Atlas

This is officially it for me. An original GB forum member, an original premium member. It's been a hell of a run, and I held out hope through all of the turnover, but this is the last straw.

And I'm so pissed off that I let my premium renew for another year earlier this month - I will definitely be cancelling the auto-renew. I will comb the archives for videos I desperately want saved on my HDD (already have loads), and then it's gone from the bookmarks bar, gone from the YT subscription box, gone gone for good.

Look forward to catching Jess on YT and live streaming, and hoping Jason does alright with his health and much love to Lisa and the kids.

Fuck late-stage corporate capitalism.

@sethmode said:

I use adblockers, and Fandom sites are still very obnoxious to use, especially on mobile. Still, I use their wikis all the time, except when there are good alternatives such as Elder Scrolls.

This has been in my falling-asleep-video rotation for years. Dave was always one of my favourite personalities on the site and him showing Ryan just how jank but kinda cool Morrowind was and then just dicking around in Oblivion was so good. And yes, this is a fun moment. IIRC they were already a couple of hours in at this point and they were starting to feel it.

I'm the opposite of this because I've never understood the idea of forcing yourself to play a game just because it's part of a series, or for any reason really, and I'm much more likely just to give up on a franchise rather than make myself play a game that I'm just not feeling. I've still never played Witcher 3 despite owning it, because even though I loved Witcher 1 I sort of bounced off of 2 and said I'd go back to it but then Skyrim came out and then things happened, I dunno. And it's been 11 years now and I know that I'm never going to beat Witcher 2 but I still can't bring myself to start Witcher 3. I loved the first two Mass Effects but have never and probably will never play 3, even after they "fixed" it.

I gave up on the Assassin's Creed franchise after I bounced off of Brotherhood, and even though some recent instalments in the series have looked promising I've basically ignored them because I feel like I'm "done" with the series. I cannot imagine being in the mindset of wanting to play Valhalla so much that I'd slog through 3, Black Flag, 4, etc. just for the sake of completionism. I don't have that Vinny-esque brain. There are games that I absolutely adore that I will never 100% because I'm just too lazy and find it too difficult to get motivated. I'm replaying Breath of the Wild at the moment and have zero intention of finishing all the shrines. It's not a time issue, either - I've got the time, I'm just not very good at using it to do something other than play Luck Be a Landlord, or that time I got really into Storybook Brawl, or some F2P bollocks that requires minimal mental energy.

64 is a much more important game, but it's not a game that I'm overly nostalgic for. It was mind-blowing for 7-year-old me, and it's incredible how much it stands out even today as it's maybe the only 3D platformer of that era that is remotely playable today. I dunno, I was probably a bit young and didn't have the patience for some of the tougher stars.

Whereas Odyssey is just a total joy and I never would have believed before I played it that I could love a platformer that much as an adult gamer with my adult sensibilities and my general indifference to the genre. So I vote for Odyssey because I affected me more, plus as an adult I can appreciate how weird and kinda shite the N64 controller was.

I also have Asperger syndrome, and I had a bit of a weird experience with Spiritfarer. I loved most of the mechanics and thought the presentation of the game was stunningly beautiful. I spent most of the game thinking it was a 10 out of 10 game, an easy GOTY contender, but towards the end I started to feel much colder on it. I guess I was starting to feel fatigue with the mechanics, and I found the late-game characters to be much less interesting which dropped my feeling of engagement. When I realised I was very close to the end-game, I put it off for a good two weeks or so, before finally picking it up to finish it which only took about 15-20 minutes. So yeah, I spent most of the game thinking it was a 10, but it probably ended up closer to an 8, still very good but not a landmark game that has to be experienced. It's no To the Moon, that's for sure.

And then all the GOTY praise came in and I realised how much emotional resonance other people had with the game, and how affected they were on the experience as a meditation on grief. And I understood where that sentiment was coming from, but found it something I couldn't relate to. But that doesn't mean that they were wrong.

I've bounced off other games that depend on emotional resonance in the past, and I'm sure my autism is a big reason why. But I would never go so far as to say that Spiritfarer is lazy. I think you only need to look at some of the things that were written about the game to understand just how powerful of a chord it struck with people - Alex Navarro's write-up is genuinely hard to read because it's so heartfelt - and not all of these people are as easily manipulated as was maybe suggested by the OP. Also remember that there is an aspect of a buy-in when it comes to media; sometimes we put our shields down and allow ourselves to be manipulated, and maybe that's something that us neuro-divergents struggle with.

So yeah, as far at this thesis is concerned I relate to a certain degree, but could not disagree more with the conclusion.

One important thing that nobody has mentioned: COVID has directly resulted to a sharp increase in cases of anti-Asian discrimination, harassment, and violence in the West. I know that this thread is only concerned with the actions of China, and specifically their government, but we've seen Asian people report abuse who aren't Chinese nationals, who aren't ethnically Chinese, etc.. And maybe that's enough to make some publications and outlets a bit shy about being overly critical of China, because we should be able to rationally differentiate between the CCP and the will of the Chinese people, and not to extrapolate attacks on CCP policy into hatred for Chinese Americans, Chinese Brits, etc., or people of Asian descent living in the West in general. Because we all know that's wrong. But it's a crazy world out there, and one thing seems to lead to another, and nobody wants to be seen as stirring up hatred when all they're doing is trying to engage in meaningful and productive discourse about the actions of the CCP.

With that being said, fuck the CCP.

Assuming you want to build a stable, healthy relationship and also maintain your friendship with the third party, then I would think a few months is probably okay. Depends on how bad the break-up was, I suppose. Harbouring a grudge for so many years might seem strange, but we're all human beings with emotions that we can't always control or even make sense of. College is specifically the time where we all get to try and work these sorts of things out, relationships and human interaction and all that, and sometimes we're going to get it wrong and people are going to get hurt and you have to learn to live with the consequences of your actions.

So there is no right or wrong answer, just a bunch of monkeys trying to make the best of their time on this spinning rock in space, I guess.

Didn't have any love or affinity for him myself - had never heard of him before Dan started talking about him - but my timeline on Twitter is full of some of my favourite comedians sharing their favourite moments and talking about how much they loved/respected him. And if so many people who have made me laugh are reacting like that to the death of a comedian, well I think it suggests that he was a pretty special character and someone who will definitely be sorely missed.

One of the UK's most beloved comedians, Sean Lock, recently passed away aged 58 and that definitely did have a bigger effect on me, so I can totally sympathise with what people are feeling right now - I just didn't grow up with late night US comedy.

Any review of a game that has an update plan still has use as a critique of the game state as it is at time of publication, and it's not a critic/journalist's job to try and crystal ball a game's "road map" and how likely it is to improve or take on a new life further down the road. If a game is online or has an obvious content plan, don't expect a review score on day one to be a permanent, static representation of the quality of that game. And remember, unless a game launches for free in early access, if a company is charging money for a product then any review or critique of it stands as valid, because there's never a guarantee that a "road map" or plan for continued support will actually be implemented - plenty of games e.g. Evolve and Anthem, have had their plans torn up based on business decisions being made well above the design team's vision of the product. I have no problem with re-reviewing or re-scoring games, but again those reviews will also only be represented of the product up to a certain point in time.