Chris

Idle Thumbs 223: Troll Clone Today

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The broadcasters talking during the draft is actually one of the biggest context and helpful dumps you can get as a spectator of DotA 2. They explain what characters have good synergy, and while they may not always explain why, it should clue you in on seeing what those two characters are capable of and then figure out why. Hell, on the draft screen you can mouse over the abilities of each pick. It's all right there.

 

Again, being a fan of a sport takes investment to figure out who is good and why. Spectating sports is different than watching Dr. Who or Bones or whatever TV shows are out there.

Yeah you're right. I didn't know the draft screen was interactive, and I wasn't 100% invested. I picked up a layman's understanding of american football while folding laundry last year, but there was a lot more built-in those broadcasts-- and only one play was happening at a time. I went into The International blind and was dismissively overwhelmed quite quickly. I've also spent less than half an hour actually playing the game, so that didn't help at all.

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I mean I'll definitely agree on one thing about watching esports - the barrier you have to climb to understand what's going on is tougher to overcome than athletic sports. I often tell people the best thing to do to get some context is to play the game a bit yourself. It doesn't even have to be competitively, just some bots or whatever. Even understanding movement of the game helps a lot.

 

Junior Mints said it best via Twitter the other day - the best esport is probably speed running video games. There's no meta level of gameplay to learn there.

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I think it also helps with traditional sports that you have a huge base of people following it already, so it is a lot easier to get answers to questions you might have when you don't understand something. That's not something people can reliably count on with e-sports!

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There's no meta level of gameplay to learn there.

This isn't "meta", but, uh, backwards bunny hopping to gain ever increasing speeds in Half-Life 2 is definitely going to be impenetrably bizarre to someone who's never played the game (and most people who have played the game).

 

It'll look entertaining as hell, but if you don't understand the bug driving that technique, well...?

 

 

Danielle, was the anime short you mentioned per chance Time of Eve?

 

If so it is a worthwhile watch!

(...also maybe check out our dumb idle thumbs forums podcast about anime where we talk about it: https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/10013-ouran-boast-club-planning-an-anime-podcast/?p=369611)

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This isn't "meta", but, uh, backwards bunny hopping to gain ever increasing speeds in Half-Life 2 is definitely going to be impenetrably bizarre to someone who's never played the game (and most people who have played the game).

 

It'll look entertaining as hell, but if you don't understand the bug driving that technique, well...?

Well things aren't self-evident but they can easily be explained. In general that is.

 

By the way, since Chris is still playing Fallout Shelter, just dropping the news here that the game is finally out for Android devices. I just downloaded it from the Google Play store.

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One thing that's different between speedrunning and other esports, though, is that the latter are just harder to commentate. Watching AGDQ, they'll often explain why the backwards hopping is happening, what the particular glitch is, or if something that just happened is good or bad luck, which is great as a casual viewer, but they have the advantage that the route is planned and nothing unexpected will happen to any reasonably prepared runner, at least for most games. With Dota they could explain why the guy is wiggling his lord back and forth in front of the other little monster guys, but they want to explain the interesting dynamics emerging in the particular match instead.

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Well things aren't self-evident but they can easily be explained. In general that is.

I guess my point was it can be entertaining without knowing what's actually happening, just like Dota or whatever. I think it comes much more down to the person than it does the subject. the subject has something to do with it, of course, but eh.

 

I've traditionally hated watching all sports (although I do enjoy being There in a large and lively crowd, it's a unique experience), and Dota's the only thing I've ever enjoyed watching competitive play. I don't even really enjoy speedruns unless it's a game I'm super deep into, and then I mostly enjoy it in an academic sense.

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The GTA Troll story reminded me of the old FPS Nitro Family. Nitro Family is this weird game where you play as a father whose child has been kidnapped and you carry your wife around on your back. When you get enough combo kills or something you can shoot your wife up into the air where she will carpet bomb all the enemies.

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Since weird Sonic games were discussed this week I think it's a good time to remind everybody of the Hedgehog Game.

 

To play the Hedgehog Game, just put your first name into google images followed by "the hedgehog" and see what comes up!

 

For example, here's Nick the Hedgehog!

 

post-34045-0-59221500-1439685269_thumb.png

 

And here's Danielle!

 

post-34045-0-94491100-1439685266_thumb.png

 

And Jake!

 

post-34045-0-96674900-1439685268_thumb.png

 

And Chris!

 

post-34045-0-94191800-1439685267_thumb.jpg

 

After 20 years of fan characters this works with absolutely any name.

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I was waiting to jump into GTA online until after I finished the main story. Now though, after Nick's run in with some sort of goblin man, I'm a little concerned to jump in at all. I think it would warp my brain too much to have something like that happen to me. Another excellent episode!

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Since weird Sonic games were discussed this week I think it's a good time to remind everybody of the Hedgehog Game.

 

To play the Hedgehog Game, just put your first name into google images followed by "the hedgehog" and see what comes up!

 

For example, here's Nick the Hedgehog!

 

attachicon.gifnick_the_hedgehog_request__by_sonamyvshadamy-d5wwdse.png

 

And here's Danielle!

 

attachicon.gifanother_danielle_the_hedgehog_by_nikkitoul3000-d5k4nc5.png

 

And Jake!

 

attachicon.gifJake_the_Hedgehog_by_Needlemouse.png

 

And Chris!

 

attachicon.gifchris_the_hedgehog_collab_by_shadamymephonic-d37wqgq.jpg

 

After 20 years of fan characters this works with absolutely any name.

 "Make my hand huge!!"

This is spot on.  Loving it.

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Since weird Sonic games were discussed this week I think it's a good time to remind everybody of the Hedgehog Game.

 

To play the Hedgehog Game, just put your first name into google images followed by "the hedgehog" and see what comes up!

 

For example, here's Nick the Hedgehog!

 

attachicon.gifnick_the_hedgehog_request__by_sonamyvshadamy-d5wwdse.png

 

And here's Danielle!

 

attachicon.gifanother_danielle_the_hedgehog_by_nikkitoul3000-d5k4nc5.png

 

And Jake!

 

attachicon.gifJake_the_Hedgehog_by_Needlemouse.png

 

And Chris!

 

attachicon.gifchris_the_hedgehog_collab_by_shadamymephonic-d37wqgq.jpg

 

After 20 years of fan characters this works with absolutely any name.

 

I tried this for my name, but typing "Jeremy Hedgehog" into GIS gets me 50% bad Sonic fanart and 50% pictures of Ron Jeremy. :(

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The optimized Sonic game is to use Deviantart instead of Google Image Search. This is how I was taught, but may have just been house rules.

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I've noticed that on a couple of occasions they have talked about how cool it would be for someone to encounter this one in a million thing in a game, or a customized podcast, or now a mall robot. Because of this, if Firewatch doesn't end up with some super rare event like that I will be very disappointed!

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I've noticed that on a couple of occasions they have talked about how cool it would be for someone to encounter this one in a million thing in a game, or a customized podcast, or now a mall robot. Because of this, if Firewatch doesn't end up with some super rare event like that I will be very disappointed!

 

None of us will ever know.

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I've noticed that on a couple of occasions they have talked about how cool it would be for someone to encounter this one in a million thing in a game, or a customized podcast, or now a mall robot. Because of this, if Firewatch doesn't end up with some super rare event like that I will be very disappointed!

 

firewatch is frog fractions 2

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Nick's GTA story was amazing! Thank you for sharing.

 

Also thank you for actually posting a thing that you promised to post on the podcast! :tup:

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There's a ton of stuff going on in football too. My friend I used to watch games with could go on and on about the different formations, the different roles a the same player in the same position have at different times, even down to the names of the particular moves a defender might use to get past a blocker. Football doesn't seem as complicated because the sports casters have gone to great effort to make it understandable, not because it's less complicated than Dota2.

But I don't think that's universally true. I've seen heard a lot of times soccer commenters just rambling about wether there was an offside or not, without caring to explain what an offside is. They may go into some specifics of the situation, but not tell what it is in general. They may talk about how offside rules changed over time, but still not tell, what they are. Same with a lot of other rules and things. If you'll watch a game for the first time without any understanding of what's going on, the "why don't they just pick up the ball with their hands / why don't they just give every player a ball to play" level, it will be the same as what people say about the Dota2 casters.

 

And in my humble opinion, Dota casters do a great job already to make things understandable. They go into details about who's doing what for what reason at the quiet times. And if you'll go to the noob stream, there's just that all the time.

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