Assassin's Creed

I think Assassins Creed's "story" is over and ended with three.

Now it's just installments.

I'm inclined to agree. Heck, even the 1 to 3 games, looking back in hindsight, sort of have trouble qualifying as a story by moment. 1 and 2 build up the story and alter the states. 3 is the conclusion (Even if said conclusion raises a ton of questions). Revelations is "Desmond spends the entire game in a coma so we can stall for time for 3 and try to justify the surprise plot twist of Brotherhood. Brotherhood itself is "Let's get the apple of Eden from 2 and stick in a surprise plot twist at the end coz the one at the end of 2 really worked and it'll make the game feel meaningful"

Yes, Brotherhood and Revelations were cash ins on Ezio's popularity.

One shouldn't fault a company for unexpected success, especially with all of time and space as a potential source of storytelling but the meta-story is kind of dead and gone—especially as it takes place in "our" world in the Modern Day.

And a modern game is hurt by the fact all of the videogame-isms like desynchronization and so on are unabel to be incorproated.

To be fair, Brotherhood and Revelations were originally written as DLC expansions for AC 2 and were only upgraded to full games because AC 3 was taking longer.

And the Brotherhood plot twist only happened when Kristen Bell wanted to jump ship from the franchise, so I'd imagine it wasn't originally intended. Considering how little it really comes up after it happens, I'd say, yeah, it probably wasn't something they'd originally planned.

I would also guess that the modern plot wouldn't have been forwarded much in either of the DLC versions of those games and they had to be expanded when they jumped to full games.

When you convince someone to do something, they are choosing to do something if their own free will and better yet, can still choose to stop. The Apple of Eden is 100% supernatural coercion. That's a difference that really should not need explaining. The Templars have standards, preferring to rule than to massacre, but they kill in quantity nonetheless, and are objectively evil.

Eh, as much as I hate the Templars—its hard to call them evil when compared to the other historical factions of the time. The big "twist" of Assassins Creed was the fact the Templars under Robert Du Sable were trying to bring peace to the Middle East and end the Crusades. This was compared to the Old Man wanting take over the world.

Augustinian "bread and circuses" rulers are objectively good compared to 90% of all rulers in history. Which is a narrative which the AC franchise either acknowledges (Unity, Rogue, AC 1, Black Flag) or pretends doesn't exist (Ezio's trilogy, Origins, Syndicate).

If you state that abridging free will is the ultimate evil then yes, they are bad people but GHANDI used the Apple of Eden to free India.

So its...complicated.

edited 24th Nov '17 10:47:19 PM by CharlesPhipps

Why, I wonder, do they work in the shadows as a secret organization? Is it perhaps because people might object to having their minds overthrown and their entire existence reduced to mindless drones in service to a holder of an apple? Would that prospect disturb you?

Is a life of peace worth living, if the entire thing is an illusion, fabricated by an overlord using you for labor and filling you with artificial elation over it?

.... Then again.

Social media sites are the most successful tech industry out there, and that's EXACTLY what they do, minus the world peace thing. Literally, they farm you every minute, selling the right to show you ads, along with all your personal browsing habits to their true customers: every corporation on Earth. And in the meantime they provide you with a cute toy to play with with your friends. So maybe the Templars do understand people.

The Assassins were founded as a secret organization because their enemies were a secret organization. To go public is to announce who and where you are, to paint a huge target on your back. The Order of Ancients existed THOUSANDS of years before the Brotherhood. Why the secrecy, if what they were doing is just, and good, and honest?

They did operate in the open and then the Assassins had them all killed by King Phillip so he could steal their wealth. Historically, the people who ruled the world were not ones who cared about the peasants eating or good but only about their own power.

But I favor a Gray-and-Gray Morality theme of Security vs. Freedom.

Not Black-and-White Morality

YMMV.

@Airman: Wow, the later games (IV and onwards) really do a poor job at explaining what the Templars' motivations are, I was thoroughly convinced they wanted a better world through coercion of the mind, not slavery of the mind.

In any case, I still can't see it as anything other than Gray-and-Gray Morality. The Templars' methods are ruthless, yet the Assassins still did some pretty terrible things and should reveal to the world the existence of the Templars, so they would face true justice, instead of killing them in the shadows.

edited 25th Nov '17 4:33:03 AM by Grafite

The Templars want the world to have peace according to Haytham Kenway. The Apple of Eden is an easy way to get that since all Empires in AC history were built on using them. But they use regular methods like money, politics, and religion otherwise.

As for why the Assassins don't reveal the Templars to the public, I tend to think that's partially because they don't necessarily think the public would side to them. As much as they claim to be "born of the people" a lot of times the Assassins are not friends of the majority. They tend to be formed of outcasts, extremists, and oppressed minorities.

The Templars are often the tyranny of the many.

edited 25th Nov '17 5:49:43 AM by CharlesPhipps

But the Templars want peace by removing free will and autonomy of the masses, and there's the problem. Most people LIKE free will.

They also don't like starving to death in the streets or being killed in wars, which the Templars believes their domination of the world will bring about.

Mind you, I should check myself by pointing out most Templars don't actually believe in their cause be it peace or wiping out free will. Most Templars are just in it for the power and money or because it's an offer they can't refuse.

In the movie, Rikkin believes in no free will but his daughter is about ending violence. Berg believes in world peace but he's doing it for his daughter. The computer guy in Rogue is doing it because they'll shoot him otherwise.

I feel slightly disturbed by how.... deserted the east bank of the Nile is. What, did the annual flood only flood the west bank? People just arbitrarily decided that one whole side of the Nile was haunted and not worth settling on even though it was getting half of the extremely precious fertile soil and minerals the Nile brings?

What's going on? Also. Should I be able to see the pyramids in Giza from Alexandria? Because I can see the pyramids in Giza from Alexandria. I'm also slightly disturbed by this, because the in-game map informs me that Giza is several kilometers away from Alexandria.

Space Compression. It's not new for the series.

And in Syndicate it takes five minutes to get from tower bridge to the houses of parliament. Being a Londoner I can categorically state that's wishful bloody thinking.

Space Compression is fine and all, but still doesn't explain the inexplicable desert on the Nile's east bank.

I think its just filler desert so that there would be SOMETHING there to look at from a distance.

Note that the part of Egypt east of the Nile does not seem to be included at all. Or am I to believe that the Nile and the Red Sea are the same thing on this map?

On another note, I was very disappointed by that temple all the way down in the southern dessert. When I saw it in a flyover, I thought it would be a major set piece for the finale of the game, but no such luck, it was Yet Another Ancient Temple, and not the most engaging one, either. Spent half an hour aligning those mirrors, only to realize they just point to the ancient chamber, where I'd already been. Oh well.

Explain the Bahamas being completely different shapes?

I mean, the Asscreed earth is clearly a different geography!

Something something Animus something something ancestor's perception of things

So Bayek just thought he could see the pyramids from Alexandria?

Maybe the East Side of the Nile is a paid for DLC she didn't pick up.

:)

It is Abstergosoft after all.

edited 27th Nov '17 11:21:17 AM by CharlesPhipps

Animus Glitch. Same reason the Animus flashes hieroglyphs when you Sync with Senu. Or those Egyptian gods.

If I were to iron out an actual explanation for this, I'd say the vast nothingness east of the Nile is a result of actual Bayek never really exploring that region (so his memories just register as there being a vast nothingness there) and the pyramids are because actual Bayek always used the pyramids as his point of reference for everything, so as a result they always show up in his horizon as a guiding North.

Which, funnily enough, is exactly how I navigate Bayek's Egypt. I find a river and then climb somewhere high and look for Giza. I really really like navigating without my world map. There's something really fun in a Bear Grylls sort of way.

Did anyone else find their mount near useless in the vast region between Siwa and the coast? It is so rocky and uneven, your horse keeps backing up, or has to track around some cliff, or just races off a cliff and dies. When hunting down new locations, I just ended up running there if it was within about a kilometer.

Also, the pathfinding on autopilot leaves a lot to be desired. Often my horse would just start following some road opposite of where I wanted to go for no apparent reason. Or it would follow some arbitrary, non-existant path through the wilderness when it would make much more sense to just cross straight through, probably just following the invisible paths that NPC's use.

edited 27th Nov '17 2:23:12 PM by Redmess