Jake

Idle Thumbs 208: Buds are Out, Keys are In

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Idle Thumbs 206:

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Buds are Out, Keys are In

Whether you're a modder, a hat baron, or a Greek citizen, it has been a rough week on the financial front. In a time when anyone with an idea can seemingly throw entire economies into turmoil, maybe it's our turn. Join us as we put on our Unusual Financial Prognosticator hats and dig into the recent paid mods kerfuffle, receive a shocking update on the Team Fortress economy, and follow the trails of intrigue back to their only possible source.

Games Discussed: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Charnel House Trilogy, Will Fight For Food: Super Actual Sellout: Game of the Hour, Broken Age Act 2, Grand Theft Auto V (PC), Splatoon

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"You think you can get to level ten?"

 

"Detective, I'm 30 years old, I live with my mother, and... *cracks knuckles* I have a Captain Kirk costume, in my closet."

 

*proceeds to die over and over*

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/975uq6/prince-of-persia-on-nbc-s-life

 

I really enjoyed that show, but goddamn that scene was painfully bad. Worse than the Big Bang Theory in terms of nerd hate and video game stupidity. If it's "a hard drive with games on it" why didn't they show the techie take out the HD, access it with his desktop in two seconds, done. Even with some stupid made up GUI it's better than faking the video game stuff.

 

Here's a great breakdown of all the terrible stuff in this 3 minute scene. http://www.themarysue.com/nbc-life-prince-of-persia/

 

Edit: Tomato Robot

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Of all the weird tangents in Idle Thumbs I never thought I'd hear a thorough Doug reference. Now the theme is playing in my head.

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Jake joked about a Skyrim mod pyramid scheme, but that sort of actually happened.  Or it would have if the paid mods thing continued.  There are a lot of mods that apparently require a mod called SkyUI to function properly, and the creator of SkyUI said that his mod was going to become a paid only mod.  This of course angered a lot of people.  At least that's my understanding of the situation, I've never played an Elder Scrolls game.

 

In general I think the paid mods idea could work.  I'm with Jake in that I like the idea of there being a way for mod creators to earn.  I just think that Valve picked a bad starting point.  Trying to interrupt an existing mod scene like this is pretty much only going to be met with contempt.  They need to start with a new game and show that it can work from the start instead of trying to tack it on to something that already exists after the fact.  Also they need to be way clearer about how its actually going to work.  I saw a LOT of false information and assumptions being thrown at Gabe in his AMA.

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That hypothetical of mods within mods is actually the reality of Skyrim to some extent. A lot of the mods use a script extender mod as well as a the mod manager of a major overhauling mod (I think it's called SkyUI). So a lot of mods would not function without access to those specific overarching mods. The whole Skyrim situation is full of weird issues beyond the simple idea of wanting modders to make money for their content and a lot of people don't even agree with that basic idea.

Edit: SecretAsianMan says as much above

 

The Valve games that sell workshop stuff have two advantages: one, the kinds of things they add are very simple things like weapons or clothing pieces and two, actual people vet everything that makes it into the workshop store. Even so, an early Faceless Void mace model in Dota was just stolen from another game and had to be replaced by a Valve model later on. Just letting every creator turn on pay on any kind of mod for Skyrim whether it's a cheat, weapon model, companion, UI change, balance tweak, quest line, overarching behaviour or full on expansion makes it a fundamentally more complex situation than the workshop content in Valve games.

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I came to this thread expressly to see a video of the tomato robot, and y'all did not disappoint.

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Bookmarking this episode title for the next wizard jam.

 

I'm a little more disappointed I can't make a maternal fighting game called Mombo Combo.

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Along the lines of Chris feeling like a mom when playing GTA 5, I feel like a mom when seeing things Mortal Kombat related.

I'm not sure why.  I remember being very enamored by MK2.  And I'm certainly not averse to violent games.  But I guess I do find myself getting a little more grossed out by games that revel in it.

 

 

Also, Bioshock 2 multiplayer was great!  I played a ton of it as well.  It was fun because it wasn't solely reliant on you killing dudes.  

 

That TF2 economy email WAS GREAT!

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What I'm hearing about GTA 5 is: skip the single player campaign and go straight to multiplayer heists, and you get a top tier heist game rather than a cliched crime story.

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Okay, first thing: that remix of Jake (I think it's Jake, please don't hurt me) at the end killed me and I almost fell down my apartment stairs in the dark as it started playing. 

 

And now for my comment: when Jake and Danielle were mentioning multiplayer Nintendo games, I was a little surprised that Pokemon didn't come up. I know that Pokemon technically isn't a first-party Nintendo game, but to me Pokemon has always been closely associated with Nintendo, and moreover it has always been associated with connectivity and a multiplayer element. This is especially pertinent when discussing a competitive element to Nintendo games, because until very recently, Pokemon is the only Nintendo game to have officially sponsored major international tournaments (the recent major Smash Bros tournaments had official Nintendo sponsorship). The Pokemon Video Game Championships (VGC) started several years ago and holds tournaments at the regional, national and worldwide levels. It is a rather established tournament scene with a serious meta-game, and takes a lot of dedication to develop a strong team. Not just in terms of breeding Pokemon with good stats, but having a well-balanced team that can seriously deal with the top threats of the current metagame. Alongside the VGC, there have been a few official online tournaments (that I have played in; I have not played in VGC because I am not committed enough to travel for it), so anyone can join, but it is still taken quite seriously since it seems most casual Pokemon players don't touch the multiplayer aspect at all.

 

Anyway, I've played a few of the Wizard Jam games, and they have been thoroughly enjoyable! I love how zany the games are given the titles. I have zero know-how of how to make a game, but at least my photo got into I Like the Hair, so there's my contribution. 

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Holy crap, that Wizard Jam remix at the end. (Yes, it was Jake, eRonin :tup:)

 

Wizard Jam 2 Theme Song (Requirements: Must be included in all jam games in some form)

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I really enjoyed the Thumbs' discussion of mods in the first half of the podcast, but it also felt really clear to me that they were speaking as indie developers used to working in small and close-knit teams, close to the ideal of an auteur or a collective. I don't have that much experience with making mods, but what experience I do have, working in double-digit teams of complete strangers over the internet to release total-conversion mods similar to the Game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings 2, wouldn't really work well with any kind of traditional payment scheme.

 

For most of 2005, I drifted in and out of the forum-based team for Rome: Total Realism, maybe the biggest mod for Rome: Total War until Europa Barbarorum was released and the RTR team refocused on scale and modularity instead of sheer detail. During my stint, we had twenty or thirty coders, artists, and testers total, plus a dozen or so independent modders who gave permission for their own work to be included in our mod. I worked under Driddle, testing his unit code for balance, but I didn't know his real name. In fact, I didn't know anyone's real name, nor did most of the other members of the team with whom I spoke regularly. This proved a problem because, twice during my short time with the team, the team leader (GaiusJulius, who was eventually forced out in favor of Caius Britannicus) absconded with some or all of the mod's files and no one knew what to do besides start over from scratch. The first time, it was because of a stupid argument that he wanted to win, so he just took his toys and left until the rest of the team begged for him to come back, but the second time, he used the trust people had placed in him as team leader to take down the mod's official site, blackmail some members of the team into quitting, and put up a broken version of the mod under the name of other members to discredit them for criticizing his behavior. It soon came to light that GaiusJulius was a lot younger than he had let on that he was and, despite his immense wealth of programming talent and historical knowledge, was simply not up to the task of leading a large, diverse, and multilingual team. As I alluded to above, he was replaced (by blunt acclamation) with someone who was, but the mod had already lost hundreds of hours of work and a lot of people had drifted out of the orbit of the team during the drama, myself eventually included.

 

I still think Rome: Total Realism 6.0 Gold is one of the greatest gaming experiences of my life, and I feel lucky to have played an extremely small part in bringing it into being, but I literally have no idea how such a mod could exist in a system of paid mod distribution that just deposited money into the account of whoever uploaded the mod. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I have so many questions about it that my mind cannot get to the point where I could even suggest a theory of how it would work. How would I, a part-time tester and consultant, be paid? Would I be expected to work for free and is that fair? How about independent modders who let their work be included in the mod, should they be compensated? What if they changed their minds later, if the mod to which they contributed turned out to be very successful? Could they pull the content that was theirs, maybe issue a DMCA, if they wanted to do that? Is it just going to be up to the team leader to disburse funds among the major figures on the team and hope that they let it trickle down? What's keeping the team leader from keeping all the money or doing a runner? What if the mod team is divided on the issue of price or on whether to charge at all? What's keeping a disgruntled or greedy member of the team from uploading an internal beta to the store in the hopes of tricking fans into paying? What happens when the original creator of a mod quits the team? Do they still own the mod, in the eyes of Valve? Can they demand that it be taken down and work be halted by whoever succeeds them on the team? What if they're forced out involuntarily, does Valve keep paying them the money or change to whoever's now on top? How is any of that decided? Are large mod teams going to have to incorporate to make this work? In short, could this team even function in a marketplace for paid mods, or would the politics of capitalism and the internet simply prevent them from existing, putting content on the Steam Workshop, and charging money for it?

 

All of the above are questions for which Valve at least will have hypothetical answers, I hope, before they try to implement optional pricing for mods again.

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Haha the ending was awesome. I had the pleasure of having the podcast in a song queue that included various rap/trap songs, so when it ended my sleepless brain thought the wizard slash jam game dash wizard slam jam kept going for over two hours.

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The opening exchange between Jake and Nick reminded me of the most extreme example of characters standing around telling each other things they all already know for the benefit of the audience that I've ever seen--the pilot of the CBS crime procedural "Blue Bloods."  It was so bad I was determined to find it to share it here, and because the Internet exists, of course someone runs a site that just contains transcripts of episodes of Blue Bloods.  Here is the opening scene to the whole series:

 

Dad!

 

Hey. Grandpa, over here!

 

Great speech, Dad.

 

Hey, Grandpa.

 

I'm proud of you, son.

 

Thanks, Dad.

 

Hey. You looked great up there.

 

Mom's probably spinning in her grave, you quitting the law and becoming a cop and all.

 

Danny.

 

I'm just sayin'. Golden boy was on the fast track to Washington. Now look at him. Just like the rest of us Reagans-- another boot in a suit.

 

Don't bust my chops, Danny.

 

Excuse me, all the Reagans?

 

I'm sorry, sis. I forgot we got an assistant district attorney in the family-- I'm so proud of you, sis.

 

We'd have another lawyer in the family if these two would set a date.

 

What, and spoil all the fun?

 

Hey, Reagan, we made it.

 

Yeah! Congratulations, boss. Dad, this is Officer Romano. First woman recruit to win the sharpshooter medal.

 

Well done.

 

Thank you, sir.

 

I just wanted to say hello. (chuckles) You must be... Sydney, right? Congratulations.

 

Thanks.

 

I'll see you around, Reagan.

 

Okay. She won the sharpshooter medal.

 

Your father said.

 

Well, the gang's all here. I guess we should be getting over to the Breslin. Oh, sorry, but first-year associates don't get lunch.

 

I'm lucky they let me out for this. It was amazing. Mmm. Okay. Bye, everybody. Love you.

 

Bye.

 

Bye, Sidney. She seems to be handling this well, you being a cop. (phone rings)

 

We're working on it.

 

It can't be easy after watching you bury your brother.

 

Joe died doing what he loved to do. Little brother, I'm gonna have to buy you a beer another time. I got a missing kid. Got to go.

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This episode was chock-full of episode titles. The pressure is just having to choose one favorite child from all of them.

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That kind of exposition is all over the place in bad science fiction (and some good stuff too, it's just better disguised). Jokingly referred to as AYKB (As You Know Bob).

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Oh, man, the "as you know." It's the sort of thing that high-school-level creative writing classes teach you not to do, but is still everywhere somehow.

 

"As you know, I shouldn't have to tell you any of this because you already know it, but I'll say it out loud just to make sure that any unknown invisible observer isn't confused."

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When you were having that discussion about the tv murder mystery involving someone playing a video game to unlock the mystery. I couldn't stop thinking about the amazing 1984 Atari game spy movie cloak and dagger, which also involved a invisible friend that becomes visible at the end, and the Alamo.

 

maxresdefault.jpg

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Totally agree with Chris wrt GTAV.  I soldiered on for a few more hours then he did, but I couldn't find anything worthwhile beyond the scope and production values.  I was really disappointed too because I just got back from a Disneyland-Santa Monica-LA-San Diego vacation and wanted to enjoy their in-game renderings, but man that gameplay and those characters...ewww.

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