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187 responses to “Talk Amongst Yourselves”
Morning everyone, how was your weekend?
I didn’t get up to much, mainly pushing through FFXV and checking out Mario Maker for 3DS. Unsurprisingly they’re both great.
Sid, my dog, caught a mouse for the first time ever! He had been stalking it for ages. He was so proud of himself to.
“I got the mouse … What now?”
He’s spent most of the day sleeping, so that apparently.
After putting it off for two years, I finally finished Pokemon Y. I was over leveled by at least 20, so I just rolled through the Elite Four. Was really annoyed that even the Elite Four didn’t have a full set of 6 Pokemon to fight against. At least I cleared that game off my backlog.
Titanfall 2 free weekend was nice. Playing against so many new players and getting easy wins. I was getting scores of 20/5/30 per game. I still love wrecking a Titan from long range with my Northstar, watching them eject and then sniping them out of the sky.
I also finished Rise of the Tomb Raider last week. I have a lot to say on that game, so I’ll probably make a follow up comment on that.
Now I’m wondering how I’m going to afford 230 bucks a week in rent. My house mate if moving out and there doesn’t seem to be a single person who’s looking for a place to live.
There are websites where you can look for roommates. Have you tried any yet?
also look for facebook groups and gumtree for potential flatmates
Iirc, even the Elite Four in Red/Blue only had 5 each, and only the final battle with your rival had a full team of six.
In Pokemon Y they only had 4 each.
I have found my last two housemates on https://flatmates.com.au/.
Definitely recommend giving it a try. $230 a week is insane.
For those who are keen on The Last of Us 2, if you’ve got a 4K screen, you might wanna check this out!
http://www.gamersyde.com/download_the_last_of_us_part_ii_psx_2016_reveal_trailer-38801_en.html
Much better than the shitty youtube trailers!
2 Last 2 Furi-US
404 TAY not found? 😛
Went out and met a Canberra friend on Saturday who was up for the day, went and saw some comedy which was pretty good. Otherwise still couldn’t tear myself away from friggen Overwatch and do… I don’t know what but something else. Should probably try and do some Christmas shopping I guess. Maybe.
TAY RPG Pathfinder on tonight at 8pm AEST, 8:30pm ACDT, and 9pm AEDT. Starring:
@redartifice @tech_knight @freezespreston @beeawwb
After leaving the cavern of the murderous redcaps, the Monday Knights have ventured into the mystical fey realm in search of the Valerian Knights.
Let me know if you guys are unable to make it tonight.
With style!*jazz hands* Magic!
@scree I brought my mum’s dog one of those gentle leaders you mentioned and tried it out this weekend. It seemed to work well. I only got to walk her with it twice though so I’m not sure if she was behaving herself because she was weirded out by having something on her face or if she was behaving herself because it was working. There were a few times where she saw something in the distance she wanted to chase and pulled on the lead, but she didn’t pull very hard and gave up on it right away.
Definitely an improvement over her usual constant pulling and it didn’t really take any training to get a response so there’s a chance mum will actually use it.
It’s working. =P They hate the sensation of their snout being pulled down. It doesn’t hurt them and they quickly realise pulling leads to an icky sensation.
You may need to treat the dog to get the gentle leader on if the dog starts to run, unless your dog is like mine and used to get excited because it meant walk.
I think part of it was just being able to feel the tension on the leash more accurately. Being deaf means she can’t hear my footsteps but she seemed to pick up on the difference in tension between me being one step behind and two steps behind. There was a much more immediate response when I’d stop walking. She got tangled up at one point but she could clearly tell when I was on her left or her right.
Well if it helps her, then keep using it.
Spent my weekend working. Just won a double pass to a three day music festival over the christmas break so saving some pennies for plenty of drinks and food.
I’m a little behind on games at the moment so I’m still chugging through Fallout 4 and MGSV, along with a few hours here and there in The Witcher 3. Just scored Sleeping Dogs Definitive on Games with Gold though, so might give that a crack this week as well.
Hope everyone’s Monday is going well.
Tell me more about the music festival – Where’s it at and who’s playing?
Southbound in WA.
The Bennies, Boo Seeka, The Cat Empire, Catfish And The Bottlemen, Cut Chemist, Drapht, Grrl Pal, Hermitude, Hideous Sun Demon, Highasakite, Hot Chip (DJ Set), Hudson Mohawke, HWLS, Hydraulix, Just A Gent, Klue, Koi Child, Kučka, Ladyhawke, Lilt, Luke Million, Mathas, Montaigne, Mosquito Coast, MSTRKRFT, Nicole Millar, Nina Las Vegas, Odd Mob, Paces, Peking Duk, Phantogram, Remi, Running Touch, SAFIA, San Cisco, Set Mo, Slumberjack, Dena Amy, Discovery: Daft Punk Tribute, Elk Road, The Smith Street Band, Sticky Fingers, Throttle, Thundamentals, Time Pilot, Tired Lion, UV Boi, Vera Blue, ZHU
Noice!!
That is a very good line up.
I haven’t seen The Cat Empire in a while, I keep forgetting to check when they’re touring. The Bennies would be a must as well, and I’d add Drapht, Hermitude, Ladyhawke, Peking Duk, SAFIA and Thundamentals to my list too if I was there.
Only Cat Empire and Catfish and the Bottlemen appeal to me.
Never really liked the line ups for Southbound.
Would that be Falls Festival?
Nah Southbound in WA.
Was thinking of going to Falls now that it’s finally in Perth, to see Modern Baseball and Childish Gambino (seen him twice but his new album is incredibly funky). But unfortunately I can’t afford both.
Ah fair enough. Never heard of it, but sounds like it should be good!
I just saw this morning Live Nation is going to be acquiring the company responsible for Falls Festival & Splendour in the Grass. Which can’t be a good thing, since I consider them greedy pricks.
Work pretty much took my Saturday but as my main and only client is in the US, it means in situations like this I can take Monday as a Sunday.
That being said, I had planned to play more of World of Final Fantasy (had to laugh at the train as it was clearly from FF6) but I found my FF XIII disk.
So I though, why not give it one final shot (pun not intended)? I’ve pretty much had the game since it game out but only got to Chapter 6 before I gave up.
In my view, Square-Enix really do have some problems. The “single player” games they are making are most likely designed as MMOs first and then any means used to make it single player. Seriously, how else can one explain the Gambit and Paradigm system?
My rant aside, I opened one of my old save files (near the start of the game as I completely forgotten how to play that sound and light show dressed as a game) and I actually started to make some ground and finally found some of the nacks I didn’t back then that made battles harder than planned.
Last night was OK but this morning I came across Odin and got floored before I pressed my first button.
Still, I might trudge on now that I have a better understanding of the system; kind of like how it took me a few tries to understand FF8 worked (assigning spells to skills as early as possible) and how it was rigged (level scaling?! Really?!).
But needless to say I might skip 13 two sequels as they have the same battle system which I’m finding the most frustrating part.
Call me old fashioned but I really hate battle systems where anyone can learn the same skills as each other (at least that it seems like to me). It can be more challenging at times but I preferred it better when FF character basically had their move sets designed during development and one had to work with them in the various battles.
I’m still bitter about the level scaling in FFVIII. Those bastards!
I will admit. I never finished it but I love Final Fantasy 6. I just love the characters, Lock, Celeste, Cyan and (above all) Terra.
And admittedly it has one of the easiest battles in the history of JRPGs. While riding the Death Train eventually one has to fight said train. This thing is tough but all it takes is a couple or so Phoenix Downs and the train is defeated. It’s undead so it does the max 9,999 damage.
I always found it funny and still do but then there is the cut scene after that chokes me up. Seeing Cyan race after the train as it departs with his dead family just gets to me.
It’s also from an era where the challenge was actually in the battle system due to the hardware rather than now it’s the frustration having so many parts that don’t gel together and get in the way of the experience (grrrrr!)
Seriously, in those games complexity didn’t often get worse than Reflect.
For the your types here (I don’t know if that spell exists or even works the same away any more), Reflect as a temporary effect that bounced all magic back at its caster. To make it worse, Reflect also applified the rebound.
This lead to some funny and smart combinations.
If an enemy case Reflect on itself, you could use it to your advantage by casting Cure (or the like) on the enemy. Not only would it bounce back but it would be stronger thus giving one a recovery boost.
Or one could cast Reflect on a party member and then cast a spell on the member. The games were fair there in that the spell would bounce off but still go to the enemy. Again, with the amplified effect.
And best of all, the reflection only happens once. So if an enemy case reflect, just case reflect on a party member and then case an offensive spell. Effectively having a combination of the two above.
But I digress.
I’ve gotten a bit further but given the amount of frustration I’m getting with FF13, I’m just going to stop. I’ve whined enough about it and it’s just a game. I shouldn’t be getting this mad over something so insignificant.
I remember one boss in FF7 was defeatable with healing items too, but they fixed it so that phoenix down only did 1000 damage.
But they didn’t fix X-potions. 🙂
Oh that is just cheap! Good thing I still have my old PSX disks.
Sad they are PAL but still a good experience, 🙂
It’s the boss you fight in Cosmo Canyon when you’re finding out about Red XIII’s father
Had a pretty decent weekend. Started playing some Dragon Quest:
MinecraftBuilders. Its actually pretty alright, definitely worth the $40 I spent! Also played some board games. Played a couple rounds of Pandemic, in which the first round we literally draw an Epidemic card. Also played a little bit of the Pathfinder Card Game seems like a little but of fun. I think I recall @Tech_Knight saying he played it?Edit: Me tag goodly
@tech_knight
Heh, oh Pandemic, try drawing epidemic when it’s your turn 3 turns in a row, cuz that happened to me 😛
Yeah we’re playing through Skulls & Shackles, which is basically a pirates themed one where you also have a ship. We made a balanced team with myself as a Gunslinger so I was bringing all the dakka. Main thing we do is run through one scenario and save our decks for another session as the overall campaign will take more than a day to complete. We’ve done currently 4 scenarios if memory serves, and I have some powerful guns now to make combat checks easier. However as the campaign goes on, more cards get added into the respective decks, making the game scale with your power levels which is why balancing your team comp is quite important as you need to plan for what you’re dealing with. And ensure someone has a healing spell ASAP!
It’s pretty fun if you enjoy coop in a D&D setting, which I do, cuz I can help in battle from anywhere, I literally just shoot them :P.
You… probably, statistically, shouldn’t be able to draw 3 pandemic cards in a row on your turn. When you set up the deck you’re supposed to distribute the epidemic cards throughout the deck.
Drawing one epidemic per turn, 3 turns in a row, that’s not distributed?
How many epidemic cards were you playing with?
Usually after dealing out starting hands (2 cards in a 4 player game) you shuffle in the event cards, building your deck to 45 cards. You then split this into equal piles (for a 6 epidemic game, they’ll be 7 or 8 cards big) and shuffle one epidemic card into each pile, then stack these piles up to make a deck (WITHOUT RESHUFFLING). With six epidemic cards, each pile with the epidemic card in it is 8 or 9 cards big, so even if you get an epidemic on the bottom of one stack and 4 cards into the next stack, the next epidemic should be at least 5 cards away.
Huh, didn’t know that, I’ve only played two games of pandemic so I didn’t question it and the others said nothing about it.
Okay so they did it wrong looks like
To be fair, it’s a pretty subtle line in the rule book. I had to look it up while writing the above to make sure I wasn’t just making things up
Still doesn’t excuse I’m horribly unlucky regardless 😛
@tech_knight
I remember you were typhoid techie when we played at my place as well
New Mechwarrior game!
\o/
Also, hello.
https://twitter.com/russ_bullock/status/805321701827325953
Well now I’m interested 😛
All systems nominal.
Divided my weekend between Watch Dogs 2 and Pokemon Sun – had my first encounter with Hau’s Raichu… o_0 Trying as best I can to play it blind, and holy crap.
The whole “Alolan forms are hybrid-opposites” thing threw me – the design lead me to believe it’d be electric/water… right up until it started one-shotting pokemon 3-5 levels above it (without type advantage) with Psychic. And the kahunas are starting to throw out attacks specifically designed to target their weaknesses, which is neat (I feel for anyone who tries to nuzlocke this gen, tho).Still enjoying Watch Dogs, too – Wrench is freaking amazing. 😛
I am trying to blind nuzlocke but oh boy did I get wrecked on my first trial. I’ve had to turn on the EXP share on my second attempt which I’ve never had to do before. It feels a little bit like cheating but I’d like to finish the game without excessive grinding.
I’ve done no grinding, but I do have the EXP-share turned on, and have a pretty diverse team – didn’t encounter anything too troubling until the second island… Good luck! And prepare for the unexpected…
Sun or Moon, btw? I’ve heard the first trial’s pokemon are different in Moon…
Moon. I haven’t heard anything about the different trial pokemon depending on the version but the totem Raticate was beefy as hell.
I think it’s just the first trial – Sun has yungoos and gumshoos, Moon has ratatta and raticate. Both gumshoos and raticate can hit really hard, but I think the raticate’s bite will hit a bit harder because it’s dark/normal. All totem pokemon seem to get a defence bonus, tho, and take a few hits even with level+type advantage stab.
Vidya Games!
Wasteland 2 gives you a trophy if you get 3 goats to join your party. GOTY forever.
https://twitter.com/redartifice/status/805276606340026368
A giant robot killed all of my goats. This game is garbage and is worse than Superman 64.
https://twitter.com/redartifice/status/805377593448894465
Haha. What. Another saga with Aus Post. Got a text this morning saying my parcel which I ordered last Tuesday & was shipped the same day from a company just outside of Brisbane will arrive tomorrow. I looked at the tracking that was sent with said message, the parcel went from Point of origin, Underwood sorting Centre > Chullora Sorting centre > Underwood sorting centre > now enroute to my local sorting centre for delivery tomorrow. A total of something like 2,200km round trip to come to me less than 100km from the point of origin makes zero sense. But at least I get a laugh out of it.
Got called up this afternoon by the manager of Big W, telling me they had their second shipment of NES mini and he’d put one aside for me since he took my name down back at launch. What a guy!
…honestly contemplating just tossing it on eBay and paying for some Christmas presents though, with the ridiculous prices they’re going for >_>
@alexwalker ‘nother bug. The front page and article page were both acting as if I was logged in (despite having refreshed the pages and everything), but I was getting an unexplained error on trying to post. Clicked through to my profile and it was only there asking me to log in, since my session had expired or whatever.
Weird. I’ll try and see if we can replicate it for a fix.
I’ve been getting it pretty regularly since the change over to the new website (about five times so far). It was happening before notifications and all that. Beyond the fact it’s never occurred twice close together I haven’t been able to pin down a cause.
On the subject, it would be nice if when a comment failed for whatever reason it put the text for the comment into the comment box. I know I can get extensions that save form progress but it’d be nice if the website handled it instead.
I’ve seen people comment about this kind of thing a lot over the years, on forums and stuff too, but I can hardly think of any time where just hitting Back didn’t just take me back to the page which still had the post written up in the text box.
Normally yes, but there are times when hitting back lands you on another error page or something else that won’t retain your text. It’s not something that happens all the time and I’ll admit I freak out a little more when I have to hit back because I’m from a time when browsers didn’t retain form data, but it’d still be nice if it wasn’t an issue at all.
I get this too. I found logging in & out fixes it, but yeah.. I also sometimes get that when trying to upvote/downvote people.
Do it. I would if I were you.
@alexwalker: I’ve been noticing recently that TAY doesn’t come up in the RSS feed any more. Not sure why. Might be that the fact it’s re-posted screws things?
Having played the beta for SW: Battlefront, and thinking it was a little meh, I passed on it. Found it for $23 at EB on the weekend, and it turns out that there’s both local multiplayer and bots now? Picked up two copies for me and Mrs. 4 DVDs and 20GB worth of patches though, then I’ve got to figure out how to copy origin games between PCs.
Problem is you won’t get the season pass with that, so you won’t have cool stuff like the Death Star map, etc.
Sure I’ll survive 🙂
Our internet is so crap, we have to survive on local multi and bots.
I’m considering getting the Sunset Overdrive DLC, has anyone here played it? Is it worth it?
They’re relatively meaty. The oil rig one was pretty cool. New location, decent missions. The area was a little hard to navigate at first but once you learn your way around it’s not bad. Dawn of the Rise of the Fall was a good but being set in the city meant it was very similar to the rest of the game. Fun though.
I was super into the game so I thought they were worth it. If they’re cheap I say go for it.
There’s a $30 DLC pack that has both the extras, a weapon pack and a preorder bonus pack
aaaaaaaaand Aus Post just left me a card again, because it’s too hard to open the front gate or yell out. I missed the driver by less than a minute. Annoying.
Around here anything bigger than the mail slot on the letterbox gets instantly carded. Except my monthly Loot Crate, which gets delivered no matter what. If no one’s home they just leave it on the step right outside the front door where anybody walking past will see it. Amazed I haven’t had one stolen yet.
I got a text message about an hour later all “COME AND GET YOUR PARCEL FROM (insert company here) AT YOUR LOCAL POST OFFICE, BRING ID” I don’t like this new courier he doesn’t even attempt to deliver..
eep. Just signed myself up for Michelle Bridges 12WBT.
Wish me luck.
Good luck with what that is?
12 Week Body Transformation. It’s a fitness and weightloss program. I want to run faster!
With @alexwalker channeling his inner fat kid with articles on Christmas food, who’s got some good recipes to share? Or, I guess, request?
I’ve got a Weber Baby Q on gas, and it’s been really good for roasts; the problem is that I’ve never really gotten into roasts, and so my repertoire is pretty limited. Ribs, pork belly and brisket have all come out pretty well (the brisket was little dry, but I’ll sort that out next time). Suggestions?
Made these on the weekend: http://www.daringgourmet.com/2015/12/20/pfeffernuesse-german-iced-gingerbread-cookies/
Exactly as described, and they came out really well.
I posted this one a few weeks back (something about Christmas cake?): Christmas Cake ice cream. 1/2 cup mixed dried fruit, 1/2 cup glace cherries, 1/2 cup slivered almonds, 120g grated dark chocolate, 2/3 cup dark rum + however you want to make vanilla ice cream. Rehydrate the dried fruit with the rum, overnight.
Toast the almonds
Make the ice cream
Strain the fruit, drink the rum
Mix everything into the ice cream
Christmas cake solved.
Maple-glazed [insert protein here].
Fun thing to do after you make the cake: take leftover bits of that cake, layer it at the bottom of a pan, then layer bits of bread or brioche or fruit loaf or whatever crap people brought over, then more cake, and then whip up a few eggs + cream and pour it on top.
Bake the lot and you’ve got a quick and dirty leftover B&B pudding. Winner.
Maple-rum glazed a pork loin a couple of weeks ago. Just 50/50 maple syrup and dark rum.
I printed out that pffernuesse recipe, it looks wonderful.
May I suggest butterflied chicken? Easy to do from scratch, it cooks faster than a regular roast, and works brilliantly on a bbq. If you have big kitchen scissors, you can use them instead of a knife to make things even easier.
You may suggest butterflied chicken. Sounds like a winner straight on the grill – I’ve done some really delicious wings on the weber.
Modern horror: listening to a reading of “Facts concerning the late Arthur Jermyn and his family” on Youtube.
Freaking grammarly ads…
Urgh grammarly ad, I get them so often on Youtube. The one that makes me scoff most though is the “live Microsoft Word” bit, where it says there’s no spelling or grammar errors detected after clicking while I’m pretty sure Word can pick up on some of that drivel you just typed, ad!
I’m just of the opinion that if you care enough about appearing to be well educated, learn to use proper grammar. It’s cheaper and will serve you better in the long run than a paid subscription to a glorified thesaurus.
Never used to see ads on youtube, but ever since Ghostery updated in September they’ve been incessant, and extremely annoying…
Have started getting back into Trials Fusion a bit lately. Going back trying to get platinum medals I’ve missed. Just got the platinum on Waterworks after about 20 tries and by some miracle I beat @fatshadylive. Pretty damn proud of myself right now. It’s not often you beat one of the masters of Trials.
I am not on TAY these days but if there is one thing to get me back it’s a Trials challenge!! I’ll have a look if I get a chance this week and congrats.
It’s only one of the beginner tracks, so you’ll probably smash it without even trying. But I don’t care, I’ve had my moment.
Just had farewell dinner for boss and his family, with workfriend and his wife. And help move boss’s fridge from his house into my friend’s car, then into *his* house. Nothing like a helping hand 😛
Also, turkish delight gelato.
Turkish delight gelato sounds awesome
It was a tough choice between that, pavlova and danish waffles with salted caramel.
Woop woop, just got a “your order is processing” e-mail from Oculus and a buncha money taken from my account. HAPPENING!
I thought you already had an Oculus Rift.
Might be the touch
Why would he order The Touch when you can get it for free.
Why stop at one? 😛
Am home! 🙂 31 hours door to door then slept a bit. Knackered and body clock fried. Jetlag ftw.
Planes and 3DS are good friends. Lots of Sun on the plane. Beaten the trial and the grand trial for the first island. Haven’t bothered bringing across my Y pokemon, playing it fresh.
Dad gave me his Apple TV as “I’ve never used it”. Might be handy.
All that ans still able to make almost legible posts
It’s my super power.
Increasing list of deadlines and minor injuries. Bugger.
This is mostly for techies here who have dealt with FireWire. And before I go further, just a heads up; I don’t want to hear any Mac related bashing or fanboying. Period.
Platform set here is my question.
I have a PC-BSD server with two ZFS raids in it. Like others with more than two braincells, I intend to make a backup before upgrading to TrueOS (basically a branch change but that is out of scope).
While USB3 is ubiquitous now, I actually have some FireWire 800 PCIe cards and I have been pondering if I am getting any advantage using that bus instead of USB3.
And yes, I know FireWire 800 is slower than USB 3 the only real plus is the convenience of daisy chaining but in terms of monthly backups, would such an approach be practical?
The goal is to get an enclosure or two and use singular hard drives of large capacity of my raids and connect via FireWire.
My thanks in advance to anyone who has had experience with the bus.
I caught a bus once.
We’ve now reached the limit of my useful knowledge on this topic
I nearly set my beard on fire the other day and it’s pretty wiry.
*helping*
Finally downloaded star wars battlefront and the xwing vr thing. Really keen to try it, and immediately felt sick before I even left the title screen. Got as far as the asteroids and had to turn it off. Starting to think I’m not going to get over vr sickness
What kind of games have you been playing/how often?
Not very often. Once every week or two I pick it up for five minutes. Did the first stage of eagle flight the other week, before that, cod jackal, rez, demos from the disk. After getting advise to turn it off as soon as I felt sick, I’ve been trying more. But it happens pretty fast, so don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere
Hmm. The usual advice is to start out with games that don’t have artificial locomotion while you acclimatise to it, and most of those sound like more intense experiences, though not familiar enough with what PSVR has to offer suggestions. Have you tried ginger tablets/beer/similar? Some people seem to find that helps.
I’m still battling with VR sickness on a lot of titles – it’s been really hit and miss. There have been games where there’s been no problem – Thumper, Super Hypercube, Arkham VR… There have been a couple where it seems impossible to not occasionally obstruct the headset tracking with arms/move controllers – Tumble VR… generally anything where I’m not stationary gives me issues as soon as I start moving around – Robinson, Battlezone, Driveclub… although it took a little longer in Until Dawn… And then there’ve been a couple where I felt about to throw up almost as soon as I hit the title screen, and I can’t for the life of me figure out the issue with those ones.
Spent a couple of weeks trying to get used to Robinson’s movement (because it’s pretty smooth, it;s fairly easy to convince my brain I’m just sitting in a wheelchair or something)… but the motion sickness still creeps in pretty quickly. Learned on the first night to not force it for long, tho – I could still feel the effects of that the next day, which was not pleasant.
Same thing for me, takes a good 24 hours to shake off the feeling. I was hoping the ps pro would help, but sadly no. Good to know Battlezone, I was thinking of trying that because it had a pro upgrade. Might try Thumper instead.
Battlezone was freaking amazing… right up until I touched the left thumbstick. Ugh…
Only problem I had with Thumper was the difficulty after level 4… played it for a good couple of hours with no issue (other than the headset being a little stuffy after that long). Good luck!
This has been an odd week, dragging forever but seems to be over so quickly
Had issues with Tiglet not sleeping, can’t get details I need to start a project for a potential major client, working late getting other stuff done.
Oh well due to a work trip changing schedule at least I get dimmies today
Anybody in Melbourne planning to go to meeplecon on the weekend?
http://con.meeples.org.au/
We are planning to head in and play some games on the Saturday
Just got a message with a tracking number for my Touch controllers! Due by Wednesday!
TIME TO GET HYPE!
Wednesday January 4th 2017 😛
Still better than how long after launch it took my Rift to arrive 😛
Ouch. Apparently the touch controls are pretty awesome.
Yeah, the hype is unbelievable. Gotta try and clear some space before they get here so I can actually use them!
They also give you another sensor thingy which I think is pretty cool.
Yeah, I’m really hoping that’ll fix some of the tracking wobble I’ve noticed at certain points. Like, if there’s a virtual shelf in front of me (same as the sensor) and I turn to look perpendicularly to my left or right, as I get further away from facing the shelf I’ll see that it actually moves towards me, almost like it expects that the headset is rotating with its centre as the point of rotation, rather than rotating around my head with the centre of my skull being the point of rotation. Not sure if it’s only in some applications or what, but it can make for feeling a little bleh.
Decided to get myself Planet Coaster this morning, because I’d been eyeing it off for a while, and said to myself that I’d get it for my birthday, but ended up getting Final Fantasy XV and WWE 2K17 instead.
So, now I can play Planet Coaster this evening! \o/
2hrs ago: Huh… office is quiet… everyone must have gone for an early lunch.
Now: Huh… still really quiet… *checks calendar* Oh, today’s the department Christmas party. Peace and quiet for the rest of the afternoon! \o/
Edit: No, wait, that’s next week… huh.
So I bought some iced christmas cake slice just now and it is pretty good.
The cake is much lighter than I was expecting which was a nice surprise but still fruity and with enough flavour
@freezespreston when are we gonna know who we’re getting for secret santay?
Oh neat, I’ve passed the halfway mark of working through the Overwatch roster.
The plumbers came and fixed up our plumbing on Thursday, so Huzzah for that. I’ve been working hard on the floorboards, so I’m feeling pretty freaking exhausted. Not having a nail gun meant my hand was wrecked for two days
Not a successful weekend for gaming. Couldn’t get co-op SW: Battlefront working between my wife’s computer and mine, I suspect Origin is just bloody useless. Also, started AssCreed Syndicate, and found that it crashes at the end of every sequence – I’ve disabled cloud saves, and I’ll see if that fixes it tonight.
Nope. Disabled UPlay overlay after it crashed this morning, will report back.
Nope. And neither did disabling my VPN. Just going to live with it – it’s just encouragement to go and do something else every now and then.
Morning everyone.
Stiflingly hot today, trying to keep cool.
Friggin Summer.
I regret wearing pants today.
That is pretty much the TAY motto
Had a pretty productive weekend, gaming wise (if not anything-else-wise :P). Finished Watch Dogs 2’s campaign without ever shooting anyone (well, stun-gun aside… and one mission that armed me with narrative justification and a grenade launcher). Absolutely loved the game’s humour – it’s so cheesy.
Also finished Titanfall 2’s campaign… which was alright. Miles ahead of what I expected, but still sub-par, and the levels don’t really encourage fast-paced movement if you’re trying to actually fight the enemy. I pretty much just ran past everything in the final third of the game because I realised that the AI literally couldn’t keep up.
Then got started on FFXV on Sunday. I’m really glad that I watched Kingsglaive on Saturday night, cos otherwise I’d be absolutely lost – the first chapter doesn’t really explain much. But with that context… this may be the first FF ever to hook me – really enjoying it.
Had Wingman’s birthday on Saturday night. So spent the entirety of Sunday as a zombie thanks to near-no sleep 😛 Saw a rear-projection TV on one of the nearby streets on the way there, on the way home it was popped open, stopped by to have a look and someone had taken the mirror out of the back. But this had made it easy to pop off the screen which they’d left behind, so I took that home with me 😛 55″ 4:3 screen, that thing was an absolute monster. Would’ve been so great to watch. Much bigger than the other fresnel lenses I’ve picked up.
Pretty pleased with Target having their second shipment of the mini NES go out today, since my one’s auction finishes tonight. Price has gone ridic, people are crazy.
Also my Touch controllers are at Rydalmere and I kinda wanna call up and just go pick them up but I should really try and clear out some space around here first.
And got my copy of All The King’s Men today! Was super confused what this mystery package could be, why it was so heavy and what on earth would have come from Victoria 😛
Did you grab the fresnel lens too, if it was still there? Can use it to melt stuff. Like rocks and steel… 🙂
Yup, that was what I grabbed. Over 150% the surface area of the last one, should make for much better melting 😛
Stupid brain skipped over the words “fresnel lens” in your OP. D’oh. 🙂 I’m still looking for one.
The other day I was musing about how well all the different Overwatch characters played once you dedicated some time to them, having grown to quite like for example both Genji and Tracer, neither of whom I was particularly keen on initially.
But I take that back. Fuck Bastion. Into the scrap heap he goes.
Why are you not playing the talking gorilla
Melvin Kong is due up after rocket lady, who is next on the list. I’m working through each of my least-played characters.
But the talking gorilla should never be on the list of least played characters.
He’s a talking gorilla.
Well even a list of most-played characters would also be a list of least-played characters if it covered the entire roster 😛
I did find that I went quite well with him actually, so he’s certainly up for a higher spot than ~halfway.
DOORBELL
TOUCH CONTROLLERS ARE HERE
and here’s me thinking it was only disappointment when the doorbell rang!
Asdhwerhskdjnfsersd somehow my friend breathed life back into the Setup Girl thing and now she’s suggested Saturday for meeting up for coffee or some such.
I can’t even think of a single place to possibly suggest. I don’t go out and get food or drink from anywhere, I am totally out of my depth. Abort. ABORT.
Waitasecond. @cj! Where is a good place for coffee somewhere around Greenacre? 😛
I had to google where Greenacre was, don’t know much in that area at all. Would recommenced going to Circa at Parramatta or Salvage in Artarmon. Can recommend places in the CBD too.
Woo! Going to a private screening of Rogue One on Friday night with some colleagues. It’s technically free, but there is the undeniable cost of 45 minutes of socially awkward corporate networking.
Holy shit.
Guys.
Quill. Fucking Quill. This is it.
I’ve done nothing but look at the basic tutorials and a couple of the sample projects they had on that initial menu, but then I just had to look at all the rest of them in there. They’re just amazing. I’d even seen a bunch of them before in videos and such posted over the last few months or whatever, but it’s completely unlike viewing the actual thing. I suddenly feel the need to get this in the hands of all the artists I know, especially Sketchbook and Wingman. And continue to lament my inability to art 😛
It’s just… something else, you know?
Finished FF XV last night. My opinion on that game really turned the instant I dropped the difficulty. I wish they’d actually finished it. Has one of the best villains in the series since Kefka and the ending was so fucking good. It’s just that I don’t really understand what was going on, and there’s whole screeds of the plot that are just missing (
like what was Luna even doing the whole game, who was her wannabe-Sephiroth brother and what was his deal, how did Ignis end up blind, etc.) and the parts that are there are barely strung together. It’s not incoherent – things happen in a logical sequence and I didn’t think there was anything out of left field – but it’s very, very threadbare. I suspect that originally they’d planned the back half of the game to be a lot bigger than it was, but the story and ambition they’d built was impractical if they were going to realize it the way they did the open world area. Sticking so much of the initial plot and character motivations etc. exclusively into the Brotherhood anime and Kingsglaive was a stupid, stupid idea too. That should have been in the game.Thing is, what’s actually in the game is really good. The ending bit is great. Chapter 13 was a boring slog but it’s okay because the payoff was there. Had the back half of the game actually been complete, I’m not sure that it would have improved my overall impression of the game that much.
Ending spoilers:
If my understanding of the plot is correct, this is the only game in the entire series where the villain won. He achieved everything he set out to do. Also holy shit that campfire scene at the end. Dunno if that was meant to have been something that happened before the final battle or if it was a scene in the afterlife or something but so many feels.The best thing about it I think is that despite going into it super skeptical, it’s made me care about FF again, in a way that I haven’t since pretty much the PS1 era. I’m really excited to see how FF7 remake turns out. There were clearly bits of XV which were pulling in elements of VII, like the reactor and stuff, where you could clearly see how it’d work in VII. Also really interested to see if they model the whole world of 7 in the same scale as XV. I mean, VII had you driving around in a car for part of it too, before you replaced it with the floating plane and then the Airship…
Picked up a Steamlink in the EB Games “Mad Monday” sale. Original ETA was Thursday now it’s next week sometime, who knows if i’ll get it before Christmas D=
I bought one on the cheap during a sale here and it was one of the worst purchases I’ve ever made. The issue is the utter lack of proper controller support. Nothing I own seems to work with it out of the box. Have to run shitty hacks where eg for XBone controllers you buy the official dongle then use a program on your PC for the steamlink to forward the signal to or something. Fuck that. Too much fiddling around for something that should be seamless.
Wow. I’ve read the PS4 controller is unofficially supported via bluetooth, I assume the same would be with the new Xbone controller since it now has bluetooth. I’m not surprised though. But $43 shipped is a price I was willing to pay. If it isn’t that great I can either sell it on eBay or tell EB to give me a refund since it’s not up to the job.
Standard Xbone not supported officially. Don’t know about bluetooth. PS4 support was only just added recently, haven’t tried it (I need both my PS4 controllers synced to my PS4 as it’s my primary console). PS3 controllers are maybe kind of supported? 360 are supposed to work but mine never did because I only have old ones with the old Play & Charge USB cables or something, and to get them to work wirelessly you need a dongle (mine died years ago).
EDIT: Apparently they added support for the Xbone S controller a couple of months ago. I’ll test it out when I get home if I can find mine.
Ah cool. I have a spare PS4 controller & a 360 controller with wireless adapter so i’m fine. I’ve been thinking of getting one of the Xbox One controllers since they’re rather nice. Especially those MS design labs ones.
Grabbed a new Xbone S controller from the company store to test with. Seems the link got updated since I last tried it and it works flawlessly over Bluetooth now.
Oh awesome! That’s good to hear. Steamlink could be a good little thing in the long if Valve keep pushing out software improvements for it.
How come the same TAY was used for this week?
We’re on a bi-weekly schedule now. Meant to try and breathe more life into it by making each one less fleeting, since people tend to not post over the weekend since no one will see it. Or something.
@neo_kaiser: yep, this is the reasoning. TAY had basically died. It was active for four and a half days and by Friday evening no one would post any more. We’d make it to two pages tops. There was just no reason to flush it every week so Alex is trying a fortnightly schedule for now to see if it can breathe some life back in.
Though IMO the bigger reason why TAY died was the old Kotaku AU design was utter arse to use on a phone and everyone buggered off to twitter.
Archie Rose gin is pretty nice.
There appears to be quite a few nice Australian gins out there. We have a local one called ‘Ink Gin’ which I hear nothing but good stuff about. Then there was Four Pillars which @freezespreston was telling me is quite nice from the Yarra.
Also apparently Lark Distillery in Tasmania have a rather nice gin. They did a Sloe Gin one year which sounded pretty nice. My only issue with Lark is they charge way too much of a premium for their stuff.
Four Pillars is great. Still sad I had to leave my bottle of it behind when I left AU.
God damn, The Artist is an amazing film!
Neat. Prime Video just officially launched in Australia tonight. First week is free, then $3 USD a month for the first 6 months then it’ll revert to $6 USD a month there after. If casting works flawlessly with it, then i’ll be happy to use it for The Grand Tour instead of pirating it. Plus I can now watch their other originals i’ve heard good things about.
I have Amazon Prime and it’s the fucking best thing ever (free two-day or sometimes one-day deliveries, Release Day shipping on games and 20% discount for preordering or buying release week…), but Prime Video sucks. Aside from a handful of shows, the bulk of what’s available requires you to pay for it. The PS4 App also has an utterly awful interface. Like, it makes Netflix look well-designed.
I’m getting that. No chromecast support sucks. I have to go via my PC in Chrome to cast since I can’t even cast from the Chrome browser on my iPhone so stupid. But eh easier to watch The Grand Tour this way TBH.
Sorry I haven’t been on much. The kitchen Reno is requiring a lot of work, but it feels like we’re nearing the end
So is everyone aware that Lost Odyssey is free on Xbox 360 and also backwards compatible with Xbox One?
Grabbed it this morning! Apparently it’s free for the rest of the month!
Also Blue Dragon is BC now! Aww yis!!!
I can’t get my Blue Dragon discs working on my Xbox One.
Maybe it’s only the one you buy from the marketplace.
Love the changes to Omnigul and The Nexus boss encounters – all require a lot more movement, and really discourage sitting back with a sniper rifle. They basically turned Sekrion into a really fast-paced iteration on the Templar fight, and Omnigul teleports out of her arena periodically, forcing you to deal with adds (including a couple of ogres, with very little cover and slowing debuff patches all over the place).
SRL is…. well, it’s the same as last year. Two more tracks (Mercury is amazing, btw), and suddenly everyone I match against is a racing savant. ;_;
Plus the doors shut and lock you in with Omnigul. No safe retreat out to the open area any more…
Sparrow racing. Best finish 3rd, but times are competitive and I’m shaving a couple of seconds each race as I work out lines and alternates. Was worried about the “killing enemies” bit but I seem to be killing a couple every race without trying so really it’s the pulling tricks I’ll need to work out. 🙂
All three strike variations really discourage sitting back – Taniks requires you to move around to get the SIVA nodes destroyed, Sekrion’s aegis spawns in three positions around the room, and Omnigul … well, you barely have any cover, so you just need to keep moving or you’ll get shredded (the other two don’t seem too bad, but very much dreading Omnigul when it inevitably comes up for nightfall – any elemental burn would be devastating).
I’ve had a few 2nds, but have yet to get 1st this year. Had all my SRL bounties done in the first couple of races, and am working on my A class atm. I’ve found tricks to be less consistent this time around – sometimes it doesn’t respond to the button… might be my controller, tho. Still need to figure out the better lines through the new tracks… half tempted to try one of the raid sparrows, just for some of those long straights.
One good thing in Omnigul is the waves of thralls drop onto the gantry nearest the entrance, and a lightning grenade that end deals with lots of them…
Anyway see you later for some racing… 😀
So Rogue One…. Shutup and see it ^_^ That is all 😀
Gold Class, Xmas Eve. Sorted.
So, a bunch of former Ghibli animators as well as one of the main producers formed a new studio, Ponoc, and are releasing an anime film next year, “Mary and the Witch’s Flower”. Teaser trailer:
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, and co-written by him Riko Sakaguchi (who co-wrote Princess Kaguya with Isao Takahata) and and this looks like it’s basically Ghibli in everything but name. Apparently it’s an adaptation of ‘The Little Broomstick’ by Mary Stewart. Considering how good his previous work has been and how this looks so far, I’m pretty excited.
Work rant
CEO is in our office today, and the first thing he says to me is “put on weight since last time I saw you”. One, fuck off. Two, no. Three, as someone who has had plenty of body image issues in the past, fuck off.Oh, wow.
That was a real dick move by them.
Considering going to see Your Name at Cinema Nova on Sunday.
I really, really want to see it. Been a fan of Shinkai for ages. But not screening here at all 🙁
Do any of you happen to know a decent toy store in Melbourne CBD? Myer and Big W suuuuuck.
Welp, no coffee date thingo tomorrow. Kind of a relief.
Apparently she met someone else shortly after the initial messaging and things have really started taking off. Same old story 😛
Was out last night, put my bag on windowsill in bar. Didn’t know there was no glass. It fell out and I didn’t notice for up to a couple of hours. Long gone by the time I realised and went looking. Reported to cops. 3DS XL, power bank and beats headphones gone. 60 hours in Pokemon Sun, gone. Very sad.
Rogue One is pretty rad.
Also holy crap, 3DCG Tarkin and Leia… If I hadn’t known that Peter Cushing has been dead for like 30 years I probably would have swallowed it completely. No uncanny valley for me, he looked as real as the rest of the cast. Only issue was the voice was a bit off (I think it was the guy who voices him in Clone Wars / Rebels)Agreed – really enjoyed it.
Really? I noticed it right away, and couldn’t un-notice it. His skin is just slightly too luminous, his expressions slightly too exaggerated. He didn’t bother me too much, tho – it was really well done… but holy crap did Leia’s smile at the end creep me out… I feel it would’ve worked much better if they hadn’t tried to show her face at the end, and ham-fist “A New Hope” into it… just show Leia taking the data and let that action speak for itself.I think it’s because you know they don’t look like that any more. He was very believable. Not quite perfect but holy crap. Did you notice that they did the same thing for Red Leader? Had the original actor back to voice his lines but CGed his appearance. He died before the film released.Not really – it’s because human expressions – hell, normal human motion – doesn’t shift that fluidly. Every smug smirk of his manifested itself too slowly… it’s hard to explain. Watching how he moves, I got a real “Aladin movie Jafar” vibe from his exaggerated motion – it was almost a caricature. I’ll admit I’m not as familiar with the minor characters from the originals, so I didn’t notice Red Leader… but had similar problems with CGI Leia, her excessively pallid face aside – it’s less that I know they don’t look like that now, and more that I’ve only really seen them in the original trilogy, so I have pretty distinct memories of how they looked/moved/emoted then, and while they look pretty believable in stills, the motion just doesn’t match up.Also, might have something to do with being a gamer – we’re pretty regularly exposed to CGI characters interacting with each other in CGI settings, where it doesn’t look out of place. Seeing a CGI character in the presence of real people just makes those differences really obvious to me. Don’t get me wrong – I really liked the movie as a whole – two slightly off-key flautists will usually not ruin a symphony, but that doesn’t mean they go unnoticed.