Netflix instants

Those nerds, am I right folks? Those of you browsing Netflix for your fix of Search For Spock have likely noticed that the film has gone missing from the website’s instant streaming database. Netflix has confirmed that the film was removed, however not for the reason you might expect. It wasn’t due to contract expiration or any legal issues, but because of incorrectly translated subtitles. According to Netflix, the version that was available on the instant streaming service does not properly translate Klingon and Vulcan into English, and therefore must be taken down and fixed. Instead of looking at one of the previous versions of Search for Spock, apparently Netflix will be hand-translating the subtitles themselves, proving the company’s passion for over-complicating everything. On the other hand, they believe that the project can be done in about a week, after which the movie will appear once again. Kudos to them for trying, even if they are out of their Vulcan … [Read more...] about Not So Massive: Netflix Removes Star Trek 3

Rubber Snake Attack Instead of coming home and gaming like normal last night, I actually went out and did something sociable with actual living and breathing people!  I know it is a shock to the system to fathom the ramifications of that statement.  Several months ago a group from work attended the live RiffTrax showing of the Matthew Broderick Godzilla and it was an absolute blast.  I have been a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 since college, and RiffTrax is essentially the same folks doing the same sort of thing…  without the robots and a guy trapped on a space station construct.  During that they previewed the next movie and at that point we decided that we had to attend again so we could see Anaconda…  a movie that I did not remember being as cheesy as it actually was.  Thankfully we learned a lot from the first time, and arrived at the theater considerably earlier.  Last time none of us actually got to sit together, but … [Read more...] about Lalafell Rescue Squad

A couple of weeks ago, MMO developer Mark Kern tweeted a controversial claim about how challenge and interactivity is the point of games (and therefore that removing challenge from a game destroys the medium). That’s not what we’re going to talk about today because plenty of people already did that dance and do we really need another fight over gatekeeping and hardcore and difficulty? (We do not.) What we are going to talk about is flow. Theoryforge’s @MSandersonD responded to Kern’s comments with an underrated note about how just cramming more difficulty into a game is the opposite of what good game developers do, that balancing difficulty for a variety of player skilltypes is critical to getting players into “the zone.” “If you want to reach the most players possible and have them enjoy your game you must take into account a players ability to reach a state of flow. A central feature of flow is challenge balancing with skill. Player’s … [Read more...] about Massively Overthinking: MMOs, challenge, and flow