A thought.
Mar. 28th, 2010 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
A really, truly epic villain is the kind of person who thinks "I must kill you, but you're WRONG! I must explain WHY you are wrong FIRST."
/For consideration: Assassin's Creed.
/For consideration: Assassin's Creed.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 08:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 09:23 pm (UTC)Second: Yeah, he's pretty blatantly a villain, and then he stops to monologue... REPEATEDLY.
Like, there's multiple cutscenes during the fight where he stops to explain things.
If AC2's DRM wasn't completely fucking idiotic, I'd buy it right now. Since it's completely idiotic, I'm strongly considering pirating it, right now. Dear UBI: I would love to give you money if you didn't seem to assume that me giving you money was the same as me wanting you to destroy my computer. Dumbasses.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 09:38 pm (UTC)That's the funniest part. A couple times you kill a mark and then you have this long conversation with him... yet there are apparently a dozen pissed off guards surrounding the two of you letting you chat about the grand conspiracy. I guess it's during this part that they magically notify every guard in the city of your exact description so they can try and nab you.
Bioshock's mess of a DRM scheme got me to actually return the game - luckily I hadn't opened the box yet, so instead I downloaded it. Didn't finish that one either, now that I think about it...
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 11:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 05:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 05:27 am (UTC)It's most often the distributor that decides to slap DRM all over a game, not the developer - so often I'm inclined to be a bit sympathetic. In Bioshock's case though they were one and the same.
For some reason (probably because I'm playing it at the moment) I thought you were talking about Bioshock 2, but you meant the original. I played Bioshock on the 360 so I managed to skip all the DRM crap, and both Bioshock and Bioshock 2 on Steam don't have DRM (outside of Steam's own validation and Bioshock 2's use of Windows Live). I realise now I got a bit lucky. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 05:35 am (UTC)Bundling a chat client with your DRM suite is not a qualitative difference.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 05:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 10:16 am (UTC)your life won't end because you're not playing, or have never played, bioshock or assassin's creed.
just saying ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 11:14 am (UTC)Endless DRMless unending
Date: 2010-03-29 02:06 pm (UTC)notdeer! You wander the woods! You cast spells! And it's freeee! *rainbow*(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 11:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-03 11:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 10:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 10:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 10:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 10:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 04:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 05:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 08:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 05:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-28 10:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 12:51 am (UTC)Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 01:29 am (UTC)Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 01:34 am (UTC)Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 02:09 am (UTC)Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 11:16 am (UTC)Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 03:47 pm (UTC)Magneto is just ruthlessly honest about how obnoxious Homo-whatever can be, and willing to pursue survival at all costs. I think that gives him the best villain motive ever. He's a villain because his methods are so violent and ruthless. Given his background, I can't blame him. That's how he was taught the world is supposed to work.
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 04:00 pm (UTC)That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about villains who really are *right*, in every way. They're doing the right thing for the right reasons and they're accomplishing the best possible result.
The only reason they're the "bad guys" at all is that the author says so, and sometimes occasionally even remembers to have them break character and act somewhat villainous.
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 04:03 pm (UTC)Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 04:44 pm (UTC)It's not just his methods being violent and ruthless. It's what he does.
(Also, I for one manage quite nicely to be revolted by "gene pool against gene pool", even if other members of my species may happen to acttivate it. I'm sure I'm not the only one.)
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 07:39 pm (UTC)Also: I'm always amazed when people miss subtext that's so near to the surface that it sometimes shows clear through to the text.
Hint: Who are "mutants"?
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2010-03-29 04:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 10:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 11:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 04:20 pm (UTC)I like throwing this to my RPG group all the time. My last villain was a Warlock that was trapped in this extra dimensional prison. Our heroes found themselves trapped too and were desperately trying to find a way to escape. The villain was preventing our heroes from escaping because (so our heroes thought) he was crazy and well…he’s the villain. But just as the heroes finally solved the puzzle on how to escape the villain finally revealed that the reason he was trying to stop them was because if they escape, they break the prison seal and every single horror trapped in this dimension would escape to the real world. This caused a good twenty minute debate over what to do.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 04:24 pm (UTC)(I really didn't like Pyramid Of Shadows. It wasn't a great adventure to begin with, and then it *really* started sucking by being run poorly.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 04:32 pm (UTC)I thought you avoided DnD 4th like the plague? Pyramid of Shadows is the worst of the Heroic Tier series in my opinion. I really don’t like whisking players away without a means to rest/sell their treasure and the encounters were very linear.
I’m running P1 now (King of the Trollhaunt Warrens) and lately I’ve been throwing skill challenges as part of the encounter. IE “Kill all the monsters, you get XP BUT if you kill all the monsters before any of them kill the innocent human bystander with 1 HP, you get a bonus!”
So far it’s been working out nicely.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 04:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 04:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 05:01 pm (UTC)The only "catch" is that there are certain characters who are basically inappropriate PCs in 4: Non-adventurers. All 4E PCs are competent and heroic adventurers, just like all PCs in a Vampire game are vampires.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 05:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 06:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 08:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 08:38 pm (UTC)(More seriously: Without knowing what he did, I can't tell you why he was underperforming - but it's *truly hard* to make a Cleric who doesn't annihilate at least one Encounter a day all on his own with a Daily. Cleric Dailies are simply unbelievably good.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 08:46 pm (UTC)A fact the resident Rogue discovered when he smoked all his dailies on the first encounter and started immediately whining that the group should take an extended rest.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-29 08:57 pm (UTC)But Cleric Dailies are usually a cut above - a Fighter or Ranger daily will clobber one guy. A Cleric Daily clobbers *everyone*, or saves the lives of everyone in the Encounter repeatedly, or nerfs a Solo - without needing to hit.
Cleric Dailies are awesome. Only Wizard dailies are more awesome, and Wizards have a bad habit of either needing to hit or leaving the enemies *intact* and able to fight back while they kill 'em.
Anyway. Something else I've noticed about D&D4: It's very hard to make a bad character, but there are almost always ways to do the same thing *differently*, if not always *better* - and one of those different ways will better complement your group.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-01 05:15 am (UTC)