Mute Storytelling Discussion?

[665b00d85541fHikari]

I'm going to preface this by saying the whole concept comes from watching play-through of Doom 2016 and how you can learn a surprising amount about the attitude and goals of the protagonist even when he doesn't say anything.

What sort of attitude if any does the hacker have to all this mess? Is he 'oh god what have i done?' 'Crap I knew i should have put in a few back doors.' or simply 'well... time to blow this taco stand.'

How do we convey that?

System shock's strong suit is the logs, hearing the desperate last stands, seeing the results of those failing, bloody messages along walls, a severed head nowhere near the body, etc. However what of the protagonist themselves? What can or should the game developers try conveying through body language?

[665b00d855616Kolya]

The whole point of a silent protagonist in a video game is that you react in his place, becoming one with the character. So the attitude of the Hacker is determined by the player. It's part of the immersive sim template.
If the new game wants to sticks with that, then only the most basic reactions should be conveyed through body language, if at all.

[665b00d8557e0Hikari]

There's 'stepping into the shoes of' and then ther'es actual storytelling without ever uttering a line. Maybe Hacker is ginger and hesitant in taking a human head compared to when he picks up bateries or plugins for the implants. Possibly a headlong rushing in as he jacks into cyberspace. Little things like that rather than anythingdrawn out. More a sense that this guy is more at home with hardware and code than bullets and bodyparts.

[665b00d855a61Kolya]

There's a million ways players could react to things. The point is you can only show one. That's when you start creating the hacker as a separate person from the player.
So unless there is a choice to be squeamish or bold when picking up a severed head, the reaction should not be shown.

[665b00d855cbfJosiahJack]

I've always been more a fan of letting the environment tell the story, not the player.  Half Life 2 is a great example of this, the whole world tells a story of events that happened while you were gone.

System Shock had great moments that told the story with the environment, not just the logs.  My favorite is coming accross the Parovski group massacre with the lone Cortex Reaver hovering over the corpse strewn floor.  In Citadel, I hope to enhance these moments with added cues such as scorch marks on the walls, more debris, clever item placement, etc.

I think System Shock did a great job without ever needing to have the hacker give cues to the player on how to think.

[665b00d855dc1Milkman]

I think it's a great idea, doom did it well. But doom guy is a character, not a template, I think it's great but this is just not the best place to have it.

[665b00d855fa3Join2]

System Shock is not the best place to feature a mute protag with the intention of player insertion?

Oh right, you're one of those that likes Bioshock,  say no more, say no more

If you were actually talking about Doom, then it doesn't matter either way, because fuck story, there's demons to slay.

[665b00d8563ceMilkman]

System Shock is not the best place to feature a mute protag with the intention of player insertion?

Oh right, you're one of those that likes Bioshock,  say no more, say no more

If you were actually talking about Doom, then it doesn't matter either way, because fuck story, there's demons to slay.

I was saying sshock was a bad place to not have a silent protagonist.....soooo someone can't read.
And I don't really think it's for story as much as atmosphere and charm, like yeah demons blah blah blah, but I think it makes that experience feel fuller, rather than just demons. So in all, I guess you have some kind of grudge against me, or can't read.

[665b00d856510Join2]

Technically your post is ambiguous and open to varied interpretation. Looking back I don't really get exactly what you were trying to communicate with the closing sentence in particular.

"I think it's a great idea, doom did it well. But doom guy is a character, not a template, I think it's great but this is just not the best place to have it."

Lots of undefined variables. What place? Which it?

[665b00d8569afMilkman]

Technically your post is ambiguous and open to varied interpretation. Looking back I don't really get exactly what you were trying to communicate with the closing sentence in particular.

"I think it's a great idea, doom did it well. But doom guy is a character, not a template, I think it's great but this is just not the best place to have it."

Lots of undefined variables. What place? Which it?

Well when I say great idea, knowing the topic here we can tell that I mean mute protagonists. When I say this is not the place to have it, knowing the topic of the thread, we can infer that I mean sshock. Those are the only two variables, we can figure them out easily, please don't bring you weird grudge into this.

[665b00d856b02Kolya]

Uh...it still sounds to me like "System Shock is not the best place to have a mute protagonist."
But whatever, you said what you meant so we can move on. Probably.

[665b00d856e36Milkman]

Uh...it still sounds to me like "System Shock is not the best place to have a mute protagonist."
But whatever, you said what you meant so we can move on. Probably.

Idk man, seemed clear to me, but then again, I've never been good with that, I just jumped to conclusions, and y'know what the say about assuming....it makes an ASS out of U and ME!   

[665b00d856f83Hikari]

Anyway here's whatI mean:

Hesitation at grabbing a skull/hand/gross thing. Hesitation gets less after x number of pickups.

Zero hesitation when grabbing for inplants.

Hell even how a gun is handled can suggest something. As far as I'm aware Hacker is a pastey skinned guy that rarely got up from the keyboard now thrust into a space-haunted-house that wants to kill and or assimilate him.

[665b00d857117Gawain]

Hacker is heavy metal rocking anarchistic sociopath killing machine with military grade cybernetics.

Edit: + Highly intelligent and knowledgeable about military tactics through playing ARMA and other similar military simulations with hardcode attitude.

[665b00d85743cMilkman]

Hacker is heavy metal rocking anarchistic sociopath killing machine with military grade cybernetics.

Edit: + Highly intelligent and knowledgeable about military tactics through playing ARMA and other similar military simulations with hardcode attitude.

Is this a joke? Are you being sarcastic? I mean, maybe it's your story, but... I always thought he would be kind of a wimp.

[665b00d857618Hikari]

I think they were trying to present a counter-point to my interpretation in effort to show that 'conveying personality through actions' could still piss people off.

My response is this: Doomguy being a ball of white hot rage and demon slaying verses somebody that would be there for story bits could have pissed people off too but it fits the overal tone they wanted to set with the game.

Portraying Hacker as you suggest would have him too empowered at the start, too much like getting shoved into space-hell against an unchained AI that's had months of time to experiment and fortify is just another workday for him.

I personally would like some way of having the game ask 'how much of this badassery is is the implants shoviling knowledge and skill in and how much is the fact little pastey guy actually has a giant set of nuts and he's manning up because there's no other way to survive'?

[665b00d857acbMilkman]

I think they were trying to present a counter-point to my interpretation in effort to show that 'conveying personality through actions' could still piss people off.

My response is this: Doomguy being a ball of white hot rage and demon slaying verses somebody that would be there for story bits could have pissed people off too but it fits the overal tone they wanted to set with the game.

Portraying Hacker as you suggest would have him too empowered at the start, too much like getting shoved into space-hell against an unchained AI that's had months of time to experiment and fortify is just another workday for him.

I personally would like some way of having the game ask 'how much of this badassery is is the implants shoviling knowledge and skill in and how much is the fact little pastey guy actually has a giant set of nuts and he's manning up because there's no other way to survive'?

You mean how Gawain described him?

[665b00d857c32Hikari]

Yea. That. Sorry, kinda loopy feeling dunno what's going on.

[665b00d857f3fMilkman]

Yea. That. Sorry, kinda loopy feeling dunno what's going on.

It's cool bro! everyone goofs sometimes  I just wanted to clear things up.

[665b00d858082Hikari]

The statement does stand. It would be an interesting question. How much of Hacker/Gibbon Man's badassery is human desperation, raw cunning and skill, and how much is what the implants gave him?'

Seems worth poking at.

[665b00d858217Gawain]

Not joking.

He has long hair so obviously a heavy metal listener.
Hacks corporate networks so he must be intelligent and somewhat anarchistic. Most likely sociopath for accepting Diego's even more illegal proposal.
He even decides to remove ethical constraints instead of doing something more complex to give Diego more access.
This is even more hinted in the ending cinematic.

He stashed a lead pipe, berserk combat booster and staminup. He must have been preparing for something, demonstrating military like prepardeness.

After surviving he is downloading power battle armor schematics from Tetracorp. So he must be interested in military equipment (and propably selling them to highest bidder).

And just by surviving Citadel he must be highly motivated and skilled.
He's been in healing coma for 6 months and still has strenght to fight. Of course we don't know the technology used. Maybe it stimulates your muscles...

[665b00d8583c0Hikari]

I like your counter-argument. He probably figured worst case having to deal with security goons instead of full on military hardware. And after Citadel. Hell yes I'd be looking to get a set of power armor too, because if you thought the jump boots were awesome imagine what a fully self contained suit that interfaces with your implants can do.

As for your arguments of sociopathy? I would argue a case of him already being in such deep shit a deal with the devil can't get him in any worse trouble. From his perspective a lifetime in prison is a lifetime in prison so aiding Diego in embezzling couldn't have hurt.

As for why simply remove the ethical constraints to SHODAN. Maybe he was hoping total removal of constraints would have her turn on Diego, or diego had his freedom on the condition that being the exact thing done instead of something more complicated.

[665b00d8584d8Gawain]

Mm.
Now what would you do with military power armor? cosplay?

I want to ask other interesting question:
How many of you think destroying the earth is the real ending for the game?
Hacker joining Shodan and Diego. Maybe that's what he desired all along?

[665b00d85899bLearonys]

Mm.
Now what would you do with military power armor? cosplay?

I want to ask other interesting question:
How many of you think destroying the earth is the real ending for the game?
Hacker joining Shodan and Diego. Maybe that's what he desired all along?

This. Is what i would love to see in the remaster as a seperate ending of the main game or part of a "what if-" game mode. Explore all the possibilities of what could've happened if the story went in another direction.

Also, don't forget about how the hacker got arrester after only 6 minutes, so let's not assume he's a master hacker (or a very smart one either, considering how he decided to turn down a job at the biggest company on earth to - guess what - hack into another company).
He knew Edward Diego was a fishy character, but the only safeguard he could come up with was a text log, the hardware to read it, a lead pipe, a navigation and mapping unit and a berserk patch instead of including safety measures in SHODAN's code (like in "do not attack Hacker", as if Diego was smart enough to notice anything like this). Once again, not very smart, but possibly because of reasons Gawain mentioned.