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HBO has screwed up our culture.
I singlehandedly blame HBO and its penchant for producing melodramatic serial dramas that feign artistic merit but are actually nothing more than pop media masquerading as drama under the air of self-important soliloquy and ill-conceived contemporary reinvisioning of classic archetypes. The basic premise for any HBO drama produced in the last decade is:
1) Take something people dislike.
2) Make the participants as likeable as possible.
3) Make viewers feel bad for liking somebody who should be unlikeable.
4) Have said character moan monotonously about their existence.
5) Pretend that is artful storytelling.
"Oh, what if Grendel was sympathetic, and Beowulf was the bad guy!"
I don't have to point out examples, because EVERY HBO DRAMA is guilty of the same thing. And eventually, it seeped into the cultural psycho so much, people started wanting it everywhere. Now, dark and grim are the nouveau entree du jour, with studios scrambling to reinvent old ideas to serve the dark god of "things need to be arbitrarily and childishly morally confusing in order to be taken seriously".
Case in point, the Dark Knight. Granted, Batman is ripe for dark and gritty, but the simplistic moral lessons of the movie are so overtly ridiculous that it ends up teaching us nothing about humanity but people end up thinking it is the greatest thing since Plato's "Republic". My target to illustrate my point is the boat scene. The peon reaction to this has been "oh, that is so diabolically inventive, it is such a great question, blah, blah, blah". It is a childish morality game. Baldur's Gate II asked the same question off-hand in the first adventure in the game, yet when Christopher Nolan does it, it is the Ultimate Test of Humanity. Thanks for beating me over the head with something I came to grips with when I was in Elementary School.
An entire generation is being fed pedestrian drama under the guise of high philosophy. Let me state this bluntly, psychotics do not sit around debating morality - they do not understand morality, that is why they are psychotic. Pretending otherwise is just an arbitrary illusion to manufacture a dramatic situation that would never exist.
And while I am here, I feel like I should address the current comedic culture of "zinger" comedy. Comedies these days are nothing but a string of one-liners, delivered in the same sarcastic staccato pace by actors pretending to be 10 years younger than they actually are. These are low-brow comedies, no matter how funny they may be at the time. When I show someone a genuinely funny film, like a Marx brothers movie, they stare with blank looks on their faces like "where's the snide off-hand comments delivered every 6 seconds like it was going out of style". "It's there, it's just too creative for you, and they do it with a wink." It's like some sort of wierd attempt to simulate the way friends communicate, except for one thing - when friends laugh at each-others jokes, it is in the moment. After one viewing of these comedies, the jokes fall flat, because like your friends, they are "of the moment", they are funny not because they are genuine, but because they are spontaneous. There is no pathos, only empty reaction.
Now, back to my griping about melodrama, let me now indict the greatest enemy to human beings: Spiderman. I once quite enjoyed the movies of Sam Raimi, until he took himself seriously. Really, do we need to listen to Tobey Maguire puke mindless teenage angst into our ears? The movie was written to cater to lovesick adolescents with abandonment issues. Give me Christopher Reeve gleefully hanging on wires any day.
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I'm not sure, but it usually goes like this:
sci fi=>comic books=> t.v.
I blame the cyberpunk movement, and the gritty antihero crap; by the time it gets to t.v. it's done to death and ready for musak.
Just a theory. I noticed it when I saw the Niven=>comic book=>Star Trek episode that barely addresses the concept in question progression before.
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The following story was on UK MSN news today. I invite someone to write a suitable reply. Saern?
'Obese' banned in school letters
Parents will be told if their child has a weight problem under Government plans but letters home must not contain the word "obese".
The Department of Health is urging all primary care trusts (PCTs) to automatically tell parents their child's height and weight as part of a national measuring programme.
But ministers do not want the word "obese" to be used in the letters home after research showed people find it "highly offensive" - instead, the heaviest children should be referred to as being "very overweight", they said.
How about using this one "Your kid's a f++#ing fatass. Tell the little walrus to stop eating lard out of the bucket and get some f$%+ing exercise for once." It's technical.
Just for the record, when I was in elementary and middle school, I was the fat kid. I weigh the same now as I weighed in the fifth grade (165 pounds). I got up to about 180 when I was a high school freshman, and that's about when I decided enough was enough. I halved my diet and joined the track team, and as a result, dropped forty pounds in ten months. After that, I looked better, felt better physically, and had better *self-esteem*.
In other words: parents, kids, I don't care what you say.
"My kid's fat and I don't know what to do..." I know what to do. Drag your kid's fat lard ass off of the couch, burn the twinkies (tm), and get them outside.
"I'm fat and nobody likes me..." Kid, it's entirely your fault. Now fix it. Prove you're not a weak little baby seal about to be clubbed by life. DO SOMETHING.
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My LATEST RANT (note to reader, in the future, make sure the voice you are hearing reading any of my rants is that of Henry Rollins):
I recently went on a ten-day backpacking trip at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. In all my years of dealing with the Scouts, it was the biggest clusterf$#! I've ever seen.
I went with my joint Venture / Explorer crew of 8, out of Ticonderoga, New York.
- Myself (assistant crew leader #2)
- Alex, 19 - My best friend since we were kids, as well as a fellow gamer, Alex is a stable, patient, and all-round great guy. (crew quartermaster)
- David, 16 - A quiet, moody kid. I've known him for several years through Scouts, and he seems like a nice guy. (crew chaplain)
- Kevin, 15 - The youngest member of the crew, Kevin is an energetic, irrepressible kind of guy. (no assigned position)
- Jeff, 51 - David's father, an ex-cop. Nice guy, but didn't get along well with his son. (no assigned position, but carried most of the gear)
- Eain, 22 - One of my best friends, Eain is a hardcore hiker and rock climber. A little arrogant, but generally a good guy. (crew leader)
- Alan, 45 - Arrogant, self-absorbed prick. (assistant crew leader #1)
- James "Seamus", 20 - The ranger assigned by the administration, Seamus was kind of an honorary member of the crew. A fellow gamer and Firefly fan, as well as a great person. (crew ranger)
OK, now that we've gotten that out of the way...
We were traveling to Philmont with five other crews in a contingent of sixty people, and were the only Venture crew. The average age of the rest of the contingent was about 14, and there were... maturity problems.
Like screaming that they wanted pizza. Or deciding to sing the *ahem* "Big Penis Song" when I'm trying to sleep.
Now imagine that you're stuck with these a%!**$@s on a plane for eight hours, plus a six-hour bus ride, plus two shitty rathole hotels.
And then there was the contingent leader, Ray. By day a bus mechanic, Ray is the type of guy where if you give him an ounce of power, he thinks he's Jesus Motherf$~*ing Christ. For example, he made our crew get on the bus last because we didn't have matching socks. Or trading in his broken gear for our working gear in the dead of night. Ass-f!&%er. I hate that guy.
We set out on the trail, and true to form, Alan decides that he's the boss, and takes over the whole show. Eain and I resigned ourselves to making sure the REST of the crew knew Alan was full of shit.
Two days out, Kevin accidentally spills a pot of Ramen. Alan goes absolutely monkeyshit, pacing back and forth repeating "gonna have a bear tonight, gonna have a bear tonight".
Alan - "Gonna have a bear tonight."
Eain - looks at me
Me - "Dad... Dad let me drive the Corvette. Up, up and down the driveway."
Eain - cracks up
Alan - "Gonna have a bear tonight."
Me - "Five minutes to Wapner. Uh-oh."
These minor little things escalated until two days later. That's when several different shits hit the fan.
We were hiking back down from Mt. Baldy with two other crews (about 12,000 feet) and discovered a service road. No problem. About two miles in, we realized that the road leads off Philmont property. Alan insists we keep going. Seamus checks the map. Surprise! No road. Alex suggests we call base camp. Alan grabs the phone and calls base camp (managing to spin it so that it was his idea). They deny the road's existence. All the while, (the conversation lasted about an hour) several of the group (including me) are suffering from moderate altitude sickness (I was dizzy and stumbling around, David was puking), people are saying we need to turn back.
Finally, after two hours of dicking around at the base, we climb BACK UP THE F%@#ING MOUNTAIN. It is now two PM. We are four hours behind schedule. The clouds are rolling in, and approximately thirty people are stranded on the top of a mountain. Suddenly, no one can find Alan. At this point, visibility is down to a hundred feet. One crew remains at the top, and the other two (us included) head off on a ridge that heads down the slope. We discover Alan standing on a knife-edge ridge blowing a whistle (huh?).
Alan - "Where were you guys? You were supposed to follow me!"
Jeff (veins popping) - "What is your problem? You left us. You just don't DO that."
Alan - "No, you were supposed to follow ME."
We let it slide because visibility was down to twenty feet, and it was getting really dangerous. We ended up making it back to our camp at about seven at night. F!+!...
It went like THAT until the last day when the big dookie went down.
The previous night, I had discovered that our route was not, in fact, one mile (as Alan had stated), but was, in fact, six miles. Myself, Jeff, and Seamus woke everyone up at four AM so we could make our pick-up point. Alan takes off, and part of the group follows him. Now we have two groups: Alan, Kevin, David, and Eain; and myself, Jeff, Seamus, and Alex. I have the map. Alan has no idea where he's going.
By some f&@~ing miracle, we all make it to the pick-up. The ensuing shit-fight between Alan, me, Seamus, and Jeff was so epic that I can barely remember the details.
What is it about Scouting trips that turns grown men into vicious children, and turns normal kids into vicious animals? I don't know. All I know is that it PISSES ME THE F~~@ OFF.
1) Holy crap! You're a SCOUT! Hell man, you get to sit next to me at D&D games. Now that I'm older, I guess I have to become an eagle scout. How do I go about that?
2) The jerk you mentioned sounds so much like my boss, it's uncanny. The man pretends not to hear your ideas during group meetings only to bring them up in the LAST FIVE MINUTES of the meeting and make it all sound like his idea. I have no patience for that kind of bullcrap.
3) Friends fight. Hopefully this has not resulted in a permanent rift between you two. Believe me, in a few years from now, you two will be laughing about this.
4) The maturity problem..probably why I didn't continue in cub scouts and become a boy scout. Its' hard when you're 11 years old and far and away the most mature person in the room. And the median age is 18. Still, are you sure you didn't go up there with too large of a group? Scouting DOES knock a few years off the maturity meter, but in my (ASTONISHINGLY LIMITED) experience, it's not as much of a problem when you have fewer kids(easier to control) AND adults(fewer people to share power with).
Scout memories...returning...never been called a 'faggot' so many different ways in my life...now hate the great outdoors...scouts honor, I will never return to the woods....
Separate rant.
The creative director of the department where I work drinks too much coffee, likely has attention deficit disorder and speaks about a mile a minute. And every other word seems to be "f#&$". I have a mouth like a sailor, I'm not saying I don't curse. But I watch it and I'm trying to curb it, especially if I'm talking to a co-worker or a boss (you know, an otherwise "formal" conversation). There's supposed to be an implied respect at the very least between an employer and an employee; four letter words likely being very very limited, especially when offering criticism. I don't know if it's because we're "freelancers" (meaning full time employees that are not offered insurance) and therefore not permanent or more "casual" than a fully insured staff person; regardless, I'm curious how he speaks to everyone else.
DM's who don't understand that when someone works 10-12 hours in ONE DAY, they really don't have the attention span to play 6-8 hours of D&D.
A lot of great stuff serving as a perfect example of why I never became a scout.
"things need to be arbitrarily and childishly morally confusing in order to be taken seriously".
Its when I come upon stuff like this that I wish Paizo would let you have personal tags or quotes or whatever the hell they are called.
Any way interesting observations but I think your just playing the part of Cranky McOld Guy raging at whatever it is the kids are doing.
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"things need to be arbitrarily and childishly morally confusing in order to be taken seriously".Its when I come upon stuff like this that I wish Paizo would let you have personal tags or quotes or whatever the hell they are called.
Any way interesting observations but I think your just playing the part of Cranky McOld Guy raging at whatever it is the kids are doing.
Most likely a bit of that, I admit. But I generally think most people are equally stupid, no matter the demographic. ;)
STOP SKATEBOARDING IN MY PARKING LOT!
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1) Holy crap! You're a SCOUT! Hell man, you get to sit next to me at D&D games. Now that I'm older, I guess I have to become an eagle scout. How do I go about that?
Ehhh... You have to fulfill the requirements and sit for your board of review before your eighteenth birthday. However, if you're a member of the Order of the Arrow, the equivalent award (Vigil) may be attained at any age.
2) The jerk you mentioned sounds so much like my boss, it's uncanny. The man pretends not to hear your ideas during group meetings only to bring them up in the LAST FIVE MINUTES of the meeting and make it all sound like his idea. I have no patience for that kind of bullcrap.
Which jerk?
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Scout memories...returning...never been called a 'f#&got' so many different ways in my life...now hate the great outdoors...scouts honor, I will never return to the woods....
Wow. Your troop must have sucked.
My troop didn't used to suck, but it started to, so I switched to Venturing. Much less suckage. And more girls.
OH no, Shiny! Damnit, Memories coming back, ahhhhhhh! *In Alan voice* Oh no there is going to be bear tonite. I wish i didn't know him >:P
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1) Holy crap! You're a SCOUT! Hell man, you get to sit next to me at D&D games. Now that I'm older, I guess I have to become an eagle scout. How do I go about that?Ehhh... You have to fulfill the requirements and sit for your board of review before your eighteenth birthday. However, if you're a member of the Order of the Arrow, the equivalent award (Vigil) may be attained at any age.
I don't think he meets the Prerequisites for that Prestige class.....
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Whole lot of stuff.
Reminds me of my days as a scoutmaster. I had just turned 19, so I was barely out of scouts myself when the Scoutmaster asks me to become his assistant. Possibly because of all my wilderness experience in ROTC and the reserves. One of our first treks I take with them is a day hike. The Scoutmaster assures us it's a one day hike and we'll be home before dinner.
We get there and we start hiking. Noon rolls around and the scouts start asking when we will be having lunch. The Scoutmaster says we'll eat when we reach the top, which should be in about a half hour. Finally we reach the top at 5 pm. The Scoutmaster decides that since we're running late, someone should double time it down the mountain and let our rides know we're behind. I get nominated.I pawn as much of my gear as I can off on to the scouts and head of down the mountain with just my canteen. I break every rule of hiking by just plowing through the woods instead of following the switchbacks around. Alright truth be told I found a game trail and thought it would cut one maybe two switchbacks off my trip. Instead I missed them all and ended up at the trailhead. I make it down the mountain in about an hour using my new trail. When I got to the bottom the rangers were there about to send a rescue party up to look for us. Turns out the trail we took was supposed to be a three day hike.
You would think I had learned my lesson, but I didn't. A month later we were out in the desert above San Diego for a fifty mile hike. We planned for five days, planning a sedate pace of 10 miles a day. We also took a case of Jolt each. Days One through Three went okay, other than the time we hiked past the old whorehouse that is now a historical monument, and had to detour to by Desetin for several of the scouts. On Day Four we realize that the route the Scoutmaster had planned was not fifty miles but 150 miles and that we were nowhere near where we were supposed to be. So, in the pre cell phone era, we had to find a town, find a pay phone, and contact our ride home and tell them where to meet us. Then we had to do a forced march across the desert 30 miles on the last day to get to the road where our ride would pick us up.
You would think I learned my lesson but I stayed on as assistant scoutmaster right up until my spot for active duty opened up. I could tell you more stories, but I think you get the point. Maybe one day I'll tell you about his bright idea to go down the Colorado river on an inner tube.
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I've been involved in three scout groups, as a scout wannabe and, much later, as a parental figure, and every frikkin' time it's the same damn game. The Scoutmasters kid makes Eagle Scout, despite doing nothing to earn it and being a complete terror with gross personality defects (perhaps an indication of the parenting skills of their Scoutmaster parent), and then the Scoutmaster quits, leaving everyone else holding their cheese.
So far it seems to be on-the-job-training for the real world, where people are selfish dicks who only looks out for themselves and happily uses everyone else to get ahead.
On the other hand, you never know when that macrame I learned in the crafts section of scout camp will turn in handy when I'm stuck in the jungle and need to make a hammock out of vines so that I'm not sleeping in the path of the army ants.
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ARG! MUNCHKINS!
Stop arguing that fighters are useless at high levels just because they can't bend reality. Stop telling me that X average damage needs to be met in order for a character to be useful. Stop telling me that an animal companion is better than a fighter with a dozen feats and magical items. Stop telling me that you can bind anything you want without consequences. Stop telling me that wizards are invulnerable. Stop telling me that rogues are broken because of blinking. Stop telling me that barbarians are broken because rage is so awesome to get as a multiclass ability. Stop telling me damage reduction is useless when it basically contradicts your argument that average damage is the baseline of usefulness. Stop telling me that if everything goes according to plan something is broken (yes, everything always goes according to the plans of the players...) Stop telling me that evil creatures will be nice to you because you imprison them. Stop telling me that if only a DM let's them use everything they want with no justification that their character is perfect. Stop telling me that anyone who doesn't min-max the crap out of their character is a tool. Stop telling me that your character can do 1,000,000 points of damage in a round, because so can my brand new NPC and all of his buddies. Stop telling me that certain things are useful becuase they last all day, but other things aren't because you only have 1 fight per day. Stop telling me that you can make demon paladins with awesome abilities thanks to their evil bloodline. Stop telling me that anyone who roleplays needs to understand the mechanics as well. Stop telling me that a character concept is inferior because it doesn't take the best options available. Stop telling me your unimpressive mathematical formulae, I get it, you can calculate averages. Stop telling me your opinions on things being broken, start telling me the exact examples of that occuring in your games. Stop telling me that if I use DM Fiat that I am not being fair to my players when they act like tweaks. Stop being rude. Stop turning everything into a debate about the numbers, if a ranger wants an animal companion it doesn't have to be freaking Godzilla. Stop advocating for more power creep, we just end up in the same situation you are complaining about now. Stop looking at things only as a player, try DMing a game for once. Stop using rules that are not core and assuming everyone uses them. Stop using non-core rules to prove that the core rules are broken. Stop making things up or ignoring things when they shut down your argument. Stop making characters into gods at one thing, and then complaining the rules are broken when the DM points out your weaknesses. Stop trying to convince simulationists that they are playing the game wrong. I get it already, you think everything is broken and you really enjoy number crunching.
JUST
STOP
*phew*
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I'm lucky in that respect. I have one player who thinks he can optimize the crap out of his characters (he calls it 'number crunching') but he really can't pull anything super impressive off (effective, yes, hardly game breaking). I'm thankful for them.
I'd trade ya for him.....mine pull together the 'super impressive' all the time.
Nice rant Jal!
(in the UK) the so-called 'employment services'...
Who are apparently interested in everything EXCEPT helping you get a job, and then want to know why you haven't been defrauding them (an illegal act) since apparently they expect you to do so.
I'm not surprised if UK crime figures & the prison population are soaring; the 'employment services' seem to operate (at least in my area) with the sole goal of boosting those figures as much as possible.
It's a trap!
I've worked that out now! Where were you several years ago, though? :D
It's a trap!
Trapped...*sob*
Anti-Rant
Friday's game was the best I've ever had the opportunity to play in! It started off looking like a failure. The group's inexperience (see "On Newbs, Part One" in the 3.5/OGL forums) was a problem again early on, and some players were missing. We were trying to play in our traditional spot, the communal game room on campus. Over the summer, no one was ever there, but since the semester started two weeks ago, it's been crowded and wholly unsatisfactory. A student government group came in and sat down to a meeting not ten feet from us, with a bunch of little kids running around them. The distractions were terrible, and no one could get into the game. As the afternoon wore on and we talked (about non-D&D things) more than we played, I was getting rather despondant (note that I was a player, not the DM). One of our players had to go, but then another arrived shortly.
We decided, since we'd already taken a break from the "game," we might as well look for another spot. There was a quiet corner we'd been forced to play in once before. We decided to make due there. It hadn't been that fun the first time, but with a different arrangement of the furniture, it proved ideal! It was well out of the way of most traffic, both visually and audibly, and really let us get into the game. The two other new players present took to the roleplaying very well.
The campaign is in Eberron, and we had to investigate a necropolis outside of Sharn, hunting a cult of the Blood of Vol. After finding a promising tunnel, we found ourselves in a sanctuary of sorts, smeered and covered in blood with bodies and pieces thereof everywhere, and a massive pool of blood in the center. Out of this red fluid emerged none other than a boneclaw (MM 3). None of the other players knew what it was; I expected death, as we were just 3rd level. But surprisingly, it spoke rather than attacked! It was chained, and said it had been placed unwillingly by the cult as a guardian, and held the key needed to proceed. It was willing to aid us in return for its freedom. The party pulled away a bit into a huddle, and we had an excellent roleplaying experience where our characters debated whether it was moral, ethical, or even smart to agree to the creature's demands, considering he could be lying to us and planning to betray us at a critical point.
In the end, we could arrive at no other alternative, and so we reluctantly agreed to help the creature. But first we had to get the key to unchain the beast, as the bonds were made of adamantine. This led to an ancient crypt in which spirits of law and chaos had been bound. The boneclaw told us that we had to find the right crypt to locate the key, and if we found the wrong one, something bad would happen. We found two crypts, and each had a key, one with an invocation of chaos and another with a dictum of law. We had another roleplayed debate about chaos vs. law, then decided to pick up both keys simultaneously (requiring Dex checks, which we made). Then both the law and chaos spirits animated, and each demanded we put the other key back and choose theirs. Another roleplaying argument broke out, and this time it looked almost as if our characters were going to take sides with the spirits and fight each other over this philosophical difference.
At the last moment, some really persuasive roleplaying (and the desire to not hack each other apart), pulled us all back into the middle, at which point both law and chaos spirits attacked us. A massive battle followed with plenty of action for everyone, and we ended the sessions taking some sweet magic stuff from the fallen leaders of the two spirit factions.
A lot of it was "in the moment," and thus doesn't translate into the telling so well, but I just had to write about it here because of how exciting and fun it was! This is what D&D should be like.
Sheesh; what is up with pbp games; I have been in like seven that failed; dm left; players left; apparently nothing to do with me; but sheesh; this sucks; I get all motivated and keep getting the rug pulled out; I look longingly at those games with thousands of posts and just say; is it me; I cant imagine that it is; but does any pbp really succeed? I had a great time in each game and they just died a horrible, stinging death; argh!
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My rant shall be brief:
These boards are rapidly turning into the WotC boards. I left those boards because of the chest thumping asshats that have a mind of 'my playstyle is the right way and yours is wrong even if you enjoy it.' These asshats are rapidly filling the beta forums with their bullshit and I'm even more rapidly growing tired of reading their crap; to be honest, it's incredibly irritating that these people are allowed to run rampant here. While I won't begrudge any of the mods for not taking action (I really don't expect them too, they're too nice to so so and I can understand that) I'm quickly growing tired of coming here only to see dozens of posts by the same few jerkwads constantly insulting other people's playstyles just because they play differently than said jerks.
*sighs*
I'm done with it for awhile.
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My rant shall be brief:
These boards are rapidly turning into the WotC boards. I left those boards because of the chest thumping asshats that have a mind of 'my playstyle is the right way and yours is wrong even if you enjoy it.' These asshats are rapidly filling the beta forums with their b*!*@~~~ and I'm even more rapidly growing tired of reading their crap; to be honest, it's incredibly irritating that these people are allowed to run rampant here. While I won't begrudge any of the mods for not taking action (I really don't expect them too, they're too nice to so so and I can understand that) I'm quickly growing tired of coming here only to see dozens of posts by the same few jerkwads constantly insulting other people's playstyles just because they play differently than said jerks.
*sighs*
I'm done with it for awhile.
The balm for that itch is to get involved in the rest of the forums before going to the Beta parts. Aside from the Beta/Website forums, those posters don't really care about the rest of the boards so you can enjoy your time here.
I agree though, and it ticks me off that decent players are being put off of the playtest process because of a few posters. The best advice I can give is that if you see a poster doing what you describe, just ignore it and change the topic of discussion. They frequently have only a handful of talking points, and don't engage in discussions outside of their special interests.
Chin up! A similar thing happened with the Alpha release. It went away.
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I shall also make a brief rant. I get really frustrated by two things on this board, one is people who use terms that I don't understand and the other is people who get so caught up in thinking that they are right and will not conceed when someone else makes a valid point. Can't we all just use the English language? Can't we all just admit when someone else makes a point that is contrary to ours? Why do we get so emotionally involved with our points of view, that someone pointing out the flaws in them is akin to attacking our children? I am just as guilty at times, so lets all pledge to do better.
Rantrantrant...
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Why do we get so emotionally involved with our points of view, that someone pointing out the flaws in them is akin to attacking our children? I am just as guilty at times, so lets all pledge to do better.You're wrong about this, I know for a fact. I checked Wikipedia.
True, Wikipedia does say I'm always right, so I must be wrong.