RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

[kokuenDG]

so gotta few things that need to be said real quick.
We get a lot of reports from this thread. A lot of it is just a series of people yelling at each other over arguments that have been rehashed hundreds of times since the end of the recent Volume. And I get that the last Volume - and RWBY in general, really - has some controversial moments that people will want to discuss, argue about, debate, etc.

That's fine. We're not going to stop people from doing that, because that's literally what the point of the thread is. However, there's just a point where it gets to be a bit too much, and arguments about whether or not Ironwood was morally justified in his actions in the recent Volume, or if RWBY and her team were in the right for withholding information from Ironwood out of distrust, or whatever flavor of argument of the day descend into insulting other posters, expressing a demeaning attitude towards other's opinions, and just being overall unpleasant. That tends to happen a lot in this thread. We want it to stop happening in this thread.

So! As of now the thread is in a higher state of moderation. What that means is that any future infractions will result in a weeklong boot from the thread, and repeated offenders will likely be permanently removed. So please, everyone endeavor to actually respect the other's arguments, and even if you strongly disagree with them please stay civil and mindful when it comes to responding to others.

In addition, users should refrain from talking about off-site users in the thread. Bear in mind that this does not mean that you cannot continue to post tumblr posts, for example, that add onto the discussion in the thread, with the caveat that it's related to RWBY of course. But any objections to offsite users in the thread should be handled via PM, or they'll be treated as thread violations and infracted as such.

 

[Hykal94]

The curse of RWBY is that it can never escape its reputation of early RWBY. Whatever RWBY does, other media does better. What Leingod just explained is new, refreshing, but it's something one can do to any of their favorite shows.

Still, awkward as early RWBY is, still shows how well thought it is despite its limitations.

 

[UbeOne]

If I remember right, they use motion capture as a basis for the animation of the characters, so the body language would carry over as well.

 

[firefossil]

If I remember right, they use motion capture as a basis for the animation of the characters, so the body language would carry over as well.

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Is motion capture used by other CGI tv shows these days?

 

[Mook]

The curse of RWBY is that it can never escape its reputation of early RWBY. Whatever RWBY does, other media does better. What Leingod just explained is new, refreshing, but it's something one can do to any of their favorite shows.

Still, awkward as early RWBY is, still shows how well thought it is despite its limitations.

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Can you though? Most anime I've seen suffer from a acute case Turn Based Personality syndrome, where only the person who is currently talking is allowed to actually move or express themselves since drawing multiple people doing different stuff at the same time is more work.

 

[Hykal94]

Can you though?

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Derp, I wrote "shows". I meant mediums.

The example I was thinking of when I wrote that was Red Dead Redemption, and I don't think most people can say RDR has bad animation.

 

[Mook]

Derp, I wrote "shows". I meant mediums.

The example I was thinking of when I wrote that was Red Dead Redemption, and I don't think most people can say RDR has bad animation.

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Red Dead Redemption is a video game. It doesn't really matter if it can do body language decently when it's not doing anywhere near as much with it as an actual show would.

 

[Hykal94]

Red Dead Redemption is a video game. It doesn't really matter if it can do body language decently when it's not doing anywhere near as much with it as an actual show would.

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Buddy, have you seen Red Dead Redemption's cutscenes? It has more body language in three missions than RWBY has in its entire runtime.

 

[Mook]

Buddy, have you seen Red Dead Redemption's cutscenes? It has more body language in three missions than RWBY has in its entire runtime.

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1. Yes I have and I'm not super impressed.
2. You're missing the point. Red Dead is a game, the genre is completely different from movies or shows and comparisons are pretty pointless. Red Dead is about letting the player run around in the west shooting stuff and skinning animals, it can't tell a cohesive story the same way a show can. Sure it might have good cutscenes but the illusion is broken the moment those cutscenes end and the "characters" revert to onenote cardboard cutouts.

 

[Hykal94]

the genre is completely different from movies or shows and comparisons are pretty pointless.

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How is it pointless? RWBY has animated scenes. RDR has animated scenes as well. The fact it has gameplay does not negate the fact it has a story.

it can't tell a cohesive story the same way a show can.

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RDR has a story you know. It's arguably its strongest point. It's better written, better voiced, has better facial animation, better body language, it's just an objectively superior story than RWBY is.

Let's face it. Ask anyone who's watched RWBY or played RDR, and say the former is better written than the latter, you're not gonna be taken seriously. It helps that Rockstar is a juggernaut while RT is tiny in comparison.

Yes I have and I'm not super impressed.

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If you're saying the animation in RWBY is better than RDR, then you sir must be blind or arguing in bad faith.

But we're veering off topic. If you want to talk more, take it to PM or make a new thread.

 

[Leingod]

How is it pointless? RWBY has animated scenes. RDR has animated scenes as well. The fact it has gameplay does not negate the fact it has a story.

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I wouldn't call it "pointless," but it very much is apples and oranges. They're both fruits, and they're not really so different that a comparison is worthless, but if you're going to argue one is "better" it kind of stops being anything objective.

That said, every medium of storytelling has its own strengths and weaknesses. I hate people acting like games or books should aspire to being movies, for example, because games and books are both able to tell stories in ways that no movie could even hope to convey properly, and vice versa. Stories told in different media can be compared, but it should always keep in mind the media involved and their particular traits.

RDR has a story you know. It's arguably its strongest point. It's better written, better voiced, has better facial animation, better body language, it's just an objectively superior story than RWBY is.

Let's face it. Ask anyone who's watched RWBY or played RDR, and say the former is better written than the latter, you're not gonna be taken seriously. It helps that Rockstar is a juggernaut while RT is tiny in comparison.

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Eh. The story starts off very promising, and certainly has its moments that are real high points of storytelling... but that's all stretched out because of the actual game element. The problem with trying to tell a story in a sandbox game is that, at best, you're taking the fillings of an excellent 6-inch sub and then stretching it out to an 18-inch sub. There's just not enough there to fill all this out. And similarly, every high point in the storytelling is followed by you having to take a big trek over the landscape and hunting and skinning rabbits and such for a few hours. You either miss out on the actual sandbox elements of the gameplay by trying to rush through the story, or you completely break the pace of the storytelling by interspersing every cutscene by messing around in the sandbox.

What's more, there's a lot of what I sometimes call "Rockstar Games Logic." John Marston is... well, in a lot of ways he's like every other Rockstar protagonist. He's always being snide and making threats and going "This is the last time!" but then goes along with whatever anyone suggests to him because the game needs you to do the mission this (frequently very obviously untrustworthy and unpalatable person) is asking him to do. It's... let me try to explain by outlining the early game.

So Marston needs to take out some bandits. He gets shot and left for dead. He's found and rescued by Bonnie MacFarlane, a strong-headed local rancher, and she and the town sheriff help Marston get his bearings and ease the player into the setting, and are both strong and well-realized characters that the player easily grows to like and sympathize with. So Marston starts going around town, working out how he can do what he needs to do, momentum's building...

And then you meet Seth, a grave-robbing Gollum motherf*cker. Seth is clearly insane, clearly delusional, and we only have this crazy delusional man's word that he can offer us any kind of help and that the many people he not-so-subtly asks you to kill because he thinks they have "his" treasure map aren't, you know, just innocent people being targeted by a maniacal grave-robber. I suppose you could argue this gets across how desperate Marston is for allies... but there's a fine line between desperate to help your family, and being a gullible stooge. The fact that John never really questions Seth on anything and just goes along with his new best buddy's request to kill people who for all we know are innocent kind of makes me lean toward the latter.

It violates other aspects of character, too. John Marston married a former prostitute, and has very progressive ideas about what women are capable of but is also quite respectful and even protective of women. And then later on Marston assists a corrupt Mexican dictator in burning down rebels' houses so he and his men can have their way with their women. You can't continue on unless you make Marston, who's proven himself a proponent of the fairer sex on multiple occasions, assist in these actions without raising a fuss.

When the snake-oil salesman, Nigel Wes Dickens, ropes him into playing along with his charade, Marston swears, "This is the last time" - every single time. He's full of empty threats, a pushover willing to do the biggest favor for the smallest possible reward. He's like every other Rockstar Games protagonist; he's a pinball getting shunted around to different untrustworthy people, asked to do potentially fatal bitch work for rewards that really don't match up to the risks and often has no reason to trust these people anyway, and he does it with nothing more than some bluster and empty threats that he repeats every time as he jumps off to do their bidding.

Besides, the characters and the body language of their cutscenes is... well, again, it's a Rockstar Game. It's about as subtle as a mallet to the face. A very small handful of these characters have really fleshed out characters and little tics and expressions that aren't trotted in your face and tell you a lot about them... but most characters are Rockstar Game characters. They're one-note, usually a bad joke, and any dialogue, facial expression or body language is usually just trying to hammer that one note in on every single scene.

And I've played Red Dead Redemption. Like, I clocked in maybe 80 hours on that game. I liked the story. It has some powerful moments, and as a fan of Westerns, I think it has a better grasp of what the genre is about and what it means than most ("Westerns are about the end of things" is a phrase that I think best encapsulates it), but it doesn't really have the same impact on me as RWBY. I don't go back and replay RDR just to catch new aspects of these characters I love so much the way I rewatch RWBY. From the technical and formalist standpoints, sure, RDR is objectively better put together on almost every level (and given the immense difference in budget and talent between the two it would be an absolute embarrassment for the game not to be better on those levels). But the technical and formal aspects of storytelling are so far from being the only thing that matters.

Not that I'm saying you're "wrong" if you say you like RDR better than RWBY, and I'm not saying that I'm "right" for liking RWBY more. But saying that one is "objectively better" on anything but the most technical level is disingenuous in my opinion. Those things are very important in presentation because they do a lot to get people in the door initially (one of the biggest obstacles to people getting into RWBY is how badly-done it is on the technical level in its early years, IMO), but they're not the things that make a work of fiction actually connect with people and stick with them, so I don't really consider them a good judgment of whether something's better than the other.

 

[Hykal94]

@Leingod, please make your own thread on RDR if you please. That or just PM the whole thing to me. Don't muddy the thread with unrelated posts.

 

[DezoPenguin]

The example I was thinking of when I wrote that was Red Dead Redemption, and I don't think most people can say RDR has bad animation.

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If you're saying the animation in RWBY is better than RDR, then you sir must be blind or arguing in bad faith.

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@Leingod, please make your own thread on RDR if you please. That or just PM the whole thing to me. Don't muddy the thread with unrelated posts.

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Seriously? You raise a point in the thread, you follow it up with an accusation that anybody who disagrees with your point is either acting in bad faith or a troll, and you then decide that nobody is allowed to defend either their opinion or the actual point of RWBY's animation and storytelling quality--which itself came out of @Leingod's extensive post on the quality of RWBY's use of facial expressions and body language in its early days, which to me seems extremely on-point and worthwhile in a discussion of RWBY?

 

[Hykal94]

Seriously? You raise a point in the thread, you follow it up with an accusation that anybody who disagrees with your point is either acting in bad faith or a troll, and you then decide that nobody is allowed to defend either their opinion or the actual point of RWBY's animation and storytelling quality--which itself came out of @Leingod's extensive post on the quality of RWBY's use of facial expressions and body language in its early days, which to me seems extremely on-point and worthwhile in a discussion of RWBY?

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First of all, I never called anyone a troll.

Secondly, I said I wanted to drop it. Leingod ignored that.

I'm saying that if you wanna discuss it further, PM me or make a new thread. That's all.

 

[Sasha]

First of all, I never called anyone a troll.

Secondly, I said I wanted to drop it. Leingod ignored that.

I'm saying that if you wanna discuss it further, PM me or make a new thread. That's all.

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I think the point people are making is that you can't just make your argument, call people either blind or bad faith debaters, then just drop the mic on your way out. If you make comments and accusations like that people are well within their rights to respond, especially considering it's pertinent to the topic of the thread. It's incredibly rude to make your point in an offensive way (and accusing people of bad faith debating is certainly that) and then demand that they drop the issue.

Honestly the only reason I didn't report you for bad faith debating is because I don't think this was actually your intention.

 

[Hykal94]

I think the point people are making is that you can't just make your argument, call people either blind or bad faith debaters, then just drop the mic on your way out. If you make comments and accusations like that people are well within their rights to respond, especially considering it's pertinent to the topic of the thread. It's incredibly rude to make your point in an offensive way (and accusing people of bad faith debating is certainly that) and then demand that they drop the issue.

Honestly the only reason I didn't report you for bad faith debating is because I don't think this was actually your intention.

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I said I wanted to drop the topic. Is that so difficult to understand? It feels you're all dogpiling me even though I said I wanted to bow out.

 

[Sasha]

I said I wanted to drop the topic. Is that so difficult to understand? It feels you're all dogpiling me even though I said I wanted to bow out.

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I'm sorry if it feels that way to you, as that wasn't my intention. I'm totally fine with you not wanting to continue the discussion, I'm just pointing out that the manner in which you did so was inconsiderate and needlessly inflammatory.

 

[Hykal94]

I'm just pointing out that the manner in which you did so was inconsiderate and needlessly inflammatory.

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Perhaps it was, but I don't regret a single word I said. There's nothing anyone here can do to convince me that Red Dead Redemption is a better product than RWBY in every single way.

If Red Dead was a show, using in-game cutscenes edited to flow better, it's still better product than RWBY will ever be. Better characters, better writing, better voice acting, excellent music, really the only thing that would be missing is action scenes, and that's because it's a game. Even then, Rockstar can direct better more tense action scenes than RWBY's (but that's a more subjective thing).

 

[hellgodsrus]

Perhaps it was, but I don't regret a single word I said. There's nothing anyone here can do to convince me that Red Dead Redemption is a better product than RWBY in every single way.

If Red Dead was a show, using in-game cutscenes edited to flow better, it's still better product than RWBY will ever be. Better characters, better writing, better voice acting, excellent music, really the only thing that would be missing is action scenes, and that's because it's a game. Even then, Rockstar can direct better more tense action scenes than RWBY's (but that's a more subjective thing).

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Right, but the thing about making a statement like that is it invites disagreement, or at the very least discussion, so going 'I don't want to discuss it' after saying something like that seems rather disingenuous, or at the very least poor manners.

 

[Zam]

Right, but the thing about making a statement like that is it invites disagreement, or at the very least discussion, so going 'I don't want to discuss it' after saying something like that seems rather disingenuous, or at the very least poor manners.

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I agree, though I have heard/been on some forums where making a sort of final statement of personal opinion before leaving is the standard but in my experience that is not the SV/SB way.

 

[Hykal94]

Right, but the thing about making a statement like that is it invites disagreement, or at the very least discussion, so going 'I don't want to discuss it' after saying something like that seems rather disingenuous, or at the very least poor manners.

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I'm happy to discuss further. In PMs preferably, because this is getting way off topic.

What is rude however, is when a poster telling literally everyone in the thread that they don't want to discuss it, and they keep quoting that person despite literally repeating the damn statement.

PMs please because at this point it's "let's dogpile on Hykal for stating the obvious fact that one product has better animation than the other".

 

[Sasha]

Perhaps it was, but I don't regret a single word I said. There's nothing anyone here can do to convince me that Red Dead Redemption is a better product than RWBY in every single way.

If Red Dead was a show, using in-game cutscenes edited to flow better, it's still better product than RWBY will ever be. Better characters, better writing, better voice acting, excellent music, really the only thing that would be missing is action scenes, and that's because it's a game. Even then, Rockstar can direct better more tense action scenes than RWBY's (but that's a more subjective thing).

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So you just came into the RWBY thread to shit all over something people enjoy by talking extensively about how some other thing is much better in every way? You've never actually addressed the original topic in a meaningful way. @Leingod praised RWBY for the way it makes use of body language, but all you did was come in and say, "But this other thing does that even better." Even then you don't actually make an argument, you just state that RDR is better than RWBY in every way as though it's an obvious fact without supporting your claims.

That's not a critique of the show and it's not meaningful discussion. It's just baiting people into an argument about an unrelated topic by attacking something they enjoy. Complaining about getting dogpiled for that is like complaining that you got shot after running around the projects screaming 'Nigger!' at people.

But seeing as you've admitted that you regret nothing about your conduct in this thread and have no intention to listen to what others have to say, I can see there's no point in engaging with you any further. I suppose you get what you want and the topic will die, you confident in the superiority of your opinion and everyone else pissed off at the jerk who thought it would be fun to do a drive by of the thread.

 

[Sinsystems]

 

[Mook]

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Fuck yeah! Those absolute madmen actually did it! Haha! And judging by that comment at the start this is only the first RWBY weapon they're going to make, with more to come in the future. I wonder if they're going to stick to mostly simple weapons like Crocea Mors, Ozpin's Cane or if they're actually going to attempt to tackle the madness that is Crescent Rose and Gambol Shroud.

Perhaps it was, but I don't regret a single word I said. There's nothing anyone here can do to convince me that Red Dead Redemption is a better product than RWBY in every single way.

If Red Dead was a show, using in-game cutscenes edited to flow better, it's still better product than RWBY will ever be. Better characters, better writing, better voice acting, excellent music, really the only thing that would be missing is action scenes, and that's because it's a game. Even then, Rockstar can direct better more tense action scenes than RWBY's (but that's a more subjective thing).

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I thought you didn't want to continue that discussion?

What is rude however, is when a poster telling literally everyone in the thread that they don't want to discuss it, and they keep quoting that person despite literally repeating the damn statement.

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No whats rude is jumping into a thread to shit on it, then using "its off topic bro!" as a shield against arguments to the contrary and then continuing the argument anyway while still using "its off topic bro!" as a shield.

Also since we are only discussing Red Dead in comparison to RWBY it doesn't seem like the discussion is off-topic in the first place.

 

[Tython82]

Crocea Mors,

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What about version 2.0 that is a Sword Sword?

 

[Mook]

What about version 2.0 that is a Sword Sword?

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That one is tricky but might still be doable. In comparison I have no idea how the hell anyone is going to make a sword that can turn into a Kusagirama pistol.