General Discussion [ Page 19 ]

The Fight For Net Neutrality Rages On. Please Pick The Right Side.

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"Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments regulating most of the Internet must treat all data on the Internet the same, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. For instance, under these principles, internet service providers are unable to intentionally block, slow down or charge money for specific websites and online content."

The Internet is one of the best inventions of humankind and if it didn't exist I wouldn't have a job. It's reach is vast and there is no end to how future humans will use it and have it better their... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 11/22/2017 at 04:11am

If you can spare the money, please consider donating to the ACLU and EFF, who fight for net neutrality. But, nonprofits vs the weight of the US government... it's a hard fight. They need more than they have.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/22/2017 at 04:24am

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 11/22/2017 at 06:54am

Like we have a lot of choices for internet service providers. If I don’t want Comcast I can have severely slow internet through centurylink.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/22/2017 at 06:20pm

That's part of the problem. We don't have choices, so capitalist competition doesn't affect ISPs as much as it would if there were options. So Comcast in your case could decide they want to charge a premium for Netflix access, and since you don't have reasonable alternatives, you'll have to pay.

If there weren't regional monopolies it would be less of an issue. Still an issue, for sure, but less of one.

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GameShell Is A Cool New Moddable Retro Linux Gaming Handheld!

Back this on Kickstarter!

The Retro Pie community is huge and a big part of that is the fact that you can use the hardware for nearly anything you can think up. Lots of new open and moddable systems have been popping up and many Retro Pie builds feature making your own handheld but nothing makes it easy. Intro the new GameShell Kickstarter that aims to ship a modular portable hackable Linux handheld. It's seriously focused on gaming but it's not limited to that and since it runs Linux you can hack it to do whatever you want.

Many Kickstarter projects don't do well and hardware projects doubly so. I hope this takes off but there is an inherent amount of risk here but I wish GameShell well... Read All

Harmon Quest! D&D Played By Dan Harmon and Guest Comedians

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As a big fan of Rick and Morty, and a casual fan of Community, I find myself gravitating towards anything Dan Harmon is involved in. Harmon Quest popped up in a YouTube ad and I had to check it out. So far I've only watched 1 episode, but I love the style of it.

Dan plays as Fondue Zubag, a half-orc ranger, and he has a regular cast that plays with him, in front of a live audience, with a guest comedian. The episodes are then animated and cut between the animation of the game and the players around a table.

Paul F. Tompkins was the guest in episode 1 (who played as Teflonto, Earthscar's village champion and captain of the town's militia. Also a friend, mentor, and role... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 7 - The Loot Box Explosion

In this episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio we talk about the original Blade Runner, totally nerd out overthe new Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer, and then discuss the new trend of loot boxes in games. Spoiler alert: we aren’t fans of loot boxes in most single player games.

Games Are Still Being Made On The Original NES? Metal Jesus & John Riggs Talk About New NES Homebrew Carts.

Metal Jesus and John Riggs cover a ton of NES Homebrew carts in this pretty great video. As I enjoy dark humor I thought Super Russian Roulette looked fun.

Not covered in this video are other NES Cart repros and i'm really been wanting to pickup Wisdom Tree's new NES cart pressing of all thier original NES games such as Sunday Funday, Exodus, Joshua, King of Kings, Bible Buffet and Spiritual Warfare. As a kid my parents bought me these bible games and even though i'm not religious now I look at all Wisdom Tree games with affection. I mean, some of them aren't great but I stand by Spiritual Warfare as the best NES Zelda clone ever made on the actual NES.

... Read All

Humble Bundle Was Acquired By IGN

"Announcing our biggest bundle ever: Humble Bundle is proudly joining the IGN family! We will continue to bring you all of our humble products, but with more resources and help from IGN.

We chose IGN because they really understand our vision, share our passion for games, and believe in our mission to promote awesome digital content while helping charity. I can’t think of a better partner than IGN to help Humble Bundle continue our quest.

We will be working harder than ever to bring you the best gaming bundles, book bundles, and store sales, while nurturing the Humble Monthly and our new publishing initiative. We will keep our own office, culture, and amazing team with... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 10/14/2017 at 04:52am

This is... hmm...

I'm cautiously optimistic here. IF IGN stays hands-off with them and lets them keep doing their thing, then it's a win for everyone. If not... eeehhhhhhh...

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/16/2017 at 03:50am

I've been thinking more about this and I think IGN is buying The Humble Bundle for a play at the digital store games selling market.

My thought is that since The Humble Bundle has so many gamer accounts and "mindshare" and they have the Humble Store + Humble Monthly that IGN will double down on the digital store aspect and eventually they will rebrand the property as "Humble" or "The Humble Store" or something like that. They will keep the Humble Bundle but eventually the focus will be on the store part and the monthly games service that might eventually operate a bit more like Netflix. Not that you'd stop getting game keys, but they are already putting certain games in the monthly you will always get access to regardless of the month you start your subscription.

I sort of see this acquisition in the same way "Good old Games" eventually rebranded to GOG.com that is now a DRM free game store. Eventually Humble will release a service client that works outside the browser and even sell movies and such becoming a larger digital store. It will still keep the DRM free part where it can because that sets it apart from Steam, EA or UPlay.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/16/2017 at 09:33pm

How much does Humble donate? I sure hope IGN keeps the donation portion in place.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/16/2017 at 11:30pm

The Humble Store does 10%, but on the bundles you can choose how to spread it.

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Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 6 - The Best of Both Abrams

On this episode of Cheerful Ghost radio, we discuss a bunch of topics that we couldn't get into the previous episode, including the news that Nintendo is shipping more SNES Classic and NES Classic units than previously planned, JJ Abrams returning to direct Star Wars: Episode IX, Age of Empires IV, and Humble Bundle hitting $100 million in charity donations!

Also be sure to check out our friends at Game Dev's Quest, a podcast about the game development process: http://airpodcast.com/category/gamedevsquest/

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/10/2017 at 04:19pm

The stopping of sales of nes classic makes more sense now that we know the snes classic pretty much uses the same hardware. It would have been nice to see both being made, but they probably wouldn't have met demand with either. I feel like that is the reason they went all in on the snes.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/10/2017 at 04:40pm

I think you are right. Which is a good thing, like you say, but made little sense to me then. They must be ramping up NES production now or soon to hit next year too. Though I wonder when the NES Classic will come out next year and if they are going to add anything new to it?

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 10/10/2017 at 05:20pm

I hope they add the refinements to their output that the SNES Classic has, if nothing else.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/10/2017 at 05:35pm

Honestly... I don't really notice all that stuff myself but I can't tell the difference in HD audio VS 320k mp3s.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/10/2017 at 08:57pm

If they release anything new, I hope there is a way to update existing classics.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/10/2017 at 09:19pm

Yeah, right. That might be why they don't do that.

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Emulators Are Our Friends - Atlus Files DMCA Takedown Of RPCS3 PS3 Emulator

As a lifelong gamer and someone that wants to preserve digital culture I support emulators. I also want people to buy the games they play because it's not only required by law but it's also ethical and moral to financially compensate people that create things you love. So when I recently bought Snake Rattle & Roll on the NES I didn't have a problem playing a ROM of it too. Partly because, in many cases the ROM is the best option for the platform but also because I hail from the 90's and cassette and VHS taping was part of how I grew up. It was pretty common to buy a CD dub it on tape to listen to in your car and later on rip that CD to listen to it on your MP3... Read All As a lifelong gamer and someone that wants to preserve digital culture I support emulators. I also want people to buy the games they play because it's not only required by law but it's also ethical and moral to financially compensate people that create things you love. So when I recently bought Snake Rattle & Roll on the NES I didn't have a problem playing a ROM of it too. Partly because, in many cases the ROM is the best option for the platform but also because I hail from the 90's and cassette and VHS taping was part of how I grew up. It was pretty common to buy a CD dub it on tape to listen to in your car and later on rip that CD to listen to it on your MP3 player.

Recently Atlus, the developers of Persona, issued a DMCA copyright notice to RPCS3 the developers of the PS3 Emulator. I'll copy Atlus's post below.

"You might have heard earlier today that we issued a DMCA takedown notice involving emulation developer group RPCS3 and their Patreon page. Yes, it’s true. We settled upon this action for two reasons:

1. We believe that our fans best experience our titles (like Persona 5) on the actual platforms for which they are developed. We don’t want their first experiences to be framerate drops, or crashes, or other issues that can crop up in emulation that we have not personally overseen. We understand that many Persona fans would love to see a PC version. And while we don’t have anything to announce today, we are listening! For now, the best way to experience Persona 5 is on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.

2. We appreciate the awareness generated by the emulation community for Persona 5 and know that it is a fantastic example of how much people are loving our game. We want to keep bringing you titles like Persona 5. Unfortunately, when our content is illegally circumvented and potentially made available for free, in a format we do not think delivers the experience and quality we intend, it undermines our ability to do so by diverting potential support from new audiences."

I'm not a lawyer so i'm not going to say anything about if what Atlus did was legal or not. With that, emulators aren't just things that enable piracy they also allow people to play games on modern systems while not needing to repurchase them yet again. I can see why Atlus might want people to repurchase their games on PC if they were to port them but why is it bad that you can play your old PS3 games on a modern PC? They said it's because of a bad framerates and such but that seems like a really contrived reason.

I also love it when companies release older games with the "HD re-release" treatment giving me yet another reason to open my wallet to buy it. Or even just re-releasing the game on PC is more than enough to get people to buy it again, which some people love to do.

As someone that had their PS3 die and be left with an orphaned library of PS3 games I can say that a good PS3 emulator would have saved me some heartache. In the end I got a friends old system and that works out great but sometimes just playing your old games on a PC is a better option.

http://atlus.com/atlus-and-emulation/

Humble Bundle Has Reached a Major Milestone: Over $100,000,000 in Charity Donations

Humble Bundle (or as I like to call it, "the reason my Steam library has more games than I'll ever play") launched in 2010 with a simple mission: supporting charities by giving gamers the opportunity to pay what they want for awesome games. Since then, there have been countless bundles, including new categories of bundles like books, music, movies, mobile games, and a monthly subscription bundle. Plus, they've expanded to a full game store where you can get DRM-free and Steam games while still supporting charities.

And they've reached a major milestone: over $100,000,000 in charity donations. They've helped provide water to those who need it, protected people's civil... Read All

jdodson Admin wrote on 09/18/2017 at 05:08pm

Wow. Really nice I was part of that by way of getting some great games and some of that went to charity. One such game I still play now I got in a bundle was FTL and that turned out really well.

What's the game you got from a bundle you played the most Travis?

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 09/18/2017 at 05:16pm

I can't remember if I got Terraria from a bundle. If so, that one. If not, Mass Effect 2 from the Origin bundle takes that title.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 09/18/2017 at 05:18pm

OK I just checked. I *did* get Terraria from a bundle but I already had it by that point, so I don't guess I count that.

jdodson Admin wrote on 09/18/2017 at 11:11pm

Right, I saw that Terraria bundle and I skipped it because I already had the game from a prior Steam sale where I bought it for something crazy like $5.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 09/19/2017 at 03:20am

I think I got it for the other games, plus I never mind having an extra copy of Terraria. I've given that game to like 5 people at this point. Gotta spread the love!

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Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 3: Luke Skywalker's Cane

In this episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio we discuss Jon’s recent disappointment in losing his Super Nintendo Classic pre-order and all the games we are looking forward to playing this year. We round things off by talking about Luke Skywalker's Cane and our theories about Star Wars: The Last Jedi. As always, we start the show talking about what we are playing and watching and we’re interested in what you are playing too, so let us know in the comments!