US Release of Persona 4 Announced: What will they make us do this time?
Jul. 6Atlus just announced at Anime Expo that we here on this side of the Pacific will see a PS2 version of Persona 4 in December of 2008. No word yet on what sort of detestable things they'll make us do to ourselves to unlock our personas, but self-multilation is not out of the question. What is your pick for an outlandish way to unleash personas?
Arturis (13)
Beros (18)
Crimson N Clover (16)
Lynxara (13)
Comments
Actually, they HAVE announced how Persona 4 Persona summoning works. They did it way back when the game was first announced in fact. You have cards with the Persona on them that each member of the team destroys in their own specific way, be it slashing, crushing or in one case, drop-kicking. The symbolic suicide in Persona 3 was exclusive to that. The various other Persona games generally have you obtain the power of Persona during a plot event and keep it as such.
Damn. I was hoping for something involving C4 charges shaped like animals, ala CaddyShack.
This could have been a insightful entry if it had the benefit of five or ten minutes of research on Wikipedia rather than just reading the Penny-Arcade strip and posting a video.
Thanks for the opinion Shining, but for game announcements I tend to vote for the "lets get talking about it" tack rather than what you expected. There is by no means a moritorium on Persona 4 posts simply because I posted a 3 line snippet to let people know that the game is coming to the US in December. If you aren't interested in hearing about RPG news in the format we're posting it here, perhaps you should look for your RPG news elsewhere.
It's not that there's anything wrong with inviting discussion. I think it's more that most people who would normally want to discuss Persona 4 might be turned off from doing due to a lack of taste displayed in those three lines.
To kick off conversation, you might have asked "What aspects of the human psyche do you think it will explore?" or even something basic like "What mythologies would you like to see represented?" Instead, you basically reduced something that many people treasure deeply to its least interesting and most gimmicky feature.
I don't have an attachment to Persona myself but I know how this post would make me feel if I did (read: alienated and insulted). Even if all you want to do is lead a discussion, you still need to present at least a passing knowledge of the thing to make sure that the people you're inviting feel welcome there. Otherwise it just feels like you're making fun of the thing they care about.
I fail to see the insult here. People who have truly played these games, people who enjoy Shin Mega Tensei would see this as a joke. I mean seriously the stuff they put you through in the game is borderline cthulu-like in nature. If this post insults you then perhaps you have been playing the wrong game all these years. As for me I am getting my trauma kit ready, a tub of chocolate ice cream, and a therapist on standby. Bring it!
I think that's a bit unfair to say that your usual posts are that way. When Diablo 3 was announced, your initial announcement post included a fairly detailed description of what exactly made up the game's introduction. Here, it's a one-line sentence going "This game will be released in Decmeber" and ignoring any relevent facts about it, including information that can and will be found quite easily with a five-second search. I mean, the game is due out in Japan this week, and almost all of the basic gameplay features and character information has been released via various magazine scans and information. A brief summary of the concept and backstory would have been fine, but instead your post included an outright lie. "No word yet on what sort of detestable things they'll make us do to ourselves to unlock our personas, but self-multilation is not out of the question" which is quite unclear with ten seconds of research.
It's pretty insulting indeed, actually. Persona and SMT games in general tend to be very intelligent and thought provoking and use their symbolism in very intelligent ways indeed, especially when compared to games like, say, Xenosaga, which toss in random references just to have random references.
This is akin to referencing, say, Schindler's List as "the movie where that guy freaks out over not selling his watch or something." Yes, that scene exists in the movie, but by explaining it that way, you've proven that you've either never seen the movie or what actually was occurring onscreen flew over your head so far as to be laughable.
I don't particularly care about the content. I care about the derision it shows FOR the subject matter. Maybe Mandifesto is right and I should avoid the website, but I've generally found the other OMG-(x) websites to be quite readable and, am quite obviously, an avid RPG fan. I would prefer to see this website improve instead of abandoning it, and by that regard, I plan to offer constructive critcism wherever possible. I would hope instead of attempting to drive readers away, you might realize that posting ten posts on a western RPG announcement and then one informative line and two offensive lines about a Japanese RPG announcement might not be the best way to handle things.
Really, ImpAtom? Comparing Persona 3 to Schindler's List, are we? I wonder how many RPG fans were put to death in internment camps for their love of the Persona series? Oddly enough, I cant seem to find that specific holocaust in the history books.
..It's a movie about the Holocaust, Arturis. They made it in 1993. If you'd read a history book while looking for the actual Holocaust, you'd discover that it ended in 1945, almost fifty years too late for anyone to go to the camps for liking it. I've certainly never heard about any List-fan purges, myself, though please enlighten me if there's been some pogrom against people who like Spielberg.
What ImpAtom was trying to do is make a comparison between two media works that are similar for two reasons: they're both somewhat controversial, and shallow people continually refuse to display understanding of the metaphor behind some things in both. What you did is much like the original post did for Persona 3, which is kind of instructive. In taking one item out of a fairly long and somewhat complex piece and completely misunderstanding both its significance, and therefore his point, by not actually attempting to (or simply being unable to) understand the whole thing, you've shown your ignorance about the overarching idea. It's basically the same as Persona 3 and the Evokers.
No, what ImpAtom is doing is the same thing that you are doing - finding minor negative points, claiming them as insult through over dramatization and hyperbole, and latching on to them in order to do what you can to dig your claws into this site. Lets "call a spade a spade" and just drop the pseudo intellectual posturing; Its not getting you anywhere.
A quick query of the database shows that neither you or ImpAtom have ever posted on another GamePro or BlogFaction site. You did not start commenting until June 1st, the day that Mandifesto assumed control of this site. Furthermore, your comments have been consistently negative and unsupportive, attacking her posts at every opportunity you can find. You have brought absolutely nothing positive to omgRPG, GamePro, or the entire IDG Community.
In fact, I'm ending it here. Allow me to introduce you to the ban hammer. Have a nice day, both of you.
Err, I'm a troll for correcting mistakes and trying to help this site improve? That's a pretty broad brush. Well, your choice is your choice, I suppose. Sorry I tried to help.
As a Persona fan I also found this post rather insulting and pointmissing. I would really have preferred an honest "I haven't played Persona 3, but this video looks (insert opinion here)" to a post which comes off as an attempt to look cool while being both ignorant and contemptuous.
I guess this isn't positive or supportive but I do hope it is constructive. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't pretend to. A post like this will at best alienate the game's fans while eliciting a mild chuckle from people who've already read the same joke everywhere else. A straightforward post of news and admission of ignorance, perhaps with suggestion for discussion, will achieve your stated goals much more effectively.
Also, hell, now that I've had a few moments to get over the annoyance of being lied about, I figure I should refute your points. You're quite wrong about me never having commented before. Not only having I commented on other sites, but I seem to recall also commenting ON THIS VERY SITE before Mand took over. At very least, I certainly remember reading it and being glad when the crossover occured.
I've been TRYING to make comments which I feel point out areas where the site can be improved. I'm sorry if this bothers you or offends you, but shockingly, OMGRPG is not perfect and flawless. The very fact that you thought I was somehow comparing Persona 3 to the holocaust is simply hilarious and wrong. I was pointing out a similar example of a MOVIE where people consistantly point to one scene out of context. There are other examples I could have used, so sorry I didn't.
I'm sorry, but your primary problem is that your focus is extremely small and narrow-minded, which is why this Persona 4 thing angers me so much. Your posts on Diablo 3 are numerous and detailed, your posts on FFTA2 make sense, and there is certainly no denying that WoW is heavily covered on OMGRPG. It's once you get outside of that box that you start to suffer problems. If you don't want to discuss Persona 4, don't. Making a flat-out uninformed statement (There is no indication) combined with something that is deeply offensive to fans of the Megaten series is not a way to attract new readers. It is the way to shore up the fanbase of "Western RPG gamers who love making fun of JRPGs despite never having played them." Otherwise, I beg of you, get a writer who knows about JPRGs, because posts like this Persona 4 one are just shameful and show a mocking disregard to the fanbase and a shameful ignorance of the genre you claim to be writing about.
"lied about"
A query for the login name "ImpAtom" in the BlogFaction database returns exactly 32 comments as of 3:40 pm Tuesday, July 8th 2008, all of which are from omgRPG.com and the first of which was dated June 1, 2008.
As the song says, Don't go away mad, just go away. Your account has been banned, and as soon as your cookie expires, you are history. Any further comments can and most likely will be deleted.
@ Benly,
This was a basic news post inviting discussion (see the last sentence, a question posed to readers), and as far as I can tell 16 comments counts as discussion.
I'm really not particularly in the mood to dig through every single OMG looking for posts I've made, so I guess I'll have to give you this. My apologies, I clearly remember commenting, but perhaps that was some trick of my mind. However, I don't think this invalidates any of my points. I didn't begin posting on OMGRPG to troll, and I certainly haven't been making nothing but trolling posts, and you really do seem to be igoring the posts I've made simply responding as well. (Also, if I really was a troll, I'd imagine I would be using this poor ban design to make your life a living hell, not, y'know, try to have a reasonable discussion with you. :P Seriously, you guys might want to find a way to fix this.)
Art, you surely don't think I'm a troll, so can I weigh in as saying that I think you're completely out of line with this? You've systematically managed to avoid every bit of genuine criticism in this thread by erecting strawman arguments and then laying down the banhammer.
If what Mandi says is true, and discussion is the idea no matter what the topic, aren't you cutting off at least half the posts to the topic by doing this?
I know that I'm coming across looking like an ass on this, but my loyalties are with this site and its writers. There is a severe amount of disrespect being shown to Mandifesto since the first day she began posting. Call it "corrections" if you want, but I am sure that those commenting could have phrased these "corrections" in a way as to not disrespect the original writer of each of the posts they commented on. Instead, they chose to comment in a demeaning "You know nothing/I know better then you" tone, and because of that, we have lost two writers before they even wrote their first posts, and soon to be a third from the way things are looking. This site is not going to succeed without writers, and at this point it is Mandifesto carrying the entire site on her shoulders. Morale is practically nonexistent. At some point I have to put my foot down, and today was that point.
If I have to be the villain, so be it. If you think I am out of line or being unfair, I apologize. I will do what I have to do to defend the writers of this site.
If those who have been banned would like to discuss this further, I can be reached at arturis[at]gamepro[dot]com.
Mandi:
You did inspire a fair amount of posting. Unfortunately, almost none of it is about Persona 4; instead you inspired a lot of posting about how badly you handled the news item.
ShiningDestiny and ImpAtom are being more aggressive about this, but the basic point comes down to: you could have invited genuine discussion about a legitimate news item. (And if you don't think Persona 4 being confirmed for US release so quickly after its Japanese release is a news item, well.. charitably I will say it indicates a poor understanding of the import process and of the influence the Megami Tensei series wields in Japanese RPG development.) Instead, you basically chose to use it as a premise from which to troll its fans or those who actually follow JRPG news, and not even in a terribly inventive way.
Is it that terrible to admit you handled something badly? Deal with it, move on, improve as a journalist.
I'm not interested in leaving behind some hate-filled screed about how I've been wronged, but I feel like one more reply before I take this site off my bookmarks and warn everyone I know away. Also, man, this is something to come back to after a day at the movies. Sheesh.
Arturis, if you're going to side with your fellow writers, I really can't blame you, but good luck growing a community with that kind of tunnel-vision. A blog is just as much about the people writing commentary as the writers, and a more even-handed approach might serve you well, especially when your fellow authors write posts that some people find a little offensive.
Anyway, the reason I only reply to Mandifesto's posts is because she's the only one posting anything of any significance on this blog. Your posts are pretty sparse, Beros' were about something I played once for ten days and didn't want to put any money into, and the only other guy I saw posted once and then never appeared again. This isn't some kind of grudge. I don't have anything against her or people in general, so please don't accuse me of having some ulterior motive.
Anyway, like the man says, I'm not going away angry, but I'm plenty happy to go away. Laters.
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