From August 10th on you'll be able to add Betrayal to your N4 pre-order, but think that then, Betrayal will be delivered when N4. If you want Betrayal earlier, order it separately :)
In a cyber-punk genre, not everything must have all the tropes at once. They just need to be there, and in infinity there are almost all of it. Dystopic environment? you have corregidor, where you have to even pay for your consumed air. Transhumanism? there are several examples, but the most obvious is that there are posth-humans! (the main objective of transhumanism!), but also artificial bodies, controlled (or not) mutations and enhanced implants. Maya and arachne as big big nets that affect the life of the people in a hard way, aleph is the big AI that helps humanity or seeks its control. The EI as an enemy but at the same time a way to make humanity advance. Hackers that put their minds in the net and can have their brains fried there. Big companies literally control planets... there are a lot of examples. but it is done in a mild way, with not so much deep rethoric, not as a main point, just another part of the setting. And as I say, not with the same impact in all places. So yes, Infinity is cyberpunk, but not all of infinity shows it.
What you call implausible is explained quite thoroughly, even I who don't read the lore know the general gist of it and how it makes sense from what bleeds over to the forums in terms of discussions. Stuff that doesn't make sense would be stuff like why a character can't just teleport around (although by writing "teleport" I've actually made an attempt at making sense of their movement) or why their hair colour and cut doesn't randomly alter in a strobing cascade of gaudiness and light - without actually being weird enough to serve as a focal point of a story whose conclusion almost certainly will involve explaining, at least partially, why this happens. No, like I wrote, I'm fairly certain that you fully expect stuff to make sense, too, just that what you're willing to accept as sense is different and informed from what you personally know about how things work. As an example; for me it made perfect sense that a pistol with a silencer does less damage in games because the silencer takes the sound away which has to also reduce some function of the gun. Then I learned how a suppressor works and now that no longer makes sense to me, but is instead a game play conceit. My mysticism (using big words for something really tiny and mundane here) that I'd built up to make sense of it was dispelled, but I had still figured a way to have it make sense. With that said, the reason why I don't like bikes is only partially that they don't make sense as a military or law enforcement unit in the way Infinity has them work - that is the reason why I don't think they should be everywhere - but it's also that I don't like what they are a fan service for. I think the Zondnautica are a cool addition to the game and that it fits the Nomad's style of anime aesthetic, I think the Aragoto are a cool addition to JSA and that the story actually does a good job of explaining why they work like they do (Jakuza drive-bys) and the nod towards some of the animes makes sense. Then there's the kum bikers that I simply don't have a reference frame for and that I think is a mess of a unit in game, the US bikers that are like a callback to rough riders and american Harley Davidson culture which feels malplaced to me. Then we get this Starmada unit, supposedly for a navy style sectorial, that doesn't actually look like it's referencing anything that hasn't been referenced before. It's just too much that doesn't make sense so the backstory has a lot of legwork to do. Now, if this had been some form of judiciary sectorial or policing sectorial and the bike had been a huge lad with a big gun, that'd be an obvious Judge Dredd and I'd have been a lot more okay with it as it makes sense. "Haha, yeah, pop culture reference. I got that reference" TL:DR: "Makes sense" is subjective and sometimes we fool ourselves to make stuff make sense. Yes to an Imperial Agent or oversized Gangbuster on a bigass cyber motorcycle (even if I'd personally probably not use one). No to a biker in spaaaace, where gravity is artificial and space at a premium. Both universes actually go quite far in trying to explain things, at the core choosing two different kinds of mysticisms to do it, which is probably why the mitochlorians (sp?) weren't very welcome by the fans because it attempted, poorly, to trade one mysticism for the other. I mean, what ever is the Force other than a projection of a particularly pivotal character's will and how else is that best explained than by explaining that character's motivations? Mission accomplished; magic that sufficiently makes sense.
Hello guys! I know you're expecting news about N4, Starmada and more amazing stuff, but let me show you something also amazing: https://infinitytheuniverse.com/editorial/betrayal Here you have the landing page of Infinity Betrayal, our upcoming graphic novel, and you can find inside the first pages to take a look! Enjoy it!
Exactly what you said here Mahtamori. ♡ You pretty much encapsulated exactly my own thoughts on this stuff right there.
You're not a comic book reader I take it lol. I'm used to bikes riding telephone wires. Guys turning into bouncing balls, knowing every single martial arts in the universe, and physically flying through space to other world with their own powers. Nothing makes sense. I just have fun with it.
I'm very much not, no, but that stuff makes sense to me provided they're adequately structured - you can build up the suspense of disbelief. One of the key things is that not everyone will be riding telephone wires while fighting martial arts in space, only specific rare individuals will be able to do that craziest shit (and preferably within certain constraints so that you can have adequate narrative devices) and that's what makes it fantastical. Not to mention I think we already kind of have that character in game with the Kuroshi. Arguably, though, Infinity isn't at that level of crazy fantasy, though, as it more tries to have the strongest characters still in a position where there's some real and fairly grounded adversity to overcome. I.e. it's trying to be cyberpunk and not whatever genre Naruto is in. I, personally, am not against motorcycles on principle, just the idea that a motorcycle is an obligatory component of any faction instead of specific more unique units. I think Kuroshi is still a cute pop-culture reference that I can simply opt out of, while on the other hand there's the Montessa which is more like a reference to 40k and did we really need 40k in our game when so many of us are 40k "survivors"? Pooping out a motorcycle just to speed up the faction? Eh - we'll have to see. If O-12 needed to be sped up, there'd be other ways to do it as well, particularly from a sub-faction that's based on space-superiority.
It's as simple as Motorcycles are cool = Motorcycles sell. If you don't like it, don't play them. A force is not always going to in the jungles of paradiso. They will also be on the Bourak badlands, Ariadana grasslands, and cities. Though I understand if you don't have a choice in a set.
The whole "lol comic books" thing doesn't work when we also have heroes that are effectively 'just' guys who have a technological or skill based power set. The Hawkeyes, Green Arrows, Batmans, Iron Mans, etc. Admittedly, three of those were filthy rich but the point still stands! That's not actually an option when they cut other design ideas in favor of motorcycles.
I do understand context is everything but Infinity background isn't always hard scifi. Do you know what they cut of design ideas?
Do you know what they didn't? And Infinity background is more hard scifi than it is anime, backflipping catgirls for you to drool over.
There's bound to be ideas that were cut, doubtful we'll ever fully know. That said, bikes are fun and look cool, so they'll likely stick around for quite a while.
They didn't tell me so no. And I don't guess at their thoughts. They way lies madness. Each faction, and maybe sectoral, has different levels of sci-fi/fantasy and influences. Ariadna: near future scifi/fantasy, Nomads: Gundam (Zeon) influence and anime in general. Haqqislam: hard scifi mostly to me. Aleph: GiTs anime. Yu Jing mostly scifi (no precedent for chinese in space that I know).
yeahh, because Infinity is not defined by it's creators as" futuristic Sci Fi skirmish game with manga aesthetics..."
Ariadna isn't "near future scifi/fantasy". It's 1980s "near future scifi/fantasy". Which doesn't mean what you think it does. Manga aesthetics is basically like saying "this car has four wheels!"
"Manga aesthetics" covers a huge variety of stuff. You know this. It covers everything from Jin Roh(which is arguably more on the lines of 'hard' fiction rather than bubbley) to the other stuff. Have we seen anything yet for the actual models?
