Some aspects of the mod are really bugging me

[justanotherfan]

People like the OP are the reason we can't have nice things. You try to do something different, something that doesn't take itself too seriously, and then you have some dude complaining about "molest", or something.

When you read awkward words, either assume you're reading from a brilliant author, or words from a translation dictionary. "The videogame's sense of humour molested me" would be a terrific phrase from a game reviewer, but in this case "to molest" is a literal synonym for "to bother", easily muddled in an automatic translation or Spanish<->English dictionary (molestar is the Spanish verb for "bother"). The odd sense of humour bothered me too at first. Sargent Pepper up there agrees the killing-scara scenario was hilarious. When responding to a non-native English speaker, use short sentences, clear common words (eg. no acronyms), and try to be understanding.

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RPGs and action games sometimes have a sense of humour. Shooter games are like action hero movies, and those are never funny, and usually very shallow. TNM was fun because the characters have personalities, like random goofy people you would meet on the internet.

Wikipedia's list of Comedy Videogames is terrible. Most are "funny" because of oddness, like Super Mario Brothers would count from the world-saving plumber who beats up turtles and eats mushrooms.

[Hassat Hunter]

*cough* Telltale games *cough*

Anyways, yeah... I like a bit of goofyness in my games. Which is why I generally like Obsidian's RPG, and also found Divinity II great fun.

[justanotherfan]

I haven't played many games like Telltale's. I thought Back to the Future might be good (new Marty sounds almost exact), but I avoid episodic games. I'm sorry I dismissed Telltale as another Zynga.
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sgt0pimienta, let us know how you are playing the game. I like hearing hidden details or ideas that I didn't notice. TNM devs like to know how players react to their game, and to remember details that players notice.

[sgt0pimienta]

ACTUALLY,IHAV-oops sorry,i just played tnm and frgto to take caps off

no but seriously,i have played a lot and i have noticed how the silly jokes get less and less common and become a bit more realistic,in a part,somewhere,before a mission (to avoid spoilers) there is a reference to jhony Pmemonic or however its said,also,there are several posters of movies,games,bands that make it feel real and awesome,because they integrate it AS A PART OF the story,while the silly jokes are out of context and...suck.

But i advanced a bit and noticed that (besides the names of the characters and sme ocasional joke) there are no more things that ruin it...and there are better jokes Like shadow code's constant quoting of different movies,ie:

Im a doctor not a...
YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH
or Hasta la vista,baby

wich in all cases annoyingly distracted me but i learned to ignore/enjoy them,im apreciating this mod ore and more!

[Kaiza Killa]

Games are serious business, because games are a business. Developers can't afford to make silly fun games. Players like being strong important gods. "Videogames as escapism" is not always true, but "Loser Simulator" is not fun either.

A "loser simulator" isn't exactly what I was trying to describe but I see your point. To further clarify my meaning, Gamer0004's description of his Nord character being insignificant toward the begining of the game and able to "kick total ass" at the end of the game is much closer to what I was driving at. He wasn't describing a "loser", just a character that is a blank canvas with space to grow. JC Denton is a perfect example as well. JC was a top of the line nano-augmented agent but he was still fresh out of the academy, not a seasoned veteran with one hundred battles under his belt and godlike powers. That comes later.

[chris the cynic]

I managed to completely miss the "loser simulator" comment when it was made.

I don't think "loser simulator" is a good description of what was brought up. Especially given that Deus Ex, which I wouldn't call a loser simulator, was the example given of the preferred way of doing things.

Also, there are definitely examples, other than Deus Ex, that were successful.

Gramma recently said she was looking to get her hands on a copy of King's Quest III, a game where you start as a slaveboy and end as a prince. Alexander will return again in King's Quest VI. The reception he get's is not a “wow it’s Gordon! Let’s give him all the weapons he needs because our efforts and struggles against the Combine are insignificant compared to Freeman,” kind of reaction. It is instead more of a, "Who the hell are you?" kind of reaction. He's a shipwreck survivor no one knows in a place he's unfamiliar with. And he has nothing but the clothes he's wearing. In the end he will have married into the royal family of that place.

I've had a fondness of the Dark Forces series for a long time. Consider the second and third games in the main series. In the second yes, you're a seasoned operative, but the first conversation you have is one in which a droid tells you you are entirely insignificant. You don't factor into Jerec's great plans. (For comparison, if this were a Chuck Norris movie Jerec would be having nightmares about you and insist that the most important thing in the world is killing you.) By the end you will have kicked Jerec's ass, become a Jedi Warrior, and generally be awesome.

Cut to game three (Jedi Outcast), do you get Gordon Freeman style recognition? Not a chance in hell. (You do get a raise though.) No, instead you get beat up and told that you're not worth killing and it will eventually turn out that you've been used as a pawn.

Hell, consider the next game in the series. You start out as a trainee, you end by saving the universe.

Consider Resident Evil 2. There are two player characters. One is a college student, as far as we know she's never been in combat. (Though for some reason she goes around with a combat knife in a highly visible sheath on her shoulder. Somewhat bizarre fashion statement that.) The other is a rookie cop on what is to be his first day on the job. He hasn't even met his coworker's yet. They're not made of awesome. They start out pretty low on the scale, but they do their best, they fight some zombies, and by the end they've stopped two unstoppable bioweapons and are ready to set out on their mission of single handedly taking out a multinational mega corporation that is so mind bogglingly powerful it managed to lay an entire city to waste by accident.

Games where you start out insignificant certainly can and do work. They can definitely be fun.

I would imagine that a game where you continue to be perceived that way could work as well. I don't know if it's ever been done, but I could see there being potential for a game where you played a more supporting role. Someone else gets the credit as the one who kicks ass and takes names, your character never does even though, by your efforts, the world was saved. (Somewhere I'll have to look up the things I've written about potential ideas for a second person shooter.)

[justanotherfan]

Yeah, my idea of a loser simulator is in your last paragraph, where the character stays weak. It is almost unheard of, even avoided in books and movies. TNM is different from HL2 because Trestkon is a more average guy at first. It helps make a good plot. But it is a risk for a big-budget game, since players judge games fast.

[gamer0004]

True, but in the end the experience is way more impressive.

[chris the cynic]

Yeah, my idea of a loser simulator is in your last paragraph, where the character stays weak. It is almost unheard of, even avoided in books and movies.

My understanding is that the point wasn't so much about weakness but instead recognition. In Half Life 2 Freeman isn't going to be weak, he's battle hardened by this point, but he can still be seen as insignificant when the game begins (the way Kyle Katarn is in Dark Forces 2 even though at that point he's saved the Rebel Alliance at least twice) and lack recognition.

What was objected to was the reaction to Gordon being “wow it’s Gordon! Let’s give him all the weapons he needs because our efforts and struggles against the Combine are insignificant compared to Freeman,” when compared with people thinking that JC was little more than an annoying person blocking their view or Testkon being told he was a jerk for being a jerk. None of that stuff has to do with weakness.

Stories where a character never gets recognition are absolutely heard of.

NCIS doesn't focus on recognition, but every time it comes up it is by way of saying they don't have it. Every single episode where the question of their "perceived eminence" comes up it is demonstrated that they have none. The FBI gets the credit, local law enforcement gets the credit, unspecified Federal Agents get the credit. Anyone other than NCIS gets the credit. When someone not-military has heard of them it tends to be in a less than flattering way (as in the episode with the sniper where someone comments about hearing about the agency on TV, he heard that they'd fucked up a major case and the FBI had to come in and fix things. By the end of the episode, the FBI will get the credit for all their work.)

The first Indiana Jones film is one where, with the exception of getting the job, Indy never gets recognition of any kind. In the end he has the greatest archeological find in history taken away from him and thus gets no credit for it. He makes up for it by getting paid and getting the girl. Mind you this is a story where the main character is constantly getting beat up and captured, so maybe you look on it as an unfun example of staying weak throughout.

The Predator movies are actually ones where the characters start out with respect from at least a handful of people, and by the end basically everyone who respects them is dead. All that they are left with is a story they can't back up and a record that says they got everyone who worked with them dead (or in the case of the second movie, almost everyone.) Predator 2 actually has Adam Baldwin come by at the end to make sure the audience very definitely knows that the main character gets no respect. None at all.

Basically, when it comes to stories, there's no need for characters to be able to "sweep people off their feet with their perceived eminence" at any point. Not the beginning, not the middle, not the end. I'm not convinced there's any reason a game requires the main character to do it either.

[Kaiza Killa]

The Star Wars: Jedi Knight series was a really beautiful example actually. Unfortunately I have only ever completed Star Wars: Dark Forces, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, all some time ago, so there are a few gaps in my knowledge and my recollection won’t be perfect. In Dark Forces II, working your way up from being a simple mercenary (“cantina scum” no less) to a force adept, but with the same low level of recognition that Chris was describing, is the exact protagonist paradigm I would argue for. Playing as Jaden Korr, in Jedi Academy, you may end up playing a vital role in the outcome of the galaxy but you are still tempered by your instructors throughout and even encouraged to avoid taking the “dark path” as, if I recall correctly, Kyle Katarn will mention to you if you choose to put points into your dark side powers.

Incidentally Jerec, from Dark Forces II, also happens to be my favourite character in the Star Wars expanded universe. I always appreciated how, according to Jerec’s backstory, he came to the dark side of the force through calm consideration rather than the whole “falling” to the dark side, as if it is only the emotionally weak that seek out this forbidden knowledge. I always liked it better, in the Star Wars film series, when I knew Darth Vader as someone who also came to the dark side of the force as a logical choice, before the new series was released revealing that he was just a blubbering boy who lost his girlfriend. An extremely frustrating revelation. Not that it felt consistent with Vader’s demeanour in the first place and can be ignored, but nonetheless it is still annoying.

[justanotherfan]

Ah, the difference is how the player sees the main character, not just how other characters see. They are related points; respect increases when the player character is not a loser (ie. saving the world).

I don't watch NCIS. I imagine they're important to the story.

In Predator, they are elite mercenaries (or military, the distinction was blurred). Predator kills them, but despite being an invisible, extra-strong, high-tech, heavily armed super-soldier, one guy hits Predator with a tree. Dead guys, but they killed the super-alien.

[quote][quote]my idea of a loser simulator...where the character stays weak. It is almost unheard of, even avoided in books and movies.[/quote]My understanding is that the point wasn't so much about weakness but instead recognition....Stories where a character never gets recognition are absolutely heard of.[/quote]
Recheck the words "stories" against "avoided", and "simulator" versus "start out". Also, "loser simulator" being contrasted to "strong important gods...escapism" as extremes, not describing a JC/Trestkon middle-ground. In Kaiza Killa's post (whose point I wasn't simply rephrasing, who got my point), both character reputation and how the player relates to the character "on a human scale" are mentioned. I'd be an ass to write a complete TLDR explanation with rebuttal here to clarify my few simple words earlier in this thread, when ESL is a concern that already caused flaming.

[LTNObvious]

I think that everyone sees themselves on a blank canvas of a player, like JC or Trestkon, and all feel a sense of achievement in winning the game/doing some major achievement. I certainly do.

[Jonas]

I don't really consider Trestkon a blank canvas. He has traits in that direction, but he has a lot of personality of his own.

[chris the cynic]

Trest isn't a blank canvas, he's more like a book with extensive lacuna that the player can fill in in the process of writing the sequel.

He's got a history and relationships on a level that JC and characters like him really didn't. People remember him and how he was. You can provide different insights into those things (you get to say why he left and why he chose to go non-lethal, for example) but he has that history and as a result however you choose to play him, his character is established. There's a difference between someone who started off being "the non-lethal type" and ended up killing everyone in sight and someone who started off killing everyone in sight.

He's actually fairly well established for an original character. Sort of like if there was a game where you played as Paul a decade or so after Deus Ex. You'd have the opportunity to elaborate on why Paul did the things he did, if it came up in conversation, and the intervening time would give Paul time to change so that whatever playstyle or politics you might prefer could make sense, but he wouldn't be a blank canvas.

All of that aside, Trestkon absolutely has personality of his own. You can't say, "I'll have you know that moose-kebabs are a healthy part of any diet," and be a blank canvas. You just can't.

[LTNObvious]

Yeah, that was an exaggeration =/