Idle Thumbs 135: That's My Goof

[RubixsQube]

"Barry L. at Sea"

 

(He'd probably use his boat, the Avalon)

[Stuart]

It's the Mushroom Kingdom Year of Luigi...god only knows how long that is.

 

A Mushroom Kingdom Year equates to 10 Dishonored Years of Luigi. So says the Slash Wizard.

 

Also, nicely casted pod, guys. Happy that one of you has finally played Gunslinger.

[Roderick]

I wonder if the Luigi actor saw it coming. «Ooh boy, this is gonna be MY year... they're coming for me!»

[tegan]

Apparently, bafflingly, Reggie Fils-Aime claims The Year of Luigi continues into 2014.

 

If Reggie comes onstage at the VGX awards and sees his shadow, there will be four more weeks of Luigi.

[clyde]

Regarding the crazy ending to Assassin's Creed II:

A few years ago, I came across a really strange documentary. I should just go ahead and tell y'all that I'm the kinda guy who buys the "How to improve your Golf Game with Subliminal Messages" tape when I find them in the thrift store. And then I listen to them. I don't play golf. 

So anyway, I came across a really strange documentary a few years ago. When I started watching it and listening to what this guy was saying, I was like "This is fake. There is no way this guy really believes this." But something about listening to his mesmerizing voice and his rambling train of thought just put me in such a hypnotic state. I continued to watch. The story just gets crazier and crazier and he rationalizes things so loosely, but in a way that you are like, "I can see why he would come to that conclusion." His description of the events which led him all over the word to solve an ARG that he may have created in his own mind is one of the weirdest and most entertaining documentaries I've watched. The conclusions he comes to... well I don't want to spoil it, but lets just say he comes to some conclusions.

When I got to the end of Assassin's Creed II and the alien thing appeared and started explaining things vaguely, I was like, "Whoever wrote this watched the Secrets of Alchemy: The Great Cross and the End of Time. The next game is going to reveal the double cataclysm." But then I never played Assassin's Creed III.

 

As luck would have it, the full documentary is on Youtube for those of you looking to kill an hour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plq4DW5yF_A

[Justin Leego]

The Year of Luigi ends when Reggie says it does.

[Latrine]

The next game is going to reveal the double cataclysm." But then I never played Assassin's Creed III.

 

Cool, except the next game wasn't Assassin's Creed III

 

I am pretty sure that the alien subplot was inspired by those kinds of conspiracy theories. That was actually one of my favorite elements in Assassin's Creed II, it added more of an engagement to the events happening in both timelines rather than just being abstract historical conflict and abstract evil future corporation. All the clues were associated with fun little puzzles too.

 

But then I never played the next games (Brotherhood, Revelations III, IV) partly because I heard they messed up the whole meta story elements. Although I am still interested in Brotherhood because I really liked the Renaissance Italy setting from AC I.

[Forbin]

This is what I first thought of when you said that's my goof.

[Urthman]

When did it become a thing that spoilers don't matter if you spoil something right at the beginning of a game or a movie?

 

For instance, it sounds to me like Sean in this episode maybe spoils the best narrative surprise in Carl of Juarez, but since it happens in the first hour of the game, it's just assumed that that doesn't matter?

 

I'm not at all attacking Sean here.  I realize it would be silly to listen to a video game podcast and get bent out of shape about spoilers, and so I don't begrudge you guys one bit for talking about spoilers in games.  But I'm just curious about the logic here.  If something is really cool to experience without knowing that it's coming, surely it isn't less of a spoiler just because it's at the beginning of a game instead of at the end.  But I hear people talk that way all the time.  "This is a spoiler, but it's in the first five minutes of the movie, so I'm not ruining anything if I tell you..."  How does that make any sense?

[Flynn]

Simply because it can only spoil only 5 minutes.  The other 99% of the of the thing can still be experienced the same as anyone going in spoiler free.  A spoiler of something revealed at the end, on the other hand, could mean you experience the first 99% with knowledge that changes things a lot.

 

(I personally don't care much being spoiled -- I'd rather be spoiled than listen to people awkwardly talking 'around' things on a podcast any day.)

[Gormongous]

(I personally don't care much being spoiled -- I'd rather be spoiled than listen to people awkwardly talking 'around' things on a podcast any day.)

 

Agreed! But then again, I'm the person who sent in the question quite a few episodes ago about whether spoiler culture is infantilizing. I feel like, if even revelations over the basic plot ruin a game, then it's probably not very good in the first place, and in the meantime the insistence upon total blackout kneecaps critical discussion about it at a fundamental level.

[Latrine]

Also at this point most people listening at this point are not likely to play Call of Juarez: Gunslinger unless they know about its central conceit. Even with the Bastion comparisons it hasn't interested me enough to ever want to go out and play the game though.

[Problem Machine]

I feel like, if even revelations over the basic plot ruin a game, then it's probably not very good in the first place

This line of logic bothers me a bit, since I think it misrepresents why people dislike spoilers. The problem isn't that the experience is ruined by knowing what's going to happen, it's that the experience of coming to something fresh and without any idea of where it's leading is itself valuable. You can only play a game for the first time once, and knowing what's coming leeches some of that specialness from the experience.

 

Not that I think that line of logic necessarily holds together super well either. Every time you experience a piece of art, your life will color it in different shades. Losing the capacity to experience something in a surprising way is only unfortunate if you personally hold that surprise to be more important than whatever your brain will fill the experience with in its absence.

 

Still, all that being said, I prefer to avoid spoilers myself. I want to meet the story, at least once, as a stranger.

[Forbin]

Audio podcasts have never been a good medium for spoilers. The Totally Rad show used to have a system where they put a red glow around the screen until they were done talking about a spoiler. That allowed you to mute or take off your headphones if you wanted to avoid them. But the most audio podcasts can do is tell you to jump ahead some random amount of time or talk around them. I guess they could tag up the episode to allow you to jump to the next section! But that seems like a lot of work.

Personally all I really care about is having some warning. Most of the time I don't care about the spoiler, and really want to hear someone's experience without them constantly self-editing.

[Sean]

TL;DR: I think the entire idea of "spoiler" is silly; it's an overused cliche in media culture and is really only something to be mad about if someone's intent is to actually and actively ruin an experience, media or otherwise, that another person is looking forward to.

 

As for it expanding the definition of a spoiler all the way down to "keeping an experience fresh;" if that is something that is important to a person (and who am I to say it's not) I would probably not recommend that they add a video game podcast to their listening diet.

[Henroid]

I think spoilers are a legit thing. Finding out the sum of some events prior to experiencing those events yourself (be it watching a film or playing a game) can ruin it. Because as you're going through those events, all you're thinking about is the information you were just given. "Oh okay I see how this adds up to x."

 

There's value in the wonder of where things are leading up to.

 

As for spoilers on how a game is played or experienced (as opposed to the above narrative angle), I haven't really given much thought toward that. For now I see both sides.

[Gormongous]

I think spoilers are a legit thing. Finding out the sum of some events prior to experiencing those events yourself (be it watching a film or playing a game) can ruin it. Because as you're going through those events, all you're thinking about is the information you were just given. "Oh okay I see how this adds up to x."

 

There's value in the wonder of where things are leading up to.

 

I think there's also value in the knowledge of where things are going. As has been said, you only get one chance to experience something for the first time, but who knows if it's better to go in with some, no, or total knowledge of a given game or movie? Like I said in my email, now like twenty episodes ago, I went into Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy having heard the entire plot from someone and enjoyed it immensely, because I could pay attention to other things besides the double- and triple-agent hijinks that, while interesting, are not really what makes the film great in my opinion. I strongly feel that I would not have fallen so hard for the movie if my first experience had been scratching my head about Karla and Witchcraft.

 

My problem is mostly just that spoiler culture insists that ignorance is always the best way to experience a work initially, even though that only applies to certain aspects of said work, because even the most devoted adherents of spoiler culture will listen to someone talk for hours about the feel, the quality, and even the mechanics of a game, so long as no narrative detail is spoiled. Clearly, some knowledge of a work is desirable, since we want to know a game is good before we play it, and I just wish that spoiler culture would acknowledge that it goes a bit farther, that knowing mechanical or narrative details in advance can make a game more enjoyable and prevent a bad first impression that can never be entirely subverted afterward.

 

Not to mention, it's always painful to hear a podcast tiptoe around spoilers like a minotaur in a china shop. A simple "Gonna talk about the plot now" suffices for me. If it matters that much to me, like it did for The Walking Dead, I can wait.

[youmeyou]

This is kind of interesting because I'm finally playing Stanley Parable so have gone back to listen to the cast that tiptoes around its plot. I got something out of the episode back when I didn't know what the game was and now I'm getting even more out of it having now played the sections they discuss. So even though it was awkward in parts, I prefer a process like this to having gaps in episodes corresponding to every game I haven't played.

[feelthedarkness]

It's understandable to not want key/surprise elements of a largely narrative experience spoiled, but CoJ's "gameplay modified by narrative" is the selling point of the game. If you didn't know that, you probably hadn't heard of the game at all. I really liked how it was handled in that one episode (I think Bioshock Infinite related) where you guys put in a time checkpoint to skip narrative stuff, though I understand if nobody wants to make that effort regularly.  

 

Sidebar: I've been conflicted about picking up Gunslinger. Tekland has done some pretty noxious stuff, particularly the previous CoJ games, and the marketing/achievement scumming of Dead Island. 

[Henroid]

I'd summarize caring / not caring about spoilers in the same way as liking this flavor ice cream over that.

 

Ultimately, who cares, everyone has their preference and it isn't wrong. What gets me is applying an "inferior" or "incorrect" status to an opinion.

[pkirkner]

I enjoyed the conversation sparked by the Star Citizen reader mail. The funding campaign for that game has been crazy. They've had stretch goals to add first-person shooter mechanics, a Battlefield-style commander mode, ARTEMIS-style gameplay for capital ships, salvage and damage-control (firefighting) mechanics all on top of an already ambitious space-combat MMO in a persistent universe. They've also been able to fund the construction of their own audio production, motion capture, and facial capture studios. Since they hit the $30,000,000 funding mark, they've at least temporarily stopped having stretch goals that expand the scope of the mechanics and have shifted to adding a new ship or solar system for every $1,000,000 raised.

 

I find the funding numbers fascinating, mainly because funding has accelerated in recent months. Of the $34,000,000+ raised in the campaign over the past fourteen months or so, half of it has been raised in the last three months, including two days in November that raised over $1,000,000 each. During that time, the average funding pledge has creeped above $100, even as the number of backers has steadily risen. I'm really interested to see what happens to the funding numbers once the dog-fighting alpha is released in the coming weeks.

 

Sean's perspective on how these sorts of detailed funding goals could constrain developer creativity and turn the process into something resembling drudgery were really fascinating. From a mechanics perspective, I'm not sure how much that will be a problem with this particular project -- they've been intentionally vague on how the mechanics work to leave themselves room to experiment. I guess the bigger danger is if they're unable to make any of them work in a satisfying way. I could see cutting a mechanic that is promised by a funding goal, but makes the game worse, igniting a firestorm among the game's backers. With the huge financial investments people have already made in their ships, I can imagine all sorts of headaches arising out of the balancing process. The stakes for "nerfing" a particular ship have to rise when folks have paid hundreds (or upwards of a thousand) dollars for that particular ship, overpowered or not.

[Aaronofthe]

TI - 86 emulator:

http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tilem/

 

Meep.

[Arathain]

So it's more complicated than NO LORE EVER. There must be a line walked between lore and 'world-building'. It's like what Damon Lindelof said about character writing. Give your character a whole life story, only a fraction of which ever gets discussed. But the fact that you, the writer, know that story is there to draw from is enough to make the writing done for the character more well rounded and plausible (hopefully).

I've been thinking along these lines and I agree. I think it's really important for there to be a voluminous story bible. Characters should have life histories and quirks thoroughly documented. Every place in the world ought to have a history that sets it apart and connects it to everywhere else. Developers should know and care passionately about that stuff. 

 

It is a mistake to assume that your players will or even should care. The point is not to tell the player your amazing made up histories- that makes them like that person who roleplays and tries to tell you the story of their last session. Yawn. The point is that your efforts in creating the fiction of the world will feed into your efforts to create that world on the screen. It'll pay off in subtle but tangible ways.

[Problem Machine]

As for it expanding the definition of a spoiler all the way down to "keeping an experience fresh;" if that is something that is important to a person (and who am I to say it's not) I would probably not recommend that they add a video game podcast to their listening diet.

Which is a super frustrating thing to hear, because my position right now is that I'm kind of dirt poor and can't afford a lot of the games I want to play. Doubling down on that and then feeling excluded from a podcast is... difficult. I don't blame Idle Thumbs for this at all, but it's more that, as someone who wants to be able to participate in the discourse around games, being frequently FISCALLY UNABLE TO is incredibly shitty.

 

So the spoiler thing presses my buttons in other ways that aren't really intrinsically related to the issue, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

[Twig]

If a spoiler can really ruin my enjoyment of a piece of entertainment, I feel like it's not a very good piece of entertainment to begin with. But hey that's just me and everyone's different.

 

Just kidding I'm always right, you're all crazy.