[NGTM-1R]

I wonder why people do that?...go to such extreems in fanboyism I mean.

Me, I'm not a fanboy of anything and I downright refuse to be. I force myself to be extra critical of anything I like so I never end up like those people.

Because it's ridiculously awesome, much like having a full-scale iron Scopedog in your backyard. It's not being taken in deadly earnest; it's a form of performance art.

You sir are a liar and a cad and have at various times fanboy'd for battleship and carrier FS designs, conservative values, sexism,  and conservative Christianity.

[Stormkeeper]

Why do that when they have a God Gundam?

Cause it's FINGER BURNS WITH THE DESIRE TO DEFEAT YOU!

I'm sure everyone's fanboy'd at least a few times in their live, even if they don't know it.

[SpardaSon21]

I'll openly admit I used to be a fanboy for Blizzard.  Then they released WoW and I was like  .  Nothing like a fanboy without his object of fanboyism.

[Liberator]

Don't bad mouth my WoW.  I'm not gonna sit here and say it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, I'll leave that for the Starcraft tards.

[NGTM-1R]

Don't bad mouth my WoW.  I'm not gonna sit here and say it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, I'll leave that for the Starcraft tards.

"Lore lol"

[TrashMan]

Because it's ridiculously awesome, much like having a full-scale iron Scopedog in your backyard. It's not being taken in deadly earnest; it's a form of performance art.

A 20 meter model of a giant robot (or spaceship) is awesome (but impractical. I surely wouldn't need one in my yard), but owning costumes, having every collectable thing in the universe, cosplaying, changing your name, re-decorating the house? That's a whole new level of insane.

You sir are a liar and a cad and have at various times fanboy'd for battleship and carrier FS designs, conservative values, sexism,  and conservative Christianity.

That Sir, is an insult! I merely like or appreciate a few things. To lift them to a level of blind fanboyism is an outright lie. Not to mention that some things are a 100% fabrication to begin with.
I demand we meet on the field of honor! *slap*

[Liberator]

It's they're lore, they can retcon it if they want to.  Besides, most of the retcons have made the story more interesting.

[Ransom]

I must confess I gave Blizzard a mental thumbs-up when I realised they had incorporated Lovecraftian lore into their cartoony fantasy game.

[General Battuta]

The Lovecraftian stuff was introduced in The Frozen Throne, which was a great piece of storytelling and set up a fascinating situation in a charged, divided, and deep universe.

Then WoW did nothing with all that potential. *sigh* So many great characters and story ideas turned into fodder for end-game raids. Kel'Thuzad? Illidan? Arthas, even? Jeez.

[Liberator]

Well how exactly do expect them to tell the stories of these characters to 11 million people?  Hour long cutscenes?

Blizzard admits they screwed up the storytelling with Illidan, but with Arthas he's been front and center the WHOLE expansion.  The first four levels of Wrath you could hardly turn a corner without tripping over the bastard.  They are making a mistake though, I bought the companion book Rise of the Lich King and while it's hardly necessary to understand what's going on, it sets a very bad precedent for all but requiring the player to do anything else but play the game. 

Gears of War did this from what I can tell, you have to read the prequel book and subsequent fiction to be able to understand anything at all about the plot or background.  Which is kinda pathetic since the game itself is...uninspiring.  The controls are sluggish, the camera unwieldy, and last but not least, the bosses are invulnerable except for the super satellite cannon which only works outside.  So I never got past the first Berserker

[NGTM-1R]

Well how exactly do expect them to tell the stories of these characters to 11 million people?  Hour long cutscenes?

Blizzard admits they screwed up the storytelling with Illidan, but with Arthas he's been front and center the WHOLE expansion.  The first four levels of Wrath you could hardly turn a corner without tripping over the bastard.  They are making a mistake though, I bought the companion book Rise of the Lich King and while it's hardly necessary to understand what's going on, it sets a very bad precedent for all but requiring the player to do anything else but play the game. 

With some talent.

Arthras has been massively derailed from his Warcraft 3 appearance. There's basically nothing left of the character now. I could link the entire TVTropes page on character derailment and retcons that make no sense, if you like.

Gears of War did this from what I can tell, you have to read the prequel book and subsequent fiction to be able to understand anything at all about the plot or background.  Which is kinda pathetic since the game itself is...uninspiring.  The controls are sluggish, the camera unwieldy, and last but not least, the bosses are invulnerable except for the super satellite cannon which only works outside.  So I never got past the first Berserker

Actually, reading Aspho Fields is not recommended for anyone, particularly those who played Gears of War. Because it makes no sense at all.

[Ghostavo]

They are making a mistake though, I bought the companion book Rise of the Lich King and while it's hardly necessary to understand what's going on, it sets a very bad precedent for all but requiring the player to do anything else but play the game.

Dude, two words:

.hack

You have to play the games, read the novels and watch the series and read the mangas to even begin understanding what's truly going on.

[Dark Hunter]

Or just read the .hack// wiki, but reading/playing/watching the series is more fun.

What I've found with .hack// is that, while all the various media tie together to make a grand overarching plotline, each individual story is fairly self-contained. For example: the IMOQ games have a pretty self-contained story, although watching .hack//sign and reading .hack//Another Birth help, it's not strictly necessary (it doesn't work in reverse, incidentally: watch .hack//sign and don't play the IMOQ games and you will be left a very confused person by the ending).

tl;dr:  with .hack//, it seems that the games contain the main, central stories, with the two canon anime series providing background/prequel to the games, and the novels and manga fleshing out the universe more fully, and filling in little details.

[TrashMan]

Wait..did someone use WOW and "great story" in the same sentance? 

[Liberator]

Actually I didn't.

It is really rather immersive if you want it to be though.

[General Battuta]

Well how exactly do expect them to tell the stories of these characters to 11 million people?  Hour long cutscenes?

Blizzard admits they screwed up the storytelling with Illidan, but with Arthas he's been front and center the WHOLE expansion.  The first four levels of Wrath you could hardly turn a corner without tripping over the bastard.  They are making a mistake though, I bought the companion book Rise of the Lich King and while it's hardly necessary to understand what's going on, it sets a very bad precedent for all but requiring the player to do anything else but play the game.

NGTM-1R's post nicely sums up my feelings. Supreme character derailment.  (By the way, is Illidan canonically 'dead'? Do players kill him for real? How about Kel'Thuzad?)

Gears of War did this from what I can tell, you have to read the prequel book and subsequent fiction to be able to understand anything at all about the plot or background.  Which is kinda pathetic since the game itself is...uninspiring.  The controls are sluggish, the camera unwieldy, and last but not least, the bosses are invulnerable except for the super satellite cannon which only works outside.  So I never got past the first Berserker

You are silly! The Berserker is the only boss like that (well, except for Seeders, but they don't really count), and that first Berserker was easy. You just have to run outside and roll out of the way if she charges at you.

[QuantumDelta]

Neither Illidan nor Kel'Thuzad die until WoW (Kel'Thuzad oddly dies twice in WoW, but Illidan only appears the once, then again - Kel'Thuzad is immortal as long as his phylactery isn't destroyed, and you don't destroy it, you hand it over).

[Akalabeth Angel]

Or just read the .hack// wiki, but reading/playing/watching the series is more fun.

Did you just say that watching .hack was fun?
I must've misread that, because I could've sworn you did . . .


.hack is just talking. Boring boring boring talking.
You know the first two episodes of Evangelion, where Shinji first goes into EVA-01. Well when the battle starts, it cuts. And shows him in a hospital. Later on, he remembers what happened and we see the whole battle.

In .hack, they do the same thing. Except they never show the battle. The big guy's about to bust someone up, they cut, and then the battles over. Where's the frakking action???


Why SOOOO many people watch these "shows" which are little more than talking drawings is beyond me. I can't stand all of these anime where the characters barely even move.

[Mongoose]

All of that talking was what made me interested in .hack//SIGN in the first place.  I had very little notion of what "anime" was at the time, and the idea that one could make a cartoon featuring little but characters standing around and talking was utterly mind-blowing for me.  It's probably why the mostly-talking episode "Chat! Chat! Chat!" was among my favorites from GITS: Stand-Alone Complex.

[Dark Hunter]

Or just read the .hack// wiki, but reading/playing/watching the series is more fun.

Did you just say that watching .hack was fun?
I must've misread that, because I could've sworn you did . . .

Indeed I did. Your eyesight's still good.

.hack is just talking. Boring boring boring talking.
You know the first two episodes of Evangelion, where Shinji first goes into EVA-01. Well when the battle starts, it cuts. And shows him in a hospital. Later on, he remembers what happened and we see the whole battle.

In .hack, they do the same thing. Except they never show the battle. The big guy's about to bust someone up, they cut, and then the battles over. Where's the frakking action???


Why SOOOO many people watch these "shows" which are little more than talking drawings is beyond me. I can't stand all of these anime where the characters barely even move.

Well, to each his own, I guess. I enjoyed .hack//SIGN, can't say I wasn't a little surprised to find that there were... oh, two action scenes in the entire series, but that didn't matter to me. I can't tell you how refreshing it was to see a series that paid such a level of attention to the development and personalities of its characters... while it was undeniably slow-moving, this attention to detail is what made me like the series. The point of .hack// isn't to wow you with explosive fight scenes: the point is the characters and their interactions... when you come down to it, the heart of any story.

Now, you want action, try playing the games. Plenty of action there.