SuperBiasedMan

I'd buy a t-shirt saying this.

I'm not sure if you were addressing me or not, but I wasn't trying to say that the default is to say let's plays are equal to piracy. I was just trying to compare similar aspects to how people respond to both of them.

This is the problem with the general entitlement that a lot of people just want the content and don't make any effort to really level headedly look at why the developers might not like it, just assuming it's greed/censorship. I think in some ways it's similar to discussing piracy where some people think the developer has no right to restrict piracy but the belief that all content should be videoable seems more ubiquitous. Often the idea behind the free advertisement argument is that these big people making a lot of money do get big sales spikes, when the time of a video being posted and the sales chart are compared you can draw a pretty clear correlation. Of course it doesn't work for every game, but when it does then the developer just got a large burst of exposure in a particularly shareable and digestable way. Also it's worth noting that depending on the video there can be significant work put into it. There's a difference between playing through Gone Home, recording it all and putting up raw unedited content and playing the latest Call of Duty game, recording hours of footage and then editing it down to show key moments while you record a voice over to talk about what happened at various points. People exist all along that spectrum and there is no blanket case, especially when some videos are more about the person that the content. For example, I do watch one Youtuber who mostly makes TF2 videos, but he recently just cut together an edit of a cooking show where he made fun of the head chef being crazy with his random format. The way he makes his videos is what makes me interested rather than the idea that I'd rather watch him than play TF2. Obviously that's an example in the sea of let's players, but there's various different approaches people can take.

A rocket that increases in clip size the more kills you get. I better start playing with this before it gets nerfed. Also liking the backstabbing scattergun. I need more ways to be an annoying scout.

I think that it's definitely good that they constantly call out sexism and racism in games with stuff like this. But I do feel like sometimes the articles feel compelled to make it out that the particular example they're using is especially egregious as if it's big breaking news rather than a continuing feed of "here's today's dumb offensive comment". Of course if they were honest and just had a special feed of sexism/racism then it'd get far less notice and clicks so it'd be less effective all round.

GoG.com's sale has a big batch of stuff until tomorrow where they have a bunch of different bundles (though you can also buy just part of the bundles, for a different discount) and also Magrunner Darkpulse is completely free. I have no idea what that game is, but hey. Free.

Of all the games to fight against pay to win... why Minecraft? I mean, Mojang can do what they want realistically so I wouldn't blame them. I just wouldn't have thought this was a big deal to them but maybe someone who played Minecraft for more than a couple months in the earlier days could explain why it does matter? That interview is definitely nonsense. It's clearly clickbait so even though I usually find Notch abrasive I like that he's taken away the clicks in this instance.

For the most part my thoughts here are arguing devil's advocate but I do think it's problematic to start expanding this stuff out. I was already vaguely uncomfortable with the idea that war was being painted in such a flagrant way by the ubiquitous soldier shooters, the fact that it could theoretically happen in other areas does bother me. To take a thought from an old Thumb's episode. They once discussed the inclusion of torture as a plot point in the Splinter Cell games, and they weren't happy with the idea that it essentially implied a narrative that torture is a necessary evil to get important information. But in reality torture is not a method that always gets results. If people thought about it, sure they'd probably realise it's not going to always work. But in media you see it solve the problem every time, and your subconscious just absorbs that solution. Similarly if you just have it that police and criminals are in a war against each other and people just play it for 40 hours then they've been slightly more entrenched in the idea that it is an outright adversarial relationship. Also about why this matters in games but not films/other mediums. Games are overly represented in the less serious end of the spectrum. It's quite rare to find serious treatment of themes in games (as in... actually serious. Not 'our game is serious and gritty') unlike in films where there's a wider range from silly actiony stuff to taking the art seriously. And also the fact that game involves real participation where you're enacting things rather than just observing them.

I think the point was more that you shouldn't take on such important themes at all unless you plan to handle them serious and well. And when you look at the footage, it looks realistic rather than cartoony so it's debatable how removed from real life it is.

Oh man, I thought I'd replied to this after I flew out of my country. I forgot my laptop's a piece of crap that can only do <20 fps in TF2 (this is when running a MaxFPS config and at the lowest possible resolution) so I can sort of play but I wasn't as motivated to actually organise anything with you guys until I get back to a stable-r desktop. I'm keeping an eye on this update definitely. It's supposed to add a ton of new stuff. I'm erratically busy for the week so I don't know if I can hop in with people but I'll be around on steam occasionally so possibly? If I'm in, I probably have to play engie so that I don't need to aim or run around at <20fps.

Equal opportunity objectivication is a pretty lame equality play when your way of equalising the field by allowing the male characters to take on the depictions you were giving to women, but women occupy no more roles than before. (also just in case you didn't know, in some Zelda games when you attack the Cuckoos enough a fleet of them swarms across the screen and the player is inevitably killed by the cuckoos retribution)

I only ever played normal and I had some disastrous missions where I lost all 6 soldiers. I think I even had one game where I totally ran out of soldiers because I didn't realise I was running low and had no recruits coming in.

Well, fan art gets clicks. When people search for pictures they could either use vague terms that might hit upon original thoughts you've had orange they'll see if anyone has had an interesting take on the Doctor after last night's episode. Aside from that people do get deep into fandoms and care a lot about specific universes that might be the thing giving them impetus to create. Also I think it's a little unfair to imply that fanart can't contain/contains less potential for emotional message or meaning. Sure there's plenty of shallow stuff but there's also the possibility of connecting to something at the core of the inspiration that lets the piece do so much more than one could with original characters, where you have no established back story.

I love that short, it's actually part of a series of independent animated shorts from artists all over the world. Here's the full collection of them in one video (I unfortunately couldn't find a convenient place that had them all but separated into different videos)

That appears to be more work than has been put into any Wonder Woman films!

Time to adjust your signature then.

It probably says a lot about me that my first thought was "The friends system would be great, it would make backstabbing those people an even more horrible betrayal!". But yeah, that system would be fantastic and really add a new dimension to everything. It's only now you've mentioned it do I realise just how silly it is that it doesn't exist yet. Thanks for the help! I'll try finish through my save again later, I still need to reach 1400 so I can transfer into Europa Universalis and actually play the game I bought half a year ago.

I can't find one, so I'm just going to make it and it can be stopped if there's one I missed.

Oh wow I thought that was a joke mistype of the game title. I must find this game, I need more dating sim nonsense in my life. Also is there a thread where people can request others thoughts on a game? eg. "Has anyone played Ether One?"

Yeah, I'll try loading up my save and destroying them before my Empress dies. It's such a shame though because people loved the CRAP out of the Empress. She conquered most of the empire and no-one held grudges. They fell in line and I was well liked by my vassals. Then along comes her wet behind the ears son and it occurs to everyone that they can just rip the empire in pieces because the vast majority of the army is made up of vassal levies and I can't keep mercenaries to survive 5 civil wars.

On my Steam it says it's available now. So unless currently having a Swedish IP is affecting anything it should be up for you too dibs.

I wouldn't point to Portal as a bad example at all since it's so unserious, I was just saying I wouldn't point to it as a good example.

That wasn't really my experience at all, once my empire changed hands to my son all my vassals just went crazy on me... ...oh. Come think of it maybe I shouldn't be Emperor of Britannia, King of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales as well as a duke of a couple places. I think I was fooled into thinking the fact that it was within my title limit meant it was alright to horde them.

I think it's a bit tongue in cheek for people to take away the lesson that it's stupid, particular when Aperture invents some amazingly useful things. Really, it rather enforces the idea that you just throw shit at a wall and see what sticks and that's how you science.

For the most part it's fine, and i think lowering the volume further might remove the quietest bits of gameplay audio. I was assuming that you were editing the video with a program that would let you dip the audio levels lower at specific times, but I realise now that's not actually a given.