Thanks for answering my question. The insight was fascinating. New Vegas in particular examined the theme of "everyone is a hero in their own story" quite organically with real-world parallels. Much appreciated and I am extremely excited for Pillars of Eternity.
I love the New Vegas examples: for me all the quest branches that are associated with either one of the conflicting parties eventually came to a point where the person giving the orders had suddenly become a villain to me. In that matter the Yes Man way felt almost like a cheat route that avoided directly participating in malevolent actions. Perhaps that's a good backwards example - when instead of eventually coming to sympathize with a villain, you realize that the person you have started to sympathize with is a villain after all.
The thing is, in trying to avoid making malevolent decisions, you instead shift the whole game into anarchy. Even with the upgraded securitron army and the damn, a lot of innocent people die in the Independent ending of New Vegas, p articularly if you avoid making controversial decisions, such as most endings with The Boomers.
I really liked what you did with new vegas. Choosing your own antagonist also doesn't force an opinion on the player. I think it is better to let the npc influence you opinion. Also showing bad and good sides to all factions gives you an more neutral look an their views.
Joneleth Irenicus is the epitome of how a Tragic Nemesis has shades of grey in terms of morality and past decisions influencing the present setting & fate of the character's intervened personality... + David Warner is the best voiceactor ever! A high elf lord who was too ambitious, who was supposed to be king and marry, is instead judged by his wife, punished by the Elven Pantheon, losing his Elvish-ity essence (instead of his "humanity"), his love is removed from his heart and replaced by Anger that then transform into revenge, and later on, as a calculated manipulative plan of domination and submission; his sister is forcefully turned into a Vampire, and they're both exiled.
I think that a sympathetic villain tells an important story of an antagonist who tries to oppose the tyranny of the masses, going against the popular opinion, and I think that is an inspiring story. Naturally you need to build your story around that, but I really like relateable antagonists. EDIT: Another interesting subclass of villains are villains who are actually doing the right things, but for the wrong reasons.
I'd like to know why they made Caesar an incel... His systematic oppression of women made the legion way too villainous and had no basis in his personality or historical facts about Rome.
Make money seem like a real thing in game and let caesar give you more money. For example, I will use fallout 1 here. Decker is, in lot of ways, similar to Caesar. He is intelligent, charismatic and always looking to kill or do something bad and pay for it. But both characters have really no explanation why they do this, or they hide it. It is really hard to earn money in fallout 1 if you don't use guides and play for first time. Same for combat, you will find it hard to not die in combat for first time. The only solution is to buy expensive guns and to get that money, killing innocent was inevitable in my first playthrough. But it turns out that innocent was not so innocent(you get what I mean) when the game ends, so Decker surely does everything for a reason. This is where Caesar differs, he has brain tumors, so he is almost like a troubled person and not so appealing.
But... It doesn’t matter why he opressed women. Only that it did. The legion is basically handmaidens tale for women while men, while forced to become soldiers, have some modicum of rights freedoms and power (and are literally rewarded women who are treated as currency). After all its men in all the leadership roles and a man is the successor of ceasar if you kill him And of course he thinks its for the greater good. Do you think the average person who says or does something misogynistic is going around thinking "mmm its time to go around oppressing women just for fun, and not based on sincerely held beliefs that this is the best for everyone and how things should be and are" Also the misogyny in the Legion stems from ceasar all right. If you create a system where glory in battle and being a good soldier are valued and don't allow women to join the millitary (while treating em as object to boot) that results in people becoming misogynists. And you can't create this system without being a misogynist yourself There isn't any particular nuance here. Ceasar is a caricature of an opressive tyrant who while he opresses men as well, also opresses women to the point where the description of women in the Legion, as i said above, is indistinguishable from the handmaidens tale
i love this man and his bicycles. he looks like a different person in every video and provides some of the best philosophy re: game design I've ever seen.
Antagonists can oppose characters or attempt to hinder them but they aren't villainous. J Jonah Jameson purposely attempts to get people to turn against spider man. Team Iceland in the 2nd mighty ducks movie, etc. How about a video on the difference between antiheroes and anti villains
My favorite character is Yojio Senkei is Anson Sue who becomes the main human antagonist, however I think that they screws him up by the end of episode 8 and it makes sense that I would sympathize with him because the main character is an extremely evil war criminal and I genuinely that the fans who say that she is not evil need to go to need to go to a psychologist.
I'm a minute into the vid so if I'm repeating anything you've said not intentional. I'm reminded of a DC Comics documentary that was released recently, and they were talking about how, the Villains are the protagonists, they're the ones who are are attempting to accomplish something, and the Heroes are attempting to stop them. I do think that if you are going to making the "Villain" of a game sympathetic by making his motivations human and realistic, you do run a chance that any given player might identify with and/or agree with that "Villain", and unless there's a choice to side with him in the game, it can break immersion to have to fight him. It's fine in a movie, but usually in games, rpgs especially, you're supposed to have at least an illusion of decision, of control. I felt this way about Final Fantasy XII, when (at least as far as I could see), the Villains were attempting to take humanity's fate away from the control of these Nebulous God-things. And from that point onward I felt I was on the wrong side, and had no control or input to decide otherwise.
Well, in most romantic dramas and comedies the heroes are the ones trying to acomplish something. It is also true in adventure histories like The Wizard of OS, The Odissey, Pokemon, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Code Geass...
2nd comment on an almost 7 year old video....yep, doing it! You guys really nailed choice agony (I love this phrase now) in New Vegas, I think in large part to how you didn't cop out with a lame "option C" to the big decisions. Like, Veronica's quest conclusion is never 100% happy ending; the final decision with her will always be meaningful because there is no optimal outcome you can metagame; you don't know if you made the best decision, you just have to live with it. I can't think of any examples of games I played since New Vegas that put me in the same position (the Mass Effect genophage is usually mentioned, but I personally didn't feel that conflicted about it). And Veronica isn't an isolated case, New Vegas has probably a dozen of these in the base game alone; and these choices are just part of what makes New Vegas great. I hope you hear every day for the rest of your life how amazing New Vegas is (and I don't mean that in a sinister way).
+Joshua Sawyer what do you think of the modding community of New Vegas with great mods coming out such as Frontier which explores the frozen wastes of Portland, Oregan?
You don't have to sympathize, you just have to understand. Excellent observation, feels like it should be good general life advice, too. Complete tangent inspired by this video, but anytime I see an analysis of Dune online (it's themes, or whatever) the Dr. Yueh situation is always called out. Like, maybe it's just been too long since I read the book, but wasn't Yueh just a patsy for the Emperor (ultimately)? I remember one of the chapters in Dune started with a curse for Yueh, and I think it's stuck with me since I was baffled by it. Does Paul really carry this much hate for the man? His anger (if it really exists) seems misplaced. Anyway, whatever, Dune is great. I annoy my only work friend by actually telling him when he says something to remind me of it. Am I the only one who remembers Wensicia getting annoyed when the captain of her guards calls their world by its shorthand name rather than the full? (Salusa SECUNDUS, call it the RIGHT THING!) Well, I don't know why he's my friend since he also makes fun of me for liking New Vegas. Don't be ashamed of liking things. So there. My profound declaration for the year (I know you were all reading this entire comment waiting for it). You can stop reading it now, it's over.
the point he makes near the end is why I stopped playing (for example) The Outer Worlds. *None* of the characters or factions grabbed me in any meaningful way. I had to drop it because I didn't want to devote any more thought to them than I already had. but for me it was less of an agony and more of a meh-gony.
Let me bring up one of the best villains there is, before even watching the video. Not because I like being arrogant, but because I want to play with the idea of risky assumption, and because I know I can change my mind after listening to him. Where's fun in that? ;) Arcanum's villain - Kerghan
Usually heroes are the antagonist. If a hero's free to act as the player wills it'd open the scope beyond what a developer can produce content-wise. Mechanically, the villain is usually the mover and shaker to define what the hero will be involved in and restrain the player's options to something manageable to the development team. There have been a few games recently where the antagonist was preferable to the PC "hero" or cause for conflict between the hero and villain was lacking. 1) The Witcher 2's "villain" said, "fuck royal authority" in exchange for empire backing which's needed for non-defined reasons as a prerequisite to resurecting his witcher group. His motives make a lot more sense than Geralt's king ball-licking and presumably wouldn't be in conflict with Geralt who should want a propagation of his kind too. 2) Despite the main character never expressing he gave a shit, let alone oposed the templars, and having done everything his master said, in AssCreed the boss's non-reveal as a templar is supposed to make him a villain. Why wouldn't his servant remain a servant while he took over the world? 3) The Illusive Man's plan to turn dead-weight refugees into a fighting force to combat the Reapers and to study their tech to gain control of the reapers made much more sense than the Alliance's, "let's hope this public work's project defeats the reaper's" plan. 4) In Mars: War Logs the Technomancers are doing the best job of recovering lost technology and the player's faction opposes them because of oppression which like killing militia-members and checkpoints. Although not ideal such cruelties as a trade-off for better tech are still a net gain versus destroying excavation sites and murdering specialists. The more annoying trend isn't overly-sympathetic villains in stories, videogames in particular, but The Third Act Betrayal. So many games have relied upon, "dun-dun-dun! Your mentor/commander was the real enemy!" that it's expected. I understand this makes a linear story appear slightly more complex, as it could surprise some small segment of children in the audience while the initial relationships established remaining true and never recontextualized has less depth, but better to have a few story-branches or render a single one well than be hackneyed. I loved in The Sith Lords that a high Intelligence allowed you to get Kreia to confess to being Darth Traya at the start of the game. In real life the villains of history are traitors who served a short-time personal good for a long-term group loss like Henry Clay, Alexander Hamilton and Arthur Zimmerman. The best solution a videogame can offer is to allow players to determine who the real villain is, like FNV and to a lesser extent Alpha Protocol did. Failing that, options to let the villain go after he has explained himself, as in The Witcher 2, submit to the villain as in Jade Empire, convince the villain of his factual wrongness as in Fallout, or join the villain are preferable alternatives to a, "you must oppose this guy" story.
I forgot what youtuber said that but i'm curious what you think about it. So, two games, Fallout New Vegas and Disco Elysium In DE if you are a fascist, almost everyone dislikes you and your homie Kim Kitsuragi realy hates you and your character constantly loses morale health bar points In NV you can join Legion and like... noone cares really, you can be homies with everyone, just one companion will not go with you and game does not condemn you in any way I know that devs at Obsidian are very nice folks with more liberal views, pro-LGBT and so on and yet there is this """problematic"""(i don't like this term because of Twitter's overuse) thing with letting player choose something they agree with their morality but if the choice is quite objectively wrong and immoral i think that we should make the player feel bad with their choices of supporting groups like Legion, to really pay for their decisions like making most of the companions unwilling to join you. Beigng recognized in towns and even attacked or making it simply so you can't really be friends with Legion and NCR at once, it's silly, it fits courier as a "Éminence grise" who just works for people for money and so on. but... Even if it's a choice in a video game and we can simply never make that choice of supporting imperialistic fascist slavers, if we do, i think player should be punished, and i think it could be interesting experience to make game much harder, to turn it into "hardest" to achieve ending
I don't agree with this. On the Disco Elysium side of things, that game doesn't really punish fascism to the degree you say it does. Like yes, it's portrayed as an ideology for losers and idiots and its Final Cut vision quest and the loss of morale points from the fascist Thought reflects that, but your conversations with most people are barely affected and if you still do your job Kim will still describe you as a pretty ok guy at the end. If anything, the game punishes you more for being a milquetoast centrist than being a fascist, constantly mocking you for sitting on the fence and the centrist vision quest being an anticlimactic waste of time that gets you nowhere. The Moralintern is a sinister, almost eldritch occupying force, while fascism is represented by a bunch of delusional idiots and a sympathetic war hero. And while New Vegas doesn't inherently punish you for siding with the Legion, taking the Legion outcome for every quest necessitates losing reputation with the NCR and most locations, locking you out of quest opportunities because people distrust you and eventually making everyone hostile and forcing you to go everywhere by disguise. Arcade and Boone will refuse to join you outright with positive Legion reputation and you'll lose Veronica as you proceed through the Legion storyline and likely Cass as well (no idea where you got the idea you can complete the game as Legion and only lose 1 companion). All of those suggestions are basically already implemented in the game. I mean, what more are you asking for? God to strike your character with lightning every time you gain Legion reputation? It sounds like you're complaining more about metagaming and players exploiting the reputation system so they can be friends with the Legion and NCR for as long as possible by putting off Legion quests, which is more a systematic issue than a design issue. I'm not even gonna go into your issue with the Legion being "objectively wrong and immoral" for being "imperialistic fascist slavers" yet seemingly not having the same complaints about the player not being punished for siding with the NCR. I don't have the patience to engage in a discussion of philosophy and politics or trust in TH-cam's automods.
This is such a whiny complaint. The whole point of an rpg is player freedom. Punishing players for what you consider “bad” (even if most people agree with you) is also a kinda hubristic view of things.
@@Dap1ssmonk You've obviously never played any of the classic fallouts if you're banging on about player freedom. Intelligence lower than 4? Everyone thinks you're an idiot and won't talk to you; goodbye nearly every quest. Kill one of those kids pickpocketing you in The Den? You're now a childkiller, everyone, murderers, crime lords and even slavers hate you, bounty hunters ambush you on fast travel and the game outright calls you evil. Playing a diplomat character and try to talk your way out of things? Well you haven't met Frank Horrigan mutie, hope you've built up your combat skills because there's only one way out of this. Better yet the game tries to foreshadow this at the start but by having a way for you to talk yourself out of it subverts the intended message. One even had you stuck on a strict timetable leaving you limited time to sort out quests otherwise you'd fall behind and fail the main quest. Something like this is perfectly in line with the old games. Being a Slaver in two will lock you out of quests, make people hate you and have the NCR hostile from before you've even had anything to do with them.
@@docholiday7975 there’s a difference between freedom and lack of consequences. You can unalive kids in the old fallout games too. It does you no favors, and actively makes the game almost impossible, but you can. Take your incorrect dissertation to Todd. Also new vegas does not have the anmount of stuff in it neccassary to punish you the way you are talking. There’s not enough merchants and other support within the legion to justify doing that, if the legion had more time in the devolper oven maybe you could get locked into their story line.
Normally I don't like sympathetic villains (There are exceptions; Darth Vader, Magneto, Sinestro, Mr. Freeze, Penguin from Batman Returns). Not everyone is redeemable and not everyone once a good person than became bad. Some villains are pure evil. Just because a villain thinks they're doing the right thing, doesn't mean they're sympathetic and redeemable. I.E. Lex Luthor (CEO Version), Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, Judge Claude Frollo, Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious (If you are an EU/Legends fan. You'll see what I mean), Darkseid, Apocalypse, Deathstroke, Bullseye, and Doctor Doom. I.E. Lex Luthor (CEO Version), Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, Judge Claude Frollo, Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious (If you are an EU/Legends fan. You'll see what I mean), Darkseid, Apocalypse, Deathstroke, Bullseye and Doctor Doom are all villains who believe they are the good guy, but are narcissistic, egotistical sociopaths with no redeeming qualities and are not sympathetic at all. What do you think?
The simplest answer, though redundant without context, is, "Sometimes doing the right thing means being the bad guy." Take Thanos for example. If you've seen Endgame, then you know why he did what he did. He didn't want to do it, and he took no pleasure in it either, but he went forward because he knew he was the only one with the will power and resources to make it happen, and he stopped at nothing to achieve his goals, and by the end of Infinity War, he essentially succeeded in his mission. But then time travel stuff happens, some characters are revived because of plot armor, and eventually the story overwrites it's own continuity to make the good guys win because god-forbid the "bad guy" actually gets a win once in a while.
But thanos isn't doing the right thing. If he was, hed double resources or impart everyone with perfect knowledge of how to avoid the problem or forcefully impart population control measures. I mean aside from the fact that he killed half of ALL living things INDISCRIMITELLY and regardless of whether there was or wasn't environment balance somewhere, the problem is inevitable to pop up again in a some time. It just doesn't make any kind of sense His plan is purposefully stupid to showcase that's its not the right thing or any kind of solution, just essentially him pointing a massive middle finger to the people of his planet who didn't belive him. His plan is somehow stupider than his original plan of trying to fuck death
![[#2024MAMA] ROSÉ (로제), Bruno Mars - APT. | Mnet 241122 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dgGqD28J6aQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Dang, the milk crate bookshelf idea is so smart and cool. Mad props.
Thanks for answering my question. The insight was fascinating. New Vegas in particular examined the theme of "everyone is a hero in their own story" quite organically with real-world parallels. Much appreciated and I am extremely excited for Pillars of Eternity.
I love the New Vegas examples: for me all the quest branches that are associated with either one of the conflicting parties eventually came to a point where the person giving the orders had suddenly become a villain to me. In that matter the Yes Man way felt almost like a cheat route that avoided directly participating in malevolent actions.
Perhaps that's a good backwards example - when instead of eventually coming to sympathize with a villain, you realize that the person you have started to sympathize with is a villain after all.
The thing is, in trying to avoid making malevolent decisions, you instead shift the whole game into anarchy. Even with the upgraded securitron army and the damn, a lot of innocent people die in the Independent ending of New Vegas, p articularly if you avoid making controversial decisions, such as most endings with The Boomers.
@@luxither7354 a friend to all is a friend to none.
Really digging these video responses, thanks.
I really liked what you did with new vegas. Choosing your own antagonist also doesn't force an opinion on the player. I think it is better to let the npc influence you opinion. Also showing bad and good sides to all factions gives you an more neutral look an their views.
Joneleth Irenicus is the epitome of how a Tragic Nemesis has shades of grey in terms of morality and past decisions influencing the present setting & fate of the character's intervened personality... + David Warner is the best voiceactor ever!
A high elf lord who was too ambitious, who was supposed to be king and marry, is instead judged by his wife, punished by the Elven Pantheon, losing his Elvish-ity essence (instead of his "humanity"), his love is removed from his heart and replaced by Anger that then transform into revenge, and later on, as a calculated manipulative plan of domination and submission; his sister is forcefully turned into a Vampire, and they're both exiled.
I think that a sympathetic villain tells an important story of an antagonist who tries to oppose the tyranny of the masses, going against the popular opinion, and I think that is an inspiring story. Naturally you need to build your story around that, but I really like relateable antagonists.
EDIT: Another interesting subclass of villains are villains who are actually doing the right things, but for the wrong reasons.
6 Years in the future here. I would like to hear what you would change about Caesar's Legion, if anything, to make it slightly more appealing.
I'd like to know why they made Caesar an incel... His systematic oppression of women made the legion way too villainous and had no basis in his personality or historical facts about Rome.
@@gargamellenoir8460 you should pay attention to the game you’re playing.
Make money seem like a real thing in game and let caesar give you more money. For example, I will use fallout 1 here. Decker is, in lot of ways, similar to Caesar. He is intelligent, charismatic and always looking to kill or do something bad and pay for it. But both characters have really no explanation why they do this, or they hide it. It is really hard to earn money in fallout 1 if you don't use guides and play for first time. Same for combat, you will find it hard to not die in combat for first time. The only solution is to buy expensive guns and to get that money, killing innocent was inevitable in my first playthrough. But it turns out that innocent was not so innocent(you get what I mean) when the game ends, so Decker surely does everything for a reason. This is where Caesar differs, he has brain tumors, so he is almost like a troubled person and not so appealing.
But... It doesn’t matter why he opressed women. Only that it did. The legion is basically handmaidens tale for women while men, while forced to become soldiers, have some modicum of rights freedoms and power (and are literally rewarded women who are treated as currency). After all its men in all the leadership roles and a man is the successor of ceasar if you kill him
And of course he thinks its for the greater good. Do you think the average person who says or does something misogynistic is going around thinking "mmm its time to go around oppressing women just for fun, and not based on sincerely held beliefs that this is the best for everyone and how things should be and are"
Also the misogyny in the Legion stems from ceasar all right. If you create a system where glory in battle and being a good soldier are valued and don't allow women to join the millitary (while treating em as object to boot) that results in people becoming misogynists. And you can't create this system without being a misogynist yourself
There isn't any particular nuance here. Ceasar is a caricature of an opressive tyrant who while he opresses men as well, also opresses women to the point where the description of women in the Legion, as i said above, is indistinguishable from the handmaidens tale
Great too see that there is one game designer who still cares about the medium
Uncle Fester
deadass 💀
Cool to see your thoughts and ideas on this. I found it interesting.
i love this man and his bicycles. he looks like a different person in every video and provides some of the best philosophy re: game design I've ever seen.
I was thinking of the Mayor Prentiss from the Chaos Walking Trilogy, definitely a good read!
Thank you very much for the talk.
Antagonists can oppose characters or attempt to hinder them but they aren't villainous. J Jonah Jameson purposely attempts to get people to turn against spider man. Team Iceland in the 2nd mighty ducks movie, etc.
How about a video on the difference between antiheroes and anti villains
Great idea for a bookshelf in the background. Got some new books and have no space for them? Just pop on another crate and voila...
Really great answer to the question, and I enjoyed the examples you cited. A lot of thoughtful stuff to take away from this. Thanks.
I'm a bit late to the party, but great video man. Thought-provoking for sure.
I am weird but I just love how Josh always starts these. "HELLO!"
Sawyer is the most insightful person I've seen on youtube.
My favorite character is Yojio Senkei is Anson Sue who becomes the main human antagonist, however I think that they screws him up by the end of episode 8 and it makes sense that I would sympathize with him because the main character is an extremely evil war criminal and I genuinely that the fans who say that she is not evil need to go to need to go to a psychologist.
yay another video
interesting video, especially the part with the cat mug
ikr
I'm a minute into the vid so if I'm repeating anything you've said not intentional.
I'm reminded of a DC Comics documentary that was released recently, and they were talking about how, the Villains are the protagonists, they're the ones who are are attempting to accomplish something, and the Heroes are attempting to stop them.
I do think that if you are going to making the "Villain" of a game sympathetic by making his motivations human and realistic, you do run a chance that any given player might identify with and/or agree with that "Villain", and unless there's a choice to side with him in the game, it can break immersion to have to fight him. It's fine in a movie, but usually in games, rpgs especially, you're supposed to have at least an illusion of decision, of control.
I felt this way about Final Fantasy XII, when (at least as far as I could see), the Villains were attempting to take humanity's fate away from the control of these Nebulous God-things. And from that point onward I felt I was on the wrong side, and had no control or input to decide otherwise.
Well, in most romantic dramas and comedies the heroes are the ones trying to acomplish something. It is also true in adventure histories like The Wizard of OS, The Odissey, Pokemon, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Code Geass...
Fallout is an example too, all the protagonists in the series had agendas of their own before even knowing about the existence of the villains.
We missed you Josh!
2nd comment on an almost 7 year old video....yep, doing it! You guys really nailed choice agony (I love this phrase now) in New Vegas, I think in large part to how you didn't cop out with a lame "option C" to the big decisions. Like, Veronica's quest conclusion is never 100% happy ending; the final decision with her will always be meaningful because there is no optimal outcome you can metagame; you don't know if you made the best decision, you just have to live with it. I can't think of any examples of games I played since New Vegas that put me in the same position (the Mass Effect genophage is usually mentioned, but I personally didn't feel that conflicted about it). And Veronica isn't an isolated case, New Vegas has probably a dozen of these in the base game alone; and these choices are just part of what makes New Vegas great. I hope you hear every day for the rest of your life how amazing New Vegas is (and I don't mean that in a sinister way).
this was really great!
Thanks.
Love the Dune example, awesome taste in books!
of course he has a kitten mug.
+Joshua Sawyer what do you think of the modding community of New Vegas with great mods coming out such as Frontier which explores the frozen wastes of Portland, Oregan?
Comment did not age well. Lol
@@demonspawn5164 it was back when I had hope.
Ayyyy lmao
You don't have to sympathize, you just have to understand. Excellent observation, feels like it should be good general life advice, too. Complete tangent inspired by this video, but anytime I see an analysis of Dune online (it's themes, or whatever) the Dr. Yueh situation is always called out. Like, maybe it's just been too long since I read the book, but wasn't Yueh just a patsy for the Emperor (ultimately)? I remember one of the chapters in Dune started with a curse for Yueh, and I think it's stuck with me since I was baffled by it. Does Paul really carry this much hate for the man? His anger (if it really exists) seems misplaced. Anyway, whatever, Dune is great. I annoy my only work friend by actually telling him when he says something to remind me of it. Am I the only one who remembers Wensicia getting annoyed when the captain of her guards calls their world by its shorthand name rather than the full? (Salusa SECUNDUS, call it the RIGHT THING!) Well, I don't know why he's my friend since he also makes fun of me for liking New Vegas. Don't be ashamed of liking things. So there. My profound declaration for the year (I know you were all reading this entire comment waiting for it). You can stop reading it now, it's over.
Hehe kitty mug
the point he makes near the end is why I stopped playing (for example) The Outer Worlds.
*None* of the characters or factions grabbed me in any meaningful way. I had to drop it because I didn't want to devote any more thought to them than I already had.
but for me it was less of an agony and more of a meh-gony.
Let me bring up one of the best villains there is, before even watching the video. Not because I like being arrogant, but because I want to play with the idea of risky assumption, and because I know I can change my mind after listening to him. Where's fun in that? ;)
Arcanum's villain - Kerghan
Usually heroes are the antagonist. If a hero's free to act as the player wills it'd open the scope beyond what a developer can produce content-wise. Mechanically, the villain is usually the mover and shaker to define what the hero will be involved in and restrain the player's options to something manageable to the development team.
There have been a few games recently where the antagonist was preferable to the PC "hero" or cause for conflict between the hero and villain was lacking.
1) The Witcher 2's "villain" said, "fuck royal authority" in exchange for empire backing which's needed for non-defined reasons as a prerequisite to resurecting his witcher group. His motives make a lot more sense than Geralt's king ball-licking and presumably wouldn't be in conflict with Geralt who should want a propagation of his kind too.
2) Despite the main character never expressing he gave a shit, let alone oposed the templars, and having done everything his master said, in AssCreed the boss's non-reveal as a templar is supposed to make him a villain. Why wouldn't his servant remain a servant while he took over the world?
3) The Illusive Man's plan to turn dead-weight refugees into a fighting force to combat the Reapers and to study their tech to gain control of the reapers made much more sense than the Alliance's, "let's hope this public work's project defeats the reaper's" plan.
4) In Mars: War Logs the Technomancers are doing the best job of recovering lost technology and the player's faction opposes them because of oppression which like killing militia-members and checkpoints. Although not ideal such cruelties as a trade-off for better tech are still a net gain versus destroying excavation sites and murdering specialists.
The more annoying trend isn't overly-sympathetic villains in stories, videogames in particular, but The Third Act Betrayal. So many games have relied upon, "dun-dun-dun! Your mentor/commander was the real enemy!" that it's expected. I understand this makes a linear story appear slightly more complex, as it could surprise some small segment of children in the audience while the initial relationships established remaining true and never recontextualized has less depth, but better to have a few story-branches or render a single one well than be hackneyed.
I loved in The Sith Lords that a high Intelligence allowed you to get Kreia to confess to being Darth Traya at the start of the game.
In real life the villains of history are traitors who served a short-time personal good for a long-term group loss like Henry Clay, Alexander Hamilton and Arthur Zimmerman. The best solution a videogame can offer is to allow players to determine who the real villain is, like FNV and to a lesser extent Alpha Protocol did.
Failing that, options to let the villain go after he has explained himself, as in The Witcher 2, submit to the villain as in Jade Empire, convince the villain of his factual wrongness as in Fallout, or join the villain are preferable alternatives to a, "you must oppose this guy" story.
Fuck Yeah Josh Sawyer
I forgot what youtuber said that but i'm curious what you think about it.
So, two games, Fallout New Vegas and Disco Elysium
In DE if you are a fascist, almost everyone dislikes you and your homie Kim Kitsuragi realy hates you and your character constantly loses morale health bar points
In NV you can join Legion and like... noone cares really, you can be homies with everyone, just one companion will not go with you and game does not condemn you in any way
I know that devs at Obsidian are very nice folks with more liberal views, pro-LGBT and so on and yet there is this """problematic"""(i don't like this term because of Twitter's overuse) thing with letting player choose something they agree with their morality but if the choice is quite objectively wrong and immoral i think that we should make the player feel bad with their choices of supporting groups like Legion, to really pay for their decisions like making most of the companions unwilling to join you. Beigng recognized in towns and even attacked or making it simply so you can't really be friends with Legion and NCR at once, it's silly, it fits courier as a "Éminence grise" who just works for people for money and so on.
but...
Even if it's a choice in a video game and we can simply never make that choice of supporting imperialistic fascist slavers, if we do, i think player should be punished, and i think it could be interesting experience to make game much harder, to turn it into "hardest" to achieve ending
I don't agree with this. On the Disco Elysium side of things, that game doesn't really punish fascism to the degree you say it does. Like yes, it's portrayed as an ideology for losers and idiots and its Final Cut vision quest and the loss of morale points from the fascist Thought reflects that, but your conversations with most people are barely affected and if you still do your job Kim will still describe you as a pretty ok guy at the end. If anything, the game punishes you more for being a milquetoast centrist than being a fascist, constantly mocking you for sitting on the fence and the centrist vision quest being an anticlimactic waste of time that gets you nowhere. The Moralintern is a sinister, almost eldritch occupying force, while fascism is represented by a bunch of delusional idiots and a sympathetic war hero.
And while New Vegas doesn't inherently punish you for siding with the Legion, taking the Legion outcome for every quest necessitates losing reputation with the NCR and most locations, locking you out of quest opportunities because people distrust you and eventually making everyone hostile and forcing you to go everywhere by disguise. Arcade and Boone will refuse to join you outright with positive Legion reputation and you'll lose Veronica as you proceed through the Legion storyline and likely Cass as well (no idea where you got the idea you can complete the game as Legion and only lose 1 companion). All of those suggestions are basically already implemented in the game. I mean, what more are you asking for? God to strike your character with lightning every time you gain Legion reputation? It sounds like you're complaining more about metagaming and players exploiting the reputation system so they can be friends with the Legion and NCR for as long as possible by putting off Legion quests, which is more a systematic issue than a design issue. I'm not even gonna go into your issue with the Legion being "objectively wrong and immoral" for being "imperialistic fascist slavers" yet seemingly not having the same complaints about the player not being punished for siding with the NCR. I don't have the patience to engage in a discussion of philosophy and politics or trust in TH-cam's automods.
This is such a whiny complaint. The whole point of an rpg is player freedom. Punishing players for what you consider “bad” (even if most people agree with you) is also a kinda hubristic view of things.
@@Dap1ssmonk You've obviously never played any of the classic fallouts if you're banging on about player freedom. Intelligence lower than 4? Everyone thinks you're an idiot and won't talk to you; goodbye nearly every quest. Kill one of those kids pickpocketing you in The Den? You're now a childkiller, everyone, murderers, crime lords and even slavers hate you, bounty hunters ambush you on fast travel and the game outright calls you evil. Playing a diplomat character and try to talk your way out of things? Well you haven't met Frank Horrigan mutie, hope you've built up your combat skills because there's only one way out of this. Better yet the game tries to foreshadow this at the start but by having a way for you to talk yourself out of it subverts the intended message. One even had you stuck on a strict timetable leaving you limited time to sort out quests otherwise you'd fall behind and fail the main quest.
Something like this is perfectly in line with the old games. Being a Slaver in two will lock you out of quests, make people hate you and have the NCR hostile from before you've even had anything to do with them.
@@docholiday7975 there’s a difference between freedom and lack of consequences. You can unalive kids in the old fallout games too. It does you no favors, and actively makes the game almost impossible, but you can. Take your incorrect dissertation to Todd. Also new vegas does not have the anmount of stuff in it neccassary to punish you the way you are talking. There’s not enough merchants and other support within the legion to justify doing that, if the legion had more time in the devolper oven maybe you could get locked into their story line.
Very noice
Alternate universe Wario?
Very Wario
I think it might be Volkswagen, but for a moment I thought he was paying respect to the late JewWario, R.I.P :
That would be pretty great if he even knew who that was~
in the movie Rain Man
who is the protagonist, who is the antagonist?
serious question from a literature, storytelling, etc. person
not all stories have those roles. i hardly remember the movie though.
Cool cap
I mean antiheroes and anti villains
Merchant of venice owns u scrub shakespeare defense force is coming 4 u
one of the great sympathy-gaining antagonists:
Frank-N-Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show
up there with Darth Vader
Normally I don't like sympathetic villains (There are exceptions; Darth Vader, Magneto, Sinestro, Mr. Freeze, Penguin from Batman Returns). Not everyone is redeemable and not everyone once a good person than became bad. Some villains are pure evil. Just because a villain thinks they're doing the right thing, doesn't mean they're sympathetic and redeemable. I.E. Lex Luthor (CEO Version), Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, Judge Claude Frollo, Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious (If you are an EU/Legends fan. You'll see what I mean), Darkseid, Apocalypse, Deathstroke, Bullseye, and Doctor Doom. I.E. Lex Luthor (CEO Version), Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, Judge Claude Frollo, Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious (If you are an EU/Legends fan. You'll see what I mean), Darkseid, Apocalypse, Deathstroke, Bullseye and Doctor Doom are all villains who believe they are the good guy, but are narcissistic, egotistical sociopaths with no redeeming qualities and are not sympathetic at all. What do you think?
The simplest answer, though redundant without context, is, "Sometimes doing the right thing means being the bad guy."
Take Thanos for example. If you've seen Endgame, then you know why he did what he did. He didn't want to do it, and he took no pleasure in it either, but he went forward because he knew he was the only one with the will power and resources to make it happen, and he stopped at nothing to achieve his goals, and by the end of Infinity War, he essentially succeeded in his mission.
But then time travel stuff happens, some characters are revived because of plot armor, and eventually the story overwrites it's own continuity to make the good guys win because god-forbid the "bad guy" actually gets a win once in a while.
But thanos isn't doing the right thing. If he was, hed double resources or impart everyone with perfect knowledge of how to avoid the problem or forcefully impart population control measures. I mean aside from the fact that he killed half of ALL living things INDISCRIMITELLY and regardless of whether there was or wasn't environment balance somewhere, the problem is inevitable to pop up again in a some time. It just doesn't make any kind of sense
His plan is purposefully stupid to showcase that's its not the right thing or any kind of solution, just essentially him pointing a massive middle finger to the people of his planet who didn't belive him. His plan is somehow stupider than his original plan of trying to fuck death
@@DimT670 agreed. as often and as blamelessly as we may be forced to "be bad", nothing can make it "the right thing".