T w e n t y S i d e d
Thus ends my Fallout 3 series. Hope you liked it, even if you didn’t like Fallout 3.
Happy Thanksgiving
Thankful for: A day off. Whew.
I’m not so much looking forward to tomorrow, national Take Stuff for Granted Day.
For those that are celebrating, I hope you have a great one.
Worst Rule Ever
I’ve already made it clear which rule I think is the most annoying in tabletop gaming. (Aside from the rules preventing me from hitting other people at the table.) But I haven’t played that many game systems, and I have never sampled the gaming systems of yesteryear. Certainly there are worse out there.
Topic for discussion: The worst rule you’ve ever encountered. Perhaps it breaks immersion. Or starts fights. Or unbalances the game. Or leads to excessive paperwork. Or it’s just, you know, stupid. Please identify the worst rule “ever”, and why it ruins the fun.
I’m very interested to hear the responses. Yes, I’m sure this is a terrific idea for a discussion and won’t lead to any flame wars or rancorous debate. I mean, this is the internet, and everyone is so nice here, right?
If you need me, I’ll be in my bunker until this thread blows over.
Stolen Pixels #41: Pick a Perk
My latest strip pokes some fun at the perks in Fallout 3, but it’s really a vehicle for a question about why PC games are dumbed down (simplified) for consoles.
Dvorak vs. QWERTY
Last week’s post on my arm ache (I’m not going to call it carpal tunnel, because I don’t actually know what it is, besides annoying and painful) spawned a side-conversation on the merits of the Dvorak keyboard layout. It turns out this is another Mac vs. PC or Xbox vs. PS3 issue:
- It’s totally better. Like, for sure.
- No way. Not better at all.
Great. Why are we still having this debate 72 years after the Dvorak layout was introduced? This disagreement over something easily quantified is kind of strange coming from the tech community. I can understand debates over acupuncture, herbal medicine, flavors of Linux, game consoles, and other things which have subjective quantities, differing user priorities, placebo effects, and multiple variables to be weighed. But when we’re talking about keyboard layouts we’re all comparing one quantity: Words Per Minute. It’s easily measured and not subject to user bias. Oh, this “feels” faster? You clock it on a stopwatch and look at the results. One study found no advantage, but it took existing professional typists and compared them after a couple of months. That’s not really reasonable or fair to take someone who’s been touch-typing QWERTY for a decade, give them a couple of months at Dvorak, and compare the speeds.
A real test would be to take two large groups of non-typists and teach one Qwerty and the other Dvorak. Every week we see little news tidbits about stupid studies (usually paid for by the government) that stun us with revelations like, “fat people eat more food than thin people” or “teenagers think about sex pretty often” or “unmarried men have more disposable income than same-age married couples with children”. We can find time to have scientists tell us the sky is blue, but in all these years nobody has ever sat down and really quantified the difference between Dvorak and QWERTY in a proper unbiased scientific study?
This wouldn’t, in and of itself, tell us if switching to Dvorak would be worth it for an individual or organization. That question is naturally going to be a fiendish one, but just having the WPM of QWERTY vs. Dvorak would go a long way to telling us if it was even worth thinking about.
A Pet Project, Euthanized
You may recall some earlier posts where I whined about how video editing software is either bare-bones useless, or more expensive than having platinum dental work done on a cloned T-Rex. There doesn’t seem to be any real mid-range software available for people who just want to dabble. I’ve had a video project that I’ve been tinkering with for some time now, and I’ve been trying to line up the tools and assets to make it work. When The Escapist film festival came along, it seemed like a good time to buckle down and make it happen.
Between the day job, this site, and Stolen Pixels, (and the videogames required to supply the latter two) I just couldn’t come up with something in time for the film festival. But even after the deadline for the film festival ran out, I didn’t want to give up on the idea. I was still holding out hope that I could scrape together some time and finish it, even if all I did was put the thing up on YouTube.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “A Pet Project, Euthanized”
The Escapist Film Festival: Unskippable
Indignation: I just now noticed that the embeded player doesn’t work for me. It acts like it works, bit it won’t actually play. It works just fine at The Escapist, though. I’m not sure what the deal is.
Original post follows:
The Escapist recently had a film festival where they invited people to send in their entertaining videos. This is one of the winners. It nails the MST3K rhythm and feel, which is oft attempted but rarely with this much success.
Congrats to creators LoadingReadyRun for a funny and satisfying entry. (And I’ll bet I’d enjoy it even more if I’d actually played the game they’re lampooning.) I’m really looking forward to the series that results from this.
From The Archives:
How to Forum
Dear people of the internet: Please stop doing these horrible idiotic things when you talk to each other.
The Best of 2014
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2014.
Trashing the Heap
What does it mean when a program crashes, and why does it happen?
Gamers Aren’t Toxic
This is a horrible narrative that undermines the hobby through crass stereotypes. The hobby is vast, gamers come from all walks of life, and you shouldn't judge ANY group by its worst members.
Skylines of the Future
Cities: Skylines is bound to have a sequel sooner or later. Where can this series go next, and what changes would I like to see?
Revisiting a Dead Engine
I wanted to take the file format of a late 90s shooter and read it in modern-day Unity. This is the result.
The Dumbest Cutscene
This is it. This is the dumbest cutscene ever created for a AAA game. It's so bad it's simultaneously hilarious and painful. This is "The Room" of video game cutscenes.
Overthinking Zombies
Let's ruin everyone's fun by listing all the ways in which zombies can't work, couldn't happen, and don't make sense.
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
Shamus Plays WOW
Ever wondered what's in all those quest boxes you've never bothered to read? Get ready: They're more insane than you might expect.