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Topics - Jacob

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41
General Discussion / New Avantasia epic in the making!
« on: August 14, 2012, 03:51:53 pm »
I debated whether or not to share this, but I decided that I should. As you can see by my avatar (the album cover for Avantasia's latest release and end of the Scarecrow story, Angel of Babylon), I'm a large fan of Avantasia. Avantasia is a metal opera by German mastermind, Tobias Sammet. Basically, he gathers a bunch of his favourite vocalists and musicians, and creates massive and epic stories and puts them into awesome music.

His first work with Avantasia was fantasy concept of a German monk named Gabriel Laymann who is imprisoned for association with his step-sister (named Anna), who is being tried for being a witch; and Gabriel meets a druid in prison named Lugaid Vandroiy, who not only helps Gabriel escape, but also tells him of this realm called Avantasia (Avalon+Fantasia=Avantasia), a realm beyond human imagination. Vandroiy tells Gabriel that the realm is in grave danger that could affect both earth and Avantasia. Gabriel is forced to abandon helping Anna for now, and goes to help try to save Avantasia. It's a really interesting story, and has awesome music in it with amazing guest performances by Eric Singer (KISS, on Part 2, song 10: Into the Unknown), Jens Ludwig (Guitarist from Tobias Sammet's main band, Edguy - on tracks 12 and 13 on part 1 [Sign of the Cross and The Tower], tracks 5 and 9 on part 2 [The Final Sacrifice and Memory]), etc. Here's the title track of the first album to take a listen:





The second album, called The Scarecrow Trilogy (or alternatively The Wicked Trilogy) was split into three parts, instead of two like the first album: The Scarecrow, The Wicked Symphony, and Angel of Babylon. It's story is described in The Scarecrow's booklet: "The Scarecrow is a tragic story of a lonesome creature, emotionally isolated from his environment and suffering from a distorted sensory perception. His feelings for the love of his life unrequited, he sets off on a journey exploring the left-hand path, striving for inner peace, sloughing his way to approval and eventually facing temptation at the inner depths of the human soul..."

A great song that will give you the feel of this trilogy is called "Promised Land", which first made an appearance on the EP for The Scarecrow and was implemented into the story on Angel of Babylon:





Now, the kicker. :D Last Monday, there was a news article on Tobias Sammet's website. He announced that while he had intended on ending Avantasia after the release of Avantasia's live DVD (The Flying Opera: Around the World in 20 Days) in 2011, he found that he needs Avantasia almost as much as he needs Edguy (his main band). He wrote a few samples for a new album, and says there's no way he won't go for it now. He said that the next Avantasia epic is in the works, and is due for release in spring, 2013. The concept is described as:

"...the album will be a classic Rock-Opera / Metal Opera. It's going to be a timeless fairytale, that despite its fantasy appeal, was inspired by happenings of our modern age and society."

I really can't wait! I'll definitely be trying to get my hands on all kinds of things about this album; and if there will be a special edition available, I'll definitely be going for it. ;)

42
General Discussion / MOVED: Guess?
« on: August 04, 2012, 02:41:21 am »

43
News & Updates / Welcome back, Trax!
« on: August 03, 2012, 02:57:26 pm »
Hi everyone, I thought I'd just let everyone know that Trax has rejoined the support team, starting today! :) This means our support should continue to improve, and everything won't be only on Alex or my own shoulders - the more distributed the responsibility, the more efficient we will be.


So please take this time to wish Trax a returning welcome! :)

44
General Discussion / 200 Million RuneScape Accounts
« on: July 19, 2012, 02:04:26 pm »
Congratulations to Jagex, my favourite games studio and probable future employer for reaching the largest milestone ever achieved in an MMO - 200 million accounts created since launch! 7 years of time in the game means this milestone is pretty important to me personally, and I can't wait to see what the next 10 years bring! :)


Still doubtful that RuneScape is still on top? They just won another Guinness World Record, and here's a little infographic.

45
Support / MOVED: Topic are Messed
« on: July 15, 2012, 12:57:25 am »

46
General Discussion / How to make your own "Instant" Bullwhip
« on: July 12, 2012, 11:41:28 pm »
One of my hobbies is whip-cracking. I have never been able to afford a more expensive and durable bullwhip, so unfortunately the cheaper costume store whips had to suffice for the time being.

I eventually created a rope whip (that still stands as one of the loudest, sound-piercing whips I've ever heard), but it looks pretty ugly and is really heavy and hard to manage sometimes.

This tutorial is a good tutorial on how to make a quick bullwhip in about 15 minutes from some easy parts that you can get from a hardware or athletic store. It was created by Adam Winrich, who holds a lot of world records for whip-cracking including the highest amount of whipcracks in a minute, as well as the longest bullwhip ever cracked. :) Anyways, if you'd like to create your own bullwhip, check out this video! His other videos teach you plenty of cracks and tricks he's learned over the years. (My favourite being "The Volley" ;) )


47
Support / MOVED: Edit Stuff
« on: July 11, 2012, 11:36:41 am »

48
Support / MOVED: To Let you Know
« on: July 09, 2012, 01:12:56 pm »

49
Suggestions / MOVED: Please Add a Preview Button
« on: June 28, 2012, 06:29:36 pm »

50
General Discussion / Circus Maximus - Nine
« on: June 15, 2012, 01:55:31 am »
I don't know how many of you here are fans of power metal/progressive metal. I've been a fan of this progressive metal band, called Circus Maximus, for a long time now. Their newest album, Nine, honestly is intense. Uplifting lyrics, great ambiance in the background, so forth. I honestly can't explain, with words, how the songs off of this album have made me feel. And knowing that the members of the band went through some crazy situations in life, and poured their thoughts and emotions from those situations into the songs, it's just insane.


If you're a fan of Dream Theatre, Devin Townsend, progressive metal, or power metal, or you just want some excellent music to listen to, I'd recommend purchasing this new album. :)


Here's the page for it on The Metal Archives: http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Circus_Maximus/Nine/338375

51
Support / MOVED: Auto Donations
« on: June 12, 2012, 02:21:43 am »

52
General Discussion / MOVED: SARP Forum
« on: June 02, 2012, 04:17:47 pm »

53
Show Off / Christian Music Social Network
« on: May 16, 2012, 01:45:28 pm »
Hi everyone,

I just recently created what I'm calling the Christian Music Social Network. It's a site that uses SMFNew as a platform, but I tried to convert it, to the best of my ability, to be a full-fledged social network for Christian musicians, bands, and fans. I tried telling people about it on Facebook, but for some odd reason, no one cared enough to join. :p If any of you guys would like to join, feel free to do so! Even people who aren't Christians are welcome, granted that they respect each others' views and don't start flame wars over "religion". :)

http://christianmn.smfnew.com

54
Suggestions / MOVED: Domain Request
« on: May 14, 2012, 03:41:31 pm »

55
Feedback / Support team feedback
« on: April 13, 2012, 11:07:44 am »
Hi everyone, I hope you're all having a good day today!

I wanted to ask you all if you believe there's anything we can do to improve our support. Should we do something different, stop doing a specific thing, etc? Just let us know what you think of our support team, and if there's something that needs changing, we'll look into it! :)

56
General Discussion / Happy Easter!
« on: April 08, 2012, 12:13:31 pm »
On behalf of the SMFNew team, I'd like to wish the community a happy Easter! :) Here's a virtual chocolate bar, have a blast! :P

57
Forum Games / If you were king...
« on: March 12, 2012, 10:26:25 pm »
The rules of this game are rather simple. All you have to do is post, saying "If I were king, I'd ...". Serious answers are preferable. By posting on this thread, we'd be able to see how good of a king you'd be. ;) You're allowed to post more than once on this thread, but not in a row. :)

So I'll start.

If I were king, I'd make sure every person, regardless of their income, would feel extremely valued and loved by their king. :)

58
Support / MOVED: Forums Hacked
« on: March 01, 2012, 05:50:25 pm »

59
Support / MOVED: Disallow username changing
« on: February 29, 2012, 03:35:00 pm »

60
News & Updates / SMFNew Wiki and website graphical edits
« on: February 27, 2012, 06:54:03 pm »


I am pleased to announce the release of two new projects we've been working on for a while now. :) The first is a brand-new SMFNew wiki in its beta phase, and the second is a new look for the main website. :) You can see both of these, now released to the public.
You may be wondering, "Why a wiki? Why not just some online manual?". Well, we felt that 3 people could not keep up the database of documents that SMFNew requires. Plus, we realize that everyone is only human, and that there easily could be mistakes in the articles. With a wiki, anyone who has a wiki account can edit and fix articles accordingly. They can also add articles that we may have missed. Of course, we do have guidelines that we ask everyone to read before editing an article, as it makes it very hard on us to have to fix any articles that aren't following the guidelines. Now, instead of repeating ourselves on support requests, we can just give the users the links to the proper article on the wiki. :)

As for the website changes - Alex made these changes to make it easier for people to navigate around the website. We wanted to keep the overall look of the website intact, but it definitely needed to be a bit more user-friendly. Now, there's a side bar for navigation, as well as a link to the wiki.

Now, let's hear a round of applause for Alex and Jagge - without them, these projects wouldn't have happened! :)


In other news...

We now have over 4 million posts, and nearly 50,000 forums! Our thanks go out to all of our users for the support over the years. :)

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