The Assassins and Templars are Idiots

[bjj hero]

The war of independence is "safer" than the civil war.

There are plenty of southerners who feel they had a raw deal from the history books... and they have guns. Not like laid back Brits who dont really care about the events of the game. Our country has enough history to give it sme perspective, by comparison the USA has only been around for the last 2 weeks and has very little history.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Believe me, I could argue about subjectivity vs objectivity all day since it's a *major* pet peeve of mine, but I'm not sure if you're even being serious, not to mention it would be way off topic, so...

If it's a pet peeve, I'd suggest checking out the actual definitions of those terms before calling other people out on technically incorrect but colloquially acceptable use of language which you were clearly more than capable of understanding the meaning of.

Peace out.

Don't just "peace out" this, if I'm wrong, then why am I wrong? Explain to me how the phrase "The French Revolution is more interesting than the American Revolution" is more then just an opinion. And no, don't tell me why YOU think it's better, you're opinion is well validated as it is, but tell me how this is objective fact, because if you can then you will open me up to a whole new realm of philosophy I never knew existed.

technically incorrect but colloquially acceptable use of language

Hence it being a pet peeve.

 

[dtgenshiken7]

It's not really the Magic Schoolbus comparison that comes to mind here, most likely because I never watched the damn show, but I'm more thinking along the lines of peabody & sherman, from the rocky & bullwinkle show. Connor goes to a point in history just in time to discover that something supposed to happen is about to happen, an only he can save history itself.

That was actually pretty different, but in either scenario, he didn't know what he was doing. He is fictional though. I can blame the writers for being such self-serving asses, and for bringing up that crackpot 2012 theory again.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Don't just "peace out" this, if I'm wrong, then why am I wrong? Explain to me how the phrase "The French Revolution is more interesting than the American Revolution" is more then just an opinion. And no, don't tell me why YOU think it's better, you're opinion is well validated as it is, but tell me how this is objective fact, because if you can then you will open me up to a whole new realm of philosophy I never knew existed.

It's not more than just an opinion. Therefore, yes, as I already stated my use of the word "fact" was technically incorrect by the most common definition. However, in case you haven't noticed, it is a common rhetorical tactic to use the word "fact" to refer to an argumentative position which may not actually be a fact in order to strengthen the assertion of that position. Therefore, I don't see why it was particularly incomprehensible or objectionable.

You didn't tell me that it was an opinion though. Now you have done I take your point, but you pointed out that it was a "subjective fact". I therefore took the opportunity to be difficult because I'm childish.

If I said "it's a fact that the French revolution happened at all", that would also technically be subjective. It comes from a subject position, in this case mine. After all I would hope that my words alone have not granted you divinely inspired understanding of events in the 18th century. I am a human subject. I just made a statement based on my position, based on evidence I have seen and heard through my subjective experience. The fact that most people would agree with my statement, that the evidence is good and that it should probably be assumed that my statement is a fact does not make it objective. It still requires my subjective mind to put the evidence together and make the statement.

I know very well that this is not the definition of subjective you meant, instead you meant the colloquial definition meaning "opinionated" or "unreliable", but I guess we all have our pet peeves. Anyway, I accept I was wrong and I'm ready to move on now.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Don't just "peace out" this, if I'm wrong, then why am I wrong? Explain to me how the phrase "The French Revolution is more interesting than the American Revolution" is more then just an opinion. And no, don't tell me why YOU think it's better, you're opinion is well validated as it is, but tell me how this is objective fact, because if you can then you will open me up to a whole new realm of philosophy I never knew existed.

It's not more than just an opinion. Therefore, yes, as I already stated my use of the word "fact" was technically incorrect by the most common definition. However, in case you haven't noticed, it is a common rhetorical tactic to use the word "fact" to refer to an argumentative position which may not actually be a fact in order to strengthen the assertion of that position. Therefore, I don't see why it was particularly incomprehensible or objectionable.

You didn't tell me that it was an opinion though. Now you have done I take your point, but you pointed out that it was a "subjective fact". I therefore took the opportunity to be difficult because I'm childish.

If I said "it's a fact that the French revolution happened at all", that would also technically be subjective. It comes from a subject position, in this case mine. After all I would hope that my words alone have not granted you divinely inspired understanding of events in the 18th century. I am a human subject. I just made a statement based on my position, based on evidence I have seen and heard through my subjective experience. The fact that most people would agree with my statement, that the evidence is good and that it should probably be assumed that my statement is a fact does not make it objective. It still requires my subjective mind to put the evidence together and make the statement.

I know very well that this is not the definition of subjective you meant, instead you meant the colloquial definition meaning "opinionated" or "unreliable", but I guess we all have our pet peeves. Anyway, I accept I was wrong and I'm ready to move on now.

Looks like the last few posts were a misunderstanding then XO Sorry man, I could have been more clear.

 

[lithiumvocals]

You know, I once read a /really/ bad fan fiction that put Assassin's Creed in the Civil War. So now I'm wary of that idea.

 

[Azuaron]

You know what I really want? AC in Victorian England. And I don't care who knows it.

I was just watching Skyfall the other day, and I thought to myself as they stood on top of some old building in London, "Yeah, I'd climb that."

 

[RandomMan01]

I see one problem with an Assassins Creed game set in during the American Civil War. You see, the South wasn't fighting for slavery, it was fighting for secession (or freedom) from the Union. Slavery was just an ideal that caused the split. There's actually some moral grey areas involved.

Heck, the Emancipation Proclamation that supposedly freed the slaves, was more of a political move, to keep Great Britain out of the war (they had already freed their slaves, so it would have been hypocritical of them to fight for the South), than it was a social action.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I know hyperbole is Yahtzee's thing, but I never expected him to come off as so...dense.

The Templars aren't pursuing tyranny, they're pursuing peace and order. They accept and tolerate free will so long as it doesn't stand in the way of their being the invisible hand that's shepherding humanity to a greater order of peace and prosperity.

And the Assassins aren't pursuing anarchy, they're defending humanity's free will. They accept, and even utilize, established orders so long as those orders are not puppets of the invisible hand, or the hand itself, that would attempt to undermine free will.

The writers go to great lengths to establish this in the death speeches and other dialogue/text in the games: the Templars and Assassins aren't incredibly different from each other, they just have opposing core beliefs. They certainly aren't anything like this tyranny vs. anarchy dichotomy that he's pitching.

How he played all five games and missed that baffles me quite a bit.

I am partially on board with his other thought: the American Revolution isn't as interesting, especially for an AC game, as the French Revolution would have been.

Though I do have to take a detracting stance with his other sentiment: that the American Revolution wasn't that significant to world history. That's simply not true. I've heard many Europeans downplay the founding of the States, but consider this: the U.S. was the first major world nation that disregarded the concept of royal/noble blood in government and was built from the ground-up from Enlightenment principles. That is HUGE. Yes, it's true what many are saying: the American Revolution had little to no direct effect on the world as a whole. In that regard, the French Revolution was MUCH more significant. But without the American Revolution to show that such a nation was possible/desirable, the French Revolution likely wouldn't have happened when and how it did. In that sense, the American Revolution was quite significant to the world as a whole, just not directly.

 

[Dalisclock]

The team sensible thing reminds me of the keepers in the thief games. They stood in the middle between the anarchist/hippy/wild magic loving pagans and the authortarian/pseudo-catholic/tech-loving hammerities. Both of whom turned out to be massive jerks who would kill everyone given the chance. It was the keepers who kept both in line, until the third game where it turns out they too weren't as impartial ad they could be and had their own corruption issues.

 

[beastro]

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear he was ranting about factions in a video game.

They're hardly known for being very nuanced or far sighted besides the typical freedom fighters vs authoritarians.

US history is boring pre-WW1? MADNESS, I tell you. Seeing how the US came to be in the form it is today - very interesting indeed.

The whole reason why I as a Canadian love US history is that it's actually interesting. Ours beyond our part in the Second Hundred Years' War, the War of Independence, War of 1812 and our military involved in the Empire during and after the Second Boer War (All being only footnotes in Canadian curriculum) is a yawn fest about the fur trade, Indians, French-Canadians and Metis.

Yahtzee's spoiled because he grew up in Britain, yet another nation with a rich and intriguing history, and doesn't know what it's like to have a bland national legacy.

 

[Xdeser2]

The war of independence is "safer" than the civil war.

There are plenty of southerners who feel they had a raw deal from the history books... and they have guns. Not like laid back Brits who dont really care about the events of the game. Our country has enough history to give it sme perspective, by comparison the USA has only been around for the last 2 weeks and has very little history.

...Ive never understood how someone can say "our country has more perspective because its been around longer." when YOU SPECIFICLY have not been around that long. Sure, the US has only been around for a couple of hundred of years, but countries are not hive minds that learn based on how long they exist. its a collection of individuals with ever so slightly differing viewpoints. /end rant (sorry if it was a bit long lol)

OP: I like Yahtzee, I really do, but this is just a case of "Wah this is boring to me" with eloquently put reasons why.

Seeing as (wether any of us like it or not) the US has grown to be an international juggernaut (for better or worse, take your pick) im sure its a subject like anything else; some like it, some dont. And, really, how is it not really that eventful? shittily trained militiamen holding back one of the worlds best trained armies sounds pretty important to me. But hey, thats just my 2 cents.

But, yes, the Assassins Vs. Templars thing has grown quite a bit silly lol, and French Revolution AC would be FUCKING AMAZING

 

[Mahoshonen]

Seeing as (wether any of us like it or not) the US has grown to be an international juggernaut (for better or worse, take your pick) im sure its a subject like anything else; some like it, some dont. And, really, how is it not really that eventful? shittily trained militiamen holding back one of the worlds best trained armies sounds pretty important to me. But hey, thats just my 2 cents.

While I wouldn't say that War of Independence America isn't an interesting setting, I will say that it's not a good setting for an Assassin's Creed game.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I'm wondering why we don't get a game with a Templar protagonist.

They'll probably have to continue from another family's perspective if not reboot entirely in order to keep the francise gameplay intact any more than a century after this point. Once things like handguns enter the picture the idea of a guy running around with a couple of hidden blades and swords successfully killing dozens of people will be kind of ridiculous.

As for the setting, as long as they can keep the gameplay intact it doesn't really matter where or when the games are set. American Revolution, French Revolution, Civil War, wherever or whenever it is, as long as the gameplay is fun and the storyline interesting it's pretty irrelevant how interesting the event itself is, or if there even IS an important world changing event going on at the time.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I'm wondering why we don't get a game with a Templar protagonist.

They'll probably have to continue from another family's perspective if not reboot entirely in order to keep the francise gameplay intact any more than a century after this point. Once things like handguns enter the picture the idea of a guy running around with a couple of hidden blades and swords successfully killing dozens of people will be kind of ridiculous.

-cough-

Anyway, why do you say that? Is it completely inconceivable to think that one of Desmond's ancestors became disillusioned with the Assassin way and joined up with the Templars? Wasn't Conner's father a Templar anyway?

Well, I guess Desmond's story is over anyway. Which makes it the perfect time to go further back into time with a Templar! Woo!

 

[immortalfrieza]

I'm wondering why we don't get a game with a Templar protagonist.

They'll probably have to continue from another family's perspective if not reboot entirely in order to keep the francise gameplay intact any more than a century after this point. Once things like handguns enter the picture the idea of a guy running around with a couple of hidden blades and swords successfully killing dozens of people will be kind of ridiculous.

-cough-

Anyway, why do you say that? Is it completely inconceivable to think that one of Desmond's ancestors became disillusioned with the Assassin way and joined up with the Templars? Wasn't Conner's father a Templar anyway?

Well, I guess Desmond's story is over anyway. Which makes it the perfect time to go further back into time with a Templar! Woo!

That's a good point, but why would Desmond be going into that?

Besides, that was besides the point I was making. I'm saying that the sword fighting, assassination, climbing, etc. is pretty important to the AC series, it's pretty much what the series is known for and what people play it for, and it'll be impossible to maintain that after the point when handguns and effective rifles are invented.

BTW, I haven't even gotten to AC3 yet, so I don't know if things have changed much. I'm working on getting caught up these next few weeks.

 

[snave]

With all the bald eagle baggage from the very first game, I find it hard to believe this installment wasn't planned as the climax all along. Seriously, American patriotic iconography plastered all over the Crusades? Am I not the only one who thought that was odd?

I like the idea of Team Sensible, instead of balance being some mythologised natural force (Longest Journey and Dreamfall, Star Wars prequels, etc), actually having it a bunch of enlightened peeps. That'd be truly refreshing.

 

[Phuctifyno]

So the Assassins are Democrats and Templars are Republicans? Gotcha.

That's kind of a perpendicular spectrum. Civil rights and economy are treated as two separate and opposing issues by those parties, each party favoring one over the other. What you said is true if civil rights is the only issue that matters, while the opposite is true if economy is all that matters. Since they both matter, neither is really true.

And Yahtzee, that's a pretty zen yin-yang you've stumbled into there. Tertium non datur, indeed.

 

[Therumancer]

I think your anti-Americanism is showing Yahtzee, something that comes out in some of your videos about war games and so on. I suppose given that your identify with the British and this is pretty much as anti-British as you can get it's understandable, however I think it's a bit arrogant to say that nobody in the world cares except for Americans. I think most of the world cares, however there is a lot of jealousy because what happened on this stage, as humble seeming as it might be, actually wound up mattering more than all of these more "exciting" things which had other parts of the world center stage. Your basically looking at the humble beginnings of a super power, and arguably the force that was going to do more good that anyone else in human history through it's ideals if not the specifics of it's practices (as much as people might resent this). The French Revolution and rise of socialism pretty much is about the fall of a former super power into general irrelevency, Britan overextended itself through sheer arrogance, which is what made the American Revolution possible, and again wound up going from a massive super power to general irrelevency, etc... On a certain level I suppose these events might be more exciting, but they are kind of a downer, and would involve kind of showing how utterly stupid the people
in focus were. You can at least make an arguement when it comes to the USA that there were humanitarian *principles* at stake, or being born, and that things were going to be better in that part of the world. Watching the French pretty much decimate their own culture as gigantic arseholes prey on other gigantic arseholes, or pompous brits get involved on so many fronts at once that they wind up getting facerolled to the point of losing their entire empire, isn't quite the same. Especially seeing as we've kind of already visited the whole "societal decay" thing in Assasin's Creed II, where while I'm sure you and other Europeans loved the Euro focus, it's kind of hard to outdo the whole "hey let's pompously shoot ourselves in the foot and sow the seeds of our own future mediocrity" as Renaissance Italy and the decadence of the Borgias. Saint-Just and Robspierre just aren't going to o
outdo that.


That said I've heard rumors that Ubisoft wants to set the NEXT game in China during the people's rebellion, which pretty much has the entire communist/socialist takeover thing to work with, so doing it with the French would be irrelevent. Besides with China (if they can get past the censors) you can at least argue they rise into what is currently a super power. There should also be plenty of anti-west/American bashing to go around with that one, to make you happy.

 

[beastro]

I think your anti-Americanism is showing Yahtzee, something that comes out in some of your videos about war games and so on. I suppose given that your identify with the British and this is pretty much as anti-British as you can get it's understandable, however I think it's a bit arrogant to say that nobody in the world cares except for Americans.

I wouldn't call him anti-American. He just hates historical games and war in general, or at the very least, they're ripe ground for him to joke and cynically sneer at.

Britan overextended itself through sheer arrogance, which is what made the American Revolution possible

Britain's problem was over extension, it was that their success in the Seven Years' War alienated any old or prospective Continental allies to fight the war in Europe for them. It was political isolation and a rare moment when the Continentals wanted Britain taken down a notch instead of them being played off against one another to maintain the Empires Balance of Power strategy.

Your basically looking at the humble beginnings of a super power, and arguably the force that was going to do more good that anyone else in human history through it's ideals if not the specifics of it's practices (as much as people might resent this).

An ironic statement given that America's legacy came from Britain and Britain acted in the stereotypical modern American role the nation is known for today during the 1800s.

Those ideals and practices are rooted in the United States' Anglo-Saxon heritage and from Common Law.

or pompous brits get involved on so many fronts at once that they wind up getting facerolled to the point of losing their entire empire, isn't quite the same.

The Empire did quite well until the end of 1941 and the fall of South East Asia.

Losing their Empire? The Empire had already become unprofitable save for a few regions and Dominions and it was in their best interest to spiral off it's daughter nations, the greatest of which have become a key part of the bulwark of liberty world wide.

The Empire didn't fall, it just evolved into different species.

I do agree, however, that it would have been more fitting to see the evils of the French Revolution run rampant, that collective madness is in far more need of being made grey than War of Independence.