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tes-trash-blog · 5 years

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Paarthurnax, And Guilt

Alternate title: I Just Made Myself Very, Very Sad

I was sipping on some wine and reading some bits in the the Elder Scrolls Wiki when I thought of Paarthurnax, his part in the Dragon War, and the thousands of years of self-imposed semii-solitude. Thinking on it more, and a piece of dialogue in the quest where Delphine sends you to kill him, it occurred to me that of all the named characters in Skyrim, maybe even the greater Elder Scrolls lore, it’s Paarthurnax that probably feels the most, well, guilt.

Let’s start with the Dragon War, and the events leading up to it. After an undisclosed amount of time of Nords living in Skyrim, and the dragon cult that was brought with the first Atmoran ships, the humans decided to rebel against the dragons they worshiped. Chief among them was Alduin, the End, the World-Eater given physical form due to the worship of him (presumably; I really like this r/teslore entry on Alduin, his transformation from sleeping god to physical dragon, and also why he’s so dang small).

There was, according to all human accounts, unimaginable cruelty under the dragon cult, and the dragons they worshiped. Having enough, the humans rebelled. It didn’t go well. “Men ran and they cowered, and they fought and they died, and they burned and they bled,” as the song “Tale of the Tongues” goes. The dragons, Alduin especially, was not keen on giving up the power and privilege they enjoyed for so long. Among them was Paarthurnax, whose own name means “Ambition Overlord (or Tyrant) Cruelty”. (For what it’s worth, Alduin’s name is “Destroy Devour Master”, roughly.) As Alduin’s left hand and lieutenant, Paarthurnax no doubt had his claw in these atrocities.

This is the first nail in the guilt coffin, and no doubt it was that first pang of guilt that turned him to Man, to teach them the way of the Voice. And so atop the Throat of the World, his brother was eventually banished, and there he lived in seclusion. Eventually, he would find solace in the teachings of Jurgen Windcaller, and the use of the Thu’um innate in him as a way of finding inner peace.

Now comes the second nail. As the tide of the Dragon War turned in favor of the humans that suffered so, they began to (presumably; the established lore is fairly spotty on this) use the Voice to slaughter dragons en masse. The few who remained were exiled to remote corners of the map. Hell, Olaf One-Eye even managed to capture the dragon Numinex sometime after the war ended, so scattered and broken were the dragon forces*.

Paarthurnax would visit the lonely Numinex, only to find his brother was driven mad from the isolation and imprisonment. Some part of me wonders if he blames himself for this, and for the slaughter of his zeymah, his kin. The way he talks of both events (Numinex’s imprisonment and the slaying of his brothers from Nordic and Akaviri blades, in case I’m not clear) is either a testament to Charles Martinet’s talents as a voice actor, or an indication that yes, he feels this guilt, and it weighs on him even after all the years that had passed. After all, he not only committed crimes against the humans he eventually helped, but his action of mercy had a hand in the slaughter of his brothers.

And now, the third and, for the intents of this rant because I’m around half a (very large) bottle of wine in right now, final nail: Alduin’s death at the hands of the Dragonborn. Supposed death. At least, the dragon exploded, which in Elder Scrolls speak, means he’s dead for a while.

Now, Paarthurnax is a major player in the main questline, where the Last Dragonborn learns how to access the Shout that brought Alduin down and (in my boozed up brain) made Alduin mortal for a time. That Shout is Dragonrend, or as I like to call it “The Mortifying Ordeal Of Being Finite”. After kicking the Physical Alduin’s ass, and after the World Eater retreats to Sovngarde to snack on some souls, Paarthurnax tells the LDB of how they could make it to that mythical place: Dragonsreach, where his old brother was held until his death. The Big Grey Dragon lets them in on another dragon, our own Odaviing, who would be eager to meet the Dragonborn in combat (apparently not seeing the dragon-sized neck trap, or knowing that this place is auspiciously dragon-garage sized.. I’m going to assume Odaviing isn’t the smartest of Akatosh’s creations.)

It’s safe to say that without Paarthurnax and his guidance, the Last Dragonborn would not have been able to meet Alduin in final combat, and set the World Eater right. He.. isn’t happy about his role.

“Happy? No, I am not happy. Zeymahi lost ont du'ol Barmahu. (translation: My brother was once the son of my Father) Alduin was once the crown of our father Akatosh's creation. [...] He was my brother once. This world will never be the same.”

Paarthurnax will concede that this had to be done, for Alduin had lost his way, but the sorrow is still there. He plotted once against his brother, against the crown of Akatosh, and he did so again. It had to be done, but it was still his brother.

He also concedes that Delphine and the Blades are right to hate him, to not trust him. He does the rare thing and acknowledges that some wounds will not heal, and the crimes of the dragons could not be so easily forgiven with time. He confesses that he is constantly tempted to return to his dominant nature, but fights it, for

“What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?“

And just not a single day passes that he’s tempted to give in that urge to dominate, I want to say that not a day goes by where he’s not reminded why he must not give in to that urge. It’s cost him everything, from the love of his brother to the spurn of most humankind. To be on the mountain, alone, is perhaps his only way to atone. Up there, he can only talk, be it with a Greybeard, or a Dragonborn, or the ghosts of his past regrets.

* Meanwhile underground, there was a Falmer who raised a shot glass made from a baby chaurus all like “Cheers bro I’ll drink to that”

(It’s me. I’m the gremlin that hasn’t seen the sun in 4,000 years.)

#tes #the elder scrolls #paarthurnax #don't take this an anti paarthunax rant #i love paarthurnax #the dragon war #guilt #tw i guess

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tinycartridge · 6 years

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Choice Provisions on Runner3′s steps forward ⊟

Runner3 is the latest and most finely tuned of a series of extremely fine-tuned (and fine-tuning oriented) games, a whimsical needle-threading simulator in which you jump, slide, and kick CommanderVideo through an auto-scrolling gauntlet of bespoke terrors and panic-inducing staircases. How do you refine a gameplay system like the pared-down Runner?

“Gameplay wise, personally, I wanted to simplify things a little bit,” Choice Provisions co-founder Alex Neuse told me. “In some respects, there were too many moves in Runner1 and Runner2, and I wanted to get a little bit more pure of an experience, but then also add some nuance to that.” That nuance comes in the form of new double-jump and ground pound moves that, along with the existing glide, allow players to exert more direct control over CommanderVideo’s jump. “That was one thing for me that felt nice, as somebody who likes to think about 'how do my hands feel when i'm playing a game?' Runner3, when I'm doing really well my hands feel great,” Neuse said.

“I think we also really wanted to open up the world,” said co-co-founder Mike Roush, “and make it this sort of deeper, richer experience where -- really, when you look back at Runner2, it's so sidescrolling platformer-y, and we wanted this to feel like more of a ‘Triple-I’ experience as they say, and pump up the production values and have this game where you feel like you're really submerged in a world.” Neuse explained that the team felt Runner2’s world “basically exists to serve the player, or serve CommanderVideo, and we wanted Runner3 to feel like the world was just there and you were in it, instead of it just being there for you.”

Every level now has a standard two-minute runtime -- “and that's because of the BPM, and the phrases of the song, and how you mode up, and to make it the most musically satisfying that we can,” Neuse explains, with a standardized 100 gold bars to pick up, both changed from the more freewheeling predecessors. “It was always a pet peeve of mine as the primary designer, that we didn't standardize how many collectibles there were in each level,” Neuse said. That standardized gold count allows the player to easily gauge how far through a level they’ve made it, and to know after the fact whether they’ve collected everything.

Roush noted that the longer levels also make the mid-level checkpoints more valuable.

“I didn't think the checkpoint was worth much in Runner2, so we wanted to put some emphasis on like, hey, you know, use the checkpoint now. That's why it's in there.” (Ed. note: use the checkpoints.) A two-minute-long Runner3 gauntlet can feel like much longer (and can actually take much longer, of course, depending on how many retries it takes). The two Choice Providers recounted feedback from Runner1’s “Odyssey” level, noting that people thought it was seven, eight, or even 13 minutes long. It’s just over two.

youtube

Marking your progress through those extra-long levels is a new graphic that shows how many times you’ve failed (“bonked” in Runner parlance) each time you restart. Just a big number before every retry. A big, growing number just to confront you. “[My wife] got halfway through Runner3,” Roush said, “and -- she's kind of competitive -- and I think 53 was her highest bonk. She'd get mad at me: ‘There's no way I'm going to 60!’” I have personal experience of seeing the number 60 on my television screen, and it leads to a feeling.

That feeling, of course, is a prelude to the eventual, hypothetical joy of completing a Runner3 stage. “Just because you bonk,” Roush noted, “doesn't mean that you've failed. There has to be difficulty for you to get that elation when you actually make it through the level. If it wasn't difficult, then you wouldn't feel good when you finally did it. So it's hard for us to view difficulty as a bad thing.” He felt the elation firsthand, he said, when replaying Runner during the development of Runner2.

“I was playing on weekends, Saturday mornings, because I was so busy during the week, and I could not beat the game! I was totally blown away. But I kept going. Part of it is, I was just not good at Runner1 -- I had gotten used to Runner2. But I went back, and I finally beat that game, and I don't know if I've ever been so happy beating a game, or proud of myself. It felt so good.”

Neuse said his parents, who otherwise don’t play games, completed Bit.Trip Beat, Runner, and Runner2. “I kind of wonder if people who don't expect a difficulty to be a certain way don't have as much trouble with it. I don't know.”

Before our conversation ended, I had to ask about Charles Martinet. The narrator of Runner2 (also known for other fairly well-regarded video game voiceover roles) is back in Runner3, both as the narrator and as the playable character The Narrator. That choice, it turns out, was motivated by a specific, practical request on Martinet’s part. “One of his bits of feedback from Runner2 was, he was telling us that at conventions, he didn't have anything to sign for Runner2,” Roush said, unlike the 8x10 prints he uses for characters like Mario and Skyrim’s Paarthurnax. “We had to make something visual,” Neuse said, “because he was only a voice.”

As a bonus, integrating Martinet further into the world “legitimized his involvement in the series, I feel.” Martinet, who Roush called “literally the nicest human being I have ever met in my life” was game to record spoonerized versions of level names, something that triggers randomly when choosing a level, and ad-libbed some of the advertising gags that open the game.

Runner3, complete with included digi-Charles Martinet, is out on Switch and PC now, with PS4 and Xbox One releases to follow.

► BUY Runner3 (physical)

#jc #gaming #original #switch #nintendo switch #pc #runner3 #choice provisions #interview

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tiresomeappendi10 · 6 years

Text

Choice Provisions on Runner3s steps forward Runner3 is the latest and most finely tuned of a series of extremely fine-tuned (and fine-tuning oriented) games, a whimsical needle-threading simulator in which you jump, slide, and kick CommanderVideo through an auto-scrolling gauntlet of bespoke terrors and panic-inducing staircases. How do you refine a gameplay system like the pared-down Runner? Gameplay wise, personally, I wanted to simplify things a little bit, Choice Provisions co-founder Alex Neuse told me. In some respects, there were too many moves in Runner1 and Runner2, and I wanted to get a little bit more pure of an experience, but then also add some nuance to that. That nuance comes in the form of new double-jump and ground pound moves that, along with the existing glide, allow players to exert more direct control over CommanderVideos jump. That was one thing for me that felt nice, as somebody who likes to think about how do my hands feel when im playing a game? Runner3, when Im doing really well my hands feel great, Neuse said. I think we also really wanted to open up the world, said co-co-founder Mike Roush, and make it this sort of deeper, richer experience where really, when you look back at Runner2, its so sidescrolling platformer-y, and we wanted this to feel like more of a Triple-I experience as they say, and pump up the production values and have this game where you feel like youre really submerged in a world. Neuse explained that the team felt Runner2s world basically exists to serve the player, or serve CommanderVideo, and we wanted Runner3 to feel like the world was just there and you were in it, instead of it just being there for you. Every level now has a standard two-minute runtime and thats because of the BPM, and the phrases of the song, and how you mode up, and to make it the most musically satisfying that we can, Neuse explains, with a standardized 100 gold bars to pick up, both changed from the more freewheeling predecessors. It was always a pet peeve of mine as the primary designer, that we didnt standardize how many collectibles there were in each level, Neuse said. That standardized gold count allows the player to easily gauge how far through a level theyve made it, and to know after the fact whether theyve collected everything. Roush noted that the longer levels also make the mid-level checkpoints more valuable. I didnt think the checkpoint was worth much in Runner2, so we wanted to put some emphasis on like, hey, you know, use the checkpoint now. Thats why its in there. (Ed. note: use the checkpoints.) A two-minute-long Runner3 gauntlet can feel like much longer (and can actually take much longer, of course, depending on how many retries it takes). The two Choice Providers recounted feedback from Runner1s Odyssey level, noting that people thought it was seven, eight, or even 13 minutes long. Its just over two. [embedded content] Marking your progress through those extra-long levels is a new graphic that shows how many times youve failed (bonked in Runner parlance) each time you restart. Just a big number before every retry. More information associated with StarGate 3DS at stargate3ds.ru .A big, growing number just to confront you. [My wife] got halfway through Runner3, Roush said, and shes kind of competitive and I think 53 was her highest bonk. Shed get mad at me: Theres no way Im going to 60! I have personal experience of seeing the number 60 on my television screen, and it leads to a feeling. That feeling, of course, is a prelude to the eventual, hypothetical joy of completing a Runner3 stage. Just because you bonk, Roush noted, doesnt mean that youve failed. There has to be difficulty for you to get that elation when you actually make it through the level. If it wasnt difficult, then you wouldnt feel good when you finally did it. So its hard for us to view difficulty as a bad thing. He felt the elation firsthand, he said, when replaying Runner during the development of Runner2. I was playing on weekends, Saturday mornings, because I was so busy during the week, and I could not beat the game! I was totally. Should you want even more suggestions concerning the most recently released crack technologies for Nintendo Console, visit here.blown away. But I kept going. Part of it is, I was just not good at Runner1 I had gotten used to Runner2. But I went back, and I finally beat that game, and I dont know if Ive ever been so happy beating a game, or proud of myself. It felt so good. Neuse said his parents, who otherwise dont play games, completed Bit.Trip Beat, Runner, and Runner2. I kind of wonder if people who dont expect a difficulty to be a certain way dont have as much trouble with it. I dont know. Before our conversation ended, I had to ask about Charles Martinet. The narrator of Runner2 (also known for other fairly well-regarded video game voiceover roles) is back in Runner3, both as the narrator and as the playable character The Narrator. That choice, it turns out, was motivated by a specific, practical request on Martinets part. One of his bits of feedback from Runner2 was, he was telling us that at conventions, he didnt have anything to sign for Runner2, Roush said, unlike the 8x10 prints he uses for characters like Mario and Skyrims Paarthurnax. We had to make something visual, Neuse said, because he was only a voice.

As a bonus, integrating Martinet further into the world legitimized his involvement in the series, I feel. Martinet, who Roush called literally the nicest human being I have ever met in my life was game to record spoonerized versions of level names, something that triggers randomly when choosing a level, and ad-libbed some of the advertising gags that open the game. Runner3, complete with included digi-Charles Martinet, is out on Switch and PC now, with PS4 and Xbox One releases to follow. BUY Runner3 (physical)

0 notes

tiresomeappendi10 · 6 years

Text

Choice Provisions on Runner3s steps forward Runner3 is the latest and most finely tuned of a series of extremely fine-tuned (and fine-tuning oriented) games, a whimsical needle-threading simulator in which you jump, slide, and kick CommanderVideo through an auto-scrolling gauntlet of bespoke terrors and panic-inducing staircases. How do you refine a gameplay system like the pared-down Runner? Gameplay wise, personally, I wanted to simplify things a little bit, Choice Provisions co-founder Alex Neuse told me. In some respects, there were too many moves in Runner1 and Runner2, and I wanted to get a little bit more pure of an experience, but then also add some nuance to that. That nuance comes in the form of new double-jump and ground pound moves that, along with the existing glide, allow players to exert more direct control over CommanderVideos jump. More info with regard to Sky3DS Plus at r43ds.com.de .That was one thing for me that felt nice, as somebody who likes to think about how do my hands feel when im playing a game? Runner3, when Im doing really well my hands feel great, Neuse said. I think we also really wanted to open up the world, said co-co-founder Mike Roush, and make it this sort of deeper, richer experience where really, when you look back at Runner2, its so sidescrolling platformer-y, and we wanted this to feel like more of a Triple-I experience as they say, and pump up the production values and have this game where you feel like youre really submerged in a world. Neuse explained that the team felt Runner2s world basically exists to serve the player, or serve CommanderVideo, and we wanted Runner3 to feel like the world was just there and you were in it, instead of it just being there for you. Every level now has a standard two-minute runtime and thats because of the BPM, and the phrases of the song, and how you mode up, and to make it the most musically satisfying that we can, Neuse explains, with a standardized 100 gold bars to pick up, both changed from the more freewheeling predecessors. It was always a pet peeve of mine as the primary designer, that we didnt standardize how many collectibles there were in each level, Neuse said. That standardized gold count allows the player to easily gauge how far through a level theyve made it, and to know after the fact whether theyve collected everything. Roush noted that the longer levels also make the mid-level checkpoints more valuable. I didnt think the checkpoint was worth much in Runner2, so we wanted to put some emphasis on like, hey, you know, use the checkpoint now. Thats why its in there. (Ed. note: use the checkpoints.) A two-minute-long Runner3 gauntlet can feel like much longer (and can actually take much longer, of course, depending on how many retries it takes). The two Choice Providers recounted feedback from Runner1s Odyssey level, noting that people thought it was seven, eight, or even 13 minutes long. Its just over two. [embedded content] Marking your progress through those extra-long levels is a new graphic that shows how many times youve failed (bonked in Runner parlance) each time you restart. Just a big number before every retry. A big, growing number just to confront you. [My wife] got halfway through Runner3, Roush said, and shes kind of competitive and I think 53 was her highest bonk. Shed get mad at me: Theres no way Im going to 60! I have personal experience of seeing the number 60 on my television screen, and it leads to a feeling. That feeling, of course, is a prelude to the eventual, hypothetical joy of completing a Runner3 stage. Just because you bonk, Roush noted, doesnt mean that youve failed. There has to be difficulty for you to get that elation when you actually make it through the level. If it wasnt difficult, then you wouldnt feel good when you finally did it. So its hard for us to view difficulty as a bad thing. He felt the elation firsthand, he said, when replaying Runner during the development of Runner2. I was playing on weekends, Saturday mornings, because I was so busy during the week, and I could not beat the game! I was totally blown away. But I kept going. Part of it is, I was just not good at Runner1 I had gotten used to Runner2. But I went back, and I finally beat that game, and I dont know if Ive ever been so happy beating a game, or proud of myself. It felt so good. Neuse said his parents, who otherwise dont play games, completed Bit.Trip Beat, Runner, and Runner2. I kind of wonder if people who dont expect a difficulty to be a certain way dont have as. To get more information on the subject of the latest cracking technique for Nintendo Console, check this.much trouble with it. I dont know. Before our conversation ended, I had to ask about Charles Martinet. The narrator of Runner2 (also known for other fairly well-regarded video game voiceover roles) is back in Runner3, both as the narrator and as the playable character The Narrator. That choice, it turns out, was motivated by a specific, practical request on Martinets part. One of his bits of feedback from Runner2 was, he was telling us that at conventions, he didnt have anything to sign for Runner2, Roush said, unlike the 8x10 prints he uses for characters like Mario and Skyrims Paarthurnax. We had to make something visual, Neuse said, because he was only a voice.

0 notes