The central issue aside, I think it's interesting how this controversy shows the inherent meta nature of trophies and achievements. Like many have pointed out GoW has always been crass, gory and sexist - but it has been that way in universe. Kratos is an anti-hero at best or a villain protagonist at worst and players are allowed to think and feel whatever they want about what he does. But for some people, this trophy broke the fourth wall and essentially came of as the a kind of editorializing: like the game developers not merely approving of his tendency towards violence against women but outright applauding it.
I've been trying to come up with a metaphor for something equivalent in movies or television, but I can't really come up with anything. That's interesting too. Trophies and achievements have evidently evolved to be capable of having an effect on the very narrative of games these days, far beyond the mere braggards rights they started out as.
@renegadedoppelganger: Yeah, the NK air force is a complete joke by conventional metrics. About half of their inventory is expected to be too worn down to be flyable. The majority of the rest is ancient, manned by inexperienced pilots (due to fuel shortages) who don't even get enough to eat: fighter pilot rations in 2000 was about 900 calories a day on flight-days, less than that when grounded - the average required daily intake in the west is upwards of 2500 calories. Their most modern aircraft, the treasured 30 or so MiG-29s they have guarding Pyongyang's airspace, wouldn't last minutes against a concerted SK/US attack.
Their air force have only two realistic uses:
1) Sending anything with wings on a suicide attack either on Seoul or potential military targets. They would most likely reach their targets if they launch early enough in the conflict (which they obviously will) simply thanks to the general pandemonium and the short distances involved. They could most likely inflict some serious damage before being shot down since we are most likely talking about a few hundred aircraft.
2) Depositing NK special forces all over SK to wreak havoc behind enemy lines. NK has a ludicrously large amount of special forces personnel: roughly 180,000 which is probably the largest number in the world. These are not the modern type of special forces like Delta Force or the Spetznas, mind you, what with their supreme training and high-tech equipment, but rather WW2-type commandos trained to operate and survive independently behind enemy lines to disrupt enemy supply lines, staging grounds and generally terrorize the area.
Funny you should mention bi-planes: North Korea several hundred of those in store for its commandos. Namely, the An-2:
The An-2 has civilian uses as a crop-duster, among other things. The NK air force uses it to transport commandos thanks to its ability to silently at low altitudes at low speeds. While the fleet has been grounded in recent years due to fuel shortages, they are most likely still operational in large numbers.
@fredchuckdave: China has absolutely no interest in a war on the Korean peninsula. Above all because of one thing: refugees. China is frustrated as it is with thousands of North Koreans taking the trip across the border every year. A war in Korea would most likely balloon that number to the hundreds of thousands, maybe more.
China "supports" (more like turns a blind eye to, most of the time) North Korea because of one part principle and two parts the reluctance of having a unified, US-aligned Korea on its doorstep. This does not extend to the point of supporting NK militarily in a lost cause, neither today nor in 25 years.
Also, in 25 years China may be stronger but NK is going to be much weaker compared to SK if it still exists. They have languished for the last 20 years since the fall of the USSR and have shown no indications of having any industrial potential left. Their military is getting more worn down and obsolete, their GDP show no sign of improvement - in the last three years alone, two registered a negative growth rate. Assuming a similar geopolitical situation as today, China getting involved in an even more lost cause then would be impossibly stupid.
@jams: It's questionably whether or not NK really are that crazy. Sure, from our point of view they act crazy with all their hyper-aggressive posturing and silly propaganda videos. But from the NK perspective it's not that crazy at all. Posturing gets results: they know that SK and the US don't want war, so every time they act like a three-year old and throw a tantrum, everyone else folds and gives in. This is essentially how they earned their deals about food aid. And the progapanda videos aren't aimed at us, but at their populace, which largely lacks the information required to disprove that, say, the US is both evil incarnate but also terrified of NK military prowess and the success of NK society. For all the regular NK citizen knows, we are the crazy ones. We are essentially Orcs - to be feared to an extent, yes, but also to be loathed.
But above all there's the fact that the NK ruling elite are not the same as the brainwashed masses. For instance, many are educated abroad - Kim Jong Un himself attended school in Switzerland and may have lived there for close to ten years. Apparently class mates describe him as a well integrated, decent student, interested in and pretty good at basketball (by Swiss standards), if a little shy and awkward around girls. And while little is really known about the exactly how the NK ruling structure works Kim Jong-Un isn't really a pure dictator. His rise to power was predicated on him having the support of NK's more important military figures, generals in particular, and it's not entirely clear just what level of control Jong-Un personally has.
The only thing this cadre is interested in is retaining control. They have to be good at this too - if they actually were crazy there's no way that the country would have managed to stay this stable during crisis after crisis for more than half a century. No, they aren't crazy. They're playing us. We know it, they know that we know it, but for the time being it's cheaper to just to give them the damn rice they will eventually be asking for than upset the status quo. Even when they don't come with some demands their saber rattling seems to mostly be about not getting forgotten than anything else. NK has a very fragile public ego and needs attention from time to time, but once they've had their fill they usually quiet down.
My money is that this is precisely what will happen sometime in the coming weeks or months after which everything dies down again for some time.
@president_barackbar You have to admit though, if the real UNSC would find itself in need of an emblem some day the Halo version would probably do pretty well.
North Korea isn't going to start a war unless they are really, really desperate for some reason - and not even mass starvation appears to have had an effect in that area - or through some sort of incident in which a North Korean unit either starts a war by accident or by going rogue. Why? Because that would be suicide. North Korea can't win a war with South Korea; let alone a war with South Korea and its NATO allies. It is almost guaranteed that the war would end with North Korea ceasing to be a an entity militarily of politically.
Don't get me wrong: a war wouldn't be a curb stomp. It would be horrifyingly bloody with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of casualties guaranteed. Most would be on the NK side of the fence but enough South Koreans would die to for it to be a deterrence. Seoul itself is of great worry - the city is located a mere 45 kilometers from the DMZ, with outskirts even closer, and are well within range of NK early strike capabilities This is the reason a war on the Korean peninsula would be a nightmare. Everything is bunched so close together. If NK wants to send its ageing air force on a one-way trip to the capitol it would be extremely difficult to stop them. There are even conventional NK artillery that right now, as I write this, are in range of the city from NK's side of the DMZ.
So no, it probably won't escalate to war this time either. Everyone has too much to lose. But when people talk about how we should just take out NK and its cold-war era military once and for all - or claim that Iran should just do as NK and go nuclear since that evidently works - they are clearly not aware why war simply isn't an option and why the possible nuclear weapons NK might possess is not even the biggest factor for that. As far as WMDs go, chemical and biological weapons are a far greater concern - and we are pretty much certain that the country has lots and lots of those.
Well the Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie and Conker series are dead already seeing how Rare don't make games no more, and whoever remains in that withered husk probably couldn't even if we begged them to.
I'm fine with a few more Halo games. I felt done after Halo 3 and didn't buy ODST. But then Reach was good... and Halo 4 too, although I never ended up buying it. So I can see it getting some new life on the next gen. Still plenty of room for new stories in the way Spartan Ops has shown. I'm actually watching that one for the cut-scenes alone. Who would have thunk it.
Fable seems like something we should probably not try to revive.
As for PGR and Forza... I think we could do without PGR. Honestly forgot nr 4 was even released and had to go back and check it. Forza appears well liked and should transfer well, as car games are wont to to do, so bring it along.
But I really think that above all we should let Gears of War rest in peace. It had a great run, game play has been thoroughly explored, as has its story. I always felt Judgement was too much of a milking project for me, let alone a full sequel or (shudder) a spin-off trilogy kicking of with Judgement.
@cloudnineboya: To put it simply the most common "conventional" keyboard, the rubber dome variant, has a rubbery dome underneath every key. When pressed, the dome produces an electrical impulse by shortening two circuits underneath the rubber dome in a central circuitboard when the dome collapses. They are so common because they are the cheapest to produce. Mechanicals are easier to explain: when you push the key, you push down to mechanically flip a switch that sends the impulse. That's about the difference between them.
But the two approaches are rather different in how they feel. Rubber domes can have a sponginess to them through the consistency of the dome as well as requiring greater pressure. Because of this they are neither as smooth or fast to press as mechanical ones and don't spring back as easily. They also have a considerably lower life expectancy. On the plus side, they are virtually silent - although whether or not that's a plus is a matter of taste.
Best fucking keyboard I've ever touched. Thing just screams quality. It's a dream to write with: everything from the the wonderfully proportioned wrist support to the perfectly angled kickstands...which are also all of it's special features. It's minimalistic as all hell and I love it for it. Just stick it in the USB or PS/2 port and you're good to go. And yes, using a mechanical versus a conventional is truly night and day. It feels that much better. The smooth sliding of the keys make you think they could as well be analogue.
Built like a tank too. Had it for over a year, still looks like the day I bought it. 50 million keystrokes per key makes me think I'll run out of fingers before I run out of keys.
As with most mechanical keyboards a possible downside is the noisiness. Then again, I really like the sound of the clack-clack-clack. Makes me feel more...productive.
It's a bit pricey, will set you back about $120 at Amazon. But believe me, it's worth it.
Wow, that took a long time to write, a whole freaking year and a half! But seriously, I really should read the post dates closer. 36 hours without sleep does that to you I guess. Then again, CTS isn't going away anytime soon so hopefully someone will get something out of it. Which they probably won't since this thread is necrod. Which means I'm probably writing to myself. In which case I should probably stop. Now.
The people who have already posted have made some good points. If I may, here's my recommendations in bullet-point format (we got to use that function for something, right?) Obligatory TL;DR near the end. This applies to all forms of wrist pain, both CTS and non-CTS.
Levelling. You should be seated so that your forearms are resting comfortably on the table in front of you. That means:
A high seating. Get yourself high enough that you approach the point where you elbows are almost forming a right angle.
Good posture. Straight back, lumbar support if possible (really, a good gaming char is almost as vital as a good keyboard and mouse) Contorting yourself into weird shapes puts extra strain on the wrist.
A desk that actually allows you space between the edge of the desk and the keyboard. 10-15 cm is a good target. That's 4-6 inches imperial. If your have a desk chair with good arm rests level with your desk you can shorten that distance. I personally find it most comfortable to rest my elbows and upper forearms on the armrests, lower forearms on the table and wrist on my keyboards wrist support. More on that in a moment.
If you find yourself wanting to pivot your monitor upwards towards you after performing these steps, then you're probably doing it right, which means you sat to low before.
Onto:
Equipment.
So, keyboards and wrist supports. Here's mine, the Q-Pad Mk-50:
As far as keyboards go, this is a basic design but oh what a pleasure to use! The wrist-pad is minimalistic to say the least but gets the job done wonderfully. A plastic slab with a rubberized finish, neither too hard nor to soft, angled slightly upwards before leveling of as it reaches the keyboard proper. It does one thing: gives your wrists a natural home. combined with the keyboards only other special feature - kickstands on the back, which are pretty buck standard really, but also perfectly angled. Together they make it easy to reach just about everything, while naturally getting you to adopt the perfect position and angle. It's also mechanical which is pleasurable in itself with it's fluid keys.
If you don't feel like buying a new keyboard, there are also third-party wrist supports you can buy for a few bucks. Can't really comment on those, haven't used them since high school. I'm sure they get the job done.
Onward to mice!
Once again, principles are simple: should fit comfortably in the palm of your hand, buttons should be easy to push and neither be finicky nor resisting, thumb groove is great and standard in most gaming mice, neither too heavy nor too light... you get the point. Goldilocks zone. The result is that you don't end up straining your wrist by hovering over a mouse that is too small, or tenses your wrist either forcing it around or its buttons down. Personally I once again go with the more minimalistic ones (I actually use the entry-level Logitech G400 which is both comfortable and cheap, if not very advanced) but whatever floats your boat.
Then, of course, mouse pads. Soft are nice - but not too soft, you don't want to get the mouse snagged and end up forcing it around. I'd say the ease of mouse movement trumps softness to rest your wrist on. Here, bigger is usually better: you don't want to constantly slip off the edge. Go for something excessively large - they aren't that much more expensive and the bigger you can fit the better. I personally think I don't really use more than a third of mine, for instance, so I have more than enough space. It also makes for a better leveling of the wrist and mouse if you can rest it on the pad.
As for grip? Try a few. Theoretically buck-standard mouse-in-palm, fingers-flat-on-buttons should work best but I'm not going to argue with those who have wrist-issues who say the claw works better for them.You'll probably find whichever works best for you after a while.
So what's left in the trifecta? Ah yes,
Excersise!
Take a brake when you feel the burn coming on. Move the wrist around, stretch fingers. Simple stuff. Just stop whatever you're doing for while. There are some guides on the web if you want pointers, just google "carpal tunnel syndrome excersises".
There's also another point worth mentioning here: your gaming environment. Cold usually worsens carpal tunnel, so if possible, try to keep a nice, comfy temperature. Drafts can be even worse - if you have your PC near a window or through some other means sit in a place with a lot of moving, potentially cold air, try to do something about it. Tighten up those windows. Put a book case or screen or something to disrupt the flow if the entire house is drafty. As for high temperature, that's usually not as much of a big deal. Warmer is better.
This should also be mentioned: lighting. Believe it or not, poor lighting causes more than just eye strain as many unconsciously tense up, wrists included.
And that pretty much covers it.
TL;DR: WWDD! What would Drew do? DO AS DREW!
You see that elegant poise, that high seating, desk with lots and lots of space for the keyboard, monitors at the perfect height and angle? The man is a poster-child for the ergonomic work environment. I'd dock him some points for that hideous excuse of a desk chair, but I don't think it's his fault. Personally I blame Jeff. Or Brad. But probably Jeff.
Oh, and bonus round!
Carpal tunnel syndrome: a quick biomechanical explanation. The carpal tunnel is a tight passage that allows the the tendons of the finger flexors, those muscles that bend your fingers, to attach to the finger bones. They share the tunnel with the median nerve: this nerve supplies the muscles that extend the fingers as well as sensory information roughly incorporating the palmar side of the thumb, the index finger and the middle finger, half the palmar side of the ring finger and finally the fingertips of said fingers. The canal is very, very tight - if for whatever reasons the canal gets tighter, usually by swelling of the tendons through inflammation (possibly caused by repetitive motion, research to establish this as a cause is still somewhat ongoing)
When this happens the median nerve experiences something called entrapment neuropathy AKA nerve compression syndrome. What happens is that the entrapment blocks of blod flow to sections of the nerve which enter ischemia - a lack of oxygen. The mechanism is the same as what happens when your limb goes asleep after you've been laying on it. This, in turn, results in the nerve reacting by releasing its action potentials - over-acting, to put it simply, which results in abnormal signals which the brain interprets as a form of stinging pain. Typically the pain is a stinging sensation that wanders outwards to the fingertips from the palmar side of aforementioned fingers, corresponding to the area of innervation, as well as radiating outwards to the wrist. It is usually brought on by actions such as driving - or - using a keyboard. Patients can also present with a subtle tendency to drop things, caused by worsened fine motor control through the innervated finger extenders.
Treatment is through physical and occupational therapy, medical treatment in the form steroid injections (which are anti-inflammatory and dampens the swelling), night-time splints to stabilize the wrist and in severe cases surgery, aimed at releasing the transverse ligament and thereby decrease the tightness of the canal.
I've been playing on a 360 this gen, but I'm not dedicated to MS. I liked what I saw at the PS4 reveal. If it ends up being Sony launching the more dedicated gaming console to Microsoft's multimedia hub I could switch. Also haven't ruled out going PC, at least for a while. It comes down a bit to economics and what the launch windows are going to look like. Still, it would be a bit more painful than when I switched from GameCube last gen to 360 current gen - I'd miss the community I built through Live. Hell, I'd probably even miss the achievements.
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