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Jake

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This was secretly one of the best handhelds. Gave me lots of entertainment during the early years of my sheltered childhood.

 

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This was secretly one of the best handhelds. Gave me lots of entertainment during the early years of my sheltered childhood.

 

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Suddenly the memory of a thousand hours sunk in order to achieve the perfect jump-killing technique come rushing back.

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Either they'll learn through Persona Non Grata that they should shape up, or they'll continue doing what they do. But it's better than saying / doing nothing and let them continue what they do in the first place.

While I agree that in some ways it is better, I wonder if forcing out those who are acting vile and disgusting doesn't just creates an alternative to the "don't read the comments" situation where the only people making comments are saying absolutely awful things. If they don't learn or, as I've seen often, double down on their own viewpoints, won't they simply go off to found some kind of insular support community for their own terrible viewpoint? Sending people away in the hope of punishing them into acting appropriately is part of the reason our prison system has such a high recidivism rate.

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By the way, if anyone's interested, the Sega thing Jake was thinking of was the Nomad. It was a handheld Genesis/Master System and is notable for selling exceptionally poorly and being able to play games from any region without an adapter.

It also had hilariously high power demands, offering two hours of play time off of six AA's. (It also played Genesis/Mega Drive carts, not Master System carts, but i think you're probably just mixing up those latter two names.)

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YESSSSSSSSSSSS

 

 

I was kind of feeling similar about Dota, stopped playing as much and then after TI3 I felt I wasn't always playing as well. You have options, though. Try mixing it up and playing in-houses with 10 friends rather than pub matching, it can be a good opportunity to try new things. Honestly I'm a little down on playing it until a hero/patch comes out to mix up the meta a bit. Right now Spirit Breaker is pretty ridiculous, and he can be quite unfun to play against. Same thing with Abbadon to some extent, although he's not going to change.

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The part where Sean had to whisper "Pikmin 2 multiplayer" and Chris (or an otherwise silent Stealth Breckon) said "YES"... there is always a master, and always an apprentice. You guys were, like, so Star Wars?

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By the way, if anyone's interested, the Sega thing Jake was thinking of was the Nomad. It was a handheld Genesis/Master System and is notable for selling exceptionally poorly and being able to play games from any region without an adapter.

 

That's not actually true. I have one and it only plays US titles or really early PAL games that didn't have region locks incorporated.

 

Sean, the leg injury I totally understand. Some of what you are expressing seems to be standard with grevious injuries. My friend exerted himself to the point of exhaustion and ended up with kidney problem that almost killed him. In his road to recovery he suffered from a massive amount of depression because of his inability to do what he wanted to - having been so active and mobile - and this manifested itself with a sense of his own mortality and it scared the crap out of him. 

 

I've had the same experience on a smaller scale, I tore a muscle in my chest after a poor decision while climbing. I was out of action for around 2 months, for about 2 weeks I couldn't breathe without it hurting and it was another 6-7 weeks before I could even contemplate climbing again. It was crushing for me at the age of 33 when one of my climbing buddies (aged 26) shrugged a couple of injuries off like they were nothing. It got me down.

 

My feeling is that your body, after suffering a trauma, pummels you with 'downers' as a defence mechanism to make sure you do not go out and do the same fucking thing all over again.

 

On the up side, my buddy fully recovered and is as physical as he ever was. For me, it was a good lesson I've started to know my limits - a bit like understanding when you need to stop drinking - and not pushing past them and also understanding when I can go the extra mile.

 

Also, worth bearing in mind that the best cross country endurance runners (the crazy 3 day trial runners) are in their late thirties and forties.

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While I agree that in some ways it is better, I wonder if forcing out those who are acting vile and disgusting doesn't just creates an alternative to the "don't read the comments" situation where the only people making comments are saying absolutely awful things. If they don't learn or, as I've seen often, double down on their own viewpoints, won't they simply go off to found some kind of insular support community for their own terrible viewpoint? Sending people away in the hope of punishing them into acting appropriately is part of the reason our prison system has such a high recidivism rate.

The great thing about volatile people banding together is that they're doing so because they're volatile for everyone else. Which means they'll eventually turn on each other.

 

It's kinda like the Sith. When they run out of enemies, or are exiled, they just devour themselves.

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Thanks for indulging my fan mail about a hypothetical gritty military FPS DOTA-likes, Thumb powers-that-be. It strange that I offered this suggestion since I myself am not in love with even FPS shooters. But the occasional multiplayer thingy has drawn me in, like MNC or BF3.

 

BF3 has a weird balance between the arcade goofiness of upgrading your kit of COD but with the traipsing around the bush realism of Arma. And it's a nice way to conference call with my brothers while they curse at the enemy.

 

I can see the dis-taste for expendable creeps being why Portal 2 made their multiplayer personas robots, or why MNC uses robots. Watching the AI controlled representation of a living creature inevitably lead to its repeated death is trying. But when it's a player controlled representation of a living creature having their skills put to the test, it's drama.

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As far as bluffing in online games, it just occurred to me the R.U.S.E. strategy game seemed to be built with that intention. 3 Moves Ahead have discussed that and its 'Wargame' sequels for sure. I can't recall any useful juicey tidbits at the moment though...

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As far as bluffing in online games, it just occurred to me the R.U.S.E. strategy game seemed to be built with that intention. 3 Moves Ahead have discussed that and its 'Wargame' sequels for sure. I can't recall any useful juicey tidbits at the moment though...

 

Well, in RUSE, units beyond the fog of war were represented as either large or small tokens. Big tokens were probably tanks, but who knows whether they were cheap or expensive. Small tokens could be a vulnerable infantry unit or an anti-tank battery. There were cards that could swap the appearance of large and small tokens or that could generate ghost units of several preset mixtures. The main problem, which seems to be the main problem of most bluffing games at the high level, is that good players learn to recognize the circumstances where a bluff is expected and just play more carefully during those exact moments, without really altering the basic rhythms of that play. It was a fun idea, but not really sustainable.

 

I was more thinking about my brief time playing Total War: Shogun 2 online. Often, I had to fake an incomplete knowledge of tactics or make an obvious mistake in order to tempt my opponent into charging past a copse of trees instead of scouting it. My last battle, where I purposefully botched a river crossing in order to make my opponent try their own, was so amazing for exactly those reasons that I never had the heart to ruin it by playing again. What does Sun-Tzu say? "All warfare is deception."

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By the way, if anyone's interested, the Sega thing Jake was thinking of was the Nomad. It was a handheld Genesis/Master System and is notable for selling exceptionally poorly and being able to play games from any region without an adapter.

I had one of those as a kid. I seem to recall the battery life was a joke, so we left it plugged into the wall and used it as a Genesis that I could play while my parents were watching tv. The problem was the power adapter had some kind of bad connection so I would not infrequently lose power and the save would be corrupted. I don't think I ever beat sonic 3, but I sure played the first level a lot.

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Thanks for indulging my fan mail about a hypothetical gritty military FPS DOTA-likes, Thumb powers-that-be. It strange that I offered this suggestion since I myself am not in love with even FPS shooters. But the occasional multiplayer thingy has drawn me in, like MNC or BF3.

I don't have much of an opinion on the gritty military part, but I'm waiting for another well-made FPS-Dota-like. I play a lot of Super Monday Night Combat's Turbocross-mode, but I miss Crossfire-mode where there was a heightened sense of severity. When that new free-2-play dota-like came out on steam earlier this week, I was like "oh, oh, maybe you can use a controller and jump" but it doesn't look that way.

Super Monday Night Combat is great but the match-making is so bad due to the low population, I look forward to jumping on the band-wagon for the new hotness, whatever that might be.

When I was playing last night I was thinking about how I wouldn't know how to do sneak-attacks in Dota or Lol because I can't go above or below the enemy to come around their rear.

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I'm glad Chris has gotten really into Spelunky. I remember how challenging the ice caves were when I first encountered them, and being confounded by the conventional wisdom that they were really easy. I would say he has the right idea about needing to just learn the world, and the best way to do that is to just focus in on getting the shortcut built. Those shortcuts are not helpful if you're trying to complete the game because that build up of equipment is critical for survival in later worlds, but they are incredibly useful for when you are just trying to get your bearings and learn how everything works in a new world area. I hope he sticks with it, I still have so much fun playing the game even though I still haven't beaten it to date (I've gotten close a couple of times but I have a real knack for screwing up closing the deal).

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I find it so hard to fathom that they just won't give us HL3/EP3. i can't think of another instance where there is a lot of money,  demand, and potentially fun to be had, where a company just keeps a lid on it. 

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Oh my gawd, can you imagine how much fun a Mount&Blade style Lord's Management game would be? They already have the creeps running at each other. Just make it a single lane where both sides have a barricade on the field and a castle to siege.

You could loot the clubs and fur hats from dead looters (is that irony?) and take it back to your castle to have the smith turn them into better armor and weapons for you and your creeps. Maybe that's how you get siege-ladders.

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One of the things that sprang to mind about bluffing is actually FPS games (and also LOMA games). In most shooters, for deathmatch/TDM/small objective based modes, people start to fall into patterns. I know I certainly do. When you're doing well, you'll tend to run certain routes around the map, and you always seem to be in the right place. When you're not, someone's always behind you no matter where you start and where you go. If you play consecutive rounds with the same opponents, you can start to find their tendencies and exploit them when you recognize them. LOMAs are the same way. If you are in a place with the game where you can actually pay attention to what your opponent is doing and not just tunneling on worrying about yourself, you can start to pick up their tendencies. You can bluff that someone's waiting to kill them by playing out of character and aggressive, or you can attempt to purposely over-extend to get them to fall into a trap attack.

 

 

Sean, I recently dislocated my shoulder by being a clumsy oaf, and it came right in the middle of softball season, but also right in an extreme period of stress. So not only was I injured by my own idiocy, and then losing out on a recreational activity, but it happened at a time when I desperately needed that activity to help alleviate the frustration of the rest of my life, and I went into a really big lull, compounded by the fact that I couldn't exercise. I can empathize with you. On a positive note, I've come out of it and my shoulder's ok and I can go to the gym (now I have to go to the gym :[ ) and also we won the softball league. It's ok!

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Did Sean delete his Twitter? I wanted to tweet him this. If he thought Space Engine was a majesty renderer then this is the majesty renderer of the Alps or something.

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Bluffing:
Today I coincidentally watched a 3 hour movie about telling a cascade of white-lies, played a match of Netrunner where the game was won with a bluff that was heavily invested in, and watched the second episode of a mini-series which revolves around relationships becoming progressively more fragile because they were founded on lies. The difference that strikes me when I think of bluffs in video games, is that the bluffs are typically very short. There may be a zig where she zagged, but in the movie, card-game, and show I watched today, the bluff is significant because more and more is invested in it by both parties.
In the Bol Bachchan, each time the protagonist tells a lie to his new friend, the protagonist becomes more revered by the new friend who simultaneously looks more foolish. The liar feels more and more pressure to keep up the lie as time goes on, because the telling the truth is viewed as dangerous. That's what creates the tension of the narrative. When and how can the protagonist come clean?
In Netrunner, we were tied and Chrissy had a very strong piece of ice (think of it like a wall) preceded by two more unrezzed pieces of ice (think of them as walls of unknown height, and they might have broken bottles on top) protecting a card that she was just starting to advance (she was going to win, Dawg). So I invested everything I had, I spent 3/4 of the money I had been accumulating and even took out a loan with part of my brain as collateral, in order to access that card. She invested a ton of her resources, and I invested more than was reasonable. When I got through the last layer of defense, I felt accomplished. It was a challenge, I didn't know if I would make it. But my efforts and wits paid off and I made it all the way into a trap that won my opponent the game. She danced in her seat for a good minute, telling me that bluffing had been progressively more difficult for her, the more progress I had made. Every time I got through a layer, she was becoming exponentially more excited at the possibility that I would get to the trap, but she had to hold it all in, lest I would end the run.

In You Are Beautiful... well this captured frame (from the first episode, mind you) explains a lot.

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Things get complicated. Valuable romances and friendships, personal histories and senses of identity are all considered in the context of who knows how much of the truth, and who knows that they know. Was he only treating her that way because he thought she was a girl ? Or maybe the only reason their relationship blossoms is because he thinks that he is the only one who knows she is a girl? Investment.


Video games typically lack investment in their bluffs. The bluff is made and resolved within 30 seconds. From what I've seen today, players should have the opportunity to continue to invest in the ruse for much longer. Not only to gain an advantage over an opponent, but also to protect the characters that they have learned to love while they have been living a lie. And players should be able to double-down. Civilization 5 has a taste of this with the spy-system. There is an amount of hoping you get a tech before you get caught, but imagine if you could invest more and more in the spy as you become more paranoid. Maybe when you get caught, the other civ explains that you have two options:

1. Either start sharing all the information you find while using the spy on a third party of their choosing.

or

2. They will kill your spy.


Or how about a Dragon Age party-member that will leave if they discover that you took a piss in the Maker's sacred jar, but since that time, you've become fond of their romance side-quest. If you tell them now, they may just leave. But if they find out from that other party-member you romanced (it was just a thing, it wasn't anything special) then they might not "Charge!" when the torches in the Eastern tower are lit.


 

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He's a pretty shady character. You probably blocked him after that night when he asked if you wanted a piece of Obama.

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Oh man, my (online discussion) mail got printed??
It was amazing. My girlfriend was listening too and when Chris's all "this guy" I turned to her and breathed "I'm that guy", before I had to bite my lip and look away.

Anyway thanks for the discussion bros. I do find that these days I pick the places where I hang out, similar to in 'rl', where I've learned to just hang out with people who are worth it/ make me feel good, which definitely comes down to the community those in charge have fostered
But it's still hard to avoid sometimes. Just to give some perspective, the things that always get me are the aggressively defensive "I feel threatened by this" comments whenever RPS posts on the topic of females in games (edit: by guys) (oh man, makes me want to jump right in), and Steam community pages that I sometimes check to see what people think about games. Recently the Space Hulk page, which was heavily entrenched, probably to be expected, and also when I checked the page for 'Shelter'. "A f*cking badger????! are you f*cknig kidding me????! lol!!!!!! give me a gun who wud want to lpay this sh*t lolol" + "1 hour, are you f*cking kidding me? I paid X dollars for X game and got X hours out of it so this game is only worth X!!!". Although to be fair, I can't find those posts, so maybe they got removed? But when I see that stuff.. puts me in a fighting spirit  :owned: 
My fault for looking though!

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