Messages

1301

General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?

« on: May 07, 2019, 08:49:33 AM »

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (Switch)

I played the first three hours at regular speed before turning on 2x speed which makes this a far better experience. I’ll probably turn on 4x speed once I’m more comfortable with the game. I haven’t completed an RPG in almost 15 years. I’m aiming to finish this in the next month or so.

This feels like a 13 year old game. The voice acting and animations are both pretty stiff. The world could use more color though I expect that later in the game. I haven’t gotten many spells so the combat is pretty basic so far. I don’t have too many comments on gameplay yet. There are some quality of life things like the ability to jump down a small ledge/cliff that make the game feel aged. The inability to use the analog stick while in the battle menu is baffling because the action pauses while the battle menu is up. There may be an option to turn that off and have menu selecting happen in real-time, and if that’s the case, that’s when the analog stick should remain mapped to movement while the D-pad controls the menu even though both can’t be used simultaneously. It’s a minor criticism. I’m mostly used to it.

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Movies & TV / Re: SPOILER ALERT: MCU Thread (We're in the Endgame Now)

« on: May 06, 2019, 10:33:01 AM »

I'm fine with that. Spiderman has a very different story in these movies. Despite the good characterization, he almost feels like a different character.

Makes the reboot worth it.

The verdict is out on Oscorp, Daily Bugle, and Gwen Stacy. Maybe Marvel/Sony just haven’t gotten to them yet. Peter had been Spider-Man for about six months by Civil War/beginning of Homecoming. They (thankfully) skipped his origin story so we don’t really know how much Peter was affected by Uncle Ben’s death other than the implication is that he’s fighting crime due to it. Still, everyone knows this side of Spider-Man’s lore. And I suppose it certainly helped to have a “replacement” (for lack of a better term) father figure in Tony Stark. If Marvel/Sony want to revisit the lost father-figure thing, they can still do it post-Endgame.

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Movies & TV / Re: Game Of Thrones -Spoiler Thread- Be Caught Up

« on: May 06, 2019, 01:04:31 AM »

Just don't feel like Cersei should be the final villain.

Lucky you then. It’s Daenerys. 🎶 dramatic sound effect 🎶

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General Gaming / Re: Epic: It's unreal how quickly you've trashed your companies reputation.

« on: May 02, 2019, 11:41:04 AM »

Ah, I understand now.

To be fair, extreme crunch is an industry wide problem. I read on ResetEra that pretty much just Nintendo brings in whole other teams to help with development instead of forcing people to work obscene amounts of overtime. I haven’t verified that so I’m not sure if that’s true. If someone wants to put their body and health on the line (e.g. Masahiro Sakaurai), that’s their choice, not mine. Personally, I’m perfectly happy with waiting for a game. I would prefer people not voluntarily do that and I definitely don’t want employers and contractors imposing mandatory overtime (which is bullshit regardless of its paid) on employees who ultimately fear reprisal if they don’t tow the line. I work in IT, and I’m glad I don’t work in the video game industry if only for the horror stories I’ve read.

Additionally, I kind of feel like I’m part of the problem. I don’t stop buying these games, similar to how I don’t stop buying certain electronics even though it’s apparently a fucking nightmare at Foxconn in China. Still, I don’t know if widespread boycotting of a game from a company that treats employees and contractors poorly will ever send the right message. Even if we all plainly say, “Stop being dicks to your developers or we’ll stop buying your games,” will companies take that seriously or will they blame the product which, in a way, is blaming the developers?

I’ve read that developers should unionize, and I just don’t have enough information to know how feasible this is.

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General Chat / Re: The NBA Thread: Congrats to the Warriors on winning the 2018-19 NBA Finals

« on: May 02, 2019, 10:23:00 AM »

I regret clicking into this thread and viewing that picture of Curry’s finger.

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General Gaming / Re: Epic: It's unreal how quickly you've trashed your companies reputation.

« on: May 01, 2019, 07:13:34 PM »

So now EPIC has gone and bought out the Rocket League devs. BRB, gotta go uninstall Rocket League.

Wait, I’m not following. How are these related? Are you saying buying Psyonix trashes Epic’s reputation? If so, how? I suspect Rocket League may be exclusive to the Epic Game Store in the future. Is that problematic if you ready bought the game elsewhere?

Did Epic do something particularly shitty before this? I’m confused. I haven’t really been following gaming news outside of Nintendo.

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Movies & TV / Re: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!! [OT] for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movies & TV)

« on: May 01, 2019, 04:44:06 PM »

This doesn't indicate it's a spin-off.  The article says it'll be "a new iteration of the same character with a completely unconnected story."

The wording is kind of vague, and Marvel keeping Gabriel Luna in the role isn't helping to clarify what this is. The story could be unrelated to Ghost Rider's role in Season 4 of Agents of Shield but still feature the same Ghost Rider except he's just doing his own thing.

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Movies & TV / Re: (NEW Poll Added!!) New Movies/TV Shows we should keep an eye out for!

« on: April 30, 2019, 06:13:32 PM »

**** that movie.

This is my favorite response to anything lately. I laughed out loud in public. Thank you, sir.

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Movies & TV / Re: (NEW Poll Added!!) New Movies/TV Shows we should keep an eye out for!

« on: April 30, 2019, 02:10:59 PM »

I’d watch it for Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey.

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Movies & TV / Re: Game Of Thrones

« on: April 30, 2019, 08:36:15 AM »

People are complaining that Arya is a Mary Sue because she killed The Night King. I’m beginning to think people didn’t watch the previous seven seasons and don’t know understand what a Mary Sue is.

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Movies & TV / Re: SPOILER ALERT: MCU Thread (We're in the Endgame Now)

« on: April 30, 2019, 08:25:22 AM »

If Redford was in it for the money, he wouldn’t have retired.

I was surprised to see Natalie Portman though I read her scenes were from deleted scenes.

I still haven’t seen Thor: Dark World and I didn’t think Rene Russo was amazing or anything in the original. In fact, I didn’t even know Frigga died until maybe Thor: Ragnarok. That said, her cameo was probably my favorite just because that scene was so good. Russo was great, and it was effective character building for Thor after Infinity War.

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Movies & TV / Re: Game Of Thrones

« on: April 30, 2019, 12:35:11 AM »

The action was hard to follow which wasn't entirely unexpected for an episode called "The Long Night". I think at least some of it was intentional to mimic the chaotic nature of the battle. I was wondering if maybe I was having trouble keeping up because I'm old now and everything hurts.

Theon's death seemed largely unnecessary since Arya FTW like 30 seconds later. Still, I liked how nicely it tied up his arc. Theon lost his way when he sacked Winterfell, and took Bran and Rickon hostage so it was appropriate for him to come full circle by not only defending Winterfell but Bran too.

I couldn't tell who was still alive in the crypt besides Sansa, Tyrion, and Varys.My brother asked if one of the women getting murder-death-killed was Gilly. I haven't seen her on a confirmed death list. Dolorous Edd, Beric Dondarrion, Lyanna Mormont, Theon Greyjoy, Jorah the Explorer, Melisandre, and of course, The Night King were the only confirmed deaths.

I liked that Arya was ultimately the one who destroyed The Night King (because who doesn't like Arya?) though I felt it was anticlimactic. I expected a bigger fight. Instead, The Night King just Jason Voorhees'd over to Charles Xavier under the Weirwood Tree. And just what were his lieutenants (?) doing while Arya just ran up on him? Throw a spear, something.

There's still hope for Cleganebowl in the last three episodes. And everyone is expecting Cersei to be Games of the Throne's final boss, but what if it's Daenerys?

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Movies & TV / Re: SPOILER ALERT: MCU Thread (We're in the Endgame Now)

« on: April 29, 2019, 03:46:01 PM »

👌

🙄

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General Chat / Re: The NBA Thread: Congrats to the Warriors on winning the 2018-19 NBA Finals

« on: April 29, 2019, 10:29:40 AM »

I was just joking. Harden, of all people, complaining about officiating is absurd.

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Movies & TV / Re: SPOILER ALERT: MCU Thread (We're in the Endgame Now)

« on: April 29, 2019, 09:29:58 AM »

You built an entire theory around an instance of inadequate writing then strawmanned and condescended your way through the rest of the discussion. The filmmakers chose to make a mass murderer their protagonist with the intention of portraying him as empathetic, something they really, truly believe they’ve succeeded in doing. You can have your fan theory. It’s fine as a theory with the caveat that nothing the filmmakers have said suggests that any of that was intentional. And that’s also fine. Most fan theories are not substantiated by the creators. Even when they are, it doesn’t really excuse flaws in the writing.

This is exhausting and we aren’t getting anywhere. I imagine Endgame discussions will be similarly exhausting. I really liked Endgame, found it to be hella entertaining. I have to watch it again before taking a stand on certain things to make sure I have certain facts straight. Right now, after sitting on it for a while, some things didn’t make much sense to me. They’re nitpicks (like the other thing) and didn’t ruin the movie for me.

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General Chat / Re: The NBA Thread: Congrats to the Warriors on winning the 2018-19 NBA Finals

« on: April 29, 2019, 08:31:40 AM »

Watching Harden freak out because he's not getting foul calls fills my heart with joy.

But, Soren, Harden just wants a fair chance from the refs.

I mean, I just want a fair chance, man. Call the game how it's supposed to be called, and that's it. And I'll live with the results.

1317

Movies & TV / Re: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!! [OT] for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movies & TV)

« on: April 28, 2019, 03:54:21 PM »

To kill off half the universe should make the other half feel grateful to have survived, and then thrive as a species to be better than what they once were.

So like the ending of Saw?

To speak any further requires spoiler tags, and that's too much work from my phone. But you kinda mentioned it in your post above.

I’d still like to hear the rest of your take when/if you get to a computer.

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Movies & TV / Re: SPOILER ALERT: MCU Thread (We're in the Endgame Now)

« on: April 28, 2019, 03:43:53 PM »

It was a 5yr jump, why Cassie look like she went from age 7 to age 15/16.

Oh, I know why. I even mentioned it. Emma Furhmann seems like a perfect good replacement. I was just musing about how I liked the actress who played young Cassie.

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Movies & TV / Re: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!! [OT] for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movies & TV)

« on: April 28, 2019, 02:11:17 PM »

As for Thanos never lying, utter bs. He goes around punking people with the reality stone. He is plenty capable of deception.

That’s fair. Granted, he does this once in Infinity War specifically to check if Gamora “still cared.” I understand the purpose of using the Reality Stone in that scene. Otherwise, he’s meant to be taken at his word. Nebula was someone within Thanos’ inner circle who had insight into whether he was bluffing. I buy it, but I understand your skepticism.

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Movies & TV / Re: SPOILER ALERT: MCU Thread (We're in the Endgame Now)

« on: April 28, 2019, 01:05:03 PM »

I really liked that there wasn't an Electro-esque teeth-fixing scene and Thor remained out of shape for the final battle.

When Carol met Peter, I thought they were going to do the cover of Avenging Spider-Man #9.


Also, I’m at least a little disappointed the time jump forced Cassie Lang to be recast. Abby Ryder Fortson was great in the first two Ant-Man films.

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Movies & TV / Re: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!! [OT] for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movies & TV)

« on: April 28, 2019, 12:43:48 PM »

I await the post Endgame analysis of Thanos' Mad (not that i read most of the current analysis, but curious to see if anything changes. LOL) plan.

I wanted to revisit this.

In Infinity War, Thanos claims "Titan was like most planets; too many mouths, not enough to go around." You kill X amount of the population, you only solve that problem for a time before population catches to the point Thanos deemed there to be too many mouths and not enough to go around. Fine. Keep killing half when that happens. It's inefficient, but if that's what he really wants to do, sure. However, Endgame complicates this since Thanos destroys the Infinity Stones making another snap impossible. In Endgame, Thanos says, "The work is done. It will always be done. I am inevitable." How?

After learning the 2023 Avengers are trying to reverse the snap, 2014 Thanos decides he will use the Infinity Stones stolen from his timeline to restart the universe in his vision which is actually a much better plan. If he did that from the start, there probably aren't two movies, or Marvel would have to rework everything. It makes the kill-half-of-all-living-beings plan look even more inadequate than it already did.

We don't know anything about Thanos bedrock event other than what he said and quite frankly I don't believe a word he says as it doesn't check out, vague and evasive. His planet ran out of what? Money? They are FTL capable, advanced technology which would look like magic to us. If their financial system collapsed they would GTFO as economic refugees. A societal collapse so bad it killed everyone except for him? The planet seems perfectly fine except for piles of potential salvage and ripe for colonisation.

1. Thanos tells Gamora, "I never taught you to lie. That's why you're so bad at it." Then, at the beginning of Endgame, Thanos tells the Avengers he destroyed the Infinity Stones. When they accuse him of lying, Nebula tells them he doesn't lie. That said, the audience is urged to believe Thanos as an honest figure despite his innumerable evil deeds. Fine. I buy it. The problem is that doesn't address what he perceives as true such as killing half of Titan would have saved it except:

2. On Titan, Star-Lord says something like, "What the hell happened to this planet? It's eight degrees off its axis. Its gravitational pull is all over the place." Is that what led to the fall Titan's people? Are these things related? I don't know how killing half the population on Titan would have affected its gravity or axis. If they aren't related, Chekov's Gun is just tossed out the window. Don't mention that unless it's relevant.

I'm somewhere in the middle. Not everything needs to be spoon fed to the audience and I'm okay with that to a point, but some of the writing that isn't spoon fed is still problematic.

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Movies & TV / Re: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!! [OT] for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movies & TV)

« on: April 27, 2019, 08:20:44 PM »

Is it overly complex subtext to not just take what the villain says at face value?

I didn't say it was overly complex. I said the filmmakers have stated what Thanos' motivation and goal is yet for some reason, you're ignoring that.

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Movies & TV / Re: SPOILER ALERT: MCU Thread (We're in the Endgame Now)

« on: April 27, 2019, 08:12:48 PM »

I got out of Endgame about five hours ago, and I've been letting that set in.

A few things got spoiled for me due to that YouTube algorithm. Some were just obvious like "Captain Marvel fights Thanos". The only one that kind of mattered was Steve Rogers wielding Mjolnir. It was right in the video title as I was scrolling on my phone.

I fully expected this to be my favorite line:

2012 Steve Rogers: I can do this all day.
2023 Steve Rogers: Yeah, I know.

But then.... "And I. Am. Iron Man." *snap* happened. Hnnnngh....

Thanos teleported to Earth at present time? Or did he teleport to Earth when everyone disappeared? This part was ambiguous. I figured he teleported to Earth five years later.

My understanding was 2014 Nebula brought Thanos to the movie's present (2023) through the Quantum Tunnel.

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Movies & TV / Re: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!! [OT] for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movies & TV)

« on: April 27, 2019, 07:39:10 PM »

We have to disagree here.

IMHO, Proving he was right was his goal, fullstop.

1. I'm going by what the filmmakers themselves have said Thanos' motivation and goal are. Then, you previously said: "You want deeply developed villians in your summber popcorn blockbusters.  Good luck and I hope you get what you want in the future.  Maybe you should start an online petition." You don't get to have it both ways. You don't get to ignore the filmmakers' own words and mock others for wanting the basics of protagonist character building then turn around and say Thanos' real motivation is primarily, if not all subtext. I don't believe for a second that the filmmakers went full-Great Gatsby when making Infinity War. I don't really see a scenario in which the filmmakers decided they weren't going to develop Thanos as a character then make his motivation chock full of subtext.

2. Nothing you say here really changes if Marvel ran some numbers and realized the math doesn't work. The numbers didn't matter in Infinity Gauntlet because to get senpai to notice him, Thanos only needed to kill on a massive scale. Jim Starlin could have arbitrarily selected any large number and it would have worked within the confines of the plot. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeeley made Thanos' motivation about numbers then proceeded to not check their math.

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Movies & TV / Re: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!! [OT] for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movies & TV)

« on: April 26, 2019, 08:07:14 PM »

It kinda does.  His goal was to destroy half of all life to prove he was right.  He *said* it was about bringing balance to the universe, but, in reality, he just wanted to prove he was right - and there was really only one way to accomplish that.

It kind of does but doesn’t. Like I said earlier, it almost does. Destroying half of all living beings wasn’t Thanos’ goal; it was the means to achieve his goal. ”This universe is finite, its resources, finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist. It needs correcting.” Sure, he wants to justify his beliefs and prove he’s right. Killing half of all life doesn’t get him there. On Earth, he saves a generation. Maybe on other planets he saves more or saves less. This is a problem with the writing or a weird adherence to the source material despite how much they changed. Specifically erasing half of all living beings from existence isn’t the important part; collecting the Infinity Stones so that he can snap his fingers to erase X amount of all living beings from existence is.

I think the Occam's Razor to the problem with the plan of Thanos is: Thanos is a crazy villain. Logic doesn't play a role. He's a purple Lord Zedd.

His winning was incredibly satisfying.

Marvel really played down the “Mad Titan” thing in the MCU. Josh Brolin plays him straight. The writers and directors applied logic. They changed Thanos’ motivations; they changed his personality in an attempt to make him empathetic. They really believe they succeeded too. Thanos’ counterpart in Infinity Gauntlet is a straight up comic book villain with comic book villain motivations. The “Mad Titan” title fit a bit more yet his plan actually is logical for his purposes. If one wants to impress Death, genocide on a cosmic level might do it.

That said, claiming MCU Thanos is merely “crazy” to hand wave away bad math doesn’t really work here because Marvel did everything to make him deeper than that. It just didn’t go far enough in either direction which is why his plan sucks. He isn’t decent enough to be truly empathetic, and he isn’t crazy enough to be The Mad Titan. If Marvel wanted this specific motivation to work, he would have to kill more people. At the same time, that didn’t have to be his motivation.

Oh no!  Don't call him *crazy*.  That's insulting to people with legitimate mental illnesses.

Don’t be an asshole. You’re better than this.