Idle Thumbs 144: Gimme Some More

[RubixsQube]

At the risk of getting even further off topic, I have some steam to let off. I find the existence of cars land to be mildly infuriating on a fundamental level. Like, ok, I get that basing an entire theme park around the idea of "California" when the park itself is already in California is perhaps kind of a dumb idea, but they made that bed 13 years ago so they might as well sleep in it. But no, they decided to add a land based on freaking "Cars", despite the fact that it is neither an especially interesting world nor even a very good pair of movies. And then there's the fact that "Cars" does not take place in California. It is in fact central to the identity of the move that it takes place in the midwest and not California goddammit.

 

Anyway, it seems like the problem with the fastpass system is more to do with the fact that they allow people to use them after the time window is up. If they didn't, there would always be a known maximum number of extra people in line in any given time frame. My only anecdotal evidence to support this is that I remember going as a kid and on multiple trips, waiting in line for splash mountain for ~2 hours before fastpass was added. I've been back since then at similar times of year and never seen the line that long so...I guess I don't know if that actually means anything.

 

I give Cars Land a pass because it does actually feature Route 66 prominently, a road that begins/ends in California. Radiator Springs is most likely in New Mexico or Arizona, and not the midwest. 

 

As I've mentioned previously, they have currently changed the rules such that people are limited to their assigned Fastpass window.

 

I was unaware, as Tabacco has written, that the ride operators are looking at the actual state of the line when they let stand-by passengers in. This is still a value judgment that tends to be biased against stand-by riders, which artificially inflates the lines. I think that perhaps better estimates of the stand-by lines length would perhaps help, as most people don't really understand that the stand-by line includes members of some "virtual" Fastpass line as well. If the E-ticket attractions are going to be at max capacity on a busy day anyway, I wonder how removing the Fastpass will affect the actual hourly ride throughput. It will most likely affect the line length on average, yes. 

 

Finally, sorry to tell you, Terri, but they removed the Tortilla Factory and put in a Ghirardelli Chocolate Store in its place. They give out free chocolate squares, and they are now able to make money with the space (not to mention it fits with the San Francisco wharf theme a lot better), but I also miss warm flour and corn tortillas. On your birthday they gave you a whole stack of the things! If anyone does find themselves in the Ghirardelli store, wait around a little as their wall diorama has quite a few cute rotating effects depending on which dessert they are showcasing at a given time. 

[tabacco]

They do regularly measure the 'true' wait times on both queues. Pretty regularly, the CM at the entrance will hand a random guest a red card on a lanyard and ask them to give it to the loader who puts them in their vehicle. The card has an RFID chip inside, and it's logged in and out to measure the wait times. That's where the times they show at the front of the line come from. It works well but it's high latency so it doesn't reflect spikes in line length well right away.

[Henroid]

I can't remember which episode it was mentioned on regarding A Link Between Worlds' music, but I've been hearing some of it today and damn, Nintendo deserves praise for how they're handling it. In a time where big latin chorus and orchestra bullshit and metal are expected, they go very minimalist. And it works. Some examples:

 

 

 

[BigJKO]

Those Milk Bar renditions of the soundtrack are my absolute favorite thing in the world.

[Cleinhun]

I give Cars Land a pass because it does actually feature Route 66 prominently, a road that begins/ends in California. Radiator Springs is most likely in New Mexico or Arizona, and not the midwest. 

That's a fair point, and I realize my annoyance over this is kind of irrational, but I still feel like the movie is about a kind of small town that is not strongly associated with California. Maybe I'm just bothered by the fact that a pop-culture depiction of California realized through a theme park seems like a cool idea, but it feels like they dropped the ball making that a reality.

[Merus]

Write in! I don't think any of us played Gw2.

 

I wrote in! But then I had opinions and sent like a page full of thoughts on MMOs and unique experiences and another game called Fallen London that does super-rare events pretty well and then like two stories from that game I thought the Thumbs would like.

[Twig]

He! Fallen London is surprisingly great! Everyone play it.

[subbes]

Gads, I remember Fallen London.  I played that a ton 2, maybe 3 years ago!

[Merus]

He! Fallen London is surprisingly great! Everyone play it.

 

Or wait for Sunless Sea, which takes all the stuff that's great out of Fallen London - the writing, the setting, the clever approach to interactive storytelling - and puts it in a game with much better mechanics.

 

Fallen London is kind of a slog until you get through to the newer stuff. Thankfully, I have an account that got through to the newer stuff so I get to see it.

[Twig]

I like the gameplay mechanics of Fallen London quite a bit.

[Merus]

okay, super, I guess.

 

Let me elaborate: the chief mechanic of the game is a dice roll on one of your qualities. The higher the quality, the more likely you are to succeed. If you succeed, a bar associated with that quality fills a little, and it increments when that bar fills. When you begin, you have frequently unlocked storylines at every new quality milestone, so while you're grinding on the same few stories, you see new ones every so often. Different stories give different kinds of items, so you start seeking around to find out which storyline gives you the items you want most.

 

As your qualities rise, it takes longer and longer to get to each new milestone, and the storylines start thinning out. The area from around 40 to around 90 is particularly brutal, because at that point it starts unlocking storylines that advance by you selecting an option to grind on from a list to fill a progress quality. These were more interesting when the dice rolls had a tighter range, as each option started out being very risky and became increasingly more likely. It's at that point that the game most resembles a faster-paced Cow Clicker.

[Twig]

I'm not sure if you're elaborating at me or what... I'm well acquainted with how the game works. I've played it a ton, as well a few other stories (though I've only ever "finished" one, which I believe was called Winterstrike?). I would agree that it gets pretty grindy at points, but I attribute that to poor overall game design - a hiccup in the flow - and not so much bad game mechanics.

 

Also I wasn't trying to be confrontational with my post, but I guess you took it that way from the first line in your post. Sorry. I just genuinely like the whole StoryNexus platform and have no issue with the base mechanics whatsoever. There is, of course, always room for improvement or expansion either vertical or horizontal, but that doesn't negate what I think is a good system.

[Berzee]

He! Fallen London is surprisingly great! Everyone play it.

 

"Login or register to begin."

 

I'M A BUSYMAN.

[RubixsQube]

They do regularly measure the 'true' wait times on both queues. Pretty regularly, the CM at the entrance will hand a random guest a red card on a lanyard and ask them to give it to the loader who puts them in their vehicle. The card has an RFID chip inside, and it's logged in and out to measure the wait times. That's where the times they show at the front of the line come from. It works well but it's high latency so it doesn't reflect spikes in line length well right away.

 

I'm aware of the red cards (I did not know they used RFID tags, actually, that's pretty interesting), and I've definitely been handed them many times on rides. I just don't know how accurate the whole process is, as you mentioned, due to latency. I actually think that those apps that allow for crowdsourced wait time updates are slightly more accurate, although I have to assume that they do some sort of time averaging with an outlier removal, lest they are influenced by people who are less reliable time keepers. The real question, though, is how correct is the time given on the sign when you enter the ride compared to your actual wait time.

 

God, I wish I had access to Disneyland's data / I wish I had access to a statistical sample of people who could go to Disneyland and start to answer this question for me. 

[Patrick R]

For me Majora's Mask will always be tied to Ben Drowned. 

[Jick]

Man.  Fallen London makes me sad, because I really like the writing and the style and the actual play mechanics, but I find the energy system so unconscionably gross that I can't stomach playing it.

 

I like those people a lot and I wish they would make a version of that game that didn't make me think of Farmville.

[feelthedarkness]

I've been playing a ton of GW2 again. I think they nailed the MMO thing about as well as you can. 

 

1) It was designed specifically around the Bartle Test, trying to provide a number of viable avenues to experience the game.

2) Much of the day to day game experience is uninstanced, with the majority of the game happening in the overworld.

3) Two kinds of PvP, where one kind is gear neutral and small team based, the other is a world conquest on huge maps letting you wear your regular stuff.

4) For the most part gear has remained stat capped from release. You can upgrade for cool looking stuff, but Epic on Day one is still Epic on day 400. (The did add an additional tier of gear that is 3-5% better, but fairly time consuming to get). 

[SecretAsianMan]

I remember playing a lot of Fallen London.  Then my friend commented that my Facebook feed was mostly posts from the game to give me more moves and I was shamed into stopping.

[Merus]

Yeah, my feeling is that it's definitely the best of the fourth-gen MMORPGs, but then I'd also argue that there's only five of those actually out*. It has its jankiness, but it has a pretty clear identity and their design has improved very quickly.

 

Re: Fallen London - they disabled posting from the game a while ago to distance themselves from social games. I don't mind their energy mechanic too much, especially now that it's 20 actions instead of 10, because most complete storylines take about ten actions or so, so when you check in now you can pretty much get a complete storyline or at least a healthy chunk of progress. Like, it's still an energy system, and I understand the desire to have a pacing mechanic but having a hard cap on actions is such a blunt way of doing it.

[Twig]

I remember playing a lot of Fallen London.  Then my friend commented that my Facebook feed was mostly posts from the game to give me more moves and I was shamed into stopping.

Yeah when I signed up I made damn sure that wasn't going to happen.

[RubixsQube]

When I saw the list of games discussed for this episode, I flipped all kinds of shits. Astro Blasters! Majora's Mask! Yoshi's Island! I know that writing on page 5 of the episode thread is like shouting into the Grand Canyon, especially when I already had a fantastic discussion regarding Disneyland with one other person, but jeez, Majora's Mask is really important, even if liking it is cliche apparently at this point. It's pretty absurd that Nintendo hasn't announced the 3DS remake, because that game needs a re-release so people can experience it again.

 

Also, Yoshi's Island is my GOAT, and if you haven't watched the AGDQ 2013 Yoshi's Island run (it's 3+ hours, I recognize) you should at least take a quick look, because seeing a person completely destroy the game is an absolute joy. It's made better by the dude on the couch in green ("CarlSagan") who gleefully explains each and every weird nuance of the game (for instance, areas where designers left a 21st red coin way, way off screen accidentally, but it can be hit with a well placed egg shot, allowing for a 100% speed runner to skip a red coin elsewhere) (or, even more interesting, each stage a speed runner wants to skip the "bonus challenge" segment, which requires a series of clever pauses to enter the end-level ring at juuuuuust the right time). I was perhaps going to write in about this (as many of the AGDQ segments are wonderful to watch for someone who is remotely interested in seeing how humans interact with their video games at the limits, I mean, just watch the Yoshi's Island speedrunner's hands), but I feel like it's maybe not of interest. 

[syntheticgerbil]

Yoshi's Island isn't easy if you are trying to 100% it and unlock all the levels. I did that finally a few years back and while I did a lot of cursing, I never felt it was explicitly unfair. I'm both confused why Jake says the game is easy and why Zack says it is so hard he couldn't even casually finish the first world.

 

Yoshi's Story on the other hand, which I am playing right now, is garbage design for so many reasons.

[Lumpen]

I just wasted my entire weekend on Sim City with that Origin 50% deal.

 

I just wanted to share that I only knew what this was thanks to IdleThumbs: http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1yg757/i_asked_my_friend_if_he_was_having_a_good_time_in/

[Chris]

Hey guys I heard about this cool video game podcast so I decided to check it out, it was pretty cool and I liked listening to it. I thought the four people who were on it worked really well together, is that the same crew you have every week? I hope so. I will keep downloading it and listening to it if that is the case.

 

edit: lol I posted this in the wrong thread

[Stuart]

Hey guys I heard about this cool video game podcast so I decided to check it out, it was pretty cool and I liked listening to it. I thought the four people who were on it worked really well together, is that the same crew you have every week? I hope so. I will keep downloading it and listening to it if that is the case.

 

omg don't keep listening th peapl on this show r annoying thy always talk abot far cry 3 or som shit idk plz dont give mony to ths these FAKERS th lady gav waking simlater gon hom good scor cuz SHEW AS ON THE SHOW!11!! SRsly don not gev money to ths fakers 0/10 wold not read agaian