Subnautica - Undah Dah Sea (you die)

[Alex Yiik]

I just never want to hear the word "Alterra" again. The Weyland-Yutani shit is far and away the least interesting part of this series for me. Give me a big scary open ocean full of big scary alien marine animals and keep the human drama out of it.

I'm with you on this. Alterra is the owner of the ship that crashed. It was on a mission to do something somewhere, who cares. There are some data logs that expand on the state of the spacefaring society that you came from but it's not that interesting or helpful to know at all. The only human element is the audio logs from the other survivors which I actually really enjoyed seeking out but I'm glad you never end up finding anyone alive.

What IS interesting is the Architect society, the situation they found themselves in with the bacterium, what they got up to on the planet, and what became of them. That's actual worldbuilding and it's worth knowing because it's very relevant to your environment and what you see and do.

After the crash, NOTHING about the player's past life or the outside world matters. You are well and truly isolated and the only importance of Alterra anymore is that some of the stuff you find has its logo on it. Alterra is less important to the plot of Subnautica than FedEx was to the plot of Cast Away.

The developers seemed to understand this in Subnautica which is why it's praised for its masterful environmental storytelling and subtly communicated plot and not for it's commentary on corporations or guns or whatever. Maybe their intention was to make modern social commentary, but they failed so much at that that it's easily overlooked unless you're nitpicking. Until the sequel of course, and we see how that worked out for them.

On a related (nitpicking) note, it bothered me that they ripped away the triumph of escaping the planet by ending the game on a stupid joke about owing a billion credits to Alterra or something like that. Could they not have let the victory stand for 2 minutes without telling you that you'll be a wage slave for the rest of your life now that you're free?

 

[Echo_Doge]

On the one hand, coop makes almost anything fun.

On the other hand, half the fun of the OG Subnautica was the solitude and being able to fuck around on your own time. I remember spending an hour exploring the purple mushroom caves by hand (swimming fin?), because my Seamoth didn't have any depth modules yet so it was parked at 200m.

Co-op is going to both destroy the atmosphere and add a ton of unnecessary jank to the game.

It will turn it from a suspenseful survival game to streamer-bait meme game.

I can already hear the morons laughing it up like jackasses when someone gets disoriented in a dark cave and drowns. Or thinking it's hilarious when someone gets grabbed from behind by a predator and dragged off into the abyss.

It turns horror into comedy.

 

[Book Thief]

I don't know, I'm down to sperg about the tankies as much as the next gal but I think they just didn't want you to be armed to enhance the feeling of helplessness, and "some guy went crazy once and cost us our valuable human cattle" is the easiest in-universe explanation as to why you can't carpet-bomb the sea monsters from the jump.

I mean, they literally stated their reasoning as to why the game doesn't have guns and/or lethal weapons, which I pointed out earlier in the thread. That being that they think guns are icky and that they think anyone who is pro-gun is evil and wants children to die. That statement puts that line when you pick up the knife into context, since as we all know, SJWs are about as subtle with their narrative and world-building as a neon-pink dump truck wrapped up in Christmas lights, so it isn't so much world building as it is a political belief disguised as one.

As I said, I don't think the lack of weapons is an inherently bad design choice. To give another example, the SNES horror game Clock Tower would've only had its slasher movie vibe completely nullified if they allowed Jennifer to pick up a shotgun and blow the Barrows family away, and I think a similar justification can work for Subnautica. Or they could've gone with the physics angle I pointed out earlier, as bullets aren't exactly known for being hydrodynamic. Or they could've just given a boiler plate excuse like "The use of guns aren't in our vision for the game's design." But instead of using the millions of alternate explanations for why their game is the way it is, they simply did it because they wanted to showboat their beliefs about guns in the real world.

The only reason it's worth bringing up is because earlier in the thread, people were expressing surprise that the upcoming sequel looked "woke," when in-fact the seeds were there from the beginning.

 

[Fig Kommandant]

Co-op is going to both destroy the atmosphere and add a ton of unnecessary jank to the game.
It turns horror into comedy.

The coop is optional and I'd wager most people will play singleplayer first to get the proper experience. As for ruining the atmosphere, there's plenty of solo ways to do it, from speedrun to exploits or gaming the system, once you've played the game you rarely get the same experience of awe and instead you're just having fun with the mechanics.
So far the promotial material has been about coop since that's the new thing, but I don't think the presence of optional coop will ruin the atmosphere. More than likely shitty world design will be to blame.

 

[Astro Galactic Megalul]

On the one hand, coop makes almost anything fun.

On the other hand, half the fun of the OG Subnautica was the solitude and being able to fuck around on your own time. I remember spending an hour exploring the purple mushroom caves by hand (swimming fin?), because my Seamoth didn't have any depth modules yet so it was parked at 200m.

Yeah, the feeling of solitude is one of the game's main draws, it wouldn't be the same with other people, which is one of the reasons I don't care about multiplayer for the sequel whatsoever. There's a lot of decent survival games you could play with friends.

 

[Shartavius]

I'm praying they go back to a silent protagonist for 2. If they don't then I won't even bother with this one.

I'm hoping for the opposite:



"AWW SHEEEIIIT - I UNDERWATA NIGGA! AWWWW SHIT! I UNDA DA WATAH!"



"MMMMMMHRRRMMMMMM."

 

[Geddy Lee's Fee and See]

Shit like this didn't happen when game development was just autistic straight white males.

This exact scenario or something similar played out with the release of Duke Nukem Forever, Stonekeep,Blood 2 and a shitton of other games. Turns out some people are too absent-minded or burnt to do their job of making video games and doing them well and always have been.

 

[Sulla]

You know if the dev's weren't insufferable libtards they could of done a funny.

Here's what they should of done. Let you get a gun + blueprint on the altera ship to let you have a fun time blasting the not headcrabs.
Then as soon as you get in the water, have it malfunction.

Because obviously guns don't work well in the water stupid.

 

[Echo_Doge]

As I said, I don't think the lack of weapons is an inherently bad design choice.

I never said it was. Just them acting like it was some grand political statement was ridiculous and hypocritical.

Of course instead of "Guns", we got the ridiculous Stasis Rifle that can immobilize almost any enemy in the game for ~20 seconds while you slice them up with a knife. Then repeat until they're dead. So much less violent...

"MMMMMMHRRRMMMMMM."

She looks like she's about to start in a Disney Live-Action movie with her Innsmouth brethren Snow White and Ariel.

 

[Snekposter]

That insufferable faggot seth dickinson is apparently working on subnautica 2 so I don't have high hopes

For the most of you that don't know, he contributed to the demise of the freespace modding community by injecting incredibly cringe male feminist stuff into the mods he was involved in and then having constant covid/TDS meltdowns later on.

Oh man, I know him. Fucking General Battuta (his name on the main FreeSpace forum) is one of the worst things that could have ever happened to FreeSpace. I remember him being completely and incorrigibly up his own ass about how totally cool and subversive his writing for Blue Planet was.

"Hey guys, don't you think its neat that the hero dude builds things and the woman tears it all down? Totally inverting the whole woman at home, man goes out conquering schtick, am I right?"

Fucking lol. There's probably way more fans of the GTVA than the UEF just because the latter are all a bunch of sobbing pussies upset and terrified to be on their own now that their pan-dimensional alien consciousness sugar daddy isn't bossing them around anymore and the former just gets shit done with no need for outside help.

And yes, he fully considers the UEF to be the good guys.

I only knew that Charlie Cleveland was cringe, now you're telling me there's TWO OF THEM?

If only you knew how bad things really were.

 

[Lemmingwiser]

I mean, they literally stated their reasoning as to why the game doesn't have guns and/or lethal weapons, which I pointed out earlier in the thread. That being that they think guns are icky and that they think anyone who is pro-gun is evil and wants children to die. That statement puts that line when you pick up the knife into context, since as we all know, SJWs are about as subtle with their narrative and world-building as a neon-pink dump truck wrapped up in Christmas lights, so it isn't so much world building as it is a political belief disguised as one

Not having guns is a good design choice for the wrong reasons.

It's too bad they didn't really stick with it and gave you torpedo's and a stasis gun that allows you to freeze any enemy and cut them to pieces with a knife while they're frozen in place.

Having enemies that you can't dispose helps what the original subnautica was and they should have gone further with it.

A game that simulated terror until you realized how much of the game is a loudly barking, but very tiny dog.

If they wanted to make an anti-gun statement, they failed. Deus Ex had a better one. One way they could have achieved it was to allow the gun only after hacking the replicator and after a series of warnings from the alterra software. Then after the first time the gun is used in vicinity of a warper, a timer starts of about a day and after that they all equip themselves with guns to deal with the greater threat.

It would serve as a statement against an arms race.

 

[geckogoy]

It would serve as a statement against an arms race.

Giving players guns specifically so you can cuck them with more powerful NPCs is about 95% as gay as how the game is currently

 

[Lemmingwiser]

Giving players guns specifically so you can cuck them with more powerful NPCs is about 95% as gay as how the game is currently

All political statements in a game are gay and detrimental to just having fun with it, but if you want to make your point, this is the way you could do it.

In a way subnautica has an effective non-violence statement that's subtler. Plenty of people that played it knife kill a stalker or ray fish in the early game and then see it go lifeless without any xp or goodies, and then experience a bit of regret in the meaningless killing.

 

[Xenomorphs Are Cute]

I'd just like to remind everyone that there are underwater guns that were made IRL during the Cold War.

The APS Underwater Rifle.

(The first comment is literally about Subnautica kek).

That actually made it in a CoD games too.

Alongside the SPP-1 Underwater Pistol

Hell, even Germany made it later & it's called the H&K P11. It looks like the iOS squirt gun turned into a real gun.

They literally just fire darts apparently. Like a tactical Nailgun. So yeah, they can very easily put this in the game if they wanted to.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I'd just like to remind everyone that there are underwater guns that were made IRL during the Cold War.

The APS Underwater Rifle.

(The first comment is literally about Subnautica kek).

That actually made it in a CoD games too.

Alongside the SPP-1 Underwater Pistol

Hell, even Germany made it later & it's called the H&K P11. It looks like the iOS squirt gun turned into a real gun.

They literally just fire darts apparently. Like a tactical Nailgun. So yeah, they can very easily put this in the game if they wanted to.

You pretty much just need to swap a gunpowder based cartridge system with an air pressure based cartridge. Arguably easier to do if you have a fabricator that only needs raw materials.

 

[regalterry]

You pretty much just need to swap a gunpowder based cartridge system with an air pressure based cartridge. Arguably easier to do if you have a fabricator that only needs raw materials.

Guns can fire underwater (mostly) fine, just like they can (mostly) do so in space, the real problem is designing them so they can cycle in the next round consistently, especially if they are fully automatic, since water is 800 times denser than air. Range is obviously also going to be an issue.

Ignition isn't really a problem, bullets contain their own oxidant, though trying to fire a standard gun from really deep underwater might prevent ignition.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Guns can fire underwater (mostly) fine, just like they can (mostly) do so in space, the real problem is designing them so they can cycle in the next round consistently, especially if they are fully automatic, since water is 800 times denser than air. Range is obviously also going to be an issue.

Ignition isn't really a problem, bullets contain their own oxidant, though trying to fire a standard gun from really deep underwater might prevent ignition.

You'd probably have to adjust the gunpowder to the depth, I think air pressure bypasses it and might be easier to make water tight.

 

[Snekposter]

Any place to get some good mods for the first game, for those uninterested in giving these shitty devs any money?

 

[Bunkerhousing]

May I introduce you to qBittorent? Nigga.

Well, it was solved, I hatched a plan with a friend to share our stream libraries via familysharing. My friend got a litte busy during the vacation and was going away so he bought the game for me before I could say anything. So plan partially failed they got another sale.

This is my steam review

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Terroristhawk/recommended/848450?snr=1_5_9__402

Also, since Marguerite Maida survived everything I now consider gender to be just a construct.

Seriously that plotpoint with her surviving is incredibly dumb. They just needed more gilrbosses and Lesbians in the game.

Especially since the game fails to capture what made Subnautica so memorable.

I too wish there was another game like Subnautica to play, but the original developer is unlikely to strike that gold vein again.

Well, I wanted to see the story and everything and yeah, it was not very good. The developers have full time feeding their ego and reading Marx.

 

[Bunkerhousing]

Some youtuber made a post regariding the lawsuit. Currently Krafton has the disadvantage.