Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
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User ID: 214
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
2d ago
I haven't played Silksong and probably won't for a few years, so I'm taking Hollow Knight as a standalone text in my view of the Pale King. The games were released 8 years apart, and teams change, priorities change, and the gameplay need to have a new play area will also require the writers to carve out new reasons for it to exist. Once I get around to playing it, I'll see how I feel about everything.
My impression was that some of the bugs had sapience, like the mantises and moths, but not most or all. I think the gameplay is evidence for the Pale King's continued presence being important. He was there once, and there was a thriving civilization. He is gone now, and 90% of the creatures you meet are now feral beasts who attack on sight. I had also thought that the general claim of bugs gaining sapience after coming to Hallownest to be true, which implies there must be a sizeable population of insects who were not already higher-minded who benefited from being uplifted. Most of the bugs shambling about Hallownest who meet your nail would probably prefer if the Radiance had never shown up and the Pale King had continued to rule.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
2d ago
This is fair when it comes to using jumping as a defensive option. The game doesn't tell you that it makes the bottom half of your body covered in I frames, or that it recovers faster than rolling, and both of these things are non-intuitive. Elden Ring doesn't want you to only dodge, but it doesn't want to tell you that outright... The obtuseness these games have in terms of how basic mechanics work is a fair criticism to make. I will say at least in its defense that many things are opaque on purpose to get you to ask for help from someone who knows how they work, whether that's from a friend you know who is a veteran or people online. Collaboration with fellow travelers passing by to untangle something seemingly impossible was a large theme of the first Dark Souls, and it's held out through the series.
For attacking though, at least from watching my new friends play, I think most people playing will feel out a correlation between using heavy attacks/jump heavies and how quickly enemies get their guard broken to allow for the incredibly-important critical attacks. In this case, I genuinely think someone who doesn't already have preconceived notions of how these games play (thinking light attacks are god and heavy attacks are worthless because that's how it works in Dark Souls) is going to have a better time. A lot of newcomers seem to have less of an ego about using magic or powerful Ashes of War as well.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
2d ago
Having to mess with the camera in combat is annoying, but in DS1 and 2, enemies move and attack slowly enough where this is doable while still being able to react to attacks coming in. Additionally, you can free aim the direction of your attacks while they're winding up to hit groups of enemies without having to rely on the cursor tech you mentioned. And since your stamina regenerates so painfully slowly in 2, having uninhibited movement directions to allow you to execute walk/run based evasion more reliably becomes that much important.
Once you get to DS3 and Elden Ring, enemies are definitely too fast and relentless to not have lock on activated unless you're executing a specific type of dodge or magic attack that calls for unhooked camera.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
3d ago
I’m of the opinion that the Pale King Did Nothing Wrong. He gave the gift of sapience to the insects of Hallownest, and the extreme measures he took to save it were understandable given the gravity of the Radiance sickness. That the mountain of corpses and the in the void and the Hollow Knight doomed to suffer were his children and not someone else’s counts for something too. The Hollow Knight arguably failed in its job because the Pale King raised it as his son before sealing it in the egg.
He is most definitely vain, and self-interested. But so are many of us, and he does more to justify those traits than most. And worship is a more than fair expectation in exchange for sapience. I would make that trade happily if the alternative were being a mindless beast.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
3d ago
Dark Souls 2 has a reputation for being very unfair because people try to play it with the camera lock on, a mechanic that restricts your movement when activated, and predictably get bodied by the mass of enemies that jump them. If you learn to play with the camera unlocked and dodge without rolling, it’s a whole different experience. Unfortunately, the game’s tutorial teaches you to lock on, so it’s not really an unaware’s player's fault for having this happen to them.
Dark Souls 3 is most definitely rollslop. Dodge roll and light attack spam is optimal for 99% of the game. Elden Ring imo is not; jumping is a vastly superior option to evade attacks in many situations, as is running, strafing, horse iframes, etc. Roll is a now a tool in your kit, not the whole arsenal. Your offensive options are not nearly as restricted either, as heavy attacking and jump attacking are now very powerful options. I believe, but can’t prove, that a lot of Elden Ring’s difficulty complaints come from DS3 veterans who refuse to do anything but dodge roll and light attack and don’t engage with the new mechanics.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1mo ago
To clarify, Ted was a Red attack on Blue academia, Waco was Blue oppression of religious conservatives? That's more or less my understanding of the two incidents.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
2mo ago
I’m hoping Ascent of Ashes lives up to the hype I have for it. Getting another real time with pause colony sim would be a dream come true, especially if it’s more focused on exploration and combat than Rimworld
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
2mo ago
I just read the first chapter of Most Evil Trainer and it was promising. Should I have been looking on SB for fics this whole time?
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
2mo ago
That’s promising then. The Mewtwo POV chapter was such a cool way of doing the concept of AI in the box that I can probably cut the author some slack. It was just when Bill came to lecture you about AI safety that I lost it. Is there anything else in a similar vein you’d recommend?
I've been reading the fanfiction Pokemon: The Origin of Species on and off recently. It's a rationalist take on the Pokemon setting in the same vein as HPMOR, if you aren't familiar. It's had some good ideas and moments, and can be delightfully brutal, but I just got to the chapter that introduces Bill and was put off by the author dropping a bowling ball on my head about AI safety, with lines ripped (cited?) almost 1:1 from Big Yud. It feels almost... quaint? But more tiresome than anything else; this isn't a new topic for anyone who had read a lot of Rational fiction or blogs.
Moreover, it's made me apprehensive about the direction of the story and unsure if I want to continue. I enjoyed rationalist concepts applied to the Pokemon world, and the author trying to make real various concepts and moves in the game. I'm not interested in it turning into another AI/ending death story... which seems like where the author or main character wants to go given recent events in the story.
Has anyone else read this fic? What were your thoughts. I'm only on chapter 37/143 myself, so I won't be able to talk about events far in the future.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
2mo ago
We've had the same issue with Hlynka
Funny in hindsight, given that OP was revealed to be a Hlynka sockpuppet recently. Not sure if you saw.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
2mo ago
How are gender relations in China, in your experience? We have a lot of issues and stories like this in the West, though South Korea always seemed the most insane to me in terms of complete gender relation breakdown.
Also, welcome to the Motte. I would love to read about more Chinese culture war skirmishes like this, and I'm sure I am not alone in that. These stories tend to not make their way to the English side of the web often.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
6mo ago
I would have agreed with you only 5 years ago. I used to browse /tg/ a lot, but the quality on there has steeply declined. Very few stories are posted there any more, and all discussion threads are derailed by posters spamming NoGames or accusing other posters of being Bumpfag. I can't speak to the other boards, but that one used to pump out so much iconic content and has been reduced to a shell of itself.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
6mo ago
They were hacked by a Soyteen from Soyjack.party, as @Eupraxia said, not a state actor. The hacker restored the /qa/ board, which is where their site culture originated from and whose deletion caused them to move. This KF thread has a good overview on what their site culture is about. It is... weird, so be warned, but very funny if you enjoy schizo humor. They're well-known for raids of other imageboards, so this type of hack is only unusual for its scope.
This rDrama thread has more information on the hack and here's showing the hacker posting about how they did it.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
7mo ago
I was wondering if you were going to link to that Kulak piece as I read your comment. I haven’t been able to unsee that trope and ponder its meaning in each case I see it ever since reading it.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
7mo ago
Stranded in Fantasy is one of my comfort reads. It's a quasi-gametale written on /tg/ about a group of ordinary humans who get portaled into a fantasy world. It's not a power fantasy like most isekai-type stories; the characters have nothing to start out with and must struggle to survive. It's extremely comfy and the characters, while flat, are fun and care about eachother.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
11mo ago
I have so many thoughts. Dana White taking the mic and thanking Adin Ross, Theo Von, and Joe Rogan felt surreal. Trump scooped up a lot of young men's influencers into his camp this time, while the Harris campaign didn't even seem to consider the option. Barron Trump has been advising his father to go on the podcast circuit before the election, and it seems to have paid off. Those memes about Barron secretly masterminding Trump's win in 2016 seem to have come true, eight years later.
How much did Elon, Rogan, RFK, etc. getting into his camp swing this for him? I'm thinking those were critical endgame winds for Trump. Hell, how much of this was made possible by Elon buying Twitter?
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
11mo ago
Trump is on stage giving the speech now. AP has called Pennsylvania. Unless Alaska somehow doesn't turn out the electoral votes, it's over. What a ride this has been.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Your friends' scenario is probably my single biggest fear in life. My cousin is disabled in the same way, and it destroyed my aunt's marriage. She'll spend the rest of her life taking care of her, and then her oldest daughter will inherit the job once she dies. She is in her thirties and has the mental capacity of a third grader, has a host of health issues, and will never be independent. The whole situation is a nightmarish black hole that there is no escape from. It's hitting especially close to home as I'm nearing my late twenties and have been talking children with the woman I'll be marrying. If it were fully up to me, I would terminate a pregnancy if our child were to have some kind of developmental disability out the gate, but she has a Catholic upbringing and obviously does not feel the same way, so I'll just have to roll the dice when we have ours.
I do want to push back on the part about social opportunities, though. I recently went on a trip with with my parents, girlfriend, two of my friends, one of their girlfriends, and their parents. Our families are close, and we met by me becoming friends with one of the sons in middle school. As we became friends and hung out after school, my parents met his, and befriended them. Now, years and years later, my parents know dozens of people in the area purely through that initial connection. I think, if you live in the suburbs, one of the only ways to build a functioning social network in your middle years is by having kids and connecting with their peers' parents. Obviously this can only really happen once they get a bit older though. I know you're more of an urbanite, so I'm not sure how much this would apply to you or your brother.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I walk everywhere I can, and have gotten by without owning a car for the last several years. In the last four years, I've lived in both a spread-out suburb and a denser, quasi-urban area. In my experience as a dedicated pedestrian, the majority of motorists I encounter are very deferential and mindful, stopping when they don't need to or waiting much longer than is required at a stop sign when I am approaching a crossing in order to let me through. Almost every cyclist I encounter is the exact opposite, refusing to slow or turn for anyone. It's on you to get out of the way or have the cyclist shoot you a death glare for not showing them sufficient deference. They are a massive hazard and nuisance on the sidewalks. Part of that, I'm sure, is due to lack of dedicated biking lanes, but I think cyclists have a cultural problem that makes them extremely unlikable, and not just to motorists.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I’ve emulated Fire Emblem games from the SNES, GBA, and GameCube on PC and it was very smooth in all cases. You get access to save states if you’re interested in that, so it’s arguably a better experience. I recommend using a gamepad with a decent d-pad if you’re going to play the older games though, as it’s ergonomically preferable to doing it on your keyboard.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Nintendo is overrated in the way Disney is overrated — brand power and nostalgia do a lot to sell and market their games. That said, look at the AAA gaming scene over the last 5 and what developers are left that haven't devolved into slop mills pushing out incomplete, buggy, soulless games? Nintendo, From Soft, maybe CD Projekt depending on how charitable you want to be towards Cyberpunk. Nintendo holding onto their reputation for this long speaks to something beyond nostalgia.
I share a lot of your criticisms of Breath of the Wild though. They spent so much time on the (admittedly amazing) world design and physics engine that dungeons, loot, enemy variety are all undercooked. Something I've noticed about it is that the non-gamers I know absolutely adore the game. They love the freedom and playing around with the cool physics system to see what you can do. More traditional gamers I know get tired of the copy-paste content after trying to play the game like a traditional Zelda and wind up much more negative on the game.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Fantastic work, though the sections on how Gerard manipulates procedural outcomes on Wikipedia to turn supposedly neutral, fact-based articles into hit pieces fills me with dread. This same kind of malicious citogenesis was used in the Kiwi Farms deplatforming saga back in 2022/2023 to turn the Wikipedia narrative on them into a one-sided hit piece, with journalists citing conjecture and laundering it into a Reliable Source. I assume anything controversial on Wikipedia is written this way now, but I don't think the average person does.
You're on a roll with this niche you're carving out for yourself. I'm excited to read about the next bizarre rabbit hole you decide to post about in 4-6 months.
The original Michael Bay Transformers is exactly this type of period piece. It encapsulated everything about that era of early-2000s American culture; military dudebro Call of Duty aesthetics, jingoistic patriotism, frat boy humor, etc. That type of theming was dead and buried by the 2010s, but is maybe making a resurgence now. I remember hating it at the time, but it does feel nostalgic to see now with how different everything became.
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