Semjaza

I forgot to grab Gotham Nights this week. Oh well. I did pick up Majestic #1 and #2, which is pretty strange for me as I'm usually not into those types of superheroes. It opens up with him and Superman working together, which was interesting (apparently he is in some DC Superman comics too, I wouldn't know much about that). Not bad, I enjoy the art. This week's Walking Dead was phenominal though. Such an awesome comic. I think more happened in this one than the last few put together. Both in terms of character development and actual horrific events. Too bad we have to wait another month to figure out what the hell that last panel was all about.

[QUOTE=Zanarkand Abes]Here is the first comic I ever made for my site [url]http://www.steelfang.cjb.net[/url] Tell me what you think about it and any improvements I can, or need to make. Thanks[/QUOTE] It's actually a lot better than I was anticipating. With a lot of first comics, I can't even figure out what's going on lol. A few things... I think it would be better to have a darker color for the text. It's not impossible to read, but it's not easy either. You also forgot the word "next" in the second panel. Also, from what I gathered, your character on the left has something in his teeth? It's really hard to tell what it is... maybe it can be cleared up or made bigger? Good job otherwise.

Oh, I completely forgot Constantine. I'm really looking forward to this because I enjoy the Hellblazer comics. I just hope it turns out. Keanu Reeves somehow manages to get into mostly decent movies as of late, although I still don't really like him as an actor... he's probably my biggest "if" of the film.

Mine are just James's first two: Corpse Bride and Willy Wonka. I originally found out about Corpse Bride from some old internet article that had a magazine scan. Months and months ago. It's nice that there's finally more out about it. I love stop motion animation and I love NMBC so it's been at the top for awhile. I imagine Henry Sellick is doing this too, but I don't know offhand. As for Wonka, I'm looking forward to it. The book is darker than the film as it is and I'd like to see what might be changed. I'm also interested in seeing what might be in the film that wasn't included from the book in the orginal. The kids in the original were largely annoying, fodder (I hated Charlie, honestly), so I'm hoping that's improved.

As I said on GS, I think a lot of this show's problem is going to come from the idea of Seth McFarlane coming up with this idea when Family Guy was off the air and the thought of new ones seemed totally impossible. I heard of American Dad long before Fox ever asked for new Family Guy episodes. It would have been a good replacement, I think... but I don't know how well they'll do if they're running new episodes at the same time.

[quote name='Charles'] Wasn't it part of the $4.99 Circuit City sale?[/quote] So were quite a few games that did well... Most Circuit City's just sold absolute trash in that sale, the good stuff was a rarity. I don't think many of them actually had all that much left over, excess stock to sell in that sale. Anyway, IGN's original story says the game includes X 1 to 6 and Battle and Chase.

I can't really think of any "stalker" songs offhand, although I'm sure there are plenty more. I've always been a fan of morbid love songs though, which I think stalker-type stuff fits in. I think the Toadies' "Possum Kingdom" and tweaker's "Happy Child" are good examples. I don't know if that may fit what you want, though.

Eh, don't ask me. I've never posted or talked about anything specific between mods when I was one, as I don't really think it's anyone else's business. At the same time, I don't really think I'd get very worked up about not being able to see it or whatever, it's a pretty harmless joke regardless of how "mature" it is.

Yeah. While you have freedom, really, pretty much everything of importance is discussed on some level. I never in any sense felt like we were really anything other than a team trying to go after the same end goal. The whole "team" thing that OB has its mods split up into is pretty much a good indication of that, actually.

Reminds me of that stupid banner I did when some old OB version came back... [img]http://img206.exs.cx/img206/8967/jeamzbanner5ke.gif[/img] I never really felt like I gained any real respect from being a mod. No genuine respect comes from that, which is all that really has any affect on anything. I think I hated *** kissers more than anything, just as I do in my every day life... but it wasn't terribly common for me. Perhaps that was just due to my attitude. As for Shinmaru, no one really likes him anyway. It's all an ellaborate façade.

I'd assume the collection would have all of the ones prior to the 3D versions on the PS2. Capcom wouldn't bother to include games that are still for sale, for obvious reasons. I was wondering when this would be formally announced. The rumors have been jumping around about it all week.

As with any genre, you have what's on the surface and what's underneath. Sometimes the better stuff is underneath, sometimes it's not. Certainly there are many breakout artists that deserve it for their hard work and dedication. They deserve to be where they are, regardless of what one may think of their music. There's also groups that are where they are due to marketing and publicity. Whether or not they deserve their positions at the top of merely a matter of opinion, when it comes down to it. I don't think punk is dead. I don't know what gives anyone in the world the qualification to say that it is or ever was. Since its emergence, it's gone through various phases and incarnations. The wave of anti-establishment mentalities always grows and dies down, but never entirely. When it slowed down in the 70s, it picked up again the 80s and then on again. Going through hardcore, emocore and post punk to whatever else people can come up with. I think it's obvious that each of these three main genres mentioned in the last sentence are quite different in sound, yet they still share some very specific key traits. These traits are not always purely the attitude, but also include the sound itself. I think, as I've stated so many times, it's important to differentiate between punk as a sound and punk as an ideal. The punk ideal is the idea of anti-establishment and irreverence that affects the attitudes of those immersed in it. However, outside of this, punk itself had a pretty definite sound that was forged out of garage rock (or what's now referred to as garage rock anyway). Punk did not sound like the rock and roll people of the 70s and such were used to and even now a lot of what is classified in the generic container term of "punk" has its own distinctive qualities in terms of simply what it sounds like. Punk as a sound is really all that is applied to most groups of today, particularly the ones that have chosen to go for a more accessible, radio friendly sound. These groups don't necessarily have to work according to what would fit within the punk ideal. They're simply working with the sound, which I think is something that any band should be free to do. Whether or not the result is something people want to listen to is a whole other story. Do soft pop rock groups have any less right to existance than a hard rocking back reminiscent of the 70s? I don't think so. Why should it be different in this situation? I've been told many times that bands I classify as punk aren't punk because they don't sing about specific things or act in specific ways. To expect all music in a genre to be about specific topics in terms of writing doesn't make much sense to me. That's more an idea of theme than of genre. When one is writing a music review or impression and says a rock band or whatever else has punk stylings, it's usually not referring to anything beyond the sound and composition. Punk has specified traits, just like any type of music. Just because a popularized version of what a genre originally was exists doesn't mean that everything else is erased. There are other bands out there. There's nothing stopping people from looking beyond what is supplied to them via commercial radio, where they can easily find out that there still is a punk subculture in terms of both sound [I]and[/I] ideal. I listen to bands that could fit in the "pop punk" category that people throw around as if it was a derrogatory term (hell, the Ramones were pop punk, so I don't know how that's a bad thing). All music gets pressed into something that's more accessible at some point. Pop punk is here, it's not going to go away and the trend has continued even into emocore, leading to the generic word of "emo" to refer to far more accessible and radio friendly bands than the original emocore label would have ever applied to. Back in the early 1900s, people would go nuts if a ballet orchestration or image didn't comply to what they demanded/expected ballets should be. It's not much different now. Things need to change in order to evolve, in the process probably becoming more acceptable to the general public, but there is always going to be something different and unique bubbling around somewhere. The ideal of punk itself is something basic to the human condition, I think. There's always going to be free thinkers, people who have problems with authority and whatever else. It existed before punk and it will exist for as long as we do. How that ideal can die, I have no idea. Even when it doesn't seem to be at the forefront, it's still there. The sound itself will exist as long as people continue to play music with the right aural elements, really. As of right now, both aspects are alive and likely will continue to be for a long time. These bands that fit into both of these areas of punk still are out there and they're plentiful, largely on smaller labels most of us have never even heard of. I certainly listen to groups that I feel fit into both the sound and ideal and they've been around for many of the years people have called this a "dead" genre. If you're not going to try to hunt them out, then I don't know how a real conclusion can be made to the contrary. That was rambly and repetitive, but whatever. As for Avril, she herself has claimed many times she isn't "punk". She kind of just attempts to dress what people have grouped into its image for various reasons. Simply claiming to do something that you're not doing is hardly going "against the system". If that were true, anyone that defied anything in any remote way would fit in the category. Adopting an image for no real clear reason while it's at the height of its popularity isn't anti-establishment or anti anything. I don't know why Drix continues to push this idea, other than to annoy people who like to jump to conclusions lol. I'm also taking annoyance with comments on how people are too young to know what this or that is. If a younger kid likes the Ramones or whatever else (and it's not like anyone in their mid-twenties would have any memorable real life experience with the Ramones at their beginnings anyway), good for them. I'm told this same thing by people twice my age who existed when some of my favorite artists were at their prime and I wasn't even born yet. Yet I know more about them and listen to them more often. What's the comparison here? What in the world does age have to do with anything besides giving you the opportunity to say you were alive when it happened? Pretty much nothing. No one should really give a damn unless you happened to be directly involved in some way. People need better reasons to dislike bands, basically. I don't dislike Good Charlotte because I don't think they fit to my definiton of the punk ideal, but because I think they have completely awful, self-defeating and unsuccessful lyrics and uninspired playing. Why someone should hate them for any other reason, I have no idea.

Ocarina of Time was more hyped for reasons that I think just make sense. It was the first 3D Zelda, not to mention the first new one since Link's Awakening hit the Game Boy. While I think Majora's Mask is a better game personally, it's still a game that utilizes so many things that existed simply because of OoT. I don't think it was "overhyped" as much as Majora's Mask was underhyped because the N64 was slowly dying out. As for Half-Life... I think most people know about it, assuming they know anything about games outside of consoles. Hell, the first one sold two and half million copies by December 2000 (and who knows how many since then) and the sequel is nearing two million copies. Certainly not approaching Halo 2 numbers, but certainly not unknown.

I didn't really know much about the choosing process until Shy explained it to me last night. I figured it was just some sort of vote count and the highest ones would be listed. I didn't realize that a group would be formed to choose from the lists. I think that because of this, the decision to use people that normally wouldn't be in charge of these choices (which, really, would be the mods) was important. I think it kind of kills off a lot of the possible higher up"favorites" stuff.

James asked me to be a mod, from what I remember. I remember him saying at certain points that he didn't ask me sooner simply because I never acted like I wanted to have the job. To be honest, I never really did. That doesn't mean I didn't want to accept the job or didn't enjoy it, but that it wasn't something I was ever after in any sense. It kind of just happened. I wound up becoming category mod once the gaming forums were changed around for Version 7. At some point I resigned because of lack of time and interest... Plus, I just felt like a lot of my efforts weren't getting enough of a result to really continue doing my job. Would I do it again? I don't really know, but I do doubt it. Being a mod isn't something that is generally that exciting. You run around deleting posts and telling people to follow the rules. That's really the basics of it. Yet, in another way, I think being a mod also gives you the sort of power that allows you to affect the course of the site in some form. In Play It, for example, the ability to make stickies and important threads can really affect things and the course of discussion. The news thread was a good example, before we kind of just stopped updating it lol. While some of these things don't always work out, doing something that directly boosts the productivity of your area is rewarding. At the same time, a lot of it is just a headache. While I could have simply banned anyone I pleased, it's not that simple for obvious reasons. I wish it was because it's far easier to think of everyone as robots and be done with it lol. I think dealing with some of the more problematic members directly is the thing I miss the least. Some of these things would work out, some of them wouldn't. Things I would think were on their way up would sometimes just explode (a good example was that guy who posted all those horrible, horrible images that I and a few other mods had to manually delete). For me, the bad just wound up outweighing the good. I was kind of just burned out.

I agree with Panda on Robotech. I think for a lot of people, who remember when Robotech was still relatively new, it was their first real exposure to anime. Sure, it was a combination of a bunch of other stuff with an adjusted storyline, but the heart of it was still intact. I've been buying the remastered DVDs (they look 100 times better than the originals) and I still enjoy the show just as much as I did back when I first saw it. Certainly, a lot of my memories of it are nostalgic, but the show is also just incredibly good by many standards. I enjoy the characters and their plights (well, I hate Lynn Minmei, but so does everyone it seems). There's more character development in that series than possibly any other animated program I can think of (and even tops many live action shows). Characters change dramatically, yet realisticly, over the course of the show... something that I think animation that was usually shown over here completely lacked. I'm not even going to bother to talk about the continuation of it all, through Dana Sterling and everything else. It's all good. I even have all the novels based on the TV show, which I really love lol. Plus, Veritech rock.

Not all the posts are saying Batman is insane. I certainly don't think so. Batman has a secret to protect, certainly, but he still does have a social life. He and Bruce Wayne are the same person, yet different ones at the same time. Bruce Wayne is fully capable of networking and meeting people, although mostly on a superficial level (I think this ties in with Shy's comment on him being a critique). That much is obvious through his business relations and party endeavors. He doesn't lock himself up in the Batcave until a supervillain appears, only then braving the city and its inhabitants. As it is, anti-social (and even more so, sociopathic) doesn't simply mean someone doesn't like socializing and getting to know people. Bruce Wayne and Batman protecting the identity of eachother is not much more than anyone else protecting a secret vital to their existance. The defensive nature he exhibits when doing this, I think, is better described as as "avoidant" than "anti-social". I agree that being avoidant in this sense is completely integral to his and his loved ones' and comrades' existance, but the idea presented of him being a total sociopath, existing only as an escape mechanism, doesn't work for me.

My main issue with ED was the enemies. A vast majority of the game is spent with the same few types, all of which are incredibly similar to eachother in the first place. Later on there are a few new ones, but some have very specific weaknesses that make them a pain to finish off. The bosses were more interesting at least. I enjoyed the combat in ED because you could target specific body parts. Unfortunately, in practice it's not always as fun as it could have been due to the lack of more monster types. Guns were just a pain because I just hated waiting for the characters to reload them. Still, I really liked the game. I finished it all three times so I could get the special ending, so that must be saying something lol.

I don't expect Black Panther to become special in any sense, but I enjoyed it enough to spend the few bucks. I'll probably hold on for a few issues and see what happens. I think there is potential with the character, but who knows. So much depends on the team. I'm probably going to pick up this Gotham Nights comic. I have stacks of older Batman comics and graphic novels... it would be nice to see what's going on currently. Is the regular Batman comic decent?

[quote name='Heaven's Cloud][COLOR=INDIGO']I am not sure I agree with this, actually I don?t see how anyone familiar with the Batman/DC universe could agree with this. [/color][/quote] I think this is a key point here. Like movies based on novels, movies based on comics are changed. I don't know how anyone can come to any sort of remotely final conclusion on a character, yet not be familiar with his/her background beyond what can be used to help sell the film. If it was simply Joker, I don't really think Batman's purpose would have been the same. It would have been more an idea of pure revenge, most likely, instead of concerning himself with criminals in general. In a sense, I think he has made himself into what he wishes he was (or existed elsewhere) on the night of his parent's death. The issues that are raised from him becoming this "thing" are another story and certainly aren't completely fueled by that one single event, although it is the obvious catalyst and still the prime motivation (although perhaps an unconscious one in many situations). I don't feel it's something he has created to escape from the world and its problems. Batman is more of a reactionary creation than an escape mechanism. Despite his problem, I feel what comes from this reaction is the important factor. A crazy person who does heroic things is still a hero. By definition, sociopaths are people who exhibit anti-social behavior. Batman and countless other comic characters, deviate from the social norm and do things that violate accepted actions for varying reasons. However, that's a very broad thing to have attibuted to a character with so little explanation in the initial post. Most any character I can think of in a superhero styled comic that isn't two dimensional could fit into this definition in some way, simply because of the way comics in general are approached from a creation standpoint. Simply describing Batman as a sociopath misses a large portion of his being, character and motivation as far as I'm concerned. It's far too simple of a label to place upon him. Batman doesn't exist in this world, the one he exists in is of a far different variety. The constraints on what is and what isn't a "crazy" attitude, I think, are changed because of this.

[QUOTE=Charles]Oh my goodness, [i]that[/i] is what this is all about? :laugh: I don't know what's better: All this talk about Morpheus's tone of delivery, being too blunt, careful analysis of what constitutes "playing mod," [i]whatever, [/i]over [b]one sentence[/b] that encouraged the topic starter to post his own opinion--or the fact that Morpheus was offended enough over a one sentence reprimand, that he saw fit to make a complaint about it. In any case, if this isn't blowing a non-issue out of proportion, then I don't know what is.[/QUOTE] At this point, I was just posting about general "playing mod" stuff, not his post... personally. That seemed to be where the tread got to at this point lol.

I think it sounds interesting. I, personally, would not be likely to try out, but I would think you could easily gather up four or so people that would do quality work. A lot of times I think most RPGs here die because there's just too many characters and no one knows where to go next. I don't know if this will work with your ideas, but one way to increase the character count would be to allow people to play deceased villains as well. There's obviously quite a bit of them.

[quote]Members should just avoid offering public advice altogether. It's annoying, sometimes wrong, and most of all unnecessary; we do it because it's our job. Because it's not their job, they have no reason to.[/quote] That was pretty much my stance when I was a category mod. There are different reasons for it depending on the poster... They want to help, they want feel big in some way, they want the other person to feel bad by being repremanded. Whatever the original intentions were, as a mod, I quite simply just found it annoying. Every single time something like this would happen, a mod would happen upon it soon afterwards. Posting something to that effect is just going to become redundant and I honestly believe it does little more than undermine the power of the mods themselves. When a bunch of members are telling everyone to clean up their act in some way, it coming from a mod doesn't seem to be quite as effective as it could have been. Plus, as mentioned, most of the time no effort is even made to contribute to or even help save these threads. Complaining about a spammy thread by posting "Hey, your post is spam, better stop!" is just adding to the problem. More crap for someone to have to delete. When I come across a ****** topic, I just do one of two things as a member: I ignore it entirely and let the mods remove it when they get to it or I post in it decently, not citing the original poster's goofiness, hoping that something of interest can still be pulled out of it. I don't really know why people do anything else. Desbreko, for example, often removes some of the awful posts from a thread and leaves the good ones. It all works out.

[QUOTE=Heaven's Cloud][color=indigo] I was intrigued by this entry yesterday, and I was about to pull up some of his songs off the net when I flipped on VH1 purely by coincidence. Lo and behold, the video for "Ordinary People" was on. Your entry and the video definitely piqued my intrest and I think I'll probably pick up the album later today. Anyway, thanks for the recomendation.[/color][/QUOTE] I almost picked it up last night for my self. It's only $7.99 at Best Buy and Manic's description was pretty interesting.

This kind of slowed down substantially, but I'm hoping perhaps some other people have purchased this game. If you need to know more about it directly, check out some of the first posts. I know that Satan665 finished the game. I'm not sure if Sennen has or not. I personally haven't gotten to as it's hard to invest all the thought into it that the game requires lately... Plus I spend a crapload of time just hunting out weird things and raising demons. I was basically wondering what those who finished the game (or have played a substantial portion of it) still think of the game. If it was what they expected, how it met or fell short of expectations, etc. I'm also wondering why those who don't have it don't have it yet because it's an excellent game. And lastly, my main reason for bumping this is that there are actually rumblings of a release within PAL territories. The rumor is that Atlus is working with another company on the details. Whether or not this is true, I don't know, but it would be great.