voxn

watching the latest Rimworld stream archive, and I'm confused. Your base was below freezing / everyone was dying of hypothermia and you didn't build more heaters? I haven't played Rimworld, and you kept saying there was nothing you could do, so I'm probably missing something? really enjoying the streams though - especially Nick's sculptures - and just bought the game myself. Going to try the ol 'crank the difficulty and see how long I can survive' approach.

excited for this to come out! My last re-read was several years ago, and it was a rather strange experience. Nearly every plot beat remained etched into my mind (from rampant adoration of the series as a teen), but years of intervening reading really sharpen your awareness to aspects of rowlings writing that you didn't pick up on back then. The biggest example being how many things are decided arbitrarily by the current needs of the plot, which you could probably spin into a pretty interesting examination of rowlings writing overall.

comp TF2 has actually had a (minor) spotlight put on it recently as many competitive players (such as seagull, who is both charismatic and very good) migrate to overwatch I'm more of a casual observer, and probably can't captain an email, but it's fascinating. Low graphics settings, disabled viewmodels, bizarre rules, farm leagues, sticky rollouts, pocket vs roamer soldiers.. It's got the heavily refined eccentricities of a competitive game thats simmered away (mostly) out of sight for years.

yowza, I hadn't realized blizzard made animated shorts to accompany overwatch until Chris mentioned it, but he's 100% right about them being too anime. Though personally - as someone who doesn't use much social media, and hasn't had the entire concept of anime poisoned by people with anime avatars - 'too adolescent' might be a better description. Which has to qualify as something of an achilles heel for blizzard at this point, right? I couldn't skip diablo 3 cutscenes fast enough, and while I haven't played SC2, I've heard its plot described as ' ' (though at least in a somewhat incredulous/affectionate way). game itself is fantastic though. One of my favorite touches is the spawn rooms, which have evolved from their TF2 counterparts into crazy detailed playpens full of interactive doodads, glass windows looking out over the defenders, and absurd props of the sort Olly would enjoy. looking forward to [hot new segment] jake's takes!

speaking of dark souls maps, and that email from nels (hi nels), I tried drawing undeadburg from memory until I ran out of paper

I'm not sure if the lamentation over Dark Souls skills was rhetorical, but in case it wasn't: skill at video games is almost entirely system mastery, and learning systems is about observation + experimentation -- things children naturally gravitate towards, but get increasingly dispensed with as you get older. If you want a really clear example of this, check out of DS1. She plays like a child would; constantly experimenting, trying to understand everything, and absolutely crushes the game despite playing blind / barely able to control her character in early episodes. It's a great showcase of age having much less impact on your video game skill then mentality does.

hope the show continues to pop up around big events as a more enthusiast endeavor! You two are great podcasters, but covering the entirety of e-sports has always seemed like a bit of a sisyphean task when watching one tournament for one game handily devours a weeks worth of free time.

oh, neat! I wasn't aware of any of that. I'm excited to check out the LiS videos - that was one of the most interesting games of last year. I'll confess I haven't played any of the examples you listed past that, but I think I'm still fine crediting the idea to Valve. In-world nodes are a much more engaging/elegant solution then the standard behind the scenes reel, and the first time I saw them was in that old Lost Coast tech demo (and it became a feature in Valve games ever after).

finished this yesterday, and enjoyed it, but the overall impact was maybe less then the sum of its parts (which, viewed individually, are incredible). Maybe I'll do a big write-up to figure out my thoughts? In the meantime, I'd like to mention how totally bizarre it felt sitting down and finishing something in a few hours that the thumbs have been working on for years. Video games, y'all. SIDEBAR: hoping a commentary mode appears someday. I thought they both started and stopped at Valve, but Gone Home added one it and it was awesome

surprised you guys didn't touch on MLG being bought out by Activision. Maybe there's not a whole lot to dig into? from my own perspective, MLG has always seemed like a bizarre institution. It steadfastly rides the line of total parody, and its bland, focus tested esports culture / questionable business decisions over the years have made it into a sort of unbreakable punching bag. I am genuinely perplexed how such an event makes enough in profits year to year to justify its existence, let alone be worth $46m and (presumably) investing in.

slight (and probably unnecessary) clarification, but you can deploy as any member of your combat squad in MGS5. You'll have a fair amount of ladies after a few hours. also, stream it Chris! I tried to get my fix with Beloved Thumb Steve Gaynor's twitch, but it was plagued with technical problems, and basically unwatchable. :[

did chris play MGS5 on the thumbs twitch? The title says he did, but if so it didn't seem to archive :<

great podcast! Always happy to get more Rob in my life (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ I'm only familiar with dota, and Andrew's coverage was quite good, but I'm going be a pendant and submit a few notes: - Arteezy is Canadian, and Team Secret actually has some kind of weird Turkish millionaire as a manager. I have no idea on the specifics of the arrangement, and I'm not sure anyone does. - Na'Vi remains a crowd favorite from their years of amazing games, but they did quite poorly last year, and no one expected anything of them this year (which they delivered on, sadly) - A compendium isn't required to watch International games, though most other tournaments are gated behind tickets (and the arms race of cosmetics to sell tourny tickets is a whole conversation in itself) - Suicide Squad is a large facet of Techies, but the more important aspect is how landmines fundamentally alter the flow of a game. The phrase "This isn't even dota" gets thrown around a lot. It was fun hearing about other esports scenes as well -- I haven't watched starcraft since the days of jumpsuits, GOM player and spraypainted foam sets, and have never even dipped a toe into league. The main issue being time, which might be good fodder for discussion on the show. Every game has marquee events, but also seems to churn the year long, and keeping pace with even one absolutely devours time. Over-saturation of tournaments has been an ongoing point of discussion for a while now inside the dota scene.

edit;

ex machina chat:

there were some really bizarre notes in this episode. Vince Vaughn goes 'what the fuck, an 8 part series?' when he reads the newspaper about Vinci's corruption, then a police officer repeats this line almost verbatim later in the episode. Lynch Milkbath lady above. Colin Farrell breaking the 4th wall by shushing the camera. At least the raven mask its probably some eyes wide shut shit and will feature in the plot, but I have no idea what to make of the rest of this. Weird for weirdnesses sake isn't something I'd associate with the first season at all.

talk on games as distractors to pass time is interesting! I watch a handful of japanese artists stream, and when they take breaks they play phone games. The games (almost uniformly) have the barest hint of strategy/interactivity, but share a common theme of being - essentially - souped up progress quest with a thick coating of feedback. My thoughts on them were pretty cynical at first, but I eventually came to the realization that they were actually just playing the 2015 version of solitaire. Now I don't know what to think. The games do have an awful lot of behavioral hooks (daily login rewards, timed events, etc), but I get the impression that these people don't engage with more traditional video games at all, and rather then pushing more meaningful game experiences out of their lives phone games are supplanting time spent watching cat videos or something. edit; but whats most bizarre is when you start thinking of more traditional games to contrast them with, and you realize how absurd it is. 99% of video games are already designed to be fun time wasters

and the monster designs in this game are great, in a sort of horrifying-german-fairytale way. Lots of scabs and gross potbellies and everything looks like it absolutely reeks. Water hags even take gross potbelly to the next level by having accompanied gross hanging boobs! I'm really excited to get deeper in to discover new monsters.

that rabbit gag was really surreal for me; one of the rabbits started levitating by furiously humping air and ended the cutscene about 5 feet straight up. I also started dialog with a stack of wood - which Geralt was quite nonchalant about - because it was revealed to actually be a young girl who joined the conversation by slowly sliding face first out of the wall. so basically what I'm saying is that the glitches I've encountered so far have been net improvements to the game.

YEEEEEEHAAAWWWW *fires six-shooters into the air*

the Wolf in White Van was riveting, thanks sean! I (apparently) really enjoy writers writing like people who aren't writers; John Darnielle did an amazing job constructing characters from the handful of Trace letters and spare story. The throughline of mundane patheticness pervading everything in the novel is goddamn bleak, though. It's like a nerdier Sense of an Ending.

here's a thread to post thoughts about games you've just picked up, smaller stuff that wouldn't warrant its own thread, etc! There's a similar thread to talk about a games you've finished over here, but I find I gravitate towards games with no end-state or rarely finish games that do. recently I've put a chunk of time into Legend of Grimrock 2, and wanted to recommend it! Lots of outdoor areas and much more open-ended exploration provide a very welcome contrast to the claustrophobia of the dungeons, the main reason (I think) that I wasn't hooked by the first game. For reference I have absolutely no nostalgia for the first-person dungeon crawls this game is descendant from, and am still really enjoying it. The map system and the way you can leave little annotations to yourself is surprisingly satisfying, and its got that zelda-syndrome of leaving an area, coming back later, and instantly figuring out all the secrets you missed. Endless Legend I am only just starting on, but it seems like a wildly better Civ game then Civ:BE. Admittedly I haven't played BE, but everything I've seen looks like an utterly generic reskin of Civ5, and all the talk I've seen surrounding it isn't doing much to dissuade me. Endless Legend is anything but generic. After hearing about it on 3MA(here) I gave it a shot, and have been finding it fun to learn. The factions are all very distinctive in both flavor and playstyle which leaves a strong first impression, and the 3ma crew seemed - with a couple reservations - quite positive on the game overall.

rad! any advice how I should progress in my game? I've got a little armada of Wolf-class frigates which seem pretty amazing (I messed around in a Hound at first - way more difficult), but I'm playing with permadeath, and I've been hesitant to leave the starting sector in case it consumes supplies (precious supplies) and there are no little pirate fleets to feed on.

hey, I just started plinking away at this game recently! its been fun poking around: I've discovered there's a nearby pirate base that spawns smaller ships I can beat. I managed to scrounge up enough money to buy - and outfit - a second ship to watch my back, but that's about the sum total of my progress. I suppose I'll be able to build a small fleet and take on some of the bigger ship packs eventually, but it's fairly slow going, and I've been terrified to leave the starting sector. one big criticism, and maybe my opinion will change on this with more time, but I am not a fan of the burn mechanic and overworld(space?) movement. It seems really binary. You are either higher speed and can catch fleets to fight, or slower and can't (and it often feels more like exploiting bad AI when you do).

emoticons are a time honored palette to express beautiful human emotions on the World Wide Web, combating the cold nihilism of pure text. The ones on this forum are kind of ass though, so I thought I'd try and make better ones! here's what I've got so far: :3 :displeased: :I :/ :drool: