Lurker > Reg

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Things are going mostly smoothly after just under a week. About 1/3 cleared by game clear counts, 3/4 cleared by locations checked.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

Is there ever much conversation about runs while they're ongoing and who's blocked by what/etc?

Mostly happens in the discord server, which you joined not that long after posting this so you're good there. I was going to try to keep a bit more communication here than usual to try to keep you in the loop on things, but today's been a busier-than-expected day for me. so I haven't played too much myself yet.

https://archipelago.gg/room/ZSLtNfWgSESlbK8u5MkJTw

Room link for February. Good luck, have fun, hope the randomizer wasn't too mean to you (Unless you wanted it to be)

1) Reg (Super Mario 64)
2) Jeff (A Link to the Past)
3) Yuzu (Final Fantasy Mystic Quest)
4) Koala (Pokemon Emerald)
5) Grapple (Subnautica)
6) Thomas (Super Mario 64)
7) MZero (Sonic Adventure 2, Hollow Knight)
8) Mewtwo (Ocarina of Time)

Got about 18ish more hours before I roll a world, so if you want to get a yaml in make sure you do.

AriaOfBolo posted...

I've got a lot of time for the first week but if it goes two weeks I'm gonna have to forfeit
which is not the end of the world on my end, but jsyk

We can make that work, no problem.

1) Reg (Super Mario 64)
2) Jeff (A Link to the Past)
3) Yuzu (Final Fantasy Mystic Quest)
4) Koala (Pokemon Emerald)

Still got until about Saturday Morning or so to get me your yamls, so plenty of time.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

What's the target duration?

I spent a lot of time in January customizing Stardew Valley YAML files to get a Community Center goal run that didn't lock relevant items in locations that are are too far off track from things your normally want to be doing in a CC run.

We generally wind up running for about a week on average, I'd say. The last one ran for about three (Which has been our longest) due to some circumstances and some unlucky randomization, though.

If you're wanting to play a big game, I would take that as invitation for other people to play bigger games too, as long as they're up for it.

I'm a bit early to this, but the 17th it is.

Send your yamls to me on discord or however else you want to. I'll roll some time after noon CST on the 17th (Exact time will depend on a lot of things), so let's just call noon the cutoff for simplicity

I am looking at the 24th currently, but can do the 17th if that works better for people.

AriaOfBolo posted...

How often do archipelago updates *require* bizhawk updates? I have a very long term shuffler project going and I am vaguely aware that gets funky if you update bizhawk itself

Pretty rarely. I would expect that it's probably only Pokemon that really needs 2.9, while everything else should work just fine on 2.7 or 2.8.

That said, can't you just download both versions, use the old one for your shuffler, and 2.9 for AP? You can just download Bizhawk as a zip and extract+run it.

And, actually, checking the setup guide for Pokemon Emerald, which I should've done before posting, it looks like 2.7 or 2.8 work there too. pre-2.7 Bizhawk has always been "It might work, but use it at your own risk and if you run into issues we're just going to tell you to upgrade" with AP, so if you're using some older version for your shuffler, I definitely recommend just getting 2.9 and extract+run.

I'll get a yaml in today. Just need to decide what game(s) I want to play

Despite me just praising the series, everything Nanoha after Strikers is bad (Movies excepted, I guess)

Nanoha definitely shows its age with regard to "romance" aspects, and is not a good watch for that.

It is, however, quite good in general.

Dancedreamer posted...

Former Obama official Stuart Seldowitz caught telling Muslim halal cart vendor in NYC that they should've killed more than 4000 palestinian kids

https://twitter.com/VICENews/status/1727078558831350245

The first reply I see does raise a good, if entirely unrelated point

How does a guy who worked as a FSO for 24 years under five administrations count as "an Obama Advisor"? He worked for Regan, two Bushes and Clinton before he worked for Obama

Disgusting behavior regardless, though.

Up

Cars, sports betting, political and pharmaceutical ads are pretty much always the worst regardless of actual content. When I'm working from home and watching daytime Price is Right and local news afterwards, there's a lot of ads clearly aimed at retirees that seem pretty predatory too which sucks.

I don't have any specific ones to name right now though, because I don't watch TV frequently enough and don't pay enough attention during the commercials to remember or call them out.

swordz9 posted...

Maybe, but Id be amazed if anyone believed The American Dream even exists anymore. If you arent born into wealth youre probably 0.0000000000000000000000000001% to ever be truly wealthy

Something, something, American Dream because you've gotta be asleep to believe it

SeabassDebeste posted...

how's new kenshin?

Very good. It's a very competent and faithful adaptation of a series that (Regardless of what you think about the author) deserves all of its reputation as one of the classics.

Robazoid posted...

This is yet another anime that would be vastly improved by simply not being an isekai

Wish Japan understood this. Fantasy stories, even with the Dragon Quest/Lord of the Rings/Dungeons And Dragons/etc stylings and tropes, can be fine.

Isekai makes it much, much worse than it could be.

Football posted...

I have heard that sentiment elsewhere about the Mavs title, in that it was special, but its 90% being happy for Dirk, which I think is his greatest legacy

Definitely seems to be a bigger perspective among people who aren't really into basketball, or are only casually so. Which is definitely me. I'll check in on the regular season standings a couple times a year (usually once around Christmas, then again towards the end of the season) and only take deeper interest if the Mavs are in the playoffs. But more serious fans would probably be more about the whole team and the guys like Terry, Kidd, Barea, etc

Similar for the Stars, but to an even lesser extent. The only two hockey games I've watched in the past 5ish years were them wasting godlike performances from Bishop and Oettinger to get eliminated though. I've always gotten enough of that kind of heartbreak from the Rangers/Cowboys to want to get heavily into more lmao

For me, I've been a Dallas area resident all of my life, so I just naturally picked up all four of those teams to be a fan of. But, unlike Leon, I'm not old enough to remember any Cowboys Super Bowls (My oldest sports watching memory is watching the Cowboys lose a wild card game to Arizona).

On top of that, I've always been much, much more of a Baseball/Football guy than Hockey/Basketball, so even though I have vague memories of the excitement of the Modano/Hull/Belfour Stars in 1999 and trying to watch the games a bit because of that, it never fully registered with me. Especially with the clincher being in 3OT and me being a 6 year old kid who couldn't stay awake for it even if he wanted to.

I definitely, clearly remember the Mavs in both 2006 and 2011, but more than strongly caring about the Mavs beyond being a general fan of Dirk (Dude's awesome), I enjoyed it more as a revenge story + beating Lebron's superteam after having to hear about "The Decision" constantly leading up to that season.

For me as a sports fan, the thing that actually comes closest to what I've been feeling for the last couple days (And am still feeling now, really) is Andy Murray finally breaking through and winning the US Open (And just as much so, Wimbledon the next year). That one's special to me because I picked up Tennis as a teenager and really enjoyed his style more than Federer, Nadal and the other top players of the mid-late 00s, so I tried to fashion my own game after him. The satisfaction of seeing the guy you've been rooting for and trying to imitate on some level for several years was wonderful.

But the Rangers finally coming through and winning it all still brings me more joy than even that. I've been emotionally invested in and rooting for the Rangers and their players for basically as long as I have been the Cowboys. Similar to Murray as a tennis player later, Rusty Greer was my childhood hero. I was super excited when A-Rod came even though I didn't understand the details. I watched the team suck for years, but still loved rooting for guys like Young, Blalock, Teixeria, Kinsler, etc. Getting crushed so badly in 2010 that I couldn't help but laugh about it. The sheer pain of 2011, and then again in 2015. The frustration that they could never really string anything together with Yu Darvish around (Darvish is still my favorite baseball player of all time). The injury-derailed years of suck. The prospects that didn't pan out (I was a Delino DeShields truther for way too long, and was super happy to see Jurickson Profar find playing time, if not real success, elsewhere).

Even if pretty much everybody from the older teams is gone now, seeing this team break through and finally do it is just fucking bliss. And there are a ton of guys on the team that I really love specifically rooting for too. Semien/Seager, of course. DeGrom when he's healthy, too. But I also really enjoy Carter, Adolis, Garver, Heim, all those guys. I fucking love this team. And I'm so far beyond happy that I got to see them reach the top, especially a year ahead of when they were "supposed" to be serious contenders, meaning that it's an extra year of getting to see the core stick around and work together.

I did skip the parade without a second thought though, because it happened basically a day and a half after the title was clinched, in the hellscape of Arlington's entertainment district that's a total fucking pain in the ass to get to. I probably could've gotten the time off work for it if I had asked, but for the whole traffic and effort to get there/back, I expect the experience would've been super soured for me. Do I regret it? Maybe, just a bit. But only a bit. Especially since my understanding is that the parade wasn't even that good anyways =(

Anyways, I kinda rambled here, but some extra insight into how I'm feeling. And how it may compare to Football, or how people like Neon/Stan were when their teams did it in the past.

5 and it's not super close.

3/4 are both great (and super close to each other quality-wise imo) though.

Never played 1/2 and not sure I ever will

Very much hoping that Chapman has now pitched his last as a Ranger, for a lot of reasons

guffguy89 posted...

where did the arizona offense go?

Eovaldi remembered that he's allowed to not give fans heart attacks at the very end of his outing.

Gallen's a great pitcher who pitched a fantastic game, but Eovaldi is awesome too.

On the other side, Gallen is pitching fantastically to be sure. I don't want to take that away from him at all.

But there is no goddamn excuse for all of this first pitch swing and awful ABs from the Rangers. At least make him fucking work for it, what the fuck.

Mewtwo59 posted...

Well, this sucks that Aroldis Chapman might get another ring.

Spoilers: Rangers Fans hate Chapman more than anybody else here.

Football posted...

Feel like theres going to be a lot of runs in this game so Im not gonna celebrate too soon

Heaney's been good so far. Fingers crossed for 4 from him, 4 more from Dunning, and the Rangers keep getting to these DBacks bullpen guys.

Crescent-Moon posted...

As someone who defended Carr for years, I see him as someone who's never going to win you that big game that's riding on his shoulders. He will fall short when it matters most.

Sure, but that's not relevant to this conversation. The Raiders weren't going anywhere any time soon even
moving on from Carr. In the end, all they really accomplished is pissing off their superstar player, while managing to get worse in the process.

Leonhart4 posted...

Actually he wanted to play with his friend

And then they got rid of him in his first season

Do feel a bit bad for Adams because of this (and definitely agree with blaming the Raiders org over him for all of this)

Not too bad though, because he has $$$ out the ass and the Raiders aren't/weren't good even with Carr.

Scherzer hurt, forced out of the game after 3 because of it
Adolis hurt, pulled from the game after his AB in the 8th
Sborz mound visit from the trainer implying that he might be hurt, but was apparently going to go out for the 9th until the DBacks PH for Longoria? Not sure what's up there, but if any of these injuries cause any of these guys to miss real time, RIP Rangers.

Gray starting game 4 for Texas.

Like it. He looked great for what little bit he was in during Game 1, and Heaney/Dunning both made appearances in Game 2.

Frieren is giving Oshi no Ko a run for its money in a way that I didn't really expect anything to be able to with it being a good adaptation.

Haven't started Apothecary Diaries yet.

Crescent-Moon posted...

Ok I thought this game would be marginally close because Chargers

There's a big distinction here. The Bears are bad, the Chargers are just mid.

Sorozone posted...

This Unp definitely have a few more favorable calls to the Dbacks tonight too. AZ takes it regardless I think but its been pretty bad.

It is probably still a 3 run game if the bad calls get taken away tbh

Which, the DBacks still win that pretty much every time, but the endgame is just fucking embarrassing for the Rangers here and I'm not gonna pretend that the 8th inning especially wasn't spurred on by that.

Even putting the two obnoxiously cold bats aside, Kelly's just too damn good tonight. The big bats just can't get to him, for the most part. Montgomery was mostly good, but not 100% top of his game

Wonder Heany coming out today means Gray starts G4. Dude definitely looked great last night.

MZero posted...

Pain.

Honestly, this game was great. But also hella stressful. And was gonna feel awful for the losing team regardless of who won.

But with all the pitchers used tonight (Especially Leclerc on the Rangers side, but Ginkel threw just as many for the DBacks) it's gonna be even bigger than usual to have the starters go as deep as they can tomorrow. So glad it's Montgomery going out for Texas and not Scherzer.

I don't know why I ever doubted this team but yessssssssss

Outside of the one game against Houston where he basically got iced because Abreu and Maldonado are scummy pieces of shit, Leclerc has been brilliant in the postseason.

also "oh"

Seager, I love you man

In what world is the DBacks bullpen "bad"? Everything I've heard about them suggests they've been great.

Meh.

Let Gallen off the hook twice. Hella lazy defense from Leody let them rally in the third. Semien and Leody doing nothing at the plate.

Gray looked great though. I wouldn't mind seeing him start game 4 instead of Heaney+Dunning.

Still one inning left for the Rangers to make a comeback here and there's no reason at all that they can't, but with Leody -> Semien leading it off I am not getting my hopes up.

Yeah, it is. And I really really need that disaster of a 3rd to be a fluke for both Eovaldi and the Rangers fielders.

Buffy_Summers posted...

Why does it feel so controversial to support 'not killing civilians, and especially kids.' when it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict? Like... that should be basic human decency? Idk, but somehow people will call you antisemitic for thinking genocide is bad. And it sux, cause you'd think we could all agree killing kids is bad. It's bad when Hamas does it, it's bad when Israel does it. But apparently saying that makes you a supporter of Hamas in the eyes of some people, and I just don't get it.

Israel goes very hard on its PR/propaganda and pushing the "Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semetism" and "Supporting (or even just feeling bad for) Palestinian Civilians = Supporting Hamas = Anti-Israel (= Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semetism)" narratives.

Leonhart4 posted...

I'm pretty sure that was a BCS joke

So was the reply, tbf

XIII_Rocks posted...

With that said, 10 out of 20 PL owners are American now I think. There's a chance that it will soon be 14, at which point they can bend the competition to their will - create a truly closed shop with no relegation, guaranteed CL for certain teams, potentially a playoff system, etc, and truly Americanise it.

On this note, it's not physical sports, but let me tell the tale of League of Legends as an esport, which is basically speedrunning your exact concerns here.

When Riot Games took over the Professional League of Legends circuit in America and Europe, and transitioned it from an open circuit to a closed league (End of 2012/start of 2013), it was originally a Football-style promotion/relegation system - Bottom of the standings in each region's top league had to play to avoid being relegated to the secondary league. After five years of this (Going into 2018), all of the orgs complained about the lack of stability (Getting relegated was largely a death sentence for an org in the scene, and not many of the promoted teams did particularly well), and the top league in each region transitioned to an American-style system.

When this transition happened, the amount of money and investment into the scene (Which was already trending up in anticipation of this exact happening) exploded, especially in America. Most of the teams partnered with existing sports orgs (Most notably, MSG/New York Knicks, Golden State Warriors) or other major investors (Literally Disney was, and still is, involved).

And, now that we're five years after that, it's become clear to those major investors that the ROI for them is not what they were hoping it would be. People who follow that scene have been watching that bubble slowly burst in real time for the past year or two.

And the point I'm trying to make is, if you think EU Football is a bubble waiting to burst now, an Americanized system will probably follow a very similar path, flood in a bunch of money to blow that bubble up even further for a few years, and then burst just as you're fearing.

Emeraldegg posted...

I mean, soccer is the most popular sport in the world right? And there is so much money in euro football specifically, I see some of those transfer fees. They seem to be doing alright with that format.

The biggest events in European Football are all tournaments (UEFA events, World Cup, etc), though, so even they're in on it to some extent. I do agree that it's a uniquely American thing to emphasize playoffs so heavily though, which is why I specifically said "In US Sports"

That said, the Promotion/Relegation system in European Football (Which is another thing that would never fly in American sports) helps keep the regular season interesting by giving teams a reason to not tank/give up on the season. Overall, I agree that the format is better for competition and crowning a champion. It's just not something that'll ever realistically catch on in the US.

AriaOfBolo posted...

but playoffs make the ending more (reliably) interesting

This is the key point for why things are the way they are in US sports. More exciting -> More money involved, even if a team other than the "best" one wins it in the end. Hype and intrigue sell.

That said, if your goal is to crown a champion, and you want it to be the "best" team as reliably as possible, a long regular season with no playoffs will typically do that. That sort of format has a lot of issues for engagement though. I very much like baseball, but I still tune out of a good chunk of the regular season because of it beyond keeping a basic eye on results, standout performers and injuries. Basketball and Hockey would be very similar if I followed them particularly. But at the end of the season in all three sports, the best teams will pretty reliably be the ones with the best records.

Meanwhile, the NFL with its relatively small number of regular season games and high variance sucks for attempting to objectively determine the best team. But it sure is exciting to follow specifically because of those reasons.

Leonhart4 posted...

So the question becomes are the Dolphins the good bad team?

Or is that Dallas? The "best" win for both teams is the Chargers.

Well, I guess the Jets win looks a little better for Dallas now.

Dallas is definitely the line between contenders and frauds tbqh.

Hell yes, fuck the Astros, and good night.

guffguy89 posted...

This one seems just about over

I'm not gonna pretend any lead is insurmountable against this Rangers team, with a lineup as good as Houston's can be.

However, I am very much not stressed about this game right now.