Chris

I think the goal was to eliminate that decision paralysis that often occurs in Diablo II where you just don't really have a very good sense of what your skill and attribute points will mean long term unless you figure a bunch of stuff out or find a build online, in which case you yourself aren't making many meaningful decisions in the first place. The intended experience of Diablo II is obviously that you just upgrade yourself as you go along and make interesting decisions all along the way, but it becomes pretty obvious as you play the game that doing so has the potential to waste a ton of points due to a lack of information or foresight. This is particularly true with attributes. For any given character build, there is clearly a pretty objectively "perfect" attribute allocation, depending on the needs of the skills and equipment you have, so if you want to actually do the best thing for your character, once again, there aren't a lot of meaningful choices for you to make. To combat that they could have done something with a similar system and the ability to respec more easily, or something, but I think they wanted a system that felt more native to the ability to try things on the fly. I think where they landed is really smart and a pretty innovative take on skills. I definitely do miss being able to pump a bunch of points into skills that I know I want to dedicate my character to, but I give Blizzard credit for trying something different and sticking with it. That part of the game, much to my surprise, is the one about which I have the fewest complaints. I have a bunch of OTHER problems with the game that it's too late at night for me to start getting into now, but they're more tonal than anything else.

Not the cleanest split, but it seemed like there was enough discussion specifically about Starship Troopers to split it out into a thread!

There are many scenes of great beauty in Infinite Jest. However there is also a particular scene that is seared into my memory as one of the most disturbingly gruesome images from any work I have ever experienced--not in the sense that it is straight up the grossest thing to ever occur, but it sticks in my brain in a uniquely graphic way, thanks to the language used to describe it and the state of mind of the character at the time. It is when The realization of what's going on in that scene is just horrifying to me. Also, involving the same character, when , that scene just sticks in my mind as both physically and emotionally distressing to the goddamn maximum. God, this book.

I'd be surprised if that were actually the case. The number of total possible combinations of skills and runes must be astronomically high.

In case you haven't noticed this option, turn on Elective Mode in the gameplay options. It allows you to associate any skill with any skill slot, rather than needing to stick to one skill from each category.

It's not up to us to say what you're allowed to do! Why not purchase said audiobook using this handy Idle Thumbs referral link? http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609987985/?tag=idlthu-20 (Clearly what you want is a physical four-CD set. Obviously.)

The more of Diablo III I play, the more I think the skill system is actually pretty brilliant. The one main thing I miss at this point is the ability to decide "I'm going to be a master of this particular skill" and pump a lot of points into it. There's no real equivalent to that anymore--the rune system only has a bit of that to it--and I wish there were, but I can live with it.

Jesus Christ. What an amazing trailer. Yeah PT Anderson is fantastic. Definitely one of my favorite modern directors as well. The range he's demonstrated over his career is pretty incredible. One could easily imagine after his first few films him settling into a samey rut like his contemporary of the same surname, but he's really broadened hugely to great effect. Really impressive and awesome.

I agree. Just saw this for the first time. I was surprised how nice it looked. Had no idea until I saw your reply that it's being shot by Roger Deakins. For that matter, had no idea until I looked it up that it's being directed by Sam Mendes. I guess I'm interested in this film.

I've pretty much only ever browsed the Thumbs forums using the New Posts button. The new View New Content feature seems way better than that, so I'm set.

I'll just modify your account to post only in this style, so then you won't need to worry about selecting it in the editor manually.

Unfortunately you'll have to throw your telephone away and purchase a replacement telephone.

I just split these posts from Books, Books, Books out into a new thread mainly as a test to see if that would work. I guess it did!

I just killed that. I don't think it's a system we plan on using.

We have no idea.

Yeah I totally agree with this. I never had a Golden Gate Bridge commute, but when I was working as a journalist and still living in Berkeley, I had to drive to San Francisco all the time for work and I never got tired of crossing the Bay Bridge. I still have lots of positive associations with that and enjoy crossing that bridge. X-axis? Not Y-axis? (I'm probably thinking about this wrong in some way.)

I think the grid would bother you less if you lived in one for a while. I (think I) know what you mean, in that a grid feels less natural and organic than a city that was unplanned and slowly grew out from a central core. But what I think is truly great about urban landscapes is not their natural geography, per se, but more the neighborhoods and scenes that spring up entirely as a result of the vagaries of human nature and decisions that branch over many decades. It's why a New Yorker can hear "5th and 40th" or "7th and 144th" and instantly be flooded with emotional associations--sure, those actual descriptors are just impersonal labels for points on a grid that was arbitrarily laid out centuries ago, but what's really important is how humanity has layered on top of that grid to create a living, vibrant city. Anyway, maybe that's not even what you meant! But I've thought about this a lot and that's my take on it. I love cities.

I will say that I suspect if you're someone with conservative views, San Francisco probably seems a whole lot less inclusive and tolerant. I don't have much sympathy for someone who is ostracized due to being bigoted, as Sean suggests, but I imagine a lot of people with legitimate and thoughtful conservative viewpoints probably don't find this city a place where their opinions are generally received with commensurate thoughtfulness and tolerance. Despite being a strong liberal myself, I find that state of affairs pretty unfortunate, because there are definitely components of this city (such as its municipal government) that I think would be dramatically improved by a bit more balance.

Remo#1493

I found myself looking those terms up this morning. It's amazing how uncommon information about that meaning of those terms is--unsurprisingly, it gets pretty drowned out by information about their respective namesakes.

Really liked this episode. Brimmicombe-Wood is a man who is interesting by way of being interested about things, and that's the sort of person I enjoy listening to. I also appreciated Bruce's interviewing, which was very low key and restrained while supported by plenty of knowledge about the subject matter.

I don't read enough nonfiction probably. We expect the cast to be mainly fiction but I think it would be good for us to branch out from time to time. Last year I did read and enjoy Masters & Commanders: http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Commanders-Roosevelt-Churchill-Alanbrooke/dp/0713999691 It's not really biography per se, but it does very deeply delve into the motives, personalities, and histories of its four principal subjects.

If you're capable of separating worthwhile feedback from less worthwhile feedback, why do you think folks at Double Fine wouldn't be able to? I don't think any of us are going to be thinking "Well, this here is a terrible suggestion, but I don't see any alternatives, so I guess we'll just have to adopt it entirely." As Tim points out in episode 2 (I think), every game (or any project) has a bunch of people suggesting things that they think would be appropriate to the project--they're the people on the team. Those people are much closer to the creative director/leads than people on forums are, and yet many (most) of their suggestions STILL don't make it into the game, because ultimately the leads are the people who have to make those calls. (Also, most of the leads' ideas won't ultimately make it into the game. The stuff that actually ends up in a game is whittled down enormously from the total volume of ideas/feedback/assets/etc.) That doesn't mean that input isn't crucial and valuable, or that it isn't being taken into account. And obviously there's a massive difference in scale between the development team itself and 90,000 backers. But simply because a lot of suggestions are being made, it doesn't mean the leads on the project are going to abdicate their personal creative responsibility to make the best game they can.

Thanks! Welcome!