Watch_Dogs

I'm still unclear on how many of these characters will be pre-generated, with voice acting and scripted traits, versus how many will be "randomized". I'd imagine that playing the game entirely with randomly generated, randomly voiced characters would get predictable and boring... ironically. "Oh, look, it's Old Woman with Voice 2 again. And here's Hip DJ Hacker Guy 3. Angry Chick 1 has Revenge Plot B, let's grind it for XP."

Also, this sort of system would be a golden opportunity for character customization and self-insertion. It's dangling there just waiting to be grabbed, although it makes me suspicious that Ubisoft is going to add microtransactions for customization. "Yes. Corporate. Master. I. Will. Pay. Five. Dollars. For. A. Shirt." In fact, I've found this to be one of the most ironically pretentious aspects to Watch_Dogs. Let's make a game that's all about rebellious people fighting The Man and use it to coerce money from the sheep.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 17th 2019 at 10:02:05 AM

Really late on the subject, but THIS

is extremely pretentious. Am I supposed to feel empathy for a guy who thinks like this over a video game story?

I'm pretty sure that statement, in context, is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. At least, I read it as such.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 17th 2019 at 9:59:15 AM

Majority are definitely going to be randomized. Yes you will have same guys with same voices and same traits, it is an eventual inevitability if you play the game for long enough.

There probably will be customization via clothes, but that's the most you can expect.

Edited by Adannor on Jun 17th 2019 at 5:25:17 PM

I suppose that I'm mainly concerned about how much of the game will be doing missions in the open world and how much will be a management sim. WD has always struck me as better suited for the former.

I think the main story in Watch dogs 3 will suck just because with out a main protagonist the story going to have to be tailored everyone and their Grandma be in it.

Also the mission will most likely be a liberate the district type of game do a bunch a smaller mission then one big one.

Mm, well, quality of a story itself isn't set in stone, but what is set is a sort of a distancing from it. It can be a very good story, but the whole "randomizer NPC" thing makes it a story you're observing rather than immersing into.

EDIT: Never mind, got confused as to who was being quoted.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Jun 17th 2019 at 2:39:17 AM

Its the funny thing.

This could be the Watch Dogs with the best game-play especially if they use controlling multiple characters with unique stats to a decent execution but the story might still not be that good regardless.

Edited by slimcoder on Jun 17th 2019 at 4:23:39 AM

I hope they have DLC options for playing Marcus and Aidan.

x4

The largest problem is that they cannot put any narrative weight on their protagonist, and I don't know where that narrative weight will end up? Will it be a flimsy Mission Control who will just tell me where to go and what to do which means a rather shallow to excuse plot? Will Mission Control have a character group of their own who will carry the narrative weight? If so, why aren't I playing their story instead?

The switching protagonist might be REALLY cool from a gameplay perspective, but it's going to be a tangled nightmare from a writing perspective. And I wish we had anything to suggest what they're actually doing in this regard? But... then again, maybe the fact that we don't know is indicative. Marketing is to show off all the good parts and maybe they're well aware of the obvious problems that the 'COOL AMAZING GAMEPLAY SELLING POINT' brings to the plot and they're hiding it.

If there's anything I've learned about video games, what they show you is just as important as what they don't. It isn't always a red flag, but something to be very aware of.

My red flag on the story not being good is that this is still Ubisoft.

The same Ubisoft that went from Far Cry 3 having an actual named protagonist with a personality, connection & interaction with the supporting cast, & a motivation beyond just hunting the bad guys to Fary Cry 5 where the MC has no voice, name, character, motivation, or interactions with the cast.

The same Ubisoft where one of the AC guys recently said they are no longer making compelling characters & stories like Ezio’s saga for AC anymore, choosing to focus solely on the gameplay.

Well, that too. Far Cry 5 was abysmal. Awful. With really good marketing and set up and potentially an interesting game. Ugh. Fuck that game.

It's an ok game, but it has too many elements of taking control AWAY from the player.

Weirdly, WD 3 may be the Cyberpunk Sandbox we want. They'll have to other make the script the same across all characters, meaning each one has to have the same level of delivery, or have the "group" have decent interactions. It'll be interesting to see how they pull it off.

I have a feeling the AI, Bagely, will be the "heart" of the group.

Call me a weirdo, but I tend to get attached to blank slate player characters in games when you can customize them, and they permanently die. Watch Dogs Legion seems to be going through the effort of giving the various characters different voices and lines, and you can pick their class and change their clothes, at least.

I think I liked Far Cry 5 until the DLC came out. What a way to ruin three interesting premises.

Well, there's a new trailer!

I'm a bit "eh" over the amount of guns available, as this is the UK - we aren't as flush with even as many black market weapons!

Buuuut it could make sense if private contractors have just brought their won in and then lost a few truckloads, if civil unrest is that bad... though I think I'll do what I did with WD 2 - mostly non lethal and evasion. I do need to get around to finishing that at some point...

They're playing up some of the skills and comedy but I do like that one ability is called "Gun Kata".

I can't wait to do that "Gangsters killed my brother" recruitment mission 5000 times.

And this is the rub. If the game world really has millions of distinct characters to recruit, has someone written individual backstories and voice acted them uniquely? Is this game a terabyte download? I don't think so. No matter how much variety you code into them, you cannot avoid repetition at some point.

HOPEFULLY there'll be enough variety in the type of recruitment missions, then some variety within them that we won't get too many weird repeats.

That said they already showed off one NPC having a divergently different voice from his character (Yes, there are white Tobagoans with Caribbean accents, for example, but it's still jarring.)

I can see this getting a bit... Shadow of War with its repetition and variation. Also, I think that some of the recruitment scenes for characters are set (probably "Main" party member types, to introduce you to the concept).

How they avoid this becoming a grind, especially if you basically rinse your way through NPCS with suicide runs at combat... that'll be interesting to see. An open world roguelike esque game with a central plot thread is interesting.

It will be super repetitive if you let them die a lot. That's inevitable. There are only so many stronghold locations on the map.

I wonder if they'll have the balls to introduce a failure state where you've gotten too many people killed to succeed at the main missions. Or if you get all the pre-scripted characters killed, you'll complete the game with all the randomly generated yahoos and miss half the content.

Don't get me wrong; this concept is neat, but it feels there are so many ways it could fall down, and I worry that Ubisoft is planning to slot microtransactions into the gaps. "Pay 10 Ubibucks to revive this dead character..." "Get 2 more voiced characters for $10..."

Given how awful the live-service bullshit was with AC Odyssey, if this turns into more of the same AAA garbage, they can kiss my money goodbye.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 23rd 2019 at 10:54:28 AM

With Odyssey at least, none of the live service stuff actually impacted the story or plot - it was optional weapons, gear and skins for the ship. The rest was paid DLC that felt pretty good; or the free quests they released.

So, on that front they weren't holding content hostage (As half the gear was pegasi, undead horses, sci fi armour etc...)

Now, if they cut central content down and bundle it in DLC, then they'll be on a par with EA.

My opinion can be summed up as "everything will be the same as it was in Mordor". The good, the bad, and the ugly. They have an example to follow, they aren't stupid enough to really ruin it, they aren't good enough to really improve on it.

If there are any really unique-content personas, I expect they'll be slotted in with a modifier to always be captured and let you break them out. For microtransactions, I expect purchasable random recruits and maybe get out of jail cards.

I do not think "Oh, look, it's Old Woman with Voice 2 again. And here's Hip DJ Hacker Guy 3. Angry Chick 1 has Revenge Plot B, let's grind it for XP." will be very noticeable until you play for a looong time.

Edited by Adannor on Aug 23rd 2019 at 6:31:50 PM

I wrote an essay on Aiden that said he was in-universe a massive hypocrite and psychopath. One of the writers tweeted me and said it was accurate.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-subversiveness-of-aiden-pearce.html

Fighteer casts resurrect topic.

That's a good essay, and is similar to what I took from the game. We aren't supposed to see Aiden as someone to model; we're supposed to see him as a huge hypocrite.

As I was saying in the Jimquisition thread, I think that WD could have gone farther to have your gameplay choices (e.g. high or low reputation) affect the story — other than whether civilians report you to the cops when they see you, that is. Still, as long as he pursues his revenge against criminals while also being one himself, Aiden isn't going to get out of this with a happy ending.

The core problem with the game is that it makes being a self-destructive hypocrite a ton of fun as you leave flaming auto pileups in your wake and evade whole battalions of cops, so when you have to go back the story to face the consequences, it's a bit of a drag. This is not unlike the dilemma of Spec Ops: The Line, where the core gameplay of murdering people is at odds with the subversive tone of the story (or so I've heard; I haven't played it).

Is there any new information about Legion? I assume COVID-19 has disrupted its development like everything else, and we know that Ubisoft took a time-out to rethink its life choices after the humiliating debacle of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, but do we have any inkling of a release date?

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 22nd 2020 at 4:35:17 AM