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Episode 3: Feedback and Thoughts

Started by KatieHal, May 16, 2013, 02:13:17 PM

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KatieHal

#20
Welcome to the forums Allie, and thank you! Haha, no worries, fangirls and boys are always welcome here :)

And the vision and what changed etc, will come up again in Ep 4. :) Good questions to be asking!

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

drusain

Yeah I think that's definitely something that will confuse people if they aren't paying close attention. In the journal Cordelia heavily implies that she's seeing the same vision that Erica is, and so Cordelia writes that as long as she doesn't show up there at all, she can't possibly shoot Erica, and so she chooses not to be at the Towers at ALL.

If you were to look at the two visions together (the normal recurring vision and the one in the ending) you'd see one main difference between the two frames: one has the shaded figure holding a gun and the other one a shaded figure not holding a gun.

Recurring vision:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Ending:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Brian Zabell
Quality Assurance/Technical Editor
I write for Andrew Greyson on The Four Winds

Fallout 3 Graham is Best Graham

drusain

Also major props for Cordelia's voice acting this episode. I thought she had a fantastic range.

Brian Zabell
Quality Assurance/Technical Editor
I write for Andrew Greyson on The Four Winds

Fallout 3 Graham is Best Graham

Allie

Thank you for the warm welcome, Katie! <3

I love that Cognition actually has us thinking instead of finishing an episode and walking away like many adventure games these days. I have a feeling I'll be thinking about this storyline for awhile even after episode 4 concludes.

Thank you drusain for posting those images. That's actually something I wanted to go back and review last night but was too tired to do it. You saved me the trouble.  ;) I also agree with you on Cordelia's voice acting. I think that's another reason it's so easy to immerse yourself in this game. The voice acting is incredible.

Mr_Nabby

First of, I'd like to compliment you on a part of the story:

[spoiler]I'm a real sucker for the ironic twists, so I love the fact that Cordelia indirectly created the Cain Killer. If she wouldn't have had that vision of Max and Skorobeus fighting, she wouldn't have asked for Keith's help to "save" Max. And that means Keith wouldn't have gotten the thrill of planning and executing their little scheme, which lead him to become the master-planning Cain Killer and kill Max. Masterful.[/spoiler]

I like that we got to stay in one location and explore this mystery, with both Erica and Cordelia. It presented a lot of interesting puzzles. And they were very well balanced!

The only real complaint I have before I have spent any real time to reflect on this, is the Le Pondu. I remember that I was annoyed by this back in episode 1- I wasn't sure at which letter the name was supposed to begin. It's probably just me, but it could have been nice to have some kind of clear indicator...
There's so many movies/games/books/comics that I don't know where to start!

Well, better start with the classics and work my way forward...

wilco64256

Note that both times you mess with a Le Pendu, the first letter is the first one you're looking at on the front. In Episode 3 there's even an empty slot after the last letter / before the first one.
Weldon Hathaway

LordBT

+ Really liked the last part of the episode with fast changing scenes between Erica and Cordelia.
+ Good mood for the entire episode, with good cutscenes.
+ Cordelia and Erica solving puzzles together. But I feel this could have been done a bit better. I wanted something more and a few larger "change in time-puzzles", like in Day of the Tentacle, which did it brilliantly.
+ All new locations! No driving around in Boston, yeyy!

- A lot of the scenes with Cordelia, Max and Keith just seemed to drag out. Thought a lot of the dialogue was boring and unnecessary.
- Didn't buy into the "Cordelia is an evil b****"-thing. Never got convinced that she was a bad person.
- The way the police acted was a bit cheesy. Did the cover up need to be that obvioius?

snabbott

Quote from: LordBT on May 21, 2013, 09:16:51 AM
- Didn't buy into the "Cordelia is an evil b****"-thing. Never got convinced that she was a bad person.
I think that was somewhat the point of Episode 3 - to make her a sympathetic character. :)

Steve Abbott | Beta Tester | The Silver Lining

Mr_Nabby

Quote from: LordBT on May 21, 2013, 09:16:51 AM
- Didn't buy into the "Cordelia is an evil b****"-thing. Never got convinced that she was a bad person.

Um...she killed Antony Longmore and Joey Goethals (That can be interpreted as evil, even if they were serialkillers).
She hanged Davies (Cordelia thought this was justified because Davies ignored her warnings, and because of that people died.)
She cut of Sully's ear and eye (Same deal, Cordelia said Sully didn't understand when she tried to tell him.)

So...whenever Cordelia is an evil b**** or not is up for debate...
There's so many movies/games/books/comics that I don't know where to start!

Well, better start with the classics and work my way forward...

KatieHal

She's very much intended to be a grey character. But yeah, in Ep 3 our big goal was to reveal not just WHO the Oracle is, but WHY she ended up like this. Whether it's justified or not is your own call!

Hell, Cesar, Nick, and I have debated at length about whether Cordelia is an evil person or not ourselves. And we don't necessarily all agree on an answer, either. :)

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Mr_Nabby

Quote from: KatieHal on May 21, 2013, 01:46:43 PM
She's very much intended to be a grey character. But yeah, in Ep 3 our big goal was to reveal not just WHO the Oracle is, but WHY she ended up like this. Whether it's justified or not is your own call!

Hell, Cesar, Nick, and I have debated at length about whether Cordelia is an evil person or not ourselves. And we don't necessarily all agree on an answer, either. :)

I wouldn't want to have it any other way!  :)
There's so many movies/games/books/comics that I don't know where to start!

Well, better start with the classics and work my way forward...

drusain

#31
Quote from: KatieHal on May 21, 2013, 01:46:43 PM
She's very much intended to be a grey character. But yeah, in Ep 3 our big goal was to reveal not just WHO the Oracle is, but WHY she ended up like this. Whether it's justified or not is your own call!

Hell, Cesar, Nick, and I have debated at length about whether Cordelia is an evil person or not ourselves. And we don't necessarily all agree on an answer, either. :)

Of course she's evil. In any way you look at it. If you look at it in D&D terms she's textbook neutral evil. If you look at it in archetypes, Cordelia fits in several villainous archetypes and not really the other way around. Hell, even Dexter's "code" kept him from killing people who weren't authority figures. Cordelia will actively kill authority figures just because did some crappy investigations.

It's not really about whether or not she's evil, because she is. She's not justified in what she does either. But can she be written to make an audience sympathize with her? Yes. And I do sympathize for her :)

Brian Zabell
Quality Assurance/Technical Editor
I write for Andrew Greyson on The Four Winds

Fallout 3 Graham is Best Graham

drusain

Though if Erica doesn't stop stealing evidence and forgetting that there are laws against "breaking and entering" she might end up being more evil than Cordelia ;)

Brian Zabell
Quality Assurance/Technical Editor
I write for Andrew Greyson on The Four Winds

Fallout 3 Graham is Best Graham

KatieHal

Well--she's done evil things, yes. I guess I mean more the question of, is Cordelia innately a bad person when you get down to it? Or is she someone who went horribly astray? Some truly awful things happened and were done to her as well after all.

Personally, I'm with you, drusain. :) But Cez doesn't think she is a bad person underneath it all, but someone who got caught up in these horrible things, and...well, more of this is discussed in Episode 4 as well, so I don't want to say TOO much about it. But, I do like that it's something that can be honestly debated about the character!

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

drusain

From what I see from Ep1-3 (ignoring Ep4) she's broken and irreparable. Any further relationship or discussion between the two women would have to be real ordeal for Erica. While they have a connection by being psions and having their brothers killed by Cain, this is also a woman who butchered Erica's love interest Sully, murdered her boss and father's friend Davies, and put Erica through mental torture when she had nothing to do with what happened to Cordelia.

I think it's funny to realize that, chronologically, the timespan between visiting crime scene in Ep1 (2 AM) and ending Ep3 is less than 2 game days. I'm surprised Erica hasn't fled the country yet with all she's been through.

Cordelia might not have been a bad person 6 years ago. 6 years ago she was younger, passionate for her family's well-being, and also a little naive. But 6 years is a long time to digest certain things, like shooting your brother point-blank (knowing that it would happen), locking Cain in chains, and knowing that it would take 6 years before anything could be resolved. Could you imagine knowing exactly about something that happens in 2019 and you're just waiting and waiting every day for it to happen so you can finally do something about it? Even knowing that you were going to have a shootout with the woman that day, and knowing where to shoot so that it would always miss her?** It would drive someone insane beyond repair.

In the two days that Erica's known Cordelia 6 years later, we know her as someone who deceives/uses Erica, is directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths/mutilations of her co-workers, and is mentally screwing Erica up. The Cordelia we saw 6 years ago is not the Hat Killer we see now.

Back when I was being introduced to Ep1, I mentioned (before I knew the story) that I thought Rose would be the opposite archetype that she is in the game, and I had originally imagined Rose as a femme fatale living in a seedy apartment. A balance between her life of order (FBI agent) and her life of chaos (learning to be a psion). I thought that Erica would grow to become increasingly insane as she continued to train with Rose and kept using her powers more and more until she broke. A "rose" is a nice thing to look at, but if you toy with it too much, you'll prick your hand on its thorns (in this case, using your powers too much).

But it turns out that in this story, it's Cordelia who goes insane, not Erica (and under different circumstances). "Cordelia" doesn't exist anymore. She's just the Hat Killer now. Broken, but redeemable.

**The dichotomy between this and Ep2 where Cordelia can run Erica over in a car has always bothered me. Maybe Cordelia figured if Erica's stupid enough to stand in front of the car she deserves to die I guess :P

Brian Zabell
Quality Assurance/Technical Editor
I write for Andrew Greyson on The Four Winds

Fallout 3 Graham is Best Graham

Cez

#35
To me the definition of evil, or the various degrees of it, depend ultimately on the goal of a person. And really, it all comes down to the perspective upheld and the morality of each person. Could we say, for example, that the governments that have waged war to defend whatever stance are evil --knowing thousands of innocent lives will be lost in the process ? That's a loaded question (in this country especially) and so I think that while I wouldn't agree with Cordelia's methods, I personally wouldn't necessarily call her "evil". She's damaged, and has a twisted sense of morality at this point, but definitely, to me, she's not evil. Just very damaged.

Real evil would come from the pleasure and enjoyment of the act of killing, for the sake of killing. That's definitely not Cordelia. I sort of think of Catwoman when I think of Cordelia :)

But don't worry, we have a few unexpected turns in Ep4 that will continue to have you debate on this topic ;)


Cesar Bittar
CEO
Phoenix Online
cesar.bittar@postudios.com

KatieHal

Not shooting Erica while she's most under cover is something Cordelia can 'control'--Erica deciding to not get out of the way of a speeding car heading towards the only exit is indeed on Erica to avoid more than Cordelia. :)

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

AlexeyT

#37
Hi. I'm from Russia, near Moscow. I paid for the Ep 3, $10 in Paypal, and received it. I can't play OK yet coz i can't make slower speed of EN subtitles. Can u pls add such option?

Speed option (slowest-slower-fast) or maybe just a pause on each subtitle until i press Space.
Maybe some key exists to pause the game?


stika

Hi Alexey, welcome to the forums!

Sorry to hear you're having issues though, I'll bring up your issues to the team :)

stika

Thank you for your feedback agewisdom! :)