Sulphur on 4/1/2024 at 03:04
Quote Posted by Thirith
I finally finished
Assassin's Creed Valhalla - and by finishing it, I mean that I played through the main game but not the DLCs and I ended all the members of the Order of the Ancients. Like so many
Assassin's Creed games, there's a lot here I like, but it's buried under shallow, repetitive gameplay and systems and the writing is offputtingly uneven. There'd be potential in the story they're telling, but they still don't know how to blend the game they have and the story they want to tell to good effect. Honestly, I'm not sure it could be done, but it could be done better than here. They've got themes, they've got interesting character constellations, but everything feels so goddamn static. And yet... while I was tired of the whole thing in the last ten hours or so, I still enjoyed
Valhalla's England, much more so than
Odyssey's Aegean Sea, and I liked the individual story arcs better than
Odyssey's story too. But yes, I am glad it's over for now. I might return to the DLC eventually, but there's an equal chance I'll forget it even exists.
I find it interesting that the new AssCreed trilogy plucked bunches of stuff from different places to revitalise the format (a big chunk of it being TW3's approach to contextualised subquesting) and still managed to homogenise it into a sort of inoffensive pop gaming mush. You're right in that they've got a base with potential, but then just don't rise to it - it's a frustrating thing I've noticed with Origins, because I actually like that game more than any other AssCreed I've tried to date, and yet the more I play it, the more it hollows itself out in sacrifice to the accessibility gods.
But: I really like it still, just not necessarily for the repetitive game parts. There is so much effort that's gone into places that people would most likely just register for a moment and forget about. Bayek makes a throwaway reference to him telling Khemu the story of a contest between Set and Horus, which references the old Contendings papyrus (a pretty bizarre tale with some details you
really wouldn't want to tell your kid), the temple of Karnak at Thebes has been lovingly recreated, just like Memphis and Alexandria, and the afterlife of the Aten pays attention to how the temples Akhenaten had built did not have roofs for a reason - it's all a non-trivial level of research just to ensure things feel right. They don't get all the details correct, from what I'm told, but they do enough that you can see there's actual love gone into the environment and setting. I can respect it for that, and I do.
I guess I'll actually have to write about it once I'm done with it.
Thirith on 4/1/2024 at 09:45
Definitely looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts on Origins. With both it and Valhalla (and really with the earlier Assassin's Creed games as well), I keep oscillating between two positions: the look and feel of the world and the occasional bits of clever and/or genuine writing making up for the repetitive, shallow gameplay and the uneven and often poor storytelling, and the gameplay and storytelling ruining the world and the writing. There is plenty in these games that should make them much more than cash grabs, and there's plenty in them that is boring, bad design and that is repeated from one game to the next to the next to the next... Sometimes I wish that Ubisoft were considerate enough to make their games consistently bad across the board, but so often they have stuff in there I really enjoy mixed with the stuff that I grew tired of 10+ years ago.
Midgard on 5/1/2024 at 03:35
Currently playing Thief FMs (mainly The Black Parade) and plan to re-play the main games again soon. My situation is different than it was in 1998 when Thief The Dark Project ran relatively poorly on my then hardware. Today gaming is a smoother, much more visually and mechanically superior experience compared to back then thanks to modern sourceports, engine updates and technology. I just chill on the couch and play these great old games at 4K with maximum framerates (recently re-played Quake and it's mods including the magnificent Arcane Dimensions) using a DS5 controller in my left hand and mouse in my right on my 65" OLED and it's gaming nirvana.
Midgard on 5/1/2024 at 03:55
Last AssCreed game I completed and seriously enjoyed was Origins. Did attempt Valhalla but lost interest after only an hour or two. Assassin's Creed II and its immediate followup Brotherhood were the pinnacle of modern-era PC gaming for me and were very different games compared to what we get in the series today. I think this is why I've gone back to the titles that truly started it all in this genre - TG, T2 + FMs - which feel like they have far greater depth and absolutely superior emergent gameplay than what we typically get in big, bright and beautiful recent AC games (though I did greatly enjoy Far Cry 6).
vurt on 5/1/2024 at 10:17
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Also comprehension skills at fourth grade reading levels and an inability to construct and/or articulate thoughts consistently, but I'll be generous and put that down to any sort of language apparently not being his first language.
You've had nothing much apart from personal attacks or making up shit (basically arguing with yourself instead of me) to make your arguments work.
I think most people can figure out what's going on based on that alone, and if not; as I pointed out already; if you
really have something specific that i wrote which you find wrong then why not quote it? You can't because you know you have nothing. This makes you angry so you resort to personal attacks. It couldn't be more obvious and makes you wonder who the "4th grader" is here...
...and as i've said so many times now, i don't really care that you call it this, and i've said i even understand why you do it. It's just that i personally don't care for it and i've laid out my ideas as to why. What the hell is there to be so upset about?
On-topic: Jedi Survivor. It looks decent or even great. Plays decent (bought for PS5, hearing so much bad about PC version). Second planet now, i think both the first city level and this looks great but the design is so-so, feels like many dead ends and overall it feels strange and circular while trying to be portrayed as "open world". If i compare it to something like Uncharted 4 which had a much nicer pacing / flow to it, and overall it was more fun (so far). U4 also uses heights a lot, but it does a much better job at that too, that game could really give me vertigo, never felt here unfortunately.
Sulphur on 5/1/2024 at 11:29
Fine, I'll spell it out: you're not worth the time or effort of having an actual discussion, because you short-circuit any attempt at rational discussion by hammering the same points over and over again and barely acknowledging the perspective someone else is bringing to your issues (I'm not talking about just me), or it's 'no u'. It's one thing if you have something interesting to say, but what you have is basic grade school discourse mixed with indignation when your force-fitted points aren't being accepted, and I have no patience for it. I'll admit that's a failing on my part, but I promise when you have something worthy of addressing, minus the snotty bleating, and can do so with some actual thought put into it, we'll talk.
vurt on 5/1/2024 at 13:41
"Not worth your time" but still you couldn't restrain yourself from starting the discussion again? Coming at me with personal insults, after i said "i'm just repeating myself at this point" (since you were repeating the same point over and over as well). No worries though, at least we can close the discussion then.
Also you don't think i could argue just the same for you people about rational discussion?
"you said simulator, it's actually sim!" etc. give me a break, you people lost the discussion and what was
maybe worth discussing when you stopped quoting, you had nothing more to add to the discussion and that's fine.
Rational discussion at it's best:
Quote:
'Monkey Island is a simulation because it has a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle.' - Smart Gaming Person with unique critical thinking skills.
Quote:
'I cast projection.' -Self-aware Immersive Sim Wizard
Quote:
'My randomly bodged together and poorly described criteria define immersive sims, everybody else, including some old dude who made the foundational games in the genre, is wrong.' - Very Brainy Game Philosopher
Quote:
'Half Life 2 is an immersive sim.' -Critical Thinking Exemplar
Damn, that's rational discussion overflow right there! ;) + some nasty insults, which im not gonna quote. but ok, glad i'm no longer worth the time, i mean it would be a shame if i would see yet another response, but that's not gonna happen! No chance, no Sir!
Starker on 6/1/2024 at 00:58
The mistake in focusing in the particular words a genre label is made of is that they don't necessarily encompass all the conventions of the genre. Not all games that are immersive and that have systemic gameplay are therefore automatically immersive sims. Immersive sims are, among other things, also about good worldbuilding, non-linear gameplay that allows for exploration, player freedom, and emergent gameplay not foreseen by the developers, due to the complex systems interacting with each other based on consistent and persistent rules. None of these are exclusive to immersive sims, of course, but immersive sims tend to have a high concentration of such features.
Also, whatever you have won in your mind against "us people", you have failed to understand the fundamental differences of how different games use simulations and how it's reflected in genre names. In fact, the "sim" in immersive sim, the "sim" in walking sim, and the "sim" in flight sim all mean different things despite using the same name. In addition, games may heavily use simulations despite not being labeled as "sims". A game having more or less of simulation does not necessarily make it a "sim" or not a "sim". What matters are genre conventions and how the systems are being used. At the end of the day, genres are not classification systems. They are labels that people put on things that seem similar in some way in order to discuss them together or for marketing purposes.
Hence, walking sims do not actually simulate any walking despite of their name. What matters here is the lack of features that are traditionally considered to be "gameplay", such as puzzles or killing of enemies or platforming. The name is sarcastic and derogatory, implying that in these games you do nothing but walk. Ironically, if a game like this would actually simulate walking, it would count as gameplay and therefore the game would not count as a walking simulator for reactionary gamers who simply do not want to see walking sims as games. Other people who do like walking sims simply use it as a convenient shorthand or as a way of claiming the term and recontextualising it as a way of saying, "Yeah, all you do is walk, so what?"
Pure sims, as Doug Church differentiates them, simulate a very particular activity -- flight, driving, piloting a mech, fishing, sports etc. Other sims simulate more complex real life activities, such as construction, operating some kind of business, running a country. Yet other sims simulate and sometimes allow you to manipulate some kinds of complex systems such as ecosystems.
So what makes immersive sims different from the so-called pure sims and other games that use systemic gameplay?
First, immersive sims are not focused on simulating a particular system or an activity in the way a pure sim would. Rather, they are focused on providing a certain kind of very specific "you are there" roleplaying experience that forgoes some of the abstractions of CRPGs in favour of a more direct, simulated experience. Simulation here is a tool in service of this roleplaying experience. Thief, for example, is not about what it's like to steal things, at least not in the direct sense. Instead, it indulges in the fantasy of it. You are Garrett, the master thief, lurking in shadows, engaging in a variety of activities a thief or a rogue would, as inspired by tabletop roleplaying and fantasy novels. In System Shock, you are a cyberpunk hacker, augmented with implants, taking on a rogue AI. System Shock is not about a simulation of hacking in the same way Thief is not about simulation of lockpicking or pickpocketing. These things are only there to enable the fantasy.
Secondly, immersive sims use simulations and systemic gameplay in a persistent and consistent manner to enhance the believability of the world, because players have an innate feel whether something is systemic in a game or scripted to happen that way. As such, if you can set a carpet on fire in an immersive sim, then you can set all carpets on fire in it, because the carpet catching fire is not a scripted event in a scene, but a property of the material the carpet is made out of. In Thief, you can for example see this approach by being able to shoot arrows into wood -- you can shoot arrows into just about anything made of wood, not just rope arrows into spots designated as rope arrow shoot spots, like in a certain reboot a decade ago.
Quote:
(
http://www.thief-thecircle.com/darkproj/manifesto.html)
We're role-playing gamers, fantasy/sci-fi fans, and computer game developers. We play all the same games you do, and we know as well as you do that "Computer Role-Playing Game" is a contradiction in terms.
Sitting around the table at a gaming "run" is a social activity and an exercise in imagination. Players express their imaginations through their social interactions and their creative approach to the problems of an adventure. The problem with the whole notion of the "computer role-playing game" is that this cannot happen the same way in a computer game. The social interaction which can be offered by a computer is pretty hollow, and most games don't provide a whole lot to replace it. The tedious mazes of pre-scripted menu options that some games (including our own!) have tried to pass off as "conversations" certainly don't cut it.
This probably sounds like we don't think role-playing can work on computers, but we do. It's a hard technical and design problem, but we like hard problems or we wouldn't be in this business. What many games have done, which isn't hard, is to copy the forms of a paper role-playing game, which keeps all the sheets of paper from the gaming table at the expense of all the people around it. A computer game can have all the trappings of a paper role-playing game (the Tolkienesque dwarves and elves, the "character classes," "to-hit rolls," and "experience levels"), but without role-playing it's not an RPG. It's computer strategy game about paper RPG's. Some of them are okay.
The point of all this talk about computer role-playing games is not to claim that this project of ours is or isn't an RPG. The point is that great games don't happen by shoe-horning your design into a rigid category made up by some magazine. We've spent years in pursuit of a truly immersive experience, and we see a continuous line of development from Underworld through System Shock to the Dark Project. We touched off a lot of discussion on the 'net (and yes, we were reading it all) about whether System Shock was an RPG, or a Doom clone, or whatever. Like as not the same people who thought System Shock was a Doom clone will think that this game is a Quake clone. And they'll be just as wrong.
What it will be is one thing that Shock was, which is a damned fine game, the like of which nobody else could (or would) do.
[video=youtube;NVU60mAhaMQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVU60mAhaMQ[/video]
[video=youtube;kbyTOAlhRHk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbyTOAlhRHk[/video]
(
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImmersiveSim)
vurt on 6/1/2024 at 04:12
I listened to the last video, when he's about to describe the genre "it's my personal opinion that...", and so much of what you're saying is that as well; "Great worldbuilding" etc.
The amount of text you needed to try to pin it down is also very telling, if its needed to describe any genre for any topic, then it's perhaps not... great.
You only need to read the Immersion Sim thread on here to understand that people don't know what the genre is or they have their own ideas of what it might be or should include or shouldn't. Imagine explaining it to someone new.
We are not in 2000 any more, back then it made more sense, those games stood out a lot more. Games are way less gamey than they used to be, systematic gameplay, while not perhaps a standard for all games is super common, so is the roleplaying part.
I think perhaps "Thief-like" would make more sense, because ultimately that's what the genre really means nowadays it seems.
Whatever. I'll still probably read recommendations for "immersive sims" because i know its likely going to be something that might appeal to me, so to my own demise, part of this circle jerk i will be.
Edit:
I checked out the sub reddit now, lol, wow.... just be honest, it's pretty damn stupid. If this was a great genre label there wouldn't be this constant discussion of what it is or isn't, what can be included or not.
Give me another example of a game genre where people are constantly at each other's throat about its meaning.
"it is and it also isn't" is pretty much the keyword for this ""genre"" :cheeky:
Starker on 6/1/2024 at 08:01
A genre is not necessarily something that's easily pinned down or described with a few words. Not that you really even need a definition of something to talk about it. People constantly argue what is and what isn't a soulslike, a roguelike, a metroidvania, an RPG, etc. And even then a genre is not something set in stone, but something that constantly evolves as consensus and conventions are changed by evolving opinions and new additions.
I don't know which one of the many immersive sim threads here you read, but over the decades there have been a lot of good discussions about this topic that go on for pages and pages. People have talked extensively about things like the nature of the genre, verisimilitude, emergent gameplay, systemic game design, diegetic UI, good worldbuilding, and so on and so on. It's not that everybody agrees on everything, but there are recurring features and points that get brought out over and over again.
And then you just come in and declare everyone is wrong and your opinion is the only correct one without even bothering to familiarise yourself with the subject.