Skye

Guess who got their copy of X today? :3c

No new heroes weapons. :y

The most beautiful HUD in the world.

Damn it, someone I follow on Tumblr drew fanart of Chespin's evolutions. Unfollowed, but the damage is done. I withhold opinion just in case it was fake (though it had the same name I heard being thrown around, so unlikely. Drat.)

Well they always make a third version of the games with another legendary, don't they? It's not hard to predict Pokemon Z next year or so.

Possible rumors / spoilers in the break, in case you want to keep your roster as official as possible. This may be a character in the game or not.

; - ; If you need a comfort hug, give the word. nohomo

I'm assuming people might want to wait until the English dub for Pokemon Origins, but I watched the Japanese release with subs and I can highly recommend it. It's almost entirely faithful to the games - waaaaaaaay more so than the regular anime - and there's some funny moments, some sad moments, and a nice amount of awesome moments. One of my favorite things about it is how nowadays, one can breeze through Red and Blue with ease, but Origins is very reminiscent of the first playthrough you had as a kid, where you didn't know everything and it felt like a challenge the whole way. I'll at least say that the fight against Brock isn't solved with a goddamn sprinkler system this time - it's a satisfying battle with great animation, and it only gets better from then on. That said, you might be disappointed as each of the four episodes focuses on one period in the game, so a lot of the story is summarized and you might be upset that your favorite moment(s) didn't get the full episode treatment. It still does a great job though. Bonus points for the Pokemon not shouting their names and for having some nice references too (there's a Safari Zone joke that cracked me up.) So yeah, it's good. One more note on it, though spoilery:

Split between Fenniken and Froakie. I don't know their final evolutions, but I'm probably going to side with Fenniken since it seems to be Fire and Psychic, and that's a cool combo. Time to get clucked.

Leaks are coming out now that Canada and Italy missed the memo and dropped some copies early. I'm assuming everyone here is the virtuous and prodigal Pokemon Trainer that refutes such leaks, but just in case: If you are discussing information that has not been officially announced by Nintendo, please put it in spoiler tags. (So if it was in a trailer or a press release or Nintendo's Twitter or something, it's something Nintendo wants to share and thus is fine. Stuff like possible new starter evolutions or some Megaevolution we don't know about yet is probably a leak.) In official not-leaky news, Mega Charizard X was revealed. Black and blue Fire / Dragon physical attacker. He's the Charizard we always wanted. ; u ;

But I don't play Minecraft. o:

I crafted a Cool Cat's Cardigan. What a lovely thing to wear for a class I play with the same style and grace as a one-legged man riding a bicycle.

I wasn't expecting Toon Link to come back, given how they talked about cutting the roster and trying to eliminate clones. Tis quite perplexing, but I won't argue because... just look at him. He's adooooorableeeeeee.

The touch screen doesn't count, it's not a screen I have to take my eyes off the TV to look at. Though fair point, I wasn't being clear.

I think I only have the experience to speak on the Spy items, so I'll do that. [spoiler2]Revolver / Knife / Invisibility Watch / Sapper Vanilla gear is fine as it is. The only change I'd not object to is maybe increasing the volume of cloaking and decreasing the volume of decloaking. As it stands, it's very risky to decloak within close range of someone due to the sound it makes. I figure it would make more sense to give a louder noise when trying to escape rather than moving in for a kill. It's a very minor annoyance though, nothing worth getting the changelog out for. Ambassador One of the few perfectly balanced items in the game. Rewards good aim, punishes poor aim. This thing never needs to be changed, and if it is, I will be incredibly upset. Cloak and Dagger This item needs some sort of change to prevent camping, and to make it a bit more viable in offensive uses, but I'll be honest, I don't know how. Maybe allow it to pick up metal like the other watches, but prevent it from regenerating metal while in use? Yeah, there's some fix here, but it involves tweaking numbers a lot, so I don't know. Dead Ringer The purpose of the Dead Ringer should be simple: to feign death in an attempt to fool the enemy, in which you either succeed and survive, or fail and die. First of all, I'd like to see the Dead Ringer remove negative conditions such as Jarate, Mad Milk, and pretty much anything else. I'd also like to see maybe one or two seconds of fire immunity upon activation, just to prevent the cheap deaths via pyros with their finger glued to the M1 button. However, to compensate, no more damage reduction while cloaked; if you didn't fool the enemy, they should have minimal trouble finishing you for good. Nobody likes chasing down the Spy who can survive all your rockets and shotgun shells just to laugh and run away. Jarate, Mad Milk, and good old fire should also work just fine while you are cloaked, as a means of double-checking a kill and punishing Spies who didn't immediately turn tail and run. The end result is that feigning death is easier, but escaping afterwards is harder. That's my two cents, at least. The Dead Ringer is, from its very conception, a tricky item to balance, but I figure those changes would be beneficial. L'Etranger A peaceful alternative for Spies who don't like to shoot, giving more cloak duration and cloak on each hit for reduced damage. Seems fine to me (although a liiiitle more of a damage penalty and no random crits would be nice, just to enforce it as the not-for-fighting gun of the family.) Your Eternal Reward Another item I can't suggest any changes to. Maybe it needs some sort of buff to make it more viable in more professional games where the enemy team is communicating well, but as it stands, I love it just the way it is. Diamondback A situational but effective sidearm, and the ultimate middle finger to the Gunslinger. I like it just fine as a weapon to take to the battles where Engineers are hanging around too much. I would certainly like to see one change, though - the Diamondback gaining crits for each building destroyed, not just sapped. This would count for assists, too. As it stands, a teammate can come in and just blow up the sapped dispenser, robbing you of the crit. It's quite saddening. Enforcer Ugh. This needs to be something new entirely. This pesky little snubnose has been balanced several times, going from plain broken to just a boring upgrade at this point. It has some nice synergy with Your Eternal Reward, but that's about it. I'd like to see something new with this weapon, and certainly not something that lessens the penalty for getting caught. A good Spy should never be in a straight-up gunfight to begin with, as the other revolvers show (the Ambassador requires careful aim which is difficult against an aware enemy, the L'Etranger simply doesn't like sustained fights, and the Diamondback only wants a battle if you went on a sapping spree earlier.) Conniver's Kunai I suck with this knife, so take my words with a pinch of salt, but it feels like the risk outweighs the reward for the weapon. Having a nice overheal doesn't seem worthwhile when half the weapons in the game can kill you without it, and even then, the overheal rarely seems to pay off for the troubles (unless it was a juicy Heavy, but in that case, you just stab his Medic instead.) Maybe add some other buff to the backstab, like a temporary speed boost to help you escape, or just lessen the health penalty to make the Spy slightly less prone to random splash damage deaths. Again, I've never used this thing to any great success, so take it as you will. Corvette is probably the one to talk to about this weird little specimen. Big Earner This is similar to the Kunai, in that the health penalty doesn't really merit the reward, which is a pitiful amount of cloak gained from the kill. I'd like to see this changed to either have a much bigger gain in cloak upon a backstab, or just reworked into something different. Right now, it's probably up there with the Vita-Saw and the Sun-on-a-Stick in "I'll just use the stock weapon instead" tier status. Spy-cicle Ooooooooh boy. I think this is up there with Natascha and the Sydney Sleeper in its sheer infamy. Is it right to have a weapon that ruins the Pyro's day and forces him to change his strategy? Shouldn't the Spy have a means of protecting himself from a class that can almost entirely counter him? Then how come the only thing the Pyro can really do is disarm him for a while until he recharges and comes back like nothing ever happened? Isn't being disarmed and effectively put out of the game for a while enough of a drawback? There's a lot of opinions on this, and I don't know what to agree on. No comment. Hats Nerf the amount of detective-styled hats. Buff the Invisible Man set to be wearable all-year-round.[/spoiler2] I'd like to see a watch that gave silent cloaking and decloaking, but caused you to take twice as long cloaking and decloaking. Aside from the obvious downside of being more visible in your escapes, it also extends the amount of time it takes to fully decloak and start firing or stabbing folks. I wouldn't use it over the vanilla watch, but I could see the uses in it.

I want Legion Commander so bad. And, uh, ice skull man. Lich's older brother? there was not an incorrect link to an update here shut up

I'm just so happy to see a new controller that doesn't involve motion controls or extra screens or something.

50000+ beta participants so far. yeah well fine whatever i didnt even want one anyway pfth *sniffle*

Signed up for the beta. I'm not much for modding or the technical specs, but hey, maybe I can give some good feedback for the boys at Valve. "deer valve turns owt that your steembox doesnot like juice very much i would like a replacemant your bigest fan skye"

You were looking for >this but whatever. I want that Spirit Breaker as my desktop.

From a spectator standpoint, I'm agreeing with the notion of getting more unlocks and popularizing more maps and such. As it is, I don't watch 6v6 TF2 much since the limited pool of heroes and weapons makes the games feel similar a lot. I can't speak from a player standpoint of course, and maybe it's not important overall, but now I'll take a look at some more matches to see some wild Puff n Sting rampages and kunai coolness.

I'm going to be enraged if they don't accept this.