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assassin's dhimmitude

 
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dhex
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 9:37 am    Post subject: assassin's dhimmitude Reply with quote

[for everything you would probably want to know about living under the book, go here]

obviously i am mocking those who would invoke a specific governing relationship from many centuries ago in any modern context, but i must say that gameplay decisions aside, i am deeply confused by assassin's creed.

the first confusing thing is the setting. not that they've played yet another round of SPOT THE TEMPLAR - everyone's favorite game for this time setting because they were mysterious and dangerous or something like that. there's nothing surprising about wack-a-crusader-mole and conspiratorial history. makes for great pulp.

what's surprising isn't what's been put in but what's been left out. they set out to make a game about a very specific religious movement with an even more specific window of activity and then proceeded to strip overt religious content beyond (from what i've seen so far) the crosses on top of churches. i was surprised to hear references to the legend of hassan's garden of eden (even though the game is set in syria and not what is now afghanistan) and i'm sure i'll hear a few more here and there.

so...why? why pick a time period not very popular in terms of the public imagination in the west, and then proceed to strip the most interesting things about it right out of the game?

the most obvious answer, which i'm not entirely convinced of, is that they wanted to avoid the wrong kind of controversy. gta4's hooker sprees are the right kind of controversy - the haitian misunderstanding was the wrong kind.

apparently they decided against making overt references to the violent roots of a minor religious sect that has almost never been considered part of islam proper has been obliquely sidestepped. the actual history of what became the realm of the aga khan is actually incredibly interesting - shifting alliances, mongol hordes, accusations of witchcraft and all manner of foulness from without and within, brothers killing brothers, etc. it's a grand guginol soap opera, and would make a great rpg one day, in the right hands.

now, what kind of controversy would this draw? not a whole lot, beyond the referring either a) to a heretical sect in a positive light, which would piss some people off and b) to the fact that this sect wasn't anti-crusader so much as anti-everybody who got in their way, and that most of their targets were muslims from the other caliphates. would that have caused more problems than it's worth?

again, i don't really think so. there are no overt references to the prophet that i've heard so far or anything like that. no references to anything about the caliphate or anything else, for that matter, in terms of actual governance. and, at least thus far, no references to the jewish populations either.

ultimately, historical accuracy isn't really much of a deal. it's nice, i think, because learning stuff is neat, but it's not essential to most peoples' enjoyment of games. it's interesting to know things like no muslims at the time would have called the crusaders "crusaders" because that term wasn't in use in the muslim world - it was just the regular incursions of the house of war. (infidels being like hurricanes - destructive, regular and mindless.)

but it seems strange to arrange a game around the framework of a historical setting and then pull back at the last minute. there may be nothing to get angry about, but there's nothing to really hang onto, either.

which brings me to the other strange thing - the "this game was worked on by a crew of models on loan from bennetton" disclaimer. who, exactly, is going to mollified by that? very specifically it'd be like mentioning that you had christian designers working on a game about seventh day adventists of one strain or another - mainline hardcore protestants, by and large, don't even consider anabaptists to be christians. actually, it would be more like mentioning anabaptists worked on your game about the cathars - there's no real chain connecting the hashshashin to modern islam except via the aga khan, and even that link is kinda flimsy.

bottom line: ubisoft confuses the hell out of me.
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dhex
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 9:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

also i'm going to be super pissed if i don't get to take a whack at saladin.
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 9:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I dunno, I think they were a good deal worried. The warning/note at the beginning of the game having been developed by different people from various cultures and whatnot seems to be a 'wowowowowo! don't get pissed!' I don't think the specifics would have mattered much as the impression one would take away after a quick glance had there been much more beyond the 'check out how sweet Damascus looks in high definition!' I think all attempts to control ire was because they understand that it doesn't matter to a whole lot of people the how and why, the various sects and their histories and whatnot, only that the dude with the cross is all word slurry and ready to kill while the other dude with the crescent is preaching about war and infidels. During the development period you had the Denmark shenanigans, which I'd imagine was pretty effective at freaking a multinational company the fuck out.

They have done the contemporary stealth-action bit for a while, and apparently this is a series that skips through time, so I'd assume someone thought ... oh wait, you haven't finished it yet, have you? I don't want to spoil anything.
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Last edited by ryan on Wed May 21, 2008 9:53 am; edited 1 time in total
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dhex
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 9:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i only just did the second assassination, which i actually enjoyed. running away is fun! the fighting system is kind of annoying on a pc but i got used to it quickly enough.

SO YEAH NO SPOILERS.
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 9:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The time period will make a bit more sense is all!
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 10:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ok my predictions are thusly (don't confirm or deny until later):

1) the people running the shit are the modern descendents of the templars.

2a) they want to figure out why the hashishism were so goddamn fly.

2b) they need some kinda secret to some alchemical bullshit for eternal life or bullets that keep travelling forever or something like that.

3) he will totally get busted out by islamic ninjas.

i mean, i'm not hoping for tokyo drift good, but i'll settle for cyborg good.
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

yeah when i saw the warning at the beginning of the game at first i thought they were celebrating ideas but then i realized that they were just trying not to offend anyone
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 3:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Along the lines of what you're saying, dhex, I had an idea for a game recently that would from the outset be concerned not just with historical accuracy but in allowing you to participate in the foul play and chicanery that brought about this history.

I'm referring specifically to the events preceding World War I, the war itself, and what followed it. I think ti would be absolutely great if a game was made in which the player took adopted multiple sides of the conflict in different scenarios, to the point where the player is working against himself. For example, a section as a British politician pushing Zionism in the House of Lords followed by playing as one of the Young Turks expelling the Jews from Jaffa. Which might be followed by a mundane section as a street-peddler in Istanbul who is completely passive in the conflict, which might be followed by a brief section as a commander in the Australian regimen which took Damascus (followed by a section as the French ambassador trying to make claims for Syria/Damascus/etc. for their own).

The point being that the game could actually show what is interesting and complex about this historical moment by giving the player a palpable sense of futility and melancholy as to the whole cluster-fuck that is international politics. It's kind of a strange example, but Fahrenheit's sequence with Carla interrogating Lucas is a microcosmic example of what I'm talking about: the player is working against himself, switching between the two characters, and so there's this general sense of malaise which is just great.

This way, too, the game would not be a "kill people guyz" gameplay mechanic with the dressings of some exotic historical period: the period is not the excuse for the gameplay, but the progenitor of it. So it would not be another bullshit WWII FPS, it would have a freaking point and it would use the medium in a fabulous and interesting way (PeaceMaker also comes to mind). You see what I'm saying?
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 3:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That idea is brilliant!
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 7:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

that's a neat idea, indeed. my first thought is that it might be a bit too obscure, but naaaaaaaaaaaaah.
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PostPosted: Wed May 21, 2008 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The point is it doesn't matter how obscure it is. First of all, it's less obscure than the hashashin, but second of all, even if you had absolutely no understanding of what happened during World War I, the point is you'd be participating in it. You'd be working towards goals as one side and then working towards unmaking those goals as another side. You'd learn who all the players (no pun intended) were simply by adopting their roles. And only a game, and interactive menagerie of experiences, could really allow for this kind of complex multiplicity of perspectives.
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PostPosted: Thu May 22, 2008 8:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

that's a good point. i have no design sensibilities beyond complaining about games, so i wouldn't have considered it from that angle.

the transitions would be kind of difficult, though, because you do have to lend some kind of context, no?
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PostPosted: Thu May 22, 2008 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well the context would be the scenarios themselves: so if in the first scenario you've been laboring as some British politician, arguing with your superiors and your colleagues (who are also all at cross purposes) to try and push for a home for the Jews in Palestine (and your own reasons for doing this would likely be less idealistic and more practical) for quite awhile, when you then have to switch to Djemal Pasha deciding what to do about the Jews in Jaffa or sending some Armenians to get massacred I think you'd feel the tangible connection in the conflict.

I'd think the the transitions would always be done on an axis, the axis being some kernel, some essential concept of what each "player" brings to the situation as a whole. You'd (hopefully) understand intuitively the switch between working for/in favor of the Jews and working against them. Or in my other example, the British coveting Syria vs. the French. This is all spurred by a series of books I've been reading on the very topic, and I have to say that there are a bunch of really great "moments" that I would love to put players in the midst of with this thing.

Of course there are the issues of controversy but that only has to do with a nervous industry and political correctness. I think it would be very easy to make this game based solely and entirely on historical certitudes with no real loaded political statements other than "world politics are a farce," which I don't think anyone would have a hard time warming up to.

It's times like these that I wish I had money and a team full of people working for me.

But anyway. I hope I'm not co-opting your thread here. Feel free to run with it in some other direction at any time. To connect it back regardless: I think Assassin's Creed, for all the effort put into the scenario, is still very much a "this-generation" game. It's not trying to branch out necessarily to accomplish anything more, and really, its aesthetic "aura" of authenticity is no different (perhaps slightly better researched) than Prince of Persia, to be honest.

The history has to serve the game, like I said. Then what you end up doing is you end up thinking more in the context of games: you think in the context of moments, and how to transmute these moments. This is, as we've belabored on these forums and elsewhere, the power of games, really, and in this sense the gameplay will come naturally (or almost naturally--and of course I'm not saying it should be dry and boring. Proper playtesting would make it fun and engaging).
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PostPosted: Thu May 22, 2008 9:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would play that game. I think what would really seal the deal is if for each character you play you are given a strong sympathetic push to want to meet the goals the current protagonist is aiming for (what is this Young Turk's motivation for driving out the Jews? And how is that presented in a way that anyone can sympathize with?). That would be the greatest challenge, but if every time you contradicted the goals of the last character you played as, you felt like this time you were doing "the right thing" it would really drive home the sense of greater conflict and the futility and melancholy you're trying to evoke.
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PostPosted: Thu May 22, 2008 11:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

SPOILERS: People are dumb and get offended over anything and equally dumb people feel the need to cover their arses from shadows as a result.

I do not particularly think UbiSoft consists of smart people. I mean, they're all fucking French trying to be Americans, for one.
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 1:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
so...why? why pick a time period not very popular in terms of the public imagination in the west, and then proceed to strip the most interesting things about it right out of the game?


because Ubisoft.
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 6:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

yeah, but far cry 2 looks amazing. in a good way.
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 9:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm still expressly annoyed that they featured a quote ("nothing is true, everything is permitted") which hassan was supposed to say on his deathbed. Then let your character use it as an excuse for being emo.
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 12:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

iirc, the quote came from a muslim historian and theologian who was writing about the evils of this particular sect; it is just about the most anti-islamic / anti-western tradition sentiment you could put together for that time period as the exact opposite of "as god wills".

we can blame burroughs for repopularizing it for the lunatic fringe in the 70s.

i will say i was pleased to see a reenactment of the famous story about hassan's son and the mongol ambassador at the beginning of the game. in order to show his power over his followers, while taking a walk with the ambassador on the walls of alamout, he ordered two guards leap off the battlement - they did.

i'm also stuck on the slaver boss fight (the third assassination) - i keep getting tossed around by these hosers and can't kill them fast enough. blah!
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 3:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
i'm also stuck on the slaver boss fight (the third assassination) - i keep getting tossed around by these hosers and can't kill them fast enough. blah!


Yeah, that part drove me nuts. That's when I finally had to learn how to parry and block properly. After going at it a few times, I would waltz around, pick fights, and demolish small squads of guards. It reminds me of Dragons Lair in how you have to time the counters.
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 4:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
i will say i was pleased to see a reenactment of the famous story about hassan's son and the mongol ambassador at the beginning of the game. in order to show his power over his followers, while taking a walk with the ambassador on the walls of alamout, he ordered two guards leap off the battlement - they did.


Yeah I saw that in the trailer, and it's what initially got me interested in the game. A really great and clever idea; like a historical fiction piece. I still haven't played it and would one day like to, but since then I've become decidedly disillusioned about it.
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2008 8:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just couldn't stand how the game actively revolved around doing repetitive actions to get things to spawn. Helping villagers spawn the scholars(or rebel guys), enough other actions spawns the target. It's a very pointless and gamey way to handle these things when you're in such an open world.

The giant levels might as well have been broken down to small level since the action is limited along those lines. It's really jarring when compared to something like Hitman Blood Money which had very small levels but left itself feeling far more open than Assassin's Creed.
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2008 10:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I recall reading that they had spent so much time focused on the levels themselves that they had to cram everything else to meet the release date, and that certainly seems to be the case. The town criers only say 4-5 different things, there are only a handful of animations for most things (most people tend to fall the same way), and the general nature of the missions themselves are carbon copies of one another. My main complaint was when outside the city the guards just knew who you were. It wasn't like one tower could phone another one to say 'hey! watch out for the guy on the horse!' and yet they were ready to hunt you down every time ... well, it isn't like the giant red sash wasn't obvious enough.
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