T w e n t y S i d e d
My two great tragedies: Steam working, and not being able to grow a mustache.
Steam: Illustrated
Part 1
I click “Play Garry’s Mod”:
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Actually Valve, that wasn’t a request. It was an order. Run the software I bought from you. I’m busy too. I’m trying to make a comic, and I didn’t ask you to get involved.
Sigh. Fine…
Part 2
I click “Restart in Offline Mode”:
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Yes, yes. Just piss off and get out of my way already.
Part 3
I click “Play Garry’s Mod”:
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– Fin
I record this here because every single time we have a Steam debate we get fanboys who wave in the direction of offline mode every time someone has a problem with the platform.
As always: Use Steam or do not. I do not evangelize either position. Like everything else, it is a decision with many complex tradeoffs. I only urge people to be aware of what they’re buying into when they do it. I would like to also urge Valve to get their collective act together.
There is a very real possibility that we will get no comic tomorrow, the first miss in 210 strips. This is not entirely Valve’s fault, mind you. Lots of other factors contributed to this hellish span of 24 hours that everyone else is calling “Monday”. But Steam failed when I needed it and added to the already considerable misfortunes of the day.
EDIT: The “please try again in a few minutes” starts to sound really hollow after two freakin’ hours.
Monster Chess
At first I mistook this for a table scene. There weren’t any easily identifiable objects in the foreground to give a sense of scale. But it’s big:
Link (YouTube) |
I am constantly impressed at how much effort nerds put into finding really, really inconvenient ways to play chess.
Blizzard’s Unreal Real ID
Note, this week’s column was written last night, before Blizzard changed its mind (partly) about Real ID.
Clearly they saw me coming and retreated. I’m fearsome that way.
Stolen Pixels #210: The Business Plan
Here is another dig at the plot of Resident Evil 5.
Read the comic then come back. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Stolen Pixels #210: The Business Plan”
Spoiler Warning 2×20: Anger Management
If you’re playing the Spoiler Warning drinking game, then you might want to go ahead and put yourself on the waiting list for liver transplant before you hit play.
Hello, person from the future. This space used to have an embed from the video hosting site Viddler. The video is gone now. If you want to find out why and laugh at Viddler in the process, you can read the entire silly story for yourself. At any rate, the video is gone. Sorry. On the upside, we're gradually re-posting these old videos to YouTube. Check the Spoiler Warning page to see the full index. |
I’d intended to point this out during the episode, but of course the conversation got all confused like it always does and I forgot:
What about the slave collars when you free the kids? The game goes out of its way to show that your slave collar will detonate if you run. Fine, fine. But then the game forgets all about this and everyone just runs off with no problem. What’s the deal with these collars? Are they proximity based? Or are they detonated manually by one of the slave owners?
There are fences and armed guards to keep the slaves in check, so the story doesn’t need the collars to justify their imprisonment. It’s just another element of the world that’s established, forgotten about, and then contradicted, leaving nagging questions or plot holes.
Also, as Josh mentioned, we are now recording in W I D E S C R E E N! What he doesn’t mention because we didn’t know it until now, is that Viddler is crap and doesn’t recognize the widescreen-ness of the video. It insists on mooshing it down to some other aspect ratio, and no degree of fussing with the embedded player size can correct this. Boo.
Shamus Plays LOTRO: The Final Chapter
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All good things must come to and end. The same goes for stupid things.
A bit about the story after the jump… Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Shamus Plays LOTRO: The Final Chapter”
From The Archives:
Quakecon Keynote 2013 Annotated
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
Artless in Alderaan
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
Philosophy of Moderation
The comments on most sites are a sewer of hate, because we're moderating with the wrong goals in mind.
Charging More for a Worse Product
No, game prices don't "need" to go up. That's not how supply and demand works. Instead, the publishers need to be smarter about where they spend their money.
Diablo III Retrospective
We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.
TitleWhat’s Inside Skinner’s Box?
What is a skinner box, how does it interact with neurotransmitters, and what does it have to do with shooting people in the face for rare loot?
Object-Disoriented Programming
C++ is a wonderful language for making horrible code.
Spider-Man
A game I love. It has a solid main story and a couple of really obnoxious, cringy, incoherent side-plots in it. What happened here?
Control
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.
Bowlercoaster
Two minutes of fun at the expense of a badly-run theme park.