The thing about The Board in Outer Worlds is that, while their plan may be more "reasonable", they are broadly characterised thoughout the game as evil. The whole game world is a cyberpunk dystopia, it's very plainly obvious that they are the bad guys in every other sense. So in the end the choice is between a risky plan by a mad scientist, and a safer alternative by the Board, with the caveat there being that you know they are evil and thus may have doubts about if they are telling the whole truth, or if there's some hidden catch.
I enjoyed The Outer Worlds and New Vegas, bus as far as factions go, they seem to have the same issue with over-telegraphing the bad of one side. In New Vegas the NCR are seen as a mixed bag, a corrupt government with good people in it. Now, compare that to the Legion who are crushing and enslaving others, it becomes easier to side with the NCR than the Legion. Like you say about The Outer Worlds, it becomes easier to side with a friendly mad scientist than the openly cynical and cruel Board.
Yeah, exactly what I wanted to write. I don't remember that there's any solid evidence that they're working on a solution. So those frozen people might be frozen forever - or even killed of, perhaps in an "accident".
@@bluemooninthedaylight8073 tbh, in Outer Worlds the problem is not so much how things are telegraphed, but how things *are*. The world is constructed in such a way that there's a very clear bad guy in the corporations, but the game constantly tries to pretend they and whatever faction they are fighting are somehow "morally equivalent". In particular, I remember the Iconoclasts' questline, where there was huge potential for a chaotic good vs lawful evil theme, to explore the difficulties of armed resistance and whatnot, but for some reason they just wrote the Iconoclast's leader into being evil and squandered all that. It's like they couldn't formulate counter-arguments for the faction they themselves had written into the game, so in order to make things "morally gray" they just gave them a kick-the-dog moment at the end to compensate and make the corpos seem a little less evil in comparison. And the "corpo" word reminds me of Cyberpunk 2077, which has the same problem...
@@SMorales851 it is extremely hard to find solid arguments for a position you do not support. Sadly, gamedev teams do not have dedicated 4chan researchers to counter that problem.
@@bluemooninthedaylight8073 just like in real life bad action weight more than good action, you can help a million people but if you mess up once you are done
I think that Dagoth Ur in Morrowind fits this mold perfectly where his sleepers will engage with the player as they continue the main story. Up until you meet him at red mountain all you know about Dagoth is what you’ve read and experienced through dreams. It’s Bethesda’s best main quest in my opinion out of all the games I’ve played by them.
I loved this aswell, I always found the Sleepers creepy, the sixth house in general is very creepy. I expected to meet some monster and was surprised to find this grandiose golden helmed demi god below red mountain with such wonderful dialogue
What I find really interesting is when a game doesn't have an explicit villain, e.g. Half-Life 1. Yes, you see the G-Man and you can guess that he's up to no good, but for the most part, there isn't a central villain who's opposing you. Instead, that game focuses on your own struggles and all the freaky stuff that happens around you. I wish more games would do that.
That’s a great way of explaining it. The G-man is such an amazing character even though he’s got around 20 minutes of total screen time between all the games.
Yea in that case, the 'villain' is the struggle for survival in the narrative. It's hard to do that, because it relies directly on the players motivation, but it's satisfying when done right.
I never felt compelled to finish a single Half-Life game. I never felt like there's anything to win at the end, and that's something I have in real life, so no thanks Valve.
That's just Lovecraftian "unspeakable" way of writing: something that looks deep, but in reality that's just something vague and undefined. There is no mystery, and never was.
I think the master is striking on design alone. When you hear "Mutant Master" you kind of expect someone like the Mutant Lt. But when you meet the master he's something you've never seen before, or ever really since. A grotesque combination of organic goop with a face merged with a computer and talks with what seems like three voices but one personality. Very creative, and sadly no other Fallout villain has come close.
@@HerohammerStudios Guy in room from 2, Guy in room thats robot from 3, and Guy in big fancy room from 4 are all masterpieces Guy in Room from 3 almost reminds me of Guy in room from 1.
Regarding Phineas vs the Board; I really wish The Chimerist's Last Experiment (the last quest for Sublight Salvage & Shipping) had an impact on the ending state and slides. That quest is so pivotal to how the colony would end up surmounting the famine and starvation issues. I would argue that what you do with that quest is _just_ as important as choosing between Phineas and the Board. Because as you said, the only way Phineas' plan works (assuming the revived scientists can't solve this), is if the colony overcomes the colony-wide starvation issue, which The Chimerist's Last Experiment decides!
The one issue that sticks out with "The Board" from Outer Worlds is that... You go from world to world, and see what has happened with them in charge: Incompetence, self-interest, arrogance, stupidity, shortsightedness, and psychopathy laid out in so many different examples. Throughout the game you are literally given examples of what they are capable of, and you get NO reason to give them another chance. Given the real world examples of most modern corporations and their boards, they'll just use their plan to delay and delay until there's nothing left. Then, The Board and their closest allies will take whatever they can, promise to "totally unfreeze people" the remaining people, and ditch the sector with the remaining resources in hopes of returning to Earth. There's plenty examples of C-Suite folks from many corporations coming in, crashing the company, and taking their golden parachutes out of the mes they've made. Also, The Board has known about the scientists and engineers, but they don't want their control of their fiefdoms upset by the intelligent. So, the end result is the same giving The Board power: Everyone starves, except them when they leave everyone else holding the bag. Phineas on the other hand with his plan, there's a chance a proper solution can be found and the cycle of corporate nihilism can be broken.
not to mention the fact that they are portrayed as so cartoonish, so inept, that it is impossible to take them seriously in the first place, completely undermining the tone of the game.
Yeah, I ADORE Outer Worlds but not only was the board itself set up like that, in the last _minutes_ before the final assault, a new character is introduced who supposedly has an interest in reforming the board, but even if you hate that Phineas was forcibly conscripting you into all this danger and trying to puppeteer you to enacting a huge gamble, there is no history with this new "reformationist" character. What possible reason is there to risk this being a stooge of the board or just another shortsighted psychopath trying to climb the ladder and get their jollies by subjugating people before they die?
I'd like to remind you that the Board didn't just create the issues, they also created every single colony and everything that was good as well. "But something bad!" isn't really an argument to side against them. The only other options presented are incompetent and child-like revolutionaries with no plans and no intelligence.
Agreed. All indication from the actions of The Board inferred there was no actual plan to unfreeze anyone. They would have kept eliminating residents this way even if a solution was found.
Regarding Outer Worlds's endings, I think it's worth noting that (at least as far as I remember) none of the companions or other ally characters mention the contrast of worst possible outcomes with the same phrasing used here (again, at least as far as I remember). I think the same also goes for Phineas's tendency to force people to do what he tells them and his lack of a solution to the food rationing issue before de-thawing people. BUT, it *is* entirely possible that those things *were* mentioned by companions or ally characters and simply weren't being remembered by players -- which, in truth, could be an interesting thing to discuss in and of itself.
I know you and Chris Avellone were fans of eachothers work but I don't know if you guys ever got the chance to work on projects together properly. I'd love to see a video about you talking more about you and Chris especially given both your writing styles are brilliant and philosophical
If this happens, Tim, you must ask Chris about his Arcanum playthrough that he did as a tier reward for the Pillars kickstarter. That was hilarious. For those who haven't seen that disaster, its on TH-cam in all its glory :D th-cam.com/video/aO9Qa8KbeMc/w-d-xo.html
Regarding The Outer Worlds, perhaps it would have been interesting as the game progresses that both factions gradually show other facets. Say, the mad scientist starts off seemingly like a friendly lunatic, but as the game continues, his behavior becomes more alarming until the final confrontation where it all comes to a head. Meanwhile, the Board are shown in how they've made a mess of it all, but as the game continues, Board members show layers while also revealing a genuine desire to fix things. The two sides progression would be an inverse of each other, with one being very awful and the other seemingly quite good, but by the end, the player must decide based on what they've learned which side to align with.
I feel like one big reason people sided against the Board in Outer Worlds is that in many ways they were *too true* to life; it's reflected in the opaqueness of their bureaucracy, the clear contempt they have for people under them, and the lack of concern for the well-being of their society aside from increasing their own wealth and benefits. I think if their solution was presented in more emotional terms, or there were clear benefits of working with the Board for the player that didn't involve just straight-up immoral acts, people might have been more receptive, but the whole game I just felt doing anything for them that involved a shred of conscience was looked down on. As some might say, it's better to die free and standing, than to live in chains.
There's a reason oppressed people are willing to revolt and fight back. Why live in misery when you can risk your terrible existence for something possibly better?
I absolutely love relatable villains, but i think there are some great ways to do hateable villains, too. My favorite example is Bondrewd the Novel from Made in Abyss. Hes a powerful person, but you arent as worried about the harm he can do to you as the harm he can do to others. His ideology and convictions are portrayed clearly, and really convey a feeling of unsettling sociopathy. Even though the series isnt a game (i think one was made at one point), i think theres a lot we can learn about making effective villains in games, too. Not a lot of players 'fear' combat in games, and have to really be sold on how powerful the villain is. I think with careful writing, you can have a Bondrewd-style villain that naturally motivates the player to take the main quest seriously.
Handsome Jack was a really good example of running into a villain several times over a story. He’s constantly talking to you over the course of the story and when he finally shows up in person it’s got a huge effect over the stakes of the story
The best writing advice I ever got about villains was that a villain is often a hero who is willing to sacrifice anything, and anyone to get their way. While a hero tends to sacrifice nothing, or no one, except themselves.
I used the philosophy of Kergan and himself in my DnD campaign. Almost all the players had not played Arcanum and liked his philosophy. Everyone had a different reaction and some even went over to his side.
2:36 that reminds me of Two Worlds, where you could lure the villain to the village at the start of the game, make him aggro the villagers and then he gets killed by them.
I'm kinda glad to hear you characterise Outer Worlds like this because that was entirely my read on the situation: Finneas is only the moral choice to make if you know he will succeed. Otherwise it is catastrophically gambling with the survival of the species. I like playing RPGs for the big picture, so I couldn't even pretend to support him. Although, to be fair, the board do kill all of the cryofrozen hope crew to make their plan work, so it's not no-one who will die.
Wait, isn't the cryostasis thing meant to be that people get frozen in shifts? I.e: You go be frozen for N months, so I can live, and then I go be frozen for N months, so you can live. I thought that was the point of the cryo solution - to give everyone at least *some* life, instead of just freezing a selected population forever.
It looks like there is no problem of survival of the species. Just the Halcyon colony. There are other colonies out there. It's mentioned in Phineases ending: they send help to Halcyon.
The board don't kill the hope crew. They say they'll just unfreeze them as they're able to - they're the ones that came up with the tech/chemicals that let them defrost those people in the first place, which Phineas stole to unfreeze you. It would be a long time before the Board could do that, however.
I always found The Master and Kerghan fascinating villains! The way you right such nuanced yet imposing antagonists is actually mind-blowing! You and Mr Boyarsky have such a gift and it's a shame you don't have as many projects as you both deserve
I've been working on a creative writing project for a few years and your videos are tremendously helpful at distilling fundamentals of storytelling. Thank you.
As a few people on here have mentioned, I found The Board so cartoonishly inept and transparently self-interested that it felt like an intentional parody of systems in the real world. In some ways, it felt like a reaction to the small portion of players not getting that Ceaser's Legion is bad in New Vegas. Granted, I've only played it once, but nothing about any of the corporate interests (going back to the very first world) seemed like it was functioning adequately (let alone properly). Even the sardonic, tongue in cheek advertising for the game seemed to reinforce this reading. The fact that there was a choice to side corporate felt more like a design philosophy than anything that was telegraphed in game (the same way you can murder all the Teiflings in Baldur's Gate if you decide you are doing that kind of playthrough). This isn't even a criticism on my part. I think it's totally fine for a work of art to have a preferred point of view. I'm just a little surprised that Tim is surprised.
New sub here, and absolutely loving the channel. Even though I'm a gamer, I'm also a writer, and a lot of your videos are giving me interesting insights on my books too. Thanks a ton for the vlogs, I really enjoy your work!
I know I've posted this before but Arcanum's villain is such a masterclass in bad guy writing, pacing, and well executed twists...it does break your telegraphing suggestion though (there were very few crumbs to be able to predict the real bad guy at the end -- or very likely I'm an idiot 😀). Also I think Zuggtmoy is underrated as a villain (just like ToEE is very underrated as a game 😉) Thank you for the video! Have a great day!
It's interesting how close Lilith in Diablo 4 gets to checking these boxes (spoiler warning). She's introduced well, you find out more about her and slowly chase her down. She has her own plans and goals, and doesn't really even notice the player character until they start messing with her plans. You ally with the angel inarius, but it's not clear that he's any better than lilith. However, because the game is not a talking rpg, you get railroaded into a linear story with no choices. When you get to the final boss fight with Lilith, you've already achieved your goals (your sidekick has already escaped with the mcguffin), and the depth of characterisation disappears when she's just another demon to fight because she's there. Feels like the devs intended you to get a choice to join her, but then they remembered that the game only has mechanics for fighting and looting, so gave up halfway through writing the story. I understand that with the MMO style they want everyone to end the game with the same world state, otherwise it'd be a mess, but it feels like a villain with wasted potential.
The Master was one of my favorite game villains. Maybe only loses first place to Deidranna from Jagged Alliance 2 (the way she is presented and how the player can interact with her in that game is also brilliant)
I completely forgot to mention how cool "Arronax" was telegraphed during the course of the game and that all expectations led to one of the best twists I've encountered, plenty of other lore pointed to Arronax and the other evils particularly Kerghan ;)
I finally caught up to the videos on the channel 😅 Love the talks - no matter the topic ❤ I was curious, Tim - have you had any opportunity to play the Fallout Board Game? And if so - what impression did you have? Did you enjoy it? Any thoughts on the mechanics and overall "fun factor"? Also, another question - since your days of playing D&D, have you given the Fallout 2d20 from Modiphius a try? I understand it was mostly built from the Bethesda's Fallout 4 base, but maybe there's some potential in it? If you played it - what do you think about the Modiphius' 2d20 take on the SPECIAL system? Thanks again for the stories and please, for the love of Atom - keep them going! ❤
I agree with this villain concept Tim. I prefer to have the villain be visible not just their look but their vision and their action. When they clashed with player's own vision and action, the story becomes great.
The Master was legendary! Before i played the first fallout i never encountered a game were the villain have a good point in a certain way. To me he is one of the best villain ever made (i still have to play Arcanum)
Kerghan the terrible was such a cool villan, a terrific manipulator who accepts his methods aren't entirely pure -but points out that these are a matter of perspective. Also awesome voice.
In an alternate timeline, you can convince the master to use the mutants to protect the regular humans and team up to use the mutants to deal with the radiation for the normal humans.
I tend to dislike encountering the villain (at least in the flesh, face-to-face) before being able to actually fight them. Unless it's done to establish some sort of history or show them before their villainy or somesuch, as opposed to just taunting the player or trying to force a reaction. A good villain is baked into the worldbuilding so well that you don't need to see them face-to-face to understand them and their effect on the world, to the point they become a presence just as much as they are an entity. If that makes sense. That's why The Master and Dagoth Ur remain two of my favorites
I absolutely agree that the most interesting villains are the ones which have a vision for a better future, however misguided that vision is. The most memorable villain I've ever seen was in the anime series Blue Submarine No. 6, a mad scientist type villain. I think about that guy all the time, even now, 10-15 years later. He wanted to create a new humanity, a better humanity, which involved the the destruction of the old one.
Two of the best villains in any RPG I've played are in the same game: Suikoden 2. Your first big bad is Luca Blight, the crown prince of the Highland kingdom, which is basically a vassal state of a bigger, off-screen evil empire. He is pretty much comic book villainy levels of evil: Killing civilians in cutscenes, relishing all the violence and destruction he causes, burning towns to the ground and leaving no survivors. It all stems from a traumatic incident when he was a child and there was a war/border skirmish going on with the side where you're the hero. But just in general, even with the game's pretty mediocre translation, you get a character who loves being the bad guy, because he has an absolute hatred for your side. A great villain not because he's relatable or complex, but because he's a scene stealer and is written well enough that I find it easy to hate him. Your second big bad is your childhood best friend, whose villain turn is more understandable, and his motivations don't make sense as stated by him, but the greater context of the story explains why he thinks he has to do what makes him a villain. He's being manipulated by some bad people, but he's also a dark mirror version of your character.
Hey Tim, when Outer Worlds 2 comes out, will you talk more about the first game? Earlier you said, you can't really discuss it right now, since you are working on a second game and under NDA regarding things you would like to improve from the first game. On a same note, what things do you think the first game nailed perfectly? Things that do not require much improvement in the sequel and how those things were nailed in the first place? Thanks for the vids
Your idea about The Master and Mutant was the best. It was perfect as ugly creature try to rule the world instead faction with cool armor and "fascist" thing
Thank you for making some of the best games I have ever played. It is rare to be so impressed by a game that even decades later i remember characters or stories from it.
There could be multiple influential, experienced, capable, and well equipped villain. Player choosing certain actions to take. This ends up helping one of the villians indirectly. There comes a time when of the villians is able to best the other ones, or side with another villian. This would be because the player has become a far greater threat than their advisory. Its a complex theme that would take a great deal of planning, unexpect twists, and engagement by the player to decide the real villian they want to defeat.
"I'm so surprised that people sided with Finneas?" You mean the only character of the two villains your dev team gave any characterization, or depth to.
this video actually made me realised why I didn't like Outer Worlds as much I wanted to, because that argument for the Board is very flimsy and I unfortunately didn't feel the narrative impact of picking one choice over the other - throughout the game you see how immoral and useless the board is, their solution to the food problem is on brand to brush problems aside to make the number goes up. Phineas at least offer a path to change the status quo, while the board path simply gives you "more money!". And while I see the point in this video, the game did not communicate this duality well. In order to make this choice actually difficult, you'd have to make Phineas much much MUCH more unlikeable (doesn't help that Piotr Michael is very charming), abusive, controlling, and make the Board much more competent, and create an actual solution to the food problem that is worth choosing the Board over Phineas for. A good version of this is how in Fallout NV all the head of factions are interesting, have a point, and all will benefit NV in potentially meaningful ways. The platinum chip plot if basically similar to what could have made The Outer Worlds good, create a MacGuffin that can solve the food problem for good or Phineas to free all frozen residents, you'd already have a much better story there.
I'm waiting for a company either this gen or next gen to make a map that IS the enemy. Every environment can shift into something that can kill you, and the further you progress, the more the game throws at you. You could do the soulslike formula that way, and it'd be even better if you were part of that. Every time you die, you reconstitute as pieces of the map, same as everything else, and you can level up how that happens and what you have access to. It'd be easily my favorite game ever.
I don’t think every villain needs to be sympathetic as much as they need to have a strong motivation. If you think about Walter white from breaking bad he KNOWS what he’s doing is bad but he does it anyway because it makes sense for his character and audiences actually cheered for him for the majority of the shows runtime because of his strong conviction and appeal to people’s desire for power. I feel like this archetype in games is highly unrepresented where a villain must have some level of sympathy to them where a totally evil character can be done well with strong motivations and do the same job sometimes better.
I've said this for years, but I think The Master might be one of the best villains of all time. His backstory, voice acting, visual design, gameplay, speech checks, and the world building around him is absolutely amazing. Its really incredible when writing can make you go "Wow, the villain has a point." I also think The Outer Worlds did a good job of making both sides morally viable. Both sides have pros and cons, and you can argue about both for hours. Reminds me of Fallout New Vegas where all 4 options are bad in their own way.
Had to jump out due to the spoilers warning. Thank you for that, unca Tim. But your preface was very much in keeping with what I felt a good villain should be. The villain to you is a hero to others or even just the villain alone. It could be a goal motivated by self interest. Or maybe a vaguely benevolent goal but with methods that are extreme. It could be argued that the hero/player character is also villainous by the methods chosen to get to the villain. Leaving mountains of bodies behind that one killed to level up? Or killed because stealth and speech were disdained in favor of killing. I have no shame citing Undertale's usage of a pacifist route. Certain dialogues and paths are locked out as soon as you kill one character. It's known that your character is a killer, and some people refuse to deal with the player.
I always appreciate a game that creates a realistic and intelligent villain. My favorite is Dahlia Gillespie. She’s a complex character in a confusing world.
One of my favourite villains in any game is, funnily enough, The Boss, from Metal Gear Solid 3. Without spoilers, she's your mentor gone rogue, and you fight her several times over the game, always falling short. What makes her an amazing "villain" is that she's a didactic villain: her entire opposition to you is because she's trying to teach you a very specific lesson. You're not fighting her throughout the game, really: you're fighting your own inability to change -- you're fighting yourself, and it's only when you accept her lesson that you defeat yourself. An amazing character.
You've got it a little wrong, the Boss isn't even a villain. She's an antagonist because your character's bosses are using her as a scapegoat for an international incident caused by the actual villain of the game. Tim even says this in the video: "not all of your bosses are going to be villains." The Boss is a perfect example of that.
I think the best video game villains are still the Unity and Shodan from System Shock 2. This is a case were the Unity has a notionally good goal of uniting humanity so the kind of villain you describe. But Shodan is just bat chaotic crazy. Which makes sense in the context that she'd been hacked and damaged in the original game.
Tim I love ya but the Board in OW were mustache twirling to the extreme and Great Value Rick Sanchez having a somewhat more reckless solution to the food problem doesnt turn their hats gray at the end
Why was that? I've never played it, but I did watch an LP of it. He very much did seem coded as the wacky good guy when set against the default nefarious corpos. I agree with someone else's comment on this video that I don't remember the potential flaws of Phineas's plans really being highlighted - not as narrative. So on paper, sure, there's a nuance. But I'm not sure the game itself expressed that.
@@SabiJD Subtlety is an art, and honestly, I like that the Outer Worlds respects players enough to expect them to be able to read between the lines. Highlighting is something literature, films, and games very much shouldn't be doing except outside of red herrings.
@@SyndicateOperative That's not how I would describe TOW, though. I don't feel it was subtle [at all... ], it was, well, poorly executed tonally. I don't think the idea of 'pick your villain/antagonist' really worked, unfortunately.
i thought the biggest villain in modern videogames is The Publisher, every time i hear the game was bad, rushed, half baked or content was cut from it.... it's always because the main antagonist: The Publisher
Considering the absolute incompetence of the Board across Halcyon, I never even considered the possibility of them being succesful in their plans. I felt as if I had to pick between a leap of faith (Welles) or certain slow death for Halcyon (The Board).
I think why people, myself included, consider Phineas the good ending is how the board is portrayed throughout the game. A power hungry group that wants to centralize the limited resources, but not only in a way to help solve the problem, but to also keep them in power and living in convenience while the other groups suffer. That as well as effectively having to kill all the minds already frozen to make room for the workers. In contract, Phineas has a more risky plan, but one that distributes the problem more equally, with the solution not being centralized with more minds able to freely work on the issue, with an overall higher chance to solve it. An autocracy vs democracy. In my opinion the board had a lower chance to succeed, as they would reject any parties that were willing to work on the problem but were not politically aligned with them. A shame there was no diplomatic ending where you could take over the board while also allowing Phineas to join, effectively implementing his plan but through diplomacy while sparing the people already frozen on the ship. A very interesting game you and your team have created, looking forward to the sequel.
I only watched the game being played (it wasn't a lost sale, as I would not have bought it regardless. just didn't click with it), but that's definitely what I remember; that, sure, on paper the nuance could be there to make both bad or good. But in framing, in tone (even aside from your points)? No, there's only really one bad, deeply untrustworthy side in that. TOW's satire on capitalism and corporate culture was so broad it really had to truly commit to making the board seem an acceptable alternative, and I don't feel it did that. I love these videos from Tim, and they've made me curious about giving the game another go, so to speak. But there's just too much to play that are bigger personal priorities. I hope TOW2 is something I can click with, though.
@@SabiJD I would recommend playing Outer Worlds if you ever find the time, as its a wonderful game. It is not too long, so you can finish it in a few weeks with a normal pace. A "spacer's choice edition" was released as well, but I do not think the original team had anything to do with that as it was an unoptimized buggy mess where new graphics were added (some said it looked worse), performance was tanked and a toggle was enabled to remove the level cap. None of the bugs I experienced and reported were fixed either, the focus being on graphics only. I was happy at first, but once I read the reviews I steered clear of that version and remembered the fund I had with the original. And agreed, the videos Tim releases are a breath of fresh air in an ecosystem where young inexperienced "influencers" share their sponsored "wisdom". Its wonderful hearing from someone with years of experience behind them speak.
I feel like the heroes and villains in my story will just be exaggerated versions of views I already have. Like Kergan, life is suffering so end all life, and they way it's described with the peace of the void, it's hard to look at that and disagree, but that view is one that is pretty common among people, just taken to it's extreme. In Christian mythology, when you die under the right circumstances, you go to a place said to be free of pain and suffering, so someone could make the argument that if we kill everyone, we're just expediting our trip to ultimate happiness.
"when you die under the right circumstances, you go to a place said to be free of pain and suffering" -- Bear with me here and, of course, feel free to disagree, but that's not actually the message the Christian (and islamic and Hebrew and Hindu and...) assorted other world mythologies and wisdom traditions convey, either in my experience of them or that of some of our most celebrated religious scholars. From the Elysian fields to Nirvana to Heaven to...Stovakor..the teachings refer to present life and human experience of joy, true freedom and metaphysical "life after death". Siddharta Guatama didn't die upon the occasion of his enlightenment and ego-death beneath the bodhi tree, but lived to share the insights he'd gleaned into the causes of human suffering. So did Thich Nhat Hanh. Other great teachers (e.g. Mansur Al-Hallaj and Jesus of Nazareth, et alia) did the same, but were and are excommunicated, exiled and/or put to death by their own contemporaries for daring to turn the status quo on its head and remind everyone of the living, breathing character of their respective wisdom traditions in the face of the "lawyers" who spend every waking moment thiniking only about every jot and tittle of the "letter of the law" of their respective societies and nothing about the spirit of said law. (You'd think that was a crime against humanity or something, but of course it isn't.) I'm actually amazed how many individuals who self-identify as "secular" refuse to acknowledge how much of their supposedly original philosophies and senses of ethics actually have been inherited from the practice of religare. Some would like to see the practice of religare replaced with the practice of intelligere and I can kind of, sort of see why, but am not sure religious practitioners would quite understand the reasoning as the practices are expressions of their respective cultures with which they intimately identify for obvious reasons.
Funny how you immediately dismiss what I consider to be the best way to keep the player from killing the villain/antagonist too early. The way I see it is the player and antag meeting face to face early is not unlike the movie trope where the hero meets the villain in a context where there would be no reason to fight. But then again we have very different tastes in games. Tim is a tabletop and PC guy while starting gaming on a Gameboy Advance.
The Master was a hybrid of Richard Grey (Harold's former companion), the vault's computer system, and a few other people. That's he (?) has the crazy mish-mash of voices.
@@pitchforker3304 Damn. Character is not what's his voice or voice actors are. Just don't answer, if you are going to write some bs which has nothing to do with the essence and actual character. That guy just needs to play the game and/or read, that's it. Such simplification and badness you wrote are leading only to more confusion.
motivation and psychology isimportant for being a writer they don't need to be making the world better though, but be exploiting it for selfish motivations
Fallout and Arcanum villains are brilliant. But The Outer Worlds villain is really not on par with them. Haven't played Temple yet. The Board is displayed through the whole game as incompetent, bloodthirsty and authoritarian force. It doesn't look like flawed, but understandable side. It looks straight like villain side. Whole colony is crumbling under their rule for decades. And they still have no way to fix the situation. Their "lifetime employment" plan is not even ready yet: they still didn't figure out how to revive colonists which are frozen for too long. And their bio-engineering plan is not working too right now. So there is a considerable risk of their plans not working at all. And how do they deal with food problem right now? They fool people into thinking they can win an early retirement in Byzantium, and kill them instead. If Board loses control over Edgewater in any way, what do they do about it? They send a player to wipe that place clean. How does it help? Well, it doesn't in any way. It's just an evil way to show loyalty to the Board. And what is the worst things about Phineas? Well, he unintentionally killed some people while trying to revive them, and his plan is very risky. Can't say it's a good plan. But it's not terrible either. And he has no leverage on a player character whatsoever. That rapid cell rapture thing is a consequence of failed revival procedure. It can't happen to player character anymore. It's not even like player should return to the Lab sometimes to be treated with some chemical compounds, so their PC's body cells will not rapture, so Phineas could threaten player by death if you are not going to help him. There is nothing like that in the game. This whole idea is reinforced by the game again and again. People living miserable lives under Board's rule, and they are so brainwashed and supressed, they can't even complain about it. While independent people... Well, their life is not great either, but there are ongoing processes to make living and working conditions better. And of course they are normal, relatable people. And guess what? Board is trying to supress them. They cut off those who didn't left the Monarch, and they mess with Groundbraker on every opportunity. And it's even harder to think of Phineas as a villain in hindsight. His dangerous and risky plans work. Hope skip-drive trick works. Revival plan works perfectly fine too. P.S.: I literally tried to play the game very cautiously. I was sceptic on Phineases plan because he behaves kinda shady. But I "outplayed" myself in that regard. TWO is much simpler than i thought. And after Byzantium lab I just went fully anti-Board and got almost the best ending possible.
This may be a little rude, but I think the reason most people don't like the board is that they (the player) are lacking in maturity - the board, after all, built nearly everything you see in the game. The entire idea of colonizing that solar system is their initiative, after all. Many people forget all of that, and just assume that they're "the problem." When I played the outer worlds, I firmly stood in the pro-board camp. The other sides were always juvenile, and offered no solutions - they were standard "next generation" revolutionaries - but they were also painted as the stereotypical "good guys" for players who weren't interested in looking deeper. That's actually something I liked about the game. That said, I didn't like the ending slides as much - I got one that said something along the lines of "because you left the capitalist board in power, the rich lead luxurious lives while the poor suffered" - the problem is that "the poor" were never really featured in the game at all. There were people that were living fairly good lives (outside of the nutrition crisis), all with a surprisingly high degree of freedom (within reason). Every "class" still had to go to work regardless. As for "the rich"... they were stuck in the same situation as everyone else. Their houses looked nicer, but that was about it - hell, the first thing I heard as I entered the "rich" area was a story about how they had a suggestion box that was connected to a paper shredder. They knew it was set up like that, but it helped them cope with how bad things were.
I disdain when people call antagonists "villains"'; Villains do not exist, there are only subjective judgements and morals. And there is facts and truth higher than divided line, ideal Platonic forms, abstractions. And great what you call "villains" are usually spitting facts and truth, which majority can't swallow or comprehend. That's what makes a great "villain" (i.e. antagonist). Both Kerghan and Master (and Jon Irenicus, as another one of the greatest examples) are not villains, they were actually good people who did everything right. It's just that overwhelming majority (7+ billions of people) are infinitely foolish and ignorant, are always in denial and illusions, egocentric and solipsistic, with no understanding of defected and degenerative human nature. Kerghan is not crazy, you are crazy, foolish and in denial, if you think he is. Or better to say real people, misanthropes and intellectuals with the only grand goal any living being can achieve - annihilating all life, existence and absurdism, whom and which Kerghan partly represents, are not crazy (because there are such real individuals), but you are, if you are gaslighting them.
I mean, the Emperor from Star Wars is A Villain™. Ditto Vader in ANH and Empire. Villains certainly exist - in culture, but also reality, frankly. Morality may be a construct, but be it in fiction or reality, there will always be a right and wrong at some point. Philosophical semantics are useful, but they have their limits. Still, I do tend to oppose the term villain, as it's usually constraining to really interesting character narrative and themes. Dagoth Ur in Morrowind arguably very much ends up a villain - someone needing to be opposed/stopped. But he's also complicated, and has historic reason to feel betrayed, and to oppose the False Gods of the Tribunal. He's an antagonist that's partly right, but he is also still villainous and wrong. What I love about Morrowind was that the other chief antagonist is the enemy of Dagoth Ur; Vivec is perceived good by the society, by and large, but he is actively trying to have you killed up to a certain point in the story.
@@SabiJD You are just suporting my point and claim without understanding it, it seems, that villains do not exist in fact. "Right" and "wrong" are subjective terms of social contract, which take roots in subjective opinions and morals, judgements. The objective paradigm lies beyond the divide line, with ideal Platonic forms and abstractions, math and geometry, like shapes of a triangle. "Right" and "wrong" are lower than divided line, in the shadows, it's based on subjective opinions. Everything in physicality and world is subjective, everything is a construct. True intellectual and philosopher can easily argumentate validly and soundly that even a murder is a philosophical virtue. Or wiping the entire humanity or life as it is in the universe is virtue, so it's not a "villain", but a hero, and that "heroes" in popular cultures are actually villains then, which oppoes the heroes. Again, it's subjective. There is no right or wrong. Just judgements. Objective states are life and death though, like the shapes of a square or triangle. Then it's easy to see that death and non existense is far better than life and existence, therefore "villains" who want to annihilate life and humanity are heroes and good people, while everyone who oppose that is a bad people and villains.
@@SabiJD P.S. I don't care about partucular cases, but "star wars" is naive and simplistic trash for simpletons and fools, all based on arhetypes of Carl Jung and others. It's the word work of art ever created in history, also the worst fandom community ever, which cleavly shows the lack of intelligence. The most irrational one. Too bad rationality can't win over irrationality. Vader is the only main character, hero and anti-hero at the same time. "Morrowind" is a good game, Dagoth is not a villain, but an antagonist. No one is wrong there, including Dagoth or Vivec, again. It's subjective claims. But objectively those who majority of people claim to be "villains" are objectively better people by the higher divided line and arguments I provided higher.
@@PenguinCinema English is not the only language in the world, for your information. I know 7 languages, learned them all by myself, what about you, do you know at least 2-3, 'midwit'? Also try not to suck your own ego with liking your own comments, mediocrity which has nothing to say, which has no ability in formal logic, argumentating or rhetotic. Get lost and be happy with your high ignotance levels and low cognitive abilities, typical parasitic fool without critical thinking.
Villains do not exist. Or villains are the main heroes people usually play, when people think when what's right is "wrong". Culture and majority of people are delusional and brainwashed into thinking life is something good, while objectively death and non existence is far better than life and existense. "Right" and "wrong" are subjective terms of social contract, which take roots in subjective opinions and morals, judgements. The objective paradigm lies beyond the divide line, with ideal Platonic forms and abstractions, math and geometry, like shapes of a triangle. "Right" and "wrong" are lower than divided line, in the shadows, it's based on subjective opinions. Everything in physicality and world is subjective, everything is a construct. True intellectual and philosopher can easily argumentate validly and soundly that even a murder is a philosophical virtue. Or wiping the entire humanity or life as it is in the universe is virtue, so it's not a "villain", but a hero, and that "heroes" in popular cultures are actually villains then, which oppoes the heroes. Again, it's subjective. There is no right or wrong. Just judgements. Objective states are life and death though, like the shapes of a square or triangle. Then it's easy to see that death and non existense is far better than life and existence, therefore "villains" who want to annihilate life and humanity are heroes and good people, while everyone who oppose that is a bad people and villains.
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The thing about The Board in Outer Worlds is that, while their plan may be more "reasonable", they are broadly characterised thoughout the game as evil. The whole game world is a cyberpunk dystopia, it's very plainly obvious that they are the bad guys in every other sense. So in the end the choice is between a risky plan by a mad scientist, and a safer alternative by the Board, with the caveat there being that you know they are evil and thus may have doubts about if they are telling the whole truth, or if there's some hidden catch.
I enjoyed The Outer Worlds and New Vegas, bus as far as factions go, they seem to have the same issue with over-telegraphing the bad of one side. In New Vegas the NCR are seen as a mixed bag, a corrupt government with good people in it. Now, compare that to the Legion who are crushing and enslaving others, it becomes easier to side with the NCR than the Legion. Like you say about The Outer Worlds, it becomes easier to side with a friendly mad scientist than the openly cynical and cruel Board.
Yeah, exactly what I wanted to write.
I don't remember that there's any solid evidence that they're working on a solution.
So those frozen people might be frozen forever - or even killed of, perhaps in an "accident".
@@bluemooninthedaylight8073 tbh, in Outer Worlds the problem is not so much how things are telegraphed, but how things *are*. The world is constructed in such a way that there's a very clear bad guy in the corporations, but the game constantly tries to pretend they and whatever faction they are fighting are somehow "morally equivalent".
In particular, I remember the Iconoclasts' questline, where there was huge potential for a chaotic good vs lawful evil theme, to explore the difficulties of armed resistance and whatnot, but for some reason they just wrote the Iconoclast's leader into being evil and squandered all that. It's like they couldn't formulate counter-arguments for the faction they themselves had written into the game, so in order to make things "morally gray" they just gave them a kick-the-dog moment at the end to compensate and make the corpos seem a little less evil in comparison.
And the "corpo" word reminds me of Cyberpunk 2077, which has the same problem...
@@SMorales851 it is extremely hard to find solid arguments for a position you do not support. Sadly, gamedev teams do not have dedicated 4chan researchers to counter that problem.
@@bluemooninthedaylight8073 just like in real life bad action weight more than good action, you can help a million people but if you mess up once you are done
I think that Dagoth Ur in Morrowind fits this mold perfectly where his sleepers will engage with the player as they continue the main story. Up until you meet him at red mountain all you know about Dagoth is what you’ve read and experienced through dreams. It’s Bethesda’s best main quest in my opinion out of all the games I’ve played by them.
I loved this aswell, I always found the Sleepers creepy, the sixth house in general is very creepy. I expected to meet some monster and was surprised to find this grandiose golden helmed demi god below red mountain with such wonderful dialogue
What I find really interesting is when a game doesn't have an explicit villain, e.g. Half-Life 1. Yes, you see the G-Man and you can guess that he's up to no good, but for the most part, there isn't a central villain who's opposing you. Instead, that game focuses on your own struggles and all the freaky stuff that happens around you. I wish more games would do that.
That’s a great way of explaining it. The G-man is such an amazing character even though he’s got around 20 minutes of total screen time between all the games.
Yea in that case, the 'villain' is the struggle for survival in the narrative. It's hard to do that, because it relies directly on the players motivation, but it's satisfying when done right.
I never felt compelled to finish a single Half-Life game. I never felt like there's anything to win at the end, and that's something I have in real life, so no thanks Valve.
20 years later... Who are these "benefactors"?!
That's just Lovecraftian "unspeakable" way of writing: something that looks deep, but in reality that's just something vague and undefined. There is no mystery, and never was.
I think the master is striking on design alone. When you hear "Mutant Master" you kind of expect someone like the Mutant Lt. But when you meet the master he's something you've never seen before, or ever really since. A grotesque combination of organic goop with a face merged with a computer and talks with what seems like three voices but one personality.
Very creative, and sadly no other Fallout villain has come close.
Are you trying to say guy in room from 2 or guy in room from 4 aren't as creative? Madness I say!
@@HerohammerStudios Guy in room from 2, Guy in room thats robot from 3, and Guy in big fancy room from 4 are all masterpieces
Guy in Room from 3 almost reminds me of Guy in room from 1.
Sarevok from BG1 immediately sprung to mind when Tim was first describing a good villain. He, and Baldur's Gate 1, ticked every box.
Regarding Phineas vs the Board; I really wish The Chimerist's Last Experiment (the last quest for Sublight Salvage & Shipping) had an impact on the ending state and slides. That quest is so pivotal to how the colony would end up surmounting the famine and starvation issues. I would argue that what you do with that quest is _just_ as important as choosing between Phineas and the Board.
Because as you said, the only way Phineas' plan works (assuming the revived scientists can't solve this), is if the colony overcomes the colony-wide starvation issue, which The Chimerist's Last Experiment decides!
Absolutely. I can't imagine how the game would appear to someone who played till the ending but skipped that sidequest.
The one issue that sticks out with "The Board" from Outer Worlds is that... You go from world to world, and see what has happened with them in charge: Incompetence, self-interest, arrogance, stupidity, shortsightedness, and psychopathy laid out in so many different examples. Throughout the game you are literally given examples of what they are capable of, and you get NO reason to give them another chance. Given the real world examples of most modern corporations and their boards, they'll just use their plan to delay and delay until there's nothing left. Then, The Board and their closest allies will take whatever they can, promise to "totally unfreeze people" the remaining people, and ditch the sector with the remaining resources in hopes of returning to Earth. There's plenty examples of C-Suite folks from many corporations coming in, crashing the company, and taking their golden parachutes out of the mes they've made. Also, The Board has known about the scientists and engineers, but they don't want their control of their fiefdoms upset by the intelligent.
So, the end result is the same giving The Board power: Everyone starves, except them when they leave everyone else holding the bag.
Phineas on the other hand with his plan, there's a chance a proper solution can be found and the cycle of corporate nihilism can be broken.
not to mention the fact that they are portrayed as so cartoonish, so inept, that it is impossible to take them seriously in the first place, completely undermining the tone of the game.
Yeah, I ADORE Outer Worlds but not only was the board itself set up like that, in the last _minutes_ before the final assault, a new character is introduced who supposedly has an interest in reforming the board, but even if you hate that Phineas was forcibly conscripting you into all this danger and trying to puppeteer you to enacting a huge gamble, there is no history with this new "reformationist" character. What possible reason is there to risk this being a stooge of the board or just another shortsighted psychopath trying to climb the ladder and get their jollies by subjugating people before they die?
Yeah, I was about to say!
I'd like to remind you that the Board didn't just create the issues, they also created every single colony and everything that was good as well.
"But something bad!" isn't really an argument to side against them. The only other options presented are incompetent and child-like revolutionaries with no plans and no intelligence.
Agreed. All indication from the actions of The Board inferred there was no actual plan to unfreeze anyone. They would have kept eliminating residents this way even if a solution was found.
Regarding Outer Worlds's endings, I think it's worth noting that (at least as far as I remember) none of the companions or other ally characters mention the contrast of worst possible outcomes with the same phrasing used here (again, at least as far as I remember). I think the same also goes for Phineas's tendency to force people to do what he tells them and his lack of a solution to the food rationing issue before de-thawing people.
BUT, it *is* entirely possible that those things *were* mentioned by companions or ally characters and simply weren't being remembered by players -- which, in truth, could be an interesting thing to discuss in and of itself.
I know you and Chris Avellone were fans of eachothers work but I don't know if you guys ever got the chance to work on projects together properly. I'd love to see a video about you talking more about you and Chris especially given both your writing styles are brilliant and philosophical
I think in a way earlier video about amnesiac plots he mentioned talking to Chris. They both worked on pillars of eternity and fallout 2
@@LemonMoon Yeah but their interactions were likely more limited on fallout 2 due to Cain's departure. They're both very cool dudes
If this happens, Tim, you must ask Chris about his Arcanum playthrough that he did as a tier reward for the Pillars kickstarter. That was hilarious. For those who haven't seen that disaster, its on TH-cam in all its glory :D
th-cam.com/video/aO9Qa8KbeMc/w-d-xo.html
Regarding The Outer Worlds, perhaps it would have been interesting as the game progresses that both factions gradually show other facets. Say, the mad scientist starts off seemingly like a friendly lunatic, but as the game continues, his behavior becomes more alarming until the final confrontation where it all comes to a head. Meanwhile, the Board are shown in how they've made a mess of it all, but as the game continues, Board members show layers while also revealing a genuine desire to fix things. The two sides progression would be an inverse of each other, with one being very awful and the other seemingly quite good, but by the end, the player must decide based on what they've learned which side to align with.
I think this would’ve worked out really well.
I feel like one big reason people sided against the Board in Outer Worlds is that in many ways they were *too true* to life; it's reflected in the opaqueness of their bureaucracy, the clear contempt they have for people under them, and the lack of concern for the well-being of their society aside from increasing their own wealth and benefits.
I think if their solution was presented in more emotional terms, or there were clear benefits of working with the Board for the player that didn't involve just straight-up immoral acts, people might have been more receptive, but the whole game I just felt doing anything for them that involved a shred of conscience was looked down on.
As some might say, it's better to die free and standing, than to live in chains.
There's a reason oppressed people are willing to revolt and fight back. Why live in misery when you can risk your terrible existence for something possibly better?
@@bluemooninthedaylight8073 Or, as it turns out, something possibly far worse. I do believe the phrase is "shitting where you eat".
@@SyndicateOperativethat is an unrelated phrase.
I absolutely love relatable villains, but i think there are some great ways to do hateable villains, too. My favorite example is Bondrewd the Novel from Made in Abyss.
Hes a powerful person, but you arent as worried about the harm he can do to you as the harm he can do to others. His ideology and convictions are portrayed clearly, and really convey a feeling of unsettling sociopathy. Even though the series isnt a game (i think one was made at one point), i think theres a lot we can learn about making effective villains in games, too.
Not a lot of players 'fear' combat in games, and have to really be sold on how powerful the villain is. I think with careful writing, you can have a Bondrewd-style villain that naturally motivates the player to take the main quest seriously.
Handsome Jack was a really good example of running into a villain several times over a story. He’s constantly talking to you over the course of the story and when he finally shows up in person it’s got a huge effect over the stakes of the story
But you can't kill him immediately so he's bad sorry
I've always felt that the truly awesome villains are those that make you reconsider the definition of it
The best writing advice I ever got about villains was that a villain is often a hero who is willing to sacrifice anything, and anyone to get their way. While a hero tends to sacrifice nothing, or no one, except themselves.
I used the philosophy of Kergan and himself in my DnD campaign. Almost all the players had not played Arcanum and liked his philosophy. Everyone had a different reaction and some even went over to his side.
The Master has an amazing design with the way he looks and the voices... ugh
I love it
2:36 that reminds me of Two Worlds, where you could lure the villain to the village at the start of the game, make him aggro the villagers and then he gets killed by them.
I'm kinda glad to hear you characterise Outer Worlds like this because that was entirely my read on the situation: Finneas is only the moral choice to make if you know he will succeed. Otherwise it is catastrophically gambling with the survival of the species. I like playing RPGs for the big picture, so I couldn't even pretend to support him.
Although, to be fair, the board do kill all of the cryofrozen hope crew to make their plan work, so it's not no-one who will die.
Wait, isn't the cryostasis thing meant to be that people get frozen in shifts? I.e: You go be frozen for N months, so I can live, and then I go be frozen for N months, so you can live. I thought that was the point of the cryo solution - to give everyone at least *some* life, instead of just freezing a selected population forever.
It looks like there is no problem of survival of the species. Just the Halcyon colony. There are other colonies out there. It's mentioned in Phineases ending: they send help to Halcyon.
The board don't kill the hope crew. They say they'll just unfreeze them as they're able to - they're the ones that came up with the tech/chemicals that let them defrost those people in the first place, which Phineas stole to unfreeze you. It would be a long time before the Board could do that, however.
I'm a villain. This one time I uhh... I took a French fry and didn't tell anyone and no one noticed.
I always found The Master and Kerghan fascinating villains! The way you right such nuanced yet imposing antagonists is actually mind-blowing! You and Mr Boyarsky have such a gift and it's a shame you don't have as many projects as you both deserve
Great villians.
That's why I love Tekken, all the Mishimas are each other's villain, this makes the story and the changing points of views fascinating
One of your best videos, thank you for making some of the best games ever
Thank you as always Tim! Love your videos!
You are very interesting and pleasing to listen to. Another well thought out video and topic 😊
I've been working on a creative writing project for a few years and your videos are tremendously helpful at distilling fundamentals of storytelling. Thank you.
As a few people on here have mentioned, I found The Board so cartoonishly inept and transparently self-interested that it felt like an intentional parody of systems in the real world. In some ways, it felt like a reaction to the small portion of players not getting that Ceaser's Legion is bad in New Vegas. Granted, I've only played it once, but nothing about any of the corporate interests (going back to the very first world) seemed like it was functioning adequately (let alone properly). Even the sardonic, tongue in cheek advertising for the game seemed to reinforce this reading. The fact that there was a choice to side corporate felt more like a design philosophy than anything that was telegraphed in game (the same way you can murder all the Teiflings in Baldur's Gate if you decide you are doing that kind of playthrough). This isn't even a criticism on my part. I think it's totally fine for a work of art to have a preferred point of view. I'm just a little surprised that Tim is surprised.
New sub here, and absolutely loving the channel. Even though I'm a gamer, I'm also a writer, and a lot of your videos are giving me interesting insights on my books too. Thanks a ton for the vlogs, I really enjoy your work!
I know I've posted this before but Arcanum's villain is such a masterclass in bad guy writing, pacing, and well executed twists...it does break your telegraphing suggestion though (there were very few crumbs to be able to predict the real bad guy at the end -- or very likely I'm an idiot 😀).
Also I think Zuggtmoy is underrated as a villain (just like ToEE is very underrated as a game 😉)
Thank you for the video! Have a great day!
It's interesting how close Lilith in Diablo 4 gets to checking these boxes (spoiler warning). She's introduced well, you find out more about her and slowly chase her down. She has her own plans and goals, and doesn't really even notice the player character until they start messing with her plans. You ally with the angel inarius, but it's not clear that he's any better than lilith. However, because the game is not a talking rpg, you get railroaded into a linear story with no choices. When you get to the final boss fight with Lilith, you've already achieved your goals (your sidekick has already escaped with the mcguffin), and the depth of characterisation disappears when she's just another demon to fight because she's there. Feels like the devs intended you to get a choice to join her, but then they remembered that the game only has mechanics for fighting and looting, so gave up halfway through writing the story. I understand that with the MMO style they want everyone to end the game with the same world state, otherwise it'd be a mess, but it feels like a villain with wasted potential.
The Master was one of my favorite game villains. Maybe only loses first place to Deidranna from Jagged Alliance 2 (the way she is presented and how the player can interact with her in that game is also brilliant)
I completely forgot to mention how cool "Arronax" was telegraphed during the course of the game and that all expectations led to one of the best twists I've encountered, plenty of other lore pointed to Arronax and the other evils particularly Kerghan ;)
I finally caught up to the videos on the channel 😅
Love the talks - no matter the topic ❤
I was curious, Tim - have you had any opportunity to play the Fallout Board Game? And if so - what impression did you have? Did you enjoy it? Any thoughts on the mechanics and overall "fun factor"?
Also, another question - since your days of playing D&D, have you given the Fallout 2d20 from Modiphius a try? I understand it was mostly built from the Bethesda's Fallout 4 base, but maybe there's some potential in it? If you played it - what do you think about the Modiphius' 2d20 take on the SPECIAL system?
Thanks again for the stories and please, for the love of Atom - keep them going! ❤
Man, the best explanation of what money is came for me from your game fallout, about the botlecaps... Can you make a video about it ?
I agree with this villain concept Tim. I prefer to have the villain be visible not just their look but their vision and their action. When they clashed with player's own vision and action, the story becomes great.
I'd hardly call the DMV a villain but she's a hell of a boss.
The Master was legendary! Before i played the first fallout i never encountered a game were the villain have a good point in a certain way. To me he is one of the best villain ever made (i still have to play Arcanum)
Arcanum gameplay wise is a mesh, but the characters villain and the world, the jokes... is superior to fallout. Bloodlines is in my "to do list"
Kerghan the terrible was such a cool villan, a terrific manipulator who accepts his methods aren't entirely pure -but points out that these are a matter of perspective. Also awesome voice.
In an alternate timeline, you can convince the master to use the mutants to protect the regular humans and team up to use the mutants to deal with the radiation for the normal humans.
I tend to dislike encountering the villain (at least in the flesh, face-to-face) before being able to actually fight them. Unless it's done to establish some sort of history or show them before their villainy or somesuch, as opposed to just taunting the player or trying to force a reaction. A good villain is baked into the worldbuilding so well that you don't need to see them face-to-face to understand them and their effect on the world, to the point they become a presence just as much as they are an entity. If that makes sense. That's why The Master and Dagoth Ur remain two of my favorites
Always believed a game was only as its good as its villains and really an integral part of storytelling.
The lair is awesome!! Keep being the villian we deserve ;)
I absolutely agree that the most interesting villains are the ones which have a vision for a better future, however misguided that vision is. The most memorable villain I've ever seen was in the anime series Blue Submarine No. 6, a mad scientist type villain. I think about that guy all the time, even now, 10-15 years later. He wanted to create a new humanity, a better humanity, which involved the the destruction of the old one.
Two of the best villains in any RPG I've played are in the same game: Suikoden 2.
Your first big bad is Luca Blight, the crown prince of the Highland kingdom, which is basically a vassal state of a bigger, off-screen evil empire. He is pretty much comic book villainy levels of evil: Killing civilians in cutscenes, relishing all the violence and destruction he causes, burning towns to the ground and leaving no survivors. It all stems from a traumatic incident when he was a child and there was a war/border skirmish going on with the side where you're the hero. But just in general, even with the game's pretty mediocre translation, you get a character who loves being the bad guy, because he has an absolute hatred for your side. A great villain not because he's relatable or complex, but because he's a scene stealer and is written well enough that I find it easy to hate him.
Your second big bad is your childhood best friend, whose villain turn is more understandable, and his motivations don't make sense as stated by him, but the greater context of the story explains why he thinks he has to do what makes him a villain. He's being manipulated by some bad people, but he's also a dark mirror version of your character.
Bungie looking at this with his "Gary" villain and going "Oh, is this how you do it?" :)
Hey Tim, when Outer Worlds 2 comes out, will you talk more about the first game?
Earlier you said, you can't really discuss it right now, since you are working on a second game and under NDA regarding things you would like to improve from the first game. On a same note, what things do you think the first game nailed perfectly? Things that do not require much improvement in the sequel and how those things were nailed in the first place? Thanks for the vids
I think the fate of Edgewater is a better example of the player choosing the villain in The Outer Worlds.
I love tim insinuating that phones are science fiction
Your idea about The Master and Mutant was the best. It was perfect as ugly creature try to rule the world instead faction with cool armor and "fascist" thing
Thank you for making some of the best games I have ever played. It is rare to be so impressed by a game that even decades later i remember characters or stories from it.
I love the take on the outer worlds board but they also have the "retirement program" that makes me think they don't have great plans
Completely underappreciated villain in my opinion: Jacques de Aldersberg in The Witcher (1).
There could be multiple influential, experienced, capable, and well equipped villain. Player choosing certain actions to take. This ends up helping one of the villians indirectly. There comes a time when of the villians is able to best the other ones, or side with another villian. This would be because the player has become a far greater threat than their advisory. Its a complex theme that would take a great deal of planning, unexpect twists, and engagement by the player to decide the real villian they want to defeat.
Man, I would love to hear you sit down with Yathzee Croshaw and discuss game design. ❤
"I'm so surprised that people sided with Finneas?" You mean the only character of the two villains your dev team gave any characterization, or depth to.
You don’t think Sophia had depth or characterization?
this video actually made me realised why I didn't like Outer Worlds as much I wanted to, because that argument for the Board is very flimsy and I unfortunately didn't feel the narrative impact of picking one choice over the other - throughout the game you see how immoral and useless the board is, their solution to the food problem is on brand to brush problems aside to make the number goes up. Phineas at least offer a path to change the status quo, while the board path simply gives you "more money!". And while I see the point in this video, the game did not communicate this duality well. In order to make this choice actually difficult, you'd have to make Phineas much much MUCH more unlikeable (doesn't help that Piotr Michael is very charming), abusive, controlling, and make the Board much more competent, and create an actual solution to the food problem that is worth choosing the Board over Phineas for.
A good version of this is how in Fallout NV all the head of factions are interesting, have a point, and all will benefit NV in potentially meaningful ways. The platinum chip plot if basically similar to what could have made The Outer Worlds good, create a MacGuffin that can solve the food problem for good or Phineas to free all frozen residents, you'd already have a much better story there.
depending on the kind of game, the 'villain' could be the World itself. Soulslikes and Survival games are what come to my mind.
I'm waiting for a company either this gen or next gen to make a map that IS the enemy. Every environment can shift into something that can kill you, and the further you progress, the more the game throws at you. You could do the soulslike formula that way, and it'd be even better if you were part of that. Every time you die, you reconstitute as pieces of the map, same as everything else, and you can level up how that happens and what you have access to. It'd be easily my favorite game ever.
@@geordiejones5618I thought BGS already made Starfield's maps the enemy...
@@geordiejones5618 sorta makes me think of how SHODAN controls the space station in System Shock
More often the world (in a good game at least) is the "squirrel" that distracts you from the villain;).
@@geordiejones5618 Darkwood?
Handsome jack is perhaps my favorite villian.
I don’t think every villain needs to be sympathetic as much as they need to have a strong motivation. If you think about Walter white from breaking bad he KNOWS what he’s doing is bad but he does it anyway because it makes sense for his character and audiences actually cheered for him for the majority of the shows runtime because of his strong conviction and appeal to people’s desire for power. I feel like this archetype in games is highly unrepresented where a villain must have some level of sympathy to them where a totally evil character can be done well with strong motivations and do the same job sometimes better.
I've said this for years, but I think The Master might be one of the best villains of all time. His backstory, voice acting, visual design, gameplay, speech checks, and the world building around him is absolutely amazing. Its really incredible when writing can make you go "Wow, the villain has a point." I also think The Outer Worlds did a good job of making both sides morally viable. Both sides have pros and cons, and you can argue about both for hours. Reminds me of Fallout New Vegas where all 4 options are bad in their own way.
I love a good villain. It's a shame in modern day films there aren't villains like the ol days.
Had to jump out due to the spoilers warning. Thank you for that, unca Tim. But your preface was very much in keeping with what I felt a good villain should be. The villain to you is a hero to others or even just the villain alone. It could be a goal motivated by self interest. Or maybe a vaguely benevolent goal but with methods that are extreme. It could be argued that the hero/player character is also villainous by the methods chosen to get to the villain. Leaving mountains of bodies behind that one killed to level up? Or killed because stealth and speech were disdained in favor of killing. I have no shame citing Undertale's usage of a pacifist route. Certain dialogues and paths are locked out as soon as you kill one character. It's known that your character is a killer, and some people refuse to deal with the player.
Bethesda needs to hire Tim Cain and make him the leader, it’s the only way Fallout is going to be saved.
I always appreciate a game that creates a realistic and intelligent villain. My favorite is Dahlia Gillespie. She’s a complex character in a confusing world.
so like none of the villains from outer worlds
i've never played it. @@deathsheadknight2137
Were you involved in the Outer World DLC with Halcyon Helen? The Villian in that one was really fun.
One of my favourite villains in any game is, funnily enough, The Boss, from Metal Gear Solid 3. Without spoilers, she's your mentor gone rogue, and you fight her several times over the game, always falling short. What makes her an amazing "villain" is that she's a didactic villain: her entire opposition to you is because she's trying to teach you a very specific lesson. You're not fighting her throughout the game, really: you're fighting your own inability to change -- you're fighting yourself, and it's only when you accept her lesson that you defeat yourself. An amazing character.
You've got it a little wrong, the Boss isn't even a villain. She's an antagonist because your character's bosses are using her as a scapegoat for an international incident caused by the actual villain of the game. Tim even says this in the video: "not all of your bosses are going to be villains." The Boss is a perfect example of that.
I think the best video game villains are still the Unity and Shodan from System Shock 2. This is a case were the Unity has a notionally good goal of uniting humanity so the kind of villain you describe. But Shodan is just bat chaotic crazy. Which makes sense in the context that she'd been hacked and damaged in the original game.
Everybody needs a proper villain's liar!!!!
Far Cry 4 had a funny early resolution to the villain, where you could beat the game in the first 15 minutes.
Instant upvote upon the villain lair meme
Tim I love ya but the Board in OW were mustache twirling to the extreme and Great Value Rick Sanchez having a somewhat more reckless solution to the food problem doesnt turn their hats gray at the end
B-b-but early retirement program...
A-khe-khe-Klaus Schwab kha-khemm
Plz next time u can make an rpg when the quest just optional. Just exploring
3:11 welp, guess I'm gonna have to get Arcanum later...
Arcanum villain is even better than the master from fallout 1. And I also thought that the board were evil. Their retirement lotery was evil!
when I played the outer worlds for the first time I betrayed Phineas almost immediately.
Why was that? I've never played it, but I did watch an LP of it.
He very much did seem coded as the wacky good guy when set against the default nefarious corpos. I agree with someone else's comment on this video that I don't remember the potential flaws of Phineas's plans really being highlighted - not as narrative. So on paper, sure, there's a nuance. But I'm not sure the game itself expressed that.
@@SabiJD Subtlety is an art, and honestly, I like that the Outer Worlds respects players enough to expect them to be able to read between the lines. Highlighting is something literature, films, and games very much shouldn't be doing except outside of red herrings.
@@SyndicateOperative That's not how I would describe TOW, though. I don't feel it was subtle [at all... ], it was, well, poorly executed tonally. I don't think the idea of 'pick your villain/antagonist' really worked, unfortunately.
Another banger
i thought the biggest villain in modern videogames is The Publisher, every time i hear the game was bad, rushed, half baked or content was cut from it.... it's always because the main antagonist: The Publisher
Considering the absolute incompetence of the Board across Halcyon, I never even considered the possibility of them being succesful in their plans. I felt as if I had to pick between a leap of faith (Welles) or certain slow death for Halcyon (The Board).
I was expecting "Mwahahahahaha" as an opening in a video about villains (Yeah, I know it's a common stereotype about villains)
I think why people, myself included, consider Phineas the good ending is how the board is portrayed throughout the game. A power hungry group that wants to centralize the limited resources, but not only in a way to help solve the problem, but to also keep them in power and living in convenience while the other groups suffer. That as well as effectively having to kill all the minds already frozen to make room for the workers.
In contract, Phineas has a more risky plan, but one that distributes the problem more equally, with the solution not being centralized with more minds able to freely work on the issue, with an overall higher chance to solve it.
An autocracy vs democracy. In my opinion the board had a lower chance to succeed, as they would reject any parties that were willing to work on the problem but were not politically aligned with them.
A shame there was no diplomatic ending where you could take over the board while also allowing Phineas to join, effectively implementing his plan but through diplomacy while sparing the people already frozen on the ship.
A very interesting game you and your team have created, looking forward to the sequel.
I only watched the game being played (it wasn't a lost sale, as I would not have bought it regardless. just didn't click with it), but that's definitely what I remember; that, sure, on paper the nuance could be there to make both bad or good.
But in framing, in tone (even aside from your points)? No, there's only really one bad, deeply untrustworthy side in that.
TOW's satire on capitalism and corporate culture was so broad it really had to truly commit to making the board seem an acceptable alternative, and I don't feel it did that.
I love these videos from Tim, and they've made me curious about giving the game another go, so to speak. But there's just too much to play that are bigger personal priorities. I hope TOW2 is something I can click with, though.
@@SabiJD I would recommend playing Outer Worlds if you ever find the time, as its a wonderful game. It is not too long, so you can finish it in a few weeks with a normal pace.
A "spacer's choice edition" was released as well, but I do not think the original team had anything to do with that as it was an unoptimized buggy mess where new graphics were added (some said it looked worse), performance was tanked and a toggle was enabled to remove the level cap. None of the bugs I experienced and reported were fixed either, the focus being on graphics only.
I was happy at first, but once I read the reviews I steered clear of that version and remembered the fund I had with the original.
And agreed, the videos Tim releases are a breath of fresh air in an ecosystem where young inexperienced "influencers" share their sponsored "wisdom". Its wonderful hearing from someone with years of experience behind them speak.
There were no democratic groups in The Outer Worlds as far as I can remember.
...bethesda missed the option to turn the institute around for good in fallout 4
3:23 gonna skip the arcanum one 😊
Why is every fight to the death? Have non-lethal combat encounters and let the players lose.
@Bethesda
I feel like the heroes and villains in my story will just be exaggerated versions of views I already have. Like Kergan, life is suffering so end all life, and they way it's described with the peace of the void, it's hard to look at that and disagree, but that view is one that is pretty common among people, just taken to it's extreme. In Christian mythology, when you die under the right circumstances, you go to a place said to be free of pain and suffering, so someone could make the argument that if we kill everyone, we're just expediting our trip to ultimate happiness.
"when you die under the right circumstances, you go to a place said to be free of pain and suffering" -- Bear with me here and, of course, feel free to disagree, but that's not actually the message the Christian (and islamic and Hebrew and Hindu and...) assorted other world mythologies and wisdom traditions convey, either in my experience of them or that of some of our most celebrated religious scholars. From the Elysian fields to Nirvana to Heaven to...Stovakor..the teachings refer to present life and human experience of joy, true freedom and metaphysical "life after death". Siddharta Guatama didn't die upon the occasion of his enlightenment and ego-death beneath the bodhi tree, but lived to share the insights he'd gleaned into the causes of human suffering. So did Thich Nhat Hanh. Other great teachers (e.g. Mansur Al-Hallaj and Jesus of Nazareth, et alia) did the same, but were and are excommunicated, exiled and/or put to death by their own contemporaries for daring to turn the status quo on its head and remind everyone of the living, breathing character of their respective wisdom traditions in the face of the "lawyers" who spend every waking moment thiniking only about every jot and tittle of the "letter of the law" of their respective societies and nothing about the spirit of said law. (You'd think that was a crime against humanity or something, but of course it isn't.)
I'm actually amazed how many individuals who self-identify as "secular" refuse to acknowledge how much of their supposedly original philosophies and senses of ethics actually have been inherited from the practice of religare. Some would like to see the practice of religare replaced with the practice of intelligere and I can kind of, sort of see why, but am not sure religious practitioners would quite understand the reasoning as the practices are expressions of their respective cultures with which they intimately identify for obvious reasons.
Why didn't he mention The Enclave?!
Funny how you immediately dismiss what I consider to be the best way to keep the player from killing the villain/antagonist too early. The way I see it is the player and antag meeting face to face early is not unlike the movie trope where the hero meets the villain in a context where there would be no reason to fight. But then again we have very different tastes in games. Tim is a tabletop and PC guy while starting gaming on a Gameboy Advance.
I'm the villain
I flew into the sun.
I also killed everyone in Far Harbor
I'm a horrible person
Did Bleach copied Arcanum or Arcanum copied Bleach?
EEEEEEVIIIIIIILLLLLL
Why fight when you can work up your rep. Do it right, and the robots are no longer programmed to shoot on sight
*you and your followers
Hi Tim
Wait the Master was two people?
they were multiple voices in a flesh computer.
No. Just play one and only true "Fallout", kiddo.
The Master was a hybrid of Richard Grey (Harold's former companion), the vault's computer system, and a few other people. That's he (?) has the crazy mish-mash of voices.
@@pitchforker3304 Damn. Character is not what's his voice or voice actors are. Just don't answer, if you are going to write some bs which has nothing to do with the essence and actual character. That guy just needs to play the game and/or read, that's it. Such simplification and badness you wrote are leading only to more confusion.
@@TrueNeutralEvGenius I have, I just thought that the Master was Richard Grey only, or mostly.
literarily they are called 'antagonists'
motivation and psychology isimportant for being a writer
they don't need to be making the world better though, but be exploiting it for selfish motivations
Fallout and Arcanum villains are brilliant. But The Outer Worlds villain is really not on par with them. Haven't played Temple yet.
The Board is displayed through the whole game as incompetent, bloodthirsty and authoritarian force. It doesn't look like flawed, but understandable side. It looks straight like villain side.
Whole colony is crumbling under their rule for decades. And they still have no way to fix the situation. Their "lifetime employment" plan is not even ready yet: they still didn't figure out how to revive colonists which are frozen for too long. And their bio-engineering plan is not working too right now. So there is a considerable risk of their plans not working at all.
And how do they deal with food problem right now? They fool people into thinking they can win an early retirement in Byzantium, and kill them instead.
If Board loses control over Edgewater in any way, what do they do about it? They send a player to wipe that place clean.
How does it help? Well, it doesn't in any way. It's just an evil way to show loyalty to the Board.
And what is the worst things about Phineas? Well, he unintentionally killed some people while trying to revive them, and his plan is very risky. Can't say it's a good plan. But it's not terrible either.
And he has no leverage on a player character whatsoever.
That rapid cell rapture thing is a consequence of failed revival procedure. It can't happen to player character anymore.
It's not even like player should return to the Lab sometimes to be treated with some chemical compounds, so their PC's body cells will not rapture, so Phineas could threaten player by death if you are not going to help him. There is nothing like that in the game.
This whole idea is reinforced by the game again and again. People living miserable lives under Board's rule, and they are so brainwashed and supressed, they can't even complain about it. While independent people... Well, their life is not great either, but there are ongoing processes to make living and working conditions better. And of course they are normal, relatable people. And guess what? Board is trying to supress them. They cut off those who didn't left the Monarch, and they mess with Groundbraker on every opportunity.
And it's even harder to think of Phineas as a villain in hindsight. His dangerous and risky plans work. Hope skip-drive trick works. Revival plan works perfectly fine too.
P.S.: I literally tried to play the game very cautiously. I was sceptic on Phineases plan because he behaves kinda shady. But I "outplayed" myself in that regard. TWO is much simpler than i thought. And after Byzantium lab I just went fully anti-Board and got almost the best ending possible.
This may be a little rude, but I think the reason most people don't like the board is that they (the player) are lacking in maturity - the board, after all, built nearly everything you see in the game. The entire idea of colonizing that solar system is their initiative, after all. Many people forget all of that, and just assume that they're "the problem."
When I played the outer worlds, I firmly stood in the pro-board camp. The other sides were always juvenile, and offered no solutions - they were standard "next generation" revolutionaries - but they were also painted as the stereotypical "good guys" for players who weren't interested in looking deeper. That's actually something I liked about the game.
That said, I didn't like the ending slides as much - I got one that said something along the lines of "because you left the capitalist board in power, the rich lead luxurious lives while the poor suffered" - the problem is that "the poor" were never really featured in the game at all. There were people that were living fairly good lives (outside of the nutrition crisis), all with a surprisingly high degree of freedom (within reason). Every "class" still had to go to work regardless.
As for "the rich"... they were stuck in the same situation as everyone else. Their houses looked nicer, but that was about it - hell, the first thing I heard as I entered the "rich" area was a story about how they had a suggestion box that was connected to a paper shredder. They knew it was set up like that, but it helped them cope with how bad things were.
I disdain when people call antagonists "villains"'; Villains do not exist, there are only subjective judgements and morals. And there is facts and truth higher than divided line, ideal Platonic forms, abstractions. And great what you call "villains" are usually spitting facts and truth, which majority can't swallow or comprehend. That's what makes a great "villain" (i.e. antagonist). Both Kerghan and Master (and Jon Irenicus, as another one of the greatest examples) are not villains, they were actually good people who did everything right. It's just that overwhelming majority (7+ billions of people) are infinitely foolish and ignorant, are always in denial and illusions, egocentric and solipsistic, with no understanding of defected and degenerative human nature.
Kerghan is not crazy, you are crazy, foolish and in denial, if you think he is. Or better to say real people, misanthropes and intellectuals with the only grand goal any living being can achieve - annihilating all life, existence and absurdism, whom and which Kerghan partly represents, are not crazy (because there are such real individuals), but you are, if you are gaslighting them.
I mean, the Emperor from Star Wars is A Villain™. Ditto Vader in ANH and Empire.
Villains certainly exist - in culture, but also reality, frankly. Morality may be a construct, but be it in fiction or reality, there will always be a right and wrong at some point.
Philosophical semantics are useful, but they have their limits.
Still, I do tend to oppose the term villain, as it's usually constraining to really interesting character narrative and themes. Dagoth Ur in Morrowind arguably very much ends up a villain - someone needing to be opposed/stopped. But he's also complicated, and has historic reason to feel betrayed, and to oppose the False Gods of the Tribunal.
He's an antagonist that's partly right, but he is also still villainous and wrong.
What I love about Morrowind was that the other chief antagonist is the enemy of Dagoth Ur; Vivec is perceived good by the society, by and large, but he is actively trying to have you killed up to a certain point in the story.
@@SabiJD You are just suporting my point and claim without understanding it, it seems, that villains do not exist in fact. "Right" and "wrong" are subjective terms of social contract, which take roots in subjective opinions and morals, judgements. The objective paradigm lies beyond the divide line, with ideal Platonic forms and abstractions, math and geometry, like shapes of a triangle. "Right" and "wrong" are lower than divided line, in the shadows, it's based on subjective opinions. Everything in physicality and world is subjective, everything is a construct. True intellectual and philosopher can easily argumentate validly and soundly that even a murder is a philosophical virtue. Or wiping the entire humanity or life as it is in the universe is virtue, so it's not a "villain", but a hero, and that "heroes" in popular cultures are actually villains then, which oppoes the heroes. Again, it's subjective. There is no right or wrong. Just judgements. Objective states are life and death though, like the shapes of a square or triangle. Then it's easy to see that death and non existense is far better than life and existence, therefore "villains" who want to annihilate life and humanity are heroes and good people, while everyone who oppose that is a bad people and villains.
@@SabiJD P.S. I don't care about partucular cases, but "star wars" is naive and simplistic trash for simpletons and fools, all based on arhetypes of Carl Jung and others. It's the word work of art ever created in history, also the worst fandom community ever, which cleavly shows the lack of intelligence. The most irrational one. Too bad rationality can't win over irrationality. Vader is the only main character, hero and anti-hero at the same time.
"Morrowind" is a good game, Dagoth is not a villain, but an antagonist. No one is wrong there, including Dagoth or Vivec, again. It's subjective claims. But objectively those who majority of people claim to be "villains" are objectively better people by the higher divided line and arguments I provided higher.
@@TrueNeutralEvGenius midwit + minor spelling mistake + ngmi
@@PenguinCinema English is not the only language in the world, for your information. I know 7 languages, learned them all by myself, what about you, do you know at least 2-3, 'midwit'? Also try not to suck your own ego with liking your own comments, mediocrity which has nothing to say, which has no ability in formal logic, argumentating or rhetotic. Get lost and be happy with your high ignotance levels and low cognitive abilities, typical parasitic fool without critical thinking.
Villains do not exist. Or villains are the main heroes people usually play, when people think when what's right is "wrong". Culture and majority of people are delusional and brainwashed into thinking life is something good, while objectively death and non existence is far better than life and existense. "Right" and "wrong" are subjective terms of social contract, which take roots in subjective opinions and morals, judgements. The objective paradigm lies beyond the divide line, with ideal Platonic forms and abstractions, math and geometry, like shapes of a triangle. "Right" and "wrong" are lower than divided line, in the shadows, it's based on subjective opinions. Everything in physicality and world is subjective, everything is a construct. True intellectual and philosopher can easily argumentate validly and soundly that even a murder is a philosophical virtue. Or wiping the entire humanity or life as it is in the universe is virtue, so it's not a "villain", but a hero, and that "heroes" in popular cultures are actually villains then, which oppoes the heroes. Again, it's subjective. There is no right or wrong. Just judgements. Objective states are life and death though, like the shapes of a square or triangle. Then it's easy to see that death and non existense is far better than life and existence, therefore "villains" who want to annihilate life and humanity are heroes and good people, while everyone who oppose that is a bad people and villains.