Castle Magus

Here's yet another article that completely misconstrues the goal of Stop Killing Games.

"There are consumer campaigns, such as Stop Killing Games, which are lobbying governments to introduce legislation to dissuade publishers and developers from taking titles offline."

Nope. Wrong. Incorrect. Stop Killing Games is not trying to "dissuade publishers and developers from taking titles offline."[1] Stop Killing Games is trying to dissuade pubs/devs from completely shitcanning games when they inexorably do take them offline and is, instead, trying to encourage pubs/devs to modify the games so that they will continue to be at least partially playable even offline, without requiring perpetual pub/dev suppport, or at the very least give gamers themselves the ability the modify the games in that way, without suing them for IP infringement or what-the-fuck-ever, when the inevitable point is reached where the pubs/devs no longer want to support said games.

That's what Stop Killing Games actually wants.[1]

What I, personally want is for the modern video game industry to stop sharting out "live service"/"GaaS" games altogether. I am wholly in favor of "killing" those games while they're still in the womb. While I am completely fine with what SKG wants (i.e. preserving, at least in part, such games that have already been created and released[1]), I'm also perfectly fine if the end result is "fewer games may come out" (i.e. they don't make that shit at all, in the first place). If the pubs/devs in question are unwilling to make/incapable of making anything other than those shit-sucking "live service"/"GaaS" games, then I'm perfectly hunky-dory with those pubs/devs going out of business entirely.

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[1] From the FAQ, linked above, fourth question:

Q: Aren't you asking companies to support games forever? Isn't that unrealistic?

A: No, we are not asking that at all. We are in favor of publishers ending support for a game whenever they choose. What we are asking for is that they implement an end-of-life plan to modify or patch the game so that it can run on customer systems with no further support from the company being necessary. We agree that it is unrealistic to expect companies to support games indefinitely and do not advocate for that in any way. Additionally, there are already real-world examples of publishers ending support for online-only games in a responsible way, such as:

'Gran Turismo Sport' published by Sony
'Knockout City' published by Velan Studios
'Mega Man X DiVE' published by Capcom
'Scrolls / Caller's Bane' published by Mojang AB
'Duelyst' published by Bandai Namco Entertainment
etc.

"And now we present to you: some atrocious ideas for reboots. Just absolute trash. You're welcome."

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I would watch none of these. *thumbs up*

Like Woolie, I thought Pat was just doing a "bit" at the start of this video. No, it seems he was not doing a bit and actually was legitimately clueless about Stardew Valley (and also Harvest Moon apparently... and Terraria...).

Also: "I immediately understood that, like, attempting to 'do it all' will lead to madness. Like, absolute just insanity. Just crazy people behavior."

This is true, and it's why I've only once made it into Summer (the second season) of this game and how most of my playthrough attempts have died on the vine before I ever even get out of Spring. And even then, I still rather often briefly think of maybe giving Stardew Valley another try someday. Maybe this time will be the time I actually approach it all chill-like and don't get frozen by choice paralysis and abandon ship entirely.

Also, if/when I ever do attempt a "for realsies" playthrough of Stardew Valley, I will absolutely never play it with mods, not even the basic baby shit that Pat is talking about, at least not on the first "for realsies" playthrough. On the rare off-chance I ever actually completed a "for realsies" playthrough, though, then I might consider mods at some point.

Pat, again: "...it just slams you with all these suggestions and you're like oh my god that's a lot of fucking Jesus Christ that's a lot of fucking things that I could *sharp inhale/exhale* And like as soon as that happened, I felt like a tiny, like, voice in the back of my head going 'Make sure to use the most out of every single fucking day.'" Yes, again, this exactly.

And Woolie: "You gotta be in the mood. You have to be in the mood for this kind of cozy, vibe, chill, laid-back, light gaming experience... ...you have to identify when you're feeling that particular way and go for it."

And then they start/resume talking about shit like Satisfactory and Factorio, which is... uh... kind of similar to Stardew Valley, if you squint and tilt your head a bit, maybe.

But then, I'm a guy who "recently" started re-playthroughs of every X[1] game (I'm currently up to Terrain Conflict again), including the ones I didn't actually touch much the first time through (i.e. X: Tension and, later [in six months or so after I finish my TC playthrough and another playthrough of Albion Prelude], X Rebirth, which I absolutely plan to do my level best to actually complete this time around), before returning to X4 as my "forever game," so I don't have much room to talk.

[1] - Not to be confused with 卐, the shitty social media site formerly known as Twitter which Elon Musk has been driving into the grave for the past few years.

"Can't wait until the day we doo-woop these assholes away for good. But there's every chance that doo-woop may never come."

(EDIT) And, naturally, MAGAts are coming out of the woodwork and into the comments under the video. (/EDIT)

They're talking about TV shows and anime, but that very specific definition of "filler" sounds like "Man, what's with all these side-quests in this video game that have nothing to do with the main quest? Get that shit out of here."

(Also, another "out of pocket" misuse in this clip. And this one was uniquely strange. "'Out of pocket' is the correct term to describe that move." No, it's not, and it's exceedingly strange to hear someone say that it is, at least to me.)

Trump threatens Cuba: "Nice country youse got dere... be a real shame if somethin' happened to it."

Three things about this.

First, it's like, well, a heartily sarcastic "congratulations" to Larian for (seemingly) claiming to take a stance that should be the absolute baseline bare-minimum standard that all decent video game companies should take (though it's long been pretty obvious that maybe "decent" "video game company" is an oxymoron). They don't deserve praise for "committing" to doing what they should have been doing all along, from the start.

Second, what a bunch of typical corporate doublespeak, trying to turn it back around on their critics. "I can see where the confusion comes from. Even though the words that explicitly came out of my mouth made it seem like we were doing the bad thing, we're actually not doing the bad thing, so I'm sorry that you were confused by the things I said previously. So, to clear up all this confusion, I am saying now that we're definitely not doing the bad thing that everyone was confused by my own words into thinking we were doing."

Third, except...

"'Having said that, we continuously try to improve the speed with which we can try things out. The more iterations we can do, the better in general the gameplay is,' he said.

"'We think generative AI can help with this and so we're trying things out across departments. Our hope is that it can aid us to refine ideas faster, leading to a more focused development cycle, less waste, and ultimately, a higher-quality game.'"

So, basically, everything he just tried to say about how they're actually not going to do the bad thing that everyone was so "confused" about them doing based on the words he'd said previously... was complete bullshit, and they are going to be doing the bad thing, anyway. "We're not going to do the bad thing that everyone hates for that one specific case that got us in trouble, but we are going to continue doing the bad thing in all the other cases. Apologies if you were confused by that."

This is the first Jim Cornette podcast clip (from back in August) that I've listened to in good long while, and it's one of the saddest things I've heard in a good long while.

Context: Travis Heckel was the thumbnail artist for the Jim Cornette Experience for many years. He was friends with both Jim and Brian Last for many years. At some point, Travis Heckel apparently decided that it was a good idea to start posting incredibly asinine and ludicrously looney Trumpanzee dogshit on social media. At some point after that, Jim Cornette found out about it. Travis Heckel decided that posting MAGAt insanity on the Internet was apparently more important to him than continuing to work for Jim Cornette (as in, Heckel chose to quit rather than to stop being a fucking jackass). As such, Travis Heckel no longer works for Jim Cornette. This video explains the whole thing, at least from the perspective of Jim Cornette and Brian Last, anyway. (And, honestly, I don't give a flying fuck about what Travis Heckel's perspective on the matter may be at this point, because fuck him.)

Also, in this clip, Jim Cornette is, to put it mildly, as characteristically unkind toward the current President as he ever has been, which was nice to hear. The sad part was that they talked about Travis Heckel almost as if he was a victim of some terminal disease, more than a villain or, you know, just some stupid dipshit saying stupid dipshit things, which is... probably not entirely inaccurate, to be charitable. The RWNJ lie-manufacturing apparatus has had a very long time to corrupt people, way before Trump ever came down that goddamned golden escalator, and it's still running to this day at excess capacity, after all.

Anyway, in conclusion, to hell forever with Donald Trump and with those in charge of maintaining the perpetual RWNJ lie-spewing machine that inflicts brainrot in people like, apparently, Travis Heckel, and the sooner the better, as usual.

Went to the grocery store tonight and was planning to get a taco salad from Wendy's on the way home.

"Sorry, we don't have any salads at all tonight. We don't have the bowls for them."

So... I decided to go to Bojangles instead and just get a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit. They have "AI" taking drive through orders there, now. Urrrrgh. So, after the AI tried to upsell me on shit I didn't want, both before and after I placed my order, I got to the window.

"Um, we only have sausage and cheese tonight. Will that be all right?"

Just to note, Bo-fucking-Linda didn't say word one about there being no egg available.

So... now I'm eating a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit, sans egg. It's... not too bad, I guess. Not great, but not inedible. *shrug.* They did, at least, knock some off the price. And I think I got more sausage than I would've otherwise (though I'd have preferred egg to extra sausage). The thing I've got is two sausage patties with cheese between them, in a biscuit.

Silver lining, at least I'm having a better night than whoever warranted a firetruck, the little SUV that follows the firetruck, and an ambulance that went by, sirens blaring, while I was sitting in the Bojangles drive through.