I Saw Dasein

I'm not usually a fan of the old ultraviolence, but it kind of works for me in this game, I think because the whole thing is so ludicrous,cartoony, and over-the-top. For example, if you kill a guy with the fire power, he will instantly burn down to a skeleton, then the skeleton remains upright for a second or so before collapsing to the floor. I'm nearly 100% sure the same thing happens in an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon.

It does not. A lot of the foliage and scenery is pretty lo-rez and 2D even on higher-settings. It's still an absolutely gorgeous game though. I'm only a couple hours in, and while I'm not sold on the actual gameplay, the art direction and world-building is absolutely stellar. Cool soundtrack too, though some of the gospel and folk standards they picked are a bit obvious. For example, "Old Time Religion" is playing almost as soon as you start the game, which IIRC is featured prominently in Inheriit the Wind--isn't that a bit on the nose, Mr. Levine?

Interesting thoughts, but I'd say that doing a multi-volume unreliable narrator double-cross is a pretty bad concept. There's just no way that any eventual payoff will be able to make up for the overall crappiness of the voyage. The second book was so unpleasant, dull, and embarrassing that I have no interest in finishing the series.

I basically hate Bakker and Rothfuss, but given that the Numenera setting is supposedly inspired by Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe I can understand why they want to involve active fantasy writers.

I caved and picked this up. I really loved SCII, though never made it out of gold. I started the campaign last night and it is so, so hokey. If it wasn't so self-serious it would be campy and fun, but instead it's alternatively boring and embarrassing. Thankfully the gameplay is still great. Anyway, my tag is isawdasein#1305 if anyone wants to play a few casual games sometime over the weekend.

Doesn't that just speak to how badly documented the game is? So much of the game is completely unexplained. I like the rules in a strategy game to be transparent.

For a game that is supposed to be multiplayer-centric, they sure made multiplayer difficult.

Thanks!

Yeah may as well. I haven't been invited either.

I'd pass. I like the game, but unless you're a super-fan there's no way it's worth $60, even taking into account free mystery game.

Could someone invite me to the region when they have a minute? I'm on the right server, I just need to be invited into the region. Thanks!

Does anyone have any idea how tax is calculated? Like when I set tax rate to 10%, what is it 10% of? Is it based on the zoning or does the kind of building matter? Do sims pay tax, or buildings, or both? I hate how this shit is all hidden. For a game that was supposed to make all of the mechanics graphical, a lot of these basic rules are totally obscure. The manual is also pathetic.

My experience is that it will work fine for a while, then completely stop working. So you will be depending on electricity from another city, then suddenly that connection will "break" and you'll be out of power. Or you will send money from one city to another, only to see that money disappear into the aether. Or you will build a city hall module, but that module will not properly unlock in other cities in the region; eventually it may unlock, only to re-lock. So the online connectivity has been very sporadic for me. I also have been basically unable to join truly multiplayer games (because for me the region browser will only display full regions); these were all experiences I had while running multiple cities in the same region. Because of all of these problems, I've pretty much given up attempting to use the regional features. Thus for me, the game has been single-player only. The authorial intent may have been that the game be multiplayer, but that's not how I experience it. I am enjoying the game without the multiplayer, so at least for me the multiplayer is not integral to the experience. And I actually suspect far more people are playing basically singleplayer than they are multiplayer, at least so far.

Yeah but that stuff doesn't actually work, at least reliably. In practice, you can't exchange goods and services and guys and ambulances because the regional stuff is still broken. So the game as delivered and as actually played by people so far is effectively single player. We are playing without multiplayer, which is pretty good evidence that the multiplayer isn't integral to the game.

OK, I will try that some time tonight. I think Gwardinen and I are friends (yay friends!).

I have mixed feelings about the city size. In some ways I like it: it forces you to think much hard about how you want your city to eventually turn out, and you really have to plan well in advance. It turns any new building into a much more interesting decision, because every new zone or building comes at a cost; you simply can't do everything. It is a much more "gamey" design, but the new SimCity is very much a game instead of a simulation. I think limiting city-size does make it a better game, but a worse simulation. There's also the fact that the game systems increasingly break down as you ramp up population, or at least that's how it seems to me. Larger cities would suffer from this problem even more. I have been building a relatively low population (sub 25,000) city with a focus on resource extraction, and the game systems work really well at that level. I also don't feel overly restricted in terms of city space. Of course, this is not the kind of city many fans want to build, and I can't blame them for that.

How do we actually play together? The game browser in this game is insane/broken.

I've been interested in the conversation between you and Chris. Ultimately, I think your problem only arises if you accept SimCity is attempting to be an accurate model of a city. If it's just using the idea of city building to explore game concepts, then I don't have a problem. You mentioned above that you would not like a game ostensibly about farming if the only kind of farm available is a plantation. One of my favourite boardgames is Puerto Rico, where you building and run a plantation. That game totally fails to explore any of moral or political issues that went alongside plantations (eg. slavery, colonialism, institutionalized racism, etc.). But I don't really care, because Puerto Rico doesn't set out to represent the real world. So then the question is really whether SimCity is setting out to accurately model the world, or whether it is merely a game with a real-world, city-building theme. Some of the marketing did suggest that you could accurately model a city. The game itself, though, never even begins to pretend that it is a "true" simulation of cities. Marketing aside, there is nothing about the game that purports to model the real world, and so I approach it much as I do Puerto Rico: a fun basket of game mechanics with an engaging theme. Just as I don't expect to learn anything about slavery from Puerto Rico, I don't expect to learn anything about history or city planning from SimCity. So take issue with the marketing if you want. I don't think the game itself pretends to be modelling a real city any more than SimAnt pretended to model a real anthill. Since I don't think it's a true simulation, I don't really care that they left some real-world mechanics out.

It could also be that Ron Gilbert had a larger stake in the company. Just because two people start a company together doesn't necessarily mean they have equal equity in the company.

I don't understand how you can argue that Ms. Sarkeesian's video is not about sexism. It explores the sexist portrayal of women in Video games. I thought that was the whole point. Serious academic work often contains subjective judgments. It would not at all be uncommon, or even remarkable, for a scholarly article to refer to (for example) Jim Crow laws as repressive or unjust or racist. But of course Ms. Sarkeesian's video is not serious academic work, nor is it intended to be. And her video is openly coming from a particular point of view: a feminist point of view. E: I mean I guess it doesn't really matter, I just find this whole "subjectivity is forbidden in academia" very strange. Academic writers frequently express points of view, make value judgments, suggest future courses of action, and so on.

I don't agree. No one is taking sides on Metal Gear Solid or Dead Space qua games. Anita is definitely taking sides on whether or not sexism is good or bad, and there's nothing wrong with that. Here's an analogy. Say someone made a video about the history slavery. If part way through the video, that person said that slavery was oppressive and racist, that would be a subjective opinion about slavery. But that subjective opinion is totally unobjectionable. And the fact the person expressed a subjective point of view on slavery would not lessen or undermine their factual account of the history of slavery.

It is not a very well designed game in many ways and it is incredibly buggy and poorly documented, but it is also a total joy to play on a moment-to-moment basis. At least that's my experience. Also you can make underpasses and off-ramps if you have hilly terrain, which can really help with traffic. I wish they'd open up the terraforming tools so you could add overpasses/tunnels where ever you want.

Even if that were the case, there is no way to prove from that observation that the reason for the difference is physiological and not genetic. It is just as likely that women are culturally conditioned to be more empathetic as it is that they are physiologically disposed to be empathetic. So you can't draw conclusions about the cause of a perceived gender difference just by observing that a gender difference exists.

Thanks flynn, those videos are super helpful. It blows my mind that none of this stuff is documented in-game.

At least with the specialized industry buildings (coal, oil, etc) you can sell the resource to the "global market" through a trade depot and make some money that way. I don't think you can do the same with freight.