Messages

1

TalkBack / Re: Pokemon Direct Recap: Pokken DX, Ultra Sun And Moon, Pokemon GS Virtual Console

« on: June 06, 2017, 08:18:21 PM »

I'm excited. I was hoping for both a SuMo sequel on the 3DS and the VC games.

I was pretty likely to get a New 2DS, but this makes it practically certain. I had forgotten the VC games had wireless trading.

2

TalkBack / Re: Second Kunio Game Announced For 3DS Release

« on: May 31, 2017, 12:52:35 PM »

I'm all over this. I'll probably pick of the medieval themed game as well. Curious about the time limit.

3

General Chat / Re: Music

« on: May 27, 2017, 08:06:08 PM »

4

General Chat / Re: Soccer Discussion: Fast kickin', low scorin', and ties!

« on: May 19, 2017, 07:32:53 AM »

I'm usually traveling for work during the CL quarters and semis so I typically carry a FoxSoccer2Go subscription, but I let it lapse this year because I would be home. That and a DVR are integral for me as a soccer fan. I wish Fox or now Disney (since they lost FIFA) would buy the rights to La Liga. BeIN Sports is terrible.

5

General Chat / Re: Soccer Discussion: Fast kickin', low scorin', and ties!

« on: May 17, 2017, 10:11:41 PM »

Reading United

Very nice. I played in a couple of American football games in their home stadium.

6

General Chat / Re: The NBA Thread: Now with only Warriors and Cavs!

« on: May 14, 2017, 06:40:51 PM »

Lol, I'm not sure I should want that. The Knicks aren't good enough for it to matter and the Eastern Conference is essentially a B league without LeBron.

7

General Chat / Re: The NBA Thread: Now with only Warriors and Cavs!

« on: May 14, 2017, 06:22:56 PM »

I'm applying the principle backwards. The original point I'm focusing on is the long term futility of the Eastern Conference and how it seems a somewhat insoluble problem.

8

General Chat / Re: The NBA Thread: Now with only Warriors and Cavs!

« on: May 14, 2017, 04:47:30 PM »

That's interesting. I knew teams tanked in the short term, and there's the absurdity of the Sixers, but I never considered the long term effects on the conference when so many teams are incentivized to tank year-after-year.

9

General Chat / Re: The Major League Baseball Thread: Should've Put Money On The Cubbies

« on: May 14, 2017, 07:58:08 AM »

10

General Chat / Re: The NBA Thread: Now with only Warriors and Cavs!

« on: May 14, 2017, 07:41:33 AM »

The NBA CBA is extremely complicated as Nick Mitch pointed out when he corrected my "hard cap" comment. (With some simplification) the amounts of contracts are relatively predictable because salaries are slotted by years of service. Part of the reason the Warriors could sign Durant is that Curry hasn't "earned" a max contract (let alone his second) yet. Curry may end up the highest paid player in NBA history this summer given the timing of his contract renewal, the new media deal, and the new CBA that will allow GS to offer a substantially higher salary than competitiors. Their payroll won't get really complicated until it's time for Durant or his replacement to resign. There is a essentially a Stephen Curry exemption in the new CBA that allows teams to give up to 35% of the cap to a player if they meet certain criteria. It's specifically designed to incentivize superstars to sign with the team they drafted.

I haven't seen any evidence of small market teams not being able to compete on base payroll, and I don't think I'd believe it even if I saw it. The national media deal alone is worth 2.6 billion annually. Small market teams' recruiting struggles are with lower off-court revenue opportunities and lifestyle offerings. That's part of the reason teams are allowed to pay over the salary bands to resign players they have had under contract for a certain number of years.

I specifically didn't use the word "unfair" in my post because I didn't want to go down a subjective rabbit hole. Fans in small market teams have good arguments about ensuring access to the best talent and fans in large market teams have good arguments that by having salary without corresponding price controls, they are effectively subsidizing the entertainment choices of small market fans. However, it doesn't seem controversial to suggest that the CBA is a major impediment to teams in the East from improving, since the whole point of it is to keep the Atlantic division teams from being able to just buy their way out of their mistakes. And because the contracts are garaunteed, those mistakes reverberate for years.

11

General Chat / Re: Soccer Discussion: Fast kickin', low scorin', and ties!

« on: May 11, 2017, 12:25:16 PM »

93% of the 209 FIFA members voted to fast track the 2026 World Cup bid. August 11th is the deadline for hosts to express interest, bidders must meet the technical qualifications by March 2018, and the bid will be awarded on June 13, 2018.

12

General Chat / Re: Soccer Discussion: Fast kickin', low scorin', and ties!

« on: May 10, 2017, 05:27:41 PM »

Zidane's consistent message is "we will suffer". Neutrals will be heavily in support of Juve, but I'm interested to see the Bale factor in Cardiff. Ronaldo seems to have retained a strong following among the United fans as well. I haven't seen a settled line yet.

The La Liga race is as tight as could be as well.

13

General Chat / Re: The NBA Thread: Now with only Warriors and Cavs!

« on: May 10, 2017, 01:22:25 PM »

You are correct. What I meant was a hard ceiling on salary. There is none in baseball, the luxury tax just goes 1 to 1 above a certain level (I believe).

Edit: or put another way, the softness of the cap is just the additional amount the team can go over and pay luxury tax on, but there is an eventual limit on salary. So, for example, the Knicks can't just eat Noah's wages. The contract will still factor into their overall limits on player compensation.

14

Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 521: Last.FM Towns

« on: May 10, 2017, 11:19:07 AM »

I miss the now available shenanigans too. I have to admit, I listened to the show for months before checking out the website, and was completely confused for the first couple weeks (until I figured out the RFN/NWR distinction).

15

General Chat / Re: The NBA Thread: Now with only Warriors and Cavs!

« on: May 10, 2017, 06:49:47 AM »

The East has been largely terrible for twenty years now. A trifecta of poor ownership, a hard cap, and guaranteed contracts make it nearly impossible for teams to improve. With the exception of a year or two, professional basketball has been particularly dreadful in the Northeast.

There's been some bad luck too. San Antonio was allowed to get away with tanking the season when David Robinson and Sean Elliot went down injured early and they ended up stealing Tim Duncan from the three slot in the lottery. Little things like that have long term effects on parity when you have a hard cap/guaranteed contracts.

16

TalkBack / Re: NBA 2k18 Releasing September 19, Limited Editions Announced

« on: May 09, 2017, 07:11:26 AM »

That's cool, especially that you remember it so well. I have vague memories of seeing them when I was in elementary school. I think they bused us to the high school gym or somewhere else to watch. Maybe it was a field trip. I have a much clearer memory of a gentleman from the Washington Generals coming to my high school and giving a "don't do drugs" scare talk, lol.

17

TalkBack / Re: NBA 2k18 Releasing September 19, Limited Editions Announced

« on: May 08, 2017, 12:37:27 PM »

That looks like Shaq, not Meadowlark Lemon.

18

TalkBack / Re: Brothers In Arms: The 3DS and Switch in 2017

« on: May 07, 2017, 07:50:02 PM »

I meant to post this in the New 2DS hands-on thread, sorry. thanks!

19

TalkBack / Re: Brothers In Arms: The 3DS and Switch in 2017

« on: May 07, 2017, 04:53:30 PM »

Would there be a way to split my existing eshop games and save files between my current New 3DS and a New 2DS? I'd love to move 90% of my stuff over, but I have about a dozen games I want the 3D option for. If I can, I'd almost certainly buy at least one of these, and possibly two.

20

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: May 06, 2017, 01:40:54 PM »

I want to wreck every trainer mercilessly and show them how much better I am, while catching and developing a team that's aesthetically appealing to me. The previous Pokemon games were satisfying to me because the adventure was straightforward and the actions the player performed seemed logical.

This is essentially my game world more-or-less as well. There's probably something to my coming to this franchise in middle-age that makes it easier for me to just ignore the narrative and build my own head-lore. I'm not the intended demographic and I don't expect any video game to have a sufficiently layered story (ala Disney or Pixar) that appeals to both young children and adults. In general, I think the medium has an inherently limited narrative ceiling. I used to think of video games as being on a continuum of literature and film, but now I believe they are more similar in kind to music or material fine arts like sculpture or painting. For me, video games are much more effective at engendering gut-level emotional reactions than they are at providing conceptual insights.

I understand that Pokemon is a child's game, which is largely why I have started to move on from the series and focus more on games like SMT, which, while not much more mature, at least attempt to create more interesting settings and narratives, atop being more compelling monster-catching games.

I'm hoping to get into SMT eventually. Pokémon is very easy to fit into my weekly gaming allotment and I've been a little worried about getting bogged down in what appears to be a significant time investment in figuring out how to play SMT.

21

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: May 06, 2017, 08:26:57 AM »

I'm already enjoying it by the way:





Close enough for me 

Edit: I didn't realize the Coney Island Tillie pic isn't working till I logged in on my work PC. Intended or not, I'm taking Black's hair as a homage:

22

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: May 06, 2017, 07:55:36 AM »

Not at all Clex, I always appreciate your insight. From my perspective, these disputes seem to be narcissism about small differences when expressed with a hostile level of certainty.

23

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: May 05, 2017, 04:05:09 PM »

Cool, I had remembered you mentioning before how much you liked it. I've done some reading and I understand how much of a departure Gen 5 was. To be honest, what has me most worried about going backward is the lack of passive experience share. Grinding up is already a bit of a chore.  But since now I know what I want out of Pokemon games, I can make better initial choices about the team I'm going to run.

24

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: May 05, 2017, 07:12:53 AM »

Pokémon Black should be arriving today. In the past 15 months or so, I've played through the main games of X, Alpha Sapphire, and Moon, as well as substantial parts of all three post-games.

I've been really surprised at how satisfying I've found playing Pokémon essentially as a table-top RPG simulator. The broad variety of Pokémon designs, typings, and move sets offer an equivalency to character classes, and the game settings act as adventure modules.

My favorite part is how it imperceptibly layers meaning on subjective aesthetic choices. I find myself caring about the Pokémon I raise as I would other fictional characters, despite them totally lacking any narrative context (I mostly ignore or compartmentalize the lore/story, but very much enjoy the random NPC dialogue).

I play X the most. I suspect it's because of the setting. France is one of my favorite places in the world, and Paris is my second favorite city after New York. Kalos effectively evokes French elegance and elan and it provides a beautiful backdrop to run my teams through.

I'm really excited to explore Unova. I'm intimately familiar with all the real world towns and neighborhoods listed in the bulpapedia article. I'm hoping it resonates like Kalos does, because I'd love to try to integrate it into a larger campaign spanning the other titles.

25

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: May 05, 2017, 07:10:22 AM »

Man, ejamer, I'm really excited to play BotW, because that is exactly what I want out of an open world game. I'm intrigued by the DLC map features and hope for a GOTY or deluxe edition when I get it in 2018 or 2019. I've since played through LttP and Link's Awakening, but for the longest time LoZ and LoZ:AoL were my formative Zelda experiences. For me, the adventure in Zelda was found in exploring the overworlds. BotW sounds like it will play in reality like LoZ did in my imagination.