VS n00bs get PWNED.

>> ^sadicious:
I really enjoy TF2. Most of the players don't speak that much. Those that do, do so to help the team. Then there are the few 'music spammers' that you can now easily set to ignore. Overall its fun. Doesn't require as much 'twitch' as it does tactics and teamplay... depending what class you play.
Also, Left4Dead is great online. I haven't played a public game in a while, but when I did, everyone was cooperative.
<em>>> <a rel="nofollow" href='http://www.videosift.com/video/PWN-D-Support-Group#comment-925535'>^spoco2</a>:<br /> Yup, I own it as it came as part of the Orange Box... tried it for a while, found it was still all about twitch reflexy play which I just don't enjoy. I can see it could be fun with people you know... but I just don't have the free time these days to devote to setting up such shenanigans. <br> <br> So I stick to single player games.<br><br><br><div><div style="margin: 10px; overflow: auto; width: 80%; float: left; position: relative;" class="convoPiece"><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.videosift.com/video/PWN-D-Support-Group#comment-925519" rel="nofollow"> Xax said</a>:<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.videosift.com/member/Xax"><img style="margin: 4px 10px 10px; float: left; width: 40px;" src="http://static1.videosift.com/avatars/x/Xax-s.jpg" onerror="ph(this)"></a><div style="position: absolute; margin-left: 52px; padding-top: 1px; font-size: 10px;" class="commentarrow">◄</div><div style="padding: 8px; margin-left: 60px; margin-top: 2px; min-height: 30px;" class="nestedComment box">spoco2, out of curiosity, have you played/seen Team Fortress 2? I find it offers a different dynamic from traditional, boring deathmatch. The team dynamic makes for a more enjoyable experience for me.<br></div></div></div></em>

>> ^ant:
>> ^spoco2:
And that my friends, is why I don't play online games.
Because there is nothing fun about playing with a bunch of dicks who find humour in relentlessly killing the weak.
Bah and humbug.
Give me single player, or give me death

Not even with friends?


Not with MY friends. /shudder

>> ^spoco2:
Nope, no sarcasm at all... I hate online play. Although, with friends, on a LAN, that is fun, and as such, I can see that you could eventually get to that point on general online play... I guess.
I don't have the time, patience, or inclination to build up the teams/organize times to play together etc. only to end up playing a fast twitch game where this sort of bullshit taunting goes on.
I enjoy single player games with stories, I enjoy playing through crafted experiences like Bioshock, HL2 and it's sequels, Arkham Asylum etc. Or, just fun puzzle games like World of Goo. Westy, you either have an unrealistically high bar for single player games, or just don't play good ones. Personally... I'd rather AI that's trying to fit into the world, rather than playing a WW2 game and have the enemy tea bag me, or yelling 'die fags'... that breaks me out of the immersion far more than a bit of dodgy AI.
That's where my enjoyment comes from I'm afraid... I just don't find enjoyment in online gaming.
I can SEE the attraction, especially in games like Eve Online etc. where it's like living in a futuristic world... but really, that's a time investment of a few orders of magnitude higher than I can give to anything that's not productive.



I enjoy both multilayer and single player , Its just that the the story telling in single player games is UTTER SHIT . compare the stories and emotoinal impact in games to a good film or book its just depressing. also the fact that the game play in single player games is often so predictable its just annoying. I really enjoy single player games as a peace of art of a mideum thats still in its black and white without sound stage.

Evan coop instantly makes any single player game infinitely better. the technology is not really there to deliver engrossing single player games of a high sophistication , Maby as a games Designer things stick out to me more than they do other people but I can still recognize fantastic single player games but Evan the really good ones the plot is that of a TV BMovi


Here is a list of some single player games that were really good.
Half life 1 , operation flash point , shadow of the colossus. The Penumbra Series , max Payne 1 and 2. portal ,
System Shock 2, myst series.

I always find it Amusing that still Half life 1 is more advanced and natural in the way it tells its story than modern FPS games. Mirrors edge has really nice environments and some well designed levels (in terms of game play) but the story is badly written and the cut scenes are annoying.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'chtv, fps, pwn, newb, teabag, l33t, n00b, support group' to 'chtv, fps, pwn, newb, teabag, l33t, n00b, support group, im still 1337, respawn' - edited by calvados

I really enjoy TF2. Most of the players don't speak that much. Those that do, do so to help the team. Then there are the few 'music spammers' that you can now easily set to ignore. Overall its fun. Doesn't require as much 'twitch' as it does tactics and teamplay... depending what class you play.

Also, Left4Dead is great online. I haven't played a public game in a while, but when I did, everyone was cooperative.

>> ^spoco2:
Yup, I own it as it came as part of the Orange Box... tried it for a while, found it was still all about twitch reflexy play which I just don't enjoy. I can see it could be fun with people you know... but I just don't have the free time these days to devote to setting up such shenanigans.
So I stick to single player games.
<div><div style="margin: 10px; overflow: auto; width: 80%; float: left; position: relative;" class="convoPiece"> Xax said:<img style="margin: 4px 10px 10px; float: left; width: 40px;" src="http://static1.videosift.com/avatars/x/Xax-s.jpg" onerror="ph(this)"><div style="position: absolute; margin-left: 52px; padding-top: 1px; font-size: 10px;" class="commentarrow">◄</div><div style="padding: 8px; margin-left: 60px; margin-top: 2px; min-height: 30px;" class="nestedComment box">spoco2, out of curiosity, have you played/seen Team Fortress 2? I find it offers a different dynamic from traditional, boring deathmatch. The team dynamic makes for a more enjoyable experience for me.
</div></div></div>

>> ^kymbos:
Good point on the irony of those very quick to proclaim racism assuming that all dark skinned people are African Americans.


Hi Kymbos

It's not so much an assumption, more so an assignment of race (and accompanying stereotypes) based purely on colour of skin. If it had been portraying a Pakistani (Pakistan being the other touring cricket team this season) supporter group the race assignment from American critics (and accompanying sterotypes) would have been just as inappropriate.

The good thing is I realise not all Americans are that ignorant, and TBH it's been a media beatup to a certain extent. There seems to be a distinct lack of news in news today......Thanks Rupert.

>> ^Xax:
spoco2, out of curiosity, have you played/seen Team Fortress 2? I find it offers a different dynamic from traditional, boring deathmatch. The team dynamic makes for a more enjoyable experience for me.


Yup, I own it as it came as part of the Orange Box... tried it for a while, found it was still all about twitch reflexy play which I just don't enjoy. I can see it could be fun with people you know... but I just don't have the free time these days to devote to setting up such shenanigans.

So I stick to single player games.

[redacted]

Your video, PWN'D Support Group, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^spoco2:
And that my friends, is why I don't play online games.
Because there is nothing fun about playing with a bunch of dicks who find humour in relentlessly killing the weak.
Bah and humbug.
Give me single player, or give me death




You must play the really challenging single player games that are never predictable.

Id rather be called a fag and tee bagged than watch my AI companions walk into walls , get in the way and generally act like one of them BBC micro robots that kids learn programming with.

And really the stories and Design in single player is god awful 90% of the time. Probably only 30 or so single player games worth playing. the only one I can see being of any good coming out in the near future is the new ICO/shadow of the colossus game.

every single player game i have played recently has been embarrassingly pore. aside from that penumbra game but that's years old now.

Maby in 10-15 years time when AI is better and Developers can consistently produce quality interactive story telling that is not some quasi cinematic exsperance with game play sellotaped on then ill realy enjoy single player games. at the moment for the most part multilayer games provide far better game play , and cinema , books , TV shows provide far better story.

the only ganra that works constantly well as single player is the casual/arcade ganra but in many cases those games end up evan better with multiplayer.

>> ^spoco2:
And that my friends, is why I don't play online games.
Because there is nothing fun about playing with a bunch of dicks who find humour in relentlessly killing the weak.
Bah and humbug.
Give me single player, or give me death


Not even with friends?

Alrighy then. I'm sober and moderately coherent, so let's carry on.

We have a very different view of science. Science can't possibly work by ruling out things, because there the universe is infinite, or, as infinite as we are able to measure at this time. The experiment that produces a result never comes alone. It's always there to support a hypothesis, and to prove it, if successful.

There will always be things we can't perceive ourselves, and we will always work towards finding new ways to view the universe. If we would ever discover everything there is to know, the world would be rather dull, in my opinion.

This, however, does not grant anybody a license to invent facts, to make claims with no substantiating evidence and to basically invent a new universe and ask the rest of us to live in it.

Proving something by disproving every other possibility only works when there is a finite number of possible possibilities (I love that phrase, by the way). There is no finite group of Gods. Every person is free to come up with a new God every day. If someone were to ask 1000 Christians to describe their God, and then compile their replies into a profile, I'd be surprised if he wouldn't end up with at least 4-5 separate deities.

My problem with all religions, isn't about the nature of the faith, or of the God itself, but rather with the claim that they know something which they can't possibly know. Teaching Intelligent Design in a school and putting it on the same level as the science of Evolution, simply because a book tells you the world is 6000 years old, is ludicrous to me.

--------------------

I think we sort of diverged from the original point, and I don't have an actual argument to make anymore. Have a happy new year

In reply to this comment by Lodurr:
Let me phrase it differently: science defines which laws exist by ruling out alternatives. So an experiment that yields a certain predicted outcome doesn't itself prove a law. I brought that up because while we can rule out our old theistic theories on how the world operates, we can't yet rule out other aspects of their beliefs. We just have our five senses, and with those senses we can create tools that have other senses, but there is always more that we can't detect. Prior to the microscope, we had no idea germs existed. Prior to the discovery of radio waves, we had no reason to think they existed either. Similarly, we can't rule out the possibilities of extra dimensions that intersect ours, or new forms of energy and matter. That is why science only works in negatives and probabilities. It means more than "nothing at all."

When it comes to my personal beliefs on existence (which aren't Christian), my own reasoning is that my consciousness existing just once is more improbable than my consciousness existing more than once, given that time is infinite or recursive. A once-off universe doesn't make sense to me. Also, the idea that the force of my awareness is the result of atomic matter alone is implausible. My awareness is as of yet undetectable and unmeasurable, and even finding the consciousness switch in our brains wouldn't make it any more measurable. It'd be like theorizing that your light switch generates the electricity in your light bulb. Regarding the idea of god, I don't see any reason to seperate out another being to be the cause of all existence. I much prefer the idea of the Tao, the singularity with infinite regressions, in which everything is relative rather than absolute.

I don't think atheists are bad people--I am one, after all--but I find that we don't have the same easy access to community-based support groups that our theistic neighbors do. Of course there are secular alternatives to everything religion does, they just don't come as easily or automatically.

Any kind of forceful movement creates an unhelpful backlash. The Taoist way is to let change happen naturally. Education and rising standards of living made more atheists than Dawkins and Bill Maher ever will.

Let me phrase it differently: science defines which laws exist by ruling out alternatives. So an experiment that yields a certain predicted outcome doesn't itself prove a law. I brought that up because while we can rule out our old theistic theories on how the world operates, we can't yet rule out other aspects of their beliefs. We just have our five senses, and with those senses we can create tools that have other senses, but there is always more that we can't detect. Prior to the microscope, we had no idea germs existed. Prior to the discovery of radio waves, we had no reason to think they existed either. Similarly, we can't rule out the possibilities of extra dimensions that intersect ours, or new forms of energy and matter. That is why science only works in negatives and probabilities. It means more than "nothing at all."

When it comes to my personal beliefs on existence (which aren't Christian), my own reasoning is that my consciousness existing just once is more improbable than my consciousness existing more than once, given that time is infinite or recursive. A once-off universe doesn't make sense to me. Also, the idea that the force of my awareness is the result of atomic matter alone is implausible. My awareness is as of yet undetectable and unmeasurable, and even finding the consciousness switch in our brains wouldn't make it any more measurable. It'd be like theorizing that your light switch generates the electricity in your light bulb. Regarding the idea of god, I don't see any reason to seperate out another being to be the cause of all existence. I much prefer the idea of the Tao, the singularity with infinite regressions, in which everything is relative rather than absolute.

I don't think atheists are bad people--I am one, after all--but I find that we don't have the same easy access to community-based support groups that our theistic neighbors do. Of course there are secular alternatives to everything religion does, they just don't come as easily or automatically.

Any kind of forceful movement creates an unhelpful backlash. The Taoist way is to let change happen naturally. Education and rising standards of living made more atheists than Dawkins and Bill Maher ever will.

In reply to this comment by demon_ix:
But you just contradicted yourself... You say in one sentence that if the LHC fails to detect the Higgs boson, it'll be proven not to exist, and then you say that "what we can't prove doesn't exist" is a false statement.

Einstein's quote is correct, but it's meaning doesn't relate to what we're talking about. The best way to counter a scientific theory is by a single example of where that theory is fallacious. If someone were to claim that all odd numbers are prime, all you would have to do in order to "prove" him false is demonstrate that his statement fails in one specific point, like the number 9.

There is a massive difference between "what we can't prove doesn't exist" and "what we can prove doesn't exist, doesn't exist". The first statement actually should be "what we can't yet prove, may exist, but may not", which in scientific terms means nothing at all.

My gripe with your comment, though, wasn't because of the science remarks, but rather over the atheist ones. I'm not sure if you noticed it yourself, but your comment is built on a premise that atheists never do any of the good things Christians do, like participating in the community and so on.

I'm not sure why Christians believe Atheists are the scum of the earth. I don't know why you believe that if I don't believe in the story of the Jewish zombie who was his own father and is coming to save you, but only if you pretend to eat his flesh, drink his blood and communicate your desires to him telepathically, that makes me a bad person. I'm really not.

And about the argument from ignorance, believing in God is an argument from ignorance. You assert a claim that something exists, even though you yourself acknowledge there is no way to prove it, and that it has to be taken on faith alone. That is the very definition of an untestable theory. Your comment was based on the claim that religion is somehow superior, when the core of religion is the deity, or God.

To conclude, I'm a little annoyed right now at work, so don't take this post as me being offensive, please. It's really not meant that way. Maybe I should have put some emoticons all over it to express that

In reply to this comment by Lodurr:
Science does in fact work through falsifiability. If the LHC doesn't end up finding a Higgs Boson, then the Higgs Boson theory in its present form will have been disproven. That is just how science and experimentation works. "What we can't prove doesn't exist" is an inherently false statement and incorrect world view because there are countless things we cannot test or prove that must exist. To quote Einstein, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."

I wasn't arguing from ignorance because I wasn't asserting an untestable theory. All I said in my comment was that many religious practices have personal and societal benefits that atheists tend to undervalue because they are associated with religion. I've seen data that supports my theory.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

^No, I'm not kidding. I've experienced an atmosphere of intimidation in a standard hospital birthing ward. I've also experienced a home birth. It's night and day.

In the hospital, women are strapped up to incredibly uncomfortable fetal monitors and made to lie in a certain position so the computers back in the nursing station can get an accurate reading- there are women screaming, alarms going off and an atmosphere of medical emergency. It's no wonder that labor often stops - when women feel they are not in a safe place - and a Caesarean becomes necessary.

The birth of our second child was in an environment much like the one in the video - except no pool. We had a qualified midwife there to help us- with all of the gear, and a backup hospital on standby. We also had my partner's trusted friends - a group of strong women to be supportive through the whole process. Back rubs, soothing music and lots of support made for a fantastic birthing experience that I would recommend to anyone. Our baby was breach, and over 12 pounds.

My partner was also a member of a 100 strong homebirth support group, and we did six months of Bradley classes - so no, I don't think I'm speaking from a position of ignorance- but I'd love to hear your story, and why you think I am.

I really don't know how to feel. I am leaning your direction, Kronosposeidon... but at the same time, I don't feel it's appropriate to give religion complete free reign. For example, bigotry is inherent in religion, often, but it shouldn't be permitted.

But then, people should have the freedom to wear what they want...

This issue is anything but black and white for me.

I do like the idea of support groups, though. Not sure it would make a huge difference for many of the oppressed women, but it could be a start towards fueling a more self driven feminist movement, rather than forcing things upon the women. In the end, I agree that it would be a smarter approach.