Watch_Dogs

I dunno, the game opens with Aiden having murdered 20 people in Wrigley field with Jordi's help.

3:50

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jun 15th 2019 at 4:58:35 AM

I'm not sure what's the point you're making.

Edited by Adannor on Jun 15th 2019 at 3:08:15 PM

Aidan is already neck-deep in murder territory and doesn't make any real attempt to dial it down for his sister and nephew.

Well, yes. That's also valid. I don't want to say power fantasies are ALL bad and terrible and need to go away. What I'm more advocating for is just a stronger balance and not FORCING games to be one way or the other when they weren't meant to be. And not swinging so violently from one to the other. I've had similar beliefs about Dragon Age. Inquisition isn't as deep and weighty as Witcher 3 was, but maybe that's totally ok. And, as much as I give Skyrim shit for having all the depth of a puddle, maybe that's ok too.

Mafia 3 seems to be fairly enjoyable as I remember several college roommates loving it, so maybe it's good that the Villain Protagonist suggestion was never used.

WATCH_DOGS was intended to be a villain protagonist but was toned back JUST enough through cuts and narrative framing to keep trying to sell that Aiden is a good guy and maybe just an edgy-hacker hero. And it's a bad game for it.

Obviously, sticking to Villain Protagonist Sociopath Aiden would probably mean that there'd be other major edits to the story, but I have faith that the writers originally had a 'To what end are we telling this story?' answered in the first place and we just don't know what it is.

If they wanted to keep the story structure and tone that they had now but boost the other elements and make the story work, the cleanest solution would be to kidnap Aiden instead of Nikki and Nikki gets boosted to protagonist while Aiden is relegated to early game 'taste of power' tutorials and Nikki has to learn how to navigate this world her brother became obsessed with. And that could ACTUALLY be a really cool Act 1 Cliffhanger thinking we'd play Aiden the entire game like the marketing only for Nikki to take his place. That could be interesting and unexpected.

...if just probably instantly bitched about via 'Damn those SJ Ws trying to force women into my sociopathic power fantasy'. Ugh. I hate people.

Some days I wonder if I would be better served as a script doctor than an actor writer.

That's what I've been trying to get at. It would be different if Aiden's response to Lena's death was to blame himself and GET THE FUCK OUT and then be reluctantly dragged back in by the Damien or whoever the fuck the big bad was, but Aiden instead doubled down and ignores the lesson he should have learned. So we have a hacker who never gave up hacking being blackmailed into getting back into the hacking he never even attempted to get out of in the first place.

Edited by InkDagger on Jun 15th 2019 at 5:09:31 AM

"Aidan is already neck-deep in murder territory and doesn't make any real attempt to dial it down for his sister and nephew."

I wasn't objecting to that at all. My point is that in the narrative, this stuff you're linking, and all the other stuff he comits in the game, he gets away with. While the reason for the only bad consequences to befall him is from one much less heinous act he did in his past.

Edited by Adannor on Jun 15th 2019 at 3:08:55 PM

Yeah, I think we're all on the same page with that one. :)

"That's what I've been trying to get at. It would be different if Aiden's response to Lena's death was to blame himself and GET THE FUCK OUT, but he instead doubled down and ignores the lesson he should have learned. So we have a hacker who never gave up hacking being blackmailed into getting back into the hacking he never even attempted to get out of in the first place. "

Other point I've made is that IIRC he tried to get out before Lena's caught up with him.

But that death still happened, he got back into it, and then Damien showed up and it all ended up making a narrative that says he shouldn't have ever tried to get out of it. And that's real shitty narrative for the game.

Did he actually try to get out of it between the Hotel Job and Lena's death? I always thought that they happened consecutively so there was never really time for any kind of change to occur.

It's all flashbacks and no set dates, but that is the impression I got. He broke off with Damien and hacky business. Which didn't last, because Merlot guy wanted him disposed off regardless, leading to the whole kerhuffle. Then he couldn't let his niece's death go and got right back in. Sort of a 10-Minute Retirement.

Edited by Adannor on Jun 15th 2019 at 3:19:34 PM

I feel like you could probably salvage Watch_Dogs 1 with a simple "What the Hell Hero" reaction rather than changing the whole game.

End the game not with Aiden getting revenge and saying, "I'm woke."

End the game with the rescuing Lena and her son mission then have her state, "THIS IS ON YOU! We're on the run because of you! All for what, a 98 year old being killed? Is that your revenge!? Your girlfriend is dead! Your old partner wrecked the city! You're not a hero, you're a monster and I never want to see you again!"

Cue credits of Aiden alone and police sirens in the distance.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jun 15th 2019 at 5:20:06 AM

I do remember the exact moment when I realized just how much of an asshole was is when he discovered that his mute, already traumatized nephew saw him kill tons of people (I tried to go nonlethal in my playthrough but even then the amount of violence seen there would scare a kid) and he just...doesn't care or realize that what he is doing is wrong.

Yeah that is pretty damning.

His Moral Event Horizon is that he forces his nephew and Lena into hiding and then...abandons them.

Abandons them to go play Batman.

Out of sight, out of mind.

I actually sympathized with the guy who murdered the girl (accidentally) more as his girlfriend gets kidnapped to be sold at the auction and he never learns otherwise.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jun 15th 2019 at 5:30:16 AM

Funny thing that I still prefers 1’s story to 2.

1 is more epic since Aiden is basically fighting the entire criminal underworld while 2 your basically gunning down a bunch of blue collar workers & techheads.

Plus the variety, Aiden meets & deals with a lot people while in 2 you are primarily stuck with Deadsec & Blume’s Douche-an.

Nicky almost does. It has no teeth and is more 'disappointment', but it just never hits Aiden on the head. She never gets to the 'This is all your fault and you're a fucking monster' that she really needed to. But she still comes around to those ideas which I think is the mission that it got in my head that the story would have been better with Nicky at the center as she tries to track her brother and we watch her realize the man he's become.

"You-You're the vigilante. You killed people? Please tell me you didn't. You're not that man, Aiden." And those are actual lines she says in the game as it is. I'm not technically editing anything, except that those lines aren't grouped together.

But she never comes around to actually calling him out. The game cannot allow that. Because it would make Aiden look bad. It lacks teeth. It feels like the scene is trying to make me feel bad for Aiden via how terrible I feel for Nicky and Jackson's situation and it's failing. Nicky having to go on the run and escape feeds Aiden's manpain of never seeing his beloved sister again rather than... rightly criticizing his stupidity of being the reason she has to go on the run at all.

Which, tbh, depending on when changes were made, Nicky probably DID lay into him and call him out and it was cut down. A lot of those lines feel cut and pasted together script wise and could easily have been delivered in a far more vicious and angry way. Instead, they're as soft and passive disappointment as they possibly can be.

x4

That was also another scene that felt like an early draft left over to me. Aiden has CLEAR AS DAY EVIDENCE of what's going wrong and he never acknowledges it. Which makes me think that an earlier version either had Aiden finally fucking get it, or his ignoring it was more closely examined and a character deconstruction, but the tone back resulted in Aiden just being ignorant.

Edited by InkDagger on Jun 15th 2019 at 5:36:14 AM

I dunno, I love all the fun Denser and Wackier missions you do for Dead Sec.

You take down scientologists, a movie studio, Trump, and others with a lot of varied and fun missions.

Also, a big corporate military contractor and the NSA at one point.

But yes, a lot of the game is built around Vengeance Feels Empty with the fact the primary villain (Lucky Quinn) is so old that he's going to be dead in a few years anyway. I always felt that was strange except to highlight how pointless this all is. The sex trafficking element always struck me as strange to highlight in the marketing (except for Sex Sells) but now it makes sense because it's the only thing Aiden does that's remotely heroic.

Tbh the callout probably would've played better if not happening after he saves her.

Or like. She finds out before Damien (or better, Quin's people. Or Damien working for Quin now, to tie it all together) kidnaps her, tells Aiden to go to hell, he does the broody thing. Then she gets kidnapped, he saves her...

And in the end, she goes "You are still a monster."

Edited by Adannor on Jun 15th 2019 at 3:40:32 PM

I think the issue there is the tone dissonance.

You are effectively playing a bunch of prankster hackers but they have a fucking armory to gun down...... blue collar workers & techheads.

Sure when Aiden kills people he's killing violent criminals & is a violent guy himself but Marcus who seems pretty chummy is murdering more relatively harmless people than Aiden's targets.

Its not fucking proportionate response. Its makes them seem like they are doing stuff like what Aiden did but they aren't.

Edited by slimcoder on Jun 15th 2019 at 5:47:15 AM

Idk. I'm still on the Nicky as Protag train. Play Aiden for a few hours, play with his cool powers and laugh as you take people out and cause massive wrecks and it's all fun. Aiden gets captured and Nicky has to learn how to play the hacking game to find her beloved brother and she slowly unravels the horrible awful lengths he was going to to find Lena's killer. That she thinks he cannot possibly be capable of such brutality and disgusting behavior but he has a simple phone app that can do that and more with a single button push. We get to go down that horrifying journey with her.

The story is more of a mystery of discovery at that point too.

Because that's the thing. Aiden doesn't change. He never changes. But Nicky does. And that makes her more dynamic and potentially more interesting.

Another moment that felt like a hasty rewrite; Bed Bug totally died in the original version. He calls up only to say he somehow got out, VERY DID NOT DIE, and is never heard from again? Sounds like a hasty plot hole cover to make Aiden look better. He never has to consider that he got an innocent bumbling teenager killed for his benefit when he could have easily stormed Iraq's fortress on his own anyway. Said teenager calls him up and absolves him of all guilt so we never have to consider it.

Edited by InkDagger on Jun 15th 2019 at 5:46:30 AM

Yeah, it's a huge gameplay and narrative dissonance.

WD 1 also had a hilariously bad inversion of that in the gang missions. In them you're free to gun down the regular goons, but the leader, the guy in charge and thus with the most responsibility for all the crimes that lil gang committed, you must leave alive. Very at odds with how much of a Punisher type Aiden is otherwise free to be.

Edited by Adannor on Jun 15th 2019 at 3:48:46 PM

Nicky as a protag could maybe work, but not in an openworld game. Because, well, she'd have exact same dissonance we're talking about Marcus right now. She'd have to be able to commit as much murder Aiden does in order for the game to exist.

Well, yes, you'd have to make a ton of changes. It'd have to be a tighter narrative and the hacking would probably need a complete overhaul come to think of it because Aiden would be fine with a 20-car pile up but Nicky wouldn't be.

There's no simple solution to fix this game without creating a batch of new changes to make it cohesive.

So we're agreed that open world is the source of all evil.

In the interest of fairness, CPD isn't exactly an exemplar of morality and lawfulness.

The hated Jesus because He told them the truth.

Edited by TheAirman on Jun 15th 2019 at 7:55:11 AM