170 réponses à ce sujet

[ImaginaryMatter]

David7204 wrote...

If the story exists on the basis of problems the protagonist is 'qualified' to solve and proceeds to solve, there's no conflict and thus no real story at all. It's just watching someone complete a task.

And solving a conflict with violence could just as easily be watching someone kill someone else.

Watching some one complete a task can be interesting. Sometimes there could be moral or ethical issues that are discussed, with science you get a lot of these (oh my gosh, themes!). That makes the act of solving these kind of problems interesting, there's conflict, just not the kind that you can decapitate or shoot at. Or think of legal dramas, those stories are basically lawyers doing their jobs, they are given a case and they solve the case. Or mysteries. In these kinds of stories no one resorts to violence, yet people watch them, read them, play them, etc in bulk.

I'm kind of getting the feeling you just need to see bright explosions and flying bullets to find something interesting, which is fine; however, interesting stories can fall outside those confines.

[ImaginaryMatter]

Steelcan wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

David7204 wrote...

No, Julia. Having a character the audience trusts turn out to suddenly be a traitor is silly and contrived. Using dramatic irony and hinting to the audience that characters aren't what they seem is good writing. What you suggest isn't.

The Freys would like a word David

Remind me to invite David to my next wedding.

[David7204]

Certainly, it could be.

Thankfully, it rarely is.

The fact that I said "It's just watching someone complete a task." was meant to imply no other conflicts are present. So no, in this case, there can't be 'moral or ethical issues' involved. And if they were involved, moral or ethical issues are just that - moral or ethical issues. Not conflicts that are solved by science.

Modifié par David7204, 29 décembre 2013 - 10:32 .

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Opinions are opinions.

[CynicalShep]

LagoonaLahaana wrote...

David7204 wrote...

No, Julia. Having a character the audience trusts turn out to suddenly be a traitor is silly and contrived. Using dramatic irony and hinting to the audience that characters aren't what they seem is good writing. What you suggest isn't.

Law works as a medium for solving problems works well (and thus explains the popularity of legal dramas), because law, like violence, is rich with themes. It's built on themes. Personally speaking, the original (and the only the original. And only the episodes until Jerry Orbach left) Law and Order is one of my favorite shows because of this.

That happened in swtor sith warrior story and people went berserk, mainly because they couldn't get revenge. It also got people to replay the story again to see what if any clues they missed.

And the idea was excellent. What people complained about (and rightfully so) was the inability to get even. One must wonder how and why a Sith Lord who tortures innocents for "teh lulz" would ever overlook or forgive anything like that. RPGs are for role playing. I would have gladly *SPOILER STARTS HERE* given up my only healing companion for the ability to role play in an RPG *SPOILER ENDS HERE*. Thing is, they didn't even have to do that, they could have just replaced him with another companion you can pick up on the next planet, for instance. So having him betray the SW is great. The rest of it - not so much.

[AlanC9]

David7204 wrote...

No, Julia. Having a character the audience trusts turn out to suddenly be a traitor is silly and contrived. Using dramatic irony and hinting to the audience that characters aren't what they seem is good writing. What you suggest isn't.

Good writing = not surprising the audience?

[Cainhurst Crow]

What a load of dribble. Even just on the basis presented that characters shouldn't do research into things to solve problems, and not touching the rest of the garbage points David wrote.

Doing research is the least a character can do in order to come off as intelligent, and can carry many themes in this action alone, such as being cool under pressure and thus more qualified as a leader and highlighting the dangers of panicking and rushing in blindly. Finding out troop numbers, the nature of the enemy faced, how the enemy communicates with one another, what their strategies are, where they are from, what their goals could be, are all part of research and have been part of wars since at least the Persians rise to power.

[General TSAR]

This should be good.

[SwobyJ]

Miscellaneous Mind wrote...

I don't need no learnin'. Alls I need to do is stab things.

Machines can be berken!!!!

[Rusty Sandusky]

SwobyJ wrote...

Miscellaneous Mind wrote...

I don't need no learnin'. Alls I need to do is stab things.

Machines can be berken!!!!

We ferght or we die.

[mhmbaSR1]

so science has no moral or emotional implications? looking up at the night sky and wondering about whether or not you are alone has no emotional impact on you? studying animals (earth or elsewhere) to see if sapience is confined to humans has no emotional impact? curing diseases so millions of people can live their lives has no emotional impact on you? the misuse of technology to control society has no thematic impact on you? studying fossils so we can know how simple organic molecules coalesced into a cellular membrane thus allowing the first organic life form to be born (which would later become us) has no emotional impact on you? studying the reproduction systems of humans so that people who cant have their own children can actually conceive one day has no emotional impact on you?

and another thing...science on earth comes from the human mind! a place that is rank with bias, emotion, and sentiment! how can science or technology be boring and devoid of themes when it is produced by the same types of people that paint, write, and sing? scientists and artists have a lot in common, one of them is being imaginative, another one is them projecting their own ideas onto the canvas that they paint on (whether its actually a canvas, or a scientific theory that will affect society for centuries to come is a small detail)

smarter protagonists make for a more boring story? what? so you would rather say 'go shoot everything in sight come back whenever you are finished'...sounds a lot like work to me, also sounds like a pointless plot device

moral implications of science....how about the genophage? did you miss that or just not care one whit about whether or not the krogan were going extinct thanks to a scientific/moral grey area?

and when you said that the science is all in thought (not arguing there) you said that the audience couldn't see it, couldn't appreciate it, and couldn't perceive it. you know in plays whenever the script says 'aside' that means that the character is talking to the audience so that they can know what he/she is thinking. so if that hadn't been written in then those emotions would have been invisible too (try projecting emotions in a theatre to hundreds of people) and yet plays are considered one of the greatest forms of art. so what do you do with science? you use the characters to project the emotions, the themes, the story just like you do with everything else (you can see a gun shooting but that is about it, I put it to you to have a good story without the characters helping the audience relate)

if I am ranting and trolling I apologize

Modifié par mhmbaSR1, 30 décembre 2013 - 01:39 .

[Reorte]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

What a load of dribble. Even just on the basis presented that characters shouldn't do research into things to solve problems, and not touching the rest of the garbage points David wrote.

Doing research is the least a character can do in order to come off as intelligent, and can carry many themes in this action alone, such as being cool under pressure and thus more qualified as a leader and highlighting the dangers of panicking and rushing in blindly. Finding out troop numbers, the nature of the enemy faced, how the enemy communicates with one another, what their strategies are, where they are from, what their goals could be, are all part of research and have been part of wars since at least the Persians rise to power.

And that applies equally to a military, scientific, or legal story, and probably plenty of others that haven't even been mentioned. Find out what you're up against, work out how to deal with it, apply solution. A basic story structure that usually works, because if you leave out any of those steps everything suddenly becomes boringly simple or implausibly lucky, or both. Having those three stages might be why trilogies are fairly common.

[AlexMBrennan]

I think you are over thinking things: For two and a half games, the Reapers have been shown to be invincible juggernauts of destruction that can (barring lucky hits to their comic book weak point) shrug off the combined fire of all our fleets yet we also know that ME3 is to end with us defeating the Reapers.

Short of convenient magically invincible ghost armies, some sort of breakthrough (reverse engineered reaper tech, virus, whatever) is the only way to get from A to B.

If you don't like that then maybe you should avoid the David-vs-an-army-of-invincible-goliaths stories.

PS: Actually, how do you feel about the biblical story of David and Goliath? Do you think that it's bad because David didn't SMASH BURN KILL Goliath?

[In Exile]

LagoonaLahaana wrote...

That happened in swtor sith warrior story and people went berserk, mainly because they couldn't get revenge. It also got people to replay the story again to see what if any clues they missed.

I didn't play that part of TOR, but I will say it's pretty crap design to have that sort of set  up. 

[SwobyJ]

In Exile wrote...

LagoonaLahaana wrote...

That happened in swtor sith warrior story and people went berserk, mainly because they couldn't get revenge. It also got people to replay the story again to see what if any clues they missed.

I didn't play that part of TOR, but I will say it's pretty crap design to have that sort of set  up. 

Only partially Bioware's fault.

You could originally get revenge and it would remove the character from your group...forcibly.

But testers complained. It was their healer companion and they felt punished for RPing. Gah.

So Bioware did what they do - they removed/gutted features instead of fixing them. Instead of doing something like letting players obtain some more generic-in-story yet identical-in-stats companion, they just removed the ability to get revenge in the story. They literally sacrificed compelling story for a game mechanic. Sad

[Sc2mashimaro]

OP: I disagree with you that "research" cannot be a compelling gameplay or story-telling mechanic. It was clearly used in Mass Effect 2 when Mordin "researched" how to keep the Collector Swarms at bay and when Shepard "researched" additional upgrades using the computer system that eventually had an impact on whether crew members lived or died in the climax of the game.

I'm not saying that these are the two best examples in the world, but they are two examples of effective use of "science" and "research" to motivate the story of Mass Effect.

[Reorte]

Sc2mashimaro wrote...

OP: I disagree with you that "research" cannot be a compelling gameplay or story-telling mechanic. It was clearly used in Mass Effect 2 when Mordin "researched" how to keep the Collector Swarms at bay and when Shepard "researched" additional upgrades using the computer system that eventually had an impact on whether crew members lived or died in the climax of the game.

I'm not saying that these are the two best examples in the world, but they are two examples of effective use of "science" and "research" to motivate the story of Mass Effect.

Of course you don't actually see Mordin get on with anything most of the time but at least there's the implication that he's there working his way at the problem. At this level on the space opera scale of science fiction that's enough.

[Arcian]

David7204 wrote...

All the things the audiences associate with science -beakers of bubbling chemicals, equations on whiteboards, lasers and lab coats - those are all just props. The real science is the thought. And the thought is invisible. The audience can't see it. Can't perceive it. Can't appreciate it.

Well, it's not like you could LOSE credibility at this point. I just hope the internet monkeys roaming the BSN aren't stupid enough to take this inane tripe seriously.

[RZIBARA]

No, that's stupid.

No.

[Sion1138]

So many themes.

[David7204]

Well, as I suspected, these objections seem to be little more than 'hurr hurr science is good lol.'

As I thought I made very clear in the original post, the problem is when a conflict with solved with science and nothing else. So to the people claiming 'science can have themes associated with it!' - yes, it obviously can. Just like anything else can. However, when that's the case, the science is not the conflict nor the solution used to solve it.

Mordin uses science to produce the genophage cure. However the central conflict of the Tuchanka arc is never 'Can we produce the cure or not?' That's never even presented as a significant issue. The issue is 'Do the krogan deserve redemption?' and 'How do we deploy the cure?' These are the two problems Shepard is tasked with solving. And neither of those problems are solved by 'doing research.'

Science is not a magic wand that solves everyone's problems in the narrative.

Modifié par David7204, 30 décembre 2013 - 05:29 .

[David7204]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

Finding out troop numbers, the nature of the enemy faced, how the enemy communicates with one another, what their strategies are, where they are from, what their goals could be, are all part of research and have been part of wars since at least the Persians rise to power.

It makes utterly no difference whatsoever. In real life, most wars have probably been won because of boring logistics work and grunt work. Which side can supply their army better, dig more ditches, produce more weapons. Not because of any heroism or idealism or great leaders or skill in combat. Empires have been built on shovels. Not swords.

Guess what? That doesn't mean we tell stories about digging ditches.

Modifié par David7204, 30 décembre 2013 - 05:22 .