Okay, say this site had an Opinions section… a place where people could piece together their thoughts on a topic together and have it published on a webpage on this site. Issues such as “The changes in Panzer Dragoon Orta” or “The evolution of the Panzer Dragoon battle system” could be covered, for example. It wouldn’t be a place for starting an argument so much as the result of an argument or forum topic. After the writer had gathered his or her thoughts on a subject, an opinion could be voiced with reasoning and examples in a place where it would remain, rather than getting pushed to the bottom of a forum over time.
So, basically, it would be like a ‘rants’ section… more of an “after thoughts” section, than a reviews section.
The question is, if such a section existed (it’s just an idea at the moment), who would be willing to write something for it? I’d have to have content from more than just two or three people to make it worthwhile, to properly showcase the variety of opinions that Panzer Dragoon fans have.
the only issue i see is that it would all be intangible. i guess people would understand that it is only opinions in the opinion section. but something i noticed when i first came here was that there are some entries in the theories section that are quite clearly disproved. but they are right alongside some of the theories that are almost certainly factual.
when i began reading them, i assumed that they were all correct because i thought the community had worked out the details and the theories that were posted definitely had the possibility if not likelihood of being correct.
i think it would be neat if we could assemble a definitive panzer dragoon encyclopedia. it would be a compilation of all factual information that this community has written and would also feature the theories that are strongly supported by evidence in the games. it would be the thing to turn to to bring someone up to speed on everything established in the panzer dragoon universe.
anyway, other than making it clear that whatever was said would be the opinion of the author, what is there really to write about? you could compare the games in the series. but everything else i can come up with would be better categorized as a review or a theory.
Yeah, I’ll write for an opinions section if it comes into being. I can see where Megatherium’s coming from though, and the same thing struck me at first; how many issues could this section cover, issues that wouldn’t want to be in the general review or storyline theory sections? Well as Solo said, opinions on specific changes between Panzer Dragoon Orta (well, any PD game) and its predecessors, such as visual style, gameplay, and soundtrack seems like an obvious one. (We could also talk about how well or how appropriately PDO carried on the storyline of the series, which people seem to have mixed opinions on.)
The merits of the rail shooter genre vs. the RPG genre for immersing the player in the PD world would be a good one too, as would thoughts on what should be done regarding a future PD game. The question of whether or not there should be a Panzer Dragoon Saga remake could probably get in there too, as that seems to be controversial with some fans. Also, opinions on whether or not Panzer Dragoon Saga is really worth ?30,000 (or whatever they’re charging on Ebay) might be worth putting down. So yeah, I expect there would be enough topics to make the section worthwhile, if people do want to write for it.
I’m inclined to agree with Lance on this issue - there’s certainly a considerable diversity to subjects that could be covered, as was noted in the other posts, and it would also be a useful ‘archive’ section for authoritatively disproven Theories and Mysteries - conflicting information wouldn’t need to confuse readers, but could be shifted to a different page and reclassified as “Someone’s opinion used to be…” instead. It’d be a good way of ensuring that people’s hard work in composing the articles isn’t abused by having them summarily deleted, whilst still keeping the Theories and Mysteries sections relevant.
Which reminds me… I honestly should hurry up and finish that short article on dragonriders I’ve been dithering over during the past week…
I don’t think we should mess with the theories section at all wether they are hinted as being right or wrong by evidence from the games.
The opinions section sounds quite different to put any of the theories there, plus some of the potentialy “wrong” theories are just an exploration of alternatives by the author rather than his real own opinion on how things are.
That’s a good point. Most of the theories in the Theories section were written at a time when they weren’t disproved. For example, Geoffrey wrote his original Sky Rider theory before Smilebit confirmed that the Sky Rider was not Lundi in an interview.
Well, a theory is really just a collection of ideas… a hypothethis that has yet to be proven. So really the section is just a collection of different possibilites in the Panzer Dragoon world. Some with stronger arguments than others, but none of them are by any means the definate correct answer.
What I was thinking of was a collection of articles by different members of the community that covered some of the aspects of the Panzer Dragoon series. Lance mentioned some good ones below. Most of the information on the site at the moment is either about the storyline of the games, whereas there?s very little information about the gameplay, music, and development of the games, among other things. An opinions section might be a good way to bring up some of these overlooked parts of the Panzer Dragoon series, which are far from unimportant.
Also, the difference between a review and an opinions or ?articles? section is that reviews tend to focus more on giving an all round opinion of a game (with a ?score?) rather than delving deeper into a topic.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”] I don’t think we should mess with the theories section at all wether they are hinted as being right or wrong by evidence from the games.
The opinions section sounds quite different to put any of the theories there, plus some of the potentialy “wrong” theories are just an exploration of alternatives by the author rather than his real own opinion on how things are.[/quote]
That?s basically how I feel about the Theories section as well, it?s basically a collection of alternative ?possibilities?. For example, after reading some of the replies to my Wedged Gun Theory I?m not so sure that was how the gun arrived, but I still think it?s worthwhile to explore these sorts of ideas nonetheless?