Forbin

I guess I don't object to the cars all looking so similar, just that the short list is so strange. MK64 and the Wii version had fairly similar karts, but these ones just don't feel like they belong enough. The bikes seem fine. Also mechanically I feel like the modular cars makes me feel like the game lacks focus. I don't feel like its that exciting to play a specific character when their stats are so washed out by car and wheel choices. I experienced some analysis paralysis when I first saw that screen, and I've seen others hit it as well. I just feel previous versions have been stronger at character and car selection because they were quick decisions based on archetypes and not min-maxing stats like simulation racers. It didn't help the first few races I played I made terrible kart choices and the game was very hard to play.

Am I the only one that doesn't like the cars in Mario Kart 8? I feel like they've stripped out a lot of character and unique feeling in favour of modular blandness and ugly designs. Also, why are they doing this? http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4526133/mkmb.jpg

Shadow blade makes Sniper fairly safe while split pushing lanes.

Yeah... http://dotabuff.com/matches/725998813 We were in the lead for the first 30 minutes. You did alright, and Viper is almost never bad. The problem is our Tinker didn't rank march or his ult until really late. And despite having Boots of Travel, pretty much never pushed the lanes. We had about 20 minutes to get that top Tier 3 down or push on other lanes and we just didn't press our advantage. The best we did was when I ignored everyone else and just warded up like crazy. But then CM kept following me around without a TP scroll and feeding the enemy. I wasn't frustrated though, just kinda confused why we started throwing. Ah well, it was kinda fun.

It's in the side shop, so it's an easy thing to pick up.

Just saw mosses reply after typing all that out on my phone.

Go to the snap settings and configure them to the tile size. Then hold ctrl or command while dragging your pieces around and they'll snap. It's worth noting that the snap size is relative to an objects current position rather than an absolute grid snap on global positions. Also you can use vertex snapping by using the V key. But it's a bit more fidgety.

I get the resistance to ideas like that, it's kind of why I think nothing should be done at all. I can't count the number of games I've seen somebody give up on and we've turned around and won. If they had the option to start a vote to stop the game they would be even worse. But I don't think what I was suggesting would be all that radical really. If it could only be done when you're down to your T3 towers, and after a certain time has elapsed, it's basically a concede button with a small glimmer of hope. It's probably too much for people to be interested in, but I think if Valve just put it in the game people wouldn't take that long to get over the idea. The reason I suggested it is that they seem to be interested in balancing for late game comebacks, and I think something in that spirit rather than "abandon all hope" is more likely to fit with their direction.

I think they could solve this with an all-in mechanic. Something that isn't as simple as a "we give up" vote, but actually gives the losing team a powerful push that they can rally behind. Like a massive creep wave that will blow up all your barracks. If you fail your push the enemy creeps will win the game in short order.

He was leading the team, but there were 4 or 5 other people working on it as well. They all remained on the project after he left. And he seems to have left because the project was nearing completion and unity was putting it through extensive alpha and beta testing. It was originally being built as a straight NGUI port. So much so that he offered to write a conversion tool for NGUI users. They had access to low leel optimizations that he said were impossible as a plugin author, so I do think it'll be the smart call once 4.6 is released.

Of the terms that the DOTA community uses I find "rat" to be fairly tame. It's definetly used negatively by people, and it's frustrating to play against. But it also is used to describe the behaviour of the team as skittish, like a rat. I'm sure some people use completely without judgement. Also natures prophet looks a bit like Splinter from TMNT.

I almost wish that if it was not a match/tournament that could be set up in a way that it showed the "scheduled" flag that it didn't count. As it stands, the majority of games contributing points to the league are completely off the books. I still think it's boring to guess who's going to play the most.

Got Rikki as my daily hero challenge. For some reason I'd never played him before. I picked first, then 3 other cores were picked, so I spent the laning phase as a support. Worked out well though, we won by a large margin. I really like being forced out of my comfort zone.

All games will be announced for 2015, then delayed until 2016

The chat channel does seem pretty dead lately, but I'm not sure if the guild is any better. TBH I've been playing with thumbs for almost a year in DOTA and still haven't found someone to invite me to it. Maybe because I've stopped asking.Most groups I end up forming in the Giant Bomb chat channel, because nobody is online in the idlethumbs one.

This took forever to show up in my podcast app, weird. After listening to the end of this episode I'm really interested in making a "Noah's Ark Defence" game. Protect the ark from charging animals, let in only two of each type... only two.

Finished my 10 hero challenge, I can't wait for the next milestone to unlock the daily hero challenge. It forced me to play heroes I was afraid of, and turn out to be a lot of fun.

I'm not sure I enjoy picking who's most likely to play rather than who's most likely to do well. The TI4 qualifiers are likely an outlier, but I feel like most of the best teams are going to lay low for a while. I guess it keeps it competitive, but I don't really have a desire to analyse upcoming tournaments. I guess something Football has going for it is that the schedule is regular. But even then, it seems people spend most of their time watching injuries to manage their bench.

IMO Valve should either add systems to enforce the Language preferences, or remove them. It's just making people angry.

almost draft time

i used the natural log. Valve could potentially affect the curve by adding more rewards, but other than that I think it's a fairly stable one at this point. I'm pretty sure the stretch goals aren't the primary driver for money being added, but rather personal rewards and new players joining in. The amount of users participating makes it really hard for things to alter course without some major change. Edit: realized it was a bit ambiguous if you didn't read the reddit link I posted. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=fit+%7B1%2C1600000%7D%2C%7B2%2C2682056%7D%2C%7B3%2C3412386%7D%2C%7B4%2C3887103%7D%2C%7B5%2C4359369%7D%2C%7B6%2C4751090%7D%2C%7B7%2C5032238%7D%2C%7B8%2C5293739%7D http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1.79283x10%5E6+log%28x%29%2B1.50072x10%5E6+for+x%3D69 http://dota2.cyborgmatt.com/prizetracker/international2014

I did some math, and if they sell compendiums up to the day before TI4, then I expect the prize pool will be about $9,000,000. People on /r/dota2 don't seem to agree http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/25ring/prediction_ti4_prize_pool_will_end_up_around_9/

Yeah not to take this in a negative direction, but I find it difficult to watch people like Tobiwan who scream about team fights. I also don't like that people feel an obligation to just fill the air. That's something that bugs me about sports commentators as well. It's not radio, "dead air" won't kill you. My brain needs a break from the non-stop intense chatter, and often it feels like the commentators need one too because it doesn't seem like they're thinking about what they're saying. And if everything is constantly exciting and important, then basically nothing is because the tone has been at full blast for 50 minutes.

done. Also RE: Valley of trolls, I agree with that chart, but it seems to imply that things gradually get better at the same rate they got worse. TBH I feel like if it improves at all at high levels it's probably a bigger spike. The start of the curve would probably be fatter. I went from level 1-10 before I started feeling like I was getting the stereotypical dota community member on my case. Now I'm playing games as hard support getting yelled at by bad Blood Seekers.

I seriously wish casters would stop saying things like "Balls Deep" and "No homo" casually. The fact they do this often wearing sports jackets and pretending to be adults can be hilarious. My favourite casters right now is the pair of Synderen and Sunsfan. The latter is guilty of saying "Balls deep" constantly, but the pair seem to be able to have fun and not take themselves too seriously while still respecting the game. Particularly I enjoy Sunsfan calling out failures in pro games. I guess it's from recording fails of the week on DotaCinema, but it really helps break the tension.