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33 votes
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I met the activists getting arrested for fighting fossil fuels
20 votes -
Anti-trans school board candidates backed by Ron DeSantis get crushed in Florida
58 votes -
New coronavirus vaccines are now approved
34 votes -
Uzumaki | Teaser - Coming September 28
26 votes -
What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
16 votes -
Xbox unveils four new accessibility offerings
28 votes -
Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started...
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
6 votes -
Against Netflix
16 votes -
The US government spends millions to open grocery stores in food deserts. The real test is their survival.
35 votes -
You should own your games
31 votes -
Former US President Donald Trump’s post of fake Taylor Swift endorsement is his latest embrace of AI-generated images
36 votes -
Condé Nast joins other publishers in allowing OpenAI to access its content
8 votes -
The Piano Lesson | Official trailer
6 votes -
AI tech giants hide dirty energy with outdated carbon accounting rules
12 votes -
Sweden and Denmark will summon tech companies over ads on their platforms that are posted by gangs to recruit young Swedes to commit violent crimes in the Nordics
17 votes -
What happens when influencers turn off comments
15 votes -
Best Australian books of the 21st century, nominated by literary experts
3 votes -
Chick-Fil-A hatches plans for streaming service as reality TV comes home to roost
17 votes -
Eight basic rules for causal inference
9 votes -
‘Alien: Romulus’ $41.5m scores record openings for Fede Alvarez and Cailee Spaeny; second best for franchise; global launch at $108.2m
35 votes -
Neuralink: PRIME study progress update — second participant
8 votes -
Black Birch – Fallen (2024)
4 votes -
A professor is suing Facebook over its recommendation algorithms
23 votes -
Valve bans Razer and Wooting’s new keyboard features in Counter-Strike 2
43 votes -
11th century contract provides evidence of same-sex marriage in medieval Spain
25 votes -
Read the Lewiston, Maine, mass shooting investigation final report
19 votes -
Disney seeking dismissal of Raglan Road death lawsuit because victim was Disney+ subscriber
111 votes -
Monster Hunter Wilds | Third trailer - Lala Barina & Scarlet Forest reveal
18 votes -
While southern Europe swelters, Denmark's mild temperatures and extended daylight hours are providing the perfect summer escape for many
8 votes -
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II | Official gameplay showcase
9 votes -
Microsoft will train AI on user data
44 votes -
Sweden to kill 20% of its brown bears in annual hunt – conservationists say number of hunting licences granted is too high and condemn it as ‘pure trophy hunting’
15 votes -
Y2K | Official trailer
27 votes -
The Guggenheim’s scapegoat
8 votes -
Why Lego is so expensive | So Expensive
28 votes -
Why your vet bill is so high
41 votes -
Trench warfare [in Russian invasion of Ukraine] incubates hardcore infections: overuse of antibiotics is a global public health emergency
16 votes -
PinkNews CEO recorded calling trans issues "contentious" on the basis it jeopardises ad revenue
38 votes -
Secret Level | Teaser trailer
15 votes -
The Circassian genocide, Russian Empire's systematic mass murder, ethnic cleansing and expulsion of 95–97% of the Circassians, resulting in 1 to 1.5 million deaths during the Russo-Circassian War
26 votes -
Ode to the cute boy I met from Surrey
Pork bun; pot belly; spare me the tears; I'm getting on; you're getting old; you're getting off here. I can't quite tell; it's hard to see; you're somewhere in my mind; Or is it me? It's hard to...
Pork bun; pot belly; spare me the tears;
I'm getting on; you're getting old; you're getting off here.
I can't quite tell; it's hard to see; you're somewhere in my mind;
Or is it me? It's hard to see; you're losing—I think I'll try. No, no, I won't.
This happens sometimes. All the time.
I think. Do I forget?
A half forgotten memory. Still vaguely tinged with some regret31 votes -
What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)
What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was...
What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.
If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!
7 votes -
Oxygen Destroyer - Guardians of the Universe (2024)
7 votes -
How the rise of the camera launched a fight to protect Gilded Age Americans’ privacy
13 votes -
Dying Light: The Beast | Announcement trailer
5 votes -
TV Tuesdays Free Talk
Warning: this post may contain spoilers
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
6 votes -
I seem to have a much different, worse experience of Dragonflight's story than most WoW players—why?
A bit of background before I get to the main body of the post. I've been following Warcraft's story since Warcraft III came out. It was a wonderful experience of my childhood, and I was interested...
A bit of background before I get to the main body of the post.
I've been following Warcraft's story since Warcraft III came out. It was a wonderful experience of my childhood, and I was interested in the story's progression since then. Even though I haven't played WoW personally until last few years, I read the comics and books, and I read about the lore. Chatted with friends who played the game.
Near the very end of Legion I started the game (2018), and Battle for Azeroth was my first real experience of the game. I played a demon hunter night elf, and I didn't have a problem with the story at the time. I thought the burning of Teldrassil set up the conflict well, and I found the world fascinating. Of course, it was heavily colored by me finally being able to play the game after almost 2 decades. I was also a night elf fan since my childhood, so I looked at things mainly from the perspective of Alliance. Story-wise, my major problems were that N'zoth and Azshara were defeated too quickly, and Tyrande's ritual transformation should've had resulted in much more of an impact.
I now know that the experience for Horde players was much different. But roleplaying as a demon hunter night elf suited the BfA story very well. I had just come out of a long battle against demons to find my people burned to death, their land destroyed. Vengeance, once again, fueled me.
Come Shadowlands, and like most people, I found that the story to took a steep dive in quality. I don't think I need to elaborate, but I will touch upon the main points. The afterlife was extremely unimaginative and made death lose its impact, the conclusion of Sylvanas's story was extremely unsatisfactory, Jailer was all kinds of bad writing, and Tyrande's arc was a major letdown.
Coming to the main issue. With the release of Dragonflight two years ago, and seeing how much people praised it, after a month or two passed I bought the expac and joined the adventure. However, despite all the letdowns of Shadowlands, I found the Dragonflight story to be the most unengaging one I've experienced. I just didn't care about the dragons and their personal arcs. Every word that came out of the major characters was such a cheesy and cliche line. In the cinematics, every one of them, especially Alexstrasza, talked so slowly and artifically that it threw me off every time. I just couldn't take it seriously.
There is only one memorable moment I remember from Dragonflight, and it's that one dragon in dwarven form that tells you his story while you sit down and listen for a few minutes. It was a really touching and tragic story, but it was just a very minor interaction.
I have no problems with personal stories or more touching subjects being told in video games. In fact, I think they can be wonderful. So, that wasn't the part that bothered me. What bothered me was that dragon aspects felt extremely one-dimensional and same-y, and their story was like a poorly written Disney story about the importance of family. Because it was handled badly, it especially felt jarring and out of place in the world of Warcraft, where violence and war crimes are rampant.
Yet, many players seem to have enjoyed the story because it was more "down to earth". I have trouble with this, because I have trouble understanding how people found this story to be engaging at all. For example, when Amirdrassil arc concluded, I didn't feel anything. In fact, it just made the burning of Teldrassil feel hollow for me, because I felt like that dramatic turn of events didn't matter at all. Night elves had a world tree and a home again, as if nothing happened. This retroactively made the story worse for me. At that moment, I realized I had stopped caring about WoW's story and was forcing myself to care. I decided to stop playing, at least for a while, because story and lore were the main reasons I played.
This, however, led me to a question. I've been following r/wow for some years, and the general opinion there is that Dragonflight's story was well done. My experience is the opposite, as it was the most unengaging story experience for me.
I have considered several possible explanations for why people reacted so positively to the story of Dragonflight.
- The one-upping of threat levels and villains in Shadowlands left a really sour taste, especially because it was handled so badly and retroactively undermined a lot of stories. So a relatively tame threat and villains were welcomed.
- Since the "gameplay" part of the expac was received well, this put people in a positive mood and led them to interpret the story charitably. This might go the opposite way too. For example, both BfA and SL were also criticized heavily for gameplay reasons.
- The expectations for WoW's story are really low, and that's why longtime players that are still playing don't mid the stuff that bothered me. In other words, they adjust their expectations. People who didn't adjust left.
- People don't actually pay much attention to story, they are mainly interested in raids and other combat-centric parts of the game, or even cosmetics. So, when discussing the story, they mostly go with the prevailing vibes and opinions of the community.
I think all of these play some part in the explanation, but I came up with these explanations based on my own experience. I also can't assess their relative importance. For the reasons, I thought I could benefit from a wider array of opinions, especially from people that have or had been involved in the game and community for longer than me.
So, my questions are;
- Why do you think Dragonflight's story was received so positively?
- Why don't people seem to care about the aspects I mentioned?
13 votes -
Electrostatic motors reach the macro scale
31 votes -
Weekly thread for casual chat and photos of pets
This is the place for casual discussion about our pets. Photos are welcome, show us your pet(s) and tell us about them!
13 votes