Lurker > Strife2

It's written in a way that is meant to be "basic." Also, it blew up because of things that weren't necessarily "visual novel" concepts. Let's just say it's meant to be the way it is. Sure, meta moments are a draw, but you don't necessarily KNOW that going in. Even if you do...you'll still get the uneasy feeling something is fucked up.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

DOKI DOKI!

cajustmonikaps

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Random encounters in RPGs. I get why they were a thing, but any game that gives the option to outright avoid them (Moogle Charm) or puts enemies on screen so I have the choice and chance to do so makes a world of difference.

Best battle system in the world? Don't care. If you keep stopping me from getting somewhere, you suck.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Wild still alive somehow

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Franziska because of the Phoenix whipping scene.

*shifty eyes*

What?

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

But Malcolm McDowell...Let that guy narrate an IRS tax return. I'm totally ok. I was like, "That dorky vampire is either McDowell or doing a bang-on impression."

To say I was giddy was an understatement.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

The game is still strange. It takes time getting used to the camera styles switching depending on the area you go to.

3D
Overhead 2D
Visual Novel
RE1-3 fixed camera
Isometric View
Straight 2D

It is mostly a "hey, here's an homage to X," but it can really mess with you if you aren't prepared for it.

The game's mood is Kino's Journey. Aka, "What fucked up depressing vibe can we do with this plot point?"

The actors, visuals, and especially music are great. Worth digging into.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Worked for GNC off and on at least 3 1/2-4 years (had to take a break due to grad school, which didn't work out).
Got two other jobs (LEGO Retail and Minnesota Wild Hockey Lodge) back in early 2019.

Retail isn't glamorous, but I prefer the part time feel of having three different lower intensity jobs. I'd prefer keeping them until...god knows how long. As long as I'm doing what they want, keep me doing my thing. Change sucks.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Go Minnesota!

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

About what I'd want a Venom 2 to be. Critics shit all over it, but it was enjoyable. Woody Harrelson as Carnage has potential for cheesy ass weirdness too. I'm on board.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

And it was already good.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

G.U. is still repetitive, but the storytelling and characters are WAY more fleshed out. It also adds stuff to at least break the dungeon crawl fest a fair bit. For $7.50, it is an EASY buy. It was one of my favorite PS2 games, and I am glad they brought it back to PS4.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Just Chatting makes sense if you want that personal interaction and want to gab and shoot the shit with people. That's not my personal interest in being on a platform. The majority of people seek interesting people and think, "They are cool. I'll follow them." I'm the inverse. The game itself has to be my priority, then I filter through, "Is the person I'm watching interesting or charismatic to me." So, if they stream something I don't personally care about...well, I don't watch them then. After all, following a streamer who is playing FF is one thing. If the same streamer turns around and becomes a COD streamer or does that a majority of the time...well, I kinda wait around until they play FF again.

Game first > streamer's charisma/talking style > audio/visual setup (as a rule for me)

I will say this: do NOT play a game you yourself won't get into. It's one thing to play a game an audience thinks you should try. I know a guy got a bunch of viewers saying,
"Play FFX you nerd." (Because that's FFX and FFX is fucking amazing). I mean as a rule: pick a main game or genre you like and want to stream all the time and see yourself wanting to do. If you choose to chase a trend, you may find yourself living a lie.

I mean, if you get viewers that way, fine...but people can see right away if streamers actually enjoy what they are doing.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

That or chat about themselves...Just Chatting is a thing I don't get, but is popular as fuck.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

CaptainOfCrush posted...

That all sounds like excellent advice, Pun, and I'm glad you're treating this as a hobby (hopefully one you really enjoy), but the fact that it took you weeks (months?) of streaming to earn your first $100 check was eye-opening for me. It seems like hardly anyone can merely eke out a living from being a Twitch streamer, let alone becoming the next big thing.

This...this...this...this. Unless you grow at an absurd rate out of nowhere, know a streamer who will give you raids and a massive head start, or whatever, growth is almost non-existant at the best of times. Said growth does not mean cheers, bits, subs either. Those are very hard to come by. The only people I've seen get hype trains and even a decent monthly payout are variety or retro streamers getting 500-1000 followers (some at 2k-3k). Or those who have built in audiences from somewhere THEN do Twitch with that built in base. Most are Youtubers who find Youtube gives them shit for money and Patreon and Twitch offer way more direct funding than CPMs do. That or crazy skilled esports or speedrunner people. I think 2 million or more channels exist now. I don't think most Partners make living wages much less the .00000000001%.

The fact those are even super low numbers by Twitch standards is striking. The bell curve is real. I think there are cases you get some high sub counts, but that is very rare or a heavy "first tier/free Prime sub" sort of scenario. People spending money on you and making that a "thing" that just happens is not an expectation, nor should ever be considered as such. Making a living wage of this is damn near impossible.

If you have the startup money to do Twitch or Youtube, it is a great outlet for creativity or expression or just playing games for the hell of it. I use it as a way to act or do public speaking practice rather than chat or get to know people. Just know it is a sort of "sunken cost" done more for the enjoyment of doing it rather than trying to make the money...much less making money back on what you spend.

*Sounds REALLY fucking jaded...not trying to be*

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Yeah. Don't stream for the potential of money. As a VERY low end streamer, I made at most $500 in 3 years. Working retail gets me that in a week....I mean, I play JRPGs and rhythm games...so...yeah. Wasn't gonna get a huge audience for that.

Doing it for fun or building an audience is a more viable situation.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Ys is one of the best RPG franchises going, and while Oath has frustrating platforming, it is still really good.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Need more Lenore. I'll take Alucard impaling more idiots on the front lawn...but I just want more Lenore. Such a calculating, captivating bitch.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

People wear them like chin-bibs or don't bother. Like...you're not eating or drinking anything. Thank you...

Not an anti mask thing, but I saw this working as a greeter a few weeks ago. Line was forming. We were at capacity. Couple dudebros walked up and I gave them the spiel. "BULLSHIT! I AIN'T WAITING IN LINE FOR THIS SHIT!"

At LEGO....a store for kids.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

*avoids the political shenanigans and came just to see superpowered people misunderstand each other and beat the fuck out of themselves*

*was left happy*

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

No Father no buy. Grabbed the OG PS3 one before Sony went Sony and shut shit down.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

The thing I'm liking best about Wandavision and FWS so far is the real world implications of the Snap. They didn't hand waive it, they didn't concoct a bullshit, "YAY WE"RE BACK WE"RE ALL GOOD AGAIN." Endgame dealt with it a little bit, but these two shows build on the proper, "How do those who were and were not snapped get back to normal? What even IS normal? My family is either older or gone or in financial debt now...this sucks." Much more so the fantastical superhero bullshit they deal with.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

I've always liked 3, even though you can definitely tell it is lower-tier game fare compared to stuff Square Enix made around the time. I still enjoyed it wholly due to a crazy in-depth item creation system for the time. The characters and story is kinda half sci-fi half fantasy in the derpy anime way.

I mostly enjoyed it, though 4 and 5 didn't grab me as much.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

SO3, shit plot twist to end all shit plot twists is still worth $10 for the creation system alone. Oh, and Nel being the only character worth a shit.

I mean, a 20 year old game SHOULD be priced that low to begin with, but whatever. I don't think they did ever fix that game crash bug though. Bleh.

Integrity and Faithlessness definitely cuts corners (some SO3 tracks even show up in places...plus one sequence is a 5 minute long Star Trek bridge talking segment). Still, the crazy everyone on the battlefield fighting system is a joy in a car crash spectacle kind of way

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

mnkboy907 posted...

Maybe Lost would've ended better if Jacob was an ancient magical swordswoman instead.

Never watched Lost, but if Ys used Lost as a template and made it work, cool with me.

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Ys VIII everything .

Playing both VIII and IX right now, and the level if polish and content in VIII is just plain stupid.

They hit a crazy concept of "stranded island meets time travel mythological weirdness" and it was just magical

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass

Go Xenosaga 1, the pretty game that wasn't terrible, before the series died in a frustrating fire of stupid.

Anything but Gears...

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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning"
Copernicus - Candlemass