>In article <95085.041835MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu>,
>Mark "Mark" Sachs <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> wrote:
>[another insightful Legend message]
Thank you. :)
[lots deleted, to get to the main point(s)...]
>One problem that (I believe) Mike Kinyon had with Legend when he tested it
>last year, and that other people commented on recently, was that he felt
>that he played only a tiny role in the outcome --- that his actions were
>largely irrelevant. I can see why this might be disturbing, but it really
>couldn't have been any other way. The story is not about you, ultimately.
>You're just a witness; the real protagonist is JC. You're at best an
>accidental hero. Your individual role must be tiny in such a gigantic
>conflict.
Actually, I don't have a problem with that. (Although one could fashion
an interesting discussion on the topic of the player-as-secondary-character.
After all, one might enjoy watching "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,"
but would one actually want to _be_ Guildenstern?) As long as you, the
player, have tasks to perform that are interesting, fun, and in their
own little way important, it's no biggie if some character somewhere
else is doing the _real_ work.
But consider: if what you're doing on Plast is trivial, then what you do
on Foon is ten times more so. On Foon you play a carnival game; you cook
breakfast (twice); you do a little gardening. Exceedingly trivial things. And
yet that doesn't mean Foon has to be a trivial place. It's a beautiful,
fully realized world, full of wonderful details. If Foon can be such, I
don't see why Plast can't.
Well, maybe Plast can't be _beautiful_ as such... :)
>It does disappoint me that people are having trouble sympathizing with JC.
>The climax is, again, deliberately understated, but I guess I went too far.
>I didn't think that such a monumental event needed any sledgehammer over
>the head explication.
Hmm... wait a minute... Mare and Jax... "child," JC, is born under mysterious
circumstances, is persecuted by the world, gives his life to redeem mankind...
_Ohhhhhhh._
(Seriously, it sailed right over my head until now.)
Although the problem is _not_ that everything needs to be explained in words of
one syllable; it doesn't. It's supposed to take a while before that sinks in.
In criticizing the ending, I'm not speaking to the symbolism aspect, but to
the real-world aspect. If the game ended as you were departing Plast, it
wouldn't matter so much, because that's bare minutes after defeating the
virus. But the ending stretches weeks and possibly months ahead to Jax
and Mare's wedding. In the interim, I can't see how Gavin could avoid hearing
something about what happened as a result of the virus's defeat -- from
Jax, if from nobody else. Having weeks pass raises expectations about that,
and after having spent months researching the Unnkulians I doubt Gavin would
at this point suddenly lose interest.
>>You shoulda beamed into an Akmi starship, connived your way into the Cheez
>>Death Star, and then had an exciting time rescuing JC from security
>>programs and being rescued by JC from traps.
>While I admit that the puzzle aspect of the endgame could have been better
>(the mirror is the worst-tied-in object in the whole thing), the game isn't
>*supposed* to be space opera.
Fair enough; I was only speaking to the puzzle aspect. Again, I don't see
why Plast couldn't be as complex and elaborate as Foon in this respect.
--<*> mbs110@psuvm.psu.edu: Mark Sachs, Itinerant Graphicist and Webmaster <*> I've gone to build the Supercollider. "Fraid so infinity!" "Fraid not infinity plus one!" "D'oh!"