SuperBiasedMan

Social change isn't magical, but it is gradual and this is one gradual slight change that would've been a help. I dunno about blaming GB unless something specific that seems more shitty comes out, but at this point, realistically you should think about specifically hiring to diversify such a narrow range of employees. If your workplace is 100% male, surely you have to stop and think that maybe there's something to be changed. Perhaps it's worth specifically choosing the best female for the job in order to counteract a clear male bias (whether the bias is yours, the industry or the candidates themselves is irrelevant, it's worth working against). Hell, there were two positions, it's not like they couldn't have still hired one guy anyway.

"Download 2 Xbox360 games and keep them forever." I'm not so sure about the forever part.

Just started this last night after getting it in the end days of the sale. So far it's mooostly hit my expectations with the world, the storytelling narrator and the art. Gameplay does work better than I expected, though it's also harder. I lost 2 abilities on my boss fight, and I just don't get how I'm supposed to effectively maneuver when I lose Jaunt? My character is so slow, but the actual process are moving at what I'd consider a 'normal' pace. I'm not sure if it's just me fumbling as I learn or what but for now jaunt is kinda necessary. As for the story, (spoilers for me speculating mostly, I've only gotten an hour-ish in)

This game sounds weird in the ways I like, maybe I should pick it... PS3/360 only? Damn, been a while since that was actually a limiter.

Well, it is definitely a minor distinction but letting you actually choose dialogue makes the experience more interactive than a cutscene really. I'd say that the dialogue choices are a key gameplay feature of those games that is different to just reading/listening to dialogue that you have no bearing on. I certainly didn't play Mass Effect for the shooting anyway.

Of course not, if he was using it then his identity wouldn't be so secret, would it?

I played quite a bit of Xenoblade, probably 20-40 hours(?). It's an out and out JRPG, with anime tropes, heavy lore as well as cutscenes and dialogue galore. Definitely not the worst offender for too much cut scenes but that's how the story is told rather than in gameplay. That said the gameplay is fun, the lore is interesting and the story's not overly generic and has some nice twists on the formula, but it's not a terribly unique plot. I... really don't know if it'll work for you? I put it down because I let myself get distracted by fetch quests and got tired of how long and slow that made the game feel, but also because I was playing on the Wii at my parents' house and I wasn't around enough to plough through an RPG epic. Also I think the reason RPGs telling cutscene heavy stories is a problem is because RPGs have the legacy of being the story genre of games because they had the capacity to have a lot of information in times when games were constricted. But these days they try to feel massive and epic in comparison to other massive AAA games and so they load in more and more information instead of trying to pare down to a well told story. Basically I wish RPGs were taking lessons more from Gone Home and the Stanley Parable to develop instead of just going 'bigger'.

I'm happily in control of my username on most sites, but I lost it on Youtube... to myself. When google took over Youtube they finnicked around some nonsense and weirdly merged accounts that meant I lost my old account and had to choose a new username. I will never forgive Google.

I ended with a list of 4 games, Dark Souls, Fear, 2 Brothers and then since I realised I really hadn't spent that much in the sale I shelled out for Transistor. I actually bought more on GoG's sale despite the trading cards incentive.

Ok, time for my long overdue response. I should probably note before I start that I haven't ever gone to the North so my recommendation for the Iron Throne is all I know about it. I grew up in Kilkenny and currently live in Dublin, so I'm quite South East biased (though we definitely have the best weather ). And another caveat that I'm a cheapass and a vegan so I don't really bother eating out that often and won't bother trying to recommend any specifics about that to you. So here we go. My hometown of Kilkenny is worth a look, particularly as your stay overlaps with the local arts festival that may be of interest to you: http://www.kilkennyarts.ie/ Buuut, if that's not of interest I'd specifically avoid that time as there's gonna be a lot more tourists around. Either way, the town has a very open castle for tourists to go through, 2 cathedrals and a bunch of other historical buildings you can see. I recommend going to St. Canice's Cathedral and going up to the top of the round tower, it costs you something like €5 each, but the view you get of the whole town around you is well worth it. Rothe House is also a good look for the historical stuff. If you have no interest at all in the history, I still recommend visiting and looking around. Just walking through the mix of old and new buildings is quite nice, and Kilkenny is tourist focused so you can still find a lot of nice places to eat and many B&Bs. It's quite a small town though, so you could realistically see it all in a day or two unless you're into a lot of the arts festival stuff. Nearby to there is a nice seaside town, which is basically where my family holidays usually went. It's called Tramore, in County Waterford, not far from the town of Waterford itself. Basically it's got a big huge beach, but as back ups it also has a constant... amusement park? Mini theme park? I'm not sure what name translates to Americans. But basically it has a small rollercoaster, bumper cars and a ghost train. That kind of stuff. And just next to that is also a street full of arcades. This might be more enticing to a bored irish child/nostalgic adult but if you want a beach day at all it's worth it, though there will be tourists. If you want an emptier beach experience, Curracloe in Wexford is good but has little in the town other than the beach. I recommend keeping on eye on the weather regularly. It's changeable as hell. Now, for Dublin. A great tourist spot to look around is Temple Bar, but don't eat or drink there. The main areas you'll walk around for shops and such are O'Connell Street (you'll see it easily because of the big metal spike in the middle of it, the Spire), Henry Street, Dame Street and Grafton Street. Your guidebook no doubt will point these out, but I'd mostly recommend taking a slight detour to a parallel street if you want to find a pub or a restaurant, it'll make a significant price difference cause it costs a lot to be on one of those main roads. Course that doesn't matter for Starbucks or Subways (of which you can find three along O'Connell street). For shopping, mostly you'll be on those streets as well as in the Jervis and Stephen's Green shopping centres (which are on those streets). But if you're interested in second hand or vintage clothing then there's a ton of places you can do that in the temple bar area too. As far hating americans, I think you'll be fine. There's a stereotype of bad tourist but being american has little to do with it, more the idea that a tourist is demanding or loud and obnoxious would be a problem. As long as you don't enter a room, declare you're from Texas and fire some rounds into the air I think you'll be fine. Ok, that's my spew done for. Hope it helped anyway, and have a good holiday!

Also, if you do go to Belfast there's a Game of Thrones exhibit thing where you can get a photo of yourself on the iron throne. Even if you're not a fan you can make friends who are jealous. (sorry about double post, some forum buttons just can't be clicked on my phone)

I can respond to this soon, but right now I've just flown back to Ireland to start a new job and find an apartment to move in with my girlfriend who also started a new job today. Though I am a terribly untouristy person who hates to eat out (because I'm cheap) I will offer what I can, but mine will mostly be about things in Dublin, Kilrenny having castles and cathedrals and a couple nice beach towns if the Irish weather gods favour you with a day of sun.

I suppose realistically, the existence of the sale itself with 75% discounts is what draws more money out of people's pockets. It's just that the event is so much more work for Valve to put in explicitly to make people's impulse buying more frenzied. It's that fact that makes it feel more weird to me, like valve is the sleazy car salesman stereotype saying "You know, if you buy this car today, we have a raffle going and you might win that overcoat for free..."

In Spelunky, whenever you find a level that has a brothel and a sacrificial alter. When I go to buy the damsel instead of just buying kisses, the shopkeeper says "Aw, you must be in love!". Given the fact that I have only ever purchased a damsel like this when I specifically want to sacrifice her life to Kali for a reward, the shopkeere's line is pretty sinister. I can't tell if it was intentionally written that way or unintended horror, and the thought plagues me.

Well I'm not even talking about extreme cases, take the example of a kid who has a birthday during the sale, and says they want to buy a bunch of games. The parents think "Well no, we wont let them buy a ton, but let's give them $50 to choose games with.", and what if the kid then just buys stuff they otherwise wouldn't have been as interested in. It's not brainwashing but it's a pretty dodgy way to push people closer to clicking the purchase button, it's a less bad version of well tuned free to play games that encourage you to just drop a couple dollars for the game to make it a bit easier. People make irrational decisions all the time, in my opinion a shop has a responsibility to not encourage irresponsible behaviour for their own benefit (this is the point of some government regulations).

I think if you add "or are a child" to that list then it can be pretty insidious. Children can be foolish enough to basically buy into this and get games that they otherwise wouldn't have put in the effort to convince their parents to buy them, and it's not like their parents will expect this kind of storewide 'game' to be going on.

If it's got real detail that sounds good anyway. I may or may not actually read all the things but I prefer a story to have a foundation even if all I see directly is the surface. It's properly on my radar for the sales now. I look forward to the sequel to all these conversations where it's the same, except there'll be another person saying "No, X was right and they told me before, don't buy it."

I got it in the recent humble bundle thing they did, I've played around more with the free trials of much earlier versions though and it's largely a pretty hassle free way to make a game. And you can actually do quite a lot with the quasi-programming in it. I once made a different version of Final Fantasy VII's materia system in an older version... it really wasn't worth my time, but it was possible! Though you need to either ditch combat largely, put a lot of work in or accept that it'll be mediocre at best. I have ideas of stuff I'd like to make, I just need to initiate it as a habit somehow so I start working bits and pieces.

As someone who has done mild card farming to earn a few euro, I can tell you that most cards are normal prices. (average €0.10 each)

Not to sound overly cliché hipsterish, but I never did get why the Wii U was so outright trashed. It's always had genuine exclusives, even with a couple non Nintendo games if admittedly the vast majority is Nintendo. Obviously it's still got problems that people have talked a lot about, but nothing about the PS4 or XBONE suggests that they're realistically doing any better.

It is less that games have massive discounts and more that games are almost guaranteed to be discounted. Then some games on flash sales are super duper cheap, like 75+% off where people get extra excited. For the moment I'm waiting for Darksouls 1 to drop to ridiculous depth (it's currently 66% off as the standard discount) so I can buy it with my farmed trading card money. I am a savvy consumer.

I now want to see youtube videos of a Nintendad who just wants to cruise around in his Mercedes kart and feel good, but keeps getting interrupted and mown down by Luigi.

I think WD is Walking Dead, not Witcher. If I am correct then yes it does import decisions. Not sure exactly what that entails but it affects things.

Yeah, I was expecting a third day where they'd reveal a map, but it turns out they have another update that'll be the 'End of the Line' update instead. Hopefully that wont be too long because this is the first update since February and that one was all cosmetic stuff I think.

It's so he can point to it when he needs to explain to the ladies just how famous he is.