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The REAL story behind The Last of Us Part 2 (ONLY CONDENSCENDEURS OF HIGH ART ALLOWED!!!)

Terenty

Member
I know Last of Us drama is not relevant anymore, but nevertheless i decided its worth posting just to shut up the last haters of the game. Here's an interesting look at how the ideas behind this unquestionable Schindler's List of games came to be. Having watched it i have no doubt Neil Druckmann will be recognised as one of the best writers of our time
/s




Edit. I have a suspicion half the people in this thread haven't watched the video
 
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Beer Baelly

Al Pachinko, Konami President
One of the best writers of all time

tenor.gif
 
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Ellery

Member
(This is a troll thread and not actually a video to shut up the haters, because it is purely critical of TLOU2 and Neil Druckmann).

Actually it isn't necessarily a bad video. I think he is trying, but sadly he is trying to find excuses for why he doesn't like TLOU2. He doesn't go deep enough, but rather relies on implying to make Neil Druckmann look like a bad person. I am not saying he is wrong since I don't know the actual background at Naughty Dog and if it is as bad as he is trying to portrait here, but the way he presents his facts and anecdotes he is trying to shine a bad light on ND.

One thing that baffles me though is how Naughty Dog manages to make the best games after "so many people quit. A mass EXODUS" he calls it, releasing TLL and TLOU2 in such a short time with TLOU2 being so much better than any other game and making other veteran developers look like amateurs.

All in all the video is better than drive by comments from people that read the leaks and he is trying to look into where Neil Druckmann is coming from. I can respect that even if I disagree and think Uncharted 4 and TLOU2 is the best Naughty Dog has ever been. It sucks for those that hate the new Naughty Dog, but it isn't my job to make other people like or dislike what I (dis)like.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I know Last of Us drama is not relevant anymore, but nevertheless i decided its worth posting just to shut up the last haters of the game. Here's an interesting look at how the ideas behind this unquestionable Schindler's List of games came to be. Having watched it i have no doubt Neil Druckmann will be recognised as one of the best writers of out time



So much wrong with the argument in the video, just gonna list the biggest problems out in order of what I think are the most egregious mistakes.

1. A strong directorial voice is crucial on big projects. Decision by committee is paralyzing, and tends to result in mediocrity because if everyone isn't on the same page the process gets bogged down by endless meetings and revisions to "completed" work.

2. Conflating crunch due to the studio's need to maintain technical and artistic quality (ND's reputation as Sony's prestige studio, basically) with that due to creative mismanagement/lackadaisy is unfair and unreasonable. Every project at ND has involved heavy crunch irrespective of who was leading it, and that's a historical fact.

3. Staff attrition due to creative direction is a myth. Not everyone has involvement at that level and most are focused upon filling their allotted role as well as they can, many in fact will tolerate extreme workloads if the end-result gets them a stellar entry on their resumes, increasing their career market value. The idea that an artist, a coder, a level designer etc. Will decide to quit because they don't like story or character elements is laughable.

4. Don't overestimate the value of fan feedback to an employee/worker. All that matters is sales and critical reception, noone is going to get denied a job because they worked on a game that annoyed fanboys because it killed off a "beloved" character.

5. Same deal with the whole topic of "divisiveness". Its not a bad thing because divisive titles tend to be memorable, whereas little is more forgettable than bland competence. More to the point cowardice is not a virtue, and that's precisely what kowtowing to expectations is.
 

PresetError

Neophyte
Another good example of what happens when authors get to do whatever they want without nobody else daring to contradict them because of past success or achieved industry status.

I believe in authorship. I think it's important there are personal single artistic vision games out there. Maybe not such a good aidea with multi million AAA games, though.
 
The most interesting aspect of this video is how it compiles all this evidence that Druckmann wanted to tell this story for a long time (And how the particular aspects a lot of people dislike in TLoU2 were shot down multiple times). Well, he was finally able to tell his precious story, and it's not particularly good. I wonder what's next then for him and the studio. Does he have other passion projects lined up?
 

Terenty

Member
The most interesting aspect of this video is how it compiles all this evidence that Druckmann wanted to tell this story for a long time (And how the particular aspects a lot of people dislike in TLoU2 were shot down multiple times). Well, he was finally able to tell his precious story, and it's not particularly good. I wonder what's next then for him and the studio. Does he have other passion projects lined up?
Yup, it was basically his round two with Tlou, after his ideas were rejected for the first game
 

INC

Member
if it weren't for all these threads I would of forgotten about TLoU2, that sums up the game perfectly, whereas TLoU is still fresh in my mind

Thats the difference in the end, just move on, and do something new next time
 

GermanZepp

Member
IMO the first game story is better by a large margin. This one is pretentious, filled with forced little details that were nonsensical. I saw the "wokeness" in some of the characters, but that was no problem for me. I'm fine with characters. Is the story driven actions that just didn't make sense for me. Audio visually is a awesome game though.
 
Abby was the error, otherwise the blueprint they had in place was sound.

I’m still confused why the WLF was so prominent and the Seraphites and Infected underutilized.🤷🏿‍♀️
 
Art is about shoving personal beliefs down people's throat.

said nobody ever

You're joking right? Art has been used to express "personal beliefs" since it's inception. As for the overly dramatic "shoving down people's throats" nonsense, you do realize you can choose not to play it right? No one is holding a gun to your head. No one is forcing anything down your throat.
 

KOMANI

KOMANI
The “best writers of our* time” quote has me interested on who are the best writers in video games? Who are in the top echelon? I can see people vote on Amy Hennig, Hideo Kojima, Yoshitaka Murayama, but for me, it’s tough to surpass the stuff Hiroyuki Owaku was doing for the Silent Hill franchise.

I can’t recall having a problem with TLOU1’s writing but I do remember while playing TLOU2 that some of the writing felt inconsistent. The Marlene scene from TLOU2 juxtaposed with her hospital scene in TLOU (which takes place shortly after said scene in TLOU2) felt strange considering what the character says between the two games and moments from each other.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Abby was the error, otherwise the blueprint they had in place was sound.

I’m still confused why the WLF was so prominent and the Seraphites and Infected underutilized.🤷🏿‍♀️
It might sound funny but I think a lot of this game's scrutiny comes from Abby's muscle mass and some people not being able to get past that. I'm not even joking. If they made Abby slim and change her move set to be different enough from Ellie's then this game becomes way less divisive 👍

I wish they would have went that route but as I said the game is still good
 
It might sound funny but I think a lot of this game's scrutiny comes from Abby's muscle mass and some people not being able to get past that. I'm not even joking. If they made Abby slim and change her move set to be different enough from Ellie's then this game becomes way less divisive 👍

I wish they would have went that route but as I said the game is still good
That may be, though those are not my reasons. Simply put, she is comparatively uninteresting - both as a character and her plot points - and her introduction completely disrupts the gameplay tempo and exposes the lack of variation the further along you progress.

I doubt I’ll ever move past the “what might have been” feeling with this game,in spite of the highs it does achieve.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
That may be, though those are not my reasons. Simply put, she is comparatively uninteresting - both as a character and her plot points - and her introduction completely disrupts the gameplay tempo and exposes the lack of variation the further along you progress.

I doubt I’ll ever move past the “what might have been” feeling with this game,in spite of the highs it does achieve.
I agree that her section does kinda ruin the flow even with the story. The end of the game with what happened to her and Lev brought the story up a notch for me though
 

Neff

Member
Art is about shoving personal beliefs down people's throat.

said nobody ever

Nothing wrong with an artist shoving their beliefs down your throat, so long as they're also brave enough to show the failings of their beliefs. If they don't, they're simply preaching.

Personally, I don't think Druckmann was preaching.
 

RayHell

Member
I never been so shaken by a game story before. It's expected that people get offended by novelty and out of the box thinking. But being offended doesn't mean you're right. Those ideas take time to mature and will last way longer than yourself. Soon you grow old and you're the old man shouting at the cloud because new generation thriving on those novelties and you're out of sync with the collective thinking. And this is what's matter, not your personal self at this very moment.
 

Bartski

Gold Member
A lot of assumptions regarding internal power dynamics and Druckmann, based on the insight that the video author claims to have gained after compiling some press and known anecdotes... honestly I don't see what it contributes to the discussion, aside from polite, level-headed delivery, in contrast to the usual youtube insufferable hate boner fapping
 

MrS

Banned
I get all of my art insights from a 12 year old YouTuber...
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
How do they know they hate it if they haven't even played it yet?
Watching it on youtube and realizing the writing is shit
You can't possibly get the same experience by watching this game online. I'm not saying it's perfect but the gameplay is god tier and there are good moments in the story
For a supposedly story-driven $60 dollar game, i expect more than just a few good moments of story. Gameplay does look fine but "god tier" is a mighty exageration, its just a generic stealth-action game, not terrible but not the best of its kind either. You can get better stuff out there if its gameplay is the only thing to look forward to.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Watching it on youtube and realizing the writing is shit

For a supposedly story-driven $60 dollar game, i expect more than just a few good moments of story. Gameplay does look fine but "god tier" is a mighty exageration, its just a generic stealth-action game, not terrible but not the best of its kind either. You can get better stuff out there if its gameplay is the only thing to look forward to.
It's the best gameplay in a TPS and I've been playing it since it released. There's also top notch animations, graphics, the most realistic and believable AI, it's really good even if the story doesn't get everything right
 
you know I'm going to start to agree that The last of us 2 is the video game version of The last Jedi but I mean it a little differently than other people do what I mean when I say that is that the people who are upset about it are going to be as loud as possible and do everything they can to control the narrative until the only people who defend it are considered the minority viewpoints and their laugh. Everywhere for doing it and the reason why they act like this is because there's a lot of people who don't have hearts dances on things and don't have real beliefs or opinions and those people are just going to side with whatever the more popular viewpoint is and these people are going to do whatever they can to make it clear that you're wrong if you like these two pieces of media. Annoying

okay some of that seems like gibberish in is hard to parse that's because I'm doing this voice to text thing on my phone right now on a car ride and it's really hard to edit these post but I really hope the overarching idea is clear that this is the thing with internet discussion nowadays people want to control the narrative they want you to feel like you shouldn't counter the old the prevailing narrative and it's disingenuous and it totally distract from how people really feel people want to control the narrative they want you to feel like you shouldn't counter the old the prevailing narrative and it's disingenuous and it totally distract from how people really feel
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
It's the best gameplay in a TPS and I've been playing it since it released. There's also top notch animations, graphics, the most realistic and believable AI, it's really good even if the story doesn't get everything right
If thats what you think, good for you.

On a side note though, pay attention to the AI movements when they're searching for you. Don't let the 'peeking through the corners' animations or 'comically screaming random companion names' trick you. They're completely on rails. You might even get instances where you shoot them while you're inside a building, hide when they come inside, then they immediatly go outside again to look for you since its where their scripted path is at.
 
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Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
If thats what you think, good for you.

On a side note though, pay attention to the AI movements when they're searching for you. Don't let the 'peeking through the corners' animations or 'comically screaming random companion names' trick you. They're completely on rails. You might even get instances where you shoot them while you're inside a building, hide when they come inside, then they immediatly go outside again to look for you since its where their scripted path is at.
The calling out names isn't scripted as they say different names and at random. They also call out when you're out of bullets and they then get more aggressive knowing you have to change weapons. They also call out your location, if you start running away they'll say "don't let her get away" they can order others to flank you from beyond too. It's brilliant stuff
 

Guilty_AI

Member
The calling out names isn't scripted as they say different names and at random. They also call out when you're out of bullets and they then get more aggressive knowing you have to change weapons. They also call out your location, if you start running away they'll say "don't let her get away" they can order others to flank you from beyond too. It's brilliant stuff
Scripted or not its just comical the way they did it. Coming at you when your weapon clicks is an extremely dumb move since you could have side arms at ready, it was just added to impress the players with a "wow it reacted!" moment. The rest is very common stuff for stealth games. The level of tlou2 AI is at best 'normal'.
 
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idrago01

Banned
Eeh-ZRHe-Wo-AMEg-Fp.jpg


GOT was a game for people to enjoy, the other was "high art" and the "schindler's list" of games
 
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idrago01

Banned
It might sound funny but I think a lot of this game's scrutiny comes from Abby's muscle mass and some people not being able to get past that. I'm not even joking. If they made Abby slim and change her move set to be different enough from Ellie's then this game becomes way less divisive 👍

I wish they would have went that route but as I said the game is still good
I think it was more of the way joel got cast aside and killed in the first 20 minutes of the game, I wanted to play the game because of joel and could care less about ellie and her girlfirend, when it leaked how he died and knowing I'd have to play as abby, it became a no buy for me
 
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Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
I think it was more of the way joel got cast aside and killed in the first 20 minutes of the game, I wanted to play the game because of joel and could care less about ellie and her girlfirend, when it leaked how he died and knowing I'd have to play as abby, it became a no buy for me
That was another reason I agree even if I did enjoy some of Abby's gameplay
 
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