Completed the game - Wow !

[frederic09]

I was expecting some twist in the story, and i wasn't suprised

There were some crazy puzzles, and it looks like there are more than one solution to complete them.

Here's my score :

- Achivements : 26/37
- Points : 316/340

[Starmaker]

Finally, someone to discuss the game with!
 
So, ahem, did Antevorta ended up temporarily being a force for good or what?

Consider the endings:
1. Innocent people are killed, Antevorta is stopped, status quo is preserved.
2. Antevorta loses power due to Ray's post, status quo sorta-restored.
3. Antevorta rules the world, Ray and Bennet are cleared of charges.

Uhm, lolwut? One might argue that they were let go because they no longer presented a threat to Antevorta's supremacy, but killing them would still be a better solution. Furthermore, from #2 we know that Antevorta could have been defeated by a single blog post, something that Reno would have been undoubtedly aware of. However, Ray and Bennet apparently survived.

So I have to conclude that, despite the fact that Antevorta didn't set out to create a post-scarcity utopia with Resonance, they have temporarily achieved a substantially positive result a la Adrian Veidt, so much that Ray decided not to pull a surprise Rorschach.

Now, to me going for #1 is undoubtedly the right decision on Ray's part, because you do not entrust terrorists with maintaining the world peace, it's just irrational. (Note that this was only made possible by "simplifying Antevorta", see the dev commentary: if they couldn't have been taken out by two people, blowing up one box would have just been a senseless act of mass murder.)

And of course, while #3 seemingly paints an improved world, we know that it wouldn't last long for a multitude of likely reasons (Antevorta goes extremely corrupt as secretive organizations are wont to; Resonance is rediscovered; total control brings about the dusk of the information age - and the world goes to hell in a handbasket, and who knows what happens afterwards). Plus, we can glean the correct interpretation of that ending from the achievement text.

So it happens that, from the standpoint of the final decision's moral validity, the endings are ranked 1>2>3, the credits seemingly rank them 3>2>1, and the actual outcomes go 2>~1>3 (because, even if it's not mentioned, we can trust Antevorta to not go down peacefully).

Whoa. While "best gaem evar" is needlessly sensationalist, Resonance is actually a strong contender.

[Arreis]

I finished the game too (just did so, in fact), and my opinion is divided in two:

- On one hand, I loved the game: it's masterfully designed and it leaves no loose ends; also, for the first time in AGES, I felt satisfied that a game doesn't rush the story on reaching the third act. Brilliantly done.

- On the other hand, I can't help but feel there must be something else, other than the 3 endings I found (the same ones that Starmaker points out). Is there really no way to save Anna, or simply finish the game with more than 2 characters alive?

Well, my stats for the end-game: 319/340 points, 30 achievements (after watching the 3 endings, of course).

Now it's time to go back and try to get a perfect score!

[Zyrocz]

The game didn't seem to answer a couple of questions, atleast not in my playthrough.
What happened with the Resonance research data/devices?
How did they manage to setup resonance devices all over the world in such a short period of time?

Really enjoyed the game both in puzzles and story. Although I used a walkthrough a couple of times because the game required you to be very specific at certain points. I shouldn't have to drag the Antevorta mainframe into my STM and then talk to the receptionist, in order to use the terminal. The necessary dialogue should have come up the moment I tried to use the terminal. I also failed to understand that Anna's card was usable on the keycard reader. Also, on one occation you have to pixelhunt, this wasn't so hard considering that the characters hinted at where you had to pixelhunt in order to progress.

Love the game though, probably the best so far this year.

[Tigrou]

I finished the game too and my impression is less stellar.

I would compare it with the Blackwell series. The latest blog post says "It is the longest and most complex game we've ever worked on, for sure". But that's a quantitative measurement. In qualitative terms, I find the characters have much less personality and depth than in Blackwell; I had a hard time feeling any empathy for them (although Anna's death was a sad moment).

Also, the fact that it tells the N'th story of a very powerful invention by a genius scientist, stolen by malevolous people, doesn't really help. Compared to other stories of the same kind, it doesn't really stand out.

Last but not least, it almost totally lacks any kind of humour - despite the potential in that matter, given the multi-character setup. The only truly funny (and one of the most enjoyable) moment was the Antevorta mainframe hacking at the beginning, when you get to read the various e-mail exchanges
(oh I also liked when Bennett kept reminding Ray that he was a blogger)

So in all, while it's a pleasant game, it isn't memorable to me (literally). Again, this is in contrast with the latest Blackwell, or other AGS games such as Donna.

[Belleraphone]

I too was slightly disappointed. It was WAY too short for something that's been in the making for 5 years. I thought this would be wadjet's best game to date considering how much work they seemed to put in, but I still found Gemeni Rue to be superior. STM was also kind of a hassle. I still enjoyed it though, but I really want a Gemeni Rue sequel/prequel/spin off.

[jonathanfrisby]

Wanted to share my mini-review/thoughts with folks here.. since I posted it to the Double Fine backer-only forum...  Just started the commentary, which seems like it'll address some of the stuff I talk about:



Final thoughts…

I really liked this game—especially considering the complexity and amazing amount of work that went into making the world pretty fleshed out for four playable characters…  That is just an astounding achievement, and the extra touches put into the cross-dialogs between characters and multiple object descriptions written for all of them really made this just phenomenal.  The locations, puzzles, and difficulty were excellent, and innovative.

I’ve gone through three of the endings, but there still seems to be a few other multiple solution things I haven’t found (the Hippocrates/blackmail achievements, and was there a passcode to Johnsons city database computer (?) come to mind…).  I’m sure there’s a lot of content I haven’t seen, just by favoring certain characters through the game.  There were a few spots which felt like multiple-path choices, where I’m not sure there was actually a choice (I tried several times to save Anna… and that was a haul, considering the save/load menu access was a while off from that sequence).

For me the game lost a little energy after Anna’s death—possibly just because I was sad…  But the game had been weighted towards her storyline and character development up to that point, and she was the only one who was really trusted motivation-wise..  So that was interesting, probably brave, storytelling.  I guess the only thing that could have really helped bridge the post-Annas-death stuff for me would have been some additional character development for Ray or Bennett, possibly another sequence earlier in the game bolstering the threat (or presence) of the Eleven/Antevorta stuff [somehow?].

That said…  Wow, Vince/Wadjet successfully wrote a game where the 3rd act is probably more difficult because of the depression and emotional response from that event than the puzzles—and that’s something impressive.

The only thing I think that was really unintentionally difficult was the "How do I get the the cemetery" LTM "puzzle."  That felt a little inconsistent.

Liked the voice acting (worked for me)—enjoyed the art and music immensely.

[in response to a poster in the df forum]
I actually didn’t mind any of the engine-related stuff (it actually felt smoother than any of the other Wadjeteye or AGS games I’ve played, while having a UI probably 2x as complex).  I do think Wadjet is overdue for an upgrade to an engine that supports more platforms, and more advanced features…..  Seems like they’ve spent quite a lot of time becoming the absolute masters of the limited AGS engine—that’s awesome (more power to them), but I’d love to see more people exposed….

Great job!  Great innovative and brilliant stuff.

[Starmaker]

Wow, honeypot went on a banning spree of MobileTeleSystems' dynamic IPs. Anyway:

Also, the fact that it tells the N'th story of a very powerful invention by a genius scientist, stolen by malevolous people, doesn't really help. Compared to other stories of the same kind, it doesn't really stand out.

It does. Resonance is about how people react to the news that a scientist has discovered something. While Ed is all "hooray post-scarcity, 99% efficiency, Resonance ftw!", Antevorta goes "zomg *channers with bombs, we need to take control and suppress all knowledge, also let's blow up a couple bombs to instill a healthy fear of science in people". And this is why they are the bad guys, and this is why Resonance is very different from offensive, intellectually dishonest "those wacky nerds, always inventing something dangerous that we jocks have to sort out" technophobic crap.

[Rognik]

The ending is kind of depressing, I will admit, but it might also be the point of the story. Ed got himself into a difficult situation, stuck between the Eleven Corporation and his own idealism. He was in a no-win situation, really: either he use the technology to destroy the Antevorta server or let Antevorta go worldwide.

Anna's death was unfortunate. She was a true casualty in all this, dragged into the events by other people and no real say in the matter. And her life had its own drama before the story even started. And if you listened to the commentary at that point, it really drives home just how inevitable her death is.

Bennet and Ray are, perhaps, a little lacking in character. Aside from being "the cop" and "the reporter", we don't learn much about them. Even Bennet's secret was pretty vague. I tried to read the full letter, but the speech bubble blocked the bulk of the message, and without the commentary, I wouldn't have had a clue he was gay. Ray, though, seems to be bridge between Ed and Bennet's points of view. I like that the "evil executive meddling" added in at least 2 endings, to let the player decide which one is the greater evil. Seeing the hospital destroyed was a shock, and I only just now realize that meant Emma got caught in the blast.

I'll admit, I don't think it's game of the year, even restricting it to adventure games, but there were some good things. I liked the LTM/STM concept, but I found that STM was a bit underused. For most of the game, only inventory or LTMs were used, with a few select puzzles needing STMs. I kind of wish they were used more, but I understand that after a point, it becomes a huge undertaking. The memory system might work better as sets of 2 or 3 rooms at a time, like it was in "Chapter 1", instead of the big open world as it was in "Chapter 2".

The general plot is pretty solid. There's only one point which I really questioned of the story: how did Ed get a hold of 2 sets of Resonance devices? The journal only mentioned one set missing. I found it kind of engaging, curious how the story will play out. I also have trouble seeing how Resonance would be a positive discovery, though. I understand that it generates energy with no apparent limit, but if even the small gap on the crane could vaporize Ed, then how could you harness that energy? It seems to me that it takes more energy to keep them apart than you could harvest, or that it is solely a destructive force. But perhaps this is just one of those sci-fi gaps you aren't supposed to look too closely at. My limited knowledge of subatomic physics tells me that electrons, neutrons and protons are made up of muons or quarks, not the resonance particles. Not that most people know that, assuming I'm not making things up again.

Wow, lots of text there, but this is a postmortem of a decently large game.

[zabby91]

Spoilers:
I just finished the game after 9 hours, 25 achievements and 320 points.

What can i say:
the puzzles, character's personalities, funny dialogues, shocking plot twists and just the thought put into the story and the gameplay were remarcable.

I loved to eperience the growing relationships between the characters throughout the dialogues (expecially Ray and Bennet), as well as that feeling of "known place" some character had in certain locations.

At first i was kinda annoyed by the continous switching that i had to do between the characters, as well as the "Follow me" interactions that, in my opinion, just took too long; but i got used to it, and, of course, it disappeared when you have only the two guys left.

Some general considerations about the plot and what it wants us to think about:

First of all, Anna's story.
It's painful to whatch.
Gameplay wise, i found the "monster segments" engaging and edgy.
Then, when her story finally unfolds, it was a blast.
Watching her real father finally reveal himself right before he killed his drunk brother in front of her; realising the real meaning behind "your uncle holds the key".
A tragic story of an unfortunate woman:
she can't sleep because of the nightmare that haunts her, and she can't seek the confort of a family.
Nor she has someone to really trust.
Then, just when she thought that Ed was a good guy, possibly in love with her, who deserved a kiss on the cheek because of his efforts to help her, she got his bullet in her head.
Dragged into this mess, ended up dead.
Fuck.

Moving on:
the 1st choice (Anna's).
When i was faced with this question, i couldn't help but thinking about Einstein.
I related to him, for a few seconds.
What could spreading the discovery of science (nuclear or resonance, whatever it is) bring?
Risking to unleash destructive power all over the world, or trusting people, believing they're going to use it for good?
Let's cut to the chase: can a man be trusted?
No.

Such power would provoke fear across all nations, and a war would be inevitable; and i didn't even consider how all the current wars could end with such a weapon.

So yes, i would have destroyed it.


PS: i liked the "E=mc2" reference written on the wall near the XI door. Made me laugh.



2nd Choice:
here we go, with the "Watchmen"-type-ending..
The good of the many, the rights of the few.
It's a tough choice, that has to be carefully contextualized by the authors to fully being able to let answer.
Still, i don't know what i'd choose.
In this situation, i had a strong connection with Bennet, so that was mostly the reason i decided to let Ed die.
Still, i felt really shitty when i listened to the president's speech, saying how Antevorta was the solution for all bad things: if it ended like this, "the many" would have been f****d in the a** every day for the rest of their lifes.










I didn't even consider the fact that Ray could have posted the whole story on the internet.




Final choice:
Redemption.

Write about the whole thing. Risk to be ridiculized, or killed, even.
Put your life on the line, hoping:
hoping to become a voice too big to be silenced; hoping to be believed; hoping to stop the real puppeteer; hoping to make a difference.
Credits roll.

BOOM.

MIND.
BLOWN.



...
Then the newspapers pop up.
You know when they say that the unknown is more fashinating than what is know?
There.
We didn't need a conclusion, an epilogue, a fairy tale-like-ending.

Being left in medias res, uncertain of the faith of the characters and the world they live in, is charming in it's own way (like the ending from "In Bruges" - great movie btw).


I know that some people has flipped out about the "Mass effect 3" ending (and the post-mortem dlc controversy), where some stuff are left to the immagination of the gamers, but, if the author meant to do that, that choice sould be respected, whether you like it or not.

What i feel is that you had the "Mass effect 3" reaction:
"let's put some explaination after the ending so that people won't be mad at us for not telling them everything".
Well, thankfully, this is no AAA title, and it requires a level of "gaming maturity" high above the standards. So, even if you didn't put the newspaper part, giving every bit of information during the credits, i don't think people would have raged on this forum asking for a new ending.

In my opinion, it would have been one of the best endings i've seen in a game.




It hurts me to end this post with such a "negative" aspect, but i really can't say enough how much i liked this game: i can't wait to see what you guys have in store for us next.

[Starmaker]

I can't draw anything but dicks, but if I could, I'd totally draw a pic of Anna dodging the bullet. That being said, she was wrong all along on first principles. She isn't a universal moral authority, and she doesn't get to decide what to do with Resonance. Furthermore, Dr. Morales giving the final ethical judgment to her is very understandable but EXTREMELY misguided. He had last seen her as an innocent kid - what if she'd grown into a mentally ill person who strangles  people and eats flesh off their necks (true story here)? Fortunately, she's much better than that - but she's still an ordinary citizen who's in way over her head. (So are Ed, Bennet and Ray for that matter.)

(Actually: can you trust the government? I think yes. They already have nukes and SWAT teams and whatnot. Want to assassinate someone? A bullet attracts substantially less attention than a signature city-wide EM blast. Want to bomb a geopolitical enemy? We already have fusion bombs that we are not using for a variety of reasons.)

I think Ed was right all the way in his actions (even though he did get overemotional and said his share of wtf statements). He got assistance from a government organization, prevented the destruction of beneficial technology despite personal costs and, when the truth about said organization came to light, set out to stop them.

(Interestingly, the dev commentary states that there used to be only one ending, and that Antevorta used to be global so that you couldn't take it out with a terrorist attack. In that ending, Ed would have gone off the rails, "I've been tricked by specific people and I'm now going to take my anger out on a replica database and dozens of innocent people".)

I also have trouble seeing how Resonance would be a positive discovery, though.
I understand that it generates energy with no apparent limit, but if even the small gap on the crane could vaporize Ed, then how could you harness that energy?

Required reading.
In-universe, I think we can trust Dr. Morales' and Ed's expertise where the feasibility of practical applications is concerned. Morales' argument against Resonance is that it's dangerous and shady people are following him, not that it's just a weapon without peacetime applications and therefore shouldn't exist. A physicist should know that blowing up things is easy.

It seems to me that it takes more energy to keep them apart than you could harvest, or that it is solely a destructive force. But perhaps this is just one of those sci-fi gaps you aren't supposed to look too closely at. My limited knowledge of subatomic physics tells me that electrons, neutrons and protons are made up of muons or quarks, not the resonance particles.

Well, duh. Electrons don't have a substructure that we can detect, and building a collider that can possibly detect one is either highly impractical and technically unfeasible or outright impossible, I forget which. Which is why I like Resonance as a McGuffin - it's entirely fictional (unlike e.g. the infinitely abused antimatter, so much that Natural Science hack profs at libarts diploma mills tell students to use extremely crappy spec-fic books as reference) but not corny (e.g. magnetic monopoles) or quack-attracting (cold fusion, room-temperature superconductors - that would lend "unappreciated genius" undertones straight out of time cube crazytown).

We didn't need a conclusion, an epilogue, a fary tale-like-ending.

Well, it's not exactly fairy-tale-like, but I happen to agree.

I know that some people has flipped out about the "Mass effect 3" ending (and the post-mortem dlc controversy), where some stuff are left to the immagination of the gamers, but, if the author meant to do that, that choice sould be respected, whether you like it or not.

The Mass Effect 3 ending was crap for a huge number of reasons, including but not limited to:
1) contradicting preceding events;
2) featuring a factually and dramatically uninformed choice;
3) ending with a "message of hope and rebirth" no matter your decisions, including the very final one - okay, I'll let this one slide as an artistic statement, but people were pissed about how awfully preachy it was in a wish-fulfillment game;
4) meta: bringing up "artistic integrity" and "creative vision". Blargh. First corporate personhood, now corporate artistic vision? Movies have test screenings for a reason. Sure, a number of movies were ruined by test screenings, but even more were saved by screenings and changes in general. What is e.g. making the BTTF time machine a car instead of a refrigerator is, if not changing the original scriptwriter's "vision"? What about "simplifying Antevorta"? Now, I haven't seen the original version and I'm sure Vince would have handled it fine, but, abstractly speaking, I prefer Ed doing the right thing instead of devolving into hypocrisy and/or insanity;
5) fricking magic, hello LOST and BSG.
Nothing vague and left to the imagination about that hot mess, except the indoctrination meme, and that only holds up as conspiracy theories do - if made canonical, it'd get torn apart within minutes by the same people.

Resonance has
1) an informed and meaningful choice
2) in the form of a puzzle, not "click here to blow up the world"
3) and all that in an adventure game, a genre that can get away with no choices at all.

i can't wait what you have in store for us next.

Also, no epilogue = better sequel hook.

[zabby91]

Dr. Morales giving the final ethical judgment to her is very understandable but EXTREMELY misguided. He had last seen her as an innocent kid - what if she'd grown into a mentally ill person who strangles  people and eats flesh off their necks (true story here)? Fortunately, she's much better than that - but she's still an ordinary citizen who's in way over her head. (So are Ed, Bennet and Ray for that matter.)
True that.
But still, I guess you can't say he hasn't seen her since she was a child: he had to take her fingerprints somehow, unless he had stored them somewhere for years for no apparent reason.
Besides, he managed to recognise her before dying.
We can safely assume he followed her around for a bit before taking that decision.

(Actually: can you trust the government? I think yes. They already have nukes and SWAT teams and whatnot. Want to assassinate someone? A bullet attracts substantially less attention than a signature city-wide EM blast. Want to bomb a geopolitical enemy? We already have fusion bombs that we are not using for a variety of reasons.)

More than governaments or institutions, think about the people who WANT to attract attention. Terrorism, rebels, dictators: if a weapon like this really existed, they could use it without any kind of risk.
Two "devices" placed anywhere on the trajectory of the target and boom.
Who can find something like that?
It's not like a bomb, that you have to place in the spot... anything, anywhere could be targeted without knowing.

Besides, you are considering it a weapon of mass destruction, but it isn't... well, not entirely: depending on where you place the two "cellphones" you could destroy a city or a finger.
Now that i think obout it, in a war like the ones of our time, it would be a pretty hard weapon to use, if you'd want to limit its effects.

In terrorist's attacks, however, it would be easy as hell (as shown by the game itself).

(Interestingly, the dev commentary states that there used to be only one ending, and that Antevorta used to be global so that you couldn't take it out with a terrorist attack. In that ending, Ed would have gone off the rails, "I've been tricked by specific people and I'm now going to take my anger out on a replica database and dozens of innocent people".)


Ahah, thank god they changed it...

It seems to me that it takes more energy to keep them apart than you could harvest, or that it is solely a destructive force. But perhaps this is just one of those sci-fi gaps you aren't supposed to look too closely at. My limited knowledge of subatomic physics tells me that electrons, neutrons and protons are made up of muons or quarks, not the resonance particles.

Well, duh. Electrons don't have a substructure that we can detect, and building a collider that can possibly detect one is either highly impractical and technically unfeasible or outright impossible, I forget which. Which is why I like Resonance as a McGuffin - it's entirely fictional (unlike e.g. the infinitely abused antimatter, so much that Natural Science hack profs at libarts diploma mills tell students to use extremely crappy spec-fic books as reference) but not corny (e.g. magnetic monopoles) or quack-attracting (cold fusion, room-temperature superconductors - that would lend "unappreciated genius" undertones straight out of time cube crazytown).

I agree.

We didn't need a conclusion, an epilogue, a fary tale-like-ending.

Well, it's not exactly fairy-tale-like, but I happen to agree.
I was just exagerating to make my point 

I know that some people has flipped out about the "Mass effect 3" ending (and the post-mortem dlc controversy), where some stuff are left to the immagination of the gamers, but, if the author meant to do that, that choice sould be respected, whether you like it or not.

The Mass Effect 3 ending was crap for a huge number of reasons, including but not limited to:
1) contradicting preceding events;
2) featuring a factually and dramatically uninformed choice;
3) ending with a "message of hope and rebirth" no matter your decisions, including the very final one - okay, I'll let this one slide as an artistic statement, but people were pissed about how awfully preachy it was in a wish-fulfillment game;
4) meta: bringing up "artistic integrity" and "creative vision". Blargh. First corporate personhood, now corporate artistic vision? Movies have test screenings for a reason. Sure, a number of movies were ruined by test screenings, but even more were saved by screenings and changes in general. What is e.g. making the BTTF time machine a car instead of a refrigerator is, if not changing the original scriptwriter's "vision"? What about "simplifying Antevorta"? Now, I haven't seen the original version and I'm sure Vince would have handled it fine, but, abstractly speaking, I prefer Ed doing the right thing instead of devolving into hypocrisy and/or insanity;
5) fricking magic, hello LOST and BSG.
Nothing vague and left to the imagination about that hot mess, except the indoctrination meme, and that only holds up as conspiracy theories do - if made canonical, it'd get torn apart within minutes by the same people.

Resonance has
1) an informed and meaningful choice
2) in the form of a puzzle, not "click here to blow up the world"
3) and all that in an adventure game, a genre that can get away with no choices at all.

I don't want to spend too much time on Mass effect 3, but i'm in the group of people who actually enjoyed the ending.
I'm not saying that whoever disliked it shouldn't say their own thing, but the dlc whith the ending explainations is just plain bullshit.
This is not how a game (or any piece of narration) should be treated, despites of its faults. Expecially a great saga like Mass Effect.
What i'm saying is, if "Game of thrones" or "Breaking Bad" had the worst ending ever, would it be re-written? Why are we different?

i can't wait what you have in store for us next.

Also, no epilogue = better sequel hook.
Very true. I would have liked to get to know Foundation XI better. What's behind those two guys in a room.

Also, what do you think about Foundation XI? Who are they? Really just those 2 guys? Can't be.
Why do we see them just once?
What happened with the police chief? What was her part? I don't remember/get it...

[Starmaker]

We can safely assume he followed her around for a bit before taking that decision.

Uhm... you can live with a person for twenty years and not know they are capable of munching on people's necks. I have it on good authority. (On the other hand, there's a person whose moral judgment I trust more than my own, but apart from that I don't really know them.)

Entrusting Anna with finding the vault before the villains do was a reasonable decision. But why put a "destroy" button and make her rely on a short vid and intuition? She could have reached the vault without any knowledge of Resonance! She could have been kidnapped (as she nearly was) and forced to open the vault for the villains or die. The course of events we see as unavoidable had a low chance of happening - for example, I doubt Ed would have shot Anna if Bennet and Ray hadn't figured out the truth (because if he would, he'd do it asap).

It's not like a bomb, that you have to place in the spot... anything, anywhere could be targeted without knowing.
Besides, you are considering it a weapon of mass destruction, but it isn't... well, not entirely: depending on where you place the two "cellphones" you could destroy a city or a finger.
Now that i think obout it, in a war like the ones of our time, it would be a pretty hard weapon to use, if you'd want to limit its effects.
In terrorist's attacks, however, it would be easy as hell (as shown by the game itself).

In this day and age, anyone can go on the Internet and learn the principles of making nukes and fusion bombs - but not everyone has the resources to build one, including in-depth technical knowledge. Governments can keep the Resonance technology out of terrorists' hands just as they keep nukes and viruses away from them. Without textual proof, I have to assume the real-life default, namely that Resonance does not lend itself well to citizen science (because it was discovered by a scientist in a collider-equipped lab, not by a kid playing with a soldering iron).

Resonance devices don't necessarily cause ecological catastrophes, but they are loud: there's a city-wide blackout even if you kill just one dude. So those who legitimately possess the technology won't be able to use it for destructive purposes without alerting everyone.

Finally, there's a risk of terrorists hijacking a Resonance powerplant or stealing explodey stuff from one. But whatever equipment will be in such a powerplant may not be explodey in the first place, and even if it is, that's a risk we can take. Because efficient and clean energy means greatly reduced human suffering and, accordingly, less reason to blow shit up. Crazy dictators and terrorists do not appear in a vacuum.

inbefore we can't really pump out infinite energy because global warming: if the source of energy is highly efficient, less energy goes to heat waste. That will raise the global standard of living and start a global population decrease within 2 generations.

What i'm saying is, if "Game of thrones" or "Breaking Bad" had the worst ending ever, would it be re-written? Why are we different?

Wut?
Breaking Bad (had to google it) is a TV show in its fifth season. Of course they follow ratings! Of course they adjust the overarching plot to whatever they think would increase rating and keep the show afloat!

The Game of Thrones dude is a first-grade hypocrite, a Visionary Auteur who hit it big. He straight up HATES fans, is deathly afraid of being sued for plagiarism by said fans, constantly tinkers with and revises the plot of his Magnum Opus to ensure no one turns out knowing his precious children - oops I meant characters - better than himself, detests all sorts of adaptations but does not mind licensing his IP to just about anyone who asks.

As for retcons in general - well, even Arthur C. Doyle caved in to fan pressure. The Hobbit was retconned, as well as Star Wars (people remember that Han shot first, but not that Darth Vader wasn't always Luke's father - errr spoiler alert?). By now everyone knows that Highlander II didn't really exist, and one of my forum acquaintances eagerly awaits when One More Day joins it in oblivion.

What the ending of Mass Effect didn't need is an explanation. Provide an alternative ending? Fine, why not. Explain the original ending, presumably so that people who hated it will like it instead? Man, do they need a reality check.

I'm not saying you are wrong in liking the original ending ("stop liking things I don't like!"), it's just vagueness (the "problem" you suggested Resonance devs might have tried to avoid by including the newspapers) is not on the list of reasons why other people hate it. The whole "you didn't like it because your weak monkey brains didn't understand it, so here's more of what you hated" message this dlc sends is incredibly patronizing and offensive.

Also, what do you think about Foundation XI? Who are they? Really just those 2 guys? Can't be.

Can't be, because they managed to distribute the devices around the globe within a short timespan.
So... sequel hook? right? right?

(Note to anyone reading this who's on the fence about buying Resonance - first, why are you even here? this is a spoiler thread; and second, Resonance is a self-contained standalone game, it's just it's awesome and I hope for a sequel.)

[zabby91]

We can safely assume he followed her around for a bit before taking that decision.

Uhm... you can live with a person for twenty years and not know they are capable of munching on people's necks. I have it on good authority. (On the other hand, there's a person whose moral judgment I trust more than my own, but apart from that I don't really know them.)

Entrusting Anna with finding the vault before the villains do was a reasonable decision. But why put a "destroy" button and make her rely on a short vid and intuition? She could have reached the vault without any knowledge of Resonance! She could have been kidnapped (as she nearly was) and forced to open the vault for the villains or die. The course of events we see as unavoidable had a low chance of happening - for example, I doubt Ed would have shot Anna if Bennet and Ray hadn't figured out the truth (because if he would, he'd do it asap).
Of course it was a terrible choice, i'm not justifying him.
I'm saying that she must have know that her daughter was a responsable medical doctor, and not just some psycotic woman marked by her parent's death.
Besides, he put many years of his work into his project, he must have thought about destroying it for a long time, but just was not able to. I know i wouldn't.

It's possible: she could have reached the vault without knowing what resonance was. But still, watching the video, i strongly felt like Dr. Morales was subtly incline to ask her to destroy the data. The choice to "save" the reaserch was just his way to think he hadn't "wasted" years of his life on something that nobody would have known, seemingly giving Anna the choice of what to do with it, but in reality guiding her on destroying it.
But that could have been just my interpretation of the video, and i won't deny the possibility of other ones.

It's not like a bomb, that you have to place in the spot... anything, anywhere could be targeted without knowing.
Besides, you are considering it a weapon of mass destruction, but it isn't... well, not entirely: depending on where you place the two "cellphones" you could destroy a city or a finger.
Now that i think obout it, in a war like the ones of our time, it would be a pretty hard weapon to use, if you'd want to limit its effects.
In terrorist's attacks, however, it would be easy as hell (as shown by the game itself).

In this day and age, anyone can go on the Internet and learn the principles of making nukes
(hell, i hope not! At least not home-made XD)
and fusion bombs - but not everyone has the resources to build one, including in-depth technical knowledge. Governments can keep the Resonance technology out of terrorists' hands just as they keep nukes and viruses away from them.

The way i see it (and i'm sure there are many other ways) the Resonance tech would have been used to replace any kind of energy that we use every day.
Gas, oil, electricity, carbon, even nuclear.
That's the reason of Ed's perseverance.

But, that would have meant one other thing: accessibility.
Resonance would be all over the world, and the guides on the internet that you talked about on how to use it against other people would florish in a matter of days.
I repeat, that's my interpretation: it's not wrong, it's not right.

Without textual proof, I have to assume the real-life default, namely that Resonance does not lend itself well to citizen science (because it was discovered by a scientist in a collider-equipped lab, not by a kid playing with a soldering iron).
Resonance devices don't necessarily cause ecological catastrophes, but they are loud: there's a city-wide blackout even if you kill just one dude. So those who legitimately possess the technology won't be able to use it for destructive purposes without alerting everyone.


True that. Still, the risk of terrorism remains.

Finally, there's a risk of terrorists hijacking a Resonance powerplant or stealing explodey stuff from one. But whatever equipment will be in such a powerplant may not be explodey in the first place, and even if it is, that's a risk we can take. Because efficient and clean energy means greatly reduced human suffering and, accordingly, less reason to blow shit up. Crazy dictators and terrorists do not appear in a vacuum.

Terrorists, political activists and plain crazy people are a reality since the dawn of man. I don't thik they would disappear thanks to an increase of conditions of life.

inbefore we can't really pump out infinite energy because global warming: if the source of energy is highly efficient, less energy goes to heat waste. That will raise the global standard of living and start a global population decrease within 2 generations.

why would the population decrease with a raise of standard of living?
In our history it has always been the opposite!

What i'm saying is, if "Game of thrones" or "Breaking Bad" had the worst ending ever, would it be re-written? Why are we different?

Wut?
Breaking Bad (had to google it) is a TV show in its fifth season. Of course they follow ratings! Of course they adjust the overarching plot to whatever they think would increase rating and keep the show afloat!

I know, you are right: even Mass effect changed in the course of the trilogy. But i was talking about the ending itself: the final episode would not change for some fan's rage.

The Game of Thrones dude is a first-grade hypocrite, a Visionary Auteur who hit it big. He straight up HATES fans, is deathly afraid of being sued for plagiarism by said fans, constantly tinkers with and revises the plot of his Magnum Opus to ensure no one turns out knowing his precious children - oops I meant characters - better than himself, detests all sorts of adaptations but does not mind licensing his IP to just about anyone who asks.

I don't really know much about GoT, i was just looking for a popular example. Any respectable piece of medium would have been good.

As for retcons in general - well, even Arthur C. Doyle caved in to fan pressure. The Hobbit was retconned, as well as Star Wars (people remember that Han shot first, but not that Darth Vader wasn't always Luke's father - errr spoiler alert?). By now everyone knows that Highlander II didn't really exist, and one of my forum acquaintances eagerly awaits when One More Day joins it in oblivion.

This is all true, but, again, i'm talking about the ending itself, more than the narrative process.

What the ending of Mass Effect didn't need is an explanation. Provide an alternative ending? Fine, why not. Explain the original ending, presumably so that people who hated it will like it instead? Man, do they need a reality check.

By "explane" i think they are meaning to add some more ditails to the ending to satisfy everyone: everyone's choices would finally affect the ending.
If they'll really give us an alternative ending, what should i do?
I liked the first ending!
What if i hate the second one?
What's the REAL ending?
Should i even play the second ending?

I'm not saying you are wrong in liking the original ending ("stop liking things I don't like!"), it's just vagueness (the "problem" you suggested Resonance devs might have tried to avoid by including the newspapers) is not on the list of reasons why other people hate it. The whole "you didn't like it because your weak monkey brains didn't understand it, so here's more of what you hated" message this dlc sends is incredibly patronizing and offensive.

I read that people were angry because the ending "didn't change accordingly to the actions you took before!". I had no idea there were other complaints.
What i was doing in my first statement was criticizing all the idiots who said that "the whole series is ruined because i hated the last 10 minutes". That was my point on "gaming maturity".
The fact that Bioware, in all response, have decided give them some details about what happens after Shepard do his thing (because that's what they want to do, http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/06/22/mass-effect-3-extended-ending-arrives-this-tuesday.aspx

"The Extended Cut is an expansion of the original endings to Mass Effect 3," BioWare said. "It does not fundamentally change the endings, but rather it expands on the meaning of the original endings, and reveals greater detail on the impact of player decisions."

and

"It provides more of the answers and closure that players have been asking for. It gives a sense of what the future holds as a result of the decisions made throughout the series. And it shows greater detail in the successes or failures based on how players achieved their endings."

), 5 months after the release of the game, is just plain nonsense. I prefer to remain in the dark, without knowing what will happen to Garrus, Tali, Liara and all the others.
But, since someone at bioware decided that everyone's choice needed a stronger impact on the final cutscene, then here we are, waiting next tuesday to see the ending of a game we finished 5 months ago.
I felt like, in some ways, in "Resonance" they wanted to prevent that. So, here's a not needed explaination of the facts after the ending! Newspaper-time!
Of course, i hope it's not the case here; but, like you, i would have preferred to remain ignorant.
[/b]

Also, what do you think about Foundation XI? Who are they? Really just those 2 guys? Can't be.

Can't be, because they managed to distribute the devices around the globe within a short timespan.
So... sequel hook? right? right?

Hope so!

(Note to anyone reading this who's on the fence about buying Resonance - first, why are you even here? this is a spoiler thread; and second, Resonance is a self-contained standalone game, it's just it's awesome and I hope for a sequel.)

I wanted to repeat that loved this game, despite its credits.
One other question, Starmaker: since i loved this game, can you tell me what other games i should play from this publisher/in this genre? I'm trying Gemini Rue, do you have any other advices? I was thinking about Blackwell Deception, but i haven't played the other games in the series... Other things i loved, just to give you a direction, are: monkey island 1 and 2 (of course) and "To the moon". What do you think?

[Starmaker]

On Resonance and terrorism

Two things: large-scale, long-term. Also, since I'm lazy, Moral Compass Guy to the rescue.

Let's make a wild and crazy assumption about Good: being Good means that you're making the world a nicer place. People live longer, have more fun, are less afraid, enjoy their surroundings, and their company a little more. That's Good. Sounds like a pretty valid assumption, neh? It's unprovable, and that's why it's an assumption, but as assumptions go it isn't bad.

Here's where things get unpopular: You know how when you're driving a car you can choose to turn right, you can choose to turn left, and you can choose to go straight? What do you do to the steering wheel to go straight? Nothing. And if you hit someone by not turning the car, that's an action on your part, right? Doing nothing is a choice, and it's an action, and the consequences of that action are on your conscience.

So being Good doesn't mean that you solve all the problems, it means that you actively solve more problems than you cause by a substantial margin. That you don't shrink back from doing Good for others, that you take some responsibility for making the world a better place.

Trolley problem

9/11 was a terrible tragedy. However, I happen to notice that airplanes are still not banned and people fly of their own free will, because the benefit of airplanes far outweighs the possibility of someone crashing them into buildings.

(A less extreme example is fireworks. Fireworks kill and traumatize people every year, but we're not banning them because we consider the entertainment factor to be worth more than the human lives lost to them.)

But human perception is weird: since then, many more people died in the course of natural disasters due to entirely preventable causes and in the aftermath of natural disasters, and yet 9/11 stands out.

Monkeysphere
Dunbar's number

Everything is an optimization problem. (I refuse to supply the obvious quote from Resonance here.)

Every action, every decision has risk associated with it: say, 1/10000. On a small scale, if nothing happens, you won't notice. If the dreaded event comes to pass, you'll think, "aw, that was a bad decision, I must have underestimated the risk involved". (You wouldn't know the truth, whether you actually underestimated the risk or just got unlucky, because the sample size - you - is too small.)

Once you're doing something on a global scale, you can actually get accurate figures and see which decisions cause people to live longer and be healthier and happier. In non-euphemistic terms, it means people DIE no matter what you choose to do, and if you want the best for humanity, you should choose the outcome where fewer of them die.

And yes, that means that if you do something - anything, really - you'll be blamed for the deaths of whoever has died, but if you don't do anything and *more* people die, it's very likely you won't be blamed at all.

Anyway, Good is hard. That's why more people don't do it.

Suppose you need to build a powerplant. Which one? A reactor can melt down and/or leak radiation and there's the problem of nuclear waste, a coal plant emits poisonous smoke, a hydroelectric plant destroys ecosystems and reduces biodiversity, etc. Each of those has projected costs and projected returns. Even solar panels are not harmless, not to mention not eternal. Ursula Le Guin's "forsaken child" is the most ethical power source imaginable.

Now, the projections are always subject to fudging and mispresentation, which is a known problem called "conflict of interest". That doesn't mean we should stop predicting, any more than 9/11 means we should stop flying.

It's very human for Dr. Morales to not want to have his name attached to a specific act of intentional violence. However, that directly leads to many more people dying in less spectacular, shamefully underreported ways. It's also very human of him to think he can't usher in a new age of prosperity if he couldn't even take care of his daughter. But this is why we have the government.

Can crazy assholes get access to Resonance devices and blow up something? Why, sure. But that's a risk we can take. We have had satellites and fusion bombs for decades, and yet no terrorist group mounted a fusion bomb on a satellite. The most aggressive action anyone did was using railguns to chuck rocks at American sats' optics. There's still a stupid amount of nuclear warheads in the world NOT providing unlimited clean energy and not one has been launched unauthorized.

Consider North Korea. It's a proven crazy dictatorship, and it survives due to being a geopolitical meme, as a symbol of opposition to America (showing token support to North Korea is how nations show they will be willing to help each other against the USA, if push comes to shove), and keeping a low profile. If they started throwing their minuscule weight around, they'd be immediately disowned as a token, with everything that entails. They don't, because the people in power like being in power, and other nations do not interfere, as they don't want to disrupt the geopolitical balance and risk their own wellbeing just to help some foreigners they don't care about.

On overpopulation

We actually see a downward trend among the second generation of city folk. Educated people tend to have fewer children. The last population explosion was due to enhanced agricultural techniques that provided food for poor children who would "normally" die. And that's why I said second generation: first another population explosion (the children who would've otherwise died will grow to adulthood), then an exponential downward trend.

Note the map here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Growth
More links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox

Back to Resonance:

Preserving the status quo is a moral choice. You do not get a discount because you didn't do anything. Poverty by itself kills orders of magnitude more people that all the terrorists in the world, even without taking into account violent crime (which correlates). Destroying a marvellous invention that can drastically reduce human suffering is cowardly, selfish, and evil. (Dr. Morales' situation is not that clear-cut, because he knew shady people were following him. Still - he could have asked the authorities for protection. We know the world is not dystopian for it to be useless, since in ending #2 Antevorta got taken out by a single blogger after its ascension to power.)

Recommended adventure games

Obvious

Blackwell anything (really, WadjetEye anything)
Note on order of playing: Having started playing in the past millennium, without access to hints and working versions, I played serialized games out of order or simultaneously and considered it normal. There are two types of suspense - one, when you don't know what's coming, and two, when you do know but the characters don't. Want to play the latest installment? Play it. Prefer to play in order? Buy the other games, the bundle is good value for money.

Classic

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: three plot branches with multiple solutions. Effectively, the game constantly references itself with clever subversions. On Steam for, err, money () - in fact, get LucasArts adventure pack for, errr, $7? (I hate regional pricing.)

Gabriel Knight I: supernatural Danbrownesque thriller. Not much in the way of ethics, kinda preachy, but solid puzzles. $5.99 on GOG. For a European take on the genre, see the Broken Sword series.

King's Quest VI: fairytale adventure, play it for the individual puzzles, because the overarching plot logic is an oldschool screw-you call-the-hotline money-grubbing mess. 4+5+6 in a $9.99 bundle on GOG.

King's Quest episodic fangames: can't beat the price. FREE on www.tsl-game.com

Loom: short, sweet, zen, lyrical, quotable. But short. Was intended to be the first part of a trilogy, stands on its own. No explanation of the ending! On Steam.

Funny

Space Quest 4: other Space Quest games are cynical, this one is heartwarming. 4+5+6 for $9.99 on GOG.

Escape from St. Mary's: Think "Ferris Bueller stuck in school". Text adventure, but you get to pick your options from a list, no typing needed. Minimal mapping. FREE.

Zork: Grand Inquisitor: wacky, fourth-wall-breaking graphical adventure. Familiarity with Zork text adventures not required. $5.99 on GOG.

Mindblowing

Spider and Web is widely considered to be the best text adventure ever. Some of Resonance's themes are present. Keyboard input, but, being a modern text adventure, it doesn't have Infocom's guess-the-verb problems. FREE.

Planescape:Torment is nominally an RPG. It takes place in a magical city at the center of the world (but not really) where various philosophies are having an eternal free-for-all, and your goal is to die. $9.99 on GOG.

Immortal Defense is a tower defense game with timed missions, quite possibly the most mindblowing game ever. In three years since I first played it I ran out of words to describe how awesome it is, so here's a link to review snippets and the store (PWYW, min. $1.75).

Special mention:
Perils of Akumos: sci-fi thriller (but stop-the-bad-guys-and-be-awesome all the way, no moral choices). Text adventure, pick options from a list. Supposedly tied into some sort of mindblowing metaplot 12 years in the making. FREE.

Special mention 2:
Dragonsphere: fantasy adventure, remarkable in how badly it dated due to being HARDCORE AS HELL. Logical but very unforgiving. Free on GOG.