Avowed is Undeserving of its Discourse
99Avowed is Undeserving of its Discourse.
Thank you to Xbox for giving me a code for coverage purposes.
The vacuum of discourse is alluring for any game, and something I often don't have the time to delve into, given how everflowing conversation and talking points are but I can't help but stare helplessly as the black hole of Avowed has slowly pulled me in over the last few weeks. I've hit the event horizon, and I fear the only answer is to keep going. It sure is cold out here in space. Luckily, I have hundreds of online commenters to keep me company.
I'm not against trudging my way through discourse and it can be a good tool for cementing broader consensus but I can't help but feel like so much of the conversation around Avowed is… well… a little silly.
This video will be mostly focused on ideas around Avowed and not Avowed itself, which is a shame but I will get into my thoughts on it a little later on. However, I felt a deeper analysis of what I think Avowed gets right and wrong isn't actually all that necessary and may actually detract from the points I'm trying to make here.
As much as it pains me to say, let's get into the discourse
Before we start, I think it's important to note that, by discourse, I'm primarily referring to the way people discuss Avowed on social media. There are broader constructive pieces and videos people have made and will continue to make, but that's quite different to what I'm referring to. This video will mostly be a capture of what I've witnessed, and though not wholly representative of communication around the game, should be indicative to illustrate a point. People make throwaway comments on social media and are certainly more calloused than in person but it bleeds into their conversations and the way people think and act. Much of the talking points I'll get into have travelled across to YouTube and I've even heard in person. Social media is silly but also surprisingly important.
This fairly popular video entitled Avowed vs Oblivion, which was then reacted to by Twitch streamer Asmongold frames a lot of my central argument well. The video in question compares some of Oblivion's quality with Avowed to paint Avowed in a negative light. It starts with the character firing arrows in the air and watching them fall down. We don't know why this is the case but, Oblivion having limited ammo and Avowed giving you an endless supply go some way to explaining why it might be necessary to keep track of your arrows It then moves on to prop physics, where you can knock items around on tables just by hitting them. After this, it moves to AI pathing and control, highlighting its effect on the fighting system of Oblivion.
In the clip, a group of bandits are lured into a guard who then fights them. When compared to Avowed, the same does not happen and the enemy in Avowed runs straight into a guard and gets trapped. Asmongold then goes on to say that he thinks the game won't hit 50K concurrent players. For clarity on that figure, 50k concurrent players would push Avowed into the top 350 games of all time, according to Steam DB. Of course, I don't think Avowed will hit that number either but the jump in logic here strikes me as rather extreme. It's fairly easy to grab clips of silly things happening in Oblivion, or pretty much any game, and I think people's willingness to jump to this conclusion within 3 minutes of a comparison video is indicative of a broader problem with the way we see games. In fairness to him, Asmongold does admit to enjoying the game but also compares it to liking Wuthering Wave despite being critical of it. He frames it almost like enjoying the game is a moral failing, which feels oddly telling here. Okay, I'll build on this a little later but I want to give you a little more of the argument first.