Lurker > ChocoboMog123

Do I get to pick a door, and then you reveal one of the other doors?
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"You're sorely underestimating the power of nostalgia goggles." - adjl
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20110218.gif

What stopped people from believing stupid s*** in the past? It wasn't the lack of stupid people, it was the lack of acceptance of stupid s***. Facebook et al facilitates this by matching stupid people with more stupid people, that's partly why we've got this faux-spiracy hyper polarized political engine.
The thread is the same for every logical leap. From QAnon, to flat earthers, to anti-vaxxers, to organic-eaters, to anti-gluten, to anti-GMO, and so on. To be clear, there might be some reason to support some of these "issues", but the problem lies in the logic, politicization, and connecting with these things. It's more than just identity politics, or tribalism, or feelings politics, but the fact that there are platforms which intentionally match combine these issues.

If we want to get out of this mess, we can't let these cesspools breed (talking about the platforms, not people). Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other feelings-feedback platforms need to seriously re-evaluate how they function. This would also probably include Reddit. All of these platforms effectively polarize their users (at least, a percentage) creating fundamental extremists.

GameFAQs and 4chan don't necessarily fall into these categories, but these and other similar platforms should also look into problems of creating anti-social cultures that can lead to harm. I've spent a ton of time on 4chan in its heyday, but the accepted facetious misogyny, racism, et cetera can blend into actual problems with those. I don't think GameFAQs is that bad, the forum structure allows for actual discussion (compare to Reddit's voting system). But, I think as people become polarized from Facebook, et cetera, it has bled into GameFAQs (as it has the rest of the entire world).

Next would be TV news. The 24-hour news network just has to go, it is cancerous. By nature, it pushes the most intriguing stories, not informative ones. I think, for the most part, you are literally better off reading no news than watching TV news - any station (except CSPAN). I'm hesitant to say we need a new kind of fairness doctrine, but these stations all need to be reigned in by some force.
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"You're sorely underestimating the power of nostalgia goggles." - adjl
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20110218.gif

StarReaper13 posted...

SwayM posted...

CyricZ posted...

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Final Fantasy XIV

FFXV

Great example of why you all the problems with DLC. FFXV will never be released in its entirety due to all the problems during production AND post-production. It's first impression was weak and the DLC turns an unfinished game into a messy hodge-podge of a game.

There's a big difference between finished games with design problems, like Diablo 3, and unfinished games that shouldn't be on shelves, like No Man's Sky, Destiny 2, or FFXV. Fallout 76 might fall into this category, too.
In Diablo 3's case, the game was complete, but with some glaring issues. By balancing some numbers and adding new systems, they removed the sore points and made the game better.
Bn comparison, FFXV was barely feature complete. The storyline wasn't really finished, you could only play as one character with simple systems, and the pacing was spastic. Patches were added to finish out the game, adding stuff that should have been there in the first place.
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"You're sorely underestimating the power of nostalgia goggles." - adjl
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20110218.gif

There can be different reasons why. It might indicate a health issue, you might just need to train them out of it, or they might just be idiots: https://www.petmd.com/dog/puppycenter/health/evr_dg_why_do_puppies_eat_poop
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"You're sorely underestimating the power of nostalgia goggles." - adjl
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20110218.gif

First of all, the policy has pros and cons. But, it's important to look at what it is, what its effects are, and why it's implemented.

To start with, the idea isn't that you're getting a "0%", but that there's a higher minimum floor. An A is 100-90, a B is 89-80, C 79-70, D 69-60, F 59-50. By awarding 50% to incomplete work, you're not rewarding more, you're punishing less.

Why? It may seem crazy, but kids aren't adults and shouldn't necessarily be held to the same standards. Furthermore, school isn't work - you (or most adults) can choose their profession, children can't even choose what school they go to, let alone their subjects. If school was treated like work, it would look vastly different - probably more like trade schools.
And, again, it's important to understand that these aren't adults, but children. Children have little to no choice over their home life. The kids frequently not handing in assignments are likely the ones with serious issues - abuse, homelessness, poor access to food, and so on. If you're comparing homework to professional work, you're just completely off-track.

But, what is it meant to accomplish? By raising the floor, kids have a track to succeed should the be able to turn their situation around. Getting a 0% on a test could mean the student has no chance to get better than a F or D. But, getting a 50% on a test will let students raise their grades if they work for it. In the former case, children are actually incentivized to care less, since there's less they can do to show improvement (they'll act up more, pay less attention, etc.) It's like forfeiting in a game, why should they waste their time on something they've already lost. In the latter case, they have some incentive to continue trying.
In the end, your grade should represent what you've learned and mastered, not necessarily what you started with. By raising the floor, grades better reflect this goal.

Again, it's far from a perfect system. It certainly rewards people who just fail more than people who consistently try, but still fail. It also may take some work to understand higher average grades - but that doesn't matter from a top-down perspective, which is where the competition is.
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"You're sorely underestimating the power of nostalgia goggles." - adjl
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20110218.gif

AlephZero posted...

here's how hillary losing and republicans controlling the house and senate is actually good for democrats

Reps hold the House, Senate, and PotUS and might barely get a SCOTUS nomination through that only needs 51 votes (or is it 50+Pence?). This should be the easiest thing in the world.

Alphamon posted...

WhyGiveUp posted...

hardcore Tea Party conservatives vs moderates.

they are the same thing at this point

There's moderates in the Senate. but as a voter, any moderate isn't a Republican.
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"You're sorely underestimating the power of nostalgia goggles." - adjl
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20110218.gif

The Blizzard cycle:
1) Blizzard creates a game with a specific purpose.
- Alpha-Beta is amazingly fun, the mainstream version of a niche genre (Diablo, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm).
2) The game progresses normally for a while, with a few hiccups, but generally getting better.
- Hearthstone expacs, OW balance changes, HotS characters
3) The corporate culture at Blizzard pushes too hard, maybe too "AGILE", and the games lose whatever it is that makes them unique within the genre.
- Hearthstone recent expacs, OW pushing more and more "quirky" characters, HotS following LoL mobility creep, Diablo becoming something totally different, WoW becoming a mobile game.
4) Go back to 1 when a new game comes out.

I don't think OW had jumped the shark; I think it's moving in a generally good direction. I just wish the game would embrace what it started with - see: Lucio, Torb, Bastion.
HotS needs more devs to actually work on its systems.
Diablo needs to be re-booted. If seasons were actually different (0% or 100% crit season, or double toughness season, etc), it'd be better. But, the "grind rifts for paragons"-meta is too repetitive. There's so much more to the game that's just made useless because people just care about rifts. Rifts should be the end-goal, not the be-all.
Hearthstone has probably jumped the shark this rotation. There's just way too many ways to refill your board every turn, to ramp up from nothing, or to OTK.
Wow - there's a clear delineation between MoP and everything after it. I don't know if it's Ion or some other change in development philosophy, but I just hate the way the game has changed. In Warlords, all you had were garrisons and raids; so in Legion, there's an overwhelming amount of content to do with no end in sight; BfA is just Legion but less devolved. Instead of growing on class/spec systems already in place, every expansion since Warlords (Warlords was prep) has tried to rebuild each spec from the ground up - but, instead of rotations having a theme (like balancing your resources, or timing CD's) you just mash the glowing buttons with little interaction between them. If you compare current class design to WotLK, it feels like we've barely moved (Cata and MoP tried to push things forward)..

I seriously think Blizzard has reached a point where things are just over-produced. I can imagine there's too much emphasis on metrics and being "Agile", without too much concern for the actual feel of the game. This seems especially true in WoW where we can see that there's long term goals, but each iteration is just more garbage, so the overall goals are never actualized.
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"You're sorely underestimating the power of nostalgia goggles." - adjl
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20110218.gif