Dosed

What improvements have you made to that deck Spenny? I could afford to craft some cards to improve it, but I have no idea what to make. I tried playing with that deck but I got my face smashed in before I could even get any decent minions out.

Ok, so my time with Hearthstone is pretty much over. There's a few reasons why, but it's mainly because I can't afford to buy new packs of cards to get better decks. I managed to get one pretty decent Hunter deck from my arena runs and disenchanting/crafting cards, but after that it just became too much of a slog to get enough cards to build a viable deck for different classes. It made me wonder about free to play games in general. I resented the game because I knew that was the plan, to get money out of me, and it just feels kind of slimy to me. So rather than give them the dough I just out right quit. I think if I was on a job that paid more than minimum wage I'd probably spend £10 or so to keep the game alive for me, but, alas, I am not so I will not. Basically it's society's fault or something. All in all I enjoyed it while it lasted.

Sean's tagline of "this product is for any person" got a genuine gross snort from me. I know the theme has been on for the last 7 episodes or w/e, but I just wanted to congratulate Chris on making such a fantastic theme. It's so celebratory, so catchy and it just sounds super good. edit: english words thingy

Loooooonnnnggggg shot here, but does anyone have a Civ V steam key they'd be willing to bless me with?

Yeah, I tried the arenas but, again, I suck at making decks and I often don't have a clue what to choose. I've only done one arena run, as your first one is free, and I got destroyed 0-3 which was pretty damn demoralising. My friend told me what deck to build, and he said I got a bad draw, but even still I got utterly demolished. No, you do do that I think. I just meant that I have no idea what cards I'll be getting and often end up with no cards for the classes I want meaning I have to win another whole bunch of times.

I've just started playing this as I loved Blizzard games and I've always had a subconscious interest in CCG games, even though I've never really played any or collected any (apart from Pokémon, because I was A 90'S KID (YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND!!! NICKELODEON!! POGS!)). First things first, this game is really god damn good. It helps that I walked into playing one of the most overpowered classes in the game, the Hunter, by accident and really enjoyed playing it. It also helps that my friend plays the game and is a freakshow. He's one of these guys that can pick up any multiplayer game and within minutes he understands everything there is to know about the game, and he's smashing your face in and there's nothing you can do about it. I mean I'm better than you're average bear at FPS multiplayer, but this guy will just pick up anything and be super good at it. So he helped me build my Hunter deck which I'm thoroughly enjoying. However, there's a few issues I have with it. I'm finding I have to invest a lot of time to get 100 coins to buy a pack and improve my decks. I know I can do the daily quests to get gold quicker, but then I have to spend gold to get packs for those classes too. I'm pretty adamant I won't buy any packs with real life dollah, so it's quite annoying knowing there's gonna be alot of time investment just so I can stand level with the guys paying money for it. Oh well, I guess that's the entire free-to-play model in an nutshell and I don't like it because I'm poor. Griddle I've heard from the friend I mentioned that the Warlock class is pretty good for beginners and should help you improve. If you want to try it out there's a bunch of decks here (I have no idea if any of them are any good, but I find it hard to build decks). Also it really helps that this game is set in The World of Warcraft because I love The World of Warcraft. God damn it. I love it.

Breakfast of Champions was the first Vonnegut book I read and I can definitely see where you're coming from. He was criticised for "writing too much like Vonnegut", so it's clear that his style is very unique but not for everyone. I personally think his books can go off on some really childish, stupid and uninteresting tangents but when they work they really work. I think he got a lot of attention at the time of writing because he was so unafraid to just write however he wanted, and not really stick to any traditional parameters when it comes to writing, it almost seems like a reaction against classic literature, kind of how modern art is often seen as trying to blur the lines between what is art and what isn't. And that doesn't always work, especially for someone like me. There's several books that I've read by him that I would have totally given up on if some of his other books didn't happen to be some of my favourite books of all time (and they weren't so damn short). I personally think Vonnegut's best books are The Sirens of Titan and Mother Night. The former's concept is utterly bizarre, but not incredibly childish and is one of my favourite books ever. There's no drawings of assholes or any of the sort. It really is crazy to me to think that the same guy wrote The Breakfast of Champions. I haven't read a more beautiful book since. It's just so much more carefully written and heartfelt. Maybe that's the difference, it doesn't feel like he's trying as hard to seem like a loon. If you think you might like Vonnegut in a more grounded and character driven style then check out Mother Night, I thought it was fantastic and is one of his more (actually) dark books without all the bizarre bullshit.

I'm a terrible person for doing this and just ignoring the Nazism discussion occurring in this thread. But does anyone else (specifically British Thumbs) think of Slade's Christmas classic Merry Christmas Everbody when the new "Videeoooo gaaammmess" interlude comes on? I'm sorry to keep harping on about interludes in these threads.

I hear you SgtWhistle. But if that's your version of "no good" then I'm in more trouble than I ever imagined. I've got a Unity question, or more of a scripting question in general. I was following the videos along and typing out the code and would often come up against a problem where in the console I would get an error along the lines of "The class defined in script file named "example1" does not match the file name". It took me a while to figure out that when I was copying the code from the tutorials I'd often overwrite the file name at the top in the "public class" section and change it to whatever that was called in the code from the site. However, when I'd go back to change it to match the file name I had originally saved the script as I'd get an error like "there is already a class named such and such blah blah". I tried to replicate the error in Unity just then, but couldn't do it so you'll have to take my word on it. Any ideas? It's not a major issue, but it caused a lot of frustration initially.

Well I just spent a good 2 hours with Unity. Still just making the tutorial project things, but I'm on the roll-a-ball one now and I'm enjoying this one way more. It's way shorter and the videos are far more digestible, the scripting hasn't been anywhere near as complicated as the Space Shooter one so far. I've started watching the scripting videos, and it literally took me about 15 minutes to understand a 5 minute video which was explaining the basics of scripting itself. I still think it's what I find most enjoyable though. I've started annotating my scripts, thanks to Clyde's suggestions and examples (in this thread, or another?) and it really has helped me. Most of that shit is way above my head so far and it's going to be a while before I'm actually posting in here about my own project, but I thought it might give all you guy's strength to know that I'm struggling with the utter basics and you guys are miles ahead of me, so take solace in that. Did any of you guys watch the Unity tutorial things or were you already further along the path of Game Development Skillz? I'm hoping by watching these videos it will allow me to add in some enemies, projectiles and power ups into the roll-a-ball thing. I know I said that about the Space Shooter, but that thing is way more complicated than I realised. I've got an early finish tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to spend my day learning some more scripting stuff and playing a load of Diablo III. I watched Clyde's video of your game Jason, as I'm burned out on Unity right now, and thought it looked pretty interesting. It made my head swim (get it? HAH.) thinking about all the scripting, animating and general fannying about you would have to do get this thing off the ground. So here's a vague congratulations on getting that far. I've not played it myself so I won't comment any further and make myself sound like an ignorant ass.

I just use Goodreads as an easy way of tracking what I've read. I also check out some of the reviews afterwards just to see what people have said. I finished The Flamethrowers a week or so a go and I just couldn't really get away with it. There was some really beautifully written scenes, and I found the whole social rebellion aspect fascinating, particularly the Italian rebels, but I loved The Motherfuckers too. But over all I just felt like it was trying to be too clever. I'm not even sure if half of the artists mentioned in the book were real, but it sure did make me feel like an idiot when it mentioned someone's name and I'd inevitably never heard of them. It also touched on some Futurist stuff too, and they infuriated me when I studied them briefly at university. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to guess that .

The last book I gave up on was Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan. Man, that thing was just painful. Almost every male character the female protagonist ran into she fell in love with instantly, despite the fact that all of them seemed like immature, selfish buttholes. I've heard really good things about Ian McEwan and that book has put me off reading anything by him.

Oh that's cool. I had no idea those videos existed. I'll definitely have to check them out. I might have some more spare time recently as I'm getting screwed out of some hours at work. I guess there's always a silver lining. Except the cloud part of this analogy is that I'll be poor. I read that people don't seem to like video tutorials on these forums, but I find it almost essential to my understanding of a topic. I pretty much have to have a real life person, preferably someone I can actually see, explain things to me. My understanding of Spanish (which is still incredibly rudimentary) skyrocketed when I found a lesson series on spanishdict.com, and I really struggle learning guitar from tabs, I'd rather get my house mate to show me how to play something. Clyde, you're a gosh darned hero. I had no idea you had to highlight the variable or whatever and then press Ctrl + '. Man, that scary robot man in the videos got some flack from me when I was trying to get the documentation to show up. I totally agree with you when it comes to typing the script out. I feel way more comfortable doing that, and if I make any mistakes then I know what I have to look out for in the future. I wouldn't quite go as far to say I'm making games just yet, but I'm definitely going to go through all the Unity tutorial projects to see what I can learn and then try and knock some shambolic mess together and see what happens. I've got to say I definitely find the scripting the most enjoyable part of the experience, even though I find it incredibly difficult and frustrating. Have you got any projects you've got in mind for any far flung point when you're a bit more experienced? I've got a couple, but I've heard the worst thing to do is over shoot so I'm gonna start with just editing and messing about with the tutorial projects and then try and make my very own first game all on my own! I'm hoping to go and teach English in Spain as I've heard, and seen firsthand, there's a pretty good market for that there right now. It's not exactly my ideal number 1 thing I want to do with the rest of my life, but I definitely can't take working retail jobs while I figure out what I want to do with my life.

Yeah, I struggled in particular with CTF games the other day. I met a guy who said he was looking for a game in a CTF lobby for about 30 minutes. I too might be part of the problem as I've been playing it a lot less recently. I've just gotten Diablo III so that doesn't help too much...

Well I just finished the first project in the Unity beginners guide thing. It took me a little over a week due to work and alcohol, but I really, really enjoyed it. It's definitely made me want to make more things and piss about with the space shooter thing, like implement boss fights, power ups etc, just to see what I can do and understand things a lot better. I really enjoyed the scripting side of it, much like Clyde has said elsewhere, it often just feels like a puzzle and I had many occasions when I'd say "this is EXACTLY like the guy is typing... fuck this", then I'd walk away, make some lunch, and, hey presto, I found the offending non-capitalised letter. It was waaaayyyyy above my head when it came to a lot of stuff, but I do feel like some of the jargon started to sink in and I would even be able to predict what I needed to do in some of the scripts, albeit I wouldn't actually know the correct way of doing it, just what the general idea would be. I do think my major problem will be artwork. I really do not have a creative bone in my body when it comes to that, and saying as I have no idea how to draw in real life I'm guessing it will be even more difficult when I come to add things like animation, effects, layers etc on top of that. So I think if I ever do make some sort of project I'll just use the assets store and do my own "programmers art" for other stuff. I'm also feeling pretty bummed out that I will have at maximum 4-5 months to work on any project I want as I'm supposed to be moving abroad to teach which means my PC and I will have to part ways for a while (expect me to pop up in some sort of 3DS thread expecting a top 10 list of recommended games). The whole idea is incredibly daunting. I'm going to carry on with the Unity projects and follow other peoples guides, like one I found somewhere on the Thumbs forums about creating an RTS game/a Mario 64 clone. Both of which are related to seperate ideas I have for projects, or just ways to cut my teeth. Just somethings to ask: does anyone know any videos/guides which could help me with C# specifically related to Unity/building a game? And does anyone have any sort of mini-projects/guides they recommend as a must do for n3wbz? Oh and lastly, not to get incredibly soppy/over dramatic but you have no idea how helpful this thread/this sub-forum has been in motivating me to complete that project-by-numbers (see how pathetic I am?). Any time I was preparing to play Titanfall instead of loading up Unity I would think "what would Clyde do?" and then I'd want to work on it. So cheers. I use way too many "/'s" in my posts. I'm very ambiguous/mysterious.

Yeah, I've managed to get to level 14 but everyone is just an insanely high level and they're just blasting through the content and I barely have to do anything so it's not incredibly enjoyable so far. I've sent an application to be accepted into the Thumbs fold, but I don't think I've had a reply yet.

Deal. Oh did I mention I'm an absolute level 1 beginner? As in I've not even done the first quest. Please help me. Please. Also, no deal on the lewtz thing.

Is there any Eurapeons that would be willing to play with a super cool 6ft 7" athletic guy (description may differ from real life) any time this week? If so add my tag, Ferret92, and PM me here or on Battle.net and message me. I'd be down to clown pretty much any day forever so just let me know.

Question for Chris: Was the guitar chord break intentionally placed before Sean talking about South Park making you feel like a "fucking kid walking around your fucking home town"? It really sounds like the little guitar break they put in the actual show. If so that was a reference. References are the worst. Blaaaaaargh. Also I really like Danielle being on the show. Bring her back on whenever possible.

I'm just downloading Diablo III now and saying as my friend isn't actually getting it until next week I was wondering if any of the forumites would be happy to show a newbie around the wonderful world of Diablo? I think my battle tag is Ferret92. My brother changed it a while a go and I can't remember if that's actually correct, but I'll verify it later.

I did think it was a very well used technique, but I'm really only starting to appreciate it. It does make it difficult to forget that the main character is actually Cromwell sometimes, and it makes you feel like you're sort of spying on these other characters, which I guess is what Cromwell himself is doing to a degree. I don't think I'll bother reading the sequel as I've heard it's not as good, and I wasn't particularly in love with Wolf Hall anyway. By the dubs does any one use Goodreads.com?

Does anyone use the Echo Vision thing where it shows enemies up as orange silhouettes? I've used it as a Burn Card sometimes and it is just insane. It feels like my screen is going all choppy and my brain just goes crazy trying to focus and refocus on one target. I think the problem is everyone moves around so much it becomes pretty useless. Also does anyone else get ignored by team mates when they get rodeo'd? I know it can be pretty difficult to alert someone without a headset, but whenever I see a red dot on a blue triangle [insert Vice City radio joke game ad here] I'll just run over and punch the enemy pilots off my team mates because it's just so much fun.

This came up on a game blog interview I read on Tumblr about Watch Dogs "Q. How many difference hacks are available in the game? A. Over 100 hacks." It made me giggle and instantly think of the Thumbs as it just seems like they'd pick up on as being ridiculous.

I've just finished reading Wolf Hall yesterday based on recommendations from Chris and people on these here forums. This may make me seem a bit slow, but I really struggled to understand who exactly Mantel was writing about a lot of the time. Eventually I worked out you're just supposed to assume she's talking about Cromwell, which still didn't make it that much easier and I found I really had to focus and re-read some sentences to have any idea what was going on. I think overall I enjoyed the book as even though I have no idea about English history I love learning how our colonising-flag-planting country was formed. It's a shame I couldn't give two flying shits about that stuff at school. Just like most things I regret now. I loved that she held back on the swearing so that when it happened it was quite shocking, and incredibly funny to boot. It also helped that there was a lot of talk about Yorkshire and York, as that's where I'm living right now, and I was happy to know there was a North-South divide all that time ago. Fucking southerners.

I've been playing a lot of CTF today and it seems to work really well with the Stryder titan. The combination of the electric smoke and cluster missile is awesome at closing down the narrow alley ways on the CTF maps. I still haven't strayed away from the 40MM cannons yet because they're just so well suited to every situation, although I'm sure they're good for specific match situations like Jon said. I'm using a gamepad over a M&K at the moment simply because I'll never play to a high enough level where I'd need/see the advantage. I'm still seeing myself come out on top in bog standard death match situations, and not far off in CTF games too. It definitely hinders my mobility though, it feels like I'm just missing lines that the devs clearly put in there but I can't quite hit sometimes. Also my desk situation isn't really suited to using my mouse and keyboard for long periods of time.