Do fandoms ruin series for you?

[jhoroz]

"Oh no, I want to enjoy X but I am not able to because of what random other people on the Internet think of it."
-- Me, never.

Pretty much this. I ultimately consume media for my enjoyment, and the idea of same randos on the internet (whether they're a rabbid fanbase or group that despise a certain media because of the fanbase) is dumb. People should stop equating a piece of media with its fanbase and enjoy it for themselves. I'd rather not bother interacting with anyone on the internet again than let them influence my enjoyment of something.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Well, I've survived Anime fandom (specifically Evangelion), Transformers, My Little Pony: FiM, comic books, films (largely based on comic books) and now video games. If some of the total shit merchants from any of those fandoms haven't put me off yet, I like my chances of continuing to like what I do.

 

[Kyrian007]

No. Any form of entertainment medium can't help who finds it entertaining as most want as big an audience as possible. Holding the book, movie, TV show, video game, whatever responsible for its fans is unfair. That being said, some fandoms and fanboy types annoy the crap out of me. It's hard sometimes not to hate the material because of it's fandom... but I at least try. I think Yhatzee's review of Portal 2 is an example of how I feel about the issue.

 

[runic knight]

Can't say a fandom can ruin a series for me, it can, however, make me not want to check the show out pretty effectively. Avoiding the worst of the fandoms is not hard, and not taking seriously the ones who you run across goes a long way. If you enjoy something, enjoy it, and don't let the fact otehrs might enjoy it while being assholes diminish that joy of it.

While I suppose there might be some debate to be had about a fandom and a show's creator's responsibility towards the extent of the people they inspire, anything outside of outright provocation in the content shouldn't be seen as putting guilt on the shoulders of the creators.

That said, some that wish to try to keep their fandoms in check are not bad for their pursuit to wrangle the masses. I hear the guy who does the homestuck comic (talk about an unusual and noisy fandom there) threatens the fans with a harddrive containing the remaining story plotline and the ease of which he could just wreck the entire project. Hear he uses it as a coaster at conventions, but given the content he makes, him being a bit weird like that doesn't surprise me.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

By stand alone I meant you don't need extra reading outside of the game to know/enjoy what's going on. For example I don't need a novel/movie to enjoy playing/understanding Final Fantasy VII (Hell Final Fantasy 2 has a novel which explains the Emperors reasons for war but it adds flavor to FF2 not explain it). And that is a horrible way to tell a story. What if say someone like me who doesn't do the prerelease hype stuff cause he know's he is going to get it missed out on it. That means I missed out on vital info because I don't do the prehype stuff.

I had no idea this was a thing and that ruined the game for me, and why is that? Because I didn't want to be spoiled by anything (which media tends to do). This is would be a horrible way to do say a comic book movie, oh you gotta watch read all this comics leading up to Ultron and his first fight to understand the movie (most of the comic book nerd stuff is peppered to add more). You clearly love the game and that's fine, but I'm gonna be honest and say that is a awful way to present a story. And learning this makes the game worse in my opinion because the story is such a mess it needs a novel to explain it. And to present why I think this is so stupid look at the steam page for FFXIII, it mentions nothing about a website or extra reading for the story.



Where does it say you have to read a novel to understand the plot? This was the most recent port and now this important information might be gone for good. I'm not trying to start a fight, and I can point out good things about FFXIII. But learning about this makes the story even worse then before for me.

Hehe, I feel like I've stepped through a time portal and am now in the past, I guess explaining these things again is not so bad since there's been so much time that elapsed from the last time I had to. Though yeah, this is what I referenced. I had to do this kind of explaining multiple times a day back then when I was more regular in the FF fandom.



The novels don't actually spoil things. They're like the prologue in a sense. What they do is simply establish the characters. Like, take Serah for example. In XIII she spends the vast majority of the game as an ice cube but somehow she ended up being the main char in XIII-2. That doesn't make sense in a standalone context but if you read the novels it would since there she's basically the protagonist.

You know how everyone goes on and on about Serah but players complained about why do they care about her when she doesn't even do much in the game? This is explained in the novels. If you read the novels it makes sense then. Or about Hope's mom, one of the novels focuses on her and on his relationship with his dad, who we see very briefly but which is expanded upon in the novels enough to make the bits of the game really impactful. Basically, there's really no way of having things hit you that hard in a game because of the format of games being as it is. This is the only way to deliver a story that's this meaningful and layered without having the game transform into a visual novel and alienating all the action junkies who don't like reading.

Yes, it'd be great if they could make a FF-budget visual novel, but can you stand here and tell me it'd be commercially viable enough to not kill the company or at the very least be Spirits Within levels of failure with the general audiences out there?

If you don't like the game cause you feel like you're not getting the full story, I don't get why you wouldn't just go get the full story and reexamine it as opposed to simply writing it off as bad and moving on, ignorant of how it was actually intended to be experienced as.


I understand where your complaint stems from but ultimately I HAVE to look at the intended result. I have to examine the game when played as-intended by the ones who came up with it and if it works or not. It's irrelevant if the intended way is one that is dumb according to people's opinions for various reasons, some of which may actually be valid.


The only thing that matters is if it works or not. I didn't have any reason to want this game to succeed. I can only attest to thoroughly enjoying it and I can see that a lot of the complaints levered at it would not be there had people experienced it as I had, thus my conclusion is that the game is great, so great that it's worth the extra trouble and effort. It rewards the truly devoted fans who "do their homework", as you put it, and that's a good thing.






edit:

The second quote you list is from the American version's advertising, they completely ignored the novels in the American version due to I guess the presumption that people don't like to read in America. The novels were written in Japanese on the official Jp website, the USA version acted like they didn't exist, though they had all been fantranslated like a year prior to the USA version coming out, they're these:
http://dilly-shilly.blogspot.com/2009/10/final-fantasy-xiii-episode-zero.html

 

[Tsun Tzu]

For me personally?

Nope. Why would I give a damn what a "fandom" does? I'm into whatever it is for my own personal enjoyment. What a "fandom" does or does not do is of no consequence to me. Unless, of course, their shit happens to negatively impact the actual thing I'm fanning over. In which case? Fuck them.

For social situations?

...This is where it gets a little annoying.

"Fandoms" have the enjoyable power to stigmatize particular vectors of entertainment to the point that, if mentioned in conversation, their antics will be projected onto you by the person you're engaging with simply by way of association.

It sucks, but whatever.

I'm gonna die. Less time spent worrying about what other people are doing is time better spent.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Why would you have to follow the development of a game to enjoy it? It's the assumed thing that if you pick up the complete retail set of a piece of media, by consuming all the media within you'll be able to understand what's going on. If they were making the game with the assumption that you'd already read the novels, they should have included the novels in all editions of the game (an eventual collectors edition doesn't help all the early adopters) and included a disclaimer to read them first.

You were obviously extremely hyped for the game, and satisfied with the finished product, which is great, but you can't write away peoples criticisms because they didn't follow development as closely as you and didnt do enough homework before playing the game. And the FFVII novels are a different thing, I haven't even heard of them before today but I never felt I needed ancilliary material to understand the game.

It's an east vs west thing. In Japan everyone digitally-follows games to the penultimate degree so merely being aware of these facts without disclaimers is like rank 1 out of like 10 ranks of hype and fandom and devotion people there have in these things. There's simply enough of this there to make what you suggest they do obsolete, since everyone's already aware to begin with, has read the novels 20 times and can't wait to get their hands on the game. The printed ver was more so that collectors would have it and less simply so that people can enjoy the game right, since everyone had already read the novels as is.


FFVII novels were written much later so yeah, you don't need them as much as you need the XIII ones which are basically the prologue of the story. I was just trying to show that XIII did not start this by bringing them up.


In the end the thing with XIII is that it was a game developed for Japan, without much vision for the non-Japanese audiences (mainly due to the fact that the two audiences are largely incompatible), which is an issue of course, but when you play it in the context that a Japanese person who follows everything about it would, it still REALLY does work, which is the important thing.

We decry Japanese companies trying to be westernized and rejecting what makes them good, we decry it day and night. Due to this, I think supporting them doing it the "Japanese way" is logically-consistent.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

They aren't going to make me stop liking something that I already like, but they will make me, consciously or otherwise, less likely to immerse myself in something to begin with.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

...

Currenty Undertale is coming close though, I just started playing the damn game, loving every bit of it, but I feel it's current fanbase viciously attacks people with spoilers via posting of imagery all over every form of media atm, with the excuse that it's the second coming of christ soooo LOOKIE HERE GIANT PLOT POINT.

...

I fully expected to see Undertale find its way into this thread. Unfortunately, I predict it climbing to just under the levels of FNAF, Sonic, MLP, and other fandoms that seem to infest the internet with horrible fan art and over zealous fans. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but it's already generated a fan base that puts many people off. Expect to see Toriel avatars fucking everywhere.
And I agree with you on spoilers. I didn't even have time to download the demo before having that major early plot point and the method for its avoidance spoiled for me.

 

[Xerosch]

Actually, they don't. If I'm interested in something then I simply am. I love Sherlock, Dr. Who, Game of Thrones and a lot of other stuff, but don't force it upon others and recommend it only once or twice per person.

It's also quite easy to stay away from uber-fans. Just don't engage or search for them. Though I don't identify with most of the hardcore fandom of something, I think it's nice that something that a positive thing on the Internet can bring people together.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

By stand alone I meant you don't need extra reading outside of the game to know/enjoy what's going on. For example I don't need a novel/movie to enjoy playing/understanding Final Fantasy VII (Hell Final Fantasy 2 has a novel which explains the Emperors reasons for war but it adds flavor to FF2 not explain it). And that is a horrible way to tell a story. What if say someone like me who doesn't do the prerelease hype stuff cause he know's he is going to get it missed out on it. That means I missed out on vital info because I don't do the prehype stuff.

I had no idea this was a thing and that ruined the game for me, and why is that? Because I didn't want to be spoiled by anything (which media tends to do). This is would be a horrible way to do say a comic book movie, oh you gotta watch read all this comics leading up to Ultron and his first fight to understand the movie (most of the comic book nerd stuff is peppered to add more). You clearly love the game and that's fine, but I'm gonna be honest and say that is a awful way to present a story. And learning this makes the game worse in my opinion because the story is such a mess it needs a novel to explain it. And to present why I think this is so stupid look at the steam page for FFXIII, it mentions nothing about a website or extra reading for the story.



Where does it say you have to read a novel to understand the plot? This was the most recent port and now this important information might be gone for good. I'm not trying to start a fight, and I can point out good things about FFXIII. But learning about this makes the story even worse then before for me.

Hehe, I feel like I've stepped through a time portal and am now in the past, I guess explaining these things again is not so bad since there's been so much time that elapsed from the last time I had to. Though yeah, this is what I referenced. I had to do this kind of explaining multiple times a day back then when I was more regular in the FF fandom.



The novels don't actually spoil things. They're like the prologue in a sense. What they do is simply establish the characters. Like, take Serah for example. In XIII she spends the vast majority of the game as an ice cube but somehow she ended up being the main char in XIII-2. That doesn't make sense in a standalone context but if you read the novels it would since there she's basically the protagonist.

You know how everyone goes on and on about Serah but players complained about why do they care about her when she doesn't even do much in the game? This is explained in the novels. If you read the novels it makes sense then. Or about Hope's mom, one of the novels focuses on her and on his relationship with his dad, who we see very briefly but which is expanded upon in the novels enough to make the bits of the game really impactful. Basically, there's really no way of having things hit you that hard in a game because of the format of games being as it is. This is the only way to deliver a story that's this meaningful and layered without having the game transform into a visual novel and alienating all the action junkies who don't like reading.

Yes, it'd be great if they could make a FF-budget visual novel, but can you stand here and tell me it'd be commercially viable enough to not kill the company or at the very least be Spirits Within levels of failure with the general audiences out there?

If you don't like the game cause you feel like you're not getting the full story, I don't get why you wouldn't just go get the full story and reexamine it as opposed to simply writing it off as bad and moving on, ignorant of how it was actually intended to be experienced as.


I understand where your complaint stems from but ultimately I HAVE to look at the intended result. I have to examine the game when played as-intended by the ones who came up with it and if it works or not. It's irrelevant if the intended way is one that is dumb according to people's opinions for various reasons, some of which may actually be valid.


The only thing that matters is if it works or not. I didn't have any reason to want this game to succeed. I can only attest to thoroughly enjoying it and I can see that a lot of the complaints levered at it would not be there had people experienced it as I had, thus my conclusion is that the game is great, so great that it's worth the extra trouble and effort. It rewards the truly devoted fans who "do their homework", as you put it, and that's a good thing.






edit:

The second quote you list is from the American version's advertising, they completely ignored the novels in the American version due to I guess the presumption that people don't like to read in America. The novels were written in Japanese on the official Jp website, the USA version acted like they didn't exist, though they had all been fantranslated like a year prior to the USA version coming out, they're these:
http://dilly-shilly.blogspot.com/2009/10/final-fantasy-xiii-episode-zero.html

Look I'm not trying to start a argument, I just am amazed by how much of a bad idea this was. I mean people pan and crap on movies for trying to pull the same thing using a website to "explain" what happened. And I wasn't going to respond at all to what you said, but one thing you said struck me and I have to point out for why this is stupid.

The only thing that matters is if it works or not. I didn't have any reason to want this game to succeed. I can only attest to thoroughly enjoying it and I can see that a lot of the complaints levered at it would not be there had people experienced it as I had, thus my conclusion is that the game is great, so great that it's worth the extra trouble and effort. It rewards the truly devoted fans who "do their homework", as you put it, and that's a good thing.

The second quote you list is from the American version's advertising, they completely ignored the novels in the American version due to I guess the presumption that people don't like to read in America. The novels were written in Japanese on the official Jp website, the USA version acted like they didn't exist, though they had all been fantranslated like a year prior to the USA version coming out, they're these:

So you are saying I'm not a devoted fan of Final Fantasy because I chose not to read and prerelease material, when 99% of the time it tells you nothing of value? Dude I've played most of the main Final Fantasy games and most of the spin offs. I listen to and enjoy all the Final Fantasy soundtracks, and I even saw both of their awful movies. So why would I need to read prerelease marketing hype to convince me to get the next game? You are completely blaming US fans because Square screwed up 100%. They could have easily translated and added that to the disc of FFXIII and called it The Prolouge or "Before the War". Much like how they did with FFIV The Complete Collection's Interlude chapter, which didn't add anything of value. But you are telling me fans were in the wrong because we didn't go to someone blogspot site to read the chapter zero. I'm sorry but you are the type of fan people don't like, someone who can see no wrong in what a company does but blames fans for "not getting it" when they had nothing "to get".

You sit here and say it's a cultural thing when Square did N-O-T-H-I-N-G to provide fans with the reading material. That's not fair to blame fans on. You yourself said "the USA version acted like they didn't exist". I used to be able to defend FFXIII in a lot of things it did right, but now that I learned this to me FFXIII is the worst mainline Final Fantasy game. There is never an excuse for a genre that has such heavy focus on story to cut out important information to use as hype material. You can love the game and that's fine, but I will not. And you can say "I don't get it" and your right I don't get it. Because this was horribly handled, and one of the worst examples of what not to do.

I'm gonna toss out my copy of FFXIII because I 100% refuse to accept what Square did, and I'm done discussing this with you. You blame fans for not reading a story Square did not put out for us to read. You are the lowest type of fanboy on the totem pole.

Let me add something I thought was funny from your post.

The novels don't actually spoil things. They're like the prologue in a sense. What they do is simply establish the characters. Like, take Serah for example. In XIII she spends the vast majority of the game as an ice cube but somehow she ended up being the main char in XIII-2. That doesn't make sense in a standalone context but if you read the novels it would since there she's basically the protagonist.

You know how everyone goes on and on about Serah but players complained about why do they care about her when she doesn't even do much in the game? This is explained in the novels. If you read the novels it makes sense then. [\quote]

Hey everyone, want to know about the character who drives two of the main leads through out this stupid plot? You gotta read the book. She is the main focus and drive of Lighting and Snow, and you are telling us it makes since to read a book? To be fair I do own side novels and expansion stories. But that's all it does expand, my Love Hina novels does not add or remove from the main story it just gives more for fans to enjoy. Soul Eater NOT is a interquel to Soul Eater, and the only thing it adds to Soul Eater is how someone died. Which was never important in the main story unless you really like that character and what to know what happened. What we have is Square once again trying to do and fail at a multimedia franchise.

 

[Nazulu]

No, I never wanted anything to taint my enjoyment of something, because I want to enjoy more things than not you know, and I already realised early on that every group has those extreme people.

I try not to get too... passionate, and there is one bit of advice that stops me from going all fanboy. At some point I stop enjoying every series when it goes for so long, so I keep myself sane by just ignoring the shitty new stuff out of existence. Like how I enjoyed some of the first season of My Little Pony: FiM, and it ended there with nothing to continue it.

Shame. It was decent show.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

"Ruin" is a stronger word than I would use. "Turn me off" or "make me disinclined," yes.

I'll probably never watch Game of Thrones because by the time I had the chance, it was well into the third season, and, at this point, the fans have made such a huge deal about certain story beats (effectively spoiling ~80% of the show's big twists) and the thought of watching it now, or even reading the books, just seems...bleh. Dark and gritty fantasy, i.e. Game of Thrones or The Witcher isn't really bag as it is, but I was somewhat willing to give both of those things a try until the fanbases fantaticism turned me off.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Fanbases don't really turn me off things. Anything with a large and rabid fanbase is probably worth checking out. Fanbases HAVE done an excellent job of turning me off FANBASES though. And if I already don't like something for my own reasons, a prickly fanbase will calcify that dislike and probably make it a lot more strident than it would otherwise be.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

It's irrelevant if the intended way is one that is dumb according to people's opinions for various reasons, some of which may actually be valid.


The only thing that matters is if it works or not.

I disagree.

It's hardly irrelevant. If the intended way isn't enjoyed, then that is a flaw in the game's design to the person who didn't enjoy it. Whether or not it works is certainly not the only thing that matters. A guillotine works very well, but if I call it "barbaric" to chop people's heads off like that, does the statement, "Well, that's how they designed to work" disqualify or discredit my opinion that it is a barbaric machine? Certainly not. My opinion is perfectly valid. "That's how it was designed" doesn't matter.

You like the story and it doesn't bother you at all that you had to read all the extra stuff to fully understand and appreciate the story. That's perfectly fine.

I, and so many others, did not like the fact that the story was not fully self-contained within the core game--especially since that was the standard that every other main series game in the series maintained through FFXII--and it bothered me greatly that I was expected read the extra stuff to fully understand and appreciate the story.

There's nothing wrong with your opinion or your enjoyment of the game, but you have the air of someone who is looking down on those of us who didn't like it and dismissing our reasons for not liking it.

 

[ryan_cs]

Why would you have to follow the development of a game to enjoy it? It's the assumed thing that if you pick up the complete retail set of a piece of media, by consuming all the media within you'll be able to understand what's going on. If they were making the game with the assumption that you'd already read the novels, they should have included the novels in all editions of the game (an eventual collectors edition doesn't help all the early adopters) and included a disclaimer to read them first.

You were obviously extremely hyped for the game, and satisfied with the finished product, which is great, but you can't write away peoples criticisms because they didn't follow development as closely as you and didnt do enough homework before playing the game. And the FFVII novels are a different thing, I haven't even heard of them before today but I never felt I needed ancilliary material to understand the game.

It's an east vs west thing. In Japan everyone digitally-follows games to the penultimate degree so merely being aware of these facts without disclaimers is like rank 1 out of like 10 ranks of hype and fandom and devotion people there have in these things. There's simply enough of this there to make what you suggest they do obsolete, since everyone's already aware to begin with, has read the novels 20 times and can't wait to get their hands on the game. The printed ver was more so that collectors would have it and less simply so that people can enjoy the game right, since everyone had already read the novels as is.


FFVII novels were written much later so yeah, you don't need them as much as you need the XIII ones which are basically the prologue of the story. I was just trying to show that XIII did not start this by bringing them up.


In the end the thing with XIII is that it was a game developed for Japan, without much vision for the non-Japanese audiences (mainly due to the fact that the two audiences are largely incompatible), which is an issue of course, but when you play it in the context that a Japanese person who follows everything about it would, it still REALLY does work, which is the important thing.

We decry Japanese companies trying to be westernized and rejecting what makes them good, we decry it day and night. Due to this, I think supporting them doing it the "Japanese way" is logically-consistent.

But they completely ignored the novels in the American version due to I guess the presumption that people don't like to read in America. The novels were written in Japanese on the official Jp website, though they had all been fantranslated like a year before it's still ignored in america. Thus we can't officially follow it in the context that a Japanese person who follows everything about it would without following the fandom, say because the fandom had just become a negative environment and I will sooner discard a fandom than I will a loved series.

It's fine if you still enjoy it, but anyone who isn't a fan already would be horribly confused. I'm also now wondering what the Japanese reaction to Destiny's story, which maker its story clearer using a website.

OT: Generaly I'm not bothered by fandoms.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

It's irrelevant if the intended way is one that is dumb according to people's opinions for various reasons, some of which may actually be valid.


The only thing that matters is if it works or not.

I disagree.

It's hardly irrelevant. If the intended way isn't enjoyed, then that is a flaw in the game's design to the person who didn't enjoy it. Whether or not it works is certainly not the only thing that matters. A guillotine works very well, but if I call it "barbaric" to chop people's heads off like that, does the statement, "Well, that's how they designed to work" disqualify or discredit my opinion that it is a barbaric machine? Certainly not. My opinion is perfectly valid. "That's how it was designed" doesn't matter.

You like the story and it doesn't bother you at all that you had to read all the extra stuff to fully understand and appreciate the story. That's perfectly fine.

I, and so many others, did not like the fact that the story was not fully self-contained within the core game--especially since that was the standard that every other main series game in the series maintained through FFXII--and it bothered me greatly that I was expected read the extra stuff to fully understand and appreciate the story.

There's nothing wrong with your opinion or your enjoyment of the game, but you have the air of someone who is looking down on those of us who didn't like it and dismissing our reasons for not liking it.

I think you misunderstand what I mean when I say it "worked". I meant "it was really awesome". Not just that it functioned. If you had read the novels, playing the game was really amazing, they enhanced the experience to a great degree.



I have the air of someone who doesn't see the point of games being self contained and nobody makes a case for why it's better for games to be self contained that not. All I see people list is "just because that's how it's always been". I also don't understand why people being "expected to read" is talked about as though it's a negative thing. It's more good stuff to enjoy. I don't get why everyone wouldn't be ecstatic there's more of this content to enjoy.


I just don't understand why it would "bother" anyone to read all this extra stuff. Reading this stuff is just like playing the game. You're in that world and experiencing the story and learning the characters. If you enjoy FF you'd should enjoy reading these novels. Even without the benefits of their relating to the game.

 

[Casual Shinji]

If something is introduced to me via a rabid fanbase, then it certainly makes me wanna not check it out for a long time. Case in point; Undertale. I was sick of hearing about it before I even touched it. Though to be honest, I am very baised towards indie darlings, like The Stanley Parable and such. Also introduced to me with a helping of fan saliva on the side.

Nothing ever got as crazy as Portal though, thank God.

 

[happyninja42]

I think I have two quotes that can sum up how I feel about this particular subject... Take it away, FPLOONs of 2014!

What? Can't someone watch/do something without being associated with it's represented fandom? No?? ...Too bad, it seems... But, then again, it harder to like a show that has references that just out-right does that "for the fans", instead of it just being within the context of the show... Also, when you think about it, EVERYTHING has a fandom of some kind associated with its original content, so it's just a matter of ignoring their existence... no matter how much it seems like it's everywhere you go...

Let me give this to you straight: I have to be REMINDED that a fandom exist most of the time... otherwise I would not know that they even existed in the first place... (It's still awkward telling people that I was watching MLP:FiM around the time of the "4chan involvement" during Season 1... without realizing what was going on online at the time...)

Other than that, fandoms do not sway my judgement of the show itself... Sure, they can explain certain creative decisions that happens during certain seasons of a particular show (i.e. Fionna and Cake in Adventure Time or, more prominently, Derpy in MLP:FiM), but for the most part, they do not bother me as much as most people would believe, especially when I tell them if I am part of a particular fandom...

Oh! And, from a non-show-related side of fandoms... I got nothing... Like I said, I have to be reminded that a fandom exist most of the time... (Even then, they still will not sway my opinion [or lack of one] one way or another on what it is they're interest in overall...)

Can you believe they're about a month apart from each other? Spoooooooky~...

Uh... Other than that, all I can see a fandom ruining is someone's first impression of said fandom, crossovers notwithstanding, but to translate said first impression into ruining a series in general sounds more irrational than being afraid of lemon meringue pie or Realtors to me...

Yeah pretty much. I don't really care for the rabid fans of Star Wars for example, the ones that consume every bit of the media for it. Have memorized all of the EU content, can describe in detail, the equipment loadout for a standard stormtrooper. They tend to be tiresome to try and talk to, especially about Star Wars. Now, I consider myself a dyed in the wool Star Wars fan. I remember being 7 years old and seeing Return of the Jedi in the theaters, and it was an awesome experience. I'd never seen anything like it, the fan obsession with it. But I'm able to compartmentalize my love of the setting, and still behave normally. For the other fans that can also do this, great, it's easy to talk to them and no big deal. For the others, yeah, they just bother me. But no matter how much they might annoy me with their behavior regarding Star Wars, it doesn't make me love the series any less.

 

[The Bucket]

It's irrelevant if the intended way is one that is dumb according to people's opinions for various reasons, some of which may actually be valid.


The only thing that matters is if it works or not.

I disagree.

It's hardly irrelevant. If the intended way isn't enjoyed, then that is a flaw in the game's design to the person who didn't enjoy it. Whether or not it works is certainly not the only thing that matters. A guillotine works very well, but if I call it "barbaric" to chop people's heads off like that, does the statement, "Well, that's how they designed to work" disqualify or discredit my opinion that it is a barbaric machine? Certainly not. My opinion is perfectly valid. "That's how it was designed" doesn't matter.

You like the story and it doesn't bother you at all that you had to read all the extra stuff to fully understand and appreciate the story. That's perfectly fine.

I, and so many others, did not like the fact that the story was not fully self-contained within the core game--especially since that was the standard that every other main series game in the series maintained through FFXII--and it bothered me greatly that I was expected read the extra stuff to fully understand and appreciate the story.

There's nothing wrong with your opinion or your enjoyment of the game, but you have the air of someone who is looking down on those of us who didn't like it and dismissing our reasons for not liking it.

I think you misunderstand what I mean when I say it "worked". I meant "it was really awesome". Not just that it functioned. If you had read the novels, playing the game was really amazing, they enhanced the experience to a great degree.



I have the air of someone who doesn't see the point of games being self contained and nobody makes a case for why it's better for games to be self contained that not. All I see people list is "just because that's how it's always been". I also don't understand why people being "expected to read" is talked about as though it's a negative thing. It's more good stuff to enjoy. I don't get why everyone wouldn't be ecstatic there's more of this content to enjoy.


I just don't understand why it would "bother" anyone to read all this extra stuff. Reading this stuff is just like playing the game. You're in that world and experiencing the story and learning the characters. If you enjoy FF you'd should enjoy reading these novels. Even without the benefits of their relating to the game.

I'd argue not being self contained in this case was a bad thing, because if you make a game not self contained within its own product and medium without telling most of the customers, you get a bunch of people who assume it works just every other game, book or movie they've ever bought and end of disliking the game because a massive chunk of the story is missing, which ends up aggravating certain people and making them dislike the whole fandom.

And personally I dont usually read prologues or expanded universe novellas to games because the writers they hire for them are (in my experience) almost always garbage and I prefer getting a games story communicated to me through the medium of a game, and i'll always assume the game is capable of that unless it actually tells me otherwise. And since it's a prologue, you have no reason to be excited about having more content because you haven't even played the main game yet.

Again, its fine that this method worked well in your case, but what people are taking issue with is you characterizing anyone who it didnt work for as "annoying" and not true fans because they dont drink the kool aid from Squares mistakes.