FredEffinChopin

I know I'm late to the party, but comparing Steam to a console isn't exactly fair when discussing always-on policies. Steam's primary method of game distribution is digital; it's not so presumptuous to demand that people log into the internet periodically, especially when they're on a PC, which is pretty much a brick that you plug into a wall if you don't connect it to anything online. If you're using Steam, you're declaring that you've got regular access to the internet from your gaming device. None of that is (or has been) a given with a console, nor is there any *reason* to require people to be logged in to play on one, aside from the one that MS might have been ready to invent as an excuse for the policy. It would needlessly shut out or at least turn off lots of people. I know it's moot now, as it seems like the internet managed to tell them what they should have known already, but just wanted to chime in on that.

I don't know. A co-worker was flipping through radio stations yesterday, and I literally heard less than two second of this. It was enough to lodge it in my head though, so it's time to wash it out.

Not sure if this is the appropriate forum, but this drives me up the wall. It annoyed me to no end when Rock Band did it, but I understood that there were likely issues involved that were far out of their hands. This is just another case of a huge business that just doesn't get it.

Awesome, I needed a break from Dark Souls.

@Rev Pardon me if I'm repeating anything I typed earlier in the thread, but we're revisiting some of the same talking points. 1) Taking guns away isn't solving the problem, it's removing a symptom - If we cannot alleviate the strain itself, is dampening the symptoms not an adequate alternative to doing nothing at all? It's a philosophy that AIDS patients would argue isn't applicable. Or people whose cars were totalled, but whose lives were saved by the belt. Hell, tell that to the needle exchange program. There is no type of crime for which a new law has brought about the crime's extinction. For every law preventing crime, the respective crime still goes on. They likely always will, too, but most of them would likely be a hell of a lot more rampant and acceptable if we did nothing to protect citizens from them. Guns are the only thing though, that for some reason have this thing where people feel like nothing at all should be done since the problem will not be squashed permanently. In your first comment here, you pretty much said that most of the gun violence in the country is being done by gangs... in a comment that seemed to argue against regulating the industry. Why is it wise to continue to provide an easy means for those gangs to remain armed? Are the gangs something that we want to thrive? 2) People can murder with all kinds of things - Yes, but there is a reason guns are so popular. They get the job done well. They can get the it done quickly and easily. Just a pull of a trigger. You can do it before you even have a chance to change your mind. Up close, far away, from a moving vehicle, from a rooftop perch. There is a reason we don't send our troops into combat with swords anymore, and given the choice, I don't think there is any sane person who wouldn't rather take their chances at survival against someone with a knife or sword rather than someone with a gun. If it was all the same to someone who would argue that there are many ways to accomplish what a gun does, then why argue so loudly for the right to own every type of gun under the sun? Guns are great at what they do, which is relieving for them since it's almost the only thing they can do. I've never heard of anyone mass-stabbing a couple of dozen people to death in 4 minutes, and I've never heard of a bunch of kids getting killed in the crossfire of a knife fight in the park. No stories of dad polishing his knife when it misfired and turned his son's neck into a crater, or a kid who finds a knife in the kitchen drawer and accidentally kills his friend when he drops it. I don't think I've heard of any accidental stab-deaths, for that matter, though they doubtless happen... A side note on this point too, is that knives and swords are all subject to varying degrees of regulation, and certain types are illegal to carry and/or buy in many states. 3) This issue needs to be addressed at a social level - That too. And as you pointed out, with your area as an example, it is something that goes on already. You won't see anyone argue that it should, ever. The thing is though, that that is being brought up as an argument against any new laws regarding gun sales. It's a diversion, since they are not the same discussion. Social programs are social programs, and none of them should have any bearing on traffic rules; even if they might one day turn a community into the capitol of responsible driving. When a community is overrun by drug/gang activity that results in frequent violence in the street, it's definitely time to start reaching out and trying to improve things there. While that happens though, it doesn't help to create a bunch of holes in laws that are supposedly designed so that guns are sold responsibly, and use them to maximize the damage being done in that area by filtering as many weapons into it as possible. Or to fight as hard as possible to keep every one of them available. Why would these means of circumventing checks exist if not to sell guns either to people who would not be able to pass a background check, or who have reason to want there being no way of documenting what they are doing with large quantities of them? I seriously apologize for being so hopelessly long-winded. One last thing though: What exactly are you arguing against when you generally argue against gun restriction? I know that you're offering a philosophical stance that explains why gun laws cannot prevent violence (though, as I said, I don't think it's appropriate to treat mass shootings like stabbings or fistfights that get out of hand, or to neglect to do anything where you can't solve a problem), but politically do you feel like that totally watered down bill that just failed (and that would likely have had some effectiveness in that it would stop one of the ways in which we actively facilitate trafficking) was an infringement on your rights at all? @Vecha It's funny you say it that way, because that's the way the NRA and senators posed it. Like there was some sort of registry. What it required was that background checks be universally mandatory for all vendor sales, even at gun shows. As Ethan said, it included strict penalties for anyone caught trying to make a registry out of it. It was specifically there so the creation of a registry couldn't even be used as a talking point against background checks (and to stop a registry from being created). Nevertheless, that didn't stop Ted Cruz from using the slippery slope argument, allusions to Mao, and (yup!) the creation of a registry as grounds for his opposition. Or as I like to call it "The NRA's money's worth." So that's where we are right now. You need to obtain a permit to exercise your free speech in protest, but you can buy a gun on the internet.

Staunch supporters on either side of any issue are assholes. The only difference here is that you have a high visibility because of the nature of the crimes committed. Consider this, though. In the 3000+ counties in the US, about 90 to 100 of these counties account for at least one murder a year. Because legal gun owners are law abiding citizens for the most part. So, where does the violence come from? Mostly the drug trade in gangs + poor impoverished areas. These are typically done with illegal guns. So, is the real issue guns or society? You missed his joke. Read his comment in the context of being a reply to the one before it. I'm curious to know what the point of that particular framing of the firearm discussion was though. Is it to say that the gun industry's practices don't matter as long as the end result is only poor people killing each other? Or that we don't need to police the vendors since the only victims of their practices are criminals? Do we not need to worry about gun violence if it only plagues certain neighborhoods? The kids indoctrinated into gang violence don't need help, or the countless innocent bystanders in said plagued communities? Do you think that maybe we should open more loopholes, so that the people in those communities can purchase guns even more easily? Or maybe that we should donate some more guns? I'm just confused by what the exact point of your comment is. Since we know that "illegal guns" (which I put in quotes because they almost all begin as legal sales through purposefully designed loopholes) aren't manifested out of sheer willpower or plucked from trees, I'm going to go ahead and say that the gun industry is part of the problem. And no, nobody is trying to accuse guns of crimes or throw guns in jail. We're not talking about law-abiding guns or guns that break the law. People are talking about gun manufacturers and vendors being subject to tighter restriction. Re: Newly revived xenophobia It's already begun. A Middle-Eastern kid in the Bronx got beaten up badly the other day after a pack of dudes asked if he as an "Arab". I know it might sound awful, but I was really hoping that it was a non-Muslim behind the attack... I'm not rooting for anyone in particular to be behind some awful shit like this, and it doesn't make things more or less difficult to deal with or process in any way, but I feel like the reality here is that anything short of a white male with no religious motivation at all would (is going to) result in some ugliness once the stupids get all emotional out in public. I'm hoping it doesn't get too bad, but unfortunately I'm sure at least a few more innocent people are going to be harassed over this.

Is that right? I have no idea. Either way though, $10 is still a steal for what they've released thus far. Unless I'm missing something about the season pass dynamic in general... Are they not retroactive? Lemme go make sure I have a bunch of new shit...

Gold Box has got Borderlands 2 on sale for the PC, as well as the season pass. And just like that, I've my first season pass.

We've got some Tomb Raider action in Amazon's gold box. $41.99 for the console versions, $34.99 for the PC.

I feel a little guilty about being so amused by it (and I admit I have only seen clips and write-ups), but every clip I've seen from CPAC is what I imagine being the political equivalent of bell bottoms in 15 years. Between Jindal doing his best Dangerfield, Palin's evolution from a clown to a prop comic, Rove's catfighting with her, Rubio's insistence that you can indeed deliver new speeches with the same exact tired & defeated rhetoric, Rand's winning of the straw poll, LaPierre's delusional rant (some of the same-old, only now sprinkled with undertones of his own victimization at the hands of the press... and public, and politicians, and the internet... pretty much everyone), the refusal to let GOProud have any real representation (despite their being donators), Ted Cruz... just being Ted Cruz. Barnum & Bailey were the only two missing. Fucking Jeb Bush actually seemed like the voice of reason in that bunch, which is just.... It's weird watching the party struggle between trying to facelift itself superficially for the purpose of winning back the people they've willfully alienated in the past, and trying to move even farther right in hopes of winning on their terms. I guess when it comes to the Southern Strategy though, you have to pay the piper at some point, and this kind of thing was inevitable.

Don't it make you... wanna LOOK some more?! Don't it make you wanna... try to find what I got?!

Meanwhile nobody even knows poor Ouya is alive, watching the others enviously from the other side of the schoolyard.

They can't do that with credit card details though (decide to use it to look up my buying habits and use/sell them), not legally or easily. It's not so much recommendations alone that bother me, though I don't like that either, whether it's in Amazon, youtube, or PSN. It's rarely correct about what I'm looking for, and in the case of youtube, suggestions used to be helpful when they were based on the video I'm currently watching, rather than the history it's collected on me. It's also the idea that your system *might be* constantly working in the background based on that. I understand that it's not going to be a resource issue given the architecture, but it's just not an idea that sits well with me; even if all it uses is bandwidth. As far as the presentation goes, as I said, it seemed like they were trying to get me (the gamer) excited about something that is mainly an asset to developers and Sony. Their marketing capability is not what I'd call a feature that excites me, and the end result I predict from it is a visual clusterfuck of a store that is constantly trying to shove shit in my face when I know what I'm looking for, or when I want a neat list to scan through. I only pray they keep it in the store, and not in the main system interface. Yes, advertising is mostly innocuous, but I still don't want it in my face constantly.

They definitely are taking the general route I was praying they would. They're focused on some of the biggest shortcomings of the PS3 that held them back, and are making sure they they don't have anything that even resembles those problem this time around. They're not trying to re-invent the way we game, but are leaving the door open for some new possibilities... It seems like they're working closely with 3rd parties, and are really coming out swinging in terms of software if those are release titles... Anyway, lemme bitch, since there isn't much of that going on. I didn't appreciate the part of the presentation that tried to sell me on what basically amounts to my system monitoring my habits for marketing purposes. If they had brought it up and left it at that it would be one thing, but the fact that they were trying to get me excited over it as if it helps me and not them was something I found a bit condescending. "Imagine! Everything you might want to buy, ALREADY DOWNLOADED onto your PS4; without you having to ask." I'm imagining it, and it lands somewhere between annoying and... No, it's mostly something I don't care for. I've never had a problem locating the games I want to play. I usually know about them well before they drop. This is not the feature I've been begging for. On top of that, anything that monitors my habits and reports them to a corporation is something I want off. I know I already bitched about this in here, but the lack of talk button breaks my heart. It pretty much guarantees that I'll never use any of their cross-game voice-orgy social bullshit that they're trying to force. So now there are headsets in the box so everyone is chatting, and nothing at all is keeping the experience from being obnoxious. I also think the wired headset thing is lame in 2013, but I understand it's meant to be entry-level, to get the ball rolling. Also, it sounds like they're trying to have a more intimate layer of friends list or something, where you can share more personal stuff... I'm not really sure what the point of that is. I've never had trouble keeping track of my friends' PSN IDs, or needed a picture of their face to remind me of what they look like. As a person who hates the fact that there are Facebook and Twitter buttons on everything I do nowadays, that business had me rolling my eyes a bit. It troubles me that there was time devoted to that. It's hard for me to be too critical though, since they seem to have mostly spent time cultivating the right features. Ok, I need to heap a little praise actually, despite others getting there first.... I fucking LOVE the media button functionality. I hold myself back from publishing them all on Steam to avoid revealing the exact depth of my spazziness, but since I've been playing on there, taking caps has come to me reflexively, and it hurt me a little every time I went to do it in Ni No Kuni and remembered that I can't. The always-on recording of games is awesome, and while I might not broadcast my own play much, I can imagine I'd enjoy watching one of the top-tens go at it in something like Super Stardust HD. But yeah, you guys have discussed most of the cool features already. Thanks to Malicious for quelling my used game fears. That is pretty much the only thing I was waiting on that would have made me dismiss the system altogether. As things stand, I am in. Probably not day one, but most likely within the first year. I'm kinda psyched. Overall I thought the presentation was great. *edit* I did get my $10 voucher, btw. In the middle of gaming, Tuesday night.

Here is something I'm likely to be totally alone on: I love the addition of a media button, but I really was praying that I would see something with a communication button in the new controller. I'd be so much more likely to participate in voice chat if push-to-talk became the standard, and with a dedicated and well-placed button for it, the push-to-talk option could always be present without the threat of taking up valuable game inputs. I can't stand autospeak, for myself or others if we're talking about a room/group with several people in it. Between the coughing and the cursing and the barking dogs and crying babies and the rapping teenagers.... I don't know. A little order would go a long way for me. I understand that I am in the severe minority, I just want to vocalize this whopping disappointment. I was even hoping Steam might let something similar happen in BPM mode, since home+LT = screenshot in there. It wouldn't have been the most convenient thing in the world to hit home+____ for voice chat, but I'd still probably use it here and there.

It's hard to be optimistic when it comes to the too-big-to-fail bankers in this country, but I have to say, Warren is at least trying to hold their feet to the fire. The big whining reaction that the spectacle got from that community the next day was pretty satisfying, I must say. Also, among the bitching, there still wasn't a single valid response to her question. For someone whose election was big news, she seems like someone who doesn't want to let that momentum slow. I hope it doesn't. I wish my buddies and I got to police each other.

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I don't know how on Earth this song just popped into my head, but now I'm listening to it.

It's a little too hand-holdy for way too long. The ending was a bit anti-climactic. One might say that the story was a bit too all-ages at times, and seemed lazy sometimes as well. About everything else I've got is praise. The demo had me really nervous about the combat when I played it (about which I had a draft in here that I accidentally deleted and refused to rewrite), but I wasn't sure if it just seemed that way (a combination of rough and bad) because I wasn't aware of all the mechanics. Once I played the full version though, and became acquainted with it properly, not only did I really appreciate and enjoy it, but it got pretty challenging at times. At least it was until later in the game, at which point I had already spent lots of time completing quests and grinding spots for xp and familiars. I did enjoy the story, despite its occasional eye-rollers, and it was a lot of fun getting to the end, which kind of made its forgettability even worse. There seems to be a whole lot of post-game content to dig into. I made sure to clear out everything I could before completing the story, thinking I might just quickly mop up whatever might come after it, but it was a little more than I expected, so I'm putting it off for a little bit. But yeah, good times. If you thought the game looked good from trailers, and if you enjoy a good JRPG, this will probably deliver the way you expect.

@FDS My money is on that bill going nowhere. I'm not sure whether even to take it seriously or to write it off as posturing for the sake of maintaining a steady show of defiance, more to be read than it is to be seriously considered. Between them and Mississippi, I expect to see a lot more of this under this administration. It's really awkward, and there is no end in sight. @MBM It looks like Ethan saved me some typing in regards to video games' protection, and did a far better job than I could/would have. I would add though, that even if we did reach a point where we were looking into regulating artistic/entertainment media content on a federal level, the door would open up for examination of more than just video games. I'd welcome the study that compared the causal effects of video games on young people vs. something like sport culture or cinema. Or the evening news. I've not been to too many gaming conventions in my life, but the ones I've been to give me the impression of a bunch of people who are just loving the opportunity to look at and talk about nerdy stuff together. Not a single drunken brawl, no riots (celebrational or otherwise), and not even many rude people. I'm confident that our culture speaks for our hobby, and serious studies will reflect that.