Idiot of the day 2013: Wishing that the Mayans were right.

[Meiousei]

Isn't their current best sellers a Batman book and a Superman book? I'd like to find a website that gives the week to week sales figures, rather than just the month. (Might actually help me find some new comics to pick up for Christmas).

And to change the subject a bit...for the idiot of the day: http://newsfixnow.com/2013/09/10/iowa-grants-gun-permits-to-blind-people/ Really?

[Twilkitri]

Given what I think I understand about Americans, shouldn't it be fine for blind people to have guns, just not fine for them to use them? Isn't one of the main arguments for having them that they can be used as a tool for threatening people (who mean you harm) with, rather than actually killing people with them? It's obviously not really going to help if the threatener knows that the victim is blind, but that isn't necessarily going to be the case.

The article points out that blind people aren't allowed to drive, but are they prevented from owning a car in the first place?

[Lady Door]

I think you are largely correct. Right to property is a hotly contested issue, though, especially when it comes to certain classes and disabilities. (For example, the number of people who believe that if you are on welfare, you are not allowed to spend your money on anything that is not expressly related to your survival.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Many people who own guns own them for the purpose of collection, as well (which a blind person can certainly do). Also my understanding is that some cities already ban gun use, but not their ownership (since you could go to a firing range or on a hunting trip and use it legally there). I'm generally not on the pro-gun side of many arguments but Iowa seems reasonable here to me.

[Meiousei]

Talking about cars and blind people, I recall a TV that had Stevie Wonder learning to drive. As I recall, there is technology to help blind people to drive cars. It's just expensive as heck.

But aside from that, what makes it weird is when the article aired (at the same time I found the article), the gun expert on the site wasn't very happy about it. When I thought about it, the first thing that came to mind was 'Well he has a point'. I thought similar to Twilkitri, that it's just a tool to threaten. But it's still bugging me.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

(Might actually help me find some new comics to pick up for Christmas).

BOOKS YOU SHOULD BE READING BECAUSE IF NOT THEN FUCK YOU
-Hawkeye
-Daredevil
-F.F.
-Thor: God of Thunder

All easily better than anything with Batman or Superman in it.  Or especially anything with both of them in it.  You're welcome.

[Meiousei]

F.F. as in Fantastic Four or Future Foundation?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

It's actually just called F.F.  The Fraction/Allred one.  Fraction's leaving after #12 to launch a new series, but they're bringing in the third Allred to round out the team for F.F.  It starts with the Fantastic Four all finding someone to fill in for them and look after the kids at the Future Foundation, just in case the time travel experiment doesn't work and they don't reappear 12 seconds later.

[Meeplelard]

Hawkeye hype I can get behind; that's been just plain awesome since issue 1 and never has done otherwise.

Can't speak for the other three though.

[NotMiki]

one of the X-Men books seems pretty solid right now but the other ones kinda suck.  I'll let you know which later.

Also Deadpool is going strong.

[Shale]

As great as Fraction has been on FF and FFour, I cannot fucking wait for the Allred/Allred/Allred books.

(Also the new Superman series by Scott Snyder is pretty good, even if Jim Lee is involved)

[superaielman]

Less comics, more comically dumb. Link A: Mr. Weiner. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/11/weiner-dodges-sexting-partner-flips-the-bird-as-he-rides-off/?hpt=hp_t2

[Anthony Edward Stark]

one of the X-Men books seems pretty solid right now but the other ones kinda suck.  I'll let you know which later.

X-Men Legacy is fucking fantastic.  It's about Xavier's son (you know, the one who caused the AoA) trying to use his godlike powers for good.  Fucking read it.  All-New is also pretty good, and Cable & X-Force is fun.  UXF and Adjectiveless are hot garbage.

In other, idiot-based news:  http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/13/e3-2013-final-fantasy-xv-was-almost-a-musical  Apparently Nomura saw Les Miz and came into work the next day wanting to change FF15 completely so it would be a musical.  This is after the game was in development for EIGHT YEARS.  In other idiot-based news, his biggest inspiration is Baz Luhrman, which explains a lot about his lack of worth as a creative force and a person.

[Hunter Sopko]

one of the X-Men books seems pretty solid right now but the other ones kinda suck.  I'll let you know which later.

X-Men Legacy is fucking fantastic.  It's about Xavier's son (you know, the one who caused the AoA) trying to use his godlike powers for good.  Fucking read it.  All-New is also pretty good, and Cable & X-Force is fun.  UXF and Adjectiveless are hot garbage.

In other, idiot-based news:  http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/13/e3-2013-final-fantasy-xv-was-almost-a-musical  Apparently Nomura saw Les Miz and came into work the next day wanting to change FF15 completely so it would be a musical.  This is after the game was in development for EIGHT YEARS.  In other idiot-based news, his biggest inspiration is Baz Luhrman, which explains a lot about his lack of worth as a creative force and a person.

This just in, Rhapsody 2 announced, Nomura to write, compose, direct, star and cater

[Meeplelard]

I don't see the Nomura thing as actually that big of an IotD.  Sometimes, you get a really weird spark of inspiration when you see something and want to go ahead with it, and heck, for people who argue the jRPG genre is "stagnant", it'd be a good way to make itself stand out (since yeah, Rhapsody is the only one and that was years ago.)  It may not have been a good idea, but I can't blame him for having this vision at one point.  Honestly strikes me as "let's take easy potshots at Nomura!" when he really didn't do anything wrong other than a weird spark of creativity that could have backfired dramatically if followed through (though we'll never know, and may be better off as a result.)

[Anthony Edward Stark]

If you've been designing a game for seven years, STILL haven't released it, and then, one day you come in wanting to redesign the entire game as a musical that's pure IotD. If this was a story about a game that was released, and this had happened in early development that's one thing. Needing your boss to explain to you why you can't do a full redesign on a project in its eighth year, on the other hand...

[Grefter]

This isn't me just agreeing with Rob on this.  That shit is fucking crazy

That would be a remotely defensible stance Meeple if he was just being paid as a creative person on the project, but he isn't.  He is the director for FF15.  That DOESN'T mean creative control to do whatever he feels like, it is to be the primary lead to get this game shipped and shipped in its best possible shape with the time, staff and money he had.

Having been there on a large scale IT project (for 2 years, not 8) that suddenly has morphed into something completely different and not what you had worked on for most of its life, it is pretty fucking horrific.  If someone did that on a whim after it had been in development for that long and was at best a year or two from release (given the timeframes here) and I was on the team I would seriously think about leaving or at least requesting to be moved to another project because I would have trouble working with that lead ever again.

He is free to have ideas, store them up and write them down.  Trying to jam every single idea into what is being worked on NOWNOWNOWNOW at the cost of those projects is bad.  Enthusiasm is great, but it needs to be tempered with wisdom and you would hope someone that has been in the industry as long as Nomura would have some kind of inkling of that by now.

[Meeplelard]

Except that the IotD in this case isn't Nomura, and isn't even "Of the Day" anymore; it's Square-enix for announcing a game way before they actually started serious development (they actually started serious development as of like 2 years ago or some such.)  They announced it ludicrously early, which Square-enix, at least for a while, had a knack for doing. 

Really, your entire argument is "8 year dev cycle, IT'S STUPID BECAUSE OF THIS!"  That'd be the case if they were actually working on the game during those 8 years, which they very clearly were not.  There's a reason people legitimately believed the game was going to be cancelled at one point, given all we got were 2 useless trailers, and the last one came out before Dissidia was even released in Japan, IOWs about 5 years ago.  You'll notice we got our first glimpse of anything resembling gameplay and stuff that wasn't action sequences at E3 this year...probably because they actually finally started working on the damn game.

So yeah, can't say I can get behind the IotD hype at all; honestly comes off as a cheap shot at Square-enix.


You'll notice it doesn't say he's doing what either did.  All it says he came in the next morning saying "Hey guys, we should totally do this idea!" and they just went "That's a bad idea, continue what we're working on." 


Sorry, but you both are blowing this out of proportion.  Read the actual article; he didn't say anything like you're claiming Grefter...at all.  It just says "he showed up, had the idea, everyone else talked him out of it, they moved on."

[Grefter]

How many man hours do you piss away on a project talking down a bad idea? As director he shouldn't have done this
 

he charged into the Square offices the next morning intent on transforming FFXV into a musical of Les Miserables’s caliber.

The thought process should be "is this going to impact the preproduction that has already been done". Let alone "is this marketable", "is this right for this project" and "has my company announced this 5 years ago and we have already released trailers and set an expectation for what this is".

I don't know what you think I claimed that he said.  I am saying that one thing that is quoted without harping on the fact that the article refers to it as happening "a few months ago" is a sign that he doesn't properly use his internal filter for ideas like someone in his role should.

The fact that they had trailers mean someone somewhere did work on it in those 8 years.  I don't care whether it was just preproduction work or during the full swing dev cycle, he is still going to be throwing years of work out the window on a whim if that went ahead.  Again if I was in that position I wouldn't want to work under that person.  Having to discuss and maintain status quo for your project moving ahead every time the boss gets an idea overnight is shit not worth putting up with.

So yes I read the article.  I came out of it with this opinion.  You don't have to buy it, I am giving it for free.  Showing up and having to be talked out of it as the lead is still gods damned stupid.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I also sincerely doubt that Square-Enix has the capital reserves to completely overhaul a game that they've gone all-in on as a way to save their flagging series.  Last I read they hadn't reversed their cash flow situation to any real degree, which means they're still on track for a late 2015 bankruptcy.

[Dhyerwolf]

I believe that they somehow integrated the FF 13 Versus into 15, which means that they have on some level been working on this project for nearly 8 years.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

It's much simpler than that.  They just sanded off the part where they painted "Versus 13" on it and put the number 15 on instead.

[metroid composite]

FFXV as a musical?  Pfft, I've worked on weirder stuff than that.  It was never released, and only existed for about 3 months of development (but it was actually pretty fun, if unmarketable).

The weird part is that we even heard about this, not that it was brainstormed at some point behind closed doors during however many years they've had to be brainstorming ideas.

Honestly?  Game developers are not marketers, don't always understand what consumers want, and especially tend to have poor understandings of foreign markets.  (Hence how X-2 happened).

[Grefter]

I agree, Devs aren't infallible.  That is kind of the point.  It isn't that the very idea of a JRPG that is a musical is a bad idea.  Assuming that you can do it with the biggest IP in the genre as the next main series release is optimistic to say the least.  Do I think they could have done it with Eternal Sonata (like srsly should have)?  Yes.  Do I think a reboot of Valkyrie Profile that is a straight retelling of the Ring Cycle would be pretty rad?  Yes.  (Lolololol 100 hour RPG amirite?)

Do I think floating that at work for FF15 after FF14 just lost the company millions is a smart thing to do?  No.

[Cmdr_King]

Realistically, FFXV as a musical would be pretty brilliant; it's basically about a yakuza prince fighting off rivals seeking to steal his family's fortune with heavy overtones of fatalism.  And in a way, changing over a game to a musical wouldn't be that bad.  You're not negating existing work on the battle engine, art assets, level designs, or the like, you're changing the presentation of plot scenes more or less.  However, it's a pretty ballsy idea and the game's been in development long enough that challenging people's expectations at all would be Very Bad.  And of course if they'd gotten far enough along then the extra workload would be an unaffordable delay, but that depends on just how far along in development the game was.