TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
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User ID: 373
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Is the news that you agree with that statement? If you sincerely believe "popular" is an antonym for "good", I'd say you're either a hyper-contrarian or have nigh-impossible standards. Not everything that's popular is great, of course, but there's plenty of quality in popular things if you keep an open mind.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
I agree the interface really could use some love, especially the "group by type" for inventory which is almost worthless right now. Would also be good to have a "search for itemname in camp chest + all char inventories". Character swapping is also cumbersome but I rarely do it so it's not that big of a deal for me personally.
Also recently ran into a horrifically bad fight and the game simply wouldn't let me bait these guys into meeting the very tough undead group I preferred to avoid..
Not sure what you mean by this.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
It's kind of surprising how much of a common problem alpha striking is in turn-based games. It's an issue in the XCOM series as well. I can't think of a turn based game like this where alpha striking isn't an overly critical component. Damage is just scaled way too high, and status effects are too debilitating.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
I'm personally enjoying the game a lot. I'm at the beginning of Act 3 and haven't encountered that many bugs so far, although I heard it can get rough towards the end. Hopefully I don't softlock. Otherwise it's been a great experience.
Most of the other reviews so far have been pretty negative. I feel this forum is slipping towards the 4chan consensus of "everything that's popular sucks, the only things that don't suck are too obscure to really talk about due to their low playercount or because they're 20+ years old at this point".
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Is that all?
Well in that case, that gets pretty close to saying "don't have levity in serious works, period", which I'd strongly disagree with. Part of what made things like Breaking Bad and Disco Elysium great was that they dealt with really serious topics while also being fun and almost goofy at some points. The lighthearted moments were needed both for contrast and to not wear out the viewer. There's an art to doing this of course, as wisecracking during a serious moment can do a lot more harm than good, but the alternative of just being serious or negative all the time to the point of being hard-boiled and grimdark certainly isn't good either.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Larian games don't quite feel like Skyrim to me, which has more of an open sandboxy vibe with less emphasis on story. It feels more like a CRPG version of New Vegas, where the plot is a critical aspect, but the player is given wide latitude on how to engage with it. The game does a good job reacting to specific player actions and the ultimate resolution can go in many different ways depending on the player's decisions.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Whedonesque
I don't really know what you mean by this. I tried looking up what Joss Whedon has worked on and there's not much of a clear pattern I can discern. From Toy Story to Firefly to The Avengers, he's worked on a wide range of things. I'm guessing by your earlier comment that the Avengers (or Marvel movies in general) would be the main thing here, but I'm still not quite sure what you mean by this.
Most important, the first two Dragon Age and Mass Effect games take their settings very seriously
I remember ME1 taking its setting very seriously since it was setting up this whole new universe. The other games from the ME and DA series still tried to stay within their settings... but so does BG3.
not because it’s trying to be serious AND make fun of itself at the same time, which is the biggest hallmark of bad modern writing.
Again, I'm not sure where you think BG3 is doing this. Do you have some examples from act 1? Where is the game making fun of itself?
I really hate BG3’s companions, they’re all zany, wacky eccentrics with a Deep Secret. There are usually a couple of companions in a BioWare game like this, but there are also plenty of more ‘normal’ people.
For me, these are parts of the characters are quite enjoyable since they add a degree of mystery at the beginning while connecting to the broader strokes of the story later on. After thinking about it, I would agree that the "I'm locked in a bad deal with an asshole god" trope is overused since it applies to half the cast, but there certainly companions without that. Lae'zel doesn't have this, nor do the alt companions like Minthara, Halsin, Jaheira, or Minsc.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
What does "good writing" look like to you? Some examples from video games would be helpful.
I find the writing of the vast majority of games to be completely forgettable to the point where I ignore it completely. I only bother engaging with the story for a few games that manage to interest me like Disco Elysium or Dragon Age or Mass Effect. I'd say the writing in BG3 is right up there with the DA or ME series if not slightly better. There are basically no complex moral choices since the bad guys are cartoonishly evil, but you could say the same about DA or ME. The good parts about BG3 are 1) each act has an element of mystery as you uncover what's going on between all the characters; 2) there's a wide range of player choices that the game reacts to both in the small details and even in the possibility of changing large plot points; 3) the 6 main companions have interesting backstories with personal growth that feels plausible; and 4) the world is just generally interesting to engage in with stuff like a sly wizard's "read thoughts" or a barbarian's big dumb "DO WHAT I WANT" skill checks never getting old.
If you care about "lore accuracy" then maybe your opinion would change. I wouldn't know since I never bother getting too invested in the deeper lore of any fictional universe since that's almost always a road to plot holes and disappointment. Your other critiques like "people don't act like humans", or "Marvel-humor", or "YA-fictionbrained", etc are fairly generic criticisms that could apply to almost any work of fiction if you squint. They'd at least apply to stuff like the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series.
The combat of BG3 is not great but not terrible. It can be fun in the moment-to-moment in a way similar to XCOM 2, but DOS2's systems were just better designed. Way too much of the difficulty of BG3 is tied up in preparing for fights. Beginning the battle with a sneak attack and coming in with the proper spells prepared can turn fights from "impossible" to "trivial" very regularly. I've been abusing quicksaving and quickloading more than any game I've ever played in my life, but the alternative of playing it straight-up just isn't fun when my characters miss all their attacks due to low ground penalties and debuffs the enemy casted on the first turn.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Hanania can't be "cancelled" in the traditional sense since being a public intellectual in the age of Substack makes that more difficult than it used to. He won't lose his job or be completely shut down or be forced to stop writing or anything like that.
However, a big part of Hanania's appeal was that he was published in more respectable outlets and signal-boosted by Boomer conservatives who have institutional power. The Boomer conservatives agreed with his message but are totally, utterly terrified of being considered "racist" so these attacks do meaningful damage. There's already some signs that Hanania's name has been severely damaged in respectable circles. A lot of the impact going forward will be hard to measure since it'll likely be outlets just silently refusing to interview him, but these are lost opportunities all the same.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Unfortunately this could basically kill his influence. It won't completely obliterate him and he will likely still be able to make a solid living from writing things on Substack, but his days of being quoted by people like Musk and being a central player in the battle against wokeness are likely coming to an end. A tactic that woke defenders love to use is the quippy ad-hominem about how ideologically repugnant their opponent is. Hanania's book is coming out in September and I can already hear leftist retorts along the lines of "this is the guy who said Blacks should all be sterilized". Nuance doesn't really matter because trying to defend against the attack or adding context concedes the central point that this person uttered thought-criminal ideas in the past. Mainstream conservatives are still utterly terrified of being considered "racist", and linking to someone's book who said something like that could pose a risk to them that way. As such, these attacks can be pretty successful for at least trashing people's reputation in polite company, which is all the woke defenders really need to do to make someone mostly irrelevant.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
The fact that the IRA had sympathetic supporters in Ireland was big. The Irish government might have officially disagreed with their violent methods, but not with the idea of Irish unification.
Compare that to a hypothetical scenario today where Conservatives are trying to go up against a left-leaning FBI that's clearly willing to bend laws, and a left-leaning media that'd love to manufacture consent to legitimize doing so.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
This is just the “left will always win rhetoric”.
Hardly. I'm saying this particular strategy seems like it will fail. A better strat would be to fight for control of institutions, undercut woke methods of power, and vote for R candidates who actually give a damn about culture war stuff instead of Romneycrats who "compromise" on it to get tax cuts for the rich. Hanania writes a lot on this sort of stuff.
You can ruin the political culture to force reform hopefully.
What? How would that work? This sounds like
- Escalate the culture war
- "Ruin" the political culture
- ?????
- Profit.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
The IRA wasn't universally loathed by every institution within Ireland though.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
That logical endpoint of that sort of escalation is a violent right-wing insurgency like the Troubles in Ireland, but with every major institution aligned against them the conservatives will almost certainly lose.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Trump is completely reliable. I can rely on him to fight.
If you consider tweeting and grandstanding followed by policy reversals when things are criticized on cable news, then sure, Trump is your guy.
That doesn't seem like a very good strategy to win though. Hence why most of Trump's limited accomplishments while in office came from McConell appointing conservative SCOTUS justices, i.e. stuff any Republican president with a heartbeat could have done.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
I don't know if they broke laws specifically, but if they did then that's an easy target to nail them for. If they didn't, then it's just another battle of "why are almost all institutions left-leaning?"
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
If you're convinced establishment Republicans won't help you, then vote them out and get people in office who will. And if those new people don't do a good enough job, vote them out as well and get new people in. A big part of the problem for conservatives is that they kept voting in Romneycrats prior to 2016 who did almost nothing to help win the culture wars. Instead of fixing the problem, they developed learned helplessness like "Cthulhu always swims left".
Trump was a step in the right direction, but had clear flaws. Instead of trying to get a more reliable candidate though, most Republicans seem content to turn the party into Trump's cult of personality.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Killing the FBI entirely is certainly a nuclear option, but yes it should be on the table if things get that bad. R's want to abolish large parts of the federal government including entire agencies, so I don't see why the FBI would be considered off limits.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
It's interesting to me that DeSantis (my preference) pitched himself as a competent and respectable Trump-like figure, and yet that hasn't won him much ground so far. I would think that would unify right wing voters, but apparently not.
One of the main issues with Desantis is that he's been completely unwilling to give the pitch you just gave, i.e. that Trump has flaws which Desantis could presumably be better at. For whatever reason, Desantis has been utterly unwilling to criticize Trump in basically any aspect, creating the bizarre scenario where he's running against Trump in the primary but refuses to tell us why.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
A better response to any misgivings about the FBI is to have R politicians probe the organization and gradually escalate if it's found to be breaking the law to assist Dems. On the other hand, saying "the enemy's misdeeds justify our own lies" is pure toxoplasma.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
I'll admit that scientists are probably the best counterexample, although I don't think it's a killshot. Scientists are well-respected, and while it's not the path to becoming a billionaire, they're also well paid. "Scientist" can sometimes evoke notions of a weird introvert in a lab with thick glasses, but that's not the type of person who's a role model. Instead, people model themselves on someone like Oppenheimer who was a very respected leader in the field and who had multiple lovers.
Monks are just flatly not popular male role models, outside of maybe their stoicism which is just a conventionally appreciated male trait.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
Not in the slightest.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
No, being high value is being high value. You're high value to yourself, to other men and to women. Why? Because you provide value and this is broadly useful.
What? This is just circular reasoning.
The point is to avoid focusing on what women want because that distorts and ruins your ability to evaluate things.
No it doesn't. If a guy wants to focus on attracting women, follows online advice of lifting weights and improving appearance, and thereby starts attracting more women, then that's mission accomplished. It doesn't need to be cloaked in some superstitious silliness of "it only works if you think you're doing for yourself instead of specifically your ability to attract women, bro".
Again, men's perception of "value" is utterly warped around what women want for obvious evolutionary reasons. Stuff like physical fitness, having lots of money, being outgoing and confident, etc. are all stuff women value, and so men value it in themselves and others. There's a reason it's very difficult to think of a male role-model who wouldn't be successful with women.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
3yr ago
whatever fatique will be felt by the NATO camp, it won't be a big factor.
Never say never. Trump has openly said he would blackmail Ukraine into surrendering, and he currently has a runaway chance to be the RNom. There's no guarantee that would actually happen if he became president again since Trump is a waffle and if the people surrounding him (e.g. Kushner) or cable news pundits are all against it then he could soften his approach. But he could also very much... just do what he's saying he will, and the modern US political system centralizes an overwhelming amount of military power in the chief executive, so dissenting Dems + Repubs in Congress would have little recourse.
A critical reason this war is going to be a long one is because the question of "which side benefits from a drawn out war of attrition" is very unsettled.
Some works might be like that, but I feel this sentiment is often misused by contrarians to reason backwards without providing evidence. How is BG3 "optimized for mass appeal to sell"? I grant maybe the ubiquitous horniness goes towards that, but what about the gameplay? This game severely punishes mistakes, which isn't something I'd say an average normie consumer is really looking for.
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