Lurker > dotsdfe

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

Interviews are filling up quickly.

Can you do a second interview tomorrow.

Weird vibes from that.

Kakapo posted...

Definitely seems like theyre trying to create false urgency

That's honestly the exact sense that I got. It was a bit strange in the first place, and when they tried to schedule a second interview under 24 hours later, on a weekend, and then seemed surprised that I had plans on a Saturday...that's when a big red flag went up.

I don't want to call it a scam on that alone, because it is possible that they just need the position filled quickly and they're expediting the process, but that in conjunction with the relative newness of the place and the fact that I had trouble coming up with much information about them online sort of leaves me a bit put off. There are just a few too many red flags.

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

Ghost em.

Honestly, I've been considering just making an excuse that's technically true, albeit exaggerated. Since I'd need to relocate a bit for the job, I'd probably play that up a bit and say that I can't currently relocate (I can, though it'd be a bit challenging for a few reasons). I don't necessarily want to burn the bridge in the off chance that it actually is legitimate, but I am strongly considering backing out just based on the really strange vibes that I've been getting.

So I applied for something recently, and I'll admit that I'm getting just slightly by the entire process, especially compared to application processes that I've gone through in the past.

To quickly summarize:

On Tuesday evening, around 8PM, I applied for a communications position. The position didn't initially raise any red flags, so I applied since it's roughly what I'm looking for. By 8:30AM the next morning, I had heard back from them to set up an interview, and when I missed the initial text message, they quickly texted again telling me that they were filling up positions for Zoom interviews quickly and that I should schedule mine soon before they filled up.

It was a little weird, with the quick turnaround and needing signups for interviews, but sure, I went ahead and picked a time for earlier today and did the interview.

The interview itself was bizarrely brief, maybe lasting ten minutes in total with a really basic discussion and questions (very basic info about the company, what strengths do you think you'd bring to this position, if you could dine with one person in human history who would you choose), and then it was wrapped up. That in itself felt a bit strange, as I've never had an interview that was that brief, but it was allegedly an initial interview, so I shrugged it off.

Just a bit over an hour later, I got a call from someone other than the person I spoke with in the Zoom interview telling me that I did well in my initial interview and that they wanted to schedule me for a second interview the next day. (Which...is a little strange in itself, most interviews that I've done are during standard business hours, not on weekends, but sure?) I already have plans for tomorrow that I can't really move around, so I asked if I could do the second interview at another point, and the person seemed a bit put off but eventually said that I could do it Tuesday morning.

So at this point, I was feeling just very vaguely uneasy - between the ridiculously quick turnaround, the oddly brief interview, and the odd reaction to me having plans for tomorrow.

At that point, I decided to look into the company just a bit more because a few alarm bells were going off. They do have a site, but it's extremely barebones and doesn't offer much beyond some stock photos and some fairly generic company mission phrases. A bit more research showed me that the name of the company was registered under a year ago (February 2022), and there's nothing about them on Indeed, Glassdoor, or the Better Business Bureau, with only a fairly basic LinkedIn profile aside from their own site.

Their listed address does exist as part of a complex of office spaces for rent, but I couldn't find any independent confirmation that they're actually there. Google Maps didn't list it as one of the businesses at that precise address, and the site for the office space listed a space for rent, but I can't seem to confirm if it's that precise unit or not. Googling the phone number for the company offered literally nothing except for the company's own site.

So what I'm left with is being kind of unsure if I'm dealing with a super new company which isn't findable online because it's under a year old and which is just ridiculously efficient with the interview process, or a scam. I've encountered a scam listing in the past before some red flags went up and I did more research and backed the fuck out, but I can't find much of anything on this one.

Any input? I'm a little bit torn here, because I'm like, very mildly put off by a lot of the entire process, but it's possible that they're just genuinely a new company and legitimately in need of urgent hiring. But it all seems a bit too good to be true, and the super rushed process and lack of hard information that I can find about them has me a little bit uneasy. If anyone has any thoughts on the whole thing, I'd love to get a second opinion here.

I wish I liked it more, but I felt like the main plot fell to pieces near the end. It really hurt the overall experience for me, sadly.

KhlavicLanguage posted...

i actually own a physical copy of this somehow, which makes it a particularly convenient choice >_> would i need to play the earlier gba FE to understand it or nah

Nah, it's totally standalone.

There are a number of FEs that are connected, either as direct sequels or just taking place in similar regions/time periods, but Sacred Stones is totally on its own.

https://youtu.be/tFh1eo1a17Q

I'm going to be a bit shameless and post my tier list video, if you're bored enough to listen to an hour of ranting about the series.

But to TLDR it, in my opinion: Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, FE7, and Sacred Stones are the biggest must-plays. Binding Blade, Echoes, Conquest, and Thracia are a bit below them and are all great, but feature flaws either with story or gameplay. I'd at least vaguely recommend against the bottom three games for a variety of reasons.

Vigil's suicide attempt was a highlight moment of the entire series for me. I wasn't positive where that was going, but the way it was revealed was incredible, and it added a really tragic component to a slightly goofy character. Really well-done scene.

Yup, the last two cases are basically one long supercase.

Honestly, it works well enough. It gives the full events of the case a lot of time to breathe since there's so much going on in it.

PiOverlord posted...

But wait, am I misremembering, or what? I thought that's how 3 Houses was, and that you couldn't actually S-Rank until you decided to marry someone (and you might have been able to buy it with points iirc with NG+). Everyone was stuck on A-rank until you chose someone to S-Rank (aka, your partner).

That was the case, but S supports were still represented on the support screen. Engage doesn't have them on that screen at all, and they only go up to A.

But with that said, the older support system (IE, in the GBA games) only went up to A, and those still featured paired endings, so it's still entirely possible that they exist.

PiOverlord posted...

Now that some have brought it up, is romance actually gone, or is it going to be Three Houses, which was 100% fine.

Nobody knows for sure, except that S supports aren't a thing. Supports only went up to A in the leaked pics, and that's still present in the final game from what previews are saying.

There could very well still be paired endings though.

The gameplay looks solid at least.

Though my reservations about the writing have only gotten worse with some of the preview clips. It's like they looked at Fates/Awakening and said "This was not nearly anime enough. We need more dumb anime cliches."

I'll be fair and say that expecting characters to act logically all the time is really unrealistic in itself.

People get careless all the time and make stupid mistakes constantly. It's incredibly easy to get complacent with something and let things slide.

And with horror movies, it's honestly hard to think rationally all the time when you're in a state of fear and panic. Characters making irrational decisions in the moment when being chased or something is honestly more believable than seeing someone calmly making every decision perfectly while some alien or whatever is after them.

Not to defend every dumb decision made by characters in horror movies and whatnot. There are definitely some examples of the plot calling for some extraordinarily stupid decisions that can't be justified by fear. But seeing human behavior and how people get complacent or act in ridiculous ways while scared, there are a lot of movie decisions that are probably closer to realistic than people give them credit for.

Compsognathus posted...

Gronder 2 is the dumbest mission in the game and basically makes no sense. Like they could have at least made it a Fog of War map or something.

I feel like this point in the game is where the flaws in the structure of the game start to become apparent. Character motivation just starts to go out the window.

It's kinda at its worst in Silver Snow, where (major SS spoilers) a random NPC just sort of walks up to you and tells you that Claude & Dimitri probably died offscreen and they just exit the game entirely. It's really clear that the game had no idea what to do with them on that route.

https://youtu.be/uTBlhe7iVyU

Doe posted...

Not sure how i feel about Ryunosuke hunting down Sithe in the end. I guess this maybe saved Drebber's life, but at the cost of Sithe's, who has a daughter(?) and isn't a psychotic terrorist mastermind. At some point you have to interrogate the meaning of 'the truth' and why and when you search for it. His primary responsibility should be as a zealous advocate for the defendant. IDK I guess hunting down Sithe just felt... like sport? It should be someone in Scotland Yard's responsibility, not a defence lawyer.

In real legal systems, yeah, his duties would end there.

But the AA series has been aggressively about "Finding out the full truth" since the beginning. There are several cases where you prove beyond any reasonable doubt that your client is innocent well before the end, but the cases keep going until you find the final culprit and reveal the full truth.

It's amusing that your client can still be found guilty during those segments too.

I liked Michelle Rodriguez's character.

Shame she got a pretty unfortunate fate.

Axiom posted...

And that system needs to die

That's a really goofy sentiment. It's a pretty common challenge to beat the games with 0% growths modded in. The series gives you enough tools to get past obstacles as needed even if you get really, really unlucky with level ups all game long on every single character, which in itself is pretty improbable. Between late game recruits, stat boosters, promotion bonuses, etc., the series ensures that you're going to be able to proceed even in the absolute worst case scenarios.

Meanwhile, growth rates keep things varied across multiple runs, and the system is one reason why the games are super replayable.

ellis123 posted...

They tried it in Path of Radiance. The game did not sell well so they got rid of the fixed growths system.

Probably worth noting that fixed growths was an optional mode after you beat the game. I really doubt that PoR's sales had anything to do with it being removed, it was just a really pointless addition that didn't really do anything for the series.

PoR & RD had weaker sales because the series was still quite niche at the time, it was only known as a portable series in the west, they didn't get huge runs in the west, and they received very little marketing. Most people just didn't know that the games existed. Both games sell for small fortunes in the west these days because there just weren't that many copies printed.

GAA2 is so phenomenal, hope you enjoy it.

Since you seem to be past it, I absolutely love Case 2. I was initially really down on the game following up on such a weak case from 1, but it retroactively made G-4 more interesting, and I found Olive in particular to be super super likable and tragic. The killer was also hilariously hammy, and the early twist in the case was incredible.

Blast of a case for me.

It also probably comes from conservatives staunchly refusing to make a single bit of progress socially.

Like, gay rights are becoming more and more popular, and the GOP is still pretty opposed to them. That's a deal breaker for a lot of people just on its own.

I have a lot of reservations about the game, but I'm excited regardless just because I love FE.

Compsognathus posted...

Birthright is just Awakening but worse.

I'm going to heavily disagree there, and I actually think it's the opposite.

I recently rebeat Awakening in pseudo-ironman form on my channel (95% ironman, but my first death was actually Robin and I just reset after the game over, so RIP to that) in order to do a series tier list video, and...Awakening is really really flawed. Its balance is completely off-the-walls awful with a lot of things being either completely gamebreaking and trivializing the entire game, or just pointless.

The last several parts of my run were just Chrom running through the game because there was never a real incentive to do anything else. It's purely a game of stats and a few really broken items, and it suffers for it.

BR, for all of its flaws, at least feels like it was properly balanced and at least has slightly more varied maps than what Awakening offers. Pair-up is still great and there's still some really overbearing stuff (like Ryoma), but it at least feels like there's more going on than just "Stack a ton of stats on one paired-up juggernaut and walk through the game."

It would have been top tier FE if not for the writing. Conquest in particular has some fantastic gameplay.

But yeah, the writing is genuinely embarrassing.

Doe posted...

And so, the "case of the unspeakable story" ends with... no mention of the signicance of The Hound of Baskersville. I don't think it's even necessary to present it during the game.

I mean before the deal was made. Graydon threatens it would be uncomfortable if the disk came out public, but he clearly has very little power to actually effect anything. The disk is noise without the other half and it's unclear if Graydon even knows its true contents. If it were leaked, the public would just hear four names. Unless it's a personal matter and Gregson doesn't want it known that his name is in the message? At best Graydon could yell out the contents, but it would be pretty much nonsense to the crowd. At the time the deal is made, Graydon had already been placed at the scene IIRC, meaning he'll be arrested after the trial no matter what, he has no way to escape Scotland Yard taking the disk?

Graydon definitely knew its contents. He was a communications officer who personally stole the secrets and transcribed them onto the discs.

The contents of the disc are state secrets either way. They don't want them to get out because they could make their way to foreign powers. Gregson was incredibly worried about the contents getting leaked throughout the trial, to the point where he was willing to make a super illegal deal with Graydon to secure the discs and prevent any leaks.

Graydon & Gregson both had a vested interest in covering the deal up either way. Aside from the murder entirely, if the disc stuff leaked, Graydon would go down for leaking government secrets, and Gregson would go down for making a deal and leaking information to a suspect. There was no incentive for either one to crack...until Ryunosuke pulled what he did with the music box. At that point, Gregson prioritized keeping state secrets safe and just cracked.

As for the significance of the names and why they wanted those covered up, that's something that I can't answer yet. But suffice to say, the general sentiment was that letting enemy nations get ahold of state secrets would be really bad regardless of what they were, which was a huge motivator for Gregson during that case.

Doe posted...

You know I don't really understand what pointing out the chain of custody of the second disk and that Graydon got info from Gregson in particular does to prove Graydon is the culprit. And why wouldn't Gregson just let Graydon be charged at which point he'd have the right to search his person and retrieve the disk.

Gregson is a cold motherfucker. He took the tidbit of the blood on the coat from when he eavesdrops on you at the end of the first day. Dude had no care for Gina.

Spoiler tagging just in case you're not quite here yet, but Gregson knew that Graydon did it. Basically everyone did, but you didn't have the firm evidence to nail him. You're basically just hard blackmailing Gregson into incriminating Graydon.

As far as why Gregson wouldn't let Graydon get charged, he was covering his own ass. The entire deal as illegal as fuck, and letting Graydon take the fall means that Graydon could just tell the police that Gregson helped him out.

They were essentially forced together at that point, because if one of them went down, both of them would go down.

I'm 60,000 words into a pseudo-novel that's formatted as a series of seven individual short stories.

It's in a version of the modern-day world where basically every monster you've ever heard of really exists, but human overpopulation and discrimination drove them into the shadows and eventually to their own world connected to Earth, and afterwards, they were eventually forgotten and written off as fiction. A young woman kind of stumbles onto a link between the two worlds and is kind of introduced to crazy shit beyond her comprehension.

Each short story focuses on a different key monster (ghosts, aliens, vampires, zombies, witches, etc.), while others appear sporadically throughout. There are overarching plot elements and narratives that connect the stories as well, with the pending final story being one that ties them all together and focuses heavily on the main character and her journey.

The initial concept was that it'd be a horror/comedy series, but dramatic elements have increasingly found themselves embedded within the stories. The format of the entire work allows me to switch the tone around a lot, with some stories having a much heavier focus on comedy/drama/horror than the others.

The entire thing probably sounds cheesy, but I've been at it for a while. I recently finished the fifth story and started on the sixth. If nothing else, it's a lot of fun to write.

Ezekiel2320 posted...

There's finally a dub? Where?

I've been holding off on that series forever because I can't stand subs and all I can ever find are subs.

There's been a dub for nearly a decade.

It started waiting in dubbed form on Toonami in 2014.

Anyway, TC, stick with it, you're in for a ride. I don't think the show gets genuinely great until the later parts of season 1 and into season 2. It only really gets better from there, with season 3 part 2 having one of the best stretch of episodes that I've ever seen in a single show.

Major Investigations 2 spoilers: I genuinely think that the mastermind twist is the best twist in the series, and probably the best twist that I've ever seen in a video game. I don't think I've ever been as strictly floored by a game's story as I was when all of the piece fell into place a little bit before the official reveal. The way it was both an established character, and a character who was tied into the rest of the game, without you ever realizing how much the entire character was being built up behind the scenes before you really realize who it is, is wild.

DeadBankerDream posted...

I've heard that both the 1 and 3 games theory are wrong and Takumi always intended it to be a duology.

I've heard a lot to support the single-game theory, albeit without hard proof. Allegedly Takumi wanted to make 10 cases in one game and just release it as a single adventure (Like what the eventual localization got), but it was just too much to do in a single game and it was eventually split into two. I believe that there's at least a bit of evidence out there that points to that, though I'd have to research it again to say beyond that.

The three-game theory is one that I believe is a myth. I've seen it mentioned a number of times as well, but I've never seen anything to substantiate it. As far as I can tell, the story that we got is always the one that was intended for the games.

AirFresh posted...

I kinda teared up when the young cop started to cry cause he just wanted to have dinner with his fiance lol but otherwise what a weak case

And then case 2 of the second game continues it like wtf

Light GAA2 spoilers: I mean, I was initially disappointed that they continued G-4, but G2-2 was a really good case and kind of retroactively made G-4 more interesting. Ultimately I think it was a good idea to continue it, because they're a lot more interesting as a set than G-4 would have been as a standalone goofy filler case.

A tip for investigations in general: Look at what your assistant says about each location. If they say something like "Hmm, we haven't been here in a while..." or something, it means that you still have something to do in that spot.

That helps narrow things down a lot during those.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/2/0/AADDXjAAEBuE.jpg

Plus some money, clothes, and gift cards.

Probably like 7-8.

My older sister found out and then immediately spoiled it for me. I cried.

Herlock is easily one of the best characters in the entire series. Fucking love him.

GAA1 is really good as a whole. It's definitely meant to be played with 2, though.

I personally love guns & bow, I just prefer to play ranged.

Honestly, just kind of experiment and pick your favorites. All of the weapons are perfectly usable, even if some are better than others.

Hunting by Daybreak maddening is one of the worst chapters in the entire series. Doing it deathless is just awful, especially if you've neglected anyone in your house at all. There's so much pure dead weight on that map.

AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative
Triangle Strategy

Both flew pretty far under the radar. TS was appreciated by those who played it, but I feel like AINI got a pretty unfair reputation when I honestly think that it was a super strong game.

There are a few other issues honestly. I think it needed a mass rebalance, and a lot of the later plot stuff, notably the Blood Pact, ended up being pretty rough.

It's bad, but worst? Ehhh.

It has some alright cities, and I'd take it over a lot of the states to the south of it.

I absolutely loved it.

The plot was slightly slow at times, especially early on with the massive influx of info about random political alignments and whatnot, but it kept me interested pretty consistently once it got going.

But the game is a blast to play if you're a SRPG fan. Every character feels super distinct and fun to use. I did two runs in a row and was still having an absolute blast by the end of it.

The biggest flaw that I'd have with it is that the English voice acting is pretty bad, but that's not that big of a deal.

It's probably the best twist in the series tbh.

Judith and Ludger.

I'll admit that I have a lot of misgivings with Engage thus far, mainly with the art which feels really...I dunno, generic?

But I'm trying to remain optimistic. The gameplay does at least look good thus far.

To be fair, they've had like, a dozen possible endings at this point. They've had a few instances of the cast dying off, the world ending, or everything getting into a state well beyond repair.

Solar_Crimson posted...

I heard it went downhill pretty fast once it moved to TBS.

A shame, too, because it was consistently better than post-revival Family Guy.

Strongly disagree. I actually think that post-TBS AD is its strongest. It's more over-the-top and zany, but it's in a way that works well.

It's fair that they lost their job.

But I fucking despise how conservatives are running up and down with this story. LGBTQ+ people are just people, some of them are bad people too. Using this as an excuse to mock the person for their identity, or worse, mocking all NB/trans/whatever else people is just so shitty, and I've seen a ton of it already.

Judge them for the crime, not for being NB, jeez.

It was better than it had any right to be, honestly. It was like Cabin in the Woods x a cheesy/fun 70s/80s style horror movie x Too Many Cooks.

Really shocked it was as entertaining as it was.

It's been awful. Mobile Twitter keeps switching over to Top Tweets, which barely even shows me stuff from people that I actually follow. It's all just a random mishmash of likes, random dumb meme accounts that someone I know follows, and ads.

I love AA6. It's so weird to see people despise it so much.

I recently rebeat it and it still holds up really well.

A lot of the game looks pretty strong, but I really don't like the over-the-top fanservice, and holy hell are a lot of the female designs in particular absolutely awful. They all have this sameface babyface thing going on, and a lot of them are overdesigned with just a bunch of random design elements thrown in for no reason.