Ignophobia – Nathan Mallory's Weblog

From Chemognome’s Logbook:

Endyss? Yeah, I know ‘im. We were buddies together back in the war, he helped me get back on ma’ feet. He used to take me to the infirmary for my treatments, back in the day. S’been forever since I seen hide-nor-hair of ‘im though, not quite sure what happened to him…

Endyss has a kid now, or so I’ve been told. To hell wit’ the brats, I say. They always tryin’ to touch my bald head! But with Endyss gone missin’ and the girl’s human mother dead in childbirth, what’s a gnome to do? I’ll keep an eye on her, surely shoe shine, but don’tcha be expecting me to trek all the way across the world to eerie elfy land just to pay her a visit.

I saw this cover in the local supermarket this morning as I was waiting to check out, and I cannot tell you how much it made me cringe. It takes scandal on the industry level of Monica Lewinsky to get videogames major international press, even making the cover of the Economist. As if Democrat senators like Clinton playing to the center weren’t bad enough, Rockstar has made the whole world question whether games are “breeding evil.”

In truth, however, the article is the polar opposite of its cover. Available online here, the article discusses a generational divide between gamers and non-gamers leading to an entire segment of the population (the elder) that reject videogames outright, just as was done with rock and roll, novels and even written words. It generally speaks positively about videogames as educational tools, whether they be Sim City and Rollercoaster Tycoon or the problem solving and quick decision-making of GTA. All in all, it’s seriously worth the read.

I think it was my sister’s school, Wellesley, that had the Honor Code thing down right. The actual text is available here, but as she explained it, students could take their final exams when they wanted, where they wanted, and in the presence of whomever they wanted (within the limits of reason, of course). The logic behind such flexibility was simple: the students at Wellesley were bound by the school’s Honor Code not to cheat. When a student begins their education at Wellesley, they make a pact with the school to abide by the Code, and in exchange the faculty and staff extend their trust to the student body. They trust the students to honor the Honor Code. Contrast that to the code by the same name at OU Law.

OU’s code is noticably less clear-cut than Wellesleys. In truth, when one considers how OU’s Honor Code is invoked in daily practice, from my experience a violation seems to consist of “Obvious academic misconduct, plus whatever else the faculty in question says is infringing.” Case in point is my own Honor Code debacle in the Spring 2005 Contracts final. For students taking their exams on a laptop, the University provides tightly restrictive exam software (oh so aptly made by a company named “Extegrity”). It locks your computer from any functionality beyond a basic word processor until the exam is over. As had numerous students, I had the unfortunate habit of not actually launching the exam software until I was ready to use it – I simply left my laptop blank on its Desktop as I worked through multiple choice or essay preparation. This neglectfulness caught up with me in my Contracts exam when forty minutes in, another student brought to the professor’s attention that some students had not yet started their software. This resulted in a major headache when the teacher approached me and very nearly charged me with academic misconduct on the spot. Fortunately after many apologies and a check of my laptop’s activities through the IT department, I was vindicated (and aced the class!). Yet through it all the professor insisted that while she understood and believed that I was not cheating, I was still “in technical violation of the Honor Code” by not starting the software. Oh?! Since when is the Honor Code designed to prevent me from impressing everyone with the might of my World of Warcraft desktop wallpaper? No, it was a violation of the Honor Code because the professor said it was, thus giving her all the flexibility she would need to prosecute me for academic misconduct if she had any doubts.

My larger dispute with OU’s Honor Code is that at some point it ceases to have any value. What is the point of an Honor Code if the students obviously will not be trusted in the slightest? Is it just a loosely defined crutch the faculty can use to justify restricting any conduct of which they disappove? Is it an appeal to the students’ morality not to cheat (but just in case, we’re going to employ a little “extegrity” as well)? The latest instance has arisen with tomorrow’s Conflicts final: the professor is afraid to allow students to use their laptops to refer to their notes (open book, open note exam). If the Honor Code had any real value, not only would that be an option, but what would be the practical reason barring students from even taking their exams on unsecured laptops and turning them in on thumbdrives?

How can a school expect its students to value an Honor Code when they, themselves, see it as worthless?

It was recently brought to my attention just how low Square Enix has fallen just in terms of their naming of new IP.

If this isn’t pathetic, I don’t know what is.

Okay, that’s enough.
All the news pouring out of their recent “Square Enix Party 2005” sent me into a little reflecting on the RPG behemoth’s current state. And for the most part it wasn’t good. If it has felt to anyone else that Square Enix has been lagging behind lately, that they’ve lost some of the spark that garnered a worldwide fanbase of millions, you are in like company.

The slide into mediocrity for Square began, I believe, with the current generation of consoles. Since Final Fantasy X’s release in 2001, the only thing of lasting worth to emerge from the once-hallowed developer has been the early 2002 release of Kingdom Hearts. Merging with Enix in late 2002 only further muddied the waters (though, in the end, it may have actually been a boon to Enix). To make sure I was not simply out of touch, I went back and compiled a list of all Square Enix’s releases since FFX. The complete list, available here, is actually larger than I had expected. Once you remove the titles developed by Enix and Tri-Ace, and things like “All Star Pro Wrestling” that I’m amazed Square could actually produce, we find a more predictable result:

2001 7/19 12/17 Final Fantasy X

2002 1/31 X Final Fantasy X International 3/28 9/16 Kingdom Hearts 12/19 6/17/03 Unlimited Saga 12/26 X Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix

2003 2/14 9/8 Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 3/13 11/18 Final Fantasy X-2 6/12 3/23/04 Final Fantasy XI (PlayOnline Entry Disc) 8/8 2/9/04 Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles 8/29 12/1 Sword of Mana 9/11 3/2/04 Drag On Dragoon (US: Drakengard) 12/18 6/15/04 Front Mission 4

2004 2/19 X Final Fantasy X-2: International + Last Mission 7/29 11/29 Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls 9/16 9/21 Final Fantasy XI Chains of Promathia 11/11 12/7 Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

2005 4/21 10/5 Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song 5/12 X Front Mission Online 6/16 X Drag On Dragoon 2 7/7 3/15 Musashiden II Blademaster

Let me save you the hassle of counting by pointing out a couple salient nuggets. Total number of titles: 20. Number of titles beginning with the name Final Fantasy: 9. Number of titles rehashing previous content: 8. Number of entirely original titles: 2. Two original titles in four years and before releasing another “traditional” Final Fantasy title!

To say that the Square half of Square Enix Co. is resting on its laurels would be a gross understatement. Virtually every title on the list survives by relying a previously successful series (all but two), and many are pure rehashes of a previously released material (FFX: International, KH: Final Mix, FFT Advance, FFX-2, Sword of Mana, FFX-2: International, FFI&II, FFXI expansion). Of the only two completely original titles, Kingdom Hearts is a quality release, but let us not speak of Drakengard ever again. When you cut through all the bullshit, Squaresoft since 2001 has been about Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, a couple Front Mission and Saga series games, and crap. Needless to say, most of these have been part of Square for a while, but frankly never has the company churned out so many second-rate titles at such a stretch.

By the standards of many other outfits, Square Enix remains a development powerhouse. But how far they have fallen, to be reduced to subpar action titles and shameless brand spinoffs. This is the Squaresoft that gave us Chrono Trigger! Final Fantasy VII! Parasite Eve! Secret of Mana! This is the Squaresoft that single-handedly popularized videogame music (and orchestras still play those aging melodies around the world)! This is the Squaresoft of radical styles like Vagrant Story, edgy plots like Xenogears, and compelling humanity like Final Fantasy VI! Is it any wonder they have so many fans, vainly wishing again for the old days?

Part of the reason for the long dry spell has been restructuring, as well as the rising gestation period for epic titles. This next year will at lastsee Square comes back into its own with some quality stuff. Final Fantasy XII will finally see a release, and at nearly five years in the making it should deliver the goods. Kingdom Hearts II too appears to sport massive production values which alone should make it a million plus seller. But Square’s other ace-in-the-hole is very troubling to me. They are spending untold millions to create and promote a collection of titles, including games for the PS2, Sony PSP, mobile phones, and a full length movie (their first since the wildly successful Spirits Within). Their common thread, however, painfully illustrates that this return to quality is not a return to the Squaresoft of old: they are all spinoffs of Squaresoft’s most successful FF ever, Final Fantasy VII, and will almost certainly culminate in a complete remake of the original game for the Playstation 3. While all of this will almost certainly give Square Enix a license to print money, it’s doubtful whether any of these titles will match the quality or success of the original… and Square couldn’t care less! It turns a profit today on the most loved of the series, and who is to tell them they shouldn’t? Many companies do quite well capitalizing on their past, but the more and longer Square puts all its eggs in one basket, riding the FF gravy train, the greater the risk if the well should dry up. At one time, the Final Fantasy series was merely the company’s highest profile title among many. Now it has become their crutch, the single pillar on which much of their future rests. Dilute the franchise too much, rely too long on the brand name alone to drive the sales, and when the magic finally fades from the series, the fantasy truly will be over.