#fuck ubisoft

[asscrackcreed]

okay. it's here.

its weird how they talk about the mechanics as if its new and upgraded but a lot of it is the same?

they changed the eavesdrop system so that they'll spot you and try to fight and you can fight them back too, instead of how you'd get desynchronised. this... doesn't make sense from an animus perspective?

new people with backstories, where you can recruit them? okay not mad

add animals to the ship. cute.

new narrative arcs including blackbeard. huh interesting.

[splosh-crime]

7 Ways the Assassins are Unsubtle as Fuck

The Assassin Brotherhood’s whole “hide in plain sight” thing seems to be enforced only in the (very) short-term. Here be the receipts:

Distinctive beaked hood that makes it way easier to identify you as an Assassin

Distinctive white robes that make stealth, blending with crowds, preventing civilian casualties, & cleanup post-murder way more difficult than it needs to be. Yes, I know Altaïr used it to blend in with scholars. That’s not applicable in most places anymore. I don’t care if it’s to show off your skill or pay homage to Altaïr, that’s not your fucking job when innocents could get caught in the line of fire if you’re caught.

Putting the Brotherhood’s symbol on everything from secret entrances to hidden blades to giant belt buckles to their skin to a 4-foot giant symbol on the front entrance of Monteriggioni

0 attempts to hide your identity while killing beyond wearing a hood. No mask, no codenames, no nothing. Not even the modern assassins had Desmond wear a mask in public. A medical mask would even blend in if he fakes a cough. Being noticeable in an average way even contributes to covers by distracting from actions according to former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez.

Cutting off your ring finger gives you a permanent and hard-to-hide feature identifying you as an Assassin, adds unnecessary difficulty to daily free-running/parkour, may distract you with chronic pain during deadly missions, and fatal infection from the initial injury had a high probability for thousands of years. In addition, should an Assassin wish to retire or leave the Brotherhood, they could still be kidnapped, tortured, enslaved, or murdered upon being identified by their finger amputation; making it that much more difficult to leave this cult. Not to mention that this tradition started because Bayek was a dumbass and put the first Hidden Blade on wrong (and didn’t test it), accidentally amputating his finger on the job. When he started the Hidden Ones, recruits started imitating him to show their commitment despite his protests. It’s implied that he respected their choice once they explained but that doesn’t mean I have to. /hj

I get that this probably wasn’t standard practice and that Hytham (not Haytham Kenway, fuck Ubisoft) was probably just a bout of teenage dumbassery but telling an ally you just met exactly who you are, what you do, your creed, practices, and sacred traditional free fall without her even expressing interest in joining the Brotherhood is really dumb. Basim was just as bad since he gave Eivor a hidden blade and trained her in its use but given he’s not very loyal to the Brotherhood and was trying to manipulate Sigurd, that’s not super surprising. The ally in question is Eivor “Wolf-Kissed” Varinsdottir, for anyone who hasn’t played Valhalla, by the way.

Masyaf Castle & Village gets an honorable mention because, though it is a monument to the Assassins’ stealth abilities (lackthereof), they’re vulnerable whether they’re spread out or concentrated so they might as well pick the devil they know (by knowing/countering their most obvious weakness) and get some socialization, comfort, and money while they’re at it.

I seriously need someone to mention at least one of these unsubtlties in a fic. Personally, I’d nominate Clay Kaczmarek, Shaun Hastings, or a reformed Haytham Kenway as candidates for leading a reform (or just being sassy about this) but if you have a better idea or an addition to the list, please let me know. All my posts double as invitations for discussion.

[erins-urn]

Virtuousa is genuinely just bad character design. More than Juren, Pirate, Shinobi or any other character that people claim is cheap. The reason BEING that the only way to fight her is essentially to just STARE at her and hope you can react to her multitude of great options out of her stance. People say to "just GB her" but any good Virtuousa can just poke you every time you try and stop you in your tracks. Maybe im just trash but Virt is genuinely so buns and the ONLY character in the game I don't want to fight against.

[dr-spectre]

The amount of support Stop Killing Games has been getting is nothing short of inspiring and genuinely jaw-dropping. Seeing millions upon millions of people being fed up with how games are being killed off and actively doing something about it is... its just... oh my god it's incredible. It's now over 1.2 million signatures and it's getting higher and higher in such a short amount of time.

In fact Stop Killing Games has gotten so big that some of the biggest video game publishers are aware of the initiative and are actively going against it.

These are the companies that wanna stop this initiative.

For those who aren't fully aware, Stop Killing Games is a consumer movement that aims to challenge certain laws relating to video games. We've seen time and time again many games that people have spent money on, being completely shut-down and having no way of playing them.

The biggest example is The Crew, a game that has a single player mode, can no longer be played anymore simply because the game is tied to the internet and Ubisoft have refused to give the game to the fans. In fact Ubisoft in their TOS tells you to DESTORY YOUR COPY OF A GAME IF THEY END SUPPORT FOR IT! NO IM NOT JOKING! THAT IS A REAL THING!!!

Stop Killing Games is basically saying that game companies should implement an end of life plan for games that have internet requirements so that games can stop being inaccessible. Whether its making a game playable offline or giving tools to the fans so that they can easily maintain fan servers and essentially hand the keys over to someone else, it doesn't matter, all that matters is that games need to stop dying and should be preserved and playable in someway for future generations.

And thankfully, because the EU petition has reached over 1 million signatures, the governments of EU countries MUST look at the initiative. However its still strongly urged that more people should sign the petition to account for fake signatures and other errors.

If you aren't in an EU country then you can still share the word around and gather up more support. Even though this is something only the EU will look at, it will have an impact across the entire industry so even if you don't live in the EU, it will be a positive for you down the line.

Video games are an art form. The shareholders and higher ups at these game companies are actively destroying art because they want you to buy the next product. They do not see games as art and each game they destroy is another piece of literature, artwork, music, and so much more being wiped away. Imagine if this applied to music or movies, you know how FUCKED UP THAT WOULD BE?!?! Imagine never being able to listen to your favourite song ever again... Video games need to be protected and archived. End of story. We are moving further and further into an all digital future and the laws NEED to catch up to this and make sure these companies get punished for doing stuff that should be fucking illegal.

[murderandjam]

Does it count as going "mask off" that after Desmond's death, Ubisoft turned Abstergo into a video game developer and said "don't worry, the soul eating machine that drives you crazy is just a game dev tool, now! It's totally safe to use this way!" and more or less dropped the entire "Abstergo wants to take over the world via mind control and would have done so if not for a small group of people of diverse (often brown) backgrounds" meta narrative?

"We worked very hard to be culturally sensitive and worked with people of many cultures in order to portray the people depicted in our game in a sensitive and accurate light" says Assassin's Creed 1.

"Modeling women player characters would be to haaaard," says Ubisoft, several very successful games later.

"Things are more complicated that good vs evil" suggests AC3, a game in which a white Templar raises his First Nations "son" to help the white Founding Fathers of America to Found America or something, mirroring the very real, often overlooked or downplayed irl American history of abduction and "adoption" of countless First Nations children in a way that is not culturally sensitive or even self aware, like a racist funhouse mirror from hell, this game is going to hell.

"We made the original founder of the creed an Asian woman!!" desperately announces Ubisoft many more games later, having already told us they see themselves in the mindraping One World Order conglomerate Abstergo, and having abandoned all pretenses of their main characters being anything more than money-making dolls they've draped in the illusion of other cultures.

"I wish Prototype and InFamous had tag-teamed your ass in the 2010's and kept you humble" I say, having kind of enjoyed Black Flag and literally nothing else from Ubisoft in the last twenty fucking years.

[itbe-jess]

Remember this really awful tweet?

I know they’re playing the villain here, but if they wanted to stay in-character, they could’ve at least spoken like a REAL evil corporation. This isn’t even villain role-play, this is the team using it as an excuse to show their true colors. If Eden is the satirical equivalent of Disney, then they’re supposed to sound apathetic, while presenting a shit-eating demeanor. Big companies love to deceive their consumers with a fake smile. LIKE THIS:

It’s not that hard!

[hikomichi64]

Tyranny of King Washington was wildly praised by the gaming community back in April 2013 even though most gamers today either weren’t born yet or simply forgot about it. The Western political climate has worsened to such an extent that games about “slavery bad” and “kkk bad” would be considered woke communist propaganda. Even though Ubisoft is known for making milquetoast political and social critique ,at best, in their games backlash would be but guaranteed. Look at the FC5 fiasco. FUCK RIGHT-WINGERS, FUCK GRIFTERS and FUCK UBISOFT for sucking fascist cock. Remember that Stephen Totilo article the next Ubi tries to pass itself as morally superior, remember that article the next time Ubisoft sponsors progressive streamers à la Hasan Piker.

[lgbtranswoman]

I think the Ps3, Xbox360, and WiiU should have been the ultimate stopping point for videogame graphics for the industry standard.

Some new games with high quality graphics look great, yes, but so much of that fucking proccessing power is going to waste because I'm not looking at every individual flower petal of the field I'm running through on horseback, nor am I looking at every single piece of hair and pore on my MC's face.

So many of these games could have toned down the graphics, even by like 10%, to put that energy into mechanics or game polish and the game would have been 2-5x the fun.