Assassin's Creed 4: Pirates of the Caribbean

[Ninjadeadbeard]

So I assume we've all seen this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_GDeIee6Kc)?

Is anyone excited about this? AC3 basically killed the series for me, but I would have come back to it if there was a setting change. But no. We gotta slum it with the Kenways some more.

And after all that beautiful fanart of a Chinese (http://analogaddiction.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/ac-china-3.jpeg) Assassin's (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XdP6Lp2ceqY/TJENGhJuZGI/AAAAAAAAbmU/jVY82WdNbTc/s1600/AC-CarteBlanche.jpg) Creed (http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8083/8353292230_4c5a70af1d_o.jpg). :smallsigh:

Okay that second one has a katana, but still...

[Hiro Protagonest]

I'm mildly hopeful that they'll change the basic gameplay. The biggest draw of AC has always been the fact that enemies attack you one at a time and countering is rather easy. Also, ranged weapons instakill and are perfectly accurate, so they need to be fixed.

If they don't make things different, I'm out. Seriously, they could at least change the combat to the style of Action Beat 'Em Ups, like Bayonetta or God Hand.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I can dig it. I actually liked a lot of the new things they did in III- I'd call it the second best in the series, after II-- and I particularly liked the naval combat-- which ought to play an even bigger role in a pirate game :smallbiggrin:

[Bling Cat]

I'm not particularly excited for AssFlag, the series has become less about being time travel Hitman and more about their weird conspiracy aliens sun explosion story. (I think that's the plot? I stopped after AssRev) Which I'm just less interested in.

I share your mourning over the loss of a possibility of a China set game though, half the draw was always the architecture. I think there was talk fort a short time of AssThree being set in Imperial Rome. That would have been incredible. I still hope that they decide to do some kind of spin off series which is just time travel Hitman, but it seems less likely with each iteration.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I'm not particularly excited for AssFlag, the series has become less about being time travel Hitman and more about their weird conspiracy aliens sun explosion story. (I think that's the plot? I stopped after AssRev) Which I'm just less interested in.

I share your mourning over the loss of a possibility of a China set game though, half the draw was always the architecture. I think there was talk fort a short time of AssThree being set in Imperial Rome. That would have been incredible. I still hope that they decide to do some kind of spin off series which is just time travel Hitman, but it seems less likely with each iteration.

I rather enjoyed the story until the SOUL-CRUSHING ending of AC3. But they sort of closed that chapter, so they should be free to return to the basic "Quickly Assassin X! You must relive the life of one of your ancestors so we can shampoodle the Mcguffin before the What-Evers find us!", which I enjoyed immensely. You know, until the soul-crushing.

They had the perfect set-up for a Chinese setting too. They'd introduced Shao Jun in Embers (short film). Why not follow her story, or that of her kids and grandkids?

I actually thought they could make it very interesting to reverse the dynamic a bit. Make the new Modern-Character a Templar captured by Assassins. It fits with the new Gray-v-Gray morality AC3 was trying to force down our throats.

[Othesemo]

I keep on hoping for a jump backwards in history, and we keep on just getting more and more guns. I'll withhold judgement until we can see more, but I'm nowhere near as enthusiastic about this games as I was about, say, Revelations.

And I'm going to echo the sentiment that the sun-explosion plot (or whatever it is) tends to detract from why I play the games in the first place.

[BRC]

I am...cautiously optimistic. This is probably the setting I am least excited about. It seems a little too much "HEY, AWESOME, PIRATES!". I dunno, Assassins Creed has traditionally looked outside the standard settings. How many other properties can you think of that are set in the Italian Renessiance for example.

That said, AC3's reach exceeded it's grasp. It was tied to the events of the American Revolution, but never really got to explore them. Also, Connor was kind of a boring character.The games are at their best when you have an interesting time period to explore, rather than trying to cover lots of events, and I guess this fills that criteria.

What I'm worried about is that this will continue the series trend away from stealth. Ever since Ezio got a crossbow it's been "Sneak until you feel like just killing everybody".


That said, the advertising campaigns have been describing Edward as a "Pirate trained by Assassins", plus an interview with the creators that implied he was not a full-time Assassin like the previous protagonists.

I think this could actually lead to some interesting gameplay. The game is split between big swashbuckling beat-em-up type sections as Edward the Pirate and stealth sections as Edward the Assassin. Of course, this only works if they improve upon both combat and stealth mechanics. To the point where you can feel like a badass storming spanish galleons, and then still have some stealth mechanics.

Mind you, from the interview, it sounds like they still have not implemented a "Crouch" Button, so we're proably just looking at the same counterkill-based gameplay as before. Edward is probably just going to be even more capable of killing people than Connor or Ezio, so the only motivator for stealth when getting spotted smacks you with a desynch.

[Vaz]

Most interesting thing about the Champions League match was that. I'm still to complete AC:R yet, and not even installed AC3. It has gotten Cod-ish, and is telling that suddenly we have got more games from AC than we have from Modern Warfare; expecting MW4 or variant thereof.

Talking of which, need to complete BlOps2.

[Zevox]

As someone who has only played the first game, I find this setting choice rather appealing. I've heard secondhand that the sailing mechanics introduced in game 3 are extremely good, and this seems like it'll make good use of that. Hopefully I'll be caught up on the series by the time this one comes out.


What I'm worried about is that this will continue the series trend away from stealth. Ever since Ezio got a crossbow it's been "Sneak until you feel like just killing everybody".
Frankly, it's been like that since game 1. It did not take long for me to realize that the combat in that game was so dead easy that I had absolutely no reason to be stealthy. The guards just were not a threat.

Not that I mind the series not requiring stealth, honestly, since I'm not a big fan of stealth in general. I am hoping that the combat gets better, by which I mean more challenging, though. From what I hear secondhand of games 2 and onward however perhaps I shouldn't get my hopes up there.

[Androgeus]

I keep on hoping for a jump backwards in history

Well we are probably are going backwards in time rather than forwards. The trailer features Blackbeard who died in 1718, and ACIII took place in the latter half of the 18th century.
On having less guns around, it appears you may be out of luck there. The main character appears to have at least 4 guns.

[Othesemo]

Well we are probably are going backwards in time rather than forwards. The trailer features Blackbeard who died in 1718, and ACIII took place in the latter half of the 18th century.
On having less guns around, it appears you may be out of luck there. The main character appears to have at least 4 guns.

Fair enough. Still, my general view of history is that it gets progressively duller the further one moves past the dark ages.

Ah, well. Who knows, this could still end up a great game. I suppose we'll find out in about half a year.

[Hiro Protagonest]

What I'm worried about is that this will continue the series trend away from stealth. Ever since Ezio Altair got a crossbow ranged weapon it's been "Sneak until you feel like just killing everybody".

Corrected.

[Anteros]

I mean...half the fun of an assassins creed game is climbing around the beautiful architecture and exploring. I imagine a large majority of a pirate game would be confined to ships...that seems like a really dumb decision. At best you're going to be at some port towns in the Mediterranean...none of which are very impressive architecturally at all.

I understand that they are trying to build into a more and more modern game and follow their plot into a game of Desmond being a modern day assassin....but the problem I have is that their plot is stupid. Mind numbingly stupid. It is literally the worst thing about these games. I mean, the individual character plots are interesting, but the overarching one? No.

Exploring China or Rome would be amazing. Think about it...you could work with Brutus to assassinate Caesar himself. They really need to get back to their roots.

[BRC]

Corrected.
Eh, the Throwing Dagger was good, but it never felt like an instant win button the same way the Crossbow did.

Fair enough. Still, my general view of history is that it gets progressively duller the further one moves past the dark ages.

History...Nerdrage...building...

[Brother Oni]

The only issue with an AC game being set in Imperial Rome is that it pre-dates Altair's reformation of the Assassins into an anti-Templar organisation.
The Templars existed in one form or another before the Templar Order, so an Imperial Rome game would need to have an independent faction who stumbled onto the precursor Templar conspiracy.

An Imperial China game would be wonderful and there is precedent for the Assassins to be there during the Ming Dynasty (plus the rope dagger had to have gone back to the west somehow).
I'm not so sure about a Tokugawa era Japan game though, since that already has stiff competition from the Tenchu games, which have a better emphasis and execution of the stealth mechanic.

I'm hopeful for AC:Black Flag as I did enjoy the naval battles of AC3 (PotBS wasn't quite doing it for me), although I hope Edward is a more interesting protagonist than Connor. It does explain how Haytham had hidden blades, although I'm curious to see how he ended up on the other side (I guess father issues run in the Kenway family :smalltongue:).


I mean...half the fun of an assassins creed game is climbing around the beautiful architecture and exploring. I imagine a large majority of a pirate game would be confined to ships...that seems like a really dumb decision. At best you're going to be at some port towns in the Mediterranean...none of which are very impressive architecturally at all.


Two things: I think you mean Caribbean and I don't think lack of exploration is going to be an issue when you have a ship and the entire east coast of America to roam around in. You spent most of your time just sailing in Windwaker, yet there was no lack of places to explore there.

I do agree that if you're a history buff and just want to clamber around historical buildings, Black Flag is going to come up short though.



I understand that they are trying to build into a more and more modern game and follow their plot into a game of Desmond being a modern day assassin....but the problem I have is that their plot is stupid. Mind numbingly stupid. It is literally the worst thing about these games. I mean, the individual character plots are interesting, but the overarching one? No.


You need a fairly strong narrative thread that can string together a Syrian Crusades-era hashashin, an Italian Renaissance-era minor nobleman and a half-Native American American Civil War era tribesman. Having them all as previous opponents of the Templars is a bit weak as they seem somewhat arbitrary.
Introducing them as important ancestors of a modern day Assassin which can be accessed via a plot machine that can read past lives gives a far stronger story.

Besides after AC3, I don't think Desmond is going to be an major story issue, especially since the multiplayer story apparently has Abstergo successfully uploading Desmond's memories to the new Animus, so you can look into Desmond's memories without him.

[Bling Cat]

The only issue with an AC game being set in Imperial Rome is that it pre-dates Altair's reformation of the Assassins into an anti-Templar organisation.


You need a fairly strong narrative thread that can string together a Syrian Crusades-era hashashin, an Italian Renaissance-era minor nobleman and a half-Native American American Civil War era tribesman. Having them all as previous opponents of the Templars is a bit weak as they seem somewhat arbitrary.
Introducing them as important ancestors of a modern day Assassin which can be accessed via a plot machine that can read past lives gives a far stronger story.


I think we would fundamentally disagree about what we want out of the games. I'm not overly interested in the Templar/Assassin fight, or the overarching story as a whole. What I wanted out of these games was basically a Hitman style sandbox with creativity in assassination as the main focus. Ubisoft instead decided to make largely plot driven games where your ability to be creative has slowly been eroded game-one-game.

I appreciate that I effectively want a totally different series of games with similar themes, and that the AssCreed franchise was not designed with what I want in mind, and that that is not necessarily a bad thing, not everything must appeal to me after all. It does mean that I can't help but be put off with each new iteration, as they stray further and further from what I think could be significantly better games than I find them to be.

[Anteros]

The only issue with an AC game being set in Imperial Rome is that it pre-dates Altair's reformation of the Assassins into an anti-Templar organisation.
The Templars existed in one form or another before the Templar Order, so an Imperial Rome game would need to have an independent faction who stumbled onto the precursor Templar conspiracy.

An Imperial China game would be wonderful and there is precedent for the Assassins to be there during the Ming Dynasty (plus the rope dagger had to have gone back to the west somehow).
I'm not so sure about a Tokugawa era Japan game though, since that already has stiff competition from the Tenchu games, which have a better emphasis and execution of the stealth mechanic.

I'm hopeful for AC:Black Flag as I did enjoy the naval battles of AC3 (PotBS wasn't quite doing it for me), although I hope Edward is a more interesting protagonist than Connor. It does explain how Haytham had hidden blades, although I'm curious to see how he ended up on the other side (I guess father issues run in the Kenway family :smalltongue:).



Two things: I think you mean Caribbean and I don't think lack of exploration is going to be an issue when you have a ship and the entire east coast of America to roam around in. You spent most of your time just sailing in Windwaker, yet there was no lack of places to explore there.

I do agree that if you're a history buff and just want to clamber around historical buildings, Black Flag is going to come up short though.



You need a fairly strong narrative thread that can string together a Syrian Crusades-era hashashin, an Italian Renaissance-era minor nobleman and a half-Native American American Civil War era tribesman. Having them all as previous opponents of the Templars is a bit weak as they seem somewhat arbitrary.
Introducing them as important ancestors of a modern day Assassin which can be accessed via a plot machine that can read past lives gives a far stronger story.

Besides after AC3, I don't think Desmond is going to be an major story issue, especially since the multiplayer story apparently has Abstergo successfully uploading Desmond's memories to the new Animus, so you can look into Desmond's memories without him.

There might be plenty to explore. Technically. Except the vast, vast majority of land in that area will be completely devoid of human life...and the cities that do exist will be extremely unimpressive.

Also, I think you're overstating the need to have that overarching plot tie these games together. The overarching plot hardly even exists anyway. The small parts the player gets to see are extremely cryptic...and frankly....stupid. I think the majority of players would be perfectly fine ditching it...or at least resolving it and moving forward to future games without it. I highly doubt Desmond stays dead...but I wish he would. His parts are the worst bits of the series.

[Bouregard]

Trailer looks good, but thats nothing new for AC.


I really hope they do something about the gameplay. Figthing in AC3 is too easy.

There are moments where you fight 20 redcoats and you can leave the PS3 to go to the toilet, bring beer from the cellar and feed your fishes and after you return Connor still has half his hitpoints left.

However the naval combat was great, really great I go as far and say it's the best naval combat where you can walk around deck (or see the ship in a sort of ego perspective)

Also, for the love of god, remove those annoying modern scenes. I play AC to see "historical" cities and areas.

Pirates are a long time favourite genre for me. With Raven's Cry and AC4 this looks like a good year to me.

[Comet]

Man, didn't even have time to play Revelations or AC III and they're already coming out with another one?

And the whole Number: And Subtitle Too thing makes me think they are kind of losing view of any kind of overall plan or pacing for the franchise and just going with whatever seems cool at the time just to keep up with a yearly release schedule.

At least another open world game with pirates sounds cool and since they've apparently gotten rid of Desmond and his particular plotline I can just pretend this is entirely its own thing for now.

[Bouregard]

Oh also there is a secondish trailer like thingie out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=y58uao48Ddw&NR=1

[Othesemo]

History...Nerdrage...building...

By which I mean to imply that I find the dark ages and the goings on of the preceding two millennia incredibly interesting. I've got nothing against history in general- I just happen to have a preference for what to study that does not overlap with the most recent Assassin's Creed games.

[BRC]

By which I mean to imply that I find the dark ages and the goings on of the preceding two millennia incredibly interesting. I've got nothing against history in general- I just happen to have a preference for what to study that does not overlap with the most recent Assassin's Creed games.

History Nerd Rage Subsiding I guess.

Sorry, most of my studies are post-dark ages, and I personally find it fascinating.

[Brother Oni]

I think we would fundamentally disagree about what we want out of the games.

I kinda figured you weren't a big fan of the series as it was, given your derogatory contraction of the franchise name.

If you just wanted sandbox murdering people, wouldn't something like Borderlands or The Saboteur be more suitable?


There might be plenty to explore. Technically. Except the vast, vast majority of land in that area will be completely devoid of human life...and the cities that do exist will be extremely unimpressive.

Depends on whether Edward stays exclusively in the Caribbean or starts to hunt down merchant ships as a privateer. Visiting London/Lisbon/Barcelona/Marseilles as a home port would probably be not too far out of the question.



Also, I think you're overstating the need to have that overarching plot tie these games together. The overarching plot hardly even exists anyway. The small parts the player gets to see are extremely cryptic...and frankly....stupid. I think the majority of players would be perfectly fine ditching it...or at least resolving it and moving forward to future games without it. I highly doubt Desmond stays dead...but I wish he would. His parts are the worst bits of the series.

I didn't mind the Desmond bits, but I can see why people loathed them. All the additional hidden bits just added to the general conspiracy mythos that nearly any media involving the Templars tends to have (I'd be disappointed if it didn't).

[Bling Cat]

I kinda figured you weren't a big fan of the series as it was given your derogatory contraction of the franchise name.

It isn't meant as derogatory. I actually enjoyed the first one immensely, and the second, although things had begun to creep in at that point. I've always shortened the names in the same way though, it's just something me and my friends do, even when I thought they were good.

[Anteros]

If you guys really think Desmond isn't making another appearance at some point, I have some beach front property in a swamp to sell you.

It's very, very narratively likely that he'll have some sort of resurrection.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

If you guys really think Desmond isn't making another appearance at some point, I have some beach front property in a swamp to sell you.

It's very, very narratively likely that he'll have some sort of resurrection.

He's probably going to be some sort of computer-hologram-ghost like Subject 16 was for the previous games. Or something. I actually felt really close to Desmond, and the way AC3 handled his plotline has somewhat jaded me against future games (though if I hear good things I may reverse that).

[Othesemo]

If you guys really think Desmond isn't making another appearance at some point, I have some beach front property in a swamp to sell you.

It's very, very narratively likely that he'll have some sort of resurrection.

I'm curious as to your reasoning.

[Anteros]

I'm curious as to your reasoning.

They invested 3 games into developing him. You don't narratively invest that much time into a protagonist just to kill them off right before the climax of the series and introduce a new protagonist.

He'll be back. Possibly as a ghost in the machine like someone said earlier, but I think it's more likely that he'll have an actual resurrection. For one thing, there's an explicit scene of them taking his body away, which is unnecessary if his arc really is over. Plus the setting is already full of pseudo-science, godlike beings, and macguffins. Enough so that a resurrection is not completely implausible.

I don't expect him back immediately at the start of AC4...but he'll probably be the main character again by the time the game ends.

[Leliel]

I think we would fundamentally disagree about what we want out of the games. I'm not overly interested in the Templar/Assassin fight, or the overarching story as a whole. What I wanted out of these games was basically a Hitman style sandbox with creativity in assassination as the main focus. Ubisoft instead decided to make largely plot driven games where your ability to be creative has slowly been eroded game-one-game.

I appreciate that I effectively want a totally different series of games with similar themes, and that the AssCreed franchise was not designed with what I want in mind, and that that is not necessarily a bad thing, not everything must appeal to me after all. It does mean that I can't help but be put off with each new iteration, as they stray further and further from what I think could be significantly better games than I find them to be.

"Dogs are stupid! Why can't they be cats!?"

...is the argument you are making.

I have never felt the ability to be really creative in any of the games. There's a mission, you complete it at your leisure, explore the world in between.

My only real quibble with III (Connor really doesn't deserve the flack he gets, he's just a bit more serious than Ezio, who admittedly is awesome) is the lack of real interesting things to climb, and given how we're in the Caribbean, I don't feel afraid of that.

EDIT: Also, I think we may be playing a Templar relative of Desmond's, who's bosses are trying to reform the organization now that Abstergo is out of the way. Our story is that the Reformists want to understand how the organization worked before it became corrupt (again), and since Haytham isn't reachable for some reason, they're going with the next best thing.

Over the course of the plot, a simulacra of Desmond begins trying to communicate with us and warn us about Juno.

(Also, the ending was depressing, but not really more so than the other endings. Juno is one very insane woman, as opposed to the Solar Flare To End All Solar Flares).

[Bling Cat]

"Dogs are stupid! Why can't they be cats!?"

...is the argument you are making.



I know. I said that. I appreciate they're designed with a different focus, my point is that I think they could be significantly better and more interesting games if the player was allowed more creativity in how they approached things.



I have never felt the ability to be really creative in any of the games. There's a mission, you complete it at your leisure, explore the world in between.

See, to me that's the central issue. The games have so much potential to allow player creativity without compromising anything else about them, but Ubisoft has instead been filing meaningful player input down since game one. And now, if someone were to make the kind of game I wish the franchise was? It would get dismissed as ripping off Assassin's Creed.

I also think they haven't really put that much work into improving the core mechanics and have instead been bolting more and more stuff onto them until it collapsed from the weight of so much extraneous fluff.

[Brother Oni]

They invested 3 games into developing him. You don't narratively invest that much time into a protagonist just to kill them off right before the climax of the series and introduce a new protagonist.

George R R Martin would like to disagree with you there. :smalltongue:


For one thing, there's an explicit scene of them taking his body away, which is unnecessary if his arc really is over.

Is this scene only accessible from the multiplayer section? I don't remember it in the single-player ending.


I know. I said that. I appreciate they're designed with a different focus, my point is that I think they could be significantly better and more interesting games if the player was allowed more creativity in how they approached things.

So you essentially want a goal, an environment with multiple routes, then give the player free choice to do what they want to achieve that goal? Sounds like Deus Ex to me, or possibly Dishonoured.

[Bling Cat]

So you essentially want a goal, an environment with multiple routes, then give the player free choice to do what they want to achieve that goal? Sounds like Deus Ex to me, or possibly Dishonoured.

Yes, although a better comparison would be Hitman: Blood Money. I just think that the setup of Assassin's Creed could make a very compelling game in that style, especially with the historical backdrops. It saddens me that they instead decided to restrict player agency as opposed to develop it.

[BRC]

Yes, although a better comparison would be Hitman: Blood Money. I just think that the setup of Assassin's Creed could make a very compelling game in that style, especially with the historical backdrops. It saddens me that they instead decided to restrict player agency as opposed to develop it.
An interview on Kotaku (more recent than the announcement one) talked about bringing back some of that "Plan your Approach" element, which was present in 1, and which every game afterwards traded for turning the Assasinations into linear setpieces with various levels of elaborateness.

However, take that as you will. My current cynical guess is that they'll just have one Stealth Route (Sneak in the back), and one Combat Route (Kick in the door) that you choose between, rather than giving you a scenario and an Objective, then letting you figure it out for yourself.

[Leliel]

I know. I said that. I appreciate they're designed with a different focus, my point is that I think they could be significantly better and more interesting games if the player was allowed more creativity in how they approached things.

Oh. Okay.

So long as you admit it and have concise rationale, I have no quibble.

I actually agree with this, though I got started on II.

[Othesemo]

History Nerd Rage Subsiding I guess.

Sorry, most of my studies are post-dark ages, and I personally find it fascinating.

No problem. They've just never really grabbed me. Until I started studying republican rome in depth after high school, I thought that I didn't like history at all.

[Sajiri]

Man, I still haven't even finished the first game. I keep starting it, playing it for an afternoon thinking 'hey this is awesome' then something happens, I cant play games for a while, when I can again I'm playing something else entirely, then months later I resolve to try AC series again. I play for an afternoon, think 'hey this is awesome' and the cycle repeats.

One day..one day I will play that game and catch up on the series. Maybe now the Citadel is out I can finish up Mass Effect for good and move onto a new series.

[Brother Oni]

An interview on Kotaku (more recent than the announcement one) talked about bringing back some of that "Plan your Approach" element, which was present in 1, and which every game afterwards traded for turning the Assasinations into linear setpieces with various levels of elaborateness.

Well the assassinations of major NPCs anyway. Going after Templar Captains (especially the ones that run away) without a firm plan was often an exercise in frustration.

[tommhans]

looks cool though, i think it could be just as fun as the other games :)
but yeah, i hated the ending on nr 3, just as much as i hated the ending on mass effect 3, why cant they do better endings? :/

anyways back to topic, i hate this horrible overarching story now, but its fun to play these games despite that ,and i liked the naval style on the last AC game, which was one of the better gameplays about ship steering in any game , so i think theyll pull this one off aswell :) ^^

[Vaz]

Well the assassinations of major NPCs anyway. Going after Templar Captains (especially the ones that run away) without a firm plan was often an exercise in frustration.

Once you got Assassins, it was a simple matter of waiting until the meter was full, then run full pelt, and hold L2. Job done.

[BRC]

Once you got Assassins, it was a simple matter of waiting until the meter was full, then run full pelt, and hold L2. Job done.
Yeah. As satisfying as the Assassins were, I didn't care for them.

Personally, I hope they go increasingly in the direction ACIII took, with Assasin's providing support fuctions, rather than "Point at enemy, enemy dies". Stuff like the Riot or the False Escort were awesome ideas that opened up new gameplay strategies. Eventually eliminating the "point and Kill" Option altogether, or having it only work on normal guards, or in specific situations.

For example, I love the idea of telling my assassins to lie in wait in an alleyway, then luring some guards in there. Or having my Assassin's make a distraction, or calling them up to help me out in a brawl, or having them block my pursuers mid-chase.

The idea of "See Target, Assassin Kills target", as fun as it is, kind of ruins lots of challenges.

[GungHo]

I enjoy being able to summon a couple of buddies for help in a big fight, but yeah... the Rods From God ability was basically the win button. Granted, it had its uses when it came to some of the more annoying sections of Revelations where guards were everywhere.

[Anteros]

So...does anyone else realize how silly it is that in a world with guns, people just stand around you in a circle waiting to attack one at a time?

[Hiro Protagonest]

So...does anyone else realize how silly it is that in a world with guns, people just stand around you in a circle waiting to attack one at a time?

Replace "guns" with "bows" "slings" "crossbows" "ranged weapons". Or hell, the fact that this isn't goddamn Japan and you're not fighting goddamn bushi, which is the only time "duel while everyone else stands around" makes any sense.

[Slipperychicken]

I enjoyed the naval bits, but as a sidequest, since I greatly prefer the open-world city environment. I'd rather not play an AC game which centers on naval combat. The focus on piracy seems quite silly to me, compared the original AC, which had a feeling of seriousness and maturity.


I don't think Desmond is dead. They even said at the end of ACIII: he's being possessed by the ancient ghost-lady who will need his body alive to use it for her Evil Plans. I suspect he'll need to fight the spirit for control, and may need to use the Animus to learn how to block her influence.

[BRC]

Replace "guns" with "bows" "slings" "crossbows" "ranged weapons". Or hell, the fact that this isn't goddamn Japan and you're not fighting goddamn bushi, which is the only time "duel while everyone else stands around" makes any sense.
Part of it may be psychology. You've got a scary guy covered in weapons coming at you, you saw him cut down one of your buddies already. You know you should attack, but it's hard to get up the courage to rush him, especially not when everybody who tries dies to an elaborate counterattack.

[Othesemo]

Part of it may be psychology. You've got a scary guy covered in weapons coming at you, you saw him cut down one of your buddies already. You know you should attack, but it's hard to get up the courage to rush him, especially not when everybody who tries dies to an elaborate counterattack.

I expected more of Cesare Borgia's personal retinue.

[Slipperychicken]

I expected more of Cesare Borgia's personal retinue.

I expected at least the pope with his crazy magic staff to have a little more initiative.


Also, is it just me, or is it absolutely hilarious that the climactic battle of ACII is a fistfight with the Pope? I repeat, a fistfight with the Pope. The moment Ezio said "no weapons", I had to pause the game for like 2 minutes because I was laughing too hard to keep playing. Even after this cold-blooded killer gets his hands on both a gun and a god-weapon, he throws it to the floor so he can savage the Pope with his bare goddamn hands. It was really a bizarre/surreal moment in the game, considering Ezio had just spent half his life trying to kill this guy, and then just decides to challenge the old man to fisticuffs and let him live.

[Jayngfet]

Personally I'm excited. As someone who grew up in the area and knows a thing or two about the era I'm giddy with anticipation and wondering exactly what from the era will actually make it into the game. There's so much I like that could be implimented that I haven't felt this excited about the period since the first Ezio game(though I fear that, like 2, it'll just skip over some of the harder bits of the history).

My only real reservation about this are how it'll affect free running. I have faith that the urban environments will be done well enough to be enjoyable, but in my experience the wilder areas of the Carribean and West Indies aren't really as full of strong, climbable trees as the northern continental areas. Moving from city to city might solve this issue, but I still have doubts.

[Brother Oni]

It was really a bizarre/surreal moment in the game, considering Ezio had just spent half his life trying to kill this guy, and then just decides to challenge the old man to fisticuffs and let him live.

Three things - beating somebody to death with your bare heads is a much more personal, visceral experience, even compared to stabbing them with a knife.
After chasing somebody for so long, I would personally like them to suffer as much as possible, from the first moment of pure fear when they realise they can't win, to the last second of consciousness as you choke the life out of them.

Secondly, I got the feeling that Ezio never fully bought into Assassin doctrine. Compared to Altair and (potentially) Connor, he's always been his own person first and an Assassin second.
He caught flak for sparing Rodrigo Borgia from his fellow Assassins (not to mention it came back to bite him in the arse later), but Ezio definitely mellows out on the whole 'must kill Templars' belief by the end of AC2.

Thirdly, yes it was both an awesome and utterly hilarious plot twist. :smallbiggrin:

[Magni's Hammer]

Since there's some talk about the series in general, I thought I'd throw in my two cents:

I have only played the first Assassin's game (sharing an Xbox with siblings means new games are budgeted with compromise in mind). I've read all about the Renaissance story line and I'd like to think I know something about the historical eras of the games.

When the first game was advertised, I was very excited. I really enjoy reading medieval history and alternate-history, and the chance to play a Crusades game was really exciting.

What I got from playing the game was a very mixed feeling. I enjoyed exploring the huge cities. I alternated between stealth and combat in executing my missions (pun intended) as the mood struck me, and although the ease of combat was easy to mock, I secretly enjoyed all the cool swashbuckling attacks.

But I'll admit I am one who cares an awful lot about the fluff and story in a game, and that was where Assassin's Creed confused me. Altair as a character was really rude and aggressive -- thankfully he didn't talk much. I was suspect about his master's motives from the beginning: sure the first round of slave traders and insane doctors were pretty nasty, but I wasn't sure about the second round of "villains." The Crusader lord wasn't really an evil ruler, just harsh, and I'm pretty sure that Altair made up some of the accusations he levels at the Merchant King.

Side note: that level confused me: most of the information gathered was neutral facts or indicated that the M King was a pretty nice guy; then Altair told the man at the Bureau about the M King's various "crimes," some of which I had not actually heard during my investigation; finally, the M King lambasted the party-goers over their support for the war -- which made sense -- then killed them all in a fit of rage -- which did not.

Despite this, I thought the idea of two anachronistic factions, one of totalitarian atheists and one of revolutionaries, hidden in the Holy Land, was a neat concept, even if the "all religions are fake and caused by techno-magic" bugged me personally. I didn't think the artifacts were needed at all to make the factions work.

Then the long, boring cut-scenes with Desmond and the Animus. These just didn't interest me at all. Firstly, the sci-fi was never advertised in the game (and has never been in later games), so it's inclusion seemed odd to me. Secondly, the Animus was just silly. Genes most definitely do not work that way, and if everything is just memory, why do you need to play it? Altair did everything already, so wouldn't Desmond's experience just be watching his ancestor? I don't know why the creators thought they needed a "scientific" excuse to set a game in the past. Just play as Altair! Don't play-as-Desmond who plays-as-Altair.

It was for this reason that I did not approach Assassin games until they had already come out and I could read about them online. What I saw of the Italian Renaissance games seemed cool, and I was stopped from getting it because my siblings were not interested.

But at Assassin's Creed 2.3 (Revelations), I worried that the story took a turn for the worse. Here, the Assassins were in support of the newly-created Ottoman Empire, and the Byzantine underground was somehow villainous because they were allied with the Templar. But the Byzantines were the rightful rulers of that land for almost a thousand years, while the Turks were newcomers and conquerors.

I thought to myself, "how can the assassins support the Ottomans, when they've always been about liberation from tyranny?" Further, how can Ezio, a Christian and Italian, support the Turks, since his people fought to defend Constantinople when it was invaded?There's even a former assassin, Vali, who brings up this very problem in Revelations, but you don't reason with him, you just kill him.

When Assassins Creed 3 has come out, I was marginally interested (it looked cool, but looks don't mean much for predicting what the story will be like). And now that I've hear about this "Tyranny of Washington" DLC, I'm nervous about the game story and the path it's taking. Washington would never, ever become a dictator. That goes against everything we know about his character. Heck, we know his officers tried once, and he flatly refused and shamed them for proposing such a thing. This is why I was worried about the artifacts in the story (never mind the aliens) to begin with. Saying, "this historical figure will now do something completely and totally out of character because a techno-magic artifact told him to" isn't good alternate history, it's bad sci-fi. Besides, I don't really feel comfortable playing a game where Washington is the villain (though that's probably just my nationalism talking).

Thus, I can say with certainty that I will wait to see what Black Flag has to say, but I won't lie: I'm not very excited. Maybe it will be interesting, but I'm afraid that the series's Assassin Brotherhood has slowly descended from an order of anachronistic freedom-fighters to what they really were in history: thugs that killed other people for obscure political reasons. Worse, those reasons become weirder and more inconsistent over time.

...that was a long two cents. Curious what other's thoughts are.

[BRC]

A couple things.

1: Concerning Ezio and the Turks. I think it's more that after the conquest of Constantinople, the Byzantine Underground got hijacked by the Templars. Ezio was (Especially by that point) an Assassin above all else.
Also, his main goal was to get into Altair's library. The Byzantines were trying to stop him, (Some) of the Ottomans were willing to help him. Simple as that.

2: The "Tyranny of King Washington" DLC is supposed to be a "What-If" alternate history. In the actual game Washington and Connor don't always get along (They have a legitimate conflict of interest), but Washington is never depicted as being overly ambitious or tyrannical.
The whole point of ToKW is that it's Not What Happened, and that it would be out of character, because it's an Alternate History. It's very presence is saying "So we all know George Washington turned down the crown, but what if he hadn't?".

[Brother Oni]

Altair as a character was really rude and aggressive -- thankfully he didn't talk much.

This is intentional; Altair's pride and arrogance in his own abilities led to him really screwing up in the early part of AC1.
After chastisement, he's forced to learn again from the very beginning and considerably becomes more humble - in the later games where you see him in flashbacks, he's a very different person (especially when you read his personal notes in AC2 codexes).



The Crusader lord wasn't really an evil ruler, just harsh, and I'm pretty sure that Altair made up some of the accusations he levels at the Merchant King.

Treading carefully, I should point out that even if the crusader lord wasn't evil, he was still part of the conquering army that formed the Crusader States and any occupying power is likely to be seen as evil by the subjugated people, particularly if they were as brutal as the crusaders were to non-Christians (Altair was a Nizari Muslim like other Assassins, even if he was politically opposed to other Muslim factions in the Holy Land).



Despite this, I thought the idea of two anachronistic factions, one of totalitarian atheists and one of revolutionaries, hidden in the Holy Land, was a neat concept, even if the "all religions are fake and caused by techno-magic" bugged me personally. I didn't think the artifacts were needed at all to make the factions work.

Where did you get the idea that the Templars were totalitarian atheists at the time? They were a very religous group, but they knew how to manipulate religion for political reasons. They even called the artifacts 'Pieces of Eden', which is an obvious clue - it's not until we meet Haytham Kenway in the late 18th Century that the artifacts are being called something non-religious.

As for the Assassins' being revolutionaries, that's post-Altair's reforms, but due to a distinct lack of power in comparison to the Templars, they're mostly forced to be reactive to Templar plans rather than spread their own agenda.



Secondly, the Animus was just silly. Genes most definitely do not work that way, and if everything is just memory, why do you need to play it? Altair did everything already, so wouldn't Desmond's experience just be watching his ancestor? I don't know why the creators thought they needed a "scientific" excuse to set a game in the past. Just play as Altair! Don't play-as-Desmond who plays-as-Altair.

The Animus is a plot device and while I agree that genes don't work that way, it uses the 'genetic memory' conceit. It comes down to how much you're willing to suspend your disbelief - if your tolerance for 'unrealistic' events and technology is very low, then you probably spend most of your time rolling your eyes at games, films and shows.

What the Templars wanted out of Desmond's memory was the map of the Precursor artifacts. They tried to access that directly at the very start of the game, but due to significant mental and psychological differences between a 12th century Assassin and a 21st century bartender, they couldn't read the memory.
The only way they could do it was to get Desmond to re-live Altair's memories and thus get him more synchronised with Altair's personality and mindset so that they can access the later (and thus more complex) memories.

The Animus 'bleeding effect' is the end result of the modern subject becoming more synchronised with their ancestor's memories (it starts off with Altair's 'Eagle Vision' then extends to Ezio's entire skillset. Connor was just for the info).

As for the whole need for the Animus in the first place, I've made my thoughts on it earlier in the thread and some people think I overstate the need for an overall linking narrative device. I can see their point of view, but I stand by my opinion.



Thus, I can say with certainty that I will wait to see what Black Flag has to say, but I won't lie: I'm not very excited. Maybe it will be interesting, but I'm afraid that the series's Assassin Brotherhood has slowly descended from an order of anachronistic freedom-fighters to what they really were in history: thugs that killed other people for obscure political reasons. Worse, those reasons become weirder and more inconsistent over time.

BRC covered AC:Rev and AC3, but it should noted that organisations evolve over time to adapt to changing social, political and cultural conditions, else they become extinct. This is even more true in the case of the Templars and Assassins where they're actively trying to kill each other.

The non-Animus parts of AC3 has Desmond talk with his father (a high ranking member of the Assassins) about the Templar and the Assassins drawing up a truce and apparently it has happened before, but the two sides are so opposed philosophically (not to mention the significant amount of bad blood between them) that they've always failed eventually.

[Magni's Hammer]

Concerning the two posts above:




While the Templar may only be using the Byzantines to achieve their own ends, I would think that Ezio would still feel a little conflicted about this situation (having not played the game, I don’t know what his dialogue with Turks, Turkish Assassins and Greek Templars is like).

It would seem to me that, as an Italian nobleman Ezio would be pro-Greek and anti-Turk, and as an Assassin he would also be anti-Ottoman, since the Ottoman Turks are the conquerors. But as an Assassin, he would also be anti-Templar, so when he found that the Templar were allied with the faction he would normally support, I would expect him to have some kind of dilemma.

I don’t believe it makes sense for the Assassin Brotherhood to be the party of liberation in three games (opposing the Crusaders and Ayyubids in AC1 and the Borgia Family in AC2.1 and AC2.2), and then suddenly become allies of the party of conquest in AC2.3. It is odd that at the same time that the Assassins in Italy are opposing a Borgia conquest, the Assassins in Anatolia are supporting an Ottoman conqueror. Racially (Arab verses Turk), religiously (Sunni verses Shia) and politically (conquerors verses liberators) the Anatolian Assassins should oppose the Ottoman agenda – or at least not actively help them. I would think that, if Ezio went east to become more acquainted with Altair’s legacy and contacted the Anatolian Assassins, he would find his eastern brothers extremely odd.

My umbrage is really directed against the game’s developers themselves. I fear that they are ham-fistedly stapling an old rivalry onto new eras where the mold doesn’t fit, and so they define Assassins as simply “those who oppose Templars” and Templar as “those who want order…and oppose Assassins.”




I understand that the ToKW DLC is not real history. But as I said, simply saying “what if” doesn’t make something a tale of alternate history. Alternate history is about what could have happened but didn’t. It begins with a point of divergence -- where you change a random event or a person’s decision -- and then extrapolate from there. The clinch is that the divergence must be logical: it has to be a truly random event (such as a day’s weather or the jamming of a gun) or a choice a person would easily make differently. The latter is harder to prove I admit, but I don’t think Washington chose to accept or decline a military coup based on a flip of a coin.

The only way this storyline can work (and the way the developers created it) is to have a ridiculous outside force (in the form of a magical alien artifact) forcibly change Washington’s personality. And if that’s considered alternate history, then Nazi Zombies is alternate history as well.

This DLC is science-fiction, not alternate history.




Regarding the Crusader lord from AC1, his city of Acre was captured during the First Crusade in 1104 AD, capitulated to Saladin in 1187 and was recaptured (after years of siege) in 1191 by the members of the Third Crusade; this is when Altair visits it (the signs of the siege are still present). The city had been in the hands of the Crusaders for eighty-three years, several generations, and is shown in the game to be heavily populated by Europeans (I would assume mostly Franks and Pisans). So while the Arab minority in the city might see him as an occupier, most would likely see him as their lord (although a cold and harsh one).

The original justification your master gives you for assassinating the Count of Acre, Emir of Damascus and Merchant King is that they are all three wicked individuals that oppress their people and profit from the war…oh, and also these three are Templar agents. The assumption is that with them gone the people of these cities will be safe and free.

But when you kill the Count, you discover that he didn’t really fit your mater’s description. He didn’t profit from the war at all, but trained his men to keep the city free of crime. His ruthless acquisitions of grain were not motivated by greed but out of concern that, if he didn’t make them save food, his people would have nothing to eat in the winter. His dying words were that the city belonged to its people, and he was only trying to protect them as best he could (from murderers like the Assassins). The man may have been harsh and misguided, but he really wasn’t that tyrannical and killing him may not have been best for the people of Acre.




To explain my assertion about the Templar and Assassin views, I want to first make a distinction: when I say Templars, I speak of the shadowy Templar Order that seeks to control the Pieces of Eden; if I say Poor Fellows, then I speak of the organization of Christian warrior-monks in the Holy Land (the real-world Knights Templar, whose full title was the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon).

From the start of the game, it is immediately apparent that there is some difference between the various agents of the secret Templars (who count slavers, Arabs, merchants, emirs, and people from other knightly orders like the Hospitallier or Teutonic Knights among their ranks) and their face organization, the plain-old Poor Fellows that fight in the Crusades (all of them Frankish, Latin Christian warriors). I think that the Poor Fellows are just another of many fronts for the Templar.

And while the warrior-monks of the Poor Fellows are as they were in history, the Templar characters themselves follow a very different path. William and many others do not believe in the social contract of feudalism (which was a given at the time) and some, such as the scholar Jubair, do not believe in any of their holy books, instead viewing their messages about purity and holiness as clever lies written down to trick people (a sort of ‘opiate of the masses’ view of religion).

But the clincher for me was Sibrand, the maniacal German. He was the only one who was truly terrified when he died (and was paranoid while he lived). Why? Because he didn’t believe in anything after death. He (unlike everyone else in that historical period) believed that his mortal life was all he had.

I base my understanding of the Templar off of those higher-ranking agents in AC1. Because of their exposure to the Pieces of Eden, they had lost their faith in both the social and religious order of the time. They were terribly afraid of death and suffering and sought to bring about a kind of ‘heaven on earth’ because (they feared) there was no spiritual Heaven to go to.

They manipulate people using the religious and feudal system, but their end goal was to eliminate the religious and political system of Crusade/Jihad and replace it with a benevolent Templar dictatorship. The Templars believed that order and peace where the greatest ideals (since you only live once, you might as well live as long as you can). Religion and feudalism were the reasons wars were fought, so if they were removed and all were placed under atheist, totalitarian Templar rule, the world would be at peace.

As a note, the Templar calling the artifacts “Pieces of Eden” is not a clue that they are religious. An agnostic can say “bless you” when you sneeze; a Wiccan can still say “damn it” as a curse; “By Jove” was an expression long after people stopped believing in Zeus. The Eden mythology is a part of Western and Middle Eastern culture and its use is not restricted to the faithful.

The Assassins believe something quite different from the Templar. The developers changed the real-life Hassassin from a radical Shiite sect into an organization dedicated to liberation. The Assassins want peace as well, but believe that peace will not come from having everyone give up their faith and serve the Templar; it will come by removing tyrants who use and abuse the people.

Altair’s master constantly rails against the Templar agents for the suffering they cause or for using war to further their own ends; it’s often the reason you assassinate them. The Assassins don’t (initially) know about the Pieces of Eden, but they do know that there are tyrants out there and that the Templars are the biggest.

[Jayngfet]

Concerning the two posts above:




While the Templar may only be using the Byzantines to achieve their own ends, I would think that Ezio would still feel a little conflicted about this situation (having not played the game, I don’t know what his dialogue with Turks, Turkish Assassins and Greek Templars is like).

It would seem to me that, as an Italian nobleman Ezio would be pro-Greek and anti-Turk, and as an Assassin he would also be anti-Ottoman, since the Ottoman Turks are the conquerors. But as an Assassin, he would also be anti-Templar, so when he found that the Templar were allied with the faction he would normally support, I would expect him to have some kind of dilemma.



Actually it makes more sense if you Played Brotherhood and sent your recruits on the right side missions.

Years before he ever landed in the area Ezio was the one who actually orchestrated the rise of the Ottoman brotherhood and got Piri Reis involved in the first place(he didn't recruit Reis, but he did at least make attempts to steal from him via subordinate Assassins. How this progressed is left entirely to the imagination). This is probably also how Yusuf found out about Ezio's struggles with the Borgia: An Assassin from Rome told him while helping the order build itself up.

This is probably also why Istanbul had so many Assassins compared to elsewhere, the reason being that Ezio specifically orchestrated this brotherhood's prominence from the background to some limited extent. In this context, Ezio isn't so much going to some alien city as he is going to a place he's dealt with indirectly in the past, and building off what he already accomplished in brotherhood.

Even then, there's some initial issues with Ezio's specific idea of what happened early on. He has a conversation with Suleiman about "The fall of Constantinople", which is referred to by others as "the conquering of Kostantiniyye" and concedes that his version of events isn't the only valid one. He's willing to concede the point because by that time he hasn't really been an Italian Noble in two decades, so much as full time Assassin.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

In addition, the Ottomans can't be seen as brainless conquerors, they were SMART. They were tolerant and ran a large multicultural and multireligious empire. I'd say that in comparison to the Byzantines, they were a much freer society. I know that in a previous Muslim conquest of former Byzantine lands, in the original Muslim expansion, many minority Christian groups were greatly oppressed by the Byzantines, yet were given many rights and were much freer under the Arabs.

So just because someone is a conqueror doesn't mean they're tyrannical. Liberty and conquest are not opposed, liberty and tyranny are opposed, especially in those ages when the concept of a nation-state was only in it's most infant stages, just beginning to emerge. What should the Greek peasant care that his taxes go to muslims? He keeps his religion, he keeps his language, he keeps his land.

[Anteros]

I can't believe Ubisoft thought anyone from the US would even want to assassinate Washington. The guy is an idolized hero here. I didn't even know that DLC existed until just now.

They're just not a smart company when it comes to being politically correct.

[Othesemo]

I can't believe Ubisoft thought anyone from the US would even want to assassinate Washington. The guy is an idolized hero here. I didn't even know that DLC existed until just now.

They're just not a smart company when it comes to being politically correct.

I prefer to view it with rose tinted glasses and call them apathetic (which, incidentally, is an enormous compliment in my perspective).

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Oh if I had ACIII I would jump at that, it sounds like loads of fun! Doesn't the thought of fighting an evil Washington sound awesome?
I think that if any 200+-year-old historical figure can't be looked at like that... well the thought kinda scares me.

Edit: the fact that they, like me, are Canadian (or at least based here) may have something to do with it.

[Anteros]

Oh if I had ACIII I would jump at that, it sounds like loads of fun! Doesn't the thought of fighting an evil Washington sound awesome?
I think that if any 200+-year-old historical figure can't be looked at like that... well the thought kinda scares me.

Edit: the fact that they, like me, are Canadian (or at least based here) may have something to do with it.

I mean...it's not really offensive or anything. It's just that I have absolutely no interest in doing something like that. Washington is the closest thing people from the US have to a national hero. A DLC where you assassinate him basically exists for the sole purpose of shock value. It's lazy, and silly. Personally I'm not inclined to give Ubi my money for such tactics and I'd imagine many people from the states feel the same.

[Othesemo]

I mean...it's not really offensive or anything. It's just that I have absolutely no interest in doing something like that. Washington is the closest thing people from the US have to a national hero. A DLC where you assassinate him basically exists for the sole purpose of shock value. It's lazy, and silly. Personally I'm not inclined to give Ubi my money for such tactics and I'd imagine many people from the states feel the same.

Again- my preferred interpretation is that Ubi is actually interested in cool historical what-ifs, and above silly things like nationalism.

I suppose it's possible that they're just all just really stupid. But I think that my interpretation is more likely. Besides, Ubisoft is a French company (insofar as a company can be of any nationality). I doubt that they tailor their games to United States nationalistic sentiment. Do you think that you'd be as disgusted (or offended or whatever) if a game set in Rome had a DLC in which Gaius Marius declared himself dictator, and you had to assassinate him?

[Jayngfet]

I can't believe Ubisoft thought anyone from the US would even want to assassinate Washington. The guy is an idolized hero here. I didn't even know that DLC existed until just now.

They're just not a smart company when it comes to being politically correct.

Some of us aren't actually American.

Some of us kind of remember the revolutionary army attacking us then trying to claim heroism for it.

Some of us remember burning the Whitehorse to the ground in retaliation.

I mean I'm obviously not old enough to personally remember that obviously, but claiming that something shouldn't be done because your country remembers one specific guy as an untouchable hero isn't how this series even remotely works.

I mean, if it was, we wouldn't have all beat the pope within an inch of his life with our bare hands.

Just throwing that out there.

[Brother Oni]

But as I said, simply saying “what if” doesn’t make something a tale of alternate history. Alternate history is about what could have happened but didn’t. It begins with a point of divergence -- where you change a random event or a person’s decision -- and then extrapolate from there. The clinch is that the divergence must be logical: it has to be a truly random event (such as a day’s weather or the jamming of a gun) or a choice a person would easily make differently. The latter is harder to prove I admit, but I don’t think Washington chose to accept or decline a military coup based on a flip of a coin.

I feel you have a far too narrow definition of what constitutes an alternate history scenario.

Obviously there are various scenarios which have different probabilities, but saying that the only valid alternate history situations are those deriving from a decision with an equivalent probability to the original one is restrictive to the point of near uselessness.

The book Fatherland by Robert Harris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(novel)) is based on a simple 'what if' - what if Germany won WW2? Since that simple 'what if' derives from a whole raft of events and not easily made decisions, it counts as science fiction under your definition, when the book clearly is not written as such.

I haven't played the DLC, but the premise that Washington becomes a tyrant because he's seduced by the power of a precursor artifact (not to mention the political power that being king provides) doesn't sound too far fetched to me. As the old adage goes, 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'.



As a note, the Templar calling the artifacts “Pieces of Eden” is not a clue that they are religious. An agnostic can say “bless you” when you sneeze; a Wiccan can still say “damn it” as a curse; “By Jove” was an expression long after people stopped believing in Zeus. The Eden mythology is a part of Western and Middle Eastern culture and its use is not restricted to the faithful.

I haven't played AC1 in a long time (6 years) and I haven't studied the political situation of the various crusader states, so I can't comment on the exact situations you've mentioned

However I do dispute this point, particularly considering the time period.
Edit: Sorry, but I can't think of a way to refute this point without tripping multiple board rules.


I mean I'm obviously not old enough to personally remember that obviously, but claiming that something shouldn't be done because your country remembers one specific guy as an untouchable hero isn't how this series even remotely works.

Seconding this.

I wonder what Anteros' take is on Benjamin Franklin's essay on the merits of taking an older woman as a lover?
Especially since his speech was pretty much taken word for word from actual letters he wrote.

I'm fairly sure Sean and Desmond have an impromptu argument about the ethics and morality of the Revolutionary War in the game, although it doesn't really come to any sort of conclusion.

[Magni's Hammer]

I don't really have a problem with a game where you target an American national figure. Each tribe and nation has its own great leaders that its members remember and other tribes/nations don't.

As an American, I think it is important to be able to talk about our Founders in a civil and sensible matter (without blind hero-worship), but at the same time remembrance of these people and the measurable service they did for us cannot be ignored and deserves great respect (so yes, some amount of hero worship). For an Englishman, an Indian or an Egyptian, Washington isn't very important, and that reverence does not exist.

There's no reason not to talk critically about a national hero. But at the same time, I will say that I think nations need to respect their own heroes. It is fine to discuss them, but to disrespect them or act as though they don't matter makes a society lose touch with its roots.

The problem I have with this DLC is that it is a severe disrespect to Washington, his ideals and his memory. I'm not denying that he had his faults, but dictatorial aspirations were not among them. To make a game about a ridiculous scenario that slanders him is not clever. It doesn't show intellectual openness or a willingness to think. It's just rude.

If we had a game where the mission was to assassinate Leonidas, for example, we might debate whether this was acceptable to Greeks. I would say that it would hinge on his portrayal. If the game took on real history, we might discuss his resistance of the Persians and whether it was good or bad; if the game took on alternate history -- one in which the Persian fleet wasn't destroyed by a random storm and just avoided Thermopylae -- we might play through a Persian War without his death and debate whether it is better or not.

But if the game made up a fantasy scenario were Leonidas became a Persian vassal and began destroying other city-states, that would just be rude and stupid. He would never do that and it's insulting to his memory as a leader of the Greeks to implicate him in such an act.

I understand that we want to discuss national heroes rationally and without mindless hero-worship. But if we are going to do that, let us actually discuss them. Don't make games that invent impossible crimes for them to commit. Imagine a game in which Winston Churchill became fascist dictator of the United Kingdom, or Mahatma Gandhi led a violent uprising in colonial India. I don't care if it's because of some stupid alien artifact; to ignore history and invent crimes is just cowardly, an insult to a man that can't defend himself.

Criticizing a national hero is fine: it indicates a sensible analysis of his virtues and vices. But slandering a hero, whether or not he's from your country? Making up crimes and vices for him? That's not respectable at all.






Edit: I responded without seeing Brother Oni's post, so I thought I'd give him a specific reply.


I feel you have a far too narrow definition of what constitutes an alternate history scenario.

Obviously there are various scenarios which have different probabilities, but saying that the only valid alternate history situations are those deriving from a decision with an equivalent probability to the original one is restrictive to the point of near uselessness.

The book Fatherland by Robert Harris is based on a simple 'what if' - what if Germany won WW2? Since that simple 'what if' derives from a whole raft of events and not easily made decisions, it counts as science fiction under your definition, when the book clearly is not written as such.

I haven't played the DLC, but the premise that Washington becomes a tyrant because he's seduced by the power of a precursor artifact (not to mention the political power that being king provides) doesn't sound too far fetched to me. As the old adage goes, 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'.

I stand corrected about the definition of alternate history. I agree that to insist on a single point of divergence is too narrow, as is an insistence on 50/50 or totally random chance.

Reading the Fatherland's Wikipedia page about how Germany won the war, I see a number of events that, while not an exact 50/50 chance, are changes I would call reasonable:

1. Heydrich survives and makes the SS more effective (understandable; he was a clever man and his assassination was a pretty haphazard job that could have gone the other way).

2. Case Blue is a success (reasonable; the German Caucasus offensive was incredibly rapid but slowed at Stalingrad; the Germans controlled the streets, but as winter set in the Russians planned a counteroffensive into the weak flanks of German Army Group B, which were thinly protected by Italian, Hungarian and Rumanian allies. The collapse of these flanks trapped the Germans inside the city to freeze and starve. Franz Halder, the German Chief of the Army General Staff, had predicted this would happen and asked Hitler to reinforce the flanks. Hitler (who thought that the flanks would be strong enough) ignored Halder and replaced him. Had Halder been able to convince Hitler that the flanks needed support, the Germans might not have been trapped and could have taken the city before the worst of the winter storms).

3. The Germans realize the Enigma has been cracked (not sure, sounds reasonable).

4. Germans develop nuclear weapons in 1946 (I really don't know enough about their program to comment)





However, I must still insist that the DLC is science fiction, for two reasons:

1. Having Washington become a dictator is completely out of character. I understand that power corrupts, but Washington had that power throughout his life and never caved. He had the complete support of the Army during the Revolution: his officers were prepared to make him dictator, and he refused. He was President for eight years and even led soldiers against insurrectionists in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Yet even then, he did not go to war against his citizenry: a show of force got the rebels to back down, and he did not hang a single man. He simply wasn't a man with aspirations of power.

2. Washington never found an alien artifact. This is just a plot device fabricated by Ubisoft to excuse a story that doesn't make sense. You cannot claim that a mind-controlling alien device that changes personalities is a device of alternate history (see Nazi Zombie example).

Now, I understand that the developers didn't make up the artifacts with this installment of the game. This is a perfectly rational (and quite interesting) extension of the story and mythology they have created. It's just not alternate history.

[Reverent-One]

This whole "alternative history or science fiction" point is really just splitting hairs, whichever it is, there's nothing inherently wrong with doing one or the other, nor does whichever label one wants to use really matter. Nor are they really mutually exclusive, the 1632 series has an alien artifact responsible for the inital change in history (specifically teleporting a modern, if rural, West Virginian town to the middle of Germeny in the year...guess when? 1632) but otherwise has no continuing effect (or prescence) on the series.

[Anteros]

Some of us aren't actually American.

Some of us kind of remember the revolutionary army attacking us then trying to claim heroism for it.

Some of us remember burning the Whitehorse to the ground in retaliation.

I mean I'm obviously not old enough to personally remember that obviously, but claiming that something shouldn't be done because your country remembers one specific guy as an untouchable hero isn't how this series even remotely works.

I mean, if it was, we wouldn't have all beat the pope within an inch of his life with our bare hands.

Just throwing that out there.

That's nice. Not entirely historically accurate, but I understand what you're getting at. It's also completely, and utterly irrelevant to the point I was making. Which is good, because such a discussion would be frowned upon on this forum. If you would have actually read my posts you would realize that I stated that it's not really offensive...it just doesn't have much appeal because it's so darn silly.

While it's true that not everyone is American, a very large portion of their customer base is. It seems very silly to make one of your investments naturally unappealing to such a large portion of your audience.

Yes we did "punch out the pope" in a previous game. However, Ubisoft had a lot more sense than to use that as the marketing point of the game.

[WitchSlayer]

What really made me uncomfortable in AC1 was when I went to one of the cities, I forgot which one, and saw the Knight's Hospitaller being really oppressive to people. Now mind you I was actually doing some unrelated reading about the Knight's Hospitaller beforehand but man, they nearly completely missed the mark. The Knight's Hospitaller were basically a group of doctors that tended to the pilgrims of the Holy Land. Pilgrims of ALL religions. And just because they were considered a crusading order Ubisoft made them into villains.

Also did Assassin's Creed 3 really make the conflict more gray? How so?

[Othesemo]

Also did Assassin's Creed 3 really make the conflict more gray? How so?

Oh, half way through the plot or so, it was revealed that one of the good guys had done something nasty.

The morality wasn't so much grey as nonexistent. Never during the course of the game did I question whether or not I was doing the right thing- not because I didn't care, but because the question was irrelevant to plot.

[Jayngfet]

What really made me uncomfortable in AC1 was when I went to one of the cities, I forgot which one, and saw the Knight's Hospitaller being really oppressive to people. Now mind you I was actually doing some unrelated reading about the Knight's Hospitaller beforehand but man, they nearly completely missed the mark. The Knight's Hospitaller were basically a group of doctors that tended to the pilgrims of the Holy Land. Pilgrims of ALL religions. And just because they were considered a crusading order Ubisoft made them into villains.

Assassins Creed really just glosses over whatever happens to be inconvenient for it's narrative. I mean you can tell about midway through the second game they knew that the history behind events was more complex than they showed, but pretty much freely ignored the issues just to make the story they wanted to tell work better.

The Medici assassination in particular shows that they knew the conspiracy was far more fragmented and divided and full of moral conflict than they had it actually play out, but having Lorenzo manage to hold his own reasonably well against two lightly armed, nameless dudes due to being a skilled fighter in his own right, and dealing with the ensuing anti-conspiracy riots where people lynched any suspected assassins or conspirators in the street would have painted a far, far different picture than the story of Ezio swooping in, saving Lorenzo from five dozen heavily armed thugs, then fading into the background as Florence is neatly "fixed".



You kind of need to just go with the fact that certain realities have to be changed because Ubisoft wanted the player to feel like they were controlling a proactive warrior instead of someone reactive and staying in the shadows, even if they swear up and down the guy who literally shouted his name in the streets disappeared from all record-books the moment he decided to wear shiny distinctive clothing and began collecting renaissance masterpieces.


That's nice. Not entirely historically accurate, but I understand what you're getting at. It's also completely, and utterly irrelevant to the point I was making. Which is good, because such a discussion would be frowned upon on this forum. If you would have actually read my posts you would realize that I stated that it's not really offensive...it just doesn't have much appeal because it's so darn silly.

While it's true that not everyone is American, a very large portion of their customer base is. It seems very silly to make one of your investments naturally unappealing to such a large portion of your audience.

Yes we did "punch out the pope" in a previous game. However, Ubisoft had a lot more sense than to use that as the marketing point of the game.


Rereading your post, I certainly mistook your intent, for which I'll apologise.

However, you're essentially expressing the sentiment of "American viewers must be catered to. It doesn't matter if you offend people in Italy or the Middle East(or europe, given the places the templars are from), but you can't treat my countries history like you did all those other guys."

You're essentially saying that we're free to take sides however we want anywhere else in the world, but you and your people matter so much that the dev team needs to work with special care.

That's not to say I don't have a whole lot of problems with the DLC in and of itself, but the idea that someone from history trying to do what they thought was right can be suddenly relegated to cackling villain. This is, in and of itself, par for the course for the series.

As well, a post like this incites a knee jerk reaction to a whoooooole lot of people by virtue of what you seem to actually mean. Remember that "what you want doesn't matter compared to what people in america want, and what happens in america matters more" has been the default mode of consideration for things as long as there's been any kind of market. To say a series who's modern americans are largely grey and is mostly based on different areas from around the world needs to play by different different rules because the cultural icons they're working with are now american, when the development team has been mainly french canadian with literally hundreds of people working globally to make the product work, is one that really isn't exactly a sentiment I share.

[Scowling Dragon]

I would also say that alternate history fiction appeals to allot of Americans.

I would argue that showing all the dickish things he ACTUALLY did would be less appealing then just hiding in the safe womb of "Just an alternate history".

I understand the sentiment though.

[thethird]

It just doesn't have much appeal because it's so darn silly.

:smallconfused:

The question I would like to ask then is; is the gameplay/graphics/plot/locations/whatever good enough to redeem it? If no, you can decide not to play it. If yes, get over it. Nothing is going to suit your tastes 100%

It is still a DLC, it is probably not extremely important for the overall plot (I haven't actually played it, because I'm not interested by Washington).

My personal piece of advice would be to take it with a pint of salt, relax and enjoy.

Of course, I cannot really understand what your point is, I'm not American, and although I know who Washington was I don't know much of his life or his way of thinking. Still, I am Spanish and Resident Evil 4 didn't happen.

I hope that was the right blue :smalltongue: