sclpls

I wonder if Relic/Sega botched CoH 2 from having a robust competitive multiplayer scene with the huge array of microtransactions and little bonuses to grind away at. I seem to recall that being a real point of contention when the game was first released.

Yup, Rich Sommer has been posting on boardgamegeek for years. He is a legit nerd and has a terrifyingly large board game collection. My favorite version of this is professional basketball players that are nerds. Jeremy Lin plays DOTA 2, and Tim Duncan plays D&D.

It won't be VR! http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-writer-says-half-life-3-will-not-be-a-vr-game/

Is Manta worth picking up on CK at this point? The mana cost got reduced, but I don't know, CK's int gain is still so awful it still might not be good, but I don't really play the hero so maybe someone with more knowledge about him will have a better idea.

I mean, you buy a ring of protection, and you'll probably live through it. That wasn't necessarily true in 6.84. Combine that with the nerfs to Tusk and I don't think we'll be seeing that combo in pro games.

I think one important chance with Techies is that the Tusk Techies combo doesn't really work anymore. I like the buffs to Enchantress, Ogre, and PA. I'm glad Bloodstone got nerfed, but I don't like how it was nerfed. I suspect I'll be buying a lot of phase boots + drums when playing carry this patch.

The park where that match between ByuL vs. herO was held looks like a really nice spot to watch some e-sports! Reminds me of this year's International where you could watch the games outside by the Secret Shop in the park (same park in Seattle where the Space Needle is), and it was a welcome relief to step outside to watch the games and get a bit of sunlight from time to time.

I can't imagine most indie studios having the resources (both time and financial) to pursue legal action. It's just a crappy situation.

I played a ton of Stronghold as a kid! I was so into that game, but I am assuming it doesn't hold up at all hahaha.

Yeah I agree about Europe looking weaker at the moment. Alliance are straight up awful, even worse since S4 joined. Not really sure what the story is there. NiP have looked good so far, but that might just be because their opponents have been bad. I would love to see them give some top tier teams a run for their money, but I don't know if they are at that level or not. I think the big question for these NA teams is how they stack up against the better Chinese teams like LGD and VG. Should make the ESL One tournament in two and a half weeks really exciting to watch for that reason.

Oof yeah, that's unfortunate about the Steam reviews. Seems like people are upset that the developers didn't design a different game. That seems unfair.

Has anyone watched any of the new teams that have emerged from the ashes of TI? Impressions? Of the matches I've seen my thoughts are that the new German team 5 Jungz looks like they are really struggling. The new Cloud 9 team, and Digital Chaos both have potential, but need a lot of work. (monkey) business despite also having some serious flaws, seems like they have tremendous potential and I could see them going very far. I'm still not 100% sold on the Miracle hype, but he has been fun to watch for sure.

Yeah I definitely side with Gormongous on this point, although I don't feel about it as strongly. I found it odd that in EU4 you didn't get achievements unless you played in iron man mode. I think that sort of stuff is a cop out. If a designer feels a particular game mode (easy, non-iron man, whatever) doesn't reflect the "true experience" of the game then that mode should not be in the game. Achievements and unlocks have never acted as an incentive for me in games so these decisions don't impact my impression of a game, but I can imagine the frustration felt by people that want that stuff!

I played about an hour and a half last night, and also really liked it. I was nervous because the RPS review I read had a harsh assessment of the game. It was a relief to discover the game felt much easier to interpret than the review lead me to believe, and the basic tactical dynamics of the 4 unit types felt good. The aesthetics of the game are also top notch (not that this was a surprise). Using a shotgun blast to knock a unit back into range of your sniper who finishes the unit off never stops feeling satisfying. That being said, I'm not sure it will hold my attention as much as FTL did. There are two aspects of the game I find frustrating. I dislike the random placement of units when a tactical battle starts. When you have such a scarcity of actions I feel like you can really get fucked by your random starting position. I also suspect that if your first two combat encounters go poorly you've lost the game. Getting early veterans (and subsequently keeping them alive long enough to be useful) already feels critical in the little of the game I've played. So I worry that the game has a bit of a "dead man walking" problem. I am looking forward to discovering more unique weapons and units though, those have been a lot of fun to mess around with.

Yup, the early Arm flash tank rush was another strat that would lag the hell out of the game, and was more or less game breaking.

Weird, I have never heard of this two spaces thing.

Yeah, the Cleveland tradition of insane people making music is really strong. My first exposure to the Cleveland punk scene was the same as many people I suspect when I heard Pere Ubu, and it was followed up by the Electric Eels, and then more insane, nihilistic stuff from there. Being in a touring band in the 90s, Pats in the Flats was by far my favorite bar to play at to see whatever local bands were playing that night, it was always something memorable.

Hahaha yes! When they were talking about the Arrested Development theme song I kept thinking of the Final Countdown, and it took me a good two minutes before I remembered, "oh wait, no, it's that ukulele music".

While we're on the topic of old school RTS's, I've been playing a fair amount of Total Annihilation recently. The game didn't used to run for me, but for whatever reason since I upgraded to Windows 10 it runs fine now. And it's wonderful, and I'm sad there hasn't been a game of the same complexity and scope since it came out. Despite not having played the game in over a decade I was able to grasp everything after a single skirmish match. I can't imagine that being the case for most other RTS games. Obviously Supreme Commander did a great job of overhauling the graphics and UI of the game, but it also vastly increased the scale of the game, and it plays a little slower. I just want a RTS that is a little more constricted in scale, and that plays faster without playing at the breakneck pace of a SC 2 or something.

Saying "simplistic" when someone meant to say "simple" will always bother me. The latest example where this has cropped up has been in the rush for games journalists to write yet another op-ed piece about how Rocket League should be an e-sport (see here: http://kotaku.com/rocket-league-needs-to-be-the-next-big-esport-1729176343 ). I don't know why, but the gaming community frequently makes this error (but it is a relatively common error in general).

I had a similar trajectory with the game. Another factor is the later levels of the game are a lot more interesting compared to the early stages both in terms of puzzle design, and also as environments to admire.

I agree about BKBs being incredibly useful in lower skilled matches, and that using the item sub-optimally isn't that big of a deal, but it can be such a life saving item in those kinds of matches because everyone's positioning is kind of bad, and when big team fights happen everyone just spams their spells. The only time it isn't worth picking up is if you're against some right click fest lineup like Riki, Sniper, and Ursa (I feel like when I first started playing the game I was always playing against those heroes). I think edge panning vs middle mouse is definitely more of a preference thing. I understand how the middle mouse is slightly more efficient, but I think pros use both and it is one of those cases where I think there is more value in what is comfortable over what is technically the best option. Since I never played DOTA 1 I also use the QWER layout. I also have two thumb items on my mouse, and then I use X, C, V and space bar for the other items, with the most important items typically being on my C key and the space bar (bottle on C and blink dagger on space is pretty common, for instance). I also have the push-to-talk button set to my final mouse thumb button. I also have right click to deny creeps and the range finder on in the config settings. I noticed that these options are in the settings menu for the reborn client, so that's nice, although the right click to deny works slightly differently where it seems like I still need to A click creeps to de-aggro the tower which is unfortunate, but not a big deal. Whether I use quick cast or not depends. I would love a toggle button for that.

Yeah obviously this is not a universally shared sentiment. I am with you where winning doesn't feel good if I feel like I played like shit. Another way of stating it is I like winning, but I like getting better at the game even more since it increases my odds of winning so losing is okay if it gives me an opportunity to get better. And what riadsala said about the game getting more interesting as you play against more skilled opponents also holds true.

This is something I have to remind myself of when playing DOTA, that it is more satisfying to get better at the game than to win a match. It is a tough thing to remember though when the rest of your team almost certainly doesn't have that perspective!

That was my experience the last time I visited Portland (probably over a year ago). Had a ton of sour beers, which I remember was a thing I used to enjoy, but all of the ones I tried were too sour to actually enjoy a pint of it. That being said, the variety of beer in Portland was easily superior to what is typically available in San Francisco. I can definitely enjoy a super hoppy beer, but I'm still on board with this. Seemed like when I was first getting into drinking nice beer, the trend was towards imitating Belgian style beers (or at least that's what I was aware of) and I wish more brewers would get back into that just because the variety of Belgian beers is incredible.