SleepingSilence

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

Point is, I really hope this upcoming season has better "good shows" than this.

@SleepingSilence

Narrator: There was not. But at least you get another season of Mob Psycho and Chainsaw Man...

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So...

What's everybody else watching?

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

I guess you can say "Well, you have to pay a sub for WoW." But it still doesn't change the fact that people have been getting $50+ expansion packs for free. I just don't see Overwatch being F2P now as an issue when people clearly have no issue with Blizzard making their other games or rather expansion packs free all the time.

@Kuro

I feel like this is an apples and oranges comparison though, no? Because one is essentially giving old paid-for DLC content free to its players. A net positive for basically everyone. (That I'm sure still upsets nerds who don't like new and healthy player bases.) Versus making their paid game (an objectively worse) free-to-play model, with additional microtransactions and heaping helpings of new server issues and bugs.

Unless the argument is "Blizzard gives people plenty already. So this going F2P, in order to squeeze more money out of its players, should be considered a fair trade."

Stuff like this only tends to happen when you're an Evolve-level marketing disaster. (Thus, the company is desperate to recuperate costs.) But I can't imagine the Overwatch player base was low enough to justify this decision. (According to articles like this, it was between 5-7 million players.)

Which sounds healthy to me. But I guess, for now, the marketing still clearly panned out in its favor with 10 million active players for its "sequel". (With only a tenth of that being currently online.)

However, in terms of competing with other vastly overrated FPS's. (Valorant, Fortnite, Apex Legends, etc.) It's getting crushed in numbers. So it almost feels like its an attempt to join in the F2P gold rush too little, too late.

But I suppose I don't really have a dog in this fight...

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Because I was playing Source Of Madness. A rogue-lite with random generation, and a lovecraftian art style.

And yeah, I suppose it's precisely what you'd imagine would happen. Killing enemies from off-screen, from unreachable ledges and small cracks like the coward you are. Because everything is an incomprehensible mass of tentacles, that will only kill you by getting yourself stuck within them. So it was a mostly passive experience through my first run, with me getting an item that leeched life when it hit a target. (Obviously better than most of the other things that I was rewarded with.)

Then the second area had nothing but poison swamps and poisonous self-destructing enemies. So, yeah. I'm sure that will be a blast to deal with.

Though I enjoyed the atmosphere and how fair its challenge and upgrades appeared to be. (Compared to a much harder Dead Cells.) But I am concerned with how quickly repetitive and one note that it might feel in the future...

But it was more fun than suffering through Destiny 2.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

I mean, I guess, but no one complains about Blizzard-

@Kuro

Imma let you finish but-

Blizzard is one of those companies that actually gets heat when its deserved. Because it got popular over a few nostalgic IP's, meant for PC gamers (the ones least willing to deal with bullshit) and it's been constantly fucking them all up. (Let alone all the other reasons the company gets shit.)

So yeah, WOW has gotten flak for a variety of reasons. Though I don't know which you're referring too. But looking it up leads to articles pointing out that Blizzard went on to ban boosting organizations. So I'd imagine someone/somewhere complained.

That said you should still have everything you had on your account at the time.

@Kuro

I said that due to everyone on twitter/social media stating the opposite. But it's apparently some widespread bug. (And not intentional design.)

I've basically never bothered with most of Blizzard's games. Overwatch, very much included. I only got into Heroes Of The Storm. (R.I.P)

Edit: I forgot Diablo games existed cuz tired. Don't judge me.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

@Dark Cloud PM me your Destiny 2 handle. Assuming you have yet to get tired or bored of grinding in that game too. :P

I struggle to come up with reasons to want to buy an expansion for Destiny, to get real content to chew on. When they completely gutted my last purchase and nerfed all my items to the point of rendering them forever useless.

It also made me question my PC specs, when it couldn't hold a consistent framerate when things got busy.

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Because topical.

It's just free to play Overwatch. That got rid of everyone's already paid for content.

Books!

I have to admit, I prefer physical, tangible books when it comes to reading. You'll never catch me reading a book off of a tablet or kindle.

I feel similar, albeit not as strongly.

I recently got myself a library card and read through a few graphic novels. So I have the potential to get my hands on some more material. But I don't have too many recommendations. Since I'm still struggling to find something particularly engrossing myself.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

HAAK's final boss is a one-way to win gimmick boss and fuck that.

Unfortunately, Zapling Bygone, is another one that I'd not recommend in its current state. Because its bugs locked off (potentially) critical parts of the game for me. But I also REALLY don't like this game's appalling sense of direction. Having little to no clue what you're meant to be doing. (And someone REALLY needs to tell developers that no one liked Ori And The Blind Forest for its trial and error chase sequences.) Shame, because I do like the art design/world building comic panels. (But I'm putting this on hold until I get answers for fixing that.)

What Are You Listening To?

Why is everyone so horny on this site?

Because they're the RP's that garner the most consistent activity on average.

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

I know bad anime tends to have the exact opposite problem of bad western shows. In that its hack writers are giving people exactly want they want.

But after trying to watch, and eventually skimming through the entire montage episode of "Reincarnated As A Sword." It was just insufferable to sit through. (It was just the Spider anime all over again. But the MC is now a far more obnoxious, mass murderer, without the actual need to kill. Including the slice of life Isekai staple of having the overpowered MC adopting his own slave girl.)

Point is, I really hope this upcoming season has better "good shows" than this.

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But to review the few anime that I actually finished...

Summertime Rendering is the best kind of anime that improves upon its source material. And its one of the few anime's in recent memory that ended satisfyingly.

Made In Abyss' Second Season might not have been the strongest in terms of logical writing. But it still makes for a compelling watch for the most part.

Also, Crunchyroll apparently paid their English voice actors only $300 bucks for the Jujutsu Kaisen movie.

Just another story of how good they've been to the anime industry.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

I’ve discovered that when I’m playing a game full of secrets. One of two things will come out of my mouth on a regular basis. Either, “God, I love this game.” Or various flavors of, 2. “Fuck off. How was I supposed to know that?” (And rarely do these things mix together.)

A mood that only tends to increase the more I keep playing. Thus, the longer it goes on, the higher/lower my score will get.

So with that said, I’m at the final boss encounter of HAAK. And it would be unfair of me to simply state, much like Ender Lilies, the game provokes the latter option. (Since I don’t hate the game, and I’d argue it does many things better than that one.)

But there’s many things that I don’t like either. And the things that I do, are only getting worse through how long this game feels to play.

Because the game is certainly challenging and has plenty of content in it. With more story, lore for every monster, necessary side quests, sequence breaking flashbacks, uninteresting characters, and so much fucking dialogue to go through. That it easily takes the prize for “Most bloated plot-driven Metroidvania”.

However, I don’t know why the creators seem to hold such contempt for the player. But I feel it in so many of their game design choices.

• Almost every single room has a secret wall (likely multiple) that you’ll easily miss, a door (likely multiple) that blocks progress, fake routes that are impassable, or a pathway that you cannot go into until way later in the game. A bit TOO late into the game.
• The overall challenge is often very cheap and gimmicky. With Dark Souls Two levels of monsters in cramped/closed off spaces. One hit kill lasers. Poison gas. Gimmick platforming sections that demand precise controls. (Which this game doesn’t have. The slide is needed everywhere, and yet it only works half the time.)
• The common occurrence of monsters hitting you the second you go into the room.
• The inability to pan up or down, makes the platforming “leap of faith” a lot of the time.
• The moral options in side quests always offer you less rewards.
• The game openly mocks the player with “a git gud” rating, if you decide to use certain upgrades.
• Several secrets in the game are ‘developer notes’, in which they complain about playtesters not getting how their mechanics work.
• The game constantly takes control away from you, in order to provide you with imperfect english-translated dialogue scenes.
• With unlikeable and obnoxious character moments. Such as how the main character gripes about your customization choices. A pointless side character that condescends to you about “how you need to enter the right code, to open the coded door” every time you come across one. Another main character who blames you for doing something in the story. (Regardless of if you actually do it.) The game even has a side character questioning if you pirated their game.
• It has a random terrible trial and error (Ori And The Blind Forest-like) chase sequence. Without the pretty visual spectacle to go along with it.

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I'd say its probably looking at a 5 out of 10.

With my only other comments, pointing out how their discord is full of people and none of them are playing HAAK. (Some are even playing other Metroidvanias instead.) And because it always happens, I found a reddit comment in response to criticism about its controls. Suggesting "There's bad controls in all games." Like my man has never played Hollow Knight before. But seriously, how is that a defense? And why do people insist on downplaying other (much better) things in order to defend something they like?

And I'm not saying I hate redditors.

Again, I don't hate redditors.

I'm just saying, I'm repeating how much I don't hate redditors. In a tone that might indicate that I in fact hate redditors.

Nnnnooooo...

Don't know why anyone would have a problem with them frankly. Seems to be out of nowhere, far as I'm concerned...