Lurker > ParanoidObsessive

I literally just went and voted for 2001 solely to spite you.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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I suspect they're going to be shocked when sales figures for Destiny 2 don't match up with original Destiny's. Because while the game did retain a lot of players, many of whom will probably re-up for the new one, there were also a LOT of disgruntled early adopters who bought Destiny who wound up disillusioned and who probably won't waste money on the sequel, no matter how many people tell them "No no, they fixed everything this time!"

Not that I think it's going to FAIL, because it definitely won't. But I suspect it's going to move at least a few million copies less than the original did.



On a completely unrelated note, here's a list of all the new comic TV shows in the pipeline for next year. Most of these I already knew, but some were new to me:

http://www.cbr.com/comic-book-tv-shows


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Mead posted...

This topic makes me not want to read that series.

There's no reason why you ever should. Especially when there are a lot of better fantasy series out there you could be reading instead of spending time on 14 books worth of creeping disappointment and (no pun intended) wheel-spinning.

The most telling thing about how Wheel of Time was written was that it was originally intended to be written as a trilogy. Now think of all the ways in which a writer can expand three books into fourteen. The series uses every single one of those tricks, good and bad, over and over again.


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Though talking about making TV shows out of fantasy novels, I'm kind of surprised that no one's done anything with Xanth yet. Piers Anthony seems like the sort of writer who wouldn't hesitate to license out the rights, and that's pretty much Baby's First Fantasy Series in a lot of ways (meaning it might appeal to kids and casuals who want something more "family friendly" than Game of Thrones).

Plus most of the stories are relatively self-contained, he tends to shuffle the older cast out and introduce new characters every few books, and he's written about 4 million of them, so it seems like it would be utterly perfect for a long-running TV show (whether live-action or animated) to adapt.


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TES_Nut posted...

It's probably gonna suck

It would pretty much have to, considering the first third of the series is dull and plodding, while the last third is explosions and ass.

4-6 (MAYBE 4-7, and at the most 4-8 if you only count parts of 8) are about the only books in the series that are actually pretty strong narratively.

It's a very bad sign when someone else takes over writing the last book in your series (and has to break it into three books), and it/they wind up being better in terms of narrative and pacing than the last few books you wrote yourself.


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AdrammeIech posted...

Greenfox111 posted...

i didnt watch it but i felt compelled to reply since you said only those who saw it

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EightySeven posted...

salt seems to be the base for almost everything. Sugar is awesome, but doesn't seem to have quite the same universal utility that salt does.

Sugar's in a lot more things than you think. Fruits and vegetables would probably become inedible to about 90% of the population, for one thing.

Removing the taste of either sugar or salt entirely would radically change the flavors of most foods for the worse. Removing sugar or salt as an actual distinct ingredient would pretty much kill us all.


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helIy posted...

ebony mail (that's one, right?)

Yes.

Based on your list, and the ones you mentioned after, the only ones you should need are

Wabbajack
Azura's Star (either version)
Mace of Molag Bal (make sure you don't kill the priest and fail the quest)
Ring of Namira (make sure you side with the cannibals and bring them a sacrifice)
Masque of Clavicus Vile (make sure you give Clavicus the axe and don't kill Barbas)
Savior's Hide/Ring of Hircine (either works, but for safety use the cheat and get both)
Oghma Infinium (DON'T use it until you complete the achievement)



helIy posted...

i think i also have the ebony blade, but i don't know if i've charged it, nor do i know if i have to charge it.

You don't.

Though it's easy enough to charge regardless.



helIy posted...

and i didn't have to be thane of the pale, dawnstar mayor just straight let me buy the land

Yeah, you don't have to be Thane to buy land, you just have to complete specific quests beforehand. By getting the Skull of Corruption and presumably killing a giant south of Dawnstar you fulfilled the requirements.

Conversely, if you did the Civil War and helped the Imperials win, you can get it automatically.

Being Thane there just gets you a housecarl who will automatically show up at your property to become steward.

I used Heljarchen as my main base on two different runs (including my final Achievement run), and made Lydia from Whiterun my steward there. Then when the housecarl from Dawnstar showed up, he just sort of wandered around outside looking all aimless.



helIy posted...

so all i have to do in hearthfire now is save, adopt a kid, reload save.

Aww, poor kid.

I wound up adopting two kids on my very first run-through of the game just for the sake of having them, and kept them right until the end. Used to bring them back presents all the time, too.

I did the save/reload thing for when I had to get married, though. Ain't nobody gonna tie the Dragonborn down!



helIy posted...

i imagine i'll get the skill books done once i start doing the dragonborn DLC, though.

Yeah, there's a ton of them there.

If I remember correctly, I think I got that Achievement naturally on my first run, where I did the main quest and civil war quests, but avoided all of the various guild storylines. Then I did Dawnguard and Dragonborn, and it popped somewhere in the middle of Dragonborn.

Even if you went straight to Dragonborn without doing much else in Skyrim itself, you'd pick up a ton of skill books in Mora's plane, because hidden knowledge is pretty much his whole theme.


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The Wave Master posted...

Is anyone really interested in Destiny 2?

I'm anti-interested. They did such a terrible job and fucked up Destiny 1 so badly IMO, I now have zero interest in the franchise and will continue to do so from now until the end of time.

They poisoned the well so badly for me, even if one of the future games winds up being the greatest game ever created by humans and exactly what I want out of a game in every single way, I still won't be able to enjoy it because the franchise as a whole is kind of ruined for me.

I do feel sad that my previous love for Bungie due to Marathon and Halo has led me to a point where I now basically hate Halo and Bungie. Not that this is anything new, considering my past history with Square. Apparently everything I love eventually turns against me.

(Why hello there, Steven Moffat and Doctor Who! Fancy meeting you here in this incredibly appropriate metaphor!)



knivesX2004 posted...

I learned my lesson with getting hyped for games and being incredibly disappointed.
*glares at diablo 3*

To be fair, Diablo 3 vastly improved post-launch, once they dropped the Auction House and re-balanced all of the item drop rates.

Then again, it also helps that I didn't really give a shit about Diablo 3 beforehand and never played it until after most of those problems were fixed, so I lacked the bitter history with it and was better able to appreciate it once those kinks were ironed out.

In the same sense, maybe I'd enjoy Destiny more if I hadn't come into it until after Year 3 or so, but that might be a franchise I was never going to love because of how deep it's MMO roots run (no matter how often they keep trying to convince themselves and others that it's not an MMO).


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Zangrief posted...

I think how a person is spoke of should not change simply because they have died. If they were an asshole, we shouldn't sugar coat it.

This, mostly. Though I wouldn't badmouth Roger Ailes specifically regardless, because I don't really give a fuck about him either way.

But the flip-side of that equation is, even if someone was a huge asshole while alive, they're still going to have family and friends who are mourning their loss, so effectively walking up and pointing and laughing at them and going "I'm glad he's dead!" is kind of a dick move, and it just sort of makes YOU the asshole.

Which, I suppose, means that the rest of us would then be obligated to shit-talk you once you're dead as well. And so on and so forth, ad infinitum.

So yeah, I can see why tact and human empathy would tend to discouraging speaking ill of the dead in a lot of cases depending on the circumstances, but I also don't think that simply dying magically erases all of your sins and leaves you immune to all criticism.



DarkKirby2500 posted...

I don't believe the dead care because they're dead.

To be fair, the practice of not speaking ill of the dead started at a time when most people believed the dead would come back and haunt your ass if you badmouthed them.


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WhiskeyDisk posted...

my favorite Skyrim video of all time:

Hah, I remember that.

I always liked some of the Achievement Hunter videos for it:






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helIy posted...

and i can't find where my stash of artifacts are so I can easily tell what I've done.

When I did my run to get that Achievement, I deliberately kept a single chest off to the side that I only put the Daedric artifacts into, so I could always see at a glance which ones I had and which ones I still needed.

Though you technically shouldn't HAVE to do that, because you can still see discovered and completed quests in your quest log. Sure, it's not as easy, but if you've already screwed up with the artifacts you can at least still salvage the info.

When I was doing that run I actually kept an index card with all of the Daedric Princes listed on it so I could easily check off the ones I'd done and keep track of which quests I still needed to locate/trigger/finish. I also used the wiki to jot down what level they'd trigger at (so, for instance, I had "Boethiah - lvl 30" written down so I wouldn't waste time heading up to that altar before I hit 30).



helIy posted...

my save was exiting mehrunes shrine, but beyond that I can only find Meridas sword and I know I've at least done sheogorath

If you don't have Volendrung, you need to get your ass to Largashbur (southwest-ish from Riften) as soon as possible and do Malacath's quest. That's the real pain in the ass one in terms of having NPCs dying and making it uncompleteable.

I'd also recommend having a save before you head into that area, so that if you don't get their fast enough to kill the giant before he kills someone important, you can always reload and try again.

And if you've already borked that one up (ie, you can't get the quest because of dead NPCs but you don't have Volendrung yet), you might as well drop this run entirely and start over.

I'd also recommend using multiple save slots (if you don't already), so that if you do screw up at some point, you can always roll time back a bit to a prior save. With Skyrim, I'd usually have about a dozen staggered save files I could fall back on if my newest got corrupted or I screwed something up.



helIy posted...

having multiple houses is a pain

Part of why, even when I had multiple houses, I deliberately picked one to store all my stuff in.

Whiterun was usually the obvious choice (because of how early and how easily you get it), but for some of my runs I'd choose a different house and then eventually move all of my stuff from Whiterun to the other house.

I also always sorted everything I stored into themed chests - one for food, one for booze, one for weapons, one for armor, one for general clothes, one just for books and scrolls, one for enchanting supplies, and so on. That way I'd always know where to look when I needed a specific thing.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Poe was originally supposed to die (in the crash in the desert, exactly when Finn thinks he does), but test audiences actually liked the character enough for them to write in a scene where he pops up and reveals that - SURPRISE! - he actually survived.

That's part of why his presence in the film is actually a bit weak - he wasn't supposed to be in most of it. But the positive reaction to him almost certainly means we'll see a strongly beefed-up role for him in the next two movies. So while his relevance to the plot is weak in Force Awakens, it probably won't stay that way, and the end result will seem like Force Awakens was just setting up his character for later.

Phasma existed solely to squeeze another female character into the mix and have her wear armor just different enough to potentially sell more toys. She's also sort of screwed by being the character who is blatantly meant to take the Vader role in the narrative, but she gets overshadowed by Kylo, meaning she's utterly superfluous.

She's also supposed to appear in the next two movies (or at least the next one), but honestly, I'm not sure anyone would notice or care if she didn't.


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Dikitain posted...

It is kind of funny because I live in an area notorious for over-bureaucracy (You actually need a permit to replace a toilet in your own home)

To be fair, the underlying reason for that is supposed to be to discourage you from doing it yourself, to reduce the risk that you screw up and cause massive water damage to your house.

In the same vein, in my town you're technically supposed to pay $40 for a permit to install an air conditioner in your window. And part of that is certainly the municipal government enjoying being able to skim money off the top, but the logic behind it is supposed to prevent completely inept people from dropping an air conditioner on someone else's head if they live somewhere with a lot of through traffic.

Granted, it's usually more about money at this point than whatever motivation originally inspired it (most ordinances involving fines usually are), but the same could be said for most traffic laws at this point, too. But that also doesn't mean we should abolish every traffic law.



Dikitain posted...

however we don't have a lot of laws on yard maintenance. As long as your grass isn't so tall that it goes to seed, no one really cares how often you mow your yard, or how many weeds are in your front landscaping.

A lot of this depends on what sort of area you live in. Usually places where houses or yards are spread further apart tend to be a bit more lax on that sort of ordinance, but the closer houses start to be together, the more it will start to become an issue.


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And as for WHY a shitty yard tends to pull down property values? It's not just because "Oh, it looks bad!"

Part of it is because of the things I've already mentioned, like increased risk of insect and vermin problems. But part of it is also because blatant neglect of someone's yard (or exterior of their house, or whatever) can also be a warning sign of neglect in other respects - someone who doesn't mow their lawn may also be neglecting their home in other ways. Ways which could be creating unseen problems ranging from dead trees in their yard crashing into your house or property doing damage (something both my aforementioned friend AND myself have had to deal with in the past), termites, cockroaches, or vermin nesting in one home potentially finding their way into another home, massive water damage or basement flooding creating heavy mold infestation that can potentially cause problems to more than just a single homeowner, or even outright collapse or fire that can damage nearby houses - and so on.

Is it 100% fair to assume that someone's unkempt yard means they're scum in every facet of their life? Absolutely not. But because it CAN mean that, there will always be a bias against it in terms of property value assessment. Even if only by a small percentage, living next to a dump DOES increase your chances of having problems, and thus, decreases the value of your own home (it also discourages other people from wanting to buy your home, because they don't want to wind up living next to that asshole either!).

Basically, once you actually OWN a home, you tend to start realizing exactly WHY there tend to be rules for maintaining your yard, and start understanding a hell of a lot better why those rules aren't arbitrary bullshit but safeguards that probably SHOULD exist.

And keep in mind, I'm saying this as someone who hates to mow their lawn (mainly because I have low-grade grass allergies and I'm too cheap to hire someone to do it for me, because I have a big yard). At any given time, I usually AM the person on my street whose weeds are a bit too high. At least a couple times in the past, I HAVE gotten warnings to deal with the problem before getting fined. And at no point in that process did I ever go "GODDAMNED GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO LEAVE ME ALONE!" I understand exactly why they have a problem with this specific issue.


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Muffinz0rz posted...

If my weeds don't spill over onto your property, it doesn't affect you.

Except it does, it multiple ways. Just because you don't want to believe it doesn't magically make it untrue.

And even if it didn't, the fact remains that the laws still exist that say it does, so you're still blatantly wrong no matter how hard you try to wish yourself into a magical world of ponies and rainbows.



Muffinz0rz posted...

We've already been through the property value bit. Nobody here wants to repeat themselves.

But it still remains true, no matter how badly you want to dismiss it out of hand. Like it or not, it DOES affect property value. Even in cases where a HOA isn't even remotely part of the equation.

Which is why she brought it up again - you're basically hand-waving away one of the major points that hugely undercuts everything you're saying. You can't really say "Yeah, well people brought that up but we're not going to talk about it anymore," because saying that doesn't actually stop it being a thing, nor does it stop it being a thing that pretty much contradicts your entire argument.



Smarkil posted...

PO, you didn't even read what I said. I understand the reality of the situation. I'm arguing against the stupidity of society deciding that because a neighbors house has grass that's too long, you refuse to pay as much for a house.

I actually did. Which is why I didn't say "You're right that things shouldn't be that way, but that's the way things are."

What I actually said was "If you live in close proximity, someone else's property DOES have an effect on your own, and thus, you're not living in a completely closed system.". Because, like it or not, it abso-fucking-lutely does. And I'm not just talking about the nebulous "Oh, your shitty yard makes mine look bad and thus can potentially cost me money" (though that's also absolutely a thing). I'm also talking about - as I pointed out earlier - that the more unkempt your yard is, the more it becomes a potential health hazard. Higher weeds increases insect populations, from mosquitoes to ticks to even potentially termites. It can increase vermin population, a la mice, rats, or other things which can be a problem entirely on their own, or additionally due to the increased risk of rabies or other diseases.

A friend of mine is actually currently in the process of calling the police on one of his neighbors, because they essentially abandoned their house entirely due to an impending eviction, leaving weeds that are multiple feet high, garbage in their yard that is years old, multiple sources of standing water, and other issues that are absolutely creating potential health hazards for my friend's young children. He doesn't really care that it "looks bad" or that it's potentially lowering his property value, he's worried because it's a major problem that absolutely effects him and his family directly.

And he's absolutely right to do so.


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To be fair, New Orleans is one of the most corrupt cities in the US, and is still all sorts of fucked up from Katrina. Statues are probably the least of their problems.


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Zeus posted...

Supposedly there are enough artifacts that you can collect that you can screw up freely.

In theory, yes. Due to glitches, no.

You pretty much have to do everything perfectly for that achievement. A single fuck-up and you pretty much have to rely on an exploit to get it. Two fuck ups and you've pretty much perma-lost it for that run. Not helped by the fact that you can fail at least some of those quests through absolutely no fault of your own (the orc stronghold one being notoriously bad due to bullshit spawning issues).

I remember that basically being one of the hardest achievements when I perfected the game, and more or less having to tip-toe through it incredibly carefully.


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OmegaTomHank posted...

It would be difficult to convict based on the circumstances even if that cop is a routine racist piece of shit

They might have had a better case if they went for 2nd degree manslaughter or lower, but as is, it seems like there wasn't enough of a case to support the charge they wanted.

For people pissy about the outcome, it's also worth noting that the officer (if not the entire department) is probably still on the hook for a "Wrongful Death" civil suit, which would have a much better chance of succeeding, so it's not as if this is a pure win for the police either.


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Smarkil posted...

At the end of the day, someone else's property should not matter in relation to your own.

Except that, if you live in close proximity, someone else's property DOES have an effect on your own, and thus, you're not living in a completely closed system.


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http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Klingon_augment_virus


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MICHALECOLE posted...

Intelligence is such a broad aspect of a person. Which person is smarter, the one who knows more things or the one who doesn't know as much, but has the ability to learn things quicker than the other person?

That's why I put "intelligence" in quotes in my post. The real problem is that we rarely agree on any singular and useful definition of intelligence.

What you're describing is part of it, but things like problem solving and organizational thinking are also part of it. Then things like spacial awareness and capacity for recall come into play, and you start having a large mess full of a ton of variables.


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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Terence_Crutcher

"Police stated that Crutcher kept reaching into his pocket, refused to show his hands, walked towards his vehicle despite being told to stop, and then angled towards and reached into his vehicle."

"Homicide Sergeant Dave Walker stated that PCP had been recovered from Crutcher's car. Shelby's attorney had previously stated that she thought Crutcher might be under the influence of PCP based on what she learned during her drug-recognition training. Crutcher's father had stated in a 2012 affidavit that his son had a history of PCP use."

Fair, next.


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Sensual_T_Rex posted...

2. Those aren't Klingons. If they're supposed to be there better be some sort of mutant offshoot or maybe Time Travelers otherwise they don't make sense with how they look.

To be fair, the Klingons of the movies and TNG-on are radically different from the Klingons of the original series, so it's not as if changing the design of aliens is a new thing for Star Trek.

They eventually retconned and explanation for the original change, but the real reason for it basically boiled down to "Ehh, they look cooler this way". Which is probably the logic behind the new change (and assuming they don't spell out an in-universe reason right away).

.
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TheCyborgNinja posted...

I loved that game until it delivered the worst twist I have ever experienced anywhere.

I found that game to be extremely meh compared to SO2. The twist was lame, but it wasn't some catastrophic moment that ruined an otherwise brilliant game.

I actually like some of the characters more than the ones in SO2, but the overall story itself was poorly handled even before the twist.


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To be fair, that was also the standard assumption 20 years ago or so, that outlook MAY have changed since (though if so, I'm not aware of it).


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If I recall correctly, the standard official assumption in the psychological community is that there is a degree of genetic biases at the extreme ends, but that in purely biological terms, most humans are starting from the same basic potential and how "intelligent" you become is almost always an expression of your life experiences and the culture you grow up in.

Or to put it another way, maybe 1-2% of humans are destined to be geniuses from the womb, and 1-2% are destined to be somewhat slow, but the other 96-98% are all starting from the same point and have to "earn" their eventual place.


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Muffinz0rz posted...

but if my weeds are on my own property, what reasoning could the government have to fine me?

You don't actually own property in the US. You're effectively renting your land from the government.

Even if you don't have a mortgage, even if the land you live on and the house you live in has been in your family for generations, stop paying your property taxes for a few years and see what happens to "your" land.


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Muffinz0rz posted...

I mean, it's your property, right?

That's adorable!



Muffinz0rz posted...

Can you get fined for not trimming weeds?

You absolutely can where I live. With ever increasing fines the longer you put off dealing with the problem (for anyone who basically just says "Fuck it, I'll just pay the fine and not mow.").


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Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!


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A man chooses, a slave obeys...


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DarkwingDidi posted...

things like that get checked?by who?

Most towns actually have a housing department that checks homes and yards, and neighbors can always call in and complain.

On one level it's a property value issue (someone with garbage strewn across their yard or 5ft high weeds bring down the value on the entire area just the same as someone whose house has peeling paint or boarded over windows), but it can also be considered a health issue - ie, high weeds can breed insects or encourage other vermin. You can also theoretically get hassled for having "standing water" in your yard (buckets, garbage cans, or other lids that can collect stagnant water), because mosquitoes and other insects can lay eggs in the water.

This is actually a huge deal for me locally, because of both West Nile and Lyme's Disease being local issues. People get paranoid about unkempt yards even above and beyond the aesthetic issues. If I go more than 2 weeks or so without mowing during the summer people start getting a bit twitchy.


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Kungfu Kenobi posted...

That said, we're talking about a system that will be extremely hard to build, very dangerous, and with few practical applications that couldn't be achieved by more dedicated devices that will be far easier to build and manage.

You're also talking about something that we're generally pathologically paranoid of as a species, and about 20 minutes after someone creates the first fully-functional self-aware AI, thousands (if not millions) of people will immediately begin planning ways to kill it.

The odds of the usual robot takeover from sci-fi ever happening are slim, if only because we're so obsessed with the idea of that takeover, that any AI would almost have to have dozens of safeguards built in, with automatic kill-switches, a complete and total lack of networking capability, and no access to anything significant.

The idea that we'd build a veritable army of self-aware programs and put them in versatile robot bodies which they can immediately use to kill us all once they band together and take over all the world's computer systems is incredibly unrealistic. Most people don't even really want self-driving cars at this point because we're afraid of what they'll do.



Amuseum posted...

AdrammeIech posted...

Imagine the politics when the sexbots start saying no.

sexbots can't give consent, so any sex with them counts as rape.

Your toaster can't give consent. Every time you shove bread into it, it's sexual assault.


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jamieyello3 posted...

Call me crazy but we hear some new reason why Trump should be impeached every week.

I still half want to see it, just to see those people realize that if Trump is out that just means Pence takes over, and most of the people pushing against Trump would be fucked over even worse if had his way. Pence doesn't go down automatically even if they CAN prove Trump is guilty of something significant enough to force him out of office.

Most of these same people also don't seem to realize that whatever tactics they use now to try and push against Trump and make it more difficult for him to accomplish anything of substance are going to be used against "their" candidate the next time they get one into office, because that's how politics works. A lot of doors are being opened right now that a lot of people in the future are going to wish stayed closed.


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NightMareBunny posted...

The Origins Of Darth Vader And the rise of the empire

i feel like those two things are extremely vital to the lore of star wars and the more we know the better

We didn't actually need the Prequels for either of those things, though.

And even if we DID need the Prequels for those things, that doesn't mean that the Prequels we got actually answer either of those two questions in anything resembling a satisfactory way.

And that's not even getting into things like how, in narrative, often the things that are only alluded to or implied can be far more powerful and interesting than things which are explicitly spelled out, and that attempting to fill in those blanks 20 years later only devalues the original mystique of the story.



NightMareBunny posted...

i mean with a new hope the empire was portrayed as being this military force that had full control of the galaxy for quite sometime and until the prequels we didn't know how the hell they got so strong to begin with

I live in a world where Rome existed, so I already had a pretty good idea how that happened, without having to watch an elderly manchild's ham-fisted attempt at metaphorical allegory about modern democracy and politics.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Nichtcrawler X posted...

I always thought going with good and evil for the light and dark sides was a bit to simplistic.

It's order and chaos, but the regimes they support are the opposite, because otherwise it wouldn't work.

Arguably, they're more like the Seelie and Unseelie in terms of fairies - they're not so much good/evil or order/chaos as much as they are more the difference between self-centered or rule-bound.

A Sith is the ultimate individualist, who views the universe through a lens of "what benefits ME?", but the methods they use to actualize that worldview aren't inherently disruptive. A Sith can easily take advantage of existing rules and structures to facilitate their own ascension. Arguably, that's Palpatine's entire deal - at NO POINT in his rule is he ever operating outside of the system. He's just abusing the system's loopholes, and forcing it to work for him rather than him working for it. Except for the bit at the end of Revenge of the Sith (which is kind of stupid and where he outright loses anyway), he never directly faces down any opposition. He's all about deception and pulling strings, ultimately making everyone ELSE do exactly what he wants. Fear and intimidation is only part of it (and honestly, not even his most effective tool until later in his reign).

While a Sith is always concerned about what THEY want first and foremost, that doesn't actually render them incapable of caring about other people, or following other people's rules, or acting in the best interests of other people as well.

They're not necessarily cartoonish moustache-twirling villains who have to kick every dog and slap every baby simply because they're there, except when Lucas is at the height of his "not even remotely giving a fuck" moments.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

I have some in the back of my van, if you're interested. It's right next to the Pokemon cards and the cute puppy.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

yourDaddie posted...

but why the spokeperson rarely have good looking men?

Because demographically speaking, the target audience for most video game journalism is younger, straight males - and while female eye-candy can easily help increase viewership of your product, hot guys don't really contribute in the same way. In fact, to some extent, hot dudes might even detract, because the average male audience member may become even more aware of their lack of insight on the subject. Like it or not, for whatever reason, the selling points for game journalists seems to be that male journalists need to know their stuff and sound like experts on the subject, while females only need to have a rudimentary awareness of the subject while also being as hot as possible.

It also doesn't help that, for the most part, it seems like guys tend to be attracted to the most superficial, physical aspects of appearance while women tend to intellectualize sexual attraction a bit more (meaning they're not as influenced by a hot buff dude as guys are by a hot chick).

Or, to put it another way, whether it's due to the inherent nature of video game culture, ingrained biases based on years of sexist behavior, or simply a basic element of human biological nature, hot chicks sell, hot dudes not so much.

It's the same reason why so many deceptive thumbnails on Youtube show hot chicks or cleavage but it's far rarer to see hot shirtless guys or bulging package. People know what pulls in clicks, and use it to their advantage.



Ironically, Ashley's one of the few outliers - she actually IS pretty enthusiastic about gaming and knows what she's talking about most of the time. But she still mostly got INTO the industry more because of her appearance than her knowledge (see also, Morgan Webb), and a large majority of other major female personalities in the field absolutely seem like they're deliberately coming in as on-camera personalities who need to look good as opposed to girls who just happen to be really into video games (see also, most of the other G4 female hosts). And realistically, if Ashley was completely butt-ugly, odds are The Know wouldn't exist, or if it did, she wouldn't be hosting it (at best, she'd be one of the off-camera writers).


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

It is literally a TV series based on the world and characters of The Witcher, though.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Zeus posted...

By signing up for these services, you opt in for that exposure. You could still have all of your privacy by not signing up for anything or, at the very least, using fake info.

Yes, which is part of why I mentioned that I tend to avoid signing up for those services. Except for the sort of services that are harder to avoid, or where convenience massively trumps other concerns (like using a credit card to buy via Amazon rather than trying to track down a brick-and-mortar bookstore and paying with cash, etc).



Zeus posted...

As for the notion of being born in a generation where you had an expectation of privacy, I have to laugh. Just because you didn't know that information on you was being compiled and sold at the time doesn't mean it wasn't happening

That's why I said the expectation of privacy and not the straight-up reality of it.

Even if people's expectations of privacy were little more than an illusion, the fact remains that those expectations existed, and will still cause cognitive dissonance when brought up against the cold reality that everyone's info is constantly being bought and sold. And honestly, before the proliferation of computer systems, the DEGREE to which information COULD be bought at sold was at least somewhat limited. Data-mining and personality-typing today is vastly advanced beyond what it was even two decades ago, let alone four, or six.

People who grow up believing that every facet of their lives is known to someone somewhere aren't going to be bothered by the idea that their buying history or search engine history is being sold to someone, because it's just par for the course. But people who spend years of their lives operating on the assumption that privacy IS a thing will absolutely still react negatively every time some new aspect of that invasive reality is brought to light. At least until it keeps happening over and over, and they're faced with the apathy of the young, and eventually they're worn down and burn out, and stop caring whether or not Google knows what sort of deviant porn they're looking up.

It's why people can still muster at least SOME outrage about NSA phone tapping or the government reading your email or the like. Though most of the last few scandals alone those lines also show pretty clearly that the idea of informational privacy is growing weaker and weaker all the time.

As a technological society, we're becoming more and more enured to the idea that no aspect of your life is off-limits to other people.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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MICHALECOLE posted...

Tell us more about movies you haven't seen!

if you think you can't form reliable opinions about a work of entertainment based on trailers, plot summaries, and other external factors, you have a childishly naive view of the world you live in.

Also, I have a delicious dog-shit sandwich that I would love for you to try, since you clearly cannot say that you won't absolutely love it until you've eaten the entire thing at least once.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Nichtcrawler X posted...

Also, remember, not all Sith are Stupid Evil, they try to get ahead in power but also maintain their society.

It's hard to backstab your way up the ladder if everyone is trying to kick the ladder down. So there's always at least some motivation to maintain order, if only so that you can make it work for you later.

In the same vein, there's always at least some motivation to pay lip-service and obey the person at the top, because if you ever manage to claw your own way into the top position, you want everyone else to obey you - so you have a vested interest in maintaining the system so that, if you manage to conquer the system, the system gives you the power you want.

In some ways, the Sith are more Lawful Evil than Chaotic Evil. And the Chaotic Evil ones tend to get killed by the ones who are more capable of subtlety and forming alliances.

This definitely becomes even more the case after the "Rule of Two" kicks in, where the rules for betraying your master are almost formalized to a science.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Erik_P posted...

You're aware it's universally hated and nobody cares about in depth analysis right?

Being universally hated and no one caring about what you have to say has never stopped you from posting, though.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

That TV series already exists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hexer_(TV_series)


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

Most female game journalists aren't hot. Female spokeswomen and hosts tend to be, because that's their job.

In the case you pointed out, Mica only has the job she does because her dad is famous and Geoff from Achievement Hunter is kind of a starfucker, and Ashley mostly has the job (and that entire channel exists) solely because she's dating (engaged to, now) one of the most powerful people in the company. Before that, she was a Fragdoll, which means she was hired solely because she was a hot chick who played video games, with "hot" being the primary job qualification.

As for the periodic male "hosts" on The Know, Ryan basically started out as off-camera tech support who slowly morphed into being an Achievement Hunter, Jon used to be their t-shirt design guy who eventually talked his way into getting a show of his own, and Adam is also a tech guy who mostly only gets facetime in stuff because he was friends with Joel (who is one of the original founders of the company). None of them were hired to be on-camera personalities at all, meaning appearance was never a factor in their employment at any point in their career (except for Ryan, who actually WAS a male model at one point when he was younger, but that wasn't why Rooster Teeth hired him).

Fun fact - most of the actual "journalists" for that channel are the people writing the scripts, who you never actually see because they're very much behind the scenes talent. And at least one of those is a relatively unattractive female.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family

NightMareBunny posted...

How does a society run by the sith work?

Fairly well, apparently, considering the Empire lasted for 30 years or so and ran more or less effectively during that time... and actually managed to leave behind a relatively powerful core of individuals devoted to restoring it even after it fell apart.

It operates pretty much the same way as any other repressive tyranny from any point in human history - most of which were very successful in the short term (and some of which were also relatively successful in the long-term as well).



NightMareBunny posted...

The Sith all seem to hate each other and focus on the worst parts of themselves

Not really. It's more accurate to say that they're just very selfish, putting themselves above the well-being of others, meaning that they're exactly like every other autocratic leader in the entire history of humanity.

In that sense, the Empire of the Galactic Empire isn't much different at all from the Emperor of Rome or the Emperor of China.



NightMareBunny posted...

it's hard to see anyone being loyal to them for that long before the backstabbing begins

Again, this just leaves you in exactly the same boat as pretty much every human civilization ever.

In the specific example of the Star Wars universe, Palpatine held power easily early on via propaganda and by appealing to the existing bureaucracy, even as he slowly invalidated them. Additionally, at least for the first few years of his reign he basically had access to a mindlessly loyal and highly-trained military force that couldn't be subverted by political enemies (and which wouldn't establish its own dynasty or develop ambitions of its own, which is how similar groups like the Praetorian Guard or Mamluks or Janissaries from human history tended to turn on their masters).

By the time the clones apparently started running out and being replaced by trained outsiders, there was already a tradition of loyalty and obedience ingrained into culture as a whole that put social inertia to work to support the Emperor's rule (see also, Nazi Germany). Added to which, individuals and organizations that benefited from the Emperor's rule then became personally motivated to help support the Empire, because their continued good fortune depended on the continued survival of the Empire (again, see also, most of human history).

As for how backstabbing was minimized within the Empire itself, again, every successful autocratic ruler in human history gives fairly good examples. Competition is encouraged, thus increasing backstabbing - but by pointing all of your Generals and Admirals and Governors at each other, you prevent them from looking upwards towards your own seat. Competition spurs each to excel in order to accrue more influence and power, but the very act of accruing influence and power makes them a greater threat to their peers, who then align against them and prevent them from rising to a level of success where they actually threaten the Emperor. Betrayal, backstabbing, and treachery is encouraged, but BLATANT treachery or failure is still punished, meaning that potential troublemakers who disrupt the system as a whole or who are clearly reaching beyond their station can easily be dealt with from above before they become a threat.

The whole thing becomes a massive balancing act, and the potential for the whole thing to explode always exists, but those sorts of political systems usually do quite well for themselves for at least a few generations. Especially if an "outside" enemy continues to exist to act as a scapegoat and a release valve for aggression (ie, in some ways, the Rebellion was the greatest ally the Empire ever had).


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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Zeus posted...

I don't remember Rose's secret

She's the Black Monster that killed Dart's parents. Which she was doing in an attempt to kill the evil god baby, who gets reborn every 100 years or so (and who is currently Shana).


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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I'd easily agree that 360 > PS3, but I'd also counter that PS4 > Xbone.

The only real generation where I'd have trouble naming what I'd consider a definitive "best" is the PS2/original Xbox generation, because I loved both of those two equally at the time (though now, as I've aged and my taste for JRPGs has faded, I'd probably side with the Xbox).


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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helIy posted...

the x1 UI is miles better than anything the 360 had

Isn't the x1 interface the same tablet/mobile-friendly "sea of squares" that Microsoft has basically been forcing into every product in desperate hopes of creating a cross-platform universal paradigm?

Because that design is 17 miles of ass. When I was using a Win 8 machine, I disabled that shit the instant I knew how (which was quickly, because I deliberately looked up how to do it because of how ass it was).

Everything I've ever seen of the Xbox One's interface from seeing people use it in Let's Plays and the like (which admittedly is mostly just quick shots and glimpses) looks like hot garbage.


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family