John Caveson

Agreed on the anarchy statement. It is fundamentally Utopian, however, they do raise a fair point that time and time again, the state, more often than not, tramples on liberty whenever it gets involved with the free market, whether here or around the world. On the other hand, law and order is needed for protection for consumers, such as anti-trust, no false advertising, scams, etc., in which case, government is a necessary evil. Call it my biases getting in the way of rational thought, but when I see something that is universally supported by everyone, seemingly immediately, for the federal government getting involved, or in this case staying involved, in an economic industry that is a crucial part of the modern economy, I think you can forgive me for being a wee bit suspicious and try to find the merits of the other side. The concept? No. Title II? Cautiously yes, if only to uphold free speech. If net neutrality was handled at the state/local levels and not the federal level, then I'd have even less of a problem with it.

It is indeed a sad notion that advocating for less government control over people's lives is considered "edgy", but I digress. Ditto goes for this: It's like installing an iron lung to a pneumonia patient. I mean sure, it keeps them alive and gets rid of the pneumonia, but now that patient is dependent upon that iron lung to survive, and pulling it out now would kill him. Makes me wonder how we got to this point. I actually wouldn't mind this as a compromise. After thinking about it more, as much I hate to admit, I suppose I can tolerate Net Neutrality. If anything, it's just the continuation of the status quo, so I suppose it can't get much worse. One question I still have lingering though, is the Internet considered a public property, on par with that of a town square or national park? The answer to that would actually be a big boon to either side of the argument.

Think of it this way, who do you trust more, the gigantic, profit-hungry monopoly, or the even more gigantic, inefficient, power-hungry monopoly to run the internet? Pick your poison.

I'm actually conflicted on this. On one hand, the monopolized ISPs wan't to do away with Net Neutrality, on the other, the monopolized tech/social media companies want to keep it, and that's sending me red flags all around. I mean, do we really want the government to keep the power to regulate this stuff? I mean, if it goes anything like cable or other utilities, I say get rid of it.

Damn M'ers are turnin' the friggin frogs gay, man.

The “The World Is Grim Enough Let's Just All Get Along” Award — Currently Garry's Mod The “Choices Matter” Award — Currently Universe Sandbox ² The “Haunts My Dreams” Award — Currently Outlast The “Mom’s Spaghetti” Award — Currently Team Fortress 2 The “No Apologies” Award — Currently World of Guns: Gun Disassembly The “Cry Havoc And Let Slip The Dogs Of War” Award — Currently The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile The “Suspension of Disbelief” Award — Currently BioShock Infinite The “Soul Of Vitruvius” Award — Currently Tomb Raider The “Defies Description” Award — Currently The Stanley Parable The “Labor of Love” Award — Currently Galaxy in Turmoil The “Whoooaaaaaaa, Dude! 2.0” Award — Currently Spec Ops: The Line The “Even Better Than I Expected” Award — Currently DOOM The “Wait A Minute, The Clock Says What Time!?” Award — Currently Warframe By matter of principle, I chose what I had in my library. The only exception to this is Galaxy in Turmoil, for the simple fact that I've been follwing it since it's Unofficial STBF3 days, and even though a demo isn't even out yet, I can tell the devs are putting their best into this. That, and all of the other games that would beat it in this category are already in another category so.....

Them rape faces.

Looks like LazyPurple is back. Plus, this video might actually explains why many of us still play, or at least want to, play TF2.

I honestly don't understand the mindset that just because a company implements a system in a way that people don't have a problem with, it's that game's fault or the system is somehow flawed. Like I saw on the latest Jimquisition so many comments saying it's Overwatch's fault for "normalizing" lootboxes and how all of these other devs exploit it. It's just smart business practice to try to emulate success and putting your own spin on it. Blame the other games/devs who implement it poorly, not the dev that does it right. That's just blaming the tool, not the person holding it. Actually, that was a thing since the beta. In fact it's now better, because in the beta, you got a fixed amount of credits for winning a mission, and you could only complete 5 missions until you had to wait until the next day. And even then, I was surprised you got anything at all to use for online multiplayer by playing offline, that's rare to see.

When I say "hot weather" I'm talking dry heat, as in, SoCal hot, not humid heat.

Keyword: "almost". Hence why I pick & choose particular cases. I guess you can say I approach these things with more of a, shall we say, "Total Biscuit" mindset, rather and a hard-line, principled, Jim Fucking Sterling Son blanket self-ban of this stuff. There are many factors I take into consideration, when deciding whether to buy a game or not that has micro-transactions. An interesting case, now that I remember, would be Gears of War 4. It has a season pass as well as game-affecting lootboxes and (cosmetic) pre-order bonuses. You know what I did? I pre-ordered the $100 Ultimate Edition, that came with the season pass and a digital download of all the previous Gears games. Why? Well, because I trust the Coalition, who are the 2nd party devs that took over the Gears of War franchise after Epic sold it to Microsoft (compare: 343 Industries and Halo), because they did an awesome job with the remaster of the first Gears of War. On top of that, the system they did implement weren't all that bad. The lootboxes has both skins and gameplay-affecting booster cards, but, those cards only affect Horde mode, which is PvE, so in this case, Pay2Win is actually beneficial. Secondly, the maps from the season pass dripped in 2 per month, and you could buy them individually, however, you don't have to buy them to enjoy them in online play, you are only buying them for private lobbies, and even then, only the host has to have the maps for everyone to enjoy them. So really, you're only buying the maps for you're own personal enjoyment. On top of all that, the gameplay itself is just outright amazeballs. It actually plays like a Gears game with added features that enhance it, such as the ability to vault over cover while roadie-running, which smooths movement between cover, and the ability to grab someone over cover and execute them, with counters to that move. The guns feel all really balanced, and it's just overall a worthy sequel in the series. Would I prefer if the game didn't have micro-transactions? I mean, I think we would all prefer games not be $60 in the first place, let alone have micro-transactions. But unfortunately, that's not the world we live in, so I just have to work with what I got. I'm also willing to bet money that a majority of these "whales" that spend a lot on micro-transactions are actually people who have jobs and don't have the time to go through the grind, and would rather spend a little disposable pocket change to skip some progression. And in the grand scheme of things, video games are after all, entertainment items, which are the lowest priority human necessities, (hell, calling them "necessities" is in itself a stretch). And it is because of those people, that the rest of us can enjoy free content and support for our games, thus the trade-off to paid upfront DLC map/weapon packs. So the backlash is working. Mission accomplished. The problem is solving itself. If people did this more often, the industry would be a lot more consumer-friendly. But you can only lead a horse to water, not make him drink it. If people still want to buy micro-transactions in premium games, then devs will implement them. Welcome to the monetary democracy that is capitalism.

I hate cold weather. A breeding ground for disease. Case in point, I get a three day weekend for Veteran's Day, and I spend most of it lying in bed. Happens every year, as soon as a week with an average high of ~60o, I catch a cold. Even philosophically, cold weather is a sign of death, and lack of energy, even death himself is often described as having a cold touch. Meanwhile, heat is usually a sign of life and abundance of energy. Let's also not forget the eventual heat death of the universe.

In the case of games such as OW, and EAFront II, these loot boxes also pay for future updates to keep the game alive. Now, you might say that this is just the devs "ransoming" new content with micro transactions. But, would you rather have this? or paid DLC which will either a.) split the community through DLC-only playlists, or b.) integrate DLC maps into normal play, but only if everyone in the lobby has the DLC, will the maps have an option to show up, which generally means, they won't pop up as often, which lessens the value of getting that DLC. For example, iirc, Halo Reach and 4 did the latter, and it sucked, and the older Halos did the former, and it sucked. Halo 5, meanwhile, has lootboxes that only effects one gamemode, which means I can play any mode with any map without spending an extra penny on the game. I'm essentially relying on other people to pay for my DLC, a.k.a. post-release communism. So in my view, it's just an alternative to paid DLC, which is fine. However, if the game still has paid DLC and micro-transactions, or is a single-player game *choghShadowofWarcough*, then it crosses a line.

This, essentially. When all I had was my craptop, lowering the resolution was app I needed to change.

You were saying?

No, hopefully, but then again, it opens up rocket jumping possibilities.

Just hit 2500 hours on TF2. Yea buddeh! Also, why don't they implement the changes to Helltower onto vanilla Hightower? Particularly the fact that the cart doesn't go backwards on that long ramp about halfway through? And new ways to leave spawns never hurt.

*Sheds manly tear*

You're preaching to the choir, believe me.

John_Caveson.

Oh hey it's ......that guy, erm I wanna say Bob? How you doin Bob? It's been a while since I've seen you from...that place...over...there......

Glad to see they actually listened for once for balance. This new Amby nerf is a lot more reasonable and something even I could get behind. RIP DR though, I suppose it's for the better. As for the YER, hmm, I honestly don't know how I feel. It looks like an overall buff, but that cloak nerf seems contradictory to the playstyle of the weapon. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Woah fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-sup man. Heavy got a banana. I rest my case.

inb4cumbustiblelemonlauncher Are the contracts the only way to get the new weapons, or do they still randomly drop? It would be interesting if they replaced weapon drops with this system, and make the weapons you get permanently part of your inventory and undeletable. Bam! Crafting is now gone, (like anyone used it other than to create scrap anyway) but Metal is now a limited commodity. And we all get to watch the world burn. So I guess all that leaves is the balance changes and bugfixes. Let's go out on a high note dammit.