BlindDeafRat
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User ID: 2868
BlindDeafRat
15d ago
I've had the same issue myself, the idea of the game is nice, but I just couldn't get into it.
There are mods that allow you to keep your employees through resets and I've seen it recommended in a few places to beginners that don't want too much trial and error, could try it if you want.
I don't prefer the Dark Souls experience where you bash your head into a boss 20 times in a row until you finally overcome it and then move onto the next boss to bash into 20 times.
I like this, but the key part is that each attempt is fast, and so repetitive attempts don't take as much effort, and at some point it you learn the fight enough that you don't even need to think about it.
BlindDeafRat
16d ago
That's not what I mean. I was also happy under my rock, but I'm happier under my rock with someone else. Even simply mundane everyday activities are more pleasant if you do them with someone you like, and who likes you.
Like this study showed anything is more enjoyable if you do it with someone else. Doing laundry, cooking together, watching movies, going out. That's the kind of socializing I'm talking about.
Not work parties where you're surrounded by strangers you don't know, don't care about, and aren't invested in.
BlindDeafRat
16d ago
I'll add that if you're alone, and it's all you've ever known, it's hard to know what you're missing. I've lived all my teens completely isolated, and had you asked me, I would've said I was happy, or at least "satisfied". Then I got a friend, who became my best friend, and I realized what I've been missing this entire time. Later I got a partner too, and that truly cemented that I never want to be alone again.
While I do know that people who genuinely aren't interested in other people do exist, they tend to be extraordinarily rare. Now this is going to sound really dismissive, but I would put most people like me (and maybe you) into one of two camps. They just either haven't found someone they actually work well with. Or they do interact with others, but it's unpleasant, basic interactions that drain you instead of adding anything. Which gives you the perception that you don't like socializing in general.
But I bond with people over common interests(presumably most people do). If you don't have hobbies, if you don't have pets, if you don't have some common interest in talking about something with someone, why should you talk with them at all? Why should they talk to you? There is another option with which you can bond with others, which is your own personal life experiences, be they good or bad. But I wouldn't recommend that, since it hasn't worked well for me in the past.
I would recommend socializing more, because it can be an incredibly pleasant and fulfilling experience.
Also I have to ask, do you truly not have hobbies? Like what do you spend your free time on? Maybe your definition of a hobby is just more strict, but pretty much anything you do in your spare time from reading, to cooking, to playing games, or working out can be counted, among many others. Do you not do any of that? You mention Alan Moore, so presumably you read comics, so that's one thing, that you either don't count so it fits into your post more cleanly.
BlindDeafRat
18d ago
Rather than that, you could just use an ereader and a regular phone. Ereaders can only really be used for reading, and there's a ton of stuff that's still better to read that browsing social media. Even royalroad slop is better.
At least for me, the idea of having two phones is a waste of money, but I don't use my smartphone that much, just my pc/laptop.
BlindDeafRat
20d ago
I would not recommend The Wandering Inn. I've not read it, but it's insanely long. Last I checked it was like 12 million words, but I imagine it's over 13 by now. And even if the protagonist is earnest from what I know the story is all about multiple povs, so how much of her will you even get to see.
You can finish the entire LOTR series, the entire Wheel of Time, all of Discworld, and then web novels like Worm, and a dozen of other novels and you're still under Wandering Inn's wordcount. No matter the hype for Wandering Inn, there's no way it justifies its length.
BlindDeafRat
20d ago
If you want something quite pulpy, I'd recommend Penitent. It's one of the best examples of a Big Good protagonist I've read on the site. Selfless and generous, but not to the point of letting himself be used, with a party of good friends. It's mostly about smaller scale battles, but it changes as it goes on. The atmosphere in the early parts is really good with the banter with his friends. I don't like the latter part as much, but I still read all the chapters as they come out.
Another thing where it kind of stands out, (not that this matters if you don't real RoyalRoad stories) is that the protagonist becomes religious and actually starts proselytizing, and that is something I've not read in any story. A
It's finished on Patreon, and the RR story should wrap up in June according to the author.
On less pulpy note I'd recommend Curse of Chalion or the author's other series Penric and Desdemona. I loved Curse of Chalion, and it's just a regular novel, so it's easy to finish. Penric is more about short stories, but he's also a great protagonist, and I've really enjoyed reading it. They're both good and strive to do the right thing.
BlindDeafRat
21d ago
Another thing is that Bethesda is tiny in comparison to most AAA devs. They have 450 employees in comparison to the 9000 at Blizzard that worked on Diablo 4 and Ubisoft has like 17000 thousand.
Yes, when Satan, who is causing a zombie plague spread by magic human-devouring rats, appears to you in durance and offers you power and revenge on your enemies, skepticism is the order of the day.
Just to correct you, the Outsider didn't cause the plague, the Lord Regent did. The plague originates from Pandyssia which is an uncharted landamass with extremely hostile and deadly fauna and flora.
But yes, that's what Corvo could've have thought, since that's the point of view that the Abbey would use. And probably the one he would believe too at that point.
On Spec Ops, I think the game's story is good, but the issue is that the game presents the choices as mattering to the player, but they only matter to Walker. It's a story that really doesn't take advantage of being a game.
But also the media talking about also I think made a huge disservice to it because they tried to present it as some kind of commentary to shooters in general, when it really doesn't work like that, and if you look at it from that perspective the game becomes much worse.
Like the way Dishonored gives you all these cool toys and then gives you a bad ending if you misuse them works way better as a game narrative than the white phosphorus scene where you don't have a choice to do anything else. Walker chooses it. He's the protagonist of that game. Meanwhile in Dishonored the player's actions that shape the narrative instead.
BlindDeafRat
22d ago
You don't have to play the game like Thief, you can kill up to 30% of all the enemies in each level. You can easily kill all the targets and their guards, but if you're killing every guard on the way, then yes, you do kind of deserve the bad ending.
BlindDeafRat
22d ago
The bad high chaos ending is the best one. Corvo in his lust for revenge abuses his new powers and slaughters his way through the city killing everyone in his path, in the end even letting Emily die, never knowing she was his daughter. The city burns and his revenge is sated. Mostly because this is the kind of story you will never see in a AAA game because of how dark it is, but if it's a side route it's fine.
I will never understand people who complain about the chaos mechanic in Dishonored when it was one of the best parts of the game, and the fact that they tone it down in the sequel and then just removed it in DotO is a travesty and a sign that Arkane was going downhill.
Since most people don't seem to even consider the idea that killing could have consequences. Like yeah, the guard in Dunwall is shit, but if you kill the one real force keeping what's left of the peace, it's not surprising that things will get even worse.
how did you feel about Spec Ops: The Line
I didn't like Spec Ops' ending anywhere as much, because in Dishonored, the player chooses to kill, while in Spec Ops Walker chooses it for you. The story is still good taken on its own terms, but overall it's not as good of a "game story" in the sense that it takes responsibility away from the player. Dishonored 1 is good precisely because you will have a tougher time if you choose to do the right thing.
BlindDeafRat
23d ago
And if we must evaluate art on some scale, I actually find myself most sympathetic to the idea of pure majoritarianism when it comes to taste; the only meaningful way to measure beauty is to evaluate it through what the eyes of the majority consider beautiful, and that would change the ranking of esteemed art in a way that would very hugely deprioritise the opinions of art critics.
I disagree with that point of view. The issue is the that majority has no deep interest in music, or art, or movies. And in turn the deep interest is what drives the genre and the art medium forward. Nothing about Angelus Novus moves me, but there's so many albums that move me, while I doubt most people would even be willing to stand to listen to it for more than a few moments.
While I don't like art critics, and it can certainly create insular communities where they make art for their own clique and nobody else, it's important for communities to exist where people can push their medium forward in novel ways.
BlindDeafRat
28d ago
Math Academy is a (paid) website where you can learn math. There's courses on different levels of math from algebra, to calculus. You get xp for each task, and there's a leaderboard so you can see how well others are doing too. It's pretty sophisticated too. You get basic a lesson on a specific topic, then a short review some time later, and then quizzes which is a set of questions on different topics.
If you mess up on a lesson, or a review you'll fail it and will need to redo it the next day. If you mess up a quiz too much you need to redo it and you lose points for it. There's a warning where if you mess up too many lessons you'll lose more points, but I've never experienced it so I don't know if it's true or just something
In terms of effectiveness I really like it. The xp makes it easy to track how well you've been doing, and it'll give you a date as to when you'll finish the course, which isn't very fast, since each course is around 3k xp, and each task gives about 7 xp.
The creator of it has a whole book on how to effectively learn but I haven't read it just skimmed through and it seems to be pretty effective. It was also used in an 8th grade class and allowed them to do AP Calculus.
BlindDeafRat
1mo ago
I agree. This site's block function is really good. I would've stopped coming here a long time ago if it didn't have it because some posters are so predictable and irritating that I'd rather not see the site at all than see what they have to say.
Overall, a few bad apples(quite a few..) doesn't prevent this site from being my favourite place for politics.
On a side-note, I'm curious which user has been blocked the most times, and which user has the most other users blocked.
BlindDeafRat
1mo ago
Succession ended well, but it still had a lot of repeat of the same plots. The protagonists learn something, and then next season forget it, and learn it again, only to forget it again.
BlindDeafRat
2mo ago
Freesia has a really sketchy artstyle that can almost hurt to read sometimes, but it works considering the main character's mental state.
Baki also has a very strange artstyle that can take time getting used to, but it also has the best fight choreography of any manga.
BlindDeafRat
2mo ago
It might be bad art, but it's presented well. Like in many ways the quality of the characters, and the general look is worse than Murata, the fights themselves are better presented in One's original web comic.
BlindDeafRat
2mo ago
I would recommend sticking with Baki. It's the best fighting manga, way better than Ashura, with some amazing fights. But like you said, it's a shounen, it's meant for teenage boys, it's not meant to be realistic.
Also if you do read it, start with the original Grappler Baki (1991) which is more grounded than than later ones.
Otherwise if you want realistic martial arts manga, the best one I know is All-Rounder Meguru, which is about MMA.
There's also Asumi Kakeru which is also MMA, and quite close to All-Rounder Meguru. The author also has another manga about Sumo.
I love fighting manga and martial arts, and so I've read basically everything translated, but if you're looking for something realistic for a HEMA practitioner, you're not going to find much. Either try lowering your standards, or just skipping manga. Besides All-Rounder Meguru.
Maybe try Vagabond, which is a manga about Musashi, but it's not finished, what is there is really good though, but again, I don't know how realistic the fights are.
BlindDeafRat
3mo ago
That's the one. From what I hear the series gets better after that, but that book demolished any interest I had in continuing it.
BlindDeafRat
3mo ago
I read the first few books of that series a couple of years ago, and I really liked it until like the third or fourth book, after which I dropped it and never read more. The author was going through some shit and decided to include it in the book and it was one of the worst things I've ever read.
BlindDeafRat
4mo ago
If you want a simple introduction to the setting, it's hard to beat Dynasty Warriors 7 or 8 because they have a route for every major faction, including Jin. Everything else tends to focus more on chronological order which I think is way more confusing than just strictly following one side because there are a lot of characters.
There's also Team Ninja's Wu Long which is set in Three Kingdom and starts off with the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Team Ninja made Nioh 2 which is one of my favourite games of all time, and Wu Long is pretty similar except with more of a parry focus, I haven't played the game beyond the demo though.
I would also second the recommendation for the 2010 series, it is very long, at times dry, boring, especially the parts with Diaochan(Lu Bu is more like a bratty child in this show) but overall is really solid. Cao Cao is the best part, and he has a ton of great scenes.
BlindDeafRat
4mo ago
Same, I read Whatever right after reading The Elementary Particles, which I really enjoyed, and it was so boring I haven't read any of his books since.
BlindDeafRat
4mo ago
PGTE has a very slow start and I dropped it like three times before getting into it. Once she's recruited by Black it gets better.
Also, the entire premise of the story is based on capital Good vs capital Evil and narrative around it, with Cat and Black standing somewhere in-between. You do get to see characters that are actually Evil, but Cat isn't a part of that faction.
Since you've read xianxia, I'd say they're closer compared to Orthodox vs Demonic, with Good being Orthodox, aka do plenty of bad things in the background but cover it up as actually good, or shove it under the rug, while Good is Demonic, and at times openly evil, but also less likely to stab you if you make them look bad.
Personally, the narrative framing is the element I like the least, and it's also why I stopped reading it later on, but if you enjoy meta elements in storytelling you might like it. Although from your comment it seems like you're not a fan.
BlindDeafRat
5mo ago
Group #2 is much smaller than #1. Probably at most 10% of group #1. So why would you focus on #2? If you have a 1% converting success on both groups, you'll influence more people on #1. And in terms of society overall it's better if you don't have a large group of single males that are single and resentful towards society.
What you should do instead, is force women to lower their standards. Women are the gatekeepers here, and if you (somehow) convince them to date lower, which considering there are more educated women than men, will have to happen at some point, would work more towards solving this than anything.
BlindDeafRat
5mo ago
Chatgpt in my experience isn't very good at my specific small European language. I've used it for studying a few times, and it's been very hit or a miss, which when you're learning and don't know what's a miss is pretty bad, so I've stopped using it.
Damn, didn't know they had a new release. Twoism is one of my favorite EPs of all time, and Geogaddi is one of my favorite albums.
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