Mike “Gabe” Krahulik and Jerry “Tycho” Holkins stopped in at Google and talked about how their road to triumphant success and heroism led through the valley of screwups, into the swamp of bad business decisions, and over the desert of being broke and not being able to pay the rent.
Hey! I’m on that same trajectory! I can’t wait until I get to “triumphant success” bit. That sounds like a lot of fun.
Link (YouTube) |
An amazing story.
I have to admit I’m suffering from a little DRM Discussion Fatigue. For the past few weeks I’ve said to myself, “That’s it, let’s talk about something else now.” And then I end up authoring another one of these things. Another chance to put a few more whip-marks on the festering horse carcass that is the piracy debate.
It’s not that this stuff isn’t important, it’s just that I’m saddened that it can’t go anywhere. Pirates won’t stop doing their thing. Publishers won’t stop escalating their DRM efforts. People like me aren’t going to just shrug our shoulders and stop caring about the rights and privacy concerns that have made us so cantankerous these last few years. While we continue to exchange information and in some cases we even come dangerously close to understanding one another, we never approach anything that might be called an agreement.
Next week I will do my utmost to talk about something else. Hopefully something frivolous.
When Boromir got turned into an Orcish pincushion, the rest of the party didn’t really have time to give him a proper burial. In their haste, the best they could do was put him gently into a boat, arrange the weapons of his foes around him, and send him downriver while Legolas and Aragon sang him about four pages worth of poetic tribute.
That’s what a half-assed funeral looks like in Middle-Earth.
Boromir was lucky they didn’t have time to give him a “proper” funeral.
To be fair, I wrote today’s strip before you people beat the joke to death in the comments. But yeah. You’ve probably made the joke yourself by this point.
(The title is intended to be a notification, not an invitation. Just so you know.)
Thanks to Krellen, Neothoron, and Dr_Zanzabar for adding commentary to the previous installments. I always look forward to seeing the white dots appear and reading what everyone has to say. This is odd, I know. We get lots of feedback here on the site in the form of comments. But seeing them attached to a timestamp gives them a context that makes them feel more like collaboration than a response.
I did find this part of the game to be kind of frustrating. After having everyone make such a big deal out of how important and powerful a Spectre is, it felt pretty stupid to wander around a hotel, being jerked around by the staff and getting involved in their petty infighting. Can you imagine Saren putting up with this crap?
To answer the dozen or so people who have asked if I was going to PAX East:
I waited too long and planned too little and didn’t save enough and it’s just not going to happen for me this year. Alas. I was looking forward to meeting a lot of people. Some are professional contacts and some are just fellow game enthusiasts. In both cases, I’m sorry I’ll won’t get to meet you this year.
But!
Next year. Next year there will be planning ahead. In fact, the planning has begun now. Looks like most of my gaming group will be going.
Observations:
1) We live about eleven hours away, which is an annoying distance. If we were just a couple of hours closer or a couple of hours further away then deciding how to travel would be easy. At eleven hours, it’s kind of too close to justify the expense of flying, and yet too far to drive. Flying means an hour and a half drive to the airport, two hours at the airport, about an hour in their air, a half hour to escape the place with our belongings, and another hour to secure transport and reach the hotel. So, about six hours. If we drive we’ll save hundreds of dollars and we’ll have our vehicle available when we get there. On the other hand, it would be really difficult to leave early enough to avoid missing the opening ceremonies.
2) If we were just a couple of hours away it might make sense to do just one day, but at this distance it’s an all-or-nothing deal. (Which is why this year we’re doing nothing.)
3) The door price is preposterously low. $50 for all three days. You’ll spend more than that on food in that time. It’s a fraction of what you’ll spend on travel, and almost nothing compared to what you’ll spend on accommodations.
Just curious: How many people here are going? (Or made it to PAX West last year?)
Here are four games that could have been much better with just a little more work.
A video Let's Play series I collaborated on from 2009 to 2017.
This series explores the troubled history of VR and the strange lawsuit between Zenimax publishing and Facebook.
The comments on most sites are a sewer of hate, because we're moderating with the wrong goals in mind.
His problem isn't that he's dumb, the problem is that he bends the world he inhabits.
What is this Vulkan stuff? A graphics engine? A game engine? A new flavor of breakfast cereal? And how is it supposed to make PC games better?
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.
Just how big IS No Man's Sky? What if you made a map of all of its landmass? How big would it be?
What did web browsers look like 20 years ago, and what kind of crazy features did they have?
A wild game filled with wild ideas that features fun puzzles and mind-blowing environments. It has a great atmosphere, and one REALLY annoying flaw with its gameplay.
T w e n t y S i d e d
