She pretty much did everything,
- assassinated the first few guys at the same time as Bayek
- got the first hidden blade
- got all the strategy & politics work done (aka. Egyptian Machiavelli)
- Came up with the logo, the hood, being "the hidden one"
- established the den & did the final kill
- is the actual first leader of the Brotherhood
.. and Origins gets marketed to everyone as "Bayek's story". The only thing I regret is that the game made her so underpowered in the final missions bc we spent developing a secondary character for 40+ hours.
Bayek had his fantastic moments with Senu and I really liked him as a character (the rage moments were fantastic) but I swear this could have been a million times better story told from her narrative. She did all the cool stuff while I was running around grinding & killing crocs![]()
It's actually not a bad storytelling device. For example, Star Wars is meant to be told from the droids perspective 'from a certain point of view'. Largely powerless characters that just happen to be there to witness major events of consequence. Obviously it doesn't go to that extent in AC:O, but I think it was a good decision on their part. They wanted to make a great game that is seperate from a lot of the baggage the AC lore has to tote around with it. It's an interesting take on story in a game that I think will go lost on most people. We always get to play the hero who does everything and saves the world, in this instance were just a guy who loves his wife and loves his son, and those are his main motiviations for doing what he does. He doesn't care near as much about the future and about the world at large, he cares about the here and now. He is far more 'human' than Aya is. Most people don't have the makeup of idealistic freedom fighters for the greater good, it's much harder to relate to someone like that, then it is a good intentioned person who cares for his family and just tries to do what is right. I think that is what most people want to be/do at the end of the day.
The story wasn't perfect or anything. But I really appreciate what they were trying to do, and that it was different.
I appreciate the Star Wars analogy, but I don't think it works here. Because Bayek isn't really there to witness any of it. He's off doing his own thing for the entire game while Aya is off doing hers, and we occasionally pop in to check up on her without Bayek. You could make the case that Layla and Desmond are the largely powerless "witness" characters who are there just to experience the great feats of their forebears without any agency in the matter, but not Bayek.Originally Posted by chubbycakes7 Go to original post
I think a better illustration of the storytelling device you're talking about happens in The Witcher III. Without going into specifics (I wouldn't want to spoil that game for anyone, even though it's been almost three years now) Geralt of Rivia isn't the hero of that story. His ward Ciri is. Geralt is the main protagonist, though you do play as Ciri in a few key scenes, but ultimately, he (and by extension, the player) is not the "Chosen One." The ending of the game is determined by Ciri's choices, and while Geralt can inform these choices in several oblique ways depending on how he treats Ciri, the ultimate outcome is never up to him, or the player, to decide.
That doesn't really happen in Origins. Obviously, it's a linear story (not that there's anything wrong with that) so you lose one layer of the analogy since the player has no control over the ending whatsoever, but Bayek and Aya's stories barely overlap at all. He doesn't influence, or really even witness, any of her accomplishments. The game just sort of cuts away from him at the end and Aya takes over. Which was disappointing from a gameplay perspective as well as a narrative one; Aya was severely underpowered compared to my Bayek at that point, and I wasn't anywhere near as invested in her as a character. She just swoops in and steals the show at the last second.
The droids in Star Wars weren't there to witness the Emperor dying and Darth Vader returning to the light side either, which are by far the most important events in that triology, so I don't see how what you're saying shows that the analogy doesn't work. It's not meant to be a 1:1 analogy, because it isn't, it's just an example of how that type storytelling, even in the most basic good vs evil scenario with an extremely simple plot, can enhance the telling.
I never made an analogy to the Witcher 3, you did, so elaborating on how it's different from the Witcher 3 doesn't really do anything for me. In one paragraph you say that the Witcher 3 is a better comparison, then in the next you say why it isn't. lol Okay I don't really see what you were trying to accomplish with arguing against your own logic, but again it doesn't have anything to do with what I said.
We're not really meant to change anything or make choices in the animus. That's been a theme that's been pounded into the ground in AC it seems. Even though some of the ingame stuff goes on to suggest that maybe we can change some things that happen now, we've yet to see that actually manifest though so maybe in a future game that will be a plot point.
If you put the player in control of Aya from the begining, the game just becomes about politics and power plays. That's fine and all, but it's also a very typical plot for a video game. For players that are diehard fans of the AC series, maybe shifting the focus to building up the Brotherhood and being directly responsible for major historical deaths with the main character, would've been more comfortable. But that's all people have been doing in the AC series from the start. I don't think changing the narrative to something a little more personal is a problem. A big part of the problem with AC's lore has been the pretentiousness, it is very much in love with itself and has to cram in as much self importance as possible. They're trying to steer away from that, I'm sure they've recieved a lot of feedback about that particular issue, and they're probably becoming a bit more self aware about it. Again, I'm not seeing that as a problem at all.
EDIT: Ahh nm I see you were saying Witcher 3 compares better with the Star Wars analogy. Wouldn't have any idea if it does, I haven't played through Witcher 3. I know it's a big buzzword, and to compare everything to Witcher 3 is the thing, that's why I didn't understand what you meant at first. From what you're saying I don't see how Geralt having more impact on what happens makes him a better witness character, seems the opposite would be more logical.
You might want to spoiler tag that BIB as that will most definitely affect how somebody plays the game. Anyway, good post, completely agree.Originally Posted by LoyalACFan Go to original post
Oh goodness, no, no, no. It wasn't different at all. It was as cliched and as lazy for this franchise's story telling as it gets. First of all, this idea that we can't relate to someone who just wants to do the right thing and save the world is depressing because wanting to make the world a better place should be relatable.Originally Posted by chubbycakes7 Go to original post
My issue with almost every AC game since Ezio is that the protagonist uses the brotherhood to further their own agenda rather than fighting for the brotherhood's core beliefs. However, unlike ACII there is nothing embedded in the narrative to underline how selfish and wrong this is. In ACII, Ezio learns to fight for something beyond himself and we witness that in all its glory in Brotherhood and Revelations. That's what these new writers don't seem to understand, for all of their adoration of their star character, Ezio starts out as someone who is just fighting for his family and that is presented as flawed logic. However, ends up fighting for the greater good.
That's why Syndicate should get some credit for attempting to do something different - the twins' primary goal was to take down those that had corrupted the city. The conflict is they both had different ways of doing it and had personal issues to deal with that they needed to overcome in order to do it effectively. Even Shay, as poor as his character development was, is all about fighting for what he believes is right and not some personal revenge quest. AC1 is about a fallen leader trying to get back into a cult but has forgotten what the ideals of that cult is and relearns them again through his assignment. We're not supposed to like Altair at first - he's proud, stubborn and ruthless and wants in the brotherhood for the wrong reasons. Even his intel brothers all despise him until late in the game.
In contrast, Arno, Edward or Connor are virtually all the same, all selfishly motivated (although Conor is generally compassionate and always does things for people beyond himself when needed). We're forced to accept this with Bayek because his story conveniently takes place BEFORE the brotherhood. But we've seen such a character "arc" at least 4 times before and at this point, it's old hat.
Yes it was very different for a video game. The whole revenge plot wasn't different, the way it was presented to us was, in the same way Star Wars was different in the way it presented it's story, which is why I used that analogy specifically. There wasn't anything ground breaking about the Star Wars story, it was just a basic son overtakes the father as the master and good vs evil, it's pretty difficult to get more cliche if you tried. Yet the story captures imaginations in a way few others can because it uses the most fundamental archetypes and it's patricular devices it uses to get us to the ending aren't used all that often. It's not all about the content, it's about how the content is delivered. Just ranting and berating a story for being 'cliche' tells me nothing other than you're just looking at the most basic shallow merits of it and you might need M Night Shyamalan style plots to be entertained. That's fine if that's your thing, but that's just a novelty and doesn't make a story good or bad.
I'm not going to type out the same reasoning again about why most people can't relate to Aya, because your objection didn't address it at all, but I will enhance it, people not identifying with Aya is a good thing. She spends the majority of the game trying to usurp a dictator who throughout the game is refered to as a figurehead who isn't really the actual cause of the problems anyways. And she spends 90+ percent of the game trying to install a different dictator, who shows no qualms about murdering her own family to obtain power, and nuzzling up to Rome as a means to an end. After all of that she finds and admits that it was a mistake, chooses to leave her husband, to go on another idealistic crusade against Rome, because now she's decided that they're the bad guy and need to be stopped. We can only assume based on how AC stories play out that her actions and setting up this Brotherhood in Rome lead to the inevitable fall of Rome and the onset of something that we call the freakin Dark Ages. How, again, is she fighting for the greater good? This greater good, ultimately draws into some meta squabble about free will vs determinism where both sides are equally willing to kill to achieve their goals.
What about what Aya has done or what her actions presumably lead to is admirable again? It depends on your perspective at best. So she's a far lesser known Greek Che Guevara. Yay?
Bayek, on the other hand, seems to be motivated completely by love. For his family, for Egypt, for people. This is very admirable. Political activism at any cost is just 'killing so that other people see things my way', again there is nothing that seperates that from the Templar ideology except what you think is right. Some people might find that admirable, but most people are not willing to do that. Hence why Bayek is by far a more identifiable character.
Firstly, I hate it when people assume that everyone likes Star Wars to the point where they feel the need to use it as an objective fact to boost a purely subjective opinion. The only Star Wars film I like is The Force Awakens. Secondly, I don't know where you're getting this idea that it was "from the perspective of the droids"...Originally Posted by chubbycakes7 Go to original post
Star Wars is different in the way it presents its narrative because it invites us in to the mid way point of a story where important events have been established long before the audience arrives (hence later being named episode 4). It doesn't apologise for Princess Leia's hair cut, or the weird names or Darth Vader's helmet, it treats these things like they're completely normal within the world and as audience members we're just expected to catch up. Rather than trying to adapt the characters and story to fit our real world viewpoint, George Lucas invites us into their world.
That's what Assassin's Creed 1 does so brilliantly. It never felt the need to justify or explain its world with an origin story featuring an ordinary guy just trying to live his life. The real hero of the story is Desmond which is why many assumed that the final AC game would end with us playing as Desmond in the modern day. Altair is just the guy whose memories we need to get the mcguffin and yet we're in HIS world. When we meet Altair he is already an assassin, not only an assassin but a Master of a craft we don't understand. This wasn't Altair's origin story into the brotherhood - it was ours. It's us viewing both sides of the struggle and deciding whether we want to join the Brotherhood or not. So when you say something like:
That's exactly what makes AC1's narrative so compelling - it constantly asks this very question via the memory corridor speeches and leaves it for us to decide. Is the Brotherhood necessarily the good guys? ACII loses this nuance, opting for a more hollywood aesthetic - Ezio is clearly the good guy who is simply avenging the brutal death of his family against despicable power hungry villains. There's no two ways about it. There is nothing wrong with that as it's extremely well written and the protagonist has great character development but the franchise has been trying to duplicate this story over and over again without understanding that even Ezio outgrew this in later entries.Political activism at any cost is just 'killing so that other people see things my way', again there is nothing that seperates that from the Templar ideology except what you think is right.
Origins panders to newcomers and has them come in through Bayek because he is "more like us". He's NOT a bystander to the real hero's journey, and LoyalACfan was spot on when he/she said that if you wanted to make this (flawed) analogy then the Witcher 3 would have been better. Rather, Bayek IS the generic action hero. But what's weird is that his hero's journey is then usurped randomly by Aya right at the end which makes no sense. The game is not about Aya and it never was, she was merely the hero's wife and yet the story decides to make it about her in the end for nothing but pure fan service (Amunet).
Ascribing reasons to why someone doesn't like what you like in order to make yourself feel better devalues your argument. I can accept a conventional narrative when it's fresh and well written (ACII). I do not when it clearly isn't (Origins, Unity).Just ranting and berating a story for being 'cliche' tells me nothing other than you're just looking at the most basic shallow merits of it and you might need M Night Shyamalan style plots to be entertained. That's fine if that's your thing, but that's just a novelty and doesn't make a story good or bad.
Please point out to me the part where I said Aya is admirable? Someone who denounces all love is hardly admirable but it could be argued that she is stifling her pain. Also, I think you're confusing intent with execution. She made some stupid mistakes and admits that but her intentions were good spirited. Given that we never got to see the story from her perspective until the very end I don't understand how anyone could feel one way or another about her.I'm not going to type out the same reasoning again about why most people can't relate to Aya, because your objection didn't address it at all, but I will enhance it, people not identifying with Aya is a good thing. She spends the majority of the game trying to usurp a dictator who throughout the game is refered to as a figurehead who isn't really the actual cause of the problems anyways. And she spends 90+ percent of the game trying to install a different dictator, who shows no qualms about murdering her own family to obtain power, and nuzzling up to Rome as a means to an end. After all of that she finds and admits that it was a mistake, chooses to leave her husband, to go on another idealistic crusade against Rome, because now she's decided that they're the bad guy and need to be stopped. We can only assume based on how AC stories play out that her actions and setting up this Brotherhood in Rome lead to the inevitable fall of Rome and the onset of something that we call the freakin Dark Ages. How, again, is she fighting for the greater good? This greater good, ultimately draws into some meta squabble about free will vs determinism where both sides are equally willing to kill to achieve their goals.
What about what Aya has done or what her actions presumably lead to is admirable again? It depends on your perspective at best. So she's a far lesser known Greek Che Guevara. Yay?
It's not admirable. It's human. You don't get praise for loving your family, friends and country. That's to be expected.Bayek, on the other hand, seems to be motivated completely by love. For his family, for Egypt, for people. This is very admirable.
The character being identifiable does not necessarily make them a "good" or compelling character.Some people might find that admirable, but most people are not willing to do that. Hence why Bayek is by far a more identifiable character.
What? The hyper macho revenge quest is about as typical for a video game plot as it gets. I think the last game I played where it was purely about the "bigger picture" was The Division and Watch Dogs 2.Originally Posted by chubbycakes7 Go to original post
You've got it the other way round. Only one game since the Ezio trilogy has been about the brotherhood. The rest were all personal vendetta stories.For players that are diehard fans of the AC series, maybe shifting the focus to building up the Brotherhood and being directly responsible for major historical deaths with the main character, would've been more comfortable. But that's all people have been doing in the AC series from the start. I don't think changing the narrative to something a little more personal is a problem.
First of all, I hate it when people break up people's post and respond to fragments of it. It's an extremely weak and feeble attempt usually to miscontrue someone's message so that you can attempt to respond to it. See the post I made? It really has 3 main paragraphs. I've already did all the work for you of seperating each individual argument so that you can digest them and come up with something to say in response. Your post is a nightmare to read or even really to look at, there's really nothing wrong with the acceptable format of writing. We've been using it for many years and it's not broken, use it.
And yeah, the first part of your argument is already strawmaning so this is going to be a complete waste of time. Where did I say anyone had to like Star Wars? That part of it really easily could've been dropped by now, it's getting to the point that it's off topic. I only referenced it again because some people seem to think it's a bad analogy, and some people seem to think that having a 'cliche' story automatically makes a story bad. I've provided reasons why that's not really the case. Debating the artistic merits of Star Wars or who likes it and who doesn't is moving the goal posts and has nothing to do with what I was saying. So strawman and moving goal posts, great debate ability thus far mate. Anyways, it's 'from the perspective of droids' because the guy who wrote the thing has said so numberous times. This is a fact. Google is your friend. I'm not going to go farther with that.
Anyways, the rest of your post is just pounding out how great the other AC games were, I don't care. I'm not talking about other AC games they're not relelvant to anything I've said. You want to talk about them, I don't. Not to mention every other freaking Ubisoft game under the sun, and of course, Witcher 3. I suggest if you want to continue debating further you do so without using my arguments as a platform to be servile to other games in the series and actually try addressing what I'm saying instead, and stick to talking AC:O. I don't find your post readable or interesting, so reformat it in a way that makes me care about reading it. Like you know, this.
And yes, I did mention Star Wars and I know not everyone cares. It was using a well known story to highlight a little used story telling device to put AC:O's plot narrative in context, that's it, the end. If you don't care, there are plenty of things about AC:O I've mentioned to talk about. However, your post comes off like a Ubisoft worship porn orgy and it sucks. Thanks.
I am suddenly reminded of this quote: "If you can't criticise what somebody has said, criticise how he or she said it." Nice deflection.Originally Posted by chubbycakes7 Go to original post
Also, I didn't misconstrue (if you’re going to criticise the way someone writes, at least learn how to spell) anything. Everything that I quoted is what you said, all thee in black and white. It's not my fault that it doesn't come across as well when it's read back to you.
Did you even read your own post after your wrote it? Let me show you:And yeah, the first part of your argument is already strawmaning so this is going to be a complete waste of time. Where did I say anyone had to like Star Wars?
And earlier you said this:Yet the story captures imaginations in a way few others can because it uses the most fundamental archetypes and it's patricular devices it uses to get us to the ending aren't used all that often. It's not all about the content, it's about how the content is delivered.
There it is. You said the issue of whether the story is cliché or not is irrelevant but that the way the story is told is what makes it special. You then went on to compare such a story telling device to Star Wars because you assumed that people would even agree that Star Wars’ method of story telling is a good one… even though it's been pointed out that your Star Wars analogy doesn't work anyway.It's actually not a bad storytelling device. For example, Star Wars is meant to be told from the droids perspective 'from a certain point of view'.
It's not moving the goal post when you literally say, "hey, what Origins did was really cool, y'all, and to prove it’s cool Imma show you that it's very similar to this other cool thing that we all think is cool.” So yeah, again, if you don’t like how you come across after you’re quoted make sure you think before you type.Debating the artistic merits of Star Wars or who likes it and who doesn't is moving the goal posts and has nothing to do with what I was saying. So strawman and moving goal posts, great debate ability thus far mate.
You mean the same guy who is known for retroactively butchering his original work whilst claiming “that was how it was meant to be all along” even when it makes no continuity sense? Yeah, OK.Anyways, it's 'from the perspective of droids' because the guy who wrote the thing has said so numberous times. This is a fact. Google is your friend. I'm not going to go farther with that.
Hold on, you made an ill-informed comment that “most games focus on political activism and not personal journeys” without any examples to back it up:Anyways, the rest of your post is just pounding out how great the other AC games were, I don't care. I'm not talking about other AC games they're not relelvant to anything I've said. You want to talk about them, I don't. Not to mention every other freaking Ubisoft game under the sun, and of course, Witcher 3.
So first you say it’s not about the story content, it’s about how said content is presented but then you go on to give your subjective opinions about the story content...which is it, mate?Political activism at any cost is just 'killing so that other people see things my way', again there is nothing that seperates that from the Templar ideology except what you think is right.
I simply named some other games in recent memory that focuses on the greater good to highlight how it’s not as common as you think and it’s completely relevant because you stated that most stories – including most of the AC games - is about political activism/the brotherhood which is patently untrue.
You also said that stories that focus on political activism do not necessarily make for admirable protagonists because it all comes down to whether you think the protagonist is in the right or not. You also claimed most people wouldn’t see it as right (also unverified) and I simply said that it doesn’t matter because it’s intent versus execution. I merely used AC1 to demonstrate this. Killing a bunch of people will not bring Bayek’s son back. Killing a bunch of people because they are ruining his country entails a different mind set and strategy - if that had been Bayek’s intent all along he would have realised how stupid it was to go along with Aya’s plan to install a new regime over the old one without doing some proper background checks first. He didn’t care because ultimately it served his own agenda…until it didn’t.
Oh, and literally, all I said about Witcher 3 is that if you wanted to use such an analogy (regardless of the quality of the game or not) that would have been better because the droid thing doesn’t hold up even in its own right.
It. Was. A. Poor. Analogy.And yes, I did mention Star Wars and I know not everyone cares. It was using a well known story to highlight a little used story telling device to put AC:O's plot narrative in context, that's it, the end.
You proved your reading comprehension skills are lacking earlier when you thought loyalacfan had somehow contradicted him/herself with the Witcher 3 analogy. I’m not going to water down my post for you because you haven’t got a leg to stand on. Your arrogance is laughable and I have no intention of debating further with you when I’ve already won. I suggest you think more carefully before you type and not come out with such ill-considered drivel that can be easily refuted. You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about and I feel embarrassed on your behalf. Bye.I suggest if you want to continue debating further you do so without using my arguments as a platform to be servile to other games in the series and actually try addressing what I'm saying instead, and stick to talking AC:O. I don't find your post readable or interesting, so reformat it in a way that makes me care about reading it. Like you know, this.