drugged

Heartfelt final article Patrick. Good luck.

I'm happy for games to design aspect ratios with a certain 'vision' in mind. I can't speak directly to The Evil Within having never played it, but clearly altering aspect ratios is very impactful on gameplay, so it is something (in principle) worth devs tinkering with.

I like the customisable nature of my PC, but I don't think there is anything wrong with forcing people to only 'see' a certain part of your game at a time. For some games changing aspect/FOV is of little consequence, but there are plenty of reasons why you might want to restrict this choice in other games.

In film, using a different aspect ratio to portray a certain vision is accepted so I don't see why it shouldn't be here. Cynically people say it's because higher resolutions couldn't be done, which may be the case, but my point is that inprinciple using an altered aspect ratio is a genuine tool that devs can (and should) wield if they want to.

The only thing I never agree with is limiting frame rates for 'style'. I recently read (I think about The Order) of one developers excuse for limiting their game to 30fps as being "well we wanted it to look like a film, but not too much like a film (24fps)"... Why don't they just admit they can only get it to run at 30fps on the console - no need to try and bullshit everyone!

@justkamtoo: Are there any gaming communities that don't seem shitty - especially when they're this large? The worst people are always the loudest - it doesn't matter if it's Dota, League, fighting games, Call of Duty, PC 'master race' people, etc etc.

If I based my opinion on games on their 'internet communities' I'd probably never end up playing anything!

Trying to explain the game to newcomers is a difficult thing to do and I think game-by-game the casters got better at it. I'm glad they're trying it even if it isn't always completely successful.

Some things you just cannot explain in that much detail - the time it would take would mean you would miss everything that is going on in the game. I think Valve would've been smart to make a ~5 minute brief video explaining the very basics (stuff like what a lane, tower, barracks etc is) that they could put on the official site or run as a bumper/trailer before the start of every game.

I got into Dota at TI3 and didn't find it that hard even though there was no newcomer stream. Really it depends on how much you are interested and how much free time you have. I was pretty happy to sit and watch an hour long game and just pick things up through context etc. All it took for me was one exciting game because the crowd noise and caster hype was infectious even though I didn't know what was happening. That made it easy for me to persevere and learn. Like any sport it also helps if you choose a team to root for.

For people that are watching this just out of a sense of 'obligation' to eSports or gaming in general, or people that don't have a lot of free time I can see why even this 'newbie' stream might be too dense for them. At the end of the day, Dota is an incredibly complex game - on some level you have to have a desire to want to learn or enjoy it. This type of stream is a good thing but they can only do so much.

There's no worthwhile debate to be had. What's the point?

Similarly to http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/bug-reporting-33/site-seems-to-be-broken-in-chrome-1424083/ and http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/bug-reporting-33/link-s-busted-in-chrome-1424110/#5 I had the issue of not being able to do anything in chrome as none of the links worked.

I disabled all extensions and it worked fine, and then re-enabled them one by one - the only extension the site didn't work with is Adblock Plus.

The site also seems to work if I disable adblock for giantbomb.com - as soon as I re-enable it everything stops working again.

Is this intentional or just some wierd bug?

@leebmx: I dunno - soccer in Europe sells pretty well - if anything it's the "working man's" sport. They manage to attract fans by having the highest quality leagues and players in the world, and they do this by throwing a shit ton of money around and buying their way up the tables.

Everyone agrees wages in Soccer are ridiculous but I think having a player like Ronaldo attracts more people than it puts off because they think the way the league and team is organised is unfair.

I think the main reason for the 'fairness' comes from the sports in America being somewhat solitary and for their own country. When you never see your teams play anyone else from across the world it's a necessity for your own league to be competitive. There are European, African, South American, World, etc Soccer competitions, and then again Rugby has 6 Nations and a World cup too, the same for Cricket etc etc. In america, you have American Football, Basketball and Baseball which are pretty much played just in their own country - you need to make those competitive.

@PeasantAbuse said:

The real question is why would anyone in Europe be a fan of the Rams?

The same guy who owns the rams also owns Arsenal FC in the UK - one of my friends has chosen to support the rams because of that. :P

Plenty of people in the UK care about it.

I didn't think I did until I started watching it this past year - for me I like the US' approach to sport - for such a capitalist country they put a hell of a lot of emphasis on trying to be fair and equal! Along with that they think about and change the rules accordingly - a lot of sport in Europe is bogged down in tradition and has rules that need changing or updating, but they refuse to do so.

Back to the question - people care and it's getting bigger too. Unlike someone suggested people aren't buying Wembley tickets just for the hell of it - they're damned expensive - all those people will be fans.

Many universities field American Football teams too - you can't be a niche sport and fill a squad of that many people. That shows that it is pretty popular even though it isn't really shown over here.

It's a great combination of athleticism, individual talent, team talent, and manager tactics - I don't see why anyone who is even slightly interested in sport wouldn't like it - it's got pretty much everything going for it. And if you find it too slow - which is the main criticism - then just watch the highlights!

Also, the Rugby vs American Football argument is a silly one - I myself used to say it, but now having watched and learned about the game the only people I can see saying such things must clearly not know what they're on about.

@onan: I'm pretty sure during the video Jeff mentions it isn't the same people running the show anymore. It's not explicit like "oh yeah after they fired Jeff they all lost their jobs too because of it", but one of them definitely mentions it.