Swifthom
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Posts posted by Swifthom
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Yeah the Big Blue isn't going to happen.
It got $40,000 in 24 hours and less than $10,000 in 24 days following... They've asked for waaaaaaaay too much.
It's a shame, they seem to have some good ideas, but it isn't what everyone seems to want (which is just another Ecco game), it's something much bigger.
Plus there was a whole 'is it, isn't it' MMO debate and how important will printed cards be to the gameplay?
Such a shame to see this thing hit a brick wall when, as noted, at the core is a cool concept
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Just like to say I have always 'loved' your chibi characters and your animations (you might have got that from my previous post)...
So if your prepared to make some artwork with just one i'd humbly request you do FF12 Cid, so that you've got a complete set (since you've already done all the others
)On the other hand album art with all of them lined up would be a cool update to your old conga line
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Oh, just noticed my Cid has an artist
Curious to see which form f that Cid it'll be of, and then will it match the song
Some suspense Well at least things are 'slowly' happening
Really hope we get FF8 and FF12 Cids, they are really notable. I also hope we get FF1 but actually it would fit if he were absent
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If it takes to the end of May that's fine, as long as it is BY the end of May.
I'd appreciate them earlier but on the collab. front it looks like I won't be finished entirely myself by then. My recommendation is for everyone to aim for mid-may and then slipping back a fortnight isn't an issue
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RexAsaurus - Sorry to hear that.
I might tentatively PM you with an idea soon, however wait and see... If anyone else is out there chomping at the bit to get Grandma's theme in the album let me know.
Also I wasn't particularly clear on last post. Argle has offered to Master the entire album to ensure even quality across all tracks. That's what I meant to write - he's reminded me that there is a difference between that and helping people finish their tracks
Sorry
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Looking forward to hearing it
Okay guys, May is but a MONTH away. I hope your all working hard. Looking forward to your finished mixes.
If anyone is having any troubles mastering their finished tracks get in touch; Argle's offered to lend a hand there. Otherwise I'm just waiting for some awesome tunes.
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I think someone was onto something with Supreme Power...
Seriously, there's a GREAT youtube video waiting to be made using that song
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I'll PM you both but yes, I was going to say register here and then PM me for access to private forum:
http://kngi.org/phpbb3/viewforum.php?f=136&sid=58630f9b6a1b2e65e22a41463546321b
Kevin feel free to PM me a WIP; if it's of a decent quality we'll take you on board.
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This is old now.... Back when FFX was 'new'.... But yeah, once upon a time, I used to go on Newgrounds and there was some pretty cool stuff back there. Back when flash was 'everything'....
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Right back at the start when Legendaryfrog stepped in to give us his thumbs up, I nearly spoke up and said we should get him involved, the animate a Cid trailer or something, it'd be awesome
Sadly he's a busy man but his hand-drawn animated Cids never cease to crack me up:
Looking forward to seeing what does emerge though
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Congrats on second mix post Argle; it's a really pleasant to listen to song, laid back, doesn't take itself too seriously, but holds your attention throughout which is the essential thing
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Hmmm...
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7044-The-Creepy-Cull-of-Female-Protagonists
I personally adore Jim's 'aggressive and confrontational' takes on subjects, playing devils advocate at times and making sweeping generalisations. Yet even when I violently disagree with him I always admit he has a point.
His video's to a different audience, admittedly, but comparisons between his argument in 1 video compared to her part 1 of 12, I know which one's had a bigger impact on me.
EDIT: Admittedly he tackles a fundamentally different topic with regards to the role of females in gaming.
Which perhaps highlights the big problem with Anita's video. Because she has a series of 12 she's chosen to start with a historical basis, telling us things that have been out of date for 5 or more years if not longer. 'Presumably' she'll get to the more important modern, relevant issues to gaming in future videos but that is assuming a lot. Right now we just have to wait and see.
And bicker relentlessly about it, of course
EDIT 2:
A good response from KiteTales towards Anita, I think.
Is it wrong that her response fills me with a desire to argue every third sentence she says... ... Seriously, I disagree with SO MUCH that she says.
Every thirty seconds I have to go 'Hang on, your wrong, you're SOOOOO wrong.' Arguing that there is more to the characters than the trope does not deny the existence of the trope. Arguing that the reason Mario is saving Peach is not to benefit his character arc, but 'for the continued peace in the kingdom' which IS integral to Mario's character arc. In terms of Agency to the plot the 'role' of Princesses Zelda and Peach may be important in a 'larger arc' and 'world building' sense but they don't matter to the plot. In terms of their role within the story if they are a damsel in distress and it becomes the 'duty' of the hero to save them, then that is their defined role in that point of time. Everything around that point is background material.To be honest I didn't find Anita's video biased at all. It's an examination of a topic, designed to flesh out one instance.
Extreme extrapolation but I don't expect documentaries on a group of scientists who are landing a shuttle on Mars to cut back to a conspiracy theorist going; "THE MOON LANDING WAS ALL A HOAX" just for balance. That's not balance, it's stupid.
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But where did the 160k$ go?? With that amount, she could definitely so something a little more proactive than a "pop culture-critic" video series, where she does just that: critiques. I know quite a lot of people who can do that constantly without kickstarters. Yea, judge me as one of those sexist pigs for saying that. It's like some people here think she shouldn't or can't be criticized at all. Is it because she's a woman? Is it because YouTube trolls were mean to her and evidently were succesful? If so, she's making a damsel of distress out of herself!
Where did the $160 K go is a fair question.
All I can say about that is she 'planned' to make a series of videos, she didn't ask for nearly that much money. When she realised she was getting a lot she decided to increase the number of videos, increased their depth and length.
Maybe that's caused some of the problems - people are complaining she hasn't got to the relevant 'thrust' of her point in this first episode. If this was a series of just 5 vids (as originally planned) maybe that might not be the case? A tighter, more focus (read: less bloated) argument might be more effective?
Who knows...
However she was given the money to make these videos. People chose to give it to her, they weren't held at gunpoint. Sure, she could have made some smaller, quicker turnaround videos for free, but she recognized that there's clearly a $160 K demand for this message to be on Youtube.
So where'd the surplus money go? Maybe she's doing more with it (and as Zircon highlighted a few thing's she's already done) but she was originally commited to making these videos. Not making them would be fraudulent.
EDIT 1:
Yes yes, youtube has a high audience. Again, how many of them are watching this specific series of videos, have a passing interest in gaming beyond Angry Birds, and actually care about the issue in the first place that don't aren't aware on some level of the issue? I'm pretty sure you'll see that number start to diminish greatly. I'm sure there are some people watching that are actually being informed, but not a "top 5 websites on the internet"-worthy amount.(and with regards to Youtube as a platform - it has 1) global reach 2) ease of access 3) instant consumer awareness 4) embeddable on any other website in the world 5) She had already established herself and her modus operandum there.
There 'are' many people on Youtube (and more who use Youtube to find) who broadcast semi-educational / documentarian videos which highlight issues / discuss topics.
Not as many videos of that as there are tits or cats, but there are a lot if you search.)
And if 1% of the internet see her video, that's still... well 2012 est. put worldwide internet use at 2,405,518,376, but lets cut that down to places with good English exposure; America, Europe and Oceansa/Australia, still puts our figure at 816,585,441. if 0.01% of them see the video and/or hear about the debate through a third party news source that's still 80,000 people talking about this as a topic.
And so the debate rears its head and whether people agree / disagree, at least 80,000 people aren't acting out of ignorance.
As for people participating in this debate, it's pretty much all the usual suspects. I'm not seeing a surge in forum members due to this thread. Activity? Yeah, but I can't think of anything anyone here has said anything new outside of Coup's articulate post on the DiD trope.A 'lot' of people commented on this thread when it started (and even more commented on it before it was cleaved in two and the distinction between general sexism debate and video game commentary was made). I know a 'lot' of people, myself included, tend to get turned off when a thread reaches a certain length because they don't want to read through argument or are lost. In the end it tends to devolve in same couple of people arguing over a few moot points, arguing just for the sake of arguing.
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Yeah
But my main counter is, if there's 1 thread like this on every decent sized video game forum or community, and each is about this size (smaller or larger) that's still a LOT of people. Then add to that the non video game forums out there that have picked this up, the news sites that have comments beneath the articles.
And yes, a lot more people will ignore it than take it up, that's the nature of modern media. There's no such thing as essential viewing any more. Haven't been since there was more than 1 channel on TV.
EDIT 2: Stats for estimated internet usage just in case I get shouted at: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
And I hate bringing numbers into an ethical debate, it tends to muddy the issue. I don't care about bums on seats, it's about the changing shape of society. Feel free to tell me my maths is absolute rubbish if you want but it's rather missing the point of my argument.
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?
I don't really know what you were expecting otherwise, as far as I can see the video delivers on what she set out to do.
I see. Not gonna argue that. She surely accomplishes the goal of achieving nothing, just being sort of informative. And not even bringing anything brand new to the table. Truly a noble and ambitious goal.
Her kickstarter campaign promised an 'examination' followed by a 'debate'. So far this has ticked both boxes (yeah, we're self fulfilling that part by having this conversation.)
Neither brings anything new to the table. Going a 'little' off topic here but 'debate' isn't where answers are found. The answers can potentially be found by (depending on your preference); Scientists (/academics), Religious Leaders or business entrepreneurs. The entire purpose of politicians and 'debate' is to bring those ideas to a larger audience...
We 'know' video games, this is a field we're 'experts' on. Of course there'll be nothing new brought to the table, particularly in episode 1 of a 12 part documentary. As far as I can tell the audience this video is directed towards is a much wider audience than 'just' us.
I have a degree in Chemistry. Every time I see a documentary on chemistry on the TV the few times I've bothered tuning onto any Science documentaries I spend 99% of my time going "I know that.... I know that... Oooh, I'd forgotten that, but yeah, already knew" and just 1% going "This is interesting."
On a documentary on video games the documentary was well paced to explain her complaint in simple, well broadcast messages with clear examples. Of course to us it wont have anything interesting or ambitious, we already know it all because we're already invested in what she's talking about. The larger audience, the 'not us' watching however may benefit from this background information on where the debate comes from. For some people this context setting might be vital.
So, I can't disparage her for starting this debate (or, re-igniting rather than starting I suppose) and that's regardless of whether I agree or disagree with what she says.
She's been fairly careful not to proscribe 'treatments' for this or start preaching too heavily. She's just highlighting the issue and broadcasting it to the larger world.
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I do like it, there's a good feel here thats different to the original song yet recognsable.
I'd say yeah to turning up the deeper bass a bit, but also work on seperating your leads from the rest of the mix. A slightly different (or wider) sound for 'some' of the leads would give a bit more variation, whereas whilst it's good it is a 'little' samey from start to finish.
I agree on some 16th notes for variation, it's not essential but it'd be cool to add a little variation here and there. Just vary some little bits up and see where that goes.
All in all though, very good, keep at it
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I purchased Little Inferno and The Cave recently, and beat the latter first. Both games are excellent! Neither game is particularly hard but their narratives are captivating. The Cave is all about how much you're willing to destroy for your own gain, and Little Inferno is a cautionary tale where the world is slowly icing over.
Both excellent games...
Played through the Cave four times and though it has some fairly major flaws, it is an excellent game. Whilt we 'need' big blockbusters to sell the console, more like this is another need.
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Terra's character is problematic? I remember all her drama coming from the fact that she was used because of her magic and then learning she was an esper. If that's sexist then I'm really not getting what the hell is allowed to do when writing characters.
To be fair I do remember disliking her character a bit for all the drama but I never thought it was a consequence of the character being a girl.
The drama in FF6 is a really interesting one...
It's commendable that the women are never clessed as less than excellent fighters, their just as capable (if not more so) than the males in many respects, and arguably of 2 of the 3 most dominant single characters in the game are female (Terra, Celes & Locke, but again, that's arguable)...
But then again Terra switches so erratically from super-powered badass to helpless wench, back and forth, several times, before finally coming to accept herself for what she is (half human, half esper), and she even becomes a role model mother figure for a group of children. It's a good journey but some points along the way are pure DiD trope and it's not strictly 'necessary' to the story for it to play out as it does.
Celes on the other hand...
Personally I'd say FF6 was extremely enlightened on this subject.... As far as video games went 'for it's time'...
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Rosalina from your favorite series to misrepresent, Yuna from FFX, Bayonetta (if you're a sex-negative feminist you will disagree of course), Maria Traydor from Star Ocean 3, Penelo from FFXII, Zelda/Shiek, Farore, Din, Nayru, Impa, Saria, and more from Zelda, the list REALLY does go on.
How's that for narrow?
Penelo... urghhh, a good representation of a female but an awful character in a game I otherwise love.
Farore, Din, Nayru aren't characters 'per say' just forces of nature with 'supposed' female aspects...
Then with Zelda/Shiek some people argue that she's actually 'changing sex' as well as wearing a disguise when she's Shiek, so that renders a whole new debate of 'women have to become men to improve themselves' if you go down that role. And the moment she resumes her old stance as Zelda she's back in the whole 'helpless' trope we started from...
But despite being nitpicky, there are 'plenty' of good female characters out there.
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Like others said the video is too repetitive to warrant 23 minutes of length. Anyhow, I've rescued enough women in games for a lifetime. So I wouldn't shed a tear if the trend ceased.
Also, Palpable nailed it. The formula is overused due to lack of imagination. That's why we'll never play an action platformer about a queen in her 50's trying to divorce her husband because he refuses to take a shower.
Awww, it'd be amazing...
His lawyer has hidden the legal papers necessary to divorce him on the far side of the castle. Of course as she's got a bum hip the stairs are out of window until she can reactivate the stairlift, however her young son's stolen the battery to power his remote control car so you have to chase that down first...
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I find it hard to believe that someone who has been in this 'internet show' thing as long as she has would still have thin skin towards youtube comments.
There's a crucial difference between 'YOU SUCK BALLS' comments and 'I know where you live, I have a chainsaw, I'll be around next Tuesday.'
The kind of comments she was received were the latter.
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I just disagreed with some of the words she used. She claims the games show the damsel as an object being stolen from the protagonists. While that's true for many games, can you really say that about Zelda for example? Link and Zelda barely meet in most games and he usually saves her because of the triforce stuff rather than "recovering his stolen possession". In the Mario games it'd seem he rescues Peach just for the heck of it. I'm not 100% sure but I don't even remember NSMB Wii ever telling you that the game is about rescuing Peach. It's kind of obvious by the context though
Whilst there's never an intimation that Zelda is Link's 'property' the fact that she is rendered helpless again and again and again is fairly stark. As the video points out, Zelda is nowhere near the offender Peach is, but the evidence still stacks up over 25 years of repeated kidnaps etc....
And yes, in most games, taken on an individual case, there's no harm and there's always a plot sensitive good reason it's taken place. However it happens again and again and again...
Have you heard of the dad who altered TWW so that Link was a girl for his children? He argued there's nothing in the game that would prevent this from being the case and there's no reason his girls shouldn't have a role model of their own. It's a perfectly valid point.
I would also argue that TWW is one of the worst offenders of the Zelda damsel in distress meme. For half the game she's presented as a strong, practical, dominant female, but the moment she's revealed to be Zelda 'OH NO, YOU ARE FEMALE AND WEAK, DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE' followed by 'GANONDORF TAKES YOU'
Again, the game has a story that it is following, but the shift is so sudden and so stark it's ridiculous. Why throw away one of the best characters in the game in order to follow a trope that does nothing good?
And whilst Link has never said 'Zelda is my property' Ganondorf has again and again and again....
So yeah, sorry to harp on about one game series, but the problem isn't that the damsel in distress meme is inherently bad or a problem in itself, it's that it is used so often and unnecessarily. Guys save girls, guys save girls, and then once or twice, for a little variation; girls saved by guys.
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Curious to know what anyone who feels strongly about this issue thinks about the series 'Becoming Youtube' by Ben Cook. Particularly this episode from last month:
It's not video game focused but it was about the issue of male / female interaction in online media, focused of course on Youtube. Some thought it raised interesting issues, other declared it incredibly patronising. The fallout ended up with Ben Cook largely declaring on Twitter 'I AM A FEMINIST' as though his credentials were under threat, whilst one of the people he interviewed became the target of a feminist hate campaign because he made some unguarded (but potentially well intentioned) comments.
The curious thing I find is when men raise this issue, as in Ben Cooks case, the angry response appears to be from feminists shouting 'your a man, you don't get our pain' whilst in the case of Feminist Frequency the angry responses I've observed have been 'mostly' males doubting her credentials.
Generalisations, but interesting ones.
(Edit: oh, and bu the way, Crypto, agree with you completely. His ramble irritated me no end and I turned off two minutes in)
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Thought it was a well argued video presenting a strong case. True there was little in there I didn't know already but it did point out just how endemic this is fairly starkly.
Although hopefully further episodes will get a little engaging with more modern examples and focus on some other aspects.
Oh, and for female protagonists, check out 'The Longest Journey' series. Ragnar Tornquest (currently doing a Dreamfall Chapters Kickstarter for episode 3 of said series, check it out now) is a brilliant example of a female protagonist.
In 2 games he's given us 2 of the most well rounded video game protagonists I've EVER seen; male or female
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Looking forward to it.
I picked up the trailer video and replaced your old song today, hope you don't mind
It will see the light of day somewhere sometime soon, I just want to be sure it's perfect In other news: it's March now.
Deadline: MAY.
2 months people
Some final tracks have already started to arrive
Crowdfunded Projects (Kickstarter, Patreon, etc.)
in General Discussion
Posted
Wow... This one is down to the wire.. 9 hours to go and 90% there.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1644707178/buddy-and-me?ref=category
I'm not 100% behind the concept myself but it's got some serious pedigree behind it (Metroid Prime Designers) and it does boast plenty of charm.
Really hope it makes it. If your interested in ANYTHING cute, have a look