Chris

Idle Thumbs 223: Troll Clone Today

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Idle Thumbs 223:

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Troll Clone Today

Welcome to our tour of nightmares. When on the tour please do not bully our security robot. In this, our first chamber, we keep our rejected user-generated Sonic the Hedgehog characters. Sorry, no, you can't turn the limb physics off; they just move that way all the time. To the left, our Fallout Shelter gallery, worth visiting before we change it over to a new exhibit; the hall on your right houses our collection of a thousand staring ghost masks. The rest of the museum—the Breckon Wing—is dedicated to one poor man who dared log on to Grand Theft Auto V's multiplayer component. Nightmare gallery probably not underwritten by J.G. Edwards.

Games Discussed: Sonic Dreams Collection, Rymdresa, Dota 2, Grand Theft Auto V, Wargame, Far Cry 2, Fallout Shelter, Sheltered, Rocket League

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I just wanted to make a quick note about Jake's reference to Team Secret, the team that wore the golden sunglasses going into the match versus EHOME, who proceeded to knock Secret into the lower bracket. I think it is widely presumed by a lot of people that this was a super arrogant move on Team Secret's part. I suppose there was maybe some arrogance in the move, but I also know from going to the International something about that that everyone at home missed because of the camera shot. Everyone on Team Secret took off their sunglasses as they shook the hands of the opposing team. But when it came to Puppey, he took off his sunglasses to reveal a second pair of sunglasses. But when I watched the twitch replay of that the camera switched to a bird's eye shot of the two teams shaking hands, so basically nearly everyone missed the punchline.

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I just wanted to make a quick note about Jake's reference to Team Secret, the team that wore the golden sunglasses going into the match versus EHOME, who proceeded to knock Secret into the lower bracket. I think it is widely presumed by a lot of people that this was a super arrogant move on Team Secret's part. I suppose there was maybe some arrogance in the move, but I also know from going to the International something about that that everyone at home missed because of the camera shot. Everyone on Team Secret took off their sunglasses as they shook the hands of the opposing team. But when it came to Puppey, he took off his sunglasses to reveal a second pair of sunglasses. But when I watched the twitch replay of that the camera switched to a bird's eye shot of the two teams shaking hands, so basically nearly everyone missed the punchline.

Better in all ways.

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I watched a Let's Play of Sonic Dreams Collection.  Thank you for adequately preparing me for the nightmare.

 

But I was also put off by the process it would take to actually play the game.  First download some random .exe and ignore a ton of security warnings.  Then play it on a Windows-only machine.  And the game is two-button-plus-scroll-wheel-mouse-mandatory, too; the button combinations for Sonic's camera are impossible to recreate on a trackpad.

 

I guess most games are like that, but it's weird to be reminded of that when I play so many first person games on a MacBook with the trackpad.

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I just wanted to make a quick note about Jake's reference to Team Secret, the team that wore the golden sunglasses going into the match versus EHOME, who proceeded to knock Secret into the lower bracket. I think it is widely presumed by a lot of people that this was a super arrogant move on Team Secret's part. I suppose there was maybe some arrogance in the move, but I also know from going to the International something about that that everyone at home missed because of the camera shot. Everyone on Team Secret took off their sunglasses as they shook the hands of the opposing team. But when it came to Puppey, he took off his sunglasses to reveal a second pair of sunglasses. But when I watched the twitch replay of that the camera switched to a bird's eye shot of the two teams shaking hands, so basically nearly everyone missed the punchline.

oh man so good

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Nick's point on simplifying terminology in DOTA commentary was spot on. I've played enough DOTA to understand the game, but I'll never get in deep enough to actually play it regularly. Every year, I watch a bit of the International, and most of the commentary goes over my head, even if I can follow most of it by paying attention to the announcers's tone and watching health bars. If the casters would just say "Lina goes in for the kill, but Gyrocopter blocks it" instead of "Lina fires off her Laguna Blade but Gyro pop his BKB" (not even sure if that's right), people like me would probably have a way easier time keeping up.

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If the casters would just say "Lina goes in for the kill, but Gyrocopter blocks it" instead of "Lina fires off her Laguna Blade but Gyro pop his BKB" (not even sure if that's right), people like me would probably have a way easier time keeping up.

Well, the thing is: it's more complex than that. The Lina fires off her ultimate spell with 60 second cooldown that does a big instant magic damage. Saying "she goes in for the kill" wouldn't be correct, because it would imply that she does something she can do any time. Gyro pops his BKB = Gyro turns on an item that gives spell immunity, it is agains Lina's ultimate, yes, but also against many other spells of other heroes around, the purpose of it is not just to block the one damaging ultimate (which itself doesn't do enough to kill, btw), but to block a lot of other things. ALSO: if Lina has built an Aghanim's scepter item, her Laguna Blade does pure damage, that is goes through spell immunity. So, BKB is not a block against it in all cases too...

 

Yes, there's too much going on to really simplify everything.

 

Also, i wanted to post the link that Moosferatu posted too. It happenned on June 12th, so it seems something has been going on for long now, and not just to Nick.

 

Also this: https://www.reddit.com/r/GTAV/comments/39op3i/why_do_all_hacker_clones_have_green_hair/

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Thank you Nick for echoing my feelings on EG winning the International completely.  I only pulled up the video after hearing they had won and the extent of my Dota 2 knowledge comes from the Free to Play documentary but wow that was depressing and awkward.  I can understand some level of catharsis for some of those guys but it just felt like they were lining up for awkward school pictures.  I don't think it will keep anyone from watching in the future but if the competitors aren't showing excitement after winning the biggest tournament for the game then why should I?

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Here is the Youtube video of Nick's GTA experience:



 

Nick exploding was probably related to Rockstars Anti-Cheat tools where you explode if you cheat.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gta-5-online-cheating-punished-with-exploding-cars/1100-6426410/

 

 

I have no idea what the green haired guy was about but I assume its the standard game hacker messing with systems.

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I thought I was sleuthing Nick's hacking experience, because I noticed the goblin man showed up in the same spot on the sidewalk. Then I realized the video was looping. :P

 

 

I was really disappointed with a lot of the production surrounding specifically the Grand Final. I'm glad Nick felt the same way I did, because it was SO strange and disjointed. The "sideline" reporter finally got up to the stage and she was lobbing softballs and they were whiffing so hard. At one point she said something like "How are you feeling right now?" and the answer was "What?" I waited through Deadmouse to get finals analysis and what I got was surreal exhausted dudes that didn't want to put forward the effort to give a straight up answer to like three whole questions.

 

I'm sort of with you on terminology, but most of the terms are developed from the community or have descriptive value. I think if they could actually get some consistency out of it, the Newbie Stream The International has the best chance to be what you want - calling the action and then describing it. But it's just really inconsistent, the casters get tired, they get silly, they do dumb stuff. Think about translating this to a non-esoteric sport. There is so much vocabulary that's just understood or implied to the audience. Imagine watching baseball and the broadcasters stopped, every time, and described what a "slider" is. There's some sort of balance we can hit, but I don't know where it is. (typing while listening- radio is such a good idea)

 

Jake: The NFL now sells an add on package of coverage that provides HD All-22 coverage (every player is shown for the whole play) for like $50.

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Thank you Nick for echoing my feelings on EG winning the International completely.  I only pulled up the video after hearing they had won and the extent of my Dota 2 knowledge comes from the Free to Play documentary but wow that was depressing and awkward.  I can understand some level of catharsis for some of those guys but it just felt like they were lining up for awkward school pictures.  I don't think it will keep anyone from watching in the future but if the competitors aren't showing excitement after winning the biggest tournament for the game then why should I?

 

DOTA matches at The International are relatively long though - how long were the last four games put together? A few hours at least, much more than just an 80 minute football match. And wasn't EG playing the semi-finals immediately beforehand? How long was their day? No wonder they're exhausted. 

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Yes, there's too much going on to really simplify everything.

 

Except, in that instance, there's not really anything more than that. Someone uses an ultimate, it gets blocked by the opposing character's item use. To a person who doesn't know anything about Dota, that's what happened. If there weren't other characters around that were using abilities that were blocked, the fact that the item can do so is irrelevant at that time. One character used a powerful attack, the other used an item that prevented the attack from doing anything. At that moment in the game, that's what happened, that's all I care about, and having someone spout two minutes of jargon keeps me from following what's going on, and I decide that there's something better to spend my time on than being baffled by Dota streamers (and if you already care enough about Dota to know those things, why would you need a commentator to tell you about it?).

 

 

It took about half a sentence into Nick's story for me to realize that, oh, Nick just encountered a modder. For some reason, GTA Online's servers seem to just trust anything a client tells them, even if that thing is "everybody on the server except for me totally just exploded." Nick was fortunate enough that his encounter was a bizarre dream sequence, but it's far more likely to just be an asshole trying to ruin your day. Instead of somebody just griefing you by killing you whenever you respawn, setting bounties, and hiring mercenary squads until you leave, it's trivial for them to just make you explode, turn invisible, become immune to damage (even in competitive modes like deathmatches), and even cause crashes by mass-spawning objects or loading things from the single-player game that don't have proper support in the online mode.

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Jake: I often listen to dota matches instead of watching, i would open the stream in a separate browser tab and go around doing some other work, while listening to commentaters. Is this enough for the "listen to the match on a radio"-like?

 

Although, to be fair, sometimes, when the commentators get excited and the voices go up, i shift+tab to the stream to watch the epic fight.

 

Also, you should have watched the noob stream more this year. It was better than last, although they had more... technical... difficulties

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So during the all star match the night before the finals, the players in the arena couldn't hear the questions that were being asked. So Kaci, the woman doing the interviews, would ask a question about if they were excited etc and the players would ask her repeatedly to ask the question again. It's very possible that they just straight up couldn't hear her over a very loud Key Arena.

 

Also of the teams to win, this particular team is very un-ostentatious.  Fear, the guy they joked about buying a new million dollar desk, legitimately did buy a computer desk with his earnings previously. He also bought a Benz, and that is the most high profile purchase anyone on this team has made with the hundreds of thousands of dollars they've each won. A player like PPD still drives like a 1999 Chevy Blazer with a huge dent in the side, and lives in a 2 bedroom rental house that he shares with 2 roommates in Fort Wayne Indiana. He's said that he hasn't touched like any of his winnings, and seems to be living primarily off his salary from the team.

Aui_2000 still lives with his parents.  These are not guys who are particularly into being flashy.

 

Also in Dota as a whole, interviews are often times extended 20-30 minute things where players can actually talk about themselves and aren't pressured into providing sound bites. They don't have a lot of practice doing the "well we really played together as a team, and blah blah blah" standard sports responses. Also, the atmosphere of the victory was totally undercut by a super anti-climactic Deadmau5 set. It was bizarre, they did virtually no post game analysis, or replays of important plays.

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GTA5 MP hackers are there a lot. Some are fun, quite a bunch of plain annoying.

I think it was Patters and me who at some point joined a biker gang created by a hacker. He insisted on everybody to wear the same/similar biker clothes and he spawned bikes for us all. I think we were with like 10 people riding around the city.

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Between Sonic Dreams Collection, GTAV hacking, and the gas lighting robot, this was a good week for nightmares.

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E-Sports have some gaps to jump to becoming sport-like. They're mostly there, but the competitor conduct is a huge deal. EG being so muted about winning $6,000,000 was awkward indeed. But the hype around them being an American team I support. Mostly because I don't really have a "home" team to cheer for. Any team that's from North America is my home team, and that's that.

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