Henroid

His ability to not take himself nor his job nor his company super-seriously-and-bland was so refreshing in an industry where the giants were expected to behave a certain way. I'm really gonna miss him. Rest in peace, truly.

I would never say it won't have any at all and I never said it here. What I'm talking about is 95% green screen use vs. 75% vs. 50% etc etc etc

You haven't seen all the behind-the-scenes of the prequels being shot on giant green sets, and heard all the actors talk about how the films were mostly digital? Like even basic sets?

You know what though? As a student of film (not that I'm a super expert pro with that), it does mean something. They're called practical effects because they are something you can work with in real time in the raw footage. One of the first things we learned for making film is that your film is only as good as your original footage; no amount of post effects can save a bad shot, bad acting, missed cues on set, etc. I understand that the phrase can be used in an abusive manner, but I don't see this as being one of those instances. I definitely would have called shenanigans if this was a Lucas project. But it's not, and that's a large part of why pushing the practical effects for promotional reasons matters. Lucas' last three films (well, even the Indiana Jones travesty) were panned for their digital effects reliance. Everything being digital has a terrible aesthetic. But when you use effects to fill in the blanks, that's when it counts. I'm just stoked to see the details that are being left in the hands of prop makers and puppeteers and engineers (for the limited robotics at play). I really respect those crafts in film production. I'm just gonna start affectionately calling this film A New Hope 2.

If only THAT was the thing Janet Jackson had covering her chest during that Super Bowl half-time show that made the country go NUTS about content censorship.

Some Goobergate douchebag tried to get Randi Harper's info from the FBI and failed miraculously. So he's on a tirade against her right now on Twitter. Also he tried to dox me on Twitter when I commented in her tweets about it. It was a fail dox, but still an attempt. Mysteriously it disappeared moments after I reported it! IMAGINE THAT.

And then Mark Kern made tweets about Randi Harper supporting ISIS through the ggAutoblocker, then he backpeddled and deleted the tweets. I wish I was exaggerating but like... he said it. And despite deleting comments the internet never forgets.

That Milo guy, @Nero on Twitter, posted revenge porn to the Breitbart website. Not linking because duh, but it means 1) He's a douchebag as always 2) His employer approved it for posting

From Twitter:

I really hope they get her fully clothed if she wins the Arcana because fuck horny nerds. There's porn out there, it doesn't have to exist in content you digest separate from it.

Sniper lost to QoP in the arcana showdown. If he had to lose to anyone, I guess it'd be her. Goddamn nerds. Here's to hoping Tiny wins it out at this point. Well, him or Zeus.

Don't have much add to the discourse, just silly shit:

John Oliver said in an interview earlier this year that the biggest benefit of his show being once a week and formatted the way it is is that he and his staff have a lot of time to thoroughly research and verify things before airing any of it. He's talked about how they'll sometimes have ideas for segments that don't have that much heft, so what may happen is that segment idea may become a piece of a puzzle for a different segment. They don't really write up segments having to stretch any given topic. If it doesn't have meat, it will support a different topic later on. That said, the whole GamerGate thing has so much going on with it that they can definitely come up with a full segment on it. They probably don't have it high on their totem pole of issues to raise awareness on, but if they get poked hard enough by GamerGate (which isn't hard to imagine, since GG digs the whole "harass like crazy" strategy) they'll probably get motivated. Another thing from that interview is that John Oliver kind of has an "up yours, we only live once" attitude when it comes to people or things that could potentially be dangerous (the spirit of the question was speaking the truth about people or groups of people that are known to get physically violent).

Oh and it gets even better. Ted Cruz says he wants to be able to remove SCOTUS justices via voting. So you know, impotent outrage. In a hypothetical world where Ted Cruz gets what he wants, that bill would be passed next week, put into effect next month, he would run for president, win it, then immediately work to get rid of that whole SCOTUS vote thing because it's time for him to stack the court! Jackass. Someone on Twitter said Sarah Palin more or less echoed the same sentiment but who gives a shit about that money-seeking shill.

He's furthering his opinion by making comments to the media about how this decision makes the SCOTUS a threat to the democracy of our country. Meanwhile, corporations are people. Or something like that.

Tale of Tales, the developers of Sunset, are closing down. Edit - Apparently Sunset only has 4000 sales, despite the Steam summer sale stuff. So they are just calling it quits.

Don't forget that last year Microsoft threw "exclusive" around like an Ebola outbreak but it turned out most of those claims were timed / limited exclusivities. Edit - Last year, I mean. So expect the same from pretty much everyone this year and every year going forward.

To be fair though, while it is the next iteration, I mean all that base building / trading stuff that they have going on in it at the same time is a hell of a thing to throw in. It ups the ante on future iterations of the Bethesda open-world style game, and if it's a critical success it's a feature that will just be accepted as being normal. They probably busted their asses so hard to get it where it is now. I'm comfortable agreeing about Fallout 4 being the most impressive news out of E3, but it isn't the biggest news. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake announcement, short as it was, was probably the biggest megaton dropped during the week. I mean, from the angle of video games as a whole. I'm not an FF7 devout in the slightest (actually a detractor) but it will give us all a lot of insight on how Square regards one of the most landmark games ever (that it happened to make) while also seeing how they've changed as video game makers since almost 20 years ago. If keeping Aeris alive is added in as a bonus feature I will be so mad though. Shark jumping, that is.

This game is such a weird experience to me. Let me get the positive notes out there first. I do like that they wanted to shake up the genre as it has stood 'til now. The goal of shortening round duration is a success. And having different maps with mostly unique functions / goals certainly helps things stay fresh. Sadly that's all I have to say in favor of this game right now. I have no idea what they intend to change or add to, nor the extent, but I feel like the game is very much in a beta phase of balance. Some of the characters are built well for what DotA 2 is right now, but then others are built to just instant-nuke in combat. Healing is kind of the same way. Lili, the panda girl, has a very weak healing ability, and even augmenting it or her other abilities to heal don't really make her compare to other healers. More importantly though, in a battle with the enemy team her healing doesn't amount to shit. The scale of damage coming down in a fight doesn't allow for her healing to make an impact to save the day or turn things around. At best, I've found that Lili's strength is that she can sort of solo the map-specific goals or mercenary camps, leaving more of her team free to fight normally. Which is a bad way to have someone help their team - by not being a part of the team. I guess if I had to tl;dr this whole thing, it'd be that some characters are built to play the game PvE while others are built to play it PvP. But they're playing the same game at the same time, and the PvP side will always trump the PvE side. Because PvP strength counters the benefits of PvE style characters. There isn't much in the way of unique abilities either. For the most part abilities are as follows: - missile - aoe - blink (teleport) - heal - shield (the worst kind; shields hardly add any survivability) There aren't any unique things happening for the characters beyond their trait and ultimate abilities, which sure they exist, but it's a very narrow gap. Another weird thing is that there is like zero synergy between characters from what I can identify. The only identifiable synergy in team choice that I can see is picking a team full of intense damage dealers. And while not having an item / shop system certainly helps simplify the game, you have to wonder at what cost it came at. Again, there isn't much in the way of customizing your character from the angle of surprising the enemy. Items in DotA 2 provided many means of surprises, from consumables that made you last longer per trip away from base, or defensive items, or offensive items, or even items that granted outright new abilities. That lacking element of "surprise, you thought I was squishy" or whatever is just disappointing. So I mean... I dunno. Obviously the game isn't for me (and I have played the shit out of it btw, many hours, probably the biggest handshake i've given to a game to determine if I'll like it or not). But it's not for me because I'm seeing what it's declaring to be but it does a terrible job at being that thing. It wants to be faster paced, but some of the characters are built to take it slow - to the point that they don't compete. And the unification of your team leveling up together removes the element of individual performance mattering. "Hey don't let Tychus get out of hand leveling because he will wreck our base single-handedly" doesn't exist. If one team runs away with more than two levels in difference, it becomes almost impossible for the other to mount a comeback. Sure, that serves the purpose of a faster match, but it retains the feeling of having to sit and wait for something to be over with no hope.

I feel like they took some inspiration from Dishonored as far as combat and movement tools goes.

At first Nick's comment about the podcast having a "Howard Stern setup" didn't make sense to me (I'm an avid listener of that guy), but then when the "Nice Anno segment" comment was chimed in from off mic it became 100% accurate. So I'm amused by weird stuff.

Those cute animals now represent a passive-aggressive hostility to me. How has this happened.

That took me a second.

$14,000,000 just got breached. Also the Arcana Showdown thing progressed to the next round of voting. Everyone vote Sniper.

So that's what Mark Kern has been up to lately! (This is a joke!)