Stuff you don't get.

[Vault Of Thrones]

Originally Posted by EvilEarl

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]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

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]

Originally Posted by EvilEarl

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]

Originally Posted by NonCon

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]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

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.

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

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.

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. It either is magic or isn't.
   1. 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.
   2. 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.

[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.