Sean

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Posts posted by Sean

  1. Posted

    Hey Sean, why are you upset with Taylor Swift?

     

    *DEEP BREATH*

     

    Here's the thing with ol' Taylor Swift. Sometime over the past six months being ultra-famous in the pop world also started to mean you were friends with Taylor Swift. It means you popped up on her instagram or she invited you on stage for a song. Whatever, that's fine -- the thing that pisses me off is that all of that feels like a cliquey tool to define what's in and what's out, mostly because it began in earnest with the filming of her Bad Blood music video -- a video about a song that is directed at Katy Perry, a public enemy of Taylor Swift. Swift got all of her friends together -- literally a dozen ultra-famous names (Ellie Goulding, Lena Dunham, Cindy Crawford (!!!)) and made a video about a a bunch of badass ladies gearing up with guns to go some unseen war. The video is basically saying "we have bad blood but I have everyone on my side so fuck you." That is pretty much the worst message to send to your fans, most of whom are schoolchildren and have to deal with that shit every day.

     

    Miley Cyrus actually summed it up pretty well: 

     

    “I don’t get the violence revenge thing,” Miley said of Taylor’s “Bad Blood” music video. “That’s supposed to be a good example? And I’m a bad role model because I’m running around with my titties out? I’m not sure how titties are worse than guns.”

     

    I think that's a fair point -- not to clear Miley Cyrus of selling a regressive image of femininity, but I think it's pretty lame for the most famous pop musician on earth to adopt themes of violent revenge with a huge posse because she doesn't like someone. 

     

    Anyway, 31 yo male here reporting in on pop music feuds which are totally meaningless at best and a poison to society at worst. <3 

  2. Posted

    Man, I didn't know any of this. Never got to the Cataclysm expansion!

     

    Yeah wow feels like a weird example especially This expansion.Not only did they replace they update the models, they gave you the option to toggle between those brand new skins and the 10 year old originals.
    But perhaps the biggest thing that has happened in this current expansion is the change to the economy because they basically brought in Free to Play by stealth, you can buy a token for a months game time for cash, and then sell it to another player for gold (using a weird anonymous auction house system).

  6. Posted

    I was really confused at Sean's bafflement about Splatoon. It seemed strangely put-on, which happens a lot on other podcasts, but is rare for Idle Thumbs. Maybe "a mulitplayer shooter about squid girls who travel through ink that they shoot" just doesn't seem as out of character for Nintendo in my eyes as it does for others. There's no way you can put Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pokemon, Pikmin and Smash Bros. next to each other and come out with any coherent underlying theme for Nintendo's work, so why should Splatoon seem out of place?

     

    I don't think it's aesthetically out of line for Nintendo, but the hodge-podge of the concept, the looks and the design just didn't feel Nintendo to me; especially since in the past three years we haven't really received anything super duper original from Nintendo -- so hearing that there was a squad-squid-tag-the-power-of-paint type shooter as a first party new Nintendo game was confusing.  My bafflement was not put-on; I think at this stage it's pretty obvious that I don't really have the energy for that.

  7. Posted

    With Twine games (or any games where you navigate onscreen text), what metric do you think a writer should use to determine the amount of text per screen? Do you think in general it's better to keep individual screens brief and keep the player engaged by clicking through, or is it better only to leave clicking for when the player is making a decision?

     

    My style is just keep the screens super duper brief. There is nothing stopping you from taking something that is ten sentences and making it five clicks to get through. If you do that you might even find something interesting (ie: some branching or a clever use of click-text) that you didn't expect.

     

    A good example of this is a story I wrote about a man and a woman's relationship.  You get pick your first words that your'e going to say to this woman at a bar and then once you've chosen the words, it jumps to a single screen with just the clickable words "You are drunk." Your choice is made BEFORE this slide -- so it goes "Pick A or B" then "You are drunk." and then A or B executes. I landed on it as an entertaining bit of design because I was taking a two BIG screens and chopping them up.  So yeah, chop chop chop.

     

    I also think Twine is not a good place to prove that you're a good fiction writer.  It is a place to prove that you are a good game designer.  I, personally, don't like twines that are written in the style of a novel -- say, a full adjective laden sentence describing the smell of the air.

     

    For instance, lets say I'm writing a Twine game that is set... uh....hmmm.... ok, it's set on a safari in Tanzania.  It starts like this:

     

    Option A

     

    Your boots crush down into the dry grass as you hop from the back of a Land Rover. The heavy smell of diesel rushes into your nose; the grimy byproduct of the hulking engine that now quietly ticks in the scorching, African heat. The fumes and your own exhaustion work together to create a lightheaded dream state, only made worse by the circumstances of this tenuous mission -- you are here to hunt and ultimately destroy the bloodthirsty specter that killed your best friend -- an insatiable Lion named Fartface.  [Head out into the bush]  [Rest a while with your driver]

     

    Option B

     

    You step out of your Land Rover into the oppressive heat of the Savannah. It was a long and impossibly bumpy journey, but you're finally here to hunt the lion that killed your best friend.

     

    The abominable Fartface. (new page)

     

    ***

     

    You're lightheaded from the drive; the taste of diesel in the air doesn't help either.

     

    [Head out into the bush anyway]  [Rest a while with your driver]

     

    Ok, so it might just be a matter of personal preference, but I want to play Option B.  It gets straight to the point and doesn't seem to want to impress me with the quality of it's writing (although it's certainly not awful; I had to look up how to spell abominable).  

     

    PLUS! I just proved my point.  Writing it the 2nd way I noted that the first page delivered me the info I needed to make future choices (I'm here to kill the Lion -- made even more important by it being the thing I click on)  AND it made my lightheadedness the most important thing in page 2.  Seeing that happen while I was writing, I added the word "anyway" to the first choice to highlight that heading out into the bush is a risk.  Of course, I'd probably make the driver get eaten by Fartface if you stayed, so that's fun.

     

    I think keeping each page of a twine as conceptually tight as possible is a good way (but not the only way) to go about trying to design a good game.

    Remember: be an impressive designer first, a good writer second!

  8. Posted

    Thanks for the linkle! I keep meaning to try that out, maybe this is the right time to.

     

    Allow me to start with a question that may or may not be worth much because it might be more particular to me than I think.

     

    When writing do you have trouble making your writing feel like it's genuine? I often feel like my writing just slips into a style of clever fiction, the kind where there's surprising plot twists that might excite you but it never feels personal in a way you can connect with.

    Whether or not that is something you've felt, I'd be curious to know what you do to get in the right kind of mindset for writing personally engaging stuff.

     

    Hmm.  I think spending a full college experience getting a BA (I ended up with English/Film but studied a lot of policy, international relations and law) sorta prepped me for that.  Having to write in a workshop, hone your chops, and pursue honesty in the writing about all else (above a good plot, a funny moment, whatever) was just something that was beaten into me by the professors at USC. But character voice has also always been something that's sort of natural for me to pick up on.  I guess you can't just try so hard -- you need to practice and practice and practice and then once you create "real" characters, writing them feels more like transcription than it does creation. "Oh, Henry would just say X here because that's what Henry, a person, says and I know him pretty good."

  9. Posted

    Hi,

     

    I guess I know some stuff about these things so I thought I'd start a thread if folks have questions about getting started, weird little problems you might encounter, ideas, the desire for feedback (probably harder for me, to be honest, but I'll try), etc.

     

    You can get twine here. 

     

    If you're making something narrative, it's a great way to start. It's actually how I started Firewatch right after I left Telltale. 

     

    I don't know much about inkle but it might be worth a look.

     

    I know a bit about Unity, but we use a proprietary system so not sure how helpful I can be there.

  10. Posted

    If you ever do get a chance to talk to Puppey, even if isn't for a full interview, then please, please ask him whether he is a seven foot giant, or if he just refuses to play with any teammate over 5'2".  This question consumes me.

    I have talked to Puppey in real life and he is very tall. Dendi is also very tall. I am 5'11 and they are both a good three (Dendi) to five (Puppey) inches taller than me.

  11. Posted

    It appears I am thankfully the dissenting opinion here, because I did not enjoy this episode at all. I'd usually not say anything when that happens, but I want to offer feedback so the show continues to be good. I am not sure of the right word, but your guest was very standoffish(?). Aloof, maybe? It felt like you guys were trying to feed answers to make them longer than a few words. He doesn't talk to his teammates, he doesn't talk to former teammates, he doesn't think pro-am leagues are good, he doesn't have a system for practice, he contradicted himself in back to back sentences... I didn't feel like I learned anything about his team, or anything in Dota or gaming at large except he wants all the lords to be deleted and the satellite tournaments are too long.

     

    It sounds like he is a high profile player coming off of a big tournament win, so I understand why he'd be a really big grab as a guest. Without him seeming willing to talk about anything at length I didn't get any interesting insights or fun stories of previous episodes. Unfortunately I feel like I'm being critical without being constructive. Having defined topics to discuss seems like it's pretty important?

     

    Aui is/was a really tough interview. It seems like your actual argument is "you shouldn't have publishes this because I didn't like it." But assuming we don't have pre-defined topics, haven't done research, etc etc. is wrong.

     

    99% of an interview is not the questions you ask -- making a list of good/hard questions is easy. An interview is about reading the tone of a conversation and getting someone to open up so it flows like a back and forth conversation between two people who trust each other. Our conversation with Blitz is a great example of that.  The thing is, for a lot of "newly known people" (ie: Aui is a "name" but hasn't been for more than a few years) you have to straddle this line between knowing tons about them already (to do your job) but communicating that you don't in order to not make him or her feel uncomfortable.  Striking that tone is really hard and Aui is a very guarded person.  He may not have shared with you some magical insights but you did get an honest glimpse of who he is a person and how he perceives his own career and life.  If you didn't like that, that's fine, but it's not quite right to assume our process or preparation because you didn't like the interview.

  14. Posted

    I think Sean's question about why Polygon has to cover certain AAA games at all was valid but would have totally accepted if Justin just had said because it's a business.  They get the clicks and I think the scope of their operation requires things like constant coverage of Assassin's Creed or Destiny and an article on the latest Marvel movie update.  

     

    But this was a great and fun episode, Justin always made the Besties worth a listen.

     

    This is obviously the answer and I think I was just trying to make that point -- I don't like pretending that everything is all the same -- and it's also kind of an end-around way of pointing out that the entire idea of "the press" being "in collusion" with "indies" is actually insane.

  15. Posted

    "I don't think there's a way to come back from the early days of your sport being rife with a bunch of childish cheaters, and expecting anyone to ever take it seriously." I get what Sean's saying here, but I immediately thought of the Black Sox. That hardly killed baseball, even at the peak of the dead-ball era, and from what we can tell once baseball became better documented, it was only the tip of an iceberg of cheating, almost too widespread ever to be called out. People kept watching and the culture slowly changed, that's all.

    I know e-sports are different, but I also think society is remarkably forgiving of any competitive activity wherein cheaters are able to prosper, so long as there is punishment when they are caught and there are legitimate players with which to juxtapose them.

    EDIT: Okay, Jake talks later about institutions "getting burned" before they understand the public trust of viewership, if that's the idea then I agree with the rest being said.

     

    I thought about bringing up the Black Sox but I'm not really informed enough on the history of league POST the Black Sox off of the top of my head. But I also think that was pre-visual media and obviously way pre-twitter era.  I think I corrected myself in saying "Pete Rose didn't be on his own team--he didn't bet AGAINST his team" but regardless, either of those scandals would ROCK MLB to the core if they happened now.  Can you imagine if it came out that the 2014 Giants rigged the World Series? Holy shit.

  18. Posted

    The problem with the Riot comparisons is that Riot is the LoL company but Valve is not the Dota 2 company. Valve is notoriously hands off with the community and the scene beyond TI. If you're talking about the future of Dota 2 esports, arguing the merits of Valve following Riot's model is kind of a dead end (from what we know now anyways).  

     

    I would actually love for there to be an internationally recognized governing body (that includes player advocates) that can take the esports side of things out of Valve's hands (since they don't seem to want it anyways). If nothing else, I feel like there NEEDS to be a strong player's union. Part of the "over saturation" problem is that the owners ROI in a team drops with every tournament they don't attend, and there is already SO MUCH churn in players and line ups (no doubt part of the reason Valve wants to deal with players and not teams).

     

    There'll be a perverse incentive to run players ragged until they burn out if owners are left alone to consolidate and run the show. 

     

    Yep, this.  What is the point? We could've talked about the SC MLG circuit as well, but I don't see the point of talking about how Riot organizes and sponsors all of their tourneys when Valve is never going to do that.

  19. Posted

    This pure, wild, irresponsible conjecture but it wouldn't surprise me for TI5 to be the last one (or any future tournament) and Valve says "go forth, community, do your thing."

     

    That would be the most Valvian thing ever. (Not saying I hope they do, I'm in the camp of wishing they did MORE, to be honest, but it wouldn't surprise me.)

  20. Posted

    We'll report back to confirm but I assume they are really nice.  ( A smart woman once pointed out to me that women often pay way more for underwear and get what they pay for so I started buying nice underwear at Nordstroms and don't regret it considering it's touching my most sensitive areas most of the time I'm awake) 

     

    I was kind of excited about the MeUndies advert, until I went to their site. Unless I'm super dumb, they want $20-$24 per pair. Da fuq? I mean, I even buy some fairly nice undies as it is, but that's still like 3 times the price of buying a premium brand at retail.

  24. Posted

    This is an interesting thing to consider because I don't think the games I've made have ever prescribed to Chris's notion of respecting the player's time.  I don't think he would say that about something like The Walking Dead but I wonder if that just boils down to the fact that he liked The Walking Dead despite it having some cruft.  Anyway, I'm sure he'll chime in.

     

    The thing is (and this is obviously pure speculation) I think I would probably say the same thing about DA:I if I were to play it (I sure that feel way about the Mass Effect games).  But, as pointed out above, I will put tens (or hundreds) of hours into something for a very small or brief payoff (DayZ, Dota 2).  I grew up hunting and fishing so that means you spend hours and hours and hours alone waiting for a moment that may never come.  I find that slow burn really pleasurable.

     

    The issue for me is actually stakes.  (I get the sense that the critique I'm about to levy isn't quite appropriate for DA:I, so give me a pass on that -- this is more of a general criticism of big 40+ hour video games like ME, AC, Destiny, Borderlands, whatever).  It's really hard for me to invest that initial ten hours or whatever when I know that no matter what I'm going to end up as a powerful hero.  I'm just clocking the hours until the game goes "ok, yeah, you can go do the heroic thing now."  The stakes in Day-Z and Dota are very high.  You have to actively and intelligently engage with the systems -- not just go through the motions but use a mix of smarts, skill and ingenuity -- to set yourself up for the unexpected moment where you need to attack or defend.  That moment can happen at any second so all the moments in between, the moments that stitch together to make the entirety of the game experience need to be spent in active anticipation.  The critique "does this game respect my time," is sorta moot in this instance in that ALL of the time spent playing the game, literally every second, has (and more importantly feels like it has) consequence.