Badfinger

Yes. Tower/Turret is 100% interchangeable in my lexicon. As it turns out, they're completely the same thing and you shouldn't worry about it! I swap between them freely depending on who I'm talking to and in what situation. I am going to pre-expose you to the fact that they will refer to your side's ever-marching expendable army as "minions" and "super-minions", as that is also the League Lexicon. The NPCs in the jungle are "monsters". The playable characters, which we know as Lords, are called "champions". Somehow you still refer to the number of non-player kills as your CS, though.

That trailer had a much different tenor than I expected from the thumbnail and title!

SSX 3 was absolutely the game Jake was thinking of. It came out on PS2, and there was a free ride mode where you could board the entire mountain if you wanted to do so. Took like half an hour.

Following up on Voxn's point and stemming from the 3MA Legacy of the Void discussion, one of the reasons it was tough for me to remain interested in the SC2 scene was 1) it was hilariously fragmented and 2) partly because of point one I never knew when the hell anything was happening so I couldn't plan to watch it. Outside of The International I feel similarly about Dota. Unless I actively recognize a team (probably from previous TI exposure) I have no idea what the level of a tournament is and still would have no idea of its importance.

I finally signed up for natureboxdotcomslashthumbs, offer code thumbs. I love the new tag line, "Nature Box - Don't Ask Who's Paying For 'It". I'm excited for Nature Snax! I am grinning like a fool over every segment of this episode.

This is kind of exciting. I hadn't even considered the possibility of commissioning an artist. I took some (totally inconspicuous, no really) pictures of the art she has hanging. She loves, loves ketchup. She was wearing an apron that was talking about ketchup while we made dinner. Condiments seem appropriate for an addition to these.

EXCELLENT first episode! I have been waiting literal years to find a competitive gaming podcast that's approachable, on topic, and non-hyperbolic. It's completely unsurprising that Idle Thumbs and you, Rob (and Andrew, hi Andrew!), got it rolling right off the bat. For instance, I'm primarily interested and familiar with League of Legends, but I'm the same sort of The International drifter that Rob is. Even though I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of Dota, because I'm very familiar with LoMas overall, the description of how teams are building their compositions and play styles was instantly informative. I would have liked to have known who the players that left Na'Vi were when you mentioned it. All I knew was "not Dendi", and then had to guess (incorrectly). I'm curious what the intent on the breadth and depth of the program is going to be. Are you going for a certain length on every episode? There was less immediately to discuss for DOTA and LoL because the episode was recorded right before/in between the really big stuff kicking off, but are you going to take deep dives on particular games or series, or keep it broad and general? Are you going to focus on a few particular video games, or cover what's happening in the moment this week (e.g., would you have taken on EVO, or is the SC/DOTA/LoL/CS:GO pocket the sweet spot)? I am eternally happy with that particular sweet spot, but is there Hearthstone and Smite in our future?

It is! And yet, $10/hr for Gone Home is not! Because that's not how many people judge the value proposition of something. It's why I rankled at valuing going out to dinner by how long it took. 4-6 hrs at $15 is maybe a rip off, and 8-10 hrs at $20 is maybe amazing value. Both of those things can be true. The reverse of those things can be true. We wouldn't, for example, have this discussion if a game of Civ 5 took 4 hours vs 9 hours unless there were significant gameplay reasons why that occurred that were issues. If First Light is 5 hours of the same 3 rotating mission types over and over that sounds like it sucks to me. My history with that game franchise is I played like 90 minutes of the first Infamous, and the movement made me queasy, so I'm importing a different judgement of value than you or hypothetical commenter might be. I also don't know anything about whatever First Light is, so sorry for strawmanning it in this way.

I am uncomfortable with you conflating dollars spent to time spent to value across a spectrum of things that can't be equal to most people. Is the value of the game equal to the time spent? Is the value of a meal equal to the time spent on the meal? If that is the case, is the Wendy's Frosty the most valuable food item I can buy? Because that damn thing takes all day to finish. I use my cable subscription almost exclusively on playing games on the internet. Should I value the cost of DOTA, which I can spend no money on directly, at $60+ dollars per month because that's the burden of being able to play it, and how I actually use where that money goes? How do I value necessity compared to leisure? I value the $85 spent at the dentist much higher than I value $60 spent on CoD, whereas I am not big on amusement parks so $85 for passes to an amusement park is a giant burden. At the same time, an amusement park is paying for an experience vs a product (albeit one you may generate experiences with). I'm being extremely unkind to your position and I apologize about that, but money spent on totally different things has radically different value, especially if we're stepping outside of the movie run time==video game play time entertainment crossover. I do, by the way, think that required internet access for so many games is an essentially hidden cost that should be factored into gaming and often isn't considered. I don't think you can just say "Game X cost me $47 in internet this month" like I did in my example, but the cost is there.

Holy smokes, good luck!

I think what's being illustrated here is more that everything is way too fucking expensive. I'm actually at the intersection now of my life where I don't have any time OR money, so to SAY gaming is my hobby is really inexpensive because I don't spend any money on it. Yes, I spend more than $500 a year on curling, plus the amortized cost over time of equipment and gas, etc. On the other hand, to play more common sports it's like $200 for the whole year. I'm now curious at my 12 month expenditure on games. I don't buy many $60 joints anymore, but I have bought some! They add up really quickly.

A game is not too expensive, but gaming is way too fucking expensive. Some games in particular are too expensive. But some aren't and I even occasionally wish I could help that developer more!

My girlfriend's birthday is coming up. She has a cool collection of dog paintings and hot dog dog paintings. She also loves ketchup. I had an idea that I could get an illustration or a painting of ketchup/ketchup & mustard for her. Besides Etsy, where are places I could look for something like that? Online as well as general suggestions for in-person welcome.

I'm throwing out hypotheses, not making a definitive statement. I didn't grow up in an all-digital game economy and I don't know if someone else thinks differently than I do.

I think that there are many people out there that don't even know to consider that games not through "official" resellers could be illegitimate. If you're a young person without the experience of growing up with a straight up black market and pirated/cracked games, if you're paying for something you're buying a legitimate copy. Money=Legality. Popular Internet Stream Personality is advertising Kinguin, so why wouldn't it be legit, they might say. There are so many legitimate online sites vying for your dollar that if you can relax your purchase requirements to Not Day One I think you're in good shape. Steam and GOG and Humble and GMG and Amazon, etc. Someone's having a sale.

I actually used torches fairly regularly! You only need one, but I accrued multiple torchii throughout the game.

I realized sort of all in a rush that I don't own any wine glasses. Anyone have a recommendation for inexpensive glasses that are also good? Stemless is probably preferred because they'll be easier to maintain (although will probably decrease quality). I'm probably just going to buy 4 at the moment.

Help, I just saw Birdman. I liked the movie. Someone smarter than me please explain how I should feel.

Help! I have realized that I have a problem. A problem with hard drives. I have two SSD drives that I'm fine with, and two sub-TB hard drives. I'm mostly fine for space except for a little juggling on the SSDs, but what if I could have SO MUCH SPACE and not have to worry about it?! It's been years and years since I've thought about platter hard drives, but I see how old and crotchety mine have become. Can someone point me towards where I can start my search to find a good, large (2+TB please don't laugh) reasonable speed platter hard drive? No special purpose beyond owning a computer and consolidating storage.

Did you have a Windows key already? That's really what's keeping me from just forcing the upgrade. It says you need a key first or you'll have issues and I'm wary. Plus, I have 4 hard drives- a root SSD, a gaming SSD, and two old platter drives because I'm old and haven't just bought a 3 TB drive (shame me). I would like a fresh install, but worried about the fragmentation of my software (rather than platter data fragmentation). I just haven't had the time, but I'd still like to sit down to an old fashioned evening of computer tinkering.

If you haven't already played and formed an opinion, Endless Space is a rock solid 4X that is very simple. I think it's good, but I've heard people who are more into space 4X games find it a bit lacking. If you haven't played much in the genre, for $10 I think it's worth a shot? For Mice, I use a Logitech MX518, which I believe is an EOL product now. Logitech makes some pretty good mice that scale up and down based on bells and whistles. I feel like I always hear that the Razer DeathAdder is the gold standard for intersection between simplicity, performance, and price on gaming mice. It's a 5-button jobber that works well. If/when I replace a mouse, I'll probably go to that. e: I knew I actually had someone's informed opinion to back me up. The Wirecutter recommends the DeathAdder and is testing the Chroma.

I love Serious Eats! Recommendation seconded. I also really like Food Gawker. It's an aggregator, but it came out before they were really popular and I think it really does the whole idea right, as creators are the ones submitting. Curated, amazing pictures, well organized.

It does say something about the players, but it's also important to remember those numbers are connected. Dan wasn't scoring on more shots... because Vinny was saving them. If those teams played 20 different teams, you'd see other trends emerge. Maybe Dan scores on 80% of his non-defended shots, etc.

Holy smokes Not Your Father's Root Beer! I don't think I want to drink a 6 pack, but for a single bottle they NAILED it. It tastes like some delicious home brew root beer.