Yeah, but even if it is about technology, it's a very distant second to the societal and personal level of storytelling. It's all about humans using technology. How we use it, why we use it, where does the usage lead us. Humans are interesting, technology not so much when it comes to telling a story.Originally Posted by gwathdring
No idea what others thoughts on it are, but the Ghost in the Shell TV series seemed to look at how people react to technology. Personally I can't see anyone going out to cut of any part of their body. All the other tech will have people lining up to buy it (given the affordable price), but anything needing an operating table will soon backfire when people see cold metal is has no feelings (and robotics is mostly at a level always behind our own body).
But that's just against the idea everyone will want such things. It will only ever be a few people, like with cosmetic surgery.
Yes, but in context I got the impression that it being "about" the technology is it being a story of humans + technology rather than it being a story of humans, oh and it's the future so new technology. In other words, I thought Pondsmith was trying to suggest the tech itself doesn't really deserve attention as something other than set-dressing. Admittedly awesome and intricate and weird set-dressing that allows for some really awesome stuff and complicated stuff. Whereas while I don't find a convincing future in Transhumanism, I feel like Deus Ex: HR strikes a good balance between the importance of people and the importance of technology. Same with Snow Crash. I think Neuromancer is amazing, but I feel like cyberpunk can still work just as well if it looks more critically at the technology while it's doing the rest of the cyberpunk thing. Gibson is a great example of how to do Cyberpunk that isn't about tech. Pattern Recognition is a great example of how to do the synthetic future-pop feel of Cyberpunk in a way that ditches everything else about Cyberpunk and instead riffs off of the present. In short, he's got the personal and social part of it down to an art form, and technology isn't needed except as setting material.
But really, most good fiction ends up being about people first and something else second. So either I misinterpreted Pondsmith and he wasn't saying much at all about what Cyberpunk is (i.e. saying that good fiction is mostly about people and that means good cyberpunk is about people first and tech second), or I disagree with him.
I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You. There’s lots of fog. --tomeoftom
Psycho squad is a nickname rather than the official name, the official designation of the units differs from force to force; examples given in the rulebook include C-SWAT, CYB-Enforcement and Maximum Force Tactical Division (or Max-Tac).
That assumes people actually have any choice in the matter. If the corp says you get a new implant, you either get a new implant or a retirement package consisting mainly of hot lead.
That seems really inefficient. Seems it would be better to just fire the guy. If, however, you want to set an example, it would probably be better to ruin the employee's ability to work at competing firms in some other way (like severing the neural region necessary to use a net implant as happened to Case before the start of Neuromancer, though for different reasons). Dead men tell no tales. I suppose they might know enough for them telling tales to cause problems ... but then you dump them off onto the black market as cheap labor (if that's a thing in the setting), or have them carted off to a prison under a fake name. Saves bullets and can be made to look like a bureaucratic screw up if it gets noticed--unlike murder. And you can maybe get some cash or favors rather than owing cash or favors.
Plus, the Prison Industrial Complex does things like that with immigrants in the US today. I can easily imagine it happening in a modern Cyberpunk venue. The police will pick up illegal immigrants, and rather than deporting them (which is expensive for law enforcement) they'll occaisonally send them to willing prisons without formal charges or trial proceedings. The prison bounces them from place to place if the family tries to get nosy (they usually don't because it's dangerous to be nosy when you're either here illegally or have relatives who are), and eventually spits them back out. Privately run prisons with government contracts, surprise, like having prisoners.
I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You. There’s lots of fog. --tomeoftom
The discussions in the articles on the main page are really weird sometimes... In the original post about the teaser trailer, Nathan wrote:
Which mostly seems like a throwaway joke about the developer and their history."Also, why was she rampaging about in her underwear? Was the really necessary? Oh, right: CD Projekt."
What happens? BAM! Major breakdown in the comment section were some people accuse the game and the developer of being sexist, some people claiming "it's only the setting" and some people accusing RPS of "pushing political agendas".
Some commenters thought the trailer was misogynistic and sexist and started a discussion about it, and then a lot of people came out of the woodwork accusing RPS of bringing up the sexism debate all over again. But they pretty much didn't say anything at all about it.
And in tonights post with the interview, Nathan asked:
Which is pretty much just an observation of what happened in the RPS comments. Some people thought it was sexist and spoke up about it."Why that woman? A number of people were fairly taken aback by the fact that she was a scantily clad and in a compromising position, which is understandable. However, the camera panned out to reveal that her arms were grotesque scythes, which struck me as making it less about sex appeal and more about creating a striking image of destroyed beauty by way of rampant technological augmentation. Is that what you were going for?"
And in the new comment section, people yet again start attacking RPS about pushing agendas...
In my opinion, RPS never really said a lot about the subject, but people started accusing RPS of doing so.
I mean, what the crap is going on? What have people been smoking?
--------------
To summarize my own thoughts on the trailer/game: Looks sweet. Looking forward to it.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm not taking a stance whether or not the game/trailer is sexist or not, I merely wanted to highlight how a lot of commenters are accusing RPS of "always talking about sexism" when they pretty much didn't do that at all this time....
Last edited by FunnyB; 02-02-2013 at 05:29 PM.
It doesn't matter if they do it or not. That's the vibe they give. It's a problem and they should address it.
They're annoyed at how RPS is covering things that could actually be sexist. Claiming it's becoming something that's always brought up in their articles.
Which is an exaggeration to say the least. The only thing they head-on attacked was the Dead Island Riptide thing and that was well deserving of the outrage.
I don't think this particular trailer is because that is how some women dress when they're going to nightclubs. If she was standing instead would that have helped make it a non-issue?
Virtual Pilot 3D™ NEVER NOT SCAM!
That is quite the shit storm over there.
It's hard to say, for me, because I didn't get bad vibes from the trailer either. I think a lot of gamers who are aware of these sorts of issues, though, are suspicious of CD Projeckt because they found issues with The Witcher games (most notably the cards, but there's disagreement about Triss).
I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You. There’s lots of fog. --tomeoftom
I think what people were objecting to are these questions:
By itself, this could be a perfectly good observation that engages with the topic and gives a fair chance of reply, but there seems to be a bit of an edge to the way it was posed in how it asks pointedly, 'Why that woman?' That brings with it the history and context of accusations of what, for brevity's sake, I'll call sexism, and, although the rest of the question was not confrontational, Kanik clearly was reacting to that first point ('Why not that woman?') before addressing the rest of it.RPS: Why that woman? A number of people were fairly taken aback by the fact that she was a scantily clad and in a compromising position, which is understandable. However, the camera panned out to reveal that her arms were grotesque scythes, which struck me as making it less about sex appeal and more about creating a striking image of destroyed beauty by way of rampant technological augmentation. Is that what you were going for?
The next question, though, was really quite badly put and confused:
First, there's the weak assumption that it was a 'lead female character' in the trailer, especially as in the answer to the first question, Kanik said specifically that the trailer was to 'catch the atmosphere' and the setting. Then, there's the odd interpretation that a bulletproof killer female cybernetic being (or whatever the technical term is) is 'disempowered', which really activates a lot of the associations with empowerment in the real world that seem to have very little to do with the matter at hand. I suppose there are parallels you can draw with violence against women, but it's so much out of context that it comes across as seeming more like an unconsidered accusation than an attempt at engagement. This is not made any better by next part of the question about whether it will be more 'even-handed', which sounds like a passive aggressive way of saying, 'Are you going to admit you were wrong about the sex cards?' And this part was what Kanik picked up on and it was so off-base that he had to explain that in a RPG, you get to customise your character and decide what to do with him or her.RPS: Even then, though, there’s still an issue of disempowering someone who seems like a lead female character. Will Cyberpunk be more even-handed in terms of the way it treats gender overall, though? I mean, it looked like she joined the Psycho Squad at the end of the trailer, which puts her in a pretty important place.
To be honest, the next few questions weren't great either. 'The city looks kind of generic.' 'Say something about braindances.' 'By the way, the last writer you worked with didn't like your games.' Bad day at the office all round.
Eh rps. You so silly.
Shame Cdp wasted some great opportunity. Someone mentioned that already yet I will repeat:
There was no women in that teaser. The psycho was James Smith semi naked as he was in his sleepwear
If they just did that I would have so much respect for them
I was really disappointed by the hand-wavy answer to the first question. What a great opportunity to sell your vision, say something interesting about your world, and really win some people over. You could even avoid addressing the issue with a redirect that still gives players something meaty about the game worth holding on to. Instead they pull the ultimate cop-out: "It's all better as a mysterious wonder!"
I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You. There’s lots of fog. --tomeoftom
Oh I understand that side of it, but you'll get two problems (that I would hope the story actually delves into, and which GITS actually did). People will either rebel, or the tech will become faulty. That's nature and a fact of life if you push things too far too quickly. In GITS it was hidden, with rebellion being squashed, and the faults being hidden. The hint was that those with implants were so "brain washed" by their new programming, they did not see the harm the tech was causing.
Not that all or any tech causes harm. But that chopping off a limb to replace it with a robotic one is... well, the definition of harm. Just like crashing a car is. But driving a car well is using the tech well. Hence why I'd expect to see tech that works with a body, not replaces is.
PS, what I don't get is, she is indestructible in the video. This is clearly shown, right? It's more a matrix style "Trinity is awesome" than "Trinity falls and dies"?
Last edited by TechnicalBen; 03-02-2013 at 09:03 AM.
Indeed. I find it particularly ironic that there are so many people bleating about how RPS and some unnamed others supposedly go around looking for things they can call sexist, apparently unaware of how hard they themselves are trying to find an example of that to get all worked up over.
Nathan correctly observed that there were questions raised about the trailer, and gave the interviewee a good opportunity to discuss them and perhaps hint at what kind of messages they're playing around with. I mean, he handed them the whole "destroyed beauty" angle on a plate. He was hardly flipping over the table and calling them misogynists.
Apparently even hinting at the existence of a discussion of sexism or gender issues is enough to send a fuckwit beacon out across the internet.
I think she is just resistant to regular police weapons. It is not like they are shooting her with antitank munition.
I cringed. Nathan's questions just weren't worded the right way. I knew where he was coming from, but Mateusz Kanik clearly didn't, and interpreted each one as hostile. For a moment there it looked as if things would settle down when Nath told us his thoughts on the trailer (that it wasn't sexist), but Mateusz ignored that part.
Ah I guess it doesn't really matter, CDP weren't biting anway. They didn't seem interested in selling their product. We'd of gotten more out of an EA sales rep.
Last edited by Drake Sigar; 03-02-2013 at 09:41 AM.
Rebellion is what the rockerboy class was all about. In 2020 they didn't need to suppress it, they simply sold it as a fashion statement. You did of course have those who rejected the new world order such as the nomads, but since there's no other viable option they're somewhat limited in effectiveness. It's also worth noting the corps aren't above deploying nuclear weapons or orbital mass drivers as assassination tools (the millions of people killed alongside the target simply being written off as collateral damage) so it's unlikely an attempt at rebellion would get very far.
Tech wise there's been a few disasters, usually a result of experimental weaponry developed during one of the Corporate Wars or a botched sabotage attempt (the nanovirus plague is one example, though it was spun off into an alternate timeline and became it's own franchise).
It'd be rare to have someone rip off a limb to replace it, unless of course the amputation was necessary. Not all augmentation is mechanical, you also have genetic modification, cloning, nano-tech and bio-engineering. It'd be more likely you'd get some bio-engineered muscle tissue on the arm, combine it with one or two cybernetic implants to enhance it further and encase it in a nanotech skinweave or subdermal kevlar armour than replace the entire limb (it's far cheaper in terms of Empathy cost to modify what's there than replace it).Not that all or any tech causes harm. But that chopping off a limb to replace it with a robotic one is... well, the definition of harm.
Nanotech skin weave armour, subdermal tissue implants and one or two boosters. Most bullets will bounce and you can dodge the ones that won't ....PS, what I don't get is, she is indestructible in the video. This is clearly shown, right? It's more a matrix style "Trinity is awesome" than "Trinity falls and dies"?
OH those are nice examples of fiction. But look at today. Countries with tanks and fighter planes have still fallen recently to uprisings. Would a nation with an A bomb use it on their own rebels? Probably not.
For fiction you can do anything. I just find the suspension of disbelief is lost a little if they make people too keen to loose a physical part of their body for a robotic one. Hence I'd expect more external stuff, or implants, over complete replacements.
There is verymuch room and scope in our biological systems too.
Also, "dodging bullets" is far from possible. ;) But I might give it a go and write some Sci-fi fiction that tackles that problem one day. :P
Have you seen what people do to their bodies.... I would prefer to amputate arm and get artificial one than have those face modifications.Is it hard to belief that people would replace their limbs with much better thing?
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