karaddin

6 hours ago, Ran said:

But per Beau De Mayo, "some" of the writers "actively disliked" the books and "openly mock[ed]" the source material. Which he felt was bad for morale for those who were working on it and liked what they were doing. 

There's also a possibility that there's simply crossed wires - that they do like/love the books but do so with eyes open to it's flaws and find some of those flaws funny. I could easily see a situation where I was laughing at some of the issues in WoT and someone took that as me disliking them. Especially if De Mayo doesn't vibe well with the person and may completely misread tone/not like their sense of humour. It doesn't require bad faith on anyone's part.

Or it could be writers that are no longer with the show because it's true as stated for a couple of writers.

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

He was snapped reading a Mass Effect branded-script just last year, but given that the Amazon show had not been announced yet, it's unlikely it was for that. It might be for a voice role in Mass Effect 5.

I think canonically Shepard is 35 at the time of ME1, so he's in the right age range and would be a huge get for the show if it moves forwards and stays truer to the games.

I thought that people zoomed in on the photo and found it was actually the Mass Effect wiki printed out? Lol. That's what I was thinking of though, if nothing else it shows he'd be interested

Maybe a series set in Mass Effect's setting will get off the ground and get him on board. I still want FemShep if they're doing the main story but there's plenty of room to fit him in somewhere even if that was what they did. 

I'm pretty sure that's where the first part of the Star ending takes place? It's up north near the Aldecado camp but I'm not 100% if it's NW or SW from there. I know the trailer showed Militech operating in the Pacifica stadium so I'd assumed it's finally giving a name to the combat zone in Pacifica. I'm kinda hoping for an extended assault through multiple massive towers - I've been intrigued by what that helicopter is shooting at in the intro to Pacifica with Placide since my first play through and it's the only opportunity for something like that.

I had also wanted a megatower siege style mission as a tribute to the more recent Dredd but it doesn't look like we'll get that, so a mission like what I'm describing would still give opportunities for something in a similar vein. I'm also curious how much agency we'll get to have in what we do and who we side with.

Forgot my actual concluding point. My feeling is if you can't get that excellent value option and have to spend a lot regardless, it's worth coughing up a bit more to get the better card. Going from $300 to $500 is almost double the price, but if the difference is the same while the price of the cheaper one has tripled then that skews the value equation much more to the higher end card.

I got my 3070TI back in March, it was expensive but I thought if I kept waiting for prices to fall I'd never upgrade but was worried they'd drop straight after I got it. I did see plenty of articles claiming they did, but if that was true it didn't happen here - I looked in the black friday sales last week and the price for my card was $100AUD lower than what I paid so I made the right call.

I don't think the old sweet spot prices for graphics cards is coming back any time soon - that was always the *60TI card of the current gen at around $300AUD here.

I realised I've had the 2k monitor for almost 6 months now and never changed it from 60Hz. I bumped it up to 144Hz today and I'm surprised at it being quite noticeable, to the point of feeling weird for now. I'm sure I'll adjust and then the old will suddenly feel unacceptable lol.

I thought that was the best approach anyway, Edgerunners was self contained and fantastic and most importantly finished. Plenty of other stories to tell in Night City though, and plenty of room for distinctive visual style under the umbrella of the aesthetic.

And some of it just comes down to the compulsory voting thing - they already have all the voters that would buy into it so it hasn't helped them come election time.

Funny you said this though

5 minutes ago, Skyrazer said:

people want to see real issues being addressed, not shit being made up about teachers trying to screw with kids over traditional genders in classrooms or whatever the fuck is the new RJSJW weekly outrage.

I was just saying to brook I think the most effective framing for the coalition is when they position themselves as the adult in the room. Unlike things like the culture war, this doesn't need people to actually think ill of Labor - they can be well intentioned but simply misguided about the hard realities of governance. The culture war is the opposite of that, they're a big evil that's trying to corrupt your children etc etc.

For the people that buy into it, it's a very strong motivator but it's hard to convince more than half the population to actually think that way. It absolutely did not position them as the adults for the north shore Sydney electorates last election.

Can we please not act like this shit has been broadly successful here. They have faced major backlash from their own voters when they've tried to make transphobia the main issue in actual elections, and that shit has also hurt the Greens in Victoria when they've put up TERF/SWERF types.

Yeah the scare mongering over safe schools worked a few years ago but that part of the culture war has not been effective for them other than that.

11 minutes ago, Skyrazer said:

Yes, the major parties have suffered severe defeats before and eventually bounce back, but this new low for the Libs feels more than just a cyclical thing. Before, they always had their core constituents in wealthy inner-city electorates which they could rely upon to keep the party in contention. Blue ribbon seats that have produced leaders and prominent members for the party and they're starting to lose them. Even in this latest election, Labor has flipped or further consolidated in many of the eastern metro electorates and this used to be Liberal heartland and I don't see them getting these seats back anytime soon with the way they are going.

Without these blue-ribbon seats producing the leaders and prominent members for the party, they have been getting hollowed out and you can see it with how bereft of talent the party is. Looking at the libs at both federal and state level, I don't know wtf they stand for anymore. Everywhere, they're flailing around looking for a reason to exist and with the continued encroachment of hard line religious conservative fundies, they seem to be producing more and more absolute stinkers of candidates lately.

Yeah, losing those heartland seats feels like a new problem they haven't had to tackle before. When they get wiped out like this it leaves the party more heavily skewed to the hard right types who take that power and drag the party even further right, which just makes it even harder to try get some talent back into the parliamentary party.

They said a few times on the ABCs coverage that you would never expect to win the next election after a wipe out like the last one, but that they hadn't even recovered any ground. It's actually even worse when you consider the liberals rather than the coalition, the numbers last night were the nats gaining 3 seats but losing 5 from the libs, they lost basically 20% of their seats. They were supposed to recover some of the seats that produce somewhat talented performers so they can truly recover next election but instead they lost more.

If Matthew Guy was already the best they had after getting mauled in 2018, how are things going to be looking in another 4 years. Hell, he didn't even resign on election night after these two atrocious election results...

If the Libs keep this up the teals will become a genuine chance to party up and displace them 

1 hour ago, Ran said:

1080p going to 4k was the thought. It's a big jump. Maybe aiming for something that can do 1440p solidly instead makes more sense right now...

It's definitely an appreciable improvement in terms of how good it looks and I'd say the increased screen real estate for non gaming is at least as significant - that's actually the part driving me to upgrade the second monitor.

I'm very much committed to 2 monitors though so didn't want to go to a monitor larger than 27" as I'm not sure how well it would fit my desk, and 4k on a 27" starts to get pretty small I think. If you're going with a single monitor then a 32" 4k might make more sense

I'd dragged my feet for a long time on bumping up monitor resolution, but after doing it for the main monitor a few months ago I'm now decided on doing the second as well - the 3070TI is sufficient to handle 2k. I can't see giving 4k a chance for at least another couple of years though, as I think it's already near it's upper limit for CP2077.

So I guess it comes down to whether you're already on 2k or looking to jump from 1080p to 4k?

I've had a lot of variation in terms of seeing those extra interactions depending on how much else I'm doing and the order I do it in. Most of the time now I'm doing the main story mission lines one at a time and focusing on gigs and scanner hustles while I wait between the stages, so you end up with a lot more time for the interactions to happen. On the other hand I did a quick playthrough as male V just to do it once and see the Panam romance and with rushing through the main quest and beelining the Panam romance I didn't even get to the point of the call from Judy about Evelyn.

I was really hoping that would mean that the voice mail from Judy would change and Evelyn would still be alive in this ending, but alas that's one variable they didn't take into account

@Wertheadthat neighbour quest has always been time limited, but its only once you progress it - if you walk past and hear them knocking on the door and get the quest but don't do anything its fine, but either once you speak to the cops or knock on his door the first time it starts a clock that I think is either 24/36 or 48 hours without you visiting again and talking to him, then going to the Columbarium to find out its a turtle and talking to the cops then he'll kill himself.

I'm trying to hold out until the next patch to do another play through now, but next time I think I want to turn off a bunch of the HUD features - only thing I can see being an issue is the in game map not having the street names on it. There are actual street signs on the streets, but not the map itself to see where I need to be turning.

Also saw Witcher 3 next gen patch finally has a date, I got CP2077 last year when I decided I'd wait for that W3 patch before doing either NG+ or another playthrough and its been more than a year and over 500 hours into CP2077 by the time its actually coming out lol.

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

AMA with two of Arcane's writers and main creatives.

Main takeaway is that Season 2 should hit in 2023 and will directly follow up S1, but in later seasons they want to explore more of the world (Runeterra) and go to other places. They want to earn that first, though.

That's exactly what I was hoping for. There is still a lot left of the direct story to tell after the cliff hanger of S1, I assume full blown drawn out conflict between Piltover and Zaun is now on the cards with both sides having lost their leadership and a rapid escalation in the weaponisation of both Hextech and Shimmer. The natural way to bring in additional parties is via them initially trying to meddle in that conflict for their own ends and trying to get a hold of the new weapons, which was already setup/started in S1 with Mel's mother from Noxus. 

I wish we'd had a decent level of widespread outrage a few years ago for the murder of Elijah Doughty but at least we're seeing some now. Unfortunately I think your description of the attitude towards Indigenous people in Midland is representative of far more of the country than just that Pax. I really hope we're starting to turn the page on that shit at least.

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

Reached the end on my current playthrough and have managed to unlock the "secret" ending, but it is brutal. No saving and you can be one-shotted by some enemies during it. The infinite waves of enemies it generates during the Matrix-inspired lobby scene is very silly. Still, at least it presents a challenge again.

ETA: Very weird bit. I got to the single autosave after the lift, used the turret to clear out some enemies, took down a bunch others, then got to the bit where Johnny points out the mainframe to you. And then two dudes walk in and one-shot me instantly. They can't be hacked, at all, and have no flinching or recoil animations even when you're shooting them with a goddamn mobile turret. Completely bewildering.

That's sounds like something has bugged, the last thing I did was running through that ending with a netrunner build and I was able to suicide or short circuit everything and managed it on my first try. Granted I was also 20 body so max HP, legendary biomon and legendary second heart and I now second heart triggered a couple of times. But I definitely didn't notice guys I couldn't hack at that point. Maybe the issue is where you're standing when they trigger?

Ok but the kids sometimes use "ok Boomer" on me and I'm a fucking millennial, kids will weaponize everything! Can't take them at their word.

So if the bottom two have surprisingly good own brands they sound like a good comparison to Luke, leaving Asda as correct for Liam. Robust analogy, well done Wert.

And it's not mansplaining when it was actually asked for WT :p

@WertheadI'm going to need a localization on "asda ownbrand". While I can guess that Asda is a supermarket chain and "ownbrand" is the British word for "the supermarkets own brand", I still don't know where Asda sits in the supermarket hierarchy. And when assessing the accuracy of a slam on a non-Chris Hemsworth that detail is actually important, Liam has a higher profile than Luke but I think I enjoy Luke as Stubbs in Westworld more than anything I've seen Liam in. 

So Luke would need to be the brand that has a poor ranking, but which is surprisingly better than you'd expect. Liam would be your most popular supermarket that's a bit shit.

I'm in the "enjoyed the first 2 seasons" and haven't read the source material bucket, Cavill's performance was perfect for what it was and a huge part of that. I haven't seen that style of comedy from Liam and I'm not sure he's got it, but I guess I could have said the same from Cavill prior to the first season so I guess we'll see.

It's hard to see what could prise him away from this series if he was actually happy with it, I can't see Superman being enough although Bond would be. I guess if there's another casting announcement for him in the next few months that will give a reason, in the absence of that I think I'll be assuming he was unhappy.

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Aren't these somewhat mutually exclusive, for both NZ and Aus? It seems it should go more like "pride in our history through sugar-coating our past."

He's the #1 cheerleader for sugar coating the past, he's in the group that absolutely lose their shit if you mention that "colonization" was actually an invasion. It's just what Pax has said above

25 minutes ago, Paxter said:

The CEO though has more or less agreed with the letters, apologized and ordered a full review of the musical.

Fringe meets power.

Sigh, the one I read didn't include that. Fuck them all.

3 hours ago, Jeor said:

To be fair @Paxter, I don't think it reflects the views of many parents or students in the Catholic Schools themselves. Like most of these things, I think it's a beat up of a small vocal minority. The Catholic sector is a large component of the education system but I'm guessing the vast, vast majority of people who send their kids to those schools do so because of the quality of the schooling and not because of the religious background.

I agree with this. According to the article I read yesterday it was seen by ~20k students/teachers and parents but the head only had 80 complaint letters to respond to. That's such a tiny percentage that I actually think the media are doing a disservice by reporting on it in the first place, these are fringe bigots and the media reaction makes them seem like a much larger number than they are.

1 hour ago, Jeor said:

I see you've completely passed over my point about the good work that faith-based groups do! And, historically, have done in the past when governments and irreligious people did nothing.

Its a more complex issue than just "well no one else was doing it and they started" when you're talking about areas they have dominated for a long time, and which are much better suited for government funding in the first place. The big one for me here is aged care. There should be adequate government facilities for most of the public that will need it, but defunding of government services has left the sector overwhelmingly in the hands of religious organizations and private businesses that are, shockingly, not great at putting care for their residents above their profits. 

Given the rampant abuse and neglect issues in aged care, it shouldn't be contentious to say that being gay increases the risks of being subject to this in a religious aged care facility without adequate oversight if that's the only facility that is even available to you.