Random ramblings on media of various sort....
Saw an advertisement in a PC gaming mag, a declaration/rallying cry from said magazine, announcing that they were no longer going to accept ads from gold farming companies and urging other publishers to do the same.
I'm pretty sure it was just scented paper, but it's entirely possible that the page in question actually was printed on genuine cowpat.
After what, 7 years now of MMORPGs and no bitching about gold farmers from anyone except the game publishers, suddenly it's "problematic"? Here's what I think happened in our world of corporate greed:
"Hello, Popular Gaming Magazine? This is Popular Game Production Company, makers of Popular Online Game X. We see you're running gold farm ads, and some of them mention our game....here's the deal. WE benefit from it, no one else, and by running these ads, you not only allow THEM to make money they don't share with us, but YOU make money too. This is what's going to happen. You're going to stop accepting their ads, make a big deal of it and encourage others-whom we'll be speaking to anyway-to do the same, and call it a moral stance. Otherwise, we're never advertising with you again, nor will you ever recieve advance information or review copies again. Good luck selling your magazine when you can't cover hot products anymore!" Popular Gaming Magazine shits and realizes that gold farmer ads don't mean the survival of their magazine, and thank the stars above that Popular Game Production Company didn't require them to find nude pictures of their own mothers and print those, too. Let's face it, they're kinda at their mercy.
I haven't done a LOT of MMORPG playing, just the big ones-Final Fantasy 11, Evercrack, World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies. In my limited experience, gold farmers were never a problem. They never interfered with my gaming experience, never stopped me from doing any of my own thing, I never even noticed them-and if I did, it's pretty easy to ignore someone online. It's my choice to do it myself. In all honesty, I see gold farmers as a GOOD thing-one, it helps stimulate the economy in game AND simulates real life:useless people who are obsessed only with their money, contributing nothing to advancing society or interacting in mentally stimulating ways. More importantly, they're paying the monthly fee-which means that the game is likely to last longer. Square canceled 700 farmers' accounts last week. $15 an account, that's just a little over $10,000 a month right there that they just gave up (and more if each account had multiple characters, etc). That's over a hundred thousand a year that Square just tossed out the windows, and those massive servers used to power the game aren't free. This means the potential to jack rates up on the honest players, or an earlier shut down for the game. What problem were the farmers actually causing? Nothing, really, but greedy execs have the "if I can't have it you can't either" mentality. Someone might be getting perks because of or related to their product, ohno! Am I going to be booted for paying my roommate $20 to level grind for me all night while I'm at work? What next? How far will it go?
"Sir! We have reliable intelligence that Jimmy Clark has refused to let his little brother Timmy play on the computer unless he mows the lawn for him!" "That son of a bitch! Timmy isn't going to mow anyone's lawn but OURS! Cancel their accounts to teach those godless heathens a lesson about using our game to their own ends! I hope many Bothans died to bring us this information."
Paying real world money for fake money or items in game? Sorry, I think the level of "sad" that the purchasers live on is punishment enough....
Next up, the DVD industry and WalMart. Oh, you dirty greedy fuckers. Not you DVD industry, although you've gotten a bit rotten yourself, the primary "crimes" you're accused of are primarily related to the stupidity and laziness of the casual consumer-I'm looking at YOU , WalMart. We know you're evil and corporate, but now you're fucking with things at home. "Hi, DVD industry, this is WalMart. Check it out:%25 of new DVD sales come from WalMart-for a multibillion dollar industry, that's a big chunk of money for you and I! You know how we match competitor's prices? It's REALLY cutting into our profits, and despite how we advertise it, we REALLY hate price matching. Since you'd lose huge sales if we stopped buying, and higher prices elsewhere would make people buy less too, you're going to do things OUR way. We want to make sure that no one can lower our price on anything. You're gonna start producing DVDs without special features (like Fantastic Four, Wallace & Gromit, etc), and put the features on a WalMart exclusive disc! No competitor can beat our price because no one else can get it, and that's a huge exclusive sale to us for you!" I first discovered this when I bought the Fantastic Four. I HATED myself for buying it, but I'm a Marvel whore and it had features....so the case claimed. Next day I step into a WalMart and....what?! WalMart exclusive features disc?! Documentaries?! YOU DIRTY FUCKERS! There's not SHIT on the FF disc by itself! DVD industry, I don't fault you for "double dips" like the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions, Sin City Deluxe, XMen 2.5, Almost Famous, etc, because you almost always announce these versions' the same day you put out info on the regular DVD release. It's the consumers' fault for not researching or keeping up-not that it wouldn't be awesome if you'd only release uber-godlike editions.
I'm not even gonna get into the HDDVD/Blu Ray debate. It's going to fall flat on it's face and Blu Ray will eventually come out on top. Format war, why? Oh, that's right, greed. Humanity's biggest folly. Simple reason why Blu Ray will come out on toplaystation 3.
You notice I liberally pepper this rant with references to comic book movies? Yep, when a film I'm interested in-especially when it's an adaptation of a comic book-is getting close to release, I like to browse forums and bang my head on the desk over the stupidity of anal fanboys. So naturally I'm looking at the X3 boards (which I fear will be a train wreck of a movie, but there's always hope).....
I'm so sick of the bitching about costumes, and it's always the same thing. "Ehhh, it's not what it was in the comics! It should be what it is in the comics!" Shove it, fanboy-you've just been categorized. I've noticed there's two kinds of XMen fans:honest to Bob Xfans who know and love the series back and forth, and people who were introduced because of the cartoon and are familiar with what they saw/learned in the early 90s. For them, time stopped in Xhistory in 1995 with the cancellation of the show. "Wolverine's costume is wrong, it's supposed to be blue and yellow!" Why? "Because that's what it is in the comics!" No it isn't. "Yes it is!" No, it WAS blue/yellow, and hasn't been for almost a decade. And it was originally brown and black. Oh, nevermind, you were introduced to Wolvie during the yellow/blue/mask period and so that's what you think is "right", because you don't follow the books anymore. If they'd used the brown/black suit, you'd bitch that it's the "old" costume-hey, same principle, the blue/yellow would be the "old" costume now. Most of the net bitching is from people who never read the 60s/70s issues of XMen, MAYBE some of the 80s, but definitely the early 90s-and not beyond. "Ehhhh, Storm's suit should be silver and she should fly!" Well, it's not silver anymore, and it's not silver in the movie, fucking deal with it-and hey, she DID fly in the first one (and now the third one)...just not much. If using the older costumes made the movies more "accurate", then she should be in a skimpy black suit and sporting a mohawk-she used that suit FAR longer than the silver suit. "Ehhhh, all their suits are the same color and look almost the same!" Hotdamn, you mean as it was in the comics all the way through the 60s until it was canned in 1970? You remember, they all wore a dark blue jump suit, and a few of them (like Cyclops) had a slight design specification? And Iceman looked like a snowman, not an iced man? No, you don't remember, because you never read the old books-you probably didn't know it was canceled in 1970 and not brought back until 1975, when tons of new characters were introduced and all the costumes changed. How "inaccurate"! "Ehhh, the stories should be from the comics!" Bitch, X2 was a pretty good adaptation of "God Loves, Man Kills", one of the biggest story arcs of....1982?
Bitching about details that were "wrong" or "left out" in the story...."Ehhh, Mystique is Nightcrawler's mother, they got that wrong!" Really? Did they get it wrong in the comics? "No!" Why not? "Because it was in the comics!" Yea, it was in the comics....after 20ish years of these characters. 20 years of encounters and it's never brought up or developed. So were 20 years of comics "wrong"? "No, they didn't know yet!" Exactly. How is it supposed to be covered in the movie? "Hi, I'm your mother by the way!" It wouldn't be "accurate" then! You can't cram decades of comics into a two or three hour movie, but hey. Let's do the math! A "proper" script should read at about a minute a page. So, let's round off the Uncanny XMen to about 400 issues printed so far, and let's assume for shits and giggles that the 20-30 pages each issue actually represent about 10 minutes of screen time-as many splash pages are just action (though there are many long narratives as well.) So, 400 issues, at 10 minutes of screentime each-oh, a 4000 minute movie? A 66 and a half hour long movie to be "accurate", even though it wouldn't be (since it'd have to include X-Men issues as well, and possibly any cross overs, and the Annual issues, and one shots and solo series)?! To be totally "accurate" and "complete" in every way is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. Some things will be changed or left out-let your imagination have fun with it, put a little mental tag that says "To be continued in the next installment!"
Bitching about actor's heights....."ehhh, Hugh Jackman shouldn't be Wolverine, he's 14 inches too tall!" Yea, his appropriate look and excellent acting aren't important! 14 inches, eh? Funny, many of the cards/comics contradict each other on heights/weights/ages/etc of characters, but still-let's go with the assumption that Jackman is wrong for the part because he's "too tall". Firstly, it's not really an important story element, secondly....this ALWAYS catches the fanboys....show me ANY point in the movie where we clearly see Wolvie taller than other characters. I can show you on the X1.5 DVD where they have James Marsden standing on a crate so that he's taller than Jackman. So he's wrong because he's too tall, even though if you didn't KNOW his height, you'd never know? "Uhhhh. Uhhhh. Magneto is too old!" If this movie were made in the 1960s, maybe. MAYBE. But he's always been a Holocaust survivor, how young can you expect the guy to be, especially since comics have never been good at keeping any sense of "real" time? He'd HAVE to be in his 50's or older, otherwise it'd get ridiculous-here's our Holocause survivor who's a young man, fighting 80's born Jubilee, with an ancient Professor, some people who have been in their 20s since the 60s, etc.
ohgod. I've given myself another anger headache. The funniest thing I read, though, was "At least they didn't make up new bad guys like in Batman Begins-no one but Batman and Gordon were from the comics!" BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm off to gloat....next month, I see an archival print of the 1933 King Kong.....and RAY HARRYHAUSEN will be there to speak and do a meet-n-greet! AWESOME!
Anyhow. Not my favorite song, but a great lyric to end with. It sums up life rather well.
"We are just prisoners here, of our own device."
Saw an advertisement in a PC gaming mag, a declaration/rallying cry from said magazine, announcing that they were no longer going to accept ads from gold farming companies and urging other publishers to do the same.
I'm pretty sure it was just scented paper, but it's entirely possible that the page in question actually was printed on genuine cowpat.
After what, 7 years now of MMORPGs and no bitching about gold farmers from anyone except the game publishers, suddenly it's "problematic"? Here's what I think happened in our world of corporate greed:
"Hello, Popular Gaming Magazine? This is Popular Game Production Company, makers of Popular Online Game X. We see you're running gold farm ads, and some of them mention our game....here's the deal. WE benefit from it, no one else, and by running these ads, you not only allow THEM to make money they don't share with us, but YOU make money too. This is what's going to happen. You're going to stop accepting their ads, make a big deal of it and encourage others-whom we'll be speaking to anyway-to do the same, and call it a moral stance. Otherwise, we're never advertising with you again, nor will you ever recieve advance information or review copies again. Good luck selling your magazine when you can't cover hot products anymore!" Popular Gaming Magazine shits and realizes that gold farmer ads don't mean the survival of their magazine, and thank the stars above that Popular Game Production Company didn't require them to find nude pictures of their own mothers and print those, too. Let's face it, they're kinda at their mercy.
I haven't done a LOT of MMORPG playing, just the big ones-Final Fantasy 11, Evercrack, World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies. In my limited experience, gold farmers were never a problem. They never interfered with my gaming experience, never stopped me from doing any of my own thing, I never even noticed them-and if I did, it's pretty easy to ignore someone online. It's my choice to do it myself. In all honesty, I see gold farmers as a GOOD thing-one, it helps stimulate the economy in game AND simulates real life:useless people who are obsessed only with their money, contributing nothing to advancing society or interacting in mentally stimulating ways. More importantly, they're paying the monthly fee-which means that the game is likely to last longer. Square canceled 700 farmers' accounts last week. $15 an account, that's just a little over $10,000 a month right there that they just gave up (and more if each account had multiple characters, etc). That's over a hundred thousand a year that Square just tossed out the windows, and those massive servers used to power the game aren't free. This means the potential to jack rates up on the honest players, or an earlier shut down for the game. What problem were the farmers actually causing? Nothing, really, but greedy execs have the "if I can't have it you can't either" mentality. Someone might be getting perks because of or related to their product, ohno! Am I going to be booted for paying my roommate $20 to level grind for me all night while I'm at work? What next? How far will it go?
"Sir! We have reliable intelligence that Jimmy Clark has refused to let his little brother Timmy play on the computer unless he mows the lawn for him!" "That son of a bitch! Timmy isn't going to mow anyone's lawn but OURS! Cancel their accounts to teach those godless heathens a lesson about using our game to their own ends! I hope many Bothans died to bring us this information."
Paying real world money for fake money or items in game? Sorry, I think the level of "sad" that the purchasers live on is punishment enough....
Next up, the DVD industry and WalMart. Oh, you dirty greedy fuckers. Not you DVD industry, although you've gotten a bit rotten yourself, the primary "crimes" you're accused of are primarily related to the stupidity and laziness of the casual consumer-I'm looking at YOU , WalMart. We know you're evil and corporate, but now you're fucking with things at home. "Hi, DVD industry, this is WalMart. Check it out:%25 of new DVD sales come from WalMart-for a multibillion dollar industry, that's a big chunk of money for you and I! You know how we match competitor's prices? It's REALLY cutting into our profits, and despite how we advertise it, we REALLY hate price matching. Since you'd lose huge sales if we stopped buying, and higher prices elsewhere would make people buy less too, you're going to do things OUR way. We want to make sure that no one can lower our price on anything. You're gonna start producing DVDs without special features (like Fantastic Four, Wallace & Gromit, etc), and put the features on a WalMart exclusive disc! No competitor can beat our price because no one else can get it, and that's a huge exclusive sale to us for you!" I first discovered this when I bought the Fantastic Four. I HATED myself for buying it, but I'm a Marvel whore and it had features....so the case claimed. Next day I step into a WalMart and....what?! WalMart exclusive features disc?! Documentaries?! YOU DIRTY FUCKERS! There's not SHIT on the FF disc by itself! DVD industry, I don't fault you for "double dips" like the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions, Sin City Deluxe, XMen 2.5, Almost Famous, etc, because you almost always announce these versions' the same day you put out info on the regular DVD release. It's the consumers' fault for not researching or keeping up-not that it wouldn't be awesome if you'd only release uber-godlike editions.
I'm not even gonna get into the HDDVD/Blu Ray debate. It's going to fall flat on it's face and Blu Ray will eventually come out on top. Format war, why? Oh, that's right, greed. Humanity's biggest folly. Simple reason why Blu Ray will come out on toplaystation 3.
You notice I liberally pepper this rant with references to comic book movies? Yep, when a film I'm interested in-especially when it's an adaptation of a comic book-is getting close to release, I like to browse forums and bang my head on the desk over the stupidity of anal fanboys. So naturally I'm looking at the X3 boards (which I fear will be a train wreck of a movie, but there's always hope).....
I'm so sick of the bitching about costumes, and it's always the same thing. "Ehhh, it's not what it was in the comics! It should be what it is in the comics!" Shove it, fanboy-you've just been categorized. I've noticed there's two kinds of XMen fans:honest to Bob Xfans who know and love the series back and forth, and people who were introduced because of the cartoon and are familiar with what they saw/learned in the early 90s. For them, time stopped in Xhistory in 1995 with the cancellation of the show. "Wolverine's costume is wrong, it's supposed to be blue and yellow!" Why? "Because that's what it is in the comics!" No it isn't. "Yes it is!" No, it WAS blue/yellow, and hasn't been for almost a decade. And it was originally brown and black. Oh, nevermind, you were introduced to Wolvie during the yellow/blue/mask period and so that's what you think is "right", because you don't follow the books anymore. If they'd used the brown/black suit, you'd bitch that it's the "old" costume-hey, same principle, the blue/yellow would be the "old" costume now. Most of the net bitching is from people who never read the 60s/70s issues of XMen, MAYBE some of the 80s, but definitely the early 90s-and not beyond. "Ehhhh, Storm's suit should be silver and she should fly!" Well, it's not silver anymore, and it's not silver in the movie, fucking deal with it-and hey, she DID fly in the first one (and now the third one)...just not much. If using the older costumes made the movies more "accurate", then she should be in a skimpy black suit and sporting a mohawk-she used that suit FAR longer than the silver suit. "Ehhhh, all their suits are the same color and look almost the same!" Hotdamn, you mean as it was in the comics all the way through the 60s until it was canned in 1970? You remember, they all wore a dark blue jump suit, and a few of them (like Cyclops) had a slight design specification? And Iceman looked like a snowman, not an iced man? No, you don't remember, because you never read the old books-you probably didn't know it was canceled in 1970 and not brought back until 1975, when tons of new characters were introduced and all the costumes changed. How "inaccurate"! "Ehhh, the stories should be from the comics!" Bitch, X2 was a pretty good adaptation of "God Loves, Man Kills", one of the biggest story arcs of....1982?
Bitching about details that were "wrong" or "left out" in the story...."Ehhh, Mystique is Nightcrawler's mother, they got that wrong!" Really? Did they get it wrong in the comics? "No!" Why not? "Because it was in the comics!" Yea, it was in the comics....after 20ish years of these characters. 20 years of encounters and it's never brought up or developed. So were 20 years of comics "wrong"? "No, they didn't know yet!" Exactly. How is it supposed to be covered in the movie? "Hi, I'm your mother by the way!" It wouldn't be "accurate" then! You can't cram decades of comics into a two or three hour movie, but hey. Let's do the math! A "proper" script should read at about a minute a page. So, let's round off the Uncanny XMen to about 400 issues printed so far, and let's assume for shits and giggles that the 20-30 pages each issue actually represent about 10 minutes of screen time-as many splash pages are just action (though there are many long narratives as well.) So, 400 issues, at 10 minutes of screentime each-oh, a 4000 minute movie? A 66 and a half hour long movie to be "accurate", even though it wouldn't be (since it'd have to include X-Men issues as well, and possibly any cross overs, and the Annual issues, and one shots and solo series)?! To be totally "accurate" and "complete" in every way is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. Some things will be changed or left out-let your imagination have fun with it, put a little mental tag that says "To be continued in the next installment!"
Bitching about actor's heights....."ehhh, Hugh Jackman shouldn't be Wolverine, he's 14 inches too tall!" Yea, his appropriate look and excellent acting aren't important! 14 inches, eh? Funny, many of the cards/comics contradict each other on heights/weights/ages/etc of characters, but still-let's go with the assumption that Jackman is wrong for the part because he's "too tall". Firstly, it's not really an important story element, secondly....this ALWAYS catches the fanboys....show me ANY point in the movie where we clearly see Wolvie taller than other characters. I can show you on the X1.5 DVD where they have James Marsden standing on a crate so that he's taller than Jackman. So he's wrong because he's too tall, even though if you didn't KNOW his height, you'd never know? "Uhhhh. Uhhhh. Magneto is too old!" If this movie were made in the 1960s, maybe. MAYBE. But he's always been a Holocaust survivor, how young can you expect the guy to be, especially since comics have never been good at keeping any sense of "real" time? He'd HAVE to be in his 50's or older, otherwise it'd get ridiculous-here's our Holocause survivor who's a young man, fighting 80's born Jubilee, with an ancient Professor, some people who have been in their 20s since the 60s, etc.
ohgod. I've given myself another anger headache. The funniest thing I read, though, was "At least they didn't make up new bad guys like in Batman Begins-no one but Batman and Gordon were from the comics!" BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm off to gloat....next month, I see an archival print of the 1933 King Kong.....and RAY HARRYHAUSEN will be there to speak and do a meet-n-greet! AWESOME!
Anyhow. Not my favorite song, but a great lyric to end with. It sums up life rather well.
"We are just prisoners here, of our own device."
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
thanks sooo much!! now i just need to get my damn torrent thing to work lol
and i joined up on the dr.who group thanks!
u totally made my day thank you