Jake

Idle Thumbs 118: A Simple Litter Did you know the President's job is to sign legislature and collect orbs? Did you know the real purpose of the BigDog is to carry Lords? Special guest Danielle Riendeau of Polygon joins us for a discussion of deep space survival, wilderness survival, and difficult to pronounce words. Games Discussed: Saint's Row IV, Rymdkapsel, Don't Starve, Crusader Kings II Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

WHAT. What.

Many unity asset store models include the fbx file which can be pulled into most 3d packages.

Yeah I thought Sean's advice was great too. It may not be applicable to that exact situation from that specific reader mail, but realizing that you CAN move from one group of friends to another over time is a thought that sometimes doesn't occur to you automatically. For sure, just you have to ask yourself at a certain point what the in to out ratio is and if maintaining a relationship (even a friendship) is long-term causing more damage than good stuff, just to keep it afloat.

That's not true - MannCo Store weapons & defensive items do different things (for instance the boots which give you 0 damage from rocket jumping). It's a more traditional Free To Play item store, but I see people playing with such varied loadouts that it doesn't seem like there is a heavily heavily optimized ultra-build per class. It lets you optimize towards defense, or being a heavier more tank-like version of your class, or just lets you do weird stuff (like the demoman sword which slowly powers up as you collect heads from decapitations). ALSO the game has really regular unrestricted free item drops simply by playing. I think this is similar to Dota. I don't know if there is a linear timer in TF2, or some more complicated system to determine when you get a drop. I remember it being more complex than "how long you play," because people would abuse it to idle for items. In my experience (now out of date I admit), the huge variety of items makes the game more daunting to get into and more confusing if you're not up to date on all the weapons, but it doesn't seem to throw the gameplay balance because you can't equip items with the express purpose of leveling up, you just level... different.

A new episode! With Nels Anderson! https://www.idlethumbs.net/idlethumbs/episodes/molymoto

I read the Stanley Parables message as something like "there's no optimal way to do this* so just enjoy what's happening in front of you and don't fret about what could/should have been happening instead." * "this" being "make a video game/play a video game/tell a story/experience a story" for starters. I think it's easy to have a cynical read on the Stanley Parable, but for that you have to ignore it clearly reveling in its own fun and delight around every turn. (Merus your read might be closer to the intended one, if there is an intended read.)

Yes that is true, but the game is about neither of those things - or at least it is not a about their resolution.

I used one of those widescreen Trinatron SGI displays for years but it slowly drifted to yellow irreparably and I was unable to use it for design work anymore so I recycled it. (I think mine was from the late '90s, not as new as yours.) The guys at the recycling center were stoked to get it since it was such a weird thing.

Yeah its only on the talk page and in the archive. Fortunately it's on the blog.

The reason is to be complete in its presentation of information, I think.

Whoa it's only an hour. It felt very long when we were recording it.

The fact that Dota uses the nicknames in game across the game seems simple enough a reason for why commentators should use them. If the game used real names (like sports uniforms which print the players last name on their back) it would be an easy call in that direction too. If a player wishes to be called their real name they can set that as their display name. What is the complicating factor in this discussion? (Asking genuinely, not rhetorically or to be a dick.)

Honourable Schoolboy is good but it's a side trip from the story of TTSS and Smiley's People and is not often referenced in Smiley's People.

It's just a cheesy font choice. Doesn't match the art, looks cheap. Baboo.

No matter what, it ends with a shitty font. Classic.

Banning this list would make the podcast impossible. Gross/worst.

Wait, you mean Steve's idea, right?

Says in the ep it was recorded at GDC. After it was announced irrational was closing, but right before burial at sea part 2 came out.

Did anyone else cry when Guybrush Threepwood sacrificed himself to save Donald Duck from some anime bullshit?

Feels too soon to judge that, as I feel like -- given how the most recent episode ended -- we're only barely in the setup phase of this season. But even in the setup phase, it feels like Dawn and Peggy and Joan are positioned on trajectories to have a lot of agency over the firm and the story, even if little has happened so far.

25 years of this

We didn't know what we were stepping into there, so we made sure to linger on and repeat it as many times as possible.

It means go for it! We ordered more shirts than we had orders for, and will re-stock as necessary over time.

Idle Thumbs 154: Super Good It is the present. John Q. Video Games comes home from a hard day at work making video games, ready to kick back. He turns on the latest console, in which he plays a video game developer who turns on a PC and plays a video game. He wakes up screaming and rates the experience four out of five stars; his rating is duly recorded. With Nick Breckon as Video Games. Things Discussed: Civilization Beyond Earth, Black Flag, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Async. Corp, FTL: Advanced Edition Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed