Bonus Post

One of the many hopeless ideas of mine that periodically surfaces is the idea to do web comic. In Garry's Mod. With various copyrighted characters.

Unfortunately all I've got is a premise; I don't have any real ideas how to make the comic amusing, much like this blog really. Unlike this blog however, there are additional hurdles, which in comparison to a lack of ideas, are 10 feet tall, spiked and electrified.

Garry's Mod requires a lot of time, patience, knowledge and skill to use even remotely well, and none of these traits can be compensated for with excess of others; you must be all of these things.

But before even this hate-filled hurdle is another, which is also on fire and dispenses evil candy. I speak of course of getting the freaking character models to begin with. The desired characters have to be extracted from games or emulators and modified until they can be effectively used in Garry's Mod. And unlike most skins and objects in GMod the people who do succeed at doing this difficult task never seem to feel like sharing.

Here are some examples of models I sadly cannot get my hands on:

Back from Purgatory

It's been a while since I last posted; complete loss of password security tends to interfere with schedules.

What I had been planning to do just after the last post was an apology. Self-deprecating humour aside the previous post was a new low. It wasn't entertaining, informing or insightful.

While I could laugh it off and say that the lack of focus, structure and quality are part of this blog's style, similar to how the font, size and layout varies from post to post (long story). I could say that, but that would be like Uwe Boll saying he's a good director whose signature style is 'making crap movies'.

Part of the basis of this blog was to experiment with styles till I found a good one and maybe even developed some sort of fan base (I don't aim or dream particularly high). However I took the easy way out with basically textual diarrhea; I sprayed unpleasant paragraphs of unfinished thought out onto the internet.
Also I hope I just killed someone's appetite.

Since I know myself rather well I'm not going to bother promising to produce better quality posts because I almost stick with any vows I make. I will however try to produce better quality.

In conclusion, here's a picture with no relevance to anything:

Complaining about WoW #1

Note: Don't bother reading this, it's not really worth anyone's time.

With the recent (for this blog anyway; I'm always several weeks behind) announcements about WoW's next expansion I'm filled with raging ambivalence. I'm like the Hulk except with a happy form as well as an angry one. Also my forms don't give me any powers. You know, never mind.

Judging by the revelations at this year's Blizzcon Cataclysm seems to be following in Blizzard's tradition of having clever ideas and innovations but somehow managing to be crushingly disappointing at the same time. It'd be like having a machine that cured cancer and stopped world hunger, but also kicked you in the balls. I think I'll give up on the similes now.

Since I can go on indefinitely about what I like and dislike about Cataclysm (despite not being out yet) and WoW in general for this post I'll just focus on some non-specific issues and leave the interesting stuff for another time ;P.

I feel dirty for using that now.

On the most basic level I'm opposed to purchased expansions to subscription games mostly because I was under the impression that subscriptions were essentially an alternative to having to purchase an expansion from time to time. But apparently subscribers are only paying for continued playing of old content. Funny, most companies with less money than Blizzard allow players to do just that without charging them money.

If having to pay for a glorified content patch isn't bad enough, the new content generally comes in two unpleasant flavours: more of the same, and gimmicky gameplay shifts.

To clarify more of the same; naturally I don't expect everything in an expansion to be new cutting edge ideas that reinvent the genre while transcending it. The fundamentals of the game should remain intact for the most part. So why the hell am I complaining about expansion having more of the same content when I've just said that things need to be the same? Examples can illustrate this better than I can.

One of the major features of the first WoW expansion TBC (The Burning Crusade) was the addition of 2 new races. Now this would be great if race was particularly relevant; too bad in WoW all race essentially does decide appearance and grant some minor skills.
It's a shame to because race can be used to give radical gameplay differences. In Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 of the available clans have unique features. A a Nosferatu you are visibly monsters and thus have to hide from mortal view, and as a Malkavian you are completely insane and so you get very distinct dialogue.

I don't have any more notable examples for more of the same, but I've got plenty (2) for gimmicky gameplay shifts. So what do I mean with this collection of buzz words? Basically any deviation from the standard gameplay style, but not so far as to become a total Genre Shift. Since I clearly suck at clearly explaining things, let's just go back to examples. Both of the WoW expansions have a brilliant one each.
In TBC one of the big selling points were flying mounts. While they allow you to pass difficult terrain and avoid enemies, flying mounts unfortunately also defy some of the open world's features, such as difficult terrain and enemies in your way. Quests where you'd have to fight your way up a mountain to assassinate a named boss become trivial when you can fly straight to the target. I suppose ultimately it depends on whether you think things like immersion and exploration are important, and if you don't wtf are you doing playing an open world game?
In WotLK (Wrath of the Lich King) the gimmick was vehicles, although despite the name this also included instances of riding mounts or transforming into things. Basically it was a standardisation of all the mechanics that changed the nature of the player's character (which to be fair before WotLK was pretty atrocious). What I don't like about this was that this created various occasions where your actual characters growth and capabilities were completely irrelevant. It is a similar problem to a lot of the minigames in Final Fantasy games, where any and all of the leveling you've done will not help you unlock useful items.
Further more, the developers use vehicles rather frequently in the expansion as it's far easier to balance the difficultly when everyone is the same rather than for 30+ different types of playstyle.

Well that's all for now. Looking back at this post I can see it's even less focused and coherent than usual. However given that I've already typed it all, I guess I'll unleash it upon the world like an unwanted pregnancy and just try to make up for it with better posts in the future.

!!!

As hypothetical readers of mine might remember I spent far too much time talking about an idea for a special infected. It was a female zombie with pigtails whose primary attack was a spitting move.
And then just now I found this on the Left 4 Dead wiki.

This right here is one of the main reasons were I decided to start inflicting my opinions onto the internet.

Many times in the past I've had a great idea that then turns out to be not as original as I thought.
Now often sometimes it turns out that I had unconsciously stolen this idea, generally by seeing the movie/game/whatever as a children and then forgetting it, except for a particular idea which I then assume I came up with on my own.
Further more, in most other occasions the idea has just been such a simple and universal one that anyone, and in practice, everyone will reach it.
However, just like the guy that has to loudly predict plot twists in fiction, I feel the urge to inform people of my concepts/ideas. Regardless of how childish and petty it is, I enjoy being able to say 'I thought of this first/too'.

Totally Epic

It has occurred to me that I've been neglecting the main purpose of blogs, nay the internet. The world wide web exists for people to tell others about the inane details of their daily lives and I haven't been doing my part. After all, if we don't do this, who will? Foreigners, homosexuals and communists that's who.

I'm a fairly lazy person. I tend to procrastinate as much as possible, but sometimes I just can't be bothered to do even that. So just earlier I decided to have that shave I had been needing for the last fortnight. Trivial enough yet? Well I can do worse better.
Despite being a simple procedure the act of shaving varies in the details from person to person. For me the mundane routine goes:

1) Apply shaving cream. It doesn't seem to do anything but I'm not going to argue with every other male of the modern world.
2) Find the comfortable angle to shave with, then reverse it because biology hates you and this is more effective.
3) Avoid slashing throat. Getting those last few hairs is not worth the potential embarrassment/death.
4) Give up on the last lingering hairs. They win this round.
5) Realise how much time has been wasted on this endeavour, cue existential crisis.

And now you know how I shave. But for those of you who want more than just a recount of basic life exercise, here's a low fantasy style story* inspired by the act of shaving:

Grim Dark and the Tsinogatna

Gripping his well-notched sword tightly Grim brought it down past his opponent's guard and carved deeply into his torso. Blood spurted from the gaping wound as the Tsinogatna savage collasped into a heap.

Glancing around Grim noticed that he had now been completely surrounded. It had been only a matter of time but he had hoped to make more progress before it had happened. Only a scant five Tsinogatna lay dead at his feet.

"Fight me like warriors you bastards," Grim exhorted, assuming a defensive stance.
The Tsinogatna were a hostile people. From their mountain refuges they would raid nearby, more peaceful villages and towns. None could predict when and where they'd strike so the only way to deal with the Tsinogatna was to take the fight to them.

After some less than effective attempts from local militias Grim Dark had been approached. Even in this backwater country the pilgrim's exploits were known.

Two of the vicious Tsinogatna began to approach the lone fighter, their weapons rusted and wicked, their eyes dark and violent. Spinning around suddenly Grim slashed the third savage who had been approaching from behind. They'd need more than that to down the legendary mercenary.

Undeterred the remaining two attacked at once. Grim dexterously rolled to the left and struck one of them in the his unprotected side, Grim's sword cracking ribs and piercing organs.
The last attacker leapt at Grim, snarling and bringing his axe down. The sword met the axe and the weapons locked. Grunting Grim forced the clashed weapons aside with one hand and punched the Tsinogatna in the face with his other. Nose and jaw broken the savage was hopeless against Grim's finishing blow.

One on one the Tsinogatna stood no chance against the pilgrim as Grim was by far physically superior to them. His chiselled muscles were covered in a network of scars, each one a hard won fight and life experience. While muscular, Grim was not bulky, but rather lean, like a lone wolf. And like a lone wolf he was ruthless and determined.

Before he had even managed to pull his sword from his latest corpse another five Tsinogatna from the surrounding dozens surged forward. Quickly looting the his last opponent's weapon, Grim stood defiantly sword and axe in hand.

"Your Gods have forsaken you," he laughed.

Grim danced the dance of death. Tsinogatna fell before him but more filled their place. Whatever they gave he gave back better and soon there was nothing but blood and silence. A few Tsinogatna had fled but most were dead. You could never get all of them, all you could do was lessen their numbers.

On top of a pile of his slain enemies, cut and bruised, Grim stood grinning. On this day he was the victor but there would always be more fights for that was the way of the drifter.

*Assume any and all cliches and bad writing are a deliberate parody.

The Ambiguity

What are they really worried about? Killer plants or their acting careers.

The combination of Foxtel and no job gives me ample opportunity to watch bad movies; the latest one? The Happening.
I tend to avoid tearing into things that everyone else already dislikes because I feel like a backup singer or a Youtube commenter; just repeating what has already been said many times before. I'm not going to criticise a Uwe Boll film because 1) everyone with taste already has done it and 2) his film's do a good enough job by themselves.
But after watching The Happening some things need to be said.

If you've been living under a rock or just don't plain care, the plot of The Happening is that plants (all plants) start releasing a neurotoxin that causes people to kill themselves. That's about it. There are some characters the film follows but they are pretty two dimensional; I'm guessing the actors saw the premise and decided not waste their time expressing emotion.

It seems that M Night Shyamalan wanted to do a slasher flick but since it wasn't his style he tried to graft some slasher elements onto a supernatural mystery thriller. I say this because the suicide-causing neurotoxin seems to cause the afflicted to kill themselves in the most gimmicky and visually stylised way possible.
One scene has some people in a car drive down a road where all the local residents had hung themselves on the trees that were along the road. This would be creepy and atmospheric in a better film, this is The Happening so instead you just wonder that it would have been easier for the people to just bash their heads into a window or two.
There are other features and applications of the toxin that I could eviscerate textually, but I've got slightly bigger fish to fry.

The entire movie either wants to be all scientific and deep, or it's a subtle but incorrect parody. At various points in The Happening the characters stop to explain (to the audience mostly) why something is happening. What makes this worse than usual is that these conclusions the characters miraculously come to all try to be seated in fact. Phrases like "scientists have proven" or "it has been shown that" are present in any of these infodumps as if Shyamalan is trying to justify his retarded concept (as I said above, I could elaborate on the toxin's many, MANY flaws but I'm trying to be brief).
Or alternatively, these 'scientific' explanations are a satire of 'educated' people who try to reason away all the things they can't understand. After all in one scene the poor excuse for a protagonist actually uses scientific method to work out what to do when a nearby group goes crazy. You what he suggests after this intellectual exercise? They run (which is obvious) from the wind (which is just plain silly).

In some scenes the plants are portrayed as possessing some sort of intelligence as apparently they are all communicating to one another and are sending a warning to humanity. But in others it is purely chemical and instinctive as they don't seem to be aware of people if there isn't a large group. Although, maybe the plants just adhere to their 'kill everyone in cities and work your way down in size' plan to the letter, and leave randoms alive while there are still town and city people to off. Whatever the reason, it just results in times where the characters are wandering around outside apparently safe nad a complete loss of tension.

The film wants to have some sort of green aesop, but messages like 'stop polluting or the trees will kill you' aren't particularly effective or clever. What's more, rather than causing people to start thinking about looking after the environment, if all plant life sent a homicide warning humanity embark on a global defoliation campaign, wiping out all plants except for those kept in controlled oxygen production facilities. Although this would probably unite the world better than the plot of Watchmen.

The worst parts of The Happening are the ones that would be good scenes in a better film; they are depressing to watch as you can see the potential for something unnerving shining through. The aforementioned street of hanging people is one example. Two other examples are when everyone in the park suddenly freeze (undermined because of the weak reasoning), and when cars of fleeing people meet up at a crossroads from all four directions (undermined by how they just stand around in the open despite all the trees nearby).

I suppose I'll just finish up with the joke that no doubt everyone has come up with independently: for a film called The Happening, nothing much happens. Comedy gold.