@isomeri:I'm on PC, where everyone has a mic. I've seen servers where people without mic's are actively excluded from squads. At the start of the game it's not uncommon for squad leaders to boot anyone who isn't communicating and working with the rest of the team, which I really appreciate.
@daavpuke: When I mentioned to the other mods that Valheim was on my list there was at least one other person who was like "Oh right, Valheim!" - for some reason we seem to have collectively forgotten about it, even though it dominated a big chunk of the year. It's weird.
There was a (somewhat refreshingly) uplifting and positive review about The Last Of Us 2 by Samantha Greer where she writes a short introduction to the piece by acknowledging the aforementioned studio conditions at Naughty Dog. I think it's a pretty great example of how this sort of thing should be handled. The full review is here (It's excellent and you should read it) but the relevant excerpt is as follows:
(Before the review itself, I'd like to talk about controversies that surround the game and its developer Naughty Dog. Earlier this year ex-employees were outspoken about tremendous crunch during an apparently tumultuous development cycle as reported by Kotaku. There is also the still, as of publication, unresolved accusation of sexual harassment against Uncharted 4's Lead MP Designer Robert Cogburn (who left Naughty Dog in 2018) by Former Naughty Dog Environmental Artist David Ballard, as reported at Wccf Tech. You can decide how these stories effect your engagement with the game but they're worth being aware of regardless)
I absolutely loved the Last Of Us multiplayer and was extremely bummed out when I heard that the sequel wasn't going to have one. It's one of the few multiplayer games which actually stays true to the campaign mechanics and put a heavy emphasis on stealth. I would play with a bow and lurk around at the edges of the map - it's kind of uncanny how the enemy team would mirror the tactics of the AI, spreading out to try to hunt you down and giving you the ability to pick them off one at a time. When you got dropped down to 4 vs 1 and you somehow manage to scramble a win just by manipulating the other players, it was one of the best multiplayer experiences I've ever had. I don't think there's been anything like it, either before or after.
By the way, I would tell people if you skip like 43 min in you'll miss the heavy talk.
Not sure why instead they said hey leave and come back next week (its not even half of the episode).
For me, I'll go back to it as right now I listened to a couple wrestling podcasts about this over the past few days alone and it's been a lot. Its important but also exhausting with everything else going on.
I think as a trigger warning for victims of abuse it's helpful to know exactly when and where you're able to listen so a timestamp is always appreciated. Obviously when this stuff is being recorded live on twitch it's difficult to know when these conversations will start and end though, which is probably why Vinny left it so vague.
Really good review. I'm glad that people aren't mindlessly buying into Kojima's pretentious star-fucking and can be objective about what sounds like a dramatically dull and convoluted videogame.
sweep's comments