Bodolza wrote on Oct 26, 2022, 17:47:
Sounds like y'all are actually agreeing on everything except the definition of the word "respect".

Yes and no. I was extremely hesitant to dive down this rabbit hole... but... his original comment does need more clarity. Because, without any clarification, his comment comes off as a bit daft (at least that's how I interpreted it & I'm assuming that Quinn felt the same).

There are many different levels of respect when comes to entertainment media. Because if you don't respect the source material... why license the property in the first place if you're not going to use anything from it? Also, because of the differences between books & other entertainment mediums, there are somethings that are just lost in the translation. This doesn't necessarily equal disrespect or lacking respect... it just means somethings are ultimately unavoidable. Most authors do realize & fully understand this fact.

Respect in terms of books, to me, ultimately means respecting the story... the characters... the overall universe the story was built upon... & the sometimes the authors original vision for the work. And these are interchangeable as you can ignore the story... write your own... but still respect the characters & universe. But don't ignore too many or you risk disrespecting the source material as Amazon clearly found out the hard way.

Beamer wrote on Oct 26, 2022, 08:33:
I don't think tv needs to "respect" source material, as it's a different medium and can't convey ideas in the same way, so changes are needed.

Deviations from one entertainment medium to another is par for the course & expected. But that doesn't automatically equal not respecting the source material. Also outright disrespecting the source material is foolhardy almost always ends in failure. You can show respect for the source material all while transferring a book to another entertainment medium like TV or video games & making changes here & there to fit that medium. These two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Also, thanks to Amazon Prime, we have a modern day example of what happens when you show no respect for the source material. If you want more examples of companies showing respect or disrepect for the source... I could go on for days. Hell... CD Project Red must have had a hell of a lot of problems transferring the books to video game format. I would even argue that video games are the more difficult of the lot compared to the others when transferring books to another medium. Because transferring a book, which is linear, to video games, which are interactive, is almost definitely going to be very difficult. But CD Project Red pulled off just fine with The Witcher video game series.

So ignoring the source material all the while claiming "it's a different entertainment medium, changes had to be made" as an excuse is just shoddy work & pure laziness. People that use excuses like that for their work deserve to lose their position in the company to more qualified personnel &/or fired outright.

After Rings of Power... I'm not going near anything from Amazon until some credible reviews come out. How much money did they throw at that again? And they still couldn't hire decent writers or actors? Good grief.

As for the Witcher series... it sadly shows in the episodes. If you've read the books... so much disrespect & blatant disregard for source material is laced throughout the series. But I guess as long as Andrzej Sapkowski got paid... he doesn't seem to care how Netflix treats his material. Henry Cavill is literally the only saving grace about the series that makes it worth anything. Everyone & everything else about the series can be flushed IMO. Say what you want about the video games & how they make small deviations compared to the books or whatnot, at least CD Project Red showed that they cared for the source material. Even after Sapkowski got all butt hurt about how much money they made from it... CD Project Red still went out of their way to appease him when they didn't have to.

IMO it's not just the attackers...it is both sides. Any journalist/pop culture/videogame commentator knows that there will always be trolls amongst the critics. And that this is not isolated to just gender either as there are just as many men in the business that get attacked as well.

In terms of Frosk... it's not what she said about Bethesda & the PS5 that pissed people off. It was how she responded to criticism in the following video with the rant. Try to remember that video games can be an extremely emotional deal with a lot of people. And emotions tend to get in the way of critical thinking with some when they feel attacked without just cause. But how Frosk handled the situation was the absolute worst way possible. It was the equivalent of crying abuse, like Amber Heard did, when there was none... at that moment. At least nothing over the top & out of the ordinary from what I saw when it was happening. After the rant... no doubt... there was a ton ad hominem & vitriolic attacks. But from my experience... sadly trolls do tend to come out of the woodwork when baited.

Now before you start replying... here's the rub that gets me. For the rant itself that started the whole clusterf***... I don't believe Frosk is entirely at fault here for that. Partially, yes, but not entirely. Now there are too many conflicting reports when it comes to whether the rant was either adlibbed by Frosk or scripted. But the thing that is generally agreed upon by most is that the upper management have stated they are about diversity & inclusion... & that they had their employees back. Now most commentators know that there are just certain lines you do not cross when it comes to the fan/viewer base. And based on her history... Frosk knew better. But Frosk may have felt that she had permission to do just that based upon what is being said about the upper management's initial stance. If this is true... then most of the blame would lie squarely on the poor skills of the upper managements shoulders. They had a responsibility to stop the rant from taking place. If responsible for the rant... they should have never handed it to Frosk to deliver it as no properly run company would ever do that. Since they allowed the rant to take place, as a company, they had a responsibility to continually back Frosk & defend her stance. At first they did just this. But after the backlash grew out of control due to their lack of real action other than a tweet... they backed down. And because they hid videos related to the rant & invited someone like Amouranth on as a guest... this made it ten times worse.

Anyways... I stand by my statement on the rant, itself, was the start of the whole mess & not the criticism that came before. As nobody on youtube was really talking about Frosk or the issue until after the rant made every criticism about gender. Sure... every troll on youtube came out of the woodwork after the rant... but not before.

You can try to reinterpret it however you want. But the fact remains that she used the rant to deflect any & all valid criticism. Because almost no one was even getting angry or blowing up at her before that.

He may be opinionated in the video... which I won't disagree with... but the clips he shows of Frosk are dead-on accurate & the true reason for her rant. Not "Sexism & Misogyny" as she would like others to believe. Plus, the last time I checked, I believe G4 attempted to hide all videos related to the rant. This was one of the few videos on youtube that had clips of it (translation: easiest to list here).

See... most folks defending her did not even research anything behind what started Frosk's rant & just took her at her word. In a previous video... she made a comment about the videogames that seemed easily way off & ill informed at the time. To a point that several of her co-hosts tried to hint that she may just be off the mark. Naturally... the internet at large can & will, like clockwork, call game journalists out on their B.S. statements if they perceive them to be inaccurate or simply untrue (regardless of their gender). So... as expected... they did in the comments section. Instead of humbly taking the criticism & learning from it... or saying that she's only human & can make mistakes... she turned it into a gigantic issue about sexism. That anyone that criticized her statements was only doing it because they were sexist & misogynistic. So she basically strawmanned all her critics with the typical "sexism & misogyny" rant in a sad attempt to silence all criticism.

So whether the rant was 100% correct or not wasn't even the point. The point was that she tried to use it as a stepping stone to silence any & all criticism. And hence... the backlash she & G4 received for it. Based on everything she has said thus far... she is an extreme narcissist that just outright refuses to accept responsibility for any wrong doing. Because obviously all criticism directed at her must be because of sexism & not because she made a possibly inaccurate or false statement... right? Right?!

THIS Is Why Frosk Had A MELTDOWN On G4TV Fans | Called Them Sexist After Getting Basic Facts Wrong!

The only positive thing I will say about Frosk's rant is that it was not the sole reason for G4's downfall. The only thing it did was speed up the process as G4 had made way too many mistakes by that point.

He's one of the few actors in hollywood that I genuinely feel is worth watching anything he has been in. The others, off the top of my head, would easily be Johnny Depp & Denzel Washington as all three of them have a very unique charisma that they bring with them to any performance on screen.

The redeeming factor for Thor 2... was obviously all the scenes with Loki (not much... but still). With Iron Man 3, the action scenes (the Iron Legion was probably my favorite moment). Captain Marvel, on the other hand, had nothing for me... completely forgettable & unremarkable.

Blue wrote on Aug 18, 2021, 12:18:

Gadzooks wrote on Aug 18, 2021, 11:58:

NKD wrote on Aug 17, 2021, 21:09:

Quinn wrote on Aug 17, 2021, 19:09:
Worst movie of all Marvel movies imo. Hope the game helps you give a shit about anything and anyone.

Nothing is worse than the second Thor movie dude. Whatever the next worst MCU movie is, it's not even close to that atrocity.

*Ironman 3 quietly backs up into the shadows happy that it went unnoticed*

I was wondering how IM3 went unscathed. Black Panther is probably third worst for me, but it was still okay. IMO, Thor 2 and Iron Man 3 are the worst MCU movies by a wide margin.

I take it that, based upon all the votes so far on worst marvel movie, nobody here either remembers... or was even forced to sit through Captain Marvel. I would gladly take Iron Man 3 or Thor 2 any day as those had a few moments that were worth watching again over that movie. Forgettable story, contrived acting, the list goes on.

I have to agree... that is just pure comedy gold. I would fall out of my chair laughing if I saw that in game. Damn... now I actually want it as a mod.

Even though it's april fools... would legitimately pay money for the TailSpin one. Grew up watching the show & a modern day sim based on it would be absolutely great. I could actually picture it playing something like Elite Dangerous... but Disney themed after the show.

Full agreement, Cutter.

Icewind wrote on Jul 1, 2020, 12:02:
That's a silly article. The only thing that should make you feel ashamed is if you can't pay your bills due to your video game spending habits. As long as you're doing ok financially, who cares if you bought a few games that will add to your backlog and you were granted some points for it to use on profile fluff?

I picture the writer being some 32 year old shaved head millennial with a nose piercing.

This. This right here was my thoughts exactly. I also felt that it was extremely stupid & meant only for suckers who love click bait.

Why should anyone feel ashamed at all for buying games if they are financially secure? Oh wait... so-called "game journalists" (LOL) shaming their idea of "gamers" for their "hobby"... business as usual I guess. It's because of stupid crap articles like this that have made me lose almost all the trust I once had gaming journalism.

I'd rather play Diablo II... simply a much better game overall. Diablo III was Blizzard's first big stumble... and they have been making quite a bit lately.

Blizzard is a perfect example on the talent you employ being more important than the titles you make. Somewhere along the line... Blizzard forgot that. And the current quality of their releases is starting to show this.

Somebody please correct me if I am wrong... but I always thought (or was under the assumption) that Interplay owned the Dark Alliance trademark. I know they didn't own the Baldur's Gate trademark... but I was at least pretty sure they owned the Dark Alliance part. And that was mainly the reason we never got another one in the series. Did they sell the trademark or am I getting this all wrong?

Here's hoping they do a better port of the original Z compared to the one that is on steam right now as that is missing quite a few features.

I still have my original boxed copies of Z95 (basically Z & Z Expansion Kit) & Z: Steel Soldiers. And getting the first one to run in modern day windows is an absolute chore to say the least.

WaltC wrote on Nov 13, 2019, 18:59:
Unsurprising...These guys couldn't hold a spark to the GoD's roaring flames --the guys who created the original Rune we all know and love many years ago. The only thing I ever saw these guys do with "New Rune" (like new Coke..;)) was try and hack in some very rugged/ragged stuff into the original Rune game--and they did a pretty bum job of it, too--which is why the "improved" *cough* versions of Rune never got to first base. I wish these guys luck at Bethesda--but it will take a few years of hard work to get where they need to be to competently improve what the GoD did with the ancient Unreal engine so long ago--Rune is a classic masterpiece, imo, a proper use of the Unreal Engine--one of those games you never forget. I still fire it up now and then for a few moments--yes, you never forget it until some guys like HHS come along and try to improve it--and practically ruin it, instead. Not really trying to be critical here, but...it has to be said...what they did to Rune stands out as the most amateurish work I may have ever seen--and then they tried to sell it! Sucker and softy that I am--I bought their game just to see what they were doing! Glad to help--I got on the forum and tried to express a few basic points for them--but it was like talking to a telephone pole. To close your door on the eve of the release indicates what a stinker Rune II must be. This is reminds me so much of the guys who took the decent code from the Two Worlds II game and made what amounts to a couple of homemade mods using the graphics and sound assets from TWII--I mean I've seen better amateur mods than that! Terrible with a capital T. Except for the fact that the TWII "expansion" guys couldn't claim a fraction of the bonafides HHS is claiming--yet the work looks eerily just as amateurish.

You do realize that Gathering of Developers was the publisher for the original Rune and not the actual developer of the game... right? These guys you keep insulting about being amateurish are the actual developer that created the first game. This is so easy to look up & check... I half didn't believe I read your post right at first. If you truly liked Rune as much as you lead on & wasn't just trolling... you would know this. Hell... I still have my original boxed copy of Rune Gold which isn't easy to come by nowadays.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/rune
https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/human-head-studios-inc/developed-by/

HumanHead developed the first game as well as this one. They even created the Rune Classic port that was released. And that is what ultimately makes this new game all the more disappointing. So many bad decisions & a game that feels ultimately unfinished at best.

That's the problem... she has proven herself, based upon her own actions & past deeds, to be nothing more than a manipulative liar. And like the ending to the boy who cried wolf... "Nobody believes a liar...even when he is telling the truth!"

Icewind wrote on Sep 1, 2019, 23:47:

anonymous anonymous wrote on Sep 1, 2019, 23:08:
Didn't Zoe work on some game with Chuck Tingle? Did they finally release it?

Even better, Zoe stole the money, spent it all on a vacation, did zero work on the game, and Chuck now vehemently denies he was ever a part of the game and claims he never accepted anything.

She's a liar, a cheat, a manipulator, and a talent-less troll that blackmails others for money. That's her job.

Anyone defending her is clueless.

This right here... this is that hurdle that my mind just cannot jump over. Why anyone would even consider giving Zoe the time of day is beyond me. She's a pathological manipulative lying sociopath that keeps on crying wolf just for the hell of it or to keep herself relevant. And like the boy in the story... she reaps what she sows with me at least as I won't believe a single solitary word that comes out of her mouth.