>"Got stones in your ears? I asked what side you're on, Open Palm or Closed Fist!"
>>2930100Not RPG. It's an action-adventure console game and it's average.
>>2930100>Gives you this whole song and dance avout how neither path is really good or evil>Closed Fist ends up being objectivelly good>Open Palm ends up being objectivelly evil???
>>2930113They probably had good intentions but then had Californians write the rest. A common tragedy.
>2930101>Not RPG. It's an action-adventure console game and it's average.
>>2930113>Closed Fist ends up being objectivelly good>Open Palm ends up being objectivelly evil
>>2930119CF liberates the people from their god's influence, right?
>>2930113Bioware only knows how to write morality in a binary>>2930119Did you play the game?
>>2930119Whole reason for undead rising is a trapped Water Dragon, freeing her via kung-fu manslaughter to cause mass famine is the only Good ending and this is pure Closed Fist forcing everyone to fend for themselves to cull the weak and make everyone grow a spine.
>>2930131Yes, that's what makes it evil.
>>2930113>objectively "evil" path>its just you being a cunt for no reason to everyone you talk tobioware writing was never good
>>2930169Both endings can be chosen by both paths, your alignment doesn't matter. Closed Fist is just you being an asshat inbetween moments when you tell people they are shit and walking all over everyone's feelings.
I liked Silk Fox.
>>2930169>>2930179There is nothing wrong about culling the weak and the worthless. You would probably be purged so that is why you think it is "evil" but in reality it is doing the world a favor.
Consider the following:>Throughout most of the game, the Way of the Open Palm is presented as good: You gain Open Palm points when you help people, don't ask for a reward, show compassion and mercy, etc.>The Way of the Closed Fist is, of course, usually presented as evil: You gain Closed Fist points when you betray others, ruin people's lives, behave cruelly or selfishly, etc.But then, at the very end, you choose whether to release the Dragon who was imprisoned to stop a 10-year-long drought, or to use her power. Fun fact: the choice you make gives you enough morality points to push you almost fully into its corresponding side of the Palm-Fist spectrum, even if you had previously maxed out the other one. Like I said, you can:>Release the goddess>This resumes the drought, people die in hundreds of thousands if not millions, and the land is plunged into a time of anarchy and violence>Sure, the drought would end - but not before toppling the Empire, as admitted by the DragonThis, according to BioWare, is the Open Palm ending - the good ending.Your other option is to:>Harness the goddess' power, effectively becoming a god yourself>This keeps the drought at bay, ensuring the continued prosperity of the Empire probably forever>It is implied that it might require human sacrifice - a fitting punishment for rapists, pedophiles, murderers, and other monstrous criminals who would've otherwise been allowed to live and sent to work on a meaningless wallThis, according to BioWare, is the Closed Fist ending - the evil ending.tl;dr: The choice that causes chaos and death on an unimaginable scale is presented as the kind of goodness that can fully atone for any and all of your previously committed atrocities, whereas ensuring stability and order for countless future generations is equated villainy that no amount of good deeds can redeem. Why this is the case not only with Jade Empire but many other modern western games as well, I shall leave to your endless imagination.
>>2930114bioware is canadian
>>2930228Old bioware would've let you agree with the based brit and probably take him on as a follower too.
>>2930228sorry anon but the game itself disagrees with your head canon...Silk fox and You endingOpen Palm romance (Water Dragon killed)AND Male romance"Though the credibility of her family was understandably marred by the actions of her father and uncle, Princess Sun Lian emerged from the incident with a newfound credibility that easily secured her claim to the throne. This was thanks in no small part to keeping <FullName> very close at hand. He was welcomed as her companion, and eventually as Emperor at her side. Together they would rule over a new golden age that seemed like it would never end."
>>2930242...oh. Nevermind then. Carry on, I suppose.
>>2930228Because you're going against the divine order for earthly concerns. It's deeper than limp-wristed 'liberal' interpretations of morality, which is a nice thing about Jade Empire. It does a decent enough job of portraying religious/spiritual reasoning about balance, the mandate of heaven and the cosmic order.
>>2930100This game pisses me off. Morality system was presented as having a nuance, but was executed porlly with binary choices of good an ebil. Also endings for open palm an closed fist should be flipped if considering what Smiling Mountain said about those philosophies.
>>2930242I think Roderick has a point though. Everything the game has been telling you up until that point is that the Empire is on borrowed time and other lands are suffering because of it. I think the ending slides should have better reflected the uncertainty and possible chaos that comes with freeing the Water Dragon, or continuing to grind her out to keep the Empire stable, damn the consequences.Moreover, I think the best was to have handled the Open Palm / Closed Fist design would have been to make it so that your actions rarely reward points in either directions, but instead your justifications do. Like in the whole bandit robbing a villager philosophical experiment that the game presents.I really like Jade Empire, even though the combat is pretty simple. Turning into a toad demon and smashing away at your enemies in bullet time was pretty sweet. The aesthetic of the game has a lot of charm, and I don't mind the old tongue dialog. Perhaps the combat system would have benefitted from having fewer styles or restricting only to martial and weapon styles, but pulling off certain combos lets you perform the more magical feats.
>>2930180Me too. Counterfeit Kitana is cool.
>>2930339is there a mileena
>>2930350Dawn Star, I guess.
>>2930351Dawn Star is the nicest girl in the game, so I don't think she counts.
>>2930355She wears purple though and shows her legs and is related to Silk Fox
>>2930235>is canadianeven worse
>>2930217>There is nothing wrong about culling the weak and the worthless.It's amazing how little self awareness you people have, you would be one of the first to be culled if society embraced that kind of thinking.
>>2930257there is nothing more shallow than muh divine order
>>2930228>>It is implied that it might require human sacrifice - a fitting punishment for rapists, pedophiles, murderers, and other monstrous criminals who would've otherwise been allowed to live and sent to work on a meaningless wallKek, you're literally implying your shitty empire needs to create and perpetuate evil in order for your empire to remain alive to begin with. These devs are right to blow the fuck out of your satanic faustian garbage.>>2930435All secular morality is nihilist aka arbitrary garbage.
which main character is the bestnever played this before
>>2930553Religious morality is equally arbitrary. The idea that divinity grants moral authority is just as subjective an idea as anything else.
>>2930435t. an angry minnow in the the great chain of being
>>2930228Perpetuating the era of prosperity with the water dragon's corpse isn't just subverting the celestial bureaucracy, it's exploiting a zero-sum system. Recall that the dragon points out that although there was drought in the Jade Empire, there was waterfall going elsewhere in the world. Sun Hai alleviating the drought with her enslaved half-dead corpse was bringing water to the Jade Empire at the expense of causing drought elsewhere. In the endings where you choose to keep using the dragon's power to sustain the Empire, it's mentioned that you get flooded with refugees.It's like Funny Valentine in JJBA part 7 using the Divine Corpse to send misfortune and calamity elsewhere in the world to keep the United States of America on a persistent upshot. It's a good ending if you put the singular success of your chosen nation above everything else but it'll be a real crock of shit for the rest of humanity.
>>2930745yes, that is how sane people think, preferring the welfare of their own to that of strangers.
>>2930101The only time where this was used properly
>>2930101fpbp
>>2930119Virtually every sidequest aside from the school ones. A true "closed fist" option is to just ignore the sidequest and tell people to fend for themselves but the majority of CF sidequest resolutions involve just murdering people for no reason.
>>2930339Doesn't she wear bulky body armor now to perform Tolerancealities or Diversitalities or something
>>2930746I think if you ran a cult of some kind you could just say you prefer the welfare of others without really meaning it or actually giving up anything and then get a lot of bitches and simps that buy into that kind of bullshit lining up for sex money and koolaid while they gave up stuff instead.
>>2930603I personally like fast characters myself.
>>2930746t. sharts in mart
>>2930100Open Palm
>>2930746The problem is nations don't exist in a vaccuum. People won't just endure shittiness in their homeland, they'll go to where it's not shit. Which is what's happening in the game.
>>2930746There is a difference and to be quite frankly, a level of sociopathy between simply not caring if strangers are worse off so that your own are better (which is what most people do), and actively ensuring that other people are kept suffering for your own comfort (which is what a supervillain does)
>>2931435>they'll go to where it's not shitNot if I kill them
>>2931053Well yeah. I mean you wouldn't want to be disrespectful to women as rip their heart out through their face. That would just be bad.
>>2931478There has literally never been an instance in history where mass migration was stopped through violence. Partially because the average person has no stomach for that, but mainly because it tends to go badly for you when you piss off a mass of people that large.
>>2930100I've only played a tiny bit of Mass Effect and Dragon Age before, but the five or so hours I gave Jade Empire made me come to the conclusion that I won't like BioWare RPGs. There was something very dull about it, despite the interesting setting and combat (at least, the concept of the combat. I feel like I didn't fully understand how to actually fight well).
>>2931947Most of history didn't have mass migration that's a more modern thing, also history didn't have leaders that basically became a god I think the protag could handle it.
>>2932028A Closed Fist protag would encourage mass migration into the Empire in order to use refugees as slaves (toiling for his own benefit) and also a torrent of isolated, detached and desperate people to wash away any hierarchy coherence and culture among the citizens that is not subordinate to him - the more havoc it causes the better. In any case, a Closed Fist ending is evidently not a vision of a "benevolent dictator" because Closed Fist radically rejects the concept of protective benevolent power - a Closed Fist ruler would deliberately dehumanize and exploit his people to his own gain, with only those who have the will and power to oppose him being even recognized as a part of the discourse (and the entire of discourse being a mutual war of extermination). Closed Fist cannot build a "strong thriving Empire" because "strong thriving empire" is antithetical to Closed Fist. It can only build a strong thriving self and a wretched hole for everyone else. If someone can crawl out and overturn the order to become a new top dog - well then your Fist was just not Closed enough, too bad. If it's an eternity of a huge asshole shitting on everyone else and drowning them in it's diarrhea - then this is the perfection of human condition and should be venerated as such.
Every time I get the urge to replay a bioware game I always remember how godawful their opening segments are and then I lose interest.
>>2930113Technically Master Li is an "evil" Open Palm.
>>2930228Pretty sure exploiting the dragon was causing the world to become more and more fucky wucky. The long term consequences of ruining the spiritual world seemed a bit worse than a spot of drought.
>>2932198Technically, there is no reason for people to be happy with you for effectively causing a massive famine and drought. None. Seriously nobody even knows who you are so them all receiving you as the wise messiah always gives me a good laugh.
>>2932028>Most of history didn't have mass migration that's a more modern thingThat's completely false, the history books are full of them. They just usually are called "war refugees" because that's the most common reason it happened. When Genghis Khan (to keep it China-related for Jade Empire) wanted to take over a big fortified city, he would attack surrounding small villages and drive the inhabitants as migrants and refugees to the big city. Swelled with a larger-than-usual population, the big fortified city would collapse from within, its resources (such as food) exhausted. This saved Temüjin, the Great Khan, the effort of a traditional Greek/Roman-style siege and catapult attack on a walled city.
>>2932378>Technically, there is no reason for people to be happy with you for effectively causing a massive famine and drought.That's not what happens, though. The whole point is that Sun Hai didn't assault the Water Dragon because it was 'necessary', he did so because he thought he deserved the power of a god. All he's done since is use the limitless resources the Water Dragon provides as a bandage over his increasingly inefficient rule. The Jade Empire is entirely capable of sustaining itself when managed properly, as the epilogues show when the Water Dragon is allowed to be reborn.>people shouldn't even know who you areEven by the time you get to the Imperial City you're starting to develop a bit of a profile. Someone who stormed the palace with the Emperor's daughter, defeated the Emperor and Death's Hand, defeated an entire Imperial army in Dirge, defeated (or allied with) Death's Hand again, and then stormed the palace again to defeat the new Emperor would be pretty famous. Especially considering you can end the party in a relationship with or close friends with the new Empress, or her newly revealed cousin.
>>2932400No shit sherlock. Wanna say the sky is blue next?
>>2932419So what was the point of the previous post, beyond an expression of schizophrenia?
>>2932425Have you never had a conversation with someone before and they make a claim of what should've happened instead of what actually happens? Heck you even bring up stuff I didn't mention, regardless of why the Water Dragon had to go the drought is supposed to happen. Peasant farmers and people living the good life have no business knowing fuck all about what you did in the palace.At most a post death vindication or living in exile is what you should hope for as an epilogue after being executed for assassination.
His armor... so black. Black like a hole in the earth...
>>2932427>Have you never had a conversation with someone before and they make a claim of what should've happened instead of what actually happens?Could you direct me to the part in the post I replied to where that's written? For some reason, I can't seem to find it.>Regardless of why the Water Dragon had to go, the drought is supposed to happen.No. The drought twenty years ago was supposed to happen, but that was twenty years ago, it doesn't mean that the Jade Empire has to undergo twenty years of drought to make up for it. The point to releasing the Water Dragon is so that she can once more steward the seasons in the natural order, not the unnatural one that's been imposed.>Peasant farmers and people living the good life have no business knowing fuck all about what you did in the palace.>At most a post death vindication or living in exile is what you should hope for as an epilogue after being executed for assassination.Peasant farmers and people living the good life won't know anything apart from the fact that apparently you're a hero who saved the Empire now, and they'll treat you as such.Executed by whom, the new Empress who is one of your party members? What's left of the Lotus Assassins?
>>2932434Right here >>2932378 All of it.Didn't bother reading the rest since I have no patience with someone trying to start something.
>>2932439>Right here. All of it.Nothing in that posts states or implies that's what should have happened, though, and it's replying to a post about what actually happens in the game. Go on, point out the 'here is what should've happened instead'. It shouldn't be that hard for you.>Didn't bother reading the rest since I have no patience with someone trying to start something.I'm just here to discuss the game, anon. Aren't you? If you don't want to reply because you don't have any counterarguments, why don't you just say so? This is an anonymous board for a reason.
>>2931053Not really. Shows less ass, is a chink.
>>2930100>Closed Fist>Emperor's daughter>kill the dragonI am the Heavens
