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 Recent posts by
Pat Payne:
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A very beautiful post, Dove.
DoveArrow wrote:
I am not a Creationist. I find the evidence for natural selection and a 5 billion year old earth much more compelling than the evidence for creationism and a 6,000 year old earth. I think the 'water canopy' theory used to explain Noah's flood is fallacious.
That being said, I do believe there was an event in Mesopotamia that flooded the entire region or at least a good portion of it. All the differing religious traditions (going as far back as Gilgamesh) from the region tell tales of a great flood that covered the Earth, leading me to believe that some sort of massive disaster did occur, even if it was much more limited in scope. There are even theories of the Black Sea overrunning its banks.
DoveArrow wrote:
On the other hand, I do not find Christianity, to be a threat to science. Pseudoscience wrapped in Christian trappings, yes, but not Christianity. A person can believe in God, yet accept that science can offer no proof of his existence. A person can accept the wisdom of Genesis, without believing in its literal truth.
A good story about that comes from my Catholic mother. While she was carrying me to term, she and my dad had gone to a bible study class in Pensacola, led by one Fr. Patrick Friar (who was apparently my namesake, and who was -- no kidding! a former Hare Krishna before taking his vows). At first it was ecumenical, opening the study session with "we Christians". Then Fr. Friar opened the Bible to a particular chapter, and talked about it being allegorical. He handled Jonah and the Whale in that manner. And Job, and Noah. Finally, after about three or four weeks, the opening was no longer "we Christians," but "we Catholics," as only the Catholics (who respect the Bible, but see it as guidelines and scripture and not the completely inerrant word of God) stuck in for the long haul.
Those who go and say that everything in the bible happened literally, or see it as a fully innerant document (ESPECIALLY those who take the KJV as the only valid translation -- read "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Eherenreich to see just how bad a translation it is) are missing the point completely. Whether or not it actually happened is not the point. The point is the message -- be good to one another. Do good works. Don't kill your neighbor.
DoveArrow wrote:
Yet many atheists seem to believe that religion is anathema to science. They seem to believe that people who believe in God do not accept the validity of science. I find fault with that line of reasoning. Just because you recognize that God cannot be proved by science, does not mean that you reject science's validity. Just because you find power and meaning in the written words of the Bible does not mean that you cannot feel awe and humility when gazing at the cosmos or studying nucleic acids. Science and religion both have power, they both have meaning, and just because they operate in separate spheres does not make one any more or less valid than the other.
Dove, why can't there be more people like you out there saying this? This is truth.
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Matthew Morris wrote:
I don't mind Ultimatum as a concept. But it seems to have gone from 'let's shake up the universe where death means something' to 'lets shock and disgust a lot of people'.
As to Wolverine/Cap/Thor dying, I'm one who's against it for iconics. Has Wolverine gotten silly? Yes. Is his death going to be sillier? Yes. Is his return in 1/3/5 years going to be silliest of all? Yes.
I'm actually taking him at his word that "dead means dead" and that Wolverine is not coming back, mostly because he doesn't have to worry about being forced to bring him back, and also, I've got a hunch that
Matthew Morris wrote:
Somewhere people forgot that in comics the good guys are supposed to win. We don't root for Cap because he's in danger, we root for him because he doesn't know he has 'PC Shields' we root for Cap because he does the right thing.
QFT. Even antiheroes still are motivated by what's right. Han Solo may have wanted the money, but he still came back to save Luke's bacon at the end of the movie. They just go about upholding right in a way different from the stereotypical "knight in shining armor." But the post-modern BS of the "Dork Age" 90s threw that for a loop.
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I trace Cap going downhill to 'Truth'. It offended me that they'd a) trivialize the Tuskeegee experiment like that and b) they'd darken Cap's origin story. Steve Rogers has been risking everything since he first took that serum.
Again, it's the idea that "everything you thought you knew is wrong" and "nothng in this world can go untarnished" with a hefty dose of politically correct sermonizing thrown in. And you're right -- the Tuskeegee experiments were mockeries of any sort of medical ethics and human dignity, and to turn them into the back-plot of Captain America? A disgrace.
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Wolverine lost his edge when he lost the mystery.
If handled right, it could have worked. I just did not buy the convoluted BS story that was handed us in Origin. I liked the hints that Sabertooth was Wolverine's dad.
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Take away the shield and the stars and stripes, Steve Rogers <i>remains</i> Captain America. John Walker proved that.
Well said. A true hero doesn't need fancy pajamas -- he just is.
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Set wrote:
Kevin Mack wrote:
All well and good till someone else comes along who liked said character and brings them back.
Yup, and, in some ways, this is a good thing. Far too many halfway decent characters are ganked off to establish the badassitude of some brand new mega uber awesome bad-guy that we may never see (or want to see) again, like Stryfe or the She-Xavier Cassandra Nova or whomever.
I agree. That's while I applaud the balls of killing off Wolverine permanently, it seems, on the face of it, almost the apotheosis of the mindset of the titles in the past decade, treating Wolverine as a "uber-munchkin" who needs to be regularly swatted down by a killer DM. Then again, in the comics, Wolverine's healing has become ridiculous in recent years -- up to and including regenerating fully from a handful of cells on his skeleton, IIRC. And, of course, as you point out, that was meant both to show the badassitude of the new villain of the week, while preserving the "deceased" for later commercial exploitation.
But here, it was also intended instead to send a message, just as Steve Rogers' death was in Captain America, that the game has changed significantly, that safe characters are no longer safe, that actions have consequences (remember, Steve didn't die at the hands of some badass new minion of the Red Skull, but instead to a prosaic lone gun(wo)man, with the at least estated motive being the events of the recently-concluded Civil War.) If done sparingly, it keeps the audience on their toes -- no longer are heavily marketable characters going to be spared for the sake of merchandising (and as to the other objection about XMF -- that a subsequent writer after CC could undo all of it, it's been pretty much made explicit that if CC quits the title, it will NOT be continued by others, as it is such a personal project, making him almost uniquely free from marketing dictates). Think of it like the new Star Trek -- Vulcan was destroyed so that JJ Abrams could say "This is not the predictable Trek Universe you thought you knew. Kirk may not get a bridge dropped on him in the future. He might die from eating a bad tribble sandwich next week."
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I don't mind the 'revolving door' when it's applied to characters who were ganked off in a fairly meaningless way, when a decent writer can latch on to some abandoned third-tier schlub like the Swamp Thing or the Sandman or Madrox or whomever and turn them into a character capable of maintaining their own book.
I do, only because it's a cheap way out. It really is not valid from a story standpoint 75% of the time, meant only to allow subsequent writers/artists to be able to play with favored characters that previous creative teams killed off, or to allow the parent company to reintroduce a favored character whom the fans would buy multiple copies of an issue to see return, or for some other external reason that has nothing to do with the story.
I agree with the "meaningless" part though -- a character's death shouldn't be a "whoops, he just slipped and impaled himself on his own Adamantium claws" sort of deal, but should have an impact on the story. While it was a blatant, brazen, meant-to-be-reversed-from-panel-one marketing gimmick, Superman's "death" was very much meaningful, "dying" to save Metropolis from the rampage.
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Marvel has traditionally been the worst at that sort of thing, with incidents like the 'Bar With No Name' incident, which firmly established Scourge as someone who would be... written off as boring and promptly forgotten and left fallow for 10 years!
Yeah... Scourge was a wasted opportunity. They wove him in half the titles in the '80s as an omnipresent, creepy and cool serial killer/vigilante, and then promptly killed him like a chump. Also, though, the incident IIRC was meant to clear away some of the "chaff" of Marvel villainhood, allowing the editors at the time to permanently dispose of some of the more embarrassing baddies in a clear and unambiguous manner. I mean, really -- who misses "Turner D. Century", a villain who looked like he should be conning rich dowagers, starting a marching band in River City and riding bikes with a comically large front wheel?
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I guess I don't mind resurrection being cheap and meaningless, since the character's deaths have been mostly cheap and meaningless for the last decade or so.
But at the same time, most of those deaths and resurrections (at least of major characters) were intended as marketing gimmicks, not organic evolutions in the book. If Claremont had had his way, Jean Grey would probably have stayed dead after Dark Phoenix, with Madelyne Pryor being just what she was billed as originally -- a one-in-a-billion perfect likeness of Jean, with nothing else special going on. Then, the X-editor at the time (can't remember whether it was still Ann Nocenti or if Bob Harras had taken over by then) decided to get the original X-Men back together as X-Factor, necessitating Jean's return. And the Goblyn Queen/Inferno. and Scott's out-of-character volteface going back to Jean. And the cockamamie plotline about Madelyn being a clone "honey pot" due to some bizarre infatuation Mr. Sinister has with the Summers family. And so on.
In the same way, do you REALLY think that Supes would have been killed by Doomsday only to go through a drawn-out (and highly saleable as collector's editions) funeral and resurrection process if the Superman titles hadn't been flagging in sales?
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Matthew Morris wrote:
Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
Pat Payne wrote:
That's why I'm waiting for X-Men Forever -- It's Chris Clairmont, with all that entails. :) Though thankfully he said he's striving to tone down the Tolstoy-sized ballons and the every-three-issue repetitions of how Rogue "cain't touch another livin' soul or Ah'll absorb their powahs..."
What is this X-Men Forever you speak of? O_x [...and a faint hope that X-Men can be good again shines feebly within PDK's soul, as he awaits the answer...]
Wiki Link.
Personally I'm hoping this means that Magneto stays dead from X-men 1-3. To me that was the most beautiful and noble death he's had yet.
Yes. Claremont had said in interviews that from now on, if he feels the need to use a dead character, his response to himself is going to be "tough s*** -- come up with someone even better."
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GAAAHHHH wrote:
Wicht wrote:
It has been my experience that if you just do a little research before trying out a new show you will get better results.
Some recomendations for shows that are not quite so formulaic a DragonBall Z:
Cowboy Bebop
Witchhunter Robin
Death Note
Azumanga Daioh
Grave of the Fireflies (very depressing)
Also check out:
Dominion: Tank Police
Project A-ko, Ranma1/2
Akira
Gunsmith Cats
Dirty Pair
Ninja Scroll
Ok. Those are all old anime, but they are still good (IMHO).
And:
Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (if you can find an old VHS copy, or have access to a R2 player and a bit of cash to spare)
Nerima Daikon Brothers (it can get formulaic pretty fast, but the individual episodes are laugh-out-loud funny)
Urusei Yatsura (Takahashi's best, IMO)
Gunbuster
Arcadia of My Youth (a bit long-winded but some grat space action)
Lupin III (any series, any special except Walther P-38, which has a thouroughly different tone)
Gatchaman (Not so much Battle of the Planets)
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CourtFool wrote:
English is a bastardization of just about every, other known language.
Really, just 3. The original Saxon languages were largely unified by the time of the dominance of Wessex in the 900s. Around the same time, English inflections (yes, Virginia, we were at one point an inflected languge) were shaved off to more easiy communicate with the Scandinavians occupying the north and east of England (the "Danelaw"), and the two languages, already similar enough, begand to meld together. Then, in 1066, the Normans invaded, and over the next century or two, English picked up Norman French. They're the three major sources of English as we know it, though loanwords from a myraid of languages have also been adopted.
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Lisa Stevens wrote:
veector wrote:
Xaaon of Xen'Drik wrote:
Do you think the current CEO of WotC is a gamer?
The head of Paizo is a gamer like us! WOO PAIZO!
Even more hardcore... she's the DM of a Pathfinder RPG Rise of the Runelords campaign!
...who left her players on a cliffhanger last night after a long battle against ogres in Fort Rannick. Just as they thought they had victory in their grasp, a number of Kreegs, including the commander, made an appearance. And Lucrecia appeared at their rear flank with a charmed druid's tiger in tow. The last words of the night:
"You guys sure have a nice kitty here." :)
The first response from my players?
"Can we get a couple rounds of healing in first?"
You can guess my answer. <evil GM grin>
Should be a fun fight next week!
-Lisa
Ouch. That's harsh. I love it! :D
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Patrick Curtin wrote:
tallforadwarf wrote:
...
Titanium Dragon on the WotC boards wrote:
Paizo isn't a way to help WotC. Its a way to hurt it.
People need to understand my opinion that 4E should be the only choice available.
Those companies aren't helping WotC at all. They are too good of competitors.
...
Bold edited to clarify the original message.
These people remind me of when I frequented the MacrossWorld (www.macrossworld.com, if you're a fan of the show :) ) message boards. We used to get these Robotech defenders who had this asinine idea that if Harmony Gold (sadly, the rights-holder for the series in America, and the reason I'll never get to see a R1 release of Do You Remember Love [thank God for Blu-Ray!]) acknolwdged and started releasing the original three series that made up Robotech in their original format, that Robotech would vanish, that some Gestapo would come and rip the Robotech tapes/discs out of their hands. It degenerated into flame wars and the exact kind of name-calling that Titanium Dragon is exhibiting.
"Wah, wah, there's not enough room in the RPG industry for us, therefore if Pathfinder thrives, then 4E is doomed!"
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And here is a copy of an email I've just sent to Wizards:
To whom it may concern:
I am greatly offended, angered and dismayed by Wizards of the Coast's recent orders to numerous online booksellers (chief among them Paizo and DriveThruStuff/One Book Shelf) to halt immediately their legal and authorized sales of Wizards of the Coast and TSR PDF offerings. I do not begrudge or challenge your right to do this, nor even the stricture that subsequent already-paid-for downloads were to be denied. I am angered at the unseemly haste and thourough lack of communication with your customers, many of whom are now bewildered by your actions. To this date, Wizards has not made an official explanation to the fans over the circumstances of the take down. I do not accept WizO_Trevor's posts on the official forums as such an explanation.
His response states that your takedown, done at an astonishingly neck-breaking speed (Gary Teeter of Paizo was apparently given all of an hour's notice to halt PDF sales), was to halt piracy. This is akin to closing the barn door after the horses have not only escaped, but returned to dismantle the barn with crowbars. If you had taken these actions a number of years ago, or even in the past year (when the high-profile piracy of the first Fourth Edition books was hitting the gamer news) Wizards's actions might seem more credible. However, now that those files are "in the wild", they will be traded with impunity by those with so little moral fibre as to steal. All Wizards has done is penalize us, the law-abiding. When one man runs over another with a car, the proper response is not to confiscate all cars. With the rash of high-profile shootings lately, the proper response is not to confiscate all guns. When illegally-produced PDFs of Wizard's intellectual property are being distributed, the proper response is not to deny access to legally-produced PDFs.
At best, the unseemly hast makes Wizards look like panicked fools. At worst, it makes them appear to be attempting to submerge the earlier editions of the Dungeons and Dragons family of games in favor of Fourth Edition. I am not, nor shall I most likely be a player of 4th Edition -- the game does not speak to me as previous editions did. This is not a fault in the game, but is my personal preference. However, with these actions today, that point is now moot.
As of today, I no longer consider myself a customer of Wizards of the Coast. If I find old TSR material that I wish to have, I will buy it from any of the fine second-hand shops either in the brick-and-mortar world or online. Instead, my money will now be spent with other fine RPG companies, who have a conception of the value of their customers. My account name on the Wizards website is MacrossSD. Please delete me from your system.
I'll leave you with this: Your company, Wizards of the Coast, back when it was still a company for gamers, bought an ailing TSR, brought to the brink of collapse by poor business decisions by the Blume brothers and then Lorraine Williams, including terminating licenses with Judges Guild (a long-standing partner of TSR's since the early days) and suing any fan who dared to post anything on the Internet devoted to the game, whether or not it directly challenged TSR's IP. With actions like the one two days ago, as well as other recent business decisions, Wizards is running the risk of following down the same path of plyer alienation as the post-Gygax TSR.
And I truly think that would be a shame.
Sincerely,
Patrick Payne
PS: I have also been dismayed by what appears to be a streak of favoritism amongst the moderators on the forums. There have been statements by those angered by the takedowns which have been censored (sometimes rightly, sometimes, in my opinion, wrongly) while a number of pro-Wizards posters have uttered very libellous statements, including accusing other companies of fraud (such as one I will append below), which have been allowed to stand without comment by the moderators. This speaks of a culture that goes by the adage "Marquis of Queensbury rules for you, we get to fight freestyle."
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=18281233&postcount=837
Kindly read the last paragraphs, where he accuses Paizo and DriveThruStuff of "cheating" consumers willfully.
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DMcCoy1693 wrote:
Pat Payne wrote:
"Then why the hell couldn't they hit me, a freakin' untrained farmboy, when I was standing on a ledge with no cover a mere 30 feet away from them? Well?"
They were ordered to miss.
"Are they away?"
"They've just made the jump into hyperspace."
"Are you secure the homing becon is secure aboard their ship? I'm taking an aweful risk here Vader. This had better work."
Only way they could into hyperspace and get away is if they were alive and they'd only go to the rebel base if they felt they just barely got away and they need to get the plans to the rebels right away.
Not to mention that Stormtroopers are freaking awesome the entire rest of the movie series.
[/bunny trail]
You and your logic... grrr (shakes fist) :)
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Pax Veritas wrote:
DMcCoy1693 wrote:
Gary, the Post Monster General, said he had 1 hour's notice. One Hour.
Classic Stormtrooper tactics!
"These weren't sandpeople. Look at the blast marks. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so preci--"
"Then why the hell couldn't they hit me, a freakin' untrained farmboy, when I was standing on a ledge with no cover a mere 30 feet away from them? Well?"
"Yes, Luke, I've got nothing. (I wish I were still doing Murder By Death right about now...)"
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Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:
I keep dwelliong on it. I want them to f~~~ing fry, I've developed an increased hatred of homophobes. So does it make me a bad person that I want them punished as horribly as possible. I've never been a violent person but now .....
These lunatics beat a person savagely because of what he is (and they better not try the drunk bit too much, that's not really a defense, if anything all it would do is argue against premeditation), and YOU'RE the one feeling guilt because you want to see them get a rightful punishment? O.o
You're not evil. You're not saying "I'm going to sneak into their cell and garotte them in their sleep" or "I'm going to go and kill their beloved puppies in revenge". You want to see them punished by a court of law. You want justice to take its course and find the lady witht he blindfold throwing her scales at them. This is not evil. And I have very short shrift with intolerant people of nay stripe myself -- what was that saying? "All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?"
(As an aside, IANL, but unless you have a good bit of proof, the attempted murder charge, sadly, probably won't stick. But there are some very nice jail terms for felony assault and battery we might be able to interest you in... ;) )
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Reggie wrote:
So much for finishing off my old 1e & Basic D&D collections.
Frustration is just not a big enough word to describe my...frustration.
reggie.
I know some words...
But Vic Wertz won't let me type them :P
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zacharythefirst wrote:
Joel's got the right of it. I'm not a 4e guy, but I still picked up a lot of old edition stuff in PDF (hey, get the Rules Cyclopedia while you can. It rocks). Now, my last reason for interaction with WotC is gone. If their PDFs do go back online, I wouldn't trust them not to do it again with the whole no-notice thing. They don't have my custom, and they don't have my trust.
I agree wholeheartedly, ZacharyTheFirst (by the way is that King Zachary? Duke Zachary? Emperor Zachary? Inquiring minds, you know...). I am now through with Wizards of the Coast. I shake their dust from my feet, wash my hands of them, and deny them water and fire. As far as I'm concerned they could just as well have hired back Lorraine Williams secretly. My money will no longer go to WotC, instead, it's going to Paizo (can't really use the Pathfinder system as I'm long since disenchanted with feats and skills, but I love the writing and imagination), to Troll Lord Games (home of my FRPG of choice, Castles and Crusades), to Pied Piper Publishing (Rob Kuntz's company) and to anyone else I choose -- just not WotC.
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Olangru wrote:
Pat Payne wrote:
TigerDave wrote:
Portella wrote:
Lisa will be unbeatable soon me must gather our forces.
Fools! That's exactly what she wants! Our armies would be like stalks of wheat before the scythe ...
We need to sneak in, and smash her source of power. Only then can she be confronted, and defeated! Gather a few of your best men - we meet tonight at the old abandoned farm ...
Nuke the site from orbit. That's the only way to be sure :)
Excellent ... a bit overkill for an old abandoned farm, but rather certain to not leave any of the sneakses alive ...
My friend, there ain't no killin' like overkillin' :evil grin:
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TigerDave wrote:
Portella wrote:
Lisa will be unbeatable soon me must gather our forces.
Fools! That's exactly what she wants! Our armies would be like stalks of wheat before the scythe ...
We need to sneak in, and smash her source of power. Only then can she be confronted, and defeated! Gather a few of your best men - we meet tonight at the old abandoned farm ...
Nuke the site from orbit. That's the only way to be sure :)
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