We need to talk about how we talk about stories

I have to disagree quite strongly with the idea that the problem doesn’t exist as I’m pretty used to conversations adopting the following pattern taking place.

“I feel this way about this event”
“Well, if you read this obscure book, you’d know that your feeling is wrong. Clearly you don’t know the lore!”

I do know the lore, and I know that the lore isn’t evenly presented, which in turn leads people to feel a certain way about the story, especially when the facts contradict with what’s presented. Those considerations - how the story ultimately makes people feel as opposed to what the strict facts are - frequently overwrite the impact of that canon.

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Okay, well, I won’t deny that’s a pattern that exists. I don’t think it needs to be problematic. Sometimes people’s feelings change with new information, and that might be why people respond that way. Of course it can be abrasive at times, and can devolve into having these ridiculous confrontational tones, but I don’t think it’s always bad. It may or may not motivate people to buy books they’re trying to sell.

I think it effects how we interpret canon facts/events too. But is that really a problem, that we all have these different takes on the story?

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It becomes a problem when it prevents us from asking questions about how the story makes the audience or segments of it feel, which ultimately is the basis upon which people enjoy a story, and therefore is the basis from which it should be judged.

If for instance, the story presents a fan favorite character in a cinematic as a villain with an over-the-top kick-the-dog moment, it wouldn’t make sense to address that concern by saying that the audience is wrong to feel that way because one of the developers tweeted something to clarify the character’s actions a month later. But that kind of thing can and does happen here all the time.

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That one at least has a straight-forward answer: purple eyes = embued with Arcane magic.

When does it do that though? Just because someone’s feelings are challenged with additional context doesn’t mean they are being silenced or something.

Well… if were talking about leaving character motivations up in the air, and letting people argue about them, yeah, that’s annoying. But anytime there is a “kick the dog” moment, sometimes people are going to hate the character for being a cruel dog kicker, while other people will assume, based on what they know or feel about the character, that the dog was aggressive and needed to be put down anyway. The context is pretty important to whether my feelings are right or wrong in this case.

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I’m not saying that anyone is being silenced. I’m simply critiquing the mindset.

Yeah.

I mean, I agree with most of your actual arguments. Every time someone wants to claim “Well actually the lore explained why Y happened,” as if that means Y is above criticism, I kind of want to scream. But at the same time “emotional impact” is an awfully fuzzy way to describe anything. Having a more detailed framework for describing the emotional logic of the game would be really useful, which is what it seems like you’re giving us.

I guess I only felt frustrated enough to post at all (not something I do often) because it seemed like a really interesting idea was being sidetracked by a fixation on the exact weight we should give to the PhD at the end of someone’s name, which seemed unproductive. But you’re right that keeping discussions productive is hard regardless.

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Who is preventing you from asking questions about how the story makes you feel?

If for instance, the story presents a fan favorite character in a cinematic as a villain with an over-the-top kick-the-dog moment

Can you be more specific? give in-game examples of this? It’s really hard to understand what specifically you are saying when all you say is generalizations and unspecific examples.

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I think what it means, is that if you’re always immediately challenging people’s feelings with lore facts, then it prevents you from asking questions about other people’s feelings.

We are supposed to care about people’s reactions to the story, and not be dismissive of their feelings, because the story was written specifically for them to react to it in an emotional way- even if there is story progression that changes or reveals facts that would invalidate, mitigate, or make their reactions seem foolish.

Essentially, this is the most elaborate way conceivable to ask people to be more sensitive others’ feelings… which is almost so hilarious that it warrants consideration.

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No, the example was intentionally generic and limited to communicate the point.

I have to dispute this somewhat. This isn’t about how sensitivity to other commentators, this is about that commentary’s ability to engage with all of the elements of a story that matter to the audience as opposed to a simple accounting of what is canon. The canon-only perspective misses things like the emotions that the story intends to get its audience to feel, how effectively or ineffectively it uses its medium, and whether it serves its intended purpose.

Obviously the Alliance one because their dialogue is what the Alliance hear in person as opposed to what someone from the Horde ‘recounted’.

I am not one bit kidding when I believe stuff like this is why I believe the Horde, not the original Horde, but the current Horde to be one of the most evil groups in all of fiction, not just in videogames but above and beyond other evil groups in Wow, the Legion, the Scourge, whatever.

Only the Horde can commit multiple genocides and go, “Yeah actually we’re the victims here”

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Oh, well… I think if it mattered that much to the audience, then the audience would discuss it. It’s also a lot easier to discuss what happens in the story than to try and decipher authorial intent, unless you have the author come out and say what they were trying to do.

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It’s a spectrum.

There are three axis to any game:

  1. Gameplay
  2. Story
  3. Take-away

The issue is each gamer “requires” a different percent to each axis. I care about gameplay, story, and how I feel equally.

Most of the playerbase I’d wager care more about the gameplay than the story. Way more. 4x more.

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Sometimes different audience members respond differently to those elements, though. I remember someone doing a detailed analysis of the presentation of the Genn-vs-Sylvanas fight in Stormheim a while back. That person’s thesis was that Genn was unambiguously presented as the hero through music and other cues. Horde players, however, said that what the OP (an Alliance player) heard as heroic music was to them just “Alliance” music, which from their point of view did not equate to “hero.”

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It being a spectrum is something that commentators tend to ignore in favor of an implied belief that people only play the game for one factor primarily, and that it makes sense to sift people into different buckets rather than seeing the problem from the perspective of what increases or decreases in the respective weights would do to total enjoyment across the playerbase. A 25% drop in story quality for instance is going to hit the person with a 10% enjoyment weight and a 50% enjoyment weight, and if the decision to play the game could be expressed as the sum of each of the weights multiplied by their respective quality ratios, we could arrive an an abstract concept of a score to be evaluated against a given player’s assessment of whether buying the game is worth it to them. The result of that is that nearly every decision can be viewed through an attention/retention/attrition perspective.

As for what matters - I have referenced this study in the past, which found that story, graphics, length, and controls were statistically significant important factors, in ascending order.

htt^p://web.csulb.edu/journals/jecr/issues/20083/paper4.pdf

Sure, but I have two reactions to this:

  1. Horde and Alliance players respectively are moved by their faction bias, which has to be considered when we go to evaluate a scene like that. If these forums are any indication, that’s an incredibly strong factor that will cause people to twist themselves into knots in order to defend an interpretation on the basis that it props up their side (which itself is a useful thing to remember).
  2. While there is always going to be some subjectivity in how individual people see and appreciate stories, there are nevertheless general trends which lead to us being able to form predictions on how audiences will react to certain elements, as discussed previously. As mentioned before, we have an entire dictionary of terms like “show don’t tell”, or “Chekov’s gun” that come from years of observation, study, and the consensus that emerged from such.
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Why does that matter more than actual victims? lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM-VUEeWy6M&ab_channel=BellularClips

tldr:

  • WoW revenue fell 61%, back to preshadowlands “normal”
  • Non-China active users fell 41%
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Part of that is to be expected. I’ll be waiting for MAU data to say more, but since Cataclysm at least, there has been this trend of hype and pre-order periods boosting week 1 sales, followed by a precipitous drop-off. In the quarter after BFA’s release for example, WoW lost around 2 mm MAUs.

I think the more troubling trends are long-term, however. Again, future content. Stay tuned.

I wonder if the word “canon” is in that dictionary, and if it will tell you whether or not people will emotionally respond to that.

Sure, but I wouldn’t flip through every page of the dictionary and find only that word.