Henroid

Yeah. It was something I noticed about the site and admire (and still do). I forgot about the ads reward thing you guys had, but that seems less oppressive-big-business-like and can end up supporting whoever. I apologize though, I don't want to put words in your guys' mouths.

Yeah I hear you Jake. To clarify my 'success' thing though, it doesn't have to strictly be about money; PA is a success financially yeah, and in other ways. Idle Thumbs is a success in other ways too. Whatever loss you guys were incurring to run it (and make no mistake, I appreciate the hell out of that) appeared to have been worth it to you guys and wasn't the reason why the podcast had to stop a couple times. These rewards are weird as hell for this Penny Arcade thing... The business-lunch one, with Robert Khoo (nice guy) and others, kinda offends me. Mostly in that Khoo has lunch with members of the PA community when he's traveling around the country. He just tells us where he's gonna be and we can show up. Doesn't cost us $5,000. Ugh. Damn this thread!

I have to admit that I didn't look at the backer rewards and uh... Well, it seems like their ego and self-perception of celebrity has exploded.

Well, let's not forget that Idle Thumbs was successful enough too. The only thing that stopped Idle Thumbs in the past was people moving around. I mean, right? I just think it's a little odd to see this argument that Penny Arcade is already successful and therefore it doesn't need help. Tim Schafer is a successful guy too. Actually no, that last bit of my argument is flawed; Schafer was funding a project and not his brand / himself. But let me ask this; if PA ran a drive on their site for this same goal, would anyone object to them asking for donations? Is the problem here the philosophy of Kickstarter not being upheld? Because while I agree about Kickstarter being meant for projects, it also has the mechanics in place for this sort of donation drive.

Weird I can agree to for sure. But any indication of being wrong or abusive or exploitative is taking the whole thing too far.

As someone who has been over on the PA forum for almost 10 years (and keeping up with the site since before then), let me say this. As far as ad-run sites go, PA is unique in that Mike and Jerry have the ability to pick what ads run. That's rare. Not in people wanting to do it, it's rare that it's allowed. But still, they are beholden to ad partners. By making it run through this Kickstarter, they are beholden to the only thing people should ever be accountable to - the viewers / readers. Shit, the Idle Thumbs Kickstarter has allowed for the Thumbs crew to bypass being operated on ads as well. So, why the high price point? Well, they actually have employees to pay. I think 14 now. PA is more than just a comic site. They're managing and operating a convention and other projects. It's a business. That doesn't mean they're inherently evil (anyone who equates business with being evil is silly). It just means they have shit to pay for. They have people to pay for. The rewards kind of kick back to jokes they made about Kickstarter long ago, before this year's explosion on it.

I mean the results, when the product hits market. If it doesn't perform, people will say, "Oh, million dollar Kickstarter that got more money than it needed? Fuck Kickstarters." Something was bound to set Kickstarters in this perception and this Ouya thing is the most likely to make it happen. My deal is, is a million dollars necessary for the development of this? A large portion of this money is likely going to related legal fees and rights to do this.

The big question here is if people want to experience content made to be experienced while on the move when sitting in their home on the couch. The answer is no. Even if this works as promised, it's going to produce sourgrapes about Kickstarters as a concept, because the internet is cynical as shit and when one bad example comes up it's enough to condemn everything else. It's a cool project and all, but the $100 cost, and the near million dollars necessary to make this happen, that's asking too much of consumers.

Oh no, I've been followed! Welcome to the Idle Forums TC.

This community is now leaps and bounds ahead of the entirety of the internet.

It took me 15 years but I finally wrapped up Breath of Fire 3. We got that game the year it launched and my brother beating it really deflated any sense of urgency on my part to do the same. As far as JRPGs go, despite the cliches (tropes I guess is the new word kids use now) that pop up, it's pretty damn good all around. The difficulty is questionable maybe, in that the times where it actually is difficult it's sporadic spikes, but it still felt satisfying getting through everything.

Finally was able to listen to this episode, I got distracted all the times I hit play. Turns out that playing the fishing mini-game in Breath of Fire 3 was the answer to being able to focus while vegging out! I guess I have something to say to each our hosts regarding this episode also. Sean - Okay not necessarily top drawer feedback but it was really cool to hear that you and the little lady are able to sit together and play a game together in this fashion. I mean, what's essentially meant to be a single player experience. All the (few) women I've dated I've been able to do that with and ever since the first it's a weird "indulge in my hobby or no dice" requirement I have. Jake - Good to hear a quick old-man moment when you questioned Sean's enjoyment of Killer Instinct. I think I had a similar moment and it was fairly recently (as in like a year or two ago). The only Sonic the Hedgehog games I'd played up to that point were the Sega Genesis ones (excluding Sonic CD). Everything else I'd only seen via videos, never even played in front of me. So I got Sonic Colors for the DS, which I was assured to be a great experience as my first Sonic game since the mid 90's. And I was pretty much lied to. I had such an unexplainable rage to that game, yelling about how Sonic wasn't actually about being fast all the time, and more of a platformer. I got loud on the net and declared all post-Genesis Sonic games to be shit because all I see is the change in what that series was about. ... Okay maybe it wasn't entirely similar. I guess the only similarity is bad first impressions of trends that stick. I wonder if Mortal Kombat's hardcore voice didn't set that one up for you though. Chris - What you were saying about sports games, is it that the mechanics would otherwise be appealing to 'traditional gamers' (forgive the use of phrase, I don't know how else to describe, uh, people who post on video game forums) but the presentation layer is so thick that it gets in the way? I'm trying to distill the point, which may not be fair, but I also want to make sure I picked up on it right.

Those were overall company reserves, not just the VG divisions. And I guess Sony bought Gai-whatever. Which I've only recently been made aware of. If they don't tie it into Playstation Plus I can't see them doing any good with it. Strengthen existing products, not just put out more.

This comment pleases me so much.

Dwarf Fortress. The ultimate disaster film. A tale of inevitability.

Are you saying that Chris, Jake, and Sean are the new topical "nobody cares" Simpsons?

9 hours is pretty generous for a JRPG (even though it's not J... hell I know the guys, but we all know what we mean by JRPG). Sounds good though. A money cheat?! You should be a hero and report it to the dudes so they can fix it!

I forget how it happened exactly, but I got all games in the Orange Box without getting the OB itself, all for free or cheap on Steam. The one left out was TF2, but then the day came where the game became free to obtain. I still haven't played it. Not because of lack of interest, but because my current location has bad ping rates (I don't mean that BS "ugh 50 latency WTF" nerd rage, I mean 300 on a good day). Plus there's a fear of jumping into a game so late into its life with a bunch of veterans that are going to be mad at me learning.

That would be episode XI and XI-2. (11 and 12)

So the Pyro is Gordon Freeman.

It removes some of the mystery and politics within the game.

Sign me up. Though I'm picky about official alliances.

First among some new info I was reading is the Japanese site putting up the first random-battle music, which obviously is now on YouTube. Now that I've gotten myself all pumped up, changes I just read in this game are as follows: - You don't have to name a character before picking their class and portrait now. Minor annoyance, that was. - Items in the shop are categorized by type, rather than just a single long list grouped by type. - Mineral gathering is no longer have-skill-only in the dungeon, but you can still increase how much you can gather via skills. Nice middleground. - The ship sequence in EO3 is now an air-ship and doesn't have a limited number of moves. Also, resource points refresh once a day. - The monster book is now accessible in-battle. Though you still need to kill things before you can know their information.

Oh right, relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NCpFv9MHB2Y

Well I've been around here long enough that I feel comfortable sharing this. http://steamcommunity.com/id/Henroid And joined into the group. Now everyone can see how irregularly I use Steam. Minus the last couple weeks worth of way too much Dredmor.