Problem Machine

I played it a lot. Mostly vs. 2-4 hours a day adds up pretty fast. There's really no other game like it: A round can hinge on an instant of unspoken cooperation between you and your teammate. I also got depressed and spent a bunch of time watching demos, but I don't think that's a significant contribution to the total.

Didn't occur to me, I'll try to remember to do so next time I get something interesting. It would have been tricky to get a good one actually, since the best would be seeing the laser scramble all over the level killing enemies and it was only doing that for a few frames before everything died. In an empty room it was just a purple laser.

I think the topic of how worthwhile Rebirth is has been adequately tackled here, but I think it's a huge game. I've played 7 hours and I still encounter completely new enemy types and new kinds of rooms, plus making all of the items interact properly is huge. Regarding the limitations of Flash, a big part of that is that they didn't just make it in Flash, but in Actionscript 2, the version of Flash's scripting language which was deprecated starting with Flash 10 in 2007. You can make a game run at any framerate you want and if you code it competently you shouldn't have any problem getting a stable 60 out of a game like Isaac, but being tied to an antiquated version of Flash made it impossible. It frustrates me a bit, as someone who's worked professionally as an Actionscript 3 programmer, to hear Flash as a platform get dumped on because of someone using a 5 year old version of it. I'm going to have to strenuously disagree with everyone saying L4D2 has better gameplay than L4D. The new weapons are redundant, the ammo packs are pointless, the new scoring system is awful. The new SI are okay, but only the Charger is actually well-designed: All of the original SI were carefully developed to play uniquely (as Nick mentioned) and to fulfill several roles. Spitter feels very generic to play in comparison, and Jockey serves no role that the Smoker didn't already fill. And, regarding corner camping, the Spitter is useless for stopping that beyond forcing them to pick a spot with counters or railings to stand on: In reality, she acts as damage amplifier, while it's the job of the hunter and charger to break up the group. Even in L4D, corner camping could be risky against a decent team, since if one hunter pounce gets through the entire team will be stumbled. I really loved L4D and put in like 2000 hours between the two games, but was extremely disappointed by the lackadaisical approach Valve took to L4D2, with sloppy animations and careless "wouldn't it be cool" additions. The tonal problems are just symptomatic of the greater flaws in their approach. Given the choice of the two, I'd play L4D every time. Unfortunately it's a fairly small player base nowadays.

First Sheol win! Incredibly overpowered Azazel run, basically technology 2 + homing tears + a million damage ups (pact, mark, cricket's head, polyphemus) meant I had a laser which instantly scrambled through the room and minced every weak enemy the second I entered a room, plus the original mini-brimstone as a super high-damage cannon to hit tough enemies or hit enemies through rocks. I pretty much two-shotted satan's final form.

One person claiming it's not a harassment movement can be ignored, but FIFTY people claiming it's not a harassment movement? There's no arguing with that! ... even if it's actually just five people posting ten times as often as is reasonable.

Basically fuck TB forever edit: I am completely comfortable with this being the first post of the 100th page.

Another episode of GamerGaters Losing Arguments with Bots

I think he's coasted this far on the archetype of the dickish but smart, incisive, and funny British guy -- the problem being he's not actually that smart, incisive, or funny. ... basically he got there before Yahtzee did and put out more content.

I guess the point is that beyond a certain point 'unwise' turns into unethical, as it becomes a form of reckless endangerment.

That seems more like an argument for unwise than unethical, really.

I'm not sure I understand why that's unethical. I can see an argument for unwise, but,,,?

So... Brianna Wu is putting a bounty on people who send death threats? "Identifiable information leading to the prosecution of individuals sending me death threats will now be $11,000."

He's the Uwe Boll of douchebag video games industry satellite personalities! Oh, wait.

Any doubt in my mind of Brad Wardell's status as a dipshit has been dispelled by his support of this bullshit hate campaign.

Oh my god I hope they do

Translation: "Say what you will about Jack Thompson, at least he's a man"

I'm bothered by anything that selects people based on their average attributes as a broad class rather than their specific attributes as human beings. That said, if all of the best low-weight low-caloric intake candidates are women, then by all means.

http://www.themarysue.com/watch-anita-sarkeesian-colbert-segment/

Sigh. I feel so invisible.

You don't get it. And your condescending reiterations that you do aren't helping, since the possibility that you don't apparently hasn't occurred to you. If you were actually open to the idea that you don't get it, you would have actually read and parsed my earlier responses, but you've made it clear that you haven't. That apparently is not something you feel to be worth your time. So: Why should I bother? While I agree with everything that Gormongous has said, his rationale is not mine. These are discrete arguments for why these jokes exist. I actually put a lot of work into coming up with jokes that attack rhetoric instead of people, that highlight hypocrisies instead of mocking beliefs. This was with an end-goal of making the GG position visibly and obviously rhetorically unviable, now and in the future. It's not just about stopping GG: It's about stopping future GG's. This is about the fabric and methodology of cultural change, not just convincing one angry person to reconsider. These may seem like grand words for just a few little jokes, but that's the process.

I think your reasoning is naive and your critique reductive, dismissive, and insulting. That's the last I'll say on it.

Re: GamerGaters' lack of seriousness: https://storify.com/vivian_games/a-week-on-gamergate-forums-1

Do you feel that I have misrepresented the arguments that GG has put forth in some way with my jokes? Because THAT I can accept as a legit critique, even though I rather disagree, since I put a lot of work into representing the actual arguments I've seen. In principle I agree with you: That's a thing that happens a lot, and a dangerous trap. In terms of your specifics, I think that it's really jumping the gun to say that anything that mocks the stances of GamerGate casts them as villains and buffoons. The lines are drawn very clearly: Not everyone in GG is a harasser, but it is a harassment movement. Not all who support GG are driven by hate, but it fits the parameters of a hate group. Taking the aspects that drive these classifications to task is NOT an attack on the heart and soul of everyone who belongs to the group, and that sophistic conflation is what has driven so much of GamerGate's longevity. Forgive me for not playing into that delusion.

And yet to a mindset that is tuned to react to any dissent as vilification or mockery, it will have the same effect. Thus, 'to it's logical conclusion'. The injection of humor into a critique of GG reasoning is no more inherently othering than otherwise.