THIS!!!:

...I wouldn't watch just the actions scenes of a great movie then go back and watch the slower dialogue portions, for instance!

At the very least, skipping logs especially in important set piece locations is arguably akin to ignoring the intended direction and editing of the game...

It's especially surprising to me that Cody (as a professional movie editor) doesn't realize that this is exactly what he's doing by skipping things -- especially in the bunkers and other relics of the past.

There is a difference between a finely crafted film with calm moments, and a game with a really clunky storytelling device.

...I wouldn't watch just the actions scenes of a great movie then go back and watch the slower dialogue portions, for instance!

At the very least, skipping logs especially in important set piece locations is arguably akin to ignoring the intended direction and editing of the game...

It's especially surprising to me that Cody (as a professional movie editor) doesn't realize that this is exactly what he's doing by skipping things -- especially in the bunkers and other relics of the past.

Is this going to be like Halo 5 in that you have to be a story expert to get what’s going on? I literally do not remember anything of what you said, and I played the game four times through.

Nope. She is mentioned a few times in TLoU (if you check your pack during "Winter", you can even read a letter from her). You don't really know much about her beyond Marlene's recordings in the Hospital, so don't worry.

Okay cool. I generally don’t even listen to audio logs.

Please tell me you're listening to the audio logs and other lore stuff in H:ZD...?

Yeah, that stuff has been pretty decent so far. Like the one room I was just in looked all the world like these soldiers had been slaughtered and just by looking at it I would assume they had no chance. In reality, they were part of an ace unit that had been all over the country if not the world and had successfully defended important facilities against the machines multiple times. So that they were defeated there spoke to the increasing severity of the attacks, or that this location had successfully withstood attacks in the past.

I guess it just seems to me that the order that I take in things like that matters nearly as much as what is said in the logs. I wouldn't watch just the actions scenes of a great movie then go back and watch the slower dialogue portions, for instance!

At the very least, skipping logs especially in important set piece locations is arguably akin to ignoring the intended direction and editing of the game's story...

I can't imagine what the experience would have been like if I didn't take the time to find audio logs and holograms on outcroppings and cliffs that revealed things like the Air Force Academy, for example.

If you could play them while traveling from place to place you’d have a point. I care less about how the world came to be while playing and more about what I am going to do next. Backstory can be taken in whenever.

You can. Any that you scan, you can listen to later, and they are organized in your Datalog menu, so just be sure to scan around the room for them at least... But a lot of the emotional impact from areas that are otherwise long-abandoned comes from hearing and reading the stories of the people who inhabited them. Hearing a story about two people who fought side by side has a bit more impact when you can see their bodies together in front of you as you hear their final moments...

You are soooooo wrong.

The flow of this game is so perfect because it ebbs and flows naturally - giving you time to take in the world and find out how it came to be -- NOT about running from one quest to the next. If you're skipping logs, then you are the one ruining the flow of the game!

i remember how... weird I felt after visiting Maker's End, The Grave Horde, the Zero Dawn Facility, and GAIA Prime. The stories told at each of those places were pretty much the point of even going there. My last playthrough, I tore through each area in about 10 or 15 minutes, skipping all of the audio and text logs, and while the story tells you the "why" of each area, you don't really pick up on the "who" "how" or "what it meant to each person".

Especially when you first walk into the Grave Hoard, and you later learn what it all really meant, and what it was all for...

Sure, it can be annoying that all of the logs are dumped into a single room at times, but I'd rather have that, where you can take it all in at once and piece together the gaps, rather than running into a piece of the story here, and finding part 2 long after you've forgotten part 1 (the Banuk figures did this, but they all told a single specific/contained story, rather than pieces of a bunch of different stories that you'd have to filter through).

The story of the Zero Dawn team is just as important as Aloy's quest (the game even makes it the very first thing that you start getting info on when you first control Aloy as a child), and missing out on it just because it's told through audiologs is a huge shame.

I can't imagine what the experience would have been like if I didn't take the time to find audio logs and holograms on outcroppings and cliffs that revealed things like the Air Force Academy, for example.

The viewpoints are really cool on several levels. They serve to show famous landmarks and such, but the narration and text that further elaborates on the rocky relationship that the narrator had with his and his mom and stepdad is something that you wouldn't really expect to see in a game like this.

Even the metal flowers can get to you when you realize what they are, and the fact that they're trying to say something...

The lore and stuff in that game is great, even if it wasn't quite presented in the best way (but hey, at least you don't have to venture outside of the game to get it, and you can always access it again once you've found it...).

Is this going to be like Halo 5 in that you have to be a story expert to get what’s going on? I literally do not remember anything of what you said, and I played the game four times through.

Nope. She is mentioned a few times in TLoU (if you check your pack during "Winter", you can even read a letter from her). You don't really know much about her beyond Marlene's recordings in the Hospital, so don't worry.

Okay cool. I generally don’t even listen to audio logs.

Please tell me you're listening to the audio logs and other lore stuff in H:ZD...?

Nope. Pausing to listen to logs completely kills the flow of the game. I’ll play them all after I finish.

You are soooooo wrong.

The flow of this game is so perfect because it ebbs and flows naturally - giving you time to take in the world and find out how it came to be -- NOT about running from one quest to the next. If you're skipping logs, then you are the one ruining the flow of the game!

I can't imagine what the experience would have been like if I didn't take the time to find audio logs and holograms on outcroppings and cliffs that revealed things like the Air Force Academy, for example.

If you could play them while traveling from place to place you’d have a point. I care less about how the world came to be while playing and more about what I am going to do next. Backstory can be taken in whenever.

Is this going to be like Halo 5 in that you have to be a story expert to get what’s going on? I literally do not remember anything of what you said, and I played the game four times through.

Nope. She is mentioned a few times in TLoU (if you check your pack during "Winter", you can even read a letter from her). You don't really know much about her beyond Marlene's recordings in the Hospital, so don't worry.

Okay cool. I generally don’t even listen to audio logs.

Please tell me you're listening to the audio logs and other lore stuff in H:ZD...?

Nope. Pausing to listen to logs completely kills the flow of the game. I’ll play them all after I finish.

You are soooooo wrong.

The flow of this game is so perfect because it ebbs and flows naturally - giving you time to take in the world and find out how it came to be -- NOT about running from one quest to the next. If you're skipping logs, then you are the one ruining the flow of the game!

I can't imagine what the experience would have been like if I didn't take the time to find audio logs and holograms on outcroppings and cliffs that revealed things like the Air Force Academy, for example.

Is this going to be like Halo 5 in that you have to be a story expert to get what’s going on? I literally do not remember anything of what you said, and I played the game four times through.

Nope. She is mentioned a few times in TLoU (if you check your pack during "Winter", you can even read a letter from her). You don't really know much about her beyond Marlene's recordings in the Hospital, so don't worry.

Okay cool. I generally don’t even listen to audio logs.

Please tell me you're listening to the audio logs and other lore stuff in H:ZD...?

Nope. Pausing to listen to logs completely kills the flow of the game. I’ll play them all after I finish.

Please tell me you're listening to the audio logs and other lore stuff in H:ZD...?

Heh, that'd be a shame. That's the best story content in the game. It's terrible delivery mechanism, though, and H:ZD makes it even worse by grouping them all together, so you end up standing the same room for thirty minutes listening to audio logs.

Is this going to be like Halo 5 in that you have to be a story expert to get what’s going on? I literally do not remember anything of what you said, and I played the game four times through.

Nope. She is mentioned a few times in TLoU (if you check your pack during "Winter", you can even read a letter from her). You don't really know much about her beyond Marlene's recordings in the Hospital, so don't worry.

Okay cool. I generally don’t even listen to audio logs.

Please tell me you're listening to the audio logs and other lore stuff in H:ZD...?

Is this going to be like Halo 5 in that you have to be a story expert to get what’s going on? I literally do not remember anything of what you said, and I played the game four times through.

Nope. She is mentioned a few times in TLoU (if you check your pack during "Winter", you can even read a letter from her). You don't really know much about her beyond Marlene's recordings in the Hospital, so don't worry.

Okay cool. I generally don’t even listen to audio logs.

Is this going to be like Halo 5 in that you have to be a story expert to get what’s going on? I literally do not remember anything of what you said, and I played the game four times through.

Nope. She is mentioned a few times in TLoU (if you check your pack during "Winter", you can even read a letter from her). You don't really know much about her beyond Marlene's recordings in the Hospital, so don't worry.

I'm as excited as every for TLOU Part II, but this trailer did nothing for me. I don't know these characters, and this trailer didn't tell me anything about them either. I honestly am not sure what I was supposed to get out of it.

Well, the woman being hanged is very strongly implied to be Anna, Ellie's mom, who died shortly after her birth. The trailer isn't super obvious about this other than the fact that they both seem to be modeled after Ashley Johnson's likeness, though Anna is voiced by Laura Bailey (and you don't use Bailey on a throwaway character, either... well, unless you're 343 Industries...).

Naughty Dog kind of gave it away on Twitter, by naming all of the characters except her, but the number of blacked-out letters match Anna's name, and they wouldn't censor it unless it was a spoiler in itself. That's probably why Druckmann said that you don't know "when" this trailer takes place.
Also, this probably shows how Anna becomes involved with the Fireflies, and I'm pretty sure Yara and Lev will play an important part in Ellie's story years later, especially if Ellie's on a roaring rampage of revenge...

I was completely with cheapLEY because the trailer provides absolutely zero context for what we're seeing. If what you're saying is true (and it all seems to match up), then that makes a huge difference! Trailer goes from "meh" to "awesome" with a little bit of context.

This one might be harder to get through emotionally than part 1 was.

I'm as excited as every for TLOU Part II, but this trailer did nothing for me. I don't know these characters, and this trailer didn't tell me anything about them either. I honestly am not sure what I was supposed to get out of it.

Well, the woman being hanged is very strongly implied to be Anna, Ellie's mom, who died shortly after her birth. The trailer isn't super obvious about this other than the fact that they both seem to be modeled after Ashley Johnson's likeness, though Anna is voiced by Laura Bailey (and you don't use Bailey on a throwaway character, either... well, unless you're 343 Industries...).

Naughty Dog kind of gave it away on Twitter, by naming all of the characters except her, but the number of blacked-out letters match Anna's name, and they wouldn't censor it unless it was a spoiler in itself. That's probably why Druckmann said that you don't know "when" this trailer takes place.
Also, this probably shows how Anna becomes involved with the Fireflies, and I'm pretty sure Yara and Lev will play an important part in Ellie's story years later, especially if Ellie's on a roaring rampage of revenge...

"Well the cooperative learning environment it fosters allows the students to understand what it's like to be a scientist, and they can come up with solutions to the problems themselves, which we can test in class, much like the scientific method, truly modelling the scientific community."

That means

"I forgot my lecture notes so I'm just going to have them talk amongst themselves after I pose a question."

For the lazy, he replied to someone basically saying they don't like it with:

Tough to do something specific for all 35 press events this year. They probably just showed whatever cutscene they were working on last.

Sounds like a bad marketing strategy, but it's as plausible as anything I guess--I'm still not sure what if offers in terms of "selling" the game to anyone, other than the fact that it looks amazing, graphically.

Maybe that's all it needs to do, and, as you said Kermit, avoiding spoiling things.

This one might be harder to get through emotionally than part 1 was.

I'm as excited as every for TLOU Part II, but this trailer did nothing for me. I don't know these characters, and this trailer didn't tell me anything about them either. I honestly am not sure what I was supposed to get out of it.

Good point. On the plus side, nothing is spoiled that I care about (yet), and the quality is amazing.