wampus

I've been to a Shen Yun performance before, it was pretty good, light entertainment -- was a great date.

I'm not overly familiar with politics internal to China, but my impression is they're sorta like Jehova witnesses over there, except the government also tries to stomp them out of existence fairly explicitly. But with more ties to pre-communist China culture (and Id 'guess' taiwan? idk).

Yes, sure, ok whatever. Art is a generally iterative process that builds on prior attempts, historically. Even Shakespeare's plays ripped off themes from similar contemporary works. Your claim that we'd be left with a homogenous list of games is completely unfounded.

ID software put out the earliest "big" FPS games, and many FPS games since have ripped off ideas that were used by ID. Hell, the idea of Grappling hooks in Quake/FPS came primarily from the popularity of a Quake Mod called 3wave CTF that brought those things in. "Dur dur, they shouldn't have made any other FPS games using those same popular elements, cause homogeny!!".

I've said what I wanted to say about the game, and supported it with some data that outlines how popular features are 'outside of just my own opinion'. I'm gonna stop bothering to discuss this with you at this point, as I really don't see any reason to do so given your stance. If they leave everything as is, and you get your quirky game with bland features for exploration etc, and it sputters and dies, I hope you think back to this exchange.

Psh, Valheim's what started the resurgence of indie survival crafting games. Not giving it it's due is naive.

Like one of the few contenders still with some players is Enshrouded. Enshrouded's steamchart 24 hour peak was 18k, with a 30 day avg of ~16k.

Valheim had a 24 hour peak of 30k, and a 30 day avg of ~23k.

Valheim came out in 2021. Enshrouded in 2024.

A game 3 years older, is still dominating the space. Even just based on those numbers, it's pretty clear which one is the gold standard in the space -- taking your opinion out of it, and my opinion out of it, the data that devs should be looking at is clear if they want the game to appeal to more players.

Honestly, seeing these players, as a Canadian, I'm even less interested in supporting the NHL in anyway shape or form.

I mean, I'd say I wasn't going to go to any game in which an overt supporter of a fascist regime was going to play, as I didn't want my cash going towards that sorta stuff... but I already don't give a shit about hockey. And the idea of a 'national' league in which its two nations, that shit should get put in the past given their overtures of conquest.

AAaahahahahaha, as a non-American, I HOPE HE DOES THIS.

The demo's promising, but the game is a weak entrant into the survival/exploration space at present imo.

Years ago, Valheim entered the genre and basically set the bar -- and as far as I've seen few others have come close since to mimicking the same immersion/feeling as it managed. It should be so stupidly easy for a game dev to play valheim / look at valheim mods, and say "ok, that's the floor we need to meet in terms of mechs and whatnot, and we gotta move forward from there!".

Easy example: Windrose is often billed/marketed as an exploration game. And they did proc gen maps, which is great for exploration mechs as it keeps the terrain 'new' and prevents easy google-scumming to circumvent 'exploration' gameplay. If you look at valheim on this front, you'll note that a lot of players play without the map even, as it's more immersive for exploration to have to make your own landmarks / navigation methods (one of the most popular mods makes it so the minimap is only 'visible' when you go to your base/a specific buildable station).

Instead of going that route and leaning in to the sorts of things that the literal fanbase of this genre has been modding in to games of this sort for YEARs, Windrose provides you with the minimap, and marks every POI nearby for you to ensure you don't just randomly stumble across new things -- I mean, who'd want that sense of discovery/exploration in an exploration game anyhow, right? Their markers even have a counter for how many 'chests' are available at the POI, and how many you've found, so that you can be sure to fully complete the location. It's stupid.

Still, it looks fairly good, base mechs for combat are ok. So I'm leaving it on my wishlist for now, but if it doesn't change a bunch before EA/release, it'll likely sputter and poof.

You may think the take is wrong, but it's basically what Posobiec and them attempt to argue in "Unhumans", a political ideology book that's been lauded by Vance, Trump Jr, Carlson and so on. It is rather overtly what their more "intellectual" (debatable!) contingent paint as the ideological justification for their actions. What they describe there also explains what they're "trying" to do with some of their other shenanigans, like the supreme courts overturning of women's rights -- or more specifically, why they wanted to push that down to the state level as part of their broader objectives.

That it gets implemented in a fear mongering way that attempts to rile up the uneducated common US idiot is a secondary 'thing' -- as is the common US idiots take on it in the "They gonna fuck our kids/jobs!". The ideology not matching the implementation isn't a 'new' phenomenon, nor is it restricted to fascists -- communism is an easy example on that front, where the 'ideology' rarely matches the implementation, even if you can 'see' elements of the ideology underpinning the movements justification for their actions.

I'll take a stab at this rhetorical question, even though I'm not a right winger nor an American -- just been reading up on their 'theories' and wackiness a bit.

From their ideological perspective, I imagine that the more nuanced response (ie. not the base's "GAY BAD!"), would be that the issue of crime/outliers exist in any group, but that the existence of a trans-interest specific movement is dangerous to the broader community/stability. Do republican pedophile incestuous mayors exist? Yes. Are they lobbying to change how government treats them / trying to get more privileges and special treatment to support their pedophile incestuous mayor collective? No. So the 'risk' to society of a one off criminal, is far less than the risk of a collective movement intent on dismantling social norms in favour of norms specifically beneficial to their niche members, and generally detrimental to the interests of non-niche members.

It's similar to Dave Chappelle's comments, about how he knows/likes trans people he meets on an individual/personal level, but he hates the "trans community". It's the collective community that they take issue with, as it aims to dismantle what they consider the norms of social life / public interactions.

To try and frame their issue a bit differently using a recent example: most educated folks know about people with Tourette's, even if they don't fully understand the condition. But there's a significant difference between understanding it / tolerating it within a limited context, and inviting someone with Tourette's to sit within mic shot at the BAFTA's and pretending everyone should be comfortable with it just because it's a disability. Being at a black-tie type event, and hearing someone scream the N-word at a couple of black presenters is uncivilized, but it's "tolerated" under the guise of these niche special interest groups. Just like everyone's been forced to "tolerate" fent users collapsed all over the place in many metropolitan cities, under the guise of "drug user rights advocacy groups" -- do people understand folks are addicted? Yes. Does that understanding make seeing them flopped out, shitting in public etc, a "civilized" experience? Nah.

Yeah, though I think the best current example is likely Trump's speech, and how it gets translated into other languages. I recall non-english speakers being absolutely stunned when they saw literal translations of his speeches at first -- cause, of course, all the translators would translate him sounding more "presidential" for official clips.

I've read that one too -- not sure if it was the fault of the translators, but it had better structure to it. Like the ideas were still half baked nonsense, and the rhetoric was very blood and soil ish nationalist plonk. But it's rhetoric/prose was more convincing/plausible.

But the American one is just... like it isn't even consistent with its self... it's just utter trash.

Yeah, but this breach is specifically about KYC, about financial industry stuff. The company that got porked, was the company the banks used for their KYC stuff.

That poor cat, are you forcing it to play EA games?????

Animal Humane Society operates the primary animal cruelty reporting line in Minnesota: 612-772-9999 or report online at investigations@animalhumanesociety.org.