I am so glad to hear this! Thank you for sharing, I was anticipating the results of this!

Well, the Monster Hunter Wilds Beta test ended. I’m devastated honestly, because I didn’t get to play it enough! It started the day I had work and ended 2 hours after I got off today. I misread the timezone and I thought it ended on the 4th and 11:59am in my timezone. It ended at like 8pm or so.

So that’s too bad! Other than that ~8 hour treat that I thoroughly enjoyed, I’ve finally gotten around to Dragon’s Dogma 2 and I’m enjoying it as well (though slighted now after my favorite series was ripped away from me). It feels a little floaty for some of the characters, but it so far has been a good experience. I’ve been in a bit of a gaming slump so it’s been nice to relax some and play some nostalgic games right as winter is hitting.

The gaming slump I was in had me pretty much only playing Phantom Brave and sifting through little games like Sonic Mania, so I’m looking forward to the games I have on my radar cause it’s really the first time in a while!

Oh also, Amanda the Adventurer 2 came out and my partner and I played through it a little bit. It’s pretty good, although it isn’t the most straightforward. We had to use a guide for quite a bit of it and, while we were close to the right track for each puzzle, we just were not on the ball with what the developers wanted from us. I think the first game was a lot like that though if I remember, and so really what matters more with that in mind is how they continue the story and the atmosphere, which they really nailed. The perfect amount of corporate conspiracy supernatural demon cult technological red herring horror.

All in all, I guess being an adult means winter is gaming time cause I’ve been pretty much too busy the rest of the year to really want or have time to game. For me, a big part of gaming is how I’m feeling, sometimes I want point and pop, sometimes I want laid back, sometimes I want something new, and sometimes I want to make numbers go big. And sometimes, I want to do other things that aren’t gaming, which makes actually gaming feel a little guilty.

That’s funny, I feel the opposite about Deadlock! There’s not really a MOBA first person shooter that is out there, particularly one with such an in depth movement system that is fairly ubiquitous for each character. It does have a skill ceiling, but I would say for casual play, especially starting out, it’s mostly about being patient brick wall and playing the denial game to force mistakes that you can punish.

It’s effectively a first person MOBA with characters that you might see in Paladins. It feels really good, but it is intense for sure – my biggest issue is map navigation and learning it as a whole. But I also really like technical gameplay, one of my favorite games is Smash Bros. Melee so this is just an extension of that love.

I would say if you wanted to give it a shot (if you haven’t already) give each character a shot in the training ground. Get a small feel for their abilities and it’ll help you get a sense of not only what feels fun for you, but also what to expect from the opponents! Edit: I had read your comment over again after I posted of course and I had forgotten that you did go into the testing ground. Sorry! lol. End edit. And for items, that’s a bit harder, I personally don’t care much and just go by passives that sound helpful. Just click once though, double clicking will buy and then sell the item.

Which, in a way is a testament to my first paragraph. Patience is key ;)

Yes and no. Some games you just cannot be patient about, as part of the whole selling point is the community in the moment. For example, the way in which hype went for Helldivers 2 pretty much necessitated that if you weren’t part of the community in the first 3 months then you missed out on a lot of “storytelling”.

This would go for most multiplayer games. Single player games though have a lot more freedom to be late to the game, so to speak ;)

Otherwise, for me personally it usually just comes down to the IP. Monster Hunter is my go-to, so it’s sort of a no-brainer for me to go for the new game as they come out barring any major issues or personal life events, I get them. I did buy Cyberpunk on release, however that was more because I wanted to see what my new 3080 could do and I was looking for a solid single player game, and I didn’t encounter nearly as many problems as other players did. But, I haven’t gotten the DLC for it because I haven’t been looking for that kind of game again yet.

Being ready for the game is another aspect I take into consideration, Dragon’s Dogma 2 was something I was pretty highly anticipating, but after hearing about the release issues and remembering what DD:DA was like to replay, I realized that I wasn’t ready for it again at release. However now it’s on sale and I’ve been out of gaming for a few months outside of small old games on my Steam Deck once in a while. I picked it up and I’ve been enjoying it.

So I think patient gaming really comes down to having the understanding of the social aspect the game is trying to sell - sometimes it’s marketing (2077) and sometimes it’s the nature of a game that’s fun to play with other people. Getting games like Phasmaphobia, Dale & Dawsons, they aren’t really going to be that fun if you’re multiple years late to the game. Similarly, if your friend just finds out about the game late, it’s just a smaller niche, being your friend group instead of random people in public lobbies, at which point you can expect to play that game a handful of times before your group drops it forever, lol.

Is the average fortnite player of voting age?

The Boys is a good one, and an interesting one specifically because it plays to the StarWars-Imperialist / DC-Marvel-Authoritarian types. Garth Ennis, who wrote for The Punisher comics and of course, The Boys, is vehemently anti-everything that these types of authoritarians stand for.

Yet despite his hatred of them, he writes them exceptionally well in a way that is lost on the less observant viewers (man I just love that phrase lol). The people who love the Punisher for the wrong reasons are the very same people who love The Boys for the wrong reasons, it’s actually crazy how much crossover there is between the two pieces.

I think The Boys (show) also played up this aspect as a way to vilify power seeking behavior to the Conservative crowd by mocking Homelander outright, and subtly by showing the effects on The Boys (the group themselves and their struggles with power and how they use it). Very similarly to Sunny, there is a shift in the way The Boys is perceived by the conservative crowd around Season 3, as the writers were amping up their highlighting of the issues specifically because idiots were perpetuating Storm-lander’s sexualization of weaponized dehumanization (i.e. getting off on Nazi romance) - in the show so much so that even Homelander was like dude that’s fucked up.

The issue of course is that Homelander is justified to these idiots, so making him look silly and dumb comes to be one of the only ways that a specific demographic will understand that his actions are bad – which of course, they get offended by and do not like, because they’ve wanted to emulate Homelander the whole time. Characters like the right-wing Stepdad and the Podcaster Listener at the convenience store show how an individual can fall into the cycle of hatred perpetuated by the media and the entire point is completely lost on them because Homelander lasering those liberals was exactly what he should have done.

Part of it is scary, because I don’t believe it’s Marvel and cartoons that are breeding this mindset. These people are conservative christians who listen to talk radio and watch the news, and they are not being inspired by characters like Homelander, they were already like this. Characters like Homelander or the Punisher are just placeholders, scapegoats, a way for these hateful individuals to self-insert themselves into media. This does not mean that the answer is culling these characters existence, but rather continuing to highlight their faults and flaws in order to re-engage people to show them what it is like to actually be a good person.

I formed a barometer for measuring comedy and it’s perceived ripple effect on society. Look at the comedy piece, the joke, the theme as a whole, whichever element, and then ask - does it highlight the issue, or does it perpetuate it? It may be the case that the intention of the piece to be a commentary denigrating fascism, but if it does a poor job conveying that message it might just look like an over-the-top approval of it.

An example of this that hit me close to was for It’s Always Sunny during 2016, the insane “I can do whatever I want” antics that some Americans were replicating was seemingly getting higher and the crossover between people quoting the show in the wrong ways just made me realize that maybe the show hadn’t done a good enough job presenting itself to less observant viewers. Well they also felt the same way because they really ramped up the highlighting of the issues after season 12, in a way that is presented in a different fashion.

This of course, was disliked by that specific crowd - there’s a few people who aren’t hateful who just don’t like the new presentation and that’s fine (they’re wrong of course! lol). It wasn’t uncommon for a few years to see people rage about how the show went woke, and still happens but less often now because they all got angry and dropped the show (Newsflash asshole, they were talking about you the whole goddamn time!).

Anyway, as mentioned with Starship Troopers, this happens with a lot of popular media in the conservative sphere, as can be seen with Idiocracy. There’s a ton of other examples too, but we’re all aware of how often this occurs.

It seems to be what’s popular these days

Spotify playlists I guess?

What a weird show that was lol

How ephemeral.

I can’t wait for it to be used for important long term information.

It is rough isn’t it? It used to be that you’d get the forum style answer, now most of the people who wrote those deleted their accounts.

Pre-2019 searches that resulted in deleted comments happened, but rarely. Post Exodus it is now very flippant on the results you’ll get.

Yeah lol. I’m not usually one for whattaboutism but it is extremely hypocritical to be currently engaged in providing arms to and siding with an extermination and talk about a different human rights violation that isn’t ours. The tragic and indefensible actions from the past such as Tienanmen Square or the Tuskegee experiments can never be erased but should be used as references for things from our history to not repeat. Mao Zedong initiated the Great Leap Forward policy that lead to the death of 45 million people and their culture and heritage, some regard him as the best thing that could have happened to China by increasing the literacy and housing by a massive amount (which just happened to coincide with the 45 million deaths that are completely irrelevant), and now the U.S. is an aid in the same position Israel/Zionists razing Palestine.

The amount of culture and heritage already lost is appalling and it really is a “look in the mirror” moment for the U.S.

Relatedly unrelated: I think about the Uyghur and Syrian refugee’s often and am often saddened by how we did not give them refuge and some politicians like Ben Carson even insulting the refugees comparing them dogs.

Crunchyroll has its own bullshit too tbh. It just happens to be that the industry is worse than their bs, so Crunchyrolls shenanigans is really just the anime industry.

When the third party candidate admits that their campaign is solely to siphon away votes from Democrats? With the Green Party being primarily funded by Republican donors, like Home Depot, and Trump saying the quiet part out loud,

"Trump, has embraced Kennedy as an ally, has previously spoken fondly of both Stein and West.

“Cornel West, he’s one of my favorite candidates,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Philadelphia in June. “I like her also, Jill Stein, I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100%.”

What is the purpose of the Green Party taking away swing states from Democrats? All that leads to is Trump in office again. So what is the purpose? So that Trump can continue the genocide instead of the Democrats?

People like us getting into politics, which will only happen if we are allowed to hold positions of office.

Right now, we’ve seen that hate crimes and death threats against PoC and queer politicians forced them to step down out of fear of their livelihood because of the events of 2016, and we’ve seen that throughout 2008-2016 and after 2020 that Democrat-running candidates can actually accomplish small steps towards making progress, even if the machine as a whole still tries to stop them. If Republicans/Conservatives had their way, someone like Jabari Brisport would not be safe to exist in politics.

What you don’t realize is that I did write up a response to the other one. Then I got distracted, the app closed, I lost my response and I moved on.

But sure, insult me more. Good discussion.

Thank you! I initially found the title of the lawsuit but I couldn’t find where to actually make the claim, so I appreciate it!

It’s really good. One of the only games where a pacifist run feels worth it, because the game design is done so well.

Play the game normally first though

Or we could, you know, force social media companies to not use psychologists to make their apps more addictive by design. Something called ethics.

It’s extremely telling that you can look for a job as a psychologist for Meta and all the opportunities that are available are UX researchers.