October 2000
- Interactive Fiction Competition 2000 Aaron Mitchell
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Travis Casey
Tried to send this yesterday, but got an error message back saying:
<EdNote: Did you send it before 23:47 PST? This is actually a fairly
significant/relevatory question>
Sunday, October 15, 2000, 10:29:41 AM, msew <msew@ev1.net> wrote:
> At 09:30 10/06/00 +0000, Matthew Mihaly wrote:
>> In the end, I think while non-epic games certainly have a large
>> audience, epicness will always capture the largest audience over
>> time.
> Yes, epicness, how famous you are, how you saved the world from the
> ultimate destruction are all vital. To a degree.
> The issue is that this gets WAY fricking boring***. On some of the
> muds I have played to maxLevel on I would not even bother going on
> the most recent "save the world quest" because it was boring to me.
> And I would watch like the 2nd or 3rd tier players attempt to fight
> the uber bad guy and just get whacked. And my guild/friends and I
> would just sit there laughing to ourselves thinking: "I wonder what
> great NPC hero the gods will bring in this time to beat the uber
> evil overlord this time." In EQ the epicness of going to kill the
> gods or dragons has totally lost it's glimmer and those mobs are
> just viewed the same as a kobold for me; set up shop and whack them,
> loot corpse, NEXT!
> If you had to watch star wars EVERY week on TV you would get bored
> with it very quickly. Now compare that to the various sitcoms:
> simpsons and seinfled are a key example that another reader
> (jszeder@roshambo.net ) brought up. They are funny not so much for
> what the end result of the conflict is but HOW they overcome the
> conflict and how the characters react in the face of the conflict.
I think you're taking too narrow a view of what an "epic" is, and,
further, that most of the games you're talking about aren't truly
epic. This is going to take a bit of explaining, and I tend to wander
anyways, so be patient with this message. :-)
First off, let's tackle a few things that are not "epic" in and of
themselves:
Epic isn't just high-powered. The fact that characters fight
demons, gods, or dragons doesn't make a game epic.
Saving the world doesn't make an epic; you can have epics in which
the goal is not to "save the world" and you can have stories in
which people save the world that are not epic.
Let's consider some things that are epics: The Epic of Gilgamesh. The
Iliad. The Odyssey. Beowulf. None of these are about saving the
world. All of them feature powerful heroes, yes, but they also have
considerable stretches where the heroes aren't killing dragons and
such. Some of them even have portions where the heroes have to get
through by guile or strategy rather than through combat.
Note as well that all of these are long-term stories -- not "we
discovered the threat and two months later, we defeated it." All of
them feature multiple episodes, over a span ranging from a year or so
to twenty years or more.
A true epic is suited to long-term use -- indeed, if a story is over
and done with quickly, then it's *not* an epic. The original Star
Wars is not an epic, but the Star Wars trilogy is. Epics can hold out
over the long term and be suitable for television series -- for
example, Babylon 5 was consciously planned as an epic series spanning
five TV seasons. The TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer could be
considered an epic; each "monster of the season" is an episode within
the epic, and those "episodes" are further subdivided into the
episodes of a TV season.
The things that truly defines an "epic" are that it takes place over a
considerable period of time, and that it is of larger-than-life scale.
Nothing confines epics to things like saving the world, and, for that
matter, nothing confines them to adventuring, fantasy, or SF -- you
can have an epic love story, an epic war story, or an epic western.
There are epic prison movies, epic survival novels, epic TV romances,
epic horror novels, and epic histories.
In some parts of your message, it seems like you're getting at the
same thing that I'm trying to get at here -- that nothing says that
you have to fight things or save the world to have an interesting,
meaningful story.
I think people have gotten too caught up in the trappings of certain
epics and have forgotten that it's not the trappings that make those
stories epic -- it's the *story*.
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efindel@earthlink.net>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
- trade skill idea Travis Casey
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Zak Jarvis
- trade skill idea John Buehler
- trade skill idea Dave Rickey
- trade skill idea Zak Jarvis
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Mordengaard
- trade skill idea Richard Tew
- trade skill idea Val Trullinger
- trade skill idea Phillip Lenhardt
- trade skill idea John Buehler
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Wes Connell
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea Brad Wyble
- trade skill idea Vincent Archer
- trade skill idea Jeff Freeman
- trade skill idea Corey Crawford
- trade skill idea Yves K
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Tamzen Cannoy
- trade skill idea Robert Zubek
- trade skill idea Patrick Dughi
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea Brian 'Psychochild' Green
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea Josh Olson
- trade skill idea Matthew Mihaly
- trade skill idea Koster, Raph
- trade skill idea msew
- trade skill idea Batir
- trade skill idea Arabis2000@aol.com
- Open Source 3D Interactive World Server Ian Macintosh
- Reactive keyboard J C Lawrence
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #243 - 14 msgs Dr. Cat
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Ananda Dawnsinger
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Madman Across the Water
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? sverre@munthe.net
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Jeff Freeman
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Matthew Mihaly
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Marc Bowden
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Ananda Dawnsinger
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Zak Jarvis
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Madman Across the Water
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Vincent Archer
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Dave Rickey
- Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Ananda Dawnsinger
- Mud / Web Integeration Lee Hulbert
- Mud / Web Integeration Wes Connell
- Mud / Web Integeration Bruce
- Mud / Web Integeration Bruce
- Mud / Web Integeration KevinL
- Mud / Web Integeration msew
- Mud / Web Integeration msew
- Mud / Web Integeration Richard Tew
- Mud / Web Integeration Nathan F. Yospe
- Declaration of the Rights of Avatars sverre@munthe.net
- Declaration of the Rights of Avatars Matthew Mihaly
- Declaration of the Rights of Avatars Justin Rogers
- Declaration of the Rights of Avatars Andy
- OT: Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Brian 'Psychochild' Green
- OT: Banning Players for Off-Site Activities? Ananda Dawnsinger
- Grandmaster Nuclear Safety Technicion or Grandmaster Warrior ( was John Szeder
- Alternate Means of EQUAL Enjoyment (formerly trade skill idea) Geoffrey MacDougall
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Richard Tew
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Zak Jarvis
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Inq Admin
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Richard Tew
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Matthew Mihaly
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Koster, Raph
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Richard Tew
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Matthew Mihaly
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Richard Tew
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Inq Admin
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain William McCarroll
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Matthew Mihaly
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Mordengaard
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Justin Rogers
- Realistic travel times/virtual terrain Matthew Mihaly
- Grandmaster Nuclear Safety Technicion or Grandmaster Willowreed@aol.com
- [world-create] Progressive Aristocracy (fwd) J C Lawrence
- [world-create] Progressive Aristocracy (fwd) Matthew Mihaly
- VRML Richard Tew
- Admin: System outage J C Lawrence
- absolute vs. relative coords KevinL
- absolute vs. relative coords Inq Admin
- absolute vs. relative coords Nathan F. Yospe
- ADMIN: More troubles I'm afraid, and the details of the recovery. J C Lawrence
- integrated character webpages ala Black and White creature pages msew
- integrated character webpages ala Black and White creature pages msew
- Admin: Kang.Nu troubles J C Lawrence
- Admin: Kanga.Nu troubles... J C Lawrence
- travel times (commercial/graphical vs grassroots/text) Fredfish {E. Harper}
- travel times (commercial/graphical vs grassroots/text) the_logos@www.achaea.com
- Admin: We're back in business J C Lawrence
- Triangular Damage Infliction System Ben
- Triangular Damage Infliction System Ben Chambers
- Triangular Damage Infliction System Travis Casey
- Fwd: absolute vs. relative coords Nathan F.Yospe
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Christopher Allen
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Chris Lloyd
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? tanis@mediacom.it
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Christopher Allen
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Federico Di Gregorio
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Christopher Allen
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Frank Crowell
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Frank Crowell
- Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos? Christopher Allen