The Totally Hipster Elements in inFamous: Second Son

[Thanatos2k]

Well no, the target is the thing being cooled. The heat is not coming from the caster himself, but being extracted from the target, causing the icy effect.

I'm not sure that's true (for a completely made-up thing) - couldn't the energy to create a stream of cold matter have come from the caster? The cold matter would absorb the heat of the target. A fire ring also assumes there's enough energy to be drained from the victim to cause such an effect.

Real-world example - if you throw a snowball at someone, it doesn't cause things in the vicinity of the target to heat up. If anything, they get colder and wetter due to the "splash effect" of the snowball.

Well that's how things become cold - if you pick up snow in your hand, the snow absorbs heat from your hand through thermodynamics laws regarding temperature equalization. The snow becomes hotter, and your hand becomes cooler. Heat is not created or destroyed.

If someone casts an ice spell - that means the environment directly around the target and/or the target itself becomes cooler, so the heat removed from the target or environment to generate that effect had to go somewhere.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

If someone casts an ice spell - that means the environment directly around the target and/or the target itself becomes cooler, so the heat removed from the target or environment to generate that effect had to go somewhere.

But in Infamous, Delsin is not "casting spells" - as I said, the mechanic is that he "drains" a substance from a source and then depletes it. It does not appear that he is incanting the substance at the target. So, it's more like he's storing a bunch of "substance" in his body and then throwing that at the target. The visuals, story and animation in this game strongly suggest that this is very much a bodily function, not a mystical or supernatural one. The powers are portrayed as granted by genetics, not magic or spiritualism.

In the case of "ice power" the mechanic in Infamous would be like carrying around a whole lot of super-cold ice. The energy to make it cold was used at the time of creation (in a freezer or whatever) - not at the time of casting.

Note that Delsin does not create the smoke, concrete, etc. himself - he has to harvest it from the environment.

P.S:

Why would magical spells have to follow the laws of physics? Isn't the whole point of magic that it is other-worldly and supernatural?

The snow becomes hotter, and your hand becomes cooler.

Right. The heat is absorbed into the ice and it melts, until equilibrium is reached. I don't know about you, but melting an ice cube in my hand has never made the surrounding area get hotter.

 

[Thanatos2k]

If someone casts an ice spell - that means the environment directly around the target and/or the target itself becomes cooler, so the heat removed from the target or environment to generate that effect had to go somewhere.

But in Infamous, Delsin is not "casting spells" - as I said, the mechanic is that he "drains" a substance from a source and then depletes it. It does not appear that he is incanting the substance at the target. So, it's more like he's storing a bunch of "substance" in his body and then throwing that at the target. The visuals, story and animation in this game strongly suggest that this is very much a bodily function, not a mystical or supernatural one. The powers are portrayed as granted by genetics, not magic or spiritualism.

In the case of "ice power" the mechanic in Infamous would be like carrying around a whole lot of super-cold ice. The energy to make it cold was used at the time of creation (in a freezer or whatever) - not at the time of casting.

Note that Delsin does not create the smoke, concrete, etc. himself - he has to harvest it from the environment.

I wasn't talking about Infamous. I was talking about elemental magic in general.

Also, again, you don't "use" energy to make things cold. You extract energy from things to make them cold. It's why your air conditioner vents heat out the side.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I wasn't talking about Infamous. I was talking about elemental magic in general.

If you're talking about magic, then why would physics apply?

Also, again, you don't "use" energy to make things cold. You extract energy from things to make them cold. It's why your air conditioner vents heat out the side.

So, your air conditioner doesn't use any energy? You absolutely use energy to make things cold. Any conversion or transmission of energy is a use of energy.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Lightning is just energy, fire is the way heat is produced because X and Y got together

son, you did not say these scientific trasvesties

 

[Thanatos2k]

I wasn't talking about Infamous. I was talking about elemental magic in general.

If you're talking about magic, then why would physics apply?

Well there's "I can do anything!" magic that is completely inexplicable and can do whatever the story needs it to, and then there's magic that's at least grounded in some kind of reality. ("I can lift a car, but I can't lift a mountain by myself") The former kind of magic is pretty boring, actually, when anything can always be explained by "A wizard did it."

The former kind of magic also leads to the creators not thinking through the consequences of such things. For example, Sonic the Hedgehog would get a concussion every time he ran 500 mph and then stopped on a dime. Unless we're also suggesting his brain has some kind of magical protection....

Also, again, you don't "use" energy to make things cold. You extract energy from things to make them cold. It's why your air conditioner vents heat out the side.

So, your air conditioner doesn't use any energy? You absolutely use energy to make things cold. Any conversion or transmission of energy is a use of energy.

The energy is needed in order to move the heat. Naturally, the temperature of things will equalize, but air conditioning needs to defy that by moving heat out of the air. It uses energy to do this, but NOT the heat energy it's removing from the air. That energy still exists, and is vented.

Similarly, someone casting an ice spell would expend energy to move the heat out of something (that expended energy usually goes by the name "mana") but that removed energy still exists! It has to go somewhere.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

The energy is needed in order to move the heat. Naturally, the temperature of things will equalize, but air conditioning needs to defy that by moving heat out of the air. It uses energy to do this, but NOT the heat energy it's removing from the air. That energy still exists, and is vented.

So, how is that any different to heating something?

Similarly, someone casting an ice spell would expend energy to move the heat out of something (that expended energy usually goes by the name "mana") but that removed energy still exists! It has to go somewhere.

I know how thermodynamics works. I never said that energy is created or destroyed.

It requires an energy differential to move energy from one place to another. If that differential is not naturally occurring, then it requires an external input of energy to achieve - whether it's heating or cooling. I think you're obfuscating things by making such a distinction - it works the same both ways.

Your example of the ring of fire around an ice spell seems rather off - unless the spell is very inefficient. A perfectly efficient spell would simply absorb the heat energy to equilibrium, without setting a bunch of surrounding stuff on fire.

 

[Objectable]

Personally, I hope to find Ununpentium powers in the next inFamous.

 

[Ferisar]

Your example of the ring of fire around an ice spell seems rather off - unless the spell is very inefficient. A perfectly efficient spell would simply absorb the heat energy to equilibrium, without setting a bunch of surrounding stuff on fire.

No but it'd look super neat and have a fun explanation in-universe that only makes sense if you allow it to not make any sense. So uh, hey, 10/10?
EDIT:
Also, wouldn't the spell's efficiency be dictated at least somewhat by the speed of transition? The heat energy dissipating over a long freeze wouldn't be notable, but surely something will happen if a person suddenly plummets a couple hundred Celsius without warning.
I mean, given we're giving powers to teenagers, it's not exactly unreasonable to expect imperfect spell-casting.

Riiiight?

 

[[REDACTED]]

Personally, I hope to find Ununpentium powers in the next inFamous.

Who knows, there could be Ununpentium conduits living among us right now, unable to find any Uup with which to fuel their powers.

 

[Thanatos2k]

The energy is needed in order to move the heat. Naturally, the temperature of things will equalize, but air conditioning needs to defy that by moving heat out of the air. It uses energy to do this, but NOT the heat energy it's removing from the air. That energy still exists, and is vented.

So, how is that any different to heating something?

Heating is inserting heat. Cooling is removing heat. It's why a heater and an air conditioner are two separate things.

It's a lot easier to put heat into something by the way. It's why heating things uses less electricity, because you can turn the energy into heat and then use it. Pulling heat out of something is a lot harder.

Similarly, someone casting an ice spell would expend energy to move the heat out of something (that expended energy usually goes by the name "mana") but that removed energy still exists! It has to go somewhere.

I know how thermodynamics works. I never said that energy is created or destroyed.

It requires an energy differential to move energy from one place to another. If that differential is not naturally occurring, then it requires an external input of energy to achieve - whether it's heating or cooling. I think you're obfuscating things by making such a distinction - it works the same both ways.

Your example of the ring of fire around an ice spell seems rather off - unless the spell is very inefficient. A perfectly efficient spell would simply absorb the heat energy to equilibrium, without setting a bunch of surrounding stuff on fire.

What equilibrium? Equilibrium is room temperature. Cooling something to below room temperature requires removing heat. That heat has to go somewhere. The heat removed and the energy required to remove it are different things.

 

[Mangod]

-What would Infamous' Captain Planet look like with these elements? And will we see something akin to that in that supposed Captain Planet movie upcoming?

The truly important question is... will Captain inFamous still look like a Toothpaste mascot?

But on to the subject at hand... I think there's a problem inherent in using elemental powers in games, or indeed any storytelling, is that... the elements have been used many times already in virtually every story ever made. So when you try to be original, you try and use something other than the classic elements... which of course leaves you with things like concrete, which is essentially just earth with a different name, smoke, which is just superheated air, neon, which is again just another form of air or lightning, and video, which is, again, lightning or something similar.

The problem is that these are just more complicated ways of doing the old things in new, needlessly complicated ways, making Delcin a male, hipster version of Aang with more stupid names for his powers.

I personally think the game might have been better served if it had gone with something more simple, but more specific, like... mud. Yeah, let me play as Clayface in a game, that'd work. Or sound; the ability to make your opponents deaf, or inflict extreme pain with high pitched noises, and shatter glass with the right frequency. Or gas; your powers let you create a variety of airborne chemicals, everything from laughing gas for non-lethal takedown, to carbonmonoxide for choking a room dead.

Why hasn't someone made this already? All I want is a game where I get to play as what is essentially a One Piece character who's eaten a Logia fruit.

 

[Flammablezeus]

From the very first gameplay video of Second Son, all I thought was "this looks like a reskinned Infamous 2, isn't this guy meant to have abilities that would behave completely differently?"

I'm sad to see that it's the case. So far, Project Awakened is the only game to have tackled the idea of truly different powersets, and it's one that gamers seem to refuse to back whenever the chance comes up. Now the devs have to work on Nether and other games. Hopefully one day enough people become interested enough in truly innovative superhero games that Awakened (or something like it) will get its chance.