ewokskick
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Posts posted by ewokskick
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I think this TI's meta is probably the most open it's ever been with respect to drafting. Not a huge surprise that even the best drafters are getting caught with their pants down.
Definitely. I think be prepared for teams is more important than ever. At other TIs it felt like you could win but understanding the meta better. This time around it seems it's all about understanding the match ups.
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MVP just upset OG in game 1. I know that MVP picks aren't in the meta so teams don't want to ban them, but I think giving them dark seer + spirit breaker + PA + Bounty is a bad idea. They basically got all their favorite heroes. I'd rather play against MVP with meta heroes than MVP with MVP heroes. Fly is a great drafter and I don't expect them to get out picked twice in a row.
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I'll just be over here bleeding blue.
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Man I expected Secret to have it tough in the group stage but this is pretty bad. Hope Puppey's team still make it to the finals or at least top3.
I think they won't make it two rounds. They look god awful. Maybe they can figure things out, but it looks like they can only win with cheesey huskar picks.
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What this person see as the disadvantage of the FPTP system, others see as the advantage. The FPTP system is supposed to promote strong coalitions. Rather than a party becoming just "Gorillas" the parties are supposed to become owl and gorilla coalitions that find common ground and ideally legislative representation. The effect of this is that it tends to promote the more moderate and common ground policies of either coalition. I know in the U.S. this was rather intentionally built into our electoral system (among other checks against extremist candidates such as the electoral college and 100 years of senate appointments). This trends towards incremental change makes it very hard for any minority political ideology to get outright representation. However, it also has made our political system very resilient against extremist democratic take overs. In the 1930s when fascist movements were taking over many of the European governments, similar movements existed in the U.S. (including American Nazi movements and KKK off-shoots). However, due to our electoral system and political culture, these movements largely failed to penetrate our national politics.
Sadly, other systems that solve the "spoiler effect" have their own (sometimes) worse problems. The math of instant run off voting can lead to effects where ranking a candidate higher actually hurts them. That means it's a system than can quite literally reverse a voter's intentions. Normal run-offs are expensive. Proportional representation only works for legislators, takes power from candidates and gives them to parties, and tends to diminish geographical representation in favor of party representation. Single Transferable voting forces parties to campaign against themselves, requires higher voter knowledge (since you're usually choosing between many candidates often of the same party), and has the IRV problem of mathematically making it possible to penalize a voter for ranking their preference higher. All of these systems, baring proportional representation also make the actual act of voting more confusing. That might not seem important, but our 2000 presidential election was literally decided by confusing ballots in Palm Beach Florida.
I'm not saying FPTP is awesome, but I think that video does the thing where it takes a complex issue and makes it seem like there is a "common sense" solution. In doing so, it hide a lot of biases that the filmmaker has (and in this case may not even know he has). I want him to explain why the "spoiler effect" is a problem and why two party systems are bad. I want him to look at places other than the U.S. that use a FPTP system to see if it leads to two party systems (spoiler: it doesn't). I don't mean to be harsh, but I often think videos like that do more harm than good. They give just enough information to make the viewer feel informed, but not nearly enough for the viewer to actually be informed.
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There was tons of good dota in the EU qualifier! You can check most of those games to get some great games.
Yeah EU had the best games. NA and China's finals were really good too. Both Bo5s went 5 games and were really exciting.
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Munro only does short stories.
Finished the book, it's good as any of her other stuff.
Ah, I haven't read anything from her. So I guess I am in for something new. I haven't read a short story collection in a few years so this should be a nice change of pace.
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The biggest thing for me, this year, is that it felt like Dota was never NOT. Like there was always something happening. And to be frank that made me way less likely to pay attention. I know there've always been a ton of tournaments, but four big events in a year all backed by Valve directly, just felt like way too much.
But hey that's more of a personal thing. Not sure it's actually a valid criticism or not, haha.
That said I'm still going to TI6. Managed to get a finals ticket despite the website breaking on me and not letting me buy one directly. Got a hotel booked. Now just need to book a flight and I'm good to go yayyyy.
It was like there was always a LAN, but not always with good teams and the casual online matches I'd watch for an hour or two basically never have anyone I care about. It's like there is too much dota, but also not enough good dota. Personally, I am not sure majors have actually made anything better. Jenna said it'd be better with one fewer major and I think that would help. I also would like to see the return of online events like Dotapit and Captains Draft. Being able to watch an event that is spread out instead of taking up a whole weekend+ makes it easier to casually watch.
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Is this a novel or a short story collection?
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Literally just started reading this on the subway today. I knew the book was partially set in San Francisco, but there's something surreal about commuting in SF while you're reading a book that deliberately provides street names that you're currently passing by. I'm sure people who live in New York are used to seeing their city fictionalized, but it still gets to me!
I had this experience while reading Orhan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence while in Istanbul. It's not Pamuk's best book, but being in the city while reading it certainly made a pretty big impression on me. I wonder if people in NYC who, like you said, must have this experience constantly become numb to this.
I'll also add that some books do a better job of generating this surreal feeling than others. For example, I just read We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves by Kathryn Joy Fowler which takes place in Davis and features the university and many other landmarks I went to while reading it. However, it didn't leave me wonderstruck. It just felt like a fun connection to me.
Edit: Also I am a big fan of TMITHC, I wonder if I need to read it again...
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Yeah, as an occasional Lich picker I am still happy. He's definitely more viable in this patch than in the last couple even with the nerf.
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Yeah they already nerfed Lich.
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I didn't know Her Story had an actual end. I played until I thought I had figured out what happened and then I stopped playing. I guess the game simply decides you're done once you've viewed a certain percentage of all available video clips? That's kind of an interesting design choice in itself.
It ends when you've listened to a few specific clips that will kind of explain the case.
I think with these Walking Simulator games, it matters immensely whether the action is taking place in the present, or whether your sole goal is to discover something that happened in the past, over which you have no agency. Are you a passive (albeit walking) observer, or an actual character in the narrative? Even though you don't actually "do" much in Firewatch, Henry is instrumental to that story. It doesn't happen without him. Therefore, player investment. Same with Gone Home. Although Katie is trying to find out where her family are and what happened to her sister, the real moment-to-moment tension is about Katie, and her return to a house that was never her house and to a family that isn't there.
I think this is an interesting theory, but I don't get why Gone Home is taking place in the moment, but something like Everyone has Gone to Rapture isn't. In both cases, your actions basically just uncover the story. I think you're onto something though. I don't think a story taking place in the present is essential to walking sims. I do think it's one good strategy to get player buy-in. Other strategies can work too. I think of Gone Home as the perfect example of how using layered and compelling environmental story telling is enough to get player buy-in. Firewatch does it through the instantaneous interactions with Delilah. Stanley parable does it with interactive narration. The Beginner's Guide does it with unreliable narration about a past relationship. Dr. Langekovksy does it with humorous narration. Amensia: AMFP uses mood and the suggestion of risk.
I think there are a bunch of ways to get player buy-in. Some of those I listed involved active story participation. Others focus on story presentation. I think there are a myriad of strategies that developers can use to generate player interests. The problem with a game like Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is that it requires a very compelling narrative to make the player willing to slowly lumber between story bits. If that story doesn't hit with the player they will hate it. On the other hand, that's an opportunity for a developer. If you're that confident in your story then adding puzzles or monster sneaking (I'm looking at you SOMA) may just distract and detract from the appealing part of your game.
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I really like the discussion of "walking simulators." I think that they hit the nail on the head about there needing to be some interactive component to the narrative and/or a really compelling story to pull you along. I'm definitely a fan of what games like Tacoma seem to be trying where they make the landscape traversal in a walking sim fun in its own right.
Great episode.
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This looks like monument valley, but instead of charming it decided to be immature.
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Religious motivators for politics will never be okay for me in the USA because our Constitution mandates the absence of religion in government. Any law made to enforce a religious belief is not okay. Laws allowing for religious belief are different, but enforcement? Nope. Never okay. My step-sister isn't outright hateful, but shuns homosexuals or people of different religions. It motivates her voting practice and that disappoints the hell out of me. In her eyes, we are a "Christian Nation." And we are literally not so as mandated by the founders.
I went to a church in Oklahoma (sorry if that means I'm not educated enough for you!) that allowed openly homosexual and transgendered. It was the location where the PFLAG chapter in my community met. It has participated in and hosted LGBTQ activism including pushing for change within the United Methodist Church as a whole. They've been a very progressive force in my community. And you're going to tell me that these people shouldn't allow their religious values to motivate their politics? Do you think it was wrong for the civil rights movement to have been organized through black churches?
I don't know if you are unaware or just don't care how condescending you seem. In this thread, you've argued that red state democrats (especially black ones) are less educated and less thoughtful. Do you even understand how that sounds? I can't even comprehend it. It's the worst case of subtle racism and not so subtle elitism parading as progressivism I've seen in a long time. I'm sure you're a good person, but I feel like you've attacked myself and a lot of people I know and love in some very ignorant ways.
Oh well, I'll probably just have to stay away from this thread because it is so toxic. A rarity on this board.
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Almost out of time to join. It's a pretty fun way to get into college basketball even if you barely watch.
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That looks pretty bad. I hope Valve finds a new partner in China if those accusations are true.
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Agreed that Marginalgloss's post was great. It reminds me of the often quoted Frederick Jameson line "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism." I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I do feel that the best achievement of the book is in the way it shows how banal the social reproduction of injustice is. You can think of that as biopower as I do or as social conditioning. Either way, I think the book wants to demonstrate the way most people experience their own marginalization. They are aware of it, but within their social situations there is little recourse. For them, the mundane moments anyone experiences growing up are intertwined with their marginalization. There is no avenue for resistance because how can you resist your own life? If someone were to run away, they would be sacrificing all their social relationships and what little comfort their life provides. You might as well ask why a minimum wage worker doesn't quit his or her job to resist global capitalism. It's more interesting to me, though, that the question of resistance is in this thread is only placed on the victims. Why not, instead, ask why everyone else supports the status quo of Never Let Me Go?
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You're right, it was my mistake in my initial post to use the word "inspired" instead of "adapted." I think Dick's works have proven to be fertile ground for other people's imaginations and as a generalized subcultural milieu, but that they're rarely appreciated, let alone adapted, as their own thing.
Definitely. Judged purely on film adaptations, his work definitely doesn't fair very well. There is a lot of mediocrity and some just plain crap.
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We probably have different senses of the word "great." Looking at this list, the only adaptations that capture for me what was good about Dick as source material are Blade Runner (which is tenuous at points) and A Scanner Darkly. The Man in the High Castle is notable to me for being just the latest of a long succession of works that are interested in the aesthetics of Dick's works but not in the ideas that create the worldview behind them. That's why I find it and others mediocre.
If you expand the list to include things inspired by PKD: A Scanner Darkly, Total Recall, The Matrix, Blade Runner, The Truman Show, and most things by Kaufman or Cronenberg. Outside of film, he inspired some of Crumb's comics, some cool art installations, and novelists like Haruki Murakami and Ursula le Guin, and probably a lot more.
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My biggest concern is that nearly everything inspired by Dick is mediocre at best. His work has a delicate balance of weirdness that, when mishandled, produces either the mundane or the outlandish instead, and neither is quite as satisfying. Still, I'm very eager to hear assessments of this game's quality, no matter how qualified!
Weird that you think this. I can think of more things inspired by or adapted from Philip K Dick that are great than anyone but Shakespeare.
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Finished this morning, and while I'm still processing everything, there was something that nagged at me throughout:
I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that none of the donors ever seems to consider escape. I assumed it would have been a major theme - life finds a way and all that. Even after Kath and Tommy are told that there are no deferrals, I suspected at least a suggestion of alternative possibilities (from Tommy), but there is a bit of frustration followed by resignation.
Was this intentional? I found it difficult to empathise with Kath when she showed almost no interest in self-preservation. And it felt a bit inconsistent with other moments throughout the book which seem intended to emphasise the humanity of the donors.
I think that it is intentional. Based on my reading of the theme of the book, it's doing a lot to show how power is exerted over the development of a person's identity through mundane repetition and control over their life patterns. I remember it being a book focused on the power of the banal. I think it follows from that theme that there is no grand Hunger-Games-like resistance. To extend the question to reality, one might also ask why California farm workers "allow" themselves to be exposed to fumigants and pesticides despite our knowledge of the health implications for them and their children. Or, why do people live in Hunter's Point San Fransisco when it is a nuclear waste site? Etc... I think that the purpose of the book is to show how people are made to die for the comfort of others and how that is done through power that is exerted with banal conditioning and the establishment of social rules. I think it is MUCH harder to get past one's own social milieu than you think. There are so many social pressures on the characters in this book that it makes their compliance seem normal and I think that is the point. That's just my reading, though.
Dota 2 - TI 6
in Video Gaming
Posted
Watching QO's PA dive the base is a thing of beauty. Even though they won the group, OG looked more beatable than they have in recent months. They'll have a long road through the lower bracket now. I know it's too early to say this for sure, but I think the eastern teams are going to crush this TI.