Disappointed

You got off damn lucky to pay that little at a pub, compared to the prices around here.

By the way, I neglected to acknowledge this. Thank you for the clarification, and this answers my question. I apologise for this, but I'd rather ask for clarification than assume and misunderstand, at least when I suspect I may not be reading something correctly.

Personally, I'm actually interested in discussing opposing viewpoints as long as we can keep off the malicious arguments (straw men, faux-facts, armchair psychoanalysis, fortune telling and so forth) and stick to opinions and extrapolations off confirmable information. I actually prefer discussing things with people who disagree with me, because when I discuss something people I agree with, we end up patting each other on the back "oh yeah"-ing a lot. Which is good for morale, mind you, but a bit less productive.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

They basically reworked the entire crafting table system twice within the course of that beta, all because of player feedback.

They also extensively reworked how Vault Storage worked, and added several locations on the fly.

There's so many little (and big) things that go on in every closed beta that are changed for the better due to feedback.

I just wanted to point out here that you've made an effort to frame your opinion as "self evident" (the implication is 'art is art, because I said so!'), and then turned right around and called me closed minded because I'd said something that was contrary to it.

This is ironic.

No, he said it's self-evident that videogames use many of the same forms of expression as other existing art forms. From this he (correctly) concludes that video games are art.

For cryin' out loud, we're still arguing about this?!

Art is everywhere. Whatever someone wants to call art can justifiably be called art. There is an entire category called found art which requires practically no design intent by the artist and relies almost exclusively upon context set up by said artist. Regardless of one's opinions of whether that piece is worthy of display in a gallery, it is a category still widely accepted as art.

Whether it's any good is another matter completely. This is arguable, as the formation of opinions can either rely solely on the individual or solely on the collective criticism of those most educated on the subject. More often than not, it is some nebulous combination of the two.

Video games are, and always have been, art. Art is not always good art. The stuff a 6 year old does with crayons and cardboard is, technically, art. It's just not likely to sell for $1,000,000 in an art gallery. Then again, some of that stuff looks like the scribbles of a six year-old.

But you can sell lifetime subs for it for $200

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Originally Posted by Failsight For cryin' out loud, we're still arguing about this?! Art is everywhere. Whatever someone wants to call art can justifiably be called art. There is an entire category called found art which requires practically no design intent by the artist and relies almost exclusively upon context set up by said artist. Regardless of one's opinions of whether that piece is worthy of display in a gallery, it is a category still widely accepted as art. Whether it's any good is another matter completely. This is arguable, as the formation of opinions can either rely solely on the individual or solely on the collective criticism of those most educated on the subject. More often than not, it is some nebulous combination of the two. Video games are, and always have been, art. Art is not always good art. The stuff a 6 year old does with crayons and cardboard is, technically, art. It's just not likely to sell for $1,000,000 in an art gallery. Then again, some of that stuff looks like the scribbles of a six year-old.

*patpat* We've been trying to make him understand this for a long time now. He thinks it's cool to be defiant cause apparently we're ganging up on him. Just let it go.

Of course you are. You're on the Internet.

Crayon Physics had a good idea, but between looking like a 6-year-old's crayon drawing (that's not a good thing in ANY context) and being a bit awkward in certain aspects, I just couldn't get behind it. That, and I've lost my taste for "pointless fun" these days. But it's still a marvellous concept, a creative idea and a decent game.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

It's amusing to see the things you will fixate on, and the things you choose to ignore!

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Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven It's amusing to see the things you will fixate on, and the things you choose to ignore!

Oh right. Sorry. You don't think the video games are an art form NOW. They WILL be a form of art in the FUTURE. Sorry, I forgot about that statement.

My bad for actually thinking you were interested in a debate. I should have realized you were more interested in strutting 'round and showing off!

I agree with both of you that CoH, and most other MMOs, are a very cheap form of entertainment. My monthly CoH sub works out at around £8-9 locally, which is one cinema ticket, or 3-4 pints of beer, or half of the most basic satellite TV package we have - that's a pittance for any form of entertainment you can use 24/7 (if you didn't sleep ), let alone an interactive and social form of entertainment that also encourages creativity and is updated/improved regularly - especially for me as usually I'm making use of CoH 15-20 hours a week (just not at the moment due to an arm injury). Heck, over the course of a year I spend far more at Amazon.co.uk, for books/DVDs/CDs that all combined will entertain me for around the same amount of time (maybe less, actually) than CoH does on an annual basis.

Nowadays I only tend to buy non-MMO PC games that I know will last me a good long while, to justify their purchase cost - which is probably why in the last 3-4 years the only ones I've bought (or asked for and were given as birthday/Christmas presents) were Civilization 4: Complete, Settlers: Rise of an Empire, Dawn of War + all 3 expansions, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Battlefield 2142.

I hope CoH:GR will have as much content as CoV, and preferably more - we know it will have as many outdoor zones, I suspect it will have less archetypes & powersets and probably less costume pieces too, but I'm hoping for far more new enemy factions and mission tilesets than CoV had (and the Going Rogue system itself is analogous to bases, imho - a completely new game system).

One thing I do know is that it would be daft to assume that everything announced so far for CoH:GR is everything that will be in it at launch. Those complaining GR is content-lite already have obviously never experienced/followed the launch of an MMO expansion before (or an MMO, for that matter), as they certainly don't realise that marketing dictates drip-feeding features to the press/playerbase between announcement and launch to keep public/press visibility of the expansion high, and to feed the hype generated by the playerbase.

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Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven My bad for actually thinking you were interested in a debate. I should have realized you were more interested in strutting 'round and showing off!

Debat?! Since when did this become a debate?!

From what I see, this is just you claiming your opinions to be facts. A debate is a setting in which people argue maturely over a certain topic using logic, reasoning, and facts.

Opinions have no room in debates.

From what I see, we gave you facts. A developer of the game stated that your argument is wrong. I, a game design student, gave you non-Wikipedia sources for my counter-arguments (which is really rare on the forums!), which was a University-level text book written by professional game developers and software engineers, along with a whole bunch of people explaining to you in ridiculous detail and very sound logic why your opinion of whether or not an art is good doesn't have anything to do with that thing being an art.

And even though all your arguments have been countered very formally, much more formally than needed for a stupid forum, and you have had no sources, no references, and no logical basis for your "facts", you claim that you will not fall to our "group thinking" and refuse to jump a bandwagon?

No, that's not a debate. That's just you expressing your opinion, which happens to disagree with that of a whole group of people who have spent more time researching and studying such things. Which is fine. That's your opinion. But don't pretend it's a fact.

And as long as there are opinions involved in a debate, I don't think there is much point to the debate as there are no conclusions. The only viable, trivial conclusion is that we agree to disagree. And that's where I am.

I'm not so sure you should be hoping for that - GR is an expansion, not a stand-alone game.
CoV required enough content to level 1-50 - GR doesn't need that, as players who start off neutral will have to leave Praetoria around level 20, and pick to go blue side or red side.
There has to be 20-50 content too, for Heroes and Villans to be able to switch sides - but there doesn't need to be as much as the 20-50 CoV content, as there is no 1-50 path in Praetoria.

If this isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is.

You've never actually debated, have you? If all we had were facts, there would be no debates. And, might I remind you, art is a subjective thing. There are no 'facts' in the sense that you're trying to push forward. You've just been basically screaming real loud because I'm saying something you don't like to hear. Well, kid, if you don't like it, why don't you do yourself a favor and put me on ignore? I know it probably tears you apart to know that there's someone out there who disagrees with you, but trying to resort to such 'fundamentalist artist' tactics (to coin a phrase, har har!) just makes you appear foolish.

Wrong. He disagreed with me. Go back and read what he wrote. A developer's opinion is not the word of God, no matter how much you might want it to be.

I mean I know this is probably why you feel like you've been some devs' champion and that's kept you fighting your valiant fight against... well, yeah I don't know what you think you've been trying to accomplish here. Certainly it's not any kind of rational discourse. It's not even "I'm right and you're wrong!", more like "I'm right and SHUT UP!! (because God is behind me)". You can maybe see why I've been rolling my eyes at this and pretty much gave up trying to actually argue with you. Well no, you probably don't. I'm rather certain that ready to come up with yet another dogmatic response. It must make you feel better to make pariahs out of heathens, or whatever.

So, yeah, agree to disagree? How about you try and keep your little holy wars to yourself for a change? You don't like it, you don't have to listen. But don't try and come off as being some knight in shining armor... armed with a paintbrush and a paintboard, no less.

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Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven If this isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is. You've never actually debated, have you? If all we had were facts, there would be no debates. And, might I remind you, art is a subjective thing. There are no 'facts' in the sense that you're trying to push forward. You've just been basically screaming real loud because I'm saying something you don't like to hear. Well, kid, if you don't like it, why don't you do yourself a favor and put me on ignore? I know it probably tears you apart to know that there's someone out there who disagrees with you, but trying to resort to such 'fundamentalist artist' tactics (to coin a phrase, har har!) just makes you appear foolish. Wrong. He disagreed with me. Go back and read what he wrote. A developer's opinion is not the word of God, no matter how much you might want it to be. I mean I know this is probably why you feel like you've been some devs' champion and that's kept you fighting your valiant fight against... well, yeah I don't know what you think you've been trying to accomplish here. Certainly it's not any kind of rational discourse. It's not even "I'm right and you're wrong!", more like "I'm right and SHUT UP!! (because God is behind me)". You can maybe see why I've been rolling my eyes at this and pretty much gave up trying to actually argue with you. Well no, you probably don't. I'm rather certain that ready to come up with yet another dogmatic response. It must make you feel better to make pariahs out of heathens, or whatever. So, yeah, agree to disagree? How about you try and keep your little holy wars to yourself for a change? You don't like it, you don't have to listen. But don't try and come off as being some knight in shining armor... armed with a paintbrush and a paintboard, no less.

First of all, quote snipping is not a good idea in a debate, Mr. McDebate.

Second of all, as I stated previously, I really do not care at all whether or not you think video games are art or not. I just get bored enough to try and counter your "arguments". Sorry. My mistake.

Third of all, I never stated that the developers are gods. However, I think it is safe to assume that they have spent much more time thinking about video games are forms of art or not than me, and definitely you; so they probably are basing their so-called "opinion" on something more than just the "voice in their head".

I'm done with this. Have a good day!

Given the improvement in the tools available to the devs (MA is for them too, after all) it wouldn't surprise me if they delivered near-CoV levels of mission content, at a higher level of quality.

There is a difference between game and expansion, obviously, but I expect them to put a LOT of energy into the 'storyline' of GR.

So if you're refusing to fall for the 'groupthink', then does that mean you will disagree when we say the sky is blue?

Yeah, but look at the other side of the coin - CoV had diddly squat content for a standalone game, and if it weren't for the CoH side of things, CoV would have bombed so hard it'd have move the Earth out of orbit. I was on board with it then, but I realise now how cosmic a mistake it was to try and sell CoV as a standalone game. It just didn't have enough to qualify as one, and it ended up creating the "us vs. them" mentality that was rampant until recently, otherwise known as "the devs hate villains." CoV had about enough content to work as an expansion, but it was our own fault for arguing against an expansion at the time that saw it called an "expansionsalone."

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

It is, if it was just a rehash of what you'd already said.

I'm sure if you keep telling yourself that, then maybe you'll actually believe it. Personally I'm more inclined to believe that you think you'll be somehow vindicated by having the last word, as if that actually meant anything outside of schoolyard arguments.

You didn't have to actually state it. The way you came off in this thread after Back Alley Brawler disagreed with my opinion was indication enough. You even said it yourself in your previous post. You actually believed that his disagreement was "proof" that I was wrong. That pretty much showed you thought you had license to go off on me like I was the worst enemy to this game since Jack Emmert (which itself is a silly notion, but I digress!).

Well I'm glad I have you around to remind me of what I know and what I've done, even though I've never actually said very much about the things I've done on this board, ever. Surely you must be the devs' chosen one.

Be seeing you!

I apologise for quote-snipping, but I'd like to interject here. If you don't involve opinions, it's not a debate. It's proof of thesis. A debate is inherently based not on facts, but on the interpretation of such facts. To expect that a debate has a single, universal solution that it must invariably reach if all parties act properly is unrealistic. Reaching a deadlock where all parties disagree and no party will concede and budge from its opinion is also a perfectly valid conclusion to a debate. As long as it's handled fairly and without malice, I don't see why a debate cannot simply be a statement of opinion and a defence thereof. You don't have to be right as long as you have a point.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I suppose if I had no eyes of my own, and my only communication with the outside world was with the posters of this board...

I think some people would call that "Hell".