Azarkon

This is actually an interesting point. I guess there's two ways you can look at it - either player actions are meta-game activities entirely outside of the game world, in which case the player is sort of a disembodied entity who "oversees" everything that's going on, or player actions are in fact abstract representations of giving commands in-game, where we might imagine taking control of a NPC to be the equivalent of the PC telling that NPC what to do. I can't say I know what the interactive effects of the latter approach would be, seeing as it's never been used extensively in any RPG I've played. The former does, however, lend itself to the critique that it creates additional distance between the player and the PC (in the sense that the player is no longer restrained to the PC's POV, but can take on any POV), which I think Bioware was reacting to when they denied players control of NWN henchmen. There's actually quite a bit of variation in how games approached this, historically. On one extreme you have Bioware's fully AI-controlled NPCs, and on the other you have what many JRPGs do, which is to completely deprive you of a "central" persona in lieu of putting you in the shoes of many characters as the story progresses (think KOTOR when you took control of a single NPC to infiltrate the ship). The latter approach certainly does seem more "cinematic" in origin in that it places a greater emphasis on narrative, at the expense of taking the player "out of character," so to speak. What's better? I don't know, but I think it might be worthwhile to experiment. The analogy between user actions and player character commands seems a natural one, and it has been used to some degree in earlier games (ie in Baldur's Gate you couldn't remove Boo from Minsc's territory - when you tried, there was a scripted response from him). I'd personally like to see it used more, seeing as it strikes a good compromise between preserving NPC personality while still giving players ample control of their tactics in battles.

Rhetorically, there are alot of problems with the article. The main issue, I think, is that the article roughly follows this line of argument: "Games and films have very different narrative structures. As such, there are many fundamental problems with using cinematic narratives in games. These issues are particularly problematic because what players really want is to roleplay in a non-linear fashion. Therefore, I propose we ditch linear narratives altogether and focus on simulating dynamic worlds. The End." ... It does come off as working back from the conclusion, in other words, because it is not imperative that we follow this line of thought. While Role-Player certainly did offer one interpretation of the problems we're facing and a possible solution we might adopt, there is no evidence whatsoever that this is the only assessment. On the contrary, there are some very large leaps of logic (and counter-arguments ignored) required to go from what the article started as (a critique of superimposing cinematic narrative techniques onto games) to what the article concluded as (we should really be building simulations of worlds). However, I don't think it's fair to dismiss Role-Player's article simply because it failed to offer an in-depth assessment of the narrative intersection between games and films. Alot of the criticism on this thread seem to be approaching this from a rhetorical standpoint - attempting to sniff out a central argument and seeing how well the article supports it. Yet, it seems to me that the article works best as one gamer's rant about why current storytelling techniques in RPGs are inadequate, and in that respect there is quite a bit to muse over. Take this point, for example: "Dramatic turns between interactivity and an absence of it also contribute to a poor characterization. Occasionally, gamers are given control of characters which have been developed prior to any player input in a way that several of their skills or personality traits may have been determined, resulting into catastrophic contradictions. During pre-written sequences characters may be presented as great swordsmen or chivalrous paladins, but when these characters are submitted to player control they lack all these special characteristics or traits

I dunno. Detaining soldiers is not an act of war, or at least it wasn't when China detained the pilots of that US spy plane. If there is war, it will be because both sides really want it - I know that the US is willing, and Iran seems eager to pull the trigger as well, but the UK? Hard to say.

Well sure, Gromnir, if you strip all the contextual details and look only at the story, then 300 is just the same old story of underdogs triumphing against impossible odds - the very archetype of heroism. But I think it'd be a very different movie, and very differently received, if this were the Spartans vs. the Athenians or the Gauls vs. the Romans. Like it or not, who you cast as the face of villainy invites real world analogies, particularly between countries on the brinks of war. And if Wikipedia is to be believed, the studios knew that this movie would inspire political interpretations before they ever released it. That, to me, means that people only saw what was obvious even to the studio execs, and weren't, as you say, looking too deeply into that grilled cheese sandwich. Or maybe the world's just full of pareidolic attention-seekers. *shrug* Either way works for me.

This game requires what the game industry currently lacks - good AI.

I actually have no problem with linear RPGs, so long as they're well-executed and somewhat original. What I dislike about today's game industry is that the bulk of what's produced demonstrate no attempt to escape the "blockbuster" mold of shallow storylines/characters and cliche thrills. But then that could just be an indictment of the PC gaming scene; perhaps I need to get into consoles?

Interesting topic. The short answer: no. The longer answer: no, but I might be in the future, if they simply remain where they are now. The longest answer: I do not think KOTOR 2 or NWN 2 represent what Obsidian is, ultimately, capable of. In fact, if these sequels were the extent of Obsidian's abilities, then I would be disappointed, because not only are they riddled with technical issues/incompleteness, but they also seem a step back in terms of gameplay and player involvement. Forget PS:T - even Baldur's Gate II had better developed characters (including full-fledged romances), and while these first-gen Obsidian games beat the BG series in terms of choice & impact, they pale in that area when compared to the Fallouts and PS:T. All in all, not exactly what you'd expect from a company that was once the best evidence for why games should be considered art. But then was then, and now is now - commercial realities have changed, and Obsidian, being a relatively new company (albeit led by industry veterans), is justifiably concerned foremost with paying the bills. It's for this reason that I don't judge current-gen Obsidian games as I'd judge something from, say, Bioware - because Obsidian has neither the budget nor the industry clout to do what Bioware can do. It's also why, taking into account these "birthing pains," what Obsidian has already achieved is actually quite remarkable. So no, I'm not at all disappointed with Obsidian's games, given what they have had to work with. In fact, I am at the moment more optimistic about Obsidian's future than I had been about Black Isle's, since 1) Obsidian is not a part of Interplay, subject to Herve's every whim and 2) Obsidian seems more capable on the technical side, if we juxtapose Electron and TORN as each company's respective independently-developed engines. I only hope that as Obsidian becomes more successful, they do not lose that which made the company such an endearing underdog to cheer for. Gentlemen, the list of Western companies still doing CRPGs grows ever shorter - and there may come a time when we will need another one of those "roleplaying renaissances."

Only by people suffering from Pareidolia. Perhaps But as time passes it's only become apparent that more people suffer from Pareidolia than we originally thought. Topics, critiques, and theories are popping out all over forums, blogs, wikipedia, and even news sites regarding the "political dimensions" of 300 - all you have to do is google. I've even read a couple of articles from political news websites such as Asia Times discussing the film, and they don't usually do Hollywood. I hate to resurrect the topic on this note, but: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17660862/site/newsweek/ Even in my most feverish moments, I did not call 300 an "act of war."

I found the NWN 2 models decent, but then I played male The performance issues and the bugs, on the other hand, really hurt the game, but this thread isn't about that. I think it's pretty obvious that the developers do know how to make "pretty" models - see Elanee & Neeshka, for example, but I also think their adherence to the D&D 3.5 "look" hampered their ability to do the same for PCs. I do want to say, however, that if WoTC is giving people flak about adapting their art style into the digital medium, then they need to be given a reality check. Success in computer games is not the same as success in rulebooks. A PnP player might glance at the rulebook art for elves, sniff at them, and continue imagining elves as he always had. A computer gamer, on the other hand, has to stare at the player models nearly every second he spends in the game - he cannot simply ignore them, especially not in a cutscene-heavy game like NWN 2. Consequently, an equivalence cannot be formed between the two; Obsidian does, in part, have to compromise with an industry accustomed to beautiful graphics. As an aside... Few have ever complained about ugly character models in games like Guild Wars or the multitude of anime-inspired Asian RPGs, yet I see an endless stream of criticism directed against Everquest 2, Vanguard, NWN 2, etc. I do believe that this is saying something about the art style gamers prefer.

The best argument against MMOs is that they are like Skinner boxes.

Elminster is Ed Greenwood's alter ego. Of course he'd be godlike

Gladiator did more than win Crowe an Oscar. It put him in the public eye as a major icon of Hollywood. Of course, the Oscar helped him tremendously in attaining that role - but there are similar actors who have not won an Oscar. See Keanu Reeves, who basically got to where he is via The Matrix, and Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn from LOTR). In short, I'm talking about a star making movie. Crowe was established as an actor before Gladiator (so is Butler), sure, but not in the sort of roles he's taken on since, and not with the sort of publicity he's gotten since. It's not so much that his acting was bad before and suddenly became stellar with Gladiator; rather, the public just didn't know/care about him because they can't point to some key role in a major blockbuster and say, "yeah - that's him." To get this sort of publicity, you need to be able to take a lead role in some blockbuster that everyone watches - and this is often the biggest hurdle to fame. 300, I think, certainly qualifies as one of the most publicized, hyped, and successful films of this year. It's still no Titanic, which made Leonardo DiCaprio a pop culture fad, but it's far more popular than anything else Butler has ever played an important role in.

I must say that Gerard Butler was excellent in the movie; 300 might end up for him as Gladiator did for Russell Crowe. Seeing a buff version of Faramir, on the other hand, felt weird...

Yeah that's one thing I noticed about the system. The rolls, DC checks, etc. are at times absolute barriers to what characters can do against foes more powerful than themselves. It seems like a built-in mechanic to enforce level disparity, which kinda sucks. Being that NWN 2 is a D&D game, I guess you have to stick with those limitations. However, you touched on reactive scripting, which I think is a worthwhile pursuit. At lower levels, the players didn't fight fair. At higher levels, I'd expect that enemies shouldn't fight fair, either. Players usually used every trick in the book in terms of potions, buffs, and items before a major battle in order to defeat more powerful foes - the AI should do the same. While a level 20 character might not have much trouble against a normal party of level 10's, he might have trouble against the same party when it's hasted, buffed, and given the correct immunities & resistances via spells and (reasonable) items. (I'm not sure I recall the ice troll shamen complaints; it seems a reasonable thing to do - what were they complaining about, to be exact?) Btw, JE - what's your stance on set battles? One reason I really liked the IWD series was because many of its encounters were hand-crafted to be unique in their setups, as opposed to being just groups of mobs within an area, like most RPG battles. Now, with increased scripting capabilities, the possibilities are even greater for battles that are more involving. For some quick examples of this - the Sydney battle, which seemed very much like what a battle with a high-level mage should be, was I think one of the highlights of the game. It had the triple benefits of challenging the player, being impressive to watch, and demonstrating cunning on the part of developers. This is actually an important point - the design of battles is, I think, often a contest of wills between the player and the developer. I want to be surprised, and I want to be tricked. The first means that the more original and unique the battle is from what RPGs typically offer, the better. The latter means that a battle where I could feel like I discovered a non-obvious strategy is far superior to a battle where I could grasp what I'm supposed to do the moment I engaged in it. It's like watching a movie that makes people think versus a movie that insults people's intelligence - it's not so much a neogiation between the player and the game world as it is between the player and his impression of the people making the game, and where the stakes might be the player's willingness to actually engage the game on a personal, rather than condescending ("it's just another cliche-ridden RPG"), level. Trying to outwit the player should be, I think, a goal in encounter design.

Hmm... While I agree with you that the D&D mechanics are not ideal for this sort of thing, I definitely think that lower level characters can still pose a very real challenge when they are used to exploit the player's vulnerabilities Heck, if I recall correctly IWD 2 featured several fights involving the use of low-level enemies such as orcs and goblins behind obstacles and choke points that I thought were quite difficult despite the fact that said enemies died extremely fast when you actually got to them. Maybe more adpative scripting? For example, if the PC is a wizard, have the party buff up with magic protection spells, potions, and scrolls beforehand... There must be a better way to do this than just throwing a bunch of leveled monsters at the player, thus making it seem like level 30 is just level 3, except with bigger numbers.

Epic levels aren't a bad idea... I'd like a new take on "epic" storytelling, though - less hack 'n slashing through hordes of balors, ancient dragons, black slaads, etc.; more politics, roleplaying, and using your epic powers for influence & impact. An epic level character should be a major force in the realms, someone directly involved in mediating conflicts, manipulating rulers, and just generally forwarding their own vision for the world. They should not just be random adventurers fighting bigger, meaner monsters. An epic level character should be leading armies and major organizations, should be capable of going up against a power like Amn or Waterdeep single-handedly. Such a character should not be ignored by the major players in a world - Elminster, Khelben, the zulkirs of Thay, ... all should be trying to either recruit the player in a partnership or be plotting his demise. I also dislike the entire philosophy behind scaling monsters to match players. Going into a dungeon and meeting a dozen demon lords and lich kings is not my idea of what epic encounters should be about. If you want to challenge me as a player, give me harder *encounters* - not just harder monsters. For example, instead of sending an endless stream of level 20 enemies (where do they come from? level 20's are on the level of Manshoon, leader of the Zhentarim - and they're used as fodder?), have a group of level 10 adventurers utilizing every dirty trick in the book to try and slay me. Instead of a dungeon full of ancient dragons and balors, give me an army that I have to destroy without being able to rest. In other words, don't make level 30 gameplay the exact same as level 1 except you replace kobolds with balors and skeletons with liches. That's my take on an epic-level expansion.

Fair enough. I already noted a few pages back why I thought your arguments didn't seem relevant to what I was arguing anymore, and it's good that you're seeing the same vice versa. I still disagree that the film was not politically charged, but I'm starting to think your definition of "politically charged" is not the same as mine... At any case, since my thoughts on the matter largely mirror Moriarity's, and you agree with him, there's nothing left to discuss on this issue. So... Back to 300 itself... Anyone want to offer up a topic or have we just totally killed the discussion?

I was a lurker on the old forums. Does that count?

"moriarty explained what he meant... you simply continue to ignore." How does that contradict what I said? He doesn't personally think the film is political, but thinks that other people can and will interpret it as such... Sounds like someone aware of the film's ease of political interpretation, to me. It's classic rhetoric: anticipating the obvious response and offering an alternative view - he pretty much acknowledges, in the beginning of his review, that many other critics have gone for the political angles and that it's because the film's built like a rorschach test. Don't ignore the entire review for one quote at the bottom where the man's trying to defend himself from a clueless flamer.

Grom, I think Moriarity stated in the review you quoted how easy it was to interpret the film politically, which is my point all along - it's not the critics who're looking too hard, but rather with this film it *is* easy to make political parallels. Moriarity made this point in his review by suggesting that 300 is like a political rorschach test (which is the best analogy of the film I've heard all week) - a film designed to elicit political interpretations, but which in truth is probably not political. My beef, all along, is with the suggestion that anyone who sees political parallels in the film must have been looking too hard for them. That's just not true at all. With some films (and I think 300 is one of those), the material simply inspires political interpretation - though what that interpretation is depends on your own political mindset. Course, if you look a little deeper you realize that these parallels don't mean anything and that there's no evidence that the film has a political message, but that doesn't stop your mind from seeing something in those inkblots, nor is it a reason to castigate people for seeing what you didn't see. meta: I think that's the genius of Moriarity's analogy. Your knowledge of the era made it easy to see the film in that light, since you're looking at it in the context of the historical event. Me - I went into the theatre without researching the history (since, like many people, I didn't go to the film expecting anything but slow-mo fights) and therefore was affected more by the rhetoric, the dialogue, and the basic setup. Another person, with less interest in politics, might simply see a justification for stylized video-game violence. There's sufficient evidence for all three viewpoints, and a few more, in the film (by sufficient, I mean that you don't have to grasp at straws to prove your point). A film can have multiple valid interpretations, none of which might match the actual intent; indeed, what we choose to emphasize might reveal just as much about us as it does the film.

The films, which is what I'm talking about, did have less. Go to rottentomatoes.com and count the number of critics who mention politics in their review of 300, and compare that to LOTR. LOTR had an almost unanimously positive record, whereas half of 300's bad reviews were complaints about its political and moral messages. Then feel free to look at the aicn.com thread for 300 and compare it to the aicn.com thread for FOTR. Selective memory and narcissism's got nothing to do with it. Tolkien's work has been read for far longer and there *is* a group of critics who latch onto topics like racist undertones and political allegory. I should know - I had to research nearly the entirety of it. The difference is that most of these comparisons are pretty flimsy and required a good deal of effort to support. Take the WW2 allegory, for instance - you couldn't come up with that yourself unless you knew the context under which Tolkien was writing. You might notice that Hitler and Sauron were both trying to dominate the world, but other than that the obvious connections end. This is also why when the films were released, only a few popular critics and netizens actually thought there was anything there - because with Tolkien you had to dig deep for the evidence. You couldn't just make some random crap about Sauron = Hitler and expect it to make any sense - such a comparison maybe valid, in the end, but Tolkien made an actual effort to disconnect the two. The difference with 300 is that you don't have to go very deep to find parallels, and that's why every other garage critic is doing it. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to realize that a story about the conflict between the West and the Middle-East is *gasp* actually a story about the conflict between the West and the Middle-East. It doesn't take a propagandist to realize that it's the Persians who are dehumanized, and the Spartans who are deified. And it doesn't take a subtle critic to realize that some politically isolated king spouting off about "freedom," "never surrender," "we need more soldiers," and "we stand for all that is rational and free in this world" might hold a parallel or two with a modern president, especially when he stands against arabic religious fanatics led by a self-proclaimed god. If Sauron spotted a moustache, or started talking about how his orcs needed living space and how the elves were to blame for the world's problems, that'd be the equivalent in LOTR - the comparisons are skin deep. Skin deep... Which also means that if you look hard enough at them, discuss them with enough depth, they fall apart - because in the end there is no message and no political allegory other than the obvious one - which is that 300 is an epic about the triumph and identity of Western civilization and its values. This doesn't mean that the comparisons and the parallels aren't there - they are - it just means that they don't add up to something as insidious and subtle as a hidden agenda, propaganda, message, or whatever the hell you want to call it. Throughout this thread you've been operating under the impression that I'm calling the film out for pro-bush propaganda. I know that's why you keep bringing up the Miller fanbase because you want to prove that the only political allegory 300 can be is anti-bush. And of course all of this is very silly because I never said that 300 was pro-bush propaganda, or that we even needed to look at it as some sophisticated political allegory. It is neither. All that I'm saying, and what you've been missing all this time, is that 300 is a film where a variety of factors (ie the political context into which it is released, its imagery, its dialogue, Snyder's choice of filler, its pre-release buzz, etc.) combine to make the film especially attractive and amenable to political commentary and comparison. I might've added a point or two about Miller's personal politics (in response to people who thought he was purely libeal) and talked at some length about the effect of Snyder's additions, but those are besides the point. In the larger picture, just as you are defending Miller from the accusation that his work is politically motivated, I am, I suppose, defending critics from the accusation that they're reading too deeply into the work. They're not, because everything is on the surface: the comparisons are skin deep and can be picked up by anyone, even those who don't bother trying. In fact, the best critics who do look deep enough see absolutely nothing worth talking about - it's just a bunch of pointless political comparisons that go nowhere because the work is about as deep as the characters are shallow. When you start seeings things from the angle of how easily the work lends itself to political parallels and comparsions, based on the factors I mentioned, and stop thinking about whether these parallels and comparisons are actually intended or serves some nefarious political purpose, is when you start seeing things as I do. The difference, ironically enough, between someone who posts about how 300 is a political allegory and someone who says that it's not might simply be that the person who thought it was political allegory hasn't looked deeply enough. In other words - it's not that I forgot how I got started, it's that you didn't understand where I was to begin with.

Wrong. True. Wrong. Conspiracy theory? Hollywood releasing a movie about the historical West vs. the historical Middle-East in a time of tension between the two places, in a bid to sell more tickets by being "politically relevant," is now considered conspiracy theory? You should try to explain why so many West vs. Middle-East movies were released during the last five years, then.

Gromnir, you're still acting like I'm accusing 300 of being a propaganda film, when I clearly said I did not in the last 3-4 posts. You ignore my points, my words, my logic, my explanations... All to latch onto this one idea, which might or might not be some past argument you've had with someone else on another board, or simply the result of pent-up rage as you were reading "nutjob" critics' reviews, that I'm trying to weave a conspiracy theory around 300 being a pro-bush propaganda film designed to build support for the troop surge. If I were a tad more cynical, I'd think that you were trying to divert attention from an argument where you've got nothing more to say because you realized you've misunderstood me from day 1 and didn't want to admit it. The only relevant response in your entire last post is to point out that vigilantism is an extreme form of conservatism that most conservatives don't believe in... Other than that there's not a single point worth responding to as I've addressed them all before. What, Leonidas can't stand for Bush because he can also stand for Xerxes under a different reading? Who made that rule in cinematic interpretation? Your arguments only work if you were against someone who claimed that the film was intended to be a political allegory of the current administration and that this was its only valid interpretation. I never argued such a thing. Once again, to recap: *Can* Leonidas be interpreted as Bush, and the film used to argue for Bush's foreign policy? Yes. *Must* Leonidas be interpreted as Bush, and the film used to argue for Bush's foreign policy, because these were what was intended? No. Is it a far stretch to interpret Leonidas as Bush - one that only nutjobs with an agenda could possibly come up with? No. Was Miller's original *as* privy (relative to the film) to such an interpretation? No. Did Snyder add material that, intentionally or not, gave more support to such an interpretation, or at least emphasized the film's political relevance? Yes. Finally, could Snyder have done what he did to promote sales and add publicity to the film? Yes. There is no faulty logic in what I'm arguing. There *is* faulty logic in your imagined adversary's argument, who happens to be named "azar," and who happens to be trying to prove that 300 is a pro-bush propaganda film which was released to coincide with the troop surge so as to boost national morality. But the two - as I said - are not the same. You trying to cast me off as a nutjob because of something I didn't say is a cute ploy, but it doesn't make for good discussion, as after the fifth post stating that I'm not interested in arguing that 300 is propaganda - and you ignoring that statement - you're basically debating with your imaginary opponent, and not me. So I see two choices here. Either you stop arguing with your imaginary friend azar, or you declare victory because I'm bored of talking to myself. No doubt this, too, will be twisted in some way once your reply comes - perhaps further proof that "azar" is a circular logic-employing, tinfoil hat-wearing, 180-turning anti-bush nutjob - but at least it'll save me the trouble of having to butt in on your conversation with "azar the strawman" every now and again just to prevent you from having the last word. You can have the last word, because as far as I observe, you're not even responding to me anymore. Your move.

That's not just a Hollywood recipe. That's a general recipe for whenever you have a protagonist vs. antagonist story, since you always want the audience to sympathize with the underdogs. It's the details and the timing that make this movie especially prone to political interpretation, though I don't think anyone here is saying that it's a political statement or politically motivated (as much as Gromnir would like to accuse me of saying it).

Oh, and the suggestion that I'm using circular argument for the release time argument is laughable. One does not have to don tinfoil hats in order to see that a film about 300 Greeks (popularly held as the cradle of Western civilization) standing against the vast hordes of the Persian empire (roughly present-day Iran in terms of geography), in a battle that would determine the survival of Hellenistic culture, would spark political interpretations. It has nothing to do with whether the film can be interpreted as pro-bush, and everything to do with whether Hollywood intentionally base release times on political context. You already have my evidence for that (Munich, Kingdom of Heaven, etc.).