Thread: Our passive characters and why the 2.55 story fails (BIG SPOILERS) (rant warning)

Originally Posted by Dyne_Fellpool

A lot of people seem to be basically complaining that they felt helpless during all this -- good. I think we're supposed to. We're the victim of an expertly crafted trap which has been sprung on us all of a sudden and it goes way deeper than we feared to think. Sh*t just hit the fan in a major way and its probably fairly realistic to feel a bit helpless as friends betray us, allies are murdered, a city turns on us, and the entire socio-political climate changes in a blink of an eye. WoL or not, you're probably gonna feel pretty helpless and confused as all this happens around you. Needing to get away, to have time to take it all in and assess what is really going on and who is truly friend/foe, is pretty understandable and probably even quite necessary.

Just want to quickly put forward the fact that a lot of people felt helpless as a player, and not as the character. There was a major disconnect between them and their avatar in this situation, which in other Final Fantasies and games with pre-crafted PCs, but when it comes to MMOs these characters are us.

Originally Posted by Mistoltin

Just want to quickly put forward the fact that a lot of people felt helpless as a player, and not as the character. There was a major disconnect between them and their avatar in this situation, which in other Final Fantasies and games with pre-crafted PCs, but when it comes to MMOs these characters are us.

Both the player and the character feel helpless. That's the opposite of disconnect. You are feeling, as a player, what the character is likely feeling.

Originally Posted by Dyne_Fellpool

Both the player and the character feel helpless. That's the opposite of disconnect. You are feeling, as a player, what the character is likely feeling.

Ah, no. A lot of us would have chosen how differently. Walking in with the evidence wasn't the only way to get into the banquet. Abandoning folks without even a multiple choice bit wasn't the only way out of it.

There were other ways to have played out the cut scene and its effects.

Originally Posted by Kallera

Ah, no. A lot of us would have chosen how differently. Walking in with the evidence wasn't the only way to get into the banquet. Abandoning folks without even a multiple choice bit wasn't the only way out of it.

There were other ways to have played out the cut scene and its effects.

The Brass Blades are not above planting evidence. They do it for Ul'dah's opening, and I don't recall them actually pulling the bottle off of you. He pulls it out of his own pocket to show everyone. It would have never mattered if we picked the bottle up or not. They probably had a spare one on them.

Originally Posted by Mistoltin

Just want to quickly put forward the fact that a lot of people felt helpless as a player, and not as the character. There was a major disconnect between them and their avatar in this situation, which in other Final Fantasies and games with pre-crafted PCs, but when it comes to MMOs these characters are us.

That's a misnomer of interpretation on the player's side. Rarely if ever will an MMO give their players such agency, and even then it's more of the illusion of choice.

The MSQ hero is not you, nor a character of your design. It is an avatar you have created to fill a role. Whatever reactions you imagined are not, in fact, the reactions the character designed to fill that role would do. That's where all the mistakes are being made here. This isn't 'your' character, it's SE's, at least as far as the main story line is concerned. Outside, if you're Roleplayng, well, it's whatever you want. But the "My character wouldn't do that." Falls flat on its face when you're entering a proprietary story.