Conquest of the Horde

Being a guy that played a Tauren on retail, from the standpoint of "Gnomes killing Tauren", it's the most frustrating thing in the whole world to have a tiny party of Gnomes come up, kill you repeatedly, and sit on your corpse till you re-spawn so they can spawn camp you for an entire night.

Nothing wrong with the little guys being able to kill the big guys, I've seen many cases where size does not matter. And if you think it doesn't, but a knife in the hand of a puppet one day, and tell me that you can sleep with that thing in your room.

I think the point this topic is at (The 9 page point), everything stated here will either be re-hashed or irrelevantly off topic, as that's what it keeps going to. I think the main point we can all draw from this... like usual, there's a multitude of different feelings on the matter. The best way to handle this stuff is to be aware of the feelings of people around you, and to either town down your epicness, or in the case of the other side... just let it go.

It's harder to let things go, but it's also the mature route, especially if really no rules are being broken. We all have different tastes, and believe it or not (This is a hard pill to swallow, even for me guys!) our tastes are -not- the correct way, because -everyone- again is different.

(05-22-2012, 06:12 PM)Rensin Wrote: [ -> ]Being a guy that played a Tauren on retail, from the standpoint of "Gnomes killing Tauren", it's the most frustrating thing in the whole world to have a tiny party of Gnomes come up, kill you repeatedly, and sit on your corpse till you re-spawn so they can spawn camp you for an entire night.

Nothing wrong with the little guys being able to kill the big guys, I've seen many cases where size does not matter. And if you think it doesn't, but a knife in the hand of a puppet one day, and tell me that you can sleep with that thing in your room.

I think the point this topic is at (The 9 page point), everything stated here will either be re-hashed or irrelevantly off topic, as that's what it keeps going to. I think the main point we can all draw from this... like usual, there's a multitude of different feelings on the matter. The best way to handle this stuff is to be aware of the feelings of people around you, and to either town down your epicness, or in the case of the other side... just let it go.

It's harder to let things go, but it's also the mature route, especially if really no rules are being broken. We all have different tastes, and believe it or not (This is a hard pill to swallow, even for me guys!) our tastes are -not- the correct way, because -everyone- again is different.

The only thing I have to add to this is that communication is key. It can potentially consolidate a great many of the problems between people that have been mentioned here.

Anime tropes in roleplay are pretty tired.

I play a character who I don't think I'd be the only one to describe as 'a badass'. But I specifically make her not-invulnerable. As a result, she tends to get the shit beat out of her a lot so other people don't have to. That's cool. Sacrifice is a part of her personality. She never 'walks it off' either, either she gets heals or I'm roleplaying the injury until it gets better. Even after a heal I'm going to play soreness and weakness in the affected area.

I'm not going to no-sell your attacks like I'm Hulk Hogan. If you hurt my character, I'm going to roleplay the injury. Cut Corchel's arm? She's not going to be using it any time soon. Hit her leg? She's going to favor it. Stab her and she's bleeding all over the place. If you don't give me the same respect in your roleplay, then I'm just going to leave. Honestly. Not even a special profile can make you the unstoppable force. It's straight up godmodding.

If someone's trying to talk EVERY EMOTE while they're fighting her, prepare to get punched in the mouth. That's an attack of opportunity. Talking is an action! If trying to cast a healing spell is an attack of opportunity, going "Haha, Kakarot, is this the best you have? HAHA You'll never be the prince of Saiyans!" is definitely one too.

Also, if your character is the kind to charge into any large amount of enemies by themselves and come out unscathed, you're an idiot sorry. Make sure not to RP with me. Thanks. You can go be Goku or Naruto or whatever your silly anime fantasy is elsewhere, I'm not going to have any part of it.

Personally I think that fear is circumstantial for some scenarios;

(Before I continue, I will note to those who think I'm trying to say I have no 'badass' characters that I am not doing so. I know I have characters that may be considered 'badass' or even 'over-the-top', and I realize that this is a fault. Continuing with my point, however...)

So I have this character named Garonir. He's a simple soldier. Could be said he's a form of adventurer. He's a shaky, nervous, stuttering little private from the Stormwind military, and he's got just about as much usual courage as a squirrel. A true follower rather than a leader. Humbled by everything and constantly saluting people holding rank or position, and when they tell him to 'Just call me Jane', he keeps going 'Okay, Ma'a- I mean... Jane...'

Point is, he's just about at the bottom of the courage bar. Yet, when he's with his Grand Marshal Dalikan or his Field Marshal Doyle in combat, he's always at attention and follows orders without question; and goes into battle with a cry of fury, no matter how weak his spear strikes may be.

My point isn't to say that 'Congratulations, zen, you've accomplished in making yet another 'fearless' character'. My point is to say that courage is circumstantial.

Outside of said conflict where his peers are watching, Garonir would be fleeing and crying for his life. He's done this on a few occasions. His spear would bend as it should, his armor would fail as it should, and his courage would be shattered. Yet, he had courage just a moment ago when his 'Grand' or 'Field Marshal' were around, so... Why the sudden change in courage? It's because his courage is circumstantial to his values and ambitions as a character - his core value is to not fail his officers, and so that will go above some fears that might otherwise have scared him. Not saying he's gonna try and solo a Pit Lord just because his officers told him to... No sane character would do that...

I guess my final point (forgive me for restating it so many times) is as follows;

Courage is circumstantial depending on the values and ambitions that make up the character.

Obviously, there are characters out there whose courage is based simply off of the 'Just Because' or 'Because they are so powerful they have no true fears' excuses. None of mine are that way. My most played character, Dalikan, who might be recounted for powergaming or potential godmodding before, has fears. His fears are that he might fail the younger generations, or that innocence could morph into vengeance and destroy what he fought to protect. His fears are to see another him happen. A wandering old man with nothing better to do than rant and fight evil whenever he's determined.

Again, I'm not trying to ask for congratulations that I 'actually made a vulnerable character', just using one of my characters as an example. As for the talking during fights thing... It's probably just that as OOC people, we want to find more enjoyment out of those large exchange of paragraphs that make up a duel/spar. To find this enjoyment, we put forward dialogue, which creates either more conflict or some peeked interest. To make a compelling character, we need actions and dialogue. Sometimes it's bad to mix the two in the same area of the story. Sometimes it's a good thing, if done well. I guess my point for this one could be '-TRY- to only talk during a fight if it will advance the conflict or actions in some way'.

As for physics and logic-defying acrobatics and physical moves, well... That just kinda depends on the willingness of your opponent to be able to logically explain -how- their character just did a back flip in plate armor. If they can't logically explain it, then why are you still RPing with said person? As for super powers... Ehh... Everybody's got to have a 'signature move', right? I -AM NOT-, repeat, -AM NOT- saying that is a valid excuse for having some huge super power. Sure, signature moves are a cool thing, but sometimes they just get downright cheesy and make people cranky.

rant rant rant rant

Are you comparing Naruto to Game of Thrones? That's...WAY unfair! Like, super unfair. Like comparing a McDonald's Cheeseburger to a sirloin steak cooked at a five star restaurant.

And, yeah. I have to chime in on Pyscho's first sentiment on...something about this post doesn't agree with me. I'm trying to pinpoint exactly what it is; perhaps its the inherent hostility towards one certain aesthetic to another. I've noticed a recurring theme that anything "anime" related gets trashed, where as people hold Western RPG / Tolkien-esque aesthetics as golden. Both are equally ridiculous. I mean, c'mon, Blizzard has items in-game that no sensible warrior would ever be able to hold. Dual-wielding 6 foot tall glowing firery runeblades while wearing 400 pounds of spiked metal? SO REALISTIC!

But, I'ma fan of both. I'll switch to watching Madoka to Game of Thrones without skipping a beat. My only point is, this isn't the first time I've seen people complaining about "anime"-esque arch types appearing in role play. Its had a long history and I'd, quite frankly, like to see it stop. Its used as an insult when it really shouldn't be.

Although I do agree on the snarky badass arch type being in way over abundance. That irks me. When everyone and their brother's uncle's sister's newphew's room-mate's constantly making glib remarks at everyone's expense. But, ya know, what can ya do? People are gonna try to rack up as many coolness points as they can. It goes way beyond anime tropes. This character arch-type has become a Western RPG staple, ever since Dragon Age came out and had a "CLICK THE PURPLE MIDDLE DIALOGUE WHEEL FOR TEH FUNNAIS!!!!!"

Also, is it just me, or is it strange how every time one of these threads pop up, everyone starts talking about their individual characters and how unlike they are to the problem being discussed? Role players like talking about their characters, I suppose. Not that its a bad thing! Just, interesting, is all. I tend to avoid talking about my characters. Mainly because, out of all the stuff in the world, I am my least favorite subject. Yes. Yep.

So, yes.

Xigo, I agree with ya on most parts, buuuuuuuuuuuuut, I would suggest ya watch yer semantics. Rhetoric. I get the core of your argument, but the construction of it (particularly on identifying as the problem as 'anime') will turn people off. Even if you didn't mean to. The crazy thing about human communication is that it is the result of the failure of language. As in, we're unable to truly connect or convey our thoughts / emotions in an effective manner, thus we invent a set of words with definitions in order to do so. But because of this inherent failure, those words and definitions end up taking so many subjective meanings that it amplifies the impossibility of communication to a whole other degree. Therefore, it turns out that what you say isn't what's most important; it's what other peoples hear. Which is why the human race is so horrible to one another because empathy is an exercise in futility and everyone should read Heart of Darkness.

Obligatory Anime mash up song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekXBa5-fVVg

Man, this was posted this morning. Not even twenty-four hours go by and this thread is at ten pages. Yikes.

Alright. So, I feel this is a valid complaint, but I also feel that the argument on both sides could have been made more...presentable so as to not spark a heated discussion. Let's try to keep on topic and keep civil. This is obviously a topic that warrants discussion, so I'd hate to have this thread be locked.

Actually on the topic...I suppose it may come off as tooting my own horn, but I'll tell the story of my human paladin, Gunnar.

There's a reason I gushed so much over Kidnapped 3, because it really helped me shape Gunnar into what he is today. It also, however, gave me a lot to think about regarding a character's morality and, yes, bravery. Gunnar started off the event knowing that many, many people died, and he was one of only a few survivors. And there was nothing he could do. To say that he was scared witless would be a gross understatement.

Then the sadistic game, came. Choose one prisoner to die, or choose one guard to die and that guard chooses a prisoner to die. Gunnar is a paladin and a Stormwind guard, he didn't want to see another die if he could prevent it. In the end, he decided to volunteer himself for the chopping block. He didn't volunteer immediately, it took a minute of soul searching and hesitation, but he did. And, close to shaking as he walked to what he believed was his death, he marched up to the gate.

But he didn't die. Later in that same event, the guards of Faceless came marching in to put down a riot, just as Gunnar had witnessed when all those people died. His response was to the effect of "No, no, no! Not again, not this time!" and he flung himself to protect another from the raining attacks in the midst of his panicked rambling.

If there's any point to this story, it's to reflect on a saying I heard once:

Bravery is not the absence of fear. It is the ability to act despite it.

I am loathe to participate in these sorts of threads because I always hear my guild leader's voice on repeat in the back of my head:



Edit: I need to see if I can find the clip of him saying this. Then you will understand my pain! Kril knows.

God, I can imagine his voice and everything.

(05-22-2012, 08:39 PM)Krent Wrote: [ -> ]I've noticed a recurring theme that anything "anime" related gets trashed, where as people hold Western RPG / Tolkien-esque aesthetics as golden. Both are equally ridiculous. I mean, c'mon, Blizzard has items in-game that no sensible warrior would ever be able to hold. Dual-wielding 6 foot tall glowing firery runeblades while wearing 400 pounds of spiked metal? SO REALISTIC!

Dope mashup.

Most of the stuff you're talking about comes from raiding, which imho is some of the least lore and RP friendly parts of the game. It's game mechanics and MMO-ness. Of course if you kill a particularly powerful lore character or something they're going to drop something that screams to everyone around you that you're a badass. That's how MMOs work.

It's hard to keep people on the gear treadmill if the tier-set they're grinding so hard for is a different colored set of practical armor or a tasteful and practical weapon. People play games like these to get badass looking gear. Practicality often goes out the window.

I'm getting a little side-tracked on this, but I think the distaste from overly anime roleplay comes a lot from collective experiences in retail and the herpaderps that run around doing such. It can happen here too, but it's a lot rarer. There's good examples of people who take inspiration from the East, and there's the... less good. Unfortunately, you don't really remember the good ones because it's done subtly.

HOWEVER the poorly done ones stick out like a sore thumb and leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. It's really hard to do that using western standards, because typical western characters are a little more down to earth due to their nature.

(This isn't always true, we can name a thousand examples but still.)

Anime is serialized, you gotta pull people in so they go for outrageous fights and over the top characters with amazing powers so that people go 'Woah. This is badass.'

(This is the reason why the main-character types are so commonly imitated, and usually poorly at that. They want other people to see them and have that same effect.)

Basically, when you're RPing you don't get plot armor. Because plot armor is the most broken superpower there is. And it's not compelling. People WILL catch feelings, one way or another.

But really, someone calling your character anime is about as negative as you take it. It -is- a bad (but yet fitting at times) criticism.

---

Also most of the beef comes from people who imitate shonen. Because shonen is mostly god awful.

http://youtu.be/_CLgpd241Aw

There are people who roleplay like... this... and it's not very compelling or fun for the people who want a more serious roleplay environment.

I don't think it's really possible for someone to blast you for immitating a seinen character. How would they know?

Eh, don't forget the Wrathgate cinematic had Bolvar Fordragon running around in the infamous EAGLESHOULDERS and swinging around a 1H sword that looked like a 2H.

And this isn't even bringing up the character design of guys like Varian Wyrnn, or abilities like Titan's Grip or Bladestorm.

I always think it's pretty safe to assume that roleplayers looking for a roleplay environment have always been the last people in Blizzard's list of people to consider. Sometimes they add cute stuff that we want, but they just figured we'd probably pay to play anyway.

Jokes on them. Mostly.

(05-22-2012, 11:45 PM)raerae Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-22-2012, 08:39 PM)Krent Wrote: [ -> ]I've noticed a recurring theme that anything "anime" related gets trashed, where as people hold Western RPG / Tolkien-esque aesthetics as golden. Both are equally ridiculous. I mean, c'mon, Blizzard has items in-game that no sensible warrior would ever be able to hold. Dual-wielding 6 foot tall glowing firery runeblades while wearing 400 pounds of spiked metal? SO REALISTIC!

Dope mashup.

Most of the stuff you're talking about comes from raiding, which imho is some of the least lore and RP friendly parts of the game. It's game mechanics and MMO-ness. Of course if you kill a particularly powerful lore character or something they're going to drop something that screams to everyone around you that you're a badass. That's how MMOs work.

It's hard to keep people on the gear treadmill if the tier-set they're grinding so hard for is a different colored set of practical armor or a tasteful and practical weapon. People play games like these to get badass looking gear. Practicality often goes out the window.

I'm getting a little side-tracked on this, but I think the distaste from overly anime roleplay comes a lot from collective experiences in retail and the herpaderps that run around doing such. It can happen here too, but it's a lot rarer. There's good examples of people who take inspiration from the East, and there's the... less good. Unfortunately, you don't really remember the good ones because it's done subtly.

HOWEVER the poorly done ones stick out like a sore thumb and leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. It's really hard to do that using western standards, because typical western characters are a little more down to earth due to their nature.

(This isn't always true, we can name a thousand examples but still.)

Anime is serialized, you gotta pull people in so they go for outrageous fights and over the top characters with amazing powers so that people go 'Woah. This is badass.'

(This is the reason why the main-character types are so commonly imitated, and usually poorly at that. They want other people to see them and have that same effect.)

Basically, when you're RPing you don't get plot armor. Because plot armor is the most broken superpower there is. And it's not compelling. People WILL catch feelings, one way or another.

But really, someone calling your character anime is about as negative as you take it. It -is- a bad (but yet fitting at times) criticism.

---

Also most of the beef comes from people who imitate shonen. Because shonen is mostly god awful.

http://youtu.be/_CLgpd241Aw

There are people who roleplay like... this... and it's not very compelling or fun for the people who want a more serious roleplay environment.

I don't think it's really possible for someone to blast you for immitating a seinen character. How would they know?

Girlchan In Paradise is golden. That's seriously one of my favorite series ever. And I'm not denying that Shonnen is god-awful. The main problem I have with the initial post is that it compares the most stereotypical shonen to one of the best written medieval fantasy novels ever. That being, Naruto vs Game of Thrones. Now, Game of Thrones is not perfect...but its world's better than Naruto. But, at the same time, that isn't a fair comparison. There are tons of other examples of Western Medieval fantasy that are equally as ridiculously and horribly written as Naruto is. They're on different tiers, see. Red Wall, and a bunch of other Tolkien-clones come to mind. Why compare a fast food joint to a sit-down critically-acclaimed restaurant? Seems unfair to me.

Also, if Blizzard, the original company who writes all the lore for their own games, is willing to throw lore and story out the window, shouldn't we call 'em on it? Why compare apples and steak? Salmon and broccoli, iron and rubber? Blizz is as silly as Kishimoto? As sexy-oriented as Tite Kubo? All of 'em. Really. I see 'em as one of the same. Shouldn't everyone else?

Granted! I'll admit I did not read all 2235923059723503297523 posts this seemed to have cropped up. I never do, and never deny it. But it seemed unfair to me to make this sort of comparison. And I understand that certain tropes derived from an aesthetic type can be annoying. But, we have to acknowledge that others can be as well, no matter what geographical palliate they derive from. Hence why I cited all that stupid philosophical crap. Futility of communication. Semantic construction.

I dunno what I'm talking about when I say all of that crap, by the way. Just that we should be more careful in how we construct arguments and all. Mostly because no human being can ever know what another is trying to convey. Kind of depressing when you realize it, but I've come to that conclusion. Unless someone can convince me of something else. Yep.

People do call Blizzard on it. Blizzard doesn't care, they're too busy being in bed with Activision and rolling around in that Call-of-Duty market money. Why do you think the numbers got so big, the gear got more ridiculous, they started killing off lore characters left and right..

They're making an entire expansion based around an easter egg unit from Warcraft 3 now. C'mon. You really think they care?

Titan, whatever it is, is on the way, they're just milking WoW for all it's worth before Titan comes out and game-changes the MMO market. Then they're eventually going to milk that for all it's worth too.

And I don't think he was trying to compare the two in a way of 'Look at how bad anime is, and how good western high-fantasy is.'

He's saying "Here's how anime fights go down." Naruto is pretty shitty, yeah, but it shows the weaknesses of the genre and high-lights the main complaint of his post here in the first place. (Shonen tropes ruin roleplay). Then he shows a show that has realistic potrayal of a fight for comparison.

But yeah, buncha misunderstandings. I'm tired and I'm gonna go to bed.

... I think ya'll are focusing on my choice of examples too much. I was trying to show the kind of combat which occurs in anime as compared to what realistic combat is like. Production values didn't mean crud to me - stop focusing on them.

Quote:He's saying "Here's how anime fights go down." Naruto is pretty shitty, yeah, but it shows the weaknesses of the genre and high-lights the main complaint of his post here in the first place. (Shonen tropes ruin roleplay). Then he shows a show that has realistic potrayal of a fight for comparison.

This is all I wanted to get across with those videos.

For what it's worth, I actually enjoyed Naruto before they got into the ridiculousness of Shippuden. M'kay? It's just not something I want in my roleplay personally. Would you prefer I had put up another anime? Because the only other ones I really know are Sailor Moon, Dragonball, and Kenshin. I don't think the selected 'anime' somehow ruins my point. I'll repeat. Stop focusing on the fact I chose Naruto, it's the first one which came to mind. I didn't have an agenda in picking it.

Guys, I wasn't trying to change the server with this post. I was getting out my thoughts. I do think this is a problem, but I don't expect it to change. Whether you think my words are golden or belong in the toilet is your opinion. Doesn't matter much to me.

I was a little confused when we talked about anime tropes appearing in anime, maybe because there weren't a lot of tropes named, but that this seemed to really be more a critique of combat when there were other elements of anime creeping in. The thing is these sort of cycle. I remember there was a time when things seemed to be more oriented towards idealized females as they'd come from anime and a player told me he felt like he was in some sort of hentai. Now we've sort of pulled a circle where it seems we're in some elf yaoi (something I enjoy, but I can sort of see where it frustrates other players).

Other things I've seen here and there but in small amounts were things like nosebleeds linked to perversion (no basis for that happening aside from an old wives tale). It's sort of exaggerated but at the same time minor. I guess we haven't at least seen rows of people fall on their backs each time something happens like in DBZ, even if it was comedic, we realize those sorts of things are a little too silly and not how most people would react in a situation.

Anyways, what I was meaning to say is there's more anime elements that have been coming into coth but I don't know if we could discuss them as well since they overlap into more gender-oriented discussions.