Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Mr. Vega on May 06, 2009, 08:14:38 pm
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This is really more of a follow up to the discussion Ace and I had on Planescape: Torment (since both games were written by Chris Avellone), but here goes.
I did play Planescape: Torment to it's conclusion, and my opinion of the ending was exactly what I predicted it would be. The revelation of the motives of the first incarnation of the Nameless One is so banal and cliched that it immediately sucks any air the story had left up to that point. The discovery that the Transcendent One was the lost mortality of the protagonist was very powerful and evocative, but ever since visiting the tomb of the catacombs it was clear that the real mystery was how the Nameless One had gotten to the point he had arrived at, especially how and why the original incarnation sought and gained immortality. And then you confront the three most common personality types of your countless numbers of incarnations at the Fortress of Regrets, and they are portrayed in a very simple and uninteresting manner; the Practical Incarnation is ruthless and selfish, the Paranoid Incarnation is, well, paranoid, and the Good Incarnation is simply good and remorseful. Extremely disappointing after all the complexity and subtlety that had come before. And then you find out that the first of you was the Good Incarnation, and you find out his motives for seeking immortality, which could have been guessed after about three tries at the beginning of the game...gah. That and the fact that approaching the end Avellone seems to be afraid to really try to answer the critical question "what can change the nature of a man?" and hides behind the player's freedom of choice. Those two decisions just destroy the power of the story. I mean, the game is just brilliant and inquisitive right through the confrontations with Ravel and Trias.....and then it just falls apart. The most disappointing gaming experience I have ever had.
So I really disliked Avellone for a while until I played KOTOR II. Mind you, the version of the game I base my opinion on uses a torrented mod by Team Gizka's that restores a lot of what Obsidian had written and even made full voice recordings for, before Lucasarts in their infinite wisdom bullied them to release the game for the holiday season before it was finished. It's not Avellone's fault the ending is still incomplete even after the restorations, and I've tried to make educated guesses as to what he meant to place in the gaps of the ending. But I digress.
The game still follows the familiar pattern of Torment; it asks intelligent, intriguing questions and doesn't quite have the guts (or the time) to answer them fully. The game is almost a deconstruction of the Star Wars mythos, in fact. The story primarily questions the codes of the Jedi, the Sith, and the existence and nature The Force itself. The flaws of the Sith are, of course, easy to understand, though Kreia also points out the strengths of the Sith as well. But that attacks on the Jedi code and Jedi morality are brilliant. It shows how the refusal of the Jedi to intervene in the Mandalorian Wars was not wise, it was suicidal, and how hesitating until one is sure of the right course of action can lead to the dark side as effectively as the worst examples of impatience and arrogance that the Jedi Masters so feared.
And most important, it asks questions about The Force that noone had dared to ask until now. Whether it is right for there to be a Force that dominates the free will of individuals and can doom them or save them. Whether it is right for there to be a Force that allows a Jedi or Sith to control the fate of the galaxy. If the Force is truly inseparable from life itself. If there would be much less suffering and misery if The Force did not exist. If a user of the Force can be so blinded by what The Force allows them to see that they ignore what is right in front of them. Whether a Jedi's study of the force has really made them more connected to life or if they have actually cut all of their real connections to others with their monastic and cloistered living style, sheltered from the day to day struggles of existence.
As the story progresses and it comes time to try to answer some of those questions, Avellone displays a bravery in his writing that I never saw in Torment. True, he never really gives an answer to the question of if the Jedi Code is wrong, then why is it wrong, and therefore what was the correct course of action during the Mandalorian Wars (or if there even was one), and I don't think that he was planning to answer it even if he was given the time to finish the game. But he gives answers to the smaller questions that give hints at the big picture, which is more than he ever did in Torment. And his questioning of The Force through Kreia, thank god, really did lead somewhere. The game showed how the Force can blind and obscure the truth, how the force might have a will independent from the life that spawns it, and even how life can turn away from the Force and not be itself extinguished, and thus destroy the Force outright.
My only real complaint is that by the end of the story we have no idea where to go from here. The movies, set thousands of years later, show a galaxy where the Force and Jedi are alive and well, where the Jedi code is still the path away from darkness. At the end of the Sith Lords things couldn't look grimmer; how did the Jedi reestablish themselves despite the disintegration of their beliefs, and why did they choose to embrace the Force again? Did they forget the lessons they had learned, or if not, were those lessons refuted in the years afterward? Or did they reach a new understanding of the Jedi Code and the Force that took what they had learned into account? I wanna know. That's why it has to be Obsidian that makes KOTOR3.
In conclusion, KOTOR2 is a flawed, incomplete story, but it still displays an intelligence and bravery in it's writing to the end, and thus redeems Mr. Avellone in my eyes. The combat is also much slower and more defensive oriented, to my satisfaction, and it's clear Obsidian squeezed every ounce of good gameplay they could out of the engine. My only other pet peeves are that HK-47 was too rationally witty and not as purely sociopathic as he was in the first game, and that the Disciple is a boring character and thus takes a lot of fun out of the female romance subplots.
And yes, I just wrote this whole thing about a little game. Oh well. It get obsessed with good stories in general and this is no exception. For those of you that made it to the end, thank you for enduring my writing style, and my apologies for boring you.
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Unfortunately there will be no KOTOR3. Just a stupid MMO.
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This is really more of a follow up to the discussion Ace and I had on Planescape: Torment (since both games were written by Chris Avellone), but here goes.
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The game still follows the familiar pattern of Torment; it asks intelligent, intriguing questions and doesn't quite have the guts (or the time) to answer them fully. The game is almost a deconstruction of the Star Wars mythos, in fact. The story primarily questions the codes of the Jedi, the Sith, and the existence and nature The Force itself. The flaws of the Sith are, of course, easy to understand, though Kreia also points out the strengths of the Sith as well. But that attacks on the Jedi code and Jedi morality are brilliant. It shows how the refusal of the Jedi to intervene in the Mandalorian Wars was not wise, it was suicidal, and how hesitating until one is sure of the right course of action can lead to the dark side as effectively as the worst examples of impatience and arrogance that the Jedi Masters so feared.
And most important, it asks questions about The Force that noone had dared to ask until now. Whether it is right for there to be a Force that dominates the free will of individuals and can doom them or save them. Whether it is right for there to be a Force that allows a Jedi or Sith to control the fate of the galaxy. If the Force is truly inseparable from life itself. If there would be much less suffering and misery if The Force did not exist. If a user of the Force can be so blinded by what The Force allows them to see that they ignore what is right in front of them. Whether a Jedi's study of the force has really made them more connected to life or if they have actually cut all of their real connections to others with their monastic and cloistered living style, sheltered from the day to day struggles of existence.
As the story progresses and it comes time to try to answer some of those questions, Avellone displays a bravery in his writing that I never saw in Torment. True, he never really gives an answer to the question of if the Jedi Code is wrong, then why is it wrong, and therefore what was the correct course of action during the Mandalorian Wars (or if there even was one), and I don't think that he was planning to answer it even if he was given the time to finish the game. But he answers to the smaller questions that give hints at the big picture, which is more than he ever did in Torment. And his questioning of The Force through Kreia, thank god, really did lead somewhere. The game showed how the Force can blind and obscure the truth, how the force might have a will independent from the life that spawns it, and even how life can turn away from the Force and not be itself extinguished, and thus destroy the Force outright.
These paragraphs essentially explain everything I loved about KOTORII despite it's incompleteness. I also never got to play a full version until I got my laptop, as it crashed on my home PCs. awesome.
It sounds silly, but sometimes when I feel I need a morality check myself, or at least an interesting philosophical perspective on decision making in general, I go back to this game to listen to the arguments it puts out there (and have some fun along the way.)
Unfortunately there will be no KOTOR3. Just a stupid MMO.
BLASPHEMER.
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If the Force is truly inseparable from life itself. If there would be much less suffering and misery if The Force did not exist.
I agree. If the Force were inseperable, and did not exist, by continuation, life does not exist. I can imagine there being a lot less suffering and misery if no-one nothing was there to experience it.
Ah, but that's just me being a nitpicky ass. Truly, the Jedi code is why I actually would prefer to be on the Mandalorians' side. There, morality isn't so much an issue as proficiency.
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I actually downloaded a beta version of the restoration mod that had been leaked without permission of the mod makers, but you can still use the updater to bring it to the most current build. I can't imagine going back to vanilla KOTOR2, just because the restored Dantooine is fantastic.
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If the Force is truly inseparable from life itself. If there would be much less suffering and misery if The Force did not exist.
I agree. If the Force were inseperable, and did not exist, by continuation, life does not exist. I can imagine there being a lot less suffering and misery if no-one nothing was there to experience it.
Well Kreia at the end doesn't seem to care if she kills every living being in the galaxy as long as the Force dies, but the whole point of the Exile's story was that you can sever yourself from the Force and still live.
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Well Kreia at the end doesn't seem to care if she kills every living being in the galaxy, but the whole point of the Exile's story was that you can sever yourself from the Force and still live.
Part 1: correct.
Part 2: I thought that the exile "severed" his/her connection to the force only to his/her own perceptions. To other people, she wasn't so much "severed" as quieter, harder to hear. As Visas says in one of the cutscenes "Sometimes I wonder if it has always been there, I merely could not hear it before." Added to that, the Sith are hunting the exile even before he/she "regains" her connection.
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Visas was referring to her perception of the dead spot in the force that is the Exile. She could still feel it just fine.
And Kreia at the end makes a point about how no Jedi previously had forsaken the force so completely and utterly as the Exile did after Malachor V. And remember when Master Vrook says on Dantooine, "You can feel the force, but you cannot feel yourself"? The connection was only superficially restored; the Exile can feel the Force and manipulate it, but it does not flow through and dominate her/him like every other living thing. There's a point where one can be deafened to the Force so much that it basically dies in them.
And the Sith (Sion anyway) were hunting the Exile only because Atris had given away the Exile's location to the Sith as bait.
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I don't want to say it wasn't a truly great story, but it didn't really hold the same impact for me. Maybe I was just going through the motions, enjoying the story without appreciating it. But honestly, my perception of the Force and the Jedi weren't really altered.
Comparatively, you've got the Republic Commando novel series. Not only did they completely change my view of the Jedi, I now actively dislike them!
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I actually really enjoyed playing KOTOR2 over and over again.... but I never ever finished it. Just got kinda boring at the end. Too linear, I say.
Comparatively, you've got the Republic Commando novel series. Not only did they completely change my view of the Jedi, I now actively dislike them!
Many fans are critical about the series, but I have to admit I'm starting to dislike Jedi, too. :P My only real complaint is that by the end of the story we have no idea where to go from here. The movies, set thousands of years later, show a galaxy where the Force and Jedi are alive and well, where the Jedi code is still the path away from darkness. At the end of the Sith Lords things couldn't look grimmer; how did the Jedi reestablish themselves despite the disintegration of their beliefs, and why did they choose to embrace the Force again? Did they forget the lessons they had learned, or if not, were those lessons refuted in the years afterward? Or did they reach a new understanding of the Jedi Code and the Force that took what they had learned into account? I wanna know. That's why it has to be Obsidian that makes KOTOR3.
I guess you could that every era in Star Wars had it's own set of morals...
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Buggy as all hell
Atton was a whiny *****.
KOTOR 2 is "eh."
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:wtf: KOTOR 2 rocks. the story is more complicated and "true" than the story of kotor the first. KOTOR 2 rocks. Though I have one complain about gameplay- > THE FIGHTS SUCK BIG TIME... they're so boring *click* *click* oh I slashed the bastard *click* another one ehh...
KOTOR 2 + jedi academy\assasin's creed style fights = epic win
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*click* *click* oh I slashed the bastard *click* another one ehh...
:wtf: You must have chosen a different class than I did, or played on a lower difficulty. I use a Jedi Weaponmaster with the full lightsaber proficiencies and master Two-Weapon Fighing III, and combat gets interesting when you get in one of the bigger fights. Sometimes I like to save before an encounter and time myself to see how fast I can kill everyone, then restart and try it a different way, like a time trial. That doesn't get boring very quickly (especially with an attack bonus of +42, +39 ;7)
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Am I the only one who prefered KOTOR to KOTOR2 purely because they prefer their SW vanilla, ie light/dark side with no "grey" area? No moral ambiguity ect?
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Am I the only one who prefered KOTOR to KOTOR2 purely because they prefer their SW vanilla, ie light/dark side with no "grey" area? No moral ambiguity ect?
Yeah, for those reasons, you're the only one.
Though KOTOR was definitely a more solid game in terms of quality.
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The thing that got me about KOTOR (1) was the fact it told you whether your actions were 'Light' or 'Dark', I think it would have been much more fun to never tell the player, and just let the character develop as-is, so you don't actually know how other people are going to react to you until they react.
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The thing that got me about KOTOR (1) was the fact it told you whether your actions were 'Light' or 'Dark', I think it would have been much more fun to never tell the player, and just let the character develop as-is, so you don't actually know how other people are going to react to you until they react.
TOR man, it's going to be epic.
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I'd like to see some 'real' moral dilemmas as well, such as a mother with a dying child, it's possible to save the child if the mother is willing to surrender her own life to do so, but the mother is young and healthy, she can have more children, but shes willing to sacrifice her life to save the baby.
What choice is Light, what choice is Dark, kill the mother, or leave the child to die? Are you interfering with the natural order of things, but if that is so, if they cannot go beyond the 'natural order', what is the point of the Force being 'with' the player?
Those sort of choices make things like 'Good' and 'Evil' much more subjective, and leaves the player to guessing rather than questions like 'Should I mug this guy or not?'
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I'm still waiting for the Restoration project to be finished.
From the setup, I found KOTOR2 much more interesting than KOTOR1, despite all its present flaws. It could have been great if it had been finished; I feel that KOTOR1 was more like a movie, while KOTOR2 let you define yourself from the start and is more like a game. Plus the original possibility of having two personalities for Darth Traya, both of them could have been travelling with you in your party. And sometimes the game hinted that Kreia could be the mother of Handmaiden, but this was never elaborated. So many possibilities, so many of them never used. Shame really.
I sure hope they can restore at least part of the game.
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Oh the Restoration mod's been released, a beta version without the maker's permission, but it was leaked. Not to hard to find via google, and you can use the updater to bring it to the latest build, and as far as I can tell there's only one showstopper bug that has an easy workaround.
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Unfortunately there will be no KOTOR3. Just a stupid MMO.
agreed
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I loved KOTOR2. It really ripped the Jedi Code a new one and knocked the Jedi Order off their high horse. It made the universe seem really gray, and I like grayness in my RPG's. And yes, I am a fan of the Republic Commando novels. I now hate those arrogant Jettise after reading those books.
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I just remembered what I loved most about KOTOR2...
Mind tricking people into jumping off ledges. :lol:
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Kotor 2 was actually the much better game compared with Kotor 1. However, it's an unfinished game.
Soon, soon the Restoration Project is finished ( http://www.team-gizka.org/wip.html )
The moral questions and philosophical discussions about good, evil and consequences were just awesome.
And Kreia. Best character I've ever seen in a videogame. She constantly keeps the tension, keeps you interested, keeps you wondering. Wonderful writing for her.
There is this moment on NarShaddar, were a beggar approches you. Me, playing the good jedi gave him credits, even more than he asked for. And then Kreia showed me how dangerous such "good" behavior can be too. The happy begar is robbed two streets away because he got so much money now.
Great moment. You really start questioning all the Jedi / Sith / Good / Bad - ideals and your legimitation of making decisions for others. Now, TSLRP, FINISH!!!
I loved KOTOR2. It really ripped the Jedi Code a new one and knocked the Jedi Order off their high horse. It made the universe seem really gray.
That's exactly what I am talking about. Just awesome.
Hey Sparda, play The Witcher.
Classic RPG in perfection, great narrative interaction, constant decision making.
I have never made so many wrong decisions in one game with good intend.
You don't need to read the books first (the game probably even works better then) although those are great and should be read.
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Torrented The Witcher, never got really into it. The combat system wasn't that good IMO. Too repetitive, it was really just a bunch of left-clicks. KOTOR and KOTOR2 had all those cool animations like ducking, dodging, parries, and different attacks. It was like NWN, except closer and more immersing. They did a really good job adapting the D&D combat system to Star Wars in KOTOR and KOTOR2.
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Torrented The Witcher, never got really into it. The combat system wasn't that good IMO. Too repetitive, it was really just a bunch of left-clicks. KOTOR and KOTOR2 had all those cool animations like ducking, dodging, parries, and different attacks. It was like NWN, except closer and more immersing.
I like the combat system. Also, the animations are best in the genre and it asks more of the user. First, you have to get the timing right. Second, you need to worry about lots of enemies mostly and about your position relative to them.
Count in spells, three combat stances you can (and have to) switch on the fly, dodging and parrying (although parry is auto), it's a pretty cool system.
And then, the potions.
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I guess I never got deep enough into the game in that case. But The Witcher just didn't hook me like KOTOR2 has. KOTOR2 also has mods plus there's that restoration project in the works.
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Torrented The Witcher, never got really into it. The combat system wasn't that good IMO. Too repetitive, it was really just a bunch of left-clicks. KOTOR and KOTOR2 had all those cool animations like ducking, dodging, parries, and different attacks. It was like NWN, except closer and more immersing.
I like the combat system. Also, the animations are best in the genre and it asks more of the user. First, you have to get the timing right. Second, you need to worry about lots of enemies mostly and about your position relative to them.
Count in spells, three combat stances you can (and have to) switch on the fly, dodging and parrying (although parry is auto), it's a pretty cool system.
And then, the potions.
When I'm playing an RPG, I don't want to have to pay attention to it like an FPS.
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guess you don't like Mass Effect either then ;)
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While I can't really disagree with your assessment of Torment's ending, I'm a bit puzzled that it made you actually dislike Avellone. Despite the unsatisfying resolution, I think his work on Torment is still some of the best storytelling the game industry has seen. I'll take a work of fantastic originality and ambition that stumbles at the last moment over conventional mediocrity any day of the week.
KotOR2-wise, I agree completely. I actually found the first KotOR almost laughable, particularly toward the end - even had the plot twist not been so predictable, BioWare destroyed any meaning it could have had by gradually forcing the player character to become a caricature. You're either a deranged cartoon villain or a preachy saint. Apparently that's BioWare's idea of a moral quandary.
Have you played Mask of the Betrayer?
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but but... cartoony villains rock!
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While I can't really disagree with your assessment of Torment's ending, I'm a bit puzzled that it made you actually dislike Avellone. Despite the unsatisfying resolution, I think his work on Torment is still some of the best storytelling the game industry has seen. I'll take a work of fantastic originality and ambition that stumbles at the last moment over conventional mediocrity any day of the week.
I don't like being disappointed. You put together a first two acts like Torment did, you have a storyteller's obligation to make the final act worthy of the first two. He did not. He roped me in and then left me dangling. The gaming equivalent of "remember to drink more ovaltine." And I don't dislike him anymore, though I am kinda pissed off that overrated guys like him and Levine are constantly worshiped by the game media when they really don't deserve it (Levine hasn't written a great story since SS2, ten years ago), while they ignore or bash a truly brilliant writer like Ragnar Tornquist (I still believe that Dreamfall is the best game ever).
I don't doubt that Avellone has enormous talent. I'm just going to hold off calling him a great writer until he actually manages to bring a story to a real conclusion.
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guess you don't like Mass Effect either then ;)
That isn't the same as the picture I get when I look at the description of combat. Changing stances is too complicated for me to care, especially if it's required to be effective.
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Torrented The Witcher, never got really into it. The combat system wasn't that good IMO. Too repetitive, it was really just a bunch of left-clicks. KOTOR and KOTOR2 had all those cool animations like ducking, dodging, parries, and different attacks. It was like NWN, except closer and more immersing.
I like the combat system. Also, the animations are best in the genre and it asks more of the user. First, you have to get the timing right. Second, you need to worry about lots of enemies mostly and about your position relative to them.
Count in spells, three combat stances you can (and have to) switch on the fly, dodging and parrying (although parry is auto), it's a pretty cool system.
And then, the potions.
When I'm playing an RPG, I don't want to have to pay attention to it like an FPS.
Man, you must have missed out on Baldur's Gate.
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Fine. There are exceptions. As a general observation, however, RPGs require less minute attention that FPSs in a combat scenario.
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...while they ignore or bash a truly brilliant writer like Ragnar Tornquist (I still believe that Dreamfall is the best game ever).
Here we'll have to disagree completely.
Longest Journey was excellent, but I thought Dreamfall was a horrible mess. The character's motivations were flimsy and many of the turning points in the game were painfully contrived. Particularly scenes like the one where that soldier character crosses paths with April Ryan, they have a little chat, and suddenly he starts doubting everything he's been brought up to believe. Sorry, I don't buy it. The characters were the worst kind of unconvincing - they essentially felt like they'd been forced along a certain path to achieve the direction Tornquist wanted for his story. That's pretty much the definition of lazy character writing.
I don't know how you can decry Avellone for writing sloppy endings and in the same breath praise Tornquist's Dreamfall, which did the same thing. The game introduces some grand, vague threat at the beginning of the story and at the end of it you discover that it won't even really become relevant until the next game. Not to mention all the other wonderful loose ends he left dangling in that cliffhanger.
Even if he failed to follow them through with real answers, I think Avellone deserves respect for even asking the questions his stories do in an industry where such adventurousness is almost unheard of. I more or less enjoy Tornquist's work despite my complaints, but it's thematically simplistic and I don't feel like it's on the same level.
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Kian had lived a cloistered life that nurtured his idealism before coming to Marcuria. His beliefs had never been challenged before, and he was totally naive of the realities of life or war, so the Azadi leaders had not yet been able to condition him into overlooking injustice and the crimes his people were committing. He was not a soldier, he was a monk who had a crisis of fath when he entered the outside world. April only introduced him to the concept of the Azadi commiting injustice- he was merely shocked at the strength of her opposing beliefs. It was his experiences in Oldtown, in the magical ghetto, and simply meeting the resisting Marcurians that changed him. I found that perfectly believable that he would choose his faith over obedience given his background.
And April: RPS: A lot of people were upset with the April storyline, that she starts off upset, becomes more miserable, and then essentially dies. No one was expecting her storyline to start low, and then go down further. I found it really interesting – it went against expectations, it wasn’t about being heroic, and I really enjoyed that. I became angry with her for being so depressed, wanting to shout at her to snap out of it. It was such an honest response. At the end of TLJ she learns she’s not the most important, she’s not taking over control of the Balance, but I still wanted to yell at her, “You did amazing stuff! You changed the world! You did your part! That’s good enough.” Was there a greater commentary to this?
Ragnar: Yeah, absolutely. The greater commentary in Dreamfall was about one thing: it’s about faith. Obviously it has commentary on the real world, in terms of occupation of one nation by another and justifying that, and other undertones… well, overtones! But faith was the whole package. April sacrificed so much in TLJ, and at the end realised she’s not who she thought she would be. Actually, in her situation she should have been happy. You don’t have to sit in a tower for a thousand years. Go and live your life – you did a great thing! But after she did that, nobody knew, nobody remembered. Not being recognised, that can be a real blow to people. April was a strong person, but she was also immature. She was 18 years old, and to have something like that happen to you, and then be thrown back into normal life, and a normal life that has pretty much gone to hell… There’s so much I wish I could tell you, because there’s so much I know, that I don’t want to say until I know for sure that nothing’s going to happen, or if I get to tell the whole story – which is probably what’s going to happen. What happened to April right after TLJ is very important. Obviously she didn’t return to her home, and that has something to do with fear as well, which is another aspect of Dreamfall: having too much fear of something, and not being able to move on in life. She has lost faith in herself, in her world, in her friends, and she stayed in Arcadia.
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The most important thing with it is we could say, Zoe is here, April is here, Kian is here. And they all travelled. Zoe never went to hopelessness, but she reached disillusionment. But through the act of destroying Faith, she regained faith. Kian also went to disillusionment, to a sort of spiritual death, and then transformation – he skipped hopelessness. While April just fell down.
Does that sound like lazy character work?
And Zoe's predicament I know all too well. She was a typical around-20-year old who became disillusioned and directionless in life. If she didn't try to save Reza or try to figure out what was going on, if she didn't care enough to do anything for the person she loved and cared about most in the world, then what would that say about her? As she said to Damien, she went on this journey because she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she abandoned Reza to die. That's a believable motivation, I'm sorry.
And unlike Torment, Tornquist hasn't finished telling the story yet! That's like bashing Tolkien for not ending LOTR with the Two Towers. Dreamfall was about Zoe's story, with all the other threads flowing around it, in response to it, waiting for their conclusion in later installments. I fail to see the harm in that. He was only obligated to finish Zoe's arc and he did that brilliantly, so yes, I think Dreamfall did have a great ending. He brought one aspect of the overarching story to a moving conclusion and left the other stuff for later. That's not lazy, that's good classical storytelling. I think that you and most of the the gaming press became curmudgeons and were too busy complaining how Dreamfall was so much different and darker than TLJ to see how good it was. Kinda reminds me how critics hated The Empire Strikes Back when it first came out because it had the audacity to be so different from the first Star Wars.
And Tornquist drops a mountain of hints as to what the Undreaming might be, if you pay close enough attention. I'd be glad to discuss my theories with you.
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You make a large assumption there. I don't believe I said anything about the story itself. I like dark stories - if anything I found Dreamfall far more interesting than Longest Journey on a conceptual level. It's the execution I take issue with.
It's the same with the Kian/April encounter. You explain it well, and it looks great on paper. But it's not the idea of that discussion I have a problem with. It's how it was written. The entire conversation just did not feel real to me - that these two more or less opposing characters could out of the blue have such a candid and rational conversation about a subject they're both extremely passionate about. On a writing level it felt contrived and unsubtle, but more importantly it just made Kian's character arc feel far too easy. There was never any question that he would come around, and as a result his internal conflict comes across as forced and is robbed of any impact it might have had. Conceptually, there's nothing wrong with the character you describe. But the Kian I saw in the game was flat and predictable.
I'll admit that it sounds like more thought went into the characters than I'd assumed, though. But writing is all about communication of ideas, and evidently Dreamfall failed to deliver there for me. I mean, you're right. That doesn't sound like lazy character work at all. But, for me, the execution of it - the actual hammer-and-chisel writing of it - fell completely flat and undermined the characters to the extent that there could be a discrepancy like this between our opinions of them. Not lazy character work, but lazy (or at least unsuccessful) character writing. Maybe it's the translation, then. I don't know which languages of the game Tornquist wrote.
As for the ending, you make a strong point there and I'll concede it. I hope you are right. The thing is, I'm not actually worried about what the Undreaming is, and more often than not I enjoy cliffhangers. I don't consume stories for their answers, but the questions they raise. Considering your grievances with Torment I wonder if that's not the difference between us.
You've given me something to think about, in any case. I'm tempted to play the game through a second time with this in mind to see if my opinion of it changes.
Moving back to the original topic, though: Qualitative arguments aside, Tornquist's work is much less inquisitive than Avellone's. Where Avellone's are stories about ideas, Tornquist's are stories about people. That's not to say one is inherently superior to the other - I know which I prefer, obviously, but that's as far as that goes - and I think comparing them is difficult, at least on the level you've chosen. It's comparing high-concept with traditional storytelling. Adam Roberts with Star Wars. I think to dismiss one as overrated and say the other is 'truly brilliant' is more telling of your personal tastes than it is an observation of their ability.
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It's the same with the Kian/April encounter. You explain it well, and it looks great on paper. But it's not the idea of that discussion I have a problem with. It's how it was written. The entire conversation just did not feel real to me - that these two more or less opposing characters could out of the blue have such a candid and rational conversation about a subject they're both extremely passionate about.
I find Kian approaching April as believable as a newly arrived American soldier in Iraq questioning an Iraqi why they're being so ungrateful to their protectors and the Iraqi being fluent in english enough to explain to him why he hates Americans. Not common, but perfectly believable. It was April who would have been the likely one to refuse the conversation, and for all her bitterness and hatred of the Azadi, she's not a native of Arcadia. She's seen too much to have her mind completely closed and shuttered and I think that was why she was willing to engage in a fairly cordial argument with Kian. The conversation consisted of Kian asking a native about what they thought of the Azadi, because after all, how could she possibly disagree with him, and when she did, of course when faced with the light of truth presented by him, she would be forced to recant her position. And for April she was so shocked by an Azadi that wasn't a thug or a raving fanatic that she did what the old April might have done and decided ok, I'll talk to him.
As for the ending, you make a strong point there and I'll concede it. I hope you are right. The thing is, I'm not actually worried about what the Undreaming is, and more often than not I enjoy cliffhangers. I don't consume stories for their answers, but the questions they raise. Considering your grievances with Torment I wonder if that's not the difference between us.
Sigh....You're right about this. I just believe that's it's easy to ask a profound question and then run away terrified of what the answer might be. And it's just hard coded into me that the point of a story is it's ending - what did the Nameless One's journey lead to, I ask? Nothing. That's why it pissed me off.
Moving back to the original topic, though: Qualitative arguments aside, Tornquist's work is much less inquisitive than Avellone's. Where Avellone's are stories about ideas, Tornquist's are stories about people. That's not to say one is inherently superior to the other - I know which I prefer, obviously, but that's as far as that goes - and I think comparing them is difficult, at least on the level you've chosen. It's comparing high-concept with traditional storytelling. Adam Roberts with Star Wars. I think to dismiss one as overrated and say the other is 'truly brilliant' is more telling of your personal tastes than it is an observation of their ability.
You're wrong about that. Avellone's work is more cerebral than Tornquist's. Tornquist's work has a lot of philosophical undercurrents- they're just not in the forefront like Avellone's. Remember Cortez and his analysis of Warren Hughes's painting? Or his speech about the role of mystery? Or in Dreamfall, the White saying that Zoe's makes her dreams real, and that Faith was the same way? That's how she created the Winter-she dreamed it as she died. There's a lot of lines in Dreamfall (especially April and the Guardian) that say that dreams are the mechanism by which reality is created (which would imply the Undreaming to be the Shiva to dreaming's Brahma). The ideas are there, they're just not as obvious as in Torment or KOTORII.
And you've gotten the impression that I dislike openly philosophical stories. You're wrong - I adore them. My favorite TV show ever is Angel because it's the only western show I've ever seen that discusses ideas so nakedly and intelligently, which a lot of people condemn as being "preachy". What most people think of as preachy, I think of as direct and honest. I like Charles Dickens. I love Avellone's style. I just think Tornquist is better, and you can't call someone less inquisitive just because they go for the emotional gut-punch and the other guy shies away from that.
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I find Kian approaching April as believable as a newly arrived American soldier in Iraq questioning an Iraqi why they're being so ungrateful to their protectors and the Iraqi being fluent in english enough to explain to him why he hates Americans. Not common, but perfectly believable. It was April who would have been the likely one to refuse the conversation, and for all her bitterness and hatred of the Azadi, she's not a native of Arcadia. She's seen too much to have her mind completely closed and shuttered and I think that was why she was willing to engage in a fairly cordial argument with Kian. The conversation consisted of Kian asking a native about what they thought of the Azadi, because after all, how could she possibly disagree with him, and when she did, of course when faced with the light of truth presented by him, she would be forced to recant her position. And for April she was so shocked by an Azadi that wasn't a thug or a raving fanatic that she did what the old April might have done and decided ok, I'll talk to him.
Hold on. I'm not saying I find the scenario unbelievable. On the contrary, I said the scene works fine for me on paper. It's the conversation itself that struck the wrong note with me. The dialogue felt too weighted with authorly intent and after Longest Journey I suppose I was expecting something more subtle. The circumstance and the words they were speaking did not feel natural, however sound the reasoning for them existing.
And, again, I felt like I was being beaten over the head with Kian's naivete. From that point on it was flagrantly obvious where Kian's character was going and so there was no drama there for me. Perhaps that is what jarred for me more than the character's motives - Kian felt flat and puppet-like, and my first instinct was to attack his motivations.
Sigh....You're right about this. I just believe that's it's easy to ask a profound question and then run away terrified of what the answer might be. And it's just hard coded into me that the point of a story is it's ending - what did the Nameless One's journey lead to, I ask? Nothing. That's why it pissed me off.
That's fair enough. To me the journey is the point of a story. That's where the changes occur and it's where the characters grow. The ending is only the expression of how far they've come and the punctuation that closes the story. While there's no doubt that it's important - a strong ending can turn an average story into a good one or a great story into a classic - I have difficulty accepting that a less-than-satisfying one unmakes everything that came before it. If that was the case I'd hate every novel Stephen King ever wrote.
You're wrong about that. Avellone's work is more cerebral than Tornquist's. Tornquist's work has a lot of philosophical undercurrents- they're just not in the forefront like Avellone's. Remember Cortez and his analysis of Warren Hughes's painting? Or his speech about the role of mystery? Or in Dreamfall, the White saying that Zoe's makes her dreams real, and that Faith was the same way? That's how she created the Winter-she dreamed it as she died. There's a lot of lines in Dreamfall (especially April and the Guardian) that say that dreams are the mechanism by which reality is created (which would imply the Undreaming to be the Shiva to dreaming's Brahma). The ideas are there, they're just not as obvious as in Torment or KOTORII.
That doesn't contradict what I said, though. I did not say Tornquist's stories didn't explore any ideas, I said they were not about them. The spotlight is on the characters and the world they inhabit, and while they are far from disconnected, the ideas are - as you point out - under the surface. The story and the concept are separate things intertwined, and can be enjoyed apart.
Whereas in Avellone's work the questions permeate everything. The characters are expressions of it; the gameplay is representative of it. They're inseparable.
This isn't a criticism of Tornquist's style, but I maintain that he and Avellone write very different kinds of narrative.
And you've gotten the impression that I dislike openly philosophical stories. You're wrong - I adore them. My favorite TV show ever is Angel because it's the only western show I've ever seen that discusses ideas so nakedly and intelligently, which a lot of people condemn as being "preachy". What most people think of as preachy, I think of as direct and honest. I like Charles Dickens. I love Avellone's style. I just think Tornquist is better, and you can't call someone less inquisitive just because they go for the emotional gut-punch and the other guy shies away from that.
I don't think Avellone shies away from the 'emotional gut-punch' at all. On the contrary, I felt more for the Nameless One's various companions than I did for any character in Dreamfall. The story is full of tragedy. But perhaps that's not what you meant.
I haven't seen Angel, so I can't comment on that. But no, I don't like it when something is preachy. I feel like the job of the author isn't to tell people how things are but to give them something new to think about. A different perspective on things. I like authors that leave room for interpretation and trust their audience enough to make up their own mind. Perhaps you're right that it's easier. But I don't agree that it's inferior.
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And, again, I felt like I was being beaten over the head with Kian's naivete. From that point on it was flagrantly obvious where Kian's character was going and so there was no drama there for me. Perhaps that is what jarred for me more than the character's motives - Kian felt flat and puppet-like, and my first instinct was to attack his motivations.
True, but the drama was never if he was going to change or not. The question was, what was he going to do when he turned? And that has yet to be answered.
And I've been trying to explain the conversation on more and more specific levels but I see I'm going to have to go through it line by line for you to see what I'm saying.
I don't think Avellone shies away from the 'emotional gut-punch' at all. On the contrary, I felt more for the Nameless One's various companions than I did for any character in Dreamfall. The story is full of tragedy. But perhaps that's not what you meant.
Really? I felt quite detached from Torment's proceeding and the only character I really felt anything for was Ravel, and maybe Morte. There were a lot of things I found moving, but nothing really moved me, so to speak. Compare that the death of the White (although on the third playthrough I noticed a flapping of wings as the screen goes black, which may be Crow or it may be the White escaping) and April's "death", which the first time I saw I became so emotionally upset that I felt nauseous (I swear to god if April really is dead I'm gonna fly to Norway and kill Ragnar for that). The ending left me nearly sobbing, and I never even get remotely watery-eyed, for anything. It's easy to be intellectually intriguing if the writer is intelligent enough and he/she spends enough time thinking about the issues. What's hard is preventing the reader or player from detaching themselves from the drama and fear and suspense and make them really worry what's going to happen to characters they care for in the next five minutes, and the next five minutes after that. Tornquist can do that; Avellone for the most part can't.
And regardless of what you think of the game you've gotta admit sneaking inside the Victory Hotel was as creepy as hell.
I haven't seen Angel, so I can't comment on that. But no, I don't like it when something is preachy. I feel like the job of the author isn't to tell people how things are but to give them something new to think about. A different perspective on things. I like authors that leave room for interpretation and trust their audience enough to make up their own mind. Perhaps you're right that it's easier. But I don't agree that it's inferior.
Except that Torment was, or should have been, about the ending of the journey. The vast majority of the Nameless's one's travels and experiences had already taken place before the beginning of the game. It was the game's chapter's job to bring the questions that were repeatedly asked throughout countless reincarnations of the Nameless One to their answers. To tell the story of the journey that ended all journeys. If all Avellone wanted to do was ask questions, then he should have begun the game earlier, as the Nameless One was going through his reincarnations, and had the player try to figure out what was happening to him, even if he didn't know, and whether there was any constants in his character through each incarnation (which would help to answer the key question, what can change the nature of a man, come the ending). He picked the wrong point in the story to be screwing around.
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And I've been trying to explain the conversation on more and more specific levels but I see I'm going to have to go through it line by line for you to see what I'm saying.
There's some kind of disconnect here. You're explaining the character's motivations and the reasons for why the scene played out like it did, yes? That's not what I'm disagreeing with, exactly. All that certainly does fit fine, and I don't have a problem with the event being a catalyst for Kian's later choices. What I disliked was not the scene itself, it was the writing of it. The execution, as I've been saying.
Simply put, I think the dialogue was poorly written. It made sense, yes! That's not enough. I don't know what else to say - I was not convinced by that exchange and many others. I believe there were less heavy-handed ways to handle that scene. By and large I felt that the writing did not trust the audience to work anything out for themselves, making the events seem more simplistic than perhaps they were.
Tornquist can do that; Avellone for the most part can't.
Hmm. Well, now you're basically just saying 'I'm right and you're wrong, because this moved me and that didn't.' I can't really respond to this with anything other than I disagree. Dreamfall had none of the effect on me it had for you. I did not care that April was potentially dead. I found Zoe forgettable (and I mean that literally - I remember next to nothing about her, which is a bad sign). And we've covered my disinterest in Kian's character. I was not invested in the characters.
I'm not dismissing the effect Dreamfall clearly had on you. But I think it's important to remember things like emotional resonance in fiction tend to be frustratingly subjective. People are moved by different things. Fiction has to be examined on a more technical level than how a given person reacted to it or any discussion becomes useless.
Except that Torment was, or should have been, about the ending of the journey. The vast majority of the Nameless's one's travels and experiences had already taken place before the beginning of the game. It was the game's chapter's job to bring the questions that were repeatedly asked throughout countless reincarnations of the Nameless One to their answers. To tell the story of the journey that ended all journeys. If all Avellone wanted to do was ask questions, then he should have begun the game earlier, as the Nameless One was going through his reincarnations, and had the player try to figure out what was happening to him, even if he didn't know, and whether there was any constants in his character through each incarnation (which would help to answer the key question, what can change the nature of a man, come the ending). He picked the wrong point in the story to be screwing around.
At this point I'm not sure this part of the discussion can go anywhere. I agree with just about everything you say here. The disagreement isn't whether Torment had or should have had a strong ending, it's whether the lack of one invalidates the entire narrative. You say yes, it does, because Torment was about the journey's end and therefore its failure to succeed there makes the whole affair a waste of time.
Did Torment fail to realise its potential? Perhaps. Does that make it a failure altogether? I do not think so. It is a grandly ambitious experiment. It tells a story unlike any other in the gaming industry. It's well-written, the world it adapts is fascinating, and the quandaries it explores are uniformly thought-provoking even if the primary question raised is never adequately answered. And if nothing else, it has some of the most original and compelling role-playing in the genre.
But it aimed high and missed. Well, never mind then.