are we all seriously ignoring Uldren's last words? He states flat out he isn't innocent, even after realizing Riven tricked him.

I couldn't remember the specifics of his last scene, but I vaguely remembered my feelings during the first playthrough going something like this:

1) Need to find and kill Uldren.
2) Find out he's being controlled by Riven. I guess we can't really blame him for the Cayde thing.
3) Oh, yeah. Riven has made him Mayor of Crazy Town. He's definitely not in control of himself. We're probably going to end up forgiving him. Maybe he'll even team up with the Guardians.
4) Huh. Never mind. He really was just an asshole. I'm going to enjoy killing him.
5) I REALLY hope I was the one who pulled the trigger.

Now I need to play that last mission again to see what made me change my mind at 4.

-Disciple

Um. No. Playing Bioshock Infinite while ignoring the audio logs leaves you with a very incomplete understanding of motivations.

And you can say the same about The Last of Us if you fail to read found notes or recordings.

I read none and listened to none, and I understood everything as presented perfectly.

Um. No. Playing Bioshock Infinite while ignoring the audio logs leaves you with a very incomplete understanding of motivations.

And you can say the same about The Last of Us if you fail to read found notes or recordings.

Frankly, whether you wanted it or not, we've stepped into a war with the Cabal on Mars. So let's get to taking out their command, one by one. Valus Ta'aurc. From what I can gather he commands the Siege Dancers from an Imperial Land Tank outside of Rubicon. He's well protected, but with the right team, we can punch through those defenses, take this beast out, and break their grip on Freehold.

I’d argue that the way it’s presented is more interesting. The narrative asks the moral question about justice vs revenge, and then the lore cards slowly fill in Uldren’s story and make us potentially reevaluate our position after the fact.

Destiny 3 launches and it doesn’t give you your old characters, but instead just starts. You don’t know what’s going on, but you’ll know that you’re playing as Uldren pretty quickly. Do a series of missions, maybe Mara makes contact and sends you out to do stuff. Then travel to the Tower, witness the reaction to your presence.

After that, you get your other characters back and play through another set of missions and continue the Destiny experience as normal.

Petra was essentially acting warden of the prison of elders. Uldren was one of her charges. He escaped and killed a bunch of innocents. It was way past a courtroom at that point.

Questionable for our guardian? Yep. (And I still think Petra pulled the trigger) Questionable for Petra? Not really, she had plenty of justification that he was guilty. And expectations that he would continue to kill.

I’m sorry maybe I am misremembering, but wasn’t he under the influence of Riven the whole time?

No. Riven was able to nudge him in a direction, but she did not control him or command him. She used his own tendencies and neediness against him to tragic, civilization murdering effect. But it was mostly Uldren and his tendencies spun out of control after the "death" of his sister.

Plus, there's no reason to believe that either Petra or our Guardian know about this. The player sees those cutscenes, not the character.

This has kind of been a problem for me with Destiny cutscenes since Eris took the shard out of Oryx's sword.

I had this discussion while playing with someone the other night.

I think bringing Uldren back is a great choice. Forsaken tries to present the question of why we’re hunting him down. Is it for revenge or justice? I don’t think it does a particularly good job of it, but it’s there. This could further that question, make our Guardians (and our Vanguard leaders) really evaluate their core values in that regard. Is he Uldren, the man who slaughtered the Awoken and killed Cayde, or is he a Guardian, his sins buried along with his memories?

I also like this idea.

This is what I would want Bungie to do with it:

Give everybody an extra character slot... and let them play a sequence of missions as Uldren.

Because I am curious where those distinctions are for you. As I don’t hold the same opinion regarding it not being part of the narrative.

I would guess that what Cody means is for it to be part of the text rather than metatext.

Grimoire cards and the Lore tab are more like footnotes-- they may be between the same set of covers, but they are less integrated into the "narrative".

There are lots of ways of putting material normally thought as narrative into games-- cutscenes, character dialogue interactions, interactive text terminals, audio logs, etc. Perhaps the lowest level of integration would be D1's grimoire cards-- material presented in a medium dramatically different from the rest of the game (written words, not cutscenes or recorded dialogue, not dramatized in any way, no audiovisual presentation) and actually physically outside the game-- you have to go to another device in order to access them.

The Lore tab is a single, small step upwards. It's just an in-game grimoire card. It still seems to me to be slightly less integrated than, say, a Fallout terminal.

This is how we talk.

But there is no reflection or emotional consequence to the decision. Our good guys are doing bad things without any sort of examination.

I'd have thought that Ghost's too-insistent exhortation that we are not a murderer in response to accusations from the Skorn qualify as reflection.

Also, about the jury trial thing? Pretty sure the entire solar system qualifies as a failed state since the Collapse. We're basically immortal knights errant committing war atrocities at will in the name of our religion.

The Traveler is our Halo, and we are the Covenant.

We even have our triumvirate, just as they did. Truth, Mercy, Regret. Zavala, Ikora, Cayde.

Although I guess Ikora is definitely not Mercy.

I don’t find it satisfying. Maybe he does.

I am not saying they don’t explain. I am saying it’s bad storytelling to put critical information in lore tabs.

Does anyone else think it’s wierd we essentially kill an innocent man? Uldren certainly wouldn’t be responsible for his actions in this situation no? But no trial. No jury.

I didn't. Did you?

The morality is actually kind of fucked up here.

See: videogames.

That's not an excuse, it's just that this crap literally goes on everywhere.

Um. No. Playing Bioshock Infinite while ignoring the audio logs leaves you with a very incomplete understanding of motivations.

Sure, more people would have a better understanding of the story if more of it was directly in the path of gameplay. But, if at the end of the day you start trying to talk about story without knowing all the context you're gonna come out factually wrong on key story points like you were in your initial post.

No matter how good or bad your points on dramatic clarity are, you were flat out wrong to suggest that Uldren was an innocent man.

Why was I wrong?

Because the game sucked at presenting me the information while telling its story…

You’re right. It sucked at presenting it to you, Cody Miller, in specific. Everyone else in this thread seemed to get it. So yeah, the game may not be presenting a narrative that you can digest easily, but plently of others have not found that to be the case. Some people may even prefer a different delivery. Conversations would be much easier if you gave up the tendency to universalize your experience. Raga just gave you ground and acknowledged some of your points from the clarity thread. It would be courteous to take a bit of ownership of your own unique experience.

Um. No. Playing Bioshock Infinite while ignoring the audio logs leaves you with a very incomplete understanding of motivations.

Sure, more people would have a better understanding of the story if more of it was directly in the path of gameplay. But, if at the end of the day you start trying to talk about story without knowing all the context you're gonna come out factually wrong on key story points like you were in your initial post.

No matter how good or bad your points on dramatic clarity are, you were flat out wrong to suggest that Uldren was an innocent man.

Why was I wrong?

Because the game sucked at presenting me the information while telling its story…