Good Show, or Greatest Show?

So, I am seriously in love with this show called Carnivale. It’s an HBO show that unfortunately died around season 2. It was planned on being a six season series but a short dip in viewers and a raise in production costs lead HBO to cancel the show early, something the rarely do.

I bring it up because watching the show is like watching World of Darkness: Dustbowl. The introductory monologue by a midget with a club foot pretty much sums it up.

"Before the beginning, after the great war between heaven and hell, God created the Earth and gave dominion over it to the crafty ape he called man. And to each generation was born a creature
of light and a creature of darkness. And great armies clashed by night in the ancient war between good and evil. There was magic then. Nobility. And unimaginable cruelty. So it was. Until the day
that a false sun exploded over Trinity and man forever traded away wonder for reason."

The show has a really unique style as far as costuming and art goes, and if you like the story telling style of Lost you will probably like Carnivale. If the story telling style of “hey there is this mysterious…thing…lets figure it out show by show whilst various dramaz go on in the background” pisses you off, this show will too.

Honestly though, I recommend it to any LARPer. It has definite mage overtones, gypsies subtleness, no real vampire shenanigans but its cool.

It goes for about $60 per season, and its worth every penny.

Never Trust a Fan Boy

I am always a fan of communities. Especially communities and how they relate to marketing. South Park did an episode last night about using the internet to make money, this blog was started because I want to see how bloggers make money (see shameless promotions to the right), and really, it never seems to work. It’s the pyramid scheme of the new millennia a lot of times, you really have to have something people want to watch or read. That doesn't mean its not fun, just don't quit your day job.

That’s why the nerd community has picked up on it so well. Dorks across the globe really can’t get information, because there are so few of us in each individual community, but on the internet our name is Legion. Wizards of the Coast doesn’t really need to engage in marketing, they have a diehard community to do it for them. DND4.com is a great example. They have constructed a “Preview PHB”, which my friends and I have started dissecting for the latest clues about how we are going to play the game.

We are going to buy it, this just tipped us over the edge to make sure we place advance orders, advance orders I found out about on DnD4.com. White-Wolf Studios had the same opportunities for their Requiem and New World of Darkness series, but they blew it. They sued their fans instead of embracing them, and that has weakened their ability to market to their consumers. I am continually shocked that they choose to piss off their fan base. I don’t know why they haven’t taken a page from Wizards and chosen to STFU. I understand that each company has their style, Windows encourages third party manufacturers. Apple refuses to budge on opening their platform. Both have the pros and cons, both work. Thats the key though, both work, which is great because now I as a user have a diverse choice of options for my computing needs. Unfortunately White-Wolf has chosen to do things poorly, so I loose out on my options for angsty vampires.

In the end, White-Wolf studios enforcement of what I play has made an otherwise great game suck. Wizards has chosen to embrace the fans and its going to make 4.0 all the sweeter. White-Wolf needs to apologize and start kissing the asses of their community; otherwise they are going to go the way of the FASA-bird.

P.S. speaking of shameless promotion, this article is all about it. Click here to find out why!