Jun. 27th, 2011

jack: (Default)
When someone says "easy to use", a high proportion of the time they're talking about a different use cases to the one you're thinking of. It's an easy mistake to make, as often one's usage pattern is representative, but also, often it isn't. And if it isn't, it's easy to forget that someone else might be talking about how easy it is to do something else -- either something so basic you'd forgotten it was necessary, or something so complicated you simply never needed to use it.

Classic example: 3.5 ed DnD Forums. Essentially every conversation on the forum[1] went something like this:

Beginner: Which class is [most powerful/easiest to play effectively/most fun]?
Expert: Oh, that's easy. Everyone knows the best class is [wizard/cleric/non-core prestige class X]
Other beginner: What? I tried that and [I was eviscerated by a Kobold in the first encounter because I started the game with -57 hit points[1]]. What are you smoking?
Expert: NEWB!
Beginner: DICK!

Etc, etc.

The same applies to unspoken differences in GMing style, which can make social skills overwhelmingly broken, or near-useless; or make time to prepare spells before combat into an assumed right, or a rare luxury; or make finding a highly enchanted weapon suited to your skills a certainty, or an unheard of stroke of luck.

But the same applies to all sorts of other things. I recently saw a thread asking "is [version control A] [more powerful/easier to use] than [version control B]" and it turns out that whether or not it's clear what the answer is, it depends whether you mean "for going from 'never used it' to 'first check in'" or "for editing the history in creative ways", and it's easy to dismiss the other person as wrong, when "not relevant to me and so I assumed that wasn't relevant to anyone" would have been more accurate.

[1] Mild exaggeration
jack: (Default)
Good

* Actual characters whose personality matters and interacters with other characters' personalities
* Set at a time when Xavier and Magneto are able to let rip and it's awesome, rather than having to come up with contrived explanations why they're practically omnipotent, but wait till the end of the film to do anything.
* A plot that mostly more-or-less makes sense.
* Portrays earlier versions of the characters that are interestingly different, but not inconsistent with their normally-understood later selves.

It's rare that once a series has started to go downhill, the second prequel is the one that's picks up again, but this one bucks the trend: it's definitely better than the boring wolverine prequel, and at least as good as XIII, and in some but not all ways better than X-Men 1 and 2.

Minor spoilers )

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