And I’ll keep saying this: you can’t teach a neural network to understand context without creating a generalised context engine, another word for which is AGI.

Fidelity is impossible to automate.

I just found Shockolate, a GPL-3 source port of system shock:

https://github.com/Interrupt/systemshock

Yeah, I think we more or less agree, and I’m not trying to say it’s a bad game or even a bad story, just that there’s not a lot I need closure on. I think the only thing that could be done to “ruin” it would be to pile on a bunch of unsatisfying answers to the open questions about the world. I’d definitely play HL3 just to experience more of the world, I just don’t care that much about where the story goes and I don’t think that’s ever been the main draw.

It would be nice to get some explanations of the world that would extend it and allow people to tell more interesting stories within it, but I honestly doubt that those answers exist. It really feels like they’re kind of just riffing and they don’t have a bigger vision for where it all goes, if I had to guess.

I actually really appreciate someone clarifying the chronology of these games, I’ve got them all in my steam library and can never remember the order they go in.

Do the OS remakes have any QoL improvements? I tried playing through them recently and had a very hard time with the manual save system since I’m used to autosave points in linear games like that.

I’m working up the courage to try those for the first time, but as very old games now, I’m a little apprehensive about all the friction they’re likely to have.

I agree the diegetic storytelling is very well done and that did push the craft of game storytelling forwards, but the actual world itself is a lot of texture with very little substance. Loads of cool ideas, but almost no decisions, like they want the freedom to add anything at any time without ever restricting themselves by saying “here is how this concept actually works”, or even “this is who this person is”.

We never really meet the aliens or the antagonists, ever. The gman is an alien in a skin-suit, and Breen is just a collaborator. They are both essentially puppets.

Like, what was the nihilanth? We killed it, then… what? I guess the vortigaunts were freed, but how does that tie into the slug beings, the human cyborg slavery, any of it? The vortigaunts could easily explain at least some of the world, What does any of it mean?

I get the idea of being deep in and unable to see the forest for the trees, and that is definitely a style of story that you can do, but it’s unsatisfying long term. Eventually you have to get at least a glimpse of the broader picture or nothing has any meaning. The world has no rules, which doesn’t make good science fiction.

I say this as someone who regularly replays HL2 because I enjoy the texture so much, I just acknowledge it’s very limited.

That guy gets to say that if you look up “humour” in the encyclopedia there’s a picture of him.

I was gonna say pebbles, but this is probably the safer option.

Can I just ask what people expect from a half life story? Like it’s always been pretty thin on the ground, right?

What was the first game? Experiment goes wrong, aliens notice us and invade, we kill a bunch of them, there’s the occasional macguffin, travel to their planet, beat the big bad enemy, boom, mysterious gman puts us in the fridge.

The two expansions seem like the same story from another POV, I have no memory of any important events from either one.

Second game, gman drops us mysteriously back like 20 years later. We kill a bunch of enemies, there’s some more macguffin, the vortigaunts were enslaved now they’re on our side. There’s a bit of intrigue, we beat the local bad guy, the vortigaunts save us.

The following two chapters, apart from having to rescue people, I couldn’t tell you what even happens. The world is implied to be so big that you are an insignificant player and you could never hope to grasp what’s really gping on, and we never get more than glimpses of what’s really happening. It seems more like the idea of a world that leaves open the possibility of more or less anything happening and within which to set games, than a coherent story with structure and tension and stakes, beyond “world in peril” or “friend in peril”, which is pretty bog standard stuff.

Like sure we might be a bit invested in Alyx & her dad’s stories, but I always assumed people were hyped for sequels because the games play well and have an interesting backdrop. What exactly is the special sauce that mark laidlaw brings? Yes the environmental storytelling was novel and well done, but it’s always been so vague because they’re so committed to never leaving the players POV, and they spend so little time explaining the actual world.

That’s all you need, that’s what they used to make the up goer five.

This is the comment that got me off the toilet.

It’s just an eggcorn.

They make the point in that video that it can’t be considered a real mistake since it makes its own kind of sense.

Breighden.

Yes, this. Nobody came along and decreed the dictionary was descriptive - which would itself be a prescriptivist view of the world - it just is.

Linguistics rejected prescriptivism because it is a failed model of reality. I think the reason so many people cling to a prescriptive model is because in school we were taught obedience above all else, which is a terrible way of educating people, but maybe it helps to maintain a subservient class of workers.

Okay, thanks, makes sense.

Fascinating, but it doesn’t really explain why mandarins come pre-sliced, since they’re at the top of that chart.

Although being easy to eat seems like an evolutionary advantage for fruit even if humans aren’t doing it.

Yeah, “you get to keep the car, I get unlimited travel pass, deal?” People often seem to think policies are iron clad, but they’re just decisions.

Might be hard because the car is a significant upfront investment. The sunk cost is another big reason people defend their cars.

Hypocrisy means a lack of self-reflection, and I am perfectly able to reflect on the fact that I was deliberately disrespecting you, and I think it was a fine thing to do actually.

You took a meaningful, thoughtful reply and dismissed it with a nitpick that, by the way, completely missed the point.

Your response to my critique was pure toxicity, just laden with contempt for me and the other commenter. The fact you started with a grammatical complaint shows how utterly shallow and vapid your replies are.

You’re an asshole, and I have no trouble talking to you like an asshole. However, I won’t let you waste any more of my time, so this is the last thing I’ll say to you. Feel free to shock me by not being an asshole in your final reply.

It wasn’t hypocrisy, I was demonstrating a lack of respect for anything you had to say, just like you did. Doesn’t feel good, does it?

All three of the “sentences” in your reply don’t fucking parse if you want to be goddamn garmmar nazi about it.