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305 responses to “Talk Amongst Yourselves”
What’s the cheapest anyone has seen Civ VI at? ozgameshop is out of stock, steam is at 69USD (DIAF, 2k), local EB only had a special edition (at $120), JB has it for $79 – that looks like the likely choice come Thursday night shopping.
Greenmangaming was best for me. I got deluxe for US$60 and they have standard for US$47.99 right now.
https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/sid-meiers-civilization-vi/
I bought it from GMG yesterday. With currency conversion it came out slightly cheaper than ozgameshop I think. Came out at $48 USD
I grabbed it from GMG also. Even living in the USA, they’re my go-to for new releases for PC, because they usually have a 20% discount and also aren’t in Washington state so no sales tax.
Only awake because I stayed up all night to complete a Uni assignment. Now that it’s done, I don’t know whether to go to sleep or celebrate with some games.
High five!
Fired Crusader Kings 2 up on the weekend, started as an independent Chief up in Sweden in the Viking age. Very quickly got vassalised by a nearby Chief, who has gone on to conquer most of Sweden. Meanwhile, I’ve been practising Eugenics, and my current character’s grandson is Strong and Attractive. Just have to find a Genius or two to breed into the family.
That game always sounds so fascinating, but then I see the price of it and all the dlc(on sale, no less) and decide maybe I don’t want it.
Just buy vanilla, the expansions are cool, but none of them are essential. Paradox has patched the game so heavily that what you get in the base game now is equivalent to what you would pay an extra $30-50 for in an expansion pack.
Yeah, but if I like the game enough, I know I’ll end up buying it all, and even on sale that’s more money than I want to spend haha.
See how I go next sale.
Gets to $10 during steam sales. Do it then.
Totally worth it at 3x the price.
Yessssssssss
Eugenics and Fratricide Simulator FTW!
I had two brother and a sister-in-law try and have my (strong son and) heir assassinated, locked them away in the dungeon. Then I sacrificed them to Odin during the Great Blot for +prestige and +piety, totally worth conceding Kinslayer.
Oh Civ VI you are everything I wanted the game to be as a new iteration, and more. I’m still only on my first playthrough even though I’ve learnt shedloads and am kind of laughing at my early mistakes. Still seeing it through to the end though, even if it’s just to watch Monetzuma’s empire crumble before me. That’ll teach you to backstab me in the classical era you……
How are you finding builders? I know they’re limited use, but for those of us who have always just automated our workers, is it going to be more micro?
I hated automating builders anyway so I find the new ones way better.
They’ve changed the way builders work entirely. They are now a 3 use (or 5 use with serfdom as a policy) unit which disappears after the last build action is performed. Instead of improvements taking a set time they are completed immediately.
Roads however are now completely separate from the builders jobs. They are performed by trade routes being run between 2 cities. This is also a great way to help boost young cities by having a trade route bring food to the smaller city from one of your larger ones. As the trade route progresses, it builds roads between the starting and finishing points to connect your empire together! Quite a cool concept imo and it helps emphasise the importance of trade routes not just to earn more gold, but to foster the growth of expansions and also connect your empire and neighbours together.
My biggest problem is that in the course of however little time I’ve been playing the game, I’ve become completely reliant on trade routes. A barbarian scout waltzed up to my trade route and killed my trader, and suddenly my second city was liable to shrink in four turns. :/
I’m a big fan of leaving almost all of my civs systems teetering on the abyss, because I am smart.
Barbarians are something you definitely need to be active in managing early on. You just cannot allow them to stomp around or you will get badly affected. I found this out as well, I had to wait until I could expand because there were Barbarians on my doorstep for a LONG time!!
I was in the renaissance by the time that happened. They just waltzed up, ignored all my troops and everything else, and just destroyed my trade route. :/
But yeah, Barbarians are rough early game.
… Or late game, when they show up in Helicopters…
I think it will take some getting used to, but I feel you really have to build relatively wide to get the best our of your empire. That might just be a thing that’s happened in my game as I was the only dominant military power on my continent after I sorted out the Aztecs. Still too early to tell really!
I’ve only dabbled in Civ recently – the last one I got way into was Civ II – but I picked it up and I really, really don’t like it. They doubled-down on the parts of 5 that I disliked the most (City-States especially, fuck that shit right off) and the AI is terrible especially at diplomacy. The fact that the defense level of cities is relative to their Civ’s tech level is also pretty bullshit – I had one primitive civ that was still in like the Renaissance era when I was in the Atomic age steal a modern civics tech from me and suddenly despite the fact he’s throwing knights and stuff at me, his cities are so resistant I couldn’t take them even with armies of modern armor, and had to start hitting them with bombers and missile cruisers to knock them down to the point I actually could beat them with my ground forces. That seems bullshit to me. Also why was I still having fucking Barbarians on horseback assaulting my cities and burning all my developments (which require burning a builder that takes 4-5 turns to make to replace, since there’s no repair option and you have to delete it and then re-make it) even when it’s like 2000 AD and I’m a fucking Nuclear power? Why don’t my dudes set to fortify an area wake up and notify me when a hostile unit comes close? How can fucking horselords still be popping up in areas I “don’t have line of sight to” when I’ve revealed the whole map with a satellite? Let alone afford enough military units to police all my borders and also persecute a nuclear apocalypse on my enemies (who all fucking hate me forever because I declared surprise war on China at the start of the game because they built a city in a daft place right between my two and ruined everything). I was playing as Ghandi so nuking everyone was the plan, but I went from friendly with everyone except the Greeks (who hated me because I sent envoys to a City-State they also sent envoys to – I had no way of knowing which one mind you!) to being a hated warmonger for the entire game because I went to war once. It’s just broken.
It also has a bunch of basic UI issues, like moving the camera around and not focusing in on cases where you’re being attacked by Barbarians and stuff. Simple issues with targeting or clicking on stuff too (three, sometimes four clicks to have a city shoot at something). Stuff being marked waiting for orders when it wasn’t, or not being marked when it was. All sorts of bugs.
I think it’ll be a great Civ in about three years or so when Civ 7 is on the horizon and they’ve patched it and expanded it to put the content into it that is clearly incomplete or just missing.
You can actually repair stuff with a builder or the city can repair districts as a production job.
If you don’t like city states you can always turn them off when you at the game up. Just change the advanced setup to remove them.
Diplomacy is a mixed bag and after watching some footage of someone playing and discussing the game at length, Diplomacy is more nuanced that a lot of previous iterations of Civ. How you engage with other civs will influence greatly how they treat you. The cassus belli war options for example are a neat feature to help reduce the warmongering penalties of other civs going at you.
It sounds like Civ really isn’t the game for you if your want to just romp around smacking people on the head constantly without fear of reprisal.
EDIT: Can’t disagree with some of the UI bugs though. The city bombardment one in particular is very frustrating.
I couldn’t see an option to repair, only to remove it and rebuild. Repairing districts is fine but it takes forever given that it’s a one-turn thing to destroy everything in the district.
The big issue I have with the diplomacy stuff is that the AI doesn’t have the same penalties. They go to war all over the place and it doesn’t affect them at all, but heaven forfend you decide to go to war because you’ll be denounced by them repeatedly and you will never recover your standing no matter what you do.
The repair option is not in the district building box, it’s a normal unit action on the right where the other unit options like move, sleep etc are. In fact it was one of my biggest gripes too, until I found the button.
Don’t get me wrong about diplomacy either, I’m finding it a really mixed bag at the moment too and wouldn’t be surprised if we see a patch to update/fix it pop up soon. I’m also thinking we’ll find more ways to appease neighbours the more you play. I’m also suffering from the “you’re a dick” vibe from other leaders myself but the warmonger tag is now only being held by the Aztecs who’s capital I’ve had since the classical era 😀 The other leaders have taken some bribing and also me being a culturally advanced race to get them on side ^_^
Learn from the first game or two and try different things in the next game. Alternately leave it for a while to see if some more patches tweak things. Waging war is definitely a tough one to manage at the moment though that’s for sure. It’s easy to start one and stomp people but whoever is left will hate you ?
I’m definitely not playing it again. Once was enough.
Awww that’s a shame mate. You do seem to play a lot of different games though, so totally understand that if it annoyed you on a first playthrough that you wouldn’t bother playing again.
Lost our first baseball game of the season on Saturday behind some shaky starting pitching and poor fielding. Mowed the lawns, cooked my batch meal for the week (chicken satay, wooooot), did church, my dad’s birthday celebration (which we had completely forgotten about) and then cobbled together steak and chips for dinner last night before finally sitting down with the Mrs for some WoWing. She’s getting quite into gearing her hunter now, learning the proper rotation and gearing using Pawn and Mr Robot.
What did everyone else get up to?
I haven’t played baseball since I was 14, probably the only sport I’ve been good enough at to play at any decent level. Didn’t really like the local team and gave it up, still kind of miss it though.
Yeah, I stopped playing around then as well and picked it up again a few years ago now. I’m lucky that my club has a great atmosphere and the division I play in is pretty laid back with a lot of the other dads and middle-agers at the club. I’d recommend hunting around for a club and sussing it out, there’s really no other game like it.
I’d have to do a whole lot of strength and conditioning work on my right shoulder if I wanted to play, especially if I wanted to pitch, again. Injured it one too many times to go back to that. What do you play? I was a bit of a utility as a kid, 2B or SS, or backup anything else – 2nd choice catcher or 1B, third choice pitcher and lead-off batter.
Play wherever the manager puts me really. I caught a bit last season and have played RF and 2B this season so far. Arm’s a bit too weak to play 3B and I haven’t pitched since I was in my early teens, although, after the weekend, I might have to remember how. 10 runs in the first 2 innings was not great. That’s what happens when your main pitcher is only available half the time.
Is batch meal a dinner thing or a lunch thing?
Lunches for work. We found it was cheaper than eating out everyday (critical when you’re single income and 4 mouths to feed), and tastier than vegemite and cheese sandwiches everyday too. I have a few meals that I rotate through, chicken satay and cajun hot pot are my favourites at the moment though.
It is a good plan. I am never that organised but we generally try to cook more than we eat each meal and just take that into work. I used to get 4 or of 5 days worth of lunches back in teh day but not my Tiglet steals a bunch of them for her lunch.
Although I do have a bolagnaise today so isn’t all bad
Yeah, the organisation and finding the time and space to cook an extra meal at night is difficult, especially when you’d rather be sitting down! It does help out heaps though. I think we worked out the the cost per meal of the satay was about $4.20, and it’s healthier than a bag of chips!
It makes such a difference. Can turn $50 a week per person into $40 a week for 2 very very quickly!
We do batch meals for dinners as we both work and getting home knackered it’s way better to turn on the rice cooker and heat through something from the freezer than cooking from scratch or worse, takeaway which would very rapidly kill any benefit of us both working! Yesterday was slow cooker curry. We make enough that there’s usually a few different thiings in the freezer – bolognaise, curry of a couple of types, chili con carne.
Lunches I have a small sandwich tub at work, yoghurts and fruit. Enough for the week. No more than one bought lunch a week, and that’s only if there’s a reason, like a colleague’s b’day or some such.
I wish I could do freezer stuff but I only have a small freezer. Would love to have a separate full sized freezer
Ours is a two-drawer section at the bottom of our fridge. It’s full of cat food and curry. Do Not Mix These Up.
*DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER*
It’s a good plan. I wish I could do more of this, but I’m limited by freezer space, so I just plan meals that are easy to cook extra.
Another make-ahead lunch I like is the “instant soup” (http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/diy-instant-noodle-cups-food-lab.html), but I make mine in those microwave soup cups that come with a clip on lid.
Tried out I Am Alive on the weekend. Really hard to get past the grainy/blurry graphics which I get are designed that way but I really found it annoying. Also did not like the way the combat is a puzzle. I thought it would be a survival/resource management game but really it’s “surprise attack this guy to get a bullet, use that one bullet to kill guy over there with gun, run and stab that guy before he picks up said gun and shoots you”. If that’s all it is then I feel like I got the gist after about half an hour and did not feel that time was well spent.
Also ragequit Puzzle Quest, because the computer blatantly cheats and I realised that despite having fond memories of the game once upon a time, there is no need to return to it.
Played a bunch of Spelunky. I’m still awful at it. I don’t really seem to do anything wrong, but sometimes I will run into some situation that just goes badly and suddenly I have no health or I fall into one of the instakill traps when I’ve managed to build up 8 health. So annoying. I must have started a new Spelunky game like 300 times and I’ve made it to the ice caves once. ONCE.
Combat as a puzzle is a good description. What really ended it for me was the pull a gun on a guy with a knife and he will back away. lower gun he approaches, raise gun backs away, repeat indefinitely
Hey Everyone. Pax meat cost confirmed at $30. Hooray.
So working on callie isn’t enough. I’m also helping Mum build new kitchen cabinets which are long overdue
Cool cool, pay on the night or do you want it paypalled?
Paypal Techie now, or pay me on the night, whatever is easier.
Happy to pay ahead of time. Pay Tech like last year?
PayPal techie, or pay me on the night
By The Power Of PayPal!!!
Done.
See you tomorrow! I’ll be able to find you lot a lot easier this year through knowing what many of you look like. 🙂
Well weekend was pretty uneventful
Discovered there are such things as solo board and card games which is great as have been interested but no one I know has any interest in such things.
Have ordered a copy of “Friday” which should arrive this week so looking forward to that arriving and playing it.
Also wanting to get “Robinson Crusoe” but having trouble locating it at a reasonable price or in stock.
Considering Scythe also as watched a solo play through online and looks interesting.
Then keen for mansions of madness too as looks interesting what with the use of an app alongside it.
Any other suggestions of great out of the box 1 player games or feedback on the ones I have mentioned would be super appreciated 🙂
I have Mansions of Madness and it’s a cool game, but I have no idea how a single-player version of it could possibly work.
The 2nd edition uses an app on iPad or steam etc that then allows solo play and the box for the 2nd edition has 1-5 players on it 🙂
Steam popped up with a notice, reminding me to buy all the DLC for Skyrim to get a free upgrade.
Dutifully – as the extreme capitalist I am – I followed it to the store page only to discover that I already own it all. I think I played maybe an hour’s worth after the vampire one dropped, and have not touched it since then.
I’d like to pretend that this means I could jump into Skyrim again, invigorated by the possibilities that the new hat version will offer me, but ugggghhhh, too many games.
Could…could there be new Bokeh blaghs? Bokeh?
From memory Fallout 4 on PC had Bokeh, but only on Nvidia cards, or something weird like that, so I’d assume a similar state of affairs for Skyrim.
“only on Nvidia cards”
And this is a problem?
Not for me, no, but I dream of a world where everyone can have a pristine Bokeh effects, even if they have made a bad choice.
From memory Fallout 4 on PC had Bokeh, but only on Nvidia cards, or something weird like that, so I’d assume a similar state of affairs for Skyrim.
I never played the Skyrim DLC, my wife did, I kept saying I’ll get back to it one day…
I guess I’ll just buy the remaster, because I’m a filthy whore.
Had an amazing weekend hosting a Splatoon LAN tournament at Nerd Cave in Sydney! We shared the venue with a Smash Bros tournament and got something like 100 people attend, 28 of whom played Splatoon. Everyone said they had a really great time and a lot of people asked me when the next one will be, which I am actually not sure about yet. I’m kinda in a daze about it, I had so much fun and we got Splatoon caps and stickers from Nintendo to give out to the attendees which I was so excited about!
I want a splatoon hat D=
Come to the next one 😉 There are people keen on getting something going in Melbourne!
I will! I could always use more splatoon buddies!
Sounds like a great weekend, glad it was successful
The Hobbit
Smaug. A giant winged horror that slumbers on a mountain of treasure…well maybe thats what it becomes. The problem is that mountain of gold must have limits. When the king of dwarves is promising a one fourteenth share it isnt something you can carry home in a couple of chests. Even if your hobbit can tote a fourty pound sack of potatoes those two chests amounting to four hundred gold pieces and four hundred silver pieces seem small. But what of the dragon and its Mountain of treasure?
Smaug carries the Protoindoeuropean phonetic ‘aug-‘ which we find in other words:
Augend: the quantity to which another quantity, the addend, is added.
Augment: to enlarge.
August: To inspire Awe.
Auger: a religious leader who fortells events by interpreting signs and omens.
Augite: A dark green to black precious stone containing aluminium, iron, and magnesium.
So our dragon and its mountain of treasure are always bigger in the retelling. Its odd that the name of a dragon found in a story written almost a century ago should be even remotely linkable to a language thousands of years old without having been looted from some previous story and storyteller. So is the story of The Dragon’s Hoard hidden in plain sight?
Gandalf, our Wizard looks to be the Auger in this company.
We have our Arkenstone in the Augite. Certainly Augite is a recent word and most is dark and dull but it comes from ‘Auge’, a greek word meaning brightness. Gemstone quality Augite is bright, its crystals prismatic, and transparent Gemstone quality Augite comes from a place near the Ken River in central India and is called Shajar. Its found in Basalts so it likely came from the heart of a Mountain. If shajar has a protoindoeuropean root then we will see it in a similar phonetic form of s*g or s*j:
Sag: to seek out.
Segh: To hold; through conquest or victory in battle.
So now we have a part of the plot where the Arkenstone is sought out and then must be held through battle.
The egh phonetic in this part of our plot gives us:
Eghero: Lake.
Eghs: Out.
So we even have a lake.
As to our Dragon Smaug? Smeug is a protoindoeuropean root meaning smoke and is a pretty close variant of Smaug so lets look at another phonetic variation on sm(aug): sm(eug).
Eugene: a name meaning well-born, noble.
A tale of seeking and holding through battle. A tale of a bright prismatic gem from the heart of a mountain, a dragon of smoke, a lake, a well-born Noble, and an Auger as an Advisor and spiritual Guide.
So the fragments of the Hobbit fall slowly into place…as a protoindoeuropean tale?
…I thought it was explicitly a protoindoeuropean fairy tale? Like, that’s explicitly what Tolkien was trying to do?
Not quite. He delved into old english and northern european lore and built a setting.
I came along and pulled a single thread from his tapestry, and found something older in a few phonetic fragments that exist exclusivly to function together to tell the tale. It might seem odd that a people would create words just to tell a specific story but that looks like what they did. Somehow this story is the plot of the Hobbit. Without the knowledge of the Author, that should be impossible. This hidden tale is the original form.
He was a professor of linguistics, I’m pretty sure he knew some of this 🙂
Not knocking your observation, it’s cool, but a lot of Tolkien’s stuff is very deliberate
Tolkein himself in his letters says that Smaug is derived from the germanic word ‘smugan’ which means ‘to squeeze through a hole’, and the Old English ‘smygel’ which means ‘to burrow’ (also the origin of Smeagol’s name).
Also you’re pronouncing the name wrong. The ‘au’ in Smaug is said the same as the ‘ou’ in House.
Bloodborne update:
Took down Djura. Old Yarnham is so much easier to navigate when it’s not raining bullets. Back in the snake pit, having fun times with the Shadow of Yarnham.Man, the Shadows was my first real brick wall!Mob management has never been my strong suit so it was a real test for me 😛
Good going good hunter! sounds like you’re making steady progress! dem snakes though! probably my favourite area to hate XD
I’m slowly moving through the game again with a new build… Nice to see some of the early areas again and remember the dread of the mobs… Went down Hemwick Charnel Lane yesterday and that area still gives me the creeps
Hemwick Charnel Lane was not fun to play with headphones on. I have a path open now so I can sprint past most of the snakes to get to the Shadow, but it’s a long run each time. The challenge for me is that I love the axe, but the Shadows are a bit too fast for me to get a big swing in. So I think this battle is the one where I learn how to parry!TAY 400, woo.
Happy 400, TAY!
Had a busy weekend up in the Hunter for my cousin’s engagement party. Annoying since that was time I could have spent costuming, but it was nice to see everyone again. Plenty of popcorn fodder too, had everyone giving me shit for chatting up one of the girls at the restaurant on Friday (technically she was the one who did, complimenting me on my beard), then one of the bride’s cousins on Saturday (she had intentionally sat me next to her “hot, single cousin” who was indeed very pretty and lovely to talk to, though I think I ended up chatting more with the uncle and aunt across from me) and then some girl on the dance floor at the pub that night (she had decided I must be having the worst time, as I enjoy my music internally rather than externally and was propping up the column while watching the band. Kept coming up to say stuff and even got a stroke of the beard in, but I was unable to peel myself away from the wall). This is why I hate both being the only single person in the family and doing anything in front of them ever 😛 Oh, there was a piano at the place too, so I got dragged up to bang on that a couple of times, including once with one of the uncles who had his violin there and had heard about my musicality, and wanted to jam. Though I don’t know how to do that, so just played some of my stuff and he played along. Struggled a bit with the more upbeat songs, but nailed it on the slower blues ones. Damn talented people. I’m too used to digital pianos though, and all the extra space they have above the keyboard. Kept bashing my fingers up against the lid.
So yeah. Ate way too much, didn’t sleep so well but had a pretty good time. Six months til the wedding, guess that’s how long I have to learn to get out of my head and dance 😛
Played some Gears of War 4 on the weekend, started Act V, and I think I’m done with the series after this one. I have fond memories of the first three, but I feel like my expectations must’ve changed.
Lucked out with enough people online to run Destiny’s hard mode raid on Friday… Bungie really nailed the difficulty balance on this one, I think. Vosik is easily the hardest part… but most of the differences were just a case of one more thing to keep track of. Overall, it took us about 2 hours – picked up the sidearm, the sniper, chest, gloves, hand cannon and pulse rifle. Not a fan of the pulse, but that hand cannon… my new go-to weapon. Archetype is same as Fatebringer, but with better handling… so good…
My Titan is now absurdly high light by dint of reaching Level 40 and decoding a LOT of blue engrams along the way – my self emposed rule was only glimmer, marks, materials and blues may be shared. Each blue I decrypted was bumping me 2-3 light as each one was a 5-6 improvement on the previous thing in the same slot, so many missions or crucible matches she’d go up 15-20 light. She went up really really fast, including a couple of very big jumps when finally getting a decent ghost/artifict. She’s up near 360 now. Once she hit 350 I figured she’s in the same area as the other two and I’ll let her share weapons now.
So, got lots of story left to do, and following each questline. No missions outside quests for now. When the raid quests appear, I will light the os42 signal.
Also, ELITE!!! 2.2 drops tomorrow. Amazing graphics improvements. New ships. I’ve been distracted by Destiny, but got back in yesterday and I’m buckyballing to catch up with the Galactic Nebula Expedition. Will sell data at Jaques. Should be Elite by the time I’m back at the bubble.
Oh damn, I never got around to testing out the sped-up fighters. Do you know what time locally it’s going to hit? I can never remember which way around it ends up.
About 9pm I think. Maybe a bit earlier.
8pm is when the AMA on Reddit starts. 11pm is when the Braben livestream starts. So any time between 23:30 and oh-my-god-is-that-the-time 2.2 will go live.
Uuuuurgh I’m so excited! What are you up to in game at the moment?
Out on the Galactic Nebula Expedition. Last run to Elite!
I’m about 9kly from Jaques. 🙂
Nice! I might make the trek out there depending on how this new patch goes and what movements the… totally-not-thargoids-but-it’s-thargoids affair goes :P… i’m hoping that the horsehead nebula opens up for exploration soon.
TAY RPG Pathfinder on tonight at 7:30pm AEST, 8pm ACDT, and 8:30pm AEDT. Starring:
@redartifice @tech_knight @freezespreston @beeawwb
The party has discovered an underground village of nasty Redcaps and they are out for blood. Guard your shins!
Edit: We’re going to try and run the session out of Roll20’s video and voice system for this one. If it works well, we might keep using it over Google Hangouts.
Yep.
Edit: Replying here, I can see you’ve messaged / confirmed on Twitter as well, I’m just staying off social media until after I get home.
I was disappointed when I looked it up and found that Redcaps aren’t the little toadstool people from Disney’s Fantasia and are just weird gnomey things.
Weird gnomey things with a penchant for violence and kicking shins.
Only a few shins were kicked last night and the Redcaps were greatly frustrated by the lack of shin-kicking before they died.
All I can say is thank frack that I have Dimensional Slide
I tried the Infinite Warfare beta. I lasted one single match before quitting on it.
Played through a few games in the last few weeks. Completed Wolfenstein. It was pretty good, but it wasn’t as good as a lot of people made it out to be.
Also finished the latest Phoenix Wright game, plus DLC. Probably one of their best games yet. I did have a few problems with the game though. First problem is that because they’ve created so many mechanics, the game gets really crowded and every mechanic doesn’t get enough time. Except for the seance, which makes sense since that’s the new main focus.
Second problem I had is that the game thinks your memory is shit and will regularly flashback to previous scenes. It happens so often, sometimes with the same scenes and will even flashback to something that happened 5 minutes ago.
Third problem I had is that this game probably has the worst breakdown animations in the series history. I had a problem with them in the previous game, but they just got worse. Most aren’t interesting enough to watch more than once.
The DLC isn’t as good as it could have been, although the defendant is one of my favourite animated characters.
Getting to the end of Darkest Dungeon, 1 boss remaining before moving on to the Darkest Dungeon.
Don’t watch S7 Ep1 of TWD unless you are in a good place or can be on a downer for a week. Jesus, it was brutal, even for that show.
My god.
Oh yeah, despite having things to do on the day I totally didn’t associate the date with the fact it was my sister’s birthday til she showed up and one of my cousins wished her a happy birthday.
I am a terrible brother. Also, son.
I’m still angry at a high school friend. Cause he got into Omegathon for AUS PAX while I’ve been signing up for 3 years.
*Shakes fist at @chuloopa*
I am litterally the worst.
And REALLY struggling with Western Press too. If any game is going to have me eliminated, it’s that one.
Really? I’m in the Omegathon too – Who’s your friend?
Lol, ended up getting to the point of exchanging names with one of the girls at climbing tonight (previously chatted a bit here and there, mostly just offering tips etc), which revealed that she was Italian (thought she was French for some reason, dunno why). Cue the total look of shock when I suddenly display my knowledge of Italian pronunciation (8-) 😎 8-)), and dust off the ancient old phrase explaining that I speak some Italian but not very well. Then a nice long chat about grandparents’ nationalities and Italian geography and such. Turns out her Dad’s from right near where my Nanna was from, actually. I’m on fire 😛
Also, the 45º wall sucks. I knew there was a reason I always avoided it. But yay, five new panels going up tomorrow apparently!
*sets up cart*
*takes deep breath*
GET YER POPCORN RIGHT ERE
Michael Jackson Open Mouth Chewing Popcorn Like a Fucking Savage dot gif
*exaggerated wink*
I’m sure we all have that one friend that some how manages to see spoilers for every show they want to watch before watching it and then complains. I dunno how she manages to do it, but every time GoT, TWD or something else as big premieres each week she manages to come across spoilers, sometimes even stating that the official pages posted the spoilers on Facebook, something I find hard to believe, but whatever. To me it just seems like she goes out of her way to find said spoilers…
Second week of my two week holiday, and despite all my plans, I’m spending a fair bit of time trying to make a working combat prototype for my game. Turns out, designing things to explode is really entertaining.
Also decided to start joining in on conversations more. First TAY, so yeah, hello
Hello!
Are you coming to PAX?
I want too, but Perth to Melbourne is a fair bit of a hike. Every year, I tell myself I’ll make it next year
It’s definitely a big hike. Nice to hear from another WA resident. There are a few others: @fled @grandmasterb-funk @hindenlagen @liondrive @phlanispo @phoenix @platinum-urchin @thecracks
Not anymore for me!
Ah – might need to get @powalen to fix taytags then!
Figured there’d have to be a few of us on here somewhere. Not like there’s much else to do in WA (take that, tourism board). Are you going to pax?
I am indeed. Been working on my Bloodborne cosplay for a couple of months. Can’t wait to try VR and hang out with all the lovely taybies.
Hi there !!! (form one lurker to another)
Lurkers unite and… do… I dunno, some more lurking? Or hi, probably should have just gone with that
MORE PERTHIANS!
HI THERE!
Arse. Thought I was being super clever using expanding foam to make a mould of my hat to stretch the felt around, and it was perfect last night. But since then it’s continued expanding and the bottom’s popped out, so it doesn’t fit properly any more.
Booo. I am making an axe, and I have a lot of sticking and painting still to do.
Oh yeah, whereabouts are you guys again? I feel like it might’ve been down towards the Shire or something for some reason, though not sure why. Was thinking about whether I could swing by to check out that gown at some point if it works out to be not too inconvenient.
DM me on twitter, and we’ll sort something out.
We’re on the Northern Beaches, btw, but my other half works in the city, so I’m sure we can work something out.
Can you not just shave the foam back down now?
Exactly what I did! Well, used a hacksaw to remove the bulk of it, then a rough file to get the curves to better match. It’s not just good, it’s good enough 😛
La la la, sitting around a medical centre because someone had a boo boo at work and our policy is for the first aider to accompany them.
I do a small ceramic pie dish lined with a single piece of bacon on side and base with three beaten eggs, wrapped in foil and cooked for thirty minutes bai marie in a litre of water when I need protien to kill the pain.
I don’t think I could get through a ceramic pie dish. My teeth aren’t what they once were.
Managed to vague out and leave my bag inside the office when I left this afternoon. Seriously considering driving back with my lockpicks.
Ahahaha First Dates starts again on Tuesday. Will have to make sure the recorder’s set 😛
That’s the ABC one that Peter Heliar wrote? Love that show!
Oh that was… *googles* It’s A Date. That was pretty good.
This one’s endearing and/or cringe-worthy reality TV, which I’ll also be scouring for a familiar face in the background 😛
Ah yes! I remember now 🙂 I’ll have to check it out!
@mrtaco
8PM AEST. SOON, COMMANDER, SOON.
Just got the “servers will be going down” notice.
Ah shit, better jump on.
Man, that Taipan sounds so damn good. Started grinning like an idiot as soon as I hopped back in it. Wish I could stash one in the engine hollow of my Diamondback :p
Heads up everyone: things are going to look a little different soon. Stay tuned…
Getting ready to complain 😛
Change? Noooooooo.
😛
This is a little?!
I don’t even recognise it anymore
I have no idea how to cope. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but… o_o I’m probably just overwhelmed
So far not a fan of it… so much wasted space cramping the comments on the right side, and the font size in comments has exploded, making scrolling 2-3 times worse.
And don’t get me started on the giant graphics, not as easy to discreetly browse at work anymore without people noticing 😛
Makes it feel like there are more comments 🙂
Yeah, I’m not a fan of everything being shoved to the right, with big white empty space on the left. It’s the only thing I really dislike. That and we look like Kotaku US now.
Are the links to gizmodo etc at the top of the screen going to make a comeback? I often used those to get to the other sites
The other allure sites are at least on the bottom of the page now.
If this reply works, then the new site plays much more nicely with this pos mobile browser than the old one.
Mobile is working so much better now
Can I leave a comment yet? Wasn’t working last night
Hooray it worked!!!
Links to the rest of Allure were nice although I normally just use the quick links to the articles when something catches my interest
Not sure what it is but I find it harder to determine what is a new post and what is a reply
Whitespace to the left is a bit odd on longer articles like TAY
What’s all this, then?
Something feels…different…
At least upvoting seems to be working now. And no longer takes like 10 clicks to register either by the looks of it! w00t!
Yeah, things are already running smoother than it was last night. Poor devs have probably had an all-nighter.
Something’s not quite right…
#suramarptsd
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! What the hell happened!?
I’m scared D=
It’s just a cosmetic change – Kotaku just went and had a haircut and got a new lipstick.
It’ll be ok.
Better than going through an emo/goth phase 😛
So, turning into reaper from Overwatch
I’ve no idea what that is 😛
I feel like this is best described, in song
It’s mainly my reaction when I first logged on. I had no idea how to navigate it
Yep, nothing to be afraid of… 😛
Gah! Why do all the fun things have to come out at once?
Months of drought in gaming land and now both Bf1 and Civ 6 I really want to play but I can barely fit in all the things I want to do in WoW as it is.
Not to mention foolishly going through with my PsVR pre-order which I’ve used for maybe an hour.
#firstworldproblems
The news from Dreamworld is so sad.
So so sad. 🙁
So scary when I think that would be one of the first rides that I would take Tiglet on. I know the freezlings have been on it many times
Exactly – this was one of the family-friendly ones. I went on the similar one at Australia’s Wonderland so many times as a kid.
I’ve been on that exact ride several times
It really is, it’s also the first time someone has died there in the parks 35 years.
The worst thing is that it appears it could have been prevented
Normally don’t complain about resdesigns on website – but I reallllly don’t like Kotaku New ™.
It now has the aesthetics of one of those horrible clickbait sites.
On the plus side – upvoting works properly.
So we’ve got that, which is nice.
I do like the fact the mobile site doesn’t have to recalculate the layout every time I hit the dropdown to upvote something. Also, holy crap, why is the font size of the comments box half the size of the comment font (on the desktop site, at least)? *squints* As someone fond of proofreading my comments, I feel I’ll need glasses.
yeah i noticed that too. haha
I don’t know if it’s a different size or if it’s a different font that skews smaller. It’s better now than it was last night though – it was using some ultra-compressed looking font.
Does for me >_>
Oh wow, just tried TAY in Opera Mini… ouch. That recalculation is… significant. Nice lightweight browser, tho… might give it a try.
Edit: Turning data savings off “Extreme mode” solves the recalculation issue, but it’s nowhere near as fast to load/render pages.
I don’t seem to have that option, must be a new addition 😛
Sounds like it was added in September last year, or a middle-ground between it and normal browsing was added then? *shrugs* Using v19.0, and it was turned on by default.
I’m frozen in time on 7.1 :p
And just discovered that under Help is a counter for the data used and saved. Including a Total stat, which must cover the last 3.5 years or so. Original size: 35.3GB, received size: 1.1GB. Wow.
Speaking of, though, @alexwalker I don’t know if we need a toast to pop up at the top of the screen when we upvote and downvote? The number going up / down is surely enough feedback on its own… very minor issue though.
If it bugs people enough, that can probably be changed. See how people feel after a week or so.
Where the heck have notifications gone, by the way? It no longer lets me know when i have a reply to something… weird.
And annoying.
To Lifehacker, apparently. Was looking at the Linux vulnerability article there when I saw the notification… saw nothing here. I guess that feature (along with the profile page) isn’t done yet for the new site design…
Edit: And now I can’t get the notification there to be acknowledged. That’s… like an itch I can’t scratch… gah.
Notifications and user profile aren’t enabled for Kotaku yet. You can get them from Gizmodo and Lifehacker still though, neither site has been updated yet.
Ditto. Too much empty space and not enough structure to it, text just feels like it’s floating in nothing.
Now that the site caching seems to be working again, the site feels much faster than it used to be. Especially posting on TAY.
So, functionality is improved, but design is lacking
New Kotaku scares me (eek, change!).
But I guess I don’t come here much anyway, so meh.
Got the roster for PAX Enforcing. Wooooooooooooo!
I’m working 1pm-6pm Fri, Sat, Sun. Good times!
Are you coming to PAX meat or do you have super secret enforcer party stuff to attend?
Those are good shifts!
Stupid ‘metaphorically’ final round
This was meant to be a response to @chuloopa
Oh well somebody had to be the first to screw up in new tay design
Want to see something you can’t unsee on the new layout? Look at the crossbars for capital As and capital Es.
Now that I think about it, why is the font in the comment box san serif but the font for posted comments serif? San serif for life!
Yeah, I love the san-serif font in the comment boxes and the headings.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Looks like F is an issue as well
The capital A? looks perfectly fine… The alphabet starts with a lambda, right?
Interesting – I couldn’t see the crossbars at all on my work screen, but here at home on my chromebook, they actually look ok.
I still prefer the other font.
Just checked and Chrome is fine
@alexwalker this seems to be a firefox specific issue
*vomits*
Got both sides of felt attached to my hat brim last night. Spray adhesive isn’t quite working as well as I’d hoped, really wish I could slip some PVA in under there, but it’ll do. Main concern now is how to prevent sweat from soaking in and destroying everything :p Also how to construct the middle. Very strongly considering putting in an air vent at the back.
One thing left on my cosplay for PAX. One, tiny, small thing.
I’m so tired every night when I get home at the moment, I can’t even bring myself to do it. It’s a fake buckle.
Tips? Cardboard and foil? (I don’t have hours and hours to learn how to foam craft unfortunately, I should’ve tackled this sooner)
Got an old belt? Cut the buckle off and use that. Or grab one the right shape from vinnies.
Otherwise, cardboard and foil and pva glue will work just fine.
I need two tiny buckles, the figure eight type. Annoying to try and find, might just end up using paper clips or something come to think of it. Thanks!
Those ones I saw on the Spotlight website – whether they are available locally is a different matter! I wouldn’t trust Spotlight shipping this close to the date…
Stiff Cardboard stuck over a real belt buckle
They’re (there’s more than one!) on my shoes.
I might try and look at Vinnies on the weekend as per @cookingmama ‘s suggestion.
Tweet me a pic of what you’re trying for
I would say try Lincraft or another sewing site. I think i’ve seen some there, but maybe with diamontes. You don’t mind being pretty, right? =P
I still have loads of mine to do. Mum has a lot of appointments, which doens’t help
So this new pokemon go event has been good for me so far, 2 new ghost type pokemon.
Bonus candy will probably have me playing a bit more
Your turn @trikeabout I expect your analysis shortly
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/giro-ditalia-2017-presented-in-milan/
Jesus. Just from this one session posting two comments here and reading one article, the original size was 150MB. And that’s supposed to be the mobile site? That’s half my monthly allowance, any wonder people got scared off. Will be taking much closer notice now I’ve found this, measure a little better.
User profile on Giz: 530kB
Click through to p1 of TAY: 10.0MB
P2 of TAY: 19.6MB
Click Reply: 29.1MB
Click Submit: 38.5MB
Click drop-down arrow: 47.9MB
Click Edit: 57.4Mb
Click Save Updates: 67.0MB
Of course that’s the Original Size as reported by Opera Mini. Received Size is only 663kB, mercifully. What an absurd disparity though.
Going by Chrome’s dev tools on the desktop site… Cached transfer is 169kB total, with caching disabled it’s 10.2MB (8.4MB is in images, 6.4MB of which is three animated GIFs in the header)… I think Opera may be reporting transfer size above the compression layer, which is a little misleading.
Yeah, the problem with the Gawker-syndicated sites isn’t the actual page content or even the ads most of the time, it’s the goddamn fucking animated gifs they throw about like candy despite them actually detracting from the content.
You’re welcome/I’m so, so sorry. Note that that’s probably reporting the size of everything uncompressed/uncached – most traffic that’s not cached locally these days is compressed anyway because it gets so impractically large. I can’t imagine a browser actually saving 90% of typical on-wire traffic and still presenting the site well. To compare – I run Opera Max, which does something similar but at an OS-level, and it’s only saved me about 3GB of the 43GB I’ve used in the past two years – likely because it can’t see what’s expected / gets cached/compressed at the application layer.
I think i’m actually losing sleep over the Omegathon.. I am so damn nervous and I haven’t been able to practice anywhere near as much as i would have liked and I have recently found out just how much i suck at Western Press… My god, reaction games are not my thing…
Additional: Having just read the desription for Western press – It may be pointless training in the actual game that much:
http://paxaustralia.com.au/schedule/panel/omegathon-round-3-western-press
So – if I am reading this correctly, it sounds like they will be making us use dance mats instead of traditional controllers… So i should probably be using my copy of Dance Stage Mario Mix to practice instead???
You got this, Big C.
Thanks buddy 🙂
Edit: derp
Mmm, dat new site smell
Cosplay / Sewing / Creative peep (@scree @mrtaco others), I’m very tempted to try and put together the full costume for the Tactician class in Fire Emblem, mainly because it’s got a rad coat. Thinking for PAX Prime for next year which should be first week of September.
I currently have:
– No sewing machine
– Pretty much zero sewing skills to speak of (I was okay at it in Home Ec when I was 12, but much better at cooking and woodworking)
– About 10 months
– No real limit in terms of cost I can sink into it assuming it’s realistic (i.e. willing to buy gear & equipment, get stuff 3D printed via a printing service, etc)
– No one around that I know of that can mentor me so I have to figure out shit myself.
– No templates or anything
I’m not sure what the providence of it is (it’s not in the artbook for the series) but here’s some concept art-like stuff showing the layers to the whole costume:
http://imgur.com/a/VUItN
1. Is this doable (I think it is, but a fair bit of work)?
2. Is it doable with current nonexistent tools and ability, given the timeframe?
3. Where should I start and what should I start learning to do?
Note: reasons why I’m considering this one:
– If made well, it should be sturdy enough to wear all day while attending the convention like a fairly normal person (eg I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to pee while wearing it without half an hour to dismantle everything)
– Space for adding pockets so I don’t need to carry a bag / have a handler with me.
– I don’t need to have a body like a greek god to pull it off
– It looks rad
10 months is do-able, but you’re going to have to get some tools, and invest quite a lot of time investing in some new skills.
Personally, each time I do a cosplay I’ve learnt a new sewing and crafting skill, and making something that you’re really invested in is much better than learning how to sew a frilly apron. Happy to give you more advice!
Which reminds me, I really need to get some more work done on my PAX cosplay tonight!
Interesting, while replies still generate notifications on the othersites’ profile pages a tag doesn’t. Unless it was just one of those notifications that fall through the cracks sometimes for no particular reason, as seems to have been happening quite a bit lately.
But yeah, I guess it depends how good you are at figuring out how to make stuff and just kind of winging it? I feel like that’s probably more helpful than having say pre-existing skills in sewing things. It doesn’t look like it’d be overly difficult, given plenty of time, maybe a little fiddly in some parts but for the most part it looks like you could at least build upon regular clothes which helps a lot. Also being able to keep at it would help 😛
At the very least I think you’d at least need to get a sewing machine at some point, in terms of tools. Whenever I start a costume I examine the source material and try to figure out what different parts would be made from, how things would fit together, etc. Then run around to the nearby op shops for whatever base clothes I could build on, then other stores for any other clothes or materials that would help. Once I know what’s around it helps build a better idea of what I can or should do, and develops the idea more and I don’t even know if I’m offering any helpful advice here I’m just kind of rambling. Maybe someone better will answer.
@cookingmama Yeah I’m thinking that at least, it should be possible to build some of it off pre-existing clothes. The two belts, for example, should be off-the-rack stuff. The shirt might be trickier thanks to that ribbing it has but again, I think if I hunt around I can find something like it. The trousers would require simply finding some pre-made ones and customizing them I think. If I can find a nice overcoat in a similar style I might be able to customize that to make the outer coat, but I feel like maybe that part would be best made custom given that it’s so much of the look and requires the most fiddling to get right. That little undercoat thing should be able to be largely avoided, the only visible part of the costume it provides is the collar so I don’t need to do any detailing on any of it but that. The boots should be a case of taking an existing pair of plain dark brown leather boots and then adding the extra flaps and detailing. Also the hardest part I suspect since it’ll require working with vinyl or leather.
The coat seems like it’s where I should put the bulk of the initial effort. The other parts can probably be winged a bit if the coat is correct, since that’s the most important part of the overall look, eg I doubt anyone would truly notice that the boots are lacking that extra flap at the back.
I don’t need a wig or anything. The benefit of this gear is that it’s a class costume, not a specific character.
@mrtaco is right – it really depends on how crafty you are. You can get **a lot** done with just scissors and a hot glue gun, but eventually you’re going to want to sew something.
First look at lots of pictures, break down the costume into pieces and see what you can thrift first. Hats, gloves, belts, shoes – often these can be found as cheap second hand items and all they need is some paint, new buttons or a a few embellishments glued on.
Next place to look is ebay. Give yourself plenty of time to order things and you can get great wigs, costume pieces and things like scarves, buttons, etc.
As for sewing, you’ll need to find a pattern that matches what you want, or is at least pretty close. You’ll probably want to do a basic sewing class, or at least find a crafty friend who can help you.
I think it’s doable.
I’m going to go over some suggestions for learning to sew. I would suggest buying a cheap sewing machine (beginners stuff, usually about $99-$149 Aus). You don’t need anything too fancy, as you will probably only use 3 stitches. Straight stitch, Zig zag and button stitch.
As for learning, there are patterns speficially for learning.
http://www.simplicitynewlook.com/simplicity-patterns/learn-to-sew
Mostly, things like Kwik sew, Butterick and simplicity are generally easy to follow and can be rather cheap.
Avoid Vogue and Burda as the patterns tend to be more complicated and harder to follow, but can have a more professional quaility to them.
You may want to sew the costume as it is more likely to stay together the entire convention, and less likely to become a mishap. Maybe Indentify the things you may need for your costume and then try to pick patterns you can use and teach you the things you need.
Things like the lines can be painted on, rather then embroidering it on as that would be much harder to do. Plus you need an expensive embroidery machine. Another option is using applique. It’s quite easy to do, but you need to be able to alter you stitch length and width.
For example, you can use this
https://mccallpattern.mccall.com/m7374
Remove the lapels, and add a hood. I’m looking to se if there’s any closer ones
Any suggestions re: sewing machines to look for? I’m in the US so may have more / different options and better pricing available.
Most sewing machines should be fine. I personally have a toyota and Mum has a Brother. Both are good. While you’re learning, stick to the basic models. You don’t need anything fancy.
Personally, I try to make everything I can from scratch, but I’m insane.
You can buy leather paint, if you can’t be bothered sewing on the gold trims (sewing it on can be a huge pain in the butt). Angelus leather paint is amazing. It works on Leather, Vinyl and most plastics.
https://angelusdirect.com/collections/paint
With the coat, you can make the collar and just sew it onto the coat, saving you the extra layer. Be aware that extra layers create extra heat. You don’t want to be too hot.
Seattle in September isn’t super warm and is often wet, so I think I’d shy away from paint wherever possible in case it gets wet and runs.
EDIT: Also, Amazon has all sorts of sewing machines ranging from super basic to super expensive oh my god this thing does 300 different stitches and is powered by fairy dust stuff. Obviously I’d probably never use six different button hole stitches or whatever but what are the basic features that are needed, stuff that would make learning quicker / easier etc? I noticed one of the popular options was able to automatically thread itself rather than having to manually thread the needle. I remember that being a pain when I last used a sewing machine, admittedly more than half my life ago…
maybe link me to what you’re looking at?
Angelus Paint will not run once it’s dry. It may crack and fade with time, and extended use, but that’s it.
Fabric paint will require you wash the fabric first (which you should do anyway to pre-shrink it) with no fabric softeners. Some fabric paints may require ironing, best to read on the back of the bottle.
If you are sure you want to go the fabric trimming route, make sure to get Bias. It’s cut on a diagonal grain which allos it to go around curves easily. Ribbon and trimmings may not move as easily.
It looks like there’s a lot of little intricate detail in there. Pretty much everything has some sort of pattern or gold trim on it. On the plus side I would imagine you can get the basic patterns for each item pretty easily since it’s a giant cloak, gloves and some military formal/mounted cavalry inspired gear. Any pattern would require heaving modification but they’d be good starting points. There’s also nothing there that breaks the laws of physics. The belt might be tricky but the rest should wear like normal clothes.
You’d be working with a few different materials but thankfully you wouldn’t have much in the way of accessories. It’s not plastered in gold emblems or anything. The most complicated accessory type item seems to be the braided draw string and braids are easy (failing that curtain draw strings are cheap). The belts, buckles and buttons all look like they’d be easy enough to find.
If I were you I’d start by breaking it down core items, boots, gloves, under clothes, vesty thing, cloak and belt, then figure out the skills needed for each item. Figure out which of those skills are beyond you, which are just difficult and which you’d feel comfortable doing right away. From there you’ve got to figure out if you can still make it work. Ie, I’d say making your own boots from scratch is probably out of the question, which means buying boots. Riding boots will land you close but you won’t find the fancy backs on them because in the real world that makes it difficult to walk. So is that compromise a deal breaker?
Then it’s just a matter of figuring out an efficient order for learning the skills and making the items. Personally I’d start with a place holder cloak. You’re probably going to over/under estimate the hood/cuff sizes and have to start from scratch a few times, so you might as well use cheap material and get some practice following patterns with the sowing machine. It’ll also give you something expendable to practice on when it comes time to learn how to do the patterns on the cuffs and stuff.
Not that I’m an authority on cosplay or anything. I’m hopeless at this sort of stuff.
It’s great advice though!
Its doable, get a sewing machine and do a basic sewing class. Looks like an almost 100% fabric thing. Before you begin, go on aliexpress and see if you can cheat on the pants and undershirt to save time.
Shape is not that complex, tricky bits here are details. Buttons are a bit weird. Looks like lots of other people have done this one so cheat and look at what they did.
Also, of you can do it right now, go buy the latest humble book bundle, its all cosplay books
The humble bundle stuff has flipped over to some Dr Who bullshit 🙁
May i suggest Craftsy?
https://www.craftsy.com/sewing
They offer classes. You pay for them and stuff. Strange recommends them.
I bought it the other week, it’s actually more armour/prop building than sewing. Can fwd you some of them if you’d like
boo. PSN is down for maintenance.
Oh god this hat looks huge on me. Even though when I match up the image in one eye and overlay it with my reflection in the mirror the proportions match up. Also super annoyed that the shape I ended up going for/got deviated from what I was originally aiming for 😛
Cook and Becker, who are an art dealer in the Netherlands that do a lot of official video game art prints, have prints up today of both of the paintings that Fumito Ueda did for Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. $95, limited to 500, hand-numbered and official.
The Shadow of the Colossus one (technically, Nico) is a painting I’ve never seen before:
https://www.candb.com/en/artwork/2008/nico-shadow-of-the-colossus-sie-japan-studio.html
Kind of impressionist but I really like it. Meanwhile the Ico one is the iconic windmill pic they used for the Japanese and European box art:
https://www.candb.com/en/artwork/2004/ico-sie-japan-studio.html
Personally I had no idea that Ueda actually painted that himself and that raises my impression of the man even higher.
I’ve bought other things from C&B before (have an amazing one of the Normandy from Mass Effect which was hand-numbered and signed by a bunch of Bioware guys, plus an amazing Okami one) and they’re very nice prints. Very high quality paper, museum-quality printing. Stuff like this tends to sell pretty fast though at least there’s 500 copies – some of the stuff they’ve had before has only had 50-100 copies made for example so if you didn’t jump quick it’d sell out. That said, I imagine the Ico one is going to be gone fast regardless.
(I ordered both)
Don’t know if tagging is working since no notifications any more, but tagging @alexwalker in case this is interesting enough to post as an actual article – I know that Luke Plunkett keeps an eye on Cook & Becker and has pointed out some of their new additions on Kotaku before. IIRC he posted about the Okami stuff and that was what first brought them to my attention. Plus The Last Guardian went gold on Friday so hype.
Only way I am getting notifications of replies etc now is via email instead of seeing them on the kotaku page. Bug or as intended?
Who knows?
Notifications haven’t been implemented yet. They’re still working on the other allure pages (gizmodo and lifehacker).
Alex mentioned in the article that some of the functionality is still in the pipeline.
Ah ok, didnt see the other article. Thanks for the heads up.
@alexwalker How do we access our profiles now? Also, are reply notifications on the site coming back? I still get emails, but can’t find any way to quickly check if I go to the site.
I just check them via LifeHacker or Gizmodo. Also they won’t auto clear when you click on them atm so seems you have to press the “read notifications” button.
Damn it, just went looking to see where the nearest Woolies & BWS is to where I am staying tomorrow in Brisbane. The closest seems to be Queen St Mall which is 15 minute walk from where I am for Woolies & there’s a BWS about 500m walk. Kinda wish I opted for the last place I stayed at in Brisbane, was an ALH owned hotel so it had a BWS down stairs & a Woolies across the road also meant I got staff discount on accommodation heh.
That’s a bummer. Early Access site Vessel has been bought out by Verizon and will be shut down as of next week. I really enjoyed getting videos a week early from LinusTechTips, Hardware Canucks, Epic Meal Time and a bunch of others I sub to. It was worth my $3 a month especially with no ads! Ah well.
Also Jack Daniels is doing a cash back scheme at the moment if you buy a 4 pack of their ‘American Serve’ RTD’s in either Jack & Cola, Jack & Dry or Jack & Lemonade. They’ll give you $10 back, which makes it a pretty good price for something with 2.0 standard drinks per can. I know what i’m gonna be buying tomorrow before Slipknot.
To get it you need to hit up this link; https://americanserve.reward.zone/
Melbourne and PAX Taybies!
Saturday 5th Nov, 8am – I’ll be attending the Albert Park parkrun. While normally I wouldn’t bother running while on holiday, this will be my 94th parkrun, and I’m trying to get to 100 before Christmas, so I can’t miss it!
If you would like to join me for a leisurely 5km walk/run/struggle around the lovely Albert Park, you need to:
go to http://www.parkrun.com.au and register. You’ll get a barcode which you print and bring on the day. No barcode, no time. You only need to register once and you can attend any parkrun in Australia.
Meet at the starting point for Albert park at 7:45am for an 8am start (sharp).
Look for an overweight lady up the back somewhere with a Derek Zoolander Centre for Kids Who Can’t Run Good shirt. It’s black and yellow, you can’t miss it. 😉
Wait, so you want me to get up early the night after dapper meat and gin?
You don’t *have* to. But I will be 🙂
I’m out of practice, and condition, but sure, why not.
Do I actually have to print the barcode or can I put it on my phone?
I have found the answer to this, apparently phones are a no.
Yeah, the scanners are only small and they don’t cope with screens.
I have mine printed on a plastic tag.
How far away from Albert park is your hotel?
35min walk
Should be ample public transport to the right area. Albert Park is where they do the F1 after all.
Oh, we can hop a tram, for sure, but 35m is a short walk.
Yes but it’s 35 min walk each way with a 5km run in between. And comes after a late night drinking gin…
I’ll be there!… So how does it normally work when you run as a group? do you kinda stick to one pace or just meet at the finish line? i’ve never run with other people before XD
Honestly, I’m happy for you to run at whatever pace you’re comfortable at and we’ll just meet at the start, and at the finish line. I am a tortoise, so I’m used to being at the back on my own (sounds a bit sad, but it’s true).
There’s normally a couple of hundred people who do Albert park, so it’ll be pretty crowded at the start.
Actually…are you driving there? Might hit you up for a lift back to the Nerdpartment.
Yeah probably will be,so yeah that’s not a problem
Well just went for a walk and saw there is an escape room company setting up a new location just nearby
Might be a good team activity
The Elite: Dangerous 2.2 patch notes are nearly 16500 words…
I shall not post them in this window, I’d break Kotaku.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/300177-Elite-Dangerous-The-Guardians-2-2-update
Oooh. Secret thing!
I wonder if that is distinct from the Mysterious Thing.
Ooh! Mysterious Thing!
Did my first neutron stars last night. Did a 167ly jump in a DBX. Woop!
That is insanity 😛
This is mostly for @weresmurf but other Trekkies feel free to chime in.
And no, this time I’m being nice; I’m not stitching you up this time like before, Weresmurf.
So far, I’m up to Season 4, Episode 19 of TNG but I have seen the first six movies and a mix of the Original Series.
One element has had me pondering for a while now. Data is often saying he lacks emotions, etc. But the more I watch, the more I’m convinced he’s actually the opposite.
Not to sound silly but I think from the get-go, Data has in fact had emotions. What he lacks is the ability to understand and process them.
Sorry in advance if this is answered in a later episode but it doesn’t hurt to share ideas at times.
Anyhow, I think it best if I keep to the episode order.
First case in point is The Naked Now, effectively a remake of the Original Series episode, The Naked Time.
In both cases there is a contagion that (long explaination short) has an alcoholic like effect on everyone. Including Data!
For a long time, I though the contagion was simply causing shortages in Data’s brain but having recently seen the TOS episode I’m not so convinced.
In one scene, Spock is seen crying as he wrestles to keep is emotions suppressed. His control over his emotions has been weakened.
And I think the same happened with Data. Just recently, ATi was caught red-handed for using software hacks to hide extra regions of memory on their new line of graphics cards.
I think Data’s creator, Soong, did the exact same thing and the contagion (for a short time) allowed access to regions Soong tried to keep hidden.
The next hint is in my favourite episode so far, The Measure of a Man. There is a huuuge hint here but I’ll go with the minor one first.
The bulk of the episode revolves around Data going to court to fight disassembly. To paraphrase his objections; Data is not convinced that if his head is disassembled and put back, he would still be there.
Now, if Data had no emotions he would just run on logic and probability and maybe even allow the disassembly.
But no, he may have not admitted it out right but Data expressed severe concern that something that cannot be measured would be lost if they pulled his brain apart.
But even dismissing this, there is still the big hint.
Near the end of the trial, Picard opens the bag Data packed earlier when leaving the Enterprise. The items include a book, service medals and (most of all) a hologram of Yar.
There is no logic to this; Data was emotionally attached to her. No amount of logic would have ever reached an endpoint of him keeping it.
The next hint I see is in Legacy where Yar’s sister talks to Data.
The interaction sticks out to me as Data admitted he noticed her absence. Seriously, unless there was some form of emotional attachment, Data would not have been able to feel (no other word for it) that absence let alone describe it.
The next hint is in The Offspring. If I may digress, while not my favourite episode it has my favourite line:
HAHAHA! Someone finally put No-Pants Riker in his place, 😛
But back to the topic, the overall premise is Data creates an android of his own (in his own image) called Lal. Near the end, she develops emotions and her brain shuts down due to being enable to process them.
Here’s the kicker though; her brain is a copy of Data’s. If he didn’t have emotions then it would have been impossible for them to develop in Lal unless he took his own design further but the episode clearly states she’s at best a copy and if not that a sub-set of Data.
Post is running long but I’m almost finished.
Second last hint is in The Most Toys. Kidnapped by a obsessed collector, Kivas Fajo, Data eventually tries to escape with the help of an aide, Varria.
Unfortunately, Fajo finds out and corners the two. After killing Varria and claiming her blood was Data’s hands, Data looks ready to retaliate but is beamed back to the Enterprise.
Once onboard, Chief O’Brian remarks an inconsistency in the beam. O’Brain claims the weapon Data is holding went off and Data claims it to be a mis-fire.
Mis-fire my foot; if O’Brian had been a few second late, Data would have shot and creamed Fajo. He was than enraged.
But the biggest hint of all comes from Brothers.
In that episode, Data is influenced by a homing device to hijack the Enterprise to another planet where Soong is waiting for him.
To Soong’s surprise, Lore shows up as well and it is the interactions between those two that pretty much confirm Data having emotions.
Lore is older than Data but as his emotions developed and Lore became resentful of Soong, Soong shut him down.
Soong eventually states that he activated the homing device so he could install an emotion-chip (salvaged from a PS2, jk, :-P) into Data before he (Soong) died.
During the conversation though, Lore kept pleading with Soong, “Why won’t you fix me?”
Notice the keyword, “won’t”.
Personally, I think Lore was never broken but misguided. And he became misguided when he proved too much trouble for Soong which is why Soong shut him down in the first place.
Again, I still have a lot to view but from how I see it rather than guide Lore though like a father would a teen through puberty (seriously, is there any difference in Lore’s emotional state and most teens?), Soong used the off switch and made Data who had emotions but any ability to know of them and understand them removed so Data would be far more convenient to Soong.
Anyhow, phew, at the end of my theory. $5 says it will all be busted two TNG episodes later but hey, food for thought?
— EDIT —
@alexwalker: OK, seriously; if the site is being revamped then someone please do something about the inconsistencies of the moderation system. Don’t penalise us for edits for crying out laud.
Wait, there’s a post missing. What happened?
Probably got shoved into moderation. I saw it, it was a massive wall of text.
Talking about mine? I kept finding mistakes as I originally authored in a word processor.
Because I edited it so many times, the moderation filter got tripped.
It was a wall of text but it was me passing a theory to @weresmurf on me thinking Data from Star Trek: TNG has emotions from the get go and is wrong in saying he lacks said emotions.
Ah, that makes sense. I know nothing of Star Trek so I have no input
So uh, Apple. What the fuck are you doing?! That MacBook Pro line. Removing the MagSafe is one of the stupidest things they have done. Why can’t they have a USB Type-C to MagSafe adaptor or something. The MagSafe is one of the best things they ever did for the MacBook. When I had one it saved my ass so many times.
Apple are on the long downward spiral into boring and mediocre IMO. And I don’t say that just as an employee of one of their biggest competitors.
I’m with you there man. I have wanted a replacement MacBook since mine packed it in a year or two ago after serving me for 8+ years. But now i’m more leaning toward some other brand maybe a Razer or Dell. I’m a long time user of Apple products, dating back to primary school, I always liked them and thought they were great for the $$, not now though. I don’t think i’ll be buying another Mac from them. I’ll continue with their iPod, iPad & iPhone lines until they fuck them up to the point where it’ll all “Nope. Google it is.” Saying that if iMessage ever became a cross platform app i’d at least try out a Google branded phone. Until then.
I grew up with Apple during the First Era of Steve, dropped them after he got kicked out, came back for the Second Coming of Steve. 1st-gen iPod owner, in on the ground floor when iPhone happened.
My previous laptop was a Macbook Pro and it was a solid piece of kit. Apple are still second to none at the actual construction of laptops. The issue is that the price to performance ratio has gone completely out the window. They’re in their little closed bubble where they think that a fucking joke of a laptop with a fucking Radeon GPU in it is worth $3500. Fuck. That. And that’s while they’re actively making OSX more and more clunky and restrictive.
It might not be as nicely styled as a Macbook Pro but the MSI GS60 Pro I got last year cost me over $1000 less, has vastly better specs (enough GPU grunt to actually be a portable desktop replacement when I moved to the US – I played through Tales of Vesperia on it, and a chunk of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, good luck doing that on a midrange i7 with a piece of shit AMD in it) is just as portable and since it runs Windows I don’t have to constantly hunt for shitty Apple knockoffs of things that I use every day or dual-boot into a competitive OS.
For laptops, unless Apple actually go back to putting near-top-end hardware in theirs (there was a period where they did) they should not ever command the price premium they do. They don’t have the high end, well-made laptop market to themselves any more. Hell, if Razer made a laptop that was sized for normal people instead of that 14″ joke I’d probably get one.
The problem is that Apple’s run out of steam. They were an innovative and agile company when they were under Jobs, but that man was special. He was a predator. He could see every opening, every opportunity, and knew how to find the right people and product to bleed it for as long as possible. He knew how to find people and innovations and then apply them. That’s hard to replace. They had a bunch of stuff in the pipeline when he died, but it’s been years now and as far as I can see the pipeline of innovation from their R&D department has gone dry. They’re turning into 00s Microsoft. Yearly updates of the same products. Nothing that makes you sit up take interest.
Made cheese & vegemite scrolls with avocado & sweet chilli in them last night to go with home made chicken & vegetable soup. They were pretty amazing.
Looks like the Nintendo Switch does actually have a touchscreen:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-10-27-nintendo-switch-has-a-6-2-multi-touch-screen
Only 1280×720 resolution at 6.2″ seems very shit for resolution by phone / tablet standards but it’s higher than the Vita’s 5″ 960x544px screen so it should be fine.
Interestingly, the 3DS screen was 400px x 240px for the top screen (per eye with 3D on) and 320x240px for the bottom screen, which means that it needs at most 400px across and 480px height to display both screens of a 3DS game. That means you could actually do a 1.5x size increase to 600×720 and still have it fit inside the resolution of the Switch.
6.2″ diagonal at 16:9 means 5.4″ wide and 3.04″ tall. The two screens on the standard 3DS were 1.82″ high so you’d be talking about squeezing them down a bit in size relative to that, but it’d kind of fit. A little squishy and not ideal but possible.
So 3DS backward compatibility *might* be possible. 3DS at least was an ARM chip, like the Tegra we know is in the Switch. The Tegra uses an ARMv8 instruction set where 3DS was ARMv6 and the DS was even older, but theoretically I think ARMv8 is backward-compatible. And I suspect something as powerful as the Tegra X1 even could probably just brute-force emulate 3DS, that’s not high-end hardware by any stretch.
Interesting food for thought.
I just love that we seem to have gone back to cartidges.
Technically, we haven’t. The switch, like the DS, 3DS, I think GBA, Vita and many others is not a cartridge, it’s a memory card. It’s just the game code stored on solid state memory. All the hardware is in the system itself. The game cartridges of yesteryear were literally a daughterboard that contained the game code and any processors or extra banks of memory or whatever they needed to run, and you were basically plugging them straight into the motherboard on the system, like you were sticking a sound card or something in.
Can I pretend they are?
I guess if you want.
Friday! Wooooo. What are everyone’s plans for the weekend? Is it PAX? I live in a bubble of family so I have no idea.
PAX is next weekend, which is smart because every other year it’s clashed with Melbourne Cup and it’s made everything either too busy or too expensive lol.
It’s still too busy!
Wait, they moved it away from Melbourne Cup this year? I didn’t realize. That’s kind of smart.
Yeah, I think it finally clicked with them. But then again EB Games decided to hold the EB Expo this year on footy grand final weekend, talk about public transport nightmare there.
Although it was so fun playing “spot the costume” when you had everyone wandering in and out of Southern Cross station either dressed up for the races, in Halloween costume, or heading to PAX in cosplay.
How can you tell which are the PAX Cosplayers? They are the sober ones 🙂
Did you do the first PAX when it was held at the showgrounds? That was interesting because you had full trains that were made up purely of race goers and PAX attendees as showgrounds and flemington are the only places that line goes
Hello.
Afternoon.
Who’s this guy and has he STOPPED DRINKING FUCKING RED BULL YET?
Hi! 😀
Nice to see you on Tay
So… I’ve plastered it over Twitter and Facebook, but now TAY is getting it too because i’m super proud of myself XD
I finally got started on my tattoo!
Finally built up the courage to just get it done…
It’s only the line work for now, and shading is still to go, but I couldn’t be happier!
By the end, it’ll be a complete half-sleeve with a Lantern on the inside of my arm…
But yeah, SO HAPPY!
First and foremost, I apologise for a double post but after being stuck in moderation for over 10 hours I’m considering my original post lost; not long is that length of time unacceptable but clearly shows the moderation process is well and truely (still) broken.
Below is the post before it became trapped.
—–
This is mostly for @weresmurf but other Trekkies feel free to chime in.
And no, this time I’m being nice; I’m not stitching you up this time like before, Weresmurf.
So far, I’m up to Season 4, Episode 19 of TNG but I have seen the first six movies and a mix of the Original Series.
One element has had me pondering for a while now. Data is often saying he lacks emotions, etc. But the more I watch, the more I’m convinced he’s actually the opposite.
Not to sound silly but I think from the get-go, Data has in fact had emotions. What he lacks is the ability to understand and process them.
Sorry in advance if this is answered in a later episode but it doesn’t hurt to share ideas at times.
Anyhow, I think it best if I keep to the episode order.
First case in point is The Naked Now, effectively a remake of the Original Series episode, The Naked Time.
In both cases there is a contagion that (long explaination short) has an alcoholic like effect on everyone. Including Data!
For a long time, I though the contagion was simply causing shortages in Data’s brain but having recently seen the TOS episode I’m not so convinced.
In one scene, Spock is seen crying as he wrestles to keep is emotions suppressed. His control over his emotions has been weakened.
And I think the same happened with Data. Just recently, ATi was caught red-handed for using software hacks to hide extra regions of memory on their new line of graphics cards.
I think Data’s creator, Soong, did the exact same thing and the contagion (for a short time) allowed access to regions Soong tried to keep hidden.
The next hint is in my favourite episode so far, The Measure of a Man. There is a huuuge hint here but I’ll go with the minor one first.
The bulk of the episode revolves around Data going to court to fight disassembly. To paraphrase his objections; Data is not convinced that if his head is disassembled and put back, he would still be there.
Now, if Data had no emotions he would just run on logic and probability and maybe even allow the disassembly.
But no, he may have not admitted it out right but Data expressed severe concern that something that cannot be measured would be lost if they pulled his brain apart.
But even dismissing this, there is still the big hint.
Near the end of the trial, Picard opens the bag Data packed earlier when leaving the Enterprise. The items include a book, service medals and (most of all) a hologram of Yar.
There is no logic to this; Data was emotionally attached to her. No amount of logic would have ever reached an endpoint of him keeping it.
The next hint I see is in Legacy where Yar’s sister talks to Data.
The interaction sticks out to me as Data admitted he noticed her absence. Seriously, unless there was some form of emotional attachment, Data would not have been able to feel (no other word for it) that absence let alone describe it.
The next hint is in The Offspring. If I may digress, while not my favourite episode it has my favourite line:
HAHAHA! Someone finally put No-Pants Riker in his place, 😛
But back to the topic, the overall premise is Data creates an android of his own (in his own image) called Lal. Near the end, she develops emotions and her brain shuts down due to being enable to process them.
Here’s the kicker though; her brain is a copy of Data’s. If he didn’t have emotions then it would have been impossible for them to develop in Lal unless he took his own design further but the episode clearly states she’s at best a copy and if not that a sub-set of Data.
Post is running long but I’m almost finished.
Second last hint is in The Most Toys. Kidnapped by a obsessed collector, Kivas Fajo, Data eventually tries to escape with the help of an aide, Varria.
Unfortunately, Fajo finds out and corners the two. After killing Varria and claiming her blood was Data’s hands, Data looks ready to retaliate but is beamed back to the Enterprise.
Once onboard, Chief O’Brian remarks an inconsistency in the beam. O’Brain claims the weapon Data is holding went off and Data claims it to be a mis-fire.
Mis-fire my foot; if O’Brian had been a few second late, Data would have shot and creamed Fajo. He was than enraged.
But the biggest hint of all comes from Brothers.
In that episode, Data is influenced by a homing device to hijack the Enterprise to another planet where Soong is waiting for him.
To Soong’s surprise, Lore shows up as well and it is the interactions between those two that pretty much confirm Data having emotions.
Lore is older than Data but as his emotions developed and Lore became resentful of Soong, Soong shut him down.
Soong eventually states that he activated the homing device so he could install an emotion-chip (salvaged from a PS2, jk, :-P) into Data before he (Soong) died.
During the conversation though, Lore kept pleading with Soong, “Why won’t you fix me?”
Notice the keyword, “won’t”.
Personally, I think Lore was never broken but misguided. And he became misguided when he proved too much trouble for Soong which is why Soong shut him down in the first place.
Again, I still have a lot to view but from how I see it rather than guide Lore though like a father would a teen through puberty (seriously, is there any difference in Lore’s emotional state and most teens?), Soong used the off switch and made Data who had emotions but any ability to know of them and understand them removed so Data would be far more convenient to Soong.
Anyhow, phew, at the end of my theory. $5 says it will all be busted two TNG episodes later but hey, food for thought?
Come on, Kotaku.
If you are going to push a big update out at least fix the moderation system while you are at it.
I have not broken anything here so either explain what I did wrong or take the moderation off already.
Ok I couldn’t decide if it was discord being stupid again, but seems Kotaku’s new layout is more resource-intensive or something than before, and makes Firefox super crashy and unstable when I have tabs for it open. Bleh.
Try emptying your browser cache, I had similar problems.
Moderation seems to be worse though; I had a rather long post that seems to be permanently suck in moderation.
Interesting opening line though; you make it sound as though discord is a person, 😛
It mightn’t be a person but it’s still a dick :p
Ffs the sewing machine has been behaving so well but now I’m trying to do fiddly little bits with leather it’s deciding to be a shit and just not stitch random portions so I have to go and run them again. Bastard.
Make sure you’re using a new needle. A blunt one can make it that little bit harder
The needle’s fine, had no problem puncturing all the holes. It just didn’t seem to be looping the needle thread around the bobbin thread in random parts.
Replace the needle, re-thread the machine (wind a new bobbin if you need to).
Slipknot last night awesome. It’s a shame I can’t see them in Sydney tonight and Melbourne on Monday 🙁
God dammit. Tried to copy the last boot I made and took forever trying to hand sew it so it wouldn’t skew off course, only to end up with a kind of hybrid between the good one and the bad one. Not sure it matches either, but it’ll have to do. No time for another.
Managed to snag a PAL copy of You Don’t Know Jack for PS1 off eBay for $13 including postage.
Not too shabby.