A rant about games.

[BigLundi]

I'm going to say something that might piss off video game fanboys. Let me clarify...I like video games. I consider them an artform and I enjoy them greatly. I'm playing Skyrim at the moment in fact, with the expansion released recently, which will be ironic later.

But video games pale in comparison to classical gaming. And by that I mean anything one can do with a piece of cardboard and pieces of plastic. I may catch flack for being a nerd but I don't care. I love fantasy games. Pen and paper, board, whatever, I love it all. Dungeons and Dragons, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu, I am a nerd, and proud of it. It raised me. It made me, in part, who I am today. And I'm not that bad a product if I do say so myself.

Video games...are hollow. They're, for the most part, just an orgy of graphics with voice actors and competing game companies trying to 'do the same thing, better than the rest'. Whatever happened to innovation? You rarely see games like Braid, or Shift...do you think people will remember Dark Void in 10 years? Maybe a few...but none who remember their gaming days in things like D&D. Instead you get the same old thing time after time of games being released with the same gameplay with slightly smoother graphics that force you to pay an extra 50 dollars to get multiple expansions that the game creators already had finished so they can milk more money out of you. I prefer fantasy. Fantasy...and the simplicity, yet skill-laden requirements of a good old fashioned board game.

My introduction to fantasy was at a young age, with my brother giving me books from a couple of authors named Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. The book series was called Dragonlance...and it opened my eyes to a brand new world past the graphics and 'same old thing' gameplay of video games. The series is based on games they used to play in the past, with characters they and their friends came up with. And it was so...interesting, so different from anything I ever read before. Here I thought all fantasy was about some uber powerful wizard capturing a princess and getting foiled by some roguish knight. No no...there's far more to fantasy than that. There's so much more...depth...there's whole worlds created, with politics and gods, and religions, and hierarchies, so many things that will immerse you.

So as a thank you to Tracy. I'm going to point any who may be moved by what I say to this kickstarter campaign, which Tracy Hickman is a huge part of. I owe him a lot. The least I can do is help...just a little bit.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/albinodragon/dragons-bar d

And yes, I have read the Dragon's Bard series as well. Yet again, proving that not all fantasy is the same. Thank you.

[Xenomit]

I get what you mean, but video games don the idea that you can do literally anything you want if you know what you're doing

Sorry, I find video games better

[BigLundi]

At 8/7/12 09:07 PM, Natick wrote: Take your faggotry to Video Games Forum please.

This is...anti-video games. I don't think they'd appreciate it.

[Xenomit]

At 8/7/12 09:22 PM, Natick wrote: Christ, sorry about calling you out like that. I was just in a bad mood after darthdenim's idiocy.

Remember back when me and you used to get along?

[Darthdenim]

I have Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first Dragonlance book.

I have not read it yet.

[tyler2513]

You could piss off even more users if you posted this in the Video Games forum.

[Darthdenim]

If you want REALLY smart and cerebral Fantasy and Science Fiction, you gotta read books.

Video Games, and even movies can't compare at all to a good book.

[Tremulos]

TL;DR: You like books and board games more than video games. This does not imply any "problem" with video games.

Video games are more immersive than board games; books can be more immersive than video games but don't involve any choices or freedom beyond the freedom of interpretation. Video games require little to no imagination, but that doesn't stop me from letting my imagination run wild when I play Morrowind. Thanks to the choices that the game allows you to make, I can take the game's small digital world and expand it with my own imagination.

I don't like Skyrim nearly as much as I like Morrowind though, so I can kind of understand why you would feel pessimistic about video games while playing Skyrim.

[Darthdenim]

How about interactive books?

Like the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series? Or choose your own adventure books?

They split the difference between games and books.

[Xenomit]

At 8/7/12 09:36 PM, ScaryPicnic wrote: the depth of the lore from the Lord of the Rings novels could never be replicated in film,
but some of the visual imagery shown in the motion picture is immediately more arresting and impactful to the mind than a sentence worth of description in the book

Finaly, someone who isn't one of those book fags that are in your face with "Oh hohoho, no, books are superior to everything, and if you don't read them you have no imagination"

I choose not to read books because I have a tenancy to require knowledge of what certain people or locations look like, weather or not they're what I thought they were

[BigLundi]

At 8/7/12 09:24 PM, Darthdenim wrote: I have Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first Dragonlance book.

I have not read it yet.

I recommend not only the entire series for the Annotated Chronicles, but also the Twins series, as well as the on its own book Summer Flame, and even the ones not written by Hickman and Weis. Knaack has some good books set in the very same setting(though the minatour ones tend to sour for me. Except Kaz the Minatour...that was a good one).

[Xenomit]

At 8/7/12 09:24 PM, Darthdenim wrote: I have Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first Dragonlance book.

I have not read it yet.

http://www.cyoa.com/