Badfinger

Having "Crota Today" next to my gamer tag in matchmaking is like the direct opposite of worthless.

How do I join a clan, btw? I did a search on Bungie's web page and didn't see it.

To be fair, I did use the Go Directly To Level 25 Do Not Pass Go thingie. To be fair to my fairness, I did also level my Warlock up past 25 from like level 7 as well. To be fair to everything else, gettin' dat light is just playing the game. I suppose skill can speed you up to a small degree, but it's mostly an Hours Invested equation. I totally wanted to join you guys yesterday, but Life Stuff happened. Then I figured out what the quest you guys were talking about was. Doing that first part solo is kind of hard! I didn't finish it! I'd be interested in doing That Raid I see a group scheduled for on Saturday if I have the gear. I think I'll be around (and my GF is working) but I can't 100% commit. I am also a little Light-light (288?) and maybe your group is already filled. But I'm saying words so someone sees them just in case. e: Crota Today is pretty clutch.

It's interesting to see your description written like that, because that was about the last 4-5 hours of 90 hours for me. I mean maybe it was more than that, it's a long game. But less than 10% of my game time was spent doing that, so it's weird to wrap my brain around going "back" to the interesting part when the interesting part was 80+ hours.

Mario: For Gamers of a Certain Age.

So, Flash Wolves win Group A. An unexpected result! CLG falls flat in the "easy" group. Not that surprised, Koo has weaknesses but is still a good team, and Flash Wolves have shown a lot. I think it's kind of insane to play all the group games in one 6 hour block. I don't know if the schedule was fiddled with this way or it's just serendipity, but Group B will be the last group to be decided. Cloud 9 and a wide open field, should be a crazy ride. e: Pain could finish with the same record as CLG by beating them here. They're ahead and trending towards victory as I type.

That's not arbitrary. The worlds are numbered, and as you progress through the game the number goes up in a linear fashion!

Oh my goodness, people in my time zone!! BadfingerSA is my gamer tag, I'll try and add some folk. Because I'm That Guy, I got the game last Tuesday and I'm 280+ light right now. I feel like I have a lot of talent/gear/quest leveling left to do, but I'm game to Do Things with buddies.

*Jake Nerd Voice* "Um excuse me Jake, I believe you mean The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past and not Ocarina of Tiiiiiime!" God I love Super Metroid talk. One of my favorite games all time. Never owned a Super Nintendo, still one of my favorites and the best.

Hello friends, I'm an idiot who bought a $400 copy of Destiny (it came with a PS4!) last week, so now this thread is For Me. How do I Destine with all of you fine folk?

Nolan North caused me to buy Destiny. It wasn't all him, but because he's your little robot buddy who's whimsical and lilting and occasionally funny or specifically not funny, all the feeling of Destiny having something interesting about it and depth beyond literally just the shooting mechanics is sort of channeled into his voice in the same way that the Peter Dinklage voice propelled me away from being interested in Destiny. "Does the couch miss my butt?" made me smile, and also made me suddenly wistful.

So we're all on the same page, it's Dishonored November, right?

I appreciate that I'm permitted to ramble like a lunatic and everyone will calmly ignore me.

On a lighter note! Fun with Mario Maker Custom Voice - DMX Goomba I heard betting again this week, too. Fanduel will be the death of me.

I made a post in last week's thread where I commented on the dichotomy between gushing about MGS V being GOTY when it was preceded by consternation over the grossness of how a lot of the characters are portrayed. It probably came off as more accusatory than I would have liked, because it was a coalescing thought in my brain that I wanted to get out before I forgot it, and Thumbs discussion is specifically what helped me form that thought. I heard this week's episode, saw a lot of the same thoughts I had kicking around in everyone else's head, and then saw Chris suggest referring to this episode in reference to my comments. So that's cool and good! I read this article on the Verge, and while I don't fully agree with all the thoughts (and titling it "I Would Hate MGS V..." is click-bait), it definitely expounds on some of what I'm trying to express. I don't mean to specifically pick on Metal Gear, because I'm thinking of gaming at large, but it's such a big and obvious target and definitely guilty of multiple transgressions, one of which is being an amazingly coded video game layered over with non-amazing stuff. What I'm driving at is MGS V is inevitably going to be GOTY for multiple major gaming outlets, because the way it plays is incredible. Those outlets will wring their hands over all the gross shit in the game at the same time they're lauding the highest praise. But once it gets those praises and labels, it's telling everyone as long as your mechanics are good we'll look past your other flaws. No game is flawless, but it'll get whitewashed. Conversely, Danielle's GOTY for last year was Alien: Isolation. It was mostly recognized as being good, but looked past in most places because it was mechanically flawed. It's faults were coding, pacing, gameplay stuff. It's been talked to death, but in some ways that makes sense for games because regardless of message you have to play them, and that gets looked at in a different way than things layered over mechanical excellence. I'm horribly guilty of this every year in another way, because so many of my favorite games involve brutally murdering thousands and thousands of people and things and I barely give it a thought. That's a third conversation, maybe. This is long, rambly, and I had to walk away for a couple of hours and came back mid thought. I'm asking how we get to a place where we praise and criticize mechanically superior games with aesthetic issues in the same way we do for games that are mechanically flawed. How do we recognizes MGS for its technical excellence without allowing it to walk away scot free at the end of the year? Should I care?

Oh, I know. Idle Thumbs is the last place I'd accuse of having myopic views of games they're caught up in. That drives the point even harder to me. There was a lot of time spent on the really uncomfortable nature of lecherous lakitu and "but GOTY" felt like it just wiped the air clear of tension. I'd feel differently if it was a character's point of view rather than the game's camera. I don't feel the same way about the Bloody Baron being really regressive and awful, while still being a sympathetic character. I DO feel the same way about the really unfortunate costume change DLC the Witcher 3 has. Is this a point of my own perspective or things that are legitimately separate? They feel different to me, of course, but I'm me so I can't be an outside judge.

Does "This game has really shitty ways of dealing with female characters... GOTY" mean as long as the mechanics are really good we're still at a place where games get a pass for not knowing how to deal with anyone but burly white dudes?

Yep, that's correct. If you're not paying for spotify it just shuffles whatever artist you're playing on mobile. Counter to eot, I've been adding podcasts rapidly. In the last month or so I've picked up What's Tech, Planet Money, RadioLab (I honestly don't know why I wasn't listening to RadioLab already), Crate and Crowbar, and Reply All briefly before that. I would have listened to much more Crate and Crowbar already except for the sound levels being extremely low. It makes it difficult to hear and understand all the wacky accents.

I have been so overwhelmed by DraftKings and FanDuel that when you described Parachute as a new bedding website I heard it as "betting" and I was beside myself.

I'm saying it does not have specificity. I'm saying the opposite. So many of those works I've been exposed to contain the same sensibilities that it is way, way too easy to assign that generality and not be terribly off the mark.

From the perspective of someone who does not know the cultural ins and outs of all the different branches of anime, if you said "Badfinger, what are the genre characteristics of anime?" my answer would be "Needlessly gratuitous." That also happens to dovetail directly into how I feel about everything Metal Gear. It is the Most Anime to me. There's nothing about Metal Gear that isn't either self-serving, self-righteous, wildly outrageous for the sake of outrage, or a combo. It's not those characteristics that make it So Anime, it's that they're needlessly gratuitous at all moments along the time cube. I am fully cognizant that I am limited and this is only based on what I've observed, but I can only form opinions based on what I've observed. The later installments of Red Alert and Command and Conquer are really Anime to me, as well.

I used to get emails that were family updates from someone who was very devout when they and their family would go on missions. I got an email from someone asking my name's advice about joining the Marines because they knew my name was in the service. I wrote an email back saying they had the wrong person, but it's a big challenge and an honor to serve your country. I kept getting emails about "my" new Honda from a Virginia dealership, and couldn't get off the damn mailing list. I have a fairly uncommon last name. I have never randomly run into anyone who has the same. Yet for a time, I belonged to a facebook group full of people who had my exact first and last name. It was pretty funny.

It does, it just doesn't necessarily dwarf the peak Dota hits for any particular random game. You're looking at 150-300k live viewers for 6 hours a day Thursday through Sunday for 3 straight months twice a year. It's millions of unique views a week, it's just not the glitz of having a massive peak for That One Game. I think there is potentially an issue Riot should look at for year over year growth, but there's no question the audience is much higher on a week to week basis. Funny you say that! I actually did not know that was the reason all the Korean teams cut down to just one team. Korea, on a season to season basis in 2013 and 2014, was much stronger when the top organizations had two teams. The one season SKT T1 K was down and out, T1 S made the semifinals in Korea. KT Rolster, Samsung, and Najin all have had two teams qualify for Champions Finals (I believe? Please don't fact check me late at night). I'm sure the Chinese leagues still would have thrown money at some of the top Korean players, but it was certainly easier for some to accept when organizations they were in had the available starting positions cut in half. There are positives to introducing new ownership to the competition, but almost all the top teams were able to field rosters competitive enough to make the Top 12 in Korea. They were sister teams - practicing together, scrimmaging. If the coaches thought a player would be a better fit with other teammates they would swap teams within the league (between seasons). It was both a more exclusive and much deeper league. Now a bunch of those guys fighting for Top 6 finishes are being paid a lot of money to just barely not get relegated in China.

To clarify my comments then, I absolutely would not want you to hold back because it might get into the nitty gritty. I want the DOTA or CS:GO interview that has that same level of depth. I just want more interjection with clarification on terms, teams, and names. I would rather miss out due to not knowing enough than have someone with knowledge miss out.

In 8th grade one of the English class assignments was to learn and recite every preposition. I was the first one to do it that year. I already listen to Lexicon Valley! It's great! I merely have not gone all the way back to the beginning to deplete the backlog yet. I'll say the "two spaces after a sentence" thing has basically been eliminated through software. On my phone a double tap on the space bar makes a period, and then you just start typing again. Some forums auto-shorten to one space even if you use two.