman posted:I would argue The Witness is similar to Outer Wilds, but completely focused on the puzzle side of things and not the plot. It's got a bit of that "exploring a cool environment" thing going on, but it feels very different to me. It's the difference between (Witness spoilers) going "oh, THAT'S why that's like that" for lore reasons, and going "oh, THAT'S why that's like that" for aesthetic/puzzle reasons. Still, strongly recommend it to anyone reading this thread. edit: vvvv  vvvv
DontMockMySmock fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Jan 17, 2024 |
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Jan 17, 2024 10:27
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Man with Hat posted:I just tried shooting the little scout into the quantum moon because I noticed on a youtube video that the scout is marked on the map even when it's on the moon, so I wanted to see if I could see the where the eye is on the map with the scout on the moon and sure enough, the little bastard bounces around the outside of the solar system sometimes! No idea how the probe manages to find the eye by looking at it because if the moon orbits the eye on its fifth location and, the eye moves around the solar system so the probe seeing it shouldn't help lock it down. I'm dumb though and it took me many explanations understanding many of the things in this game (like why are we on loop 2000000+ accordin to the probe tracker when we've not gone through 2000000+ time loops (because the probe went through 2000000+ time loops before inviting us into it)) so I'm sure there's an explanation I don't understand just now! Huh, weird. I just tried this, too. (full game spoilers) I don't think the scout SHOULD show up on the map when it's on the QM, since it's clearly supposed to have its signal interrupted by the moon's atmosphere (hence the static and it not showing up on the HUD). And when it's at the sixth location, it shows up just outside the orbit of the map satellite, and not always in the same place:   This is clearly not where the Eye is, as the Eye is very large and ought to be plainly visible if it were there. I feel like this is a bug/oversight. As for your second comment, yeah, the Ash Twin Project went through 9,318,054 loops before finding the Eye, and only upon finding the Eye does it then activate the memory statues and bring the player character into the loop. The probe number in the Probe Tracking Module will actually show that number plus the number of loops you've done in the game - the first loop where you get the launch codes and the statue's eyes open for you is loop number 9,318,055 and if you go to the Probe Tracking Module right away, that's the number it'll tell you it's on. You have looped nine million times before the game started, but you don't remember any of them. The Nomai did not want to be conscious of what they expected to be a huge number of 22-minute time loops; there's a dialogue somewhere about how the memory statues will turn on if either the ATP is successful in finding the Eye, or there is an equipment malfunction of some kind.
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Jan 28, 2024 22:46
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Man with Hat posted:As how I understand it, the player has not looped 9 million times, the probe cannon has though and is programmed to activate when it finds the eye so our loop one is cannon loop 9,318,054. Maybe that's exactly what you said above and I'm just repeating it. This game is confusing to even talk about lol Yeah, I think we're thinking the same thing, just describing it slightly differently. The entire universe is looping; it's just a question of whether or not we're aware of it. The entire nine million loops, the Probe Tracking Module is "aware" of the loop, changing the trajectory of the probe each time, but only once the Eye is found does the player character become aware of the loop.
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Jan 28, 2024 23:14
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homeless snail posted:The map is diegetic as can be seen by, idk if this is eote spoilers or not, the Hearthian deep space probe. So they couldn't put it on a map any better than the Nomai could I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at but you probably ought to re-spoiler-tag the part of my post you quoted. I'm aware that the map comes from the Hearthian satellite. ExcessBLarg! posted:This is a philosophical nit, but, my take on it is that the universe isn't actually looping. What's happening is that information is being sent back in time, where the contents of that information (in this case, the probe tracking data and the Nomai statue conscious memory brain dumps they conveniently know how to restore) is in superposition, and observation of a particular instance of that information informs the contents sent back for the next iteration. Functionally that may be equivalent to the "the universe is looping" to an observer "stuck" in the loop, but the result of each loop is still just information that's effectively instantaneously generated for any non-observer. That's not really what "superposition" means, either in real-life quantum physics or in the universe of Outer Wilds (two very different things, by the way). That information being sent backwards in time results in a materially different universe for each instance of the time travel. There's two kinds of time travel, broadly speaking, which I will now explain in detail even though probably most people know this poo poo already: The first kind is the "closed time loops" kind, exemplified by (for example) The Terminator. Kyle Reese goes back in time because he's ordered to by John Connor; while in the past, he becomes John Connor's father. John Connor essentially causes himself. Nothing that happens in the past changes the future, because that past already happened. There is one universe that is consistent and locally causal, but because of time travel, is globally non-causal. It is predestined, basically. It is easy to imagine how this works within the framework of the physics of space and time (general relativity). Then there's the second kind of time travel, "alternate timelines" or perhaps "open loop time travel", exemplified by (for example) Back to the Future. Marty McFly goes back in time from the Twin Pines Mall parking lot and ends up doing a bunch of stuff including, for one, running over one of those eponymous pines. When he returns to his own time, he arrives in the parking lot of the Lone Pine Mall. There are two different versions of that moment in time, shown differently in the two different parts of the movie. This suggests that there is some kind of branching timelines thing going on. There are essentially multiple universes that branch off depending on whether or not that universe had Marty McFly travel back to the 50s in it. In one universe, the mall is called Twin Pines; in the other, it's called Lone Pine. (Distressingly, it also suggests that Marty's original timeline has Marty disappear back in time and never return. Or, perhaps, it receives a version of Marty that originally came from an unseen timeline with a Three Pines Mall?) It sounds like you're positing that OW has the former, and I'm asserting that it's the latter. Each time the signal is sent back in time, that creates a new "universe," a new loop. We know that there isn't one consistent universe because there are material differences that we can observe between different loops - namely, the trajectory of the probe. So that's why I say "the entire universe is looping." The only difference between the different timelines is exactly what information is received from the future, but that information has material consequences that impact the rest of the universe. If it was true that the different probe trajectories are a quantum superposition and only which one we are observing changes, then it should be the case (via the game's logic, not via actual quantum mechanics) that if we close our eyes, we should be able to open them and see that the probe is going in a different direction. Also, it should be the case that the Probe Tracking Module always reports the same number of probes fired (all of them) if it got all of that information all at once. That's the "consistency"/"predestination" bit of "closed time loop" time travel. But this isn't true - the probe trajectory is fixed within each loop, and the Probe Tracking Module's counter does increment. The loop is not a closed loop - it is an open loop, modified each instance by the loop that came previously. Each loop is essentially an alternate timeline, an alternate universe. ExcessBLarg! posted:Edit: I think this interpretation is supported by the various breaking spacetime endings that happen if you shoot a scout into the Ash Twin black hole or jump into it yourself. You have to do the same thing at the end of the next loop or you get this ending. Note that these behaviors were either added or changed in patches to the game so they certainly seemed informed by some amount of philosophical debate among the development team. I typed all that stuff before you edited this; that's an interesting point. I don't think that those endings ultimately support closed-loop time travel, because if the loop truly was closed, you wouldn't be able to modify the loop at all. But they also don't make sense in open-loop time travel, because if you jump in the ATP black hole once, and you meet yourself, and then you don't jump in on the next loop, it should simply create another loop in which you don't meet yourself. In that respect, I think the game is fundamentally inconsistent with itself. Why should you going back in time once and then not going back the second time break spacetime? In the same way, a certain packet of probe data is sent back in time once, and then a different packet of probe data is sent back on the next loop, and nothing breaks. Every loop has something different being sent back, and there's usually no problem. I've always sort of mentally filed those endings as non-canon, and I'm only now just fully realizing that this inconsistency is what always bothered me in the back of my mind. Idk whether any of that really makes any sense but that's my attempt to puzzle out what I think about OW's time travel.
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Jan 29, 2024 04:44
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The DLC has some really cool aspects and interesting ideas, but overall the execution is a fair bit worse imo, and there are specific parts that I straight-up despise. YMMV. If nothing else, the new environments are really beautiful and cool.
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Jan 30, 2024 04:54
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homeless snail posted:I'm someone that absolutely hates the DLC and even I think that there is a good portion of it that is really strong, namely the whole process of finding the stranger and conceptualizing where it is in the solar system, and the first couple loops inside setting up all the questions. Its the second part where you turn the questions into answers, thats deeply unsatisfying. I agree with this post. I think that ultimately the slide reels were interesting and had a lot of cool moments but overall were an unsatisfying way to convey plot and puzzle information. As far as story goes, we never really get any sense of the personalities of any individual members of the species; there's only one differentiated one and a horde of identical others, and even that one alien we don't really get to know, other than to know that they thought the Eye's signal should be unblocked. There's no characters. And, of course, pure, pitch-black darkness combined with stealth that must be maintained by shrouding your lantern is an incredibly bad game mechanic and I hated that so much. But otoh, Wingnut Ninja posted:I would rank getting into the Stranger, realizing "holy poo poo, it's a Rama and I'm going to explore it" up there with any of the high points in the base game. yeah I agree with this, too.
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Feb 3, 2024 11:34
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Thoom posted:Only one of the stealth sections requires doing any stealth, and it's just for two (one if you're cheeky about hopping fences) encounters that both have the same solution. yeah but those two encounters loving suck, is my point Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no way to bypass the canyon stealth section without using the hint that you get after the end of the canyon stealth section, right? I mean, from what I remember reading posts here and elsewhere, a fair number of players discover the neo-vision mechanic on their own, but I sure didn't. And even once I knew exactly what to do, the other, unskippable stealth section was bad enough on its own to justify hating the DLC imo.
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Feb 3, 2024 23:02
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Reveilled posted:For me at least my issue wasn’t the stealth, it was that navigating around in the dark is not fun. Big agree with this as well. I got stuck at one point simply because it was too dark and I missed a path. Specifically, the path that leads to a little island in the swamp area where there's an "extinguish" thingy that opens the door that lets you get to the swamp area from other areas, which is critical to doing the whole "wait until the dam breaks to kill the partygoers" puzzle. In a game that's about exploration, they remove your ability to explore properly. There has never ever been a videogame where darkness is a good game mechanic and there never will be.
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Feb 4, 2024 18:12
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Oxyclean posted:That's kind of what I mean. Their vision stick showed them the experience of someone entering the eye, and understood it the wrong way. Or just were confronted with the idea that their existence would inevitably come to an end. I still don't buy this. I think that the slide reels show a highly abstracted, metaphorical depiction of the process of the Stranger's inhabitants studying the Eye, and I think that they are smart and probably understood, correctly, that there was a connection between someone entering the Eye and the end of the universe. If there is no such connection, then you have to believe both that the end of the universe (observed by Chert and the modern Nomai messages in the vessel) and the player character entering the Eye happen at the same time by coincidence, AND that the species capable of building the Stranger was just kinda dumb.
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Feb 10, 2024 02:05
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Sivart13 posted:Certainly obvious in retrospect, but I think I looked up a hint. For whatever reason I had a conceptual hiccup with mentally connecting the bodies in the real world and the avatars in the simulation. I mean, those alien bodies in the real world are DEAD, and dead bodies aren't generally known for doin' stuff, so I just mentally filed them as "not important except for story reasons", just like all the Nomai skeletons. I agree that it feels obvious in retrospect, but idk. I still think that if the player is supposed to realize the connection, there, they should be allowed to just blow out their fires in the Stranger just like they do to you in the simulation. It'd certainly give me catharsis 
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Feb 10, 2024 05:59
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Oxyclean posted:I just think that universe was basically at it's very end when the player character entered, and the PC is ushered along to the end by the eye - as suggested by the little segment where we jump around scattering stars. The problem with this interpretation, imo, is that you can sit on the Vessel and watch the stars disappear until the sky is completely empty, before entering the Eye. So the Eye cannot be, like, moving you forward in time until the universe ends naturally - it's already ended. I think that the big problem you're having is that you see a thematic disconnect between the themes of curiosity, collaboration, and progress, and the idea that the inhabitants of the Stranger were correct that the Eye had "malevolent" intent. If they were right about the Eye, then surely we are wrong for curiously wanting to enter it? But I think one of the more subtle themes of the game is the acceptance of death. How do we respond to the inevitable? To give in to fear, to try to cling on to what is dead, only brings us despair, as it did to the inhabitants of the Stranger. In contrast, the Hearthians react differently. We, as the player character, seek to understand; rather than curl up into the fetal position and cry, we seek to find answers, solutions. Fear is unproductive; curiosity is productive. So I think that the inhabitants of the Stranger failed not because of an external tragedy of receiving incorrect information, but due to the internal tragedy of responding badly to correct information. They retreated into despair and became jerk assholes watching the same slideshows over and over again for hundreds of thousands of years, whereas WE created a new universe. Which of those outcomes is better?
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Feb 11, 2024 01:32
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Jerusalem posted:The one that truly disturbed me (and I may just be completely misreading things) was the corpse that appeared to have died clawing at the restraint holding its body in place, rather than being placed there postmortem There are a few corpse poses that are repeated a few times; it's not particularly noticeable until you go through the three areas scrutinizing them closely, as I just did. Are you talking about this one? There are at least two of this one. I don't think it's supposed to be clawing at its restraint, though - it more looks like its hand is just resting there. It's hard to tell in that screenshot but the hand isn't wrapped around the restraint; the thumb and forefinger make a little circle and it's just kinda resting its wrist on the restraining band/harness thingy. And if that's not the one you're talking about then idk what you're talking about.
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Mar 29, 2024 21:00
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cuntman.net posted:i was kinda rushing through it You may want to jump through the ATP black hole again, and then go revisit that area and look around
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Apr 29, 2024 20:45
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