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elpintogrande posted:These are the first complaints I've seen about the highlighting, but I'll try to make it clear what is highlighted in future installments. I appreciate this- doing it in yellow might make it clearer. My eyes naturally went to the brighter portions, when you were actually pointing out the dark shades.
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Jul 20, 2009 02:43
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Anonymous Robot posted:My eyes naturally went to the brighter portions, when you were actually pointing out the dark shades. Actually the parts that aren't shaded are the ones being pointed out; take the first one for example, with the glue mummy and the part highlighted about it secreting a glue that makes everything stick to it and being able to voluntarily secrete the solvent. It makes more sense to think that's being highlighted than the part immediately following it about the monster taking half-damage from weapons and poo poo like that (which they don't even mention in the article, because it isn't really that dumb.) It wouldn't make sense for people to NOT read that and you should naturally be inclined to read the brighter parts that are easier to read, and even if you don't the fact they discuss the brighter parts more than the darker should be a huge context clue.
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Jul 20, 2009 07:10
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John Dyne posted:you should naturally be inclined to read the brighter parts that are easier to read, and even if you don't the fact they discuss the brighter parts more than the darker should be a huge context clue. You should be naturally inclined to read something that isn't highlighted over something that is? Really? Whether it's highlighted grey, or neon pink, a highlight is a highlight. Fading out the un-used portions would've worked better. As for discussion, they discuss everything or nothing more or less equally. Most of the time the discussion centers on the appearance, which is normally not even mentioned in the description at all, or on hypothetical situations you might encounter the creature in. Offkorn fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Jul 21, 2009 |
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Jul 21, 2009 07:15
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Offkorn posted:You should be naturally inclined to read something that isn't highlighted over something that is? Really? Whether it's highlighted grey, or neon pink, a highlight is a highlight. Fading out the un-used portions would've worked better. There is no difference between "highlighting in gray" and "fading out the un-used portions."
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Jul 21, 2009 11:09
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Offkorn posted:You should be naturally inclined to read something that isn't highlighted over something that is? Really? uhh how is making it darker highlighting it highlights are generally, you know, LIGHTER than the stuff around them. take blonde highlights in brown hair or a bright yellow marker in black and white text which is what the bright rear end white vs dull grey is in the article John Dyne fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Jul 21, 2009 |
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Jul 21, 2009 12:32
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I've been confused about this too.John Dyne posted:highlights are generally, you know, LIGHTER than the stuff around them. A highlight is just a change to the normal background that is clearly intentional and one that the eye is not expecting. In a page scan, you're expecting black text on a solid white background. Since the authors changed some of the background color, you'd think that the part that was changed is the part that needs attention. Just my two cents on the issue. I've been reading the banter first and looking at the page second. The banter is what makes the articles 
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Jul 21, 2009 16:35
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Is this clear?
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Jul 21, 2009 17:26
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That's the format we're going with this week for part 2 of Fiend Folio. I tried highlighting with yellow, but it was losing letters when I did 8 or 16 color GIFs. If this doesn't work for you guys I might try the yellow highlight and save them as jpgs or something.
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Jul 21, 2009 18:15
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elpintogrande posted:That's the format we're going with this week for part 2 of Fiend Folio. I tried highlighting with yellow, but it was losing letters when I did 8 or 16 color GIFs. If this doesn't work for you guys I might try the yellow highlight and save them as jpgs or something. I think the red circles are distracting and that yellow highlights would be easier to read. JPEG compression would probably result in nasty artifacts, so perhaps PNG or 256 color GIF would be better. That being said, I honestly prefer the grayed-out versions and don't see how people could look at one of those images, see a wall of low-contrast black-on-gray text with a few islands of high-contrast black-on-white text, and think that they're supposed to read a whole paragraph, except for this one sentence. 
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Jul 21, 2009 21:01
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I find that a lot more readable than the block highlights, but maybe underlining in red would be clearer still?
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Jul 21, 2009 22:06
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that awful man posted:I think the red circles are distracting and that yellow highlights would be easier to read. JPEG compression would probably result in nasty artifacts, so perhaps PNG or 256 color GIF would be better. Both PNG and 256 color GIFs aren't really an option. That underlining may work though. If people don't like this one or maybe underlining (maybe a softer color than red?) I'll just go back to the original way. I could do some real elaborate TV style excerpts with blurry gray background text and popping excerpts, I just doubt the effort would have worthwhile returns.
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Jul 21, 2009 22:43
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The original format was fine, so thanks people who have some kind of unfathomable disorder that made it confusing.
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Jul 22, 2009 04:25
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I have to admit my eyes were drawn to the grey as well. I like the underlining though.
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Jul 22, 2009 15:28
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The red underlines work fine.
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Jul 22, 2009 17:43
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This one is going to be the circles, but I'll do the underlines for the next one.
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Jul 22, 2009 19:55
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WHen I was a kid I had some DnD toys. Pretty much forgot all about them until I read the latest WTF DnD? and remembered I used to play this guy all the time: Jeez.
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Jul 23, 2009 16:49
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what, me worry?
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Jul 23, 2009 16:52
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oh it's fiend-folio, I misread it as friend folio and was wondering when we'd get to our friend
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Jul 23, 2009 17:33
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Ferrule posted:WHen I was a kid I had some DnD toys. Pretty much forgot all about them until I read the latest WTF DnD? and remembered I used to play this guy all the time: funky lookin hook horror?
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Jul 23, 2009 17:34
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You should definitely do some 40k stuff next. I don't know a whole lot about early 40k, but some kind of Chaos or Dark Eldar codex might have the most diversity in stupid monsters
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Jul 23, 2009 20:57
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I wasn't expecting a reference to the "Roy Orbison in Saran Wrap" ALOD from years ago.
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Jul 23, 2009 21:00
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XyloJW posted:You should definitely do some 40k stuff next. I don't know a whole lot about early 40k, but some kind of Chaos or Dark Eldar codex might have the most diversity in stupid monsters I saw a first-edition rulebook a while back, and their early stuff was a lot weirder - they took races straight from the high fantasy games without thinking whether they made sense in a space setting. Orks and Eldar have survived, but there used to be space dwarves, space frogs, space centaurs, and all sorts. The craziest part was the amount of dice rolling you had to do. Back in the day you had to roll to see whether your ork's kombi-weapon was a bolta-bolta-launcher or a bolta-las-melta or some other combination. There were 6-7 different generations of genestealer hybrid, and then you had to roll to see whether they had claws or hands, carapace or normal skin, etc. I'm amazed anyone ever managed to play an actual game like that.
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Jul 23, 2009 22:23
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Steve mentioned on the last page that he and Zack might review FATAL, and I'm sure they'll both get emails from people encouraging to do so. However, I'd like to request that you do not review it. There isn't anything funny about FATAL. Looking for humor in FATAL will only depress you, and any article that actually gets written about it will either be painful to read or, at best, uninteresting. That aside, I really enjoyed the Fiend Folio review. I thought I knew all the ___-bear monsters, but the gorilla-bear was new to me!
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Jul 24, 2009 01:40
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DoctorTristan posted:I saw a first-edition rulebook a while back, and their early stuff was a lot weirder - they took races straight from the high fantasy games without thinking whether they made sense in a space setting. Orks and Eldar have survived, but there used to be space dwarves, space frogs, space centaurs, and all sorts. 'Hold on, guys, I see a horse in that black hole. Wayyyy down there, gonna jetpack down there and sit on that horse FOR THE EMPEROR.'
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Jul 24, 2009 04:58
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Ferrule posted:WHen I was a kid I had some DnD toys. Pretty much forgot all about them until I read the latest WTF DnD? and remembered I used to play this guy all the time: That's why it looked so familiar! I had a ton of those D&D toys growing up. Wish I kept them instead of the My Little Ponies. 
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Jul 24, 2009 08:50
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DO NOT PLAY F.A.T.A.L! The entire update will just be "In Loving Memory of Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons and Steve "Malak" Sumner", and a link to the donation page of a suicide prevention hotline.
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Jul 24, 2009 19:38
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If you can get hold of a copy I reccomend any of the volumes from Liber Chaotica http://www.amazon.co.uk/Liber-Chaotica-Complete-Volumes-Warhammer/dp/1844163946 Or the 2nd edition 40k Wargear book. None of it makes sense unless you're British and either 13yrs old or a stoned 30yr old metalhead who sells lead soldiers for a living. I want to see you guys try to explain how exactly a melta gun melts through METAL armour with microwaves. Also melta bombs being canisters filled with hard water and a microwave emitter that would cause a nuclear explosion small enough to just take out a door or hatch. Not to mention boltguns, chainswords, powerfists, thunder hammers and chainfists. Don't forget back in 2nd edition you still had Squat bikers with multimeltas for even more MELTA POWAH!
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Jul 25, 2009 01:39
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elpintogrande posted:These are the first complaints I've seen about the highlighting, but I'll try to make it clear what is highlighted in future installments. I like how you did it in the lastest one but yeah the first few installments I wasn't sure if it was the book or you and then what I was supposed to be reading. Lets be honest most of the descriptions are pretty ridiculous so reading it all doesn't really narrow it down.
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Jul 25, 2009 12:23
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I love what you've been doing so far, these articles are hilarious. I would love to see some 40k in the future, mostly for how batshit insane some of the "vanilla" stuff in that series is. One request though, is that 3.5 of D&D had a lot of books that not only were really bizarre, but full of some really stupid poo poo. I would like to see some more modern D&D books eventually. But for now, I really love what you guys have been doing.
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Jul 25, 2009 19:38
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DamnGlitch posted:I like how you did it in the lastest one but yeah the first few installments I wasn't sure if it was the book or you and then what I was supposed to be reading. Lets be honest most of the descriptions are pretty ridiculous so reading it all doesn't really narrow it down. 100% agreement. Schwarzwald posted:There is no difference between "highlighting in gray" and "fading out the un-used portions." Um... yes, yes there is. One adds a block of color on top of the words to emphasize them, the other doesn't add anything and fades the words out making them harder to read. John Dyne posted:uhh how is making it darker highlighting it They added a gray highlight on top of the words. Apparently you've never used a highlighter before, because "making the highlighted portion stand out by adding a colored background to it" is what they do. John Dyne posted:highlights are generally, you know, LIGHTER than the stuff around them. take blonde highlights in brown hair or a bright yellow marker in black and white text What about Blond hair with Black highlights? Because that's what this example has far more similarity with. Highlights have everything to do with the background color. Dark Highlights are used for light backgrounds, and light highlights are used for dark backgrounds. A highlight is meant to draw your attention to the altered section. And a gray block most certainly does stand out in a field of white. You may also want to visit some forums with built in color-coding options, as you'll then see that you can highlight text in any color imaginable. Even black. Offkorn fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Jul 26, 2009 |
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Jul 26, 2009 06:20
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Offkorn posted:Apparently you've never used a highlighter before, because "making the highlighted portion stand out by adding a colored background to it" is what they do. A highlighter adds a brighter color to the text to bring it out. You do not have black or grey highlighters, and if you do highlight by that method you do so by not using the marker on the text you want highlighted. And there are no such thing as 'black highlights.' When you apply a darker color to a brighter color, in regards to hair especially, that is called 'lowlighting.' The definition of highlighting is to emphasize, usually with a brighter color. 'An area or a spot in a drawing, painting, or photograph that is strongly illuminated.' White is 'more illuminated' than grey. Yes, the grey stands out in a field of white, but it's emphasizing the white, not the grey, by standard definitions. And yes, you can 'highlight' in any color but highlighting with black on a forum makes the text white which STILL draws your eyes to the white. The point of highlighting is to draw your eye to the brigher parts, and your eye SHOULD be naturally drawn to look at more illuminated areas because they're easier to spot. All of this is moot and arguing semantics, however, because they've gone from the grey and white to red. You guys is just weird with your 'oh let's try to read the darker part instead of the bright part.' 
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Jul 26, 2009 07:31
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Verizian posted:I want to see you guys try to explain how exactly a melta gun melts through METAL armour with microwaves. What?! You mean those are GONE now?! I knew those stupid space dwarves were dead, but... no chainswords? Seriously? 
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Jul 27, 2009 10:35
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all that still exists
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Jul 27, 2009 10:45
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And they might be bringing the squats back. A few blogs said that the guy who owned the rights to them went bankrupt and sold the rights to GW for pocket change earlier in the year. Probably INTERNET RUMOURS however. They've even added crazier stuff since then like the new WOLF CLAWS. Extra speshul lightning claws only for space wolves. A look at the index astartes articles for the different space marine chapters might be worthwhile for the hilarity caused by space vikings, space mongolians, space vampires, space romans and several varieties of space gays. Apart from the marines you also have space orks, space elves and even space elf clown/librarian hybrids.
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Jul 27, 2009 18:17
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DoctorTristan posted:What?! You mean those are GONE now?! I knew those stupid space dwarves were dead, but... no chainswords? Seriously? There are plenty of chainswords in 40k.
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Jul 29, 2009 06:47
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Latest update is fantastic, http://www.somethingawful.com/d/dungeons-and-dragons/wtf-wondrous-items.php A steam train? A cola machine? Did people actually use these in their games!!
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Jul 30, 2009 12:27
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I saw the image for 'Brandon's Bard-in-a-Box' and just started laughing. They honestly went to their artists and said, 'draw a halfling with sunglasses jamming to a boombox, and make him look urban' and their artists didn't quit on the spot. You have got to be making GBS threads me. This book is awesome.
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Jul 30, 2009 13:24
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Love the banter between you two, nice one!
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Jul 30, 2009 15:54
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I love the articles, Zack and Steve. I'm just glad I got into the hobby in the latter days of 2nd Edition/early days of 3rd Edition. The 1st Edition stuff makes me cringe.
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Jul 30, 2009 16:18
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quote:Steve: One time Keith had us fight a helicopter, but it was okay because there was a time rift and it was just temporary. It was an Apache attack helicopter. This was another excellent article. Steve is just clever enough.
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Jul 30, 2009 17:52
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