castorp

Yeah, I sometimes don't understand too. Like right now. Just because it's normal, because they expected it, doesn't mean I can't blindly rage a fair bit. Fuck piracy! See, honest rage. I mean, 90% piracy is bad. And sometimes bad things, and the stupid and mean people doing the bad things bring out the worst in me. Fuck stupid people! See, I can't help it.Now I take off the sarcasm-hat. Oh, and it's Castorp.

I used to think the same when hearing some big company marketing goon justify the use of DRM while kind of criminalizing all gamers. Yeah, nice dramatic numbers, but those aren't sales.But, and maybe in this case especially, this train of thought is deeply flawed. You might be right in saying only two percent would have bought it anyway, but that is because there is piracy and thus the possibility to play games without buying them in the first place. It only is true because one has to rightfully assume that pirates wouldn't buy most of the games they couldn't pirate. If it’s not pirateable they just play something else that is. I think the number of lost sales is not the ominous number of people who would have bought it if they had to, but more rightfully the number of people who pirated, played and enjoyed it (and then not bought it). Or, even more rightfully, the number of pirate-people who where intrigued enough to play it and find out whether they like it or not. Just the thought of someone, who played the game till the end, thinking 'A nice game, but not 20 Dollar nice. Good and just I didn't pay for it.' makes me aggressive. Mh, I have problems to make my point, but hopefully it's not totally lost. (And I do hope too, that some of the pirates buy it in the end.)

Most of you might have read it already, I guess, but fuck, I mean FUCK, a piracy rate of 90%. Like in, just one out of ten bought the game. Okay, PC-gaming can go to hell, gamers deserve no better. (On a sidenote: there is some decency going on in the comments on the torrent-sites; people make a plea for buying the game.) Edit: Another thing that bugs me about this, are the discussions about whether the 90-number is too high because of dynamic-IP, or what-the-fuck. Yeah, it has some importance, it is nice that they cleared it up a little, but, as one of the RPS-guys put it: 'This is like standing over a corpse and thinking the most important thing to argue about is whether its bled 5 pints or only 4.'

The document had its own handmade action-news-post - the place of origin, I guess - that is now gone.

Okay, not that it matters, but I think you are in the right. Even if you are guilty of making your account easy to highjack in the first place, you are innocent of the things Valve supposedly really wants to prevent with their banning-policy. Assuming they want to prevent cheating and piracy and aren't eager to somehow educate their consumers (in a misguided way). So they take the easy road, which serves them, hurts real culprits, but simultaneously harms some luckless innocents. Obviously it would be difficult and often controversial to decide case by case, but with their simple solution they are just morally (yeah, big word, I wanted to use it in context of the aforementioned concept that a handful of innocents suffer, even though there is a middle ground that would be manageable for valve without to much gain for the bad people but major gain for the good ones) wrong.Sorry for the long-winded and uncalled-for post. Maybe I just wanted to show some sympathy, now that I finally use steam myself and the mere thought of getting my account banned makes me combative.

Someone cared. Someone remembered. And I adore Tim Schafer for releasing it in the first place and even more for the news-post regarding the disappearance of it.

That makes me taste a proper 'I am Legend' (the book) game. Singleplayer. Storydriven. And it needs booze, to fight of the loneliness, lust, and whatnot.

I second that. Some fantastic and varied stuff. And, as said earlier, the World of Goo music is good too. Fits the game perfectly, I think. (Maybe not that enjoying without playing the game, not a that good stand-alone-thing, but that doesn't make it any less good a game score, I suppose) Outcast had wonderful music. Another classic.

That's nice to hear. Thanks.We'll give it a try.

Aisle. It's text-based, comparable maybe with 'Passage' in scope, but a totally different experience, and quite old, but I hope at least some of you don't know it. Found it via RockPaperShotgun, who linked to it in their recent article about another nice little game. I won't spoil it for you by telling you more - just this one thing: if you like it even a little, don't look for a 'walkthrough' or something like that, before you really run out of ideas! Rather give it a days rest, than start looking for hints. (Beware of the comments in the RPS-article for the game!) [i wish I never read those dreadful comments]

That sounds indeed awesome!But I don't have enough real-people-friendes with gaming-interest. In fact, just one. Do you know whether it works well with only two guys? Will the other survivors be bot-driven, or is the zombie count reduced or something like that?

I learned a new english vocabulary - 'nubile'. It even has a german translation that was also new to me as a real word (and I think is quit funny) - 'mannbar' [maybe something like 'man-able']. Firefly educates

Enjoyed this episode as well. And I just baked the second cake while listening to one of your thumbcasts. That's a pretty damn high cake per podcast ratio. Which is a good sign, I think.

I know what you mean, and I'm not sure about what to prefer. I think for me it could still work perfectly with two stories, if it was outspokenly one guy, with one past, until this moment, where it all went wrong (or simply not). Up to a certain point in (past-)time, you would hear stuff about the City and the Woman radically different in light of the coin toss of this one moment, but equal in content. You then would try to find out, where it went wrong, would try to know more about those now totally different men, who once were the same guy.Okay, maybe the game kind of tries to achieve this, but, in my eyes, fails with providing to many different stories.

Sucks! I would have loved to see a game from you guys (and Yufster).

[no explicit type-this spoilers below, but some broad thoughts about the different paths the game could follow] I wonder if Aisle would have worked better, been a better game/experience, if it only had two different stories/men. First I thought having just one story would be the best way to deepen the emotional impact, but soon realised, that one of the strongest moments for me was, when I had a really happy moment, with Clare right by my side, after several moments indicating a very lonely guy with a tragic past. So this duality in fact heightened the experience for me. But when I realised, that there was more than one tragic story, some quiet mundane, some bewildering violent in contrast, it somehow watered the whole thing down in my opinion. With just two stories, one happy, one tragic, it would still maintain this at first surprising duality, and the implicated options, like the incentive to find out, where it all went wrong, or the possibility to kind of switch from one path to the other. Mmmh, I’m quiet uncertain about this. Notwithstanding a great game

hahahahaha, thank you

I played the demo a lot. Completed the levels, tried some of the OCD-stuff, succeeded at some, at least waved my fist in anger at the others, and built an awesome 21,8m Eiffel tower-like Goo tower. What a fantastic game. I love the whole look of the game, the signs, the sounds my fellow goo-balls emit, the music is nice, the gameplay is captivating, and I'm very curious about all the unknown goo-balls. Gameplay-wise it tickles the same addiction as bridge builder, just in a more gorgeous, funny, charming and innovative way. The only things I'd like to see fixed are the same things most others mildly criticize - the pick-a-certain-goo-problem, and the fact that I can't retry a level immediately, after the required number of balls is in the pipe. At least until now, those things are only annoying, when I hunt for the OCD. Hopefully they patch it. So now I just have to wait for my newly acquired paypal-account to unlock and properly work.

There is something like a European Steam? Why the fuck? Does this really mean, a person in the USA can still buy this game via steam, while we have to wait those artificial months? I was a little late on the whole steam-train, so, really, why?I was about to get a paypal-like payment thing as substitute for a credit card I don't have, just to be able to online-order this game. And now fuck? What a world of goo! (sorry) edit: Could someone in a first world country buy the game (a second time), and then give it away to some poor european kid, in exchange for, I don't know, a UN-branded sack of rice, or something.

yeah? YOU FUCKING...mh, so, what's your origin again? Oh, and while you're at it, could you please tell me the appropriate derogatory term for your nationality? I'm new at this whole racist-thing, sorry!

Thanks for clearing that up. I would listen.Not nitpicking - the existing thumbcast is, as said, great [i just favour british accent]

Great Thumbcast! Thank you. (are there any plans to include other thumbeteers [marek, spaff...] as hosts?)

I suppose there is nobody left in the small world of Idle Thumbs without HL2 or Ep1, but as I bought the orange box I tought, blablabla... HL2 and/or Ep1 anyone?

TF2 is fun (thanks to LOPcagney). So much fun that I had to go out and buy the orange box - and now I have a spare guest-pass. Anyone? Again?

12 shots. I'm impressed. But why are you complaining, toblix?