Vulpes Absurda

Roll 20 is fairly easy for roiling dice but I've found the table top portion pretty finicky. But I'm free this Sunday if you want to go over it. It would give me a chance to test out my mic and web cam. As for groups Hunters works a little better for me time wise but I can do mages as well. No interest in being a vampire, though it's fine if those two groups are the same. Just slot me in wherever works best for you.

I have fiddled with sculptris a bit. That's how I created bat pig:

Hmm. I've never been that interested in the darkness games but I'd be willing to give it a go on a Saturday or Sunday. Depending on how many books I'd have to buy. Also I'm a tad disappointed that no one picked the game where you can be a Moogle. I mean, come on: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/4/47/FF12_-_Moogle_Model.png/revision/latest?cb=20130628214851

Ooo that looks fun! I should look into that software. *Googles ZBrush* *Looks up price* *Dies laughing/crying*

The only thing I know about the game is that in its kickstarter it said it wasn't going to be free to play and then came out as free to play. People were not pleased. Still, I'm sure there was a reason for it and I'm glad to hear it's turned out well. Might have to give it a go at some point.

Robert Yang's games keep getting weirder and weirder.

Actually with a good graphics card it's not too bad. Minecraft's issue is that A: It's based in Java. Which is bad. And B: It's almost entirely CPU bound, and not in a way that uses multi core CPUs well. But it does mean that the Shaders are free to use the GPU.

I do love those shaders. Sadly they conflict with some of the mods on the server I play on.

I finally got around to Watching Toy Story. I don't have a write up, but I did live tweet it starting here if anyone wants to read that. I don't know that I'll do a write up as honestly the whole movie feels a bit slight and anything I want to cover I did on twitter. Might copy paste that over for archiving later though.

Yeah I'm not sure that email could realistically have been more disappointing. And it's about what I expected to be honest. Here's my full email for context: First I would like to apologize for using this support forum for this issue but I could find no where else to send it. And for reasons I get into in the content of this letter did not wish to make it a public statement. But I felt I needed to send this to someone in the hopes that I could at least reach someone. At least then I could say I tried. I noticed recently that the official XCOM account on twitter has retweeted a video by YouTuber Totalbiscuit playing a preview build of XCOM 2 and I wished to email you about my discomfort with this. John Bain is known to have made remarkably transphobic statements such as "If he was misled into sleeping with a man, it's entirely possible you could claim this guy is a rape victim, for instance." ( this statement is found in this soundcloud file: https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/pillars-of-transphobia though it is far from the only case of it from him and more can be found readily on the internet)This is a statement that fundamentally denies the identity of Trans people, women especially, is incredibly cruel and contributes to a culture that leads to things like being able to justify the murder of a trans person by claiming they lied about their gender. This is a man so toxic that I know of several people, myself included, who have either decided to not buy XCOM 2 or have begun to seriously reconsider buying XCOM 2 simply because of how incredibly unwelcome that retweet makes them feel. And I can’t blame them in the least. This is on top of him all but sending his legion of fans to harass people he disagrees with (example: https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/574706488154939393), which by the way is why I am emailing and not posting in this any public space, as I do not wish to face any of the harassment that has been sent towards others. And said this “Or perhaps that's just what happens when you find your journalistic inspiration at the bottom of a bottle. Sigh.” about Leigh Alexander after she showed up to a late night E3 stream supposedly drunk. This is not to mention all the times he has come out in support in of various gamergate causes (as evidenced here” https://medium.com/@SvizraLion/everything-totalbiscuit-got-wrong-in-way-too-many-words-4df407e8113c#.besgdmsao ). And while I understand that this was likely just a simple case of a PR person doing their best to promote a game that a lot of people have worked very hard on, and likely to some degree depend on the success of for their continued employment, I felt the need to write to you about this. This may have been a simple mistake, but it is not a simple issue and I wish to make my feelings known about it, in the hopes that someone at Firaxis shares my concerns and can in the future help to not endorse in any way this man that so many feel so uncomfortable with. Thank you very much for your time. I hope this email was more then just a waste of it. As I see no way this could have been a Firaxis employee I can't say it's actually changed my opinion on Firaxis or rather or not I'll buy XCOM 2. But I will say that while I might be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this time, I will not be if they do this again.

So I wasn't going to post this response I got but it's a good example of "Games should just be fun!" so I'll take out the name and post it here for a bit. If anyone finds this inappropriate for some reason let me know and I'll take it down. Hello Commander My Email Address which I'm not posting here, We are sorry that you feel this way about TotalBisquit, but we are not affiliated with him nor do we endorse him. His was just a early access previewer, which hundreds of people we're given access to. I understand how you may not want to confront him on certain topics since it can cause you to be harassed by his fans. They mostly start when people bring serious discussions into a relaxed environment. I chat mod for a few sites and the rules I keep are the same across all of them. No Politics, No Real Religious talk. (Praising the sun and Lord Helix on those sites are fine since they are game memes.) Back on topic though.. It would be disheartening to hear that you may be missing out on all the great things XCOM2 has to offer. I myself am mostly looking forward to all the customization that will be available, and new enemies such as the Gatekeeper. Thank you very much for taking the time to email us and letting us know of your concerns. If you have further issues with stuff related to this please contact An Email Address that could come back to whoever sent me this email which I won't post here I still hope to see you on the battlefield to help reclaim the Earth February 5th. The only thing I'll add is that this is almost certainly a 2K not Firaxis employee.

Is this where I post all my Idle Thumbs fan OC's? There has to be a place for Chris Breadon Hyphen Rodkin Esquire some where on this forum

Damn Alan Rickman too? This year is off to a real shitty start. :/ Also I don't think this one warrants it's own thread so I guess here will do. RIP Brian Bedford voice of Disney's Robin Hood.

Okay letter is sent off with a note about why I would send it to a support forum. Though I found that on a steam forum post as the only known way to contact Firaxis directly aside from snail mail, so hopefully it reaches Firaxis and not some poor 2K employee who has to go over that mail.

I can't seem to find an email adress the email. :/ I guess it's a sign of the times. But it makes this whole thing a pain given that any meaningful attempt to let them know how I feel could just end with me getting harassed by his fan base. Or not cause I'm a white dude. But I'd still rather not take the chance. Looks like this is the best I can do: http://support.2k.com/hc/en-us/requests/new If anyone wants to send them an email that's where I'll be sending mine. I'll maybe post the contents of the email here and then leave the rest out of this thread.

From his Facebook feed as confirmed by his son: "January 10 2016 - David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle with cancer. While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family’s privacy during their time of grief."

I may well do it as soon as I can find out how best to contact them. I could try finding the email for marketing. I know tweeting at them would be pointless. And I don't see how posting on any official forums would do anything but get the thread locked.

I didn't even think about it being a preview copy that they had to have given him. I guess my question now is do I try to contact the XCOM people for some sort of comment? Try to get a hold of someone who could do that and actually get a response? The cynic in me tells me it won't matter and the realist in me tells me I'm right.

Yeah it seems to have been largely swept under the rug as no one wants to be the one to question a dying man. But his ragging transphobia really should be better known by now. As someone who is not directly effected by it's easy enough to assume the marketing person doesn't know and is just doing their job, but it's hard to think about my friends who are effected and feel good about it.

I'm bothered that they would retweet a Total Biscuit video then I am with what I've seen of the game. A single retweet fof someone I consider truly awful might not warrant a boycot, but it doesn't exactly endear me to it either.

I just saw the official twitter account for XCOM just retweeted a total Biscuit video and man, that killed a good bit of my enthusiasm for this one. :/ I guess I'll have to turn to the new Mass Effect for all my sexy alien bods needs. SEXY VOICE, I'M NOT WEARING A THING. WHAT ABOUT YOU BLASTO?

Is it just me or does Steve Gaynor look like that guy who's trying to look like Tyler Durden except that he's not an asshole and can actually pull it off? Just me?

This Stepmania speed runner is really impressive. Though I suspect he won't be able to use his hands in like a year or two with the arthritis he must be developing.

I didn't even check to see if any of the games on my list game out this year or not. I figure if I played it this year it counts.

I wrote up my game of the year list but can't seem to get spoiler tags to work so I'll just post a link to my blog. And for those who just want the list: 1:Bloodborne 2:Destiny 3:Fallout 4 4:Etrian Odyssey Untold 2: The Knight Of Fafnir 5/6 tie: Shadowrun: Hong Kong and Undertale 7:Puzzle And Dragons: Super Mario Edition 8:Downwell 9:Gravity Ghost 10: Steven Universe: Attack The Light