Native Jovian

I need to watch Attack on Titan one of these days, if only to see what everyone else has been talking about. At the moment, though, the only thing on my "must-watch" list is Gundam Build Fighters Try, starting in October. The first series was awesome, so I'm looking forward to Try.

Hey guys, double post, but this thing is starting in two days and I am HYPED. The final schedule is up and there's a ton of artists on there, and to be frank I don't know a whole lot about most of them. Here's what I'm definitely planning to see: Thursday - ??? Friday - Devo Spice Descendants of Erdrick The Great Luke Ski Those Who Fight Saturday - This is gonna be the big day... Marc with a C The Returners Metroid Metal MegaRan Nobou Uematsu and the Earthbound Papas (!) Benjamin Briggs Sunday - The Megas Urizen I'll definitely check out other acts while I'm there, but those are the ones I'm making a point to catch specifically. Anyone got any advice on what else is must-see?

Less than a month until this! I just ordered my tickets, looking forward to it. Anyone else planning on being there?

I watched the first season of Korra and was pretty meh about it, but I never got around to watching the second. I keep meaning to give it a chance, since the first season's problems seemed to primarily be pacing issues resulting from the fact that it was unexpectedly extended from a miniseries to a full-length multi-season show, but I just haven't done it yet. Is there anywhere to (legally) stream it?

I still have my copy of Y that I got a few hours into, but I've been playing Fire Emblem: Awakening instead for whatever reason. I'll probably wander back to Pokemon after I finish that. Then the reign of froakie and zigzagoon shall being, and all shall bow to our great and terrible power.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that.

Happy birthday, halc! I'll leave the clever 9-bit references to other people.

Happy birthday, man!

So, I've got one more night in town before I'm out of here. Any locals have suggestions for something in the vicinity of Union Square I should check out?

BAHAAAAAAA! *fist shake*

Man, looks like no one can make it. Well, like I said, I'll be in town 'til Friday, so if anyone wants to hang out let me know. At the rate things are going, I'll have to come back to this site anyway, so who knows?

Ha, this stuff is really good! The Pokemon theme works surprisingly well in that style, too.

Yeah, I'm actually working in the hotel -- they're comping the room. I sure as hell wouldn't be staying here on my own dime, but one of the perks of working in the hospitality industry is that you get to stay in nice places. Saturday's probably a wash, as I'm scheduled to be updating their server that night (yaaaaay), but I'd definitely be up for something on Sunday. Anyone else in the area be able to make it out to the area Sunday night?

I'm in San Francisco now, for those of you keeping track. I'm staying at the Grand Hyatt on Union Square, and I'll be here until the 16th. I'll be working pretty much every day until then, so I don't have tons of free time, but if anyone who lives around here wants to do something one night, I should be able to.

I live on the opposite side of the country, but I'm going to be in SF for work from May 7th through 24th-ish. If there's going to be an OCR get-together I'm totally down.

I never thought that the "hours per dollar" metric for games was particularly useful. I'd rather pay $30 for a great 90 minute experience than pay $20 for a shitty game that goes on for hours and hours.

Oh, shit. You'll be missed, Hoopy.

Oh shit, that's even closer to me than Nerdapalooza at the Orange County Convention Center was last year. And just in time for my birthday, too! Fuck yeah, I'll be there.

Why... why would you do that?

You could always go back to play the new content? WoW players have been doing that for the better part of a decade. Play until you get sick of it, quit, wait until a new expansion drops, return to step one.

Yeah, all the reviewers who said "this isn't your standard Battlefield/CoD style twitchfest"? Those guys are assholes. I've been playing for an hour or so and the game is twitchy as fuck. Nine times out of ten, who wins a pilot fight comes down to who spots the other guy first. Titan fights aren't as bad, but then it usually boils down to "are you outnumbered?" instead of "did you get ambushed?" I'll keep playing a while to see if anything dramatic changes with later equipment unlocks, but my initial impression is "fuck it, just play TF2".

Pinned myself. Looks like I'm fairly close to Ramaniscence, and then the next closest people are in Atlanta (ie, not close at all).

Nintendo does not need to enter the fray by going after the "gamer" 15 to 30 year old male demographic. Microsoft and Sony are already in a death struggle over that group, and focusing their efforts on an already highly-competitive sector of the marketplace is not a smart move to make. They need to focus on their strengths, not their weaknesses. Nintendo's strengths are high-quality first party games. That's what they need to leverage.

Classic way of dealing with censorship demands -- follow the demand to the letter, but twist it so that the result is actually less family-friendly than the original. If the censors are smart, sooner or later they stop asking.

There's a basic choice that Nintendo has to make regarding its consoles. It can either encourage third-party support by making it roughly comparable with other consoles of its generation, or it can leverage exclusives by making it fairly unique. Nintendo's biggest strength has always been its exclusives. If you want Nintendo games, you have to buy a Nintendo console -- and you do want Nintendo games, because they're almost always excellent. So why should they compete with Microsoft and Sony directly by making themselves as same-y as possible, when they can strengthen the core of their brand by differentiating themselves even further? Speaking anecdotally, I've always had one Nintendo console and one other console of each generation. I had a Gamecube and a PS2, a Wii and an Xbox 360, and now I have a Wii U and (probably, eventually) a PS4. There aren't enough exclusives on either side of the Sony/Microsoft divide to make doubling-up on their consoles worth it, but Nintendo, despite not really being comparable in terms of hardware or third-party support, always has enough unique stuff going on to make it worth it (particularly given that the consoles tend to be cheaper than the competition, too).