Sam Vimes boots theory

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness.

On the other hand, a legal obligation to collect and publish mugshots on intake prevents people from getting disappeared.

Though that’s still a concern in the US these days, when ICE is able to just kidnap people off the streets and ship them wherever with no due process.

How do people work on Monday??

Tired, often hungover.

Biggu Burazaa

If they were worried about the expectations, they shouldn’t have taken 15 years to release the damn thing.

I can get wanting to not rush a project, and I know as a studio they don’t do multiple projects at the same time, but they’ve wedged themselves into a pickle.

Series that release at a relatively steady clip (not too often but frequently enough to stay in conversation) have the privilege of coasting on iterative design. You can try a few cool new things, see what works and what doesn’t, and then you can see how the tides shift for the next project.

When you take ages between games, the entire market shifts its tendencies to the point where you can no longer anticipate what people will be into and what they’ve already gotten over. That’s not to say that they need to make a radically different game, but you’re not going to win any points by just repeating styles that the audience has already moved away from.

Just as one example, Dark Souls 1 and Skyrim came out in the same year. Demon’s Souls aside, basically the entire Soulsborne genre developed and iterated within the time it’s taken Bethesda to get around to Elder Scrolls 6. And now that a game like Elden Ring has such a strong association to the modern state of open world fantasy RPGs, it’s hard to entirely ignore that when there will inevitably be a good deal of audience overlap.

Just for further reading, the pointed arch is one example of an iconic feature in Gothic architecture that was lifted out of Islamic architecture.

So, if this is indeed trying to be legit, what is stopping people from just co-opting the event as an act of protest against billionaires anyways?

Just the English words “Big Brother” pronounced with a Japanese accent.

Actually had me curious so I looked it up. The Japanese version of the Wikipedia page is titled ビッグ・ブラザー so it looks like they just transliterated the English term instead of translating it into Japanese.

Seconded, I’ve been enjoying it.

It gives (literally) more color to the setting. I like having the commoner perspective in the world, and I also like getting a better idea of what the Targaryen dynasty prior to Game of Thrones was actually like (the oldest characters in Game of Thrones are kids in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms).

There were a couple instances where they accidentally released unredacted versions of files before they realized and replaced them with redacted versions, but that’s all I can recall off the top of my head. One instance of that occured last week.

I think there may have been some documents released without authorization before, but I can’t recall when, just a vague recollection.

More surface area = more flavor

I think it’s a mistake to ride the coattails of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Don’t get me wrong, I think more Forgotten Realms stories could make for good TV. The Honor Among Thieves movie from a few years ago was fantastic, and there was supposed to be a live action TV series in the works after that.

But I just don’t see why they’d give up on making one D&D TV series, only to start a brand new one with more baggage. Instead of telling an original story, they’re tied down to a story continuity that is inevitably going to leave a lot of fans disappointed regardless of the direction they take.

Another reminder that private prisons (>10% of prisons in the US) are not the end-all be-all of everything wrong with the US justice system. The public side of things is messed up enough on its own.

Look at the backs of some large trucks and you’ll see the sort of crud they’re emitting just sticking to them, too.

Could that not just be a smartphone app?

I prefer AI courtesan

Elden Ring was honestly my first. I avoided Soulslike games because I don’t like to play games to feel frustrated. I heard about the crazy bosses, frustrating runs back from bonfires, and obtuse storytelling, so I was not inclined to give them much thought.

I was pushed to play it by a few friends looking for a third for a summons trio, with assurances that I’d have two Souls veterans to help me out with bosses if I got stuck. It took me a bit to get used to, but the nature of the open world and the rather more forgiving placements of graces/stakes to minimize the pain of runbacks made it a bearable game for me. Though the story is still obtuse, I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and how (excluding Caelid) surprisingly not dark the world was.

And you know what? I ended up being the friend to help one of them beat Malenia, who I defeated on my own first.

I’ve been enjoying Nightreign with those same friends lately. More good stuff, boiled down. It’s made me get more comfortable with different playstyles just due to the nature of pre-built characters and random drops.

I’m also now playing through the remake of Demon’s Souls on a whim, and while I feel better equipped to get through it just from what I know about Elden Ring, I can safely say that I would have completely bounced off of it had it been my first game. I’m definitely glad Elden Ring was my first, and Elden Ring 2 cannot come fast enough.

The Wii U had a very short (relative for a console) lifespan, though. It released at the end of 2012, and the Switch came in early 2017. Really just 4 years and some change. It didn’t sell well and Nintendo wanted to move on from it as quickly as possible.

The Switch, by comparison, lasted about twice as long (longer if you factor in how many more game releases it’s still likely to see), and I’d anticipate the Switch 2 having a comparable lifespan if it continues to sell well. We’re not getting a Switch 3 in 2030, at least.

Most of them are so expensive, though.

No, Philips, I am not spending $50 on a single bulb, that is madness.