Grefter Editorialythingstuffs, not all RPG related (I hate you)

[Grefter]

Oh hey, there is this topic where I was posting stuff this year.  This was a fun experiment.

Chris Lightfellow

I believe I have covered how great the Knights of Zexen armour is before.  If I haven't now is a good time.  If I have, well I haven't updated in months so fuck it whatever.

The muted tones of the cloth in the armour is fantastic.  It all feels very practical and utilitarian where it actually isn't entirely.  The brown skirt and boots let the orange skirting on the armour really be emphasized which in turn lends the eye to the armour.  Simple and clean lines on the armour provide ornamentation without appearing ostentatious, only really becoming explicitly ornamental on the pauldrons, which if you compare to other Knights really shows.  This is fine, she is the Knight Cmdr and some kind of explicit presentation if not insignia is perfectly acceptable.  The metal armour obviously matches her eyes and hair perfectly, that is the intent of the character quite plain and unsubtle. 

There is far more to this outfit than just the armour that I love though  it is really simple set of colours but it is a theme that travels way further than it first appears.  The patterns and colours from the skirting are touched on all over the body.  Just little bits here and their but it really helps tie it all together without the top half or her body being grey/white.  Note the yellow on the boot tops and laces with the square patter continuing on the folds of the boot tops taken from the skirting.  Orange and yellow patterened swordbelt.  A touch of yellow showing through in the joins at the breastplate (presumably whatever is worn underneath the armour). My favourite part that doesn't really show up until you are looking at the picture carefully, the orange and yellow collar turned over the tops of the breastplate.  Yellow trim on the solid orange background mirroring the skirting on the armour.  It shows that this whole outfit is a set and it really is pretty great.  What appears to be a utilitarian piece of gear really is a complete uniform and a show of rank and priviledge.  Best of all it looks really good.

I really like that on the whole set there is two spots of black.  The lining of the boots and the black of the scabard.  Everything else is a dull and muted tone, but is always something that won't clash and contrast with the solid grey/white displayed once you hit the breastplate and keep going up.  Of note really quickly on the topic of accessories, the small silver earrings (hard to make out but they are there), adds to the whole simple utilitarian thing with some minor ornamentation.

Also the hair is fabulous.  I am going to be stuck on that even more so in just a short while, but damn is that isn't close to the most intimidating side part in existence.  Pulling back into a nice elaborate bun.  This of course rounds out the sword girl look with the librarian look for all the creepy fetishists out there.  Ignore that part though.  This is just a damn fine look.

So Chris I think gets a whole article to herself because two outfits and holy shit both of them are great.

Her Grasslands outfit continues the anachronistic combat gear and clothing that seems way too warm for the region thing that we have been seeing.  Not that I am going to complain because that thick woolen combat jacket looks great on her.  The patterened piping seems to serve no function at all although it follows along the seams of the sleeves (presumably as there is no join at the tops of the sleeve).  This theme is repeating from the last outfit in that it is not as utilitarian as first appears, which mirrors the character herself.  These outfits really are wonderfully designed and well thought out. 

I really like the light, but still somber grey dress under the jacket peaking through the collar and at the ends of the jacket sleeves.  Nice and casual, clashing with the combat jacket really well.  Again, character stuff.  The dark blue pants under it are cool as well.  It really looks like a pretty comfortable travel outfit she is rocking underneath stuff there.

So lets talk about how damned hot this outfit must be.  Under that jacket that I adore there is a fairly light looking short dress worn primarilly as a top.  Under that we see dark blue leggings or pants.  Then there is thigh high boots.  There is at least two of clothing with good insulation there and gloves to go with it.  This climate baffles me.

Moving on to accessories, the slightly darker gloves matching the jacket are great, especially since they are broken up by the ends of the sleeves on the dress and the touch of skin at the wrist.  Great stuff.  The earrings come back and are far more prominent in the profile shot.  Nice little personal touch here I think, it helps put into perspective that not everything in the last outfit was uniform either.  Some of it is herself.  Low slung swordbelt, notably different from the last one, much thicker and two prongs to the buckle making it much more utility that the last (again, speaking something for the previous outfit being more show than it first appears).  Those boots.  Oh my gods those boots.  Buckled thigh high.  Flat heels.  Loose fitting but showing defined legs (albeit surprisingly thin given how much armour she carries around).  Those are boots that launch a thousand practical foot fetishist to war.

Now I spend time talking about the artistic choices of the picture rather than the clothing.  This picture is fairly iconic and stands out a lot in Suikoden 3 art.  It is really striking because it doesn't fit the normal stock character sets the others do, but that is part of what really helps it out.  The profile shot is just a good character shot for Chris, she is still clearly really stark and harsh a character, but she is out of her armour and not wearing her badge of state.  All there that is harsh and confronting is her, rather than her office or her armour.  This is part of Chris' character that I really quite like.  She is focussed and there is a thing she wants to get done.  She will make it happen.  I believe the way Eph would phrase it is "Dat eyebrow".  Damn that is some impressive work for while she is on the road, but regardless of how much primping and makeup would go into an arched eyebrow like that in real life, it rounds out the look here pretty convincingly.  Chris is not a woman to fuck with.

All of this is without going on about the hair.  Oh my gods the hair.  It is to die for.  So straight and cascading down the back flaring out enough that it is whipping around and visible on both sides of her body.  I cannot emphasise this enough as someone who has done the long hair thing.  That hair is ridiculously straight and so well kept after.  Just damn.  So good.  Once again we return to a staple as well of a seriously amazing fringe bringing the viscious side part from the bun full circle into something that is stupidly hot to complete the sexy librarian trope.  This shit is straight up over the arm of a chair in the middle of the day sexy.

[Idun]

So Grefter succumbs to the doms. It'd only be appropriate to ask Chris on a date in either Yuber or Geddoe outfits. The latter with a flat, thick, uneven belted chain-mail and gloves enough to handle Chris's divaness, while the former is better suited for a dungeon experience with Chris's grassland outfit.

Also, Grefter with long hair?

[Grefter]

Most of that was written as pandering directed pretty much directly at CK with having fun with language (I am still proud of over the arm of a chair in the middle of the day sexy as a finisher).  So read into that what you will about CK.  I tend not to say anything about my own tastes other than mixing it in with a flurry of other humor.

I rocked the pony tail pretty much from High School onwards for 7 or so years give or take time with head clippered all over for a PS2 in the middle of University.  Was down around between my shoulder blades.  Cut it short when I wanted to go respectable for my current job.  Still fairly scruffy since I wear it long still, but not even close to pony tail length.  Given my taste in metal it is not really shocking that I kept it long.  Contemplating growing it out again but don't think I could be bothered.

[Grefter]

Playing with the closet door

So guys.  I have a bit of a confession to make.  It is probably kind of obvious to you people that have known me for a while, but lots of stuff at work and in my life in general has got me thinking really hard about this thing.  I mean I work with people like this all the time and have some pretty good friends in that community.  So I think it is time I finally just accepted it and came out to everybody.

You see the thing that I have been really struggling with lately is my place in things and what I really like and enjoy.  Like I fixate massively on fashion and stuff like that which you can clearly see in this thread, there is a real running theme in it if you pay attention and I have kind of flirted about it on and off here and there all over the place for a long time sort of jokingly admitting to it and then being completely counter to it 5 minutes later.

Hell I even have a really bad track record at making really inappropriate and probably offensive jokes about people like this before and I think we even have a few in the community that I am sorry if I ever offended you.  I might just be kind of self hating a little?  I apologise.

You see the thing that spurred me on to post this article is that there was this girl on the bus on the way home.  She was wearing this short shorts (of some kind of synthetic material, couldn't pinpoint by sight alone though), like 4 inch heels with legs going onward to infinity (damn girl, just wow), a tank top to show a little bit of belly and this thin cloth jacket with a hoodie that barely fit her and stopped like 3 ribs up her rib cage.  She had a necklace, earrings and a bucket hat.  She had the pretty face and figure (highly bouyant upper body) to pull this off.  I looked at it and it did nothing for me.  The only thoughts that crossed my mind was "Well if what you are going for is to show off everything it works pretty well.  You have enough skin on display that I don't quite understand the hat, but whatevers."  The outfit generally had no real effect on me, all I could do was not construction and functionality.

There is this exact same kind of response all over the place in this thread.  I just don't really have an appreciation for clothing that is putting it all out there and doesn't serve a purpose.  I don't really express much interest in the female form so much as the bits and pieces that are hanging off it.  It is like all I care for is things that make up the whole of it all rather than really accentuating feminine assets.

My taste in music even shines it through as well.  I mean if anyone has followed my on and off love/postively baffled relationship with Lady Gaga and her music really shines through given her reputation and all that.  I love it when everything is at its bare minimum and stripped right down.  Overproduced things just get in the way.  It is clutter that gets in the way of the real parts of the song.  That isn't to say I only like songs with minimum instrumentation.  MGMT is a fantastic example in that they have noises all over the place, they have very busy songs, but every noise is a key part of the experience (if you haven't listened to MGMT over a good set of headphones or with speakers up overly loud you have probably missed something!).  My favourite pieces of instrumentation in a given song is pretty much always the bass guitar and the drums.  The core of the songs are the things I love.  The Framework. 

I am seeing it with other things I do as well, not just my hobbies.  At work I was struggling with a program and raging against usability of it (inability to upload multiple files at once, having to link said files to other instances in a database one at a time, having to scroll through list of all uploaded files each time).  It really just stinks of poor design and a serious lack of testing on the usability.  I have been being more aligned with this stream of work in my day to day life and the community surrounding these guys is frustrating me.  They keep doing all these things that I don't really like, but I am finding more of myself in these people every day.  They aren't bad people, I just wish they wouldn't always fall in these stupid stereotypes so frequently.  It is depressing and gives them all a bad name that I am sure some don't deserve.  Seriously, any of you reading this, cut that shit out and start acting like normal human beings.  I am getting really hung up on Systems Design and System Architect work, even more so than just when I flirt with database structure and design.  I am really branching out and getting fixated on the user interface and usability, how fields interact and transfer from one database to another in a fairly complex series of systems used for ordering.  I mean it is really way more intense than just a curiosity.

There is something even more telling that I don't think many of you would have noticed other than random odd comments.  I think the Elf might have copped some of it when he was in Brisbane for a bit and I caught up with him one afternoon.  I have this kind of fascination with architecture.  It doesn't dominate my life or anything, but I like to observe how a building is supporting itself, strange attachments and protrusions that actually serve some purpose other than just ornamental value.  Actually thinking of it the crew that went to Shaba studios at DL con... 3?  5?  Forget which year it was exposed to it even if briefly when we went to lunch.  There was this building we wandered to that had the water from the air conditioning as a man made free falling waterfall in the middle of the building to act as the cooling and I suppose oxidation cycle (I suppose there is oxidation in there?) of the air conditioning instead of something more normal like a little water fountain somewhere like you see plenty of places.  For serious guys, I thought that was great.  Probably no one noticed, but it stuck with me as definitely a thing.

So what I am trying to say guys is that I think I might be an Engineer.

[Nephrite]

I suppose I'll have to give up my "Coolest gay man in the DL" badge now.

[Grefter]

I didn't know you were an engineer Neph.  Sorry for all the jokes   It kind of surprised me as well right?   I grew up playing with all this Science stuff.  Turns out it wasn't meant to be.  I am more interested in design than creating new ideas.

[Fenrir]

Great post.
Are you going to tell your family?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Finally!

Don't worry Grefter, even though we knew all along, we loved and accepted you for it anyway.

The first step is admitting it to yourself.

[Clear Tranquil]

Awww yaay!~

[Grefter]

Finding a Stranger in the Alps

I game in Australia on the off chance that anyone that reads this site doesn't already know.  I want to have a little rant that is fairly common to hear from Australians on this here Blagosphere.

The long story short is that we pay near twice as much as the US release for games.  It is very slowly becoming better on some platforms some of the time.  I trend towards PC games for this reason, we only get gouged about 50% for new releases.

Here is a story of a new sales platform to the market completely and totally fucking this up in the face of an already insulted and downtrodden public who are all too aware of how much we are being spitroasted from both ends for game sales.  Especially for digital product where the cost difference in delivery of the product is often dealt to us through the cost of our net connections rather than the producers content servers hosted in the US.  (To be fair, plenty of distributors do host servers here in Australia which are notoriously expensive for no good reason.  This is a notoriety that grew from the price of server infrastructure when you were relying largely on one ISP to do it well.  Now this is no longer the case).

The game being used as example here is a new release.  Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, it is supposed to be okay and is written by R.A. Salvatore which for some reason gives some dudes big hard ons.  When I want a pulpy fantasy plot sometime I will hold my breath for a game written by Margaret Weiss and/or (preferably and) Tracey Hickman.  They trend towards a higher fantasy level of pulp in my opinion.  I only really have a passing interest in this game.  I was just running across the prices on the front pages as it is fairly new while I looked for something else.



Here we have the games price on Steam.  $60US, you know, the price of a new game these days ($40 cheaper than I used to pay for reference).  That is all well and good.  Steam does a pretty good service and I like it.  It has a few downfalls and I don't look forward to the day Valve curls up and dies (heavens forbid), but for now it gives me access to old stuff I like and new stuff at a generally decent price.

Also note that Steam is fully capable of charging a regional price as determined by the publisher.  I could just as easilly be posting links about how Darkness 2 is $90 or Modern Warfare 3 is $100 because why the fuck not?  Instead I am going to show you something straight up fucking batshit insane retarded.



This is a screenshot of the cost of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning on Origin at release.  A whole $20 more because they have it region encoded on Origin.  So yeah I am used to that feeling, it is my colon slightly expanding out as a stranger finds me in the Alps because I live in Australia and I like to play games.  It is not really a comfortable feeling, but it is one I am used to baring.  You know how it goes in these prison colonies, you fight against it at first and then you just give up and let it happen so you can get on with your day.  Even getting abused every day can get mundane.  I have things to do and games that I want to play, so I just blow an even larger disproportionate amount of my income on my hobby because that is the price point things have always been and people will pay for it.

The real failure here is that this completely pulls the rug out from under EAs attempts to make Origin a reasonable alternative to platform to Steam.  I only use it because I absolutely have to.  They aren'y empowering me as a consumer, they are just forcing me to have one more process that I need to shut down after I finish using it to play the one EA game I feel like playing this quarter (bonus points for Old Republic not needing Origin running).  I hate to be saying this, but you should have fucked us out of that $20 on Steam if you were even going to hope to get Origin to be taken seriously as an option for this game.  Maybe they are contractually obligated to do so to keep the price in brick and mortar stores competetive, but this either means their agreements somehow missed Steam and EA really wanted to sell it at $60 but can't, or they just don't even care enough anymore to fuck us over properly.

I am not even sure what is more insulting.  The continued abuse or the fact that it is so half hearted these days.  What happened to us EA?  We used to have a real good hatefuck relationship going on. I ranted about how you published the same piece of shit drivel every year and then you closed all the studios I liked.  Then you went all good for a while and had someone else become even worse and close fucking everything and use studios like they are fuel for their Druuge Maulers.  You still put out the same shit drivel every year, but it stopped being so offensive  when someone else was showing how to really mistreat your staff and let great talent go to waste making Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.  Actually on second thought this isn't such a bad thing.

Really this just baffles me as a business point of view and really just is one more straw that is going towards getting us some sweet wheelchair camel races going.  I might even start not buying games over that much maligned $60 price line that so many US posters hate on.  Hey at least it isn't $100. 


As an aside to a frustrating discussion I had seen pop up in some game scenes (might have been on Extra Curricular?  Which is awesome and people should check out.)

Let me just go out there and say this to people that are against grey market purchases in Europe or the like because you aren't supporting your local industry.  Here is a textbook example where I literally have no interest at all in supporting the local industry.  Developers locally will get my money.  Local brick and mortar stores stopped getting my money for PC games years ago when there was a viable alternative that even when they are fucking me over still tend to give me a better price than the local stores (and convenience and all that other glorious bonus that comes with digital distribution).  That or you know, I might buy them if they kept any in stock.  My PC games sections shrunk to miniscule proportions before I gave up on them, but they have no interest in my business so I won't continue to throw money at them to try and get them to change it.

I tried, I did my part.  They slammed my dick in the car door.  There is a reason I catch the bus now.

[Nephrite]

So just to be clear, the Australian version of Reckoning on Steam costs $60?

[Grefter]

Yes and it cost $20 more through the publisher's own digital distribution network.

[Nephrite]

Thumbs up EA.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I am stunned that EA would be dickish about something. Stunned, I say.

[Grefter]

It isn't the dickish that is the sad thing.  Everyone does that to us.  It is that they are doing it so poorly.

Don't you care anymore EA?  I used to think the black eyes were because you loved me.

[Dark Holy Elf]

No, they were always a sign of the complete lack of respect EA had for you. The important thing is that now that you realise this, the healing process can begin.

[Grefter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmGkfWDtv78

[Idun]

Better paid than an art historian in this case.

[Grefter]

So by popular request I have been asked to riff on Final Fantasy 9 character clothing designs.  I don't have a bigger introduction than that.  Doing this because I was asked to and it should be fun.  Pics being linked to from Final Fantasy wiki on wikia.

Zidane



May as well start at the nonciest of the nonsense.  As I tend to I will start at the top and then jitter all around the place and hyperfocus on the most inane shit.  So first of all, this is going to be a really stupid petty complaint given the superdeformed character design and the whole JRPG thing, but hair doesn't work like that, really not without product.  It is lifted and then parted down the middle and that is crazy since the life is about the distance from his widow's peak to his eyebrows.  Check that distance on your own head and see just how crazy that shit is.  To do it like that and have his hair hang out loosely like that he must pull the hair straight up (or hang upside down?) apply like a thick layer of product to just that section of the hair, let it set and then let the hair hang down into place.  That or there is a precise application of hair spray.  You could just say it is he has a weirdly shaped skull, but the fringe is all wrong for that.  See where the part starts?  There is clearly hair going in an upwards direction there.  The puzzle that is going to keep me up at night is this.  Does the part go all the way to the scalp?

Moving down we have a frilly lace neckline and necktie on a vest.  It is kind of stupid, but everyone can see that.  You don't come here for the obvious shit, so we will move on after I noting, although it looks stupid, it actually goes with the lace cuffs pretty well. I really want to talk about the top here though.  the tight white undershirt is fine and all I guess (If Djinn were to cosplay Zidane I would expect it to be a belly shirt instead), but the vest is really short and with the undershirt I don't get the big exposed midriff it leaves.  It also is pretty far from the most offensive thing though.  You see that buckle on the left?  You know what that buckle oes up and holds on?  The strap on the other shoulder.  Zidane has an adjustable sized piece of leather strapped to his back over the top of his vest.  What the fuck is that and what the shit is it even meant to do?  I first thought it was maybe holding the knife up with how far forwards it sits on his waist and all that since it had been a while since I had seen his full model.  Nope, not at all.  He has what amounts to a tiny leather vest or shawl draped over another slightly larger, but still too small vest.  What the fuck is that shit and who wakes up in the morning and goes "I have an idea, I need to buckle on a piece of leather."?  The only thought is that maybe it is meant to be armor of some kind, more on that later though.  Assuming it is then it is pretty goddamned useless, oh cool a piece of thin leather armour to protect my back and restrict movement of my shoulderblades while I leave my entire chest and torso unguarded.  This is the best plan.

We may as well get the gloves and cuffs out of the way.  These things have baffled me for years.  Are they the cuffs off his jacket that he lost the sleeves from?  Are they the worst gloves in the world?  I have kind of come to the conclusion that they must be the gloves, but it has taken me a ton of puzzling over it to realy come to that conclusion.  See if they are loose cuffs they need to sit in place somehow, but they are clearly far larger than his wrists which suggests that they are connected to something and the only option there is the gloves (I can see making jokes about Zidane being such a wanker that his wrists might be bigger than you expet, but there is no way they are like twice the size of his biceps needed to support those cuffs).  Soooooo we have these giant cuffs that may or may not be connected to the gloves.  They have huge cufflinks that are still way further out on the cuff than they would need to be to actually fix them in place.  Possibly you could have them link to part of the glove, that makes the glove need to have something stick out into the cuff and the more I describe that it sounds pretty ridiculous.  So yeah.  That cuff.  What the fuck.  It looks like they are probably connected to the gloves one way or another at least.  If that is the case, ignoring the who the hell decides to connect a cuff to their gloves thing.  Who the hell does that and then decides they need frilly cuffs?  Who gets these weird gloves that are matched specifically to one set of clothes in their wardrobe.  These gloves.  They so crazy.

Continuing down we have the belt.  This is going to be pretty quick.  That belt holds up his dagger.  His swordbelt if you will.  It has a buckle that is not buckling anything.  It is just tied on.  You might want to buy a belt that fits for a change.  I believe this is the key indication that the character design was done by Amano rather than Nomura.  Leave no belt unbuckled being the driving principle of Nomura.

Now lets talk about these pants.  These pants are really weird for some bizzare reasons.  They look like they are fairly tight, like the rest of his clothing, but they bulge out in some really strange places as well.  I have to obviously point out the creases and general bunching up around his junk.  A clear obvious reference to David Bowie from Labyrinth like the face and expression.  Those calves are massive and the knees, they are really knobbly.  This ties back into something I mentioned all those moons ago about I think there might actually be armor in play here.  The weird shapes and marks around the knees really make me think that under those pants is at least some knee pads (not even making a joke).  Like some cuisses or something.  It would really kind of inform the strange lumpy shapes that he seems to have in this picture.  It also kind of lets you maybe in some strange way explain the stupid leather over vest thing.  That or you know, Zidane is just a mutant.  Which he is.  So that could explain it as well.

The boots are super loose, that is pretty universal to FF9, so I won't elaborate more really.

Holy crap I didn't expect to have that much to say about Zidane.  So I guess you guys get a running series out of this because no fucking way am I going another night without playing something and you got 1000 words out of me from a "Sure I can totally do that" statement in chat.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

... it took me until you pointed it out to realize how fucking idiotic having loose cuffs on a sleeveless vest is. I feel like a neophyte.

[DjinnAndTonic]

the tight white undershirt is fine and all I guess (If Djinn were to cosplay Zidane I would expect it to be a belly shirt instead), but the vest is really short and with the undershirt I don't get the big exposed midriff it leaves.  It also is pretty far from the most offensive thing though. 

While I am all for half-vests with no shirt on, they should NEVER be fastened on a man. They should always hang open to expose their manly pecs to the world. Also, they should be posed on a defeated dinosaur.

Also, I cosplayed Tidus in high school, not Zidane. Get it right, -GEEZ-!

[Cmdr_King]

So, you're advocating Vaan as better dressed than Zidane?

[DjinnAndTonic]

I said they need to show off their -manly- chests. Vaan and "manly"... you're already not listening.

Although... Vaan lived in a desert, so his nearly-naked thing never bothered me that much.

But notably, I said that half-vests should never be fastened without a shirt. Zidane wears a shirt, therefore it doesn't offend me.

Also, the cuffs are clearly there to give him an aura of "refined"-ness befitting an ACTOR such as himself. The ladies dig it, bro.

[Grefter]

Edit edit- Meh nothing here works.  Should have polished before trying.

Deleting shitty draft post.

[Idun]

bump. requesting more!