Lurker > Wanglicious

ZeroSignal posted...

- Iyo vs Bianca vs Rhea - Rhea had no plot agenda after Liv, Bianca got pulled away from Naomi/Jade at the last second, and Iyo's acting like a spoiled child

now hold on Iyo's literally done nothing wrong here. she got a title shot through the usual "complain about it and then it works," won, and now Rhea is the one bitching and complaining when she lost. anytime Bianca and Rhea are in the ring together they just straight up disrespect her as tiny Japanese lady which is pretty annoying and why the crowd always ends up chanting her name. by all accounts, Rhea's a ??? throwing a tantrum, Bianca's just a typical heel, and Iyo's a face they're kinda burying in most interactions that aren't a literal match. if this results in Rhea having a heel turn it'd be super easy since she's already like 80% of the way there.

there was a real question as to who was main eventing night 1 between Iyo/Rhea/Bianca or Punk/Rollins/Reigns so i'm glad the latter won out in the end. just plain bigger stars and actually main eventing means something.

some guys get 72 virgins, others get 108 stars of destiny.

i can't really consider josh's stuff a special as much as it's just that he puts out 40m shows regularly. like, every week or two just new material and he's been doing that for about a year now.

he targets just 2-3 subjects, wraps them together neatly as he tells the story, and entertains while doing so the whole time. it's technically simple but ridiculously hard to just keep pulling off.

Josh Johnson legit has been the breakout comedian in 2024 and still 2025 for me. dude is on a ridiculous path.

cena's promo of walking out with the belt reminded me way too much of Punk's promo of walking out with the belt. both times, with the ROH belt and the WWE one after the pipebomb when he won.

feels like it's setting the seeds for that feud there already.

hey ICE when you find people on tindr do you deport them before or after the date

also a cool spot, patriotic luchador's german suplex of rey onto dragon. that was clean as fuck.

https://youtu.be/YOFrM7L3Hqk?si=38SigFvzN9dZeGQ7&t=117

ultimately pretty sure the devil may cry anime will be the better adaptation, even if it had brooding dante in it.

playing the game again right now and his intro is definitely up there.
as is the fact that he fully embraces that he's a frog, hops around like one, but is totally a knight through and through and it's cool.

Robo gets a rocket punch, can start a dance party on his own, and nothing is more adorable in the game than the sprite of Robo milling the fields.

simultaneously, nothing is more depressing than pretty much everything to do with him. apocalyptic future that's the end of the world? check. thrown out and nearly killed by his own kind for being sentient and breaking from the robot mindset? check. singlehandedly spent 400 years to raise a forest, improve the world more than anyone else despite how lonely it'll be, and did it all just because he could, check. dude even gets a tragic romance by the end.

and yet, still a kickass theme and the most hopeful character in the game. doesn't even know if he'll exist once the game is done but regrets nothing. the only positive thing in his life, regardless of the era, are the friends he's got and he gives everything for them.

ain't no one topping my boy in the game. cool, tragic, by far the most in depth character, and somehow still better than everyone else in combat.

Robo all the way
has the most development over any character, loyal to a cause more than anybody else, and has the most tragic life through the game.

guess that settles where punk is at WM.

also umineko is absolutely horror.
yeah it's a murder/mystery, it's also part of the horror genre. pretty much everything involving magic is part of the horror genre. seven stakes, the goats, all the blood, cannibalism, etc. the second magic gets involved it dives right into that field. you can't really pretend a lady with a shotgun running away from goatmen trying to eat her isn't horror. or all the cannibalism that happens after that.

umineko's got the best highs by far but it also has the biggest low and drags the most, though that can't be helped with its sheer length. also best music by far.
nonary games at least is complete, really good high, and doesn't dip nearly as badly.

if you don't want to give certain info the people from the census, don't. you don't have to and they themselves will tell you this. they're trying to find data that will be used to provide services for your neighborhood and it's up to you to give them that or not. there's no double checking, no anything besides what you say and you can say whatever you want.

honestly one of their worst months. this and last month have both been bad. Jan was fine, December was fine, November was great. hoping April picks up.

you see that mountain over there?
you can be the king of it

oh yeah
holy shit at Iyo winning.

surprise title change on Raw like that is pretty rare and it wasn't with many shenanigans to do it. as clean as it'll get on someone protected like Rhea.

Higurashi anime also suffers from the fact that it was brought back from the dead a decade later when it should've stayed there.

punk on the mic made it almost sound like he's gonna make the WM match a triple threat. granted, there's rumors of that already and it's doubtful but man, he just can't stop making gold every feud he's in.

best selling point for majikoi on this board? i think it was dowolf who worked on the translation.

FMA Brotherhood? i can easily see what's "off" there - it assumed you saw the original series.

generally the process goes something like watch episodes 1-26 of the original, then go to brotherhood. the pacing is significantly different and the characters/plot will all be different since the anime went its own route. but if you really want to get into the brothers more and especially everything to do with nina, original took more time. the first 10-13 episodes of Brotherhood are essentially fast forwarded recaps, then it gets into the new content and takes its time again.

see i'm in the category that looks at things, goes "well some of this is broken, but a lot of the system was already broken and much of what's happening is revealing that." so it'll get worse before it gets better but i'm still pretty hopeful it gets better.

the USAID shit is just a slam dunk of that example. do people want their taxes used for that, no. do people care that it got revealed through convoluted legal mechanisms to make DOGE, no. at least, not compared to the waste being found because the view goes "that's my money, why is it being used in these ways." that's largely how certain affairs are being handled right now it seems; trump does something questionable, yet it's for something that's popular so it's allowed. or trump does something stupid/crazy, it isn't popular, but it's just chucked under the bed because there's so many things happening that it doesn't matter as much. he's not working exclusively under that view but a good chunk of what he's said/his press secretary has said keep being coded in "this is what's popular, this is what the people want."

edit: or to simplify, it's a very "the ends justify the means" mentality. which, for a lot of people who've been burned by the system or are frustrated or think the country's been going the wrong way for over a decade now? yeah, that's appealing. it just also means that you're gonna end up in a lot of shit, both from the means and from all the stuff revealed.

huh, so we're doing cody vs. the rock at WM after all. and the rock is apparently Shang Tsung now, so who's gonna be his Goro?

ehh, i don't think it was out of malice, it's the kind of poll that's easy to misrepresent because it really is at the very end where they're like "okay so support is up to 37%" at which point it's like wait, you just tried to spin this whole thing as a positive but that's all you got?

the tone and approach is absolutely acting like it's liked a lot more than it really is, i've objection to the fact that they simply listed the favorable result at 37% but didn't want to say the unfavorable result. generally i find that poll's summary of results to be a little too biased in trying to make it sound good so i don't fault you for falling for that.

red_sox_777 posted...

If people making 50k or less per year are against it, then it should be removed. Of course richer people are going to be willing to pay more money to get a less congested experience but poorer people can't afford that.

took me a while to re-find where i read that, NY Post article that took the data from the Sienna Poll back in December 2 months ago.

https://archive.is/mdWSf
https://nypost.com/2024/12/10/us-news/most-new-yorkers-loathe-kathy-hochuls-congestion-toll-eye-opening-poll-says/

relevant part:

"The poorest New Yorkers were most likely say they opposed the toll, with 54% of those making under $50,000 against the plan, and 22% the middle or unsure, according to the poll."

and considering the costs are being pushed to us.... yeah, those with the lower income brackets aren't happier with it. everything from 60th street and down will involve the vast majority of working areas and the vast majority of places to go out and have fun. i'm a guy, i can use the train at midnight after drinking. most girls won't. they ain't happy with being made to eat another $2-4 tax.

so the current poll is more favorable compared to the December one but i mean... the results of that one were:

"Its opposed by City voters nearly two-to-one and downstate suburbanites better than two-to-one. There is very little racial or gender divide on congestion pricing, Greenberg continued."

...with a near 2:1 unfavorable result. so it's closer than 2 months ago but still very unpopular.

i did, yes.
with the same conclusion at the end that only 37% of people in NYC approve it. you said New Yorkers favored it 2:1, that's just blatantly wrong. hell, that 66-32 is going to include the cab drivers who of course favor it more, they literally lobbied the government for this to the tune of millions of dollars. this is a cash cow for them. those aren't "New Yorkers favor it 2:1," that's a very, very select group doing so. the end result of those numbers are right there, you're just flatly wrong on that rebuttal.

it is amusing that despite being incredibly unpopular - once again, 37% approval - 59% still say Trump shouldn't be the one to do this. ....but they ain't gonna particularly mind. 20% find him more favorable if he does, 16% find him less favorable if he does, rest don't care or want to say; net win for him.

Thorn posted...

And historically (in Europe) congestion pricing approval rises pretty dramatically once it is in place for a few months. Like London went from -30 to +30 after they had it for about half a year.

curious, did the costs of the congestion get pushed to the people living there?
because it is here.

cabs, uber, lyft all have an extra surcharge for congestion prices within those regions and are exempt from it otherwise. so they lobbied like hell to get it passed because it'll be "cheaper" to take a cab and eat the $4 that way than it is to take your car and pay $9-27 more.

nevermind the impact on trucks, vans, etc for businesses because all those expenses got passed right on over to the rest of us. hence, why i say those of us in manhattan are split between being okay or being fucked over by it; those making 50k or less hate it, those making more are okay. by and large, that's your split.

that is not what they said at all. i assume you're running off this one:

https://pfnyc.org/news/new-poll-ny-voters-say-congestion-pricing-has-led-to-faster-commutes-and-less-traffic/

your 2:1 thing is people agreeing its led to less traffic, not that they favor it. in fact the number favored is pretty explicit there:

"Support among NYC voters appears higher (37% support) than in the December Siena study (32% support)."

37% of people support it across NYC. that's the improved version off 32%. Manhattan is the highest at 57% because of course it is, everyone in the outer boroughs makes up that -20% difference.

congestion pricing in nyc sucks so that's a good move. it was unpopular before launch, it's still unpopular now. those in the outer boroughs absolutely loathe it and those within the area are split between being okay with it and being fucked over by it. good riddance.

Guilty Gear X > X2 > Xrd >> Strive > Sign

and if live albums count, the Sound Alive one is incredibly good. my favorite piece of music from the series was that, the arranged versions of a couple tracks change so much of the feel it's perfect. Boom Town Blues played live is also just a crazy good tune.

also i somehow forgot the Ar Tonelico series, or Ciel Nosurge. all related to Gust which eventually struck gold with the later Atelier games but for music, those stood out better.

Chrono Trigger
Chrono Cross
Both Nier
Ys 7
Radiant Historia

doc ock
his run as Superior Spider-Man was absolutely fantastic.

ZeroSignal posted...

Nakamura vs Knight for the US title

aka
"so Knight wasn't lighting the world on fire but he's at least over, holy shit we've fucked up with Nakamura"

@SirChris is the guy you want for this kind of topic

the trilogy as a whole is great. genuinely great movies.

trdl23 posted...

1) How do you feel about the life insurance and financial services industry? (Likes, dislikes, concerns)

life insurance is a scam, other insurances wish they were a scam and try to be one (see: UHC's illegal 90% denial rate).

trdl23 posted...

2) What do you consider the three biggest financial challenges people like you (not necessarily you yourself) have today?

housing isn't affordable, insurance isn't affordable or reliable (sometimes both!), debt is too easy to get in and too difficult to get out (see: 30% interest credit cards).

trdl23 posted...

3) Based on your experience, describe the qualities and characteristics a good financial professional must have.

not trying to fuck me over.
not pretending he's on my side when he's trying to fuck me over.

trdl23 posted...

4) Do you currently work with a financial professional?
a) If so, could you give me details as to why and how it's helped you?
b) If not, why not? Do you see value in having one in the future?

lol no
don't make nearly enough money for that to be relevant. there's no value unless i've got at least 20k saved up and even then i don't know what there is to offer besides looking at CD rates and bonds, which i can do on my own/through the guy at Chase.

you do bin it. shooters already got binned earlier in the topic too, which is why you're just reduced to some adventure, puzzle, vns, and platformers at this point. even simulation wouldn't work, too many menu and options.

still think Ghost Trick is the best title mentioned so far.

there was a topic on it here where a few people talked about playing it and some did i believe.
but a lot of the backlash will come from culture war stuff, between the character creator having things like top surgery scars and everything around taash. the latter legit just turned people away with the preachiness and went into "this is actually just a bad character" camp.

did hear some complaints on things like puzzles so simple they shouldn't even be called that, gameplay too easy, weak visuals, inconsistency with previous games, and some stuff that just plain doesn't make sense (e.g., a thief's guild that's... not a thief's guild). all in all just looked meh and there's plenty out there that's better right now, and that's all before getting into culture war stuff. after it, uh... well the entire writing team is fired, director "resigned," Bioware's basically put out a statement distancing ME5 from it, and the game sold so poorly they don't even want to say how much sold, leaving it at "engaged players."

colliding posted...

more of the first one. critique of the writing and how the writing and gameplay intersect, but nothing on the technical side.

i mean a literal example of writing and gameplay intersecting would be Scribblenauts, if that's an idea you think you can work with. words are literally your powers in the game.

uh.... can't say there's much inventory to figure out with CT since you aren't really limited on it but like... if this is dealing with menus i'm not sure what we'd have that aren't going to be at least part VN, like the Telltale games (Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us). like Recettear would've been a thought for a sec but literal inventory management probably isn't a good idea in that case.

that's true, the 15th gen is definitely looked down upon because it honestly just couldn't compete. in terms of efficiency it's pretty incredible, doing everything the previous gen did without cranking wattage up. just.... well, people expected "better than last gen" or at least "able to compete" when it just got rocked in both categories. not a bad chip and at a good price can be worth it. just gotta get used to the new Core Ultra naming scheme.

amusingly i came in here to also say Chrono Trigger and am surprised i'm not the first.
it's a JRPG that manages to be beaten within 20h and does a lot of writing in the best ways it can be. it shows you don't need to be overly complicated to have memorable writing and memorable characters, a good framework, a story with a few twists and turns, some callbacks, and a little complexity goes a long way. it just does writing/narrative well, especially with the different settings for time travel.

there's not many RPGs i can think of that would fit this really. the only other really big example is Undertale, with an understanding that decision making can absolutely drive the plot one way or the other. but both this and CT have the possible issue of gameplay mentioned. they aren't hard, you can turn ATB off and make it a fully turnbased game, but it's still maybe more than you'd want.

VNs and adventure games would be the other main markets i can think of, especially if you don't want as much gameplay happening. Ghost Trick wins that category for being a single, complete game within the time frame.

GPU:
4090 > 7900 XTX > 4070 Ti Super = 7900 XT > 4070 Super
if you can find a 4090 in budget, that's the best. but that's an expensive budget and both it and the XTX are expensive right now. you can find builds with the 7900 XT out there though. not sure if the 4070 Ti Super can be found in many but if it's around, cool. probably the only NVIDIA card that seems worth it at the moment in prebuilds (anyone who wants to buy a 30x card is understandable, i got a 3070 myself).

the big thing on GPU these days is the VRAM and the above ranking factors that, 24GB, 24GB, 16GB, 20GB, and 12GB (the minimum standard). you can technically get a "strong GPU card" but it's absolutely useless at doing its job. you mentioned the 5000 series not happening, funny thing is that's a good thing on a few levels. biggest one being that the 5070 and especially 5080 are worthless - they gave a $1200 card 16GB of VRAM, letting a 2 year old AMD card occasionally beat it in some games because it's getting bottlenecked by that. in general you can basically just ignore the 50x line, ignore the 4060 period (it shouldn't be in this category at all), and are looking at 4070 to 4080 or AMD's equivalent in the 7900 XT(X). VRAM is especially important if you want to do 1440p gaming, and that basically means AMD on a budget, NVIDIA if not (specifically, the 4090).

CPU:
9800X3D > 7800X3D > anything else is a skip

when it comes to CPU, as others have said already, the X3D chips are the best you'll get. the 7800X3D, in gaming, outperforms Intel's latest and greatest and that is currently one gen old so you can get something with it that's affordable. Intel's 13th and 14th gen had some major issues that honestly should've warranted a recall but they didn't; supposedly it's all patched now but i wouldn't bother. 15th gen doesn't have that issue but it's also kinda weak so it's not worthwhile, Intel dropped the ball on this market pretty hard. eventually they'll recover but it ain't now, not for gaming purposes anyway.

true, for people getting into gaming now or who were sitting on older GPU that's a big deal because it's actually saying you can't play a game that isn't able to do this. basically those on a 1660, which i think is still one of the most popular GPU on Steam.

i just meant in terms of that visual "wow" factor. those games have it as a requirement and while things generally do look better with it maxed, a GPU with 12GB of VRAM just plain can't do it. NVIDIA does a better job on this field technically but i don't think losing 8GB VRAM or power is a worthwhile exchange there. that's what i meant by that, and i think you generally agree but i want to be sure there's no confusion.

amusingly that did remind me of the digital foundry video on indiana jones with specs that are surprisingly relevant:

https://youtu.be/araZUoSOPmM?si=V3HE_Zq2x8UH38Iy&t=1393

timestamped it to the performance discussion, tested on... a 7800X3D CPU with a 4070, running at 1440p. due to the game being not that gameplay intensive, it's not that hard on the CPU so this is all a GPU check.

12GB VRAM is the minimum for full RT, that might actually be a standard going forward for the near future. next gen could easily have that become 16GB. no prob for the AMD card there.
best textures in game and full RT off, game is smooth 60 FPS.
full RT on, system absolutely died as the VRAM just got eaten like nothing. that's really where the bottleneck on this tech lands at the moment, to get proper performance he had to tweak a couple settings to make it work and that's on a current gen game. going forward... yeah, more power and VRAM will be so much better.

of course, this is also assuming you're doing 1440p gaming, which i still find to be the sweet spot, even if i mainly do 1080p honestly (so my 3070 with 12GB VRAM doesn't care as much).

out the box? let's see... PS6 is probably going to be AMD again, rumors for it suggest as such. so when it comes to console ports, won't be an issue. 2027 estimate for that.

7800X3D should be fine for at least another 5-6 years. at which point, if the current path follows the previous one (so far, looking like it is) you'll likely have an option to just swap it out for a newer CPU. though it released in 2023 it still outperforms Intel's latest in gaming so this will hold strong. realistically it can be fine for longer than that but you might start feeling the bottleneck at some point then.

4070 Super with 12GB VRAM will be worse than the 7900 XT with 20GB VRAM. former will be to 1080p what the latter is to 1440p based on the power and VRAM.

both will be good for 4+ years. raytracing favors NVIDIA but by and large this isn't a big deal in most modern games, lighting tweaks are honestly more beneficial to older games with subpar shaders in the past (e.g., if you look at the N64 games with it on they look incredibly better) and games that heavily, heavily lean into it. that said uh... you kinda need the VRAM to really make this better and this is outright better GPU than the 4070 Super, so the stronger one will be better.

you'll definitely need to open up the computers for storage down the road. the all AMD computer will have this less because it comes with 2TB but eventually you'll add more storage yourself.

ahh, gotcha.
starforge would be something around 2200-2300 and better than the alienware:

https://starforgesystems.com/products/navigator-elite?_pos=1&_fid=bf6405210&_ss=c

which also runs circles around the dell. the extra cost there largely comes in the GPU bump, the Radeon RX 7900 XT 20GB performs around the level of the 4070 Ti/4080, with the added benefit of 20GB VRAM which becomes relevant when you want to game at 1440p or 4k in the future. that's really going to be the bottleneck for anything that's 12GB or less.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XVdsKHBcPE&ab_channel=GamersNexus

comparison between GPU there when they revisited it. basically it's available now, $500 more but on a GPU that's better and a 2TB NVME drive instead of 1, so even less reason to open it up to upgrade storage. 1TB is uh... kinda smallish nowadays.

ehh i'd still go for something with an X3D chip and better than a 4060. it's a pretty notable gap, honestly that's a bad GPU that doesn't belong in that line. that AMD chipline meanwhile does show major performance improvements in FF14 specifically too.

i have been summoned.
so the short answer is yes they're overpriced and not worth it.

intel 14th gen is trash, avoid it at all costs. the 13th and 14th gens in particular were among the worst chips we've seen in years with major overheating issues that they kept trying to pass the blame on. issue got so big that they ended up admitting that their chips had a voltage issue and that if a 14th gen chip ends up having the issue it's already too late, permanent damage will be built in. there's a patch they released back in August but i just don't trust anything that has gone through that issue. amusingly, 15th gen is worse than the 14th gen chips running correctly but it doesn't have any notable issues.

AMD meanwhile has absolutely dominated, especially for gaming with the X3D chips. can't understate how much better they are; legit takes Intel 2-3 gens to catch up to be on par with them due to the extra cache.

for Alienware their biggest issue is that almost all the parts are still proprietary, their support is "ok", and you can get better pre-builds elsewhere. generally Starforge is at the top due to a mix of great customer support, relatively competitive pricing, and paying attention to media reviews (e.g., gamersnexus) but they aren't alone.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsuVSmND84QuM2HKzG7ipbIbE_R5EnCLM

apparently there was a computer with similar specs to the one you linked to that reviewed very well too from Thermaltake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR1oHs73Fn4&ab_channel=GamersNexus

https://thermaltakeusa.com/products/vista-470m-v38m-b650-47s-lcs

though it is currently sold out.

your coworker summoned exodia?