Not Tropeworthy: Main Window

Main Window is supposed to be a page for videogames having a display area, but that seems like People Sit On Chairs to me. As video games by definition have a visual element.

The page itself is basically unused by the wiki.

• It's only got 2 updates in its history. 1 is to fix the page linking to itself and some spelling. The other added to the description.
• It has no examples on the page itself.
• It has 18 inbounds since 2012 (roughly 1 person every 4 months)
• And it has 9 wicks:
  • Action Commands: mentioned in description.
  • Alice: Madness Returns: potholed in an example for Shows Damage. Could easily be potholed to Camera Abuse or Interface Screw instead.
  • Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth: Mentioned in description while discussing the minimalist UI.
  • Heads-Up Display: Mentioned twice in description.
  • Menu Time Lockout: Mentioned in a Diablo 2 examples about how it has all the menu buttons on the Main Window.
  • Mini Mix Mayhem: Used as a trope. Game has 4 separate interfaces displayed on 1 screen.
  • Status Line: Mentions that these are often at the top of the Main Window in the description.
  • Vanity Window: Mentioned in description.
  • Video Game Interface Elements: Indexing. Mentioned in entry for Vanity Window

So we have 1 example, 1 index and 5 uses in the description. The last 3 wicks are in examples, but aren't examples themselves.

I'd like to propose that we simply cut this, as it's not thriving, it's chairs, and we can't find a good image for it.

There's an argument that this page is just for definition, but I don't see that there's enough informative content for that.

As a final argument, this proposal is longer than the page I'm writing about.

edited 2nd Jun '18 4:05:19 PM by bitemytail

I agree that this is chairs.

I disagree that it is hard to find an image for this, though.

So, image picking is presumably stalled until this is resolved.

Okay...

I say: "Turn It Into An Index" for all the interface elements that fit.

Vanity Window, Minimap, Heads-Up Display, Meters, etc.

Jeez, who thought this was a good trope idea? "Omnipresent and meaningless" doesn't even begin to cover it. Nuke with prejudice.

edited 26th Jun '18 5:16:20 AM by Fighteer

We already have Video Game Interface Elements, which covers that idea.

- I mean like a smaller index, for Main Window related things.

Not all interface elements involve the main window?

Although, they mostly all appear there... Hmm...

I think an exampleless definition page is appropriate. It's omnipresent in video games, but that doesn't make it not a trope.

It kind of does. We've discussed it being PSOC, which would make it Not A Trope no matter how omnipresent it is.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 27th 2018 at 9:53:33 AM

But it's not People Sit On Chairs. Unless you think that showing what happens in a game is of no meaning whatsoever. That's a clear and well-defined purpose.

Also, you make it sound as if someoneone made an argument that because it's omnipresent it's a trope.

Can you think of an example where this trope would be subverted? EVERY game has a main window, does it not?

It's a fundamental part of the medium. It's like making a trope that films are displayed on screens. It adds no value whatsoever, unless you think that endlessly stating the blindingly obvious is worthwhile.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 27th 2018 at 11:50:31 AM

It doesn't make the site any better by removing it. Nothing is too obvious to be mentioned. It can serve as a contrast to other parts of the interface, and it makes a difference where not the entire screen is the Main Window.

I don't think "subversion" is the appropriate term there.

You know what I mean: an example of a video game that doesn't use this trope.

This is very much chairs.

I agree that it is chairs and should be nuked.

A complete lack of a trope would be an aversion, not a subversion.

Also, I'm in favor of cutting this.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 28th 2018 at 3:24:55 AM

So apparently according to this thread, showing the action of the game you're playing is of no meaning whatsoever. No point in arguing if that's what you believe.

Does using a television screen to watch a show have any meaning? Does filming a movie on cameras have any meaning? Does recording music on microphones have any meaning? No, they're a basic part of the medium.

Let's make a trope called Sound and enumerate every work that uses it. Stop freaking out.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 29th 2018 at 8:35:10 AM

Those aren't comparable. You're talking about the screen. This is closer to something like using speech bubbles in comics. It's a trope. It's just so basic you don't see it.

So we need a trope for all the games you can play with a keyboard and mouse? Again, it's too ubiquitous to convey any meaning.

Yes, it is comparable, because they're both inherent constraints of experiencing the medium. You need some sort of viewing device to view a film on, whether that be a screen or a bedsheet that your grampa hung up in the living room to watch his old 7mms on. Likewise, you need some way to be able to see the game you're playing— that's why it's a VIDEO game— and in a PC game, that's going to be a window. Until someone comes up with another way to play video games AND that way becomes relatively common, the fact that a video game has a main window is not a trope.

Speech bubbles exist because they were a convention invented by comic book writers, they're certainly not the only method artists could have gone with to convey speech. Main windows exist for games because you literally can't play a video game any other way. And before you start throwing examples at me of games which forgo a main window— there may be some estoeric games out there which have managed to bypass the need for a main window, but if TV Tropes had existed in the early 20th century we wouldn't have started a trope page for black and white film the moment The Wizard of Oz came out (well, La Vie et la passion de Jésus Christ, but you know what i mean) just because black-and-white was no longer the only way to do things.

If all you can do is strawman, there's no point in trying to argue.

The "In older games" paragraph is closer to what I expected this page to be about, and something I definitely think it could be reorganized to focus on. Basically, I think you could flip the description. Start out talking about how older games often had the action only taking up a fraction of the screen, then have a mention at the end that most games nowadays have the action taking up the whole screen, which is technically still a "main window", just one not worth giving examples of because of its ubiquity and relative lack of innate meaning.

In a lot of older games, the area on screen where the actual gameplay was taking place was only a part of the screen, with the rest of the screen being taken up by UI or static elements. Unlike most modern games, those UI elements could not be moved, minimized, or closed.

An example of this would be the picture on the Virtue/Vice Codification page. I think that's something worth giving examples for.

I could be missing something about this though.

Edit: Yeah, I missed the Vanity Window thing. Honestly, I think the two could be merged into a page that discusses both sides of the concept.

Edited by Jokubas on Jun 30th 2018 at 1:16:21 AM

Being omnipresent is not a criteria for chair-ness and has never been. In fact, we specifically wrote No Trope Is Too Common to stop people from getting this wrong.

No particular opinion whether Main Window should be a trope. It's kind of unorthodox but since we define "tropes" as "Tropes are the means by which a story is told by anyone who has a story to tell." it could conceivably fit into that category.

But the window is not used to tell the story, it is only a way of presenting that story.

If we take this as a trope, then a cinema screen or television would also be a trope to film and live action television, respectively. And a book would be a trope, as well.

Please delete this page, this would literally be saying that watching tv on a screen is a trope. It's stupid and nonsensical to have something like this.