zoroa's recent activity

  1. Comment on Calvin Jones' retirement announcement in ~transport

    zoroa
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    This is probably super niche, but if you've ever needed to learn how to work on your bicycle you've probably heard him go "Calvin Jones here, Park Tool Company". He's a giant of the industry; most...

    With gratitude and a little sadness, Park Tool announces the retirement of Director of Education Calvin Jones.

    Full press release: https://www.parktool.com/en-us/blog/news/calvin-jones-retiring-after-28-years-as-director-of-education-at-park-tool

    This is probably super niche, but if you've ever needed to learn how to work on your bicycle you've probably heard him go "Calvin Jones here, Park Tool Company".

    He's a giant of the industry; most people probably know him as the face of 15+ years of instructional videos about bike maintenance. That video series is probably the best body of instructional content I've ever seen: from how they package each video, the breath of content they've covered, down to well they're able to illustrate the topics at hand with parts that are often custom made. While Park Tools has a handful of hosts for the series that are great, Calvin gave off a Bob Ross/Mr. Rogers vibe that I really came to appreciate. His retirement announcement was how I learned that, as Director of Education, he also played a big role in the ideation behind the video series and companion articles.

    So much knowledge about bikes, especially older ones, seems to be transfered through oral tradition that sometimes gets recorded and posted somewhere. There's probably a small handful of people who have carried that tradition as far forward as Calvin.

    6 votes

  3. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    Neither! I didn't grow up on JRPGs, I grew up on the Pokemon games and anime. It's only been in the last 5-ish years that I've broadened out into the genre, and even then I mostly just played what...

    Have the games changed or have you?

    Neither! I didn't grow up on JRPGs, I grew up on the Pokemon games and anime. It's only been in the last 5-ish years that I've broadened out into the genre, and even then I mostly just played what was available to me.

    Suikoken 1 & 2 have been on my list to get to eventually, and I expected to enjoy it WAY more than I liked Eiyuden.

  4. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    zoroa
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I felt similarly when I played Eiyuden. From what I remember, the character stereotypes (especially for some of the main cast) were particularly annoying in the beginning in the game. It does...

    I felt similarly when I played Eiyuden. From what I remember, the character stereotypes (especially for some of the main cast) were particularly annoying in the beginning in the game. It does mellow out a bit, but is always still there.

    If you do end up dropping the game, you aren't missing much. I played through the entire thing, and came off pretty negative on the game. I didn't feel like the game really excelled in any dimension except the graphics, and largely felt unpolished.

    I played at launch, and just checked hoping to see whether they'd made any changes since I rolled credits. But it doesn't like that was the case.

    edit: launched -> launch

  5. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    zoroa
    Link
    Metaphor Refantazio Continued my playthrough, I finished the 4th and maybe also the 5th area. My save has me at ~50 hours, but the store I'm playing from has me at ~64 hours which makes more sense...

    Metaphor Refantazio

    Continued my playthrough, I finished the 4th and maybe also the 5th area. My save has me at ~50 hours, but the store I'm playing from has me at ~64 hours which makes more sense to me given how long I got stuck at some bosses.

    My enjoyment of this game's story has continued to oscillate between these really high peaks as the story hits the climax(es) for an arc, to some pretty low lows for everything else.

    Given how low I was on the setup for the game, I've been surprised that basically every big moment in this game has landed for me. My playtime in the last week was peppered with me going holy shit at the reveals, the fights, and other big moments. I think these moments have been landing, even the more cliche ones, because of an appreciation for the threads Atlus sews to build up to these moments.

    I've enjoyed feeling like I'm back in high school english, since Atlus uses narrative foils a ton. The emotional payoff in a couple big moments is emphasized through the contrast between 2 characters that Atlus spent that arc building up. And Atlus breaks the 4th wall (not a spoiler, it's literally the first thing that happens in the game) to set up the game's world as a foil for our own, which causes the player to reflect on the character's thoughts on their world in relation to the player's.

     

    But god, this game also has some pretty low lows.

    A lot of the writing that gets us between major plot points is questionable... I've been stupefied on multiple occasions by how asinine some of the plans the characters come up with are (Louis infiltration) and by random huge plot holes (Eupha Drakodios Forden).

    Basically every member of the main cast feels flat. Talking to them in the world gets you mostly uninteresting one liners. You're meant to follow a line of social side quests for basically the entire cast, which are essentially vehicles for character development. But most of the questlines I've finished so far felt like they could've been an email (coughStrohlcough). Even more egregious is that the game can't really build on any of the growth from those quests in the rest of the game, since they have no guarantees when (or if?) you'll actually do them. The cutscenes in the main story have been the only consistent way the game has meaningfully shown any growth for characters, which to date has only really covered half of the main party.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    zoroa
    Link
    Metaphor Refantazio Continued my playthrough, just hit 32 hours. I was ready to drop this game pretty soon after I posted my last update. The letdown from my unrealistically high expectations for...

    Metaphor Refantazio

    Continued my playthrough, just hit 32 hours.

    I was ready to drop this game pretty soon after I posted my last update. The letdown from my unrealistically high expectations for the story made it easier for some "annoyances" to pile onto my frustration towards the game: the amount of friction I felt the Calendar system adds to the game, how janky some of the animations and backgrounds look, how uninspiring a lot of the side content can be.

    And then I reached the climax of the second area of the game. Everything about that sequence landed for me.

    Spoiler-free/lite discussion of some themes and my reactions to them.

    The climax resolves an arc that started in a very cliche way with more nuance than I'm used to in stories like this. I especially found it satisfying to see the payoff of Atlus building up two characters as foils. The climax also ended up redeeming a character who I didn't like until then because of how goofy they felt. That character ends up being the source of the emotional payoff that really landed for me, and spits BARS leading into the final fight ("Grief is its own death, so we will show you life!").

    Ever since this part, I've been enjoying the game way more.

    Which is weird since nothing really changed. A lot of the parts of the game I found annoying before are still pretty annoying now. The story still has a lot of those shonen-isms (like directly during the denouement of the second area).

    I think it's just my headspace ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. In a lot of the JRPGs I play, if I don't vibe with the story I can usually just ignore it. Metaphor's storytelling is very central to the experience and is tedious to skip through, so I had been dreading playing through the rest of the game. Hitting a story beat that I genuinely enjoyed seems to have reframed my expectations enough that I'm now looking forward for the next parts of the story that land for me.

    5 votes

  7. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    Honestly, I think Metaphor is a JRPG that would offer a pretty good viewing experience for your partner. My original comment sounds as negative as it does mainly because my expectations for the...

    Honestly, I think Metaphor is a JRPG that would offer a pretty good viewing experience for your partner. My original comment sounds as negative as it does mainly because my expectations for the game were unrealistically high. Metaphor is a very good game, and I'd imagine the production quality (especially in-game and anime cutscenes) would probably go a long way to making a watchalong enjoyable.

    Octopath Traveler 2 might be decent. But everything I said about shonen-isms in Metaphor go eight-fold for Octopath.

    Basically other JRPG I've played in the past couple years is either really old or 2-D pixel art, so I'm not sure if either category fits the bill here.

    Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 might be a good shout, but I say that purely off of vibes and not from playing the game.

  8. Comment on World Trigger teases new anime reboot with slick trailer in ~anime

    zoroa
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    I watched all three seasons of World Trigger almost a year ago to the day, and basically just though it was a pretty good shonen anime with a poorly paced season 1. I been surprised at how many...

    I watched all three seasons of World Trigger almost a year ago to the day, and basically just though it was a pretty good shonen anime with a poorly paced season 1.

    I been surprised at how many times over the last year I've googled "When is World Trigger Season 4 releasing". Just did so a couple minutes ago, and saw that a reboot was announced.

    2 votes

  10. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    zoroa
    Link
    It's become a tradition for me to play through games in December. I had a really old code for Gamepass available, so I working through games in that catalog that interest me. Ball x Pit I was...

    It's become a tradition for me to play through games in December. I had a really old code for Gamepass
    available, so I working through games in that catalog that interest me.

    Ball x Pit

    I was looking for a "brain-off" game, had heard very good things about Ball x Pit, and decided to give it a try.

    I can see what people enjoy about it, but I ended up bouncing off really quickly. I think it was because it felt like my success in a run was strongly gated by RNG. When I think to other roguelites that I enjoyed more (e.g. Hades, Skul, Moonlighter 2), I enjoyed the feeling that I could beat a run with no upgrades and that the RNG acted as a supplement as I built my skill. With Ball x Pit, every run felt like I got to a point that was impossible to pass unless I got godly RNG during a run, or spent time grinding out in the city builder part of the game that I really didn't like.

    It may be that "being good" at Ball x Pit lies less in mechanical skill and more in managing the RNG to get better upgrades. I definitely wasn't in the headspace to appreciate that when I played nor did I want to stick with the game to get better at that.

    Metaphor Refantazio

    Metaphor Refantazio has been on my list of JRPGs to play since it came out. Whenever people talked about Metaphor, it came across as one of those JRPGs that is outstanding in all areas (plot, gameplay, graphics) that only comes by once a decade.

    I've put in ~15 hours into it so far, and I think my expectations going in were set so high that the mismatch with reality has dampened what would've otherwise been a great experience.

    The expectation gap was probably the biggest with the plot; I was expecting a great plot, but I got a great plot for a JRPG. The distinction primarily lying with the countless shonen-isms that have made me go "HUH?!" or sigh disappointingly: main characters leaking a nation-destabilizing secret in the open multiple times, insane coincidences, Grius' asinine plan for Louis, tournament arc, etc...

    This isn't to say that Metaphor's story is bad. On the contrary, the story is pretty interesting and has layers that I'm very interested in seeing through (e.g. 4th wall). I guess my issues came from expecting a story with the quality of a Breaking Bad or a Sopranos, but ending up with a How I Met Your Mother: still great with a lot to appreciate, but definitely has flaws.

    On the whole, definitely enjoying the game and will probably end up rolling credits.

    5 votes

  11. Comment on Tildes login session management? in ~tildes

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    Oh this is a great idea thanks, I'll look into this!

    Oh this is a great idea thanks, I'll look into this!

    2 votes

  12. Tildes login session management?

    ~tildes Ask
    Does Tildes have any way for me to logout of a device I'm not currently using? I don't see any session management or "logout of all devices" in the settings. Would resetting my password invalidate...

    Does Tildes have any way for me to logout of a device I'm not currently using?

    • I don't see any session management or "logout of all devices" in the settings.
    • Would resetting my password invalidate all active sessions?
    • Do I need to email someone?
    21 votes

  13. Comment on Death Howl | Launch trailer in ~games

    zoroa
    (edited )
    Link
    I've actively avoided deckbuilders for as long as I can remember. I'm not really sure why, maybe just an assumption that the learning curve would be too high to have fun. But I love beautiful...

    I've actively avoided deckbuilders for as long as I can remember. I'm not really sure why, maybe just an assumption that the learning curve would be too high to have fun. But I love beautiful games, and I have a big soft spot for pixel art. Death Howl was part of Next Fest a couple months ago, and sold me on its pixel art. And then I proceeded to put 5 hours into the demo.

    The pixel art is gorgeous, somewhat in opposition to the themes of struggle and violence it's used to represent in the artwork of the cards. I found the deckbuilding fun. You need to unlock new cards to add to your deck, which both serves as a gentle on-ramp to learn the mechanics of the game and engaging game loop that rewards you with more opportunities of skill expression within combat.

    I plan to get to the full release eventually™, but figured some folks here might be interested.

    edit: way -> why

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Skate Story | Official launch trailer in ~games

    zoroa
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    A Skateboarding Demon’s Grinding, Gratifying Quest Both I guess? It's a very linear game, where skating lets you battle bosses to accomplish your goal. The appeal for me is mainly the style, the...

    He [Sam Eng, the developer] wanted the feel of Dark Souls — in which failure and perseverance are central themes — blended with the accessibility of the Tony Hawk franchise, along with the free-form grace of Journey, in which the player sails through a mystical and expansive desert from one mysterious wonder to the next. The unbridled freedom in Journey was something he particularly wanted to duplicate.

    Both I guess?

    It's a very linear game, where skating lets you battle bosses to accomplish your goal.

    The appeal for me is mainly the style, the tone (self serious, with some philosophy and humor thrown in), and the fact that it just feels good to play.

    edit: "to accomplish your accomplish" -> "to accomplish"

    2 votes

  16. Comment on Skate Story | Official launch trailer in ~games

    zoroa
    Link
    I've been enamored with this game since its reveal trailer back in 2022. And after 2 delays, it's finally here! I played 10 minutes of the demo a couple weeks ago, but dropped it midway through...

    I've been enamored with this game since its reveal trailer back in 2022. And after 2 delays, it's finally here!

    I played 10 minutes of the demo a couple weeks ago, but dropped it midway through because it was evident that the game was delivering on everything I wanted from it.

    I'm happy the game is finally out, seems to be reviewing well, and that I have some time off coming up to play it :D

    6 votes

  18. Comment on Crunchyroll to end ad-supported streaming at the end of 2025 in ~anime

    zoroa
    Link
    In practice, I'm pretty sure Crunchyroll has only been useful for premium subscribers for almost 4 years now. Way back in 2022, they moved all of their simulcast series to premium only:...

    In practice, I'm pretty sure Crunchyroll has only been useful for premium subscribers for almost 4 years now.

    Way back in 2022, they moved all of their simulcast series to premium only: https://web.archive.org/web/20220327075951/https://help.crunchyroll.com/hc/en-us/articles/4962816171412-Changes-to-Ad-Supported-Viewing-

    They introduced a "free sampler" section where you could watch a couple ad-supported episodes, but it was extremely limited.

    I haven't been able to find any official crunchyroll announcements about this, but there are a bunch of threads from 2022-2023 where of people complaining that formerly free shows were moved to be premium only:

    And the article highlights that this effort seems to have accelerated at the end of last year.

    Anecdotally, the last time I watched anime on Crunchyroll seems to have been right in the middle of this in Summer 2022. Every time I've checked the site since, the volume of ad-supported content I wanted to watch was becoming vanishingly small

     

     

    I'm kinda sad about this. I'm nostalgic for when Crunchyroll was my primary way to consume the medium about 15 years ago. Sure the website was ass and the app was worse, but it was a free and legal way to access a pretty big catalog of content. And you could even watch a lot of the newest stuff on a one week delay. Which was huge for me as a kid with no disposable income, and parents would not have even entertained the thought.

     

     

    I wonder if Crunchyroll primarily viewed their ad-tier as a vehicle to introduce people to the medium, which isn't as useful anymore. Anime is more mainstream and more accessible than ever. If you wanted to try a new series, you're probably already subscribed to a service that has a decent section of anime titles. If you get hooked on the medium, Crunchyroll is basically the only service for North American viewers who want a bigger catalog. And they're probably fine alienating folks on the free-tier who would never consider paying, especially given the increasing quality of streaming on pirate sites.

    14 votes

  19. Comment on [SOLVED] USB hub with a detachable cable? in ~tech

    zoroa
    Link Parent
    Ended up sizing up and getting the 7 port version. It seems like everything I need is working fine off of bus-power, and having the hub behind my monitor solves a bunch of annoyances I had with my...

    Ended up sizing up and getting the 7 port version. It seems like everything I need is working fine off of bus-power, and having the hub behind my monitor solves a bunch of annoyances I had with my desk setup.

    Thanks again!

    5 votes

  20. Comment on Advice/Suggestions on headphones or earbuds while listening to voices in the same room in ~tech

    zoroa
    Link
    Open-back headphones might be what you're looking for: they're headphones that aren't sealed on the back of the cup that goes around your ear. There are some acoustic benefits to this, but, more...

    Open-back headphones might be what you're looking for: they're headphones that aren't sealed on the back of the cup that goes around your ear.

    There are some acoustic benefits to this, but, more relevant to your question, it means that you can hear your surroundings much more easily with them on. But the street goes both ways, since your audio will also leak out a bit into the room.

    I'm a fellow glasses wearer, and basically have the Sennheiser HD 58X on my head all day. I like them a lot, and enjoy them for games and music. They were way cheaper when I bought them new ($160 - $20 coupon) though.

     

    Open back IEMs are also a thing (e.g KZ Ling Long for $20) but I have no experience with them to know how much ambient sound they let in. The market for very-cheap, good sounding in-ears has exploded in the last decade so I wouldn't be adverse to just buying a couple and trying them.

     

     

    On-ear phones might also be a decent fit. They're headphones that rest on your ear (vs over and around your ear), which means that they can't form a seal and let you hear more of your surroundings.

    I don't have personal experience with them, but the most popular on-ears I know of are the Koss Porta Pros (~$30-40 for the wired versions)

     

     

    It'd be really helpful if you put a number on your budget :). One person's cheap could be "$50" and another's could be "$200".

    10 votes