T w e n t y S i d e d
Hey everyone! We’re hanging out and Josh is playing some kinda strategy game. You can watch the stream live.
From The Archives:
Grand Theft Railroad
Grand Theft Auto is a lousy, cheating jerk of a game.
Final Fantasy X
A game about the ghost of an underwater football player who travels through time to save the world from a tick that controls kaiju satan. Really.
Linux vs. Windows
Finally, the age-old debate has been settled.
Was it a Hack?
A big chunk of the internet went down in October of 2016. What happened? Was it a hack?
Games and the Fear of Death
Why killing you might be the least scary thing a game can do.
Sooo…
Shamus is a tea supremacist. Who wears monocles.
…
I think I’ll have to watch the whole thing after it’s archived.
White sour!
…But not a top hat. Unfortunately. :-(
Well, that was fun. I have to say, some time it would be fun to stream the recording of an actual SW episode, maybe one of the specials rather than a main series, but it would be interesting for some of us to actually be there as it was going on.
Seconded.
bad idea. The cast would have to split their focus between chat and the stream, and the discussion in the chat would certainly influence what they talk about amongst themselves.
It worked out ok for something like the 8 by zombies episode, although in that case everyone was playing rather than looking at the chat. I’d be quite happy to have the cast pay minimal attention to the chat, but get to be there live, and have a live discussion with others about what was being talked about. There was a load of great discussion last night alongside what Josh, Shamus, JPH and co were saying, and it would be fun to do this with discussion about the actual game they were playing.
Yeah, was fun. And since we’re teachatting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipton#Lipton_Yellow_Label
I think a lot of people missed my point regarding Mass Effect 1 & 2. That’s understandable, since I didn’t have enough time to make my point properly.
It’s one of the many things I’ve wanted to write a post about for months, yet haven’t for a bunch of silly reasons.
I think I got what you were trying to say. Basically, the gist was that you’re a dangerous deviant that shouldn’t be allowed near video games, right?
Basically, yeah.
Wrong way, dude, the point is over there.
[Facetious denigration of your gamer credentials here]
Obviously ME1 vs. ME2 is going to be a subjective comparison, but I would argue that no matter how much better ME2 presents its story, that story is still atrocious and detracts significantly from any improvement that ME2 makes to the series.
No matter how much effort you put into its presentation, a grilled cheese sandwich (http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o186/gerbear727/cooking/511936_NziOI5sv_c.jpg) though delicious , isn’t going to top a grilled steak on a plate (http://0.tqn.com/d/bbq/1/0/1/V/Steak_resting.JPG).
My trolling of JPH aside, I do agree with him about ME1’s presentational issues (I haven’t played ME2 so I can’t make a meaningful comparison of the two games). ME1 has a competent story, but it’s just not told in an especially compelling way and for me it came across as sort of…flat, I guess. The game never managed to actually get me invested and make me care about the fate of its universe because it presented its universe in such a dull, uninteresting way.
That said, I didn’t mind the elevators in the game, so maybe I’m the dangerous deviant that shouldn’t be allowed near video games.
Same here. The story had the potential to be interesting, but with the horribly dull presentation, it just doesn’t work for me.
The food analogy does not work, period. Food exists to be eaten, not to be looked at. A movie (and Mass Effect, since it emulates movies) exists to be watched, so presentation matters hugely. If it didn’t matter, then we wouldn’t have any need for directors or actors.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that yes, the presentation is important, but if that’s all a game or movie has you just end up with Michael Bay. Which isn’t so bad in and of itself, but it looks worse coming off of ME1 because that game conditioned players to expect a decent story with poor presentation, so switching to good presentation and a bad story felt like more of a betrayal than an improvement.
Michael Bay movies have terrible presentation.
While I haven’t played Mass Effect 1, you’re not the only one that quite enjoyed Mass Effect 2. A lot of it was probably coming in knowing the stupid parts ahead of time, thanks to Spoiler Warning. It let me see the potentially really good story, which even featured some dominant themes, that just needed a few changes to come out better. I really should turn that into a blog post as well, except I don’t blog about games. May be time for me to switch my blog’s focus yet again.
Seeing SW play through ME2 before playing it myself certainly helped, and despite my complaints I *did* enjoy it. But that doesn’t mean those complaints aren’t important or substantive.
Never said the complaints were invalid, just that I don’t share some of the developed hatred for the game that some have. I guess what I’m saying is that while it’s potentially a great game, a few key story flaws are what keep it at just pretty good for me, but don’t completely ruin the experience.
Sorry I missed the stream, look forward to watching it tomorrow while working.
The chat informs me that Josh was playing “Shotgun: Total Bore” so I’m guessing it was some sort of zombie game?
I’m not sure what Shamus meant in the bit about Windows Movie Maker being “low def.” I did an on-hiatus-till-whenever Skyrim “let’s play” and I found WMM a LOT easier to use than Adobe Premiere. It’s not as a precise a tool, I’m sure, I just couldn’t get the audio track to play in Premiere (or get chromakey to work in another project, though I’m sure it’s something I missed somewhere). Anyway, I could export from WMM in many resolutions, including 1080p, and I never had it crash.
I’m not saying Shamus doesn’t have legitimate gripes about it, but I was curious what the specifics were with them.
I have more experience with premiere. I have looked at moviemaker and it does have some issues and is not capable of some of the complexities of premiere
Low def = Can’t make HD video.
Yes, WMM is WAY easier to use. For the record, I was talking about WMM with Windows XP. I don’t know about the one with Win 7.
Ah, got’cha. I’m using the one with Windows 7. They’ve made some improvements, it would appear. It’s still probably more of a blunt-force instrument.
I’m still trying to learn Premiere. I’ve been using Photoshop since forever, so a ton of palettes/controls doesn’t frighten me, but I’m well aware that not knowing where a certain command, function, or control is can make all the difference in the world.
Just to annoy everyone in this thread, let me be the first to point out that Blender, Shamus’ [sacrasm] favorite software package ever [/sarcasm] can do video editing and compositing at any fidelity! Plus it’s free, cross-platform, and open source!
Sure, technically one could fasten a screw with one’s teeth, while naked and covered in honey and about to be charged by a horde of hungry baboons.
But just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
I need to point out that Blender has had a significant update a few months back, and is now at least 10 times easier* to use.
*Judges are still out on whether that suffices.
0 times 10 is still 0…I try to get into blender every once in a while, and I am always appalled by the non-existent usability. Although I admit that I once managed to do postwork for a short video sequence using Blender (for lack of another solution that was readily available), but it was hard for me to not punch my monitor every 5 minutes.
That comment wins the internet.
Creative Cow has some great tutorials for learning Premiere. I’ve been using CS5 for years by trial and error and I’m amazed by what I’m learning from those tutorials. I’d especially recommend the ones made by Andrew Devis. His tutorials are very good, and he has a British accent so he a) sounds smarter than he probably is and b) is easy to listen to.
Thanks for the tip!
Though due to my other listening/watching habits that are rife with British accents, I’ll occasionally think I’m getting the oddest tutorial for Minecraft ever created.
For the tea snob in you:
https://www.itoen.com/loose-leaf-tea.html
I was gonna get you a few ounces of Oriental Beauty at Pax this year, but since you’re not coming… Figured the website is the next best thing.
Seriously, this stuff is GOOD…
Thanks for the hangout guys, it was awesome- at least the first two hours that I could participate in. I’m glad to finally make it to one of these.
Oh yes…I could’ve made it to this, and totally forgot. :(
T’was fun, although the sudden appearance of certain dictator/painter was less so.
One wonders what is the point of spamming “Sieg Heil” on livestream chats…
Trolling for trolling’s sake I guess.
Mister Hilter says historically Spoiler Warning is a part of Minehead already!
…And was head of Gestapo for ten years! …No! Five years! …No, no, nein! Was not head of Gestapo at all! Was making joke!
Whoever that was only wishes they were as good at trolling as Josh.
I got to be in a stream! So that was fun. If only I wasn’t so bad at game.
I guess I should move to UK or something. Last time just wasn’t going to work with my sleeping schedule and this time I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open due to long travel. Not that 01:00 is much more optimal, but it’s something I could afford normally.
I forgot about this. :(
Speaking of Josh, are we ever going to see the end of the Shogun II series? It’s been 6 months :(
He said during the stream that it should be returning soon.
Shamus, I think you’ll be interested to watch this:
https://www.humblebundle.com/double-fine
double fine are doing an amnesia fortnight in which they prototype a few ideas for games. This time, they’ll stream the process.
Didn’t catch the hangout, but since people seem to be bringing tea as a topic:
In my hunt to make using loose tea easier I bought one of these:
http://www.magisso.com/magisso_teacup
I don’t know about international availability or pricing. Also it has gotten stretch marks on the inside after a couple of months of use. (Even spread of thin cracks on the inside likely from thermal expansion. Haven’t noticed any ill effects beyond visual.)
Also, since some people (myself included) can’t really handle caffeine I’ve heard the honeybush tea tastes like regular type except without the caffeine or tannin. Personal favourite is licorice (contains only licorice, not safe for people with high blood pressure) and rooibos tea (if you get one with blackberry I urge to re-use the leaves since the taste changed around the fourth use for me and I find it interesting).