Vindicated by History

[eclipse]

Just now, AvatarofDiscord said:

Can you tell the story for Avvy then, I wanna hear this 🙂

And why do you want me to gossip about other members?  I don't think that's a healthy thing to do without their consent.

[AvatarofDiscord]

Just now, eclipse said:

And why do you want me to gossip about other members?  I don't think that's a healthy thing to do without their consent.

Not gossip, I want to hear what really happened involving the dude cause it sounds like it's a fun story.

[Armchair General]

3 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Speaking of Fates having been ambitious; ambition has often been the enemy of the FE series; hasn't it? I'm not saying the series shouldn't strive to do new things; obviously they should, but it's interesting just how often the series tends to bite off more than it can chew when it decides to be ambitious

 

Between Fates and 3H, the thing what the devs are getting wrong is the plot. Since 3H has several loose ends and missed opportunities that DLC doesn't try to rectify and Fates runs the problem of having the only route that explains everything becoming another case of euthanizing the beloved dragon god.

[eclipse]

13 minutes ago, AvatarofDiscord said:

Not gossip, I want to hear what really happened involving the dude cause it sounds like it's a fun story.

You're free to read back on the Unpopular Opinion thread on your own.

[AnonymousSpeed]

25 minutes ago, eclipse said:

And you are wrong.  It would be accurate to say that Ottservia hasn't been back since then.  If you aren't sure about what happened to someone, say you're not sure, because bullshit like this doesn't help.  Or better yet, ping me, and I might explain it (depending on the context of the situation and all).

I'm sorry, I thought he was banned, since he said he was on his twitter (this is not an endorsement of his twitter, by the way) and Serenes Forest doesn't have an indicator for banned users, at least not as far as I can tell. I've made a thread in Member Feedback in the hopes of preventing such mistakes in the future.

[eclipse]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'm sorry, I thought he was banned, since he said he was on his twitter (this is not an endorsement of his twitter, by the way) and Serenes Forest doesn't have an indicator for banned users, at least not as far as I can tell. I've made a thread in Member Feedback in the hopes of preventing such mistakes in the future.

That's his fault for not reading what I wrote in his warning, though I shouldn't be surprised since he wasn't reading what I wrote in the Unpopular Opinion thread.  But that also means he probably won't be back, which is fine by me if he's not gonna read what others write.

For future reference, warnings will tell you what you were warned for, how many points you got, a comment by whoever warned you, and if there's any sort of suspension, it'll tell you for how long.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Indeed. I know I have already said what I wanted to say about Fates many times.

Speaking of Fates having been ambitious; ambition has often been the enemy of the FE series; hasn't it? I'm not saying the series shouldn't strive to do new things; obviously they should, but it's interesting just how often the series tends to bite off more than it can chew when it decides to be ambitious. I hope that, for the next FE game, they find a way to do something creative without overreaching in their ambition; Path of Radiance comes to mind in that regard.

Radiant Dawn managed to be very ambitious and succeeded quite well imo. It's still not a perfect story, Micaiah getting side lined kind of sucks and the big epic Part 4 they were going for involved some contrivance to tie up other lose ends that kind of should have been addressed first, but all in all Radiant Dawn does manage to succeed at being the large epic story it wants to be.

8 hours ago, AvatarofDiscord said:

To be fair, the Bible has been used for Archeology and has scholars talking about the shocking accurate history it gets right

I wouldn't say shockingly accurate. It is a historical chronicle, so there is of course a lot of accurate history in there, but there's also stuff that is just way off the mark (at least based on are current knowledge of history).

Edited February 21, 2022 by Jotari

[AvatarofDiscord]

11 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I wouldn't say shockingly accurate. It is a historical chronicle, so there is of course a lot of accurate history in there, but there's also stuff that is just way off the mark (at least based on are current knowledge of history).

What would you say is way off the mark?

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, AvatarofDiscord said:

What would you say is way off the mark?

Well obviously everything in Genesis, which the Bible presents as genuine history. Aside from that, the most famous one is that the Moses story is either completely untrue or extremely exaggerated. Such a mass migration of slaves would have had massive repercussions on the Egyptian economy and such an event would have been recorded by the Egyptians. More recently scholastic opinions have shifted to the belief that the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel actually started as separate nations to begin with that only mixed their mythologies due to an influx of refugees. What the Bible does get accurate is valuable given the time frame in which it covers and the scarcity of records in the Bronze age, but it is largely the existence of people groups that fought each other at certain times. Alexander the Great is also kind of (in my opinion) bizarrely absent despite having a pretty big impact on the area. Biblical literalists will reference a prophecy in one of the books that refers to Alexander, and it probably is referencing him, but it was also probably written later than when it was set (ie at the time of Alexander). The Book of Maccabees also has a very brief mention of him but those books are considered noncanon for reasons I'm not that sure of, the Maccabees were a pretty significant historical event for Israel.

...This is obviously way off topic for how Fates is viewed, so I'm not going to say much beyond that.

[AvatarofDiscord]

13 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well obviously everything in Genesis, which the Bible presents as genuine history. Aside from that, the most famous one is that the Moses story is either completely untrue or extremely exaggerated. Such a mass migration of slaves would have had massive repercussions on the Egyptian economy and such an event would have been recorded by the Egyptians. More recently scholastic opinions have shifted to the belief that the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel actually started as separate nations to begin with that only mixed their mythologies due to an influx of refugees. What the Bible does get accurate is valuable given the time frame in which it covers and the scarcity of records in the Bronze age, but it is largely the existence of people groups that fought each other at certain times. Alexander the Great is also kind of (in my opinion) bizarrely absent despite having a pretty big impact on the area. Biblical literalists will reference a prophecy in one of the books that refers to Alexander, and it probably is referencing him, but it was also probably written later than when it was set (ie at the time of Alexander). The Book of Maccabees also has a very brief mention of him but those books are considered noncanon for reasons I'm not that sure of, the Maccabees were a pretty significant historical event for Israel.

...This is obviously way off topic for how Fates is viewed, so I'm not going to say much beyond that.

I'll have to check with some friends who know more about this than I do, but I think I can say a few things about what you said.

1: I think it should be important to note that the Bible is a collection of books, and the collection could have different contexts (Such as Psalms being mostly poetry and songs).

2: I believe that it depends on the interpretation of Genesis, since Young Earth Creationism wasn't on the rise till recently and that an older earth and the Bible wasn't mutually exclusive, heck i've seen people talk about how the global flood could also have been argued to be a regional flood instead.

3: I think it's kind of inaccurate to say that the Egyptians would have recorded an event in history where their Gods effectively got spit on by another God, in fact we see this today with the Japanese where they tend to stay away from talking about World War 2, or anyone who would rather deny an event if it would spare them humiliation, it's why if someone would admit to something that isn't advantageous or an outright negative gain for them to admit, chances are it's accurate. Such an event would have been way embarrassing, but the jew migration i'll have to get back to you on that.

4: On the book of Maccabees "The book is held as canonical scripture by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches (except for the Orthodox Tewahedo), but not by Protestant denominations nor any major branches of Judaism", i'll have to get back to you on that with some friends of mine about the Canonicity of this book, but as far as I know, it depends on the denomination.

 

Also kind is going off topic, who brought up the first comment that started this?

[Etrurian emperor]

On 2/20/2022 at 5:38 AM, AvatarofDiscord said:

"Honestly, with Hana who's mad at you for no reason, Takumi who doesn't trust you, Saizo who doesn't trust you, and Rinkah who's always angry at everyone including you"

I think most of those reinforce Corrin's marry sue traits since all his critics(well, except Takumi in one route) are so obviously in the wrong and in Hana's case quite a scumbag about it. Hana hates Corrin for such petty reasons that Corrin emerges from the conversation all the better. Saizo doesn't trust Corrin which is part of his job but he's also just a grumpybear in general.

 

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, AvatarofDiscord said:

I'll have to check with some friends who know more about this than I do, but I think I can say a few things about what you said.

Okay sure. One more comment. I can't resist. At least history is in the title of this thread. This will be my last word on the matter though.

3 hours ago, AvatarofDiscord said:

 

2: I believe that it depends on the interpretation of Genesis, since Young Earth Creationism wasn't on the rise till recently and that an older earth and the Bible wasn't mutually exclusive, heck i've seen people talk about how the global flood could also have been argued to be a regional flood instead.

Yes, the stories in Genesis are based off of something. Hell we can directly trace the flood story to Mesopotamia (among others). Some one somewhere probably did once go into a city with his wife and pretended she was his sister (that crops up like three different times if i remember correctly). The question is about the historicity of it. Even if we unearth something that matches the description of Noah's arc and find some evidence that there was a floating zoo, that just means there is some truth. It doesn't make it shockingly accurate. It makes it somewhat accurate. Because we have evidence that does disprove the bulk of it. Bible literacy is the only way to take it that also agrees with the word accurate in accurate history, and bible literacy is veryvheavly debunked.

3 hours ago, AvatarofDiscord said:

3: I think it's kind of inaccurate to say that the Egyptians would have recorded an event in history where their Gods effectively got spit on by another God, in fact we see this today with the Japanese where they tend to stay away from talking about World War 2, or anyone who would rather deny an event if it would spare them humiliation, it's why if someone would admit to something that isn't advantageous or an outright negative gain for them to admit, chances are it's accurate. Such an event would have been way embarrassing, but the jew migration i'll have to get back to you on that.

Well the Egyptians did record their defeats. They went through like 30 different dynasties and half a dozen conquests by foreign powers. But even assuming there was a cover up by the Egyptians, it's the scale in which it's mentioned in the bible that makes it impossible because it would have had vast economic impact on their state that would not have been possible to hide. We actually have a fairly good idea of ancient Egyptian history, much more so than any other civilisation from that time. It's possible there was a slave revolt in Egypt with a guy called Moses and there is some truth to the story, but again it's the accurate part of shockingly accurate history that doesn't match, because if it isbtrue it would have been a minor slave revolt. Either way it's not something that us corroborate by any archelogical evidence or with any other records so from a historical point of view it is considered unreliable.

3 hours ago, AvatarofDiscord said:

4: On the book of Maccabees "The book is held as canonical scripture by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches (except for the Orthodox Tewahedo), but not by Protestant denominations nor any major branches of Judaism", i'll have to get back to you on that with some friends of mine about the Canonicity of this book, but as far as I know, it depends on the denomination.

Yeah it's canon to certain sects. This is the most off topic of the off topic though as the book itself probably is somewhat reliable history as the event it covers is pretty well defined in the historic record. I mean, I assume, I haven't actually read it. Maybe it's not about the Maccabees rebellion at all. My point bringing it up though is that its just sort of weird Alexander the Great didn't figure into the bible in any real way despite being around when it was written and kind of being a huge deal. That's not even a commentary on the accuracy or history of it since there is no onus to actually talk about him, I just personally find his absence strange.

And on a last note there are parts of the bible that we know were added centuries after the fact. That's why the Dead Sea Scrolls were so interesting an archaeological find, they showed earlier versions of the same text which gave a clear idea of what was added later, but even without them we have backed up evidence of passages and stories that were not added until centuries later. Most of that (which we have proofs for) is about the new testamount though which is less a historical chronicle and more a biography with some letters.

The bible is a historical source, and a rather good one for its age and location, but shockingit accurate isn't the best description for it. What we know about Roman history is shcokingly accurate, in the fact that we can trace events to the literal day from multiple sources. Even then, with those hugely accurate sources, there's a massive tonne of bias that still has to be sifted through.

[vanguard333]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Radiant Dawn managed to be very ambitious and succeeded quite well imo. It's still not a perfect story, Micaiah getting side lined kind of sucks and the big epic Part 4 they were going for involved some contrivance to tie up other lose ends that kind of should have been addressed first, but all in all Radiant Dawn does manage to succeed at being the large epic story it wants to be.

I agree that Radiant Dawn does succeed overall; perhaps I should've said, "with the exception of Radiant Dawn".

[Etrurian emperor]

I recall that back in the day it was a popular opinion that Radiant Dawn ultimately didn't succeed, with Michy in particular getting quite a lot of bile. 

[vanguard333]

2 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I recall that back in the day it was a popular opinion that Radiant Dawn ultimately didn't succeed, with Michy in particular getting quite a lot of bile. 

Oh; don't get me wrong; you can definitely see the effects of overambition in Radiant Dawn's plot & gameplay: Micaiah getting underutilized, the Dawn Brigade not getting the amount of depth that the Path of Radiance characters got back in Path of Radiance, etc., but I do think the game does overall succeed and telling the story it wanted to tell and the gameplay delivered overall; it certainly did better than other overambitious FE games.

[Jotari]

14 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I recall that back in the day it was a popular opinion that Radiant Dawn ultimately didn't succeed, with Michy in particular getting quite a lot of bile. 

Well maybe ten fifteen years from now people will think that about Fates and Three Houses *shrug*

[eclipse]

This is NOT the Biblical history thread.

Just a nice little reminder to anyone that wants to go there/continue that train of thought.  As in, I'm going to hand out warnings for this both because it's off-topic and it tends to turn topics into a cesspool.

[Benice]

18 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

ambition has often been the enemy of the FE series; hasn't it? I'm not saying the series shouldn't strive to do new things; obviously they should, but it's interesting just how often the series tends to bite off more than it can chew when it decides to be ambitious.

I disagree here. Even if we get duds because of ambition from time to time, I really don't think that playing it safe is a good idea. The series is only really still around because of the ambition of Awakening, and the more unique games in the series-such as Genealogy, are still revered by many. What made the series stand out in the first place was ambition-Having permadeath is an extremely bold choice.

...Plus, with how long it takes for each game to be made, I would be rather upset if we just got something really simple. If they were able to get the games out on a yearly-or-so basis*, I'd certainly find the conservative games to be more understandable, but considering that the next FE still hasn't even been announced three years after the previous entry...

*For comparison, the Yakuza/Judgment games by RGG release about 12-22 months apart, with the exceptions being them moving to a new engine:

(Not shown are Judgment, December 2018 and Lost Judgment, June 2021)

Each one has so much content in it; RGG studios manages to get the games done really quickly because they are able to use the same engine and build off of the assets, with the main changes being to the story, music and improvement of gameplay, as well as addition of animations and other assets. There's virtually no reason that FE couldn't do the same sort of thing with, say, the engine they built TH with.

...All that to say basically what I said earlier. If the games are going to have really long development periods, I'd be frustrated if what we get is something that's really cut-back.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Benice

[vanguard333]

Just now, Benice said:

I disagree here. Even if we get duds because of ambition from time to time, I really don't think that playing it safe is a good idea. The series is only really still around because of the ambition of Awakening, and the more unique games in the series-such as Genealogy, are still revered by many. What made the series stand out in the first place was ambition-Having permadeath is an extremely bold choice.

1. I immediately followed my statement by saying that I don't think that the series should play it safe; I just think the series shouldn't overreach in its ambition, and that I hope the next game is able to be creative and unique without overreaching ambition.

Creativity/uniqueness and ambition are not the same thing; they have a fair bit of overlap, but they are not the same thing. The kind of ambition I was talking about was stuff like Radiant Dawn, Fates and Three Houses.

2. I wouldn't call, "This could be the last FE game if it doesn't sell well; let's make a semi-generic 'Fire Emblem Greatest Hits Version' game" ambitious; almost the opposite. Awakening was a lot of things; ambitious was not one of them. In fact, IS was originally planning a much more ambitious FE game before they were told that FE would end if the next game didn't sell well.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

1. I immediately followed my statement by saying that I don't think that the series should play it safe; I just think the series shouldn't overreach in its ambition, and that I hope the next game is able to be creative and unique without overreaching ambition.

Creativity/uniqueness and ambition are not the same thing; they have a fair bit of overlap, but they are not the same thing. The kind of ambition I was talking about was stuff like Radiant Dawn, Fates and Three Houses.

2. I wouldn't call, "This could be the last FE game if it doesn't sell well; let's make a semi-generic 'Fire Emblem Greatest Hits Version' game" ambitious; almost the opposite. Awakening was a lot of things; ambitious was not one of them. In fact, IS was originally planning a much more ambitious FE game before they were told that FE would end if the next game didn't sell well.

I was going to echo the same point. Awakening is many things, but ambitious isn't an adjective I'd use. It's a generally well made game as pretty much every Fire Emblem is, and it did introduce some new stuff into the seres like pair up. I guess at a squint one might think the plot was ambitious by trying to shove three distinct plot arcs into one game, only that's not actually what they did. As they tried to put three distinct plot arcs into half of their game. The other half is quite literally side content. Awakening went wide and broad in it's content rather than big.

[vanguard333]

19 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I was going to echo the same point. Awakening is many things, but ambitious isn't an adjective I'd use. It's a generally well made game as pretty much every Fire Emblem is, and it did introduce some new stuff into the series like pair up. I guess at a squint one might think the plot was ambitious by trying to shove three distinct plot arcs into one game, only that's not actually what they did. As they tried to put three distinct plot arcs into half of their game. The other half is quite literally side content. Awakening went wide and broad in it's content rather than big.

Indeed. It was quite literally Fire Emblem Greatest Hits: the game. Its goal wasn't to be ambitious; it wasn't trying to be a grand epic or a multi-story game; it was trying to be a game that could include as much stuff from past FE games as possible in order to be a fitting final FE game in case it really did end up being the last FE game. They really were playing it safe when it came to Awakening.

The funny thing about the plot arcs in Awakening is that, when you break them down, they're the same three plot arcs that are typical of FE games: first, protagonist's team fights evil usurper/traitor/warmonger that acts as a semi-personal foe (Gangrel, Desaix, Jarod, etc.), then they fight an evil empire led by a red-clad emperor, then they fight the evil cult and their mad dragon. It's a very typical FE plot when you look at its structure; the main difference (apart from time travel) is that the three arcs are more obviously distinct and disconnected.

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 2/19/2022 at 11:53 AM, AvatarofDiscord said:

So as much as I love Fates and FE, i've noticed that more people are starting to hate on Fates less and less.

Why do you all think that is the case?

 

I kinda feel the same. It's worth keeping in mind that Fates has always been, at baseline level, popular - any combined review score you can find for the game (critic or user) will be high. It has more fans than haters, and always has. The detractors, however, are loud, so you notice 'em. That said, after six years, they've hopefully mostly moved on, only volunteering their opinions on the game when it's on-topic (as it is here). My guess is they'd have moved on sooner, except that Heroes and Warriors put more spotlight on it (drawing heavilly from the Fates cast in both cases) for a while.

21 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Indeed. I know I have already said what I wanted to say about Fates many times.

Speaking of Fates having been ambitious; ambition has often been the enemy of the FE series; hasn't it? I'm not saying the series shouldn't strive to do new things; obviously they should, but it's interesting just how often the series tends to bite off more than it can chew when it decides to be ambitious. I hope that, for the next FE game, they find a way to do something creative without overreaching in their ambition; Path of Radiance comes to mind in that regard.

I'd strongly disagree, both in terms of my personal opinion of the games and their broader reception. Three Houses is ambitious, and is the best-received game in the franchise. Fates is controversial, but, well, see above - it was a success by any measure. Genealogy is unquestionably the most ambitious of the games that did not see international release, and also (I would argue) the most fondly-remembered, at least by the English-speaking community.

Even Path of Radiance, I would consider to be moderately ambitious: it's part one of a planned two-part duology, something the series had never tried before. It also bites off more serious themes than previous FEs by dealing with race and racism.

I would if anything turn your statement around and argue that it's the FE games which were unambitious that are largely forgotten or not regarded that well.

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'd strongly disagree, both in terms of my personal opinion of the games and their broader reception. Three Houses is ambitious, and is the best-received game in the franchise. Fates is controversial, but, well, see above - it was a success by any measure. Genealogy is unquestionably the most ambitious of the games that did not see international release, and also (I would argue) the most fondly-remembered, at least by the English-speaking community.

Even Path of Radiance, I would consider to be moderately ambitious: it's part one of a planned two-part duology, something the series had never tried before. It also bites off more serious themes than previous FEs by dealing with race and racism.

I would if anything turn your statement around and argue that it's the FE games which were unambitious that are largely forgotten or not regarded that well.

I wasn't saying that Three Houses or any of them were bad because of their ambition; I just said that games like Fates and Three Houses show clear signs of biting off more than they can chew. Not once did I talk about sales or audience reception. I think you may have misunderstood what I said, even though I made clear what my point was by saying the exact words of my point; I literally said "bite off more than it can chew".

Genealogy isn't the kind of ambition I was talking about though; it put a twist on the formula for sure, but it's not ambitious in the sense that games like Radiant Dawn, Fates and Three Houses are considered "ambitious".

Again, Path of Radiance is an example of creativity on display; not strictly ambition.

That's not turning my statement around at all; that's turning around your misunderstanding of my statement that I could not possibly have made more clear.

 

I'm not even going to respond to your statements about audience reception or sales, even though I have plenty to say there, simply because you only brought those up to refute something I didn't actually say.

[Dark Holy Elf]

3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I wasn't saying that Three Houses or any of them were bad because of their ambition; I just said that games like Fates and Three Houses show clear signs of biting off more than they can chew. Not once did I talk about sales or audience reception. I think you may have misunderstood what I said, even though I made clear what my point was by saying the exact words of my point; I literally said "bite off more than it can chew".

 

You said that "ambition has often been the enemy of [these games]" and that future games should try to avoid this, implying that their ambition made them worse. If that's not what you meant then I'll ask you to clarify what you mean by the games biting off more than they can chew. Despite your claim otherwise, you could definitely have made your meaning more clear, which is why apparently both myself and Benice misunderstood what you meant.

I might also ask you to clarify your definition of ambitious since I would say FE4 being an ambitious game is self-evident going by the dictionary definition ("intended to satisfy high aspirations and therefore difficult to achieve"), but since FE4 isn't the one of the important FEs to this discussion it's not truly necessary if you don't want to.

[vanguard333]

10 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

You said that "ambition has often been the enemy of [these games]" and that future games should try to avoid this, implying that their ambition made them worse. If that's not what you meant then I'll ask you to clarify what you mean by the games biting off more than they can chew. Despite your claim otherwise, you could definitely have made your meaning more clear, which is why apparently both myself and Benice misunderstood what you meant.

I might also ask you to clarify your definition of ambitious since I would say FE4 being an ambitious game is self-evident going by the dictionary definition ("intended to satisfy high aspirations and therefore difficult to achieve"), but since FE4 isn't the one of the important FEs to this discussion it's not truly necessary if you don't want to.

I said that they should avoid overambition; they should avoid biting off more than they can chew, and since Three Houses was very ambitious, I hope the next game (not all games going forward; just the next game) scales things back and focuses more on creativity than ambition.

"Biting off more than they can chew" basically just means that they tried to do more than they could reasonably handle (i.e. overreached in their ambition). With Fates for instance, the plot and characters I feel show clear signs that the dev team couldn't handle writing three games worth of content all at once. I don't really know how I can clarify it further.

I think that a lot of the problems that more ambitious FE games like Radiant Dawn, Fates and Three Houses have stem from overambition; Fates has a ton of problems that make various aspects, particularly in its narrative, come across as half-baked/underdeveloped, almost-certainly stemming from them essentially trying to make three games at once. Three Houses has similar issues but in different ways, with certain parts of the game clearly having gotten more attention than others. Radiant Dawn I think is good overall and mostly succeeded in being the 4-part epic they wanted it to be, but it has its moments, particularly in the new characters getting a lot less depth to them than the old characters got in Path of Radiance. I'm not trying to say that these games are comparatively worse than their brethren, only that there's a pattern of more ambitious FE titles tending to overreach and that those specific titles suffer for it to different extents regardless of their overall quality. 

 

I guess, the more I think about it, Genealogy probably was an ambitious title for its time, but I honestly haven't played it, nor do I know too much about its history or what they were setting out to do when developing it, unlike Radiant Dawn, Fates and Three Houses, where I have played those games and where such information about their development and goals is readily available, so I'm not the one to judge it on its ambition.