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[PA Comic] Friday, September 26, 2014 - Aladdin’s Cave
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
[PA Comic] Friday, September 26, 2014 - Aladdin’s Cave
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It's that ancient tradition dating back to video gaming's infancy, known as the bonus level.
No, not the hidden levels where you get some extra story exposition and a weird challenge. I'm talking the ones that shower you with treasures, sometimes gleaned from a rush of easily-slain baddies. Much like this Aladdin's Cave.
Personally it seemed a really boring and short sighted way to get gear so I never did it.
The abuse of the Cave of Wonders didn't truly impact everyone negatively. It just made it so people who were willing to stand in front of a cave (there were other caves like it) for hours on end, could get more lotto tickets for a shot at legendary or better gear. Progression in the game is stilted anyway. The other part of the hotfix (no more shards if you DE legendary event drops) did fix what kind of borked progression.
Part of the reason why they did this was to beat the grind (rep grind + weekly currency cap makes turning to chance easier), and the confusion over the fact that because blue and purple engram drops only offered the chance of getting a blue or better drop. So you play normally, see a "YOU found a Legendary Engram" global and then get to the Cryptarch and it's a blue downgrade or something. That general sense of disappointment also drove a lot of people to do it. Other people just googled "how to level Destiny," saw "GET TO MAX WITH EASE" and figured it was the one true way.
There probably are also some weird people out there that probably found that to be genuinely entertaining.
Wait.
Back the fuck up.
In-game currency is called "Glimmer"???
You mean the cow level.
And honestly, I agree. Not exactly what I would call grade-A material.
I mean, hey, if you like all that exposition more power to you. Just saying I didn't care for it.
I know this isn't what you meant, and I can't vouch for or against (is it possible to vouch against something? hm) Destiny's dialogue. But in general, I would argue that having an in-game character tell you "what things are" is a terrible way to convey information. Having a voiceover do it is even worse. I realize that an MMO has a lot of setting information to communicate, but if you can't do it by demonstrating the various elements instead of telling about them, then your setting is probably too needlessly complicated. I'm looking at you, FFXIII.
You really have to imagine hearing it with Dinklage's delivery for the joke there to carry. Especially the "... - old, and dark." part.
Like holy shit that's bad. Second, the writing is lame. Take this line, for instance:
Yes that's the same line as above. But I mean come on. The joke in the comic is that he calls it "an ancient darkness - old, and dark." That's like saying "a terrible odor - bad, and smelly." It's redundant, pointless, and redundant.
So, if you imagine that pointless pablum repeated in Dinklage's uninterested monotone, you get the joke.
Edit: lol just listen to this shit
Also
Nothing specifically akin to that is uttered in the game.
Also the "He came from the moon." line was removed from the game before commercial release.
How do you expect a computer's intonation to sound, exactly?
The written dialogue is remarkably bad in this game. It's not just mediocre... it makes me cringe. The game's a lot of fun, though, in spite of this. It's hard to explain.
* (the lore doesn't really say... they are called "Ghosts", and they may actually be the rent souls of past lives, who knows? The game has wizards.)
Peter Dinklage has an incredible and expressive voice. But ever line in this game is delivered as if he's reading you the road signs during a long car trip.
"Cawker City Kansas, home to the World's Largest Ball of Twine. Fascinating."
I haven't really seen anyone complaining of inconsistency in the characterization, just stating that the voice acting is somehow objectively "bad" without being able to state why it is so.
I've happened to find the voice acting and story passingly interesting, considering it's pretty much irrelevant in a game of this type.
The dialogue has struck me as mostly matter-of-fact and only expressing what needs to be said with very small amounts of context and lore sprinkled about. These people are fighting a war for survival, not trying to be witty.
The sad part is that the lore actually is pretty interesting. They have somehow managed to turn the extraordinary into the mundane through the shoddy delivery of the lore. The fact that the Grimoire cards do not appear anywhere in the game is criminal. There's no reason you should be forced to go to an external app for that information. At the very least, they should have an internal web browser link in the game to jump you to that page online.
"I don't even have time to tell you why I don't have time to tell you."
I died.
I can't really think of any instances where it led to confusion. I doubt anyone is really left wondering what the deal with Rapture is. And for most games considered to have bad narratives, the complaint is never, "I wish that game hadn't been so subtle with its story." It's usually that the narrative is overemphasized, which highlights its bad quality (previously mentioned FFXIII) or that it's simply not bothered with--games where people interested in story simply wonder why their character is doing what they are doing. It's not because the game tried to show us and should have just flat out said it. It's because the developers never decided what the background or motivation was at all--it's simply not in the game.
If a game is not primarily plot driven, why should I have to hear this guy babbling over my gameplay all the time with poorly written stuff that isn't crucial to following what's going on?
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I was referring to the other characters and voices in the game besides the Ghost, I said "people" I don't consider the ghost a person, but an AI construct. Yes, he does have a quip usually at the end of a mission or something, but I fail to see how that makes him inconsistent in that an AI can attempt humor and wit and fail.
Bioshock Infinite begs to differ.
Correct, that isn't the complaint, the complaint is usually "What the hell was that supposed to mean!", "Wait, that's it?" or "wtf?" Then they rush to the internet for a plot analysis or to rant about how stupid and nonsensical it was.
Many times an exposition dump is better than muddled scenes or having to wander around and find inexplicable audio diaries.
I find it adds context, depth, and immersion to something that would otherwise be more bland.
Destiny started out as a fantasy game, so Bungie kept that theme when naming everything.(Even if they were about as generic as they could get)
Bioshock Infinite is a pretty incompetent game all around.
It's not fault of the advice "show, don't tell" that the game is as bad as it is.
If your plot is nonsensical and you have no idea what theme you're focusing on, there's no amount of vignettes and tour-de-force moments that'll save your story.
Is your story about racism? A cool sci-fi conceit? A father-daughter thingamabob? Survival horror? Hell if know.
Ordis from Warframe.
Cortana from the Halo franchise.
SHODAN from System Shock 2.
Hal from Space Odyssey 9000.
David from Prometheus.
Data from Star Trek: TNG.
AI's are a gold mine.
Peter Dinklage should be able to do something with that. Especially when you're an AI intelligent enough to wistfully muse about how exciting and wonderful it must've been to see the dream of human colonization back when.
You're really trying too hard to excuse how bad this is.
There just aren't a lot of seriously-written live action roles that require a man with dwarfism. Voice work gets around that.
So he lands a role to sell the setting of a triple-A title as its narrator and shows that he just doesn't respect the work.
Oy.
*And definitely framing it in terms of "you had your once chance to escape your crippling dwarfism and you fucked it up, you crazy person!" is pretty offensive.
I would have expected something like this from a start up studio.
Um, dude, Peter Dinklage is all of two years older than Nathan Fillion. One is 45, the other is 43.
Also, great comic.
Whoops. I stand corrected .