2337 replies to this topic

[Nathaniel]

Whatever happens Schwa, don't blame yourself. They can play all the macho head games they want with you, but as long as you are sure of yourself, you can't let them make you the one that feels guilty. I'm sorry you had to go through with that. Even if things get better for a while, they could get worse again. So knowing that, you can be better prepared the next time it happens.

Someone in your own family putting a knife to you is 100% wrong on their part. If that is happening, that is pretty screwed up, no matter who says what about it. I just ask one thing out of you: Stay strong, and don't blame yourself for other peoples' problems.

[Sheik]

It'd be better than living through this, always hated by everyone close to me.

I just ask one thing out of you: Stay strong, and don't blame yourself for other peoples' problems.

Nathaniel, as much as the reasonable part of me longs to agree with you, I want to say one thing. It's so freaking damn hard to do the right thing, to be reasonable, not to blame yourself if the consequence of your actions (or your very existence...) is that people that you love will hate you. I don't know wether you know that kind of situation, but trust me, if something can give you the rest than it's this: causing people that you love (and that want to love you) to turn against you (in hatred). There's nothing I can imagine to be worse. I like to play tough, but this is tearing me apart.
Schwa, I feel with you. I haven't been exactly where you are, but emotionally I can relate greatly. It's not a great help, but please remind yourself in these kind of situations that you are worth it. ...I hate the hypocrite I'm being again.

Edited by Sheik91, 17 March 2011 - 05:22 PM.

[Ice Cream Link]

I don't know if this has been asked yet, but if you could be any animal? What would you be?
It's a little random, I know, I'm I'm bored... So that explains that.

I would want to be an animal that wouldn't get hunted, so I most likely survive longer. I like cats, so I will have to say a cat. Besides, cats are

[Marco]

I find it odd people are willing to support governments, yet be unaware of their history.

[Russ]

I don't know if this has been asked yet, but if you could be any animal? What would you be?
It's a little random, I know, I'm I'm bored... So that explains that.

Either some kind of bird, so I could fly, or a river otter. Most likely the river otter. Mastery of land and water. Hard to beat that. Plus they're just so dang awesome.

I find it odd people are willing to support governments, yet be unaware of their history.

Which government in particular would you be referring to?

[Ben]

So. No joke?

That's a good thing. AFD jokes are not original in the slightest, nor are they funny. I applaud not doing one.

[Adem]

I'm actually a tad disappointed. Maybe the joke is having no joke...

[Mitchfork]

The only jokes that we did were confined to Screenshot of the Week and Screen Rebirth. Both of these were suitably obvious (although SotW less so) and were done in ways that nobody got burned on.

I think that people react badly to April Fool's jokes because so many have been done in extremely poor taste, especially over the internet. Let's make a distinction between a "joke" and a "prank." A joke can be pretty offensive, but the definition is totally neutral. It could or could not be at the expense of another. A prank relies on a person (or persons) being fooled or hurt; a prank's humor comes from it's cruelty. That's not saying that pranks can't be funny, but they generally walk the line between being a complete asshole and friendly one-upmanship.

A lot of the time people tend to either walk that line ungracefully or forget how a prank can be funny. A prank isn't funny when only one person is in on it and it's impossible to tell if they're kidding around or not. A prank is funniest when we see the strings. A lot of April Fool's jokes, sadly, don't realize this and they cross the line between edgy humor and really hurting someone. On the internet, this is really easy to do; the combination of being anonymous and having a large audience means you can pull things off that would be either impossible in real life, such as a fake death. Some are a lot less extreme; they may not lie to you, but they may make your browsing experience a lot more inconvenient, which also tends to get people angry.

We never like being the one woken up at 4 in the morning by a garden hose, but we'll laugh at a video of it. That's why it's hard to pull off a "good" prank on the internet; you're running the risk of pranking everyone if you plan poorly, which means you'll have a bunch of wet people extremely mad at you, and probably justly so.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that all April Fool's jokes are inherently bad. It just tends to evoke strong memories and resentment from people, which may be understandable. There are some pretty bad ones that have been done. I think that this years April Fool's jokes were pretty tame and victimless though, and it was fun to participate in them. Whether it was funny or not is ultimately up to you, of course, but I don't think you can claim they were mean-spirited or would cause anyone undue distress.

[Ben]

...it's hard to pull off a "good" prank on the internet; you're running the risk of pranking everyone if you plan poorly, which means you'll have a bunch of wet people extremely mad at you...

Then those people really should adopt a sense of humor. If it's not already made obvious enough to expect something unusual by the date staring at them from their own screen, it's their own fault. You can't go around trying to please everyone, but if at least one person found the thing funny, then to me, the whole thing is worth it. Anyone who is "hurt" is pretending, or just a troll out to stir up drama by complaining a lot. You can't please everyone, and someone, somewhere will *always* go out of their way to be "offended" by any kind of joke.

That's the problem with people these days, though. To an extent people are much more easily offended in general, mainly because they can then play the victim and elicit sympathy from others, and then start a class-action lawsuit.

Whether [this year's joke] was funny or not is ultimately up to you, of course, but I don't think you can claim they were mean-spirited or would cause anyone undue distress.

No argument here. I did not find it funny; nor did I even notice it existed.

I still say the CLAM DISCOSION joke was the best ever.

Edited by Bagel, 03 April 2011 - 04:07 PM.

[Schwa]

So, yesterday I finally duplicated a no-death, no-save, Wooden Sword run of NES Zelda 1st Quest. Emulator, not ZC. I had done this before (you might have seen my four-part playthrough on DailyMotion)... numerous times, actually... but this time I finally have a run I'm beyond satisfied with; I only made, like, ONE mistake the entire time, which was run out of Bombs on Level 5 to miss out on the Bomb Upgrade (I had to double back after getting bombs from the Gibdos), which was a really miniscule error, especially considering I didn't use ANY Savestates.

And, like my old run, I entered and beat Level 8 as the third Dungeon, with eight Heart Containers, no Blue Ring and no Shield. I don't consider it "my best" unless I beat Level 8 third or before then. That and Level 8 is my favorite dungeon in the game; I love fighting Darknuts, they're challenging, but not frustrating like Blue Wizzrobes are, ugh. (Since I only use the Wooden Sword, Blue Wizzrobes take TEN HITS. My various struggles against them have conditioned me to use Bombs as weapons more than any other weapon; I grew used to them and more comfortable fighting enemies with them than other weapons, even the Book-Wand.)

I will upload my playthrough to YouTube eventually, once I convert the file types properly! Stay tuned.

[Russ]

It's official. You are completely insane Schwa. I have no idea how you managed to do that. I'm impressed. And slightly creeped out. But mostly impressed.

[Schwa]

It's official. You are completely insane Schwa. I have no idea how you managed to do that. I'm impressed. And slightly creeped out. But mostly impressed.

Hey, without us crazies, we would have never put a man on the moon, we would have never invented television, we would have never stood up to the vastly-superior Great Britain and became the USA, nor would Joan of Arc have led her country to freedom, nor would evolution be such a widely accepted theory in the world.

Or in video game context, wasn't it crazy in the first place for anyone to assume that Pong was physically possible to make exist? And yet here we are, nearly 40 years later, with Counterstrike, with Touhou, with Super Mario Galaxy and its motion-sensitive gameplay... It's an unfathomably remarkable miracle, isn't it?

But anyways yes, and I'm almost done converting the Emulator video file into .AVI files, which I will then slowly convert into .MP4 with commentary/subtitles, one 10-15 minute installment at a time. I will also slow down or replay clips of my playthrough in the video during some of the battles, and describe the weapon techniques with the Sword, Boomerang, etc. as I do them, so people can see for themselves the difference between button-mashing their way through each dungeon, and carefully-practiced skill and reflex. That's actually the exact reason I never upgrade the Wooden Sword. It trains me.

[4matsy]

Ah, nice; congrats, Schwa. Looking forward to watching this feat.

Have you heard of the Extreme Challenge? It'd be the next step up in difficulty from your run, but I think you could handle it, with your level of skill...

[Schwa]

...I'm so upset. I was just having a go at 2nd Quest, same rules and conditions as above, and I got to Level 4, beat it without getting the Raft because I was out of bombs (to fight the Dodongos guarding the room before it), then I went back in after getting bombs to get the Raft... What happened? I got the Raft, but then I got trapped in the dungeon forever, having already collected the Triforce (which was the only way to exit), and I had to delete my game.

WORD OF ADVICE. Go into Level 4 with max bombs and 150 Rupees, no exceptions. Get the Bomb Upgrade on your way to the Triforce, skip the Triforce when you reach it, even if you're low on health, go get the Raft and then double back to the Triforce. That's the best way. Otherwise you end up like me and lose an hour of painfully-hard-to-record footage. (My run was seriously amazing until I ruined it like this. )

[ShadowTiger]

How did you get trapped in the dungeon though? If you continue at the exit, can't you just leave?