ArgentRaven

@ArgentRaven@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are modern Final Fantasy games bad?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I play FFXIV. I’ll break it down by expansions, but it’s the one that didn’t follow the general downwards trend so much.

  1.0 - trash. They couldn’t figure out how to work together. One guy spends forever making the best looking water wheel ever, in the background, that you never interact with. It’s too graphically intensive, and flows the wrong way from the water. It doesn’t match the building it’s attached to. Meanwhile, they forget to add roads towards main cities. It’s an unplayable mess. It’s literally unplayable, as they killed it off to replace it with:

  2.0, A Realm Reborn - they really fixed it under one guy’s leadership. It’s playable, and works. It’s outdated somewhat today, but has a lot of moral grey areas and twists. There’s a lot of running around and time wasting, which was common back then.

  Heavenward - they made a great story. It’s one of the best expansions. Streamlined and faster. No needless “talk to 5 villagers” quests like previously.

  Stormblood - not as great. There’s a lot of setup they use later. The world building is really great, though. Some of the best looking areas.

  Shadowbringers - the best expansion they’ve ever made. Perfectly balanced world building and characters, and story. This is peak FF, with the best music as well. Probably because they can ditch much of the old A Realm Reborn story.

  Endwalker - ties it all together. The story leads up to “death is inevitable for everything that has ever lived, so just die now” kind of depression hopelessness that you wonder how they’ll get out of it. Well, because it’s Japanese and FF, it’s the power of friendship that saves the day. But, this really feels like the culmination of everything they’ve learned in the previous expansions.

  Dawntrail - this is the downward slide. They force you into a role to support someone for ruler that is almost slapstick bad. Characters don’t make logical choices. The theme is all over the place and can’t decide what it wants to be. Many people say to stop at endwalker, but we’ll see how the next expansion goes, which is years away.

  There’s plenty to say about the game otherwise, but the general thought is that they’re gradually cutting corners, taking longer, and under delivering as they’re stretched too thin. They’re feeling the same pressure everyone else in the world is - not enough money. Which is crazy, because FFXIV is THE game keeping Square Enix alive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft removes Windows 11 24H2 official support on 8th 9th 10th Gen Intel CPUs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  They know that killing support early makes it easier for people to just buy new hardware, which likely has new windows purchased/included. More money, less effort. And since most environments are locked into the platform, no one gets away.

  I’m already moving a lot of hardware to Linux, but I’ll be damned if I give MS any more money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why was there a pro-Hitler, Holocaust-denying ad on X?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I already don’t use Twitter, and encourage my friends not to, either. But I did that years ago. There’s not really a whole lot else I can do? Start a Fight Club, squat in an old condemned house, and blow up their building at the end? I have bills to pay and family that depends on those bills being paid.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨They just don't write good fantasy like this anymore.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Shad from the YouTube channel Shadiversity made a back scabbard that actually works, but it’s not historical. Historically, people didn’t really do it.

  He also made a bow carrier on his back, to mimic a lot of movies and games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Half-Life 3 rumours are about again after a teaser from G-Man's voice actor⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I can just barely remember the general plot.

  Is the new one going to be called “Half Life: Forever - Balls of Steel Edition”?

  Sometimes we should just let it die. The original script writer posted the plot to 3 when his NDA ran out, and I think that was 5 years ago or more. Reading that is good enough for closure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Choosing pink is chaotic evil?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  He tries to run, but you slow-walk towards him, chanting “poop!” with every step. His pants are heavy, and blood starts to show through his jeans. “I’ll cut your guts out!” he helplessly bluffs. Soon, he crumples up and screams as his guts start emptying into the street; his denim is no longer able to hold the carnage. You see him lying dead at your feet.

  You turn back towards the United Healthcare headquarters, and resume your march.

  Now, it is finally time to see at what point explosive diarrhea is covered…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Feds Say You Don’t Have a Right to Check Out Retro Video Games Like Library Books⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m speaking mainly of the distrust against the public having access for fear that we’d abuse it and not give them a cut. We can’t have access to these things now, but we used to. Regardless of form, regardless of piracy.

  It’s more of a move to restrict ownership when you make a purchase, that has a farther reach than just games. I could see this being applied to cars, houses, etc. In that you only rent a license, and don’t actually own anything. I see this as just a first step, and the logic they use to justify it doesn’t make sense.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Feds Say You Don’t Have a Right to Check Out Retro Video Games Like Library Books⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We used to rent these games from Blockbuster Video! On DVD when we had DVD burners and little to no drm! How did it suddenly not become acceptable?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Times Heals All Wounds" and "This Too Shall Pass" may be true, but the time window doesn't have to happen during your lifetime.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If it happens past your lifetime, it doesn’t matter. These sayings are meant to apply to you, not history.

  I look back to the serenity prayer, which is really just a bit of Buddhism: “Lord, let me accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can, and have the wisdom to know the difference.”

  The Buddhist path is "why is there suffering in the world? Because of attachment. You want things to stay the same. Things change. You want your parents to live forever. You don’t want to be sick. You wish your job didn’t suck. Why can’t I just win the lottery and have my problems go away? You want to cling to the good times and not have the bad. You can let go of the bad, and the resultant suffering because of it will fade. Letting go is incredibly hard, because our biological bodies are hard wired on routines. But if you can overcome that, and accept that whatever happened, happened, you can move forward. You can’t change the past. And whether you like it or not, time and the world moves forward. You can move forward with it, or let something hold you back.

  And just to clarify, I’m an atheist, so my understanding of both the Serenity Prayer and Buddhism are seen through the lense of someone that doesn’t believe in an afterlife or religion in general (strict Buddhism is not a religion). I encourage you to find your own conclusions.