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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)VA
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  • I almost kinda dislike the messaging on this one because it implies authoritarianism is the key to discovery. Scientists are implied to be passive and unindustrious when left alone, so the government (FBI-type characters) declare a truth they want proven, force development of it through the threat of violence, and it eventually yields an answer they're happy with.

    I'm reminded of the film The Death of Stalin and it's depiction of the USSR's treatment of bourgeois intellectuals like doctors.

  • It was $15/mo before it's first price hike, too.

    And before that, a lot of people were taking advantage of the Xbox Live Gold conversion deal, where folks were getting access to GamePass Ultimate for $60/year.

    I once spent $180 for 3 years of GamePass, and now that same amount only gets you 6 months.

  • I barely even buy 5 games a year, and often not at full price. And usually the games I want aren't even on GamePass anyways.

    $360/year is crazy. Only a good deal if you're buying more than 6 full price games a year and plan to 100% beat them and never play again before they disappear from the catalog.

  • I've definitely been there. I think it's like what English teachers say when they see their students reading whatever latest YA drivel has been published (e.g. Twilight):

    At least they want to read something.

    Encourage their passions, even if you really hate what they're currently doing with it, and trust that eventually they'll get a better sense of taste when they learn more about what else is out there.

    Take the "lead a horse to water" idiom but add the corollary that the horse definitely will not drink if no one leads it to water in the first place.

  • Can't find a link to the referenced comic

    Got you covered, fam.

    There's other versions around as well and I have no idea which is the original. Just replace "Bioware" with any studio that EA has purchased and chances are there is a version of this comic that followed that news.

  • That season was a fairly close adaptation of The Last Wish, which is a collection of short stories in the Witcher universe and explains why the first season was more fragmented and episodic.

    It is the first book in the Witcher series and sets a lot of the very formative worldbuilding details that resurface later on, and so it makes sense for it to be the first season, but subsequent seasons would have to be different.

    From my anecdotal experience, I think more people liked the first season than the ones that followed. But I don't think it was necessarily because of the shift from episodic plots to the serialized season-long plots that followed. I blame the fact that the writers for the series felt they could write better than the original author and started doing their own thing with it.

    Original writing can be good, and there are definitely some parts of the Witcher books that haven't aged well (or simply wouldn't be good fits for TV), but the TV writers took a chainsaw to the plot when they probably should have taken a scalpel, and if that happens too early and too severely in a story, it just snowballs and gets worse from there.

  • Not strange at all, it's not as though it's a particularly action-y game.

    If someone wanted to play FF7 Remake/Rebirth on M&K, I might have a few more questions, but speaking as someone who still plays a lot of FPS games with controller, you'll never hear me tell someone that their preferred style is wrong.

  • There is only one set that sorta works this way in theory, which is gold. Often faster than the diamond/netherite equivalents, but significantly lower durability, and has that bonus effect of pacifying pigmen.

    I don't think we'd need to get carried away on effects too much, but here's adjustments I'd propose:

    • Wood - Keep as is. This should be the baseline "bad" starter set, doesn't do anything special.
    • Nether Wood - Identical to wood in strength, but has the durability of iron. This is your "Oh no I'm trapped in the Nether and my tools broke" fallback. Like netherite, does not burn in lava.
    • Stone - Keep as-is, though maybe change the materials it can collect. I think it's easier for kids to grasp that ore in stone can be mined with stone, and then have it be that ore in deepslate cannot be mined with stone.
    • Copper - Identical to stone in strength, but has the durability of current iron to make it feel like an upgrade.
    • Iron - Strength stays as-is, but double its current durability to make it feel like a more impactful upgrade from copper.
    • Gold - keep as-is.
    • Diamond - double its current durability to make it feel like more of an upgrade over Iron.
    • Netherite - does not break, ever.
  • There are a few asset upscaler projects that might be worth looking into, but also be careful which version of the game you play, as not all mods support the same versions.

    There is the PC 1998 port. Being from a time before controller support on PC was a thing, you'll have to really try to weasel in controller support somehow if you want it. Some parts of the PlayStation release (glitches and spelling mistakes) are fixed, but it introduces many bugs of its own. Character models have mouths. Supports mods, but a lot of the go-tos may be pretty old and harder to find at this point, and you'll really need a lot of QoL mods to make the experience workable.

    There is the PC 2012 port, which is a (lightly) remastered version of the 1998 port. Character models still have mouths. Contains further localization changes from the 1998 port. It runs far better on modern systems than the 1998 port, adds some (not great not terrible) controller support, and some of the features from popular QOL mods that people used to add to the 1998 version are baked in. This is the version that is currently sold on Steam. Also supports mods.

    Then there is the 2015 mobile/console port, which is further adapted from the 2012 PC port. Character models have mouths removed to be closer to the PS1 style. Introduces achievements, better native controller support (still far from perfect), and slightly better support for larger resolution displays. This is the version you can buy on the Xbox Store for PC. Basically no mod support because Xbox App games are very locked down, but it includes the "boost" (cheat) features that Square Enix has included in other Final Fantasy ports (toggles to speed up time, characters do max damage, no encounters) which some may hate the inclusion of, but do make it easier to just play the game for the story if you're looking for zero grind.