The 2011 Remake

[aandyen]

(Actually, now that I think about it, this icon is appropriate for VL.)

So I've been reading a ton of posts related to VL:R's announcement, and pretty much all of them have been either "meh, I'll app a nonsense character" or "this is a terrible thing." And, again, pretty much all of them have been focused on the same point: that this is not the old

Comments

[remliel]

I have been kind of confused about the response as well. The sheer volume of 'not sure if want' baffles me.

[litagemini]

To say this as nice as possible, it seems like you're totally all for it/white knighting the idea purely because Gameshark is still in theme.

[sewa]

It seem a vent thing to me but yeah I get this impression too

[remliel]

I'm for it because I like video games and I am interested in seeing a new take on the theme. Do I want to app Gameshark? Hell yes, I won't make any bones about it, there is a definate attraction there. However, it's not Travis Cross as Gameshark. Gameshark is just an easily accessible name for me to grip back onto. If it wasn't Gameshark, I'd probably app someone from Fallout or City of Heroes (If the latter is appable).

It's like someone being excited because they liked playing Megatron and a new TF place is announced.

[unclejam]

Because we are hitler. (see icon)

More seriously I think it is a combination of the presentation, and also that in a sense, I suppose, a lot of people didn't just 'finish' a character on VL - they finished... VL. It is unique in MUSHes I know of in that it had a conclusion.Also, essentially everyone has said, if they said anything at all regarding 'whether there ought to be a VL,' that even if they're not gonna play there, they wish it well. By contrast, at least one post on that LJ comm seemed to specifically claim their project's right to exist. (I haven't looked back recently

[remliel]

So it seems like a lot of the problem is people are remembering the fairly intense MUSHer drama that had surrounded VL in its later ages which ruined the enjoyment of the core theme?

[unclejam]

They also probably did not have a large amount of engagement with the core theme at all, if by the core theme you mean the specifically "Captain N" elements, i.e. "the Gamemasters."

As such, their memory of Videoland is not necessarily directly related to, "Gosh! CAPTAIN N." It's sort of like how for me, the Mega Man parts of M3's theme historically were almost irrelevant, sometimes actual hindrances, to what I enjoyed about the game.

[unclejam]

Another way to express this is that for a lot of people, I imagine their approach to the game was:

Aha, a videogame character multitheme with a little regulation. ((If not in those terms, as we were not there in the discourse yet.)) Neat. Oh hey, I remember that cartoon.

Not:

You know what I love? Captain N: The Game Master, the NBC cartoon from '89 to '91. I really want to play on a game based on that

[sewa]

I don't think the response is very confusing at all. As Tom says below, most folks, well, finished VL. Can more be done with the theme? Sure. Is it what the staff seems to want to do with it? Doesn't seem to be.

I don't think the only issue is not wanting to pick up old characters--that's just one issue! In fact, for me, that's not really an issue because, well, I'd pick up new ones anyway. The big thing a new VL would do for me is the chance to play characters I couldn't play during the initial run. It's still an issue! But hardly the only one.

I think this post kind of ignores that this is simply one quality of the 'meh VL' posts--maybe I can see more of them but Tom does a pretty good job of summarizing the other points brought up, not including the one where some people simply think the staff involved would be terrible at the job.

I mean that is a thing.

[sewa]

Here's a list of issues I've seen in posts or pages, mostly the former.

1) staff quality
2) theme quality
3) strange theme choices
4) political doublespeak from staff
5) disregard/contempt of criticism, including vent crew white kniting
6) presence of gamemasters/oc gamemasters and/or their existence as facheads
7) going public this early
8) nepotism
9) few vl players on staff
10) sinistar

Some of these are naturally unfair, but they do exist.

[degraine]

This list has and continues to baffle me. It's also contradictory, but I suspect that's your point.

[sewa]

Well different people have different issues.

[smiko]

Honestly, a lot of my iffiness has come from not from the fact that it isn't VL 2-I know that, after all, didn't expect it-or that I'm "done" with Videoland, but that I'm not sure I like the material they've presented so far. I know it's very early in, but well, they put it out there presumably before it had enough time in the oven. (I am very unsure about the idea of four Gamemasters preset as the faction leaders, for instance. That's tied into the problems a lot of people had with the Gamemasters to begin with, that they were basically OFCs designed to have power and prestige Just Because.)

Obviously the game will change a lot between now and when it opens, so I'll have an open mind.

[remliel]

I honestly don't get the problem with Gamemasters. Maybe it's carryover from some of the players of old VL, but I'd like to think that I was enjoyable to RP with in my portrayal of Gameshark. At least, no one complained to me about it (usual caveat of general MUSHer avoidance issues here).

So you have Captain N if we're going with Videoland as a theme. Why should the Palace group (whether minifaction or not) have this guy that is basically an overall heavy advantage? Where is the rival? There's no narrative balance. Link has Ganon. Mega Man has Bass. Captain N should have parallels, especially since gaming had evolved far beyond just Nintendo since the 80s (and the setting evolved beyond a terrible attempt at marketing Nintendo products).

[snotman]

For the record you were super fun to play with, and I never had any problem with you rolling around as Gameshark.

And while I never had much problem with Gamemasters overall, I think the "heavy advantage" bit is precisely the thing. You have these characters who are combat and, perhaps more importantly, story powerhouses simply on virtue of Being Theme-Centric EFCs. That adds a feeling of futility, real or imagined, to playing, say, Liquid Snake or Smithy but knowing that literally no matter what you do, you'll never be as cool as Captain X, simply because you apped the wrong guy.

But in general I think you could just turn this into general grumbling about EFCs. We're seeing less and less of those in more recent games, too, or maybe that's just me.

[remliel]

OK, I can totally grok that. I'm trying to think of how to reconcile that with my purely selfish desires to play another chaos agent named Gameshark on the new place. Maybe I can run it by Kerian and Binary and see if those guys have ideas.

[snotman]

I can understand the reticence of some to play on a new game based on the same framework as an old one they have fond, nostalgic memories of, but I can't understand why it would be caused by a single character.

That might be the thing, I think. People have who have far fonder memories of the good times they've had with their characters, than interfacing with the greater theme. It might be mostly a semantic difference to you, but I think it makes a large difference to some.

Right now my current plan is to give the game a chance when it opens. I'm just wary because I feel, right now, that there are going to be (and already are!) games I'm confident that I'd get greater returns investing time and energy on. I had good times on VL but I crave variety, and so far I simply haven't seen anything I feel is worth getting super excited about.