Imo we need to start attaching criminal penalties to the people behind businesses that knowingly abuse their power and position like this. Corporate bullying isn’t a financial position, it’s a failing of ethics.

I’m not saying it’s exactly KH, I’m saying it’s in the action-rpg hybrid combat genre like KH. I don’t enjoy either of their combat. As for my experience, I completed the first KH game and I’m like 90% through FFVII remake, but it is a fucking chore every single time combat happens. I think basically all action-rpg crossover combat is shallow. I want them to give me either a fully satisfying action experience or a fully satisfying RPG combat experience, stop dicking around in this dumb compromise space

I just don’t want this half-assed combat. If they wanted to make this an action game, go full action and give us a DMC-like experience. If they want it to be an RPG, either stick to classic turn-based or iterate in some way that isn’t a shitty compromised half-step between two things, don’t give us this shallow Kingdom Hearts-like (but worse) half & half. I guess I’m in the minority on this but I personally find action RPG hybrid combat systems almost always unsatisfying; very few games offer me something that doesn’t feel like a cheapened knock off of some better game style.

100%. I literally keep falling asleep during combat being it’s so mindless and boring.

I hate the remake’s combat so much. So so much. It’s so fucking boring. God why couldn’t they have just kept the core gameplay mechanic the same?

This is embarrassing, bro

You’re right; I have been unclear. Allow me to try to clarify.

My issue is specifically with the headline here using the word “political.” This implies, whether by design or accident, that this inclusion in the game is BioWare specifically making a political stance to push some sort of politically-motivated agenda.

This is, 100%, not the case.

BioWare is a subsidiary of EA; the only agenda they care about is making money. This is not making some kind of political statement; this is pandering to ensure free media coverage and to attempt to appeal to what they see as a currently valuable demographic. Fucking blast them to hell for that, blast them to hell for their poor writing—whatever. But calling this political is doing exactly what I stated before: allowing the conversation to happen on the terms of gamergate/right-wingers who insist that anything in the entire fucking world that doesn’t specifically cater to their own individual interests is somehow inherently “political.”

edit: typos

I understand that, but my point is that there is no shortage of shoehorned comic relief characters, or awkwardly placed fanservice, etc. Critique the actual fault at play, bad writing, rather than letting the gamergate right-wing nutsos have the benefit of having the conversation on their terms. Make the headline “DA:tV falls short in the writing department, here are some examples” and include the flimsy way the character is written as the valid critique. Games are going to pander to us, that is what I was saying; when we place special emphasis on this particular type of pandering all we’re doing is letting the right define the conversations we’re having.

I guess I should add that I’m not speaking to this game specifically since I’ve never played it. I really enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins but frankly felt like I got everything I needed of the world from it and haven’t been interested in any of the sequels. So I won’t be playing DA: The Veilguard, but that reason has absolutely fuck all to do with the inclusion of any social politics.

I feel like I have a outside the norm third-take opinion on this topic, tbh.

I think including the hot social topic of the day often time is pandering.

But I also don’t think pandering is a problem. The muscles on the main character is also pandering. When McDonald’s does market research and then releases a new product, that is pandering.

Games are a sales industry; they are going to pander to potential buyers, period.

So yes, a potentially trans-centric storyline in a game is unnecessary. But so is including a longsword, or a tavern, or a comic relief character. Unnecessary doesn’t mean bad; all of those things are likely only adding to the depth and value of the game.

So all this to say that when crazy right-wingers talk about SJWs and pandering and all that nonsense don’t waste your time trying to fight them on the irrelevant bits - go ahead and acknowledge the pandering aspect and fight the real fight by telling them it’s not negative pandering and minorities deserve to be pandered to and represented just as much as anyone else. They just don’t recognize the market targeting the white male demographic as pandering because it is the sphere of normal under which they operate.

Call me the fun police, but I don’t think we need to raise Lemmy power users to the position of micro celebrities, and I don’t find this kind of circle jerking cute.

And I say this as somebody with positive opinions of many of the people referenced.

It’s just like… Weird and kind of lame, tbh.

The whole thing is full of that kind of “drink their own kool-aid” propagandist thinking. It’s wild they expect anyone to take them seriously here.

I blame Meta. My Oculus Rift CV1 was working great until some random software update and now for some reason it won’t read my sensors as being connected via USB3.0 cable despite them being so, instantly rendering my expensive VR device a giant paper weight.

I’m still salty about Oculus starting out crowdfunded then selling to Facebook. What a fucking betrayal.

I can’t speak to the new update, but the pre-relesae version lets you face and beat the main boss multiple times just like in Hades 1. However (and I’m trying to avoid spoilers here), there is a “second path” in Hades 2 that didn’t exist in Hades 1 which currently only allows you to get partway through before you receive a “thanks for playing Hades 2!” win screen obscuring the rest of the game.

Random guess, I’d say the game is like 60-70% playable to players right now, but as the game is larger it’s already close to equivalent to Hades 1.

Remember kids, nothing doesn’t apply to you, everything was made specifically for you. If you find yourself in a community that seems like it doesn’t apply to you, remember that you’re never in the wrong place, obviously it is that community who is in the wrong.

Maggie’s boobs weighed [69] pounds which was [2], [2], [2] much, so she went down [51]st street to see Dr. [X}; after an [8] hour operation she was [flip calculator]

Is it sad that I still remember this calculator joke verbatim from middle school?

their “latest news” is solely articles about people being arrested for using pirate streaming services or selling loaded firesticks.

So just to be clear, the damage then is not from the actual piracy or due to any invasion from the source of the piracy, but rather 100% of the danger comes from the enforcement of piracy’s prohibition.

Yes, definitely sounds like piracy is the problem here 🙄

Yeah to be clear, if it sounded like anything I said was meant as absolution, it was not. Regardless of which camp they fall into or how they display their wealth, it is impossible, to the best of my reasoned understanding, to acquire mass wealth ethically. I assume all of the ultra-wealthy are morally compromised in some capacity or another until proven otherwise.

I think there are kind of two different groups that get conflated, actually: the wealthy, and the “professionally wealthy.” The wealthy are often discrete and not showy, but the “professional wealthy” are those whose wealth or fame itself is central to their empire, even if not as directly as the influencer wealthy. But these are the Kardashians and the socialites and tech bros, all of those who serve as sort of aspirational versions of wealth. There is no shortage of them, no doubt, and I’m sure even the quietly wealthy have a lavish indulgence or two (a yacht being very likely), but based on my experience I really think there are sort two clear and distinct communities of wealth.

I’ve known some disgusting rich people (born and raised in the wealthiest county in the entire country) - for some reason they love Costco. They don’t even do their own shopping but they insist on Costco. Unless they’re aggressively right-wing.