Leaked Assassin's Creed 3 Screenshots Show American Revolution 100
An anonymous reader writes "After three years, Ubisoft is finally finishing the newest installment of their Templars vs. Assassins series, set during the American Revolution. PC Magazine reports that 'If the cover art is any indicator, the new Assassin is pals with George Washington, Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, and the other leading American revolutionaries of the day.' A team of developers at Ubisoft reportedly dedicated a full three-year development cycle to re-examining every element in the franchise to improve the game — although it could've taken even longer."
...and if you look closely... He's Native. (Score:5, Insightful)
Beadwork armbands, moccasins, ponybead necklace, fringed quiver, ornamented bow and belt, and tomahawk.
Messer Ezio's great-grandson here is *not* an English colonist. He most likely speaks an eastern dialect of one of the Algonquin peoples and languages. ...and I for one can't wait to play this.
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The Assasin's Creed games are not to my taste, but I approve of the main character being an Algonquin. The history of the aboriginal people of the United States and Canada has not gotten the attention it deserves, and its great to see it used as background in a popular work.
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The Assasin's Creed games are not to my taste, but I approve of the main character being an Algonquin. The history of the aboriginal people of the United States and Canada has not gotten the attention it deserves, and its great to see it used as background in a popular work.
I'm pretty certain the attention that Ubisoft is going to give it isn't going to be all that much different than the attention it has already received. To be honest, the collision between Northern European culture and North American aboriginal culture has gotten at least some attention -- what happens when a technologically inferior culture gets between a technologically superior culture and their manifest destiny has been documented extensively in the popular media. I have a certain stereotypical image
Re:...and if you look closely... He's Native. (Score:5, Interesting)
Beadwork armbands, moccasins, ponybead necklace, fringed quiver, ornamented bow and belt, and tomahawk.
Uh, not necessarily. Many frontier settlers of that time period had regular interaction and trade with native populations, and in many cases adopted the lifestyles of the natives. They would even go as far as to take a native wife or become a "member" of the tribe. Also, you have to remember that the native clothing and lifestyle were perfectly adapted for living in a wild forest, much more so than traditional European clothing and culture. The frontier settlers wore buckskin, they wore moccasins. They would be familiar with Native weaponry, and would likely possess native jewelry as well through trade. You also have to remember what happened right before the Revolution: the French-Indian War. Most of the battles that took place in the colonies took place on the frontier. There were many frontier militia groups formed to fight alongside the British, and in many cases they fought alongside friendly Indian tribes. So, yeah, just because he has a bow, or is wearing native clothing or tribal jewelry does not necessarily mean he is an Indian. I would put money down that he's simply a frontier settler.
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My wife is Menominee (one of the Algonquin peoples). She zeroed in on those beaded armbands and the choker and instantly knew what she was looking at.
And, tada, she was right. :)
Props to Ubisoft for achieving that level of accuracy and historical fidelity.
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Also, you have to remember that the native clothing and lifestyle were perfectly adapted for living in a wild forest, much more so than traditional European clothing and culture.
This was the 18th century - most of the European people did live very close to a forest, and knew how to survive in one. The Europeans who went to the US were of course not those kind of people predominantly.
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Another thing to note: how would he have been a great-great-great-etc. grandson to the Italian Ezio Auditore and the Syrian Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, if he were fully native? He's pretty much got to have some European/Asian genes in him. So consider this to be me backing up both you and BinarySolo a few posts down.
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You have many great-great-great-etc. grandparents. Couldn't it be a different branch of the family tree?
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Perhaps, but it seems like the whole game revolves around this assassin. To have him still be connected to the whole end-of-the-earth thing, wouldn't he need to have the same precursor/forefather/whatever genes that Ezio and Altair shared? To have the eagle vision and those semi-psychic abilities?
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French, they're based in Montreuil (it's part of Paris). Unless you're thinking of Ubisoft Montreal, which is their NA based studio.
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snip
Messer Ezio's great-grandson here is *not* an English colonist. He most likely speaks an eastern dialect of one of the Algonquin peoples and languages. ...and I for one can't wait to play this.
From Milwaukee?
Actually, it's pronounced Millie-wah-kay; which is Algonquin for "The good land."
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How can the great-grandson of a medieval Italian nobleman be a native american?
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better not have the same SHIT DRM that last game (Score:5, Insightful)
better not have the same SHIT DRM that the last game had.
Re:better not have the same SHIT DRM that last gam (Score:4, Insightful)
sconeu's law (Score:4, Interesting)
In any discussion of Ubisoft, the probability of discussion of DRM approaches 1.
This means that the person who bring it up has lost.
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Since I ended up having to downloading the crack last time anyway, I'm going to save time and money and skip that first step of buying it. Other than that I look forward to a great game.
Re:better not have the same SHIT DRM that last gam (Score:4, Insightful)
better not have the same SHIT DRM that the last game had.
You speak as though Ubisoft are able to learn their lesson.
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According to this, Rayman Origins for PC is DRM free:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/26/rayman-origins-coming-to-pc-drm-free/
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Fuck Ubisoft. I will never buy another game from them because they hate their own customers.
Re:better not have the same SHIT DRM that last gam (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry, they'll be sure to have even stronger DRM this time! I hear that the new kind makes you set up an appointment with an Ubisoft representative who will not only helpfully install the game for you using a secret code, but they will watch over your shoulder as you play to make sure that you don't copy their stuff! In fact, you would probably do that when you're NOT playing (Even though with AC2, they must think that if you lose connection for a few seconds, you're obviously pirating.) so they'll install monitoring software and set up cameras to watch your activity. Expect the cost of the games to double, but it'll be worth it to stop those dirty pirates, right?
It'll be nothing like the shit DRM the last game had, but if they keep doing things like this, it's going to BE their last game.
or make it on-live only or pay per play like the a (Score:2)
or make it on-live only or pay per play like the arcade and then some jack ass mapper will one map so hard that you will die over and over having to put more Quarters in. Like the Water World arcade game where you walk a few step die and have to put 40 more quarters in.
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I see what you did there, Milhouse.
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better not have the same SHIT DRM that the last game had
I'm sure those three years were well spent. It would've taken longer but they abandoned the requirement that your computer be plugged directly into their server using one of their miles-long cables.
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The last game only had a DRM check on first play. See http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/10/oh-but-some-good-ass-rev-news-drm/ [rockpapershotgun.com]
Achievement: Eggs Benedict (Score:5, Funny)
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Note: for those of us up in Canada, Arnold should be considered a patriot - since he stayed loyal to the King :P
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Note: for those of us up in Canada, Arnold should be considered a patriot - since he stayed loyal to the King :P
I guess the bootheel of a monarch tastes better with enough maple syrup?
Re:"US Patriotism" -- Be careful what you wish for (Score:5, Insightful)
I know Slashdotters reflexively make anti-US statements every time the US is even mentioned, but I'm really struggling to see the relevance of this complaint.
Re:"US Patriotism" -- Be careful what you wish for (Score:5, Insightful)
I know Slashdotters reflexively make anti-US statements every time the US is even mentioned, but I'm really struggling to see the relevance of this complaint.
The topic is a game that has the American Revolution as its background. An American might surely be forgiven if the word "patriotism" comes to mind in that context. As I pointed out in my reply to the original poster, he is in error when he equates patriotism with nationalism. I think that this discussion is well within the bounds of the topic.
Incidentally, I currently have moderator points, so I'm faced with the usual dilemma: do I comment, or mod? I prefer to comment. I'm wondering if there should not be a sanctioned way to have your cake and eat it too: abolish the rule that you can't comment if you have modded anything in the thread. To prevent abuse, the fact that you have modded the thread should be pointed out (e.g. "modded OP -1 Flamebait" after your name and slashdot number). Heck, maybe commenting should be compulsory after you mod...maybe you should have to justify why you modded a post up or down.
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The substance of the post was obviously "the US revolted because it wanted freedoms and now the system is pushing that America is free and its enemies aren't, but really that's not true at all! The more people learn about this, the more it's going to hurt the government."
This is in the context of the announcement of a video game where you (apparently) are a modern-day bartender who is sent through a sci-fi device to re-live ancestral memories of a forebearer who was part of an international secret society,
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Isn't the whole idea behind having multiple different up- and downmods precisely to express this? Besides, if every troll post is guaranteed to generate at least one visible message, stating it was a troll, the end result will be quite a bit of noise.
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I know Slashdotters reflexively make anti-US statements every time the US is even mentioned, but I'm really struggling to see the relevance of this complaint.
The topic is a game that has the American Revolution as its background. An American might surely be forgiven if the word "patriotism" comes to mind in that context. As I pointed out in my reply to the original poster, he is in error when he equates patriotism with nationalism. I think that this discussion is well within the bounds of the topic.
Incidentally, I currently have moderator points, so I'm faced with the usual dilemma: do I comment, or mod? I prefer to comment. I'm wondering if there should not be a sanctioned way to have your cake and eat it too: abolish the rule that you can't comment if you have modded anything in the thread. To prevent abuse, the fact that you have modded the thread should be pointed out (e.g. "modded OP -1 Flamebait" after your name and slashdot number). Heck, maybe commenting should be compulsory after you mod...maybe you should have to justify why you modded a post up or down.
That's what meta-moderation is for. Perhaps not as direct and effective as what you suggest, but effective enough, I think.
Anyway -- "patriot" and "traitor" are semantically null terms. The positive or negative connotations conferred by each term are completely determined by the context in which they are used. George Washington and Ben Franklin were "traitors" to the exact same extent that they were "patriots;" whether or not one approves of their actions is determined by one's POV, and only by one's
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Anyway -- "patriot" and "traitor" are semantically null terms. The positive or negative connotations conferred by each term are completely determined by the context in which they are used. George Washington and Ben Franklin were "traitors" to the exact same extent that they were "patriots;" whether or not one approves of their actions is determined by one's POV, and only by one's POV. A game that promotes one POV over another risks alienating a significant portion of the target demographic. I doubt Ubisoft is going to let that happen -- look at what happened when a certain game company decided to allow players to play from the Taliban POV successfully against American soldiers.
I'm not sure what you mean by "semantically null". I suspect perhaps you are asserting that these words are meaningless. Maybe you think that these words are meaningless because one can view George Washington as a traitor or a patriot, depending on one's opinion on the matter. Today, some people say Obama is a traitor; others disagree. However, if "patriot" and "traitor" were meaningless, one could neither hold nor discuss such views. One could not even have what you call a "POV" on the matter.
You can't s
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I have little doubt that the flag-waving "patriotism" the government and media was pushing ...
I think you're making the serious—but all too common error—of confusing patriotism with nationalism. This error is especially easy to make because nationalists like to say that they are patriots.
Patriotism is love of one's country; it is defensive in nature. Nationalism is the wish to subject other countries and peoples to the dominion of one's country. Where patriotism is passive, nationalism is aggressive, and—if successful—turns into imperialism. I am a conservative and a patriot
Re:"US Patriotism" -- Be careful what you wish for (Score:4, Informative)
Nationalism is the wish to subject other countries and peoples to the dominion of one's country.
No, it's not. Just as patriotism is the love for one's country ("patria" - fatherland), nationalism is the love for one's nation. Since countries are not always matched up with nations one-to-one, they don't always coincide. Either can be defensive or aggressive etc.
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Nationalists loves that people get groped by TSA agents, if they don't they are not nationalist because the nation have decided that TSA agents should grope people.
This only holds if the nationalist in question believes that "nation has decided" and has vested some authority into TSA to that effect. Some do believe that; many don't.
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I really like the people who complain about the DRM but then buy the game anyway. Oh, the horror! I can't just not buy the game because that would mean I wouldn't get to play it!
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What kind of DRM is this anti-consumer company handcuffing their cash cow with? Will it be another always-on internet connection, preventing a single-player game from working on a laptop when you travel, your internet service is down for maintenance, you moved and haven't gotten your internet service established, or just plain don't like having some company track when and where you play your games?
They do sh*t like that? And people buy those games? Wow. Of course, I'm a very conservative gamer—I'm still playing the original Everquest. And yes, I know about Sony...and um...I guess having an internet connection is kinda obligatory when you are playing an MMORPG. Seriously, I kind of liked the look of a game my daughter was playing ("Skyrim" or something), until I found out she had to slavishly log in to Steam to play this single player game. No way.
I just talked to daughter. She says there's an
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Offline Mode is still done via Steam - it just won't need an internet connection to start up after the game in question has been updated an authorized once. Still, Steam is a lot milder DRM scheme that Ubisoft's.
Seriously, Ubisoft one just kicks you out of the game, without possibility of saving, should your connection falter for a second. At least it used to. Steam needs just one check at its own startup - and this can be bypassed on next startups by enabling Offline Mode.
It may seem that "melding" a game
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Contrary to other kinds of DRM, Steam also provides advantages. In the case of Skyrim, any mods you may have installed get checked automatically for updates, and copies of savegames are kept in the cloud so you can play the same game on multiple machines.
When your internet connection goes down, it won't interrupt gameplay in any way, and it'll take care of synchronizing stored gamedata later on.
So yes, Steam is a form of DRM, but it is really quite mild, it is compensated by a lot of advantages, and it has
Swell (Score:4, Funny)
I know there's a lot to do in the game, but somehow I always think it's a good idea to buy the game and then end up wandering aimlessly around some ancient city.
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Was it using the Fox Engine? (Score:2)
I some how got into some Fox Engine stuff looking at the links. That engine looks amazing. The question is, what kind of a beast of a computer does one need to run that at acceptable frame rates?
I know, L2Research.
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A 2004 era power pc, 256 megs of ram, and a gimped geforce 7800 sharing system ram ... and that's for the high quality version
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Awww... you jealous? You don't get your liberal socialism game where any progress you make is stripped from you and given to the kid down the block because he hasn't gotten as far as you have?
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I despise Ubi's DRM, but they've been quite good about not toeing the traditional "morality" line. If you think you're going to get to run around slaughtering those damn atheist marxist redcoat nazis without having any uncomfortable questions come up, you're in for quite a disappointment.
Wait a second (Score:5, Funny)
If this is AC 3, then what were Brotherhood and Revelations? I guess 2.1 and 2.2?
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cause ubisoft is a bunch of lazy fucks?
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Yes.
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Fantastic franchise, great story arc (Score:5, Informative)
Ubisoft, while consistently putting incredibly restrictive and obstructive DRM on their games, sure know how to make a compelling story. It creates dissonance because I don't want to support the studio which implements such draconian DRM, but I want to support the artists and developers who make such a great game.
SPOILER ALERT.
To anyone who hasn't played the franchise, or hasn't kept up with it through the latest game, Revelations, I believe you are missing out on a fantastic work of fiction. The entire story has dealt with the protagonist Desmond's uncovering of an ancient civilization on earth which were wiped out by a massive solar event. He is able to discover this through "re-living the memories of his ancestors in his DNA" by hooking up to a special machine called the Animus. By doing this, he is able to re-live characters throughout time, be it the crusades in the 1190s (Assassin's Creed) or the Renaissance (Assassin's creed 2 and it's two spinoffs). Eventually, Desmond discovered the ancient race, and they instruct him to find something (which we still don't know what it is) that will prevent the Earth from suffering the same cataclysmic fate. In the mean time, the order of the Knights Templar, and their current incarnation, Abstergo Corporation, has been secretly pulling strings on humanity since at least 1198 AD.
My favorite part of the game is how Ubisoft has been able to link have the massive conspiracy of the Knights Templar throughout history and even into modern times. The game leads the player to believe that almost every major player and every major event in history has been part of this conspiracy. Through the story and the puzzles, the game implicates Robert de Sable [wikipedia.org], The Borgia Family and Pope Rodrigo Borgia [wikipedia.org], Chief Justice John Roberts [wikipedia.org], Hitler [wikipedia.org], and an unnamed [wikipedia.org] modern day [wikipedia.org] telecommunications company [wikipedia.org] as being all part of the templars. Meanwhile, Da Vinci [wikipedia.org], Niccolo Machiavelli [wikipedia.org], and Suleiman the Magnificent [wikipedia.org] are all part of the other side, the Assassins, whose mission it is to stop and expose the templars.
I find it interesting they pull no punches even with modern day public figures. In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, one of the puzzles requires you to figure out that John Roberts and Scalia decided Citizens United v. FEC specifically so that the templars, under the guise of Abstergo Corporation, could elect and influence any politician they want.
I hope Ubisoft gives this game and this franchise the due care and attention to detail and presentation that they have in the past, and aren't trying to just push out a product every year for financial gain. I am excited to see how they will continue the arc in the American revolution.
BEN FRANKLIN WITH HIDDEN BLADES, YO!
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SPOILER
Lets not forget; and I hope the developers didn't either. That, Washington at some point during the war acquired a 'Piece of Eden'. Which was passed down to each subsequent president. So, hopefully this 'American' piece will factor heavily into the story.
Also, this is a chance for them to establish the blood line convergence between Ezio's and Altair's to form subject 16 and Desmond's bloodline. Which makes sense since both characters are decidedly American.
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I agree its a fantastic story and one that would probably make it into some best-seller NY Times style if it weren't a "Video Game". The soundtrack, is absolutely fantastic.
I'm disappointed mind you. There's a lot of nuances to the plot you'll never find out unless you spend 100's of hours exploring the city. Not everyone has this much time (or wants to spend it gaming). Mostly, I'm disappointed by the last game. It was way too short - beat it in 4 hours or so. (I'm not contradicting my last point, in that
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My favorite bit is how they weaved in the Book of Genesis.
Essentially, the earlier civilizations created human beings "in their image" to act as servants. Humanity appears to have rebelled; in fact, an "Adam" and an "Eve" show up in a hidden cutscene implying that they're two of said rebels. Apples of Eden are powerful weapons (working through mind control, with optional Kill setting).
Adam and Eve escape the slavery of their 'benevolent' Creators with the help of an Apple. It's not actually too hard to read
Upcoming DLC (Score:2)
Predator Drone Operator Mode: Unlocked!
Washington... (Score:1)
So, is Washingtons's Havoc weight going to be 2000lbs?
Wow, amazing looking game! (Score:2)
Oh wait, it's an Ubisoft game, which means it will have bullshit DRM on it. Guess I'll just have to miss out.
Project Appleseed (Score:2)
(Propoganda? Yes, get some: http://www.appleseedinfo.org/ [appleseedinfo.org])
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The Assassin Order frowns on your failure of a crosspost and has dispatched Stabs-Through-TCP/IP to... correct the situation.
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The Patriot (Score:1)
Firearms (Score:2)
A broken heart speaks out (Score:1)
Then came AC2, and with it, all the magic was gone. Hated the story and because I do not connect my PS3 to the internet, the only way I can re-visit some of the better missions is to replay the game from the beginning.
SPOILER ALERT
Curse that Apple and the Gods