Uncategorized – Page 150

Always a Sale

December 2, 2015 by Belghast

Psychology of Clearance

For as long as I can remember, I have always been a bargain hunter. Few things feel better than finding that rare item on sale for as much as 50 to 75% off of its original price. I know without a doubt that I got this instinct from my Mother, because when I was growing up I can remember my Grandmother joking that she thought I would end up being a “Blue Light Special”. For those who are either not old enough, or not from the right region… K-Mart used to have a literal blue light attached to a cart that they would drive around the store, and for thirty minutes a specific item in the store would be at a significant discount. I remember my mother would always go to check out whatever these items were, sometimes whether or not we actually needed them. So to say that allure of finding a deal is ingrained in my very fiber is a very true statement. Thankfully my wife is much the same… so she gets it… and in truth we simply don’t like spending more money than we need to on anything. She however is always willing to carry it further than I am… and there comes a point where I am sick of dealing with something and am willing to spend any amount of money to be “done” with it.

One of our favorite activities during the parts of the year when stores are changing out seasonal merchandise is to go clearance hunting. We live in Wal-mart country, and are roughly two hours away from the central office. This means at any time there are around thirty or forty Wal-mart stores within easy driving distance. The trick of Wal-mart is the odd quirk that every store is essentially self governed to a certain bit, and this extends to what they choose to put on clearance. So one store might have an item for full price, but a store ten minutes away might have it for 75% off depending on a whole bunch of factors. My Lego habit has been fed by the fact that I can pretty regularly find whatever sets I want on deep discount… so that $200 set becomes $60… or the $30 set becomes $10. So the question always becomes… is this item good enough of a deal, and there have been times I have passed something up only to kick myself later. For example when driving home from Pax South last year, I found Star Wars Lego AT-TE for $40, but ended up passing because it felt like we had already spent a silly amount of money that weekend. I’ve kicked myself since because that was originally like a $150 set, and really freaking awesome.

The Steam Sale

So these instincts of bargain hunting and regret of the deals I have missed, carried with me into the digital world. As a result the Steam sale has been one of those forces of nature that I never can seem to resist. When I see that $60 game that I have always wanted to play… selling for only $5… it is really hard not to go ahead and pick it up and tuck it away for the day when I really get the desire to play it. The problem being… I like quite literally everyone else I know is doing this, and as a result we have hundreds of games as a steam backlog that we “really need to play”. Compound this with the fact that new games are constantly being released, it comes into a situation where there are just games that we own that we are quite likely never going to play. Over the last year I have tried really hard to resist the lure of the Steam Sale, but usually I end up picking up at least one “deal” that looks too good to pass up. Even though on some level the number of games that I have that I have not even installed… is a massive stress point for me.

This past weekend for Thanksgiving there was predictably yet another Steam sale going on, with its own rock bottom prices on games. I hit the site a few times to see what was being sold, and oddly enough had zero desire to purchase anything. At this point we have done a bunch of renovations on the house, so there is definitely the desire to “spend no more money” going on, but I don’t think it was that. There were also plenty of games that looked interesting to me, so I don’t think it was simply the fact of not having anything I wanted. I think maybe it is just the fact that I have finally come to the realization that there is no limited quantity here, that I am racing to snap up before they sell out. In a physical store… they have a limited number of items on the shelf, and when those items are gone… especially when clearance is concerned… they are not getting any more. When you are selling a digital key to a digital game… there is absolutely no rarity going on there. They can sell keys a virtually unlimited number of times… and be able to keep ratcheting that price downwards towards infinity, each time catching a new batch of purchasers. A physical copy of Pokemon or Final Fantasy ends up gaining value, but a digital copy only serves to get cheaper.

Always on Sale

I think another thing that is finally sinking in… is that I can purchase a game at any point and don’t need to have it waiting in the wings for me to play. I have insanely fast internet right now, in fact I ran a test this morning for the purpose of this article and you can see it over on the right hand side there. There is not a game that is available on steam that I cannot literally download in less than thirty minutes. So it is not like I need to preload things to really be able to have fun… I can wait for the whim to strike me, purchase it in any of the many always on market places and be playing the game less than a half an hour later. This is vastly different from the chunk of my life where I literally had to drive an hour away to be able to find any of the games I wanted to play. There is a part of me that still attributed a value to having something on hand, rather than having to go out and acquire it…. since I still remember having to go from store to store looking for one of the last remaining copies of a new game. Now I purposefully shun physical copies of things for the simplicity of knowing I can pre-order moments before the release of a game and still get the full benefit.

The other side effect is that there is quite literally always a sale going on somewhere. Between Steam, Origin, GOG, Greenman Gaming, Amazon, Humble Bundle… and countless other minor retailers there is quite literally always a sale going on for any game I could ever want to play. The only time this is not necessarily the case is for any game I might want to play on the Playstation 4. There I am very much still at the whim of a single game store, since once again I am not a huge fan of buying physical copies of games for the console. I greatly prefer the fact that thanks to my 2 Terabyte harddrive upgrade in it, I can have most everything I might want to play “on tap” and waiting on me to boot. All of these things honestly make the individual digital games worth less to me than they used to… and this is maybe going to be a problem that the industry will have to deal with. There was a time when I was willing to “snap up” a game for $20, and that degraded to $15… and then to $10… and now quite literally a AAA title has to be $5 or less for it to trigger that “buy now” instinct. I feel like I am simply becoming desensitized to the effect of the “Big Sale!” and now it seems simply easier to pay the price something is currently selling for rather than trying to stock pile it for later. This entire topic came up, because this recent steam sale seems to be the one that a good chunk of my friends also passed up. Has the magic of the Steam sale finally lost its magnetism? I’d be curious to hear some of your thoughts about this, because for me at least over the course of this last year…. the only “deals” that I have really snapped up are those coming from Humble Bundle or the PSN store.

Tournaments for Charity

December 1, 2015 by Tamrielo

Over the weekend I ran an Infinity tournament, the “AD Food Drop” event held locally. A lot of minis games do various charity tournaments and other events right around Thanksgiving, and this year Infinity is no exception. It’s a neat thing, I think, and there are a variety of formats that the events take.

One of the more popular event types is the canned food drive tournament, which is what we did this past weekend. The concept is fairly straightforward– it’s structured like a normal tournament except that you can donate cans for various bonuses or cheats. You can donate cans to bring units in your army lists that you otherwise couldn’t, or gain an advantage of some kind, or reroll your dice (and, in some cases, make your opponent reroll theirs).

It’s a format I like because it’s really obvious from the get-go that the person who donates the most cans is probably going to win, or at least have a good shot at it, but the whole point is that it’s a food drive, and donating more food gets you better results. It takes some of the seriousness out of the tournament in general, which I think is sometimes a good thing. There’s no implication of fairness, and everyone knows that up front.

It’s not just minis games, either– a lot of competitive tabletop games do this kind of event, and they tend to be pretty well-recieved. In a lot of cases, they upset the usual balance of tournaments (which I think is a good thing) and get people to play a bit more casually than they otherwise might (also a good thing). It’s hard to get mad at anyone for “cheating”, because they’re paying for the cheats in donations, and you can get a pretty good amount of charity from even a small tournament.

One of the other charity events at least among minis players is a fully painted army raffle. A wide variety of people (from professionals to hobbyists) will contribute painted miniatures to a single, unified army, which is then raffled off and the proceeds donated to charity. I’ve never personally contributed a miniature, but I’ve had a number of friends who have and the end result is always impressive. The armies are generally painted with an orange theme, as a world hunger awareness nod.

I always like these community events, and it was a great time being able to run the weekend’s tournament, both because I like the cause and also because it allowed the usual tournament organizer (who, truth be told, also set up and arranged this event) to actually play in an event rather than simply overseeing it.

The experienced reinforced to me how much I like Infinity and its community. There was another tournament running simultaneously with ours, and I had the opportunity to keep an eye on it while things were ticking over smoothly with Infinity. It didn’t escape my notice that the players at the other tournament were rather more aggressive and there were frequent calls for a judge to mediate some disagreement or another. Over the entire day of games during the Infinity tournament, I was called over to answer a question or mediate a disagreement maybe… three or four times, total?

It was a good time, and I liked having the opportunity to play a bit more active of a role in the community outside of simply being a player. I’m not sure it’s something I’d want to do ALL the time, but once in a while is nice.

Well-Executed Nonsense

November 30, 2015 by Tamrielo

I lost an entire day this weekend to Rocket League. If you’re not familiar, it’s soccer-like, only you’re driving around in ridiculous cars with rocket boosters. It’s a completely nonsense premise that sounds like the kind of idea a bunch of kids would come up with– “oh man, what if we played soccer but IN CARS but also WITH EXPLOSIONS and the cars COULD FLY?! WOULDN’T THAT BE AWESOME?”

The game defies a no-caps explanation. It gleefully sets up a fantastically arcade-y soccer match between teams of unlikely vehicles, and within a few minutes, the premise melts away and what you have is a very compelling team game with really intuitive controls and a tight, polished physics engine. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t, but it *is* extremely fun; it’s the pure, simple fun of Mariokart in a more streamlined package.

It scales surprisingly well to the number of players you have, from 1v1 to 4v4. I played mainly with Kodra, Eliyon, and Ash, but as our group grew and shrank, it was easy to go from 3v3 to 4v4. We played against the AI, since none of us had played the game before, but the AI gave us a bunch of fun matches. Games last about five to seven minutes, so it’s easy to hop in for a game or two.

It’s also a surprisingly DEEP game. Controls are fairly simple, but the combination of the physics engine and the… liberties the game takes with the laws of physics let you set up some really awesome shots and saves if you’ve got the presence of mind and controller finesse to pull them off. There aren’t different types of handling for different cars, either– every car simply handles more or less identically, turning tightly, accelerating quickly, and having a frankly silly top speed. Without the constraints of a race, there’s no reason for differing levels of imperfection in a car, so Rocket League does away with all of that entirely. All of the car customization is entirely cosmetic, and pretty hilarious. Eliyon won a mariachi hat in our first game and wore it for pretty much the rest of the day. This is a gigantic hat that just goes on the roof of your car. Why? It doesn’t matter!

The best review of Rocket League I’ve heard is “I don’t like driving games or sports games at all, but I like Rocket League.” It pretty much says everything, and the fact that it’s a game where you drive cars around that Ash has fun playing also says a lot (haha I’m just kidding Ash). Seriously, though, it’s a really fun game and worth your time. It is to soccer what mariokart is to racing, which is a title I used to give to Super Mario Strikers, but frankly Rocket League does the same kind of thing better.

Rocket League also became an e-sport in record time and has a ton of youtube and twitch videos. Watching really, really good players is pretty exciting, because they pull off insane stunts. Definitely worth a look. If you like fun and like mariokart, give Rocket League a look.

Media Consumption 11/28/2015

November 28, 2015 by Belghast

Rainy Morning

It’s been a good morning, albeit a cold and rainy one. I got up and made a beeline to the kitchen to fix some breakfast. We’ve recently had a renaissance with the little triangle sandwich maker thing that became popular during the 90s. Recently we started playing with making pancakes in it, and the resulting tiny triangles of pancake goodness are awesome. So I fixed pancakes and sausage and my wife and I nommed happily. From there I ended up popping into World of Warcraft for a bit to do some garrison stuff, and shortly thereafter found The Goonies on cable. Around about this point my wife and I decided it was a good idea to go lay down and snuggle with the cats. It was around this point where my wife asked me… if I had already done a blog post. It had quite honestly slipped my mind. I live my life based on a sequence of rituals, with each one kicking off the next ritual… and if any of them happen out of order all sorts of mayhem occurs.

So that folks is how one almost breaks a three year streak of daily posting… not with tragic circumstances… but just a charming morning that made me forget that the internet was a thing. As a result I am getting a really late start at the day, but have now officially had some coffee so I believe I can functional properly once more. I’m back on the sofa wrapped in my blanket cocoon and tapping away on my laptop. Generally speaking Thanksgiving is usually this difficult holiday filled with running around like crazy, but this year a bunch of things have happened ending up making it the most chill and relaxed time ever. Firstly we wrapped up the work on the house just before the extended weekend, and with that there was a flurry of cleaning to make the house feel “finished”. Then we were able to load all of our meals into an evening and a morning… giving us the rest of the break just to chill. At this point we are taking advantage of the constant rain and the cold temperatures to simply stay in doors and hibernate.

Jessica Jones

With the hibernation has come a lot of Netflix or equivalent digital streaming. Over the past week I have been watching the new Marvel Netflix series, Jessica Jones. I have to admit that this is a character that I only know of in relation to the other characters she surrounds. I went through my “Kung Fu” phase where I read a lot of Powerman and Iron Fist, and ever since have had a certain affinity for the characters in that chunk of the Marvel Universe. In truth… after the amazing results of the Daredevil series, I would have watched anything produced for Netflix feature Marvel characters. Jessica Jones however took a completely different tone, but one equally gritty. While Daredevil shows the clear physical toll of being a hero… Jessica Jones does a good job of showing the mental and emotional toll. Jones herself is completely walled off from the world in her own emotional bomb shelter, trying to keep as many people away from her… because she is convinced that is the only way she can actually keep them safe.

The show also digs into a lot of themes of violation and betrayal but does so in a slightly different way than we are used to seeing. The Purple Man has always been such a strange character in the comics, and I was not quite sure how they would end up making it work for the screen. David Tennant’s portrayal does this excellent job of walking this razor line between making him completely horrific and likable at the same time. There are times you think that maybe with the proper role model, he could change and be a force for good… only to get those hopes dashed when you realize that this is a person without any sense of a moral compass. The actor playing Luke Cage also does an amazing job of bringing that character to life, and I am hoping we see a significant big more of him in the future seasons and the supposed upcoming Luke Cage Hero for Hire show. My favorite insider moment in the show was when Rosario Dawson’s Clare Temple, and it is setting her up to be the Night Nurse taking care of all the supers in trouble. I could gush about Ritter, but really without her the show would have fallen apart completely. I highly suggest watching it… and I am trying really hard not to do any serious spoilers here.

Inside Out

Last night I also finally got around to watching Pixar’s Inside Out. I have to say that in all honesty there has yet to be a Pixar film that I have not loved, and that is saying something because in truth… I can’t say the same about Disney animated films in general. There is a certain magic that Pixar brings to the screen, and a certain timeless “realness” that they give their characters. This film was a bit of an emotional roller coaster but I guess that makes since as it is kinda the “Feelings Have Feelings Too” movie. There were so many moments where I laughed out loud, and several moments towards the end of the movie where I failed miserably to fight back tears. Maybe the whole nostalgic binge I have been on served to deepen the experience of this movie. There were so many profound messages like… you can’t really be happy without also feeling sad sometimes. There were moments I related to the dad, especially when he was straight up oblivious… because so often I get lost in my own head and forget that I am supposed to be paying attention to the world around me. One of my favorite bits came at the very end of the movie when it showed the inside of the cats head… I am pretty sure that is exactly how it works inside our cats at least. This morning while laying in bed… every so often one of them would go tearing through the house for no apparent reason… only to come back and snuggle a few minutes later.

Heroes Reborn

Another thing that I started last night was Heroes Reborn, which is the reboot of the much acclaimed Heroes television show from a few years back. I say much acclaimed… and by that I guess I really just mean the first season. The show as a whole went tragically downhill quickly after that, and I blame the writers strike on pretty much killing all hope of that show living up to its full potential. I mean I realize strikes have to happen, but that managed to kill a number of would be amazing televisions shows. This time around we have zoomed forward to several years after the events of the first series, to a time where the “Evos” as they are now calling folks with super powers are out in the open and an act of terrorism has turned the public against them. The show has shades of the Mutant Registration act from X-Men, and the first episode centers on the dad from the first series, who has apparently forgotten any knowledge from the event. The first episode was intriguing enough to get me to start watching it, and I figure at some point today I will continue on that process. Will be interesting to see where they go with this one, and I hope that maybe just maybe they can live up to the promise that the first season started.