sa_drone

Really not sure what to make of the deckbuilding mechanic and whether or not Magic as an IP fits well at all into that genre of video game (the setting and lore sure, but divorcing it from the card game seems weird and strange).

However, I can say that the movement in the trailer doesn't look... clunky, per say, but it also doesn't look like it feels as smooth and fluid as something like a Diablo 3 or a PoE. Visually it's also not astounding (though I assume that's because they're going to heavily target mobile and not PC), and... are those three separate currencies I see at the top of the screen?

Fully braced for a mediocre ARPG that is shackled with outdated gameplay and awful F2P (compared to PoE, which has extremely good F2P), while retaining some potential for some kind of innovative game design when it comes to the whole deckbuilding thing.

@heghmohqib: Under CBS I've always wondered just how much of the site's creative control is internal, and how much gets dictated to them by brand managers or whatever. Of course it seems like CBS has had a fairly light touch, but it's one of those things we'll never know. It feels like, at least up until COVID up-ended the world, that GB's programming has tended to get a bit... less adventurous and experimental over the years (Dan stuff aside, who really pushed creative content out there quite often), but that could either be a symptom of 1.) the site taking its initial few years to find its footing and 2.) the group just kinda getting older and more static in general. Ryan's untimely passing probably also had an effect, he just seemed like a guy who was all about straight-up having a blast with everything he did.

I often look back at early GB stuff fondly because it had kind of a scrappy feel to it. While I don't really need to see that come back (for the sake of everyone's peace of mind re: job security, mainly), I would like to see if new owners maybe let the team feel empowered to *get weird* again in a good way.

Is there any way for whoever made the Giant Bomb club to make the club room public? As much as I'm enjoying the actual gameplay of new Trackmania, I ain't shelling out for club-level access for it just to hear GOOD LUCK, HAFF FUN every time a map loads.

@sarcasticmudcrab: Yeah, it's important to consider the audience for the respective podcasts as well. Both podcasts, like the site in general, are targeted pretty clearly and explicitly towards adults -- GBWest probably moreso just by virtue of having a crew that has a slightly higher average age.

I respect OP for putting their opinion out there, but I think it's an unreasonable ask to have them "tone it down" for two reasons: 1.) it implies that the use of profanity on the Bombcast is generally already excessive and worthy of being toned down (it extremely isn't), and 2.) it assumes that the content the crew are creating should be tailored to a specific subset of the overall audience. By this subset, I'm not just talking "people with kids", since I'd wager parents with young children make up a very sizable chunk of the audience... but rather, the request seems to target the intersection of "people with young kids who want to listen to the podcast with/around their children" and "people who have a problem with exposing their kids to occasional swearing".

Personally, I wouldn't want to intentionally expose young children to Giant Bomb content anyway. Not because of any issue with excessive profanity, but because I feel like they'd be bored out of their goddamn minds listening to a bunch of people at/near/over 40 talk about video games, often ones that were released well before the kid was born. And any kid that would be old enough to be interested in listening to content like that is also a kid who is old enough to have, hopefully, learned the proper place of swearing and learned not to just parrot the words in the way that a small child would.

@hughj: I dunno about this to be honest. Burgle My Bananas, Goldeneye, Steal My Sunshine, B-Games, the short-lived 4th of July series are all pretty prominent series that I associate with Dan after he moved East. Before that about the only Dan-specific things I can think of out West were.... Mario Party Party and the one-off roller coaster thing.

Dan's best work was absolutely after he moved East imo.

@ktipcorn: You know what? Yes. Yes, this. Please.

@conmulligan: Aw, and here I was hoping he was AEW-bound. WWE is an questionable organization and while I'm sure Dan will contribute in a positive way, it's kinda a shame to see him contribute his skills to getting people like Vince McMahon more money.

At any rate this is really sad news, but I'm happy for Dan following his dreams. Dude brought a shit-ton of personality and energy to the site at a time when it needed it the most, and without him the site continues to get just that much... sleepier and lazier, if I'm completely honest. I really, really miss the days of Giant Bomb taking chances, getting creative, and being scrappy and a little bit out there... pretty much since Ryan's untimely death/acquisition by CBS it's been going in the opposite direction (safer, quieter, less exciting) save for Dan's drive to push new and interesting content, even if it doesn't always land (the B-Game series, etc.).

Fingers crossed that his replacement is Mike Mahardy. I've felt like that one's been telegraphed for quite some time. Or who knows, maybe we get some more Austin now that he's not E-in-C at Waypoint.

My last order was for a t-shirt using my yearly premium discount, and shipping to Germany was about 8 USD. Pretty damn reasonable in my opinion, and it also came super fast.

The print on the shirt was a little messed up (the logo was off-center), but it wasn't really enough for me to justify making a stink about it and having to send a replacement across the pond. Also didn't have to pay any customs tax on it because the price was below the limit ... though I'll admit that I've been purposely NOT buying some of the more expensive stuff (hoodies, glassware, etc.) because of concerns about how big the shipping price would be on top of import tax.

@rorie Not sure about who your production/warehouse partner is, or what kind of order volume you get from European duders, but it might be worth looking into at least getting some stuff locally produced in the EU for orders coming from here? I imagine that might work well for T-shirts at least.

I love it, and I'm terrible at it. But for me that applies to a bunch of other competitive multiplayer games: Starcraft, Dota/HOTS/MOBA flavor of the month, Overwatch, etc...

I'm a little surprised though by the reaction of so many that chess "isn't deep" or "has had all the fun sucked out of it after a thousand years of analysis", both of which are patently untrue. Modern rules are only about 200 years old, and modern competitive chess only around 150ish. The "meta" surrounding chess constantly changes, just over a slower timespan than most of us are used to from video games, and then usually only at a competitive level. In fact, chess is going through a pretty massive change over the last twenty years or so, since the use of chess AI has opened up a completely new world of strategy and caused human players to reexamine a lot of the holy cows of the game.

The fun of chess is just like the fun in pretty much any competitive video game: you only get it once you've invested a lot of time and effort into it. It's the exact same as with any eSport, right down to player rankings (fun fact: Elo, a system many eSports base their MMR systems off of, was created specifically for chess).

Darmstadt, Germany