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 Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 3:40 pm
Very good Mel! I've heard how some companies have made pretty good stories aside from Squaresoft. Nintendo has always tried to come up with good ones and SirKirbance will agree with me when it comes to Kirby. They also made a heck of a game when they made Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars. The story might not win an award for originality but it was sure cool. I am glad to see more companies taking chances on original stories and concepts like Mistwalker has done with Lost Odyssey. I may not know a lot about this last game but I hear it's quite great. I may post at the proper thread once I read a good review on that game. 3nodding
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Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:26 am
I wasn't really focusing on the games. I was using them as examples.
I don't know if anyone knew, but my birthday was on Monday and I got a book about how to get into the short story market. The author of this book makes a statement about the fine line between fantasy and science fiction.
He says that even magazine editors can't agree that they can successfully overlap. He says that science fiction is about the future whereas fantasy is more about a mythical past, and also that sci-fi is more prophetic and fantasy is more "folklore legend".
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:24 pm
Gee Mel, sorry I missed yer birthday. I actually had an alarm set up here and even though it went off, I forgot to check what it was about. I'll make sure to send you a little something.
Oh, I see... just examples, huh? Ok. So that's how things are, hmm? Well, at least we have more information on this subject for future reference. 3nodding
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Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 12:23 pm
No worries.
Yeah, hardcore enthusiasts aren't going to blur the lines at all really.
Square just managed to combine the two, but it can't really be called true sci-fi or true fantasy, however they were the only ones to succeed with it in my opinion. I think it's possible in gaming but not in writing or in making films (unless it's a Final Fantasy film like Advent Children). The Spirits Within wasn't fantasy at all, it shouldn't have the FF title. It's 100% science fiction.
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Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 9:42 am
I'd classify FF7 as Mage-Punk, myself.
White Wolf managed to do it with their table-top RPG, Mage, though I haven't played it since the second edition came out (prohibitively expensive and a terrible marketing move on WW's part). It has more or less the same sort of feel, depending on your GM.
Berz.
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Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 9:41 am
I've never heard the term "Mage-Punk" before. It must be a US term because I've never come across it over here.
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Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:06 pm
I'm with Mel! That "Spirits Within" movie should NOT have been called Final Fantasy at all. It would have been even better if it had nothing to do with the saga whatsoever. The movie is good but, it doesn't do justice to the FF saga and there wasn't a thing from it to begin with. I would have liked to see a chocobo or a moogle or heck, maybe a mention of how much things cost in Gil; you know? rolleyes
Mage Punk? I've never heard of that either. Maybe Berz came up with that, he-he. mrgreen
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:31 pm
Hm well wht I had said about being able to call anything fantasy as long as it was convincing seems to be lost on everyone, I was trying to point something out about media and literature genres...ANYWAY!
I've personally always wanted to create something completely new. What I mean by this is bassically redefining the fantasy genre. When people think of fantasy, obviously dragons, elves, dwarves, and all those sorts of things come up first. Why? maybe because they were in origional fantasy stories, maybe I don't have a clue. That's why I've always wanted to do something different. I mean what would happen if all of a sudden I created my own races of creatures, got rid of the dwarves, the elves, even the humans? If I created a land of my own, invented completely different peices of technology and changed the way magic was thought of. Would it then be classified as Sci-fi because it was something unknown? Or could people see it as a division of fantasy because it was a work of somones imagination with a hint of past or medieval thrown in it?
That was more along the lines of what I was trying to say and I hope that evenutally I'll be able to get a couple books out there that make people question the line between genres. More importantly why that line exists and how it could change.
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 4:24 am
drizzt-catstyle Hm well wht I had said about being able to call anything fantasy as long as it was convincing seems to be lost on everyone, I was trying to point something out about media and literature genres...ANYWAY!
I've personally always wanted to create something completely new. What I mean by this is bassically redefining the fantasy genre. When people think of fantasy, obviously dragons, elves, dwarves, and all those sorts of things come up first. Why? maybe because they were in origional fantasy stories, maybe I don't have a clue. That's why I've always wanted to do something different. I mean what would happen if all of a sudden I created my own races of creatures, got rid of the dwarves, the elves, even the humans? If I created a land of my own, invented completely different peices of technology and changed the way magic was thought of. Would it then be classified as Sci-fi because it was something unknown? Or could people see it as a division of fantasy because it was a work of somones imagination with a hint of past or medieval thrown in it?
That was more along the lines of what I was trying to say and I hope that evenutally I'll be able to get a couple books out there that make people question the line between genres. More importantly why that line exists and how it could change.
We all have our own opinions, but if I use your concept of vampiric dragons as an example, I wouldn't buy it to be perfectly honest. I hate that idea, and there are probably a lot more people out there that would hate it as well. You may find others like yourself who find the concept interesting, but the majority aren't likely to.
I am trying to re-define fantasy as well, but in a different fashion. Elves look similar to Tolkien's in my world, but their ears are longer and they don't have an angelic appearance. The majority of elves in my world would have a natural aptitude for magic if they chose to study it, but there are those that don't. There aren't as many humans in my world who have a natural aptitude for magic as there are elves. It's like someone saying the majority of men are physically stronger than the majority of women, yet there are women who are as physically strong as a man (like myself), and there are men who are not physically strong at all. That's a bit different from your every day fantasy novel that depicts elves as having better morals than humans who have a stereotypical home in a forest.
In my world, elves are little different than humans. You have humans who live in forests or other forms of wilderness like the Native Americans, and thus there are groups of elves like that as well. You have humans and elves who live in villages and cities as well.
I find that to be different.
After I played a bit of Ninety Nine Nights some time back, I saw a completely different take on goblins. They're not vicious, googley-eyed little bastards in that world. They've still got greeny coloured skin, but they look a bit more like elves. THAT'S different too. That idea spurred me on to create a new race that looks similar but with some very different tendencies and features.
If you take your ideas too far away from original concepts then people aren't likely to be able to relate to it. A big factor in the fantasy genre is that writers create worlds that they believe to be idealistic or something that they could forsee. Creating new worlds tends to have a lot of ideas in it that reflect the author's idea of what our world "should" be like. I'm not saying this is the case all of the time, but there's a lot of evidence that suggests that some of these things are the case.
In my personal opinion, creating another world with entirely new species rather than by following some of the original fantasy concepts is leaning more toward science fiction.
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:52 pm
Aye, I suppose though I wish more people could see the way I was thinking on the matter because apperently my explinations arent all that great...
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:40 am
Short explanations are never going to be that effective for anyone unless the person writing that explanation really knows what language to use. I can do this to a good degree because I have studied the English language extensively, but I still find that it takes an awful lot of talking or text in order for me to explain anything in my world because it's so vast and complex.
The best way to deal with new ideas is to add them or combine them with the old. Take Sakaguchi's new Mistwalker studio as an example. He saw that when Square completely altered the face of Final Fantasy with FFX, hardcore fans began to lose faith in the company, and have continued to do so because the series no longer has the magic that it once did. This is why Square are now re-making the games - because they know the series is dying slowly but surely and they'll milk it for all it's worth to keep it alive. Sakaguchi has brought back some of the traditional elements in Japanese RPGs with Lost Odyssey. Why hasn't he brought everything back in one go? Well, can you run before you can walk. For Sakaguchi it's like learning to walk again, he's got to start anew.
This is how I think with fantasy. If you change it too much and don't have any traditional aspects in it whatsoever, people will lose faith. Keeping traditional concepts, and either altering them slightly or adding to them always works I find.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:04 pm
I agree with Mel! Even though I don't have a degree in English studies or anything like that, I usually try to explain thins as best I can and I haven't been able to explain a world in a few words myself.
I'm not so sure that if a world happens to have only new races or species it won't be fantasy. I mean, what if the world in question doesn't have technology at all? When I think of fantasy, I don't think of technology. As soon as you find technology in a world, it gets sci-fi mixed into it and that doesn't always work. FF7 managed to fuse both concepts rather well though.
Guess what? I saw people owning vampiric dragons on facebook. I guess Mel must be pretty shocked about now, huh? mrgreen
In one of my worlds, as I've probably mentioned before, elves are not as human looking as the average elf. Since I created two types of elves there, some are more plant like and the others are more beast like. It's like they are the avatars for their kin. Meaning that the wood elves feel when you pluck the petal of a flower and, the beast elves feel the pain of an animal that's been wounded. It's too bad I can't draw very well or I would post their pics. rolleyes
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:04 pm
hypnocrown Mage Punk? I've never heard of that either. Maybe Berz came up with that, he-he. mrgreen Actually, it's a term I first heard from someone in the gaming industry, in reference to a particular sub-genre that Wizards of the Coast has been trending toward with their games, particularly Magic: The Gathering. It's one of a number of subgenres that have popped up in the last decade or so (along with steampunk and a number of others that haven't gained as much attention), so what it entails is still sorting itself out. Best thing I can do is give an example. Middle-earth, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron are all fantasy settings. Middle-earth is the low-fantasy sub-genre, Forgotten Realms is the high-fantasy sub-genre, and Eberron is the mage-punk sub-genre. The complication is that mage-punk primarily started as an art-style rather than a literary genre and then branched out, so there's some weirdness. Berz.
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:08 am
hypnocrown When I think of fantasy, I don't think of technology. As soon as you find technology in a world, it gets sci-fi mixed into it and that doesn't always work. FF7 managed to fuse both concepts rather well though.
However, I'm more interested in you saying that you don't think of technology within the fantasy genre. What are the kinds of ships I sail on? They're built to a historical design but now have to have engines installed by default.
A ship with masts and sails isn't technological but one that looks like a big modern naval ship IS? That would be wrong. HMS Victory is a piece of 18th century technology. The horse and cart was used in ancient times, that's ancient technology. Anyone is wrong to think that modern technology is the only technology.
Also think of various different RPGs like Final Fantasy VI. Why is Magitek called Magitek? It's "magi-technology". Magic is the source of technological developments in many fantasy settings, and it's still technology however you look at it.
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:57 pm
Bingo, Mel. Completely agree there.
Actually, that very thing is one of the reasons people think of Eberron as Mage-punk. One of the core concepts of the world is that magic has achieved a number of things that we, in the real world, have achieved through technology. Things like elevators or refrigerators are made through magical means instead of technological ones.
Berz.
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