SureAI

Braescher wrote:

It should be obvious now with the title: if you have not finished Enderal don't open the next spoiler box. Please. Also, if you are not prepared for a long text... I'm sorry.

[+]

First of all, I loved this story. It did something only a few games understand: it had balance. Sure, it was gloomy, dark and shocking but also had many moments of hope, victory, the feeling of achieving something. There were very sad moments but also there were few moments of happines. The way I see it, the happy moments give sadness more meaning and vice versa. You can only feel sad about a character if you have seen his happiness so you understand his pain. And happy moments are much more effective after a sad scene because you just need to feel brighter after the trauma of the sad scene. This moments were perfectly crafted with the right combination of a good voice acting, master piece soundtrack and the absurd understand the mod devs have of the power of visual tools such as lightining, background sounds and the good and old symbolism. Ok, that is my overall opinion about the mod. Now bear with me because I have one complaint about it (and to be honest this is not an exclusive complaint towards Enderal as many other games commit this "sin").

I'm am in a desperate need for a god damn happy ending. No moral ambiguity, no black and white versus grey metaphor and I don't want to choose between my life and my happiness. I just need to feel happy when I see the credits. I know I have no right to demand that the writter changes his artistic vision to please me and I do not think the endings are bad, quite the contrary they are very well written. The "destroy the beacon ending" really catches the meaning of ascension and sacrifice and the "flee to the star city" ending despite the sadness over the cleansing manages to be quite relaxing.

But somehow, I feel that my playtrough was meaningless. Maybe this is just some accumulated frustration since I have recently finished the Mass Effect series and left that game with a bitter taste in my mouth because of the ending. Maybe I think I am tired of the whole "dark fantasy" and "G.R.R Martin sadism". Whatever the case is Enderal is another story that I feel deserved a good and old fashioned happy ending with a kiss as the lovers ride towards the sunset. Ok, it did not need to be that much Disney fairytale ending, but at least something like Dragon Age Inquisition, especially in the Trespasser DLC. When I finished DAI, I felt fulfilled. I defeated my enemy despite all the times when all hope was lost. I managed to find happines in love amidst the chaos of war. I felt that despite the "kinda sequel bait" ending, my journey as the Inquisitor was complete. I won, I have conquered my enemy. I have seen death, destruction, the bloody end of the world and yet I lived to tell the tale. And that felt amazing.

People underestimate the power of happy endings. And in my opinion the daker the story is the happier the ending needs to be to achieve that feeling of victory and satisfaction. Enderal had me crying over the abandoned boy who was rejected because of his appearance. Had me worried about Calia when the Nehremese almost killed them. Had me angry with Jespar's sister for killing him. Had me frustrated at the final betrayal and the the downfall of Arantheal. And despite the moments of hope and happines I had, neither of the endings managed to make me feel like the story had a satisfactory ending. On the "destroy the beacon" I just felt sad. Not only I had to leave Calia, die (again), I also had to see Enderal be consumed due to the egocentric behavior of its leaders. I have sacrificed myself for a "chance" that other nations could defeat the High Ones. And even with the "ascencion" of the prophetess finally getting closure, I felt like I have wasted my time trying to save mankind. I felt really sad so I decided to give the other ending a try. After all the time I have spent bonding to Calia and caring about the character I just had to see that romance having a happy ending. So then I again I witnessed the destruction of Enderal as Arantheal goes "I led them to light... I alone". We fled to the Star City and for a moment during the dream sequence I though that the game would have me fail the travel and die with Calia. That would have made me a very angry and miserable human being. When I woke up, the silence made me feel like an selfish jerk that chose his personal feelings over millions of lifes. Sure, I felt somewhat happier because at least Calia was with me, but when I started thinking about Jespar and people who have died during the journey like Peghast, I felt that I have accomplished nothing. Because, sure, I am immortal soon to be god of the new world but not only I am filled with doubts such as "will Calia survive? can I make her immortal like me?" but also, I will never see this future because the game was over. Honestly a good ending should make you feel like the story is over and you have seen the ending. Imagining the future after the end of the game makes you feel like the journey even if enjoyable was pointless.

The Witcher is a good example It crushes you constanly with hard choices, dark moments, grotesque scenes. It kills the people you love. But then, at the ending (if you play your cards right), there is an actual "happily ever after". Even more on the Blood and Wine DLC since you actually sees the house that Geralt will live with his Yennefer (in my case of course) and you know from the ending of the main story that Siri is ok and she will be happy (in my case again). The tale is over, you have won.

I had some expectations about the ending of Enderal. And this is my opinion, once again I do not claim to understand about game design or story telling more than the SureAi guys. This is what I imagined and would have made me feel actually better. I thought that Enderal would be like Skyrim and let me continue playing after the ending. I wanted to beat the crap out of the High Ones and who knows maybe complete the bounty quests I did not complete, with Calia as an actual follower, like Skyrim. Buy a house in the noble quarter of Ark, explore the misteries of the island with Calia, keep on building my legend and aquiring skills to make me the most badass Entropist/Elementarist of Vyn. All of that with Calia beside me as I rode Whirlwind, my faithful donkey towards a mob of angry bonerippers. Who better than Calia and Whirwind to help me chase the "Myths and legends"? These were my expectations for the ending. AND I REALLY HOPE SOME TALENTED MODDER OVER THERE reads this text and creates a "happy ending mod" for enderal which I can marry Calia and travel the land with her after the main quest. (here's hoping *nudge nudge wink wink*)

There are no relevant plot holes in my opinion. I don't mind the mistery around the Veiled Woman for example. And despite the bitter taste the game ending gave me, the endings were well written. But, still I feel disapointed with the journey because as I have said before, not only I am tired of morally ambiguos endings and the overall feeling of time wasted that those endings create, but also a story that managed to find a good balance of opposite feelings deserves a rewarding victory with the couple living happily ever after. That, despite sounding naive and childish is much more powerful in a darker story than a dark ending or an ending that leaves you wondering "Why can't I be happy after all the pain I have been trough?".

To be honest, if there was a happy ending and the game continued as a "sandbox" after, I would continue playing it. I might even had started another playtrough. But right now, I do not want to live trough that disapointment again (even if the disapointment was quite visually beatiful and poetic).

I hope to see more from Enderal in the future. A "DLC" that continues the history or a prequel story, I don't know. I will also keep an eye for future mods or games by SureAI because this team is very talented. But please SureAI I am really tired of feeling miserable on my RPGs.

Side note: Not sure if this fits on this section or if it fits better on Questions, Critique & Wishes. I'm sure the moderators will judge that correctly.

Braescher wrote:

Yeah, the story is very well written and wrapped up indeed. Still, a happier tone would have made, in my opinion, a better ending overall. I supose that contuining the game as a sandbox is a problem because of the whole extinction thing but then again I think that this story did not deserve to have the cleansing to be a true possibility. Maybe the fact that Skyrim is a never ending game made me expect Enderal to also be one or maybe the sheer size of Enderal with so much land not covered by the main story made wish that I had time after the storyline to explore it if only to avoid the infamous feeling of "ludonarrative dissonance". Because I do not feel compelled to explore the world because of the urgency of my mission. I feel like: "The Order needs me to stop this diabolical enemy. But first lemme enter this cave that is away from the road and has nothing to do with the urgent task I have". When I play this type of RPG I tend to be VERY immersed on the storyline, so I couldn't just explore caves, dungeons and misteries while Arantheal was constanlty reminding me that the end was near. I felt that nothing was more important than stoping the High Ones and everything else would have to wait. It is the same thing that happens in other Bethesda games. "Oh I need to prevent Alduin from devouring the world, but first lemme engage a guild in pursuit of grand larceny and riches" or "Damn I need to find my son after spending 200 years in cryo sleep, but first lemme grow some vegetables for a settlement full of people I don't really care about". The difference is that you can postpone that in Skyrim and Fallout. You can focus on your goal and then pursuit the other misteries of the land on your own pace without having to worry about the end of the world. Sure, I did explore some dungeons and went sidequesting sometimes. But the majority of the "sidequest" content I made was before I reached Ark and discovered that the Cycle was going to destroy civilization soon. Other than that I did some quests when the main story required me to wait for a day or two.

Maybe if any modder feels like I do we will have our own version of the Mass Effect MEHEM mod, that gave us a happy ending. Who knows. For now, I feel somewhat frustrated with the ending despite enjoying the writting of both endings.

Ragnarok wrote:

Yeah, I get what you're saying. I knew that Enderal had a fixed ending before playing, so I took care of exploring everything I could (I think I unlocked the whole map locations) before triggering the Main Quest, so that I could then pursue the main story fully immersed.

Make no mistake: Exploring in Enderal, even before triggering the main story, is outstanding and very rewarding.

I just disagree with what you say regarding the endings: they are as they should be, in my opinion.
Although Nicolas seems to have hinted at a third secret ending in the probable DLC, so... let's see.

Braescher wrote:

I can think of three possible DLCs and two of them would adress the ending somehow.

1. A prequel story of some sort in which you do not play as the prophet and that would try to answer some of our questions, maybe with more hooks to the Nehrim mod or more answers to the Veiled Woman role

2. A sort of "Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut" DLC that complements existing scenes, adds new quests and gives the "alternate secret ending"

3. Extra sidequest content and other storylines like guild quests

But my only hopes are for a happy ending with post endgame content anyway. lol. Part of me wouldn't mind crazy plot devices to make that happen. Even if it is not possible to create so much optional content as the vanilla game with the time and resources SureAI had I was hoping for a "similar" experience. You know, a game that I could come back, create a new character and play a different story. I respect and appreciate the fact they decided to have a much more focused storyline because even if Skyrim kept me interested in the urgency of the main story, I did not care too much about the characters and the events the way I cared for Enderal characters and events. But I still wanted to keep on playing Enderal after destroying the High Ones and stopping the cleansing. I think I am just hungry for more immersive RPGs like this one.

And after all, Even if the Enderal ending remains like this and we don't get DLCs I will keep following SureAI's next mod/game. You guys just joined my favorite devs list.

Moirai wrote:

I did have my own concerns regarding the rather negative ending, and posted those thoughts in a different topic. I won't spam it here as well, although it's arguably more relevant to this thread, but here's the link if you are interested:

http://forum.sureai.net/viewtopic.php?f ... 234#p88234

Ragnarok wrote:

I get your points and agree that it is not designed as a wRPG experience. In fact, my personal opinion is that far too many games nowadays have followed that "I live a hero" approach rather than Enderal's "I live a story", but that's me.

However, I disagree that it has no replay value. Ever since the VHS era, we all watch our favourite stories on film several times and find different aspects. Before that, books did something similar (in a more imaginative way, in my opinion).

Why do we watch and read our favourite movies and books if we already know the story, then? Because it fascinates us, probably still has something to be discovered or understood. That's my main disagreement.

Moirai wrote:

Ragnarok wrote:

I get your points and agree that it is not designed as a wRPG experience. In fact, my personal opinion is that far too many games nowadays have followed that "I live a hero" approach rather than Enderal's "I live a story", but that's me.

However, I disagree that it has no replay value. Ever since the VHS era, we all watch our favourite stories on film several times and find different aspects. Before that, books did something similar (in a more imaginative way, in my opinion).

Why do we watch and read our favourite movies and books if we already know the story, then? Because it fascinates us, probably still has something to be discovered or understood. That's my main disagreement.

Thanks for reading and the response. Much appreciated.

I would certainly agree with the 'hero' issue and, personally, I'm not keen on games that automatically hand you the keys to 'Hero Manor' at the end. It's kind of trite. However, in truth, neither am I keen on games (and this is a general comment) that present the concept of a challenge and the possibility of success and then remove it at the last moment because the author want to be edgy and make you speculate. That's just an ego thing, rather than a proper consideration of the player's enjoyment and overall satisfaction with their experience. Yes, it can work in films and books because they are linear, non-interactive media. But a game is interactive by its nature and that needs to be taken into account when writing the story.

If you use media that presents the player with the presumption of choice and interaction, and cause and effect, then you should, at least in part, allow the player a degree of control over events via their choices. Otherwise, it is nothing more than an illusion, and becomes obviously so by the time you reach the end.

Bottom line; options for 'success' or 'failure' based on player choice is far better, especially so if success is so much more difficult to achieve.

That said, I guess it's down to what each individual looks for in a game of this type and their own personal perspective. However, the whole point of any 'game' (whether computer games, board games, sports, etc) is to present you with a task and encourage you to work to meet and overcome that challenge. It is the achievement of satisfaction in rising to that challenge and beating it that drives us to engage in such pastimes. If you are presented with a challenge that you cannot best, then that, for me anyway, negates any point in re-engaging with it, no matter how well it is presented.

*shrugs* I guess I've had my virtual fingers burnt too many times by other games which have played out in a similar manner to be particularly amenable to it in this instance. Probably especially so since Enderal's story is so similar to some of them in terms of basic plot concept.

Braescher wrote:

I think that the power to shape the world via your actions or not is rather tied to the overal game mechanics. By that I mean that open world RPGs benfit the most from having more decisions and different outcomes based on your decisions than other games. Even if the differences are subtle. Skyrim for example: from a "mechanical" perspective the only difference between Imperials and Stormcloaks is what uniform the guards will use, which faction will have rogue patrols on the country and who the Jarls will be. But the fact that these outcomes are affected by your power is crucial to the game. The choice is an illusion but the outcomes make you feel like you shaped Skyrim's destiny.

Some games however benfit very little from having the power to choose your path. One of my favourite games ever is Metal Gear Solid 3. That games would benfit nothing from relying on the player to choose the path the story will take. You have a lot of options on the paths you take to your objetive, on how you deal with your enemies, lethal or non letal and you can even kill "The End" much earlier than intendended and skip a whole boss battle. But in the end, the story is already written and you are pretty much guiding Snake from cutscene to cutscene.

Sure you might argue that some cRPGs and jRPGs have both open world mechanics and many jRPGs don't give you much power to decide the course of the story. But then again most jRPGs do not let you create your own character and you know from the start that you are playing the story of character X and not you are not roleplaying freely. In Final Fantasy for example, despite the name you give to your character, Squall is the sad boy with the gunblade and emo personality and Cloud is the ex-Soldier with the huge blade and emo personality. And cRPGs usually give you so much options to choose that you don't even know what to do sometimes.

My point is: I think that the Enderal storyline would feel less frustrating (to me) if the whole open world aspect and maybe even the character customization was removed. If I never had to choose anything I would not feel so powerless when the story ended.

Ragnarok wrote:

Good point.

I wonder if that frustration Enderal seems to cause is not a parallel to reality, where the impression of choice is often an illusion as well.

Braescher wrote:

For example, if you get frustrated because you voted on a politician but he does not get enough votes to get in office you might as well do not vote on the next election, you might vote again on him, you might vote on his adversary, you might leave your country, you might change your name to Grushteniek, you might drink pepsi and not give a single damn about it etc.

Moirai wrote:

Interesting discussion...

I guess it depends on what you personally look for in games, and what you expect to get out of them as a result. To be frank, and these are general comments, I don't play games to feel frustrated, irritated or unsatisfied at their conclusion. Like most, I get enough of those feelings in real life. What I imagine most people look for in a game is something that challenges them, and then rewards them when they best that challenge. It's a standard ploy which is ingrained into our behavioral psyche from a very early age. Take your medicine and get a treat, eat your greens and get a nice pudding, do your homework and get to go out with your friends, etc, and so on. And with games we expect it to work that way as well, because most do. And, besides, why would you play the game if it didn't? Reward is what ultimately makes the entertainment enjoyable and fun, and a pleasing distraction from real life woes. It's the challenge and reward system that keeps you going, and brings you back to experience that feel good factor again. If you don't get rewarded for your efforts or, at worst, get punished for them, you naturally question the reasons for even taking on that challenge again. That's perfectly understandable.

Some people may say that it's the journey and not the destination that is important. Personally, I think that's nonsense. After all, you could have the most wonderful drive through the countryside on your way to the coast. But if your car caught fire on arrival and left you stranded there, any thoughts of how good the journey was would quickly evaporate. On the other hand, if you had a terrible journey, but your destination was wondrous and fulfilling, it would all be worth it. In essence, 'last' impressions count when it comes to experiences. And entertainment experiences are no different.

I think an important aspect of any game writing is to ask oneself; is the player going to enjoy this? If the answer is, 'I'm not sure', or 'maybe', or 'I think so', or worst case scenario 'I don't care', then it's probably worth re-evaluating how you proceed. After all, you are writing for game entertainment purposes, not the Booker Prize or Hugo Award.

Entertainment is about providing people with an enjoyable experience, not a miserable one. Yes, you can play with people's emotions during the course of the story, and make them happy or sad along the way. But, irrespective of that journey, a potential destination should be an enjoyable one.

Good endings are cliched, that is true. But they're cliched for a reason. Because they are popular.

Trite it may be, but people prefer 'happy' for some reason.

Games, being interactive, have a distinct advantage over other story-telling media, inasmuch as you can allow for good or bad results based on actions and decisions. With this in mind, I feel that there is no fundamental reason why 'happy' cannot be included as an option somewhere.

After all, destinations are the reason we travel in the first place, and most people prefer a pleasant one.

But coming back to Enderal; it's worth bearing in mind that this is an incredible piece of work by some extraordinarily talented individuals, provided to us for free. We are not owed anything, nor do we get to demand anything, and I would not assume otherwise. The above is simply a collection of general observations and thoughts.