DiabloFans

Mmm... beta key...

I agree that there must be a lot more people in they beta than we think, I'm not sure how many, but you bring up a good point that not EVERYONE is going to post about it, or make videos, or say anything at all to anyone that they are in the beta. I for one never really used forums before, so if I got into the beta, I'd only be telling a couple of my friends, and not really posting about it anywhere. Plus I have no interest in public games, so I wouldn't show up there. I know a lot of people are looking at the public game numbers and thinking those are the only people playing, but it's definitely not.

I have no idea how many people are actually in the beta, but it doesn't really concern me too much, as long as they give feedback and help Blizzard get the game in a good state to be released! Though I think a lot of people who play in betas don't bother to give feedback anyway.

Quote from Equinox

Considering you have to go out of your way to dl a client of a game you are not supposed to be playing... lol

Should Blizz ban anyone for this? No. But, really, let's not pretend you didn't know you were not doing something that wasn't intended. If they gave a link on battle.net for you to dl the beta I'd agree. But if you went out of your way to dl the beta from I don't know where, no.

To quote again for more emphasis "But, really, let's not pretend you didn't know you were not doing something that wasn't intended." Epic awesome quadruple negative of doom! Not going to take sides on this debate but it is interesting that he accidentally intentionally said the thing thing since he negated his intended meaning, not not not not doing something, is doing something.

Quote from Barrier

they cant ban us because we dont have beta thats all

Sigh... My problem with this 'can't ban' stuff is that its just misinformation. Regardless of wether you have beta or not, your account can be flagged as banned from blizzard servers for any game. You can be banned by your account from a game you've never bought/opened/downloaded.

Once again, for the people that feel the need to spaz about it, I'm not saying anyone WILL be banned, but its not ok to tell people they CAN'T be banned for something.

Most gamers would SAY they'd pick option 1 or 2, but most would actually pick option 4 which is to never engage in face-to-face human interaction in the first place.

I thought this would be an interesting place to post my...venting. This is going to be long so if you are not interested in me, art or an intertwined history of the two, leave now. I won't blame you.
This is mostly for me. And I'll secretly blame you...

As many of you know I'm an "artist" in training. Although, these days I'm more comfortable with the word illustrator or draftsman(person who draws).

Back in highschool, I wasn't as knowledgeable or passionate about what direction I wanted to head in for art. All I knew is that I wanted to draw and paint so I ended up in a "Fine Arts" program(with a capital F).

In my first few years I encountered an extremely odd culture of individuals who had a very elitist view on what art was. The Fine art world of today!I didn't mind though because I was taking courses like Figure drawing and painting so I was focused on honing my craft. I got to ignore the culture, essentially.

But now, as a senior, I have to face it.

I'll get right to the point. In the aforementioned culture, there is a very clear line between what is art and what is not.
Anything related to the entertainment industry right now is not considered art. So the work of most illustrators is considered illustration, and not art. To say to some artists "oh this is just illustration, I'm not putting this in my gallery" is practically profanity and an ultimate insult.

There's this common idea that the stuff you see that gets attention from the art scene in magazines, galleries, e.t.c. is the modern art of our time. And whenever you mention "video game" you get laughed at. I think there's this quintessential image in my brain of a professor making fun of a previous student who refused to draw anything other than dragons and dudes with swords. It's as if, video games are for children. They are not actually important. The new animated movies are just movies. They don't matter in the art world. Man...They're so fucking snooty.

This is turning out to be much longer than I anticipated lol
Right now I'm procrastinating from writing this artist presentation thing where I give a talk on a contemporary artist. The goal is to find a modern artist who deals with important issues and is pushing the boundaries. "Deals with issues" is a very common term around there. The first reference to artists and issues will sound like "find an artist who is dealing with social or political issues in our time".

So essentially, those are the parameters of what gets into the fine art world right now. Stuff that "deals with social and or political issues". Oh, and lots of naked chicks shoving their vaginas in your face. That's fine art too apparently.
Seriously, after Egon Schiele, it seems like everyone started painting hot pink muffs.

I'm here to tell you ITS ALL BULLSHIT!!Word? This stuff matters to a completely misguided small percent of the world that isn't being honest with itself. Word. Now, that's important to say. I'll touch on that later. First, I'm going to give you a very brief art history lesson.

The Grecian golden age of art: A bunch of people from a REALLY long time ago really MASTERED the human figure and created mostly these badass sculptures.

Then the Romans conquered them and art was dead for a long time.

Then the Gothic era of art came with Gothic architecture: This was really the new beginning of art.
Renaissance: DaVinci, Michelangelo, e.t.c.The new age of painting and sculpture had begun. And it was great. All of the work you would associate from this age was not displayed in a gallery. Rather, it was all commission work for churches.

Then, give or take about 500 years and you have contemporary art. Art for art's sake. This is an important distinction. For thousands of years, art was made out of it's convention to society. It served specific purposes. But by around the 1800's it changed.

Contemporary art, mid 1800's to today has been more conscious. Artists were actively exploring the meaning of ar
To put it simply, pissing on a toilet became art. Literally.
....No seriously.
I'm not kidding.
This lead to the idea that art has to really MEAN something in order to be art!

In result, artists are trying to "innovate" and "push social and political artistic boundaries" and "expand what art is" while still paying the bills and getting collectors to give them lots and lots of money.

This has led to a false sense of importance. They have this incorrect thinking that because they are TRYING to be important, they are. But the problem is, they aren't important at all. Not relatively speaking, of course. Ya people fill up galleries and sell paintings for big time money. But they're still relatively unknown. Artists today are trying WAY too hard to be important.
I wonder how many people I've lost by this point...I'm really interested to see the response from the community. I'd imagine the only reason anyone would read this is because they know me.

So, what IS important in art right now? Well, what is captivating the entire world? Hhhmm.....There's this industry I know of....it has millions of followers around the world.
Video games + Movies +comics will be the most important part of visual art history for our time period. They won't acknowledge it right now, but once they gain some perspective it will be glaringly obvious that the place art has come to genuinely grow in our time period is in the entertainment industry. I could build a very lengthy and even more convincing thesis for this but I think you get the point.

So, it's just REALLY frustrating to have to essentially pretend that this shit is important that I'm studying in terms of "modern art". I've had this boiling under the surface for a really long time.

The good news is: You're part of the most important aspect of art for this era. And I bet you didn't even know you were all complete art snobs!

Aside from the commercial stuff, the only thing I consider to really be art is Graffiti and Street Art. that is another, truly global movement that has really shaped art on just about every front imaginable.

So that's the end of this unorganized, convoluted rant about how narrow in perspective people are perceiving art. Had to get it out.


OH! And for making it all the way to the end( or at least scrolling), I'll share some of my stuff.










I love to draw and paint shit that is awesome I.E. Badass characters, demons, and stretchy Jake. So screw you art world! You can follow my stuff on facebook if you want. <3

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stuart-Devivas-Art/283398715046565?sk

Haha! I like I like, here's mine (I made it for FB initially):



Edit: Man, Curse really have to fix the sig bug that make the rep button unresponsive...+1 for Cava btw