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Art by Evilsherbear
This is my art blog! By 'art blog' I want to focus on my own creations, whether its fan art or original, or showcase the works of others that I find interesting. Think of it as a digital sketch book with clippings interspersed of what inspires me.

You can find me on either Deviantart or LJ

I also do commissions!

I also love to answer any questions you might have!

Theme by Andrew Stichbury for Tumblr.
shadesofmauve: pagerunner-j: rinjirenee: brittlepageswornandfaded: I don’t condone the harassment and really don’t care all that much what other people think of the games that I play, but since this is the internet, I’ll throw my opinion into the pool. If you don’t want to play battles, don’t play battle games. If you don’t want to click around a controller and just want to watch the interesting movie bits, look them up on youtube - or better yet, watch a movie. OR READ A BOOK, those are also good. I don’t think everybody should love gaming the same way I do, but the battles are the whole point in Mass Effect. It’s a shooter game. The story adds depth and makes it colorful and real, but it’s still a shooter game. Take that away and it’s just a life simulator or something - it’s not the same thing. If you want to play sims, go play the sims. (Speaking of which, I should get back into that game.) ok no no no no taking away combat in a role-playing game is not making it a simulator RPG = You take control of characters who aren’t you in a fictional setting Simulator = An attempt at replicating reality In no way would a RPG EVER be also classified as a simulator unless the setting that the RPG was in was a replication of reality in which you play someone who isn’t you, a roleplay simulation. There is no requirement for a RPG to have combat elements.  There’s this weird mentality that says that the story of the RPG is skippable but combat must absolutely be sat through and accomplished.  Why?  I can only recall a couple of instances where a lost battle would progress the plot in a different way (see: fight w/ Cauthrien in DA:O for example).   Other than that, the only choices you get to make during combat is: Win or Game Over.  Would that not make combat the more tedious element that could be skipped over if you’ve already accomplished it once?  I can’t understand people who play RPGs for combat purposes when the goal of a RPG is to tell a story with fictional characters and fictional setting. Also if you’re playing ME3 just because it’s a shooter game lololol no, there are much better shooter games out there.  It has combat elements, but it is a RPG with characters and story first and foremost. It’s not only RPGs that subscribe to this weird mentality that YOU MUST SUCCEED AT COMBAT BY OUR TERMS OR YOU CANNOT EXPERIENCE THE REST OF THE CONTENT.  I mean, I understand the point of the challenge for players who want it — but why not permit a different mode of play for those who want it, too? I remember being so frustrated with Child of Eden for exactly this reason.  I mean, it’s a beautiful game, and I wanted to play it more for relaxation than anything else, particularly since I knew there was a mode in the game where it was impossible for you to die.  Trouble is, you have to play through it in the regular combat mode in order to unlock that mode.  There was one level I just could. not. get. through, I’ve never figured out why or what I was doing wrong, and because of the way the checkpoints worked — or didn’t — I kept having to play the entire level, about 20 minutes worth, over and over and over again until I hit that point at the end where I died over and over and over again. I was so frustrated I literally cried.  I couldn’t get any help on it; the best I could get was people telling me I was failing because I sucked and was a terrible gamer.  And because of this, I could never play the last level, and couldn’t even play the penultimate one all the way through. I quit, sold the game, AND sold my Kinect. Haven’t touched any of it since.  And it’s so maddening that it downright hurt, because the game I desperately wanted to play was on the disc.  It was there.  I just wasn’t allowed to play it because it kept telling me I wasn’t good enough. Games have a tendency to only reward one method of learning — trial by fire. Any other skill you learn, you practice.  You try it out slowly, in pieces, in a penalty-free environment, until you get better.  In games, God Mode is a reward for when you get so good you don’t even need it anymore, which is beyond pointless, and unless you’re the sort of person who gets a sense of triumph / superiority over mastering a complex system (which describes a disproportionate number of gamers, because they’re the only ones who get rewarded), it’s downright punishing.  There’s got to be more than one option out there, and it’s not just sticking a difficulty slider on the thing — it’s entirely different modes of play, different mechanics entirely, and maybe, crazy fucking thought, not necessitating that the game has to be about combat at all. For one thing, especially when you’re talking RPGs, requiring that everything be All About Hitting Monsters With Sticks ends up drastically reducing the KIND of stories you can tell.  I mean, seriously, how many RPGs are about saving the world / universe / all of existence?  If your core mechanic is always combat, the story’s always going to be about war.  Why does it HAVE to be?  Can’t we please give this medium some more damn variety, and let those of us who only put up with combat as a means to something else (in my case, mucking about with the storyline, building up a character, and exploring / investigating / solving puzzles) focus on stuff we like, too, instead of having to invest 20 hours in the stuff we don’t really like in order to get to the 5 hours of stuff we do?  There’s a whole lot of layers to this rant of mine I’m not even getting into here because I’m running out of time, but that’s the core of it… All of pagerunner-j and rinjirenee’s points are good ones, and bear spreading about. From an ease-of-discussion perspective, I’d really like to see some new vocabulary, so we can differentiate a classic Role Playing Game — a game about getting in a different character’s head — from what currently seems to be meant by RPG — a game in which you customize your character’s combat style, which may or may not have role playing type choices. We don’t have enough words for this stuff… but We Are The Internet. We can make some! On a less nit-picking point, though… I like both combat and story-telling elements of games. I also like games where there is no combat at all. The key is variety — there are huge opportunities to do a huge variety of things in this amazing media, and when people start saying there’s a Right Way — be it a Required Amount of Shooting or Minimal Graphics Standards or Believable Physics — we all lose. (Also, Page’s comment in particular made me think of how damn cool a Role Playing Puzzle/Adventure game would be! I love adventure games, but customizable they ain’t. I wonder what such a hybrid would look like!) Emphasis mine. This is a BIG problem I’ve had with games as I’ve gotten older. I’ve got less time to master the skills needed to progress, and sometimes I just want to play a game to relax. Sometimes people just want to pick up and play a game because of the experience not the gameplay challenge! Journey happens to be my favorite game this year exactly for that reason, and if you have difficulty, other players can help you out, no stigma attached. Opening up the gaming experience for more people is a GOOD thing.

shadesofmauve:

pagerunner-j:

rinjirenee:

brittlepageswornandfaded:

I don’t condone the harassment and really don’t care all that much what other people think of the games that I play, but since this is the internet, I’ll throw my opinion into the pool.

If you don’t want to play battles, don’t play battle games. If you don’t want to click around a controller and just want to watch the interesting movie bits, look them up on youtube - or better yet, watch a movie. OR READ A BOOK, those are also good.

I don’t think everybody should love gaming the same way I do, but the battles are the whole point in Mass Effect. It’s a shooter game. The story adds depth and makes it colorful and real, but it’s still a shooter game. Take that away and it’s just a life simulator or something - it’s not the same thing. If you want to play sims, go play the sims. (Speaking of which, I should get back into that game.)

ok no no no no

taking away combat in a role-playing game is not making it a simulator

RPG = You take control of characters who aren’t you in a fictional setting

Simulator = An attempt at replicating reality

In no way would a RPG EVER be also classified as a simulator unless the setting that the RPG was in was a replication of reality in which you play someone who isn’t you, a roleplay simulation.

There is no requirement for a RPG to have combat elements.  There’s this weird mentality that says that the story of the RPG is skippable but combat must absolutely be sat through and accomplished.  Why?  I can only recall a couple of instances where a lost battle would progress the plot in a different way (see: fight w/ Cauthrien in DA:O for example).   Other than that, the only choices you get to make during combat is: Win or Game Over.  Would that not make combat the more tedious element that could be skipped over if you’ve already accomplished it once?  I can’t understand people who play RPGs for combat purposes when the goal of a RPG is to tell a story with fictional characters and fictional setting.

Also if you’re playing ME3 just because it’s a shooter game lololol no, there are much better shooter games out there.  It has combat elements, but it is a RPG with characters and story first and foremost.

It’s not only RPGs that subscribe to this weird mentality that YOU MUST SUCCEED AT COMBAT BY OUR TERMS OR YOU CANNOT EXPERIENCE THE REST OF THE CONTENT.  I mean, I understand the point of the challenge for players who want it — but why not permit a different mode of play for those who want it, too?

I remember being so frustrated with Child of Eden for exactly this reason.  I mean, it’s a beautiful game, and I wanted to play it more for relaxation than anything else, particularly since I knew there was a mode in the game where it was impossible for you to die.  Trouble is, you have to play through it in the regular combat mode in order to unlock that mode.  There was one level I just could. not. get. through, I’ve never figured out why or what I was doing wrong, and because of the way the checkpoints worked — or didn’t — I kept having to play the entire level, about 20 minutes worth, over and over and over again until I hit that point at the end where I died over and over and over again. I was so frustrated I literally cried.  I couldn’t get any help on it; the best I could get was people telling me I was failing because I sucked and was a terrible gamer.  And because of this, I could never play the last level, and couldn’t even play the penultimate one all the way through.

I quit, sold the game, AND sold my Kinect. Haven’t touched any of it since.  And it’s so maddening that it downright hurt, because the game I desperately wanted to play was on the disc.  It was there. 

I just wasn’t allowed to play it because it kept telling me I wasn’t good enough.

Games have a tendency to only reward one method of learning — trial by fire. Any other skill you learn, you practice.  You try it out slowly, in pieces, in a penalty-free environment, until you get better.  In games, God Mode is a reward for when you get so good you don’t even need it anymore, which is beyond pointless, and unless you’re the sort of person who gets a sense of triumph / superiority over mastering a complex system (which describes a disproportionate number of gamers, because they’re the only ones who get rewarded), it’s downright punishing.  There’s got to be more than one option out there, and it’s not just sticking a difficulty slider on the thing — it’s entirely different modes of play, different mechanics entirely, and maybe, crazy fucking thought, not necessitating that the game has to be about combat at all.

For one thing, especially when you’re talking RPGs, requiring that everything be All About Hitting Monsters With Sticks ends up drastically reducing the KIND of stories you can tell.  I mean, seriously, how many RPGs are about saving the world / universe / all of existence?  If your core mechanic is always combat, the story’s always going to be about war.  Why does it HAVE to be?  Can’t we please give this medium some more damn variety, and let those of us who only put up with combat as a means to something else (in my case, mucking about with the storyline, building up a character, and exploring / investigating / solving puzzles) focus on stuff we like, too, instead of having to invest 20 hours in the stuff we don’t really like in order to get to the 5 hours of stuff we do? 

There’s a whole lot of layers to this rant of mine I’m not even getting into here because I’m running out of time, but that’s the core of it…

All of pagerunner-j and rinjirenee’s points are good ones, and bear spreading about.

From an ease-of-discussion perspective, I’d really like to see some new vocabulary, so we can differentiate a classic Role Playing Game — a game about getting in a different character’s head — from what currently seems to be meant by RPG — a game in which you customize your character’s combat style, which may or may not have role playing type choices. We don’t have enough words for this stuff… but We Are The Internet. We can make some!

On a less nit-picking point, though…

I like both combat and story-telling elements of games. I also like games where there is no combat at all. The key is variety — there are huge opportunities to do a huge variety of things in this amazing media, and when people start saying there’s a Right Way — be it a Required Amount of Shooting or Minimal Graphics Standards or Believable Physics — we all lose.

(Also, Page’s comment in particular made me think of how damn cool a Role Playing Puzzle/Adventure game would be! I love adventure games, but customizable they ain’t. I wonder what such a hybrid would look like!)

Emphasis mine. This is a BIG problem I’ve had with games as I’ve gotten older. I’ve got less time to master the skills needed to progress, and sometimes I just want to play a game to relax. Sometimes people just want to pick up and play a game because of the experience not the gameplay challenge! Journey happens to be my favorite game this year exactly for that reason, and if you have difficulty, other players can help you out, no stigma attached. Opening up the gaming experience for more people is a GOOD thing.

(Source: biowareconfessions)

Notes

  1. warlioness reblogged this from pagerunner-j and added:
    ^^^ THAT’S WHAT I WANT TOO! Cheesus Fucking Crust I’m so SICK of those motherfuckers shitting on my experience because I...
  2. pushthequorumbutton reblogged this from lucyzephyr
  3. aenaithia reblogged this from missmokushiroku
  4. leechbrain reblogged this from popculturetart
  5. ayesleigh reblogged this from biowareconfessions and added:
    I agree. I wouldn’t personally skip combat or higher difficulties in shooters or RPGs, but who cares if someone else...
  6. murphychacho reblogged this from biowareconfessions and added:
    That whole incident made me ashamed to be a gamer.
  7. whattheficus reblogged this from biowareconfessions
  8. grappleraddiction reblogged this from biowareconfessions
  9. popculturetart reblogged this from surelyforthvakarian
  10. neuroticheroine reblogged this from yamisnuffles
  11. missmokushiroku reblogged this from surelyforthvakarian
  12. nithathil reblogged this from drawgirldraw
  13. drawgirldraw reblogged this from shadesofmauve and added:
    Emphasis mine. This is a BIG problem I’ve had with games as I’ve gotten older. I’ve got less time to master the skills...
  14. shadesofmauve reblogged this from pagerunner-j and added:
    All of pagerunner-j and rinjirenee’s points are good ones, and bear spreading about. From an ease-of-discussion...
  15. pkbitchgirl reblogged this from biowareconfessions and added:
    Interesting how she said something that pissed people off without the intent of pissing people off and she got dogpiled....
  16. darthmama reblogged this from rinjirenee and added:
    Man I’d hate to be in the gaming group for a table top RPG with that first guy. His answer to all problems would be a...
  17. zeebeejeebee reblogged this from covenmouse
  18. nightxade reblogged this from rnbwrvrgrl
  19. pagerunner-j reblogged this from schaudwen and added:
    It’s not only RPGs that subscribe to this weird mentality that YOU MUST SUCCEED AT COMBAT BY OUR TERMS OR YOU CANNOT...
  20. fal-cxn reblogged this from biowareconfessions
  21. sugarplumtits reblogged this from covenmouse and added:
    ^ Interesting take on it. :3 I agree.
  22. smiling-cersei reblogged this from biowareconfessions and added:
    Mass Effect without epic combat in NOT THE SAME GAME. You can’t feel connected with Shepard if you don’t fight to...
  23. schaudwen reblogged this from rinjirenee

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