Frenetic Pony

God, so yes. I... it just, reminds me of why I'm amazed humanity as a species has survived to do so much. "It's Batman, and that on director guy I like because he explains slightly complex plots in a way I can understand. Therefore it's a good movie and I don't actually have to pay attention while 'watching' it to know it's good!" I remember walking out of the theater amused at the sheer feats of cognitive dissonance in the rest of the audience. The best thing most people had to say about it was "Dude, I totally wasn't bored!" "I know right?" (Yes, this is a paraphrased, but pretty literal conversation I overheard, among others). Regardless, just saw This is the End, which had some amusing demon dick jokes but really should have been Michael Cera being an ass the entire time. Cera's 4 minutes of screentime was as funny as the rest of the cast in the rest of the movie combined. Which isn't to say that the rest of the movie didn't make me laugh at times, but that Cera was just fucking hilarious in riffing off the opposite of his own "quiet, unassuming nice guy" routine. Also saw World War Z. Which was mostly a bunch of big budget zombie apocalypse scenes. And while first opening sequence might have been a great movie, after it the entire thing kind of forgets that it's supposed to have a plot and is just several "oh shit zombies!" scenarios strung together. In the end ( "spoiler" with nothing to spoil really but whatever) Brad Pitt realizes the zombies don't go after people with some sort of terminal disease, proves it, and... then the movie just ends basically, as if someone realized that two hours of special effects and running around with zombies was long enough, so it's now time to wrap things up. I sort of enjoyed both, but then again I absolutely adore movies in general.

I'm making my way through it. And to be honest it's a rather simple and linear puzzle game from my perspective. Oh sure, maybe there's a room you can go into for no logical reason, or the bonus objective you can get in each place, or maybe one other route to go through. But none of that or the setting hides, for me, the extreme simplicity and linearity of the game. The graphics could be solid colored cubes for all I cared, though I do often chuckle at the dialogue. I know I'll get through it over time, and I'll enjoy it. Gunpoint is an above average, if always solid, game; to me anyway. I guess that's good enough $9 though. Overall :) out of :blink: :blink:

Solo, but I think I got to a higher rank than you did, I suppose. By the end every other game was fairly co-ordinated in at least a small way. People teaming up for ganks was just implicit, someone shows up and everyone knows what to do, people call missing, team strats like 5 man and etc. are all agreed upon. None of that made it... engaging.

Fucking wedge issues man: http://kotaku.com/the-differences-between-the-xbox-one-and-ps4-as-far-as-514440065 Of all the analogies, that's the one that nailed this console "generation". The two consoles are so close, same social features, same used game policies, practically the same exact silicon inside, they end up looking like: And until one is less $350 and isn't an ugly black retro crap from Mordor both MS and Sony can keep their boxes to themselves. Seriously though, does I can't be the only one that thinks both boxes look hideous can I? Edit - Actually, the funniest fucking thing about this entire debacle, now that I think about it is that Valve took one look at the entire "Share games" thing and immediately decided to do that, and they're going to do it, and Microsoft, for once actually coming up with something, is already cancelling their plans to do it.

So I quit this a while ago, after almost 250 hours and, getting good I think? At it. And I quit when I was chewing out my team for losing because of stupidity, not lack of skill, but sheer inane stupidity. Crushing the enemy team most of the game, tier 3 tower down mid yet tier 2 still up on bot and top, and yet all they can do after that, time after time, is attack tier 4 and the ancient and get killed, about 6 times in a row until the enemy team finally recovered and just came back and crushed us in one fell swoop. And I realized that's not what I wanted to do while playing a video game. I was trying to win, chewing them out by the end. But I didn't want to chew people out, that wasn't fun. But that's what 90% of the matches had turned into for me. So I quit for two months, and out of curiosity tried another match yesterday. And it was boring, and I don't know why I ever liked this game to begin with. Somewhere there's this hook to DOTA type games, this combination of hooks revolving around the illusion of teamwork, and the mastery of your environment, and the challenge of competition. But the teamwork is so often just an illusion, a function of the game mechanics encouraging what looks like teamwork rather than an actual group of people co-ordinating towards the same goal. And even when it is actual teamwork, it's so basic, well in my perspective basic, that it's not terribly interesting. I spent 250 hours, played just about every character multiple times, played every match type, figured out every aspect of items and powers and the flow of a match, and now I'm done; and somehow so much of it seems hollow in retrospect, in a way that games I played even more of like Smash Bros and Rollercoaster Tycoon don't. I'm done, and I'm glad I'm done, and I can go enjoy other games and things, and I'm glad I went back that once, just to confirm that it wasn't frustration or a bad match or something else that was eating at me. I just wish I knew what exactly it was that began to felt so frustrating and hollow about that game versus say, my several hundred hours in TF2 or Counterstrike Source.

I think a lot of these arguments... come from absolutes being applied to "all games" for no reason. RTS games have permadeath, your units die permanently OMG! Clearly, first off, the entire idea must be put into the context of the game you're talking about. In something like Xcom or Dead State, permadeath is a thing that ecompasses a fundamental portion of the game. It doesn't meant you lose the game, but death is instead the loss of a resource taken into account in the games design. So, what I think should be concentrated on is not "permadeath" but "permanent loss of the game". You die, you lose the entire game, yes? Again, for games like Dead State and Xcom, that's a large factor of the game. That you can "Win" or "Lose" even though its a singleplayer game. So again, it really matters what game you are talking about. If a game is "meant" to be won, designed in such a way that your reward comes solely from progression, and yet "permanent loss" of the entire game is still a factor, still possible, then perhaps in that specific instance "permadeath" or whatever it causing that isn't a good design decision. But the point is that it stems from design goals of the game, and isn't a "good" or "bad" thing just taken from itself. As a side note, there's no such thing as an intrinsically valuable skill, just like there's no such thing as an intrinsically valuable item. It's all just based off the demand for whatever skill you're talking about and how much people are willing to pay for that. I mean, playing video games professionally can be a better job than working at McDonalds or something.

I'm stuck on my novel, it's extremely hardcore science fiction, and I think I'm stuck because my characters are stuck in the middle of a hole in a desert with nothing science fictiony going on around them. Not that I don't mind writing character drama, that's what stringing along half the story. But if there's nothing cool to go with it, then it's not fun to write, which I suspect means its not fun to read. I just need to get them out of there. Skip ahead. I think I'm going to put a zombie in there, but then reveal its just one of the characters playing a virtual reality game. Suck it "The Last of Us" (ok, I'm buying that tomorrow, but whatever). But at least I'm not at a boring office job! Subbes I'd trade any boring office job in the world to be where you are. Maybe you'll fail, statistically startups often do. Maybe in three years you'll be cruising along in your new Ferrari back to your Berkely hills mansion. Either way, think of it as something far more exciting and interesting than the several hundred million people in the world with boring office jobs may ever experience in their entire lives.

Now I'm just imagining mega-PCs as these giant PCs, large gentle creatures roaming the plains, grazing on wild silicon in their vast herds. Seemingly docile beasts, they can be quick to charge when provoked by their smaller console brethren's jeering and hollering; a thing which appears to be a rite of passage wherein the new youngling consoles attempt to oust the old.

Life happens to you.

Oh good, a Dishonored clone. They just lost my money, but maybe you guys will enjoy it. Annoying "Interview" interrupting gameplay, as a warning.

In a British accent I hope "Off with you knave, peasant, rapscallion. Who knows what filth ye track into my domain!"

Wow, just got back. Less new games shown than I'd predicted, and ye gods, the same person that designed the hideous Xbone designed the PS4. Remember when everyone just copied Jony Ive's, that's Sir Jony Ive's designs? You know, Apple's stuff? Can we go back to that? Please, like, you know, the idea that maybe the thing connecting to your TV could be vaguely pretty and not a utilitarianly hideous black box from fucking Mordor. That's whos designed these things, fucking Sauron. Regardless, JonCole while you are mostly correct, both consoles are far, faaaar closer to just a PC sitting in a box this time around. And while a single addressable memory space is quite nice, next years new architectures from both AMD and Nvidia should see a huge boost in video card available ram, 8 gigs for both the top end on both. And really the main difference between a modern high end PC and these things is that there's a lot more GPU addressable ram in the consoles with a lot of bandwidth, so by next year high end PC's will be fine. Also with a TON more GPU and CPU power. Beyond the ram high end PCs already have several times more raw compute power for both, a GTX Titan already has a 6 gigs of ram and near triple the theoretical compute power of the PS4's GPU. Not to mention just how far a desktop Core i7 outclasses both consoles doubled up mobile CPU's. No matter how much a developer optimizes specifically for these new consoles the only thing high end PC's lack today is GPUs with RAM. As Crytek already pointed out, Moore's law has ensured that consoles will never again even come level with high end PC's. Of course, that a high end (Titan) GPU costs $1,000 helps with that

Since you put it that way... The situation in Europe has multiple causes stemming from large taxation revenues growing along with an expectant rise in the economy being taken for granted combined with fiscal irresponsibility in regards to both the size of the governments direct contribution to individual nation's GPDs and a disregard for any future debt incurred in order to satisfy voters with high paying jobs in the short term. Since the crash of two thousand and eight with a heap of bad debt being incurred by the banking industry much of Europe has tried to ignore the problem of having their banking industry write down their losses on said debt, creating a series of growing possible bank failures that no longer have the liquidity to make loans, helping to slow down the already stifled economy which was propping up the already false credit ratings of countries with unsustainable debt. Which has caused a scenario in which those same countries appear to be in danger of default, causing a rise in the price of any bonds they've issued creating a feedback loop between them and creditors making default ever more inevitable. Unfortunately thanks to the Euro default in loans by a country is not viable option without leaving said currency, as to run at all said countries would still need to have a supply of money, which they can not issue themselves as the Euro is controlled by a central bank. Which leaves the option of default on loans also tantamount to abandoning the Euro as a currency and switching to their own newly issued currency which would be greatly devalued versus the Euro. However this would simultaneously devalue the Euro and break treaties governing the Euro area and the European Union, putting the survival of the Euro at all into serious question and possibly causing a run on the already weakened banks of the area, possibly collapsing them as well as the single Euro market and the currency altogether. All of which combined would create a new global depression, which is why the central bank and fiscally responsible northern countries are funding bailouts for Greece and others. That you offer no factual counterarguments whatsoever and even fail to divine the intended purpose of my posts as written, and instead offer up attacks on character as some sort of evidence of your superiority suggests that you've no interest in holding a logical argument but merely wish to see yourself as victorious in some sort of imagined personal battle. Considering it was never my intention to engage in such a thing in the first place, I'm happy to consider the now non existent argument closed so far as responses to you are concerned.

Anyone else have this? I.E. https://scrolls.com/ Mojang's new kinda collectible card game thingy. You build your "deck" of "scrolls" and end up playing them on a hex based Heroes of Might and Magic-ish turn based tactical playing field. It's in open Beta (about $20) and so far, well it's pretty fun. For anyone that likes Magic: The Gathering and/or Tactical combat it might be worth looking into. I'm happy with my purchase mostly on the assumption that it's going to be as well supported as Minecraft. I.E. New "scrolls" coming out and rebalancing on the regular. For those wondering, yes you get new "Scrolls" from a store. But while you can pony up real money for these, you also earn money just by playing the game. So beyond the initial entrance fee there's no requirement for actual moneys to be exchanged. I'm not sure how much the balance tips into the favor of those with a ton of scrolls yet, if at all, but considering I can get them by playing I'm not too worried.

Ok now there's going to be a multiplayer version of this coming out too? Fuck. There goes my money I guess.

Yay! That's what I'm saying (the european thing is a mess, government control isn't what "started" the whole thing, but it's what's perpetuating it in countries like France and Italy). Criticize away, maybe MS will change their minds. Whatever, as long as it's their decision one way or another that's cool with me. I was just being critical of people calling it "unfair", it's their thing, whatever they want to do with it is "fair". But if you call it something you don't like, that's different, go right ahead. Maybe enough bad press or etc. will change their minds. I certainly hope it will about the 24 hour check in thing. I've had times when that might be a problem myself. But now I want to include in my video stuff about the substitution effect and value. I can see a scenario where companies being able to block used games actually increases competition. You can picture it like this: Companies that make similar games will end up competing on price, as people will be willing to substitute one game for another if its cheaper. Hell you can see this effect with MMOs, most are so damned similar that they've all gone free to play, because customers have no problem substituting Wow for Guild Wars 2 if Guild Wars 2 is cheaper. (This is called, helpfully, the substitution effect, economics at least has fairly clear and self descriptive terms a lot of the time, unlike other fields ) So, for games such as an MMO, or say, a realistic racing game, there's going to be more competition towards price, generally. And that competition may well include the respective series allowing their games to be bought and sold used, as being able to sell yours used is valuable to you. Meanwhile, games that are far less substitutable, i.e. more unique, won't be competing on price because the substitution effect isn't nearly as strong for them. Grand Theft Auto V might be an example of something more in the middle of the spectrum. While Watchdogs and Saints Row will also be out at the same time, the core game experiences of each are still less similar than comparing say, DOTA 2 and LoL. And so Rockstar would probably feel free to not let you sell it used, because it knows it's not competing on price as much. Truly unique stuff, such as... shit someone help me out here with a truly unique Triple A game... uhhh... Portal 2? Won't have any substitution effect at all, IE you can't really go out and buy "P0rtal 3" The "a lot like Portal 2!" game. Helpfully, this means that higher profit margin games would tend to be the more unique ones. Thus driving companies towards creating more unique games rather than the "me too!" titles flooded into the market at the moment, because they know that if they do, then people will be more likely to buy them even without being able to resell them, yay! Of course i"m not sure how big an effect this would be. If all publishers block used games by default it might wipe out the effect altogether. But it's still a possible scenario.

I'm supposed to do what, explain why all of Europe is in economic woes now? I could, if you really wanted me too. But I don't see the reason too. I'm saying economics is an incredibly complex field, because someone brings up something incidental related to it. I'm not the one that brought up Europe, in fact you were. I'm not the one that argued just because it's a legal policy in a country that it's the correct policy, you were. I'm telling that it's a stupid policy that's bad for the economy, and explaining why the policy is nonsensical to begin with, not arguing against the fact that the German government is trying to do it anyway. That the only argument others can offer is pointing out tangential things I've yet to explain is not a counterargument to anything I've said, nor is "you're coming off as arrogant!" Knowledge of a subject isn't arrogance, nor is well formed argument. I'm saying, yes, being able to block used games or even "license" instead of "sell" software should be a legal right of any company and there's no good argument against such. If there's a well formed argument against THAT then please, by all means state it. If the argument is, on the other hand, "companies are meanies because they aren't doing what I want" then may I point out that such has already been stated. That being said, I apologize if my ego has in any way leaked through into my arguments. It tends to do that, despite my efforts to keep the damned thing shut up. I like arguing for the sake of seeking the truth and showing it to others, the kind of objective truth that Pratchett put as thus "The ocean exists, I've seen it, you can see it, you can go out there and look at it, and it will exist whether I or you believe in it or not." Rather than arguing for the sake of me being "right" or "winning" the argument. My ego of course just wants me to have that "truth" from the beginning and to win, so I've got to be careful to have it be quiet.

Ask France how it's doing with controls. I'm not most of the way through and economics degree for no reason. Or to state it in another way, everyone thinks they understand how economics works because they use money everyday. But ask someone to explain general relativity, and suddenly they're lost even though they deal with gravity everyday. I.E. Yes, I do know what I'm talking about when it comes to economics BITCH I OWN ECONOMICS. I have the trademark, check it

That's just an end user license agreement, those are questionably enforceable at best. Which isn't the point, the point is, if the company tells you that you are licensing it, and you know you are licensing it, then what's the problem? Again, it's like saying a real estate owner can only ever sell you a house and never rent one, or that a car dealer can only ever sell you a car and never lease them to anyone. If that's how the business wants to operate, and it's made clear to you that's what is happening, what exactly is the problem?

You mean only America might actually give businesses general freedom to run themselves? Oh, and Canada, and plenty of other places outside of Europe. Just because the EU doesn't believe in Laissez-faire economics (and is in large depression because of it) doesn't mean other countries don't. The idea that a company can sell you whatever it wants to sell you isn't absurd in the least. Think about what you are claiming, that you can demand what an independent company has the right to sell you and what it can't? Are you going to wander into their building now and demand they sell you the computers they're using right then and there, because to not to would be "absurd"? I know it's, somehow, a weird idea that a business might have the right to operate how its chooses (just look at Europe); that it doesn't have to sell you something you want just because you want them to. But that is actually the idea. You, as a consumer, can amazingly also choose how you operate. If you are unhappy with the idea of "licensing" software as opposed to "buying" it and being able to resell it, then you are perfectly free to not license it and not give them your money. Incredibly, a company doing something you don't like isn't actually a crime, and you doing something a company doesn't like isn't a crime either! I know I sound sarcastic, but I kind of have to be. The entire European Union, and many other governmental bodies besides, often fail to understand such simple concepts, so I don't doubt many other people do as well.

Meh, the Wii-U, the thing with no games and no prospect for games, is suddenly the answer to some slightly anti consumer practices? Let's not kid ourselves. If the PS4 get's it "right" it will be launching with a good PR lead for first adopters, how that will translate into the long run I don't know. But the ball is in Sony's court. I wouldn't blame them for allowing publishers to decide whether or not used games should be a thing. At this point they just have to offer up a console that doesn't have to connect to the internet to play games and they appear better than MS. And since they actually HAVE games, unlike the Wii-U, they appear better than Nintendo as well. I can see a DRM scheme where you can either just register the disc to your console, and you're chip locked into that console (there are chips on these discs for IDs) and have to have to the disc in to play the game. Or you can choose to register the game to your PSN account, and the chip locks itself up permanently but you don't have to have the disc in to play. It still allows install only games that can be played without the disc actually being in, and it simultaneously allows anyone freaking out about not having an internet connection (for however long) to play the games as well. Meanwhile, while I buy used games and even sell them occasionally, I've zero sympathy for anyone whining about used games going away. It's the publishers and devs right to charge whatever the fuck they want, and you don't have any "right" to say what they can and can't do with their products anymore that there's a "right" to tell a car manufacturer how much it can charge for a car. If it bothers you vote with your dollars, don't buy their games! But I suspect most people are also whining because they know their going to buy them anyway, and just want more value out of them. "We're going to change nothing, but we won't be happy about it!"

Gah! Gift giving people, I know if someone doesn't like your gift it can feel bad. But... it's a really shitty passive agressive thing some humans do, to just expect someone to love any gift someone else gives them. "Here, have a thing, you'd better cherish it and pretend you love it even if you really don't, thus maintaining the illusion that A. I know you better than I clearly don't and B. Making me happy and content in the illusion that I am a good and charitable person while you're stuck carrying a thing around with you that you don't care about." What kind of bullshit is that? That you give someone else a gift so you can receive the notion that you are a better person, because that's what matters to you, more than the person receiving the gift getting something they'd actually want? For context, it was my mother giving my little sister a Lladro of my grandmothers. My sister said she didn't care if she got one, but then it was given to her anyway. To be clear, my mother didn't want it, explicitly did not want it, and it was hers to take in the first place. Nor did she mention any special treatment for it; other than the fact her express purpose for giving the thing was so that if my sister went over her cousins house later and saw another of my grandmother's lladro's she wouldn't feel jealous. But my sister isn't jealous, she doesn't give a shit. What my sister does want is a new laptop, so she turned around and sold it. Now this can make her seem uncaring, and my mother got all mad (as I just learned about). I call absolute bullshit. In this particular case it wasn't even presented as a gift but more of a casual foisting upon of "oh, here, this is for you" with the express purpose of the gift giver being to make herself feel better regardless of the gift receivers feelings whatsoever (and yes, my sister thanked her for the "gift" she didn't want). But even in other scenarios, in almost any scenario, while I can see someone not being thankful for an actual gift as rude, the pretense of having to hide that you don't like it is just retarded invitation for ignorance and presumption on the gift givers part that they should receive more than a thanks in return. It's a passive agressive attitude to cultivate, one where without consent you can foist a social obligation onto an unwilling participant for your own satisfaction. So if you give a gift, and someone doesn't like it, just shrug and say they can return it, or do whatever they want with it. Don't pretend the act of giving a gift, which you decided solely to do of your own volition, now implies that someone else has to give you something in return. That defeats the entire purpose of a "gift" in the first place.

To translate "Ohhhhhh god, ohhhh god, someone get J. Allard back, no one talk to anyone, please god, everything's canceled. Every word that comes out of our PR guys mouth sounds like praise for Hitler."

Yes, and watch Giant Bomb's feed so you can watch them mock it too! Turns out I'll actually be leaving right after Microsoft's, which is what I wanted to see anyway. Giantbomb woot! Predictions: Sony: They'll actually show the thing (it's going to be a box!) Grand Turismo 6 PS4 edition. The Last Guardian on PS4. First "Second Son" video. First "Next gen console!" video of Destiny (Bungie's thing). Announcement of Uncharted 4 for whenever. Some damned EA game like Dragon Age 3 or something. Talk about 4k and netflix and etc. A few trailers of cross generational stuff like Asscreed 4, and cue curtains. Microsoft: Exclusive to the Xbox One... (Que this about ten times.) Fable 4 which will be somewhat MMOish, Respawn Entertainment multiplayer thingy, Ryse (Crytek MS exclusive), Kinectimals 2 played by an awkward onstage fake family, new Rare game(s?). Will be generally better than the reveal, still awkward. Nintendo: Super Smash Bros, Windwaker Remake, Metroid something or other, and awkward attempts at hiding the undercurrent of desperation. EA: Complete and utter obliviousness. Guess I'll be able to check this on Saturday next week to see how I did.

I'm going to be gone, camping! At least I'll be having fun there. One of you better make snarky jokes about everything for me. I always think these things are worth watching, and they never are anyway; it's always always always better to just look at the summaries and etc. after the fact. At least in my experience.