Is TDM a Game?

[Airship Ballet]

Poor time. It is wasted so easily, and humans only have so little of it.

 

You can say that again.

[Viktoria]

You squirm with your "opinion" on each new post you make, really. After this you say that we come up with the nonsense reasons.

I guess Sotha is right, it's all a waste of time and not doing any good. I am out of this discussion.

 

I'm not at all sure why you consider the relaying of facts a 'squirm'; but up to you how you define the discussion.

It is also a fact that some here have put forward nonsense and hyperbole as to the reasons why I have the opinion I do.

 

I have my own point of view on TDM, just as others do who share or don't share it; and that's all there is to it. I'm no different to anyone else.

[Sotha]

I have my own point of view on TDM, just as others do who share or don't share it; and that's all there is to it. I'm no different to anyone else.

 

Hence the futileness of the discussion.

 

Most of the people have said what they are going to say. Nobody is going to make any compromises about their positions and everyone has fortified their bunkers. Nobody is going to budge, or want to see/hear/understand the views of the other people.

 

And even more funny, even if people DID open their minds and see things differently, it would have no effect on anything. The shape of the reality would not be altered in a meaningful way.

 

There is nothing to be gained here. Any further discussion can be described as "waste of time."

[Viktoria]

To continue our contribution to this futile discussion... I pretty much agree with all you say.

I would only disagree with the conclusion that nobody is going to see/hear/understand the views of other people. That possibility always remains.

[Airship Ballet]

If the right people were to change their mind, and if people were to react in a very, very specific way to very, very specific rhetoric, it is mathematically possible for the Thiaf's marketing team to quit their jobs and promote TDM, resulting in commercial success and massive growth of the community into a huge project with thousands of FMs. Of course you don't want to make a single decision in your life based on marginal mathematical possibility, it's just funny to think hypothetically like that. It's not entirely useless to discuss things like this, but it's certainly getting there. It's once again become an opportunity for some to vent their frustrations about Thiaf with Viktoria rather naively trying to talk rationally to people so incensed. Everybody's said what they need to say, and everybody who wants to has made their stance known. By definition it's clear as day but ulterior motives have muddied the waters until it's only possible to repeat a paraphrased dictionary definition or just leave people to perpetuate dead-end cat fights. In short, it's no reason to not discuss something just because it's not likely to change anything, but in cases like these it's better to leave it rather than repeat yourself and be drowned out by others trying to one-up each other rather than each other's arguments.

[New Horizon]

Yes, I realise my brief first statement stated I didn't consider it a game. I provided further clarification in that thread but it hasn't been quoted here.

I went on to explain that when I viewed the poll I was considering commercial games... as the other options provided were of that category, so TDM just didn't fit in my mind.

 

The question in the poll was not to choose your favorite commercial contemporary stealth game, it leveled the playing field down to 'contemporary stealth game', plain and simple. A game is a game, whether someone is paid to make it shouldn't have to come into the equation. If your choice was to vote for Thief, that's fair and square, I saw no need for you or anyone else to provide any validation beyond the fact it was your preference. Just because you voted for Thief wouldn't mean you hated TDM, we get that, it would simply mean you preferred Thief to it. No biggie, but I personally find the whole 'exclusion' thing was far more insulting than not receiving a vote from someone.

[Springheel]

There's no real way to attack an opinion without implying some detriment to the person expressing it,

 

 

Of course there is. You just did it when you disagreed with me without making any statements about me personally. And I'm doing the same with you.

 

That's my point: there's no personal attacking going on here, it's just people bouncing opinions off one another.

 

I would consider telling someone to "do everyone a favour and leave" a personal attack. Calling someone corrupt and a liar is a personal attack.

 

Like I said, just skipping back a few years in any forum--this one included--people were a lot, lot less polite to one another while doing just that.

 

I don't really agree with that assessment, but it's irrelevant to the discussion anyway.

 

There's a blurred line between making fun of a person and making a fun of the way they expressed something. Nobody knows enough about one another to be able to make up any actual personal offense in the first place.

 

Yes, there is a blurred line. There are plenty of ways to be snarky and inflammatory that don't actually sink to the level of personal attacks.

 

"You're stupid." -- personal attack

 

"Take your stupid comments and go away." -- near enough to being a personal attack

 

"That's a stupid comment" -- snarky, but not a personal attack

 

"I think you're completely wrong and here's why" -- preferable reaction

 

Of course there are grey areas, and if a newcomer shows up on the forum and immediately starts being an idiot, I generally don't mind if people respond more harshly than they normally would. To some extent, you get the level of respect that you demonstrate to others here. But when threads devolve into comments that boil down to nothing but "I don't like you", then that poisons the well for everyone.

[Springheel]

Back to the proper topic, TDM FAQs describe it as a game and a toolkit. That means its neither one or the other absolute; it is both.

 

Can you explain that logic? My house is described as both a building and a home. Therefore it is neither one or the other?

[Airship Ballet]

Of course there is. You just did it when you disagreed with me without making any statements about me personally. And I'm doing the same with you.

 

Oh yeah, you can be formalistically as inoffensive as possible, and I always am unless somebody acts up. I'd like to say I'm wise and mature enough to not satirise that kind of person's attitude in my response, but it's not the case. What I mean is that some would consider the act of disagreeing with somebody invariably a minor ridicule of them as a person. It works in the sense that you're putting yourself out there when you make an argument, and in disagreeing with it you're having that element of your person ridiculed. Almost everybody gets at least a little disheartened when somebody openly disagrees with them and it's thought that's the reason, as far as I've read.

 

I would consider telling someone to "do everyone a favour and leave" a personal attack. Calling someone corrupt and a liar is a personal attack.

 

Yeah, you're right, I just try to skip over the people who consistently act like that when this subject comes up. Guess I disagreed because I tend to blank it out on the fly.

 

I don't really agree with that assessment.

I had this thread up when I said that. It's a generalization based entirely off my experience alone, but I've definitely noticed a less aggressive attitude across the board of late. I'd take a stab in the dark and say it's the increasing number of early tweenagers getting their hands on technology from a younger age. They're the aggressive ones now, but are a lot less articulated and hostile about it. It's more of a cruise control kind of negativity now with the types to whom everything is a competition (see Youtube comments), rather than that biker gang bar-fight approach. I say that namely because I played Opposing Force and other twitch shooters to death back in the day and that really was like hanging out in a bar in the Deep South. Graphic e-fights all over the place that really were just name-calling competitions. There's negativity in the same proportions, but it's a lot less adolescent/aggressive and more articulated. It's irrelevant to the topic but relevant to the attitude of some in it, worth mentioning even if it does fall on deaf ears.

 

Yeah, I'm aware of those distinctions and tend to stick to impersonal snarky comments, I guess as a result of my sense of humor. What made me say something was that really a lot of people are reading through, seeing the select few acting up and then labeling the entire discussion as "you guys" and saying something about the futility of arguing on the internet when the majority aren't arguing, just discussing (with snark in my case). I know it's not thoroughly proper for you to call people out but it'd be nice to not be lumped in with them just for being in the same thread.

[Viktoria]

The question in the poll was not to choose your favorite commercial contemporary stealth game...

but I personally find the whole 'exclusion' thing was far more insulting than not receiving a vote from someone.

Yes, I realise that commercial wasn't specifically stipulated, but as I read the words 'contemporary stealth game' together with the options this is how my mind read it; as the other options were commercial games.

No insult intended.

 

Can you explain that logic? My house is described as both a building and a home. Therefore it is neither one or the other?

Call it logic or confusion; but not entirely my fault because TDM faqs itself asks if TDM is a game or a toolkit.

So is it a game or a toolkit?

http://www.thedarkmod.com/faq/

 

So, as its true definition is questioned, I figured that it can't be just a game and only a game.... any more than it is just a toolkit and only a toolkit.

TDM FAQs defines it as both which is fair enough, so I stated in the other thread that people can therefore define it as a game, a toolkit/platform, both, or neither... or whatever as they see fit.

I define it more as a toolkit/platform

[Airship Ballet]

I define it more as a toolkit/platform

 

In what respect, though? Ignore the editing tools and the community for now because they're not what's in the poll. It says The Dark Mod, therefore just considering TDM itself, in what way is it a platform? I can't wrap my head around the logic that dictates the .exe that you start up and play is anything other than a game, just by simple dictionary definition. You boot it up, configure your options, click a mission and play it, like you would any other game in that list. I can't bring myself to believe that you honestly, whole-heartedly consider it anything other than a game and aren't just playing the semantics game to try to justify having excluded it from your poll in the first place. Just provide a simple factual bullet point that points out in what functional way the game, by itself, is a platform for anything else in a sense that isn't shared by the other games on the list.

[Viktoria]

I am afraid I have little technical understanding of TDM. I just view it as a platform where I load different fan missions and play them.

If that is too simple a view of it, fair enough.

I haven't played any of the missions since it went "standalone"... so maybe I need to get my head around that.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Viktoria

[New Horizon]

Yes, I realise that commercial wasn't specifically stipulated, but as I read the words 'contemporary stealth game' together with the options this is how my mind read it; as the other options were commercial games.

No insult intended.

 

 

Call it logic or confusion; but not entirely my fault because TDM faqs itself asks if TDM is a game or a toolkit.

 

http://www.thedarkmod.com/faq/

 

So, as its true definition is questioned, I figured that it can't be just a game and only a game.... any more than it is just a toolkit and only a toolkit.

TDM FAQs defines it as both which is fair enough, so I stated in the other thread that people can therefore define it as a game, a toolkit/platform, both, or neither... or whatever as they see fit.

I define it more as a toolkit/platform

 

The FAQ definies it as a toolkit / game, how does that instruct people to define it as neither? It can be one, the other, or both. It all depends on how it is being used. If you're an FM author and you're building a mission with darkradiant, you are using it as a toolkit. If you're a player running thedarkmod.exe and installing missions then you are using the game. It's one or the other.

 

A platform is a term generally used to describe the 'system' that a game is played on, be it PC(linux, windows, mac...which TDM supports), Console, Phone, Tablet, etc. TDM isn't a piece of hardware, so it isn't a platform.

[Airship Ballet]

I just view it as a platform where I load different fan missions and play them.

 

A game, then.

[Springheel]

What I mean is that some would consider the act of disagreeing with somebody invariably a minor ridicule of them as a person.

 

Yes, I agree with that. That's sort of the other side of the coin...just like I'd encourage people to attack the ideas, not the person, I'd encourage people to not react personally if their ideas are attacked. Doesn't always happen though.

 

Call it logic or confusion; but not entirely my fault because TDM faqs itself asks if TDM is a game or a toolkit.

 

This is the kind of questionable reasoning that confuses me about your position. You've used the fact that the title of this thread poses a question, and the fact that a FAQ poses a question, as evidence for a specific answer. By the same logic, if there's a thread on the Eidos board that asks, "Is Thief the worst game ever?" then I can reasonably conclude that it IS the worst game ever? Doesn't seem to make much sense.

[Lux]

Call it logic or confusion; but not entirely my fault because TDM faqs itself asks if TDM is a game or a toolkit.

 

http://www.thedarkmod.com/faq/

 

So, as its true definition is questioned,

 

That's purely rhetoical as if the "reader" "reading" the FAQ might be thinking that to themself.

 

And it answers the question, "A: It’s both"

 

"TDM faqs itself asks if TDM is a game or a toolkit."

 

It certainly isn't asking that of itself.

 

But I'll plead ignorance and say that I'll plead ignorance.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Lux

[Viktoria]

"Is Thief a game?" would be a better comparison. I can imagine the fun in that thread.

 

Anyway, back to the issue. I always consider it is the fan mission itself I "play".

 

 

It certainly isn't asking that of itself.

FAQs, means frequently asked questions - from other people.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Viktoria

[New Horizon]

That's purely rhetoical as if the "reader" "reading" the FAQ might be thinking that to themself.

 

And it answers the question, "A: It’s both"

 

Bingo.

[Viktoria]

Bingo.

 

I thought FAQs threads contain the most common questions from people - and the answers to said questions.

Did I misunderstand?

[Lux]

Wow. I'm out. This is way below my pay grade. Edited March 20, 2014 by Lux

[New Horizon]

I thought FAQs threads contain the most common questions from people - and the answers to said questions.

Did I misunderstand?

 

You did not misunderstand...however....I really don't know where to begin.

 

"Call it logic or confusion; but not entirely my fault because TDM faqs itself asks if TDM is a game or a toolkit."

What were you trying to say here?

 

Your phrasing made it sound like you think the TDM team is questioning whether TDM is a game or toolkit. So Lux correctly pointed out that the FAQ was simply answering the users question, not us ourselves.

 

I agreed with that statement because we were clarifying it for the user.

 

I'm just not sure what you're getting at with that statement.

[Airship Ballet]

Anyway, back to the issue. I always consider it is the fan mission itself I "play".

 

Oh, okay cool, go put "TDM Fan Missions" into the poll, then.

[Wallace]

I see it more as a simulator than a game.

[Airship Ballet]

I see it as an experience.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Airship Ballet

[Springheel]

My concern has never been with the poll, or with whether people like TDM or not...it's whether there is a coherent, consistent definition of "game" that excludes TDM but doesn't also exclude many other things accepted as "games". So far I haven't heard one.