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Chris

Idle Thumbs 115: Robot News

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Don't apologize for talking about goofy, dumb things.

 

Do apologize for talking about pseudo-humanoid robots being creepy and gross. Maybe then they'll spare you when the revolution comes.

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Watched the video stream. The point where Sean dropped the bucket almost killed me.

 

It's around the 9 minute mark

Oh my gosh, that was the best.

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Hi thumbs, what an excellent cast! It felt tailor made to my specific tastes, as a big fighting game fan, Civ V maniac, and Dark Souls aficionado.  

 

I just wanted to chip and say as well as providing hours of rolly-smashy hilarity, there's kind of a cool reason for including all the pots and crates in that game. Well, a good excuse anyway. A little way in, you can purchase a spell that allows you to transform yourself into one of those giant clay urns. Though funny enough by itself, you can also use to either hide from invading players, or, as an invading player, use it to conceal yourself and lie in wait until the time is ripe to pounce on your unsuspecting victim. Or, my favourite use, pretend you're Ye Olde Snake in his ye olde cardboard box and creep around stalking people.

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What happens if they break the pot while you are it? Does it burst into thousands of pieces that then turn back into their human form, body-parts and armor strewn about the stone floor? If not, then that game is bullshit.

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I was really hoping that Sean's story would lead to five minutes of "No love for Dad" jokes, but it was not to be.

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I'm really loving the Civ V expansion, but I do agree that the trade routes start to feel repetitive. There are a major part of my economic and cultural strategy (because the trade routes also help you spread religion, which is my favorite mechanic in Civ V), but constantly having to build and update your trade routes starts to lose its luster pretty fast.

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Part of why I like the trade routes is it means there is more of the map you have to pay attention to. Firaxis made a lot of smart decisions about how to make the game more engaging, something that didn't really come through in the G&K expansion.

 

Nick's complaint about the previous state of the end game was ironic to me. His complaint was about having to manage a ton of armies. For me, I felt like a military victory was the only interesting victory path to pursue in Civ 5 because a peaceful endgame just meant I was hitting "next turn" over and over again as I waited for more buckets to fill up. So I would end up getting a little blood thirsty just so I had something to do.

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Now the original spoilery episode 115 is a collector's item! This .mp3 is gonna be so valuable in a decade. I'm gonna put my kids through college with this.

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I was really hoping that Sean's story would lead to five minutes of "No love for Dad" jokes, but it was not to be.

 

Different breed of Dad. That was the "Tough Love For You" Dad, who knows that you'll never get better unless you understand how crappy you are.

 

P.S. I shared your hope. The above rationalization is an attempt to ease my disappointment.

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I didn't realize Dear Mom did other gaming stuff besides Barcraft. I missed evo entirely this weekend, didn't even realize it was going on and was kinda dissapointed. I would totally have watched it at Dear Mom.

 

Also, I think I disagree with the sentiment expressed about The Last of Us. I don't disagree with any specific criticisms, as those are accurate, I think that stuff just doesn't matter to me or detract from my enjoyment of the game. I guess that lines up with how Sean was indicating that Tom Bissell felt (though I have not read his review yet myself).

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Now the original spoilery episode 115 is a collector's item! This .mp3 is gonna be so valuable in a decade. I'm gonna put my kids through college with this.

 

I'll sell mine for $0.17 (in...thumbs wallet money, I guess).

 

Anyhow! It was good to hear that Super Smash Brothers Melee being treated with appropriate reverence and awe! I always maintained that game allowed for more impressive displays of skill than generally assumed. (Perhaps masked by the fact that it also allowed for Land-Mines Only, Extra Loot, Extra Damage Hyrule Castle...the Smash Brothers equivalent of your basic 24/7 2fort :D)

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Now the original spoilery episode 115 is a collector's item! This .mp3 is gonna be so valuable in a decade. I'm gonna put my kids through college with this.

 

Can I have it? I opened iTunes at 8pm last night so I have the version of the mp3 for babies. :(

 

Anyway, I had the privilege of being at EVO this year in Las Vegas which was tremendous and a ton of fun but sadly made me miss the thing that I liked the most about watching EVO on stream last year, which was the commentary. Weird, right? You can't actually hear any of the commentary if you're at EVO in person because it isn't broadcast anywhere, except on the internet (presumably to prevent the commentators from giving advice to the players, I guess?). But yeah, watching all of the commentary for a particular game is actually a really fantastic way to learn how to watch a game. Props to the EVO organizers for finding fantastic commentators because they seem to have gotten down the skill of evolving their commentary over the course of the 3 days of streaming. On the first day, during pools, commentary will focus on teaching vocabulary to the viewers and pointing out high-level strategy but over time, the commentary gets more and more granular and consequently, by the time finals roll around, viewers are practically familiar enough with the game that they can just commentate how they normally do.

 

I'm really glad the Thumbs talked about EVO because it was really an amazing event this year. Obviously the fighting game community has a long way to go on the social front, but I think there's a strong positive energy that's trying to address issues of misogyny/homophobia/all the other problems in the FGC right now which is really inspiring to see. I believe Prog, one of the main commentators for Smash on the stream, came out as gay this past year and was received positively.

 

Also speaking of Smash, high-level Smash Bros. is bananas. If you haven't yet, go watch all of the Smash commentary on the EVO channels because you'll learn a lot. If you're still interested, go watch some Melee It on Me where you'll see the same guys do really intense breakdowns of some really famous matches. I'd be happy to answer any other questions about competitive Smash here though, to the best of my ability.

 

 

P.S. That Esperanto metaphor is fantastic and I'm going to use it from now on.

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:clap:I made the robot turning key gif

 

I got into a lot of trouble making that, it was my first foray into 'youtube to gif' creation and it took longer than expected. I remember my girlfriend screaming at me "WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GO OUT 10MINS AGOOOOO"

 

Glad to know it was all worth it in the end!

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Jake Rodkin's enunciation makes me happy

My shit complete lack of it? :/

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The Thumbs do have some of the best dad stories.  Sean's surgeon simulator dad story, Chris' Zelda maze dad story, and my all time favorite Steve's Bioshock "That's the same guy!" dad story.  Best.

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I think that while I understand the technical ramifications of why the game designers placed (empty, or filled with one or two items) pots or crates or barrels into their game (Jake put it correctly, it's polygonally cheap), I still don't know why we can't evolve past their use. The Old Man Murray article came out in 2000, for goodness' sake. They were making meta-jokes about empty crates in video games thirteen years ago and still Chris is rolling around in empty pot after empty pot after empty pot in Dark Souls. Chris mentions that if the crates/barrels/pots weren't destroyable they would take you out of the game, but which is worse:

 

"Oh, I can't destroy that crate! Hrm, that's pretty arbitrary and video gamey"

 

~or~

 

"Oh, another empty crate! That's pretty arbitrary and video gamey"

 

Both take you out of carefully crafted game worlds and make you think: "oh, this is a game." I just wonder why we are still so married, then, to such a silly, old trope. How often do you see crates/barrels in real life, anyway? (I guess maybe a lot if you work at some sort of warehouse)

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Maybe the solution is to fill the crates with ball-bearings and the jars with liquids. Next-gen ram Baby; going to solve all these problems.

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The Thumbs do have some of the best dad stories.  Sean's surgeon simulator dad story, Chris' Zelda maze dad story, and my all time favorite Steve's Bioshock "That's the same guy!" dad story.  Best.

 

Nick's Sim City story was also incredible, even though it was his neighbor and not his dad.

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Hey guys, really sorry about the Walking Dead Season One spoiler. I reuploaded the file and the specific spoiler moment is now censored out.

It's ok Chris we forgive you. This one time. It was the Van Man that did the spoiling anyway. 

Now the original spoilery episode 115 is a collector's item! This .mp3 is gonna be so valuable in a decade. I'm gonna put my kids through college with this.

I know you're joking here but when my laptop which this episode is stored on inevitably stops working/is obliterated in the heat death of the universe I will be suddenly, and genuinely upset, knowing that I lost the original version of the episode. What does that say about me? A lot unfortunately. 

 

I was really hoping that Sean's story would lead to five minutes of "No love for Dad" jokes, but it was not to be.

This made me the saddest. It was wide open and the Thumbs probably knew it too, you teasing bastards! 

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I think that while I understand the technical ramifications of why the game designers placed (empty, or filled with one or two items) pots or crates or barrels into their game (Jake put it correctly, it's polygonally cheap), I still don't know why we can't evolve past their use. The Old Man Murray article came out in 2000, for goodness' sake. They were making meta-jokes about empty crates in video games thirteen years ago and still Chris is rolling around in empty pot after empty pot after empty pot in Dark Souls. Chris mentions that if the crates/barrels/pots weren't destroyable they would take you out of the game, but which is worse:

 

"Oh, I can't destroy that crate! Hrm, that's pretty arbitrary and video gamey"

 

~or~

 

"Oh, another empty crate! That's pretty arbitrary and video gamey"

 

Both take you out of carefully crafted game worlds and make you think: "oh, this is a game." I just wonder why we are still so married, then, to such a silly, old trope. How often do you see crates/barrels in real life, anyway? (I guess maybe a lot if you work at some sort of warehouse)

 

I'm not bothered by empty crates/barrels as much as oblivious/apathetic merchants. After destroying a man's entire source of livelihood, he should at least jack up prices the next time you drop by.

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