Ginko

You at the dentist, Dem?

Nope, nor me, but again I doubt our owners aren’t aware and they’ll have a plan in place. I suspect that the increase in Premier League and TV money since we were in the league previously will help enormously. I think someone posted the wage bills of every PL team last season fairly recently and we were very low down, so perhaps survival ensured our existing players get some kind of a raise, with the likes of Jack getting bumper deals. Then with regards to new signings, maybe we’re aiming to get two or three top players and pay them handsome wages (perhaps around what Jack’s new wages would be), and each season we place higher in the league, all the players get better contracts or bonuses.

Maybe we will. Maybe we already have. I’m sure our owners aren’t naive enough to think the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Well, we’ll agree to disagree on it being the reality of most educated people - I think the people who genuinely love their job are definitely the lucky few. But I suppose my point is that... a) to try and equate real life with professional football is pointless. Until you’re in that situation and have those kinds of opportunities presented to you and that kind of money thrown at you, no one can really know how it would affect their decision making. and b) there must be a multitude of factors to consider when a player decides to move clubs, and a blanket statement such as ‘they’re only here for the money and they’re not the kind of players I want at the club’ is unfair. Everyone is different and has different priorities.

First of all, as wonderful as that would be, I’d be willing to bet that’s not the reality for most people. Lots of people hate their jobs or see it as a means to an end, whether that’s as a source of money to do the things they really want, or as a stepping stone along the way to their own career ambitions. But that’s beside the point, really. You’re applying real world logic to professional football at the highest level - the two rarely mix. We don’t know what this player’s motivations are, but let’s say it’s safe to assume that most professional footballers dream of playing in the Champion’s League. Does that mean that we only try to recruit players without that ambition since we can’t offer it at the moment? Of course not, that would be stupid. So instead we identify our own selling points (one of those being money) and try to sell the vision of where we are now and where we want to be in the next few years. And anyways, a lot of players also aspire to play in the Premier League, so perhaps that’s another of this player’s ambitions. You’re allowed to have more than one.

I wonder what the Bremen forum's version of fish puns is? Fisch puns, I guess.

Sometimes a rumour or a bit of knowledge shared on social media can be legitimate. The Twitter posts break up the regular speculation and create a bit of excitement. It's up to the individual whether they believe it or not. Most are just hopeful. I really don't get the high-and-mightiness of the people who come here to berate others for posting about a Twitter rumour – talk about being unproductive.

Yup, can’t see it being the navy blue shirt, which is a shame. I wish they’d do a throwback to the ‘95/‘96 away shirt (though maybe it isn’t long enough ago to do a throwback):

I see that the rumours about Terry leaving were clearly much ado about nothing.

Hopefully he hasn't had time because he's been put straight to work on transfers.

By ‘most people’ I mean non-Villa fans. To be fair, I posted that before I saw that article, and it is The Sun so let’s take it with a pinch of salt.

Here’s how I see it: We finished 17th, and barely at that, so for players being looked at by other Premier League teams or top half teams in other leagues, we’re not necessarily an attractive proposition. The lure of the Premier League is definitely an appealing factor to the foreign markets, though. I also think that most people think Grealish will be off, and if we lose him then we lose another selling point to other potential players. We could get £60million for him, maybe even more, but it’ll be difficult to splurge that on expensive players when they’re going to be the only player of their level at the club. If we have enquires about some big budget players, they’d probably want an assurance Grealish will stay, though you’d like to think that if we couldn’t keep him we’d at least promise we’d be spending big on another couple of top names. I think until Grealish’s future is decided one way or another, it’ll be hard to bring quality players in. Going for ‘Premier League experience’ is good and all, but when you just finished the lowest position you can be without being relegated, why would top players from other PL teams want to come? Money? Maybe, but I think I’m right in saying our wage bill is on the lower end of the spectrum. Chances are we’d only be a lure to older players looking for a longer contract than they might get elsewhere, either that or the crapper ones which we obviously don’t want. We could target good PL players who are either on the verge of breaking into the first team or are struggling for game time, but they’d be riskier signings that might not quite come off. I think a mix of PL experience is great, and wouldn’t be averse to maybe another older head - an experienced CB would be my choice - coming in. We’ve also got Heaton. However, PL experience will cost, and I think we need to go down the younger quality player route, especially in the foreign markets. We can offer PL football, game time, competitive wages (if not better), and a historic club with top notch stadium and training facilities. I think these are our selling points, so I really hope we’ve realised that and have targeted the best players that those things will appeal to most, though that would require a good scouting network across the globe, and I’m fairly sure we only have one scout and he lives in Belgium... we should definitely be aiming to improve our scouting. I really hope the PL experience rumour has been exaggerated or taken out of context.

That’s exactly what I think it is. We haven’t officially released the away shirt, the ladies can’t play in the home kit due to the colour clash with the Arsenal home shirt, so they just slapped the sponsor on a dark blue kappa template for the time being.

It's okay – I do like a green goalie kit. I feel like we tend to go for quite bright for one goalkeeper kit, probably to really stand out from the claret of the home outfield shirt, and then black or at least very dark for the other though I assume that won't be the case this year given the away outfield shirt is black, from the looks. Really wish we'd just do monochrome badges on any shirt that isn't claret and blue, mind you. It makes such a difference in my opinion.

Now we can see the home shirt in full, can one of our talented kit designers mock up the away based on it and the description above? Since he didn't specify the sleeves on the away strip I suppose there's a good chance they'll be the same colour as the body.

Was just a joke, dude.

Clearly the club saw @Brumerican’s meltdown and brought the reveal forward.

I've played them all except for Sekiro (waiting for it to be under £30 in one of the sales, but no luck so far). I'm ashamed to say I've only completed Dark Souls 2. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1 and 3, and Bloodborne all eventually got too intimidating for me. No other games have ever brought me such high highs and low lows. The highs are totally worth it, but I really have to be in a special mood to play these things. Not sure why I feel this way, and I don't know why I persevered with DS2 over the others, but I think part of it now is that I don't really have the time to spend on games like I used to. If I'm going to spend a rare few hours a week playing a game, I feel like I need to have made progress, and I could play a Souls game for that length of time and get absolutely nowhere! I'm just not very good at these games, or I don't have the patience anymore. Probably the more the first one.

I just got onto Chapter 4 last night, so I'm far from finishing the game, but so far it's incredible. First off, I should clarify that I am a huge Naughty Dog fan. I'm also an ex-film student (and therefore particularly love my movies), an ex-journalist (yeah, yeah, I know), a current fiction editor for fantasy and sci-fi novels, and an amateur fiction writer/screenwriter. I also used to work in the games industry for a number of years and have been a gamer all my life. Sorry for the life story, I just think it's all relevant as to my opinion of the game. I can understand why this isn't for everyone. I have a number of gamer friends who don't really like the gameplay in the original TLoU and the Uncharted games, and whilst I personally think they do an excellent job of merging cinematic storytelling with puzzles and incredible action set pieces, I get why some folks might feel differently. When a story is written well, we get lost in it. We describe an amazing book as a real page-turner. Movie theatres are intentionally dark and immersive in order to focus our senses and attention – it's one of the main reasons filmmakers so often suggest we experience their films at the cinema rather than at home. Screenwriters call it 'the flow' – the state of mind we enter when we're enraptured whilst watching a film. It's their job to craft and pace the story in such a way that at no point does the audience drop out of the flow until the end credits. Games sit in a rather unique place in terms of storytelling. Traditionally we're more used to watching films and reading books – if they're good then we're completely immersed, but we're still just along for the ride and have no real interactivity. We can't affect the story in any way, and whilst you could argue we can change the pace by either stopping reading or watching, that's really on us. It's a lot more difficult to do this with story-based video games. For one, they're usually a hell of a lot longer than a film. It's also a completely different form of writing and as a writer, you have a lot less control over the pacing. Each player will play their own way and at their own speed, so how do you account for that? Obviously you try to write characters and story beats that are compelling so the player can't wait to find out what happens next and you hope they continue playing, or at least they take a breather when the character does during a lighter moment, but as a games designer you also want to balance immersion with giving the player an enjoyable interactive experience. Naughty Dog gets criticised for having levels that are too linear, which may be fair, but the more choice you give to a player in a game, the less control the writers have over the story. It's all about balance. It then has to split into branching paths, which players can find jarring if it's not done well. With Uncharted 4, Naughty Dog introduced areas at beats in the story that were more open world in attempt to combine the more linear and controlled areas with parts that give the player more freedom, and they've done the same here in TLoU 2. It's a compromise, but it's done very well – the best any game has managed so far, in my opinion. But as much as I love these games, it's not perfect. As I play I find myself searching every nook and cranny for collectibles in these less linear environments, and it's sometimes at odds with the pacing of the story and it takes me out of it. I want to carry on with the story, and even the NPCs occasionally try to nudge me onto the next story beat. I get that annoying 'Hint' pop up in the bottom-left corner of the screen like I don't know what to do next – I do! I just want to find everything YOU guys put in the level! But that's all I can criticise it for at this point, and they obviously want to add replay value to their game, but I just don't think it works in story-focused games such as this. It's an attempt to appease players at both ends of the spectrum – those who only care about the story, and the completionists – and the varying degrees between, of which I am one, though I'd argue my slightly obsessive need to search everywhere is more about always having crafting supplies rather than the collectibles. These sorts of experiences are never going to please everyone, so I understand why some people don't like it whilst also taking into account that I haven't finished it yet. The only thing I really can't fathom is how people can't be immersed in the story or the characters. It's a dark story, don't get me wrong, and I personally love a bit of grit, but I suppose people will say that they look to games for escapism from the state of the world, especially at the moment. There are plenty of other games to play if you feel that way, but we need games like this. Art is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable and challenge you, and TLoU2 is very much a work of art.

I think it's bonkers that it originally came out on the previous generation consoles. An incredible technical achievement and such a detailed, engrossing game. It's one that my girlfriend loves playing too, so we've been back on it lately taking it in turns.

Now there's a question... I'll have to have a think about this Obviously Goku vs. Frieza is legendary due to the first time we see Super Saiyan, but crikey does that fight drag... on (pun fully intended). In terms of seeing how far the animation used in anime has come, this one blew up the internet when it aired a couple of years ago. Most of you have probably seen it, but for those who haven't this is grown up Naruto & Sasuke vs. Momoshiki from Boruto. It obviously helps if you know Naruto and are familiar with the characters and just how jutsu (techniques) in the Naruto universe works, but if not I'm sure one can appreciate the animation:

Yup, tons of anime throughout the years have paid homage to (or outright nicked elements of) Journey to the West. Dragonball (the time set before DBZ in particular) is one of the most obvious ones, as this photo of young Goku shows: In fact, the name 'Son Goku' is the Japanese version of 'Sun Wukong', the original (Chinese) name of the protagonist of Journey to the West who is also known as the Monkey King. Little Goku here also has a monkey tail, magic staff and rides on a cloud -- all taken from his Journey to the West namesake. Naruto is another anime that contains a number of references to Journey to the West. Like DB, Naruto also has a character named Son Goku who is a large monkey demon, as well as the Monkey King, Enma who turns into a magical staff that Sarutobi-sensei ('saru' being the Japanese for 'monkey') fights with. A lot of anime borrow from old Japanese folklore, so you'll quite often see different interpretations of the same things. For instance, the initial 'big bad' of Naruto is the Kyubii (literally: nine-tailed fox) a popular demon from Japanese mythology. Pokemon fans out there will be familiar with this as there is literally a Pokemon called Ninetails, who is a fox. FWIW, I'm a sucker for tournament arcs, which as @mikeyp102 mentioned earlier is a staple of Shonen anime. Shonen is arguably the most popular genre of manga and anime as its target audience is young males. In fact shonen/shounen actually means boy in Japanese. Bleach, mentioned earlier, is essentially tournament arc after tournament arc, though they were basically a series of 1v1 fights throughout with a very loose story woven between them, which got a bit stale after a couple of seasons. Naruto's Chuunin Exam arc is probably my favourite tournament arc to date, though it always annoys me that tournaments in anime almost NEVER FINISH. The overarching story gets in the way, bad guys interrupt and so winners are rarely decided. Anyway, I'm babbling now. As you were.

There's a few times in the story where it refers to events in the first two games, but as @Stevo985 says, it doesn't matter if you don't know. The games also has character profiles in the options menu which detail much of what you've missed, or you could just watch a quick YouTube video if you really want to know, but yeah, it doesn't really make much difference to the story or your enjoyment of the game. Awesome game, certainly one of my top five of all time.

I'm going to be that guy, I'm afraid, chaps. My lady and I have both been working from home for the last three weeks, both working in the spare room as a shared office. We've been absolutely fine and she's a far better office buddy than anyone I work with (many of them are noisy, annoying or just plain arseholes), we're both quiet and just get on with it. I can't listen to any music with lyrics as it's too distracting for me (I'm a book editor so I need to concentrate on reading), whereas she's a graphic designer and finds it difficult to work in silence. We've been listening to movie scores or lo-fi hip-hop since that's what I mainly listen to as I work, but if she fancies something a little louder, one of us will just stick headphones on. I've dated women in the past who would have been absolute nightmares to live and work with, but my girlfriend really is the epitome of low maintenance. I realise I'm very lucky. The only thing she won't put up with is laziness, and I've just been furloughed for the next three weeks. To be fair, I get annoyed at myself if I'm unproductive for too long, so I'm finally going to get some projects done now I have no excuse not to. I'll also probably be posting here a lot more though, but don't tell her I said that.

The thing is, are we likely to get someone good at this point in the season who understands they’ll probably be relegated and therefore manage us in the Championship next year? With the right incentives you could either get a young coach with talent and something to prove (though Smith is obviously in that mould and it hasn’t worked out), or an old boy looking for another pay day. It’s not a great position to be in to be looking for a new manager, but we might as well start now and build for next season. What’s the point in keeping Smith on, really?