Roger L.S. Griffiths wrote: ↑Sat, 11. May 19, 11:48
Kadatherion wrote: ↑Sat, 11. May 19, 09:08
if I burden the reader with the task of imagining explanations for what I present him, instead of actually giving them to him (or at the very least suggesting them), I'm doing my job all wrong.
Perhaps, but you would not be the first author/writer to do that - making the audience think about what is being presented to them is actually sometimes intentional. It is not always a good thing to lay everything out on a platter for the audience.
Now I'm totally digressing, but just for the sake of the discussion - which, of course, finds me very interested and, spoiler alert, will make me go full on verbal diarrhea

- indeed, but there's a fundamental difference between "laying out things on a platter" and "offering plausible explanations".
I'll take these last few episodes of GoT that have split the audience in two and have been given the lowest ratings ever for the series, to make a very simplistic example (no too current spoilers!

): let's mention for instance the oh so controverse battle of Winterfell, that Long Night that lasted... well, just a normal night

.
Many pointed out how totally unsensical the battle plans were: light cavalry charging headfront spearheading a vastly superior enemy, the artillery *in front* of the barricades, no use of basic so called "annihilation zones" against an enemy that has no "heavies" or artillery pieces but is by definition cannon fodder and so on, the list would be very long and is very obvious. Fundamental errors that are mindbogglingly naive not just to Vatutin fans, but to everyone with the least bit of common sense. Heck, as gamers, many of us couldn't help but shout "come on, even Total War's AI on easy isn't THAT dumb and tries to use cavalry for flanking!". All this inside even more - if possible - stupid choices made by the characters ("Hey, we are going to be attacked by a zombie wizard who resurrects the dead to fight for him, let's protect women and children by sending them in the crypts... with, you know... the dead"

).
Now, a segment of the audience still tried to find some explanations for such a collection of silliness, plot holes, characterization retconning et cetera. About the inconsistencies in the battle plan, many pointed out that hey, even IRL it happened that generals - even pretty renowned ones at least up to that point - made a series of, in hindsight, incredibly idiotic decisions. Why couldn't the same happen to Jon and Dany in GoT? This is absolutely true. The reason why they are wrong and are actually projecting even if what they state is objectively true, though, is another: that the writing in GoT did not aknowledge such decisions and plot points as mistakes (or necessary compromises) in any way.
You, the viewer, could imagine, in your quest to salvage what once was a series with great writing, that, for instance, several rather simple defense strategies couldn't be arranged in time as all the manpower was scrambling to make the obsidian weapons, or again that the Dothraki suicide was somehow specifically meant to lure the Night King out (still kind of silly, but let's leave it at that), and so on. Problem is, the actual writing never even hints at such possibilities: testifying how the writers found nothing "wrong" with those stupid battle plans.
They didn't need to "serve on a platter", with some clichéd voice over or overly long exposition, the statement "what they are doing is stupid". The only thing they needed would have been to aknowledge what apparently made no sense, from that very acknowledgment would come the "offering" of an explanation: you don't necessarily need to go into details, it can be enough to put in the mouth of a character the exposition of doubt. Dunno, maybe a surviving Dothraki that spits at Dany's feet lamenting the useless sacrifice of his brothers. Davos who doubts the battle plans and Jon who answers a generic "we don't have any other choice", whatever. It would still not be - in this specific case - good storytelling, as the holes were way too big, but that's the concept: I can make the viewer/reader come to his own conclusion, his own interpretation, of the details of how and why a certain event comes to pass in a specific way without spelling every detail to him, keeping the evocative appeal of some vagueness and mystery, but I have to, at the very least, *
offer* him the chance, a cue, a hint, a train of thoughts to follow - however he then pleases - to come to such conclusions. This is something that always happens, naturally, when a plot hole isn't a plot hole, because the writer is aware of it. When no clue, no acknowledgment is there in the text, then the writer either was truly clueless (like GoT's writer have lately proven to be) or didn't care.
Roger L.S. Griffiths wrote: ↑Sat, 11. May 19, 11:48In the specific context of X4, Egosoft cut ALOT of corners with the X4 material - the incomplete in-game encyclopaedia is one of those areas that still needs to be fleshed out and there are even discrepancies between the Data Vault Timeline recorded material and the on screen text/timeline. No-one is saying Egosoft nor X4 are perfect but their overall approach to X4 is actually consistent with the X-lore that has been developing over the series: X-BTF, X-Tension, X2, X3:R, X3:TC, X3:AP, X-Rebirth, and X4.
Yes (to a point), but you see, you are mistaking my statement as disapproval by definition. It isn't: that "or didn't care" I closed my previous digression with isn't necessarily a symptom of something inherently wrong. Just as I previously explained why shaping gameplay to narrative instead of the opposite usually is, in game development, the actual wrong course.
Imagine this scenario (again, overly simplified, for obvious reasons): we are switching to a new engine that, given the new graphics, cool mechanics and kind of assets we have to make - many of which from scratch - only allows us so much room. Because of that, we can't have more than let's say 50 sectors in game and a certain number or variety of ships around without facing either too much work to realistically get to release in time and/or too high minimum sys specs to guarantee a fluid enough experience.
- "Hey boss, I see, but the lore says we should have like 300 sectors, all these ship classes and type, and these techs, and then this, and that".
- "I know, but this are the limits we have right now, so there's no other way. Find me a narrative explanation for that, Dave".
- "Uhm... ok... let's say that the gate system shut down because... reasons™, shit™ happened, and let's leave it at that".
- "Heh, a bit weak but that's all right, we are making a space sandbox, not the next Witcher game, it's enough Dave. After all, as usual the real shit will be thrown at Bill the UI guy anyway".
This is a perfectly legit and arguably the best way to go, in the correct order. The actual stupidity would have been, because the lore previously implied it, to try at all costs to have those 300 sectors. Making the game in the new engine unplayable, or, worse, forsaking the potential of the new engine to keep the chance to have that many sectors. Even more absurd would be to think, since we did get the 50 sectors galaxy, that they COULD have made a 300 sectors one even in the new engine, but they opted not to do it because someone had previously written a narrative that talked about only 50 sectors (or only the Albion sector if we talk about Rebirth) and, you know... lol lore

. That'd be completely silly.
Sure, more narrative and involved explanations couldn't be but welcomed, everything that adds to the experience and immersion, no matter how marginally, is, but these are not by definition essential in this context.
Of course we know then an issue came up: many players aren't very happy that we now have 50 (ish) sectors only. Nor are they too happy with how the highways have been implemented, as many feel they contribute at making the universe feel even smaller than it actually is, an universe where you often *drive* instead of *fly* around. But this is an issue that does not come from, in any way, and such neither is "explained by", the lore and its necessities. Lore came after, it tries (very little, but, again, it's just a sandbox game) to roughly and briefly justify the BIG changes, not going into details, but doesn't justify - nor it tries to, nor it could be its responsibility - the negative side effects of such gameplay choices. Highways themselves have been a gameplay mechanic chosen - as stated - as an alternative to jumpdrive to offer what was thought to be a good evolution of the formula, in an environment that changed fundamentally with the engine switch.
The same goes for ships or (virtually non-existent) weapons variety: the lore doesn't even try to explain why suddenly, yet again ship building and styles changed a lot in a relatively short timespan, or weapons technology shrinked to 1/8th of its previous breadth. We can come up with any explanation we find more plausible (the limit is really just our imagination), and then debate among us which one would be the most plausible, but it doesn't really matter as the game itself doesn't even try, doesn't - as stated -
care. This is all I stated at the beginning of the discussion: they don't even care enough to justify it with such things done and done, it makes no sense to believe such lore justifications and "reasons" could have had any relevant, primeval role in actually sparking the decision itself to make them.
Of course, the argument itself wouldn't surface at all if those changes were all clearly for the better, well received by the community. Some, if not many, of these changes are controversial to say the least. Only at this point the lore starts getting called up to the witness stand as well, as people complain and, inevitably, the complaint tends to go "I don't like this thing here, and we are not even given any real narrative explanations, nor it makes much sense given that in year XXXX the lore stated that blahblahblah I'm a nerd and Rei shouldn't be able to backflip a Tie Fighter because blahblahblah" (

). Which is often true, and an understandable approach to reinforce the argument you're trying to make, but shifts the point further away from what is the real issue at hand, whether lore is called to further attack or justify a mechanic.