AAA Gimmicks I`m Sick of Seeing
- Thread starter Emiscary
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1. I partially agree and disagree with this point.Emiscary said:
Frankly, having a swear word in your name is an obnoxious and retarded idea to begin with. Then again, I have been banned from the Blizzard forums for having an inappropriate suggestive name (I was iEatChildren in Starcraft 2. I'm sorry, but some of the Zergs look like they would eat children. Just saying).
Though, since we're on the subject of child killing (wow, I'm making myself out to be a horrible person) I question why they would include children in the game at all if they are invulnerable. If they are trying to be "realistic", the realism flies out the window when they don't even take a scratch from my blade. It's not like children serve an important purpose in that game to begin with and the game would function fine without them.
That said, why not just make it so that they don't 'die' but take damage and can be knocked out? Have it work similar to the (avoiding siderant) invulnerable quest NPCs.
2. I'm not quite sure what game you're referring to here in your example. I guess you mean games that advertise character customization but give you terrible customization options? Agreed, that can be shitty. I just haven't experienced enough of these games to care one way or another.
3. I'm on the fence about this. I really do hope that companies find a way to lock pirates out without screwing or toying with the consumer at the same time. I don't know if this is possible, and given the ingenuity of the pirate community it may never be.
DRM only hurts the consumer but it temporarily inconveniences the pirate. Developers should have the right to protect their content, but the current system is flawed and needs a serious retooling. If they wanted more consumers to side with copy protection, why not protect our LEGITIMATE purchases first and go from there. They should be kissing our asses for spending our hard earned money on their product, not forcing us to jump through hoops.
4. Agreed, agreed, a million times agreed.
DLC is not worth the microtransaction amount. Especially when compared pound-for-pound with an old school expansion pack. The facts are, you got much more stuff with the expansion pack for considerably less money. As an added bonus, that full release you purchased was a "full" release. No On-Disc bullshit, no "True Ending" DLC, what you purchased was conclusive and self-contained.
5. Agreed. Corporate franchise milking at its best. It's sad we're still playing updated versions of the same games we've played 10+ years ago.
6. I don't have a strong opinion about this because I've only purchased 2 collectors editions way back and they came with some decent stuff. Collecting misc junk that I don't need has never really been my thing. If people want to pay an additional X dollars for stuff they'll look at once and never see again, that's their prerogative.
7. This problem has existed before the popularization of RPGs. The blame lies on comic book artists and virginal DnD nerds. I have noticed this trend starting to change to some degree but it's still got a mountain to climb.
8. I don't think I've played an AAA game with a true ending in some time. Remember how Halo 3 was supposed to finish the fight? Non-conculsive legendary ending fucked that all up. Mass Effect 3? Despite the structuring of the ending, the real 'fuck you' was that it implies Shepard may have lived in the true ending. It's like developers don't know what the word ending means and would rather lie to the consumer about the end of a franchise only to have a surprise 4th reveal in the near future. The saddest part is that the fans sometimes DEFEND the devs for doing this.
9. It's a marketing gimmick and nothing more. As I said before, we have been playing the same game we played 10 years ago with prettier graphics and not much else. AI has not improved, gameplay mechanics have simplified instead of diversified, and single player campaigns are becoming less and less important.
burningdragoon said:
Well, to be honest playing games with the definition of "maturity" doesn't make a point. Indeed it kind of reeks of censorship. The basic arguement comes down to anyone who is old enough to see graphic sex or violence but wants to do so is immature, rapidly turns into a way of omitting such content, not to mention being fundementally flawed.
Like it or not, such things are part of the human psyche. Public executions (with or without torture), arenas, combinations with Jews being fed to lions for example, and of course sexual pornography, have all been part of human civilization for as long as we've had civilization. Pretty much any evolved culture has had their version of providing such things for adults. The reason for not exposing kids to such things is because of how seeing that can affect them before they fully understand it, whether it's real, or fantasy (depending on the culture).
Decry how people are wired all you want, but that's the reality of things. Products can be improved by adding these elements because it's simply what people, most people, even those who don't admit it, want to see.
The problem with sex scenes, ultra-violence, and similar things in video games is that the industry has generally tried to walk a line between the people who want that kind of thing, and the smaller, but very vocal, group of people who are in denial. In trying to cater to both they wind up creating what amounts to garbage. The issue isn't so much that they can't produce good material of the type, it's that they are walking a tightrope and not really trying. If you look at what has been produced for anime in both arenas (sex and violence) you can see that there really isn't a problem in producing the product, and that's being done on what is typically a shoestring budget. It's all about the companies with better technology deciding to actually produce that content for the audience that wants it.
The way I see it is in the context of an "R" rated movie, we don't nessicarly want pure porn or snuff content. The idea is to simply not pull punches whenit comes to those scenes, even if you don't go as far as showing penetration. Say the equivilent of the Spartacus TV series, or pretty much any thriller or erotic thriller out there part of what makes them is say seeing a hot star do a sex scene. In horror movies, the bad guy isn't killing constantly, but the kill scenes are a big part of what sells the movie when they do happen.
Sure, you can decry human taste in entertainment, but that's pretty much meaningless. If you look at part of what is holding games back from being accepted by adults, a big part of it is them simply not providing what people want to see. On a lot of levels we're still the same people who gathered in massive crowds to watch prisoners tortured to death/executed, or Gladiators fight. We just seek these things vicariously through fantasy.
Humanity has both an incredible potential for good, and one for evil. You can't have one without both, that's the point of signs like the Yin Yang. Someone who talks about overcoming this taste in entertainment and that side of humanity, is as borked as your average seriel killer who does that stuff and claims it's the entirety of what humanity really is. Both are detached from reality in seeing things only one perspective, when it's a balance.
There is a reason why most horror movies (even Saw) are basically morality plays, and why those put into arenas or killed were those captured as slaves, or condemned. Along with that taste in entertainment comes the general tendency to want to perceive those on the receiving end as deserving it for one reason or another. Of course then again people get an oddly pleasant reaction from horror and tradgedy, even if it's after the fact as well, which is a big part of why tradgedy, ghost stories, and similar things have been around for so long, and why the two styles of entertainment are so frequently combined.
Well, opinions vary of course, and you can probably leave it as personally not liking him (and I did list more than one source). The guy sold like 12 million books (I confirmed that number on wikipedia), and while contreversial due to the sexual philosophy involved, his acceptance as a master is not something many people dispute.Kahunaburger said:
When John Norman came up with his stuff, he was the only one writing some of those ideas, especially in an accessible manner. Alternate worlds, concealed sci-fi technology, insectoid aliens behind the scenes, and then combining it with a breakthrough of lovecraftian-type entities (The Others) might seem rather trite, but he was doing it at a time pretty much nobody else was.
What's more, for all your criticisms this is a guy who had naval battles involving tens of thousands of ships. People flying around on what amounts to Peradactyls, and the like. What's more some of Tarl's fight scenes were widely imitated, such as the one where he shows up dressed as one of the bad guys, drops a lamp to confuse them in the dark, and kills a lot of guys. Not totally original, and his choreography does suck, but he's the guy who popularized a basic gimmick that has been used in a few places.
Whether you like the guy or not, and he is nothing if not divisive, he was highly influential on the genere. He's also one of the first fantasy authors that made a point out of doing a lot of research for their infrastructure, granted he blew his own horn for that, even within the books, as well. A lot of what he wrote would work, as far as he described
it, and where a lot of other fantasy work was based on what the authors thought was cool, at least the set up for the combat techniques, armament, and similar things, it was again workable, even if again, his choreography sucked which was pretty much a staple of vintage fantasy.
Don't get me wrong, he's not one of my favorite authors or anything, I just respect his work on certain levels. As I said, there was a point where I pretty much gave up on them myself. I'm a bit of a perv, and can get into the bondage stuff to an extent, but I was mostly there for the fantasy and that WAS lacking as time went on, and when the protaganists become totally unlikable to boot, I gave up on any hope of recovery.
Oh, and really your cursory readings have lead to a degree of ignorance. One of the central themes of Gor is that women want to be dominated, and that modern society by giving them empowerment deprives them of a need they realize they don't actually have. You keep mentioning "rape" but to be honest the actual rape content is minimal. In general a gorean does not go running around, clubbing women, throwing them down on the ground, and having their way with them. Rather they take prisoners, and use them as servants, and over a period of time they pretty much realize this is what they always wanted.
It should also be noted that there is also a sort of dual standard in Gor when it comes to free women. In the first books, and crucial to the point where I gave up, a big deal is made about how women who actully submit and become slaves are pretty much unworthy. A counterpoint many people forget in the context of the rest of this. When the daughter of Marlaneus of Ar is kidnapped and broken in a more dramatic fashion (behind the scenes) she winds up becoming unworthy of him and he pretty much refuses to acknowlege her as his daughter anymore. Tarl at that point is enough of a dufus where he pretty much agrees even if he was broken himself, and pretty much on the heels of that snubs Elizabeth for the same basic reasons.
The point here is that as far as the writing goes, a lot of it revolves around contridictory positions in this kind of philsophy and the alleged "reality of women" and so on. I'm not saying it's something I agree with, just that it can't be summarized as "rape fiction". What's more, like it or not there is a whole real-life "Gorean" subculture where people practice this to some extent, with women who do the submissive lifestyle who embrace this (seriously, look it up, and not everyone involved is an ugly neckbeard either). When you have people basing lifestyles around someone's works, whether you agree or not, it's hard to really deny the guy who wrote it being considered a master of the genere.
That said, when it comes to fighting in general, you really don't do martial arts or high levels of physical exersion in street clothes. Your not going to get the full range of nessicary movement. A lot of the stuff with guys doing kung-fu or swordsmanship dressed like that is complete BS for a reason. In real fighting you wind up with two extremes, of people wearing as little as possible (or specially constructed outfits if the technology exists), or people wearing armor, to whatever degree they want to compromise.
Regular armor doesn't work well with the female anatomy, as a lot of people (including women) have pointed out, breasts don't render them invalids, but they ARE very sensitive, while not identical an impact there is similar to a guy getting kicked in the nuts. As a result a lot of armor like breastplates aren't going to function properly, sure they might prevent a sword from going through the internal organs, but a glacing blow to one is going
to have more affect on a girl than a guy. Hence fantasy about using very low tech arms and armor to enter melee combat generally doesn't work.
A counterpoint to this is the idea of wearing as little as possible to get out of the way, sure if you get hit your in more trouble, but the idea is to not get hit. At a higher tech level you can work with silk, or later on spandex, nylon, or create things like sweatsuits. In an eastern inspired work, it's easier to justify a woman wearing a silk bodysuit or whatever, than say a western barbarian. Later on down the historical pipeline when such fabrics were more availible and guns invalidated heavy armor (pirate themed artwork and such) more clothing in combat becomes practical, and indeed you do tend to notice the fantasy pirate wenches and such wearing far more than the Barbarian warriors.
When it comes to climate, running around in metal with a huge amount of humidity or whatever, pretty much assures that when you get into battle your not going to be able to do much. You'll notice that despite being able to produce some degree of armor using wood, hide, and bone, most jungle tribals do not wear much, if any armor. Indeed, like your typical western barbarian, they run around more or less naked. A lot of parallels in response to racism have been drawn between say Celts and African warriors (nearly naked, war paint, etc...).
Your swordswoman in a fur bikini or whatever is pretty much wearing the same exact thing as Conan, if it works for him, it works for her. Indeed if nothing else it's too modest, because the ladies in question probably wouldn't care about running around topless, as tribeswoman tend to do.
You might not care for it, but that's pretty much how it is.
Really? Gender roles and behaviors are differant. A guy who stretched like that wouldn't be quintessentially manly, but girls do tend to do that kind of thing and it's a more accepted and feminine manner.GeneralTwinkle said:
A guy taking that kind of pose is kind of doing his version of the entire cheesecake thing as well, especially if he has those huge arms bigger around than his neck. In romance stuff the guy taking the arrogant, stoic, macho pose is exactly the same as a girl acting that way, being fantasy they are both playing the role, it's just that as a guy you don't really see it. The male characters also have a tendency to flex a bit more than is reasonable as they move or do idle animations, but you probably don't notice since your paying more attention
to the women and don't really get the signals and such because it's a bit more subtle.
The SF elements of those stories have been around since Weird Tales and often before. The fact that we use "Lovecraftian" and not "Normanian" to describe bizarre alien entities tells you all you need to know. And the "dude wears disguise, kills dudes" and "dude kills dudes under the cover of darkness" plot elements are at least as old as written language.Therumancer said:
Fixed.Therumancer said:
His words, not mine.Therumancer said:
Hey, I don't summarize it just as "rape fiction." It also features some spectacularly bad writing, and an incredibly derivative SF setting. As I said, it's not just that this guy is spectacularly creepy - it's that he's spectacularly creepy and is at an Eye of Argon level of writing ability.Therumancer said:
The "armor inhibits movement to the point that not wearing armor is an equally viable option" myth falls into the same category as the "swords used to weigh 40 lbs" myth. [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm]Therumancer said:
There's a pretty narrow band of temperatures, technologies, and economies where it's optimal to go into battle with a melee weapon, a big shield, and not much else. Cultures living in pretty hot places, both of the humid and arid varieties (Yucatan Peninsula, West Africa, Indonesia, New Guinea, Arabia, Egypt, etc.) often opted for armor when they could afford it because of the "being stabbed sucks, especially when you don't have antibiotics" principle. Fun fact about the Celts, btw: they generally wore mail when they could afford it. There are limited contemporaneous accounts of Celts going into battle naked, but it was the exception, not the rule. If you've ever been to inland France, the Alps, or the UK in the winter you'll be able to tell why.Therumancer said:
Also, the whole line about "but won't it hurt if someone hits them in the boobs?" is hilarious to me. Trust me, if you get stabbed in the chest with a spear, that's gonna hurt with or without boobs, and if a thrust to the chest bounces off your armor, you're gonna be happy you brought it, once again with or without boobs.
This is the only one I want to dwell on.
**1. Censorship in Mature Games
So yeah, know how you`re forbidden from including a swear word in your D3 character`s name? And how it's a game about the end of days? Yeah, that's fucking retarded. And know how sex in Bioware's universe doesn't actually require genital contact? Also retarded. And y'know how kids in Skyrim (the game where you can harvest an old lady's soul and stick it in your drawer) are totally invulnerable? Also retarded.
Seriously, all this "oh my god that's too intense for a *GAME*" nonsense? Just stop it. That is all. The fact that you're too chickenshit to weather a handful of angry letters from Christian moms but you're more than happy to receive truckloads of hatemail from your fans is pretty god damn telling about your priorities.**
Alright you know what, I agree with the child killing, in a game that the developer lets you do anything, That is a stupid line to draw. It's like telling you you need 5 keys to open this fence instead of climbing over it when you could do that throught the rest of the game.
What I won't agree with you is being mad you can't put something vulgar or what not in a name for a mature game. If your really gonna name your Character something stupid like that, espeically in an online game where other people will see it, your just being an jerk. Your not mature, and if thats a complaint you have that you can't be a rasict/sexist/whatever jerk 24/7 to anyone that happens to look at you then you shouldn't be allowed to play the damn game.
**1. Censorship in Mature Games
So yeah, know how you`re forbidden from including a swear word in your D3 character`s name? And how it's a game about the end of days? Yeah, that's fucking retarded. And know how sex in Bioware's universe doesn't actually require genital contact? Also retarded. And y'know how kids in Skyrim (the game where you can harvest an old lady's soul and stick it in your drawer) are totally invulnerable? Also retarded.
Seriously, all this "oh my god that's too intense for a *GAME*" nonsense? Just stop it. That is all. The fact that you're too chickenshit to weather a handful of angry letters from Christian moms but you're more than happy to receive truckloads of hatemail from your fans is pretty god damn telling about your priorities.**
Alright you know what, I agree with the child killing, in a game that the developer lets you do anything, That is a stupid line to draw. It's like telling you you need 5 keys to open this fence instead of climbing over it when you could do that throught the rest of the game.
What I won't agree with you is being mad you can't put something vulgar or what not in a name for a mature game. If your really gonna name your Character something stupid like that, espeically in an online game where other people will see it, your just being an jerk. Your not mature, and if thats a complaint you have that you can't be a rasict/sexist/whatever jerk 24/7 to anyone that happens to look at you then you shouldn't be allowed to play the damn game.
You don't need to make gore porn to explore so the darker side of human nature. Which brings us full circle to where I asked how and why "mature" content makes something better (Specifically I said what does it add). So far all I got was because people are evil and want to see it, which is barely different than "just because".Therumancer said:
Epilogue: Real shocker here maybe, but I do think games could do well to explore more "mature" things in ways that are actually mature. I don't expect the AAA scene to deliver that for a while though. What I do not buy into is that games need to do anything, nor do I believe that "mature" somehow automatically makes something "better". That's just stupid.
Hah, touche good sir. Sadly most games don't match the animation quality of the Metal Gear games. That PS2 game has a better looking handshake and a better looking hug than anything in Mass Effect 3 did.hazabaza1 said:
I hate how games always have to shoehorn a love interest into their games, I find myself very easily picking out the games lovebirds by their first appearances, I just kind of begrudgingly accept it now though, but my mind gets pretty blown every time I play a game without it, for example...
My whole point to this and that ^ is that yea gimmicks and cliches are annoying as hell, but when you find games that don't have them they can make a great game better, and I think it strikes a kind of balance
For example, as soon as Estelle walked on screen in Tales of Vesperia, I went "yup love interest *sigh*" and I nearly took a triple take when by the end not a single main character had fallen in love with each other, hell the closest thing was the relationship with Karol and Nan, who is a side character. Yuri and Estelle had a brother/sister type relationship, Raven hit on everyone because he is pimp like that, and I guess the closest thing next to Karol was that Yuri and Judith were pretty flirty, but nothing came from that either. It was a big breath of fresh air. Fuckin love that game
Fair enough, though it was more open phrasing than anything.SAMAS said:Don't ask me, I didn't write the OP.
The funny thing is the two Tales games I've played were as full of clichés as they could be. If they wanted to add clichés, DLC would be necessary.Furioso said:
i dont get it, why does an adults only rating exist if a game cant be published if it falls under that category?RazadaMk2 said:
ive been using this a lot lately, but max payne 3 explores the darker side of humanity without hyper violence all the time [i.e: greed, addiction, corruption] and is properly written to explore these topics fully.burningdragoon said:
Well son, I'm glad you asked. It's really a convergence of several different kinds of stupid at once that causes this phenomenon.bullet_sandw1ch said:
The first is the ESRB rating system. Now right off the bat, this is a group whose members are *appointed* and who have no outside regulation whatsoever. It's these people's jobs to decide what is appropriate for who. And because A) they're clueless mouthbreathers, and B) they're total pussies... a whooole lot of subject matter is just plain forbidden from appearing in games.
The second is industry paranoia. See game publishers think of themselves as toy companies, so when an angry mom sends them a letter (complaining about nipples, or plants or something) they cave immediately for fear of a shitstorm.
And the last one is on the audience. And this one is especially bad, because it's very subtle. At least part of the reason we don't get real adult content is this: we don't demand it strongly enough. For every person saying:
"Pants on sex scenes? C'mon Bioware."
There's THOUSANDS of pussywipes saying:
"Give them a break! People would've complained."
And fuck me it's annoying.