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Tree Reformat posted:Father Elijah's in Dead Money I don't' think it's libertarianism so much as it is edgy and naive "we gotta blow it all up and start all over man" feeling that's present on every side of the political spectrum. I distinctively thought the Tong ending was the one you were -supposed- to choose in Deus Ex, mostly cuz the music played in that ending had the most "good ending" vibe
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Aug 4, 2023 19:59
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Reveilled posted:It's been so long, I don't remember how the logic of destroy internet -> new dark age worked. yeah that's the thing like I think the "blow it all up man" crowd thinks if they hit the reset button we'll some sort of idealistic human society from the past that only exist in their minds in reality it's like we'll prob end up somewhere btwn 1000-1900 AD. Which were not very good times for the average person. And we only get there after breakdown of things like medical/agricultural supply chains kill a couple billion people. Beartaco posted:Helios is an exceptionally lazy ending that lets the player get away with not actually making a decision that impacts the world of the game, instead allowing the player to imagine the ending they want by giving the player character total authoritarian control. I think the 3 endings is basically asking you: "technology fked society up, what do you think is the solution?" 1) Try to go back to the past 2) Try to get better version of status quo 3) Fully embrace technology and hope it solves more problems than it causes I think the specific stuff like how Helios-JC would determine the tax rates or whatever in their brave new world is kinda beside the point Typo fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Aug 4, 2023 |
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Aug 4, 2023 20:02
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I too felt immediately more drawn to the tong ending when playing the game but I agree with a lot of the comments about the Helios ending being the “best” ending but overall isn’t the three endings supposed to mean there is no perfect answer: Go back to the beginning Carry on as if nothing happened Omnipotent benevolent dictator lol
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Aug 4, 2023 20:06
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yeah I think the Helios ending is the only "good" ending, in the sense at least there's -hope- that things will be better for humanity maybe Helios-JC destroy the human Race, but who knows, maybe benevolent AI will cure Alzheimers and Cancer and bring about a classless society
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Aug 4, 2023 20:10
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Typo posted:yeah I think the Helios ending is the only "good" ending, in the sense at least there's -hope- that things will be better for humanity I like to think Helios-JC includes a free goatse with every society improving change.
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Aug 4, 2023 21:59
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Cabal Ties posted:I too felt immediately more drawn to the tong ending when playing the game but I agree with a lot of the comments about the Helios ending being the “best” ending but overall isn’t the three endings supposed to mean there is no perfect answer: Well, if we accept the Invisible War plot to suggest the results of each ending: 1. Tong's disruption basically occurred, and the same groups got in charge again. "Blowing it all up" does not = "will make better decisions next time", and arguably the same human issues that cause problems with society before are still going to be there doing the same thing even with a "re-do". Certainly blowing it up again in IW just leaves only a group of ruthless survivors of questionable humanity to take over, and they seem to have only done it because they can survive the hell humanity made of the Earth, not a strong recommendation there (I was going to discuss the Templar ending separately, but honestly it and the Omar ending kinda both can be summed up this way on reflection). 2. The Illuminati will keep on carrying on things as is still, no real improvements to society but it doesn't seem like they went downhill either. I think it's fair to argue the Deux Ex status quo kinda sucks though for a lot of people (almost everyone if free choice is a goal in your ideal of society, because the Illuminati de facto assumes free choice only belongs to a few "enlightened" souls). 3. The super-AI after much thought concluded it didn't want to be a remote god king ruling everybody and insists on integrating everyone. It's kind of left vague how much free will is left in that system obviously (or any regular human thought really, given the transhumanism here), but if we take what is said at face value then effectively everybody gets to choose how things go, which is certainly a lot less hierarchical than the other options. Helios's one act of domination would be forcing the integration, and if it would have respected at least a communal desire to "let me out of this loving mind net!" then that would reduce the unfairness of that. So I guess the real question as to whether or not the Illuminati or Helios endings are better boils down to whether you think humanity as is can be lead to utopia (so the primary flaw is just in the leadership and/or their ability to exert authority to do the "right" thing, and you've ideally fixed both with the Illuminati if you agree with this ending) or whether utopia would require re-defining humanity in some way a la Helios. By the nature of the game you are foisting your choice on everybody else in any event, so in that regard they all rather suck.
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Aug 4, 2023 22:00
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I do like the JC/Helios ending of IW forces everyone to know the thoughts and feelings of every other human being at all times, like a more morally uplifting version of the Borg. Try being a greedy sociopath like that, assholes!
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Aug 4, 2023 22:17
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The Tong ending doesn't understand how class society forms and perpetuates itself, it's the most childish ending. It thinks you can achieve liberation through vandalism. The Illuminati ending is liberalism, "the system as is is fine, we just need good people in charge instead of bad people" etc etc. The thing about Helios is that it already exists, we already have a totalizing machine algorithm that controls all of society - it's capitalism. Bending the machines back to human will and human aims instead of the other way around is the goal of socialism. Helios desires to take the administration of society away from human ambition, to turn it into an "industrial age machine." To make the governance automatic and reflexive, functionally apolitical, is the first step of the 'withering away of the state' as described by Marx and Engels.
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Aug 4, 2023 22:19
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if the invisible war ending for Helios is canon I guess Helios was the path to Communism after all there can't be class or property when every single human being is linked into some sort of borg like gestalt consciousness
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Aug 4, 2023 23:01
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It's not Borg-like, that would be the Omar. They still have their individuality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBeoreJr4Yc
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Aug 4, 2023 23:27
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Typo posted:yeah I think the Helios ending is the only "good" ending, in the sense at least there's -hope- that things will be better for humanity It's the fun thing about authoritarianism. We're able to look at a totalitarian leader and imagine all the good they could do with all that power, when in reality without democratic systems in place the only person they're able to represent with all of that power is themselves and their own incredibly limited world view.
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Aug 4, 2023 23:45
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I describe the helios IW ending as the most marxist one because yes, it involves a fundamental change in the material conditions of the world, it changes the nature of human existence and represents a similar technological leap to that which brought industrialization, and thus redefined class relations. That change again I think is the only one of the endings that would actually change anything. Destroying stuff could also represent that but the issue is that people would have a model towards which to rebuild and an existing societal structure which would favour the same developmental path again, and I think it's likely they would just do that rather than building something different, prisoners under the tyranny of history. The helios ending represents the only real step towards something different, whether you take the full IW ending into account or not.
OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Aug 4, 2023 |
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Aug 4, 2023 23:46
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Tree Reformat posted:Father Elijah's in Dead Money a distrust of prexisting social structures is not a libertarian bend and they alot more either vaguely anarcho or simply critical of the existing status quo/path the status quo is on. feels either anemic or myopic to come to a conclusion that game is purely about individualistic spirit given how much communal interest is nakedly the only positive force in the games and the iconoclastic leaders/rugged individualist are almost always obviously cast negatively beyond it being a singleplayer RPG. anyway i'd merge with the super being and be a benevolent dictator given a choice besides that or blowing up everything and killing endless or leaving the illuminati in charge.
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Aug 4, 2023 23:55
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Beartaco posted:It's the fun thing about authoritarianism. We're able to look at a totalitarian leader and imagine all the good they could do with all that power, when in reality without democratic systems in place the only person they're able to represent with all of that power is themselves and their own incredibly limited world view. I'm kind of reminded of that one sci-fi stories where aliens with imcomparable advanced technology come to earth and give us 2 choices: 1) Surrender all governance to us, you lose your freedom but we'll fix everything wrong with the world 2) Keep your freedom, we'll gently caress off but good luck with the whole not destroying yourselves thing
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Aug 5, 2023 02:01
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Typo posted:maybe Helios-JC destroy the human Race, but who knows, maybe benevolent AI will cure Alzheimers and Cancer and bring about a classless society
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Aug 5, 2023 11:36
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The Helios ending is clearly the worst. This AI has been watching JC the whole time as he smashes everything breakable in the world, deals drugs, hacks bank accounts, breaks into homes and steals everything that isn’t glued down, murders everyone he meets who doesn’t have plot armor, etc. And its reaction is to offer to merge with him and rule the world?
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Aug 5, 2023 12:01
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At least it'll keep him off the streets
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Aug 5, 2023 12:23
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Soricidus posted:The Helios ending is clearly the worst. This AI has been watching JC the whole time as he smashes everything breakable in the world, deals drugs, hacks bank accounts, breaks into homes and steals everything that isn’t glued down, murders everyone he meets who doesn’t have plot armor, etc. And its reaction is to offer to merge with him and rule the world? Communist god AI outcomes would be better than Capitalist god AI outcomes.
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Aug 6, 2023 11:59
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Mantis42 posted:Originally I think the dip wasn't a hard game over but they realized it would be unfeasible to create a whole section where you play as a Super Mutant. That said, while The Master is a gestalt consciousness his army wasn't and also the Fallout 2 thing is just a joke and not canon (like 40% of the content in that game). As presented in game House prob Realistically the NCR
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Aug 7, 2023 00:27
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Typo posted:As presented in game House prob House is just Caesar's dictatorship with nicer packaging and less overt conservatism. Robots instead of slaves, building towards Elysium for the rich, it's basically transhumanist utopia bullshit designed to appeal to the typical tech savvy video game player. NCR is just real world America and all its shittiness. The game presents Yes Man's anarchy (with heavy investment in the sidequests) as the only "good" option (you still need to genocide the Brotherhood or they get up in everyone's grill, but gently caress those fascist dipshits anyway)
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Aug 7, 2023 04:58
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option 1 gives me more opportunity to enrich myself so I'm gonna go with that. All the options are bad but option 1 would give me the most hope for a better outcome in the long term. The other options are basically dead-ends and are really only harm reduction in the short-term. Rock Puncher fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Aug 7, 2023 |
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Aug 7, 2023 07:30
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Tree Reformat posted:The game presents Yes Man's anarchy (with heavy investment in the sidequests) as the only "good" option the robot army being such a boring deus ex (heh) machina is one of the reasons why I'm kinda  about which choice is the best
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Aug 7, 2023 19:28
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Soricidus posted:The Helios ending is clearly the worst. This AI has been watching JC the whole time as he smashes everything breakable in the world, deals drugs, hacks bank accounts, breaks into homes and steals everything that isn’t glued down, murders everyone he meets who doesn’t have plot armor, etc. And its reaction is to offer to merge with him and rule the world? A corpse. You feel something, yes. I must know what you are feeling...
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Aug 8, 2023 09:49
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Yes Man's endings are effectively the same as the Helios ending: The player controls a super computer and rules the world (presumably until the next hero strolls along). Whether or not that's a better ending than the others sort of depends on whether you support benevolent dictatorship / "total liberty for the good guys" or not.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:04
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Did a double take when the screen fades to black and you see JC lying down, snoring while scenes from the game are shown above his head. But! Once he gets up he bumps against the nano-sword, so there is some food for thought.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:49
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Kaal posted:Yes Man's endings are effectively the same as the Helios ending: The player controls a super computer and rules the world (presumably until the next hero strolls along). Whether or not that's a better ending than the others sort of depends on whether you support benevolent dictatorship / "total liberty for the good guys" or not. I have no idea why people (even the developers!) say this about the Yes Man ending because the ending is very clearly "The AI uses the robot army to kick out the imperialists, stand guard at the border, but otherwise does nothing, and you personally gently caress off and let the various indigenous groups of the region live or die by their own actions." Yes Man could be a dictator with that kind of power but is very specifically programmed not to be for the ideological deus ex machina it represents to work .
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Aug 8, 2023 15:50
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The bot is called Yes Man and it does whatever you tell it to do. The player can do whatever they want at that point. It’s the definition of dictatorship. I don’t want to come across as completely rejecting where you’re coming from. I agree that it’s intended to be the most “laissez faire” ending where things just work out according to whatever the player set in motion. But like the Helios ending, the concept relies heavily on the idea that the player has moral certitude and that giving them absolute power is ultimately best for everyone. Maybe the Courier benevolently walks off into the sunset, but New Vegas is still being ruled by martial law according to their chosen principles, and they are the only one who can change that. JC Denton’s control of Helios represents the same sort of thing: An enforced resolution that no one else is ever allowed to contest, and is as good or evil as the player wishes to believe. Kaal fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Aug 8, 2023 |
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Aug 8, 2023 15:59
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True, and it's here we arrive at the core issue with basically all video game storytelling: the medium is inherently narcissistic in that the player is literally the most important person involved. Any attempts to make NPC characters in a single-player game more important than the player character in the narrative feels (rightly or wrongly) as a direct attack on the player's agency, and we see what a disaster getting lots of real players in a single room can cause with poo poo like MMOs and VRChat and such. Video games are in fact the worst medium for trying to communicate any ideas or concepts about communism or democracy, but very good at making sociopathic darwinian dictatorships seem sensible.
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Aug 9, 2023 01:31
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Tree Reformat posted:True, and it's here we arrive at the core issue with basically all video game storytelling: the medium is inherently narcissistic in that the player is literally the most important person involved. Any attempts to make NPC characters in a single-player game more important than the player character in the narrative feels (rightly or wrongly) as a direct attack on the player's agency, and we see what a disaster getting lots of real players in a single room can cause with poo poo like MMOs and VRChat and such.
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Aug 9, 2023 20:16
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Kaal posted:Yes Man's endings are effectively the same as the Helios ending: The player controls a super computer and rules the world (presumably until the next hero strolls along). Whether or not that's a better ending than the others sort of depends on whether you support benevolent dictatorship / "total liberty for the good guys" or not. I think the problem with this in NV is that the narrative really really doesn't set up this ending as anything other than a throwaway line at the end like does Yes Man robot become the A.I running New Vegas from the shadows? Maybe maybe not but the game never really talks about it or ask you to think about it. So it just comes out of the blue. It's just too vague and not particularly interesting to talk about. As oppose to Deus ex, when the entire game and countless lines of dialogue is asking to reflect on the relationship between technology and power structures, and the ending is basically asking you what your take on it is. Typo fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Aug 9, 2023 |
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Aug 9, 2023 22:07
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Xander77 posted:That assumes that every game has to be a power fantasy with the player determining the fate of whatever. Meanwhile, Disco Elysium (cue 20 page manifesto). Do city builders count as a power fantasy? Usually the player is the omnipotent god-king, i.e. the mouse cursor telling everybody what to do, so it kinda fulfills the narcissistic part I guess. But for example in Timberborn, which is still in early access, the current "number go up" - goal is trying to make your little buddies as happy as possible, as measured by the game's abstracted over-all happiness tracking system. Of course the game's mechanics do allow for formation of starvation gulags, so
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Aug 10, 2023 03:39
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That's what I'm saying: literally nothing can happen in a single player game without the player themself. Yes, Animal Crossing was first marketed as "the game that goes on - whether you're there or not"... except that's a lie. All that happens is when you load up your file, the game uses the system clock to determine how long since your last save and calculates town changes to match. But if you don't load it up... well, nothing happens. If you reset and change the system clock, the game doesn't really know what the "real" time is. The whole point I'm making is that in a single player game, all decision making is ultimately first the developer's, then the player's. Any semblance of "other" agents making decisions is either adversarial in nature (opponent AIs), a facade for the benefit of the story, or an actual decision-making agent that necessarily removes some agency from the player (which when this does happen, usually results in players screaming bloody murder about not getting/not having their choices respected by the game). In that city builder, all decisions are still ultimately the player's. Unless I'm unaware, there's no town council of AIs that can overrule anything the player decides to do. All single-player games are ultimately dictatorships of the player, and cooperative/cohabitative multiplayer games... well, we see what clusterfucks those tend to be.
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Aug 10, 2023 03:49
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Rappaport posted:Do city builders count as a power fantasy? Usually the player is the omnipotent god-king, i.e. the mouse cursor telling everybody what to do, so it kinda fulfills the narcissistic part I guess. But for example in Timberborn, which is still in early access, the current "number go up" - goal is trying to make your little buddies as happy as possible, as measured by the game's abstracted over-all happiness tracking system. Of course the game's mechanics do allow for formation of starvation gulags, so Absolutely. Building real cities involves getting involved in community activist groups and joining local politics. What I wouldn't give to just plop a billion dollar railway system through my city. The beavers don't have a say in any of it. Just because you're catering to their needs doesn't make it not a totalitarian power fantasy.
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Aug 10, 2023 03:52
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Tree Reformat posted:In that city builder, all decisions are still ultimately the player's. Unless I'm unaware, there's no town council of AIs that can overrule anything the player decides to do. All single-player games are ultimately dictatorships of the player, and cooperative/cohabitative multiplayer games... well, we see what clusterfucks those tend to be. I agree, (most?) city-builders and 4Xs and the like explicitly place the player as the omnipotent agent. I'm just wondering if it'd be possible to make an engaging and fun game in this style where the game mechanics encourage the creation of a "happy" population. I guess having a town council and then voting the player out for being a screw-up would be a mechanic like that, but as you say it might create resentment among the players for removing agency. Beartaco posted:Absolutely. Building real cities involves getting involved in community activist groups and joining local politics. What I wouldn't give to just plop a billion dollar railway system through my city. It is a power fantasy, but this conversation sort of began with the thought that vidja games as a medium encourage sociopathic behaviour, which certainly is true for some games, but I'm wondering if "benevolent" power fantasies also make for fun games. I like Timberborn  Also obligatory 
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Aug 10, 2023 04:00
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There's no such thing as benevolent totalitarianism.
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Aug 10, 2023 04:01
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Beartaco posted:There's no such thing as benevolent totalitarianism. Sure, but the beavers aren't real, and the question is what would be the player's motivation for their actions. If I play the evil version of the Nameless One in Torment, I am deliberately being a horrible monster of a human being and the game rewards me narratively and number-go-up-ways for behaving that way. The simulated beavers in Timberborn don't have agency, but the goal of the game as it exists in its current state is to try to not be an rear end in a top hat. The game world, for lack of a better term, tells me my little buddies are feeling better today than they were yesterday, number went up. I think these game mechanics encourage different types of behaviour in the person being the player running the show.
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Aug 10, 2023 04:05
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My point isn't so much that video games encourage sociopathic behavior per se. Indeed, if metrics are any indication, I think most people play video games for the power fantasy of safely choosing to be the big heroes they feel they can't be in real life. Rather, I'm saying video games are generally a very poor medium for communicating the importance of communicating, cooperating, and working with others, at least in single-player experiences. Because in the real world that involves... people being able to say no to you, and you having to just deal with that. In video games, giving the players choice, but then denying them satisfaction of that choice by having the games agents deny them agterwards is considered anathema to good game design specifically because it pisses players off.
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Aug 10, 2023 04:10
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Tree Reformat posted:My point isn't so much that video games encourage sociopathic behavior per se. Indeed, if metrics are any indication, I think most people play video games for the power fantasy of safely choosing to be the big heroes they feel they can't be in real life. Oh yeah, that is true, I can't off the top of my head think of a game where genuine conversations and such even exist. Playing co-op with bots in an FPS is co-operative in a way, but even that kind of simulated co-operation is, erm, artificial since if the bot dies, it usually isn't a big deal for the player. I'm sure we will begin to see AI-driven dating sims and other horrible click-baity stuff like that soon enough, but I wonder how realistic-seeming an RPG simulation one could make with an AI buddy or three who are given agency*. And we're still stuck with the game devs defining the game world's structure in some way, such as the pre-baked scenarios in Deus Ex. *Yes I know current chatgpt-AIs and the like are not aware, let's just stipulate that the game would simulate agency by letting the AIs tell you they disagree with you, or make independent and not pre-written choices about their actions, like shooting someone they don't like in the face even if it hurts the player's number-go-up stuff
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Aug 10, 2023 04:22
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Helios Ending: Helios has already betrayed someone and he'll probably betray you too and use your body as a meat puppet. Even if he doesn't, JC doesn't really come off as a particularly great candidate for godhood. Illuminati Ending: Helios might betray you, but the Illuminati are pretty clearly already using you as a tool in the ending cutscene. Dark Age Ending: As gets explained in game, it's not an end to technology, it's an end to global communications. There's a theory that the sustainable size of empires is determined by for far they can exert influence; IE, if the fastest travel method is a horse, empires can't survive for long beyond several days horse ride from the capital. This is Tong's take - that the reason shadowy conspiracies can control the world is because they can influence all of it via global communications. Destroying that won't be permanent, but it will be mashing a big reset button and giving humanity a chance to do better. I always went Dark Age. Tong is the only one whose motivations are selfless, and that meant a lot to me as a kid, and I was optimistic enough to think that maybe with another shot humanity would find a better way. And it also has the best music. However I admit I never considered that it would mess with the vaccine distribution like another poster brought up, which it totally would, so opps. Good thing I'm not actually responsible for making world shaking decisions. Bremen fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Aug 10, 2023 04:25
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It's also not just interfering with communications in the sense that disrupting communications makes people unable to talk to one another to coordinate things like vaccine distributions. Deus Ex is a dystopian setting after all, so everything is internet-of-things connected and the implication is that destroying the internet also takes down the power grid, road networks, and governments connected to it. The game mentions that Helios, for example, is able to override basically every electronic system and uses that to issue orders and take measures to take control of Hong Kong even before the game ends. The dark age ending is an ending which results in not millions but billions of deaths, unequivocally. It is what the name implies, a dark age. Tong clearly means it this way too - his last words are, "We'll start again, live in villages!" Basically, he's arguing for the death of most of the human population in the hopes that reducing the world to squabbling tribes will work out better this time. I don't think he's read much history.
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Aug 10, 2023 05:22
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