Markson

Those who will be undertaking the Sisyphean task of finding a great-tasting, pumpkin-flavored, get-you-fall-down-drunk drink... Last year I discovered McKenzie's Pumpkin Jack: http://www.mckenziesbeverages.com/varieties/ It's pretty damn sweet, but I think it tastes like pumpkin pie and that's all I ever wanted. Sadly it isn't available on the western seaboard yet: http://www.mckenziesbeverages.com/find-mckenzies/ Edit: Also, I had a really damn good bottle of port last weekend but I forget the name. I'll check back later and post it.

I've always told myself (maybe deluded myself) that American society looks worse because it's also louder - issues get dealt with in very public and sometimes violent ways, but they're evidence that things are moving somewhere. Sometimes to very scary places, but sometimes to better ones. I don't think the violence and suffering is necessary for change to happen, and I hope there are better ways...and some things that should be public are wiped under the rug for decades until they explode, too, though.

I was also confused about why everyone was a Colonel in that string! Yeah, they really like to bring up Wardell. That first post looks like it's all examples against "indie devs." I know that sometimes there are posts about AAA ethics stuff, but indies take so much more heat. Wonder why that is... I found this comment string between journalist Jesse Singal (who was on HuffPo Live debating against some GG folks today) and various GGers to be fascinating: https://archive.is/9ep6z Singal is the user "jsingal." There's a lot in there about how GG uses ethics as a smokescreen for their reactionary feelings. No surprises to anyone here I guess... but I thought Singal was very articulate in making his points and the replies were very revealing about what members of the movement think.

Ailes has asked Trump for an apology: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/08/25/fox-chief-ailes-demands-donald-trumps-apology-over-twitter-attack-on-megyn-kelly/ Apparently Fox News and Donald Trump have longstanding feelings of enmity between each other? I never knew this, but most of the news coverage I read says that the debate was (paraphrasing) "a detente in a long, cold war." Anyway, Ailes certainly took his time in asking...and the apology is apparently less about how Trump treated Kelly at the debate and more about how Trump RT'd a "fan" who called Kelly a bimbo. Which is also bad, but Trump has been really on her case for a while now! It's rough, and also pretty pathetic how much he needles her. I recommend people look at his Twitter feed. His response is just classic - basically "Well, according to the polls I won the debate. So how dare she ask me tough questions or insinuate that something I said was wrong!" Gross, man! Also, an election thread could be cool. I could talk about how sad I am that Kirsten Gillibrand isn't making a run ;__; But New York does need her, so maybe it's for the best...

Holy shit, I think I was contacted by a Samantha West - but it was for auto insurance, not health...I think. I didn't realize it was a widespread thing that reporters had looked into, I just thought it was a really "uncanny valley" robot voice. Makes sense that it's a soundboard, because it was pretty convincing. The things that tipped me off and made me ask "Are you a robot?" were: 1. No breathing sounds - most people breathe a little into the phone 2. Really awkwardly uniform pauses between all of her responses 3. No background noise - like other phones ringing or people talking in the background But it was damn convincing at first. Just enough to make me suspicious but also embarassed to ask if she was real...because asking a real person "Are you real?" just feels rude...right? When I did ask if she was a robot, she sounded genuinely offended in her response. She didn't actually scoff, but the tone was equivalent to, "*scoff* No? Are you crazy? That's crazy." And I laughed and said "Sorry," and she accepted my apology and asked for more information. But when I started asking for more details, she started giving me the "I'm sorry, our reception must be bad and I didn't hear that..." But it was the same canned response each time. I only feel embarrassed that they got my name and address out of me.

SPJAirplay is causing some interesting splinters in KiA. 1. Some people think that ethics in journalism are what GG should be focused on, and that was what SPJAirplay was about. These people point to the morning panel of Airplay as being a success. 2. Other people think that ethics don't matter and are just a vehicle for fighting SJWs, feminists, etc. These people think that Airplay was a failure, in part or in total, because the PM panel (starring Milo and Sommers) was "too heavily moderated" to be about ethics. I guess most of the GG reps tried to make the PM panel about a culture war, and Koretzky shut them down repeatedly and asked them to "stay on topic." Airplay is making both groups more vocal. Which means that on KiA, people within GG who say "It's about ethics..." are being shouted down by their own fellow members and told "No it's not, it was never about that - you're just an SJW like the rest of them, you don't get it." This exact split has played out before. The last person who ran KiA was a redditor named Hatman or something. While he was in charge, he and the mod team tried to implement a rule that would flair all SJW focused threads as "off topic." A flair on reddit, if you don't know, is like a little label that appears next to the thread title. It's how active subs label things and create filters - so if you go to a subreddit about recipes and only want to look at dinners, for example, you can just look for the dinner flair to make searching easier. The reason for wanting to add this flair was to make KiA more focused - on supposed ethics. There was even talk of splitting off all SJW focused posts into a different subreddit, so that KiA could focus exclusively on ethics. Anyway, to make a long story short - Hatman was basically abused day in and day out for being a "fascist" who wanted to censor content by labelling it as off-topic. He got the royal treatment. One time he tweeted something polite to Brianna Wu, and that day there was a big thread about what a traitor he was and how he was selling out the community. It was just a tweet that had nothing to do with anything...but Wu is "the enemy" in anti-SJW circles, so of course he was crucified. He had to take a vacation to de-stress from the whole thing. And when he came back, he basically threw his hands up and said, "This is not the community I thought it was. It's different now. And I'm no longer the right person to lead it." So, that's just two times that I've noticed. But it's interesting to me that in both cases, when the community was pressed on the same point (is GG about ethics or fighting "SJWs"?) it bent at the same angle, like a sagging piece of plywood. I doubt any of that will surprise anyone in this thread...but that's how things seem to be moving. And I could be wrong - it's just my impression based on what I've read and seen. Corrections welcome! Edit: Basically what Vainamoinen said above. I'm sure they'll have much more astute things to say than me once they watch the panel! I've only been following the reaction.

This is a super old thread, so I hope it's ok to post here! I bought and played Chroma Squad last night - it's a bunch of fun! I'm only into the "second season" of my show (so like two hours), and I kind of rushed through it without naming anything to get a feel for the mechanics. I'm going to start a new game tonight and name all my characters, studio, mega-zord, etc. Looking forward to it. - It's got a light-hearted, in-joke, 4th wall breaking tone to it (reminds me a bit of NIS games). The story is charming so far. - You can name your actors and choose their suit colors! At the beginning of the game you choose which actors you want from a pre-set list - each has different abilities, so there's some replay value and strategy. Also you get a mecha and you can name that and customize its parts and stuff. - Each level is an episode within a season. Between levels you can buy new equipment (props!) for your actors, customize your mecha, interact with fans, choose bonuses for the next level through your marketing team, etc. The different levels of the simulator feel well thought out so far. - Levels are usually "beat up all the bad guys!" but each level also has unique conditions that you can earn bonus points for completing. So for example, in one level the bonus conditions are to beat all the minions before attacking the boss at all. Points earned transform into new fans and money at the end of the level. - Gameplay: it's a top down tactical rpg like Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc. Your actors don't level up, but they unlock new skills every season based on their role. Every season seems to unlock two skills per actor, but you can only use one skill per tier at a time. - The Teamwork system is cool - you can give actors the order to go into Teamwork mode on their turn. When in Teamwork mode, an actor gets into a ready pose. Other actors can springboard off of their hands for ACROBATICS to move further. Also, if an actor is in Teamwork mode next to an enemy and a second actor attacks that enemy, they perform a dual strike. You have five party members, so you can do triple attacks, etc too. If all five of you attack an enemy at once, you activate a powerful FINISHING STRIKE! I like it! It has three difficulty modes - the easiest is for "playing just for style," where statistics don't matter and you just want to dig into the simulation. There's a normal and hard mode too. It feels pretty easy so far on normal mode. I might crank the difficulty up.

I used to joke with my friends that queueing is like waiting in line, but pleasant. Like when you're in a line, you hate it the whole time - "Ugh, this waiting sucks! And the line is huge! And I have things to do and places to be!" But when you queue, it's just a pleasant and patient experience - "My what a nice day, so good to have some time to breathe and think. And at the end of it I get a hotdog or something! Life is grand..." Maybe that's mostly just a dumb play on how I, as an American, view British folks though - more patient, content to slow down, probably waiting with purpose! Queues just sound so much nicer than lines to me. It's a fun, quirky little word that you can play with. Lines r dumb, queue 4 ever.

Thanks for the podblast, Thumbs! Really enjoyed it! Also, malkav11, thanks for linking that interivew - didn't realize there was one! I can understand now why that IM convo was in if it felt necessary during play-testing. Works for some people, not for others I guess. I kind of wish it was left out, myself, but I understand it a little better now.

I think it's good that it exists so people have a safe place to vent, and I keep up with it. But I don't post because I don't think I have anything more meaningful to add. GG is a reactionary movment that I'm disgusted with and I try to do what I can where I can to help (which is probably not enough), but...mostly I keep up with GG now just to have a pulse to monitor when and where the worst parts of the internet will flare up next.

https://twitter.com/randfish/status/628091367768457216 This is a guy who is big in the search engine optimization field. Does a lot of experiments with how Google and social media work. Thought this was an interesting one - I guess he quietly added "feminist" to his twitter bio to see what would happen and...surprise! Nothing good

I was thinking earlier today about all the games I love for reasons that seem beyond their "intent." What games have you really enjoyed and maybe thought, on reflection, that you enjoyed them for unconventional reasons or played them "wrong" and loved it? I'll give some examples of my own! Lots of fond memories: I loved Mario Sunshine, but not for the levels or any of the actual main gameplay. I had a ton of fun riding Yoshi around Delfino Plaza, throwing fruit at random people, kicking that spiny fruit around the city like a soccer ball, swimming, etc. Just generally dicking around in the hub world was way more fun for me than any of the "real" challenges or running through levels. My sister and I also loved to play Kirby Air Ride's City Trial mode on its sandbox setting - where there was no time limit, no power-ups, no challenges, and every ride was available in a "garage" under the city. Usually the City Trial mode has you riding around on power stars, trying to upgrade your speed, offense, defense, etc for a challenge that happens at the end of a 5 - 15 minute period. But my sister and I played the sandbox non-challenging mode for hundreds of hours just making up stories and roleplaying as Kirbys living in a city. We'd nickname different rides and gave each colored Kirby a different personality and life story. I also played a lot of Chrono Trigger and FFVI on the SNES as a kid...and I beat them, but one of my other favorite things to do was just leave the game running in certain parts so that I could hear my favorite music. Then I'd get out the LEGOs or something and play with those instead, using the game as a jukebox. I actually have hours of the FFVI soundtrack recorded on casette tape from when I was younger, haha. My mother said I needed to stop wasting electricity by leaving the TV on all the time "without even playing," so I decided I should record it all at once and use the walkman.

I've finally reached the last labyrinth in Persona Q and man, the story got heavier than I expected it to. But it was really good. I love that the characters and story can be so genuine and touching. It just felt really relevant to a lof of things that I've been feeling and thinking about in my post-college life. Very cathartic. I didn't have any expectations for this game, and when I first heard about it I thought it would just be a cheap fan-fiction style crossover...which, YMMV, maybe it is...but it's gone above and beyond what I thought it could be and I'm loving every minute. Can't wait to finish it out! I'm even considering a hard mode replay with the P4 protag.

Some more tribute art: http://imgur.com/gallery/SjPyW

I never really knew much about Satoru Iwata...but the more I learn, the more I realize that his passing is a great loss for the industry. He seemed like a really sweet, genuine kind of guy. And also very smart, ambitious, and creative! I've been listening to a few videos at work: His 2005 GDC Keynote (in 5 parts - this should go to a playlist): youtube.com/watch?v=w9HUMt2rrOI&index=1&list=PL38B2AD26CFE4C796 His appearance on Game Center CX: youtube.com/watch?v=63mG4k-VIyY

Wait there's a woman! Oh, nevermind. It's CEO Barbie.

Definitely dangerous! They call it an ale on the bottle, but I think of it as more of a wine cooler (rootbeer cooler?) because it's so tasty and not-alcohol-tasting. Glad to hear you liked it, jennegatron Apparently, in Illinois only, the same company has a "Grandma's Apple Pie Beer" that I'd love to try if I ever go ramblin' some day! Also a limited edition 22 oz "bomber" which is nearly 20% abv?! I probably wouldn't drink that one, haha. A week or so ago I tried Two Roads Worker's Comp saison, but thought it was kinda meh...but maybe I just don't like saisons! Has anyone tried their other beers, and are they any good?

I think that often for a company like Teefury, the penalties for getting caught are not as great as the potential reward for getting away with it. So naturally they choose to try and get away with it. It's pretty gross! Also just another chapter in the long saga of artists not being respected for their work.

Please please talk more about Her Story (with spoilers!) in the next podcast! I would love to listen to more about what the Thumbs think about it!

I encourage anyone who likes alcohol and root beer to try this: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24798/86621/ because it tastes EXACTLY like root beer. It's uncanny. My pops and I discovered it recently and now I always try to bring a 6 pack with me when I visit home so we can share some. Small Town Brewery has some other interesting sounding beers that I haven't tried yet - but I really want to! They're definitely on my radar. In other news, I am a dumb idiot who enjoys 7&7s (Seagram's 7 and 7UP, a lemon-lime soda) and I'm having some of that now. Except I had to substitute the 7UP with "Perk Up," a local gas/grocery station chain (Stewart's) version of knock-off 7UP. A bartender I ain't.

Haha, Stuart that's the one. Caught it on youtube, not live - it was fun! I have the same opinion about this as you do. More so the more I reflect on my experience. But I didn't know that when I first watched the stream, and I didn't go looking for it - just happened to be something a person I follow played live. But thinking in another way, what makes streaming this game so different than playing it with someone else physically next to you watching along and taking notes? If a stream was very invested in this game, and the whole chat was working together to take notes and talk amongst each other...that could be cool! What if they voted on search terms? I think that could be a neat stream! But it'd rely on everyone being very invested in the mystery and it'd only work as a live experience. I think watching it played/streamed emphasized the writing and acting over the gameplay, since I didn't actually play it. And because of that I had a different experience than most people. I don't want to change anyone's opinion about the game or put forth that my perspective is better or even interesting at all - just thought I'd share since I think it is different. Yeah, the format was part of what made me initially feel like this was trying to be a very serious game and more than just a crazy mystery. I've also followed the press about it loosely, and it's been hyped as "the thing to reinvigorate FMV games," and "the next big art-game," so I guess I was expecting something to truly blow my mind 100%. Maybe my own expectations were part of what sank it for me, too!

I watched a stream of this, which is admittedly not the best way to be introduced to this game and probably also not the best way to present it...but the streamer started out being totallly open to the game with no knowledge of what it was about, and I think she gave it a fair chance until it really started to get on her nerves. The plot and the acting were what sunk this for me. And as someone watching it on a stream, I didn't get to experience the mechanics - so I wound up hating Her Story. There are just so many scenes where the writing is so bad That I was cringing. At first I didn't like the actress, but now I think I'm judging her too harshly. I feel like the writing was so bad that no actor could have delivered it in a convincing way. But there were some things about her performance that kind of irked me too, and felt really hollow. There must be something wrong with me though because everyone else I read or talk to says that she was amazing! Anyway, despite my disappointment I could tell that the mechanics are special. And it must have taken an amazing amount of time and thought to design and put this whole thing together! I'd love to see the design of Her Story used to tell a more competent story. Sam Barlow's writing just doesn't do it for me I guess. I feel like he should stick to mechanics and get other folks to write instead. Sorry to be so negative To contribute a positive recommendation - this isn't a good game for streaming or watching! I get the impression that you need to experience it, otherwise you'll only get the worst of it.

Here's an admin's comment on where "the line" is and what these subs did to make them worthy of banning while others were left alone: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removing_harassing_subreddits/cs25u4n It sounds like these subs were places where organized harrassment was taking place. I'm not terribly surprised to learn that. I've heard rumors that this began on Imgur. Imgur began deleting posts with the tag "fatpeoplehate," and when the sub r/fatpeoplehate found out about it they looked up the real-life identities of the Imgur people and began sending them death threats and generally being assholes to them. Imgur recently began removing a lot of pictures that were either NSFW, harrassing, or considered hate speech from its database and won't be hosting certain stuff again in the future, so the whole "twisted libertarian version of free speech" issue was a hot button topic at the time. So that probably boiled over into this. Reddit and imgur are almost the same place to me, they're so closely tied. But, I'll stress, that's just hearsay to me so far. It's weird, because based on those admin's comments... a sub which is devoted purely to hating certain types of people would be perfectly ok as long as the hate never leaves Reddit. Or maybe I'm not understanding that correctly. Anyway...Reddit is ok for skimming sometimes. But also for every beautiful flower you find, you're bound to step in two or three heaps of dog muck.

Aye, that's true, I agree. I realized I hadn't actually read that account's tweets since it first started, so I've been checking in on it for the past week or so. And that's what it is, like you say, a bad parody.

Ping is pretty cool! It's really handy for tight spots. Cloaking is also really handy for that. Once I got cornered by a guard and was like "Aw, man, I don't wanna kill this dude..." but then realized I had a cloaking rig so "poof!" I vanished and ran for the elevator instead. Internationale is amazing - I only played on beginner difficulty so far, but I can imagine that an Internationale with a maxed out hacking skill is one of the most useful agents in the game. Being able to draw power from consoles remotely was a HUGE benefit in the final mission. Because like Ninety-Three says, there's a ton of stuff to hack. Being able to blunder around and draw power from every room just by skirting the walls of the main room saves a lot of time. And in every other mission, it was still a really great tool to have. Also, for hacking, I found a cool item called a prototype chip (I think?). I forget exactly what it was called. But basically, it allows you to store up to 10 PWR in it and then you can carry it on an agent who can hack stuff with the chip instead of Incognita. The PWR that you store on the chip stays constant between missions. I found it early enough that I was able to store max PWR on it throughout the course of the game, and then it was a great asset in the final mission when I started running out of PWR.