lordgankoo

This one's CCP's Hilmar Petursson putting some interesting framing around a few anecdotes from EVE regarding player experience of games, amongst a few other topics.

Ah right, fair enough. Maybe it would make more sense to learn something like Blender instead? I just faintly recall someone somewhere lamenting how goofy Blender was (great reason to go off, I know), but in this case I suppose there isn't much choice.

Lately I've been poking around in the student license of 3ds Max (fully featured and doesn't expire for 3 years - http://www.autodesk.com/education/student-software for those interested). Naturally the caveat is that it's non-commercial, for educational use only, etc. And of course, a commercial license is obscenely expensive. So my question is, and this applies to any tools or software that have these sorts of license restrictions (I believe Unity is the same?): What do people do in the case of learning how to use these tools, wanting to eventually sell what they make, but they're either an individual, or a small group of hobbyists or whatever and would be hard-pressed to buy a commercial license?

Does anyone recall the name of that book that Jonathan mentioned somewhere during talking about the leadup to Braid? Something about different vignettes of cities? It sounded interesting but I figure it's easier to crowdsource this than dig back through the episode.

Final Fantasy. I was listening to an older episode of Thumbs and they were discussing something along the lines of when the world/setting/narrative are too fantastical it can feel too far removed from real emotional context, and I suspect that to be one reason why at least the majority of Japanese video games don't catch my interest.

Guys. Ubisoft sale on Steam until the 24th. I hear 2 Far off voices Crying to me: $6.50

Hi all. Found the Idle Thumbs podcast last week and it instantly transformed the slow painful death by boredom that was my workday into...the comfort and endless entertainment that is Idle Thumbs. Except episode 129, where Chris stopped talking. And the Stanley Parable talk continued in the left and right channels while the middle was notably silent. And then he was called out, and laughed for a good two minutes straight, and then was silent again. That was uncomfortable. The height of dramatic tension in all of your episode 120-until-present history. Please Chris, be gentle on my sanity.