darthelmet

I haven't really felt the need to upgrade since I first got a gaming PC. I've only ever replaced it when the last one was broken enough to not be worth trying to repair.

The funny thing is, these days maybe 85% of my time gaming is spent playing games that absolutely don't need all the processing power I have. It is nice to be able to play the occasional AAA game, but all of them have looked fine to me. I haven't really thought "damn this could look/run so much better if I spent another thousand dollars or so."

I've actually been joking with friends about the unnecessary level of detail in some of these games. I was streaming God of War Ragnarok for them and we zoomed in on Kratos' head and we joked about how some guy had to model the wrinkles on the back of his head/neck when it never matters and you only notice it when you're going out of your way to zoom in on the details.

Games have reached a level of detail that is more than enough to convey any gameplay or narrative sufficiently. There's nothing to keep pace with and I'm just hoping this one lasts long enough to avoid the price spike.

Ah. Thanks!

What is FOI in this context? The closet thing I found to something that makes sense would be Freedom of Information, but that doesn't seem quite right, or I'm not understanding the connection.

Even before AI was a big thing, I really wish we had some kind of class, or at least an explanation from our teachers on the basics of how learning works. So much unnecessary drama could have been avoided if the kids had a better understanding of why their teachers were asking them to do things this way instead of just saying "do it this way because if not I'll give you a bad grade." Obviously younger kids aren't going to be equipped to handle all the neuroscience, but I'm sure there is some simplified explanation that could be given that would get the point across.

This was an extreme example of this, but it was emblematic of the general way my teachers handled students who didn't understand the point of the assignments or teaching methods: I forget which grade I was in, but in one of my math classes there was a day in class where I was solving the problems but not doing it exactly the way the teacher was teaching it. When he insisted, I asked why I had to do it that way if it works either way. He said something like "Because I have the big desk." Basically just an appeal to authority without any further explanation. "You're a dumb kid and I'm an adult, so do what I say."

But what would the shareholders of oil and MIC companies do if we stopped spending that money on oil wars? Won't someone please think of the shareholders!?

I think the distinguishing feature of the newer “isekai” genre is just how trashy they all are. :P

I couldn't even buy it for like an hour because Steam was getting overloaded lol. I'm playing it now and having a lot of fun.

Idk… I’ve had a few pretty shitty pencils.

While I generally agree, I think there is some value in imposing some kind of deadline or limit to a project. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. There will always be more work that could be done on something. If you let yourself just keep going until you think it’s done it might never come out.

But it’s a balance and when publishers push those kinds of deadlines they’re not really considering that.

Ah. I didn’t know they said that. It’s definitely shitty to go back on that promise. Although in a vacuum, I think this is the kind of non-cosmetic content that’s somewhat acceptable to me as paid DLC. It’s not a competitive game and assuming the class is balanced, it’s just adding content that gives more variety. I’ve been fine with paid DLC in other big games as long as it’s a worthwhile amount of content for the price and it’s sold in a straightforward way without any funny business. Given that this game has online co-op, I think it makes sense that they’re gonna keep the content expansion free so it doesn’t divide people who would want to play together (also I guess there is trading, but I’m a CoF player so…) and then this is something that mostly just affects someone’s individual experience. Like if you were going to be happy enough to keep playing the game with existing classes, then this doesn’t really affect you.

So in principle I’m ok with this… but like I said, the bigger issue is them going back on their word.

Yeah I pretty much almost never buy AAA games anymore outside of some very specific creators/franchises. Price is definitely a part of that, but the bigger things are creativity and business practices. Indie games are where all the new ideas are and where you get honest expressions of the artist’s intent. And you generally don’t need to put up with bullshit micro transactions, DRM, etc.

I’m not gonna pay $60+ for Call of Duty 500 when I can find full, fun, inspired indie games for less than $30. I will still buy the handful of more creative AAAs that do come out sometimes.

Unfortunately this is the movie. So it's longer and we have to pay for it.