Oliver Motok, April 2011
New panelists Slab Bulkhead and Deimosion join special guests Riddles and Ethos, along with Biggs and Lusi in a podcast crammed with discussion. This week, the panel tries to uncover the greatest of all mysteries: what is Montok wearing? *click*
Like! First.
EpyonGreat to see Oliver back but… how did you guys manage to convince him to come to a podcast again?
@Epyon: Our ninja army took the Call of Duty servers down. We told him that we wouldn’t put them back up until he had fulfilled his podcast duties for the year.
@Lusipurr MY ninja army, thank you. They’re funded through the gold I sell on WoW, remember?
@Slab: The FBI is coming for you.
ReetinI was mentioned! Only for the reason that I donated a whole 2 dollars.
RootBeerKingWhere did Dan go?! It’s like he was on the podcast only in name…
Slab Bulkhead sounds like a happier Oliver… I got the two confused a little when everyone was talking at the same time.
@RBK: I actually had to leave about 10 minutes in to go to class, and I didn’t get back until we got to Now Playing.
You guys have me half tempted to go pick up FFXIV now…
@EvilPaul The more I hear about it, the better it sounds, but I’m honestly not sure it’s a good idea in the long run to get interested in an MMO. In my experience, I play for a while and it engulfs my entire life, and then I find later that I am completely bored of it. I’m going through that process (again) with WoW.
The primary difference with FFXIV is that, unless you want to constantly change jobs, you really can’t get involved to the point where it engulfs your whole life. Battlecraft leves (the PRIME method of levelling, since they level-match monsters to you, and reward you for killing them) only reset every 36 hours, and though there are other options (Behests, grinding on normal monsters, quests, etc), you will eventually end up becoming fatigued and earning lowered XP anyway, so trying to grind constantly for hours and days just isn’t feasible, and is largely unpleasant besides.
The best way to play is, I think, the way Reetin and I play: get your friends together, and when you are both free say, “do you want to do some leves together?” Then, log in, get leves, and do them all together. It’s loads of fun, it’s free to play, and it shows the game off in the best possible way.
If your friend isn’t around, do some local leves and level a crafting job. It’s much easier, and the crafting minigame is fun, as long as you don’t constantly grind on it.
In short, XIV is not grind-friendly. If you try to submerge yourself in it, you’ll get bored quickly. However, as a game that you play for an hour or two with friends every few days, it excels, and that, in my opinion, is the best and most healthful way to approach an MMO, anyway.
ReetinI have to agree with Lusipurr, it is a great game for short burst playing and if you want to level a lot of jobs quickly there’s no limit on that. Also you can level up your crafting classes and your main jobs with Leves as well because they have crafting leves that are separated from the Battle leves so you can spend about 4 hours a day leveling those jobs. If you have more time than that to play an MMO in one day I applaud you.
@RBK I do not sound like Oliver!
DrachonusSean, I know you HATE lady gaga news, but this piece you may find both hilarious and sad. Weird Al did a parody of one of her songs that he actually had to sing before she gave an approval and the BITCH said NO! since he finished the song anyway, he’s going to release it as a free MP3 the same way he did with “You’re Pitiful” a few years back. go to http://www.weirdal.com on the front page to hear it and read his blog on that song. yet ANOTHER reason to hate her. but I still like his version called “I Perform This Way”
@Drachonus What’s that? Some artists don’t like when people create parodies of their work in order to exploit their fame for profit? Those BASTARDS!
The ‘artist’ who is afraid of parody is in fact no artist at all, but rather a side-show huckster, afraid that a few glints of daylight might show that his attractions are just so much papier-mache, make-up, and wigs.
My estimation of Lady Gaga is low at best, and lower daily, as a woman utterly devoid of talent but possessed with the business savvy of a P. T. Barnum and a firm grasp of the desires of the masses. The worst part is not that her stuff sells–it is that it sells and increases the desire for derivative bilge, so that the collective desire sinks lower by degrees.
After all, how do you think we ended up in this situation to begin with?
ReetinIf I understood what Lusipurr said, I am sure I would agree with him.
I’m not saying that’s necessarily going on with Lady Gaga here, because the situation’s more complicated than that. I just personally think it’s rude to hate someone simply because they don’t want people to make fun of them or the things that they make. The impression I get from a lot of people seems to be, “I don’t like Lady Gaga’s music, therefore she doesn’t deserve to make music and she deserves only unending torment and death.” I don’t understand this. Something that someone else likes is bad because someone else doesn’t like it? None of us are the only person in the world, here.
But, I guess I forgot that the entire world is supposed to have exactly the same taste in music as certain people. My bad.
To be clear: I am being intentionally vague by saying “certain people” so that I can refer to more than one person.
The real problem with the Weird Al deal is that she wouldn’t give approval at all unless he recorded the song. So after taking the trouble to record the song, spending the time and money to do so, only to be told “no”, Yankovic is understandably a bit upset. The song is going to be available online, by the way. It just won’t be appearing on any of his albums.
If you are making money with what you are doing–especially if you are very successful at it–expect to be parodised (especially since it is, after all, legally protected). Is there ANYONE who gets into show biz. who doesn’t really know this will happen? Maybe, but Lady Gaga isn’t among them. She knew what she was getting into before day one. One thing I will say for her is that she knows show business better than just about anyone.
This reminds me of Chris P. weeping for the plight of poor wittle Webecca Bwack the other night, because some people don’t like her ‘song’. When you step into the land of public life and show business, there are things that go with that decision. For heaven’s sake, turn off the blinders and realise that these people know what they are getting into, and are doing very well out of it to boot.
As for your statement that things are bad because someone doesn’t like them–no. A straw man. No one said any such thing. Aesthetic things fail because they lack (relatively or directly) aesthetic merit.
And in case you were wondering, there is a reason my name is up there in the giant banner at the top of the site. :p
@Lusipurr I don’t think Rebecca Black is too unhappy with anything that happened to her. She got a lot of money, I believe, and also she even got a billboard in Hollywood.
Also I really wasn’t speaking about you, it just irks me when people rage about something someone does, give very little information on the subject, and then command others to feel exactly the way that they do.
In fact, you haven’t been guilty of that at all from what I’ve seen.
@SB: Now you presume to know about GUILT? Methinks someone is lusting after Darth Lane’s job. If you suddenly find you cannot breathe, and are being lifted out of your chair, and your mind is filled with a terrible roaring voice demanding to know what you thought you were doing, then remain calm and allow Darth Lane to finish with you. And then die. Because that is the terminus of that particular series of events.
Isn’t the web great for distracting oneself from things like PAPERS and RESEARCH? Hmm . . .
@Lusipurr I firmly believe that was the intention for the internet’s creation.
I do not want Darth Lane’s job, though an engineer with a law degree is something that many companies would hire in a heartbeat…
Darth Lane, teach me the ways of the Dark Side.
Update on the Weird Al situation:
It turns out she never saw or heard the song. It was her manager that did the disapproving. Lady Gaga actually loves the song, and it’ll be on Weird Al’s next album.
Oh, now THERE’S a big surprise! That’s an incredi–I think I’m gonna have a HEART ATTACK AND DIE from that surprise!
What you call a heart attack, I call ‘Darth Lane’.
Yeah, that makes the most sense. Managers love to take liberties. Gaga’s apparent refusal was surprising to me.
Or she saw backlash and didn’t want the bad publicity of being a stuck up, pretentious, not “free spirit”, phony #@%& and changed her mind when the public heard about it.
I guess the outwards misrepresentation to Weird Al to start with makes sense too though.
Lady Gaga makes mediocre pop music (redundant) mashed together with the prurient sex appeal/whatever of 80s Madonna and 90s Marilyn Manson. Enjoying her trite garbage as a guilty pleasure is OK. Claiming its some sort of inspired art is utter #%*&tardedcy.
SiliconNooBI guess we’ll never know exactly what transpired, but either way we now get some new mediocre Wierd Al Yankovich music, so I guess we’re all winners in the end!!!
My theory is that internet posters simply like to think they’re morally superior to everyone else, and no one besides them could ever be genuine in any sort of explanation of lack of fault or even apology.
I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that Lady Gaga’s manager is making artistic choices for her.
I find it even more suspect that this decision was only reversed after it hit the presses and there was a general feeling of upset.
And on top of all this, the fact that for this tremendous error, the manager has not been sacked, nor has the manager apologised?
No, I don’t think this feeling of suspicion is because ‘people on the internet think they are morally superior to everyone else’ given that there seems to be ample reason to be reasonably suspicious. Though, it does show that you seem to be carrying a torch for Gaga. Is this a case of ‘defend at all costs’, SB?
No information has been released about whether or not the manager has been fired. All of the information I have on the story has come from Weird Al’s blog.
Qui tacet consentire.
No announcement of the manager being dismissed means the manager remains. Do you seriously contend that such a change would (or even COULD) be made without anyone noticing or finding out given the extremely high profile of such a manager?
Now the defence is beginning to look desperate.
No, Lady Gaga’s either responsible or not, but I really don’t like to see the intensity of the reaction in either case. I see this happen all the time. Something minor happens, someone gets the short end of the stick (such as Al paying for a recording that he was later asked not to publish), and the entire internet jumps on one side or the other and gets as extreme as they possibly can. Lady Gaga becomes not only responsible for it, it’s an atrocity, and she is the worst possible kind of human being for doing anything other than exactly what everyone wants her to do. Details don’t matter one way or another, people have their theories, and whatever is the most cynical or extreme usually wins out. Lady Gaga could have easily started this whole mess, or her manager could have. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m not trying to defend her because I think she’s innocent, or even a good artist. I’m trying to defend her because the internet wants to treat anyone who does one or more things bad as some sort of satanic monster.
I don’t really care either way. The internet backlash on both sides is completely pointless. Gaga has every right to say that she doesn’t want the song released. Weird Al has every right to release it anyways. Why there has been an internet backlash on the issue is beyond me.
@SB: Second straw man of the thread.
Who are you arguing at? No one here is saying she is ‘satanic monster’ or anything of the sort. All of the criticism directed at her has been levelled at her music, and phrased in specific terms; or levelled at the possibility of this latest act, where it is stated in terms of speculation, and in every circumstance I see, it is moderate and appropriate in its scope.
In any case, if it is your intent to defend people from the internet, you’re wasting your time (and, by extension in this thread, our time). You’ve been on the internet for a while. Has anyone ever been successfully defended from it? Ever? Even in the most deserving of cases? And surely, whatever your stance, we can agree that Gaga isn’t the most deserving of cases.
At this point, it looks to me like the straw men and sarcastic defence invective is directed at me, or our readers, or someone here. If that’s the case, the straw man arguments need to stop and you should instead address what is actually being said. If it *isn’t*, well, I’m not sure why it is being said. The internet poops on people daily more than is deserved, but the only one who suddenly deserves the time and attention of readers is this one pop artist who we snigger at under our breath in one out of every four podcasts by declaring, in voices loud with excitement but simultaneously heavy with irony, that LADY GAGA NEWS! shall commence? Why?
Think about poor Melissa McEwan, for example. Now there’s someone in need of defending. And probably several boxes of chocolate biscuits as well.
Disclaimer: The statement about Melissa McEwan, in the comment posted above, was not very nice, and I should be ashamed of myself for making it. But it is very hard to feel sorry considering the fact that she is an enormous bitchy cow.
Oops, I did it again.
Disclaimer to the disclaimer: The disclaimer above regarding the preceding comment was not very nice, and should have been phrased in terms which did not call attention to Melissa McEwan’s obvious case of morbid obesity, her propensity for declaiming on the internet whenever she is upset, or her relative similarity to animals of the bovine variety (Family Bovidae, Subfamily Bovinae, Genus Bos). Shame on me.
Let it never be said that Lusipurr.com lacks a MORAL CENTRE.
@Lusipurr One of the biggest problems that I’m having here is that I am also reading the comments section of another website that is having this discussion in a more intense form. I have difficulty separating one from the other because of the fact that I am reading both nearly simultaneously.
The reason my arguments are so tangential to the actual conversation is because, truth be told, I am outraged at my own ability to fall into little pitfalls that exist all over the internet. Case in point, Drachonus comes in and mentions that this is news, which of course it is, and that Lady Gaga is at fault, which as far as anyone knew at the time, she was, and may still be. All well and good, but then I see the phrase, ‘the BITCH said NO!’ and am compelled, for some reason, to action. It’s not something I fully understand about myself, an outrage at something I see as unnecessary hyperbole meant to elicit…well, the same reaction it succeeds to elicit from me. It may well be unintentional, but just the same, I fall for it. Every time. I try to direct my attention away from the issue, because it is not the issue that has elicited the reaction that I have, it is the manner in which the issue is represented.
It is, perhaps, not fair of me to interpret what Drachonus was saying in the way that I did. Certainly it is not fair for me to stereotype the internet and decry it as an evil. But I feel it, just the same. I react to it, just the same, try as I might to resist. I post, and I post, and I post, and nothing good ever comes of it, but I never seem to be able to change that part of myself.
I suppose the condensed version of what I am trying to say is that I take the internet much too seriously, and take what people say on the internet to heart.
Sometimes, people see this about me and recognize it, and see that it is a wonderful opportunity to get a night’s fun out of replying to my posts, when they really don’t care either way, or they think that I am wrong and that they shouldn’t really have to prove it, because I’m doing such a good job of it myself. After your ‘disclaimer’ post, I feel that’s what you’ve been doing as well, simply stringing me along for your own amusement, and to that, I have nothing, positive or negative, to say.
Certainly (until this post) nothing that I have posted was directed at you. To be quite honest, I simply felt that while I did not feel I could resist responding to things that were being said, I did not want to personally attack Drachonus or any other of the readers of this website. I was fairly certain that would be stupid, vindictive, and a wonderful way to ensure my inability to post comments at the site. This was the reason for my vagueness.
@Lusipurr Also, do cows still give milk if they’re bitchy?
@SB: Yes, but it tastes like an unloved orphan’s tears (only creamier).
@Lusipurr Interesting. I think I would prefer orphans, though. They’re tastier overall, and it’s easier to use every part of them because they don’t disgust you.
SiliconNooB@Lusipurr: So like an unloved orphan’s semen?
JeniferShawn goes through the effort to edit Lady Gaga news out of the podcast….then the podcast thread divulges into an argument about her merits and the tunnel-vision fame machine of Hollywood. Just saying.
@Jen: We can ban her as a topic if that is what you are suggesting! I’m all for that, too!
