A little research Zak!

[rozojc]

I don't know about Bogotá, but I'm sure that Brazil is not a jungle. But it HAS a jungle. I'm similarly sure there's more to Britain than stonehenge, too - call it a hunch.

The film "Love Actually" depicted Portuguese in an unflatteringly light, we generally aren't like that... but those people do exist here, of course. And that's all that mattered for purposes of the film.

Nope, there's no jungle in Bogotá at all... Actually, it's VERY far from the Amazon (which would be the only jungle in Colombia)... So it is (again) like picturing New York in a jungle...

[passer-by]

I doubt he can fit that many items in his jacket, even if it was a very fine leather jacket.......
All I'm trying to say is that the majority of the world bases ideas of locations on Stereotypes, ..........
the whole world is based on stereotyping and common ideas to symbolise and relate to certain locations.....

I agree. A game is a game, and although I don't like stereotypes in real life, I don't mind seeing them in games or films or books, if it helps the plot, as long as they don't officially claim it's the truth.
If we wanted to make a fuss about it, we should start from film industries and publishing houses. I barely recognise my country, my continent even, when I see it in films or read about it in books, but I do watch/read if I think they are good quality ones. It doesn't mean I accept it...It's just a convenience to help continue the story and usually people accept it as such...Warehouses, forests, blondes, remote locations, busy offices, empty houses, dark houses...it's like signposts. You don't expect to meet a ghost or a burglar every time you go to the cellar, or houses wouldn't have cellars any more...But when you need one for your story , you usually put them there...
I don't think there's someone who doesn't have a fixed idea about a nation or a country ....or even about a burglar's methods (!), if it's a police film/book/game....

[Nacho]

So, the problem is that the forest is far away from Bogotá???

[Demagogy]***There's a lot of poverty in the world for complaining for things like that***[/demagogy]

[rozojc]

So, the problem is that the forest is far away from Bogotá???

[Demagogy]***There's a lot of poverty in the world for complaining for things like that***[/demagogy]

1. Again (I'm not really sure what part is not clear) the problem for me is inaccuracy that leads to making things unbelievable even in the game's context. I'm talking about the "should be" of game design, not about the "what is" game design. I don't know why I think that if I made a game showing Paris (for example) in the middle of a jungle it would not be very credible, even if the game is fiction and cartoonish (unless the story of the game included how Paris has suddenly turned into a jungle).
2. Your last remark completely lacks argumentative value. That remark is as valuable as saying there's also too much poverty in the world for us to have enough money to have computers and be able to happily play games while people starve to death in other parts of the world... But I won't discuss that, my point continues to be the same: what should happen is that there should be a minimun of research while on the game design face of a project to avoid big inaccuracies and inconsistencies. And as far as saying it also happens in movies (I remember watching a movie where Arnold Swazchenegger tookÃ,  a boat in Bogotá, where there are no rivers, and went to Cartagena, which is at the north part of Colombia, and it was like the Amazon, which is in the south part of the country), that's not really an argument either. Movies make a lot of inaccuracies (I'm talking strictly about inaccuracies, not stereotypes), so what? The fact that it happens does not affect the "should be" of the importance of research in game design...

[Hobbes]

Isn't each game/story a work of fiction? As such, writers and designers alike take a liberties in writing their stories. They fictionalize areas of the world to make them work. Stephen King writes about New York and a certain Tower being constructed there. It is, in the real world, not there.

Jane Jensen has completely messed up the French Quarter for Gabriel Knight 1. Reality and fantasy mix in these settings, as is the case in Zak McKracken. Guy Gavriel Kay thought up a fictional Toronto for the Fionavar Tapestry, even though he lived there. This is the case in almost all stories/games. Except when they're a "Real Life" kinda thing.

Does it bug me that lots of movies etc talk about Holland being a drug-paradise? Not really, no. Does it bother me that there are a lot of coffee shops everywhere doing this? Yes. But I don't take it out on Quentin Tarantino for using a reference to Amsterdam in Pulp Fiction.

Does it bug me that often gay characters are stupid stereotyped Will & Grace characters? No. I don't see the humour in such depiction, but then again, I don't watch it. Or, if it's a part of something I do like, I ignore it.

Dutch historians might take offense at how I depict Amsterdam in the mid 17th century, to make it fit Buccaneer 2. But hey, as long as the story works and it's not an attack on a certain group of people, it's fine by me!

Just don't go making a game about the entire Islamic world being into global bombing and making a Klu-Klux-Klan member a valuable player character who saves the world by insuring White Superiority becomes a global law. Such racism and hurt should be directed elsewhere, e.g. prison.

And now I'm off to be politically correct elsewhere...

[voh]

Silly people! Everybody knows that Colombia isn't a country! It's a coffee-manufacturing company!

Sheesh! The ignorance...Ã, 

[Totoro]

I guess Freud would say you must have a big problem and big complexes about your own country, otherwise you could just take it with a smile.

[Mr Jake]

The spelling problem is the only real bad thing :/ The rest is writers freedom like everyone said.

[rozojc]

I guess Freud would say you must have a big problem and big complexes about your own country, otherwise you could just take it with a smile.

I guess the point remains to be unclear. LONG time ago I have been writing exclusively about research for credibility, as in : I'm not complaining about the stereotypes right now...

In reply to Hobbes: I agree, but there is an extent to that freedom or (again) you may loose credibility. Do you really think that making a game set in contemporary Paris and it being set in the middle of the jungle would work without giving a proper explanation?

In reply to voh: :-)

[rozojc]

Anyway, I propose to just let this discussion as it is, as what I definitely wouldn't want is that it ends up being rude or anything like that, which would be completely pointless. Thanx for everybody's opinion, I do feel that listening to other's opinion is valuable to either change ones mind or to further convince one self of personal opinion.   

[Nacho]

It's been a quite enjoyable and a very mature discussion, thanks Rozojc. I understand your point about credibility (Finally!  )

But I don't think it's a big deal. Using your example, very close tou New York there is a big forest, in the valley of the Hudson, and nobody could complain really if you show some of that "jungle" in the way from JFK to Manhattan.

Some airports are a bit far away from the center of the city... We can allways use a little of imagination and suppose that this "jungle" it's a middle size forest, I guess.

But we take note of the advise of researching!:D