Little Details That Piss You Off

[cojo965]

In games it's silent protagonists. If everyone is speaking in text bubbles like old school Final Fantasy that's one thing.

But if everyone else is speaking and the player character isn't? (looking at you every major bethesda game from morrowind up to skyrim) I consider that lazy.

The only thing worse is when characters have voices but all they speak is gibberish with text box translations like Okami. That was a BIG part of why I never finished it. Why not just use the Text boxes?

I'm curious, then, what your opinion is on the new DOOM.

So I caught plenty of flak for my opinion on Art films so allow me to share one I like: Immortals. Now, this film has those artsy shots but they serve the story not the other way around. There is no fifteen minute long shots of shit floating in space or some twat standing in a room like he forgot what he went in there for. When the artsy shots happen they only hold as long as they need to and actually move the plot forward. Take the scene in Hyperion's slave camp, for instance. There is a sequence of artsy shots that show us the conditions Hyperion's prisoners are under and then brings our main human characters together. If Kubrick made Immortals those artsy shots I just mentioned would have taken 2 minutes and 30 seconds a pop.

Tl;dr: Do not just throw images on the screen and say "interpret this" because I'll just tell you my interpretation is that I should probably do the laundry. Have something happen in those images that I want to interpret then ask me that. Then again I've never been good at abstract thinking, so maybe films like 2001 or No Country are just not meant for me.

 

[Myria]

In the original Guild Wars series they introduced Green weapons. They weren't really all that special, just had different models than more standard weapons, but that sort of thing was a big deal in that game. The boss who carried a particular Green would only spawn some of the time and would only drop the weapon a tiny percentage of the time when killed, so getting one involved a depressing amount of grinding.

Only...

Whether he dropped the weapon or not, you could see his (or her) cold, dead body laying there, holding the weapon!

Drove me bloody well nuts. I mean, I just killed Boss X and buddies, the weapon is right there, I can see it, but I can't have it because RNGesus says "No weapon for you!"?

Auuuuurrrrrgh.

Not the only game I've see this in, but the first time I recall it really, seriously getting on my nerves.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

As a person who's been practicing and/or in love with martial arts since I was 5, I hate it with pure fury when they get people who are bad in martial arts to do martial arts in their films.

I have no words. There are talented people out there who WANT to be stars and you just go to the same people who can barely act and... Gah.

I will give an honorable mention to Keanu Reeves who bit in the Martix movies, but seems to pulled something together for John Wick. And Matt Damon just came out like a stud from the get-go

When writers on TV shows don't know anything about computers/technology, but try to fake it anyway. I was watching an episode of NCIS the other day and it was fucking painful. Never mind the part where McGee is admiring his hot new love interest for holding the "high scores" in all the MMOs, they talk about the suspect monitoring the victim through the "game ports." Unless he was monitoring him through the port we used to use to connect joysticks to our computers, there's no such thing! What made it worse is it's the supposedly tech savvy "geeky" people like McGee that are the ones spouting this nonsense.
Then there's the general fact that NCIS doesn't seem to have any sort of password policy which means anyone could wander in and access very sensitive data on active cases whenever they wanted.

In two years time, I hope to become a fellow countryman of yours. But until that time, allow me to spend the rest of my time making this up to you so you'll eventually like me again.

 

[happyninja42]

the "chibi" effect in anime. Perfectly normal story going on, then suddenly there are giant exclamation points over heads, heads that are now bobble doll in proportions, giant water drops floating next to heads to indicate emotions, and basic stupid antics. It totally breaks any immersion I might have in the story, or connection to the characters as "real", when they literally transform into plushy dolls in front of me.

Shows/movies/etc that will happily let women smack around men for the most minor of social infractions, and it's ok, sometimes even played for humor. But if a guy is shown striking a woman at all, he's obviously an irredeemable villain.

People who use decimate to mean devastate. Sorry but no, reducing something by 10% doesn't devastate it, and that's what you are saying.

 

[Hawki]

When people don't get how large space actually is.

Now, I get it - FTL travel is fine, as long as it's established as part of the worldbuilding. Your proverbial hyperspace, or, in shows like Futurama, Blake's 7, and Farscape, where the light barrier is either established to not actually exist, or in Futurama's case, artificially made faster. Fine. What bugs me is when a setting doesn't have this excuse, and ships are whizzing between planets in a matter of minutes/hours.

I'll let you in on something - space is big. Really big. It takes light 8 minutes to reach Earth from the sun. It takes about 5 hours for it to reach Pluto. However, Andromeda would have us believe that a ship can go between planets at non-FTL speeds in a manner of seconds. Mass Effect 3, if taken literally, has us beleive that ships exit the Charon Relay and arrive at Earth almost instantly. Transformers: Age of Extinction, has Optimus Prime blasting off into space to find "the Creators." So unless Optimus Prime can travel faster than light, it's going to take him the better part of a decade JUST TO LEAVE THE SOLAR SYSTEM. And I know, there's a million things wrong with Age of Extinction, but seriously people - I can suspend disbelief long enough to accept that in your universe, it's possible to travel faster than lightspeed. But you've gotta meet me half way. Hyperspace, warp drive, "Einstein was wrong!," just SOMETHING.

...what? You did say the "little details."

 

[twistedmic]

I have a theory that television is not allowed (in America at least) to show accurate portrayals of hacking in order to prevent accidentally giving people a how-to guide on cyber crimes. Kind of like how they can't show real currency on American t.v. or why MacGuyver and Mythbusters always omitted/censored key steps and ingredients in their builds.

 

[darkcalling]

In games it's silent protagonists. If everyone is speaking in text bubbles like old school Final Fantasy that's one thing.

But if everyone else is speaking and the player character isn't? (looking at you every major bethesda game from morrowind up to skyrim) I consider that lazy.

The only thing worse is when characters have voices but all they speak is gibberish with text box translations like Okami. That was a BIG part of why I never finished it. Why not just use the Text boxes?

I'm curious, then, what your opinion is on the new DOOM.

I haven't played the new Doom yet, though I probably will at some point and love it. That's more for nostalgia as I remember loving old school shooters like that. I can deal with a silent protagonist better in games that don't really focus on the plot. It's when they ask me to care about the characters and the world (like Bethesda's games) that it feels lazy.

I know it helps some people role play the character and they feel that a voice would take away from that but i don't roleplay. I never have and I doubt I ever will. I usually just take the moral high ground, and /or whichever options get me better stuff.

The gibberish thing always makes me hate a game though. Whoever started that gag can die in a fire.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Shows/movies/etc that will happily let women smack around men for the most minor of social infractions, and it's ok, sometimes even played for humor.

Oh yeah, that's just wrong.

When people don't get how large space actually is.

Now, I get it - FTL travel is fine, as long as it's established as part of the worldbuilding. Your proverbial hyperspace, or, in shows like Futurama, Blake's 7, and Farscape, where the light barrier is either established to not actually exist, or in Futurama's case, artificially made faster. Fine. What bugs me is when a setting doesn't have this excuse, and ships are whizzing between planets in a matter of minutes/hours.

I'll let you in on something - space is big. Really big. It takes light 8 minutes to reach Earth from the sun. It takes about 5 hours for it to reach Pluto. However, Andromeda would have us believe that a ship can go between planets at non-FTL speeds in a manner of seconds. Mass Effect 3, if taken literally, has us beleive that ships exit the Charon Relay and arrive at Earth almost instantly. Transformers: Age of Extinction, has Optimus Prime blasting off into space to find "the Creators." So unless Optimus Prime can travel faster than light, it's going to take him the better part of a decade JUST TO LEAVE THE SOLAR SYSTEM. And I know, there's a million things wrong with Age of Extinction, but seriously people - I can suspend disbelief long enough to accept that in your universe, it's possible to travel faster than lightspeed. But you've gotta meet me half way. Hyperspace, warp drive, "Einstein was wrong!," just SOMETHING.

...what? You did say the "little details."

Yeah, and then they go to planets that are exactly the same as Earth anyway.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

In games it's silent protagonists.

Hey. Not cool man.

OT: Drives me nuts when people use the word 'Science' as synonymous with engineering, physics, chemistry, reality etc. They are NOT the same thing. Science is the method by which we study and figure out the rules that govern the various phenomenon of the universe. Science is not those rules or phenomenon, the rules are physics and the phenomenon are broken down into subcategories like chemistry or biology. Implementing knowledge of those things to solve a real world problem(or possible create one) is called Engineering, not science. Science is not a catch all term.

The WORST part is that this is done so often by the people who should know better like scientists and engineers. The Science celebrities like Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson do this plenty and it's their job to enlighten the public about this stuff and correct these kinds of misconceptions.
The clip show 'Outrageous Acts of Science', which I generally enjoy, is horrible at this. I can forgive it in title but they mix these things up throughout the entire freaking show. They frequently say the phrase "This clip shows some great/amazing/interesting Science" and I'm pretty sure it hasn't been true once.
The only show I've seen that consistently mentions these things and consistently uses the terms correctly is Mythbusters, and they are Hollywood special effect guys. Step up your game scientists.

The movie 'The Martian' does this. Science saves the day was how it was marketed, praised, and the movie even contains the line "I'm going to have to Science the Shit out of this" if I remember correctly. No science is done in the entire film. It's all engineering. For example(spoilers maybe? it's early in the film and isn't a twist or anything) when Matt Damon makes a farm by fertilizing the soil with human waste he already knows the proper poo to soil ratio thanks to his study of botany. If the film wanted to show SCIENCE he would have had to set up plants several different poo to soil ratios and then built his farm with the ratio that grew the best. In this film all the science was done long ago and off camera, all that is left to do is the engineering. A bunch of the challenges they have overcome in the film are like THE Prototypical Engineering problems, like what can we afford to lose in order to get the weight down and still remain functional. You could have sold your movie on Engineering, would have been just as could a cause to raise interest in as Science, and it would have been more accurate.

Can't think of any games that do this off the top of my head, but sometimes research mechanics toe the line. X-COM (the last one at least, haven't played the new one) actually does this correctly and it is even plot relevant in an early cut scene which given my rant I assume you can guess I absolutely loved. They have an alien artifact that doesn't seem to do anything and the scientist can't figure it out, only describe the properties she can observe in it, to which the engineer says "Hey, I know exactly what something with that set of properties would be great for, it must be one of those." BOOM. That's how it's done people. Science and Engineering working together in harmony but still NOT THE SAME THING.

 

[RedDeadFred]

The weird anime gasp. It's extremely common and makes no damn sense. Nobody makes weird sensual gasps just from making eye contact, or having a tiny revelation, or one of any other thousand every day things that do not warrant that sound.

 

[happyninja42]

The weird anime gasp. It's extremely common and makes no damn sense. Nobody makes weird sensual gasps just from making eye contact, or having a tiny revelation, or one of any other thousand every day things that do not warrant that sound.

I also find the "blood gushing from the nose" reaction really stupid too. Basically, all of the insanely over the top reactions to social situations that you find in most anime. This usually coincides with the chibi bullshit they do to illustrate the overreaction. I just can't stand that shit.

 

[Asita]

I have a theory that television is not allowed (in America at least) to show accurate portrayals of hacking in order to prevent accidentally giving people a how-to guide on cyber crimes. Kind of like how they can't show real currency on American t.v. or why MacGuyver and Mythbusters always omitted/censored key steps and ingredients in their builds.

Nothing quite so sinister as that. The truth of the matter is simply that the part of hacking readily recognizable as such is just boring. You create a program, and then unleash it, usually with very little fanfare or visual cues. It's a bit more interesting when you go back to when it was less of an automated process, but even so, it's not exactly riveting material, so Hollywood tends to spice it up a bit. The major exception to this tends to be the social engineering aspect, which is more interesting but less recognizable as an aspect of hacking.

 

[The Lunatic]

I always find it kinda weird in games when you're mowing down hordes of enemies, and they're all guys.

The game is completely gender neutral outside of that, but, the fact you've just killed 100 people and not one of them was a chick is just sorta glossed over.

I imagine it'd be very different with the roles reversed.

 

[twistedmic]

I saw the trailer for the new season of Agents of SHIELD. Ghost Rider is coming on to the show, though he has traded his fire-festooned demon bike for a ghost possessed muscle car
I might be mistaken, but wasn't the hell-cycle an integral part of the Ghost Rider mythos? Wasn't the fact that he rides a motorcycle half the reason that he was called the Ghost Rider? Shouldn't he be riding some form of motorcycle, or a hell-spawned zombie-demon horse?