Bjorn

What ends up bugging me so much is the reaction to even an acknowledgment of "I can see why this is problematic for some people." Which is how I feel about the pink non-white dude. It doesn't personally offend me. Yes, I can see Asian features. But also yes, I can see Caucasian features, and can very easily see how someone who doesn't scrutinize that photo can just see a white guy. And I can see how people from various cultures/religions can have a problem with this imagery because of the prevailing (almost uniformly) way that their groups are treated by games, movies and television. I can see how it is clearly drawing on imagery of native subjugation at the hands of an outsider (for what it's worth, even if pink dude himself is a native, he's still clearly presented as an outsider), which inherently ties into the history of Western imperialism in this area with repercussions that continue to modern day. This is all interesting stuff to talk about, and I think the kind of discussions we ought to be having about games and their marketing, given how culturally blind our hobby has historically been. But the opposition to this often seems to resort to plugging their ears and screaming, "Nuh-uh" over and over. And that is if they are being polite.

Reign of Giants is out of beta! I haven't tried it, but watched my wife play for awhile last night (it's more her game than mine). It looks like a pretty fantastic expansion. The world feels like there's a greater variety of animal, plants and general environmental affects. Each season now has challenges that have to be overcome. Overall she's saying that it feels quite a bit harder, but that might just be that she's out of practice with it. She hasn't even got to any of the new boss type giant boss things.

Just in case they guys at Firaxis are totally in the dark about what tools are available.

I'm really struggling to remember specifics, but I think it was the frequency of his internal comments. He has a long history of making comments about women's looks, bodies, etc., to himself, which is not in and of itself bad. But in Cold Days, it was ratcheted way up, like almost every scene including an attractive woman necessitated a comment about her tits, ass, something. Mangela probably has much better examples, currently reading it and whatnot.

For what it's worth, ever since I mixed in a daily helping of yogurt, my toilet bowl is much cleaner. Probiotics: Good for you, good for your toilet.

When we redid the bathrooms in our house, we went with the low flow toilets that use half as much (or less) as traditional American toilets. I had several friends who thought it was a terrible idea, that they would clog all the time and be much dirtier. Not in our experience though. We have clogged them, but it's been exceedingly rare. I do feel like they are a bit dirtier, but you just grab the brush and give them a good scrub now and again.

Got another great Bell Tower story tonight, but I jazzed this one up all fancy like to post on Reddit first: I arrived in the Bell Tower called Luna to do my sacred duty and drive out trespassers who had set foot on this holy ground. I found a fellow brother hard pressed by a desecrater and his golden companion on the second floor. As I descended the stairs, the cowards fled! Even odds were apparently not their style. The other bell keeper gave chase, but I lingered. These fools would be looking behind them, not above. Sure enough, they passed directly beneath one of the holes in the rotted floor! I leaped down, ready to strike the killing blow and end their crimes! Alas, my aim was not true and I struck the yellow partner of the true criminal, crushing him to the floor and bringing him within mere inches of his life. But before I could recover, the trespasser was on me, twirling a Santier's Spear with all his might, striking me about the head and shoulders viciously. Unable to escape, I perished, my job undone. As I crumpled to the floor though, I witnessed a most miraculous event! The ghost of my diminutive master arose from his post by the door and buried his axe into the left buttocks of my killer! The blow staggered him, but still he stood. His golden partner in crime attempted to aid him, but his attacks simply passed through the thin air rather than causing any harm to the master. The coward once again turned to flee, only to see the other Bell Keeper advancing on him. Paralyzed by fright, he did nothing and once more my master brought his axe down, this time into the right buttocks! The mighty blow killed him, and the last thing I saw was my own body entangled with that of my enemy as my sight faded to black. If one must die defending the tower, let him die like this, witnessing the power and rage of our leader before passing on. tl:dr - Dude with Santier's killed me in the bell tower, but the phantom range of the Spear managed to clip the covenant leader multiple times, causing him to aggro on the host and kill him.

I usually have 4 controllers for a console, though for the 360/PS3 I bought the 3rd and 4th ones as cheaply as possible on eBay. The PS3 extra controllers were worth every penny just for one evening of an old school PS1 NFL Blitz tournament I hosted with a bunch of buddies.

Yes.

If I make a video game poster with a slightly Asian looking guy on eating fried chicken in front of a watermelon patch, is that okay? Don't worry guys, it's totally not racist, and has no connection to the history or imagery of racism in America. See, the guy's got almond shaped eyes, that makes it okay. You're supposed to hate him cause he's the racist, geddit?

I read The Zork Chronicles just a couple of years ago, because I ran across a copy in a used bookstore and couldn't resist. It was surprisingly good and charming. Although it's more of a satire on the hero's journey and video games than it is a faithful extension of a game universe.

That's actually cool, and I hope that it's accurate. It's entertaining.

I just read that, holy shit is that a laughable piece of dross. Classic ign.com. The guy in the pink suit with the rocket launcher sitting on a Buddha throne is believable? And what pray tell leads you to think that tough issues are going to be on display here with the pink villain man? Go fuck yourself Colin for claiming that the strawman you oppose doesn't want tough issues in games. What games on god's green earth has this man been playing? Uuuuunnngggghhhhhhhhh, my fucking brain hurt reading that. Does Colin actually know what racism is, or the role that it plays in video games? Wait, wut? Colin, do you have any experience with film or literature criticism or fandom? I typically can't look up anything about popular films and novels without finding interesting essays or comments looking at them through the lens of different cultures, genders, races, etc. I'm not normally one to throw this word out, but that entire piece comes from such a blatant position of white male privilege that it's practically dripping from the sentences.

It's interesting that you again make the point about false assumptions and assertions: Do you have insider knowledge about the story? About the character's background, both culturally and ethnically (besides the tweet that he's Asian)? About the context of his actions, or the general themes being explored? Part of your argument has relied on unfounded assumptions and assertions. I'd argue that you are making bigger assumptions about the game than the people who are focusing on the limited pieces of information that are communicated through the released images.

The argument you seem to be taking is that during pre-release, communication ought to be a one-way street. Companies can release, say, justify and explain whatever they want. But that consumers are to withhold commentary until they have full context. That is, with all do respect, fucked. As for Merus' friend...I have a deep antipathy for all religion, and little personal care for whether or not its respected. Just to put my personal feelings out there. That said, I can appreciate how someone from a group that is almost always stereotyped and gets few to no positive or respectful appearances in mainstream media would be fucking pissed at this shit each time it happens. Not because it isn't a reasonable thing to do to have a villain desecrate a holy image, but because there are so few positive portrayals of a race, group, religion, etc. Something can be a completely reasonable individual creative choice, but can still be really fucking offensive and tiresome when it exists in a greater cultural context of consistent stereotyping and minimalizing.

Anderson Cooper, FC4 Villain and Ken Watanabe. Which one looks like which: Marketing conveys a message. In this case, the message that was received by a lot of people made them distinctly uncomfortable. It doesn't really matter that they say he's Asian. The message spoke on its own, and it was one that made people uncomfortable. When you communicate without context because you want to make a "cool" image, that's a risk you run and one that devs/pubs/PR ought to be thinking about. They weren't patient about releasing their "cool" and "edgy" marketing materials, and so we don't have to be patient about digesting them with full context.

It's a habitually bizarre contrast in the world. Butcher has written a number of great female characters, and in fact has what is a really good balance of male to female characters and interesting empowered female characters. But then there is also plenty of stuff that is thoughtless, or gross, or something. I think it was Cold Days specifically that spawned a number of posts and essays about how women are handled in the Dresdenverse. If I remember right, Dresden's internal monologue in CD is even more sexist and makes a lot more commentary on female characters. The fictional explanation for all this is that it is the influence of the Winter Mantle bringing out the more base desires in Dresden...but unless that goes somewhere really interesting narratively, it feels unnecessary. There's also a really fucking terrible scene in there about gay sex in a park that made me super uncomfortable, as it felt completely out of place (in a judgmental way and using gay stereotypes in a thoughtless/insulting way). Ultimately Dresden says something about how the gays are fine, but the whole scene is just bizarre.

Saw the podcast title and was really hoping that the Don't Starve Reign of Giants expansion was going to be discussed.

Dagger, as mentioned, is fantastic. Weirdly, the WotG for players is lightning damage, but her WotG is physical damage. So pull out of favorite 100 percent physical shield and just block it if you don't want to stunlock her to death. Also, pancaking her with a great club works well. Just let your stamina recharge as she's standing back up, then knock her down again. Nice! I still haven't used one of those. I suppose it's high time I took a character into NG+ and quit screwing around in NG.

I think local co-op on PC is actually increasingly popular. You've got more PCs in the living room than ever. Scanning the forums of Steam I almost always see threads about local co-op. Either loving it on games that have it, or begging devs to add it on games that don't. A big reason I moved away from PC gaming for years was because I wanted a good selection of games I could play with my wife and kid. But now many of the absolute best local co-op games are on PC, not consoles.

Didn't they hand out a ton of money to developers right before getting really quiet? Or was that the plan and it didn't really happen?

I've found I generally have a chance to beat someone in the Grave. Doors of Pharos are a different matter though. So I tried them last night. Takes a 90 Str! It's pretty darned fun and effective in PvP, though you could be as effective with a lot lower stat investment. I could crush Drakekeepers at the Dragon Shrine with a single hit. I was laughably inept in PvP with them though. I started counting a match as a victory if I could manage to hit someone a single time, which didn't happen very often. I started another new character to build around Axes last night and cheesed the Dragonrider right off the bat. That's kind of fun and easy! If you didn't know, you can That makes starting a new character super nice. Kill him, sprint to the Cardinal Tower bonfire in FoFG killing everything in the way, and you have enough to buy the Silvercat. That gets you to the Grave and the Gutter, and you can sprint through the Gutter to get the first Fragrant Branch. Open up the door to the Shaded Woods, and you now have access to every Old Lord path and you've only killed one boss. At this point, the only two weapon classes I haven't played around with much are the Axes and Reapers. Reapers I have little to no interest in. Axes are a weapon I typically love in games, but in DS2 they seemed to have both poor reach and slower attacks, which are a death sentence. I think out of hundreds of PvP matches now I've only ever faced a single axe wielder, and have only seen a few in co-op. Axes are interesting though. They gain the most scaling damage from leveling a weapon up. Most weapons gain very little additional scaling. Many axes actually go up 2 letter grades when upgraded (I think a few Ultra Greatswords do this as well, but not a lot else), gaining several points of damage per level. They also have some odd movesets when power stanced, sometimes being significantly faster power stanced than just held normally. I'm going to try the Gyrm Axe paired with the Dragonslayer Crescent Axe and see how that works out. The Dragonslayer's Axe looks kind of meh on paper, but I love the way that thing looks, so hopefully it performs better than it's numbers would indicate. The regular Gyrm Axe, while classified as just an axe, actually hits harder than most of the Great Axes. I quit last night right after getting both the Gyrm and Dragonslayer, but even unleveled, this seems like a build that I will quite enjoy. It will be interesting once I'm into some PvP areas to see how they handle. Going to require a bit of a different tactic I think though, swapping between regular attacks, rolling attacks for a sweep and non power stanced attacks.

It's hard, because you have to pay in *********s, which you can only get by going to *********.

I haven't done it yet, need to Ascetic the memories on that character to get the second one. But I fought a guy doing it in the BoB arena a couple of nights ago and he brutalized me. Normally I don't have much of a problem dodging great weapons, but I think I was in such awe of his setup that I just botched my rolls.

I've experienced some of the better casting speeds with my Faith build, and have got my mage up above 100. It's more just that I don't find casting sorceries that compelling for how I enjoy playing. And it's just sorceries/hexes, I think pyro and lightning are both a ton of fun. Any build I make needs to at least be competitive for PvP as well. Doesn't need to be top tier, some of my builds ended up a little goofy and more for having fun with people. But I at least want to last a bit. The problem with my mage is that I've respecced him twice now, wasted a ton of souls and ore on upgrading a bunch of different staves/chimes/weapons and bought every single spell available. I've probably blown 200K souls easily on trying different things. At an SM of between 600K and 700K, I've fallen behind the curve and am just getting demolished by people who have much more efficient and dedicated builds. It's the first time that I've really felt like SM has ended up seriously hurting one of my characters for matchmaking. I know that will work itself out after awhile and I'll catch up, but I think I'll just mess around with one of my other builds instead of pursuing that character anymore. Next up, respec my gender changed Lord Dude character from my no death/no bonfire run to a 75 Str to power stance giant clubs. There are also still a couple of rare weapon drops I've never seen on NG that I want to try, particularly the Manikin Saber and the Drakekeeper's Warpick. I didn't even know the Manikin Saber existed. I've killed hundreds of Manikins now and never seen one drop. I was just browsing the wiki last night looking for weapon options for my mage and noticed it.