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Why Don't They Make Fluff Items Less Ridiculous?
Razeekster
Member UncommonPosts: 2,591
Am I the only one who is irked when I see people weilding giant pink lolipops or running around in bathing suites in fantasy MMOs? Not to mention the ridiculous mounts that developers come out with that only serve to make their game less immersive.
Am I really the only one who thinks a cat-unicorn thing is a ridiculous thing to be had?
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Comments
Its a unicorn-cat...thing, with a throne for a saddle. What's not to love?
These are the kind of things that make fantasy games......fantasy. No immersion breaking for me here.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Agreed.
"Why don't they make the stuff they want to sell less appealling to the people that want to buy it?" <-- that's pretty much the question, and it answers itself at that point.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
How does that not ruin immersion? It's fantasy, yes, but there's a line to be drawn. You don't see in works of fantasy literature people riding on big pink bunnies do you?
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That statement seems to indicate you would take issue with a unicorn or pegasus in your fantasy novels, as well. Or are you truly suggesting that a giant bunny is any less fantastical than flying horses and unicorns?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Considering those are in fantasy literatue I have no qualms about a unicorn or a pegasus being in my MMO. Giant pink bunnies however do not.
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Pretty easy really outside of it being rather out-there in design, how off do we see people in the real world take thigns to extremes? I mean so a mage or something went alittle overboard with his growth potion, and feed it to a bunch of rabbits which just changed color or were painted pink. Actually using your mind to find reasons for why somethign is in the game that is based off being fantasy an not real, you can give alot of good or rather plossible reasons for it which do not break immersion. Also most of the settings that have this are actually classified as high fantasy, not your main-stay tolkien middle earth faantasy, as such alot more can be done that fits as there is no limits really in that style of setting.
Here's something interesting that a lot of people usually seem to neglect in these arguments.
In the fantasy genre, really anything can be acceptable. You can create a whimsical world with giant pink bunnies, or a serious world with gritty political deception.
BUT, in an INDIVIDUAL FANTASY WORLD, anything does NOT go. It is absolutely imperative that any fantasy world remains internally consistent. For example, there should definitely not be a giant pink bunny in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. BUT there can be a giant pink bunny in a kawaii anime fantasy.
So what you can't really make a general statement that fluff items are ridiculous...instead you need to ask if the fluff item in question breaks the internal consistency of the world it is in.
And honestly, if we're talking about WoW here...this is a world with drunken panda kung-fu masters...I don't really think a big bunny rabbit is too out of place there
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Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
And what about adding motorcycle's to fantasy MMOs? And ridiculous wear like bathing suites? Sorry but I do believe there is a limit.
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I'm just worried as to what they'll add into the cash shop for Game of Thrones, considering it's going to be F2P and run by Bigpoint.
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Whether it's immersion breaking depends on what's already in the game. If there are already cat-unicorns like the first picture in the game, selling something like that bunny isn't all that bad. If you take a game that has more serious tone, it would certainly break immersion.
Think of it like high fantasy vs. low fantasy. A pink buny with ears the size of wings would certainly be wrong in Game of Thrones, but in D&D, there are stranger creatures. And the cat-unicorn wouldn't attract much attention in LotR.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
So a creature has to be from pre-establish mythos and bestiaries otherwise it is immersion breaking for you?
It just seems a really odd stance to hold considering you've created threads in the past that ask for the exact opposite.
Is it at all possible that you simply just don't like fantasy, and much rather sci-fi or steampunk? From your previous threads and posts, it seems like you're just looking in the wrong genre for what you want and that's why you consider it immersion-breaking.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Ancient times were full of garish colours - it's just that our pop-culture perceptions have been tainted by the thousand-plus years of pigment fading (or even the complete loss of paint layers) on suviving artifacts.
I actually tend to see the rediculous as true to the nature of what people would really try to create or tame if they found themselves in a fantasy universe full of magic and exotic creatures.
Considering tht in many with such thigns like motorcycles and such there is a reasoning behind it like being powered by magic, or such. Just because you havee set limits on what you see as being acceptable in fantasy, does not in anyway mean that a creator or developement team of a setting or game has to actually actually agree with you. This is more an issue of you being too crtical of what you think is acceptable, than it is anythign being immersion breaking acrross the board. Also most of the games out there are about making money, not about making immersion as such if somehting makes money, it will not matter at all if it is immersion breaking. i would also remind most of these games with these items are well for enterianment, and so these type of over the top whismical styles of items an such are very much int he spirit of the setting an game.
Excellent point, Creslin321.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
That asks for fantasy races that already exist in fantasy lore and literature. Please don't use links in a misguided way.
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There are no limits so long as they fit the style of the world that its author has created. Steampunk motorcycles are actually pretty popular in a lot of fantasy works...
Now, if you are basically saying that you prefer a more "traditional" medieval high fantasy world, then that's a perfectly valid thing to say. But I guess you just have to realize that not many fantasy worlds actually conform to that ideal nowadays.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I agree to you to an extant (besides the cat-unicorn ever being allowed in LotR considering this is a well established IP and no where in the books was there unicorn-cat mounts).
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QFT. Internal consistency is incredibly important for any story / fantasy world. Throwing a pink bunny into A Song of Ice and Fire would be tantamount to allowing your plotline jump the shark... or like nuking the fridge... or whatever you want to call it.
fluff items need to fit into the world that's created first and foremost. One of the reasons i won't return to Aion ever is the stupid squely pets, that are designed completely out of place, chainsaws, lollipops... it's not consistent with the original world design.
Seeing boxing gloves and sunglasses in the GW2 store had me shiver in horror. I truly hope most of the players have enough sense of immersion to not buy this crap. Yes, it's fantasy, and sunglasses are eay enough to ignore, but these things is where it starts. Soon enough there will be bunny costumes, lolipop greatswords, bathroom slippers and who knows what some brilliant dev on a hangover will think of next. This is the only thing i see that is likely to kill the game for me.
In short: Fluff is great, as long as it's appropriate within the world physics, aestatics, and lore
I don't really think you know what Steampunk is, but besides that, yes, I'll agree with you, WoW is one of the MMOs where this doesn't really ruin it.
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This bothered me in Guild Wars 2 also because I want to have my main server on the role playing server, and such items would totally ruin any role playing to be had.
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Actually yes i do as i was more making refrance to gnomes being much more of a sci-fi feel to there style, and cities (even the Dranei an Narru are further into this style of looking more sci-fi with fantasy quirks to them.). Where as dwarves are slightly less high-tech styled, and use a style that melds steam power powered technology with a feel of still being somewhat in the midevil setting. Even looking at their vechicles you see they use alot of steam powered ones, as well as having much more low-tech feel to thier items like having clockwork based robotics in some arts. Each race kinda takes one styles an then is fashioned around that idea, like with trolls being very much triblal an vodoo styled.
Steam powered technology is run by steam. Their vehicles are not run with steam power.
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