A fair point. I just wish they'd take some time to establish that rather than asking us to assume the Reapers came in between games and killed Shepard.elvor0 said:
Why does the victory ending have to be the canon one?
- Thread starter Fieldy409_v1legacy
- Start date
You know, they could have avoided this if they didn't call it XCOM 2. I think the fact that it's supposed to be a sequel and not just another XCOM game that has everyone's britches twisted.
I don't really care, I find the thought of a sequel continuing from a game over point unique at least, not many games have the balls to say "Every last thing you did last game was absolutely worthless." I'm sure there was some, but I'm drawing a blank right now. Besides, I never finished Xcom anyways, so I didn't get the good ending.
I don't really care, I find the thought of a sequel continuing from a game over point unique at least, not many games have the balls to say "Every last thing you did last game was absolutely worthless." I'm sure there was some, but I'm drawing a blank right now. Besides, I never finished Xcom anyways, so I didn't get the good ending.
It's not that the victory ending isn't canon that's the problem, it's that it's not even recognized. I'll give you an example from World of Warcraft.
There's a section where Alliance players are in a pitched battle to secure an area from Forsaken forces. The Alliance player is tasked with nearly single handed in taking down the entire Forsaken assault force. Even when faced with a sudden surge of reinforcements the Alliance player essentially wipes all of them out and there's really nothing left to oppose the Alliance. At that point the commander of the forces there tells the player "we lost, go to your next assignment". No, I'm not joking or embellishing on this. The commander just says "we can't win, go home" after moping the floor with the reinforcements.
For the Alliance player that secured almost the entire zone by themselves, hearing that all the effort put out was wasted without any real reason why is frustrating at best. The same thing here. You've put in a lot of effort to prove that not only can you fight back, but can win (hell, it's even a plot point), being told "you lost" with no reason as to how when it's clear you can win can piss off a lot of people.
There's a section where Alliance players are in a pitched battle to secure an area from Forsaken forces. The Alliance player is tasked with nearly single handed in taking down the entire Forsaken assault force. Even when faced with a sudden surge of reinforcements the Alliance player essentially wipes all of them out and there's really nothing left to oppose the Alliance. At that point the commander of the forces there tells the player "we lost, go to your next assignment". No, I'm not joking or embellishing on this. The commander just says "we can't win, go home" after moping the floor with the reinforcements.
For the Alliance player that secured almost the entire zone by themselves, hearing that all the effort put out was wasted without any real reason why is frustrating at best. The same thing here. You've put in a lot of effort to prove that not only can you fight back, but can win (hell, it's even a plot point), being told "you lost" with no reason as to how when it's clear you can win can piss off a lot of people.
Put it this way, what ending did you encounter the most? Was it the overall victory, or did you just start over when you realised half your team were in hospital and the next mission was full of Chrysalids? (you lost cupcake, deal with it!).
Reloading a previous save is a "loss" too, no matter how bu$*&£%t those four 80%-hit-chance misses were (again, deal with it).
I'd suggest the majority of play-throughs ended in a loss for humanity, so it's no surprise that is the canon for the second game.
Reloading a previous save is a "loss" too, no matter how bu$*&£%t those four 80%-hit-chance misses were (again, deal with it).
I'd suggest the majority of play-throughs ended in a loss for humanity, so it's no surprise that is the canon for the second game.
Again, why can't people see it as a "what-if" alternate universe scenario if they won most of their runs?
Hmmm...in Warcraft
In W3, they dropped that and all the campaigns happen one after the other, so you play as each faction and win. Only...the last one matter and the early ones either didn't, or were counter productive anyway.
In W2, the Orc campaign was won in W1, and the human campaign...there are some references to things in it, but not all of it happened. Other way around for W3 looking back on W2
In W3, they dropped that and all the campaigns happen one after the other, so you play as each faction and win. Only...the last one matter and the early ones either didn't, or were counter productive anyway.
I don't like it. Because in this instance, I find it to be lazy.
We've got new, extremely experimental tech that relies on extra-solar materials to operate, advanced super-soldier gene splicing, selling tech and materials to literally anybody with a decent amount of scratch, aliens who "lost" only in the sense that they stopped attacking after one of their big ships explodes, massive world-wide destruction due to earthquakes and tsunamis created by said ship, a process by which humans can acquire supernatural powers with absolutely no knowledge of potential downsides, world wide information black out due to repeated alien attacks and the secrecy of the X-com project itself...
And the only way they can come up with the plot for the sequel is "you didn't win, you lost, I don't care what it says".
We've got new, extremely experimental tech that relies on extra-solar materials to operate, advanced super-soldier gene splicing, selling tech and materials to literally anybody with a decent amount of scratch, aliens who "lost" only in the sense that they stopped attacking after one of their big ships explodes, massive world-wide destruction due to earthquakes and tsunamis created by said ship, a process by which humans can acquire supernatural powers with absolutely no knowledge of potential downsides, world wide information black out due to repeated alien attacks and the secrecy of the X-com project itself...
And the only way they can come up with the plot for the sequel is "you didn't win, you lost, I don't care what it says".
Alternative Universes are for DLCs where you play as the aliens conquering Earth, not for official stand alone games that usurp the plot of the first.aegix drakan said:
Not so. Logistics are a huge factor in any kind of space war. It's quite plausible that the aliens have a much better military than us, but are too far away to launch a full invasion. And the orbital bombardment thing would still need a decent number of ships, because we could afford to let a few cities get destroyed while we built lasers to shoot back with.DrOswald said:
As I explained in a similar thread, as far as I know, it can still be in the canon of the game that we won the battle. The Big Ethereal in the Temple ship stated that they
It is entirely possible that the aliens we fought in the Enemy Unknown were in fact
Regardless, we may have won the battle, but not the war so to speak. If they wanted to, the aliens could have just sent their entire force at once to destroy all of humanity, but they didn't. It is rather interesting to think about however. The statue in the trailer shows an alien helping a human get on their feet. Perhaps this is a reference to the first game? Or perhaps it is just a monument showing the alien's supposed "superiority", helping the "poor humans" on their feet. Regardless, interesting stuff.
specifically pushed mankind to adapt and evolve to prepare for "what lies ahead".
preparing us for the main invasion. Perhaps they were a totally different faction?
Regardless, we may have won the battle, but not the war so to speak. If they wanted to, the aliens could have just sent their entire force at once to destroy all of humanity, but they didn't. It is rather interesting to think about however. The statue in the trailer shows an alien helping a human get on their feet. Perhaps this is a reference to the first game? Or perhaps it is just a monument showing the alien's supposed "superiority", helping the "poor humans" on their feet. Regardless, interesting stuff.
You're making a lot of bold assumptions off of one trailer.Silentpony said:
...You're also putting a lot of weight on the plot for a game like XCOM.
For everyone getting upset about the whole 'my game counted for nothing', here's some food for thought.
How much do we know about the game? The information we have is from a -teaser- trailer. A trailer made to get people talking, not to show us what the game is like. Not once, -anywhere-, has Firaxis said that the ending of the first X-com did not happen. People saw that humanity lost the war, and collectively stained their britches in response.
Its more than likely that within the game, it does explain that we lost the war with the aliens when they actually arrived in force. The entire of those alien races didn't just live on that temple ship, y'know.
If we played against the aliens 'coming for round 2', people would have complained about it being too similar to the first game. If we are the ones doing the invading, people would complain about it being a power fantasy or not making sense. People are going to complain about anything and everything, but at least wait for there to actually be some real information to complain about first.
Also, why do people care so much about the ending of -xcom-. It has one of the most barebone stories of anything ever. It feels more like people enjoyed their choices being remembered in rpgs like Witcher and Mass Effect, and now kind of expect that to be the norm rather than the exception.
How much do we know about the game? The information we have is from a -teaser- trailer. A trailer made to get people talking, not to show us what the game is like. Not once, -anywhere-, has Firaxis said that the ending of the first X-com did not happen. People saw that humanity lost the war, and collectively stained their britches in response.
Its more than likely that within the game, it does explain that we lost the war with the aliens when they actually arrived in force. The entire of those alien races didn't just live on that temple ship, y'know.
If we played against the aliens 'coming for round 2', people would have complained about it being too similar to the first game. If we are the ones doing the invading, people would complain about it being a power fantasy or not making sense. People are going to complain about anything and everything, but at least wait for there to actually be some real information to complain about first.
Also, why do people care so much about the ending of -xcom-. It has one of the most barebone stories of anything ever. It feels more like people enjoyed their choices being remembered in rpgs like Witcher and Mass Effect, and now kind of expect that to be the norm rather than the exception.
I dunno, I actually really like it, starting your XCOM game with psionic super soldiers equipped with Jetpack armour, plasma guns and self-directing handheld artillery... well...
Where DO you upgrade from there?!
Where DO you upgrade from there?!
But... Didn't you know? The canon ending is black wins. Because it's more dramatic that way. XDCasual Shinji said:
If i did a good job at completing the games challenges and made good choices then i expect it to end in my favour and not be screwed no matter what i do. In this case i don't really care. If a game like The Witcher pulled this shit then i would be pissed.
You know... as I said on the initial announcement, I'm sure X-Com 2 will be an interesting game, and based on the pedigree and talent brought to bear on the "original reboot", probably a good one.
But it does kind of suck to effectively have it come down from on high that your "investment" in the first game doesn't matter; you just lost.
This isn't like Spec Ops: The Line (or Bioshock: Infinite, YMMV) where the game has a specific journey in mind for specific characters that requires those characters to stumble and fall. This is a game where countless players went through a long and often difficult (enjoyable, yes, but difficult) series of challenges in order to bring about a successful conclusion; also a game in which much of the personal, emotional investment in specific characters was something players created for themselves out of the semi-random statistics the game crafted and evolved to represent them.
I'm not altogether fond of "and now, despite everything, you still lose" kind of trope that seems to be occurring more and more often in games; I'm less fond of the idea of a dictum of failure out of the blue coming from on high in between games. I think it behooves developers to have some measure of respect for the hours players put into their games and the emotional involvement they feel with them. That's the bread and butter that makes both a fanbase and a successful franchise; you trivialize such things at your peril, and something much of the bitter sniping about "entitled" customers often just don't seem to understand.
All that said, I'm not saying that these things can't be done at all. I've said before that I find bad endings oddly fascinating (though I much prefer them in the context of "good endings" actually existing.) But I'd be lying if I said I liked the idea of "bad ending default" becoming the standard; as an experiment, that's okay, but as a baseline, I think that's a crap way of treating your players. Think about what you're doing and if you have good reasons and a firm understanding of why you're doing it. Don't just scoff at players' commitments as meaningless.
But it does kind of suck to effectively have it come down from on high that your "investment" in the first game doesn't matter; you just lost.
This isn't like Spec Ops: The Line (or Bioshock: Infinite, YMMV) where the game has a specific journey in mind for specific characters that requires those characters to stumble and fall. This is a game where countless players went through a long and often difficult (enjoyable, yes, but difficult) series of challenges in order to bring about a successful conclusion; also a game in which much of the personal, emotional investment in specific characters was something players created for themselves out of the semi-random statistics the game crafted and evolved to represent them.
I'm not altogether fond of "and now, despite everything, you still lose" kind of trope that seems to be occurring more and more often in games; I'm less fond of the idea of a dictum of failure out of the blue coming from on high in between games. I think it behooves developers to have some measure of respect for the hours players put into their games and the emotional involvement they feel with them. That's the bread and butter that makes both a fanbase and a successful franchise; you trivialize such things at your peril, and something much of the bitter sniping about "entitled" customers often just don't seem to understand.
All that said, I'm not saying that these things can't be done at all. I've said before that I find bad endings oddly fascinating (though I much prefer them in the context of "good endings" actually existing.) But I'd be lying if I said I liked the idea of "bad ending default" becoming the standard; as an experiment, that's okay, but as a baseline, I think that's a crap way of treating your players. Think about what you're doing and if you have good reasons and a firm understanding of why you're doing it. Don't just scoff at players' commitments as meaningless.
I haven't heard/read anywhere directly that they say the story of Xcom 2 is you(the player) lost but after unification the aliens have lead most of humanity into believing their saviors now since none of the aliens shown (two kinds for sure Snake-man type, new sectoid (breed/hybrid?) & either employed human/terran guards or humanoid looking alien fakes.) are from the original game, and Xcom did such a great job of keeping Alien activity under wraps either a different faction or splinter-cell of the original aliens came under false pretenses as saviors or a different group altogether who also subjugated Sectoids and did different experiments or these are the unaltered natural evolution of them before Etherials developed them to have physic powers (the rushed cost of which reduced there physical ability which paled in comparison to Mutons.)
Anyway my main point if "We" did win the first game is canon then there's the as of yet unexplained fallout of the Alien mother ship crashing into earth's orbit full of alien material which could have hazardous effects and/or EMP effects that the current governments can't handle and are soon blamed for then the "new" Saviors arrive for clean up or treatment with no clear proof the new aliens are the same or not the common humanity can be mislead and manipulated while survivors of Terror attacks, abductions and nearby UFO crashes mainly choose to live in the outskirts of town not trusting the new aliens and not ratting out the New Mobile Xcom forces.
It's just my theory but it'd supply why you could both win and lose the first game while explaining why if it's the same alien forces form the first game didn't plan that from the start if it means losing so many troops, supplies, ships, a secret underground base, mother ship and their main leader(?) to cause the planet to become littered with alien material to weaken humanity.
Anyway my main point if "We" did win the first game is canon then there's the as of yet unexplained fallout of the Alien mother ship crashing into earth's orbit full of alien material which could have hazardous effects and/or EMP effects that the current governments can't handle and are soon blamed for then the "new" Saviors arrive for clean up or treatment with no clear proof the new aliens are the same or not the common humanity can be mislead and manipulated while survivors of Terror attacks, abductions and nearby UFO crashes mainly choose to live in the outskirts of town not trusting the new aliens and not ratting out the New Mobile Xcom forces.
It's just my theory but it'd supply why you could both win and lose the first game while explaining why if it's the same alien forces form the first game didn't plan that from the start if it means losing so many troops, supplies, ships, a secret underground base, mother ship and their main leader(?) to cause the planet to become littered with alien material to weaken humanity.
