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209 responses to “Talk Amongst Yourselves”
Hey TAY!
Had a quiet weekend Halloween party with a bunch of drinks. A straight combination of Jack Daniels Fire and maple vodka is actually amazing, and will ruin your day!
Also finished a pikastick: http://i.imgur.com/m2ghrEU.jpg
It has a clip on gamepad holder which turns the stick into a wireless mini-cab:
http://i.imgur.com/brNLplQ.jpg
I won’t be again drinking for at least some days.
That maple vodka is pretty cheap from Dan Murphy’s, too.
Went to a colleague’s spoopy party on the weekend and took that Epsilon (sp?) tequila, but the golden one instead of the white tequila. Under $50 and it’s not harsh as hell. Would shot repeatedly again. (Or sip, like a civilised human being.)
Yeah, that maple vodka was a great find! So cheap, and actually incredibly mapley.
A good tequila is really drinkable, but most people’s experience begins and ends with the windex/ashtray blend that is Jose cuervo. I actually have a bottle of the Espolon blanco at home, it has a nice white pepper finish which reminds me of better grappas.
I’m also big into grappa and shochu. I just brought a bottle of grappa flavoured with artichoke heart back from Sicily. I’m yet to get into it, but soon… Soon.
Somehow I missed the mention of maple vodka before. I must investigate this.
have you tried Fireball Whisky (or any cinnamon whisky really) and Apple Cider? that’ll mess you up too.
…so far I’ve only tried it with ginger beer. And haven’t tried it with alcoholic ginger beer.
Oh man I’ve still got a couple of winter ciders, they’d be perfect with it. Especially warmed.
i know you can buy fireball premixed with cider – but its such a sweet sickly flavour – depends on your tastes of course. definitely better to muck around with your own mixing so you get your preferred ratio. if you like hot alcohols look up recipes for Gluhwein. im not a wine drinker, but i havnt met one yet that doesnt like Gluhwein. then, once youve sussed out your preferred Gluhwein mix, you go for a Feuerzangenbowle (Fire Tongs Punch) on top.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feuerzangenbowle
I bought a bunch of instant ginger drink to help with Playstation VR motion sickness and played the most VR I’ve ever played on the weekend. I’m a convert. I think I can platinum Rez Infinite. The only thing that looks difficult is doing score attack 30 times, and that only because it’s tedious.
Is anyone else terrified they’ll be robbed and/or murdered while playing Playstation VR?
No more than when I go to sleep for the night.
The nightmare scenario I think is taking the headset off after a long session and finding there’s someone standing there just staring at you.
Having to drug yourself to be able to play VR more makes me pretty sure we’re on the darkest timeline and headed right for that Cyberpunk dystopia as well.
With VR, It Follows would have been a very short movie.
Morning.
Played a bit of Titanfall 2 and Carmageddon: Max Damage over rhe weekend.
Good Morning!
IT’S PAX WEEK!
Cue hyperventalating
I can’t wait!
What is this “PAX WEEK”? It’s PAX MONTH!!! Starting tomorrow. 😉
Had a look at the panels this morning. Some very interesting ones!
Have any reccomendations? I have to admit looking through a lot I don’t recognise many of the guests and I’m worried I might miss some good stuff because of that.
Definitely going to the “The Gun Lobby: Combat and Beyond” panel as it’s run by a friend 4/5 games at E3 had some form of violent mechanic, and this panel will discuss why. Should be good.
I also don’t recognise many of the guests, but of the panels that I’ve made a note to get to: “Game Trailers – So Hype or Too Hype?” seems quite topical. “Can’t Code, Can’t Draw: The Many Creative Jobs in Videogames”, “Why is 7/10 a Bad Score?” and “The Medical MythBusters Take On Games!”. A few others maybe, but just wandering the halls and trying out some new games at the TAYble (somewhere in the table hall…) will take up the days!
I’m hanging out for the one featuring @dkzeitgeist.
Have fun at PAX everybody! Wish I could go 😮
G’day lads and ladies. Won our ballgame on the weekend 12-2 or something like that. Knocked a rocket straight back at the pitcher that he barely deflected. Should’ve worn his brown pants heh heh. Got some gaming and spent a bit of time hanging with my dad-in-law. Good times had by all.
Got to the gym this morning after putting my son back to bed at 5:30. Pretty happy with myself for that effort.
Sup?
Went to Slipknot on Friday, with Lamb of God & In Hearts Wake as support. In Hearts Wake were good, their music isn’t something i’m into but it was awesome to see a local band up there supporting one of my all time favourite bands. Also my mate is their bass player so there’s that too. Lamb of God were alright, but i’ve never really been into them, Randy’s vocal style bores me, if he did more clean vocals like their new song The Duke i’d be into them more.
Slipknot were amazing as always was my 4th or 5th time seeing them I think, I honestly can’t remember. Even though Clown couldn’t be there due to the passing of his father in law which had him fly back to Iowa. They still were great. They played a fair bit off their album Iowa since it’s the 15 year anniversary of it. The whole set list was pretty great, I also think it was the first time I experienced some of their songs live like The Shape, Skin Ticket, Left Behind & Killpop. I was kind of hoping they were gonna play I Am Hated off Iowa, but can’t win ’em all. Also the VIP entry was well worth it, got a bunch of extra merch cause of it, stuff exclusive to those ticket holders which was cool. I also got double of some of the stuff by random chance, so the extras i’ll be sending to my friend in England along with the merch I bought her!
Slipknots Setlist:
1. The Negative One2. Disasterpiece
3. Eyeless
4. Before I Forget
5. The Shape
6. Killpop
7. Dead Memories
8. The Heretic Anthem
9. Psychosocial
10. Left behind
11. Custer
12. The Devil In I
13. Skin Ticket
14. Wait & Bleed
15. (sic)
-Encore-
16. Surfacing
17. Duality
18. Spit It Out (with jump the fuck up section)
Also I stayed at a place on Roma Street across the road from the train station. Good place, I was on the top floor, room was pretty big, it had a kitchenette with a microwave, electric hotplate, fridge (that stayed cold?!), super comfy bed, a balcony (with a lovely view of the Roma Street train yard lol..) for $120 i’d stay there again.
Only downside is when I got back, there was literally nothing open that sold food after I got back (around 12am), I found a 7-11 a few minutes walk away that had pies & sausage rolls which I reluctantly bought but I was hungry and the sauce for them was free so yay. Next time if I stay there i’m gonna make sure I visit the nearest supermarket and get something to cook for when I get back from a concert lol. There was also a BWS about 3 minutes walk from where I stayed so that was nice.
Sadly I had to leave early Saturday since I had to get home & vote in our local council election & then go to work 🙁
A friend of mine went to Slipknot on Friday, saw a guy get his eyebrow ring torn out in a head clash, the other guy had a broken nose, so I guess it was a pretty good show.
Ouch. That sounds about normal though, the pit was wild. Loved it, even if i’m still feeling pretty stiff lol.
We saw the Sydney show on Saturday night. Killer show, we missed IHW and caught the end of LoG because we had to wait 40m in a queue to get a beer, which gave the me absolute shits because I LOVE LoG.
It was a different experience from the 2-3 previous times I’ve seen both bands previously, on account of my girlfriend having sprained her foot the night before and being on crutches. So there was no moshing, which was a bit of a bummer, but we got treated all special like and no one barged into us, which was nice…. so I guess we came out even?
40 minutes just to get a beer?! Wow, that’s fucked. I got in through the gates when they opened so I went straight for the merch ($220 later lol..), then got a beer ($8.50 for 150 Lashes poured into a plastic cup heh) then went & got my VIP shit lol.
Oh man it was awful, people were getting pissed because they were halfway through the line and LoG’s set was going full tilt. At least you got 150 lashes… our only full strength beer was Carlton Dry (eugh)
At least I got to see them play Redneck, so… winning?
Tomorrow, a bunch of nags are going to snort, stamp, and whinny, and then some horses will run around a track.
@alexwalker it seems when you make multiple edits to a post when there is a spoiler tag it keeps adding “view spoiler” in front of the tag & it also adds multiple instances of “last edited @ time” at the bottom in plain text.
Cheers, I’ll let dev know.
No worries mate!
Hi everybody! Played a bunch of Xenoverse 2 over the weekend… Imported my save from Xenoverse 1, so ended up with a short saiyan proudly dressed as Master Roshi – complete with beard, glasses and turtle shell. And she looks surprisingly intimidating at SSj3. Some of the story tweaks are amazing, particularly the Zrgny Pbbyre vagreyhqr qhevat gur Pryy Tnzrf.
Seems like the end-of-saga boss fights are pretty big difficulty spikes. Vegeta’s wasn’t so bad but Frieza…
Holy crap. Only managed to beat it by lucking into Goku keeping Cooler’s aggro for the entire fight, and somehow not getting himself killed in the process. Cell’s final fight was more annoying than anything – had this annoying habit of kicking me in the face if I teleported behind him. Kid Buu was tricky – he’s so fast and absolutely relentless, but lucked into his aggro sticking to Goku, so blasted him from afar. Currently stuck on the Bardock/Mira fight for the same reasons – no breathing room, and have no-one else to take the aggro in this one.Still, very much enjoying it, even if it is basically just Xv1 with a few new features/quests/scenarios.
I only just got and finished the first Xenoverse. Keen to get on the second one, but $50-60 isn’t completely affordable at the moment.
If you played the first, and aren’t too concerned about the multiplayer scene, I’d wait until it goes on sale, anyway. It improves a bunch of things, tightens the controls, gives a few new customisation options… but a lot (and I mean a lot) of the parallel quests seem to be lifted straight from the first game.
Quick thing about PAX Meat: would people be interested in a separate post being done on the site with all the details, or is it something you’d prefer was kept within TAY? Happy to leave if it you’d all prefer. Don’t want to ruin or spoil anything.
I’d want to keep it within TAY, based on personal experience in regards to “invitation to something on the internet”
Yeah, agree. TAY is pretty self-selecting.
…but I’m pretty sure any Kotaku staff/writers who’d like to meet their readers would be welcome to join too.
Exactly.
The only kind of extra people outside of TAY that I’m fine to allow in would be either:
– Friends/relatives/spouse of TAYbies
– Special Guests (Like Kotaku writers, Mark Serrels, Emma Watson, etc.) depending on who expresses interest in coming along.
Emma Watson now coming? Huh.
Also, i think people who often post in articles but don’t post in tay but seem like nice people
If she expresses interest… not exactly going to be saying “no” to that 😛
Isn’t she busy with humanitarian type things?
She is, but still a robot can dream… it is run from an exe file after all.
I agree with Techie on that, don’t think there is that much room at backlot even if it was wanted
Can you post your paypal detail @tech_knight so I can get some monies out to you
Hi Tigs and for all who need to know,
Same details as we did last year, payments via PayPal to sdcdragonman[at]hotmail[dot]com.
otherwise pay me on the day
Tell them to come to tay for details =P
I think that’s just as bad an idea, tbh.
EDIT: Assuming by ‘tell them’ you meant ‘put a post on the main page saying to check TAY’.
It was a joke, really.
Spent the whole weekend afk, nose to the grindstone trying to get as much costuming done as possible. And made some awesome progress! Til yesterday when things bogged down on one stupid little thing that took way too long. Gonna skip climbing tonight though, that’s five hours I really really need, but it’s looking like I should be able to get it all done, even if I have to leave some hand sewing for the train trip down. May need to keep sleep to a minimum 😛
Oh, mad props to @dannyallen and/or co, noticed the mobile site’s now got comment counters on the front page, and the comment voting stuff’s been made visible without having to click the menu arrow. Much appreciated! (although on my browser the up and down vote buttons are invisible for some reason, but at least I can still click on them and also the vote viewing popup doesn’t appear half off screen like it used to so it’s readable now). Also think I saw edit timestamps are back too. Only annoyance left is when stories load with the Read More thing cutting half of it off and it takes a few goes for the click to register, otherwise I think that’s most of my gripes sorted 😛
Now back to it. Got one last run around to the shops for a couple of things, then it’s all bunker.
Oh shit I still need to do tax >_<
Edit: Looks like the Less Than still gets eaten on hitting Submit 😛
Double edit: Uh. And the old html encode trick isn’t working any more.
I feel like I might not get mine finished in time. I seem to only worry about it when I’m trying to sleep at night.
Huh. So two edits trigger moderation now, even without URLs.
Just about anything trips the darn thing now.
Yet being profane, vulgar and disrespectful gets through without notice.
PAX North. It’s a thing. *moseys away*
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe you could mosey on down to pax south? =P
That face. Somehow… familiar?
You should come to the actual PAX North. Which they call PAX West now for some reason.
Literally thought of you typing this while trying to see how much a ticket was today haha.
So…this new Kotaku layout…
Yup, it’s a new layout all right.
That it most certainly is. It is definitely not old, no siree bob.
Just managed to nab a belt, shirt, pants and scarf-cum-cummerbund for my outfit, all pretty much perfect and from two nearby stores (and only $11). This is the kind of luck I’m used to 😛
I’m going to be humming the Monkey Island theme all weekend and it’s your fault. 🙂
This may be a stupid question but is Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 just a fighting game?
I am not much for multi player games (because I suck) but enjoy a good single player campaign. Plus I used to love Dragon Ball Z back in the day.
Do people have any suggestions/recommendations? Is it worth picking up in their experience?
The first one had a solid Single Player component, so I’d imagine the second one to be the same. Apparently the whole game is tighter than the first which is cool. Haven’t gotten my hands on it yet though, just heard from the lads in discord about it.
Did you play Injustice, the DC comics fighting game. Picked it up on a whim and really enjoyed the campaign.
+1 to this. Really good campaign for Injustice. Keen for the second one.
Only at my cousins playing in pvp. Never been much into fighting games but it’s always because i like the campaign and growth aspects more than anything else.
Hmmm. I think I got this through PS+.
FIGHT!
I’d hesitate to call it (the single-player component, at least) a fighting game in the traditional sense – in my mind, it’s an action rpg with an odd MMO-esque endgame. You progress through the campaign – a string of combat encounters delimited by cutscenes – until you hit a stumbling block; drop out of the campaign into the hub world and grind stats/levels in side-activities until you feel ready to face the next part of the campaign.
That said, I’m enjoying it for what it is – nostalgia, and a game where I can create a SSj3 Master Roshi lookalike. 😛
Yeah, like what os42, this is more of a RPG than fighting game. I had a lot of trouble initially with the first one because I was treating it more like a fighting game than it is, ignoring the other aspects. But once I accepted what it was, it became much easier(Still challenging though) and enjoyable. I just finished the story mode the other day and it was great, recaps a majority of the important scenes from the anime with a twist. The customisation is fun too, one of my characters is basically a Frieza/Hercule fusion.
So civ folks can somebody help me out with a couple of things
How can you see when your city is ready to expand it’s borders?
Is there a way to see how far your religion spreads or how much pressure you are putting / receiving in a city
Am I right in assuming you can only build 1 district per x number of people, not that specific districts need a certain number?
How many of each type of great person is there? Is there a way to see how many Great artists are left?
Is there any happiness (or other) issues with building new cities. Seems besides upkeep it doesn’t matter how many cities you have.
Is there a multiplayer? Play by email or a pitboss server? I’d totally get back into Civ if we could get some games running.
There’s a cool multiplayer time mode where everyone moves at once unless two players are at war with one another, so a war isn’t decided by ping and clicking speed.
I want to play more Civ to learn it, but Stellaris had a major update along with new DLC… have to make sure a horrible choice 🙁
@trikeabout Sounds like they also have a better editor so you can setup ‘scenario’ to keep a full game down to 1-2 hours of play
So challenge of Medieval era to Renaissance Era with the winner being whoever has the highest religion score.
If the multiplayer moves thing is set then that could make really good game night
OK. I’m going to see if JB Hifi have a special on some extra hours in the day. 😉
The borders thing hurts. I have no idea when or where my cities will expand to, so lord knows how much gold I’ve wasted on nabbing blocks.
Bottom left, there should be a religion option for map details, it’ll show you where/what religious pressure is being exerted, though it’s a bit iffy if you don’t have sight on the city, from what I can tell. It’s still a little nebulous, but you’ll get a rough idea.
Yep. One of the best engineers lets you build an extra district, which is a lifesaver, but it’s mostly population based, and past about 12-14 people population seems to be housing based.
*shrugs noncommittally*
I don’t know. Civ V scaled the cost of cultural and scientific things based on how many cities you have, but I haven’t noticed evidence of that in VI, though I’m sure there must be some effect.
AFAIK Your city will expand whenever the population increases, but you can expand it faster by buying tiles if you need to. There’s a counter for population on the left side of the nameplate for the city saying how many turns it will be until it grows.
AFAIK You main spread your religion with religious units that you buy using Faith and they have a couple of goes with them, like a builder.
Yeah number of different districts seems to be based off the population.
There seems to be enough Great People that it’s hard to run out, not sure if there’s a list or not. My favourite was Korolev. Drop him on a spaceport that’s doing a mission to the moon and he more than halved the amount of turns it took.
Happiness is per-city rather than per-civ so you can expand fast and there’s less penalty for taking over other cities (though even considering going to war basically makes all the AI flip out on you for the rest of the game because the diplomacy is fucking stupid broken).
Commenting to see future discussions 😀
I played about three hours last week, I really like it!
Got PAX this week. Looking forward to it. Gonna play all the Halo: Reach tournaments.
Thinking about what games to play, I started Dragon Age 3 and think I might be working through that.
Or someone could suggest from my list https://www.rememberthemilk.com/home/neo_kaiser/39992105
I think you need a profile to look at it. Also it doesn’t contain all my games, I add to it whenever I remember one.
Yeah, I can’t see it. Sorry D=
Log in.
But…I don’t want to. >_>
Yes you do.
Ergh, stupid mygov site is slow as balls. I miss etax, didn’t have to faff about resetting a password I can’t remember because I haven’t had to use it since I last reset it a year ago – which as I recall didn’t work and locked me out for 24 hours, but luckily could still slip by with etax then.
…I can’t tell if it’s still loading or if it’s frozen.
“You have reached the maximum number of attempts to answer your secret questions”
Fuck you I had one single try. This is retarded.
sure sure.
HELP @alexwalker SOMEONE IS IMPERSONATING @mrtaco!
Oh shit, they got rid of etax this year? I haven’t done mine yet but I remember the web-based thing was way too simplistic to use for my tax since I own shares. EDIT: Also I’m super lazy and haven’t done my AU Tax yet…
@mrtaco and @negativezero
Are you guys serious? e-Tax is really gone?!
Howdy all!
Played in the Dota battle cup last night. We got absolutely hammered game 1, and gg’d out in under 20 minutes. I am low 3k and my friend is around 2k, and everyone else on our team was 1k but apparently we were playing in the 3k bracket… tough times. I also let my 2k friend lead the draft, which was a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad idea.
I know I’ve asked this before, but who’s on Overwatch on PC? I’m guessing @scree? I’ve been playing ranked recently, and it would be nice to play with some people that aren’t an actual sack of potatoes slowly falling out onto a keyboard.
Finally… bought a Battlefield 1 key off ozgameshop last night, but I still haven’t received it, and now I’m worried that it won’t come tonight which means I won’t get to play battlefield tomorrow and oh god why is this happening to me!?
Was listening to Dream Theater’s Wait for Sleep on the train this morning, and have spent every idle minute today trying to get my head around the time signature changes. Such a beautiful song, but so hard to hum along to… even if it is relatively accessible by DT standards 😛
http://another-castle.com/2016/10/metroid-prime-federation-force-review/
Now this is how you games journalism. Hire me, Kotaku!
Context: site’s due to close tomorrow or something (sniff) so quickly threw this up as an unsanctioned parting shot because *anarchy*LOL screenshot that bad boy. And well played, sir. Well played.
@alexwalker simple request for the web guys: how about a tooltip over the logout button? I hadn’t noticed it up there previously and the icon isn’t very descriptive on its own, thought maybe we got accounts back and logged out by accident. 🙁
Any idea when we might see notifications come back? How about an RSS with just the AU stories? Actual RSS feed is working again but the old AU one now just gives everything.
anyone able to tell me whats with the new Kotaku layout? is it a trial? is it liked? who loves it who hates it?
So far most of the functionality is there (and it works even better from my phone now for the most part), so I don’t hate it. Though it’s still kinda harsh on the eyes compared to the old one, and wastes a lot of space. Oh though it’s still making Firefox crash a lot on my PC, so that’s not great. But yeah, I’ve certainly been through worse site overhauls.
Lots of wasted space. At least the ‘trending articles’ now moves up and down so there’s not this weird gulf of whitespace to the side. It’s very, very white and I find it a bit of a struggle to read because of the lack of structural elements. Seems to run a lot better though, so that’s good.
The biggest issue IMO is the lack of notifications. Not sure why they’d launch a new theme that didn’t support that out of the box. Hopefully that functionality isn’t too far away.
It’s a bit bright for my taste, and still a lot of wasted space imo, but they seem to be listening to feedback – the header dropdowns seem to have an activation delay now (\o/), and the comment input dialog font is no longer half the size of the comment font (double \o/). and they’ve resolved whatever font-scaling issue made the cross-bars on capital
lambdas‘A’s nearly invisible (triple \o/). Not sure if stockholm syndrome or the devs acting on feedback… or both… but I’m getting more used to it, and it’s definitely improving. 😛i definitely like that the pages dont auto load when you scroll to the bottom anymore, that used to frustrate the hell out of me and my browsing style. i can agree on the too white sentiment and lack of borders.
i also noticed that clicking on a journos name at the top of the article doesnt take you to a place where you can see their profile name for linking purposes.
i also like the minimalising of the sidebars = not so much cluster fuckedness anymore.
and can someone please either let us comment on partner content posts, OR not have so many, they annoy the shit out of me. am i the only one?
Woo! Alter Bridge announced a headline tour for April 2017! Tickets go on sale tomorrow, only gripe I have is they’re playing at Eatons Hill in Brisbane. It’s one of the few venues I go “ugh” at when it’s announced bands are playing there. It’s out of the way and no where near the train line x.x
I don’t get to see the race today – school pickup is at 3pm. But my boss bought me a mystery bet, which is nice. Fingers crossed!
Yay, a $25 quaddie down the drain.
Fuck I hate horse racing.
Isn’t that just, like, gambling though?
Whoa, page 2 on a Tuesday!
Sewing machine is doing its thing again. Stupid button hole setting won’t move the material along properly and keeps getting stuck, pretty much just gotta eyeball it and hope I don’t hit a low resistance spot and put a huge gap in the stitching, or that it stops and a huge ball grows. Spoiler: has already happened many times.
Also running out of this gold thread, only got overly yellow stuff left.
In a pinch, you can manually make the button hole by using a zigzag stich and just adjusting the width and length accordingly. It’s a little less neat, but will still work.
Thinking I may need to do that for the next lot, since they might need to be thicker and the settings here don’t alter that.
Lmao got aired first ep up, got messaged by my friend saying his sister’s boyfriend spotted me. Yet somehow both his sister and mum missed it, and I’ve only met the guy twice.
Glad I’ve been too busy to watch it, can wait to see if Mum notices later 😛
Battlefield 1 huh?
So far it’s the worst battlefield game I have ever played.
All the guns are terrible, unless the ones you can later unlock are magically better. Which would explain why I am getting sniped by SMGs while my DMR cannot hit the side of a barn.
But I’ve been playing for 5 hours and the only thing I have unlocked is skins for guns I don’t have. Maybe a 5th of the way to one rank in 2 classes. Maybe in 20 hours I will be able to unlock a single gun but damned if I know what I will pick because there is no custom games or anything to try them out.
And man, people complained about battlelog but at least that gave you options. Why the hell can’t you even tweak loadouts without joining a match?
Most of the maps are bland grey and so full of smoke and shit it’s almost impossible to see what’s going on half the time.
And let’s not forget the joys of “stare at your corpse while holding spacebar” screen every damn time you die. And sitting through several minutes of meaningless after match screens before it will even give you the option to quit to the menus. Only for the game to freeze when you do.
I almost think I’m playing a completely different game to all the 10/10 reviews plastered everywhere.
I’ve enjoyed it, less so than battlefield three for instance but I agree with you on all of your points. The load out tweaking in game only is a minor gripe I have, the guns must have a steep learning curve because I’ve felt like that too. I’ve stood above someone and shot directly into their back before while they are lying down only for nothing too happen so I feel your pain there.
I am so stupidly pleased with what I’ve managed to put together here. I’m gonna have to keep the beard even longer now just so I can keep wearing it.
…I don’t want to jinx anything but it’s suddenly looking like I may just get this done in time after all.
So I flew into Melbourne far too early in the morning now I’m just wandering aimlessly wishing I’d had more sleep 😛
First time in melbs? There’s a lot of cool places here, especially if you like coffee!
Second but last time I basically followed my best mate around so never really had to think about directions.
I do find I really like this city though.
It’s set up in a grid. Makes life super easy.
I wouls suggest checking out ACMI, the EBGames on Swanston street with the Nintendo experience. Try wandering around the alleys. There is some amazing places to be found.
The royal arcade and the collin street arcade are pretty good. Finding random pubs is fun too.
Melbourne is definitely more neatly laid out. Sydney just sorta…happened.
Sydney kind of grew from a central point, Melbourne was already laid out before they founded it.
That’s what my friend from last year kept insisting, I just find it hard to learn a place when I’m following others.
Good walk yesterday is helping me get used to it more, it really is a nicely laid out city.
Especially having lived in Sydney for 5 years…
Remember, trams are free within the Free Tram Zone.
https://static.ptv.vic.gov.au/siteassets/PDFs/Maps/Network-maps/PTV_FreeTramZone_Map.pdf
Their routes can be a little confusing at first but it’s a nice way to get back to your hotel if you’ve wandered too far or when it starts raining.
That reminds me, I need to pack the myki card just in case.
Went and saw Doctor Strange last night. It’s pretty neat. Good cast, visuals are trippy.
Main character is kinda dull- another pass on the script or two I think was needed- but worth checking out. I reckon it would look really good in 3D too
It looked awesome in 3D actually. I found it quite good all around and nice and different from the usual Marvel fare. The mid-credits scene was interesting mainly because it seems to infer that some things happened that we don’t know about yet. Not sure how to use spoiler tags but I hope you get what I mean.
Apparently the people at Wargaming heard all the crying babies that were upset about the totally optional anime ships from Arpeggio of Blue Steel in World of Warships, because this month, in addition to ARP Takao (which is stupid hard to get and completely unnecessary and basically a worse version of Atago and I must have her) you can now obtain Steven Seagal to captain your ships.
And yes, despite the fact the guy looks like a fucking wax model or CGI or something that’s really him.
I think I’d rather he be the cook than the captain though.
EDIT: Oh and in other news, HMS Belfast hits NA servers this Friday, which means the next premium in the pipeline is HMAS Perth. If I were a betting man I’d say that WG’s booth at PAX AU might be a good place to see her in action because if not they’re doing it very wrong.
@alexwalker: Found another weirdness on the new site.
EDIT: Actually no that’s working fine.
What is a bug though, is that when you @ someone right now, it inserts a link into the text, and when you edit, it shows the link in the edit box.
Welp, I’m in love with Stellaris all over again.
So much has been changed with the update and I decided to get the DLC too. There’s a LOT more powerful neutral threats (Talking over 1k military power, sometimes up to 10k and that’s not the only fleet in that system!), and the base neutral enemies have also been buffed in numbers so they don’t look like small mob camps anymore.
Love the new ship module layouts now, I have specialised Corvettes that can use torpedoes, while Destroyers can only use missiles at the moment, so I still have a use for Corvettes after researching Destroyers, which is pretty cool. It’s no longer “Mass build the highest class ship you have” anymore.
Lots more events are showing up making the galaxy more alive than it was before, even finding new kinds of NPC races, like this one large space station that is like a society or arts and beauty, and you can commission their services for empire-based bonuses (That I don’t know yet because I can’t afford them right now).
Strategic resources have been reworks in terms of sometimes how they can be collected and how they’re used. Resources that gave bonuses to ships (e.g. 10% Kinetic damage) is now just inherited in your empire rather than having to use a station module and only have the bonus on ships built there (THANK YOU!).
I no longer have trouble finding planets I can colonise if I lose track, there’s now a window that shows all colonisable planets and you can organise them based on habitability, resources, etc. Only downside is it doesn’t show if the planet is already inhabited (e.g. pre-sentient alien pops), but overall it’s so much easier to plan out my colony ship use.
I’m currently playing with the Furball Initiative, being the best scientists in the galaxy while also trying to play nice with everyone, so far only one truly hates me due to differing policies, but he’s piss weak compared to the Furball Capital Fleet so I’m okay for now 🙂
Is The Trump Collective thriving in your galaxy still?
Well I have an Observation Outpost in orbit over a planet called “Sol III”, and their latest update was that they splitted the atom, so… I guess the Trump Collective is about to sprout… or explode, one of the two!
@scree I’ve found out I’ll actually be in melbourne around PAX and am happy to put in for the Meat if you’re still accepting people! I appreciate its pretty last minute so I understand if it can’t be done 🙂
Oh I dunno, I think for you I’ll make an exception because you’re such an awesome guy. You’re more than welcome to drop in on Saturday night 😀
Techie paid for the place. i just organise things.
Which makes me the official sponsor without any ads whatsoever! 🙂
“This PAX Meat was brought to you by Tech Knight, TAY’s best robot”
You have two days to acquire a Space Trump costume.
You laugh, but if you look at my instagram I’m part of the way there… @nathan.mclean
Make the suit look like a 70s doctor who prop, add the cap, and you’re golden.
That’s great! 🙂
My cosplay is done! My friend has a big suitcase I can borrow! The countdown is on 🙂
Still working on mine. Trying to clean and work on cosplay. Quite difficult
Good luck. At least you don’t need to transport yours interstate 🙂
True, just hope I can get it all done
It looks awesome
oh fu kotaku. Im done trying to post here.
have fun all
Joey Jojo! 🙁
What happened? 🙁
So my son broke our plasma this morning. Threw a car at it apparently and now there’s a black hole in the picture a bit bigger than a 50c piece. Oh the joys. He’s banned from screens indefinitely among other things, which will be interesting.
In other news, work is oh so slow. Trying to figure out where I want to take my career, or if I even want to continue being an IT engineer. I enjoy building things and I just do a lot of break-fix stuff at the moment. How is everyone else?
Oh no – your poor TV!
It’s not so bad. The missus and I don’t use it heaps and I can just move consoles to my PC monitors. It’s more annoying is all as we could’ve gotten a bit of cash for it before upgrading and now it’s essentially worthless.
Hello friends! What does everything think of the big site redesign? I hated it at first, but it’s growing on me as I get used to it.
One thing I can’t figure out is where your profile is? Being able to see if anyone replied to your comments is pretty handy, but I can’t figure out how to do it anymore!
It’s not back yet. No notifications, no profile yet.
You can see replies and your profile on Gizmodo or Lifehacker. The comments won’t mark themselves as read, so you have to hit the ‘Mark all as read’ button on the profile page when you’re done reading them.
[Edit: Nevermind, I just checked Gizmodo/Lifehacker and they’re on the new layout too.]
Yeah that’s what I’ve been doing for the last few days… its a bit annoying!
Just feeling really shitty this week.
No idea why.
Honestly, my cat is the only thing making me happy right now. 🙁
Kitties are good at that.
Just a reminder @dogman and others. Pax meat is at 7pm, Saturday the 5th at Backlot studios.
Backlot’s address.
65 Haig Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3006
If it looks like you’re on the wrong side of Melbounre, don’t worry, you’re going the right way.
Sure, single me out, just because I’d already forgotten what time, what day and where to go.
Most people went last year, you’re one of the few people who didn’t come last year
It’s nearly drectly under the freeway bridge when you go down Haig Street
I remember when we were walking down the street and we were like “Do…do we have the right place? We’re not…going to be murdered, right?”
Then I came back and was locked out of the block
Did you message someone inside? They just need to know to open the fence so cars don’t park in their lot
This was exactly what I was looking for haha.
I jinxed it!
@cookingmama I haven’t checked my e-mails in a while and only just found about the twitter message you sent the other day >_> (can only twitter from my PC not my phone because reasons)
The whole gown thing totally slipped my mind. Don’t suppose you’d be able to bring it to the station tonight? If not that’s cool, I’ll just know not to worry about bringing the rest of the stuff and have less to pack 😛
I can.
email me at shudson{at}gmail[dot]com and we can exchange details!Did Roar and Snore at Taronga the other night, it was fantastic. Got to see some of the animals far more active than usual, spent 15 minutes looking over the harbour just after sunrise with my morning coffee, fed a giraffe and there’s one thing they don’t really advertise – the itinerary finishes 30-60 minutes before the zoo opens to the general public, so you’ve got that time to go check things out before the screaming hordes appear.
Are you a zoo friend? The Christmas night for zoo friends is also really good – it’s on just after the general admission closes, so it’s really quiet but all the animals are active and having dinner. Plus the raffle is great and there’s facepainting for the kidlets.
No, we’ve been to the zoo twice in 10 years, so zoo friends isn’t really our thing. Kind of tempted by the summer concert line up though:
This summer will see Twilight at Taronga presented by ANZ host fearless Australian frontman Peter Garrett and the Alter Egos during the opening weekend of the series, and the original lineup of Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons and The Sports in a rare performance. triple j Hottest 100 winners The Rubens will make their Zoo debut, beloved country songstress Kasey Chambers will grace the stage supported by Thelma Plum, and Brisbane indie powerhouses Ball Park Music and The Jungle Giants come together for a special double headline performance. Quintessential Australian bands Killing Heidi, Jet and george will perform in a series of memorable reunion shows, and Obama-endorsed jazz lord James Morrison Big Band and family favourites Björn Again will return after their sold out shows last year. Pennsylvania’s Kurt Vile will be bringing his unique brand of hazy-rock to the Zoo for the first time, and The Living End will be accompanied by a string quartet for a special ‘Twangin’ at Twilight’ stripped back show. The closing week of the series showcases some of Canada’s most talented musicians, with performances from international indie-pop duo Tegan and Sara and singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, as well as Scottish alt-rockers Teenage Fanclub.Wait why did nobody tell me that steamers were magical?
As someone universally terrible at ironing this is a revelation.
Yeah, it’s the steam in the iron doing most of the work. A hand steamer or a hot shower works just as well!
@alexwalker Any chance we could get a link up there with the social media buttons or something that goes to the current TAY or an index of TAY articles in order? Without the regular columns header on the main page or the most commented box it’s a bit hard to get here.
Woo, got my jacket finished! Just stitched the buttons on, great timing too as the conductor came and told me someone’s taking my spare seat at the next station, baw. Though I guess I’ve been up since like 10am yesterday so maybe I should take a break…
Hmm. Tried sending that when hitting a black spot, now it gives me an error. Also my spare seat is now taken, and she’s a cougher.
Ah, looks like I got logged out but it wasn’t showing me as logged out. Also god damn all these extensive black spots 😛
Double woo, profile’s back! Baw, doesn’t seem to have anything on it.
@Alexwalker the Aus-only RSS feed is working again \o/
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwesome.
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.
I just realised I LEFT MY FUCKING PAX BADGE AT HOME.
My heart just broke. Hopefully the registration desk would be able to sort you out; they’ve got records of all the people who have received badges, and you can produce a record of you having a badge. I don’t know that they’d have spares, but it’s a start I guess.
They can reissue one if I provide evidence of the original being destroyed, only problem there is that nobody’s home and apparently my uncle doesn’t have any spare keys for our house. What luck 😛
Just turn around and go get it.
Done.
On that note I’ll be checking TAY pretty frequently for the next few days and I live about 5 minutes from the Exhibition Centre. If you guys have any emergencies or get stuck with something yell out and I might be able to help. Even if you just need someone to walk back to your hotel with (Melbourne is pretty safe, but this end of town can feel unexpectedly intimidating after about 9PM).
So, now I’ve got this weird convention in Melbourne to go to. Urgh!
@welbot: Hey, champ.
Problem found with the machine and fixed: CPU had gone bad.
No problems so far. Just need to see if I can deal with Intel directly about a replacement for the first one.
Got the first chip from CentreCom and after a bad experience on my latest visit I’ve decided not to go back again.
Don’t get me wrong, the staff there used to treat me very well. But all the good staff are gone now and those that remain seem to be barred from higher up on what is expected of the consumer law.
I nominate @dogman for TAYbie of the year.
And me for dumbass of the year.
Uh how do you check your comments on this new version of kotaku on androids?
As in the old notification system? It hasn’t been implemented yet, but judging by yesterdays re-introduction of the profile page it’ll be here soon.
Thank goodness. I was just worried i was getting old and couldn’t figure out this new fangled website.
I spent a good day and a half trying to figure it out….
So, Battlefield 1. I haven’t bought a AAA game at launch for many years now, but I played for half an hour on a friends PS4 and then went straight home and bought it. Played through a couple of the story missions (man, that opening montage thingo is perfect), then jumped into a multiplayer game to remind myself how bad I am at BF multiplayer.
Quick question – has anyone had any problems with the Black Bessy mission? I got stuck on the one where you’re scouting for the tank through the forest… I get up to the end of the forest, where you have to assault an entrenched position with a few field guns… and something weird happened. One of the German tanks glitched out (I’m assuming), so that I could jump in and drive it around, and it looks like it’s broken the mission trigger, so I kill all the bad guys, blow everything up, and I can’t progress with the story. Not a huge deal, the mission is good fun so I don’t mind playing it through again, just more annoying than anything.This heat is stifling.
Why must you do this, Victoria?
Given the rest of the weekend, how’d you like Melbourne weather now? 😀
Jesus christ. Gave my beard a thorough wash in the shower, but could see in the reflection there was still white in it so went again. Got out, dried off then out in the mirror saw there was STILL colour in it.
Never doing that again.
Great, just woke up with a headache.
🙁
If you haven’t already left see if the hotel will give you some Nurofen, a bottle of Gatorade and a hot towel. Drink the Gatorade (or a glass or two of water), take the Nurofen and have a rest with the hot towel on your forehead or neck depending on where the majority of the pain is. Personally I find a 45 minute bath does the trick really well.
There’s a Chemist Warehouse in the little shopping centre attached to Southern Cross Station if you find yourself in need of any allergy stuff. It’s a straight shot from PAX. Just go across the river, up Spencers St, past the station until you get to the giant stairs/Hungry Jacks. Go up the stairs and right into the shopping centre then keep going straight until you reach the end.
There’s also a massage place South Wharf DFO just behind the Exhibition Centre, almost attached to it. If it’s a tension headache that’ll take care of it.
I’m not going to PAX.
Don’t have the time or the money. 🙁
Sorry, I thought you said you were down here for PAX. On the plus side you don’t have to go to PAX with a headache.
Whoops I all night’d. Not entirely done, but my hat looks fucking awesome. Winds outside look pretty fierce, won’t be able to wear it down safely.
So how is PAX treating everyone?
Ahh, PAX is always fun. PAX Meat tonight~!
It’s the first PAX Aus I’m missing and I wish I wasn’t. 🙁
Same one I’m missing too. I don’t mind missing out on PAX stuff but it’s weird not seeing everyone all together at least once a year 🙁
PAX is treating me well, but the fact I’ve barely sat down for the past three weeks is treating me like garbage. I swear one day I’ll have a proper PAX.
PAX NORTH
…it’s a thing
Who dis?
New phone?
Right. I very overslept, thanks to it being a looooong day yesterday.
Heading back in to PAX now for an afternoon in the tabletop area trying out some games. See you there TAYbies.
I think I moght have come down with something.
I’ve get both sinus and neck pain, and I’ve spent the last 15 hours in bed, trying to sweat it out of me.
Wow, the finals of the Omegathon was incredible! I only missed out on watching the first 2 rounds, but Omegathon was the highlight of PAX for me.
Plus I won a Jackbox Party 3 Steam key!
@chuloopa was in that thing! Do you know how he placed?
I don’t know his exact number placing, but knocked out 4th round in the Bop It challenge.
It would be pretty difficult to stay in during that round when the top 2 scores were 100 and 200.
I missed round one, but the rest was brilliant. In round 4, the cut-off was 4th… and 30 would’ve been enough. Loops got 8. Last. And the only zero of the round… If you’re going to fail, fail HARD. The 200 and 105 top two scores were incredible though.
The final was FANTASTIC. Both players were great. Tense. Right balance of sneaky and running-gunning. Close too, 9-10, 10-9, 10-7 I think?