Good afternoon, all ~

Okay time to jump in.   I suppose I should lead off with a proactive apology and disclaimer, I’m not in the best of moods.  I’m hoping  the rough, casual, politically incorrect irreverence on this thread will cheer me up a little.

1.  What Happened? Not sure what happened.  I agree something has.  If I had to guess, and I’m no sociologist … but to a certain extent this is a byproduct of telecommunication technology.  I say this  with full awareness of the irony of where I’m putting this (i.e., on a “specialist” internet site).   The internet and smart phones are wonderful things.  They allow people no matter where they are to connect with like-minded people.  The flip side of this is that this is ALL many people look at.   News, commerce, shopping, TV content, social media … the specialized and custom-feed nature of everyone’s awareness ecosystem quickly leads to many people believing their worldview is the ONLY worldview and anyone who doesn’t subscribe is “crazy.”  This leads to a sense of entitlement, self-importance, social justice, righteousness, and other maladies.  Hence, people start acting up.  We see it in this community, we see it in Twitter, we see it in politics, the courts, the streets, and everywhere else …

Of course nothing I’m saying here is terribly original.

2. High point of your week. That’s easy.  Last night’s SITREP PODCAST CHANNEL live stream, with @stvitusdancern .  Our summer break is over and Season Three is officially underway, with my stream on Sunday, Gianna’s Stream yesterday, Season Three Premiere of our Podcast now up on YouTube, Ops Center Season Three premiere in the can (rolls out next week), and first video battle report / highlights reply going live on YouTube tomorrow.   It’s been busy, but  we’re officially off and running.  Seriously, check out some of these podcasts and Twitch stream replays, if only while painting your minis.  😀

3. What details always catch your eye? Not really in miniatures, not really a 100% miniatures guy.  But in game systems and rules.  Turn Sequence.  This is always a killer, the secret sauce that makes or breaks a game design.  Scale in games, specifically true LOS games and the scale interrelationships between the units and the table.  Mini games get this almost universally wrong, and wrong by several orders of magnitude.  To the point where it’s not just a matter of “preference” or “convenience” but also complete representation of the realities, geometries, and scope of the historical battlefield. It’s a soap box I’m been standing on and a drum I’ve been beating for years.  Honestly I’ve given up.

4. Is there an aspect of ‘gaming’ that you just won’t/can’t do? – Card games, i.e., MtG, Yugi-Oh, etc.  Video games like Battlefield and Call of Duty.  99% or “real time strategy” – the vast majority of the titles which are of course neither real time, or strategy.