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?)
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2013.
Who is this imbecile and why is he wandering around Europe unsupervised?
This mess of dross, confusion, and terrible UI design is the storefront the big publishers couldn't beat? Amazing.
This Korean title would be the greatest MMO ever made if not for the horrendous monetization system. And the embarrassing translation. And the terrible progression. And the developer's general apathy towards its western audience.
Back in 1999, I rode the dot-com bubble. Got rich. Worked hard. Went crazy. Turned poor. It was fun.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2014.
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
As someone who loves Tolkein lore and despises silly MMO quests, this game left me deeply conflicted.
Let's do some scripting to make the Starcraft AI fight itself, and see how smart it is. Or isn't.
T w e n t y S i d e d
