tegan

I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

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Doomsters, what's the best way of playing co-op Doom? Always used Zandronum for single player but the last time I tried to play online with that it was a non-starter

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I don't really visit any gaming related forums other than this one anymore, other than maybe seeking out some specific troubleshooting info about a PC game or something or checking some Reddit threads during events.  But a big update to Warframe came out last week, and that got me browsing their forums, and holy fuck I had kind of forgotten what a bunch of whiny, entitled cry babies gamers can be. 

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It's rough out there, and as a community gets bigger those folks get noisy until they drown out the sensible ones. 

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Is there a Bo Jackson of video games? Are there e-sports athletes (is that even what you call them?) that compete at high levels in multiple games? I can't figure if that should be more or less common than in physical sports?

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I don't really visit any gaming related forums other than this one anymore, other than maybe seeking out some specific troubleshooting info about a PC game or something or checking some Reddit threads during events.  But a big update to Warframe came out last week, and that got me browsing their forums, and holy fuck I had kind of forgotten what a bunch of whiny, entitled cry babies gamers can be. 

 

Something to this effect got mentioned on the Daft Souls podcast this week. They've previously praised the Destiny playerbase as basically being friendly and nice, because there's no communication system that's not opt in. With no way to call someone a slur on a regular basis, wordless interactions end up being friendly and helpful.

 

When the December Destiny updates went through, people on Destiny websites were being whiny and awful about it and they went "Oh no this group is one of them, too!" Now, some of the updates were worth being annoyed with. But no one playing video games on the internet disagrees with someone and says "I'm upset let's have a discussion".

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I'd previously seen the Warframe community praised in a similar way to the Destiny community (even with built in text chat, I've so far had almost universally positive experiences).  So I think it is a pretty good community, but good lord, make some changes to a game and see the torches and pitchforks come out. 

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Is there a Bo Jackson of video games? Are there e-sports athletes (is that even what you call them?) that compete at high levels in multiple games? I can't figure if that should be more or less common than in physical sports?

Dunno Bo, but there are people that jump between games and have done well in both. Dunno if they were good at both at the same time, though. I'd imagine, not, if only because of necessity?

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I'd previously seen the Warframe community praised in a similar way to the Destiny community (even with built in text chat, I've so far had almost universally positive experiences).  So I think it is a pretty good community, but good lord, make some changes to a game and see the torches and pitchforks come out. 

 

It's also a reality check to remind one's self that even the most hateful visible parts of the worst fan bases don't represent the full amount. The people who are most upset are doing the most yelling.

 

That doesn't make the worst parts better, naturally.

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Is there a Bo Jackson of video games? Are there e-sports athletes (is that even what you call them?) that compete at high levels in multiple games? I can't figure if that should be more or less common than in physical sports?

 

There's only one that was/is actually good at more of them, maybe two depending how you count migrating after a community dies.

 

There's Iceiceice (not to be confused with ice,iceice or icefrog), who at some point played SC2, 

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Iceiceice

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Iceiceice

 

He might be your best bet, in this interview he mentions 

-"Hello I'm daryl and my nick is iceiceice. I'm 20 this year and i currently play HoN, LoL, DotA and sc2 competitively." *laughs*

http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/13079-iceiceice-talks-about-blizzard-sea-invitational-lol-and-dota

 

 

Grubby, one of the best Warcraft 3 players (one time world champion), played SC2, I think he just streams HOTS(the LOMA) now

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Grubby

 

There's these two guys who tried to join pro dota2 teams after playing SC2 a bunch then switched back. I think Select was the better of the two at SC2 (he's korean, babyknight isn't) though Babyknight was also ok at it. I remember select saying he'll show everyone the importance of micro in dota2, he switched back a few weeks later.

 

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/SeleCT

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/SeleCT

 

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/BabyKnight

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/13abyKnight

 

Actually looking at it, I have no idea what babyknight ended up playing last before retiring or whatever.

 

Last person I can think of is Scarlett, she is probably one of the best foreigner players at SC2. Might quit soon according to the liquipedia page but who knows. At some point she took a break from SC2 and started playing ranked DOTA2, aiming to hit 6k or 7k within a few weeks and quitting SC2 if she managed to do it. I think she got 6k with meepo spamming but went back to SC2 anyway. I don't think she played in any pro team unlike the others listed.

 

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Scarlett

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I know people in the much more niche AU Cybergamer scene that have amazing transferable skills between games like CS:GO, Dirty Bomb, and Natural Selection. But this is the realm of the occasional $500 tournament with some merch thrown in. Teams in these leagues do get sponsored by groups like Avant I'm just not sure how 'pro' it counts as.

I have this one friend who's apparently been very close to the top in his region for SC2, CS 1.6, Grey Goo, Dota 2, and now Hots.

Australian E-sports are still pretty small. Not everyone has a computer, people in NZ/AU still favour consoles, and our internet connections are shockingly bad in places. Some people in these scenes have had to tether through their 3G connections just so they can play.

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There are definitely people in the fighting game scene who excel across multiple titles. Daigo Umehara for example is very good at Guilty Gear and Marvel vs Capcom, among others, in addition to being considered the best Street Fighter player of all time. 

 

Also besides Grubby, there was also Moon, another WarCraft III player who also played StarCraft II at a high level. While they didn't really overlap, World Cyber Games continued to feature WC3 until its end in 2013, and Moon played in those tournaments.

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A couple of Korean pros made forays between SC2 and LoL, to very small fanfare.

 

Grubby is awesome, definitely one of the less than handful I'd suggest actually did it

 

I think one of the differences between physical sports and competitive gaming is you don't have to stop playing a video game. If you are a baseball/football/basketball player, at some point  you have to go from one practice to the next practice and your parents have to take you there (as a kid). They have junior league seasons that have beginnings and ends. As much as there are stories about guys shooting 5000 free throws in a day or something, there are very few sports you can just play all day like you can with the games that have hit the pro scene.

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Two random thoughts:

 

1) I have this feeling like I would play an awful lot of Diablo right now if I had a week off. I don't though, so I probably won't play any. That's a weird dichotomy.

 

2) I am really impressed with the XBox app/recording function in Windows 10. Decided on a whim to try and record a Helldivers run, hit one button and had a 1080p video on youtube less than 30 minutes after we finished.

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2) I am really impressed with the XBox app/recording function in Windows 10. Decided on a whim to try and record a Helldivers run, hit one button and had a 1080p video on youtube less than 30 minutes after we finished.

 

Did you figure out why it didn't record your voice audio?

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Did you figure out why it didn't record your voice audio?

 

Yes, there is a little check box that says "record your microphone" that I didn't know I needed to hit. I recorded another test and it worked perfectly.

 

It makes total sense. If you're recording Fallout and you want to actually do post-production, it's smart to not automatically record me yelling "CRAWL OUT THROUGH THE FALLOUT, BABY" for 40 minutes and telling the cat to get off the couch over my playthrough unless I opt in.

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Can anybody please tell me in which Assassin's Creed game you get to visit a game studio? There was a Thumbs episode where the talked about this, I think. Thank you!

 

I tried to look it up for a bit, but reading through the stories of all the Ass-games made me feel queasy.

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I've always wanted to get really good at a fighting game. Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, King of Fighters, and Persona 4: Arena always looked the most intriguing to me. But I only have a PC, and I'd love to be able to test my skills against human opponents online. So that rules out Persona 4: Arena, sadly. But if I was gonna pick one of the other three, does anyone have any recommendations on which I should sink my time into as a total newbie? Do they all have active online communities that I can connect with for matches?

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As far as ArcSys games go, Blazblue is the best for beginners, as it was specifically designed for them. However, the PC port does not have online MP as far as I know. GGXrd is pretty lenient on beginners, but it's way too easy to get lost on the generations of tuning systems they've put into the game.

 

But to be honest, the best fighting game on the PC for beginners is Skullgirls. Not only is it really fun, but there is a really deep and interesting tutorial that not only teaches you how to play, but explains in detail how it can be useful, as well as it being completely transferable skills that you can use in all other fighting games. Totally transferable to ArcSys games.

 

Also I personally really like the characters in Skullgirls. Sure there's overly sexy Ninja Nurse, but then there's also a girl who looks likes an early Disney cartoon who attacks with falling pails and stupid slapstick jokes. One of the DLC characters is literally a big band, and looks like a Saxophone. He even has a useless move where he can play the trumpet to no effect.

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It's interesting to look back at 2007. Crytek released Crysis and CDProject Red The Witcher. Cyrtek was clearly a higher profile studio at the time. While both games did fairly well, the two companies took entirely different trajectories. Crytek complained loudly about piracy and the death of PC exclusive games and opened up several new offices. CDP on the other hand spent a year supporting their old game and gradually building a following.

Then in 2011 they both released their sequels. Crytek did a a multi-platform follow up that was in my opinion quite a compromised experience that felt desperate to reach a wider audience while giving up its original one. CDP did a DRM free, very ambitious PC exclusive RPG. From there they diverged even further, Crytek on the verge of bankruptcy and CDP stealing Bethesda's cake!

Even in 2007, listening to Cevat Yerli you could smell their bullshit. In hindsight I'm not surprised things they ended up they did.

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I played the original Crysis in 2013 and the final two levels were still broken as hell 6 years after release, so maybe if they actually fixed it, they would have way more supporters??? I know I can't recommend Crysis to people, unless I want to tell them "get it cheap and just play the first half of the game". It's such a shame too; I'm usually not a fan of FPS games but Crysis('s first half) was so exciting for me.

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Yesterday I heard someone's phone ring with a sound effect from a game. I can still hear it in my head but I can't place it! Gahh. Time to play every game I own I guess.

 

edit: wait! I think I figured it out, it's the level up sound from KotOR.

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Yesterday I heard someone's phone ring with a sound effect from a game. I can still hear it in my head but I can't place it! Gahh. Time to play every game I own I guess.

 

edit: wait! I think I figured it out, it's the level up sound from KotOR.

 

There was recently an update to Steam that lets you change the power on and power off sound the Steam controller makes.  One of the options is called "next level" and I'm positive that I've heard it in an old game before but I can't remember which.

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