This is intended as a response to a comment I received on a blog entry I did back in October about how much I can't stand the older generation of gamers and their constant bitching about new games and gamers. (Not ALL older gamers do this, I'm a prime example and so are several of my friends) I intended to reply to them directly, but my comment exceeded the character limit. Derp. :V
I don't really mind a game taking some cues from older generations, partly because the reality is that not everyone draws pixel art because it's nostalgic, some people make games full of pixel art because they don't have the ability to draw anything else. (Not all programmers are artists) Taking cues from earlier genres that are no longer produced also doesn't bother me, considering the vast majority of genres that I like (Metroidvania platformers, 3D mascot platformers) have been abandoned by the gaming industry or saturated with what big companies thinks sells. (See: Ratchet and Clank, full of guns and attitude.)
What I don't like is when people bitch about the gaming industry for no other reason than it's different from when they were a kid. If you browse Sonic Retro's forum for five minutes, you'll see everybody and their grandmother trying to reproduce an exact replica of Sonic 3's physics and gameplay while at the same time talking about how Sonic Adventure was a disappointment and the series died in 1994. Don't get me wrong, some people have legitimate reasons for their dislike of the later games, but most of the time, it's just people whining because they can't stand the idea of slow games because the games were originally really fast.
A perfect example of this was when someone tried to hack Sonic 2 and, instead of going from point A to point B to complete a level, the player had to find collectibles. EVERYBODY flipped their shit because "OMG 2 SLO!!111" and the creator ended up doing exactly what many mainstream companies do; he dumbed down the gameplay to suit their toddler-like impatience. He gave them a radar so they didn't have to explore the level, and when that didn't satisfy, he gave everyone a "classic" mode, with no collecting of items, and then everyone just played that. At that point, the poor guy was wondering why he should even bother if the only thing the majority of the community only wanted a fucking Sonic 2 ripoff.
This attitude is not limited to fangames either. If you've ever wonder why the past three major Sonic releases have been "hold forward to win" games where Sonic is the only playable character and the levels are all very linear, blame the fandom, especially Retro, because that shit is their fault. They bitched to SEGA about it nonstop, and so SEGA threw out the concept of making open-world games and cleaning up that mess they released in 2006 with a polished and proper iteration of their original intention to cater to the fanboy manchildren that are stuck in the 90s. And seeing as the fans are the only crowd that still clamors for Sonic games, SEGA is willing to suck their cock for money.
This kind of bullshit repeats itself in every Nintendo release in the past 5 years. Twilight Princess was a blatant callback to OoT (Although at least it improved on several aspects) and Skyward Sword was a callback to literally every previous Zelda game Nintendo could shoehorn in there (Even Phantom Hourglass, for some reason) and that ended up being a hot mess with no identity, not to mention all of its innovative traits were broken and it exhibited the same streamlining of recent Sonic games because everybody apparently hates open-world these days.
And look at Mario. Galaxy 1 and 2 were attempts to callback to Mario 64, a dated, half-broken N64 game by today's standards with a terrible camera and downsized levels because the N64 was barely capable of more, and Mario World, which everyone fondles like it's perfection. Seriously, Mario World is the Mario fandom's Link to the Past; oldfags cream themselves over it and jeer over 3D innovations such as expansive open worlds. Ask any Mario fan what was wrong with Mario Sunshine and they'll probably tell you something along the lines of "The water gimmick sucked!" "Well, WHY did it suck?" "Because it wasn't Mario!" Same story with Luigi's Mansion, fans hate it because it isn't a traditional Mario platformer. I have played Luigi's Mansion and it is not broken by any stretch of the word; it's a well-designed puzzle-adventure game, but it got panned in the media for "not being a platformer" which is stupid. This is coming from someone who LIKES platformers, by the way, but you don't see me giving a game the shaft because it isn't one.
Throwing in something I'm personally attached to, I love Spyro, I have a nostalgic attachment to the first three games, and I actually think the first game has some pretty creative level design, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the later games. Attack of the Rhyptocs for GBA's isometric view might not have been ideal but the rest of the game was cleverly designed with plenty of exploring, and despite the repetitive and generic gameplay, I loved the story to the LoS games. (The Spyro reboot Vivendi Universal orchestrated) And I am not afraid to admit that some things that give me a nostalgic handjob are horrible broken by today's standards (Looking at you, Rayman 2) or could be considered embarrassingly annoying by an adult (Spyro 3's music and VAs drive me insane) or have just plain been outdone by later releases. (Wind Waker was much more open and expansive than OoT, even if some people didn't like the sea travel) I don't know why some people are so dead-set on thinking anything after a certain date sucks but it really grinds on my nerves.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Identity
For the past 2 weeks, I have been tired, stressed, and confused about my direction in life. One of the biggest factors is college, I need to go to a university just to have a chance at a job, and I really wish I didn't get stuck with a generation born in a shitty economy so I could just apply somewhere and be done with it, but college is stressful and the only feasible option, and it's left me feeling awful every time I consider this. Basically, I hate college. I hate how it bites into my free time, how I have to put forth effort and drive I never knew I had, how I have to maintain a C average just to keep my financial aid, how I never have time for my own projects, and how the vast majority of these classes are irrelevant to me. College is a waste of time to me, but it's the only way to get a job.
But I think I normally hold up well under the stress most of the time. The other day, something really added to it though, and it's something that is a repeated frustration for me.
I tried to explain it to a friend last night in Skype, but the problem is, I don't know how to say it to anyone. I think I got it across, but it still seems wrong. I know what I want to say, I'm worried about how it will be received, mostly.
So, just bear with me here.
First, I just want to say that I'm not unconcerned with other people. A lot of my reactions and attitudes about certain subjects lead people to believe that I'm callous, but that isn't the case at all. One person, for example, doesn't understand why I don't put my actual photo online and why I don't care to see other people's photos. Whenever I have explained this to him in the past, he has shown a negative opinion for my reasons, and this is partly why I have a hard time expressing them.
Let me make something perfectly clear: I don't get on the internet to deal with real-life shit. I don't care about where you live, what you really look like, and what's going on with your marriage or relationship, and I have no desire to share these things with other people. This often gives people a lot of wrong impressions about me that I find frustrating.
The most common one is that I'm not very open. Someone invited me to a skype channel because it was connected to a Minecraft server I played on for a little while. (I stopped because it wasn't really a creative server and I got bored of having to farm materials for my projects) But I found out that most of the conversations were things I couldn't relate to. They were either about people talking about games I did not care to play, or about some real-life situations of theirs, and every attempt I made at conversation didn't go anywhere. (I posted links to articles about video games in general and even tried to post links about games I thought they would enjoy) Eventually, this frustrated me and I started pointing out that nobody paid any attention to me.
Someone said that I was something like an unknown entity; that he didn't know anything about me. I thought that was kind of rude, if only because of how much I talk. So I asked them for specific information and they asked for my age and what I did. I told them I was 21 and I draw. (http://kazeskyfox.deviantart.com/)
After talking more about what specifically they wanted to know, I had a pretty good idea about what they were interested in. So I told them about the state I live in and how I want to move, all the while trying to place in some type of video-game related part of the sentence and after a while, finding an excuse to talk about my character and how I designed her, but at that point, the chat went quiet.
Assuming things about people and their intentions or meanings has gotten me into a lot of trouble in the past, so I didn't really say what I thought. But I went to bed feeling frustrated, not feeling like any of the subjects I wanted to talk about were acknowledged and none of the hints I left about how I felt about the subjects got through.
I spent the day being angry about it. It was a school day so sitting in class listening to lectures only allowed my feelings to simmer inside me. At one point in basic algebra, I had to immediately change the course of my thinking so that I wouldn't cry in class. When I got home, I didn't feel like really doing anything even though I had homework. I worked on it reluctantly while trying to figure out how I could ask the questions I wanted to.
One of the biggest problems here is that I really don't have a lot of options for talking to people about the subjects that I like. My own skype channel is always dead, some of my friends turned their alerts off and never pay attention to it (Which I view as a type of betrayal) and none of the IRCs I go to are really focused on indie games and furries. Even some furry channels don't care much about furry conversations.
So, this being the only place that anyone was active on, I tried to find a way to not be ignored on it. Asking my friend was the first mistake. I'll just post the skype conco in here...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[4/25/2012 11:18:10 PM] Kaze: Can I talk to you about something?
[4/25/2012 11:23:13 PM] Phillip McKeen: mehbe
[4/25/2012 11:24:56 PM] Phillip McKeen: What's up?
[4/25/2012 11:25:50 PM] Kaze: Why does komoto think I'm an unknown entity?
[4/25/2012 11:26:04 PM] Kaze: I do not feel like I gave him an answer he likes.
[4/25/2012 11:27:36 PM] Kaze: And it really bothers me because I don't know what anyone wants me to say, and I really do not have anywhere else to go for conversation right now because my skype channel is dead and the two people who are online turned off alerts, and the only person that I can really talk to with similar interests is WAC, and he has not been doing well lately.
[4/25/2012 11:27:58 PM] Phillip McKeen: Lol
[4/25/2012 11:28:13 PM] Phillip McKeen: You did a decent job of coming out of your shell earlier.
[4/25/2012 11:28:24 PM] Kaze: What shell?
[4/25/2012 11:28:25 PM] Phillip McKeen: Live in hickville, want to move somewhere with more geeks, etc.
[4/25/2012 11:28:37 PM] Phillip McKeen: You talked about you, rather than your online presence.
[4/25/2012 11:28:53 PM] Kaze: I was afraid you'd say that.
[4/25/2012 11:30:15 PM] Kaze: I tried to hint at something the other day but I don't think anyone noticed it...
[4/25/2012 11:31:44 PM] Kaze: And I'm depressed and frustrated because of how hard it is to communicate it.
[4/25/2012 11:37:44 PM] Phillip McKeen: Lol
[4/25/2012 11:37:45 PM] Phillip McKeen: Which part?
[4/25/2012 11:37:57 PM] Phillip McKeen: You can dump anything on me in a direct convo and I'll likely not be offended.
[4/25/2012 11:38:12 PM] Phillip McKeen: There's stuff I'd rather you not air in public, but I'm a good listener 1-on-1.
[4/25/2012 11:39:20 PM] Kaze: I am trying to think of a way to say this without it coming out wrong.
[4/25/2012 11:40:21 PM] Kaze: I'm not unconcerned with people, I'm just concerned with a different part of them.
[4/25/2012 11:42:06 PM] Kaze: [Monday, April 23, 2012 11:43 PM] Kaze:
<<< It used to be on RP sites, you could have a section for a bio, and when people would ask me personal questions, I'd link to that. :V
[4/25/2012 11:42:21 PM] Phillip McKeen: Can you elaborate?
[4/25/2012 11:42:36 PM] Kaze: Well, look at my avatar
[4/25/2012 11:42:42 PM] Kaze: I'm a furry
[4/25/2012 11:42:52 PM] Kaze: And that's who I want to be online.
[4/25/2012 11:43:28 PM] Kaze: And it kind of frustrates me when people think that I'm being less shy or whatever because I start talking about RL stuff.
[4/25/2012 11:43:42 PM] Kaze: I don't avoid talking about it because I'm shy.
[4/25/2012 11:44:11 PM] Kaze: I don't talk about it because I don't care, and I don't want people to associate me with that part of me that is stuck in the real world; the outside me.
[4/25/2012 11:44:11 PM] Phillip McKeen: The folks in "General Chat" don't want to know your furry, and don't take it personal.
[4/25/2012 11:44:30 PM] Phillip McKeen: They want to know the stuck in the real world you.
[4/25/2012 11:44:36 PM] Phillip McKeen: Never know, you might discover something about you.
[4/25/2012 11:44:50 PM] Kaze: I don't want them to though.
[4/25/2012 11:45:11 PM] Kaze: Sabo had an argument with me over it once in a Steam chat
[4/25/2012 11:45:28 PM] Kaze: He thinks it's a continuous RP; and he's right, but at the same time...
[4/25/2012 11:45:34 PM] Kaze: It isn't fake.
[4/25/2012 11:46:22 PM] Kaze: I think I, myself, am more fake; I gave myself this name, I gave myself this identity from inside me; my name was designated to me by another human, it has meaning to them, not me. My appearance was designated to me by nature, not by choice.
[4/25/2012 11:47:13 PM] Kaze: The picture I have is my picture, because I designed it, not nature, not God(s), not my mother, me.
[4/25/2012 11:47:37 PM] Kaze: And it is really important to me that people acknowledge that.
[4/25/2012 11:47:57 PM] Kaze: And it is really frustrating, and depressing, when people do not.
[4/25/2012 11:48:23 PM] Kaze: If they don't want to know about the identity that I created myself, they don't want to know me.
[4/25/2012 11:49:21 PM] Kaze: And in a similar situation,
[4/25/2012 11:50:05 PM] Kaze: I do not care about people's photos, where they work or live, what color they are, what gender they are, or whatever else about them that they couldn't choose.
[4/25/2012 11:50:16 PM] Kaze: I care about what they decide they are.
[4/25/2012 11:50:31 PM] Kaze: I care about what they create and imagine.
[4/25/2012 11:51:02 PM] Kaze: That has more value than anything, and that can be communicated powerfully online, even used as their entire identity.
[4/25/2012 11:51:24 PM] Kaze: Does this make sense?
[4/25/2012 11:54:09 PM] Kaze: I had to get that out, but I didn't want to unless I knew people were really trying for what I thought they were.
[4/25/2012 11:57:21 PM] Phillip McKeen: [Wednesday, April 25, 2012 11:49 PM] Kaze:
<<< where they work or live, what color they are, what gender they are
[4/25/2012 11:57:26 PM] Phillip McKeen: That isn't what we're talking about
[4/25/2012 11:57:28 PM] Phillip McKeen: It isn't just a/s/l
[4/25/2012 11:58:04 PM] Kaze: Can you explain?
[4/25/2012 11:58:22 PM] Phillip McKeen: We want to know what you want out of real life, what choices you've made, etdc.
[4/25/2012 11:58:43 PM] Kaze: I thought I told people...
[4/25/2012 11:58:51 PM] Kaze: I draw.
[4/25/2012 11:59:00 PM] Kaze: I work on being an indie dev.
[12:00:03 AM] Kaze: I even linked to my dA, I post there frequently and I post journals there.
[12:04:01 AM] Kaze: And I don't think there's a lack of opinions coming from me.
[12:04:30 AM] Kaze: I even post articles a lot; I thought that would say a lot about me.
[12:05:25 AM] Phillip McKeen: Like I said, you've been getting better. The important thing about the public / group channels is there are people there that can be offended. If you want to be welcome, try not to exercise your 1st ammendment rights quite so thoroughly.
[12:06:00 AM] Phillip McKeen: [Wednesday, April 25, 2012 11:56 PM] Phillip McKeen:
<<< where they work or liveIt is a little about that.
[12:06:15 AM] Phillip McKeen: But not necessarily city as much as type of city... and job over type of job.
[12:06:48 AM] Kaze: I can't relate to those kinds of conversations.
[12:07:22 AM] Kaze: I got fired from my last job and my focus and interest in current events is in video game culture.
[12:07:45 AM] Kaze: Everything I find out about what goes on in this city is second-hand
[12:08:54 AM] Kaze: So normally I just let those conversations slide by.
[12:09:07 AM] Kaze: But I can't seem to start any and that's really irritating.
[12:09:22 AM] Kaze: Almost all video game talk is restricted to one game.
[12:09:34 AM] Kaze: (And people think I have limited game tastes)
[12:09:47 AM] Kaze: And that's the only subject I want to talk about.
[12:11:14 AM] Kaze: I mean, like I said, I post a lot of articles
[12:11:56 AM] Kaze: It just pisses me off that nobody says anything about them whereas WAC would or anyone on Sonic Retro would or most of my old friends would.
[12:12:37 AM] Kaze: I do not think I'm getting better if I'm still ignored on the same level.
[12:14:47 AM] Phillip McKeen: I'm sure you will find communities willing to talk about what you want to talk about in the context of every indie game and furries.
[12:14:54 AM] Phillip McKeen: General Chat isn't one of them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I left the channel early this morning.
Now I want to say what is hard for me to say and what frustrates me so much: Ever since I was a kid, I have rejected this world. Until the internet, I was, by choice, living inside my mind, with imaginary friends and outlandish concepts. The entire reason the internet makes me social is because I CAN still be that way on it. I drew my avatar, my fursona, that's who I am, that's who I want to be. The internet made it possible for all my dreams to still be a reality; my desire to make video games, talk about games and cartoons, and imagination, and even roleplay. I get on the internet to be my true identity, and thus, I do not want to drag all this real-life baggage onto it. Real-life is this thing I have to exist in when I can't play a game or get online or read. I do not live in the real world and that is by choice, not limitation, I do not talk about it by choice, I do not ask about it from others by choice.
And you might think that makes me fake, but I think the identity I built for myself online is more true than anything in the real world. I chose my name, I chose how I look. My real name is worthless to me, it was designated by someone else, not me. I didn't pick who I was born as, I didn't choose to be born where I am, but I am who I am online because of me! Not my mother, not nature, not whatever god you believe in, ME! And that makes it more valuable.
And like I said in that Skype chat, if people reject the representation of me online, they reject who I really am. This is who I am, this is who I want to be, this is how I want people to see me, this is me!
But I think I normally hold up well under the stress most of the time. The other day, something really added to it though, and it's something that is a repeated frustration for me.
I tried to explain it to a friend last night in Skype, but the problem is, I don't know how to say it to anyone. I think I got it across, but it still seems wrong. I know what I want to say, I'm worried about how it will be received, mostly.
So, just bear with me here.
First, I just want to say that I'm not unconcerned with other people. A lot of my reactions and attitudes about certain subjects lead people to believe that I'm callous, but that isn't the case at all. One person, for example, doesn't understand why I don't put my actual photo online and why I don't care to see other people's photos. Whenever I have explained this to him in the past, he has shown a negative opinion for my reasons, and this is partly why I have a hard time expressing them.
Let me make something perfectly clear: I don't get on the internet to deal with real-life shit. I don't care about where you live, what you really look like, and what's going on with your marriage or relationship, and I have no desire to share these things with other people. This often gives people a lot of wrong impressions about me that I find frustrating.
The most common one is that I'm not very open. Someone invited me to a skype channel because it was connected to a Minecraft server I played on for a little while. (I stopped because it wasn't really a creative server and I got bored of having to farm materials for my projects) But I found out that most of the conversations were things I couldn't relate to. They were either about people talking about games I did not care to play, or about some real-life situations of theirs, and every attempt I made at conversation didn't go anywhere. (I posted links to articles about video games in general and even tried to post links about games I thought they would enjoy) Eventually, this frustrated me and I started pointing out that nobody paid any attention to me.
Someone said that I was something like an unknown entity; that he didn't know anything about me. I thought that was kind of rude, if only because of how much I talk. So I asked them for specific information and they asked for my age and what I did. I told them I was 21 and I draw. (http://kazeskyfox.deviantart.com/)
After talking more about what specifically they wanted to know, I had a pretty good idea about what they were interested in. So I told them about the state I live in and how I want to move, all the while trying to place in some type of video-game related part of the sentence and after a while, finding an excuse to talk about my character and how I designed her, but at that point, the chat went quiet.
Assuming things about people and their intentions or meanings has gotten me into a lot of trouble in the past, so I didn't really say what I thought. But I went to bed feeling frustrated, not feeling like any of the subjects I wanted to talk about were acknowledged and none of the hints I left about how I felt about the subjects got through.
I spent the day being angry about it. It was a school day so sitting in class listening to lectures only allowed my feelings to simmer inside me. At one point in basic algebra, I had to immediately change the course of my thinking so that I wouldn't cry in class. When I got home, I didn't feel like really doing anything even though I had homework. I worked on it reluctantly while trying to figure out how I could ask the questions I wanted to.
One of the biggest problems here is that I really don't have a lot of options for talking to people about the subjects that I like. My own skype channel is always dead, some of my friends turned their alerts off and never pay attention to it (Which I view as a type of betrayal) and none of the IRCs I go to are really focused on indie games and furries. Even some furry channels don't care much about furry conversations.
So, this being the only place that anyone was active on, I tried to find a way to not be ignored on it. Asking my friend was the first mistake. I'll just post the skype conco in here...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[4/25/2012 11:18:10 PM] Kaze: Can I talk to you about something?
[4/25/2012 11:23:13 PM] Phillip McKeen: mehbe
[4/25/2012 11:24:56 PM] Phillip McKeen: What's up?
[4/25/2012 11:25:50 PM] Kaze: Why does komoto think I'm an unknown entity?
[4/25/2012 11:26:04 PM] Kaze: I do not feel like I gave him an answer he likes.
[4/25/2012 11:27:36 PM] Kaze: And it really bothers me because I don't know what anyone wants me to say, and I really do not have anywhere else to go for conversation right now because my skype channel is dead and the two people who are online turned off alerts, and the only person that I can really talk to with similar interests is WAC, and he has not been doing well lately.
[4/25/2012 11:27:58 PM] Phillip McKeen: Lol
[4/25/2012 11:28:13 PM] Phillip McKeen: You did a decent job of coming out of your shell earlier.
[4/25/2012 11:28:24 PM] Kaze: What shell?
[4/25/2012 11:28:25 PM] Phillip McKeen: Live in hickville, want to move somewhere with more geeks, etc.
[4/25/2012 11:28:37 PM] Phillip McKeen: You talked about you, rather than your online presence.
[4/25/2012 11:28:53 PM] Kaze: I was afraid you'd say that.
[4/25/2012 11:30:15 PM] Kaze: I tried to hint at something the other day but I don't think anyone noticed it...
[4/25/2012 11:31:44 PM] Kaze: And I'm depressed and frustrated because of how hard it is to communicate it.
[4/25/2012 11:37:44 PM] Phillip McKeen: Lol
[4/25/2012 11:37:45 PM] Phillip McKeen: Which part?
[4/25/2012 11:37:57 PM] Phillip McKeen: You can dump anything on me in a direct convo and I'll likely not be offended.
[4/25/2012 11:38:12 PM] Phillip McKeen: There's stuff I'd rather you not air in public, but I'm a good listener 1-on-1.
[4/25/2012 11:39:20 PM] Kaze: I am trying to think of a way to say this without it coming out wrong.
[4/25/2012 11:40:21 PM] Kaze: I'm not unconcerned with people, I'm just concerned with a different part of them.
[4/25/2012 11:42:06 PM] Kaze: [Monday, April 23, 2012 11:43 PM] Kaze:
<<< It used to be on RP sites, you could have a section for a bio, and when people would ask me personal questions, I'd link to that. :V
[4/25/2012 11:42:21 PM] Phillip McKeen: Can you elaborate?
[4/25/2012 11:42:36 PM] Kaze: Well, look at my avatar
[4/25/2012 11:42:42 PM] Kaze: I'm a furry
[4/25/2012 11:42:52 PM] Kaze: And that's who I want to be online.
[4/25/2012 11:43:28 PM] Kaze: And it kind of frustrates me when people think that I'm being less shy or whatever because I start talking about RL stuff.
[4/25/2012 11:43:42 PM] Kaze: I don't avoid talking about it because I'm shy.
[4/25/2012 11:44:11 PM] Kaze: I don't talk about it because I don't care, and I don't want people to associate me with that part of me that is stuck in the real world; the outside me.
[4/25/2012 11:44:11 PM] Phillip McKeen: The folks in "General Chat" don't want to know your furry, and don't take it personal.
[4/25/2012 11:44:30 PM] Phillip McKeen: They want to know the stuck in the real world you.
[4/25/2012 11:44:36 PM] Phillip McKeen: Never know, you might discover something about you.
[4/25/2012 11:44:50 PM] Kaze: I don't want them to though.
[4/25/2012 11:45:11 PM] Kaze: Sabo had an argument with me over it once in a Steam chat
[4/25/2012 11:45:28 PM] Kaze: He thinks it's a continuous RP; and he's right, but at the same time...
[4/25/2012 11:45:34 PM] Kaze: It isn't fake.
[4/25/2012 11:46:22 PM] Kaze: I think I, myself, am more fake; I gave myself this name, I gave myself this identity from inside me; my name was designated to me by another human, it has meaning to them, not me. My appearance was designated to me by nature, not by choice.
[4/25/2012 11:47:13 PM] Kaze: The picture I have is my picture, because I designed it, not nature, not God(s), not my mother, me.
[4/25/2012 11:47:37 PM] Kaze: And it is really important to me that people acknowledge that.
[4/25/2012 11:47:57 PM] Kaze: And it is really frustrating, and depressing, when people do not.
[4/25/2012 11:48:23 PM] Kaze: If they don't want to know about the identity that I created myself, they don't want to know me.
[4/25/2012 11:49:21 PM] Kaze: And in a similar situation,
[4/25/2012 11:50:05 PM] Kaze: I do not care about people's photos, where they work or live, what color they are, what gender they are, or whatever else about them that they couldn't choose.
[4/25/2012 11:50:16 PM] Kaze: I care about what they decide they are.
[4/25/2012 11:50:31 PM] Kaze: I care about what they create and imagine.
[4/25/2012 11:51:02 PM] Kaze: That has more value than anything, and that can be communicated powerfully online, even used as their entire identity.
[4/25/2012 11:51:24 PM] Kaze: Does this make sense?
[4/25/2012 11:54:09 PM] Kaze: I had to get that out, but I didn't want to unless I knew people were really trying for what I thought they were.
[4/25/2012 11:57:21 PM] Phillip McKeen: [Wednesday, April 25, 2012 11:49 PM] Kaze:
<<< where they work or live, what color they are, what gender they are
[4/25/2012 11:57:26 PM] Phillip McKeen: That isn't what we're talking about
[4/25/2012 11:57:28 PM] Phillip McKeen: It isn't just a/s/l
[4/25/2012 11:58:04 PM] Kaze: Can you explain?
[4/25/2012 11:58:22 PM] Phillip McKeen: We want to know what you want out of real life, what choices you've made, etdc.
[4/25/2012 11:58:43 PM] Kaze: I thought I told people...
[4/25/2012 11:58:51 PM] Kaze: I draw.
[4/25/2012 11:59:00 PM] Kaze: I work on being an indie dev.
[12:00:03 AM] Kaze: I even linked to my dA, I post there frequently and I post journals there.
[12:04:01 AM] Kaze: And I don't think there's a lack of opinions coming from me.
[12:04:30 AM] Kaze: I even post articles a lot; I thought that would say a lot about me.
[12:05:25 AM] Phillip McKeen: Like I said, you've been getting better. The important thing about the public / group channels is there are people there that can be offended. If you want to be welcome, try not to exercise your 1st ammendment rights quite so thoroughly.
[12:06:00 AM] Phillip McKeen: [Wednesday, April 25, 2012 11:56 PM] Phillip McKeen:
<<< where they work or liveIt is a little about that.
[12:06:15 AM] Phillip McKeen: But not necessarily city as much as type of city... and job over type of job.
[12:06:48 AM] Kaze: I can't relate to those kinds of conversations.
[12:07:22 AM] Kaze: I got fired from my last job and my focus and interest in current events is in video game culture.
[12:07:45 AM] Kaze: Everything I find out about what goes on in this city is second-hand
[12:08:54 AM] Kaze: So normally I just let those conversations slide by.
[12:09:07 AM] Kaze: But I can't seem to start any and that's really irritating.
[12:09:22 AM] Kaze: Almost all video game talk is restricted to one game.
[12:09:34 AM] Kaze: (And people think I have limited game tastes)
[12:09:47 AM] Kaze: And that's the only subject I want to talk about.
[12:11:14 AM] Kaze: I mean, like I said, I post a lot of articles
[12:11:56 AM] Kaze: It just pisses me off that nobody says anything about them whereas WAC would or anyone on Sonic Retro would or most of my old friends would.
[12:12:37 AM] Kaze: I do not think I'm getting better if I'm still ignored on the same level.
[12:14:47 AM] Phillip McKeen: I'm sure you will find communities willing to talk about what you want to talk about in the context of every indie game and furries.
[12:14:54 AM] Phillip McKeen: General Chat isn't one of them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I left the channel early this morning.
Now I want to say what is hard for me to say and what frustrates me so much: Ever since I was a kid, I have rejected this world. Until the internet, I was, by choice, living inside my mind, with imaginary friends and outlandish concepts. The entire reason the internet makes me social is because I CAN still be that way on it. I drew my avatar, my fursona, that's who I am, that's who I want to be. The internet made it possible for all my dreams to still be a reality; my desire to make video games, talk about games and cartoons, and imagination, and even roleplay. I get on the internet to be my true identity, and thus, I do not want to drag all this real-life baggage onto it. Real-life is this thing I have to exist in when I can't play a game or get online or read. I do not live in the real world and that is by choice, not limitation, I do not talk about it by choice, I do not ask about it from others by choice.
And you might think that makes me fake, but I think the identity I built for myself online is more true than anything in the real world. I chose my name, I chose how I look. My real name is worthless to me, it was designated by someone else, not me. I didn't pick who I was born as, I didn't choose to be born where I am, but I am who I am online because of me! Not my mother, not nature, not whatever god you believe in, ME! And that makes it more valuable.
And like I said in that Skype chat, if people reject the representation of me online, they reject who I really am. This is who I am, this is who I want to be, this is how I want people to see me, this is me!
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Adventure Project - Intro
So, I've been working with MMF2 for all of 2-3 weeks now, and so far, I've gotten farther with it than GameMaker or any other kit I've tried to use so far, and though I am not perfect at anything I try to make yet (There's a disturbing amount of broken items in my sandbox file I use for testing) I'm gonna try making a project with it.
It won't be very big, but it'll hopefully be the first thing I finish and don't pathetically abandon like every other remotely ambitious project I attempt. (See: Every story I've ever written, every comic I've ever drawn, every RP I've ever GMed, every level in LBP I've ever made, and every Minecraft project I've ever started)
But, I can try, and I'm gonna try something simple but hopefully playable and even more hopefully enjoyable. It'll be a Zelda-style adventure game where you control a fox and find items that do things. Just basic cause-and-effect used in a large environment that will hopefully give me experience with working with variables and arrays.
Arrays especially, at least with the inventory... I think. Bare with me, I still suck at this, but basically, you'll have an inventory, an ability to save (This is high on my priority list) and somewhere in the future, 1 or 2 minigames for your inventory that work Professor Layton style where you find items in the world and use them to build things. Okay, so maybe this is a bit too ambitions, but these are the kinds of games I want to make, the kind with a lot of collecting and puzzle solving like Zelda.
I originally wanted to make this update with some sprites to show for it, but all my sprites that I intend to use right now are either really crappy or were taken from other games as placeholders. I don't even know if I'm gonna finish this project, let alone manage to have it function properly (Again referencing my sandbox file of broken toys) so I didn't want to put the time into well-crafted sprites yet.
So why bother announcing it at all? Well, because... I'd like some advice. If anyone is experienced with MMF2 and has any ideas or tutorial links for making inventories or using arrays at all, that would be great. Most of the tutorials I've found are for arcade-like games and the like, and that's far from what I want to do.
Also, I wanted to just throw this up in some places as a solid testament to my plans so they don't sink through the cracks again. I figure if one or two people are interested in this, it'll be good motivation.
It won't be very big, but it'll hopefully be the first thing I finish and don't pathetically abandon like every other remotely ambitious project I attempt. (See: Every story I've ever written, every comic I've ever drawn, every RP I've ever GMed, every level in LBP I've ever made, and every Minecraft project I've ever started)
But, I can try, and I'm gonna try something simple but hopefully playable and even more hopefully enjoyable. It'll be a Zelda-style adventure game where you control a fox and find items that do things. Just basic cause-and-effect used in a large environment that will hopefully give me experience with working with variables and arrays.
Arrays especially, at least with the inventory... I think. Bare with me, I still suck at this, but basically, you'll have an inventory, an ability to save (This is high on my priority list) and somewhere in the future, 1 or 2 minigames for your inventory that work Professor Layton style where you find items in the world and use them to build things. Okay, so maybe this is a bit too ambitions, but these are the kinds of games I want to make, the kind with a lot of collecting and puzzle solving like Zelda.
I originally wanted to make this update with some sprites to show for it, but all my sprites that I intend to use right now are either really crappy or were taken from other games as placeholders. I don't even know if I'm gonna finish this project, let alone manage to have it function properly (Again referencing my sandbox file of broken toys) so I didn't want to put the time into well-crafted sprites yet.
So why bother announcing it at all? Well, because... I'd like some advice. If anyone is experienced with MMF2 and has any ideas or tutorial links for making inventories or using arrays at all, that would be great. Most of the tutorials I've found are for arcade-like games and the like, and that's far from what I want to do.
Also, I wanted to just throw this up in some places as a solid testament to my plans so they don't sink through the cracks again. I figure if one or two people are interested in this, it'll be good motivation.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Fuck your childhood.
Your childhood was not better than anyone else's and everyone needs to stop recreating things based on their childhood memories, especially with video games, because it isn't being helpful, it's just the creators being obsessed with nostalgia, and nostalgia is a ridiculous thing to be obsessed with. The idea of trying to preserve dated concepts to the point where they bog down innovation in the creative media for the sake of nostalgic memories is pathetic, damaging, and anyone who does this should be ashamed of themselves.
The rest of us would greately appreciate it if you'd stop ruining the gaming industry for us just because you can't deal with modern advances like cutscenes, stop saturating the cartoon industry just because drawing that obnoxious and generic style Walt Disney developed reminds you of when you were 5, and stop complaining about how everything was better in whatever decade you were born in than it is now. Everything looked better when you were a kid and didn't have a job or responsibilities (Don't even joke with me about school; that's not a responsibility, it's a glorified babysitting service) and we all felt the same fucking way, it has nothing to do with what generation you're apart of.
I'm fed up with going on forums and hearing a bunch of cranky assholes whine because Mario Sunshine was too open-world and didn't have Goombas in it or Sonic's too serious now, or that games are 3D and SO MUCH MORE CONFUSING than sidescrollers, and why won't these kids get off their lawns? They never have a good reason for bitching about these things other than "It wasn't like this in the 80s/90s" or some equally retarded bullshit like "It makes it less like a game" Nevermind they never specify how, except maybe "It has cutscenes and I HAVE TO WAIT OMG" God forbid you'd ever have to exercise an intention span longer than a toddler. Can't you people grow the fuck up already and stop ruining shit for the rest of us?
The rest of us would greately appreciate it if you'd stop ruining the gaming industry for us just because you can't deal with modern advances like cutscenes, stop saturating the cartoon industry just because drawing that obnoxious and generic style Walt Disney developed reminds you of when you were 5, and stop complaining about how everything was better in whatever decade you were born in than it is now. Everything looked better when you were a kid and didn't have a job or responsibilities (Don't even joke with me about school; that's not a responsibility, it's a glorified babysitting service) and we all felt the same fucking way, it has nothing to do with what generation you're apart of.
I'm fed up with going on forums and hearing a bunch of cranky assholes whine because Mario Sunshine was too open-world and didn't have Goombas in it or Sonic's too serious now, or that games are 3D and SO MUCH MORE CONFUSING than sidescrollers, and why won't these kids get off their lawns? They never have a good reason for bitching about these things other than "It wasn't like this in the 80s/90s" or some equally retarded bullshit like "It makes it less like a game" Nevermind they never specify how, except maybe "It has cutscenes and I HAVE TO WAIT OMG" God forbid you'd ever have to exercise an intention span longer than a toddler. Can't you people grow the fuck up already and stop ruining shit for the rest of us?
Friday, February 17, 2012
A Minecraft community rant
I'm sure everyone knows how horrible the Minecraft community is but I just wanted to say that I am extremely disgusted with some of the attitudes people have, one modder actually infuriating me and personally insulting my integrity. Frankly, I want to embarrass him, so I saved a screenshot of my post and will proceed to spitefully paste it everywhere I can, I recommend not using the mod of suck an immature child.
In fact, many of the mods I refuse to use on Minecraft are on my personal blacklist because of the way a modder acts toward people. I do not think someone who demands a modder update to the latest version of Minecraft in all caps with exclamation marks and fire emotes deserves much respect, I do not think a person who flames a modder because their Minecraft crashes deserves a second glance, but I am not either one of these people, I make an effort to be constructive even when I have little to no personal respect for a modder, for one reason or another. It seems that being diplomatic and mature has no positive effect in the Minecraft community, you're going to get sh*t from people if you flame and use textspeak and you're going to get sh*t from people if you are trying to be respectful. Quite frankly, I'd have loved nothing better than to flame this person because parts of their mod offend and disturb me, but I thought it would express this in a moderate fashion. Obviously, that was wasted effort, now I am going to proceed to paint them in a bad light.
And this idiot is not the only one. There are some decent human beings on the Minecraft forums, but some modders are just dicks for no reason, maybe dealing with the Minecraft community for long periods of time makes them bitter husks or maybe they're just as ill-behaved and uncivilized as the cunts they flame for not posting error reports and demanding fixes, but either way, they are not the kind of people I like dealing with. I use ModLoader out of need, I used IndustrialCraft because a friend wanted me to, but he had to be the one to solve the problems with it, I wanted no communication with the modder, I refuse to use any of DrZhark's mods because of the way he acted toward me when I made a simple suggestion for his mod, claiming it was as ridiculous as riding ogres, and more than half of the animals he adds are just meant to be killed for something anyway, I find that disgusting.
I will give an example of a polite and courteous modder: Xie, as well as Domino, are very polite, one reason I continue to watch their mods is because, whenever I have asked a question, they have answered not only in a neutral tone, but promptly, I could not possibly ask for more from them. I highly recommend their mods if only because they are sure to help anyone with a problem. Another example is a texture pack creator, Misa, who is fair in her dealings with her fanbase; oh, she will get mean, but only when someone accuses her of stealing, which has actually happened. (She gave someone permission to use her textures and some people mistake the owner, I would become annoyed at that, too.)
Basically, I only go to those forums out of necessity, to report bugs. Even the admins have been known to be impolite for no reason, it's no small wonder the community is so awful.
I suggest we beat some sense into those people when they come over here looking for a new game to play, nip it in the bud before it grows out of control. :P
If you're wondering, here's the thread link:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/253365-11-better-than-wolves-but-not-cats-mod-v351-upd-feb-11/page__st__20720
Here's an image I printscreened of my response to his reply, screenshot was in case one of the admins deleted the post, which they probably will. Why side with a decent person when the immature kid can code Java? :dodgy:
http://i.imgur.com/Xyynw.png
Here's my original post:
http://i.imgur.com/i3MPy.png
You tell me if that is deserving of this:
And here's how I replied to it:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/253365-11-better-than-wolves-but-not-cats-mod-v351-upd-feb-11/page__view__findpost__p__12874789
Proof of the quote in my first image:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/253365-11-better-than-wolves-but-not-cats-mod-v351-upd-feb-11/page__view__findpost__p__12877436
Also here's something one of his cronies posted, which I thought was pretty barbed...
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/253365-11-better-than-wolves-but-not-cats-mod-v351-upd-feb-11/page__view__findpost__p__12859727
You tell me if you think I deserve that kind of treatment.
In fact, many of the mods I refuse to use on Minecraft are on my personal blacklist because of the way a modder acts toward people. I do not think someone who demands a modder update to the latest version of Minecraft in all caps with exclamation marks and fire emotes deserves much respect, I do not think a person who flames a modder because their Minecraft crashes deserves a second glance, but I am not either one of these people, I make an effort to be constructive even when I have little to no personal respect for a modder, for one reason or another. It seems that being diplomatic and mature has no positive effect in the Minecraft community, you're going to get sh*t from people if you flame and use textspeak and you're going to get sh*t from people if you are trying to be respectful. Quite frankly, I'd have loved nothing better than to flame this person because parts of their mod offend and disturb me, but I thought it would express this in a moderate fashion. Obviously, that was wasted effort, now I am going to proceed to paint them in a bad light.
And this idiot is not the only one. There are some decent human beings on the Minecraft forums, but some modders are just dicks for no reason, maybe dealing with the Minecraft community for long periods of time makes them bitter husks or maybe they're just as ill-behaved and uncivilized as the cunts they flame for not posting error reports and demanding fixes, but either way, they are not the kind of people I like dealing with. I use ModLoader out of need, I used IndustrialCraft because a friend wanted me to, but he had to be the one to solve the problems with it, I wanted no communication with the modder, I refuse to use any of DrZhark's mods because of the way he acted toward me when I made a simple suggestion for his mod, claiming it was as ridiculous as riding ogres, and more than half of the animals he adds are just meant to be killed for something anyway, I find that disgusting.
I will give an example of a polite and courteous modder: Xie, as well as Domino, are very polite, one reason I continue to watch their mods is because, whenever I have asked a question, they have answered not only in a neutral tone, but promptly, I could not possibly ask for more from them. I highly recommend their mods if only because they are sure to help anyone with a problem. Another example is a texture pack creator, Misa, who is fair in her dealings with her fanbase; oh, she will get mean, but only when someone accuses her of stealing, which has actually happened. (She gave someone permission to use her textures and some people mistake the owner, I would become annoyed at that, too.)
Basically, I only go to those forums out of necessity, to report bugs. Even the admins have been known to be impolite for no reason, it's no small wonder the community is so awful.
I suggest we beat some sense into those people when they come over here looking for a new game to play, nip it in the bud before it grows out of control. :P
If you're wondering, here's the thread link:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/253365-11-better-than-wolves-but-not-cats-mod-v351-upd-feb-11/page__st__20720
Here's an image I printscreened of my response to his reply, screenshot was in case one of the admins deleted the post, which they probably will. Why side with a decent person when the immature kid can code Java? :dodgy:
http://i.imgur.com/Xyynw.png
Here's my original post:
http://i.imgur.com/i3MPy.png
You tell me if that is deserving of this:
And here's how I replied to it:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/253365-11-better-than-wolves-but-not-cats-mod-v351-upd-feb-11/page__view__findpost__p__12874789
Proof of the quote in my first image:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/253365-11-better-than-wolves-but-not-cats-mod-v351-upd-feb-11/page__view__findpost__p__12877436
Also here's something one of his cronies posted, which I thought was pretty barbed...
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/253365-11-better-than-wolves-but-not-cats-mod-v351-upd-feb-11/page__view__findpost__p__12859727
You tell me if you think I deserve that kind of treatment.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Full Circle
Well, the other day I was pretty upset, so I made a dA... and now my life has come full circle.
There's a lot of things that upset me that my friends don't understand, like visiting a Sonic fansite, or signing up for a dA account. It has a lot to do with a war I fight every day with my inner demons, and it's a war I feel like I'm losing.
Because I've told everyone the reason I deleted my old account was because I got sick of bullshit on the site, which was a lie, because I never want to admit anything is my fault, but everything was my fault, I repeatedly fucked up, I repeatedly exercised practices I condemned other people for, on every site I joined, I let people troll me until I cried, I threw myself into hysterical fits of rage, and when I got upset, I made the most incoherent, inflammatory journals. These are things a normal, sensible, mature person would not have done, but I was not any of those, and I feel that I am still not any of those.
Mostly because I'm doing the same shit again, I feel like I'm never going to be the person I want to be, the cool, aloof person that gets all kinds of recognition for their work but can brush it off like it's meaningless, the air of logic that makes people follow them, I want to be that person.
But now I think the only thing harder than trying to become the person you want to be is to not be the person you used to be.
My entire life has become an attempt to distance myself from my past, I threw away my old characters, changed my art style enough to not be recognized, no longer contact and/or avoid people I used to know, avoid sites I used to frequent, and deleted as much as I possibly could, I want to erase it and pretend it never happened, because I'm ashamed of it, and it's just a failed attempt to me, I feel like I wanted something specific to happen but the opposite happened and I don't want to deal with the backlash or the consequences.
Because I don't want to change, I don't want to stop complaining about the things that I complain about, but I don't want the horrible reactions that I got from it before either, so I have tried to make my complaints more logical, but I don't feel like it works that well. People no longer flame or troll me for them, but people don't agree with me either.
But mostly, I just don't want people to look at me and see that immature kid that was so oblivious to the real world and so idealistic that they thought they could change an entire community but failed miserably and became bitter over it and everyone's favorite joke, because that's exactly what happened, it happened when I was 16, I'm still bitter about it, it caused me to re-evaluate everything about my life, to let go of my religion and my ideals, and to become what I am now, which is probably a good thing, but there are parts of me that still feel broken, I purged 90% of what I was raised to believe and completely reprogrammed myself over the course of a year, and in that year, I was volatile and unstable.
And every time I think of it, I think of a screaming 4 year old, which is exactly what I compare myself to, a stupid kid that won't shut the fuck up, that throws a tantrum for decidedly frivolous reasons, that everyone around them wishes would fall in a hole and disappear, and that nobody else understands or cares to understand. Why should they care about what a toddler is screaming about? They have more decidedly adult matters to be bothered with, and that toddler is selfish and conceited and will blow up if the smallest little thing goes wrong.
I think I will always be that person, and I wonder how long it will take, every day, for someone to recognize me and remind me that I am that person, for someone to ruin my life, the fake life that I redesigned and unsuitably call "self-improvement", the only way I can improve myself is to not be myself, there is no helping me, I am a difficult child that gives everyone a headache, it's been like this since I could utter a sentence, I'm not easygoing like my cousin who everyone loves, I'm the embodiment of annoying petulance.
And now my life has come full circle, and I will again attempt to be the person I want to be, and fail, possibly by bitching in a journal like I always do and like I'm doing right now, and everyone will realize what a pathetic waste of time I am again and I will be right back at square one.
There's a lot of things that upset me that my friends don't understand, like visiting a Sonic fansite, or signing up for a dA account. It has a lot to do with a war I fight every day with my inner demons, and it's a war I feel like I'm losing.
Because I've told everyone the reason I deleted my old account was because I got sick of bullshit on the site, which was a lie, because I never want to admit anything is my fault, but everything was my fault, I repeatedly fucked up, I repeatedly exercised practices I condemned other people for, on every site I joined, I let people troll me until I cried, I threw myself into hysterical fits of rage, and when I got upset, I made the most incoherent, inflammatory journals. These are things a normal, sensible, mature person would not have done, but I was not any of those, and I feel that I am still not any of those.
Mostly because I'm doing the same shit again, I feel like I'm never going to be the person I want to be, the cool, aloof person that gets all kinds of recognition for their work but can brush it off like it's meaningless, the air of logic that makes people follow them, I want to be that person.
But now I think the only thing harder than trying to become the person you want to be is to not be the person you used to be.
My entire life has become an attempt to distance myself from my past, I threw away my old characters, changed my art style enough to not be recognized, no longer contact and/or avoid people I used to know, avoid sites I used to frequent, and deleted as much as I possibly could, I want to erase it and pretend it never happened, because I'm ashamed of it, and it's just a failed attempt to me, I feel like I wanted something specific to happen but the opposite happened and I don't want to deal with the backlash or the consequences.
Because I don't want to change, I don't want to stop complaining about the things that I complain about, but I don't want the horrible reactions that I got from it before either, so I have tried to make my complaints more logical, but I don't feel like it works that well. People no longer flame or troll me for them, but people don't agree with me either.
But mostly, I just don't want people to look at me and see that immature kid that was so oblivious to the real world and so idealistic that they thought they could change an entire community but failed miserably and became bitter over it and everyone's favorite joke, because that's exactly what happened, it happened when I was 16, I'm still bitter about it, it caused me to re-evaluate everything about my life, to let go of my religion and my ideals, and to become what I am now, which is probably a good thing, but there are parts of me that still feel broken, I purged 90% of what I was raised to believe and completely reprogrammed myself over the course of a year, and in that year, I was volatile and unstable.
And every time I think of it, I think of a screaming 4 year old, which is exactly what I compare myself to, a stupid kid that won't shut the fuck up, that throws a tantrum for decidedly frivolous reasons, that everyone around them wishes would fall in a hole and disappear, and that nobody else understands or cares to understand. Why should they care about what a toddler is screaming about? They have more decidedly adult matters to be bothered with, and that toddler is selfish and conceited and will blow up if the smallest little thing goes wrong.
I think I will always be that person, and I wonder how long it will take, every day, for someone to recognize me and remind me that I am that person, for someone to ruin my life, the fake life that I redesigned and unsuitably call "self-improvement", the only way I can improve myself is to not be myself, there is no helping me, I am a difficult child that gives everyone a headache, it's been like this since I could utter a sentence, I'm not easygoing like my cousin who everyone loves, I'm the embodiment of annoying petulance.
And now my life has come full circle, and I will again attempt to be the person I want to be, and fail, possibly by bitching in a journal like I always do and like I'm doing right now, and everyone will realize what a pathetic waste of time I am again and I will be right back at square one.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Skyhigh View (New blog)
I'll still be using this one, but I started a new one for video-game related things.
http://skyhighviewgames.blogspot.com/
It only has one post right now but I'm planning on making more.
http://skyhighviewgames.blogspot.com/
It only has one post right now but I'm planning on making more.
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