Grzmot's recent activity
-
Comment on Hollywood says farewell to Chinese investment bonanza in ~movies
-
Comment on Stadia is shutting down in ~games
Grzmot Link ParentIt's a strange prediction considering we know that Youtube is at the very least, breaking even. Also if it did disappear, it's too much of a vacuum to fill. No one will try to make a competitor;...It's a strange prediction considering we know that Youtube is at the very least, breaking even. Also if it did disappear, it's too much of a vacuum to fill. No one will try to make a competitor; it's too expensive. But a successor? The Amazons and Microsofts of the world would absolutely jump on that.
-
Comment on Guy on doomed planet mostly concerned with skin color of people in movies in ~movies
Grzmot Link ParentOf course, it all depends the context, but I was definitely more of the later than the former. I just wanted to be mad about something.Of course, it all depends the context, but I was definitely more of the later than the former. I just wanted to be mad about something.
-
Comment on Guy on doomed planet mostly concerned with skin color of people in movies in ~movies
Grzmot LinkI used to be the kind of person that would get mad at castings like the sea snake in House of the Dragon. I'm happy to have moved past that rage some time ago. I think this is definitely a very...I used to be the kind of person that would get mad at castings like the sea snake in House of the Dragon.
I'm happy to have moved past that rage some time ago.
I think this is definitely a very oniony onion article.
-
Comment on Boxed in: life Inside the 'coffin cubicles' of Hong Kong – in pictures in ~life
Grzmot LinkI think if I had to live in something like this for an extended period of time, I don't know what I'd do with myself... Not something good. I don't know how people make it work.I think if I had to live in something like this for an extended period of time, I don't know what I'd do with myself... Not something good. I don't know how people make it work.
-
Boxed in: life Inside the 'coffin cubicles' of Hong Kong – in pictures
11 votes -
Comment on Assassin's Creed Odyssey's New Game+ is unironically the best way to play the game in ~games
Grzmot Link ParentIf it didn't make any money, Ubisoft wouldn't have introduced it into every game. I imagine it's comparetively little work to just throw a shop-front into a game that sells you in-game resources....If it didn't make any money, Ubisoft wouldn't have introduced it into every game. I imagine it's comparetively little work to just throw a shop-front into a game that sells you in-game resources. All that's left is to keep those server-side so you can't get any more of them.
The concept of a time-skipper betrays already in the name. You designed the game, so why did you design an aspect into it that's worthy of being skipped over?
-
Comment on Assassin's Creed Odyssey's New Game+ is unironically the best way to play the game in ~games
Grzmot Link ParentSee, I understand where you're coming from, but a difficulty scale where the enemies simply get tougher and I deal less damage isn't interesting to me. There's nothing to master there. I don't...See, I understand where you're coming from, but a difficulty scale where the enemies simply get tougher and I deal less damage isn't interesting to me. There's nothing to master there. I don't consider the combat in it's entirety interesting enough that I want to do 10 times in a row in an attempt to kill an overleveled enemy. I also don't consider it very fair. Maybe if the social aspect of the world was better fleshed out, if you cared enough to not cause trouble or the punishment system was better done, it could be interesting. But there's just nothing there for me.
Ultimately it seems that we want different things from the game, and it's cool that we were both able to get them. Ain't no right or wrong way to enjoy things :)
-
Comment on Lord of the pings: How I turned off my phone notifications, and got my life back in ~tech
Grzmot Link ParentAndroid does something at least when you swipe a notification away from the lock-screen instead of tapping it to access the app: It asks you if you want to set it to a lower priority so it e.g....Android does something at least when you swipe a notification away from the lock-screen instead of tapping it to access the app: It asks you if you want to set it to a lower priority so it e.g. won't use your notification sound anymore, up to just not letting them appear at all. I like that. It's nice.
-
Comment on Assassin's Creed Odyssey's New Game+ is unironically the best way to play the game in ~games
Grzmot LinkI've also posted this to the /r/patientgamers subreddit, but I wanted to have a discussion on Tildes too <3...I've also posted this to the /r/patientgamers subreddit, but I wanted to have a discussion on Tildes too <3
https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/wy79ov/assassins_creed_odysseys_new_game_is_unironically/ -
Assassin's Creed Odyssey's New Game+ is unironically the best way to play the game
I recently felt an itch for a big expansive RPG and decided to play through AC:O for a second time. The game is really big, was a timesink the first time around (like 80 hrs) and is bogged down by...
I recently felt an itch for a big expansive RPG and decided to play through AC:O for a second time. The game is really big, was a timesink the first time around (like 80 hrs) and is bogged down by a lot of resource sinks and differing systems all trying to get your attention. But I'm a sucker for the Greek Myths and ancient Greece, so this game is perfect for me; so I gave it another go.
So NG+ on AC:O is your typical affair: You begin a new game, but you keep your experience, all your items, and also crucially, all your invested resources. AC:O has an extremely tiring resource sink in the form of the Adrestia, your ship. You can upgrade the hull, the ramming damage, the throwing spears, the arrows, the fire to light your arrows, and the ability of your crew to brace against enemy ranged attacks, the ramming speed, and I think I'm even forgetting a few. Doing this all on your original run is an extreme timesink, as the resources required to get a single one of those things up a level scales incredibly fast. Even worse, the items required to do so are all fairly common (wood, iron, and the like) except for one, which are ancient tablets, of which there is only a set amount in the world, at various locations you need to loot. I went the distance on my first run, and upgraded my ship fully. And it remained upgraded! This means that one vast system in the game is now basically gone. It has made ship combat very easy, but then that never was the highlight of the game anyway, so I don't mind. On top of that, all rewards are scaled up in NG+, meaning that you begin to immediately drown in money and resources, and with the biggest resource sink gone, you can focus on building your equipment exactly the way you want to.
A second one is experience. Now, when AC:O came out the first time, lots of players complained that the amount of experience you gain is abysmal, pointing to the overly convenient ingame shop selling a permanent XP and money boost for like 10 bucks. And I can absolutely see their point. To progress in any form in AC:O in the normal game, you pretty much need to do every "proper" side-quest (as in the ones with a plot, not the automatically generated ones you find on message boards and the like, only the ones marked on the map with the golden exclamation mark), and then the main-quests of an area. If you do that, you'll be just about the minimum level to do the main quests. So for the people who are here for the scenery and a main story, they got fucked hard, or had to pay up again.
Another incredibly annoying thing about vanilla AC:O is that like many open-world games, the world is divided into large regions and islands. Every region had a minimum level recommendation that might as well have been a requirement, as fighting someone just 3 levels above you bordered suicide, as you could die in sometimes 2 hits, and did a fraction of their health in damage even with your most powerful abilities. This means that on your original run, the world is not open at all, but you have to progress in the way that developers want you to. You start in Kephalonia, and can't leave until you unlock the ship. Your first quest leads you to Megaris, but you'll immediately notice that the level requirement for the region is too high. Conveniently, along the way is a different area which actually fits your requirement, so you have to stop there, and do every quest there before you can progress in the main story line.
NG+ fixes that entirely. Completely. Whatever level you are, every region in the game is now set to your level. Which means that you can follow the main quest line along without any problems at all and actually do the fun thing where you travel the open seas to sail to a random island and do the quests there. You know, open-world stuff! I vividly remember on my first play-through how sad I felt that I couldn't actually use my ship to sail around and explore, because the game forced me to do each region in a specific order, and "enjoy" my time there before moving me along at the pace of the main story line. I couldn't even stealth my way through it (in an ASSASSIN'S CREED game) because Odyssey has this really fucked up mechanic where stealth kills stop becoming instant kills if the target is too high of a level above you. Seriously. But NG+ fixes this, because you immediately get access to the crutch ability that the devs implemented to fix this issue and because most enemies you encounter are going to be around your level no matter where you are.
Since now everything is just scaled to your level, the world immediately opens up after you leave the tutorial area and you can do pretty much whatever you want. I didn't hunt down the Cult of Kosmos, a gameplay system where you discover clues about members of a secret dangerous cult hunting your family, have to piece those clues together (or collect enough where the game is just willing to locate them for you), and then go to a place to assassinate the person, which gives you another clue, and so on. Killing all cult members is optional, but does influence the main story-line, as they serve as the main antagonists. I didn't complete this objective on my first play-through, because some of them are specifically level-gated, as in the person you have to kill is just set to have level 59, which is post-endgame content, meaning you either have to commit to a worse ending of the main plot, or stall the final mission, ruining the pacing even more, to go on a world-spanning quest of hunting down every member.
Playing on NG+ has significantly increased my enjoyment of the game, as I feel like I can just go everywhere and do thing as I want to, not as the developers intended to. Do you know how great it is to actually see a place on the horizon and just, I don't know, go there? You know, the main attraction of the open-world genre? And not be greeted by an enemy town guard 10 levels above you decimates you in 2 hits while you'd be whaling against him with your best weapons for a solid 15 minutes before he goes down. It's great. I'd honestly urge it to even new-comers who like RPG or like the setting but don't like the grindy messy bits to just download a full save of the original game and start a new game + on it. The start will be a bit intimating since you'll have all abilities, but you can just reset the skill tree for spare change and re-level the way you want to. The game is better off not having the grinding for better ship parts in the game and you being able to go wherever you want.
It's far from perfect, but I really think it just turns into into a better experience. I'm fine with not really levelling my character, because 1 out of 3 skill trees is entirely useless and the other two only contain a couple of abilities which are any good, so putting your points into prestige skills that just percentage increase your damage or resistance or whatever is honestly good enough. It's not interesting, but the world and characters are plenty interesting enough for me.
12 votes -
Jennette McCurdy lived a teen star dream. Silently, she was suffering.
14 votes -
Comment on Is it possible to change my username on Tildes? in ~tildes
Grzmot LinkAs far as I know, no. You might be able to bribe @Deimos though. However I don't know if it's technologically feasible at all.As far as I know, no. You might be able to bribe @Deimos though. However I don't know if it's technologically feasible at all.
-
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Grzmot LinkI recently played through Mother Russia Bleeds, a great beat-em-up in a pixel-art aesthetic set in a supremely fucked up Russia. Gameplay is deceptively simple, but soon forces you to deepen your...I recently played through Mother Russia Bleeds, a great beat-em-up in a pixel-art aesthetic set in a supremely fucked up Russia. Gameplay is deceptively simple, but soon forces you to deepen your understanding based on the enemies you're facing.
At the same time, the simplicty hides some minor mechanics which show great attention to detail, e.g. when you carry a weapon and drop it, you let it fall to the ground by default, which hurts the durability, but pressing down and the drop key at the same time you instead put it on the ground, which doesn't cause damage.
This game is definitely 18+, at one point you wander into a an extreme fetish club and the boss of the level is a big fucking guy who whips people and chops them up, while you gain a temporary ally in some guy who is so much into puppy play that he'll try to actually just beat anyone up with his teeth, considering his hands are tied behind his back.
On Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/361300/Mother_Russia_Bleeds/ for 15€. It was on a deep discount on the recent summer sale for like 2€, so if the base price is too much, it'll probably go on sale soon again.
It's a great, fairly short experience. You'll be done in about 4-5 hours on your first run-through.
-
Comment on Georgia Guidestones destroyed by explosive device in ~news
Grzmot Link ParentYou see the Islamists are worse cause their foreign. /s On a more serious note, I've often felt like centrist politicians are more afraid of calling out the ringwing bloc because a) it's closer in...In the '00s, people were regularly admonished for failing to properly call out "Radical Islamic Terrorism" and the alleged failures of the Islamic community to clean house. Since 2010 however, rightist terrorists have killed more US civilians than Islamic terrorists have. At what point do we start publicly condemning "Radical Christian Terrorism?" Is that a stretch? I mean we're at the point where they are blowing up stuff they don't like...
You see the Islamists are worse cause their foreign.
/s
On a more serious note, I've often felt like centrist politicians are more afraid of calling out the ringwing bloc because a) it's closer in case they become a target b) more prone to violence and c) less fault-accepting than the leftwing bloc, we can see regularily on the web that that side just loves to tear itself apart in its pursuit of moral perfectionism.
-
Comment on ‘Minions: Rise of Gru’ smashes July 4th box office records with $127.9M opening in ~movies
Grzmot Link ParentAh, so basically what happened with Morbius, except this time people did want to see it, unlike with the vampire dumpsterfire where it really was just ironic.Ah, so basically what happened with Morbius, except this time people did want to see it, unlike with the vampire dumpsterfire where it really was just ironic.
-
Comment on We’re just over half-way done with 2022. What are your favorite films of the year so far? in ~movies
Grzmot LinkBelle. Absolutely no contest. It's so far ahead of anything else. It's essentially a story about a growing up, a story about a introverted girl who is a famous musician in a virtual parallel...Belle. Absolutely no contest. It's so far ahead of anything else.
It's essentially a story about a growing up, a story about a introverted girl who is a famous musician in a virtual parallel world, and a reimagining of the beauty and the beast. Gorgeous animation. Wonderful music and a deeply touching story.
-
Comment on Former YouTuber Lindsay Ellis says she’s learning to live with the trauma of being ‘canceled’ in ~life
Grzmot Link ParentI have no idea. Maybe. Could also be that she can't tough it out, which is seemingly the only thing you can do. Shut out the negativity. Ellis does touch upon that in the article, and I honestly...I have no idea. Maybe. Could also be that she can't tough it out, which is seemingly the only thing you can do. Shut out the negativity. Ellis does touch upon that in the article, and I honestly have no clue if there is another solution. My best guess is that it's a combination of all those things, woman, target on her back due to following, an especially woke audience to her political stance and type of content, can't ignore it, possibly because the people who truly believe in the ideals she represented have just a bit too much empathy for the internet.
-
Comment on Former YouTuber Lindsay Ellis says she’s learning to live with the trauma of being ‘canceled’ in ~life
Grzmot LinkSeeing it written up like this again, it really puts into perspective over how comparatively little this is. People decided to send death threats over this. This. This is NOTHING. I had this whole...In March 2021, Ellis came under fire after tweeting, “I think we need to come up with a name for this genre that is basically Avatar: The Last Airbender reduxes. It’s like half of all YA fantasy published in the last few years anyway.”
Some suggested the comparison of "Avatar" and "Raya and the Last Dragon," both of which portray Asian characters, was racist.
The social media rage only intensified when Ellis sent a poorly-worded follow up tweet to the backlash.
“I can see where if you squint, I was implying all Asian-inspired properties are the same, especially if you were already privy to those conversations where I had not seen them. But the basic framework of TLA is becoming popular in fantasy fiction outside of Asian inspired stuff,” Ellis wrote.
The use of the word “squint,” which has historically been used as a pejorative directed at Asian people, resulted in Ellis’ name trending on Twitter, with thousands admonishing her.
Seeing it written up like this again, it really puts into perspective over how comparatively little this is. People decided to send death threats over this. This. This is NOTHING. I had this whole comment planned out about much worse things I've heard from people as part of dark humour, who I know don't mean it and considering Ellis' reputation, I'd put her in the same spot, but honestly I can't even write anything about this except a rambling stream of thoughts. The only reason someone would get made about this is that they spend too much time on the internet and just need a hobby. You have too much time.
-
Comment on Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade; states can ban abortion in ~news
Grzmot Link ParentIf you get pregnant, just shoot yourself in the stomach. See, guns solve unwanted pregnancies too! /sIf you get pregnant, just shoot yourself in the stomach. See, guns solve unwanted pregnancies too! /s
Interesting move. I thought it was going to go the other direction, and China would use the invested capital to push a better narrative about the country globally, in the same way that the US does. There was definitely and influx of movies pandering to Chinese audiences for a while, I remember in the Martian, the Chinese save the day, in one of the Transformers movies, they save the day, then there's this one bad movie with Dwayne Johnson in that Chinese skyscraper. Top Gun removed it's Taiwan flag from the main character's jacket in the sequel.
Considering the way things are going, you'd think the CCP would welcome the cash flow from those investments, and use it to push scripts into a pro-CCP direction. Selling most of it just seems like burning money. But if Xi wants to isolate himself, I suppose this is one way to do it.