You're (probably) using Ludonarrative Dissonance completely wrong

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

In short, games like Uncharted or Tomb Raider don't have ludonarrative dissonance just because the protagonists are killing an army's worth of enemies in gameplay while not doing it in the cutscenes/story. Bioshock is the actual game that caused the coining of the term due to Bioshock actually having an gameplay mechanic (little sisters) allowing the player engage with the theme (objectivism) of the game while other gameplay doesn't allow for that (like not being able to disobey Atlas for selfish/objectivist desires).

 

[Saelune]

I believe Fallout 4 is a good example of it. The plot is you're a 'recently' widowed parent of an infant who was kidnapped in a nuclear apocalypse, and you will stop at NOTHING to find them and save them...well, after you build all these settlements, join the Brotherhood of Steel, become a raider, hang out on an island with a robot, and spend thousands of hours doing fuckall.


I mean, Skyrim atleast I feel it is more reasonable to meander while Dragons fly around, but it feels wrong to do anything but the main plot in FO4 until you find Shaun.

 

[Bad Jim]

Bioshock is the actual game that caused the coining of the term due to Bioshock actually having an gameplay mechanic (little sisters) allowing the player engage with the theme (objectivism) of the game while other gameplay doesn't allow for that (like not being able to disobey Atlas for selfish/objectivist desires).

Or that we see society tearing itself apart by freely pursuing individual self interest, yet the game rewards saving the little sisters more than harvesting them, so our own self interest is in doing the right thing. This isn't a secret either, Tenenbaum tells you she'll reward you somehow.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I believe Fallout 4 is a good example of it. The plot is you're a 'recently' widowed parent of an infant who was kidnapped in a nuclear apocalypse, and you will stop at NOTHING to find them and save them...well, after you build all these settlements, join the Brotherhood of Steel, become a raider, hang out on an island with a robot, and spend thousands of hours doing fuckall.


I mean, Skyrim atleast I feel it is more reasonable to meander while Dragons fly around, but it feels wrong to do anything but the main plot in FO4 until you find Shaun.

That's not ludonarrative dissonance. If that was almost every open world game has ludonarrative dissonance then. The creator of the term states you need a gameplay mechanic that lets you "exercise" the theme of the game and then other gameplay that forbids exercising that theme. Fallout 4 would need some sorta gameplay that involves being a good parent (like say role-playing options to do right with other kids) and then say forcing you to be a bad parent by having to do X amount of sidequests before you can continue the main quest of finding your child. I haven't played Fallout 4 but I don't think it has either (especially not the latter).

Bioshock is the actual game that caused the coining of the term due to Bioshock actually having an gameplay mechanic (little sisters) allowing the player engage with the theme (objectivism) of the game while other gameplay doesn't allow for that (like not being able to disobey Atlas for selfish/objectivist desires).

Or that we see society tearing itself apart by freely pursuing individual self interest, yet the game rewards saving the little sisters more than harvesting them, so our own self interest is in doing the right thing. This isn't a secret either, Tenenbaum tells you she'll reward you somehow.

I can see that argument but I'm not the one who coined the term and criticized Bioshock. I'm just pointing out the requirements for ludonarrative dissonance to be valid criticism for a game vs having my own personal criticisms that Bioshock does indeed have it. I'm not 100% sure on whether you get more Adam from saving the little sisters or not but you don't know what your reward from Tenenbaum will be or when you'll get it either so you will get more Adam at that time if you don't save the little sisters.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Ludonarrative dissonance means the world is ending but I have to bring some dude 20 goat hides.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

As far as I've understood Ludonarrative dissonance it is the problem that occurs when a game wants to drive home a message, yet the gameplay directly contradicts it. A good example would be a game that has the message that violence is bad and should not be a way to solve conflicts, yet the core gameplay loop is all about beating people up.

As a side point, re-reading the blog [http://clicknothing.typepad.com/click_nothing/2007/10/ludonarrative-d.html] that launched the term, I can't help but think that the writer misunderstood both BioShock and Objectivism. Objectivism never says it is wrong to help someone, only that it is wrong to help someone if helping them goes against your self-interest. But what Atlas offers is a simple deal, "help me stop Ryan and I will get out of Rapture" (the game also makes clear that Ryan is the one who prevents everyone from leaving, so stopping Ryan is also in Jack's interest). You could still probably make a case of ludonarrative dissonance against BioShock, but it would have to be the part after you confront Ryan, because that's when the story and players desires really start to break down. Prior to that, the dissonance is at least part of the intended effect and is needed to make Ryan's speech work.

 

[sXeth]

I believe Fallout 4 is a good example of it. The plot is you're a 'recently' widowed parent of an infant who was kidnapped in a nuclear apocalypse, and you will stop at NOTHING to find them and save them...well, after you build all these settlements, join the Brotherhood of Steel, become a raider, hang out on an island with a robot, and spend thousands of hours doing fuckall.


I mean, Skyrim atleast I feel it is more reasonable to meander while Dragons fly around, but it feels wrong to do anything but the main plot in FO4 until you find Shaun.

That's not ludonarrative dissonance. If that was almost every open world game has ludonarrative dissonance then. The creator of the term states you need a gameplay mechanic that lets you "exercise" the theme of the game and then other gameplay that forbids exercising that theme. Fallout 4 would need some sorta gameplay that involves being a good parent (like say role-playing options to do right with other kids) and then say forcing you to be a bad parent by having to do X amount of sidequests before you can continue the main quest of finding your child. I haven't played Fallout 4 but I don't think it has either (especially not the latter).

The Fallout 4 parent-arc isn't the theme of the game or the story though, its just meant to be the call to adventure for your basic hero's journey. Where it fails vs Skyrim is that the Survivor chooses to embark on his "quest". The Dragonborn is just kind of a dude that Talos (or whatever) decided to make the chosen one, and the choice of whether to embrace that or not is left to the player.

The wider theme for Fallout 4 is about technology and potential misuse, and whether AI's could become actual persons. It still has a bit of that "You can do anything so nothing has consequence" Bethesda-sandbox-junk hanging off it, but that is where the general arcs of the game align themselves, even into side missions. Granted, outside of a handful of faction or quest specific gear bits, there isn't any real forced mechanical difference. An argument could be made for the Settlements reflecting the idea. If you side with the Minutemen and embrace rebuilding the Wasteland with old fashioned farming and such, there's mechanical support for that. But there's no real similar option with the other three factions.

As Skyrim's themes go, who knows. It never really locks onto anything at all. Its got a few half hints but they're all off in sidequests. The Civil War stuff was probably the closest it got, but that's either half-assed or got cut for the 11/11/11 deadline and never really resolves in any meaningful way.

 

[Bad Jim]

I'm not 100% sure on whether you get more Adam from saving the little sisters or not but you don't know what your reward from Tenenbaum will be or when you'll get it either so you will get more Adam at that time if you don't save the little sisters.

Little sisters are worth 160 ADAM if harvested and 80 ADAM if rescued. You also get a gift that includes 200 ADAM for every three rescued. So three sisters are worth 480 ADAM if harvested but only 440 ADAM if rescued. However, five of the seven gifts(there are 21 sisters) include a plasmid or tonic that you can't get anywhere else, and the gifts also include ammo and health kits.

So you lose ~10% of your ADAM but get a bunch of neat extras. It's a good deal.

As for whether you know what your reward will be, well technically you don't. But in games, the sort of vague promise that Tenenbaum gives is almost always worth checking out. And once you get your second or third gift you should be able to see that the rewards are pretty good.

 

[jademunky]

Ludonarrative dissonance means the world is ending but I have to bring some dude 20 goat hides.

Well potentially the goat hides are used to upholster the seats of the spaceship that will be used to stop the meteor about to slam into the planet.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

I don't use the term because using it means you're way overthinking things.

 

[Pseudonym]

The first rebooted tomb raider is still a pretty good example because the killing an army of dudes makes no sense given the characterization of Lara Croft in that game and it gets kind of jarring. Not as jarring as the main character or the linear gameplay, but still. In any case, I don't really care about the exact semantics of why your (yes, reader, your) favorite game isn't all that good. So when the gameplay and the story don't go well together, I'll call that ludonarrative dissonance if I feel like it, and I am not going to listen to this bullshit semantics.

I might sound a bit flippant here but honestly the people complaining about the supposed misuse of the term often seem to bring this up as a diversion from what is interesting or they seem to prefer the word and associated concept not be used at all. I kind of get it, because there are other phrases whose misuse annoy me ('this begs the question'? No, it raises it, or, probably more accurately, you inanely raised it out of nowhere) but bringing up language errors usually don't help discussion all that much.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I thought the dissonance was between story and gameplay, ie Lara having literally never held a gun in her life during a cutscene, then in gameplay she has someone with 20+ years of shooting gameplay experience instantly kill every bad guy with headshots in seconds.

Things that don't add up, where the story and the gameplay aren't in sync.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

As for whether you know what your reward will be, well technically you don't. But in games, the sort of vague promise that Tenenbaum gives is almost always worth checking out. And once you get your second or third gift you should be able to see that the rewards are pretty good.

I personally don't "meta" games like in Mass Effect I always made decisions based on Shepard's/my current known knowledge vs situations where I know the plot couldn't go a certain way. Thus, I killed a certain character just based on what I felt was the right decision at that time even though I knew the game wouldn't railroad people for not killing them.

The first rebooted tomb raider is still a pretty good example because the killing an army of dudes makes no sense given the characterization of Lara Croft in that game and it gets kind of jarring. Not as jarring as the main character or the linear gameplay, but still. In any case, I don't really care about the exact semantics of why your (yes, reader, your) favorite game isn't all that good. So when the gameplay and the story don't go well together, I'll call that ludonarrative dissonance if I feel like it, and I am not going to listen to this bullshit semantics.

I might sound a bit flippant here but honestly the people complaining about the supposed misuse of the term often seem to bring this up as a diversion from what is interesting or they seem to prefer the word and associated concept not be used at all. I kind of get it, because there are other phrases whose misuse annoy me ('this begs the question'? No, it raises it, or, probably more accurately, you inanely raised it out of nowhere) but bringing up language errors usually don't help discussion all that much.

I actually brought it up because I thought it was interesting that "real" ludonarrative dissonance hardly exists because games rarely have gameplay mechanics associated with a game's theme, which is pretty disappointing when you think about it. It sorta points out why I feel video gaming is still such a young art form that hasn't come close to reaching its potential ceiling. Tomb Raider could at least be puzzle games (of the platforming and environmental variety) but they're just standard TPS adventure games.

I thought the dissonance was between story and gameplay, ie Lara having literally never held a gun in her life during a cutscene, then in gameplay she has someone with 20+ years of shooting gameplay experience instantly kill every bad guy with headshots in seconds.

Things that don't add up, where the story and the gameplay aren't in sync.

Yeah, that's what I thought from how other critics used the term, but it's not really close to that at all.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I feel like there's some unecessary purity at work here. Ludonarrative dissonance is simply a state in which gameplay and story contradict each other.

The reason why uncharted is often brought up in relation to ludonarrative dissonance is not because Nathan Drake kills a lot of people in gameplay and not in cutscenes. It's because the fact that Nathan Drake kills a lot of people in gameplay directly contradicts with his characterization as a likeable rogue. Story is telling you one thing about this character, and gameplay is telling you another.

This also extends down to small accidental levels. Let's say a game gives you a companion character who you can repeatedly shoot in the face, but the characters relationship to you remains the same even if you deliberately unload clip after clip into them. It doesn't mean games which do this are automatically the worst game ever, but it is immersion breaking, and that's because of ludonarrative dissonance.

Clint Hocking's original article actually strikes me as a bit more tenuous. Mainly, because I'm not actually sure it is a critique of Bioshock. If anything, it is deliberate foreshadowing of the biggest narrative twist in Bioshock's story. The fact that you have free choice in almost every aspect of the game except one might indeed take you out of the experience or be immersion breaking, but it is ultimately rewarded with a narrative payoff. If you felt like something was wrong here, guess what, you are completely correct!

Ultimately, Bioshock is not just a game about Objectivism. Its critique of Objectivism is mostly in the backstory and the relationship between Ryan and Fontaine. In Bioshock, you arrive in Rapture after it has already been destroyed. Objectivism has already failed. The pigs are running the farm. Jack's story, the story you are playing through, has far more to do with free will than objectivism, and although the two ultimately tie together ("a man chooses, a slave obeys") they never do so seamlessly.

Also, I seriously question the idea that the ludic contract of Bioshock is to simply "seek power and you will progress." Sure, it's a shooter with mild RPG elements and you want to level up your stats and become a boss so you can fight the hard enemies easier, but the game (and certainly the metagame of moral choice systems) is quite explicit in telling you that kindness will be rewarded. Even if that wasn't true, your environment and surroundings are a living testament to the failure of unrestrained selfishness. That is a part of the story.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The reason why uncharted is often brought up in relation to ludonarrative dissonance is not because Nathan Drake kills a lot of people in gameplay and not in cutscenes. It's because the fact that Nathan Drake kills a lot of people in gameplay directly contradicts with his characterization as a likeable rogue. Story is telling you one thing about this character, and gameplay is telling you another.

That's not really a contradiction, since all the people he kills are "bad guys". Characters like Han Solo and Indiana Jones are still likeable and they kill tons of people, too.

I'd be a contradiction if he was overly cruel and bloodthirsty in combat, or presented as a pacifist in cutscenes. But nothing about the storytelling gives the impression Drake isn't someone who gets his hands dirty.

People who cry luddo-whatchamacallit regarding Uncharted misunderstand the tone of the games. It's summer blockbuster fun where the hero gets to shoot goons and gets away with it, gets the girl at the end, and doesn't suffer any lasting physical or mental distress. It's not Saving Private Ryan or Sicario.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I feel like there's some unecessary purity at work here. Ludonarrative dissonance is simply a state in which gameplay and story contradict each other.

Clint Hocking's original article actually strikes me as a bit more tenuous. Mainly, because I'm not actually sure it is a critique of Bioshock. If anything, it is deliberate foreshadowing of the biggest narrative twist in Bioshock's story. The fact that you have free choice in almost every aspect of the game except one might indeed take you out of the experience or be immersion breaking, but it is ultimately rewarded with a narrative payoff. If you felt like something was wrong here, guess what, you are completely correct!

Ultimately, Bioshock is not just a game about Objectivism. Its critique of Objectivism is mostly in the backstory and the relationship between Ryan and Fontaine. In Bioshock, you arrive in Rapture after it has already been destroyed. Objectivism has already failed. The pigs are running the farm. Jack's story, the story you are playing through, has far more to do with free will than objectivism, and although the two ultimately tie together ("a man chooses, a slave obeys") they never do so seamlessly.

Also, I seriously question the idea that the ludic contract of Bioshock is to simply "seek power and you will progress." Sure, it's a shooter with mild RPG elements and you want to level up your stats and become a boss so you can fight the hard enemies easier, but the game (and certainly the metagame of moral choice systems) is quite explicit in telling you that kindness will be rewarded. Even if that wasn't true, your environment and surroundings are a living testament to the failure of unrestrained selfishness. That is a part of the story.

But that's not what LD is according to the person that 1st coined it. It's like saying that Hello Kitty is a cat when the creator said it's a girl.

You may find Hocking's criticism of Bioshock wrong, I don't really care, but the LD term is very specifically defined even if applied wrong. I couldn't care less if Bioshock is an example of LD or not, I personally found it the most nonsensical assassination plot I've ever seen. Plus MGS2 did what Bioshock did before it and better IMO.

 

[Drathnoxis]

But that's not what LD is according to the person that 1st coined it. It's like saying that Hello Kitty is a cat when the creator said it's a girl.

You may find Hocking's criticism of Bioshock wrong, I don't really care, but the LD term is very specifically defined even if applied wrong. I couldn't care less if Bioshock is an example of LD or not, I personally found it the most nonsensical assassination plot I've ever seen. Plus MGS2 did what Bioshock did before it and better IMO.

wut. What is that even supposed to mean? Cat ears, cat whiskers, cat nose, named kitty... not a cat. I can only conclude this is the result of some sort of language barrier or something.

Regardless, just because you create something doesn't mean that you are the sole arbiter of it's meaning. Words change as they are used, works may have implications that the author didn't intend or notice, or messages that the author may have meant to convey were handled poorly and lost. Just because you say a thing is supposed to mean something does not make it true. Anything that isn't actually contained within a text cannot be applied to the interpretation of that text. What the author meant, or intended doesn't actually count.

The definition that Hocking uses doesn't actually seem to be very useful. He barely uses the gameplay in any part of his analysis, leading me to wonder what he actually means by 'ludic'. Most of what he talks about in the ludic contract are narrative themes, because I can't imagine how he manages to conflate FPS shooting mechanics with Randian Objectivism. He says "The rules of the game say 'it is best if I do what is best for me without consideration for others'," which is provably false, since helping the little sisters is the better option from a gameplay perspective. I don't really get where he pulls 'seek power and you will progress' from either, because the rpg elements are pretty light.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I couldn't care less if Bioshock is an example of LD or not, I personally found it the most nonsensical assassination plot I've ever seen.

The assassination plot itself actually makes perfect sense if you pay attention to the build-up. Ryan has secluded himself in his own building and has set his defenses to attack anyone that's not him on a genetic level. Hence, no one can get in but Ryan himself, or a clone of Ryan. So Fontaine creates a clone of Ryan and makes sure it is perfectly obedient then set it off to kill Ryan, while providing it with both explicit instructions and a personal motivation to want to do it (namely escape Rapture). One might suggest that this is not the greatest writing ever, but it is functional enough.

Plus MGS2 did what Bioshock did before it and better IMO.

Did it? It was a long time since I played MGS2, but my take away from MGS2 was that it had a message about player expectations (that we won't like playing the same story over and over and that creators should do what they want to do) and a narrative theme about how VR-training erases the lines between the real world and imaginary ones. Bioshocks big reveal is a deconstruction of the railroaded player experience and how games are expected to lead us by the nose. They don't really strike me as very similar, apart from both being deconstructions of the gaming medium.

 

[Dalisclock]

The assassination plot itself actually makes perfect sense if you pay attention to the build-up. Ryan has secluded himself in his own building and has set his defenses to attack anyone that's not him on a genetic level. Hence, no one can get in but Ryan himself, or a clone of Ryan. So Fontaine creates a clone of Ryan and makes sure it is perfectly obedient then set it off to kill Ryan, while providing it with both explicit instructions and a personal motivation to want to do it (namely escape Rapture). One might suggest that this is not the greatest writing ever, but it is functional enough.

Honestly, what got me was the realization that Jack is essentially a 1 year old who was somehow quickly aged to adulthood....and somehow has enough life experience despite this to pass as a functioning adult.

As opposed to an actual one year old who craps their pants multiple times per day, gets food everywhere while eating and might be able to walk like a tiny T-Rex. So apparently Fontaine not only perfected cloning, accelerated aging without noticeable side effects but also managed to train a baby to act like an adult inside of a year. Including apparently some approximation of an entire lifetime of memories as opposed to "Why don't I have any memories more then a year old" he should have?

Which begs the question why he isn't an obscenely rich biotech mogul on the surface instead of slumming it down in rapture?

Did it? It was a long time since I played MGS2, but my take away from MGS2 was that it had a message about player expectations (that we won't like playing the same story over and over and that creators should do what they want to do) and a narrative theme about how VR-training erases the lines between the real world and imaginary ones. Bioshocks big reveal is a deconstruction of the railroaded player experience and how games are expected to lead us by the nose. They don't really strike me as very similar, apart from both being deconstructions of the gaming medium.

I think he was referring to the idea of manipulating the character and the player through selective information and proper context(though Raiden is fairly gullible at times, refusing to ask what would seem like obvious questions and taking a really long time to realize he's never actually met his CO in person). Raiden is led by the nose probably at least as much as Jack is and have both have been groomed all their lives for a particular purpose.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

But that's not what LD is according to the person that 1st coined it. It's like saying that Hello Kitty is a cat when the creator said it's a girl.

You may find Hocking's criticism of Bioshock wrong, I don't really care, but the LD term is very specifically defined even if applied wrong. I couldn't care less if Bioshock is an example of LD or not, I personally found it the most nonsensical assassination plot I've ever seen. Plus MGS2 did what Bioshock did before it and better IMO.

wut. What is that even supposed to mean? Cat ears, cat whiskers, cat nose, named kitty... not a cat. I can only conclude this is the result of some sort of language barrier or something.

Regardless, just because you create something doesn't mean that you are the sole arbiter of it's meaning. Words change as they are used, works may have implications that the author didn't intend or notice, or messages that the author may have meant to convey were handled poorly and lost. Just because you say a thing is supposed to mean something does not make it true. Anything that isn't actually contained within a text cannot be applied to the interpretation of that text. What the author meant, or intended doesn't actually count.

The definition that Hocking uses doesn't actually seem to be very useful. He barely uses the gameplay in any part of his analysis, leading me to wonder what he actually means by 'ludic'. Most of what he talks about in the ludic contract are narrative themes, because I can't imagine how he manages to conflate FPS shooting mechanics with Randian Objectivism. He says "The rules of the game say 'it is best if I do what is best for me without consideration for others'," which is provably false, since helping the little sisters is the better option from a gameplay perspective. I don't really get where he pulls 'seek power and you will progress' from either, because the rpg elements are pretty light.

I'm almost positive it's not a translation issue, Hello Kitty is a girl not a cat. I love cats myself but never was even somewhat interested in Hello Kitty so that revelation made perfect sense to me. Anyways...

Like I said his analysis may be flawed but his definition of LD is pretty specific and well-defined. The game allowed for him to exercise its theme through gameplay (the little sisters), then another part of gameplay (forced helping of Atlas) didn't allow for exercising said theme. You can argue what the game's theme is and what objectivism itself actually is so you can say Bioshock doesn't have any LD, but the fact is term was defined very specifically. So a game needs to have its theme be able to be expressed via gameplay (1st trigger) and then another element of gameplay to contradict that by forcefully not allowing the expression of the said theme (2nd trigger). Barely any games will even have LD because rarely does a game ever allow the player to exercise the its themes through gameplay.

I couldn't care less if Bioshock is an example of LD or not, I personally found it the most nonsensical assassination plot I've ever seen.

The assassination plot itself actually makes perfect sense if you pay attention to the build-up. Ryan has secluded himself in his own building and has set his defenses to attack anyone that's not him on a genetic level. Hence, no one can get in but Ryan himself, or a clone of Ryan. So Fontaine creates a clone of Ryan and makes sure it is perfectly obedient then set it off to kill Ryan, while providing it with both explicit instructions and a personal motivation to want to do it (namely escape Rapture). One might suggest that this is not the greatest writing ever, but it is functional enough.

Plus MGS2 did what Bioshock did before it and better IMO.

Did it? It was a long time since I played MGS2, but my take away from MGS2 was that it had a message about player expectations (that we won't like playing the same story over and over and that creators should do what they want to do) and a narrative theme about how VR-training erases the lines between the real world and imaginary ones. Bioshocks big reveal is a deconstruction of the railroaded player experience and how games are expected to lead us by the nose. They don't really strike me as very similar, apart from both being deconstructions of the gaming medium.

The vita-chambers basically ruin the whole plot. And no, you can't just be like that's game-y thing that just serves as respawn-type mechanic. If you remove the vita-chambers from the game and plot, then it's a wholly idiotic plan to have someone be your assassin in a world they know nothing about with no training or anything while having no powers to battle their way through enemies that do have powers. Sure if you can get Jack to Ryan's secure area, it's not a bad plan but the journey there is far far from a walk-in-the-park and Jack is like the worst man for that part of the job. If vita-chambers are indeed part of the game world and plot, then you really can't kill Ryan because he'll just respawn, but it at least makes Jake the perfect candidate to get to Ryan because he can't die. It's totally Ryan's decision to die vs the assassin actually killing him. Thus, regardless of the vita-chamber situation (part of Rapture or just some game-y element to ignore), Jack is only a good candidate for half the job. Just poisoning Ryan's food supply is a much better assassination plan because vita-chambers don't work on sicknesses, which Fontaine probably either knows or could find out because he's all up on the cloning and security systems.

Pretty much what Dalisclock said about MGS2.

I think he was referring to the idea of manipulating the character and the player through selective information and proper context(though Raiden is fairly gullible at times, refusing to ask what would seem like obvious questions and taking a really long time to realize he's never actually met his CO in person). Raiden is led by the nose probably at least as much as Jack is and have both have been groomed all their lives for a particular purpose.

Pretty much that. And MGS2 has become even more relevant and basically predicted today's world in many ways.