Diecast #136: Oculus Rift, Cibele, Skyrim Mods

By Shamus Posted Monday Jan 11, 2016

Filed under: Diecast 85 comments


Hosts: Josh, Campster, Mumbles. Episode edited by Rachel.

Is this the first time Mumbles has hosted? I think it is! And I wasn’t there to see it.

Since I wasn’t in the show, I put my thoughts in the show notes below.

Show notes:
1:00: Powerball

For the curious: I’ve never bought a lottery ticket of any kind in my whole life. Having said that, I’m not one of those people who likes to mock people for playing the lottery. It’s just that my gambling takes a different form. Instead of wasting a couple of dollars for an extremely astronomical chance at success, I risk hundreds or thousands of hours of my life on projects (books, comics, game development) for a mildly astronomical chance at success. Who is the bigger dumbass? I don’t think it’s that clear-cut.

And like a lottery player, I don’t play because I expect to win. I play because I enjoy the experience of playing. Although now that I have Patreon it feels less like a random gamble and more like a sane investment.

So, thanks, by the way.

3:08: Oculus Rift

My column this week will discuss this.

21:35: Amplitude

It’s only recently that I became aware of how horrible I am at multi-tasking. I can’t listen and do something at the same time. If I’m playing a game, I have to pause. Earlier in our marriage I overestimated my multitasking capacity. I’d try to listen and play at the same time, and end up doing that “half listening” thing. Something like:

Heather: I’m going to the store. I left a cake in the oven. Can you take it out in twenty minutes?

Me: (Pause for several seconds, staring fixedly at the screen.) Yeah. Cake. Twenty minutes.

And then later she comes home and the cake is a brick of carbon. She asks me about it, and I barely remember the earlier conversation at all.

This is why I don’t stream, even though that would be a fun thing to do. A Shamus Twitch Stream would just be me playing, mostly in silence. Once in a while I’d say something like, “I like fighting these…. shit. (pause.) These skeleton guys are interesting bec- shit. Hang on. (Five minutes of silence.) So anyway… the… skeleton guys… are very… interesting because… Oh shit that was a lot of XP. because… they… the skeletons, I mean… they’re interesting when you… aw damn it! When you have, like… When you’re fighting them but you also…”

Yeah. It wouldn’t be entertaining. I actually have to concentrate really hard when I listen and speak, which probably explains why my social development lagged so far behind other kids.

31:07: Lego Dimensions

37:31: Rainbow Six

39:25: Cibele


Link (YouTube)

46:45: Mumbles Skyrim Mods

Compare to my mod list. Probably not a lot of overlap between us.

52:25: Animal Crossing

1:03:20: Twitter questions

 


From The Archives:
 

85 thoughts on “Diecast #136: Oculus Rift, Cibele, Skyrim Mods

  1. MichaelGC says:

    Dircast? Direcast? Diecast!

  2. Wide And Nerdy says:

    The fun of thinking about what you’d do with millions knowing that there’s an actual chance (albeit a tiny one) that it could happen is well worth a dollar every now and then to me. That said, if it was anywhere near as big as this powerball jackpot, I’d have to basically split it up amongst everyone I know. I couldn’t deal with the awkwardness of suddenly being insanely wealthy while my friends and family were all still middle class. Its not even a generosity thing. More an anxiety/social awkwardness thing.

    One thing is for sure. I’d build a human scale Bag End.

    1. James says:

      That’s sort of my thought to. suddenly having more money then actual things to do with it isn’t fun if your friends and family are still on the 9to5. also i’d want to build a castle, a big ol castle but on the inside its a normal house with central heating, electricity internet but when you drive up to it its a castle.

      1. Wide And Nerdy â„¢ says:

        At first I thought that sounded impractical but it would be a nice theft deterrent. Or at least you’d be attracting a higher class of thief. Not to mention with the right food stores you’d be well set up for the zombie apocalypse.

        1. Ninety-Three says:

          That depends, is stone resistant to the magical rust particles released by the zombie apocalypse that cause all solid metal objects to disintegrate in a mere few years?

          Ladders in Last Of Us, I’m looking at you.

          1. Wide And Nerdy â„¢ says:

            Or for that matter, The Walking Dead where anyone who dies becomes a zombie and anybody bitten by a zombie becomes a zombie. You’d need a catapult. Strap down the deceased, pay our last respects and launch it over the wall.

            1. Nidokoenig says:

              “I’m not dead just yet!”
              “You will be!”

        2. Sunshine says:

          I like the idea of “a higher class of thief”, like you’ve moved on from some oik breaking a window to steal your TV to complex heists by teams of international jewel thieves.

          1. James says:

            Only for them to find me sat in the living room in my pants eating some pizza.

    2. djw says:

      A billion dollars can be split a lot of ways and still be more money than you will ever know what to do with.

  3. Gabriel says:

    Fun bit of info related to the Oculus/PSVR pricing- based on googling up the launch price of the 3d glasses for the Sega Master System in the UK, converting forward to 2015 GBP, then to US dollars (so who knows if this is even close)- that 3d peripheral launched at about the equivalent of $200. Not sure how popular that was, though, and it was just 3D (although you could pair it up with the light gun for something like Missile Defense 3D.)

    Popular Mechanics August 1987 article talking about 3D tech:
    https://books.google.com/books?id=AuQDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA88&ots=9O_JXxCKe4&pg=PA66#v=onepage&q&f=false

  4. baseless_research says:

    this just in: mumbles hates sucking. Also I am five.

    Mumbles stream bloodborne

    1. Wide and Nerdy says:

      Has she played it? Bloodborne has the worst fans. Never do a blind play stream of that game. If you’re gonna, make sure you’ve already mastered the game.

      Although you get this with every game to an extent. There’s always someone pissed off that you aren’t awesome at the game, as if that’s the only reason to ever watch a stream or a let’s play.

      One of the things I enjoy about Spoiler Warning is that Josh’s playstyle trolls that type of “fan”

      1. baseless_research says:

        there is nothing interesting seeing a person play a game they’s already mastered – there’s just no tension or excitement.

        1. Wide And Nerdy â„¢ says:

          So there’s no winning either way. You have to play it blind and be good the first time and have dramatic overreactions to everything in the game.

          Also. Do you not watch Spoiler Warning? Most of the games they play, they’ve already played (or at least some of them have, there’s usually at least a couple of them who have played. Josh usually being one of them). And I think that helps make their show superior because they have interesting things to say about the game as they’re playing it.

          How many KOTOR lets plays would we have ever gotten if all Lets plays had to be blind? Or Morrowind? Or whatever.

          For that matter there are speed runners.

          I think there’s lots of room for skilled play. Viewers need to recognize that different Lets Players have different appeals. Humor, observation, skilled play, roleplaying, being a 79 year old grandmother (Anyone here watch Shirley Curry? You should.)

          1. stratigo says:

            I vastly prefer watching skilled play. Which for bloodborne does, in fact, mean practice. But if a person’s play or commentary style aren’t entertaining me… I just don’t watch. I don’t get why people bitch so much. I mean I skipped the FO3 season of spoiler warning after they nuked megaton XD.

        2. NotSteve says:

          It all depends on what you’re watching it for. I personally don’t watch Let’s Plays to see if they’ll manage to beat the game, I watch it to see someone who really knows the game explain it to me. So my personal preference would be more that there’s no point in watching someone play a game they *haven’t* mastered – they won’t be able to show you anything new if they don’t know what they’re doing.

          But that’s all a matter of taste.

          1. Grimwear says:

            I agree with this. I mean speed runs are some of the most ridiculous things you could ever see, usually involving amazing tricks that have taken years or even decades to discover. I even recall watching a speed run of a metroid game involving a maze (sorry not sure which though it was part of the metroid prime trilogy) where the runner had actually created an algorithm in order to immediately determine which randomly generated maze he had been given. While seeing people go into a game blind can be fun, it can also be painful, particularly with punishing games. I personally don’t enjoy watching people die to the same dark souls boss 50 times in a row and watching them get frustrated nonstop. I do however enjoy watching a pro race through the game and getting to, and beating said boss within the first 20 minutes of the game where in my first playthrough it took me 20 hours to get there.

          2. Nixitur says:

            You’ll love ChipCheezum and General Ironicus then. Chip only records games he’s really good at and him and Ironicus then do post-commentary over the footage. I especially recommend their Wonderful 101 playthrough and their Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance playthrough. In both, he manages perfect ranks on almost every fight and in the latter, Chip has some videos specifically for teaching intricacies of the combat system. And of course, all their playthroughs are 100%, so they show off stuff that most people will never have even seen. And yet, they still manage to be extremely entertaining.
            And if you’re one of those people who can’t stand others talking over the cutscenes, they also always have “cut commentary” versions of all their playthroughs specifically for that reason.

            I think it’s partially that they’re the best of both worlds. Chip knows the game really well and is extremely good at it while Ironicus has usually never played the game before, so you get the informative commentary and skill from Chip and the wide-eyed wonder and surprise from Ironicus.

            1. SyrusRayne says:

              For reference, they’ve managed to make Watch_Dogs moderately entertaining. That is how impressive they are.

    2. skulgun says:

      But sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something!

      1. Wide And Nerdy says:

        Some games get around that though. Shamus has described this. The Arkham series makes it easy for Batman to perform competently while rewarding you with flashy awesome performance the better you get at it. (And this design fits a Batman game extremely well. Batman shouldn’t suck, even when controlled by a noob).

        PVP is the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. Maybe not for you. I expect anybody who plays a lot of shooters can get through the suck period in a new PVP shooter relatively quickly. But for the rest of us, you’re going to be flailing helplessly while 12 year old boys spew squeakily voiced filth at you because being a 12 year old boy sucks and this is the only thing they’re good at.* You’re going to be killed every five seconds by invisible ninjas which isn’t enough time to learn a single damn thing.

        This isn’t fun. Ever. And like Shamus has described many times, I don’t get that satisfaction when I finally beat a tooth grindingly hard video game challenge. I get satisfaction from beating a challenged that pushed the skills I already have and maybe pushed them a little harder so I get a little better, but with regular victories interspersed.

        PVP is just not for everybody.

        *When I say ‘good at’ I mean in comparison to adults and I’m speaking in broad general terms here. And if you’re wondering how I know this when I say I don’t play, I’ve tried and I’ve watched. I can’t stand it for more than 5 minutes.

  5. Ilseroth says:

    Regarding streaming and interaction: It is more of a learned skill then anything else to be honest. Almost everyone when they start are honestly REALLY bad at it. As someone who streamed for around 3-4 years, it takes a bit to learn it proper.

    It’s not quite the same as the example you put forward, since the chat is written text, not sound. It’s all about setting a rhythm where you pause/slow what you’re doing take a quick glance and see if anything in the chat interests you.

    Granted I am writing this from the position of someone who would really like to see a Shamus stream, so I’ll run the pros and the cons.

    Cons:
    -It may be a bit of a harder learning curve since you already have fans. Most people learn to read one or two lines here or there when they only have a few viewers. Your fanbase is significant enough that you’ll prolly miss some text here and there.
    -Building the stream can be tough, while you have a fanbase here, the overlap isn’t 100% and to get a stream that actually draws a decent number of viewers requires a consistent and fairly large number of hours.
    -Assholes, as someone already in the public eye, you know they are out there, but as a twitch streamer people find it absolutely fantastic to spoil, backseat game, insult and otherwise be complete dicks. Playing certain games on stream is just a plain bad idea as people will do what they can to ruin the experience.

    Pros:
    -Content Creation is as simple as playing video games for a few hours. You play what you want and people who want that will find it. No editing needed.
    -Interaction with the audience can be great fun.
    -Since you have a set audience you can skip by the most boring part of streaming. The part where you have no viewers. (I started with 0 and streaming for 8 hours straight and getting not a single comment was disparaging)
    -You already have good audio tools: one of the major things preventing a lot of streamers from getting started is getting a high quality audio setup.
    -You already have a Patreon which means that it isn’t really about getting enough viewers to get Twitch’s attention, it is about generating content that people who aren’t currently Patreon supporters decide it’s worth it.

    Any case, I hope you decide to give it a shot, despite the cons, I think it would be fun.

    1. Nixitur says:

      Your last con is a pretty huge one, but one that can very easily be fixed by having competent mods which shouldn’t be hard, given that Shamus already has a following. There’s especially quite a few very regular commenters who Shamus probably knows to be at least somewhat decent people on the internet, so he could actually have plenty of mods.

    2. Nidokoenig says:

      I’m not really sure why streaming needs to be a big thing for drawing in the public, the most time I spend watching streams is small streams for a fairly cosy little board I’m on where the guys just stream when they’re gaming to make it a bit more sociable. Having a private channel or one that’s blocked from general searches(is that even a thing?) and only sharing the link on here and to Patreon backers would scale the problems down massively.

  6. Peter H. Coffin says:

    FWIW, $600 in 2006 is a little over $700 in 2015 money.

    1. Abnaxis says:

      Off the top of my head that doesn’t sound right, which probably means something is broken with the top of my head

      By my seat of the pants, 700/600≈1.17, which would mean compounded inflation is 17% from 2006 to 2015. I thought 3% per year is roughly what inflation has been pegged at for about forever, which should get you significantly more than 17% over nine years.

      1. Ninety-Three says:

        Wolfram Alpha knows all, and even presents it in a handy chart.

        TL;DR: $700 is rounded down and inflation halted for a couple years when the economy crashed.

      2. John says:

        I was just looking at the GDP deflators published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce). Those suggest that between 2006 and 2014–the last full year for which data is available–prices increased by about 15%. That means that $600 in 2006 would be worth more than $690 today and that $600 in 2014 would have been worth as much as about $522 in 2006. The implicit average annual rate of inflation is between 2006 and 2014 is about 2%. You get slightly different results if you use the Personal Consumption Expenditures deflator rather than the full GDP deflator, but the differences are no more than a few dollars and a few basis points. (A basis point is one-hundredth of a percent.)

        You could also calculate inflation using the Consumer Price Index, but there are various methodological problems with that approach that I’m not going to get into right now. Nevertheless, the GDP deflator and CPI are highly correlated, so I don’t think you’d get a drastically different result.

  7. baseless_research says:

    FYI, for u ‘mericans it might be 600 but for us Eurocommies you can merrily add another 20% VAT to that. Yeah, I’ll wait for a discount thanks

    1. John says:

      Don’t worry. We have state (and sometimes additional local) sales taxes. It used to be the case that you could generally avoid paying these by buying things over the internet but the states have gotten smarter and much more aggressive at collecting sales tax on internet purchases in the last few years.

      1. Mike S. says:

        Even the sales tax in my area (10.25%, unless I missed another increase, which is either the highest in the US or close to it) pales in comparison to European VATs (20% or more).

        1. John says:

          Yeah, it’s in the ballpark of 10% where I live. And of course the tax can vary depending on what you’re purchasing–thanks to sin taxes and such–which makes it hard to pin down to a single figure.

          20% VAT sounds deeply painful.

          1. ? says:

            VAT is included in the price so you don’t need to know the differences between products, whatever is written on a price-tag it’s what you pay at the register. Add to that most differences come from reduced rates on for example food, it isn’t that bad. I appreciate that shops are not actively lying to me about a price at least.

            1. Mike S. says:

              Food isn’t subject to sales tax in most US states. (Groceries, that is– restaurant food is generally taxed.)

              Is it better to have the tax rolled into the sticker price or for people to be directly confronted with how much extra they’re paying in tax is an open question? Empirically, the former appears to enable more than double the rate that the latter does (so far, and stipulating the practical differences between a VAT and a sales tax). Whether that’s a bug or a feature is probably the sort of political issue that doesn’t belong here.

              But more broadly, people mostly tend to be annoyed at running into whichever they’re not used to. Visiting Americans quail at European prices, visiting Europeans feel blindsided by the unexpected addition at checkout.

              1. Nidokoenig says:

                Food doesn’t have VAT here in Britain, outside of luxury items and restaurant food where value has been added beyond the basic necessities. It’s also got exemptions for things like books, children’s clothing and all sorts of stuff.

                As far as European prices go, that’s Western European prices with a general minimum wage of around $9, which is a far more clearly established cause for inflating prices, especially considering how Poland has a VAT rate of 23% and a minimum wage of about $3, with numerous exceptions, and much lower prices than America.

                1. Mike S. says:

                  Minimum wage in the US isn’t that different. While federal minimum is $7.25, it’s higher in most of the more populous states– in my state it’s $8.25, $10 in the nearest major city. (And there are a bunch of pushes for $15 in various stages around the country, though I haven’t been following them closely.)

                  Differences in consumer goods costs between western Europe and the US (in whichever direction they run) probably don’t strongly hinge on that, especially since most people don’t earn the minimum wage. (3.9% of hourly paid workers in the US, for example.)

          2. stratigo says:

            Yeah but you make that up having functional nationalized healthcare and not “let’s let insurance company gouge people and neuter every attempt to improve it” we have in America.

            1. Shamus says:

              I don’t care to referee the fight this will cause.

              Topic closed.

    2. sheer_falacy says:

      We have an 8ish percent sales tax so it’s closer than that. Unless you’re in a state that desn’t have that because we value confusion.

  8. Wide And Nerdy â„¢ says:

    “I wanna be a princess.”
    -Campster, January 2016.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Add that to the ever growing list of Campster out of context quotes.

  9. baseless_research says:

    One thing that bugs me is how you guys have said multiple times how 2014 was a shit year for video games, and I don’t agree. There were plenty of good games that came out that year.

    Just to save Shamus’ site layout I made a screencap of the list of games that I know people liked:

    http://i.imgur.com/4PVtqEe.png

    my source of games was the Wikipedia and my criterion is the entirely objective “have I played it and/or have I heard people say good things about it “(Trademark pending). I kept ports and remakes out of the list (hence no guacamelee gold edition etc…).

    Note: I made a small error in that Massive Chalice was released in 2015, 2014 was for early access shenanigans.

    1. Shamus says:

      “the list of games that I know people liked”

      I suppose if my end-of-year appraisal had anything to do with other people then that would mean something. Obviously my thoughts can only reflect the games I play and what I thought of them. I have zero interest in “entirely objective” reviews.

      I can’t imagine why this would bug you, though.

      1. baseless_research says:

        my point is mostly that 2014 wasn’t nearly as dire as Campster & Josh seem to think, is all.

        1. Chris says:

          This is part of the reason I’m loathe to do “year in review” type stuff. Inevitably in any given year someone is making awesome stuff, and to say “this year sucked and was awful” buries what few hidden gems we may have seen in a pool of junk.

          That said, the whole point of year-in-review style commentaries is to highlight a sense of the cultural zeitgeist at the time; an attempt to look back and judge how things were going in wider contexts. And some years you have really good years – for example, 2007 was amazing. That year we got Bioshock, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Crysis, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, and Uncharted. It was a year that set the course of games for probably the next five years, and we’re still feeling the aftershocks of some of those games. And 1998 was pretty close to outright legendary: Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Rainbow Six, Unreal, StarCraft, Thief, Baldur’s Gate, Starsiege: Tribes, Half-Life, Rogue Squadron, Grim Fandango, Grand Turismo, SiN… and that’s not counting some stellar sequels like Fallout 2, Resident Evil 2, or F-Zero X. That’s a year full of seminal works; things that really pushed the medium of games forwards. We’re not likely to see another year that influential to games in our lives.

          And in comparison to that? Yeah, 2014 was pretty quiet. That doesn’t mean that everything that came out between January 1st, 2014 and January 1st, 2015 is butts. Bayonetta 2 is pretty beloved. I’m a big fan of Escape Goat 2 and Alien Isolation. P.T. was cool. I’m still playing Destiny on and off. Wolfenstein was an enjoyable if fluffy callback to the Half-Life 2 era of shooters. And there’s a million other titles I haven’t mentioned that are worth a look. I don’t mean to write the entire year off in a sarcastic, dismissive huff.

          But from a critical/cultural perspective there simply wasn’t much doing worth jumping up and down in celebration of. Games were buggy and broken, with Assassin’s Creed Unity, Thief, Destiny, and Halo: MCE all arriving half-finished or with major chunks missing. The community was busy tearing itself apart. There was a dearth of new properties of all kinds. Artful indie games were backgrounded in favor of wackypants YouTube-friendly but shallow titles like I Am Bread and Goat Simulator – and this was just after a year of Stanley Parable, Gone Home, and Papers, Please showed how powerfully amazing indie games could be. Meanwhile big budget games were never more afraid to do anything that wasn’t a (super safe!) sequel – and that was just after we had bold games like Grand Theft Auto V and The Last of Us in 2013. There didn’t seem to be a single title that year that would stand the test of time; that would prove super influential going forward. More than ever there was a sense that the future of games was unknown or unknowable; that old institutions and development methods were failing and nothing was stepping up to replace them as things on the ground continued to get uglier.

          2015 improved on that, if only by getting rid of the drama, releasing games that more or less worked (ignoring Arkham Asylum and Tony Hawk), and having a few games that really feel like they might be the spark of something new. Undertale, The Witcher 3, Her Story, and Splatoon all seem to be doing some new, exciting, seemingly impossible things. Fallout 4 gave us all a game to unify a round in a way we simply didn’t have in 2014 (seriously, go back to those old Diecasts from around that time – rarely did we have a game in common to discuss). There was a good mix of solid AAA material, quirky weirdness, and serious artsy games. It wasn’t a banner year – it was no 2007 or 1998 – but it was a solid year that had a sense of reprieve from 2014. At the end of 2014 I think there was a lot of frustration and confusion; at the end of 2015 there’s more of a sense that things are gonna be okay. We’re all playing Fallout 4, everyone got a game or two this year they can love regardless of their interests, and Star Wars is back. Things is looking up.

          1. Merlin says:

            At the risk of being the stereotypical naysaying commentor, I would easily take The Banner Saga & Transistor over that 2007 package you’re calling amazing. I’d argue that only Portal holds up of the bunch, unless you can dig TF2 out from under the inane crap it’s been buried under over the years. There are a couple 2007 Wii games that might tip the scales, but even then I wouldn’t call it a lock.

    2. Wide And Nerdy â„¢ says:

      Fez was 2012
      Plague Inc Evolved is kind of a Port. A port with new features.

      1. baseless_research says:

        whoops, my mistake. The list was annoyingly mixed of new releases & ports hence the mistake.

        1. Wide And Nerdy says:

          Well to be fair, I was half expecting someone to challenge me on Plague Inc Evolved. Some have described it as rebuilt from the ground up for its move from mobile to console and PC. You really could almost count it for your purposes. It was interesting that they put that much effort into the transition.

          And your list did leave off Dragon Age Inquisition which was certainly well received at the time if quickly forgotten by most.

  10. Groboclown says:

    Mumbles would go to Japan to see Sumo? I didn’t imagine that she would like that. Is she just wanting to see the great Hakuho before he retires? Or is she into Endo or Oosuneraashi or one of the other more eclectic ones?

    1. AdamS says:

      See, I somehow heard Mumbles say she wanted to do Sumo wrestling, and while that was an amusing mental image, I was deeply concerned.

  11. Joe Informatico says:

    Ubisoft puts the Assassin’s Creed franchise on hiatus the year the AC movie finally comes out? They can’t even do synergy right!

    1. ? says:

      If they don’t have a game that ties into the movie there might be nothing to synergise with. Especially if the movie ditches most (if not all) animus cruft and focuses on hooded Michael Fassbender doing parkour during crusades. And maybe, shockingly, some assassination.

      Also shouldn’t it be “They can’t even synchronize right!”? ;P

  12. Mersadeon says:

    I gotta say, I think lotteries will take a significant hit with the next generation. Slot machines have grasped this, they’re trying to look more and more like videogames because they realize that people now have very easy access to exciting “gambling-esque” experiences. Lotteries, however, don’t have much room to become more “gamey” – it’s always going to be buying a ticket and picking random numbers.

    While I don’t mock lottery-players (although I do advise them that they should play out of fun and not have any hopes of winning), I feel zero thrill from it. It’s just not my kind of gamble.

    1. John says:

      What’s interesting is that slot-machines are also becoming more lottery-like. Thanks to the Internet, there are now pooled-jackpot slots. For these machines, the value of the jackpot depends not only on what people have put in to the machine you’re playing on but what people have put in to an entire group of networked machines. And that network may span multiple casinos, though I suspect that in most such cases those casinos are probably all run by the same company.

    2. djw says:

      The lottery is simple, and the enormous jackpots are truly life transforming. Regardless of the video game thrills offered by slots, you will still not be able to retire after a single lucky pull.

      The expected value of a lottery ticket is still less than the cost, so even with this enormous jackpot it is still on average a losing proposition. That is true of slots too.

      So, if your goal with gambling is entertainment slots may be a better bet. I’d argue that blackjack or poker would be more fun, but that’s just me (blackjack is still a money loser, but there is enough skill in poker than you might be able to part some rube from his money if you are good enough).

      In any case, I’m not really all that fond of gambling. I did buy 10 lottery tickets on Saturday and I plan to do so again on Wednesday because it is very simple, I can afford the loss of $20 very easily, and the jackpot would allow me to do things that I have absolutely no means of doing otherwise, like pick some topic that I would like to see researched, and then offer funding to people to research it. Billionaires can do that.

  13. Christopher says:

    – I had no idea they put Big Band’s theme in Amplitude. That’s cool!

    – That Deadpool mod sounds like a nightmare

    – I wonder if there’s a video out there where someone has installed it on the computer of a person that can’t stand Deadpool. I hope so.

  14. Lachlan the Mad says:

    I’m going to go off-topic here and be a bit boring, but is there going to be a 3rd Spoiler Warning this week? Usually there’s 3 episodes between every Diecast. And I want to hear more of your D&D 2e adventures.

    1. Ninety-Three says:

      I doubt we’re getting more D&D, that was just to fill out the incredibly dull underwater sections.

      Maybe when we get to the Starforge.

  15. 4th Dimension says:

    If people keep expecting for VR to work out of the box for your traditional FPS and TPS shooters they are going to be sorely dissapointed, since while we can put your head in another world, we still can not effectivly allow you to control the rest of your body.

    No what interests me the most, if I ever acquire VR, is using VR to play my simulators and other games that place you in a cockpit of something. Basically games where your body is still in game while you are moving. And even with their high def screens they still might be too low res to properly be able to read instruments in the cockpit of an actual airplane.

    What I’m even more excited potentially about, and I think is often overlooked because we are thinking only of games when we think of VR, is using VR or “enhanced” reality when doing CAD or modeling. Those Microsoft “hologram” glasses coupled with some sort of 3d pointer (those controllers being designed for Occulus sound similar) could ease and simplify 3d modeling because the model will actually be in front of you in 3d and you will be able to intuitively observe it and change it.

    I have heard of using it for entertainment. For example instead of buying a big plasma TV you can don VR and watch the movie in a VR where you are in cinema on BIG screen. Or basically telepresence on sporting events. Like Mumbles could I guess don VR and be present in the front row of the Wreslin match.

    Unfortunately if I’m right VR will never, well not in foreseeable future, be able to properly work with mainstream games where you directly control an individual (TPS, FPS, RPG) which is like 90%+ of games out there. Most of the games could have a VR regime which would not be the recommended way to play.

    1. John says:

      I’ve heard that Elite is supposed to be pretty keen with an Oculus.

      1. 4th Dimension says:

        It’s great because it’s basically space flight ‘sim’ that uses the cockpit view. Thus perfect for VR.

    2. AileTheAlien says:

      Some games just don’t benefit from new tech all that much. Platformers, RTSs, and SHMUPs for example, don’t benefit from touch screens, motion controls, or VR. However, lots of things get enhanced, or even made possible by new tech. Flight sims, mech games, and horror games, are all going to be a metric shit-tonne better, with the addition of VR. :)

      1. 4th Dimension says:

        Quote: horror games, are all going to be a metric shit-tonne better

        Literary a shit ton better ;)

  16. Ledel says:

    So, in defense of Assassin’s Creed games in 2015. I’m currently in the middle of Syndicate and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit. I guess it was just overshadowed by the horrible broken-ness of Unity earlier in the year. Granted, I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m 90% of the way through the story.

    I’m having much more fun with it than both AC 3 and 4. The characters feel mostly real, the combat is actually challenging even at higher levels, and it gives you actual reasons why the targets are being assassinated. The grappling hook gives you a nice amount of mobility and drastically cuts down on the amount of time you spend climbing up with only a wall in your face to fill the screen.

  17. Muspel says:

    Wait, how did Chris/Campster get Alias on Marvel Unlimited? It’s not on there for me.

    1. Chris says:

      Technically I picked up Alias from Comixology. The Pulse is still on Marvel Unlimited, though, as is a lot of the New Avengers and Secret War where Jessica and Luke are recurring cast members. Also Civil War but *pfffffbt* Civil War.

      1. MichaelGC says:

        Do they still have that rilly useful feature where if you forget your password they’ll email it to you in plaintext?

      2. Mike S. says:

        Finally got to see The Pulse after this heads-up. But after enjoying the Alias series quite a bit, I’m finding The Pulse to be everything wrong with event-driven superhero comics. It seems as if half the issues are peripheral to whatever the big crossover was at the time, and as a result it’s not really cohering as a story. And Jessica never seems to do anything, or even to get much to say.

  18. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I must say that Im somewhat baffled* with all the rage about the price of oculus.I mean dont you people remember when flat screens first appeared and were 3-5 times more expensive than the old heavy ones?New tech will always be expensive in the beginning.

    Heck,if you want a more recent example,just take a gander at how much more first SSDs were expensive(and crappy)compared to now.

    *But not that baffled.Because internet is full of entitled brats.

    1. JackTheStripper says:

      The difference is that they’re expensive for the market and their intended use. And that heavily hinders adoption.

      In the case of SSDs, according to wikipedia “Solid-state drive technology has been marketed to the military and niche industrial markets since the mid-1990s.” and only now, 20 years later do we actually see affordable SSDs in the common consumer space.

      Now, keep in mind that the Oculus Rift is starting out in the common consumer space, but with the price tag of specialized industrial equipment, with no subsidies or discounts (a la iPhone with At&t subscription) to soften the blow, and no huge conglomerate behind the product to ensure longevity even if the product doesn’t start out well (a la Sony behind the PS3).

      That’s why the price tag is a big problem. And if you add in the competition with other deep-pocket corporations (Sony, Samsung, etc.), the future looks bleak for the Oculus with this price tag.

  19. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Wait,let me see if I understood what Chris was saying:

    Antman is a dick because he flipped out when he found out that his girlfriend was pregnant with someone elses child?

    Ok,Ive researched it a bit.So she was pregnant before the two started dating.Which means that they were dating for less than three months.And he just walks away,he doesnt do anything violent.Also,this happens after the villain was defeated.How is he a dick for that?

    1. Nidokoenig says:

      Yeah, New information, especially something that big, is a perfectly reasonable cause to rethink the whole thing, not even touching on the fun political topics. Being essentially the father of another man’s child is a pretty big ask, getting distance and time to think it over at minimum is sensible, and enough people simply aren’t emotionally up to it that I can’t blame a guy for just bailing, especially considering movie compression that makes decisions a lot snappier than they would be in real life.

      1. Nidokoenig says:

        *comic compression

        That’s what I get for commenting before I listen.

    2. djw says:

      I’d walk out under the same circumstances, so if Antman is a dick, so am I.

  20. 4th Dimension says:

    The first time I listened to the introduction I did not notice Chris was present and for a moment thought this was going to be Mumbles/Josh Diecast and was so excited. With no “adults” to monitor them it would turn into a cooking wrestling 3 hour cast of ridiculing the rest of the casters.;)

    1. Nidokoenig says:

      “So I German suplexed the piping under my sink…”

      1. 4th Dimension says:

        And then Shamus finally comes online (around second hour) and says:

        “So guys what are you doing. . . Wait are you STILL recording Diecast?!”

        “Err we got a bit carried away answering twitter questions. You don’t mind we said your favorite game is Dragon Age 2: Deep Roads section.”

  21. JackTheStripper says:

    I’d like to thank Campster for that Jeff Dunham comment. I’ve been saying the same thing for years.

    Oh, and about Josh saying what the $599 price tag remind you of, I’ll just say: RIIIIIIIDGE RAAACEER.

  22. I really enjoyed having Mumbles host DieCast this week and I’d love to see her host again.

  23. Joe Leigh says:

    Ok, Campster is seriously misrepresenting Lego Dimensions here vs Skylanders. In both cases, you can play through the entire main story using only the three characters that come in the box, and most of the side content requires purchasing extra characters. The only difference is that in Dimensions you can rent a character for in-game currency. This is a big difference from other lego games where the 100+ characters were all unlocked through gameplay (vs now a couple dozen which are unlocked by buying toys), but it’s identical to the other toys-to-life games.

  24. Neil D says:

    If that Oculus Rift hand-control gizmo can sense the actual movement of your arm/hand in 3-D space, then I have the game scenario that it is just crying out for — Spider-Man.

    Not fighting, but just imagine using the hand controller to shoot webs and swing through New York City. The two-fisted single-strand swing, the Y-arm double-strander, or shoot-and-yank to pull yourself quickly in a particular direction… swing up to the top of an arc, into a backflip, let yourself plummet thirty stories before thwipping a light post and soaring back into the air… I would play that all day long.

    They’d probably have to sell it with barf bags included, though.

  25. The Nick says:

    I like how Pee Pants’ says the scariest part of Half Life (a game about alien xenobiology, shooter combat, dangerous creatures, and an invading interplanetary life-altering force) is ‘climbing ladders’.

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