Just got a summons for jury duty.

<sarcastic monotone> Yay. </sarcastic monotone>

Summons is for Rockingham County, NC "for the week beginning Friday, March 6, 2026." (Bold and underline theirs.)

Well, technically, I "got" it on January 20, or at least that's the date on the form, but since my sister with whom I currently live picked up the mail during that time period, and she had been staying with one of my other sisters for roughly half of January and half of February, my mail only just got handed to me about 15 minutes ago.

This is a first for me, so I have no real idea what to expect, other than what the Internet tells me, which isn't too awfully much. Hopefully, it'll just be a one-to-two-day thing at most, and not some high profile, multi-week murder trial or some shit. And that's assuming I even get selected for a jury, I guess. Either way, I suppose I'll be able to say that I've finally done jury duty, or at least got summoned for it, if nothing else. *shrug*

"Highguard Was Secret Wuslop | Castle Super Beast 360"

Watch on YouTube

Woolie, in a questioning voice: "You want to encourage people to take swings for... good ideas...? that could be cool?"

Which... Highguard was not, nor was it ever going to be. Because it was a fucking live-service/GaaS "free-to-play 'PvP raid shooter.'" I don't care how "good" it might have been (in some other universe that is not this one), because even a so-called "good" live-service/GaaS "free-to-play 'PvP raid shooter'" is still a fucking live-service/GaaS "free-to-play 'PvP raid shooter.'"

Yeah, the Tencent news is probably the flush that'll finally get this turd to go the rest of the way down, especially since Tencent apparently didn't even want it known in the first place, presumably so that it could be (disingenuously/fraudulently) marketed as an "indie" game. (Basically, Wildlight Entertainment is about as "indie" as Larian is, more or less.)

Woolie: "'Video games are hard to make' is never a valid defense." <-- This.

I'm totally in favor of giving the benefit of the doubt to small indie games made by one person, even if it might be janky.

Which, again... Highguard most assuredly was not, especially with this news about Tencent "secretly" funding it.

Woolie: "We need funding disclosure documents to be made public, specifically so the we can know how mean to be to you. *pauses, laughs, then raises voice and speaks more emphatically* Funding disclosure needs to be public, so that we may accurately be as mean as we need to be to the video game."

Anyway, I expect this cycle to spin yet again when the new live-service Marathon game releases in a week or so. Though, as Pat pointed out, nobody is trying to pretend like Marathon is some "indie" game, at least.