rowdyobbo

I received this as my first wargame for Christmas. I must have been 10 or 11. I enjoyed playing the game solo, but was not connected to a wargaming community. I followed the rest of the series, branching to Squad Leader which eventually killed my interest. PanzerBlitz rules were simple and exploitable in a way that broke immersion. Squad Leader broke immersion by having a ruleset that could not be retained, either seeding doubt as to whether the game was being played well, or necessitating frequent visits to the rule book. I remember this game fondly and played all of the scenarios.

The game (I haven't played since it was recently patched to 1.0.4) has some UI issues and some triggering issues, which I don't find too severe. In the cast there was mention of having to slaughter an endless stream of campers in order to get some rest. Y'all may know this, but there is a non-lethal button on the right hand end of the square buttons on the bottom. It defies logic a bit (how are you going to use non-lethal burning arrows) but it is a helpful option for role play purposes. It presents one of those UI issues. I *think* that when the button is highlighted, the helpful skull icon means that lethality is enabled. I get the sense that the game sometimes takes control of that button w/o signaling that it has. A mission which would logically be non-lethal had non-lethal effect with a glowing grinning skull. Iconography that shows that the choice has been taken away from you would be helpful. As far as triggering issues, I went to look for the well in the woods (the thrall quest) to the southeast of your town, camped overnight in the campsite, and nothing happened. After I went back to town I ran into the motherly trainer... a short chat later and I could see the icon on the strategic map. I may have missed a quest marker which told me that the thrall quest was dependant on talking with the trainer. Perhaps someone can tell me of something I'm missing... I was in the the aforementioned woods, ran into a couple of groups of baddies. At the end of those battles there were dead people on the ground, but also a number of incapacitated people. I didn't seem to be able to interact with them after looting them.... either to explicitly let them go or kill them or enthrall them. Are those options available to me w/o being explicitly programmed into the quest (as it is for *yet another* encounter in those woods). *quick edit* "baddies" in the game context... antagonists.

*EDIT* I love this cast, it takes quite a bit to overcome my posting inertia and this show has it. Unfortunately I also didn't stop and mention how much I appreciate your thoughtful thoughts and what not and dove right into something intense. Sorry... *EDIT* So many things in this episode... Let's tackle language. I work on computers at NASA, though I would not describe myself as a programmer. I had to do some research for this comment. Fortran is used today in science at NASA among other Computer languages. From my perspective Academia doesn't give Fortran it's due, but they cover a lot of ground. Fortran was born in the 1950s at IBM, but has gone through many revisions with a new standard being codified rougly every decade for more than half a century, Fortran was designed ground up to express scientific models of reality mathematically. Initially horrible at expressing itself (Hollerith) and tied to EBCIDIC (I pronounce: ebb-seh-dik), For\tran has adopted constructions and methods from other languages as has American English (perhaps not as readily) to make it easier to scale (take advantage of faster, larger, more machines) and maintain Fortran programs. Computer languages differ structurally and cosmetically to a purpose. Certain concepts are easier to express in some languages, Some languages are easier to learn than others, more regular in their constructs and permissive in their expressions, others are more closely tied to their machine model or the purpose for which they were written. Computer languages directly influence machines to produce work, but indirectly that work is meant to inform and perhaps influence other humans. Which brings me around to Rob's comment about language shaping human brains. I do not deny the influence of language on thought, but language is not some club of granite that bashes poor little brains into patterns of cognition. Natural. living Human languages (esp. our common language here English) are the most fluid and transient of artifacts, Like computer languages, human languages were created for the purpose of communicating and it should be considered normal that disparate communities have different ways to use language to enforce community norms. But language doesn't do this in isolation, it's a tool in the kit. The same basic language can be used to acculturate people differently. What is Life to you, and what does it mean to Choose it? Lastly, I carry no brief for Cycling themed Anime, but Xeneth is a real person and not a nice lady who presumably lives on the East Coast.

Danielle and Rob's stories about "head down" gaming, where the game design detracts from enjoying the environment sparked a couple of thoughts. Addressing this is part of the attraction of "walking simulators". Jonathan Blow's the Witness aggressively cuts against this heads down gaming by making the environment part of the game loop. Are there other games, the "I Spy" type object finders for example that make engaging with the environment part of the game? The other, sadder, thought is that the kind of games that have the budget to make multiple eye-popping detailed environments with cohesive art direction in a reasonable timeframe are the ones where there is a lizard brain scratching, attention engaging loop, where you cannot afford the time to up arrow or terrible things will happen to the face of your avatar. The pile of money you have to make the game has to turn into a bigger pile of money after the game has been sold, and the largest disposable income demographic isn't demanding walking simulators. Can someone please tell me how I am wrong?

Chris' note about the rest of the cast being about boxing movies seems a poor choice to me. No doubt it was well intentioned. It broke up the flow of the discussion (though rewinding a bit helped with that). It condensed the remainder of the podcast into something less than it actually was, inviting me to chose based on incomplete information. Sure the topic was boxing movies, something I would normally take a pass on, but included Danielle's inside insight and an evaluation of the arc of the Rocky movies (and Rambo movies) that I hadn't considered. It was worth cutting against my impulse, which was "boxing movies, boring and irrelevant" to hear a different or at least more nuanced point of view.

The title "Sneaking for Carl" has me full of anticipation. Which Carl? Carl the Dog? Karl Kassel? Carlos Calcium? I'm enjoying the time it takes to download.

The (two) moment(s) that define Nick Breckon for me (sorry Nick) are the descriptions of a game of Neptune's Pride starting Idle Thumbs 58 - a Castro situation. "Nick was in an abusive relationship with everyone in the game". Idle Thumbs 102 - Standing on the Shoulders of Babies (around 2:00 minutes in, I'm new at this game) and Idle Thumbs 104 - Emblematic of the Dissonance cover Neptune's Pride 2, or somebody, destroying interoffice politics.

Hi. Also, I have a confession to make. I typoed the username and would actually prefer a slightly different one. Would you kindly delete my account so that I try again to do what I intended? If not, that's perfectly fine, I'll live with my badge of shame as a reminder to check before hitting enter.