Makes sense. You don’t strike me as much of a “reader.”

If I got to control how the story was told and had better writing/storytelling skills? Or if you had a really skilled writer with access to my brain and memories? I could probably get a 75-85 out of it. I’ve definitely had some interesting things happen in my life. The lack of thematic journey would be where I struggle though. The best stories have payoff and a struggle to overcome. Which, of course I have. But none so large that I could base my entire life story on it. Maybe someone embellishing a little bit could scrounge one up, but tell me any biopic that doesn’t do that.

Steel fuckin *guts.

Amazon is definitely the one behind this. This is all part of their “vertical integration” bullshit I bet. They’ve been taking tons of money off the top for years. Where to go besides taking 100% of the money?

In related news, as part of its recently publicised cutbacks, BioWare has “let go of” Lukas Kristjanson, the lead writer behind Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, and the writer of the first three Dragon Age games, Mary Kirby.

Oh it wasn’t Larian, that name was mentioned to me so I just assumed from the quote above without rereading. I dunno the connection between larian and BioWare, but they’re obviously releasing games together? Or sharing titles?

I was saying I’ve been hearing good things about BG3 and saw they fired a lot of people to “streamline” the company. I was just deriding capitalism for that insane mindset

I dunno, I’m not a huge gamer. I’ve had just FIFA and gta v on my console for years happily. Rdr2 is a newer purchase for me and I love it. But I don’t really like fantasy games, so I’m not really larian’s audience.

I like shooting and driving and open worlds. And soccer. I put off getting rdr2 for so long because I couldn’t drive. I regret writing it off because I was definitely wrong about it

I mean, I’d argue that GTA V didn’t have the most emotional storytelling, but it wasn’t a character driven game like RDR2. The characters had the stories they did because they each opened up different avenues into different types of crimes. They didn’t focus on it. The characters were all insufferable. But that doesn’t mean the writing for the story itself wasn’t good. Yeah, the characters all kinda sucked, but the storytelling propelled the tension and wasn’t just some lame bullshit that felt like it needed to be there. The characters don’t develop that much, but the backstory was great, the intrigue and the vastness of the word made it great. That’s all writing. But you’re right, it couldn’t stand alone as a character driven story.

RDR2 on the other hand is a character driven story at its heart. You definitely need to play it because it’s incredibly well done. If you’re looking for good storytelling, emotional connections to the characters’ trajectories, and a great fuckin game, RDR2 is where you wanna be.

Is it just my devices? I can rarely get these piped links to work. I watch a lot of music via YT and when I made the switch to lemmy, I found out about piped. I was fuckin thrilled. But almost every link I click on wont load the damn video. And when I try to stream some music, I get so many buffering pauses that it’s maddening. Anyone else? Or any recommendations?

That’s troubling. I’ve been playing the shit out of both GTA V and RDR 2 because they have the two best campaigns I’ve ever played. Especially RDR2. It was unique in its trajectory, in its beats…I really hope the follow ups, (however many years down the road those might be) won’t be affected too much by this. The writing made those games what they are.

I haven’t played baldurs gate, but I’ve been seeing a lot about it, mostly positive. Interesting, the news about that company. Being successful doesn’t usually call for a massive shakeup. But that’s capitalism for you. Fuck the workers, squeeze more out of those you keep. Classic.

Because that’s their data. You can’t go deleting it. You’re the product, friend. My baby powder doesn’t get to decide it doesn’t want to go between my buttcheeks

I mean, as I said, it’s a casual observation from an outsider. Historically, sure, you could very much argue there is a trend toward machismo and patriarchal structures in Spain, as well as a lot of spanish-speaking countries. I personally got myself in a lot of situations where I was observing a man acting really aggressively toward a woman and intervened. Everyone around me (my local friends) found it really weird that I would see an issue and/or step in out of some sense of duty. Even one or two of the women that I was attempting to help would sort of seem taken aback.

Again, I’m making a huge generalization, but there is something to be said about the difference in interpersonal relationships across different cultures. And in my experience, in Spain in particular, I noticed very sort of “aggressive” tactics of “flirting” among spanish men toward women in general, but also on the flip side, got the impression that the Spanish women grew to be very strong in pushing back when it came to unknown men. Again, these are my thoroughly biased, anecdotal findings from my years spent there.

But again, there’s also a noticeable difference in race relations. More sort of blunt racism that is treated as “normal,” whereas in my country the racists are more likely to coat their racism or deny it while obviously having a racist bent to their words and actions.

Spain is a pretty religious country, and that does tend to go hand-in-hand with some sense of patriachal behavior/thinking in a lot of cases. Now, I also lived in South America for a few years and there are some similar patterns there. But in my mind, Spain is distinctly more noticeable in these respects.

Well, my belief is you’re right. Which is all we can know on a matter of ethics. Isn’t that the first sort of “rule” in the categorical imperative? Act in such a way as you believe should become the norm?

If these people are saying being charged with felonies makes you a bad person, then every single person charged with felonies should be treated the same way. That’s inherently wrong.

Dislike someone for their moral failings. And Donald trump and his fascist cronies have…fuckin tons of moral failings. That’s what makes them bad people. They hate for orientation, skin color, poverty, they steal, lie in an effort to hurt others…the list goes on. But nowhere on that list would be “charged with a crime.” Now, what they did to be charged with a crime is entirely fair game. Because those are moral failings. But to say, “he’s an alleged felon, fuck him” is beyond wrong. Because if you apply that thinking to everyone, we’ll, you’re writing off a whole lot of people for the same reason.

The government doesn’t make our moral decisions for us. They make value rulings for the status quo.

Insane you’re getting downvoted for this. You’re right. You can hate someone, but to suggest the government taking legal action against them is a reason is real shitty. But this is US politics in 2023. No one has to be consistent or rational. Just angry at the right people. Your supposed principles don’t matter, as long as you’re hurting the right people.

Not to mention culture in the country of Spain is very patriarchal. The women are, in turn, very strong themselves because they deal with so much “macho” bullshit. It’s crazy.

I mean, take this all with a grain of salt. This is my perception living there for a few years as a man from the US. It’s noticeably different, and we have large swaths of the country that operate on a similar male-centric mindset.

“Company builds entire business model on tricking consumers and overcharging for basic flight needs”

Now let’s do every single airline for operating like fucking organized crime and gouging people for using the previously free space built into the fucking plane. The entire industry is out of fucking date and needs to be done away with

We’re gonna need a bigger pool

Not to mention “The World.”

It’s not even clandestine. They’re openly admitting they’re using the vulnerabilities as a way to spy.

Entirely dependent on the job I’m working. I work in film, so sometimes we’re on a prelight and the day is 12hr, I could work anywhere from four to maybe 10. Then some days were on 10hr shoot days, and I could work maybe 30 min. And then there are days like this week, working a documentary on multiple locations, and I worked a collective maybe 40 min/day (with a 9:30 call and me leaving by 2-3 while getting paid for 12hr).