Fabricant451

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

I'm glad you just know that. :) (Hope that numbers over a hundred.)

But I very much doubt it. Nor do I think I'm gaining much from continuing this.

@SleepingSilence

Said the one continuing this.

Yes. You are indeed, making my point for me. (And you don't have to include, "the stuff in red is different than my several paragraphs of writing". I know that.)

Because I understand how you're allowed and supposed to critique things you play and enjoy. So "you not giving attention to things you don't like". And "but many people like this thing with shitty practices" are two moot points to what's true and being argued.

1. Those games you like, can be made better.

2. Those devs can treat their customers better, and only will, if there's backlash to what fans don't like.

You're not making an argument about either of these points. You started this whole thing off jerking off how correct you were about Lost Ark and have consistently backpedaled into turning it into "Aha, so you see, the devs should do better!" with a side order of weirdo slander about the pro-diversity crowd. Pokemon has been releasing DLC since gen 1, except they still charged full price and called it a different color. Does that make it right? Who can say, but them putting out DLC expansions instead of charging 60 dollars twice for each one is hardly indicative of anything other than GameFreak finally reaching three console generations ago.

Game developers of certain games know full fucking well that gamers are a loud bunch who claim to talk with their wallet but then open their wallets day one anyway. Because people are super susceptible to marketing and promotion and FOMO. That's why Fortnite continues to have flavor of the month skins for popular things. That's why even with all the shit that happened with Blizzard, people are still playing Blizzard games.

I'm not fucking saying "people like this thing with bad practices so that makes the practice okay" I'm just not delusional enough to think that whinging on a forum is going to do anything about it. Do I have a problem with Lost Ark's monetization? Personally, no, and I don't believe the game is maliciously designed to get you to use it the way other free to play games are. Does that make it okay that it has it? That depends on if you think any monetization is bad. I personally don't - especially in a game where it doesn't cost the player any money to get the entire game. It's only when it becomes predatory that it becomes an issue but the only thing predatory about Lost Ark are the people who jerk off over their virtual waifu dolls.

But when you ignore what you dislike, and can't admit valid critique of things that you do like. I guess, do you. But it's not helping anyone.

Show me where I can't admit valid critique of something I like. Because for the fifth or so fucking time:

I DO NOT FUCKING LIKE LOST ARK

Ask anyone who has spoken to me at any length outside of here, and there are a few, and they'll tell you how critical I am of things I love. Movies, games, shows, music, anything. I almost lost a good friend because I was super critical of the new Spider-Man movie and then again when I had sweeping criticisms of some anime they like. I love criticism, positive and negative, because I love talking in depth about things. Analyzing them. Diving deep. It's literally what I got my goddamn degree in.

If I don't play, watch, read, listen, whatever to something I don't critique it. I can comment on why I haven't interacted with it but as soon as I offer some sort of critique of the product then it holds little water. "What did you think of that game?" "Oh, it sucked." "Really? What didn't you like about it." "Well I didn't play it but -"

Being critical of a game's monetization is fine. Saying the game is bad because of the monetization is an opinion. You're perfectly able to make a personal value judgment if you disagree with something a developer or publisher does but once you start trying to critique the gameplay or the story or parts of the actual game and you haven't played it? Then you're no better than the neckbeardy shitstains who got mad when Cyberpunk didn't get 10/10s before they played it.

Don't be like them. They have bad social skills and smell bad.

But that's precisely why this conversation can't go anywhere. Since you're own ultimate "gotcha" is "I have to experience the censorship firsthand in-game to know and hate that it exists on a wider scale." (The joke there is you literally can't. It's censored/removed for fuck sake.)

This conversation can't go anywhere because you staunchly refuse to ever concede a point while also constantly misrepresenting it and changing the scope. You also just conveniently gloss over numerous points and refutations. I've clarified my stance. You won't because the goalposts need moving.

(Because I played that shit-awful pokemon game. And I still "wasn't allowed" by your standards, to point out what my roommate hated about Pokemon.) So I doubt, you'd really put much more effort into discussing flaws about any game that you happen to enjoy.

If you played the Pokemon game then you're well within your rights to call it shit-awful. If and when all you had to go by was your room mate's opinion then you're still allowed to have an opinion but it's one that wouldn't be taken seriously because it's not your opinion. If I watch a streamer play a game did I play the game myself? No. No I didn't. If I read a summary of a movie did I watch the movie? No, I didn't. Can I critique something if all I did was listen to second hand information of it? Yes, but it wouldn't be taken seriously nor should it.

You can use second hand opinions of those who have interacted with something to make a judgment call. That's the entire point. But if I read a review of a movie an decide not to see said movie I can't then go and say "Oh that movie sucks" and expect to be taken seriously if I then follow up with "I didn't see it."

This is not a difficult concept to grasp but somehow you can't grasp it.

And if you think I don't put effort into discussing flaws of things I enjoy then you should really ask @Bee or @Hey Im Jordan or various others just how much effort I put into pointing out and discussing flaws.

Because they fuckin hate it when I do it. Most times.

But fine. You don't have to. But don't tell me, "no one is making that argument" when its all I'm seeing all over my social media. And you've even agreed to those very points I find erroneous/egregious.

Funny, all I see on my social media are people making fun of the female walk cycle and how the servers were fucked and how they're enjoying it. Guess anecdotes are motherfuckers aren't they.

1. The rich youtuber (and Amazon) will live.

Motherfucker you did it in this topic. That's what I was referring to. I don't give a fuck about Youtubers.

3. Me sharing bad first impressions about media, are not, and will never be a "personal character attack" like calling someone an ass is.

You called my friend a robot and a shill. One personal attack to another, from an opiniated bitch.

4. And if you mean making dumb robot puns. I just thought it was funny. Because bot messages/reviews are usually both short, don't capitalize, nor punctuate sentences. So pardon me.

And I thought it was funny calling you an ass. I'll apologize when you do bb <3

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

You're going to be waiting a while. Cuz I'm not playing the game to find out. If anyone cared, they could look through other peoples various complaints about the game for themselves.

And there's more than three or four ARPG/MMO-type games where you can dodge roll. Believe me.

@SleepingSilence

I've played more MMOs than you.

My statement stands.

If I had said 'unique to the ARPG space' then yeah, I'd be silly. But I specifically said MMO. And most ARPGs aren't MMOs.

And I know you've said this before. But you're just as wrong as you were before. You can (and should) critique a game's censorship, and various other shitty practices, without suffering them for yourself.

If only because hundreds more will go "but something something, this is worse and you have no proof they designed their game this way, so you could pay for things later down the line."

Buy your Pokemon Sword&Shield pokedex expansions pack now.

That's not a critique of a game. You can't call a game bad if you haven't played it just as much as you can't call a movie bad if you haven't watched it, a song bad if you haven't listened to it, etc. Well you can. But your opinion would be about as useful as a puddle of piss. What you're doing is acting like you're an arbiter of quality because you're taking a stand like you're looking down at people because you source your opinion via YouTubers.

Are you going to complain that the game has altered presets to have darker skin tones or western facial features? Or is that not the kind of 'censorship' you want to wave a flag about because it's not the same as "look at this NPC and slightly less sexy starting clothes!!!!!"? You're being an ass to someone who likes the game, which is uncool and don't even say "lol just my humor" while also being smug about how much you don't care about a game that you care enough to argue about.

I already bought the Sword and Shield expansion pass, what's your point? That companies release DLC? And that's bad? Oh, I get it, you think it's a big gotcha that GameFreak deliberately released a game without every single Pokemon and then later...released DLC that still didn't put every single Pokemon in it.

If you're going to take a stand against shitty practices then you have no room to stand. You literally are playing Warframe. If you're going to be 'muh diversity crowd bad' then at least be honest and not just singularly 'they made an NPC black badly this is an affront!!!!'.

You know what I do when there's a game I am not interested in? I don't fucking give it any attention. Maybe you should take a page from that book instead of trying to be "I told you so!" or whatever the fuck about a game that many people are genuinely enjoying. You're not some arbiter of gaming taste. None of us are. We're fuckin' geeks and nerds and arty farty roleplay fans on a small ass niche website.

Play a game or don't but don't pretend to be some moral crusader especially for a game you're never going to play.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>

1. Yeah. There's a right and wrong way to add inclusion. But advocates don't tend to care about how its done/how much sense it makes. So long as it happens.

@SleepingSilence

Oh that's BULLSHIT and you know it.

2. See above. There's a right and wrong way to handle your game and its practices. When you encourage players "to get rid of the grind", what do you think happened first? A. They saw player feedback and added paid options to help. B. They designed the game to be slow, monotonous and grindy. To add paid options to get impatient and frustrated players to spend their money.

Option A, because I'm not a cynical asshole assuming the worst all the time. I still have yet to hear from you, yes YOU and not some random commenter on Reddit what exactly is the issue with Lost Ark and its monetization.

Also, any time I see a defender of something use a "this bad too" argument. They don't seem to grasp that the arguer will more than likely dislike those practices even more than the one that's now bringing them up. (Because they're only doing it for 'whataboutisms' for their defense. And not through genuine concern or actual critique of bad consumer practices, which motives the one doing the criticizing in the first place.)

Something can be bad. Another thing can be worse. The worse thing doesn't forgive the bad thing but that's not what's being said. My initial statement was 'there are worse games to go after than Lost Ark when it comes to bad monetization'. That's not me saying 'well Lost Ark is fine and flawless uwu'.

"Pay to win games can be good guys. guys. And bad games can suck for other reasons. Guys guys." Is a shit argument.

No one is making the argument. Pay to win games CAN be good. Just because there aren't many doesn't mean they can't be. If you want to say Lost Ark is a bad game, say that. But you won't because you know you can't actually truly critique a game without playing it yourself.

And if you like something and actually want it to succeed, you'd critique it's negative points and bad consumer practices. My two cents anyway.

Yeah because if there's something I don't do it's critique things that I love. Or things in general.

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>

My humor can indeed be hyperbolic, yes. But um yeah, dodge rolling (or jumping) is not unique to Lost Ark. Not even a bit.

@SleepingSilence

Good thing I didn't say it was unique to Lost Ark. I said, quote:

You can dodge roll though which is something a bit more unique to the MMO space.

Me

Here I'll bold the important part.

You can dodge roll though which is something a bit more unique to the MMO space.

Me again

The fact that you could only name two games (I'll give you a third, for free: ESO) in a genre that has a lot of games lends some credence to my claim that it is a bit more unique to the MMO space because most MMOS, because of how they are designed, are not games with a lot of moment to moment action necessitating an active dodge roll system. You're not dodge rolling in FF14 or WoW or SWTOR because attacks are telegraphed heavily. Just because three or four games have it doesn't make something no longer unique to the genre overall. I wouldn't say 'oh man you can be a bard in Lost Ark, that's unique to the genre' because it's not.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

and make sure you also mention how good it is that you can dodge roll attacks in it. And how you don't see that in any MMO's.

Beside Guild Wars, New World, *starts listing endlessly to make a point without actually wasting effort to look them up.*

@SleepingSilence

I can't help but feel like you're making fun of my earlier statement while also getting said statement wrong.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

da fuk is Lost Ark?

@Dark Cloud

A free to play Korean MMOARPG that is popular because it happened to come out just before the internet cums its pants over Elden Ring

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>
No, I assumed it was your hill.

If a game has numerous bad/mobile-game practices. Why waste so much time defending it?

Also, realize that I've not made any "pay to win" arguments. All of its defenders have. And it screams, lady doth protest too much.

@SleepingSilence

Do you think I'm pro-censorship and also an advocate for diversity in media? Because I am one of those things and I'll give you three guesses as to which I am and two don't count. I can be an advocate for diversity and also think "changing a character in a video game is a bad way to do it".

You're moving the goalposts now, by the way. No one made a pay to win argument here. We're not youtubers or redditors making claims. I'm only 'defending' it because I'm taking the opposite stance to yours in that I made the radical statement that the game can have monetization and not be pay to win. I have said more than once that I don't really like the game all that much.

But a game that is free to play is absolutely going to find some way to make money. That's just the reality of the world. Nothing commercial is made without profit in mind.

Toontown | The Guild's #1 Stop for Cartoon Discussion

The most recent episode of South Park is probably the best they've done in regards to a satirical take on race, specifically performative allyship.

I mean it doesn't really offer anything particularly insightful but it's South Park so I have to give it credit for at least trying.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Real text on a positive rated Lost Ark Review on reddit. (All about it not being pay to win.)

"To determine if Lost Ark is a Pay to Win game, you first need to know what Pay to Win is.

Pay to Win literally means you have to spend money to win.

If you spend money and lose, it is not Pay to Win."

What a bunch of absolute horseshit.

If I keep looking at people defending this game I might hate this game with a fiery passion. (Note, I didn't even actively look for this. It was just in my feed.)

@Fabricant451 Is this one right too? <.<

Because my real question/point, is you're making two separate arguments. 1. It has no bad practices. 2. Others games with bad practices are worse. (You do understand why one doesn't fit the other, yes?)

@SleepingSilence

Pay to Win literally just means you can pay money to get an unfair advantage over other players, be that in buying better gear, buying 5 star characters in whatever gacha bullshit people play, etc. If you can definitively buy your way to being better than someone on an otherwise level playing field, that's pay to win. World of Warcraft selling exclusive mounts for real money isn't pay to win but if it suddenly sold legendary gear that gave you an advantage in pvp and/or pve content that other players couldn't get, that's pay to win. A game lessening the grind doesn't make it pay to win. If Lost Ark started selling gear that was above BiS that utterly ruined game balance, then yeah it'd be pay to win.

My argument isn't that Lost Ark has no bad practices and you'll not find me making that argument. My argument is that it's not, by definition, pay to win unless you change the definition of 'pay to win' to 'paying real money for anything in the game that is beneficial in any way'. Which is a slippery slope to outright saying 'all microtransactions are pay to win' instead of simply 'microtransactions are fucking bad' which is inarguable.

Lost Ark can have bad monetization and other games can have worse monetization without Lost Ark being pay to win. That's not contradictory. What Lost Ark is doing is what SWTOR does and other free to play MMO games do: incentivize players to essentially pay a monthly sub or equivalent. Is SWTOR pay to win if subscribed or preferred players get a mount at level 10 instead of level 25 or have access to more content or customization options? Is Lost Ark pay to win because you can purchase a recurring fee that makes teleports free and slight boost to exp? Because by that logic, FF14 is pay to win because you can buy a level skip to the current expansion and so is WoW because of character tokens. Even ESO does it and that's a buy to play game.

Lost Ark is actively being censored in the US, and they darkened many of the Asian characters skin for the US 'Muh Diversity' crowd.

@SleepingSilence

Is this really the hill you want to die on, my guy

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Seems a bit contradicting in those statements. In what they're implying. But most bad monetization practices aren't so zealously defended. Like I'm seeing online. Not from you specifically mind.

@SleepingSilence

I don't think that's contradicting. Lost Ark not being pay to win doesn't contradict that there are games with worse monetization than it. SWTOR, for example, a game I genuinely enjoy literally locks you out of having multiple action bars and being able to move above a light jog unless you give them money to do so.

I mean even the people I've seen defending the game, casually talk about how it'll die down in hype and go away in a month. And for a f*cking MMO. That's NOT AT ALL a good thing. This isn't a flavor of the month indie title. A good MMO, will not die in a month.

Most MMOs have their most populous period at launch and then again at expansion releases. I don't think it'll die but I also doubt it'll go the way of New World.

Tell me that doesn't look like a mobile game RPG screen

I've looked up and seen one of the "cinematic dungeons" and they look nice enough.

I mean I don't play many mobile games but that looks like a typical MMO character menu to me

[/quote]

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

If Lost Ark didn't exist. I wouldn't have seen a random unfollowed user on twitter say, "Guys, some play to win games are good. And some not pay to win games are bad. Guys. Guys."

@SleepingSilence

Lost Ark isn't pay to win. It's 'pay to convenience'. You can't just buy the best gear and pay to beat the raids, but you can buy stuff to remove teleport cost or various other quality of life shit that one could argue shouldn't be behind pay wall. But a free to play game is going to try and make money somehow, that's just the nature of the beast.

Also that twitter person is right.

With the entire comment section grilling him for the fact he used to go after bad monetization practices, and also knew exactly what game he was defending. (And I use paid hacks semi-ironically. Youtubers gotta eat too. But it's only because the game has spent "Raid:Shadow Legends" money on advertising itself/paying people daily to play & stream it.

If someone wants to go after bad monetization practices there are dozens of worse examples than Lost Ark. Also, games having streamers do advertisements is not new nor is it always someone faking it. Sometimes, yeah, it's clear that the person is just throwing away morals to make a buck which hey that's the hustle in this world, but sometimes someone can genuinely enjoy a game and also do an ad for it.

I think it's just because I heard some fuck with a thick accent, pretend to be excited when he could jump in an MMO. And it made me lose my mind.

Maybe it was done for laughs. Or maybe he's not an MMO player. You also can't even jump in Lost Ark outside of scripted 'press G to jump' sections. You can dodge roll though which is something a bit more unique to the MMO space.

I've loved to hear examples of ARPG'S it's better than in comparison.

Victor Vran, Titan Quest, Last Epoch, Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, I think it's better than Torchlight, MU Legend.

I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Lost Ark, when the hype dies, can sit comfortably among the Diablos and PoEs of the world.

Because you can't have sex with characters in those games but you can in Lost Ark.

But I suppose everyone said the same thing about Tera too. About how great the combat system is. And eh? I suppose it's probably more fun to play, then it is to watch.

TERA was a breath of fresh air in the genre at the time because of its combat but because that's where the focus was you then had to contend with a fetch quest boring ass MMO where the fun stuff wasn't killing mobs but killing BAMs and dungeons but then that game had a myriad of other problems least of all doubling down on giving all the cool shit to the little girl loli race.

TERA could've been cool, man. Now I'm sad.

But the kind of zealous online defense and equal parts hatred that I'm seeing from the community about this dated MMORPG. I think I'll stick with the cash grab I'm already fooling myself into playing. Thanks.

Again, not a cash grab but also it's more of an ARPG with a chat room than a full on MMORPG. I'm not defending the game because, again, I don't think it's the kind of game for me (I like my games to at least pretend to have a story) but I can absolutely understand why there are people genuinely having fun with and enjoying it. Hell, I know someone who wasn't gonna play it and now almost has a max level character with plans to make more and they haven't spent a dime other than the head start.