mikemariano

Morrowind is the daily Steam sale for $6.79 in American money! Should I buy it if I only own a MacBook and bought Fallout: New Vegas like a year ago and haven't played it?

That's interesting. Double Fine told us nothing except for a genre for their first Kickstarter and that was enough for me. We've got far more information this time around, but I suspect this just isn't my kind of game.

Time to update http://www.listofdomainnamespointingtoidlethumbsdotnet.info/

Absolutely not, Twig; this has the capacity for real harm. Hearing Shammack upthread talk about the dilemma he faces with his trading cards was just as uncomfortable as hearing a new Scientologist say "I want to get more readings, but I'm running out of money to give to the church." or hearing someone say, "I am trying to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, but I have too many asthma attacks to keep up that rate of smoking." People might get genuine enlightenment or self-satisfaction out of those activities, but there's very real risk and harm built into that belief system and that habit. Shammack is open to a fun experience with the Steam cards, but all of the ways to complete a set involve doing something he doesn't want to do (pay, trade, etc.). I'm not going to tell him "It's only like $1.50 so just buy a card already." I'm not going to tell him to get over it. Valve is being manipulative without showing much of a mutual benefit from that manipulation. They might have good intentions; the trading card system may grow into something rewarding and non-coercive. But the rough edges are still there and will result in unhappy achievement grinders and cow clickers.

I smell is right!

All About Games

To promote Game & Wario, Nintendo created a website called Crowdfarter, as if WarioWare, Inc. is using Kickstarter to fund their new game. I don't know if I'm comfortable with a megapublisher spoofing a website that game makers use to get around publishers, but I guess it's all in good fun...?

Grain alcohol and rainwater, Mandrake.

I realize this is probably a better thread to post this in than Life—If you are in the Portland area I am a person from the Internet and I am weird and am visiting a friend there next weekend. Let me know if you're around!

I am going to Portland next weekend for the first time! I only know two things about the city: - My friend lives there. - Steve Gaynor lives there. Does anybody know if there are any cool things to see, do, or eat in Portland?

I'm more concerned about the Gone Home spoilers! Sean said he played "Act I", which would mean the game is divided into Acts instead of being continuous exploration. Since I'm currently playing Luigi's Mansion, I am picturing Professor E. Gadd beaming the player in and out of the house using his pixelation beam. And if it's like Luigi's Mansion, I think we can safely say ghosts are confirmed.

Unless Valve is going to magically usher in a post-scarcity economy, I'm sick of them treating Steam like a social experiment. Steam does NOT make it easier to play games, and It's gotten to the point where I launch as many games as I can outside of Steam when I play. Maybe it's just because I have no friends.

You're correct that Rockstar didn't add any meaning to the diamond deal as they added multiple perspectives. It felt like the same slog through a museum three times. I thought it was also a cheap dodge to make all three of the playable characters essentially "innocent" in the bloodshed. These shootouts just sorta happen, I guess! I mentioned this in the Fallout: New Vegas thread, but I was reluctant to side with Mr. House against the Brotherhood of Steel because they were the good guys in Fallout 3. How could I betray the warm, fuzzy techno-theocrats who gave me Liberty Prime? Even though I was a different character, my perspective of the Brotherhood of Steel was permanently colored by having played Fallout 3 first.

FYI: Don't update the Twitch.tv iOS app. The update disables search, adds advertisements, and limits access "to the top 300 most viewed channels for now." Since that doesn't include Idle Thumbs and I don't watch any other streams, if I update it means not seeing any Kerbals go into space on my living room TV, Ben kicking down doors in Full Throttle, etc. I guess they will improve all of this later on, but this really does kill Twitch.tv entirely for me.

PS: I attended a talk that Steve Gaynor gave at the Center for Fiction in New York. In that situation I guess it's appropriate to go up to the speaker and say, "Thanks for your presentation and I listen to your podcast,"—right? I told him I liked the sound of disgust he made in episode 44. So...that' s something that stuck with me that I have no expectation that would stick with Steve or anyone else.

"This is Tom Hanks saying, if you see me in person, please, leave me be."

I think I'm going to quit this game now that I'm in Hell. Sword upgrades are useless and I have 20 hours to go until I can increase the rate of my candy production (which at 28 pieces per second is nowhere near as fast as my 300 pieces per second lollipop production). When the game transforms itself with each upgrade, it's fun and surprising. When the upgrades are merely incremental, (so I survive against two demons instead of one) it's just as bad as any other Zynga game.

Surprisingly, no. The few professionally published e-books I've purchased are riddled with hyphenation errors, spacing issues, and other issues. Many publishers don't put as much care into their e-books as they need to. And the DRM! I lost books switching from an iPhone to a Nook to an iPad mini so I am basically done buying books from either corporation's stores. Only buy epubs that you can open everywhere!

The ending is mildly interesting, if I remember correctly. I spend most of the endgame just running through the troll village and avoiding confrontations.

Thanks Tegan and Sno! I have to call my mom back before I head out so that's it for me tonight. Hope my third place out of three showing was OK!

OK, it looks like we have the three of us in the room!

I am around (for a limited time!) and have added Sno, Lu, Toblix, and Tegan.

I have a twitchy schedule this weekend where I'm only really around late Saturday afternoon (5-8ish?) and all day Sunday except the evening (Eastern Daylight Time). If that works, that's great, but if you can get critical mass to play without me I can participate some other weekend.

It looks like I am 5172 - 0365 - 4017 I haven't played any Scarescraper yet so prepare to call me a noob.

When you first started telling the story I thought the person who stopped playing was in on the tactic from the start, that it was like the magician from The Prestige who goes through his entire life in disguise just so he can pull off his fishbowl trick. So obviously, the next step is to have David Bowie build you a machine to let you play Neptune's Pride in two places at the same time.