gdp's Comments

Equestria Daily : Skullgirls and Mane 6 Kickstarter - Ending Soon

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:23:26 +0000

I wouldn't be so sure. MikeZ, it's creator, has an absolute toaster of a laptop and he's able to run the game fine.

Equestria Daily : Skullgirls and Mane 6 Kickstarter - Ending Soon

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:17:17 +0000

But the Skullgirls has an infinite protection system!

Equestria Daily : Skullgirls and Mane 6 Kickstarter - Ending Soon

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:16:38 +0000

Actually, people have crunched the numbers. If it keeps up at the rate the donations have been going? It'll definitely be met.

Equestria Daily : Possibility of Skullgirls License for Mane6

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 16:18:08 +0000

...and Fighter Maker 2000, the engine that Fighting is Magic was originally run on, probably wasn't intended for four legged fighters either. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what an 'engine' is, by the way. It's the foundation you build a game on, there's nothing endemic to Skullgirls built into it that would somehow make nothing except games exactly like Skullgirls possible. To put this into perspective, what do Alice: Madness Returns, Borderlands 2, Mass Effect, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and Gears of War have in common? Unreal Engine 3.

Equestria Daily : Possibility of Skullgirls License for Mane6

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 14:48:21 +0000

If you aren't going to support Skullgirls, you shouldn't think of a donation (should you even make one) as a donation towards Skullgirls and more as patronage and appreciation of the insane amount of work that Lab Zero, it's developers, put toward their project and their commitment to the community that has gathered around their project. Whatever you might think of the Skullgirls designs (I'm well aware they're contentious, though I've never had a problem with them), you should at least recognize the great deal of effort that their artists and animators put into making them. Part of the appeal of Skullgirls doesn't even come out of the designs themselves - more that all of the characters are drawn and animated by hand. It's a very difficult process that demands each frame be individually drawn, corrected, cleaned up, and shaded, and coloured, and it pays off with, well: http://i.imgur.com/ekJAjQ2.gif http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzlj04pWMN1qanw... Whatever you might think of the designs themselves, there's an undeniable amount of heart, effort, and time that goes into the actual animation - and the character in the first gif actually has the LEAST amount of frames in the game, an astonishing 1200. That's a really, really serious amount of work. For gains that a lot of people don't really wind up understanding. Of course, the simplest answer is just not to donate. You have more than a few entirely valid reasons not to pitch in and if you spend all this time trying to convince yourself it's a bad idea or something you're not willing to support and going through with it regardless, you're in all likelihood going to regret it.

Equestria Daily : Possibility of Skullgirls License for Mane6

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:41:46 +0000

You'll have to explain this one to me, because 2D games are hardly 'plentiful' by any sense of the word, and it reads awfully dismissively of the absolutely immense amount of work that goes into crafting 2D art - especially in fighting games. Sprites that need to individually drawn frame by frame. Characters will usually have hundreds and hundreds (maybe even more than a thousand) frames making up their entire animation set and none of this is made easy by 3D (or even Flash) techniques like skeletons or rigging. It's all done and checked by hand. You ever wonder why the mainstream animated film industry as a whole has moved on from hand drawn animation since Toy Story? Certainly, part of it was a misguided attempt to emulate its' popularity, but CG proved to be a cheaper, easier, and faster solution to animation. It just really kills me to see people who misunderstand the differences or write them off. I don't mean to call you out or jump down your throat or whatever, but there are better ways to say you're not interested than writing off an entire medium. I really wish I lived in a world where 2D games were generic and plentiful - because '2D games' that use more than preexisting sprites or aren't drawn in more than 8-bit format are very, very, very few and far between.

Equestria Daily : Possibility of Skullgirls License for Mane6

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:34:41 +0000

Not with that attitude. They made 400k in fourteen days, 325k in twelve is hardly impossible - the attention it's been receiving within this community and more should be enough to push it into the realm of belief, and almost every fairly visible crowd-funding project that goes through channels like Kickstarter or IndieGogo (in this case) see a massive uptake of donations in the last 48 hours or so.

Equestria Daily : Possibility of Skullgirls License for Mane6

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:29:12 +0000

But what do you think the 'Skullgirls engine' is? Skullgirls? Or something else? The fact of the matter is that FM2000 is a vastly outdated piece of software (the hint is in the '2000') that Mane6 spent a lot of time trying to fight rather than actually work on. None of the features of Skullgirls are endemic to the engine that Lab Zero uses, if that's what you're implying. It's a framework, nothing else. It just happens to be far better at it than FMK2000. I can assure you that what you 'liked' about the fighting engine in Fighting Is Magic had nothing to do with the fighting engine and everything to do with the efforts of Mane6.

Equestria Daily : Possibility of Skullgirls License for Mane6

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:23:08 +0000

It was lost somewhere in your entitlement. It's not their fault they needed to throw out a year and a half worth of work on their project, and picking up the pieces with the good will and graciousness of more than a few prominent figures in and outside of the brony community is far more constructive than just souring over game development in general and putting the entire thing to bed. Just because it's no longer about ponies doesn't mean you need to condescend towards it.

Equestria Daily : Possibility of Skullgirls License for Mane6

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:19:28 +0000

I absolutely would not be surprised to see Lab Zero hire Mane6 after their new project is finished. They're an absurdly talented bunch and Lab Zero's been very good about their olive branches.

Equestria Daily : Possibility of Skullgirls License for Mane6

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:17:58 +0000

There was never a chance for people to mod the ponies over the characters. They're 2D sprites with hundreds, if not more than a thousand individual animation frames. It's not like replacing a model and keeping the existing animation libraries like a 3D game, the amount of work relative to juxtaposing one new character and redrawing each animation to match up with it, over an existing character might as well be equivalent to making an entirely new game.

Equestria Daily : Possibility of Skullgirls License for Mane6

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:14:13 +0000

You realize that either way, they needed to completely rebuild all their assets, animations, frame data, and basically everything that makes a fighting game a fighting game the moment that their attempts to fight the C&D didn't pan out, right? It'd be the case whether or not they chose to stick with FM2K. It's not as simple as just 'modding it back to ponies'. It's not like Skyrim where all you need to do is swap out textures or take from existing animation libraries - it's a 2D game and you need to make it work through 2D methods. Anyone 'modding' the game back to ponies would need to redraw every single frame again, remake everything about it, and at that point, you'd basically be making an entirely different game. It would have been this way with or without their old engine. Their old engine, Fighter Maker 2000, was actually notoriously difficult to make work. Picking up the Skullgirls engine will give Mane6 the tools they need to make a more robust product in a more streamlined fashion and deliver their game in a more timely manner.

Equestria Daily : \"Wonderbolts Academy\": Episode Followup

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 20:16:45 +0000

I really couldn't have said it better myself. Very well written, and I especially have to echo your sentiments over Merriweather Williams. It's a bit silly that it's been an entire year and we're still defining her quality of writing over her first episode.

Equestria Daily : \"Wonderbolts Academy\": Episode Followup

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 19:25:47 +0000

I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in my opinion that this was the best episode of the season thus far - I'd say it barely edges out Sleepless in Ponyville in quality of writing and pacing. I loved this episode, the animation was exceptionally entertaining, and the way the episode treated Rainbow Dash was exceptional - especially given her exaggeration in Merriweather's previous The Mysterious Mare Do Well. And I'd say its' success in regards to that has little to do with how much it furthered Rainbow Dash as a character (which, to be honest, wasn't nearly as significant as some other episodes), but rather, how it illustrated the culmination of all that development. And what better way to illuminate that difference than pairing Rainbow Dash with her season one counterpart? It was a smart way to tackle the question and recognize where Rainbow has changed when friction began occurring between them regarding 'winning'. I'm also quite fond of this episode's lesson, as it were. Or lessons, rather. Sure, there is the obvious (and very appreciated) one, and this is where I disagree that the ending would have no impact on what it wanted to achieve, where your friends and your success don't need to be mutually exclusive, but the other regarding dominating personalities - really, it handled the topic of peer pressure far more deftly and far more effectively than what an entire episode (One Bad Apple) could manage. Rainbow Dash, normally quite headstrong, is bent into doing something she's not otherwise quite comfortable doing because the other is a much more forceful personality and she has something to prove. None of this is spelled out in a letter or specifically addressed, but it's very present and it's not framed positively. Really, it was just great. It was hardly a perfect episode, but it did what it wanted to do and succeeded with flying colours.

Equestria Daily : \"Sleepless in Ponyville\": Episode Followup

Sun, 9 Dec 2012 23:28:33 +0000

I am pretty sure that 'flying well' isn't criteria on Rainbow Dash's list of things she needs ponies to be. For instance, she didn't demand anything out of Fluttershy that Fluttershy was unable to supply when they were training to draw water up to Cloudsdale.

Equestria Daily : \"Sleepless in Ponyville\": Episode Followup

Sun, 9 Dec 2012 19:17:41 +0000

I would contend that Rainbow Dash's 'softer' side is hardly new. There is, of course, Read It and Weep, but a far more salient example exists in Hurricane Fluttershy. Frankly, I'm not sure why that episode doesn't get more mention. It's my favourite episode of season two and does a lot for Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash both. She's considerate when she realizes she needs to be considerate, and she doesn't always put 'winning' first - as her talks with Fluttershy and her attitude towards lifting the water indicates (that is to say, abandoning her record-setting goal in favour of getting water to Cloudsdale). It does the best job handling Rainbow Dash's character without overaggrandizing any of her traits to get to a certain conclusion without sacrificing the essential elements that make Rainbow Dash recognizable as her character. But I digress, this isn't about Hurricane Fluttershy or some long-winded defense of Rainbow Dash's development (although I'd like to contend that she's probably the most developed character of the Mane 6 outside of Twilight herself). This was a fantastic episode. I'd honestly go so far as to say one of the best of the entire show, and certainly the best of the season thus far. I think it exists in the same realm as an episode like Sisterhooves Social (another of my favourites). It's heartwarming and I love its' emphasis on the dynamic between Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash, replete with its' glorious conclusion. I'm afraid I can't really think of much to say on this, because I feel like much of the episode speaks for itself. Also surprised that it wasn't mentioned this is the debut episode of an all-new season writer, one Corey Powell. And if this episode was any indication, I'm excited to see what episode they pen next. I feel like this season has been somewhat slow to start between a sadly disappointing opener and some weaker than I'd prefer episodes, but between Magic Duel (despite myself not enjoying it quite as much as some others) and this, I feel as though we're right back on track.

Equestria Daily : Episodes 4-8 on Titles Possibly Revealed

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:00:11 +0000

I honestly doubt that the message of Wonderbolt Academy is going to be anything like 'reality will never compare to childhood dreams'. MLP isn't for reality checks, and its' lessons are hardly anything so pessimistic. Maybe something along those lines, but hardly anything as blunt and that.

Equestria Daily : Vocal Music - Replacer: Song for an Earth Pony

Sun, 8 Jul 2012 17:23:13 +0000

God, it's about time that Replacer got his own dedicated music feature. His work is some of the best in the entire fandom. There's this ethereal, dreamlike quality to his music that I haven't seen any other brony musician match.

Equestria Daily : Chrome Pony

Sun, 3 Jun 2012 20:16:50 +0000

It wasn't made by Firefox. They just posted fan-art to their Wall. Still awesome, but completely different ballpark.

Equestria Daily : Daniel Ingram Nominated for Outstanding Original Song

Wed, 9 May 2012 20:11:07 +0000

I think the real concern for me is that there's two nominations. I'm sure Daniel's flattered, but anyone ever heard of splitting the vote? If everyone's too caught up in voting between Becoming Popular and Find A Pet, the split could guarantee that neither of the two win, and instead we're staring at Dora the Explorer.