Cleve Blakemore presents: Grimoire (an Indiegogo project)

Guys, Slate ran a timely piece on some hypothetical pugilism between humanity and Cleve's people. Spoiler alert, neanderthals may not actually be supermen.

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...vs_homo_sapiens_who_would_win_in_a_fight.html

Does Cleve get offended whenever Geico commercials come on the TV?

re: Vault-co blog

However, he is clever enough to compare "OW MY BALLS" in Idiocracy and that "SMASH MY NUTS" dude on America's Got Talent.

I have to admit that I made the connection between those two pieces of media some time in the past and it nearly made me just want to rage-quit the world. Not so much Rahowa but rather a big-ass asteroid coming down from above.

A little bit of his skepticism towards the scientific establishment and social sciences, though not much of anything else though. I just skip the parts that are too odious or odd, or try to take it as amusement.

I do admit that I most always tend to defend the underdog, though.

That's because his studio is basically bankrupt. They were working on a sequel to Dungeon Lords, but it had to be put on indefinite hold (cancelled) because they were having production problems.

It's probably his only option to get funding, but I was really shocked when I saw the news about Dungeon Lords 2012 or whatever it's called. I thought it was a late April's fools.

Ultimately he is just another designer who couldn't transition successfully to the era of modern graphics and production values.

Because he wants to keep the secrets of the game intact, and he along with a few of us were concerned about people ripping off assets and posting spoilers. I was the one who brought it up in the grimoire kickstarter megathread in fact.

But now there will not only be a demo coming, but also a beta for the high pledgers.

That's why while the RPG Codex people seemingly think that his video is a troll effort because he can't be that crazy...I'm convinced otherwise.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8575

RPG Codex Interview: Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar

I didn't read the whole interview, but I did read this:

On Wizardry 8:

On the content of the game:

On the demo and plans for a sequel:

The gameplay systems he describes look really good too.

And of course, he had to work in some crazy.

But the gameplay system looks promising. And did you know, that after only 17 years in development it's finally here? People that are totally real have tried it. And why would anybody lie about such things, when they're willing to speak the truth about scienmajistics?

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE FOR HORSES TO HAVE SPOTS WITHOUT DOMESTICATION! CHECK FUCKING MATE, SCIENCE!

Also: So, that demo that was going to be out in a couple of days is now out at the end of November I mean December?

I mean...the gene just automatically appears from domestication, right?

Also, I love how he's claiming that horses were bred for that gene specifically. I was under the impression that humans didn't really understand genetic inheritance until this dude fiddled around with his pea plants in the 19th century. Was that 400 years ago? I'm not great at math, but apparently the spotted horse blows away 400 years of scienmagistry.

Neanderthal Defense Force here! Cleve says trait, not gene. The inheritability of traits in the most general sense has been understood for tens of thousands of years, that's what started deliberate breeding of plants and animals in the first place. Mendel's discovery and subsequent research were about the specific mechanisms of inheritance.

Don't give him any credit...he's mixed up trait and gene in his post.

It's not associated with domestication. It's a recessive trait. It's not "specifically associated with domestication". It's sort of like blue eyes, a recessive trait. Lots of people in Sweden have blue eyes...because the recessive trait is carried by most of the population.

Oh, er, well, you just hate Neanderthals. I bet you're one of those Homo Sapiens types! That's it.

Cars bounce off him and he wears a fanny pack, you can't possibly win an argument with that kind of massive intellect.

I found this thread when doing my lurking, searching the internet for the wonderfully entertaining drama that Cleve threads create. And something has been bothering me for several days now. And that thing as that some people on the internet are wrong.

Piebald, and other odd colorations, are strongly associated with domestication(at least as far as mammals are concerned).

This is theorized to be due to domestication producing neoteny in domesticated mammals.

Most recently this has been shown with the Russian silver fox domestication breeding program.

Odd color patterns that don't contribute to camouflage are generally counterproductive to survival. Infants of mammal species often do have patterns that stand out so it is easier for their parents to find them. Once they don't need to be taken care of by adults they grow out of their oddly colored coats and into more normal ones.

Recessive and dominant genes have nothing to do with it. It's evolution. Domestication is an evolutionary change in species and one of those changes(in mammals at least) is retention of juvenile traits, like friendlier personalities and oddly colored coats.

There is a lot that Cleve says that is wrong but spotted coats being strongly associated with domestication is something he is right about.

Hitler had some good ideas.

When I first encountered Cleve on Usenet, I enjoyed his rants for his entertaining, hyperbolic but well written style of prose. My take was that it was all a bit over the top; only veering occasionally to caricature, and usually making a point, if somewhat histrionically. As the decades and the forum bannings came and went, it seemed he got crazier and crazier, making wilder and bolder claims, to the point that the entertainment value was just drowned out by the "WTF". The noise became the signal. With the continued vaporware status of Grimiore, it became easy to dismiss him as just another crank; an outsize ego drinking his own kool-aid. Especially when reading his vault blog.

But, now, having read that entire Codex thread, where he eventually ends up posting straight detail that comes across as genuine and reminds me of how cogent he used to be, and then the crazy find of the Stones of Arnhem docs which confirm at least that part of his too outrageous to be possible claims are in fact, true, it's just .... confusing and illuminating at the same time.

Maybe, just maybe, he is indeed not merely the loon it was so easy to label and ignore, and is instead, or perhaps, in addition, the Greatest Troll Ever; an artist of the decades long form.

I came away from the Codex thread with some restored respect for Cleve, and I feel dirty.

And he had a soft spot for domesticated animals!

One can be both entertaining and entertain some really fucked up ideas.

Of course.

Out of all the things I was expecting to see in this thread, a clip from Flesh For Frankenstein was right at the very bottom.

The Indiegogo project proceeds with the momentum of a large boulder rolling uphill.

Peacdog, you are gonna be eating crow when he gets $744,000 today.

Look guys, I found HHR:

I'll gladly give it a fair chance... When he releases it.

All I ask is that it provides as much fun as watching his 20 minute Indiegogo video.

I figured HHR was busy playing the demo Cleve released three weeks ago like he promised.

That's mister elitist negative nancy to you, Mac.

We are "elitist" in that we prefer playing games that actually exist.

So this guy is basically the Ignatius J. Reilly of videogames.

As pointed out on The Other Board [tm], Cleveologists will definitely want to follow this thread:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ve-witness-history.53695/page-39#post-2357849

Cleve actually seems to lose some of the crazy after reading this thing. Some, mind you.

Edit: and boy, do the yots at RPGCodex have a high opinion of both BF'ers and Other Forum'ers. Got some folks over there practically jizzing in their pants that Cleve has been "vindicated" ... guess they weren't around for the wild west bunker-building RACIAL SUPERIORITY sissy-pig RPG years LOL

I have never seen so much gay panic in one thread. It's like Xbox Live became sentient.

A really, really tiny amount. Like maybe one part out of a thousand.

I didn't think the rest of the internet even knew we existed.

I don't get the vindication thing. Cleve's work in the 80s and early 90s has nothing to do with him being a rampant racist, misogynist, absolutely fucking loon who has gone far, far off the deep end.

On Wizardry and gay people: