prawks

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Everything posted by prawks

  1. DOTA 2

    I watched most of the games in the client, and it was much, much better. Spectators are (to my knowledge) heavily segmented into smaller groups for chatting in the client, so it was at most 10 people talking during the course of a game, and only one or two comments a minute. In addition, the in-game client's chat is tabbed to include the channels you are idling in-game. It was pretty neat when we had about 8-10 people in the idlethumbs channel talking in between games here and there. Hoping it gets more active, I'm often the only one in there.
  2. 50 Short Games by thecatamites (Game Club)

    Really cool idea! I'll be setting aside some time to play through Magnificent Planet this week for sure. Especially during the summer time, it seems the amount of time I end up committing to playing games dwindles. I accumulate a lot of "game debt" that I then binge-remove in the Fall/Winter. I love having some small games I can pick up and put down quickly that aren't huge time sinks for that very reason. As a side note, are there other active "game-clubs" run around here?
  3. I used to have this view, but I'm frequently surprised by the apparent either naivete or moral disregard of some people. For example, I'm not quite sure how to put myself in the mindset of the decision-makers behind the Metal Gear Solid V rape content, or Battlefield Hardline's glorification of over-armed police.
  4. DF Succession 01 :: LUNGFURNACE ::

    I'd definitely be interested in reading about the outcomes, if that fuels anyone's fire to play. DF is an amazing spectacle. I unfortunately don't have the time I'd need to learn the game and participate.
  5. Recently completed video games

    Oh hell yes. Recently got a copy of it again and really need to play through it. I think that was one of my first PC games, actually.
  6. Is a lack of features a valid criticism?

    I like this. I guess it implies that reviews are objective and criticism is subjective, and I think that's fair.
  7. Is a lack of features a valid criticism?

    Personally I think it's difficult to criticize a game for not being ambitious enough, precisely because of what you pointed out in your last sentence: it has the potential to change a game in a way that steers it away from what the author(s) aimed to do. All art (? I'm by no means an art critic, and making broad assumptions about art is a dumb idea, but here goes) is created with an intent, and I think critiquing a game about its lack of features is very close to critiquing the artist's intent. Perhaps the author(s) of Timberland wanted to create a very evocative experience for people familiar with the tree-cutting domain, and getting the general populace to feel the same was outside of their goals or deemed too much for them to tackle. However, I think it's completely valid to want more of a game. I feel uneasy about critiquing a game for lack of content (as long as its priced fairly, I suppose), but there are always great games that I want to play endlessly. I'd love it if there were 6 more guilds in Skyrim, or if Mark Of The Ninja had as much content as an Elder Scrolls game. But I'm also of the mindset that what makes a work of art great is all-encompassing, and includes the amount of work/content in it. Tampering with that may taint my considering it a great work. In short: I don't know what I want, and what I say I want is probably not all that great.
  8. This episode was nothing short of amazing. I think the Thumbs have finally persuaded me to get a Wii U, all it needs is a 2D Metroid game... I wonder if there will be a price drop for the holidays this year. The new genesis of Nintendo games is really fantastic. Though I wonder what kind of impact it would have if Nintendo chose to go with a new name for the console instead of tacking a "U" on the end. There is a ton of assumed knowledge out there about what a "Wii" console is, and I'm not sure the Wii U really fits much of that anymore. If Nintendo had gone the route of Sony and marketed it as "Nintendo for gamers" or "Nintendo getting back to our roots," I wonder if it would have made a bigger splash rather than being what seems to be an object of humility. "The Nintendo Mario" seems like a real winner to me. Or maybe a set of consoles with identical hardware but different shells. The Nintendo Sonic. The Nintendo Luigi. The Nintendo Donkey. Now that's something I could get behind. A Nintendo Donkey.
  9. Quitter's Club: Don't be ashamed to quit the game.

    Trying so so so hard not to quit You Have To Win The Game. I'm at 99.2% and am losing hope in being able to find the last little money bag somewhere in this tiny game. The only thing that keeps me going is that I'm amazed at how fluent I've become with the mechanics after playing through the thing over and over for 3.8 hours. I think it's the title of the game that's doing this to me.
  10. I think your best bet might be to get into a smaller guild in-game with people you like playing with. I've no idea the best way to find one, but reddit might be a start: http://www.reddit.com/r/Dota2guilds http://www.reddit.com/r/Dota2pubs Alternatively there may be people around here in active guilds. Personally I solo a lot, or group with people I've met in other online games. Totally open to playing with anyone on here if you're able to catch me online. Steam below.
  11. This sounds very similar to the way rudimentary chess AI works. Each decision the AI or its opponent makes is a branch in a decision tree. Each decision the AI makes is evaluated via a heuristic (aka estimate-maker) to provide a weight to that decision based on how much it improves the AI's chance at winning. Then its repeated as many levels down the tree as the computer/difficulty setting can handle, and the AI picks the best (highest-weighted) outcome. FEAR's sounds like the reverse of that, starting from the death of the player and working backwards in the direction of the current state of the game.
  12. DOTA 2

    All I can say is thank god there is a mid-week break between the playoffs and the main event. I need to get work done around here some time. Though it's going to be difficult to go into the office on Monday. Will probably need to duck out early (again) to catch the grand finals in their entirety. And eventually set aside some time to play the freaking game. On a side note, the "newbie-friendly" stream has been my favorite to watch thus far. Purge gets a little disorientating when the action heats up, but the things they both point out are much more interesting to me than the main casters. I especially enjoy that they call out their assumptions and their knowledge gaps, and being honest about the possibility that their speculations on strategy may be wrong. Purge is really one of my favorite analysts to listen to. I hope he and Maelk both get a lot more air time during the main event. Their game knowledge and articulation is off the charts.
  13. Just got around to this episode, but I think my fellow gif collectors might enjoy this if it's not already in their bookmarks: http://reactiongifsarchive.imgur.com/ Delicious, delicious gif organization.
  14. Some great real-life Luigi stares:
  15. Half-Life 3

    I can't even imagine the response if Valve announced they weren't making any more Half Life games. I think I'd agree with you, however. It's better to leave the cliff hanger if the other option is being unable to wrap the series up the way it deserves (see: LOST, Scrubs).
  16. New people: Read this, say hi.

    Hey all, been listening to the cast for about half a year now and really enjoy it. I also enjoy forums, and video games. Given that this is a forum about video games, I'm here to talk about them. On a serious note, this forum ties in very well with the theme of the podcasts in facilitating some really wholesome discussion about video games, which is a welcome change from many of the other social outlets geared towards games elsewhere. Really looking forward to contributing around here!