Edfilho said:
Well, LeHah, I thought that specifying what kind of reading and what kind of TV I'm talking about would be insulting the intelligence of anyone reading this.
I'm talking about literature, and about the TV programming that is most popular. Do you seriously believe that most couch potatoes even know what "The Seven Samurais" are, or who Akira Kurosawa was? People who hate reading probably also hate that kind of movie. I'm talking about Oprah, Dr. Phil, Survivor, American Idol...
Yeah, truth be told, LeHah lost me on the whole "The Seven Samurais" thing, but being that he was simply using an analogy, I felt it left enough room to interpretation and still conveyed its point even if it lost me a bit on the exact details.
Like I said - I'm a TV/Internet blockhead, so I might not necessarily play my part in defending his example, since perhaps the largest thought-provoking thing I watch is South Park.
Nevertheless, one can grasp the concept behind what he's saying, and from the rest of your post, it sounds like you got the jist, so no point in beating each other over the head with the exact examples used to formulate the analogy, eh?
Edfilho said:
Ok, so, to be fair, let's extend "reading" to "arts".
Seriously, guys, is the belief that people should enjoy works of art (be it literary, musical, architectural and so forth) and not HATE any of the art forms so weird? Would you respect someone who hates all cinema, all paintings, all sculptures, all music? Am I crazy?
You're probably no crazier than the average person, Ed.
But hey - people have preferences and opinions on a variety of things. Some people love Mozart, others can't stand Classical music, period. Some people like Picasso, other people think those people are funny. Some people like reading Moby Dick - I lost interest about a third of the way through. The fact that people like or hate some generally lauded historical piece of art, art form, or format (book, video, etc.) makes darn little difference. We shouldn't all like or respect the same things - it'd make the world boring. My God - isn't it enough that most of the people here are obsessive fans of Wing Commander?!
The ideas put forth to establish a point of view in an argument are founded on the basis of someone having a handful of basic concepts and feelings on things, and aligning them in such a way so as to formulate as coherent a thought as possible, leading to some kind of plausible or rational conclusion with the expressed intent of either winning others over to their side or to stir the gears in other peoples' heads to either pick apart the flaws in the stated thought-process or come up with their own idea based on their own set of basic ideas they hope to use to convey their own side.
Does it matter if they like to read or just sit around watching American Idol? *shrugs* I guess it's up to you, but for my own part, no - doesn't matter in the slightest. So long as they don't come over to my house and put Simon Cowell on, I don't really care what they spend their spare time doing or dissing. It's general backgrounds and semantics. The only bearing not liking to read would have in such a discussion would be if we were considering Wing Commander only being continued in book format, in which case it'd cause some people here to lose interest because they're not big on the whole reading thing. As that's not the case here, the fact that someone hates reading or hates some form of art is altogether irrelevant. You're not going to change someone's preferences, especially while attacking them for not sharing yours, right?
And keep in mind - even the person who universally says something to the effect of "I hate reading" picked an interesting place to announce it (a forum thread that requires...yep..."reading"). So we're not talking about a deranged person who's suggesting we all start burning books here; just a guy who given the choice, would rather do something else than curl up with a book. And hey, for my own part, I'm right there with him. HOPEFULLY that doesn't make me a bad person in your eyes that you can't respect the opinion or input of.
privfan said:
the basic premise doesn't bother me
a limited/no plot multiple player free for all is a fine way to bring back the game, but I think it should have been sim-based cockpit perspective like ever other WC game
A good point, and I think if you got the deep down sentiments of everybody here, we'd probably all be in agreement on that one. But that's quite a bit more stuff to build into an XBox Live Arcade type of game too, I think. I don't want to speak for the designers of this thing, but my own feelings on what we'll be seeing is that it's a conceptual design to see if there's enough public interest in the franchise and enough support for the general ideas they're going with. If this thing gets by, who's to say that we wouldn't see the whole idea redone down the road with the full sim-based cockpit perspective? I think everybody is excited here because Wing Commander is still alive as a potential money-making franchise, and is going to be revisited. Maybe it's not everything you or I would like in a game and maybe if we were the people in charge, it isn't the route we'd take, but this is a downloadable thing and a console thing too. Just because it's different than what we envision is no reason to write it off either. It might not be the direction we'd take, but that doesn't mean it's horrible. All the more the reason to have the "wait and see" mentality. And if this is going to be the beginning of an official continuation of the series, I think as fans, its our duty to give it a fair shake rather than tearing it down right off the drawing board for being different than what we're used to. I think we all need to have a more open mind. And hey, if it turns out to bite, you can throw it back in my face when we finally find out ourselves first-hand.
privfan said:
and as I've said in other threads, I do hope it's successful so that it leads to more WC games. But I hope the new games it leads to are back on the track of having a plot and be "simulation" games like the originals, with maybe a galciv2 type strategy game
Hrmmm...that reminds me. Anybody here ever hear of a Microsoft game named "Allegiance?" It was a simulation/strategy space game. The game went under for whatever reason, though there's probably some underground fanbase keeping it going somehow, someway.
Again, the whole "wait and see" thing applies. For now, Arena is the only show in town. If it tanks, we won't get a chance to see what's next. If it doesn't, there's no guarantee it will or won't turn into some other kind of gameplay. Everyone here loves the games that were, I think, but this also needs to be viewed in terms of a profitable future. With everyone pushing for the whole online gaming experience and getting critically castrated for not promoting that, I think Wing Commander would doom itself if it focused on exactly the same formula we enjoyed from WC1-Prophecy (in terms of being only a single-player experience). Either they would need to allow co-op through an entire campaign (like Starlancer), or have the single-player complemented by an involved multiplayer experience as well. There's many different avenues that could be taken here, and we all probably have our own delusions of what the "ideal" WC experience would be. Wing Commander found its niche by being exciting and fun, not by being overly technical and with a steep learning curve. Turning it (even in part) into a strategy space game would appeal to a slightly different group, so I'm not sure that'd be in the best interests of everybody. Similarly, they can't just keep doing the same simple simulation thing because it'll turn into another Ghost Recon, Call of Duty, or Dynasty Warriors game where if you own one in the series, you've already played them all. The Wing Commander concept needs to be tweaked if its going to be a viable franchise moving forward; you can't just create full feature-length films with single-player missions and think that it's going to sell big enough moving forward to offset those costs. Arena seems like a "simpler" thing (perhaps) because of what it does and doesn't have going on in it, but I think we need to appreciate the fresh take on the concept. They're trying to find a way to make it work, and I think we need to be supportive, nurturing, and receptive to the latest proposal rather than telling them that we'll settle for nothing less than some over-the-top thing that may or may not have an audience and may or may not sell big enough to justify it.
We're looking at a seed that may eventually grow into a forest. Let's enjoy the ride rather than ranting that it doesn't live up to some ultimate, ideal expectation we have. Let's give this puppy a chance!
- FireFalcon
Well, you're unfortunately right, Frosty. Sorry. Will do. 