it's not the set but what's in it that counts <3

I find the strange colored lights to be really off putting...

Also, my girlfriend had to point out that it was an actual map of the world behind them. I thought it was some modern art piece.

I'm not sure you understand what gaudy means.

@bemusedchunk said:

Take that Quake 2!

They didn't ship the couch for nothing.

It's not too bad, the world map in the bg sort of threw me off for a bit there though. Sorta like they are in a class room or something. All in all, I don't hate it. Though in all honesty, I really don't care what the set looks like as long as the guys bring their A game on the commentary. And so far they have, so it's allll good.

I just think the set looks way too bright on the video when I watch the final bits (3am UK so my eyes are a bit sensitive). Apart from that I don't really care.

I've been tending to watch their stream for a bit then I roll back to the Gametrailers' Twitch.

No no! Colored lighting ONLY belongs in Quake 2.

*John Carmack lowers himself slowly back down into his chair*

You should probably wait until the first late night show to make any judgements on the set.

You're way too concerned about a set. They should paint the whole set in gold leaf and diamonds.

They said in one of the press conferences, maybe the first? that the late night would be in another room.

For a talking over some dumb thing is that set perfectly acceptable and for most of that is the split Giant Bombs talking heads 20% original feed 80% The full set is only visible in the pre and post conferences talks.

My initial reaction was that it was way too brightly backlit, but I got to a point where I was able to ignore it.

My reaction was the set looked like as little effort had been put into it as humanly possible while still allowing a bunch of people to broadcast from it. Which is totally fine by me.

I think the lighting looks really bad and the room itself is unfortunately small and cramped. The map on the wall looks out of place too. I do like how they change the light colours depending on the conference though, it's a nice idea.

I feel like you think gaudy means spartan.

Did somebody say Lock Down?

It really doesn't matter to me, they are there for E3, it could be an all white empty room and I wouldn't care.

The dumb engineering challenge for next year should be to make the color of the room lighting change based on the hype meter level.

@cirdain: Get a program called f.lux, it takes some UV light out of your monitor output after the sun goes down, perfect for stupid crap like this.

I think it reflects the enthusiasm that the staff have for press conferences pretty appropriately :D

the colors make the whole picture seem weird. They bleed into everything

Who cares?

for me it was far to bright. need a better light engineer for su.

It's extremely bright, but gaudy? It's white tablecloths in a small room with a map of the world behind them.

Last year there was decorative CM Punk.

I don't care what their set looks like.

I'm sure that I do.

We all have our thresholds and I'm not telling anyone to accept my view.

GiantBomb often seems to pride itself on not taking somethings too seriously. It works for the most part, but sometimes it's to the detriment of users.

For those asking who cares. Clearly myself and others do. Also, for those who claim not to care, that comes across as saying it doesn't matter if there is any video to begin with. I mean, if the set was not lit and pitch black, some of y'all wouldn't "care". More power to you though, we can't all think the same.

The couch may end up being used for guests waiting to be on air and may not be featured. We'll find out soon enough.

Hopefully it changes for the better. However, the pre and post talks tend to be around 1hr total per conference. That's the same length as a lot of the conferences themselves. So it's not like the set is shrunk as picture in picture for short periods of time.

The word bright is right there in the definition.

Gaudy

1. extravagantly bright or showy, typically so as to be tasteless.

It just looks mega plain, but lacking Roman Reigns card board standee.

But honestly I don't care so long as the night shows are fun. The conference stuff was great.

"Gaudy" & "Lacking Personality" aren't two characteristics you can plausibly assign to the same thing. You might think you understand what gaudy means, but your usage violates any usage I've ever seen and doesn't really fit with the spirit of the definition.

I think the set is plain to a fault, and the lighting is strange.

I would only use gaudy if I thought it was overblown (and I've feel equally comfortable using "tacky" in such an instance). The set is so far from over-decorated that it's understandable why people are openly questioning the usage of gaudy. The set is way closer to looking like someone literally forgot to decorate it.

I miss the cut outs from last year. Just didn't have room for them?

It's fine, but I do miss how stupid last year's was.

Funnily enough, I knew (well, was pretty sure) exactly what you meant when you said gaudy but not because it's an accurate description of an overly bright (in terms of lighting) but simply because it was the only way your post made any sense at all. But yeah, not the best use of the word.

I dislike it (gaudy is not the right word) right down to the part where they all (except Vinny, bless him) have a laptop open in front of them.
Mostly the lighting is distracting IMO.

@greedzen said:

Extravagantly bright or showy. There's nothing extravagant about that set. If i'm using my laptop late at night I'll usually just turn down the brightness of my screen if it's bothering me.

I didn't use it based solely on the brightness. The coloured backlighting and the way all elements of the design came together slot right in with deeper definitions of the word. I won't be-labour the point further because the set being used for the Live Show now, is a million times better; though it's still vanilla in terms of personality.

You're welcome to disagree with my usage that doesn't mean I'm incorrect. I can see where this is going so I'll refrain from diving into definitions and usage.

I think it looks nice. I'm easily impressed with pretty lights though.

I just miss the cardboard standees.

There was a point where the lights were all blue, which totally threw off their white balance and made their skin look alien. That was kind of caustic. Otherwise it’s not terrible, but I don’t really like it.

@greedzen: You can't just make up your own definition for a word and then get defensive when people point it out. You are incorrect and don't understand the word. The bright in the definition you're using doesn't mean brightly lit, it means bright colours or something that's overly flashy. If Jeff was wearing a fluorescent pink tuxedo t-shirt, that would be gaudy. A brightly lit undecorated set, not so much.

The only thing I can say about it is that Vinny needs to beware of the Purple People Eaters that we were warned about so many years ago.

Yup.

It's alright. It's a room.

Seriously? We're debating the set?

'Tis the season, I guess. I just came for the hot takes and special guests.

If your point is that on some level the word gaudy can be loosely framed to somehow fit into this construct you have created in your mind, fine, it's not a matter of being right or wrong, it's a matter of you posing a question as well as a poll that is vague at best in terms of meaning. I am not sure why you feel the need to defend your asking a confusing question rather than just clarifying it.

At any rate, I applaud your....well, verbosity is not the right word as that has derogatory connotations, but what I mean is, words are cool and I am all for people using more and bigger ones.

Cheers!

Remembering the whole ENEMIES HAVE LIGHT SOURCES ON THEM hype now

Can we just have a thread on Quake 2 colored lighting now?

Pretty much. It does the job. The set is the last thing I come here for.

FWIW, I think a lot of their stuff has been pretty gaudy, but not the right thing to describe their E3 set this year.

I don't think there was any need for the lights personally. But like people have said it doesn't matter I came to those "talking over" things for the guys opinions if I wanted a crazy big studio production with bloody ads running all over the place i would have watched IGN.

However I did find the late night from last night very odd, the regular sofa and set moved all that way just to sit in front of a backdrop. In that respect I miss the sets of past days. That was a move closer towards a traditional show that I'm perhaps more uneasy with.

Semantics...

This is the first year I've ever actually been able to consistently follow the conversation, so I actually like the setup, regardless of the fucking décor.

I actually really dug the setup for the live show last night, a bit drier than usual but still casual and effective. Gave the guests a chance to shine and not get lost in the mix, the focus was on the conversation. It also feels like we're about 2 years away from full on Late Show with Jeff Gerstmann, hopefully featuring The Wolf as the wisecracking bandleader.