I see the Awesomeness.
Looks about right to me. Let me go dig up a copy of the original description.
Edit:
In video games, and occasionally movies, the strengths and weaknesses of shotguns are greatly exaggerated. In the video game world, where enemies are either alive and fully functional or dead (for most games anyway), and simply "disabling" an enemy isn't an option, shotguns used at longer ranges inflict about as much damage as a garden sprayer: In order to be useful, you have to move closer to the target and reach the maximum effectiveness range. In reality, this range is anywhere from 20 to 40 meters (133 feet) depending on the choke used and amount of charge in the shell. In video games, this range is invariably about ten feet — but when you're in that range, the shotgun is almost always extremely lethal and often kills enemies in just one shot and depending upon the game, often reduces the enemy to bloody pieces.
The end result is that shotguns are situational weapons at best (even more so than in reality), and that using one, even in close quarters, is a risky proposition and can quickly leave the user exposed to counter-attacks from other enemies. The user will invariably be chasing enemies around the room, trying to get close enough to kill them in one or two shots, because this instant-kill nature is usually balanced by fairly rare ammo and/or slow reload, even if the use is limited to begin with.
edited 26th Mar '12 12:39:36 PM by Deboss
Fight smart, not fair.
Dragon Writer
Yeah, I like the new description a lot better than that Wall of Text.
An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.
New description is a huge improvement.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Hammer of the Pervs
Should we throw something in there about rifled slugs? Granted, slugs are very rare in video games — the only example I can think of is Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear — but saying shotguns have a range of 30-40 meters is kind of misleading since that's only with shot, not slugs. Slugs extend the range to about 100 meters, or 300 if you're using Frag-12 rounds since they're fin-stabilized.
edited 26th Mar '12 8:44:00 PM by Martello
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
Yeah, that's not really part of the trope and as you said, shotguns with shells aren't really common. I think it's fine to just leave them out of the description. Weaponry tropes have a tendency to accumulate a lot of Real Life wank. We don't need to add more.
I think this is a general problem with weaponry tropes actually. You should have seen Molotov Cocktail before I took an axe to it. It randomly had a history of weapon development stuck into it.
edited 26th Mar '12 8:45:46 PM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Hammer of the Pervs
Very true, and I usually am the one trimming them, like the essay on the history of firearms in More Dakka or somewhere. Sometimes I guess I just fall into the problem of wanting everyone to know as much about guns as I do. You should hear how my non-military friends get when I complain about firearms in movies.
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
I see the Awesomeness.
Agreement, focuses on the trope, rather than the "why this is wrong" stuff.
Edit, fortunately that ninja still left everything in context.
Focusing on "why this is wrong" used to be a much larger problem. Mostly because it's a lot easier to spot something wrong than spot something right as that doesn't break immersion.
edited 26th Mar '12 8:49:45 PM by Deboss
Fight smart, not fair.
You might want to start writing Analysis pages for weapon tropes. That way you could share your insight into the comparison between Real Life and fiction without cluttering up the main.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
I see the Awesomeness.
We still have Useful Notes for stuff about reality, which is what we did with a lot of those.
Fight smart, not fair.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Agreed, some analysis would be great.
Hammer of the Pervs
Good idea on the Analysis, I'll see what I can do this week. I'll start with this trope, I have a few thoughts on the subject.
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
Hammer of the Pervs
I just threw up Short-Range Shotgun if any of you want to take a look. If that seems like the kind of thing we want in firearms tropes analysis pages, I'll get to work on writing more of them, and see if I can enlist the help of some of the other gun enthusiasts around here.
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
Face Time
The sentence mentioning the ammo drawback is slightly confusing to me, but otherwise, good work.
"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel
Cure Candy
Video games even Sci Fi games like Halo they do a manual reload one at a time also usually very limited capasitiy before you have to reload to like 8~ shots max. 50ish seconds into this video.
edited 28th Mar '12 10:52:22 PM by Raso
Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!
what are you doing
I'd add a note that if a game uses this, it's usually in throwbacks to old shooters like Doo M.
Hammer of the Pervs
@Rocket - what specifically did you find confusing? I can probably revise it to make it more clear if I was unknowingly using jargon or something.
edited 29th Mar '12 7:38:28 AM by Martello
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.Eh, it made sense to me. I approve.
Any confusion about jargon would be best cleared up by linking to whatever useful notes page we have about guns and ammo, if we have one.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Face Time
Oh yeah, the part about the ammo drums-what drawback is represented in games?
"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel
Hammer of the Pervs
Ammo drums are used in the three most common automatic shotguns (USAS-12, AA-12 and Saiga-12 which is only semi though) but in the games I can think off that let you use those guns, you can only use the 8-round box magazines, instead of the 20 or 32 round drums. I'll double-check that part and see if I can clarify it a bit.
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
Face Time
Well, it depends, Killing Floor lets you get an AA-12 with the drum magazine, and one of the GTAIV expansions has an AA-12 with a drum.
"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel
Separate it into "Straight examples" and "Aversions"?
Hammer of the Pervs
That always ends up looking stupid, to my mind. If it's an aversion, just say so in the example.
Does anything else need to be done here, or can we lock this up?
edited 10th Apr '12 5:19:28 AM by Martello
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
Palutropon (the person responsible for the problematic edit to Revive Kills Zombie, mentioned elsewhere), did a massive trimming of the description for this trope. I'd just go ahead and revert it, but I'm not sure if such a trim isn't actually a good thing, given the extreme verbosity and detail-richness of the original description that included a lot of information not really necessary to understanding the trope. Due to this uncertainty, I'm putting up for you to decide.
"That's ridiculous. What would a walrus do with a magic bag?" Pokeamida