DDL on 24/8/2009 at 18:51
It's a fair point, and I expect Jonas would agree.
Probably one of those cases where you're so close to everything you forget that your perspective is not, in fact, a universally shared one.
mgeorge on 7/9/2009 at 23:55
I somewhat agree with ZB, at least so far. It probably would have been better to gradually introduce us to the characters as people we didn't know prior to entering the game world.
However this mod is Deus Ex. Different, but the same in the things that matter to me while playing a game. Exploration, fairly open world, many choices in how you play and alternate routes to complete objectives.
I was initially turned off by the premise and started DE again, but realized that there was very little in the original I hadn't seen before, so started TNM not really expecting much from it. After a pretty lame first level, (to confusing and the map was to big), I almost gave up on it, but glad I didn't.
It really is a great effort by a bunch of guys who did it for no money, and, so far anyway, is right up there with some of the Thief FM's.
I'm kind of surprised it hasn't gotten more attention on these forums as I personally finding the further I get into it, the more I'm enjoying it.
My advice? If you're on the fence about playing it because of the weird premise, don't be. Once you get into it, it's one of the best games I've played in the last 5 or so years.
chris the cynic on 8/9/2009 at 01:17
I'm not sure I agree with ZB's criticism for the simple fact that having known people is not the same as knowing them.
At multiple points in the game (the first time being before you get on the subway if you follow your objectives) it is pointed out that you have been gone for an age. No one and nothing is the same as what your character knew. As such your character learns, along with you, the way things are.
As an example, Beeble has been out of touch for almost the exact same amount of time as the player character has been away and as a result he thinks that World Corp is a sweet little two-person small business.
The player character remeeting people is only significantly different from the player character meeting people for the first time if the people the player character is remeeting can reasonably be expected to be similar to how they were when the player character knew them before. That isn't the case in TNM.
The only way that your character can learn that his prior knowledge still applies is if you, the player, gain that knowledge. Thus you know what the character knows wherever and whenever it applies to the game. Anything that the player character knows that you, the player, doesn't is either out of date or insignificant.
The practical upshot of this is that you are introduced to things more or less how you would be if your character were an outsider who had never been there before, except that the phrases used are different.
Manwe on 9/9/2009 at 09:53
Also this is an old video game/movie cliché, the hero who comes back after a 2 year absence and discovers everything has changed. It was used in San Andreas for example. It's as good a way to introduce the player to the world as the old "memory loss" trick. Of course they could have introduced us to this world as a completely new forum user but then they would have had to use a silly "you're the chosen one" kind of plot.
heywood on 9/9/2009 at 14:25
How long is the campaign? The FAQ says 15 hours, or 20 for avid explorers. If so, that would make it about half the length of DX, which is really big for a mod (and probably more time than I want to spend on it).
DDL on 9/9/2009 at 14:41
Potentially double that, since there are two discrete parallel storylines you can play through.
But 20 is a fairly decent estimate if you're fairly straightforward about everything.
mgeorge on 9/9/2009 at 15:57
Quote Posted by heywood
How long is the campaign? The FAQ says 15 hours, or 20 for avid explorers. If so, that would make it about half the length of DX, which is really big for a mod (and probably more time than I want to spend on it).
I'm not sure about the 15 hours. I feel as though I've barely scratched the surface, and I've probably put 5 or 6 hours into it already. Of course I'm the type that has to go everywhere and check everything.
But that's the thing about the game. It really is DE. You can find useful shit
everywhere if you take the time to explore. I was in one area, and got an infolink message telling me the area I was in had nothing to do with my objective, but I of course went there anyway, and got well rewarded for it.
It doesn't feel like a mod at all. And it doesn't feel like an expansion either. Yes it has flaws. I've crashed a couple of times, and the AI is as dumb as the original. But my God, this game is a whole lot of fucking fun.
ZylonBane on 9/9/2009 at 23:37
Quote Posted by chris the cynic
The practical upshot of this is that you are introduced to things more or less how you would be if your character were an outsider who had never been there before, except that the phrases used are different.
I think you're missing the point. This isn't an issue of missing plot-critical information, it's an issue of building immersion and motivation. Every time the dialog pulled out the "boy things sure have changed!" trick, that just made things worse, because it once again reminded me that my character knew significantly more about the game world than I did.
My other non-technical complaint is that the game as a whole didn't seem entirely certain what its own premise was. We have the Forum City setting initially presented to us... okay, fine... kind of a cyberspace thing, all-powerful moderators, skincrafters, etc, I get it. But then we have, say, people working desk jobs... stuff that doesn't make any sense within the "forum city" conceit. Some may complain about the premise, but frankly I'm disappointed that they didn't run with it. Instead we just got little dribs and drabs of exploiting the concept, like the Goat City server, or the voodoo rapid transit system. Beyond that, the overwhelming majority of the levels may just as well have been set in the real world.
chris the cynic on 10/9/2009 at 03:05
First off, I didn't notice a lot of "Oh boy things have changed" things. What I noticed was me learning about everything as I would in any other game. Yes, this was with the understanding (on my part) that some of this would be Trest brushing up, and some of it would be him learning new things. Even when you ask, "How have things changed?" (which I can only think of one instance where that is even possible) you don't get, "This is the same, this is different," you get, "Here's how it is." If your character were a new comer you would still get, "Here's how it is."
I do remember one, "It's coming back to me," line. But somehow I doubt you're this concerned over one line. Clearly I have not encountered what you have encountered or I have interpreted it very differently. I'm guessing it is the second.
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As for sticking with the premise, so many complain about the setting that I hesitate to bring up examples of things that actually were on the forums (even more so as I only know them from a few threads the webarchive's web crawler picked up.) That said, World Corp, the Goat Templae(TM), the Llama Temple, the weapon shop, the bar, these are all things that were on the forums. (The bar still is.) Their inclusion is running with the premise.
The same can be said of some things that weren't on the forums. There never was, as far as I know, a Fan Fic Shop but the place where all fiction from the forum was gathered together would logically be represented as either a library or a bookstore.
One of the things that I think you may not be taking into account is that the characters you see aren't users, they're avatars. If I say *steals sandwich with run silent aug* then that is all well and good on a forum. To represent it in Forum City there need to be a sandwich, a run silent aug, and an avatar who has said aug and takes the time to steal the sandwich.
If I say *cures cancer* we need an avatar, preferably in a white lab coat, working in a lab. (Actually, we need one having worked in a lab who is currently patting himself on the back.) If I say *works an endless dead end job that slowly crushes my soul* my avatar had better be putting in long hours behind a desk at World Corp.
I know that the example given by Phas in TNM is The Matrix but a better analogue for the way the avatar-user relationship is represented in most of TNM would probably be Tron. The avatars are the little people inside the computer.
When I type *slaps ZB* on a forum I don't need to track you down, get within striking distance of you, and then have a digital representation of myself slap a digital representation of you but if we were going to try to represent what is meant by that text in "Forum City" that would involve my avatar slapping yours. In fact, it would mean that even if you are not online when I write it. The avatar is there all the time, because others can interact with it on the forum at any time. (Unless you leave the forums a la Trest in the background of TNM.) You probably are not here right now, and yet we are having a conversation.
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Of course there is a problem with a lack of complete consistency. Phas does say it is like the Matrix even though other evidence says no.
(On the Off Topic Productions forum I went on a giant tangent counter factual about what the implications would be if the Matrix analogy were taken to its illogical extreme. It was an interesting thought experiment.)
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None of this addresses the issue you brought forward of not fully exploiting the premise. You certainly are right about it not going nearly as far as it could have. I think that boils to a matter of personal preference.
Personally I don't feel that a premise needs to be fully exploited. The premise allowed for world building, the world was built, a plot arose, we got to play out that plot. I don't see a need to start digging in the foundations of the world that was built.
The premise is what allowed Scara to be a believable villain. Set in the real world it would make no sense and completely defy belief, but as the representation of the persona that someone puts on on an internet forum it makes a lot more sense. The premise is what made it make sense that a long forgotten city could be a few years old and some of its residents still be around (things quickly fall out of general knowledge on forums, for example, by the time I joined the PDX forums just about everything referenced in TNM had fallen out of the public consciousness.) The premise is what makes most of the mod make sense.
Could it be used to do more than make things make sense? Of course, but that would likely mean abandoning the story we got because it would pull things in completely different directions. So I'm actually happy they didn't, because I'm happy with what was produced.
