Lurker > ParanoidObsessive

Oh, and on general geeky subjects, here's an article for Wave:

http://www.cbr.com/spider-man-when-did-he-first-live-in-queens


...and here's one for everyone that I found interesting, because I was never actually aware of it before:

http://www.cbr.com/borg-star-trek-next-generation-writers-strike


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

Someone already wrote that book. It was called 1984.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

Life has no inherent objective value, other than what we subjectively ascribe to it. Most humans implicitly accept this fact even if they don't like to admit it to themselves.

As such, it is entirely possible that some animal's lives are worth more than some human's lives. Especially when context comes into play.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

The Wave Master posted...

I don't know why he thinks it's going to be different across town.

Probably because it seems pretty clear that WB doesn't actually give a fuck about comic movies, so he figures between their lack of interest and their desperation they'll let him get away with more because of his previous successes.

Warner Bros always seems like they're almost embarrassed to be making comic book movies, and that they're only doing it because their superiors farther up the chain are ordering them to because money. Which results in a lot of attempts to make comic book movies that aren't really comic book movies, or that sort of act ashamed of their own source material, which winds up being kind of alienating.

It works well enough for Batman, because Batman's generally somewhat grounded anyway (well, as much as a man who dresses up like a bat and punches crime can be), but when they try to extend that type of thinking to less realistic characters, they hit a brick wall.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

The Wave Master posted...

It's not a bad choice considering Marvel killed his hopes and dreams after Avengers 2. Which wasn't that bad of a movie, but it wasn't that good either. Middle ground effort because of a lot of studio interference. Basically the Spider-Man 3 effect.

I'm not sure I really buy that, though.

With Spider-Man 3, there's definitely a feeling of studio demands for Venom completely ruining everything Raimi actually wanted to do (not helped by the fact that he was clearly enamored of/homaging the 1960s/1970s version of the character, while the entire Venom storyline was a very tonally different slice of 1990s bleh), combined with a sense that Raimi basically went "Well, you know what? Fuck you" and more or less tanked the whole premise on purpose because they killed his interest.

In the same vein, you also have Jon Favreau, who after directing Iron Man 1 & 2 left the franchise - apparently because he was annoyed by studio interference (so much so that he felt the need to go make a barely-veiled movie complaining about it). But even so, he still made fairly serviceable films.

So while I acknowledge that executive meddling CAN ruin a film (but not necessarily so), I tend to have less sympathy on that score when it comes to Marvel Studios movies - because, as much as people whine about creative freedom or too much executive control, at least in Marvel's case, there's a pretty clear case of that overarching control being used to preserve the tone and meaning of the original work, and to produce movies and characters that can more easily interlock into group films (precisely the sort of thing DC/WB movies NEED, but have literally never had - and likely never will, because WB isn't directly answerable to DC, and WB clearly doesn't want to be making comic movies in the first place).

Because of that, I tend to be much more on Raimi's side, and even willing to acknowledge Favreau's complaints, but I'm less likely to care when someone like, say, Edgar Wright complains about interference because I get the impression that he was the one fucking things up far more than Marvel was. It's unrealistic at best and asinine at worst to sign on to make movies as part of a massive existing franchise with literally decades worth of narrative and expect to be given total creative control to fuck everything over in whatever way you like.

In Whedon's case, I'm even less sympathetic because I've actually READ Astonishing X-Men, and feel like maybe he shouldn't be as involved with comic book properties as he thinks he should (a similar criticism I'd probably direct towards Kevin Smith, among others). I've also watched Buffy and Firefly, which means I'm much more apt to pick up on the various Whedon-isms that give away some of his weaknesses as a writer and director.

The first Avengers film was awesome, but part of that was the uniqueness of seeing that sort of crossover movie for the first time, and that most of character-establishing work was already done for him in advance. As a stand-alone, it's good, but not great - and the second film was worse. It's kind of telling that the Russos managed to make a better Avengers film without even calling it Avengers - and I'd much rather see them helming the next movie than him.

The biggest complaint he has seems to be that the studio made him shoehorn in the Thor Ragnarok tie-in scene (which he did a poor job of anyway), and that he spent too much time on the Hawkeye's family scenes (which he did). But neither of those things explain why there are other aspects of the movie that are weak or lacking.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

JTekashiro posted...

You people need to stop thinking dogs are equivalent to people.

I don't think dogs are equivalent to people. That would be demeaning to a lot of dogs.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

But it's inane to have that same reaction to thousands of fans, whom you have no control over and will rarely, if ever affect the art in question itself.

But you're missing the point. What I'm describing is more of a process.

Basically, first you realize that something has a lot of shitheel fans. The next step is wondering exactly what about the work in question causes those sorts of people to be fans in the first place. At that point, once your critical eye in engaged, you start to see the flaws more easier while glossing over the positives. You may notice negatives you never realized before, and your opinion of the thing is lowered. Conversely, if you experience the terrible fans BEFORE the thing in question, you may find yourself completely unable to appreciate it at all because of that same perception, whereas, if you'd been exposed to it in a vacuum, you might have been more open to enjoying it.

In essence, the terrible fans have caused you to look at the thing in a new light, and thus, your subjective perception of the thing is absolutely changed.

And because art and entertainment are almost entirely subjective, changing someone's perception of a thing absolutely changes the value of that thing.

I'm not saying that "I dislike a product because I dislike its creator" as much as "My distaste for a creator/fans/social movements/etc has led me to be more critically aware of the flaws."

Yes, I'm sure a lot of people are just viscerally reacting to the fans and going "I hate these people, therefore, I will now deliberately hate the thing they love". But I'm also suggesting there IS a potential middle ground there, where someone is really only reacting to the work itself but STILL being affected by the shittiness of those fans.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

PK_Spam posted...

So I'm NOT crazy because I like Sansa! That's a relief.

No, you're definitely crazy. And possibly a bad person.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Which is kinda lame of you, honestly. Hating on the thing that is popular for the sake of it being popular, and to be in dissent just to spite others is a silly cliche that you are better than. It makes you no better than the people you criticize for being "hiveminds" in addition, since you're both having a reaction to the game that isn't derived from the actual merits of the game itself, you know?

To be fair, when a large vocal core to a fanbase are annoying as fuck or otherwise repulsive human beings, it's a very natural and justified response to basically ask yourself "Man, if THESE shitbags all love this thing, then what does that say about its quality?" Then you sort of get put into the headspace where you're far more likely to notice the flaws in the work, while glossing over the good parts. It's not necessarily a conscious rejection of it BECAUSE it's popular, as much as it is WHO it's popular worth warping your perception of it.

In some ways, it's similar to how people find out that Orson Scott Card was pretty anti-gay, and find it prevents them from enjoying his writing, or when Mel Gibson had his little tirade about women and Jews and people became less inclined to want to see anything he makes. Or even how wrestling fans who used to praise Chris Benoit matches for being technical marvels now find it hard to watch any of them knowing that he killed his wife and son and then himself. Just as it's hard for most people to separate the creator's beliefs and actions from their work, it can occasionally be hard to separate the beliefs and actions of a work's most ardent and fervent fans from the work itself.

Hell, on a more complicated philosophical level, that's more or less what started my own path towards Agnosticism. After spending a while considering myself an Atheist, I started looking around and noticing just how asinine and terrible a lot of Atheists actually were (especially once you get on the Internet and start having a much wider range of view than just "the people who live near where I do"). That pretty much started me down an introspective path, where I basically asked myself, "If THESE are the sorts of people who consider themselves morally and intellectually superior for this belief, what does that say about this belief itself?" That in turn made me take a much harder look at the logical fallacies of the ideology and the ideas behind it, ultimately leading me to conclude that the only real philosophy that makes sense is Agnosticism. Because, ultimately, we can't really PROVE a negative, nor are we as a species half as clever as we think we are, so who the hell knows what's really out there, or what really happens when you die?

I tend to disbelieve in organized religion (but I try not to be as much of a pompous jackass about it as a lot of the Internet Angstheists tend to be), and I'm a bit of a secularist (I tend to prefer rational explanations for things over supernatural ones, but also I tend to feel that, regardless of whether or not there's a soul and an afterlife, from OUR perspective, what happens HERE and NOW are far more important anyway, because we lack the empirical knowledge for the alternative to matter), but I also like to acknowledge that any definitive statements about the true nature of the universe are kind of ignorant and egotistical on our part.

Or to put it another way, "The truly wise man is the man who knows that he actually knows nothing."

And because Agnosticism basically boils down to "Ehh, fuck if I know" as a belief set, it's hard to judge other people for their beliefs. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong. And maybe it isn't all that important.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

Zeus posted...

Honestly, that's one of the things which appeals to me the most since previous Zeldas have felt small and linear compared to the earlier games which had more of an impression of a full world.

And like I said, I can honestly understand why some players absolutely love that sort of thing (especially the sort who really only have time to drop into a game for a few hours, play, then drop out again rather than push their way through a 100 hour+ narrative epic).

But it's pretty much the opposite of what I want out of games. I'd rather have a smaller sandbox with stricter limitations but a lot of really enjoyable moments than a vast sandbox and unlimited freedom but a dearth of reasons to actually care about any of it.

Minecraft's one of the very few "free and open" sort of games I enjoy playing at all, and that mostly only because I force myself to come up with new objectives every time I play. And even then, I'd still rather play more structured games most of the time (these days, I mostly only ever play Minecraft when my niece and nephew visit, and more because she wants to play than because he does).



Zeus posted...

Entity13 posted...

somehow made worse by the inability to make a new file of the game unless you either delete the old one or make a new profile on your system

Well, that's ridiculous.

That's pretty much Nintendo's entire MO, though. For all the good things they do (if you're into them), stubborn refusal to give in to player convenience or otherwise use "common sense" for certain things is pretty much their go-to strategy.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

JTekashiro posted...

What? No. There are sick people in this world and you are going to dump thousands into a dog? That seems really selfish in my books.

Fuck those people. What have any of them ever done for me? Most of them wouldn't give a single shit if I was sick or dying or otherwise in trouble, and some of them would outright fuck me over if given the chance.

My dog's been dead for years, and yet I'd happily sacrifice the lives of half the people on PotD just to bring her back for one more year. She certainly contributed more value to the world than some of the people who post here on a regular basis.



Zangulus posted...

Why don't you donate all your food money to starving orphans and help thousands and not just yourself?

The amount of money he wasted on buying his computer/smart phone, the Internet connection, and the electricity necessary to power them just to make that post alone could have saved dozens of lives in many disadvantaged places.

Worse, considering he's posting on a video game message board, one assumes he has an interest in video games, and that's a TON of money thrown into a dark well of selfish entertainment that could be making the world a better place instead. Not to mention he could have spent the time he wastes here and on those frivolous hobbies volunteering at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter instead. So selfish!


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

Jen0125 posted...

If it is cancer has anyone ever gotten chemo for their dog here before? Looking for first hand experiences if possible. Even second hand.

My dog had a pretty large tumor develop on her leg. I was given the option of amputating the leg for about $2000, or doing chemo/radiation treatment for $10000. I went with the chemo.

The process for her was that I had to bring her to the vet hospital a couple times for evaluation (X-raying the area and so on), then they operated to remove the majority of the mass. After a little while for the surgery wound to heal, I had to bring her in for 20 days straight (Mon-Fri) without skipping any days, where they would spend about an hour or so doping her up and applying radiation to the leg. For the first few days there was no obvious change, but eventually the skin in the area started to turn irritated, and by the end it was basically an open suppurating wound. After the treatment is done they had us come in a few more times to make sure the leg was healing right and that there were no cancerous cells left to start the whole thing over again. Ultimately, it worked - the lump never came back.

She had to have a cone on her head for most of the recovery time to prevent her from biting at the wound (dogs do that), and I'm sure she was kind of miserable for most of it (and it's kind of heartbreaking that you can't really explain to the dog why this stuff is happening), but after everything is said and done, I'm still 100% glad I did it instead of going with the alternative. She only lived for a few years after that, but she started to have joint troubles towards the end (which made it harder for her to get up and down and to walk), which only would have been worse if she only had three legs.

That might be the worst case scenario, though. Her lump was pretty big and woven fairly deep into her leg tissues, and while we were going through the whole process they did mention at one point that the treatment might not have been as severe if the problem wasn't as bad.



Jen0125 posted...

I think it may just be a cyst because he's not in pain at all or acting sick and he has a cyst on his little knee already.

My dog had multiple lumps in various places - most of them just turned out to be cysts or benign growths. It's definitely possible that your dog's lump might not be a major issue, but a vet hospital will be able to do a much better job of evaluating that then your regular check-up vet. If you're concerned, you should definitely get him checked early on, because the whole process might be easier on him (and you) if you catch it early.

Better safe than sorry - you're better off taking him in only to find that it's benign than you are putting it off and having it turn out to be malignant.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

Zeus posted...

I like the character, but he's not terribly relevant.

Some would argue that he might be the most relevant character in the entire series.

Any number of people have basically described the entire story as being nothing more than the chess match being played between Littlefinger and Varys.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

The Wave Master posted...

With everyone gushing over The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild it's nice to know that there is an interesting juxtaposition.

I actually had an epiphany about my perception of the game while watching the PreRec review of it.

Basically, the game could almost be more accurately be described as "Breadth of the Wild". Nearly all of the aspects people are praising revolve around exploration and the sheer size of the map as core gameplay. Even weapon breaking ties into that, because it forces you to experiment with new items and new methods of play rather than simply finding the most powerful sword you can and just spam the most effective attack strategies. The game wants you to explore and discover everything on your own, and wants to force you out of your comfort zone in order to make sure you're actually doing that. In some ways, it's more true to the original Legend of Zelda on the NES than anything that's come after.

But to someone like me, who rarely gives a single shit about breadth as opposed to depth, literally none of that matters, and the whole game winds up looking like a dull borefest.

In the same vein, my general disdain for platformers means that, if you were to hand me the best-designed pure platforming game ever made by the human race, I'd probably play for about 15 minutes before turning it off and never playing it again. That style of gameplay simply doesn't appeal to me, and even the best games in that genre are going to fail to tick off any of my enjoyment boxes. It'll feel like a chore at best and torture at worst, while all around me plenty of other people who actually enjoy platforming will be loving every minute (and probably hating me for "not getting it").

About the only thing that gets me to tolerate platforming at all is when it's tied to a stronger narrative, like in the Uncharted or new Tomb Raider games, where the depth of narrative can help overcome my distaste for jumping puzzles (Assassin's Creed probably falls into this category as well). In the same vein, I am CAPABLE of appreciating a massive map, exploration mechanics, and emergent gameplay IF it goes hand-in-hand with an incredible story (or at least extremely likeable characters).

If I were a professional reviewer, I'd probably be getting death threats just like Jim Sterling (or worse, because he actually LIKED Zelda, even if he shaved a few points off for the parts he didn't like - whereas I'd just outright call it boring and pointless). You don't come to me for my opinions of a game like BotW any more than you go to Yahtzee for his opinions of JRPGs. You're NOT going to get an answer that's helpful or informative in any way.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

I take back what I said about Andromeda. How since most of the scores are in the 70's range, it must truly be a game worthy of that score. But after seeing some videos of those god-awful facial animations and the pile of glitches...the gameplay and storytelling would have to be fucking next level to excuse that shit. And we know the story telling can't be good, since every cut scene/dialogue interaction has a character looking off screen into the abyss or whatever.

I've said it a few times in other topics, but the main reason Andromeda isn't being savaged worse than it is is because a lot of the more positive reviews basically boil down to "Well, the combat is good, and the multiplayer works fine, so you should at least give it a try." Occasionally with a bit of "The scenery is lovely" and "The crafting and resource management stuff is effective" thrown in.

All of which sort of misses the point that absolutely none of those things are what most people are going into a Mass Effect game looking for.

Based on most reviews (even the positive ones!) and watching gameplay videos, it's pretty clear that the narrative is hot garbage. The character interactions are weak at best and bleh at worst, and they're not helped by the poor animations and voice-over work that sounds like most of the VAs were bored while reading their lines (a problem BioWare has had occasionally in the past, but more dialogues seem tonally off in this one than in any of their previous games). Add in most of the complaints about how every female character (including the protagonist) look terrible, and just how much the Dragon Age: Inquisition comparisons come into play, and the end result is something that seems to fail on every single level that would actually matter to someone who was a fan of the previous Mass Effect games.

Which probably makes sense, considering that, realistically speaking, BioWare didn't actually make this game. It was made by the Montreal branch of BioWare - which is pretty much BioWare in name only (EA being nortorious for attaching respected brand names they own to multiple dev teams as a marketing ploy) - and whose only real prior major project before this was the multiplayer component of ME3. The only "main" BioWare name attached to the project (Mac Walters) is also one of the ones responsible for the most hated part of ME3 (the ending nonsense).

Ultimately, I'm kind of looking at it as a side-story game set in the same universe - it has more in common with Galaxy or Infiltrator than it does with ME1-3. The most charitable thing I can say is that it feels like a Mass Effect game made for a completely different audience than the one the original games were made for, and on that level, it might actually be somewhat successful.

But if you're actually looking at it as someone who was a fan of the previous games, you should probably avoid it like the plague.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

Tropic_Sunset posted...

I'd rather just not go to Prom.

Which is what I did.

This.



JTekashiro posted...

Why didn't you go to prom? My money says "no date and no friends."

I personally didn't go because I've always found the entire concept of prom kind of stupid. All it really is is an awkward school dance where everyone has to pay a ton of money for formal wear and a limo (which was pretty much required where I went to school), and ultimately have a mediocre time. There are far better ways to spend your time and money.

The REAL fun is at the prom afterparties anyway. It was pretty much tradition in my school that everyone would head down to the beach for the weekend after prom, share hotel rooms, indulge in a fair amount of underage drinking, and engage in impulsive and ill-considered hook-ups (at least one of which nearly plunged our town into a West Side Story-esque gang war afterwards, good times). Also, there was go-karting and minigolf, and how can you not love that?

I had way more fun doing that than I ever would have had at prom. And since I didn't have to GO to prom to go to the afterparties, it was win-win.

It wasn't really a money issue (my parents could easily have paid for everything, and almost certainly would have if I'd wanted to go), and it wasn't a "no date" issue (I was dating someone at the time, and she didn't want to go either). It also wasn't a "no friends" issue, because I had plenty of friends in high school (and hung out with most of them that weekend).

Prom sort of falls into the same category as homecoming for a lot of schools, as well into the same category as things like sweet sixteen or cotillion do sociologically - they haven't really been relevant or meaningful for decades, and at this point it's really only social inertia that keeps them existing at all.

Class reunions are starting to fall into that category as well, with modern technology making it easier than ever to stay in touch with the people you actually want to remember from high school while ignoring the others. In an era when 90% of the people you went to school with are all on Facebook anyway, there really isn't much reason to arrange a special formal dinner occasion to bring everyone together (and charge upwards of $100 per person).

People love the IDEA of prom because the media has repeatedly drummed the idea that prom is in some way important or meaningful into people's heads for years, but it really isn't. You aren't missing anything if you don't go, and you won't spend the rest of your life regretting that you didn't (unless you're living a very, very sad life).


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family