Secretary of Eumenes Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 1 hour ago, IlyaP said: Not really a fan of those books/movies, so no real interest in playing it. Just not my jam. Well, nobody's perfect. 48 minutes ago, Rhom said: I have not yet, but did get it for my niece for her birthday and she loves it! It's a real game! With a story and characters and everything! No payments-after-purchase required! The Slytherin common room is sooo much cooler than that lame tower whatshisface lived in Rhom 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Secretary of Eumenes Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 https://i.imgur.com/cH33fl3.jpg (My Hogwarts Legacy character) Rhom 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 25 Author Share Posted March 25 6 hours ago, Secretary of Eumenes said: Well, nobody's perfect. Eh. I also find Trowling repulsive and would rather not give her terfy empire financial support. felice, Poobah, polishgenius and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poobah Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 I picked up Monster Train in the steam sake and have been having a pretty good time figuring it out. As to the inevitable comparisons with Slay The Spire I definitely think Spire is the deeper, more strategic game but Monster Train is a ton of fun and has excellent systems for tracking progression through all sorts of metrics which are just the kind of things that keep me playing and experimenting in a game like this, though how far I'll play beyond the 100% completion point I'm not sure to be honest. I don't really see it as the kind of game I'm gonna want to keep playing for years and hundreds/thousands of runs the way I have with Spire but not every game needs to be that, and I appreciate the uniqueness Monster Train brings on how it diverged even as it jumped on the deck building hype train to make something new and different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mexal Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 I've been playing a lot of Last Epoch lately while I wait for Diablo IV to release. Really good game. It's nice balance between PoE and Diablo without being a direct copy of either. It's still early access and they just released multiplayer this month so a bit of a ways to go but for an early access game, it's incredibly polished. Rhom 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argonath Diver Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 Hey, me too! I've dipped into Last Epoch a few times but the new .9 version finally got me to keep at it. Very fun game. I still have a lot of issues with it, and am mostly bored of the uninteresting endgame grind. Monoliths are a great idea with some ability to hunt certain item needs, but the game needs a few more carrots for me to chase. That said, I find the leveling process a ton of fun, with relatively simple rerolling and a great in game loot filter. I'd prefer the vast complexity and vast lore of POE, but that game's hyper speed screen exploding game play, then bosses with very unclear arenas and mechanics finally has me retired til POE2. I am literally playing it today instead of the D4 beta. Both due to my old 1060 struggling, and generally disliking the console dumbing down that is D4's awful itemization, astonishingly ugly UI over a gorgeous game, and current terrible character balance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arakasi Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 8 hours ago, Poobah said: I picked up Monster Train in the steam sake and have been having a pretty good time figuring it out. As to the inevitable comparisons with Slay The Spire I definitely think Spire is the deeper, more strategic game but Monster Train is a ton of fun and has excellent systems for tracking progression through all sorts of metrics which are just the kind of things that keep me playing and experimenting in a game like this, though how far I'll play beyond the 100% completion point I'm not sure to be honest. I don't really see it as the kind of game I'm gonna want to keep playing for years and hundreds/thousands of runs the way I have with Spire but not every game needs to be that, and I appreciate the uniqueness Monster Train brings on how it diverged even as it jumped on the deck building hype train to make something new and different. Agreed Slay the Spire is a much better game but Monster Train is fun. It’s just a bit too heavy into the degenerate combos and a bit light in fair decks squeaking through. Slay the Spire even on ascension 20 you have a chance with good play and bad luck but Monster Train I felt was just too much riding on whether I got disgusting combos over the crap cards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soylent Brown Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 20 hours ago, IlyaP said: Queue time is...49 minutes. THIS IS A SINGLE-PLAYER GAME! Blizzard are baddies and the actual release will, I'm sure, still have issues, but I believe part of the beta testing they're doing involves making us suffer in queues. I don't think the insane initial queues will be representative of the final experience. Getting in on Saturday was much quicker, so hopefully (haha, ffs) they have their shit sorted for release. Mostly what I've learned this weekend is that druids suck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Secretary of Eumenes Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 (edited) 10 hours ago, IlyaP said: Eh. I also find Trowling repulsive and would rather not give her terfy empire financial support. I don't do Twitter. What is a terfy? Is that a real word or just some blathetic made-up blubberish bullshit sprung from TwitTok that you bark onto a keyboard through a stream of pavlovian neuroses? Real question. I've gone on record just the other day that I'm very very interested in NewSpeak. Eta: supplemental inquiry- Is "terfy" a self-identified association or designation by Ms. Rowling or YOUR word? Edited March 25 by Secretary of Eumenes Poobah 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramsay B. Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 I got home from work this morning and checked Diablo IV. No queue so I jumped right on and played for like 3 hours. Shit was really fun and it makes me wanna try the other ones. I played as a Rogue, and gonna at least do one other class before the beta is done. I’m in. Also, the Ravenclaw common room is pretty top notch! Had no clue it had an entrance from the top so I could’ve just flew right in. Secretary of Eumenes 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 25 Author Share Posted March 25 45 minutes ago, Secretary of Eumenes said: Is "terfy" a self-identified association or designation by Ms. Rowling or YOUR word? Here you go: https://bfy.tw/TxLH Week and Secretary of Eumenes 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 25 Author Share Posted March 25 1 hour ago, Soylent Brown said: Mostly what I've learned this weekend is that druids suck. And yet they were so cool in Diablo 2. The hell? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 I know there's quite a big demarcation between online discourse and real life, but I don't understand how one can be on the internet, and be involved enough to know the Potter game but not know about Rowling's bigotry. Like how are you someone who has a username and online handle, but not have come across that battleground. Anyway, Dredge is coming out later in the week, that looks cool as shit. Eldritch horror fishing game, getting excellent reviews. Will have to give the demo a go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 8 minutes ago, polishgenius said: but not have come across that battleground. I think it's pretty easy. There's lots of people who are interested in Harry Potter games who are not interested in political, cultural, or social controversies, and the game was advertised everywhere, so even non-fans have heard of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Secretary of Eumenes Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 'Bigot' is a word I'm familiar with. My mother is a bigot. Literally today repeat-blurted a slur word describing Asians that she enjoys from the series Deadwood and got offended when neither I nor her husband laughed. She used to prompt me to repeat racist jokes that a father-figure of hers would tell, when I was a small (traumatized) child. She thought this was high comedy. Called me several derogatory forms of 'gay' a dozen different times during my teen years because I played sports but didn't go around lookin to "fuck bitches, braaah!" I know what Bigot means. I was born in South Carolina. I know what racism looks like, actual racism. My momma has a lifetime membership with the KKK, paid for as a gift by that father-figure. She also has MS and can't take a shit by herself and hasn't had a friend in almost a decade. I still take care of her when it's my turn. Because she's my mother, and she saved my sister and I from state custody when literally nobody else would take us in. And I don't have to buy in to (or allow to pass unchallenged) her ugliness in these matters. But I still take care of her when it's my turn. Even when she starts moaning about how "if only you'd told me you were trans..." as she tries to rewrite history as if all of what I described above never happened. J.K. Rowling, from what I'm able to comprehend out of this inanity... like, made a tweet? Or was it two tweets? Or wait, she liked a tweet? Or something? Something, something, twitter twitter? I ain't never met the lady. I ain't never seen a video of her saying people like me, Trans people, ain't allowed to like her stuff. Ain't never seen a quote attributed to her that suggests as much. I read her books. Many, many times each. And they helped heal a broken little boy who didn't have access to anything else in his life worth having. Gave me an ambition I could follow optimistically with the intention to help heal other people with my own stories some day like I was healed. Now, it turned out that I was trans. I listened to the books on audible about six years ago while I was doing my driving job, after I was on hormones for several years, and never heard a word that would suggest anybody anywhere would be unwelcome to enjoy those stories. There's, at one point I recall, a silly bit on The Gang's way to the Quidditch World Cup where this batty old wizard is wearing a dress as his muggle disguise. One of the more muggle-conscious wizards tries to explain that this is a ladies garment: at which point the dress dressed wizard explains he doesn't care because "it allows a nice breeze to my privates." Or something to that effect. I don't have my physical copies of the books anymore, can't quickly confirm that; they were destroyed when my parents' basement flooded while I was in the Army. Is ^that^ supposed to be the grand proof that this woman despises people like me? I read it when I was a kid and laughed. It didn't hurt me. If J.K. Rowling said tomorrow that she hates trans people it wouldn't hurt me. Not physically, not practically. Certainly not any more than the actual, practical, laws being made in my country to marginalize folks like myself do. Orson Scott Card is famously homophobic. Explicitly. Because, in his own words, he has made this part of his character known. Not by association, 'liking' or 'following' people on Twitter. By making public issue of his anti-gay opinions. When Ms. Rowling does that, preferably in a forum that isn't a toxic hellhole where semi-literates timeline stalk people trying to prove their moral superiority for their own audience... you let me know. And, by the way, I read Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind with the full knowledge that Mr. Scott Card most DEFINITELY would not like me And I thank him for his art. Xenocide is one of my favorite books. I mentioned on this forum not that long ago that it's a permanent member of the UJ (United Jaces) Top Ten Book Council. Because it is. (The top-ten council is a joke, but it is one of my favorite books) Are you gonna tell me that's wrong? Because I feel like that's what you're stopping just short of. Strongly, strongly, implying that I'm doing something wrong by enjoying art. Actual, real, speaking-to-something-in-or-about-the-human-spirit art. And if you're not doing that. You're not trying to imply some kind of failing on my part... well, please help me understand. Because I'm obviously confused. Chilipep and Gorn 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Secretary of Eumenes Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 (edited) @Ran (whom I admire greatly) I, of course, have seen folks call her "TERF" and pronounce her a bigot. What I have never seen is why I'm supposed to believe... except that just because I'm, apparently, supposed to. That's not how I live my life. I use the internet to come here, my estuary where I can engage with literate folks of an almost inherently bookish bent To track football "news" (let's call it "happenings") And I watch YouTube videos. Mostly, though not exclusively, Sabine Hossenfelder videos on science as well as lectures by Stephen Kotkin or other historians/political commentators who share their knowledge and opinions with the capacity to follow-through with a point or lesson that is worth learning. That's what I do instead of obsessing over what other people have 'liked' or 'followed' on an exploitative algorithm machine that employed arbitrary character limits to confuse folks into thinking they're pithy. Eta: I forgot Professor Kotkin is of the unleavened heretics. Spelling. Edited March 28 by Secretary of Eumenes Ran and Chilipep 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 In an interesting move, the long-brewing legal case between games designer Chris Avellone (Fallout 2, KotOR 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, Alpha Protocol, Neverwinter Nights 2, Planescape: Torment) and two women who had accused him of sexual misconduct has been resolved, and overwhelmingly in his favour. The two women issued a statement disavowing all of their prior claims, and they have had to pay a seven-figure settlement to him. In the statement they also requested that the blacklisting that has been going on against him be dropped. This was an unusual case in that Avellone vociferously defended himself from the off, took legal action against the accusers and has now won, fairly unambiguously. Avellone was removed from several projects as a result of the claims, including high-profile writing gigs on Dying Light 2 and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 as well as a plethora of smaller-profile gigs. Very interesting to see how the media responds to this. Multiple venues repeated the allegations against Avellone instantly, but, despite the news breaking hours ago, none of them apart from Forbes seem to have updated the news that the allegations have been retracted. It is of course worth noting that the Avellone case being resolved successfully has no bearing on the very numerous and many cases where people have acted like total shitbags and have admitted it, or been found out anyway (the Avellone case broke the same week as Cas Anvar's, and Anvar never tried to defend himself at all, as with 20 accusers over a far vaster span of time, the weight of the allegations was astronomically higher). Gorn, Rhom, IlyaP and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poobah Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 2 hours ago, Secretary of Eumenes said: J.K. Rowling, from what I'm able to comprehend out of this inanity... like, made a tweet? Or was it two tweets? Rowling has made a great many tweets, but also written articles and letters, and used her influence, and most importantly to the discourse around the Hogwarts game her money to support anti-trans causes and groups. It's not that she is bigoted on a personal level which, sure means I wouldn't want to be her friend, but on a political one. She's a major voice in the so-called "culture wars" that have already had real-life negative impacts on the lives of trans people in the UK. briantw, IlyaP, felice and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 3 hours ago, Ran said: I think it's pretty easy. There's lots of people who are interested in Harry Potter games who are not interested in political, cultural, or social controversies, and the game was advertised everywhere, so even non-fans have heard of it. Sure, I know plenty of people who haven't scoped the controversy, but they're not active members on internet forums. 2 hours ago, Secretary of Eumenes said: If J.K. Rowling said tomorrow that she hates trans people it wouldn't hurt me. Not physically, not practically. Certainly not any more than the actual, practical, laws being made in my country to marginalize folks like myself do. I mean, that's one way to look at it, but Rowling actively campaigned against trans rights in Scotland, and is a huge figurehead for the movement making those kinds of laws. In the UK especially, but when she's shouting out Matt Walsh for his views on the issue, she's gone a little bit further than just 'liking a couple of dodgy tweets'. Like, if your views on separation of art from the artist are different, and the books are important to you, neither me nor Ilya nor anyone else can hold that against you, for sure. But this game didn't become the cultural battleground it did out of nowhere. It's weird and bizarre that it did, but Rowling made herself this figurehead on purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 15 minutes ago, polishgenius said: Like, if your views on separation of art from the artist are different, and the books are important to you, neither me nor Ilya nor anyone else can hold that against you, for sure. But this game didn't become the cultural battleground it did out of nowhere. It's weird and bizarre that it did, but Rowling made herself this figurehead on purpose. I maintain a policy to each their own, as I know the Potterverse (if that's the term to use?) means a lot to some people - including to friends of mine over here in Kangaroostan who grew up in that media ecosphere of the books, the movies, etc. It just never personally spoke to me, so I was never particularly invested in any of it to begin with. Rowling's later emergence as a representative for politicals views with which I disagree furthered my disinterest in her creative endeavours. But as always, de gustibus non est disputandum, y'know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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