Prey

Oh hey they finally aded Prop Hunt.

(2) Nah sorry, college has kept me busy. My copy of Prey's been staring at me from the corner I left it in. I'm looking over my last few posts and I forgot how into this game I was. I'll probably get back to this after finals.

I probably should be avoiding this thread for awhile.

I'm kind of anxious about getting back to it. The part I left off at was getting pretty heavy, like, the entire garden area I had setup a bunch of turrets, went back and found everything wiped out with like 3-4 ethereals and a Nightmare skulking about.

Ugh.

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

Progress report:

• I made it out of Arbotreum to Deep Storage
• Struggled to regain my footing on Talos 1
• The cook is somewhere and it's creeping me out
• Managed to take down a Telepath with a Recycler Charge and some GLOO
• Took down a Weaver because... I guess he tripped on some of the red barrels because his health was down to a third - I screwed up trying to blow up the remaining red barrels but a few pistol rounds and he was dead
• Debated going to finish the treasure hunt - I'm stuck in Deep Storage as is - and I went to look up the quest reward. It seemed unrewarding. Found out that if you cheat and grab the possible combinations online the game penalizes you with a debuff chip. Cute.
• Grabbed the fab plan for the Arming Key. Suspecting a Nightmare will show up soon.
• Made 4 Nueromods so I could purchase the third rank of the "spare part efficiency" thing and repair some turrets - was getting worried about finding spare parts. Is there a fab plan for them?
  • Oh. And copyright laws are preventing me from fabbing anymore Neuromods. Cute.

Edited by Soble on Aug 23rd 2019 at 3:49:12 AM

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

Alright. One complaint I will make about this game: finding the cook is ridiculous.

I got fed up with this side quest. It stopped being creepy and more agitating than anything so I looked on the Wiki to find out about it, only to learn that it's just as absurd as it seemed. Full of dead-ends and nonsense and the reward for going through it all is lame (two Neuromods? I've find 3-5 in various locations). I'm at the point where all of the Fabricator plans seem to have vanished because f-ck you that's why and "Mitchell" keeps taunting my silent avatar in areas where I'm scrounging for clues on his whereabouts.

And to find out he's an imposter who you actually find in the escape pod bay in an area you'll only get to as the main story progresses, but guess what I thought this fatass was stuck in Life Support since you know he made a whole big deal about being "stuck in there and having nowhere else to go" and then voila as soon as Morgan resets the station - bam, fatass mc-cannibal can easily get around the station despite numerous Technopaths, Phantoms, and Weavers showing up, and all Fabricators becoming useless.

Because that sh-t makes sense. And the worst part of it is I was rolling with it for awhile - maybe if I find one of those guys who disappeared before the Typhon broke loose, maybe if I look on a security station, maybe if I head back to Life Support I'll find some sort of clue. Nope. Just... just slavishly follow the main story and you'll catch up with him eventually.

Real glad I just read ahead so I can stop keeping an eye for this a-hole. I hate this type of game design - Batman Arkham Knight did a similar thing where you could progress a side quest in the big, open game world but it would be damned near impossible to find because there's no mission marker for them. It's just a big glowing note in your quest log.

Future game designers please - please - consider that I am going get frustrated with a linear sidequest I can't actually affect in any way until a certain point in the game, but are constantly reminded exists. It breaks immersion so freaking hard. For all of the time and effort put into making sure that exploration and investigation are rewarded this game creates a quest in which you simply can't do either.

If you really are trying to build a spooky atmosphere with a character like this, like Alien Isolation or Bio Shock 2 where you're constantly afraid of getting jumped by some deadly enemy - then make the moment when you finally confront this threat worth the damned time you spent being afraid of it.

Edited by Soble on Aug 25th 2019 at 6:01:08 AM

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

When you do finally do find the guy in the escape pods, be ready to sprint away from him - he's carrying a grenade and will drop it the moment you get close enough.

Finished.

Well. That was... somewhat expected but still. Interesting.

Took Alex's hand because I'm too nice of a guy... alien monster pacified into being a human copy.

So some obvious questions:

Some knee-jerk theories to the above:

Edited by Soble on Sep 1st 2019 at 6:55:49 AM

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

B-b-but wait a flipping second.

If this was all faked then when the real version of these events took place there was no January, Sho, Igwe, Ilayushin, or any of the NPC's around to help. Wouldn't that mean real!Morgan couldn't have finished things? He'd have to have badassed his way through the station with far less help.

Hah. You know how I knew none of this was real? When Alex shot January - he killed her with a single bullet. That never happens anywhere else in the game.

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

I think that the in-simulation NPCs, although run by operators outside of the simulation, were nevertheless based on people who were present in the original events. So Sho, Igwe, etc. presumably were present to help the original Morgan.

I think that he was expecting Morgan to use Typhon abilities (note that at one point he asks Morgan to hide in a room with very little cover), and was a little nonplussed when Morgan just did things the human way.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Sep 1st 2019 at 4:07:23 PM

My Games & Writing

Edited by Yumil on Sep 1st 2019 at 4:09:38 PM

"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."

At the ending, when arguing with Alex, January states: 'I represent the desires of Morgan Yu, circa January 12th.'

That makes December's nature pretty clear. If January represents an operator created in January, December is reflective of Morgan in December, a Morgan who wanted to escape the base. Come the next month, Morgan got bolder or suffered more personality drift, and decided the base had to go.

If you do murder everyone on the station, Alex and co. decide you aren't the one, and prepare to move on with another test subject. I imagine this also happens if you kill all the main spokespeople.

Edited by Lavaeolus on Sep 1st 2019 at 3:37:05 PM

(3)

(2)

Edited by Soble on Sep 1st 2019 at 7:52:03 AM

I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!

No ? the point was to kill it while allowing for typhon technology to exist for humanity's sake, but the hivemind was definitely meant to be dead.

No. No that's not how it works.

Morgan can blow up talos 1 with everybody getting off of it. Nothing contradicts this scenario. The only thing we know is that the operator guys eventually dies/are put in operators for one reason or the other, but we can only say that of like 3 of them and there's more than a hundred people on the station.

So in both endings, morgan's absence isn't explained unless you assume more shit happened offscreen.

Typhons aren't only on talos 1 though. Mooncrash's plot ends up actively bringing one to earth, which causes the state of earth we see in the end So again, either endings lead to the same thing.

As to how to get a typhon if the nullwave wasn't activated, you literally just need to incapacitate a typhon for logn enough to experiment on him and put him in the simulation. Considering the earth is swimming in coral, that doesn't seem very hard to do.

Yeah but you're not supposed to see alex as necessarily right tho, that's the thing. Both alex's and January's goal are meant to be valid by the game, that's the point of leaving you the choice.

No. No that's not how it works. In the destroy the station ending, everyone who's alive and considered safe by the game escapes through the escape bay. Morgan doesn't kill anyone human by deciding to blow up the station. Therefore, alex's point validated.

Still not what nullwave is . It's supposed to kill the typhoons through neural feedback while leaving the resarch material and archives on talos I intact.

Alex's sentence is about how prior the game they spent years replicating the typhoon powers -hence the in-game typhoon neuromods. The simulation opens at a point in time where those are advanced enough to test them on humans. Ith as nothing to do with what alex did after the game ended.

Edited by Yumil on Sep 1st 2019 at 5:18:43 PM

"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."

Hey folks, necroing this thread to ask about this trope entry:

• AI Is A Crap Shoot: January is programmed so that they must do everything they can to help or otherwise compel you to set the station to self destruct, along with everyone on it to make sure that no Typhon can ever reach Earth. At the end, if you follow their plan and gave yourself little to no Typhon enhancements, January says that you are probably safe to return to Earth, but their coding will force them to do whatever they can to stop you from escaping. But they also tell you that you can just simply destroy them right there to stop them from interfering with your escape, implying that they want you to.

It doesn't seem to fit. AI Is A Crap Shoot is about AIs' tendency to go rogue in fiction, but at no point does January do anything that doesn't serve its programmed purpose. The only thing that could possibly fit is the way it will helpfully point out that you could subvert its mission by destroying it. Do we think the entry should be deleted or rewritten?

I think that makes it a subversion, which you've basically just written the text of. It goes rogue by telling you how to stop it from turning against you — the latter of which actually wouldn't be going rogue in this case, since that would be in line with its programming.

Well a trope needs to seem like it's in play before that turns out to not be the case in order for it to be a subversion, no? Otherwise the trope just doesn't apply. And that one mentioned moment where January points out you could just destroy it comes at the very end of the game, after it's technically accomplished all its goals.

Well, it is an AI straight-up telling you it's going to turn against you, at the very least invoking the trope. Which is then subverted in the same breath, since it's recommending you actually don't let that happen.

There is more, though. Was kind of hoping someone else who'd played the game more recently would post after me with further details. I'll try and read up on it again and rewrite the entry since there's some contention.

In broad terms — it's been a while since I played — when January is first introduced, iirc it lampshades the fact that if you're worried that it's going to turn against you because it's an AI, you shouldn't worry because it's an imprint based on your personality (although Amnesiac Dissonance means the player Morgan might still be suspicious, and end up having completely different priorities regardless). That then sets up a later sidequest after you find out this isn't the first time you've woken up without your memory, and that January isn't the first operator drone you've imprinted, that there was a December and an October as well (implying a November, possibly others). iirc at least one of them turned on you, but the other wants to help you escape... but in the resolution of the sidequest, January gets there before you and destroys its predecessor before the quest to escape can go any further.

That's the gist, if I'm remembering correctly. I still need to double-check a few things before rewriting it. I'll try and get to it in the next couple of days if that's alright.

Edit: Okay, so yeah, according to https://prey.fandom.com/ October was the first operator Morgan created (but is only mentioned in an audio log), December is the operator one of the intermediate Morgans created to help them escape Talos I (and is somewhat more primitive than January), and January was created by one of the Morgans after that to ensure that no Typhon material ever reached earth. (So there probably was also a November, but we don't ever learn anything about it.) And so January, while operating based on directives from a human — you — is still intent on killing anyone who is potentially contaminated by Typhon. So I do think that counts for the purposes of A.I. Is a Crapshoot, an AI who turns against its human masters, but with the subversion being that one of those masters is the one who programmed January to do so... but who now no longer remembers, and may not be onboard. It's just... a little difficult to condense all this into a bullet point without making it completely confusing. But I'll work on it.

Edited by Unsung on Jun 17th 2020 at 8:17:55 AM

January doesn't turn against you, though. It's been programmed, by the player character no less, to not let you leave alive, so it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. The way it points out a way for you to possibly get around that is the only thing that could be against its programming.

I guess the way January destroys December could be a subversion, however. The way it's set up, you come across January destroying December when you're first supposed to meet the latter. After December is wrecked, January simply states that December was an earlier, defective model and urges the player to continue with January's quests, so the player is likely to be suspicious that January's up to something shady. But you eventually come to realize that January is being 100% truthful, and acting within its programming in destroying December.

January can attack and knock out Alex (and possibly at least attack Morgan? Again, it's been a while), depending on your choices. And January as an AI turning against its masters because of its programming (rather than doing so on its own) is also a subversion, one which the game lampshades the first time you meet it. There's also the whole question (asked in-universe) of whether the version of Morgan who programmed January really still counts as the Morgan you currently are.

This is the kind of Playing with a Trope that we have things like zigzagged, deconstructed, or double-subverted for. The example's a bit complicated to describe, but the general trope of A.I.s trying to take over and kill everyone (especially an AI in an Immersive Sim a la System Shock) is definitely being set up and then deliberately flipped.

Edited by Unsung on Jun 18th 2020 at 7:18:23 AM

I just don't see how any of that really applies. January does nothing that's not in service of its programmed goal. The only time it attacks someone is when those individuals pose a serious hindrance towards the goal of destroying the station.

But that's only half of A.I. Is a Crapshoot. The trope isn't just AI Goes Against Its Programming, it's also AI Turns Against Its Masters. If January is turning against its masters because those masters are breaking their own strictures or selfishly acting against the interests of their species, then therein lies the subversion.

Edited by Unsung on Jun 19th 2020 at 5:33:03 AM

Anyone done a 'no needles' run? I don't feel like going though an entire game without power ups just to get two achievements.

My latest Trope page: Shapeshifting Failure

I’ve done No Needles. You just set the difficulty to the lowest and skip any side quests. Takes like two hours. The only thing you really need to be aware of is that if you want to turn it into a Human- or Typhon-only run afterwards for Split Affinity, you need to help the characters enough to qualify for the regular ending for it to count. Getting Mikhaila her meds should be enough to do it.

Seems like earlier concepts of the Typhon also had them capable of shapeshifting into humans, albeit in a very un-natural manner. Makes sense, given that Morgan himself isn't even the original either.

Edited by SgtRicko on May 16th 2021 at 5:19:37 AM

Well, that's all kinds of horrifying.

My latest Trope page: Shapeshifting Failure

Seconded.

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).