Jump to content
Speak Friend and Enter! ×

Areala

Retromags Curator
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    11,135

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    145

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Areala

    Just watch, don't play

    in Retro Video Gaming!

    Posted

    Yes, I love watching these!

    I generally use them for games I don't own, have little expectation of an ability to play myself, or for genres that I'm not very good at (I love RTS and turn-based strategy games, for instance, but I'm terrible at them so watching someone who's actually competent play their way through Command & Conquer or Gemfire is a treat). For games I am good at or just enjoy playing, I will occasionally watch speed runs just to see how badly some games can be broken without resorting to save states and cheat devices.

    Actually a little terminology may be helpful.

    A "long play" (or longplay) is generally a start-to-finish run of a particular game with no commentary. The World of Longplays YouTube channel is an example of this. Exceptionally long games like RPGs are often broken up into multiple multi-hour videos, and occasionally they will be edited for the purpose of slicing out random battles with enemies that have already been fought or 'grind' segments where a player is just powering up to be able to take on the next boss, but otherwise they are the full game experience.

    A "let's play" is also a start-to-finish run of a game, but with either the gamer or someone else providing voiced or text-based commentary and/or reaction. Kikoskia's YouTube channel is an example of this. There are two categories of Let's Plays, normal and Blind, and each are popular for their own reasons. Normal let's plays are usually done by people who already have experience with the game: they've played through it once, they know where to go, and they're like tour guides leading us through a specific title. The upside is there's little down-time in a normal let's play since the player is practiced and knowledgeable about where to go, and the commentator often telegraphs and foreshadows things so the viewer knows to pay attention to them. They're rarely caught by surprise unless the game itself is built on random elements, like Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Hack, and so on. Blind, on the other hand, means the person playing the game is experiencing it for the first time; these are especially popular with horror games, because half the fun is seeing the player shit himself after a horrible experience. The downside of a Blind let's play is that sometimes the players get stuck on a puzzle, backtrack because they missed an item, or simply don't know what the next step is. It's doubly frustrating when you can tell what they're doing wrong, but you have to sit there for twenty minutes before they realize where they missed a certain key or whatever. I much prefer normal Let's Plays for games I've already experienced, and because the player's knowledge makes them more entertaining. Truly fun Let's Players make you believe they're actually in the shoes of the character they're portraying, something Kikoskia's quite good at in, for instance, his Doom 3 Let's Play.

    A "speed run" is an attempt to complete the game as fast as possible, sometimes with conditions imposed to make it more interesting, but often it's a pure race from the title screen to the closing credits. Usually these runs are the result of people playing games to death and a community surrounding them coming up with new strategies that shave time off the current record results. I like watching Speed Runs of games I'm familiar with, because knowing the mechanics or what should normally happen makes it easier to understand just how (and how badly) the runner is breaking the game. There's a sub-category of speed run called the "TAS", or Tool-Assisted Speedrun, which uses emulators to play the game literally frame-by-frame to control the timing of button inputs and random number generation to produce optimal results that would be either extraordinarily difficult or impossible for a human player to pull off. TAS runs are amusing because the TAS player/programmer can showcase inhuman reflexes, show off hit detection boxes, earn critical strikes on every enemy, fire weapons so optimally as to never waste a single shot, and similar stunts (as showcased by this absurd TAS for Gradius on the NES).

    I often will have one of these open in a different window when I'm chatting with friends online, just like some people leave a TV running in the background while they're doing other things. :)

    *huggles*
    Areala

    • Like 1

    Copyright and why it's unfair to blame the publishers

    in Magazine Talk

    Posted

    This was what boned Wizards of the Coast when they released "The Dragon Magazine Archive", a CD-ROM compilation of the first 250 issues of Dragon Magazine, in 1999. Plenty of the magazine's content was either created in-house (in which case, TSR and then Wizards owned it and all the respective reprint rights), or purchased on a basis where all submissions became the property of TSR/Wizards. Their statement was printed in the masthead of the magazine as such: "All material published in THE DRAGON becomes the exclusive property of the publisher upon such publication, unless special arrangements to the contrary are made prior to publication."

    So far so good...except that a great number of contributions and submissions fell under that "unless special arrangements to the contrary" clause. Dragon, especially in its early years, published a lot of short fiction, and sometimes there were big-name authors like Gardner Fox who wound up between the covers. These were first NA serial rights, and carried no additional reprint clauses. The same was true of other things, like commissioned artwork or the serial comic strips that ran in the back of the magazine. Dragon used both, multiple times, in practically every issue.

    Wizards got hit with two different suits over this, one from a group of science fiction writers whose material was reprinted without permission, the other from Kenzer & Co. pertaining to the reprinting of a number of "Knights of the Dinner Table" comics that ran in the final dozen issues compiled in the archive. The associated legal hassles, along with a similar case that dragged out for seven years involving National Geographic's decision to publish their archives electronically and a photographer who sued over re-use rights, ensured the archive went out of print very quickly, was never coming back, and that we'd never see anything of the sort tried for TSR's sister publication, "Dungeon".

    It sucks, but it is what it is. :)

    *huggles*
    Areala

    Join the Retromags Folding@Home Team - Win $250!

    in Retromags News

    Posted

    16 minutes ago, Data said:

    You may wish finding out the daily cost if you let it run.  The first thing you need is the wattage rating.  For instance my intel cpu is rated 145 watt at 4.0 Gigahertz.  Multiply this by the hours it ran approximately in one day.  

    145 watt * 24h = 3480 watt hours per day.  Next divide by 1000.  3480 / 1000 = 3.48 kwh per day.  Most cities as far as I know have a rate they charge by the killowatt hour for instance here it is 13.9 cents so I would multiply 3.48 kwh * $0.139 = 48 cents per day.  So $15 a core per month should be something to be aware of.

    I stopped folding with my cpu because at the same wattage 240,000 points per day more with my GPU than my CPU  I feel like 15 dollars a month would be wiser spent on a private super data center rather than 40,000 my cpu achieves.

    I will only turn on my cpu again if someone starts gaining on me by exactly 1 less than 40,000 ppd or more.  Or if Phillyman starts leading by 340,000 PPD.

    Good call, Lieutenant Commander. I'll let the CPU job I'm on now run its course, then pause it and let my GPU take on the struggles. It's more valuable points-wise, as you pointed out. I'm only folding on Medium, so it's drawing on 2 cores. Full bumps it up to 3 cores, but that seemed excessive and I didn't want to strain my older computer.

    The PS3 used to have the Folding@Home app installed on it, but one of their updates must have taken it off, as I just checked and didn't find it. I'd used it in the past when I was folding for a different team, and it was an order of magnitude better than my PC at the time (something like 670 PPD as compared to 45-ish). :)

    *huggles*
    Areala

    kitsunebi's talking to himself again

    in Magazine Talk

    Posted

    13 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

    I don't normally waste everyone's time telling you what I'll be scanning next, but in this case I just wanted to make it clear that although I'll be working on Whiskcat's donated mags for the foreseeable future, the issue of Play Online I just posted had been sitting there half-edited since before the winter break and I wanted to finish it up so I could get get rid of the pile of pages on my desk.

    Now that it's out of the way, it's nothing but blissfully short English-language mags for a while.  Seriously, do these things ever crack 100 pages?:lol: (yes, I know there were exceptions)

    What all did Whiskcat send you? I'm excited! :)

    *huggles*
    Areala

    Now Listening To.......

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    Thread Necromancy!!

    Donna Lewis was all over the radio world-wide in 1995 with "I Love You Always Forever" (the song which kept it from #1 for nine weeks was the Bayside Boys remix of "Macarena", which is both awful and hilarious). I fell in love with the song, bought the album, and it's been in my top 10 for decades. Even now, at forty, popping it in makes me feel like a teenager. I have very specific memories associated with this disc, but my absolute favorite song off it is "Agenais", a dreamy tune about the narrator's journey to a fantastical, magical place.

    Every song on this CD is beautiful and inspires different feelings in me. I cannot count the number of memories I have that involve this CD: riding in the car in the night as I sat in the back seat listening to it on my Discman, using specific songs to inspire certain scenes in the stories I was writing at the time, crying in my room at my mom's house with the door closed as I realized I was about to disconnect myself from that life and move out on my own for good, playing it as the unofficial soundtrack to countless nights I spent MUDding (back when that meant playing a text-based online RPG, not slogging through a bunch of slop and climbing over obstacles just to prove how miserable you can make running)...

    So this is my album of choice this evening, but since it would be crass to link the whole thing, I'm linking to my favorite song. Maybe you've heard it before, maybe you haven't, maybe you'll love it, maybe you won't, but that CD's been the world to me more times than I can count in my life. :)

    *huggles*
    Areala

     

    ( 。)( 。) Table of Bewbs

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    21 hours ago, te72 said:

    Was watching a show recently that discussed how rampant it is in India. I wonder if population density leads to ambivalence?

    I don't think it's population density so much as it is cultural response. For years it seemed like the US had no issues with domestic abuse because culturally such things weren't talked about. Then, when we did start discussing it, there was a giant backlash: "Sure, I spank my kids when they get out of line, but my dad whipped the hell out of me until I was eighteen and left home, and I turned out OK, so what's the problem?" or "I mean, yeah, I've smacked my wife a couple of times when she got hysterical, but I'm not some abusive asshole like some of the guys I know!" or "I might call my husband a nasty name every so often or make fun of him in front of my friends, but he's a man...isn't he supposed to take it like one?"

    Until we socially "have the talk" and get it all out in the open, issues rarely change one way or the other. There's a fine line between humor and insult, but it may be impossible to determine what crosses the line if the silent minority cannot speak up about it. Japan, much like the US, has areas where they have yet to socially "have the conversation" so they can figure out how to make things better. They're only just now discussing their culture of overwork, and realizing that forcing employees to work hundreds of hours of overtime every month is detrimental to health and morale. What changes will be interesting to see, but the shake-up may be starting here. :)

    *huggles*
    Areala

    ( 。)( 。) Table of Bewbs

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    3 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

    I was actually at karaoke last night with a bunch of co-workers, all guys.  At some point, they selected an option I'd never seen before on the menu where the normal cheesy videos that play in the background were replaced by videos of girls who would undress and dance around seductively based on how well you were singing (it analyzes pitch, rhythm, volume, etc.)  It was especially funny if you sang poorly - the clothes would go back on and the girls would start pouting and throwing you dirty looks. :lol: Sexism is definitely still alive and well in Japan.  Normally, there are at least a couple of women with us at these things, so that's probably why I'd never seen anyone select this option before...

    Dear lord...that's sexist as hell AND hilarious all at the same time. :)

    Any good techniques/hardware for scanning?

    in Magazine Talk

    Posted

    On 9/23/2017 at 10:57 PM, Sylphyre said:

    Holy crud I had no idea you guys are wrecking the magazines you scan! 

    I've got one of these on order for the end of the year, and if it does what it says it will do, it digitally corrects for the natural curve of a non-flattened magazine while scanning and auto-fixing color/skewing.  I will post when I get it in to see how well it performs, but those poor poor magazines all getting shredded...

    Look at it this way though: we sacrifice one physical copy to preserve it for the days when one physical copy might well cost a small fortune on eBay. It's a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. :)

    *huggles*
    Areala

    Adult games in the 80s (NSFW obvs)

    in Magazine Talk

    Posted

    6 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

    GALL FORCE!!! (from a1988 issue)  Anybody else remember the anime?  Character designs by Kenichi (Bubblegum Crisis) Sonoda:

    https://img.mandarake.co.jp/webshopimg/01/00/857/0100309857/01003098573.jpg

    I like the text on the pic of Elza and Rabby..."NO WAY~~!!"

    Mmmmmmmmm...!! :-9

    Yes plz, more plz, all plz!

    *huggles*
    Areala

    Inquest Gamer scans?

    in Magazine Talk

    Posted

    I have a number of issues of The Duelist, Inquest, Inquest Gamer, Shadis, and other assorted magazines of this sort. I'll get some gallery sections added later tonight for them so we can at least get the covers archived on here. :)

    Edit: Gallery sections created for Duelist, Inquest, Inquest Gamer, Shadis, Pyramid, Hero, Wizard, and Wizard Special Issues under US Magazines, and Arcanum under UK Mags. If you have other mags you'd like galleries for, let the Warrior Nun know! :)

    *huggles*
    Areala

    • Like 1

    Videogames featured in television shows

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    I just want to point out that in the first image (Growing Pains), the black box NES game they're playing is actually Baseball, not Golf. ;)

    Otherwise, this is a hilarious list. If we're counting movies, Jackie Chan gives his love interest's little brother his old Sega Game Gear in the movie "Rumble in the Bronx". Unfortunately there's no game cart inside it, even when the kid appears to be playing it. :)

    *huggles*
    Areala

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...
Affiliate Disclaimer: Retromags may earn a commission on purchases made through our affiliate links on Retromags.com and social media channels. As an Amazon & Ebay Associate, Retromags earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you for your continued support!