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The Last of Us 2


Kurshok

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6 minutes ago, Abusimplea said:

Obviously, violent games - and making that games - isn't for everyone. It never was and never will be. I don't see that as a problem.

Again, you say that as if this was a kind of constant, while it's not. You should be able to find 'making of' movies for classic Mortal Kombat games, they are as hilarious and ridiculous as the actual violence in the game. It differs vastly from what developers are asked for to complete their tasks today. This is an evolving phenomenon, and same thing applies to audience reactions. Higher fidelity and more aggressive violence result in more questions about meaningful context.

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1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

Higher fidelity and more aggressive violence result in more questions about meaningful context.

I would very well like a significant part of the mainstream to finally start considering thinking about asking for any meaningful context in games at all. But i really doubt, that will happen soon...

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Well, this was depressing. I suppose good fiction is meant to evoke strong emotions and not necessarily good ones, but when I finished this last night it took a while to shake off the mood of futility. Worth playing but lots of frustration and slow slow scenes you're forced to plod through. That toy arrow game with Owen and the absurd guitar strum were crazy. Puzzles are ok when you know what you need to do and have to figure out how to do it, but so often I didn't, and finally I didn't care. I used 'skip puzzle' entirely after the first few.

The freedom of multi-choice open world games like Thief, Dark Mod, and Fallout 4 have spoilt me for this type of corridor game. It feels like acting scenes in a movie. You're allowed to ad lib a tiny amount (move left round a crate instead of right) but if you act out the scene wrong then the director shouts 'cut' and you have to perform another take over and over. In fact, as with the LOU1, I'd rather have watched it as an edited-down movie (I did download a full walkthrough video at the time but it failed to play on my system so I had to persist in the game to see how it panned out.)

Still, LOU2 must have something going for it or I wouldn't have kept going (despite abandoning it overnight at least twice and swearing never again!) It's kind of a must-play - though it feels like a gun at your head. Maybe it was just the £54 I paid and wanted my moneysworth. No, that's not fair, there are LOTS of good events in the claimed 30 hours of this game (I clocked 29 in the game saves but I played on the 'easiest' level (it's not - parts are REALLY hard except for hardcore enthusiasts maybe and I had to use a couple of walkthoughs for two combat scenes which seemed impossible and took 40 or 50 retakes before I got through.) Looking back at my start gamesave date it took me eight days of say two or three hours a day. Eh? That can't be right. It's definitely eight days and I reckon I must have played at least double the 29 hours of gamesaves. Call it 64 hours, that's 8 hours a day? Seems impossible. I know I played it a lot but... No, must be the fixed scenes take up so much of the time, and I only played over and over the awkward checkpoints... even so, I must have played 5 or 6 hours a day? Wow.

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Something I notice with almost every modern game these days. They're playing like a movie. I bought the highly praised Resident Evil 7 in the Steam Summer sale, for example, and, it really kind of annoyed me in the first hour with so many things where I just helplessly sit there, and can't do anything about so many things. Think I really prefer it the way it used to be in games, that you are the master of what's happening on the screen, not the game. 

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3 hours ago, Fidcal said:

 the £54 I paid and wanted my moneysworth.

Piracy-global-warming.jpg.522cd9c04abae432c76f9e42e7a77e1e.jpg

Edited by Anderson
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"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 6/28/2020 at 2:47 PM, chakkman said:

I hope that that is supposed to be a joke. You can never be sure these days. :D

 

On 6/28/2020 at 9:15 PM, Abusimplea said:

Not a joke - just outdated. Nobody still drives around and buys CDs. It is all online now.
But a SkidRow subscription still is the most reliable source for games without DRM (GOG comes next).

To finish this mini-subject. You may rephrase the sentence - but the message will be the same:

 

downloading death star plans is piracy.jpg

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"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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On 6/23/2020 at 5:18 PM, Amadeus said:

The Invoke Prejudice card in particular is problematic for several reasons,

Woke Myth number 1: depicting something is the same as endorsing it

The card is literally called "Invoke Prejudice". Prejudice is a bad thing. It is not called "Nice people with hoods doing good things that we support". The card is a reference to something bad, and the accompanying artwork is intended to depict that bad thing. There are also cards called Murder and Public Execution but I've never heard anyone suggest that these should be removed because they somehow endorse murders and public executions.

For some reason, however, when it comes to prejudice and racism the rules are different, so that simply describing, explaining or depicting it in media is somehow considered tacit approval which needs to be censored and apologised for.

On 6/23/2020 at 5:18 PM, Amadeus said:

one being because of its illustrator Harold McNeill, whose portfolio is very clearly filled with Nazi-style artwork. It's definitely not hard to see the common theme in his artwork.  The card itself was internally coded as "1488" (being a favorite number among neo-nazi fuck bags), so I can see why Wizards decided to axe this particular card. EDIT: And out of morbid curiosity just now, I didn't have to scroll far on McNeill's facebook page to see a positive reference to the Iron Cross.... yeah, I think MTG is better off without him or his cards

Woke Myth number 2: the moral behaviour of creators somehow infects their creations (and might infect the audience too)

This is the idea that we need to ban films by Roman Polanski because he might have been a child abuser, or that we should stop using space rockets because they were invented by the Nazis. Aside from being ridiculous in itself — problematic political views are not viruses that infect artwork and spread to viewers of that artwork — it is also a completely unsustainable in practice.

Here's a trivial example: do you use an Android or an Apple smartphone? How many programmers and graphics designers do you think have contributed code and artwork to the functionality of that phone? Probably thousands, if not tens of thousands. Are you going to track down every one of those people and interrogate them about their political views, then insist that their contributions are removed if they fail to say the correct things about various woke causes? Once you decide to go down this "fruit of the poisoned tree" rabbit hole you will soon find that you have to ban pretty much everything.

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Woke Myth number 2: the moral behaviour of creators somehow infects their creations (and might infect the audience too)

It's not a myth and the situation is more complex than you might suggest, as there's no objective method that would prove true for every author and every work. Some works can be distanced more easily than others, that's why we typically judge it on case-by-case basis. Thus we don't ban Polanski's films, we even do preserve e.g. facist propaganda photography or films, so we have historical insight into that era.

But one obvious and easily missed area here is a personal choice. I choose not to buy any Rockstar Game from now on, because I don't want to hear about some guy doing overtime work just to make the horses' balls shrink during in-game cold weather. I don't want people working on Mortal Kombat get PTSD. I don't want to make manchildren developers think they're deep and good at mature themes, the way they did it in TLoU2. So I don't buy these products.

Does it make me a hypocrite, because I still buy everyday things made in Chinese sweathsops? Sure, obviously, it's impossible to live a life being always correct and not being a hypocrite from time to time, even if you really try not to. But that doesn't make trying to get better at these things pointless. Especially since we're talking about entertainment and luxury products, this is easily disposable or replaceable stuff.

Edited by peter_spy
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5 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

The card is literally called "Invoke Prejudice". Prejudice is a bad thing. It is not called "Nice people with hoods doing good things that we support". The card is a reference to something bad, and the accompanying artwork is intended to depict that bad thing.

This is in a fair point, and in a vacuum, I could see the argument for Wizards of the Coast going over the top with this one. Personally, I think the artwork of that card is actually pretty cool, but once I learned of the artist's history, it does spoil it a bit for me. As a company , WoTC has the right to do whatever the hell they want with the artwork (that they typically hold full rights to) they hire the artists for. And when you view that particular card through the lens of "Harold McNeill, as it turns out, is a nazi-loving shitbag," yeah, I can see how a company would put two and two together regarding "Invoke Prejudice" and want to distance themselves from it. Not really that much of a stretch...

5 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

There are also cards called Murder and Public Execution but I've never heard anyone suggest that these should be removed because they somehow endorse murders and public executions.

Actually, you're wrong here. Several people throughout the decades have criticized Magic The Gathering ever since it first started. A fair bit of bored parent organizations thought that WoTC promoted black magic and was teaching kids how to worship satan, murder their parents, and other nonsense.  And of course, the Church had several negative opinions about it and just chalked it up as another sign of the "mOrAl DeCaY oF oUr SoCiEtY". These arguments back then had nothing to do with the current events that fill our newsfeed today, these were all arguments centered around Satanic Panic. But to go back to those particular cards you pointed out: "Murder" and "Public Execution" were both redone by artists who DON'T have an overt history of publicly displaying their neo-nazi fandom, nor do these two artists openly discuss how they would like to murder or publicly execute people, so we can safely suspend our disbelief and assume this is all fantasy, much like we do when we read a Stephen King book or watch how Ramsey Bolton rapes and murders other characters in Game of Thrones. But when an artist starts publicly supporting their love of a fascist regime that has a long history of publicly executing a particular race of people, suddenly the hoods drawn on their cards accompanied with words like "Invoke predujice" stop being fantasy and start to appear like a message.

And as for your Apple/Android argument, yeah, unfortunately it is near impossible to not be a hypocrite in what you purchase and who you support. That is the unintended side affect of globalization. Anarchists will continue purchasing spraypaint from Home Depot (and simply use federal legal tender), women's rights activists will continue donating to the awful Susan B Kommen foundation, and vegans will continually purchase items made from animals (like most plastics!). Everyone on this earth is a hypocrite in one way or another, but Peter_Spy nailed it: "that doesn't  make trying to get better at these things pointless." So whenever i see or learn about an overt display of neo-nazism (as with the case of Mr. McNeill), yeah, I'm fine with having his works tossed into the dumpster of obscurity and forgotten. But then, of course, a statement like this typically inspires the next faulty argument "But muh history!!! How will we remember history???). Well, that's what history books are for. Everyone remembers what happened in the former East Germany after the Berlin Wall was destroyed with sledgehammers. It's not like everyone forgot about the awful things the nazi's did when Berlin was laid to siege and every flag and swastika-riddled monument was strapped with explosive and detonated. We don't need statues of Pol Pot to remind us that he was a massive fuckbag who murdered over seven million people. And in the case of this one dude's artwork? Yeah... I think the world will find a way to move on from its absence.

 

Edited by Amadeus
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when an artist starts publicly supporting their love of a fascist regime that has a long history of publicly executing a particular race of people, suddenly the hoods drawn on their cards accompanied with words like "Invoke predujice" stop being fantasy and start to appear like a message.


And what would that message be, especially considering that the artist doesn't choose the words on the card? 

 

This line of thinking leads to some obvious questions:

Should game companies now include a questionnaire for potential artists to fill out, to make sure they don't have any problematic opinions before hiring them?

How much do you know about the creators of TDM, and how much should their views impact your enjoyment of the game? 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Springheel said:

Should game companies now include a questionnaire for potential artists to fill out, to make sure they don't have any problematic opinions before hiring them?

I wouldn't be surprised if that is already happening. At least when I take a look at all those modern games always trying to force a political message on the consumers of their "entertaining" art. Nowadays games are full of that.

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28 minutes ago, Springheel said:

And what would that message be, especially considering that the artist doesn't choose the words on the card? 

You're right, artists don't choose the text, nor do they choose the Gatherer ID that goes along with it (in this case it was 1488). 

 

28 minutes ago, Springheel said:

Should game companies now include a questionnaire for potential artists to fill out, to make sure they don't have any problematic opinions before hiring them?

 

I'm sure Wizards is now being a lot more careful about who they accept art from. It's their choice who they want to accept artwork from and it is also their choice (and right) to remove content they own that they don't like. They decided that the art they purchased from McNeill no longer aligns with their values so they did what they were allowed to do and removed it. 

 

 

28 minutes ago, Springheel said:

How much do you know about the creators of TDM, and how much should their views impact your enjoyment of the game?

Like I said, we are all hypocrites, myself included and I'll still enjoy TDM. And I still think space travel is cool even though the rockets were designed and built by Nazi scientists (Operation Paperclip is a wild bit of history). But no one on these forums is constantly and loudly spouting off how much they like lynching Black people or how much they think that Hitler "really wasn't a bad guy". If that started happening and became the culture around here, then yeah, I'd probably move elsewhere.

Edited by Amadeus
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18 minutes ago, Springheel said:

How much do you know about the creators of TDM, and how much should their views impact your enjoyment of the game? 

IMO again this is more of a personal choice than a general rule we can apply universally to everything. So far I know of one conspiracy nut, and I really don't like one FM maker, so I don't play his FMs. But I haven't learnt anything about TDM team yet that made me stop using the engine (either as a player or content creator).

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58 minutes ago, Amadeus said:

Like I said, we are all hypocrites, myself included and I'll still enjoy TDM. And I still think space travel is cool even though the rockets were designed and built by Nazi scientists 

???

What the heck? :D I don't see any connection at all between those two things, but, OK?...  

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8 minutes ago, chakkman said:

 I don't see any connection at all between those two things, but, OK?...  

This is a direct callback to Orbweaver's quote "...that we should stop using space rockets because they were invented by the Nazis" in reference to Springheel's comment about the creators of TDM and their views. I then acknowledged my own hypocrisy saying that I like both rocket technology and TDM despite the viewpoints of those who created it. If you can't see the connection, I suggest you reread the comments.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip#:~:text=Operation Paperclip was a secret,the United States%2C for U.S.

Operation Paperclip was a program spearheaded by the US government to "aggressively relocate" nazi scientists to the US to develop rocket technology after WWII. With the work of Wernher von Braun and several other German scientists, the US was able to rapidly accelerate just about every aspect of their military tech. The US did this to gain a head start in the arms race against Russia, and this program pretty much directly led to Americans being able to beat Russians to the moon. It's a really interesting part of history, but essentially, we only got to the moon when we did because the US kidnapped a bunch of really smart nazis

Edited by Amadeus
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And what is the connection between space rockets and nazi inventions? I still don't see it. Especially when you talk about space rockets these days. Also, you talk about a "bunch of really smart nazis". Especially among the scientists, I'm sure there have been many people whose motivations weren't on the ideological side. Just like the Russians in their communist days had many scientists who didn't do their job for hammer and sickle.

Again, though, if we're talking about modern day inventions, I don't see the connection at all.

BTW, my grandfather did invention work for the Luftwaffe. According to what you wrote, he has to be a nazi too. Although he was anything but.

First and foremost, all these people have been relocated because they're brilliant scientist. Actually, after WW 2, the Americans had high respect for the Wehrmacht, and for German science, which is the reason why they took advantage of the people involved. Just like America has taken advantage of Soviet defectors. Simple pragmatism.

Edited by chakkman
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5 minutes ago, chakkman said:

TW, my grandfather did invention work for the Luftwaffe. According to what you wrote, he has to be a nazi too. 

Not at all, my great grandfather was in the German military too during world war II, he wasn't actually a member of the Nazi party though, just like many German soldiers at the time. What I am saying is that most of these particular scientists were LITERAL card-carrying members of the Nazi party, such as Wernher von Braun.  A brief google search shows that Braun applied to be a member of the Nazi party on November 12, 1937 and was given membership number 5,738,692. I do understand the difference between a German citizen who either is or isn't a member of the Nazi party. And the majority of the scientists gathered  for Operation Paperclip were card-carrying members of the Nazi party. And as i said, their research into rocketry laid the foundation for us to land on the moon, which then laid out the foundation for modern rocket science today, which in the future will lay the groundwork for further advancements in the field.

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Well... if you think being a former member of the nazi party makes you a nazi, then think again. You HAD to be a member of the nazi party to make any kind of career. I highly doubt that every member of the nazi party actually was a nazi. No, I don't really doubt that, I know it. 

Easy to point the finger in the end. But, if you see it realistically, to be able to make a career in any kind of society, it's a necessity to apply to the rules and laws of the respective country. And, in oppressive regimes, you also have to conform to politics. Actually, not only in those.

What I always find funny in such discussions is that it's always about nazis though. If you take a look at Russia's history, then you'll see that Stalin not only murdered a lot more people than Hitler did, but also that the Russians don't hold their heads in shame for the rest of their lives, or get nearly as much attention, or a display of evil for the times in which Stalin reigned. It's most interesting that humans always seem to focus on one specific thing, while leaving the rest, which may be much more severe aside. I still have to figure out what's the psychology behind that. Maybe I'll find out one day. ;)

Not to talk about other countries, of course. China, Vietnam, America, England, Spain, Italy, Portugal... they all have dark times in their history. Yet almost noone ever speaks about those. Again, maybe I'll find out one day why people are so focus on one single thing. One single evil, one single hero. Pretty one dimensional.

Edited by chakkman
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2 minutes ago, chakkman said:

What I always find funny in such discussions is that it's always about nazis though.

This particular discussion is about nazi's only because someone mentioned a Magic the Gathering card called Invoke Prejudice, which was created by a self-affirmed neo nazi. Then the conversation carried on from there... so that is why we are talking about this now.  It's not like this came up out of the blue or at random....

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