Mera'din

Same. Thought it was pretty obvious who it was.  

It serves as a decent explanation but doesn't account for 

Lazy so not posting as much as you. 

Case: Corsair Vengeance Series C70

CPU: Intel i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Quad-Core 4.0 GHz

Motherboard: ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO

Graphics Card: ASUS GeForce GTX 970

RAM: G.SKILL Sniper Series 16GB DDR3

Hard Drives: 1 250GB SSD, 1 2TB HDD, 1 1TB HDD.

Everything else is relatively plain stuff. Old HP monitor hold over from my prebuilt HP computer (these things are built to last. My wife's she had from before I met her is still running like new). Same with keyboard. Have a Razer DeathAdder for mouse. Desk and top of my computer are a giant mess right now so no pictures. XD

Have to replace video card though. Can't play games right now because my computer will shut down after like an hour of playing. Thought it might be power supply but switched out card with my wife's for a day and it ran games all day with no problem so need to save up and get a new one before I can do PC gaming anymore I guess.

Saw an article saying that the next phase is going to be similar to Captain Marvel in that it'll be stuff set in the past which is hopefully means they want to establish the FF as an early in thing. Could totally do a "stuck in the Negative zone" style thing with them or something at the end of their movie and then bring them back post Endgame from whatever gets shit reset.

Also saw another article talking about how the Russo brothers shot a lot of the stuff in the Endgame trailer specifically FOR the trailer to throw people off of what the story will actually be in the movie because they were tired of people analyzing the living fuck out of every frame of the trailers. XD

I also want a Rocket and Goose (Chewie) meetup at some point in one of these movies because their interactions were always great in the comics.  

3 hours ago, webhead said:

That reminds me of a story with  @Mera'din and Shannon.  Oh dear jesus.

 

We were in the car going to Jack in the Box and I think Chax was with us so you already know where this is going probably.  Chax is doing something annoying and Shannon starts screaming at him while the guy on the other end of the drive thru is waiting for us to order.  Suddenly he says, after we've already started ordering mind you, "sorry we're closed for cleaning" and clicks off.

Oh god I remember that. God she was awful sometimes.

Side note: She is constantly getting into weird political arguments with my wife on Facebook and it stands out strongly enough that my wife literally has people PM her and be like "Who the fuck even is this lady?" and she has to explain to them who she is and it's honestly really cathartic for me.  

Our house's wall decoractions are currently an assortment of kids pictures, dragon paintings, paintings and statues of Daedric Princes from Elder Scrolls, and Spider-man stuff. XD

Also piles of books clogging our hallway because our bookshelf got waterlogged and moldy.  

I could have accepted that as the ending. My headcanon at that point would be one of the following:

Not necessarily in comp. Haven't seen you on in forever so how would you even know? ?

Also the team thing is sort of done at the moment. For a while at least.

On 4/7/2019 at 2:20 PM, Lucy said:

The only multiplayer game I play is Overwatch, but you're always welcome to join me on superlucyjin on the PS4! If you hit me with a group invite and I don't chat immediately it's because I need to change headsets to one with a mic, lol.

You should add me. MeradinUnknown. My wife and I play pretty regularly along with an assortment of other really chill people. We play both regular and competitive modes so whatever you're in to we are generally game for. Especially with the new Archives event around the corner.  

2 hours ago, webhead said:

I'm usually playing with David and he's looty looterson mcspeed the fuck through everything

Can confirm. Have experienced.

"Uncommonly hard game" is not a genre despite what some people want to think. These games are Action RPGs. Yes, it's a unique take on the concept in some ways, but that's still the genre that it is. The game is designed to be hard. Cool. It can still be that. AND it can still have a lower difficulty option without sacrificing the integrity of the original experience on the non-easy difficulty AT ALL. Literally nothing is lost to the people that want that. NOTHING. It's not comparable to making a scary movie less scary. The genre and thematic content of something is a completely different thing. 

And my point with the guide thing is you're basically saying "These games can't have an easier difficulty because it sacrifices the integrity of the game and the work you have to put into it to overcome the challenge which is the point of these games! I did it by watching videos and reading guides on how other people figured out how to overcome the challenge, thus making it easier for me to do it myself."  IE: The game teaching you the ins and outs via an easier mode and having to utilize external content to teach you the ins and outs has little to no functional difference outside of the method of the teaching. Excepting if the lower difficulty is just a completely cocked up "press X to win" scenario that doesn't actually teach you anything.

More to the point: your anecdotal evidence on why the difficulty is important doesn't mean anything to the next guy down the line. Difficulty is rather relative anyway. I've definitely seen complaints about how they made this or that Souls game "too easy", etc. Some say nothing will top Demons Souls. Some say that was the easiest. I'm sure they could make an easy mode in one of these games and there would be people that bitch about it being too hard still. You can't please everyone, but my point is having the OPTION hurts absolutely nothing and no one regardless of the game.

This is like Jimmy Page bitching about Guitar Hero and Rock Band games wanting Led Zeppelin because "you should learn to play it on a real instrument".

I'll state it simply: I like the concept of and want to play the Souls games due to things that have absolutely zero to do with the difficulty of the game. That difficulty is a barrier for entry and I don't have the time to read or watch a damn dissertation on the intricacies of dodging, blocking and backstabbing (or whatever) to get into them without hours of frustration.  Fuck me for liking the sound/idea of something and just wanting to have fun enjoying it and getting immersed I guess? Pardon my plebeian ways.

3 hours ago, Deimos said:

 

I didn't include the Creepshows because they weren't exclusively based on his works.

Cat's Eye was only partially adaptation as well but wholly written by him. Same goes for Creepshow. Two of the stories are adapted from his short stories and the rest is original, but still written by him. I'll give you Creepshow 2 since only one of those is based on his stuff and he didn't have writing credits on it. Just learned though that the kid from the Prologue and Epilogue of the original Creepshow is actually his son, Joe Hill.  

3 hours ago, Deimos said:

The Mist was on there. Or it should have been. I may have skipped over it on accident but I really thought it was there.

Nope. Double checked on that one because I thought it was weird you left it off. XD

3 hours ago, Deimos said:

The rest were left off because I was pretty sure most people hadn't seen. 

I'll give that to you on a couple (especially Golden Years. Was boring as shit anyway imo), but The Stand? Also, Rose Red and Storm of the Century were relatively big deals when they came out if I recall. They even published the screenplay for Storm of the Century I remember. First time I had ever read one.
I also honestly prefer those versions of The Shining and Salem's Lot. They were MUCH better as adaptations. Though in the case of The Shining it's purely for that since Kubrick's version was great too. Always HATED the original Salem's Lot though. Was so mad after I watched it because I loved the book. XD

There is absolutely zero change to ANYTHING in a games given experience at one difficulty by adding an alternate difficulty mode. Nothing is changed about your experience or preferences. AT ALL. 

You saying you had to go and look at guides and stuff could be argued with the same things that are being used to defend not having a lower difficulty. You had to seek outside help to improve at the game. How is that better than the game providing a tool to teach how the game is played in a less strenuous environment?

A difficulty difference doesn't have to be "lol press X to win". There are good ways to implement it and retain the integrity and feel of a game. Maybe gear upgrades are a bit more plentiful or stat increase happens at a sharper upward trend. Maybe the enemies attack a little slower, or leave themselves open to an attack or counter attack for a little longer. Maybe there's a few ridiculous attacks they can do that they won't on a lower difficulty or they animate more clearly before doing them. Even a difficulty setting like the "auto" one in Hellblade has potential. You start out at the default difficulty, and if you perform well, it shifts the difficulty up. If you start dying a lot it starts to shift the difficulty down. Therefore no matter where you are on the spectrum it will adjust to it and proceed to challenge you from there.

Or even if they don't do something intuitive or interesting and it's just "do more damage, take less damage, enemies have less health" stuff, it doesn't matter. YOUR EXPERIENCE WITHIN THE GAME WILL NEVER CHANGE FROM WHAT IT IS AT THE DIFFICULTY YOU PLAY AT. Someone being able to enjoy and be challenged by the game at a lower difficulty does not take anything away from you except some weird need to feel superior to someone else in a fucking PvE video game.

You can still urge a person to try it the "true" way with no change to such communities. It would just shift from "You should totally play this, here's how to make the attempt" to "You've experienced one level of this and understand the basics, now here's how to get the 'full' experience (for lack of a better qualifier)".

The kind of gaming where this is even a thing is a goddamn recreational activity. You found the grind to "git gud" to be fun? Congratulations. There are a lot of people that never will. That isn't a good reason to cut them off from experiencing a game they have an interest in for a different reason. And "Watch videos on Youtube" is not a good answer to that. Some people do though I'm sure, but that's not for everyone either. More ways to experience something without affecting other peoples experience of the same thing is unequivocally a good thing.

90% of games I play, I will play purely for the story or some aesthetic that has nothing to do with gameplay. There's nothing wrong with having lower difficulties to give more people the option of that experience. There are ways to do it that isn't just "you basically can't die" and maintain some form of challenge without completely alienating people. Despite my preferences for games, I have no problems with challenging myself. I also have a fondness for going for trophies/achievements in games, and playing on higher difficulties for that purpose (otherwise I've always been a "default setting and done" type of person with most games). However, I have never gone anywhere near a 'Souls' purely because of what I hear about them from literally everyone. Have even got a couple for free through PS+ and never touched them because I ligitimately don't want the headache no matter how much I am interested in some of the story elements and things like that. If there was a difficulty option I might actually consider it and then push into the higher difficulty based on how I felt from there.

It's entertainment software. There are (at least) dozens of different ways and reasons people enjoy this medium. It's stupid to limit the audience for something purely because of a "git gud scrub" mentality.  

Also, thinking about this topic reminds me of the video series Jim Sterling did where he would read elitist gamer comments as an 18th century french nobleman or whatever it was:

On 4/5/2019 at 11:52 PM, Deimos said:

I hit 47 and I still left a ton out. Jesus.

Was about to berate you for leaving out a bunch but you saved yourself. XD

Were actually a few on here I hadn't seen and in one or two cases wasn't aware of though.

Stuff I can think of you didn't have on the list that I've seen:

Creepshow (in part)

Creepshow 2 (one part for this one I think)

The Mist

The Stand

Golden Years

The Shining (late 90s miniseries)

Trucks

Storm of the Century

Rose Red

Salem's Lot (early 00s miniseries)

Some of this stuff was technically "original" works for screen by him I guess, but some of the ones you listed were too so I added them. Stayed away from actual TV series' but included mini-series entries since you also included some that were.

Side note: Just saw that Netflix is doing an adaptation of the novella he wrote with his son, "In the Tall Grass". That was easily one of the most fucked up stories I have ever read and I'm interested to see if they actually go all in on it.  

Also looking forward to seeing more from the adaptation of Doctor Sleep they're doing. That'll be an easy one to fuck up but it sounds like they're leaning pretty hard into the legacy of the Kubric version of The Shining for it.

On 4/6/2019 at 4:57 PM, Lucy said:

Jesus, they made a Gerald's Game movie?? That one was dark as shit

They did a really fantastic job of it too honestly. Especially since that particular story was long believed to be more or less untouchable for adaptation purposes.

I actually didn't mind the Captain America and Punisher movies they did in the early '90s. They were campy as fuck, but kind of fun.

Seriously though, it's something that just has to go through the process like similar things have. They've been making comic adaptations since like the 40s (I know there was a Captain America serial at the very least back then) and it took a long time, but they've come a LONG way over the years.

Alita was really good all things considered and a lot of it's story issues came from the fact that it was in development hell for over 10 years. It was originally supposed to be James Cameron's project he would be working on after the show Dark Angel was done and kept getting pushed back. Think the earliest versions of the script was floating around in like 2000 or so but not fully "done" until like 2008. The script got passed around pretty heavily from there and it wasn't until a few years ago that it was turned into a proper shooting script by Rodriguez. It was in various states of pre-production for so long that the tech developed to make the movie ended up being used in Avatar. I really enjoyed the movie overall, though I have only the most rudimentary experience with the source material. I felt like it was probably the best example of an anime adaptation thus far and if things continue to improve from there we'll start seeing some decent stuff before too terribly long I would think. Someone will get the formula right one of these days.

I'll give this a shot. If it's shit then whatever, more of the same. If it's not, then cool. I have no real expectations which never hurts with this kind of thing.

By management in that statement I was referring more to project management. Employee management is shit all across that industry pretty much. Those guys need a fucking union. Not sure how likely that is though with how spread out the game development industry is.

Saw that just a bit ago. Hopefully they can start to iron this shit out though I'm not overly hopeful. Most high end developers are probably almost identical (in terms of stress and morale for the employees. Not necessarily the shitty mismanagement).

Probably the best cover of that song I've heard honestly. Was really well done.

So apparently the timed exclusive shit with Epic doesn't apply to console. Logged in to BL2 and they had a pre-order overlay on the menu with the Sept. 2019 date.

Side note: I logged in to use some codes. They apparently hid shift codes into both trailers and the box art image they released. Gives some of the community day skins that you had to farm the shit out of the game to get before. There was also a code for 100 golden keys but that apparently expired on the 1st.

All joking aside, they apparently are going to have DLC for the game so I'd expect to see some of them via that probably as Nomura said some of it will add story and fill in gaps in what we got.

Makes me think of a cross between Ledger's Joker and the old 1960's Batman Joker. Not sure how I feel about it, but there is promise there, and knowing Phoenix's acting ability I'm willing to wait and see how it goes before getting too judgmental. My knee jerk reaction is to not like it, mostly because I'm not sure I care for the aesthetic at all but there's promise in the pieces so I'm interested to see how it does.

The game was an absolute bat shit crazy mess and I loved every second of it. I feel sorry for a lot of people who played it though because KH is my THING and I barely could follow what the fuck was going on half the time.  

Qualifications: KH is my favorite series and I've played every game in it multiple times and even actively play their scummy gacha mobile game for the story. >_>

P.S. Fuck that fucking black box and Maleficient for bringing up every 45 fucking minutes during the game with no payoff. XD

P.P.S. Also fuck them for kidnapping all the Final Fantasy characters. They're probably what's in the fucking box.

3 hours ago, webhead said:

 Do you ever actually use the store to discover new games?

Yes. I didn't at first, but one of the sales when they had you use the discovery queue thing to earn cards I tried it out and really liked the idea and have looked through it a few times and added things to my wishlist before. I also look at the new games list but shit gets buried so fast there that it's pretty much meaningless a lot of the time. 9050 games in 1 year is an average of nearly 25 games a day and I sure as fuck don't look at Steam every day. It's too much and a LOT of it has no reason to be there.

As far as what they can do? A lot of this shit is legitimately just asset flips of stuff from Unity or whatever. Ban shit like that. Remove it from the store, ban the person who puts that kind of thing up. Having to pay $100 to put the shit up is obviously not stopping them since they can get it back anyway so they need to figure something else out. Maybe restrict what can be put on the new release page via some sort of criteria? I'm sure there's lots of things that are a lot more direct then everything they've done so far put together. That last statement is mostly hyperbole because I know they HAVE been trying to do things it just seems like it has no actual impact sometimes and comes really slowly. Part of the problem with their system being so great and open and easy to make use of is the scum of the industry will be there to exploit it in any way they can.

A big part of it is the achievements and trading card shit. To be fair, I THINK they starting restricting games being able to have them through some means or another late last year? I don't remember for sure but I thought I saw something about it since that's how these people made their money back since there are people that will pay $1 for shit that isn't even really a game if it will give them achievements and steam cards. Not sure how thorough it is though.

12 minutes ago, webhead said:

 

  They keep trying (very slowly) to make it better but the openness of the system is of course going to flood it with shit.  No other launchers really have this problem because they don't let just anyone play in their sandbox. 

Steam wouldn't have this problem either if they did ANYTHING about it. Literally the most they've done to stem the tide is stop Greenlight (and replace it with a system that just made it so people had to pay them first instead of getting votes to throw up all over the store), and overhauling the curator system so that they can let other people do the work they should probably have somebody doing themselves. The discovery thing is one of the best features they've added in quite a while I think. 

They had the right idea with opening the platform to people who want to make games and have a centralized place to get them some exposure, but they had NOTHING in place to stop abuse of the system and have done nearly nothing to stop it from happening since it became an issue in like 2014 and it only gets worse as time goes on. Steam is a great platform that is literally buried under heaps of shit and it's hurting them. If Epic really can ramp up their storefront quickly, they'll be in a prime place to take a share. If Valve can sort some things out though they can cement their hold because Epic's roadmap puts them even pretending to be comparable to steam a minimum of 6 months out (more for a few things). Also, the "Recently Shipped Features" section makes me lol every time I see it because imaging an online store without some of those features is ridiculous.

Here's the roadmap in question:
https://trello.com/b/GXLc34hk/epic-games-store-roadmap