feelthedarkness

Oh man. I can agree with the concern about working on 2 fan published games at the same time, though WL2 will be finished first, and they'll have a system together, plus some ongoing funding from sales of that. Also, Monte Cook's successful Numera Kickstarter will hopefully provide rules and material to jump off from.

I never take pictures of things, just PUNX.

I haven't been following too closely, but since city size is initially limited by their server capacity/load what is the value of that for me? Is it just DRM/Anti-piracy stuff? I usually don't care about that stuff, but this seems a bit onerous.

It could be positive. Imagine how many QTEs we could have been saved from?

Also, for the conversation about reusing levels, the one that comes to mind is Castlevania 4, which kind of blew my mind at the time. Dragon Age 2 almost got it right. I really like the idea of a game being about 10 years in a given city, and how your actions affect it, but I don't think they did quite enough to differentiate the eras, especially the outdoor zones you needed to traverse several times.

Mass Effect 3: I was totally planning on thinking the fans were fools, but they were right, and the cupcake prank is surprisingly astute. Enjoyed everything up to that final 10 minutes, though, particularly the Geth stuff. Geneforge 1: Boy, there is something about revealing some isometric map, and hit n run turn based combat that scratches some itch in my brain. I can't stop myself. My main complaint is that by the end I had 110% stun resistance but all the mobs could still chain stun me to death, forcing me to refine my cheap hit n' run tactics. Maybe tweaking the system is part of the fun.

Except, as I feel like we've covered countless times before, men and women aren't simply interchangeable because we live in a world with history and context. John McLane is subjected to male gaze, and I don't know how you could not see that Lara Croft is.

One day humanity will cry out "why did we teach them to throw cinder blocks?!"

I appreciate the idea of a wiki containing nothing but slander, nonsense, and misleading information.

I never did this! I found Thumbs (became a Thumbee?) based on a Chris Avellone Obsidian forum post saying you guys were saying funny stuff about Alpha Protocol, and the forum post was right. It's my favorite show, and basically the only one that talks about games the way I think I think about them. I'm a late 30s graphic designer, and to tie it to a previous episode, my primary internet community is a circle of diy punx, bands, lable folk, and record horders that started in the 90s.

I'm way into everything Tycho is throwing down here and on the other thread. The fact that this "I wouldn't choose this!" refrain is so prevalent should maybe give people a chance to think about it, because I think it illustrates one of Spec Ops main points. Modern military shooters are a strange exploitation of a real thing, and the idea that you would kill all the right people, for all the right reasons, and be the conquering hero is a bummer in the context of a real thing that most American's never see. Maybe it shapes people's attitudes towards the US's role as the world's enforcer, the righteousness with which people are killed based on faulty or no information, and the MMS are effective propaganda?

If alien races are kind of broad stroke stand ins for "ethnicity" or extrapolations of specific qualities then I don't think it's out of the realm for it to be a bit homogeneous. Greek, Danish Modern, Dutch Colonial, Tudor Revival, Spanish Villa, etc. England stirs this pot a bit with a long empire, and modernism mixes it up, but like transnational modernism is like the polar opposite of video game SYFY.

In light of Fig. 9: McDonalds! it's clear that the microtransaction future of games is going to be paying Sony $1.99 to take Mayor McCheese or Cool Spot OUT of your rich aesthetic experience. Regarding Anno 2070, I definitely understand, and can appreciate Chris's complaints, but I looked at it as the structures are all pre-fab provided by some "benevolent" corporate overlord. The whole thing takes place in a post apocalyptic flood world, so the squeaky clean modern lines become a little sinister. I think you can see a similar thing in the 1920s Italian futurists, who drew some cool things, but were also forerunners to some real bad news. Also, I think it kind of maps to the modern era the way craft in general has been devalued in the face of disposable, by design, consumer goods (Ikea, H&M, Apple, all modern home appliances.

Yeah, it's kind of wild compared to the original Johnny Carson Tonight Shows, and a lot of the earliest Dr Whos (dr whoms?), all lost to history. Though I guess they found a reel of some 1960s Tonight Shows clips and segments in a DOD warehouse. I would have loved to see a tape of when "we" opened the AQ40 gates on Mannoroth. (first PvP server, 2nd server overall by seconds). A rare singular event, sort of like that recent Eve war, though the tape would be a slideshow of jerks.

I'm glad the world is finally get hip to Breckon Face Binding. Also, re:game preservation in the face of always on DRM/servers: if it's worth caring about, some nerd will hack up a fix. Some people hacked up sort of working Star Wars Galaxies servers, and all the charm in that game was the stuff other users created. Double Also: That's a major concern in the digital humanities/museum field, but it goes far deeper, like what happen in 25 years when the codecs that encoded music are lost, or even the OS needed to install a program to play a disc.

doesn't skyrim/elder scroll basically work of keywords too?

Relicensing music has gummed up a lot of projects!

Segments of the population could have degrees of "passion" or demands about random things, like sports teams, or hot dog worshipers. That way you could get kind of silly without having to represent religions or ethnicities directly.

The idea of it even being some kind of franchise is so bizarre, and highlights how gross that whole aspect of modern life is. Alien was a singular thing. One of 2 good movies Ridley Scott has made, and 7 years later the terminator guy takes this nuanced quiet thing, and makes it a shoot em up. It's the best example of something being flogged as a corporate property I can think of. (sidebar: I like Aliens & Terminator (the first movie) )

Yeah, Gearbox is weird. Borderlands is a fun diversion to play with friends with some good art direction, but it's not exactly a great game. There is basically only one interaction. I wish Obsidian's Aliens RPG got to see the light of day. Somebody should leak the alpha.

keywords were good enough for Ultima, they're good enough for me!

First, this is the best book cast so far! A smoother and better balance of conversation, editorializing, and impressions with less summary. I love the "counterculture as secret society" undertones of the book, especially as somebody who sort of defines themselves through two (diy punx and 80s computer games). It's wild/sad to think about how class has become more rigidly stratified over time but the underground culture that tends to go with that has been largely codified and co-opted. On the prose: Pynchon seems to have this one move where a character is having an emotional breakthrough, or has reached a point that is important, and the tone of the writing changes, like a camera pulling back, and he switches to a grand and dense style. They seem to be the most challenging parts to read, but also the most important to the story's spirit. Pynchon's intellect is daunting. He can seemingly hold the totality of history, plus his own made up history in his head.

or the Idle Thumbs Urban Devitalization Wiki.

This looks exactly like the game I wanted it to be, though I hope all the characters you speak to have portraits. Between this and Obisidian's game, it's going to be a good year clicking and moving.

I don't have a tablet. Will I be missing something special by playing on steam? I guess that sounds a little odd, but I couldn't imagine playing Super Meat Boy or Ray Man Origins with WASD.