Heliocentrical

What if the chair didn't have arms. What would you do then? I'm so sorry(not sorry) for that awful joke. OT: The wiring in my house is shitacular. I have to physically punch the lights for them to stay on for a few seconds only for the wind to knock out them out again.

Miranda seems to have things under control now. Last time I heard from her she said she had had kicked Jason out of her house. She also said Jason is currently staying at some hotel and plans to move to another state. The situation appears to have been resolved and doesn't appear to be getting worse.

Yes, but taking a normal activity to an extreme is inherently repulsive and traumatic. Having been exposed to Jason's extreme porn collection for months on end, understanding the colossal sense of scale, scope and time behind all of it has mortified me to a point where I can't tolerate porn even though it's perfectly normal. Well thanks to Jason in this regard I'm not normal anymore. His extremism pushed me psychologically to the other end of the spectrum to where I irrationally despise porn. It's almost like a phobia but extreme aversion instead of fear. Do I acknowledge this? yes. Do I think will ever be back to normal? Definitely not. To give you an idea of the scope for what I witnessed imagine watching the Mr. Creosote scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life over and over for several months straight without stopping. Sure you'll be able to get over how repulsive and disgusting it is the first time but witnessing something that extremely graphic for that long is gonna make you want to swear off food entirely. This is slightly off topic but normally I'm a huge fan of Monty Python. But Mr. Creosote in particular struck nerve with me as it wasn't funny and unnecessarily harsh. In fact a lot of their later work just isn't very good IMO.

You can never be 100% sure of anything. But if you don't invest into something - you are not walking away unharmed. You are harmed just by the fact that you gain nothing while your time on this Earth is ticking away. It's like inflation - if you hold on to your 100 dollar bill for 20 years without putting it to use - you will end up with 50 bucks or so in real money. Even though the piece of paper you're holding is the same and you haven't lost it - you have lost half its value just because of the passage of time... So... But I need to know if there's a return on my investment. If there isn't or if it's unlikely then my time would still be wasted and I consider the notion of action vs inaction be irrelevant since the result is ultimately the same, a waste of my time. Action needs warrant I don't just do things for the sake of action in of itself. In order for an action to be warranted I must see the value of doing so and if I can't see the value then I simply don't do it. Do the positives/negatives of participation outweigh the positives/negatives of non-participation and if so by how much? Is there enough value to warrant my attention?

This is how you smoke, straight from the pipe. None of this cigar shit.

Might I ask how exactly the story implemented is and does it interfere with roleplaying at all? My concern with narratives written by the developers is that they inherently go against the grain of roleplaying and/or player driven narrative. For instance While the developers' story might say the player is a hero since they can't actually figure out what kind of character the player is going to play as the story inherently becomes dissonant to their actions. There might be something that tries to tie in both story and the player's actions like say an alignment system but that still falls well within the confines of the developers' story which ultimately ends up restricting the player.

#30 Reality Lately I've been having a bit of introspection in regards to the way I go about things. I treat reality the same way a dispassionate stock broker would. I calculate all the values involved factor in risk and back out when I'm likely to be burned. I also don't take stock in something that is unlikely to or doesn't have any return as I consider this to be just a waste of my time. I feel that this a very logical approach to the world and causes many ideas to fall flat on their face. It's the reason that I don't engage in such things as religion, relationships, politics, etc. I can never be 100% sure that they're to my benefit at all times and it's unlikely that they will. So therefore I put no stock in them and walk away completely unharmed. While I'm fine with being passionate towards these concepts asking me to have faith in them without a 100% assured return on the investment is asking too much. As for my sole investment and obsession with video games I know what the return is because I have experienced it first hand. As a game designer I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it's potential is endless so the return of my investment is endless. The medium has so many concepts left unexplored it would be an injustice to leave them as such. I've been obsessed with this idea as long as I can remember. The only limits of this medium's potential is the capacity of the human mind. So I must do everything in my power to spread this idea beyond my own mind and I have been doing so. Everything I have done, everything I have questioned has been in the name of this medium and to know the whole picture of it. This so called reality with it's inherit limitations and constraints will not impede me nor will I give it the mercy of a passing glance. I will not give it the recognition it demands of me because at it's core reality is nothing more than a hollow construct. Reality is dead.

So lately I've been playing old games. Some hold up, some don't and I would like to talk about the ones that don't Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion I've been going through the old Elder Scrolls games, namely Morrowind and Oblivion. While I can say Morrowind still holds up Oblivion does not. Which is funny because Oblivion is younger than Morrowind. Oblivion is like Morrowind except with significantly less freedom. You can't kill everyone, there's invisible walls, Levitate, lock, mark and recall spells are gone. Customization was a huge part of Morrowind for me but what's the point of making your own custom spells and gear when you can't do whatever the fuck you want with it? Most important of all is you can't break the game as you're far too tied down by balancing constraints which kills another large portion of my enjoyment for a game like this. Overall Oblivion is just a generic, linear, slog which is sad because there are some aspects of it that are really good like the soundtrack and the subtle atmosphere. But unfortunately that isn't enough to save the game IMO.

I approve of any game that lets you bludgeon BDSM fetishists to death with a toilet. I'm getting some really nice Hotline Miami vibes from Mother Russia Bleeds. The gameplay looks solid to so I am pumped to play it.

Okay, I added one more in an edit.

You've completely lost me as to what you're asking. You want me to you about the stories I've made in game? Alright sure. One of my favorite stories to tell is how I conquered all of Calradia. My character started out as a bandit sacking villages. I accumulated a lot wealth and began spending it on mercenaries in a nearby town I snuck into since I pissed off the local lords from sacking villages earlier. I then began seeking out tournaments and began acquire renown that way. I pillaged as I went from tournament to tournament and pissed off all of the kingdoms. Once I got enough renown I began seeking out a claimant to help "clear". I eventually found one Prince Valdym the Bastard of the Kingdom of Vaegir and he agreed to take me in as one of his lords. Then I began seeking out possible defectors for our cause. I was extremely lucky as I got more than half of the lords from the original Kingdom of Vaegir and took it over rather easily. Afterwards I asked Prince Valdym to renounce my loyalty from him which he allowed since the Kingdom of Vaegir was his now. I proceeded to do the same thing over and over with all the other kingdoms. It was slow as hell but I eventually did it. By this point all the claimants had control over all the kingdoms and thanks to war the collective economy was dead. They would not be able to reinforce themselves easily and once the opportunity presented itself I took a castle from one of the claimants I helped. Thanks to my careful planning no one was strong enough to attack me and I was entrenched. I then got some defectors to swear their loyalty to me and once again I took over villages and towns like there was no tomorrow. Then finally I acquired the finally straggling town and beat the game effectively. Though in Mount and Blade there is no winning nor losing but I think you get my point. It was fucking insane and well worth the effort.

It does seem like modern titles have less of this issue. I guess that comes with learning the medium as we go. I disagree entirely, M&B does have a narrative it's just constructed purely through play. It's narrative is dynamic as opposed to linear and yes I consider player driven actions to just as valid as any narrative justifications. In M&B roleplay and story are one in same and not at odds with each other like I've seen in so many games. Due to it's open and dynamic design ludonarrative dissonance cannot exist. It's physically impossible to have ludonarrative dissonance when the action and story are one in the same . We're so used to viewing media through this linear lens with a beginning, middle and end. Video games by virtue of their interactivity subvert this very notion. Sure the story ends when the player beats the game but it also ends when the player stops playing. The end result is always the same.

How is that btw? I was debating about getting that or Pillars of Eternity. At the time Pillars of Eternity came on sale first so I got that instead. OT: Fallout Does anyone else find the soundtrack to be more immerse when the volume is cranked up all the way? At the default volume I could barely hear it at all.

That's kind of the impression I'm under as well. Back when I was working on his PC for him Jason's porn collecting habits were rather obsessive and consistent. From the outset the staggering amount of porn on his PC made him look like an abusive addict. Not to mention I had a timeline from when the porn downloading started and when it ended. Most of his porn sessions were 8 hours straight from midnight to early morning. I don't know how most men handle their porn habits but Jason's case was a particularly terrifying sight to behold due it's sheer enormous scale and size. Certainly scared me away from the stuff after seeing what it can do to a person(well rather what Jason was doing to himself but I digress). So it wouldn't surprise me if his habit evolved into something questionable and I just wasn't told. All I've got to go by is that I got a call from Miranda crying about the porn she had found, with what little context I had I tried to help mend their relationship and then it was over just like that. There might be more to it or not, I just don't know. Part of me wonders if I should've said something to try and get Jason help back when this whole thing started. Obviously there's that whole violation of privacy I mentioned earlier. But after seeing the destruction in action I can't help but wonder if I made the right choice to let this instance take it's course.

@danielsangeo Alright here's my questions. Also could please get back to me? I've PMed you twice and you haven't responded. What is your opinion on modern AAA titles? Judging from your Game Dungeon videos for Wolfenstein(2009) and Deus Ex: Human Revolution you don't seem to be very fond of them. I'm not complaining as I'm not fond of them either. I think it's evident that the priorities of AAA Publishers and Developers have shifted away from making fun, enjoyable games with substance to making over glorified hypetrains with false promises and microtransactions. Ross I'm really confused as to where you stand on turn-based combat. You say you can't stand it yet in your Game Dungeon video for Revenant you site that you've played 4 turn based RPGs to completion Fallout, Fallout 2, Earthbound and Chrono Trigger. It seems to me that you were able to tolerate the turn based combat in those games to some degree otherwise you wouldn't have played them to completion. Are you sure that you hate turn based combat 100% or just certain aspects of it? Do you write scripts for your Game Dungeon videos or is everything straight off the cuff? I honestly have a hard time telling because your dialogue in those videos always comes across as natural and believable. Like when your enthusiastic about a game I can feel it and it feels real.

The main problem I have with narrative choices over gameplay ones is that due to the way narrative is structured it is often detached.Most narratives almost never manifest themselves in the game world so they don't feel real to me and thus it's hard for me to get invested/immersed in said narrative. Narrative could also be removed from a given title and have it not affect the game at all. I think it's a huge problem that narratives are still approached from the angle of literature and theatre because that's all game designers know. Narrative are either text based and feel like a book or full of cutscenes and feel like a play. Video games as a medium haven't found their own form of narrative yet. IMO this form must either interactive(like what I was talking about with the Mount & Blade series) or be interwoven with interactivity(Like Spec Ops: The Line or Undertale).

Well the past several days have been interesting to say the least. So I have these two acquaintances who are together, let's call them Jason and Miranda. Now I knew Jason first and have known him for quite a while. I first met Jason as a customer over at a computer repair shop I used to work for and would chat with him while I worked on his PC. We got along fairly well. He looked like your typical dudebro jock type. But once you got to know him though he's actually very philosophical in some areas and it was interesting to listen to his point of view. He was also as dumb as barstool in some areas which I'll get to in a minute. So every now and then he would bring in his PC for some pretty general issues. but then there was a shift in the type issue he was having. Jason started collecting porn which was giving his PC viruses. Now since this was none of my business I said nothing about it and cleaned his PC for him. I told him which directory the viruses were coming from and to keep an eye out for them. But Jason never learned to put two and two together and the porn just moved to some other directory on his PC. Not to mention the porn was easy as hell to find. Like he wasn't stealthy about it at all. This went on for several months until he told me he wasn't going to be coming in anymore because he was moving in with his girlfriend at the time Miranda. Now up until this point Jason had a never mentioned having a GF and once I knew I could tell that something bad was going to happen. He told me everything about his life and was very talkative about everything. But not once did he mention a GF so this was very sudden of him. Since I had become such good friends with Jason at this point I bit back my tongue back and wished him luck. I even gave him my phone number and game ID so we could stay in touch. Boy what a mistake that turned out to be. After Jason moved in with Miranda we gamed together on regular basis which also included Miranda so this is where I got to know her. She was a nice person, pretty quiet and resigned though. Jason sounded like he had found the girl of his dreams. But when Miranda talked about their relationship(which was unprovoked I might add) she was so excited but sounded like she had just met him just kinda went along with whatever he wanted. So yeah basically your typically enthusiastic couple that loved talking about how much in love they were with one another. Again I was pretty happy for Jason that he had found the girl of his dreams. Now fast forward several months later and Jason tells me he plans to propose to Miranda. I told him "Go for it". A few days later I get this tearful call from Miranda. She just found out about the porn and that was a deal breaker for her(again these people are not very smart so it doesn't surprise me that she only just found out about it now whereas I've known about it since Jason was a customer over at my computer shop). So I give her my shoulder to cry on and now at this point I've been dragged into this as an involuntary couples consular. I tried to help mend a few fenced but for the most part Jason refused to talk to me as to him it seems like I've taken Miranda's side and Miranda wanted nothing more to do with him. So now their relationship is effectively dead. Now I am mad about this since I got dragged into this. But I'm also kind of fascinated by this whole phenomenon. What's crazy is I predicted this almost two years in advance. Now at the time I didn't even know Jason was with someone but without even realizing that I was doing it I understood the mechanics of a possible scenario for his future. Due to this I feel sort of like a prophet of predictable outcomes. I made a prediction without even realizing it and then it turns out to be dead on, so weird. Also is it just me or does it seem like sex and intimate relationships don't mix? It always seems like one person's libido always overextends far beyond established relationships or even marriages. Like one party wants a commitment and I don't even know what the other party's motive is. So what's even the point if one party's just going fuck up that commitment anyway? Like if you wanted to get as much sex as you physically can wouldn't you I don't know, stay single? Maybe I'm just getting overworked here because I got roped into this. But man all those circumstances that I just mentioned and it took forever to reach a conclusion I made two fucking years ago. How does this world work the way it does? Jason and Miranda's relationship was a flash in the pan and nothing more. All of this just baffles me.

Isn't there a particular right of way law in California in regards to pedestrians? I might be mistaken but I distinctly remember something to that affect. Might have something to do with that.

I live in a particularly empty part of the US. There's practically no traffic because no one lives here so to me it doesn't seem that much of a risk. I suppose if I lived in a densely populated city I might consider otherwise. I presume where Jeb lives doesn't have that much traffic either.

A signature, just thought I'd be upfront with people who think I have no self awareness. I think it's funny too.

Yeah, seems pretty normal to me as well.

Quake I: Just beat the second episode on Nightmare difficulty. Two down, two to go.

A giant, weighty ice cream scoop. This thing is awesome, it has so much weight in the top that I could bash someone's skull in if I wanted to. Overall I'm very happy with this purchase. I should start evaluating the things I own for their murder capacity.

It just occurred to me that the Mount & Blade series portrays consequence extremely well. Everything you do in M&B has a very clear cause and effect. Start a war with a faction? Well now you can't enter of any of that faction's towns without risking capture. Did you pillage a town? Well now it's economy is completely destroyed and likely won't be able to recover.

Yes exactly, that means I'm right all the time, everytime. If no one argues against my points that means I've won the argument by default. OT: I've had some ideas for creatures I'd Like to see in the Fallout Universe. Keep in mind that I did this mostly for fun and it's probably inconsistent with existing lore. Treant Ghouls It always kind of bothered me that Harold was the only ghoul that was fused to a tree. This got me thinking, there's got to be more ghouls out there like Harold. So imagine that you're walking around this forest and it all seems quiet at first. But then all of a sudden eyes start to emerge out of the trees and next thing you know you're surrounded by hundreds of treant Ghouls which completely engulf you with their roots. These like Harold in Fallout 3 they make excellent camouflage because who would've thought that the tree stuffed itself with dead bodies? Also like Harold they can't move. Chinese Super Mutants So what if China developed it's own version of the F.E.V virus and injected soldiers with it in order to give them an edge in combat? These Chinese Super Mutants are much more dignified and intelligent than regular Super Mutants. They have deep belief in honor and often carry a massive 6ft long katana on their backs which can easily slice down any foe they come across.