Funnily enough I was actually lubing my new Glorious Panda keyboard switches when I listened to Jeff telling the others how he got into mechanical keyboards. Between the cases, PCBs, plates, switches, keycaps, ... there are so many ways to personalize your own typing experience.
I got into the mechanical keyboards after I got sick of my Cherry blue clicky switches during the last few months working from home. I'm switching over to the tactile Panda's to get a nicer typing experience.
As a hobby I find it rewarding and relaxing. For me one of the downsides is availability. The combination of rising interest and demand, limited stock and covid, actually getting the sought after parts isn't that easy.
Also parts like keyboards, switches and keycaps are often releases as group buys. That means when you pre-order a set of keycaps now, it will take until mid 2021 until you will actually get the item. So building your own keyboard sometimes is a long-term project.
I hope Jeff will keep us up to date and let us know how his build is progressing.
Regarding the Xbox series X discussion. I assume the orientation of the box is intended to use convexion to aid the airflow inside the device. Similar to the Corsair ONE, which has one single huge fan on the top of the case.
Putting the series X on its side probably isn't a good idea and neither is putting it into a shelve which would restrict the airflow as well.
First of all I am so thankful for the hours of entertainment every year. The holidays can be boring/stressful/lonely/whatever for different people and the GOTY discussions are always a nice distraction. I overall enjoy the new format with a recap of all relevant games of the year and a smaller pool of individual categories.
But I feel this discussion showed a few flaws with the system. Decreasing the list to 10 games is hard, but the way the went about it this time irked me a bit. I know they switched up the ways to get to the Top 10 over the years, but this year felt weird to me.
I got the impression that putting games "up" on the list without much discussion actively discouraged others from fighting for their favorites. Pushing a game to the top with a simple Yay/Nay is easy, until you think about other games you want to be part of the Top 10 as well. The feeling of having very few spots to fight for seems discouraging to me. Pushing games off the pre-selected list is much harder than to secure a spot. And I know the games' strong points are discussed the previous days, but I think it doesn't fully replace a comparison of two specific games.
Later in the discussion specific games came up and people defended them. I loved those parts. Speaking enthusiastically in support of a game are the best parts of these discussions in my opinion. Ben fighting for Disco Elysium and Alex wrangling with himself about Ape Out and Judgement were my favorite parts of this.
(As a side note, I think decreasing the number of categories was a good move. I just miss the surprise/disappointment and Hottest Mess categories. For me those highlighted something in the industry as a whole I want them to acknowledge.)
About the question which game we would love to see a remake of:
Alpha Protocol
When it comes to RPGs most fall either in the Fantasy or Science Fiction realm. The idea of a spy RPG is very appealing to me. The intrigue and misderation would make for a great story and the game already had some unique ideas with their dialogue system. I would love for Obsidian to tackle this once again.
@wolferey: 100% with you there. This definitely had a similar feel to it. The best game discussion of 2014 was so cringe-worthy, because it felt like the only time in recent years that someone just dug in their heels to get their way. People actively disliked Destiny when it launched and Brad pushed it through kicking and screaming.
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