Brick Fight

Anybody played the Walking Dead video games? Are they good?

The first Telltale one is good. The second one not so much. 

I don't get off on being a purist, but when I look at a proper AK-47/AKM/74 with its proper furniture (wood, bakelite, or synth), I just wonder why someone needs to throw black cheese graters all over them just for plinking or something.

http://kotaku.com/dark-souls-3-pc-cheater-spent-hours-streaming-their-exp-1774313304

 

https://cdn.streamable.com/video/mp4/5ncu.mp4

 

So we've got obvious cheaters, streaming their cheating, hacking other people's games, bragging about it on forums, and exposing their names in the game. 

 

And Fromsoft does nothing, as always. 

 

A few nights ago myself and a good friend were holding a fight club in DS3. We came across four hackers. Shit, we were only playing for two hours. 

 

There's a way you can report cheating via steam, but it's not doing much good. One of the hackers was well-known, with links to his youtube page on his steam account. My friend has told me that, "I've reported him at least ten times now. It's really frustrating."

 

And the worst part?

 

Absolute worst?

 

One of the hackers had hacked health, stamina, speed, damage, and defense. And I still nearly killed the dumb bastard. 

 

I have a degree in biology and am in my senior year for chemical engineering. My friend who I was playing with has a PhD in molecular biology and genetics. Between the two of us, we will create a virus that only targets these people. Mark our words.

I really don't expect this to get better on the whole in the short-term, but I may be optimistic in the long. Ubisoft was willing to let their best-selling game of the year fucking die because they were afraid of legal repercussions from punishing hackers. They ignored the cheating issue of Siege, resulting in their much-desired competitive tournaments being filled with people hacking live on air. Never mind these were minority players that were destroying the long-term viability of The Division and Siege, game publishers and devs need to understand if they want these long-term DLC paths and attempts at competitive play to take, they need to keep people interested in the game. Forcing your playerbase to play against 

These companies had so many examples to run off of, too, and it really supports my theory that lots of higher-ups in the industry don't play or follow game news at all. So much of this can be learned by looking at Blizzard. This is a company that for the past 20 yearshas had its games utterly ravaged by hackers to the point where they realize that a few hundred to a few thousand cheaters can destroy 6 to 7-figure communitiy overnight. So now they have zero sympathy for people who ruin the long-term viability of their games, and the reputation of their company. 

I think the DLC sales and competitive shenanigans are going to change things. Big companies now have their very profitable plans being ruined by people violating their precious EULAs. Battleye is destroying hacker communities every night, because it turns out that hacks are so prevalent because they're so easy. And simply using a good anti-cheat means that the low effort hacks get wiped out and high-effort stuff can be focused on. But not every company's going to do it. Games that we're all very excited for are still going to be "fuck you got mine" cash grabs and they're going to wonder why they should hand over thousands for anti-cheat licenses if it means possible lawsuits and raging communities.

So I saw a couple weeks ago Gary Johnson endorsed Black Lives Matter. Now his running mate is calling AR-15s and handguns weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.guns.com/2016/08/12/libertarian-vp-nominee-william-weld-is-kinda-anti-gun-video/

And I guess he said you can take a standard military rifle that holds five shots, remove the pin, add a clip and it becomes fully automatic.

I'm... I'm kinda sad. I remember when Libertarians used to be about the Constitution, auditing the Fed and getting the US outta the UN. Now they're nothing but a bunch of Bernie Sanders wannabes.

"Libertarian" has always been a nebulous ideal. Libertarians largely stand for "liberty, I guess" though what that means is whatever they translate "liberty" to. The basic ideas of libertarianism allow for a lot of extrapolation to the point where "I believe in liberty" can mean "therefore I think we should strictly follow the constitution" or " The Constitution does not grant enough liberties therefore I don't believe large parts of it should be followed and should be changed, added to, or ignored." Two people on either side of the gun debate could claim to be libertarian and if they used personal liberties as reasoning for debate they could be right. Popular Libertarianism these days largely translates to pure contrarianism. A decent-sized portion of Bernie's supporters in reality being pretty far right-wing contrarians or that spat of media figures who went from being conservative, to neo-conservative to now being Libertarian are two prominent examples. 

A few examples of what I mean, though there are a lot more that go down to very specific political beliefs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Prominent_currents

General rule of thumb is if you think there's a politician or movement out there that's perfect for you, you're most likely wrong. Bernouts are learning this lesson hard. We weren't trying to keep you from voting for him when we said he couldn't give you all he was promising, folks. We were telling you that it was literally impossible to get everything he promised and we wanted you to come to grips with what you'd get out of his presidency. Figure out what you want and find the movement people that can make that happen and understand what you have to compromise for it.

What the hell is wrong with Ryan Bundy's face anyway?

Some kind of paralysis. Never looked into it.

I know the third party logic seems sound, but it honestly makes me uneasy. Imagine what kind of weirdos we could end up with if they could win on 30% of the vote.

Shkreli may not be a prime medical source as he seems to think early-onset means early stages. 

Prior to him losing to GW Bush in 2000, McCain had cultivated a reputation as a bit of a "maverick", which was the source of his crossover appeal in that period.  I don't agree with much of his politics but I respect him as a man who has survived much and accomplished much.  Trumps comments regarding McCain and other POWs earlier in this election season were reprehensible.  My biggest complaint about McCain is that he inflicted Sarah Palin upon us all.  

Palin was the first big rip for the republicans. There's a difference between being the common man party and the spiteful anti-intellectual party, and the fact that they were pushing no-name dipshits who couldn't get a coherent sentence across as presidential material wasn't working well for the former. This is the party that realistically could have had an absolute run  of presidents like McCain or Luger, but I feel got a little too hungry for short-term gratification.

A friend of mine who I met doing Get Out the Vote type stuff in college who now has a pretty high position for a young guy in the GOP sounds like a nervous wreck right now. Going with what I can perceive, I predicted that the Republican establishment would start culling the congressmen and personalities who've hurt the party's image, and he basically said:

"That's probably what we'd do if we knew who stood where and if anyone high up had any power left."

I play TW: Attila with him, and he kind of went on a roll about how the GOP feels like late-Rome. Fractured, mistrustful of every shadow, too willing/too unwilling to fight in the wrong areas. He talks about basically being locked up in a corner of the office with some boss of his, drinking at daylight and talking about just where things went wrong. There's a lot of regret vis a vis Fox News. Having a doughy manbaby crying about hot dogs with no mustard and Jon Stewart being ready with Hannity vs. Hannity clips scared away a lot of people. The only thing anyone there can agree on is that cutting down on tea party rhetoric and pillow-strangling the Freedom Caucus are highest on the to-do list, and Huelskamp getting kicked out of his spot is probably the first volley.

My other two friends in the Dems sound less pessimistic than they used to. Debbie Schulz was a disaster that they'd been complaining about for years. One of the complaints is that they were still in Bush-years mode, pissing and whining about everything but party establishment holding them back from passing home runs like minimum wage increase and financial sector reforms. Apparently Debbie just refused to work with Obama in any capacity and is often blamed as much for the stalemate as the Rebublicans were.

It's not crazy to talk about how much money people in Russia's government have working with Trump has no influence on him whatsoever, but saying he'll sell the US out over it just as crazy as saying Obama would surrender us to China and Sharia law at the same time. At most I'd see some sanctions quietly lifted here, a few contracts pushed through there. Anything more would piss a lot more substantial allies off.

In other news, there are Democrat party members locking themselves in sound-proof rooms and thanking Allah for Debbie Schulz getting booted out. The Wikileaks thing will likely become an election issue, but the big long-term is that she was an absolute nightmare for the party in terms of business and relations and a Goon staffer I'm friends with talked about his boss almost crying in joy at the prospect of her gone. 

I'm a little baffled by the anti-Trump rhetoric I'm seeing.  I shouldn't be baffled, but evidently I lack pattern recognition.  Pattern recognition in this case being the realization that Trump's opponents this year are cretins who cannot construct an effective anti-Trump campaign to save their lives.  Or at least to save their jobs.

 

The line right now, which if I had to guess is a carefully massaged and coordinated astro-turf product, is that Trump is dire threat to world peace, the balance of the Force, and virgin puppies everywhere.

 

So they're conceding the idea that he's strong.  The anti-Trump rhetoric is that the guy, when elected, will somehow arrogate absolute authority and start tossing undesirables into gas chambers while he munches on the pickled hearts of orphans from atop his throne of heartless orphans.

 

Now, maybe I've read too much Nietzsche, but surely it would be more effective to disparage the man as a posturing, fluorescent marmoset who's way out of his depth?  Not by wrath does one kill, and all that.  In fact, if I recall that was the anti-Trump line about a year ago; that the guy was a joke.  But suddenly now he's Vlad Tepes.  Why the change?  What does that betoken?  To me, it looks like fear.  Certainly, it does not look like being the strong horse.

The problem is he can't do half the shit he wants to. The president either doesn't have the power or it would be a disastrous circus if we demanded tributes from nations or whatever. So as far as what he can actually do that's not crazy, what is there?

Considering what she's up against

https://twitter.com/JGreenDC/status/756507351667007489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

I talked to an old college friend who worked for the Cruz campaign this year, and it's more far-reaching. The Republican party is in a bad position right now. Groups like the Freedom Caucus have put a lot of the party power in doubt. They made a lot of hardline promises over the years that were really hard to keep, and it's created some serious internal issues they have to work out.

I think Ted's in a bit more good graces, as I took his speech as "fuck the presidency, we gotta keep The Senate." I personally find him to be one of the worst of the career politicians, but I have respect that he didn't turn around and say "all is forgiven, vote Trump" after having to wade through the shitshow that was this primary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WzhdaVj8N4

The game looks a little more interesting each time I see it, but this one caught my eye because the antagonist wasn't the typical modern attempt at a Ledger Joker "sociopath" villain.

I know reading comments on Fox News is generally a health hazard, but I recall a recent article where most everyone was sounding off against the jailed ranchers/insurrectionists.

Fox News really changed their tone. At the beginning of Malheur, they were saying "patriot" this and that. I think they didn't want to get on the bad side of the FBI.

Dark Souls 1 usually has a moment where it kind of "clicks" for people, and that's usually somewhere around the belltower. I'm gonna go against the grain, and say that the game has some serious troubles conveying mechanics, especially early in the game. Most people I talked to get to Firelink, try to go a few places, then give up, and I completely understand it. I would say don't feel bad about looking up a wiki for things like stats or checking out a video or two on fighting boss fights, then seeing the game for yourself.

Out of all of the games, I like DS1 the best. It's got my favorite visual design, and the combat feels the most satisfying to me. I'm just not a fan of some of the later areas like Great Hollow and Lost Izaleth.

Trump's success in the primaries to me has two major contributors:

1) The right wing media that exploded during the 2008 election. I'm talking "Terrorist fist bump, Muslim Prayer Curtain, Death Panel," etc. right-wing media. Hate messages don't always stick to the majority, but when those messages to find a willing audience, it's hard to get rid of it. The people that believed every political macro on Facebook and in their e-mail soon became a marginal voting block.

2) The Republican party's fracture due to its own monster. The GOP may seem stern and coordinated, but they're in a mess right now. Not dis-owning the previously mentioned nutsos meant that they suddenly started getting Congressmen that wouldn't toe the GOP line. The Freedom Caucus is on a witch hunt for any party power, which means you'll only see moderation out of prominent members when it is only absolutely needed and they'll likely be disowned shortly after (see: Boehner). That and their cult of celebrity that started around the 2008 primary, and the post-election Palin boom means that the message is controlled by some weirdo of the month on a rotating basis.

If the party had told everyone but Cruz or maybe Rubio to get out of the primary, Donald would have taken a handful of states if he was lucky (remember, Bernie was losing by "a wide margin" with same numbers Donald won with). As it stands, those 40 and 30-some percents he got are translating nation-wide, and we're going to see some really nasty upsets in what were normally red states.

Eric has no pitch pitch modulation. His voice is always at this robotic volume level of 7.

It's a good way of reaching out, but I cringe at the "modern musket" line ever since a local militia recruiter weirdo cornered me in a gunstore and kept using it.

Just praying that DICE doesn't fuck up the BF1 release like they have with BF3, BF4, and now Mirror's Edge 2. God, who am I kidding?

I can now say that I am officially autistic.

 

...."Hearts of Iron IV has finished downloading."

Apparently you're not because people are raging about how "casual" it is.

So I guess this is it for new games for me. How do most new releases compare to The Witcher 3 when it comes for hardware demands?

 

I started downloading The Witcher 3 (with all DLCs) 10 days ago, only 5 GB left now, but you can play it if the game itself downloaded. (the game + patches is 33 - 34 GB. DLCs are the rest) Just click on the .exe in the game's bin folder.

 

So, what do I find?

 

SIX FPS at the lowest possible settings on 1080p. 

 

I don't know if this is an optimization issue or just me. but oh well. 

 

Relevant computer specs are below if one is curious: (I cannot get anything better, sadly)

 

- CPU --> Intel Core 2 Quad Q660 2,4 GHz

 

- GPU --> ATI (no, not AMD. it's before AMD bought it over) HD 5450

 

- RAM --> 4GB DDR 2

 

Motherboard and PSU are regular Dell stuff.

 

Combat is almost unplayable, even at 1280*800.

Most modern AAA games with those specs are going to be a big problem if you want playable framerates and anything above lowest settings, but there are a lot of interesting smaller games on Steam and other services that can run on anything. It mostly depends on what types of games you're into. There are also services like Blizzard's Battle.net that have Shareware-like versions of their games so you can at least try-before-buying. I understand that it can be frustrating especially with how rare gameplay demos are these days.

Jesus, Karl looks like so much less of a Goon with that hairdo

Random lootboxes are pretty bullshit.  Just give me the ability to pay for the fucking appearance I want, or pay to shortcut level/time requirements.

 

I miss OP7 for that.

You can pay for them with in-game currency. I've bought almost all of the crap in Overwatch that I want by this point.

I would give Sterling the time of the day if he didn't encourage simplistic dipshit gamers to get mad enough to send death threats to developers over things like microtransactions.

So after the Bundies refused pleas and hired an attorney that was not legally allowed to practice, this comes up:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ammon-ryan-bundy-jail-facebook-internet_us_5751a153e4b0eb20fa0dab02

It's pretty much the SovCit playbook to jam up the court systems as much as possible. My current girlfriend's dad is a trial lawyer who told me that it's gotten really bad in some PA courts, even relaying a story about a guy with some sexual abuse charges jamming up the court with SovCit nonsense. He was then bailed out by a friend who it turns out had cheated the government out of a ridiculous amount of money with tax fraud, and that person went on to jam up the courts with their own crap.