New Patreon Fee System

By Shamus Posted Sunday Dec 10, 2017

Filed under: Notices 235 comments

If you support my Patreon, then you probably got a notification recently that Patreon is changing how they process fees and pay creators. This change is being universally panned. I follow a lot of other creators, and I have yet to see a single person endorse this change.

Reader James asked on Friday:

Hi Shamus,

With the recent changes to Patreon, what’s the best way to support you and your content? I know you have Paypal as well but maybe there’s some fees there that you pay that you now don’t on Patreon…

Maybe a blog post about this might be useful to clarify things.

Kind regards,
James.

The best way to support me is still on Patreon. I guess? It’s the most convenient, and I’m a big believer in the idea that convenience is king.

This entire controversy is completely fascinating. At first I thought it was an understandable move, poorly explained. Then as I looked into the details it looked like a foolish move, dishonestly explained. And now that I’ve been looking at the numbers for three days it looks like an insane move explained by an idiot. The longer I stare at this mess the more strange it seems, which would make for fun analysis if it wasn’t directly tied to how I provide for my family.

Before I can discuss the change, let me explain how Patreon has worked in the past.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “New Patreon Fee System”

 


 

Borderlands Part 19: The Vault Hunters

By Shamus Posted Thursday Dec 7, 2017

Filed under: Borderlands 41 comments

Each new game has a new slate of vault hunters. As with Borderlands 2, there are 4 canonical or “core” vault hunters, and two additional ones as DLC.

Let’s meet the new crew…

Wilhelm

So when you switched to cybernetic parts did you replace your... you know... Wilhelm?
So when you switched to cybernetic parts did you replace your... you know... Wilhelm?

Wilhelm is a boss in Borderlands 2. He’s Jack’s right-hand man, and Jack basically sacrificed him to make sure that the player would get their hands on the trapped power coreAccording to the wiki, there’s an unused audio log in the game assets where Jack states that he poisoned Wilhelm prior to his fight with the player, which was probably intended to explain why the player was able to defeat him when the combined might of Roland, Mordecai, Brick, and Lilith had failed to damage him at some unspecified point in the past.. Here we’re sort of playing through his origin story where he meets Jack.

In Borderlands 2 he was (or will be, if you see what I mean) 90% robot. Here he looks like a mostly normal guy. He’s addicted to cybernetic implants, and apparently between now and the events of Borderlands 2 he’s going to have an extreme metal makeover. If you spend points in the right skill tree you can kickstart this process yourself, making him half-robot in the process. I love this integration of character and gameplay.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Borderlands Part 19: The Vault Hunters”

 


 

Doing Batman Right 6: The Joker

By Bob Case Posted Wednesday Dec 6, 2017

Filed under: Batman 98 comments

I’ve mentioned earlier in this series that I don’t necessarily care for the practice of elevating the Joker so far above the other members of the Rogue’s Gallery in focus and importance. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a top-shelf villain – in fact, to me, the Joker is not only one of the best comic book villains, but one of the best villains period.

One thing the animated series could do, and often did, to good effect, was to make the Joker physically large. Very often Batman, usually the burliest mook in the room, could seem like he was at a disadvantage.
One thing the animated series could do, and often did, to good effect, was to make the Joker physically large. Very often Batman, usually the burliest mook in the room, could seem like he was at a disadvantage.

There are two “tricks,” so to speak, that his various writers and performers have used to pull this off, one minor and one major.

The minor one is to take advantage of the Joker’s time in grade as a villain. He’s been such a big name for so long that the usual genre rules don’t always apply to him. Some second-string antagonist is probably not going to beat Robin to death with a crowbar, or shoot and paralyze Barbara Gordon, because that’s not the sort of thing that happens. But the Joker might, which means that his mere presence on page or screen puts the audience in a heightened state of danger.

I’d even say that the only person in the entire Batman universe who could be considered safe when the Joker is around is Batman himself. Alfred? Gordon? Anyone else? All of them are potential victims. Whenever the Joker is present, everything seems a little wilder, a little more unpredictable. That’s the minor trick.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Doing Batman Right 6: The Joker”

 


 

This Dumb Industry: Wilson Boxes

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Dec 5, 2017

Filed under: Column 97 comments

Last week I linked to this video by Skill Up, which talks about how the concept of loot boxes developed inside of EA and how we got to where we are today. This time let’s talk about it in detail.

Synopsis

EA CEO Andrew Wilson.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson.

Like I said last time, it’s an excellent video and worth a watch, but if you’re not inclined to hit the play button then here’s a breakdown of the key points. And just to be clear, everything in the next section is from the Skill Up video and not commentary by me, so if you see something you disagree with make sure you know who you’re arguing with before you jump down to the comments. Also, this is a synopsis, not a transcript. It’s a long video with a lot of information and I’m just boiling it down to a few key points for the purposes of discussion.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “This Dumb Industry: Wilson Boxes”

 


 

Avengers: Infinity War Speculation

By Shamus Posted Sunday Dec 3, 2017

Filed under: Movies 222 comments

So the Infinity War Trailer dropped this week. It’s pretty good. I really like the angle they’re taking with Thanos, our villain. He’s not just some boring sadistic space monster. He’s a big dude with big goals, but he seems to enjoy the prospect of mopping the floor with the heroes. His design is interesting as well. He doesn’t look cruel or insane. If anything his design makes him look thoughtful.

It’s interesting the movie is called “Infinity War”. Originally it was titled “Infinity War Part 1”. We know this movie and the next were shot together and form a single story. Maybe the sequel will be called Avengers: Infinity Plus One War.

It’s been a long road to get here. The Marvel Cinematic Universe turns 10 next year, and a lot of the old guard are preparing to leave. I’ve been wondering about this since the whole MCU plan was announced. It’s a remarkable opportunity: The chance to introduce a superhero, grow them for a decade as they experience multiple character arcs, and then kill them off for good. TV shows can’tIt’s not IMPOSSIBLE, but what are the odds of making it this long without getting canceled, the public losing interest, the key creative people moving on, or the meta-plot dissolving into nonsense as it passes through multiple writing teams? do these kinds of long-running stories, and in comics you can’t count on anyone staying dead. In a lot of ways, this is exactly what I’ve always wanted from superhero stories. Stories that are long but not unlimited, with characters that die when the writers run out of interesting things to do with them. It’s a shame these things are so expensive to make, because I’d love to see a lot more heroes explored in this format.

The Marvel movies are to the box office what John Cena is to wrestling. It’s almost boring to see them win all the time. Sometimes I wish they would fumble one of these things just so we can see how they’d handle it.

But that’s silly. We’re getting two or three incredible movies a year and that’s more than enough entertainment for me. Rather than wishing Marvel would fail, it’s probably more sensible to wish DC would pull it together and start giving us a rival series of similar stature.

Anyway, we’re about five months from the first Infinity War movie, and so I’d like to engage in a little speculation as to what they’re going to do, who’s going to die, and how things might play out.

I have no insider knowledge so nothing we discuss here can be considered “spoilers”, but I will be spoiling some earlier Marvel films and comics and such. For the record, I’m all caught up on the Marvel movies except for Thor: Ragnarok, which I plan to see in February when it comes out on video. 26 years ago I read the Infinity Gauntlet comics, which is what this movie is loosely based on. So if you’ve fallen behind on your Marvel-watching and you’re shy about spoilers, then maybe give this post a pass.

Still here? Great. Let’s do this…

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Avengers: Infinity War Speculation”

 


 

Borderlands Part 18: Origin Story

By Shamus Posted Thursday Nov 30, 2017

Filed under: Borderlands 55 comments

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel takes place in the space between Borderlands 1 and Borderlands 2. Instead of being developed by Gearbox, Publisher 2k Games handed the project to 2k Australia.

Borderlands has something interesting in common with the Arkham series:

  1. The first game was a surprise hit with a fresh look and fresh gameplay, although it was a little rough around the edges. The final boss fight was almost comically disappointing.
  2. The follow-up was bigger, more ambitious, and more polished.
  3. The next entry was an awkward one-off prequel made by a new team so the publisher could continue to capitalize on the series while the original team tried to make the fourth game even BIGGER. This one felt a little off from the others.

The final Arkham game turned out to be pretty bloated and unfocused. There’s no telling how the next Borderlands game will turn out, but I’m hoping the long development cycle of Borderlands 3 doesn’t mean the team has bitten off more than they can chew and we’re headed for another Arkham Knight.

I suppose I tipped my hand already with bullet point #3, but I really do think the Pre-Sequel is a bit of an awkward misfire. It’s got some great ideas and makes some genuine improvements on the formula, but it’s also missing a bit of the magic that made Borderlands 2 so much fun to play. I feel bad about saying this, since the Pre-Sequel is the last game the studio made before they shut their doors.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Borderlands Part 18: Origin Story”

 


 

Doing Batman Right 5: The Penguin and Two-Face

By Bob Case Posted Wednesday Nov 29, 2017

Filed under: Batman 58 comments

I should’ve mentioned last post that I was planning on taking Thanksgiving off. But now I’m back with The Penguin and Two-Face.

As I explained in the first of these posts, one of Batman’s strengths as a property is versatility – the ability to go from goofy to serious and everything in between and back while still remaining Batman. This same quality applies to some of the Rogue’s Gallery as well, and the flexibility inherent in the property allows for individual performances to drive the change.

The Penguin: A Tale of Two Actors

The Penguin first showed in Detective Comics #58 and subsequent issues of the same, dressed like the monopoly guy, wielding trick umbrellas, and occasionally riding around on an ostrich. He seemed destined for the second-string villainhood he so richly deserved, and, for a while at least, he fulfilled that destiny.

Then came the Adam West show, and with it Burgess Meredith. Did you know the old Penguin was played by the same guy who played Mickey in the Rocky movies? I went almost my whole life without realizing that, and have since lowered my opinion of myself accordingly. Meredith played the Penguin using the method shared by Cesar Romero, Eartha Kitt, and other notable villains: he turned the ham up to eleven.

Don’t take that as criticism. (It’s my belief that all of the best acting is overacting anyway.) The show’s writers liked his Penguin so much they always kept a Penguin script on ice in case he became available. He was used often enough that he graduated from the second string to the first, and has been considered a “main” (for lack of a better word) Batman villain ever since.

So for a while we all thought we had a pretty good handle on what The Penguin was. Then came Danny DeVito.

It's always sunny in Gotham.
It's always sunny in Gotham.

While up until this point The Penguin was a relatively normal dude who happened to dress like a gilded age railroad baron, the DeVito/Burton incarnation of the character was a grotesque flippered mutant who lived in a sewer and gorged himself on raw fish. He also had a prominent hooked nose, twice interrupted a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, and eventually planned to kill every firstborn in Gotham. As near as I can tell from reading the accounts of the filmmakers, this unlikely confluence of anti-semitic tropes appears to have been a genuine accident. I didn’t notice them when I first saw the movie, but on later rewatches I could see someone finding it at the very least uncomfortable.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Doing Batman Right 5: The Penguin and Two-Face”