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“Expedite”, as if the company doesn’t have direct control of it’s own systems. What a load of bull.

Looks like their keeping to the original aesthetic, but with modern graphics. That’s cool. They even kept the same Frank style vs DR4 (or the weird ass DR2 model). Curious what the gameplay will look like.

I thought this felt off for the dev to do. I wonder if he has a legal case for his game being stolen/co-opted like this.

I feel for these studios getting treated like crap. With these shutdowns from corps like MS and Embracer, I can only hope that indie devs learn the hard lessons taught here that conglomerates can never be trusted to operate in the interest of their subsidiaries. All buyouts are to these corps is the addition of “assets” to their spreadsheet, to be ditched the moment it’s more convenient than keeping them around.

They can’t even properly check their copy on critical infrastructure. Top notch work over there, top to bottom.

I know there’s the argument that “Reagan lead to Trump”, but I don’t think that’s particularly applicable. Also, Reagan’s “legacy” as it where has had 40 some years to really seep in. Trump has only had 8, and even in just those 8 he’s at the very least giving Reagan a run for his money.

And what was the guy doing that he couldn’t take care of it?

Nobody says they “built a trailer”. Created, edited, made, maybe even “put together”. But not “built”. It technically works, but it’s still wrong.

*Thinking about it more, I’d bet the program mixed up the word for house trailer or something else physical. Build/built would track better for that.

“Built”? Did an LLM “build” their title, too?

They’ve literally already released sequels, with another coming in September.

Wonder if she’s the wife of this guy’s neighbor: https://files.catbox.moe/bii7n8.jpg

“Didn’t forget”? They never stopped.

It’s not really their fault though

Definitely not, and to clarify, I am laying any blame there is to be doled out at the feet of companies.

I do wonder if it’s reversible at this point, though. I don’t see any company choosing to reverse course, at least not in a way that would cause a large-scale shift. Incapable users are the best they could hope for - uninterested in seeking out anything other than what they are handed and, if they ever did decide to look around, unable to adapt to “harsher” alternatives. Legislation certainly isn’t going to be expected. No government is going to mandate citizens have a “worse” experience. Perhaps a purposeful cultural shift, but that would take a lot of coordination of people that likely don’t see the issue or simply don’t care. I feel like we’re past the watershed here, as frustrating and concerning as that is.

All this really means is they grew up navigating digital spaces socially. I’ve discovered first hand that the generation at large has little-to-no knowledge of the technical workings of even the computers they use regularly, imo due to the “apple-fication” (one button? Really?) of digital devices. Most exclusively use their cell phone as their digital device, or a chromebook provided by their school, all of which have been streamlined to the extreme to “enhance” the user experience, but have in actuality given them absolutely zero-experience learning how to troubleshoot or incentive to dig into how their devices operate. I’ve had to walk teens through how to navigate the file directories on their laptops.

In the past, the only people to be “techies” (ie people seeking out spaces like the Internet) were ones willing and able to deal with hurdles and issues, and the window is apparently quiet narrow for people who grew up with tech (to an extent) and also had to learn how to handle issues like that. The majority of others are either those described above, or those that never saw tech as important or worth it (though we’re also seeing the consequences of those people finding their way onto the “one-button” internet in meme/conspiracy addicted boomers).

Read more than the first sentence of the comment.

I’m here for “Jon Stewart’s Daily Political Therapy Hour”

Here’s some updated thoughts on the demos I’ve gotten to:

• Lightyear Frontier was a fairly interesting take on the usual survival-crafter, turning a mech into a toolbox of sorts. It was a pretty limited demo, but had some intriguing mechanics. However, what was hinted at beyond the demo seemed fairly small, but it’s unclear how much was just a hint for the demo and how much exists outside of that.

• Ultros was an interesting platformer, but it felt a bit jerky to me. Fantastic visuals, though.

• Pacific Drive was probably my favorite demo of the group. Perhaps a tad more linear than I’d prefer, but the looting and crafting tied with the supernatural atmosphere was very appealing. The demo gave me just enough of a taste to leave me eager for the full game.

• Welcome to Paradize was surprisingly fun. The snarky dialogue isn’t super my jam, but the gameplay was fun enough. Interested in what the full game would look like.

• Star Trucker has promise as a somewhat more whimsical Elite: Dangerous style game (with inner-cockpit gameplay to boot!), but the demo is a bit strict, requiring a full restart instead of having saves or checkpoints, so I didn’t make it all the way through. Will be keeping my eye on it, though.

• Balatro was a surprisingly appealing game to me as someone who generally finds the deck-builder genre unappealling. Might be keeping this one on my radar as well.

• Pepper Grinder was a pretty entertaining platformer that plays very smoothly for how frantic it can feel at times. Killer title menu music, too, which I hope is indicative of the rest of the game’s soundtrack.

• Duck Detective was a playful and cute little deduction game. The dialogue was great, reminding me a bit of the old Sam & Max games, and the aesthetic is pretty great too. Demo was scandalously short, but might pick it up in the future.

What other changes did 13 bring to the show?

In particular - a female Doctor, a black Doctor, a more concerted effort to bring in non-white actors (though still not amazing), etc. The kind of stuff Internet edgelords latch onto and make an issue out of. Again, not wanting to imply that’s what you’re doing. It’s just impossible to ignore for me regarding the overwhelming criticism of that run, which I generally enjoyed.

Back to the writing, though. I don’t think any of what you brought up makes it awful or terrible. With the “it’s just x from y” critique, all kinds of stories re-use ideas or slap a different name on them. I just see that as how storytelling works. There’s not an infinite amount of ways to illustrate everything, so there’s pretty much always going to be apparent connections to prior media we’ve seen. I don’t think that makes it bad, just not amazingly innovative.

And in regards to the backstory reveals, I don’t really see the character as an “immortal god” anymore than I did before. Immortal ≠ all-powerful, and for all we know, they’re just part of some other alien race that’s no more (or maybe even less) powerful than Timelords at the height of their power. We just don’t know, so it seems a bit premature to jump to “immortal god” when nothing has substantially changed other than some lore. At least in nuWho, The Doctor has always been just-shy of infallible already. Unless they start giving the character comic-book style super powers, I don’t really mind it.

*Preemptive apologies for the wall-o-text. I honestly tried to keep it brief.

then it just solves whatever that was over the course of a few minutes and skips over to another.

It was definitely briskly paced, but I didn’t feel like that made it awful. It’s also worth keeping in mind that the series was made around the start of the pandemic with some pretty big restrictions. That doesn’t mean it’s automatically good, of course, but I feel it deserves a bit of a break for imperfections.

it completely changed the dynamic of the show and retconned the doctor’s entire backstory

I guess I just don’t see it that way. Change is inevitable if a show wants to keep going, and mystery is what keeps most people engaged. “What does it mean?!”, “What will this lead to next!?”, etc. Whether that’s delivered well is up to opinion, I suppose, but I don’t think Flux utterly dropped the ball there.

In regards to The Doctor’s importance to the universe, they’ve kind of always been a not-so-directly-called-out “chosen one”. I think Moffat was the most brazen with that angle, tbh. Not Chibnal.

And has “The Doctor started the Timelords” plot twist not been screaming out to everyone else for forever already? Personally I thought they would end up revealed to be half-human at some point, too, so this felt pretty mild to me in regards to “completely changing the dynamic of the show”.

I dunno. I just don’t see what is apparently super obvious to everyone else. It felt like pretty standard Dr Who to me and all the grousing about it feels overdone and amplified by others that are more upset about the other changes that 13 brought to the show, that the whole arc felt tainted by, which sucks. (To be clear, I’m not saying that’s what you’re complaining about, just that it’s an ever-present shadow on 13’s run).

I don’t really get everyone’s problems with Flux, personally. Was it perfect? No, but I’ve watched it twice now along with the prior seasons and it feels at least on par.