Why I dont Like G4

[Alunissage]

Ehh, Alex may be somewhat of a silent hero and all, but the good that comes with his lack of personality (at least compared to the rest of the cast) is that you can easily take on his role and actually feel as though you were in his shoes instead of simply being a spectator who just constantly presses the A button.

A key word in there is HIS. I certainly don't identify with a male protagonist, silent or not. To me the key to immersion is feeling you know the character, not that you are the character -- and knowing someone requires some data about the personality. Which need not be sassy. For a character to be plausible, s/he has to be consistent -- actions should follow from what we've seen previously (cf. "Whatever." "Whatever." "Whatever." "I don't want to leave Rinoa."), but that requires that we have to have seen something of the personality. Otherwise the situation could exist that the player has made up a personality for the protagonist only to have the protagonist do something entirely incongruous, or with no motivation.

[phyco126]

Heh, I haven't played Halo 3 beta or anything, can't wait til I can get it though.

I wasn't dissing Lunar by the way, I was merely stating a semi-quote from someone I was talking to about it. These days, it's all about High-definition CGI and FF

I love MMORPGs, because you can create the person and BE that person rather than trying to KNOW that person. Knowing is fun, to me that is FFVII, Lunar, and Rhapsody. But to be one, like my Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies, that's great, because I can be the calm, collective, wise, protective guy in a komono-ish robe (Smock I think.)

[Boris Moskovitz]

I certainly don't identify with a male protagonist, silent or not.

Gotcha. How would a busty archaeologist work out for you?

I kid, I kid.

To me the key to immersion is feeling you know the character, not that you are the character -- and knowing someone requires some data about the personality.

Anyway, when the character is his/her (usually his, admittedly) own entity, when properly developed, it's true that empathy is most possible. However, because it is made known that somebody else is going through the whole ordeal, the level of immersion is lowered that of a movie or a book. Sure, you can still feel what is going on even when you don't have an alter ego within the game itself, but there's always that slight "outsider" or rather, "observer" feeling, at least in my case.

Without an in-game alter ego, the game turns into little more than an interactive movie, which is a pity, seeing as how the potential of video games lies far beyond that.

For a character to be plausible, s/he has to be consistent -- actions should follow from what we've seen previously (cf. "Whatever." "Whatever." "Whatever." "I don't want to leave Rinoa."), but that requires that we have to have seen something of the personality. Otherwise the situation could exist that the player has made up a personality for the protagonist only to have the protagonist do something entirely incongruous, or with no motivation.

I can definitely agree with you on this point. Cloud Strife's occasional batshit antics definitely left me dumbfounded, and was one of the main reasons why I quit playing Final Fantasy VII.

But usually, said characters are very simple, straight-forward and easy to get the hang of, plus, the whole world around them is made so that we're supposed to feel a certain way (as them). That is why although we know nearly nothing about Link, his sense of justice and heroism pulls through and still becomes one with the gamer's. The same goes for GTA and the will to go steal some cars and beat up some hookers (err, within the boundaries of the game, that is - don't quote me on this, Jack Thompson).

Knowing is fun, to me that is FFVII, Lunar, and Rhapsody.

I might be totally off the mark on this one, but I'd say that Lunar's protagonists are also supposed to have you filling their shoes. At least, that's the idea that the cutscenes give me.

Why else would that young lass Luna look right through the screen when she says "Good morning, Alex"?

[AlexofBurg]

I kinda see where you're coming from, except for this:

I can definitely agree with you on this point. Cloud Strife's occasional batshit antics definitely left me dumbfounded, and was one of the main reasons why I quit playing Final Fantasy VII.

Maybe you didn't get that far but,


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[spoilers for FFVII]spoilers Cloud, for the first 3/4 of the game, is essentially scitzhophrenic (sp). So any craziness on his part is likely from that. spoilers [end spoilers]
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Unless you're talking about something else.

[exigence]

zeldas one of myfavorite games, and link says even less than alex does

[Alunissage]

Gotcha. How would a busty archaeologist work out for you?

One presumes you're not referring to Lara Croft, since she's about as much of an archaeologist as Kyle is a singer. The dearth of female protagonists (and characters in general) who aren't designed solely for male audiences isn't terribly funny.

Anyway, when the character is his/her (usually his, admittedly) own entity, when properly developed, it's true that empathy is most possible. However, because it is made known that somebody else is going through the whole ordeal, the level of immersion is lowered that of a movie or a book. Sure, you can still feel what is going on even when you don't have an alter ego within the game itself, but there's always that slight "outsider" or rather, "observer" feeling, at least in my case.

Without an in-game alter ego, the game turns into little more than an interactive movie, which is a pity, seeing as how the potential of video games lies far beyond that.

You're assuming that a book is necessarily less immersive. I would disagree -- although I find movies less immersive than either games or books. What appealed to me about Lunar TSS, my first RPG, is that it was like an interactive book, and that's what I want. Not everyone wants to roleplay or pretend to be the protagonist, or use the game as a vehicle for an older version of a child's superhero fantasies. I already know who I am; I want to find out who the characters are.

I might be totally off the mark on this one, but I'd say that Lunar's protagonists are also supposed to have you filling their shoes. At least, that's the idea that the cutscenes give me.

Why else would that young lass Luna look right through the screen when she says "Good morning, Alex"?

Alex, perhaps. Hiro addresses the player directly while he's being chased around the Dragon Ruins at the beginning of the game, clearly indicating that he is separate from the player. And as far as that first scene with Luna is concerned, consider her introduction in SSSC, where we see her singing -- and then Alex playing his ocarina behind her. We're not Alex; we're watching Alex. Why else would that "young lass" (:roll:) face the camera? Could it be to, oh, see her face from the front without Alex being in the way, perhaps? And I'm pretty sure there are instances of characters saying things like "I didn't think you were like that..." when you do something like examine objects in people's rooms or pick "wrong" dialogue choices -- because Alex isn't like that. Only the player is, and the player is going outside of Alex's character.

[Boris Moskovitz]

Not everyone wants to roleplay or pretend to be the protagonist, or use the game as a vehicle for an older version of a child's superhero fantasies. I already know who I am; I want to find out who the characters are.

Well, they are called role-playing games for a reason. If the sole intention was for the player to just to get to know a bunch of characters rather than be apart of the game, then Lunar (and every other video game with a story, for that matter) would have been much better off as a TV series or any other form of "third-person" storytelling medium (yes, a first-person-narrated novel counts). "Third-person" is referring to the angle at which you approach the story.

Anyway, I can definitely see this to be interpreted as an act of evasion, but my position on the topic has already been fully covered and I am already starting to feel that this is going in circles (note how the paragraph above was just my view being stated once again), so... my part on this discussion is probably ending here. Plus, I think I might have picked up some hints of annoyance in that last post.

...How about we just agree to disagree?

I'm alright with continuing too if you've got more to add, but I do think this thread has already been derailed enough.

[Alunissage]

You haven't exactly been around here long enough to judge when a thread has been derailed "enough", heh. There isn't much left to say on the original topic anyway; wasn't that ep of G4 on about five years ago?

I wondered if you'd bring up the RPG = role-playing game semantics. The genre's origins may be with tabletop role-playing, but that hardly means that everyone who plays RPGs is interested in role-playing, just as enjoying a game with animated cutscenes does not mean that one enjoys anime. (Videogames began with Pong; does this mean that everyone who plays videogames wants to play table tennis? Or, more generally, competitive games?) I personally have no interest in watching anime or other passive television/movie viewing, and I dislike roleplaying. That doesn't mean I don't get anything out of an RPG, because, you know, I like playing games. It is in fact possible to enjoy the games and their stories AND their characters in a mode different from your own. Obviously a game is not going to be made with the "sole intention" of making a player get to know the cast, just as it's not going to be made for the sole reason of letting a player pretend to be the hero.

Beyond Good and Evil is an RPG too. Do you pretend you're a female investigative journalist who mothers a dozen orphans when you play? Who, incidentally, also has no romantic interest whatsoever and neither looks nor dresses like a pinup, thus earning her status as my favorite game character ever. But I wonder how many male players of that game find themselves roleplaying as Jade.

[Boris Moskovitz]

You haven't exactly been around here long enough to judge when a thread has been derailed "enough", heh. There isn't much left to say on the original topic anyway; wasn't that ep of G4 on about five years ago?

Do you really have to rebut every single statement I make? While my late join date and tiny post count do mean I have a considerably smaller e-penis than you (and pretty much everyone else here, actually), I most definitely do know when a thread has completely gone off-topic, and this is very much the case here. But since you're so willing to continue this, I'll be happy to oblige.

It is in fact possible to enjoy the games and their stories AND their characters in a mode different from your own.

Now hold on a second there. I didn't say that third-person approach games are impossible to enjoy. Xenogears happens to be one of my all-time favorites, and by no means does the player ever truly feel in sync with Fei and his split personality disorder. What I am saying, however, is that they are far less immersive than "first-person" ones, because you know, you're just more into the game when it lets you fully be apart of it than if you're still just a bystander with some amount of control over the thing, which is fine too, but the level of connection is just nowhere as high.

And when I say that the player is filling the hero's shoes, I don't mean that they're deluding themselves into thinking that they're other people. Because these are just characters in relatively simple worlds and we are full-fledged complex human beings, the actual influence they have on us is extremely limited. Just because I can fill in Lara Croft's shoes and feel what she feels at the moment (moreso in her earlier games, back when she was nearly silent), it doesn't mean that I feel like going British, acquiring some breast implants, putting on some short shorts, and setting off hunting ancient civilizations' artifacts. Of course there is still a footing in reality, it's just that some people really wanna get "into it" as a momentary thing.

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

jesus. i can't wait until women "catch up" with society. i'm tired of everything pertaining to the notion of "girl-power". Feminism needs a fast-forward button. Maybe stereotypical characters won't bug them so much once they make their accomplishments.

i'd also like to add that things that refute the e-penis are awesome. one of those things is the decision NOT to have your board show post count. a big number near your avatar shouldn't be as significant as it clearly can be when it comes to someones judgment.

also, alun just seems to wanna debate anything and everything. i'm somewhat like that...except in a MUCH less serious tone. i want a debate plus lols.

[Kizyr]

B_G, you're hardly in a position to talk. Your usual m.o. is to try to piss off people and then whine about it when it doesn't work in your favor.

Do you really have to rebut every single statement I make? While my late join date and tiny post count do mean I have a considerably smaller e-penis than you (and pretty much everyone else here, actually), I most definitely do know when a thread has completely gone off-topic, and this is very much the case here. But since you're so willing to continue this, I'll be happy to oblige.

Tone it down. You're entirely misinterpreting what Alun is saying.

And, no, this thread really hasn't derailed. It will if folks start tossing insults at one another. But topic-wise, this thread is still more or less on-topic. People here aren't all strict about keeping things 100% on the exact topic that was brought up in the first post; that's what Alun was referring to.

I wondered if you'd bring up the RPG = role-playing game semantics. The genre's origins may be with tabletop role-playing, but that hardly means that everyone who plays RPGs is interested in role-playing, just as enjoying a game with animated cutscenes does not mean that one enjoys anime. (Videogames began with Pong; does this mean that everyone who plays videogames wants to play table tennis? Or, more generally, competitive games?) I personally have no interest in watching anime or other passive television/movie viewing, and I dislike roleplaying. That doesn't mean I don't get anything out of an RPG, because, you know, I like playing games. It is in fact possible to enjoy the games and their stories AND their characters in a mode different from your own. Obviously a game is not going to be made with the "sole intention" of making a player get to know the cast, just as it's not going to be made for the sole reason of letting a player pretend to be the hero.

One thing I've noticed... your general attitude towards games in general, and RPGs in particular, is very different from the average person. Not to say that it's wrong in the least, only that it's different and really an atypical way to approach games.

A lot of people do enjoy RPGs for their immersive quality--I'd hazard a guess at saying that most people who do avidly play RPGs rank that particular aspect highly (and it comes with both male and female protagonists--I've identified with female protagonists in the past just as well).

Although, enjoying games from the point-of-view of something more like an interactive novel is just as well. I really enjoy Phoenix Wright in that sense--it's like playing through a modern detective novel-slash-courtroom drama.

My only point is that your reason for enjoying RPGs isn't as common, which is why I think you run into a lot of disagreement. Although your reasons are just as valid (like my reasons for enjoying Phoenix Wright), so it really shouldn't cause heated arguments. KF

[Boris Moskovitz]

Tone it down. You're entirely misinterpreting what Alun is saying.

And, no, this thread really hasn't derailed. It will if folks start tossing insults at one another. But topic-wise, this thread is still more or less on-topic. People here aren't all strict about keeping things 100% on the exact topic that was brought up in the first post; that's what Alun was referring to.

Hey, man. If Alun's comment was less sardonic in tone and a little more like yours, I would have responded waaaaay differently.

As for the thread still having a footing on topic part, could you please tell me what a debate on the correlation between player perspective and immersion would have to do with G4 saying that Lunar's music sucks?

But if your forum operators really roll that way and let threads go the way this one is right now, then I have no qualm and really don't mind going on with this.

[Dragonmaster Lou]

The thing about G4 is that it seems to operate with the attitude that its core audience consists of those who feel that the Halo series (and other FPS games in all likelihood) are the epitome of game quality, and that all other games suck, regardless of genre. Now, I got nothing against Halo and FPS games -- I spent a lot of time playing Wolf3D, Doom, and Duke Nukem 3D back in the day (and the only reason why I haven't picked up any other FPSes is because I don't have a computer currently capable of running a more recent one). However, they obviously won't like a game like Lunar which is about as anti-Halo as a game could get. As such, they of course wouldn't like the music, because the music in Lunar fits the genre/style of game so well, whereas something like the games they prefer need some crazy death metal thrashing soundtrack.

This is not meant as a defense of G4, more like a condemnation as they seem to ignore a particularly passionate subset of gamers out there in favor of going for the idiots that think they can get a job in the gaming industry by going to one of those crappy correspondence schools that advertise on G4.

All I can say is that it's good that channels other than G4 show Star Trek and that Braniac (a British import the only other halfway decent show on that wasteland of a channel) is all in reruns now, meaning that I don't have to watch that waste of TV bandwidth anymore. *sigh* I miss my TechTV.

[Sonic#]

Tone it down. You're entirely misinterpreting what Alun is saying.

And, no, this thread really hasn't derailed. It will if folks start tossing insults at one another. But topic-wise, this thread is still more or less on-topic. People here aren't all strict about keeping things 100% on the exact topic that was brought up in the first post; that's what Alun was referring to.

Hey, man. If Alun's comment was less sardonic in tone and a little more like yours, I would have responded waaaaay differently.

As for the thread still having a footing on topic part, could you please tell me what a debate on the correlation between player perspective and immersion would have to do with G4 saying that Lunar's music sucks?

But if your forum operators really roll that way and let threads go the way this one is right now, then I have no qualm and really don't mind going on with this.

One way you could tie the current discussion into the original topic is to consider this a discussion of how different people view games and why they play them. Alunissage is playing on one model, you are on another. As DM Lou implies, G4 is trying to appeal to a third.

I'll probably get the values wrong, but here's what it might look like:
Visual appeal
Characters personalized by action and skill
Multiplayer emphasis (pick up and go)
Soundtracks resembling normal musical interests, if not the very same

This is very rough. There's clearly an immersive aspect, but it's also cinematic. And the immersion doesn't go too far, it's not a person experiencing another person, so much as that person experiencing a new character, based in skill, submerged in an environment that has consequences outside the game in multiplayer cases.

I don't know. Any more? Am I way off?

[Alunissage]

It's true, I do tend to approach games from a different direction. Maybe this is because I started playing RPGs when I was, oh, 21, after years and years of reading fantasy, science fiction, fairy tales, mysteries, etc. I do get very immersed in books, to the point where I have to remind myself that it's a character I was just reading about that got into a fight with her husband and not me -- otherwise I might end up treating my own beloved spouse rather coldly. It isn't quite that I'm thinking of myself as the character, just that the effort to empathize with the people I read about results in just that, feeling the emotions they're feeling.

I digress a bit. What I was wanting to say is that I think my objection is mainly to the notion that immersive = roleplaying, first-person, identifying with the protagonist experience. That seems to be treated as a given, and I don't think it should be, even if it's the case for the majority of players. I've talked a lot, inevitably, about how I see things, and I'll wander into that realm of boring self-absorption again to say that to me what makes a game or a book or whatever immersive is the degree to which the setting as well as the characters is fleshed out.

As an example, TSS had a goddess whose temples were austere and mysterious (at least that's how the music and cool blue colors always came across to me). The details of the worship or the priestesses' use of their power to heal and whatnot didn't need to be specified... oh dear, I'm kind of contradicting my earlier phrasing, which should have been "consistent" more than "fleshed out". Anyway, I could get a bit of a feel of what it might be to live in that environment and how people might think of their world and their goddess, and it was different from how I actually live and that was interesting. In SSSC, there was a cathedral with organs and stained-glass windows, and Luna's song referred to an angel watching over her (which I meant to mention earlier in the discussion of the Boat Song lyrics), and so on. This stuck out to me and made the setting less convincing and immersive, because it was no longer consistent with the idea of being Somewhere Else with its own culture and beliefs and such.

And, of course, my old example of Beyond Good and Evil.... aside from its protagonist, I really appreciated the details of having the music in the club relate to the theme, and touches like that.

Maybe this is an academic distinction. Immersion for me is "Is this world plausible? Can I imagine living in that world?" rather than "Do I feel that I'm running the story and taking the actions?" Much as I dislike fanfic in general, an acid test of either might be whether there's enough of a sense of the world and/or its characters for someone to be able to write a fanfic that someone else would agree felt authentic. I mean, as opposed to writing one in which extra dragons are invented and Jean turns out to be the latest incarnation of Althena... I'm not very good at coming up with examples here. Well, like the script I mentioned in which Alex treats Nall as a pet and pushes him off the dinner table to eat off the floor. That wouldn't seem so out of place to us if both Nall and Alex hadn't been fleshed out in the games and their relationship as comrades rather than master and pet made clear.

I feel I should address some of the other stuff about my own posting and attitude and such, but I really don't have time right now, as much of a cop-out as that seems. Let me just say briefly that I wasn't trying to say that newbies should shut up and clearly I'm way better since I've been here for years, just that it was really rather funny to see only a page or so of digression be "too much derailment" when we've had threads like the "any girls that have dated" one. And, more generally, that anyone on any forum who has only been around for a month usually has not had enough time to get a handle on what the forum is like, especially one that isn't very consistent in its level of activity, such as this one. We DO get kind of clannish, since many people have known each other for years; heck, I still feel like a newbie myself occasionally for having only been here five years or so.

[Benevolent_Ghaleon]

i remember when i was discussing the songs in lunar with a few friends and we all pretty much agreed that "all things are real unless you dream they're not" sounds kind of stupid.

[Temzin]

For my part, I really enjoyed that Arhes/Alex got fleshed out a lot more in the SSS remake, since while I understand the original "role-playing" spirit of the silent protagonist, I'm always so much more excited to learn about a character I am unfamiliar with and to immerse myself in a story or world, like Alun says. There was a reason I never used Chrono again once you had the choice in Chrono Trigger, for instance, and it was not that he wasn't a good player in the game mechanics (I love character distinctiveness in this area, too) so much as that I wanted to see as much of the other characters' personalities in every event as possible rather than wasting one of my three responses on a character who only goes "..." The silent protagonist is much more true to the source of the genre, but then, I would probably tend more towards American RPG's if that's what I were looking for since there's a chance to -really- get involved in a creating a character and living in his world.

Meanwhile, even if it's harder to imagine ourselves as the actual character portrayed when they are talking, non-silent protagonists, for me it was possible to identify with them in yet a different way. I was very young when I first played Eternal Blue on Mega CD back at maybe age 12 or 13, but I remember that I was so struck by Hiero's character that explored ruins on his own and travelled to the stars for someone that he cared about that I actually wanted to become a bit like him, which is sort of the reverse of wanting a blank protagonist to inhabit so that we can enact a fantasy or become involved "as ourselves" in a fantasy world. Hiero's spirit had a big enough impact that aesthetically I loved the image of him walking alone (minus Ruby) with his back to us, searching the world for a way to Lucia, and that kind of devotion to people stuck with me and was an image that I tried to incorporate into my own life, even if I don't have any Star Dragons to best.

[Nall.TWK]

I think you can blame Working Designs for that one. That part of the song never made sense to me either, or it just didn't sound right. I found this http://www.chudahs-corner.com/lyrics/in ... -5513&id=2 and thought those lyrics were better(or at least when I saw the translation.) Sometimes I'd like to know japanese, just to play games like Lunar, and other RPGs and see what they'd be like in japanese.

[Alunissage]

Don't think anyone was suggesting that that wasn't from the localization. Lyric writing is certainly not their strength, and is a different skill from writing dialogue. The two EB songs have never sounded right to me either, and since the first thing I did when I got my copy of EB was put the game disc into my CD player, those songs gave a pretty negative first impression of the game, in line with the disappointment of SSSC. (I've become reconciled to both games since then, but not to those renditions of those songs.)

However, their biggest change by far in content was to the TSS opening song lyrics, and I rather like the WD version of that one. Their version of Way to the Earth in Arc III was very good. (There was an Engrish version of that song on the import soundtrack; WD mainly straightened it out, I think.)

[phyco126]

Picky picky picky

Kidding.

Seriously though, I love the songs, I don't have any beef with them at all.

I think the "All things are real unless you dream they're not" is more of a "A things are possible unless you believe they are not"