Merlkir

Missing the point entirely. That single scene you misinterpret horribly is among the biggest clues as to how much anti racist Tolkien was. Good friggin' grief. Again, go to hell with your bloody undercurrents. A) You keep talking about them, despite being "tired of this debate" after I provided some well written evidence against your position. B) you have so far failed to produce any actual examples of these mystical undercurrents. I am utterly sick of this position of "I can still love this thing AND point out its problematic aspects". You know what? Every single time I hear this ****, it's people trying to make themselves feel better by being "critical" of the olden times people, when folk have not yet reached our super duper awesome levels of progressive purity.

Good grief, he was not "a man of his time". Dude, what are the modern standards you're judging him on? I keep hearing this vague pseudo criticism from progressive types all the time and they never explain. Here's a paper with sources, quotes and stuff. Admittedly, it's written from a Christian's perspective (which I don't share), but it covers pretty much all of the points I see raised very well. (I can add a few rebuttals he missed) http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/History/BI/honors251c/tol.pdf The conclusion, if anyone's looking for a TL;DR, is that Tolkien was quite "progressive" (as much as I hate that word), not a friggin' "man of his time". I apologize for continuing the off topic, but this just gets me all riled up.

There's nothing nonsense about the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen. Aragorn grew up in her father's house, they fell in love. He had to get his **** together before settling down and getting married. (which is a pretty mature story arc imo) Your interpretation of elves and orcs is incredibly shallow and ignorant. There is no binary division of inherent "good" and "evil" between elves and orcs, orcs are a species created from elves by dark magic and enslaved to fight for a conquering tyrant god. Orcs are **** and logically tend to do "evil", but elves can be incredible **** at times too, doing their own share of very very evil and cruel ****. Tolkien's world (contrary to popular belief) does not have a simple black and white view of morality, it's not "good white guys against evil black guys". It's a tired argument born of ignorance of the material, very similar to idiots still claiming Tolkien was a racist and a sexist.

Good video, was about to post it myself. *thumbs up*

Wow, so many of you have way too much money. :D Good to know.

I can has KS badge?

Sorry, I meant a "professional musician" with more talent than Justin Bell. Favorably someone with a degree in music and composition and not in sound design. Really trying hard not to hurt any feelings, eh? Yeah, well, if you tell somebody that they didn't do a good job, then feelings are going to be hurt. That is how it works, as sad as it is. I prefer the Kickstarter music to this trailer piece, mainly because I'm getting a bit tired of epic chorals. If you know music (ie have a musical education, are a musician, composer or a music buff etc.), you could try to give a critique (an even that would be a bit rude as nobody asked you). If you don't like it, say you don't like it. Not that anyone cares, but that's ok, people have different taste. Saying (or implying) the composer is not talented is just a douchebag thing to do. (I could go on into why that is, how talent is a really hard thing to pinpoint and how greatness often comes with age, experience and skill.) Hey, it's just not very cool. Giving an honest opinion is not an excuse for going around being a **** for no reason.

Sorry, I meant a "professional musician" with more talent than Justin Bell. Favorably someone with a degree in music and composition and not in sound design. Really trying hard not to hurt any feelings, eh?

If anyone's not familiar with Berserk, btw, the movies are a bit hard to follow if you've not read the manga. Still, the battle scenes are awesome. Larger than life heroes and good looking "historical" extras. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npm9sk9fCR8

It's not exclusive to gaming. I think Japanese devs share a certain mentality with anime companies and others producing art - that history makes for good base design. If you look at Ghibli films, a lot of Miyazaki's designs are straight out of European history. Armour and architecture especially. Of course, they add a layer of Japanese weirdness, but look at Nausicaa, Earthsea etc. Or the recent Berserk movies - while the main hero designs are quite outrageously fantasyish and demonic, the background guys (and Griffith for the most part) are all in historical looking European armour. I could go on. The point is - even when doing over the top fantasy stuff, the Japanese seem to draw more from actual historical designs than European or American designers. You know, it's like they actually looked at real armour, instead of rehasing their childhood DnD memories mixed with american football gear.

What does it have to do with PE? a) it's JS and his personal stuff b) it's old news What does it matter and why would you even bring it up? What do you intend to "do about it"? Mind you, I did not care for the project in question, but I fail to see how it's relevant here and now.

Level: Adoring Fan. 10/10. Hello, Carrie!

...when your girlfriend disappears in the tent saying there won't be any camping sex tonight, because she has a headache. You're left with a few burnt potatoes, taking care of your drunk friends and trying to remember if you ever knew how to play the guitar.

Aww poo!

Oh! For some reason, I marked it for next week in my calendar. Hm! Honestly, I don't care much about the backer site, I'm waiting for the gameplay video. Hopefully it's a longer one and not just a trailer.

The Japanese seem to consistently get European armour right. What the hell? :D Looking at recent western RPGs, it's a bit of a shamefur dispray.

Oh, pity. I thought since grass animates, it might be possible to do physicsy things to it. Ah well

The grass in the combat pic looks quite wild. Is it going to react to spells being cast? That'd be pretty cool.

BG did this with weapons' and magical items' description/concept art, iirc, and I loved it.

Thanksgiving present more likely.

Mr. Tim Cain, please make it so! :D

Interestingly, there are different kinds of obsidian. Some glint more towards brown, others are toned more in blues, or muted greens. I chose this colour to contrast nicely with the copper metalwork.

I did a fanart item piece some time back: http://janpospisil.blogspot.cz/2013/03/designing-wailing-sword.html

Hm. Yeah, I guess there's a huge disconnect between dark skinned people in a fantasy world and African Americans, whereas Czechs in a Russian game would be much more related to the real world Czechs. Arguments like this are usually dismissed as variants of the "it's just a game", because games are supposed to take stances and draw parallels to real world issues. But if we're putting emphasis on the experience of being "something", literally the only thing Earthly black people and Vailians share is the colour of their skin. Is there colour based racism in Eternity? We don't really know. (we know there's been specieism against the Orlans, iirc) Has there been a history of black slaves in Eternity? We don't know. (iirc) As much as we can point to Moorish Spain or Venice as pools of inspiration, there isn't much cultural or situational overlap between the Vailians and contemporary black Americans. Heck, if anything, I would expect them to relate to the Orlans more, or the Aumaua. (isn't that what Dragon Age tried to do? the slave elves and stuff?) I would have to think about this, but somehow the idea that skin colour alone should qualify a group of people to judge the portrayal of fictional people with the same skin colour, sounds a bit racist itself. Like...let's forget all the other circumstances that led to this group being what it is and have their skin be their defining trait. (and I think racism is pretty much objective and recognizable by anyone, I guess we'll have to differ on that.)

That's a bit odd. At the risk of getting into the whole "let's redefine racism" debacle again, is race something that qualifies a person to judge a portrayal of that race as "valid"? Black designers might make games with black people in them for obvious reasons, but it seems strange to assume they're ultimately more knowledgeable about the relevant bits of history/anthropology than white designers are. Seems to me like Sawyer knows his stuff, judging from what we got so far, his formspring and his twitter. If a random black forum member found these designs offensive, would that invalidate them somehow? Even if he or she were actually ignorant and otherwise ill qualified to judge the matter? And you say you'd change your mind based solely on the fact they're offended? (!!) (even implying white people are incapable of knowing what's racist, like, dude...) Dunno, this reminds me of the situation in Scotland where many Scots truly love Braveheart, because it makes "them" look badass. Meanwhile the historically educated minority sigh and slap their foreheads every time they see Mel Gibson.