Stuff you don't get.

[bluestarultor]

It can be common tropes from games and movies, stupid things people do, common misconceptions, or anything else you can think of. Just post the stuff you don't get and maybe even get an answer from your venting.



In my case, it's about water spells and several types of weaponry in games. Water, in many cases, does not get representation, and in other cases is classified as a healing element. I get it, water is "the source of all life." But, practically, water is incredibly heavy. If you get hit by a big wave while standing, you go down. Because it has a density of 1, for every liter of the stuff you have thrown at you, you get hit with a kilogram (better than 2 pounds) of weight, or better than 8 pounds per gallon of the stuff. With how much mass an average spell throws around, water spells should be beating people senseless, not making you feel better.



On the weaponry front: staves, bows, and especially guns.

Staves are more understandable. They have a long real-world history as a nonlethal weapon and an association with magic that goes back pretty much as far as the written word. You're not going to slice somebody open with one or use it to impale people (ignoring fantasy staves often bearing ornaments that look like they'd really hurt if they didn't break). On the other hand, you can really kick butt with one, too. If you whack someone upside the head with one, they are going to go down. I can pretty much count the games I've played on one hand that have treated them as a martial weapon.

Bows are less understandable. You're shooting pointy objects into people, here. Edgar's AutoCrossbow is pretty much how this is SUPPOSED to be. Rosa's not bad using bows, either. So I guess early FF gets a pass. On the other hand, a lot of other games treat it as a weak weapon. I get you have range and all, but this is the weapon that led to the fall of an entire society (Sparta). Crossbows are better off in general because they do have a more limited effective range than a longbow, but longbows and short bows all too often go under the "may as well just hit them with it" category. Then again, I have yet to actually see a game that treated a longbow correctly by making you fire it in an arc, so maybe that's why?

Guns don't get a pass, though. Unless you're shooting spitballs, there is no reason a gun should be anywhere as weak as the rest of the weaponry in a game unless you're shooting energy. Bullets do a LOT of damage. There are TONS of good reasons a gun might be a poor weapon besides not being made out of a shinier material:

It's a shotgun. Shotguns have crap range and don't do a lot after a certain distance. Impose this limit on your gunner, have range determine damage, and off you go. Point blank can kick ass, further out maybe can ping whatever's in the cone of fire. We have the technology to do this.
It's inaccurate. No matter how good a shot you are, old-timey guns are a crapshoot with accuracy. If you're doing pre-industrial, give guns a poor hit rate and be done with it. The damage will balance out. Even in modern settings, hitting a moving target with an object the size of a knuckle isn't easy.
It either is magic or isn't.

If it's magic, hand wave the magic bullets it produces aren't all that good and be done with it. Infinite ammo at a price. For bonus visibility and shininess, make them energy shots or trail colored light.
If it's not magic, consider the number of bullets it holds. A fully-automatic weapon generally empties in under ten seconds. A pistol generally holds 20 or fewer rounds. A revolver holds a paltry five or six in most cases, although Wikipedia says there are some with ten or more. When those bullets are out, they're going to need to be refilled, and doing so can take varying amounts of time. Maybe you lose a turn or have an arbitrary time limit before you can act again. Maybe ammo is just hard to come by and you end up pistol-whipping more often than not.


Unfortunately, nobody ever addresses any of those in games where guns stand next to more archaic weaponry.




So, yeah, to bring this back around after all that, what are things you don't get?

[Kim]

Awkward humor. You know, where something happens and everyone on screen is incredibly uncomfortable and you're uncomfortable watching it but you know the person who made the movie/show thinks it's the most hilarious thing ever? God I fucking hate that and I don't know why it's so popular.

[BitVyper]

I don't think it's so much that guns are weak in videogames so much as they have kind of a set power. Even if that power is quite a lot, compare it with a guy who can who can explode flying mecha by throwing playing cards at them. When you're dealing with people who can, through personal training, become strong enough to punch down mountains and move fast enough to appear in ten different places at once, guns aren't going to measure up very well.

[Amake]

The symbolic values of water include healing, purifying, giving life and adapting its shape to flow around things. Also slowly eroding stone over geological ages. It can only deliver brute force in enormous amounts, like in tsunamis and floods. Physical practicalities have nothing to do with water elemental properties.

As to the weapons, most of those issues arise from the need to keep a game balanced and the rest from the fact that swordfights are cooler than gunfights.

People get uncomfortable because they still have juice left in their shame glands. Getting rid of it is probably good for you, so be sure to expose yourself to as much awkwardness as possible. It's how actors get the courage to get in front of the camera to begin with. That and some of them are born with underdeveloped shame glands.

Things I don't get? Can't think of anything I'm afraid. Much like the elevated being in Scott Adams' God's Debris, my consciousness encompasses that of lesser, mortal beings and I'm able to understand their failings and limitations and sympathize with them. Having had my first bottle of pepsi this week and being awake at 1:30 AM may have something to do with this astonishing insightfulness.

Oh wait, I just thought of one thing. Mogadishu, the most dangerous, corrupt and lawless city in the world. I don't know how to fix that. Maybe just get people away from there and let it fall apart.

[Lithp]

Whenever a character will dodge or block bullets. It's very rare to make this work. It usually makes the character come across as overpowered & boring. In situations without supernatural justification, it's completely ridiculous. When that justification is supplied, it's still completely ridiculous, because then we're expected to believe that far more mundane forces can beat this person.

Additionally, that nonsense about "cutting air so it attacks." That's dumb. Just attack the person directly.

So any form of Improbable Fencing Powers, I suppose.

I also don't get how so many of the Command Materia in FFVII can only be justified, ironically, with A Wizard Did It.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I would make a detailed and thorough response to this, but I'm a bit drunk and I need to sleep, so I'll do it in the morning when I can be more clear and intelligible. Needles to say, Fire = pure destruction, at least in videogaming terms. By comparison, water = pansy element to the pure, uncontrollable power of fire, while wind generally = speed enhancements and earth = armour enhancement. So water is relegted to healing.


On the weapons, that's mostly due to balance issues. Yes, bows and guns are more powerful, but they each also get more range bonus' as they increase in power, so they need to lower one stat while increasing the other in order to give a reason not to abandon bows and other weapons entirely, in favour of guns which have both greater power, and range, AND accuracy AND fire rate, and everything else.

Also, the "shotguns have poor range" idea is purely fiction created by videogames to promote balance within the game. Real world shotgun shells will easily travel hundreds of metres before becoming innefective, similar to any other ballistic round, and in some cases will do more damage than certain solid slugs over the same long range distance due to they fact that the pellets are more numerous and impact a larger area, digging into the skin and becoming harder to remove, assuming they don't rip your flesh apart straight away.

I'll give you the "old timey" weapons being shit though. Most musket style guns had an effective range of about 10 feet, due the numerous sizes of ball bearing used in such weapons, which would shoot about all over the place while traveling down the inside of a barrel and once reaching the end could shoot off in any manner of angle, but any manner of weapon that used rifling technology would (and should) be pretty damn precise.

EDIT, Ok, so apparantly being drunk doesn't hampen my ability to create coherent internet posts. I think...

[Aldurin]

2001: Space Odyssey, my mind shuts down every time I try to think about that movie. I watched it with my dad and afterwards he promised to never show me a film by the same guy who made this one.

[Kim]

2001: Space Odyssey, my mind shuts down every time I try to think about that movie.

That's just because you haven't read the book.

[BitVyper]

It's very rare to make this work

Wait, rare? Do.... do you know someone who can deflect bullets? I mean, there's always random chance, and you can run around to make yourself harder to aim at, but there's no "making it work."

I don't really see how characters in fiction doing it makes them overpowered though. It's just superspeed. Not even like, high level DBZ/Flash level superspeed. It's just like, the next step up from "so fast ordinary people can't see me move."

Additionally, that nonsense about "cutting air so it attacks." That's dumb.

Not if you're moving your sword fast enough to deflect bullets. That's pretty much mach at minimum. You could probably generate a pretty significant amount of air-pressure that way, which would be a nice way to extend your range a bit (or a lot, if you're one of those anime characters who can hit things fifty feet away with your air pressure attacks), though the air pressure obviously wouldn't be nearly as effective as your blade itself. Probably more of a shove than anything, but one inch of range can make all the difference.

It's really more hyperbolous than impossible.

Edit: Kenshin handled that in a slightly more reasonable way, where Kenshin's super-fast ougi created a significant enough pressure difference to knock Shishio off balance.

[Aldurin]

That's just because you haven't read the book.

I don't want to read the book now that I've seen how the movie is.

[Vault Of Thrones]

I watched it with my dad and afterwards he promised to never show me a film by the same guy who made this one.

Stanley Kubrick or Arthur C. Clarke? If the former, you're missing out, and if the latter I can't comment.

[Krylo]

In my case, it's about water spells and several types of weaponry in games. Water, in many cases, does not get representation, and in other cases is classified as a healing element. I get it, water is "the source of all life." But, practically, water is incredibly heavy. If you get hit by a big wave while standing, you go down. Because it has a density of 1, for every liter of the stuff you have thrown at you, you get hit with a kilogram (better than 2 pounds) of weight, or better than 8 pounds per gallon of the stuff. With how much mass an average spell throws around, water spells should be beating people senseless, not making you feel better.

Napalm thrower > Riot hose if you want someone dead.

[Kim]

I don't want to read the book now that I've seen how the movie is.

There's a great summary of the book that pretty much explains my feelings on the subject.


HAL

I'm evil. (kills astronauts)

Dave Bowman

I must shut you down now, HAL.

HAL

Daisy, Daisy...

Dave Bowman

Now I must finish this mission alone.

(STRANGE THINGS happen, and they MAKE SENSE.)

Reader

Wow. I understand the movie now.



THE END

[Lumenskir]

Awkward humor. You know, where something happens and everyone on screen is incredibly uncomfortable and you're uncomfortable watching it but you know the person who made the movie/show thinks it's the most hilarious thing ever? God I fucking hate that and I don't know why it's so popular.
Do you mean things like The Office, Extras, In The Loop, Party Down, Freaks and Geeks etc? Because those are some of my favorite comedies. Done right, it transforms the audience into a straight man (comedy version) and reaches that sweet spot of "Better to laugh than cry", although I will admit that it is very easy to do absolutely shitty (about 95% of mumblecore comedies, everything made by the guys that did Napoleon Dynamite, others) and just have a character say something just wrong and play it straight.

Something I don't get now that I've been reading comics: Is the actual larger continuity of comics being kept around solely for profit, or does it actually have a redeemable quality? What I'm wondering, as an outsider, is what the disadvantage would be if every story had an upper limit of, like 100-150 issues, and each of those were self contained. Keep all of the characters around, and create new ones all you want, but pick and choose what elements of story you want to address instead of having to contort the tale in order to not to conflict with something off-handedly mentioned 35 years ago.

I feel like this is something the general reading public should have realized around the third time the entire continuity they knew was literally punched away, so I'm guessing there's a larger context I'm missing?

[Flarecobra]

HAL isn't evil...

HAL has one primary objective: Complete the mission at any cost. However, the astronauts were talking about taking him offline, and HAL assocatied that with death. Thus to him, that violated the objective, hence why he killed them.

[Lithp]

Wait, rare? Do.... do you know someone who can deflect bullets? I mean, there's always random chance, and you can run around to make yourself harder to aim at, but there's no "making it work."

The sentence IMMEDIATELY after that indicates that I mean "make it work" as "justifies the Trope." Context clues, use them!

I don't really see how characters in fiction doing it makes them overpowered though. It's just superspeed. Not even like, high level DBZ/Flash level superspeed. It's just like, the next step up from "so fast ordinary people can't see me move."

Because a bullet travels FASTER THAN THE EYE CAN FOLLOW. Since "overpowered" directly translates to your abilities scaled with others in your canon, the "how" of it shouldn't be hard to figure out.

Not if you're moving your sword fast enough to deflect bullets. That's pretty much mach at minimum. You could probably generate a pretty significant amount of air-pressure that way, which would be a nice way to extend your range a bit (or a lot, if you're one of those anime characters who can hit things fifty feet away with your air pressure attacks), though the air pressure obviously wouldn't be nearly as effective as your blade itself. Probably more of a shove than anything, but one inch of range can make all the difference.

That's the kind of bullshit that's usually used to justify it, but the reality is that it just wouldn't work that way. Even if you could somehow navigate the impossibility of doing that, you can't control the air pressure. It wouldn't form "blades," or anything like that. Even ignoring THAT, it makes far more sense to just plain attack. And it still looks & sounds stupid.

It's really more hyperbolous than impossible.

No, it's impossible.

Edit: Kenshin handled that in a slightly more reasonable way, where Kenshin's super-fast ougi created a significant enough pressure difference to knock Shishio off balance.

Rurouni Kenshin is not the series you want to go to if you want Justified Improbable Fencing Powers. The other character you mentioned can create flames by soaking his sword in fats & igniting it. While completely freakin' awesome, it should be obvious that this makes no sense, given the "realistic fiction" angle they're going for.

[Aldurin]

There's a great summary of the book that pretty much explains my feelings on the subject.


HAL

I'm evil. (kills astronauts)

Dave Bowman

I must shut you down now, HAL.

HAL

Daisy, Daisy...

Dave Bowman

Now I must finish this mission alone.

(STRANGE THINGS happen, and they MAKE SENSE.)

Reader

Wow. I understand the movie now.



THE END

Not helping.

[Doc ock rokc]

In my case, it's about water spells and several types of weaponry in games. Water, in many cases, does not get representation, and in other cases is classified as a healing element. I get it, water is "the source of all life." But, practically, water is incredibly heavy. If you get hit by a big wave while standing, you go down. Because it has a density of 1, for every liter of the stuff you have thrown at you, you get hit with a kilogram (better than 2 pounds) of weight, or better than 8 pounds per gallon of the stuff. With how much mass an average spell throws around, water spells should be beating people senseless, not making you feel better.Well This is true and I have seen some Fantasy games actually portray it correctly. Water Symbolically is the Opposite of Fire. Which Symbolically Is viewed as Death Destruction and Evil (think, Is hell a ocean or a Flaming pit?) water is a Devastating force but You can Touch water without being hurt verses Fire that even a small flame can burn you or even grow bigger and burn your house. in fact when your house is on fire or your burned what's the first thing you put it in. WATER! why? To start the healing process.



On the weaponry front: staves, bows, and especially guns.

Bows are less understandable. You're shooting pointy objects into people, here. Edgar's AutoCrossbow is pretty much how this is SUPPOSED to be. Rosa's not bad using bows, either. So I guess early FF gets a pass. On the other hand, a lot of other games treat it as a weak weapon. I get you have range and all, but this is the weapon that led to the fall of an entire society (Sparta). Crossbows are better off in general because they do have a more limited effective range than a longbow, but longbows and short bows all too often go under the "may as well just hit them with it" category. Then again, I have yet to actually see a game that treated a longbow correctly by making you fire it in an arc, so maybe that's why?I think TF2 handles them nicely. The Huntsman was originally drawn up as a long bow (but they shortened it for some reason) that handles the arc thing quite well. however There is rarely a map large enough to do a full power arc shot.

Guns don't get a pass, though. Unless you're shooting spitballs, there is no reason a gun should be anywhere as weak as the rest of the weaponry in a game unless you're shooting energy. Bullets do a LOT of damage. There are TONS of good reasons a gun might be a poor weapon besides not being made out of a shinier material:

It's a shotgun. Shotguns have crap range and don't do a lot after a certain distance. Impose this limit on your gunner, have range determine damage, and off you go. Point blank can kick ass, further out maybe can ping whatever's in the cone of fire. We have the technology to do this.
It's inaccurate. No matter how good a shot you are, old-timey guns are a crapshoot with accuracy. If you're doing pre-industrial, give guns a poor hit rate and be done with it. The damage will balance out. Even in modern settings, hitting a moving target with an object the size of a knuckle isn't easy.
It either is magic or isn't.

If it's magic, hand wave the magic bullets it produces aren't all that good and be done with it. Infinite ammo at a price. For bonus visibility and shininess, make them energy shots or trail colored light.
If it's not magic, consider the number of bullets it holds. A fully-automatic weapon generally empties in under ten seconds. A pistol generally holds 20 or fewer rounds. A revolver holds a paltry five or six in most cases, although Wikipedia says there are some with ten or more. When those bullets are out, they're going to need to be refilled, and doing so can take varying amounts of time. Maybe you lose a turn or have an arbitrary time limit before you can act again. Maybe ammo is just hard to come by and you end up pistol-whipping more often than not

Unfortunately, nobody ever addresses any of those in games where guns stand next to more archaic weaponry.
Ok where to Start...The reason Guns are weak in fantasy settings is Mostly balance. Also think about it. If We had Magic around to nuke monsters would we have invested the same amount of time into guns? Most likely No. So while their guns look the same as ours they could be worse technologically.

Shotguns. Most of the time it's Balance. If shotguns in games where as effective as they are in reality no one would use the pistol or the sniper because the shotgun would be really effective in those distances. TF2 I find handles the shotgun really well. One pellet is always dead center, while the rest is simi accurate to Way out of there, so it's effective in all ranges but still king at Close range.

In the old timey guns thing. they do in some cases show that they are worse. however there is games that make them REALLY POWERFUL at the price of being Piss on ammo accuracy and firerate.

Something I don't get now that I've been reading comics: Is the actual larger continuity of comics being kept around solely for profit, or does it actually have a redeemable quality? What I'm wondering, as an outsider, is what the disadvantage would be if every story had an upper limit of, like 100-150 issues, and each of those were self contained. Keep all of the characters around, and create new ones all you want, but pick and choose what elements of story you want to address instead of having to contort the tale in order to not to conflict with something off-handedly mentioned 35 years ago.

Actually alot of comics DO have this. The Hulk the first few decades could only turn into the Hulk at night. only recently have they decided to forgo that and apply it to when he is angry. He also For a while turned Gray and was able to speak normally something that transitioned to the Green hulk. In-fact Some Die-hard comic fans hate these things. because it takes away from the comic's origins.
then there is the Ultimate version of Marvel that Chose to do the same thing your explaining but with the ENTIRE community. they got a set limit of comics that portrayed their super hero in a different light with some things changed. Like Ultimate Spider-man had Bio-webs from the beginning and Ulti Hulk was an attempt at making the Super Solder serum and was Intelligence (ish) from the start. No Mention needed on Ultimate Nick Fury (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e8/UltimateNickFury.jpg).

[Lumenskir]

In-fact Some Die-hard comic fans hate these things. because it takes away from the comic's origins.
I guess my main question is then: Why do fans care that there is a throughline (however shoddy and holey) from the origins to the present? Why not have a set of characters and world being spun off into an infinite amount of one-offs?
hen there is the Ultimate version of Marvel that Chose to do the same thing your explaining but with the ENTIRE community. they got a set limit of comics that portrayed their super hero in a different light with some things changed. Like Ultimate Spider-man had Bio-webs from the beginning and Ulti Hulk was an attempt at making the Super Solder serum and was Intelligence (ish) from the start. No Mention needed on Ultimate Nick Fury.
I've read about the Ultimates, but it's not quite exactly what I was thinking of. Sure, anyone can jump in on issue 1, but the world is still interconnected and continuing right? Eventually the snarls are going to get just as bad as the originals.

[betachris_00]

I don't understand the appeal of Tim and Eric. I've sat through entire episodes trying to find something funny, and I just can't.

[Fenris]

I don't get why you people still don't use thread tags when making a new thread. :knowledge:

[Aldurin]

I don't get why you people still don't use thread tags when making a new thread. :knowledge:

We are exercising the choice not to use a thread tag (partially because we don't know what direction each thread will take if they don't get locked/merged with another thread).

[Kim]

Because we never did beforehand, and the only reason it occurs to you is that you're so used to having to add them to our threads.

[Fenris]

We are exercising the choice not to use a thread tag (partially because we don't know what direction each thread will take if they don't get locked/merged with another thread).

Where the hell does it say there's a choice

[DFM]

I don't get why you people still don't use thread tags when making a new thread. :knowledge:

Because they look horrible.

Edit: And yeah EvilEarl did you mean Arthur C. Clark or the other guy because the other guy did Full Metal Jacket and that was pretty good IIRC. Odjn worships the ground he walks on though so he could tell you more about it than I could.

[Lithp]

People like that show? Tom Goes to the Mayor had a few (A FEW) funny moments, but Awesome Show is just shit. Not to mention the single greatest misnomer EVER.

[Aldurin]

Where the hell does it say there's a choice

Where the hell does it say there isn't?

Edit: And yeah EvilEarl did you mean Arthur C. Clark or the other guy because the other guy did Full Metal Jacket and that was pretty good IIRC. Odjn worships the ground he walks on though so he could tell you more about it than I could.

I don't remember, it was the version with the monkey-people, 4 appearances of a giant slab that made high pitched noises at noon and 2 hours of no dialogue (hell, couldn't even afford background music the whole time). And it was old.

[Fenris]

Where the hell does it say there isn't?

Thread Tags: In order to keep topics on a certain subject or imply categories, you should include a thread tag when you make a new thread. They can be found just below the post box on the New Thread page. While tags are helpful, they are not a requirement when posting, only when making threads.
.

[Aldurin]

I'm not going to spend a cumulative day of my life putting tags on my threads!! (especially if other people do it anyway)

[Fenris]

And I'm not going to spend a "cumulative day of my life" putting tags on your threads when it's just so much simpler to remove your ability to make them.

Food for thought...

[DFM]

I don't remember, it was the version with the monkey-people, 4 appearances of a giant slab that made high pitched noises at noon and 2 hours of no dialogue (hell, couldn't even afford background music the whole time). And it was old.

Well I think there was only one movie. I mean I've never seen it but like Arthur C. Clark wrote the book and then the other guy made the movie based on it so I was asking if he meant no more Arthur C Clark book movies or no more movies from other dude.

[Aldurin]

Compromise: I'll put tags on my new threads (and encourage others to do the same) if you let me have the "wtf" tag as my tag-below-the-username thing.

EDIT:Well I think there was only one movie. I mean I've never seen it but like Arthur C. Clark wrote the book and then the other guy made the movie based on it so I was asking if he meant no more Arthur C Clark book movies or no more movies from other dude.

I don't even know and I don't want to have anything to do with that ever again.

[Fenris]

Compromise: I'll put tags on my new threads (and encourage others to do the same) if you let me have the "wtf" tag as my tag-below-the-username thing.


Compromise: follow the rules or I'll ban you.

[Aldurin]

Compromise: follow the rules or I'll ban you.

You drive a hard bargain, let me think on that.

EDIT: I accept, but I'll remember this day when I become a mod.

[POS Industries]

the other guy did Full Metal Jacket and that was pretty good IIRC. Odjn worships the ground he walks on though so he could tell you more about it than I could.
I felt that the first act of Full Metal Jacket was pretty great, but as far as Kubrick movies the only one I could ever stand to sit through was Dr. Strangelove and even that was mainly because Peter Sellers was a fucking god.

Kubrick had an amazing eye for cinematography but I always felt he was painfully awful when it came to things like pacing and editing, which are the actual cornerstones of good direction. Stretching an hour-and-a-half script to three hours is not a good thing, I'm sorry.

I accept, but I'll remember this day when I become a mod.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/posindustries/facepalm/neelix2.jpg

[Fenris]

EDIT: I accept, but I'll remember this day when I become a mod.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/posindustries/facepalm/takei.gif

[Aldurin]

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/posindustries/facepalm/takei.gif

Hey, I always laugh on the inside too!! I never knew we had so much in common!

[Loyal]

I'm not sure I get why it became a rule to use the thread tags. Seeing as it doesn't really tell you anything the thread title and/or placement of the thread couldn't (and if I remember correctly there is or was a 'rule of thumb' vis a vis thread titles that actually made sense), it all seems a terribly superfluous thing to enforce.

[POS Industries]

Because they look awful and we hate you.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Because they look awful and we hate you.

But I love you guys.

Especially you POS! :3:

[POS Industries]

But I love you guys.

Especially you POS! :3:
D'aawwwwww I love me too!

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

D'aawwwwww I love me too!

I love you too...:3:

[Kim]

I'm not sure I get why it became a rule to use the thread tags. Seeing as it doesn't really tell you anything the thread title and/or placement of the thread couldn't (and if I remember correctly there is or was a 'rule of thumb' vis a vis thread titles that actually made sense), it all seems a terribly superfluous thing to enforce.

It's mostly for the combined media sub-forum. Being able to tell what kind of thread everything is from a glance rather than reading the thread title is easier from an organizational standpoint, I expect, and it's just better to enforce rules across the board whenever you can.

[BitVyper]

Because they look awful and we hate you.

You're off my Christmas list.

Anyone want a ten dollar gift card for Long John Silver's?

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

You're off my Christmas list.

Anyone want a ten dollar gift card for Long John Silver's?

Dibs!

I can even pick it up =D

[Archbio]

I don't get why someone would re-read the rules of a forum regularly enough to have an unfailing awareness of them.

[BitVyper]

I STILL don't get how any of you people managed to learn to read and write, nevermind read the rules.

Dibs!

I can even pick it up =D

I'm only charitable to non-Canadians. I figure it's only fair, since they're already dealing with such a big handicap.

[Aldurin]

I STILL don't get how any of you people managed to learn to read and write, nevermind read the rules.

How do you know these guys don't hire people to read and write for them?

[BitVyper]

How do you know these guys don't hire people to read and write for them?

I don't think most of you could afford it.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

I'm only charitable to non-Canadians. I figure it's only fair, since they're already dealing with such a big handicap.

Ahh fair point.

[Meister]

More stuff we don't get, less idle chatter!

[A Zarkin' Frood]

I don't get drugs. I mean, why are all the cool drugs illegal and the ones that make you smell and vomit all over the place are embraced by society. Worse, they're not even acknowledged as drugs by most people. If you wanna ban shit, at least ban it completely. Or don't at all.

I don't get religious fundamentalists either. I'm having trouble understanding your regular devoted believer, but at least they are rather peaceful.

The phenomenon football in Germany. Why am I the only person EVER to be unaffected by it? Well, not totally unaffected, I'll have to deal with the yelling drunks and honkers on the street right now, because it's world cup, but usually you can just walk/drive past them.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I don't remember, it was the version with the monkey-people, 4 appearances of a giant slab that made high pitched noises at noon and 2 hours of no dialogue (hell, couldn't even afford background music the whole time). And it was old.

I've got a movie recommondation for you. Go watch Wavelength- you'll love it. It's totally got background music the whole time! In fact it should have more background music than any other film ever made.

I felt that the first act of Full Metal Jacket was pretty great, but as far as Kubrick movies the only one I could ever stand to sit through was Dr. Strangelove and even that was mainly because Peter Sellers was a fucking god.

Kubrick had an amazing eye for cinematography but I always felt he was painfully awful when it came to things like pacing and editing, which are the actual cornerstones of good direction. Stretching an hour-and-a-half script to three hours is not a good thing, I'm sorry.


Firstly Dr Strangelove is hilarious.
As for Kubricks length, sometimes it works some times it doesn't. FMJ really was 2 movies that kind of jarred with each other but Apocalypse Now worked as a very slow descent into the jungle as it were.
2001 had a lot of unnessecary scenes.
So I guess I pretty much agree, his cinematography is great though.

Things I don't get: golf. Seriously fuck golf.

[Kim]

It wasn't just that 2001 had a lot of unneccessary scenes. Some scenes were just painfully slow. Your time would be better spent cooking dinner than watching them. The book is better. I'm not sure if the book is necessarily good, because I read it before I was a pretentious fuckwad, but it's definitely better.

I've heard good things about Clockwork Orange, though.


I don't get beards. Why does all this hair gotta be growin' on my face? It makes me look like a homeless person.

[Meister]

Clockwork Orange has tons of visual style but it turns any message the book had right around, not least because it's based on the US edition that omits the entire last chapter. After the movie came out Anthony Burgess actually wrote a stage version where, at the end, a man resembling Stanley Kubrick enters, plays a few bars of "Singing in the rain" on the trumpet and is kicked off stage.

e: used to really like it in an I'm sixteen and this is edgy way but the other day I rewatched it and got about 2/3 in before having to say "okay, this is actually pretty bad" and turning it off. Malcolm McDowell's pretty good in it though.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Clockwork Orange is pretty good but would be better with the original ending. As it is it really is just a visual spectacle without really going beyond that.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

I don't get my face.

I mean, what? Now I'm nineteen all of a sudden you've got all sorts of oils and crap that you've gotta spew out and let congeal all over you?
And it's not even like you asked permission to do this, face. You just started doing it all on your own without my consent or any forewarning some years ago and here I keep hoping you'll wise up and freaking stop it but you never do.

My face is a jerk.

[Lumenskir]

As for Kubricks length, sometimes it works some times it doesn't. FMJ really was 2 movies that kind of jarred with each other but Apocalypse Now worked as a very slow descent into the jungle as it were.
Kubrick didn't direct Apocalypse Now; you don't get to offer opinions on movies ever again.

[Amake]

I think more than two of us have confused Coppola and Kubrick, their names are a little similar and Apocalypse Now is paced like an average Kubrick movie. If we replace the narration with Willard staring into space and the sex and drugs with everyone staring into space it could have been made by Kubrick. :O

Meanwhile, I don't get why people don't get things. It was all clear to me last night but not now.

[Nikose Tyris]

I don't get protesters.

I can understand the need to stand up and voice your opinion when you don't feel like being heard.

I don't see how that relates to flipping cars and setting shit on fire in the name of Gay Rights.

I am ashamed of the people I know that protested and got involved in that crap.

[Amake]

Mob mentality is hard to understand unless you are a mob. Get 1000 people together and one of them is likely to do something stupid, and it easily escalates from there as people tend to feel they can absolve themselves of responsibility when they just do things they see someone else doing.


I don't get my face. That's also a gland related issue. Those things happen when your body grows older. You just got to accept it. Think of it as practice for when you get really old and your bladder starts doing things all on its own. :)

Golf. A lot of sports have grown from formalized rituals that have lost all meaning over the ages. To put it in perspective golf makes more sense than, say, royalty, or the concept of countries.

Drugs. That's a little complicated. All known drugs have their own individual reasons to be illegal or not. Alcoholic beverages are permitted because they've been used regularly by large amounts of people since before civilization as we know it began, while for instance LSD is illegal mostly because Terence McKenna had a few too many groovy parties financed by schools. These laws stay unchanged for so long probably because it comforts parents to think their children don't get up to the same fun they did when they were young.

I'd theorize that generally psychedelic drugs are illegalized because the establishment fears an enlightened population challenging the state of affairs, and downers and relaxants are illegalized because it makes people less productive. Alcohol is the exception to the rule obviously, but notice that it's always more acceptable to drink in the evening, on weekends and on festive occasions, in other words when you're not working. Stimulants meanwhile are generally encouraged as they let you work harder; coffee and tobacco is practically required in most workplaces and while they are nominally illegal, stimulants tend to carry milder punishments for use and possession than the other two.

[greed]

Kubrick's only really good movie was Dr Strangelove. And honestly that was more Peter Sellers than him. It was REALLY good though. And there were a number of classic Sellers less scenes too, so yeah.

And yeah I also don't get awkward comedies. They just irritate the fuck out of me.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

A lot of sports have grown from formalized rituals that have lost all meaning over the ages. To put it in perspective golf makes more sense than, say, royalty, or the concept of countries.

My original answer was I don't get countries but they actually make heaps of sense if you are a rich overlord and want to keep the peasants distracted, divided and busy. Same for royalty. They make heaps of sense for certain people.

I don't get protesters.

I can understand the need to stand up and voice your opinion when you don't feel like being heard.

I don't see how that relates to flipping cars and setting shit on fire in the name of Gay Rights.

I am ashamed of the people I know that protested and got involved in that crap.

Considering the times we live it is one of the only ways to get messages across and about the only historically effective method. I'm not sure what alternatives there are that are actually effective.

[POS Industries]

Kubrick didn't direct Apocalypse Now
....and that explains why it was good.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Hahahaha, indeed he didn't. What a massive brainfart I had.
At least I will have dispelled the illusion that I am a perfect being, transcended above you lowly mortals which some of you must hav ehad.

[Amake]

They make heaps of sense for certain people. Yeah, same thing with golf. In North Sweden we call it Moderatbandy, which translates to "land hockey for supporters of the right wing political party".

(It's something for bored rich people to do that resembles sport but doesn't get their clothes dirty.)

[Si Civa]

Hahahaha, indeed he didn't. What a massive brainfart I had.
At least I will have dispelled the illusion that I am a perfect being, transcended above you lowly mortals which some of you must hav ehad.

So you mean that you aren't a hobo? :ohdear:


And I don't get most of the people. (I had to think what I don't get but I didn't get anything amusing enough)

[bluestarultor]

I don't think it's so much that guns are weak in videogames so much as they have kind of a set power. Even if that power is quite a lot, compare it with a guy who can who can explode flying mecha by throwing playing cards at them. When you're dealing with people who can, through personal training, become strong enough to punch down mountains and move fast enough to appear in ten different places at once, guns aren't going to measure up very well.

This is the best explanation so far in the thread.

I'd say more about games using strength of all things to determine gun damage (what, pulling the trigger harder makes the bullet go faster?), but then I remember that good games (like Chrono Trigger) actually link it to your dexterity/accuracy/some third-party aim stat.

I don't get why you people still don't use thread tags when making a new thread. :knowledge:

Because you just implemented the dang things. Or at least you just implemented the current ones, which are actually descriptive, where the old ones were largely superfluous. Culture change takes time.

[BitVyper]

(what, pulling the trigger harder makes the bullet go faster?)

Well you're still thinking about this in terms of mundane forms of propulsion through controlled explosions. Now look at the Hulk; we've seen the Hulk hulk out so hard that he could punch holes in reality. What I believe actually happens here is that Dante pulls the triggers of his guns so hard it imbues the bullets with sentience and scares the everloving piss out of them so that they're motivated to go that much faster.

Either that or the character is so fast, he fires his gun, catches the bullet as it leaves the barrel, then throws it at his opponent.

Edit: Realistically speaking, strength can apply to firearms somewhat. Like there's controlling recoil and stuff, which will keep you accurate over multiple shots.

[Si Civa]

I came to think that gun thing now and I thought that why the gunner doesn't shoot six bullets* instead of one in his turn?
*Well not all guns but you get what I mean.

It makes sense in some games that you don't shoot all of them at once, but like Final Fantasy kind of turn based battle, where there's turns that gunner would logically wait his turn loading his gun to shoot again. Of course it wouldn't make sense that why characters doing meelee would wait, but world ain't perfect place.

[Amake]

Of course it wouldn't make sense that why characters doing meelee would wait, but world ain't perfect place. Doesn't it make sense to take turns in Chess? It's just the rules of the game.

[Si Civa]

Doesn't it make sense to take turns in Chess? It's just the rules of the game.

Well yeah, but I kinda thought it in a way that when you have something making sense in that turn order thing, it makes one wonder more about why other parts doesn't make sense.

And while game programmers probably don't think it that way, they have kinda avoided that problem. But you can still wonder.

[Nikose Tyris]

Considering the times we live it is one of the only ways to get messages across and about the only historically effective method. I'm not sure what alternatives there are that are actually effective.

Well so far without violent protests we have gay marriage and that's working out in Canada so far.

So far with violent protests we have 400 people in jail and a collection of idiots claiming the police have 'stolen the communications phone for our plans' and 'the planned meeting in front of the jail at 2 PM today is a trap, do not attend!'

Said meeting is a press conference to address the arrests and show that detained individuals are being released, or are being cared for at the moment. It's also very real. They want to keep their party away from the truth for no purpose except to cause more harm to society and to each other.

It has me to the point of absolute frustration and shame in both my country, and in the groups I supported in my hometown. How do you support the Queer agenda when they're more interested in spreading lies and deceit, and creating more contraversy, instead of working with the people who -want to work with you- to solve the problems, or at least move forward in finding a solution?

[bluestarultor]

Well so far without violent protests we have gay marriage and that's working out in Canada so far.

So far with violent protests we have 400 people in jail and a collection of idiots claiming the police have 'stolen the communications phone for our plans' and 'the planned meeting in front of the jail at 2 PM today is a trap, do not attend!'

Said meeting is a press conference to address the arrests and show that detained individuals are being released, or are being cared for at the moment. It's also very real. They want to keep their party away from the truth for no purpose except to cause more harm to society and to each other.

It has me to the point of absolute frustration and shame in both my country, and in the groups I supported in my hometown. How do you support the Queer agenda when they're more interested in spreading lies and deceit, and creating more contraversy, instead of working with the people who -want to work with you- to solve the problems, or at least move forward in finding a solution?

The sad thing is they're operating under the old engine of "controversy = press" without realizing that they've already been heard. It's a tactical lag showing they aren't up to speed with their own position in the situation.

[Nikose Tyris]

Bad press isn't what they need here. Enough Queer-haters are in positions of power that this is the worst possible thing for them to be doing.