Roleplayer's Off Topic Thread #37

[BigBossBalrog]

I'm already seeing new enemies for REmake 4.

 

[BigBossBalrog]

@The Good DoctorLooks like Amazon's started already  Tomb Raider mobile is there first project.

[The Good Doctor]

21 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

@The Good DoctorLooks like Amazon's started already  Tomb Raider mobile is there first project

Why are you taking pleasure in my pain?

I could spend the next half hour typing up a passionate rant that nobody would read. I won’t. But I could.

[TheCzarsHussar]

1 hour ago, The Good Doctor said:

Why are you taking pleasure in my pain?

I could spend the next half hour typing up a passionate rant that nobody would read. I won’t. But I could.

I dunno, I think it's taking it in a fresh innovative direction.

[The Good Doctor]

1 hour ago, TheCzarsHussar said:

I dunno, I think it's taking it in a fresh innovative direction.

 

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I don’t actually care about the mobile game. Happens all the time. Whatever.

It’s more the fact that once a corporation like Amazon gets their claws in an IP, I feel like you can kiss goodbye whatever hopes you had for it ever being in good hands again. It’s like Disney with Star Wars. It’s lost now. They will never let it go.

Unlike Square Enix, they can afford to make crap game after crap game. Even if it actually lost them money, they’d sooner put the IP in a box and never touch it again than sell it to a competitor who actually cares. They’re playing monopoly.

Which is very upsetting because I love Tomb Raider. It’s a series that never got a game that lived up to its potential, and probably never will. 

[The Good Doctor]

But now that it’s on my mind, I feel like I’m one bad thought away from going on a deranged tirade about how they’ve ruined one of the coolest iconic characters in video games, and y’all don’t want that.  I’ll change the subject.

@Celan Any comments on the latest TLoU episode?

[Celan]

1 hour ago, The Good Doctor said:

@Celan Any comments on the latest TLoU episode?

I thought it was good- maybe a bit optimistic for the setting? It certainly validates our outlook.

"Not today, you New World Order jackboot fucks" = words to live by.

[Celan]

My coworker who played the game did tell me that the two guys' story was pretty different than it had been in the game.

[The Good Doctor]

22 minutes ago, Celan said:

My coworker who played the game did tell me that the two guys' story was pretty different than it had been in the game.

What two guys?

[Celan]

Just now, The Good Doctor said:

What two guys?

A gay romance, one of the guys is a survivalist

[BigBossBalrog]

1 minute ago, The Good Doctor said:

What two guys?

Bill. I always thought it was clear he was into guys. 

[The Good Doctor]

Ah, Bill. Yeah, he was gay in the game. But it was an easy detail to miss because he lived alone and his partner ditched him many years ago. But there are some adult magazines stashed in his room that allude to what kind of "partner" the guy was.  

[The Good Doctor]

Kinda weird that they’d still be together in the show, though. The point of Bill’s character in the game was to serve as a warning for Joel, and him being alone was an important part of that.

Game spoilers.

 

In the game, Bill is a cynical old loner bastard who specifically warns Joel that caring about others will only get him killed or hurt. He attempts to drive home to Joel that he should avoid forming any fatherly attachments to Ellie and should continue to view her like cargo or ditch her altogether.

But Bill is also a warning in and of himself. Because even though he is the ultimate survivor, his existence as a cynical old loner bastard is very miserable, and it’s the reason why his partner hated and ultimately left him. Bill represents the end point of what Joel will become if he continues his refusal to ever trust or love. Just a survivor with nothing worth living for.

Bill being in a relationship seems like it would undermine all of that. Whole point is that a man like him is doomed to be alone.

[The Good Doctor]

Discord, anyone?

[BigBossBalrog]

43 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

Discord, anyone?

I can hope on for a little bit, though I have to write a paper so only for like forty minutes 

[The Good Doctor]

2 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

I can hope on for a little bit, though I have to write a paper so only for like forty minutes 

It’s open now if you want to hop on. 

[BigBossBalrog]

[Celan]

22 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

Kinda weird that they’d still be together in the show, though. The point of Bill’s character in the game was to serve as a warning for Joel, and him being alone was an important part of that.

Game spoilers.

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In the game, Bill is a cynical old loner bastard who specifically warns Joel that caring about others will only get him killed or hurt. He attempts to drive home to Joel that he should avoid forming any fatherly attachments to Ellie and should continue to view her like cargo or ditch her altogether.

But Bill is also a warning in and of himself. Because even though he is the ultimate survivor, his existence as a cynical old loner bastard is very miserable, and it’s the reason why his partner hated and ultimately left him. Bill represents the end point of what Joel will become if he continues his refusal to ever trust or love. Just a survivor with nothing worth living for.

Bill being in a relationship seems like it would undermine all of that. Whole point is that a man like him is doomed to be alone.

That makes sense, I thought it was a bit twee for the setting. The survivalist guy starts out bitter and suspicious but his future partner falls in a trap he set and he invites him in for dinner, then things go on from there. Spoilers for the show:

 

His partner has MS or something and ends up wanting to kill himself rather than die a slow debilitating death, and in the end they both take an overdose and go into the light. At some point later Joel and Ellie show up to find them dead.

[The Good Doctor]

1 hour ago, Celan said:

 

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His partner has MS or something and ends up wanting to kill himself rather than die a slow debilitating death, and in the end they both take an overdose and go into the light. At some point later Joel and Ellie show up to find them dead.

 

Wait, so Joel and Ellie never actually interact with Bill?

[Celan]

Joel and Tess do. At some point Bill's partner finds Tess on their ham radio and starts talking to her. They show up to visit. Bill is suspicious of them but ends up bonding with Joel over tactical discussions. When Joel and Ellie arrive, there's a suicide note saying "to whoever finds this which is probably Joel- use our stuff to take care of Tess." Of course, at this point Tess is dead.

[BigBossBalrog]

@The Good Doctor They showed off footage of the cabin fight from the OG, it looks honestly insane and hectic. 

 

[The Good Doctor]

8 minutes ago, Celan said:

 

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Joel and Tess do. At some point Bill's partner finds Tess on their ham radio and starts talking to her. They show up to visit. Bill is suspicious of them but ends up bonding with Joel over tactical discussions. When Joel and Ellie arrive, there's a suicide note saying "to whoever finds this which is probably Joel- use our stuff to take care of Tess." Of course, at this point Tess is dead.

 

 

That’s really weird. Seems like they just decided to tell a totally different story using a different character named "Bill". 

I mean, it sounds like it worked if the episode was good. Just strange that they would be so accurate to the game for much of episodes 1 and 2 and then do a complete 180 when they reached one of the most popular portions of the game.

I feel like the show will suffer from not having Ellie and Bill’s interactions. They were excellent, some of the most fun dialogue in the game. And the whole sequence was very important for Joel’s development. 

Based on the letter, it actually sounds like Show Bill ends up the literal opposite from Game Bill. 

[Celan]

I am guessing they didn't want to end up having the gay couple end tragically. I agree based on what you said that the development would be much better as it was presented in the game. It didn't seem to affect Joel at all.

[The Good Doctor]

8 minutes ago, Celan said:

I am guessing they didn't want to end up having the gay couple end tragically.

End tragically like committing double suicide?  I mean at least the partner doesn’t sound like he grew to hate Bill like in the game, but this version ironically proved Game Bill correct. Caring about someone did get him killed.

Something I really dig about the game’s story is how literally every ally Joel encounters throughout the game attempts to drive a wedge between him and Ellie, either deliberately or through the lessons they impart. The entire world is telling him that it is a bad idea to care about this girl. Which makes it so much more poignant that he ends up seeing her like a daughter in spite of literally everything.

[Celan]

Well, the way they present it, it was about as happy an ending as you can expect. Painlessly dying in each other's arms after a long and fulfilling life with their strawberry patch. That's why I said it seemed rather optimistic.

A good thing in the game is that they showed very clearly how willing citizens who were just trying to do the right thing (a la COVID lockdown, for instance) were carted off and shot in mass graves because there wasn't enough room in the DZs.