Lurker > wpot

peanutt121 posted...

It's been good to see most republicans distance themselves from his since the midterms.

...don't give them too much credit. They are distancing themselves only because he appears less useful. They never agreed with him or liked him but were willing to tolerate...anything, it seems, if he could deliver a couple of short term wins. Disgusting.

^ I liked SO3's music, I felt the world was fun to explore (read: there were good treasures to find...unlike many modern RPGs...and decent puzzles), and I mostly liked the battle system even though most characters had a couple skills that didn't really work. The storyline had some slow segments, but I liked it overall - including the twist. There was a huge amount of optional content. Classic game I say.

"It's" means "it is"...and that's all. Usually "its" is the version you want. Commonly done wrong.

Avatar 2...I dunno. It's not as if it interests me less than anything else getting made around now. But I wouldn't say I'm excited.

The wackiness of the early SOs was part of the fun: they remind me of the early anything-goes internet. Anything goes in SO2. The battle system was the most simplistic (and not great) thing ever, but it was interesting to see how much they got out of it with the weird skill growth.

Divine Force (the new one) I'm finishing right now. I'd say:

• Decent to good base for the battle system, but it's unfortunately too easy even on the higher starting difficulty. You don't really get to use the system until the postgame.
• The storyline is laughably non-existent for the first half of the game. The second half of the game is a decent Star Trek movie.
• Ray might be the best main character in the series, although the competition admittedly isn't great (and he looks like Frankenstein). Others are a mixed bag.
• OK but awkward graphics: should have just gone cartoonish I say.
• Several missing QoL features and the font is unreasonably tiny, although there will apparently be a patch for some of these.

All in all it's kinda fun if you're an old-school JRPG fan - there aren't a lot of old-school JRPGs these days - but it's a 6.5/10 kinda game.

Star Ocean games have an interesting history:
SO1: Wacky old game held together by tape and glue...but kinda fun.
SO2: Wacky old game that required less tape and glue, more fun.
SO3: Great old game IMO, although many people hated its story twist.
SO4: Pretty solid gameplay, but godawful characters
SO5: Most hollow game ever. I played it and am only 90% certain it existed.
SO6: Wacky new game held together by tape and glue...but kinda fun.

Star Ocean 6, should that be your thing.

Yeeaaah...no. This is the sort of thing that could maybe be used for study purposes here and there, but any sort of regular use would be a far too slippery slope.

I say it's good. I tend to get bored by the pure open world i.e. Skyrim games, but the puzzle aspect of the shrines kept me going better than usual. Plus the amount of stuff in the world seems a bit more right sized than many, if that makes any sense. And the DLC was pretty fun.

Breakable weapons...I dunno, you get used to them. It doesn't really ever stop you from progressing the game apart from a couple times when you're very weak in the beginning: the most annoying thing is that they break in the middle of big battles and you have to stop fighting to re-equip something else. Otherwise you get plenty of weapon/arrow ammo as you quest around.

If you're a fan of either Zelda or open world games it's definitely worth $30.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services.

If we want to sue some advertisers let's sue drug companies: putting bad - or at least questionable - medical information on TV with the net result of hugely increasing drug costs due to the need to cover the advertising budget.

I'm not so concerned about people who lost their money investing in a risky product. And I don't blame Larry David.

^ Nuclear war? Don't sleep on nuclear war.

20 dollars can buy many peanuts.

Gaawa_chan posted...

I don't understand why people say this; most of the retro games I've played were played as an adult because I didn't have access to them as a child and I've liked most of them (Chrono Trigger, FFVI, FFV, Fire Emblem IV, Sweet Home, Suikoden, etc, etc). It's just not true.

Right. There is an element of nostalgia for many, they have warts, and they simply don't appeal to many people. That said, to many they offer an experience that isn't really otherwise available today. If I try to think of a game that's plays similarly to 'retro' FF these days I can't do it. Dragon Quest is still around, but old FF had a different model.

SE seems to think that Bravely Default is that game, but it's not...

Sylvester Stallone.

And conveniently enough the movie is already made!

They either went north to join the army or just rode it out in place, by and large. It got nastiest along the Mason-Dixon line between the north and south where the populace had evenly split opinions and control of the state was in question.

The Revolutionary War was probably more interesting from that angle, though. There were English 'loyalists' everywhere, no formal armies on the continent when the conflict started, and volunteer militias popped up everywhere on both sides to do a significant percentage of the fighting.

Conner4REAL posted...

I cant help but thinking de Santis is even more dangerous.

It depends, are you more worried about democracy (Trump) or Republican priorities (DeSantis) in the short term?

The point is that you're talking about it. :)

Yeah, the food is expensive enough: I don't need a huge markup for delivery.

I should probably get my pizza delivered seeing as how I tip either way, but it takes twice as long to get it delivered vs just picking it up.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's mostly first or second generation immigrants, honestly.

I would largely agree, except that we recently built a soccer stadium in town and, upon attending, I found it was full and hopping with people who not did appear to be first generation immigrants (if accents/etc have anything to do with it). Soccer does seem to be gaining some ground in some urban areas among the far left given that they seem to associate it with European values (the pregame felt a little like a political rally).

But, regardless, I stick by my "I have not otherwise not heard people talking about it" statement.

adjl posted...

The scale of what he wanted to accomplish was pretty much impossible. He might have swayed one or two electorates if he got the right corrupt people on the first tries

The length of time he kept trying made the fraud obvious (not to mention his people couldn't stick to one story about HOW the election was stolen)...right. And you're correct that it was highly unlikely he'd get the 2-3 wins he needed for the big flip. But soon after the election when it wasn't clear exactly how many votes he needed to flip was it unreasonable for him to think he might be able to win by fraudulently flipping a couple locations? I don't think so. The delusion came later as the attempt continued with variable stories and increasingly clear gaps.

I would be happy to live in a place with more civic pride and more functional government, although Japan certainly isn't perfect there.

adjl posted...

On the other, the entire recount campaign he ran after the 2020 election was very obviously doomed to failure from the start

Who really knows, but my guess is that he didn't feel it was doomed from the start: I think he has an impressive (?) capacity for self-delusion and a huge degree of 'fake it until you make it' built into the core of his being. Which is unfortunate because sometimes when he's obviously lying he might not actually be lying (i.e. saying something he knows to be untrue) and he is instead just amazingly deluded. But he blurs that line all over the map by truly lying also. And he has no observable moral center. He is an...unfortunate human being.

WAS the recount effort obviously doomed to failure, though? Trump's life experience has appeared to teach him that anything is possible if you are amoral and pay lawyers enough...and I'm not sure that lesson is incorrect. If any of his attempts to find a pocket of corrupt election officials or get a crazy legal ruling had found the right audience we may have had a different experience. And, worryingly, there are more crazy officials out there now than there were in 2020 (and many Trump appointees on the Supreme Court)...

But the point had to do with whether he'd run as an independent. I think the costs and energy that would require (along with the risk of becoming truly irrelevant upon losing badly) would overcome his capacity for self-delusion in that case. But who knows? Maybe he'll want to beat DeSantis out of spite as you said. I'm not placing any bets on the guy.

aHappySacka posted...

Britain and France didn't bother to do anything while Poland was being invaded and since mobilizing troops would take time, France was determined to be the better place to fight in a defensive land battle but even then they didn't bother to spare any of their navy or airforce to do anything at all.

Poland was given up so relations between Germany and Russia could deteriorate faster and open up a second front (which it did).

That is probably true to a degree, although the UK and France likely would have fought harder for Poland if:
1) They were prepared to fight and
2) They didn't have to sail their armies past Germany to get to Poland. To be fair that was unlikely to have gone well.

rjsilverthorn posted...

I don't know that he would. Trump has zero loyalty and doesn't share power so DeSantis would be giving up his Florida fiefdom to be the guy that stands behind Trump and gets thrown under the bus at the drop of a hat.

Agreed. Can you think of anyone notable that served under Trump who left looking good? DeSantis is smart enough to know that, I believe.

I haven't played the 3D remake, but I would guess it would feel particularly unremarkable in a modern style. There's probably a reason the 2D remaster costs more.

4 is a very straight-laced, father-of-all cliches sort of game...because it wrote many of the cliches. Great music, though.

adjl posted...

Which would honestly be the best case scenario.

Yes, although I think it unlikely. I don't see him entering into a scenario he'd be so certain to lose, nor do I see him putting in enough of his own money and effort to keep it going without the RNC behind him. But I'm sure he would want to, so who knows.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

playing them 20-30 years later is mostly guaranteed to make you look down on them for not being "sophisticated" enough.

It depends on the type of gamer. The old games hold up very well musically, which can do a lot to drive your feelings for the game. They are generally paced well (unlike many of today's games) and there aren't a bunch of unnecessary mechanics/graphics to clutter things up. They tended to have well balanced exploration in the sense that you would find things that were truly rewarding if you looked around. And some had solid storylines that easily compete with today's (particularly in comparison to open world games that tend not to have consistent storylines). And it was much more rewarding (and necessary) to talk to NPCs, which deepened the worlds in ways.

Many battle systems today are better, although I will say that something like FF15 (a hack and slash pretending not to be a hack and slash) was worse than the old ATB in many ways.

Long story short, I don't want to oversell, but there were things that the industry understood about "fun" in the 90s that they have forgotten today in the quest for complicated/realistic/"sophisticated" games. Old isn't for everyone, but everyone should try them.

Maybe we should take this opportunity: Russia looks pretty ripe for conquering at the moment.

But really, even if intentional Article 5 doesn't demand an immediate military response. The wording, as I understand, demands an 'appropriate' response (which may or may not be military).

8 is fun to playbut you have to be prepared for a often-nonsensical story.

rjsilverthorn posted...

It didn't keep him in office. He could announce he wants to run all he likes, there is a difference between that and convincing 50 states to illegally put him on the ballot.

I'm not talking about putting him on the ballot. I'm talking about the million other dirty ways he could attempt to get around the 22nd, especially if he ever has majorities in both houses.

rjsilverthorn posted...

Fortunately we can only be subject to one more term unless the Republicans manage to repeal the 22nd amendment, which they couldn't even manage during the Reagan years.

See Jan 6th. Working legally within the system is not their (or especially Trump's) tactic.

^ We tend to get turned off by the first part of that sentence.

New Hampshire, Iowa...please be sane.

Nichtcrawler-X posted...

Yet you are (jointly) hosting the next one.

We're a big enough country that we'll dig up some fans somewhere, but be that as it may I've still never heard anyone talking about soccer. And "football" is a different game that we like much better. :)

I heard that my city is hosting the World's Fair in a couple years, but I'm not very interested in that either...although it's possible the Fair in particular could win me over. :)

Any restaurant relying heavily on online orders needs to take orders (or at least numbers) for walk-ups at the door such that everyone can see right where they slot in line. Ideally the person taking/entering orders would be the cashier also. Then everyone could just wait for their food to come up. People might have to get called up in a place like Chipotle, but methinks that can be done.

Waiting 10 minutes while feeling you're getting screwed over is a million times worse than waiting 10 minutes in an orderly fashion.

It's shocking to me that conversion isn't happening faster at big chains.

Allenalien321 posted...

Nobody excited for WC?

You might have to try a European board. In the US, no, I'm not aware that anyone is interested.

Don't start with 4: it's too old and cliche for someone new to the series. Great music, though.

If you're playing mobile versions...I dunno, I find the controls pretty annoying in all of those. I might say FF6 in part because the 2Dishness is easier to handle on mobile (and it's an old classic).

Simply in regards to which game is most interesting:

• FF7 has an all-time great storyline with excellent music (and weird as heck graphics)
• FF9 is a perfected version of old time RPGs, although the art style appears slanted towards younger gamers (particularly in the beginning). The storyline is solid but not amazing.
• FF6 is just a solid all-around, if old, package.

Tactics is better than all of them, particularly on mobile. 5 is kinda interesting from a gameplay perspective, but you have to put up with a cheesy storyline and some jank...I wouldn't start there.

Yopster posted...

The thing I noticed the last few times I've gone they prioritized online orders before customers in store. I waited 5+ minutes while they filled online orders while I stood there then the guy in front of me ordered a crap ton of meals. By the time I got up to order they were out of everything. The best part is none of the online orders picked up their food while I was there. The worst part was the guy behind me started talking to me because it was taking so long lol.

I've griped about this before: they're overwhelmed with online (and everything else). In my case it has been the opposite. I ordered online a couple times and had to wait 10 minutes past the promise time. Annoying, but not the end of the world. Then came the time I learned from the above and went in a full 10-15 minutes past the promise time. I watched the guy I walked in with wait through line, get his burrito, and leave. And then someone else do the same thing. There were 20+ people standing around waiting for online orders.

For just about the only time in my time I walked to the register and complained.
"Look, these people are 30 minutes past the promise time: you need to fill these orders."
"I'm sorry sir there's nothing I can do"
"Are you the manager on duty?"
"Yes"
"Then there is: you can tell the assembly line to stop making burritos for people who just walked in and instead fill our orders"
"I'm sorry sir there's nothing I can do"
*incredulous stare*

They were decently staffed that day, also. Shitty job, I'm sure, and I can't fault employees beyond the (I'm sure inexperienced) manager...but Chipotle seems broken beyond repair these days.

Mid-level burrito versus mid-level burger.

I might have said Chipotle in the past, but they have struggled staffing their stores so badly in the past couple years I say Smashburger. Smashburger probably has staffing issues also, but they aren't nearly as dependent on an assembly line to provide timely/good service.

Nah, kids like maps. I've got one in my son's room and I've liked them more or less forever myself.

Then again I'm a roadway engineer...

SoreChasm posted...

Hoping for a peaceful transition of power

What I REALLY want is for Lake to try and make her likely loss in AZ some sort of legal issue and to get slapped down hard for trying: hopefully we can make it clear that we only tolerate that crap for presidential elections (sigh).

That (the slapping) probably isn't going to happen, but it's what I'm hoping for.

Yes, wine was the first alcoholic beverage that I could tolerate. Can't have a good steak without red wine. And some whites are good at times.

Sweet wine is usually unpleasant to me, though.

FrozenBananas posted...

soma, so I could impersonate anybody since soma is everybody

also maybe CJayC that would be wild

I saw a CJ-C playing Twilight Struggle online a couple days ago. I wanted to challenge to see if it was him, but he wanted a three-hour game, which is about 2.5 hours too long.

Muscles posted...

McDonald's doesn't even sell chicken strips anymore, how are you gonna get an exclusive right to something you don't even do? Also I thought they were just around in the 2000s, were the selects really around back in 94?

They already have the rights: no need to "get". And big companies don't give things away regardless of whether they are useful to them. They especially don't give things away to competitors. They demand payment. Gifting is for little guys with no lawyers.

Dikitain posted...

Sounds like complete incompetence on the shopping center's part to not only assume they could get out of that deal, but to make it in the first place.

And to, you know, let a Cane's get built there if they're going to be unable to operate. Nobody halfway intelligent could have thought Cane's would pay rent for 15 years without being able to function: here's guessing they didn't remember the exclusivity deal until it was too late or incorrectly assumed they could get McDonald's to waive it.

I find Cane's...OK. They have pretty good chicken fingers, although I find them a bit on the bland side even with the sauce. I can't figure out why they always have such a long line. Honestly I preferred McDonald's old 'chicken selects', ironically: I liked their texture and taste better...although they occasionally got overcooked.

The story wasn't amazing, no, but it was presented very well: it was clear what was happening and you formed some attachment to the characters (beyond just the main). People tend to underrate that these days.

That said it's not a movie I feel a great need to rewatch given the rehashed story: it was just Dances with Wolves or the Last Samurai in space once you got used to the setting. I would guess the sequel will be worth one viewing...and that's about it.

What does the pill do if I don't believe I had a previous life?

Yes, but one ticket only when high.

Revelation34 posted...

How is somebody going to spend $500 on lottery tickets when they only have $100 in their account and you can't buy lottery tickets with a credit card?

Life isn't that straightforward, unfortunately. People generally have some money (more than $500 in this example) that they need to spend on essentials. Or even good to haves like an internet bill. Some people absolutely go without the above when tempted strongly. Or

Jen0125 posted...

How does any addict pay for an addition when they have no money? They fucking hustle to get it

Right, dice are fine and often good. Games just need to be balanced such that the success of a 2-hour long game doesn't come down to a couple of high stakes rolls (unless the game is otherwise very tight).

Twilight Struggle comes to mind as a good game...except that a few early game rolls can go a long way towards deciding a winner.