the other thread was so much better

I agree the original thread was superior, but it seemed to being doing fine without me. Besides, what kind of example would I be setting if I let myself get baited by some noob?

Anyway, thanks for opening up this dialog. Keep in mind that there’s gonna a podcast tomorrow at some point, so you’ll get a much more candid outlook of our team.

As far as music is concerned, I’ve always had very diverse tastes. Right now I tend to be into the more garage-y side of indie rock…lo-fi, sometimes psychedelic, and with a bit of alt-country twang. “Nuggets”-era and Stooges soundalikes, basically. Poppy, fun, dumb, with some grit.

I like a lot of heavier rock…punk, hardcore, even a bit of that screamo stuff. There’s always a special place in my heart for doom/stoner metal. You mentioned Clutch in PANTS’ music thread, right. That’s one of my favorite bands of all-bum time.

Being a white suburbanite, I naturally also gravitate towards hip-hop of all kinds. And I also love old-school ska, rocksteady, dub. I’ve recently discovered Afrobeat (essentially anyone with the last name Kuti). Jazz, too, when I want to feel clbumy.

I dig various electronic stuffs. Breaks, drum ‘n bbum, electro. I can get down with house if it’s the right venue, but I still prefer a good mosh pit over any club.

Long enough answer, huh? What can I say, I hate all music. Log in to see images!

Jalapeno Bootyhole Posted:

I agree the original thread was superior, but it seemed to being doing fine without me. Besides, what kind of example would I be setting if I let myself get baited by some noob?

REQUEST MOVE 2 FULL OF ONE, bumHOLELog in to see images!

L2 Posted:

Cool. And yeah, Clutch has been one of my favorite bands for years. Their pre-Elephant Riders is work is a bit tough to get into, but everything from that album on up is an amazing mix of blues, hard-rock, and other genres. There writing and wordplay skills are easily on par with artists like Barenaked Ladies and Beck. Really, they’re the only band that can put a “Guaranteed Rock Satisfaction” sticker on their albums.

As a guitarist (I own a Fender Telecaster), I try my best to listen to any genre. My favorite mainstream acts include Powerman 5000, Beck, Barenaked Ladies, Clutch, Filter, Killswitch Engage, etc., while I also listen to bands outside of the mainstream like Tub Ring (I’m probably going to see these guys live in a couple weeks), Behold the Arctopus, etc.

Next topic – video games.

The best video games ever are No More Heroes, Zombies Ate My Neighbors!, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, and Sonic 3 w/ Knuckles. Disagree if you’re a fabulous person. Log in to see images!

Right on dude. But I’d say my fave Clutch album was self-titled. I like Killswitch Engage a lot too, I saw them in Berlin in ‘02.

Video games: This is gonna sound lame, but at least I can’t disagree with you! I’ve never heard of any of those.

I haven’t owned a console since the original NES. I played a ton of **** as a kid, but I’m not hugely knowledgeable about the last few generations of games. I do get to sample a lot of my friends’ stuff, especially thanks to Evil Trout. The GTA series is fantastic. I like anything with both strong narrative and plenty of pointless murder. The best game of all time, IMHO, is Shadowrun for Sega Genesis.

I also like the straight 2D street-fighting killage, but that seems to be kinda pbumé these days…

Right on dude. But I’d say my fave Clutch album was self-titled. I like Killswitch Engage a lot too, I saw them in Berlin in ‘02.

I can see that. Self-titled definitely had some gems, especially “Spacegrbum”. Alongside “Careful With That Mic” and maybe “10001110101”, “Spacegrbum” is probably one of their masterpieces.

Going back to music for a second…Jack White and Tom Morello. Probably the two coolest guitarists in the modern rock scene.

The GTA series is fantastic. I like anything with both strong narrative and plenty of pointless murder. The best game of all time, IMHO, is Shadowrun for Sega Genesis.

Play “No More Heroes”, right now. Then pick up “Killer 7” for the Gamecube, by the same director. ****ing amazing stuff.

Next topic…beards. I have one, you have one…your mother has one. What makes a cool beard, and what’s the best style?

L2 Posted:

Play “No More Heroes”, right now. Then pick up “Killer 7” for the Gamecube, by the same director. ****ing amazing stuff.

Next topic…beards. I have one, you have one…your mother has one. What makes a cool beard, and what’s the best style?

I’ll check out that game. I like the idea of “no more heroes” in general, as it was a great ‘77 punk tune. And I generally agree with the Marxist critique of “heroism,” in that it’s vastly overblown by our culture.

Except for me, of course. I’m a hero. Your hero.

I am your hero.

Let’s cleverly segue from Marxism into a discussion of beards. Me, I don’t have one anymore. Went and shaved it off a few days ago.

I like to let my facial hair grow out once in a while, mostly because I’m extremely lazy. It’s often less about style than it is representative of something for me, at any given time. Maybe it’s part of the great Canadian hockey tradition of growing a horrible-looking “playoff beard.” My last one was out of “protest” for the ****ty weather we’ve been having. A refusal to do my spring cleaning while it’s still winter, you know? But now that’s it’s hot out, I shaved that **** off and will do my best to maintain a constant state of scruffiness. I’m going for that 1980s George Michael permastubble look, which is okay because back then no one thought he was gay.

Segueing into homosexuality, all this is moot if you were talking about a ”beard” all this time. I don’t have one of those either. You say you have one? Hey, good for you! At least some (extremely gullible) people think you’re getting laid. Log in to see images!

Jalapeno is a fabulous person and forgot that I showed him No More Heroes. I’m not sure if he played it, but he’s definitely seen it.

Evil Trout Posted:

I, Evil Trout, am a fabulous person and forgot that I showed JB my male reproductive organ. I’m not sure if he played with it, but he’s definitely seen it.

That’s a damn lie, but I do recall checking out No More Heroes now. The graphics were relatively primitive, but it seemed pretty cool.

L2 Posted:

Also, signatures. Mine is awesome, yours sucks. What makes a good forum signature?

“Misattribution theory” sounds interesting. I’m going to look into that.

As for your pet idea, I admit it’s good. And we do want to introduce more such dynamic, cyclical content in the future. Right now the big priority is getting a testable version of Episode 2 together. After that wraps up, new features like the one you suggested can be injected into the gameplay piecemeal, over time.

Sigs…do I have a sig? If I wasn’t disabling right now, it’d be the one designed by -Ghost-. I like it.

I’ve made it no secret that I believe the (newly grammatical) “male reproductive organMONGLER” message should either be optional or removed altogether, but I’m gonna plead my case at the next meeting. I’ve also expressed my belief that we should limit the size of sigs, because there are some mbumive ones.

Basically, any series of giant flashing pictures is bound render a site NSFW, if only because it’s incredibly conspicuous and suspicious. If you quickly want to check on how a thread is going at work, there’s no way you can keep them enabled.

So I guess, to me the “best” sigs would be static, tasteful and minimalist. They should express your unique personality. But you should really change it every few months, like underwear.

L2 Posted:

I pretty much agree, though with a site that’s as accepting of content as FWZ, a “turn-off signatures” option seems more viable.

Moving into more FWZ related questions…what goes into writing dialogue for this site? Is it difficult to write conversations without going off-the-handle in cheesiness?

We do have a disable sigs option…that’s what causes the “male reproductive organmongler” message to appear. (I think?)

Writing NPC convos: Well, Trout created an ingenious conversation tree editor just for this purpose (there are screenshots out there) and while it takes some time to get used to, it’s very intuitive. He recently improved things by making it more keyboard-friendly and increasing its speed — previously, it would take several seconds to save each component of a conversation to our dev server.

As far as avoiding cheesiness…I don’t know, I’m sure a lot of it is pretty cheesy! I’m tough on myself. While I strive to make sure the chats are reasonably interesting, funny, realistic and well-paced, I’m never, ever satisfied. And since I’m aware of the brick wall you can hit as far as imagination and funniness, I actually think it’d be better to fly off the handle more often. I tend to restrain myself because I’m concerned about other factors, like making sure it’s coherent, that there are choices, the option to skip ahead, etc, all while trying to convey some surprising aspects of the personality of the bug****s messaging you.

Fortunately, I have Trout, Bingebot and Abdullah offering their input, because they can be truly warped sometimes.