Welcome to the end of the world, boys [Lightning Returns]

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Welcome to the end of the world, boys [Lightning Returns]

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Sally: Jan 9, 2007; Don't post Small Dash!

Felinoid posted:

Well, there is brain development to think about. A human brain doesn't finish developing until...somewhere around early 20s, I think? So all the kids may have centuries of experience, but trying to run that experience through an 8-year old's brain... Yeah.

Gives a whole new meaning to "stunted growth".

Mid-20s, actually. The generally accepted age is that the frontal cortex continues to develop till around 25 years of age.

DoubleNegative posted:

Video LPs are much easier and require a lot less overall work than a screenshot one. With videos, you record ahead of time and do a quick encode for commentary. Then you schedule an hour or whatever and talk over a few videos. Then you do some basic audio editing, encode, and publish.

Screenshot updates, if you start from scratch, require you to have recorded video ahead of time, capture screenshots from the video, create animations from the video, upload all of those, then you start the process of writing. If you're quick typist, and have all the screenshots captured and uploaded ahead of time, you can have an update ready in as little as an hour or two. However if the update runs long, or if you don't have screenshots uploaded in advance, the time it takes will balloon out of control rapidly.

I'd actually say it depends on the game. I mean, usually, sure, VLPs are easier but depending on the game and your workflow, the difference in time can be negligible and your control over the final product could be greater. When I did Dark Crusade, I took screenshots as a I played, but as it was an SSLP I was able to frame and pose angles in specific ways only possible as an SSLP. This allowed me to tell a narrative LP in precisely the way I wanted to. In term of time spent screenshotting images versus recording game footage, the difference was minimal and I spent far, FAR less time having to edit audio commentary and video footage so I actually found that to be a pretty quick SSLP.

Again, depends on the game, though VLPs usually take less time.

# ? May 26, 2016 02:40

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# ? May 20, 2024 22:51

Weeble: Feb 26, 2016

So one thing I found kind of amusing when I played through the game: Lightning has to return to The Ark at 6am each day. It gives her a brief period of down time. But remember, time stops... even more than it already has, when she's up there.

I don't really think it's that much of a spoiler to say each day starts at 6am. So, she returns literally the instant she left, from an outside perspective.

To everyone that's not Hope, Lightning is just non-stop Saving people 24/7 for the entirety of the game, no breaks.

# ? May 26, 2016 18:35

Omobono: Feb 19, 2013; That's it! No more hiding in tomato crates! It's time to show that idiota Germany how a real nation fights!

For pasta~! CHARGE!

Weeble posted:

I don't really think it's that much of a spoiler to say each day starts at 6am. So, she returns literally the instant she left, from an outside perspective.

To everyone that's not Hope, Lightning is just non-stop Saving people 24/7 for the entirety of the game, no breaks.

[

] Actually, the first day started at 9 pm. [/ :fishmech:

]

Although, how long has been Lightning active as the savior? Did she wake up this morning at 6 am (after the 500 year slumber), Hope told her to go crash Snow's party and she was, :geno:

okay

# ? May 26, 2016 19:54

Asparagus32: Aug 16, 2015

Omobono posted:

Although, how long has been Lightning active as the savior? Did she wake up this morning at 6 am (after the 500 year slumber), Hope told her to go crash Snow's party and she was, okay

Judging from the intro sequence it was already evening when she went to "save" Snow. Also that conversation with Hope in update 2 makes it sound like she made a beeline there as soon as she woke up (assuming her first briefing took place in the time-frozen ark).

So my guess would be that she either awoke in the afternoon or early evening on that day.

# ? May 26, 2016 20:18

Kaboom Dragoon: May 7, 2010; The greatest of feasts

Omobono posted:

[] Actually, the first day started at 9 pm. [/]

Although, how long has been Lightning active as the savior? Did she wake up this morning at 6 am (after the 500 year slumber), Hope told her to go crash Snow's party and she was, okay

I'm assuming there was a de-crystalizaton process first, and if there was, I like to imagine it was like the unfreezing sequence from Austin Powers. Only they replaced 'can't stop externalizing internal voice loudly' with 'had even more of her personality surgically removed'.

# ? May 26, 2016 20:33

Benach: Aug 15, 2013

The whole "hundreds of years have passed" becomes even more meaningless when you realize that everything was just stagnant for those hundreds of years. Basically no advancement in technology or knowledge and people still have the dumbest problems that should have been addressed ages ago. Sure, it's the apocalypse, but it's such a slow burning one people should've done things instead of doing nothing.
Of course, you can argue that that's part of the game's writing, but I doubt it.

# ? May 26, 2016 23:08

Digital Jello: Nov 2, 2012; Now I have a machine gun. Ho! Ho! Ho!

I kinda get the feeling like the whole "time's been stopped/slowed" thing wasn't really necessary. It's a cool sci-fi plot device and all, but it doesn't seem like it'd make much of a difference in the story if it was eliminated altogether. In fact, it actually makes this whole Armageddon deal feel less intense than it probably should be. (I'm basing this on having never played the game or completed the story, so get a cheap chuckle out of my ignorance if this becomes a major story issue later.)

# ? May 27, 2016 01:23

Scalding Coffee: Jun 26, 2006; You're already dead

Benach posted:

The whole "hundreds of years have passed" becomes even more meaningless when you realize that everything was just stagnant for those hundreds of years. Basically no advancement in technology or knowledge and people still have the dumbest problems that should have been addressed ages ago. Sure, it's the apocalypse, but it's such a slow burning one people should've done things instead of doing nothing.
Of course, you can argue that that's part of the game's writing, but I doubt it.

There might have been some anti-technology movement going around where everyone just agreed that progress should stop.

# ? May 27, 2016 02:27

Magic Pants: Oct 9, 2012; Would you like to see
the Labryinth...
In My Pants?

Benach posted:

The whole "hundreds of years have passed" becomes even more meaningless when you realize that everything was just stagnant for those hundreds of years. Basically no advancement in technology or knowledge and people still have the dumbest problems that should have been addressed ages ago. Sure, it's the apocalypse, but it's such a slow burning one people should've done things instead of doing nothing.
Of course, you can argue that that's part of the game's writing, but I doubt it.

Am I misunderstanding something? From the intro episode, I got that time as it exists is still moving - otherwise how could we now be 500 years in the future - but human aging/creation has ceased. So externally humans continue to move through the fabric of spacetime which doesn't necessarily negate the possibility of technological advancement.

# ? May 27, 2016 03:04

Magic Pants: Oct 9, 2012; Would you like to see
the Labryinth...
In My Pants?

Blind Sally posted:

I'd actually say it depends on the game. I mean, usually, sure, VLPs are easier but depending on the game and your workflow, the difference in time can be negligible and your control over the final product could be greater. When I did Dark Crusade, I took screenshots as a I played, but as it was an SSLP I was able to frame and pose angles in specific ways only possible as an SSLP. This allowed me to tell a narrative LP in precisely the way I wanted to. In term of time spent screenshotting images versus recording game footage, the difference was minimal and I spent far, FAR less time having to edit audio commentary and video footage so I actually found that to be a pretty quick SSLP.

Again, depends on the game, though VLPs usually take less time.

Thanks. So I should also take type of LP into account when looking at time between updates.

# ? May 27, 2016 03:10

EponymousMrYar: Jan 4, 2015; The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

Magic Pants posted:

Am I misunderstanding something? From the intro episode, I got that time as it exists is still moving - otherwise how could we now be 500 years in the future - but human aging/creation has ceased. So externally humans continue to move through the fabric of spacetime which doesn't necessarily negate the possibility of technological advancement.

There's a significant amount of apathy implicit in this though. When you cannot give birth, age, or die there's not a whole lot of point to living, since you are effectively immortal and all you have is time.
Also, time still moves but it has been rendered nigh-meaningless due to the above.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention after all and when you don't need anything, you tend to not invent anything.

# ? May 27, 2016 03:15

Junkozeyne: Feb 13, 2012

It's probably time=progress that is stopped completely. I mean day/night cycles are still a thing and many watches rely only on their internal mechanism that you could only stop if molecular motion would be stopped and that wouldn't be a very fun game. So it's probably 500 years passed=500x365days passed but nothing happened that would really tell one day apart from the other.

# ? May 27, 2016 15:12

Zain: Dec 6, 2009; It's only forever, not long at all

Benach posted:

The whole "hundreds of years have passed" becomes even more meaningless when you realize that everything was just stagnant for those hundreds of years. Basically no advancement in technology or knowledge and people still have the dumbest problems that should have been addressed ages ago. Sure, it's the apocalypse, but it's such a slow burning one people should've done things instead of doing nothing.
Of course, you can argue that that's part of the game's writing, but I doubt it.

I don't know... This might be overthinking things but in a lot of Buddhist/Hindu writing, 12k years can pass like days go into nights and the same thing can and often does happen. Hell years pass a lot in judeo/christian story telling in almost the same way. It's hard to really say here if this is what they're going for in the same religious storytelling, but honestly I don't know if this really is a deal breaker. If people don't die or have no reason to move forward in life, I have full belief that things just don't or won't get done. So maybe it's just that whole "If Death could be postponed indefinitely; we would not actually go on postponing it indefinitely."

# ? May 27, 2016 16:05

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

It's mostly just despair, People did try to fix their situation. But after a few centuries of fruitless work, you cant blame them for giving up.

# ? May 27, 2016 20:51

Trick Question: Apr 9, 2007

It feels kind of similar to the LISA apocalypse; there's no more kids and most people have stopped giving poo poo one. At least they haven't stopped wearing shirts. Well, except for lightning sometimes.

# ? May 28, 2016 04:33

Kaboom Dragoon: May 7, 2010; The greatest of feasts

I always took it as being like Death's dimension in the Discworld books: there's not really any time any more, as time implies change. Just an ever-present 'now' where things are sometimes different. Yeah, your food goes cold if you leave it out, sometimes it gets darker, but it's not really the same thing.

# ? May 28, 2016 19:24

Judge Tesla: Oct 29, 2011

Monsters can still breed and stuff, its only humans that are dying out due to Etro's death and the cycle of life and death being broken, I have to wonder if this was Caius's grand plan but I am guessing he probably didn't care about what happened after Etro died.

# ? May 28, 2016 22:02

Admiral H. Curtiss: May 11, 2010; I think there are a bunch of people who can create trailing images. I know some who could do this as if they were just going out for a stroll.

Judge Tesla posted:

Monsters can still breed and stuff

Can they? There's a mechanic that sort of contradicts that.

# ? May 29, 2016 00:58

Artix: Apr 26, 2010; He's finally back, to kick some tail! And this time, he's goin' to jail!

Update 6: The First Intermission (Polsy) :siren:

Music

Lumina's Theme

Datalogs

quote:

God's Plan

God made a promise. He told Lightning that he would bring Serah back to her, if she became his servant and acted as his savior. She agreed at once.

But inside Lightning's mind, Lumina warns her that even if she plans to turn against God, she would be well-advised to play the loyal servant until the end. Lightning is being watched by God through Hope's eyes. But not even he can see what lies within the unseen realm. He cannot see within the Chaos, nor within the hearts of men that are made from it.

Who is this young girl who suggests that Lightning conspire against God? Lightning glimpses the shadow of Serah in Lumina as she disappears � but what does that mean?

quote:

Mythology: Eradia and the World's Remaining Time

The world has nearly reached its end; the last few days now slipping away from humanity. But the savior can give her own energy�her Eradia�to buy more time for the world.

Thirteen days is the limit to how far this time can be extended. On the thirteenth day after Lightning awakes in this world, destruction will come and it will be inescapable. That is when, it is said, God will create his new world. The savior has the power to save humanity's souls to be reborn in that new world, but the question is whether she has the time to wield it.

Eradia is intimately tied to the savior's holy task. To gather more, Lightning must free the hearts of the people from the darkness that has consumed them.

quote:

Locations: Nova Chrysalia

The people call this land � which falls further under the sway of the Chaos each day � Nova Chrysalia.

In this world, there is no aging, though the people can and do die from accidents and illness. By losing the natural progression to death, they have also lost the natural propagation of life and no new children have been born in all the centuries since the Chaos first broke into the world. For the past 500 years, the world's population has dwindled and society grown stagnant.

With no changes to mark the march of years, the decades slip past as fleeting as the seasons once did. Children stay forever innocent and simple in their hearts. Some believe that God in his mercy must have taken from humanity some parts of their hearts that would allow them to truly know the horrible fate they have been trapped in. All so that they might live on forever in peace, instead of falling prey to the despair that is their only inheritance in this world...

quote:

Legends and History: Nova Chrysalia's Past

The history of Nova Chrysalia began 500 years ago, when the walls between this world and the next broke, allowing Chaos to flood the dimension in which humanity lives.

The influx of Chaos slowly covered the lands, leaving only small tracts still inhabitable by man. The people stood strong in the face of this disaster thanks to the strength of their leader, Hope Estheim. But when he disappeared without warning 169 years ago, the bonds that had held society together began to dissolve. After many years of living with the Chaos, a church that preached of God's salvation appeared and quickly grew to power, capturing faltering hearts. This was the Order of Salvation. It brought about the great changes in the lives of the people, and returned a sense of stability of society. The people of this dying world largely chose the path of faith: bowing to their God in hope of salvation.

quote:

Legends and History: The Lost Hours

The world once counted 13 hours before noon and 13 hours after, making days that lasted 26 hours. But ever since the world was flooded by the Chaos, it has lost these 13th hours, and the days now last only 24 hours.

The two hours that disappeared from each day, lost beyond the distortion of time and space, are known by many names. Some call the phenomenon "the lost hours", others "the time given to God". Most clocks in the world have been remade to reflect the 24-hour day.

# ? May 29, 2016 03:25

Weeble: Feb 26, 2016

Would it be spoilers to talk about why Light Slash is really really good for the super-late/end game? I like the game mechanics behind why it becomes good.

# ? May 29, 2016 03:55

AlphaKretin: Dec 25, 2014; A vase to face encounter.

...Vase to meet you?

...

GARVASE DAY!

I'm totally excited Fedule, who doesn't love numbers? We're playing a JRPG! :v:

# ? May 29, 2016 04:03

Archenteron: Nov 3, 2006

So this episode, we offered Erotica to make God's Tree grow, and we learned that God cannot see Lightning when she disappears up her own rear end.

# ? May 29, 2016 06:57

ArctheNomad: Dec 30, 2012; Did you ever beat Canary Mary? No! I haven't even PLAYED Bioshock Infinite!

So I guess that you aren't going to be using the super broken DLC known as Yuna or the even more broken Fem-Cloud?

# ? May 29, 2016 08:19

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

Archenteron posted:

So this episode, we offered Erotica to make God's Tree grow, and we learned that God cannot see Lightning when she disappears up her own rear end.

Never has

truly been me appropriate than here.

# ? May 29, 2016 11:47

Scalding Coffee: Jun 26, 2006; You're already dead

How did the Chaos change the rotation of the planet's orbit?

# ? May 29, 2016 14:11

GeneralYeti: Jul 22, 2012; Look at this ~~smug~~ broken asshole.

When I first played this game, I didn't like Lumina all that much. Whenever she showed up, it just meant 'oh god now I have to watch a cutscene with people talking for another ten minutes'. Now, though, I can appreciate how much fun she has making GBS threads on Lightning the whole time.

As for Schemata talk, I typically went with one heavy physical attacker, one heavy magical attacker, and then one mixed bag so that I could keep attacking while the other two recharged.

# ? May 29, 2016 15:27

Indeterminacy: Sep 9, 2011; Excuse me, your Rabbit parts are undetached.

Scalding Coffee posted:

How did the Chaos change the rotation of the planet's orbit?

The physics reason would have to be that bits of the world were actually destroyed, giving the overall world itself less mass, and so in order to conserve angular momentum it spins faster? I don't think they worried too much about the physics though; Hope handwaves it as "spacetime was damaged", so don't worry about it, it can't be that important, right? ...

# ? May 29, 2016 19:03

Head Hit Keyboard: Oct 9, 2012; It must be fate that has brought us together after all these years.

Indeterminacy posted:

The physics reason would have to be that bits of the world were actually destroyed, giving the overall world itself less mass, and so in order to conserve angular momentum it spins faster? I don't think they worried too much about the physics though; Hope handwaves it as "spacetime was damaged", so don't worry about it, it can't be that important, right? ...

Ahahahahahaha!

# ? May 29, 2016 19:15

Artix: Apr 26, 2010; He's finally back, to kick some tail! And this time, he's goin' to jail!

Indeterminacy posted:

The physics reason would have to be that bits of the world were actually destroyed, giving the overall world itself less mass, and so in order to conserve angular momentum it spins faster? I don't think they worried too much about the physics though; Hope handwaves it as "spacetime was damaged", so don't worry about it, it can't be that important, right? ...

I'm just gonna go ahead and spoil that shockingly, this game does not give the slightest poo poo about the physics of spacetime and is handwaving the gently caress out the missing time.

# ? May 29, 2016 19:47

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

Drinking game: take a shot if the number 13 appears. For some strange reason, this game is obsessed with that number. What could it be?

# ? May 29, 2016 20:15

FoolyCharged: Oct 11, 2012; Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

Air is lava! posted:

Drinking game: take a shot if the number 13 appears. For some strange reason, this game is obsessed with that number. What could it be?

Because they lost the thirteenth hour of each morning and night? Artix you lied to us!

# ? May 29, 2016 20:23

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

Besides that, there have been a few examples so far. From the top of my head, there are 13 days in total and the mercenary team which was supposed to kill the dragon specifically consisted of 13 people.

# ? May 29, 2016 20:46

AlphaKretin: Dec 25, 2014; A vase to face encounter.

...Vase to meet you?

...

GARVASE DAY!

Across the series, 13-1 had 13 chapters which seems reasonable until you realise it takes 3 to get paradigms and 11 is ten times the length of the others.

# ? May 29, 2016 20:48

Scalding Coffee: Jun 26, 2006; You're already dead

You have Red XIII.
There might also have been some game with a variation of 13 in its name, and some big shot who was involved with the FF games or Square-Enix.

# ? May 30, 2016 04:14

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

Air is lava! posted:

Drinking game: take a shot if the number 13 appears. For some strange reason, this game is obsessed with that number. What could it be?

Blind Sally and I had a drinking game for every utterance of the word Chaos in-game. We got to like 15 I think... in the first 20 minutes alone.

# ? May 30, 2016 05:46

Eighties ZomCom: Sep 10, 2008

Hope disappeared 169 years ago, which is 13 squared.

# ? May 30, 2016 10:14

corn in the bible: Jun 5, 2004; Oh no oh god it's all true!

I fuckin love Lightning Returns. it is the best

# ? May 30, 2016 19:47

Artix: Apr 26, 2010; He's finally back, to kick some tail! And this time, he's goin' to jail!

Update 7: Under the FDA's Radar (Polsy) :siren:

Music

Luxerion (Luxerion - Morning)
Reverent Souls (Luxerion - Afternoon)
Crimson Blitz

# ? Jun 2, 2016 20:47

Blaze Dragon: Aug 28, 2013; LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

Not only FF4 does the whole "Cure doesn't work" thing, FF5 does it as well. After Galuf's death, the party tries everything to get him back, but nothing works and it's really sad.

# ? Jun 2, 2016 22:02

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# ? May 20, 2024 22:51

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

I don't know why you were so hung up on the unusable medicine. It's probably simply supposed to heal something Lighting doesn't have. Sampling someones cancer medication doesn't seem like a good idea.

# ? Jun 2, 2016 22:08

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Welcome to the end of the world, boys [Lightning Returns]

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