4.14.2008

Mearls...converted to Dark Side?! Also, he reviewed a movie I have to see.

Just tonight, I started reading Mike Mearls' LiveJournal, which is something I have meant to do for a long time.
I'm really tired and I got to talky to my lady earlier, so I didn't make it far, but I wanted to hit on a couple of things I have come across.

The first, taken from his post on Feb 5, 2004:
"MMORPGs suck utterly, mightily, and endlessly, and I'm not sure how long it's going to be before somoene scraps the entire rotten foundation that EQ has built and replace it with something that's good."

Is it just interesting to me that someone who works on 4E would once have said this? It's not a very well hidden secret that many elements of 4E play come from MMORPGs as a whole, so what happened?
What went wrong here that someone with such a strong opinion would now try to make the game that he said this about: "The best game has to be D&D." (same article) would now try to make that "best game" into something that is rotten, and sucks utterly, mightily, and endlessly.
I guess dollars can erase one's opinions.
Yes, I do realize that was over 3 years ago, and that people and opinions change, but I also feel that if something isn't broken thematically, which D&D certainly IS NOT, then you don't try to make that theme something else.
I'm not bagging on Mearls here for working on the project, etc., and I still plan on checking out 4E, but I dunno. It seemed an odd contrast coming from one of the first posts I read of his.

Moving on from that, though...Mike also a day after his MMORPG comment seen above, mentioned a movie that is a definite must see for me, as I'm just a fan of horrid movies. B or otherwise.
I know a few other people who would like to get ahold of this one, too, so if you're out there reading, check this out!
I'll give the whole of the "review"ish bits so that you can see them in context.

"3. What was the last really awful movie you saw? How would you have made it better?

My roommate sat down to watch Battle Royale 2, an incredibly stupid movie about a revolution of incredibly stupid Japanese teenagers, who used the power of incredible stupidity to struggle against incredibly stupid adults. It featured such highlights as:

* Apparently, Afghanistan is the most beautiful place on earth. We should all look to it as an example of what society could be like.

* In the movie's final scene, the two main characters are outnumbered 100 to 1 and completely surrounded. They charge out from behind cover to die in a blaze of glory. Cut to a flash of light. Cut to a group of secondary characters who escape the final battle and now live in the utopia that is Afghanistan. Suddenly, a truck pulls up. It's the two main characters! Joy! How'd they survive? Who knows!

* In the future, the government will recruit random high school classes and throw them into combat with no training. Also, they will issue equipment at random. You might get bullets for your gun, or perhaps a toilet seat.

* If terrorists hide on an island, it's better to send waves of ill-trained high school students to fight them rather than bombing the crap out of them.

How would I improve this movie? That's an impossible task. This movie had no redeeming qualities. From the basic concept to the execution, it did nothing right. I would improve this movie by beating the director and writer to death."

Of course it's an impossible task. It's hard to upgrade awesome, after all.
Anyway, sounds like some serious crap. I HAVE to find this flick.
I can only hope others will join me in this pursuit of pure movie gold.

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