Gormongous

I actually don't get the downside of the "animal husbandry" angle, besides the bad PR of making the developer and the player come off like eugenics-obsessed maniacs. Speaking as someone who's invested heart and soul in Crusader Kings II, the time and effort you spend breeding an heir makes for a ready-to-go player investment in them, whether they fulfill your wishes or not. Sure, it's more like getting attached to a prize heifer than being in love with your child, but it's still something pretty singular.

I think you hit it on the nose. I learned Victoria II during my last "free" summer before grad school made me a full-time adult, but because of that my competency feels balanced on a knife's edge all the time. It's certainly not second nature like the Crusader Kings or Europa Unversalis series, which I encountered back in early college. It saddens me a bit to think that ship has sailed, if other similarly complex grand strategy games should surface.

I wish I could join in, if I weren't driving from Texas to Missouri and then attending a wedding. If anything, it'd be nice to see the Steam group be more than a wasteland I occasionally haunt and beg people to play Monaco. As opposed to the usual savvy they've displayed since... I don't know, the Mirror's Edge days?

Ugh, I've been meaning to watch Tatami Galaxy, but I promised to watch it with a friend who is getting married and going on a honeymoon. Glad to hear it getting good buzz from people I know (kinda). And I like fast-talking anime, too! Mitsuishi Kotono's delivery as Excel in Excel Saga bothered me for maybe a couple episodes before I lapsed into awe and then appreciation.

Anecdotes about quasi-historical fail-states always sell me on games. There was a moment in Hegemony where I marched my army in Illyria into a nightmare of starvation and rout. This game sounds like it's on par. I'll get it when I get home Friday and post thoughts.

My mistake then. Maybe I do just hate your very existence after all!

What? I was just pointing out where he might have gotten the idea that you called him an asshole, but I guess it all feeds into whatever complex you have about people who disagree with you.

No Twig, you just called him the worst, after impugning one subjective statement he made. As someone who's played neither game, I've noticed fans of both making inaccurate statements about the other. How that makes Corelli somehow more ignorant than anyone, even you, is what's really baffling.

I am watching Silverado right now, featuring Jeff Goldblum as a big-city gambler named Slick, and it is so weird. Maybe on par with John Cleese as a bigoted small-town sheriff in the same movie.

Said in Jake's dorky teenager voice.

Fuck yeah. I hate my Xperia for so many things, because it's a terrible phone abandoned by AT&T three months out of the gate, but it's the only phone that's ever survived a full immersion while on.

I was fine with Sean until Steve pointed out on Twitter how much he says "tremendous," in retaliation for Sean's version of Steve's voicemail. "Tremendous" count for the first Dota Today episode? Five, or one every six minutes. I vote a switch to "prodigious."

Because they have the same etymology? That's usually the reason. They'd be pronounced the same way, except that stresses tend to fall on the second syllable of verbs and the first syllable of nouns/adjectives. Now, the half-dead English stress system is something you're perfectly justified taking to task.

I just watched all of Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens this week. I loved the art and design of the whole series, plus the premise was really great. What does a goddess do to earn followers in this day and age? But it totally derailed into everyone drooling over Potato-kun by the fourth or fifth episode, never even realizing the implications of goddess-turned-media-idol implied in the opening credits. Kannagi's not that bad, to be honest. The humor is keen and aware of the fact that it's operating in a very tired subgenre. I've just had the bad luck of watching more than a few "good" shows in the past month, all of which were trumped in the end by the requisite "Potato-kun gets in a fight with the first girl he'd met, they don't talk for an episode, then they realize how much they love each other." My irritation is getting to the level of shounen jive, which has kept me from enjoying Rurouni Kenshin as much as I ought.

We're all just waiting for them to start making out in a sex QTE while the room fills with water.

Field of Dreams thinking, I guess? Build it and they will come?

I could see that, but why on Earth is Microsoft adopting a reactive strategy now when a proactive one is what won them the last console generation? EDIT: Well, I think Frenetic Pony explored the possible reasons pretty well. That's the problem with anti-consumer practices, isn't it? A strong vision isn't as much of an asset as otherwise.

Dude, they do what they want. They don't need your approval for anything.

Yeah, but thousands of people have made the plunge already, why not him? Not that I know Twig's friend, but I feel like it's more about not wanting to risk even symbolic failure with the things one likes, which kind of defeats the point of crowd-funding.

The Old Gods DLC is out! Has anyone bought and played it? I'd go check on the Paradox forums, but I've sworn them off ever since several people all used the "butterfly effect" to explain why the Fatamid caliphate is a powerhouse in every campaign but not in actual history. Shit like that is one of the few things that gets me pissed off.

Objectification: the TV Show!

Note to self: do not watch any more anime that has ever been mentioned in the same breath as "harem". They just make you frustrated.

He knows that you don't get charged any money unless the Kickstarter succeeds, doesn't he? I'm probably going to back this, but I wish more mention had been made of the gameplay mechanics. Even a nod to Crusader Kings II would have reassured me.

The only way to repent is to write each word on a scrap of paper and draw a new, rearranged thread title out of a hat.

This is a bit off-topic, but while we're on the topic of incongruous female character design in Dota 2, does anyone know how Valve has managed to keep using a character that is the protagonist of another company's massive anime/manga/light novel franchise? I mean, the new version of Lina dropped her last name, but three of her four spells are still exactly the same. It weirds me out a little every time I see her in action. I don't know if Valve would take too kindly to a TV show with a silent, crowbar-wielding goatee dude named Gordon in its cast.