[Disc vs Digital]

On 10/29/2022 at 8:46 AM, Kane99 said:

a lot of the newer Switch games that drop with just a slip with a code to download the game. 

I buy a bunch of recently launched Switch games and I still haven’t run into that yet. Am I just incredibly lucky, or am I not buying the right games?

[What has never made sense to you?]

2 hours ago, Akun said:

I think that particular zealotry in defending certain fansub groups (in spite of those groups having inaccurate translations) comes down to the kind of fanaticism that defines fandom in general, not just anime fans. DC vs. Marvel, Star Wars vs. Star Trek, Mets vs. Yankees, and of course, Trump vs. Obama. People love to be part of a community defending something, so when someone points out something wrong about the thing they're passionate about, even if it's just a translation group that provided them mistranslated anime, they will be outraged. It's called a circle jerk, and it's especially prevalent in Reddit. Go to the MCU's subreddit and point out any flaw at all about any of their Marvel show and you'll be bombarded with downvotes and criticisms (of your "misinformed" opinions).

I was there when the fansub group, "gg" was praised like the second coming of Christ (they've put out good stuff, but most of the time, they're trolls when translating shows they don't like). Even HorribleSubs was praised in spite of their well-deserved name just because of how fast they translated (no matter how inaccurate). So I had a pretty good idea just how fanatical these elitist fans could get back then in terms of defending not just fansub groups, but subtitled anime in general (over dubbed anime). To be fair, I do also prefer to watch my anime subbed even now because of, again, purist reasons, how I want to hear what the original voice acting was like and the kind of acting direction they went with. I like that kind of authentic experience. But my point is that while I do agree with them on some level the appeal of subbed anime... it's not fair to assume every dub is horrible trash, especially in 2022 when English dubbed anime has improved A LOT. A lot of these fanatics are blatant elitists who are defending (from an extremist position) a name that has nothing to do with their personal lives, much like Marvel and Star Wars fans.

Regarding the anime merch... I understand how such perceptions are formed because of such scantily clad goods. In fact, I'd even go on to say that most of the popular mainstream shows (mostly shounen shows like Dragonball, One Piece and Fairy Tail) have included fanservice as part of the show even today. I was turned off so much by Fairy Tail because of said fanservice, the way they treated Lucy's sexuality like a cheap punchline, that I dropped it completely. I think it might have something to do with their fanbase, because I heard that they put in such fanservice for profit reasons or something, to ensure their merch sells, maybe. Something interesting, however, is that while American shows like Xena: Warrior Princess (which had a bunch of scantily armored scenes) have largely strayed from fanservice by the 2010s because Americans became more progressive, Japan hasn't really changed much the last time I've seen an anime series. I think fanservice is probably part and parcel of anime even today, but I may be wrong.

That being said, while I agree such a thing might give people the wrong idea... I still don't agree that it's a fair assessment to judge all anime by it, especially with my own experience of mature and psychological anime that contained zero fanservice whatsoever. I think that if people bothered to do their research, if people bothered to actually look up good shows written by respected writers and even respected anime studios, their perception might improve. And the thing is, I'm not just applying such an open-mindedness to anime only, but also animation in general. I grew up in the Pixar era, so I had a very solid foundation of animation being more than just silly cartoons. Films like Toy Story, Up, Ratatouille, and even Finding Nemo convinced me that animation was a fluid medium that could allow stories for all ages, even stories only adults could understand. It's not really the same thing, and anime has a harder uphill battle to fight before its name could be redeemed, but I'm sure there were at least a number of people back then who believed animation was for children only, or that superhero films were silly cape flicks even. Their perception was unchallenged until someone came along and showed them what one could do with the medium. And so, it's like, just go watch Ghost in the Shell or Akira and tell me anime's just for the perverts only. Or better yet, the wholesome Hayao Miyazaki films. People simply just need to do their research and not let their perceptions blind them to the truth.

I think in terms of recommending anime to someone, I guess I didn't have that problem as often (though it still happened, rarely) with people getting the wrong idea because the shows I recommended were usually the aforementioned mature content that lacked fanservice or scantily clad women, shows like Technolyze or Aoi Bungaku Series, the very psychologically-driven kind of shows where your summary of the show or the Googled images shouldn't really contain any suggestive content. I think that it is possible to change people's perception of anime given the right content. Just don't search for lewd shows - which, I emphasize, is entirely possible with anime - and stay to the more mature or wholesome content even like Miyazaki films. I doubt there's Miyazaki merch around with scantily clothed figurines, probably because most of Miyazaki's characters are children.

The perception, at least in the US, has changed quite a bit as it got a lot more mainstream in the past decade thanks to legal streaming. It especially helped increase the variety of shows that people saw.

It’s amazing the variety of shows people I meet irl know about now. So I feel vindicated for the shower I loved back then now getting their long awaited popularity.

[What has never made sense to you?]

48 minutes ago, Akun said:

That's a fair opinion. I had my own experience of being exposed to toxic communities before that influenced my beliefs of certain fandoms... or even political groups.

I don't know what was it exactly that gave me a more positive experience towards anime, but perhaps it's because I've argued with so many people online - both anime and non-anime fans - that I've pretty much realized there's toxicity everywhere on the Internet, myself included. The anonymity of Internet just has a certain influence on certain people like myself, bringing out the worst in us. I wouldn't really say more than half the things I say offline. I guess it might've been that kind of exposure that led me to direct my cynicism not towards anime itself, or any show in particular, but people in general, becoming somewhat of a misanthrope for a period of time even. It helps that I have a great respect for the craft of storytelling and have seen the immense potential anime possesses in telling a wide range of stories across multiple genres, so that led me to value anime as a medium for imparting such interesting themes and ideas.

Also, in terms of making eye candies of anime characters, I'm not surprised to be honest. In spite of its range of targeted demographics, anime is still a form of animation, and that attracts young audiences who treat it like any American cartoon. You've got kids and teenagers getting all horny about cartoon characters (again, just look at rule 34 to see how horny people can get about fictional characters, even American cartoons). I'd say that I've came across my share of fans being passionate about wanting to fuck certain live action characters too. I guess I could see why anime would certainly attract the more perverse crowd to the conversation, given that there's an entire genre of anime specifically targeting these people... but again, I think it's like you said, it's not really the case anymore now that legal streaming has become more popular, and we start to get more "normal" audiences.

As for fansubs... I gotta say, I can't really begrudge those people too much. Many of those people from those fansub groups that I've met actually did know Japanese, which is how I came to rely on them for accurate translations. I'm a purist that way. English isn't even my native mother tongue anyway (it's Chinese), so it's not like I'm betraying my own people or something if I find the English dub annoying. Also, fansubs were literally the only way you'd get to watch many of the popular anime series like Death Note and FMA: Brotherhood back then, even when "official streaming" was starting to come around because of region restrictions. I doubt many people knew how to VPN back then either in the 2000s. Those were different times, but I doubt anime would become as popular as it did without fansubs.

Tbh the fansub debates were by people who just watched the shows, and not from the actual people who did the translations. It was largely people claiming they wanted accuracy, but was really a long winded argument of “the one I saw first is the canonical translation”. There’s plenty of examples of some things being translated wrong, and people were insistent for years that the wrong one was superior. Which comes off as super hypocritical when your argument was for accuracy and you find out something was wrong, but it’s totally acceptable…

That’s why I mentioned the argument was by a ton of people who don’t speak the language, because they actually didn’t. I’m Japanese and know the language, and when you correct people on things that are completely wrong, and not a common misconception, it’s pretty obvious you don’t know the language.

Back to my previous part about the canary and merch vs your Lara Croft example is the percentage of exposure to the lewd stuff. With Lara Croft, more people are exposed to the actual game, so there isn’t a general perception of the fans being a den of perverts. The promotional stuff is stereotypical of an action game.

With the anime pervert stereotype, there are a ton of shows that don’t just have the lewd fan art, but there’ll be a ton of official posters, promotional art, and various merchandise of the female characters in scantily clad outfits. So if all you see of a series is these females in scantily clad outfits, it’s hard to not think this show is gonna be fanservice, even though it won’t be.

Let’s take Pokémon and not change anything about the game/show. Instead, we’ll replace all the current merch and promotional art to primarily be about all the female characters in scantily clad outfits, people’s perception on Pokémon is going to change drastically.

There’s some shows I’m a fan of, and I recommend it to people, and after a quick Google search, they think I’m getting them to watch something like To Love Ru or High School DxD because even the official stuff is a bunch of lewds.

[What has never made sense to you?]

6 hours ago, Akun said:

Right, because as we all know, the vocal minority is always the most reliable source of information, especially on the Internet. 🙄

People really should make up their own mind about shows after they watch it. Never judge a book by its cover. At the very least, read the reviews if you don't want to waste your time.

I mean, if you want to compare lewd fanart, I could show you a truckload of rule 34 content for Lara Croft alone. I could tell you it's as numerous as the lewd fanart of multiple anime series combined.

By the logic of rule 34, any show could have lewd fanart, because as the rule states, "If it exists, there's Internet porn of it." Don't get me started on deepfake porn of celebrities. Even live action isn't safe.

Also, it makes me question the taste of the person complaining about perverse anime content because it means they either 1) judged a show by its fanart, or 2) watched a perverse anime series instead of the countless normal ones. Either way, their judgment is sus.

To be fair, as anime got more popular here, the pervert stereotype did kind of disappear. Crunchyroll existing and Netflix increasing its catalog definitely changed the tide here, but before that, I really couldn’t stand the anime community. Online or offline. This is coming from someone who was/is an active anime fan.

We can complain all we want about how others should be open minded about communities, but if your only exposure to a community is by seeing a bunch of perverts an/or obnoxious assholes, it makes the community off-putting for outsiders.

Before legal streaming got popular, I just wanted to have a “normal” conversation about anime. Basic stuff like “hey this show is awesome!”, instead I primarily could only find people who either only cared about talking about how much they want to fuck <insert female character> or some assholes being more obsessed with the fansub wars to fan check you.

I’m so glad that latter part died off. Nothing like seeing a bunch of people who don’t know Japanese argue with which translation is more accurate.

[What has never made sense to you?]

16 hours ago, Akun said:

The dislike of "anime artstyle."

If anyone actually watches more than the typical mainstream anime, you'd know how ridiculous that statement is, considering the numerous artstyles anime series have. Don't get me started on the misconception that all anime is filled with perverse content.

To be fair, the anime fandom itself isn’t exactly doing much to quell the pervert stereotype. When a large number of vocal fans are perverts, it’s kind of hard to shake the stereotype off. There’s quite a few series I see on a regular basis where I knew nothing about it, except for the massive amount of lewd fan art, until I saw the show myself and realized the show has nothing to do with it.

The merch itself isn’t helping either…

The show will be sfw, but the merch sure as hell isn’t…

[Thoughts on reverse compatibility]

I think it's a nice feature if you didn't own the previous console, or you can save that port on your TV for one console instead of using it for 2.

I personally don't understand the mindset of selling all of your games to get the newest console. One reason for me is what if I still want to play those games? Then there's the lack of games on the new console. I just beat the one game I want on the new console, well fuck, I don't have any other games left...

[Games you took a while to get into the first time, but later didn’t see why?]

I felt like that with Trails in the Sky. It somehow didn’t grab me at first, then I restarted the game and had a blast.

[Latinx]

1 hour ago, Reality vs Adventure said:

I think the word Latin in of itself is inclusive because it could be any gender. That's the way it's always been. You do make a point about people who want to label LatinX as inclusive are making it exclusive. Think about the English speaking territories in the Americas like the USA, Canada, and parts of the Caribbean. We don't call it Anglo America or Germanic America. Nobody is saying AngloX or Anglo, Angla, Angle. And of course nobody ever says Anglo America. But it is a region of English speaking territories from England. So I don't understand why Anglos want to make Latin inclusive and not Anglo. ??? lol

Iirc the term Latino(a) was created by the immigrants from the region in the US, whereas the English speakers never felt the need to use a unifying name outside of a largely academic use. There wouldn’t be a need for something like AngloX because English isn’t a gendered language.

I don’t know the ethnicity of the creator(s) of the term Latinx, but it definitely wasn’t someone who spoke a Latin language. Though the whole political correctness and inclusivity movement does have a sizable group of people who, while have their hearts in the right places, are pushing for this stuff based out of ignorance. There’s definitely a savior complex with some of these individuals/groups.

I’m a minority, and it’s always weird for me to see someone outside of my ethnicity getting offended on our behalf over things most of us really don’t care about, yet turn a blind eye to things we actually do find offensive.

[Latinx]

20 hours ago, Reality vs Adventure said:

Actually, I think what defines Latin is the language spoken but it's up for debate. Spanish language has it's roots in Latin and is part of the Romance languages like Spain, Italy, Portugal, Romania, France. All came from Latin. Latin evolved into different classifications such as Romance. Spain would be Ibero-Romance. Romania is Balkan Romance. France is Gallo-Romance. 

Here is a wikipedia link to Latin Romance languages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

When it comes to the Americas and Latin, as based on Romantic Latin languages, every country south of the USA is Latin. And the majority speak Spanish except for Brazil and I think Paraguay and Uruguay. LatinX I don't even know what it means and I'm not concerned with it LOL. It's supposed to be a gender neutral term I guess. But when you look at the entire Spanish language it is very sexist as it has masculine pronunciations and feminine pronunciations. When you want to complicate gender neutral terms, you would throw the whole Spanish language into the abyss. 

But if Spain is not considered Latin then that is news to me and you guys may be right to a certain extent as language and nationality could have different meanings. Here is a good link to the difference between Hispanic, Latino, and Spanish

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/a33971047/what-is-difference-between-hispanic-latino-spanish/

 

Latino(a) is a regional thing, like mentioned in that article you posted:

Quote

Latino, Latina and Latinx are geographic terms, which refer to a person from Latin America or of Latin American descent.

One of the controversies with Latinx has more to do with how it actually fits into Spanish. It was created by English speakers, and it's pronounced Latin Ex. Well the usage of X kind of contradicts Spanish grammar, so it ends up being a bit ironic that a term that's supposed to be inclusive is excluding the people that speak the language. Which is why it's not really gaining traction in the Spanish community. I've seen Latine being used more than Latinx by the Latin trans community more as it grammatically makes more sense to them, easier for them to pronounce, and fits the bill of inclusivity.

[Latinx]

1 hour ago, The Blackangel said:

I don't know. If I remember right Spanish people are Hispanic, yet not Latino/Latina.

Yeah, Latino/Latina refers to Latin Americans and Spain isn’t in Latin America.

The difference between the two terms are which countries/people south of the US border (and Caribbean) are included or excluded.

Hispanic = Spanish speaking, so countries like Brazil and French Guiana, etc are excluded.

Latino(a) = Speaks a Latin language. The Latin languages spoken in the region are Spanish, Portuguese, and French (there are other Latin languages, but they’re irrelevant in the region). This includes a large portion of the region, but excludes any country where English is the primary language, as English isn’t a Latin language.

It can be confusing in America, because the primary people we are exposed to (depending on what part of the US you’re from) are Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican where Hispanic and Latino(a) are interchangeable. Brazilians are kind of rare here, and Haitians primarily live in South Florida.

[Modern Warfare 2 PS5 Disc Only Houses 70MB of Data]

7 hours ago, The Blackangel said:

 

The prices I was talking about are

1) buying the license 
2) buying the game
3) paying for PSN

That’s not what’s going on.

When you pop any game in, you’re usually greeted with your console downloading the updates/patches. Well if you didn’t have internet, theoretically you’d still be able to play the game. In the case of this game, there’s no actual game on the disc, so the “update” is really just the actual game being installed. Thus rendering the point of owning a physical copy largely pointless.

So there’s no third purchase. The license is basically your rights to download the game. Instead of giving you just a piece of paper with the download code, the disc is acting as the download code.

Though I wouldn’t be surprised that the game requires you to have the disc to be inside to play the game, despite there not being a game on the disc.

[Modern Warfare 2 PS5 Disc Only Houses 70MB of Data]

9 hours ago, The Blackangel said:

This is bullshit business practices. How much is the "game" new? $40? $50? Then you get it home and find out you have to buy something you just bought an hour ago? And then you have to pay for the PSN to be able to play it? They're gouging gamers. That's 3 different purchases for one game. I really hope there's a hell of a lot of backlash for this. They deserve getting their ass handed to them.

The disc is like any other PlayStation game where it just automatically downloads the updates when you pop the disc in. It’s just that the only info on the disc is basically a launcher to download the actual game as opposed to just updates. It’s really just that the physical release is kind of pointless if the game isn’t actually on the disc.

idk where your idea of a third purchase is coming from, because they’re not price gouging you if every other game that uses online features requires you to pay for the game on top of owning a PSN subscription.

[A copy of Kuon was sold for over $9,000!]

45 minutes ago, Kane99 said:

Yeah I saw it was fromsoftware, so I get why it's so sought after. 

And yeah, I know Rule or Rose is a rare horror game that I think goes for high prices these days. Also maybe some of the fatal frame games. 

Yeah, I always hear about Rule of Rose as one of the more sought after PS2 games. I know the Fatal Frames go for around $100.

[A copy of Kuon was sold for over $9,000!]

17 hours ago, Kane99 said:

It's crazy to me how some rare games end up being worth lots of money. The problem with this is that there's always a chance of more copies of this game being found in a warehouse somewhere. It's happened before with other rare games. 

Either way, I don't get why some are so expensive. And on top of it all, most of the time, rare games aren't even that good. Sure there are some good games that are rare, but most to my knowledge we're either bad or mediocre games that had limited quantities at release and no one really bought them. Now I can't comment on Kuon, as I never played it, so it could be good or it could be mediocre or awful. 

I wouldn’t say most of the time, it really depends on the console and the game. There’s a large number of rare games that didn’t sell well because it wasn’t popular at the time, but it was later discovered to be good/great and the demand is higher than the number of copies out there. Another common reason is that it’s an earlier entry of a series that got popular later on, or the developer got popular afterwards.

Kuon’s a survival horror game made by Fromsoftware, so you have the demand from 2 types of fans. There’s quite a few survival horror games on the PS2 that are pretty rare.

JRPG’s tend to also go for a pretty penny,  and a ton of Atlus games from the PS2 and earlier.

[A copy of Kuon was sold for over $9,000!]

On 10/23/2022 at 6:30 PM, killamch89 said:

To be fair, I do have a few Nintendo 3DS games still in their original package and unopened so maybe this could be me in the future.

The games have to have a low print run, and have high demand for those to get to that price. Not every game being sealed will end up being worth $9000. There’s a metric ton of sealed retro games that aren’t worth that much more (some less) than their standard retail price, and it gets lower the more recent it is, because more people have sealed copies lying around.

[Do you think services like GamePass hurt game sales?]

The developers should be getting a cut if they aren't already. I don't see how it hurts game sales, it's just an alternate stream of revenue. It lets people try out games that they otherwise might not have bought, and the developer gets a cut, as opposed to piracy where they got paid zero.

[A copy of Kuon was sold for over $9,000!]

The most expensive PS2 games I own are Dot Hack Quarantine, and Xenosaga 3. The PS2 was one of the consoles that skyrocketed around Covid, so I got these before the prices blew up.

Xenosaga 3 was only $50 back in 2019

[Most broken games ever released?]

Sonic 06 was pretty bad

[Linux, Unix, Dos. What the hell is the difference?]

2 hours ago, The Blackangel said:

Everywhere. I understand that they are all a different OS, but that's it. I don't get what really makes them different. Is one superior to another? Is one no longer used? Is there any reason to switch OS? How would you go about switching your OS?

I honestly don't get a damn thing.

Some of the actual differences get super technical. To switch to another OS, you can either buy another computer with it pre-installed, or install the new OS on an existing computer. You can dual boot (where you can install multiple OS’s one one computer, but you can only run one at a time, so you have to select which one when you boot the computer. To swap between the two, you straight up have to shut off the computer and select another one. You can also use virtual machines. A technically not correct explanation, is that you’re basically emulating another OS on your computer. You just need enough resources (specs) to run two OS’s at once, as opposed to dual booting where you solely run one OS at a time.

 

DOS is basically dead. It was the basis of Windows and was axed when XP came out. So outside of using legacy software on old computers (or emulating through DosBox) it’s essentially irrelevant. DOS was the “core” of Windows and was command line only, and Windows was the GUI (graphical user interface) to make it more user friendly. Part of the reason why some games have to be run in DOS mode was because Windows itself took up a lot of resources, so running in DOS boots your computer without Windows, and let you utilize more resources.

 

Unix and Linux are different “families” of operating systems, that share similarities under the hood, or were built off of an existing version of Unix or Linux. There’s no “pure” version of either, so when people say they use either Unix or Linux, they need to be more specific. It’s the equivalent of saying “I drive a truck”, well… what kind of truck? What model truck? Since Linux is heavily inspired by Unix (hence why it’s called a Unix-like OS), the lines can get blurry.

You won’t run into Unix much. Outside of MacOS, it’s pretty common as the custom operating system of enterprise hardware. So on a rack mounted server, it hosts Windows on it, but the OS to configure the hardware would be some variant of Unix.

With MacOS, since it’s a completely different OS from Windows, you can’t run Windows software on it. You have to have software specifically written for MacOS. So popular software like MS Office or Google Chrome have to be ported over. With that, it has exclusive software. It’s also part of the reason why gamers don’t use Macs, the lack of games. Macs (and anything that isn’t Windows) are immune to Windows viruses, because they’re written for well… Windows. Though that’s entirely due to the overwhelming market share of Windows. (Iirc it’s like 80%). So while your chances aren’t zero, you are less likely to get viruses

It is more efficient than Windows, because it only runs on a limited set of hardware variations, so you can easily optimize the operating system, as opposed to Windows or Linux where you have to make it compatible with a wide variety of hardware.

Macs also heavily cater to the creativity market in the hardware/software department, so if you hang around artsy communities, your likely hood of seeing a Mac is very high. It’s because Microsoft pissed those companies off in the 90’s, so Steve Jobs swooped in. I record music as a hobby, and Macs are less of a headache to use than Windows for it. A lot of the hardware is plug and play, while I have to spend a ton of time fiddling with stuff, or downloading various things to get my hardware to run on Windows.

 

With Linux, it has some of the benefits of MacOS (ie lack of viruses), but it’s more catered to “power users” than Windows and Mac, and is a lot more customizable. If you’re into tinkering, it’s for you. Using the command line (aka terminal) is very popular.

When you asked earlier what a distro was, it’s just the jargon for “variant” of Linux, and is short for distribution. So like my truck analogy earlier, saying distro, is like saying model. “I have an F150, I have a Silverado. Well Linux users will say “I run Ubuntu, I run Gentoo”.

Differences in distros will vary in a myriad of ways, and to make things more confusing, there are variations of Linux based off of an existing distro. Some differences will be the varying degrees of user friendlyness. Some versions require to do things only through command line, and others have it to where you never have to use it. Some also let you install software through their App Store, or just install it by double clicking the install file. Others have you build the installer yourself. Some of those make you wonder why do it the hard way, but some people just find it fun.

The reason why people claim Linux is better is that if you’re a power user, you have full control over it, and you can customize it yourself.

There is a degree of snobbery behind some users, because Linux is considered the “smart people OS”, so some people use it as a badge of “I’m smarter than you”. It also increases significantly alongside the difficulty of the distro. So a distro like Gentoo where you essentially have to program the OS yourself, and everything about it, they will let you know they use it without you asking.

 

If you’re still confused, feel free to pick whichever portion(s) you’re confused about, and I’ll break it down further.

In all honesty, there’s no “better” OS, it’s just what fits your use case.

[Is Gaming on Linux A Worthwhile Experience?]

10 hours ago, Ajibusu said:

Key fix for Linux. They need to make a move to setting up their software to have a better easier user interface. This is where Windows come handy for folks not great with setting up their PC. 

They have distros that are beginner friendly, and have been around for years. Ubuntu, Elementary, and Mint are really easy to set up and use. Do you know how to click next a bunch of times and wait? Cool, you’re now certified in how to install those distros.

If you want to install software, a lot of distros work like Windows and MacOS, where you download an installer file, double click, and do the difficult task of hitting next a bunch of times. Or if that’s too arduous, a lot of distros have app stores, and work just like it does on Windows, Mac, or your phone/tablet.

[Linux, Unix, Dos. What the hell is the difference?]

5 hours ago, The Blackangel said:

Even after all the replies, I still feel like an idiot. I can't understand anything posted here. That's not you guys' fault. I want to make that crystal clear. The fault is entirely on me. I'm not particularly smart. I'm creative, but not particularly smart.

If you tell us where you’re lost, we can try to explain it in further detail.

[Fail to grasp?]

2 hours ago, DC said:

It's so disrespectful when someone does not respect your time. Whether it is a date, getting together with friends or family, or a business meeting.

I think we all have that one friend in the group who shows up to something 20-30 minutes late. I hosted a poker night last night and made it clear that the first hand would be dealt 10 minutes after the agreed upon start time. Sure enough, one guy was 30 minutes late and he had lost some chips due to the big blind / small blind. Oh well, not going to delay our fun.

I give dates 5 minutes and business meeting 10 minutes. I can't deal with individuals are late and do not at least give a reasonable excuse in advance.

If someone is going to be egregiously late, at least send a courtesy text. Though usually the people I have an issue with are habitually late.

I knew a guy where if you told him an event starts at noon, he leaves his house at noon.

[Fail to grasp?]

Some people don’t understand being on time. I’m not gonna bitch at someone for being 5 mins late, but there’s always that one person that’s 20-30 mins late.

[Why is it so hard to adapt video games well to film?]

5 hours ago, Moonface said:

I think part of the problem is whether a game adaptation into a movie is choosing to target existing fans or try to get in new ones. Resident Evil is a perfect example; it takes the bare minimum content from the games and just uses it as a basis to make a bunch of zombie movies that will appeal more to people who aren't fans of the series than those who are. Making a movie for the fans runs the risk of more criticism as existing fans will scrutinize it way more; just look at the Sonic movie when it was first revealed or the reception to Chris Pratt voicing Mario in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie. Whereas for non-fans of the games, you just need to make something that is good enough for them to consume it without the worry of comparison to the games, and better yet the game provides a lot of the material and saves needing to create something entirely from scratch.

I can see that. It’s really difficult to create something that pleases both fans, and people who don’t know anything about it. It can be a double edged sword.

Sometimes fans also don’t know what the hell they want. It’s not uncommon to see sky high expectations that are completely unrealistic to achieve in a coherent fashion. Some of the things they want to see just come off as bad fan fiction.

It can seem douchy that these studios are making the films just for the money, but sometimes you have to wonder if you’re spending that much money on making the film, are there enough fans to care to make your money back, or just take the easier route and cater to non-fans?

You also might have to take off your fan glasses and gamer glasses, and sit back and think, can some of these actually  make a good movie in the first place? Since it’s a game, half the appeal is the gameplay, so if you take away the gameplay, does it now just become a generic genre film? That’s something you gotta ask yourself.

[Best place to buy equipment?]

I get stuff from Guitar Center, Sam Ash, Amazon, and Reverb.

Amazon is nice for my guitar pedals, but for the instruments, I tend to go to the other 3. Guitar Center and Sam Ash because they’re local, and Reverb for discontinued items.