Poll: Historical Inaccuracies in Games

[Roman Monaghan]

As long as my suspension of disbelief is intact. One of the things that woulda pissed me off about AC3 was if they had omitted mention of slaves, and the founding fathers owning them, but I was actually satisfied that they were fairly true to details on that front. I especially love Shaun, who is constantly being like "the shit they teach you Americans in history class is rubbish." Which is true, it is x3

But yeah, it's the minor details that cause our disbelief to fall, not the big things. I was invested in Red Dead, but dude, you can just casually glance at Blazing Saddles and know they used the N word a fuckton back then, but at the same time you can understand. So the question is more historical accuracy vs marketability.

 

[Something Amyss]

I get that Black Ops is partially alternate-history and I accept that, but in interviews the developers and producers alluded to their "research" and how in real life the special forces depicted in the game would have had access to those anachronistic weapons (not true).

A real shame too, because there were real, interesting experimental weapons used by special forces in the 60s, I have a book that mentions some of them.

Am I remembering wrong, or was COD BLOPS the one where one of their "experts" was outed as a fraud, anyway?

"I'm not Spec Ops, but I play one when looking for employment!"

Is he 100% sure they are called torpedoes? 'cos they looked like early sea mines to me.

Mines, including land mines were sometimes called torpedoes, but did not replace the term.

 

[FalloutJack]

No, because if a game was built specifically to be educational, then there wouldn't be any inaccuracies. Being of an entertainment venue, it's not high on the list of priorities and I don't care.

 

[RufusMcLaser]

It depends on the game. If it's a sim or "crunchy" historical strategy game, I expect more than lip-service paid to realism. I recognize that certain concessions have to be made for playability (OP's case of mines vs. torpedoes, for instance) but what the game presents itself as or actually tries to accomplish plays a role as well. An arcade-y game gets to play fast and loose with "reality" for purposes of action-based fun. I hold a more realistic game to a different standard because the realism is part of the fun. For instance, in Arma2 I shouldn't be able to knock an M1A2 out with a single RPG-7 shot to the frontal armor, and lo and behold- I can't. That's okay. On the other hand I didn't mind that the various CoD games are rife with errors, because they're not really trying to tell a realistic story. Different standards for different items.

 

[chadachada123]

Your 4 options are really only two, and they kinda make anyone who care' about history seem like prick, it's not that black and white. As a History BA I love to see accuracy, but it isn't everything, gameplay is. Sometimes historical inspiration is enough, not every game is Total War, or has to be.

I've got another Ass Creed 3 example, at least from what I can tell. During the 1700s, there would have been no difference in dialect between the British colonists and the British soldiers or British citizens. It was only after the Revolutionary War that the aristocratic tone became the norm for British citizens while the now-Americans continued to speak what is now called American-English (specifically, most likely Midwestern American English), which at the time was just the "normal" speaking voice.

Basically, giving British accents to any colonial-era people, be they Colonists or Loyalist, is inaccurate, and gameplay footage I've seen of AC3 seems to do this. This bothers me a good deal.

May be the vodka but I'm not quite following you here, you seem to indicate that everyone should sound "British" in that first paragraph, and then that no-one should.

The studies I've done of the Revolution focused more on how much Daniel Morgan's Rangers kicked ass than on dialog, but following either of your arguments; class and birth would be a far more significant factor in how a person sounded during the Revolution.

During colonial times, the common English person spoke a dialect that sounded like modern American English, and the aristocracy spoke "fancy" sophisticated English. After the revolutionary war, "fancy" English became the norm in Britain (and went through more changes over the centuries, like the dropping of the H sound in most words) while regular English became the norm in the US.

So the majority of people in AC3 should sound like modern Midwesterners, since that is what British people sounded like in the 1700s. Even people using aristocratic dialects should sound sophisticated and not saying things like "AY WOT," which wasn't spoken until after the American/British English split.

According to the research I've looked at. I can look up the sources if you wish. I hope I'm making more sense now.

 

[Murderiser]

That doesn't make any sense. Why would people in England consciously drop their old accents while the colonials continued to sound like they always used to?

 

[Pharsalus]

snip

That is much more clear, thanks.

 

[Legion]

Other:

If the game is trying to be historically accurate, as in the game is designed to be as such. Then I'd say a certain level of research should be done to make it accurate.

Considering that Assassins Creed prefers a more ridiculous approach to historical events, I'd say that inaccuracies are not really an issue. Bearing in mind that the guns in Ezio's time were actually better than the ones in AC3, accuracy really should be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

[Dalisclock]

For the most part, the only thing that bugs me is WWII shooters that make it seem like America turned up and saved the day with no help what so ever. The only game that ever acknowledged the part Britain and Russia played was Call of Duty: Finest Hour.

Or COD and COD 2 for that matter. Each of which allowed you to play a full-fledged campaign as the British, Americans and Russians.

 

[Cyrus Hanley]

I get that Black Ops is partially alternate-history and I accept that, but in interviews the developers and producers alluded to their "research" and how in real life the special forces depicted in the game would have had access to those anachronistic weapons (not true).

A real shame too, because there were real, interesting experimental weapons used by special forces in the 60s, I have a book that mentions some of them.

Am I remembering wrong, or was COD BLOPS the one where one of their "experts" was outed as a fraud, anyway?

"I'm not Spec Ops, but I play one when looking for employment!"

I think you're thinking of Robert Daly and Deadliest Warrior [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113620-Studio-Head-Quits-Over-Exaggerated-Military-Claim].

Black Ops did use a few experts though (including a real Vietnam War veteran who was in MACV-SOG), which is why it's so frustrating to see the anachronisms in the game. Like they listened to them only when it was convenient (like programming enemy AI tactics) and then just fudged everything else.

 

[Dalisclock]

1.) Aircraft Carriers don't launch planes while motionless(they have to turn into the wind to do so) and certaintly wouldn't be doing it that close to land where there's no room to move around.

Wait, what... really? I thought they only did that for form these days and that you can still launch craft irrespective of sailing direction as catapults/engines are powerful enough for it.

Without sufficent wind to launch, the carrier has to make it's own, pretty much by increasing speed to achieve the same effect. So yeah, the carrier can speed up to 35+ knots to launch planes......but if there is any wind they are going to be sailing towards it to take advantage. Catapults help but can't generate sufficent power. Mostly they're used because modern jets are rather heavy and even if using the entire flight deck space, there's not enough room to pick up speed. Carriers are rather short compared to land-based military runways.

Which is why I complained about the carrier just sitting there in the hudson, which is a really bad place to launch from because no captain in his right mind is going to have the ship make high speed maneuvers in a crowded shipping channel such as the hudson river. Not to mention the possibly of running aground.

 

[Souplex]

Yet your roommate wasn't bothered by the fact that guns can be reloaded in less than two minutes?

 

[chadachada123]

That doesn't make any sense. Why would people in England consciously drop their old accents while the colonials continued to sound like they always used to?

It wasn't a conscious choice, and it's also a fairly common phenomenon.

Imagine a modern-day Southerner (large) family moving to another land. Once they no longer have constant contact with the Southern US, any changes in language that the Southern US has won't be reflected in this family. In fact, the family will tend to change very little compared to the parent dialect (the Southern US). Edit: This is change over decades/centuries. Split these two groups up, and over a hundred years the family will (generally) sound more like the original than the Southern US.

I'm a little drunk right now, so I hope this came out clearly.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Without sufficent wind to launch, the carrier has to make it's own, pretty much by increasing speed to achieve the same effect. So yeah, the carrier can speed up to 35+ knots to launch planes......but if there is any wind they are going to be sailing towards it to take advantage. Catapults help but can't generate sufficent power. Mostly they're used because modern jets are rather heavy and even if using the entire flight deck space, there's not enough room to pick up speed. Carriers are rather short compared to land-based military runways.

Which is why I complained about the carrier just sitting there in the hudson, which is a really bad place to launch from because no captain in his right mind is going to have the ship make high speed maneuvers in a crowded shipping channel such as the hudson river. Not to mention the possibly of running aground.

Ah, I see... I stand enlightened. I suppose the relative power output to weight ratio (wrt take-off speed) hasn't increased that much since the first days of the carrier then...

Still, regarding a carrier in the Hudson, reminded me of one of the first missions in CoD:MW3, oh yes, the bastion of accuracy in gaming, but the amount of naval traffic there from both sides, no less, was just all levels of dumb & 'uh-doi' on the part of IW (as if the rest of it wasn't, of course)... -_-

 

[Ljs1121]

It depends. If it's a game that claims to be 100% historically accurate but screws up, I'll probably be pretty unforgiving. On the other hand, historical inaccuracy doesn't really matter to me if the game never even tries to be correct.

It's all in the context.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

It doesn't really bother me unless its something extremely stupid. Like the pyramids being built two decades ago by the Dutch. I can safely say that would piss me off.

 

[Mr.PlanetEater]

Depends on the context. If the historical accuracy is going to make the game a chore to play--I.E. guns taking forever and a day to reload, and you either die of cholera when you're 25 or get shot, have your arm amputated and die of gangrene.--then it can kindly go fuck itself

If however, the accuracy isn't going to affect the game-play, and the game is trying to be historically accurate then yes, inaccuracies annoy me.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Is he 100% sure they are called torpedoes? 'cos they looked like early sea mines to me.

(why would somebody animate that?)

ANYWAY ... not really, mainly 'cos I don't know enough history to know differently. Secondly, I'm not the kind of person to get butt hurt over a tiny detail as to calling a katana a "samurai sword" for example, as long as I get the idea of what they are talking about.

The term 'Torpedo' used to include what we would call a sea mine, it wasn't until 1900 that it was used specifically for the self propelled weapon.

 

[Kimarous]

It all depends on the game, really. Stuff in the Assassin's Creed series is easy to shrug off, given how they deliberately deviate from history as it is. On the other hand, stuff like, say, the Egyptians in "Rome: Total War" is so blatantly WRONG that it tends to take me out of the experience a bit. Fortunately, I never really expand in that particular direction anyway.

 

[Ziame]

The example that made me cringe as fuck was in Empire Total War, were Polish Winged Hussars not only weren't available at starting date (year 1700 - they were going out of use then =_=) and you have to research basically whole tech tree to get them.


Other: Same Winged Hussars, apart from the fact they had inaccurate double wings (it looks awesome, so it's forgiven) instead of lances, have lances. Yeah, it doesn't work in English.

they should have this

and had this =_=

so instead of long lances (similar, not identical, to knights') they had these... spears lol.

anyway, I ain't bothered by Assassin's Creed pseudo-history, or World of Tanks', but 'serious' games like Total War, or Europa Universalis can get on my nerves

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