I'm a bit of a lurker, and often awkward. But this site has been a deep and close part of me since the beginning. The mix of humor and in depth knowledge has always drawn me in, even as my age changed how much I could watch of your unconventional videos. Without you guys I would not be the person I am today. I owe my interest in Werner Herzhog and Ingrid Bergman to Alex, some of my music taste to Rorie, MSTK 3000, Glitch art, rants, trash culture and old tech to Jeff, an acceptance of the failure and struggle needed to persist and win from Brad(also sympathy for his and my addiction to RPG loot), Destructive Creativity and experimentation from Vinny, Humor and awareness from Ryan. I could go on, but you made me rethink entertainment before internet culture seemed to come to that conclusion years later. You brought the casual nature of the talk show, melded with the camaraderie of local friendship and insider baseball knowledge that somehow became a performance art piece of displaying your lives on record. You made me want to do the same, excited by the ideals; and then helped me grow out of it when considering reality. We even grew together, as the internet made us reflect on the destructive nature of the cultural values that reflected and defined our lives in media/pop culture; and the subsequent responsibilities we take when hosting people, when speaking out about humor in poor taste, what politics is today, and the moral stances we take. GB has never been the one outing the dirty details of the gaming world or the world at large (I leave that to Jason Schrier), but through your candor and focus it's clear the values you hold have been shifted by the world just as I have; even if it's not a path to financial success and stability, and the work to be true to our shifting morals is and was deeply meaningful.
I think the writing has been on the wall to me since 2020. It seems everyone has become a streamer, whether you're on the site or not. No one's disappearing, people are just fading into the large mesh of the internet streaming existence. But the pandemic forced the issue, and got rid of your normal couch conversationalist situation as we all become talking heads mapped out onto abstract planes on the internet. I know you guys don't have clear plans but that's what I expect will happen for anyone who doesn't take an industry job. The democratization of content, the shift of it all onto the main hubs of the internet. I'll be honest and say I haven't really fully adapted. Work and life take a much bigger cut of my time, as I'm sure is the case for many others. But in this weird one way relationship we've developed with you, I felt it was worth putting my piece in; as this shift feels like the end of an era. I wish you all the best, -Connor.
I was a huge fan of Cards Against Humanity and would see all their panels, loved seeing the charities and support they provided comedy, as well as the focus on improving board games(though I didn't play many new ones). I had no idea about the allegations, the workplace behavior or any of this. I smiled when I saw Max Temkin's logo on Samurai Gunn, as at the time it was connecting different cool things I loved.
But in the wake of all this stuff, seeing the statement CAH put out, the recent news about comedians, DOTA 2, Wrestling, Starcraft and even just checking into Riot games again has been so so tough. I wasn't aware that any of this was going on, and it's sickening to me to know that it has been covered up for so long. Now that I've heard Austin talk about how he regretted being on a panel with Max, I realize just how distant I've been that I didn't know about what's been a loosely kept secret for years.
But what really hurts me is how much it must have sucked to just see all this swept under the rug. Everything that I feel by just being let down as a fan; it must be so much worse for all the people whose message got ignored because the games were bigger than them, the abusers were bigger than them. That should never be OK, because games should be for people not the other way around. I have other thoughts about whether the humor is ok in CAH or not, but I feel those concerns are so so very minor as opposed to the real suffering people have went through. I haven't watched the video yet, but just with everything going on these days, the feelings have just been boiling in my gut about all this. It's just a bad scene man.
EDIT: Post listening, I totally agree with the ongoingness. I remember at a PAX dev around five years ago, the keynote talked about diversity and the issues we face. The Panelist asked how many women in the audience had to leave somewhere because they were scared of a man(Parking lot, Bar, etc.). Half of them raised their hands. And that was a place far more privileged than much of the world. But I'm not aware of how often it's covered up. I have driven away people for trying to respect them while also helping them realize these kinds of issues, and it's not something that I hear about happening from those around me. I do my best to be a positive force to those around me, but when something like this happens, it shocks me with how little things have changed. Sometimes I just wish I could make a bigger difference, but I don't know where I would even start.
@dolphin_tequila: Bit of a reverse rant, but I also want to throw some DA love.
As someone who also loves dragon age I'd like to mention that the first two have aged poorly. The first is still cool in that 3D jump while still retaining that infinity engine tactical system, but the story is the most generic save the world thing, and outside of the effect of your choices many of the stories(For example the save demon connor redcliff arc thing or the dwarven cave dlc) aren't that engaging, especially contrasting to modern questlines in say the Witcher 3 or Inquisition. The second one has some super cool stuff like the dialogue system building in a personality or Merrill(who is my favorite character of the whole series), but there's only one dungeon for each area and they reuse those same maps(with sections blocked off) for almost every mission in the game. Once you've seen generic town dungeon 15 times, you don't want to see it ever again. And while I understand the technical difficulty, having every exit out of an area lead to the world map instead of a connecting areas directly or using an open world for their single city is weird and pulls you out a bit when you go up the stairs to get lower in the city because the exit is closer. Not to mention having to check every area during both daytime and night to make sure you didn't miss everything. There's just a lot of tedium. And come on, the ending of Dragon Age 2 is just bad writing. Even the characters who don't have plot based insanity make ridiculous decisions and stuff happens there that doesn't really fit with the other lore on magic from DA1, Inquistion or the rest of 2.
However I do think the comparison of the first DA to KOTOR is apt, both are small area based pause-able RPGs that pack those areas with content and have similar acting quality. Neither is up to the standard of today, but both were top notch RPGs of their day.
Inquisition has it's own problems, mostly technical. The fact that there's a skill that just crashes the game (Lunge and Slash if you plan to play) that was never patched is ridiculous. The game does try to appear way deeper than it is, but damn if it's not one of the best RPGs about being a ruler that exists. Eat your heart out Fable 3. Plus the amount of choices that affect things is like mass effect 3 level, it's so dope. But god, there's a lot of little problems, and the inventory limit is so tedious unless you mod it out. For example not many people want to use a character creator in the middle of a playthrough. But more than anything else the worst thing about dragon age inquisition is what it did to the company. Just google "Bioware Magic" to find articles like this, that talk about how inquisition was used as proof that as long as they crunched super hard at the end, the finished game could and would be both a finished product AND successful. After Inquisition, those team members were moved onto Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda, the latter team mostly ending up working on Anthem too. You can ready plenty of articles about the burnout, overwork and other issues that plague Bioware.
Also I agree about the future as both Mike Laidlaw AND David Gaider have both left Bioware in the last few years. Not to say someone else from the writer's room couldn't be promoted, but it's not a good sign when both your lead writers have left. Big shoes and all that, esp when your narrative decisions decide the work of hundreds of people over many years. My only direct request would be that the major decision of the game should not be between templars and magicians. Witcher series did way better after they abandoned the Scoiatel/Order of the Rose/Neutral choice for more complex narrative.
It reflects big business. Less of a creative vision, and more of a product meant to appeal to as broad a market as they can within the genre. Which isn't necessarily bad, I just hope the company doesn't either shut down it's studios or turn into the eternal content pump of Ubisoft. In an ideal world, they'd just make more games like Inquisition and ME2 with better graphics and a couple new mechanics every few years. Here's hoping.
There's actually some cool thematic concepts about how people adopt religion to fit their own situation. I hope this turns out well it looks interesting.
Other than the gameplay itself I'm a bit worried. those underground rocks shined like MGSV, but the fullscreen animations look unpolished and there's some serious work needed for the effects, especially the rocks when that bell fell. However the music's cool and I hope the extra time will not just go into new content but improving what they're showing now.
I really really love Overwatch, but I'm surprised at this. Overwatch is one of the first games to make me physically uncomfortable because of the consistently mean people. Not every match but at least one person on your team every three or so matches. And the matches where people give up, insult everyone, call people out for not playing a certain way or character. It's exhausting. I really love the character designs and style of the world, and I love how all the unique play styles come together. But even in quickplay I've seen people tell others to quit because they "aren't good enough" to even play. It's disheartening, and even with reporting and moderation it doesn't stop. Sometimes, I've even seen competitive matches with people trying to play nice but also trying to direct teammates on how to play the whole game, not out of anger or contempt but because they feel the match is hopeless unless they get everyone to play perfectly. I keep coming back because it's so fun to play, and then leaving out of disappointment only a few hours later.
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