Arilou

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

This is actually a fairly simple question (the title itself, really), but I'm sure I can find a way to make it complicated. Skip down to the bottom if you don't want me to.

Recently, I've started becoming aware of something that is capable of ruining a good movie or game for me, and that's too much information, though not in the way you think. Here I'll be, happily running around in a game - say Arkham Asylum - and then suddenly I find a recording of the psychiatric evaluation of a tertiary character I barely remembered having seen. And as I'm listening to this, I catch myself repeating "I don't care about this. At all." over an over in my head. I've been doing this a lot in recent weeks, or at least have been catching myself doing it.

Here's the thing - some developers believe that the only way to make a good, immersive game is to provide a "complete" experience, which is to say lots of background and trivia on everything you can think of, as well as quite a few things you couldn't. How does this weapon work? Why is that character crazy? Where in the world is City of Heroes? Who put the Bomp in the Bomp-a-Bomp-a-Bomp? That sort of thing. And I know a lot of people enjoy having that in their games. I know a lot of people enjoy searching every last nook and cranny for more information on the game world, and in so doing feel more... Part of it, I surmise. In fact, I was out-and-out told, right here on these forums, that a particular poster was far more interested in just existing in a detailed, expansive world than he was actually following a plotline that could at all be defined as "interesting."

I, on the other hand, tend to have the opposite reaction to this. Scavenger hunts bore me to tears, and indeed have made me rage-quit out of games for lack of patience to deal with that (when a sufficient guide is not available), and too much background information diminishes my interest in a given game, movie or general story FAST. It probably speaks poorly of me as a person, but I would rather get down to the action, be that beating stuff up or progressing through the storyline, than I am in sitting down with the village bard to hear tales of people I couldn't possibly care about in a time so far away that it has no bearing on the plot whatsoever.

So here is my question to you, and those of you who skipped to the end, start reading now: Do you need your games to provide a "complete" experience with trivia, background, secrets and lore, or are you more interested in playing a fun game and following an engaging, but not necessarily plot-heavy story?

Originally Posted by Durien

The only TF I've EVER had troubles with because of team comp is STF, and that's only because melee heavy teams CAN'T kill ghost widow. Even then we might have been fine if we had better players. LRSF can be done with tanks, or lots of buffs, or dominators sleeping things, ITF can be done by whatever the hell you want.

Originally Posted by BrandX

Or boots that make your feet WAY to huge (Witchboots, I'm glaring at you!).

I want my buster sword! That's all there is to it!

Originally Posted by Human_Being

The rank, certainly. Every army that lasted more than a season has also had "veterans" who carried knowledge and experience with them. But the British instituted the formal, professional role and degree of responsibility within a unit. The Sergeant became an institution of the army itself, rather than a given unit, whose intended purpose was to provide constancy and continuity from unit to unit over time.

The Romans had "Principalis" who were soldiers recognized for becoming highly experienced veterans within a given unit. But they did not pass between units, nor did they deliberately set out to gain that status, nor did the legion commands have a policy of cultivating and maintaining a set number of them with explicit purpose.

The Soviets in modern times, again, had a "Sergeant" rank, but that was only a recognition of seniority among enlisted soldiers. All the authority and responsibilities taken up by the NCO in current, Western-model armies were left to the Lieutenant. Should the Lieutenant be promoted, they left and the unit got someone brand new.

Rather than let experience come and go ad-hoc, the British formalized a role within their armies to create and maintain it universally; granting authority, responsibility, and even specific career-path to do so.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Downer endings are not fun, that's the sum total of my argument. If the heroes are going to struggle against incredible odds and fail, then I just wasted an hour and a half watching a pointless, meaningless movie. It's like a plot point introduced, developed throughout an entire story, and then it comes to absolutely nothing. My usual reaction is "All of the work for this?"

It's realistic, it may even be dramatic, but it's not something I want to see. Heroes struggling against impossible odds lose by default. That isn't interesting. Exceptions are interesting, and them winning is the exception. That most movies are built around the unlikely exceptions in fiction doesn't change that fact.

Note, this is my opinion and preference. Nothing more.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

While the third option solution is clever (VERY clever ) I don't think that's the point. The point is to test whether a person can excuse themselves doing a terrible act by a sufficiently convincing excuse. This one, in particular, is a tough choice, but it's an extension of a moral question we actually see every day - we know something bad is going to happen, so it might as well be us that do it, such that we may profit from it. I mean, it'll happen anyway, right? What's the harm in cashing in on the inevitable?

The response to this, and it's one I've actually given in real life, is "I don't care if it's going to happen. I refuse to be the one to do it." This is, of course, subjective and that's just my opinion on the matter, but if kill an innocent or die AND get the innocent killed anyway are the only options, I'd still pick the latter for a good guy. I'm not sure what I'd do in real life (haven't had enough of a close call to know how I'd react), but I subscribe to a more idealistic, romantic vision of fiction, where it comes down to not just saving the world, but ensuring you end up with a world worth saving in the end.

Which actually brings about my own view on moral relativism. I don't mind questionable morality, grey characters and even a world half empty as a PLOT POINT, as long as everything gets resolved by the end. As long as the narrative doesn't become malicious (Japanese anime tends to go there half the time), I can accept a LOT of crap thrown my way by a story provided it ends with a resolution. But when a story ends with it essentially telling me that there IS no resolution and that we really live in a crapsack world, my response is to flip my TV a birdie and go watch something else.

Originally Posted by Olantern

Exactly. A famous philosopher (Kant? someone law professors like to talk about) posed the following scenario: A despot hands you a pistol and tells you to shoot the innocent political prisoner standing in front of you. If you don't do it, the despot will shoot you instead, then shoot the prisoner himself. The philosopher, whoever it was, asserted that the only moral option was to allow the despot to shoot you, since you'd be actively wronging the prisoner by shooting him. I've met any number of people in real life and many more in fiction who'd proudly tell the despot to kill them.

I believe those people are wrong. In this scenario, an activist becomes a martyr to self-determination and morality.

A hero shoots the despot instead.

Originally Posted by FunstuffofDoom

...Except that the comic books are canon, and they firmly establish that Domi is Ms. Liberty's Praetorian counterpart, and all but cement her other...ah...roles in canon, too.

Originally Posted by Olantern

I thought I was the Popular Front.