evnvnv wrote:and because this post mentions a thread I created (in the Axe originally, if that makes any difference)
It doesn't.
evnvnv wrote:I understand your ire with the overuse or misuse of the word "abstract."
I doubt it. After all, you still keep abusing the hell out of it in your latest post.
evnvnv wrote:But for what its worth I was using the word in this sense: "something that concentrates in itself the essential qualities of anything more extensive or more general, or of several things; essence."
Even assuming that the above sense...
makes sense, you are still better off using less ambiguous terms: 'essence', for example. Reading your OP in that thread is painful; every other sentence it's "abstract this" and "abstract that" whilst most of the time the use of the word is highly inappropriate or obviously gratuitous. Clarity is lacking -- worse, the very notion of clarity is treated with disdain. But that's a characteristic feature of all SB -- and artfag in general -- discourse: it makes as much noise as possible on the basis of the tiniest, most insignificant ideas -- and hence requires murkiness, obscurity of expression in order to appear learned and profound.
evnvnv wrote:The sound effects in the mario games are all like this--so ubiquitous that they seem logical and "realistic," but actually almost completely abstract.
WTF IS AN "ABSTRACT" SOUND EFFECT SUPPOSED TO BE? Even calling them "unrealistic" is kind of dumb, since most of the situations in the game have nothing to do with reality. And I am not even going to touch the first part of the above sentence!
evnvnv wrote:I was interested in the way sound effects convey information without necessarily being realistic.
Then talk about that.
evnvnv wrote:I don't really know what other word would be more appropriate.
The one you used in the previous sentence.
evnvnv wrote:In general it seems like the word is used to refer to aesthetic choices made in things that are representational of the "essence" of some other thing without directly reproducing them in great realistic detail. Even though it may be done to death as a topic of conversation I don't see anything wrong with the use of the word 'abstract' to refer to that concept.
That's because you don't really pay attention to the words you use -- leading to such absurdities as "The sound effects in the mario games are all like this--so ubiquitous that they seem logical", etc. etc.
There's nothing that anyone can do to help you with this (or maybe
Schopenhauer can help...). You will either start to have more respect for language, or you will be forever doomed to occupy yourself with childish nonsense like this:
evnvnv wrote:have video game sound effects changed the way we imagine reality?
The internet does not have lols big enough to adequately ridicule this question.
evnvnv wrote:Obviously you are free to disagree with the validity of the entire conversation. I'm kind of irritated by your use of the word "artfag," but whatever.
Good. That's why I use it: to irritate people like you.
evnvnv wrote:I understand and respect the kinds of things that are discussed on this website, but for whatever reason I am more interested in talking about the aesthetics of video games rather than playing them.
Without playing them, you will understand fuck-all about the aesthetics of videogames -- and not only because aesthetics and mechanics are ultimately
one and the same thing.
evnvnv wrote:Now, I'm not targeting you guys specifically with this (because I haven't read many articles on this site), but one thing that irritates me about this kind of thing is that anyone who is interested in talking about aesthetic and thematic choices in video games is not taken seriously by the other half of the 'community' that is more interested in talking about the competitive aspect of games or just the physical activity of playing a game. It usually ends with someone making a claim that none of these choices matter, what is important is the activity of playing the game, so who cares what it looks like? But what would a game be without these things? If this was really the case then we'd all be content to just look at, I don't know, colored squares moving around on a screen. What would games be like without sound effects? Obviously they contribute something to the game, I don't see why it is worthless to talk about that.
It is indeed worthless to talk about that
on its own. If you want to talk about sound effects on their own, or graphics on their own, then you should do it in some musician's or artist's forum -- not in a forum about videogames. Graphics and sound effects in games are part of a whole, and, generally speaking, a part of relatively minor importance -- for a great game can still be great with crap graphics and sound, but no amount of cool graphics and sounds will make a crap game good.
evnvnv wrote:Anyway, I see now that you've posted this interesting John Kricfalusi article about animation. What he's talking about is kind of similar to things I've noticed about how the way video games look and sound is changing. Video games borrow a lot of 'tricks' from cartoons in terms of how ideas are expressed in non-realistic ways (is that better than 'abstract?)
Yes.
evnvnv wrote:and it's interesting to think about how the two forms have developed/declined over time. One element that affects video games is the constant pressure to update technology. I think it's great that video games now have "better" graphics, but sometimes I wonder if using all of this extra hardware just to make things in video games resemble 'real life' more closely isn't just a boring waste of time.
It's not a boring waste of time. It is the ultimate aim of videogames: to produce a double of the world, including our own doubles to inhabit it.
evnvnv wrote:This is kind of echoed in Kricfalusi's issue with "quality" over "fun" in the animation article. I'm certain whatever I said was nowhere near as cogent as this article (because I'm not John Kricfalusi), but I don't really see how that validates making an entire post on a different website just to be insulting.
I wasn't "just" being insulting. I was making an example out of you and the other artfags -- an example useful to the readers of this website, who now know a little better what they must avoid degenerating into.
evnvnv wrote:If that conversation was worthless and invalid, where's the validity in taking up more time to 'respond' to it (in a pretty juvenile way, to be honest).
I already explained the reason. And no need to use inverted commas to refer to my response -- it was indeed a response, and 100 times more mature than the juvenile shenanigans I was responding to. You are simply making the error of confusing the form of the reply with its content. The form was juvenile, because that is what is most appealing, more fun to me and more closely related to my temperament -- but the content could not possibly have been more mature. This is compared to your original thread, which had the FORM of maturity (or at any rate the clumsy aping of that form) so as to better hide the juvenility of the content.
evnvnv wrote:I'm not sure if I clarified anything with this, but I never assume that anything I write on selectbutton is going to be noticed by anybody outside that site (especially since the axe autoprunes--I guess that got moved to the permanent forum though). So I figured I might as well chime in. In a weird way it's kind of flattering, someone is paying attention!
Yes, any attention is good attention if you are an idiot.