Semjaza

Other characters are definitely getting more complex and there's been a far heavier attempt to deepen them in many ways. Certainly not to the degree of many RPGs, but certainly beyond what has been attempted in Zelda before. Ganon has been given more of a real personality in the last few games and some of his last words in the Wind Waker were extremely important in his humanization, I think. The same has been done with Zelda, although she's still somewhat two-dimensional. In any case, there's so many arguments to that. I don't think it's necessary, but I can see why people would want it. Personally, I have no interest in sitting and waiting for voices to finish saying what I finished reading already. I skip ahead of almost every voice over in any game that allows it. That's me. However, as some of these more important non-player characters, such as Ganon, are given more and more to say, I guess it is somewhat natural to expect them to speak in future games. If it doesn't happen, I'm obviously not going to be disappointed. If it doesn't happen, I also hope other people don't let it ruin the rest of the game that is far more important (such as the actual gameplay and design). I don't think voices are the next expected component in videogames. Cinematic camera work does not equal a requirement for vocals. Running away from Gohma does not require Link to be shouting out a variety of words. I went to this show last night that showed nothing but animated films and maybe two out of the dozen or so shown had any sort of voices. There's so much more someone can pull out of something when that is left up to your imagination. They were just as cinematic in nature, if not moreso because you were still in charge of that aspect. That's always been something I've liked about many videogames, especially ones with such deep roots as Zelda. In any case, Nintendo has not given me faith that they're capable of decent voices. Mario might be fitting, but no one in their right mind would think the overall voice acting in the cutscenes (totally ignoring Mario himself)[email protected] of Super Mario Sunshine was [i]good[/i]. Most of the Star Fox voices are still disappointing, etc. I'd not be upset if they added voice acting at all. If it's bad, I'd hope I could turn it off. If it's not bad, I'll probably wind up skipping through most of it to begin with. However, the idea of it being something that is absolutely required to be added to the series in order to improve it is not an idea I agree with. There's things to address that are far more important, such as how Wind Waker was practically OoT in the gameplay department... Although my main interest in the new Zelda is that they've stated that they plan on doing new things with the series.

I agree that Deloused was better in a variety of ways. Frances the Mute is good, but it just doesn't break over into "excellent". I'm not disappointed by it, as I never really loved The Mars Volta to begin with, but I guess it could have been better. As for the track organization, do you mean how the longer tracks are all at the beginning (aside from The Widow)?

[quote name='boxybrown305][COLOR=DarkRed']Well, i actually did a report on this two years ago for a speach, and discovered that it actually isn't illegal to download music. [/COLOR][/quote] They're definitely using scare tactics, as you say, but this idea is simply wrong. I don't know what you researched that led you to this conclusion, but I suggest to share it with all the people involved in law throughout the country. I think they'd like to know. As for the idea in of itself, my opinions on it are actually in a constant state of flux. I don't feel it worth typing up.

[QUOTE=Zenju][size=1][color=DimGray][b]Skin bleaching?[/b] Jackson has Vitiligo. [url]http://www.niams.nih.gov/hi/topics/vitiligo/vitiligo.htm[/url] [/color][/size][/QUOTE] I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. I know this is what he says, but so many people close to him in some form have really said otherwise. What he has is really beyond what fits under vitiligo.

I don't know if he's guilty in other cases, but I do not think he's guilty in this case. At least not without cause for reasonable doubt. The parent for the main child in this case is a cheat and has been caught in similar circumstances in the past (she claimed her kid had cancer, took all the money and spent it -- he didn't have cancer at all). Plus, there's been a lot of story changing on the part of some of the witnesses.

Hell, if I had the ability, I'd go through the threads and edit spoiler tags into the posts for you guys. I don't care about anime in general, so I'd not have anything ruined for me lol.

So current cultures believing in something we have no physical proof of right now is different from older cultures believing in something they (or even we) have no physical proof of in the past? I don't believe in Greek/Roman gods obviously, but your argument against this is not "logical" as you claim as much as it is completely faith based. It's impossible to debate or discuss something with someone who subscribes to that approach. No matter what I say or how I word it, a strong belief in a religon will automatically dismiss any other point in any way it can. Faith doesn't require tangible proof whatsoever to make any of its points. Many current religions are no more factually or tangibly (if that's even a word) provable than they were centuries ago. I'm not saying that they're "wrong", because I think faith are spirtuality are important things. The Greek and Roman gods were personified because that's how the people best knew how to explain their ideas and religion at the time. Just as the Christian/Jewish god is personified (to a lesser extent, admittedly -- but giving him a normal voice at all fits under personification) in early parts of the Bible and through angels in other parts. I definitely agree the Greek and Roman belief systems were made up entirely out of need and have no factual significance, but that's not what I am discussing in the first place. Norse mythology is even more ridiculous, especially considering how long the people there believed the stuff (frost giants...?). I severely doubt a sane person of the time looked up at the sky and thought he saw Helios anymore than a person nowadays would look up to the sky and expect to see some sort of personification (even if this is just a blinding light that talks to them) of their god or an angel descend and talk to them. People then knew just as much as people do now that they were not going to see these gods in everyday life, even if they tried to. Religious writings and epic stories are not always the best thing to base the belief systems of the general populace on.

Personally, I think you're all just insane lol. I've been in situations where I'm like "this is somewhat familiar", but that's not really what deja vu is. It would have to be exactly the same to qualify and really, how often does that happen? Never? As for the visions stuff, I think you guys need more sleep and better nutrition. That or you're taking hallucinogens and aren't telling us. Anyway! :animestun

[quote name='Desbreko][color=#4B0082']Also, the sticky thread in Play It did seem to help a fair bit. I still have to add spoiler tags to posts every now and then, but not all that often -- not enough from any individual member to warrent a warning, at any rate. So I'd definitely recommend putting one up in the Anime Lounge.[/color][/quote] Yeah, it did. I added that thread because I was entirely tired of it constantly happening. It's obvious most people don't read through everything on the site, but I think a sticky thread is more obvious than a lot of other methods (even including having it in the rules). It seemed to help substantially. As Des said, there's still some times where I see it happening, but nothing to the extent of how it was previously. We're not even talking threads where it might have been expected, people were seriously belting out entire endings just in basic discussions sometimes.

[quote name='Baron Samedi][size=1']Envision this: A 14 page thread, full of mature and sensible posts... deleted by a member upset at the fact they lost their argument. Thats not what you want happening. Rather, I think they should be able to edit Thread titles...but that's all. If posting a double-thread makes you feel bad in some way, then you really need to get out some more.[/size][/quote] Imagine now that it actually happened. I think that is such a strong case as to why it shouldn't be allowed. I think a lot of us remember that thread lol. No one is going to remember or care if you make a stupid mistake. Back when I was a mod, I never remembered who did things like that. I remembered people who were genuine jerks.

I know there's examples of some direct rips on the site, but they're mostly taken care of as soon as possible. It's hard to keep all of that in line. What you're showing here kind of confuses me, however. A lot of the work on the site is obviously based off of official drawings (which I have a bit of a problem with in the first place personally). Who is to say that all three of these drawings weren't originally based off of something Toriyama (or some animator for the shows) originally did and then they drew it themselves? There's a very large possibility that none of these people have even seen eachother's drawings in that case.... somewhat like your idea of basing your own work off of official images. I think theOtaku's rules more or less include something like someone taking an image from another person's site that's exactly the same and deleting their copyright information off of it. Not people all doing their art based off a similar official picture. Plus it's possible that some of these are by the same person, regardless of being on different sites. Of course, that would take some research and contacting the people on the other sites. So I don't know. I'd not worry about putting something up based off of official art. I could be reading this all wrong and not getting your point, though.

I think the ideas of the Greeks and Romans were largely ludicrous in terms of a religious standpoint. We know a lot of this was just made up to explain things to them because they didn't have any knowledge to prove otherwise. Same with the Norse, Babylonians, Myans, etc. Many religions started simply as explanations of things that couldn't be explained and I would say a lot of the current ones don't completely fall in that category. From what I've studied, I find Islam to be much more convincing than many other religions. I'm not going to argue against whether or not that belief system is any more correct than any others... that's not my point in this post at all. Yet, using the idea of other religions being improbable because we've never seen any of those mythological gods do anything directly seems really strange to me. Has anyone seen their current god of choice come down from the sky/paradise/heaven/etc and do things? Has anyone witnessed their god create something or is there even an accurate, infallible, completely provable in all senses account of it happening? Has anyone flew up into the skies and actually found a Christian-type of Heaven? Does anyone seriously know what the state of the universe was before any divine being did something to it? There's a lot of people who believe that their god created the universe from nothing (ex nihilo), but what proof is there of that? People had faith in those old religions, just like people have faith in their religion now. I don't see a god riding a chariot across the sky to change the prescence of day and night any more often than I see angels floating across the sky and helping people in need. That is to say, I never have. I don't want to be offensive to anyone, but the idea of someone seeing some sort of angel in a realistic sense is really not any more believable from an objective standpoint than someone getting inspiration from one of the Muses. If we've not found Heaven, does that mean it simply does not exist at all? We've found no real evidence of any of the Greek and Roman gods either, but if we can't see Heaven, why would we easily see these gods either? Regardless of whether or not they [i]exist[/i], I don't really see how we'd find them any more easily than we would proof of any currently worshiped divine entities. To say they don't exist because of factual, historical information that more or less proves these ideas were made up by people that were ignorant of many things in their world is one thing. To say they don't exist because we can't physically [I]see [/I]them in our everyday lives is another, as far as I'm concerned. They're both things no one has any tangible, irreputible evidence of. Having faith in that sort of thing is completely understandable and I'm not challenging that whatsoever, but I don't really understand how comparing them in this sense (i.e., just the basic ideas of these beings, not including one's belief system or religion or faith) makes one any more "true" than another in a logical, basic sense. Logic doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with religion, but not all things need to be, or even can or should be, logical in the first place.

I had my own personal site prior to myOtaku coming around. I posted on it pretty regularly and got a decent visitor-base... but I also joined myOtaku in the first few days it was around. I think Adam IMed me about it or something. I posted on there pretty much exclusively for awhile. I think I was writing different posts on both sites for awhile, then copying the ones from my site to myOtaku... eventually I just came up with using an iFrame and only making new myOtaku posts so the site would list me as writing something new. I still put up posts on myOtaku so people know I've updated my site... but I don't really use any of its other features now. I think, for most people, it's just easier to post from myOtaku than it is to go to my site separately and do post (particularly since I didn't have it set up to remember posters till more recently). Part of it is laziness I guess, but it's also extremely convenient for people. They have a universal name, their own page and a list of who updated and who didn't. People are far more likely to comment on my site if they have something telling them there's new stuff on it... I'd use RSS and blogrolls, but most of the people I visit don't have the means to use it. I like to put things on there that generally can't be accessed from the myOtaku itself anyway, so I guess there's some incentive to go to the real URL. I think what makes myOtaku successful is really just how easy to use it is. Obviously some people want it to do other things, as evidenced by requests and hacks, but I think the fact that it's a little less complex than other site's stuff is a good thing. The whole anime angle helps too, as I guess it gets people who visit theOtaku site interested in joining. Blogger and stuff are neat, but aside from the very basic options, a lot of the customizing takes more work and some sort of knowledge of coding. myOtaku has pretty much bypassed this... but I don't know how the future versions are going to be. Hopefully it will retain that usablity.

Genkai is still alive??? [quote name='Shinmaru] Though I've heard a slew of his songs, I only have [i]Odelay[/i] and [i]Midnite Vultures[/i']. I've been meaning to buy his other albums for a while now, but lack of money is always an issue. Being cheap (most of the time) really sucks.[/quote] At least get Mellow Gold. I like Midnite Vultures quite a bit, but it's not as good as his other last few releases.

I've never heard of anyone actually worshiping the Buddha as a god. He didn't consider himself to be one or descended from one whatoever. Followers pay respect to him through images, sure, but he's not an idol they pray to in worship. He's was just a man who came up with a set of truths and goals people would live if they desired to achieve true spiritual enlightenment. He didn't push his methods as the only true way either, which means everyone can go about this path in different methods, more or less. I think of all the religions and philiosophies, it's probably the one I would most be interested in following.

I'm part Irish, but I don't care for the holiday much. I absolutely loathe Irish dancing. Living in Chicago I feel like this holiday is a bigger deal here than it is in much of the US... we have such a large Irish population. I did have a good cheeseburger and my Mick Ronson CD came in the mail, so it was better than a lot of days.

[quote name='KarmaOfChaos][color=deeppink][size=1][b]The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe[/b], by C.S. Lewis. Easily one of my favorite fantasy books ever, the story of a group of children who wander into wardrobe and enter into a whole new world - it allows the reader to enact one of the basic fantasies we all have - to escape from our own world into something completely different and mystical.[/size'][/color][/quote] If you're going to mention that one, you might as well mention the entire series. They're worth reading all together and not simply as separate entities. Personally, I don't agree with the general idea everyone has that The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is the best of the series... but it's definitely amazing either way.

Ghosts seem far more reasonable than the rest of this nonsense. I was reading a bunch of Norse mythology the other day, which obviously refers to giants and dwarves and such. I don't know how anyone could ever honestly buy into that stuff lol.

Blue Storm is an absolutely excellent game that I think a lot of people didn't give enough of a chance. The control in Wave Race 64 was good, but largely because it was very "turn on a dime" in design. Blue Storm seems to be far more picky about things and I like that. If you customize your rider's abilities, some of them don't control much different than in the original game.

That was pretty funny, reminded me of those daysI think the simple rhyming scheme really suits what you're trying to do here. Good job.

[quote name='satan665']Do you mean that they play with a real Symphony backing them?[/quote] That's pretty much what categorizes it. Orchestration is usually great in most rock-type music, I think. In metal, I think it adds some much needed melody in many cases. People might use it to refer other things for all I know, but that's what it was coined to define. A lot of the groups that seem really reliant on it usually seem to have something to do with black metal. Not all, but a lot of them. They wind up having really weird histories and lyrics... such is the case with Emperor. A weird background, but certainly some of the more important stuff in the genre. They're quite good, I think. I also like Nightwish, which was mentioned.

I think this is worth reading: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion[/url] It explains the very different connotations the word may carry at any given time depending on who uses it or what they use it for. Under some ideas of the word, atheism is considered a "religion", under others it is not. Considering that, I don't know how anyone is going to agree one way or another on this topic.

[quote name='Heaven's Cloud][color=indigo']I From what I understand the album is supposed to be a bit more upbeat than Sea Change, which is pretty cool. /color][/quote] Yes, as I said in my post, it is :animestun It's maybe not a complete return to older Beck themes, but it seems to be a nice mix of what he accomplished on Sea Change and his older albums. There's still some qualities to Guero that I expect will turn off a good portion of people.

You have a US PS2, so you can't play foreign games on it without some sort of modchip. German games also run on a PAL signal, while US TVs run on a NTSC signal... that might cause even more problems than simply changing regions like you can to play Japanese PS2 games (Japan is also NTSC). I don't know what the options are for that with the slim PS2 models.

It depends vastly upon the game. I've played many where there are many characters to pick from and they're all decently developed. In these cases, many times I wind up liking certain characters more than others. I talk to different people and they like completely different ones than I do. A lot of a character's appeal depends heavily on the person who is playing it, I think. I'm also a fan of games where the character is not developed much as it is. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, for example, has a pretty much blank canvas main character that believes what you want him to and says what you want him to say. A lot of it comes down to imagination, I think. There are also RPGs with many main characters that aren't deeply developed at all, but I still wind up forming attachments to them. I think this has a lot to do with design and the progress of the game. Mentioning Nocturne, again, most of the development is in your surroundings and NPCs and in your choices. Your party members are all personality-less demons that do little other than fight for you... but I still find myself liking some more than others and enjoying having them on my team. I've played games where characters are largely the centerpoint, yet I still don't find them compelling, realistic or interesting. A recent example is Shadow Hearts: Covenant. In terms of character "development", there's a lot of what people like in this game... lots of talking, focus, change, etc. Yet, if I don't find them interesting, what exactly does it matter? Still other people love these characters, so again I bring up the idea of personal appeal. I'm kind of just rambling, but my main idea is that it just depends a lot on the design goal of the game in question.