dium

I've played more than 20 hours of this game and last saved in the middle of (what I assume is) the end-game string of puzzles, and yet I still have no idea what people are talking about when they mention "sound puzzles". I must've just... completely missed those, somehow. How is that possible? It's freaking great how that's possible.

I'm at 321 +12 and I still think this game is fantastic, but the honeymoon period of complete infatuation is over. At this point, two facts that I already knew about but did not think would bother me are starting to wear on me anyway: (1) there are a ton of puzzles ahead of me yet, and I doubt if I have the intelligence or patience to solve all of them, (2) there isn't (according to all of you, and the Internet at large) a satisfying end point that the game builds towards. It sucks because I truly didn't think I'd care about the lack of reward or climax... But without it, I'm afraid the rest of the game will be a slow petering out of my patience until I arbitrarily decide I'm done. And with that in the back of mind the game is suddenly much less engrossing. That said, the hours I've already put in are some of the most satisfying I've had in a game in a while. So it still gets my endorsement, big time.

Oh, ha, then Syndicate is the one I have and I mixed up the names. Is it significantly better?

See I understand, kinda, your lack of enthusiasm for a computer being good at Go. But your counter examples I don't understand. Human language processing seems magical but (as you admit) it's so much simpler a problem than playing Go (and then, of course, looking up answers in a database is trivial). Is what makes artificial intelligence "impressive" mostly to do with its immediate applicability to becoming more human-like? If so, I still think the Go thing is a more substantial step in that direction... picking a move in Go is achieved through attempts at emulating how a human thinks about playing Go (because comprehensive possibility trees are impossible), while NLP can be boiled down to recording a long list of situational rules and applying them over and over. Both are pretty narrow aspects of "humanity", but the former is a lot more complicated and (until recently) elusive.

I agree about the story missions, they seem kinda silly. But I think adding new mechanical features isn't so dangerous in this kind of game. You do have to worry about balance a little bit, but with this kind of very asymmetric game I don't think it's the worst if some options are a little bit more exploitable than others. Whether the value proposition is good or not, I don't know. But that's a separate issue.

I'm gonna get this game eventually, unless it turns out to be much worse than expected. But the pre-order stuff leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes it an easier decision to put this off until I'm finished with other things.

Hmm. I understand why you aren't impressed I suppose. But technological progress is always incremental. People have spent a long, long time working on computer Go, and this is exciting because that chapter of computer science is finally coming to a climax. But you're right, this is not a sign of the technological singularity or anything.

Oh ok. I didn't track where in the thread your points transitioned from "AI being good at games that involve chance and hidden information" to "AI passing a board game turing test", but I see it now.

If an AI can ever be "more human", how would this be achieved if not through "better programming"?

I pretty much only try phone games if they're mentioned on the idle thumbs podcast so this is a useful resource. Recently I've enjoyed Downwell and Laura Croft Go, both mega bestsellers everyone knows about.

Most of it is stuff you just WILL find, eventually, if you keep exploring. There's a huge number of cool environments and 'goodies' (read: content) that's not even hidden behind puzzles of any kind. It's a big part of why the game works so well, I think. But because I (and presumably most players) spend so much time deliberately examining each new thing tying to decipher it, fully exploring the space already unlocked to you takes a deliciously long time. It's the reason I didn't find the (very flashy looking, in no way hidden) tetromino tutorial until like hour 10.

Yeah, the big games on that list (MGS5 and FO4 too) are the worrisome bits. I might ditch FO4 for the foreseeable future, just to make more temporal room. I haven't decided yet if I give a shit about my free copy of AssCree. I like the lady with a cane.

Found the tutorial for the thing that stumped me (tetrominos), and for another thing. Which I should've been more confident would happen eventually. But that said, figuring out a puzzle mechanic before you find its tutorial is the best feeling, when you can get it. It amuses me that Firewatch is coming out so soon after this.

I got stressed out recently thinking about all the video games I've aquired over the last couple months, and how many games I want to buy in the next. So, rather than let backlog anxiety ruin my leisure activities, it's time to start planning how I'm gonna get through these. And post it publicly, for self motivation. In December, I aquired: Undertale (Gift, BEATEN) Fallout 4 (I bought this in November but basically couldn't play it until I got a new video card) Assassin's Creed Unity Syndicate (It came with my new video card) Talos Principle (Gift) Kentucky Route Zero (Gift) Metal Gear Solid 5 (Gift) People like to give me video games, it's nice. So far this year I've already bought myself: The Witness And I know I'm gonna want to buy these after they come out: XCOM 2 (early february) Firewatch (also early february) The Witcher 3 (missed it last year but when the final expansion comes out I can likely buy some "complete" version) Sooooooo that's a lot of stuff. I'd like to be able to play the new games soon after they come out, if possible, because participating in "the conversation" immediately after release is a lot of fun and I like doing it. But that probably means that I'll be playing The Witness, Firewatch, and possibly XCOM 2 before I get around to touching my backlog from last year. That feels gross, but it's the plan right now. I'm actually HOPING that nothing new looks interesting for several months after February, because I will necessarily have to ignore it. This list will likely last me until, like, June. Or later.

I opened a spoiler and immediately closed it but already my game world has expanded in a way I wish would've happened more naturally. Ah well, such is life. Anyway, 4 more hours in and I still don't understand Tetris. But I did come across a bunch of puzzles that I could solve, and some weirdness. I really dislike "pretentious", and I don't think this game is pretentious by my understanding of the word. But I think it's fair to say this game can feel... self important. Or snooty. I don't really mind, it's kind of a positive for me.

I got this game despite a really hefty and embarrassing post-holidays backlog... buuut it seems pretty fantastic so far so I have no regrets. I'm only 2 hours in so I definitely don't feel "stuck" yet (exploring is, in and of itself, a satisfying diversion) but I do spend most of my time wandering around trying puzzles and giving up because I can't figure out what certain reoccurring elements mean. I have a sneaking suspicion that I've missed some teaching puzzles positioned somewhere closer to the start, but maybe that's just me being used to more tutorialization than this game actually provides. And if I actually did miss something, I'll end up finding it eventually as I wander back around.

more lottery tickets

Haha, it takes me a moment to remember that "skeleton" is still used in ways that predate the popular text replacement mod.

The answer is yes, absolutely. Hard to imagine how I missed it the first time.

He manages to introduce some modicum of personality into his dialog. Obi Wan is hardly the most colorful character in the original series, but in the prequels he plays against wooden boards Anakin and Padme, the exposition nozzles in the Jedi Counsel, and whatever slightly-offensive caricatures are supposed to be comic relief. Obi Wan's dialog isn't much better than the other characters, but Mcgregor manages to find places to emote wherever he can. Usually the emotion is "exasperation with Anakin" but it's done well. There's a line in Attack of the Clones, at the beginning of the arena scene on Tatooine, when Anakin (captured and tied up) says he's come to rescue Obi Wan (also captured and tied up) and Obi Wan says "good job". This is some corny, clichéd dialog, sure, but it's such a refreshing bit of levity in a movie where most dialog is delivered dead-serious and super-boring.

I feel pretty much the same way as Twig and Zeus. I don't feel any afinity towards a cultural group to which I de facto belong, and therefore I don't think 'authenticity' is a thing that I have access to. I've come to terms with this, though. It's not really something that causes me any psychic pain. My parents were expats abroad when I was growing up, in a couple different countries, so that might contribute somewhat to my ambivilence towards 'American' things. The cultural identity that people who grew up in my situation have crafted for ourselves ('third culture kids') is more embarrassing than anything else. Like many white and mostly-white cultural identities, it smells a little bit too much like the imperialism that it's a direct result of. Anyway, I don't lose any sleep over being a white man "with no culture", as the meme goes, simply because I know people who understand where I come from and I can belong to them. So to speak. I find my camaraderie in a handful of people and that's enough for me.

Yeah, those partpicker builds are basically meaningless if they don't list GPU price. I'm not surprised that the build in that video is more expensive than advertised. Every budget-minded build I've seen written up in an article or shown in a video seems to cost at least $100 more than the guide says, often much more. I think these "challenges" that they set up for themselves are met mostly by finding good deals and working around them. It ends up being pretty misleading, since you probably can't immediately buy every item in their list at whatever sale price (or good used price) they got them for. So if you really want a build with the kind of value that these guys seem to get, you have to be patient. Set up price alerts on partpicker or wherever. I'm sure you can get even better deals used/refurbished, but checking for those periodically can get labor intensive. EDIT: yeah, watching the beginning of the video now, it's a lot of boasting about what great deals they got on components that usually cost way more. How is that helpful at all?

(that's not really a spoiler either. I haven't seen the new movie yet)

Oh wow, you're right, I had no idea that happened.

Hahaha, Bayonetta. Coool.