Lurker > adjl

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


It can, yes. Grooming is profound psychological abuse. It can do a lot of things that would be considered abnormal.

Count_Drachma posted...

I'm not sure most would agree it's a great game anymore, but it's possible it's partly due to a version of the Seinfeld is Unfunny trope... although, honestly, even at the time I thought it controlled and played poorly.

I mean, I quite enjoyed playing through it for the first time in the DS remake in 2010-11ish, so I'd say it's still good. It's mechanically solid, it's got a good story, the art style holds up even compared to modern pixel art, excellent soundtrack... You're probably right that most wouldn't necessarily agree that it's a great game, since most gamers these days don't really care for JRPG's, but it definitely holds up among modern JRPG's aside from the lack of fancy FMV's (which are arguably unnecessary), even if it's no longer anything overly remarkable.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

exclusives make companies try to compete

Making exclusives is a beneficial form of competition. In that regard, companies invest in studios to produce games that are better than their competitors, ultimately providing a better product. In many cases, that's in the form of first- and second-party studios, but you get the occasional example like Nintendo funding Bayonetta 2 as an exclusive because it otherwise wouldn't get to exist. If a game wouldn't be made unless it's exclusive to help recover the investment put into it, that's perfectly fine because that results in better products for customers for the sake of being more competitive.

The problem arises when the game would be made either way, and exclusivity is just a (usually temporary) deal made with a platform holder in exchange for a bit of extra money. That's not a beneficial form of competition, because rather than making better products or offering a better service, that just acts to make competitors' services worse. There are no new games produced this way, the games themselves are not improved for it, you end up with fewer people able to play the games (depending on just what hoops they have to jump through to do so)... everything about that arrangement is ultimately worse for consumers.

I'd love to see some meaningful competition for Steam. Their de facto monopoly on the PC gaming market is really not a great situation, given how complacent they've become in their success and how little incentive they have to improve their service. I even like a lot of the things Epic is doing to try to become that competition, like taking a smaller cut of the purchase price and waiving the UE license fee, since those are really beneficial for smaller studios (which is the only time savings like that actually get passed on to the people doing the real work of making the games). But the fact of the matter is that their storefront and service is objectively inferior to Steam's in every way (it took them a year to add a shopping cart, of all things) and the only thing they have going for them is throwing around all their Fortnite money to buy temporary exclusivity deals (which make Steam et al worse, rather than making Epic better) and hand out free stuff (which is ultimately bad for the industry because it discourages people from impulse buying games under the pretense that they might end up being given away later). That's not beneficial competition.

11110111011 posted...

I don't understand people who dislike the game.

It's generally not so much a matter of disliking it as not seeing the hype. Most would agree it's a great game, it's just nothing particularly special by modern standards (in part because it established a lot of those standards).

Krazy_Kirby posted...

competing platforms are a good thiing

If they actually compete to provide better services/prices, sure. If they "compete" by throwing around money to buy temporary exclusivity while offering an objectively inferior experience in every other regard, less so. Buying exclusives doesn't make your platform better, it makes other platforms worse, and that's bad for everyone.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


The nature of grooming is such that it overwhelms and negates that. It's a long process of normalizing the idea of accepting a sexual relationship with the groomer.

BlackScythe0 posted...

The current fake court has absolutely zero concern for reality, logic, or the constitution.

Indeed. Clever "gotcha!" ideas or roundabout interpretations of poorly-conceived laws aren't going to result in anyone saying "I guess you're right, better change my mind." This is an arbitrary decision, wilfully disregarding whatever negative consequences will happen as a result of it. Arbitrary decisions, by their nature, can't be swayed by reason.

That's why this whole situation is so terrible. It's much, much bigger than abortion rights (which are a significant deal in their own right). It's the Supreme Court ignoring the will of the people and any sort of objective metrics or reasoning to push the agenda they feel like pushing, and there is literally no way to stop them without killing enough judges to swing the vote. This is a terrible precedent to set, one which cleverness and appeals to reason cannot stop.

JixHedgehog posted...

What do stats have to do with anything?

Justifying population-scale actions without looking at population-scale statistics is impossible.

JixHedgehog posted...

One preventable horrific act by someone who shouldn't be here is one preventable horrific act by someone who shouldn't be here

Your position is that a horrific act committed by an illegal immigrant justifies initiating a massive campaign to remove all illegal immigrants from the country and enact sufficient measures to completely prevent any such people from ever entering again. That position, however, relies on the assumption that illegal immigrants are more likely to commit said horrific act than any other population. If another population is more likely to commit such horrific acts, then common sense would dictate they should be the first priority to drive out of the country by any means necessary.

If you want to make the case that illegal immigrants shouldn't be here, do so using reality, not emotional overreactions to individual crimes that are not statistically representative of the overall population.

JixHedgehog posted...

And who are the Nazis committing unlawfulness in this case?

Nazis didn't commit unlawfulness. The Holocaust was legal. Those harbouring Jews to protect them from being tortured and murdered were 100% breaking the law, a decision they made because they were heroic enough to do the right thing in the face of oppressive evil.

What's legal is not always right, and what's right is not always legal. Legalistic morality is, at best, intellectually lazy, and often gives a free pass to some absolutely abhorrent atrocities. Try to avoid it.

JixHedgehog posted...

The SCOTUS and not the people harbouring the rapist?

The Nazi analog in this case would be the government of Ohio, seeking to persecute a 10-year-old rape victim by forcing her to risk her life (the maternal mortality rate is much, much higher for children than adults, and it's already pretty high for adults in the US) and be traumatized even further in the name of some nebulous "greater good" that not a single one of them actually give a shit about past delivery. Dr. Bernard is a hero for protecting her from those oppressors.

The rapist and any accessories to his crime belong in jail for as long as it takes to guarantee that they will never be a threat again. Nobody's objecting to that.

Conner4REAL posted...

Wait until there is a challenge to a states abortion laws based on religious freedom.

the concept of ensoulment is a Christian one.

islamic and Jewish mythology have a different take and requirement than Christian mythology.

and when those challenges are successful it will be a joke how many exemptions will be based on the first amendment.

You're assuming the Supreme Court is following any sort of logic and not just construing the available information however they can to suit their agenda. "Basing the law on Christian values violates the separation of church and state" means pretty much nothing to them.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

hercules

Honey, you mean HUNKules!

There honestly shouldn't be any issues that are divided that cleanly along party lines or at least not a statistically significant number. That it keeps happening is a fundamental problem even without considering that the issues in question are ones almost nobody should be voting against at all.

JixHedgehog posted...

Again, I dont know the statistics

So you have no basis for believing that illegals are any more dangerous than legal citizens. That, I'm afraid, means your opinion is about as valuable as a Zimbabwean $5 bill (in non-collectible condition).

JixHedgehog posted...

Sounds like the doctor who provided the abortion messed up and a probe is underway

She "messed up" the way the folks harbouring Anne Frank "forgot" to tell the Nazis where she was hiding. That, in the books of anyone with a shred of moral fibre, makes her a goddamn hero.

There's a part of me that's curious about the actual content of all those nuked posts, but by the context, I can guess roughly how abhorrent they are and I'm comfortable assuming that my life is better for not having them in it.

ZangsBeard posted...

Why the *fuck* did you even remotely try to justify their relationship?

He didn't. He said "that's not a bad thing unless he actually raised her, and if he did, then it's bad." And then when it turned out he did raise her, he agreed that it was bad. He basically just said the same thing that I did, which is that the taboo around relationships between consenting adults that happen to be step-relatives is unnecessary, but that that doesn't extend to cases where grooming or other things that interfere with the "consenting adults" thing come into play.

Jen0125 posted...

Groomed her since she was 4.

Sickening.

Yeah, as much as I think there's more opposition than there really needs to be to relationships between step-relatives who met as adults (or near-adults), that kind of age gap and power dynamic is 100% no bueno.

Judgmenl posted...

I don't even buy video games anymore.

Also this, honestly. Not quite that extreme, but my backlog is so huge that I generally only buy stuff that I either really, really want (in which case I'll usually wait for a small sale) or is so exceptionally discounted that I probably won't be able to get it that cheap again (mostly $6 Humble Monthlies that have 2+ games I really want). I didn't buy anything in Steam or GOG's summer sales. Epic selling mostly the same games at mostly the same prices isn't going to change that trend.

I will, however, be buying Xenoblade 3 on the 29th.

Unless their free game schedule is ramping up, I don't particularly have reason to care any more than my usual approach of checking the store every thursday afternoon.

BEERandWEED posted...

Measuring things from the human perspective is usually flawed and useless.

"How tall is this doorway?"
"Measuring things from the human perspective is usually flawed and useless"
*Walks into doorway*

Yeah. Good luck with that.

Count_Drachma posted...

On a related note, I'm kinda concerned the booster left me with long-term effects because my breathing still isn't 100% and my mind has been a little foggy ever since I got it.

If only I'd known the J&J was still available, but the news made it sound like it was banned. Fucking NPR... like 95% NPR.

Honestly, that sounds more like you happened to contract Covid around the same time as your booster. Have you been tested at all in that time frame and/or talked to your doctor about how you're feeling?

agesboy posted...

I legitimately do not understand how people today could think Chrono Trigger is the best game of all time except nostalgia, and I've seen that opinion pretty often here.

I'd say Chrono Trigger holds up, it's just not mind-blowing in the modern world because so many other games have taken inspiration from it and met the bar that it set. It's still a very good game, I just wouldn't put it particularly higher than most similar JRPG's I've played.

Note that I didn't specify where I grew the vagina. Trust me when I say that the approach you're taking still has enough merit to be worth considering the better alternative.

captpackrat posted...

According to some food scientists, it is possible for the larvae to survive the stomach acid and remain in the intestine, leading to a condition called pseudomyiasis.

I'm willing to accept that people are fine with eating bugs, since that's not actually that uncommon and it's just a cultural thing that makes me think it's gross, but when you start getting into having those bugs survive digestion and infest the gut, I'm okay with calling that a problem and banning it.

This one time, I saw some tofu at the grocery store, and then that night, I grew a vagina and had sex with 47 different men. It was the most emasculating experience I've ever had, and we must do everything in our power to protect our precious children from this evil leftist agenda.

JixHedgehog posted...

He got in under Obama's watch where illegals weren't pouring in anywhere near where they are now, what does that tell you about the amount of sickos running around the country today?

Do you have actual statistics indicating that illegal immigrants are more likely to commit rape than citizens? Or are you generalizing from a single event because you don't understand how to handle your emotional response well enough to rationally assess the situation?

BEERandWEED posted...

Introspection is infinitely more valuable than extrospection.

Arguably, but that's an entirely separate point. You shouldn't move goalposts.

BEERandWEED posted...

Only through God can the Truth be known.

Depends entirely on the truth and how liberally you interpret "through God." Prayer isn't going to tell you how far away the sun is, after all. You're going to need to use some science and technology to do that.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Honestly, I can understand it. Some people just don't enjoy gratuitous sexual content being thrown at them while they're trying to play the game, and if having the option to turn it off is going to make the game more enjoyable for them, that's great. Options that allow more people to enjoy a given game are never a bad thing.

That said, I think the biggest potential benefit is going to be for streamers, so they don't have to worry about whether or not the content they're streaming is going to break any rules. This is the sort of game that streams pretty well (there's a lot of room for varied gameplay and opportunities to show off skills), so opening up a wider audience for that isn't a bad idea.

Metalsonic66 posted...

But that's like, everything

Given the nature of the game, I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if it just puts a blur filter on the entire screen as a joke, rather than specifically censoring anything.

wpot posted...

If that was there I missed it: that's the sort of thing I was interested in. Would I be able to understand the images without a scientist interpreting for me? Certainly not...but otherwise the pictures alone are kind of underwhelming for me.

The caption explains it about as well as laypeople need. Basically, different atmospheric components refract different wavelengths of light differently. By studying the wavelength composition of the light passing around observed planets, we can make inferences about what their atmospheres consist of, including identifying water vapour. The Webb telescope's improved resolution is more easily able to do that, thanks to being specifically designed to help identify and analyze exoplanets.

BEERandWEED posted...

God gave us all the tools to understanding the Universe within ourselves.

And then we used those tools to build giant space telescopes to let us gather more data to improve our understanding. Unless, of course, you're actually going to suggest that the naked eye is as capable of understanding the workings of the universe as something like this telescope is, which would of course be absurd.

Tonight's dinner is leftover quiche (onion, mushroom, garlic, roasted red pepper, turkey, and feta) with broccoli.

I should really play Bayonetta. I've got 1/2, and made it a few hours into 1 in a single session, but never ended up going back to it. It was a good time (if a little heavy on the "Press A to not die" sort of cutscenes, which I understand 2 is better about), obviously with tons of depth if I wanted to really delve into getting good at it, but I've just never made it back to it.

pionear posted...

not sure if it's exclusive tho

It's being published by Nintendo, same as #2 was, so it most likely is.

Only when I'm dealing with stuff that requires chunkloading, which is mostly a modded thing.

I'd guess it's the search algorithm omitting the item because you'd already bought it, under the assumption that offering you a second one would just delay you getting to whatever you actually wanted and/or that you could just use your order history to find the same item again if needed. Particularly for something like a collectible figure, where most people don't want to buy duplicates, this seems to make some amount of sense to me (though at the same time, enough collectors want both a display copy and a boxed copy that the assumption is perhaps not the most reasonable).

Realistically, nothing to do with astronomy or space exploration is going to affect you personally unless you're actively working in the field. Even if Webb yields a photo tomorrow of actual aliens having a barbecue on a second Earth <10 light years away, there's zero chance you're going to meet those aliens or visit that planet in your lifetime.

That said, the vast quality difference in images is a critical part of identifying exoplanets. The gallery linked earlier includes a spectroscopic analysis of an exoplanet that reveals water in its atmosphere. Hubble didn't detect water until it had been in operation for 23 years, Webb pulled it off with greater detail in 6 months. Similarly, Hubble took 3 weeks to generate that image of the Southern Ring Nebula, Webb took 12.5 hours (~45 times faster), and that faster data collection makes it much, much easier to find new objects of interest. In pretty much every way, Webb is just plain better at helping us learn more about the universe than Hubble can ever be, which is a huge deal for astronomy.

streamofthesky posted...

It benefits the company to have those sales secured early, the least they can do is return the favor a bit

The benefit is being able to secure a copy of something with limited supply (and pre-loading, in digital's case). Anything added to that is just an effort to manipulate customers into doing something that unilaterally benefits the company. Nobody should be encouraging companies to do that.

streamofthesky posted...

If they ca get our pre-orders and offer us nothing in return, it's just yet another thing that used to be standard that's now stripped away from us.

Pre-order bonuses being standard is a relatively new thing. There were some scattered historical examples, like OoT Master Quest for pre-ordering Wind Waker, but by and large, securing a copy was considered enough benefit to get people to pre-order in the past, especially when production was much more expensive (because carts) and companies really didn't want to produce and ship out more than they needed.

With the shift to discs (which are cheaper to produce and don't run into as many supply issues) and especially digital (which is produced in literally infinite quantities and has no distribution costs for unsold copies), the supply angle became less significant for most people, so companies started trying to artificially inflate the value of preorders by tacking on bonuses and exclusive content. That's really never been a good thing, since it actively interferes with consumers' ability to make informed choices about their game purchases (which is what companies want, because uninformed impulse buys are very lucrative). It can be nice to get something extra for a game you were planning to buy at launch anyway (like Xenoblade 3, in my case), but the practice as a whole does enough harm that I'm not going to complain about not getting that.

DirtBasedSoap posted...

it really depends on what theyre doing. some companies do truly do some meaningful stuff but most of it is just pandering. it doesnt really matter if i agree with their message or not, it just seems like the majority of them are so terrified of a single nickel rolling out of the door. like when they claim to be pro lgbtq+ (that is a good thing) so they change their online profile pictures in all of the countries where that is socially acceptable but not in the ones where it isnt quite yet.

its usually just empty gesturing and i have no respect for that. but its not like what i think really matters anyway lol

Pretty much this.

agesboy posted...

I'd much rather have insincere moral posturing than complete radio silence. Worst case scenario, it makes them extremely easy to dunk on when they're being hypocritical.

But also this. Saying empty good things is still generally better than letting bad things have the entire floor (or worse, saying bad things themselves). If nothing else, the fact that insincere moral posturing on issues like gay rights is the more profitable position now (at least in some parts of the world) is a reflection of a cultural shift in the right direction, and participating in that cultural shift - however performatively - does help to normalize and reinforce it.

I'm replaying 2 on NG+ now, after going through the Definitive Edition of 1 (my fourth time through the game, but first in the DE and doing Future Connected). I've beaten the game and now I'm just puttering around to max out all the DLC, NG+, and any other blades that have been added since my first playthrough (which finished before NG+ was added). I'll probably tackle Torna before I do a proper dive into Challenge Mode to unlock the last few things for the associated blades, since Torna is all new content for me.

teddy241 posted...

Meh if it gets a 90 or better on metacritic then il check it out. Got burned on the first one

Realistically, if you didn't like the style of the first one, you aren't likely to like the others. The battle system differs between them in various ways, but the core gameplay of being vaguely like a single-player MMO is common to all of them, and that doesn't seem to be changing for 3 (although from what I've seen, you will have the option to switch between party members on the fly, which is a major change). The metacritic score isn't going to make much of a difference there (not that it ever does).

streamofthesky posted...

I don't want to normalize getting people to pre-order w/o any incentive for it at all.

The only incentives that should exist for pre-ordering are getting to pre-load digital copies and being able to secure something that's likely to be in limited supply (which is fairly rare for games these days, unless you're in a small town where the one game store only orders enough copies to fill preorders). Any added bonuses are just efforts to manipulate people into paying for the game before they can be talked out of doing so by reviews or anything else that might derail the hype train.

teddy241 posted...

One that can output to 3 monitors

This is probably the only real consideration (but two is probably enough), though even then port replicators aren't exactly hard to come by, so don't pay too much of a premium for extra outputs.

I'm routinely surprised that a song I recognize was done by him. He's kind of all over the place. Generally enjoyable, with a few misses.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

well the literal meaning of phobia is fear

As a suffix, it's just as frequently used to refer to any aversions. Hydrophobic residues, for example, aren't afraid of water (oil has no nervous system, after all), they just avoid it. That applies socially as well.

Though that's not to say transphobia isn't frequently rooted in fear. A major component of it is homophobic men being afraid that they'll end up being attracted to somebody that used to be a man, which is why MtF trans people face so much more overt hatred than FtM's. There are also people that object on the basis of a poor understanding of science and health, which is less fear-based (although one could potentially argue that it stems from a poorly substantiated fear of going against established science, which could qualify as a phobia), but you certainly cannot pretend fear isn't a factor when so much anti-trans rhetoric consists of explicit fearmongering ("men" sneaking into women's bathrooms and other gendered spaces to rape them, trans women pushing cis women out of sports, etc.).

Presumably, his previous moderation was for comments aling the lines of "it's not a phobia, it's just disagreeing with the concept of trans people" in another topic, and I'm guessing he just doubled down on that same nonsense immediately after coming back from a warning, which is a pretty reliable way to get purg'd.

Zareth posted...

I mean, it needs to go both ways.

Logically, sure, but this whole debacle has shown us that the SC doesn't care about logic.

Lokarin posted...

I tend to think of games in terms of speedruns... what is the speedrunable goal, and that's USUALLY the default difficulty final boss

Most people don't speed run games, though, so that's not a universally applicable metric. Even then, speed run goals are largely arbitrary. The final boss is often an easy one that many people can agree on, but then you get things like Nipple% in Mario Odyssey, and surely you wouldn't be okay with Nintendo paywalling everything after that point.

Muscles posted...

every time I see claims of toxic masculinity it's just some dude being a general a******

Toxic masculinity is not "men doing bad things." It's bad things being promoted or excused because they're "masculine."

JixHedgehog posted...

RIP free speech and unbiased twitter, bummer.. I was going to sign up and give it a go

What do you want to say on Twitter that you currently cannot?

VampireCoyote posted...

what

It sounds like the actual problem is that other companies doing comparably bad things are getting a free pass, not that the handful in question are getting the negative attention. Leave the whataboutism to Zeus.

Lokarin posted...

usually I mean beating the final boss... on the normal difficulty (if applicable, diablo games usually have 3 difficulties, but they did patch diablo 3 a bunch)

In ARPG's that's a very tiny fraction of the game, such that "you can do that without paying" is basically useless as an assessment free players' ability to enjoy the game.

VampireCoyote posted...

He refuses to stop calling people the Z word

... Zoroastrian?

Count_Drachma posted...

since the #MeToo movement was built around smaller, generally non-criminal infractions.

The primary catalyst for it was Weinstein, who has since been convicted of rape and sexual assault. The movement encompasses non-criminal infractions (though more commonly it's less that the infractions are non-criminal and more that the nature of the criminal infractions makes it all but impossible to get a conviction).

Count_Drachma posted...

Not only does the s*** surrounding R Kelly predate #MeToo by DECADES and people have spoken out very publicly against him for decades

Weinstein had similarly been a turbocreep for decades before his reckoning.

Again, this is a particularly egregious case, but that doesn't mean it ought to be excluded from MeToo. Frankly, it seems to me like you're trying to gatekeep MeToo to keep out the cases even you can't play Devil's Advocate for so that it's easier for you to be dismissive of the movement. I'm afraid that's not the way to reconcile your cognitive dissonance.

VampireCoyote posted...

but its only a few companies that people complain about

Sounds like you've got more shenanigans you could call attention to.

Lokarin posted...

but did they beat the game?

Not by the metrics they were using.

Ozmose posted...

From what I can tell, it's actually physically impossible to get anything above a 2* gem in the game without spending money.

Not quite, by my understanding, but it might as well be. The drop off in odds between 2* and 3* is like three orders of magnitude, and it only gets worse from there.