Danielle
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Posts posted by Danielle
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Damn... some shade thrown at the top of this discussion, huh?
It's my fault that the podcast was late. As you can imagine, work schedules are utterly bananas all the time and it's even worse in December, with family obligations, holiday travel, etc. It's even worse-worse (editor here, that's not a word!) when there are also a bunch of deaths in the family and weekends don't exist any more.
I apologize, earnestly. But please understand that Rob and I - and Jake and Chris, who do the publishing - do run up against some pretty rough schedules at times. We all have jobs (often multiple jobs, and lives) that sometimes get in the way of timely podcasting.
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^ Everything that Rob just said. Twice.
Also: we do this because we love it, and we enjoy talking to each other and having this dynamic (at least I do!). When I was editing, I thought seriously about cutting way down on the politics talk at the top, but I decided to leave it in, because, well, I thought it was ok to have an episode like this. I don't think we're going to be the idle politics podcast or anything, and I certainly don't want to be. But it felt like an honest chat about where we were, and I stand by that.
As always, thank you, sincerely, for being such a rad community.
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I'm popping into this thread again!
1. Yes, everything (including day 1 stuff/Giant bomb stuff) will definitely be up from the 72-hour stream! We are actually in the process of naming everything properly and cutting everything up appropriately.
2. I am hilariously, spectacularly bad at Chess, especially when exhausted. I almost panicked when I was told I had to play that game live at 8am with no sleep! I still think Danika let me win.
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Sneaking up in my very first day to say thank you for the well wishes! This community is the actual best on the internet.
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Ha, and here I thought I was a huge dork...
Ok! So, it's not just relegated to kink, or to queer sex, but the term Switch does come from those worlds. Simply, a switch is someone who can be a "top" or a "bottom" in the sexual sense. You can think of it as sub/dom, but with much broader meaning. Like, someone who simply enjoys the top or bottom position more identifies that way.
A switch is just someone who goes both ways!
Also... it's the new Nintendo Console! It sort of actually works...
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My Anime Life Coach
Danielle brings aboard friend of the show Amanda Cosmos for a very special Idle Weekend from a tiny cabin in Ticonderoga, New York! Since we recorded in less-than-ideal conditions, sound quality is somewhat reduced, but that didn't stop us from discussing Mystic Messenger, Shin Megami Tensei and all sorts of wonderful anime!
Discussed: Mystic Messenger, Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, Yuri on Ice, Mafia III, Tokyo Mirage
Listen on Episode Page -
I'm probably not going to talk about this on the podcast, but I found the ultimate way (for me) to enjoy No Man's Sky. I fire up a nice, long Hardcore History episode and I go about my explorations/farming/mining bullshit. It's ~perfect~
I sort of always figured it'd be a good podcast game, but even better - it's the perfect semi-academic (rather than conversational) podcast game, because my eyes and hands are engaged, but my mind is completely free to listen and engage with the material.
Is it weird that I now associate the Anabaptists with weird, penis-looking iron spires?
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I don't really have anything to add but I just wanna say, as someone who struggles with the concept on a near-daily basis (often from a perspective of feeling guilty about not wanting to feel guilty about feeling guilty (??)), I really appreciated your discussion about exoticism and appreciating the differences in other people. It was nice to hear many of my inner thoughts echoed by some smart people.
Have I said I like this podcast a lot? Because I do!
Seriously, thank you so much! I sometimes get nervous about the reception of our more sensitive discussions, because I want to be sure that we're approaching everything thoughtfully (not scared to say what I feel, just, trying to be aware and a responsible citizen in my tiny little corner of the world!)
Also, thanks for listening!
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I'm sorta surprised there's not just an in-game option to let you play the game peacefully.
I like survival stuff so I'm all about it, but if I were in charge I'd deffo add that option. Also I'd make it so fucking items fucking stack in the fucking inventory FUCK. Do that and I'll have no more complaints about inventory management!
Also calling these mechanics "cynical" is far more cynical than the actual mechanics themselves!
I really hope(/believe??) that these sorts of things (especially photography! i so want a pokemon snap mode in this game) will make it into the game through future updates. Depending on how long they want to keep working on it...
I like all of your ideas! A 'chill mode' for this game would solve a lot, as would the ~so-simple-why-the-everloving-fuck-didn't-they-do-that~ idea of allowing you to stack items in your inventory. I do have hope for mod support one day, or for hello games to maybe make some QOL improvements, at the least.
I don't dislike survival mechanics, I just dislike them in this game. Don't Starve is a game I adore, for example. I just think they feel half-hearted and out of place here. Just my thoughts.
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I've been really, really loving this game, but, like I've said on the podcast and elsewhere, I detest the mining/crafting/shitty inventory management. It would've been a far stronger game with mechanics that didn't make you a space asshole, but instead a benevolent explorer/photographer/whatever. I can't help but feel the survival stuff was a concession to marketability.
Like "Infinite planets and sci-fi book covers!" wasn't enough of a sell, so they had to pitch "but also, shitty Minecraft elements and a Destiny interface!" on top of it.
I don't know how far off the mark I am for thinking this. NMS is like, one core decision away from GOTY for me, hence my saltiness.
(I still can't stop playing...)
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Good points, all - the curation is definitely a factor (glitch runs, etc.), and engines - I imagine 3D games simply have... more ways to be broken and snapped in two.
Did any folks catch Half Coordinated's run of Momodura? I wasn't familiar with him previously, but he's a speedrunner who has the use of one hand. He ran this adorable kitty-themed platformer, then gave a really nice, slightly teary speech afterwards, urging other gamers with disabilities to push their limits and such.
It was a highlight of the event so far. A really nice gesture, and it seems very much in keeping with the spirit of the event (which, at times in years past, has felt iffy, with the growth of the event, some runners' immaturity and terms they've used for strats, etc.). That, and I'm glad the charity is MSF
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Aw, gee, thank you folks, for the kind words. It was actually a very last-minute thing - I had planned to do a quick show with a guest that had to drop out last minute. Glad it worked out for folks!
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I've enjoyed the BioShock and Wolfenstein: The New Order runs the most so far.
One thing I've noticed, and I'm not sure if its anecdotal or an actual trend - but it seems that the majority of runs now are about breaking the hell out of a given game. I've just noticed much more out-of-bounds play and such. It's really fascinating to me, as someone who has fairly casually enjoyed watching these since the late 2000s or so, when the majority of runs *seemed* like folks basically picked a route that seemed fast and just got as close as humanly possible to getting through it, using the regular mechanics of the game.
Again, this might be purely anecdotal, but if it actually is a trend, I wonder why/how. Better/bigger communities for speedrunning? Better tools for finding and exploiting glitches?
It's cool, fascinating, weird stuff! I dig it.
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Thinking about one of the reader mail questions you got, an experience I've had with using a video game to cope with real life was with Warframe, a free-to-play action game.
There was just one moment in my life a few years back when it seemed like fate really had a bone to pick with me; lost my job, a social circle of friends, and a place to live. Things were pretty bad already. But then I also got the news that my mother found a lump, had it tested, and sure enough it was cancer. I really felt like I needed some kind of big dumb violent action game to vent my frustrations on, and figured I'd give Warframe a try since it was free and came recommended from a few folks. One enemy faction in particular seemed to fit the bill all too perfectly, the infested; as you could likely imagine, they are very much based around an aesthetic of cancerous-looking tumors and just ripping those things to shreds with my sword felt so cathartic at the time. There wasn't much I could do to help my mother other than offer words of encouragement, and it was so frustrating not being able to do anything more to help, this game really did help me with venting that frustration.
It became my go-to game for about a year-and-a-half since I had a lot more free time to waste and I ended up getting a couple other folks into it. I talked about it a lot on a podcast that I was on, even. I guess it was something like my Farcry 2 or The Witness in that regard. I don't play it that much any more, but I do feel pretty thankful that I did have something like that at the time. Kinda sentimental for a game that is more or less just a hoard shooter/hack n' slash with micro-transactions.
Welcome, Jalapeno! You can/should totally send this in to [email protected]!
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I'll be curious to see who they hire next. It seems like the obvious candidates (Cara Ellison, Danielle Riendeau, whose name I misspelled so badly that even Google had no idea who I was talking about) are all taken but I really hope they don't hire another Dan as the last thing they need is more straight white cis dudes at Giant Bomb. Maybe they'll just higher all of kotaku just to get Patrick back.
You spelled my name just fine, my friend
(I can only imagine the Reindeer horrors that googling it subjected you to, though) -
This thread is the least chill hell.
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And Tamo Saturday night also sounds good!
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Heyyy all! I'll be at PAX East this year, and would love to join you folks if there's a meetup. I used to live in Boston, but it was a little while ago, so if folks have thoughts on venue...
(Back when I lived in Chinatown, my bar of choice was the Sweetwater Tavern, which is close to Downtown Crossing on the T. There are probably better/closer places though!)
EDIT: wow. It closed last year. I am the worst.
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Maybe I have this wrong, but isn't the Alien in Alien female? Rob and Danielle kept referring to her with the "he" pronoun. I guess "Frankie" could be a girl's name...
Edit: Never mind. I guess there is a lot of debate about the alien's gender on the internet, and some have concluded they are asexual.
Ha, Vader, it's something of a joke - I nicknamed the alien in my game Frankie to alleviate some of the stress (I streamed much of the game, and one viewer made a joke account called FrankieTheXenomorph to tease me with, etc.). So, the he pronouns are really just referring to "my" alien in the game.
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Lily Wachowski (formerly "Andy") was about to be outed by The Daily Mail, so they had to come out as trans. It's the grossest worst thing that they had to come out before they were ready. But hopefully they (I'm using gender neutral pronouns because they never use the word "woman" to describe themselves in their statement) are met with the same public love and support that Lana was met with when she came out a while back.
I just saw that last night, after someone referred to the siblings as the "Wachowski sisters."
1. The Daily Mail is horrible for doing that. Period.
2. If Lily chooses to come out - and this needs to be done on her terms, as it always must - then a small part of me is warmed by the fact that there is a pair of trans sisters in Hollywood, making massive-budget, goofy-as-hell movies like Jupiter Ascending. It feels like a wonderful affront to all the bullshit "would it sell in Peoria" pandering of Hollywood, and I love that.
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To be honest, I have to limit my intake of politics in order to keep a crushing depression from completely overwhelming me (some cool background: at the ACLU, it was one of my duties to compile a list of every single news mention related to ACLU issues in the state of CA and across national media, and it burned me out so hard that I think I have permanent scars from the political bullshit and general 'mundane evil" of it all).
But... I do find something peculiar about Trump. Particularly the supporters who want Sanders first, and would vote for Trump over Clinton...
I've heard this a few times, I've read about it... I just...
All of it makes me want benevolent robots to control all aspects of government.
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Also! Thank you folks, who responded. It certainly makes sense that hints spoil some of the self-discovery in a game that is all about self-discovery.
I think a lot of my frustration comes from being aggravated at myself. "Why aren't I better at this!" is something I continually bump up against in this game. It's good for me, when I can detach a little, take a deep breath, and be proud of my (very slow) progress.
It's just funny to me (and also frustrating) that this game is more intellectually difficult for me than anything else I'm doing - at my job, at my teaching job, in my athletic training or in my medical training. All the intellectual exercise of those pursuits is like a warmup compared to the actual marathon that is The Witness. Something about that doesn't sit right! I'm not even rationally certain why that is...
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As for the game doing a poor job tutorializing, I think the Giant Bomb video touches on that a bit. At one point Jonathan Blow says that he knew there are parts of the game that will be harder for some people than others (different parts for different people), but he just didn't want to compromise on what he thought is interesting even when it goes against the "agreed" rules of game design a bit. That's not to say that the game is perfect and there's no place where stuff could be more clear without making the game worse of course (Also I don't think there's a single place 100% of people are super stuck in the "main" game, e.g. I never had a huge problem with the marsh but had a bit of trouble in some other places that not many people mentioned here).
I'm really looking forward to watching that GB video - but only after I've "finished" the game. So, in about ten months
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A legitimate, non-trolling question -- I see a lot of folks in this thread expressing disappointment with themselves for seeking hints. In my experience, I would've thrown this game out the window two dozen hours ago without at least a bit of light encouragement and hints from folks. No outright solutions, but those occasional hints have been lifesavers.
Is it a pride thing? I've figured out the vast majority of things myself, but, as others have observed, there are some places where the tutorializing does a poor job of showing the player the next logical step (that one goddamned marsh puzzle, for instance), and, I take that as a bit of a flaw in the game (or, a flaw in the game's ability to communicate to me).
Don't get me wrong, I'm practically addicted to The Witness. I cannot stop playing, even though I am the furthest thing from a puzzle/logic whiz, and progress is coming in fits and starts, with long, frustrating dry spells. The puzzles themselves are 99% brilliant, and I really love exploring the island, encountering the different bits and pieces of logic.
(the statues, on the other hand...)
Vice.com/Gaming Becomes Waypoint, Employs Danielle Riendeau and Rob Zacny
in Idle Banter
Posted
I obviously can't say too much about it - but oh my holy god, do I wish I could do something about this (we all do). It makes everyone here see red.