Poll of the Day > Super Geek Odyssey

(+) Yeah! (+)

On a separate note besides my father; I am the only one in my family that likes blue cheese dressing on their wings.

Even Scarlett scouffs at me when we order wings. She and the rest of the world seems to love ranch dressing. Don't get me wrong, i too like ranch dressing. However, I prefer blue cheese with my buffalo and bbq wings.

Help me out fellow geeks and make me feel less alone in my wing tasting.

Ranch, Blue Cheese, or other....
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Don't look at me. I generally do without additional dips or sauces, unless we're talking pasta, but that kinda raises the question if that's even "additional" or if it's a requirement for a pasta dish. <_<


This, btw, is coming from someone who used to order chicken nuggets and use the milkshake as a dip.
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The Wave Master posted...

Yes, it's a Kotaku link, but it's so going to trigger P.O. so bad it was worth posting.

I honestly don't click them, so it doesn't trigger me. Kotaku is bad journalism plus piss-poor web design.

That being said, if someone successfully manages to make themselves look exactly like Squall, then it is clearly my destiny to hunt them down and face-punch them, so that I may complete the prophecy from 18 years ago.


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Cussing Thundercats outtakes are the best thing I found on the internet today.

I apologize if this is old. I just found it out today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftU5GfORvH8
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The Wave Master posted...

Cussing Thundercats outtakes are the best thing I found on the internet today.

I apologize if this is old. I just found it out today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftU5GfORvH8

I enjoyed every second of that clip.
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I am the only one in my family that likes blue cheese dressing on their wings.

You have a family of heathens.
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I know that but blue cheese is godly right?

Also, overblown new Justice League trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_6yBZKj-eo

It looks expensive. I however do not remember this version of Superman inspiring jack ****.



Unless you count murder and rampant destruction.

Let's see, Gotham is half toast, Metropolis is mega toast with a giant spaceship In The middle of downtown that he never bothered to clean up. Congress got blown to hell, a giant monster destroyed the othe half of Metropolis. (I guess it was Doomaday?) Did I leave stuff out... wait... he killed Zod. Saving no one in the process, and a chunk of Kansas is now blown up and is too government occupied.

Yet at the end of Batman vs Superman they celebrate him like he did something. Like he inspired people. When the hell did that happen, and can I watch those two movies instead?

Real freaking inspiring. Grab your popcorn, hotdogs, American Flag, Apple pie, and Inspiration November 3rd.
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This is Nintendo at their best. No sarcasm at all.

There best just happens to be not letting people preorder their Crap in a decent, timely, and orderly fashion.

Bank Robber told me about the preorder going live Friday night, and I just shook my head. I told him it is going to be a mess, and it is.

http://kotaku.com/the-hunt-for-an-snes-classic-is-already-a-mess-1797175460
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Not clicking the link, but from what I heard 'round the web, only Walmart has had preorders available thus far. Seems more like a Walmart fuck-up than a Nintendo one, at least at this point.

The Wave Master posted...

This is Nintendo at their best. No sarcasm at all.

But wait. Was you saying there's no sarcasm at all itself sarcasm?!


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The Overwatch League starting salary us 50 grand. Pkus bonuses for winning.

I have neve5 played O erwatch, but I dislike money.
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Looks like Walmart is cancelling every pre-order for the SNES mini since they accidentally went live before they were supposed to.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/26/16040506/walmart-nintendo-snes-classic-mini-console-preorder-cancellations
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I've got the amazon page bookmarked -

Whoa, the text in this message box looks different.

-anyway, I've got it ready to go the second preorders go live. Wasn't excited for the NES Classic, but this one? You better believe it.

Raganork posted...

Whoa, the text in this message box looks different.

Notifications look different, too.
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Minor changes that are fine.

The thumbnail ads did try to make a comeback, which was why I made the switch from Adblock Plus to Adblock, so I blocked out the element completely and it appears to be good at the moment.
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Entity13 posted...

Minor changes that are fine.

For variable definitions of the term "fine", yes.


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I actually don't blame Wal-Mart for the preorder nonsense.

I blame Nintendo.

I blame them for their vague announcements, and not making sure that demand is going to be met. Also, transparency to vendors so demand and preorders can be met are all things Nintendo can control.

This dazed and confused mess is their fault. Sure Wal-Mart isn't blameless, but they control the narrative, and right now the narrative has painted the characters in a corner.
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Yeah but how 'bout dat Odyssey footage, yo?!

Station Square looks AMAZING!

As does Carmen Sandiego Pauline!
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Saw Spider-Man. I liked it enough. I was annoyed that we had to do his origin story *again*, but they probably handled it in the best way, but kinda assuming everyone already knows about his aunt, how he got his powers, etc., and instead focused on Peter basically finding his footing. That said, I felt like this dragged on a *bit* too much, as it became hard to root for him once it appeared he sucked at basically doing anything. That, and it was lame to see him do a lot of cool webbing shots, but landed zero punches or sweet acrobatic hits on basically anyone. I'm thinking back to the brutal and intense fights from Raimi's Spider-Man, so that was a bit of a let down.

I liked that they finally found a villain plot motivation that wasn't some variation of "take over/destroy the world", so that was good. I hope from here on out Spider-Man is more established in his abilities and stuff.
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I'm really glad that they avoided any direct references to Uncle Ben's death, and only had like one minor line about the spider-bite itself.

Showing Peter "getting into the swing" of things was also something I liked seeing. I still feel like SM2 is the best Spider-Man film, but this version is my favorite Peter and Spidey, and it's a pretty damn good introduction to the character in this universe.
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Continuing my rant against Nintendo. I read an article about the shortages of The Nintendo Switch in Japan. The lines are still miles long, but he most fascinating thing isn't the lines itself, but this whole raflle system.

You stand in a line for hours just to get raffle tickets to get a chance, a chance, to buy the system.

Then there are the rock, paper, scissors, contest to see who can buy the console. Then the strategy and cheating involved with the rock, paper, scissors contest.

I love those crazy Japanese bastards, but America has some things right.

Also, Nintendo is selling empty Switch System Splatoon 2 boxes. Why? Anyway, criminals are selling the empty boxes as full systems to gullible people.
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The Wave Master posted...

You stand in a line for hours just to get raffle tickets to get a chance, a chance, to buy the system.

That sounds like Japanese-made MMOs in a nutshell.
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The Wave Master posted...

Continuing my rant against Nintendo. I read an article about the shortages of The Nintendo Switch in Japan. The lines are still miles long

Supposedly Nintendo was surprised by how successful demand for the Switch was, even above and beyond their usual pattern of underproducing consoles to generate artificial supply/demand. I can easily see that being a problem, especially in Japan where the consumer-base is probably both the most pro-Nintendo and the most pro-handheld (per capita).



The Wave Master posted...

You stand in a line for hours just to get raffle tickets to get a chance, a chance, to buy the system.

I love those crazy Japanese bastards, but America has some things right.

Pretty sure that's actually a thing in America as well, though. It's not common, but I seem to remember it has been used in some cases for some things at various times.

The real problem is that the Japanese have always been more obsessive about video games in general. THEY love Dragon Quest so much they have to make its release days national holidays because everyone skips work anyway, WE wind up having so many unsold copies of the game Nintendo Power has to give them away for free. Things like Black Friday sales aside, the Japanese are way more likely to be the ones staking out an electronics store for games more than Americans ever really do. So you're always going to see the more extreme scenarios there first before anything comparable happens here.


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I'm surprised that the Japanese released Dragon Quest XI on a Saturday and not a Sunday because of both school and work.

I'm interested to see the sales chart next week for Japan.
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Well, the lines were crazy for Dragon Quest XI in Japan. That's not a surprise at All. However, the prices are insane. Apparently 91 bucks for a digital copy, and 77 for a retail physical copy. Why the hell is the digital copy more?

In unrelated news are any of you geeks watching or care about Game of Thrones. I don't have HBO so I can't watch on a weekly basis, and haven't watched an episode in 4 years.
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My brother imported a copy of DQ11. It was something like 7300 yen plus 1200 yen for shipping from Amazon Japan. Arrived this morning.

It's his money, but paying $85 to play another in a long line of RPGs that all play exactly the same? Guess I just never understood the series.

Raganork posted...

It's his money, but paying $85 to play another in a long line of RPGs that all play exactly the same? Guess I just never understood the series.

It was actually pretty cool when it was Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior I, when there weren't a ton of alternatives. DW was pretty much THE game that introduced me into the world of video game RPGs. But it never sold all that well in the West - which is why Nintendo wound up giving away a ton of unsold copies free to anyone who subscribed to Nintendo Power. They were expecting Japan-levels of excitement and sales, and they got... chirping crickets.

And then DW2 came out, which was a much weaker game (and got frustratingly hard at the end, which made the game as a whole less enjoyable), and which wasn't released in North America until a few months after Final Fantasy (which was a much better game in pretty much every possible way). Which sort of made things even worse.

DW3 was actually the best of the first three by far, but by that point the franchise was already treading water in the West, no matter how popular it was in Japan. And DW4 wound up doing so bad that they just stopped porting it over entirely until after Playstation revitalized demand for all things JRPG years later. For all the love that the Japanese have for the series, it almost died off completely here and Final Fantasy basically became "our" RPG.

But the DW/DQ games don't really play "exactly the same" - each game tended to introduce new elements or refine ones from previous games, so that, while the gameplay was familiar, it wasn't necessarily static. And "let's constantly innovate for the fuck of it" isn't necessarily a better design philosophy anyway, considering the fact that while it helped give us some awesome Final Fantasy games, it's also given us some incredibly shitty Final Fantasy games.





Fun fact that absolutely no one other than Shadow will care about: I stole part of the plot of the original Dragon Warrior game for my first Changeling character I played online - my Sidhe knight wound up fighting a dragon and saving a princess solely because that's what you do in DW1. A lot of elements of that character were basically rooted in fond childhood memories, because that's sort of the whole metaphorical point of Changeling (even if I almost never, ever actually PLAY it that way).


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But the DW/DQ games don't really play "exactly the same" - each game tended to introduce new elements or refine ones from previous games, so that, while the gameplay was familiar, it wasn't necessarily static.

I've played DQ7, 8, and 9. From my experience, they all played pretty much the same, beat for beat. I really didn't notice myself playing any differently whether I was dealing with the game with skill trees, or the one with a job system.

Part of the problem stems from being spoiled by the atb system implemented in FFs, as well as the myriad of demons you can summon in the SMT series. By comparison, DQ doesn't really stay engaging for me. For each one, I was only able to stomach around 20 hours before quitting. There's not enough depth there to carry such extremely long games.

The prime issue is the tedious pacing present in the three I've played. DQ7 is something like 80 hours long, and for the first 15 or so you don't even have the job system to play with. It's the most basic combat system imaginable. Once you get the job system, it still pales in comparison to games like FFV and FFT. The stories don't really impress either, especially 7 and 9, which largely consist of hopping from town to town to solve each locale's little issues.

DQ8 - hundred hours long. No job system, but the skill trees prevent you from allocating points past certain thresholds until you level up to a requisite level. If I want to max out swords asap, I should be allowed to do so. That's sort of the entire purpose behind job systems: the ability to focus on whatever you like for as long as you like.

Essentially, each games' combat doesn't offer the depth I've seen from other turn-based RPGs, which makes playing for a hundred hours quite the slog. It also doesn't have the combat speed of games like FFIV or Chrono Trigger, further dragging out most encounters. You can point your finger at the earlier FFs like I and II and say they were the same as Dragon Quest, but those games were 10-20 hours tops; not 70+.

Maybe DQ11 is different, but after giving the series three chances, I'm very hesitant on trying another. I just know it's gonna have the exact same headache-inducing combat theme, the same Akira Toriyama art style that I can't stand, and the same turn-based slowness that I'd have to deal with for 80 hours.

(To be fair, at least DQ8 has competent voice acting and a semi-interesting storyline, so I may return to it some day)

I love traditional JRPGs, but I have a bad habit of leaving them unfinished.
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Raganork posted...

I've played DQ7, 8, and 9. From my experience, they all played pretty much the same, beat for beat.

I was mostly referring to the earlier games. I've dropped the series entirely myself, so I have no idea what the later games are like, or if they've finally settled into a mold they just never change anymore. But it didn't used to be that way.

But there's something else to consider that might be a factor...



Raganork posted...

I've played DQ7, 8, and 9. From my experience, they all played pretty much the same, beat for beat.

Maybe DQ11 is different, but after giving the series three chances, I'm very hesitant on trying another.

One thing to consider is that DQ always sort of built itself around the idea of trilogies. DQ1-3 is basically a single story - DQ1 is the middle part, DQ2 is the direct sequel that takes place two generations later, and DQ3 is a prequel that happens long before the first game. DQ4-6 are also a loose trilogy, as is 7-9.

If your complaint is that 7, 8, and 9 are all more or less the same, it might be completely intentional because they're tied together thematically. I can't promise that DQ11 would be super-different (again, I haven't played any of the games in the series since DW4), but it might be, because it falls into a different trilogy (even assuming they're still lumping them into trilogies at all - I know next to nothing about DQ11).

If you were interested you'd probably have to find someone who actually plays the games to get a more intricate breakdown, but I wouldn't just dismiss it out of hand as being just the same thing over and over, if only because there HAVE been changes to the series at various points (if nothing else, at least early on).

Then again, it's entirely possible the entire franchise went to complete shit via the Squeenix merger in exactly the same way Final Fantasy did, sooo... ~shrug~



Raganork posted...

the same Akira Toriyama art style that I can't stand

This, I can't argue with. Being a bit older, I didn't "grow up" with Dragon Ball Z like all the 90s kids, so I have zero nostalgia for his art style. And I've never really liked it, even as a kid (it's probably a good thing Nintendo changed the box art for the North American version of Dragon Warrior, or I probably never would have bought it).

(and on that topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdp9VFzimwc )

That, plus the complete lack of recognizable continuity, was also a large part of what made the Dragon Warrior cartoon hard to watch/enjoy when it was originally on (

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7I-4qqHFrQ )

But Toriyama's art design was never a negative for the early games in the franchise, because it didn't translate well to pixel art anyway. And since you literally never saw your main character as anything more than a tiny blob, you were probably filling in your own mental image that looked nothing like his art style.

It's exactly the same way that Amano's style never bothered me in the original Final Fantasy games, because it only barely translated into pixel-art, whereas it probably would have bothered the fuck out of me in a more high-fidelity graphical environment. By the time the games reached a point where it would have started to irk me, they'd already switched to Nomura.


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Raganork posted...

and the same turn-based slowness that I'd have to deal with for 80 hours.

I'm assuming this isn't going anywhere, because turn-based combat is sort of one of the cornerstones of the franchise (though I could be wrong - again, haven't really played the modern games). I'd assume that people who've loved the series from the beginning don't really want that most fundamental of elements to change.

That being said, it's probably worth noting that the shift AWAY from turn-based combat is probably a large part of what murdered my interest in JRPGs. Mainly because it always felt to me like Final Fantasy tried to retain tactical combat while doing away with turns, resulting in most of their later combat systems being terrible abominations that frustrated the piss out of me. Whereas WRPGs seemed to basically say "Fuck it, let's just make combat into real-time hack-and-slash or FPS-with-swords", both of which feel WAAAY more satisfying to me.

I've always been disgusted by RTS games in general, though, so it's not entirely surprising that forcing JRPGs along RTS lines was never going to end well for me.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'm assuming this isn't going anywhere, because turn-based combat is sort of one of the cornerstones of the franchise (though I could be wrong - again, haven't really played the modern games). I'd assume that people who've loved the series from the beginning don't really want that most fundamental of elements to change.

That's part of the reason why I don't really ever talk about Dragon Quest. I understand that the games aren't for me, and I don't expect them to ever change. I came, I saw, I was unimpressed, and I left for my shitty Final Fantasy series again. Speaking of...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Mainly because it always felt to me like Final Fantasy tried to retain tactical combat while doing away with turns, resulting in most of their later combat systems being terrible abominations that frustrated the piss out of me.

This is largely the main issue that's shackled the combat system in the newer Final Fantasies, and what really pushed me over the edge and started pissing me off was how they handled FFXV. You've got a pure real-time combat system for once, yet you still need to constantly interrupt the flow to open your item menu, or craft more magic, or change what your equipped gear is. The game as a whole feels like it was built with its "wait mode" in mind, what with it allowing you to pause everything, select an enemy, view its detailed stats, and then execute your attacks. Except this was supposed to be a free-flowing, real-time action-oriented combat system.

It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't constantly, in every fight, need to pull up the menu to heal and revive your brain-dead teammates. FFXII and the Tales games at least allow you to customize your individual party member's AI, but with XV you're leaving everything up to chance. In an action game, I want to maintain the flow of action for as long as possible; not pause to fiddle around with menus. It's akin to having speed bumps on the highway. If you want to make a pure action game, just get rid of your party members. You don't use them anyway.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Whereas WRPGs seemed to basically say "Fuck it, let's just make combat into real-time hack-and-slash or FPS-with-swords", both of which feel WAAAY more satisfying to me.

As real-time games should be. Except when you're BioWare and you try to make Inquisition the best of both worlds and fail miserably, just like Square Enix.

Raganork posted...

Except when you're BioWare and you try to make Inquisition the best of both worlds and fail miserably

I blame the fans for that. So many people shat on DA2 in spite of the combat being fine, BioWare panicked and decided they had to have combat more like DA:O (which is what most of the loudest ranters claimed they wanted).

But they (and probably EA even more so) were also aware that the average fan doesn't really want turn-based tactical combat, especially with games like Skyrim exploding in popularity, so they still felt like they needed to have SOME level of hack-and-slash.

So they wound up trying to create a hybrid that incorporated elements of both, but wound up being worse than either.

It wasn't entirely surprising, though. When they first openly admitted they were looking at Skyrim for inspiration, my instinctive reaction was "Watch them copy all the worst parts of Skyrim and completely miss the actual reasons why it became popular", and they pretty much fulfilled that prophecy to a T.

And now that news has started to trickle out about DA4, I feel like they haven't learned a single worthwhile lesson and are going to wind up tanking another franchise for me.

BioWare has basically become my new Square - they've gone from being one of my favorite developers and the people putting out my absolutely favorite games, to being a company I don't want to touch with a 10-foot pole. Square was pretty much God for the 90s, BioWare was pretty much God for the 00s, and right now I barely want anything to do with either of them.

(Especially since BioWare is openly admitting that Anthem is basically going to be their Destiny clone - I'm not sure anyone on PotD could actually pay me enough to ever care about/look forward to that game now. So I'm basically left with two murdered franchises and one stillborn one.)


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Fun fact that absolutely no one other than Shadow will care about: I stole part of the plot of the original Dragon Warrior game for my first Changeling character I played online - my Sidhe knight wound up fighting a dragon and saving a princess solely because that's what you do in DW1. A lot of elements of that character were basically rooted in fond childhood memories, because that's sort of the whole metaphorical point of Changeling (even if I almost never, ever actually PLAY it that way).

Don't worry, I am now applying Death of the Author to basically every time you talk about a game you played/ran online or not, and headconnoning it so it was all just you playing the game with yourself.
Until you can convince me in a non-PotD DnD game.

Also on a completely unrelated note, I just ordered Slaughter House 5, and I'm prepared to have all sorts of literary brilliance fly over my head as I read a story because I'm not good at that sort of thing, but I like to think I'm smart.

shadowsword87 posted...

Don't worry, I am now applying Death of the Author to basically every time you talk about a game you played/ran online or not, and headconnoning it so it was all just you playing the game with yourself.

1) That's neither what Death of the Author means nor how it works.

2) You're free to believe that, in spite of it not being true.

Though for reference you won't care about, just doing a rough count in my head I'd say I've probably RPed with about two dozen different people (in different groups over the years) in person alone, another dozen or so if you include people I only gamed with for a single session or two, and probably about a hundred more once you start factoring in people I've played with online more than just completely casually.

But really, all you're basically doing is just the equivalent of when I occasionally suggested that no one in the Geek topic (or on PotD in general) actually exists at all, and that you're all just the voices in my head and I'm currently just typing all of your replies in Notepad and then forgetting that I wrote them before I answer back. Because there's literally no real proof that any of you exist at all.



shadowsword87 posted...

Until you can convince me in a non-PotD DnD game.

This would pretty much be impossible, since it means you would have to fly to New Jersey to either run or play in a D&D game. And simultaneously either bring a few extra players with you or recruit some here, because very few of the people I've played with over the years still play, and only TWO of them ever played D&D at all (and one of them played AD&D while the other played Basic D&D, which I'm assuming aren't editions you'd want to play in).

(I've actually got three cousins who currently play 5e and my nephew has mentioned kind of wanting to learn/play, but they're teenagers and I feel creepyweird about playing with them, so I haven't dropped in on any of their games. You could probably bribe them into inviting us in, though.)

For all the experience I've had with RP over the years, D&D was always the gaping hole in that particular curriculum vitae. No matter how many people consider it THE iconic game of the medium, it never meant anything to me for years. My first realistic contact with it wasn't until Baldur's Gate (apart from an attempt by someone I used to RP with to run an AD&D game in high school that went nowhere), and Nudo's game was basically the first, last, and only time I ever really played it.

But that means that I don't really know anyone else who played it, either.

Like I've said before, Marvel Superheroes RPG was my original system, WW Storyteller was my core system during most of my hardcore gaming years, and Amber DRPG became my love later on (and is still the system I'm most likely to play in on the rare occasion I tabletop these days). In between I've played L5R and 7th Sea, CoC and TimeLords, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, Lone Wolf, and a handful of other systems for shorter campaigns or one-offs. And I've talked to people who ran other systems I've never played, so I'm at least passingly familiar with stuff I've never gamed in.

But D&D? Almost never.

Though I pretty much live it vicariously for like 7 hours a week via Crit Role and Acq Inc at this point.


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shadowsword87 posted...

Also on a completely unrelated note, I just ordered Slaughter House 5, and I'm prepared to have all sorts of literary brilliance fly over my head as I read a story because I'm not good at that sort of thing, but I like to think I'm smart.

I've always found Kurt Vonnegut to be vastly overrated. Like Thomas Pynchon, he falls into a category of authors I feel like people only bring up in an attempt to convince other people that they're smart or deep, as opposed to the writer themselves actually being either smart or deep.

Though in Vonnegut's case, at least part of that might be that I haven't read EVERY story he's ever written, and the ones I have are mostly coming from an authorial point-of-view I don't relate to in any way (see also J. D. Salinger), and not helped by the fact that I was turned off him early on because Cat's Cradle was required reading in school (but to counter that, I WAS reading at a pretty hefty level by that point anyway, so it's hard to say I just wasn't "ready" for it, or that it was solely the fact that it was required reading that shut me down).

I feel like it isn't entirely coincidence that everyone I've ever heard praise him is a Boomer, though. I feel like the main disconnect is one of generational zeitgeist and outlook.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

1) That's neither what Death of the Author means nor how it works.

I do know what it means, it's still fun to fling around.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

and one of them played AD&D while the other played Basic D&D, which I'm assuming aren't editions you'd want to play in).

Sure, I'll call your bluff. If you can set up a Basic D&D game, or an AD&D game, I will play it with you.
I will even learn how to play, so nobody has to teach me.
Try me.

shadowsword87 posted...

Sure, I'll call your bluff. If you can set up a Basic D&D game, or an AD&D game, I will play it with you.

I will even learn how to play, so nobody has to teach me.

Try me.

Well, to "call my bluff", you'd still have to agree to come to NJ first. Probably more than once or for a prolonged period of time unless you just wanted it to be a one-shot.

And "set up" implies I'd be doing any of the work - I'm not invested enough to care to drag together people I haven't played with in years to play a game I almost never play solely to "prove" something to you that doesn't really need to be proved anyway. I was mostly just off-handedly saying I could TRY to track down those two players if you showed up with a game in tow as a joke. Though realistically, I haven't talked to the AD&D kid for about 20 years now (the Basic D&D kid I still see about once or twice a year, but he hasn't RPed in about 15 years or so either - in fact, he gave me all of his D&D and WW books about 10 years ago).

If I was going to try to drag players into a game, at this point the most likely candidates would be my friend who literally just had a new baby a week ago, and maybe my nephew who wants to learn how to RP (and who has watched Critical Role) but who has zero experience beyond HeroQuest.

Keep in mind, we've already established that I don't really have an active RP circle, and don't really feel like pulling one together. So I don't have a ton of people willing to jump to join a new game on the spur of the moment (because if I did, I'd probably be running/playing in one). Which is why most of the stories I DO tell are from games that happened 10+ years ago.

And you're not going to reverse-psychology trick me into going out into the world and desperately tracking down a new group of RPers just to prove you wrong, because I already shot that idea down in the D&D topic.

RP is like going to war. When you're young it's an intense experience you go through, then you eventually go home, and then when you're old you sit around boring young kids by just telling all your war-stories over and over again.

Oh, and...



shadowsword87 posted...

it was all just you playing the game with yourself.

The closest I ever got to this was probably when I'd sit around and make a dozen NPCs for games I knew I was never going to run (though there was always that voice in the back of your head going "Maybe someday, you'll run a game and use these people"). But even then, I was mostly doing it as a side hobby while still actively playing online games.

The next closest might be when I write backstories for a PC that imply they've already been through campaigns you've never heard of or seen because they're so damned complicated and have a bunch of NPCs tied to them even before the first game. But that's actually rare (I've probably only done it for about a half-dozen different characters across multiple systems).

Most of the time, if I was in an RPish mood and didn't have a game to serve as an outlet for it, gamebooks like Lone Wolf or Fabled Lands would scratch that itch, or later on, games like Fallout: New Vegas or BioWare stuff like Mass Effect or Dragon Age.

They actually used to make "solo game" RPGs in the 80s, but it was never a thing that really appealed to me. I've never even used the "solo mode" they have in Advanced HeroQuest. RP's always been too collaborative for me to see it as anything other than a group activity.

I've never been entirely adverse to two-person sessions, though. I've played (and run) a fair amount of two-person Amber, and most online games are just a succession of scenes involving 2-3 people strung together over time.


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Damn it, want to edit something in there, but I already hit the character limit (~grumble~):

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The next closest might be when I write backstories for a PC that imply they've already been through campaigns you've never heard of or seen because they're so damned complicated and have a bunch of NPCs tied to them even before the first game. But that's actually rare (I've probably only done it for about a half-dozen different characters across multiple systems).

Was going to mention that this was almost always a thing for online games, not tabletop ones. And mostly the online games that were more collaborative than actually being run by a GM of any kind (ie, where the players themselves are all improving the story and building on the contributions of other players).

Those were the sorts of games where having extremely complex or detailed backstories was most useful, as opposed to feeling more like one prima donna player trying to desperately grab the spotlight of an entire game for themselves. In more traditional games, I'd mostly just try to sketch out a backstory in broader strokes and try to set up hooks for a GM to use, but I wouldn't necessarily be writing up a dozen NPCs or describing the character's previous adventuring party.

I think I actually have a few PC character write-ups still on line at this point (definitely my stats for characters in Nudo's game, but I think their backstories as well, and I've got a couple Amber characters from the last 2-3 games I played online years ago) if you ever wanted to see them (but I know you don't, because you're tired of grandpa's war stories).


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Well, this stinks but of was bound to happen.

http://m.ign.com/articles/2017/07/31/legendary-voiceover-director-andrea-romano-retires

She was the best, she is the best, and probably will always be the best.
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Ehh.

I mean, she's responsible for some brilliant casting in the DCAU, but she also casted a few stinkers here and there (especially for the various JLU "guest appearances"). But I also have a hard time naming a single other thing she's worked on off the top of my head, so it's not as if I'd classify her as top-tier casting talent or anything.

Though granted, it's kind of shitty that it was health issues that forced her to retire, and not just her own innate desire to go chill on tropical islands somewhere.


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Held off getting back to this topic because I kept meaning to reply to PO's stuff earlier on =x

ParanoidObsessive posted...

There's no moral imperative that obligates any work of art or profit to continue to exist after the creator decides otherwise. Which is usually the point where people will point out the various writers who demanded their unpublished writing be burned or otherwise destroyed after they died, only to have their executor renege and release the writing anyway, in some cases leading to famous classics that would otherwise never have been known to the public. But the executor was still a shit for doing it.

In some senses, there certainly is a moral imperative (and, more importantly, depending on legal arrangements, a creator's work can continue based solely on previous consent) from a cultural standpoint. Likewise, if a creator is choosing to withhold for petty reasons, his decision is morally suspect even if he's legally in the right.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Except the two things are absolutely related. And I'm not simply justifying a material harm argument as much as I'm elaborating on it.

To wit, the obligations of contractual transaction are essentially that, if someone creates a product intended to accrue profit, then the obligation of the end user is to meet that requirement. If you want to experience the product, you are expected to pay for it. If you are experiencing it without paying for it, then you have subverted your social obligation. You are reaping the benefit without fulfilling your end of the bargain. You do not DESERVE to be able to experience the product for free, simply because you want to really really badly (and are otherwise unable/unwilling to pay).

Again, things like listening to a friend's CD or renting a movie from the library are a grey area, but ultimately, every single one of those products is a tangible physical item that HAS been paid for (even radio airplay involves licensing fees - nothing is entirely "free"), and which can only exist in one place at one time. Once you get into digital copies of games (or books, or music, or movies, etc), you are now bypassing the crucial step that allowed that grey area to exist with mimimum fuss in the first place.

To continue the metaphor, pirated digital games are less the rental copy of a game you're getting from your friend or a library, and more the bootleg home-burned copy you're buying off the back of a truck from a street vendor who won't be there tomorrow.

And honestly, "You can't say a creator lost money because there's no guarantee that a pirate would have paid for it anyway" is a weak argument, because there are absolutely cases where people WOULD have bought it otherwise if not for piracy. So even if it isn't a 100% loss, it's still a greater-than-zero loss.

Which is still a moral argument rather than a material harm argument. And I never disputed that some pirates wouldn't have otherwise purchased, but generally they're in the extreme minority because most serial pirates have far more content than they could afford to buy even if they had sufficient interest in buying it all.

As for digital piracy vs bootlegs, I will at least note that bootlegs are a greater detriment since those buyers ARE committed to spending at least some money (not going to a creator). Therefore the relative harm is actually higher.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

(Which is the formula for a lot of human behavior - likelihood of getting caught and the severity of punishment balanced against the advantages of committing the crime/breaking the social taboo. Or, as some people boil it down even further, most choices in life become a cost/benefit or pain versus pleasure calculation.)

I feel I don't often enough express my deep appreciation and admiration for your misanthropy =p

Granted, I feel that it's an oversimplification of the equation which fails to address additional moral concerns unrelated to punishment although, I suppose, you could consider a blot on one's conscience as being a pain "cost" even if the decision-maker doesn't necessarily take that into account because they simply consider it the wrong thing to do and that social training (or possibly inherent trait) completely overcomes the temptation.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

This is going to become more and more of a problem as games become more and more online-focused, though. GTAO and ESO are stone-cold fucked the moment the servers go down, games like Saints Row III and IV lost minor functionality when THQ went out of business and their servers went away, and every multiplayer game that sacrificed local couch co-op in favor of online-only play basically becomes a drink coaster the moment the servers go down.

Huh. Never even tried the online for either, I think. Guess it'd fuck over any trophy getting.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Zeus posted...

Given how many random shoutouts I've given to the musical, it can't be surprising.

The problem with making constant references is that, in order for any of us to understand them, we ALSO would have to have watched it. Which I am guessing most of us have not. Or that the ones who have didn't memorize it enough to immediate recognize lines of dialogue or lyrics

Not necessarily true. In the case of some media, you can contextually determine a reference. And, in the case of many songs, you could certainly recognize that something is a lyric. More importantly, the shoutouts given were embedded videos to songs themselves which clearly are labeled as being from a certain musical and, in other cases, I referenced it by name.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Zeus posted...

TIL: Boris Grishenko (the "I AM INVINCIBLE!" hacker in Goldeneye) is played by Alan Cumming. Googled a clip to use as a response and was like, 'holy shit, how did I not notice the last time I watched the movie?'

I'm not sure how you didn't, since literally the very next thing I saw him in, I basically went "Hey, that's Boris!"

Of course, the very next thing I saw him in was Spice World, and the movie after that was Josie and the Pussycats, so now Shadow has learned even more dark and terrible things about people in this topic.

While I assume I saw Josie and the Pussycats and Spice World a few years after, I hadn't really paid a huge amount of attention to actors at the time. Partly because it wasn't a thing I really gave much mind, but mostly because I have terrible facial recognition which, where actors are concerned, has been getting a little better.

And, honestly, it wasn't until Reefer Madness when Alan really caught my attention.
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Entity13 posted...

Moffat's isms still clearly show in "Sherlock," though it's tolerable for the first two seasons plus some of the first 2/3 of season 3. From that point onward it all spiraled into pure Moffat where there's an idea given a ton of hype or light only to become worth nothing, and all sorts of bad ideas come in to destroy the source material simply because Moffat doesn't think it's clever enough.

Therein lies the real problem. Moffat thinks he's more special and clever than he actually is. I would have loved to see Capaldi's Twelve and Gomez's Missy under a different showrunner, but neither will happen. Oh and another companion--a surprisingly good one--is given the umpteenth fakeout death or exit in Moffat's run with the series. I'm at the point now where I'm liking the character Adric more than the showrunner Moffat; fuck that guy.

Yes, an excess of Moffat kinda killed Sherlock for me at times.

The Wave Master posted...

FLCL season 2 and a season 3 trailer. It's a small teaser, and a year away, but it's a start.

Personally I liked FLCL A lot back in the day. Good god 2000 was a long time ago. Hell, I was still in college then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhW81Ekacf4

I'm excited. Granted, I *will* be disappointed. That much is guaranteed. Oh, plus I recently glanced at a volume of the manga (season 1 stuff) which I really didn't like.

Didn't know we so much talked about anime and manga in here. Thought it was for that other topic.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

BBQ - "wet" or "dry rub"?

Sadly, I don't immediately know what said terms entail.


ParanoidObsessive posted...

The Wave Master posted...

I won't go into spoilers, but there were some "Twist" in the movie that a close friend of mine (Vandal Savage) hated and another he liked. The big one he was okay with, the smaller one triggered him.

You're friends with a 50000-year old immortal caveman?!

Also, I'm assuming he was mostly okay with Michelle being Vulture's daughter, but annoyed that she was (apparently) secretly the MCU's version of MJ?

Why did I have to click that spoiler tag? Meh.

The Wave Master posted...

Yes, my friend is Vandal Savage and he is an immortal caveman that is a screen writer and comedian that lives in California and is a full time school teacher ad well.

Many hats but only one head.

The Wave Master posted...

Also on my list is GLOW. I watched GLOW when I was a kid, as I loved and still love wrestling, and I too have heard good things about season one of the show.

It became a must-watch when I heard it had a naked Allison Brie.
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Zeus posted...

Oh, plus I recently glanced at a volume of the manga (season 1 stuff) which I really didn't like.

The FLCL manga has a really cool art-style and captures the hyperactive feel of the original series pretty well, but the changes to the story are NO GOOD.

Plus, FLCL without the music is no FLCL.
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Raganork posted...

Japan totally has a huge stigma against anyone above the age of 20 when it comes to jrpgs, because in their minds, if you're not a teenager, you have no business fighting off evil, probably because you've got better things to do like working a job.

Which I absolutely hate about RPGs. It's also an issue across a lot of Western fantasy where characters overwhelmingly are either young or start their journeys young. Granted, there are practical issues for that which make the writing easier -- since they have an excuse for having things explained to them -- but it has a monotonous feel.


ParanoidObsessive posted...

I've never had a single problem with Amazon, but then again I also absolutely refuse to pre-order anything ever and have never bothered to get Prime because a) I never need anything IMMEDIATELY, and b) I always spend more than $50 per order anyway.

I also refuse to get Prime (note that the min order is down to $35 again, which is reasonable; usually I couldn't find enough to justify $50 so I stopped using Amazon) and, broadly speaking, I don't pre-order unless there's a physical promo item or a discount. After getting burned on Pokemon pre-orders through online vendors where I saved a little bit of money, I might just not pre-order at all and -- more generally -- I might wait until discounts to buy the games like I do with everything else.



The Wave Master posted...

Odd note: I think my new neighbors are drug dealers

Evidence: They have 2 brand new nice cars.
They don't seem to have jobs.
Strange cars come to their house all hours of the day and night.
Strange loud noises are coming from their house all day and night.
They keep moving things in and out of the house all the time.

Scarlett is convinced and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but as time passes I find myself more and more convinced ad well.

What do you fellow Geeks think?

Could just be running a brothel.

tbh, lately when I've been wandering around at night playing Pokemon Go, I'll occasionally overhear teens/younger folk seemingly selling weed. I've been tempted to give a heads-up to the local police, but I kinda don't want the hassle especially given that it's difficult to do a truly anonymous tip since they track phone numbers and the kids could possibly move before the cops get there. Maybe I'll write down the license plate or something next time to see them if I'm close enough. The fact that they're so brazenly engaged in illegal conduct -- since I can hear them from a good 10 to 20 feet away (granted, I have excellent hearing but for me to clearly make out much of the conversation means that anybody with moderately good hearing probably could as well) -- kinda ticks me off.

The Wave Master posted...

I say that because Maywaether is a tax dodging, woman beating, pile of excrement, and McGregor is a racist, homophobic, pile of excrement.

Mayweather's awfulness is pretty well-known, but I hadn't heard much about McGregor.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I've never liked any of the Toy Story movies.

This.

The Wave Master posted...

Well, that took longer than I thought.

British newspapers and online blogs have already posted topless pictures of the new Doctor Jodie Whittaker.

The Sun even had an editorial saying that her casting basically amounts to stunt casting, and to further the liberal agenda.

She had to know this was coming, and she seems to be handling it with class thus far.

Honestly, it really is stunt casting. That allegation is indefensible.
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Entity13 posted...

True, the first people to call a thing a political stunt are themselves tools of politics and hardly anything more. Some are best handled by not dignifying with a response, and some others are handled with a courteous, tactful means of saying "Get over yourself."

The right approach involves acknowledging things for what they are. We mustn't pretend that they're anything else.

Also, after seeing Jodie topless, my interest in her as the Doctor has admittedly grown a little.

The Wave Master posted...

This might be the biggest waste of time and money I have ever seen, and I like Final Fantasy VIII.

http://kotaku.com/man-pays-41-000-to-look-like-final-fantasy-viiis-squal-1797082393

Yes, it's a Kotaku link, but it's so going to trigger P.O. so bad it was worth posting.

FFVIII and, to a lesser extent IX, have always left me with mixed feelings although, generally speaking, they were mostly responsible for my loss of interest in the franchise. The one thing I liked about FFVIII was tying more things into summons but it led to all kinds of balance issues.

The Wave Master posted...

I know that but blue cheese is godly right?

Also, overblown new Justice League trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_6yBZKj-eo

It looks expensive. I however do not remember this version of Superman inspiring jack ****.

idk, I'm hyped. Granted, I *still* haven't seen BvS nor Wonder Woman so I've got catching up to do eventually.

Raganork posted...

I've played DQ7, 8, and 9. From my experience, they all played pretty much the same, beat for beat. I really didn't notice myself playing any differently whether I was dealing with the game with skill trees, or the one with a job system.

I played 9 and, broadly speaking, I never really gave a shit about the plot anyway. I just liked the character creation and job systems.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

Zeus posted...

Oh, plus I recently glanced at a volume of the manga (season 1 stuff) which I really didn't like.

The FLCL manga has a really cool art-style and captures the hyperactive feel of the original series pretty well, but the changes to the story are NO GOOD.

Plus, FLCL without the music is no FLCL.

Eh, not a huge music person although I do recognize that in this case it did at least partly contribute to the show. And yes, the difference in story somewhat bothered me.

In general, I find that a lot of manga tries to push the envelope too far in terms of art-style to the detriment of readability (shojo especially being a culprit; Ghost Hunt is unreadable for me which is a damn shame since I liked the short-lived anime and wanted to follow the story afterward). And, in general, one thing I haven't liked about manga is that art -- in many series, at least -- seems to take priority over story.

Most of my favorite manga follows relatively safe formatting and is generally more subdued in style, such as Detective Conan.
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Naked Allison Brie is a disappointment in GLOW. (Of course I watched the show; it's wrestling.)

Her nakedness is a disappointment because she has lost at least 20 pounds since Community and Mad Men.

I'm not into the "you need to eat a damn sammich look" and while she still has a decent figure; looking at rib bones isn't sexy to me. I need a little meat on them bones.
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Zeus posted...

In general, I find that a lot of manga tries to push the envelope too far in terms of art-style to the detriment of readability (shojo especially being a culprit; Ghost Hunt is unreadable for me which is a damn shame since I liked the short-lived anime and wanted to follow the story afterward). And, in general, one thing I haven't liked about manga is that art -- in many series, at least -- seems to take priority over story.

Not sure if I agree with this, but it's pretty much a fact that Berserk's amazing art is part of the reason the series takes so long to release new chapters.
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