Achron Alpha Demo 4 Grandfather Paradox

[mariomcp]

I don't even know WHAT the fuck is going on.

[aneromatnas]

you need to see Doctor Who to understand this! XD

[spudnick160]

just downloaded this and whenever i load a mission right when it finishes loading it comes up with an error message saying it doesnt work. and ive wanted this game scince 2009 and now i cant play it :(

[leaf16nut]

Ummm, just dont destroy the factory...

problem solved!

[Lagartoman7]

wait...wat?

[DeusExInfernus]

Sigh... How much does it show if I understand the temporal mechanics involved, but not the UI? oh, dear...

[ejgdnd]

@colin8696908 Imagine if starcraft 3 had time travel. :D

[colin8696908]

maybe when this comes out you can have blizzerd, help you make the next game, they can help you with the graphics and there usually very good with rts games.

[RetartedPete]

i understand the grandfather paradox better then i understand how this game works it over.

[tlaz10]

sooo wait. if i go back in time and bang my best friends grandma (when she was young and hot) and then he gets pissed about that and goes back in time and bangs my grandma, then i would be my grandpa's grandpa, WTF U GUYS MAKE NO FUCKIN SENSE!!!!!!

[0Soraryuu0]

Achron.

Weird Time Shit gamified.

[ErikKiliam]

Haha! I love reading the responses to this game. It seems like if a RTS is not just about building units from resources, peoples heads start boiling.

[EvolvingSquirrelGame]

Can you make a paradox in which a factory creates itself?

[Kron1414]

@EvolvingSquirrelGame This may be possible, but it will be extremely difficult. Object-based ontological paradoxes are extremely hard to create in the game engine (though technically possible if I remember correctly).

At any rate, I've never seen one in a multiplayer game.

[saaron62]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

[ParadoxJuice]

WHAT?!

[mikvance]

My mind! It has been fucked!

[GSNRecords]

the enemy units were created?

If both of these factors are in place, then you should get your units back.

[Roan0388]

How far does this concept expand out? Consider the following example, and assume that it fits in one time span:

Our enemy, Bob, builds a large column of tanks, unbeknown to us. Those tanks sweep through our line, destroying our army and leaving a small contingent intact. We send those remnants back in time and destroy the factory that produced the tanks. Those tanks will obviously cease to exist, but will our army become intact in the present?

[GSNRecords]

You have to consider that this still operates within the rules of the game. It doesn't keep track of an infinite amount of timelines of which you can use.

If the tanks were created from a point in time which is still available to you to go back to, you can very well destroy the factory, but whether your previous units return or not depends on multiple factors: 1) Did you destroy the factory before the battle which destroyed the units slips off the timeline? 2) Did you destroy the factory before

[cybercobra2]

@Roan0388 this is exactly how it works

[32121452145225255658]

things like the grandfather paradox could also be used to fight enemies

since the two paradox states are alternating, the paradox could be used with a large legion to wage a double attack where your time paradox could be used to distract your opponent, forcing him to deal with both fluctuating events at once, making things more complicated for him since he might not easily be able to tell which outcome is the correct one.

[Bounthunter1]

I got lost after he said "this is a demo of achron"

[scavenski]

Time if a complicated thing!

[dudebot09]

THE

AUDIO

SUCKS

please. never narrate a video ever again

[emerald2142]

wow thats really cool! looking forward to this game.

[Cerzi86]

Hate to get involved with youtube commenting, but:

"Again, the world is based entirely on physics"

No, physics is based entirely on the world.

[sorarocks55]

LUTTDAHELL FRIEDA CHICKEN. No but really, this game is awesome for making me more confused than any game ever

[MatMurrayTV]

Welcome to the biggest headfuck in gaming since the inception of Alex Kidd.

[OweNKent]

so can you be attacked in the past?

[Tbone139]

This game just obliterated any chance of its players mastering its strategy for a long time to come. Macro, Micro, and Chrono just took on all the complexity of an astronomical three-body problem!

[elliot6602]

this makes my head hurt

[spoonsandswords]

its the oscillations that self corrects paradoxes. if changes were instantly propagated then there would be problems. but the time waves solves everything. SO getting this game. graphics be damned.

[PeterDivine]

Ohoho, this is fuckin' BOSS.

You've managed to find an easy way to sort out the paradox which otherwise scares people away from time travel concepts.

Oscillating between one state of reality and the other... oh, now THAT'S going to make for awesome gameplay.

[SBPAlphaGamma]

Online play would be interesting.

[CryptRat]

If you make units in the future with funds you don't yet have and send them back in time to a bit before the edge of the time map and do something important with them, but then don't manage to make enough resources to end up building them, how are the implications of not building them propagated if the events that you changed had already gone off the edge of the map?

[nikomas1]

I guess they never get built, thereby they could never get sent back in time, so they dissapear from the past?

[CryptRat]

Can this be used to get units for free? Or maybe to get units 'without having to build' their production structure?

[DaBakerOfCake]

Yes, but the game is made so the unit isn't more expensive than the factory (or isn't more expensive in a big way, I'm not sure which), so it isn't beneficial for you to so to get a free unit

[Ninja1Ninja2]

Basically, this is Terminator and Back to the Future's kind of Paradox

[Colyo62]

My brain is meltinggggggggggggggg

[TiteNYC]

lol

[rraeoner]

What is this for?

[RavingKunaiX]

This is probably the most complex game i've ever seen in my life O.O, seriously man... good work, i'm so buying this i dont care if its 200$

[chaosbank]

cool game, seems very complicated. i cant wait to see it on the ps3!!!!!!!!!!

[Gargantou]

To be honest, the likelyhood of this coming to the PS3/360/Wii, as they are hoping, is IMO quite slim, not because the game will be bad, but because it is a complex game, and very innovative, and I somehow doubt they will get the necessary backing from a publisher to fund the development of console versions of the game.

[Maphysto]

Plus, RTS's generally don't perform well on consoles anyway. They're pretty much exclusive to the pc.

[DaBakerOfCake]

If only all games were like that....maybe besides those Wii games..

[thingy291]

that is why time travel shouldn't be allowed to be made possiable it's just way too dangerous

[XmetaI4everX]

Nah, our lives are destiny. If the mech went back in time, and destroyed the factory, it would still exist because it went to another time line.

However, if it was on it's own timeline, and tried to destroy it, destiny would prevent that from happening.

[DaBakerOfCake]

So there is no free choice.

at all.

That's what you are saying.

[XmetaI4everX]

That's what I thought 2 months ago, then I read something interesting. What if all the major things in our lives were determined, but all the minor things, we actually our own choice? Weird.

But of course this would contradict science.

[DaBakerOfCake]

How are you supposed to draw the line between major things and minor things?

Also, I would feel much more comfortable if only the minor things were predetermined. but if it is like you said, then again, freedom of choice is but an illusion, I can choose if I want a candybar or a beer from the shop, but no matter what I will die on the way back....actually..for that statement to remain valid, I will be forced to leave the house and go to the shop, which isn't really a major thing..weird..eh?

[XmetaI4everX]

I guess you're not supposed to know. I mean, getting a candy bar may actually be important, because if you didn't get that candy bar, you would've later crashed into another car only by a split second.

So even that could be a major event.

[DaBakerOfCake]

Which means we are again at the square of "Everything is predetermined" because anything could be major and thus predetermined. rendering free will useless.

[XmetaI4everX]

Anything could be major or minor, but I don't know how that means everything is predetermined. We don't even know if destiny exists or not.

[DaBakerOfCake]

Well you're the one who stated it does in the beginning of this.

[XmetaI4everX]

2 months ago. :P

[fuunguus]

We got no free choice, it's an illusion created by the brain. Stimulating the brain center that controls muscles will cause unwilling movement, but the movement is experienced totally willing by the individual being stimulated, this is a fact that have been demonstrated many times.

Also, in the sense of physics, everything is determined. There are only one type of energy in this universe, and that's kinetic energy. What moves gotta end up somewhere, and that can be determined.

[Vlakpage]

@fuunguus if it doesn't have mass then it doesn't have kinetic energy, also your mind doesn't move, therefore your theory fails

[fuunguus]

What doesn't got mass? What do you mean by that the mind doesn't move? Alright, we live in a physical world where everything that happens around us is based entirely on the physics of atoms and particles. Every choice I make is based on physical processes in my brain, what started these processes are external stimulus, what external stimulus we get is not based on our will, neither is the nature of our very own brain, therefor we have not chosen to do anything by "free will"

[fuunguus]

Again, the world is based entirely on physics, if we got a computer the size of the sun and could monitor every atom and particle on earth, we could run a simulation and find out what will likely happen in the future, determining the future, the future is determined, do you see what I mean now? Where are the flaws in this theories? You need to be more specific.

[Vlakpage]

The flaw is in monitoring atoms and particles. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle prevents accurate monitoring so you can't determine the system.

[fuunguus]

@Vlakpage

It was theoretical. The point is not to determine the system, the point is that the future in the sense of physics, is determined.

[boggster15]

the flaw is that you mention "What started these processes are external stimulus". That is simply untrue.

If you put someone blindfolded, in a completely silent soundproof room, block their nose and with nothing to touch. Then they could still slap their arms like a bird if they felt like it.

They arn't reacting to anything, no "external energy" is making them flap their arms, they are doing it because they want to, not because some butterfly flapped it's wings half way accross the world.

[wertyuioqp1]

wow. your mind doesn't move? what about the light wave/particles that go into your eyes that stimulate your brain to end out electronic waves that react, creating thinking, for example? hmmmmm....

[Vlakpage]

brain isn't mind, they're two different things

[KadenXx]

This could actual be use full...

Haha! I've killed his army!!! wait where did that factory come from?!?... hmm oh well.. NO WAIT THE ARMY I JUST KILLED IS BACK!!!

[MadsterV]

paradoxes could be used as decoys... humm interesting idea

[PeterDivine]

YES! I destroyed his army! I'm winning!

Wait, shit! His army's destroying mine, I'm losing!

No, wait, old victory's coming back again, huzzah!

Wow... that would just screw everyone's minds, wouldn't it?

[YorickMesch]

Well, that's gonnan be the fun of this game. Four dimensional startegy ftw!

[deadacc42845]

If I grok this, you've basically got a slowly-advancing 6-minute (or however long) window to fiddle around with reality at any given moment in realtime. Events that drift behind that period are permanent; stuff within that frame can be manipulated (at a reasonable cost).

I don't see this as any more complex a concept than using save-states in an emulator or Braid's time manipulation. Not that I'm not excited, but I don't think it's as confusing as people are making it out to be.

[MadsterV]

okay now add strategy at any point within that window.

Braid (and Sands of Time) and savestates allow you only to go back to a checkpoint and modify from that point on.

This lets you modify things at ANY point within that window. You can launch coordinated attacks simultaneously at different times.

[John845]

fuck

[Yugemos1]

can you send a nuke through time and destroy yourself?

[Yugemos1]

if the mech survived... then what built it?

[HalfAsianGuy]

And that's why it's a paradox. :P

[joeynessily]

Using the time waves is a very clever mechanic. Maybe it already does this, I couldn't tell from the video, but what would be cool if you could recover resources used to create an object once it falls off the time line (only in the event of a paradox.. because the object never existed). So it would be worthwhile exploiting paradox's.. because the unit created from the factory it destroys would be a "free". Basically you would use ontological paradoxes as a way of resource conservation.

[RabidZombie1]

Check the paradox FAQ. They've both thought of this already. ;)

It works, but is more hassle than it's worth.

[RabidZombie1]

both!? Whoops. Left over from when my comment read differently. :S

[joeynessily]

Yeah they added that to the faq to answer my question. :)

[RabidZombie1]

Yeah, just saw Twitter! :P

Gah. Really excited about this game now...

FAR TOO EARLY. D:

[dragontamer]

Yeah, they covered it already. However, your "Chronoenergy" (time traveling power) is a resource itself, and cloning units will cost a lot of chrono energy. IE: now that you spent up all of your energy cloning units, the enemy spent his resources on killing your first unit.

Now your unit dies in the future, and never had the chance to jump to the past. You are left with 2 dead units and no chono-energy left to undo the enemy's attack.

[Earthplayer]

to make an exact example:

If we suppose that I send my unit back into time, however, mistakenly the unit lands in hisself and destroys itselve by it.

This generates a time paradox. Because the unit was destroyed in the past it could never reach the future. Thereby it could never travel back in time so it was never destroyed and so nothing has ever happened at all.

[jetsterjinx]

@joeynessily it already does this...because the unit was never created, you have the resources that would have been used to create it. However, it isn't very viable to use this as a resource conservation method because of the chronoenergy required to do it again, and again, and again...

[Stairmaster9068]

You answered my request!

[SupComRaiden2]

I am definitely getting this game. This looks awesome.

[mookalokka]

I think my brain just melted. This looks so awesome.

[ABlueJelly]

As a defensive tactic, only building a massive army and selling the factory might be useful...

The first attacks using this I could think of are: one either exploiting some badly-placed artillery to blow up their buildings (assuming splash has FF=On), taking the Arty with their factory; If there's any kind of mind-control ability on some unit....

But all of these require you to figure out what factory to take down... Luck, be on my side.

[l33tiest]

intresting, but kinda pointless to use that as a tactic imo

[Oprime15]

How far back in time can you travel?

[HiroTeaShi]

it seems like there's a 4 minute limit time window before events fall off the time line.