Extra Credits

Remember when Realcrusadeshistory made a video series in response to EC (which should really just be called James/Portnow by this point, since he’s the only writer anymore) about the First Crusade, and it mostly just amounted to nitpicking and possibly-whataboutist statements about how the Turks weren’t actually letting pilgrimages through that could’ve easily be co-opted into Islamophobia by reactionaries?

Oh, great, I only just discover this group and there's a controversy already.

Someone also mentioned that the quality of the videos isn't very high?

Well, with the history videos specifically, the narratives they present are pretty entertaining but they always forego strict historical accuracy in the name of presenting an entertaining story, including apocryphal accounts, sometimes including bad sources, etc.

Hmm, I see, so that happens a lot? That's a shame, their way of presenting history does look interesting.

By no means take this as a reason to not watch the videos. They are fun, and for the most part informative, but treat them the same way you would a movie based on historical events, not the way you would an actual documentary or historical paper or history book. I don't approve of how they do their (Especially how they try to present themselves as more researched than they are) but I can still recommend the videos as worth watching as a starting point to something one might want to read in more details.

The real controversy atm is about the one remaining founder/head of Extra Credit being an abusive dick to people he works with.

edited 21st Jun '18 3:15:18 PM by Ghilz

Sure, but I was looking for a more in-depth history channel. And as an academic, I feel sacrificing historical accuracy for entertainment is somewhat of a mortal sin. Its basically the equivalent of using fanfiction for a literary analysis. Its probably not going to cut it.

Anyway,they did a video on devs making individual items and making a quick reskins

You’re probably not going to find any historically faithful series anywhere on the internet. You’ll just have to go spending money on Amazon or bookstores instead.

Actually, I just remembered something else that bothered me about the WW 1 series: Was Austria actually “shelling Belgrade” in late July/early August 1914? If not, then where did these rumors sent to Russia come from?

edited 21st Jun '18 3:44:15 PM by Delphisage

They did not. I don't know of the top of my head where the rumors came from to be honest

The best accurate history channel I found was Crash Course, but they don’t do raw history anymore (they are doing the history of science though). Crash Course Politics sucked though, they failed at understanding basic terms of politics.

I wonder actully if everyone’s work is that bad, and I just pick up on it when they talk politics because that’s what I studied.

I haven't watched Crashcourse beyond his first batch of history/culture videos. Helped to define Great Man narrative for me, but everything else ended up in one ear and out the other, save for explaining the part in Bill Wurtz's video about the king of Mali.

Quite possibly

edited 21st Jun '18 9:18:47 PM by VampireBuddha

Actually, is anything they say about video games really all that accurate, either? I've kinda avoided watching EC's main content because they keep using sweeping generalizations like "Have you ever wondered why Some Vague Thing happened in a videogame? Well, it's because of our current topic" and almost never give specific examples of what they're describing.

I've always taken EC as mostly James' opinion on stuff. Which, to his credit, is often interesting and informative, but not something to take as definitively correct in every instance.

One thing they did in a few episodes that annoyed me was the implication that turn-based combat in RPG's is inherently dull and outdated without bothering to substantiate it with any real arguments. Like, as a personal preference that's fine and all, but it's not really a particularly good statement to make from a game designer's point of view.

If anything Bravely Default is proof that that's not true.

Haven't seen that episode in a while, but wasn't that a personal example to illustrate the idea of game mechanics that hold intrinsic value to you (something that is enjoyable in itself) versus extrinsic value (something that you do because it gets you to stuff that is enjoyable)? Any example of that is going to be personal and subjective because we all like different things, but the general idea of recognizing that distinction is useful.

edited 22nd Jun '18 1:37:53 AM by Enlong

The Civilization games seem to do just fine with turn based gameplay.

Until the late game where your rushing to the finish

Since James is an experienced developer, he's definitely on more solid ground when talking about game design.

As for the specific example mentioned, yeah, he may have implied that menu-based combat wasn't interesting, but the actual point of that video was the difference between something that's interesting and enjoyable in itself vs something that you do in order to get to the good stuff. Killer7 is a great example of that, because everybody agrees that the gameplay is rarely more than mediocre but the story and presentation are ace. I guess he just went with Final Fantasy because it's one that people have heard of.

edited 22nd Jun '18 11:11:34 AM by VampireBuddha

"Since James is an experienced developer"

Didn't people manage to dig up how the only thing he ever worked on was a Call of Duty mobile game?

I think that might be conflating two things. He's worked on Call of Duty and on a mobile game. Farmville, specifically.

Portnow's career is mostly spent as a teacher and as a consultant. He's done development and writing for the aforementioned games, but for the most part, his job is basically just knowing his shit about video games. Developers pay him for advice, basically, rather than to actually sit down and type out some code.

edited 22nd Jun '18 11:43:09 AM by TobiasDrake

At the risk of sounding like an asshole, *citation needed*

That's not the only time they mentioned that idea, though. It was brought up in another episode as well which discussed what role cutscenes should play in the future of games.

Here you go. Took five seconds of Googling. Dude's a minor celebrity. He's not exactly an obscure name around whom information is limited purely to grapevine whispers.

edited 22nd Jun '18 11:44:17 AM by TobiasDrake

What about this thing: img.fireden.net/vg/image/1449/76/1449769958899.png

I'm not a troll. I just genuinely want to see if this is true or false.

edited 22nd Jun '18 11:55:13 AM by Delphisage