Completely Inconsequential Hot-Takes 2: People Take Too Long to Post New Threads

[Fiery Diamond]

Plenty of people have an irrational hatred of Monsanto. It is more than a little depressing how many of them only do so because it is cool.

There is nothing irrational about a hatred of Monsanto. They're practically textbook "evil corporation."

[Beeftank]

I think Call Me the Breeze has a better solo than Freebird.

[Rater202]

The only adaption of The Monkey's Paw that doesn't miss the point is the one from a Simpsons Halloween episode.

[Cazero]

Mulet haircuts look good.

[Draconi Redfir]

I don't believe artists should get offend when people ask them questions like:

"Is your character based on / inspired by this other character?"

"Did you base this on [artist]'s art style?"

"where do you find your inspiration?"

"This looks similar to [other media]"

etc.


These are just questions from curious folk who admire your artwork and are trying to learn more about it and about you, there's no need to get upset about it.

If the comparison they're making is right, then hey! congratulations, you've met someone who knows what you're going for, and might even be a fan of the same thing you're a fan of!

If they're wrong? Then hey great! Now you know something that you can check out later that sounds like it might be in a style or theme you'd enjoy!



I just don't get why these kind of questions upset people all the time. Personally i find it just gives me a sense of walking on eggshells when all I'm trying to do is strike up a conversation or learn more about the artist.


That said:

-Signed by a non-artist who doesn't go through whatever artists go through when asked these kind of questions. so maybe there's a really good reason, but personally i don't know it.

[Fiery Diamond]

I don't believe artists should get offend when people ask them questions like:

"Is your character based on / inspired by this other character?"

"Did you base this on [artist]'s art style?"

"where do you find your inspiration?"

"This looks similar to [other media]"

etc.


These are just questions from curious folk who admire your artwork and are trying to learn more about it and about you, there's no need to get upset about it.

If the comparison they're making is right, then hey! congratulations, you've met someone who knows what you're going for, and might even be a fan of the same thing you're a fan of!

If they're wrong? Then hey great! Now you know something that you can check out later that sounds like it might be in a style or theme you'd enjoy!



I just don't get why these kind of questions upset people all the time. Personally i find it just gives me a sense of walking on eggshells when all I'm trying to do is strike up a conversation or learn more about the artist.


That said:

-Signed by a non-artist who doesn't go through whatever artists go through when asked these kind of questions. so maybe there's a really good reason, but personally i don't know it.

Part of the problem is that most of those (other than "where do you find your inspiration") can be interpreted as calling the artist a hack just aping somebody else's stuff. Now, you might not mean it that way, but there ARE people who DO mean it that way, so a lot of artists are going to hear it that way. Also, there are people who refuse to believe the artist when the answer is "No," because for some reason people seem to have trouble with accepting the concept of different people arriving at similar styles/characters/whatever independently of one another, especially when one came much earlier or is much more well known. These people then believe that the artist is a hack AND a liar.

Basically, if you realize that these bad attitudes exist, assume that the artist is used to dealing with them and will interpret what you're saying as though you're expressing those attitudes. That should give you a bit of a picture of why artists react poorly to them.

[Rater202]

There is just something offputting about people who make cheeseburgers and pay close attention to the quality of everything but the cheese.

"Yeah, I got these artisanal pretzel buns and went out to a meat market the next town over to get some choice cuts of black Angus beef that's so fresh it was mooing that morning, ground it up at home and mixed it with some freshly chopped onions and my own secret spice blend. Got some fresh lettuce and tomatoes from ole bill's stall at the Farmer's market, only guy I trust to deliver on organic veggies you know there ain't much in the way ah regulations on that, and for condiments, I made my own, got some homemade ketchup, some of my grandmother's barbecue sauce that I punched up myself with a hint of cayenne, and a spice honey mustard blend here... And then for cheese I went to the Walmart and picked up some Kraft Singles."

That's an exaggeration, of course, but that's how it feels sometimes. Might as well be using Aerosol cheese, it's just as fake but it tastes better.

[Lord Raziere]

i like (Most of) World of Warcraft's lore.

It has it's flaws yeah, and i think everyone collectively agrees Shadowlands never happened, but in the broad strokes at least, it's pretty cool.


Particular aspects i like are the origins of the different races, and the world history and the like. Titans sleeping inside the planet, and Elune granting vengeance powers, I'm more meh about.


Also Warlords of Dranor was a great expansion. Garrisons and Followers were a fun mechanic, not allowing flying while providing multiple "flight without flight" trinkets and rewards for exploring was a great idea.

Real shame the Followers don't follow you into future expansions. i was writing backstories for them and everything.

I actually agree with liking the lore.

Like, sure its not the most serious world, but it has some good stuff in its lore. Like if you gave the setting to people who have more awareness, who can go more in depth on things work politically, historically and socially and so on, you could have a great setting from World of Warcraft, the potential is there with all the stuff you have going on it, you just need to dig a bit. Like get it away from Blizzard, put it in the hands of somebody who can massage out some of the dumber parts while keeping to the overall lore we have, and it could fly, it could be this fantastic political/war drama that tells of how two superpowers in a grey vs. grey morality fantasy setting conflict with each other and how no side is really in the wrong or right if it just didn't have some stupid stuff holding it back.

[Fyraltari]

Oh we're doing WarCraft? Well here's my hot-take: regardless of its other qualities Wrath of the Lich King is not a good sequel to Frozen Throne. The Lich King should have still been both Arthas and Ner'zhul (which would have made the Scourge more relavant to the Horde) and Arthas shouldn't have been portrayed as conflicted or with any good remaining in him, when the entire point of the undead campaign of Reign of Chaos was that he had lost every remain of his humanity and had become gleefully evil. Also, "there must always be a Lich King" was and remains an incredibly dumb idea.

[Draconi Redfir]

Oh we're doing WarCraft? Well here's my hot-take: regardless of its other qualities Wrath of the Lich King is not a good sequel to Frozen Throne. The Lich King should have still been both Arthas and Ner'zhul (which would have made the Scourge more relavant to the Horde) and Arthas shouldn't have been portrayed as conflicted or with any good remaining in him, when the entire point of the undead campaign of Reign of Chaos was that he had lost every remain of his humanity and had become gleefully evil. Also, "there must always be a Lich King" was and remains an incredibly dumb idea.

i can get behind this.

"There must always be a lich king" just kind of sounds incredibly unsustainable.

Like, okay. the problem with there being no lich king is that all the remaining scourge would run wild and kill everything completely unchecked right? So here's what you do.

You put in ONE temporary lich king, and have him order all the Scourge to "Stand still". or better yet, "Kill every scourge you see."

Then you get a bunch of horde/alliance soldiers and just have them wipe off any remaining scourge that are still around. Keep in contact with the lich king to make sure you got them all, lich king can gather any that are remaining into one central area, finish the job, bada boom bada bing, no more scourge! You can now take off and ideally destroy that helmet for good.

[Fyraltari]

the problem with there being no lich king is that all the remaining scourge would run wild and kill everything completely unchecked right?

And that means that Arthas was such a bad leader that he managed to fail when his army was powerful enough to win by just running around like headless chickens.

[Draconi Redfir]

on the one hand, i didn't think about that.

on the other hand, i want to disagree on that notion, Perhaps it's less "the scourge will win" and more "The scourge will cause unchecked chaos". On their own, the scourge would tear apart every living thing in the world, decimate ecosystems, kill innocent civilians without meaning, flee from soldiers due to them being a higher threat, and basically kill everything that can't defend itself.

Whereas Arthas aimed for the opposite. Being more tactical and trying to take out his opponent's military first, while using tactics like sabotage and cults to weaken or distract them behind enemy lines. he wasn't trying to kill every squirrel in the woods, he was aiming for the armed garrison in it. the squirrels just got affected by the general plague instead of being outright eaten.

[Keltest]

on the one hand, i didn't think about that.

on the other hand, i want to disagree on that notion, Perhaps it's less "the scourge will win" and more "The scourge will cause unchecked chaos". On their own, the scourge would tear apart every living thing in the world, decimate ecosystems, kill innocent civilians without meaning, flee from soldiers due to them being a higher threat, and basically kill everything that can't defend itself.

Whereas Arthas aimed for the opposite. Being more tactical and trying to take out his opponent's military first, while using tactics like sabotage and cults to weaken or distract them behind enemy lines. he wasn't trying to kill every squirrel in the woods, he was aiming for the armed garrison in it. the squirrels just got affected by the general plague instead of being outright eaten.

Indeed. Arthas' goal was not the indiscriminate ending of all life. He could put up a good effort of it, but that wasnt what he wanted.

[Ionathus]

I struggled with medium difficulty, so yes.

The Guitar Hero learning curve from Medium to Hard absolutely kicked my ass. I could breeze through almost every song on Medium with a near-perfect, and then I fell all to pieces the instant I got to Hard difficulty. That jump to the 5th button and having to shift back and forth was such a mind-breaking hurdle that I never got past it. This is subjective and plenty of people didn't struggle the way I did, but I maintain that they should've done more to ease that transition. I hate a nearly-vertical learning curve.

That's also what kept Tunic from being a 10/10 videogame for me: despite gorgeous visuals and innovative game design and excellent puzzles and a truly, astonishingly beautiful central premise, they did a terrible job of ramping up difficulty between boss fights. Everyone I know who has played the game has had their flow completely wrecked by the "final" boss fight, which suddenly throws in 5 new mechanics that you've never had to learn and sends you scrambling to an online walkthrough in the worst possible game to be reading an online walkthrough.

The entire point of Tunic is "figure it out on your own:" discovering something on your own in Tunic is so rewarding in a way I've never seen in another game. Letting the player muddle their way to the final boss fight without requiring them to learn all the necessary skills along the way was a fundamental betrayal of that game design and as a result the game kinda trips over the finish line.

Yes, I know the "golden" ending avoids this, and is in fact a much better distillation of the game's themes and mechanics. If you just skip the "final boss fight" entirely you will have a much more fluid and rewarding game experience. But nobody I know is willing to skip a final boss fight in a game; even if they know it's the "imperfect" ending, they still want to accomplish that challenge before going back to finish the game "properly."

[Peelee]

The Guitar Hero learning curve from Medium to Hard absolutely kicked my ass. I could breeze through almost every song on Medium with a near-perfect, and then I fell all to pieces the instant I got to Hard difficulty. That jump to the 5th button and having to shift back and forth was such a mind-breaking hurdle that I never got past it. This is subjective and plenty of people didn't struggle the way I did, but I maintain that they should've done more to ease that transition. I hate a nearly-vertical learning curve.

That's what the Practice mode was for. Practice mode was how i beat Jordan and got the final achievement on GH2.

Fun fact! When the Xbox 360 leaderboards first hit one million people, i was rank 970. Realistically I was a little lower, since there were a dozen or so accounts that were clearly cheating (massive number and high differences between the numbers in the first ten to twenty spots made it pretty obvious), and it wss somewhere over a million on the other end, but those fiddle details don't really matter much.

Probably the coolest thing i did was play GH Aerosmith online as soon as i got home. Got paired with someone on STP's Sex Type Thing, which turned out to be on the penultimate tier. Sight-reading it for me, and clearly for the other guy too, since neither of us had a star power path and just activated as soon as the meter filled. Both time playing it for both of us.

We tied with 100%, FC.

That was far better than a victory would have been. Just super cool.

[Fyraltari]

Indeed. Arthas' goal was not the indiscriminate ending of all life.

Wasn't it? Back in Frozen Throne, after Ner'zhul is freed from the Legion but before he is wounded by Illidan, Arthas decides to crown himself King of Lordaeron and immediately sets out to genocide anyone still alive there. You fail the mission if too many civilians manage to escape.

And Kel'thuzad's first speech was about how the Scourge aimed to create a "paradise of undeath" by cleansing the world of the living.

If turning everyone into a zombie wasn't the goal, what was it?

[Draconi Redfir]

Wasn't it? Back in Frozen Throne, after Ner'zhul is freed from the Legion but before he is wounded by Illidan, Arthas decides to crown himself King of Lordaeron and immediately sets out to genocide anyone still alive there. You fail the mission if too many civilians manage to escape.

And Kel'thuzad's first speech was about how the Scourge aimed to create a "paradise of undeath" by cleansing the world of the living.

If turning everyone into a zombie wasn't the goal, what was it?

i think the goal WAS "turn everyone into a zombie", but through different means.

Plants and animals? Leave them to the plague, or if there is nothing left to kill.

Civilians? Hunt them down, but only if they are defenceless,

Soldiers? Take them out and force them to join the cause. this will both weaken the enemy, and bolster your own forces.


If the Scourge were all just going feral, they'd be hunting down any living thing they see. causing untold destruction yes, but also leaving them open to attack, as they'd be going for the weaker prey first, rather then the more valuble soldier targets.

[Rynjin]

Wasn't it? Back in Frozen Throne, after Ner'zhul is freed from the Legion but before he is wounded by Illidan, Arthas decides to crown himself King of Lordaeron and immediately sets out to genocide anyone still alive there. You fail the mission if too many civilians manage to escape.

And Kel'thuzad's first speech was about how the Scourge aimed to create a "paradise of undeath" by cleansing the world of the living.

If turning everyone into a zombie wasn't the goal, what was it?

Well, I think you hit the distinction right there. The goal was to turn everyone into an undead, NOT to just kill them.

I think in a certain sense Arthas still sees himself as inherently altruistic and working toward the "greater good". Except in this case that "good" is turning everyone into an immortal being unfettered by the fetters of mortal shortcomings; negative emotions, failing bodies, inevitable death, etc.

Better to do so via a spreading plague and an organized conquest than indiscriminate slaughter. When the dust settles it's better to have cities and infrastructure still intact, so the new race that rises up after can keep using it.

[Keltest]

At least implicitly, Arthas was preparing for the next invasion of the Burning Legion, or any other hostile power. To that end he wanted to power level the players and then kill and reanimated them as his champions.

[Draconi Redfir]

Everything would have been fine if the Titans had just never shown up and introduced their dang well of eternity and various constructs.


An expansion, story, or AU about the world back when Trolls were the dominant species fighting against giant bugs would be cool.

[Keltest]

Everything would have been fine if the Titans had just never shown up and introduced their dang well of eternity and various constructs.


An expansion, story, or AU about the world back when Trolls were the dominant species fighting against giant bugs would be cool.

The Well of Eternity wasnt the Titans as such. They killed an Old God and ripped it out of the planet, and the baby titan bled into the wound which made the original Well.

[Lord Raziere]

Inconsequential Hot Take:
People throw around the word "dying" too much for everything now. If anything is any bit of trouble its referred to as "dying" now, or any dip in popularity means its "dead". People should stop doing this, its cheapening those words and being overly alarmist over media and such by using it constantly like that.

[Draconi Redfir]

The Well of Eternity wasnt the Titans as such. They killed an Old God and ripped it out of the planet, and the baby titan bled into the wound which made the original Well.

Still, if they never showed up to begin with, it wouldn't be there.

Inconsequential Hot Take:
People throw around the word "dying" too much for everything now. If anything is any bit of trouble its referred to as "dying" now, or any dip in popularity means its "dead". People should stop doing this, its cheapening those words and being overly alarmist over media and such by using it constantly like that.

i can agree with that.

See also: Claiming a fully playable game with a beginning, middle, and end with every feature it needs and few if any bugs, is "Dead" because it's not receiving regular patches or updates from the developers anymore.


Back in my day, we called that "Complete".

[Keltest]

Still, if they never showed up to begin with, it wouldn't be there.

I guess in a literal sense, but only because the titan Azeroth would be up and about and doing evil stuff.

[Bohandas]

Hot take: hot freshly made caffinated beverages (coffee, hot tea) invariably taste inferior to cold prepackaged caffeinated baverages (such as soda and iced tea). I don't understand why anybody would want to drink something that burns your mouth and tastes like cough medicine (although I suspect it's some kind lf weird holdover from the days before clean water was a thing, like back during cholera times)

[Rynjin]

Something is seriously wrong if you're either burning your mouth on coffee or tea (it's meant to be warm, not scalding) or if it tastes like cough syrup. I don't even know how long you'd have to steep tea to get it to taste that bad, but both things sound like a skill issue.

[Batcathat]

Hot take: hot freshly made caffinated beverages (coffee, hot tea) invariably taste inferior to cold prepackaged caffeinated baverages (such as soda and iced tea). I don't understand why anybody would want to drink something that burns your mouth and tastes like cough medicine (although I suspect it's some kind lf weird holdover from the days before clean water was a thing, like back during cholera times)

While the taste is obviously a matter of individual, well, taste, I feel like I should point out that people typically don't drink it when it's hot enough to burn their mouths. (Most people don't, at least, I think my dad would be open to drinking it while still boiling, I'm usually still waiting for my coffee to cool a little by the time he has finished his).

It probably takes most people some getting used to before appreciating it though and I can understand not wanting to spend that time. I don't really like the taste of wine and while I could potentially learn to enjoy it, I don't really see any reason to.

[sktarq]

Hot take: hot freshly made caffinated beverages (coffee, hot tea) invariably taste inferior to cold prepackaged caffeinated baverages (such as soda and iced tea). I don't understand why anybody would want to drink something that burns your mouth and tastes like cough medicine (although I suspect it's some kind lf weird holdover from the days before clean water was a thing, like back during cholera times)

Funny but as someone who would need to be heavily bribed to drink cold caffeinated beverages (or have a headache on a hot day for unsweetened iced tea) I'm going to seriously wonder about you there. A nice warm cuppa is the very nectar of the gods IMO (including the nice catnip/mugwort brew I had this morning)

Hot take: massive advertising pushes to change social norms in grooming (and not the other way around) is going to be a significant source of humanities masters/PhD thesis in a few years.

[Peelee]

Funny but as someone who would need to be heavily bribed to drink cold caffeinated beverages (or have a headache on a hot day for unsweetened iced tea) I'm going to seriously wonder about you there. A nice warm cuppa is the very nectar of the gods IMO (including the nice catnip/mugwort brew I had this morning)

Hot take: massive advertising pushes to change social norms in grooming (and not the other way around) is going to be a significant source of humanities masters/PhD thesis in a few years.

Don't get lemonade in England or Australia.

[Bohandas]

While the taste is obviously a matter of individual, well, taste, I feel like I should point out that people typically don't drink it when it's hot enough to burn their mouths.

If it comes down to it, I also don't understand the appeal of a drink that you have to order half an hour ahead of time

Something is seriously wrong if you're either burning your mouth on coffee or tea (it's meant to be warm, not scalding) or if it tastes like cough syrup.

Ok, that's fair, but I still don't understand the appeal of black coffee. You can certainly make coffee taste good, but it's going to be some combination of cream, sugar, Bailey's, and/or reddi-whip doing the heavy lifting