The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => General Chat => Topic started by: SnowFire on January 03, 2014, 11:36:08 PM
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Right. Who here has played Dishonored? Remember the "interrogation" of Doctor Sokolov? Well holy shit, real life imitates art, except replace plague rats with dogs, and on second thought don't ask questions, just release the hounds.
http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/asia-report/china/story/jangs-execution-bodes-ill-china-20131224
EDIT: Or perhaps this is an inauspicious start to 2014x linkbait! The most horrifying things sometimes aren't true, probably. Counter-argument:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/01/03/no-kim-jong-un-probably-didnt-feed-his-uncle-to-120-hungry-dogs/?hpid=z3
So have something funny & old about North Korea instead, Amazon reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Art-Opera-Kim-Jong-/dp/0898752035/ref=sr_1_1?tag=ohmy0c-20
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The definitive version of Wrecking Ball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6DmHGYy_xk
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Did that FFX-2.5 story that Square pushed out seem confusing and poorly-written to you too? Well you're in luck because it's now explained in pictures! (http://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=16969)
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http://www.capcom-unity.com/xantista/blog/2014/01/03/guiles-theme-goes-with-everything-meme-hits-the-big-leagues
This happened in real life.
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I saw that on Capcom unity but didn't click the link til now. That is amazing nonetheless.
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Guy who designed Risk Legacy talking about the design process, game design, etc. (http://vimeo.com/82383614)
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/06/satanic-temple-unveils-7-foot-goat-headed-baphomet-statue-for-oklahoma-capitol/
Best trolling of 2013 keeps going strong.
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George Orwell Explains in a Revealing 1944 Letter Why He’d Write 1984 (http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/george-orwell-explains-in-a-revealing-1944-letter-why-hed-write-1984.html).
Interesting read. I think, for the most part, he's spot on. Depressing thought.
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/06/satanic-temple-unveils-7-foot-goat-headed-baphomet-statue-for-oklahoma-capitol/
Best trolling of 2013 keeps going strong.
You will be happy to know that there has been multiple posts of frothy moral panic over this on my Facebook.
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Do recommend collected works of letters and essays by Orwell that can be picked up pretty cheap, he was a fascinatingly intelligent man with a real passion for making sure ideas could be spread to the general public. He has a bit of hate for the intelligentsia that shows in that letter there that is a common theme. A philosopher of the people (If there is any hope for the future it lies with the Proles).
I will have to keep an eye out for this book of collected letters.
:):):):) Ciatos.
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For complete irreverence, and because I am a marketing whore, this post amused the hell out of me:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/forumtopic-834135/aura-kingdom
We are advertising our game with Crunchyroll, and these 3 posts absolutely read like we planted them (we didn't). I would not be surprised to see it in a marketing textbook as an example/summary of customer response.
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http://politicalblindspot.com/how-a-wealthy-clean-cut-duck-dynasty-tricked-the-world-for-publicity/
I had heard this from a variety of people and I find it quite interesting(if true). If the Kardashians are a niche then I guess redneck reality TV is a niche too. (I guess the way real rednecks live isn't as compelling, which is in poverty and filled with racism and homophobia that would make Phil Robertson blush.)
I don't really take the view that the article does that this is so horrible; reality TV is all an act anyway, so it shouldn't be a stunning surprise that this one is as well. The "controversy" from the end of the last year makes a lot more sense to me as a calculated way to garner even stronger support from those who already watch your show at the cost of those who would never watch it anyway.
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/06/satanic-temple-unveils-7-foot-goat-headed-baphomet-statue-for-oklahoma-capitol/
Best trolling of 2013 keeps going strong.
You will be happy to know that there has been multiple posts of frothy moral panic over this on my Facebook.
I am happy to know that there have been multiple posts of frothy moral panic over this on your Facebook.
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http://www.worstroom.com/
This makes me wonder why people live in cities as young people...
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http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2013/11/15/the_smallest_apartment_for_rent_in_sf_is_280_square_feet.php
Because the allure of the city is so fascinating? Because they're single and have money to burn? Because they're dumb and don't know any better? Because jobs?
I dunno. I like the small cities.
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Nothing like being stuck between a hellish commute and a hellish rent bill.
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http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2013/11/15/the_smallest_apartment_for_rent_in_sf_is_280_square_feet.php
Because the allure of the city is so fascinating? Because they're single and have money to burn? Because they're dumb and don't know any better? Because jobs?
I dunno. I like the small cities.
No longer having to pay for a car and being able to walk home from a bar has helped me save money TBH.
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http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2013/11/15/the_smallest_apartment_for_rent_in_sf_is_280_square_feet.php
Because the allure of the city is so fascinating? Because they're single and have money to burn? Because they're dumb and don't know any better? Because jobs?
I dunno. I like the small cities.
No longer having to pay for a car and being able to walk home from a bar has helped me save money TBH.
QFT. Best part about living in NYC
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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/482445197/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians?ref=live
ALL YO YENS
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So we pool our resources together to get Laggy on design staff, yes?
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This sounds fishy, like Matsuno is selling his name to a totally random San Diego games studio known for doing card game -> tablet game conversions. Also if this is going to be an iOS / Android tablet game, that brings fairly severe interface restrictions along with it, and these are unlikely to be totally rewritten for a Vita / 3DS version if that stretch goal is even met. A real Matsuno project shouldn't need a kickstarter anyway, ask Squeenix to write a check, done. Wouldn't be surprised if he's more like "executive consultant" to put a stamp of approval on.
Shame, if this wasn't intended for tablets I'd totally be there, but as is, nope.
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A real Matsuno project shouldn't need a kickstarter anyway, ask Squeenix to write a check, done.
Big name companies working like this. Explains why Squeenix has had so many great releases lately.
Ha ha ha.
Ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha.
Ha.
Seriously though, not that weird to imagine that a designer either couldn't pitch the idea to the company, didn't want to pitch it to the company, etc.
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We had lots of ideas for new IPs when I worked at Activision.
Now look at the games I made while I worked at Activision. Shrek, Tony Hawk, Shrek, Spiderman, DJ Hero. And GUN--so that was one new IP (although we only worked on a small part of it; the creative came from another studio).
Hell, answer the following question honestly: did you guys know that Max Payne 3 came out? Ok...did you guys know that Grand Theft Auto V came out? Same company, same engine, and it's not even like Max Payne is something wildly different and adventurous gameplaywise; it's still a well-established franchise in a genre that is known to sell games.
Also, more than likely they approached Matsuno, and not the other way around. If Matsuno had initiated things, the Japanese way is to leave your current company and start a new company with you as the head. Not like...recruit a company in California and work on it as a side project.
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To be clear the "should" was "should in the sense of this is the way reality should work" not "Matsuno is being silly, didn't he know better." Yeah, I agree it's entirely possible that Matsuno can't get proper funding for his stuff anymore.
Also I entirely agree with metroid's comment, this really really really sounds like Gametek came to Matsuno and said "we are huge fans of you, you provide the name, we'll provide the game, and you can say some wise words and get Alexander O. Smith to write us some dialogue." In fairness, everyone needs to start somewhere, Blizzard did racing games once before hitting it big... it's just that Matsuno is the "advertising" part of the project (which will probably work magnificently), and GameTek is the "game" part of the project (jury's out, but doing a strat-RPG on the cheap in a year & a half is probably easier if you're Nippon Ichi and can just rip off an older engine / unused art assets lying around from earlier projects).
Also, no, I didn't know Max Payne 3 came out.
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Playdek.
Close, though. :p
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mitt-romney-dances-gangnam-style
Nice :)
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http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2014/01/nfl-logos-hipsters.html
Thanks Obama
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Re: Tale of the Guardians, this is also the third Kickstarter I'm aware of for a turn-based strategy game that namedrops FFT in the pitch. It's the new Planescape: Torment, I think. Ber in mind that of the other two, one is The Banner Saga, which is out and really good, and the other is by DoubleFine, no fly-by-night studio. But it's a trend.
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Blizzard did racing games once before hitting it big...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rad_Racer
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Re: Tale of the Guardians, this is also the third Kickstarter I'm aware of for a turn-based strategy game that namedrops FFT in the pitch. It's the new Planescape: Torment, I think. Ber in mind that of the other two, one is The Banner Saga, which is out and really good, and the other is by DoubleFine, no fly-by-night studio. But it's a trend.
Perfect. Now is pretty much the ideal time for me to launch my kickstarter for Planescape: Tactics.
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Here I was thinking it would mean we would see the actual devs of FFT announce they want to go independent and start a campaign to create a spiritual successor.
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http://www.crystalshard.net/hq.htm
Heroine's Quest
Quest for Glory style game with a female lead. New, free, haven't quality checked but is something I can get behind regardless. If you aren't familiar with Quest for Glory think old Sierra adventure games (which they were) like Space Quest/King's Quest/Police Quest but with a stat/skill system and multiple approaches to puzzles using skills. Stats and skills built in that with use, not sure in this example though.
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In the criminal justice system, the lawyers are educated on two separate yet equally important continents: America, which trains 20-24 year old males, and Europe, which trains 18-year old females. This is one of their stories (okay, from 2013, but whatevers.)
http://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2013/aug/11/britain-youngest-barrister-gabrielle-turnquest
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Did you grow up in the 90s (in America)? Then you will probably recognize these things. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkM6RJf15cg)
I wonder if I still have my slammers somewhere...
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Internet Explorer grew up and is as old, useless and stuck in a corporate black hole as I am.
Truth in marketing.
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In the criminal justice system, the lawyers are educated on two separate yet equally important continents: America, which trains 20-24 year old males, and Europe, which trains 18-year old females. This is one of their stories (okay, from 2013, but whatevers.)
http://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2013/aug/11/britain-youngest-barrister-gabrielle-turnquest
I see a news story about taking university courses at age 14, and I'm like "really? This is newsworthy? That was like...my high school best friend, and I was in university by 15 myself."
Honest opinion: school curriculums are designed to give kids breathing room to do stuff like play school sports, be in a band, make mistakes and get drunk. I feel like most students I know could graduate a few years earlier if they really wanted to focus their time on academics. Now is it healthy to focus on academics over social life, and skip out on stuff like woodworking classes and track meets and school theatre productions? Hell if I know; I missed out on that stuff in high school, maybe it would've been awesome.
EDIT, in more important news: Magic the Gathering finally caught up to FFT and made a card called Eye Gouge
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/bng/KDJ)D(jk2m2389/xbNjecKm8C_EN.jpg
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I see a news story about taking university courses at age 14, and I'm like "really? This is newsworthy? That was like...my high school best friend, and I was in university by 15 myself."
The things you are surprised and not surprised by are very odd.
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http://www.abc.net.au/triplej
Hottest 100, countdown of top 100 songs of 2013 as voted for by largely the Australian public. Classically the more Alt favouring crowd, so if you listened to something random I posted that wasn't metal it was probably in this kind of vein. Starts in 30 mins from now.
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In the criminal justice system, the lawyers are educated on two separate yet equally important continents: America, which trains 20-24 year old males, and Europe, which trains 18-year old females. This is one of their stories (okay, from 2013, but whatevers.)
http://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2013/aug/11/britain-youngest-barrister-gabrielle-turnquest
I see a news story about taking university courses at age 14, and I'm like "really? This is newsworthy? That was like...my high school best friend, and I was in university by 15 myself."
Honest opinion: school curriculums are designed to give kids breathing room to do stuff like play school sports, be in a band, make mistakes and get drunk. I feel like most students I know could graduate a few years earlier if they really wanted to focus their time on academics. Now is it healthy to focus on academics over social life, and skip out on stuff like woodworking classes and track meets and school theatre productions?
The answer is no. Hellll no. Working in Japan where kids are basically at school from 6 until 6 (granted, about 3 hours out of that a day is club activity time... so sports, generally, sometimes music, sometimes more academics, depending on the kid), then going to Juku to study more and then probably get home around 9PM every day, and then they still go to school or Juku on weekends, has shown me that it's not only unhealthy but we need to stop even toying with the idea that it would be good to normalize this shit.
First of all, putting this level of pressure on the kids doesn't actually help the students that thrive under it, because they would probably be doing this sort of thing anyway (as your own experience shows). For the rest, there are basically two outcomes: you become an overstressed 13 year old with graying hair, or you stop giving a damn about your education entirely, and then continue to do so because once you quit for a while it's takes so much more effort to catch up as to be not worth it.
Add on to this that what I see day in and day out in my schools here is the toned down version of what it used to be. In the last 20 years or so the Ministry of Education relaxed the pressure that used to be put on the students because students kept killing themselves. It absolutely would not be healthy to take away that “breathing room” for outside interests, socializing, and being a kid who makes stupid mistakes.
A lot of people who thrived in school, like I'd hazard to say most of the DL, forget that school isn't just for the academic achievers to advance but also to educate those with no interest in academics or who don't have a family background that in one way or another fosters the idea that education and learning are important. Twisting the screws tighter on the education system to put everyone on the fast track to university learning at 14 would only leave these people even further behind than society has already left them, and it's not good for them and it's not good for society at large.
Should it be an option? Absolutely. Could “most students you know” buckle down on the academics and graduate earlier? Possibly. Should they? Or rather, should we be changing the way education is thought about to normalize forgoing interests outside of schoolwork so that more people graduate earlier? My time in Japan has made me go absolutely not. In this system, half of my students have just given up entirely and have no incentive to change their stance on this because they're already so far behind. 40% are still trying but for various reasons are either super stressed or depressed. The 10% that thrive would have done well anyway without this excess pressure. I'm sure most students you know could adopt a similar study schedule to graduate early but they won't be better off for it.
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Now that I am not just spam linking music.
What Zenny said. Yes theoretically a number of students could in fact do that, but stuff like Piaget's thoughts on child development and sooooo many agree, there is just too much very important development happening in kids at that age for them to deal with that kind of shit. The time you start to develop "logic" is 11-16ish (and onwards to infinity), so you can see where some students just mentally may not be built to handle it, let alone emotionally or academically.
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Well, that and people overachieve in different ways. People who are gunning for a good school often overachieve with extracurriculars and such, since a lot of prestigious schools weight them so heavily. And you can't really rush through being ASB president for two years in a semester. Squeezing all the time people would do them in out means people can't do them anymore, and probably all that stuff Zenny said happened too. Extracurriculars are also one of the main avenues for interaction with overachiever types, so without them you'd probably have a lot more burnouts and a lot more people with no experience interacting with others.
On the other hand, even though I'll have to disavow this once I'm officially a professor, 15-year-olds in college would be hilarious because they'd get hung over so easy. Oh, the things I would do. How can I work an air horn into a lecture, I wonder?
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https://twitter.com/SaGa25kawazu/status/428364667480596480
Kawazu has revealed the truth.
U.SaGa was originally designed for handheld.
Everything is now making SO much sense.
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I...I guess it makes more sense? Maybe the incredibly awful menus were the byproduct of a move to console?
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Nonono. Incredibly awful menus is how you do menus for handhelds. You don't pay attention to interfacing much do you Jim?
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I pay attention to interface. I just don't do handhelds.
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Hahahahah Unlimited Saga with GBA-level graphics/music would have been so awful.
I love Kawazu
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Hahahahah Unlimited Saga with GBA-level graphics/music would have been so awful.
I love Kawazu
Like the version we got was a goddamn JOY to play or something? It already played like shit, might as well have the sound quality to match.
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Not gonna lie. If it were the same basic game but with GBA graphics, I think they may actually have managed to make it even less playable (that is, making things more muddled and harder to see is one of the few things you could do to make it worse). Which is an ACCOMPLISHMENT to be sure.
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http://news.yahoo.com/hermione-married-harry-potter-rowling-admits-010027466.html
Since I know there are some Potter fans in the DL.
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Still wrong. HarryxLuna 4eva.
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http://news.yahoo.com/hermione-married-harry-potter-rowling-admits-010027466.html
Since I know there are some Potter fans in the DL.
Interesting. When Harry/Hermine shippers come up, I tend to dismiss them by pointing all the foreshadowing that went into Ron/Hermine, and all the foreshadowing signs that Harry/Hermine were platonic. But when the author herself brings it up, well, she easily could have just rewritten all the foreshadowing.
That said, the concern is that they'll end up in marriage counselling after the books are over? I dunno if that's enough of a writing gain than the advantages of pairing up Ron/Hermine during booktime present. When Hermine is having relationship problems, she can share them with Harry, and we get to see them. If Harry/Hermione were an item, this would become much harder (notice how with the relationship problems of Harry's love interests--Harry maybe gets third-hand reports). The ability to have Harry as Hermione's wingman in times of relationship troubles means Hermione gets more screen time, which is almost always a good thing.
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I can see where Rowlings is coming from, as her regret about sticking too closely to her original continuity concept explains a lot about Half-Blood Prince. I'd be curious to know where and when she decided she had to adjust things to fit it and where the natural evolution of some (or all) of the characters stopped. I'll admit the movies kinda give off the Harry/Hermione vibe but I never got it from the books.
On a tangent, there also seems to be a lot of grumbling in the comments about how, if Rowling had gone through with it, it'd automatically turn Hermione into some sexist prize for Harry to win and ruined her entire character. Makes me scratch my head, really. Not sure if this is a really skewed and negative view of Rowlings' writing talent, if they're really strawmanning hard to discredit an idea they don't like, or if they genuinely believe this would've been the case.
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Not sure if this is a really skewed and negative view of Rowlings' writing talent, if they're really strawmanning hard to discredit an idea they don't like, or if they genuinely believe this would've been the case.
FanLogic.txt
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I like Hermione/Ron better than Hermione/Harry. The latter would have been incredibly boring. I don't know that it would go to "sexist prize," but it would diminish her character a little in light of the Harry Sue phenomenon: ie, he would get the girl because he's Harry Fucking Potter and he gets everything, and her place in this relationship is to be awed and snarky. That is painting it a little thick, obviously, but close enough.
Hermione/Ron, on the other hand, speaks to something deeper. Not to devalue the ginger further, but Ron doesn't have a whole lot going for him, not compared to Harry. What he does have, though, is Faithful Sidekick: loyal and determined and (mostly) there for the main character. What girl wouldn't want that in a husband? Plus he has the magical family everyone wants to love. And Harry marrying Ron's sister and Hermione marrying Ron means they get to continue being one giant fluffy wizarding family.
In short:
Harry x Hermione = The Bachelor (all excitement and flash, no staying power)
Ron x Hermione = what really happens
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Hermione/Ron, on the other hand, speaks to something deeper. Not to devalue the ginger further, but Ron doesn't have a whole lot going for him, not compared to Harry. What he does have, though, is Faithful Sidekick: loyal and determined and (mostly) there for the main character. What girl wouldn't want that in a husband? Plus he has the magical family everyone wants to love. And Harry marrying Ron's sister and Hermione marrying Ron means they get to continue being one giant fluffy wizarding family.
I'd guess in fact that's why the original intent was Hermoine/Ron, really. I think Harry/Hermoine is appealing for a similar reason: whenever Harry was at his lowest, she'd be the one there to kick him in the ass and get him back up. I suspect though that Rowling's second thoughts have more to do with the movies. Radcliff and Watson had some decent chemistry, and some of that bled into the later books. So I can definitely see looking back on them with some distance and feeling it should have gone that direction.
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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2430283,00.asp
Automated cars will one day be a reality, improving our lives drastically.
One day we will play videogames and watch cat videos on our way to work!
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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2430283,00.asp
Automated cars will one day be a reality, improving our lives drastically.
One day we will play videogames and watch cat videos on our way to work!
Wait, you don't already?
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http://www.polygon.com/a/street-fighter-2-oral-history
Really interesting backstory behind Street Fighter 2.
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Nobody posted this here yet??
Youtube comment reconstruction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-5farzJoz8
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https://www.humblebundle.com/?bundle%3F=sidmeier_bundle
In other news I now own Civ 5 and 4
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http://vimeo.com/86014703
NSFW
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wow
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My favourite part is all the people who's names are going to show up in a Google search now when applying for jobs.
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Matsuno :(
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/482445197/unsung-story-tale-of-the-guardians/posts/743272
Q: “FFTA and FFTA2 moved away from Charge/cast times, which I felt heavily took away from the depth of those games. Will Charge/Cast times be a core component of this game? One of my favorite mechanics in FFT was casting time."
A: Sorry, there won’t be casting times in this game.In fact, the reason why FFT included a casting time system at all was to allow the game time to load graphic effects. This was a necessary consideration due to PlayStation loading times and memory concerns. Speaking as a developer back in those days, I can tell you that we weren’t happy with it.
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Really? Huh. FFT handles math skill just fine and every spell with noncharge.
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Yeah that answer sounds like a load of crap to me. Kinda weird actually...
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It actually sounds like he is answering a different question. I wonder if something was lost in translation or something there?
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I kinda thought the same thing, but though his technical explanation seems off, it's hard to imagine the first part of his answer could be in reference to anything else.
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I'm actually now guessing that he thought the questioner was asking about the animation that plays during the casting animation of the spell (the green orbs for summons, the white sparkly lines for most other magic, etc.) since those always exist and that answer would then make more sense.
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Plausible. Hope you're right.
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I hope so too, and the more I think about it the less Matstuno's explanation makes sense if it's in answer to the question as written (and understood by us). The explanation he gave is at odds with the game's actual implementation. Not just Math Skill and Non-Charge, but it's quite possible in FFT to cast a spell and have it resolve immediately because no other PCs or enemies were acting in the clockticks in between... so the CT system wouldn't even be very good at masking load times if that were its intended purpose. (And of course, in the actual implementation of the game, there are no visibly different load times for spells cast in such a situation, anyway.)
Idly: was that your question yours, MC?
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http://store.steampowered.com/app/248820/
Risk of Rain is on sale for $6. Fun roguelike platformer I've been playing the heck out of. Hooray.
Everyone should watch the trailer because it is
A) a great trailer
B) a perfect distillation of the game
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmtrmAvL5aw
My bodyblow is ready.
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Did someone say Body Blows? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuM3Kh9WLVI)
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Was expecting that shock video where one female boxer punches the other in the stomach so hard she projectile vomits into the first one's open mouth.
I'm not disappointed per se, I suppose, but...
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I've been trolling political forums looking for some good debates. Sadly, no one wants to have true debates so much as a circle jerk where they can sit there and go "god, can you believe those idiots?" without recognizing the irony.
Anyway, I took the Political Compass (http://www.politicalcompass.org/test) again for kicks, wondering why I think everyone is an idiot other than natural cynicism.
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-6.88&soc=-4.67)
Nope. Everyone is idiots.
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Without clogging up the page with more images: -7.00, -7.69. So Cids borderline anarchist, no huge shock there.
The proximity of Romney and Obama on their chart never ceases to amuse me.
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http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-male-characters-women-never-get-to-see-in-movies/
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Economic Left/Right: 4.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.85
Pretty much the same area I always hang.
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Economic Left/Right: -4.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.13
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Economic Left/Right: -7.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.97
To the surprise of no one.
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Economic Left/Right: -4.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.05
About where I expected to be.
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-2.88 -1.95 about where I was last time
You bunch of extremists.
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Economic Left/Right: -5.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.64
Although what's the question about if you believe some people are naturally unlucky? Are they asking us to debate Super's existence now?
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Obviously Super does not exist.
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Cogito ergo sum, therefore Super cannot be.
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Economic Left/Right: -6.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.64
whooo anarchy
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Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
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Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.77
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Economic Left/Right: -8.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.05
Life is an unending comedy.
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Someone apprehend CmdrKing.
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Economic Left/Right: 10.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 10.00
one nation under kappa
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Economic Left/Right: 8.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 9.08
Me attempting to match Nitori's score, by picking what sounded like the most right-wing answer for everything.
How the fuck, kappa?
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How the fuck, kappa?
El why eye en gee spells Kappa
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http://www.ansirh.org/_documents/research/abortion-onscreen/abortion-onscreen-infographic.html
How abortions are portrayed in media vs. real life.
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http://io9.com/the-universal-shapes-of-stories-according-to-kurt-vonn-1526559996?fb_action_ids=10100266797413071&fb_action_types=og.likes
Kurt Vonnegut related. Watch the video too. It's pretty awesome.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC-5RT3TGzQ
Turkish car insurance ad. Yes, it's worth watching.
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Gives me a reason to post this again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsmQ2uwItKU
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http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/02/arizona-goddam.html
Editorial on the Arizona law.
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http://www.habitrpg.com/
Skinnerbox yourself into good habits
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http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/02/arizona-goddam.html
Editorial on the Arizona law.
That bill in Georgia is actually a lot worse, somehow.
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http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/02/arizona-goddam.html
Editorial on the Arizona law.
That bill in Georgia is actually a lot worse, somehow.
What's the Georgia one you're referring to, out of curiosity?
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http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/02/new-bill-georgia-would-allow-businesses-kick-gay-people-out-diners
http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display/20132014/HB/1023
It is not an exaggeration to say that if your religion tolerates the idea of you marrying your niece, you can do so in Georgia if this law passes.
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And I wonder if that would cause people to try to start religions just to validate these things if they can't find an existing one to cover them.
Edit: Actually, could these laws be used to justify honor killings?
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Dhyer: they could raise it as a defense in their criminal prosecution but it would fail. Let's take a gander at the bill, shall we:
Here's the meat of it:
46 (a) A person's civil right to exercise of religion shall not be burdened even if the burden
47 results from a rule, law, ordinance, regulation, or policy of general applicability unless
48 demonstrated, by clear and convincing evidence, that application of the burden to the
49 person is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive
50 means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
All the bolded terms have special meanings.
14 (1) 'Burden' means any government action or implementation or application of any law,
15 including, but not limited to, state and local laws, ordinances, rules, regulations, and
16 policies, whether statutory or otherwise, that directly or indirectly constrains, inhibits,
17 curtails, or denies the exercise of religion by any person or that directly or indirectly
18 pressures any person to engage in any action contrary to that person's exercise of religion,
19 including, but not limited to, withholding benefits, assessing criminal, civil, or
20 administrative penalties, and exclusion from government programs or access to
21 government facilities.
So "burden" here includes any government act whatsoever including the application of criminal laws that have no direct bearing whatsoever on religion.
24 (3) 'Exercise of religion' means the practice or observance of religion under Article I,
25 Section I, Paragraphs III and IV of the Constitution of this state and the free exercise
26 clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, including, but not
27 limited to, the right to act or refuse to act in a manner substantially motivated by a
28 sincerely held religious tenet or belief whether or not the exercise is compulsory or a
29 central part or requirement of the person's religious tenets or beliefs.
As you can see, "exercise of religion" is defined extremely broadly. Your religion need not compel you to act in a certain way; it only need lightly suggest that you act that way.
22 (2) 'Compelling governmental interest' includes, but is not limited to, protecting the
23 welfare of a child from abuse and neglect as provided for by state law.
This is all this particular bill has to say about what the term "compelling governmental interest" means. However the language "least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest" is well-understood in US jurisprudence to mean that in determining whether a law or governmental act is valid the court should be very willing to strike the law down. Typically strict scrutiny is applied to laws that burden people unequally on the basis of race, or infringe on a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. Ah, but life is one of the fundamental rights protected by the constitution, so even applying strict scrutiny to the application of a law against murder to an honor killing motivated by sincere religious beliefs, the law against murder stands.
Ah, but what about marrying your niece? Does your foreign culture, which happens to heavily feature religion, tolerate such marriages? Even if it doesn't, do you have it in your misguided head that it is OK, perhaps because someone in the old testament did something like that? Looks like you are acting in a "manner substantially motivated by a sincerely held religious tenet" even though your religion probably doesn't make marrying your niece a "central part or requirement" of your religious practice. Hey, you've got a bona fide "exercise of religion!" And incest is against the law, so there's your "burden!" Now, does the government have a "compelling governmental interest" in stopping you from marrying your niece such that it still can do so? Probably not, unless your niece is a minor. Certainly no one is having THEIR fundamental rights violated by you marrying your niece. But what about the fact that it's illegal to marry your niece pretty much everywhere, and science shows that having babies with someone so closely related to you vastly increases the chance of birth defects? What about deep concerns that a person in position of authority like an uncle would exert undue influence on their brother's daughter? Well, those sure are good points, and maybe you could say they demonstrate a compelling government interest, except...
61 In determining whether a compelling governmental interest is sufficient to justify a burden
62 on a person's exercise of religion pursuant to subsection (a) of Code Section 50-15A-2,
63 only those interests of the highest order and not otherwise served can overbalance the
64 fundamental right to the exercise of religion preserved by this chapter. In order to prevail
65 under the standard provided for by subsection (a) of Code Section 50-15A-2, it shall be
66 demonstrated that such standard is satisfied through application of the asserted violation
67 of this chapter to the particular claimant whose sincere exercise of religion has been
68 burdened. The religious liberty interest protected by this chapter is an independent liberty
69 that occupies a preferred position and no encroachments upon this liberty shall be
70 permitted, whether direct or indirect, unless required by clear and compelling governmental
71 interests of the highest order.
Yeowch. Looks like your niece is out of luck.
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Blah blah link bait lists blah blah, but 10 Book Series That Would Make Excellent TV Shows (http://io9.com/10-book-series-that-would-make-excellent-tv-shows-1535363606).
I am totally down with a Mars Trilogy TV series, and so are a lot of the folks in the comments. Someone pleaaaaaase make that happen.
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Of special interest to the Grefters, I think: http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2013/06/20/black-blood-of-the-earth-a-unique-coffee-experience-from-an-unusual-entrepreneur/
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Good to hear he is doing well businesswise and no direct quote in there is surprising after meeting him.
Edit - And I can actually use this to troll a friend who thinks I am crazy for drinking that stuff at work, but is doing an entrepreneurship subject in his business degree this year.
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BiAdY5-CEAEhOMx.jpg:large
EDIT, and while I'm at it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeokDnCZWIs&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1
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You know, if you took that suit, painted it the proper colors, it could pass as something credible in the 90s or so, which is impressive considering the resources he used.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9x_koRZ2bA
Dark Souls story "summary" to get prepared for the sequel.
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Never change, Plague. Never change.
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Frog Fractions 2 Kickstarter. (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/475057068/frog-fractions-2)
FROG FRACTIONS 2 KICKSTARTER.
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Frog Fractions 2 Kickstarter. (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/475057068/frog-fractions-2)
FROG FRACTIONS 2 KICKSTARTER.
This guy is fucking insane and I love it.
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And this is how you cosplay:
http://imgur.com/a/ME8sc
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I would say "tell that Asian kid that whiteface isn't doing him any favors" but they gave us the blackface pokeyman so it will probably fall on deaf ears.
I saw an albino Asian man once in Bali. Freaked me the fuck out.
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http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/?p=16124
Friend of mine from work getting a piece in NY Art magazine. Super happy for her.
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Presenting panels from GDC that I have a feeling are going to be repeatedly misinterpreted in stupid ways for a while:
Plot is Highly Overrated in Video Games (http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/17/gdc-plot-is-highly-overrated-in-games-says-devs)
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"But they also talked about what extensive research has shown: that plot itself doesn’t resonate with a majority of players. Characters, on the other hand, do."
This is my position on fiction in general these days. Characters are plot, or at least all of it that's worth caring about. Plot when defined as a series of things happening is worthless; worthwhile plot is understanding why people did those things.
Probably not a novel sentiment in DL circle; my first impulse on reading their statement was to interpret in light of above existing thinking (against my better judgement, I read some of the comments on that article; I was surprised to find it mostly quite civil thus far).
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http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/17/5519684/narrative-designers-benefits-of-ditching-the-three-act (http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/17/5519684/narrative-designers-benefits-of-ditching-the-three-act)
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/gdc2014/11135-Games-Are-Not-Movies-Stop-the-Three-Act-Structure (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/gdc2014/11135-Games-Are-Not-Movies-Stop-the-Three-Act-Structure)
A little more context on the panel.
I wish they'd just do full recordings/transcriptions with the slides.
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I would imagine that most people at the DL would disagree because the community is centered around a genre was specifically built up around having much longer plots.
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Would we though? I would argue that the big "plot" games in the genre that our community concentrates on either do have a good character focus on their story telling (in your Disgaea type scenarios) or follow story telling that works as a larger piece of serialized fiction all jammed in together like a TV series/book series tend to.
Being made up of lots of 3 act structures that may as a whole follow that arc or ignore it completely (how many story arcs are there in Xenogears? It breaks up pretty well continent by continent, Persona 4 has very clearly defined "episodes". FFT straight up uses Chapters).
Trying to jam the three arc structure into 40 hours doesn't really work. Games that do it tend to be either plot thin or focus hard on gameplay. You can do that effectively by cutting on game length though (DDS2 is the example that really springs to mind here, it definitely doesn't have multiple arcs going on but works okay as a strong dungeon crawler told over low 20s hours, even then the "story" is split into two distinct games).
I don't see anything particularly wrong with the way of interpreting the data there, it is just how you apply what you learn from it.
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Whoever came up with the title of the first link needs to be slapped but that's nothing new.
Beyond that, well... I do agree with El Cid with regard to the importance of characters and how they drive plots in general, but I don't think that's really anything new. The "death to structure" rhetoric I do find a bit alarming, and the comments along the lines of "well a lot of people don't finish your game anyway so really who cares about building things up towards lategame" make me want to facepalm really hard.
As always, massive disappointment to articles presenting "research" without elaborating on methodology, not even saying who was surveyed and how.
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The whole topic is misleading. The problem being presented is using only a single three-step arc structure for an entire game, and I'm wholly amenable to the camp that such a basic linear structure suffers a lot of handicaps in the particular medium - so, I agree with the basic idea that the archetype is often suboptimal. My disappointment stems mainly from how they don't even begin to approach -alternate- narrative structures - which fuels the "death to structure" debacle that, in the end, isn't even at the heart of their rhetoric. It's like they don't even go past Narrative Theory 101, which kinda highlights how underthought videogame narrative still is.
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Presenting panels from GDC that I have a feeling are going to be repeatedly misinterpreted in stupid ways for a while:
Plot is Highly Overrated in Video Games (http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/17/gdc-plot-is-highly-overrated-in-games-says-devs)
The speaker at this panel is from Riot Games. I'm sure he has a lot of experience thinking about the role characters, gameplay and plot arcs interact from all his experience working on League of Legends.
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Even just viewing the part of LinkedIn that is visible without logging in shows him working other projects for another developer in 2010-2011. There is also more than one person on the report.
Would like to see full transcript and slidepack.
Edit - GDC homepage
...His major game credits include Halo: Reach, Destroy All Humans! and Destroy All Humans! 2, The Saboteur, Crimson Alliance and Kinect Rush: A Disney-Pixar Adventure. In 2009, he was named to "The Gamasutra 20: Top Game Writers." ...
So he might not be MCA but that doesn't mean much. He has a presence in the industry doing work on writing. Especially working on games in genres that do in fact still rely on a strict use of the three act structure.
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The general issue to me is that people, in general, still approach game writing from the point of view that it is like writing for any other medium, which is a very ineffective way of approaching it. You CAN make it work, but, in a lot of cases, it is going to be suboptimal.
A simple starting place is to dismiss some of the larger issues out the door based on the playerbase (straight 3-act structure being incredibly useless given the length and breakdown of many modern games, character-centric work being more memorable/sticking better, pacing differently and expending differently based on the fact that many games aren't going to be completed, etc). Ultimately, for mainstream gaming, the big problem really is time and the way it is spent in games, as well as you pace it around the game chunk of the game.
So, ultimately, while it isn't OMG genius insight or anything, but it is a decent baseline talking point for really getting at the point that game writing =/= book/TV/film writing.
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In lighter news, Fred Phelps is dead.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/20/us/westboro-church-founder-dead/
Sadly they won't be holding a funeral for us to protest at.
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What's there to protest?
I mean, I learned in second grade that the best way to deal with bullies is to not give them any attention.
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That he isn't getting a funeral pyre I guess?
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What has he ever done to deserve the attention? How has he contributed to the world? The only fitting eulogy for his contribution to humanity is deafening silence. To the dustbin of history with him, I say.
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Belated, Re video game characters: It's both semi-obvious and misleading. To quote Marshall McLuhan (+1 intelligentsia points), the medium is the message, form follows function, all that good stuff. Basically, your plot should work *with* your game and make sense for it.
- If you have a puzzle game or "arcade game" or the like, plot is totally optional, and if you have it, it shouldn't get in the way. (e.g. Tetris (no plot), Arkanoid (you are told you defeated the evil alien at the end))
- If you have a shortish "continuous" game (<2 hours to complete) with a clearly identifiable "protagonist" but where you don't want to disrupt the flow with towns or the like, you should make the character as likable / distinctive as possible, but then give them a simple quest - stop the evil overlord, rescue the princess, defeat the alien invasion, etc. Keep your one plot twist toward the end. (e.g. Super Mario Bros., Castlevania I or III)
- If your game has any length (e.g. 5 hours+), then a plot helps, even if it's just an excuse for something for the characters to interact with. It's a reason to go forward and load the game up again! Even stuff like action games is helped here - you can't just tell someone "be crazy and distinctive", you have to give them something to do, e.g. Devil May Cry or God of War, then throw in some melodramatic plot twists. It doesn't have to be a "good" plot but it should ideally be a compelling plot - think old 1930s serials that always ended with Our Hero in some dire trouble, and you need to tune in next week to see how they got out of it.
- If your game comes in small "chunks" but is supposed to be played for a long time, then this is what the GDC guy is talking about. This is stuff like fighting games and MOBAs - what you want are good characters, and the plot should be an excuse for all these characters to be at the breaking point and want to fight each other, but you can never move past that. Which of course ruins the ability to write a "good" three-act plot when you are eternally stuck at the end of Act I. That's because Act II & Act III are playing the game. Guile's finally going to have it out with M. Bison, and that's the fight, and when we're done, we're going back to start of Act II, and they're going to have their fated confrontation all over again. Same with LoL Act II and III are written by the characters themselves, as you find out if Ashe or Sejuani or Lissandra will rule the Frejlord or whatever, and the answer is if you won the game at the end. They gave up their "Journal of Justice" which attempted to write a coherent world plot because it was fruitless and dumb. The whole point of a meaningful plot is one that changes things - conflicts get resolved and new ones are created. But they can't do that! Imagine Capcom saying "Sorry, Ryu has retired from fighting" or actually letting Bison die. Or even crazier, Riot changing a League of Legends character they've sold to people on one premise. "Sorry, Jinx, after realizing the high cost of her actions, has reformed and become a straight-laced good girl." No! No character development allowed! Or for a stranger example, Blizzard RTSes hack the system a bit - they can write a plot for their various sentient characters, because they don't matter in-game too much. However, WarCraft / StarCraft plot will never see a peace between the various "races" nor any unification between them, because there always needs to be an excuse for TvT / TvZ / TvP / etc. in the actual game. So that kind of plot development arc is basically closed off.
Anyway, just because Riot is entirely correct about their scenario - their writer's job is to come up with a good explanation for why any character would be willing to fight it out, put some stakes on the line for the fight, and then stop there - doesn't mean that plots are useless. They're just useless in games that take 2-30 minutes then restart. And even then, exceptions abound - Ninja Gaiden stuck a hammy plot into Category 2 Mario-type games, and for category 4 games, BlazBlue attempted to have a plot in its first game, although the later games clearly suffer from the issue of "we really don't want to let characters die or change much."
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/westboro-baptist-church-lorde-concert-sorry-for-your-loss
So this is how one group actually DID respond to Fred Phelps' death. I am not sure whether they are the nicest people on the planet or they are staging the first ironic funeral protest in human history. Either way, I am humbled.
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"Kill them with Kindness."
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
something something high road
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<Makkotah> Sincerity gives me agita.
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<Makkotah>(http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130420022553/toonami/images/a/a9/Vegeta.png)
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I wish they'd just do full recordings/transcriptions with the slides.
But they do full recordings. The slides are just meant to be a preview to get you to buy GDC Vault access.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/23/goggle_flu_foo_fubar/
Tone of article is a bit off, but a decent formal analysis of results that show "Google bubble" trend that people note.
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There's a new Wolfenstein game coming out with the premise that the Nazis won World War II. It takes place in 1960. So they actually created a bunch of 60s-style pop music as if the Germans were in charge.
http://www.neumondrecordings.com
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That is brilliant/horrifying.
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http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3546224&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
Not one of the big LP readers here, but figured I'd mention this due to all the SRPG fans here - the Rondo of Swords LP on SA finally finished up and will eventually head to the archives. Check it out now before it's too late, the forums are even free right now if you're not a member. (Been reading this LP off and on since January 2013, finally I'm halfway through the thread & finished the route B ending). Rondo of Swords is an *awful* game but it's awful in the best way: magnificent ambition and courage to try out new & different ideas, with various key mechanics designed by marmots and key enemy threat data unclear without investigation in a game with nasty penalties for character death. Fear its terrible power. In other words, just about the perfect kind of game to read an LP of rather than play. The runner has done various busted things only someone who played the game repeatedly would know that are entirely obtuse (know that certain characters are secretly useless for non-obvious reasons, know certain characters should keep their level low before a promotion which increases stat growth, know what skills to save precious skill points for, know which accessories are useful and which are useless in a game with limited money / shopping, win rigged/optional fights to get special items), and STILL wipes a decent amount. All the hidden information makes RoS a brutally challenging SRPG ("I forgot to check how much MP the enemy spell took after inciting him to cast it once, so I underestimated their spell range by 1, then got pinpoint nuked"), but at least brutally challenging in a more interesting way than usual since "grind moar" isn't really a good option.
The plot is also more interesting than I gave it credit for from playing the first ~3 stages. I think the LPer overhypes / reads into a few parts as having more subtext than is really there, but there clearly exist some solidly done plot points & character arcs. Moreover, while the plot / characters are extremely anime in parts (14-year old girl pope who shoots lasers and wants to get married), somehow the tone remains "mature" on a number of the arcs anyway, which is goddamn amazing. e.g. compare with Wild Arms XF - Our Hero in RoS is a body double of the dead Prince, but he does not have amazing powers (aside from having the Prince's cool sword), and he is not secretly the Prince anyway. And the dead Prince really is dead. This makes the position for our little imposter so much more interesting than usual, and the game does some cool things with it. I also rather like one of the alternate ending options. Neat stuff, anyways.
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e.g. compare with Wild Arms XF - Our Hero in RoS is a body double of the dead Prince, but he does not have amazing powers (aside from having the Prince's cool sword), and he is not secretly the Prince anyway. And the dead Prince really is dead. This makes the position for our little imposter so much more interesting than usual
To be perfectly honest, none of these sound like they'll make the situation more interesting (or are very much not played straight in XF, namely the bit about the "amazing powers" and the biological identies of Clarissa/Alexia). Heck, just flipping things from "our heroine" to "our hero" makes the whole story notably more generic, within the JRPG prism.
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I started reading it. It is worth reading just for the weird combat system and the intricacies that it introduces.
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e.g. compare with Wild Arms XF - Our Hero in RoS is a body double of the dead Prince, but he does not have amazing powers (aside from having the Prince's cool sword), and he is not secretly the Prince anyway. And the dead Prince really is dead. This makes the position for our little imposter so much more interesting than usual
To be perfectly honest, none of these sound like they'll make the situation more interesting (or are very much not played straight in XF, namely the bit about the "amazing powers" and the biological identies of Clarissa/Alexia). Heck, just flipping things from "our heroine" to "our hero" makes the whole story notably more generic, within the JRPG prism.
I dunno. The gender of Clarissa/Alexia wouldn't have changed anything in terms of that reveal. The gender of the main character doesn't seem to mean as much as it used to in terms of making shit seem less generic. Both genders have their tropes as mains. It's really HOW they do it now other than "Hey, the main character lacks a Y chromosome!"
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So we are in agreement that they would be much better if the big breakdown moment was when the love interest exclaims "The Princess isn't the real daughter of the king and has an extra X chromosome!!!".
No wonder the main character had a terrible magic stat.
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Giving the main character three X chromosomes WOULD be ballsy. So few games let you play as a person with cognitive disabilities. Just Fallout for mental retardation and FF8 for autism.
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http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242615769&searchtext (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242615769&searchtext)
(Civ 5 related)
I'm just gonna leave this here.
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Counterpoint:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242010289&searchtext= (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242010289&searchtext=)
Also, I found a Pacific Rim mod in the workshop a while ago and I was all fired up to try it out. Did a quick start into the information era, built Striker Eureka, and it's the stock Giant Death Robot model. What in the literal fuck. What kind of asshole uploads a mod like that without the custom unit model?
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DHE: Pretty interesting. You're not getting any social policies anyway, so I guess Toronto ICSes everywhere? But the giant upkeep on roads/railroads means that they desperately want to use Harbors instead, so uh expand all over the Great Lakes, I guess. Also only go to war once since I imagine the war music is pretty awesome the first time and would cause you to nuke your own cities the 16th time.
Also, re RoS, you really think the gender makes that big a deal? I'll grant the point on the main character in general trending male, but "mysterious royal identity surprise" I usually associate with princesses more than princes (e.g. Marle, Garnet, Sheik, Calista, and a half-dozen others).
As for making the situation more interesting - dunno, it just does to me at least. To put things another way, stories along the lines of "Hero X saved the world, and surprise Hero X is also the Rightful King" at the end are exceedingly common, as are "We know they're the Rightful King, but they're banished or something, go save the world, then resume being Rightful King." Which is not to say this trope is bad (Aragorn is p. awesome), but it does get used a ton, and mixing things up where this is explicitly *not* the "real" king is a variant that has plenty of dramatic potential too. If nothing else, I kind of like introducing some kind of special holy bloodline (normally a ticket for "you are a destined hero"), and then having the main character (presumably?) not share it, at least not directly. To compare to the most generic SRPG out there - imagine if Marth dies in the prologue to FE1/FESD, and the entire rest of the game is some blue-haired dude (with no/less holy blood?) going around with Elice on the good and noble quest to save Altea, saying "check out this Falchion, clearly I must be Marth, please ignore the fact it's not working as well as it should." That already sounds more interesting to me! (If nothing else, the relationship between "Marth" and Elice would be good fodder for some awkwardness, and so it is in RoS between "Serdic" and Marie.)
It's also a slight difference in tone. I don't want to imply that RoS is grimdark, because it's not (see extreme anime notes above), but since it was apparently called "Rondo of Deception" in Japanese, it does the "imposter" plot point seriously at least, as opposed to playing it for 12th Night-esque comedy / hijinks. As in... in WAXF, Clarissa is basically a standard JRPG main who is very honest, and apparently was never confronted or never prepared for being challenged as a liar (which she is!), and gets all clammed up vs. Rupert at the end of Chapter 2 and runs away making a big scene. "Serdic" reacts more like how I'd expect for someone who took their role as fake-Prince seriously and wouldn't want to hurt their own cause by being unprepared for similar challenges. "The bad guys say you're a fake." "That's silly. Who's got the sword? Who was crowned by the Pope? I'm the Divine Emperor, next issue." Yup, that sounds right to me. (To be sure, XF's plot point is also fine, but I wish they'd made it more narratively clear that this was a character flaw of Clarissa's, and that she's imperiled everyone by not being a good liar.)
On a similar note to the above, there's a story branch, and the "darker" branch does not involve Serdic going around cackling "Mwahha, since I have done one conventionally 'bad' thing I have become a monster." He feels terrible about it, as you might expect! Won't say more than that though, just kinda nice due to being used to the Bioware-style "saint vs. psychotic mass murderer" story pathsplits.
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http://www.gamespot.com/articles/square-enix-rethinks-its-bid-to-appeal-to-the-mass-market-after-bravely-default-success/1100-6418665/
"“If you focus too much on the global aspect, you might lose sight of who you’re actually making the game for,” says Square Enix president."
You. Don't. Fucking. Say.
(I dunno if they have the people to pull this off in-house, we'll see what FFXV is like, but I'm also reading this as "let folks like the Eidos studios and so on do their own thing" so it's almost certainly going to be all to the good.)
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I'd like to think this means they'll stop blaming Eidos for not making sufficiently large profits to offset the repeated failure of the Japanese branch, but if they're willing to keep Toriyama around then they're never going to accept blame for anything.
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I'd like to think this means they'll stop blaming Eidos for not making sufficiently large profits to offset the repeated failure of the Japanese branch, but if they're willing to keep Toriyama around then they're never going to accept blame for anything.
To be fair Toriyama is basically a tenured professor at this point riding off the inexplicable success he had with his projects in the 80s and 90s and can't really be fired, no matter how shit he is at his job.
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What? I know you personally don't like them, but the FF13 games (the first two, anyway; no clue on LR) raked in massive amounts of money (FF13 is literally the second-best selling non-Pokemon JRPG of this century, while 13-2 still managed comparable sales to the Eidos titles with an obviously low budget by AAA standards). The big failure of the Japanese SE of recent years is the original FF14, which if Wikipedia is correct, Toriyama wasn't even involved in.
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The issue with FF13, in terms of sales, success, etc. is less so how much it brought in but rather the game didn't receive the kind of reaction he had hopes. Actually reading stuff on the development, he legitimately wanted the game to be the next FF7/10 in the genre (the major game changes that completely changed the way people viewed jRPGs, IOWs). This didn't work out; we can get into reasons why, but not worth it, as the point is that while FF13 was clearly successful commercially, it wasn't as big critically given how the reactions were so split among the fanbase.
The main thrust of the article, in any event, is that all this "look at things globally!" aspect is in fact destructive, and that's kind of true. They were trying to appeal to too many gamers at once with their games, rather than appeasing the fans first, then adding in some extra things that would grab more gamers.
Bravely Default is basically the game that kicked them back into gear because it showed that everything they were doing is wrong. All Bravely Default tries to be is a well jRPG, and nothing more, from my understanding. I'm not saying it's generic or anything, just that it's mission statement was "Make a strong jRPG for fans of the genre, particularly classic Final Fantasy fans!" The game wasn't a KILLER SUCCESS, but it sure beat expectations in the west commercially while being a significant critical success. It really demonstrates that the viewpoint has to be changed from "Appease all gamers!" to "Appease the people who are likely to buy this game!"
A good line that fits here, which is something Square-enix seems to finally be acknowledging is "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to appease everyone."
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Oh, no question. And I think they're basically right, and have no issue with the article. (Although I'll point out that the game that is cited as trying to appeal to too many people and suffering for it is Hitman Absolution.) I'm just setting the record straight on Rob's comments, since he seems to think SE should fire someone whose games have made them lots of money.
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Toriyama could literally shit gold and that wouldn't change that they should fire him. The guy made Parasite Eve 3. In a just world that would be not only grounds for firing, it would be grounds for the police to break into your basement to free the girls you obviously have locked up in there. That said, there is no goddamn way FF13 recouped its costs considering it was in development for ten years and has been repeatedly noted for poor management of time and talent.
Also "second best-selling non-Pokemon jRPG of this decade" is like calling NFL Blitz the best-selling download-only pro football simulation of the Seventh Generation. The more qualifiers you gotta put on there the less something means.
e: Also I should point out the Eidos sales are artificially deflated by the fact that Square-Enix doesn't count digital sales, because they are fucked in the head. This is all the more amusing because Sleeping Dogs PC was given a digital-only release.
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Wikipedia says 2005-2009. A long time, to be sure, but not egregiously so. The game was also cited as the main reason that the 2009-2010 fiscal year was SE's most profitable in the company's history (caveat: that may just mean since the merger), and in general games that sell 6.6M aren't going to fail to recoup their losses. I've never seen any figures for FF13's production/marketing costs, but GTA5 is widely recognised as the most expensive game ever made, and even if FF13 had that cost, it would have turned a (slim) profit based on its revenue.
The only offline FF I've ever heard cited for financial problems is FF9, and even then (a) I'm pretty sure it still made a profit, just a far smaller one than its predecessors, and (b) that was primarily due to the PlayOnline debacle (as much as I'd prefer to attribute it to the consumer rightfully rejecting a game which gave us Zidane).
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I think FF 12 was the one that had that longer development cycle (and probably sold worse than 13, too?) that supposed had several mid scraps (although depending on when 15 started, that may be longer soon).
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pit9pe-Et-s Would watch the fuck out of this movie.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YMD6xELI_k
Google is hiring Pokemon masters.
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http://tashagolden.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/the-31-number-one-female-country-songs-since-2004-summed-up-by-yours-truly/
10% of number one country songs in the last ten years were by female artists and most of them were boring and derivative. Can't imagine why I stopped listening to it...
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/shooting-dead-of-homeless-camper-sparks-outrage-again-albuquerque-police--the-department-who-kill-more-people-than-the-nypd-9226733.html?utm_source=indynewsletter&utm_medium=email01042014
So, in case I needed more reasons to not go back home. I hope some reform comes out of this outrage and it doesn't just impotently peter out as most things tend to do.
In hindsight, all this makes me feel incredibly lucky to be alive right now. Back when I was still a student, living at the Melrose apartment complex with Mark (some of you played SC2 and TF2 with him), I was walking back after having had several drinks at Monte Vista in Nob Hill. I was having a bad night of it, a bunch of pent up frustrations and worries got the best of me and while cutting through UNM's campus on my way home I was kicking trees, yelling, and taking out my pent up problems on inanimate objects on my way home. Not my brightest moment, but nothing harmful either. I didn't damage anything. Not other people's property, not public property, and the trees were gonna take more than my feet and fists to get scuffed up.
The police stopped me. That's good, I needed something to get me to check myself and calm down.
The police stopped me with a gun pointed right at my face. That's less good. Nothing sobers you up more than staring down the barrel of a gun.
I am fortunate that I could regain my prescience of mind and cooperate, make it clear that I was a threat to nobody but myself. Given recent events, there's a chance I may have gotten dragged off to the morgue instead of the University's psyche ward, all because of a bad night and and a police force all too comfortable with shooting first and covering up later.
In my 5 years of living in Albuquerque, a city that certainly has it's share of violent crime in addition to police violence, this is the only time I've ever had a gun pulled on me.
When an officer's first reaction to a loud, crying drunk is to pull out a gun, something is wrong. When, in the two weeks since the killing of James Boyd there have been no less than two other fatal shootings by the police, something is wrong. When a citizen has to be more afraid of the police than a potential mugger, something is wrong.
I hope actual reform comes from this public outrage. It is desperately needed.
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http://tashagolden.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/the-31-number-one-female-country-songs-since-2004-summed-up-by-yours-truly/
10% of number one country songs in the last ten years were by female artists and most of them were boring and derivative. Can't imagine why I stopped listening to it...
More disturbing is four years straight of nothing but Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift. At least pop music changes which female gets 20 #1s each year.
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Country's a pretty static genre, I think. Feels like I still hear the same names from years ago when I stopped listening.
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Square-Enix is *really* getting back to their roots.
http://www.thiefgame.jp/af/
(http://www.xboxachievements.com/images/news/aprilfool7.png)
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http://tashagolden.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/the-31-number-one-female-country-songs-since-2004-summed-up-by-yours-truly/
10% of number one country songs in the last ten years were by female artists and most of them were boring and derivative. Can't imagine why I stopped listening to it...
I don't know how I feel about a list that criticizes the lyrics of "The House That Built Me" while simultaneously praising the lyrics of "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."
Also...hold on, "Mama's Broken Heart" didn't make it to number 1? How the fuck did that not make it to number 1? Seriously, what?
In other news, this song is getting plenty of radio play recently on my local country station:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZfj2Ir3GgQ
For all that sure, it doesn't surprise me that this song hasn't reached number 1, since it is more or less literally a fuck you to the pretty picture a lot of country songs try to paint.
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Another article I read on the subject(more long-winded, decided not to link it, dunno where it is now) cited her as refreshingly rebellious of country ideals and that is why she wasn't #1.
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http://www.beepboopbitcoin.com/
Advanced bictoin simulator
HIGHLY recommended
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>eat washington fatcat
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Hm, I got to the BitHole and had the pork. Is this the end, or is there a way to advance the game from here?
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Eat the pork
That's pretty much the very end though
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http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3546224&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
Not one of the big LP readers here, but figured I'd mention this due to all the SRPG fans here - the Rondo of Swords LP on SA finally finished up and will eventually head to the archives. Check it out now before it's too late, the forums are even free right now if you're not a member. (Been reading this LP off and on since January 2013, finally I'm halfway through the thread & finished the route B ending). Rondo of Swords is an *awful* game but it's awful in the best way: magnificent ambition and courage to try out new & different ideas, with various key mechanics designed by marmots and key enemy threat data unclear without investigation in a game with nasty penalties for character death. Fear its terrible power. In other words, just about the perfect kind of game to read an LP of rather than play. The runner has done various busted things only someone who played the game repeatedly would know that are entirely obtuse (know that certain characters are secretly useless for non-obvious reasons, know certain characters should keep their level low before a promotion which increases stat growth, know what skills to save precious skill points for, know which accessories are useful and which are useless in a game with limited money / shopping, win rigged/optional fights to get special items), and STILL wipes a decent amount. All the hidden information makes RoS a brutally challenging SRPG ("I forgot to check how much MP the enemy spell took after inciting him to cast it once, so I underestimated their spell range by 1, then got pinpoint nuked"), but at least brutally challenging in a more interesting way than usual since "grind moar" isn't really a good option.
The plot is also more interesting than I gave it credit for from playing the first ~3 stages. I think the LPer overhypes / reads into a few parts as having more subtext than is really there, but there clearly exist some solidly done plot points & character arcs. Moreover, while the plot / characters are extremely anime in parts (14-year old girl pope who shoots lasers and wants to get married), somehow the tone remains "mature" on a number of the arcs anyway, which is goddamn amazing. e.g. compare with Wild Arms XF - Our Hero in RoS is a body double of the dead Prince, but he does not have amazing powers (aside from having the Prince's cool sword), and he is not secretly the Prince anyway. And the dead Prince really is dead. This makes the position for our little imposter so much more interesting than usual, and the game does some cool things with it. I also rather like one of the alternate ending options. Neat stuff, anyways.
Have been reading through this over the last week or so, been reading through the Route A section of it recently. I have to agree, it's actually a lot better than I was anticipating, and the game very much qualifies as a game that is way more fun to read about than it would be to play. The writers do get a lot of stuff right, and there's a lot of good character work post-chapter 20, though you only really get to see the thought put into it after seeing playing both routes.
That said the stuff you hyped about it about the Prince's secret identity has absolutely nothing to do with it. All the gold is in how the Chapter 20 decision completely changes Serdic's personality, and the themes the game touches on at the end of B route. The Prince's identity issues are only barely interesting, though maybe that will change on the A route.
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http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/10738559/mark-emmert-ncaa-president-says-unionization-attempt-grossly-inappropriate
no sir, what is grossly inappropriate is you using teenagers to make millions of dollars while paying them little
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XEq6XYtMVU
Probably the most appropriate response to the NCAA ever.
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You made my day good sir.
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So I posted a few months ago about the Quebec "Charter of Values" crap in Idiot of the Day. Well, they were decimated in the election today, and a large part of it is believed to be the Charter's fault.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/liberals-win-quebec-election-will-form-majority-government-1.1764036
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smileyface
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Quebec elections: Pick your poison
http://nplusonemag.com/what-happened-to-canada
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http://animalnewyork.com/2014/coming-soon-juggalo-bitcoin/
You don't actually have to click the link. All you need to know is in the URL.
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Fuckin' bitcoins how do they work?
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http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/10/other-players-must-die-in-orcs-must-die-unchained Orcs Must Die Sequel! YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!! It's a lane defense game/ free to play PvP style game in the style of LoL! *single gunshot* I'm still pretty excited for it, but I infinitely prefer pure tower defense. I'll wait and see.
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Competetive is true to the roots of tower defense that OMD stems from. That said I consider the coop style like they used in OMD2 infinitely superior.
Edit - I haven't listened to it myself yet, but heard about this.
http://www.nerdist.com/podcast/james-bonding/
Podcast that is going through every James Bond movie with 2 super fans that know all kinds of minutiae and have guests on each week. They are working through the series from two directions at once, chronologically and reverse chronological order until they meet some time in the middle (Roger Moore era). Up to Live and Let Die and Golden Eye as their last two episodes. With guests like Paul F Thompkins, I am super super keen to get through the 16 episode archive in a hurry. I am really keen to hear both about terrible things like The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day, crazy things like Thunderball. I am sure the more serious stuff (OHMSS specifically) is also pretty fun. Edit 2 - :O:O:O:O OHMSS is with Paul Scheer. why is it 12 episodes in. WANT
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/11/gender-bending-disney-characters_n_5133573.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000050&ir=Gay+Voices
Gender swapped disney characters drawn pretty well
http://www.upworthy.com/disney-slimmed-down-an-iconic-figure-and-heres-why-that-was-a-really-awful-thing-to-do
A rant on Ursula.
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"Before you say being fat is inherently unhealthy I suggest you check your facts..."
NO. Take that shit to IotD. There is no medical conspiracy to hide that obesity is somehow a viable alternative to maintaining an acceptable BMI or whatever bullshit that fatties want to cry about this week. It's unhealthy and her sources are laughable.
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It's a matter of how you read the statistics (a less charitable term might be "cherry-picking"). It's true that, if you are fit, your weight makes no difference to your health. Many athletes are classed as "overweight" (e.g. Aaron Rodgers has a BMI of 29, a stone's throw away from the obesity line) but most aren't at risk for the various diseases associated with weight (heart conditions, type 2 diabetes, etc.). This is true whether the extra weight comes from body fat or muscle (usually with people who are fit and overweight, it's from a mix of both).
Of course, most people who are overweight/obese are that way because they have poor lifestyles (sedentary, bad diet) and of course they are unhealthy. Additionally, even given people of comparable lifestyles, being obese seems to lead to some added health risks (overweight not so much), as does specifically waist size, although they're certainly not the significant factors and near as I can tell there's some debate as to how significant they are at all.
tl;dr being fat probably indicates bad health but the statement you quoted isn't, strictly speaking, wrong (though in the absence of further elaboration, I would call it misleading).
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It's also not the point of the rant at all, which is that Disney doesn't need to make all their female characters including their villains skinnier than I was in my 20s.
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Well, not like the rest of Hollywood is better. Jennifer Lawrence is supposedly the poster girl of the less skinny crowd?? lol to that one And magazines' tendency to photoshop women to make them look even farther from realistic beauty standards is fantastic off course~
Living with the belief that you ain't shit because you aren't skinny is an idea that permanently lives in the lives of teenaged and 20's women. This constant obsession with weight is not just about media, but media certainly does a good job of reinforcing those ideas. (Especially magazines. But who would buy their shitty magazines if they didn't tell you how to lose weight to pick up men??)
But yeah, putting those fatties in their place is more important than those messages I guess.
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There is a difference between saying "I am okay with how I look" and Tumblr-style "being fat is not unhealthy, and also I demand I be treated as extremely attractive even though I weigh 350." Not only does the latter rely on outright misrepresentation of medical science, it also means that you're still relying on other people to affirm your value, but think you can just demand it and be given it with no effort.
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*posts link complaining about skinny Ursula immediately after posting link of skinny male Ursula*
But on a more positive note, that "Cruel" is amazing.
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To be fair we already had fat male Ursula in real life.
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Yeah I dunno where these goobers get the idea that being obese is healthy. I think, rather than just trying to say that unhealthy behavior is okay, we should try to figure out why healthy stuff is inaccessible to especially inner city poor folks and rethink the U.S. food subsidizing to emphasize healthy lifestyles.
(It feels like no matter what sensible opinion there is in the world, someone's gotta go and crazy it up. Oh god, sorry for saying crazy, that's ableist.)
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Yeah I dunno where these goobers get the idea that being obese is healthy. I think, rather than just trying to say that unhealthy behavior is okay, we should try to figure out why healthy stuff is inaccessible to especially inner city poor folks and rethink the U.S. food subsidizing to emphasize healthy lifestyles.
(It feels like no matter what sensible opinion there is in the world, someone's gotta go and crazy it up. Oh god, sorry for saying crazy, that's ableist.)
Absolutely. The problem with obesity messaging is that it's practically impossible to send the message "all obese people should lose weight" without sending the message "all obese people should feel bad about their weight." The obese-is-ok message is something obese people need so that they aren't stressed to death (stress is super bad for you, in case you didn't know) but doesn't do a damn thing to prevent them from dying of obesity. I'm not sure there's a viable path here. It's a real damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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Although firebombing corn subsidies would be a decent start...
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Oh yes, there are concrete actions that could and should be taken. I'm just talking about messaging.
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As you may be aware, the Hugo awards for SF and fantasy writing are voted on by members of the annual WorldCon. Buying a “supporting membership” (through the official convention site here (http://loncon3.org/memberships/)) for $40 gets you a ballot and a “voter's packet” containing PDFs of most of the nominated works from that year – can't vote on stories you haven't read, right? It's a pretty good way to get a bunch of great fiction from the previous year, even if you don't care enough to vote.
As you may also be aware, this year The Wheel Of Time – all eleventy billion pages of it – is up for the Best Novel award.
Tor confirmed today that yep, the whole damn thing (http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/04/the-wheel-of-time-and-the-hugo-voter-packet) is going in the packet. Which will still only cost forty bucks. So that's a really good deal.
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http://www.xboxachievements.com/news/news-17951-All-Star-Wars-Games-Declared-Non-Canon-by-Lucasfilm.html
This seems to imply the books are non-canon as well. No more Thrawn makes me sad.
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Unsurprising. They've already announced they're going to start integrating future EU better with the canon of the upcoming movies, and the existing EU is sufficiently diverged from the prequels that adding yet more movie-canon would almost certainly completely break their continuity.
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Your mother is non-canon
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc280eXODs8
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuqemytQ5QA
The sheer self-assurance of that guy
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http://detroiturbex.com/index.html
Pictures depicting the rise and fall of Detroit.
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http://imgur.com/gallery/NuqGD
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Elsa and Trans Iconography: The Snow Queen’s Gloves Come Off (http://aoifeschatology.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/elsa-and-trans-iconography-the-snow-queens-gloves-come-off/#more-1939)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ4c54rCJ_k
Are those the reebok or the Nike?
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Humanity is saved
bob's game has been funded
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobsgame/bobs-game
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/24/1301671/-Elliot-Roger-Gunman-in-California-Mass-Shooting-was-influenced-by-the-Men-s-Rights-Movement#
The extreme, horrifying men's rights activist endgame. As much as it is easy to roll your eyes at these goobers for being delusional, some of them are scary as fuck. (The video I've not watched, and I don't think I will.)
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http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=2QRA4ObZCnc&start1=29&video2=eqWB8zi_Cnk&start2=25&authorName=snoopsagan
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https://medium.com/war-is-boring/f3f52d299588
Heh. Amusing and enlightening state of world naval power.
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/readingrainbow/bring-reading-rainbow-back-for-every-child-everywh
LeVar Burton doing a kickstarter to bring back Reading Rainbow, and not as a TV show, but as an online thing with an app and classroom material.
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We will destroy illiteracy.
(http://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/a8433b05-56d0-4eca-8c8d-627b037a7995.png)
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I recommend watching the update video, especially if you're a sap like me.
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Hey, Poppy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3vWdCZ2NPA
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You can now play Zelda 2 in Esperanto.
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2202/
Great
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So...apparently rape is non-universal, and pretty much doesn't exist in a large percentage of the world's societies.
http://www.csub.edu/~jgranskog/inst205/benderly.htm
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http://www.yugatech.com/news/deped-got-pentium-4-pcs-for-php400000/
Things about the Philippines I'll be missing that aren't family/friends/food: ???????
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/06/02/female-named-hurricanes-kill-more-than-male-because-people-dont-respect-them-study-finds/
Study finds that people are less likely to take a hurricane seriously if it has a female name (and this is the primary cause of female named hurricanes having double the death toll of male named hurricanes, even once outliers like Katrina are removed).
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/06/02/female-named-hurricanes-kill-more-than-male-because-people-dont-respect-them-study-finds/
Study finds that people are less likely to take a hurricane seriously if it has a female name (and this is the primary cause of female named hurricanes having double the death toll of male named hurricanes, even once outliers like Katrina are removed).
I actually posted that link in the IOTD thread yesterday
SnowFire posted a follow up link to this over there: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/06/03/disbelief-shock-and-skepticism-hurricane-gender-study-faces-blowback/
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MK8 is creating some amazing gifs.
http://giant.gfycat.com/HomelyCluelessBat.gif (http://giant.gfycat.com/HomelyCluelessBat.gif)
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what I think is amazing is the "Death Stare Luigi" actually got onto the news at some point.
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;_; Poor Toadette.
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http://i1.wp.com/shoryuken.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/p4u2-cover-japan.jpg
Do not click if you are Snow or we may have to call a cleaning crew.
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Wait, is that Adachi hidden in the corner?
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Of course not, he's just a small-town cop. What would he be doing in a fighting game? That would be crazy.
http://shoryuken.com/2014/06/04/famitsu-provides-first-glimpse-of-adachi-in-persona-4-the-ultimax-ultra-suplex-hold/
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Who's the redhead in the upper left?
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PC Adachi: The best reason to play P4 Arena.
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Who's the redhead in the upper left?
New character, kind of a bad guy/Yu rival, does not have a Persona.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8hIvMgWgaw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8hIvMgWgaw)
I have not been this excited about a character confirmation since...probably Terra in Dissidia!
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Bah, only caused a mild amount of drool! (Seriously, I think Persona knows who its audience is...)
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People who have trouble controlling their bodily functions?
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Obvs.
In other news: Shock! Palutena in Smash?! Still, the sheer amount of KIU stuff getting into Smash is pretty awesome. Maybe we will get another KI game this decade or next?
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Obvs.
In other news: Shock! Palutena in Smash?! Still, the sheer amount of KIU stuff getting into Smash is pretty awesome. Maybe we will get another KI game this decade or next?
Kid Icarus games come out once every other decade, so we'll have to wait until like 2031 for the next one <_<
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Let the fifteen year hype train begin.
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More like 30 year hype train:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP3ccMoQNHo
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www.owen.org/blog/7308?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=google-and-the-trolley-problem
Discussion of how to handle emergencies with automated cars. Then it goes on to talk about it in terms of Aasimov's three laws of robotics which is kind of lol and nearly made me post it in IotD.
It does pose questions about market choice on different vehicles based on how they are designed to handle these situations, but it paints it with a kind of ridiculously broad brush.
So... misc link for a nearly interesting discussion point.
Edit - To be frank I could see it being distasteful in putting your actual life in direct control of Google programmers in some kind of rebellion against them being in all parts of your life, but meh. You already are putting a huge part of your life in control of some programmer somewhere, whether it be software on your car or in your health industry machines.
Also being someone who won't ever be able to drive, I already put my personal safety on the line with people I don't trust by everyone else driving, so blehhhhhhh.
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http://blog.angryasianman.com/2014/06/if-asians-said-stuff-white-people-say.html
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Those kind of comments are just endemic to the majority race of a culture, I'd think. I actually DO get comments like those in Japan. In particular the "round eyes" thing, the "only date white people" thing, the "can't tell white people apart" thing, and especially the "I'm so into white culture, have you seen X?" bit.
The round eye thing is at least generally contained to the kids.
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Those kind of comments are just endemic to the majority race of a culture, I'd think. I actually DO get comments like those in Japan. In particular the "round eyes" thing, the "only date white people" thing, the "can't tell white people apart" thing, and especially the "I'm so into white culture, have you seen X?" bit.
The round eye thing is at least generally contained to the kids.
Yeah, basically this. That said the reaction shouldn't be "well the majority race of every culture pulls this crap so it is OK" but "Well with that in mind what steps do we stop the majority race from being so shitty all the time." I know soooooo many white people that bitch about their treatment in Japan and then turn around and pull the same damn shit when they go home, or best yet while they're still in Japan but with a group of non-Japanese people.
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http://www.neatorama.com/2014/06/05/For-20k-George-RR-Martin-Will-Write-You-Into-a-Novel-Then-Kill-You/#!YQWtq
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http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/17/5817094/capcom-abandons-its-stock-takeover-defense-plan-now-open-to-buyout (http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/17/5817094/capcom-abandons-its-stock-takeover-defense-plan-now-open-to-buyout)
Anyone who owns 51% of Capcom's stock will now control the company. I've heard estimated costs in the $500 million range. Here's hoping Nintendo acquires the guys who did the netcode for MvC3
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You... want someone who did the netcode on a fighting game to get it to improve? Apparently there was big steps taken on MvC3 that I didn't know about.
I have heard good things about the Wii U Mario Kart netcode though, so maybe they are in an okay place. I suppose all the HRRRNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG from the internet about lag in the new Smash Brothers game will let us know on way or another.
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Here's hoping Nintendo acquires the guys who did the netcode for MvC3
Not sure if sarcasm or not. The only fighting game I've played with worse netcode than MvC3 was Injustice.
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You mean the masterwork of storytelling, Injustice, whose spinoff gave us one of the worst panels in comic book history?
http://i.imgur.com/9rLSxIP.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/9rLSxIP.jpg)
Linked because it's huge but seriously look at Batman's motherfucking face.
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Hahahaha oh god you misspelled best. One of the best panels in comic book history. What is with Batman's eyes what even the fuck
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Your face would look like that too if you were Batman, had no idea how to throw a punch, didn't hold any guard up and had your hand exploding.
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Those kind of comments are just endemic to the majority race of a culture, I'd think. I actually DO get comments like those in Japan. In particular the "round eyes" thing, the "only date white people" thing, the "can't tell white people apart" thing, and especially the "I'm so into white culture, have you seen X?" bit.
The round eye thing is at least generally contained to the kids.
Yeah, basically this. That said the reaction shouldn't be "well the majority race of every culture pulls this crap so it is OK" but "Well with that in mind what steps do we stop the majority race from being so shitty all the time." I know soooooo many white people that bitch about their treatment in Japan and then turn around and pull the same damn shit when they go home, or best yet while they're still in Japan but with a group of non-Japanese people.
I dunno, the point I was making was that it doesn't really bother me. It comes from a place of ignorance, but not malice in most cases (round eye thing aside). They don't get exposure to the minority culture so they ask dumb shit. I kinda feel like by being here and just letting them know that we are individuals is kinda already the steps we should be taking to lessen the effect. *shrug*
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Yeah, that cut it for me back when I was a shithead in college and pretty damn ignorant myself, but that doesn't cotton with me anymore. Whether it comes from a place of ignorance or malice the effect is the same on the minority culture. Most of the stuff said in that video I'm sure most people have said out of ignorance (like, how do you even make a comment about putting chopsticks in your hair out of malice?) but that doesn't mean it doesn't get fuckin' old for a lot of people (not everybody, sure) who have to deal with it day in and out from everybody else. Hell, the fact that it does come from a place of ignorance means it is a problem that can be fixed through discussion and edification. Were it coming from a place of malice then that would be pointless.
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Hahahaha oh god you misspelled best. One of the best panels in comic book history. What is with Batman's eyes what even the fuck
I think you are really downplaying his lips and teeth there.
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They are at least easy to discern as lips and teeth. I don't even know what is with his eyes. Are they supposed to be shut and he is crying? Or are his eyes really, really blue and really, really disfigured? Which one is worse?
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Zenny said pretty much everything I felt the need to say in this thread now.
That said, time and a place. Right now, that is probably not a fight I would feel like having as DJ.
http://news.distractify.com/people/amazing/modern-movies-with-old-posters/?v=1
This is pretty fun. There is a few that got me pretty excited but I was full OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME at the idea of a Pam Grier version of Aliens.
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I wouldn't go so far as to say it would be an improvement, but...a thousand times yes.
(http://www.distractify.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads//2014/05/227-620x.jpeg)
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-It's somewhat difficult to believe that kitschy 70's* Fifth Element as one of Connery's bizarro post-Bond roles wasn't an actual thing. (*as opposed to kitschy 90's, I know.)
-James Dean Drive poster wins for being the most tasteless.
-I would pay a million fucking dollars for Fritz Lang 2001.
-William Shatner Avatar totally happened!
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/us-patent-office-cancels-redskins-trademark-registration-says-name-is-disparaging/2014/06/18/e7737bb8-f6ee-11e3-8aa9-dad2ec039789_story.html
Apparently this has actually happened before and the team got the case thrown out because, essentially, the guys petitioning the patent office weren't judged to be able to speak for all native americans, which seems like what would happen here. Beyond that, essentially the idea is that you can't patent something that slanders someone/a group, which makes sense... but it seems like it'd be nigh-impossible to prove such a thing in this case? Granted the patent office probably has a different set of standards for these things than the legal standards.
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I would really like to see Al Pacino as Wolverine and Ronald Reagan as General Zod.
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/us-patent-office-cancels-redskins-trademark-registration-says-name-is-disparaging/2014/06/18/e7737bb8-f6ee-11e3-8aa9-dad2ec039789_story.html
Apparently this has actually happened before and the team got the case thrown out because, essentially, the guys petitioning the patent office weren't judged to be able to speak for all native americans, which seems like what would happen here. Beyond that, essentially the idea is that you can't patent something that slanders someone/a group, which makes sense... but it seems like it'd be nigh-impossible to prove such a thing in this case? Granted the patent office probably has a different set of standards for these things than the legal standards.
The NYT article goes into the specifics of the case that was made with more detail. Basically it's not a question of speaking for all Native Americans, but being able to show that a significant portion of society considered it an epithet at the time the trademark was filed. That last part is exceptionally important because to get a trademark revoked, you have to prove that the Patent Office should not have issued it in the first place, therefore it was necessary to prove that the term was considered inappropriate the last time the trademark was renewed, which was back in 1990. A key point in the argument was that either all or the vast majority of dictionaries in widespread circulation listed Redskin as a racial slur as early as the late 60s.
In other important legal news, Japan has finally made possession of child pornography a crime. (http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/17/world/asia/japan-child-porn-law/) I was going to go to IotD because anime is specifically protected but I'm trying to look on the bright side.
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/us-patent-office-cancels-redskins-trademark-registration-says-name-is-disparaging/2014/06/18/e7737bb8-f6ee-11e3-8aa9-dad2ec039789_story.html
Apparently this has actually happened before and the team got the case thrown out because, essentially, the guys petitioning the patent office weren't judged to be able to speak for all native americans, which seems like what would happen here. Beyond that, essentially the idea is that you can't patent something that slanders someone/a group, which makes sense... but it seems like it'd be nigh-impossible to prove such a thing in this case? Granted the patent office probably has a different set of standards for these things than the legal standards.
The NYT article goes into the specifics of the case that was made with more detail. Basically it's not a question of speaking for all Native Americans, but being able to show that a significant portion of society considered it an epithet at the time the trademark was filed. That last part is exceptionally important because to get a trademark revoked, you have to prove that the Patent Office should not have issued it in the first place, therefore it was necessary to prove that the term was considered inappropriate the last time the trademark was renewed, which was back in 1990. A key point in the argument was that either all or the vast majority of dictionaries in widespread circulation listed Redskin as a racial slur as early as the late 60s.
In other important legal news, Japan has finally made possession of child pornography a crime. (http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/17/world/asia/japan-child-porn-law/) I was going to go to IotD because anime is specifically protected but I'm trying to look on the bright side.
I would like to point out here that both the fine and the minimum jail term are still lower than what you would get for possessing less than a gram of marijuana. Apparently smoking a joint is exactly five times as bad as jerkin' it to a kid being abused.
EDIT: Oh christ actually the prison term is "up to one year". Yeah ok fine at least it's illegal now ffs
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Like I said, I'm trying to look on the bright side. It's a little forward motion.
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I was going to go to IotD because anime is specifically protected but I'm trying to look on the bright side.
It is in the US too, you know.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZVlwLluF4Y
True martial arts
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Scarlett vs DRG second match at MLG. If this sentence sounds like nonsense to you, then you can skip this link. But if you're like "oh I know of those players" then watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrJ9lGuvi9A
Also, I'm in most of the audience shots.
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http://ask-shittily-drawn-dark-souls.tumblr.com
This is amazing
Edit: NSFW, probably
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They got Mr. Fantastic working in Marvel Heroes. The ball is glorious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn6WfRnLZB8
-
Scarlett vs DRG second match at MLG. If this sentence sounds like nonsense to you, then you can skip this link. But if you're like "oh I know of those players" then watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrJ9lGuvi9A
Also, I'm in most of the audience shots.
Finally watched this. Holy hell that almost made me care about Starcraft again.
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They got Mr. Fantastic working in Marvel Heroes. The ball is glorious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn6WfRnLZB8
Fuck yeah, gonna roll around midtown as a bouncing ball squishing everything in My path.
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I don't know what the hell people on the forums are complaining about, I'm already doing more damage at level 40 with him than my level 60 chars do. Reed is a crit monster.
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So....since most of you were travelling and missed EVO top 8...here's a link to Game 3 of Axe vs Silentwolf (SSBM). This happened after it was tied up 1-1 in a very close set:
http://www.twitch.tv/srkevo1/b/547204532?t=353m05s
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As someone who mains Pikachu... that was a thing of such beauty, it hardly seems fair. :'(
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http://www.traditionalcomics.com/
I have become aware that these comics are a thing that exist.
Things like this http://seantcollins.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/tumblr_luzrimPXCe1qk3k0q.jpg
They publish great comics like this one Night Business. Gangsta Rap Posse. Adventures of Maureen Dowd. Lincoln Washington. Blades and Lazers.
this is like if RICHARD made comics with the guys that made Hotline Miami.
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:O
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The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures Of Maureen Dowd (A Work Of Satire And Fiction) is one of the great works of western literature.
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Guy bakes his friend a cake after Argentina loses to Germany:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=f1b6uu&s=8#.U8bOvLkU8dU
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2034031/?ref_=vi_tt_t
Laggies 2014
-
A website claims to have gotten hold of the complete cast list for Guardians of the Galaxy (http://www.stitchkingdom.com/disney-guardians-of-the-galaxy-cameos-71908), including the surprise cameos. If it's accurate, we live in the best of all possible worlds – specifically, the one where COSMO THE SUPERINTELLIGENT PSYCHIC SOVIET SPACE DOG appears in a motion picture with a nine-figure budget.
Oh yeah, also some Nathan Fillion person and Howard the Motherfuckin' Duck![/url]
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Damn, I'd love to check it, but I don't want to spoil myself on potential cameos and such. Ah well, it's 2 weeks away, even if I feel August 1st can't come fast enough.
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Really loving Clickhole, the clickbait parody site from the Onion.
Especially the quizzes.
My favorites:
http://www.clickhole.com/quiz/are-you-introvert-extrovert-or-sea-monster-501
http://www.clickhole.com/quiz/how-long-will-you-survive-chamber-388
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shit im a sea monster
fuck
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http://www.avclub.com/article/weird-al-yankovic-inspires-uhf-porn-parody-has-off-207273?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview%3A1%3ADefault
Weird Al has arrived. (NSFWish)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnPaKkVUS1c
Korean Hearthstone ad
HASSSSSSSSTOOOONNNN
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http://i.imgur.com/hcUGVgb.jpg
Yup.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/satanic-temple-exemption-anti-abortion-laws
The Satanic Temple once again proving that they are the best trolls.
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http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/225542/man-shrooms-at-comic-con-texts-existential-crisis-to-his-girlfriend/
Man takes shooms and then goes to San Diego Comic Con, and texts his girlfriend throughout the event.
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An old website, but I was just told about it, so....
http://www.it-he.org/deus.htm
Sunglasses by Night, an exploration of various weird crap to do in Deus Ex (the original). I'm still impressed that Ion Storm clearly took an extra month or so to be ready for all sorts of weird edge cases. A nice nostalgia trip, although the writer is frustratingly vague on a few points (clearly not wanting to spoil things for following along the instructions, but for those who don't want to go back through the game to see the 'strange occurrence', it'd be nice to at least get a screenshot... for all that most of the hijinks DO get explained, at least.) Did you know that JC can climb skyscrapers in Hong Kong with mines?! Easy, throw mines against wall, use as the most dangerous rock wall EVER, picking up the ones beneath you to attach them to the wall above you. Also Walton Simons can apparently be lured into the water, where it turns out he knows how to swim around while wielding a dragon sword. Nice.
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You can use safer trip mines like Gas Grenades!
Not shown in that page but used in speed runs is that you can use thrown grenade types to jump from any height because landing on one as it bounces means you take no fall damage. So you can use it to jump off the building you land on in France.
Doug the Eagle's stuff in general is amazing and well worth a read. Ultima stuff has his best content, but Thief and System Shock are both quality also. Also the maker of the most amazing DOOM WADs in existence, the one that is simulating a 4-bit computer and The Sky May Be which is a religious experience.
I see he has Elder Scrolls and Fallout stuff now. Something to do one day then.
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Deus Ex had testing for weird shit and sequence breaking that put... like, everything else to shame? Ever? "Impossible to tell a compelling narrative when the player is given freedom and agency" my ass.
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I haven't played Deus Ex (I know, I know) so wouldn't get much out of the article, but I see two Rush references right on the top of the page so thumbs up for that. Also the guy's most recent posting was "Fallout 3: New Vegas."
That guy's wise.
Confronting Joe Cobb, I shot him in the head, which came off his body for no obvious reason.
Modern FO encapsulated.
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Eh, it's pretty true in the old ones too. Shoot a guy in the chest with a rifle, about 40% of his torso is obliterated like he swallowed a hand grenade.
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http://duckfeed.tv/woff/80
This is a retro games podcast I listen to. This episode is the first half of one on Suikoden 2. I haven't listened to it yet, but the quality of their other episodes makes me recommend it.
For the CKs, it is 60 meg, but it is also just over 2 hours worth of audio talking about the first half of the game, so there is a chunk of stuff there.
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http://duckfeed.tv/woff/80
This is a retro games podcast I listen to. This episode is the first half of one on Suikoden 2. I haven't listened to it yet, but the quality of their other episodes makes me recommend it.
For the CKs, it is 60 meg, but it is also just over 2 hours worth of audio talking about the first half of the game, so there is a chunk of stuff there.
I will second enjoying WoFF but haven't listened to this one yet. Their coverage of the Fallouts and Planescape: Torment was good, so I'll trust that they'll give an RPG like Suikoden 2 its due.
http://duckfeed.tv/infinityengineers/
Gary from that site is doing this project walking through all of the Infinity Engine games (on the list is also Arcanum, yay, and Lionheart, ugh), starting with Baldur's Gate 1. Nothing too crazy in depth but entertaining enough.
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Has also been on the to do list. Kole does an interesting Survival Horror retrospective in text as well that I find interesting as someone without much interest in the genre really.
An interesting view on NES Friday the 13th and some real deep dives to find some mechanical roots in Atari games..
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The Sweet Home overview is also worth reading.
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Yes. Sweet home sort of sounds like it fits right in that space of VN style horror games made in RPGMaker or other script heavy top down view 2D engines that Alex plays a fair bit of and links occasionally (which from my experience tend to be pretty quality. Play Ib and stuff).
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Yep, Sweet Home was definitely one of the founders of that genre, although it's a lot more game-y and not nearly as well designed as anything from the modern era. MSX and PC-98 had a fair number of titles in that direction as well (and some that grew in other directions, like Castlevania). Certainly following that blog, thanks.
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Proper terminology on men's hats
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/brand-thats-not-a-fedora-and-stop-wearing-it/
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http://delimiter.com.au/2011/09/22/commbanks-macbook-airs-run-windows-xp/
From 2011, but still. Australians are weird.
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#justcorporateITthings
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So, we're gonna have a Dragon Quest musou (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YebkU-6ILLE) with Cristo, Alena and Nara among its probable ranks of playables.
-
But will it have all 9 varieties of spunky silent hero who's tanky and has lightning magic?
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It already showed at least one!
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I'm in.
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Pathologic remake kickstarter
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1535515364/pathologic
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http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2014-09-10/sanrio-launches-hello-kitty-men-wants-to-break-stereotypes/.78588
Paging all snows.
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Nomura resigns from FF15 because Square-Enix wouldn't let him turn FF15 into a Les-Miserables-with-Hugh-Jackman-style musical.
Not even joking, this is real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT3dyanB3pk#t=67
Anyway this above is a new trailer.
It strongly reminds me of the early parts of Zoolander
(http://www.jaredalevy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/050512_zoolander02.jpg)
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Well that's the best take I've heard on that trailer, thanks Fenrir!
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This appeals to the part of me that always thought that many FF casts needed to die in a freak gasoline fight accident.
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Orange Mocha Frappuccino!
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Shale, you're in DC, you have no excuse:
https://twitter.com/TheLincolnDC/status/512645630003781632
Go take pictures of Scarlett or something.
-
Nomura resigns from FF15 because Square-Enix wouldn't let him turn FF15 into a Les-Miserables-with-Hugh-Jackman-style musical.
Not even joking, this is real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT3dyanB3pk#t=67
Anyway this above is a new trailer.
It strongly reminds me of the early parts of Zoolander
(http://www.jaredalevy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/050512_zoolander02.jpg)
Welp, it at least manages to look less shitty than FF13. Doesn't look like I'll be buying a FF game anytime soon, still.
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John Malkovich recreates famous photos...featuring John Malkovich
http://imgur.com/a/23CKU
-
Nomura resigns from FF15 because Square-Enix wouldn't let him turn FF15 into a Les-Miserables-with-Hugh-Jackman-style musical.
Not even joking, this is real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT3dyanB3pk#t=67
Anyway this above is a new trailer.
It strongly reminds me of the early parts of Zoolander
(http://www.jaredalevy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/050512_zoolander02.jpg)
Welp, it at least manages to look less shitty than FF13. Doesn't look like I'll be buying a FF game anytime soon, still.
Oddly I feel like I'd be more interested in this game if it weren't titled Final Fantasy.
-
Nomura resigns from FF15 because Square-Enix wouldn't let him turn FF15 into a Les-Miserables-with-Hugh-Jackman-style musical.
Not even joking, this is real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT3dyanB3pk#t=67
Anyway this above is a new trailer.
It strongly reminds me of the early parts of Zoolander
(http://www.jaredalevy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/050512_zoolander02.jpg)
Welp, it at least manages to look less shitty than FF13. Doesn't look like I'll be buying a FF game anytime soon, still.
"What do you mean I can't have the team redesign the vaporware game they've been supposedly working on for close to a decade?" A thing a real person wondered.
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Game reminds me of the first X-Men movie. Why's evvarone wearin black? In a game where there's going to be combat where folks are, like, far away from each other, no less, they're all dressin' like it's their senior recital/an emo convention/a funeral. Come on. You're on a road trip for fuck's sake.
I will say, though, that if you're going to have an ensamble game where only dudes are playable, bros on a road trip is probably the best excuse you could come up with for it.
-
Now that I have sat down and thought about it, it feels like a Yakuza JRPG. Take the absurd over the top nonsense of Yakuza games, mix in the extreme melodrama of JRPG and then receive ridiculous things.
-
John Malkovich recreates famous photos...featuring John Malkovich
http://imgur.com/a/23CKU
*slow clap*
-
Now that I have sat down and thought about it, it feels like a Yakuza JRPG. Take the absurd over the top nonsense of Yakuza games, mix in the extreme melodrama of JRPG and then receive ridiculous things.
Too many dudes have their shirts on for that. But I hope you're right.
-
I will be wrong. I always am in these things, hope for great things and get not as crazy as it should be.
Probably going to be Romeo + Juliet the game.
-
Probably going to be Romeo + Juliet the game.
Romeo is bummed about whatsername so three Mercutios take him on a road trip. Also giant monsters. Could be worse!
-
I will be wrong. I always am in these things, hope for great things and get not as crazy as it should be.
Probably going to be Romeo + Juliet the game.
Baz Luhrmann is one director who probably would have no problem matching or exceeding the insane excesses of JRPGs.
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http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/explaining-extreme-events-2013
An interesting study of how climate change is shifting the world toward having more extreme weather events. Quantifying this information is useful for many people, from climate scientists to insurance salesman to people just wanting to buy a house. It's still in the early stages though.
-
Actual intelligent and organized discussion on gamergate brought to you by forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/10/06/its-time-for-video-game-journalists-to-engage-with-gamergate/
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How are people still talking about that shit? I thought we learned the gaming "journalism" industry was complete trash when everything with Army of Two went down.
-
People take gaming journalism seriously?
-
Ah, but now it involves women having sex. And as we all know, there's nothing straight men find more offensive than women having sex.
-
I just don't understand how anyone can still be talking about this unless you live in some "gamer bubble" where you only know about "gamer news" and are "gamer shitty." There hasn't been anything that changed after, oh, the first day it was a thing. Everyone involved was shitty in their own way and that won't change.
-
Broadly speaking because the GG people insist on bringing it up rather than rightly hanging their heads in shame and going about their lives, hopefully having learned that no it is not in fact okay to harass someone so badly they have to leave their houses for fear of their lives.
-
Firmly believing that this should be a topic of shiny happy things, and not Gamergate, I have an alternate link.
Scientists have figured out how to get people safely in and out of cryosleep for short periods of time, and they're working on lengthening that period of time so that manned missions to places are more viable than they were before. And, they put up a faq on the whole thing.
http://www.sei.aero/eng/papers/uploads/archive/SpaceWorks_Torpor_FAQ_April-2014.pdf (http://www.sei.aero/eng/papers/uploads/archive/SpaceWorks_Torpor_FAQ_April-2014.pdf)
-
Actual intelligent and organized discussion on gamergate brought to you by forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/10/06/its-time-for-video-game-journalists-to-engage-with-gamergate/
You know. I like Erik Kain quite a bit.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/10/08/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-paid-branding-deals-should-have-gamergate-up-in-arms/
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqS8FrkZuKo&list=UUEe076nFuVobN0bAsXK7ICw This video was alleged to be representive of my car. I have no comment on the matter.
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https://medium.com/the-cauldron/why-gamergaters-piss-me-the-f-off-a7e4c7f6d8a6
Chris Kluwe has a Grefterian, almost Zenithian way with words.
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http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/2kgico/i_didnt_realize_i_was_a_feminist/
I found this a pretty frustrating read, wanting to scream "that was the point all along", but still interesting read to see an isolated incident of someone having this epiphany.
-
I will echo those comments, and also note that that Reddit is far more reasonable than I am used to.
-
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LaralynMcWilliams/20141030/229072/Shes_Not_Playing_It_Wrong.php
Yep, that is a pretty good way of looking at things.
-
http://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/2km3ng/my_23m_girlfriends_21f_inappropriate_behavior/
"Whenever we spend this time together, she starts moaning doge memes like "such sex, wow" and it really kills the moment for me. Like really? Is that even close to appropriate?"
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*falls over laughing* Poor guy.
-
>She spends a lot of time on reddit, 4chan, and knowyourmeme
Someone just learned a lesson about cause and effect. Or not, if his next post is "My girlfriend spends a lot of time on Stormfront.org and I'm starting to worry..."
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrGrOK8oZG8
wtf
-
I saw "Miscellaneous Links - Makkotah" and just knew you'd link to that
The song is stuck in my head forever
-
For the MCs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-N2oQSS03A
10-year-old girl kicks ass at Wii U Smash.
-
Faked apparently, but a good publicity stunt nonetheless.
-
Grand Finals for Street Fighter 4 from Canada Cup. The whole thing is worth watching but if nothing else at least watch the round that starts at 12:34.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oryve4b3u0Q
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Ah, so this is how women are supposed to act:
https://twitter.com/salarta/status/532327950582939648?cn=ZmF2b3JpdGVfbWVudGlvbmVkX3VzZXI%3D
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So wait, this means.... women are supposed to be murderous supervillains who look fabulous while summoning demons? Actually I can live with that. This is a good universe afterall!
-
Kim Kardashian isn't like Altima really though. Her husband on the other hand. Now there is a man who pretended to become the messiah.
-
Well, I mean, we tried the Kanye Rest, so why not go with the Kanye Best? Hail Kanye.
-
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/11/12/purity-culture-doesnt-prepare-teens-healthy-sexual-exploration/
As someone who grew up around a lot of purity culture (although was not subjected to it myself), I find myself wondering how many people's lives are damaged because of these attitudes.
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As another someone who was subjected to it and is still regularly surrounded by it: a lot. A lot of people and a lot of damage. :(
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Dumb fire emblem and smash bros joke. So of course I couldn't rest until it had been posted to the DL.
http://charmanderboy75.tumblr.com/post/102786287306
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The saddest part is how the game has a "With Friends" mode and Ike is put on the "With Anyone" picture.
-
Quality voice acting from the latest Sonic game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXMIYm3KJnU
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Well, in fairness there Meep, Ike doesn't fight WITH his friends. He fights for them. Totally different.
-
http://boingboing.net/2014/11/25/dungeons-dragons-philosoph.html
This book is a philosophy/English major's dream.
-
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/good-game
Probably not news to any of us who care, but a Mainstream Magazine talking about e-sports and getting an interview with the reclusive Scarlett.
-
http://www.richardcobbett.com/codex/therichardperspective/book-week-worlds-of-power-castlevania-2/
what is this darkness nooooooo
(I got here from... reading the Dreamfall Chapters news updates? Go figure.)
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They all are Draculas. Even the Nanomachines, son.
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http://www.richardcobbett.com/codex/therichardperspective/book-week-worlds-of-power-castlevania-2/
what is this darkness nooooooo
(I got here from... reading the Dreamfall Chapters news updates? Go figure.)
I read that book as a kid. It was hilariously awful even then.
-
http://www.buzzfeed.com/candacelowry/heres-what-one-size-fits-all-looks-like-on-all
Mostly for the ladies of the DL. Some of these actually look really nice on people of varied body types, but the skirt/shorts that are one size fits all are just silly. And the Heide top didn't seem to really fit any of them.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R-AIsTrPZY
I think the French version is the best one.
-
http://whymog.itch.io/skeal-web
-
http://www.cracked.com/blog/what-next-11-marvel-movies-will-be-about/
Cracked hitting a lot of good jokes on this one.
-
I'm kind of interested in Madea's Transformers of the Caribbean.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri5nKaMiq30
The new SRW trailer happened, and it has Gunbuster 2 in it. I'm happy.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pODghnUtoTY For Snowfire/the other harmony of despair players. They are better at the game than you are.
-
2 Miser Rings, the only way Maria does appreciable damage at all with those birdies. Still, pretty dang impressive.
-
http://kotaku.com/she-hears-a-nintendo-theme-once-then-makes-beautiful-m-1671208242
Seriously impressive. Hearing an NES piece once and then immediately doing a piano meledy of it.
-
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/andrew-hawkins-response-tamir-rice-protest
-
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/6/3/5772796/nba-y2k-series-finale-the-death-of-basketball
Guy plays an NBA sim game, fills the roster with nothing but terrible players every year, and looks at what happens.
-
*teardrop*
-
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/6/3/5772796/nba-y2k-series-finale-the-death-of-basketball
Guy plays an NBA sim game, fills the roster with nothing but terrible players every year, and looks at what happens.
All is lost.
The same guy does a series called Breaking Madden where he messes around with the settings (having utter weaklings as offensive linemen, toggling off offsides, trying to make the worst division winner in history). It's pretty brilliant.
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This article is fantastic.
http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4530649/3-0.png
Hahaha oh my god
also
"When the Bobcats pay their White House visit, President Obama is still there to greet them. His term as Commander-in-Chief has outlasted the careers of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook, and every other basketball player who ever mattered."
-
The article is so impressive even a complete layman on basketball (like yours truly) could enjoy it. Fascinating meta-exercise.
-
Everything Jon Bois writes is gold. If you want a place to start with his Madden column, meet Clarence BEEFTANK. (http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2013/9/5/4691010/breaking-madden-clarence-beeftank-jaguars)
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Ayn Rand Reviews Children’s Movies (http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/ayn-rand-reviews-childrens-movies)
“How The Grinch Stole Christmas”
Taxation is also a form of theft. In a truly free society, citizens should pay only as much as they are willing for the services they require. —Three stars.
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I see your Ayn Rand and raise you Werner Herzog's Motivational Posters (http://herzoginspirationals.tumblr.com/)
-
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-wbff-edit-protest-kill-a-cop
hashtag journalism
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#foxgate
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whoops, meant to post that in IotD.
-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04knthd
Do you want a free stream of the BBC Radio Good Omens production that's airing this week? Yes. Yes you do.
-
Listened to the first couple episodes a bit ago. Pretty spiffy, though I'm not sure how easy it would be to follow if you haven't read the book.
Also if you haven't read the book we can't be friends.
-
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/07/09/analysis-over-half-of-all-statements-made-on-fox-news-are-false/
So...apparently over half of all statements made on Fox are false. MSNBC isn't much better.
-
This topic is titled "Miscellaneous Links You Won't Believe". That link is clearly not on-topic.
-
http://pitchfork.com/news/48931-watch-michael-stipe-stephen-colbert-and-mandy-patinkin-sing-good-king-wenceslas/
In the spirit of the season.
-
The latest edition of magazine put out by a local Australian coffee chain looks like a gay magazine for people into daddy/twink niche. (https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1487438_10152523236637654_4515373076317319136_n.jpg?oh=661a3446125168790562598eccfc3d48&oe=5542480C&__gda__=1426089607_d1c7eb561eb6157704eac63f575084eb)
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The latest edition of magazine put out by a local Australian coffee chain looks like a gay magazine for people into daddy/twink niche. (https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1487438_10152523236637654_4515373076317319136_n.jpg?oh=661a3446125168790562598eccfc3d48&oe=5542480C&__gda__=1426089607_d1c7eb561eb6157704eac63f575084eb)
It's like Butch Dixon and Men at Play had a manbaby and it made a magazine.
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I had to google for reference, first image result for Butch Dixon I was like, wow that is an enormous dildo. Then 10 seconds later I realised that was his leg and he is wearing leather pants with his leg lifted and him holding on to it.
-
10 comics debunking bad internet arguments:
http://io9.com/10-comics-that-shut-down-terrible-internet-arguments-1677109868/+tinaamini
-
New Super Mario World TAS is...interesting
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/01/how-an-emulator-fueled-robot-reprogrammed-super-mario-world-on-the-fly/
The TAS runner then uses a stun glitch to spawn an unused sprite into the game, which in turn causes the system to treat the sprites in that OAM buffer as raw executable code. In this case, that code has been arranged to jump to the memory location for controller data, in essence letting the user insert whatever executable program he or she wants into memory by converting the binary data for precisely ordered button presses into assembly code
-
So DC is giving its authors a little more freedom. As such, apparently Giffin has decided to turn Justice League 3000 into a revamp of old-school JLI circa early 90's. Seriously. Not just tone-wise either, as Booster Gold and Blue Beetle are on the cover of the last issue, and Fire and Ice are set to appear in the next one. It's not a complete changeover, as the focus will still be on the new Justice League when introductions are finished, but it is amazing. Here's an interview with Giffin about it.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=56549
The issue out with Booster and Beetle on the cover is awesome and hilarious. They really haven't lost their touch for comedy.
-
http://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahjewell/historical-women-who-gave-no-fcks#.mp0YXxRzkp
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http://blogs.timeout.jp/en/2015/01/05/shunkoin-temple-the-first-to-back-gay-weddings/
warning: gaaaaaaaaaaaaay
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I hear that if you make a sword made out of Orichalcum, you get 2 extra points of attack. (why is this appearing in a "legitimate" news source)
http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/atlantis-legendary-metal-found-in-shipwreck-150106.htm
Also, so as to comply with the 2015 topic title:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tama_(cat) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tama_(cat))
No Grefter, the board software is broken and bad with final parens in URLs.
-
It may have just slipped into a less legitimate news source while no one was looking (or more likely, when they starting pumping out endless derivations of bad reality TV).
-
I hear that if you make a sword made out of Orichalcum, you get 2 extra points of attack. (why is this appearing in a "legitimate" news source)
http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/atlantis-legendary-metal-found-in-shipwreck-150106.htm
Also, so as to comply with the 2015 topic title:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tama_(cat)
ur url is broken #rektify it oar bee assimiliated
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http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2325223-utahs-trevor-booker-taps-ball-in-off-bounce-pass-with-02-seconds-on-shot-clock
Even though this is against my favorite team, this is an insane play.
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sweet.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fake-charlie-hebdo-cover-les-guignol-de-linfo
A fitting tribute. Kinda wish I spoke French to watch the clip, but the general idea needs no translatin'.
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Well since I'm supposed to post cat pictures.
https://twitter.com/raspberryhazel/status/553385647587602432
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http://www.siliconera.com/2015/01/07/bayonetta-2-crowned-accessible-game-2014/
neato.
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As a color-blind person, I applaud.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/01/what-ruth-bader-ginsburg-taught-me-about-being-a-stay-at-home-dad/384289/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
Article about stay at home dads. For the gates.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/albuquerque-cops-charged-murder-homeless-man
Would be interested to hear a local perspective from our resident New Mexican (to the extent he has one).
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It's good to hear that some good news is coming out of Albuquerque for once. After the incident happened, were I in the US I may well have been part of the protests that shut down the city council </internet tough guy>.
On the one hand, if I squint I can understand the trigger-happy attitude of the police. ABQ has more than its fair share of violent crime, and I recall hearing about criminal shootings on the news basically once a month. It's a dangerous beat.
That said, the only time I've had a gun pulled on me was when a cop thought I was breaking into a car (fun fact! I was having a breakdown and was crying on the side of the car. It was a fun night). APD over the last few years killed a higher-than-average number of people. And frankly, the types of people who went into the force whom I knew before going into the force aren't the types of people I'd trust to protect and serve without fairly rigid oversight and robust conflict de-escalation training, neither of which that doesn't existed at the time of this incident. I only hope that the DoJ investigation actually changed things, and at the very least I'm glad that the cops are facing some consequences.
Part of me can't help but think that they wouldn't be had James Boyd been Hispanic, though. Or, god forbid, Black.
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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/01/11/3610327/college-men-forcible-sex-study/
So...I've seen statistics on how many college students think rape is ok before, but people objected to them "those studies are from the 80s". Well here's a recent one.
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http://www.siliconera.com/2015/01/14/tingle-young-link-coming-hyrule-warriors/
This news should be requisitely horrifying to the Hyrule Warriors fans here.
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I love Tingle. He makes people twitch. :)
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In their pants.
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Damnit quit making me want to buy a Wii U.
-
It's good to hear that some good news is coming out of Albuquerque for once. After the incident happened, were I in the US I may well have been part of the protests that shut down the city council </internet tough guy>.
On the one hand, if I squint I can understand the trigger-happy attitude of the police. ABQ has more than its fair share of violent crime, and I recall hearing about criminal shootings on the news basically once a month. It's a dangerous beat.
That said, the only time I've had a gun pulled on me was when a cop thought I was breaking into a car (fun fact! I was having a breakdown and was crying on the side of the car. It was a fun night). APD over the last few years killed a higher-than-average number of people. And frankly, the types of people who went into the force whom I knew before going into the force aren't the types of people I'd trust to protect and serve without fairly rigid oversight and robust conflict de-escalation training, neither of which that doesn't existed at the time of this incident. I only hope that the DoJ investigation actually changed things, and at the very least I'm glad that the cops are facing some consequences.
Part of me can't help but think that they wouldn't be had James Boyd been Hispanic, though. Or, god forbid, Black.
Take back what I said about understanding where the cops are coming from, kind of.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/albuquerque-bars-da-from-latest-shooting-case-after-she-files-murder-charges-against-cops/
Turns out they're just pretty shitty human beings
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Can't have accountability for your police forces, that would be absurd
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Turns out they're just pretty shitty human beings
I've been thinking a lot recently about how police officers view their jobs, and if you look at how they behave, they act like nothing more and nothing less than union employees. The idea that police officers have a duty to the public, or that the public has rights that push back against police oversight, or that some amorphous concept called justice ought to prevail over the interests of individual police officers in any circumstance...those ideas don't seem to play any role whatsoever in the behavior of police. They're just clocking in to the factory at the beginning of the day, and clocking out at the end. The idea that a police officer should go to prison for murdering someone while on the clock makes about as much sense to them as if you said someone should go to prison for improperly assembling an air conditioner.
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http://theweek.com/speedreads/534011/boy-admits-didnt-actually-heaven-publisher-pulls-book
Today in unsurprising but entertaining news...
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The dude's name is Malarkey. The dude's name is Malarkey. Come on, people.
-
Relevant.
http://www.clickhole.com/video/amazing-boy-saw-heaven-during-his-near-death-exper-830
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I need to get huge, I need to stay huge, I need to get huge, I need to stay huge. Build mass, build bulk.
That video made me laugh harder than anything has in a while. I'm not sure why
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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/9994-Je-Suis-Charlie-Comics
The Big Picture does a good job with a serious episode summarizing a lot of issues I've been having with discussions lately about free speech and satire in general with some good, well-thought-out examples all condensed into a bite-sized five minutes. Thought it was worth sharing in light of the Je Suis Charlie incident AND the recent talk about gamergate on the DL.
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Not sure if I posted this one, as it's a few months old. Someone Share'd it again and even on re-read it's one of the funniest, and saddest, articles I've ever read.
http://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/26/7281129/radioshack-eulogy-stories
Also this is pretty boss
http://www.buzzfeed.com/danieldalton/boss-witch#.miqrg95xY
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http://www.joystiq.com/2015/01/16/gaming-while-black-casual-racism-to-cautious-optimism/
Being black in game development.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XFBUM8dMqw#t=232
Shake it off.
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http://www.joystiq.com/2015/01/16/gaming-while-black-casual-racism-to-cautious-optimism/
Being black in game development.
One of the black female devs stated that she personally hadn't experienced prejudice in her workplace, which sounds awesome. I'm so glad that at least some companies like this exist. She ended the article with this fantastic quote:
"Let's just keep going. I think that everybody wants to keep going. I don't see the industry as a whole sitting there, sticking to their guns, saying, 'We did this on purpose. This is how it's always going to be.' I think that everyone is doing their best right now. We can hope for a lot more, but at the same time, I am cautiously optimistic."
It's just nice to see someone being optimistic about change for once.
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http://club2.nintendo.com/program-notice/
If you have a Club Nintendo rewards account, its days are numbered. You have until the end of March to earn coins and until June 30 to redeem them for games. However, there's an all-star list of game rewards to spend points on now; I will be jumping on Zelda, Super Metroid and Super Punch-Out post-haste.
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http://wtvr.com/2015/01/19/kirby-vacuum-birthday-party/
An autistic teenager gets his dream gift -- a Kirby vacuum cleaner. Very sweet. :)
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http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/9582-the-invisible-woman-a-conversation-with-bjork/
For the Grefters.
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Sad to hear it happened, glad to get an album out of it.
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http://www.siliconera.com/2015/01/23/suicune-gardevoir-pikachu-announced-pokken-tournament/ (http://www.siliconera.com/2015/01/23/suicune-gardevoir-pikachu-announced-pokken-tournament/)
Pikachu's reveal was a "figures" moment, and something not to really be excited over because, well, Pikachu in a Pokemon game! Then the trailer shows off Gardevoir and Suicune and well...I think Elfboy is required to get this game if it is localized and put on console!
Also, Fennekin, Snivy, Emolga and Lapras are assists.
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http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/lars-andersen-shows-off-insane-archery-skills/?fb=dd
Holy shit. Archers used to be really fucking cool.
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That was certainly an interesting watch. One thing that stood out to me was the end with the splitting an on-coming arrow since I think mythbusters claims to have disproved that feat, but here we have concrete evidence of something much more difficult being do-able? Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but if I'm not, I think this guy just proved their methods are indeed flawed.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6HhCNzIOP4
My new favorite song about video games. It is a Djinn anthem. A Djinnthem.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6HhCNzIOP4
My new favorite song about video games. It is a Djinn anthem. A Djinnthem.
Why is everything about you so horrible?
-
Even his taste?
-
That was certainly an interesting watch. One thing that stood out to me was the end with the splitting an on-coming arrow since I think mythbusters claims to have disproved that feat, but here we have concrete evidence of something much more difficult being do-able? Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but if I'm not, I think this guy just proved their methods are indeed flawed.
Some people were discussing the splitting the arrow thing in the comments.
Apparently lots of people have "done" it to some degree, which is to say they split the arrow partially. But other people say that yeah, but they've never seen someone split the arrow all the way down to the base, and then have the arrow stay lodged there.
So...it depends exactly what they were disproving. If they were disproving splitting the wood in half, then no. But if they were disproving the scene in the movie, then yeah maybe.
And as for Djinn's link, I found this in the related videos (by the same group apparently):
[Game of Thrones SPOILERS]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXjFUpaIfSs
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6HhCNzIOP4
My new favorite song about video games. It is a Djinn anthem. A Djinnthem.
Why is everything about you so horrible?
It's all part of my charm. :)
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Johnny Cage best waifu.
-
Even his taste?
Motherfucker needs to eat more pineapple if you knowumsayum
-
I can't understand you, it sounds like you are doing your Pop-Eye impression.
Ugugugugugugugugugug
-
Mostly posting this since it came up with regards to one of Jim's link a few weeks back.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/02/son-deceased
Long, but if you have any interest in looking closer at the current state of the Albuquerque Police Dept. and how they got there I highly recommend reading this article. Very thorough and worth the time.
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I want to throw something right now. Fuck the police.
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https://soundcloud.com/nycmayorsoffice/01-27-15-mayor-de-blasios-dramatic-reading-of-the-onion
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So a few people have posted rebuttals or debunkings of the archery video. Some of them are "we are effective shooting another way"--I'm certain they are. Some of them are "he probably had a lot of camera cuts and is overdramatic in some spots" yeah probably. Some of them are interesting though.
http://geekdad.com/2015/01/danish-archer/
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/01/in-which-i-am-crabby-about-vir.html
In particular, arrow splitting seems like it was debunked for wood, specifically due to the way that wood splits; it is possible with other materials. (Bamboo was speculated for the splitting in the video).
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Yeah, the short version is that Lars Anderson's style of speed shooting with low-draw bows totally wouldn't work for actually damaging targets > 30 feet away or so. A thumb draw just won't have the force required to give the arrow some oomph for a high draw bow, let alone if you want to pierce medieval knight armor. Choose one, power or speed.
THAT SAID for trick shooting cans / targets in Parkour style really fast set to music, it's p. cool and should be enjoyed as such, just ignore all the "historical recreation" nonsense.
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http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SRHoliwell/20150130/235329/A_Maze_of_Murderscapes_Metroid_II.php
Amazing read on Metroid 2. Worth checking out even if you don't care about Metroid like me.
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I guess Metroid 2 is the best Metroid now
sorry
-
Shocking new revelations about inflate-gate. (http://www.space.com/28423-cosmic-inflation-signal-space-dust.html)
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Post-Superbowl videos!
Conan's touchdown dance is epic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNpkSyryQz4
Clash of Clans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC2qk2X3fKA
Fiat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAcLViTHDOo
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http://images.complex.com/complex/image/upload/t_article_image/qgyc3zxrhmzz5kxhdqp3.jpg
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2015/02/05/real-first-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-issue-plus-size-model-robyn/22932665/
Silliness. First they announced that a woman who was Size 16, 5'9 was the first plus-sized model to be in Sports Illustrated (in the first link). She is very nice looking but absolutely looks 'plus-sized' and if we take the standard definition of plus-sized as applicable to clothing, she indeed fits the bill. But then people say, no, the first plus-sized model was the woman in the second link. Except that at Size 12 and 6'1, there is no way you can call her plus-sized (I've never seen a plus-sized store that carries Size 12 clothing and at 6'1, women tend to wear larger-sized clothing just by nature. And she's surely not overweight, so you can't really call her plus-sized in that regard).
Perhaps plus-sized compared to http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/2300000/Supermodel-Obsession-Swimwear-2008-victorias-secret-2360692-600-900.jpg ????
I find this partially amusing because women's clothing doesn't make any damn sense and trying to decide if someone is plus-sized by women's clothing metrics is utterly inane to start with. <_<
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Maybe instead of 'plus sized' they should go with 'not photoshopped (as much)'
-
If you can't see your ribs you're plus sized. Incidentally, the ideal woman you can see the front side of her spinal column. Famine victims are sexy. I read it in a book once.
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I think my sister is size 8, actually (6'...oh sorry """"" 5'11.5" """"", and she's been through two pregnancies). And I've certainly been thinner myself, even if I'm size 12 or 14 right now (and taller than 6'1"). And like technically I'm bordering on being overweight according to BMI charts (dipped into the overweight region briefly, but I'm back under). So...yeah, size 12 and 6'1" could be plus size in the sense of "technically overweight according to BMI charts".
Of course it doesn't LOOK plus size, which is the point.
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I wear Size 12-14 and I am ~5'6. I am overweight. You wear Size 12-14 and you are whatever way-taller-than-me height you are and you aren't overweight. >_> That is why it is silly to measure plus-sizedness based on clothing size.
Of course I agree with Jim as well.
-
Adult Wednesday Adams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHUajqrhF30&index=4&list=PL7_LetEm-ez8YH4XGJPdSXgg1oTMZ0n5T
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaoB7lnOiXM
Now this is how you make a proper leak.
-
The woman who invented monopoly:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/business/behind-monopoly-an-inventor-who-didnt-pass-go.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=2
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Fascinating article on the history of human colour perception--apparently the Illiad didn't ever mention the colour blue, and there are cultures that just plain have a very hard time picking out the colour blue:
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2
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Pretty interesting. Colour is definitely cultural; Japanese frequently used (and to some extent still uses, I believe, though one of our Japanese-speakers should weigh in here) the same word for what we would call green and blue. It does make sense that blue, which doesn't occur that often in nature (especially if the sky and ocean are seen as their own, unique colour), would be one of the later words to show up.
Latin very definitely had separate words for green and blue (from which we get our words viridian and cerulean) and quickly looking things up it did as far back as we have records of the language. Which is interesting to note, due to its geographic and chronological proximity to Ancient Greek.
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The article's title is really misleading and there's a lot of exaggeration going on here. The studies mentioned show that Himbas' categorical boundaries for defining something as a certain color (as defined by western color boundaries, by the way, which is a huge issue here and renders a lot of the findings kind of uninteresting to me) are different, not that they can't perceive the color at all, which is a horrible misrepresentation of the result. I've gotten pretty sour about crappy science journalism, and there's a way to make this debate interesting without sensationalizing it.
It's plausible that language does have an effect on perception, the question is to what extent. It's possible that someone who learns a lot of names for different colors, like a paint salesman for example, has better than normal color discriminability, but that's a hypothesis that is easily tested.
There is also pushback from this basic theory from other linguists:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-Hoax-World-Looks/dp/0199361584
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Whether or not it's misrepresenting the Himba's perception of blue, I sure as hell did not get the green wheel right. Even knowing which square is different, and opening it in MS paint to verify which one is different, I still have trouble noticing it's different when staring at the square in question. (Although interestingly, if I scroll my screen so that only the top 4 squares are visible, then I can see the different green square no problem).
If they spot that square no problem? Then yeah, that's definitely better than me.
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The woman who invented monopoly:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/business/behind-monopoly-an-inventor-who-didnt-pass-go.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=2
This would be a fascinating game to play considering the extra layer of intrigue it adds on. Too bad it seems like none of the recent recreation attempt hit any steam.
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Pretty interesting. Colour is definitely cultural; Japanese frequently used (and to some extent still uses, I believe, though one of our Japanese-speakers should weigh in here) the same word for what we would call green and blue. It does make sense that blue, which doesn't occur that often in nature (especially if the sky and ocean are seen as their own, unique colour), would be one of the later words to show up.
Just today I was showing a tourism video to my students and the green recording light was still visible on the screen, and they kept joking about the blue sun 青い太陽 in the sky. Traffic lights are also the same damn shades they are everywhere else, but they refer to the colors as red, yellow, and blue (赤、黄色、青）. This is something I really can't wrap my head around at all, especially because they are really picky about distinguishing between teal (水色, water-colored) and blue 青い, and light green (黄緑) and green(緑) in the schools. I've given up trying to understand it.
Incidentally, all colors can be nouns or adjectives (赤 vs 赤い), but green in particular can only be a noun.
Also for some reason I was able to instantly pick out the green color wheel. I absolutely can't tell the shades apart but something just felt off about that one. Weird.
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I could perceive green in that example as well, although that isn't a great picture since it's pretty low quality and there are image artifacts there.
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/702422248/adopted-0
"'Adopted''s core mechanics are Sniff, Chew, Bark, and Fetch."
This game is Gone Home But You Are A Dog
or maybe
The Walking Dead But You Are A Dog
yeah I kinda want this kickstarter to succeed
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As a colorblind person, I choose to believe that this whole "color" thing is an elaborate prank played at my expense. And the entire world happens to be in on it.
Especially annoying when my wife wants me to get an object. The first adjective she defaults to is color. Never mind that there are a dozen other descriptors that more adequately describe it, the color is so fucking important.
Here's a typical conversation had when I'm shopping and on the phone with her:
Wife: Oh can you get some more soy milk? We're out.
Me: Hmm, there's a lot of different kinds and flavors here, which one do you use?
Wife: Oh, the letters are blue on it.
Me: *facepalm*
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Do you know what kind of colorblind you are?
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Officially I'm red-green, although I don't have much trouble with those unless they're faded/pastel-y. Anything that's close together on the color spectrum could be confused for something next to it, like blue and purple. But really it's not so much that I don't see color, as I don't notice it/pay attention to it. Like the little girl in the article who never paid attention to what color the sky was until someone asked her to look at it.
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Haven't read the article, but I've read articles on the subject before. Particularly in reference to how Japanese defines the Blue/Green split. A Green Apple is called a Blue Apple (Aoringo) in Japanese, but even my preschool students find amusement in the fact that it's clearly -Green- (Midori or Kimidori, yellow-green). I don't think there's a lack of perception of various colors, just a shift in how to put a name to it. Japanese as a language split the term "Ao" into words for both "green" and "blue" at a later date on the linguistics timeline than Latin, so it still has older words that use the archaic concept of "Ao" as 'blue/green', such as Blue Apple and Blue Light. I think the same can probably be found in our own language easily enough. "Redhead" is the first example that comes to mind, since in almost all natural cases, the color is actually Orange (and notably Orange is the last primary color to emerge in most languages as its own word, so this is likely an artifact of such).
Off-topic, random Smash Bros 4 vid set to Blinded By Light just kinda got me pumped:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRr6rv54epE
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http://concurringopinions.com/archives/2015/01/prosecuting-prosecutors-for-perjury-9th-circuit-panel-comes-down-hard-on-lying-prosecutors-issue.html
An interesting event for people concerned with prosecutorial misconduct. Maybe a flash in a pan, or maybe a catalyst. Time will tell. Below is a link to the hearing. It starts off slow, but the whole thing is worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sCUrhgXjH4
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http://monsterlunch.com/post/102482133537/criterion-announced-it-will-release-the-entire
Covers from the Critereon Collection releases of the Springfield Film Festival.
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https://www.humblebundle.com/books
Complete collection of Bloom County on offer this week. Bloom County (especially early) is frequently hilarious for anyone with even a passing interest in politics, journalism, the culture war, or flightless birds. I highly recommend it.
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Terry Pratchett is dead. (http://www.pjsmprints.com/) Fuck.
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Fucking bummer. I had just recently seen his documentary, Choosing to Die, about assisted suicide and it wrecked me.
http://documentaryheaven.com/terry-pratchett-choosing-to-die/
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Someone had better solve world hunger soon so that some equal good is restored to the world.
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AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.
Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.
The End.
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That was absolutely beautiful.
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AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.
Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.
The End.
...I am actually crying. Discworld and his other novels meant so much to me growing up. They were the first books I ever had read to me by someone other than a teacher or a parent. My friends and I used to quote dumb lines from his earliest books all throughout highschool. And to this day, I still rely on truisms I learned from his wiser characters.
I was kind of prepared for this already since his failing health has been public knowledge for seven years now, but it still hurts to see him go at such an early age...
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Actually never read any of his books, but I feel your pain guys. :(
Any particular place I should start reading his stuff? Discworld book 1 or something else? Keep in mind I'm poor atm and won't be buying like 700 books at once.
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Uh... starting at Colour of Magic isn't bad? There's a few different paths you can take. Most every book is, at least, vaguely standalone, so you could start anywhere and be okayish. But there are character sets, as it were.
There's also a notable tonal difference between the early books (which are pretty much parody) and the later books (which are more satirical).
Aside from the obvious chronological order, you can try these two paths for some of his best books, IME.
Guards, Guards -> Men at Arms -> Feet of Clay -> Jingo -> The Fifth Elephant -> Night Watch -> Thud! -> Snuff
Going Postal -> Making Money -> Raising Steam
EDIT: Writing this made me sad. =(
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I only just read Night Watch in January, and it worked really well as a standalone book.
I'll probably start going through Andy's order at some point then. It'll just be like when Jacko died. Didn't give a shit about Michael Jackson's music til he died then binge listened to it for months. Didn't really give a damn about Discworld but now that Pratchett has passed on it's time to do so.
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I haven't read as much Pratchett as Andy, but I can affirm that the City Watch series is some of the best from recommendations from friends who enjoy him. So yeah, Guards, Guards -> Men At Arms is very solid. For other stand-alone ones that are pretty good, Reaper Man is technically the 2nd in a mini-series that focuses on Death (Mort -> Reaper Man -> Soul Music), but it's solid. (Mort is allegedly boring and bad and skippable, never read it; Soul Music is okay, but noooot what I expected nor what I personally wanted. It's basically a rockumentary novel that is done more straight and less screwball, which is weird, so).
The way I personally read Discworld was by reading the Rincewind books first, which is weird and maybe not recommended, but an interesting chronological cover of Discworld since I got to watch Pratchett's writing jump ahead in quality. This would be Colour of Magic -> Light Fantastic -> Sourcery -> Eric -> Interesting Times -> The Last Continent. Light Fantastic & Eric are not actually very good to my recollection but oh well.
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The run from around Mort to Guards! Guards! is pretty much where Pratchett hits the ground running. Equal Rites, Mort, Wyrd Sisters and Pyramids are all intersting experiments in him branching out the setting and getting a feel for what he could do. Guards! Guards is probably the first really good piece in his writing style as well as exploring the possibilities. Eric is him tying thisup with the plot he had started in the first two books before the series would become what it is. Everything from there is pretty solid.
If you don't want to dip into the stuff with continuity and characters that carry over then Pyramids, Moving Pictures and Small Gods are all decent (but not great) books from the first quarter of the series if you want to start chronologically early.
I would recommend that if you are planning on doing a deep dive but want to stick within one sub series at a time, otherwise quality whiplash can be a real thing
Aaaand I want to take this chance to hype his other works as well. Nomes, Johnny Maxwell and Carpet People were all pretty decent young adult books and worth noting as things that exist. The real gems though in my opinion are Strata and Dark Side of the Sun. Really early works that predate Discworld and are Space Opera/Sci Fi that are both really good and more on tone than the early Discworld stuff is because he already seems comfortable in his element. Dark Side of the Sun especially holds a special place in my heart, it is a fantastic book that is completely overshadowed by his later masterpieces.
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Seconding a lot of other stuff, go me. You can read them chronologically but yeah, you're not necessarily hitting the best introductory material that way. Discworld novels are pretty easily broken up into sub-groups: City Watch stuff, Rincewind the failure wizard, the witches out in the goffic mountain country, Death books, and Moist (which hits on some of the Watch's city-centric stuff in a different way), along with a handful of more or less standalone protagonists.
I'd definitely agree with hitting the Watch first since Sam Vimes is seriously just my favorite goddamn fictional person and the city of Ankh-Morpork is an excellently realized metropolis where most of the best stories happen. Guards! Guards! is a good introduction, then Men At Arms/Feet of Clay/Jingo are all absolutely top shelf Discworld installments.
Death is second preference for me as far as Discworld goes. Mort is the first book in the series that really solidifies the focus transition from genre parody to satirical humanism, Death being, somehow, among the most humane entities in the world and whose off-kilter perspective is always fun to read. I like Mort, Hogfather and Soul Music a great deal, although my extreme bias toward the subject matter of the latter may have some influence here ("They can't stop us. We're on a mission from Glod.") I barely remember Reaper Man despite having read it a couple times, though.
Witches and Moist books are okay? Still entertaining because it's Pratchett, but I find them squarely a tier below the above. Apparently a lot of people are super keen on Moist, but he didn't hit me quite the same way (I haven't read Steam or whatnot yet, though).
Rincewind easily least priority, I'd advise. These are mostly early installments when Pratchett was just finding his feet, and the humor tends to be a lot broader than it is in his best work (but even at his worst, Terry Pratchett was still funny; it's just that, at his best, he was funny while also being the nicest teacher you never had). Interesting Times is probably the best out of these? I may be biased because it's the first Discworld book I read.
As far as standalone Discworld books go, I would actually strongly recommend Small Gods.
Non-Discworld books, Good Omens is absolutely a thing. Nomes are pretty neat too, a very smart guy writing for a young audience without talking down to them. There's some other stuff that I haven't read, dude was super prolific. In light of events, I'm probably due for another full series reread, it's been like five years man.
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As far as standalone Discworld books go, I would actually strongly recommend Small Gods.
Non-Discworld books, Good Omens is absolutely a thing.
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My personal favorites were always the Witches books. Seriously, I always wanted a grandmother that was as wise as Terry Pratchett's fictional characters.
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Cid is right on, as usual.
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http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/3/20/8265139/final-fantasy-cid-fashion
Yes I am ripping my links straight from Ghazi. This is what it looks like when actual professionals do some of my schtick and it is glorious. So good at it.
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http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/12228/mac-plus-modern-web/
Man decides to hook an oldschool Mac Plus from 1986 to the internet. Interesting and hilarious at the same time.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/28/us/politics/indiana-law-denounced-as-invitation-to-discriminate-against-gays.html
It is always a little shocking when a state passes a law that makes it shittier than even Tennessee.
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Yeah I usually expect better of the Great Lake states.
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Man we've got Detroit "Iconic Dystopian Imagery" Michigan. Always lower those expectations.
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Pretty cool analysis of the original Ghostbusters by moviebob:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPoILjs6BYI
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I disagree with his point about Peck near the end. As someone who works in construction, I can tell you that federal oversight from the EPA and OSHA has long crossed over the line of Good Intentions->Making Things Way Too Difficult For Everyone.
Let me give you an example. Most companies now require you to wear a safety harness when working over four feet off the ground*. You know what a harness does for you at 4 feet off the ground? Jack shit. Harnesses stretch when they activate. You need to be over 9 feet off the ground before a harness will save you. So the net result is you're walking around with a harness on all the time that snags on things and trips you up. The intention to make you more safe has actually made you less safe.
In that scene, Ghostbusters was ahead of its time. Peck is following the letter of the law without taking time to actually think about whether the law is correct in this situation.
*The actual OSHA rule is 6 feet, but another part of OSHA says 4 feet in specific situations. The resulting legalese is confusing and companies just say 4 feet everywhere to err on the side of not getting fined by OSHA. Note that 6 feet is still functionally useless as far as making you safer.
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You get to deal with harnesses at 4 feet because the regulators simply don't trust private industry when they say, "that's stupid." Even though, as you point out, that's stupid!
tl;dr that's partially due to regulator paranoia, but also because private industry is the boy who cried wolf.
Federal agencies tend to look at requests of interested parties to lighten up on regulation with extreme suspicion. They view companies as indifferent to negative externalities, no matter how horrible they might be. Just look at the chemical composition of wastewater from fracking. Haha of course you can't do that because although it's a virtual certainty that stuff in that wastewater is harmful to humans, they're not required to tell anyone what it is, and it's not in their best interests to do so. We'll find out in 20 years when the cancer clusters crop up.
To compound that problem, humans have an optimism bias that means that without domineering government interference, they simply won't prepare adequately for disasters. Look at the BP oil spill. How much thought had BP put into how to seal a broken deep sea cap? About 2 pages' worth (the literal size of their contingency plan) because EPA didn't force them to do more. They had to jury rig equipment on the spot to quell the flow, and there was a very high chance that their solution could have blown out the whole well. You might be wondering why they didn't spend more to prep since the oil spill quite predictably cost them a lot of money. It's because they were stupidly optimistic and didn't consider a blowout to be much of a concern, even though the circumstances leading to it were easily predicted.
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Oh OSHA and the EPA are definitely needed. The number of workplace fatalities has dropped drastically since the 70s when OSHA came about. But they've long passed the point of making things safer and just generally slow things down now. Another reason so much US work is outsourced overseas. It just takes too much time and money to do anything here.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooc2rD-M-Y8
SMT x Fire Emblem trailer
- Doesn't look like Fire Emblem
- Doesn't look like SMT
- I don't recognize any of these characters despite having played way too much SMT/FE
- ANIMUUUUUUU
good job
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That frankly looks like a Tales game set in modern Tokyo.
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o.O I don't even know.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VILgSsesD0 has never been more appropriate
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Yeah looks like a high school magical princess dating sim and why does that one lady go from clothed into her undies for no reason? I see none of Fire Emblem in that at all except maybe robot Pegasus Knights?
With the same logic I found a Dark Souls/Kirby crossover trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skpu5HaVkOc
Anyway, here is a pretty good article on religion in the Dragon Age world.
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/dragon-age-inquisition-and-the-mysteries-of-faith
I forget if I wrote about it in my posts on SJW Inquisition but one thing that I think it does well is to avoid the trope present in a lot of Japanese RPGs that religion is a front for a demon monster with tentacles that feeds on human strife or somesuch shit. The Chantry in Dragon Age has a lot of problems and the politics behind it are fully explored between several major characters in the game, with each player having a distinct viewpoint and direction for what the Chantry should be (how it should treat mages for instance) that is supported by their experience and life circumstances. It's never made explicit that the Maker even exists, while Elven gods certainly do, and one interesting aspect of all the characters is their relationship with religion. If your character is a Qunari, for instance, a lot of the Inquisition initially doesn't know how to take it, and other characters question you about religion and faith all the time and whether you believe whether you are what everyone thinks you are (the game in a lot of ways is about impostor syndrome).
Spoilers about something in the game that I think the article should have covered:
There's also a big scene after your home base is attacked and the Inquisition is scattered and on the brink of despair and your advisors are bickering with each other about what to do. One of the leaders of the Chantry starts to sing a hymn. The infighting gradually stops and everyone in the Inquisition joins in on the song. It is Magnolia-esque "Wise Up" esque and some players may take it as being really hokey but I think it demonstrates the hope that comes with being a person of faith, even (or especially) when all seems lost. You can play the Inquisitor can play the Richard Dawkins part and be steadfastly atheist and hostile to any implication that you are a religious figure but quite a lot of the game talks about the value of having belief, even if you are not the one believing.
So yeah. I have problems with SJW Inquisition but I think it handles religion in an interesting way.
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Vin Diesel does look like Kirby a little.
SMT x Fire Emblem looks like Persona but without Persona characters?
The original trailer for this specifically only showed SMT1/2/3/4 characters and nothing Persona related.
This is probably a fine case of a game that went through development hell and radically changed about 6 times between the two trailers. - - From FE with SMT characters because that was the most sensible approach
- To FE with SMT characters in SMT world because Modern Tokyo
- To FE with Persona characters because they are more popular
- To Persona with FE characters because Persona
- To Persona with SMT and FE characters but no Persona characters because of a conflict with the Persona team which didn't want the Persona characters to be associated with a game that looked like a 37/100 on metacritic
- To Persona with no Persona characters vague FE references, because this one guy in the office had his vision of a crappy JRPG, and since it worked for Demon's Souls let's go, we have lost too much money at this point
For some reason I can appreciate Dragon Age storytelling but can't quite care about it at all
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37/100 on metacritic
You misspelled 'fucking fabulous/100'
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It looked like the FE characters from the new FE game? Maybe they're trying to cross-promote.
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http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/our-mens-rights-activism-group-refuses-to-share-this-meeting-space
Straight cribbing my links from Ghazi, but it was pretty great.
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I disagree with his point about Peck near the end. As someone who works in construction, I can tell you that federal oversight from the EPA and OSHA has long crossed over the line of Good Intentions->Making Things Way Too Difficult For Everyone.
Let me give you an example. Most companies now require you to wear a safety harness when working over four feet off the ground*. You know what a harness does for you at 4 feet off the ground? Jack shit. Harnesses stretch when they activate. You need to be over 9 feet off the ground before a harness will save you. So the net result is you're walking around with a harness on all the time that snags on things and trips you up. The intention to make you more safe has actually made you less safe.
In that scene, Ghostbusters was ahead of its time. Peck is following the letter of the law without taking time to actually think about whether the law is correct in this situation.
*The actual OSHA rule is 6 feet, but another part of OSHA says 4 feet in specific situations. The resulting legalese is confusing and companies just say 4 feet everywhere to err on the side of not getting fined by OSHA. Note that 6 feet is still functionally useless as far as making you safer.
Mortgage industry has plenty of this stuff too; what starts as a good idea about informing borrowers about different aspects of loan ends up with us sending a borrower 30 pages of documents to be signed, then the lender sending far more, and then they face two more rounds of document signing. Most of the forms are nigh completely useless and several of the important forms are flat out incomprehensible for borrowers without extreme knowledge (aka: none of them). In their attempt to give borrowers more info, the government has made it much, much harder for them to actually read it.
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Are you kidding?! That smoke detector affidavit is crucial!!
All joking aside, some of the forms DO have a positive effect. Not because they communicate anything but because they nudge the seller into compliance. And sometimes that compliance actually means something, like with respect to lead disclosures.
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There was discussion of color vision before, so here's a fun exercise. The point is to click the color not like the others. I've played five times and my average is around 27. My highest is 34, but sometimes I get stumped and have to start guessing depending on color. Certain shades of purple and dark blue trip me up (dark blue in particular can completely kill a run for me) moreso than others which subjectively tend to pop out a little more. Sometimes the popouts effects are really strong and other times you'll have a sense of the general direction of the oddball even though you don't necessarily consciously perceive the difference. I'd be interested in seeing how a color synesthete would do with this.
http://106.186.25.143/kuku-kube/en-3/
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Are you kidding?! That smoke detector affidavit is crucial!!
All joking aside, some of the forms DO have a positive effect. Not because they communicate anything but because they nudge the seller into compliance. And sometimes that compliance actually means something, like with respect to lead disclosures.
That's a whole different set of disclosures that we don't even see! I can't really speak to those. I meant...a form to note that our company will not be servicing your loan, a form to confirm that you get a copy of your appraisal, a form saying you can get homeownership counseling (on a refinance...), a form telling you that we can't discriminate, a form...telling you...who your main contact is (it's us, your mortgage broker. SURPRISE), and I could keep going on because there are many more worthless, but you get the idea.
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I've encountered all the mortgage lending forms in rather...unusual circumstances. With respect to an alleged fraud. This old guy's evil stepson allegedly snookered him into signing documents he never understood by hiding the top parts of them - putting a jumbo mortgage on his house that his stepson used to his own benefit. All this happened with a lender attorney present, who notarized the documents. By that attorney's account, no undue coercion had taken place. Inaccuracies in the byzantine mortgage documents prepared by the attorney were used to make a case that the attorney was not a reliable witness. Then, in the middle of the case, the attorney was charged by the local DA's office with criminal fraud in unrelated cases.
So I guess super complicated regulatory requirements are helpful when noncompliance with same is an indication of actual wrongdoing question mark.
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There was discussion of color vision before, so here's a fun exercise. The point is to click the color not like the others. I've played five times and my average is around 27. My highest is 34, but sometimes I get stumped and have to start guessing depending on color. Certain shades of purple and dark blue trip me up (dark blue in particular can completely kill a run for me) moreso than others which subjectively tend to pop out a little more. Sometimes the popouts effects are really strong and other times you'll have a sense of the general direction of the oddball even though you don't necessarily consciously perceive the difference. I'd be interested in seeing how a color synesthete would do with this.
http://106.186.25.143/kuku-kube/en-3/
19 on the first try (didn't realize it was timed lol), 24 on the second. Something I noticed is that when I couldn't identify it, leaning back in my chair (moving face farther from the screen) made it more apparent.
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I don't know how much press this got nationally, but it was pretty big here locally. Posting it here for our resident lawyers.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-mother-freed-spending-years-prison-foster-sons/story?id=26186920
Long story short, she was convicted. But the DA threw it out due to lack of evidence - evidence her original lawyer withheld. So hey, that actually works. It just takes a while.
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There was discussion of color vision before, so here's a fun exercise. The point is to click the color not like the others. I've played five times and my average is around 27. My highest is 34, but sometimes I get stumped and have to start guessing depending on color. Certain shades of purple and dark blue trip me up (dark blue in particular can completely kill a run for me) moreso than others which subjectively tend to pop out a little more. Sometimes the popouts effects are really strong and other times you'll have a sense of the general direction of the oddball even though you don't necessarily consciously perceive the difference. I'd be interested in seeing how a color synesthete would do with this.
http://106.186.25.143/kuku-kube/en-3/
Average around 30, max 34. Blue, Purple, and Black trip me up a lot. Pale colors are pretty easy. Definitely found it useful to blur my vision. Even if I couldn't see the difference in shades that somehow helped me clue in to which squares had something amiss.
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I don't know how much press this got nationally, but it was pretty big here locally. Posting it here for our resident lawyers.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-mother-freed-spending-years-prison-foster-sons/story?id=26186920
Long story short, she was convicted. But the DA threw it out due to lack of evidence - evidence her original lawyer withheld. So hey, that actually works. It just takes a while.
This article by itself is bizarrely awful journalism. To sum up, she is getting a new trial because the court of appeals decided that she had "ineffective assistance of counsel," a legal term that means her lawyer was so bad that allowing the verdict to stand would be unconstitutional. The article then goes on to say that the defense speculated that the victim had an eating disorder, and that "witnesses outside the home said they had seen Andrew's bizarre habits, too." Does the article mean that those witnesses were witnesses at trial? Unclear. The article then goes on to drop this bombshell: "To find Hannah guilty, jurors had to believe either of two scenarios: that Hannah Overton force-fed Andrew salt knowing it would kill him or that she neglected to get medical help fast enough knowing that it would kill him. They convicted her based on the latter argument, that she did not seek help quickly enough." So the whole article up to this point has been about how she was accused of force-feeding this kid, and...actually the jury did not find her guilty of that but instead found her guilty of failing to provide medical help in time. In other words, the defense speculated about a scenario where the kid inadvertently poisoned himself in order to cast doubt on the prosecutor's allegations that the defendant poisoned him and...the jury was convinced that there was reasonable doubt about whether she intentionally poisoned the boy. Oh, the article also mentions that the prosecutor was accused of misconduct but does not elaborate at all on what that misconduct is.
Anyway, from that article...there's no indication of what her lawyer did that was substandard, there's no indication of what the prosecutor did that was allegedly unethical, and there's nothing that would cast doubt on the jury's determination that she did not provide medical help when she should have.
p.s. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel is informally called the "Foggy Mirror Test," as in, say your attorney is sleeping in the middle of your trial. Hold a hand mirror up to your attorney's nose. Does the mirror get foggy? Yes? Congratulations, you have effective assistance of counsel. It's very rare for an appeals court to throw out a verdict based on it. So clearly he did something very wrong! But the article doesn't give any indication what it was.
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http://grrm.livejournal.com/
Start reading from the Sad Puppies posts. Christ on a cracker apparently there's a SciFi/Fantasy fiction equivalent of GamerGate. Granted, one less concerned with outright harassing people out of the industry and more concerned with completely dominating the Hugo Awards. Same damn paranoid, deluded justifications about SJW Cabals and the exclusion of the straight white man, though.
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Oh, the article also mentions that the prosecutor was accused of misconduct but does not elaborate at all on what that misconduct is.
Yeah there's a lot more detail in my local paper but I don't have an easy way to link it. Let me try and sum up.
1. Hannah Overton force-feeds her 4 year old adopted son a large amount of Zatarain's Creole Spice to punish him. Note that she is a nurse and should have a reasonable idea that this is not a good thing.
2. Child dies. Overton and husband put on trial (husband pleads out).
3. Defense at trial tries to convince everyone that the child had pica (eating disorder where you eat dirt and other minerals laying around) and killed himself with salt. This is where the withholding evidence comes in, she has access to the child's vomit tests and does not release them. Which would prove one way or the other what the child ingested that killed him. This information comes from one of the assistant defense attorneys, who switches sides for the prosecution at a later date.
4. Jury can't decide on whether the force-feeding killed the boy, but they can decide that Overton took too long to get medical attention. She is convicted.
5. DA throws out the conviction due to bad legal representation. Which is the right thing to do legally but means this monster is on the streets.
-
So the unethical defense attorney and the unethical prosecutor are...THE SAME PERSON!! That is the weirdest...look, I just spent the last week playing Phoenix Wright and that still seems so implausible.
Couple questions: so were the vomit tests never disclosed at trial? Also, did the prosecutors not have access to them? Any halfway-competent request for discovery would have revealed the tests. It's still puzzling to me that the conviction was vacated - typically in order to prove ineffective assistance of counsel you need to make a plausible showing that you would not have been convicted but for your counsel's failure. Since she was convicted on a theory that did not require proof she forcefed the kid, that was not the case here.
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http://grrm.livejournal.com/
Start reading from the Sad Puppies posts. Christ on a cracker apparently there's a SciFi/Fantasy fiction equivalent of GamerGate. Granted, one less concerned with outright harassing people out of the industry and more concerned with completely dominating the Hugo Awards. Same damn paranoid, deluded justifications about SJW Cabals and the exclusion of the straight white man, though.
It's all over the place. The attempt at making metalgate was really hilarious.
http://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/3254l1/comprehensive_list_of_subcultures_movements_and/
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SJW illuminati barging in on metal and ruining it for everyone. They are brand new interlopers infringing on the scene!!!!111!!1 (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_decapitation)
-
Couple questions: so were the vomit tests never disclosed at trial? Also, did the prosecutors not have access to them? Any halfway-competent request for discovery would have revealed the tests. It's still puzzling to me that the conviction was vacated - typically in order to prove ineffective assistance of counsel you need to make a plausible showing that you would not have been convicted but for your counsel's failure. Since she was convicted on a theory that did not require proof she forcefed the kid, that was not the case here.
Apparently I got it backwards, it was the prosecution that withheld the vomit tests, and one of the prosecutors switched to defense.
CORPUS CHRISTI - Hannah Overton and the attorneys who helped set her free want to ensure the mistakes that led to her imprisonment aren’t repeated.
“Normal, everyday people with no criminal record can be victims of wrongful prosecution. Hannah Overton was,” said lawyer John Raley, of the Houston firm Raley and Bowick.
Overton’s attorneys have maintained prosecutors’ withholding evidence led to a wrongful capital murder conviction in 2007 in the death of 4-year-old Andrew Burd.
Last year, the state’s Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Overton’s conviction and found that her attorneys provided ineffective counsel at her trial. One of her trial attorneys later admitted to making the mistake of not arranging for a leading expert on salt poisoning to testify on Overton’s behalf. Raley called that the turning point in her case.
After the court’s decision, Nueces County District Attorney Mark Skurka vowed to retry Overton, who was released on bail in December.
But on Wednesday Skurka dismissed the case, citing “a myriad of factors, which came about after a careful review of the previous trial.”
None of those factors included the assertion Overton is innocent.
Skurka would not say Thursday how he feels about Overton’s responsibility for Andrew’s death.
“The dismissal said prosecutorial discretion, not actually innocent,” Skurka told the Caller-Times. “Dismissal does not equate to exonerated.”
Overton’s lead lawyer Cynthia Orr praised Skurka on Thursday for his decision to drop the capital murder case but has also accused the office of a “pattern and practice” of withholding evidence.
Overton’s defense team accused Sandra Eastwood, the lead prosecutor in the 2007 trial, of hiding Andrew’s vomit, evidence they say could have shown what Andrew last ate and proven Overton’s account.
Eastwood, who has denied those claims in court, did not respond to attempts to reach her for comment.
Rarely do judges overturn cases on the argument of prosecutor misconduct, something Orr said needs to change.
“This is going to be a groundbreaking case. It is going to change the complexion of criminal justice in Texas and I think Mr. Skurka has led the way in showing prosecutors what they need to do when cases have gone awry,” Orr said.
Skurka and prosecutor Bill Ainsworth defended Eastwood on Thursday and said she did not purposefully withhold evidence from the defense team at trial.
“No. Emphatically no,” Skurka said.
“We don’t believe that she withheld anything, not after looking at all the evidence,” Ainsworth echoed.
Skurka would not say whether he believed Andrew’s death was accidental. And he couldn’t answer whether Andrew received justice.
“I have a hard time answering that question,” Skurka said. He paused. “The duty of the district attorney is to seek justice, not convictions.”
Skurka, who was not the district attorney during the trial or a prosecutor on the case, said he decided to dismiss the case after a thorough review. He and Ainsworth also interviewed Dr. Alexander Rotta, who treated Andrew when he was dying, and Dr. Ray Fernandez, the medical examiner who ruled the boy’s death a homicide. Both testified during the trial.
Skurka said they agreed to keep those conversations confidential.
Overton declined to comment about whether she will seek financial compensation through a lawsuit or any other means.
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Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Here's my sense of the most likely scenario: the appeals court believed it was prosecutor misconduct, but didn't want to say so, so instead seized on a mistake made by the defense - a mistake which seems like it shouldn't have mattered to the outcome since she was convicted under a theory that didn't require the jury to prove she forcefed the kid. Still quite a surprise. The fact that the DA's office is not going to retry the case would seem to indicate that there are either serious deficiencies in their case that mean they don't think they can convict OR that allowing defense attorneys to take another crack at the case would expose wrongdoing that has not yet come to light. Maybe a little from column A, a little from column B.
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First they came for Wall Street Occupy, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not part of Occupy.
Then they came for the Atheists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not an Atheist.
Then they came for the Gamers, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Gamer.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
how dare people want you to be respectful of other people, it's pretty much the same as being a Nazi
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http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/14/8410377/star-ocean-5-ps4-ps3-japan-western-release (http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/14/8410377/star-ocean-5-ps4-ps3-japan-western-release)
Star Ocean 5 is gonna be a thing. Used to love the series but 4 was a huge pile of garbage so I'm not holding out much hope.
-
I thought Tri-Ace was doing mobile and tablet shit now. Also Fakelead is sounds like a witness in an Ace Attorney game.
-
I thought Tri-Ace was doing mobile and tablet shit now. Also Fakelead is sounds like a witness in an Ace Attorney game.
Who ISN'T doing mobile and tablet shit at Square-Enix anymore? Not like they're turning regular huge profits on consoles anymore and money's got to come from somewhere.
-
Tri-Ace has this sorry we know SO4 is bad so we base SO5 more on SO3 attitude.
But looking at PSNOVA's quality, I am not sure how sorry they are.
And... is it just me, or does Fedel's 3D model looks like a certain recent Disney character.
-
Let's be fair though, Hiro was designed to look like Generic Shonen Lead, he bares at least a passing resemblance to every Star Ocean lead except maybe Claude.
... come to think of it I'd be totally okay with a Big Hero 6 game in the style of Star Ocean.
-
I think the closest we'll get is a Big Hero 6 world in Kingdom Hearts 3. Since Disney seems to be keeping it split from the MCU, despite it's origins, don't think that would encroach upon the potential a Marvel world would have.
...but yeah, honestly, there's no reason to be worried about SO5 at the moment. It's going to exist, and there's some basic information about the game, that's it. Yes, Star Ocean 4 may not have been your cup of tea, but it's one game in a franchise; very few franchises, companies, etc. bat 1.000, so why should this be any different?
-
So there's a surprisingly well-made "X reenacted by Ponies" series.
Harry Potter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMKrbPOUYBQ
Yu-Gi-Oh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRbVsUTud-0
Pokemon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShGwH_QQAN4
Star Wars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYk1DgaeZC8
Lord of the Rings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4hD31VTdsw
Nintendo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmWxS6F-GkU
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http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/20/do-auction-houses-suck/ (http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/20/do-auction-houses-suck/)
Raph Koster, a developer from SWG, talks about crafting economies as "asynchronous parallel games" and how they differ from traditional WoW-style economics.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypiED8iVKV8
Final Fantasy collaboration with Puzzle and Dragons.
-
The case for the oxford comma:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CD7v2WSWAAAW6pP.jpg:large)
-
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/05/04/ryan_mchenry_vine_creator_dies_and_ryan_gosling_eats_cereal_in_tribute.html
faith in humanity as filtered through the internet...rising. somehow!
-
Chuck Windig is great at dispensing non-nonsense advice in appropriately inappropriate language.
"IN WHICH I CRITIQUE YOUR STORY (THAT I HAVEN’T READ)"
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/05/05/in-which-i-critique-your-story-that-i-havent-read/
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http://www.atlredline.com/the-only-lawyer-worth-hiring-based-on-a-television-ad-1704732692
-
Brother graduated from undergrad today. Nice ceremony, Levar Burton was the speaker. Then we had pizza. Yay!
-
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/28/373268931/before-the-internet-librarians-would-answer-everything-and-still-do
#letmelibrarianthatforyou
-
As someone with family that works in that space. 100% true facts. Actual things that happen.
-
I choose to believe the blacked out H in "wig" was a Freudian slip rather than a manual one. It seems entirely within the realm of possibility given the context.
-
Haha this is great.
http://shoryuken.com/2015/05/20/unstoppable-jason-voorhees-doesnt-need-legs-or-even-a-head-to-revive-in-mortal-kombat-x/
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The three character variations is the best thing about MKX and Jason's revival is probably their best use of it that isn't Johnny Cage getting eight giant rings to spell out "CAGE."
-
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/caitlyn-jenner-bruce-cover-annie-leibovitz
So...I'm now sharing a name with a famous celebrity. >_>
Something something BEFORE it was cool #hipster
-
You already did.
-
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/612057-generating-magic-cards-using-deep-recursive-neural
Personally, I'd like to believe these cards are garbled messages sent back from potential futures of Magic.
-
That is pretty amazing.
-
I want a Slidshocking Krow.
-
I want a Slidshocking Krow.
Of course you would, you trompling mointainspalker.
-
The ones made towards the end are actually quite reasonable, up to and including being fairly balanced. Like...Shring the Artist is probably fairly powerful, but well within reason still.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kznek1uNVsg
-
E3 2015:
Nier sequel made by Platinum Games
FF7 remake on PS4
Shenmue 3 on Kickstarter
Last Guardian is real
lol
-
Predictions:
Shenmue 3 will be terrible, this cannot be anything but a high budget game and it's on kickstarter
Last Guardian will be obsolete in a post indie games world
FF7 remake will be decent but hated by everyone
Nier 2 will be fucking awesome
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http://i.imgur.com/7WCvyBU.jpg
Nier 2 has already provided undue amusement.
I'm hoping for Kainé and Emil vs The Alien Invasion though.
-
Nobody is talking about Dark Souls 3? Possibly because it's on Xbone.
-
It's not an exclusive fortunately
I'm going to love it, but its existance was inevitable, unlike all these other things
-
Predictions:
[...]
FF7 remake will be decent but hated by everyone
Nier 2 will be fucking awesome
Both of these sound right to me.
Holy hell if Platinum can make Nier's gameplay even half as good as Bayonetta's while maintaining its Nierness (for lack of a better term) that game is going to rock.
-
Last Guardian will probably be obsolete but I will not care. I have irrational faith in Ueda (probably a silly thing to say).
I am on board with anything Platinum, let alone Platinum + Nier.
Everyone in the universe will hate FF7.
Shenmue is almost certainly going to crash and burn. Their goal is $2 million which they got easily but didn't the older Shenmue games cost upwards of $50 million when the dollar wasn't on fire?
Don't care about anything else other than Persona 5 (there is a dumb looking cat character).
The SMT x Fire Emblem crossover looks like a Hatsune Miku gaiden game.
EDIT: Oh I guess I would play a new South Park RPG but that seemed logical because Ubisoft iteration and it may get stale. The first one was a pretty perfect length and didn't outlive its welcome.
-
Dishonoured 2 is pretty cool.
I don't think Platinum will especially save Nier 2 for me, not because I think Platinum will do bad work but because that series is intent on making itself terrible.
FF7.
Last Guardian announced a big pet thing that follows around the player and saves you in scripted sequences. That is both going to get annoying and will die.
Edit - oh and Cuphead. Oh my gods you guys. Cuphead.
-
Also Fire Emblem 14 gets an English name which doesn't sound goofy as hell, this is the true most important news from E3.
-
"Fire Emblem Fates" sounds really generic though
Like "Mirror's Edge: Catalyst"
Or "Watching Dogs: Renegade"
(Only one of these three is not real)
Meanwhile Star Ocean 5 is still "Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness" and it doesn't care (The game looks bad bad bad though, sorry. Or at least more unplayable in front of any human being than even Star Ocean 4)
Nier 2 will at least probably have the same composer since s/he is such a strong part of the game's identity.
I do wonder if the crazy Cavia guys are still around helping with this game though. I mean, those Cavia guys that gave us the watchers from Drakengard 1.
I also really wonder how they'll handle FF7's bizarre story. This project is doomed.
Will they turn Cloud into Terrible Advent Children Badass Cloud? Will the characters scream "NANI!?" when Sephiroth kills Aeris?
Voice acting is going to ruin everything
Either they stay true to the source material, Cloud crossdressing and all, and they'll get a lot of hate, or they'll turn it into FF15 and they'll also get a lot of hate
I'm looking forward to the battle system
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It's WATCH_D0GS::RENEGADE, of course. Sheesh you're making it too easy here.
-
I failed to care enough about Watch Dogs to remember its real name
Sorry
So yeah, pretend I said WATCH_D0GS::RENEGADE_D0GS
The SMT x Fire Emblem crossover looks like a Hatsune Miku gaiden game.
It looked really bad before and it got way worse with this new trailer
Hahahahahahahahah
Deserves a link:
https://youtu.be/AgneuYTIN4k
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That is the Laggiest thing I have ever seen.
-
Not speaking for SEGA (we don't have the rights to Shenmue anymore anyhow), but chances are very, very high that Sony is feeling out the commitment of the fanbase before sinking the tens of millions it will cost to develop.
Yes, Shenmue 2 cost north of $70 million. IIRC, it barely broke even in sales. It was disastrous for SEGA.
Shenmue is a cult favorite, a critical success but not a commercial one. They did this Kickstarter to see if the fanbase was big enough to warrant production. (That said, I wonder how many fans of Shenmue who would buy it aren't just participating in the Kickstarter...)
-
What the fuck was that (re: FExSMT)?
-
Fates isn't a great name but it certainly beats "if" (Awakening was a super-generic title anyway... actually the series is pretty bad about it on the whole. And the subtitle "Thracia 666" only wishes it could be generic).
SO5 is pretty "wait and see" for me, I have very little trust for trailers when it comes to ARPGs. But I liked SO3 and SO4 are two of the only games in the genre I actually enjoyed so here's hoping.
I also really wonder how they'll handle FF7's bizarre story
That's sorta my question too, as well as its tone and some of the strange scenes. (Obviously disagree about voice acting though.) Hopefully they stay somewhat true to the source material since there's a reason people like that was way more popular than the expanded universe stuff, but we'll see; it'll be difficult to adapt to a super-realistic game for sure. And obviously it'll get lots of hate regardless.
EDIT: Oh my god SMT x Fire Emblem looks (and sounds!) awful. Also did they actually give Sirius's stupid mask to Chrom.
-
EDIT: Oh my god SMT x Fire Emblem looks (and sounds!) AMAZING. Also did they actually give Sirius's stupid mask to Chrom.
-
Will they turn Cloud into Terrible Advent Children Badass Cloud? Will the characters scream "NANI!?" when Sephiroth kills Aeris?
"Directed by Tetsuya Nomura."
I dunno man, what do you think?
A 10-second internet search says Nier 2 involves the usual Cavia lunatics. I'm pretty okay with general Nier weirdness & music + someone competent at making action games.
-
Did the same Cavia lunatics do Drakengard 3 because fuck that.
-
Re: FE x SMT
what the fuck did i just watch
-
Nier 2 will at least probably have the same composer since s/he is such a strong part of the game's identity.
I do wonder if the crazy Cavia guys are still around helping with this game though. I mean, those Cavia guys that gave us the watchers from Drakengard 1.
Well, Taro Yoko is definitely part of the project (he was the dude dressed as Emil), and he was on Drakengard, Nier, and Drakengard 3 (but NOT Drakengard 2) so even if most of the old Cavia team aren't there he was always kinda the ringleader on the sheer insanity.
-
Did the same Cavia lunatics do Drakengard 3 because fuck that.
Well, yeah, there is that. If Nier 2 sucks, it wouldn't be the first game I'd bought on the basis of "Well Nier was far from perfect but it had some neat ideas and awesome music so maybe they can do something approximately as good again?" which then turned out to be a gigantic honking pile of horseshit. But I figure at the worst we can at least expect the gameplay to be decent this time.
-
god that smt x fe video doesn't even seem that weird to me anymore i need to get the fuck out of this country
-
Honestly the types of games Cavia puts out seem pretty much destined to be "could be anywhere from awesome to terrible" and I'm pretty okay with that; it's nice to see a game developer who isn't concerned with playing it safe (if you want safe, there are many, many other series to go to). So just binding that mix up with "probably has good gameplay" is enough for definite hype from me. Game could obviously still be bad! But it's certainly worth keeping an eye out for
if I ever buy a system which can play it.
-
I only made it about 30 seconds into the FE x SMT video before closing the tab, so I'm safe. Mostly.
In other news, post on Facebook from early yesterday from a friend of mine:
-- After Fallout 4, the FFVII Remake and all the other goodies from yesterday, Nintendo doing anything less than announcing a New Metroid will be a disappointment.
His bitter tears... delicious.... Reggie Fils-Aime is an evil genie indeed.
-
Cavia games with the maniacs always tend to be at least interesting but Drakengard 3 was interesting in a way that made me hate Japan.
-
I also really wonder how they'll handle FF7's bizarre story.
I totally think they are going to go AC prettyboy Cloud. This will annoy me BUT it will mean that pretty much everything in Midgar will be hilarious.
-
Cloud was obviously supposed to be a prettyboy in FF7, just FF7 graphics can make it hard to tell.
Unless you meant they'll rewrite his personality. I suspect they will leave the original Japanese script largely intact (how much they retranslate it for the west is anyone's guess) but we'll see.
-
Cloud was obviously supposed to be a prettyboy in FF7
There are degrees.
-
He was also a pretty boy in Crisis Core, so... yeah. The extended FF7 universe has him looking good before and after the game. I'm not expecting during to be much different.
-
Things Platinum is making/co-developing:
Nier 2
Star Fox Zero
A Transformers beat-em-up with the G1 voice cast
Scalebound, an XBone exclusive where you punch dragons
This was the best E3.
-
The terrible anime-ization of Fire Emblem shown in SMTx Fire Emblem has already begun.
The last game was this cool stuff:
(https://cdn03.nintendo-europe.com/media/images/05_packshots/games_13/nintendo_3ds_6/PS_3DS_FireEmblemAwakening_enGB.png)
New one looks like Hyperdimension Neptunia and that's the worst insult I can think of :
(http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles/1/7/6/4/1/8/8/fire-emblem-fates-is-the-first-nintendo-game-to-allow-same-sex-marriage-143513795991.jpg/EG11/resize/300x-1/quality/80/format/jpg)
-
Oh god
(http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles/1/7/6/4/3/2/5/143515909956.jpg)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/3651164318/b3e65b232ab756ace948d619efcb5527_400x400.jpeg)
-
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/politics/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-ruling/
A win for Big Gay.
-
Oh dear god I saw those tweets as the Supreme Court ruling went out. They're tasting the rainbows, bitches.
-
Congratulations, gays. You now get to be as miserable as the rest of us.
-
The important part is having the right to be miserable.
-
https://twitter.com/geekbarchicago/status/614536085671145472
what rainbows taste like, presumably.
-
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/change-doesnt-usually-come-this-fast/
Personal anecdotes with MATH! This is why I like Nate Silver.
-
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/change-doesnt-usually-come-this-fast/
Personal anecdotes with MATH! This is why I like Nate Silver.
I'm totally posting that on my Twitter, it's a great read.
-
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/satanic-temple-oklahoma-ten-commandments
Satan: 1 Oklahoma: 0
-
The group has completed its Baphomet statue and will unveil it in Detroit on July 25.
Put your hands up for Detroit.
-
Posting this here for Gate because I remember him being a Battle Fantasia fan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdxiSGQJf7g
Steam release with improved graphics and some balance tweaks.
-
Cross that off the long list of things I would have never thought would happen if I had thought they were likely enough to even consider ever maybe Battle Fantasia on Steam? Really?
-
http://abovethelaw.com/2015/06/jiggery-pokery-sparks-scalia4kids-breaks-the-internet/
some pretty high level entries here.
-
Man, "Questionably convicted murderers, go the fuck to sleep" is one of the most morbid and beautiful pieces of black humour I have ever seen.
-
This isn't to do with the Jesse Jackson AMA, but reddit is becoming a bit of a shitshow because it let go of the person in charge of its AMA's.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/03/reddit-ama-victoria-taylor-subforums-shut-down-protest-sacking
-
Specifically they fired the main coordinator without doing any kind of announcement of a handover or how to coordinate confirmation off AMA participants. So people trying to do AMAS were left unable to do shit and had to cancel a bunch of AMAs because they couldn't communicate.
Reddit is a pile of fuck at a baseline but for a site that pretty much is field by community management that is a colossal fuck up. A big straw to break the camel's back, but it is mostly about moderators flipping their shit because reddit as a company dictate from on high and don't interact with the bulk of the people that make the site work.
Also protests about mod tools being piles of crap as well (shock)
-
Man, "Questionably convicted murderers, go the fuck to sleep" is one of the most morbid and beautiful pieces of black humour I have ever seen.
"Harry Potter and the Prisoner Who Didn't Get a Miranda Warning, is in Solitary Confinement, and is Going to be Executed"
-
SMT #FE talk:
That trailer is horrifying. The actual gameplay itself sounds a lot less... bubblegum. It actually sounds like a fun mixture of Persona and FE. When exploring dungeons, players can attack on-field enemies to stun them, allowing them to have an advantage in battle or avoid them altogether. Battles in the game incorporates systems from both games, including Fire Emblem rock-paper-scissors mechanic of melee weapons and Shin Megami Tensei elemental properties. In additions to the various skills each party member possesses, some skills trigger Session Attacks where all party members attack in a combination. During these sessions, sub-characters can be called in to attack, and pairs of characters can activate combined techniques. Outside of battle, players can interact with characters, visit shops, and access a texting system.
The game takes place in Shibuya in Tokyo, following the lives of the young members of the Fault Entertainment talent agency. These youths become "Mirage Masters", who have the power to merge with Mirages, souls of warriors from another world. While some Mirages are kind-hearted and help out the Mirage Masters, others seek to cause chaos and draw power from the emotions of innocent people, and it is up to the Mirage Masters to stop them. There's also the appearance of other Fire Emblem antagonists as bosses with radically different designs like the main Mirages themselves.
The conceit is basically Persona with a fledgling pop idol agency, which sounds like it could work honestly. Persona usually has a somewhat dark take on the idol industry. More Perfect Blue than Hatsune Miku. I'm cautiously optimistic. Mostly because I think it's neat how each of the PCs is literally supposed to embody one of the various FE job/classes.
Also: Slightly less horrifying trailer because it shows actual gameplay~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fS24IxelBA
-
http://www.imperialsaga.jp/
Sweet. Apparently FFRK is doing well because Square Enix has basically made a SaGa Record Keeper...
It looks so freakin' awesome...
-
New Batman/Superman trailer launched.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WWzgGyAH6Y (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WWzgGyAH6Y)
It's better than the "DO YOU BLEED!?" trailer since it at least tries to convey something going on than "Superman is fake Jesus! BATMAN WILL EXPOSE HIM!" nonsense. Actually, if anything, it seems like it's going the exact opposite direction. It seems like Batman is being treated as the antagonistic one in this, with Superman being more victimized than anything. Definitely prefer this approach because it's stupid when Superman is the bad guy for non-Mind Control reasons; it spits in the face of his character and everything it stands for (no, Dark Knight Returns was not a good handling of it, don't get me started on that please), so the fact that the movie seems to be going "Batman is the one who started it" is something I approve of.
The action sequences look promising; in particular, for once we're seeing Batman doing cool things, something we haven't seen since like...89 Batman. I'll grant Nolan batman was because it was Batman in a more realistic setting, so they had to tone down the gadgets a lot, but here, that's obviously not the case, so seeing him actually use the Grappling Gun mid-combat? Yeah, that's a breath of fresh air.
Unfortunately, the movie still seems to be the same DARK AND GRITTY tone rather than hyping it as MATCH OF AWESOME or something. I'm aware it's probably because DC wants their own thing, knowing if they try to emulate Marvel people will just compare the two, but you don't have to go off that extreme. Also, Lex Luthor looks pretty blech in this movie.
So yeah, better than the "DO YOU BLEED!?" trailer but doesn't completely dispel my fears.
-
DARK AND GRITTY with unknowingly ironic capitalization is the only thing Zach Snyder knows how to do, Meeple. I don't know if you've seen any of his other movies, but his other movies are precisely why I have zero interest in this one. (I didn't actually watch the trailer, mind, because see previous comment.)
-
Zack Snyder cannot be trusted. As much as I'm fatigued with Marvel movies, at least there's a semblance of joy there. This looks like more of the same boring misery-fest that was Man of Steel (from the muted color palette to the casual large scale destruction without regard to consequences), and that was unfuckingbearable.
At the very least, there are some potentially interesting things coming out of the Marvel pipeline in terms of story, but everything Snyder does is going to be completely uninteresting to me if he keeps making this same movie (and he is slated for the Justice League as well).
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http://www.imperialsaga.jp/
Sweet. Apparently FFRK is doing well because Square Enix has basically made a SaGa Record Keeper...
It looks so freakin' awesome...
Weird how they only seem to care about the Romancing ones.
I guess these sold a trillion more than the others.
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The Romancing SaGa games are looking like the 'base' set of things available. There appears to be a decent focus on SaGa Frontier 1 and 2 as well, but I suspect they are akin to the 'wow cool event characters like Asellus!'
And they at least -have- the logos for the remakes of SaGa 2 and 3 (and Unlimited Saga) on the site, so perhaps they'll be including the amazing Mr. S!
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To be fair, SaGa 3 (the original) was the only one with real consistent characters of the original three, though yeah SaGa 2 did have the Temp PCs which I suspect they'll be using. SaGa 1/2 were in FF1's style of "Create your team!"
That said, SaGa isn't as big of a series as Final Fantasy in terms of raw scope. It has 9 games total I believe? The 3 originals, 3 Romancings, 2 Frontiers, and one Unlimited, and after that it's been remakes. Japan seems to favor the Romancing Saga games (which go figure are the ones we didn't get here save Minstrel Song) from what I've seen, so makes sense that would be their focus for this, with Frontier games being later add ons.
To be honest, I'm kind of surprised Dragon Quest Record Keeper wasn't their follow up, given Square-enix likes to go "hey, this idea worked, let's do it with Dragon Quest!" Doesn't matter if it's their own franchise or not; I mean they saw Hyrule Warriors and went "Let's do this with Dragon Quest!" for example.
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Satoru Iwata passed away.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2015/150713e.pdf
This is a bummer. He was still young and was instrumental for Earthbound, which was a huge game for me as a kid.
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https://www.youtube.com/user/MTV?v=crjkQHnDYu0
Shannara getting a tv series. Looks pretty good, although being on MTV makes it a bit suspect.
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Gourry -> http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-07-14-earthbound-director-shigesato-itoi-pays-tribute-to-satoru-iwata
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Gourry -> http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-07-14-earthbound-director-shigesato-itoi-pays-tribute-to-satoru-iwata
:(
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I think I have something in my eye
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Critical hit to the feels.
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On a lighter note
You and Grefter both talked about the game like you were trapped by it. But I honestly don't feel anymore 'addicted' to FFRK than any other RPG I play. Yes, it's a Skinner Box, but most games are in some way or another?
Allright, for those who do not know much about FF Record Keeper:
FF Record Keeper has a"stamina" F2P mechanic, which I'll call Timebux from now on
You have to spend Timebux to play the game for a bit, and you get one Timebux every three minutes (20 Timebux per hour). There is a max Timebux value, that you can raise by playing the game. Right now I have 100 max Timebux. If I don't play the game for five hours, I get to max Timebux, and I stop getting any more Timebux until I spend it. Ok?
Personally I don't really care too much about wasting Timebux.
But...
Someone on the Record Keeper subreddit asked whether waking up in the middle of the night to play FFRK for five minutes, so as to not waste even one Timebux, was bad for your health.
...
Here are some answers:
"I'm just glad I'm not the only one..."
"max out that stamina boy... you can get 5:45 good hours of sleep every day"
"Lol exactly this, I've started this game only three weeks ago and I felt like I was missing out on so much and needed to catch up. Everyday I burn my stamina before sleep and set my alarm clock to ring in 4 hour intervals during the night. Do I feel like crap? Yes. Did I catch up? Yes. Eventually this will phase out when I have more stamina though."
"Sometimes I wake up in the mornings typically around 4 or 5 to burn all the stamina.
It is kinda worth it sometimes for farming dailies."
"By waking up in the middle of the night, you'll reset your sleep cycles. You have to ramp up and ramp down for sleep, and you get the greatest benefits from sleeping during the ramped up periods (REM cycles)."
"I usually sleep 5 hours and my stamina refills in 5.5 hours, so Im good in that aspect. Before I did wake up sometimes to use stamina before it was wasted, but now I have almost nothing to do until new events appear so I just farm orbs peacefully at my own pace"
"I'd pay a dollar to not have to interrupt my sleep if I was really interested in guaranteeing I get 24 hours of stamina a day. "
"I turn the brightness down and auto through dailies"
"I wake up 2-3 times throughout the night because I'm such a light sleeper, and I have a cat that has zero sense of personal space. I've recently begun taking advantage of this time to mindlessley run through content, like farming for Joseph/Garnet/DK Cecil RM. I've got an auto attack party favorite setup, set that right before I go to sleep, wake up in the middle of the night, speed set to five, burn through ~40 stamina, fall back to sleep."
:D
Here's the link
https://www.reddit.com/r/FFRecordKeeper/comments/3ddu49/about_wake_up_every_day_in_midnight_health/
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They can quit any time they want.
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This is all still crazy. I've played timebux games but usually they're at least somewhat gratifying while I'm playing them. RK from what I played requires the least amount of consciousness of anything I've played, as in while you're playing it you would basically do just as well if you were a corpse. I guess it sounds like it's more involved at higher levels? But the main loop is a little too braindead for me, even as a commute or waiting around game.
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FFRK becomes actually pleasantly involved in higher levels of play - some of the design decisions are very reminiscent of FFV's in term of battle flow and strategizing. Like Elite Sinspawns being a tense status puzzle with a lot of moving parts, or most boss rushes, where you have to optimize your ability loadout in order to properly handle a multitude of situations and keep any given fight from running out of control - all while favoring efficiency both on actions taken and damage suffered along with rewarding you far more with intelligent ability usage and knowledge of enemies, those being things I highly appreciate in a game. Getting there, though, involves a lot of mindless grind, which obviously plays into your initial reaction.
Of course, I saw Fenrir's thread and that made me shake my head. And I thought I had problems.
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It's the mindlessness of FFRK that makes it work.
I'll contrast it to another timebux game, Puzzle and Dragons. In P&D, you attack by playing a match-3 puzzle game. So you always have to pay attention to the game to play it. That's fine for the most part. However there is a big wall of difficulty in P&D that can only be overcome by grinding. You can get through about 2/3rds of the game's content by getting better at match 3 and slowly assembling a stronger group of monsters. But for the last part of the game it not only matters what monsters you have on your team, you also have to "hypermax" them by feeding them a ton of + stat eggs and maxing out their skills. Getting those + stat eggs is horribly slow. Like the most efficient timebux to + egg dungeon gives you maybe 1 + egg every two times you run it. So you're going to be running this dungeon thousands of times to get what you need. You don't want to be playing match 3 constantly.
FFRK? Enter battle, hit Auto, watch youtube. There's stuff that's stupidly rare to get like some of the second record materias, but the game doesn't demand much attention from you while you're farming those.
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I dunno you guys. Call me crazy, but I struggle to grasp the basic appeal of any game whose selling point is "you don't actually have to pay any attention to it."
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Its all about addiction and obsession. Gotta fill those bars bro. Like not everyone is gonna fall for it but there is a decently sized section of the populace who falls into these traps really easily and finds it difficult to get out. For instance, it took kind of a herculean effort for me to delete the app and then not reinstall ot as people kept talking about it in the games topic.
And yeah not everyone is gonna fall into it. Some people don't have the same issues with addiction. But saying "Pssh well I never had a problem with this game. I don't even see the appeal" while true for you yourself doesn't negate other people's experiences with the game.
Like, I smoke cigarettes occasionally and haven't gotten addicted for various reasons, and I don't see the appeal to smoking all day everyday. That's not gonna cancel out the fact that cigarettes are really fucking addictive and some people find it impossible to quit.
For the record, I agree there isn't much to the game itself. Maybe at higher levels, I won't ever know. But the hook isn't complex gameplay, it's all about habituating your play, making you worried about being inefficient with timebux, then getting you trapped in the skinner box and wrecking your sleep schedule to play something that amounts to straight up bullshit. It's horrible fucking outright predatory game design.
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Well that was heartstring pulling. Sad face.
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I found the very beginning of RK still interesting because I was getting used to the mechanics (including weapon forging for example), and then I got thrown into very interesting battles pretty fast.
I don't really play for the mindless parts. (Or so I'm telling myself??)
Timebux is a straight up evil, they could have easily multiplied max timebux by 3 or 4, but they want you constantly coming back. This leads to terrible things like the thread I linked to.
Otherwise the game's pretty fine, I think!
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I know those feelings. Got me a bit the first time I ran into a timebux game. Nowadays, it's pretty simple, when I notice something like this starting to take over, I make a point of slapping down the part of me that responds to that mechanic each time it pops up. Only takes a few times these days before the whole "the world will not end if I am not hyper efficient" thing sticks and it loses its hold. Still, it's telling that it does take a few goes despite knowing all this.
All things considered, it's probably a good thing this game is on a system I cannot access. It sounds like something that really plays to my biases, even if I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't lose sleep over it.
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Side note, I don't think Timebux is INHERENTLY evil. The way it's implemented in FFRK, and most mobile games? Absolutely. However, I spent a while playing Kingdom of Loathing, another Timebux game, but it's implemented entirely differently there. One, timebux only regenerate at the start of the day. Two, it takes like 5 days to hit max Timebux. Three, a day's worth of timebux takes like, an hour to complete even if you use the in game systems to generate more timebux (and that requires crafting). Overall, just in general the system of timebux seems to be there less to have you playing constantly and more so you don't blow through all the content in one go. There's still a habituation factor but it's not nearly so insidious.
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Pacing mechanics vs monetization mechanics.
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https://www.youtube.com/user/MTV?v=crjkQHnDYu0
Shannara getting a tv series. Looks pretty good, although being on MTV makes it a bit suspect.
Jesus. This is...a horrible idea. Shannara is probably the worst high-profile fantasy book I can think of. I got through part of the first book before I put it down (which I believe I have only done with 2 other fantasy books ever). It was the most boilerplate trope-laden book I have ever read. And bafflingly, I don't even think it's particularly popular or well liked (looking up long ass lists of recommended fantasy series or books, Shannara basically never appears).
As much as I hate it, they would have been wise as hell to go for Kingkiller Chronicles, which almost feels like it was perfectly written to be a TV series (not a complement). That would be an instant massive hit on the fandom alone (maybe they are holding out for movies there though).
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It's the mindlessness of FFRK that makes it work.
I'll contrast it to another timebux game, Puzzle and Dragons. In P&D, you attack by playing a match-3 puzzle game. So you always have to pay attention to the game to play it. That's fine for the most part. However there is a big wall of difficulty in P&D that can only be overcome by grinding. You can get through about 2/3rds of the game's content by getting better at match 3 and slowly assembling a stronger group of monsters. But for the last part of the game it not only matters what monsters you have on your team, you also have to "hypermax" them by feeding them a ton of + stat eggs and maxing out their skills. Getting those + stat eggs is horribly slow. Like the most efficient timebux to + egg dungeon gives you maybe 1 + egg every two times you run it. So you're going to be running this dungeon thousands of times to get what you need. You don't want to be playing match 3 constantly.
FFRK? Enter battle, hit Auto, watch youtube. There's stuff that's stupidly rare to get like some of the second record materias, but the game doesn't demand much attention from you while you're farming those.
I overall agree with this plus I'd take it a step further and say that I'd play with this app even if it didn't have battles at all and was just a free graphical team building app with FF characters because seriously I already spend a good portion of my week here doing the same mental exercises by way of forum.
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As a side comment, when I played through FE Awakening, I definitely remember times where I was thinking "bored, it's 2:30 AM, lemme check the barracks for free lootz". But you basically only had to check once a day to get maximum barracks farm. It is for the most part insignificant, although farming Celica's Gales is actually quite important for some of the endgame content (e.g. Apotheosis), although not a huge deal as you can also buy it off travelling SpotPass teams usually.
Dhyerwolf: Sword of Shannara is a "first book" from a lawyer writing in his spare time, so it's basically glorified fanfic that inexplicably got published and became popular. Brooks was very clearly learning the ropes in that book and also rips off LOTR hardcore.
My understanding is that the TV series will be based on Elfstones of Shannara, which is the best book in the series by a wide margin (book #2 of the original trilogy). Basically Brooks still has interesting ideas and isn't doing as much a remix of Tolkien, and while the writing is still not perfect, the prose is much better. (What they'll do if it's successful, I dunno, as later books will involve a mostly different cast of characters.) How he managed to grind Shannara into the ground with tons of more books later I'm not sure; Heritage (=books 4-7) has both some okay parts and some horrible parts, but the later books I have on good authority to be awful. So who knows.
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Oh god if Elfstones is the best I don't want to see the rest of the series.
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Well, it's good that it gets better (although from NEB's post, sounds like that better amounts to little). Still a horrible idea to base a TV show on a series with a bad first book and little in the way of critical acclaim when they certainly could have found something that might have a few more current fans.
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Shanarra is one of those titles that I suspect a lot of people just know and has that cultural penetration that most fantasy doesn't have. Toss in the nostalgia kick from all the people who read it when they were teens and now have more disposable income.
Granted, given that my own attempt to read a Shanarra book ended poorly, I'm kinda expecting this'll flop, and it'll be used as evidence that what we need is another superhero show.
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I definitely think you need to be 12-16 to really enjoy Shannara books. Was not nearly as good on re-read, and I don't mean as an adult, I mean re-read in high school or thereabouts.
But to be clear, I enjoyed 'em enough at the time to go through 'em all 3 times or so. Well, all of them that existed then. So clearly there was something compelling about them?! I distinctly remember being very gripped by a certain plotline in Heritage that I realized on re-read was in fact extremely stupid, so go figure. Anyway since the DL is obsessed with ranking things, from memory... Elfstones >> Elf Queen > Wishsong > Druid > Sword > Scions >> Talismans. (Clearly having the word "Elf" in the title helps or something.)
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I like Shannara decently. It's YA pulp at heart, and the first books are straight up ripoffs, but it's gotten a lot better as the series has kept trucking. There's a relatively big twist that only became explicit in the prequel trilogy; I'd guess this twist is what Snowfire's source believes makes the later books awful, but I think it makes them better. The setting is far future Earth, after multiple nuclear wars. "Magic" isn't really magic, there's a technological explanation for most of the magic-looking things and the supernatural metaplots map to feuds between some ancient AIs and factions. The surface plots remain stereotypical fantasy, but for older readers there's an increasingly visible subplot that plays more to the Fallout/sci-fi angle. It's still something of a gimmick, of course, but I find the layering quite enjoyable!
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And bafflingly, I don't even think it's particularly popular or well liked (looking up long ass lists of recommended fantasy series or books, Shannara basically never appears).
Never read it but I think it's one of the better-known series. Been around a long time, easy name recognition. Shannara being in the book titles is smart. Compared to say A Song of Ice and Fire, which I imagine 90% of the people who watch Game of Thrones would never have heard of.
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That's not an uncommon style of plot twist, but if you go that far, you need to be an excellent world planner or else it's literally the cheapest fantasy gimmick you can find.
I actually have logistic questions about that spoiler:
1. Is there even any implication or reference to the world as we would recognize it or is it just thrown in from out of nowhere? If you reread, would there be things you would miss the first time that would be blatantly obvious the second time?
2. Is there any true or cohesive attempt to create a scientific explanation that makes sense about how they world was able to change so much that upon initial review, there was literally nothing in common with Earth now?
3. Do any maps ever given resemble Earth in any manner?
If they answer to all these are "no" then it's a bad gimmick. I was trying to find a map for another book series that did this, but it was a semi-alternate Earth. It had a massive catastrophe several books in the making that re-arranged the world. At that point, the new map made it very clear that it was taking place in Europe (different names though) and if you looked at the earlier map, it was very obvious in retrospect (it was Europe turned on it's side and slightly different shapes, but still pretty clear). I think I can only find the after map though.
While Shannara has been around a while, I suspect that Snowfire's point that the prime age range is 12-16 (also MTV's main demo) actually makes that a negative because young fans (the people most likely able to stomach Shannara) will be reading something that is either current or popular.
I just hope that potential failure wouldn't be used an excuse to not develop other potential series. Mistborn would be a fantastic one to recreate (It's short, it's world is extremely unique and easy to imagine, has very well defined powers that would make a visual impact, and most importantly, it's awesome).
I would say that Legend of the Seeker turned out amazing but...Sword of Truth started out well enough and devolved into shit. There was definitely more to initially work.
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My recollection is that as far back as the first book there were some skyscraper-like ruins that prompted thirteen-year-old Cid to assume exactly that background, although I don't think it was followed up on much in any of the books I read (the first...seven, I believe, the ones that Snowfire listed, about most of which memory is entirely uninformative).
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After funding not-Megaman on Kickstarter, Ijafune's team has tried to fund not-Megaman Legends on Kickstarter and it's some kind of total marketing disaster.
I don't know how they've avoided bad publicity yet.
1) They try a kickstarter for a second game before releasing the first one to the public
2) Wait. It's not very clear, but there are actually TWO kickstarters. one for the game, and one for an anime tied to the game.
3) Wait, actually, if you read the stretch goals for the anime kickstarter, you'll see that you're only funding, and you'll only get, a 5 minutes anime episode. That thing will be slightly longer if stretch goals are reached, and there'll be an ending at the 2,4 millions stretchgoal (lol)
4) Oh, and you won't even get that 5 minutes episode if you pledge less than 24$
5) The game is PC only. If it reaches a stretch goal (unlikely) it's going to be released on a console. We don't know which console, I hope you have them all.
Exciting stretch goal.
6) WAIT WAIT you're not even getting the damn game by pledging for the game kickstarter!
The actualy game is divided in two parts, and you're only funding the smaller shorter part. Called "prologue".
If you pledge 25$ or more you get a "copy of the game" but that means only the prologue.
A new panic update has now stated that you can now get both parts of the game from the Kickstarter, but you need to pledge 79$ or more for that. Yep. Can't make that up. More than any game at launch.
So far it looks like both projects will be barely funded.
I'm not quite sure every backer realizes they're paying for a 5 minute anime / a PC only prologue of a game
I can't link to this because I work in marketing now and I don't want to get cursed
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1) They try a kickstarter for a second game before releasing the first one to the public
Not taking issue with the rest of what you said, but I have seen this particular bit of criticism levied before, and frankly it makes no sense. Mighty No. 9 is due out in a couple months and by all indications it's pretty much finished with development. This is the perfect time to be raising money for your next project: if you secure a new infusion of cash you can keep the people on staff that you need instead of suffering brain drain as they peel off between projects.
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Hmm, yeah, per Cid, that's not EXACTLY a spoiler, except for possibly the part where it's actually Earth wut. Didn't know that, actually, my distrust in books past the first 7 is based on hearsay, I didn't actually read them... although the fact that I eventually realized I disliked Talismans of Shannara fueled my lack of interest in seeing a continuation. My recollection is that there's the usual hypertech civilization that existed in the past but without magic but it got blow'd up, and Allanon hems & haws about there being some great cycle between magic & technology, and it's a plot point in Wishsong that the era is turning and all the magic would be dying out and an age of technology was to come (and that this is established early so isn't even really a spoiler).
Then in the Heritage books (Scions, etc.) 300 years later this is thrown in the garbage and his ghost says something like "magic leaving is horrible we need maaaaaaaaagic" which would be sort of acceptable in the sense that obviously the book series would be over, or at least very different, if they went with a low-magic world, except that the very plot in Heritage seems to contradict this (rogue magic turns people into Shadowen who are just evil 'cuz.) Unless they want to claim that mages would gather up all the rogue magic and prevent it from turning evil or something?! Who knows. (I'd have been happier with "some evil force is undoing all that wheel turning crap and bringing back EVIL MAGIC, we need to marshall up good magic to stop it" or something.)
Dhyer: The market worry doesn't seem necessarily true at all. The very point of all those 80s nostalgia remake movies is to drag adults into the seats due to nostalgia & kids because they're the target audience. "Transformers" or whatever certainly got current kids as well to watch it. Granted, sometimes the kids don't show up, but that's usually a sign of general failure (e.g. Speed Racer). To a lesser extent, the same with superhero movies... although superhero comics does seem afflicted by that problem, the main market that buys physical comic books seem to be hardcore adults who never outgrew it.
Also, a Mistborn TV series would be quite expensive to produce. Less big expansive royal processions than Game of Thrones, sure, but lots of intricate action scenes. You could do a very talky Mistborn but I think this would miss the point to a degree, I'd think the main selling point would be expensive fancy fight scenes. (Certainly the dialogue in the books is nothing special, even if the plot is decent.)
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Yeah Mistborn would definitely need the movie route rather than TV. It's all about the action scenes.
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EVO going on this weekend. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax top 8 was incredible; you'll want to watch that when it hits youtube. But in the meantime...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvLdmb3Fot4
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Regarding Mighty Number Legends (not a MathBlaster product brought to you by Elves), I wonder if this is the flip side to high profile Kickstarters? Is this a sign that they don't have either venture capital or a publisher in the wings using it as focus testing?
Marketing folly or not, is that how you try to crowd fund an honest to god Indie B-title with a large production studio?
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1) They try a kickstarter for a second game before releasing the first one to the public
Not taking issue with the rest of what you said, but I have seen this particular bit of criticism levied before, and frankly it makes no sense. Mighty No. 9 is due out in a couple months and by all indications it's pretty much finished with development. This is the perfect time to be raising money for your next project: if you secure a new infusion of cash you can keep the people on staff that you need instead of suffering brain drain as they peel off between projects.
This approach doesn't have the fan in mind though. (BTW I'm looking for a less condescending term than fan, but can only think of consumer, and that's even worse) The fan knows kickstarters often lead to failures, and he still hasn't seen how Inafune fared on his own kickstarter.
This is of course a problem when you're asking money from fans instead of the publisher.. You're asking for the fan to make a leap of faith twice (funding two games) before he's able to see any result. So you get less fans backing the project, less money, etc etc.
Inafune's studio has already made another project (Azure Striker Gunvolt on 3DS) without Kickstarter, after not-Megaman's kickstarter, and it was a success sales wise.
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Umm...from the perspective of the game developer...
If you don't get funding for your next project BEFORE your previous project ends, then you need to fire a lot of your workers. Yeah, sometimes if you're lucky you can hire them back a few months later, but not always. If he's making a kickstarter now, it's because he likes the Mighty No. 9 team and wants to hang on to the talent (and or is a decent human being and doesn't want to leave them unemployed for 2 months).
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EVO going on this weekend. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax top 8 was incredible; you'll want to watch that when it hits youtube. But in the meantime...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvLdmb3Fot4
Never listen to the crowd. Always lame it out.
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Umm...from the perspective of the game developer...
If you don't get funding for your next project BEFORE your previous project ends, then you need to fire a lot of your workers. Yeah, sometimes if you're lucky you can hire them back a few months later, but not always. If he's making a kickstarter now, it's because he likes the Mighty No. 9 team and wants to hang on to the talent (and or is a decent human being and doesn't want to leave them unemployed for 2 months).
Unfortunately, if GG has taught us anything, it's that 'gamers' don't know fucking anything about how making games works and believe companies exist solely to cater to their whims. So while this move makes complete sense from a financial and development perspective, its nature as dependent upon the masses means it's kinda destined to fail. People are too short-sighted and ignorant for it not to.
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MC, yes.
Which is why they should have done another game like Azure Striker Gunvolt instead of another kickstarter right away.
I wouldn't blame it on gamer entitlement if people don't want to pay for two games in advance without seeing any results. Especially if they dropped big bucks on MM9, and especially considering how dubious everything regarding this kickstarter is.
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See Fenrir. This is not a case of gamers being stupid and ignorant, this is a case of gamers being smart. If Mighty No. 9 is shit, then you shouldn't *want* to fund another project. If the project really is that amazing then find a publisher willing to tide the team over with money for awhile working on something else, or even just privately buying into Mighty Legends such that when they kickstart it they already have an alpha prototype ready to demo?
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I wouldn't blame it on gamer entitlement
It just means you aren't cynical enough.
Now this is a rare time where said sentiments happen to overlap with a reasonable, or at least sympathetic, reason. But even if Fenrir's suggestion were used the result would be the same. We're talking about a culture that organizes boycotts of companies for releasing DLC content purely because most of said content was technically on the disc.
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This is games we're talking about, not like taxes for infrastructure. Kickstarter is asking you to pay for something sight unseen. There is absolutely 0 obligation to fund kickstarters and if kickstarters fail that is no big deal, it doesn't mean that a bridge is going to collapse or something. The burden is on the developers to make their case, not on gamers to dance to their every whim with cash money, and it's the developers who are entitled if they think they are somehow "owed" automatic allegiance. The worst case scenario is that a potentially neat game never gets produced. Oh noez.
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Okay that's a pretty tone deaf response.
Why doesn't Inafune, the main dude behind Megaman and Megaman Legends want to go to a publisher with his own IP that he has complete creative control over and is no longer held completely at the whims of a publisher just go to a publisher for funding? Probably the last decade and a half of Mega Man games and the entirety of Megaman Legends 3 development.
There is a reason these guys went independent.
That said, the kickstarter is wayyyyyyy more tone deaf.
Put up a kickstarter for episodic game and don't make it clear that people are backing just the first part of it? After the negative backlash of Broken Age? That is very brave.
I think it is the studio puts a lot of faith in its fans (based on the fan response to MM Legends 3 at the time, MN9 more recently) and not necessarily realising how distant from the realities of development most fans are and that they aren't working in a vacuum in Kickstarter.
Something at 50% of the base goal at 15 days isn't really in good shape for something like that, I think most of them get the majority of their funding in the first week or so?
I definitely don't think this is anything close to what you are saying there though Snowfire. Kickstarters are allowed to go up and fail, holy shit they aren't holding anyone at knife point. They are going "Do you want to fund this" people are saying "No". Start claiming entitlement when Inafune loses his shit at his fans for betraying him, not when they post the kickstarter.
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Yes, of course. Let's start over though.
Comcept has made a number of foolish decisions which makes its new project less appealing. This overlaps with consumer psychology which says that someone who hasn't delivered a salable product from one campaign hasn't earned the trust to work on another one. (Despite having a few other complete projects to look at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcept) but let's set that aside for now, those were co-productions, not Comcept as the main player).
This however is a broken clock scenario. While the timing is sound, it is still true that Comcept is asking its funders for a larger leap of faith than they realize and the status of the Kickstarter reflects this. However, gamer entitlement has still made a mark on the project despite not being the larger issue at hand here. A product is being offered which is a stepping stone towards something people claim they'd pay almost anything for. But it's not exactly when they want it, and being delivered incrementally, so they are suddenly gunshy. Gamers are notoriously entitled, shitty, and stingy, making it a poor market to invest in through normal channels, so funding for them outside the existing studio system is scarce, hence the recurring use of kickstarter for the purpose.
Interesting games rarely exist. This is because gamers are terrible people who aren't willing to support interesting games. Gamers have made their industry the shambling shitshow headed towards collapse that it is, and complain about the stumbling blocks of those trying to grow a new one under it, blacklisting them before they have a chance to correct those errors.
It's not that people are unreasonable to be skeptical here. I'm just saddened they are because we need companies like this to grow and it's looking like that's just not going to happen.
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Grefter: Oh, I don't think that of Inafune at all. I was responding more to CK's stance of "gamers are immature whiners if they don't fund my favorite developers" (paraphrased, yes). If Inafune actually adopted such a stance, it'd apply, but I doubt he did. And it's not even exactly a mistake! If Inafune wants to gamble on running the Kickstarter early so he can keep his team together per mc, more power to him. But if that Kickstarter fails, it is no way an indictment of "entitled gamers."
CK: I too would approve of independent auteurs able to go their own way, but I also don't think the success or failure of Mighty Legends will mean much on whether this happens or not. What is Mega Man Legends? I have never played it and never heard anyone particularly care about it. This is a weird niche thing that I'd expect to get less hype and less automatic funding than "remake MegaMan" or "remake SOTN", so the fact it did get less funding is totally expected.
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I was responding more to CK's stance of "gamers are immature whiners". Everything is an indictment of "entitled gamers." Gamers are basically as bad as you can be without physically assaulting someone.
I felt compelled to correct these parts.
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It was a 3D MegaMan series with 2 games in it (Is the origin of some lame character that Snow loves so clearly it is boring and lame for lamers).
The choice parts of the Wiki article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_Legends_3) on it are.
Detailed information about the game was announced at the New York Comic Con in October 2010.[5] On July 18, 2011, Capcom officially announced the game had been cancelled.
While Capcom was developing the game, several aspects from the game such as the new heroine Aero, a mech and Mega Man's design were chosen by fans as Capcom invited fans to send their designs in their official Mega Man Legends 3 website.[9][10][11]
Although Inafune left Capcom in November 2010, the team working for Mega Man Legends 3 stated that the game would continue development.[12] Capcom intended to release Mega Man Legends 3: Prototype Version in 2011 for the 3DS eShop, featuring 10 missions, and Barrett as playable character.[13] The Prototype Version was going to act as a prologue to the forthcoming main game.[14]
With the real killer being
On Twitter, Capcom Europe blamed lack of fan support for the game not being released, despite 20,000 more people than what was needed signing the petition.
Absolutely none of this is happening without history. Fan engagement has been very high from Inafune and his team, so the move isn't really out of left field for him. There is veeeeery strong reasons for not wanting a publisher near his toys ever again though.
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I was responding more to CK's stance of "gamers are immature whiners". Everything is an indictment of "entitled gamers." Gamers are basically as bad as you can be without physically assaulting someone.
I felt compelled to correct these parts.
(http://www.lighthold.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/solution.png)
Anyhow, yeah, Irafune's gotten it rough from publishers.
Honestly, the big problem just sounds like it ran into one of the more common Kickstarter issues, where information is just not clearly disseminated to backers. I don't think launching another project pre-launch of your first is bad (see Met, you should have enough info out there for folks to judge your performance anyway), but being unclear is very, very bad with Kickstarter.
EDIT
Right, forgot about this. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/all-street-fighter-5-dlc-will-be-free-if-youre-wil/1100-6429002/?utm_source=gamefaqs&utm_medium=partner&utm_content=news_module&utm_campaign=homepage
Might we finally be seeing a fighting game with the intention of a longer, more continuous lifespan? Mebbe! Am curious about what sort of pricing structure they'll be using.
Also, no fucking mercy at EVO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLeE5qPuXgM&feature=youtu.be&t=10
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Anyhow, yeah, Irafune's gotten it rough from publishers.
Thinking on it, the best move would have been to begin development on the game and announce the KS right after MN9 drops. Maybe they couldn't secure funding to do even that without doing a KS to appease their creditors.
Might we finally be seeing a fighting game with the intention of a longer, more continuous lifespan? Mebbe! Am curious about what sort of pricing structure they'll be using.
Kinda weird sentiment seeing how SF4 lasted forever in game years. More continuous, sure. Longer? Doubtful.
As for pricing structure...it's quite the mystery. I can see two paths forward. First: Capcom releases updated versions every year or so, priced at $60, and including all DLC to date, and never offers vanilla after the first iteration. This keeps their promise that one disc is all you need but allows them to continue to justify demanding premium pricing. Second: Capcom never releases versions that have any DLC, so the urge to pay up rises with the roster of unlockable characters. Either way I see a lot of paid DLC hats for sale in SF's future.
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I would kiiiiiind of expect something of $60 for the base game then discounted DLC as you go forward (MMOs do this a lot as they age).
So maybe every year (or 18 months?) you get a new "Official" box release that comes with a pack of (a selection?) of the old content is one that fits in most with other existing business models I can think of.
Complete with the new official box release having collectors editions that people shell out for even though they own the original.
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Also, no fucking mercy at EVO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLeE5qPuXgM&feature=youtu.be&t=10
But he won America's hearts.
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Also, no fucking mercy at EVO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLeE5qPuXgM&feature=youtu.be&t=10
But he won America's hearts.
Didn't win EVO though.
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I was responding more to CK's stance of "gamers are immature whiners". Everything is an indictment of "entitled gamers." Gamers are basically as bad as you can be without physically assaulting someone.
I felt compelled to correct these parts.
It's okay. Gamers tend to stereotype based on labels. Everyone who generalizes based on labels is an asshole.
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But he won America's hearts.
Didn't win EVO though.
Neither did the Americans!
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It's okay. Gamers tend to stereotype based on labels. Everyone who generalizes based on labels is an asshole.
D'ya know, I TRY to tell people I'm an asshole and nobody ever believes me? Fuckin' optimists man.
So I'm not sure if I actually want to real-talk this. It seems a bit much. But. In the past year I've come to feel that the culture around gamers, as a group, is unsalvageably toxic. That the mechanisms in play are self-reinforcing towards bigoted behavior and entitlement. And so the only Solution, then, is to destroy the culture and build anew. I can't really call myself a gamer anymore in good conscience, and hope others come to the same conclusion.
And it's amazingly hypocritical of me because at the same time I know that the sorts of games I enjoy can't really exist with the emerging sub-subculture of games. So I buy games from companies that ultimately are going to fail and lament their loss even while simultaneously believing that their loss is necessary for a culture I used to claim to become something healthy and worthwhile.
And yes this is the shit I think about when chat is too quiet and I get bored in the wee hours. Gotta hate yourself thoroughly.
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It's okay. Gamers tend to stereotype based on labels. Everyone who generalizes based on labels is an asshole.
D'ya know, I TRY to tell people I'm an asshole and nobody ever believes me? Fuckin' optimists man.
So I'm not sure if I actually want to real-talk this. It seems a bit much. But. In the past year I've come to feel that the culture around gamers, as a group, is unsalvageably toxic. That the mechanisms in play are self-reinforcing towards bigoted behavior and entitlement. And so the only Solution, then, is to destroy the culture and build anew. I can't really call myself a gamer anymore in good conscience, and hope others come to the same conclusion.
And it's amazingly hypocritical of me because at the same time I know that the sorts of games I enjoy can't really exist with the emerging sub-subculture of games. So I buy games from companies that ultimately are going to fail and lament their loss even while simultaneously believing that their loss is necessary for a culture I used to claim to become something healthy and worthwhile.
And yes this is the shit I think about when chat is too quiet and I get bored in the wee hours. Gotta hate yourself thoroughly.
You're well on your path to supervillainry there.
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Stop watching so much hentai Cmdr king
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But he won America's hearts.
Didn't win EVO though.
Neither did the Americans!
There were like 20 games at EVO. Surely the Americans won one of them...right? ......right?
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They won Mortal Kombat. Barely. Over a British guy. I think you have to be like 60 years old just to purchase Mortal Kombat in Britain.
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I actually have logistic questions about that spoiler:
1. Is there even any implication or reference to the world as we would recognize it or is it just thrown in from out of nowhere? If you reread, would there be things you would miss the first time that would be blatantly obvious the second time?
2. Is there any true or cohesive attempt to create a scientific explanation that makes sense about how they world was able to change so much that upon initial review, there was literally nothing in common with Earth now?
3. Do any maps ever given resemble Earth in any manner?
Late responses due to EVO madness, re: Shannara:
1. Yes, there are skyscraper-like ruins and talk about horseless carriages and such in every book. It comes off as "lost generic hypertech civilization" at first, but a few trilogies in there is a prequel that is actually set in modern Earth just as the wars are breaking out. Rereads make a lot of the references easier to spot.
2. Not really. "War happened, nuclear, chemical and biological WMDs were used."
3. Yes, the main area of the series is the American/Canadian Pacific Northwest. It gets more obvious as the maps zoom out in later books, but even in the first book you can verify it by the river and lake layouts.
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Persona 4 top 8:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hscblqsOydQ
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http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/07/study-online-gaming-losers-are-more-likely-to-harass-women/
Study demonstrates, in a limited context, that male FPS players treat female players worse depending how bad the male players are. Should be interesting to see what comes out of this.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmMnJdDDoDM
My favorite match this EVO: Woshige vs. Nakamura, Xrd Millia mirror match
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http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/07/study-online-gaming-losers-are-more-likely-to-harass-women/
Study demonstrates, in a limited context, that male FPS players treat female players worse depending how bad the male players are. Should be interesting to see what comes out of this.
As a longtime LoL player, kinda surprised to see that the effect was not at least partially mirrored across genders. Wonder if voice chat makes actual differences (re: perception of being able to be hostile).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmMnJdDDoDM
My favorite match this EVO: Woshige vs. Nakamura, Xrd Millia mirror match
God that match is so much fun to watch.
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They won Mortal Kombat. Barely. Over a British guy. I think you have to be like 60 years old just to purchase Mortal Kombat in Britain.
America won Smash 4, the only game that matters.
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Smash 4 was decided before the tournament began, dude has won 41 straight tournaments. I watched the Smash 4 Top 16, and it was horrible. Didn't bother watching Top 8 for that or Melee. Can safely say custom moves won't be back next year.
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I didn't watch, what happened with custom moves?
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http://www.twitch.tv/srkevo1/v/7919999
Can start watching at the 20 minute mark. This wasn't the only example, but basically there's massive amounts of stalling/timeouts.
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http://www.twitch.tv/srkevo1/v/7919999
Can start watching at the 20 minute mark. This wasn't the only example, but basically there's massive amounts of stalling/timeouts.
Holy crap that match was agonizing. But I'm also not a huge fan of Smash, so the bias may be there. >_>
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http://www.undertale.com/
Toby "Radiation" Fox (one of the main contributors to the MSPaintAdventures sound team) made a pretty interesting game here. Very clearly Earthbound inspired, pretty clever. The battle system makes you go through bullet hell attacks from the enemies to not take damage, and that's not even the most interesting thing about the game. The Demo's only an hour long, I highly recommend checking it out.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IptvSQY9Qa8
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IptvSQY9Qa8
Cute. But apparently when they say "Every JRPG Ever" they just mean "Final Fantasy IV and VII"...
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And IX. I thought Not!Balmafula was a pretty clear nod to Kuja.
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Eh, can't forget the Chrono Trigger vibes when the mom wakes the guy up so he can go to the generic festival of plot importance.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IptvSQY9Qa8
Cute. But apparently when they say "Every JRPG Ever" they just mean "Final Fantasy IV and VII"...
There's quite a bit of VI and CT in there too, yo. 1000 years ago magic died etc. + Not-Balmafula = Kefka for 6, and CT is basically everywhere. Secret Tomboy Princess and Fighting an "Actual Goddamn Dinosaur"? That's basically all I remember about CT.
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I got a distinct Xenogears vibe from An Actual Goddamned Dinosaur myself. I'd be willing to say it's pretty true up until about the PS2 era. At that point oddball shit like Star Ocean or Shadow Hearts was the norm more, and classic NES-styled plots the exception.
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The music cues are all over the place too. One of the songs was clearly Legend of Legaia.
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https://www.humblebundle.com/books
want to call attention to this bundle. To Be or Not To Be is absolutely great, and everyone should own it.
To Be or Not To Be is the choose-your-own-path version of Hamlet, written by Ryan North (Marvel Comics, Adventure Time, Dinosaur Comics), William Shakespeare (Macbeth, Cymbeline, Hamlet too I guess), and you (all sorts of stuff!)
You can play as Hamlet, Ophelia, or Hamlet's Dad, but if you choose him you die on the first page and have to play as a ghost investigating your own murder. It features over 100 different endings, each illustrated by one of the greatest artists working today, including Kate Beaton (Hark! A Vagrant), Andrew Hussie (MS Paint Adventures), and Noelle Stevenson (Nimona).
If you want to stick to Shakespeare's original plot, helpful Yorick skulls mark the choices Shakespeare took. But why would you want to do that? Especially when, instead of a play-within-a-play, there's a choose-your-own-path book within a choose-your-own-path book.
To be or not to be: that is the adventure.
Anyway for folks going to DLCon I'll be bringing a hard copy we can read and it will be Fun Times.
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Good taste
I have bought it three times. Ebook, physical book, steam version.
No regrets
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https://www.humblebundle.com/books
want to call attention to this bundle. To Be or Not To Be is absolutely great, and everyone should own it.
To Be or Not To Be is the choose-your-own-path version of Hamlet, written by Ryan North (Marvel Comics, Adventure Time, Dinosaur Comics), William Shakespeare (Macbeth, Cymbeline, Hamlet too I guess), and you (all sorts of stuff!)
You can play as Hamlet, Ophelia, or Hamlet's Dad, but if you choose him you die on the first page and have to play as a ghost investigating your own murder. It features over 100 different endings, each illustrated by one of the greatest artists working today, including Kate Beaton (Hark! A Vagrant), Andrew Hussie (MS Paint Adventures), and Noelle Stevenson (Nimona).
If you want to stick to Shakespeare's original plot, helpful Yorick skulls mark the choices Shakespeare took. But why would you want to do that? Especially when, instead of a play-within-a-play, there's a choose-your-own-path book within a choose-your-own-path book.
To be or not to be: that is the adventure.
Anyway for folks going to DLCon I'll be bringing a hard copy we can read and it will be Fun Times.
Yeaaaaaaaaaah I am all over this. Ryan North/Andrew Hussie/Kate Beaton collaboration? aw yiss
Going through the other books included in the bundle, I've read samples of Ava's Demon and Mother Russia, and both impressed me quite a bit.
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Some of the best stuff in there is just following the true path and reading Hamlet as editorialized by Ryan North.
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I played it a little a couple months back when Fenrir gifted it to me on Steam. Hamlet played a lot of solitaire. If I keep this up people might say my fatal character flaw is indecisiveness.
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https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/10-billion-wives/id969657566?mt=8
Rule 34(b): there is waifu of it
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At first I downloaded the game as just a time killer, but as I've gotten deeper into I've developed a connection with my various waifus (TsundereWife is my favorite, but don't tell the others.) I plan to spend the rest of my days collecting thousands of millions of billions of waifus so that I'll be able to spread my love all around.
Okay, yes, Timebux is evil. This has solidified my view on the matter.
And dear god, it gets worse. There's recommended apps! Check out "Kingdom of Procreation" "Conquer the world by having children! Strategic Upbringing Simulation."
...I need a shower.
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Make sure you use something more viscous than water otherwise you will still get chafing.
sick fuck
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They won Mortal Kombat. Barely. Over a British guy. I think you have to be like 60 years old just to purchase Mortal Kombat in Britain.
America won Smash 4, the only game that matters.
*checks*
uhhh...Zero is from Chile. Currently living in California for training purposes, but I don't think he would call himself an American.
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WE'LL TAKE 'IM!
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They won Mortal Kombat. Barely. Over a British guy. I think you have to be like 60 years old just to purchase Mortal Kombat in Britain.
America won Smash 4, the only game that matters.
*checks*
uhhh...Zero is from Chile. Currently living in California for training purposes, but I don't think he would call himself an American.
...I HAVE BEEN MISLED!! LIES! SLANDER!
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New Castlevania!!
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1086813
Is way worse than FE x SMT
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We need to work out the import cost of a Pachinko machine to France now?
Erotic Violence.
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New Castlevania!!
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1086813
Is way worse than FE x SMT
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Omg
This is totally par for the course for pachinko parlors though
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http://textsfromffxiii.tumblr.com
Friendly reminder that this exists and is the best thing.
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A: JFC Konami
B: Texts from FF13 looks brilliant.
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So...there's a new Tri-Ace thing, that is vaguely Valkyrie Profile ish. Except with a dude main character so not as cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY76h0TiKNk
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Damnit tri-Ace stop making me want to buy a PS4.
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Except with a dude main character so not as cool.
the misandry
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The art direction is such a step down from VP
Re: Castlevania EROTIC VIOLENCE
we get Silent Hill Crazy Eyeballs And Meat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=91&v=QC7do_mC_mU
You might wonder what's their long term plan if they're just making pachinko machines reminiscent of games they made 20 years ago, but Konami's now pretty much soulless and dead:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-08-03-new-article-on-konami-paints-a-bleak-picture
Castlevania / Metal Gear Solid / Suikoden / Silent Hill are over, RIP
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wow more than that their treatment of employees is outright abhorrent
what a fucking terrible company konami has become
EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50kxLqYk4Io&feature=youtu.be
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It sucks to see one of the best game publishers of the past 30 years reduced to this, especially since yeah it is likely the nail in Suikoden's coffin.
But yeah, fuck 'em.
VP-with-serial-numbers-filed-off looks interesting for sure, though agreed with Fenrir that the art direction is a step down. Not a fan of those character models at all.
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VP-with-serial-numbers-filed-off looks interesting for sure, though agreed with Fenrir that the art direction is a step down. Not a fan of those character models at all.
Agreed. Oddly ugly little game.
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The chibikid designs are very un-Cid. Tri-Ace needs to just make VP: Hrist already so I can die fulfilled.
And I thought Suikoden was already dead anyway?
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Perhaps I should have said the final nail in Suikoden's coffin. But I am a foolish optimist and hold out hope.
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The article says development on the series has stopped so they're not even going to release a Suikoden patchinko machine with a 108 combo multiplier.
Anyway: Omega Labybrinth for the PS Vita. It was just announced.
Here is the logo:
(http://www.d3p.co.jp/omegalabyrinth/img/logo.png)
Here are the details on the website: "Embark on a chest-expanding adventure. A new roguelike RPG of wondrous chest sizes begins.”
Now if they could just make the same game except with dicks
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__-NKgcRM2c&feature=youtu.be
Presented and left here without comment.
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Here are the details on the website: "Embark on a chest-expanding adventure. A new roguelike RPG of wondrous chest sizes begins.”
Damnit D3 stop making me want to buy a PS Vita.
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Rule of 3s trying to engage. =(
Takashi Amano dead from pneumonia. Basically THE aquascaping guy.
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=6841
If you're interested in seeing some of his work: http://www.adana-usa.com/index.php?main_page=album&album_id=82 Absolutely beautiful tanks.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__-NKgcRM2c&feature=youtu.be
Presented and left here without comment.
Comment: Asian children training to become the Four Fiends? That dance is certainly evil enough to qualify.
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So...there's a new Tri-Ace thing, that is vaguely Valkyrie Profile ish. Except with a dude main character so not as cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY76h0TiKNk
For a game that is supposed to be a romp through a hell dimension (right Niu?), this looks oddly...cheery. I know Niu said it was colorful, but I definitely was not expecting this. I also wasn't expecting much from the character models because they are Japanese High School Students, which generally is pretty limiting.
Niu said that instead of sending characters to Valhalla, you send them back to Japan to escape the hell dimension.
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That is hardly escaping the Hell Dimension at all. ???
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIOQNJMUtos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIOQNJMUtos)
So, some folks took some Anne Theriault tweets and made a hilarious nature mockumentry out of them.
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http://contest.gamedevfort.com/submission/662#.VcUjRyZVikq
One of my friends IRL helped develop this game for an Indie Game Maker contest. If anyone could throw him a vote to help them win it would be great. I'm going to try out the game whenever I have the chance. :p It only takes like five seconds to make an account.
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So, this Canadian federal election, vote for the candidate that will fist bump aliens, slay dragons, and stand on guard for thee with his laser eye beam. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG6fhub9HDQ)
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Is that robot supposed to be Stephen Harper because the answer to that question should be yes
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"These robots are almost as human as you, Steve."
And man this makes me wish I lived in northern Abbotsford just so I could vote for this guy. (Wait, no, not really.)
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http://www.vice.com/read/the-tale-of-the-final-fantasy-vii-house-is-a-window-into-the-dark-side-of-cosplay-529 (http://www.vice.com/read/the-tale-of-the-final-fantasy-vii-house-is-a-window-into-the-dark-side-of-cosplay-529)
Vice's super timely news report on a thing from a decade ago. A couple of the people in this article wrote about their experiences with this bunch of crazies on Something Awful a few years ago but I'd never seen photos of the place before.
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http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/15/technology/amazon-new-york-times/index.html Brief article on working conditions in Amazon. I've known a few people who work for the company and they all have told me similar horror stories.
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"Because of yearly culling of low-performers, employees reportedly learn to make informal pacts to collectively leave negative critiques of certain coworkers and positive feedback of each other."
So basically Amazon = Vault 11.
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Link to the actual article at least if you're gonna do it. It's a doozy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html
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“Organizations are turning up the dial, pushing their teams to do more for less money, either to keep up with the competition or just stay ahead of the executioner’s blade,” said Clay Parker Jones, a consultant who helps old-line businesses become more responsive to change.
*twitch*
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The Life of a Mediocre Monster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGHTMH3Z2s
Just something cute with a catchy tune.
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You know a trend is officially over when it arrives at Wal-Mart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIxA8GqFLN0
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Low is only 7 years old. Featuring fucking T-Pain. That cultural relevance.
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Konami is setting up a trap for ideas for their next pachinko game. Suikoden is on the list. Don't you want to see Suikoden pachinko?
http://mobilesurvey.blicx.com/?
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I kinda assume that's what this is all about too but the thrust of the questions about gameplay and such doesn't really follow that. Also it's in English and why would Konami care what we think if they're doing something exclusve to Japan?
Nah, it's probably iphone games.
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http://gawker.com/meet-the-innocent-bro-who-became-the-face-of-josh-dugga-1726006095
Apparently this guy keeps getting images of him stolen and repurposed because he comes up when folks search "radnom guy" on Google. Definition of irony.
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Tales of Game's is 1,5 years behind their estimated release date of Barkley 2 Gaiden for late 2013.
So they release this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsneVykvjlU
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https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/3igbnt/world_of_warcraft_loses_44_of_its_entire/
Reddit, etc. Still, I'm finding the discussion fairly interesting and a really, really, really compelling argument for the horrifying effectiveness of Skinner Box design.
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Yep. Game is straight up still at the best of its design and balance it has ever been.
In that thread watch people complain about having to log in every day to do Garrisons that take 30 minutes of your time. Now know that to do the "optimal" equivalent back in the peak of subscribers (the final raid of Wrath of the Liche King) you had to do a group dungeon every single day and do the same Raid in 10 man and 25 man modes.
This was right after the patch where you had to do the same thing for Dungeons but do the same raid in 19 and 25 man on both Normal and Heroic difficulty AND do the previous tier dungeon 25 man for RNG chances at legendary for your healers.
G.R.I.N.D.
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This post in particular intrigued me.
"It's the game. One hundred percent the game. Just compare each experience in vanilla wow to modern wow. Getting to level 20 in vanilla. An achievement, it took you a while and you accomplished something. Getting to level 20 in modern? A chore that takes 30 minutes. Finding a green item in vanilla? Oh wow man, a magic weapon! Modern? Oh, loot trash, my quest reward from 2 levels ago is better than this. And if it's not, I'll be able to replace it in 5minutes. Dungeons? Vanilla, it was actually difficult. Tedious, yes, but still difficult and you were rewarded for it. Your reward for dungeons in modern? You get exp for almost no effort. and You barely even talk to your group. That's the issue. Rewards. The leveling in vanilla was it's own reward. You were proud of getting your first mount, You were proud of your first shoulder armor, you were proud that you put in 3 hours of your time to finish this dungeon and you got this kick ass armor. There is none of that in wow now. I mean, just look at raiding. I can complete the end game content, what is supposed to be what wow is all about now, in 2 hours. I just have to wait for LFR to release it in a bit."
Like. I actually do get it. It makes sense. And that horrifies me at a level. Raw time investment should never be the core source of achievemnt.
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Pretty much everything they're saying in that thread has happened in Perfect World also. Used to be getting a legendary mold drop was so amazing, now you'd be laughed at for wearing legendary gear. The leveling process is super-streamlined so that you can get to 100+ and get to the "real" content of the game. Dailies are basically cut in half because you can autocomplete one after finishing another.
So it's become a stand around and socialize game.
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Like. I actually do get it. It makes sense. And that horrifies me at a level. Raw time investment should never be the core source of achievemnt.
I agree with your reaction to this guy but I think vanilla WoW benefited from the slower pace as well. My fondest memories of WoW are all about exploring, bumbling around, occasionally stumbling into an area over my level, getting to know the geography around major cities, finally exploring that area I would always fly over, etc. I'm not here to defend level progression in the game - it was too slow. But there is such a thing as progression that is too fast, and I kinda suspect modern WoW is afflicted by it.
I read a great retrospective on Dark Souls on I think Kotaku of all places that talked about difficulty as a method of communication. I think the same can be said for gating away content or enforcing a slow progression. To me, it is fine that a game creates a sense of accomplishment by preventing you from doing something until you meet some prerequisites, then allowing it to be done, perhaps with some fanfare. What really determines whether you have wasted time is if you look back and say "this was a waste of time." WoW wastes your time, but it's not because it gates stuff off. It's because - even if you stop and smell the roses - you have to grind to get there. Play Super Metroid. Is the time you spend up until you get Screw Attack a waste of time? Of course not. Play MK. Is the time you spend without being able to switch in party members a waste of time? Sure is.
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MapleStory was the opposite. It's not what they ADDED to it that made it more convenient, it's what they took away. They just cut the exp curve by like 1/2 to 3/4. Which on its own is great! But to go along with it they added massive, rapidly-increasing power creep, which kept screwing up the in-game economy because when people can hit Level 200 in like 2 months and solo Horntail, most of the ways people made Meso outside of Merch Shops were gone. Only people who spent a lot of money could consistently keep up with the power curve because the best scrolls were Gacha-only, whereas when I stopped playing I spent maybe 15 bucks every 3 months to re-up my pet for drops and motions, and a shop and because I was dedicated to boss-running with my guild, had pretty balls-out equipment for my level and for the time- and could keep it that way.
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That's the thing though Jim, it is a massive false equivalence.
WoW progression isn't any faster than it used to be, just the vector for "progression" is different. Level isn't the majority of progression any more, it is all in loot and side benefits. It still takes a long fucking time to get there. Some of it is more gated by real time rather than grind though. It rewards playing for months at a time, not for playing 400 hours a month (for months at a time).
The really fucking stupid part is that the game hasn't been that way since fucking Vanilla, BC had end game be the majority of the content too. Time from 60-70 was literally worthless. So this mystical wonderful period of the game that this bullshit was like 2 and a half years, 7 years ago.
Heaven forbid subscription based games realise they only need to occupy your time enough to justify resubbing each month and not that they need to be literally the only thing you do with your entire fucking life.
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That's the thing though Jim, it is a massive false equivalence.
WoW progression isn't any faster than it used to be, just the vector for "progression" is different.
Yeah, I get that. I was originally going to post something to that effect but it didn't really match my own experience playing WoW - where the journey really was the destination. Fast new WoW leveling makes the game particularly unappealing to me, because what I like the most out of MMOs is seeing how the world has been cobbled together. Jumping from dungeon to dungeon with specific objectives ain't my cup of tea.
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Yeah that's pretty fair. WoW style is commonly called "Theme Park MMO" for exactly that thing that you describe, bits and pieces of everything everywhere, spend the day, travel around!
That is wayyyyyy more informed opinion and choice in a game than "IT DOESN'T HAVE LEVEL TREADMILL IT SUXXXXX"
That said, did you ever check out Guild Wars 2? If you want to get trapped again it hits that itch pretty good.
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Oh right. Don't normally do this, but: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/level99games/battlecon-online-the-fighting-card-game-now-online
For fans of Yomi, BattleCon is the OTHER major fighting game as a card game game. I've only played a little bit, but honestly, I think I like it better? Balance is obviously worse, but the addition of spacing/movement as well as a much more variable cast of characters with some seriously bizzarre abilities makes for good spectacle. Already funded, so mostly just throwing out for interest. Hoping it works well!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbDSvRMc9rQ
Be right back, gotta go preorder Street Fighter V.
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I can't tell if you're excited because I know you like Grapple characters in fighting games, or if it's all that ass slap.
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That costume must look really weird on a hanger but even fucking weirder when you are putting it on.
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That said, did you ever check out Guild Wars 2? If you want to get trapped again it hits that itch pretty good.
I've got plenty of single-player games in my queue to hit that sweet spot, and they never try to guilt me into a committed relationship.
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I can't tell if you're excited because I know you like Grapple characters in fighting games, or if it's all that ass slap.
Why not both?
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The honest answer. Therefor the best answer.
I feel like a Frankensteiner is out of character. Like, designed for a smaller frame
EDIT
Additionally, I kind of wish the few good Arika characters would show up somewhere.
Sure, dude is basically Balrog cosplaying as Jeigan but listen to this fucking track
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcSaFw2D09g
Anything to get that shit in a game again.
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I know a very narrow band of people care, but whatever.
The greatest pentakill in LoL ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbile-gFS0A&feature=youtu.be
Seriously. I've seen "kill steals" in the past, but I have never seen an entire penta stolen.
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Amazon Underground. (http://www.amazon.com/underground)
This is an interesting step toward eliminating the scourge that is F2P.
As someone working on the publishing side of mobile game development, I feel ambivalent. I would very, very much like for the F2P model to die in a fire. Unfortunately, it currently makes us a hell of a lot of money. That's why we keep making them.
Because Amazon is paying per minute used, this is changing the scope of what games are developed for. Future games might be put together with this model in mind, but the current games are not. We all want to make games where the person wants to keep coming back and playing more, but the average usage of a user is way less than the average revenue per user. Considering they're paying something like $0.002 per minute per user, it takes a lot of users and a lot of play time to get closed to revenue from IAP.
That in mind, developing a game with an eye toward length of session versus value of IAP to speed up the game, is very, very risky unless this model proves ridiculously successful. The Amazon marketplace for apps is SO very much smaller than that of Android or iOS, too, meaning we can't bank on volume so much as length of session. That means that we are still going to have to make games with the F2P IAP and ad-supported models just to make money. Nothing will have changed.
In short: making games optimized for play session length and amount of dollars spent per user is hard, and the first is a financial risk, so I don't see F2P budging.
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Hmmmm, I am not sure what the long term strategy is. Like right now it is just like other Amazon thing where it is a way to get you into their ecosystem, but long term?
From a consumer end does it feel like they are edging towards the same thing as Prime/Netflix are doing for TV? Make a push into games (and apps in general it seems?) as a service? Certainly is a better way to do it than PlayStation Plus does for the consumer (Plus makes its benefits snowball over time IF you actively claim your "free" games each month and then holds them hostage....).
But yeah pay per minute to the license holder is no where near as good a deal as Television and movies get. That is more the pointy end of the stick that Musicians get from Pandora et al. It is just beer money.
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http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/08/27/charity-drive-for-con-or-bust-an-audio-version-of-john-scalzi-is-not-a-very-popular-author-and-i-myself-am-quite-popular-read-by-me/
This shit... i don't even know what meta level we are working on any more.
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http://theisb.tumblr.com/post/127119545452/why-magical-girls-are-never-attacked-during-a
Literally Snow.txt.
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Magical girls are never attacked while transforming because their clothes blow off and the villains all get nosebleeds. Regardless of their gender/sexual orientation. Duh.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/science/oliver-sacks-dies-at-82-neurologist-and-author-explored-the-brains-quirks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesscience&smtyp=cur
I don't know if this will register for anyone else, but Oliver Sacks died of his eye cancer. He was a really great writer and reading his books early on is what got me into psychology and neuroscience, so this hits home pretty hard for me. He made his subjects human and individual, and even though his writing wasn't necessarily data driven, he was able to convey big ideas in a thoughtful, accessible way. Towards the end of his life, he wrote a lot on his diagnosis and about having a new perspective in life, and it's a perspective that I greatly admire. I am genuinely saddened by his passing.
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I read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat as a school thing way back in the day (totally random option, do not even recall what relevance it was supposed to have had for the class). Pretty neat stuff. It's amazing how wide a range of things can go wrong with the human brain.
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http://theisb.tumblr.com/post/127119545452/why-magical-girls-are-never-attacked-during-a
Literally Snow.txt.
Friday, I'm in love.
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Yeah, I think that reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was the first time I really got an appreciation for the huge amounts of diversity and variation there is in brains and behavior and that really set a spark off on me. I'm not really alone. I've talked to a lot of people, especially in clinical psychology, who say they got their start by reading Sacks's clinical accounts. It's always sad to me when we lose someone so eloquent and who could communicate so well. It just seems like more of a loss for whatever reason.
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I'll check this book out!
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People complained about Quiet's lack of clothes from MGS5. Here is her combat suit:
(http://videogamewriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Metal-Gear-Solid-5-Quiet-1-630x472.jpg)
Kojima said in a tweet that there is a REAL reason for this and that people who complained will feel ashamed once they learn about it.
https://twitter.com/hideo_kojima_en/status/376424398023962624
Spoilers The REAL reason is that she is a mutant who constantly needs oxygen or something so she needs to have her skin as exposed as possible.
Wow. He sure showed them.
Kojima = best writer
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http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/08/29/john-scalzi-is-not-a-very-popular-author-and-i-myself-am-quite-popular-the-audiobook-read-by-me-john-scalzi/
It keeps happening. Also hey, free audiobook!
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That's the sterling storytelling I've come to expect from the Metal Gear franchise.
(Best part: even if you take that backstory at face value it doesn't explain the stocking/thong situation at all)
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So hey I am stuck in the Kickstarter hole again I guess? here is two things coming out that I figured I was interested in enough to throw money at.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/152640612/souls-of-darkness-a-retro-style-dark-souls-book
Guy that does podcasts I like is doing a Worlds of Power style book as if Totally Not Dark Souls came out on the NES. There is some funny stretch goals.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin-2
Divinity 2: Original Sin. Because some people liked the first one and Larian could use the support I guess?
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Divinity Original Sin 2: Unoriginal Sin
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https://www.humblebundle.com/books
Neil Gaiman book bundle that supports the exemplary Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Buy buy buy.
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Nintendo releases Super Mario Maker so naturally since they're fake-nice like Disney they try to destroy youtube videos of romhacks.
Which is unfortunate since they can be pretty fun to watch.
Last chance to see these things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmfvpiTWStA
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Escort quests in Mario games? So you are saying I don't need to buy a WiiU and Mario maker? Cool.
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Hopefully the coming explosion on Mario stage design will bring some more focus to hacks which emphasise things besides being punishingly difficult.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/sterilizing-a-child-for-a-better-life/279765/
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Nintendo releases Super Mario Maker so naturally since they're fake-nice like Disney they try to destroy youtube videos of romhacks.
Which is unfortunate since they can be pretty fun to watch.
Last chance to see these things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmfvpiTWStA
I gotta say this guy does a great job with editing his videos to be watchable. Usually these things are so tedious to watch since you have to watch the guy do the same fucking puzzles 500 times, to the point where I just end up watching a TAS and not really seeing the hilarious deaths, but he does a good job of cutting that shit out.
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Yeah 100% agreed
I like how his emotion is shown through Mario's actions too
And how the music adfs to the madness
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Nintendo releases Super Mario Maker so naturally since they're fake-nice like Disney they try to destroy youtube videos of romhacks.
Which is unfortunate since they can be pretty fun to watch.
Last chance to see these things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmfvpiTWStA
I don't think Nintendo will win that in the end. Sure, they can issue a DMCA takedown, and that'll take it down for a month. But to push it longer than that they'd have to take it to court, and I really don't think they have anything that would win in court.
It's Mario assets? Yeah, companies have tried this before when, for example, a youtuber gave them a review they didn't like, or made a video about a glitch they didn't want public. The only thing that's different in this case is that it's a ROM hack, but ROM hacks are legal. (Distributing ROMs is illegal, but it's legal for you to make a backup of a game you already own, and legal for you to have an emulator).
The only thing I can think of that they have is that people who made the ROM hack broke the end user agreement. But that just voids the warranty as far as I know.
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Yeah 100% agreed
I like how his emotion is shown through Mario's actions too
And how the music adfs to the madness
The first note of Mario's death music played on repeat is the funniest sound in the universe.
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It's Mario assets? Yeah, companies have tried this before when, for example, a youtuber gave them a review they didn't like, or made a video about a glitch they didn't want public. The only thing that's different in this case is that it's a ROM hack, but ROM hacks are legal. (Distributing ROMs is illegal, but it's legal for you to make a backup of a game you already own, and legal for you to have an emulator).
Here I would imagine you're looking at whether the video falls into a fair use exception for copyrighted material. Reviews are very clearly fair use, and you could characterize a glitch video as educational in nature. So the examples you cite seem fine to me. But where you are looking at videos of romhacks you are on much shakier ground. You're reusing art assets wholesale, but rearranging them. Could be ok. You're probably reusing music without any change in it at all and that's certainly bad. Is the romhack clearly a parody of the original work? Is the original work transformed to such a degree that we're in fair use territory? Or is this more like an unauthorized sequel? I think a court case could go either way. (disclaimer: my grasp of IP law is...unsophisticated.)
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http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/sterilizing-a-child-for-a-better-life/279765/
It's Mario assets? Yeah, companies have tried this before when, for example, a youtuber gave them a review they didn't like, or made a video about a glitch they didn't want public. The only thing that's different in this case is that it's a ROM hack, but ROM hacks are legal. (Distributing ROMs is illegal, but it's legal for you to make a backup of a game you already own, and legal for you to have an emulator).
Here I would imagine you're looking at whether the video falls into a fair use exception for copyrighted material. Reviews are very clearly fair use, and you could characterize a glitch video as educational in nature. So the examples you cite seem fine to me. But where you are looking at videos of romhacks you are on much shakier ground. You're reusing art assets wholesale, but rearranging them. Could be ok. You're probably reusing music without any change in it at all and that's certainly bad. Is the romhack clearly a parody of the original work? Is the original work transformed to such a degree that we're in fair use territory? Or is this more like an unauthorized sequel? I think a court case could go either way. (disclaimer: my grasp of IP law is...unsophisticated.)
Both of these things are really fucking difficult from different ends of the spectrum. One is none of the emotions and all the ideas, one is all the emotions and having no idea where to start.
I literally how no idea how to feel or what to think about carers making huge life impacting decisions about the bodies of people without the consent of the dependant. Especially when they are likely to improve the quality of life of both the carer and the dependant. On the one one hand they already pretty much make/have those kinds of decisive decisions their whole lives for things, whether they are to do with the body or not. But then we make similar decisions for children all the time on a less emotionally land mined spectrum...
IP law on the other hand is all "lol legal definition of art" and "copyright? more like COPYOFACOPYAMIRITE?" and "Down with Disney" but needing to respect and support the artist otherwise it will be significantly hampered.
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R. Mika, meet R. Pika.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrii1LAksoE
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvpOwQaqRXA
New Persona 5 trailer.
I have no idea what this game is.
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LupinXLovecraftxLesMis
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Metal Gear is dead. Suikoden is dead. Castlevania is dead. Silent Hill is dead. But PES lives! (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-09-18-konami-ceases-triple-a-console-production-on-all-but-pes-report)
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Wanna help join my kickstarter to buy the rights to Suikoden?
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Since somebody (CK?) was talking about it a bit ago in chat...
http://xseedgames.tumblr.com/post/126706403020/the-legend-of-heroes-trails-in-the-sky-second
#N's gone loco! (and gone through a purple mist castlevania gate to a boss fight)
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Wanna help join my kickstarter to buy the rights to Suikoden?
Konami would likely send an army of Pachinko Ninjas after you to prevent the Kickstarter! This is Konami we're talking about; they'd rather be overprotective about IPs they do nothing with rather than, you know, find ways to make money off them that aren't pachinko machines.
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They could make a microtransaction-based port of S1. "You have liberated Kwaba and spared General Rosman. Recruit him for $5!"
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/09/18/epa-volkswagen-used-defeat-device-to-circumvent-air-pollution-controls/
yikes.
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I don't know what's worse: that they did that, or that there's a history of automakers getting caught doing that and they still went forward with it.
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http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/
so this exists. I didn't know about it so I am sharing it with you.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSm1Rn7Prcs
Videogames truly are art
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I actually like the options he didn't show best.
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So what happens if you choose the other options?
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If you pick "not far" it drops you into a room that says "WOW." in coins and the entire floor is piranha plants. If you decide that you regret killing your best friend, you get dropped into a room where the entire floor is donut blocks with lava below and the only way out is death.
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Okay yes it is amazing.
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The guy everybody hates on the Internet today has the most punchable face:
(http://s.thestreet.com/files/tsc/v2008/authorHeadshots/1293851_187x169.gif)
He's raising the price of some old medicine he has exclusivity rights through some loophole, from 13$ to 750$. This link explains the whole situation pretty well.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/09/21/martin-shkreli-has-one-idea-and-its-a-bad-one
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Yeah, but he's a 30-35 year old gamer, so he should be right at home here. Heck, he bought his own eSports club in League of Legends with his hedge fund gains... who cares about sick people & insurance premiums? They shouldn't have gotten sick.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/magazine/banksy-and-the-problem-with-sarcastic-art.html?WT.mc_id=2015-KWP-AUD_DEV&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK&kwp_0=43653&kwp_4=245846&kwp_1=189426&_r=1
Article posits sarcasm as kitsch. Makes a lot of sense to me.
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To play right into the point.
I see someone finally worked out what the 90s were.
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Sarcasm went mainstream with The Simpsons, and sarcasm started to suck around the same time The Simpsons started to suck.
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Sarcasm made me the man I am today.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/09/water-is-flowing-on-mars/407662/
Pretty big discovery if true. Pretty confusing discovery if not. Either way, some big news for Mars nerds.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/magazine/banksy-and-the-problem-with-sarcastic-art.html?WT.mc_id=2015-KWP-AUD_DEV&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK&kwp_0=43653&kwp_4=245846&kwp_1=189426&_r=1
Article posits sarcasm as kitsch. Makes a lot of sense to me.
Tangentally related, but I thought the following was amusing considering the jumping point this used for its sarcasm as kitsch argument.
http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/world/2015/09/28/banksy-says-dismaland-will-be-used-to-shelter-migrants.html
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/09/30/everyone-you-know-will-be-able-to-rate-you-on-the-terrifying-yelp-for-people-whether-you-want-them-to-or-not/
So this thing is being marketed as Yelp but for people. There is no way this can go wrong.
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Don't worry man I'll give you 5 stars i got your back
Wait you really like FFX right ?
....... I'll give you 4 stars
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Now imagine if I was a FFX fan on the internet who was also female.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/09/30/everyone-you-know-will-be-able-to-rate-you-on-the-terrifying-yelp-for-people-whether-you-want-them-to-or-not/
So this thing is being marketed as Yelp but for people. There is no way this can go wrong.
Snopes is throwing serious doubt (http://m.snopes.com/2015/10/01/peeple/) on this. Namely that the trademark is suspended and that she made no mention of this being in development just a month before the article started blowing up. She IS, however, starting a web series about app development and this sound like JUST THE THING...
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http://www.siliconera.com/2015/10/02/persona-5-introduces-some-personas-with-captain-kidd-carmen-zorro-and-goemon/
oh my god you guys
(I generally don't indulge too much in the drip drip drip of new information about games but FASHION SOULS FASHION MEGAMI TENSEI is a different matter entirely. p.s. ohmygodyouguys.)
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That's definitely a different theme as far as personas go. Less entities drawn from ancient mythology, more legendary rogues from the past couple centuries? (I dunno about Goemon.)
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Wonder how the hardest core of fans will take that. Probably good to branch out and not get "stale", but on the other hand, any time you do that you risk alienating your audience.
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Is there a fanbase more likely to be cool with weird for the sake of weird than Persona's*?
*EDIT, I suppose I should amend that to Atlus in general, since their brand of weird definitely covers things other than just Persona.
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I wouldn't just read it as thieves. It is pretty consistently thieves/outlaws that push back against authority and give back to the poor. More of that Freedom theme being pushed as well.
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Rosa Parks persona incoming.
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Rosa Parks persona incoming.
IT WOULD BE THE BEST THING
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I really stand by want something like Fate/America
Saber: Jim Bowie
Lancer: Neil Armstrong
Archer: Billy the Kid
Caster: Nikola Tesla
Berserker: Ol' Yeller
Assassin: The Second Gunman on the Grassy Knoll
Rider: Rosa Parks
Entirely for having a bus Noble Phantasm.
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Not enough gratuitous nonsensical gender swapping Andy, 0/10. Needs more Theodora Roosevelt or whatever.
I'm not sure why there's any fear Persona's fanbase would whine about that, SMT has already used a bunch of historical / quasi-historical figures who became legends as summonable spirits a la Joan of Arc, Masakado, Guan Yu, etc., so Zorro or Captain Kidd make perfect sense.
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Fallout 4 has decided that having SPECIAL and skills be two things that are different is too complicated for its audience. Apparently it "spread choices too thin" (http://bethesda.net/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=100315-PerkChart&hootPostID=0253d3930e8efe46c32b98de285d768c#en/events/game/fallout-4s-character-system/2015/09/24/31) to have, you know, actual choices instead of an infinite levelling treadmill until you maximized everything.
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Let's take a series that is rooted on a GURPS style system, then let's get rid of skills.
That said I am sure it will still be an okay post apocalyptic not Fallout game.
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It will be Skyrim with guns, just like Fallout 3 was Oblivion with guns.
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Yeah and when I pretend it isn't trying to be Fallout, that was better than Oblivion was, so Skyrim with guns I might be more positive about than I was about Skyrim (which is a 2/10 game for me or an 8/10 game and I still don't fucking know).
But yes in terms of not getting the point, removing skills from the SPECIAL system rates pretty high up there.
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i think the exact opposite:
- the old system was very dated and it was time for a change. Fallout 1 and 2 could be very intimidating like only old PC RPGs could be. Too many fucking skill points, need more discrete choices. Vampire Bloodlines had even more choice but it handled skill points more gracefully.
- that said all things point to Fallout 4 being super boring like every Bethesda game and I don't know how anyone who played New Vegas could go back to this. Also level scaling
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- that said all things point to Fallout 4 being super boring like every Bethesda game and I don't know how anyone who played New Vegas could go back to this. Also level scaling
I'm sure super high Metacritic and fan adoration is inevitable anyway and this response will be just as baffling to me as it was with FO3. Sometimes I just don't understand human behavior. Zero interest in the game personally just because the two Bethesda-developed games I've played left me with no respect for their skills at worldbuilding or storytelling.
I think replacing a skill system that actually requires you to make character choices with a leveling treadmill a la Skyrim is pretty lame, but that said, you could definitely max out all stats and skills in New Vegas too if you really wanted to and were willing to abuse an exploit.
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I think the question in VSM's topic about what you don't get could have easily have been Fallout 3. Save for the choice to blow up Megaton, there isn't much that is memorable there, and I sunk a lot of hours walking around trying and failing to find anything else interesting (there was a tower with ghouls and humans or something?). On the other hand, New Vegas is something I have to urge to go back to every few months.
The only thing I've seen in the promotional things for Fallout 4 that excites me is that there is a dog, but if the writing is perfunctory and the world is huge but empty and I won't care about it at all. Changing the setting to Boston doesn't provide very much interest and Skyrim with guns sounds really boring to me.
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Just go replay Bloodlines.
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Full disclosure: I never finished Bloodlines because I got to a point where the game kept crashing. I really liked it but should try another normal playthrough and then do Malkavian at some point. I'll pick it up on Steam when it's on sale.
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Fan patch is super solid, I just finished a play through, do recommend.
I am okay with changing the system in Fallout Fen. It is just doing this is super embelematic of how Bethesda approach the license. Oh here is a thing from Fallout, let's take it, completely change it to the point where it is no longer anything like the old thing (for good or bad!), but let's keep calling it the thing because the name is what makes it Fallout!
It treats branding like a label you just peal off and resticker on to something. SPECIAL without skills is just a stock standard stat system (instead of a GURPS rip off with the name changed). Super mutants on the opposite coast from where FEV was released in an isolated space are not really Supermutants as they stood in Fallout. The Brotherhood of Steel that are actually Wasteland Paladins instead of isolationist tech hoarders are not really the Brotherhood of Steel.
It makes for a functional game and can be fun and good, but it is super shitty at actually being Fallout.
And the thing is, NV clearly shows you can do it in that engine. Obsidian really brought Skills back to the forefront, but nah just raw stats will do the same job and we will get to/have to completely overhaul perks while we are at it.
Edit - oh yeah. Of course Fallout 4 has a Dog in it. Fallout 1 had Dogmeat. Fallout 2 had K-9 and Dogmeat in a secret area to reference how Fallout is an homage to Mad Max. So that means every Fallout game has to have Dogmeat because a dog called Dogmeat is Fallout tm.
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Speech and barter are really the only problems that not even FONV could find a way to make more than a pass/fail in dialog. Skills that used to be pass/fail checks gating options like repair and science were tied into crafting in a meaningful way at last. Outdoorsman was even fun. SPECIAL + stats is like the difference between talent and proficiency and removing one kind of misses the point. It was a real big problem with FO3 as well, where raising SPECIAL was really mundane and it was trivial to have 10s in everything at the end.
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If you want a dog in your vidcons, may I suggest
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/143870832/home-free-0
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Changing the setting to Boston doesn't provide very much interest and Skyrim with guns sounds really boring to me.
I didn't even know they were doing the east coast again. So copy all that stuff I wrote after playing FO3 about how dumb it was to lift all the established Fallout-y elements and move them throusands of miles away where they make zero sense outside their context of origin just for self-indulgent look our hometown is in this game reasons, and drop all that here.
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But Boston could be a pretty cool city for a post apocalyptic video game. Especially if it is potentially one set some time after there has been potentially some revitalisation of the north east and there clearly being an established nation state up (at least on the east coast) of Canada in this setting (from FO3 rather than it being tied to any other parts of canon).
It has potential to be interesting.
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The only thing I liked about Fallout 3's setting was that people on the East Coast were still living in craters and scavenging for food out of grocery stores at the time the West Coast has developed multiple nation-state governments and has reliable industrial, communication and transportation infrastructures. West Coast best coast.
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https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/indivisible-an-rpg-by-lab-zero-and-505-games#/
Lab Zero is proud to announce that we’re partnering with 505 Games to develop a new action/RPG, currently titled Indivisible.
Indivisible is inspired by classics like Valkyrie Profile and Super Metroid, but with the unique character, world, and gameplay depth Lab Zero is known for, and will feature a stunning soundtrack by legendary Japanese game music composer, Hiroki Kikuta.
Seemed like a thing that the DL would generally like? I haven't backed for a couple of reasons, but mostly wanted to bring to people's attention.
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http://www.ibtimes.com/florida-candidate-us-senate-augustus-sol-invictus-sacrificed-goat-drank-its-blood-2128507
K so one guy renamed himself AUGUSTUS SOL INVICTUS and he's running for senator.
Also he sacrificed a goat and drank its blood.
And source wikipedia:
Invictus has issued a call for "total insurrection", saying to his followers:
“I do not want you to vote, so much as I want you to wake up. I want you to drop out and tune in. I want you to take LSD and practice sorcery. I want you to listen to trap music and black metal, to learn the law and to break it deliberately, to find your own religion. I want you to learn the use of firearms and subject yourselves to rigorous physical training. I want you to treat your bodies as Holy Temples and to take your girlfriend to a strip club so you can seduce a dancer in the back room. I want you to worship Nature and dance naked in the moonlight ‘round the fire, screaming in ecstatic joy. I want you to revolt. Raise Hell. Break your limitations. Renounce your life and go into the Wilderness, that God may speak to you of things to come.”
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Cool advertising tactic. Can't wait for his new album to hit shelves.
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Pretty sure this is the opening track. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu1zT1KjbPk)
Or maybe it was this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cegdR0GiJl4)
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http://www.usgamer.net/articles/a-voice-for-ivalice-the-localization-and-voice-acting-of-final-fantasy-xii
Alexander O. Smith is still the man. Explains various tricks in the fantastic localization of FF12. I especially liked this bit, my kind of change:
Another kind of localization was a little more subtle. Where Japanese games are often very comfortable breaking immersion to deliver in-game information, Western gamers tend to prefer more wholesale immersion. So in one place in Rabanastre where the player, as Vaan, encounters a chocobo vendor, the Japanese had the vendor explain to the player that the big yellow birds he saw behind him were chocobos, and that they could be ridden. If we're in character as Vaan, of course, this is very immersion-breaking, as a street-wise orphan would certainly know what a chocobo was. So, the English version has the vendor lamenting that some guy rode off on one of his chocobos the other day without paying. It's the same information as the Japanese provides (the birds are called chocobos, you can ride them, and you have to pay for the privilege), but couched very differently.
https://twitter.com/RoboRosewater/status/626827292929589249
RoboRosewater still exists as IRC reminded me recently. I like this adorable art to one of the earliest cards the machine made.
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http://www.usgamer.net/articles/a-voice-for-ivalice-the-localization-and-voice-acting-of-final-fantasy-xii
Alexander O. Smith is still the man. Explains various tricks in the fantastic localization of FF12. I especially liked this bit, my kind of change:
Another kind of localization was a little more subtle. Where Japanese games are often very comfortable breaking immersion to deliver in-game information, Western gamers tend to prefer more wholesale immersion. So in one place in Rabanastre where the player, as Vaan, encounters a chocobo vendor, the Japanese had the vendor explain to the player that the big yellow birds he saw behind him were chocobos, and that they could be ridden. If we're in character as Vaan, of course, this is very immersion-breaking, as a street-wise orphan would certainly know what a chocobo was. So, the English version has the vendor lamenting that some guy rode off on one of his chocobos the other day without paying. It's the same information as the Japanese provides (the birds are called chocobos, you can ride them, and you have to pay for the privilege), but couched very differently.
FUCK YOU PERFECT DIRECT TRANSLATION OR NO TRANSLATION HUUUUUUURRRRRRRR
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Woah nice. I wonder what part the translation had in making FF12's writing so much better than the other mainline FFs. Probably a pretty big part (despite Matsuno)
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While I did enjoy FF12's text from what I recall of it, there are limits to how much I can praise any localisation that comes up with something as cringe-inducing as "technicks".
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LETTERS FOR THE UI GOD
SPACE SAVING FOR THE FORMATTING THRONE
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Fair point. Fair point.
I googled "alchemick" and found out that Dragon's Dogma has an alchemick vest. Quality of game is proportional to stupidity of made up spelling for me
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But Fenrir you missed out on so much stupid by playing that game without pawns. 'tis far stronger than a common goblin arghle bargle
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Woah nice. I wonder what part the translation had in making FF12's writing so much better than the other mainline FFs. Probably a pretty big part (despite Matsuno)
Considering that the direction that the VAs in FF13 got was "Make your sounds more like the Japanese version!" I think it was not well-recieved at Square.
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e-sports has arrived: stupid people betting on them (and leading to all the usual problems this entails).
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/496866-yoda-b4-gerrard-banned-for-life-for-match-fixing
(Related, I assume we've all seen the beginnings of a mild crackdown on daily fantasy sports? Fantasy sports are good, but *daily* fantasy sports where you have no control over your options is just straight-up gambling on red vs. black. Sigh.)
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Let's do a crazy-hard sporcle because I'm interested to see where people trip up.
This took me several tries. I'll explain where I failed in small text:
http://www.sporcle.com/games/caramba/ABCs_of_Europe
Basically, name every country in europe, in alphabetical order.
WHERE I FAILED
Bosnia and Herzegovina (I kept spelling this wrong, and holy hell, this is finicky on spelling.)
Cyprus (What infuriates me, is I put this in as an answer EARLIER when I forgot some B countries, and then STILL forgot it existed)
Kosovo (Not officially a country! I feel robbed.)
Liechtenstein (I had this right, but it's impossible to spell.)
Malta (Honestly forgot you existed.)
San Marino (Ditto. Like, These two countries are places I was AWARE of, I just didn't think they were independent like I knew Andorra and Monaco were.)
I got nothing else wrong.
So.... 5 mistakes, I feel justified in all of them, except for one where I just boneheaded it up.
AFRICAN HARD MODE:
http://www.sporcle.com/games/caramba/ABCs_of_Africa
failures
Burundi. forgot.
Central African Republic. Acronym countries always trip me up. Should have grabbed this.
Comoros. Never heard of. It's an island nation. Do we count those?
Seychelles. Ditto.
And that's it! That's everything. I actually had an easier time with this than I did Europe (and suspected I would.) It took me about as many retries, though, for batshit idiotic reasons. Namely for "official" name disputes.
Cape Verde (Sorry. It's "Cabo Verde" on Sporcle. Fuck you.
Ivory Coast/Cote d'ivoire (I got this one right after the Cape Verde debacle, but fuck you.)
Country name disputes is the stupidest thing. Pretty much every country has multiple names depending on what country you're in, and there's not really an "official" one. Spain, for instance, will call themselves Espania, and will be ABBREVIATED as such in world competition, but our official name for them is still "Spain". Yet other nations we have to refer to in the official Spanish or we're just wrong? WHY?! Who decides this crap?
EDIT
I'd give you guys Asia, but Asia fucking cheats. Case in point:
(http://i.imgur.com/cQa9eWE.png)
PICTURED: Not in fucking Asia.
ALSO PICTURED: Darwin, Australia
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Get out your Huey Lewis records, it's Back to the Future day.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34569759?SThisFB
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http://tass.ru/en/society/831017
"Fear will keep them in line" probably isn't the best platform for your party to run on. Unless you're Republican.
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Ukraine did this. That's kind of a giant middle finger to Russia
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Rosa Parks persona incoming.
IT WOULD BE THE BEST THING
THIS WAS FUCKING WRONG
THIS IS THE BEST THING (http://www.destructoid.com/day-of-the-tentacle-remastered-is-looking-slick-317194.phtml?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)
edit - GUYS GUYS GUYS. IT IS FUCKING HAPPENING. IT IS ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENING. THE POINT AND CLICK ENLIGHTENMENT HAS HAPPENED.
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http://thebulletin.org/okinawa-missiles-october8826
The newly declassified story of how, just after the Cuban Missile Crisis, American bases in Japan were erroneously told to nuke Russia (and a bunch of non-Soviet nations). People have generally assumed there must be a U.S. version of Stanislav Petrov (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) we were never told about, and here he is. Captain William Bassett.
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Jesus
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Dunno if anyone else follows Brows Held High, but probably relevant to DL interests: https://t.co/EMFfGknDpF
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http://steamed.kotaku.com/the-story-behind-steam-s-framerate-police-1732590111
Don't know whether to laugh or cry. I've played Guild of Dungeoneering. It's 100% turn-based. Demanding 60FPS is like demanding lossless audio of a Nintendo soundtrack. Quote unquote gamers always seem to find new ways to limbo under my expectations.
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You missed that when it really kicked up full steam (lOlololol funny accidental pune)? Yeah I also love how fucking blind and stupid it is to ignore the context. Locking the game at 30 FPS lets you target lower and lower end hardware (or space for you to port it without completely reworking the entire game!)
They are literally mad at people for servicing their target demographic.
The only reason I haven't picked up Guild of Dungeoneering is because I am holding out for an iOS port. It looks damn fun and I want to be able to play it on a phone.
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It's ok. It is musically narrated by a jaded old bastard who thinks your continued success is a sign of the fall of decent society. That pretty much never gets old. Gameplay's hit and miss.
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fuck your story, Toby Fox, Undertale needs to be experienced in 60 fps.
The Jackbox games are also on there, which is ridiculous. Clicker Heroes is also a really good one because people really need to see gold falling out of enemies at high framerates. Also Heroes of Might and Magic 3.
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tl;dr people are WRONG on the internet
(and in a way that just makes me embarrassed for them)
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This sadly is not that high on the list of TotalBiscuit's obnoxious behaviors.
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For Gourry
https://youtu.be/A-27GFE9IJQ
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I had a bad time.
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For Gourry
https://youtu.be/A-27GFE9IJQ
life is suffering
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I had a bad time.
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I had a bad time.
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Well that was a roller coaster of fuckery.
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What the fuck?
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~time to explain the joke~
The query sent in to the show there was a troll, but might as well have been legit - people do, sadly, write in to The 700 Club with that sort of thing all the time.
The reference is to Undertale, wherein the character Sans is a lazy but good-natured skeleton "monster" in a hoodie and also some sort of retired quantum scientist and/or Time Cop. He keeps an eye on the player character and tries to lead them down a friendly and nonviolent path. At the end of the game, he appears and lectures the player on their choices, but refuses to fight or harm them, even if they've been a violent jerkface. Unless you've gone completely genocidal, murdered literally every other character in the game, ground randoms into dust until everything everywhere is dead, and are threatening to go on and murder the whole world. Then he reluctantly opens the glowing eye and smacks you with a boss fight vastly more difficult than anything else in the game, as referred to by his dry catchphrase, "You're gonna have a bad time."
The ensuing segment is ridiculous, hilarious and heartwrenching, because Undertale is a game that explicitly promotes nonviolence, tolerance of others, and rejection of greed and anger. And Sans specifically is the character who most epitomizes and lives by those values. He is almost exactly the sort of role model Pat Robertson would like kids to have, if he knew about the game, or approved of games in general, or was down with tolerance of others.
Also, for some reason, Sans is perceived as incredibly attractive by the youngish female fanfiction-and-tumblr demographic. Like a huge proportion of Undertale fanfiction so far is Sans x (usually nameless) self insert female romance, and/or "romance," if you get my drift. So the final line "How do I help my daughter not be attracted to such demonic things?"... yeah, that was intentional.
~explaining the joke~
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Thanks for explaining it, because I thought it was a pretty tame link otherwise.
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Sans x Toriel is the OTPiest
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but there was more than one question on there that deserved those reactions
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Your reactions to Pat Robertson are adorable. I had a family member work briefly at his university, and I can confirm the entire clan is crazy.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/3s4k5n/fallout_4_review_thread/
"If you liked Fallout 3 or Bethesda's othe-"
Stop right there.
I just wonder when the backlash on this starts.
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The reviews are pretty consistent: great story, great worldbuilding, good combat, lots of glitches, not much you haven't seen before in previous games.
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Big budget games aren't going to get lower pro reviews if they still hit all the checkboxes.
Unless they get released yearly
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Gourry, Two weeks after the next Elder Scrolls game is released and has mods that fix the UI and add poorly optimised models that look like plastic dolls with giant tits.
At least now we can actually hear about how no one ever liked Fallout 3.
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https://www.change.org/p/capcom-do-not-censor-street-fighter-v?recruiter=206300926&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
are you fucking kidding me
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changing camera angles in 3D modeled environments = censorship now just fyi
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I am having a surprisingly hard time organizing my feels on this.
R. Mika has a lot of fanservice bundled up into her, an ass-slap doesn't seem like an escalation to me. You might as well question her entire design if you're going to question that particular aspect. This is still not even close to dead or alive or soul calibur-style stuff. Capcom is... kind of... a bit less blatant about it than their competitors. (Hi, Taki; Mai; Kitana/Mileena...)
But a petition about it? Really, guys? I wish it was surprising! But the FGC has produced a vocal group of folks who will complain about, say, Karin looking like a middle-aged woman in this version, or Cammy's *face* not being cute enough. It's an actual priority to some people that a particular level of sexuality/cuteness is maintained within the genre, and it's really done a number on character designs.
I suppose it's not unique to this kind of game but christ, calling a developer dialling it back 'censorship' is pretty lunatic.
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Localizer makes artistic changes to a game's presentation for a local market, news at 11. I imagine the people organising this petition also think that Phoenix Wright was "censored" when its Japanese cultural references were replaced by Western ones when the game was released overseas.
They can have their petition, that's their right, but it's pretty stupid if you ask me. And calling these localisation choices "censorship" just makes me facepalm.
(I don't particularly care one way or another about the change itself.)
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Here's the Shoryuken article, over 600 comments already lol.
http://shoryuken.com/2015/11/08/capcom-alters-some-of-street-fighter-vs-more-risque-cinematics/
The actual reason for the changes hasn't been revealed yet. Most likely it's to avoid getting an M rating.
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I highly doubt that. "Fanservice" of this kind rarely earns an M rating (which is as it should be). It's probably just more about cultural sensitivities and the opinions of the localising team.
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I highly doubt that. "Fanservice" of this kind rarely earns an M rating (which is as it should be). It's probably just more about cultural sensitivities and the opinions of the localising team.
Is this even confirmed as Capcom of America stuff?
Edit: Oh right. Did I have an opinion on this?
Eh. Put R. Mika's butt-slap back in (she's intentionally pretty blatant which is fine, it's fitting for the persona), keep the Cammy camera angle change. Her costume is "unintentionally" silly anyway.
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Gourry the second biggest french videogame site just gave Black Ops 3, the new Tomb Raider and Fallout 4 all 6/10 ratings
Move to France
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I don't need to say anything else. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHJSERl760g)
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Gourry the second biggest french videogame site just gave Black Ops 3, the new Tomb Raider and Fallout 4 all 6/10 ratings
Move to France
no black ops is still too high
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I don't need to say anything else. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHJSERl760g)
Well, I mean, posting what the link was about so I could judge clickability would have helped. ;-)
That said, Cloud being added to SSB is weird to me. I mean, it's not like many of these odd folks (Snake, Ryu) haven't been on Nintendo consoles in some form, but seriously, SSB is increasingly collecting things that really cement the idea that you own a Nintendo console AND another console.
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I'd say SSB has been trying to branch out from "Nintendo all-stars" to "video games all-stars". If you look at the list of third-party Smash characters it's pretty much a who's-who of the biggest names. I'm pretty okay with this.
Also man between Snake and Cloud SSB can now claim more Playstation star power than Playstation All-Stars itself ever could.
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Oh yeah, def. Don't get me wrong. No complaints or anything. I consider it cool (<snark>much as I'd prefer neat crossovers be in actual fighting games, lel</snark>).
It's just really weird from a distant perspective.
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OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! All my crossover love! And thanks to RK and Dissidia, my FF crossover hype was already high! What excellent timing!
I'm so hype for this, you don't even know. The only thing that could top this would be like... Disgaea in Smash.
More than anything else, I'm excited to see Squeenix and Nintendo clearly getting along a lot better.
Also, hot damn those Summons on the FF7 stage! So shiny!
Dear Mr. Sakurai,
So much love.
-Djinn
Hey DL, can we make a Smash bros RPGDL tourney happen? There's enough ranked Smash Bros characters at this point, I'll bet.
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You will always have Ergheiz, Andy.
Square pushing some FF7 marketing is a good sign.
http://www.polygon.com/2015/11/12/9725838/hyrule-warriors-legends-3ds-girl-link-linkle
Female Link in 3DS version of Hyrule Warriors. Linking for fashion purposes.
That entire outfit and style looks strongly of Akihiko Yoshida art. seriously Ashley Riot pants going on, FFT Female Priest going on with the hood and the hair. I really dig it. I hope she is a main story character and not like Master Quest map character.
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I'd say SSB has been trying to branch out from "Nintendo all-stars" to "video games all-stars". If you look at the list of third-party Smash characters it's pretty much a who's-who of the biggest names. I'm pretty okay with this.
Also man between Snake and Cloud SSB can now claim more Playstation star power than Playstation All-Stars itself ever could.
First off, agreed to the second point!
With regards to the first point? Sakurai did state he'd allow 3rd party characters if they were on an exceptional level. Cloud was basically the only character who was not in Smash (if we include Snake in Brawl) that was on this level.
Cloud is the most oddball choice for 3rd parties but not because of "he's not big enough", since that'd be a blatant lie, but more that his home game, FF7, never appeared on a Nintendo console. Granted, he did appear in a few games like Chibirhythm and the upcoming Final Fantasy Explorers, so it's not like he's compeltely absent from Nintendo consoles (thus why it doesn't feel like a cheat!), just...yeah.
MAKE NO MISTAKE: This is not a complaint. I think it's a neat, if unexpected, pick. Just kind of saying Cloud probably wins the biggest oddball reward. All the other 3rd parties feel far stronger attached to Nintendo, save Snake who isn't in this Smash. Still pretty cool inclusion nonetheless.
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OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! All my crossover love! And thanks to RK and Dissidia, my FF crossover hype was already high! What excellent timing!
I'm so hype for this, you don't even know. The only thing that could top this would be like... Disgaea in Smash.
More than anything else, I'm excited to see Squeenix and Nintendo clearly getting along a lot better.
Also, hot damn those Summons on the FF7 stage! So shiny!
Dear Mr. Sakurai,
So much love.
-Djinn
Hey DL, can we make a Smash bros RPGDL tourney happen? There's enough ranked Smash Bros characters at this point, I'll bet.
I hate basically everything you said in this post
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I-it's not like I posted this for you!
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bloo bloo bloo
angry revengesex
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http://sobadsogood.com/2015/11/11/behold-what-art-looks-after-its-been-made-gluten-free/
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OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! All my crossover love! And thanks to RK and Dissidia, my FF crossover hype was already high! What excellent timing!
I'm so hype for this, you don't even know. The only thing that could top this would be like... Disgaea in Smash.
More than anything else, I'm excited to see Squeenix and Nintendo clearly getting along a lot better.
Also, hot damn those Summons on the FF7 stage! So shiny!
Dear Mr. Sakurai,
So much love.
-Djinn
Hey DL, can we make a Smash bros RPGDL tourney happen? There's enough ranked Smash Bros characters at this point, I'll bet.
I hate basically everything
-
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! All my crossover love! And thanks to RK and Dissidia, my FF crossover hype was already high! What excellent timing!
I'm so hype for this, you don't even know. The only thing that could top this would be like... Disgaea in Smash.
More than anything else, I'm excited to see Squeenix and Nintendo clearly getting along a lot better.
Also, hot damn those Summons on the FF7 stage! So shiny!
Dear Mr. Sakurai,
So much love.
-Djinn
Hey DL, can we make a Smash bros RPGDL tourney happen? There's enough ranked Smash Bros characters at this point, I'll bet.
I hate basically everything
salty is my favourite flavour ;0;0;0;0;0;0;0
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Cool Ghosts' subterfuge diaries series is really fun.
Subterfuge is some strategy game on mobile that takes places over the course of real life days.
Here, 8 game industry friends played against each other and each (six of them?) recorded footage of their plans, strategy, etc. Most became obsessed with the game, paranoid and terrified.
It looks like the worst fucking game to play with friends for your sanity so this makes for a pretty good series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsvuv_kJ9qQ
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Subterfuge for DLC11. ::Nods::
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8sT6nz7VUM&feature=youtu.be
Rod Serling being wonderfully disingenuous about his aims for The Twilight Zone, as well as his views on sponsor censorship at the time. Great interview.
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PSYCHO CRUSHAH!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYGKSt0zxg4&feature=youtu.be
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https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/indivisible-rpg-from-the-creators-of-skullgirls#/
Indivisible is near the end of its campaign, almost funded but not quite. I gave enough for all the digital goods.
A bunch of cameo incarnations have been announced for the game, the big ones being Shantae, Shovel Knight and Red from Transistor
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Color me surprised that Indivisible made it. Glad it did, though. The gameplay wasn't quite clicking with me when I tried the demo, but I still wanted the game and wanted it to come out.
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Geez it got 300,000 in the last 24 hours. Didn't want it to succeed so they would take the hint and stop copying other games. But I am denied my schadenfreude today.
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Geez it got 300,000 in the last 24 hours. Didn't want it to succeed so they would take the hint and stop copying other games. But I am denied my schadenfreude today.
Eh. VP's core mechanics are criminally underused and underdeveloped. Since I don't see VP3 coming out anywhere, I don't see what's wrong with using them.
EDIT: Oh right, also.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzIxLwVwtiQ
Fucking Samurai Jack lives.
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I think they'd have just learnt to stop making games!
The battle system looks superficially similar but the addition of an ATB style mechanic instead of turn based like VP will probably change things a lot. It will also hopefully be more balanced and less monotonous. VP's battle system was cool and interesting but never exploited fully.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW8BDgLpZkI
This is sappy but I am going to link it anyway for reasons.
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It's the most wonderful time of the year!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_lxZrbkGUE
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW_8VOSpZL4
Wish there was more gameplay, but it looks like they're not doing anything stupid like trying to use FF13's abortion of a battle system, so that's something.
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Interesting that the choice for Summon appears that early (although maybe it's just a demo thing).
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Not happy that it's going the ARPG route but eh, time will tell how it goes.
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Interesting that the choice for Summon appears that early (although maybe it's just a demo thing).
The options in the abilities might be static rather than dynamic like in the games that go hard on being a coatrack had. Then again, I remember the original demo gave you Leviathan and some other summon to play around with in one of the Midgar dungeons. They tended to give you access to toys you wouldn't have yet in demos a lot back then.
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The bigger red-flag is that it will be multi-part, for true milking of the player.
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After joking about it in IRC I unironically saw someone say "They might break it down by disc, that seems to make the most sense".
Final dungeon as one episode, seems like a good plan.
I could deal with an episodic release if they do the right price point. I am envisioning Xenosaga all over again though.
Also the more I reflect on it the more salty I am about it being "action combat". Like it isn't as if we are in a wealth of ATB and ATB knock off games these days.
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Yeah I don't mind the action gameplay but episodic is pretty unforgivable. FF13 was in episodes, AFAIK at full price per episode, so I have no illusion we'll be getting each episode for like 20 bucks.
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FF13 games weren't really episodic. Compared to Telltale stuff, each game was super long and had big paradigm shifts in gameplay (and probably story (I dunno man))
I don't even really think that episodic is a good idea? This seems to ignore that a huge number of people , especially people who got FF7 on release, buy games like this and only play them for a few hours.
Episode 1 will be a huge hit, but excitement will be gone once episode 2 hits. This is not a Telltale game, you do not need to know the rest of the story.
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From what they've said it's going to be an ATB action-RPG. Like, you'll wait for a character's bar to fill and then get a given amount of time to slash things up with them, I guess?
(Also, it isn't as if the RPGs coming out with action gameplay now actually have good action gameplay. Leave it to Platinum, guys.)
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The bigger red-flag is that it will be multi-part, for true milking of the player.
I would imagine anyone who is still, somehow, a fan of Final Fantasy in 2015 has learned to take masochistic glee in the act of being milked.
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Episodic doesn't bother me for price reasons (I'm in my 30's with a career now; time is the waaaay bigger issue for me than money), but it does feel like a good way to kill the hype/pacing of the series. Yeah, the individual player can always wait for the entire series to being out before playing it but that pisses away the social aspect of playing things nearer release.
I'm also disappointed it's not ATB (or CTB I guess but I was never going to expect that), Square Enix seems allergic to doing turn-based these days and are all super-surprised that it's what people actually still want in many cases (see: them being confused at how big Bravely Default was). SE's ARPG attempts (well, the Square side more accurately) have never really impressed me.
Still more excited for this game than FF15.
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Will definitely disagree about FF XIII as being "episodic" in the way Xenosaga was. Love it or hate it, XIII was at least a complete story, whereas Xenosaga Ep1 ended part way through the story and it wasn't even a huge important arc. It was just getting from Point A to Point B and explaining some stuff on the way. You had the same base cast continuing to be important after that. Whereas Fang and Vanille were done after FF XIII, and most of the rest of the cast should have been done, except then the Etro stuff happened, which is at least a new conflict that's not contained in XIII.
On that note, I am now much more looking forward to FF XV than the VII remake. The ATB is generally pissing me off more than the episodic news, since I'd love to see a real attempt to make a proper go of the old FF7 combat system. The FF7 system had huge potential, and a remake is the perfect time to make it better. Arg. So, yeah. Also, with the Crisis Core stuff I know they can keep the old FF sensibilities, but I'm always afraid they won't. And Cloud in particular is someone they seem to be good at not getting, so I'm kinda worried about that.
Combine that with just being able to play the original, well, I'm dreading the remake as opposed to just incredibly apathetic about XV. And hey, I was also really apathetic and then disliked XIII a touch before it finally grew on me, and now I'm a fan of XIII, so maybe XV will manage that same trajectory. There is a touch of hope there.
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Well... Xenosaga was only referred to in the context of the remake maybe going that way, not FF13.
So like, I can see them pumping them out way too fucking slow, planning to do 7 episodes (BECAUSE ITS FF7 YOU GUYS) then finding out that no one gives a fuck enough to financially support it after the second one because shit takes too goddamned long and they jam the last 4 episodes worth of plot heavily cut down in to 1 game.
Episodic is only bothersome from a price point because I don't trust Squeenix to price it fairly. They are all over the shop on Mobile (and like... the pricing they use on Dimensions I again think is fair), but this isn't Mobile, this is in the Triple A space. I paranoid that we are going to get net charged more than usual full price for a game.
Episodic content works currently in different market with the model Telltale Games has championed so successfully and for a few reasons but primary two I can think of is because A) they price point for them is modest for the entire set (Cheaper in a bundle of the lot) and B) their release schedule is consistent and relatively fast. They do 5 or 6 parts and they are usually all done within 12 months.
I don't see Squeenix doing that or anything close to it. They will also likely have longer chunks... but the pacing points for said releases is going to be a big deal.
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Well, everyone has always said "they'll never do a FF7 remake because they'd only screw it up"... and since the trailers actually looked promising... They had to screw it up SOMEHOW. Might as well go full-pessimism mode now and be pleasantly surprised when the game is even mildly functional when it comes out in four years.
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Well tons of my frustration is that I was saying for years that they COULD do it and didn't understand why they didn't.
Like imagine they took the base mechanics for FF7 and ported it without touching the core game. Still do 3D models on 2D backdrops, do significantly higher quality 2D backdrops, drop in much higher quality 3D models.
Never mind that this is literally what the FF5 and 6 ports to iOS /android are, they are released at a nice for what it is, but still expensive on the platform it is on systems. You could do that and it would have been good money, but Square can't do that because FF7s myth is so much more than that.
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Well tons of my frustration is that I was saying for years that they COULD do it and didn't understand why they didn't.
Like imagine they took the base mechanics for FF7 and ported it without touching the core game. Still do 3D models on 2D backdrops, do significantly higher quality 2D backdrops, drop in much higher quality 3D models.
Never mind that this is literally what the FF5 and 6 ports to iOS /android are, they are released at a nice for what it is, but still expensive on the platform it is on systems. You could do that and it would have been good money, but Square can't do that because FF7s myth is so much more than that.
Well, that and Square's stubborn insistence that they still make AAA console games rather than pulling back to the handheld/digital market where that kind of thing would actually fly.
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2D backgrounds with 3D models. (http://eternity.obsidian.net/)
Commercially successful and didn't have existing assets.
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I didn't realize that they were somehow breaking the game up into multiple parts. That's a horrible idea for a remake of a game.
I'm reserving judgment on the battle system though. While I'm not particularly happy with it, the way the menu in battle looks makes it seem like it's not at least pure ARPG.
They are stupid because this game sells itself, and it would do better if they tried to still make it appeal to all the people who actually played the original.
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2D backgrounds with 3D models. (http://eternity.obsidian.net/)
Commercially successful and didn't have existing assets.
PoE was also one of those digital market games i was talking about, yeah. You can do a lot more in the way of non-traditional strategies without having to convince retailers that you are mainstream enough for shelf space.
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Hey its a Sony exclusive, this could be the vanguard of Sony embracing our glorious digital future (and of Square releasing multiple bluray sized parts to a game that you need to download).
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Nah, the main goal of the PS3 was to get blu-ray players to people, no way that Sony's abandoning physical media.
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So, I haven't been talking about Blade and Soul's localization because I don't want everyone's brains to melt. But I did want to share this rather nice Kotaku article on the perils of localizing.
http://kotaku.com/from-japan-with-changes-the-endless-debate-over-video-1747960323
So basically the Korean MMO Blade and Soul is getting a Woolsleyan localization rather than a word-for-word translation. This has had people complaining for a couple of months, and then about a month ago both BnS forums exploded with dozens of topics about it. Pretty sure it was an invasion from an anti-SJW group because it was a large number of new people complaining in a short period of time.
Complicating the issue was the playable beta, where there were mixtures of the new localized text and the word-for-word translated English provided by the devs.
Anyway it's been a clusterfuck, and has just recently started to calm down. I personally don't mind either style of localization, although I prefer Woolsleyan style because it flows better.
Here's the topic where the lead writer explained many of the changes and the process they go through. It's got plenty of idiocy in it, but still one of the safest topics I can link to you. The rest require brain bleach.
https://forums.bladeandsoul.com/forums/index.php?/topic/142780-open-discussion-with-english-localization/page-1
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No time to check the links, but can you explain how an "anti-SJW group" has anything to do with Woolseyian vs Literal Translation? Last I checked there's no Social Justice aspect to a translation style? I'm not even sure which side of the debate an 'anti-SJW group' would even normally tend to fall on...
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Duh
Anti SJW = Gamergate = Anime avatars = removing underage porn is censorship = literal translations
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Sorry I should go into more detail. There were complaints the whole time about the translation, but the thing that opened the floodgates was the redesign of a sidequest series.
In the original sidequests, you help out a guy who is having erectile dysfunction by obtaining various items to work as cures. He's a pretty scummy guy, and apparently got his dysfunction from some kind of VD. Later in the quest chain you help him steal the clothes from some women bathing at a pool. This leads to him getting married to one of the women because it's their tribal tradition or something. He doesn't like the woman and says she's ugly but he still knocks her up.
So ten out of ten writers on staff felt uncomfortable with the quests. Quest chain was pretty dramatically altered. Now the guy is a scholar studying the tribe, he's not scummy anymore, etc.
So yeah it became SJWs are causing censorship, this is why we can't have the new Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball game in the west, etc. etc.
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Also, the one article focuses on the cries of censorship when we didn't get a 13 year old in a skimpy bikini, and the rampant 4chan theories of how one woman at NoA is clearly responsible in part for these insults to frue gamers.
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In the original sidequests, you help out a guy who is having erectile dysfunction by obtaining various items to work as cures. He's a pretty scummy guy, and apparently got his dysfunction from some kind of VD. Later in the quest chain you help him steal the clothes from some women bathing at a pool. This leads to him getting married to one of the women because it's their tribal tradition or something. He doesn't like the woman and says she's ugly but he still knocks her up.
Jeeeeeesus fucking christ. Does Korea have any watch lists we can put the original writers on?
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Oh no, if you read all the anti-censorship comments this is a variant of a common Korean folktale about the swan maiden. Changing it is destroying the cultural integrity of the original!
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ooc is that actually true? I've recently been giving some thought to all the crazy antisocial behavior movie characters engage in that we would condemn in real life but don't even notice on screen. This would be an interesting example of that (that sticks out to us because we don't have the cultural background. Maybe. Then again maybe it's just super creepy.)
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...funny censorship was brought up when this is the latest Smash Bros. DLC character:
HOLY CRAP THIS IS TOTAL MEEPLE BAIT SAKURAI!!!! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8FCtjIb47Y)
...yeah, I think they found a way to one up Cloud. Also, this happened beforehand; not as exciting but still kind of cool:
Roy still needs to die. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ-eO10ivN8)
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Oh no, if you read all the anti-censorship comments this is a variant of a common Korean folktale about the swan maiden. Changing it is destroying the cultural integrity of the original!
So what they're saying is that Korean culture is to blame and that we should put a giant ankle monitoring bracelet on the entire Korean Peninsula?
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Meh, I've come to conclude that the "Its their culture, it is not our place to critique it" line is a load of horseshit. There's something to be said for not just going on and expecting everyone in the world to pick up American values, but all too often this talking point is used to insulate people from being criticized for their shitty, terrible behavior. "Its just their culture, just go with it" is ultimately very intellectually lazy.
Even if this is a take on a Korean folk tale (which it may well be! I do not know how to Korea), translating it without comment would be an implicit endorsement of the sort of morality of the folk tale on the part of the translators, because not saying anything is and of itself a speech act, so good for the translators on changing it.
Tangentially, to show how insidious the "It's just their culture" line can be, a couple years ago during the training seminar for the JET program, a workshop on how to act in the Japanese workplace advised female JETs who experienced sexual harassment to not report the incident and to remember that they are guests in this country and that this behavior is considered acceptable in Japan. Granted, this is an extreme example and there was some backlash because of the incident, but regardless, it highlights just how little water the "we should respect their culture" argument holds sometimes.
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Yeah, I get that. I personally find it frustrating when changes are made to a game that materially alter the meaning of what is going on, but that's just a gripe from an old game snob. Seeing as games are marketed towards kids I approve of light editorial changes to smooth over inappropriate stuff.
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Meh, I've come to conclude that the "Its their culture, it is not our place to critique it" line is a load of horseshit. There's something to be said for not just going on and expecting everyone in the world to pick up American values, but all too often this talking point is used to insulate people from being criticized for their shitty, terrible behavior. "Its just their culture, just go with it" is ultimately very intellectually lazy.
It's also an anthropological maxim taken wholly out of context. It's fine if you are there for an academic purpose, like cataloging a group of people and how they live. It's quite another if you are just a person in the world interacting with this. We're meant to make decisions about things, that's why it's not legal for Colonel Sanders to own all those black people anymore.
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Not to be full corporate shilly libertarian, but like
It is also really flat criticism in the context of a business licensing the use of someone's IP to localise into a profitable product. Both sides here will have this contracted out and discussed. If the localiser changes it to be more relevant and marketable then so be it.
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https://storify.com/jasperrolls/the-silent-hill-wiki-circumcision-meltdown-of-2015
Complete meltdown on the Silent Hill wiki.
I... suppose this makes sense somehow.
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https://storify.com/jasperrolls/the-silent-hill-wiki-circumcision-meltdown-of-2015
Complete meltdown on the Silent Hill wiki.
I... suppose this makes sense somehow.
Of course it does.
Silent Hill had an editor, editors make cuts. Just like circumcision.
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THEY ARE CENSORING PENISES
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Fucking Illuminati.
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Not to be full corporate shilly libertarian, but like
It is also really flat criticism in the context of a business licensing the use of someone's IP to localise into a profitable product. Both sides here will have this contracted out and discussed. If the localiser changes it to be more relevant and marketable then so be it.
I don't really agree. People advocating a position are trying to get what they want, be it uncensored creepazoid sidequests or keeping DoA Xtreem Titties 3 off the shelves. They're advancing their agendas by putting pressure on businesses. If there is anything remotely sacrosanct about businesses trying to make money, that same level of respect should be afforded to advocacy.
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https://storify.com/jasperrolls/the-silent-hill-wiki-circumcision-meltdown-of-2015
Complete meltdown on the Silent Hill wiki.
I... suppose this makes sense somehow.
Eh. I'm jaded from Wikipedia experience. He should be quietly removed by Wikia management once they see this but I wouldn't get too into the shame train. The dude is probably mentally ill, block & move on. It got more exciting than it 'should' have been since he was apparently a super-admin or something before his breakdown, but in its own weird way that is probably healthier than low-level craziness that isn't enough to get blocked but is enough to make life horrible for other editors.
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Yeah Jim I am all for campaigning for what you want. You can not buy it or whatever. You just don't get to call it zomgcensorshipRIPfrreeeeeeesppeeeeeech and fight the man.
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Snow: Yeah, well aware, hence this being Misc Link instead of IotD. It is just a weird place and presentation for the meltdown.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-shkreli-idUSKBN0U01IM20151217
Martin Shkreli (the guy who did the drug price raising controversy recently) arrested for fraud. I'll join in the amused dogpiling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxPWYpcVI1c (Appropriate music choice for reading the article.)
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So...there's a decent chance that Jar Jar Binks was originally supposed to be a Sith, but was rewritten when he was so unpopular after episode 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yy3q9f84EA
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Makes sense, Jar Jar is the ultimate evil.
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You know, I can't say for sure if I would have liked it at the time (I was, what, 13? I no longer understand anything that was going through that fuckwit child's brain) but in hindsight actually going through with that twist would have been pretty great. Unfortunately that would have taken George Lucas to have some balls as a storyteller which has never really been the case.
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The actual twist probably wouldn't have hit until you were in your late teens.
I think that it could have been neat, but I don't buy it. Most of the arguments feel to me like they're reaching, and as Zenny notes it assigns Lucas a sort of storytelling chutzpah that we've seen no evidence of otherwise.
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The actual twist probably wouldn't have hit until you were in your late teens.
I think that it could have been neat, but I don't buy it. Most of the arguments feel to me like they're reaching, and as Zenny notes it assigns Lucas a sort of storytelling chutzpah that we've seen no evidence of otherwise.
Lucas doesn't seem to think about concept in ways other than the one he meant it. That's why when people asked if the prophecy about Anakin was actually equivocation, Macbeth-style, because he killed all but two Jedi, he just said "what? No. Why did you think that?" even though it makes the prophecy actually make sense. This level of manipulation and deception is above the complexity of everything else in the prequels. It's like if McDonalds started serving gourmet filet mignon dinners, you'd wonder either what shortcuts they had taken or why they didn't put that much effort into the rest of their menu.
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I love theories like this and the digging for evidence.
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I saw the original post on Reddit for this awhile back. It seems the video author didn't link to the original for some reason, so:
https://www.reddit.com/comments/3qvj6w
(I didn't actually watch the video, so apologies if their take is different!).
Anyway, see Elf; it's a cool thought, and unlike many fan theories isn't actually inconsistent with what we see, but it's still a long ways away from a "decent chance." The problem is that even taking Episode 1 in isolation, on its own merits, before the fan backlash to Jar-Jar ocurred... Jar-Jar already fits this Lucasian archetype. He's the comic relief, kid-friendly outsider whom everyone underestimates but somehow turns out to be a helpful good guy. Now, the *execution* is awful for Jar-Jar, much worse than C-3P0, but there's no need to layer further plot twists upon this. There is one argument that could be used...
Unfortunately that would have taken George Lucas to have some balls as a storyteller which has never really been the case.
as Zenny notes it assigns Lucas a sort of storytelling chutzpah that we've seen no evidence of otherwise.
Now this I won't let stand. Lucas has gigantic brass balls, for good & ill. Some of the problems in the prequels were surely due to nobody being able to say 'no' to Lucas anymore, probably! And don't confuse "Lucas is completely ripping off The Hero's Journey and all his favorite films" with lack of courage, Lucas showed some real art to pastiche'ing it up right. And similarly, Lucas showed some real courage in some of his stranger plot arc decisions in the prequels... just they didn't actually pan out to quality. (Let's make the Sith about getting in touch with your feelings!)
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cover_story/2015/12/star_wars_is_a_pastiche_how_george_lucas_combined_flash_gordon_westerns.html is a long but decent article, if you're curious.
Going back to the above, there are two famous examples from the original Star Wars of plot twists that spanned movies and retroactively messed with the understanding of the previous film(s)... a certain revelation about what really happened to Luke's father, and the nature of the friendly relationship between Luke & Leia. Two twists that the original Star Wars was very clearly made without any reference to or knowledge of. It's worth remembering how shocking this apparently was Back In The Day - the default assumption after SW1 would have been "hey, male lead & female lead are obviously a couple." And while the plot twist about Luke's father might be old as dirt - the Greeks were certainly a fan - but damn if Lucas did not pull that twist out perfectly for maximum melodrama, again in a very shocking fashion thanks to the 1 movie + 3 year delay on it. Star Wars has a bit of the same problem as Lord of the Rings: it was copied so much later that it's hard to see how daring it was at the time (despite working with all re-used components!).
Anyway, is it possible that Jar-Jar was supposed to be a plot bomb that could explode in unexpected ways, like the real history of Anakin Skywalker & Darth Vader? Maybe. But making Jar-Jar a villain? I just don't think that'd fit the intentions. Jar-Jar was supposed to be the kid-friendly character. Why pin such a dramatic note on him? I just listened to the director's commentary on both Star Wars & Empire Strikes Back recently, and it included comments like cutting a scene that showed Han's torture in more detail & had him screaming because they wanted to still have the movie somewhat tolerable to kids - the implication would be just as dark for the adults. The equivalent from the original trilogy was C-3P0 being revealed to be some kind of murderous killbot. That would be more "dumb" than "operatic". You get a one-time shocking twist, but that's it. Far more likely that Jar-Jar was intended for more zany, underestimated comic relief, and hell, maybe he even would become some kind of secret Jedi. That's my take, anyway.
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The equivalent from the original trilogy was C-3P0 being revealed to be some kind of murderous killbot.
Welllll....
(https://primaryignition.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/vad2.png)
(Not actually C-3P0, but obviously intended to invoke exactly the image.)
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I'm an English major.
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I saw the original post on Reddit for this awhile back. It seems the video author didn't link to the original for some reason, so:
https://www.reddit.com/comments/3qvj6w
(I didn't actually watch the video, so apologies if their take is different!).
Eh as someone that used to be reeeeeeeeeaaaaaally into this stuff I can tell you the idea predates well past that post. People have been joking/refining/playing with the idea since Revenge of the Sith where he hands over control of the senate to Palpatine. Edit - I am also dead certain there is a Cracked thing about it.
It is a fun thought experiment but puts way more deft writing chops than Lucas really exhibits. Also the narrative here goes that it was planned to happen from the start, but he chickened out in 2 and then still went and put stuff in there for it in the third movie? This wasn't a Lord of the Rings job. There was time for rewrites between 2 and 3. He deliberately had Jar Jar hand over control of the senate and it wasn't because of a plot thread he changed his mind on 5 years earlier.
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Speaking of bad writing.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/12/17/like-an-afternoon-nap-in-gaming-form-devilian/
Fucking wrecked. Game companies should hire real writers.
(https://mlpforums.com/uploads/post_images/img-1219807-2-tumblr_liapt6Ufzq1qaha6c.gif)
That quest sample of mine does suck, though. Kinda unfair to take it out of context (nervous, chattery NPC and this is the conclusion of a questline), but still. Kinda wish he'd taken one of Kevin's quests instead of mine as an example.
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if they hired real writers 98% of the playerbase still wouldn't read the quest text
MMO localization is a strange thing
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I love theories like this and the digging for evidence.
I presume you meant to put evidence in the most sarcastic of quotation marks, here
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if they hired real writers 98% of the playerbase still wouldn't read the quest text
MMO localization is a strange thing
And the other 2% would complain loudly that they didn't want real writing, they wanted erectile dysfunction.
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I love theories like this and the digging for evidence.
I presume you meant to put evidence in the most sarcastic of quotation marks, here
Nah. See Soppy's comment. It's all nonsense and long grabs, but it's fun to see what people can pull out to support arguments.
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if they hired real writers
Fucking wrecked.
Meh, blood from a stone Andy man.
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I think that it could have been neat, but I don't buy it. Most of the arguments feel to me like they're reaching
I mean, I think the thing that sells it to me is the Jar Jar Binks actor tweeting "thank god people are starting to figure it out". That's what differentiates this from "cute theory that someone on the internet came up with" to "yeah, this was probably intended."
I mean yeah: most of the jedi mind trick stuff is kind-of whatever--ooh he waved his hands. That could be dismissed as commedy. The only jedi mind trick that really stick out are when Jar Jar mouths the words that someone is speaking as they are speaking them, like he's a ventriloquist. Like...someone had to have consciously told an animator to do that; it must have been deliberate. He's not an actor, it can't be involuntary movement. There's no comedy value in it--it's way too subtle.
Similarly for when he hangs from the balcony, and then drops in a different location. Someone had to tell the animators to have droids shooting at his old location, and then pan their heads around to see his new location where he dropped. It's pretty clearly not error. It's not "oh, we just forgot where he was in that shot", given that they animated for his change of position. And again, Jar Jar is animated--they could have manually placed him on the right of the Jedi to start with, rather than go to the trouble of starting him on one side, getting shot at, and landing on the other side. It's a lot more work, and thus is probably intentional.
I agree that a lot of these are circumstantial. But some of them are so much more work that something weird is going on for sure.
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I mean, I think the thing that sells it to me is the Jar Jar Binks actor tweeting "thank god people are starting to figure it out". That's what differentiates this from "cute theory that someone on the internet came up with" to "yeah, this was probably intended."
Yeah there's no way he would say that to mess with people. An elaborate shell game from George Lucas, a guy who doesn't understand ambiguity, is far more likely.
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It's just a funny bon mot, yeah. Best was amused by the suggestion, it's totally something I could have said/tweeted in his position.
Moreover, I'm actually willing to conceive Lucas of playing some deep shell game, but if he did, at least in the past, he knew enough that you can keep a secret between two people only when one of them is dead:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empire_Strikes_Back#Filming
Like the rest of the crew, Prowse—who spoke all of Vader's lines during filming—was given a false page that contained dialogue with the revelatory line being "Obi-Wan killed your father."[15][31][32] Hamill did not learn of the plot point until just before the scene was filmed, astounding the actor; Kershner advised him to ignore Prowse's dialogue and "use your own rhythm". Until the film premiered, only Lucas, Kershner, Hamill, and James Earl Jones knew what would really be said
So even if this theory about Lucas's secret plan was true, it's quite possible that Best wouldn't be able to confirm or deny it anyway.
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Also Star Wars really doesn't do double agents. The only times they even used disguises it's readily apparent to the audience that those Stormtroopers are Han and Luke, or that the guard in Jabba's Palace is Lando, or that the hologram man telling the racist Chinese caricatures what to do is the Emperor. It's odd but duplicity on a character level is basically unheard of in Star Wars. We never see someone in the Rebellion sell out to the Empire for cash, not even Han who is literally on the verge of being murdered for his debts, and when Anakin falls to the Dark Side for realsies, he cuts ties with the Jedi Order immediately and violently even though it would probably be super advantageous to have him leading the order after a purge of the rest of the Council. The closest we get is Lando, who is forced into it, still tries to protect Leia and Chewie, and then repents almost immediately after.
Also, mc, have you seriously never seen someone stand behind another person and mouth words along with them before? It's a thing people do to amuse themselves, particularly if that person has a particular way of speaking.
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You are wrong there Rob. There is totally spies that betray people. Bothans.
And they only exist and then were tortured and killed off camera.
That's what you get.
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Also, mc, have you seriously never seen someone stand behind another person and mouth words along with them before? It's a thing people do to amuse themselves, particularly if that person has a particular way of speaking.
No, don't think I have (or not without some payoff like making the people who can see you roll their eyes or laugh). Also, neither of these people had peculiar ways of speaking. Also...just in terms of screen readability it seems weird--why would you have two people mouthing the same words in a movie without a specific purpose? That seems unnecessarily confusing.
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You are wrong there Rob. There is totally spies that betray people. Bothans.
And they only exist and then were tortured and killed off camera.
That's what you get.
Bothans just spy, they don't betray people. Sneaking is totally okay, not immediately severing ties when you are on the opposite side? NOT okay.
No, don't think I have (or not without some payoff like making the people who can see you roll their eyes or laugh). Also, neither of these people had peculiar ways of speaking. Also...just in terms of screen readability it seems weird--why would you have two people mouthing the same words in a movie without a specific purpose? That seems unnecessarily confusing.
If screen readability was something in Lucas' brain, we wouldn't have had minutes upon minutes of CGI animals added in and distractingly moving in front and behind of shots in Mos Eisley. It's just as likely that Lucas saw someone do that in real life and thought to himself "that mouth thing is a thing that is funny. I will have Jar-Jar do it, because Jar-Jar is funny."
He's not a big fan of ambiguous character alignments. Need I remind you of his reasoning for having Greedo shoot first? His exact words: "Because I was thinking mythologically — should he be a cowboy, should he be John Wayne? And I said, ‘Yeah, he should be John Wayne.’ And when you’re John Wayne, you don’t shoot people [first] — you let them have the first shot. It’s a mythological reality that we hope our society pays attention to.” When you leave him to his own devices, you get a world where good guys are good guys, bad guys are bad guys and everyone just says how they feel all the time while sitting at a couch in shot/reverse shot.
I know there's a tendency in nerd culture, especially among the fans that get real obsessive about shit like Star Wars, to overanalyze every single thing, but Star Wars' strength is that it's really all there on the surface. It's not a world with secret hidden narratives, because that's not a level Lucas operates on. The Prequels are basically eight hours of Lucas' unchained id writ large and it's nothing but lasers and computer monsters and spaceships and a dash of racism. He didn't write these movies with anyone else, so they're entirely on his level of pew pew lasers and space mans. There's no Kasdan to save him and that's why there IS no deeper level to these films. They're written by the man who thought Darth Icky was a great name.
And Obi-Wan didn't murder Owen and Beru to get Luke to leave with him either.
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He's not a big fan of ambiguous character alignments. Need I remind you of his reasoning for having Greedo shoot first? His exact words: "Because I was thinking mythologically — should he be a cowboy, should he be John Wayne? And I said, ‘Yeah, he should be John Wayne.’ And when you’re John Wayne, you don’t shoot people [first] — you let them have the first shot. It’s a mythological reality that we hope our society pays attention to.” When you leave him to his own devices, you get a world where good guys are good guys, bad guys are bad guys and everyone just says how they feel all the time while sitting at a couch in shot/reverse shot.
OK...so...you say that people in Star Wars are either good or evil. So...then the next question is...is Jar Jar good or evil?
Like...he dissolves democracy, gives unlimited power to Palpatine. These aren't the actions of a good person.
By your own logic of how George Lucas thinks, Jar Jar is clearly evil, because he did something that helped an evil person. Sooooooooo........ (Even allowing for him being a comic relief character, other comic relief characters like C3PO and Chewie don't go around dissolving democracy on accident).
I know there's a tendency in nerd culture, especially among the fans that get real obsessive about shit like Star Wars
I can assure you that I'm not an obsessive fan, at least when it comes to Star Wars. I've seen each movie exactly once. I didn't even hate the prequels when I first watched them, which I'm pretty sure is a requirement for being an obsessive Star Wars fan....
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If you are reading a straight interpretation of the movies, Jar Jar is good in the Lawful Good sense. Palpatine plays him like a fiddle, Jar Jar is pushing for people to give him absolute Executive power over the republic to fight off a foe that had doggedly refused to back down from peaceful trade sanctions, had escalated a war and was shown to have plans for a weapon of mass destruction (Death Star plans from Attack of the Clones).
He helps an evil being and while Lucas works in clear cut good and evils, he doesn't really deal in a world where you nebulously become more evil just by associating with evil people (these evil people will subtly push you to fall though of course...). While there is no doing bad things for good reasons, doing good/evil things is also an active choice you make.
Generally speaking as a hardcore fan, the best parts of the EU was always the bits in the middle where shades of grey are allowed to exist. The moment you bring Jedi into stuff it tends to shit up the setting because they naturally push the narrative into more absolutist good vs evil. Even the times they try to grey it up that gets turned into a fall (Fuck the Yuuzhan Vong stuff, but fuck the fall of Jacen even more... then fuck the stuff set even FURTHER after that even more).
Edit - Not to say the act couldn't result in Darth Darth Binks. But it would be in response to how he felt after the fact.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuGJOdyoLo4
Phoenix Wright meets Hatoful Boyfriend meets 19th Century Paris? My attention is gotten.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuGJOdyoLo4
Did you mean this?
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yeeeeeep
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If you are reading a straight interpretation of the movies, Jar Jar is good in the Lawful Good sense. Palpatine plays him like a fiddle, Jar Jar is pushing for people to give him absolute Executive power over the republic to fight off a foe that had doggedly refused to back down from peaceful trade sanctions, had escalated a war and was shown to have plans for a weapon of mass destruction (Death Star plans from Attack of the Clones).
He helps an evil being and while Lucas works in clear cut good and evils, he doesn't really deal in a world where you nebulously become more evil just by associating with evil people (these evil people will subtly push you to fall though of course...). While there is no doing bad things for good reasons, doing good/evil things is also an active choice you make.
Yuuuuuuuup. This applies both to Jar-Jar Binks and George Lucas: do not ascribe to malevolence what is more obviously incompetence. George Lucas didn't make three terrible Star Wars movies because he wanted to shit all over things people liked. He legitimately thought and still thinks these movies are good. With Jar-Jar, he is literally too stupid to be evil. That is why Palpatine selects him as his puppet in the same way you might trick a small child into doing something. Lenny just wanted to pet the Republic and he petted it too hard.
I can assure you that I'm not an obsessive fan, at least when it comes to Star Wars. I've seen each movie exactly once. I didn't even hate the prequels when I first watched them, which I'm pretty sure is a requirement for being an obsessive Star Wars fan....
I meant more the people cooking these theories up.
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Following up on all that, I'm buying into the theory more because it is so much cooler than what's just stated outright in the text, which y'all have made a pretty convincing argument that that is probably Lucas actually wanted. Screw the author's intentions, I like the idea.
EDIT: Also, since I never followed up, re: George Lucas not having balls as a storyteller. I meant that more in that George Lucas's guiding light in many of the decisions that he made was not in what would make the most interesting, thought provoking story, but instead what would sell the most toys. That's not storytelling balls. That's opportunist capitalism balls. Yeah, Darth Vader being Luke's father was probably pretty shocking at the time, but that's also a twist that doesn't exactly hurt toy sales. If anything, it probably drives them.
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EDIT: Also, since I never followed up, re: George Lucas not having balls as a storyteller. I meant that more in that George Lucas's guiding light in many of the decisions that he made was not in what would make the most interesting, thought provoking story, but instead what would sell the most toys. That's not storytelling balls. That's opportunist capitalism balls. Yeah, Darth Vader being Luke's father was probably pretty shocking at the time, but that's also a twist that doesn't exactly hurt toy sales. If anything, it probably drives them.
That's also why Obi-Wan shows up as a ghost to guide Luke on Hoth and appears to deliver exposition on Dagobah that Yoda could just have easily given. It's why the Rebellion suddenly has a massive fleet with new fighters and capital ships in Jedi. Hell, it's why Han Solo doesn't die at the end of Empire like Kasdan originally wrote, and instead just kind of floats through Jedi with no real clear goals. It's why there's a kajillion Jedi in the Prequels who have no real role in the story. It's why Padme wears a different weird outfit in every scene. It's likely the entire reason that Samuel L. Jackson is in the movie.
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Han was supposed to kick the bucket? That's a little surprising. Not for its own sake but because Leia and Luke going to rescue him sets such a good foundation for the rest of Return of the Jedi, giving Luke an opportunity to show what being a Jedi is all about before having his confrontation with Vader/Palpatine.
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It's why the Rebellion suddenly has a massive fleet with new fighters and capital ships in Jedi. Hell, it's why Han Solo doesn't die at the end of Empire like Kasdan originally wrote, and instead just kind of floats through Jedi with no real clear goals. It's why there's a kajillion Jedi in the Prequels who have no real role in the story. It's why Padme wears a different weird outfit in every scene. It's likely the entire reason that Samuel L. Jackson is in the movie.
Hmm, I dunno.
A) On Han.... See NotMiki. Really?? That's interesting if so, do you have a link / source? Having him frozen seemed pretty darn dark as is, sets up the first half of Return of the Jedi, and also gives a solid excuse to involve Lando in the plot. I can maybe see killing Han off in Return of the Jedi (like Harrison Ford apparently wanted), and that'd even be the right call for a darker "more adult" Star Wars, but eh, having him as window dressing is okay, too. Not every character needs a plot arc. Additionally, it'd be a real downer if there's a quest to save Han, then he dies shortly afterward. (The Matrix sequels have this problem. Don't ask me to get invested in saving Trinity if you're just going to kill her off anyway. One of the rare times this kind of plot arc can work is if Our Hero has to kill the person they rescued themself - I'm thinking Lawrence of Arabia here, basically. But that ain't Star Wars.)
B) Jedi in the prequels who exist just to be in the background & have names seems fine, actually. This is supposed to be an era where Jedi are more common. So... make 'em more common. But you probably don't want to tell an ensemble story, so you can't actually spend much time to develop them without risk of derailing the main plot. Lucas would prove adept at derailing the main plot anyway, but I'll give him this one.
C) The weirder thing is more that this giant Rebellion fleet didn't exist in the 1st & 2nd movies, honestly. This is supposed to be the Galactic Civil War, not the "stamp out bandit raiders" campaign. It's something I'm vaguely worried about for the sequel trilogy, actually - I'm worried they think there was a backlash to Jedi working "for the man" in the prequels, and will contort the story to be outnumbered freedom fighters vs. a vast military rather than a throwdown between two equally matched forces.
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Jedi without Han rescue honestly could just be like 30 minutes shorter without much change other than a bunch more Billy D. Williams...
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The main source for Harrison Ford on the matter is the big Star Wars documentary, Empire of Dreams. It's been many many years since I watched it so I forget what exactly Kasdan's position was on it, but my recollection is that both he and Ford pushed for it and Lucas shot them down.
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Han was supposed to kick the bucket? That's a little surprising. Not for its own sake but because Leia and Luke going to rescue him sets such a good foundation for the rest of Return of the Jedi, giving Luke an opportunity to show what being a Jedi is all about before having his confrontation with Vader/Palpatine.
If you listen to the Star Wars Minute Podcast, they do a very interesting rundown early in their RotJ era (during the opening crawl?) where they discuss the different iterations that the movie was going to go through. They sourced their information from a number of different interviews and such, and I generally regard their expertise on the subject of behind-the-scenes Star Wars stuff pretty highly.
Jedi was originally going to be JUST Luke and Leia where Luke goes on a quest to confront Vader personally while Leia leads a Rebel commando group, first to (I think) infiltrate the Empire's capital world and take the Emperor prisoner, but that changed to infiltrating the place where the new Death Stars were being built and sabotage it before they could come online. Harrison Ford then agreed to come back which necessitated a full rewrite of the entire plot, but they never really came up with anything for Han to DO.
C) The weirder thing is more that this giant Rebellion fleet didn't exist in the 1st & 2nd movies, honestly. This is supposed to be the Galactic Civil War, not the "stamp out bandit raiders" campaign. It's something I'm vaguely worried about for the sequel trilogy, actually - I'm worried they think there was a backlash to Jedi working "for the man" in the prequels, and will contort the story to be outnumbered freedom fighters vs. a vast military rather than a throwdown between two equally matched forces.
X-Wings are real, real good and the Galactic Civil War was, until the very end, a campaign of asymmetrical warfare. The rebels had corvettes and shit but you need an enormous infrastructure to maintain Star Destroyers.
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C) The weirder thing is more that this giant Rebellion fleet didn't exist in the 1st & 2nd movies, honestly. This is supposed to be the Galactic Civil War, not the "stamp out bandit raiders" campaign. It's something I'm vaguely worried about for the sequel trilogy, actually - I'm worried they think there was a backlash to Jedi working "for the man" in the prequels, and will contort the story to be outnumbered freedom fighters vs. a vast military rather than a throwdown between two equally matched forces.
X-Wings are real, real good and the Galactic Civil War was, until the very end, a campaign of asymmetrical warfare. The rebels had corvettes and shit but you need an enormous infrastructure to maintain Star Destroyers.
Yeah. At best, the Rebels had those Nebulon-B frigates you see at the end of Empire in the early days. It took a while for them to sway entire planets to their cause, and it was mostly due to the Empire's human bias violently repressing non-human species (Hence Bothan spies, Mon Calamari shipbuilding, etc). Even then, the Mon Calamari cruisers you see at the end of Jedi are actually converted civilian ships, except for Home One, I believe.
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What is this I don't even...
http://squareportal.tumblr.com/post/135951556365/lightning-from-final-fantasy-xiii-trilogy-is
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K
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More Lightning bias. Sadness.
If Squeenix were smart, they'd have realized this was a great way to hype the FF VII remake and used Cloud instead.
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Did somebody link this in chat? I forget. I'm not sure how I got this link. Interesting anyway in the "laugh at RPG writing" set. Writeup from 2011 on a particular questline in Skyrim that is really dumb.
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=14422
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The police officer who killed Tamir Rice in Cleveland will not face criminal charges. (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/us/tamir-rice-police-shootiing-cleveland.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news)
Fuck the world.
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Did somebody link this in chat? I forget. I'm not sure how I got this link. Interesting anyway in the "laugh at RPG writing" set. Writeup from 2011 on a particular questline in Skyrim that is really dumb.
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=14422
Poking at the flaws in Bethesda's writing is like whipping a retarded kid with an orange in a sock.
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Did somebody link this in chat? I forget. I'm not sure how I got this link. Interesting anyway in the "laugh at RPG writing" set. Writeup from 2011 on a particular questline in Skyrim that is really dumb.
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=14422
Oh good. I had this nagging feeling like I should play Skyrim at some point. Nope!
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Fallout 4 has completely superseded Skyrim in more ways than Bethesda RPGs usually are.
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Fallout 4 has completely superseded Skyrim in more ways than Bethesda RPGs usually are.
There's something to be said for Skyrim's overall general bigness, especially since making a bunch of things in a big place is Bethesda's stock in trade. FO4 felt small in comparison to most of their other works.
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http://shmuplations.com/games/
translations of interviews with Japanese game developers
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Oh my god guys
It's REAL Morty
Pocket Mortys
https://twitter.com/JustinRoiland/status/684506878882099200
By Adult Swim, those behind Duck Game and Jazzpunk
You play as Rick and command various Mortys to battle
Coming in 7 days on IOs/Android
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http://www.vox.com/2016/1/6/10724096/science-brain-games-lumosity
This is something that I have been telling anyone who asks for a while, especially undergrads in psych 101 classes. It's a very basic introduction to fraudsters trying to capitalize on psych/neuro being a big thing now.
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To be fair, we have always had that in Psych :(
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I think it's become a bigger thing with the advent of fMRI and other imaging technologies how easily people fall for anything if you show them pictures of brains.
That's how you get horseshlt like this:
(http://a.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/inline-large/inline/2014/02/3025957-inline-i-1-what-happens-to-our-brains-when-we-exercise-and-how-it-makes-us-happier.jpg)
Like, what does this even mean? But it's compelling if you don't think about it.
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OBVIOUSLY it means that when you sit you think about a tropical island and when you go for a walk you think about a tropical island with an active volcano.
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Well, if I know anything about reading multicolor visual representations, it's that you're going to die because your brain is exploding if you walk.
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it's compelling if you don't think about it.
Popsci.gif
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I fucking love not thinking critically! etc
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In my mind it is a modern twists on things like Trepanning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning)(Link not for duck, but the off chance others haven't run into this one weird trick before).
Also all that image means is that you have a lot of activity in one part of your brain near the top for some time after walking (assuming no more variables in play ?????????? probs just motor functionality????).
It is a pretty cool scare tactic though. Its like getting people to lose their shit over lava lamps.
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That's the part of the brain that activates when you are moving your body and looking at your surroundings. So... yeah. It's a tautology.
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http://www.wired.com/2016/01/that-dragon-cancer/
This is very meaningful to me for personal reasons, but this game is getting released tomorrow and seems to be hitting some nerves. Just reading parts of this article made me hyperventilate at points, and it doesn't seem like there is an actual occasion to play this game (just as someone might never be in the mood to watch something like Ikiru), but something about this seems special.
Between this and David Bowie dying I am not starting the year happily at all.
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http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-most-edited-wikipedia-pages-over-the-last-15-years/
The most editted Wikipedia page of last year is... the geospatial summary of the High Peaks and Summits of the Juneau Icefield?
ok
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http://www.wired.com/2016/01/that-dragon-cancer/
This is very meaningful to me for personal reasons, but this game is getting released tomorrow and seems to be hitting some nerves. Just reading parts of this article made me hyperventilate at points, and it doesn't seem like there is an actual occasion to play this game (just as someone might never be in the mood to watch something like Ikiru), but something about this seems special.
Between this and David Bowie dying I am not starting the year happily at all.
Please avoid this game's message board on Steam
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I've only seen some snippets, and while I was expecting some of the things like the "is this a game" question which is always idiotic, the amount of vitriol this game is getting based on assumptions that the creators are cynical and monetizing tragedy is incredible. I don't know where this rage comes from. Is it a gamergate thing? Are these just douchey edgy teenagers? A bit of both? Whatever it is, it seems to appear in force anytime anything remotely unexpected or difficult shows up. Like, people screamed and fought for the legitimacy of games as art but then when something has something to say that isn't pleasant or "fun" then they also go crazy or think they are being taken advantage of in some way. Lots of concern trolling going on here.
The game certainly isn't perfect but it has some incredibly striking and powerful moments. I may make a post about it at some point, but I'll go ahead and say that it probably won't resonate for a lot of people unless they have been in a situation of loss or if they are a parent. I think there's pushback for pieces of work that aren't necessarily for you. This is a game that is certainly made for people who can relate to certain circumstances and that should probably be recognized going into it, but people who are mad that it wasn't made directly for them are a little baffling to me.
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I think...at a more basic level, people get mad when they are confronted with tragedies beyond their control. Cancer, the death of a loved one, these are not fun things to think about. Perhaps for these people, what they're really mad about is that videogames are the mental space they compartmentalized that doesn't rub their faces in real-world anguish. And now those waters are muddied and they are angry about it. People were pretty mad about Million Dollar Baby at first, and for the same kind of reason.
I am 1000% sure that some of these same people are also extremely derisive of the whole "trigger warning" concept. We humans are not a consistent bunch.
Anyway I'm not saying all this to excuse bad behavior on their part. You can't just lash out when you're angry. But it's worth thinking about where all this rage comes from, really.
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I think that is true, but it goes back to the idea that someone may not be in the target audience. All of the marketing about the game is very explicit about what it's about, so it not blindsiding anybody. For those who look for entertainment or escapism from film, books, games, etc, things like this very clearly won't fulfill those requirements, so it seems like the easiest thing to do is to ignore it. What's getting me is that people are coming out of the woodwork to comment on it and some question its right to exist, and I think this may be specific to video games right now since no one would think twice about this subject matter if it appeared in a book or a TV show. To put it another way, if the creators of this game covered the same material by writing a book or making a documentary about it, I think fewer people make these accusations that they're monetizing tragedy or that it should never have been made (or maybe I'm being naive). But loss and death have been grappled with more in those media and not so much in the video game space, so maybe that's it?
I guess at a baser level, if you want you're looking for is escapism/entertainment, there is generally enough stuff out there that fits that bill. The existence of this game or other things that don't fit in that bubble doesn't affect any of the other stuff that's actually out there, so what is the problem? I think the same type of people got angry at the praise Gone Home got, so I don't think it's just the difficulty of struggling with loss and disease.
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I've seen people call it "Gone Homo" on this very forum I told you to avoid
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The Animorphs run on AGDQ 2016 is fun. Highly recommended.
Animorphs is some terrible gameboy color Pokemon clone that's heavily RNG dependant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFuYa99d0Cs
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I think the same type of people got angry at the praise Gone Home got, so I don't think it's just the difficulty of struggling with loss and disease.
I agree. I think their sense of space and sense of entitlement stretches out to the whole sphere of videogames, so it's really not a matter of having played the game or not. It's the same reaction, but when the presence disrupting their mental space is cancer, loss, real-life unfairness and death...I try to be a little more understanding than when it's WIMMIN IN OUR VIDJAGAMES. Even if it's the same people.
ERMAGERD! FIMINISTS!
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People who have heavily invested themselves into something they passively consume get mad when it changes, because they don't have other things to fall back on.
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People who have heavily invested themselves into something they passively consume get mad when it changes, because they don't have other things to fall back on.
What is super going to do when the DL goes away?
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Same thing I always do, abuse everyone within arm's length.
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Let's be real here, your junk is no where near as long as your arms.
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(http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/images/7/76/Finish_super.png)
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People who have heavily invested themselves into something they passively consume get mad when it changes, because they don't have other things to fall back on.
What is super going to do when the DL goes away?
The DL proper already went away and most of the group members are still here from that time, so I think he'll be okay for a while longer.
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(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/QKDrRis7R_6tx7R3tgjLloCb1Xj0oa-qiWVzjUj-OE7YWi8ZJYPY_oqJdPpMQp57CmTdRiWwv_uq6ielo8z1pyExZwT38eYFvZbEBrXker3bcajbUpP8CVeUmu7D2Bd48HOFK4L4PyLREmGUI0XHr7eGY_w6J_M=w500-h214-nc)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaOSCASqLsE
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http://www.ebay.com/gds/Top-10-Best-Magic-The-Gathering-Cards-/10000000204787157/g.html
With a little knowledge of the most acclaimed cards, you too can become invincible. And probably have really boring games against other players with this knowledge since you both have Platinum Angel-esque invincibility.
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Read through the list of Magic cards, sounded reasonable enough. Then took a peek at the comments and they all seemed to think that the author had no idea what he's talking about. Since I've never played Magic seriously, and I literally haven't played a game this millenium, I couldn't judge one way or the other. Kinda curious what MC would say are the "top ten" broken/best/useful Magic cards.
I personally thought the list was fine, but perhaps that's because all the broken effects of these cards are -very- easy to understand without extensive metagame/tournament-level knowledge?
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Quite a number of the cards on that list are super-broken (it includes the three most broken members of the Power Nine). I gather some of the ones I'm less familiar with may not be (I'm very skeptical about anything with a mana cost of WWUUBBRRGG in particular).
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Quite a number of the cards on that list are super-broken (it includes the three most broken members of the Power Nine). I gather some of the ones I'm less familiar with may not be (I'm very skeptical about anything with a mana cost of WWUUBBRRGG in particular).
To be fair, I think you don't play Progenitus legit. He's part of the backbone of Sneak and Show, for example.
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Sol Ring~
You better believe I abused the hell out of that one. Rest were before or after my time though. (Black Lotus and Time Walk were things you'd see securely behind shop counters for like fifty bucks. Oh 1994!)
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Some of the entries on the list are fine ("best" lists are notoriously subjective, and for an eBay list, I don't have a problem with listing some on "volume of trade" rather than sheer power since the Power Nine are quite rare). The problem is that the ability to explain why the card is good ranges from "I get what you're saying but your terminology is off" to "complete gobbledygook" to Magic veterans, even if translated away from some of the odder "maybe not a native English speaker" phrasings. Progenitus for example isn't close to a defensive card; it got *some* play, sure, but you cheat it out early and it ends the game quickly since it's 10/10. Mycosynth Lattice has nothing to do with Planeswalker loyalty counters and is more a goofy casual card (which, again, is okay for a "best of eBay list", but the phrasing suggests the writer never actually played with it). For Time Walk, getting an extra turn isn't in any way some super-broken unstoppable ability; there are plenty of cards printed later that give you extra turns and they are just okay. Time Walk is insanely undercosted get another turn. The phrasings for what exactly Memory Jar & Strip Mine do are just off and misleading (you only get the mana OR the land destruction with strip mine. Memory Jar is used IN combo decks, not against them, and there is counterplay to it.) Vampiric Tutor, while commoner-but-worse than Demonic Tutor, also totally has counterplay available.
Imagine something like:
BEST FINAL FANTASY CHARACTERS
Yuna - Everyone loves Yuna. She is the best. With her summoned Guardian Forces nothing can stand against her. She also gets guns and singing to obliterate any chance your enemies have. A fan-favorite.
Cait Sith - With her unstoppable "Limit" attacks, you can crush your opponents every turn. Roll the dice and watch an "Omnislash" obliterate your foes, and Sith can equip the best materia. Sith was so good they were removed from the game in the sequel.
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Rancor is #2
Fakken wut b_d
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List was better than I thought it would be upon clicking. Black Lotus, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, Sol Ring, and Strip Mine are all top 10 material, and while Vampiric Tutor is not (it's worse than Demonic Tutor for starters), it's at least in the right ballpark. Even Memory Jar is not unreasonable to put in the top 50 or so.
Progenitus... well, it's not good anymore, but there WAS a period in time when it was the best creature ever printed and the go-to card for things that cheated into play. Still not top 10 realistically, but maybe top 50 and not a terrible inclusion for a best-of list. That lasted for... a little over one year, and then Rise of the Eldrazi was printed.
Rancor is nowhere near the top, but it was a strong card that defined casual play for two relatively lengthy spans of time.
Mycosynth Lattice is some sort of joke. This card has never been good anywhere, except for setting up bizarre theoretical rules problems. (Get out Lattice, then March of the Machines, then Opalescence and Humility and...)
Randomly eyeballed top something or other for fun, look em up on magiccards.info :
- Ancestral Recall
- Sol Ring
- Black Lotus
- Library of Alexandria
- Mana Crypt
- Mox Sapphire, Jet, Ruby, Emerald, and Pearl
- Time Vault
- Tinker
- Time Walk
- Mana Drain
- Tolarian Academy
- Strip Mine
- Wasteland
- Mishra's Workshop
- Dark Ritual
- Lion's Eye Diamond
- Grim Monolith
- Demonic Tutor
- Vampiric Tutor (and Imperial Seal)
- Fastbond
- Channel
- The 10 "Fetch" Lands (Polluted Delta, Flooded Strand, Wooded Foothills etc.)
- The 10 Original Dual Lands (Underground Sea, Tundra, Savannah etc.)
- Brainstorm
- Gush
- Thoughtseize
- Treasure Cruise
- Dig Through Time
- Griselbrand
- Tendrils of Agony
- Mind's Desire
- Force of Will
- Lodestone Golem
- Fact or Fiction
- Gifts Ungiven
- Dread Return
- Delver of Secrets
- Young Pyromancer
- Monastery Mentor
- Pack Rat
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor
- Lightning Bolt
- Entomb
- Assorted "draw 7" effects: Timetwister, Time Spiral, Wheel of Fortune, Memory Jar.
- Umezawa's Jitte
- Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
- Blightsteel Colossus
- Swords to Plowshares
- Sensei's Divining Top
- Ancient Tomb
- Liliana of the Veil
- Snapcaster Mage
- Mox Diamond
- Mind Twist
- Ponder
- Mental Misstep
... okay I'll stop
-
I wish there was a way to bottle how fucking aggravating playing against Jitte felt so that it could be preserved. It isn't the most broken card ever. It isn't the most powerful I have played against even though Pre 4th is super rare down in Aus and I have only random spikes of play.
It is still absolutely the most infuriating experience.
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http://www.siliconera.com/2016/01/29/heres-a-first-look-at-ramza-in-dissidia-final-fantasy/
Welcome to Dissidia Ramza. I hope you get use to this new concept called "a nose."
-
Mini dress and thigh highs?
A fucking classic look.
-
I just realized how much I want a "Fashionista Grefter" writeup on the Dissidia cast.
-
Imagine something like:
BEST FINAL FANTASY CHARACTERS
Yuna - Everyone loves Yuna. She is the best. With her summoned Guardian Forces nothing can stand against her. She also gets guns and singing to obliterate any chance your enemies have. A fan-favorite.
Cait Sith - With her unstoppable "Limit" attacks, you can crush your opponents every turn. Roll the dice and watch an "Omnislash" obliterate your foes, and Sith can equip the best materia. Sith was so good they were removed from the game in the sequel.
You win metaphors forever for this, by the way. I don't think anything has ever been this clearly explained to me in my life.
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(http://www.eoscg.com/images/twerk.gif)
........
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/virtuadolls-an-adult-vr-game-controller--2#/story
-
Oh god this was a top post
Nobody will dare to post here anymore now
RIP misc links 2016 topic
-
We'll just have to bury it. It's easy if you try.
-
Imagine there's no top post
It's easy if you try
No bouncing buttocks
No penis slide
Imagine all the virgins
Funding this today...
Imagine there's more new links
Easier on the eyes
Perhaps some kitten videos
Or some more Smash Bros guys
Imagine all the laughter
Watching Youtube vids...
You may say Fen's a pervert
But he's not the only one
Let's move on to some new links
And let Tumblr field this one
-
We'll just have to bury it. It's easy if you try.
To the hilt.
-
Well it took ten years but i finally masturbated to something on this website
-
What does a butt have to do with paper towel dispensers? Man, they're using sex to sell anything these days... I guess they'd have to, given how poorly designed it is.
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/us/politics/jeb-bush-an-also-ran-in-iowa-may-be-pivotal-in-new-hampshire.html
please clap
-
I was just coming to post this also after seeing it on the news. Stick a fork in him, he's done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdCYMvaUcrA
-
Some people truly do not understand how to be true presidents.
-
http://kotaku.com/video-game-fashion-reviewed-by-people-who-know-fashion-1756950307
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
-
They were way harsh on Adam Jensen. I'd bang him, no homo.
-
Excellent.
Whoever put that list together has an excellent sense of humour. Quiet and Tingle, yesss.
-
They were way harsh on Adam Jensen. I'd bang him, no homo.
It's ableist if you wouldn't.
-
http://kotaku.com/video-game-fashion-reviewed-by-people-who-know-fashion-1756950307
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
This may literally be the best thing. Grefter, you are officially on the cutting edge. Go start a blog.
-
It's articles like those that justify our clickbait-infested modern life.
-
MONETIZE MY INTERESTS INTERNET!!!!!!
-
I'm amused that Inkling Girl got the best overall scores.
-
It was inevitable that Inkling Girl got the best overall scores.
-
http://mashable.com/2016/02/09/richard-sherman-pokemon/
Richard Sherman is Seattle's gym leader.
-
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/us-world/article/Senior-Associate-Justice-Antonin-Scalia-found-6828930.php
holy shit
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIES3ii-IOg
This is so sick. Worth watching if you like playing/watching LPs of Kaizo Mario etc. hacks. Apparently there's some ARG-like game to get access to a "secret ending" video but I couldn't be arsed.
-
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/us-world/article/Senior-Associate-Justice-Antonin-Scalia-found-6828930.php
holy shit
Rest in piss
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIES3ii-IOg
This is so sick. Worth watching if you like playing/watching LPs of Kaizo Mario etc. hacks. Apparently there's some ARG-like game to get access to a "secret ending" video but I couldn't be arsed.
Nice. Also sure does remind me why never to play kaizo games.
-
Fuck you Matt Damon that Oscar is mine!
http://redcarpetrampage.com/
-
This will never get old
Smash Bros Luigi beats every dlc lvel 9 character by doing nothing
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Is6taKZo010
Cloud for puny
-
Smash AI not built to handle platforming/path finding and reliant on chasing opponent to handle that?
I guess if building bots to handle your core gameplay is kind of whatever. Or is it an engagement range thing maybe?
K.
-
Somewhat. Most of it is that Level 9 AI is built to be hyper-aggressive and unpredictable, so it intentionally spaces its moves differently than would seem logical (I suppose to account for human unpredictability? It ends up working fairly well in practice, especially in one-on-one matches). Level 8s act a lot more like one would expect a mind-reading (input-reading?) computer would, and are much harder in some ways. At least, that's how it worked in melee, I haven't studied up much on Brawl or WiiU's AI, but just anecdotally it doesn't feel that changed?
It's still nice to see that Luigi can win as long as he doesn't try.
-
The last match isn't very impressive because a quirk of how scoring works ensures that Luigi is almost certain to "win". (Friendly fire is on, and the game penalises you for killing your own teammates, and the CPU team has loads of teammates...)
The rest are pretty funny.
-
Yeah I think the last match would result in a Luigi win 99% of the time
Still pretty funny to see Luigi win by doing nothing against everybody else, together, with no handicap and max AI. Just another pretty big flaw in Smash Bros AI (it acts the same whether friendly fire is on or not, I guess)
The best has to be vs Ryu. What a loser
-
Since there might be some interest here: Trion just pushed our new game, Atlas Reactor, to alpha. https://www.atlasreactorgame.com/en/
Game is a turn-based, team, simultaneous action SRPG. It's got kind of an XCom meets MOBA vibe to it. I actually dig it quite a bit, and really hope it keeps improving.
I've got a trio of spare Alpha Keys, so if anyone is interested in trying it out and giving feedback, lemme know.
-
Game is a turn-based, team, simultaneous action SRPG. It's got kind of an XCom meets MOBA vibe to it. I actually dig it quite a bit, and really hope it keeps improving.
You don't have to bait me into arguing and having make up sexnifnyou want it rough.
Jokes aside, what level of detail are we talking here. Is this Frozen Synapse level where it is micro controlling everything or is it more lightweight like X-Com?
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Game is a turn-based, team, simultaneous action SRPG. It's got kind of an XCom meets MOBA vibe to it. I actually dig it quite a bit, and really hope it keeps improving.
You don't have to bait me into arguing and having make up sexnifnyou want it rough.
Jokes aside, what level of detail are we talking here. Is this Frozen Synapse level where it is micro controlling everything or is it more lightweight like X-Com?
X-Com level.
4v4. Each player controls one Freelancer. Each Freelancer has 5 unique abilities (3 of which are cooldown gated, 1 which is an ultimate and takes time to build up to), as well as 3 common catalysts (which breakdown into a buff, teleport, and misc ability - chosen before match). Movement is all grid based with fog of war stuff. Games are basically team deathmatch (first to X kills or most kills after X rounds). Freelancer abilities can be customized using mods that provided small bonuses that may alter how abilities function. (1 per ability - chosen before match)
Phase breakdown is Prep (buffs and such) -> Dash (specialized movement abilities) -> Blast (most normal actions resolve here) -> Movement, so the game focuses a lot on predictive actions. Don't spend your 5 turn cooldown on a dude who is gonna dash out of the way, etc.
Math is all straightforward. Ability does X damage, so it does X damage, only modded by something like cover or the Tough buff.
So yeah. Choose movement, choose action/s in-game basically.
-
I'm a little late on this but the schadenfreude re: Jeb Bush has been incredible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yHckRTkcZg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O74XDI-o7xc
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http://www.twcc.com/articles/2016/02/26/o/oscar-winner-jamie-foxx-jabs-will-smith-and-his-award-show-boycott
"I was sitting at home with my Oscar, like 'what's all the hubbub?'"
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http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/02/single-ladies-friendship-romantic-fraught.html?mid=facebook_thecutblog
My friend shared this article on Facebook. I'm seeing a lot of articles about friendship this year, and this one doesn't take the cake. I'm uncomfortable with defining friendship only through the lens of being a cis female, but it does give pause. Some questions I have for the author are: where is friendship in marriage; has, or how, has marriage in queer communities affected the deep bonds of friendship heterosexual friends aren't typically known for?
My friendships have bordered on the romantic, a deep nonsexual connection, and I'd say that I don't use friend loosely myself. I don't attach myself or emotionally to a flake. And I'm sure it speaks to my character, but I've done a good job of forgetting people and lightening my psychic baggage.
-
I more got the implication that folks in relationships tend to be the only (remaining) close friend of the other, but with all the extra baggage of relationships so it's can be less fulfilling.
Men just aren't really socialized to accept emotional intimacy among male friends, so the level of trust required for it to happen tends to be much, much higher. Which honestly probably contributes to the first thing; by any definition aside from "people I hang out and have good times with", single men don't generally have friends, and that emotional burden gets dumped on their significant others. Goddamned patriarchy.
Granted I'm probably not the best person to evaluate here, since any time I have any remotely close friendship I instead crush hard on them, which I then get self-conscious about and instead put deliberate distance back in there until it's manageable. Yay malformed coping mechanisms.
-
Considering the major location changes I've had in my life, my friends in the DL have been more constant than any people real life, up to and including many of my own family members. Daily interaction online tends to trump whatever real-world outings I've had with the transients in my life. It's easier to be honest and open with people I've been friends with longer (even my favorite assholes like Zenny <3), so I wouldn't worry about a lack of friendship, CK, you'll always have us~
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Not to mention you've shared a bed with me already CK, so you've got intimacy covered in the DL also.
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I more got the implication that folks in relationships tend to be the only (remaining) close friend of the other, but with all the extra baggage of relationships.
See, I got the perspective that friend didn't necessarily mean proximity and doing things togethe, so pairs approach relationships through obligations and not wlllfull timesharing like platonic friends. But it would make sense, because the author is arguing for accessibility.
I am no expert either, just a person who's gotten over the need to crave consistent physical interaction like the writer. I mean, she leaves out avenues like what Djinn shares, Skype, etc. But you are onto something about hetero white men because there's this idea that they have the fewest friends. I am uncomfortable accepting that, too.
Trust is kinda like, the thing women friends claw each other's eyes out over.
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since any time I have any remotely close friendship I instead crush hard on them
*moves in for the kill*
We will always be close friends CK-bo.
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https://vine.co/v/i62BZ7FJWlp/embed/simple
Metal Gear Rising and Trump
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http://nerdreactor.com/2016/03/02/the-horror-of-silent-hills-p-t-gets-remade-in-live-action/
Pretty damn well made. A sad reminder of what could've been.
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Is it a mirror?
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Is it a mirror?
Like I say to your Mom all the time: that was a low blow.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/campus-carry-anxiety-age/472920/
If you're not hip to current public uni horror, UT Austin (HOOK EM) set the stage for concealed carry on public universities. Texas is so big is sets a lot of shitty standards later adopted by other states.
Blah blah blah we can protect "you" blah blah blah most suicides on campuses occur with guns blah blah blah gun use safety courses means people are safe blah blah blah
What gets my gullet, ya'll, is that private universities are free to opt out of SB11, whereas public universities and thus their demographics within, have absolutely no agency over their public spaces, shout out to Rice who just opted out in Houston, or just 9 minutes away from UT, St. Edwards http://kxan.com/2016/01/19/st-edwards-university-announces-opting-out-of-campus-carry/ !!
And now GA is allowing for campus carry, GA, which has even greater disparities in education and acccesssssssssssss and my goooood I'm going back to Atlanta but I feel like my academic pathway has followed stupid shit, from unis and sugar babies, hangings of POC faculty, Boston Marathon to this shit. i want to be somewhere that's not in the news.
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i want to be somewhere that's not in the news.
Idaho. ::Nods::
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what the spud yoo tal'm bout????
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Canada almost never makes the American news. Except when the Toronto mayor smoked crack, so avoid Toronto. Anywhere else, tho, and you'd be in good shape.
-
Sometimes it makes news for cities rating high in livability.
You could also try Australia where our gun crime rates are so low that the last news article with Shot I could find on it was over a week ago wooooo!
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*snort* I had thought about Montréal! But it doesn't snow in Australia, yeah? Hmmmm... :P
Also, another link: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/opinion/beppe-severgnini-what-italy-can-teach-america-about-donald-trump.html?referer&_r=0
I like this article.
-
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/breitbart-s-michelle-fields-ben-shapiro-resign-over-trump-incident-n537711
Shitbags from the shitrag Breitbart are resigning because Trump is too much for them. Ben Shapiro in particular has been a waste of a human being in any number of facets.
https://twitter.com/Hadas_Gold/status/709444967199076352
Others leaving Breitbart too. The first comment on the tweet is someone being thankful that the SJWs are finally gone. Jesus fucking christ.
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I try not to extend my targets for schadenfreude beyond politicians, career criminals, and North Korea. I'll make an exception just this once.
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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1196948 (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1196948)
Don't get your hopes up yet, but there's a chance that Wild Arms may not be dead.
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http://www.usgamer.net/articles/yahoo-games-shutting-down-in-may-ending-a-major-piece-of-game-history
RIP Yahoo Games. I mean, we're all elite gamers here, none of that Flash games on Kongregate nonsense, but... Yahoo Games had a certain elegant simplicity back in the day as a place to go play chess or whatever. Alas.
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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1196948 (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1196948)
Don't get your hopes up yet, but there's a chance that Wild Arms may not be dead.
They better be getting a payout from Sony if they're only on PS4.
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http://www.usgamer.net/articles/yahoo-games-shutting-down-in-may-ending-a-major-piece-of-game-history
RIP Yahoo Games. I mean, we're all elite gamers here, none of that Flash games on Kongregate nonsense, but... Yahoo Games had a certain elegant simplicity back in the day as a place to go play chess or whatever. Alas.
Super circa 2004 does not approve.
But even a hope of a new Wild Arms game is completely awesome. If I had to choose one RPG series that made a return, it would probably be Wild Arms.
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I think Sony, rather than media.vision, holds the rights to Wild ARMs so they probably don't have much choice in the matter.
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$5 on if its not Wild Arms it is a Trigun RPG.
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http://www.usgamer.net/articles/yahoo-games-shutting-down-in-may-ending-a-major-piece-of-game-history
RIP Yahoo Games. I mean, we're all elite gamers here, none of that Flash games on Kongregate nonsense, but... Yahoo Games had a certain elegant simplicity back in the day as a place to go play chess or whatever. Alas.
Super circa 2004 does not approve.
But even a hope of a new Wild Arms game is completely awesome. If I had to choose one RPG series that made a return, it would probably be Wild Arms.
I think I'd choose Suikoden. But Wild Arms a close second. And somewhere after that is Grandia....'s battle system.
Speaking of JRPG series making a return... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_of_Fire_6
BoF6 is actually out and playable now. It is a phone/web-based game though. In Japanese. Perhaps the Zenny would be interested though?
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I'm going to guess it will wildly backpedal from BoF5 for actually being interesting instead of stock bullshit but for furries.q
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I never expect Djinn to troll anyone, it's so great when he does.
Also, Rob: Considering BoF5 kinda killed the series, I can't say I'd blame them.
And I'd certainly disagree on which BoF was the interesting one. The comparison between Fou-Lu and anyone in BoF5 (Elyon? Bosch?) is... not kind to the latter.
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I meant like... to play. The basic verbs of gameplay are actually fun in a way that BoF4's is not. Combat in 4 is something you have to slog through, whereas in 5 it's actually kind of interesting and fun.
Also 5 made the dragon being able to destroy the planet or whatever actually feel real and not them just talking it up. Even in 3, you still need help from the other party members and you spend a LOT of time beating on the final boss, even though supposedly it can wipe out civilization. In 5 if you turn into a dragon it's complete slaughter for everything in your way, and that's the way it should be. It's far, far more interesting as a finite resource that trivializes basically everything than in other games where it was just something you did on boss fights to make them go faster.
Then again that's a problem with MP-based systems in general.
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Okay yeah all of that is fair. I have some issues with BoF5's battle system implementation but it is definitely the strong point of the game and absolutely more interesting than any other BoF.
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I think BoF5 would have been much more successful if they hadn't attached the Breath of Fire name to it. Fans of BoF series were turned off by the change in direction, and other people never tried it because they didn't like the past BoF games.
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I think BoF5 would have been much more successful if they hadn't attached the Breath of Fire name to it. Fans of BoF series were turned off by the change in direction, and other people never tried it because they didn't like the past BoF games.
I know that's true for me. Didn't care for the others when I rented them so I had no urge to play 5 until I heard it discarded everything about the series.
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http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/03/16/bloodborne-is-turning-into-a-board-game
This is not something I expected.
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http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/03/16/bloodborne-is-turning-into-a-board-game
This is not something I expected.
XCOM the board game apparently did very well for Fantasy Flight, so expect to see more of this. You can make money with a complex board game at a higher price point, but licensed properties make it a lot easier to do this. FFG raked in cash with Battlestar Galactica ($50 with four $40 expansions), Game of Thrones ($60) and XCOM ($60) and I imagine the Bloodborne fanbase probably won't be too hard to draw. That's assuming they do a good job designing the game, but FFG does quite well with that.
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Now here, on the other hand, is a demographic I didn't see having much overlap. Juggalos and fans of deck building RPGs.
http://www.intotheechoside.com/ (http://www.intotheechoside.com/)
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So the Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes mobile game recently added Chief Chirpa. Ever seen an Ewok gangbang?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtD2vSrhYII
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So the Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes mobile game recently added Chief Chirpa. Ever seen an Ewok gangbang?
He has a dog's penis
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So that's a yes?
-
So that's a yes?
https://youtu.be/QJpb7vSaQpM (https://youtu.be/QJpb7vSaQpM)
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A jury just awarded Hulk Hogan $115 million plus punitive damages in his case against Gawker. (http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/18/media/hulk-hogan-gawker-jury-deliberations/index.html)
Couldn't happen to a shittier company.
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Popehat @Popehat 5h5 hours ago
First they came for Gawker.
And I did not speak out.
Because fuck Gawker.
--
About sums it up.
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Upon further investigation: Gawker's gross income is about $45 million. They posted $5 million in profit. The ruling requires them to pay $50 million of it immediately (as in, Monday)
They plan to appeal, but in Florida you need to post a bond for the full amount of the judgement to do so. Gawker is done.
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Rich guy shuts up media critic based on bullshit procedural rules and a damages amount that is, to put it lightly, completely insane. Yay? I'm sure the ability of a rich person winning a defamation suit to bankrupt a media company by convincing some mouth-breathers that he suffered $60m in emotional distress will have no negative consequences. Also fuck Popehat.
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Also fuck Popehat.
*Google.*
the new wife said she wished i would just die, is that a threat
I'm just spitballing here but have you tried not calling her the new wife?
You sure on that one Jim?
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Yup. Lemme elaborate a bit on why at first blush I think the decision stinks.
First: it has an emotional damages component to the tune of $50m or so. This makes me think the jury is mentally infirm, even for Florida. There are people who watched family members die in front of them and couldn't recover a cent for emotional damages, and here a celebrity gets $50m for 9 seconds of his weewee on camera. Nobody gets that much, even from juries. I can't take this as anything other than the jury announcing a principle that rich peoples' feelings are worth more than poor peoples' feelings.
Second: Hogan settled with the husband of the woman he was having sex with - the person who presumably leaked the tape - for $5,000. I am thinking that settlement was probably done to insulate the leaker from any claim for contribution from Gawker (where Gawker alleges that to the extent they owe Hogan money, the person who leaked the tape should be responsible for part of it). Either way it demonstrates that Hogan was not particularly interested in vindicating his rights - just in screwing Gawker in particular. That's his prerogative, but again it demonstrates that the emotional damages element of his claim is bullshit.
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Popehat @Popehat 3h3 hours ago
Huh. Protestors reeeaaally want a President Trump.
Popehat @Popehat 3h3 hours ago
I hate Trump. But I also hate the "he can't talk and you can't listen" shitweasels.
Ah, he's one of those. Actually yeah fuck that guy.
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I wonder if the irony of praising a rich guy shutting down the speech of a media company then condemning protesters shutting down the speech of a rich guy is lost on him. Haha just kidding I don't wonder that.
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Ohhhh I missed that Super's post was quoting Popehat. I was seriously confused as to why he got brought up.
On the whole while I don't think that Gawker is really a good source of media I have to agree, hitting the company with fines so large it threatens to put them completely out of business because of this is ridiculous, especially with the context Jim just provided. I'd bet money that if it was someone who was not a celebrity suing a revenge porn site for the same damn thing the ruling wouldn't even be in the ballpark, if there even was any reward.
I am a little uncomfortable with the idea that nothing should have been awarded, though, that veers a little too much into the idea that just because they're famous the public is entitled access to their leaked sex tapes. That said it sounds like Hogan is just abusing that angle to garner sympathy? I don't really know the details myself, so I can't really say.
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As a general rule, I agree celebrities should have some right, but not an unlimited right, not to have their sex tapes published. There are a couple complicating factors that make Hogan's situation not very clear cut. First of all, in a separate part of the tape, which Gawker did NOT publish, Hogan says a lot of racist shit. Other media outlets published the transcripts or audio, not sure which, and that was extremely damaging to Hogan's career. To the extent that the video relates to the audio, by serving to give some context or to verify the authenticity of the latter, it can be argued that the video is newsworthy and that Hogan should not be able to sue over it (revealing that a celebrity is a big-time racist is unquestionably newsworthy). That would be a more clear-cut argument if Gawker had published that part of it, and it is truly ironic that he is suing Gawker, which did less damage to his reputation than the outlets that put the racism stuff out there. Second, Gawker wanted to argue (but was not allowed to present evidence on this point for some reason) that Hogan knew that the sex was being recorded, which would severely damage his claim that the publishing of the tape was an invasion of privacy. Gawker not being allowed to make that argument is their basis for appeal. There, again, the fact that he settled for a pittance with the guy who presumably leaked the recording is eyebrow-raising to say the least.
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Gawker's outright defiance of the court certainly brought shit down on them. Open defiance of a court will get you destroyed just like spitting in a cop's face. Publishing articles like "a judge ordered us to take this tape down but we won't because it's hilarious," for instance, probably don't help. If the basis of your argument is "newsworthiness" then saying that you'd publish a video of a five-year-old getting raped as long as it was a celebrity probably doesn't help the idea that you have a good handle on what is appropriate to publish.
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Yeah, this is definitely at least in part a case study in Hard Cases Make Bad Law, or more specifically Asshole Defendants Make Bad Law. Crowing in public about how a judge told you to do something but you're not gonna because fuck it is one step short of a default judgment.
Also, Patrick (one of the two people who runs the Popehat twitter) really likes telling you how much he hates hippies and socialists. I've been tuning him out on anything even tangentially related to Sanders.
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I go back and forth on this. I think it's a hard case in terms of parsing whether Gawker should be liable, but it's not a case where Gawker's loss should be particularly damaging to journalism writ large - this is one you can cordon off as a "no sex tapes" rule pretty easily. But that jury's theory of damages is beyond dangerous. It needs to die in a fire, the sooner the better.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNGmD6FcQdY
MARCH MADNESS (and really bad coaching)
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So...people here know that there's more than one Popehat, right? (I believe there's Ken Popehat, and Clark Popehat, and they both use the same twitter account). One of them is right wing and kind-of a dick, one of them is left wing.
Aaaaaanyhow, in other news, China's take on US politics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0eU3Fr0nsY
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Not only more entertaining than US news channels, but more informative (in the sense that all that news on a 24 hour network would take me some 20 minutes to gather. This took a tenth of that, even before working in how much bad information would have to be sorted). Although they seem more confident predicting a Trump victory in the general than las vegas does which is strange.
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http://hyperallergic.com/279243/anish-kapoor-gets-exclusive-rights-to-the-worlds-darkest-pigment/
Been on this Vantablack news reel since 2014; LOLART. Will bluechip black artists dip in it?
PS, yo' painting SO BLACK dat…
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“All the best artists have had a thing for pure black — Turner, Manet, Goya,” he said. “This black is like dynamite in the art world. We should be able to use it. It isn’t right that it belongs to one man.”
It's...Black Dynamite...and this one guy is Exploiting that. If only...we had a word for that.
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So...people here know that there's more than one Popehat, right? (I believe there's Ken Popehat, and Clark Popehat, and they both use the same twitter account). One of them is right wing and kind-of a dick, one of them is left wing.
Aaaaaanyhow, in other news, China's take on US politics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0eU3Fr0nsY
Is Clark still using the Popehat twitter? I know he broke off from the blog and formed his own.
-
He's not, but there's still two on the main one -- Ken (the lead writer on the blog) and Patrick (the more combative commie-basher).
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http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/03/28/breaking-nathan-deal-will-veto-georgias-religious-liberty-bill/
omfg a moment of proudness to be from atl
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Georgia's bill - from what I can tell - was legitimately less severe than what other states had come up with. Based on what I have read, its explicit religious exceptions applied narrowly to religious institutions. I think if North Carolina hadn't poisoned the well with it's shockingly harmful bill, this may have passed muster.
(It's still worth vetoing, mind. It includes RFRA language, which was benign in the 90s when passed, but has become malignant in the hands of an activist Supreme Court.)
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Right, and he capitulated from threats of strong financial backlash. Sometimes the win doesn't come along in a satisfactory way, but it is still a win. I need to look at NC's bill, I am not familiar!
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Right, and he capitulated from threats of strong financial backlash. Sometimes the win doesn't come along in a satisfactory way, but it is still a win. I need to look at NC's bill, I am not familiar!
NC's bill was introduced and passed in a special session, in the dead of night. It's a radioactive, trans-phobic smorgasbord, and is already heading for a court fight.
I think NC blitzkrieg'd the bill into existence without warning specifically because they wanted to avoid giving the business community time to rise up against it, figuring if it were a done deal there wouldn't be the backlash GA saw. That ain't going as planned. (http://www.aol.com/article/2016/03/25/the-nba-might-move-the-2017-all-star-game-out-of-north-carolina/21333487/)
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It's not even just transphobic – the NC bill is:
(deep breath)
A bathroom law for public facilities
An anti-nondiscrimination law that blocks any local nondicrimination statute more strict than the statewide law (So, anything that covers LGBT...or veterans, as it turns out! Whoopsie.)
A minimum wage bill that forbids any municpal government from passing its own minimum wage that would be higher than the state's. Not that any of them actually had, but shit, why not?
-
I've heard it argued that it also removes ANY state right of action for employment discrimination on any basis, but it looks like it's not super clear whether the law does that and so it'll have to be decided by the courts.
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Does it also remove private rights of action or is that the same language being reported differently?
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Sorry, meant private action under state law.
Apparently private actions under state law exist based on an arcane statement from legislature dating back 25 years, as interpreted by the judiciary, hence the confusion about whether they are affected by this law or not.
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Oh, I am familiar with House Bill 2. I thought there was an equivalent religious freedom bill. I just read the bill, since I haven't already, and saw that nondiscrimination enforcement is for businesses with 15 and more employees. What?? And apparently this bill passed during a $42,000 tax payer special session........
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http://twinfinite.net/2016/03/star-ocean-5s-producer-has-a-proposal-written-up-for-valkyrie-profile-3/
Hey, at least a little chance that the VP series isn't completely dead either! Hopefully SO 5 is an awesome game and does well.
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/29/widespread_coral_bleaching_in_australia_s_great_barrier_reef.html
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Yep and we have been being told for decades now locally that it is unavoidable and that we are doing our best to preserve it while doing things we can't be certain of the impacts of nearby in the name of industry.
It has always been pretty much inevitable unfortunately.
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we are doing our best to preserve it while doing things we can't be certain of the impacts of nearby in the name of industry.
(http://i.imgur.com/ES5Wdd7.jpg)
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Grefter: If Australians were told this prior to 1950, well, Slate needs to give ya'll more credit.
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I can't speak for the 1950s, but the reef being killed off is something I know I have been hearing about since I was a kid in the 90s.
-
Gamergate got a woman they wanted fired from Nintendo, fired from Nintendo
So fuck Gamergate and Nintendo.
-
Nintendo's claiming that they fired her for having another job they weren't cool with. I don't know enough about Rapp or Nintendo to know if this is accurate.
If so it just means we need to be angry at nintendo for their bullshit corporate culture, but you already should have been angry about that because it's corporate culture and it's fucked everywhere.
(Obviously you should always be angry that gamer gate still exists. (0) Days Since GamerGate Did Something Terrible.)
-
Nintendo's M/O is lack of transparency. They declined to comment regarding this (at least initially) and hopefully they are learning that that is not always a great idea. As for me, I'm going to wait for the dust to settle a little bit before forming an opinion on this one. But just to be safe I'm just not gonna buy Nintendo games for a week or so.
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http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-donald-trump-hacked-the-media/
"That’s not the only problem. Trump also challenges the media’s notion of what it means to be “objective.” Among other things, Trump has frequently invoked misogyny and racism; he has frequently lied, and he has repeatedly encouraged violence against political protesters. As far as we’re concerned at FiveThirtyEight, these are matters of fact and not opinion and to describe them otherwise would make our reporting less objective. Other news outlets will bend over backward to avoid describing them in those terms, however."
So it turns out you can, in fact, piss off Nate Silver.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otB3zq6ppwc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otB3zq6ppwc)
For some reason, Square decided that it's best use of money and manpower would be...making a FF 15 prequel movie. Hint to Square: if you have this much extra money and manpower lying around, you could make like 2 more games that aren't relying on 1.5 hours of super expensive graphics and your fans would probably be a lot happier with that.
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And an anime! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsVhwsUFaDE
By the time the actual game comes out nobody will care anymore.
-
Not true! You know damn well when FFXV comes out there are going to be great celebratory bonuses in RK.
-
http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/top-conservative-writer-is-a-group-effort-sources-say?utm_term=.gdplz7qlQ#.buylVEYlD
So Milo Yiannopoulos is 44 idiots instead of just one.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otB3zq6ppwc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otB3zq6ppwc)
For some reason, Square decided that it's best use of money and manpower would be...making a FF 15 prequel movie. Hint to Square: if you have this much extra money and manpower lying around, you could make like 2 more games that aren't relying on 1.5 hours of super expensive graphics and your fans would probably be a lot happier with that.
I got the impression making prerendered video wasn't the bottleneck for their games. It's the in-engine, interactive stuff that always seems to hang them up. Like how there's that one FF13 video early on that's all about showing off this anti-grav thing, but since they couldn't make it work in-game, the scene is bookended with "oh hey check this out!" and "well it broke, we'll never see THAT again!"
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Huh, the anime short actually kinda sold me on the concept of FFXV. It's basically Square writing what it knows - a buncha guys roadtripping around and having ambiguously romantic/platonic interpersonal relationships - and also magic swords and summon-beasts. The trailers seem to hint at a "prince reclaiming his throne from the evil dictator" plotline, which while cliche, at least it's a safe enough storyline that they probably won't screw it up horribly. I'm more hopeful than when FF13 was in development at least.
-
The Restoration Roadtrip?
That sounds kinda weird. Maybe Square can pull it off though.
-
Damn Fenrir because STILL all I can think of the game is ORANGE MOCHA FRAPPACHINO!
-
Me too
-
It is the only reason I have it floating around in the back of my head as a thing I might want to play.
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If only Square realized there were more to RPGs than being really, really, really, ridiculously good looking.
-
Why male models?
-
Huh, the anime short actually kinda sold me on the concept of FFXV. It's basically Square writing what it knows - a buncha guys roadtripping around and having ambiguously romantic/platonic interpersonal relationships
I have no idea why you would consider this to be "what Square knows".
Nor am I particularly interested in it.
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Do you seriously think that isn't literally a day in the office for the Square Enix Design team?
-
Do you seriously think that isn't literally a day in the office for the Square Enix Design team?
A day in the office for the Square-Enix design team
-Show up
-Complain about how gamers are too Western and want choice, agency
-Figure out what move their waifu should do in THIS pre-rendered video
-Fuck a dog
-Go back to their wives and children, who are strangers to them
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That's how I assume your road trips turn out yeah.
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Has anyone here gotten their hands on the new Baldur's Gate Expansion? It is the new core of -internet drama- and I need some firsthand accounts.
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I haven't got around to it. But I have heard two fronts of complaint.
One that a Baldir's Gate game, which is two linear games told in Chapters, set between two fixed plot points, is linear.
The other one is that the series with Edwin/Edwina has a woman who is Trans. This game with magic and dragons is immersion breaking. This series that made reference to the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity from AD&D. This series set in Forgotten Realms which is full of Ed Greenwood hippy free love progressivism.
Pick your poison.
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Also, Minsc says "actually, it's about ethics in adventuring" once.
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I have heard there is some possibly legit complaining about it being buggy, which is my actual concern. From what I understand, Beamdog has been pretty good about cleaning stuff up, but if it is legit bad I might want to hold off.
INB4: lol infinity engine, buggy, pick 2, then keep picking buggy
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My experience of the first two Enhanced Editions was buggy at release but yeah cleared up after 2 months or so. Also yeah only really about as buggy as unpatched original games.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-paid-family-leave_us_5702ae75e4b0daf53af042b7
*tosses PIXIE DUST*
*erases Hillary photo op*
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Also, Minsc says "actually, it's about ethics in adventuring" once.
Excellent.
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I had some problems with the other Baldur's Gate EEs at launch but they were good at patching things up. I tend to hold off for a few months now so that things stabilize and I do think Beamdog will fix most things by that time.
The reactions to this are also so predictable that they all must be written by Milo's 44 interns.
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http://zelda30tribute.com/
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Well that was 5 hours of my life well spent. :)
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-04/did-nintendo-fire-an-employee-to-appease-a-gamergate-mob
Just posting this to note that the Alison Rapp firing was noticed in a publication as mainstream as Bloomberg.
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Ed Greenwood latest 2 posts on the Baldur's Gate drama. (https://www.facebook.com/TheEdVerse/?fref=nf)
I am saddened by what I hear of the current kerfluffle raging about Siege of Dragonspear and the trans character Amber Scott designed and included in it.
Folks, the Realms have ALWAYS had characters (mortals and deities) who crossdressed, changed gender (and not just to sneak past guards in an adventure, by way of shapeshifting magic or illusions), were actively bisexual, and openly gay. How underscored this was by TSR and later Wizards varied over time, and was always softpedaled, because D&D wasn't a sex game, and we generally don't rub the reader's nose in sex unless there's a good in-story reason for it.
But even deities have changed gender, sometimes for good, and the servants of deities (Elminster, in ELMINSTER: THE MAKING OF A MAGE) have sometimes been forced by the deity to "spend time as the other" to learn what life is like.
So it has always been there, and is an integral part of the Realms. With that said, I've never met a gamer yet who doesn't tinker with every adventure to "make it their own" at their own gaming table, so if trans, LGBT, or sexual matters at all don't suit your tastes and needs in your gaming sessions, leave it out or change it.
But D&D has half-orcs, and half-dragons, and half-elves, and has magic items that specifically change gender, right there in the rules. Surely, if you can handle the basic notion of cross-SPECIES sex, having a full variety of gender roles should be something that doesn't blow your mind. If it's not for you, that's fine. I hate wearing certain shades of yellow. But I don't scream and yell at someone I see wearing those shades of yellow, and call them names, and threaten things. My right to dislike yellow applies to me; it doesn't extend to others. Because somehow, through an incredible oversight on the part of the universe that still hasn't been rectified, no one made me a god. (I'm still crushed.)
And another thing: I have always felt HONOURED to have met, worked with, and enjoyed the work of so many talented women in all of my professional fields (library work has traditionally been dominated by females, gaming hasn't, and fiction-writing was male-dominated when I was young, but has steadily shifted throughout my lifetime). Does Paul Jaquays becoming Jennell Jaquays rob his, now her, artwork or game design or prose of one iota of its richness and the enjoyment it gives me? NO! And how by the Nine flaming Hells does one human being made happier by being the gender they prefer to be lessen my own security, or happiness, or make my life the less?
Sheesh.
The world has REAL problems, people. Telling someone else how to behave in bed (or dress, or what jobs they can hold down) isn't one of them. Or shouldn't be.
Mic drop.
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Speaking of, Tracer Butt Gate has ended. Blizzard has caved to the SJW illuminati. All games are ruined forever.
(https://i.imgur.com/Ad4hSUr.png)
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uxskPqf68-g/VnszyTDzgeI/AAAAAAAADG8/bAENT2f0TUM/s1600/Fluttershy%2BEye%2BRoll.gif)
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Turns out she's still wearing hotpants. Who knew?!
This would all be really funny if it weren't for the death threats/rape threats/swatting.
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That's kind of... worse than the original? Like now she's striking some kind of showgirl pose and sticking her chest out more.
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Well, the ACTUAL ORIGINAL COMPLAINT was basically that it was a lazy sexy pose and not in-character for Tracer, which you can argue that this one deals with better.
On related notes, turns out it shall no longer be about ethics in adventuring.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/51161/beamdog-statement-on-siege-of-dragonspear
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That's kind of... worse than the original? Like now she's striking some kind of showgirl pose and sticking her chest out more.
Brianna Wu went into some detail on Twitter about how the underlying problem seems to be that Blizzard got way too into modeling her butt-crack.
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Do you mean to imply that form-fitting clothing does not, in fact, achieve sentience and crawl into its wearer's anus?
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Do you mean to imply that form-fitting clothing does not, in fact, achieve sentience and crawl into its wearer's anus?
Many non-form-fitting kinds of clothes manage this, to be fair.
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Do you mean to imply that form-fitting clothing does not, in fact, achieve sentience and crawl into its wearer's anus?
Many non-form-fitting kinds of clothes manage this, to be fair.
Source: My Boxers
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A reliable source for all kinds of fascinating stories.
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Funny. I was under the impression nothing of import happened there.
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Sopko's jelly of Grefter's fascinating Andy-boxer stories. Noted.
--
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1266693296/arcadian-atlas-tactical-rpg-inspired-by-classics
On one hand, this is basically right up the DL's alley (FFT-ish indie Kickstarter game). On the other hand... only 90K? Tiny scratch staff? Okay, Zeboyd was basically 2.5 people too, but "vanilla DQ ripoff RPG w/ 2 sprites for every enemy and simple grid map" is a lot easier to make than "strategy RPG." Seems like they might be *too* ambitious for their studio size and budget, unless this is some kind of labor of love that they're just looking for some extra to tide 'em over.
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfUjPqVWEAAN2ok.jpg:large)
(http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m557/reajeasaGifs/sexismisover.gif)
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1266693296/arcadian-atlas-tactical-rpg-inspired-by-classics
On one hand, this is basically right up the DL's alley (FFT-ish indie Kickstarter game). On the other hand... only 90K? Tiny scratch staff? Okay, Zeboyd was basically 2.5 people too, but "vanilla DQ ripoff RPG w/ 2 sprites for every enemy and simple grid map" is a lot easier to make than "strategy RPG." Seems like they might be *too* ambitious for their studio size and budget, unless this is some kind of labor of love that they're just looking for some extra to tide 'em over.
There've been a few projects like that. I backed Regalia, which looked more put together than that one. Looking forward to it.
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfUjPqVWEAAN2ok.jpg:large)
(http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m557/reajeasaGifs/sexismisover.gif)
Cancel the internet, the SJWs have won! (...?)
I do agree that even though it's -still- a pin-up girl pose, it -does- seem like a more in-character pose for her. So there's that?
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That's what they said they would do.
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Holy shit, Romancing SaGa 2 in English for the first time (including fan translations to my knowledge)!
https://twitter.com/Romasaga2_PR/status/718296039262973952
Smart phone, but who cares. (Apart from PSVita owners)
I actually own a Vita but I've never played more than one game on it... Smart Phone is probably for the best...
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Wow, reading the comments I had no idea that many people owned a Vita.
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Do not care about RS2, but...
http://eu.square-enix.com/en/blog/adventures-mana-released-iosandroid
Check out those 584 comments (including one by a SnowIceFlame). They *made* a Vita version in Japan, why not bring it stateside?!
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Wow, reading the comments I had no idea that many people owned a Vita.
Also I had no idea that many people actually liked FFA (or would somehow believe that you need good controls to play a game as simple and brainless as Mana... unless FFA actually had decent action gameplay which SoM and SD3 threw out the window).
Mana hate aside, re the "well why not bring it over"... localising a game for a specific system is nowhere near free, especially if they'd have to make physical copies (I definitely saw some comments in those threads who were strongly on Team "Physical Only"), and... yeah I really don't think there are many active Vita users in the west. I live in Public Transport land and I see 3DSes on the bus all the time... as well as DSes and PSPs back in the day. Can't... really remember the last time I saw a Vita. I have, but it was probably a couple years ago. So I'm skeptical. It's certainly possible that this localisation could pay off for them, but I don't think either of us has the evidence to say for sure and I generally trust people whose job it is and have access to all the relevant numbers to make this decision better than I could. Obviously I'll still be upset/disappointed if it's a game I care about. *glares at Capcom for AAI2*
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Vita memory cards are hideously expensive and vita games are big. There's always going to be a compelling reason to prefer physical.
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The Vita IS dead stateside... however... the one area that it continues on is basically the RPGDL market, people who want to play indie games downloaded off PSN or old PSX games or the like. For example, Cosmic Star Heroine & Bloodstained both have Vita versions coming out. IOW, perfect for Adventures of Mana or the like. Granted, even perfect fits are probably not going to be huge sellers, but if they already have a Vita version ready to go, it's just the costs of porting the localization they already did for iOS/Android over to the Vita version.
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Yeah, the Vita is basically a PS 1++ for me, which means that it gets a lot of use. Definitely my favorite portable system ever by far.
-
I'm pretty sure the vita is my favourite portable system too. Though it's hard to beat the DS.
I'd probably get RS2 if it only comes out on phones because come on, it's the last SaGa. But I'd really love a Vita version.
Seiken Densetsu 3 with touch controls = no
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Yeah. I do prefer the form factor of the PSP, but the Vita is a damned good portable.
-
unless FFA actually had decent action gameplay which SoM and SD3 threw out the window
It's very similar to the first Legend of Zelda, except LoZ combat was a bit deeper. It was a fine game for the Gameboy but it's not amazing by any stretch of the imagination.
====================
Hitting them where it hurts: http://perezhilton.com/2016-04-11-xhamster-shuts-down-porn-access-north-carolina-anti-lgbt-law-controversy-statement#.VwwwOV5FAdW
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My vita is cool and all, but it doesn't fit in my pockets. I am down for it on Mobile though.
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My vita is cool and all, but it doesn't fit in my pockets. I am down for it on Mobile though.
Any portable system that doesn't easily fit in my pocket is basically the kiss of death, yeah. The original Game Boy could get away with it because I was seven and didn't need to carry anything else with me.
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http://kotaku.com/gta-producer-leslie-benzies-sues-rockstar-for-150-mill-1770521370
Should be interesting to see how this shakes out. I'm going to guess the company has the better argument here. Will be interested to see if the $150m figure has any basis in reality, regardless of whether the company owes it.
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfUjPqVWEAAN2ok.jpg:large)
(http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m557/reajeasaGifs/sexismisover.gif)
You know very well that she is just a video game character and doesn't really exist and representation doesn't have a negative impact on perception.
And this.
http://www.thenation.com/article/40000-verizon-workers-launch-one-of-the-biggest-strikes-of-the-decade/
And this.
http://www.thenation.com/article/completely-unfinished/
It's interesting that non-finito is surfacing again, and now, because most artists would source the completion of work out to painting specialists of fabric, hair, color, etc. Still fetishizing one artist.
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http://www.thenation.com/article/40000-verizon-workers-launch-one-of-the-biggest-strikes-of-the-decade/
I'm an IBEW member, and a lot of Verizon people have joined our union in the past few years*. There have been issues with Verizon for quite a while.
*CWA is the official union of telecom workers, but IBEW covers them in areas where CWA doesn't have a presence.
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http://www.thenation.com/article/40000-verizon-workers-launch-one-of-the-biggest-strikes-of-the-decade/
I'm an IBEW member, and a lot of Verizon people have joined our union in the past few years*. There have been issues with Verizon for quite a while.
*CWA is the official union of telecom workers, but IBEW covers them in areas where CWA doesn't have a presence.
Fuck yeah, more power to them.
Anecdotally and only tangentially related, the most vivid moment from my Verizon training was having a trainer tell me, "We're not so much anti-union as we are pro-employee." Then proceed to run down a shoddy list of reasons to not join a union (you have to pay part of your paycheck in dues, oooohhhh nooooo). I'm glad to see enough employees there are unionized for them to be able to do that.
-
Is Texas a right to work state? I'd have assumed they were. If so, the fact they still got enough people in the union to have a meaningful protest speaks volumes about just how fucking bad it is.
-
Texas is right to work yes. But this strike is nationwide. I don't think Verizon is very big in Texas? Not sure, never used them.
-
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/12/police-officer-accidentally-explodes-grenade-in-pakistan-court
Reminded me of Phoenix Wright Dual Destinies case 1 here, in reverse. Only in fiction? Apparently not.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/09/here-is-a-photo-of-joe-biden-eating-ice-cream-in-his-aviators-while-flashing-cash/
This is from 2004, but still, it's pretty rockin'. It's all about the Hamiltons.
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Is Texas a right to work state? I'd have assumed they were. If so, the fact they still got enough people in the union to have a meaningful protest speaks volumes about just how fucking bad it is.
Aye. Last I heard is that Verizon is moving out of TX after selling assets and focusing on the east coast.
Daleks: I think AT&T and Verizon were the most popular cell carriers if you ignore Metro & TM. They're certainly the biggest in eastern Texas.
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/steamforged/dark-soulstm-the-board-game?ref=thanks_share
I am feeling decidedly meh about both this and Bloodborne tabletop.
-
There is a lot of little things I like here.
We don’t like complicated Kickstarters, so we’ve made this one as simple as possible. There is just one pledge level for gamers, and one pledge for retail stores.
As the campaign progresses, some stretch goals will unlock an ‘Add-On’ which is an optional item to purchase; to buy one of these, simply increase your pledge amount. This also drives the campaign total up thereby unlocking even more stuff!
The best bit is that every 'non Add-On' stretch goal that gets unlocked during the campaign will be included in your pledge! So the more people that support the project, the more goals get unlocked, the more value we can squeeze in, and the bigger the box we're going to need!
We don't have multiple pledge levels, except for when we do!
All the models and stuff is stuff that is either super neutral or explicitly DS1 or DS3.
Also general "get gud dont' button spam scrub" nonsense all in a game that doesn't actually teach from repetition and is massively randomised.
This 100% is created by internet Dark Souls Fans hive mind.
$80 sight unseen for a game that's baking a chunk of its price into minis. Thx but nothx.
-
There is a lot of little things I like here.
We don’t like complicated Kickstarters, so we’ve made this one as simple as possible. There is just one pledge level for gamers, and one pledge for retail stores.
As the campaign progresses, some stretch goals will unlock an ‘Add-On’ which is an optional item to purchase; to buy one of these, simply increase your pledge amount. This also drives the campaign total up thereby unlocking even more stuff!
The best bit is that every 'non Add-On' stretch goal that gets unlocked during the campaign will be included in your pledge! So the more people that support the project, the more goals get unlocked, the more value we can squeeze in, and the bigger the box we're going to need!
We don't have multiple pledge levels, except for when we do!
All the models and stuff is stuff that is either super neutral or explicitly DS1 or DS3.
Also general "get gud dont' button spam scrub" nonsense all in a game that doesn't actually teach from repetition and is massively randomised.
This 100% is created by internet Dark Souls Fans hive mind.
$80 sight unseen for a game that's baking a chunk of its price into minis. Thx but nothx.
Hah. You made it further than me. I saw the words "cooperative" and gave up.
I want to hunt hollows and steal humanity.
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Oh yeah there is masturbation there about being teh hardcorz and then it being coop.
That said someone is going to buy it for $80 and never play it with anyone because they are xXxThEReElDaRkSoUlxXx and coop is for casuls.
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Oh yeah there is masturbation there about being teh hardcorz and then it being coop.
That said someone is going to buy it for $80 and never play it with anyone because they are xXxThEReElDaRkSoUlxXx and coop is for casuls.
Let's be honest: they'll never play it with anyone because they don't have any friends.
-
Dark Souls : the board game is like Fast and Furious: The book.
Oh my god how did these guys raise half a million pounds already
-
I want to hunt hollows and steal humanity.
What they're not telling anyone is that when people start a co-op game, a GPS device goes off that notifies other random players to go to their house and wreck their shit.
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Dark Souls : the board game is like Fast and Furious: The book.
Oh my god how did these guys raise half a million pounds already
Eh. That I disagree with. There have been far dumber concepts that have produced excellent games (Puzzle Strike, Yomi, and BattleCon all jump to mind).
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You are basically saying that most stupid sounding idea can turn out great.
Which is right, and a Fast & Furious book could also potentially turn out great.
I'm just saying that none of the strengths of Dark Souls can translate to a board game format
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I want to hunt hollows and steal humanity.
What they're not telling anyone is that when people start a co-op game, a GPS device goes off that notifies other random players to go to their house and wreck their shit.
Seriously if there are no youtube videos of people playing the game then having their apartment trashed by dudes in red and black...I will be severely disappointed.
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I want to hunt hollows and steal humanity.
What they're not telling anyone is that when people start a co-op game, a GPS device goes off that notifies other random players to go to their house and wreck their shit.
Seriously if there are no youtube videos of people playing the game then having their apartment trashed by dudes in red and black...I will be severely disappointed.
I would almost want to buy the game just to film a review and do this. :p
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dooo eeeeeeeeeeet
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Does it involve them rocking up with a boom box and Drowning Pool - Bodies on cassette?
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Does it involve them rocking up with a boom box and Drowning Pool - Bodies on cassette?
I think I should hire you to write the review.
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You will not respond to them until one of them can't find a spare power point for it, they will interrupt the interview with a "Uh hey sorry man, I know you are doing something, but do you have a spare outlet?" (Because you are fuckign filthy americans who call things the wrong names) and its just a vague, "try over there" sort of thing.
Then the spiderman mask gets pulled down and card tables being flipped begins in the background.
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Took me a minute to figure out why you would be looking for a Microsoft Office product because I am a filthy American.
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Don't listen to them. They eat Marmite, you know.
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When I am a billionaire I am going to overinvest in being able to get plumbing in a moving platform so that I can build a toilet in an elevator.
My humour is some next level shit.
Marmite is Brits and Kiwis. We eat Vegemite which is the same thing by saltier.
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http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/21/entertainment/prince-estate-death/index.html
Prince. Fucking hell.
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saltier.
Savages.
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Chyna (http://www.thewrap.com/chyna-former-professional-wrestler-dies-at-45/) as well for anyone that followed 90s wrestling and has nostalgia for it.
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http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/21/entertainment/prince-estate-death/index.html
Prince. Fucking hell.
I saw that this and didn't believe it because of TMZ but fuck.
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Chyna (http://www.thewrap.com/chyna-former-professional-wrestler-dies-at-45/) as well for anyone that followed 90s wrestling and has nostalgia for it.
Yeah that one is completely unsurprising, she had serious problems.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/ChuckTingle/status/728252133003272193
This is the best thing.
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wow.
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http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/5/11/11653620/civilization-6-release-date-preview Civ 6 info.
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More Civ 6 info https://np.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/4ivn0q/civilization_vi_graphics_are_way_too_cartoony/
Reddit is fucking stupid.
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I hope every one of those people gets kidney stones.
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I don't get it. I have a family member that has had to do PC upgrades just to play Civ. That shits fucking stupid. I love them going to a more scalable art style instead of jerking it to hyper realistic graphics in a series that inherently has a massive level of abstraction to it.
The only component I want to be under load playing a Civ game is CPU.
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Nice to see the cult of graphics is still going strong. Gameplay, genre, story, mechanics, all are as dust before the PC Master Race and their beloved visuals.
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I kinda agree with them?
The complaints are less about how many graphics and more about art style, and the art style is indeed a lot more like a generic mobile game's than Civ 5's was
And I definitely think that people who complained about Wind Waker were being idiots
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The graphics look like Civ4.
Anyways, the changes to the game itself look interesting. I like the idea of building your civic improvements onto the map and the idea of your interactions with the map influencing what techs you're good at researching. Namely, a coastal seafaring civ should be better at discovering navigation than a land power with maybe a single port.
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Oh man no way. Civ 4 is more similar to 5.
Look at the trees, mountains, and hyper-colorfulness of the roofs compared to this:
http://cdn.supersoluce.com/file/docs/docid_4f713f838f152f5d66001b5b/elemid_4ee9faa20a2fe93d0e000010/civilization-4-001.jpg
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So you know what comes from that element right? More visual noise on the map. So you need to be able to design improvements that people can tell apart on sight. Possibly through units on the map.
This art style shift works better for that than pushing harder on the realism front.
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I don't think you could convince any Civ fan unsatisfied with the more Clash of Clans-y art style, that it is all worth it because you can maybe tell things apart a little more, in a turn based game
Anyway I'm just saying that Reddit has a lot worse people than those. Try this subreddit lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/WhiteRights/
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Just because something is turn-based doesn't mean quality of life improvements to available information aren't important.
Also nobody claimed this was the worst of Reddit, just that the comments are stupid (which they are. In case you missed it, someone literally compared Clash of Clans-esque aesthetics to swastikas).
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Just because something is turn-based doesn't mean quality of life improvements to available information aren't important.
Visual clarity in tabletop gaming is considered super important! And the vast majority of those are definitely turn based.
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I support the move toward visual clarity. I am sure a non insignificant percentage of my time playing Civ has been going, did I get any fucking Iron/Coal/Oil after researching them because the relevant icons and tile changes just don't pop for me and blend into the map too well. I don't need to look at impressive realistic cities in my civ game, I got Cities Skylines for that. I need to take less time taking my turns so I am not up until 6am playing a single game and not finishing.
The real question is if they'll make AI not suck at water units so I have a reason to play any mode except Pangaea.
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Zenny needs those time optimizations so he's only staying up until 5:30 am, thank you very much.
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He might finish the game at 6:30 instead but yeah.
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lets be honest sometimes re-rolling for a good starting position the game doesn't even start until 3am
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C.A.S.U.A.L. Z.E.N.N.Y.
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But you repeat yourself.
I at least play Emperor / Immortal unlike some Scrubby Users Providing Endless Revery And Instantly Endless Laughs, MAN.
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Looks like Endless Legend to me and that's the best thing I can say about a game
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQZRy3nKwNQ&feature=youtu.be
This is what the best engineers in the world are spending their time on.
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terrible waste of time. +15% bonus to units fighting in friendly territory? he should have been building a pop up ancient pyramids for the tile improvement bonus, or maybe a popup petra if he spawned in a desert location.
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Old news but I just saw it: Breyer with the sickest burn. (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2015/11/foster_v_chatman_sonia_sotomayor_had_cousins_in_jail.html)
Breyer gets uncharacteristically frustrated when Burton advances the argument that the uncovered race-frantic juror notes were actually the prosecutors’ pre-emptive effort to comply with Batson, anticipating a future Batson hearing. This is a tricky argument to offer, given, as Foster’s lawyers note, that the state is only now arguing for the first time that the racially coded notes and lists were in anticipation of a Batson challenge. Or as Breyer puts it, referring to the prosecutor’s alleged strategy of noting race in advance of a Batson challenge, “If that had been his real reason, isn’t it a little surprising that he never thought of it?”
(Today the case was decided 7-1 in favor of throwing out the verdict. Tryhard Thomas dissented, because he doesn't see race.)
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Sadly the only precedent it really sets is "Prosecutors: Don't leave notes for your racially discriminatory practices where you say HERE'S WHERE I'M DISCRIMINATING BY RACE." But it's still better than not setting that precedent.
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This article was written for maybe 10 people, and most of them are in the DL.
http://www.rawcharge.com/2016/5/24/11756562/bolts-playoff-pokedex
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Shit article. I'm pretty sure every DLer knows electric isn't weak to fighting.
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:D
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Q: Where is all the dark matter in the universe?
Possible A: In the black holes?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/05/25/could-black-holes-be-the-dark-matter-everyone-has-been-looking-for/
This seems almost too obvious... I'm suspcious, makes too much sense.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WUdQpuVRtw
Friend made me watch this vid on whitewashing in films and it focuses on Scarlett Johannson in Ghost in the Shell.
I'm of the conservative position that films should try to be as true to book/comic characters and their backgrounds (not just race) as possible. When production deviates just for big names, I stop caring about the film entirely, because, snob. Yeah yeah, actors play roles - I get it - but structural racism is totally more noticeable and up for grabs in convos when that's the tried and true go-to answer for casting.
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I personally am way more in favour of adapting the story to the medium and generally am okay to happy with an adaptation that strays from to source material for the sake of the adaptation (like I mostly like the changes to V for Vendetta and Watchmen, I actively appreciate that Game of Thrones is different than the books).
With that said white people aren't an intrinsic thing of cinema. Even if you want to create an artificial divide between western/Hollywood cinema and the rest of the world.
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The changes to Watchmen are okay? Fucking fight me. Zack Snyder proves he missed the entire fucking point like two minutes into the movie.
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Yeah but that opening though!
Execution is pretty bad yeah at the end, but I more mean things that get changed like there is no pirate comics so focused on. There is trashy fight scenes. Even the change of the ending. I am kind of okay with that happening as a concept.
Watchmen as a comic book doesn't work great as a movie. It is such a great comic book in part because of masterful execution of the medium itself. The film certainly is not that same level of quality and I think you needed even more drastic changes to make it of remotely similar quality.
I just mostly like what they tried. Trashy fight scenes and flameboner not so much.
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https://twitter.com/paprbckparadise
This is pretty fucking fantastic.
FUCKING RUN THE SUN JUST EXPLODED
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Yeah but that opening though!
Execution is pretty bad yeah at the end, but I more mean things that get changed like there is no pirate comics so focused on. There is trashy fight scenes. Even the change of the ending. I am kind of okay with that happening as a concept.
Watchmen as a comic book doesn't work great as a movie. It is such a great comic book in part because of masterful execution of the medium itself. The film certainly is not that same level of quality and I think you needed even more drastic changes to make it of remotely similar quality.
I just mostly like what they tried. Trashy fight scenes and flameboner not so much.
The opening is where Zack Snyder tells us he doesn't get it. In the comics, the capes show up first and criminals dress up second. This is key to the message. In the movie intro, a cape is second. This inverts the whole point of it, rendering it meaningless. It's just like how when Dan and Laurie fuck, they're no longer sort of pasty, dumpy middle-aged dudes but total hardbodies. Snyder slavishly recreates the imagery without understanding WHY it's important.
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With that said white people aren't an intrinsic thing of cinema. Even if you want to create an artificial divide between western/Hollywood cinema and the rest of the world.
True, but some folk would argue that they are the normative feature in western films. I mean, we do see so-called white folk taking up roles of so-called non-white folk without much to say vice versa. And then some would say that the first is the majority of the US and it makes more sense, statistically probabilities and all, for them to get positions. But it is problematic layering.
I had tweeted about whitewashing after learning about Constance Wu's remarks, and my friend shared the video then. The guy in that vid did say something tenuous, that Japanese are ok with it (implied scapegoat and diversion), but that doesn't matter as actors in the US are trying to critique their market economy for jobs.
You say something cool about filmmaking. I'd be okay with forms following the functions of mediums, but I'm also fairly sour at how Hollywood sucks the life out of, and wrings dry only to reuse and excessive chaffing, things comic books/books. That's typically Hollywood, though, right? I mean, original screenplays and experimental film is just my mood, now. Hollywood adaptations tend to be less on form and more on the medium as the selling point.
I did see Watchmen without ever reading the comic and thought the film was complete trash.
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Re: Watchmen for how it is as an adaptation you can see Rob. It is faithful to some surface points and the changes some things to fit a movie and changes others to fit Snyder's politics. (Rorschach is not the goddamned hero, Nite Owl kind of is but as a washed up 40 year old.)
It shifts a lot of focuses and strips out huge swaths of the really interesting world building that helps provide context in the Comic on the altar of making a movie rather than a 10 hour long mini series with fucked up pacing. That's the part I am okay with.
I think the draining of a lot of the core concept is a thing that is mostly an inherent risk of an adaptation, I mean that is in part hugely what Adaptation the movie is about, one of the great writers of the last few decades of cinema being frustrated and unable to adapt something faithfully (and it is a stronger movie for being weird and experimental as fuck and kind of giving up a little bit).
At the end of the day it just comes down to a preference of outcome I guess? Even for things I am a fan of I prefer a good <adapted work> that is a bad adaptation than a good adaptation that is a bad <adapted work>. Those are the ones that seem to hang around in the cultural memory.
Like to go back to comics. I really dug the previous Superman reboot as an adaptation, but it was weak as a movie. I thought it was super on point and a good direction to go. All anyone remembers from that movie now is Kevin Spacey screaming WRONG!
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Y'know, I'm not even sure how to feel about Watchmen these days. Like... it's slavishly devoted to the text but manages to come to a lot of completely opposite conclusions from it (main example: Rorschach's moral absolutism has a lot of nobility to it in the movie, where... Moore generally tends to be dismissive of the character now, but I think that's bitterness. It's really more a tragedy: he wants to be good and do good, but he's lost the sense of nuance that lets him function as a hero). But holy shit that opening montage captures the feel of the book in a way I didn't think, going into the movie, was going to be possible. So I'm inclined to forgive a lot, but probably shouldn't, y'know?
Really Snyder's frustrating as hell about that in general. Man's a brilliant cinematographer but has like none of the other tools in a director's box.
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Enjoyed the graphic novel, enjoyed the movie. *shrug*
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https://m.mic.com/articles/144228/echoes-exposed-the-secret-symbol-neo-nazis-use-to-target-jews-online#.tNmkqhMQx
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Well, it's finally happening:
http://www.siliconera.com/2016/06/06/final-fantasy-xii-zodiac-age-announced-playstation-4/ (http://www.siliconera.com/2016/06/06/final-fantasy-xii-zodiac-age-announced-playstation-4/)
Talked about it a while back, finally confirmation. I'm personally interested, not sure about most of you but hey.
Have to wonder if the 2017 thing was purposely holding off to beef up the 30th anniversary, or if legitimately is going to take that long.
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If I had to guess, they probably have a single team doing PC/PS4 rereleases, and did them from most to least popular.
For FF12, I may pick it up. I like the game and I don't see the faults in it that others do. But that's highly dependent on what kind of QOL features we see.
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Don't think popularity enters into it. They're clearly doing it because FF10 HD was very successful, and after FF10(-2) HD came out, there was clear demand for FF12 HD to come out, especially since if FF10 HD was based off the International version, it'd mean a chance to get a localized version of IZJS, which is exactly what's happening.
Smaller team seems like a sure thing granted. Either way, it does sound like they're putting actual effort into this, just like they did FF10 HD, and hey, at least they have ACTUAL FOOTAGE AND A TRAILER OF THE GAME when the announced this one, FF10 HD they went "yeah, it's happening" and between saying that and showing us footage, they announced KH 1.5 HD and released that. TO BE FAIR, when they finally did start showing us stuff from FF10 HD, they had a 'surprise, it's a compilation, with FF10-2 HD!', so they made the wait seem more reasonable since 2 games + bonus stuff instead of one (ok, KH 1.5 was 2 games and cutscenes from a 3rd, but let's not pretend that Re:Chain of Memories is anywhere near as big as FF10-2.)
Regarding QoL features? There are a bunch mentioned here:
http://gematsu.com/2016/06/final-fantasy-xii-zodiac-age-announced-ps4 (http://gematsu.com/2016/06/final-fantasy-xii-zodiac-age-announced-ps4)
What I'm hoping for is an option to play Classic License Board vs. Zodiac License Board. I'm aware most people prefer the latter, but it shouldn't be hard to implement both with an option when you start the game, and there are probably a non-negligible amount of people out there who prefer the original. This is a simple case of "options are good!" and less me trying to claim one is better than the other.
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I'm mildly interested in this. Never played the original, but FFRK made it sound interesting. (Yes I'm aware that FF12 with FF6 battle system is probably better than FF12 with FF12 battle system)
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If that comes out to Steam, I'd actually consider playing it. Never felt the original FF12, International sounded mildly neat but not worth the effort. A HD remake based off International wouldn't go amiss.
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If the game is successful on PS4, which I can't imagine it won't be, a Steam version seems inevitable. Just a question of "how long will it take?"
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Don't think popularity enters into it. They're clearly doing it because FF10 HD was very successful
Well...I mean they started with FFX, moved on to KH and KH2, then FF9, and now FF12? I think I can see a trajectory here...
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Don't think popularity enters into it. They're clearly doing it because FF10 HD was very successful
Well...I mean they started with FFX, moved on to KH and KH2, then FF9, and now FF12? I think I can see a trajectory here...
Except that KH1 was finished before FF10, and FF9 was likely done by a different team entirely, namely the guys who worked on FF7/8 Steam, which is quite the same (FF10 and 10-2 were both special versions of the game never released stateside, just like FF12 is getting; FF9 is the same exact game with some upscaled polygons, and some little features like Fast Forward mode)
Plus it doesn't account for Type-0 in the mix, which is clearly way less popular than all of those.
I think you're finding a connection that isn't there. Especially since FF10 and FF10-2 are the only games in a comparable position to FF12, namely PS2 games that have versions released only in Japan, and games that have never had legitimate re-releases, making it impossible for anyone to play those games on more modern consoles. FF9 at very least has had a PSN version, for example, so people with PSPs, Vitas, and PS3s could play it, and FF9's remastery isn't anywhere near as intensive as what FF10 got.
Case in point, FF10 got an entirely re-mastered soundtrack, and FF12 is getting the same treatment. FF7-9 notably did not get this.
So I don't think "popularity" had anything to do with it. I'm pretty sure FF12's remastery is a result of FF10(-2) HD's success, since it's the only game that was in a comparable situation, and there is very clearly demand for it, as well the game is very easy to market in the west by saying "Never before released IZJS version!" which, not shockingly, they're actually taking advantage of.
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Considering it was the least popular of the 3D titles to use fully modeled environments rather than models on a 2D backdrop, yeah I am more with Jim on this one with it being the last thing in the bag of tricks. I mean the next thing to do after that is FF14 on PS4 which I guarantee some of the completion would have already had in the oven.
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Considering it was the least popular of the 3D titles to use fully modeled environments rather than models on a 2D backdrop, yeah I am more with Jim on this one with it being the last thing in the bag of tricks. I mean the next thing to do after that is FF14 on PS4 which I guarantee some of the completion would have already had in the oven.
Isn't FF14 on PS4? I know their world architecture needed to be gimped because it's on PS3 but I could swear it was on modern console hardware also.
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Here I thought FFZA was an offshoot or something and I was really geeked up because I loved FF12. Remasters, ports, blah blah blah, I stopped buying tricks like this when Chrono Trigger got on the PSX and it is a waste of my money.
I need to get FF14; I also need a WiiU for Xenoblade X and making a black female avatar, because.
Dammit.
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Considering it was the least popular of the 3D titles to use fully modeled environments rather than models on a 2D backdrop, yeah I am more with Jim on this one with it being the last thing in the bag of tricks. I mean the next thing to do after that is FF14 on PS4 which I guarantee some of the completion would have already had in the oven.
Isn't FF14 on PS4? I know their world architecture needed to be gimped because it's on PS3 but I could swear it was on modern console hardware also.
It is indeed, because this is how I play it.
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Oh I had forgot that happened.
Still could totes do it, but that puts it much lower on the to do list.
Edit - hang about I meant 13.
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Here I thought FFZA was an offshoot or something and I was really geeked up because I loved FF12. Remasters, ports, blah blah blah, I stopped buying tricks like this when Chrono Trigger got on the PSX and it is a waste of my money.
Hey, at least the remasters now tend to improve the game's performance, rather than keeping everything the same but adding several seconds of load time between screens and menus.
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Super hyped for FF12 HD, and all of that hype is because of the IZJS. I played the fan-translated (fan-localization-port?) of FF12 with the proper Job System it basically fixed all the problems I originally had with vanilla FF12. The Job System adds a lot of meaningful choices in character/party building, and also Esper allocation. Not to mention actually making Quickenings and Espers worth using beyond the earlygame. And fixing a lot of the dumb shit like how opening random unmarked treasure chests somehow locks you out of the best gear in the game. Or giving you said gear at like the halfway point and thus destroying all the challenge in the main storyline.
There's just a ton of excellent balance changes. It's like if Laggy modded FF12. Doesn't fix the story/character problems, but the gameplay is just a lot more challenging in good ways.
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Here I thought FFZA was an offshoot or something and I was really geeked up because I loved FF12. Remasters, ports, blah blah blah, I stopped buying tricks like this when Chrono Trigger got on the PSX and it is a waste of my money.
Hey, at least the remasters now tend to improve the game's performance, rather than keeping everything the same but adding several seconds of load time between screens and menus.
True, and laggy CG scenes and random freezing. I mean, changes to mechanics is a good think but I also think about how much time I actually put into those games (FF12 was 120Hrs?) and just can't bring myself to do it again. FF7/VP/SF2 are my only exceptions.
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People be stealing people's FO4 mods to put on consoles. (http://www.pcgamer.com/stolen-fallout-4-mods-appear-on-xbox/?ns_campaign=article-feed&ns_mchannel=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0) People who make mods are upset obviously. One of the top modders for FO4 has taken down all of her shit off the Internet until Bethesda resolves the situation to her satisfaction. Of course, the problem with that is that it is punishing the Nexus users even though the problem is with Bethesda's shitty site, so another dude has homebrewed some DRM that corrupts the Xbone's hard drive to use as a poison pill instead. It's like the paid modding thing all over again.
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Yeah but with a ton more toxic as fuck shit with actively punishing end users who have very little way of knowing better.
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Eh, I think it's all pretty hilarious.
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I deal with too many broken IT systems in my day job to enjoy the schadenfreude.
It does tell me Bethesda need to do a ton more quality control at MINIMUM while their content generation community is holding their delivery system at gunpoint.
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The guys who own the Nexus came to them and offered to team up but Bethesda told them that they had it covered.
Which is like if Obsidian offered to write Fallout 4 and they said they had it covered.
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Nexus could toooootally get away without vetting "This runs on x-blokes" because they are random third party (And it sounds like they might not just do that...)
Bethesda not doing that is fucking appalling.
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Super hyped for FF12 HD, and all of that hype is because of the IZJS. I played the fan-translated (fan-localization-port?) of FF12 with the proper Job System it basically fixed all the problems I originally had with vanilla FF12. The Job System adds a lot of meaningful choices in character/party building, and also Esper allocation. Not to mention actually making Quickenings and Espers worth using beyond the earlygame. And fixing a lot of the dumb shit like how opening random unmarked treasure chests somehow locks you out of the best gear in the game. Or giving you said gear at like the halfway point and thus destroying all the challenge in the main storyline.
There's just a ton of excellent balance changes. It's like if Laggy modded FF12. Doesn't fix the story/character problems, but the gameplay is just a lot more challenging in good ways.
Is character building still completely blind unless you look everything up on the internet?
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Nexus could toooootally get away without vetting "This runs on x-blokes" because they are random third party (And it sounds like they might not just do that...)
Bethesda not doing that is fucking appalling.
The Nexus also, by all indications, has a larger and more capable staff assigned to it than Bethesda's equivalent.
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Guys I have gone to the depths of the internet and come back with republican comics
(http://img14.deviantart.net/4139/i/2012/190/e/9/conservative_brony_by_tegthethird-d56l1hb.jpg)
(http://img04.deviantart.net/c1e1/i/2012/173/e/4/screw_you_guys__we__re_going_home_by_tegthethird-d54gqrw.jpg)
(http://img09.deviantart.net/9ef5/i/2012/250/0/f/gridlock_by_tegthethird-d5dvrc2.jpg)
(http://img04.deviantart.net/9766/i/2012/197/0/8/rich_taxpayers_by_tegthethird-d57fyql.jpg)
(http://img12.deviantart.net/0586/i/2012/176/7/c/simple_by_tegthethird-d54u6sq.jpg)
(http://orig01.deviantart.net/1e17/f/2012/173/1/b/anti_anti_islam_by_tegthethird-d54i8v6.jpg)
(http://img15.deviantart.net/8bd2/i/2012/176/f/4/inside_the_echo_chamber_by_tegthethird-d54s4py.jpg)
(http://img09.deviantart.net/20ff/i/2012/175/d/9/denial_by_tegthethird-d54phh4.jpg)
(http://img01.deviantart.net/9751/i/2012/172/6/2/tasty__tasty_murder_by_tegthethird-d54auep.jpg)
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tl;dr
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(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2f/8c/a3/2f8ca3c1988d26b53605fc37ddb7c6af.jpg)
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I don't know whether to be saddest about the smugness, the ideas espoused, or the art style.
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I think all options are equally valid.
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I like how the girl is stupid one in every single comic
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My goodness it is almost as if conservatism strongly correlates with complete lack of empathy for people unlike one's self.
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Why yes I am more excited for a three year old port of a 16 year old game than anything else at E3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeInFdxmq3g&feature=youtu.be
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E3's been pretty thin this year. Best stuff is...details on stuff announced at E3 last year: Nier 2, Zeldarim, etc.
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Well when your cieling for improvements is so high there is a lot of reasons to be kinda hyped. Especially if you have been digging what they have been doing of late like we do (like.... I think we both like everything post DQ7?)
So yeah pretty pumped as well.
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The coolest games aren't really shown at E3 anymore anyway.
E3 however has an exciting opportunity challenge to unlock true epic entertainment to consumers.
An innovative, powerful, 4K next gen level of corporate speech
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VYaPj9nBcoI
"The highest quality pixels anybody has ever seen"
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Wow you mean the new console is going to be more powerful than previous generations of console?
How unexpected.
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*indistinct sound of cheering as people see a thing inferior to a PC in every way*
MEDIOCRE
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Tring VR porn at E3
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yXOoNr_wv3I
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http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/06/con-vs-con.html
=| I hate it when great titles leer me into reading trash
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http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/06/con-vs-con.html
=| I hate it when great titles leer me into reading trash
https://www.amazon.com/Your-Tongue-Mouth-Kissing-Goodbye/dp/080214148X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466613270&sr=8-1&keywords=get+your+tongue+out+of+my+mouth
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Not so much trash as a manifesto. Which is fine (fuck, I basically think it's more or less correct on all points), but not really useful to us.
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Not worth the pixels it's written on.
Ho hum another author traffics in the language of outrage, hoping that they can shock their readers and get a few more clicks, by calling Obama a "corporate pimp."
Obama, the guy that the ultra rich on Wall Street genuinely despise because he said mean things about them, even while he was enacting policies that at worst save them from their own worst impulses.
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yeah fuck that guy
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http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/06/con-vs-con.html
=| I hate it when great titles leer me into reading trash
https://www.amazon.com/Your-Tongue-Mouth-Kissing-Goodbye/dp/080214148X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466613270&sr=8-1&keywords=get+your+tongue+out+of+my+mouth
D=
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yeah fuck that guy
Mmm. Any particular flaws in style that set you off, or just the general false equivalence problem?
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The joke was
Obama, the guy that the ultra rich on Wall Street genuinely despise because he said mean things about them, even while he was enacting policies that at worst save them from their own worst impulses.
yeah fuck that guy
An actual comment from me on the article would be that you saw all this in clearly in the streets in 2008. If you are going to be pushing back on capitalism I think you should be reminding everyone about Occupy a whole lot more. This is what happens when you even try. You get defanged, you get mocked and you will get pushed away out of the public eye and most of all you will be forgotten.
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Well that's the rub really. Due to its slavish devotion to community and non-exclusion, they ended up having the exact opposite problem: nobody could effectively communicate what it was 'about' (no one wanted to "speak for others"), so the lesson the wider culture took from it is "they're a bunch of clueless hippies crying about nothing". Sure, the powers that be did all in their power to highlight and exploit that issue, but no mistake, it was legitimately chronic within the movement.
What we're seeing now is branches thereof attempting to hijack the existing political apparatus in order to put some truth behind the words they've long spoken. Seems to have gone badly. Trying to raise a new political entity to do that work is even more doomed. Actual capital-R Revolution is doomedest of all. I think we'll have to invent something new and it frustrates me greatly I have no idea what that is. Although I've gotten a bit off the original track there.
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Yeah I don't see that as a media conspiracy so much as ineffective messaging - the media is a socially liberal bunch, and they still got hacked by Trump, whose rise is antithetical to their broader interests. Media is as diffuse as it has ever been - the Breitbarts and HuffPos and TPMs and Mother Joneses of the world all command enough attention that their biggest stories can't be frozen out by the big networks (remember 47%? Mother Jones).
Diffuse groups just have a lot of trouble with messaging. I think BLM is doing better than Occupy, but there are just serious built-in challenges there (your fringe yahoos who commit violent acts, etc).
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BLM has the advantage of built in unity and 8 years of social media becoming more ingrained. Even if the nuances of systemic bias can be lost, "stop killing us" is pretty straightforward. And while BLM last I knew tries to avoid leaders, some voices on the ground became de facto spokespeople due to a series of factors in terms of Twitter etc. footprint so keeping the message clear is a much smaller issue.
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Well that's the rub really. Due to its slavish devotion to community and non-exclusion, they ended up having the exact opposite problem: nobody could effectively communicate what it was 'about' (no one wanted to "speak for others"), so the lesson the wider culture took from it is "they're a bunch of clueless hippies crying about nothing". Sure, the powers that be did all in their power to highlight and exploit that issue, but no mistake, it was legitimately chronic within the movement.
It's almost like leadership and hierarchy are inherent components of an organized social movement in human society or something.
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Not so much trash as a manifesto. Which is fine (fuck, I basically think it's more or less correct on all points), but not really useful to us.
Manifestos can also be trash.
What I found entirely non-recyclable out of that mess was the very easy scapegoat tactic of blaming a singular group within a system that swallows more than them. I also wouldn't fit a lot of the 90s and Clinton within any kind of liberalism. Neoliberalism is well and alive for decades, people still have a hard time recognizing/acknowledging it and just because liberals use it in everyday lingo doesn't make them entirely culpable. I could see someone writibg similarly about racism really being a systematic white problem, but it is nowhere near productive or useful or really valid to blame it on ze whites.
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Eh, it's fair in a way. Logic would go something like:
1. Forming substantial opposition movements is the first step to any successful change of systemic issues.
2. Leftists allowed said opposition movements to stay insignificant in favor of ignoring the problems out of fear for 20 years.
3. Therefor leftists bare a significant portion of the failure that lead to this point.
It's just not very useful. Okay, yeah, the previous generation of progressives have shirked their responsibilities. And had they lived up to them, we would have real, actionable solutions to our current problems in all likelihood. But they didn't. And now we have fascist candidates feasting upon the fallout of the endless bubble cycle of the economy. Doing the thing they should have done 20 years ago now isn't going to solve that problem anymore. And yelling at people about their failures isn't a solution.
So I dunno. I guess mostly I'm okay with someone just being angry for a little while, even if I'm disappointed at also advocating for non-solutions in a time-critical situation.
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I wouldn't even make it about fairness, but you repeat my point. It's not useful. Coalitions don't go anywhere if all they focus on is failure. And they certainly don't firm strong foundations from posturing.
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trending on my favorite thing on the internet, my black twitter feed
http://www.bet.com/video/betawards/2016/acceptance-speeches/jesse-williams-receives-humanitarian-award.html
He aint sayin nothing new, except for giving props to black females and our consistent support of "the black community." barely said since the 60s, yaaas lawd jesse
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Not news to MC (who responds on Twitter to, like, all of them), but RoboRosewater is still going, and it released a new favorite today. Try to control yourself.
https://twitter.com/roborosewater/status/747502279939416064
(yes, it is actually possible to trigger the 2nd condition. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4q50xi/roborosewater_troble_as_inita/ )
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trending on my favorite thing on the internet, my black twitter feed
Not the black twitter I'm used to. https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/
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Not news to MC (who responds on Twitter to, like, all of them), but RoboRosewater is still going, and it released a new favorite today. Try to control yourself.
https://twitter.com/roborosewater/status/747502279939416064
(yes, it is actually possible to trigger the 2nd condition. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4q50xi/roborosewater_troble_as_inita/ )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-HACqnzjCM
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trending on my favorite thing on the internet, my black twitter feed
Not the black twitter I'm used to. https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/
i dont just follow any blk person :p
CaptainK, do you have twitter? ill introduce you to blktwitter when being mary jane starts up again, or we could watch empire
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I do not know what most of those words mean.
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:'(
do better!!
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I don't even get what twitter is for. It's like a worse Facebook or something?
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Requesting 4 Job Fiesta allocations, Shitposting or talking crap with friends.
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Facebook is where you pretend your life is great to family and friends. Twitter is where you sling jokes and talk about how your life sucks to complete strangers.
Though, more seriously, besides that, Twitter's also a really good breaking news and general journalism hub.
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http://prospect.org/article/how-hedge-funds-are-pillaging-puerto-rico
If there is evil in this world, it lurks in the hearts of man.
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I will take "If there is evil in this world, it lurks in the hearts of man." for 500, Bob.
What is modern Imperialism?
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Facebook is where you pretend your life is great to family and friends. Twitter is where you sling jokes and talk about how your life sucks to complete strangers.
Though, more seriously, besides that, Twitter's also a really good breaking news and general journalism hub.
I could see that if you don't have direct wire access (like I do as a full-time newsman), I guess. The impulse to use it to communicate with strangers baffles me. I don't even talk about my life to people I know.
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http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/06/con-vs-con.html
=| I hate it when great titles leer me into reading trash
https://www.amazon.com/Your-Tongue-Mouth-Kissing-Goodbye/dp/080214148X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466613270&sr=8-1&keywords=get+your+tongue+out+of+my+mouth
D=
Why go for the book, you know there's a country song by the same name right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6VmAQlysYE
Not news to MC (who responds on Twitter to, like, all of them), but RoboRosewater is still going, and it released a new favorite today. Try to control yourself.
https://twitter.com/roborosewater/status/747502279939416064
(yes, it is actually possible to trigger the 2nd condition. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4q50xi/roborosewater_troble_as_inita/ )
Oh hey, it's sadisticmystic explaining how to attack with it. (sadisticmystic was my partner in crime for the "large finite combo" articles; he's still updating them last I checked). He's pretty cool.
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Facebook is where you pretend your life is great to family and friends. Twitter is where you sling jokes and talk about how your life sucks to complete strangers.
Though, more seriously, besides that, Twitter's also a really good breaking news and general journalism hub.
Snow's totes right.
It's also a totally different way to experience moments real time with millions of posters. You literally elect in to streams and take what you will from it, shittalking for Germany's win or Kanye's Famous video fallout, watcher commentary of shows during commercials, etc. You have to be really strategic to where it doesn't just feel like a feed though.
Also,
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36678-how-lgbt-national-memorial-gets-it-wrong
Sooooooooooo, I'm cautious to even say I'm fairly skeptical about the critique of excluding POCs. That's sort of the easiest, lowest hanging fruit to go for. Had they been included, however, I'm more curious about how federal funding was orchestrated and who's holding the reigns. It's one thing to make something a national monument so that it doesn't not fall prey to changing landscapes, but it's another thing to do it and completely absent its diverse communities from staking their own voice into how to memorialize.
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http://saint-arthur.tumblr.com/post/146680746144/riding-immortal-on-the-seeking-road
So I don't know how much people have been watching from the sideline to our Fallen London prattle, but essentially there is a storyline in the game that was all about destroying your character completely all in the name of something futile and mostly pointless.
It had an option that cost money that would permanently delete your character in a game where you otherwise cannot die.
It was removed from the game for about 3 years because it was only ever developed by the lead dev in his spare time. It was pulled before anyone ever finished it.
That lead dev recently left the Failbetter Games after helping found it. Like 2 weeks after that the storyline came back.
So, I don't think you need to be deeply invested in Fallen London to enjoy this story. It is just an interesting tale in the history gaming (much like ZZZZ Best or stories of The Mitani in Eve Online). Essentially it is an oral history of a living game from the point of view of someone who is deeeeply invested enough that the line between player and something more is pretty blurry.
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So, I don't think you need to be deeply invested in Fallen London to enjoy this story. It is just an interesting tale in the history gaming (much like ZZZZ Best or stories of The Mitani in Eve Online). Essentially it is an oral history of a living game from the point of view of someone who is deeeeply invested enough that the line between player and something more is pretty blurry.
Not... necessarily. I'm not sure if it was the writing or something else, but I'm left mostly wondering what I just read. The Eve Online stuff was usually written pretty tightly after the fact, or the forum posts were chronological and also easy to follow. I'm not quite as aware of Fallen London as EVE, but I did at least play Sunless Sea some, but the details are a little impenetrable to the uninitiated.
Really brings to mind: Mr. Madison. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response did you express anything close to a rational thought. I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.
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I could of course just be wrong. I am pretty invested in it now.
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Interesting article. The terminology involved is way too obtuse for nonplayers, though. Or even for players who are not involved with that particular storyline. I spent the morning researching it to make sense of the story; it is quite nice, as a thing that existed.
It still doesn't go far enough to satisfy me.
Mr Eaten content doesn’t (with one notable and deliberately absurd exception) ever cost Fate, because that would be too much like taking people’s money and then laughing at them – but it does consume resources from the wider Fallen London game, and in Fallen London you can spend Fate to get resources. I could have taken the usual Mr Eaten line of ‘sorry, you were warned’ – but when money’s involved, even small amounts, things change. It would have seemed plainly dishonest to turn down the refund request.
So sayeth the lead dev in question, in the article about the suspension of the content. And yet the very structure of the game is timebux, and there is no difference between Fate, resources, and actions in the end. Time is money already. I cannot find agreement with him on this matter. In the end he took back the very premise of "no takebacks."
I await the day when someone will do this for real. The Carnival option was pretty cool, though.
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For the record, I *play* Fallen London and had no idea what the writer was smoking. (Guess it's "high level play" beyond my wimpy character. I know Fenrir sent me a cat in a box, which then escaped and scratched me, but apparently there was a cat economy that wants to trade cats? Okay then.)
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I understood very little of it as well.
-------------------------
NSFW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg0D1PpgCXs
Despite the time it takes to animate something, this video still manages to be current events.
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Facebook is where you pretend your life is great to family and friends. Twitter is where you sling jokes and talk about how your life sucks to complete strangers.
Though, more seriously, besides that, Twitter's also a really good breaking news and general journalism hub.
Snow's totes right.
It's also a totally different way to experience moments real time with millions of posters. You literally elect in to streams and take what you will from it, shittalking for Germany's win or Kanye's Famous video fallout, watcher commentary of shows during commercials, etc. You have to be really strategic to where it doesn't just feel like a feed though.
Also,
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36678-how-lgbt-national-memorial-gets-it-wrong
Sooooooooooo, I'm cautious to even say I'm fairly skeptical about the critique of excluding POCs. That's sort of the easiest, lowest hanging fruit to go for. Had they been included, however, I'm more curious about how federal funding was orchestrated and who's holding the reigns. It's one thing to make something a national monument so that it doesn't not fall prey to changing landscapes, but it's another thing to do it and completely absent its diverse communities from staking their own voice into how to memorialize.
I don't know much about the memorial. I do know slightly more about the historical drama based on Stonewall, and from what I've heard, it's super whitewashed, and ciswashed, and malewashed. Like...my understanding was that the historical stonewall was primarily trans women of colour, and the movie is mostly white dudes.
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Roland Emmerich only put people he wanted to fuck in the movie. If it was Bryan Singer directing, the bar would have been full of 13-year-old boys.
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http://abovethelaw.com/2016/07/texas-attorneys-sing-dont-eat-your-weed-in-viral-lawyer-advertising-video/?rf=1
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I cringed when I saw Texas in the link and was wondering what we did now.
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military coup. turkey.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/15/turkey-low-flying-jets-and-gunfire-heard-in-ankara1/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4rRwCDeAVE
EVO concluded yesterday, and the most exciting top 8 by far was Guilty Gear. Here's Kazunoko v. Ryon, best match IMO for your viewing pleasure.
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I was on a podcast. They just finished FF9 and asked me on to talk about a few different topics because I knew a lot about it, I guess. Listen, if you want. (http://squareroots.libsyn.com/)
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Such an interesting voice!
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Okay I give up on fighting against this "everything is happening in 2016" thing.
http://www.vulture.com/2016/07/third-eye-blind-trolled-the-hell-out-of-the-rnc.html?mid=twitter_vulture
Third Eye Blind were in the news again.
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Stephen Jenkins is 17 kinds of asshole (I say that as someone who still loves the first two albums 3EB released) but if it isn't like he hides his opinions. That is pretty hilarious.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/technology/twitter-bars-milo-yiannopoulos-in-crackdown-on-abusive-comments.html
About time. Fuck off forever, asshole.
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http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/yiannopoulos/3359/the-internet-is-turning-us-all-into-sociopaths/
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So he's the Andy Kaufman of being a shitsack?
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No he is just human garbage fire RP IRL
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http://bust.com/music/16715-viv-albertine.html#.V4-JoJL86rk.twitter
On the one hand, wowwwwwww that is a massive fuck up.
On the other hand this is possibly the greatest outcome for that massive a fuck up.
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/munich-mall-shooting-live-updates-8474748
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http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/28/great-wall-first-look
GREAT WALL with Matt Damon!
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Guys I finally figured out how2lawyer (transactional edition)
Who's got the money, them or you?
If them:
double every time period in the document.
add 6 months to every due date.
add no less than 10 instances of the word "reasonable."
done
If you:
same as above, in reverse.
ezbro
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From the EW article the Great Wall: "Other than the monster, all aspects of this film are backed by either scientific or historical research."
Considering that this is a film set approximatiely 1000 years ago in China and stars Matt Damon, I'm pretty sure I can name at least one additional aspect of the film that doesn't match scientific or historical research.
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Eh, I think it's more that this comes on the heels of #oscarssowhite than being representative of an actual problem. I mean, we had Tom Cruise as a fucking samurai and that turned out to be a great movie that was respectful to its subject matter.
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I get the sense the Chinese movie industry views Great Wall as its coming out party, to prove to the Western market that it can compete toe-to-toe with Hollywood, and they're going to do everything humanly possible to ensure its success, and if that means hiring a white movie star, that's exactly what they're going to do.
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More broadly, Hollywood did a pretty good job of selling the association of "Big Budget Blockbuster" and "White Dudes", so if you're building a big blockbuster, even a chinese one, you still need a white dude.
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I get the sense the Chinese movie industry views Great Wall as its coming out party, to prove to the Western market that it can compete toe-to-toe with Hollywood, and they're going to do everything humanly possible to ensure its success, and if that means hiring a white movie star, that's exactly what they're going to do.
Zhang Yimou wants to draw a lot in the American market. And when they want to draw in the Chinese market they cast a notable Chinese actor so he's just doing the same thing.
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Yep, wouldn't be gross, except it's a historical piece, so it's gross.
(like, Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell? Not a big deal. When was GitS so inherently about Japan that slapping a popular white actress on it is problematic?)
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I feel like we must have watched different Ghost in a Shell movies.
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I understand why they made this decision from a commercial standpoint, but it's still antithetical to the quote I posted! If they wanted half the listed cast to be non-Asian that's fine...just don't say it's a historically accurate representation minus the monsters.
Also, it's been a issue that's long predated #OscarsSoWhite, it's just getting more and more attention now.
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I understand why they made this decision from a commercial standpoint, but it's still antithetical to the quote I posted! If they wanted half the listed cast to be non-Asian that's fine...just don't say it's a historically accurate representation minus the monsters.
Also, it's been a issue that's long predated #OscarsSoWhite, it's just getting more and more attention now.
It's the Giant Enemy Crab again but Yimou himself said, "I don't care."*
*At some point in his life, probably
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http://www.reparations.me
art website.
always been for reparatioms, esp. since other groups have received moola. Moot point though, the slavery comnection here is weak except for the twitter aggregate. looks like successful crowdsourcing
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Fascinating.
I'm always super wary of reparations for slavery because I feel like if anything formal ever materialized, it would first of all be inadequate, because it always is, second of all miss the point that the sprawling racism/poverty legacy of slavery is by no means limited to descendants of slaves, and finally act as a finish line for a chunk of the country caring about overt racism. Which is probably a bad thing. Messy, fascinating topic.
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Yeah, all of that is totally valid. The scope for reparations should certainly take note of your second point. That would be too smart, though, and the country's "wealth" would shift to the south. It would also be totally difficult for many black families, especially, to show their "immigration papers." It is interesting when Japanese Americans, some thousands but not over 100~k receive reparations, even the word was used, to the sum of....google google 1.6billion, but its sheer magnitude in money seems to be the number one issue for afam reparations. I believe we can also think of "non monetary" (hmmm, everything has a figure) options if we could creative, like all state history courses having slavery anchor the economic topics when necessary or ex plantation sites that make money for weddings or something giving most of its proceeds to its surrounding community etc . i think that website steers closer to the race to the finish line. here is its artforum writeup http://artforum.com/news/id=62516
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Building on the scope point, I've wondered if breaking the issues of racism down and focusing on more concrete events individually might mitigate some of those problems. For example, starting with red lining and similar practices in the post-war era, which pretty directly and unmistakably denied african americans access to the rapid increase of wealth white americans enjoyed at the time. It has clear start-end dates and relatively easily calculable impact and happened in living memory and lets us directly increase the wealth of people hit hard by racism without being able to claim suddenly that we've "forgiven" original sin. Or at least, that's how I've thought about it.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/us/college-protests-alumni-donations.html?_r=0
Old white dudes are mad that colleges are too politically correct/obsessed with racism and donate to college at lowest rates since women were admitted in(lol). Woah, you mean that challenging the status quo takes the piss out of old curmudgeons? One guy decided to spend his donation money handing out pamphlets defending the honor of some guy from the 1800's. Seems like a great use of money bro.
::)
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I will say that one of their list of grievances (being really bad at context when judging historical figures) is a legitimate priblem that the broader movement struggles with in my experience. Even then though, it boils down to "Harumph! Why I never!"
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I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with Woodrow Wilson. Today's students don't like women's suffrage?
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I will say that one of their list of grievances (being really bad at context when judging historical figures) is a legitimate priblem that the broader movement struggles with in my experience. Even then though, it boils down to "Harumph! Why I never!"
Yeah, you can survey the college students of the western world for foolish liberal indulgences and you're always going to come up with material. Because college students are made up of late teens and twentysomethings. Not sure why this is surprising to really anyone - my sense of the last few years is that social media is amplifying the extent to which we are hearing about this stuff, and also amplifying a liberal echo chamber that is leading to more of the goofy excesses. All a big "so what?" to me.
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mu understanding is that it was much more about his segregation policies. Students not liking so much attending school and spending the majority of their time in a song dedicated to a guy that said you should live apart from and not interact with white people if you are black.
I am for taking people in the context of when they were alive, but I can also see not really wanting to spend 3/4 years doing a major where I worked in a building everyday reminding everyone how great he was.
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Yeah, Wilson was a huge fucking racist who segregated the federal government en masse.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/opinion/is-your-lipstick-bad-for-you.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0
hippydunie is just going to say that makeup is the only product I haven't looked into and made myself; I make my own nut milks, lotion, shampoo, sauces, etc. bc it is far far far cheaper in the longview. I ain't an "ew chemical" person bc I have no clue about these things, but I do know my body's liked them far more. I mean, hey, I barely get out of water looking ashy anymore! baha.
TL;DR: we suck as demanding consumers
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"NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small," (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nyc-parks-nude-trump-statue-erection-small)
Election 2016 dick jokes best dick jokes.
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I still love that the piece is called "The Emperor Has No Balls".
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I dunno how I really feel about, it is super simple and easy to get but have read too many remarks that are fatshaming and transphobic. I think I like the statue but not the commentary.
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https://www.humblebundle.com/capcom-playstation-bundle?partner=gawker
PSA for a playstation bundle, mostly PS3 stuff, with some seriously good games: Mega Man 9/10, Okami HD, DMC collection.
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https://timeline.com/preshistoric-polyamory-56fc454f43bd#.8gwnwqaeh
"Blame Agriculture for Your Basic Sex Life"
.... very "inventive" bullshit. Monogamous sex is p. cool, so is polygamy, you know, whatever works for folk. Also, not sure when undermining anyone's sex life was the progressive thing to do.
Anyway, I could never do polygamy anyway because it takes an immense amount of psychic energy to even give myself to one person.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gene-wilder-dead
goddammit 2016
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this has been a real garbage year
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A
This is 100% true.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf-6D9bkYKw
Never change, Japan.
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http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/no-one-wants-your-old-clothes/ar-AAim8tF?li=BBnb7Kz
Good article on recycling & secondhand clothing. I made sure to donate my clothes to secondhand retailers, but was never aware of its afterlife.
"The EPA estimates that diverting all of those often-toxic trashed textiles into a recycling program would be the environmental equivalent of taking 7.3 million cars and their carbon dioxide emissions off the road."
Yikes.
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https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/photos/a.102107073196735.4429.102099916530784/1362236273850469/?type=3&theater
kkkkkkkkkk facebook link. kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk its pure campaign bait.
Regardless.
Straight in the feels.
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https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/photos/a.102107073196735.4429.102099916530784/1362236273850469/?type=3&theater
kkkkkkkkkk facebook link. kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk its pure campaign bait.
Regardless.
Straight in the feels.
Speaking as someone who absolutely shuts down emotionally when shit gets real in order to focus on solutions, and has actually been called a cold emotionless bitch for not reacting to something the way someone expected me to, yeah, I totally get it.
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http://www.maskmagazine.com/the-control-issue/struggle/interview-silvia-federici
Plopping down for a good profile article on Silvia Frederici *edit & 2nd w feminism; good commentary, save for the quick and incorrect statements about black women, labor and the home. Domestic work as productive and potential labor is not only activated in homes personally-owned or lived in, so I'm wondering if that's a weird distorted message from interview notes/recordings.
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https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/first-vaginal-beer-bottled-instinct-brewery#/
Just heard about this failed indiegogo campaign. Jesus
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While my first instinct is to throw that into IotD for several reasons, least being because there are already beer types intended to be wine-ish and champagne-ish.
My second instinct is to quote The Big Lebowski with Maude's introduction. "Does that word make you uncomfortable, Mr. Lebowski? Vagina."
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=sOzM4ClFG1o
Entire FFX soundtrack remastered
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I no longer fear death.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/fashion/marc-jacobs-models-dreadlocks-social-media-response-new-york-fashion-week.html
Give me a fucking break, straightening hair was as act of forced discipline for POCs to even enter the workforce; I don't agree with any of his response and have stronger feelings at different points.
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Is...is Marc Jacobs trolling? That's...I don't know if you could come up with a more wrong answer. I say this as someone who i skeptical of the supposed evil of cultural appropriation - it has the condescending whiff of liberals in the academy treating minorities like endangered species - but wow.
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It does have that whiff, yeah. But I wouldn't make any argument about white folk appropriating x, y, z. The obverse to academic snobbery, however, is that bodies with those daily lived experiences are disciplined differently without fashion being a GOJF card. I'm more interested in how that convo plays out.
But, until:
folk don't need to cut their locs to get jobs
get profiled/arrested because of criminality stereotypes
I can't cheer behind seeing it on the runway and in the context of high culture. I thought people had PR managers these days!
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A lot of the problem in liberal circles I find is that academic language got out into the wild, and into the hands of people that don't fully grok how or when to use it. Especially when it comes to racism since the academic definitions of that come across as complete gibberish if you're not familiar with the relevant definitions.
Admittedly I've always found cultural appropriation the hardest one to grapple with. In part this is just professional bias; like, what? It's not okay to use recipes and techniques and foods from other cultures and blend them together? That seems antithetical to the entire notion of cooking to me. Although I've also read people have issue more specifically with places selling themselves as "authentic" and driving actual minority-owned businesses away, or rapidly popularizing an 'ethnic' foodstuff such that it becomes unaffordable for the folks that depend on it.
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until:
folk don't need to cut their locs to get jobs
get profiled/arrested because of criminality stereotypes
I can't cheer behind seeing it on the runway and in the context of high culture. I thought people had PR managers these days!
Yeah, I hear that. Is the goal for black hair to become acceptable in mainstream US culture, or is it for black hair to become acceptable in mainstream culture for non-shitty reasons? I'm thinking about Ellen and Queer Eye and the like, and wondering if that kind of product being out there didn't do a lot to usher in an age of gay tolerance. You want black hair to be normal, is there a quicker path than to put it on white people?
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or bob marley drinks ::)
http://site.people.com/style/marc-jacob-apologizes-for-dreadlocks-in-fashion-show/
Follow-up! tl;dr: he apologized.
I'm now wondering if there are more productive examples, in the world of derp, of people doing something other than apologizing. At least in the US I feel like we're at a moment where apologies pretty much have no value.
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I don't think they've had any for a while. The spectacle of the public apology became too obligatory for the gesture to continue having obvious resonance. Even when it probably should.
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I disagree. Sure if you look at the party that is apologizing, and whether they are going to change their ways, or whether their apology in and of itself will resonate, the answer 9 times out of 10 - at least - is no. So if you're focused on that, they're worthless. But apologies have great value in measuring peoples' perceptions of the sentiment of society. 10 years ago, could a charge of cultural appropriation have forced a response of any kind whatsoever, much less an apology? I don't think it would have. Marc Jacobs thinks he has to do damage control, that's what it means. Baby steps!
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Hm, see, I'm on the fence there. I think it's the loudness (prompted by social media) that prompted the apology. The leftovers of the 90s did a lot of really cool 90s things, but also had many instances of CA and folk saying the same of Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake, for example. The critiques fell out of mainstream attention, and so did the responses unless you secretly used to be a Britney fan. And yes, I agree that it does something to the perception of our values. But if social engagement and appropriation are some keys to CA not stinging either party involved, what's been good examples of a followup to an apology (his was half-hearted, I might add).
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<- Britney Fan and loud and proud about it.
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heck yea!
in the world of celebrity news and caring/not caring this surprised me
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/20/entertainment/angelina-jolie-brad-pitt-divorce/
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http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/reject-pickup-artists-the-game-dating-simulator
Badass.
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https://m.facebook.com/notes/richard-garfield/a-game-players-manifesto/1049168888532667
An excellent article by developer Richard Garfield about whale-funded skinnerbox games.
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Not even throwing shade. This was better than I expected it to be when I read it was Richard Garriot.
Then I rechecked and it was Richard Garfield. That is very much more in line with expectations.
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MtG obviously has a very different business model than a mobile f2p, but I can't help but feel he's throwing stones from a glass house here. [insert discussion about pay-to-win, commodification, addictive completionism, etc. The amount of money it takes to "win" MtG in the sense of unlocking everything is prohibitive, and has been for decades. I'd imagine the money it takes to collect a single set, times sets a year, iis well into abusive territory.]
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1) The amount of money to buy every single video game that's released is probably also prohibitive. Magic can be pricy, yes, but it's been creating genuine new content for 20+ years, so it's not exactly comparable to a single game, but it's more like a hobby.
2) "Collectors" who have to have one of everything existed before Magic, anyway, in non-games like stamp collecting & baseball card collecting. So for people who really do want to "unlock everything", it's not even necessarily exploitative? It's certainly a different case than "pay us up multiple tiny hits to get a rush."
2) It's been 10 years since Garfield worked for Wizards of the Coast. He was generally seen as one of the most pro-game-as-game. He's publicly opposed adding a new mythic rarity tier to Magic awhile back, for example, as that it brings it too close to the gambling experience, for example. When Magic was made, it was the first game of its type. It's basically on record that people bought Magic very differently than Garfield expected - he thought people would spend 30-60 dollars then stop and play casual kitchen table games with their cards, because that's how much you spend on a game. Collecting a bunch of each rare would be something only a few crazed superfans would do. Basically, to the extent that Magic does prey on people, a lot of it can't be blamed on Garfield anyway. Pretty sure if he could do it all over again, he wouldn't have even gone the CCG route if you aren't reading between the lines here - he'd probably prefer something like Dominion as a sales model instead.
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1) The amount of money to buy every single video game that's released is probably also prohibitive. Magic can be pricy, yes, but it's been creating genuine new content for 20+ years, so it's not exactly comparable to a single game, but it's more like a hobby.
Come on. Video games are made by different companies competing against one another, and are not even all marketed toward the same audiences.
Collecting a bunch of each rare would be something only a few crazed superfans would do.
Well yeah, but that's Garfield's point, isn't it? Game designers should protect players from themselves by avoiding business models that enable addictive, destructive behavior? Inherent in the word "collectable" is the idea that folks will collect. From day 1 MtG has enabled and implicitly encouraged people to spend unreasonable amounts of money to catch 'em all. I doubt Garfield expected the scope of it from the beginning...but he was involved a lot further down the road than that.
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I remember balking at ports when I was a child. I could tell the consumer exploitation from afar; well, exploitation for those who've already played such games. I also remember playing Magic early on and dropping it because it is, in fact, a long-term financial commitment should you choose enter games against broader audiences. I also remember Facebook games and thinking how it seemed to prey on those unfamiliar with earlier precedents for gaming (IE, you should not need to pay for more lives). I think his argument touches pretty well on a popular trend in monetization, though I wish he was not as vague about what comprises which "addictive behavior" group. So it could be strengthened in that way, Facebook gaming and which segments use the "Pay for more---!"
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Eh I dunno dude, he has made plenty of CCGs after Magic. He has even helped on F2P digital CCG in the last 5 years or so (SolForge).
Richard Garfield is a lot of things and he is very very clearly passionate about games and the purity of games, but he also knows how to make a thing for a business. Even the Living Cardgame elements to Android: Netrunner is still about baking in a repeat customer model.
That said also agree quoting prices for a Vintage deck or a high power EDH deck is really disproportional on """"Value""".
That also said though, holy fuck the people in that comment chain that down play just how fucking expensive competitive magic is are fucking bonkers. If you think that most people A) can or do offload their collection onto the secondary market you are delusional and B) if you realistically think the value of your collection is close to recouping your costs you literally aren't buying a single booster ever running purely on buying singles for your deck and are praying there isn't reprints of your best shit.
Checking here (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper) at a site I don't know and am relying on Alex to tell me if I am dumb, but it lists the price of current tournament decks. In Standard this month the majority of decks are $200+. There is a handful of cheaper decks through out (Mostly a mono red burn deck popping up), but most of them are significant investments even for something that will stick around for 3 or so months in a stable meta. Online scrapes it together a bit cheaper.
Pauper decks run $50, but literally anything competing at the top levels (which trickle down HARD in M:tG) in other formats is hundreds to thousands of dollars.
You could run proxies but then like, well yeah you aren't competing in sanctioned tournaments and the game could literally be free other than the cost of pen, paper, slips and a few decks of playing cards (or just playing on Chimera).
EDH is a bit less competitive meta to it, but even just a fuck about EDH deck has to be 100 cards with a Legendary in it which unless you are Kamigawa based that's going to be a $value right up front to play just on raw rarity.
You can also only partake in Limited tournaments, but well I hope you are winning constantly and then reselling your cards or you are spending every single time you play.
Magic doesn't have to be a tens of thousands of dollars up front to start investment, but anyone claiming in that comments section Magic isn't really fucking expensive and puts it on even the same scale as Hearthstone is delusional. Standard in HS is going to PUSH it in that direction, but HS always has that baked in initial cost that keeps giving in the Classic set. MTG has constant treadmills and reprints Core and shifts around what is in it every damned year. It is a whole other beast.
It is also not Richard Garfield's to answer for in it's current state. edit more response to Jim. Even out the gate MtG was a different beast than he expected it to be. The original idea was for it to be the base set was its own thing. Then you could build new versions of the same game. Expansions and mixing them together was an after the fact thing. He was still involved and a huge factor for many years afterwards, but it is less him driving the decision making. By now the tournament scene, the formats, all of that don't remotely resemble when he was involved and even for those a lot of those are other people's babies.
That said I 100% agree, Richard Garfield made games for businesses that he knew would sell. He does a mix and match of "pure" games that are just games he wants to do purely to do them and games that are compromised for the sake of business. It is still working on something he wants to do, but he is plenty realistic enough to be able to be part of a corporate entity.
Edit - responses from when I started typing this is for Dunie.
RG is a lot of things and is super smart. He is a bit vague on defining the addictive behaviours I believe because of all the things he is, a psychologist is not one of them and he knows it. He is a master at games design and a mathematician, writing an article as a gamer. He can speak volumes to player behaviour and responses, but he isn't going to sit there and disect the mountain of various layers of operant conditioning that makes up most games that we tend to dismissively refer to as "skinner boxes". Probably not the place, not the audience and maybe not something he is comfortable even doing (though he can most definitely point out the degree of randomness in the reward/punishment outcomes from the various levers in place).
edit 10million - SO MUCH TERRIBLE ENGLISH SORRY IT IS 2:30 IN THE MORNING.
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http://www.upworthy.com/this-school-replaced-detention-with-meditation-the-results-are-stunning?c=ufb1 I really like this news
https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/ I revisited this article after a younger peer got into a Facebook flamewar over being a white anti-racist and arguing with a straw-man throwing friend
Re: Grefter
Right, but at least age groups would have been useful. I figure he'd be familiar with the general groups. But, really, I'm more interested in those with 10+ years gaming and if they purchase as many .99c things (or, even downloadable content maybe) as much as groups with little to none. For my own research to do!
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and this
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1_Y0LwX0uOz-P63FVhV0OFkDObbBXcy16YPOcsqnBqto/mobilebasic
although it should be addressed to more than white people, which I'll suggest to the manager anyway
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I am pretty sure there has been some interesting articles and presentations come out of GDC over the years that might have stats and stuff on that now. Normally when they come out the consumer reaction cries about the use of the term "Whale" and doesn't actually disect the stats, but it is around.
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I'll check it out!
http://time.com/4493032/lionel-shriver-cultural-appropriation-speech/
Background: Lionel Shriver, famous (maybe notorious?) US author argues that she can and will write fiction from the perspectives of whoever she wants because fiction is fake. She was the keynote speaker.
RE: previous cultural appropriation links - I am disappointed that these conversations always begin and end with who can or should or will do what. The point is that things are done. And they exist in the public. And people have responses to them (who say "cultural appropriation," which is by no way a 21st century thing, maybe the phrase (90s, really?) but there's other synonyms) that draw up lots of questions which shouldn't be immediately invalidated because of some distaste for so-called political correctness. Questions either for or against.
Some people don't understand, or care maybe, that representation of all forms contributes to and/or effects perceptions of those living the experience. And some people assume that white people always begin with ill intentions. There needs to be some meeting point where people work together for rigor and equality in the workplace.
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You can look at cultural appropriation from the consumer or creator standpoint. I tend to look at it from the consumer standpoint, and this is part of why I don't fully buy into it as a problem. From that perspective cultural appropriation also goes by the term "marketing stuff to white people because they have money." So I frame it as two questions: what may be sold to white people, and who may sell it? I think those who denounce cultural appropriation would say to the first question, "elements of minority culture, especially traditional and religious ones." So question two is almost irrelevant - if there's stuff that can't be sold, then no one can sell it. And this is where I have a big problem, because to me that sounds like rural whites telling the folks they grew up with not to get above their station, or black kids telling each other not to act white, or artists complaining bitterly that their peers sold out. I like to say that cultural appropriation treats minorities like endangered species. To me the impulse not to commodify minority culture sounds a lot like a call for separatism, and when white academics call for it, it sounds a lot like environmentalists calling for habitat protection for endangered species.
I said I don't "fully" buy into cultural appropriation as a problem. Where I agree it is a problem is when stuff is sold or consumed in a way that is inherently disrespectful. Bollywood is our current ground zero here. It's a product made for a domestic Indian audience, and it's flashy and melodramatic and has musical numbers, and white people love it, but only because they funny-sounding foreigners doing over-the-top stuff funny. They're laughing at it, not with it. They like it because it is exotic, not because it has inherent qualities that appeal to them. (Anime may seem like it's in a similar position, but since Japan has actively been pushing it as a cultural export, I don't think it's really comparable.)
I go back and forth about this stuff. Don't think it's at all straightforward. As for the white marketers of the world, whether it's objectionable is really a case-by-case thing. (Katy Perry's body of work is in objectionable territory, because it seems to consist mostly of pointing out how weird and exotic non-white culture is).
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Yeah, it is all about power, who has it and who doesn't. A murky space indeed. It's interesting to think about it from a consumer standpoint, and I think about target groups at that point. And then the producers, as well, but I always feel like people lie about their audiences, or maybe even misunderstand them. Or certain target groups are implied and misinterpreted. I'm more interested now in cases where white folk aren't the dominant populace in either. Oh, living.
Edit* Right, I forgot to add an instance of hipocrisy - defending Beyonce's bollywood stuff is purposely separatist and also not correct. She is doing what other white folk have and who have been lambasted. Sure considering blackness in that may be a good intellectual exercise, but it no less faulty.
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Japan and Oregon, peas in a pod. This video is literally a love letter. (http://boingboing.net/2016/09/30/portland-made-a-fantastic-vide.html)
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Japan and Oregon, peas in a pod. This video is literally a love letter. (http://boingboing.net/2016/09/30/portland-made-a-fantastic-vide.html)
"Odnarotoop" is Portland spelled backwards with Japanese pronunciation.
k im done
no for real tho if the goal of this is actually to woo japanese tourists nobody is gonna fuckin understand what the shit a odnarotoop is
actually having the japanese syllables arranged backwards (as opposed to every phoneme which isn't how the language works) would be "Do-n-ra-toh-po" (ドンラトーポ), which is just as obtuse but would make a japanese person go "Eh, Sugoi" after having it explained to them, which would be better for tourism while still satiating the need for the artist to feel like he's clever without attracting ire from unemployed people who would be better at their jobs than them
ANYWAY actually it's a pretty neat song and the japanese is childish but a lot better than I expected.
And if the city is doing this sort of tourist outreach it's a damn shame it's so expensive to live out there because that is one of the only niches my skillset actually fills
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I thought Japanese localities were all about extremely lame, vaguely robotic tourism campaigns?
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yeah that too actually
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And if the city is doing this sort of tourist outreach it's a damn shame it's so expensive to live out there because that is one of the only niches my skillset actually fills
STOP MOVING HERE
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Did someone just call Oregon expensive? Jesus Christ, I need to move. Preferably to Portland where things are like 20-50% cheaper than they are here.
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Did someone just call Oregon expensive? Jesus Christ, I need to move. Preferably to Portland where things are like 20-50% cheaper than they are here.
The more I joke about Texas, the less of a joke it is.
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Did someone just call Oregon expensive? Jesus Christ, I need to move. Preferably to Portland where things are like 20-50% cheaper than they are here.
in fairness new mexico has always been dirt cheap to live in because most people are poor
like comparing california to new mexico is probably one of the most drastic cost of living differences in the nation
side note the 2008 recession didn't hit the state relatively as hard as it hit other states because there was not a lot further down to drop
anyway point is if I lived with a roommate I could find a place for about 500/mo after utilities pretty easily so there are benefits
And if the city is doing this sort of tourist outreach it's a damn shame it's so expensive to live out there because that is one of the only niches my skillset actually fills
STOP MOVING HERE
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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I know, it's just perspective for me. I take for granted that where I live is "expensive" because, well, it's one of the most expensive places in the world! Obviously everyone knows that.
But then to see somewhere I consider cheap considered expensive to someone else... it's a nice kick in the teeth reminder that "most expensive place in the world" has meaning, you know? I can move anywhere but a handful of places and see a substantial increase in my standard of living.
Which reminds me to be frustrated with where I am now, where what I have means NOTHING. Where making more than 2x the median US household income means I can afford to pay rent on a 1-bedroom, but it most definitely does not mean I can buy anything (ahahahahahaha).
Wait, this is Misc Links, right? Here, have a link that is sustaining my rage:
Frisco versus Don't Call It Frisco (http://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/3/13153834/frisco-economic-growth-texas-sf)
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Might be cheaper now, but housing costs are rising faster here than anywhere in the country and it's mostly because of You People so please don't move here.
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Might be cheaper now, but housing costs are rising faster here than anywhere in the country and it's mostly because of You People so please don't move here.
I mean the city could do things to help people living there by enacting rent control laws
oh that's against oregon state law
well it's 100% Us People's fault
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I feel like every city needs its own program; austin wouldnt benefit from rent control, too many students would take up space for workers in the city, landlords wouldn't keep up properties... those turning austin into a silicon valley (the developers, etc) should pay a premium for the people of all backgrounds they're pushing out, and this means more than just sidewalks.
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Gentrification can only be slowed down not prevented.
Even in France
RIP Rob
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I feel like every city needs its own program; austin wouldnt benefit from rent control, too many students would take up space for workers in the city, landlords wouldn't keep up properties... those turning austin into a silicon valley (the developers, etc) should pay a premium for the people of all backgrounds they're pushing out, and this means more than just sidewalks.
true
that said i was mostly speaking to what very little i know about portland's housing crisis with that statement
(that said having been said to what I would like to counter in this post that is a response to another post, Gentrification has only kiiiinda hit Albuquerque so far, so the situation isn't the same. The best pre-emptive answer in my opinion IIF that's going to become a problem would be to enact rent control laws to make sure people and families and people with families already living near major metropolitan centers don't get booted out by greedy landlords selling overpriced, decaying housing space to people with enough money to throw around to shove out the people already living there
(additionally, it would be nice to try enacting laws preventing realty companies with tons of money to throw around to buy out the current (slum lords/realty agents/rich people who bought houses for their kids to live in while they were in college and are now renting it out to other people because that kid has long since moved on)... just in order to drive up the cost of living in order to make more money from the employees of tech companies building campuses in the area who want to live in a house "closer to the action" of the downtown and uptown areas of the city.
(the thing is that the houses in these sorts of areas are already barely kept up and aren't really worth any more than they are now. if they WERE better kept up, they already would be going for more on the market here. artificial price inflation on houses like that would be a fucking terrible for the people already living there who don't own their own homes, which I imagine is a lot of them.
(so at least for Albuquerque, in the very realistic scenario that it faces a similar housing crisis as portland and california, the answer wouldn't be to stop "you people" from moving here to work in companies setting up shop here, it would be to prevent predatory land prospectors from driving rent prices above reasonable rates for current local residents living in already shitty housing)
But yeah that tangent aside, you're absolutely right, the best urban planning strategy really does depend on the city. I can only really speak to the places I have lived in and have heard about vaguely from people who have lived there.
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Stuntman performs moves from Tekken characters. His whole channel is really good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2G45kLcArU
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Nice.
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I stopped a bit in because I need to work/bored. Those 10 strings were pretty great though.
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I feel like every city needs its own program; austin wouldnt benefit from rent control, too many students would take up space for workers in the city, landlords wouldn't keep up properties... those turning austin into a silicon valley (the developers, etc) should pay a premium for the people of all backgrounds they're pushing out, and this means more than just sidewalks.
true
that said i was mostly speaking to what very little i know about portland's housing crisis with that statement
(that said having been said to what I would like to counter in this post that is a response to another post, Gentrification has only kiiiinda hit Albuquerque so far, so the situation isn't the same. The best pre-emptive answer in my opinion IIF that's going to become a problem would be to enact rent control laws to make sure people and families and people with families already living near major metropolitan centers don't get booted out by greedy landlords selling overpriced, decaying housing space to people with enough money to throw around to shove out the people already living there
(additionally, it would be nice to try enacting laws preventing realty companies with tons of money to throw around to buy out the current (slum lords/realty agents/rich people who bought houses for their kids to live in while they were in college and are now renting it out to other people because that kid has long since moved on)... just in order to drive up the cost of living in order to make more money from the employees of tech companies building campuses in the area who want to live in a house "closer to the action" of the downtown and uptown areas of the city.
(the thing is that the houses in these sorts of areas are already barely kept up and aren't really worth any more than they are now. if they WERE better kept up, they already would be going for more on the market here. artificial price inflation on houses like that would be a fucking terrible for the people already living there who don't own their own homes, which I imagine is a lot of them.
(so at least for Albuquerque, in the very realistic scenario that it faces a similar housing crisis as portland and california, the answer wouldn't be to stop "you people" from moving here to work in companies setting up shop here, it would be to prevent predatory land prospectors from driving rent prices above reasonable rates for current local residents living in already shitty housing)
But yeah that tangent aside, you're absolutely right, the best urban planning strategy really does depend on the city. I can only really speak to the places I have lived in and have heard about vaguely from people who have lived there.
Re: asking businesses to be compassionate
I also suggest being on the lookout for tax-funded entertainment bloat funds hidden in new laws with corporate backing: IE, it is fucking disgusting how taxpayer money goes to football stadiums that draws up an economic bubble of brunch locations and froyo shops that also contributes to pushing those taxpayers out... IE, folk need to pay attention collectively, too.
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Nintendo revealed their new console today. I like it a lot. This is the direction they should have gone with Wii U, focusing on portability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5uik5fgIaI
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Naming your console the same thing as a part of BDSM culture is weird.
Device itself looks way sleeker than a normal Nintendo console, but is in line with their movile stuff since like the DSi.
Need more details before excitement but it looks neat and I would lose controllers instantly.
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My First Virtual Reality Sexual Assault (https://medium.com/@jordanbelamire/my-first-virtual-reality-sexual-assault-2330410b62ee#.40j358yse)
Keep it classy, internet.
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Gentrification can only be slowed down not prevented.
Even in France
RIP Rob
I don't care about Gentrification, I just don't want people from California moving here. RIP them.
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These made me smile today:
http://blackyouthproject.com/comic-book-artist-under-fire-for-hypersexualized-drawing-of-black-girl-iron-man/ (ew, what a gross URL listing)
http://blackyouthproject.com/black-comic-book-store-owner-featured-on-invincible-iron-man-variant-cover/
Hurray to people to are comfortable speaking out! And this #TeensThatLookLikeTeens - should it be #TeensWhoLookLikeTeens? - hashtag has me thinking about some awful bodyshaming and respectability politics that adults dump on young folk. Shirley Temple was sexualized as a child, I'm quite sure certain segments would be okay with sexualized young people (hello vidyagamesanime). The thing is sexualization in the first place.
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#TeensThatLookLikeTeensIfTeensHadSomeDisorderThatGaveThemGiganticAnimeEyes
They hit it right with Kitty Pryde though; she covered the anorexic segment of the teenage population well.
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Right!?
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http://newsthump.com/2016/10/27/destruction-of-walk-of-fame-star-leaves-donald-trump-down-to-his-last-six-horcruxes/
*slow clap*
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#TeensThatLookLikeTeens - should it be #TeensWhoLookLikeTeens? -
At least according to most modern EFL teaching resources either is acceptable usage these days
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#TeensWhoLookLikeTeens
It uses less characters so you can fit more into your other 118.
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oh please you'd just waste it on an oxford comma anyway
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Why would you speak to me that way. Especially when I always said that I Haven't got the words for you All your diction dripping with disdain
Through the pain
I always tell the truth
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http://time.com/4549289/apple-macbook-pro-surface-studio/
I've been out of the loop with new computers since 2009. Hell, I'm stuck in the "olden" days of Mac OSX 10.7. But, I hadn't thought about the PC market shifting to just professional demographics. It has me wondering the pressure on, or investments by, universities that move at different frequencies for updating material. Also, what about public libraries!? They still have they keyboards with the big ass keys, and no Macs! (In ATL)
We were going to get a desktop sometime next year, but hm… I wonder when the upgrade steam will slow?
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https://www.humblebundle.com/day-of-the-devs-2016
Excellent bundle here. Titan Souls is so worth a dollar. Really neat game, short, takes a simple idea and runs with it, very pretty, cool boss design. If artisinal were a word that hadn't jumped the shark, you could call it artisinal.
https://medium.com/charged-tech/apple-just-told-the-world-it-has-no-idea-who-the-mac-is-for-722a2438389b#.tjbzmwm63
Alternate take on the Macbook Pro. I think the general consensus is that the pro *should* be oriented at professionals, but that the new pro doesn't actually do a good job of that at all. The thing about the march of progress of PCs is, there's always going to be hype, and sometimes it's warranted and sometimes not, but it's rarely worth waiting for - you'll wait forever. This year's video cards are hype-worthy compared to last year - a gigantic leap in efficiency and speed for your consumer dollar. This year's CPUs are an iterational change, with efficiency gains that make a difference in a laptop but are barely relevant in a desktop. And so on.
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So this entire animation was done by one guy. One. He's working on a Street Fighter animation next.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_CP4SuoTU
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Sweet.
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So this entire animation was done by one guy. One. He's working on a Street Fighter animation next.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_CP4SuoTU
Yeesh. How many years is that going to be floating around? The black and white storyboard version was around like, 5 years ago at this point.
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The black and white storyboard version was around like, 5 years ago at this point.
Or as we like to call it, the Gunbuster edition.
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Well I hadn't seen it! Not my fault you didn't link it before.
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In the realm of hyping up random Kickstarters, having played this game with the creator...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gilhova/wordsy-an-unabridged-tabletop-game-for-1-6-wordsmi
It's fun. A lot of word games like Boggle reward an endless stream of short words, and a frustrating thing about Scrabble is being soooo close to the right word. This is a game where you want to make one really really good word.
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In the realm of hyping up random Kickstarters...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spacebeagles/butt-sniffin-pugs?ref=website
no commentary needed
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/11/08/man-looking-for-a-place-to-pee-stumbles-upon-one-of-australias-oldest-prehistoric-sites/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_sos-australia-1040pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
The most Australian as fuck thing?
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The most white Australian thing would be to then piss all over it.
But yeah it is a bit.
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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-picks-top-climate-skeptic-to-lead-epa-transition/?wt.mc=SA_Facebook-Share
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http://deadspin.com/it-doesnt-matter-who-the-browns-quarterback-is-1788855156
I can't stop watching number 66 on the offensive line "blocking" on this play. It's...hypnotic. The movements he is making. Is...is he lagging?
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Is that Cam Erving? *Checks* yes it is! He got blown up a couple of times like that. Best part: He's a fucking first rounder.
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I don't think that man has enough potential energy in his body to be blown up. He wasn't even run over. He was just, like, there-ish?
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I think it is more a player not used to aiming in a 3D space yet rather than lag.
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http://duckfeed.tv/duckstream/
Charity stream this weekend. Donations to the TransActive Gender Centre.
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http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/what-trump-can-and-cant-do-all-himself-climate
something actually on policy
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https://gonehome.itch.io/gonehome
For those who haven't played it, Gone Home's devs have put the game up for free this weekend (or pay what you want, proceeds to charity). Right now the site's down for me - probably getting hammered by demand. Highly recommended.
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http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/what-trump-can-and-cant-do-all-himself-climate
something actually on policy
DON'T READ THE COMMENTS MY FACE IS MELTING
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you piqued my interest :<
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DON'T READ THE COMMENTS MY FACE IS MELTING
You chose...poorly
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A lot of that going around lately.
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http://www.siliconera.com/2016/11/15/hatsune-miku-project-diva-future-tone-coming-north-america-europe/
yessssssssssss
also
http://www.siliconera.com/2016/11/15/grab-smt-persona-ffvii-re2-suikoden-classics-super-cheap-psn-sale/
this is a pretty damn DL-friendly list
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https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2_-knUokw90RzIwUEJsU2pYdWs/view
Some kind soul uploaded Warren Spector's original design document for Deus Ex, with handwritten annotations. Definitely worth a read if this sort of thing interests you.
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http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/11/16/persona-5-launching-april-4-2017-will-feature-dual-audio-on-ps4-and-ps3/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyDRoW-3JhA
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Granted this is a very small preview but FFXV looks absolutely cringe-worthy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXJFbsQBvLw
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Doesn't look any more cringe worthy than any MMO I've seen or played. The main complaint is time wasting? Shocking.
The only legit complaint (and funny joke) in the whole skit I saw was the bit about the wedding dress and how that's obviously what guys talk about when they're alone. Spot on, there. Also I think Elijah Wood's opinion matters so perhaps the Adamantoise fight sucks?
My expectations for FFXV aren't high at this point but this sketch doesn't really have any impact. I liked his Smash Bros skit, so I know these can be funny, this one just seemed kinda rushed and one note. (Like FFXV! :V )
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Doesn't look any more cringe worthy than any MMO I've seen or played.
This in fairness is a hideous standard. Well, I guess since it's PS 4 I won't be playing it anyways, but honestly there wasn't a second of what was showed that remotely spoke to me.
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FF15 literally being a car crash is all I want from it. My hopes are high.
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Doesn't look any more cringe worthy than any MMO I've seen or played.
#HighPraise (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXVtiN3XbBU)
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Well, I'm not a big MMO fan myself, obviously. However, I long ago learned that while MMO-style play isn't for me, it has its appeal for a lot of people. I'm not sure how well these time-intensive aspects will translate to FF15 as a console game, but it clearly didn't work for Conan.
However, I enjoyed FF12 well enough and that was more explicitly MMO-based without the interference of other humans ruining everything, so if FF15 is similar but with a little more control and ARPG influence, it could be something I enjoy. From the 10-minute footage in that video, it's hard to tell. But yeah, it still wasn't exactly high praise, but I wasn't intending it as some backhanded compliment. "It looks to be on-par with the design philosophy from a lot of MMOs, which have been successful as often as not."
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"It looks to be on-par with the design philosophy from a lot of MMOs, which have been successful as often as not."
World of Warcraft makes a ton of money and FF14 has done pretty well for itself (it dominates the console MMO market) but they're about as successful in getting mass market penetration as JRPGs.
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I want to also bite that the failure rate for MMOs is massive, especially if you want the to be long living games like they are "supposed" to be. But that is different business models, FF15 doesn't need you to do more than buy it.
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I would suspect that what makes successful MMOs successful though is the interactivity with other human players. The question then becomes whether the actual format has an appeal outside the interactivity. Are there any successful single player MMO like games that weren't successful due to branding (which eliminates FF 12)?
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I'm thinking farming games like Harvest Moon?
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It depends which mechanics you mean really? The WoW model is that of a theme park MMO, you got a bunch of distinct themed areas where you can explore and do things of different flavours. After leveling there is usually a few different kinds of things you can do that the game becomes. They are not really one unified thing so much as a bunch of different games all running in one place. That is all just them being loving games that need new content with frequency. I can think of single player games that use various parts of the formula but nothing that has (or needs) all of it.
If you mean like the open ended quest structure of "get me 3 x and kill 20 wolves" and leveling content of MMOs that lead you to travel around the area a lot? That very much is the Bethesda wheelhouse of RPGs and frankly a lot of it predates MMOs even.
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https://quarterly.camposanto.com/the-vanishing-secrets-of-video-games-81fa0c02150c#.kppbce89t
Yup, we're old. Stupid Internet, rendering obsolete tribal knowledge of how to defeat the stupid invincible level 5 boss Digdogger. Kids these days.
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http://www.avclub.com/article/it-smelled-death-oral-history-double-dare-obstacle-245939?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=ShareTools&utm_campaign=default
This is amazing, especially for anyone else who grew up with old-school Nickelodeon
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Loved FF12, 13 and all hack-n-slashy Kingdom Hearts, so I am on the opposite end hoping that 15 gives me something good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3BIBDJdOJ0 The Judgment Demo from over a week ago. I have the vid starting just a few seconds in car and before a battle. Guy says he's running it at 720 and not 1080. 2:05 for tougher enemy. Game looks fine to me. I definitely enjoy the pin the tells you where to go though, rather than relying on a secondary map.
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Yeah, same. I want FFXV to be good! I like good games. Been replaying Ys Oath in Felghana, which is a great reminder that grinding is not bad - BORING grinding is bad. I could duke it out with groups of mooks in that game all day long (then bash my head against technically demanding boss fights - game is like a strange combo of Diablo 2 and DMC). Filling up bars is an opportunity, not a chore. When the gameplay is good, quests are an excuse to do the fun stuff, not an obligation to get out of the way. So we'll see.
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MAKE YOURSELF HEARD
https://action.trump2016.com/survey/100-day-plan-action-survey/
Rate the importance of Trump's First 100 Day agenda items.
Then include your name, email address, and zip code before they send you to a donation page where they can successfully filter out your liberal ass and ignore your input. You know, in the name of solidarity*.
*Look, anyone who wants to "work together" to "make America great" should not finish a survey by asking for money with this text accompanying it:
While the election might be over, Democrats and the media will relentlessly try to attack us, lie about us, and divide us over these next four years.
We count on the generous contributions of our supporters to help us fight back against the attacks and get our message straight to the American people.
Good to know that Democrats and the media are not American people. I had no idea! Do you think I get a different passport?
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https://www.google.fr/amp/www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/football-manager-2017-game-ruined-by-brexit-complains-angry-gamer-in-brutal-one-star-review-a3404201.html%3Famp?client=safari
It's a pity I don't care about football, because this is the greatest thing to happen to videogames
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http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/sheriffs-refuse-to-send-troops-to-standing-rock-as-public-outrage-and-costs-mount-20161123
Of the $15 million spent so far to protect the pipeline construction , $4.4 million has been spent by Morton County alone, officials said. The figure also includes more than $10 million in state emergency funds, according to Cecily Fong, spokeswoman for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services. Fong told the Associated Press that protest-related law enforcement costs reached $10.9 million dollars last week, including $6 million borrowed from the state-owned Bank of North Dakota in September and an additional $4 million on Nov. 1.
........
*seconds LD's point to make yourself heard.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/GreyTheTick/status/804575968413134848
2016 = ridiculous product placement in RPGs
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https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/hillary-clinton-working-class/509477/?utm_source=twb#article-comments
Old article, tweeted this this morning.
But here is the troubling reality for civically minded liberals looking to justify their preferred strategies: Hillary Clinton talked about the working class, middle class jobs, and the dignity of work constantly. And she still lost.
I realize posting this may result in commentary citing specific reasons why she lost the elections. But that isn't my point. I just wanted to share a semi-balanced article that's talking about one of two pairings of political futures that I'm becoming familiar with. Their shot at Scandivia is pretty raw, but honestly it begs more than a simple gesture. I'm thinking of that article about Frankfurt school theorists projections about US fascism (which, honestly you don't need them for to support such a conclusion), and Paul Ryan's appeal to spirituality and moralism to remove free lunch programs or Ben Carson over HUD are most certainly salient points of a renegade congress.
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I know there's a whole topic for webcomics but today's SMBC is the dumbest math joke in the whole world (http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/irrational) and I love it.
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wow.
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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/maker-of-internet-of-things-connected-vibrator-will-settle-privacy-suit/
um
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Yet another hope that terms of services agreements will get challenged and fail to be met.
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https://anchoreditions.com/blog/dorothea-lange-censored-photographs
Some of the quotes in there (FBI, LA Times) are pretty disgraceful.
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"The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”
Human beings.
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http://www.siliconera.com/2016/12/09/final-fantasy-xivs-yoshi-p-decline-mmorpgs-female-players-future-plans/
Summary of interview with FF14 director.
You can see underwear by taking off equipment, but after analyzing data he was able to find that not many of the female players do so on purpose.
I...what? I have so many questions.
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"The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”
Human beings.
Cid: I added that quote to the Wikipedia article on DeWitt myself back in 2007! Nice blast from the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_L._DeWitt&diff=128531259&oldid=128164447
(Good book, if you're ever curious in reading it.)
For whatever it's worth, while internment was a crime, and this is not an excuse, the Japanese government of the era deserves some blame too, and were not helping the Nissei's case. The Japanese government didn't recognize dual citizenship and did in fact demand eternal obedience to the Emperor or some crap. The US was just racist idiots for BELIEVING that this kind of proclamation would have much effect.
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I...what? I have so many questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCUvx2BExZI
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I...what? I have so many questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCUvx2BExZI
That... answered all my questions, but now I'm afraid I'm on a watchlist somewhere...
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I'm not a racist but
(http://i.imgur.com/g5iHt6e.jpg)
Some of my favorite popcorn is caramel I'm just saying maybe it doesn't need to be in with the cheese? Maybe everyone's happier if the cheese popcorn and caramel popcorn stay with their own kind?
Seriously what the fuck is this shit
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They do that at Bard on the Beach. It is better than it seems bro.
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"popcorn mixin is wrong"
"its ok hipstrs r doin it"
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I salt my own popcorn with my own salty mustard.
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in what world is mustard that color
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I think the more pressing concern is why your jizz is bright yellow.
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http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/2000_1000/576ae6ee1500002f001bad5e.jpeg?cache=chcvqr6prr
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http://speculativechic.com/2016/12/21/this-isnt-my-story-on-female-video-game-protagonists-and-the-lack-thereof/
http://speculativechic.com/2016/12/22/why-this-man-prefers-to-play-games-as-a-woman/
Random blog posts from some good friends of mine that I remembered in a conversation with Tide on IRC. Just a note of frustration that Bioware & WRPGs are still beating out JRPGs on this note pretty handily, still, alas. I won't complaint when the JRPGs have all non-avatary characters who are interesting and not blank slates, but when they *do* make avatars, they're often gender-locked and crappy, a few shining examples (Robin?) otherwise.
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Who wants to play Frog Fractions 2? (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/12/frog-fractions-2-the-jig-is-up-and-the-game-is-here/)
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2017.
Give me your undercuts, your messenger bags, your androgynous “dapper” clothing. Give me your commitment to environmentally friendly transportation, your $8 cider (the only gluten-free option at the bar) and the password to your Etsy store where you sell cloth menstrual pads screen-printed with astrological symbols. Your coffee mug stamped with the words “Male Tears” — give it to me.
http://nyti.ms/2iQv7vO
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I was slightly more tickled by
Now you straight people carry your own reusable bags back to your Prius after comparing artisanal brands of sriracha mayonnaise. That is super gay.
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When society collapses (presumably some time in the next 18 months) and I am your new Immortan, mixing sriracha into mayonnaise will be illegal. If you're lucky you'll get away with just a crucifixion if it's your first offense.
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Suck it FFRK, the only popstar you get is Yuna. Exvius master race.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcoubpSwlEk
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The phone wallpaper is hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03bAayBtcb0
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Super Mario Odyssey is looking a little too real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih323XXu_3w
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Betsy DeVos's hearing, full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRBNkMM0-pM
Institutional education is one of my three greatest interests. The media is most certainly blowing out of proportions her comment about guns and grizzly bears, but her comment is no less a point of contention as schools and children are increasingly militarized and legislation also pushes for heavier penalties for "disagreeable children." Her example was the worst she could use in defense of granting communities more authority in protecting student communities.
But, the whole hearing is eye-opening to those unfamiliar. Al Franken's getting a bit more airtime for his criticisms, but watch the whole video or have it playing in the background while you work. Three and a half hours.
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To me by far the most damning thing about the hearings was her apparent unfamiliarity with federal civil rights laws respecting special needs students. Even if she were politically opposed to the federal government strong-arming the states on this, she has to has to has to fucking know how it works.
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To me by far the most damning thing about the hearings was her apparent unfamiliarity with federal civil rights laws respecting special needs students. Even if she were politically opposed to the federal government strong-arming the states on this, she has to has to has to fucking know how it works.
Only if she has to do her job well.
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Speaking of not knowing how your department works, Rick Fucking Perry (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/politics/rick-perry-energy-secretary-donald-trump.html?_r=0).
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So his hearing is today. Noted.
If "employers" were only as forgiving as this Congress, more folk in the US would have jobs. What do you call that, a jello ceiling?
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I almost wish I could be there for it, but (a) I spent all day yesterday in the Scott Pruitt hearing and I'm sick to death of the inside of hearing rooms; and (b) I'd end up arrested for kicking a former governor of Texas in the crotch.
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Wow, really? Props to you, because those things seem like living graveyards on TV at least.
*snort* His hearing's on now on CSPAN, so I'll let you know if someone gets to his crotch.
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Honestly? Mock Rick Perry all you want, but his appointment is positively high-tier in Trump's cabinet picks. I'm talking top 25% or so. He's got executive experience and he's publicly eaten crow, which is likely to lead to at least a measure of humility. Nominating politicians to run technical departments is nothing new, like nominating politicians to be ambassadors rather than State Department employees - you get a different skill set, which is not necessarily bad, as long as you don't have someone who either imposes their will past frantic objections of bureaucrats who actually know better, or even worse, someone who gets bamboozled by the wrong set of bureaucrats. Perry might literally be the 2nd best nomination Trump has made. At least he isn't actively trying to destroy the department he's going to run (anymore), which is true of like half of Trump's appointees (DeVos, Puzder, Carson, Pompeo) and isn't a crony of Trump with no qualifications other than fundraising & loyalty (Mnuchin, Ross, Brietbart if he counts, Puzder & DeVos again).
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Were his governing years great and I just missed out in his lame last two years? I'm not from TX, but time in Austin made me think of Perry as more politically savvy than well-intentioned. Could it work in the environment's favor? Who knows. With his track record I imagine the jokes won't go away.
Someone from TX tell me it's so and that the lawsuits against the EPA or his indictments over abuses of power were just fake news.
His hearing was quite tame. Sanders was Sanders aggravated by one round of questioning. I am shocked by the admission of having one's word allows for the easy deference of direct answers. Histories riddled with folk not living up to their words. Why hold to traditional inquery when everyone's stated this is a so-called nontraditional presidency?
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Perry was pretty horrible as governor, and only reelected multiple times because the state was super-Red at the time. The only good thing he did during his many terms was an executive order requiring girls to get a vaccine for HPV, and of course that got overturned by the State Senate.
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Perry's tenure? I dunno, it was "good for a Republican?" Texas's economy did pretty well under him, but there are lots of reasons for that that have nothing to do with the state government and everything to do with the fact that Texas has tons and tons of cheap land with light regulations to go sprawl over, while California already did that in the 60s and is now out of (good) space. Right place at the right time, basically.
Doesn't matter. Perry built his own power base and was a name before Trump. He's not a random hanger-on like Mnuchin, who would normally easily win "most offensively horrible" choice (like, Goldman Sachs, fine, but can't you pick, like Paulson again? Someone actually high-up, not a nobody?) if not for real winners like Ross & DeVos. For a comparison to Clinton, it'd be like Clinton nominating Andrew Cuomo for Dept. Energy; sure, he's a random Dem governor with no particular Energy experience, but he probably has learned SOMETHING about managing government organizations, and he's not a random Democratic fundraiser. The equivalent of picking Sessions for AG would be like finding some kind of academic radical who's a lawyer-turned-professor and now head of a Gender Studies department, the equivalent of Ross/DeVos would be like a Democratic-supporting millionaire who is a flake and wrong about everything, and the equivalent of Pompeo is like picking Edward Snowden to be head of the CIA. (And god forbid attempting to find a Breitbart equivalent. Maybe some unreconstructed Maoist found on DailyKos.)
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as long as you don't have someone who either imposes their will past frantic objections of bureaucrats who actually know better
So, not Rick Perry, then...
Perry's governance was disastrous, and the growth Texas experienced during his years was in spite of him rather than because of him. When he took office, the state was poised to become "Silicon Valley 2.0". Not just Austin, but Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and probably other locations were booming with growth - not just the speculative startup kind of growth, but things with long term root potential, like the tech programs at Rice and UT Dallas that my brothers and friends attended. But over Perry's tenure, all this dried up. He dismantled the state's education systems, and the university programs collapsed in turn. HP's meteoric fall wrecked the Houston tech center; the actual fall wasn't Perry's fault specifically, but his lack of action and Fiorina's subsequent welcome into the GOP sure didn't help matters in the minds of workers and prospectives. Texas has gone from a location that could compete with California to a clearly second class state, where people say things like "Hm, I guess it's not too bad if you stay completely in Austin and can stomach living in Texas..."
and the equivalent of Pompeo is like picking Edward Snowden to be head of the CIA.
So, Pompeo is a pretty good pick then? Didn't expect that.
edit: on his way out, Perry (through Dan Patrick) is pushing a Bathroom Bill for Texas. Just as one final fuck you, in case anyone actually thought the Texas GOP had the state's economic interests at heart. They have not and do not.
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So since we're on the subject of Texas Republicans!
The city where I live has a new Republican mayor. He ran on the platform that he was an engineer, with an engineering degree from Florida State. And could fix our problems with his engineering knowledge. Okay sounds good, our roads and infrastructure are shit, so this should be a good thing.
Turns out he's not an engineer. And never attended Florida State. When confronted with this news, he resorted to Trump-esque backpedaling on Facebook. Then he resigned from office via Facebook.
And then we get this brilliant interview: http://www.kiiitv.com/news/local/3news-exclusive-mayor-dan-mcqueen-responds-to-controversy/387218698
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Alex: To be 100% clear, I'm far from a Rick Perry fanboy, and I don't doubt anything you said - a lot of Texas's success is for reasons that have nothing at all to do with Perry, and Texas's criminal underinvestment in education is a huge problem. But that's, like, "speaking as a Democrat" territory. I'm just saying that he's basically a vanilla Republican so I'm not gonna like everything, but whatever. He wasn't actively scandalous as a governor. Low bar, I know.
Trump's other noms are like "wtfno" (albeit, not unshocking for Trump). As in, if I was a hypothetical Mitt Romney Republican, I'd weep for my party because these are not the best of the best for jobs that freaking demand the best of the best, drain the swamp from filthy Washington elites aside. Nor are they even kinda sorta okay. DeVos / Ross / Mnuchin / Pudzer are like some kind of evil Four Horseman of future incompetence and evil. (Also, if you think Snowden would be a good pick for CIA, then you get my point! As in, Pompeo isn't *incompetent* or anything, but just as Snowden would be like the leftiest possible pick, Pompeo is like the most archconservative hang-them-all pick you could grab, chillin' with Sessions on the extreme right wing.)
As far as bathroom bills go, yeah, I heard about that. That said, they were never about economics, and sadly economic rationales aren't really crowd pleasers anyway. "Transgender people are human too" is the only argument that's gonna work, and we'll see how that ends up.
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Appealing to people's good nature is working out really well in politics lately.
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To the extent you mean that seriously.... I couldn't disagree more. This is what has been getting the Democrats owned for a long time, possibly some remnant of Marxist professors from the 1930s who believed that every motivation was secretly economic/class-based. You will see a very common phrase in Democratic op-eds: poor people / country-dwelling folk who vote Republican are "voting against their own interests." That is, that they'd get all these worldly benefits like healthcare and taxing the rich if they vote for the Democratic Party, but not all of them do! What's up with that?
Well... true as it might be, this is a surprisingly weak argument. It can essentially be spun to be the equivalent of "we're offering you thirty pieces of silver, why don't you hurry up and betray Jesus?" Telling people "do it because we coastal elites will deign to not boycott you and deny you precious money" is dangerous business. No matter how much sense it makes, it's only convincing a few very coolly rational people. To take a slightly more noble example, the South in the Civil War thought that economic embargo would bring the British to heel. We'll make them lose money! Then they'll have no choice but to support us! Unfortunately for them, the opposition to slavery for religious reasons was prominent among the exact people in the British fabric industry they hoped to influence, so it went over like a lead balloon. (I don't for a second think that abolishing slavery and teaching transsexual monsters a lesson are remotely equivalent, but all you have to do is believe that to proponents of the bill, it seems that way.) Or, for another example, from Spanish history... there was a long perception in Spanish history that Jews and later crypto-Jews used their money to buy influence among the out-of-touch elite in the courts. This perception was 100% true: the common person was way more psychotically anti-Semitic than educated people at court, and Jews really did band together to make "voluntary donations" of extra taxes and the like to the crown in an effort to win privileges like, say, not having all the Jews in a town be enslaved because one of them was accused of some crime by a former business associate. And I don't even blame them, they were frantically doing whatever they could. Still, it played badly; telling people "Let's accept the bribe from the Jews and spare them of the horrible fate they deserve for being a God-cursed people" is not going to convince many people.
Now, if you tried that in Spain nowadays, you wouldn't need the bribe, because people there understand now that Jews are people and not Satan's accomplices. Proposing it would get you condemned and ignored. That's what fixed the problem. The argument can't be "ignore Jesus, we need the money we'll lose from a boycott;" it needs to be "Jesus loves everyone, including weirdos, and they're not THAT weird if you get to know them. That's why people are so upset and doing the boycott." So yes, appealling to people's good nature is what might fix the problem, just like the Spain example.
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Mcbain.tif
Edit - Okay now that I am not purely mobile and I guess I can not just make one liner jokes.
The joke was that in current climates appealing to people's good natures clearly isn't working out so well because it resulted in 2017. Now that I have overthought it I can't parse if "To the extent you mean that seriously.... I couldn't disagree more." meant the raw text of the joke you disagree with or the spirit of the joke.
So I guess I will not badly deconstruct your argument to try and understand it because I am struggling with language today (your points fine, I am just really not functioning today) and state the feels.
I think we need a fuck load more than appealing to people's inherent good nature these days. I don't think economic sanctions are going to drive the change we want either OR providing economic support is going to do it either. What I think we badly need is exactly what you have described there, which is not appealing to people's nature and completely about educating people through very direct means. Consistently the thing that gets people more accepting of social change is getting people familiar with and normalizing each other. Reducing the "Other" or making "Them" more of "Us".
Unfortunately it cuts the other way as well. Right now there is hard push of Othering people and making part of what should be "Us" to people into "Them". That is in large portions coming from people normalizing bigotry and horrible sentiments, plenty of them already existing prior to 2001 bubbling up and just curdling for the last 15 years to a point where there very clearly was a "Them" that people could latch onto.
There is a reason you see a burgeoning horde of young right wing people flirting with racism and it is because people between the age of 18-22 were 3-7 and in the entire lifetime that they have been capable of forming solid memories there has been an acceptable normalised target for racism.
I would say the solution is for people to mingle and engage with the people that they spread hate about, but in the current climate I am also scared for those very same people.
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I mean the sense of convincing people by over-focusing on the possible negative consequences for them. "Don't do this or you'll get in trouble with the principal" for a schoolyard example, "don't do this because it violates a treaty / international law" for a politics example. I interpret that as what you were advocating - don't bother trying to play nice and change people's minds, just inform people of the CONSEQUENCES, bro. You'll screw yourself over if you do this crazy thing! Don't do it! You'll regret it!
This argument works on rational entities like your average business owner, but seems to go down in flames for masses of voters, who will do the 'right' rebellious thing and damn the consequences. (Brexit an even better example than Trump, perhaps, since Remain campaigners rightly pointed out the coming economic catastrophe from Leave.) This is both good and bad.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3012
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Just want to throw in that McCrory lost NC by SIGNIFICANTLY underperforming Trump, who carried the state pretty easily, and the prevailing theory is that, yes, HB2 actually did sink him.
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You have the group who do emphasize penalties over actions yet to be made. Then you also have a group of people who are not nearly as forgiving to people who've shown themselves to have a track record antithetical to "positive change." Lesser evils be damned, weighing out not so tragic outcomes will be met with the same resistance by them as those who resist logicsplaining.
Trump's inaugration speech was so uncomfortable not for the same old campaign rhetoric but for the clear shitting on of his peers. If he succeeds with his plan over the 4 years, it only shows how hateful the electoral powers are, how much business talks more than political platforms that maintain the status quo. Sigh, NEH/NEA/privatizing Public Broadcasting/claiming our military lacks the funding is just weighing so heavy atm.*
*not to say public education, healthcare and the whole slew of other things.
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Edit - Okay now that I am not purely mobile and I guess I can not just make one liner jokes.
Yeah. Congrats, Snowfire. You fell for the laziest Grefter sarcasm ever.
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I interpret that as what you were advocating - don't bother trying to play nice and change people's minds, just inform people of the CONSEQUENCES, bro. You'll screw yourself over if you do this crazy thing! Don't do it! You'll regret it!
Oh nah man that isn't people's good nature, that is their self preservation. I am not saying you should expect rational actors in politics. Appealing to people's good nature would be like "maybe everyone should be able to use the bathroom" or "There is no such thing as the Deserving Poor. There is just poor people and they deserve as much as everyone else does; which is peace, love and understanding."
You know, the idea that deep down at the heart of it all we are mostly good people trying to make the world a better place. (Remembering that this saying it isn't working in Politics right now).
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Alex: To be 100% clear, I'm far from a Rick Perry fanboy, and I don't doubt anything you said - a lot of Texas's success is for reasons that have nothing at all to do with Perry, and Texas's criminal underinvestment in education is a huge problem. But that's, like, "speaking as a Democrat" territory. I'm just saying that he's basically a vanilla Republican so I'm not gonna like everything, but whatever. He wasn't actively scandalous as a governor. Low bar, I know.
Trump's other noms are like "wtfno" (albeit, not unshocking for Trump). As in, if I was a hypothetical Mitt Romney Republican, I'd weep for my party because these are not the best of the best for jobs that freaking demand the best of the best, drain the swamp from filthy Washington elites aside. Nor are they even kinda sorta okay. DeVos / Ross / Mnuchin / Pudzer are like some kind of evil Four Horseman of future incompetence and evil. (Also, if you think Snowden would be a good pick for CIA, then you get my point! As in, Pompeo isn't *incompetent* or anything, but just as Snowden would be like the leftiest possible pick, Pompeo is like the most archconservative hang-them-all pick you could grab, chillin' with Sessions on the extreme right wing.)
As far as bathroom bills go, yeah, I heard about that. That said, they were never about economics, and sadly economic rationales aren't really crowd pleasers anyway. "Transgender people are human too" is the only argument that's gonna work, and we'll see how that ends up.
You know when we're giving Trump credit for his Rick Perry nomination because it's a "low bar", that's exactly how this clusterfuck becomes normalized. Rick Perry is a terrible fucking choice. Stop grading Trump on a curve.
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Let's step back a bit. Perry has no experience or apparent interest in managing nukes. Why'd the Trump team pick him for this? His only connection to DOE is saying he wanted to abolish it. This is a troll pick designed to upset the elites who care about good stewardship, because Trump jerks off to upsetting serious people.
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NotMiki: I think you're reading too much into it. Trump has openly talked about whether someone "looks" the part and believes that just by how someone appears he can tell if they'd be able to do the job. I don't doubt Trump thought the same thing Perry did - that the Energy Secretary should be some handsome oil guy. Hey, Texas has oil, and Perry's a Republican. There you go! (Advisor: But it's really more about managing nuclear energy. Trump: But Real Voters don't know nor care about that.) See also: put the black guy at Housing, not at, say, HHS. Allegedly Trump was searching for some Latino to be Agriculture Secretary as well, which is why it was so delayed after he apparently failed to find one.
Grefter: Well, if neither self-interest nor some Higher Purpose works in your book, what's left? Do what the charismatic leader told you to do because he's always right? That works as long as you mostly agree with said leader, at least...
Anyway. On a slightly more cheerful (??) note:
http://theslot.jezebel.com/donald-trump-plagiarized-bane-in-his-inaugural-speech-1791429625
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Anyway.
edit* oops, link https://www.google.com/amp/s/wsbtv.relaymedia.com/amp/news/local/atlanta/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-womens-march/486564022?client=ms-android-sprint-us
The march was a great way to re-energize! Of course, weird incongruities emerge en masse, but it wouldn't be a diverse march if it didn't. Feels good to be out when I can. Got some more energy to put into work at home.
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Was in D.C. for the big one. Absurdly packed.
Pretty much same reaction. Good times during bad times.
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Not sure if this has been discussed before in chat, but I stumbled across a really interesting article about motivations for gaming for different demographics. Looks a bit more rigorously researched than most gaming articles so I thought it was worth sharing to get the DL's thoughts on it.
http://quanticfoundry.com/2016/12/15/primary-motivations/
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Completion is a powerful driving factor, and probably the main reason gacha mobile games do so well. Gotta catch em all.
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http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf
Transcripts of conversations between WW2 German POW nuclear physicists when they learned about the atomic bombs used on Japan. Fascinating stuff. (When they talk about atomic "engines," they mean power plants/electrical generators)
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DJ, your link's not working for me.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/arts/design/christo-protest-donald-trump-colorado-artwork.html?_r=0
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^ The pattern of conservative patronage and freedom of expression is a bit off here.
You know, he really should have brought up the very important fact that Trump nominated Steven Mnuchin, son of Robert Mnuchin (AKA one of the leading avant-garde galleries), as fucking Secretary of the fucking Treasury. Political and artistic conservatism be damned. NEA defunding/cutting would most certainly give 1%er gallerists even more representative power. Also, there's lots of other disturbing things that resonate with Christo's "earthworks," Trump's "wall" and NODAP just two of them. Institutional protest/artistic freedom/artforartssakemyth in/of US government is the smallest enemy here.
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Fire Emblem Heroes should be released sometime today for those interested. Mobile gacha FE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkJvpBoLKxY
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The politics thread is a little serious so have this nugget of wisdom/doom from a WaPo reporter:
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/827556061645242370
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Page's backdrop of In the Court of the Crimson King cover art is the most apt image for 2017, too.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWuc18xISwI
:D
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Art is over. We've reached the peak.
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2017/02/06-1/media-factory-publishes-light-novel-about-a-boy-reincarnated-as-a-hot-spring
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My favourite part is how we somehow manage to make the euphemisms less subtle every passing second while the concepts get more abstracted.
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https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=240545606403303&id=240419013082629
Deemo, which is a cool and good rhythm game, is getting a Vita release.
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http://nerdist.com/a-company-will-press-your-ashes-into-a-working-vinyl-album/
I promise this is how we'll bury you, Grefbro.
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I can die and become a shitty mix tape? That might actually be better than becoming nutrient paste for trees.
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No, a shitty mix ALBUM.
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Couple days old article. Moral of the story: people who "thrive" socially and economically in the visual arts field are generally privileged with working for free. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-rich-kids-afford-work-art-world
Every internship I've had was unpaid, but it took me time to work up (and work while, with gracious flexibility in supervision) to even do it. Hell, if other fields grossing higher incomes won't pay their interns, art orgs definitely will not.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/02/17/a-university-takes-on-one-of-its-own-alumna-kellyanne-conway/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_gp-conway-10pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
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The responses there are the eye rolliest fucking shit I have ever seen.
McGuire never hesitated to call her to ask for donations to Trinity, Conway added. She and her husband donated $50,000 to a 1999-2002 Trinity fundraising campaign. “My money was good.”
Literally means ducking nothing in this context. Donating money over a decade ago doesn't absolve you of anything you do now. Also you donated to the university, you didn't buy its lifetime of approval. A). You aren't a customer in a transaction there and B) that isn't even how business relationships actually work, that mindset is a gross way to treat other people.
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Your eyes still keep rolling everytime Conway says a Conway?
u must b diz-E
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http://www.someecards.com/news/weird-news/witches-donald-trump-spell-curse-hex-ritual/
Neat.
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heard but hadnt read this until now
http://kxan.com/2017/02/23/ice-arrests-highest-percentage-of-non-criminals-in-austin/
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39223150?ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_source=facebook
um
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Best foreign correspondant ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5A1wg5FA-g
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OK, OK, I know, Youtube comment, but here:
To those saying why didn't he just picked up his child? Maybe this was a rushed-thing and he actually didn't have his pants on.
Don't forget, this was in his own study room. I would not be surprised if he only had put on his boxers.
This guy gets it
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http://madamenoire.com/820952/chimamanda-adichie-catches-flack-for-comments-about-trans-women-and-male-privilege-laverne-cox-raquel-willis-respond/
Tl;dr is in the URL description.
This quote's being reproduced everywhere:
“When people talk about, ‘Are trans women women?’ my feeling is that trans women are trans women. I think the whole problem of gender in the world is about our experiences, it’s not about how you wear your hair or whether you have a penis or a vagina, it’s about the way the world treats us. And I think if you’ve lived in the world as a man with the privileges that the world accords to men, and then sort of changed, switched gender, it’s difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning in the world as a woman, and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are. And so, I think there has to be–And this is not of course to say this– I’m saying this also with, sore of a certainty that transgender people should be allowed to be. But I don’t think it’s a good thing to conflate everything into one. I don’t think it’s a good thing to talk about women’s issues being exactly the same as the issues of trans-women, because I don’t think that’s true.”
Folk are clamoring for transwomen to speak on transwomen topics. She's since issued an apology.
My thoughts are: 1. Wow, I'm not used to Adichie speaking in circulatory language. 2. She must have felt flustered; stratifying women's issue by post-op and choice is probably what fueled the fire of critiques. 3. Yes, trans-women are women with individualized experiences needing more validation and intersectionalism among feminists; she could have easily went the pathway of "no-story is the same" rather than this weird sexual/gender disentanglement. But since she seems to be the white liberal's pillar of Black feminism (next to Beyoncé), it is great to see her chopped down a bit to size so that more voices are raised.
Edit: Right, Laverne Cox's tweets are more than dope (#maleprivilege in the transcommunity), my fave is: "he irony of my life is prior to transition I was called a girl and after I am often called a man." Her management of speaking to issues in mainstream outlets is so fucking classy, yo.
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http://www.adweek.com/creativity/this-brewer-hired-women-illustrators-to-remake-the-cringingly-sexist-ads-it-used-to-run/
Ripped from Ghazi but linking here because I dig some of these reimaginations.
Edit - foxingnphkbe keyboard.
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that's pretty boss
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https://medium.com/mammon-machine-zeal/impaling-mario-reversing-sonic-inside-pedro-paivas-bootleg-games-da997d8f3187
Good article on some Brazilian anarchist indie culture games.
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continuing Ran's gun motif
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZqkMWGc0js
this made my stomach hurt the entire 15 minutes; Chance the Rapper's the main for those unfamiliar
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Chance the Rapper Slash Actor?
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khalil joseph's short film for kendrick lamar's finally on (and not removed) from Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fLKcHu-LJo
If you don't like rap don't watch it, really, or watch it on mute because Khalil Joseph's cinematography is amazzzzeeeballs. Saw this vid at his talk about the same 10 months ago it was uploaded.
another of his
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pVHC1DXQ7U <- for Flying Lotus
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Shamelessly stolen from AAA:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7u_GjHVAAA5uE-.jpg)
(context if needed (https://twitter.com/justin_halpern/status/845386722741370881/photo/1))
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Although this was the best part of that I think.
https://twitter.com/gatorgoat/status/845510932423958528
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Although this was the best part of that I think.
https://twitter.com/gatorgoat/status/845510932423958528
Also, from that thread:
all of Paul Ryan's favorite bands hating him is an idea that never gets old to me
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I just got back from BlizzCon. You want to go too?
https://blizzcon.com/ru-ru/event-info/tickets/textual
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fun animations
http://www.afropunk.com/profiles/blogs/young-afro-feminist-animator-caress-reeve-visualizes-gender?xg_source=activity
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Have some happy, feel-good news.
http://nbc4i.com/2017/04/06/kentucky-coal-museum-installs-solar-panels-to-save-on-electricity-bills/
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Civilization was a mistake
https://thinkprogress.org/koch-backed-group-celebrates-fossil-fuels-425ca28de8da
"Cooke told ThinkProgress that the organization’s fossil fuels art contest is rooted in inclusivity. “Fossil fuels seem to get left out of the Earth Day celebration,” she said via email. “As an energy feminist — pro-choice in energy sources — I feel it’s important to have hydrocarbons equally represented.”
"Enviros celebrate by planting trees but they never celebrate the trucks that deliver the trees, or the gas that powers that truck, or the plastic handles of the shovels they use,” an email from the organization reads. “Shouldn’t Mother Earth be thanked for making Earth Day events possible?”
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I bet she jerks off to recordings of herself declaring herself an "energy feminist— pro-choice in energy sources." You can't be that level of troll and not get off on yourself.
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Right, I don't think I've ever seen an energy feminist embrace patriarchal capitalism and be able to not explode. But gaiz, the first paragraph of that article gave me my tea for the morning.
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timely given the city question Good Morning
https://medium.com/@niranbabalola/we-made-austin-unaffordable-dc2e3af35501
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Right, I don't think I've ever seen an energy feminist embrace patriarchal capitalism and be able to not explode. But gaiz, the first paragraph of that article gave me my tea for the morning.
Fossil fuels might be flammable but you really need to add something a bit extra (like oxegyn) to make them actually explode though.
Not even going to click the actual link though, if I want to watch white conservatives masturbate I would get on chat roulette.
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http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-irredeemable-arrogance-oklahomas-markwayne-mullins/
Thought about tucking it in Politics, but it's a bit too feelgood for that.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BzkrgVivk4
Nobuo Uematsu on writing One-Winged Angel. Pretty neat!
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Good stuff, I love seeing things like this. It doesn't hurt that Uematsu is great.
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http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a54564/the-violent-clashes-in-berkeley-werent-pro-trump-versus-anti-trump/
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Think pieces about whether it is right to punch Antifa protesters when?????
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Let's start with thinkpieces about whether it's ok to punch generic Trumpers who are standing next to white supremacists. I say it's ok unless they punched the white supremacists already, in which case lay off.
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http://www.thestranger.com/features/2017/04/19/25082450/the-heart-of-whiteness-ijeoma-oluo-interviews-rachel-dolezal-the-white-woman-who-identifies-as-black
This was sharp and I'm glad a conversation other than soapbox chatter's been shared.
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Maybe I'm just not aware of this because I'm white, but is National Geographic really not liked by black people? I thought its reputation for quality was pretty universally acclaimed.
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Mm, that's not quite the message of that conversation. It's not that black people don't like National Geographic. It's that it's had a big role in the fetishization of black folk, specifically African, as naked drooping titty primitives, impoverished, hungry, AIDs-infested and living in mud buildings. So Oluo's questioning Dolezal's interest in the material as uplifting when it's been one lens by which folk project or try to relate to black folk. It's not just white people, black people've stereotyped indigenous Africans similarly because of it.
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Good read now that I finally got to it! Got me a bit more understanding of why there is such a strong response to all of it.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-tragedy-of-google-books/523320/
Probably one of the most interesting articles I've read lately.
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From what I read of Judge Chin's decision at the time, it was one of the worst decisions I've seen (although I'm biased). Seemed a rare case of actual judicial activism - he basically said "Eh, if I was in charge, Congress would pass a law and this would be done by the government." Well. Great. Have a cookie. Seemed like a case of if some corporation was funding the building of a new sports stadium, and there's a sports team that wants to move in, but a judge says "eh the city government should build the stadium instead, so no."
Interesting that the article spins it as Chin dancing to the DOJ's tune. I didn't get the impression at the time that the DOJ's objections were that substantive or meaningful, but maybe they were.
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Denny Chin is a joke, obviously biased, and an apologist for the Giants and their dumb owner. FREE BRADY! GO PATS!
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I didn't pay close attention to the nuts and bolts of the case when it was going on, but the way this article lays out the antitrust arguments makes them sound pretty compelling -- especially since it would have given Google first dibs on selling public domain books, which seems like it would be a pretty big issue.
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Ah, but it wouldn't have, legally. It might have *practically* given Google control or at least a huge first-mover benefit, but only in the same sense that we already accept that big companies have - e.g. that you can't just break into the military jet industry without having a *lot* of money to burn. Lockheed Martin might not have a legal monopoly, but they have close to a practical one. I know the article makes it sound like another company would have to start scanning & then get sued to do the same thing, but that struck me as wrong - the other company / government entity would just have to do the scanning. So sure, Google spent the half-billion dollars to go digitize a zillion books, but there's nothing stopping Microsoft or someone else from doing the same thing, if they're also willing to spend the half-billion dollars doing their own scanning such that they'd "own" the scans.
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http://kotaku.com/how-three-kids-beat-the-odds-and-translated-final-fanta-1794628286
People playing translated jRPGs on an emulator in the late 90s?! What kind of nerd would do such a thing.
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http://uproxx.com/movies/lilly-wachowski-comes-out-transgender/
A link embedded in an article Captain K just linked. Mostly, holy shit what the fuck, Daily Mail? How on earth is that xenophobic toilet paper is still allowed to operate.
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Your mission: infiltrate the White House. The Russians have smuggled Metal Gear into the basement. Weapons and equipment OSP. Do you need a tutorial on CQC?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/comey-tried-hide-curtains-white-house-gathering-avoid-trump-report-125823269.html
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/magazine/is-an-open-marriage-a-happier-marriage.html
polyamory. i know a couple nonmonogamous folk. i could never be one, if only for the fact that it already takes an enormous amount of psychic energy to invest in my current one. and if kids are added, i dunno. grossly said, i could only make time for sidepiece-sex, not emotional sustenance. it is interesting that the couples all cited were in some sort of failing marriage and i'd like to hear stories in which "opening" up weren't solely contingent on legislated bonding but romantic dating in general.
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/afarcrymusic/visions-and-variations-a-new-album-from-a-far-cry?ref=creator_nav
Hey y'all if you like chamber music you should give my sister your money give my sister your money. Seriously this album is gonna be amazing.
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Done.
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Okay so not to steal thunder or anything...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owlcatgames/pathfinder-kingmaker/description
Pathfinder computer RPG finally happening. Kickstarter is additional funding, already is funded and has a publisher essentially. Chris Avellone working on it but I actually got the link just checking Dave Gaider's twitter for something.
I am pumped, Pathfinder is a cool system and I have been wondering why this hasn't happened for a long time.
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http://kotaku.com/the-real-story-behind-xenogears-unfinished-disc-2-1796151112
Sometimes, it turns out that the unverified conventional wisdom is... absolutely correct. Well, it sounds more orderly than some people hypothesized - no frantic one-month sprint or anything - but yeah, XG Disc 2 was a case of "there's no way we can finish this in time, but we want to finish the story, so slideshow mode!"
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https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/writing-advice-to-my-students-that-would-also-have-been-good-sex-advice-for-my-high-school-boyfriends
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https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/skyfarer-joseph-brassey-cover-reveal/
So Joe is a friend of mine who I've been serving as a wall to bounce ideas off of for years. Of the...half dozen or so book projects he's been working on over the years, Skyfarer(which has a fucking badass cover) is the one he's managed to get off the ground and get published. I've been alpha reading some of his stuff, and playing in games that he GMs, for longer than I've been in the dl actually. His writing is *good*
Once the book is actually out, expect me to whore the link out here again(i'm skipping DLcon this year to go to his book's release party. AFter the car issue we have the funds for me to do one trip but not two, and while DLC is once a year and an important thing to me, the release party for his first published solo book is a 1/lifetime thing).
Ayway, here's the blurb for it:
The Axiom Diamond is a mythical relic, with the power to show its bearer any truth they desire. Men have sought for it across many continents for centuries, but in vain. When trainee sorceress Aimee de Laurent’s first ever portal-casting goes awry, she and her mentor are thrown into the race to find the gem, on the skyship Elysium. Opposing them are the infamous magic-wielding knights of the Eternal Order and their ruthless commander, Lord Azrael, who will destroy everything in their path…
but I'd suggest checking the link anyway just to see the cover art!
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You're burying the lede. There's 75564586 vanity published books out there that are all "okay", which ones deserve the time to get read? But... your friend has an endorsement from Neal Stephenson. Certainly makes me more interested than if it was just another no-name review on the jacket!
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Well, it's not vanity published for one? Yes I probably should have included Stephenson's endorsement, but Angry Robot is an actual real publisher. When I said his first "solo published" thing I meant that it's the first book he's done that's 100% him. He has been published before as part of a collab series, along with Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear and others I don't remember at the moment(series called the Mongoliad, historical fiction. Also pretty good).
So yeah, Neal Stephenson says the book is "nothing but good parts".
-
Quote from the next quotes quiz that is, surprisingly, not from Nier Automato:
You said to call you Ten. Who are you? Why does it take so long? I don't understand what is going on. I don't know who I am or where I am. I'm all by myself. Who are you? I love you too.
https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football/chapter-1
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I love you, Snowfire.
-
John DuBois has somehow surpassed the NBA article...
-
https://werdbrew.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/white-women-in-robes/
Article criticizing reproductive justice protests that have appropriated The Handmaid's Tale costuming. To be truthful, I am only sharing it because it's cycling through likes and wholly embraced convos in Atlanta's Alliance for Social Justice Facebook Page, and I've noticed a trend among "white allies" to take any POC critique as golden. And that makes me uncomfortable, because then I am met with a different layer of engagement - asking for POC feminists to quit focusing on the bad relationship with the white feminists who've never showed up for them and move into a different territory of critique as well as wanting "white allies" to pen their own thought pieces that show them as speaking, thinking individuals - and in a way that's not seeking approving from these POC feminists. So I did a whole Twitter splurge on it, but I don't like the author's engagement with the book or adaptation. In fact, I strongly feel she abuses the material and flattens a lot in her crusade to show readers yet another misstep by the white feminists who don't seek a platform for intraracial coalition. Nobody seems to acknowledge that she completely absents Moira, whose actions in the TV adaptation actually say a lot against white feminism and black male allies. Ok, I'm ranting so I'll cut if off now.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0cn6wDPaMY
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https://qz.com/1006387/women-are-flocking-to-wellness-because-traditional-medicine-still-doesnt-take-them-seriously/
-
http://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/anthony-scaramucci-called-me-to-unload-about-white-house-leakers-reince-priebus-and-steve-bannon
morning tea yall
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http://nerdist.com/artist-crafts-stephen-king-book-covers-for-classic-love-and-heartbreak-songs/
DO YOU READ SUTTER KANE?
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sharing this from the economist
Blame Congress for high health-care costs
Politician, heal thyself
Print edition | United States
Sep 2nd 2017
IN AMERICA nearly one in every five dollars spent is on health care, a larger share than in any other country. Many of the culprits are well-known. Americans have more procedures, pay more for them, and face exorbitant administrative costs. One driver of rising costs has often been overlooked, however: politicians.
So Zack Cooper of Yale University and three other researchers argue in a paper to be published on September 4th. They studied reforms passed in 2003 that allowed over-65s to obtain prescription drugs through Medicare for the first time—the biggest expansion in the scheme’s history, costing some $400bn over the next decade. The legislation had a rough ride. President George W. Bush wanted to sign a law before running for re-election in 2004, but many Republican congressmen opposed it. In the end enough self-styled fiscal conservatives changed their minds, and the House of Representatives approved the bill by 220 votes to 215.
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Mr Cooper and his colleagues studied the necessary arm-twisting and its effects. To do so, they looked at the use of an obscure rule. Section 508 allows the federal government to waive the standard amount hospitals are paid by Medicare, which normally follows a tariff designed by technocrats. Typically, the waiver is used to pay hospitals more in places where labour is expensive. It seems to be handy for persuading wavering politicians, too.
Hospitals in districts where a Republican congressman supported the Medicare Modernisation Act were five times more likely to receive a waiver than those in ones where a Republican lawmaker voted against. Those hospitals spent 25% more than they otherwise would have in the seven years after the law, according to the researchers. Between 2005 and 2010 the 29 hospitals that received the most lucrative waivers spent an average of $1.25bn more than if they had not received one.
Some of the windfall went on equipment and staff. The average hospital to benefit from a waiver increased its number of nurses by 16% per year from 2006 to 2010. But the splurge seems not to have improved care. No changes were registered as a result in the mortality rate for patients admitted to hospitals with a heart attack, or in the time taken to discharge those who survive one—two standard measures of quality.
Chief executives fared well, though. The average bump in bosses’ pay in the sample of hospitals benefiting most from the waiver was 81% over the same period, equating to a pay rise of about $428,000 per year above that received by bosses of similar hospitals with no waiver. Politicians benefited indirectly. Legislators with hospitals granted waivers in their district saw a 22% overall increase in campaign contributions after the act. Donations from individuals in the health industry in their state increased by 65%.
Section 508 is just one example of how deals to pass legislation raise costs. By some measures, no industry spends more on lobbying Congress than health-care providers. The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, was replete with sweetheart deals. For that reason, it is perhaps fortunate that Republican lawmakers were too divided to write and pass a health-care law of their own.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "How to twist an arm"
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http://ew.com/books/2017/08/24/handbook-for-mortals-pulled-new-york-times-bestseller-list/
http://ew.com/books/2017/08/25/handbook-for-mortals-how-nyt-best-seller-list-works/
So in further news of the fabric of reality falling apart, the rumored author of My Immortal and the goddess Glory from Buffy the Vampire Slayer teamed up to put a nonexistent book on top of the NYT bestsellers list...
-
http://ew.com/books/2017/08/24/handbook-for-mortals-pulled-new-york-times-bestseller-list/
http://ew.com/books/2017/08/25/handbook-for-mortals-how-nyt-best-seller-list-works/
So in further news of the fabric of reality falling apart, the rumored author of My Immortal and the goddess Glory from Buffy the Vampire Slayer teamed up to put a nonexistent book on top of the NYT bestsellers list...
What year is it?!
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http://5kids1condo.com/very-superstitious-how-fact-free-parenting-policies-rob-our-kids-of-independence/
A discussion over the degree to which children should be supervised by their parents.
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A Coates essay that manifests a lot of my frustration I never put into careful words:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/
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Kinda old but since I'm playing Disgaea 5 now, I just noticed it. The NIS Japanese twitter just explained the meaning of the title Disgaea. It is exactly what it sounds like in English, to my utter shock. I'm not used to Japanese dev teams getting English right.
The "Dis" part meaning "opposite" (and being inspired by the word Dystopia), and Gaea meaning Earth. It's literally just a cooyrightable word for "Netherworld/Makai", which just feels so appropriate for the Disgaea series.
The amusing part of the link is the sheer number of Japanese fans going "Oh wow, the title DOES have a meaning!"
https://twitter.com/nis_prinny/status/865118246432681984
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New Nintendo stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztMGTTAjsAQ
Octopath Traveler looks like a cross between Saga Frontier and Bravely Default.
Also a Radiant Historia... remake? sequel? I couldn't tell.
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Remake. It's gonna have what seems like a good amount of new content tho.
Octopath looks really neat! Not sure when there'll be enough on Switch to justify getting one, but it seems like it'll happen eventually.
-
https://twitter.com/sprsk/status/910295200228032512
okay i am done with being awake today because emotions and coping are not going to happen
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It's only available on July 11th, the day he died. You do his "direct" motion to unlock it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdQg43n2OaM&t=17s
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Waffled on which topic to put this in...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/magazine/how-fake-news-turned-a-small-town-upside-down.html?smid=fb-share
When wide-reaching, low-credibility media meets small towns.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2017/10/02/when-white-men-turn-into-lone-wolves/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.cf44b52450c4
For dunie, further our irc discussion. Alexandra Petri really nailing it.
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^ thanks for that.
just saw an interview of Paddock's brother; someone and a lawyer need to intercept these hawkish interviews. ay carumba.
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This is surprisingly sad and beautiful.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-41608350
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https://www.wmagazine.com/story/bjork-interviews-herself
<3
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https://www.wmagazine.com/story/bjork-interviews-herself
<3
<3
on a completely different topic:
http://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/social-commentary-in-wolfenstein-ii-marketing-not-game-w509207
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http://edition.cnn.com/style/article/louvre-abu-dhabi-museum-opening/index.html
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sweet imma grab my yacht and head right on over
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https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/
Holy fucking shit this is wild.
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I was just thinking how maybe his portrait online isn't a good thing
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Somebody saw Dollhouse and thought "This is a good idea."
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https://sightlinesmag.org/pump-project-art-complex-loses-lease
I'm sharing this for two reasons: fuck, I loved that place;
damn, this is what happens when people choose to understand gentrification only as revitalization for a class/race of people already with greater purchasing power. Creative class (Florida could be more vocal about how this is a really shitty term he coined) comes in on redlined economic disenfranchisement out of their own necessity, contributes to its hipness, and then gets pushed out themselves, because "it's just supply and demand and the economy," as if that economy, S&D don't come from the creation and laws and patterns of preference from living people. Shock. So maybe the fight becomes more about a percentage of sales/etc going into some kinda community escrow for property taxes--- they'd most certainly be able to raise that from all the gentrifying east atx businesses anyway.
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https://www.pcgamesn.com/mechwarrior-5-mercenaries/mechwarrior-copyright-infringement-harmony-gold
Remember the Harmony Gold Macross rights shitshow? It's still going, but with new hilarity: they may have lost a bunch of the IP and then "forgot" to mention it to the MechWarrior guys who use designs cribbed from the show.
(And I helped dig it up! Got a special-thanks credit and everything.)
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YOU GO BOY
I was also sort of aware of the Harmony Gold IP thing since me and industry friends had been eagerly awaiting the day it would happen, but I had assumed that because MechWarrior Online was operating that it had all been resolved. Surprised it had not. Good catch!
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Greatest Christmas gift ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFciQ9ByO5Q&feature=youtu.be
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https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/7/16749480/death-stranding-trailer-tga-2017-norman-reedus-kojima
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sweet
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https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/12/intersectional-feminist-first-date/ I can no longer tell the difference between parody and reality; I have no idea if this was written by a serious believer or someone snarking on the IF movement.
Everything else with the list aside (And as you can imagine I did a lot of eye rolling during it): I've gone on a lot of first dates of late. Anyone who lectures you on politics on a first date, -regardless- of what those are, is a shitty person to date.
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As a rule most articles there are sincere.
Skimming the topics... several of those are pretty in-depth for someone you’ve just met, but...
Answers in the negative for most of them would be red flags. And most of the rest would matter in any long-term gig.
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There were too many big words in that article for me.
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Politics matter, so I don't see anything wrong with feeling out some views on a first date. Your own list (and mine) is not the same as the author's, but I can say that for me personally, someone who denied the Holoucaust, or thinks that global warming is a myth, or thinks that a woman's place is to be subservient to her man, would be someone I 100% would not date. Some things are just deal-breakers and getting those figured out sooner rather than later saves everyone time. It's up to each individual to decide what the deal-breakers are.
The article frustrates me for a different reason, because it implicitly puts forward the toxic belief that "you're not a feminist unless you also support unrelated A, B, C, and D", which is an outstanding way to drive people away from your movement. If I weren't already firm in my feminist views an article telling me that I have to hate capitalism or be anti-Israel in order to be a feminist might well drive me away; be assured that it has for others.
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Fundamentally the argument in intersectionality is that sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, thusforth are in fact all linked (broadly, patriarchical authority perpetuates itself with the endgoal of placing straight white men in power over other groups, and the means by which they play these groups against one another is how said patriarchy stays in power, with capitalistic competition being a key mechanism in achieving this).
It's still a pretty bad article. 1) it assumes anyone reading it accepts this argument whole cloth and 2) assumes that there's a single, correct answer to all of the many issues that fall under the intersectional umbrella, both of which are spectacularly dumb for a non-academic casual reader base.
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Also pretty sure that is just framing for “things to discuss with prospective partners”. Only the Headline says First Date and I guarantee you that is editorial decision to drive clicks etcetc.
As someone that doesn’t date though, I would expect if you are politically active they are good and interesting topics to cover off with someone you are interested in sometime, but not just first date material? Idk though.
Edit - disagree that it is a bad article. All of those are good/interesting discussion points, they don’t have to pass/fail checks. They can just help you identify where someone sits on issues. Also like anyone actually engaged in Feminism on an academic level presumably anyone interested in this knows you can’t really engage the broader public with academic terms. Like even something as “simple” as ‘Can any human be illegal’ is some pretty fucking densely communicated subject matter.
An article on a feminist website presumably targeted towards people familiar with the concepts doesn’t need to be talked to in those terms though.
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*shrug* I dunno, I feel like the framing of the questions lead to a definite pass/fail check, and the overall breezy language and list formatting definitely suggest it's for a general audience, not necessarily dedicated feminists.
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The format for Every Day Feminism is kinda bad yeah. It is pure new media listicles and content farm buzzfeed style bullshit talking about actual real academic concepts. Some serious whiplash going on there, but that is a problem at the site level, not this particular article.
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I wouldn't say the article's denying anyone can be a feminist, but to be an intersectional feminist certainly means embracing and engaging things from the list and beyond. Saying you love diversity but give money/*edit* or don't care about strategizing against the capitalist structures of corporations that displace diversity is an incongruity intersectional feminists wouldn't embrace.
Also. I totally agree that it is okay to pose these questions in a generative way for first-date-ish conversations. Also agree that I doubt it would be rigorously enforced (unless that person is just plain awkward or was great at conversation, which most people are not). It'd probably disinterest even the wokest folk who don't feel the need to prove themselves to someone whose pants they want to unzip or persons they want to know better. Feminism, Anti-Capitalist, Anarchist, whatever, the liberationist standpoints that force individuals to prove their credentials to one person in reality reinforces the belittling of someone's personhood, so... bye to that fluff. I ain't got no one to prove myself to but myself.
But I will say, as an avowed IF myself, these questions definitely do help weed out men, especially white men, who have no interest or are resisting the futurity of their potential POC child with me or possible life with me. So. It definitely helps. But this is a DATE piece and is therefore fundamentally a tragic piece of clickbait.
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Yeah, def. been on at least one first date that took the form of a long-form questionnaire on my political beliefs. there wasn't a second date. I am one of the types of people who will absolutely not date someone politically incompatible - I think this stuff matters. but getting hit all at once with the whole laundry list was a bit much. (and it moved from there to the topic of how well I get along with ex-girlfriends. like. no.)
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Have you ever felt like everyone is out to get you in a game?
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20931304
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Huh, weird seeing someone you know from there online work before they joined Blozzard being quoted. Not sure why she is a reference quote for it, but she is probably a decent enough reference I guess?
Edit - clarification. Olivia Grace is rad and does good work, just calling her only a WoW Expert and moving on is pretty void of context. The article doesn’t even say he was playing WoW?
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article's 4 years old so maybe that's why?
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I fooooorget when she started at Blizzard, she could be being quoted just as a freelancer which was what she did before that but still confused tbqh. Like presumably it was because it was being ganked in WoW?
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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/13/opinion/contributors/salma-hayek-harvey-weinstein.html
Yikes.
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/29/new-marvel-editor-in-chief-under-fire-for-using-japanese-pseudonym
I like to think the situation's more complicated than the internet police would allow. This isn't to give dude leniency; but pre-2006 "catfishing" would have been a style of avatar'ing that dude would have a strong familiarity with. I catfished on the internet in gamer circles as a white chick since it was far easier to connect with people joining around games. No excuse. But. I do wonder if his catfishing fits the same mold of the last couple years of white authors using PoC pen names to win awards, funding and publication opportunities-- which, you know, is wrong on lots of levels and doesn't help dismantling the race-based awards system that must exist so other folk can publish. Then I'd be angrier. I dunno, I read this article very quickly. But also, what kind of office culture is so lax that you don't know who really works there? :-\ I'll show up and clock in then myself!
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There are a few reaaaaaaalllllllllllllly shady layers in the whole "Akira Yoshida" thing.
1) Cebulski was writing stories set in Japan and/or about Japanese people using the persona of a Japanese man -- not just ethnically Asian but actually from Japan -- to lend his (in hindsight, terrible and stereotyped) stories a layer of authenticity.
2) Cebulski was employed as an editor at the time, so there's at least a strong implication that whoever signed off on hiring "Yoshida" was giving his friend a job and hiding it so he wouldn't look like a nepotistic ass.
3) "Yoshida" was hired as part of an initiative that was supposed to give up-and-coming comics writers a shot at working for Marvel. Hiring one of your full-time employees in secret instead of a newcomer totally undermines the integrity of that project, but promoting the guy after it becomes public knowledge undermines the integrity of any outreach they do while Cebulski is there. Who's going to trust this guy to deal fairly with writers and artists?
-
Still... how bad are we talking about? At risk of pointing out the obvious, superhero comics tend to be about as authentic as a three-dollar bill in their portrayal of American society (too?). And somebody who lived in Japan and learned Japanese seems like that to the extent it's terrible and stereotyped, it'll be terrible & stereotyped in an admiring weeaboo kind of way, which is a lot less alarming than negative stereotyping.
The only source I've found on this topic with actual examples seems to be a certain ancient Internet personality who's apparently still kicking:
https://twitter.com/Seanbabydotcom/status/935168667897044992
This is some stupid shit, but doesn't appear any stupider than your average JRPG plot?
https://twitter.com/Seanbabydotcom/status/936223503690240000
This is an example of insane American comics to compare it to.
--
Anyway I should drop off an Americans-doing-Japanese-stuff link of my own, so:
https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/implementing-japanese-subtitles-on-netflix-c165fbe61989
Interesting reading. (Feel free to skip the second half of the article, which is nitty gritty "what fields map to what" minutiae though.)
-
Still... how bad are we talking about? At risk of pointing out the obvious, superhero comics tend to be about as authentic as a three-dollar bill in their portrayal of American society (too?). And somebody who lived in Japan and learned Japanese seems like that to the extent it's terrible and stereotyped, it'll be terrible & stereotyped in an admiring weeaboo kind of way, which is a lot less alarming than negative stereotyping.
The cultural stereotyping was mainly the usual ninjas-and-honor stuff you see in western comics all the time -- certainly not egregious, but also not exactly helpful to have it coming from someone who was supposedly raised in actual Japan.
More hilariously, for a guy who lived there as an adult he didn't seem to care at all about basic factual stuff that doesn't really slide based on comic-book logic, like an offhand mention in his Elektra book about Japan's five islands (there are four).
-
I like to imagine that the extra island is some Marvel-universe-original locale, like Namda Parbat or the Inhumans' city or... Krakatoa or something.
Or like... Okinawa, maybe?
-
3) "Yoshida" was hired as part of an initiative that was supposed to give up-and-coming comics writers a shot at working for Marvel. Hiring one of your full-time employees in secret instead of a newcomer totally undermines the integrity of that project, but promoting the guy after it becomes public knowledge undermines the integrity of any outreach they do while Cebulski is there. Who's going to trust this guy to deal fairly with writers and artists?
Yeah, I'm beginning to find my critique in this -and- the problematic component of cultural appropriation -- power and representation-- that prevented the hiring of another person.
Saw this, too https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/asian-comic-writers-cb-cebulski-controversy_us_5a1f118fe4b0d52b8dc25be8
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5229079/Dallas-woman-arrested-6-months-fatal-hit-run.html
My best friend's aunt was killed by a drunk driver. The comments are predictably horrible. I met Brenda a couple of times. She didn't like being around other people and leeching off of family members and her schizophrenia make her restless and unpredictable. That was the choice that she consistently made throughout her life, but that doesn't mean that her family didn't love her. On the contrary, I know my friend's mom always tried to help her in any way she'd accept.
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https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-first-denaturalization-result-operation-janus
https://rewire.news/article/2018/01/09/justice-department-revokes-naturalized-citizenship-citing-fingerprint-issue/
I've read a couple articles and it seems unclear if the cases DOJ has identified were all prior to the digitalization of fingerprints. Too impatient to find the official date of that processing with google. I did come across: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/sd-me-citizenship-fingerprints-20160919-story.html saying that those identified were before records were digitized.
Yes yes, illegal is illegal. But also, what does it mean when the country legalizes one's citizenship and then revokes it over bureaucratic folder-combing? And damn if being abroad hasn't made me realize my privilege of being able to move through different western countries easily. I don't know if Baljinder Singh is still married, but imagine what would happen punitively if Americans married abroad were treated similarly. Or perhaps they already are, I don't know.
Janus, huh.
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#stillcatchinguptotherealworld
happened in 2013 but whatevs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOxlSOr3_M&feature=youtu.be
-
Speaking of albany expressions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-XtMNYHsZc
(In the style of NieR Automata, mostly posted for Djinn's reference.)
-
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AndyWallace/20171122/310166/Urzas_Dream_Engine__The_RoboRosewater_RoboDraft_Creating_a_machine_learning_algorithm_to_illustrate_Magic_cards.php
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https://www.facebook.com/bbc/videos/2063688563646332/
XD
-
wow
tho
Helvetica? Coquettish?
-
y and y
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https://www.facebook.com/PrinceMichaelOfficial/videos/1530226350389212/
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KFJpY7W0wA&feature=youtu.be
-
excellent
-
:o ;D
https://youtu.be/QS8bma7LRX4
-
That was a lot better than the original.
-
Speaking of albany expressions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-XtMNYHsZc
(In the style of NieR Automata, mostly posted for Djinn's reference.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqt2v1-TEIo
-
i <3 this
https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/02/how-to-queer-the-mapand-fend-off-an-attack/552824/
-
African cultures represented in Black Panther (not really spoilers)
https://i.imgur.com/LcBDIXh.jpg
-
http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/03/02/square-enix-releases-mysterious-valkyrie-profile-lenneth-teaser
Square-Enix finally figured out we don't want new games. Give us that OG shit.
-
Dammit, Squeenix, just give me VP: Hrist already so I can die complete.
-
I am a pre-kindergarten teacher. I was born and raised in Oklahoma and am raising my son here. I love my state, my job, the people I work with and, most importantly, my students. I am deeply concerned for the future of education in Oklahom
On a teacher’s salary, it is very difficult to make ends meet as a single mother. I basically live paycheck to paycheck. Any money I have left at the end of the months is thanks to my second job, tutoring students after school and Saturdays. I am fortunate to have found a flexible second job that is not physically demanding. Other teachers throughout the state are not so lucky. I met a cashier recently who is a teacher in my district. She works weeknights 5-11 and a similar shift on the weekends. That makes for long days and a short weekends. I feel her pain, and I don’t think it should have to be this way for any teacher! Teachers should earn a living wage.
Meeting this teacher/cashier made me reflect on the year and a half I worked as a cashier at a local sporting goods store. I usually worked weeknight evenings from 5 – 10 p.m. and usually five to seven hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays. Eventually, I asked for Sundays off so I could have at least one day of rest, although I typically spent my Sundays preparing for the upcoming week at school. I was physically and emotionally drained. I have a bachelor’s degree, had more than a decade of teaching experience and was having to work a job I hated to make ends meet. I was not the best teacher that year. Being exhausted and over worked affected my mood and performance in the classroom. My students still learned and were, I believe, well prepared for kindergarten, but I know they deserved a teacher operating at 100 percent. Eventually I quit the retail job, which was a relief. But I definitely have felt the loss of income.
A pay raise for teachers is long overdue, but in addition we need funding for our classrooms. In my classroom, we have only outdated technology. Smartboards are older than our computers and don’t function properly. This year our district purchased a literacy program for our students to use at school and at home. Unfortunately, the classroom tablets don’t support the program, so students can only use the program at the school computer lab, which only has 10 computers (never all working) to serve the entire school. Students in my class are able to spend about 10-15 minutes a week working on this program. Students in upper grade levels, such as my seventh-grade son, are going without text books. Students are not able to bring books home to complete unfinished assignments. How do you teach algebra without a book? Language arts? Science? History? I don’t know how teachers in middle and high school do it.
There are many other things teachers are having to go without due to lack of funding and support from our legislature, but our abysmal pay and outdated technology are the two that come to mind.
In addition, support staff raises are necessary. All staff are vital to our students’ success. I recently lost the assistant with whom I had worked for three years because she could no longer support her family on her meager teacher’s assistant paycheck. I have no idea how she lived off a mere $950 per month for so long. She and I were a team and there was nothing we couldn’t accomplish with our students. Her departure negatively impacted the classroom environment. My students love her and miss her. She had a special bond with some of our more challenging students. She was able to help redirect them and reinforce their good behavior. I was extremely sad to see her go, and things just haven’t been the same since she left.
I have seen on Facebook and other media outlets that the average teacher pay in Oklahoma is $45,000. That may be true, but only because we have many teachers nearing retirement age who reached that pay rate before the state stopped offering the step increases. I currently make about $35,000 a year with 13 years of teaching experience.
My chosen profession has not been funded or valued for years. The work teachers do is important, and our children are our state’s most vital resource. It is time our legislators acknowledge and reward this work. I encourage everyone to support the teacher walk out, contact our state representatives and senators, and demand change!
Posted on my Facebook.
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https://melmagazine.com/the-renegade-game-designer-who-aims-to-challenge-the-industrys-attitudes-toward-sex-2579225659d9
Extremely good interview with Robert Yang.
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Not exactly miscellaneous, but here's a DL relevant project I made for an Intro to Visualizations class I took last year:
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~adam.reilly/Reilly_Adam_HW4.html
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Neat. One suggestion, though: you can use either Math.round(x * 100 ) / 100 or .toFixed(2) to chop off some of those non-significant decimals in the mean & std. deviation and the like.
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https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21736102-low-teacher-pay-and-severe-budget-cuts-are-driving-schools-brink-whats-matter
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https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/8/17330574/nintendo-switch-virtual-console
The PS4 has had worse backwards compatibility than the PS3 & PS Vita had (both of which liberally allowed PSX/PSP games to be played on 'em). I wonder if the companies have decided that virtualization just steals sales from modern games and deters remakes. It'd be too bad for retro-ish gamers if this ends up true...
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It'd be quite ironic if Nintendo pushed old gamers to PC because it's the easiest way to emulate Super Metroid and the like. Hard to know what Nintendo's thinking here.
What do we make of Nintendo's past practice of making you buy old NES/SNES games on a per-console basis anyway? That seems like a concern that if they sell it once and allow multi-platform playing, then they can never sell it again. I think the desire to not devalue their old games is probably the most likely culprit here, so I'd say their protecting their ability to do remakes. But if that's the case, Nintendo could be, like, actually doing way more in terms of remakes than they are. Iunno.
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It is probably also telling us that VC stuff just wasn’t that profitable as a whole marketting push. The main reason MS pushes backwards compatibility this gen is because it is a unique thing on the Xboxen this gen. It is way more about maintaining player good will than profitability and good will is something Nintendo have in spades with the Switch.
Also key points to note
“no plans to bring classic games together under the Virtual Console banner as has been done on other Nintendo systems.”
Under the same Banner doesn’t mean that they won’t publish old stuff using the quality emulators they already have for the Switch, it just means they aren’t doing a targeted campaign. Presumably if someone wanted to publish a bunch of NES games they can still do so, they just will be in the global list of Switch games instead of in there own little classics section. One would also hope that you can license those emulators or something to run them? Depends how Nintendo want to productiise the technology.
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Netflix for video games. Stop supporting the industry? Have fun having all your stuff vanish into the ether nerds.
REVENGEANCE
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That seems like a concern that if they sell it once and allow multi-platform playing, then they can never sell it again.
(https://i.imgur.com/CVI0BWF.png)
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What do we make of Nintendo's past practice of making you buy old NES/SNES games on a per-console basis anyway? That seems like a concern that if they sell it once and allow multi-platform playing, then they can never sell it again.
I think the Wii U had a pretty good solution to this issue: if you already bought the game for a previous Virtual Console, you can buy it again at a significant discount for a new one. Seems like a pretty fair compromise of not making people repeatedly pay full price for something but also reflecting the costs of developing a new virtual console and continuing to give Nintendo/whoever some money. I think most people could agree that this is fair.
VC was an outstanding feature and it's sad to see it being phased out. I feel like it could still make a modest amount of money while maintaining customer good will but what do I know.
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Whatever the motivations, if you own a Switch and a 3DS and want to play Super Metriod, you're SOL. Not a great state of affairs.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05357-w Would be nice if something came of this.
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Oh hey, I've heard this story before!
'Wow, exciting new technology that could help save the planet and provide a new source of energy!'
*legislation blocked at all turns by oil companies*
'How terrible, TECHNOLOGY has failed us.'
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https://www.buzzfeed.com/pascalemueller/guinevere-kauffmann-max-planck?utm_term=.kv7RM880Zm#.yw71rDDBQo
This sounds eerily like a synthesis of the different stories that I heard and experiences I saw and endured in graduate school. Science graduate school is a trap. It's all about egos and fuelling the machine of cheap labor.
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Like all corporations are.
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Excise the influence of capital from education.
Eat the rich.
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http://www.dogwithdice.com/whitewolfaredead/
So it turns out that the dudes who took over White Wolf a few years ago are releasing a new edition of VtM... and it's basically a series of nazi dogwhistles.
Actually though I was wondering, I remember Metroid worked with White Wolf to develop a game for them at one point, but was that before the original company folded and the swedes bought them or early in their tenure?
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White Wolf publishing in general is weird. White Wolf do the new WoD setting and stuff, but there is a branch of stuff with a bunch of people that used to work at White Wolf that have a license to publish stuff for old World of Darkness stuff called Onyx Path Publishing (http://theonyxpath.com/). They on the other hand are apparently pretty damn cool and well worth watching.
So.... just be careful with stuff and check who is putting out the work if you are looking into it. It is all over the shop.
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White Wolf publishing in general is weird. White Wolf do the new WoD setting and stuff, but there is a branch of stuff with a bunch of people that used to work at White Wolf that have a license to publish stuff for old World of Darkness stuff called Onyx Path Publishing (http://theonyxpath.com/). They on the other hand are apparently pretty damn cool and well worth watching.
So.... just be careful with stuff and check who is putting out the work if you are looking into it. It is all over the shop.
Yeah, they make that distinction in the article, but it's still kind of a thing.
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It is all over the shop.
Beasts?! All over the shop?!
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https://theslot.jezebel.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-democratic-primary-opponent-w-1827540576
So the house Democrats should basically strip this dude of seniority and demand his resignation, but instead we're probably gonna tip one of the bluest districts in the country to whatever nazi the RNC sent in because he was deluded enough to think he could pull it off. Because god forbid anyone over there try to rebuild bridges between the Democrats and the left, gotta burn the ashes harder and put one more nail in the coffin of humanity.
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https://theslot.jezebel.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-democratic-primary-opponent-w-1827540576
So the house Democrats should basically strip this dude of seniority and demand his resignation, but instead we're probably gonna tip one of the bluest districts in the country to whatever nazi the RNC sent in because he was deluded enough to think he could pull it off. Because god forbid anyone over there try to rebuild bridges between the Democrats and the left, gotta burn the ashes harder and put one more nail in the coffin of humanity.
I know we've had our differences, but I agree with this 100%
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Wow, what a baby. He better get over this temper tantrum pronto
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http://gothamist.com/2018/08/28/nycha_fidelio_sex_parties.php
Talk about being screwed by the government.
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Following on the heels of the Double Dare oral history article is this gem:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/disney-afternoon-oral-history-ducktales-darkwing-rescue-rangers
Fucking fantastic bit of nostalgia.
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https://theslot.jezebel.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-democratic-primary-opponent-w-1827540576
So the house Democrats should basically strip this dude of seniority and demand his resignation, but instead we're probably gonna tip one of the bluest districts in the country to whatever nazi the RNC sent in because he was deluded enough to think he could pull it off. Because god forbid anyone over there try to rebuild bridges between the Democrats and the left, gotta burn the ashes harder and put one more nail in the coffin of humanity.
I know we've had our differences, but I agree with this 100%
Neat!
Turns out Ocasio-Cortez got 78% of the vote, and Crowley a mere 6.6%. Is it the effect of party association? Good campaigning? Crowley's continual fuck ups? Who knows! But at least we don't have to think about him anymore, just the abstract concept of what-the-fuck-was-he-thinking.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1roy4o4tqQM
Oh. My. God.
I am going to see this. Yes. In red seats with wine. It doesn't help that I crushed real real real hard on Justice Smith when watching the Get Down. Dude has a range of character voices.
Also. CUTE PIKACHU. ;D
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https://medium.com/@cmdrking/a-nugget-of-nostalgia-a-look-at-dragon-quest-ix-728b8e537f11
Realized I never linked this on the boards for non-Discord people, so here's that.
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https://medium.com/@cmdrking/robot-persona-4-arena-and-trans-allegory-88854076c44e
Also I spent a chunk of the day writing about robots.
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https://www.them.us/story/cis-trans-dating
Depressing numbers on the acceptance of trans people when it comes to dating.
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Whoever did the data is a bit misleading really, since they counted the ‘would date trans people opposite their usual sexuality’ in the trans-accepting group. When, y’know. That implies they don’t think being trans is real, the LEAST accepting you can be.
(They do specify it as a separate percentage but leading with numbers that include them is bad form)
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Well, I think that's trans-accepting from their own perspective (I would have given them a different label, personally? 'people who claim to be willing to date trans people')? For me, it shows that a lot of people don't really 'get' what being trans is, even if they claim to.
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look at medium trying for a new yorker profile:
https://medium.com/s/love-hate/craig-newmarks-new-hit-list-624341007d72
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https://outline.com/YRacE5
Still, the prominence of commentary over news online and on cable news feels backward, and dangerously so. It is exactly our fealty to the crowd — to what other people are saying about the news, rather than the news itself — that makes us susceptible to misinformation.
"Fealty to the crowd" spoke deeply to my cynical soul.
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film short - 7th Grade : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQNMlq1oDQk
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Okay, did a big push and got another big game article written! DQV tiem: https://medium.com/@cmdrking/dragon-quest-v-the-pitfalls-of-a-silent-protagonist-93d10172f06b
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I keep following the crumb trail of moderate, liberal and anarchistic Southerners whose cultural work was suppressed. It's because of my firm disbelief in the rest of the US's impression of the South, not to deny actual realities but to highlight just how unruly it is once you crack through the fog. This is a few sentences in to say, it's 2019, I'm back to what I call home in Atlanta, and I came across this May 2018 article about one of the area's underground weeklies, The Great Speckled Bird:
https://www.artsatl.org/atlanta-alternative-newspaper-the-great-speckled-bird-celebrates-50th-anniversary/
The story is fucking amazing. And I hope an alt-weekly replaces Creative Loafing, which is mostly hollow, but also that even more weeklies proliferate. The AJC in many regards is trash, and I don't only mean its conservative political leaning.
Atlanta Alternative Newspaper “The Great Speckled Bird” Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary
PATRICE WORTHYMAY 31, 2018
BOOKS
Fifty years ago, the first issue of Atlanta-based alternative newspaper The Great Speckled Bird went to print. One of 200 underground newspapers in the United States, The Bird, a cooperative news project, confronted issues of injustice plaguing the nation. But what began in 1968 as a weekly newspaper for marginalized views eventually became a movement in Midtown Atlanta until the publication closed its doors in 1976.
In 2018, many of the same issues of racial justice, women’s rights, gay rights and war are once again at the forefront of political conversations. As staff members and writers of The Bird prepare for the 50th anniversary celebration on June 2, that irony isn’t lost on them. In fact, to Stephanie Coffin, cofounder of The Bird, it’s poetic justice. The group that brought life to the liberal movement in Atlanta now protests with a new generation of activists that have brought social justice into the mainstream.
“I go to almost all the marches, and I see a lot of Bird people whenever I go, because we’re still doing it,” says Coffin.
The Bird began as a black-and-white biweekly newspaper in March of 1968, and by July of the same year, it had grown into a weekly publication with its first color issue. Bob Goodman, a former writer for The Bird, says anybody who lived in Atlanta at the time knew about The Bird, because it introduced issues that weren’t popular in the South.
“The same issues would still be relevant today,” Goodman says. “It saddens me, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
A Radical Stance
What was often labeled “radical” in the State of Georgia was actually a message that was echoing all over the United States, even if few people were talking openly about such issues in Atlanta at the time. When the weekly was published, Coffin says it quickly became a voice for the antiwar movement. Many of the articles expressed concern over the Vietnam war, which Coffin says was not receiving proper coverage in the Atlanta Constitution. The name, The Great Speckled Bird, came from the title of a country-gospel tune made popular by musician Roy Acuff.
Bob Goodman, Stephanie Coffin and Bob Malone in the first office of The Great Speckled Bird on 14th Street
“We grew incredibly,” she says. By 1970, it was the third largest weekly newspaper in Georgia with a paid circulation of 22,000 copies. “It was a popular paper because the message we were putting out was all over the country. . . . We were the largest weekly in Georgia for a long time. We covered draft refusal because, at the time, there was a draft center on Ponce De Leon where Ponce City Market is now. We covered other issues the Atlanta Constitution wouldn’t cover, because it was a staid, conservative paper.”
The Bird began five years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and in the same year as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Popular Bird writer, coeditor and cofounder Gene Guerrero Jr. took offense to moderate liberals such as Atlanta Journal and Constitution editor Eugene Patterson and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution Ralph McGill (both of whom had won Pulitzer Prizes for their work) for using King’s message of nonviolence against angry protesters. He attacked their editorials in a dissent titled “the liberal (im)posture”: “King was a gentle man who spoke of love and nonviolence, but he spoke even more often of the deep sickness gripping this country,” Guerrero Jr. wrote.
In 1968, a new set of voices was rising up in the fight for equality. Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or SNCC, changed the strategy of the organization, departing from the nonviolent stance and coining the phrase “Black Power.” The Black Panther Party was forming chapters throughout the US, and even formed a chapter in Atlanta. Despite being a predominantly white staff, Coffin says The Bird supported the Black Panther Party because the 10-point program, with free breakfast for kids, was so progressive.
“The whole movement shifted in tenor,” says Coffin. “They had pictures with guns, and their black leather and their militancy was a whole shift from the ‘turn your other cheek’ of MLK. We supported the Black Panthers. We had Huey Newton on the cover and Angela Davis was on the cover, because we supported their efforts.”
The newspaper was central to organizing protests throughout Atlanta by publicizing activities of organizations like SNCC. But while blacks in Atlanta were working on dismantling years of racist policies, The Bird was supporting progressive issues such as legalization of marijuana, women’s rights and gay rights. Intersectionality among social justice groups was almost nonexistent, and Coffin says black people were primarily working on black issues.
“We covered black issues and black strikes as much as we could in solidarity, but our paper was not diverse,” Coffin says. “It wasn’t what we wanted, but it was something that was. The split between the black and white movement was white people worked in white organizations and black people worked in black organizations. This was the end of the MLK black and white people working together.”
Politics as Usual
The views expressed in The Bird made the newspaper a target. Kids were arrested for selling the political rag and consistently harassed by local authorities. During its first four years, no one in Georgia dared print the paper. So the staff drove once a week to a printing press in Montgomery, Alabama, says Steve Wise, former editor of The Bird.
“People knew when we came out on Thursday morning,” he recalls. “People would come out and get the papers and they could sell right away. I would go to Georgia State and sell about 75 papers in an hour. Ralph McGill would walk by, and I would try to sell him the paper, and he would turn his nose up.”
Though it was a popular paper, there was little to no money being made, says Wise. The budget covered the expenses to print and distribute, and the staff was paid $3 a week. Most people volunteered to draw the cover art, write and handle administrative work. The hippies that hung out on 14th Street made money selling the paper, but it wasn’t enough to cover legal costs. Wise says the ACLU was a saving grace.
“The post office refused to deliver the paper because we had an advertisement for an abortion clinic, but the ACLU made them back down, so we didn’t have to go to court for that,” he says. “We couldn’t have done that without the support of the ACLU. They were very good. They supported us all the way through. Without their legal help, we would have been sunk.”
Wise says Fulton County, Dekalb County and Cobb County finally backed down and agreed to stop harassing the kids, but it took a while. Then on May 6, 1972, at 5 a.m, the office located at 240 Westminster St. at the north end of Piedmont Park was firebombed. Wise says he suspects Sam Massell, the first Jewish mayor of Atlanta and a Democrat, was behind the bombing. The bombing happened just days after The Bird published an exposé accusing Massell of turning a blind eye to corruption in the city, especially when it came to family members who owned property.
Massell denies bombing The Bird, claiming he read the newspaper. “If they were still here, I’d send them press releases,” Massell says. “I didn’t agree with them on everything and thought many times they were so far off, especially with the real estate option accusations. The area was inundated with hippies, and they ran a story accusing me of bringing hippies in the area to run down the value of the land so I could buy it at a lower price and make a big profit or something like that.”
Massell admits he had to manage the flower children and motorcycle gangs, and opened up a police precinct on 14th Street. However, he was against removing “the hippies and flower children” as long as they obeyed the law.
(Just my favorite tidbits section)
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Various stories around the web for the 20th anniversary of FF8 - well, the JP release at least - but I thought this one was pretty interesting:
https://legendsoflocalization.com/squalls-whatever-line-in-japanese-final-fantasy-viii/
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So fleshing out Fire Emblem thoughts ended up at about 2500 words: https://medium.com/@cmdrking/yer-a-girl-corrin-fire-emblem-fates-and-feminism-e4361fb62bb
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A good read. I agree with many of the broad strokes despite having a reasonably positive view of Fates' story (not perfect by any means, but manages to be above average by Fire Emblem's admittedly low standards for me). The places where I probably disagree most are the idea that it glamourizes masculine strength and that it sees compassion as weakness.
First off, though, I want to touch on Corrin's gender. I definitely understand why you feel Corrin scans as a female; my initial inclination is to agree. Or rather, her traits are more often associated with female characters in fiction... and indeed, are notably more popular, or perhaps I should say tolerated, in female characters than in male. I dunno if you pay any attention to Fire Emblem character polls, but unlike Kris and Robin, Corrin is significantly more popular as a woman than a man, despite the fact that all three are advertised primarily as male (and Three Houses seems to be making that 4/4, sadly). I've seen some people try to chalk this up to design, but I think the bigger reason is just that Corrin is fundamentally weak at points (one of his/her iconic quotes is "I am so sorry" stated when something bad happens that he/she was unable to prevent) and that many players tolerate this more in their female heroes (e.g. Eirika) than they do in their male (male Corrin reminds me of Hope Estheim in some ways, a character with an even larger hate-base). Not to say the primarily childish male internet particularly loves even female characters with these traits, but that's an aside.
I have a mixed opinion about Corrin personally; I think they try some interesting things with her but aren't willing to commit to some of the criticisms they have because she on some level represents the player and the player is Always Right. And unlike her siblings she's really boring on every non-Conquest route.
Anyway, my critiques:
I don't think I agree with the notion that the game particularly glamourizes stereotypically masculine strength... in fact, I think it's closer to the opposite. Who stands for masculine strength in the game? Nohr in general, and certain seriously flawed characters in particular, namely:
-Garon and Hans, who use their strength as a tool to bully, conquer, and inflict suffering on others. Fine, they're villains, but it must be emphasised how much they stand for this ideal.
-Xander, who uses his strong convictions to stand by his father and his kingdom and willfully blind himself to all the horrible things it does. He threatens murder to his siblings on multiple occasions across the routes and does in fact end up killing one of them. He is a tragic character; his "strength" (in his case, his unwavering loyalty and convictions) is also his undoing.
-Camilla, whose strength proves a poor shield against her mental breakdown in Birthright as it is unable to help her do what she desires to do most.
Leo and Elise alone among the major Nohrians do not stand for strength in the same way, and this rather directly allows them to work towards smoothing over a more peaceful end to the story.
I also don't think the game is against compassion; in fact, Corrin's compassion helps draw others to her and indeed save her on a few occasions where her wits fail her (see Kaze in Conquest for an obvious payoff, or Ryoma's sacrifice). And even more than Corrin, the Fates character who stands for compassion and kindness is Elise, who may also be the most unambiguously positively portrayed character in the game (though, due to Fates' partially tragic nature, it doesn't always end well for her).
To the extent that Conquest criticises Corrin (and it definitely does, while trying to tapdance around the fact at points!), it is critical of her weakness and selfishness; the game is fundamentally a story about someone who puts maintaining her relationships with those she loves above the greater good, and manages to obtain a happy ending for her own personal goals but is tainted by the blood of thousands of innocents. The bad things that happen in Conquest happen because she isn't able to stand up to or disappoint her family in any way (including Garon right up to the moment where Azura reveals he isn't meaningfully her "family" any more), not because she's too nice and wants to spare her enemies.
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Hmm. Interesting read, but I don't really buy the plot of Conquest as being a treatise on the limits/futility of compassion. It might have turned out that way for you, of course, but I don't think that was even close to the intent. The thing about video game writing is that it's closer to, say, television shows with multiple episodes, or a comic book series that bounces from author to author; there are multiple writers, and even when they're all good they sometimes want to go in different directions. And sometimes some of the writers are bad and write in plot elements that, if taken seriously, suggest themes that radically go against everything that was the intent, but everybody conveniently forgets about this, which is probably for the best. So while I entirely agree there are all sorts of elements in Conquest that *could* be taken this way if written by a singular author with a strong vision - the Yoko Taro or Toby Fox version of FE Fates, basically - it isn't here, any more than the guy who wrote the Mass Effect 3 ending intended all of the horrible consequences of that if you bother to think about it for more than 30 seconds. Why did the 7-year old spill the milk? Because they made a mistake, it's no deeper than that.
Also, I know you didn't play it (yet?), but for all that its plot is crap, Fates Revelation very strongly smells like being the "canon" path of Fates: everybody makes friends and joins Corrin in a super team-up against the bad guys, fight zombies, get the ultimate super sword, and defeat the Real Big Bad. Certainly Corrin's qualities are unambiguously good here: his or her charisma, insight, and compassion save the day with only a few named good-side casualties, so I'm not inclined to think these are supposed to be weaknesses elsewhere.
I suppose I should give my take on Conquest - bearing in mind that I didn't like its plot and dislike it for its writing incompetence:
* We aren't supposed to think too hard about the Hoshidan casualties at all, or how the war was going elsewhere, or anything like that. Whenever Garon or Iago orders slaughters of Chevois prisoners or Hoshidan armies, that is strictly there to develop Garon/Hans/Iago characters and prove how evil they are, just as Corrin miraculously sparing all their foes is there to prove how awesome Corrin is. The story never takes a remote interest in looping back and seeing how others reacted to such deaths, or political fallout, or anything. The game cares about the likes of Ryoma dying, or (as Elf pointed out) Corrin being nice causing people like Kaze to join up or Flora to decide to go along with Corrin despite her original service being an act, but those are named characters. Mooks don't matter. So don't include them in the moral calculus of Conquest; people who don't matter dying is not considered a drawback by the writer.
* Even on the Conquest route, Corrin's compassion is unambiguously a good thing, and not a weakness. That compassion saves Hinoka & Sakura's lives; even ghost Takumi likes Corrin and encourages them to kill zombie Takumi. More generally, if we zoom out a bunch, Corrin is the hero and thus indirectly all their qualities become positive by dint of association with Corrin. I.e. if you make a story where a clever trickster saves the day, you're inherently praising these qualities a bit.
* So if not foolish compassion, why do the terrible things on Conquest route happen at all? Well, I don't think any of it is tied to Corrin, at least in the author(s) head; I disagree with Elf on this that Conquest really criticizes Corrin at all. There's a constant march of stupid justifications for why Corrin isn't "really" at fault for 95% of the bad things that happen in Conquest, usually by having somebody else do the dirty deed that Garon demands or for Ryoma / Rainbow Sage / etc. to commit suicide, as if that somehow matters. While I or anybody who's taken Ethics 101 shouldn't really buy this crap - look, your honor, somebody ELSE in my criminal enterprise pulled the trigger on the gun - I think the writers did. What they want us to take from this is A) Garon/Iago/Hans is bad, B) Corrin's best hope to mitigate the damage while staying on Nohr's side is "win faster" as you put it (no matter how stupid this idea is), C) Corrin can't quit because they love their family but also because the player clicked the "side with Nohr" option at the beginning so they're just gonna keep going along rather than defect or quit in disgust or anything.
* Additionally, sheerly by dint of having two paths where your allies in one path are your enemies in the other path, FE Fates promotes a bit more understanding for at least some of your enemies (not quite the same as compassion, but close). While Fates doesn't give a shit about its unnamed soldiers, it does for its named characters, so you know that at least some of the people you're fighting and beating up have names, friends, histories, etc., which leads to sympathy.
As for the other aspect of your article, the value of (masculine?) strength.. it's there, but in the sense that almost all conflict-oriented games have this inherently a bit by tending to have there be a Big Bad who requires force to take down. (I can think of exactly one strategy RPG that inherently criticizes this a bit.) So not inclined to take too big of a note of it.
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Elf- Mm, Corrin's flaw as selfishness (in the sense of being unwilling to give up sacrifice *anything* to achieve her goals) is a pretty good catch. I tend to think of compassion in a way where there aren't acceptable losses, but considering one of her other key traits is being naive the accompanying selfishness with that as part of the explanation is definitely something to keep in mind, agreed.
I did think of Ryoma's sacrifice as the 'payoff' in Conquest, but a lot of Ryoma's character is built around that impossible nobility ideal who wouldn't let his sister die for him I felt? Part of that interpretation of his character though IS based on the fact that he sacrifices himself via seppuku, which... scans as very "honorable man" behavior and kinda feeds into the masculinity idealization, I guess. But yeah I considered talking about that bit but felt like I didn't really want to go too far down the rabbit hole of analyzing 'honorable' suicide in this context.
Snowfire- I love me some intentionality analysis but that's just not the one I was using for this article!
I am however curious about something, so.. To the Internet!
Story Supervisor
Kouhei Maeda
Original Story
Shin Kibayashi
Main Scenario Birthright and Conquest Paths
Nami Komuro
Character Planning & Voice Text
Nami Komuro
Scenario
Kouhei Maeda
Masayuki Horikawa
Satoko Kurihara
Naoya Inui
Kibayashi would be the guy who wrote the original pitch (I believe on commission), so we'll remove him from consideration.
So based on this, we can surmise that one writer plotted out the character arcs and how they played into the main story paths, while the lead writer worked on the individual chapters along with three others writers. So while yeah, games do have more divided writing duties than other single-story mediums, Fates at least did have a story lead who was also working on the individual chapters and coordinating the overall plot. And even if there wasn't, that's what directors and producers do! So yeah, while obviously this might explain some of the repetition from chapter to chapter and why there might be a disconnect in characterization between some of the main plot and the supports... I think it's reasonable to surmise that the game WOULD have planned central themes, not just accidents. I mean, it is likely to end up somewhat episodic but it's not episodic in the way, say, Dragon Quest is.
Not that this is a refutation of your overall points necessarily, but I thought it was interesting enough to look up.
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Yupyup. Really Fates is *only* analyzable at the over-arching themes level since the writing for any one scenario is erratic and not necessarily indicative of what's up. The one that succeeds the most IMO is the Corrin vs. one set of siblings melodrama which most everybody agrees is the best part to both Birthright & Conquest. Very operatic, where Corrin has to take on the noble enemy generals who like them, or is the noble enemy general themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LCQ3N4a4fg
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https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/29/66-million-year-old-deathbed-linked-to-dinosaur-killing-meteor/
Need to finish reading this myself but... neat!!
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I've managed to talk about Kingdom Hearts and Xenogears at the same time. NO one is safe: https://medium.com/@cmdrking/des-larmes-pour-la-bonheur-de-xion-stars-of-fears-9cea02d071ef
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My trans kid really liked your article.
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https://www.gofundme.com/support-khoury one of my friends is doing top surgery and is raising money for recovery. he is a humanitarian and generally decent human being but due to doing so much volunteer work he doesn't have the money to cover secondary expenses.
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Woooo finally! Something else done and published! Perhaps the next one won't take 4 months!
https://medium.com/@cmdrking/octopath-traveler-a-21st-century-jrpg-for-21st-century-problems-e3fadebc5d6f
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Nice! Don't have much to add but I very much enjoyed reading that.
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CONTENT WARNING: suicide ideation
https://acain882.wixsite.com/magic/blog/the-mirror-reflecting-death-content-warning-suicide-ideation
I wrote blog post about my experiences, with Three Houses as a spring board for my thoughts. <3 Thanks for all of the love I have gotten from the people who have already read it.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/theLword/comments/cu1ekc/screams_in_gay/
!!!!!! eeeeee
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Edelgard did nothing wrong: https://medium.com/@cmdrking/edelgard-did-nothing-wrong-religion-faith-and-politics-in-fire-emblem-three-houses-cd67d920531f
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Came up in Discord, but...
https://legendsoflocalization.com/final-fantasy-vi/
Is a very fascinating, multi-part review of the FF6 JP script, the original SNES translation, the early fan translation, the GBA translation, and Google Translate hacking at the script. Some very cool stuff, get your FF6 nostalgia goggles on.
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https://nplusonemag.com/issue-34/essays/sexism-in-the-academy/
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So there's a melee documentary about Hungrybox that is pretty good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLSJrA0n9w
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I think this is a very interesting read: https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/03/02/their-families-built-fortunes-these-millennials-are-trying-figure-out-how-undo-their-class-privilege/?arc404=true
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The New Yorker's got some footage of Atlanta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPM1WfYMNSg&feature=youtu.be
re: Kemp cutting shelter-in-place short.
I WILL say, though, that it seems more people are out and going places than the video shows since I don't see most of my neighbors at home these days
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months?utm_source=pocket-newtab Found this to be pretty interesting; real life lord of the flies situation with a happier ending than the book.
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“Retrospective” doesn’t quite capture what this is, but a piece on Lost Odyssey, digging both into its background and founding concept as well as the themes and successes and failures thereof
https://youtu.be/LbjwXh5Th6I
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hahahahah why did this take two months
https://medium.com/@cmdrking/the-probably-accidental-feminism-of-trails-in-the-sky-205112d11ff3
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I'm not sure if this is any good but I had most of it written and needed to finish it.
https://cmdrking.medium.com/the-needful-many-wild-arms-2-and-sacrifice-cb2ab764471a
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A pretty interesting set of charts on COVID vaccine attitudes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv0dQfRRrEQ