I'm glad they're putting something of a timeline on the game. It gives an extra level of tension/pressure to your activities. I remember feeling kind of bored with XCOM:EU with how much time would take place between enemy actions that I could respond to. So hopefully with this countdown over my head, I will have more of a sense of urgency. Which would be nice.
XCOM 2 Will Push Your Resistance Movement To Its Limits
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Well, consider this; the Ethereals' main objective with the invasion wasn't about conquering mankind, but testing them. They were searching for the perfect host species who could not only adapt to their technology and psionic powers, but grow stronger from them. All the other races they conquered had failed this test in some way, becoming little more than disposable pawns for them in their quest to find new hosts to replace their failing bodies.ObsidianJones said:
But, according to the Master Ethereal during his end-game dialogue, they were the greatest failure of all the aliens you've encountered. They had failed to ascend according to the designs of a different, seemingly more ancient entity.
As far as sequel hooks go, that's pretty intriguing. Sure, XCOM helped propel humanity's evolution forward by at least two centuries (both in terms of scientific and psionic discoveries) but that would probably pale in comparison to whatever could make the Ethereals inferior. We'd probably start the game out with upgraded laser weapons, better armor and some psi powers, but we'd probably have to go beyond that to combat whatever multi-dimensional Lovecraftian horrors threatened the Earth. In this scenario, I could definitely see XCOM wielding tech and powers akin to Warhammer 40K (without the try-hard edginess that series seems shackled to).
That's mostly why I'm frustrated with Firaxis ret-conning the first game's scenario to justify being the underdog again. We're going back to thwart the Ethereals' schemes again when we know from EU/EW that there's more threatening forces lurking just on the horizon. Sure, the upgraded cast of aliens look like a great challenge, but I'm not alone in thinking we could be facing entirely new foes at the moment (or even revamped aliens from TFTD).
Still chomping at the bit to play XCOM 2, but Firaxis needs to let the series move forward on a narrative level or else it risks stagnation like the original series before the reboot.
So there's a step between being shot out of the sky and game over. Given the emphasis everywhere else on how little slack the game affords players for mistakes, I don't know that that's an improvement. The game as described already seems likely to be prey to "You reached the point of no return five hours ago, you just didn't know it until now." A last-ditch effort to save your headquarters seems likely to be a mission with a lot of resources lost and little gained besides survival.EternallyBored said:
As far as the "human resistance" element goes, that's nice- but that's not the element I've seen Firaxis et. al. emphasizing in any of the print stories.
I was of the habit of giving soldiers nicknames that allowed me to immediately recognize their capabilities- this is the sniper, this is the medic, this is the explosives guy, this is the offensive-psionic. Sure, I got mildly attached to characters who were good at their jobs, but mostly it was about their utility and the time/resource cost of replacing them.
To give an XCom character- especially an early XCom character- a high degree of customization is not unlike doing a careful detailing and customizing of a car that's going to be part of a demolition derby. And while I'll admit to a certain amount of intrigue to the whole "character pool" idea, another part of my mind thinks that this amounts to the developers dumping much of the workload of story-building, character arc, and emotional resonance- the parts that make people "care"- directly onto the back of the player, rather than making an effort to create those feelings themselves.
To the extent that I've had interesting, discussion-worthy moments in past XCom games, it's been about managing to drop a grenade at the feet of two sectoids that suddenly popped into line-of-sight and get away clean- not about the fact that my sniper has one green eye and one blue eye and comes from Okinawa.
Cynical? Maybe. Pointlessly? Your mileage, as said, may vary, but you haven't made that case to me.
*Shrug* I think I could make it work. The aliens remain in the Earth's solar system, only now they're rudderless and disorganized- so instead of dealing with one united faction, XCom is dealing with multiple factions. The Sectoids claim to want peace, the Ethereals are plotting genocide, The Thin Men and Vipers are infiltrating Earth governments, the Mutons' broken leadership has their orphaned troops still trying to carry out terror missions; meanwhile, the leadership of Earth has ceased to take the alien threat seriously, alien tech is being capitalized for use in international conflicts, alien weapons are in the hands of criminal syndicates, and the typical human is no longer sure he or she even has anything in common with their psionically-gifted, cybernetically-enhanced saviors. An XCom game with deeper elements of diplomacy, espionage and public relations in addition to squad-based combat could, I think, be interesting indeed.
But, well, we're getting something else. And it will probably be a good game; Firaxis has an excellent track record. I'm just unconvinced it will be the game for me, which is all I've been saying.
Games are a power fantasy, no one would want to play an unemployed couch crusher meekly living out their day to day life. Here's the thing; You win a victory, it makes you happy. And since games are meant to be fun, they are meant to be won.erttheking said:
Is the alternate timeline confirmed? If so, I will wait until they get back on track before deciding if they are worthy of my money.
Power fantasy? Where is the power fantasy in Papers Please, Silent Hill 2, the Pokemon Channel, Gone Home, most visual novels, Animal Crossing, Eternal Darkness, Outlast, Amesia the Dark Descent, This War of Mine, and Tetris. Saying games are a power fantasy is a massive disservice to the medium. Having games always be about empowerment just limits what games can do. A lot of games make their emotional impact by disempowering you. Games do not owe you a victory.008Zulu said:
You know it's really frustrating that you say that like you are just so cocksure about what makes a video game a video game.008Zulu said:
Spec Ops: The Line is explicitly the opposite of what you are saying video games are, going out of it's way to actively belittle you for trying to pretend to be something that you're not.
There are games meant to be challenging, not something to empower you but to test your mettle and determination, games where the central theme is a lesson to be learned and not a "Congrats, you are the winner" to be had.
The idea of a medium being constrained to a single narrow viewpoint is how you ruin a medium.
Papers Please; You decide who does or doesn't get in to the country.erttheking said:
Silent Hill 2; While the objective is finding your missing wife, solving the puzzles is exercising intellectual power, which makes you feel good.
Pokemon Channel; Is a glorified pet simulator, not a game.
Gone Home/visual novels; Interactive text don't count as games either, they are interactive text.
Animal Crossing; Collecting items that can be traded with other players. There are players who exploit this need, this is exercising power.
...And so forth.
Yes they do. Here's why;erttheking said:
When a game dis-empowers you, it is creating a set of circumstances for you to overcome. When you overcome them, you win. Winning is good. You don't play a game to feel worse than when you first sat down and started it, it's counter-intuitive to the whole idea of games being entertainment.
You are REALLY stretchering the definition of power fantasy. In Papers Please you don't get to decide crap. If you break the rules the government smashes down on you. In the circumstances where there's a story break in the monotony, you're either still following regulations or a reward to make up for you breaking the rules, in other words it disables the penalty which basically putting it in the "admit" folder. Also Gone Home and visual novels are games. Say whatever you want, they're games. Pokemon channel is also a game, because it is played on a game console. Say it's a SHIT game if you want, but it's a game. You pulling out arbitrary definitions of failure states or whatever doesn't change that. Or are you saying Ace Attorney isn't a real game. Because it's a visual novel.008Zulu said:
Well then, XCOM 2 is creating a set of circumstances for you to overcome, I don't see the problem. Things got worse in the Alien invasion and now you have to fight back against it. Unless every sequel to a pre-existing game isn't ever allowed to have things get worse. In which case you'd probably have a problem with Resistance, Gears of War, Wolfenstein the New Order, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Apollo Justice Ace Attorney, Anomaly 2 and Borderlands 2.
You don't play a game to feel worse than when you sat down? You sir have never played Spec Ops the Line. Games are an art. A genre. They aren't just toys. Games like Red Dead Redemption have horrifically depressing endings because you can't always win. Always winning is boring.
Why in the hell are you bringing up Call of Duty which has nothing to do with anything that I was saying? Multiplayer is neither a relevant point to be made about any of the games listed by myself or by erttheking, least of all XCOM.008Zulu said:
Deliberately ignoring single player content because "people buy COD for the Multiplayer" has zero relevance to why people bought XCOM, Spec OPS: The Line, or will be buying XCOM 2.
If you can't think of something relevant to bring up in the current conversation, then ignoring the entire argument and moving on to something tangentially related to the subject just weakens your overall argument.
Holy shitballs the salt in this thread.
I don't get it, I really don't. The whole bit on "Oh mah gawd, We lost game 1, it's all invaleed nao!" Maybe 008Zulu's side on it helps me understand, but I'm not going to say my thoughts on that matter. Yes, you play to win the game, but if a game isn't fun to play, only fun to win, you're not having a good time.
I think the main reason why we lost, other than your reason, was that XCOM:EW was pretty absurd. When you really think about it, the aliens having that level of resources, how was a scrappy team of 12 dudes, (or even in the case of LW, a organization of 70 dudes.) was going to stop them. I can't be the only one who thinks the aliens are phoning it in pretty hard. Even in LW, where I see 4 named aliens alongside a queen and think, "Okay, Fuckin' take Africa. I'm not goddamn dealing with this."
I don't get it, I really don't. The whole bit on "Oh mah gawd, We lost game 1, it's all invaleed nao!" Maybe 008Zulu's side on it helps me understand, but I'm not going to say my thoughts on that matter. Yes, you play to win the game, but if a game isn't fun to play, only fun to win, you're not having a good time.
There's a book detailing the loss, I don't have it, there's people far more dedicated than me who do though. And they say it's a pretty good book.zombiejoe said:
I think the main reason why we lost, other than your reason, was that XCOM:EW was pretty absurd. When you really think about it, the aliens having that level of resources, how was a scrappy team of 12 dudes, (or even in the case of LW, a organization of 70 dudes.) was going to stop them. I can't be the only one who thinks the aliens are phoning it in pretty hard. Even in LW, where I see 4 named aliens alongside a queen and think, "Okay, Fuckin' take Africa. I'm not goddamn dealing with this."
Agreed, friendo. The amount of salt here is tremendous. Even I'm drowning in the stuff.BeerTent said:
I did hear about the book recently, so I guess that is a nice way to flesh out things for those who are interested in it. I might even need to check it out myself, even though I always considered XCOM to be a series more about the world scenarios and situations you're thrown in rather than a hardline story itself.
Like I've said before, even though I consider XCOM 2 to be more an "alternate timeline" than a "this is what actually happened" thing, I'm also fine believing that the aliens we went up against in EU/EW were just the start of what was to come. It seemed like what we fought was working for something much stronger. Though, I guess the book should clear up those details.
You're the one that brought up the argument about games teaching hard lessons, not me.Radoh said:
The problem is that it isn't following the established narrative, and they haven't bothered to explain (in universe) why.erttheking said:
You can watch movies on a games console, doesn't make them games.erttheking said:
They can get worse, but all those examples you listed have clearly defined narratives driving them. With Spec Ops, and Red Dead, not winning is plainly obvious what the Devs had in mind. The way Xcom progressed, lead you to believe that winning was the ultimate goal.erttheking said:
Movies aren't interactive, though. A VN might be mostly about telling a story, but at the end of the day you're still making choices to drive the plot forward with victory and failure conditions based on choices you make. For certain definitions of "winning" and "losing", but winning and losing nonetheless. That makes them games. A different variety of game from what you'd prefer but still a game. That's all beside the point, though.008Zulu said:
It certainly was. Indeed, one tends to want to win a war that one is fighting. Obviously a win condition was prerequisite to playing XCOM as that's what you were working towards. Doesn't mean it actually canonically happens, though. Or happens the way you want it to. Or whatever. Honestly I see nothing wrong with the devs embracing whatever narrative they wish to tell with THEIR game. Because it is THEIR'S to do with as THEY wish.
I'd rather employ the age old tradition of "wait and see" before making any claims of RUINED FOREVER, but even now I like the direction they're taking the game. It's definitely a rather interesting idea regardless of anyone that thinks the devs owe them anything other than a game that might be enjoyable to play.
Losing XCOM was always perfectly possible and for many a player it was their fate on their first playthrough. As for the narrative...a massive technologically advanced race invaded Earth. I call them winning a case of reality ensues.008Zulu said:
Not on the gamecube, which was where Pokemon channel came out on. Also you gonna address any of the other points I made there?
No. The downer endings were pretty big twists. And what? Can the devs never play with expectations? They can never throw something in you weren't expecting? Really, expecting XCOM to win and then having a game based off of that would've smashed any sense of flow, considering that also would've said "Everything in the first game you did means nothing because now you need to do it all over again and for some reason you need to start at square one." They led you to BELIEVE that winning was the ultimate goal. As the game's high difficulty shows, they also made it clear that it was very possible to fail that goa.
As someone who's read the novel, let me save you some time. XCOM 2 : Resurrection is pretty bad, not just as a tie-in novel meant to flesh out the world, but as a piece of literature in general. 90% of the book is spent following a group of underdeveloped characters that received the bare minimum of emotional depth as they're listlessly herded to each major plot point. Speaking of which, the main story rushes along like it has ADHD. There's no reprieve to let the actions and consequences hit a resonant note with the readers. It's a safe bet to say the author's understanding of the source material came from glancing at a wiki page and he churned it out to get a check.zombiejoe said:
Overall, you can look up the book's major events and details in any XCOM 2 thread and save yourself the time. There's only vague hints that establish why XCOM lost the first, and they could have been easily implemented into a few flashback cut-scenes in XCOM 2 and achieved more immersion that way. If you're looking for a story that captures the sense of urgency, fear and triumph in the face of adversity, you won't find it in XCOM 2: Resurrection. You're better off watching Beaglerush's Let's Play series or reading fan-based character accounts to get the XCOM experience outside the game.
Hell, there's an XCOM EW / My Little Pony FIM crossover fic that fleshes out the game's setting and characters in creative ways that stays truer to the spirit of XCOM than this novel does.
I will say this much for the novel, though. It has convinced me that XCOM 2 is set not only in an alternate timeline, but one in which the Ethereals knew of the defeat in EU/EW. In EU/EW, the Ethereals' invasion was meant to push XCOM and mankind to their limits to see if they could evolve into the perfect new host for them. According to the novel, the invasion was less of a planetary science experiment and more of a full-on war. All tracking satellites were shot down almost as soon as they were launched, abductions were designed to instill mass panic instead of furthering their research efforts, and the aliens ended up discovering XCOM's base and ancillary facilities after infiltrating the first few nations that pulled out of the project. And then they bombarded them all simultaneously.
Some will see it as the logical progression of an alien invasion of this type, but for those who've completed any successful EU/EW campaign can tell these are calculated strikes to ensure mankind (and XCOM in particular) don't get any chance to study their technology. And the only plausible narrative reason I can find for this is that the aliens know what happens if they give XCOM opportunities to reverse-engineer their abilities; they are defeated. In this timeline, they already know humans have the abilities they're searching for and are trying to minimize the risks of any resistance movement studying even a fraction of their technology.
But that's my two cents. Take it for what it is.
Yes I did, then you completely ignored the point I made about Spec Ops and then moved it to COD, which is not in any stretch of the imagination the same thing, in both the focus and tone of the stories as well as the focus of development effort by the teams making it.008Zulu said:
One of them is making a power fantasy where you are a super soldier decimating any battle you are a part of in a game where all the attention was in the Multiplayer, and the other is an in-depth look at war crimes and PTSD while painting a meta narrative of how you (the player) are looking to be something you are not and that it's pathetic that you even tried, and where the multiplayer was thrown on because they were forced to make one.
COD, as you said yourself, focuses on the Multiplayer, and the fact that Spec Ops does not should have been enough of a tip-off that you shouldn't compare the two when trying to make an argument.
I have played a lot of visual novel games (I feel Telltale titles fall in to this category), no matter the playthrough, they always have ended the same. We don't really decide the course of the story, we are there just to read someone's creative fiction.Kajin said:
Yes it is theirs to do as they please, and if not making a coherent story is a choice they want to make, then it is theirs to do so. But they have to accept the fact that people will criticize them for it.Kajin said: