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Oni2 talk:Truth Number Zero/Course Of Events: Difference between revisions
Oni2 talk:Truth Number Zero/Course Of Events (view source)
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:::::::::::::::::::::Let me re-state my position re: the "actual" Wilderness threat as you envision it "during Oni 2": with daodanimals pointing their noses, and insect swarms ''finally'' joining the airborne seeding fun, Nausicaa-style (sorry, but the analogy with the modus propagandi of the Sea of Corruption is too exact to overlook). I understand that your story ultimately presents it all as ''the'' threat faced by the protagonist and by humanity in general, but in my impression, such a development would work best if it's one of ''several'' major concerns. Phase hazards, META issues (civilization alienated from within/above, rather than "evicted" by alienated flora/fauna) and belligerent human factions -- those are just a few things that could shift the focus from WPs back to urban areas time and again. My feeling is that it would ensure some variety and keep the plot from being dominated by a Wilderness fetish that's too "green" and (yes, sorry) Nausicaa-like. --[[User:Geyser|geyser]] ([[User talk:Geyser|talk]]) 03:32, 30 July 2020 (CEST) | :::::::::::::::::::::Let me re-state my position re: the "actual" Wilderness threat as you envision it "during Oni 2": with daodanimals pointing their noses, and insect swarms ''finally'' joining the airborne seeding fun, Nausicaa-style (sorry, but the analogy with the modus propagandi of the Sea of Corruption is too exact to overlook). I understand that your story ultimately presents it all as ''the'' threat faced by the protagonist and by humanity in general, but in my impression, such a development would work best if it's one of ''several'' major concerns. Phase hazards, META issues (civilization alienated from within/above, rather than "evicted" by alienated flora/fauna) and belligerent human factions -- those are just a few things that could shift the focus from WPs back to urban areas time and again. My feeling is that it would ensure some variety and keep the plot from being dominated by a Wilderness fetish that's too "green" and (yes, sorry) Nausicaa-like. --[[User:Geyser|geyser]] ([[User talk:Geyser|talk]]) 03:32, 30 July 2020 (CEST) | ||
::::::::::::::::::::::Too many threats. Unless you plan to join some of them with a common root that the good guys can attack. Otherwise you've just produced a [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrapsackWorld Crapsack World] that no one can do anything about and that players don't want to live in. But to be clear, I never suggested making the whole game about fighting the Wilderness. Then it would be called Reclamation Wretches, and that's a totally different game ("Press X to customize your flamethrower…"). For my ideas on other aspects of the story besides dealing with the Wilderness, see the [[Oni2:Slaves of War/Factions|Factions]] page. --[[User:Iritscen|Iritscen]] ([[User talk:Iritscen|talk]]) 17:22, 30 July 2020 (CEST) | ::::::::::::::::::::::Too many threats. Unless you plan to join some of them with a common root that the good guys can attack. Otherwise you've just produced a [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrapsackWorld Crapsack World] that no one can do anything about and that players don't want to live in. But to be clear, I never suggested making the whole game about fighting the Wilderness. Then it would be called Reclamation Wretches, and that's a totally different game ("Press X to customize your flamethrower…"). For my ideas on other aspects of the story besides dealing with the Wilderness, see the [[Oni2:Slaves of War/Factions|Factions]] page. --[[User:Iritscen|Iritscen]] ([[User talk:Iritscen|talk]]) 17:22, 30 July 2020 (CEST) | ||
:::::::::::::::::::::::It doesn't work like this. A single overpowered threat can easily give you crapsack syndrome -- and, conversely, multiple well-balanced threats can make for a thrilling experience where you never know what awaits you around the corner: humans with guns, a swarm of hungry Screamers, a hulking META-mech, a couple of [[:Image:Duality_concept_(symbiote_in_overpower?).jpg|these]] merry fellows, or Mukade knows what else. Of course the player needs to have enough skills to survive every such encounter, and it helps | :::::::::::::::::::::::It doesn't work like this. A single overpowered threat can easily give you crapsack syndrome -- and, conversely, multiple well-balanced threats can make for a thrilling experience where you never know what awaits you around the corner: humans with guns, a swarm of hungry Screamers, a hulking META-mech, a couple of [[:Image:Duality_concept_(symbiote_in_overpower?).jpg|these]] merry fellows, or Mukade knows what else. Of course the player needs to have enough skills to survive every such encounter, and it helps if the story lets him bring closure to at least some of the threats. And I do acknowledge that your Oni 2 wouldn't have been entirely Wilderness-centered (we've been through this before). --[[User:Geyser|geyser]] ([[User talk:Geyser|talk]]) 22:48, 30 July 2020 (CEST) | ||
::::::::::::::::Secondly, you're reading the manual's sentence too literally. The poor people who can't live within an ACC's main area of effect live in something like a shantytown outside city limits. The job that some of them have is going to work every day fighting against the spread of the BioCrisis. That doesn't mean the Wilderness is right outside the cities. It just means that they have a rough job and that they live on the edge of the habitable zone. I'm sure that "and" was really meant there. What the sentence doesn't tell us how far they commute to work each day. --[[User:Iritscen|Iritscen]] ([[User talk:Iritscen|talk]]) 22:09, 27 July 2020 (CEST) | ::::::::::::::::Secondly, you're reading the manual's sentence too literally. The poor people who can't live within an ACC's main area of effect live in something like a shantytown outside city limits. The job that some of them have is going to work every day fighting against the spread of the BioCrisis. That doesn't mean the Wilderness is right outside the cities. It just means that they have a rough job and that they live on the edge of the habitable zone. I'm sure that "and" was really meant there. What the sentence doesn't tell us how far they commute to work each day. --[[User:Iritscen|Iritscen]] ([[User talk:Iritscen|talk]]) 22:09, 27 July 2020 (CEST) | ||
:::::::::::::::::Off-road commuting for hundreds of miles has to be the worst job ever, indeed. Your point is clear, and I don't think there is any radical disagreement here (if anything, I said there's some welcome food for thought). However, like for the airborne spreading, it all boils down to quantitative considerations VS qualitative ones. I am a scientist at heart and by trade, so yeah, I tend to: a) read that kind of stuff literally; b) favor basic logic and math over figures of speech. On the face of it, the manual says that there are people living at the edge of atmospheric-processed areas, with "dead air and foul water" right next door: settle any further out, and the toxic air/water will start causing gruesome diseases and birth defects (that's just what the "edge of the habitable zone" is, by definition). Seen that way, it makes total sense for the "reclamation teams" to be hard at work right outside the shantytowns, "beating back" the limits of their ''own'' habitat (as well as helping to preserve the air quality in an ACC's "main area of effect"). That said, if the actual source of the contamination is identified as being located far outside the city limits, rather than adjacent to the slums, then indeed it makes sense to have "commuters" who wander towards the Wilderness Preserves and stamp out whatever is causing the toxicity to spread (although I am not sure the term "reclamation teams" would be fitting for this kind of task -- they'd be more like "excisors", "surgeons", "foresters" or, yes, "stalkers"). My key point, if I may reiterate it, is that, if this latter "stalking" occupation is even more precarious than that of the reclamation teams (the ones that merely decontaminate the areas around the slums that they live in), then -- as I already said -- this supposed WPTF comes across as much more humble than the dignified TCTF (despite a supposedly comparable importance of the two initiatives), and it may not fit in too well with the idea that there's this big high-level conspiracy surrounding the Wilderness. It can work, but it will require some new statements: about the WCG's penal system, about the not-so-free circulation of people or information between the inner cities and the slums, etc. If, on the other hand, the Wilderness expands only marginally (vegetative reproduction?), and there is no need for daily monitoring by a "WPTF" (precarious or otherwise), then the sentence from the manual is just about "reclamation teams" that are decontaminating areas right outside the slums, and that's it. It can work either way, and I don't feel like I'm closing any doors at this point. --[[User:Geyser|geyser]] ([[User talk:Geyser|talk]]) 17:09, 28 July 2020 (CEST) | :::::::::::::::::Off-road commuting for hundreds of miles has to be the worst job ever, indeed. Your point is clear, and I don't think there is any radical disagreement here (if anything, I said there's some welcome food for thought). However, like for the airborne spreading, it all boils down to quantitative considerations VS qualitative ones. I am a scientist at heart and by trade, so yeah, I tend to: a) read that kind of stuff literally; b) favor basic logic and math over figures of speech. On the face of it, the manual says that there are people living at the edge of atmospheric-processed areas, with "dead air and foul water" right next door: settle any further out, and the toxic air/water will start causing gruesome diseases and birth defects (that's just what the "edge of the habitable zone" is, by definition). Seen that way, it makes total sense for the "reclamation teams" to be hard at work right outside the shantytowns, "beating back" the limits of their ''own'' habitat (as well as helping to preserve the air quality in an ACC's "main area of effect"). That said, if the actual source of the contamination is identified as being located far outside the city limits, rather than adjacent to the slums, then indeed it makes sense to have "commuters" who wander towards the Wilderness Preserves and stamp out whatever is causing the toxicity to spread (although I am not sure the term "reclamation teams" would be fitting for this kind of task -- they'd be more like "excisors", "surgeons", "foresters" or, yes, "stalkers"). My key point, if I may reiterate it, is that, if this latter "stalking" occupation is even more precarious than that of the reclamation teams (the ones that merely decontaminate the areas around the slums that they live in), then -- as I already said -- this supposed WPTF comes across as much more humble than the dignified TCTF (despite a supposedly comparable importance of the two initiatives), and it may not fit in too well with the idea that there's this big high-level conspiracy surrounding the Wilderness. It can work, but it will require some new statements: about the WCG's penal system, about the not-so-free circulation of people or information between the inner cities and the slums, etc. If, on the other hand, the Wilderness expands only marginally (vegetative reproduction?), and there is no need for daily monitoring by a "WPTF" (precarious or otherwise), then the sentence from the manual is just about "reclamation teams" that are decontaminating areas right outside the slums, and that's it. It can work either way, and I don't feel like I'm closing any doors at this point. --[[User:Geyser|geyser]] ([[User talk:Geyser|talk]]) 17:09, 28 July 2020 (CEST) | ||