ewokskick

I think that seems a bit harsh, but I can certainly understand it. He's not naturally charismatic and not silly, but he seems pretty sincere and thinks deeply about the game.

From the RPS article in the OP: This sounds really unique. I don't know if I want to play a survival game this difficult, but on the other hand I am completely enthralled reading about it. Maybe I should give it a shot? Is it really frustrating?

CDEC and IG have looked great. Secret looked shake-y to me, but part of that was probably due to Fnatic. It's clear that, A. EG still don't know how to beat brood mother and B. you actually have to play some games beforehand as a team if you want to do well at a LAN. The teams that have played games since TI and have played this patch are winning and the others are losing.

God bless. I needed a balance patch.

I watched some broodwar VODs back in the day (and still recognize the names of broodwar greats before SC2 ones). Much later I started to dabble in watching esports again. Some people on twitter were talking about GSL so I figured it was a big deal. I went and it looked unwatchably bad. I was baffled. So I went to a thread on reddit about GSL (I know probably a mistake) and wanted to know if it was normal for tournaments to ask you for money because it sure didn't make it seem fun for me to get into SC2. Then a some dude just called me an idiot and said that I wasn't real fan (which was true, I was only a potential fan). It took me quite awhile to give SC2 a shit again which I've only started doing. WCS was a much better viewing experience for a noobish SC2 fan and this podcast makes SC2 seem fun instead of hostile.

Also, new Complexity might be okay. I guess they just got crushed by Fire. We'll see.

It honestly looks like all the European teams are a bit weaker. I think they've all shown great potential though. 5Jungz, for example, has had mixed results, but they did win the alienware weekend tournament. The Notail team looks like they might be pretty okay. Alliance looks pretty bad still, to be honest. I'm excited to see the new Secret. I think Puppey and PLD are a very good support duo and EE is a good carry except when he tilts. W33 and Misery on offlane are questions marks. The NA teams look much improved to me. DC and C9 are as good as the European teams, I think. It's been a long time since NA dota had a team other than EG I felt could compete with top EU/CIS teams. I think C9 and DC can. I am still excited to see how all this will shake out.

Balrog PR: We'll fight the competition for you.

So how do I hire the Balrog PR firm?

Oh, and if I could suggest a topic I'd love to hear you talk about: The Big House 5 smash bros compendium. As far as I know it's one of the few attempts to replicate the Dota model outside of Dota and seems to be a pretty big success. It's especially amazing as a compendium model without any developer support. Anyway, I thought it'd be a interesting topic for you all to weigh in on that might effect the landscape of fighting games (or esports in general).

It's interesting to hear about LCS viewership because I always assumed that the LCS viewership just totally dwarfed Dota. Like I fiigured standard LCS matches were just huge. I guess it's because I've only tuned in for Worlds finals and saw the huge numbers there. One thing you all mentioned that is interesting to me was the one team/one owner rule. I bet that has a lot to do with Korea's dominance. If the large sponsor could have more teams I bet talent would be less concentrated. That Byul TY game 5. My God. Thanks for telling me to pause and go watch before continuing. That was worth it. I'm excited to hear you all talk about (WCS SPOILERS)

I watched a little bit of Danielle streaming it and it's definitely fun as a shared experience. Anyway, here is a great article on Dropsy from a queer perspective and the importance of art that redeems grossness. https://richardgoodness.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/83-dropsy/

From the article: Not going to lie. My confirmation bias is going strong on this one.

The only concern I could think of would be that the nightmare scenes are, well, nightmares. There is some minor violence (a pixelated gun shot). Otherwise, I can't think of anything objectionable. My gut says that, yes, it would be fine. I don't have a kid though, so YMMV on my assessment.

That's pretty cool. I know I've seen one or both of the Ben There Dan That and Time Gentleman, Please! developers on here too. It's probably no coincidence that a few of my favorite modern point and click games were made by thumbs fans.

I loved how he turned all the things he didn't like about Star Wars into the story strengths of KOTOR 2. Some of those Devil's Advocate discussions about the force in that game were the most memorable moments. I remember the way that game challenged my assumptions about the star wars universe. It's very interesting to hear about the origins of that.

From the ESPN article on how the patriots are cheaters:

I'm like the kid who only learns that the stove is hot by putting his hand on it. Only in my case, I need to put a hand on the pumpkin ale stove every year. The worst one I ever had was unfiltered. It was like drinking awful pumpkin sludge.

I saw pumpkin ales and reminded myself that they are always gross. I'll keep seeing them over the next 30 or so days until I break down and buy one. I am a part of the problem.

At this point, I think it is mostly speculation because these cases haven't really been adjudicated. I think everyone is afraid of losing and in the case of game companies, they should probably be afraid of winning too. It's likely that New Media probably do more good for game companies than harm.