Where have I seen this before? Oh, yeah...

"Eastern Bloc nations have joined the Soviet Union in the creation of the Global Democracies Against Abuse to protest the continuing violations of civil rights by Western nations, declaring the most egregious violator to be the United States..."

Why would Tim be copying an old commie trick *cough*tencent*cough*...?

Scottish Martial Arts wrote on Sep 9, 2020, 20:11:

Quinn wrote on Sep 9, 2020, 19:06:
So everyone who doesn't agree with you guys are simply racist now? So pathetic.

No, Quinn, your brain is unable to follow an argument or infer anything that isn't explicitly spelled out for you. Hell, you're too dense to notice a bolded part of a block quote, let alone connect it to longstanding racial stereotypes. If you'd like to see what rebutting a rhetorical antagonist looks like, please examine Eirikrautha's post: he did a bang up job.

Speaking of which, you make a good rebuttal, Eirikrautha. I don't follow football so I can't produce a counter argument other than to say that the impression I got living in the Bay Area in 2012-14 was that Kaepernick was a star quarterback. Seeing the *ahem* racially conservative members of this board proclaim him a terrible player raised a red flag, so I googled "quarterback ranking" to see if he was really that fucking terrible. Turns out that statistics say he wasn't terrible, and ranks along names that non-Football fans still know. But you've pointed out the limitations of those statistics and the downward trend of his career, so I'll concede to someone who knows better than I do.

Thank you. He wasn't terrible, especially his first season, but he became pretty bad. He has 12,000 career yards and 72 touchdowns (which ranks him 167th and 174th all time in the NFL), so he was a middle to lower tier QB, but he was 28-30 W/L as a starter, which is pretty bad, with a lot of those losses in his later seasons. If not for his protests, he wouldn't even be mentioned in football today... which is kind of the point, one suspects...

Scottish Martial Arts wrote on Sep 9, 2020, 07:32:

Prez wrote on Sep 9, 2020, 06:12:
Football is still about athletes with amazing skill right? I don't mind if he kneels, sits, stands on his head, whatever during the National Anthem. He really just isn't that good at Football.

That is objectively not true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Football_League_career_passer_rating_leaders

Maybe you're just not very good at tolerating Blacks speaking their mind?

No, you're just not good at math. Kap has 1600 attempts, way less than the number most of the other passers on that list have and barely past the cut-off. And, as a statistic, passer rating tells you next to nothing. You can get a perfect rating making 5-yard check-downs that amount to nothing, but get hammered by throwing five 60-yard touchdowns and one interception. Kap was benched his final year in the league because he didn't produce, not because he was outspoken. The NFL will look past rapes, murders, theft, and 16 baby-mamas... but they're going to banish a productive QB because he's "outspoken"? Not a chance. Kapernick outlived his usefulness on the field, and tried to "activist" his way into keeping his job. Nothing noble about him...

Mordhaus wrote on Sep 1, 2020, 18:14:
Full price a year later after pissing off a lot of fans by taking the Epic bag o cash. Have they no shame?

Yeah. This is a deep discount game for me, just on principle. It's the kind of game I would have snapped up, if not for the epic exclusivity deal. Now, I've waited so long I can wait a lot longer, for a lower price, or just never. Hope that epic cash was worth it...

It was. Now it will be a great tool for venture capitalists to extract money from potential users. As soon as the reins pass from the people who love the product to the people whose sole concern is the quarterly profit, expect a decline in whatever made the product special in the first place...

Quinn wrote on Aug 18, 2020, 17:40:
On the YouTube channel of Rock Paper Shotgun I mentioned that BG3 looks ridiculously much like Divinity Original Sin 2, saying that if you'd just fall into a dev video of BG3 you'd think you'd be looking at DOS2. Rock Paper Shotgun reacted to my comment saying that it's ridiculous I'd say this and that the game "looks nothing like DOS2". I replied in turn with a timestamp of their BG3 video where the inventory is open and the EXACT SAME ITEM ICONS are used in DOS2. Maybe they're placeholders, but the point is that my statement couldn't be that much off the mark for them replying the way they did.

Anyway, yeah, I was excited when I heard the first news about BG3. Crazy excited. Not anymore. I bled DOS2 absolutely dry, pouring hours and hours into my first run but never finishing it so months later I started over and poured hours and hours in it again and still couldn't finish it somehow. If you'd ask me how I'd imagine my personal hell, it'd be playing DOS2 again in an eternal loop.

I'll get excited about BG3 again when I see footage of it and I don't IMMEDIATELY think I'm looking at DOS2.

If the sum of the IQs at RPS was transformed into the same quantity of tons of oxygen, you would suffocate instantly. They've gotten so blatantly stupid that I almost immediately assume that anything on that site is not only wrong, but the exact opposite of whatever they say...

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 17, 2020, 07:34:

Mr. Tact wrote on Aug 17, 2020, 06:21:
*sigh* What is wrong with people? bad customer behavior

Decades worth of social engineering programming that has instilled in the American populace a sense of entitlement without any sense of responsibility. Hand in hand with that is the uniquely American belief, as ridiculously errant as it is, in the "rugged individualist". There is also that wildly stupid belief that "the customer is always right" when, in fact. the customer is wrong 90% of the time. Because of the aforementioned self-entitlement, Americans feel completely free to abuse those they consider "beneath them" or whom they feel are "denying them their freedom".

However, because we Americans have one of the worst public education systems among all first world nations, we're far too stupid and uneducated to realize the difference between "freedom" and "liberty" in both a philosophical setting and as a practical application.This becomes even more pronounced when you add the American brand of Christianity in to the mix.

What this pandemic has done is show just how fragile and brittle both the society and culture of America are when faced with any kind of challenge. We only function well when we are able to get what we want and do what we want while being able to completely ignore one another.

Funny, the society that preceded the "decades of social engineering" had the concepts of "rugged individualism," "liberty," "freedom," and even more Christianity than at present, and they built the social mores that you are complaining modern Americans are not following. Maybe the problem isn't what you think it is?

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 17, 2020, 11:19:

mxmissile wrote on Aug 17, 2020, 10:08:

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 17, 2020, 07:34:
Decades worth of social engineering programming that has instilled in the American populace a sense of entitlement without any sense of responsibility. Hand in hand with that is the uniquely American belief, as ridiculously errant as it is, in the "rugged individualist". There is also that wildly stupid belief that "the customer is always right" when, in fact. the customer is wrong 90% of the time. Because of the aforementioned self-entitlement, Americans feel completely free to abuse those they consider "beneath them" or whom they feel are "denying them their freedom".

Dedicating a month of not wearing a mask, just cause I read through that whiny BS. Gratz!

Please do! Your potential death from COVID-19 will be a warning to others to not follow such stupidity.

Or, he could be among the 99.7% of the population who gets COVID 19 and survives. What a gambler!

People installed Firefox because it wasn't IE and it wasn't Google. Cue stupid decisions by Mozilla all over the board along with attempts to make Firefox more like Chrome. Little wonder...

Because the vast majority of new shows are trash? Granted, that's also true of old shows, but they've already been weeded out for us...

Good game for the time. But rather than attempting to milk more money for less effort, why don't you... I don't know... try something new? Create a new game? Just because the game was good 12 years ago doesn't mean I'm going to buy it again...

Well, it would be hard for it to be worse than the movie...

Cutter wrote on Aug 3, 2020, 13:32:
Well they're French after all.

Not just French. French Canadian (the horror)!

Beamer wrote on Jul 28, 2020, 23:33:
How many white children pick Asian or black superheroes as their favorite?

OK, answer your own question. Give me the number (and citations). You don't know, do you? You have no numbers, just a stereotype in your own head of how "white" kids act or think. You are everything you profess to hate.

BTW, my favorite comic book growing up was Powerman & Iron Fist. I'm sure it is considered evil nowadays (cultural appropriation and all that other ignorant whining), but two heroes who were expressing very different cultures than my own were my favorites. But that's not allowed by your stereotypes, is it?

I guess I am incredibly blessed that I am part of the (apparently) minute fraction of the human population that can identify with people that don't look like me. Also, apparently, the inability to identify with those that don't look like you is not racism... somehow. I welcome games that "expand the viewpoints" that they are told from, but I don't know what that has to do with race. But let's give the piece a fair shake, because he says some good things.

The entertainment we consume affects and shapes how we see the world around us and the people who live within it.

Ahhh, cultivation theory. One of the most celebrated, and least empirically demonstrated, sociological theories amongst modern hand-wringers.

As we strive to represent diverse peoples from diverse backgrounds, we must do so responsibly and carefully.

OK. Representing diverse people and backgrounds is definitely a good thing. Of course, we probably differ as to which components of a person's makeup best creates "diversity," but not an awful take.

It is impossible for it to be a formula because we as people cannot be reduced to formulas. Well-rounded characters are a tapestry woven of the specificity of the culture they grew up in, the places they have lived, the occupations they have held, and moreover the series of events that molded and shaped them, just as we all are.

Preach! But how do you then square this with the desire to see people who "look" like you? Isn't that suggesting that there is a formula, starting with race?

To create inclusive characters is not to surrender the creative vision, and to say that embracing diversity means losing that agency or that it is a creative burden is simply untrue and must be rejected.

Fair enough.

Moving forward, my goal is to continue to tackle this issue, and find ways to continue to expand the viewpoints games can represent.

It means that we should seek out expert opinions who will help us avoid stereotypes, and more importantly, highlight aspects of our characters that will ring true with the groups we hope to represent. If we are successful, we create well rounded characters that seem familiar and yet new and will speak to the diverse players who spend time in the worlds we create.

Right on! Now, about creating respectful characters with diverse viewpoints, experiences, and beliefs... How about a respectful view of evangelical Christians, as informed by those who are? Maybe a diverse set of political opinions, with both right and left represented in their own words and rationales. Perhaps a view of class that didn't boil down to "poor, good; rich, bad!" Wouldn't these be creative and refreshing? Somehow I doubt that's what he (and his target audience here) mean by "diversity." More likely diversity means a lock-step view of the world where stereotypes of ideological opponents and the "wrong" races are the only ideas allowed. Bet he could work for Naughty Dog...

Exactly who asked for this? After the dumpster fire that was the last two (ehh, 1 & 1/2 to be fair) of these games, absolutely no expectation of quality whatsoever...

wtf_man wrote on Jul 23, 2020, 16:22:

Cutter wrote on Jul 23, 2020, 14:57:
No way, Apple is by far the more evil of the two. Not even a contest there.

To each their own... I rather pay for overpriced hardware and a ridiculous walled garden, than have Big Brother watching / keeping a profile on me.

But as soon as these new Linux devices are ready for prime time... I won't have to worry about which is the lesser of two very big evil's.

/shrug

The Uyghur slaves laboring to make Apple's phones appreciate your concern...

RedEye9 wrote on Jul 23, 2020, 09:18:

Beamer wrote on Jul 23, 2020, 09:10:

Jonjonz wrote on Jul 23, 2020, 06:36:
This is laughable coming from one of the industries main proponents of "games as a service."

Is it incompatible? Fortnite is his plan for games as a service. People own Fortnite.

Anyway, I read what Sweeney is saying is to change the rules. Epic is playing by the current rules, but wants new rules. They do not feel confident in being able to start a new business and create new rules, but they'd like the end-state to be new rules.

Unless there is huge consumer demand, changing the rules as an entrant is new impossible. Changing the rules when you're competing with someone that has a >80% share is also near impossible, again, unless consumers are going to choose you vs the incumbent due to those new rules. I think GOG proves that this isn't true, as GOG is a fraction of a percent the size of Steam despite no DRM.

The de facto Monopoly makes the rules.
I'm glad Mr. Sweeney is suggesting that there is a better way for the consumer.

No, Sweeney is suggesting a better way for his company. When you are a wealthy, but medium-sized, competitor against an industry leader, without as much cash on hand but with a loyal fan-base, what would you attack? The loyalty.

Valve's greatest asset at this point is those consumers who don't want multiple services for their games (for whatever reasons). So, Sweeney is suggesting universal ownership so that the vast Steam libraries many consumers already have will also be accessible on EGS. That way a consumer has no barrier to using just EGS if they only want to use one service.

Were the situations reversed, there is no way that Epic would be suggesting this move. They are attacking brand loyalty because that's what their main competitor has and they don't. It's as simple as that. The sort of people that think this is consumer friendly must be the same sort of people who believe their bank when it sends out ads that say, "We care about you." When you recognize that 50% of the population is at or below average IQ (by definition), and yet are 50% of the consuming public, you'll understand why some folks take Sweeney at his word...

What's the armament loadout on a Cessna? Does it have an internal weapons bay, or do I need guns on the hardpoints?

Or maybe I'll just stick to DCS...

Sepharo wrote on Jul 13, 2020, 15:07:

Prez wrote on Jul 13, 2020, 13:38:
My problem is that EVERYTHING is political now. The execrable "Last Jedi" reviewed well not because it was a good movie (it absolutely wasn't) but because it hit the required political tone. Gaming rags are even worse (Just look at the reviews for "Last of Us 2"). I dont know if I trust ANY review site anymore. Did it receive a good review because it's a good game? Or did it receive them because it played the right cards on issues I have no interest in?

If it is mixed just for its weirdness, I can handle that. I mean, it's Kojima.

/me holds up mirror

You're fully through the rabbit hole if you think the reason that film critics liked SW8 was because of political reasons.

Well, you're fully through the rabbit hole if you think the reason that film critics liked SW8 wasn't. It was an awful movie by any measure. And it was an even worse Star Wars movie...