Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

[Aksannyi]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

That's kind of how the US is with hockey during the Olympics, the NHL is the most prominent league so most of the players are foreign born (although I think more than half hail from Canada alone), so when the Olympics come around the US doesn't do quite as well.

[Feba]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

watched an ffxi stream. strange to see how much has changed and how little has, instead of just reading the occasional update notice.

They were doing promys. Which are now uncapped. They were lv99.

The records are 40 seconds to a minute.

They hadn't even unlocked Tavnazia yet.

"Item Level: 117".

weird fucking shit

[Mezlo]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

I do miss the good 'ol days. The days where the weekend started at 5:30pm on Friday and lasted through Monday morning, and i never left my apartment playing ffxi... Hella food deliveries and beer ftw... Good times indeed...

[Feba]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

also, just looked up FFVII on Steam:

Character Booster – Find yourself stuck on a difficult section or lacking the funds to buy that vital Phoenix Down? With the Character Booster you can increase your HP, MP and Gil levels to their maximum, all with the simple click of a button, leaving you to enjoy your adventure.

Gamesharks are now a back-of-the-box feature

[Ketaru]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

also, just looked up FFVII on Steam:

Gamesharks are now a back-of-the-box feature

I wonder who thought Final Fantasy VII was hard...

[Malacite]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

filthy casuals.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Currently getting angry at Blizzard.

They were designing lovely capitals for the new expac then decided that "those towns will still be in the game, but your faction capitals will be in Ashran (the PvP zone of the expac)" and that also means that the faction capitals are going to be the same fucking boring Orc and Human architecture that they put in every. mother. fucking. expansion.

Super annoyed by their lazy copypasta attitude and the responses from the devs are actually just as infuriating as the crap the SE devs would feed us during FFXI. Do not want.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

There's always giving up and joining a roving band of MMO nomads.

[Firewind]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

That's kind of how the US is with hockey during the Olympics, the NHL is the most prominent league so most of the players are foreign born (although I think more than half hail from Canada alone), so when the Olympics come around the US doesn't do quite as well.

The main issue basically boils down to the wealthiest and most influential clubs being able to buy all of the best players, leaving the native born players stuck being fed into the lower leagues and never getting anywhere. The only exception seems to be Germany due to the way the clubs are ran there.

In Spain it's even worse because of the Cotonou Agreement. It's an agreement because the EU and ACP States where basically anyone can claim citizenship to the country where their ancestors came from. In Sppain if you don't have European Ancestry, then you can claim citizenship after working there for 5 years.

Why is this important? Well for one, a lot of Central and South American Countries are very well known for producing excellent football players. It's similar with African countries and the UK, France and Belgium as well. Second, it means that the Spanish can basically draw talent from literally anywhere where there's a strong Hispanic Heritage. Again note that these are countries that are very good at football.

It worked out pretty well for them at first. They could poach the best talent from South America as well as people living in the rest of Europe that can claim Spanish heritage. All they had to do was convince them to move to Spain and claim citizenship, something not hard given the other option is continuing to live in poverty.

Problem is, is well this World Cup is showing exactly why it's bad in the long run. All the great talented young Spanish players are basically stuck in limbo, similar to the great young English and French players. A hell of a lot of Spanish players are moving from clubs like Barcelona or Real Madrid (basically teams as huge as the New England Patriots), to teams like Stoke or Southampton (Your mid-table teams that occasionally pop up and finish well after an impressive season or cup performance) just to be able to get games to be scouted by their National team.

Basically there's only two Premier League teams in England that actually have a good youth system: Liverpool and Southampton. And their best youth players tend to get poached by richer teams, then fade into obscurity. Bigger teams have great native players sure but they often end up massively overrated.

That said, England have a very good team of young players at the moment. What they lack however is experience, which showed in the game against Italy, and caused a humiliation in the game against Uruguay. It is nice to see the Manager finally giving the youth a chance so I'm hopeful for the next World Cup. The main issue England has had for the last 10 years is the over reliance on the old guard of rankly overrated players like Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Robetr Green (Anyone remember England vs USA in 2010?), Ashley Cole (the most overrated and overpaid player in the EPL), Glen Johnson and David Milner.

Actualy pretty much the entire English team played in the England vs USA game in 2010. Only Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard really deserved to be there.

And the USA have a very good team right now (a lot of their players play over here as well). Just qualifying now is pretty damn hard, and clearing the Group Stages is no minor achievement at all (It means the US are among the top 16 teams in the world). They were looking good back in 2010, but I'm genuinely liking when I see from the USA team in this World Cup and will be cheering them on.

[Mezlo]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

USA! USA! USA! USA!

[Aksannyi]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

The fact that we didn't get outright obliterated by Germany says a lot, but I'll admit I didn't pick the US to advance in my own bracket.

[Firewind]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

The US got the toughest group essentially. Tough and/or highly competitive groups are generally called a "Group of Death" over here. It basically refers to a Group full of good teams, or a group where an underdog team is stuck with favourites to win.

Germany are always a fantastic team and are always among the favourites to win. I have money on it being Germany v Argentina for the final.

Ghana are a great team and eliminated the US in the Knockout stage in 2010. They are one of the best African teams out there.

Portugal...They barely scraped by in the Qualifying stages. Okay they have are Nani, Ronaldo and Carvalho and are a team that always delivers in major tournaments

Basically the only other groups that were as tough were Group B: Netherlands, Chile, Spain, Australia, and Group D: Costa Rica, England, Italy, Uruguay (Yeah soon as I saw the draw I knew England would never get past the Group Stages).

[Mezlo]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

USA!!! USA!!! USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!

[Aksannyi]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

It was called Group of Death here, too.

[Jarre]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

But being british we come up with the best quotes when facing defeat....

Big choice for Hodgson now. Aisle or window seat.

That single star on the England shirt is starting to look more McDonald's till proficiency than proud historical world football dominance.

Wayne Rooney is refusing to write off England's chances in the World Cup. Mainly because he can't write.

Dear the England team, WTF?! Regards, The Queen.

Cheer up English fans, England survived longer than Spain.