Bubbly

Congrats and welcome Austin! I've only read your Darkest Dungeon and Battlefield Hardline article, but found them both to be incredibly well-written and insightful. Honestly some of the best stuff I've read about games for some time. Extremely excited to see you boost up the editorial side of this site along with the content you'll be doing with Vinny and Alex.

:( Man, I'm at a loss for words right now. Looking back I guess the writing was slightly on the wall once GBeast got going and they started looking for a news editor. Still, it's a huge bummer and big loss for Giant Bomb. I got so excited when I saw you tweeting about the new CAH studio, happily thinking about the awesome content you were gonna create for Giant Bomb there. Unfortunately, what I thought those tweets meant were different from the reality.

Wherever you go Patrick, keep doing what you're doing and fighting for what you believe in. You've always brought a unique and extremely open-minded voice to Giant Bomb, never afraid to look at the more eccentric side of games and game development. On top of that, you were a beautiful shining beacon on the horrible blight that the internet can sometimes be. Since day one you've always fought against the assholes and directly supported the awesome people being harassed, even after the assholes consistently flung horrible shit at you. As awesome as the rest of the crew are, they've never been able to compete with you on this front. With you gone I hope the rest of the crew can take up this responsibility and continue on with your work. For the gaming community to change for the better it needs voices like you, fighting for what is good and right in this world.

I have gained much more perspective about games and how the media represents different people because of Giant Bomb, and the large majority of that is because of you. Giant Bomb is the only gaming website I regularly visit, but you've gained a lifelong fan and can be sure as hell that I'll be reading your work wherever you go. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors and hope you'll stop by each office whenever you're in the area, just for old times sake. Gonna miss you buddy.

OMG I just got to his first five deaths and they are better than I could have ever imagined. It kinda sums up Dan's personality and mind perfectly. He is extremely stubborn and goes into complete denial when faced with anything that goes against his beliefs or preconceived notions, even when there is overwhelming evidence against him. Like, how many times can you walk into a literal whirling cyclone of death and just stand in it? The logical thing would be to run away, but in that perfect Ryckert way he just blames the game. His team even gave him helpful advice after that and he managed to be stubborn and dumb about that, too.

Alright I just skipped to the end talk and it reminds me of how Jeff compares Dota, which is a complex and strategical multiplayer game with 100+ heroes who all play differently, to those objectively bad singleplayer single unit RTS missions which actually require no strategy. It is apples and oranges and Dan has sort of the same line of thinking, although Jeff isn't stubborn and sees the obvious depth and strategy to it.

Still love ya though Dan, even if I'll never understand you.

I absolutely love CS and have been playing on and off since 2005, but I honestly could never get into watching it. There is obviously strategy with positioning and buying, but it has never appealed to me in the same way that Starcraft and Dota 2 do. I agree with Jeff's opinion on the Bombcast that it is just boring watching guns on the screen shoot each other. And before you ask, yes, I actually did try to watch one of the big CS:GO tournaments earlier this year. My opinion is still the same after I watched a couple matches. The top-down perspective of Dota 2 plays a huge part from a spectating standpoint IMO.

I'm glad to see CS:GO as popular as it is though since I believe that CS has the best shooting model in any FPS ever. It is pretty crazy what Valve have been able to do with the game's popularity. I remember before CS:GO was even announced that there were about 50k people combined playing both 1.6 and CSS. That was still incredibly impressive for games that old, but now you have CS:GO almost hitting 200k concurrent players which is even crazier. I agree with the sentiment that if Quake was given to Valve they could make it just as popular. I still wouldn't care to watch Quake competitively either, but I would be all over that within a second.

As someone who has played almost 300 hours of Dota I could easily see how someone could amass that level of playtime. Once you get past the learning barrier it is extremely addictive. Due to the complexity of the game, average playtime of each match (~30-40 mins I would say), and 100+ hero pool it doesn't get boring and you can literally just sit there for hours at a time. Just imagine Brad playing a match or two each night and a bunch on the weekend for more than a year and you can see how that time would equate to 1000 hours. If you don't like MOBA's - or even multiplayer games in general like the rest of the staff - it can be hard to explain how addictive and fun it can be, but you just gotta trust me on this. If you get into Dota you get way into it. I actually had to temporarily take a break earlier this year as it was too addictive and started to collide with a studies a bit.

Also, I'd wager that you have never really gotten deep into any multiplayer game (or a lengthy RPG) because 30 hours isn't a lot of playtime for certain types of games.

Really hyped for these new hires! When I heard that Dan Ryckert was gonna be the new editor (some Battefield Hardline levels of secrecy here :P) I was thrilled. Anyone who has seen him on the E3 shows (dating site pranks and ass tumblr) know that he will be perfect for the site. I'm not gonna lie, I do feel that the site has been lacking energy for awhile now, but Dan and Jason seem like the right people to pump the site full of life again.

Fuck... RIP Ryan. For years and years, week after week, you were always there to brighten up my day and make my life just that much better. We've never met, but I truly feel like I've lost a close friend. The world won't be the same without your humor and crazy antics.

Pouring one out for you right now while tearing up and blasting "THE REALEST SUMMERJAMS". Thank you for all that you've done for me and countless others.

I really like it. Brad and I are pretty much on the same skill level so that makes it even more entertaining. Also, some of you guys do know that it isn't premium content, right? Like TNT the site archives are for premium members only, but anybody can watch the Twitch archive or stream live. I've seen people who think TNT's are premium content so I'm just putting that out there.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/dota2bot

Still using it here. This sucks ass. Google Reader is extremely convenient and does exactly what I need an RSS reader to do.