Jake

Idle Thumbs 260: Charge Guy, Tree Guy, Ice Guy, Bendy Guy

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Is anyone having trouble listening to this episode? Pocketcasts can't play it, and I'm trying to stream it from the IT site directly and it's not working. 

Soundcloud works at least. 

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Both this and the latest Playscape LA aren't working right now, might be a sitewide problem with their cast host?

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Sounds like Soundcloud is performing maintenance on their RSS services, so that's why the Thumbs feeds and streaming are down.

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I'm so happy that Hitman is getting more press. It's the Hitman game I've wanted ever since I played through Blood Money with my roommate at college.

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Chris's description of experiencing both low-framerates and his understanding of them on a dead-end rooftop within a impressively synergestic simulation, stuck in a compulsive player-behavior due to the game's systems and available actions, complemented by an alarm that sounds like it is aware of the loss of its purpose... Somehow felt similar to the mention of the BigGulp incident (in type). These aren't so much narratives as they are suggestion by priority that they are pieces of an unidentified puzzle. It reminds me of some of Matsuo Basho's less punny haikus, or the scene in The Matrix where Neo sees the black cat glitch without understanding its significance.

Compared to the narratives that Nick uses to describe his experience ( even with the hypothetical intents that all of y'all entertain yourselves with), the rooftop and BigGulp story rely on impressions and a suscipicion of significance rather than their subversion of rewarded objectives or methods. I think this is interesting. Lately I've been trying to wrap my head around experiential, impressionistic expression in comparison to concrete narratives or even narratives made more plastic with hypothetical contexts.

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During the cast I think Nick was talking about some weird or cheesy ways to play a game that almost ruin it, remind me something that me and my brother figured out while playing F-117 Stealth Fighter for pc, that instead of trying to hit our targets on land while flying, it was much easier if we just land the plane, drive toward the target and blow it with machine guns or missiles and then take flight again.

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Chris's description of experiencing both low-framerates and his understanding of them on a dead-end rooftop within a impressively synergestic simulation, stuck in a compulsive player-behavior due to the game's systems and available actions, complemented by an alarm that sounds like it is aware of the loss of its purpose... Somehow felt similar to the mention of the BigGulp incident (in type). These aren't so much narratives as they are suggestion by priority that they are pieces of an unidentified puzzle. It reminds me of some of Matsuo Basho's less punny haikus, or the scene in The Matrix where Neo sees the black cat glitch without understanding its significance.

Compared to the narratives that Nick uses to describe his experience ( even with the hypothetical intents that all of y'all entertain yourselves with), the rooftop and BigGulp story rely on impressions and a suscipicion of significance rather than their subversion of rewarded objectives or methods. I think this is interesting. Lately I've been trying to wrap my head around experiential, impressionistic expression in comparison to concrete narratives of even narratives made more plastic with hypothetical contexts.

 

This is such a good observation. I don't have much more to add. But I love this.

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there is so much insanity in this video, and it only tangentially relates to this episode and to this thread, but it is glorious

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To add to te Co-Op stuff.

 

I played Dark Souls II on day one and it was before people had figured out a lot of things. I sort of 'ruined' a lot of bosses by identifying where they were and then putting a summoning stone down and waiting for people to pull me in. I then would experience them in the safety of another person's game (I couldn't lose souls) and get used to their patterns before I took them on myself.

 

The thing is I got hooked on that element and sometimes would sit patiently at good spots and then walk people through them and help them as much as possible. There were two bosses in particular (The Smelter Demon and the guy who jumps around all the place with a bug that crawls into his eye) that I must have jumped into over 30 times just to help people out long after I had any interest in fighting them myself.

 

As a random happenstance of this - I ended up joining a guild that, when I wore a specific ring, would instantly summon me into lower level players' games as long as they were wearing a corresponding ring and were being invaded. The way this worked is that the invader would be levelled 'fairly' (around the same as the invadee) but I wouldn't be.

 

So some level 30 troll would run over, spec'd for PVP only to find a level 70 guy waiting for him alongside his intended victim.

 

I actually became obsessed with this stuff and considered it my duty to help the lower level guys.

 

The number of times I would get messaged by people over Xbox Live to thank me for my help - made my day everytime.

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I'm right there with you on the duty to help thing, twmac. Something about that forlorn place breeds a certain fellowship - I really enjoyed being a Sunbro, in the first Dark Souls especially. I was never a Blue Sentinel like you, but I definitely did my best to defend my hosts against red phantoms.

 

I think the area I've hired out as a phantom most in is Anor Londo. I have mourned far too many hosts at those damn knight archers. :(

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