Jake

Idle Thumbs 270: BIG GAME HUCKSTER$$$$

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Did anyone else play Avara, ever? I didn't play a whole lot of it, but it was my first online gaming experience (I was 10 or 11) and It has always stuck with me. To me, at least, it seems like a very unique, even idiosyncratic, game. The default view was first-person and third-person camera was a modeled drone that hovered behind your mech and could be shot down, removing your ability to have third-person view. You could even make the drone stay in a fixed place and you could continue moving your mech around the map. This was basically never-used in multiplayer, though. The one thing people used the camera for was as a platform to jump on top of and either snipe from or use to climb to areas that would otherwise be impossible to reach. 

 

I would also like to throw in that Escape Velocity is very good, I could go on and on about it, but I won't, except to say that, if you are curious, you can still get the shareware version from Ambrosia's site. 

 

Because of my parents refusal to allow a video game console in the house and my dad only having a Mac;  Ambrosia Software was kind of like my Nintendo growing up.

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BTW I think I saw someone say that these gambling sites get their money from things like ads...I'm not sure if there's a casino rake equivalent or not.

 

According to the Techdirt article on the whole scandal, CSGO Lotto has an 8% rake on the skins gambled in each round. I imagine that adds up when you've got a decent amount of traffic coming through.

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This CS:GO gambling stuff is why I can't get into it, especially on twitch. It's always one of the top viewed games but I know a large number of those viewers are betting on the outcome possibly illegally, and that just completely turns me off this otherwise fascinating game of skill.

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It's also turning me off from Valve in general. I've given them a ridiculous amount of money through the years without realizing I was funding some kind of evil libertarian think tank.

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what is the mechanism that makes the gun skins "rare" does the creator dictate how many can be released? does some valve CSR look and say "wow, this is fancy, only 100 in circulation." or is it just raw luck?

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It's also turning me off from Valve in general. I've given them a ridiculous amount of money through the years without realizing I was funding some kind of evil libertarian think tank.

 

I came to this conclusion somewhere between them deciding it was way more profitable to outsource making TF2 content to the community instead of owning their product, and them introducing cards whose sole purpose was to drive you to the built in Steam auction house to buy the ability to expand your friends list. It does not particularly surprise me that Valve would be providing the backend for a site that rips off children, although I am surprised how little hyperbole I needed in that description.

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Regarding the Imbroglio sound effects, they reminded me of Qasir al-Wasat which used various intrument chords for various enemy actions to an interesting effect. You can see and hear it here:

 

(I also think the game is severely underappreciated, I remember it having an excellent sense of place and a solid discovery and stealth based gameplay while being deliciously strange. It also made a bold and risky decision about approaching player's expectations about its structure.)

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Oh yeah, I did want to add that Escape Velocity is awesome. If anyone is curious about them, the last game, Nova, is available for Windows and modern Mac OS, and there are plug-ins (mods, as mentioned in the podcast) that basically act as total conversions to recreate the other two games in the series.

There have been a lot of open-ended space combat and trading games in that vein, but none have quite captured the fun of EV for me.

 

Yeah, if you want to get into EV, EV: Nova is definitely where to start. It's more polished, fancier, and bigger than the older ones, without losing their openness and feeling of a living universe to explore. Or, well, the illusion of a living universe, since I'd done enough modding to know all those ships flying around and going about their own business are just a bunch of dude, pers, and fleet resources. But it still closes the magic circle in the moment.

 

It also actually runs on modern OSes, which is a plus. :V I do have to wonder how people develop mods for it nowadays, since ResEdit is super dead.

 

Edit: I, of course, meant düde, përs, and flët resources. I regret this important error.

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I was going to complain about Jake acronymising GUI by pronouncing it 'gooey', but then I realised that fits nicely with wad and scumm, so I approve.

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I was going to complain about Jake acronymising GUI by pronouncing it 'gooey', but then I realised that fits nicely with wad and scumm, so I approve.

 

I'm glad you didn't complain, for that is how it's said.

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I was going to complain about Jake acronymising GUI by pronouncing it 'gooey', but then I realised that fits nicely with wad and scumm, so I approve.

 

Good thing, you would have made yourself appear quite silly. It's an ooey gooey chewy acronym. GOOOOOOEEEEEYYYY

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what is the mechanism that makes the gun skins "rare" does the creator dictate how many can be released? does some valve CSR look and say "wow, this is fancy, only 100 in circulation." or is it just raw luck?

 

Valve sets the drop rates. While looking for info on this I came across this RPS article on the skin economy. Looks like they deliberately make the more "visually salient" skins rarer.

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Oh hey, thanks for reading my email even though you got pelted with the news a million times. Doy!

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wait are there people who don't say it "goeey"?????????????????

Very few, and they are wrong.

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I was going to complain about Jake acronymising GUI by pronouncing it 'gooey', but then I realised that fits nicely with wad and scumm, so I approve.

I fought this for years saying gee you eye, but eventually succumbed to the gooey.

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The internet is a place where people who you have never met and will never meet get really personally annoyed by how you say certain words, abbreviations, and acronyms 

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Man, so Chris complaining about Steam's search bar reminded me how weird it was to try and download Evolve this weekend now that the game is free-to-play only to discover that typing the word "evolve" into the Steam search bar does not bring up the game!

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A couple months ago I watched a youtube video where Nick Robinson from polygon suggested viewers go follow him as curator on steam.
Have you ever tried to look for a specific curator on Steam, even though you know exactly the username they use?

I think it's the most broken ass, counter intuitive, non-user friendly experience I've had with a piece of modern software.

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Not a great week for youtubers and ethics 

"Warner Bros. paid PewDiePie and other digital stars upwards of tens of thousands of dollars each to promote a 2014 game based on the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” without properly disclosing the arrangements, according to the Federal Trade Commission."


http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/warner-bros-pewdiepie-ftc-1201811908/

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The internet is a place where people who you have never met and will never meet get really personally annoyed by how you say certain words, abbreviations, and acronyms

Whom. WHOM, GODDAMMIT.

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Whom. WHOM, GODDAMMIT.

Wowwww cool it down grammar nazi. Know who else was a nazi? Hitler.

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