Nessa

9 hours ago, Alkpaz said:

Well, in comparison to what it is like now.. Battlestar is mild.

I agree. It was woke but nothing like the Expanse or even that horrible Witcher series. What really turned me off from BG was the story. It started great, but certainly didn't end up there. Too much weird metaphysical nonsense. I probably would have been throwing my own monitor out the window if I'd watched it to the end. Let's just drop all our knowledge and live like cave men? WHAT!?

9 hours ago, Alkpaz said:

PBS with their documentaries talk about how systemic racism started in 1619 and progressed from there, all the while talking about historical figures being slave owners and rabid racists. (Literally, they use the term "racist" and "systemic") It used to be more subtle, now it is blatant. There is a difference, so much so, it could just evaporate the moderate leaning populists. 

Now there's something I haven't seen in eons. PBS! That still exists!? I remember them being ridiculous all the way back at university. I can only imagine how monotonous they are now!!

In fact I have a story about that. There was a science show on PBS and they happened to do a spot on the discovery made by one of the professors at my university. He showed it in class as an example of how stupid the media is. Apparently the people on the "science" show were so stupid they completely screwed up even the most basic aspect of his discovery. Imagine what they get wrong now!!!

I actually haven't had a TV for.....  geez over 10 years!? WOW. We've got a projector system that we use to watch mostly old films. Going through the 30s right now and they are surprisingly great even that far back!

And you made a mistake when you brought up Battlestar!

I watched that online about oh... 6 or so years ago. I remember getting pretty far into it but it was full of woke crap even back then. The humans were so monumentally asinine I was mostly siding with the robots. Until they got asinine. I recall quitting when the annoying blond pilot (yeah I know everybody liked her, but I thought she was terrible) somehow returned to life thanks to some divine ... angel thing. I've since read how it ended and what a bunch of crap! I'm glad I didn't finish it!!! I think that show is what really put me off any TV for so long.

I have watched one other show, and I may get zonked for what I'm going to say about it. The Mandalorian. I thought it was boring to astoundingly stupid. Just when it maybe started getting interesting, they'd go and ruin it with some nonsense. And no I didn't -cry- when Luke showed up at the end of the last season, I was instead rolling my eyes. (Crying over Luke? REALLY!? ) I'm apparently so over Star Wars I want nothing to do with any part of it. I won't be watching the next season nor do I care about any of the 30+ shows they announced. I'm done.

Back to the Expanse, I'm finally up to the current season. I now soundly LOATHE Naomi to the point I'm mentally skipping her scenes. (SOO UGLY and she's getting worse at acting. Didn't think that was possible!) I've softened up a little on Holdon. He's not so annoying or maybe he hasn't had enough screen time to annoy me yet. In a move that is entirely NOT surprising, of course there is yet another BAD FATHER. Yes, there cannot ever be a decent father figure in modern anything UNLESS... the father is a woman.

TLDR: modern stuff is crap.

I don't know anything at all about cyberpunk stuff but I did like the atmosphere of Omega in Mass Effect 2. Which supposedly was based on Blade Runner. All they had to do was make a city on that order.

From the screenies Night City just looks like a relatively clean city in California populated by freaks. ... Which is pretty close to reality so I'm not sure that even can work as scifi. (California was minus one freak when I left! Plenty left though! )

Apparently buying a coffee "costs lives". According to some ad from the UK at least.

I hate humans. I'm getting a coffee.

Alright, so according to Google denying internet (or rather Google services) is a "violation of basic human rights".

If that's the case, apparently Google is also literally committing crimes against humanity by banning so many people from their platforms.

Hey now I hear banks are in on it! No credit cards or bank for you wrong-thinker! Off to the re-education camps!

Kind of funny, where I am everyone hates banks. To the point they don't keep their money in them at all. Starting to understand why!

1 hour ago, ritualclarity said:

since all the companies are doing this degraded body / looks.. I bet it has to do with the time and effort. The give the minimum necessary to get the job done so that the game can be sent out to make money asap. Not that they are actually trying to make them ugly.. just a part of the modern gaming biz. It is almost like.. OK.. we made awesome models, sexy models so we know we can do that now.. we are board and don't care anymore.

I'm not sure that's it. It doesn't take a lot of effort (as we all know via mods or those of us that make them) to make even a slightly attractive NPC.  It appears much of the western development scene has become stuck with this idea that humans have to look hideous. Note how the eastern devs don't have this problem at all. And you can go back in time to previous western games where the NPCs somehow look so much better than today. (Excepting all Bethsoft titles of course. They NEVER looked good! )

I have asked around about this but I work in casual games so we're not really "in the know" I guess? Everybody notices it but doesn't seem to have an answer. The only rumor I've got is that ... some of the proclivities in the west at the moment, are making it more advantageous to be ugly. Meaning women appear more masculine. Not sure I buy that. But can't deny the reality of it. Just check almost any western game and there it is. Seems even CDPR fell to it as well.

I get that the west is I guess collectively depressed, but that's no reason to have only ugly representations of humans!

OK, this one:

The other thing I'm noticing perusing the various characters.....  guys. Are. Ugly. At least in CP '77. Maybe CDPR just fell to the "every human must be ugly" phenomena that hit western devs around......  when? Was it 2017? We can't count Bethsoft because they've always made hideous people. But OTHER studios were doing OK. Until...  now.

1 hour ago, driftscape said:

The females in CP2077 look like junkies. Even Judy half the time. i liked the female in the 2012 teaser. She was purrrrdy The game looked intriguing back then. I can' help but see the game now just looking more like a GTA with a somewhat cyberpunk theme to it.

Oh right, the one that was in the dress and got dead or something? Yes, I guess back then they could still model an attractive human. Something happened between then... and 2020.

2 minutes ago, ritualclarity said:

It is the same type of romance options .. at least done the same way.. (video clip not active etc and about the same lengh of time) The issue is they don't have as many as Witcher or for the JoyToys (prostitutes) which they hinted around would be some thing in the game) is so few (one male and one female) that is it.  There are many more options in Witcher. Just shows  everyone that they just rushed this out the door.

 

What gets me is the attractiveness quotient. (I just made that up but it should certainly be a thing.) The only one remotely decent is Judy and she's half as attractive as in the promotional stuff. (For no reason!) Otherwise girls get nothing but ugly. It's even worse for guy characters since they can't romance Judy.

Now compare that to........ actually I'll just do it!

Witcher 3 -- circa 2015

The last two of which were minor NPCs.

CP '77 - Circa 2020

It's like they released a half-assed version of Judy and then thought... "Eh, screw it."

What is going on here? Is CDPR going for the Bethsoft NPC design ethos??

So... did a little cheating as I was curious. Looked up the romance options on the CP '77 wiki.

...

Did I say years before I got the game? I may never get this game at all! Is this really the same company that did Witcher 3!?

Well. Seems the purge is already starting. Social media is all in unison going:

You know, might be a good idea to get this place mirrored on an onion server or something similar. When they run out of political targets, places like this might be next. I've heard of a couple modding sites that have done this supposedly. (Need to check up on those to be sure.)

Going to be interesting to see how this affects game censorship. At this rate it's going to be censored like hell just for the "land of the free". And Germany. They censor everything in Germany. OK, Australia is pretty bad too.

Side note regarding Australia: I'm told that apparently, the video game censorship is so whacked out down there, some devs don't even bother with the country at all!

Take the following as somebody coming at this from the outside. (I can't really claim being American anymore. Been gone too long.)

Thanks to Alkpaz I've been listening to a bunch of I guess "right" youtube people. And I'm baffled. If they'd channel half their rage over the Capitol nonsense into getting stuff done, there wouldn't be any SJW's left! Why are they so upset over the recent protest? Compared to a few months ago it was a boy scout outing!! And then there's the whinging about "changing the narrative". Come on! The only thing you'll get from a discussion with an SJW/nutjob is a migraine!

I don't know. I remember the right being a hell of a lot tougher. Could it be that the real right has been banned on Youtube and this is all that's left? Maybe I should hit bitchute.

9 hours ago, Alkpaz said:

@Nessa if you thought Bill Whittle was amped up.. check out Glenn Beck, I thought he might get a heart attack.

Whoa. Yeah wine isn't going to help here. He needs some serious medication. NOW.

I think there will be a tech censorship purge coming next. Or I should say another one. We've had quite a few already. Might even hit "adult" sites. Lots of mobs trying to ruin lives for the ever changing "wrong think".

As for inflation, yeah. If they keep sending out checks and printing money, that can't have a good cumulative effect. It's like they want to create the dystopian hell hole Earth depicted in the Expanse.

4 hours ago, ritualclarity said:

On the second comment. NMS?

I was referring to a "probably not leak" that was put up on... I think it was reddit. Anyway, here's a link with the rumor. (Apologies for the sites, gaming sites are just terrible.)

And later it was supposedly debunked.

I'm just curious why they'd want to debunk the idea that it was making a comeback. Isn't that a positive thing? Or maybe they thought they've lied enough, stop now?

OK this turned into a book. Sorry about that. A consequence of having no Americani around. Just skip to the end. Easier!
And I guess this is still cringe. I mean... LOOK at this giant wall of a post!

6 hours ago, driftscape said:

This is what I've always thought. And I don't mean to dive into religion, but this is why conservatives tend to lose. They keep looking up for answers. God isn't going to come and save us.

First, that guy needs to have some wine and relax. Just a few months back cities all over the US were burning and people getting killed all the time. This one was just a "largely peaceful" demonstration.

My primary interest here are his vague historical comments. I just got done reading a ton of books on the revolution. (Ran out of romance novels.) And since nobody way out here gives a flying #(*&$# about some Americano thing, I'll write to you all! (Say revolution out here and they go "Garibaldi?" )

• The tea party had to happen in order to build up to Lexington and Concord. Curiously there were guys that participated in the tea party that were also in the army. That kills his first point. And hey, what's so bad about the tea party? They got to play dress up and send a message to England. A win-win!
   
• His point on an "American army" had me laughing. Discipline? The original army was a mob! People from one colony hated people from another. They wouldn't listen to commands. They were frequently drunk. Some couldn't even load their muskets let alone aim. They'd suddenly leave if they felt like it. And yes they did execute prisoners on occasion. (My opinion they deserved it.) Hardly a group of paladins. It was a total mess! I remember one of Washington's first orders was half the camp clean up and the other bathe.
   
• There were people calling for calm, just like this guy. They ended up being branded loyalists and being driven out for the most part. Some of them weren't loyalists at all but got lumped in with the Brits anyway.
  I remember one story of a painter. He wasn't a loyalist but had to pay the bills so he did some portraits for some brits. After several mobs visiting his house he finally left for England despite not even liking it.
   
• Even when the "army" was approaching a somewhat organized state, they would regularly loot abandoned loyalist houses and property. Defacing royal property was a favorite pastime. They had a particular love for re-imagining portraits of royals. (A shame none survived, I bet they'd have been hilarious!)
  The flip side here is the brits were absolutely horrific in their looting. To the point of wiping people out. The most shocking one was they basically mutilated a pregnant woman and wrote a message in her blood. WW2 stuff there. The brits also promised freedom to slaves and then when the war was lost let them all starve to death. Lovely people back then.
   

The interesting bit about this guy's video is it reminds me a LOT of Washington. At the beginning of the war he'd write letters about how terrible the men were. How they were nothing but peasants basically. (Washington was of the upper class of the day.) However by the end of the war he'd changed his tune dramatically and rather liked them all.

I guess all the above to say: perhaps this guy should embrace a little of the mob mentality. It is how it all started. If he had tried to say the tea party was "horrid" back then he'd have been run out of Boston. Likely literally tar and feathered.

14 hours ago, ritualclarity said:

In eight years Cyberpunk will be the new No Man Sky...

 

OK so... anybody here actually played NMS? Spaceflight is stupid. Asteroids appear out of nowhere. LOD is a mess. And eventually all the planets AND creatures start looking the same even if there are effectively an infinite amount. (Last time I played was a few updates after the organic ships. I haven't had a desire to return for awhile now.)

I did like base building (when you switch to the fly mode). I found I preferred FO4's moronic (but attractive thanks to mods) settlers to weirdo ugly aliens... that are also moronic.

Back to CP '77. Apparently.... that rumor about them making a NMS comeback has been refuted by a CDPR person. Which really had me wondering: "So... they're saying they ARE NOT making an NMS style comeback!?"  What was the point of refuting that? Even if it was all false it was generally a positive rumor. For gamers anyway.

I know things are serious and no disrespect to whomever this guy is but.... I saw the hand gesture and just thought:

Will there be any modding at all for TES6? Now that Bethsoft screwed up (again) and got itself bought, what reason does MS have to bother with it? They can just release a title, cash in and move on like other titles. They might think having to deal with so-called adult content might be more trouble than it is worth.

Regarding CDPR, I'm wondering if the remastered Witcher 3 is going to be a thing now. Will the money all go to fixing CP '77? I have heard a lot about how No Man's Sky somehow managed to make good. (Actually it didn't in my opinion. ) Maybe they could eventually turn it around by adding in everything they promised. Or even a portion of what they promised might do it. It will be interesting to see what they do. Whatever the case, it's going to require more than just stomping bugs to turn this around.

After watching some of these I've noticed something odd.

Why do they have to pronounce "Cyberpunk 2077" or "CD Project Red" fully every time? After the first time it's redundant. It's like they can't shorten it to CDPR or CP '77. And often times it is said in several sentences in a row which sounds absolutely ridiculous. Is this another pronoun issue? Are they (haha) scared of pronouns now??

They're going to need a hell of lot of patches and DLCs plus a 3rd person mod to interest me when I take a peek at this again... in several years.

Why the obsession with fake food anyway? You'd think they'd just promote: "Eat a pill for lunch!" That would be an easier sell than "Have this beetle for breakfast!" or... "Printed fake meat! YUM!"

1 hour ago, ritualclarity said:

I liked the Time and Scope section. ....

I've been on projects that had the exact same issues. You'd have a desired scope and then somebody would arbitrarily (it seemed, probably some marketing decision) decide on a time to release. Then it was scramble to get all the features done at the last minute. And of course, inevitably it was a disastrous launch.

I've long thought Bethsoft had similar issues. Grand ideas but poor management. So you get this patched together mess of an alpha game that just barely runs on release. (Or not at all if we talk about FO76. ) A little digging always turns up tons of partially finished quests and features that were scrapped. And also, like Cyberpunk, they have astronomical budgets and huge teams. I really think that guy was spot on about the efficiency of large teams. There's a point where you just have too many people.

In Cyberpunk's case it's in some ways a lot worse because we have a not insignificant list of promised features that are very conspicuously absent from the release version. Sure, Bethsoft lies too, but we're used to taking whatever number Todd says and subtracting two zeroes. Up till now CDPR actually made great stuff.

20 hours ago, driftscape said:

He makes some great points.

He does indeed. Especially about the smaller teams!

It was already enough to have to deal with 1st person nonsense. Now...... I may let this one percolate -years- before considering it.

Eh.. Jim is fun occasionally. Mainly when he's smacking Bethsoft around.  Then again, that is low hanging fruit.

He's really fixated on "crunch" though. Virtually everything has crunch. I had a "crunch" during finals every semester. I get a "crunch" when I have to scramble to update mods for a game update. (Usually it only lasts a weekend but it's still there!) It's just the way making software goes. Right before release you're always going to be working extra. Sometimes it's a frenetic multiple week grind. Better planning can reduce the crunch when it arrives, but it's always going to arrive. And certainly if you've got crappy management it's going to be hell and you'll probably push out Bethsoft level work.

However, if you're in a good team.... I actually like it. You're busy, you're doing some of your best work and at the end you have a hopefully successful rollout. Then, after any release stuff is quelled, you usually get a bunch of time off OR reduced work load. What's not to love?

That said, if you're too far from being done, POSTPONE. A lot of the bigger studios seem to have trouble with that.

I'm reminded of his review of the Last of Us ....whatever. (The game has 0 interest for me, so I don't care either way.) His conclusion was the game was "too long". His point was you were stuck in a depressing, terrible setting with a story full of bad things. And... you spend too much time in it. He said all that, and couldn't simply admit he didn't like it. It gave me the impression he couldn't say he didn't like it for fear of being "on the wrong side". I haven't seen a lot of his videos but after that I was always cautious with him. I tend to go scorched earth with SJW's these days. Side with them a little and I'm breaking the launch nukes button.