Badfinger

I played the first 2 hours on normal speed, and I'm pretty sure I should have sped up time just to get the resource juices flowing. I also think I "lost" at least 2 expansions worth of influence points, because the game was hinting that I should have admirals, governors, and science officers. That was an easy 200+ resources I could have been investing into expansion without noticeably hampering my fleet. My science team would have eventually gotten to the exploration I was doing. It didn't SEEM like I could use an un-manned science ship for science research or exploration, making one of those basically useless though. Am I correct or was the interface not telling me true?

I've now finished the whole podcast. This is a little bit a criticism of a criticism. There were multiple comments along the lines of "how will you feel at the 200 or 500 hour mark though!" Besides the fact that I know I personally will never get to the 500 hour mark in this game no matter how I love it, that's a strange criticism to leverage precisely because it's developed by Paradox. I know you have to render criticism of a thing that is and not a thing that may be, but I really can't imagine more than a handful of people playing several hundred hours of the game before the flood of patches, dlc, updates, and expansions. Rowan is robustly negative on the game, but I'll be frank, EIGHTY hours of mostly enjoyable game time is a rousing endorsment to me even in a genre where the most dedicated can do 10 times that.

This might not be (definitely isn't) a representative opinion of people interested in this game, but I deeply hope that's the case. I want a flavorful 4X game rather than a space crusader kings. I'd take the EU approach, though.

I was much, MUCH more interested in the CoD 4 remaster than in Infinite Warfare. The Battlefield 1 trailer was very weird, because it was all planes flying through ravines and what looked like deserts (yes there were major engagements in Gallipoli and Palestine), when my enduring first mental image encapsulating the conflict is Ypres https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Passchendaele. On a very different note, the last 15 minutes of this episode is everything I love about Idle Thumbs.

But if I don't buy a grand strategy 4X game on day 1 how will I be part of the zeitgeist?! Everything about the mushroom people will be spoiled.

Curious what the first impressions are from thumbs. Thankfully for me I can't have the game installed before I get home, which is keeping me from impulse buying it between now and the end of work. RPS and Destructoid are way into it, PC Gamer and IGN aren't.

Per RPS: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/05/09/stellaris-review-pc/ I told Austin that I found CK2 too much but I "got" EU 4, and asked if it's a space game I could get into. He said "It's way more EU 2 than CK2 and also not as complex". That could be an unfortunate or damning statement for some, but for you and me I think it's a positive message.

From my experience it was a combo of a few things. - If you didn't play in the first week, you almost certainly couldn't finish the campaign because the majority of the players had moved on. - Not enough space for burn cards. Seems silly, but having to dump a card or two every few rounds because your inventory was full of situational cards you didn't want to lose was a pain and felt like you were "wasting" rewards. - There was a balance update relatively soon after launch that tweaked the feel of some guns. In a game that purposefully limited base gun choices, that probably hit more players than they thought it would. - DLC Maps irreparably shattered the player base. This is the biggest one. - I personally lost a lot of momentum because while I am not generally a Prestige and restart type of player, I got really into that and then ran into a brick wall about half or 2/3 of the way through. One of the achievements was notoriously difficult both because it was just straight up hard as shit, and because the circumstances needed to achieve it were hard to run into. Screw you, Gooser. Fuck I'm looking at those challenges and I totally would have hit Regen 10 if it wasn't for gooser and the DLC doubling up for a combo enthusiasm breaker. I am hopeful for 2 because these aren't unfixable problems. The game as it shipped was a joy, they just need to foster and embiggen the joyfulness.

They did! It was smart, but it was the smart of hindsight after the damage had been done. I was really annoyed, because I put a bunch of hours into Titanfall and that destroyed the community precisely the way everyone was expecting. I had no problem with the "campaign" because I finished all of it within 48 hours of launch, but that doesn't mean it didn't have problems.

Hell yes it is. I stream from time to time. I think I need to set up OBS again because I formatted my computer. I like your plan, I'd love to help people grow a channel. https://www.twitch.tv/sadfinger Previous things I have streamed: Legal Legends, Titanfall, That one time we all played Helldivers I think Things I might stream in the future? Hearthstone, Roguelikes?

BURGER TIME I threatened, and am using, Serious Eats' Ultra-Smashed Cheeseburgers recipe. It is extremely fast and delicious. The mis en place I showed is part decorative but also totally essential. If you don't have an easy way to transfer these on to a plate by the time they're ready to flip over you done messed up. They are surprisingly juicy, create an IMMENSE amount of smoke if you're doing it right (be warned), and from the second they hit the pan to being fully dressed on the bun is well under 90 seconds. I didn't grease my smashing implement so they're a little messy, but it turns out all the same. Notes: -This post potentially took longer for you to load and read than it took to cook these. It's so fast. -The bun is not upside down, I built it that way on purpose to soak up the juice. These don't rest, they go directly into face. That beer was weird. It had all kinds of little things floating in it that I hope were hibiscus. Beer recommended for burger applications.

Ok, we have actually done some cooking! I'm so late on these, and apparently I lost the picture of shepherd's pie we made but we made a veggie shepherd's pie and it was really good. RAMEN! We cooked our own challenge hooray. We used a combo of http://food52.com/recipes/31889-vegetarian-ramen and http://minimalistbaker.com/easy-vegan-ramen/. The results were a little funny because we were pulling from multiple recipes and also just winging it, but it came out well. An interesting effect - the broth by itself was very flavorful. It had a lot of vinegar taste, which I would absolutely use less of in the future. But when it had ingredients all up in, so much of that flavor disappeared. I think we would try again. Definitely try and cut the stems off the mushrooms if you plan on eating them as well. Hannah did NOT like those. I think maybe using dried in the broth and fresh in the served dish would work. Applications to use outside of just ramen: crispy tofu. The instructions for the crispy pan tofu are potentially life-altering. It came out super light and so crispy. I really liked the bok choy and she really liked the carrots. Unfortunately neither of us are super crazy about the other thing, but I think that's something you can put in your back pocket to use as its own dish.

http://tomclancy-thedivision.ubi.com/game/en-us/home/ Tom Clancy, in collaboration with Ubisoft, bring you The Division. New York has been ravaged by a virus that's probably a terrorist attack, and The Division is some sort of probably government agency sent in to clean up, establish order, and get some FAT LOOT with a bunch of mod slots. From what I've been able to watch and gather, it's a 3rd person/1st person cover based not-massively-but-still-multiplayer story driven shooting game. You level up, pick perks, get guns and gear of increasingly rare color, and probably a story. The big hook is a place called the Dark Zone, a still-contaminated area where The Best Gear is. You can get a crew together and go in there, but the zones (in the beta) can have up to 30 players in them at a time. Everyone is neutral, until they're not. To get gear out of the zone, you have to call in an extraction, and everyone in an area is alerted. They can kill you, Go Rogue, and take your gear. Or you could quietly extract with your crew. I was mildly interested and more than a little skeptical until the closed beta opened this weekend at the end of January. Actually seeing it in action gives me vibes of Destiny, the weird MMO thing Defiance that was a tie-in with a scifi channel tv show, and the Dark Zone has some of the tension of being in a city you know is populated in DayZ. I didn't get into the first round of the beta, but I am way more interested than before I got to watch more than 10+ minutes of live gameplay. The best thing about it so far is the UI. The UI looks INCREDIBLE. I know that's weird. Anyone in the beta, or have more than a passing interest?

I really like XCOM 2 but I don't have the stamina to just churn long-play strategy games. I have played this for longer than I played the original. I'm not a thousand hour civilization kind of guy, I'm more of a 1 or 2 campaigns on a low difficulty kinda guy and poke the expansions.

If you search their names on twitter some people have compiled playlists of their polygon vids.

I put on about 3/4 of that for the same reasons. We can lose it all too!

Burgers! Serious Eats is part of my food bible when I want to consult on a lot of dishes, but I'm pretty sure the first thing I ever saw there were hamburgers. Kenji has cooked literally thousands of them. If you want a recipe that's one of the best sources I can think of.

Sorry, I was commenting from a spot where I have both seen the patch notes and I've watched/read the stuff they did for the upcoming patch release. The Daily/Weekly quests are pretty obviously a way to get people to log in every day beyond just doing missions, but they're also an easily achievable and renewable source of gear that doesn't require challenge mode+ coordination. They talked all about the gear. Literally every avenue available to players to acquire more gear makes it easier to acquire gear, because you get to roll the dice more times. Daily missions are a solo experience. Hard mode missions are a solo experience. That is super good. That post you linked is very coherent from my point of view. It's more materials to build an item because the materials are guaranteed to be more plentiful (2 gold mats guaranteed per disassemble). Nearly all the changes and tweaks they've made in a month (and I'm continually impressed with the amount and communication of said changes) have added value to the systems already in the game.

That has a very different feel than Force Awakens! The last shot had an extremely Mara Jade vibe to it.

The patch is 4/12, so you have a week. Level 30 High End items are 163, so a decent sprinkling of those and level 31 (currently) purple weapons will definitely put you in that category. I think that comment about the change in crafting requirements is knee jerk 101. They are changing crafting requirements alongside adding new content to the game for the first time, which will give multiple new avenues for the ability to acquire gear. They're trying to balance the game going forward, not against the first month's player base. I'm not crazy about having to pay more to craft more, but the game was too heavily balanced around crafting. Making it easier to get gear drops and also buy items is a good step forward alongside this. Challenge modes aren't nearly impossible, and a couple of hard mode runs will have you ready to run them with a little coordination.

Hah, we have 0 ramen shops of any quality anywhere within 25 miles, which is why we chose that for our recipe. Lucky you!

I don't want to sound like a dick about it, but there are a bunch of Dark Zone entrances. You can move to another one if someone is giving you a hard time.

I am hopeful I can come back to the game. Looks like there's already been a patch. Maybe once it's smoothed out in a couple more I'll be here with you.

There are certainly parts of that article I agree with, but the assertion that an entire faction is "black people" is not only wrong, but wildly wrong and racist and a huge leap in logic that allows the conclusion of the piece to be made. I personally think the distinction between "looter" and "rioter" is big enough to change the texture of the game and this piece's message, as well.

Well the fatal error hard crashes felt like bugs to me.