prettyunsmart

After making my dumb Star Trek post, I meant to say that I'm pretty interested in this game. Since the team making this at least shares some members with the people who made Bulletstorm, I'm excited to see what they do with more subdued material.

Just to be clear, I wasn't saying that E3 tickets = an ESA sponsored review score bump. That's silly. I suggested it semi-facetiously because I think the scrutiny being given to small indie devs over games writers supporting their work seems far less significant compared to the sway that larger publishers & lobbying organizations have. I write things on the internet, and most of them are stupid. Most shouldn't be taken seriously. EDIT: And just to clarify, I don't mean to say that I think all large studios are trying to pay for good coverage or anything like that. I just shouldn't write things in public places before I have a cup of coffee.

If you consider the ESA as the giver of the "gift" of a free E3 pass, it might be worth considering if the recipient of that "gift" might be swayed towards providing disproportionately large amounts of coverage to the games produced by members of the ESA, which tend to be larger studios and publishers.

Also, framing his death as, "his encounter with Officer Wilson" just seems wrong somehow.

Will it feature nuclear wessels?

This survey of responses to the situation in Ferguson, broken down by race, just makes me feel awful. I'm not surprised that a huge number of white people think that the amount of force used by the police is appropriate or that "too much emphasis" has been put on race in the media coverage of the event, but that doesn't make me any less angry about it.

Ahh. Sorry. I searched to see if there was a thread, but I forgot about the renaming thing. Should I just delete this one?

Thanks!

From what I've read, lifetime insurance is more of a luxury than a necessity for the persistent universe part of the game. Devs have said that the game will offer insurance for in-game currency, and that this would be a relatively small cost. Basically, those with LTI (if it works as currently advertised) are avoiding a small tax on in-game earnings rather than gaining a huge advantage over those without it. That said, I totally understand your skepticism. They very well could screw up their game's economy by making insurance costs too high or making it too hard to replace an uninsured ship. Then again, I'd be much more concerned about how a significant number of players are going to start with the in-game equivalent of a star destroyer while most of us will be using what amounts to a space-faring Smart Car.

I'd take that copy of Poker Night if it's still around. I also have: Pixel Piracy - 25% Off Coupon X2 Vanguard Princess - 50% Off Coupon Montague's Mount - 80% Off Coupon Dream - 50% Off Coupon The Ship - Gift Copy

From this trailer, it looks like it's a "hunting demons in the real world because we're the only ones that can see them" kind of game. So basically Bioware's making a single-player version of The Secret World, then?

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 lately, and it really is ideal for people who have anxiety about grouping up with people. Since a majority of the group content is just happening in the game world without needing to form a party or anything like that, you can help people out or get helped just by people walking by, or take down a huge world boss without needing to do much talking to other players. Then again, I say this as I'm coming up on the game's last quest, and it looks like I'm going to need to form a group for that, something I'm kind of dreading.

With Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous both becoming playable, I made the (probably horribly misguided) decision to buy a flight stick. Since Star Citizen is just a couple of multiplayer modes at the moment and Elite: Dangerous still costs $75, I'm looking to get some use of of my shiny new flight stick by getting into the exciting/scary/way-too-complex world of flight simulators. Most of the one's I've tried so far have been free-to-play, like War Thunder (which is pretty cool, but I'm absolutely terrible at it), Microsoft Flight (which the collective Internet seems to hate, but I've found to be sort of pleasant), and Rise of Flight (which I'm currently downloading). So, does anyone have flight simulator recommendations? Does anyone else want to talk about these things? Does my desire to get into flight simulators signal my entrance into the "creepy old man hobbyist" phase of my gaming life?

Now I'm trying to figure out what would be the worst game in my Steam library to play with a flight stick. Gone Home? World of Goo? Typing of the Dead? Octodad?

I'd be all for trying it out, though is it the kind of thing that's easily available to buy anywhere? I actually had it downloaded from before I bought the flight stick. Before, I was just going to give it a try for the silly FMV sequences, but now there's another reason to try it out. I was kind of afraid of that. I like the idea of using a flight stick, just because it feels better, but it probably isn't as efficient as just using a mouse. That might make competitive games a bit tougher to get into.

Freespace looks great, and since it's on GOG, I'll probably give it a look. Thanks for the recommendation! I loved my Sidewinder! It worked so well with my copy of Flight Simulator 98! I ended up getting a Thrustmaster T.16000M, which is a silly name for a game controller. The reviews I read made it seem like it was solidly built and not too complicated to use, so I went with that. As far as I can tell, most American retail stores don't carry flight sticks, though Micro Center seems to have a few hanging around at some locations. I ended up buying mine from eBay after realizing Micro Center had just sold their last one as I was on my way out the door to pick it up. Here's a picture: I'm just using the stick for the moment. Something like an X52 is a bit out of my price range. I was looking at the cheapest Thrustmaster HOTAS, but reviews made it sound like it was a bit cheaply made. Also, for some reason I feel like my wife will laugh at me slightly less for just buying a joystick as opposed to getting a super-intense HOTAS setup.

I was going to say something similar, but then I realized most of my posts lately have been old man complaining about things I don't like about the internet. Anyway, the culture section, posts that are just fan art of games, and Ben Kuchera opinion pieces are kind of driving me away from Polygon too (fan art is cool, but its not what I go to sites like Polygon for). I really like a lot of things about the site too. Danielle, the McElroys, and Chris Plante tend to write great stuff, and the site generally has more long-form features than others like it, which I really appreciate. Still, the stuff I like seems to be getting buried under a pile of stuff I'm not really interested in. On a more positive note, I like RPS, Giant Bomb, and some of the other sites mentioned. I've yet to subscribe to any of them, but I also check out Venus Patrol, Unwinnable, and Kill Screen occasionally.

I didn't mean to, but I'm quitting Divinity: Original Sin. I love this game. I've been enjoying the combat, the story is enjoyable enough, and the variety of quests to be found in the world is just great. I was 28 hours in, and then I lost my save due (since the game always says "Syncing" when I closed it, I assumed it was doing cloud saves through Steam, so I thought I could safely reinstall Windows without backing up my saves...I was wrong). So, rather than re-play 28 hours of (very good) RPG, I think I'm going to quit for now, and probably come back to the game at some point in the future.

So this isn't really a productive or useful comment, but it's on my mind and I don't know where else to say it. I've been listening to the Bombcast for a while, but I'm really tempted to give up on it since Vinny isn't on it and Dan Ryckert is. I can't tell if Dan is actually the weird caricature of a person that he seems to be on the internet, but either way I'm finding his podcast appearances to be pretty off-putting.

No rush on the post, but do you know what the movie of the week is yet?

This is going to get a little discipline specific since I'm an English teacher, so I apologize in advance.* People who teach writing at the college level** have been debating for the last 20-30 years about how to teach grammar and if doing so is even appropriate given the variety of "Englishes" that exist across different demographics (regional, socio-economic, native speakers vs. English language learners). There's a particular anxiety about how teaching standardized grammar reinforces power structures based on race on wealth inequality. The version of English that is often taught as "correct" is really just the version most often spoken by white people and those from privileged backgrounds. Telling a student of a particular race, region, or income level that the English they grew hearing, writing, and speaking is "wrong" doesn't fit with the current understanding of language as something that's constantly contested and constantly changing. Instead, teachers tend to talk about standard English grammar as something that they can use or reject as needed, given the context they are writing in and the expectations of their audience. How is this at all relevant to what clyde wrote? I started writing this because I wanted to say that a lot of the way grammar is taught and thought about comes down to common usage and situational appropriateness. If you're writing conversationally, for example on a forum or in an email, you likely don't need to worry too much about if "but" should start a sentence or if a comma is properly placed, as long as your meaning comes across. *I'm the kind of English teacher who teaches literature and film classes, so my grammar is certainly not perfect. I won't be shocked if someone finds errors here. EDIT: **Let me qualify that by saying that I'm referring here to American public universities. The attitude toward grammar and how to teach it is likely different in other countries, and in other kinds of university systems such as liberal arts colleges, smaller private universities, and other kinds of institutions that I can't think of right now. Also, this post now effectively has two footnotes. I hate myself sometimes.

10/10: This is the Citizen Kane moment of the Idle Forums.

I wonder if this might work better as a "did you know" sort of thing, rather than calling out a specific user. For example, you might say, "Did you know that 'begs the question' doesn't mean that a statement calls for a hasty response, but instead refers to a proposition that invites or assumes a specific conclusion?" as opposed to "Giles' credentials as a Watcher are in question because his failure to grasp basic logical fallacies."

After playing about a third of the game, I'm quitting Lego City Undercover (which I picked up mostly because my local library has started carrying Wii U games for some reason). The idea of a GTA-style open world game, all made of Lego and with a generally silly tone was really appealing to me at first. I sort of enjoyed the story, even if it was mostly a series of genre cliche send up. Too bad the driving didn't feel too good, and the load times were pretty frequent and far too long (and always accompanied by the same song!). Mostly I'm giving up on it for the way it gates story progress with collectibles. "Sorry, you're going to need 50,000 bricks to start this mission. I bet there are some hidden around here somewhere." I know games mostly made for kids don't generally worry about respecting a player's time, but that just seemed particularly obnoxious.

Can I claim "Salmonella & Strangers" as the name of my as-of-yet unpublished webcomic?