Chris

True Detective Weekly 6: Church in Ruins With an impressive infiltration-gone-wrong setpiece spanning much of its final third, this episode of True Detective Season 2 was among our favorite yet. The investigation chugged along, and our principal characters got to dive into some heady emotional material (well, maybe not Paul). We're only two episodes away from the end, and it feels like we're well on our way to wrapping things up. Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

Nice thread idea!

Esports Today 8/4/15: Looking to TI5, Predicting the LCS Playoffs Welcome to Esports Today! In our inaugural episode, hosts Andrew Groen and Rob Zacny discuss The International's group stage and what to expect from the main tournament. Then, they take a look at their favorites in the StarCraft II GSL Season 3 round of 32. Finally, some predictions for the League of Legends LCS quarterfinals, and the state of League heading into Worlds. Games Discussed: Dota 2, StarCraft II, League of Legends Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

Discuss it!

Hey everyone! I split off a bunch of posts from the main Dota 2 thread to create a TI5-specific thread as part of our new pro & competitive games forum, launched in honor of our newest podcast, Esports Today! Subscribe today! http://esports.today/

Hey everyone! I just split off TI5 discussion into its own thread in our newly created Pro and Competitive Gaming forum: https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/10327-the-international-5-ti5-dota-2/ Launched in honor of our newest podcast, Esports Today! Subscribe today! http://esports.today/

I don't think we were speculating robots would be "evil" per se, just that there's the potential of humans losing control and having unintended consequences, whose motivations would be not so much malicious as unpredictable and therefore possibly harmful.

Welcome new folks! We strive to be not awful!

For me the problem is even more fundamental: I absolutely 100% don't give a shit about using "different bears." I want to succeed because I did a good job at the game itself, not because I did a good job and also had "good bears." They're just arbitrary score bonuses you get for doing nothing. You could play a much worse game and get a better score because you have a better bear. It's a big turnoff for me. It doesn't add anything to the actual experience of playing. I always just pick whatever random bears aren't on a cooldown because it's so incredibly boring to me to have to look at all my available bears and determine which ones I should use.

True Detective Weekly 5: Other Lives After last week's climactic gun battle, pieces of the mystery are coming together like they never have before. It's a big reset for True Detective Season 2—for its characters, for their investigation, and for the show as a whole. And that feels refreshing in many ways—but is it too much of a good thing? Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

Yes!

Yep, this is correct; a few people have pointed it out to me. I was aware of this, and even mentioned it in a previous episode, but for some reason it totally slipped my mind this time, since it had been so long since I actually had any pregnant people in my base.

Welcome, new folks!

For the most part the game is actually pretty fuckup-proof. A lot of the experiences I've had are because I'm bumping into the systemic walls that the designers very deliberately created because they DID think through the systems they chose and realized that without such walls, things would actually get genuinely broken or exploitable. I think they were really smart when it comes to how they limited scope in a mobile game.

Does anyone remember when Young Steve actually really did say "zingle de dingle dingle!" in an early podcast? I'm actually asking when that happened.

jennegatron: Please write in to questions@idlethumbs.net mentioning Kid Pix! I have a stupid 10-second thing to say about Kid Pix on the podcast and I will forget to say it otherwise. It's not worth bringing up on its own.

Sorry the podcast is so late! Here's at least the discussion thread for episode 4: https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/10296-true-detective-weekly-4-down-will-come/

Welcome, new people!

Idle Thumbs 217: To Have a Life You strap on your VR headset and log on to the terminal. It's a Windows 95 system: you know this. You rifle through dozens of unsorted video clips revealing a fractured prophecy of inevitable robot domination. Sinister, shadowy figures dance and leap in the periphery of your vision. You glance down to admire your virtual arms. They're huge. Things Discussed: Her Story, LEGO Jurassic World, Batman: Arkham Knight, Spider-Man 2: The Game, Fallout Shelter, Piloteer, Faceted Flight, Tales from the Borderlands, Sleep No More, DisneyQuest, Aladdin (SNES), Aladdin (Genesis), artificial intelligence Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

FWIW "apoplectic" didn't feel that outrageous to me. As far as five-dollar words go, I think it's on the more common side. And I think it fit better than a word like "furious" or "incensed" or something else that communicates intense anger. Just saying "fucking pissed" would work but is also kind of a non-choice in the modern profanity-laden gritty TV landscape.

Hi everyone!

I've played this and I guess I just didn't remember it was by the same guy. Write in to questions@idlethumbs.net about this!

Haha, whoa!

Well, sort of. The author of the article expressly asks why nobody at the studio questioned this artistic choice. Perhaps they did. I mean, maybe they had months of discussions about it. How would we know? As someone who makes games (or literally any creative thing that is meant for other people to enjoy), I am painfully aware that it is impossible to communicate through the work itself all of the discussion and argument and iteration that goes into any particular choice. That absolutely does not get anyone off the hook for making an ultimately bad choice, but to question creators' motivations or to assume ignorance or lack of thought is meaningless. Judge the actual work itself, not the entirely imagined circumstances of its creation. If a game makes somebody uncomfortable, they should interrogate why, and that interrogation can be illuminating for others who do not share their experience. But they have direct access only to the work itself; access to the creators' minds is vague at best. The fact that the author was concerned about the game stepping into thoughtlessly racialized territory, but the game seemingly not actually doing so, to me suggests its creators likely DID act thoughtfully, and not the opposite.