Skyrim vs Death Stranding (interesting comparison)

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

This video compares the magic system in Skyrim to the Timefall of Death Stranding in regards to the how well each game world builds each of those elements in their game.

Note: I haven't played either game.

I've always never felt the world ever truly feels "real" in any fantasy setting with magic involved. I always found it very odd that people wouldn't use magic to increase their quality of life like we've done with our own technology. I, no joke, always think about how The Flintstones used dinosaurs in the cartoon as today's household appliances and always wonder why a society filled with magic doesn't use it to create say indoor plumbing, heating/cooling, fridge, etc. Sure, you'd have to think of those "new ideas" and then apply magic but you'd think someone would ask a mage if they could do something about having to go to the river for water all the damn time.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I call BS on how the timefall is so geniusly implemented. The first thing I noted when playing the game is how fucking stupid it is to only cover your head in a hood, leaving your entire face exposed, when there's freaking death rain. Even when you carry an umbrella you can still get little bits of spray on your face when you're in the rain - a hood will do absolutely bupkis to keeping your face dry. So why the fuck aren't these guys wearing helmets?

Secondly, that delivery man outfit sure seems quite impervious to the timefall, never needing be fixed or replaced. Why? How? And why the fuck isn't everything covered in that material, or at least the deliveries? Or what about the BB container, how come that's not effected? Is it because it's made of glass? Then why not have packages made of glass? I mean, the BB container is durable enough to not break while you're falling on your ass while traveling so that's no excuse.

The magic in the jailcell thing is stupid in Skyrim, and so are a lot of other things, but let's not pretend the timefall isn't equally retarded. And probably more so since it's presenting itself as science fiction.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I call BS on how the timefall is so geniusly implemented. The first thing I noted when playing the game is how fucking stupid it is to only cover your head in a hood, leaving your entire face exposed, when there's freaking death rain. Even when you carry an umbrella you can still get little bits of spray on your face when you're in the rain - a hood will do absolutely bupkis to keeping your face dry. So why the fuck aren't these guys wearing helmets?

Secondly, that delivery man outfit sure seems quite impervious to the timefall, never needing be fixed or replaced. Why? How? And why the fuck isn't everything covered in that material, or at least the deliveries? Or what about the BB container, how come that's not effected? Is it because it's made of glass? Then why not have packages made of glass? I mean, the BB container is durable enough to not break while you're falling on your ass while traveling so that's no excuse.

The magic in the jailcell thing is stupid in Skyrim, and so are a lot of other things, but let's not pretend the timefall isn't equally retarded. And probably more so since it's presenting itself as science fiction.

Time fall only affects the first thing it hits so splash or spray doesn't have the affect, but its still silly because people will look up fall down and rain will fall sideways and such.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I call BS on how the timefall is so geniusly implemented. The first thing I noted when playing the game is how fucking stupid it is to only cover your head in a hood, leaving your entire face exposed, when there's freaking death rain. Even when you carry an umbrella you can still get little bits of spray on your face when you're in the rain - a hood will do absolutely bupkis to keeping your face dry. So why the fuck aren't these guys wearing helmets?

Secondly, that delivery man outfit sure seems quite impervious to the timefall, never needing be fixed or replaced. Why? How? And why the fuck isn't everything covered in that material, or at least the deliveries? Or what about the BB container, how come that's not effected? Is it because it's made of glass? Then why not have packages made of glass? I mean, the BB container is durable enough to not break while you're falling on your ass while traveling so that's no excuse.

The magic in the jailcell thing is stupid in Skyrim, and so are a lot of other things, but let's not pretend the timefall isn't equally retarded. And probably more so since it's presenting itself as science fiction.

A Hideo Kojima game that doesn't make sense? How on Earth...

 

[CaitSeith]

One of the comments quoting Larry Niven puts it perfectly: If you invent the car, you have to invent the traffic jam.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I call BS on how the timefall is so geniusly implemented. The first thing I noted when playing the game is how fucking stupid it is to only cover your head in a hood, leaving your entire face exposed, when there's freaking death rain. Even when you carry an umbrella you can still get little bits of spray on your face when you're in the rain - a hood will do absolutely bupkis to keeping your face dry. So why the fuck aren't these guys wearing helmets?

Secondly, that delivery man outfit sure seems quite impervious to the timefall, never needing be fixed or replaced. Why? How? And why the fuck isn't everything covered in that material, or at least the deliveries? Or what about the BB container, how come that's not effected? Is it because it's made of glass? Then why not have packages made of glass? I mean, the BB container is durable enough to not break while you're falling on your ass while traveling so that's no excuse.

The magic in the jailcell thing is stupid in Skyrim, and so are a lot of other things, but let's not pretend the timefall isn't equally retarded. And probably more so since it's presenting itself as science fiction.

A Hideo Kojima game that doesn't make sense? How on Earth...

STOP THE PRESSES! I am shocked. Shocked!

 

[Worgen]

The best part of unmodded Skyrim was wandering around the environment so Death Stranding can only be an improvement. I mean while I',m sure the story is snookaloopy, it will at least be an interesting type of snookaloopy that Hideo is known for.

 

[sXeth]

Magic is generally (and there are exxceptions) positioned as a primal force that humans/etc often have only a handful of understanding or very basic ability to control. Which certainly is how its presented in Skyrim. Few, if any of the NPCs in the world seem to be capable of large scale magecraft that could alter society, or similar constructs and long term enchantments (Enchanting in game literally burns up soul gems to add a bit of fire to a sword, can you imagine the time and resource cost to keep refilling the soul gems to make the toilet flush)


Much of Skyrim doesn't gel together well to make a believable world, but its more in the non-reactive NPCs, the desolate roads in this populated kingdom, the allegedly populated kingdom that has maybe a hundred people in it all told, etc. Ye olde classic staple (and Oblivion had this too), of Bandits having fortresses literally in eyesight of capitals.


Skyrim (and I can't speak for DS, haven't played it), basically steps out of the gate with jarring unbelievability. You go from a dragon taking on a small army and destroyign a town. To a dragon taking down a singular watchtower and being bested by a half dozen random scrubs. Further dragons don't even get that much respect, the dragons for their part don't manage to damage towns, burn fields, etc. This bleeds out into most other major threads as well. The big war changes the guards outfits and a single NPC if a town is switched and the otherv side never attempts to reclaim it. The Emperor gets killed and literally no one cares. The more contained questlines in the other guilds almost seem reasonable in their effects, but the player still becomes a leader with absolutely no influence to speak of.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

...

*whispers* Hey! This is the part where you recommend a game that does the things that Skyrim fails to do.

 

[sXeth]

snip

...

*whispers* Hey! This is the part where you recommend a game that does the things that Skyrim fails to do.

I'm open to suggestions.

I mean, I've heard the Witcher 3 does great things. But its awful at the actual gameplay bits, and the character bores me to death (which is ironic when we're comparing it to a blank slate, but absence is better then incessant boringness).


In the slew of other open worlds, they all have much of Skyrims issues to my experience. Mostly held off a tiny bit by having more grounded or secretive stories that you'd expect not to affect the world so much.



Linear campaigns by and large avoid it. They don't have to blunt the edges of every interaction in case you repeat it 300 times. IF you took Skyrims main quest and made it a linear campaign, you'd fight (IIRC, its been 8 years) 6 dragons total. Which would leave plenty of room for them to be suitably impressive.

 

[BrawlMan]

Never cared for Elder Scrolls in general, and Death Stranding I'm barely interested in. All I have to say is, don't by the PS3 version of Skyrim. Bethesda never patched it once, and it's know for multiple gamebreaking bugs.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

One of the comments quoting Larry Niven puts it perfectly: If you invent the car, you have to invent the traffic jam.

Do you really invent it though, or simply expect it?

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

So timefall is harmless after it hits stuff? Like the rain carries a "time" charge that it loses upon contact with something?

So what about air? Does contact with air not expend enough charge to matter? Or is timefall conveniently not affected by gases and only liquids/solids count? Yes, it's nitpicky, but media with "does X upon contact with something" mcguffins tend to forget that air is not nothing, and it sort of annoys me.

Or plantlife? Is it not affected? Seen some videos of Norman Reedus trudging through grass during timefall. Grass seems fine.

 

[stroopwafel]

So timefall is harmless after it hits stuff? Like the rain carries a "time" charge that it loses upon contact with something?

So what about air? Does contact with air not expend enough charge to matter? Or is timefall conveniently not affected by gases and only liquids/solids count? Yes, it's nitpicky, but media with "does X upon contact with something" mcguffins tend to forget that air is not nothing, and it sort of annoys me.

Or plantlife? Is it not affected? Seen some videos of Norman Reedus trudging through grass during timefall. Grass seems fine.

It's obvious Kojima wanted to tell a tale about connection with gameplay to substantiate that premise, not nerds obsessing over details. It's pretty obvious every effort in Death Stranding is put in presentation and cinematography not necessarily having some kind of immaculate consistency in the game world which is pretty much second fiddle. There is a cutscene with Fragile as well that is quite incongruous with the characteristics of timefall, as like there is some kind of timer on it that halts its effect after a specific amount of exposure. But well, the cutscene is dramatic and, again, one of the best pieces of cinematography in any game ever and that is really all that guy ever cared about. His twitter says ''my body is 70% movies'' which yeah, makes sense if you played any of his games. Timefall in DS is more like a 'theme enhancer' for emo cutscenes and gameplay systems than anything to ponder or analize.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

snip

It's obvious Kojima wanted to tell a tale about connection with gameplay to substantiate that premise, not nerds obsessing over details. It's pretty obvious every effort in Death Stranding is put in presentation and cinematography not necessarily having some kind of immaculate consistency in the game world which is pretty much second fiddle. There is a cutscene with Fragile as well that is quite incongruous with the characteristics of timefall, as like there is some kind of timer on it that halts its effect after a specific amount of exposure. But well, the cutscene is dramatic and, again, one of the best pieces of cinematography in any game ever and that is really all that guy ever cared about. His twitter says ''my body is 70% movies'' which yeah, makes sense if you played any of his games. Timefall in DS is more like a 'theme enhancer' for emo cutscenes and gameplay systems than anything to ponder or analize.

Of course, Kojima is most definitely a "drama first" guy, tho I don't think he's that good at it (but that's personal preference).

I wasn't expecting the attention to detail and internal consistency you'd expect from hard sci-fi. Just felt like being a pedantic fuck.

 

[CaitSeith]

One of the comments quoting Larry Niven puts it perfectly: If you invent the car, you have to invent the traffic jam.

Do you really invent it though, or simply expect it?

You have to invent it because the audience expects it. If it isn't there when it should, you must invent a reason, unless you don't care about their suspension of disbelief.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Or plantlife? Is it not affected? Seen some videos of Norman Reedus trudging through grass during timefall. Grass seems fine.

The video mentions that and that's why there's like only grass and moss.

 

[CaitSeith]

Or plantlife? Is it not affected? Seen some videos of Norman Reedus trudging through grass during timefall. Grass seems fine.

The video mentions that and that's why there's like only grass and moss.

Pretty much this. Timefall ages stuff, so life-forms that can reproduce asexually (like grass) would proliferate under timefall.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

So timefall is harmless after it hits stuff? Like the rain carries a "time" charge that it loses upon contact with something?

So what about air? Does contact with air not expend enough charge to matter? Or is timefall conveniently not affected by gases and only liquids/solids count? Yes, it's nitpicky, but media with "does X upon contact with something" mcguffins tend to forget that air is not nothing, and it sort of annoys me.

Or plantlife? Is it not affected? Seen some videos of Norman Reedus trudging through grass during timefall. Grass seems fine.

There are way more problems than that. Putting aside the "mechanics" of the whole thing, it's just kind of there and doesn't really reinforce anything thematically. The whole game is a jumbled mess

 

[Casual Shinji]

Or plantlife? Is it not affected? Seen some videos of Norman Reedus trudging through grass during timefall. Grass seems fine.

The video mentions that and that's why there's like only grass and moss.

Except the game starts with a cutscene totally showing the timefall affecting the grass (it grows swiftly, then dies swiftly), yet during gameplay the grass remains completely unaffected. Also, there's a wooded area early on in the game, where timefall is occuring, and guess what it does to the trees? Absolutely nothing.