#casterlyrockin

[nhaneh]

casterly-rockin replied to your post: casterly-rockin replied to your post “You know, I...

Cake or death basically. But I get what you mean on the contrast of Da:o’s choices, but it still some of them evoke pretty strong feelings? On my first run not knowing anything about the game made certain awful choices more viable than when replaying

True, though I think most of the evoked emotions on my part are just towards the characters. I mean there's something to be said for setting off my "danger, do not trust this person ever" alarm.

The benefit of hindsight really does damage the experience though, yes - it's pretty much becomes nigh impossible to play blindly from the character since you know what the choices lead to and therefore are inclined to game the system by default. Which is not to say that second playthrough experiences are somehow not valid, they just automatically become more influenced by outcomes than intentions.

[nhaneh]

casterly-rockin replied to your post “You know, I think it says quite a bit about how I react to sociopathic...”

Hahaha I feel like games like DA aren't doing it right if you don't have strong feelings about the big decisions though? It's just having some sort of master plan, evil scheme if you will.

I'm of two minds about it really; on one hand decisions that that are trivially simple to make or you otherwise don't really care about rarely have any lasting impact. On the other, BioWare morality generally tends towards absolutism and Dragon Age: Origins in particular can be kind of hilarious in how some major plot decisions basically pan out as "Do you want to kill all the babies, all the puppies or save both of them?"; the fact that the Darkspawn themselves represent an absolute extreme throughout Origins really doesn't help that.

In the end, choices in Dragon Age: Origins feel much less like any kind of deep, profound decisions to me and more like a puzzle of how to kill the minimal amount of babies and puppies. The particular choice about the Throne and the Sociopath kind of strikes me as trying to decide between having getting a really bland meal along with a really nice neighbour or getting a really delicious cake paired with a psychopath that has paranoid delusions.

It really comes down to am I willing to gamble my life for a cake.

[nhaneh]

casterly-rockin replied to your post: Dear Tumblr community: Copyright Infringement is...

Copyright infringement is still illegal, it’s just less prisony and more finey. But there’re certain loopholes, like with editorial work that’s functioning as commentary. It’s just barely enforced. Unless it’s Disney. Disney will fuck your shit up.

Oh yeah, it definitely is, at least provisionally. The reason the difference is important is because Copyright Infringement has the legal grey area of Fair Use, while Stealing does not have a concept of Fair Theft.

Basically, to say that Copyright Infringement is equal to Stealing is to say that Fan Art, Fan Fiction and any other kind of Fan Work is also Theft and therefore Illegal, which isn't quite the case. Fan works are basically Piracy, except the copies are generally of low enough fidelity - so to speak - that it typically would fall under fair use if tested. Much like recording film off the telly to a VHS tape is legal because the visual quality of the VHS tape is so poor.

[nhaneh]

casterly-rockin replied to your post: casterly-rockin replied to your post:...

Eh Indeed!

Dragon Eh!

[nhaneh]

casterly-rockin replied to your post: casterly-rockin replied to your post: I want to...

Basically! Ah if only there were a short cut like in the ME games…that also produced screenshots of your specific PC…

Annoying thing too is that I'm kind of considering doing something different than usual (male dwarf rather than female!) so I'd kind of also want to see those differences, at the same time all the other things getting in the way and eh...

[nhaneh]

casterly-rockin replied to your post: I want to want to play Dragon Age: Origins so I...

Hahaha I know that feeeeling I just wanna have an already done save to carry over to DA2…but with one of my characters…But without going through the game.

Yeaaaah.. It's a bit like I want to play the game buuuuut... I don't want to have to play the game to do it.

[nhaneh]

casterly-rockin replied to your post: shepardspetfishes replied to your post: One thing...

It’s why I always feel the need to bit my tongue when people take fan art commissions, but then again there’s this weird encouragement towards it at conventions and the like. It’s basically free promotion.

Yeah, I can relate there. I mean sure, on one hand I get it - the implied notion is that increased interest in the brand will benefit the original copyright holder more than any potential losses in sales of licensed goods, especially if there are no licensed goods on sale. On the other hand, that's still kind of someone elses' thing you're selling there.

[nhaneh]

casterly-rockin replied to your post: Understanding a character does not necessarily...

Yeeeeeees. Tumblr is really good at making you feel bad for disliking things :/ it gets tiresome. Sometimes it even manages to make you feel bad for liking shit!

I think if there's one thing tumblr pretty consistently fails to take into account, it's that liking and disliking things is a process that pretty much happens regardless of what we might actually want. Considering we've had generations of poets and writers and bards and skalds and whatever else emphasising this matter, it's kind of amazing how many fail to realise it.

While recognising the reality of things is generally a useful thing, they don't necessarily change the subjective experience. Realising a tasty candy bar or some really delicious food you're allergic towards is bad for your health does not necessarily mean you won't enjoy eating them. Realising where a really annoying noise is coming from does not necessarily make it more tolerable. To expect otherwise is essentially to expect you to be an entirely different person.