#overworking their employees with all these game releases and not caring about the bugs plus the newer games are more money hungry

[littlecafe]

bh used to always be so excited about releasing new songs and wanting to spoil them, so this is just so disheartening. the members not saying or posting anything speaks volumes about it too. we cant even enjoy the last few days with them and say goodbye..

yes exactly the only thing pd101 did for them was give the group the exposure to show themselves. and that producer who went to jail because of the rigging who revealed that bh had an anxiety attack on the street?? and then try and say he WANTED to be rigged out after they revealed he was supposed to be in w1? and gosh dont get me started on those solo fans, the hate all the members got was absolutely ridiculous. the boys can barely have any peace.

i have no clue why, even if pledis sucks id much rather their name be under them.

ahh yea idk why they were always left out of things, nuest was the only group who didnt get a seasons greetings after the merger and they were the only one who didnt get added to the company's rhythm game as well. like why are they always getting ignored??

sorry i was gone for a few days so i'm barely getting to this now!!

in retrospect, the shift after the merger is too real like all the album promos they had after their p101 run and they clearly have the songs to release too but all that...just. gone ;_; ahhh exactly!! it has been all quiet, the only time we've gotten to hear from them were those letters everything is just so sad

since i'm replying late, everything has been released now...i'm too scared to watch the mv and listen to the song, i saw a snippet of the lyrics through the reddit comments while browsing and i already tears up ;____; will try to work up the courage to do watch it later tonight or tomorrow i just really can't believe it's the last, it's coming to an end..

also mini rant/ i was planning on getting this album, just because i've never bought a nu'est album before and this is the final one i feel like i should get it but with how everything went down, with how clearly rushed it looks, how little effort was given to them not just for this "goodbye" album but for basically their entire existence together....the album would be such a bitter buy like just having it and looking at it's white cover ugh...i might still get it anyways but i don't know!!! i'm so on the fence!! it's like buy it to support the boys like, yes we're here LOVEs are still here going strong even if it's the end we love you always, but buying it doesn't change anything....getting good numbers for this album won't magically un-disband them....pledis and **** will still not care AND they get a cut of the sales anyways

p101 really saved them but it's like should i even be thankful to that cursed show, everything else about it was terrible, the rigging, the editing, the drama, i'm grateful they got the best thing they could out of it which was positive exposure and a loving fanbase but god the journey relating to that show is a mess, the solo stans were absolute hell like please just have a normal bias like everyone else smh always doing the most with all of the hate towards the other members

omg seriously??? he really tried and claim all of that happened?? what is wrong with him god he's sick i never caught that part of news because i really just hated the mess that surrounded it, just remembered seeing that he went to jail in the end and i moved on, he's such a terrible human being jfc

exactly and it would make more sense to have it under pledis since that's where they debut like what...8-9 years ago? like why does pledis not even have the rights to their name lmao

huh??? they didn't get a season's greeting either??? omg i'm so out of it i didn't even know that....seriously why are they treated like that...it's not like they don't have fans...it doesn't make sense to just leave them out of things especially when the company gets a cut of the revenue too like you don't want money either?? and ugh that rhythm game, i saw it in my app store the other day i have no idea when they added seventeen, was it not recent? if it wasn't then they could've added nu'est around the same time too but if it's more recent then well. seems like they've been wanting to kick nu'est out for a while now we just didn't realize but they've truly received nothing 🙄🙄 IM SO BITTER

that cursed rhythm game, i might be more annoyed at that game's existence than the average person because as an (ex) dalcom supporter i had a big problem with how b**h** handled the remainder of their contract with dalcom and the superstar bts game 2 years ago, i think i might have deleted my own personal post of it from my blog but if anyone is curious about what i'm talking about, i've dug up the reddit post (also filled with people discussing said company's greedy tendencies and upon other things...)

i think superstar bts, superstar pledis, and superstar gfriend are the only dalcom games that have shut down so far if memory serves me right lol i have a hard time keeping track of their games now because they've made way too many (for gfriend it was because of their disbandment...the other two were for...other reasons open to interpretation)

[vroenis]

Uncharted 4: An Era’s End

It’s recently come to light that game developer Naughty Dog has been subjecting its employees to crunch; the practice of overworking and underpaying staff in order to meet deadlines. This is not unique to Naughty Dog, nor to their current project pending release later this year, The Last Of US 2. Reports suggest that crunch has been endemic in the working culture of Naughty Dog for some time and this is now no surprise to us as such reports continue to surface about studio after studio, most in the corporately structured, premium funded and managed space we call “triple A” or AAA, but many smaller studios and independent spaces also. Several senior and long-tenured creatives have left Naughty Dog quite recently, and some may have been leaving earlier than those that have been reported during what’s turning out to be a turbulent development cycle for The Last Of Us 2.

Each month, as part of the paid subscription to the Playstation Plus online service, Sony offers a small selection of games. For April, one of them was Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, from which I derived my title. Not only am I here to suggest the studio’s troubles may have begun during the development of this game, first released back in 2016, but the title may have been one of the first significant indications that the book was closing on AAA development as we know it. I appreciate there have been many good voices shouting from the rooftops about the how unsustainable it’s been from before then, but the Naughty Dog for a long time seemed like a light in the dark, signalling that a big studio could still produce good product under strong leadership.

I feel that Uncharted 4 rather than The Last Of Us 2 is the real light, and instead of a light-house, it turned out to be a signal-fire warning that even then the composure of Naughty Dog was an illusion.

This piece is going to contain significant spoilers for Uncharted 4. It’s also not investigative - I just played it for the first time, completed it and I have some thoughts about it; these are my thoughts.

I didn’t like the third game at all. I took nothing away from it. I’ll never play it again as there’s nothing I want to relive from it, so I’d better look up the wiki on what happened in it... well that didn’t help at all as I don’t remember playing any of that, it was so unmemorable. I remember the wandering around in the desert bit and then some shooting in the desert which was all pointless. There were also some puzzles with shadow puppets that were almost good but so short and pointless, those two things sum up my feelings about the third game entirely.

What a way to start.

I’ve replayed the first and second games once each, so I’ve played those each twice thru and have decided that the first game is overlong and poorly paced, and the second game is the best and probably two-thirds good. Honestly, Elena should drop the Drakes in the ocean, run-off with Chloe and keep in touch with Sully because those are the only three characters with any depth and meaning. Let’s roll-back a bit.

I get that Nathan’s supposed to be a charming, happy-go-lucky character and for the most part, it works. Maybe I’m just getting too old for it or it’s wearing too thin. I really think the third game was completely unnecessary. When I review my notes on the fourth game, I think about the emotional quandary it attempts to set up i.e., ultimately that Nathan should be more honest with Elena - spoiler; he isn’t, but don’t worry it all works out *SPIT* - this was already a problem I was ready to face at the end of the second game. Given my feelings on the third game, I’d have much preferred a simple trilogy and conclusion that faced that emotional brunt to wrap things up. Naturally of-course, that’s not how money-spinners work.

If Uncharted 4 doesn’t spend time on Elena, who does it spend time on? Nathan has a brother! To be fair, I love Troy Baker as a voice actor and if there’s one thing that is consistent in Naughty Dog games, it’s excellent voice acting. I don’t know if I’m now biased after seeing so much of Nolan North and Troy Baker on YouTube outside of their VO talent work, but they’re wonderful people and their professional work is always great. The supporting cast is always great, too - so too the villains even if the narrative arcs are always completely absurd. I know these are always a bit of a lark, you can’t take them too seriously so I can’t hold Uncharted up to Kentucky Route Zero (got my mention in) and shake them comparatively, that’s not fair. It’s OK to have an excuse for a romp even if it does wear on a bit over time.

The problems I have with Uncharted 4 specifically are things like the level and environmental design. I’ve never gotten lost in this franchise up until now when it happened in almost every level... several times. I simply didn’t know where to go. There would be absolutely no clear indication of where to go and no assists, no subtle environmental guide and no camera nudges to help. There is a timer that eventually tells the player where to go and at times, this is tied to deaths so at one point I just threw Nathan off cliffs repeatedly to respawn until the hint appeared. This is unquestionably stupid design. I began to wonder if this was due to criticism that previous games had too much hand-holding, but when the UI assist was finally given and I made my way to the next check-point, I would *never* have found it under normal exploratory gameplay.

This remained true during several moments of scripted action sequences, some including during combat which brings up something else I now remember about the third game. I still couldn’t tell you when it was other than I didn’t know where to go and it was stupid, so there you have it. Maybe the third game was the real signal fire in my metaphor, who knows. In any case, constantly reverting to check-points and having to repeat, not understanding why you’re failing when the game isn’t telegraphing what you need for a success state in a scripted sequence is an exercise in frustration I’m not willing to ever repeat. While I’m not a souls-like player, I completely appreciate the admiration and respect for those games because they have rules that are clear to parse. Video games are *all about* providing feedback to the player. I’m not saying it’s easy, it is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve but it is literally the job you set out to do, it is the only vehicle you have to convey the lofty emotions you want to communicate to your audience.

And then there’s the driving. Naughty Dog. Do not put driving in your games. This is something you’re not able to do.

I don’t want to bash the driving so hard because at this point I feel like it may have been bolted on without time to make it stick correctly. This is the first game in the title where the hot-zones for interactions weren’t quite right. Where I bugged out of animations and had check-points or re-spawns instanced or loaded. Where I glitched out and fell off things, where I had to walk back and forth in-front of things to make buttons appear. The edges of that Naughty Dog polish were fraying. I’d attempt to do a thing and it just wouldn’t work, I’d fall to my death. I’d attempt to do the same thing the same way and it would work. Again this is dredging up more nondescript memories of the third game so I’m beginning to have my suspicions about the working environment there and when in the timeline things started getting bad - but cameras and jumping distances got really difficult to judge. One gap at one time would be fine to jump, then another would have you plunge to your death, and they’d be inconsistent to read or judge. These were not frequent, as with the third game, almost as if the artists and level designers were given time to adjust lighting and camera geometry tracking and control mapping as much as possible but just couldn’t get to them all. But throughout the games, it creeps in more and more.

I’d talk about combat - it’s functional, but it’s not interesting. These games don’t add anything interesting to the genre or video games in general. I play the games on easy because I don’t need to prolong the experience, I don’t actually have the physical time - if I could play the games without combat, I would. There are other games to play if I want dexterity challenges which I do engage in, Uncharted isn’t one of them. Even in 2016 I’m not entirely sure this would have turned heads. I realise I’m playing this a full four years later, but it’s hard to think of the sum-total of this game’s parts and see it as relevant...

But you know what? Uncharted 4 visually looks immaculate. Outside of the voice-acting and sound design, without question, the highest priority has been given to the visual fidelity of this game inclusive of the animations. So much has been invested in how the tech works, to the abandonment of everything else, I’d say the for example, the driving suffered the most, level design next, then interaction scripting. The attention to detail in the environments is stupendous...

...yet it’s all hollow. You know what? I don’t care about pirates and adventures anymore. Whatever. By the fourth game, I don’t care. I totally get that the game’s not for me but I played it and I’m writing how I feel about it. You’re telling me a story about a guy who met the person of his dreams and marries, then his brother turns up and he can’t be honest to his wife? Meow meow meow it’s all for the sake of drama so we skip over all the details but the contrivance is too much. You want me to accept these things on face value, then on face value, I say Nathan and his brother can go get fucked.

I took particular issue with the comically brief relationship discussion Elena and Nathan have after she saves him and they set off together in which she concludes she’s with him “for better or for worse”, which from memory the game chapter is titled after. Now either the character genuinely believes she owes him under the sanctity of nuptial obligation or she’s using it as a justification of such. This is a wholly unsatisfying discussion for me was when I finally checked out of this game - sure I should have done so hours before but this was the last straw and the indication that I am definitely too old for this shit - but this is a horrifying and stupid message to be spouting. Elena don’t owe anyone shit. Married or not, she’s free to save Nathan if she wants to, for any reason, but she’s certainly not obliged to. I despise this massive chunk of traditionalist patriarchy smashed into her character and the narrative, even if it is “well it’s just about her character” yea great, so that just re-enforces her as a loyal dog-trophy for the main character in the on-going male power-fantasy shenanigans shit-train. Nathan’s behaviour isn’t exactly selfish but it’s certainly not adult or considerate. He behaves like a child not taking on an appropriate level of responsibility. Others around him, being Elena and Sully, continuously bail him out - literally saving his life while endangering their own, and he continues to behave like a manchild that neither acknowledges their physical and emotional labour nor does he grow and evolve as an individual. What a fucker. Does he ever sort his shit out, ask Elena what she wants to do for a career and support whatever the fuck she wants to do with her life? Of-course the fuck he doesn’t. Know why? Because he’s a literal man-baby. And his brother is too. But that’s OK cos  he’s a fucken jock-hero and a funny guy so as long as we can all laugh about it and the narrative says-so and it all works out in the end and he gets the girl and she ends-up supporting his career anyway, it’s aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall fine.

Nathan should have died and Elena shouldn’t have given a fuck.

I know I know, it’s not that serious. Look I’ve been thru some shit, alright? I can see it both ways. Sometimes you don’t think about stupid shit that deep and sometimes you do. Most of the time, I do, and most of the time, I take it to the nth degree, so yea, shit like that gets to me. I call it bad writing, so no, I don’t like the story. At all. Nathan’s supposed to be flawed but nothing ever costs him. When people make mistakes in life, those mistakes cost. The unfortunately thing is the cost is most often paid by the others around them, and sometimes they themselves never realise it. I don’t like stories where there’s a fuckhead at the centre but everyone still stays happy. Nathan seems to have been given a lesson, but I don’t think he earned it. This is why y’all watch Game of Thrones and are surprised when characters die because you keep consuming narratives with no stakes, and GoT is *still* only middling stuff.

Anyway.

How could Elena’s character have been given more attention? Uncharted 4 isn’t all bad. The most valuable thing Naughty Dog achieved was the recreation of real domestic spaces; the Drake households. Twice, we’re given time and space and encouraged to explore them without being funnelled by level design, events, NPC shepherding or audio cues. Rooms and the objects that fill them are meticulously and beautifully created, and they're given life and purpose in a way that has meaning far beyond all the pirate nonsense that while almost as equally beautiful, is completely vacuous.

Putting on Elena’s vinyl record as her daughter Cassie was the only time I enjoyed the music in the game, and it was a great call-back to Nathan having done the same thing in their house much earlier. Sure, there’s the Drake theme that repeats ad nauseam throughout the series but otherwise the soundtrack is bland and unremarkable adventuring fare. It contributes more to the feeling of this game being out of touch, contrasted to something like Control which certainly has a completely different setting, sure - but that’s part of it, so that affords the creative team room for more modular synths and drones and to have a distinct sound.

Walking thru those houses, first as Nathan but really as the player repositioning themselves from adventurer to ordinary life-living person in a domestic setting, and then as Cassie - daughter of these two amazing characters in an equalling urbane setting yet filled with wonderful objects, made up the most fascinating and enjoyable moments of the game for me. The mess of each room gave the houses the perfect lived-in feel to a degree that most other games struggle to achieve, probably due to how much effort it takes to get that much geometry mapped in - Giant Sparrow’s What Became of Edith Finch is probably one of the few games that has come close. The difference between the tropical islands, decaying pirate mansions and the domestic Drake residences is that the houses felt like everything in there felt like it meant something and was in there for a reason, like it had been part of something. I don’t mean that just for the objects that were intrinsically tied to implicit narrative beats like collectables or even items from countries where Uncharted 4 or prior games are set, but also things like towels, washing baskets, plates and dishes, books and picture frames, shampoo bottles, food - the detail in the fridges! That you can feed Cassie’s dog, Vicky is the most meaningful interaction of the game - by the way, the second most meaningful set of interactions is buying an apple in the market in Madagascar then playing with lemur and letting it take the apple.

Back to the houses, I’m disappointed we never got to walk through one of them as Elena. Now that the core of the franchise is wrapped, I’m left with the impression that she’s the most important character in the series and she’s left woefully under-served. This is a very me thing, and unsurprising. I doubt anyone else cares enough about writing and character to have thoughts like this. They’re into Uncharted for the adventuring and the shooting, but as soon as you present me the opportunity for character drama and you want to have a red-hot go at it, I’m here to set aside the rest of that guff and go for it. The running and jumping and shooting never changes, and I’m here to say that the puzzling could have stepped up orders of magnitude that Naughty Dog never committed to - Crystal Dynamics did far better with Rise Of The Romb Raider, and while the puzzling was never really difficult, the way I described it to a friend was to liken the puzzles to desk toys; not intended to be too challenging, but more satisfying in their tactile nature. I feel Fireproof’s The Room series for iOS and Android are great examples of providing similar sensations.

I don’t mind a game mostly about shenanigans, I just don’t want it centred around a character that won’t learn, or who gets off cheaply. Elena is infinitely more interesting to me - her concerns, her desires - Chloe too, for that matter, and I absolutely am not above making the joke about shipping them as I’m sure thousands have before me (no I won’t write a fanfic about them, I’m sure there are plenty around).

I didn’t play the first The Last of Us. There was a horrifically jarring moment when the game felt it was over-playing its sense of cinema to me, then had a sudden camera zoom transition onto I think the first combat gameplay and I checked out. The tone of that game is trying to telegraph TAKE ME SERIOUSLY and I feel all I’m going to do is read tonally similar things to what I have here but far worse. Also post-apocalypse is easy pickings for bad writing, especially by video games narrative writers, I just don’t have the patience. I’m pleased that there’s lesbian representation in the second game but I’m not sure it’ll be handled with sensitivity. While I’m in no way invested in the game as a product, I continue to be concerned for the welfare of the employees at Naughty Dog, and all game developers everywhere, as always. It is a hugely unregulated industry that is in the process of slow collapse, and now more than ever do we need reform and cultural change.

And in the midst of that, one day we’ll get a decent game that’s about domestic partnerships and wonderful emotional relationships with stunning visual fidelity; maybe it’ll have running and jumping and shooting and maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll end sadly and maybe it’ll end happily but hopefully it’ll be well-written. 

Here’s to Elena.