Comments on: When Fanboys Attack!

By: Nat

Nat — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:46:33 +0000

Oh, wow. That Skeletor article is terrifying.

It never ceases to amaze me that weird geek-culture trivia like this has way deeper coverage on Wikipedia than pretty much anything actually, y’know, useful does.

By: Mike Collins

Mike Collins — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:38:06 +0000

Pete, I'm betting that somewhere, someone has written just the article you're looking for on Super Mario Brothers 2. But I'm fat and lazy and have a Balboa to cook. That said, this is a universally fannish behavior: part of it is just that geeky male need to categorize and systematize everything, part of it is a way to rationalize one's time-wasting hobbies as not only meaningful, but correct in some presumably objective fashion, and part of it is just what happens when a bunch of people spend their time arguing about this stuff without an outside perspective to suggest a vacation may be in order. Among some of the more fun versions of this I've seen have been the argument over whether the anime "Aa! Megami-sama!" should be translated as "Aah! My Goddess" or "Oh! My Goddess", a very brief boycott of Loreena McKennitt due to suspected Catholicism, and the fascinatingly bizarre Battlestar Galactica old guard who believe that BG:90210 is a communist conspiracy to smear the good name of the late 70's space disco. Playing armchair psychologist, what interests me about these fights is that it's not an argument about opinion, it's more of a need to demonstrate that something is -objectively- correct, as if adherence to a marketing category was an insight into universal truth. You find this a lot on wikipedia, in particular any description of anything pop-cultural which includes a statement like "some fans", or "the fan community" or "most fans". It's almost a nonstop ride after that into some feverish in-depth speculation on something very very silly. My personal favorite being the awe-inspiring majesty of the Skeletor Article, which among its (many) highlights includes this description: Langella's Skeletor was given a depth that had been absent from all prior interpretations. Perhaps the best glimpse given into the villain's psyche occurs when he is torturing a captive He-Man. Leaning in close to the hero, he inquires "Tell me about the loneliness of Good, He-Man... Is it equal to the loneliness of Evil?" As well as a two page long discussion on whether Skeletor has a neck. I pray to Jehovah, Allah, Zeus and Colonel Sanders that whoever wrote this article did so tongue firmly planted in cheek.

By: Troy Goodfellow

Troy Goodfellow — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 19:10:10 +0000

Grognards sort of fit this pattern too, though they have fewer particular franchises to be fanboys of; mostly they relish the mere fact that any wargames are made at all and so will defend even the most dreary hex-based rendition of the Invasion of France against true gems like Company of Heroes.

One of the hallmarks of this sort of thinking is the religious stance they take in an us versus them manner. Not only are they guardians of what a “proper RPG” is, people who like “proper RPGs” are smarter, more mature and probably better in bed. Anybody who likes Oblivion or real time strategy or Madden is a philistine who has been sucked in by graphics, hype or marketing.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 11:28:44 +0000

Brief Temperament Theory comment… As far as I can ascertain, this sort of obsessive behaviour occurs at the interface between the Guardian and Rational patterns – that is, between Strategic play and Logistical play. This is what one would predict from the psychological model, and on the basis of the work I’ve done in this area, it’s not entirely surprising that cRPGs are the main focus – because this is the key point of intersection between Strategic and Logistical play. Anyway, I don’t have a point, it was just the thoughts that were rattled free from my head upon reading this.

By: vextorspace

vextorspace — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 20:16:47 +0000

I’m sure that is the reaction my fiancee would have too. The only RPG I’ve succeeded in getting her to play was Knights of the Old Republic. Not that I’ve tried very hard because I don’t see the point in pushing her to do something that I know she won’t like.

By: psu

psu — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 18:41:01 +0000

I will admit that my raving about Oblivion may exagerrate its strengths.

All I know is, I tried to play Morrowind and got bored after I walked off the ship.

By: vextorspace

vextorspace — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 16:55:53 +0000

Funny, Chrono trigger and fallout are probably my favorite two rpgs of all time. So I’m only half crazy? And I’ve hated every Ultima I have tried. There is something wrong with your healer not getting any better because he can’t club things on the head well. I won’t deny that I’m a crazy fanboy, but I do protest that all aspects of oblivion were better than most other games. I loved the visuals (except all the old worn ugly people, where are my adolescent fantasy images of buxom young women?). But I get bored with being told everything about a quest as soon as I get the quest. Let me feel like I figured something out. There, how’s that for fanboy? I really need to get a copy of planescape one of these days after all the raving I hear on this site. And I’ll faithfully buy fallout3 and complain that it isn’t like either fallout or daggerfall.

By: Andy P

Andy P — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 08:59:44 +0000

> But try to find a decent single player RPG that didnâ€™t come from Japan.

Ultima. Any of VII through IX, anyway, I’ve not played the others.

By: The Eidolon

The Eidolon — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:20:40 +0000

Weird–the combats in Fallout always went very quickly for me. Start a combat and your character should be dead within a couple rounds.

Old RPG’s do tend to have clunky interfaces, but many of them have virtues that are not easily reproduced, which is why I can still play a game like Dungeon Master or Fallout of Baldur’s Gate 2 even after all these years.

As for inventory management, for some reason people like me don’t mind wasting hours deciding which items to keep and which aren’t worth the weight. It’s not for the realism–anyone who can swing a sword while carrying 300 pounds of loot is not a realistic human. Maybe it’s something in the DNA of old D&D nerds that there should be a risk to reward trade-off for trying to collect too much loot. Of course, save files make the concept of risk almost meaningless in RPGs anyway–the worst that can happen to you is that you waste time going back the last place you saved…