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pointlessone posted:But really, that second section of Kingdom Valley just looked awful. One combat tower, one friend section, the giant cathedral jump setpiece...call it a day. 5 minutes MAX for rushing from point A to B, try not to go over 10 for casual runs. I just can't understand how they pushed their flagship title out the door in such a state without someone showing this to the people pushing the release forward. I think the issue is that by the time they looked at the game and realized how dire things were, it was too late to fix it. There is some good that came out of it, however. In the runup to sonic 2006's release someone at Sega finally decided to look at the sonic comic long enough to get Penders fired.
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Mar 14, 2018 04:20
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Kurieg posted:I think the issue is that by the time they looked at the game and realized how dire things were, it was too late to fix it. Penders was the lovely OC DO NOT STEAL Knuckles clone guy? I don't read the comic, but I remember something about the shitshow involving Penders getting canned.
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Mar 14, 2018 04:43
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pointlessone posted:Penders was the lovely OC DO NOT STEAL Knuckles clone guy? I don't read the comic, but I remember something about the shitshow involving Penders getting canned. Yup, that's him. Supposedtly the issue of the comic that the sega executive saw that resulted in him getting canned was from the arc where Sally was getting married to another man. So the cover was sonic openly weeping in the rain, clutching the wedding invite.
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Mar 14, 2018 04:50
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the issue's cover also is my expression when i play silver's pool ball puzzle
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Mar 14, 2018 05:12
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I love how his quills apparently turn into a fluid because he's just that sad.
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Mar 14, 2018 05:14
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I'm getting serious mood whiplash looking at that cover art while the top of the issue has the small icon of Sonic being his usual smug self and "The world's most way past cool comic!" being printed on the same cover. Yeah, that cover art definitely sells itself as "way past cool."
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Mar 14, 2018 05:21
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I don't know what it is about that Mach Speed section, but suddenly I was overcome by the urge to live in harmony. Harmony of love.
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Mar 14, 2018 05:26
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Kurieg posted:I love how his quills apparently turn into a fluid because he's just that sad. i actually think that's a reasonable thing to do with cartoon characters to convey intense emotions, since that's what older cartoons were for to begin with: exaggeratin' stuff to display extreme versions of real ideas
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Mar 14, 2018 05:38
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GamesAreSupernice posted:i actually think that's a reasonable thing to do with cartoon characters to convey intense emotions, since that's what older cartoons were for to begin with: exaggeratin' stuff to display extreme versions of real ideas See also: The Green Goblin's face literally being a Halloween mask
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Mar 14, 2018 06:13
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A challenge for Sonic games generally, and especially the 3D ones, is to meaningfully convey progression and goals in the environment. This is especially challenging for the series because the core design encourages tunnel vision in players. I think Sonic Colors is the only recent game that really pulled it off very well, but it's clear that they've been trying different things in the 3D games to tackle this issue, as far back as Adventure 1. Remember that repeated boost section showing you working your way down some sort of powercore shaft in the final sonic level, or the rollercoaster in twinkle park that gave you a big overview of several level areas? My guess is this most recent level is meant to do the same in the second section. The player is supposed to be able to tell that they're working their way down the valley toward the doors leading to the mach speed section. It just doesn't really...work. The player gets turned around too many times, and the towers you're moving between are too smiliar to each other.
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Mar 14, 2018 18:21
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Discendo Vox posted:A challenge for Sonic games generally, and especially the 3D ones, is to meaningfully convey progression and goals in the environment. This is especially challenging for the series because the core design encourages tunnel vision in players. I think Sonic Colors is the only recent game that really pulled it off very well, but it's clear that they've been trying different things in the 3D games to tackle this issue, as far back as Adventure 1. Remember that repeated boost section showing you working your way down some sort of powercore shaft in the final sonic level, or the rollercoaster in twinkle park that gave you a big overview of several level areas? I never thought about it that way, but that's very insightful, thank you
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Mar 14, 2018 18:38
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Kurieg posted:Yup, that's him. Supposedtly the issue of the comic that the sega executive saw that resulted in him getting canned was from the arc where Sally was getting married to another man. So the cover was sonic openly weeping in the rain, clutching the wedding invite.
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Mar 15, 2018 00:55
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Bricoleur posted:He got canned over one issue? Or was that just the issue that had them take a look at what else the comic was up to, and it was terrible? There were multiple problems that Sega was unaware of until that point, so the latter
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Mar 15, 2018 01:40
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He had basically turned sonic canon into his own personal playground including creating a "real and true future" for sonic where he and sally get married and have kids. Part of the whole thing that happened when Penders sued Sega and Archie was Penders magnanimously proclaiming that Archie could still use "his characters" if Sega acknowledged that his version of Sonic's future was correct and he had final say over all decisions regarding Sonic for the forseeable future.
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Mar 15, 2018 03:51
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Kurieg posted:He had basically turned sonic canon into his own personal playground including creating a "real and true future" for sonic where he and sally get married and have kids. That's what they get for hiring writers off of deviantart
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Mar 15, 2018 05:06
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The Door Frame posted:That's what they get for hiring writers off of deviantart Penders pre-dates Deviantart.
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Mar 15, 2018 05:10
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Penders is probably why DeviantArt got it's poo poo reputation.
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Mar 15, 2018 05:19
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This sounds  can anyone link to an article or thread about the whole thing?
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Mar 15, 2018 08:36
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The Sonic Wikia has the legal cases well documented, but as for Penders' other behaviors, I'm not sure
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Mar 15, 2018 08:48
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I did a big stonking post in the Bad Runs thread in BSS covering Penders insanity. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3562522&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=26#post425884055 I only really scratched the surface though.
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Mar 15, 2018 09:15
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 Scratching the surface is quite enough for me I think. It's nice to know that as 'edgy' as Sega tried to get they were actually sane by comparison. I've never seen this sort of self indulgent poo poo out of DeviantArt. By popular demand fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Mar 15, 2018 |
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Mar 15, 2018 09:41
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Onmi posted:I did a big stonking post in the Bad Runs thread in BSS covering Penders insanity. Ahh yes, this thread reminded me of this panel, which basically sums up Penders in a nutshell. 
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Mar 15, 2018 14:28
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Kurieg posted:Ahh yes, this thread reminded me of this panel, which basically sums up Penders in a nutshell. Someone brought up an analysis of the other writer at the time, Karl Bollers, final story arc 'Return to Angel Island' which could also have been summed up as "Why I think Ken Penders is a hack." quote:Ken started writing Knuckles stories very early into the book's history. He wrote all kinds of stuff and kept building the DEEP LORE of the echidnas and such over several years, mostly by ripping off other franchises and stories wholesale. The problem is that he's the kind of guy who always stalls and never delivers. So there were stories where Knuckles becomes Jesus (yes really), Knuckles deals with racism and Nazis (yes really), and family relationships and competence and power struggles and such were all discussed but never had any kind of interesting payoff. Meanwhile, Karl Bollers spends several years writing stories and trying his damnedest to accommodate Ken, making concessions and rewriting his scripts to fit Ken's constantly expanding lore. His thanks was Ken constantly loving him over. As a result, over time Karl kept adding in more and more overt jabs at Ken. Also, I'm going to correct a few misconceptions from my original post, as it stands apparently it was never Sega who themselves got more hands on in regards to the book. The actual story is WAY more hilarious and full of petty bullshit So I think I mentioned in that big screed that the editor at the time was a man named Justin Gabrie, who was more focused on writing stuff under a pen name and talking about star wars in the editorial than actually... editing. Well, turns out that was a big No No. It got him fired, and his assistant Mike Pellerito became editor. And the changes happened under his watch. He essentially went "Bollers, finish up on Return to Angel Island, Ken you have a few issues to sort poo poo out." Meanwhile he was actually prepping Then-Intern Ian Flynn for the role of main writer. Let's be 100% clear on something, Ken Penders was never 'fired', he quit. He quit because for the third or so time after being made 'main writer' he was sidelined and this time, for an intern! The cover for 155, beyond just being terrible isn't actually known to be the cause of any issues.
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Mar 15, 2018 22:30
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Also from my understanding the entirety of Ken even being a writer on the book to begin with was because he was trying to do his own magic native american comic that nobody wanted to publish, which most of the ideas from that got folded into the DEEPEST LORE about the Echidnas thus why they all the females have dumb elf names, and like he knew a guy at Archie who basically picked his rear end up out of pity. And then he like let his kids be in a story and basically have beeline access to fanart sections. Penders is a giant entitled shitlord because he was knee deep in Archie's nepotism policies, which is a problem they've had elsewhere but this is the relevant thing. Further Ken's logic about characters that were "his" made no sense, because there's no reason characters created by someone else or following a poo poo rear end lazy stereotype that every story has done are under his control, like the Future thing makes no sense, and neither does his claim to characters from the Evil Mirror Universe.
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Mar 16, 2018 00:39
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TCat posted:Also from my understanding the entirety of Ken even being a writer on the book to begin with was because he was trying to do his own magic native american comic that nobody wanted to publish, which most of the ideas from that got folded into the DEEPEST LORE about the Echidnas thus why they all the females have dumb elf names, and like he knew a guy at Archie who basically picked his rear end up out of pity. And then he like let his kids be in a story and basically have beeline access to fanart sections. Penders is a giant entitled shitlord because he was knee deep in Archie's nepotism policies, which is a problem they've had elsewhere but this is the relevant thing. That's correct, further Ken Penders insanity was trying to get in on a deal for a SatAM movie, his own pitch being... loving insanity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhsOiyvfIWs And that he tried to get a movie done of his crazy "Lost ones" plot that he basically is now trying to make into a comic with his OCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quGiiAeCyjo
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Mar 16, 2018 01:52
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cirus fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Mar 16, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 03:50
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It should be noted he is still around, still pushing this Lost Ones poo poo, and still crazy as gently caress. He loves to tweet about how IDW has no right to use his characters (no one asked), how they better give him royalties for reprints (no reprints have been announced), and how the franchise has no story and thus needs him to provide one for it, or it will fail (the LEGO Movie shows this is bullshit in general). Also, he's taken to calling his "studio" Floating Island Productions, is constantly talking about trying to get an app going for his Knuckles-with-barely-any-of-the-labels-filed-off comic (an app which, so far as I can tell, must be the most complicated thing ever because most of his posts about it are how the test version finally has *insert basic feature here*), trying to convince people he is an expert in the comics industry, and if HE had still been on the Archie Sonic comics, sales would have been way higher. Oh, also still going to conventions and signing other people's work with his name. That too. Asking him if he provides other artists and authors with royalties when he sells their work at conventions gets responded to with "of course I do" and then requests for proof get responded to with absolutely nothing because if you think this fucker actually pays anyone for anything you're an idiot.
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Mar 16, 2018 04:12
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I'm sorry I spaced out where are we
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Mar 16, 2018 05:17
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GamesAreSupernice posted:I'm sorry I spaced out where are we We are gazing at the abyss that is Ken Penders' world.
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Mar 16, 2018 05:21
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Maybe the thread should be renamed: We're not apologising for poo poo. 
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Mar 16, 2018 05:46
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You're doing the final story level, right?
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Mar 16, 2018 17:49
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GamesAreSupernice posted:I'm sorry I spaced out where are we Aquatic Base.
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Mar 16, 2018 17:57
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Kurieg posted:Aquatic Base. Oh, yeah, level wise
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Mar 16, 2018 18:00
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Yeah, Aquatic Base is next. I have the commentary recorded now, just need to upload it and hope nothing goes wrong with youtube this time.
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Mar 16, 2018 19:30
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 That's all folks
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Mar 17, 2018 21:25
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"the homing attack works wonderfully in this game", he said, using a broken inventory item to shortcut past the homing attack traversal areas.
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Mar 17, 2018 21:52
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Discendo Vox posted:"the homing attack works wonderfully in this game", he said, using a broken inventory item to shortcut past the homing attack traversal areas. It's actually far easier to use the homing attack in that section, I was just doing that because it's the only utility I could find for it.
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Mar 17, 2018 22:08
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Discendo Vox posted:"the homing attack works wonderfully in this game", he said, using a broken inventory item to shortcut past the homing attack traversal areas.
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Mar 17, 2018 22:18
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I want to know what the heck they were thinking with Tails' "ring bombs". I think they even make the sound you make when you get hit, and your actual dropped rings get all mixed up with theirs. I realize science sometimes has its duds, but, Tails, buddy, that one was all downside. What were you even thinking?
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Mar 17, 2018 23:48
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I stand by my statement that this game's combat is superior to the combat in other entries. Nothing is without flaws.
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Mar 18, 2018 01:23
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