Sig'd!!! :p

Back on topic....wait, is there one? Anyway, Stu, I'm looking forward to a Metagame article on the new VSRealms RPG. Man, I can't wait for that upcoming software to track all the stats!! :)

Okay, I am on a half bottle of Gosling's Black Seal rum... what's your excuse?

Are you serious? Have you actually read my articles or do you just skim through looking for the name Dave Humphries? Can you see past your bank account and your Newsarama long enough to consider the fact that there might be readers out there who are not you? Believe me son, you are no one's target audience. You cannot be entertained, therefore no one would ever try. My stuff absolutely does deserve to be up there and I will keep slinging it until they tell me to stop. I will write it with as much style and wit as I can, but I will not consider for a moment whether it measures up to your sense of worth.

Do you still love it when you make me hate?

See Stu, that's what I'm talking about, right there. What could you possibly write about trading in a Metagame article that anyone else couldn't write? Any jerk on any VS System fansite or message board could create a thread asking players what they think about the trading element of this game, then slap together an article about it. Metagame should be more than that.

Giving the creators of the game a more continuous outlet of communication would be a benefit to every type of player.

Casual players gain insight as to what the cards represent thematically, and aspects of the source material lead to the silly cards that competitive players completely disregard.

Competitive players gain insight as to how Upper Deck intended the cards to interact mechanically, not only with the other cards in their set, but also with all the themes in the game as a whole, and they may also occasionally snag some tips about seemingly unplayable cards that could become useful later.

And the best part of all is that those who enjoy the player written articles would not be losing anything. They would still exist, but on a fansite of the writer's choosing rather than on Metagame, where they only get in the way.

Everyone would win except you, Stubarns, the guys who just can't stand the thought of getting less attention.

valid adj. - logical and fair; worth consideration: The residents of Tokyo considered the Godzilla issue to a valid problem.

Oh, absolutely. I love it when you show the realms the real you. Selfishness, arrogance, laziness, everything that makes hippies what they are.

And take note of how I used the edit feature to add this quote, because I care about keeping VSRealms threads as clean, orderly, and efficient as possible.

See, this is where I completely disagree with your opinion. Remember, it is just your opinion.

I come from a pop culture background, and I teach kids from various walks of life. I am not focused on the ultra-intelligent purveyors of comic mythology and its themes, I am focused on the video game playing movie watching American youth. This game can offer a great deal of entertainment to people who are never going to understand the "aspects of the source material" that you hold so dear. They don't even care about that, and if the whole site became your personal window into the world of whatever it is you fantasize about, then it might actually alienate a large number of potential new players. You really can't see that? By making Metagame into your vision, it would probably not appeal as much to the general population. You really can't see that?

Wow. And you accuse me of arrogance and laziness. It's funny that you can spew that, yet you don't put out the effort to remedy the situation. People love to destroy things that other people make, eh? Armchair critic, completely devoid of a sense of poetry and literature. Have you ever heard of a word called "style"? Do you know how much effort it takes to write a weekly column that involves actual cooperative interaction with readers and stays current and lively and fun? Have you ever tried to create something, then get it accepted and published? Have you ever had to comply to a deadline and a specific format for submission? Is your life just a long series of well aimed balls of intellectual mudslinging?

(There, I used edit. You better respond properly.)

For the most part, there are two kinds of casual players. Those who consider it fun to play thematic decks (like me) and those who consider it fun to play combo decks that are weird for the sake of weird (like you).

Casual players of the former type would enjoy more articles from Upper Deck for the reasons I stated above.

Casual players of the latter type would enjoy more articles from Upper Deck for the inverse reasons that I listed for competitive players. They could find what mechanics were intended to interact in "fun" ways. Outside of that, it is unlikely that this type of player would be interested in articles at all due to the fact that they value their own innovation more than any other quality of play.

Biz, you know I love you, but you are starting to shoot yourself in the foot. Where does this categorization come from? What is your data base? I know you like to speak as if you were an expert, but outside of comic mythology you do not have the expertise. I don't either, but I have a ton of emails from readers of my articles to guide me. I have the feedback I receive from my editor. I have the positive support from the Realms, which despite the trendy hate is still running 3 to 1 in favor of my style and content. I'm sorry, but your personal opinion is currently the overwhelming minority opinion according to my information.

(I used the edit button last time, but this is getting hard to juggle.)

Oddpac, I don't think I should go quite that far. Don't worry... all the hate simply builds my resolve to keep things funky and lighthearted in my articles and in the Realms. My life contains many more smiles and belly laughs because of people like you who remember that we are here to party, not to be correct... or hateful. This community is made up of all kinds, and my kind loves to have silly fun with our game. Period.

Strange how this thread got real serious there for a second. Wow, Biz is really something isn't he?

Describe to me a casual player who doesn't fall into one of my categories.

At no point has this thread become serious. Always remember that we are on an internet message board talking about a trading card game. We are all wasting our time here. :)

i would so sig that if i had room

Oh My God, you are starting to scare me. How in the world am I supposed to take that seriously? How am I supposed to know what every casual player in the world likes to do with their cards? Are you finally on drugs? You accuse me of being a hippie, then you have delusions of some godlike ability to typecast all casual TCG players with a keystroke?

Congratulations my friend, you must be high.

The only casual players I know are myself, my friends, the readers who respond to my articles, and the members of this website. They tend to disagree with your views about what direction Metagame should take. That's the only data I can be guided by, I don't think I should ditch the job because you personally disapprove. Sorry.

Biz, I know I am breaking nettiquette here, but I would appreciate an educated resonse to this. I know you can do it.

Will this guy ever shut up?

Nope. (See you at the Orlando PCQ?)

One does not need to able to play the piano well to tell the difference between someone who plays it well and someone who plays it poorly.

I do not need to be able to write Metagame articles to be able to tell the difference between the articles that were superior and the articles that were inferior.

I am not arguing that I should be allowed to write for Metagame. I am arguing that you should not be. You have never done anything for this game worth any sort of distinction. You are a nobody, and you have nothing interesting enough to be said on Metagame.

I didn't ask you to do that. I asked you to give me a single example, and you didn't because you couldn't.

Biz ... while Stu [and the other players] might not provide the same kind of content as the designers/developers of UDE on Metagame, there's one point you seem to ignore.

Do players prevent the UDE staff frm posting on Metagame?

Does one of Stu's articles PREVENT The Hump from posting an article?

I've seen multiple articles show up on Metagame on the same day.

So ultimately, it is NOT a choice between Stu and the Hump ... it's a choice between Stu and nothing at all, aas are all player articles.

In general, even if they were on Realms instead of Metagame ... this just means that there are less articles on Metagame, and more on VsRealms.

In turn, it means that people won't go to Metagame as often [because they update less frequently] and they go to fansites more often.

If anything, don't criticize Stu for not have articles as good as the UDE staff ... criticize the UDE staff for not posting articles as often. If they are just letting players 'pick up the slack' so they don't have to do as much work ... again that's not the fault of the players, it's the fault of the UDE staff. And likely, they aren't doing it to be lazy ... but because they don't have the time to do it ... and odds are they wouldn't do it regardless of whether or not Stu was doing his thing there.

You may not like Stu's stuff as much as the UDE staff stuff ... but it's not like getting rid of Stu's stuff will fix anything ;)