Posts made by Coin

@arkandel said in New WoD digital toolset coming in 2022:

I honestly don't know why more companies don't embrace the digital playfield more fully.

Even Wizards of the Coast with all their cash flows should have put out a platform out there encompassing all aspects of bringing a party together and playing a campaign online by now. D&D Beyond may be the closest thing to that and it still isn't a full solution since it lacks voicechat with integrated dice rollers, etc.

It just seems like a good idea. Pay to buy books and then they give you the tools to play with your friends no matter where they are.

I hope this toolset pans out for WoD. Not sure how deep their pockets are or how fully fleshed out their approach will be though.

Well, White Wolf -- and thus oWoD as an IP -- is owned by Paradox, which is a video game developer. This is pretty well within their wheelbarrow.

@derp said in Good TV:

@solstice said in Good TV:

accuse of me of feeding

I'm old.

What's this mean?

@ominous said in Good TV:

@derp

I am assuming it's a type of cheating, like stream sniping.

Feeding is when you die a lot, thereby giving gold/experience to the enemy team (i.e. 'feeding' them). It happens a lot in lower ranks because people don't know where to stand, what to do, how fucked they are if they go in without vision, and thus they die a lot, and people are pretty horrible about it.

@betternow said in Good TV:

Only seen the first ep so far but Arcane on Netflix (League of Legends based animated series) is EPIC. The animation style is gorgeous, the story is solid, and it delves deeper into the game lore, locations, and characters.

I really liked the first three eps, yeah.

@ganymede said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

@coin said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

The only things that have ever bothered me, really, were the whitewashing in Avatar by Shyamalan * * *.

Really? This is the only thing that ever bothered you about the movie?

I didn't get past the first fifteen minutes because I may watch Gossip Girl and Vampire Diaries but I still have some standards.

@arkandel said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

@silverfox said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

@arkandel

Oh this disappoints me like woah. Foundation is not an action book. Even a little bit.

I agree. And @Coin does have a point in saying the series isn't exactly easily filmable, just because the sheer exposition you'd need to do it justice is probably going to be boring to watch.

But they chose to film it! As you say, I, Robot was an abomination. They turned it completely around from the original works (in which robots are essentially benevolent, logical beings and it's human preconceptions and fears that cause problems) and turned into KILLER ROBOTS WANT TO WIPE OUT HUMANITY.

And this is also it. Foundation is about certain very large concepts. How the meaning of freedom differs between individuals and large groups, for example.

What it is not about is action heroes blowing up spaceships. I am not saying that a show about blowing up spaceships can't be a lot of fun! But then why on earth would they go and pick this franchise to do that with?

I think you're making a lot of assumptions? First season isn't over and I think they touch on a lot of those things you want to see, they just also do it within the framework of a galaxy-wide arms/religion/economic conflict. Have you watched all the episodes?

In any case, I don't tend to have too many pearls to clutch when it comes to adaptations. I don't usually care. The only things that have ever bothered me, really, were the whitewashing in Avatar by Shyamalan and the whitewashing (and horrible representation) in SyFy's Earthsea miniseries.

@arkandel said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

I grew up reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation. Words cannot express how much I love that series, or the impact it had on young-Arkandel growing up.

It all appealed to me. The idea of this vast, sprawling universe set in the vast future where humanity has spread to the stars but forgot where Earth resided, and the concepts it introduced to define what humanity even means. The way it drove the point - again and again - of intellectualism being nearly synonymous with pacifism ("violence is the last resort of the incompetent"), and the manner its characters as well as the plot showcased it.

And then I watched the first episode of Apple's Foundation. Special ops teams coming in, guns blazing! Explosions! Poolside sex scenes! Right in the first ten minutes!

... Sigh.

I liked it fine. But then again, Foundation as it was written can't really be translated to anything entertaining on-screen unless you want, like, lol, Neil deGrasse Tyson or someone narrating with pretty visuals. Which, I mean, it could be nice. But it's not what they were going for.

They have to distill it to character stories and they're doing that. Just because the message is 'intellectualism is synonymous with pacifism' (an interesting concept that is absolutely flawed for so many reasons, starting with the moralizing of intellect), doesn't mean the characters in the world won't blow shit up and have sex in the pool.

But that's just my take.

@macha said in Books...Books...Books....:

@coin I can't do it. Like ONE book of his a year is all I can make myself read through. I like the stories, but..

... but?

@cobalt said in Books...Books...Books....:

My favorite author says that it is important to be widely read if you want to be a good writer. So, I am attempting to be more widely read and read things that are not just romance or urban fantasy with a touch of romance.

I have no idea why but Amazon suggested Babel-17 to me and goodness. How peculiar a book. I think I will have to read it and then read it again.

It's on my list.

Tangentially, I've been reading a lot of Vonnegut this year.

@arkandel said in Books...Books...Books....:

In much of my adult life I was an avid reader. Even as of a few years ago, while I commuted to work, I would read at least one book per week on the bus - sometimes more.

Then I stopped. YouTube, games, Netflix, Reddit... they were easier, and I grew out of the habit.

I finished my first book in years yesterday. The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman was a fucking treat; really strong characters, an intriguing setting, witty dialogue and great prose. I enjoyed it greatly.

Onwards to catching up with series I had abandoned before finishing! The Fires of Vengeance by Evan Winters is next.

I stopped reading too.

This year I buckled down and made a commitment to read a book a week, and so far I've kept to it. It's been pretty great; sometimes it's difficult, but.

@carma said in Balancing wizards and warriors:

Avatar seemed to do it fine most of the time. You have plenty of characters like Jet without bending power who can go toe-to-toe with many benders. Physical projectile weapons seem to be pretty handy against benders, in particular.

If you're trying to balance numbers, that's going to depend on what numbers you want to take into account.

If you're trying to balance freeform play, I'm sure that Avatar core rulebook will be pretty handy.

I'm not sure why Avatar is the first thing I think of. But this would be the same discussion if you were balancing ghosts versus fairies, demolitions experts versus vampires, or pirates versus cats. It's all a matter of making flavor match balance.

And if you have too many people picking cats and not enough pirates, why are you making classes equate to factions in the first place? Let the cats join the pirates to be part of the seafaring faction and let the pirates find solace amongst the sewer cats, sailing the unseen seas.

The problem with Avatar as an example is that Avatar's characters can go toe-to-toe with each other based on narrative need. Sokka can hold his own against a bender because it's necessary for the narrative; while Aang can take on twenty trained soldiers who've been specifically trained to battle benders because it's necessary for the narrative, etc.

That doesn't apply to game balance when you're using stats and dice rolls. Not unless you're okay with the GM fudging pretty much everything.

@greenflashlight Spoiler warning. Big one.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage was all right. More of the same. If you really didn't like the first one, Woody Harrelson will not make enough of a difference.

That mid-credits scene, though. Oooooof.

Till Death is pretty great. Megan Fox nails it.

@greenflashlight said in Weird or unrealistic gaming... stuff:

@arkandel said in Weird or unrealistic gaming... stuff:

Names. Very few characters are called Steve or Jen.

It's always Maximillian and Lillian.

I do kind of groan when I see characters who are supposed to be twenty but clearly have the names of someone who is the character's mom's age. It's not a huge deal or anything, but I notice it. No American born after 1990 is named Bianca.

@Jennkryst's wikipedia parlor trick notwithstanding, what? Lol.

I'm going to go ahead and assume you meant "white women in the United States", which would probably still be wrong, but I feel compelled to point out that though Bianca is a name of Italian origin, it's pretty common and popular among Hispanic and Latinx communities in the US.

@kestrel Yeah, I've ranted about this before too.

@arkandel said in Talking 'Bout Ares:

@catsnake said in Talking 'Bout Ares:

@shaggy Is there anything in particular you don't like about it?

Not saying this is your reason (though maybe it is) but I've discovered a lot of MU people won't give other platforms a chance because "it's different". It could be the best RP of all time ever but since it's on ChattyBox (madeup) software, some people won't even give it a chance because "It's not a MU/MUD".

People will always, and I mean always go where others already are.

It's a matter of attracting a critical mass of players interested in a genre first. The rest will come, invited and recruited by their friends or just because it's where RP already is.

Which is why if you want to start a game you're best off with ten or so players ready to dive in from the word go.

@arkandel said in Good TV:

I want to like Titans. An R-rated version of Gotham is such a good fit and several of the cast members are good fits for the team. The first season was actually a lot of fun, it established the dynamics and had a pretty decent Deathstroke as its main villain.

I think you mean first and second season. Deathstroke was the villain of the second season.

This second season though really isn't doing it for me.

Third. XD

I think the main issue is the dialogue. There is something... off. I can't quite tell what it is but it's driving me crazy - there are pauses after everyone speaks as if they are all taking turns conversing in a completely unnatural way.

There are other issues. Jason Todd's actor is... not great. The plot is okay - it doesn't always make too much sense which kind of devalues the 'detective' part of the heroes' work but that's kind of expected in the genre. What I don't like is that it takes some huge risks early on (like what Batman does in episode 1) then just lets itself fall flat and stagnate for half a season.

There is also a real issue with the characters' power levels. Superboy and Starfire are a bit much if they are going to spend significant time fighting generic Gotham goons. Poor Beast Boy also doesn't get to freakin' do stuff since the special effects budget would need to blow up for that, so he resorts to generic kung-fu with glowy eyes.

But yeah. Titans Season 3 is floppy as hell.

I skipped to the end.

Uh. Pretty sure at this point in the game, a MU is "a text-based online roleplaying game that people call a MU". Like, the actual definition of the word is contextual; like @faraday said when she talked about naming AresMUSH. It's a MU because we, the MU-ing community, call it a MU and decide it is.

Why is, what's it called, WantonWicked not a MU? Because their community doesn't call it one.

That's it, pretty much.

Also, yeah. Most of my closest friends for the past, I dunno, twenty years have been online.

@ninjakitten said in Online friends:

@arkandel said in Online friends:

Are online friends real friends?

...this feels like such a weirdly 1990s question to me.

A/S/L(?)