T w e n t y S i d e d
The Spoiler Warning cast (some of us, anyway) will be doing a hangout this weekend. Josh and Chris will be playing Destiny on their pagan consoles and I’ll be watching via Twitch with the rest of the peanut gallery. The event is this Saturday (September 13) at 11PM UTC. This page ought to convert the time into your local temporal region.
Also, here’s a countdown to the event:
Since we didn’t do a Diecast this week, we’ve gotten behind on our mailbag questions. So if things get slow I might do some of those.
The stream will be here when the event goes live.
The Death of Half-Life
Valve still hasn't admitted it, but the Half-Life franchise is dead. So what made these games so popular anyway?
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.
Denuvo and the "Death" of Piracy
Denuvo videogame DRM didn't actually kill piracy, but it did stop it for several months. Here's what we learned from that.
The Gameplay is the Story
Some advice to game developers on how to stop ruining good stories with bad cutscenes.
Silent Hill Origins
Here is a long look at a game that tries to live up to a big legacy and fails hilariously.
Sweet! I was hoping to find a way to see the game before I buy/don’t buy it.
Post-ordering for the win!
“Since we didn't do a Diecast this week”
But is there a Spoiler Warning? And if not, why?
Has doing Marlow Briggs really exhausted you so much? You guys really don’t have to finish it if it’s that exhausting.
Anyway, when we asked for it to be continued beyond one week, I at least, meant for it to be a recurring special like HL2 was at first. So you could finish it after the What’s-it-called-console-game that you’re doing right now.
Psst. Have a look at Shamus’ tweets over on the right. :D
Actually, the Twitter widget hasn’t been loading for me. I assumed it was intentionally dropped with all those controversial hashtags floating about lately…
EDIT: Nevermind, found the issue. Apparently, AdBlock forgot I whitelist this site.
AdBlock probably got confused after Shamus took the ads down.
“Oh hey, it’s Twenty Sided – my user likes this place; must remember not to block any ads.
“Buh … but there are no ads here. How can I not-block ads when there aren’t any ads not to block? Waaah!
“I know! I’ll block not-ads! That’s basically the same thing, right? Seems logical to me. Phew! My user will be so proud…”
Things like this make me feel safer about the possibility of machine rebellion. There is something comforting in knowing the AI reasoning will probably have enough critical faults or incompabilities with the real world to make an effective uprising impossible…
…and that we will probably be wiped out by a well-meaning AI due to the same faults and misunderstandings. At least the alien (xeno)archeologists will be amused.
Adblock has always blocked the twitter thing, even when there were actual ads. I actually deliberately block it now on my mobile internet connection because of page load speed, not an issue with my home internet though. But without actual ads around anymore, it’s completely guilt-free!
“@Rutskarn Psst. Spoiler Warning time.”
This? Doesn’t tell us anything. If anything, we don’t even know if Rutscarn read the tweet in time, which could lead to an assumption that the team could not even assemble the minimum trio of people necessary for an episode.
Also, there was no Spoiler Warning last week, plus a couple other weeks after the Skyrim finished.
Agreed, it doesn’t tell us anything. But it is suggestive of an absence of exhaustion, at least as far as Shamus is concerned, and by inference, Josh at a minimum. Possibly Marlow has spoiled (ahem) us a little – there were a couple of months between Metro 2033 and Skyrim, if I remember rightly, and it’s entirely possible I do not.
Also, to wildly speculate: Shamus knows we can see his tweets, and he also knows anyone following both of them would have got that in their timeline. He presumably has several less-public ways to get hold of Rutskarn, but he chose that one. Possibly Rutskarn was tweeting up a storm at the time – I’ve no idea – but if not then I’m guessing it may have been a subtle way to build a bit of hype.
“But it is suggestive of an absence of exhaustion, at least as far as Shamus is concerned, and by inference, Josh at a minimum.”
No, it isn’t.
But you may be overestimating my levels of worry. These comments don’t cost money, so if I have a concern, I might post it. Trying to estimate the chances of exhaustion by inferring something from a tweet… I prefer to just ask directly.
“Also, to wildly speculate: …..”
Yeah, you’d make a good conspiracy theorist. Let’s just agree to stop nitpicking each other.
Righto. I wasn’t nitpicking, as it happens – I was just speculating for fun, really. Sorry you didn’t see it that way.
I also saw Mumbles tweeting about a week ago about her being loud enough while recording SW to make an echo over someone else’s mic. I assumed she was talking about being a part of a recording session that would’ve gone up this week, but maybe not.
I suspect I am missing something by not having a Twitter account, but that Rammstein code is a thing of pure beauty. ♥
“Also, here's a countdown to the event”
Well aint that fancy?In my day we had to convert time manually,by blocking the sun with our hands and counting the stars.
With that and his timezone converter, I think it’s fair to say that Shamus won the title of king of the internet.
Well, great. Now I’m going to have to reschedule my DnD game (because I’m sure half my players will want to watch this, and half of THEM are going to want to join it.)
I don’t think anyone in our group has a PS4.
That doesn’t stop us from hopping in vent and kibitzing.
True. Just no tag-alongs.
Hmm, 1AM, I think I’m gonna have to pass up this time.
C’moooon, it’s a sunday. We need more Europeans to balance them yankees.
I’ll do my best, but I have to be up early on Sunday to go watch the football. (The type of football which has as a primary game mechanic the manipulation* of, you know, balls by actual feet.)
*Pedipulation?
Sadly I have night shift Saturday/Sunday and I won’t be back home until several hours after it’s over.
Well you can have some Aussies for balance, at 9am Sunday for us, it’s not too bad, though I’ll have to forsake my usual sleeping-in-to-noon habit.
It’ll be interesting to see what the hype is all about, since I stopped paying attention to it the second I found out it was a multiplayer console shooter.
On a related note, does anyone know if Titanfall is still going strong? That’s the last multiplayer game I can remember having this much hype on launch.
Last I heard they were introducing a new game mode without the Titans. Not entirely sure where this leaves the (arguable) proposition that “it’s Call of Duty with mechs…”
It’s Call of Duty with parkour.
I honestly think the hype comes mostly from the fact that, “Oh, it’s from the guys who did Halo. What will they do this time, I wonder?” And Activision has probably put a lot of money and energy into their hype campaign. Plus, Bungie employees have a way of just oozing with excitement when it comes to talking about their own projects during interviews that can be infectious to naive newcomers. I’ve been a Bungie fan long enough to see the pattern, but seriously, find an article or a documentary on YouTube from any of their Halo games–you really only have to pick one–and you’ll see what I mean.
I will be very curious to hear about Destiny. Right now Diablo III on PS4 is scratching my ARPG itch quite nicely, but I like Borderlands and am curious if this will be a pale shadow of it or if it addresses some of the things I don’t like about that franchise.
Hrm, midnight. On the other hand, midnight on a Saturday. I’m probably not going to sleep at that time anyway.
“when the even goes live.”
Missing a “t”.
Noooo, I happen be ushering a show that starts half an hour before the hangout. Dang it. Here I thought I’d have time for everything at college.
I went into the Destiny open beta thinking it would be garbage(like most of Bungie’s games), and was surprised at how not-terrible it turned out.
Granted, it was kind of bland and repetitive, none of the voice actors felt like they cared(I blame direction more than the acting) and the enemy variety was a huge step back from even the early Halo games. But because my expectations were so low, I walked away with a better impression than I might have otherwise.
So I’m not really sure if I liked Destiny or not… Either way, I’ll try to catch the hangout.
Same here. I liked it way more than I thought I was going to. And yeah, I agree that enemy behavior, and even how they were presented (think Flood intro compared to Hive intro) was significantly sub-par. Enemies seem to all behave the same way and the game at times felt waaaaaay too MMO-y for its own good (damage sponge enemies that were arbitrarily tougher than their regular counter-parts). But I really liked the new world Bungie created–even though, like in the beta, I’m concerned that it’s not going to be presented very well. Bungie has sort of clung to the artifact of how PC shooters in the ’90s told stories: very sparse if it’s there, and half of it cryptic. Their stories seem to only present information, a plot point, or even answer a question that might be raised when the writers feel like it suits the story the way they want to tell it. That worked really well in Marathon, and even Halo where so much of the plot was tangled up in the mystery of the Forerunners and their technology. But here in Destiny (at least in the beta anyway) you are placed into so many situations where you could ask characters questions. You’re not alone, surrounded by alien settings. You live in tower, in a city, filled with people who have at least some semblance of what is going on in the world.
Examples (again from the beta; still waiting on my actual game to download as of this writing):
1. They didn’t bother to explain that the little AI Ghosts only recruit/create Guardians from the dead. Or why it’s only dead people and the living can’t volunteer, as far as I could tell.
2. No one tells you anything about the various enemies plaguing humanity (other than that they “serve the Darkness”). What little I know about them was gathered off Bungie’s website.
3. The Speaker has “no doubt” that you have “endless questions”, then doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t already pick up from the game’s intro about how humanity got where it is during the game’s present day. He mentions the “Darkness” but doesn’t tell you what it is. He doesn’t even tell you the various aliens serve it–your Ghost tells you that. And you can’t even ask the Speaker what it means to be “the Speaker” and how exactly he represents the Traveller, You couldn’t ask him anything. He was just another vendor.
4. Your Ghost. It follows you everywhere, and yet it rarely bothers to say anything the least bit informative.
I mean, as far as the Darkness goes, I don’t need to know what it is–that’s the mystery. I get it. So much of out history and what happened in the past is lost to us at this point; we just know we survived something. But it would be way better if the Speaker, or someone, would just say, “We don’t know what the Darkness actually is. We just know that a) it came before, b) the Traveler saved us from it, and c) that it’s coming back.” That’s all we need from Mr. Plot Exposition. Would it bother the writers to come up with that short sentence? I’m okay with not having tons of dialogue like a BioWare would have, but at least give us a handful of topics to ask about in the Tower. And actually putting the Grimoire cards you find in the game, y’know, IN THE GAME as an information codex, as opposed to tucking them away on the website would be nice too. The game will probably answer some of this stuff I’ve brought up, just at weird times later down the line, which I don’t really see a reason for.
… I’m not doing a good job conveying what I liked. Because I really do like the world and its aesthetic, and I like everything with the Traveler. I like the sense of legend, lost history, and yet hopefulness. I am interested to see what Bungie does with it. I’m just afraid it’s going to be frustratingly minimalist in its presentation.
Anyway, yeah, I was really surprised to see this announcement of a Destiny stream on Shamus’s site. I mean, something tells me the cast won’t like it, but it’ll be interesting to see.
My favourite description of the game I’ve heard is: “Peter Dinklage Goes To The Moon”.
I really hope they put that on the box somewhere.
Hahaha! That totally should.
I tried looking for one of those “That Wizard came from the Moon!” shirts, but I couldn’t find it in their store.
It’s going to be fun when Josh finds out my computer and my PS4 are in two different rooms.
Ah, yes. Multiplayer. Yet another stage added to the rube-goldberg-machine that is the Spoiler Warning technical setup. This is going to be fun to watch.
Yes it’s the one problem I haven’t quite figured out a solution to yet.
LAPTOPS!
Radio Shack sells REALLY long audio cables.
Sounds like it’s time to pack your rig!
The Destiny logo has always bugged me. It looks like an alien’s three-button mouse or a future-armor codpiece to me.
To me, it looks like a one-legged person going: “YAY!”
It’s a bicycle saddle with pressure relief cutout for mine.
Hey Shamus, I think that you put that edit in the wrong post. Shouldn’t the bit about the use of the word “tool” be at the end of the Gone Home post?
Ha ha. Too many windows open at once, I think.
Thanks. Fixed.
VICTORY
I’m already loving the countdown. Saves me a little trouble googling time zones :)
Watched a twitch stream yesterday of Destiny. Lasted 5 minutes before getting bored. It felt like Halo, and not as fun, since you’re not playing – but I’m sure you guys will provide interesting commentary that will make it worth watching :)
Any chance this will be recorded and posted? I watch very few live Twitch streams, but I seem to recall there were some limitations added relatively recently that complicated recording and re-posting them. Could be wrong or out of date on this, though.
Between work and Church, I don’t have a lot of TV/YouTube time on the weekends, sadly. I’ll miss it live, but would like to see it later, if possible!
It should be, I also found out recently I won’t be able to watch it live, so I’m hoping to settle at least for the VOD