Entertainment
This month was a sad month for RuneScape Videos but that still hasn't prevented Merch Gwyar writing a superb article about the latest RuneScape Videos as well as two fitting tributes. Definitely worth a look whether you enjoy RuneScape Videos or not, this is still a fascinating read. The second article could be considered a psychology student's essay as Da Scotsman has brought us A Study Into The Growth Of Console Online Gaming. Da Scotsman considers many of the reasons why developers now add online capabilities. A fascinating read! Our final article is a review of Don't Mess with the Zohan by Po22. Definitely worth reading if you were considering going to see this.
Doddsy
Runescape Videos - By: Merch Gwyar
For those involved in the world of Runescape films, May 2008 has been a period of intense sadness, remembrance and reconciliation. Two of the most famous and accomplished movie-makers of the genre have stepped out of the frame. Even more shocking were the reasons behind their departure from the You Tube RSMV ranks: Fat Wrecked has died, in real life, while Skychi appears to have been bullied out of production. In recognition of both of their achievements, they will be the focus of this edition's 'Runescape Videos'.
Fat Wrecked
On May 13th, 2008, the world awoke to a jaw-dropping message posted in Fat Wrecked's You Tube profile. It had been penned by his friend, Invghost, and read, 'On the 12th of May at 11 PM, Ashley Dustin Miller passed away due to organ failure. Bless his soul and may he rest in peace.' Few people had even known that the teenager was ill, except for a cryptic message in a recent joint karaoke project, wherein The Unforgiving had mentioned that Fat Wrecked was in hospital. Within hours, memorial tributes were springing up all over You Tube, while mass gatherings in Varrock caused the mini-map to disappear under a sea of white dots. Everyone was mourning the loss of this charismatic individual.
Fat Wrecked's list of achievements, both in-game and through videos, are impressive. Ranked third in the Attack hiscores, his party celebrating it attracted some of the best known players in Runescape. His You Tube channel has over 16000 subscribers, while he still retains the accolades of third most subscribed Australian You Tuber of All Time, 1st in that country's Guru list. He is ranked 26th in the global Guru list. The tributes and credits from hundreds of videos speak of a friendly person, generous with his time. He has been the inspiration, personal motivator and presense in the videos of many of his peers. With all of this in mind, it is quite surprisingly that his catalogue of videos number only fourteen. However, a trawl through the catalogues of other people reveals that this must have been pruned at some point. He made many more than that.
The genius of Fat Wrecked's Runescape videos is in his innovative ideas. His character does things that simply can't be done in-game, for example, standing on the raft sailing down the River Lum or leaping off a rooftop in Falador. He initiates dialogue between himself and NPCs, which couldn't exist outside the expert application of his editing programmes. In 'The Road to 99 Slayer', various creatures beg him not to kill them, while others chat amongst themselves or comment on his fighting skills.
It was difficult to chose which video to share to sum up Fat Wrecked. He had a series entitled 'The Evil Kings' (archived by gh3ngis), as well as numerous RSMVs. The decision was made for us though, as his father informed us, via comments, that one video had been selected by his family to be played at Fat Wrecked's real life funeral. It was 'Monkey Wrench' by the Foo Fighters.
I'm sure I speak for all of Sal's Realm of Runescape when I say to Fat Wrecked's family that we are sorry for their sad loss. It is our loss too and his memory will leave on in videos, hiscores and the personal recollections of a wonderful personality.
Skychi
On May 14th 2008, Skychi closed his You Tube account. It is estimated that he had 43,000 subscribers, placing him amongst the top 100 most You Tube subscribed channel of all time, most of whom were coming for the Runescape videos. His friend, TheUnforgiving, loaded his final video for him. It was a six and half minute long chronicle of bullying.
The short version is that Skychi had become a figure of hatred because he's a famous Runescape video-maker. A whole genre of RSVs had grown up around the theme of, 'we hate Skychi'. He decided to take a break, playing another game, but people followed him there (paying a fair amount of money to do so) and heckled him there too. Even when people weren't being nasty, he was being mobbed in-game (and in other games) and didn't like it at all. His friends had supported him when this first started to upset him, convincing him then that deleting everything wasn't the way forward. However, the abuse escalated. TheUnforgiving comments at the end that everyone has their limits and Skychi has just reached his.
Very few of Skychi's videos have been archived by other people. Random989lol had salvaged the hilarious 'Things That Can Go Wrong in Runescape' by having had it uploaded on his iPod. Skychi was mostly known for his reviews of various skills, aspects and areas of Runescape. A good example is his very early appraisal of Summoning, which had been saved by Fatzy9. Insightful and entertaining, it demonstrates quite well the value of Skychi to the Runescape community. It is a shame that such a generous soul should feel so beseiged that he saw no other option but to delete his on-line presense.
Runescape Music Videos
There has a been a great response to the videos that we selected for your enjoyment last time, so much so that it has been a case of whittling down the list of suggestions to chose just a couple to share.
With 34,801 views and 723 people having rated it with five stars, Bright_Side4's video of Muse's 'The Small Print' is clearly something special.
Visually, it is stunning. This filmmaker has a wonderful eye for location and mood. The editing and use of light create a strong dramatic tension that belies the safe familiarity of where some scenes are being filmed. There has also obviously been a lot of patient work gone into the timing, as displayed by the moment when a swung pickaxe sounds a crashing drumbeat. Anyone who has ever edited a RSMV can testify that those sort of effects happen either as sheer fluke or else due to painstaking alignment. In fact, the only flaw in the entire ensemble is in the fact that Bright_Side4 mispells 'paid' as 'payed' in a recurring refrain.
Next up is Protothyps. His version of Linkin Park's 'Breaking the Habit' has so far attracted the attention of 237,584 people, with just over a thousand of them combining their ratings for an average of four and a half stars.
The immediate thing that stands out about Protothyps's work is the use of lighting. Special effects are teased out of the most ordinary of Runescape landscapes, shadowed and highlighted to make it seem almost like a different world. No scene is repeated, as happens in the majority of RSMVs, as the story of the song is played out as a mini-film.
I hope that you have enjoyed the videos that we have selected for you. Please do keep sending your suggestions in and we will have more for you next time.
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A Study Into The Growth Of Console Online Gaming - By: Da Scotsman
Games have progressed greatly since their creation. From Mario to Master Chief and with each quantum leap of graphics and AI; games have become more and more complex. But looking back over the last few years the main change that I see is the great increase in the popularity of Online Gaming.
Many of you who have just read the previous sentence will no doubt be thinking, 'Oh here we go again, another article on MMORPG's' But please give me the benefit of the doubt and read on. Online Gaming has gone far beyond MMORPG's. While in the past the ability of a console game to have online abilities was almost optional and was seen as an 'extra', but no longer. Games that do not have comprehensive and well reviewed online abilities will find themselves struggling in today’s exceedingly tough market. This has gone so far as handheld consoles, mainly the Nintendo DS, having online abilities on many of their games. This feature is something that many would have laughed at not so many years ago. How many Mario Kart 64 veterans reading this ever though they would be able to play Mario Kart with people they don't know half way around the world on something smaller than the original game boy? Not many I bet.
But this brings us to the crunch of the matter. What has caused this increase in the importance of online gaming? Why the answer is simple. The answer is you, believe it or not. I and every other gamer around the world. If people didn't want to play with random people they don't know, I doubt many developers would waste money adding online game play. But we do want to play with random people we don't know and for good reason. Online Gaming is fun, it breaks boundaries and adds something every gamer deep down desires. How many games, after a bad guy kills you, do you find yourself the center of ridicule or a comment such as "Oh you just got OWNED!" or vice versa? Their is satisfaction in beating a game on the hardest difficulty setting, but for me at least, it cannot compare to beating a player 5 ranks above you on Halo 3 live. It just feels great.
Defeating and working with real people is something nothing in any game can re create as much as companies may try and this is why online gaming is immortal. It brings a level of realism to gaming that to put it bluntly makes gaming fun. This I feel is the rise behind such online giants such as Halo 3 for the Xbox360, Resistance: Fall of Man for the PS3 and Call of Duty 4 for both.
So far I have mainly focused on console online gaming. But fear not computer gamers I have no forgotten you. The basic principle I believe still stands but I also feel the rise in MMORPG's such as WoW, Runescape and Diablo: 2 is due to a different reason. The desire to be better. How many Runescape players have felt that thrill is elitism when you find out the person cutting willows beside you is only 92 woodcutting? It is natural and nothing wrong with it, but this desire to be better than everyone else and level up as much as possible I think is possibly an even greater reason for the rise of MMORPG's all over the world. Even so how many people who have bought Diablo: 2 for the PC bought it for its single player? Not many.
So in conclusion online gaming has become a force that every game developer and company have to reckon with, if they plan to continue turning a profit. So is it the desire to level up? Maybe, it probably is. People wanting to ‘Pwn Some Noobs’? This is also a possibility. But I think it is because interacting with humans in games is truly a wonderful thing and is something that AI will never be able to replicate.
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You Don't Mess With The Zohan - By: Po22
You Don't Mess with the Zohan delivers exactly what it promises in the trailer. Adam Sandler playing Zohan, is an elite member of an Israeli counter terrorism squad. When Zohan is tired of the constant fighting between Palestine and Israel, he fakes his own death and leaves Israel to travel to New York to fullfill his lifelong dream of cutting hair. As he starts to fit into his new life as a successful hair dresser, three Palestinians discover him and plot to kill him and be hailed as heroes. At the same time, Walbridge, a wealthy mogul seeks to force both the Palestinian and Israeli communities out of the neighborhood to build a new mall. Zohan must save both sides of the neighborhood, keep his dream job all the while try and win the love of his Palestinian boss, Dahlia.
This movie underperfomed in my opinion. I rarely laughed out loud and saw past the cheap laughs Adam Sandler tries to pass instead of substance. Rather than become a super powered hairdresser as he is a super soldier, Zohan spends a good portion of the movie having sex with old ladies, which in the theater made no one laugh. The effect was disgust rather than humor. The movie also tried to pass off way to many cameos by famous celebrities, which began to grow tiresome. The movie seemed to just jumble through with Muslim and Israeli defamation jokes and tons of Hummus and arrives at an ending that doesn't feel quite as right as it should. Vulgarity was everywhere, which would be cool, but it wasn't that funny. The movie was a dissapointment overall, but it was okay if your looking for a quick laugh and nothing to do one day.
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