Lurker > adjl

MrMelodramatic posted...

a lot of the homes that are vacant or can otherwise be used are in flyover states and everyone wants to live on the coast. Lets do some infrastructure work in Dakota and Alabama and make them places people want to work. And increase work from home where possible. If I could get paid a New York wage and live in Nebraska I just might do that.

Yep. If you've got a ton of vacant homes because nobody wants to live in a given area, put some effort into making those areas more desirable. WFH incentives are a fantastic way to get people interested in areas that have limited local employment opportunities, thanks to the low cost of living. That can be a bit of a double-edged sword, since if you get a bunch of people making New York wages buying homes in Nebraska, suddenly people making Nebraska wages can't afford rent anymore, effectively acting as a brutally rapid form of gentrification, but it can also do a lot to stimulate the local economy and alleviate some of the housing burden for areas with more employment opportunities.

Of course, that's generally going to mean you get people from left-leaning districts moving into right-leaning districts, which throws a massive wrench into all of the effort that's gone into gerrymandering those districts to secure votes for the GOP. That makes it rather difficult to get the political will going to make any of those changes.

Salrite posted...

People buying up houses just to rent them out for vacationers is a huge problem. The town I live in literally has zero places for residence because everything has been bought up for airbnb. I'm stuck living with my parents because there is literally no where else to go.

Indeed. AirBnB is one of those things that's fine on an individual scale, but when you get a large number of people trying to take advantage of it, it makes a mess of everything. Residentially zoned property should not be used for primarily commercial purposes. I remember seeing a while back that Atlanta was clamping down on it by saying that any given individual could only use one property other than their primary residence as a short-term rental (or something like that), and while I have no idea if that went anywhere, that's the sort of thing everyone needs to be doing. Renting out your spare room as an AirBnB is fine. Gutting the housing market by turning every would-be home into an unlicensed hotel is not.

Residential zones are planned out according to projected housing needs. When a residential property is used exclusively as a commercial one, that disrupts the plan that laid out that zone and leaves major deficiencies. You can't just buy an apartment building and turn it into a real hotel without going through a rezoning and permitting process for exactly that reason: The city needs to assess what the impact of that development will be on the local housing situation and economy. AirBnB and similar services bypass that process and go into operation without having their impact approved, and that's proven to be a disaster in many areas.

hockey7318 posted...

Big trucks are always fun to see in the ditch because their drivers are often some of the most over confident idiots on the road. I drive a 4WD pickup, but I'm not flying by people in storms.

Yep. You have much more control, but you still need to be prepared to lose that control and not take unnecessary risks. If you assume you'll be fine, you're going to end up with problems.

Yes and no. There are, in fact, more than enough houses in the country to house everybody, but supply is being kept artificially lower than demand by real estate investors, including several large corporations that own enough housing to be able to manipulate the market to their advantage. Some manner of reform is needed to ensure that residentially zoned properties are actually used for people to live in and not just left vacant indefinitely by speculators. More construction is probably still needed, but by mandating that those owning existing housing either live in them, rent them out, or sell them to somebody that will do one of those things, you could do a lot to alleviate the current homelessness and cost of living crises and get a better sense of exactly what actually does need to be built (and perhaps more importantly, where).

In addition to that, the zoning laws that have enabled and functionally mandated American suburban sprawl have had disastrous consequences for infrastructure and city budgets. Neighbourhoods of exclusively single-family residential zoning should not exist, as the whole paradigm of "everybody lives in one place, works in another place, does their shopping in a third place, and has fun in a fourth place, while driving between all of those" just doesn't work at any real scale. Neighbourhoods need to have more mixed-use and commercial zoning, along with higher density (not necessarily plopping a high-rise in the middle of a cul de sac, but things like du/triplexes, townhouses, and low-rise apartments) that makes it possible to go about daily life without having to visit a different neighbourhood for everyday needs, ideally connected to other neighbourhoods by public transit that is enabled by the greater density. Car-centric design was and is a mistake.

Or anything that fits that rhythm, really. Banana bread, pyjama pants, anomaly...

hockey7318 posted...

I never understand that relearning curve and how the first snow is so disastrous. Every single year it's like the road/ditch is filled with southerners that have never driven in snow before.

Like I get that the first snow is what prompts a lot of people to put their winter tires on (which is stupid in its own right because winter happens every year and shouldn't catch anyone by surprise), and that can cause some issues, and first snows are often in that particularly dangerous temperature range where the snow almost immediately turns to the slipperiest slush possible, but driving in snow isn't that hard. You just do everything a little more gently across the board: Accelerate more gently, brake more gently, and turn more gently.

willythemailboy posted...

All the negative press about Veilguard and THAT was your take on the game?

Why would I bother consuming negative press around a game that I know for a fact I won't even be considering buying until I play 3 other games (one of which I don't even own yet), the first of which has been in my backlog for several years? My take is the take I have for every game: I'll evaluate it in more detail when there's actually a chance that I might consider buying it. That choice isn't even on the table, As it stands, the only coverage I've seen has been whiny snowflakes complaining about how "woke" it is because there are women that look human and pronouns in the character creator, since that's been prevalent and controversial enough for various social media algorithms to disseminate it regardless of whether or not I go looking for it, and that's utterly useless to me because I'm not so fragile that I can't handle somebody else's custom character having top surgery scars.

For that matter, why are you surprised that my take on any game is "I'll evaluate it in more detail before making an actual decision because numerical scores aren't reliable enough"? Is that not literally the only approach that makes any amount of sense, regardless of the game?

willythemailboy posted...

There's no such law in the US either, but more of a social acceptability thing. Barron could have been mocked for things he personally did but mocking him solely for things his father did would generally get the person doing the mocking some backlash for mocking a kid. Not so much so now that he's an adult.

Pretty much. The kid was like 10 when Trump was first elected. While 10-year-olds aren't strictly immune to being mocked, it's kind of a bad look for an adult to be making fun of how awkward a literal child is, just because they don't like his dad. An 18-year-old, less so, especially since that means he's got the potential to actually do objectionable things.

willythemailboy posted...

Hard disagree in most cases.

Depends whether or not you believe that trying to hurt somebody that you believe is doing wrong is malevolent. There's likely some self-serving virtue signalling happening in many examples, but I would say that in most cases they are actually just trying to do what they think is right and just taking it too far (which is relatively easy behind a screen of anonymity). That's not malevolence so much as it is ignorant zealotry.

Damn_Underscore posted...

My opinion is review scores should be 50% being average essentially, but most review sites aren't like that. I think the ones that use a 5 star scale are though. Maybe some are and others aren't. It's just not a very good system IMO

The way I see it, 5/10 is a "neutral" rating: There's about as much good as bad going on. Above that, there's more good than bad, below, more bad than good.

The thing is, having as much good as bad going on is actually pretty bad. You don't want to have a neutral time with a game, you want to have a good time. To that end, most games worth mentioning are comfortably above that 5/10 rating. I consider 7/10 to be a solid baseline for "good": It doesn't necessarily stand out in any particular way, but you'll have a good time with it and not be dragged down by any serious issues. That is, really, the absolute minimum every piece of media should be aiming for, so it makes sense that the actual average would end up somewhere around there. That does mean you end up with considerably more of the scale dedicated to below-average games than above-, but that does actually reflect what we want out of entertainment (that is, having a mediocre time is as much a failure as having a bad time).

To that end, if something's averaging below 70% (whether in critic or user scores), I treat that as a bad sign and temper my expectations as I dig deeper to see what's causing those low scores.

willythemailboy posted...

User scores are the only thing that matters on metacritic, because the critic scores are "bought" (in that a reviewer who consistently gives games below a 7 will quickly find they no longer get pre-release copies of games to review).

For AAA games, anyway. For smaller stuff where the publishers don't have the same buying power, they can be more trustworthy. The main thing I pay attention to there is the differential between the critic and user scores: If they're similar, there's probably no problem. If one is notably higher than the other, something is biasing one of them and needs to be investigated.

willythemailboy posted...

Hell, IGN released a second review of Dragon Age: the Veilguard a couple months after release and gave it a substantially worse review than they did before launch. They knocked it down from 9/10 to 7/10 after it became clear user opinions on the game were wildly different than their review indicated they should have been. The user score is closer to 4/10.

Veilguard's actually a case where I'd put zero stock in user review averages, just because I know the nerdzis never really stopped pissing their pants over the trailer not having "enough" white men and sexy women in it. I'd also put zero stock in critic scores because EA is too influential to trust anything major outlets say. I still haven't gotten around to playing Origins and therefore haven't even started to consider whether or not I want to buy Veilguard, but if I do start asking that question, I won't be even considering anything numeric.

Honestly, even in places that do get plenty of snow, the first major fall of the year is always rough because apparently everybody forgets how to drive on it. Not so many fatalities, necessarily, because there is at least some baseline understanding of how to handle it, but definitely more than you'd think.

It's also kind of a no-brainer to delay it to be a launch title at this point. It's highly anticipated, MP games in general are known for being really good-looking and the idea of playing it on a more powerful system will therefore be an attractive prospect, and they haven't made any commitments to release it sooner than the Switch 2's launch. I'm guessing they'll pull a TP/BotW and release it on both.

People absolutely put far too much stock in metacritic scores, but that doesn't mean they're without use. Usually, if a game piques my interest, I'll give metacritic a quick glance to see what the score looks like. Generally speaking, though, that's only looking for two things: If the score's below 70, that's usually a bad sign (any variance in the 70-100 range is pretty meaningless, but averaging below 70 raises some eyebrows), and if user scores are significantly lower than reviewer scores, that also usually indicates something's wrong (though it's worth looking in greater detail to see if that's because of butthurt people review bombing it or because of a legitimate disconnect between critics and users). In both cases, I'll still do actual research before making a decision (like actually reading reviews), but either of those red flags prime me to decide against getting it.

Though, saying this, more often than not I'm finding new games on Steam and I can just use their built-in review system in place of Metacritic. But the concept is the same.

willythemailboy posted...

Edit: This sort of thing comes almost exclusively from the "progressive" end of the scale. That is, you will rarely see someone lit up for drawing a trim character fat or a white character black or a straight character gay but frequently see the reverse.

Not overly surprising. Getting butthurt over shipping the wrong characters together aside (that's just nonsense), representation of minorities is pretty lacking in media. When those minorities do get represented, people that feel they're underrepresented are happy about it. Fan art that diminishes or seems to erase that rare representation, then, isn't received very well. Conversely, there's no shortage of representation of majorities, so when a majority gets represented, nobody really cares. In turn, art that diminishes or seems to erase that representation isn't really worth a second thought.

Mostly, when somebody reinterprets a white character as black, that comes across as trying to increase PoC representation in the media in question, indicating that they'd like to see greater diversity represented. That's generally okay. When somebody reinterprets a black character as white, that comes across as trying to reduce (and often outright erase) PoC representation in the media in question, indicating that they'd like to see less diversity represented. That flirts dangerously close to being overtly racist, whether that's the intent or not, and people react accordingly.

Now, a lot of that is not actually "you drew this black character as white" so much as it's "you drew this character who's supposed to be 80% black as only 75% black you are literally Hitler," but like most SJW drama (which is nothing new), that still boils down to a desire to improve the world being taken too far and jumping at shadows, not any sort of malevolent core motivation.

Damn_Underscore posted...

And metacritic has no value

Practically speaking? Arguably. Commercially speaking? People like their aggregate scores, and people liking something is an opportunity to show people ads and harvest their data.

And of those, Metacritic is almost certainly the most valuable by far.

https://www.worthofweb.com/website-value/gamefaqs.com/

First result for "Gamefaqs market value." No idea how accurate it is, but I've seen the $65k figure thrown around a bit before in what I vaguely recall was a reasonably credible fashion, so I'm willing to accept it now.

captpackrat posted...

I think it's more likely that Elon Musk sees that topic about how he cheats at video games and buys the site for $40 billion, just so he can delete the topic.

GameFAQs is only worth about $60-65k, so while it's unlikely that he'd spend $40 billion, it's not actually that far-fetched that he might buy it just to stamp out that attack on his ego. That's pocket change to him.

Of course, the whole "fake gamer" thing is as much a distraction tactic as it is him genuinely being that desperate for attention. The more people focus on mocking his desperation, the less they can focus on him blackmailing politicians with the twitter DMs he's archived and his various other efforts to undermine democracy.

captpackrat posted...

I prefer to reduce the fractions. 1 death per 5,882 hits a lot harder than 17 in 100,000, even though they're the same number.

That is true, but that's more useful for presenting the stat in a vacuum, rather than comparing it to similar stats. While you can compare 1 in 5882 to 1 in 16,667 and see that the former is a worse death rate, the comparison is a lot easier if you're comparing 17 in 100k to 6 in 100k. That's actually an extension of me saying earlier that percentages are good for comparisons: Having a common denominator makes it immediately obvious which number is larger and by how much. Percentages use 100 as that common denominator, but using a larger one may be more appropriate and easier to read when the percentages would be very small.

Mostly, this whole conversation highlights why "objective statistics" isn't as much of a thing as people like to think it is. Presenting exactly the same number in a different format can change how your audience reacts to it in a way that's much easier to manipulate than many would like to believe.

captpackrat posted...

I usually prefer "X in Y", since I think it gives people a better idea of the meaning of a statistic. Especially in very small numbers. 1 in 1 million is easier for most people to understand than 0.0001%.

This is true. Anything smaller than about 0.1%, you have to start putting actual thought into the fractional interpretation, and it's easy to miscount zeros doing that. In the same vein, something like "17 maternal deaths per 100,000 births" is easier to read than "0.017% maternal death rate."

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'm more convinced the real problem is that more and more people are slowly turning into NPCs whose posts are becoming indistinguishable from AI because brain rot has robbed them of the capacity for rational thought.

A non-trivial amount of which is spurred along by bot posts making it seem like there's already a consensus on the issue and that any dissenting voice will be drowned out. A lot of misinformation/propaganda campaigns rely on trying to make people feel like they're somehow unusual or wrong to disagree with the campaign, and it's very easy to make people feel isolated in their opinions on the Internet when you can just fabricate people that disagree with them out of whole cloth.

dedbus posted...

Thats the price of upvoting and karma.

Yep. I get the value in having threads automatically sorted by what the community thinks is most useful and the visibility reduced for things that the community agrees are objectionable, since that saves a lot on moderation resources and can often be more convenient for readers, but it also makes it very easy to manipulate a narrative.

Yellow posted...

Yeah but games on phones are worse and money grubbing so they're missing out on real art because of social norms, having decided that video games are for kids a long time ago. There's clearly a Farmville itch they need to scratch, grandma should try stardew valley.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chucklefish.stardewvalley&hl=en_CA

There's no shortage of "real games" on phones. They just tend to get buried under a deluge of Raid: Shadow Legends clones.

Percentages are best for comparing statistics to each other (which is usually more important than just quoting a statistic in a vacuum), but when it's easy to round them to a nice fraction (anything with a denominator of 10 or less, we'll say, since nobody wants to be thinking about 17/20 or 19/33 or nonsense like that), fractions are better for communicating them to people because colloquial interpretation of percentage statistics usually involves rounding them to a convenient fraction and you save people that interpretive step if you do it. Fractions are also usually faster to say than the corresponding percentage.

Sarcasthma posted...

That's literally cultural appropriation what the fuck

Red, white, and blue forever!

Whatever country that's supposed to indicate pride in.

Greenfox111 posted...

It's great if you don't have to shovel and don't have to go anywhere. And don't lose power

And also provided it remains a reasonable amount. If you keep getting more and more, it just piles up into ugly brown/grey snowbanks that stop looking nice at all and just get in the way.

https://imgur.com/9nLowwF

A gamer is somebody who considers gaming to be a significant hobby for them. It's entirely independent of the sorts of games they play or the systems on which they play them.

Has he done anything particularly worth mocking? I honestly forgot he existed after Trump left office.

SrRd_RacinG posted...

What exactly does that entail?

Based on previous console online service shutdowns, it means you can no longer access online features using games (mostly online play, but also stuff like Miiverse integration would have stopped working if Miiverse hadn't been shut down earlier) and can no longer purchase digital games from the shop. In each case, the commitment has been that previously purchased games and content will continue to be possible to download for the foreseeable future, and I believe that hasn't changed (though I haven't tried redownloading anything on the Wii and the WiiU/3DS shops only shut down recently). I think games can still receive updates, but I'm not 100% sure on that. In the case of the Wii, the option to do a system transfer to the WiiU was locked behind a Wii Shop download and you therefore had to do that transfer before the Wii shop shut down, but I'm not sure if that will be the case with whatever system transfer option we end up getting to go from Switch to Switch 2.

The 3DS and WiiU eShops got shut down in March 2023, so assuming the Switch's eShop follows a similar trend, you can expect it to last for another 5+ years. In each case, there was plenty of messaging well in advance of the shutdowns and they happened very gradually (started by not letting you add credit card funds, then not letting you use eShop cards, then not letting you make purchases, then finally phasing out the option to combine any remaining balance with the newer Nintendo Account to use it on the Switch, all happening over the course of nearly two years), so while it'll suck to not be able to get more stuff, you're not likely to be caught off guard if you're actively using the system.

Here's the page explaining the process for the 3DS/WiiU, which I'm guessing will be pretty similar to whatever ends up happening to the Switch:
https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/57847/~/wii-u-%26-nintendo-3ds-eshop-discontinuation-q%26a

Ignac5000 posted...

The whole thing is an incredible waste of time. Im bracing for a whole lot more of that over the next four years.

I'm wondering just how deep it's going to go. Do current policy documents referencing the Gulf of Mexico need to be reprinted with the new name? Will schools be getting new textbooks with the new name (pretending for a moment that a Republican government would ever spend more money on schools)? How many signs are going to need to be replaced?

At face value, it's just a silly little bit of populist posturing from a narcissist addicted to the attention her gets when he panders to nationalists, but changing the names of major geographical features is not a trivial ask if you want to do more than just make a tongue-in-cheek joke about it.

Also very possible, but I feel like being encouraging.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

That, and pre-orders exist. Just pre-order.

I generally don't try to pre-order, but the vibe I get is that it can be a crapshoot in its own right whether or not your order will actually be filled, and if it's a product that's going to be hard to find without a pre-order, pre-orders also sell out pretty quickly.

Sashanan posted...

Not jaded, just more going on in my day and energy not where it was. I game. Just not as much.

Pretty much. Staying up late and being sleep-deprived has actual consequences now. I have no less love for gaming. I just have other responsibilities that need to take priority over it.

Metalsonic66 posted...

Strange Planet is a treasure.

Have you seen the TV series? I thought it was entertaining enough to be a good time, but it almost felt a little too "normal," if that makes sense. Like they were actual characters with actual identities following actual plots instead of just being abstractions of human behaviour and experiences distilled down to their bare fundamentals.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

I don't know why people would goon to drawings even lower quality than I can draw. I don't show what I draw because I know it's bad, so it offends me to see people selling things even worse.

The game has sold over a million copies on Steam alone. Perhaps your art isn't as bad as you've convinced yourself it is.

I walked into Walmart and grabbed a Switch on day 1 in the early afternoon. I think they had like 6-7 left.

Now, the Switch has since exploded in popularity and there may be more demand for 2, plus scalping bots have gotten significantly more aggressive since 2017 and may present some challenges, but it's not like there's no precedent for being able to get Nintendo systems at launch. The Wii's the only one I've ever had serious trouble with.

Revelation34 posted...

Eh. Not sure I want that on my account even if I would never play it.

You can mark things as private now on Steam and nobody else will be able to see that it's on your account/when you're playing it, if that's your concern. I've taken to doing so for idle games to keep them from being counted in play time rankings.

HelIWithoutSin posted...

Yeah, he had a Japanese sounding name before changing it to Mead that I can't remember. I think it started with an O.

Brisashi. I think you're thinking of Ogurisama, who's an entirely different person (and still active, I believe).

There was a while when porn games weren't allowed unless you had to patch in the porn part, and I believe HuniePop is from that era. That's since been relaxed, though, which is why half of the new games that go up on Steam are porn.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

and if we're being pedantic, this exists in the form of there just being very few exclusive titles for the generation after, most games still coming out for the series and 5 can be played on the one and 4. there are exclusive still, mind, but they are few and far between

True. The idea of generations has gotten a little fuzzy in the last few years. Still, though, the impression I'm getting is that the Switch 2's relation to the Switch is much more analogous to 3DS' relation to the DS, not the New 3DS's relation to the 3DS.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

i think that weird optical square on the blue joycon is just a camera and not a mouse sensor

it fits with them calling that weird side button a C button, which historically with nintendo, was short for camera

It could be (I don't rule out any wacky hardware decisions when it comes to Nintendo systems), but I think that'd be an odd choice. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about, that camera would only really be usable while using the joycon sideways, and even then would be positioned such that you wouldn't have a view of your face and wouldn't be able to do anything like using gestures for controls. It'd just be kind of awkwardly pointing at the ceiling. There's precedent for Nintendo putting a camera in their controllers/systems (the WiiU gamepad and 3DS both had front-facing cameras), but with their shift to using a smartphone app to handle voice chatting over NSO, I don't know that I'd expect them to try to build video chat directly into the system now instead of just updating the NSO app to handle it.

Now, just because I can't think of how they'd use it doesn't mean they won't try (because Nintendo), but it doesn't seem likely to me.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

isn't that what everyone wanted anyways, a switch pro?

this is the switch pro, it's the new 3ds to the 3ds. full bc, also exclusive titles to it that are marginally better

It's not at all analogous to the new 3DS. It's a new generation, with a significant number of exclusive titles and the expectation that production of games for the previous generation will be phased out in the next year or two. The New 3DS and hypothetical Switch Pro (which is really just what the Switch OLED was) were half-generation upgrades, with few exclusive games (if any) and the expectation that development would continue for the base form of the system. They exist (or would have existed) mostly to provide better performance for existing games, not to usher in a new generation.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

pop the screws out, pop the sd card slot off, pop the heatshield off, maybe consider replacing the thermal paste on it with something slightly better, boom, battery, unplug it, yoinky sploinky it, bada bing bada boom done, ten minutes

All of which is significantly more involved than "open cover, replace battery, close cover." Again, it's definitely a possible home repair, but it's something nobody's going to attempt unless they're comfortable dismantling electronics. Replacing the battery in a gamepad or 3DS is much more in line with what a typical consumer can be expected to handle.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Again, while true, this should take a very long time, even after continual usage. Which is still technically is a negative, sure, but this should theoretically happen long after the console has run it's lifespan, and I mean long after. I'm actually stunned with your even heavy Wii U usage that you got it that point in 12 years. Should be more like 20.

I can't chime in, since I basically abandoned my Wii U after the Switch came out.

Since getting the Switch, my WiiU usage has mostly boiled down to using it for Netflix for a couple years (before it got phased out) and occasionally playing Mario Kart, but the gamepad has stayed on the charging station for a big chunk of that. That's probably contributed to the battery degradation, particularly where I was already noticing some loss of battery life by the time the Switch rolled around.

Meanwhile, I've used my Switch more than my WiiU, and I haven't noticed any loss of battery life for it, so either I've just been better about charging it, the battery itself is of higher quality, and/or its charging procedure is better for preserving battery lifespan (given that it's expected to spend a significant amount of time docked, this wouldn't surprise me).

Damn_Underscore posted...

It's definitely true that the Switch is full of ports/remasters and sequels, but If you haven't owned a Nintendo console since the gamecube it should be about time by now. A lot of those "ports" and "sequels" will be brand new to you by now

Most of the ports/remasters on the Switch have been of WiiU games, which make sense to port because like five people bought a WiiU. Quite a few of those ports have not only outsold their WiiU versions, but outsold the WiiU itself, so obviously it was a good move on Nintendo's part.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

excuse me

replacing the switch battery takes like 10 minutes

majority of that is just finding the fuckin screws

It involves prying pieces apart, loosening adhesives, removing other components... It's certainly not impossible to do at home, but it's a whole lot more involved than the "remove two screws, unplug old battery, plug in new battery, replace two screws" of the WiiU gamepad and 3DS.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

But, since PO said he'd never use it undocked anyways, it becomes a nonexistent problem.

Not entirely. Even if you don't need it to run undocked, if the battery gets to the point of bulging, it becomes a hazard that needs to be disposed of before it starts cracking and leaking. That bulging can also damage surrounding components.

That is, however, quite a ways off. I used my WiiU gamepad periodically for probably about 3-4 years where I had to have it plugged in at all times because it didn't hold a charge, and it was only last year that I noticed the back was bulging. That's on a near-launch system, so it lasted like 12 years before needing that $20 replacement.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Still find it odd about the battery and contacts, since there's no chance either of those things every would be an issue.

Contacts are a weird one to single out (hence me thinking he's trying way too hard to convince himself not to like it), but having a lithium battery does mean there will eventually be issues. Those things don't last forever, and replacing it in the Switch is not a trivial task (compared to what I did with my WiiU gamepad and 3DS earlier this year, which were each $20, 5-minute replacements).

That said, if you're exclusively playing it docked, you don't have to worry about the main potential battery issue, which is losing its ability to hold a charge. The battery only becomes a concern once you get into spicy pillow territory, and that should be a long ways off yet.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

po is the type of person to complain that the switch can be used portably when it should just be a boring ass solitary box

but then use the switch exclusively in handheld mode

I fully expected to overwhelmingly use it docked, only occasionally taking it out for travel purposes (and even then, it's not great as a proper portable because of the size, so that would be more just a "something to play in the hotel room" sort of thing), but it's honestly been about 50/50. The flexibility is pretty awesome.

papercup posted...

Im really not understanding all the negativity around it. That its boring, confusing, doesnt innovate. Its a much much better Switch. Thats all it needed to be.

With how much people have been hyping up a reveal, it was kind of inevitable that people would be disappointed. I think Nintendo let the hype machine run itself out of control for a little too long, since when leaks and speculation are running this rampant it can be a little dangerous to leave people to their own devices. Toss in that this is the first Nintendo system announcement in over 20 years that doesn't have some sort of new, unusual gimmick attached to it (the mouse thing seems plausible based on some of what the teaser hints at, but it's not formally confirmed), and I can get why people are a little underwhelmed. They could have avoided that by not letting themselves get that hyped up, but it's still not unexpected.

Lokarin posted...

I like portmanteaus as a subset of puns

I live for punmanteaus.

agesboy posted...

elon actually removed his blue checkmark for like half a day because he got mad

I'm sure there are more actual consequences to it, but this just gives me the vibe of a four-year-old busting out "you're not invited to my birthday party anymore!" as the epitome of social retaliation in preschool.

Revelation34 posted...

Is it possible to use the controller while mobile?

Yep. Any wireless controllers that can be used while docked can be used while mobile. You'll have to prop up the system, of course, but otherwise the only controller compatibility that's tied to the dock is using USB wired ones (since the Switch itself doesn't have any USB ports other than the USB-C for charging).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

1) I'd have to shell out for my own Pro Controller, which raises the price on a console I already don't consider being worth what it's being charged for. And I'd still be stuck with Joycons that I don't want.

The cost of the Switch plus a pro controller is still less than other consoles. Being "stuck with" Joycons isn't really an issue. They don't exactly take up a ton of space. The joycon grip is also a perfectly serviceable controller, if not as good as the pro (which is just a really nice controller).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

2) There are aspects of the hardware that are specifically tied to its portability that I have issues with. The obvious ones are the need to have an internal battery, as well as the contacts and connections required for the dock. Sure, it's somewhat arbitrary, and isn't likely to be a problem, but they're still elements that are negative from my point of view. Removing them would make me more inclined to look favorably on it than I do.

Every system has potential points of hardware failure, and every system has features you don't use. Singling out the Switch for that just comes across as trying way too hard to find things you don't like.

I'm obviously the last person to criticize people for writing unnecessary walls of text, but all you need to justify not buying a console is to say that you don't expect it to have enough exclusives you want to be worth buying when you're already going to be buying another system that will cover multiplat stuff and have a worthwhile number of exclusives you want. Coming up with ideological reasons to be opposed to handheld-adjacent gaming is just silly.

Damn_Underscore posted...

they are really the only useful coin anyway

Indeed. Very little of value would be lost if every coin smaller than quarters were abolished.

Unless it launches with literally nothing of note, it'll probably be a day 1 buy (or as soon thereafter as I can manage, though the few official comments Nintendo has made on it have suggested that they're going to be trying especially hard to satisfy launch day demand and that should count for something).

The only substantial thing I feel that I've missed out on by never buying any Amiibos is Link's spinner weapon in Hyrule Warriors, and realistically there are still characters/weapons from the DLC that I did buy that I never get around to using before drifting away from the game, so I don't feel that put out by it (plus I could just buy the Switch version and get absolutely everything). The vast majority of stuff gated behind amiibos can be legitimately called "bonus content," in that missing out on it is really only a loss for people who can't stand the idea of content existing that they don't have access to.

I'd usually expect them to use claws/poisonous bites from their hair, plus obviously the petrifying gaze thing. If they were going to have weapons, though, a mace would make the most sense to allow them to smash anyone they petrified.