Great post, @rampantbicycle. I mostly agree. I don’t think you should look down on someone for enjoying what they enjoy, although I do think hating on books like Twilight and 50 Shades for the way they portray women and relationships is totally legitimate.

Totally unrelated: Is anyone planning to pick up Payday within the next 26 hours? It’s been on my radar for a while, but I’m not sure it’s worth buying without friends to play with. The 4pack is $15 in today’s daily deals. Anyone wanna go in with me?

I yelled at my TV when he pulled out a gun in Watch_Dogs. Because there aren’t enough shooters already…

@angryjedi Except I get the impression that NBC doesn’t really pay attention to the online/streaming viewership, which should be easily trackable…

From Harmon’s tumblr post:

“I’m 39, now. The friends my Mom warned me about are bigger now, and older, bloodying my nose with old world numbers, and old world tactics, like, oh, I don’t know, sending out press releases to TV Guide at 7pm on a Friday.

“But my Commodore 64 is mobile now, like yours, and the modems are invisible, and the internet is the air all around us. And the good friends, the real friends, are finding each other, and connecting with each other, and my Mom is turning out to be more right than ever.”

@angryjedi Except they’re already moving it to Friday night and only ordered 13 episodes, right? Seems like they’ve already given up on Community. Weird that they’d decide to fire Harmon now.

@unmanneddrone Man, I still have not played a real game of DEFCON. 😦
Although, at least with Neptune’s Pride, only one person needs to pay. Makes it easier to get new people into it.

And yeah, Neptune’s Pride would totally make sense on Facebook. I’m kinda surprised there’s no mobile version, considering the nature of the game, but hey, welcome to tiny developers I guess. 🙂

@bluesforbuddha Well, I only started the game yesterday, so I’m not really qualified to answer, but so far, the time commitment has been minimal. I made my investments, set my research plan, and sent out my fleets in about 20 minutes yesterday, and there hasn’t been too much to do since then.

So far, I’ve probably spent more time chatting with other players, making deals, and brokering alliances than I have actually tinkering with the game.

That said, it will probably require a larger time investment each day as empires grow, and as technology advances. For instance, as you upgrade Speed, ships get to their destinations quicker, so you’ll want to give new orders more often.

But if you’re really concerned about the time investment, we could always make the game slower. The host can make the pay cycle longer (once every 2 days instead of once a day), make research more expensive, or even make certain research unavailable (no Speed upgrades!).

OK, I just started a game of Neptune’s Pride with some college friends, and I really need to share this.

If you haven’t heard of it, Neptune’s Pride is an ultra-slow-paced 4X strategy game. The graphics and mechanics are streamlined in order to put the spotlight on strategy and diplomacy. Also, everything takes place in REAL real time, so for instance, it takes a full 24 hours for a fleet to fly half a lightyear (before you research any speed upgrades).

Anyway, when you make a game, you can create a name and description for it. We’re all big Game of Thrones fans, so naturally, I chose “A Song of Suns and Vacuum” as the game name.

Trouble is brewing in space. For the inhabitants of this galaxy, control of the Space Throne holds the lure of great power…and far-reaching consequences.

Kings and queens, paragons and renegades, liars, lords, and honest men, all will play the Game of Space Thrones.

And I’m really proud to say that all my friends went along with the theme without any prodding or coercion! 😀

Here’s our roster:

Aerys Stargaryen (me)
Starya Stark
Tyrion Lannistar
Lord Hostar Tully
Ser Jorah Starmont

Of course, Tully and I have gone full RP. We send “missives” that use terms like “fret not” and “broker” and “wretched.” It’s fantastic. I haven’t spoken to anyone else as much, but I have a feeling we’re all going to get pretty deep into this.

Basically, I haven’t even had one of my fleets reach its destination yet, and I think I’m already in love with this game.

I finally finished ME3! Hey.. Where’d the spoiler thread go? 😦

Well, I’m up for Magika or L4D.

(I’m not really up for Magika. I just wanted to continue the chain!)

@impynickers I really wanted to like BF3, but I’m so sick of these COD-style shooters where I have to grind XP for hours and hours before I can play with any of the fun toys.

At least with ME3, you can have a decent character after two or three 20-minute games.

Wow, this is shitty. I can’t load my ME2 save file unless I have all the DLC I’ve played on it. The thing is, this isn’t the original 360 I started ME2 on, so now I need to buy the Cerberus Network. Also the Kasumi pack, because I played it on my brother’s 360.

Hm, so I should probably locate my ME2 save… And maybe play some of the DLC.

@impy That was awesome! Did not know you were filming. 🙂

Any chance you recorded our one victory?

I feel like the only way I’ll ever play through games like Deadly Premonition, Dark Souls, Godhand, etc. are if I’ve got some kind of book club/support group. Not sure I can commit to the Feen Challenge, but I’d be up for a side mission. (Do we still do those? 🙂

@angryjedi Oh, yeah, I can’t say I “care” much either. I played AC2 and Brotherhood to completion, but I have no idea why I stuck with Brotherhood all the way to the end. Skipped Revelations.

But I’m interested to see if they actually renovate the franchise. According to that GameInformer teaser, AC3 should be a from-the-ground-up sequel, not just another rehash. We’ll see!

@shingro oooo I’m already envisioning Desmond-as-Robin-Hood in the forests…

Heh, I like this. Let’s see…

• Typically female, as discussed below.
• Swift, agile, dual wield — yes please.
• Rarely play with two-handed weapons. That big-dumb-bruiser style of play (high strength, high con) never interests me.
• I always take talky/persuasive abilities too, though I’m not totally in love with systems that let you talk your way out of anything just because your stats are high enough. I much prefer systems like DXHR’s or The Witcher 2’s where conversation is more strategic.
• Sometimes I let myself get seduced by the idea of playing a stealthy character, but few RPGs have a robust enough stealth system for it to be fun in the long run.
• I really like stealth games where the main motivation for hiding in shadows is that the darkness makes you deadlier. I’m a big fan of the stealth in Batman and SC Conviction. I basically played DXHR as a lethal Batman with guns.

@impynickers All I can say is “Guild Wars 2.”

I make it a point not to succumb to hype these days. I look forward to games, sure, but I generally don’t fall victim to that ravenous thirst for an upcoming game the way I used to.

But I am going totally mad for Guild Wars 2. I am so goddamn excited for it. It looks to be everything an MMO should be, and I cannot wait.

I generally play female characters when given the choice, if only because female protagonists are rare, which makes them unique and interesting to me. I basically follow Joss Whedon’s philosophy on that front. (More specifically, around the 6-7 minute mark in that video, but it’s worth watching the whole thing.)

I’m a Lady Shepard snob. My brother and I were talking about it recently, and he was telling me why he didn’t get how great she is. His attitude is that Shepard is just a generic space marine, regardless of gender. My attitude is that a generic female space marine isn’t actually generic at all.

@angryjedi “There’s no fluff, no filler and no grinding.” “20 hours” —> music to my ears!

@bowlisimo RPS was not kind to Syndicate.

“Syndicate, meanwhile, is guilty of that most dispiriting of crimes: overwhelming ordinariness.”

Holy god, guys. The text… o.o

Gotta say, Pete, you’re actually kinda selling me on Last Story. And I haven’t played a JRPG since FFXII.

@bowlisimo I guess my response to that image is that the first and third bars don’t really matter. In marketing (which encompasses advertising, promotion, distribution, pricing, and more), (consumer) perception == reality. All this nonsense about “well, if these fools weren’t making DLC that sells for $10, they would’ve been fired” is just rationalization.

Though, it’s not really a great rationalization anyway. Let’s use some made-up numbers here.

150 people start out working on Mass Effect 3.

50 of those people finish their work on ME3 and start working on another part of ME3 (the DLC).

So, we’ve got 100 people working on ME3, and another 50 people working on another part of ME3.

Both of these groups finish the content they are working on in time for the release date, March 6th.

………..What exactly is the difference between what the group of 100 people were working on, and what the group of 50 people were working on? It’s completely arbitrary. Both groups are creating Mass Effect 3. It’s up to BioWare to decide where they draw a line in the sand and say, “No, this… This is DLC.”

In that way, the average, “uninformed” gamer is actually kinda right.

As @rampant hit on, consumer perception is everything. It doesn’t matter why customers feel screwed. If that’s how they feel, then EA and BioWare are doing something wrong (either in their strategy or how they present their strategy), and they need to fix it.

Based on what I played of the demo, Asura’s Wrath almost seems like a satire of modern videogames. Minimal input for ridiculous output—QTEs being the epitome of that style of game design.

The problem with QTEs is that they’re largely disconnected from the action on screen. They can put whatever insane video they want behind that button prompt, it doesn’t hide the fact that you’re engaging in a bare-minimum level of interaction in a medium defined by its interactivity.

So Asura’s Wrath looks at that and says, “OK, if it doesn’t matter what the fuck is going on behind the button prompt, then let’s dial this shit all the way to brain-puking insanity.” The stark contrast between input and ouput that results really demonstrates the absurdity of QTEs.

@unmanneddrone You had me at “Cold War.”

@bluesforbuddha Hey now, don’t knock yourself. You guys make excellent zombie bait. 😀

Signups for the GW2 beta just went live. Anyone else as excited for this game as I am? As a big MMO hater, Arena.Net’s MMO manifesto was music to my ears.

“If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2. And if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2.”

Red, when you talk about 999, you mean 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, right?

@impynickers Oh, if you’re getting that “Invalid SteamID” error, you need to quit Steam and delete the “config” folder in your Steam directory. It sounds serious but it’s not.

When you re-launch Steam, you’ll need to re-authorize it with Steam Guard (that code they email you whenever you log in from a new computer), but that’s it.

Holy crap, that was a blast. We need to do it again some time. I’ll post my screenshots somewhere tomorrow. I took a ton while dead. 🙂

Also, this kinda made me want to revisit L4D!

@bowlisimo It’s still totally worth listening to the archives from the beginning.

I can probably make 10pm EST. Gotta get some work done first.

I could be in for NMRIH. The later the better for me. (I’m on PST and am always up late.)

I have a mic, but it’s a cheap desktop mic. Haven’t tried it with any games yet. (I broke my headset a while back and haven’t had a chance to replace it.)

Oh, and to echo @sinfony, HELL YES IDLE THUMBS.

@redswir1 I played a completely sociopathic, morally inconsistent character in Skyrim. All the stories are so self-contained; it was hard for me to care when my actions in each quest had no impact on the rest of the game.

@beige Wow, great Shepard write-up. I had a similar experience with the ending of ME1. (Actually wrote up most of this yesterday.)

The final moments of Mass Effect 1 have you deciding whether to send the full force of the human fleet to take down Sovereign or to split your ships to try to save the Council. Well, you’ve met my Shepard. She ordered the fleet to focus on Sovereign. (Why waste ships on a few politicians when the fate of the galaxy is at stake? We can get a new Council, dammit!)

Of course, the Council dies, but Saren and Sovereign are defeated. In the aftermath, Udina praises Shepard. Letting the Council fall has opened the door for humanity to take center stage. Great job, Shepard! “But,” you can say, “that’s not what I wanted. That wasn’t my intention!” Doesn’t make a difference. Udina will move forward with his plan.

I reloaded my game three times at that point. Each time, I thought, “Shepard wants unity, not human rule. I have to fix this.” Each time, I got to the decision of whether to save the Council. And each time, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. That just wasn’t Shepard.

I finally settled on the ending I’d been dealt. And I decided that I like it better that way. I’m so used to my character’s decisions being almost absolute: “This is what I decide and so it shall be.” It’s pretty rare for things to play out so completely against your intentions in an RPG. Definitely a unique moment and one that made me rethink what games can do.

(On a related note, I am totally loving The Witcher 2 right now.)

@tolkoto I think playing “bad” in Mass Effect isn’t the same as playing evil in games like KOTOR. Paragon and Renegade are much closer together on the good/evil spectrum than Light Side and Dark Side. When I used to play KOTOR, I couldn’t stomach the evil choices.

A renegade Shepard might punch out a reporter, but a dark Jedi would straight up force-choke her in cold blood.

Actually, I think Mass Effect was the first series where I played a “dark/bad” character.

@RedSwirl @wrdsmth Oh, no. I don’t play a pure-renegade character. She mostly skews renegade, but I try to make her three-dimensional.

[deepnerdery]
My Shepard values life and will do her best to protect it, but she won’t hesitate to spend lives if necessary. She goes out of her way to help others, but often because acts of kindness build trust and loyalty. You never know when a new friend might come in handy. She doesn’t trust easily but is fiercely loyal. She’s not a racist (I told Ashley to chill the fuck out—), but she hates red tape (—and swayed Garrus to break the rules).

So, for instance, all the ME2 dialog choices that were positive about Cerberus may have earned you renegade points, but my Shepard didn’t trust Cerberus.
[/deepnerdery]

“Mass Effect 1: Always thought “man, some day I’d like to replay this whole thing as someone else. Then I remember how invested I got in my version of Shepard.” –Beige

Yeah, absolutely. With ME1, I did two playthroughs: Paragon Male and Renegade Female. Loved the latter, and that’s the character I took into ME2. I tried a second ME2 playthrough as paragon, but that character just wasn’t Shepard to me. Not her choices, not even her face.

I cleaned that all up for you – Ninja Feen

Hey guys, I saw Chris post on Facebook inviting wayward Squaddies to rejoin the conversation. The biggest reason why I’ve been away is that I find it hard to keep up with this single feed. The conversation moves pretty quickly!

Also, my job kinda restricts how much I can talk about games publicly. (Maybe I’ll create a new WordPress account. This username is already somewhat associated with my real name.)

On the topic of ME2 though… Your choices in ME1 really don’t have much of an impact on your ME2 experience, but if you’re really concerned about it, EA released a motion comic on XBLA that you can pick up for about $4. It summarizes the events of ME1 and lets you make all the key decisions of the first game.

It’s called Mass Effect 2: Genesis. It was originally created for the PS3 version of ME2 because ME1 was never ported.

@shingro Yeah, I’ve heard League of Legends has the least awful community of the DOTA games. We should organize a squad night. : )

@bluesforbuddha You… liked LA Noire? I only played the first disc (360 version), but god.. the writing was so bad. I hate Phelps. He’s one of the most obnoxious protagonists I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing as.

I love that it’s basically a high-budget adventure game, but all the cases I’ve played basically solve themselves. You don’t really have to put any thought into it. Even if you get some questions wrong (which is inevitable with the miserably vague Lie/Doubt/Truth system), it doesn’t actually matter.

Blah. I might go back and finish it, just so I don’t have to attach a disclaimer any time I talk about it, but I really, really disliked what I played of LA Noire.

Guess I’ll have to go through the LA Noire posts here to see what you guys thought.

@angryjedi I’ve been thinking about giving LoL a try. One of my best friends from high school is all about Heroes of Newerth, but I hear LoL is more accessible and the community is a little nicer. Plus, it’s free, whereas I think you pay $30 for HoN.

The great thing about these F2P MMOs is that there’s no price barrier to entry, so yeah, I’d be up for trying out Spiral Knights some time.Why not?

I played Champions Online when it was in beta, and it didn’t really turn me on. Tried the F2P version a few days ago, and I quit before finishing the tutorial. It’s not for me.

But yeah, let me know if you guys want to hop on Vindictus some time. My only character is a Lann, dual-wield sword guy, called Utivich (yeah, I just saw Inglorious Basterds :).

Been thinking about free-to-play (F2P) games a lot for work, and I kept hearing good things about Vindictus. Played it for about an hour tonight, and it’s actually pretty cool! It’s action-game combat in a Guild Wars-style MMO (not really open world, just public towns with instanced missions). Check it out on YouTube, and you’ll see what I mean.

I don’t have as much patience for the MMO “getting to know you” phase as I used to, but I could see myself sticking with this. Especially since it’s free. I can just play it in short spurts whenever I feel like it, without the guilt of “well, I’m paying for this monthly, I really should play…”

@angryjedi @redswir1 Thanks for your impressions. I played the demo when it came out but wasn’t really thrilled by it. I might check it out when the price drops a bit more. It’s still $40 on Amazon, and I’ve still got plenty to play.

Steve Gaynor was all over Vanquish on Twitter this weekend. Can anyone confirm/deny its greatness?

Oh, and yeah, CQY has a bunch of guild perks. 10% experience bonus, faster mount speed, reduced repair costs… It’s nice.

Anyway, if you’re looking for some cool Cataclysm zones… I hear the Goblin and Gnome starting zones are great. Darkshore (L10-20) has a pretty cool questline involving Malfurion, the druid demigod guy. Westfall (10-15) has a hilarious CSI-inspired story arc. And I hear Redridge Mountains (15-20) is actually good now. Thousands Needles is a ways off (40-45), but it’s been one of my favorites so far.

What’s everyone doing on Borean Tundra?? Play on Baelgun with Tolkoto and me, so I can give you gold and bags! Also, you get to join CQY, the old 1UP guild that was founded by Skip and the rest of Legendary Thread, still going strong four years later.

Actually, our four-year anniversary is coming up on the 18th. There will be festivities. 😀

@zegolf If you ask me, you can really just skip AC1 all together. I mean, I guess now that you’re at the very end, you might as well finish it, but I would’ve just looked up the Wikipedia plot synopsis.

Damn it. I skimmed Beige’s (most recent) huge post, and thought that the D&D game he wanted was the one they made until I got to the end. 😦

You know what’d be awesome? If Assassin’s Creed were actually a game about being an assassin.

Hey, you guys were talking about Nier earlier? The 360 version just went to $15 on Amazon.

I’ve played my PS3 less than my Wii this generation. The last disc I put in it was Heavy Rain.

As for the 360, well, my special Halo 3 edition (the ugly green one) crapped out right before Thanksgiving. No RROD, but it stopped outputting video. Tried it with three different wires on two different TVs. I’m pretty sure it’s finished. And just a few months after the three-year warranty expired. They’ve gotta have a timer on these things…

That said, I used this as an excuse to pick up one of those lovely black slim 360s. Y’know, I get that the Kinect bundles are sold out all over the place, but it’s crazy how hard it is to find just the standalone 250GB 360 slims, especially right before Christmas. Microsoft must be going crazy.

I finally caved and picked one up off eBay, new in box, for $5 over MSRP. Should be here by the end of the week. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier to be rid of the fucking tornado machine. Sweet silence from now on.

That’s 9pm EST, right? I’ll try to make it.

Oh yeah, sign me up for Secret Santa too. I know just the book.