Valve didn’t invent lootboxes. The concept has physically existed for decades, they’re called trading card packs or kinder eggs or gashapon. The latter is the inspiration for what became known as lootboxes. The first “lootbox” was actually in the Japanese version of MapleStory in 2004 and it spread in eastern markets (because pay to win is more normalized there) and in mobile games. It wasn’t until 2009 when EA added card packs to FIFA. Hard to say if they were inspired by the lootboxes from the east of the insane football trading card market in the west, or by both. It was only after a year and a half later in 2010 when Valve added loot boxes to TF2. So Valve definitely didn’t invent lootboxes, they weren’t even the first in the west to use them. You could argue that they popularized loot boxes but even there is an argument to be made that Overwatch was a much bigger cultural hit than TF2 or CSGO or EAs FIFA games and normalized lootboxes.

I don’t mind the “Valve is bad” narrative, but at least keep your facts straight. The “strongest DRM” is also BS but others have already somewhat covered that part.

Woman for the job.

Trump would have a running chance regardless of who the democrats pick would be, the electoral college and republican party have made sure of that.

Depends on what you want. If you want more of Subnautica story then get it. If you want more Subnautica style going into the depths, Below Zero doesn’t go that deep and about half the game is actually above water. While I loved Subnautica I felt pretty disappointed by Below Zero.

And let’s look at music and coding. Since I can speak a bit to both. For music, OF COURSE there are difficulty sliders. When I took recorder back in school, they had 2 different versions of many songs. When I first learned Christmas music on piano, I learned special “simplified” tracks for the songs. I never “Got Gud” at music, but I still got to the end of the book.

Some songs have an easier version and a harder version, but being able to play a Christmas song on a piano doesn’t mean you can demand to be able to play Korsakovs Flight of the bumblebee on a piano. You just can’t play it, you have to “git gud” to play that song. And games are like songs. Some songs are easier, some song are harder. Some harder songs can be made easier, some can’t without losing an important part of the song.

And coding. Coding is the opposite of a Fromsoft game. You’re surrounded by mountains of tools that try to make it easier. When I bring in a junior developer, I’m not giving them some unforgiving code challenge to power through. Maybe they’ll never be good enough to design a specialized cache or optimize queries. So I give them the things they CAN do, and hold their hand so they always succeed. Junior devs don’t ever fail, not because they “git gud” but because I set them up to succeed by this little difficulty slider called “how hard is this ticket to do and how much help do they need from me?”

I feel like that analogy brings in an entirely different concept, the concept of a sherpa. You’re sherpaing junior developers by giving them easier problems and giving them tips on harder problems. But a Junior dev won’t magically know how to build a 3D engine or a compiler or something for an embedded system (just to give a few random examples). They still need to “git gud” to become a senior developer and be able to do those things. In fact I’d argue that software development as a profession is one of the closest professions to Fromsoft games, because you always need to learn new concepts or tools or ways to do things. Software development always challenges you the same way Fromsoft games challenge you. You can’t just take a problem and be “could I get the easy mode version of this problem”. And much like you sherpa junior developers so they could get better, some people sherpa others through Fromsoft games so those people could get better. Maybe instead of demanding an easy mode for your problems you find a sherpa who helps you get over them.

I imagine almost everyone working there are there for the money. You’d need to be in the sport with blinders on to not see that Stroll is not championship material. He’s decent and I think that’s a generous estimate of his skill.

Up there as one of the most dangerous chemical compounds in the world, near 100% fatality rate.

Maybe in some very broad strokes, but in very broad strokes legs and cars are also the same because they move you from point A to point B.

Biden at least tries to save some face, as evident from the recent cease fire push. Trump doesn’t give two shits about optics and would instantly give Israel whatever they want and publicly back then up. It won’t get much worse, because it’s already so bad it’s hard to get much worse, but it will get worse under Trump.

As if to prove my point… All you had to do was tell me the argument I made and all you did was “This is how it’s genocide denial”. It’s exactly what I said you do.

How many times do I have to repeat myself?

I’m going to start from here because this is how you show how disingenuous you are. I straight up said I don’t agree with the genocide deniers and what do you do? You still lump me in with them. Your entire mindset here is “If they don’t agree with me they must be genocide deniers”. Fuck off with that shit.

You don’t even try to understand what I’m saying, all you see is that I don’t agree with you and so you mental gymnastic yourself into believing I’m doing genocide denial. Once again, fuck off with that shit.

Go on man, shut me up. Retell my point back to me.

So you’re mixing up two different meaning of AI to say that AI doesn’t mean the same thing everywhere? When people are talking about bats, the flying mammals, do you also interject with “bats are use to hit a ball” to make some point? No, because deliberately mixing up homonyms is stupid.

It’s pretty clear what kind of AI people are talking about here. Nobody was discussing game AI.

You can sit on your high horse and talk about how people are cutting off pieces of their soul “for strategy”, but don’t be surprised when genocide continues and you get fascism shoved down your throat.

Genuinely not sure if joking or actually dumb.

I’m yet to find a comment section that isn’t full of you fuckers.

I’m going to start from here because this is how you show how disingenuous you are. I straight up said I don’t agree with the genocide deniers and what do you do? You still lump me in with them. Your entire mindset here is “If they don’t agree with me they must be genocide deniers”. Fuck off with that shit.

I don’t know about that, I think political possibility goes beyond who will be convinced to change their vote because you told people to stop complaining about Biden.

Like for instance, you acknowledging that the US is going to do genocide no matter what seems like a pretty damning thing to say, no? Seems like something worth saying. Seems like maybe we should condemn people who do genocide, or are willing to helm a nation that will make them complicit in genocide no matter what, because those are people that are going to do a genocide.

Political possibilities goes beyond when you stop complaining about a part of the problem and start criticizing the problem as a whole. Biden is only a part of the problem, the real problem is that the majority political landscape of US supports Israel. You can’t even get a real presidential candidate who would oppose Israel because it would go against the party line. And yet you’re convinced it’s Biden you should be complaining about.

Seems like maybe getting people on board with a system change involves pointing out that it is an inexorable genocide machine. And if that’s what it takes to stop the genocides - and you seem to agree with me on this - then maybe we should, I don’t know, talk about it?

Which is why you should talk about all the politicians supporting the genocide and not just focus on one. Why aren’t you complaining about Trump? Why aren’t you complaining about Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer? Why aren’t you complaining about everyone in congress who voted to aid Israel? Why is it that you only complain about Biden?

I think if you think you need to do this to get someone elected, that’s actually counterproductive. Like maybe people associating Biden with genocide denial is going to make it harder for them to hold their nose and vote strategically like you want. It’s very hard to imagine the voter who would care about the genocide and yet be fooled into voting for Biden because people kept his genocide support on the down-low. Seems like you’re cutting off little pieces of your soul for the sake of a strategy that isn’t going to really work, unless you’ve got an A-to-B for me on how telling people to stop complaining about Biden’s genocide support helps him win election.

It’s not about getting Biden elected, it’s about making sure Trump does not get elected. That’s what your elections have always been about, voting against the guy you hate more. If you don’t vote for Biden you’re indirectly voting for Trump because the system boils down to you either get Biden or you get Trump. And it doesn’t matter who gets elected, America will still support genocide. This vote isn’t about genocide, it’s about whether American will get a fascist leader or not. You can sit on your high horse and talk about how people are cutting off pieces of their soul “for strategy”, but don’t be surprised when genocide continues and you get fascism shoved down your throat.

Actually I’m just pointing out that you’re complaining about something that won’t change. You can complain about Biden being a capitalist but every final presidential candidate has been a capitalist for I don’t even know for how many decades. You’re complaining into the void because unless the system itself changes there’s no chance to have a socialist president.

Similarly you’re complaining about Biden supporting genocide but the alternative, Trump, has pretty much said he will go gloves off and give Israel whatever they need. In fact you probably couldn’t find a president in the last 20 years who wouldn’t be supporting Israel. It’s not a specific president or presidential candidate that is supporting genocide, it’s the entire system. The only thing you realistically accomplish by complaining about Biden is sowing division.

As for the “genocide deniers”, well some people are just dumb and we have to accept that.

And don’t forget capitalist Joe. Nobody is talking about the actual capitalism Joe is supporting because you think you have a good reason for it.

It’s the least worst way he could put it in his PR statement, there’s no doubt in my mind what he did was worse than “inappropriate”.

This is exactly why I don’t think they’re coming back just yet. If there’s one thing leavers and remainers agreed on it’s british exceptionalism. Remainers didn’t want to leave because EU in general was beneficial, remainers didn’t want to leave because UK had a good thing going in the EU and giving it up was stupid. Remainers want to join only if they get at least some of their special privileges back.

Maybe in another 10 years they’ll be more receptive towards joining without special privileges.

Have you considered that it looks better because you’re used to seeing it that way? It’s the same with Fahrenheit vs Celsius, the one you’ve grown up with make more sense and is more pleasing to the eye.