I mean ... I'm not really sure what the problem is, that statement is a pretty accurate and extremely healthy world view. You miss 100% of the swings you don't take, so don't get discouraged if you only hit 25% of the ones you do take. Very reasonable and uncontroversial statement.
Looking at the comments (and based on the demographics) this is a lenses of history thing. A Beatles fan today thinks everything is gold because only the gold is still in the zeitgeist. At the time, there was a ton of fan backlash to the experimental phase, both Sargent Pepper and the White album where seen by some fans and most critics as disasters. Revolution 9 doesn't get a lot of play today, but at the time it caused OUTRAGE. And really... as a song, it's probably objectively worse then Borderlands is as a movie.
I think it's extremely unlikely that future generations see the Borderlands movie as a masterpiece unappreciated in it's time ... but hey, stranger things have happened.
My first was Sophie as well, for the same reason, I don't like time limits. Loved that game and considered it my favorite in the series for a long time. I loved it enough then I ended up playing all of them and was surprised how much the time limits didn't bother me once I just accepted them. Ended up really loving the early ones. My best friend asked me what game to start on and I said Sophie, but he didn't like it. So I went back and played it again.
I was pretty surprised in how much I now felt that game was lacking because it didn't have a time limit or use the timed mission format. A little introspection and I realized that, without every really thinking about it, the two other games without time limits are the only ones I have a hard time sticking to, even though Shallotte is likely my favorite PC and that entry has the best combat before Ryza.
If you ever feel like going back, I would suggest just ignoring the timer. It's extremely forgiving. One I just accepted them, I never felt pressed for time.
As for Firis, that time limit is mostly for show. Not only can you easily get your license with 100+ days to spare, but once you do the time limit goes away. It's their first experiment with "no time limit", and it's more a story thing. It's just to make sure that, like Firis, you understand getting your license is your first priority.
So you should totally play Firis if you liked the rest of the "Mysterious series". I wouldn't even consider that GAME as having a "time limit" given there is only one timed mission, and it's 2 to 5 hours of a 30+ hour game. We don't call FF7 a game with a time limit because there is a timer on the Mako Reactor mission.
But in the video a character does a jump backwards from a standstill, manages a 360 degree roll in the air without modifying her center of gravity by tucking, then flawlessly lands with forward momentum.
I feel if the OP's real problem was with body physics they would be making far more posts. Sometimes sub text is important. What people chose to complain about is as important as the complaints they make.
If you asked me, I would say the series, excluding Ryza, feel a lot more like crafting games with light RPG elements then RPGs with heavy crafting elements.
Every mission is to make something. Your power level is determined by your items. The vast majority of the cut senses and story are the slice of life stuff you get in crafting games. The " RPG plot" is secondary, In Ayesha you can completely ignore the it and someone else handles it for you. Firis has no RPG plot, the whole goal of the game is just to get your Alchemy license.
You don't win by getting to the end of the story and killing the "boss", you win by meeting all the production goals. It's why the series is named Atelier. Your work is always the focus.
Ryza is much more like what you are describing, but I mean ... that's A21. There are 20 games in the core series that are nothing like it. They are way closer to Strange Horticulture then they are to finial fantasy.
And btw, I totally get being turned off by crafting heavy RPGs. My main gripe with the series is that it's turning into that. If I'm trying to save the world, crafting is a distraction that takes me out of the story. If I'm trying to make friends and sell potions while living my anime life, but I have the option to go save the world in my spare time, that's a neat and original concept.
No judgment, but it's important to understand Japan is not as uptight about sexual expression in art as the US or the UK. As someone who's lived in many countries, there is no objective cut off point where art becomes "uncomfortable". People are uncomfortable with art because of their cultural norms.
Check out the per-order bonus that are exclusive to Japan. Nothing here would even be considered risque in Japan. Family friendly box stores are advertising them openly.
The Atelier series is considered pretty tame, to be honest.
But like I mentioned, they are not 30+ hour RPGs. If you just go with it and don't focus on trying to min-max your equipment WAY past the point of what's required, you can do a run in about 4 hours.
And I say "run" because, in all I honestly view them more like like roguelites. You play once, experiencing some content, unlock global buffs, play again and everything is a bit differently. They are nothing like Finial Fantasy. They are also nothing like Ryza, for that mater. They are much shorter and far more linear. They were made in an era where you couldn't jam content into a game and had to make it up with replayablity.
Nothing wrong with that playstyle! I'm mostly the same way. I'm just saying you might have the wrong impression of what the games are like because they are nothing like the new games, and when people talk about them the discourse almost always revolves around the mostly irrelevant time limit.
I also hate games that rush you, but the time limits in the early games in this series are not only fine, they enhance the experience. Sophie and Shallie suffer a bit by not having one, and Lydie & Suelle is the worst the series, largely because it's the game they committed to the no time limit formula and they didn't have it quite right yet.
The gripe about these time limits comes almost exclusively from people who haven't played them. You're not rushed, you're given direction and bite sized tasks. You have plenty of time to explore and craft. What you don't have time to do, by design, is iteration chains. So you're first playthrough you're focused on the story and world rather then doing a paper - water - neutralizer - water chain 50 times to get every property on a max quality item.
And if that's your thing ... well, that's what the second playthrough is for. The games are quick (for JRPGs), and along the way you craft items that mitigate the time limit, like teleport items that remove travel time, and you get to keep them, as well as most of your items, in new game plus. Multiple playthroughs are fun too, seeing you get to focus on different relationship and explore some gatekept content. Totori in particular does some masterful story telling in having you experience one emotional arc in your first playthrough so that you're really invested in something that likely happens differently in the second. Ayesha has one of the funniest and most charming ending in the series ... but only if you don't complete an objective on time.
I would say in all the games with time limits, I've never felt rushed my first playthrough, and on my second I sleep for days because I had too much time.
I can see why some people hate it, but there is a simple, reasonable, and unavoidable explanation for this. DLC characters always have a very high skill caps because your target audience for them is almost exclusively the people who have invested 1000s of hours in your game. They have mastered the base mechanics, so DLC characters need to give these players more challenges. And because they have a higher celling and lower floor then the base game characters, they are only "balanced" if they are extremely powerful when played well.
You can see that in their pick rates. They have insanely low pick rates in lower skill brackets, but dominate at the highest level.
At the risk of oversharing, I have a chronic medical issue and spent the last little while on a new treatment vector that didn't really work out. Combining that with a writing intensive project I'm currently involved with, I didn't have a lot of idle time.
It's nice to know someone noticed. Thanks for that.
I think you might have missed his point (or made the comment without watching the video)
He agrees with you. Some fighters dominate the in hands of skilled players. That's by design. This video is about why that's a good thing.
A character who is easy to use is different then a character who is mechanically challenging. You don't change that, or they are too similar. Instead you "balance" it around that fact. The easy character is also easy to counter and bad at DI, air dodge, recover, edge guard ... ya know, all the things people who would gravitate towards an "easy" character don't do, or even know about.
The mechanically difficult character is amazing at all that stuff, and given that stuff is the meat of a pro match, they dominate the pro scene.
When you have 81 fighters, balance isn't all of them being "the same" or having the same celling. It means that you have some low celling high floor, some mid-range, and some high celling low floor fighters, and there is balance at each "pocket". Smash dose that fine. There are always 20 or so viable pro picks, and there are also 30 or so fighters you can play with zero skill or experience. But they can't be the same fighters!
It's not perfect, I love me some Isabell but she'll never be a viable pick against anyone with skill ... but it's as good as it gets.
This is how Icefrog used to balance DOTA, and why that game took off. He never "fixed" the broken heroes, he just let them be broken. Instead he made them easier to counter and harder to play, leading to the mantra "In pro DOTA, every Hero is broken". And MAN was it fun to watch.
I don't think anyone has a problem with Steve's power level. As pro fighters go, he's top tier but not overpowered.
The problem that his game play style of literally not playing the game for 3 minutes while he builds resources. It's dull, and his average match time is something like 3 and a half minutes higher then the average or matches he's not in. Casters hating having to fill that time, non Steve players hate dancing around blocks and trying to do chip damage until the fight "starts", even Steve players hate how he plays. He might dominate online qualifiers, but that's just because the people picking him are generally very good (given his high celling and low floor), and it's only true experts that can modify their play style to counter him. In the last official tournament, if you count the entire online qualifier, he had the lowest pick rate ... but 2 Steve players made it to top 8. He's just a newbie killer. Every game has one. Bristle Back. Meepo.
I don't think we're "gun shy" about breaking the game into ages. It's more that the last big attempt by someone to enter the 4X scene was a game that's entire gimmick was exactly what you are describing ... and it was garbage.
This isn't a case of people being apprehensive about something because it's new. You weren't first to market with this, and the first attempt soured people to the idea.
It's hard to excited about something you've already seen not work.
Just always, always remember that in the alternate universe where they updated the game machines the reviews would be the exact same score, only everyone would be complaining that the game betrayed the true fans by changing to much instead of the dated mechanics.
Honestly, if you already own Ryza 3 I would say ... just play that. You'll miss some character introductions, but I'm pretty sure you'll figure out who the "clumsy schooler" and "dumb brute" architypes are on your own. The story is not connected to the other two games in an emotional way where you'll benefit from already being invested, and you don't lose much for not playing them. in fact my biggest problem with that series is that the pervious games don't connect in any meaningful way. There's some world building in the first 2, but the 3rd has exposition to cover that. Not like playing Totori, where the story is driven by the PC character from the first game and you get to go back to the places you visited and see how they have changed based on what you did previously.
I would add that if for some reason you DON'T like the Ryza series, still give the early games a shot. They feel very different to play.
While all the points doomista brought up are valid, let me suggest an alternative argument! I would recommend starting with Atelier Rorona. I normally hate time limits in games so I totally get why people are apprehensive about the older games, but I actually think the time limits make them better.
I also think that experiencing how the time limits are used is core to understanding how the games are meant to be played, even the ones without time limits.
The Arland series is light, whimsical, and introduces concepts very well. If you want to hunt endings, you play them like a rogue-lite. You complete a run, inherit skills and items from that run, and try to do better next time. A "run" doesn't take that long and I think you'll find that the time limit doesn't actually discourage exploration that much. You should be able complete the game without feeling rushed on your first playthrough, and I think you'll find the experience a bite sized way to get a feel for the games. Don't play it with Game FAQ open and worry about not hitting some of the dates for secret cut scenes or whatever, just enjoy the ride. Then, if you did enjoy it, surprise! You still have a ton of content to explore.
More importantly though ... look, Ryza is a great game. I love it. 60+ hours love it. I love both the sequels as well. I think that the combat in the Ryza series is the best "active time battle" system I've ever played. But that series is just not distinctive from other action adventure games in the same way the Arland, Dusk and Mysterious series are, and the themes and tone are way more serious and ... Western? I don't know how else to say it. It almost feels like starting the series with a spin-off. The Ryza series also has much less world building. There is something magical about playing a game as Rorona and experiencing her story and then having her mentor you as Totori in the next game that you just don't get by being Ryza 3 times, conveniently losing all your powers and knowledge between games.
I replay the early games pretty often, but I've never gone back to Ryza. Again, it's fantastic, but it scratches the same itch dozens of other games do. But very few games feel like the early ones.
I love when games evolves and move forward, and I'm never that guy saying they should "go back to their roots"
Until like, right now.
Come on Gust, there is an entry in the series where your mentor explains the only reason she picked as a student is because you are cute and dumb. There is one where the plot is such a secondary consideration that not only can you ignore it, but if you do someone else handles it. There is a epic quest, spanning two complete games, involving some dude wanting to open a hot spring to look at girls in their bathing suits.
I don't play Atelier games to be the chosen one. I don't play them for the epic story. I play them because that's every other game, and sometimes I just want to be a cute girl making potions in a ridiculous anime world. I mean, sure, this is probably going to be fantastic, and I'm still going to play the crap out of it. But we just had the Ryza series and the far too serious Sophie 2 ... maybe go back to the old tone for a bit?
In theory you're not wrong, but that's not how the math works here.
It's not 1 million people at 90% vs. 5 million at 30%.
It's 1 million people at 90% vs 1 million people at 90% + 4 million people at 30%. The second number is bigger.
The core audience that is interested in the games watch regardless, you just get additional people looking for a console update.
Even if every single people who watched it because they wanted a console update gets mad and never watches another direct ... that's breaking even. If they were going to watch the direct anyways, they are not part of the group that only watched because they wanted a console reveal.
So all that happened is a group of people who weren't going to watch in the first place aren't going to watch. You lost nothing.
I totally get what you are saying. But look at it this way.
Case one: 5 million people watch because they are interested in the games, 5 million watch hoping for console preview. Sure, it's a small percentage of people who watch who were hoping for the console that are going to end up buying my game, but it's non-zero.
Case two: The same 5 million people watch because they are interested in games. The other 5 million people don't hear about my game.
I get more sales in case one, every time. That's clearly the better case for me. If anything I would say the opposite is at play here; Nintendo is turning people away so the conversion tracking looks good and they can charge more for time. I can't see it benefiting the people trying to sell their game.
As for the stockholder thing, do you mean they are trying to stop speculative buying by people who don't already own shares followed by a sell off? That makes sense.
For sure. But it's also such an odd thing TO say. You're basically telling a bunch of people not to watch your Direct. I am pretty far removed from this type of marketing logic, but isn't the value of several million people watching your full length ad worth a few of them being vocally disappointed afterwards?
I mean they've likely spent tons in market research and this is the right call, I just don't understand it.
At this point I'm thinking the Switch successor will be announced at the Grand Festival.
No like ... really. They are clearly trying to subvert expectations here and they don't want the media to control the narrative. What better way then telling 5 millions or so of your super fans before anyone else?
For the most part it's pretty safe, but the few changes they did make are substantial. Most of the talk is about graphical and emersion upgrades. But I mean, it was always going to be Civ 6 with a new paint job. Civ 6 doesn't play that different then Civ 2, really. Religion, districts, minor civilizations, and small tweaks to combat, zones of control, and stacking units are all that's changed in almost 30 years. I can't imagine Civ 7 will play radically different from Civ 6, and I would think that's what the overwhelming majority of fans want.
You can pretty much ignore religious aggression if you just build 3(ish) Apostles of a minority religion. You don't need to found a religion, just use any religion in any of your cities that isn't the one trying to take over the world.
Park them in a major population center. Don't use them to spread religion, just attack any missionaries that show up. The main problem with the computer is they will relentlessly send dozens of missionaries, but this turns that against them. Every time you kill one, it eliminates some of their religion from every nearby city. Not only will this completely derail their victory, but it wont be long before the run out of missionaries. The computer never utilizes any tactics in theological combat, and will just continue to toss units that can't even attack you back at you one at a time, so you'll be able to move the "front line" and keep eliminating their religious influence from more and more cities, without ever having to spread a religion.
This is an awful trailer. Do all the same things you do in the current games, only ... they look slightly better? Or I don't know, maybe they look the same, no one plays with animations on anyways.
The gameplay reveal didn't do the game any favors either. It's Civ, with all the things you didn't like about "Humankind".
But hey, let's be honest ... that's not actually that bad. Civ has never been a series about revolutionary gameplay, it's been about small evolutions to the core game over time. I think leaving the impression that they might have played this one a little too safe is better then leaving the impression that they took a wide swing for the fences. Most game play evolution has come in the DLC anyways.
I'll still get this day one, but with 1600 hours in the Civ 6 and 1300 in Civ 5 ... I wasn't really a hard sell.
With regards to power scale, when you look at the 3 current consoles:
The Xbox, which is theoretically the most powerful unit, is selling so poorly that many people are suggesting Microsoft should leave the console space. The only bight spot for Microsoft this generation is that the gambled on a cheaper, less powerful unit and that one is selling ... well still pretty poorly, but better.
The PS5, which most people SEE as the most powerful unit and which focused most of it's marketing around it's graphic power, is doing ... pretty poorly, actual. That's not as hot a take as it sounds. It's selling slower then the PS4 despite the PS5 being cheaper (adjusted for inflation) at launch and the PS5 standing virtually uncontested in the "high end" console market. Because the discourse is generally around how it's selling compared to Xbox things look better then they are. But when you just look at the system itself ... Sony can't be happy with it's performance.
The Switch is slightly less powerful then a graphing calculator, struggles to play games at 30fps at any reasonable resolution, has no marketing around power or graphics, and is going to be the best selling console of all time.
I really don't understand how this is even a debate. It is self evident that the general consumer market is not only fine with low end systems, but that the market for high end systems is small and shrinking. Nintendo isn't going to change course and start making powerful systems. They are going to continue making novel, accessible systems.
Xeno(game) remakes are like "Back to the Future" sequels ... if it's something you want, the reality is that you are probably going to have wait until someone dies. Zemeckis seems to have no interest in doing any more sequels or a re-boot, and the projects can't move forward without him. But given there popularity, the second he's in the grave we'll get a trailer for the so much "Back to the Future" content it's going to make the original DC movie slat like conservative.
Tetsuya Takahashi doesn't want to make re-boots. He doesn't even want to make sequels, but people have always been able to convince him to put numbers in front of his largely unconnected games while reusing a few characters and a cute winged mascot race, just like when he was working on Finial Fantasy.
(Spoilers for Xenoblades 3 start)
One of the core themes of Xenoblades 3 is that people who long for remakes and sequels are back creativity to the point where, to a creator, they are basically evil. You didn't get that? The main bad guys are literally bringing back the same small number of characters and having them play out different scenarios for their amusement rather then allow a new world to be created. That is the actual plot. The heroes give long winded speeches about how the "good" thing to do is let go your favorite stories go and move on from the past so that new ones can be told. A character KILLS THEMSELVES while monologuing about how non-exitance is preferable to having to be part of the same unchanging world or tell the same stories over and over. Another chooses to die just so their "story" gets an ending, actually vocalizing how they hope they are never brought back.
(Spoilers end)
That didn't tell you anything about the chances we are getting more sequels or reboots? Profitability concerns are always the excuse, but if the studio wanted to make it happen they would. But there are plenty of Japan language interviews where Takahashi talks about just not wanting to do them, and that's the real roadblock.
Will we get sequels and remakes? Yeah, eventually. The second Takahashi loses control or someone offers him something he really want to be able to make them without him, they are going to happen. But I almost don't want them to! I mean, I DO want them to, it's my favorite game series. Niyah and Meria are two of my favorite characters ever. I kept my Wii U plugged in just to go back to X every once in a while. I would LOVE to see these games remade and updated.
But part of me also wants to respect the creator. It's clear to me what he's doing with characters like Ino, showing us that Hana (Poppi) isn't just a character, she's an architype, and every game he ever makes will have a character of the same Architype (incase you missed the less subtle way that applies to the main cast). He's saying don't worry! The next game will have the same "people" and you can fall in love with them all over again.
And if this creator, who's given me so much I love, is practically begging me to look to his NEW work rather then his old ... I'm inclined to give him that.
It's not actually! It's less then 90 seconds of reading for the average human.
And if you take that 90 seconds, you'll notice that none of the words are about that argument. They are about if you have the right to impose that belief on other people who don't share it. I love the engagement I get from people, it's why I make posts on this site. But consider this; based on average human cognitive writing speeds, you invested 3 minutes to share your opinion in the same post you told me that asking you to invest 90 seconds in informing that opinion was "a lot of words". And based on the content of that post, it looks like you, in fact, didn't read that post, given it includes the line "You're 100% free to still think that this is a bad thing to market to children. That's not the point."
I'm not telling you want to think, but you might want to consider what it means if you are willing to spend more time telling people what you already think then you are willing to spend exploring new ideas and learning new things, and what it tells me about the value of engaging you in conversation beyond this simple call out.
I think you should consider the possibly you might be missing the forest for the tress on this one. The reason loot boxes that mimic gambling are such a problem in ONLINE games it that a child is playing them on a device that often has access to unlimited funds in the form of their parent or guardian's credit card, and that they can be bought without said guardian's knowledge. That can lead to the child being tempted to spend more and more money, not fully understanding what's going on, and there is no chance for the guardian to educate the child about the situation.
This is a REAL ITEM, in the real word. Children rather famously can not work or make money, and are generally limited in their transportation options. That means if they are buying a pack of trading cards it's because a guardian gave them some money and drove them to the store, or is likely flat out buying them for the child.
You're 100% free to still think that this is a bad thing to market to children. That's not the point. What's important though is that a guardian is part of this process, and if they share your opinion, they can simply explain to the child why they are not going to give them money and drive them to the card shop. Alterably, they can allow the child to buy a pack and use the disappointment if they don't get anything good to teach an important lesion about impulse control.
Or if they don't agree with you, they can simply explain the situation and allow the child to buy cards if that what they want. It's a great way to educate your children about perceived value and risk.
Government regulation in the case where a child is exposed to danger that deliberately removes the guardian from the process can be a great thing. But regulation of a process that the guardian is a part of is just taking away the right for that guardian to raise their child the way they choose.
It's like saying it should be against the law to make a PG-13 or higher movies, and that all movies by law must be G, because you think PG-13+ content is harmful for children. Power to you if you think that, totally valid viewpoint. But a lot of people think it's fine, which is why a system where parents can accompany children to stronger content if the do not share that viewpoint is so effective. The idea is that it's ok for the content to exist so long as a guardian has control over if a child is exposed to it.
You might instead suggest that CCG packs shouldn't be sold to children under the age of (insert arbitrary maturity age here), and sure ... that's a better option. But again, given you should know as a guardian where the physical money you give your children is going, this seems like unneeded overreach to me.
And if you're speaking about adults, adults should have the right to spend their money on gambling if they want. Gambling addition is a serious illness and treatment should be readily available and free. If it's not, we need to focus on that rather then taking the right to gamble away from people who do it harmlessly within their limits.
Why would they stop CT scanning? It's one of the best thing that's ever happened to them.
It has zero impact on their sales, it only effect resellers. One of the biggest problems PTCG is facing is that they have having a hard time attracting new players because any time they try and run a promotion, give-a-way, or special edition, it gets snapped up by resellers. This puts the cards forever in a "secondary" economy of players who are already invested in the game or collecting, making them unavailable to new players. MTG had this problem and spent years deliberately making their cards worthless with reprints in order to stop it. That had a huge impact on the game's popularity, leading to a resurgence in sales. It's a industry wide problem.
With PTCG you also get a bunch of pissed off customers who blame Nintendo (1) because they couldn't get them. Look at the bile people spew on this website when an Amiboo sells out. That happens EVERY FREAKING TIME TPC or WTC puts out a new PTCG set. You think they want that?
With CT scanning, people are going to loss faith in resellers, knowing that all of the good packs where already scanned and opened. Not only will this drastically lower the price of unopened packs, but with more packs being open, it will drive down the price of individual cards as well. This could very well drive the overall profit from reselling to a point where it's hardly worth it. Unopened boxes have always been the main resale item, and now that all it takes is a CT and a shrink rap machine to make an "unopened" box of useless cards, that market is going to fall out hard.
As for the "bad actors", card shops that might scan packs and sell them as new once the good cards are removed ... they already open packs and do this with with the tech that's already out their. They don't need this, and this isn't going to make it any easier for them. If anything, this will raise awareness of how commonplace this is and lead to more scrutiny.
There is no CT problem. There is a CT solution.
1 - I know Nintendo has nothing to do with the card game. Nintendo also has nothing to do with the BS NOA is constantly pulling, but a quick read on this site will give you a good look at how much angry people care who is actually at fault. An't no time for logic or research when fingers need pointing!
Oh man, I'm really sorry I missed your reply. I didn't get a notification for some reason.
While what you're saying is absolutely true, Rotten Tomatoes accounts for that. When you simit your review as a media outlet you just click a box as to if the review is generally positive or generally negative. This is pretty much a necessity given a lot of reviews don't actually include a score, but if you want to be the fringe case that thinks a "bad" movie is actually anything that gets less then 3 out of 10, instead of anything that gets less then 5, then you can use this system to override your own score and submit a 4/10 review that is "generally positive". It also allows you to decide if a 5/10 review is positive or negative.
"sitting at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning the vast majority of critics who watched it thought it was absolute garbage"
1 - The majority of critics did think this movie is absolute garbage
2 - The motive is absolute garbage
3 - Just kinda as a PSA, that's not how Rotten Tomatoes works. A 9% score means that 91% of critics gave a score below 50%. They could have all given it a 4 and a half out of 10 stars, it would still be at 9%.
The Tomato-meter isn't a measure of how bad critics think the movie is, for that you have to read the reviews. It's a measure of consensus. It's not the average critic score, it's the number of critics who gave the movie a positive review, regardless of score. A movie where every critic gives it 51% and one where every cretic gives it 100% have the same freshness score of 100%.
Actually that's my bad, I shouldn't use acronyms that are not common in every community. You got it right thought, Southeast Asia. In most pro gaming communities, SEA is synonymous with constant aggression. Except in the FGC (fighting game community) where it's synonymous with the exact opposite. Weird, really.
$63! That's insane. Speaking of Cinnamoroll, you could go to Puroland AND Harmonyland on the same day, and that's less then $60 US including train fare. Really sorry to hear that, I'm sure it was disappointing. But it sounds like you still had a great day!
I've never heard of Ironmouse, but anyone who loves Cinnomoroll can't be bad! Maybe I'll check them out. English speaking Sanrio super fans are pretty hard to find!
I mean, "Team Rice" was 60% of the entire Splatoon's player base that played this weekend, so it's unlikely they were playing any "different" then an average player. They literally were the average.
In anything, I think it's just because the team was a little skewed towards SEA over NA members, and the average SEA player is way more pro-active (and skilled in general, if I'm being honest). It exposed some people who don't generally play at peak SEA time to that type of play style. To me it didn't feel any different, and I played 110 matches on team rice.
It's great you were able to play even being so busy! That's one of the things I love about Splatfest, how so many people make this an actual event they try their best to be part of!
I think the results are not surprising. I don't know how Nintendo didn't know this would be one of the most one-sided choice wise, given your opinions for what you eat every day were something that would likely kill you, something that would like you kill you and give you constipation, and something billions of people already do. It was really funny, when I was playing on NA time (6pm-11pm EST) the teams were pretty normal, but when I was playing more on Japan time (5am-10am EST) most matches were Rice vs. Rice.
Still, I don't know why, but this was one of the most enjoyable Splatfests for me. Set a personal best 770,000 clout! I think it's just the result of years of small adjustments putting the game in a really good place, rather then anything major.
Gratz to everyone who played. Like I always say, we're all winners today.
There is no algorithm. It is completely random. I mean, I totally get that it can be frustrating sometimes and bad teams happen, but what you are suggesting is literally impossible. It is you and 3 other people chosen completely at random vs. 4 other people also chosen completely at random, unless you are grouped, in which case you are matched against a group of the same size if possible, also chosen completely at random.
The turf your "pre-occupied" team mate was inking is worth just as much as any other terf. If it's in a out of the way area, not only is it less likely to be taken by the other team, but they need to invest more time into going to ink it. Pro teams have "roles", and one of the member's role is to do exactly that ... ink out of the way spaces to full their ultimate, then join the team briefly to push forward with the ultimate, before going back to inking remote spaces again.
So while, sure, there is always the chance it was someone who only plays on Splatfest and isn't the most skilled (which is fine, Splatfest is a time to encourage this type of player!), but it's almost MORE likely that what you are describing is someone playing extremely high level Splatoon, likely wondering why (from their perspective) all their pre-occupied team mates are tossing themselves at fights and no one is playing actual roles like point or guard, or why you are not making coordinated ultimate pushes.
So now we're dealing with the question as to if the levels are an essential or accidental property. Is the game "DOOM" the code that runs the game, or the content that is being run using that code? If it's the content, then are these additional levels really DOOM at all? If it' the code, when is the new, revised code still DOOM?
When did this turn into a philosophy website? I mean, not complaining, but wow, really weird.
(And joking aside, if you want to get really technical, it's only the lynx version that's open source. John Carmack used some copywritten code for the DOS sound drivers so couldn't include then when it made it public, but a lot of people who have made DOS and Windows versions based on the lynx code that are on a common license. Software ownership is so messy)
I mean, if you want to get technical about it, given that both DOOM 1 and 2 are open source software freely ability from a number of sources including (ironically) Microsoft owned "GitHub", you could argue that buying DOOM is always a waste of money.
But you could also go full Utilitarianism on it and argue that your buying DOOM allowed ID software to continue to employ people to work on updates and revisions, and that these improvements have benefited millions of people. it could be one of your life choices with the greatest overall positive impact on the largest number of people.
Or a nihilistic realist might remind you that there are only two things you can spend money on, literal needs", like the absolute minimum of food and shelter, or additional luxuries that have no propose other then providing a momentary and transitory feeling of levity, so money can't be "wasted" unless it didn't provide that feeling.
No judgment, but do you really think a gaming site was the right place to pose such a deep philosophical question?
I'm not really sure what you are even traying to say here.
Developers are not the one that write the stories for modern games. They hire experienced writers. Borderlands 2, TPS and Tales from the Borderlands were all written by award winning writer Anthony Burch, who has written for Adventure Time, Rocket Jump and Anime Crimes Division, as well as 2 extremely successful scripted Pod Casts. The later games were written by Connor Thomas Cleary, who was trained in theater, sound design and screenwriting.
Even back in the FF7 days they hired people who's education and background was in writing, not game development. Kazushige Nojima, who wrote FF7, was educated as a screenwriter.
Game developers or even game writers also had nothing to do with this movie. The movie was written by Eli Roth, who is known for ... well, mostly bad horror movies.
If anything, the problem is that Anthony Burch wasn't asked to write this movie.
George R. R. Martin worked on Elden Ring, Orson Scott Card's worked on Monkey Island, or Philip K. Dick award nominated novelist Marc Laidlaw worked as lead writer on Half-Life, just to name a few heavy hitters in the writing world who have worked on games.
And let's not forget that Erik Wolpawm, one of an elite group of writers to win awards from both the Writers Guild of America and the BAFTA won both those awards for writing Portal 2.
Game writers are just writers, hired to write a video game.
Ironically, "depression" has no set definition, and isn't really a economic term.
It’s generally agreed that a depression is a prolonged decline in GPD accompanied by either hyperinflation or deflation. Other indicators are bank failure, reduction in CCI and investment, and increased unemployment, poverty, and homelessness.
Unlike a recession, however, it’s not really a term economists use to describe something that is happening or could happen. It’s a term used colloquially to describe a prolonged state, often after it is over. Something IS a recession because we have hard numbers to support that. Something WAS a depression because we all just kinda agree it was.
You can read newspaper headlines from 1929 to 1933, and you’ll see things like “prolonged recession” or “economic crisis”, but it wasn’t until FDR described the economy as being a “depression” in his 1933 inaugural address that it started to pop up in common usage. And he was suggesting that period WAS a depression, but it was over now because he was going to stop it. In fairness, he kinda did! it just took him so long that he's literally the reason the US has term limits ...
So to someone living though it, they were never IN a depression. They were in a long recession until someone called the 3 years they had just experienced a "depression", but at that point (from their perspective) the depression was over and they were in the post-depression recovery.
Today, we call 1929 to 1939 “The great depression” in hindsight, with the term seeing widespread use starting around 1955.
I'm not trying to be hard on you, but I think it's important to understand that literally everyone was talking about it, non-stop, while it was happening, before it happened, and after it happened. I think it's extremely unhealthy to suggest there is some media conspiracy around coverage of this pretty normal economic event. That's just not the case.
The last 3.5 years have seen exceptional GDP growth of 6.5%, a number that is higher then almost any similar period in the last 30 years. Trying to use anecdotal data or "feelings" to suggest that the US economic situation is anything less the miraculous, let alone suggest that it's "bad", is disingenuous to the extreme. It ignores basic factual information from impartial sources across the globe in favor of your own personal narrative. I understand that sometimes it's hard to maintain perspective, so no judgment. I'm just trying to help you see a more objective picture.
It's never prefect. People lose their jobs in time of exceptional growth. 37 million people in the US live in extreme poverty. Life is going to suck for them regardless of economic climate, because the system simply isn't set up to benefit them under any circumstance. In fact one of the largest single year reduction in modern US history to the number of people in poverty happened in 2019 when, despite being a bad year for the economy overall because of the pandemic, the US enacted the largest set of social programs since the "New Deal". That obviously helped a lot of people. Unfortunally1.6 trillion in cuts to social programs at the start of 2020 reversed this, and we saw one of the largest increases in poverty rates since the great depression. Nearly best ever to nearly worst ever in under 11 months.
How good things are for the lower class is generally not tied to GDP, but instead to spending on social programs. Not a lot of people working minimum wage own stocks. If you're "looking around" and things seem bad for the common man, those cuts are a far more likely culprit then the state of the GDP,.
So I would stop hoping for an "economic turnaround", because what you're hoping for is a full on depression and historic levels of job loss and economic decline ... because that would be the opposite of what you are experiencing right now.
While that's actually a pretty insightful view on how AI would view the market, the reality is that what you are predicting here has been the norm for close to 50 years.
Back in the 70s quants were using algorithms that were derived from neural networks to automatically make trades based on reasoning their users didn't fully understand, and they have almost always preformed better then market. This was the start of "AI trading". Around the crash of '87, quants outperformed traditional traders so hard that more financial institutes started trusting more and more money to them, and started developing their own neural networks and custom AI.
There were days as early as the 2000s when insiders speculated that 40% of all trades (by volume) on the NYSE were being done by AI. On the Forex market, it's likely even higher.
They have already crashed the market (at least) twice. Once in 2007, and again in 2010. In 2010, it was so obvious that computers were the cause of the crash that they cancelled some of the the trades and rolled back stock prices.
AI is really old tech. The term is getting a ton of use now, but what people are actually talking about is "Large Language Models" and "Transformers", the game changers that have emerged recently. While this tech will make AI trading accessible to more people, it shouldn't change things much. All of the big players already have in-house models they have been training for decades.
"Recession" is a clearly defined economic team that means the total GDP has been in decline for two successive quarters. No one has to "admit" it. No one can hide it. It's a factual reality, easily verifiable by anyone.
The last time this happens in the US was 2022. As of right now, the GDP grew by 2.28% in Q2, and we are waiting to know the results of Q3.
So even in the worst case, the US can not enter a recession until Oct. It absolutely is not in recession right now, and had a pretty fantastic 2.5% growth in fiscal 2023. You can toss a LOT of bad words at the current state of the US, but "recession" isn't one of them.
"rich people operate off vibes mostly, so sometimes it is for not much reason"
I wish more people understood that. It's not just that, but Quantitative Trading is widespread now, meaning stock prices and even market crashes like this that effect millions of people are often caused by a small number of the richest people in the world making a trade off a gut feeling, followed by Quants amplifying the effect as they make millions of small trades to manipulate and benefit from the aftermath.
When 10 people hold around half a percentage point of the total personal wealth of the other 8 billion people on the planet, the market is rarely reacting to anything "real" any more.
I think Civ also faces the additional challenge of being the "simple" 4X game. It's identity is based around a lack of complexity and it's straight forward gameplay, coming from it's start as a board game. It's the 4X you play when you don't want to think too much, but also don't want to turn your brain completely off.
So that puts even more constrains on them when it comes to what they can innovate. If they add additional systems or up the complexity ... well, now your directly competing with Paradox games and the "Endless" series. If they keep things simple, how do you make the game meaningfully different?
I think this is why it's taken them so long. It's an extremely talented team and if anyone can crack the code, I'm sure it's them. But like I said ... I don't envy them in that herculean task.
They didn't release today. I get what you're saying, but no one complained that Pokémon Gold was too much like Ruby, or that Ruby betrayed the "true fans" by changing too much. There wasn't really anywhere to complain, even if you thought that. That doesn't mean newer releases are not facing that problem.
1, 2 and 3 were released to a small fan bases at a time where all people really wanted was the same game updated for modern PCs. Civ 2 added things like ... mouse support(1). That's the time period we are talking about.
4 was the first modern release, and the first to bring a more general audience into the game. It innovated, and the "true fans" hated it, but that wasn't a problem because new fans vastly outnumbered them
5 and 6 were the only releases where this problem was really relevant. Did they surfer from it? Yeah, pretty much. Dispute rave reviews, both faced heavy criticism from "fans" that they had changed too much, while also facing criticism they were the exact same game. It wasn't until the expansions added back most of the features people though were missing and streamlined gameplay to be more like the previous games that people started to accept them.
And that was 2016. Compare the discourse around Pokémon Sun/Moon with the discourse around Scarlet and Violet, and I think that gives us an idea of what to expect when this comes out.
1 - Just to pre-emt the guy who's going to "WeLL ActUaLLy" me ... The windows release of Civ 1, which came 2 years after the DOS release, did support mouse use. My point is just that things were a lot different when that was game changing innovation.
I don't envy devs trying to makes new games in a series like this. I have a felling this game will be universally hated unless it is completely different from the pervious games while also being the exact same as the previous games
You can probably enjoys these games with a basic translation chart that tells you want the menus mean and very little else.
While I can't say with complete confidence, it looks like they replaced all Chinese numerals with Arabic numerals, so that should make it a lot easier. You obviously wont gets the full experience, there are cut scenes, bios, and a ton of humor that you would also need to translate, but this is a great type of game to help you learn.
You can get a chart for the menus, have a really fun baseball game to play, start translating the bios and cut scenes around your team, once your comfortable with that move on to other teams and the general cut scenes ... and so on.
Comments 2,060
Re: Gearbox Co-Founder Compares Company's Success Rate To The Beatles, And Fans Aren't Happy
I mean ... I'm not really sure what the problem is, that statement is a pretty accurate and extremely healthy world view. You miss 100% of the swings you don't take, so don't get discouraged if you only hit 25% of the ones you do take. Very reasonable and uncontroversial statement.
Looking at the comments (and based on the demographics) this is a lenses of history thing. A Beatles fan today thinks everything is gold because only the gold is still in the zeitgeist. At the time, there was a ton of fan backlash to the experimental phase, both Sargent Pepper and the White album where seen by some fans and most critics as disasters. Revolution 9 doesn't get a lot of play today, but at the time it caused OUTRAGE. And really... as a song, it's probably objectively worse then Borderlands is as a movie.
I think it's extremely unlikely that future generations see the Borderlands movie as a masterpiece unappreciated in it's time ... but hey, stranger things have happened.
Re: Atelier Yumia Release Date Announced, And The First Gameplay Trailer Is Beautiful
@YourDaddy
My first was Sophie as well, for the same reason, I don't like time limits. Loved that game and considered it my favorite in the series for a long time. I loved it enough then I ended up playing all of them and was surprised how much the time limits didn't bother me once I just accepted them. Ended up really loving the early ones. My best friend asked me what game to start on and I said Sophie, but he didn't like it. So I went back and played it again.
I was pretty surprised in how much I now felt that game was lacking because it didn't have a time limit or use the timed mission format. A little introspection and I realized that, without every really thinking about it, the two other games without time limits are the only ones I have a hard time sticking to, even though Shallotte is likely my favorite PC and that entry has the best combat before Ryza.
If you ever feel like going back, I would suggest just ignoring the timer. It's extremely forgiving. One I just accepted them, I never felt pressed for time.
As for Firis, that time limit is mostly for show. Not only can you easily get your license with 100+ days to spare, but once you do the time limit goes away. It's their first experiment with "no time limit", and it's more a story thing. It's just to make sure that, like Firis, you understand getting your license is your first priority.
So you should totally play Firis if you liked the rest of the "Mysterious series". I wouldn't even consider that GAME as having a "time limit" given there is only one timed mission, and it's 2 to 5 hours of a 30+ hour game. We don't call FF7 a game with a time limit because there is a timer on the Mako Reactor mission.
Re: Atelier Yumia Release Date Announced, And The First Gameplay Trailer Is Beautiful
@YourDaddy
Yap. That's how opinions work.
Just curious, what games before Sophie have you played? What exactly about the time limit in those game did you fell held you back?
Re: Atelier Yumia Release Date Announced, And The First Gameplay Trailer Is Beautiful
@BTB20
I can dig that. No argument.
But in the video a character does a jump backwards from a standstill, manages a 360 degree roll in the air without modifying her center of gravity by tucking, then flawlessly lands with forward momentum.
I feel if the OP's real problem was with body physics they would be making far more posts. Sometimes sub text is important. What people chose to complain about is as important as the complaints they make.
Re: Atelier Yumia Release Date Announced, And The First Gameplay Trailer Is Beautiful
@ScalenePowers
If you asked me, I would say the series, excluding Ryza, feel a lot more like crafting games with light RPG elements then RPGs with heavy crafting elements.
Every mission is to make something. Your power level is determined by your items. The vast majority of the cut senses and story are the slice of life stuff you get in crafting games. The " RPG plot" is secondary, In Ayesha you can completely ignore the it and someone else handles it for you. Firis has no RPG plot, the whole goal of the game is just to get your Alchemy license.
You don't win by getting to the end of the story and killing the "boss", you win by meeting all the production goals. It's why the series is named Atelier. Your work is always the focus.
Ryza is much more like what you are describing, but I mean ... that's A21. There are 20 games in the core series that are nothing like it. They are way closer to Strange Horticulture then they are to finial fantasy.
And btw, I totally get being turned off by crafting heavy RPGs. My main gripe with the series is that it's turning into that. If I'm trying to save the world, crafting is a distraction that takes me out of the story. If I'm trying to make friends and sell potions while living my anime life, but I have the option to go save the world in my spare time, that's a neat and original concept.
Re: Atelier Yumia Release Date Announced, And The First Gameplay Trailer Is Beautiful
@aznable
No judgment, but it's important to understand Japan is not as uptight about sexual expression in art as the US or the UK. As someone who's lived in many countries, there is no objective cut off point where art becomes "uncomfortable". People are uncomfortable with art because of their cultural norms.
Check out the per-order bonus that are exclusive to Japan. Nothing here would even be considered risque in Japan. Family friendly box stores are advertising them openly.
The Atelier series is considered pretty tame, to be honest.
https://noisypixel.net/atelier-yumia-the-alchemist-of-memories-the-envisioned-land-reveals-plenty-of-gorgeous-art-as-japan-retailer-bonuses/
Re: Atelier Yumia Release Date Announced, And The First Gameplay Trailer Is Beautiful
@Andee
I feel ya.
But like I mentioned, they are not 30+ hour RPGs. If you just go with it and don't focus on trying to min-max your equipment WAY past the point of what's required, you can do a run in about 4 hours.
And I say "run" because, in all I honestly view them more like like roguelites. You play once, experiencing some content, unlock global buffs, play again and everything is a bit differently. They are nothing like Finial Fantasy. They are also nothing like Ryza, for that mater. They are much shorter and far more linear. They were made in an era where you couldn't jam content into a game and had to make it up with replayablity.
Nothing wrong with that playstyle! I'm mostly the same way. I'm just saying you might have the wrong impression of what the games are like because they are nothing like the new games, and when people talk about them the discourse almost always revolves around the mostly irrelevant time limit.
Re: Atelier Yumia Release Date Announced, And The First Gameplay Trailer Is Beautiful
Sigh
Just not a fan of the tone. Even the color pallet is taking itself way to seriously.
This is the least excited I've ever been for a Atelier game.
Which, in fairness, is still really excited. And while I don't really vibe with what it's doing, it's doing it really well. Looks incredible.
Re: Atelier Yumia Release Date Announced, And The First Gameplay Trailer Is Beautiful
@Andee
I also hate games that rush you, but the time limits in the early games in this series are not only fine, they enhance the experience. Sophie and Shallie suffer a bit by not having one, and Lydie & Suelle is the worst the series, largely because it's the game they committed to the no time limit formula and they didn't have it quite right yet.
The gripe about these time limits comes almost exclusively from people who haven't played them. You're not rushed, you're given direction and bite sized tasks. You have plenty of time to explore and craft. What you don't have time to do, by design, is iteration chains. So you're first playthrough you're focused on the story and world rather then doing a paper - water - neutralizer - water chain 50 times to get every property on a max quality item.
And if that's your thing ... well, that's what the second playthrough is for. The games are quick (for JRPGs), and along the way you craft items that mitigate the time limit, like teleport items that remove travel time, and you get to keep them, as well as most of your items, in new game plus. Multiple playthroughs are fun too, seeing you get to focus on different relationship and explore some gatekept content. Totori in particular does some masterful story telling in having you experience one emotional arc in your first playthrough so that you're really invested in something that likely happens differently in the second. Ayesha has one of the funniest and most charming ending in the series ... but only if you don't complete an objective on time.
I would say in all the games with time limits, I've never felt rushed my first playthrough, and on my second I sleep for days because I had too much time.
Re: Video: "Keep Your Peaks And Valleys!" - Sakurai Explains Fighter Balance In Smash Bros.
@Markiemania95
I can see why some people hate it, but there is a simple, reasonable, and unavoidable explanation for this. DLC characters always have a very high skill caps because your target audience for them is almost exclusively the people who have invested 1000s of hours in your game. They have mastered the base mechanics, so DLC characters need to give these players more challenges. And because they have a higher celling and lower floor then the base game characters, they are only "balanced" if they are extremely powerful when played well.
You can see that in their pick rates. They have insanely low pick rates in lower skill brackets, but dominate at the highest level.
And hey, at least there's always Peach.
Re: Video: "Keep Your Peaks And Valleys!" - Sakurai Explains Fighter Balance In Smash Bros.
@Lightsiyd
At the risk of oversharing, I have a chronic medical issue and spent the last little while on a new treatment vector that didn't really work out. Combining that with a writing intensive project I'm currently involved with, I didn't have a lot of idle time.
It's nice to know someone noticed. Thanks for that.
Re: Video: "Keep Your Peaks And Valleys!" - Sakurai Explains Fighter Balance In Smash Bros.
@Yuna-Suzuki
I think you might have missed his point (or made the comment without watching the video)
He agrees with you. Some fighters dominate the in hands of skilled players. That's by design. This video is about why that's a good thing.
A character who is easy to use is different then a character who is mechanically challenging. You don't change that, or they are too similar. Instead you "balance" it around that fact. The easy character is also easy to counter and bad at DI, air dodge, recover, edge guard ... ya know, all the things people who would gravitate towards an "easy" character don't do, or even know about.
The mechanically difficult character is amazing at all that stuff, and given that stuff is the meat of a pro match, they dominate the pro scene.
When you have 81 fighters, balance isn't all of them being "the same" or having the same celling. It means that you have some low celling high floor, some mid-range, and some high celling low floor fighters, and there is balance at each "pocket". Smash dose that fine. There are always 20 or so viable pro picks, and there are also 30 or so fighters you can play with zero skill or experience. But they can't be the same fighters!
It's not perfect, I love me some Isabell but she'll never be a viable pick against anyone with skill ... but it's as good as it gets.
This is how Icefrog used to balance DOTA, and why that game took off. He never "fixed" the broken heroes, he just let them be broken. Instead he made them easier to counter and harder to play, leading to the mantra "In pro DOTA, every Hero is broken". And MAN was it fun to watch.
Re: Video: "Keep Your Peaks And Valleys!" - Sakurai Explains Fighter Balance In Smash Bros.
@IceClimbersMain
I don't think anyone has a problem with Steve's power level. As pro fighters go, he's top tier but not overpowered.
The problem that his game play style of literally not playing the game for 3 minutes while he builds resources. It's dull, and his average match time is something like 3 and a half minutes higher then the average or matches he's not in. Casters hating having to fill that time, non Steve players hate dancing around blocks and trying to do chip damage until the fight "starts", even Steve players hate how he plays. He might dominate online qualifiers, but that's just because the people picking him are generally very good (given his high celling and low floor), and it's only true experts that can modify their play style to counter him. In the last official tournament, if you count the entire online qualifier, he had the lowest pick rate ... but 2 Steve players made it to top 8. He's just a newbie killer. Every game has one. Bristle Back. Meepo.
Perfectly balanced at equal skill though.
Re: Feature: Civilization VII’s Creative Director Talks New Ages, Frenzied Drama & Being On Switch Day One
I don't think we're "gun shy" about breaking the game into ages. It's more that the last big attempt by someone to enter the 4X scene was a game that's entire gimmick was exactly what you are describing ... and it was garbage.
This isn't a case of people being apprehensive about something because it's new. You weren't first to market with this, and the first attempt soured people to the idea.
It's hard to excited about something you've already seen not work.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club
Just always, always remember that in the alternate universe where they updated the game machines the reviews would be the exact same score, only everyone would be complaining that the game betrayed the true fans by changing to much instead of the dated mechanics.
Re: New Atelier Game Brings More Alchemy And Action To Switch Next Year
@JohnnyMind
Honestly, if you already own Ryza 3 I would say ... just play that. You'll miss some character introductions, but I'm pretty sure you'll figure out who the "clumsy schooler" and "dumb brute" architypes are on your own. The story is not connected to the other two games in an emotional way where you'll benefit from already being invested, and you don't lose much for not playing them. in fact my biggest problem with that series is that the pervious games don't connect in any meaningful way. There's some world building in the first 2, but the 3rd has exposition to cover that. Not like playing Totori, where the story is driven by the PC character from the first game and you get to go back to the places you visited and see how they have changed based on what you did previously.
I would add that if for some reason you DON'T like the Ryza series, still give the early games a shot. They feel very different to play.
Re: New Atelier Game Brings More Alchemy And Action To Switch Next Year
@JohnnyMind
While all the points doomista brought up are valid, let me suggest an alternative argument! I would recommend starting with Atelier Rorona. I normally hate time limits in games so I totally get why people are apprehensive about the older games, but I actually think the time limits make them better.
I also think that experiencing how the time limits are used is core to understanding how the games are meant to be played, even the ones without time limits.
The Arland series is light, whimsical, and introduces concepts very well. If you want to hunt endings, you play them like a rogue-lite. You complete a run, inherit skills and items from that run, and try to do better next time. A "run" doesn't take that long and I think you'll find that the time limit doesn't actually discourage exploration that much. You should be able complete the game without feeling rushed on your first playthrough, and I think you'll find the experience a bite sized way to get a feel for the games. Don't play it with Game FAQ open and worry about not hitting some of the dates for secret cut scenes or whatever, just enjoy the ride. Then, if you did enjoy it, surprise! You still have a ton of content to explore.
More importantly though ... look, Ryza is a great game. I love it. 60+ hours love it. I love both the sequels as well. I think that the combat in the Ryza series is the best "active time battle" system I've ever played. But that series is just not distinctive from other action adventure games in the same way the Arland, Dusk and Mysterious series are, and the themes and tone are way more serious and ... Western? I don't know how else to say it. It almost feels like starting the series with a spin-off. The Ryza series also has much less world building. There is something magical about playing a game as Rorona and experiencing her story and then having her mentor you as Totori in the next game that you just don't get by being Ryza 3 times, conveniently losing all your powers and knowledge between games.
I replay the early games pretty often, but I've never gone back to Ryza. Again, it's fantastic, but it scratches the same itch dozens of other games do. But very few games feel like the early ones.
Re: New Atelier Game Brings More Alchemy And Action To Switch Next Year
I love when games evolves and move forward, and I'm never that guy saying they should "go back to their roots"
Until like, right now.
Come on Gust, there is an entry in the series where your mentor explains the only reason she picked as a student is because you are cute and dumb. There is one where the plot is such a secondary consideration that not only can you ignore it, but if you do someone else handles it. There is a epic quest, spanning two complete games, involving some dude wanting to open a hot spring to look at girls in their bathing suits.
I don't play Atelier games to be the chosen one. I don't play them for the epic story. I play them because that's every other game, and sometimes I just want to be a cute girl making potions in a ridiculous anime world. I mean, sure, this is probably going to be fantastic, and I'm still going to play the crap out of it. But we just had the Ryza series and the far too serious Sophie 2 ... maybe go back to the old tone for a bit?
Re: Nintendo Reminds Us It's Not Ready To Announce The "Switch Successor"
@Yalloo
In theory you're not wrong, but that's not how the math works here.
It's not 1 million people at 90% vs. 5 million at 30%.
It's 1 million people at 90% vs 1 million people at 90% + 4 million people at 30%. The second number is bigger.
The core audience that is interested in the games watch regardless, you just get additional people looking for a console update.
Even if every single people who watched it because they wanted a console update gets mad and never watches another direct ... that's breaking even. If they were going to watch the direct anyways, they are not part of the group that only watched because they wanted a console reveal.
So all that happened is a group of people who weren't going to watch in the first place aren't going to watch. You lost nothing.
Re: Nintendo Reminds Us It's Not Ready To Announce The "Switch Successor"
@Qwiff
I totally get what you are saying. But look at it this way.
Case one: 5 million people watch because they are interested in the games, 5 million watch hoping for console preview. Sure, it's a small percentage of people who watch who were hoping for the console that are going to end up buying my game, but it's non-zero.
Case two: The same 5 million people watch because they are interested in games. The other 5 million people don't hear about my game.
I get more sales in case one, every time. That's clearly the better case for me. If anything I would say the opposite is at play here; Nintendo is turning people away so the conversion tracking looks good and they can charge more for time. I can't see it benefiting the people trying to sell their game.
As for the stockholder thing, do you mean they are trying to stop speculative buying by people who don't already own shares followed by a sell off? That makes sense.
Thanks for the reply.
Re: Nintendo Reminds Us It's Not Ready To Announce The "Switch Successor"
@mariomaster96
For sure. But it's also such an odd thing TO say. You're basically telling a bunch of people not to watch your Direct. I am pretty far removed from this type of marketing logic, but isn't the value of several million people watching your full length ad worth a few of them being vocally disappointed afterwards?
I mean they've likely spent tons in market research and this is the right call, I just don't understand it.
Re: Nintendo Reminds Us It's Not Ready To Announce The "Switch Successor"
At this point I'm thinking the Switch successor will be announced at the Grand Festival.
No like ... really. They are clearly trying to subvert expectations here and they don't want the media to control the narrative. What better way then telling 5 millions or so of your super fans before anyone else?
Plus, the style points ....
Re: Sid Meier's Civilization VII Will Let You Rule The World February 2025
@graviton
The gameplay overview was today, you can check it out at:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2229425918?t=1h28m23s
For the most part it's pretty safe, but the few changes they did make are substantial. Most of the talk is about graphical and emersion upgrades. But I mean, it was always going to be Civ 6 with a new paint job. Civ 6 doesn't play that different then Civ 2, really. Religion, districts, minor civilizations, and small tweaks to combat, zones of control, and stacking units are all that's changed in almost 30 years. I can't imagine Civ 7 will play radically different from Civ 6, and I would think that's what the overwhelming majority of fans want.
Re: Sid Meier's Civilization VII Will Let You Rule The World February 2025
@Deenroy @bransby
Here is some advice 7 years too late!
You can pretty much ignore religious aggression if you just build 3(ish) Apostles of a minority religion. You don't need to found a religion, just use any religion in any of your cities that isn't the one trying to take over the world.
Park them in a major population center. Don't use them to spread religion, just attack any missionaries that show up. The main problem with the computer is they will relentlessly send dozens of missionaries, but this turns that against them. Every time you kill one, it eliminates some of their religion from every nearby city. Not only will this completely derail their victory, but it wont be long before the run out of missionaries. The computer never utilizes any tactics in theological combat, and will just continue to toss units that can't even attack you back at you one at a time, so you'll be able to move the "front line" and keep eliminating their religious influence from more and more cities, without ever having to spread a religion.
Re: Sid Meier's Civilization VII Will Let You Rule The World February 2025
This is an awful trailer. Do all the same things you do in the current games, only ... they look slightly better? Or I don't know, maybe they look the same, no one plays with animations on anyways.
The gameplay reveal didn't do the game any favors either. It's Civ, with all the things you didn't like about "Humankind".
But hey, let's be honest ... that's not actually that bad. Civ has never been a series about revolutionary gameplay, it's been about small evolutions to the core game over time. I think leaving the impression that they might have played this one a little too safe is better then leaving the impression that they took a wide swing for the fences. Most game play evolution has come in the DLC anyways.
I'll still get this day one, but with 1600 hours in the Civ 6 and 1300 in Civ 5 ... I wasn't really a hard sell.
Re: Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Has Been Delayed Again
On one hand, delayed games are delayed for a bit, while bad games are bad forever.
On the other hand, ME WANT FANTASY LIFE. ME ANGRY!
Re: Mailbox: The Mario RPG-naissance, Xenosaga Sadness, Golden Days - Nintendo Life Letters
With regards to power scale, when you look at the 3 current consoles:
The Xbox, which is theoretically the most powerful unit, is selling so poorly that many people are suggesting Microsoft should leave the console space. The only bight spot for Microsoft this generation is that the gambled on a cheaper, less powerful unit and that one is selling ... well still pretty poorly, but better.
The PS5, which most people SEE as the most powerful unit and which focused most of it's marketing around it's graphic power, is doing ... pretty poorly, actual. That's not as hot a take as it sounds. It's selling slower then the PS4 despite the PS5 being cheaper (adjusted for inflation) at launch and the PS5 standing virtually uncontested in the "high end" console market. Because the discourse is generally around how it's selling compared to Xbox things look better then they are. But when you just look at the system itself ... Sony can't be happy with it's performance.
The Switch is slightly less powerful then a graphing calculator, struggles to play games at 30fps at any reasonable resolution, has no marketing around power or graphics, and is going to be the best selling console of all time.
I really don't understand how this is even a debate. It is self evident that the general consumer market is not only fine with low end systems, but that the market for high end systems is small and shrinking. Nintendo isn't going to change course and start making powerful systems. They are going to continue making novel, accessible systems.
Re: Mailbox: The Mario RPG-naissance, Xenosaga Sadness, Golden Days - Nintendo Life Letters
Xeno(game) remakes are like "Back to the Future" sequels ... if it's something you want, the reality is that you are probably going to have wait until someone dies. Zemeckis seems to have no interest in doing any more sequels or a re-boot, and the projects can't move forward without him. But given there popularity, the second he's in the grave we'll get a trailer for the so much "Back to the Future" content it's going to make the original DC movie slat like conservative.
Tetsuya Takahashi doesn't want to make re-boots. He doesn't even want to make sequels, but people have always been able to convince him to put numbers in front of his largely unconnected games while reusing a few characters and a cute winged mascot race, just like when he was working on Finial Fantasy.
(Spoilers for Xenoblades 3 start)
One of the core themes of Xenoblades 3 is that people who long for remakes and sequels are back creativity to the point where, to a creator, they are basically evil. You didn't get that? The main bad guys are literally bringing back the same small number of characters and having them play out different scenarios for their amusement rather then allow a new world to be created. That is the actual plot. The heroes give long winded speeches about how the "good" thing to do is let go your favorite stories go and move on from the past so that new ones can be told. A character KILLS THEMSELVES while monologuing about how non-exitance is preferable to having to be part of the same unchanging world or tell the same stories over and over. Another chooses to die just so their "story" gets an ending, actually vocalizing how they hope they are never brought back.
(Spoilers end)
That didn't tell you anything about the chances we are getting more sequels or reboots? Profitability concerns are always the excuse, but if the studio wanted to make it happen they would. But there are plenty of Japan language interviews where Takahashi talks about just not wanting to do them, and that's the real roadblock.
Will we get sequels and remakes? Yeah, eventually. The second Takahashi loses control or someone offers him something he really want to be able to make them without him, they are going to happen. But I almost don't want them to! I mean, I DO want them to, it's my favorite game series. Niyah and Meria are two of my favorite characters ever. I kept my Wii U plugged in just to go back to X every once in a while. I would LOVE to see these games remade and updated.
But part of me also wants to respect the creator. It's clear to me what he's doing with characters like Ino, showing us that Hana (Poppi) isn't just a character, she's an architype, and every game he ever makes will have a character of the same Architype (incase you missed the less subtle way that applies to the main cast). He's saying don't worry! The next game will have the same "people" and you can fall in love with them all over again.
And if this creator, who's given me so much I love, is practically begging me to look to his NEW work rather then his old ... I'm inclined to give him that.
Re: Feature: Here’s How Trading Card Companies Could Stop CT Scanning In The Future
@nukatha
It's not actually! It's less then 90 seconds of reading for the average human.
And if you take that 90 seconds, you'll notice that none of the words are about that argument. They are about if you have the right to impose that belief on other people who don't share it. I love the engagement I get from people, it's why I make posts on this site. But consider this; based on average human cognitive writing speeds, you invested 3 minutes to share your opinion in the same post you told me that asking you to invest 90 seconds in informing that opinion was "a lot of words". And based on the content of that post, it looks like you, in fact, didn't read that post, given it includes the line "You're 100% free to still think that this is a bad thing to market to children. That's not the point."
I'm not telling you want to think, but you might want to consider what it means if you are willing to spend more time telling people what you already think then you are willing to spend exploring new ideas and learning new things, and what it tells me about the value of engaging you in conversation beyond this simple call out.
Re: Feature: Here’s How Trading Card Companies Could Stop CT Scanning In The Future
@Savage_Joe @Savage_Joe @nukatha
I think you should consider the possibly you might be missing the forest for the tress on this one. The reason loot boxes that mimic gambling are such a problem in ONLINE games it that a child is playing them on a device that often has access to unlimited funds in the form of their parent or guardian's credit card, and that they can be bought without said guardian's knowledge. That can lead to the child being tempted to spend more and more money, not fully understanding what's going on, and there is no chance for the guardian to educate the child about the situation.
This is a REAL ITEM, in the real word. Children rather famously can not work or make money, and are generally limited in their transportation options. That means if they are buying a pack of trading cards it's because a guardian gave them some money and drove them to the store, or is likely flat out buying them for the child.
You're 100% free to still think that this is a bad thing to market to children. That's not the point. What's important though is that a guardian is part of this process, and if they share your opinion, they can simply explain to the child why they are not going to give them money and drive them to the card shop. Alterably, they can allow the child to buy a pack and use the disappointment if they don't get anything good to teach an important lesion about impulse control.
Or if they don't agree with you, they can simply explain the situation and allow the child to buy cards if that what they want. It's a great way to educate your children about perceived value and risk.
Government regulation in the case where a child is exposed to danger that deliberately removes the guardian from the process can be a great thing. But regulation of a process that the guardian is a part of is just taking away the right for that guardian to raise their child the way they choose.
It's like saying it should be against the law to make a PG-13 or higher movies, and that all movies by law must be G, because you think PG-13+ content is harmful for children. Power to you if you think that, totally valid viewpoint. But a lot of people think it's fine, which is why a system where parents can accompany children to stronger content if the do not share that viewpoint is so effective. The idea is that it's ok for the content to exist so long as a guardian has control over if a child is exposed to it.
You might instead suggest that CCG packs shouldn't be sold to children under the age of (insert arbitrary maturity age here), and sure ... that's a better option. But again, given you should know as a guardian where the physical money you give your children is going, this seems like unneeded overreach to me.
And if you're speaking about adults, adults should have the right to spend their money on gambling if they want. Gambling addition is a serious illness and treatment should be readily available and free. If it's not, we need to focus on that rather then taking the right to gamble away from people who do it harmlessly within their limits.
Re: Feature: Here’s How Trading Card Companies Could Stop CT Scanning In The Future
Why would they stop CT scanning? It's one of the best thing that's ever happened to them.
It has zero impact on their sales, it only effect resellers. One of the biggest problems PTCG is facing is that they have having a hard time attracting new players because any time they try and run a promotion, give-a-way, or special edition, it gets snapped up by resellers. This puts the cards forever in a "secondary" economy of players who are already invested in the game or collecting, making them unavailable to new players. MTG had this problem and spent years deliberately making their cards worthless with reprints in order to stop it. That had a huge impact on the game's popularity, leading to a resurgence in sales. It's a industry wide problem.
With PTCG you also get a bunch of pissed off customers who blame Nintendo (1) because they couldn't get them. Look at the bile people spew on this website when an Amiboo sells out. That happens EVERY FREAKING TIME TPC or WTC puts out a new PTCG set. You think they want that?
With CT scanning, people are going to loss faith in resellers, knowing that all of the good packs where already scanned and opened. Not only will this drastically lower the price of unopened packs, but with more packs being open, it will drive down the price of individual cards as well. This could very well drive the overall profit from reselling to a point where it's hardly worth it. Unopened boxes have always been the main resale item, and now that all it takes is a CT and a shrink rap machine to make an "unopened" box of useless cards, that market is going to fall out hard.
As for the "bad actors", card shops that might scan packs and sell them as new once the good cards are removed ... they already open packs and do this with with the tech that's already out their. They don't need this, and this isn't going to make it any easier for them. If anything, this will raise awareness of how commonplace this is and lead to more scrutiny.
There is no CT problem. There is a CT solution.
1 - I know Nintendo has nothing to do with the card game. Nintendo also has nothing to do with the BS NOA is constantly pulling, but a quick read on this site will give you a good look at how much angry people care who is actually at fault. An't no time for logic or research when fingers need pointing!
Re: Critically-Panned 'Borderlands' Movie Flops At The Box Office
@zbinks
Oh man, I'm really sorry I missed your reply. I didn't get a notification for some reason.
While what you're saying is absolutely true, Rotten Tomatoes accounts for that. When you simit your review as a media outlet you just click a box as to if the review is generally positive or generally negative. This is pretty much a necessity given a lot of reviews don't actually include a score, but if you want to be the fringe case that thinks a "bad" movie is actually anything that gets less then 3 out of 10, instead of anything that gets less then 5, then you can use this system to override your own score and submit a 4/10 review that is "generally positive". It also allows you to decide if a 5/10 review is positive or negative.
Re: Critically-Panned 'Borderlands' Movie Flops At The Box Office
"sitting at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning the vast majority of critics who watched it thought it was absolute garbage"
1 - The majority of critics did think this movie is absolute garbage
2 - The motive is absolute garbage
3 - Just kinda as a PSA, that's not how Rotten Tomatoes works. A 9% score means that 91% of critics gave a score below 50%. They could have all given it a 4 and a half out of 10 stars, it would still be at 9%.
The Tomato-meter isn't a measure of how bad critics think the movie is, for that you have to read the reviews. It's a measure of consensus. It's not the average critic score, it's the number of critics who gave the movie a positive review, regardless of score. A movie where every critic gives it 51% and one where every cretic gives it 100% have the same freshness score of 100%.
Re: 'Team Rice' Wins The Latest Splatoon 3 Splatfest
@AstroTheGamosian
Actually that's my bad, I shouldn't use acronyms that are not common in every community. You got it right thought, Southeast Asia. In most pro gaming communities, SEA is synonymous with constant aggression. Except in the FGC (fighting game community) where it's synonymous with the exact opposite. Weird, really.
$63! That's insane. Speaking of Cinnamoroll, you could go to Puroland AND Harmonyland on the same day, and that's less then $60 US including train fare. Really sorry to hear that, I'm sure it was disappointing. But it sounds like you still had a great day!
I've never heard of Ironmouse, but anyone who loves Cinnomoroll can't be bad! Maybe I'll check them out. English speaking Sanrio super fans are pretty hard to find!
Re: 'Team Rice' Wins The Latest Splatoon 3 Splatfest
@AstroTheGamosian
I mean, "Team Rice" was 60% of the entire Splatoon's player base that played this weekend, so it's unlikely they were playing any "different" then an average player. They literally were the average.
In anything, I think it's just because the team was a little skewed towards SEA over NA members, and the average SEA player is way more pro-active (and skilled in general, if I'm being honest). It exposed some people who don't generally play at peak SEA time to that type of play style. To me it didn't feel any different, and I played 110 matches on team rice.
It's great you were able to play even being so busy! That's one of the things I love about Splatfest, how so many people make this an actual event they try their best to be part of!
Re: 'Team Rice' Wins The Latest Splatoon 3 Splatfest
I think the results are not surprising. I don't know how Nintendo didn't know this would be one of the most one-sided choice wise, given your opinions for what you eat every day were something that would likely kill you, something that would like you kill you and give you constipation, and something billions of people already do. It was really funny, when I was playing on NA time (6pm-11pm EST) the teams were pretty normal, but when I was playing more on Japan time (5am-10am EST) most matches were Rice vs. Rice.
Still, I don't know why, but this was one of the most enjoyable Splatfests for me. Set a personal best 770,000 clout! I think it's just the result of years of small adjustments putting the game in a really good place, rather then anything major.
Gratz to everyone who played. Like I always say, we're all winners today.
Re: 'Team Rice' Wins The Latest Splatoon 3 Splatfest
@beaus27
There is no algorithm. It is completely random. I mean, I totally get that it can be frustrating sometimes and bad teams happen, but what you are suggesting is literally impossible. It is you and 3 other people chosen completely at random vs. 4 other people also chosen completely at random, unless you are grouped, in which case you are matched against a group of the same size if possible, also chosen completely at random.
The turf your "pre-occupied" team mate was inking is worth just as much as any other terf. If it's in a out of the way area, not only is it less likely to be taken by the other team, but they need to invest more time into going to ink it. Pro teams have "roles", and one of the member's role is to do exactly that ... ink out of the way spaces to full their ultimate, then join the team briefly to push forward with the ultimate, before going back to inking remote spaces again.
So while, sure, there is always the chance it was someone who only plays on Splatfest and isn't the most skilled (which is fine, Splatfest is a time to encourage this type of player!), but it's almost MORE likely that what you are describing is someone playing extremely high level Splatoon, likely wondering why (from their perspective) all their pre-occupied team mates are tossing themselves at fights and no one is playing actual roles like point or guard, or why you are not making coordinated ultimate pushes.
Re: Surprise! DOOM + DOOM II Get Newly Enhanced Release On Switch eShop
@Glassneedles
So now we're dealing with the question as to if the levels are an essential or accidental property. Is the game "DOOM" the code that runs the game, or the content that is being run using that code? If it's the content, then are these additional levels really DOOM at all? If it' the code, when is the new, revised code still DOOM?
When did this turn into a philosophy website? I mean, not complaining, but wow, really weird.
(And joking aside, if you want to get really technical, it's only the lynx version that's open source. John Carmack used some copywritten code for the DOS sound drivers so couldn't include then when it made it public, but a lot of people who have made DOS and Windows versions based on the lynx code that are on a common license. Software ownership is so messy)
Re: Surprise! DOOM + DOOM II Get Newly Enhanced Release On Switch eShop
@Max_the_German
I mean, if you want to get technical about it, given that both DOOM 1 and 2 are open source software freely ability from a number of sources including (ironically) Microsoft owned "GitHub", you could argue that buying DOOM is always a waste of money.
But you could also go full Utilitarianism on it and argue that your buying DOOM allowed ID software to continue to employ people to work on updates and revisions, and that these improvements have benefited millions of people. it could be one of your life choices with the greatest overall positive impact on the largest number of people.
Or a nihilistic realist might remind you that there are only two things you can spend money on, literal needs", like the absolute minimum of food and shelter, or additional luxuries that have no propose other then providing a momentary and transitory feeling of levity, so money can't be "wasted" unless it didn't provide that feeling.
No judgment, but do you really think a gaming site was the right place to pose such a deep philosophical question?
Re: Round Up: The First Impressions Of The Borderlands Movie Are In
@nocdaes
I'm not really sure what you are even traying to say here.
Developers are not the one that write the stories for modern games. They hire experienced writers. Borderlands 2, TPS and Tales from the Borderlands were all written by award winning writer Anthony Burch, who has written for Adventure Time, Rocket Jump and Anime Crimes Division, as well as 2 extremely successful scripted Pod Casts. The later games were written by Connor Thomas Cleary, who was trained in theater, sound design and screenwriting.
Even back in the FF7 days they hired people who's education and background was in writing, not game development. Kazushige Nojima, who wrote FF7, was educated as a screenwriter.
Game developers or even game writers also had nothing to do with this movie. The movie was written by Eli Roth, who is known for ... well, mostly bad horror movies.
If anything, the problem is that Anthony Burch wasn't asked to write this movie.
George R. R. Martin worked on Elden Ring, Orson Scott Card's worked on Monkey Island, or Philip K. Dick award nominated novelist Marc Laidlaw worked as lead writer on Half-Life, just to name a few heavy hitters in the writing world who have worked on games.
And let's not forget that Erik Wolpawm, one of an elite group of writers to win awards from both the Writers Guild of America and the BAFTA won both those awards for writing Portal 2.
Game writers are just writers, hired to write a video game.
Re: Nintendo's Share Price Tanks Amid Fears Of A US Recession
Ironically, "depression" has no set definition, and isn't really a economic term.
It’s generally agreed that a depression is a prolonged decline in GPD accompanied by either hyperinflation or deflation. Other indicators are bank failure, reduction in CCI and investment, and increased unemployment, poverty, and homelessness.
Unlike a recession, however, it’s not really a term economists use to describe something that is happening or could happen. It’s a term used colloquially to describe a prolonged state, often after it is over. Something IS a recession because we have hard numbers to support that. Something WAS a depression because we all just kinda agree it was.
You can read newspaper headlines from 1929 to 1933, and you’ll see things like “prolonged recession” or “economic crisis”, but it wasn’t until FDR described the economy as being a “depression” in his 1933 inaugural address that it started to pop up in common usage. And he was suggesting that period WAS a depression, but it was over now because he was going to stop it. In fairness, he kinda did! it just took him so long that he's literally the reason the US has term limits ...
So to someone living though it, they were never IN a depression. They were in a long recession until someone called the 3 years they had just experienced a "depression", but at that point (from their perspective) the depression was over and they were in the post-depression recovery.
Today, we call 1929 to 1939 “The great depression” in hindsight, with the term seeing widespread use starting around 1955.
Re: Nintendo's Share Price Tanks Amid Fears Of A US Recession
@FreakAxident @TheMenaceToSociety
Both me and Mina are Marxists. I'm pretty sure if you look around there are already posts where I discuss communist theory.
Like we always say, "Don't get cooked, distribute resources to each according to their needs, while expecting from each according to their ability"
Re: Nintendo's Share Price Tanks Amid Fears Of A US Recession
@somnambulance
https://apnews.com/article/business-united-states-economy-layoffs-prices-85ee014b63a7000ed0bd08878d9d4b20
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/05/12/investing/recession-shapes-alphabet
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/larry-kudlow-appears-u-s-economy-standing-front-end-recession
I'm not trying to be hard on you, but I think it's important to understand that literally everyone was talking about it, non-stop, while it was happening, before it happened, and after it happened. I think it's extremely unhealthy to suggest there is some media conspiracy around coverage of this pretty normal economic event. That's just not the case.
The last 3.5 years have seen exceptional GDP growth of 6.5%, a number that is higher then almost any similar period in the last 30 years. Trying to use anecdotal data or "feelings" to suggest that the US economic situation is anything less the miraculous, let alone suggest that it's "bad", is disingenuous to the extreme. It ignores basic factual information from impartial sources across the globe in favor of your own personal narrative. I understand that sometimes it's hard to maintain perspective, so no judgment. I'm just trying to help you see a more objective picture.
It's never prefect. People lose their jobs in time of exceptional growth. 37 million people in the US live in extreme poverty. Life is going to suck for them regardless of economic climate, because the system simply isn't set up to benefit them under any circumstance. In fact one of the largest single year reduction in modern US history to the number of people in poverty happened in 2019 when, despite being a bad year for the economy overall because of the pandemic, the US enacted the largest set of social programs since the "New Deal". That obviously helped a lot of people. Unfortunally1.6 trillion in cuts to social programs at the start of 2020 reversed this, and we saw one of the largest increases in poverty rates since the great depression. Nearly best ever to nearly worst ever in under 11 months.
How good things are for the lower class is generally not tied to GDP, but instead to spending on social programs. Not a lot of people working minimum wage own stocks. If you're "looking around" and things seem bad for the common man, those cuts are a far more likely culprit then the state of the GDP,.
So I would stop hoping for an "economic turnaround", because what you're hoping for is a full on depression and historic levels of job loss and economic decline ... because that would be the opposite of what you are experiencing right now.
Re: Nintendo's Share Price Tanks Amid Fears Of A US Recession
@Wexter
While that's actually a pretty insightful view on how AI would view the market, the reality is that what you are predicting here has been the norm for close to 50 years.
Back in the 70s quants were using algorithms that were derived from neural networks to automatically make trades based on reasoning their users didn't fully understand, and they have almost always preformed better then market. This was the start of "AI trading". Around the crash of '87, quants outperformed traditional traders so hard that more financial institutes started trusting more and more money to them, and started developing their own neural networks and custom AI.
There were days as early as the 2000s when insiders speculated that 40% of all trades (by volume) on the NYSE were being done by AI. On the Forex market, it's likely even higher.
They have already crashed the market (at least) twice. Once in 2007, and again in 2010. In 2010, it was so obvious that computers were the cause of the crash that they cancelled some of the the trades and rolled back stock prices.
AI is really old tech. The term is getting a ton of use now, but what people are actually talking about is "Large Language Models" and "Transformers", the game changers that have emerged recently. While this tech will make AI trading accessible to more people, it shouldn't change things much. All of the big players already have in-house models they have been training for decades.
Re: Nintendo's Share Price Tanks Amid Fears Of A US Recession
@somnambulance
"Recession" is a clearly defined economic team that means the total GDP has been in decline for two successive quarters. No one has to "admit" it. No one can hide it. It's a factual reality, easily verifiable by anyone.
The last time this happens in the US was 2022. As of right now, the GDP grew by 2.28% in Q2, and we are waiting to know the results of Q3.
So even in the worst case, the US can not enter a recession until Oct. It absolutely is not in recession right now, and had a pretty fantastic 2.5% growth in fiscal 2023. You can toss a LOT of bad words at the current state of the US, but "recession" isn't one of them.
Re: Nintendo's Share Price Tanks Amid Fears Of A US Recession
"rich people operate off vibes mostly, so sometimes it is for not much reason"
I wish more people understood that. It's not just that, but Quantitative Trading is widespread now, meaning stock prices and even market crashes like this that effect millions of people are often caused by a small number of the richest people in the world making a trade off a gut feeling, followed by Quants amplifying the effect as they make millions of small trades to manipulate and benefit from the aftermath.
When 10 people hold around half a percentage point of the total personal wealth of the other 8 billion people on the planet, the market is rarely reacting to anything "real" any more.
Re: Sid Meier's Civilization VII Official Gameplay Showcase Airs Later This Month
@Pillowpants
I think Civ also faces the additional challenge of being the "simple" 4X game. It's identity is based around a lack of complexity and it's straight forward gameplay, coming from it's start as a board game. It's the 4X you play when you don't want to think too much, but also don't want to turn your brain completely off.
So that puts even more constrains on them when it comes to what they can innovate. If they add additional systems or up the complexity ... well, now your directly competing with Paradox games and the "Endless" series. If they keep things simple, how do you make the game meaningfully different?
I think this is why it's taken them so long. It's an extremely talented team and if anyone can crack the code, I'm sure it's them. But like I said ... I don't envy them in that herculean task.
Re: Sid Meier's Civilization VII Official Gameplay Showcase Airs Later This Month
@Lightsiyd
They didn't release today. I get what you're saying, but no one complained that Pokémon Gold was too much like Ruby, or that Ruby betrayed the "true fans" by changing too much. There wasn't really anywhere to complain, even if you thought that. That doesn't mean newer releases are not facing that problem.
1, 2 and 3 were released to a small fan bases at a time where all people really wanted was the same game updated for modern PCs. Civ 2 added things like ... mouse support(1). That's the time period we are talking about.
4 was the first modern release, and the first to bring a more general audience into the game. It innovated, and the "true fans" hated it, but that wasn't a problem because new fans vastly outnumbered them
5 and 6 were the only releases where this problem was really relevant. Did they surfer from it? Yeah, pretty much. Dispute rave reviews, both faced heavy criticism from "fans" that they had changed too much, while also facing criticism they were the exact same game. It wasn't until the expansions added back most of the features people though were missing and streamlined gameplay to be more like the previous games that people started to accept them.
And that was 2016. Compare the discourse around Pokémon Sun/Moon with the discourse around Scarlet and Violet, and I think that gives us an idea of what to expect when this comes out.
1 - Just to pre-emt the guy who's going to "WeLL ActUaLLy" me ... The windows release of Civ 1, which came 2 years after the DOS release, did support mouse use. My point is just that things were a lot different when that was game changing innovation.
Re: Sid Meier's Civilization VII Official Gameplay Showcase Airs Later This Month
I don't envy devs trying to makes new games in a series like this. I have a felling this game will be universally hated unless it is completely different from the pervious games while also being the exact same as the previous games
Re: Japanese Charts: Baseball Takes The Crown In Another Switch-Filled Bonanza
@DogDetective
You can probably enjoys these games with a basic translation chart that tells you want the menus mean and very little else.
While I can't say with complete confidence, it looks like they replaced all Chinese numerals with Arabic numerals, so that should make it a lot easier. You obviously wont gets the full experience, there are cut scenes, bios, and a ton of humor that you would also need to translate, but this is a great type of game to help you learn.
You can get a chart for the menus, have a really fun baseball game to play, start translating the bios and cut scenes around your team, once your comfortable with that move on to other teams and the general cut scenes ... and so on.