Is Orwell that bad ?

[horiami]

ok so i know it's not 100 % humane , but the members of thought are criminal ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
that murder and doxx people , while the only damage orwell does is worst case killing Nina (tho it is a bit her fault too).

[tricosahedron]

This is basically impossible to discuss without spoilers, so anyone who wants to avoid spoilers should stop reading.

- In the game, you're supporting a government which destroys people's life (like that of Nina), making it unnecessarily difficult for them to make a living. What she did wasn't right, but it's the government's fault people like her hate the government, and are desperate.

- Investigators can take statements completely out of context, and they can use this to flag anyone as dangerous, or arrest them, whether they are completely innocent or not (whether the people in the game are innocent or not doesn't matter for this argument, since we're talking about Orwell in general). Yes, there's a person who watches what the investigator is doing, but a) investigators aren't informed about this, so they act like someone who isn't supervised, and b) the person who watches them has an interest in Orwell to be hidden from the public. So if the investigator commits a crime, she can't punish them by law without revealing Orwell, which can create a situation where both the investigator and their observer are in a mutual agreement not to reveal crimes. And this can pile up when so many crimes have been committed that reporting a single crime poses the risk to reveal that the government was hiding a whole series of other crimes.

- In the game, Orwell is still in its testing phase, so it's not yet used on a large scale. It's also being hidden from the public. I don't think it's compatible with democracy for a government to spy on its own citizens without their knowledge. The Thought members act as desperate as they do, because it would be difficult to stop Orwell at a later point when it's used on a larger scale. I think someone on these forums mentioned that Initiate wouldn't have another chance for a hacking attempt later, so they had to act and think of something quickly if they wanted to stop Orwell.

[tricosahedron]

A very important point that I forgot to mention: Orwell itself stores a lot more information than is available for the investigator. This poses the risk that Orwell is hacked, and the sensitive data or the aggressive surveillance tools are used by whoever stole it for whichever purpose.

Another point is that surveillance systems often rely on back doors, and deliberately keeping back doors open makes user systems vulnerable, since hackers can use them if they know about them.

[horiami]

i thought the third human element , the evaluator was kept secret so the inspector and the adviser don't abuse the power , also the investigator can't trace someone until they confirm it with hireups ,
this is also one orwell's first missions, maybe the ending were orwell is disclosed to the public shouldn't be treated as the worst ending

[Casualgamer]

- SPOILERS -





- Nina case is a bit delicate to talk about, yes it's the gouv fault that she can't have a steady job but also she needed to seek some mental help, that's what written in her medical report she had ptsd syndrome which make her go extreme in situation she feel cornered.
I mean look she pointed a gun at an officer while her child was watching... yet i though she won't do that since her child is her everything but she still did which confirm her ptsd problem.

- It's the same with Casandra, after the event where she defended Juliet, she was never able to go back to her old self.Result ? Juliet took advantage of it and made Cassandra her "friend" and Cassandra has to take out med. Cassandra became angry woman since then.

Yes, Orwell can become bad in the wrong hands but for this story, Orwell was used right, imo.

What made this is Juliet taking over Abe role, she confessed herself in the ending that she manipulated everyone and specialy Nina to set the bombs then blame Orwell to have messed their life ? Who's fault to begin with ? She started this mess by killing innocent people because she wanted to stick to Abe teaching. But the truth is that she she got hold on Abe Pc, she felt she had to power to control people and excute her plan. Like Harrisson said, Juliet was the worst of them.

Yes, Orwell need to have more limiters but it's not that project who killed innocent people. Yes, the safety bill is wrong, Juliet should've take out Dela Croix instead of bombing random people. Not all the members deserve to go to jail, only Juliet to have been the master and Nina because she did made those bombs. Harrison and Cassandra are just angry "kids".
But overall, I don't regret to have put them in Jail and kept Orwell. Who knows what Juliet will done if not stopped continue to do and kill ?

And yeah even until the end it was difficult to suspect miss nice girl since no data on her was found during investigation not until the last chapters. So yeah, curse you Juliet to have gotten the big head and kill innocent people >.>

You're the one who destroyed your friends live beginning by Nina.
Edit: and Let me kick out De La croix because isn't good for this job, the Safety was a bad idea.

[Colonel Vance]

I honestly feel like the ending is pretty lazy and rushed, and way too much oriented towards all those people who read Orwell's 1984 during their 20s and figured out that the goverments is the bad guy no matter what (conspiracy theorists, that's it).

I do not understand why I should be marked a wanted criminal for arresting a bunch of terrorists, nor why the game only allows me to arrest both guilty (Juliet, Nina) and innocent (Cassandra, Harrison) when I actually have evidence about who is guilty and who is not.

I felt like they built this cover of "You get to choose if you're the bad guy or the good guy" during the first four chapters, and then just went: no, the government is actually bad, they'll jail you anyway because that's what they do

I honestly doubt I'll buy the sequel.

[Vinny]

Ultimately, Orwell as portrayed in the game is only as good as the legal system that underpins it, and the burdon of proof and presumtion of innocence for those suspected of committing a crime.

The criminal justice system already has the potential to convict the innocent, but this is seen as a necessary risk for society to properly function. Orwell too, would seem to be a necessary tool for law enforcement for how people use modern forms of communication.

Orwell does not rise to the level of mass surveillance, unlike its real-life equivalents. I could only wish the latter had Orwell's checks-and-balances and limited scope.

[Deisophia]

Originally posted by Vinny:

Ultimately, Orwell as portrayed in the game is only as good as the legal system that underpins it, and the burdon of proof and presumtion of innocence for those suspected of committing a crime.

The criminal justice system already has the potential to convict the innocent, but this is seen as a necessary risk for society to properly function. Orwell too, would seem to be a necessary tool for law enforcement for how people use modern forms of communication.

Orwell does not rise to the level of mass surveillance, unlike its real-life equivalents. I could only wish the latter had Orwell's checks-and-balances and limited scope.

1. Yes, Orwell itself is neither good or bad... It's just a tool it's how it's used or the consequences of using it that can be evaluated. This is precisely why Abe/Gunther decided to work on it.

2. Yes... The problem is the judicial system... When you can convict,imprison and arrest someone on suspicion alone there is a problem and this is why in the game, there is a problem because you are arresting on suspicions and not evidence. This was not so much an issue under Sykes/Benjamin but it was an issue under Delacroix, as she pushed for the data to be misconstrued and manipulated to match her aims. (Exactly what had worried Abe/Gunther).

3. Yes Orwell didn't connect to the T.V. surveillance network which surprised me ( I thought that was why you needed to collect multiple portraits, so you could identify on cams) it only deals with digital media. So it was limited in scope but not in potential as lives become increasingly virtual.

[Linerax]

No spoilers ahead in my comment. Orwell, the game's surveillance program, blurs the line between guilt and innocence and leads people to acquire doubts in their heads. The characters in the game were becoming more skeptical if they are truly innocent the longer they were not arrested, but saw their friends imprisoned. For me, working as the governmental Investigator, I was having doubts if my decisions were the best ones as I continued through the chapters and in the end they were not. The innocent became the guilty and that included me. Orwell decreased crime rate in the fictional country (the Nation) at the cost of increased skepticism or paranoia.

As for Nina, the surveillance program was a detriment to her.

[TangoBravo]

It feels a bit ham fisted. Then again, it is a video game and not a movie and there is still a difference in the writing for either, and I guess just like comics, games simply are not allowed to be subtle and have to telegraph their message home in the final minutes.
Which is a bit disappointing, as I think that the ending could have designed with much less exposition just based on a transparent and consequent use of the game mechanics. There would have been a great opportunity to let the game play out as the player sees Orwell himself, entirely ambivalent without any "correct" solution, and that without adding some messy time limit and a set of unknown rules one can only find out by trial and error. Replayability is a nice feature, but I prefer first-playability.

[Agnus_SatchelGuy]

Originally posted by tricosahedron:

This is basically impossible to discuss without spoilers, so anyone who wants to avoid spoilers should stop reading.

- In the game, you're supporting a government which destroys people's life (like that of Nina), making it unnecessarily difficult for them to make a living. What she did wasn't right, but it's the government's fault people like her hate the government, and are desperate.

- Investigators can take statements completely out of context, and they can use this to flag anyone as dangerous, or arrest them, whether they are completely innocent or not (whether the people in the game are innocent or not doesn't matter for this argument, since we're talking about Orwell in general). Yes, there's a person who watches what the investigator is doing, but a) investigators aren't informed about this, so they act like someone who isn't supervised, and b) the person who watches them has an interest in Orwell to be hidden from the public. So if the investigator commits a crime, she can't punish them by law without revealing Orwell, which can create a situation where both the investigator and their observer are in a mutual agreement not to reveal crimes. And this can pile up when so many crimes have been committed that reporting a single crime poses the risk to reveal that the government was hiding a whole series of other crimes.

- In the game, Orwell is still in its testing phase, so it's not yet used on a large scale. It's also being hidden from the public. I don't think it's compatible with democracy for a government to spy on its own citizens without their knowledge. The Thought members act as desperate as they do, because it would be difficult to stop Orwell at a later point when it's used on a larger scale. I think someone on these forums mentioned that Initiate wouldn't have another chance for a hacking attempt later, so they had to act and think of something quickly if they wanted to stop Orwell.

This is like China lol