jonebone

No, let your "newness goggles" wear off first. Give it several months before trying to compare.

I'm already at the stage of complacency.  Really wanted to find any spare time for it during first week or two, now it's just if I'm really bored I'll do a shrine or two and explore.  It's a great game and I enjoy it, just definitely out of the initial addiction phase with it.

Usually I'd try this out but Zelda will keep me busy for awhile. Probably will check it out in the Winter time.

5 hours ago, docile tapeworm said:

Fuck joker in the paint. Heat gonna have to go old school and rough him up. Dude literally looks like a pillow. Wish the nba still had enforcers only way to slow down joker is foul him hard every time he attempts a shot. If he isn’t a little bit scared he can just play free.

Nah, he's legit now. I'm a Lakers fan so I watched a lot of that series, and I watched when he got destroyed in the bubble a few years back.  Back then he was bullied around and looked soft.  He's matured now and there's no big in this league that could rough him up at this point.  

You can find that Jokic gif when he ran over Markieff Morris a couple years ago when he was on the Heat.  He's the perfect mix of strength and finesse sadly.

The Nuggets are such an amazing team, I can't see how the Heat win unless the Nuggets are extremely rusty (or if there are injuries).  This series showed how inconsistent Bam can be and there will be no answers for Jokic in the paint.  Heat played extremely poor in the paint overall this series, way too many turn overs and botched shots, not to mention getting slaughtered on the boards in general.

Having said that, the Heat are a pretty good 3 point shooting team so if they keep those falling then they have a chance to compete at least.

And last point, yes Martin was easily the MVP this series can't believe they gave it to Butler.  Martin was consistent every game in his minutes and Butler did not play well in game 5 or 6. 

My .02 after playing this weekend, about 6 hours in.  No spoilers, safe to read.

Exactly like BOTW 2.0, but that's not a bad thing.  The new power-ups and functionality give this game an entirely different feel, probably a lot of ways to solve various puzzles and not so linear. The storyline is surprisingly quite different as well with a plethora of new characters.  Yet there are some inevitable cameos as you start seeing names of areas on the map later, should tie together nicely.

All in all, if you liked BOTW or if you missed it, this is a must play.  My only slight criticism is that the new functionality controls could be quite difficult or a little kid.  Even my 8 year would have difficulties with some of the mechanics.  Really seems like this game is geared towards adults or older kids.  Not a bad thing, but it's not a pickup and play for a kid to get hooked to this franchise. 

11 minutes ago, captmorgandrinker said:

That's gone, now Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Zelda-Kingdom-Collectors-Nintendo-Switch/dp/B0BV9NKGJ4/

 

Owe you a beer and I happened to log in here and see this at this exact moment.  Thanks!

Fingers crossed it arrives undamaged though.

14 hours ago, yoshi1999 said:

I was mainly interested since I am a novice in raw games and grading, I wanted to collect a small collection of games I played when I was a kid, smw, all stars, mk2, etc. 

I currently collect CGC comics and PSA cards so it was natural for me to branch over here, but it seems as if Wata may not be of the same caliber as those companies even though I know they got acquired recently.

ended up purchasing a smw players ed in wata 7.5 sealed as my first piece.

As someone who collects all of the graded companies, some pros / cons of each:

VGA 
Pros: Longest in the business, beautiful case design and can grade all custom sized items (systems, accessories, big box games, etc.)
Cons: Extremely long turnarounds, high cost, archaic submission system (though supposedly getting online submissions at some point), no CIB grading unless "Qualified" (meaning new never played)

Wata
Pros: Probably the best "experts" in the scene, tamper-proof case, used to have the highest resale value but I'd say that's a moot point now, best online portal for submissions
Cons: Bulky case (but just got resdesigned), no custom sized items, a bit higher cost on fully complete CIB games (likes RPGS with maps, etc.)

CGC
Pros: Fastest turnarounds, cheapest overall
Cons: New to grading games, scale appears a bit softer overall

Good luck in the scene!

On 5/1/2023 at 11:43 AM, Khromak said:

My first graded and one of the only sealed games I own. My favorite NES game and a strong contender for favorite game of all time. Finally landed a sealed copy that I've been after for years

Congrats I thought that was a WTB that would never get filled.

More pics of FF2 manual and box and price?

Triad Superbite offer?

15 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

You are probably the first person in my entire life I’ve heard say Raph is the best. 

I'm tied between Leo and Raph and I thought they were 2 of the most popular as well. It's also not just based on turtle personality but color.  Purple and Orange are not usual favorite colors for a lot of boys.

It was a short trailer and it looks exactly as you'd expect from a Zelda game, good.  Looks like there will be some familiar characters of past as cameos in the game as well. 

Yes you're being paranoid.  That one is fine.

2 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Well, safe to say it was a success considering this is after a single weekend...

I bought a bit of NTDOY stock on Thursday just for kicks.  Between this and another Zelda in 2023 it's easy Nintendo is going to beat revenue numbers for the year.

9 minutes ago, 3rdStrongestMole said:

I've just seen a lot of Genesis seals get a little more love for the grade from WATA. But I didn't even think about the seal differences... they probably were the tube sealed ones I've seen in the past.

The scale has changed a bit over time.  There's plenty of A++ out there that would be A+ if graded today, they did get a bit tighter.  On CIB they went the other way though.  Probably about a .2 higher on a lot of stuff now.

I wouldn't read too much into any individual data point.  Things go low and high all the time.  I bought a under the radar game for about $250 on a weekly, cracked it out and sold it for $1300 in hours on ebay.  Savvy buyers will know which ones went high and which ones went low.

As for that MK, you don't want a 9.6 A anywhere near $5k.  Overpaid and seller is happy with that sale I'm sure. 

1 hour ago, MrWunderful said:

blah blah blah

Just remove "Wata" from your take on my post and replace it with "graded items".  Yes I collect graded stuff, AFA / CAS toys, VGA / CGC / Wata Games and CGC Nintendo Powers.  I don't care about any specific company.  My comments are that every company has under or over graded items and makes plenty of mistakes along the way.  

Whenever all of the hate is directed as one specific company, I roll my eyes because they've all had questionable grades.  And I'm no better, even though I've graded 1000s of items, there's definitely been a couple where I completely missed something that a grading company caught.  I'd like to think my eye is second to none but the point remains, people make mistakes and a grading company is a people heavy process.

You clearly hate graded games and love telling people about it, so carry on.  

2 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

Crazy how having a ton of work = excuse for poor quality. 
 

In my industry, if I need someone to install 10,000 receptacles, and 25% are done shitty, I lay that guy off with a not eligible for re-hire.   It shouldn’t matter if its 1 or 1 million, all the work should be performed to acceptable quality. 
 

The addition of “quotas” show they don’t actually care about the product, just making as much money as possible and churning out grades. 

For one, no one said ton of work = poor quality.  It's just simple numbers when you have a lot of people estimating something that is already subjective then grades will vary.  No different than 3 boxing judges grading a fight, how often do all 3 of them say the same exact thing?  They don't, they average.  It doesn't mean 2 of the 3 people were wrong or did their job incorrectly.

Also, a strawman argument has nothing to do here... installing receptacles?  By that logic we should fire all weathermen because they aren't allowed to be wrong more than 25% of the time?  The analogy doesn't make sense.

7 hours ago, Link said:

I'm not familiar with what Sotheby's-level detail would mean, but when stakes are high I would want attention to detail and not ratings that are clearly inaccurate. Fortunately I'm not interested in grading or putting that kind of money into this, so my opinion is immaterial anyway  

Here's the point in a nutshell.

If it's my game, I can spend 10 minutes with it looking for every little imperfection under various angles of light and carefully assessing the details.  You can be as precise as you want.

If you're a grader and have 1,000 items coming across your desk everyday, then it's a different story.  You probably have a few minutes tops to evaluate the item.  And this is speculation on my part, but if an item declared $10,000 comes across your desk then you probably allocate a bit more time to that one.  And the $100 or less items are quickly rushed through.

They mitigate this by having multiple sets of eyes on every item (i.e. just not one person responsible for the grade) but that just helps you get to an average.

Said another way, take 10 of the most qualified people in the entire world to evaluate the condition of an item (ignoring what a "qualified person" would be). I guarantee you don't get the same grade 10 times.  And that is the point, there is subjectivity in the grade and it is just an opinion of a game's condition.  Yet some people confuse this and think it's a "fact" that a game is a given grade.  It's not.

1 hour ago, Link said:

Just generally... why are there so many problems? Is this the kind of thing where every single issue gets a lot of attention due to the nature bearing high expectations, or is the whole service sector really so totally unreliable in its sole purpose?

Humans are imperfect and grading is a subjective human process.  There's no more problems in this industry than any other.  You go to a fast food restaurant and they mess up your order then you're annoyed, but when they mess up your $100 or $1000 (or more) sealed game and people are more vocal.

On 2/25/2023 at 1:27 PM, inasuma said:

 

For instance, the last year or so of events has really shown me that there still isn't a "great" grading house for games yet. Wata has made strides to improve, and it's obvious, but there are still some sore spots. VGA still has dogpoop turnarounds, and CGC is too new and has had allegations of authenticating and doubling + tripling down on reseals.

I'm not sure what you're expecting then?  I'd say all of the big 3 are "Great", but none are perfect and no grading house for any hobby is perfect, nor even close.  You can look up literally anything and there will be talk about overgrading / undergrading / reseals / trimmed cards / altered coins / retouched comics / etc.  

If you choose grading then you are accepting the plus or minus error in the grade itself, handling risk, shipping risk, etc.  You don't want anyone to see their items lost, damaged or graded wrong (which comes down to subjectivity), but it happens.

I've seen questionable seals and grades from all of the companies and sadly thus is life. 

"Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear."

There should be an option of "Maybe, it's up to you".  I'm not passionately yes or no either way.

However, I'll leave you with one food for thought concept.  The longer I've collected I've realized the thrill is in the hunt, not owning the items. Unless it's a true childhood favorite or a game with deep meaning to you, the other hundreds (thousands?) of games on your shelf don't have nearly as much attachment.

So I love the thrill of hunting, finding, and grading a high grade CIB.  9.4 and up are especially no joke.  In those cases I don't mind having a CIB that's playable, a CIB that's graded and perhaps even a sealed game that's graded.  

They aren't disjoint topics.  You can easily keep a playable CIB and buy a graded CIB if you want to appease both your gamer and collector side.  Nothing says you can only do one.

I've seen questionable or fake games in every one of the 3 company holders.  I've seen what I perceive be be undergraded or overgraded games in every one of the 3 company holders.

I've had a game that I thought was authentic rejected by one company to be authenticated by another.  

End of the day grading is subjective but when done right, it does increase the value of the item and provides some sort of 3rd party "expert" opinion even if it may not be 100% accurate.  If you cannot accept the risks then graded games are not for you.  

For people who complain about graded games be thankful you don't collect graded toys.  Those are much higher risk as they can yellow over time (and a yellowed toy commands less value, yet the slab would not have the yellowed designation), bubbles can crack over time, o-rings can wear out and limbs can become detached, etc.

As far as graded games go, the risk is very minimal with at degradation at least. 

11 hours ago, mlbfan10 said:

Happy birthday Jone @jonebone! Mine is tomorrow! 

Happy Bday to you too!