Salacious Snake

I experience the same thing. I almost never feel for my poor avatar who keeps falling into pits and getting shot, but when his plucky companion or whatever gets it, I can be affected. I think it may be because of the self-identification part. It's an interesting thing to think about.

I love the narration in this book. Barnes put an immense amount of care into Tony and his voice, and it was a pleasure to read because of it.

I purchased the O'Reilly book on this game. I did it mostly out of novelty, but now I'm determined to actually figure this fucking game out. I'm a little disappointed in the cover art. It's O'Reilly; it should have a woodcut animal on it! Or at least an ascii character representing an animal, since there are plenty in DF.

I read the book for the first time a couple of months ago, and the gung-ho authoritarian elements weirded me out a bit, too. There's also barely any character development. I've never really been a fan of military fiction. I can appreciate how it helped set the template for a bunch of stuff that I do like, so there's that. There are some interesting concepts, and it's cool that the protagonist isn't white.

Sure, it was about the latest version of Hackmaster from Kenzer & Company. edit: I had a few issues with the book, but this illustrates the gist of how they approach things:

That Rosenberg interview made the game sound irredeemably wretched. It may turn out to be fine, but I don't think I'll ever find out.

Man, this reminds me of a huge flameout I recently had with the creators and community surrounding a tabletop RPG. The book has casual mentions of rape in it, which don't really serve any purpose, and I lamented the fact that this pointless inclusion means that there are people to whom I wouldn't feel comfortable showing the book. This was right after my partner had expressed an interest in seeing what this RPG thing is all about. The sad part was how defensive this bunch of grognards immediately became. I was shouted down, insulted, and bathed in a sea of the most predictable, irrelevant and fallacious arguments you can imagine. My group dropped the game pretty quickly after that. Also, I agree wholly with your main point. I want to support this series so that other people who haven't given the subject much thought can be informed, and surely there will be interesting new points that I haven't considered, even if it isn't all mind-blowing original stuff.

If the issue is that you don't want the good tweets to get scrolled off your timeline by the noise before you see them, I can think of two good solutions. The first is to unfollow a bunch of people so there's less noise, and the second is to use twitter's list feature. If you click on the, uh, action button (I don't know what to call this shit, their interface makes no sense) on a person's profile, you can add them to a list (or create one). Add your favorite tweeters to a list, and it'll be much easier to get caught up on their stuff. Following conversations is never great… the website (and apps like tweetbot) will attempt to thread things when you click on them/swipe them to expand the conversation, but that depends on people using replies in the expected manner. Things often get broken.

Microshaft Winblows

That was the first thing that popped into my mind, too. Even without solving issues like that, playing Die by the Sword with a Hydra sounds fun, so I may be on board anyway. Furthermore, the control side is only one part of what they hope to address. This discussion makes me want to dust off the Novint Falcon, except not.

Speaking of the flight model, I hope the controls are more configurable in terms of axes and stuff. I have a totally badass flight control setup, and I've never been able to adequately map things in Arma to utilize it. Arma 3 looks rad as hell.

I only saw bits and pieces, but none of what I saw looked interesting. I'd play Dance Central 3, but I don't feel like rearranging my furniture just for one game. It's a great series, but I like the way my living room looks right now. I feel like a jaded internet jerkbag coming down on it, but really, that seemed especially lame. Corporate presentations always suck, of course, and its weird that this E3 shit has become a public thing that regular people watch.

They're definitely slimmer than the average Hanes BEEFY TEE or whatever, but they tend to be pretty long. They're kinda fitted in the shoulder area as well. AA shirts are somewhere between your standard roomy t-shirt and a fitted t-shirt. I love them; they're far more flattering than a normal t-shirt if you get the right size. Also, if you wear t-shirts, you probably have something made by American Apparel even if you don't know it, because tons of companies use their stuff. edit: t-shirt edit 2: Like, if you wear graphic tees or witty internet slogan tees, you definitely have some AA shit already. edit 3: Also, stop doing that.

The technical issues with this game are infuriating. I was just nearing the end of a random dungeon (with a little associated quest) when I became "disconnected." When I returned, I was no longer in the dungeon, and the entire area was unexplored (and replaced with a new randomly generated area). The dungeon I was in is no longer even in my version of the world. I was all excited because I was pulling levers to open doors in the ancient tomb of so-and-so… there was a bunch of dumb lore and everything. But now I'll probably never even see what the fuck was down there. edit: There doesn't even appear to be a similar thing in its place. It was all totally generic cellars and shit. There was an outdoor event, which I guess is all I'll get. There was probably nothing interesting down there anyway, but it's crazy how much it pulls you out of the experience to have the randomly generated world suddenly regenerate while you're playing it. Once my version of the world is established, it should stay the same.

Max Payne 3 rewards highly conservative play. It's all about staying in cover and engaging enemies who are too far away to even see, thanks to the resolution. (This will likely be much better on PC.) I find myself waving the reticle around until it turns red to show me that I'm aiming at someone. So… I guess Max Payne 3 has the dubious honor of introducing pixel-hunting to the shooter genre. I don't get the sense of solving a combat puzzle through practiced choreography that I got from the earlier games. I'm sorta interested in seeing what happens next, so I'll stick it out a while longer, but the combat is not fun. I think the first Max Payne was the best. In 2, the bullet time was so plentiful that it trivialized things, but in 3, it's not useful.

It is now possible to change user names.

Hollow sounds apt to me. It's very clear at every moment that it's an entirely mechanical experience driven solely by its well-timed and tuned reward system. There is no sense of place or character or personality. More than once I've found myself saying "Oh my god shut the fuck up" aloud at my monitor when the dialog kicks in. The writing is abysmally stupid. It has the trappings of an RPG, but it's really just whack-a-mole with randomized loot. It has me in its grip anyway, but it's definitely hollow. I expect to get quite a few more hours of entertainment out of it, but there will be a point when I hit a wall and realize I don't care about getting yet another pointy hat with +1 something-or-other, and my lack of investment in any other part of it will leave me no reason to continue.

I always tell myself I won't watch the conferences, because they're awful, boring, insulting and stupid. You get all you need to know in 5 minutes by reading a recap after the fact. But then I get sucked in and suffer through them anyway.

TraumaHound#1840

Oh yeah, Battle tags! TraumaHound#1840 over here. I'm a wizard. edit: though maybe there should be a Diablo 3 tag thread in Multiplayer Networking so as not to shit this one up. edit 2: I'd make one myself, but I think of myself as more of an "idea guy" than a "doing stuff guy."

These ARGs are getting out of hand!

Toblix has been assimilated.

So my dream of being the idea guy CAN COME TRUE! This is exactly how I see myself operating. I'm gonna start dropping bombs on people until someone sees my genius and gives me a major project. I'm starting right now: Hey guys. We should make a grenade roll down a hill… people will be talking about it for ages.

Unfortunately, they're using HeroEngine, so none of his concerns will be solved, based on what we've seen so far.