Yahtzee Croshaw (Zero Punctuation, Fully Ramblomatic)

I also like how he predicted and deliberately subverted the player shaming at the end of the game by refusing to kill anyone he didn't need to.

Except that calling your game Vampire might cause some confusion.

So it's probably to make the game stick out somewhat (as alternate spellings tend to stick in people's minds sometimes).

Should have called it "Dark 2: This Time It's Personal". That would have been a more accurate title.

So, apparently Yahtzee's now officially the Escapist's last employed content creator - their main Twitch guy just quit (three guesses why and the first two don't count).

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jun 28th 2018 at 4:44:19 PM

Let me guess, he came out as Republican? Damn... he's an illegal alien? Wait, wait, I got it. They didn't pay him!

Escapist has been pretty much Yahtzee: the website since mid-2015. It makes me wonder why Yahtzee himself has wanted to stay on the website, even if he is still the only person still getting paid. Heck, if he IS the only person getting paid, then why haven't all the former content producers and employees been making any mention of Yahtzee? ND As?

Presumably they pay him better than You Tube does.

That’s an easy assumption to make. Still, for Yahtzee to never mention or never be mentioned in any of the stuff going on with The Escapist just seems bizarre. Kinda starts painting a picture of Yahtzee either being ignorant of all the stuff going on, or knowing about it and keeping shut to preserve his self image as one of the few internet personalities who hasn’t gotten involved or taken a stance in internet politics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD5sJVFNGAM - Vampyr (Zero Punctuation)

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Jul 4th 2018 at 11:07:58 AM

He's not wrong about the game.

Another weird flaw he brings is that the game will characterise some people as outright assholes with not a redeeming quality. You'd think removing them would improve the town. But noooooo. Because they have names that means their deaths are meaningful. Unlike the thugs you murder by the dozen who have no name.

I do get a chuckle at him pointing out how the Vampire Powers all sort of suck and yet you're expected to want to kill for them.

Edited by Ghilz on Jul 4th 2018 at 4:34:25 AM

Having played the game, he is absolutely spot on. I never felt like I needed the extra XP since the actual vampire powers are lame and not as good as just using a good weapon. The game doesn't execute its quite interesting premise well because it's just too easy. Combat's not great in the first place, and even despite that nothing feels threatening. Maybe if the game were much harder if you don't Capri Sun some motherfuckers it'd be better.

Also the Info Dump epidemic in the game is just boring. And the dialogue trees reminded me of Dark. Eww, I just thought about Dark!

Edited by Logograph on Jul 5th 2018 at 11:50:47 AM

Tell me more about your thoughts on Dark.

No joke, it's literally a power of the protagonist in Vampireyr to force people to give him exposition. It's not hyperbole. And no, before you go "You mean he can mindcontrol them!"

No. He can compel people to Infodump on him. His mind control is a separate power.

Edited by Ghilz on Jul 5th 2018 at 4:40:55 AM

Sounds a bit like the problem that Bioshock's attempt at moral choice had. You're supposed to choose whether to spare the little sisters or kill them for rewards, except that you get even better rewards if you spare them, defeating the purpose.

Edited by storyyeller on Jul 5th 2018 at 10:08:06 AM

Right, that is why the dark side is always more powerful than the light in fiction. There is little point to morality when the bad choice holds no seductive power.

I think it's more in the idea that evil pays off right now, while good is more of a long-term investment.

Yeah, like Yoda would say: "Quicker, easier, more seductive."

The light side can generally reach the same heights as any one on the dark side, but they don't get to take any short cuts.

The problem with Vampyr is that (apparently) it is perfectly beatable without going to town on any named characters. That is a pretty serious problem, because in most video games, restarts are cheap. Whenever you fail you can just reload your last conveniently located checkpoint and try again until you get the pattern down and win. Since the player knows the game will just chew them out over taking the easy road, they just brute-force the high road instead.

Now, if player death actually mattered, it would have been a different story. Then you'd have to asses risks and determine whether you can afford to attempt fighting the boss without a few more bloody upgrades.

Edited by Kayeka on Jul 6th 2018 at 1:33:04 PM

Should have borrowed the nemesis system. If a character defeats you, they get a nickname centered around humiliating you, plus they level up and get cool new abilities.

Or made the combat not ass and easy

Or made the vampire abilities cool and worthwhile

Like, there's no ability you can buy with xp that has out of combat use. Abilities that would let you explore or reach new areas would've made the game more interesting, and make munching on humans more tempting.

But all the vampire powers are combat related, and fairly boring at that.

So basically, morality choices are nothing but punishments the game invents for the player wanting to have fun in a video game whose mechanics exist to give the player more fun as it progresses?

Edited by Delphisage on Jul 7th 2018 at 7:51:26 AM

Sometimes, yes. That one is the kind that tricks you into having fun with immoral choices, then berates you for them. They're not very fun, as you can guess.

Yahtzee likes to emphasize ludonarrative dissonance by deliberately playing his characters in the exact opposite fashion to how the story tries to depict them or, at the very least, in some sort of ridiculous and absurd way for the game.

His famous "Thinderella" character from a Conan game is such an example. Another would be from the game "Prototype", where he played Alex Mercer in as pointlessly brutal and bloodthirsty a fashion as possible to highlight the absurd contrast when the game has Mercer wax poetic about his blossoming moral code.

When the game says, "This is your character," Yahtzee goes, "Like F*CK it is!" and starts seeking ways to undermine the story to hilarious effect. He's like one of those speedrun players who obsessively tries to break the game mechanics, except he's doing it to the plot.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 9th 2018 at 1:03:16 PM

Yes, because if a game lets the player undermine its core message within the scope of their actions in the story, then it creates dissonance. It makes no sense to have a Karma Meter, for example, if the game always treats the player character in the same way or extracts the same Aesops regardless. That's one of the reasons why KOTOR remains so well-regarded to this day, despite being fairly generic as an RPG: it extracts genuine and occasionally heartbreaking consequences for your choices.

There's an extra layer of dissonance in sandbox games where you can run around the open world being a mass murderer yet suffer no consequences in the story, but that's a separate problem... *cough* Watch_Dogs.

On other occasions, like when he names Link "Fuck Me" or "Useless", he's not highlighting narrative dissonance but instead making a point about how generic and boring the protagonist is. Then there are folks like Gareth Goblecoque who are there to make a point about the uselessness of profanity filters.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 9th 2018 at 5:03:04 AM

It makes no sense to have a Karma Meter, for example, if the game always treats the player character in the same way or extracts the same Aesops regardless.

One of the ideas I once had for a videogame was to deliberately do this to satirize videogame morality systems. Like have an over the top and laughably transparent karma system... that has no effect on the ending because petting the occasional puppy won't actually make up for your murder sprees. Or maybe do it where it changes how the protagonist perceives themselves, but nobody else actually cares or treats them differently.

Edited by storyyeller on Jul 9th 2018 at 9:33:46 AM

Yeah, when pretty much all of those games involve killing lots of mooks, karma systems can basically never work entirely.