sclpls

And you are doing what exactly?

I largely agree with Reyturner. And yet... Blizzard's business model since forever has been to take the mechanics from a really popular genre, simplify the hell out of it, and make it even more popular. While they might not succeed in this instance, I also can't rule them out. It's something they are bizarrely good at.

Perfect http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-dont-support-feminism-if-it-means-murdering-all,37301/

Gotta say that political games is an unfortunately ambiguous category.

Good eye, I didn't catch that phrase, and yeah that is definitely a gross weasel phrase. You also sometimes see right-wing politicians talk about "legitimate rape" so there is a history to the use of the term legitimate as a qualifier when describing the subjugation of women's bodies. Thinking about it for even half a second really does expose how awful the concept is.

Yeah, it seems like games can have daring experimental ideas, and they can have expensive looking art assets, but they can't have both.

So Sean was streaming some DOTA last night, and I was kind of drunk last night and I think I said a lot of dumb things in the chat, so Sean if you're reading this sorry for saying dumb things in the chat! I am very glad I got him to play the Chasers though.

On one hand, it is nice that someone with a lot of influence is speaking out against harassment. On the other hand, it obviously sucks that it took someone he knows personally to speak up, and also it sucks that he didn't show the same sort of self-awareness before complaining about Anita and Leigh who I'm sure have had to listen to some nasty things said to them by angry TB fans.

I played a bunch of Endless Legend this weekend, and I have to agree. As far as I'm concerned it is the 4X game to pick up right now.

Enemy Within is pretty great! I definitely know a lot of people that are really digging Civ: BE. And that's cool! But also, I think for most of the people I know that are enjoying the game share a couple of common traits. 1. They don't play a ton of PC games in general, and 2. The only strategy games they play are the Civilization games, which they love. So for them picking up this game will be the equivalent to people who pick up this year's Madden, or the new CoD game. Again, nothing wrong with that, and more power to them if they are digging the game. For people that have a greater amount of exposure to the strategy game space though, I'm not sure Civ: BE is offering a lot to be excited about. A friend of mine did the Extra Lives charity thing yesterday where he was playing games for 24 hours. He was streaming it, and I watched him play a game of Civ: BE for the first time, and he won without ever receiving any sort of push back or conflict from the other civilizations. The whole thing just felt kinda underwhelming.

I kinda worry about all these studios that are under 2K as their publisher are dealing with new undue pressures to get games out the door before they are ready. I am hoping that this is just like Civ 5 which also was in a rough state when it was initially released, but eventually turned into something much better. But so far I haven't heard anything about this game that alleviated my concerns from when the game was first announced.

Yeah I don't think I could ever do this while I work in the legal industry which is incredibly busy in November (attorneys have to make sure they are hitting their annual billable hour quotas!)

Yeah I did pick it up, and that's what I'm playing. As far as the first boss fight went they added a couple of rooms and vents that you could hide in, so that made things a little easier I guess? My real problem is just trying to decide how to upgrade, and it's causing me a lot of anxiety.

Good discussions! Anyway, there are a bunch of games I've quit playing within the last month or so. Dark Souls 2 - Decided I straight up didn't like any of the new changes to the formula, and the game was starting to feel like a slog. Quit it. Metro Last Light - Despite this game feeling like it was hitting all the same beats as the first game, I was enjoying playing this quite a bit. The shooting and stealthing in the game felt a lot better, and oh man is it one of the best looking games I've played in awhile. But then I hit a wall during a chase scene where I kept getting murdered and couldn't figure out how to stop that from happening. Bummer. Hack n Slash - After agonizing over enough coding puzzles I started getting this gnawing feeling that I couldn't shake that my time would be better spent struggling with actual programming problems in like Game Maker or Unity or something. Just Cause 2 - Dumb stupid fun that was great on nights when I would get home from a bar and be a little too drunk to play anything that might involve decent skills or decision making. But also after a few hours I realized I had experienced just about everything cool the game had to offer. Darksiders 2 - Another game I was playing that felt pleasant enough to play, but was nothing great. Got confused in some dungeon towards the end of the game (I think?). Gave up. Deus Ex: HR - Started replaying this. I never finished it the first time around (got stuck at the 2nd boss, became impossible to progress despite obsessively reading strategy guides and the like). This time I got close to the 2nd boss, but not quite there. I have a ton of points for upgrades that I haven't spent because I am so nervous about doing a wrong build again that will make the 2nd boss impossible. Despite wishing that I wasn't done with this game, realistically I think I am. :-(

Hey, congratulations on the engagement... with the game DOTA 2! :-) Seriously though, wishing you both much happiness!

My favorite so far:

I agree that the game doesn't do a very good job of hooking you into the game right away the same way XCOM does. And I think the obvious XCOM comparison is going to be a problem for the game. Because they did a ton of good work to make the game feel similar to playing XCOM, and it's definitely a tactically interesting game with a lot of tough problems to solve on and off the battlefield. But a kickstarter game isn't going to have the financial resources that Firaxis had, and I think that's going to show in the presentation of the game, and that will hurt it. I think what they've accomplished is tremendous, and I'm definitely interested in seeing what the late game looks like. I know DOTA is a huge influence for Brad, and I wish that there were a ton of unique hero types to play with like in DOTA. I know that's an insane amount of work though so I dunno. Anyway, I hate sounding negative about the game because I am having a lot of fun with it, and I think they are on the right path!

Yeah, I've heard so many amazing stories from people playing King of Dragon Pass, I really need to pick it up.

I mean, the basic problem is you would need to hire another lawyer to handle all this stuff.

It depends on the state he is licensed in since each state sets their own ethical rules concerning attorney conduct. From there you'd need to figure out what section of the code of conduct he is violating, and what the remedies are...

Yup, same old stuff. "We're not about misogyny, we're investigating journalistic ethics!" Multiple posts proceed to obsess over Zoe Quinn. And people wonder why no one wants to bother engaging, or taking anyone seriously.

I would play if I could since all my friends inexplicably stopped playing DOTA in the last week or so.

There's a lot of stuff that comes out for iPad that doesn't work for iPhone. Don't know what else to tell you, sorry! That being said, I looked at the first page just now and it looked like a fair amount of the stuff covered were universal iOS apps unless I'm mistaken.

I was speaking casually. They cover Android games as well.

This kind of reminds me of the 2012 election, and all the deficit reduction rhetoric that Tea Party types waved around. The goal of engaged American conservatives isn't much of a secret: it is to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans as much as possible, and to reduce government spending on everyone else as much as possible. All other goals are secondary to that. The problem with that goal though is that it doesn't poll well, at all. It gets even worse if you get into specifics. A lot of Americans might agree with the idea that the federal government spends too much money, but if you ask if they spend too much on big ticket items like medicare, the military, or social security you don't find a lot of people agree with that. I'll get back to that idea of specificity in a bit. So the primary goal isn't a very politically popular one. Instead activists and politicians have to come up with some other, more high minded sounding goals that might resonate, and deficit reduction fit the bill well enough. The problem with that rhetoric though is it didn't make much sense upon scrutiny. The proposed tax plans from politicians like Paul Ryan typically featured large tax cuts for the rich, modest tax cuts for everyone else, a lot of unspecified spending cuts, and when asked about how this would reduce the deficit there would be a lot of hand waving about magic growth and closing tax loopholes. But almost no one could specify which tax loopholes because again, the specifics hurt their argument politically. Closing loopholes in the abstract sounds great, you imagine some big company with a department full of accountants and tax lawyers finding ways to avoid paying money. But largely what those loopholes are are things like deductions for charity and homeowners, and they are hugely popular. You see very similar tactics with gomblergate. Generally avoid talking too much about your actual desires (people don't want feminists discussing games or airing some of gaming's dirty laundry), use some other high minded rhetoric ("this is about game journalism ethics"), and keep it in the abstract as much as possible because upon close examination that rhetoric doesn't make much sense.