Too vague, may need a split: Down The Drain

The definition of this trope isn't clear and looking at the examples, the page seems to have 3 different meanings:

• 1. Sewer levels.
• 2. Water levels that are a pain to get through.
• 3. Sewer levels that are a pain to get through.

It seems to overlap with That One Level and Absurdly Spacious Sewer in some parts. I think a split might be needed. That, or a heavy reworking.

edited 9th Nov '10 4:22:12 PM by Marioguy128

Yeah, the Done Badly part should be cut out. It should just be sewer levels as a sister trope to Under the Sea.

What did this trope used to be anyway before it got flanderized? decayed?

edited 9th Nov '10 6:03:26 PM by Marioguy128

Down the Drain is about the stock Video Game Setting. Absurdly Spacious Sewer doesn't refer to the sewer itself, but rather the tendency of sewers to be represented as much larger than they would be in Real Life. So if it's being used to refer to just any sewer, that would be misuse. At least, that's how I understand the distinction.

For some reason, both of them are listed in the Video Game Settings index. Confusingly, Down the Drain is a setting and Absurdly Spacious Sewer is not, but Absurdly Spacious Sewer is the one that has the name that sounds like it's a place. The fact that Down the Drain has, frankly, a terrible description only compounds the confusion.

And if my understanding of the distinction is correct, I already see at least one instance of misuse (misuse of Absurdly Spacious Sewer anyway) on the Down the Drain description itself: "Most game developers have a fondness for levels in sewers and Under the Sea."

I'm going to go ahead and make Sewer Level redirect to Down the Drain if that's okay.

edited 9th Nov '10 6:53:56 PM by troacctid

Note that not all Down the Drain levels represent sewers, just as Lethal Lava Land does not necessarily involve lava. Furthermore, the Absurdly Spacious Sewer doesn't have to be a water level.

edited 9th Nov '10 8:15:54 PM by Prfnoff

Well for one thing we need a better description.

Can we agree to thump it with the Tropes Are Not Bad stick and change it to a more neutral "Sewer Level" as opposed to "Sewer Levels Suck"?

agree.

One big reason is that Absurdly Spacious Sewer is not strictly a Video Game only trope and not all sewer levels fall under it.

It should be removed from the index as well.

edited 10th Nov '10 10:52:48 PM by Raso

I think Down the Drain was originally meant to be "underwater level", but that's currently covered under Under the Sea. I'd repurpose Down the Drain to be "combined underwater/underground levels", noting specifically that this frequently results in restricted movements and maze-like passages (as opposed to Under the Sea, which can be completely wide open).

Agree with rename to Sewer Level. It's distinct from Absurdly Spacious Sewer, and I'm not sure if we need a trope just to say "sewer levels suck".

The consensus seems to be that the trope is about the stock video game setting. If nobody has any objections, I'll rewrite it to that end.

It looks good. There are a few splotches here and there but that looks good. So I guess this problem is resolved.

Has it been rewritten? Looks the same to me.

The description doesn't have much changes, but the rest of the page got rewritten.

The examples are still full of explanations about the aspects of the levels in question that were annoying. If we're redefining this to cut out the negativity (which I think we are, although if we need a crowner first, that's acceptable), we should try and trim that out, plus rework the description to match.

Also, I'd still like to do something about the naming to help with confusion between Down the Drain and Absurdly Spacious Sewer.

Should we just cut Down the Drain? I mean it seems redundant with Absurdly Spacious Sewer around.

Well, Absurdly Spacious Sewer is about the convention of sewers in fiction being way bigger than Real Life sewers, so it doesn't necessarily fill the same role of Lethal Lava Land or Slippy-Slidey Ice World as one of the Video Game Settings, even though it's being misused that way.

Edit: Nevermind. Forgot about Under the Sea.

edited 10th Dec '10 1:32:31 PM by azul120

Bump.

The trend for videogame level settings seem to be naming it after a particular level in a particular game, Like Bubbly Clouds and Jungle Japes. Is there a particularly memorable named sewer level?

This thread expired after 60 days of inactivity.

Are we done here? If we are Lets Lock this thread.

edited 14th Jun '11 1:46:05 PM by pokedude10