Asklemmy

44186 readers

1225 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

769

What was a profound moment that a video game caused you to experience, and why? (reddthat.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

372 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The moment that inspired this question:

A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.

The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.

One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”

I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.

… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.

I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Spoilers for Dragon Quest 11

I've played a lot of Dragon Quest games over the years so I'm used to the mostly cheerful games.

In Dragon Quest 11 one of your party members dies to save you so that you can make another attempt to save the world after you fail. Their death is fairly well handled by the party and the party had been friends for awhile by that point.

She willing sacrificed herself to save you and the rest of the party after you fail at saving the world because she believes that you can still do it. She believes that you can still win if you have another shot.

Her sister in the party comes to accept her death and uses it as a driving force to push harder to save the world with you.

The party grieves for her.

At the end of Act 2 though the story undermines it IMO by allowing you to head back in time to change things to save her and the world if you push hard enough, but by heading back in time you erase the future that you built with your party. All that build up, all the character growth, all that copping with the loss and unification that comes from it all. You can change it.

To me it felt like as a player I was betrayed by the story. I felt that her sacrifice made the story that much better. Her sacrifice made the story less "I need to save the world because it's my destiny," and changed it into, "I need to save the world because if I don't than my friend died for nothing." By going back in time and changing things you end the world as it is.

No one else would remember what you did if you succeeded, only you would remember how things were. If you failed then the world would be trapped in a cycle of darkness.

To me it felt wrong to do that, so that's where I stopped. I technically never finished the game but honestly I feel by not making that choice to go back in time that I got the better ending.

Silly I know but I feel that by destroying the timeline as it stood was worse than what the Dark One had done in destroying so much the first go around. Because they only destroyed a small chunk in comparison as you would be destroying literally everything just for the chance to bring that party member back.

Edit: Basically in that moment where they ask you to go back in time (which they insist you do) they are asking you to become the villain of that entire timeline for selfish purposes. That moment when you say yes is how Act 3 starts. In that moment by saying yes, you are no longer the hero. You are no longer the good guy. You no longer saved the world. You destroyed it because you wanted to.