Jake

Idle Thumbs 159: Wilson's Ghoulish Countenance

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The following is perhaps a bit too far in the 'angry guy on the internet complains about video fames', but I was a bit suprised the Transistor was so well received by the cast of the pod.

 

I've ended up disliking Transistor. The in medias res start never truly colaseced, for me. I do like the world-building. Cloudbank is a haunting palce. But it's hard to feel a part of it. I don't know exactly why, but Transistor feels very much like watching something instead of playing something. One character's monologue to another. For once I find myself missing exposition.


There are a whole bunch of characters, places and events that speak of a larger world, but I never felt the story had much to do with the world, and the characters had even less of an existence. Perhaps it was all just too alien for me. The 'press e' interface, while enhancing the unreality of the digital world, increases my distance from the events by reminding me that this is all just artifice.

Also, the access point interface is a constant annoyance. Changing from one loadout to another is truly cumbersome. Why do I have to go back to the function list after every single opertaion? My desired operation is to fill the empty slots, or change skills in specific slots, not to remove or add specific functions. In order to change from one loadout to another I ended up removing all functions and building the whole build from scratch. This is exacerbated, as the death penalty is the removal of functions. A PC specific minor annoyance is that in order for a interface button to become active, the mouse cursor has to cross the button border. If you switch to a new interface screen, to select the button under the cursor you have to move your mouse off and then back on the button. Given how often you have to move between interface screens, this was rather annoying indeed.

At the start the existence of the combat seems weird. What is this sword? How can I stop and slow time? Why can't I just run away? The combat kind of feels out of place. It's almost as if Supergiant wanted to make a different game, but couldn't help themselves. The combat does sound interesting, tactically enhanced action, lots of skills to combine for rewarding new results. Yet I find the actual fighting fairly chaotic and unsatisfying. I admit I am often not that good with action games, and can find them frustrating, if they make failure punishing. Transistor makes this especially bad, as multiple failures can make your situtation really difficult. Also, since there aren't always access points availble, you may enter a fight with a very poor loadout for it. In fact you seem to be completly capable of creating a walking dead scenario, as you can end up with a loadout with no offensive capabilities and no way of changing it.
 

I am glad it exists, just for the music and the art. I'm just not sure I want to even finish it.

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What iOS app is that? Did the official Podcast app suddenly become simple and pretty?

No, the official app is still insufferable. :D I use PocketCasts and it's great.

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Just piping up to say that Full Bore is indeed a little gem (about searching for little gems). Please have Jake provide SFX oinking for Full Bore 2, kthx.

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Thanks everyone for the great cast!  Jake's pig noises were fantastic.  As usual I was super excited when I heard Danielle was on the cast, especially because I, too, have a soft spot for animal-themed puzzle platformers. 

 

I also appreciate the advice given by the cast in regards to the reader mail about dealing with casual sexism when playing games with friends.  I've experienced a bit of this myself (albeit with a slightly younger age group since most of my friends are in their early-mid 20s).  These people for the most part are intelligent people.  As far as they're aware, they're just shooting the shit while playing with their buddies.  Most of the time everything's fine and I have fun with them, but occasionally a term's thrown out that makes me feel gross/uncomfortable.  I've struggled with not wanting to appear like i'm on my soapbox dictating what is right or wrong (/pooping on the party), but also not wanting to have to deal with people making bullshit jokes about rape.  

 

I don't really have much to add, just wanted to thank everyone for their thoughtful responses on the issue, it's given me some food for thought and some ideas on how to approach this situation in the future.    

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Hey thumbs.  I've listened to the cast forever, but just made an account to respond to Katie's reader mail on the last cast.  

 

I am one of the assholes Katryn is nice enough to play with on a near nightly basis.  I'm pretty sure she wanted the email to be anonymous, as we are all Idle Thumbs fans.  Instead, I got a group text from my brother at 3 am last night that went something like "KATIE YOUR EMAIL WAS READ ON IDLE THUMBS. also Jer and Zac we got burned (rightfully so)."

 

So that started a day long conversation that was at times awkward and at times enlightening.  I think we all ended up better people.

 

Ok, now the real reason I'm writing.  Sean's suggestion that it might be time to move on was kinda harsh.  I've known Katie for over 10 years, and I would count it a great loss if she just decided to move on because a bunch of guys said some insensitive things on Skype.  I'd like to think losing my friendship would be a loss for her as well.  I believe that you really only get a small number of truly meaningful friendships in this life, and that it is important to at least make an effort to work through issues.

 

Anyway, I thought Danielle's advice was insightful and wise, and she makes a great addition to the cast.  

 

Love the cast!

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That advice may sound harsh, but sometimes people stick around in toxic relationships for guilt based or historical reasons, and advice like that may be the reality check they need. Not saying it's necessarily true for you, but I wouldn't condemn the advice.

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Also, Sean can't know whether or not you're capable of entertaining the possibility that today you're the jerk. As seen in the thread for the last episode Danielle was on, some people aren't. Sounds like you might be?

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So they are still creating new TF2 items with gameplay effects that can be hard to get?  I know there were some when they first started with items, but I didn't realize they were still adding them.  That game must have so many loadouts by now.

 

Both dota and cs:go are competetive games where you couldn't really introduce stuff like that.

 

Although even in LoL, certainly a competitive game, players only have access to their purchased heroes during the draft phase which is certainly going to change the way matches play out.

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Well, they're really easy to get now, assuming you play regularly. And if you don't play regularly, it doesn't really matter because, as you said, there are so many loadouts that you won't miss a few items here and there because you wouldn't know what to do with them, anyway. It's a strange ecosystem, TF2. I'd love to get back to playing it. I just can't talk my friends into it. ):

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Sean's advice, regardless of whether or not it is applicable to this reader's situation, is in my opinion totally solid life advice, and something I wish I had internalized more when I was in my twenties. Trying to salvage friendships is a worthy goal, but only if the person on the other end of things is making a genuine effort to work on self-improvement. Sometimes you have to deal with former friends that are alcoholics, or drug addicts, or self-pitying assholes that lash out at everyone else, people that are physically and/or emotionally abusive, etc. If those people aren't willing to try and fix their problems (and a lot of the time they aren't) it is not your job to try and fix their shit for them, and trying to do so can make things worse.

 

The examples I gave are maybe extreme, but hopefully it helps put into perspective why there are situations when it can be okay to leave behind old friends.

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I thought Sean's advice was really wonderful and I hope whoever wrote that letter (or anyone, really) takes what he said to heart. Learning that you're under absolutely no obligation to tough it out with people who can't even offer you a baseline of respect is such a hard but valuable lesson to learn as you get older. Fortunately, that usually comes with the knowledge that there are lots of people in the world who can be your friend without needing you to tell them how to.

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On the flip side, there are some people that are worth working for and those relationships are worth cultivating even if there are rough patches. I sure am looking at myself here.

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I thought Sean's advice was really wonderful and I hope whoever wrote that letter (or anyone, really) takes what he said to heart. Learning that you're under absolutely no obligation to tough it out with people who can't even offer you a baseline of respect is such a hard but valuable lesson to learn as you get older. Fortunately, that usually comes with the knowledge that there are lots of people in the world who can be your friend without needing you to tell them how to.

Yeah I thought Sean's advice was great too. It may not be applicable to that exact situation from that specific reader mail, but realizing that you CAN move from one group of friends to another over time is a thought that sometimes doesn't occur to you automatically.

On the flip side, there are some people that are worth working for and those relationships are worth cultivating even if there are rough patches. I sure am looking at myself here.

For sure, just you have to ask yourself at a certain point what the in to out ratio is and if maintaining a relationship (even a friendship) is long-term causing more damage than good stuff, just to keep it afloat.

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So that started a day long conversation that was at times awkward and at times enlightening.  I think we all ended up better people.
 
I'm glad to hear this! Sometimes you have to hear something from the outside of a friend-group for it to really hit you. Also, awkwardness is sometimes just a symptom of growth! 
 
k, now the real reason I'm writing.  Sean's suggestion that it might be time to move on was kinda harsh.  I've known Katie for over 10 years, and I would count it a great loss if she just decided to move on because a bunch of guys said some insensitive things on Skype.  I'd like to think losing my friendship would be a loss for her as well.  I believe that you really only get a small number of truly meaningful friendships in this life, and that it is important to at least make an effort to work through issues.
 
It's good that you value your friendships enough to change. Some people don't. In those situations, it's not fair for one person to sit around and hope that maybe the other person will change for the better.
 
I feel like Sean and Chris's remarks go with Danielle's advice. If I am upset by one of my friends, it's important for me to tell them that. But if I am repeatedly told (either directly or indirectly) that my feelings are not relevant to my friends, it's important that I find friends who respect me and how I feel. 
 
Bad friends aren't worth anyone's time. Luckily for you it seems like you're trying to be a good and respectful friend. That's really all anyone can ask for.

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For me, I think it comes down to this:

I want to be around people who seem happier when I am around. I don't want to be around people who have a sadness that I seem to be prolonging.

When you consider behaviors such as self-harm, aggression, and depression to be diseases it can complicate matters. I don't want to abandon someone who needs a little support, but I don't want to enable aggressive and inconsiderate behavior either.

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I thought Sean's advice was really wonderful and I hope whoever wrote that letter (or anyone, really) takes what he said to heart. Learning that you're under absolutely no obligation to tough it out with people who can't even offer you a baseline of respect is such a hard but valuable lesson to learn as you get older. Fortunately, that usually comes with the knowledge that there are lots of people in the world who can be your friend without needing you to tell them how to.

 

Yeah, it's hard. I hung onto a friendship from junior high for way longer than I should have (several years into college) simply because I made friends with her at a time when I had no other friends. I felt like I was abandoning her the way my friends had abandoned me in the transition from elementary school to junior high. Somehow her treating me like garbage didn't seem relevant to my thought process. 

 

We were friends for ~9 years, and I hated being friends with her for about 6 of them. Eventually I moved on and spent my time with people who cared about me. She sent me emails and texts for a long time afterward, trying to get me to make up with her. I tried to once or twice, then realized she wasn't going to change how she treated me.

 

Anyway! Now I have great cool friends and it's awesome.  B)  B)  B) <- that is my friends and me being cool together.

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Where are these new friends coming from exactly? Grindr?

In my experience, doing something fun publically attracts all sorts very quickly, some of them aren't dangerous.

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What I like to do when I want to make some new friends is to leave some porn in the woods and hide behind a near by tree.

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Yey, Danielle! Great cast as usual, and some excellent advice from Danielle and Sean there at the end.

 

What what was the date of that upcoming Super 3D Noah's Ark stream again?

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Last time I played TF2 the general 'best loadout' was the default one. Atleast for most classes, demo's default grenade launcher and stickies were the best, the stupid sword was a gimick, etc. Only the medic had a viable choice for the uber flavour. I guess most of the melee weapons were straight upgrades with negligible downsides like the pickaxe that made you run faster as a soldier, crits on burning targets pyro and medics uber saw that drained uber juice out of victims.

 

That's still true, and the default melee weapons are still kinda the best too. Most people don't use them enough to notice, but the standard weapons have a really high rate of critical hits, which tend to one-shot people and end the encounter. 

 

Valve did a great job of spreading out the abilities of the classes through the alternate weapons without having those classes overlap much and lose their distinctiveness. I can't think of any other multiplayer game that's been quite so well-balanced with so many different options. It's pretty amazing, IMO.

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Hey thumbs.  I've listened to the cast forever, but just made an account to respond to Katie's reader mail on the last cast.  

 

I am one of the assholes Katryn is nice enough to play with on a near nightly basis.  I'm pretty sure she wanted the email to be anonymous, as we are all Idle Thumbs fans.  Instead, I got a group text from my brother at 3 am last night that went something like "KATIE YOUR EMAIL WAS READ ON IDLE THUMBS. also Jer and Zac we got burned (rightfully so)."

 

So that started a day long conversation that was at times awkward and at times enlightening.  I think we all ended up better people.

 

Ok, now the real reason I'm writing.  Sean's suggestion that it might be time to move on was kinda harsh.  I've known Katie for over 10 years, and I would count it a great loss if she just decided to move on because a bunch of guys said some insensitive things on Skype.  I'd like to think losing my friendship would be a loss for her as well.  I believe that you really only get a small number of truly meaningful friendships in this life, and that it is important to at least make an effort to work through issues.

 

Anyway, I thought Danielle's advice was insightful and wise, and she makes a great addition to the cast.  

 

Love the cast!

Thanks for stopping by. I hope I didn't inadvertently fail to respect Katryn's wishes by reading her name; we just always read names unless people specifically request otherwise. But I'm really glad everyone involved talked it through and ended up in a better place.

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