|
Post by Friendly Person :) on Jul 18, 2019 5:48:07 GMT -5
Also this fire at Kyo Ani -- the story is still ongoing, but holy sh*t, how do 16 people (and counting) die in a fire in the middle of Kyoto? And this was supposedly started by an arsonist? That's really, really f*cked up.
-edit- 33 dead. Jesus.
-edit edit- Kyodo news agency said firefighters had found the door to the roof was shut, leaving people trapped inside.
A Kyoto fire official also told Reuters news agency that the building did not have any sprinklers or indoor fire hydrants – but did not need them to comply with Japan's fire code.
Momoko Higuchi, a Tokyo-based architect, told Reuters that the blaze was likely made worse by the building's three-storey spiral staircase, which would have "[acted] as a chimney."
(Also the building is less than a block away from a river)
I have no f*cking words.
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 21, 2019 12:55:43 GMT -5
It's somewhat interesting, I think, that Japan has had multiple incidents of mass killings like this in recent years, but most other countries that might enter the general US periphery have had no such issue. If you do hear about mass killings like this in, say, Europe, it's usually due to terrorism, and not some maligned individual. I wonder if there's something to that.
The guy certainly sounded unhinged, in any case. Upset about his book being plagiarized... invariably, it seems that whenever a nobody accuses a major firm/individual of stealing their work, they're looney toons.
|
|
Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
|
Post by Derman on Jul 21, 2019 14:47:44 GMT -5
The last time I checked it was 10 dead... that's pretty messed up. Apparently many things went wrong in the fire code, but who would've expected some random arsehole would light the building on fire because of some personal grudges.
We don't have those kinds of mass killings here, the closest one we got was one guy stabbing a couple of people before the police got him. It is in a way pretty messed up to think about the possibility that the next guy I meet on the street might decide to pull out a knife and start randomly stabbing people. But on the other hand the incident made me realize that stuff like that is relatively hard to pull off here, and I'm not in much danger living in Finland. Because of that, it's hard for me to comprehend the impact incidents like this might have on local people.
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 23, 2019 17:39:31 GMT -5
Hmm, I just picked up a book on a whim based on a New York Times article review. 5% in (ah, the Kindle reading experience--how many pages am I? I sort of like the "page" concept, although it's fairly arbitrary), and so far I'm pretty pleasantly surprised by the writing. I mean, I wasn't expecting to not like the book--it's about a topic that deeply interests me, linguistics--but I just wasn't expecting the writing style to be engaging right away. Can't complain, I guess!
To be specific, the book's called Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language and is about the evolution of language "spoken" online. It is an interesting phenomenon I've thought about myself. For instance, the word lol--initially that meant what it spelled out, Laughing Out Loud, and it was in all-caps, like most acronyms. But now it's always lowercase, and it can mean lots of things. People use it to add levity to a statement ("i have no idea what i'm doing lol"), for instance, or to express exasperation ("there she goes again, lol"), bonafide laughing in response to something funny, or the perennial instant message conversation-killer (the lone "lol"). It's certainly grown beyond its initial use case of conveying actual laughter, and now means a ton of different things depending on context. (Hell, I know people who use lol as filler, but use LOL when they find something actually laugh-worthy.)
It's all pretty interesting to think about. Myself, I don't use lol. Never have; "haha" has similar nuanced meanings for me instead. It really bugged me in the 90s/early 2000s when I noticed people suffixing genuinely non-humorous phrases with lol ("im going to bed now lol"), as if it was some meaning sort of word crutch filler, akin to like*. So, I didn't use it on principle. lol seems to have settled out now into more nuanced contexts--or perhaps I'm just more aware of and appreciate them better--and it no longer bothers me. If anything, lol does a good job of making people sound more approachable or easygoing. Still can't bring it to use it, though; I've abstained for so long that it just wouldn't feel like "me" if I used it.
*(On the note of verbal crutches, may I nominate the habit of saying like constantly as the worst verbal tic? There's honestly no faster way to sound like a bonafide airhead.)
|
|
|
Post by Friendly Person :) on Jul 24, 2019 0:09:38 GMT -5
*(On the note of verbal crutches, may I nominate the habit of saying like constantly as the worst verbal tic? There's honestly no faster way to sound like a bonafide airhead.) I do this all the time in instant messaging. I'm not a fan of it, and I struggle to address it, but at least I use it in a way which I think differs slightly from the way it might typically be overused. With instant messaging, the key is 'instant', often meaning that I don't have time to really reflect on what I'm writing. I've mentioned in the past that even silly posts like this one will often take a decent amount of time to complete, because I'm afraid of conveying an unintended subtext. With instant messages, I frequently feel the need to contextualise what I said, hence an over-abundance of the word 'like'.
Okay, going through my old conversations for an example, I might be getting better about it. For instance though, I have (with reference to Persona):
I'm talking mostly about the character relationships being pointless like, after going through it a few times, the social links start feeling absurdly 'gamey' because they all follow the same 10-rank system, you can literally break them down stage-by-stage so you basically know exactly what's going to happen before it even happens rather than a character development that adds to the plot, it's just the same [sh*tty] arcs over and over it's unfair to the characters, because they stop feeling like people with personalities and more like video game characters who just exist to do the gameplay thing "oh, I really trust you so much" cool, I'm glad I became your BFF after 2 weeks time to dump you like a rock and never talk again
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 24, 2019 19:39:27 GMT -5
That's not excessive. "I, like, thought about majoring in math, but, like, you have to study a lot, and I want to have, like, a social life, you know?"
I couldn't figure out for the life of me why Discord was insisting I was still playing the Sims, even though I last played it more than a week ago. I just realized I never exited out of the Sims when I played last week, and I had no clue because I rarely use my desktop, and I was out of the country for most of that entire time anyway. So I've inadvertently logged like 260ish hours on Steam in the past 10 days or so. Ultimate basement dweller status. It dawned on me that probably no one I know in real life thought this was particularly odd to see me playing every evening for hours, given that I have fallen into Sim vortexes before. Hmm. Perhaps I should re-evaluate life choices.
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 25, 2019 18:49:32 GMT -5
I want to be excited about the new Fire Emblem game since a lot of people I know are, but...
Frankly, I'm only reading a review of the game now because, well, I kinda stopped paying attention to Fire Emblem after Fates. I didn't like Awakening that much; the pairing and children thing did nothing for me. And, well, Fates... I got the "classic" version of the game (Conquest, I think?), and I don't think I got more than ten chapters in before quitting. The characters were positively awful. Fire Emblem has never really had particularly interesting characters, but they were at least believably kinda bland. Fates characters were straight-up anime, and I do not mean this as a compliment in even the vaguest sense. I can't think of a single Fire Emblem character in other games that I disliked, but I can think of plenty in Fates. Unsurprisingly, with such one-dimensional, absurd characters, the plot dialogue was just painful to read. I really don't have anything nice to say about the game, frankly; the characters/plot thoroughly sullied my enjoyment of the battles.
On the plus side, I read the protag is silent in this game! This is excellent.
|
|
|
Post by Friendly Person :) on Jul 25, 2019 22:46:33 GMT -5
I never had any interest in the new FE, but that interest hit an all-new low when an official preview began comparing it to Persona. I like Persona, but I don't want everything to be like Persona. If anything, I'm beyond sick of the school/academy setting. Did you ever try Echoes? As a remake of 2, it intentionally forewent much of the anime BS that started with Awakening.
-edit- Finally put draft 2 revisions of the second part of my novel (f*ck that sentence, idgaf) behind me. I've been working on this single part for near three months, and to say my enthusiasm has vanished would be an understatement. It's so low that, if it doesn't return after a short break, I might just spend a month on something else entirely. I think I've said this before, but even now that I'm done with it, there truly is no sense of accomplishment: I know there are still issues, but going back and trying to fix it in my present state would likely create more problems than I fix. Better still, I've now edited 55,558 words (part 2 grew by over 50%), so the next challenge I face is part 3... which comes in at ~55,000 words. I feel like I've just barely struggled to the top of a mountain, only to find another mountain that's twice as large in front of me.
Anyway, I don't really want this to turn into a self-pity fest. This puts Draft 2 at ~40% complete, so I'm almost half-way there! (Bullsh*t, I'm totally a 'glass half-empty' kinda guy: I've still got over half-way to go!)
-edit edit- Now that I think about it, I swear I brought up Echoes before and you said you had no interest...
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 27, 2019 10:56:43 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm a little worried about the Persona thing.
I think I'm going to get it, though. Not because I'm interested in the game, but because my coworker, who I don't know well, has messaged me a couple times about it and his latest update is that it's "really, really good." I figure hey, I might as well get it so I have something to talk about...?
Working on a team where everyone else is in one city and you're alone in another really sucks. I hate it and am probably going to quit. So, meh, I'll take something to chat about that makes things suck a tiny bit less in the meanwhile.
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 27, 2019 19:10:11 GMT -5
Hmm.
I forgot about crits in Fire Emblem.
The RNG gods have been exceedingly kind to me this battle. 2 crits out of nowhere that killed the enemy.
Thrilling, but of course this reminds me that, just as I royally f**ked the enemy over with some bullsh*t crits, so, too, will some bullsh*t crits eventually come my way. It's the circle of life...
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 28, 2019 8:29:40 GMT -5
Actual update: the characters are considerably less insufferable than Fates. Even the worst of the characters here are better than the best of the horrible tropes of Fates. I'm happy with this.
I'm not sure how I feel about the Persona-esque style yet, but this is largely (so far) a factor of me getting overwhelmed/panicked by having too many choices and making the "wrong" decisions. (Luckily, in Persona, it didn't really matter how I chose to spend my time.) That panic isn't a FE thing as it is just a genre thing, so if I end up finding it's not my cup of tea, it's certainly not an indictment of the game.
I will say that this game is undoubtedly a dream for min/maxers, if you choose to play that way.
I don't like min/maxing, firstly because min/maxing means you end up subscribing to a very prescribed playstyle (do X on Tuesday, talk to Y on Wednesday, then do ABC on Thursday), and also because I just don't really care about being the best in games. What's the point? I play games for fun, and that's not fun (for me). I can say from experience that Fire Emblem in particular is not fun if you break it. Battles become a chore if you're too OP. I maxed out all of my units in the tower in Sacred Stones, and boy, did I regret that decision later on. I was an unstoppable beast, and I laughed in the face of permadeath. Except... permadeath is specifically why I like Fire Emblem. The game's pretty dull without that constant "oh f**k f**k f**k praying to the RNG gods NOOOooooo f**k this shutting the game off and starting over" element.
Of course, a lot of newer FE people don't play for the permadeath, so I guess if you don't care about permadeath, min/maxing isn't really a concern and is probably pretty great.
Anyway, I shouldn't worry too much about making the wrong decisions. If prior games (Sacred Stones included) are any indication, you can't really permanently screw yourself over. If anything, the flexibility of the class system in Three Houses makes the people you recruit matter less, since if you realize you actually need a healer, well, you can just reclass. I'm still somewhat traumatized by my first run in Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame. You can screw yourself over in that game hard, and there is no turning back, no place to retrain. You are just straight-out SOL. I had to start the game over. Good learning experience, though! Don't use the cool shiny EXP hog in the game, and level up your units uniformly. (Incidentally, Fire Emblem: The Sword of Flame is my favorite FE game as a result! That game doesn't f**k around.)
|
|
Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
|
Post by Derman on Jul 28, 2019 14:47:24 GMT -5
Two of my brothers bought the Fire Emblem, and were playing it for the whole weekend. They had some minor complaints but overall seemed to like it. I didn't follow them playing that much, but from what I could tell there were a lot of changes to the standard Fire Emblem formula. There's no weapon triangle anymore? And you can reclass? Also the damage/hp numbers are all over the place compared to the GBA FEs I played.
I'm not a huge fan of the direction they are going with the game, I liked the strictly linear Fire Emblems more and I liked the "you can screw yourself over" aspect of it. In general Three Houses seems a lot more forgiving. I'm not going to write it off just yet though. Since I already have free access, might as well give it a try. Which house did you go with btw?
On the earlier topic: I don't usually notice if people use some words excessively (I think I have a tendency to use certain words or phrases a lot that people always point out), but the Finnish equivalent to "y'know" has to be one of the most annoying words. People either don't use it at all, or use it in every sentence, and it's impossible to not notice it. And in most cases it doesn't even make sense to use it but, you know, it's just a habit. Haven't noticed anything weird about grain's usage of 'like', at least not in written conversations. It's probably easier to throw it around in spoken conversations. Kinda related to this, we have a couple of non-Finnish people in our team and it's funny to hear them use Finnish words or phrases in a conversation that's otherwise in English. Stuff like "joo" which basically means "ok" or "yeah". I guess even if you don't speak the language very well, you still catch some phrases and words you then use in normal conversations.
Also, since grain isn't having fun on his side, I guess I'll have to balance it out with some positivity: I managed to get my car through the yearly inspection (after third try) and I'm finally done with that one task I've been working on alone for 6 weeks at work!
|
|
|
Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 28, 2019 18:26:54 GMT -5
Yeah, it's really mixed things up a lot. The emphasis is very much on customization. I agree with you that the linear nature of the earlier games is more satisfying; you pay for your mistakes. With that said, my expectations were ridiculously low for the game. If this is the middle ground the series is going to take, and not a dating sim spawning countless babies, I can live with that. I would drop the series like a hot potato if it was another Awakening/Fates and not think twice about never looking back.
I went with the Leicester Alliance. Mostly because of Claude, although the rest of his team is kinda meh personality-wise. I'm recruiting lesscrappy people onto my team, at least. I'm not sure I would have done the same in retrospect because he's a little too jocular for my tastes. (Stop calling me Teach; it's not cute.) Think I would have gone with the blond dude whose name I forget, but not the worst decision I've ever made in a game. Claude strikes me as the guy who has something underneath, so, hey, maybe he'll go batshit insane or something.
One thing I wish they had done differently with the "sim" aspect of it... they give you dialogue choices, and while sometimes the choice to make someone happy is obvious (e.g., "That sounds terrible!" vs. "You're being a baby; get over it"), often times it isn't. Or there's really no benefit in saying something that I would like to say, and I have to say the nice thing instead if I don't want to piss anyone off. I kind of liked the way Symphonia and Shin Megami Tensei IV handled relationships--rarely were dialogue choices neutral, and, in fact, one option would usually piss someone off and make another person happy. I think that's more interesting than being friends with everyone ever.
I can't think of any words or phrases I use frequently (at least, none that have been pointed out to me ever), but I've noticed I've adopted phrases that other people say a lot. For instance, a guy I'm friendly with at work says "100%!" a lot, and I've started using that, too. And I guess there's the inevitable creep of business language. While I knew the word leverage pre-job, I never used it in conversation; now I do.
Congrats on the 6 week project! I wish I could say the same about my project, but that got cancelled this week instead of me finishing it :-P
|
|
|
Post by Friendly Person :) on Jul 29, 2019 2:25:36 GMT -5
I think what's weirder than picking up what other people say is when you hear other people pick up things you say. I have two friends in particular who have done that multiple times, and I might have a specific example if I had been spending time around them recently. It's just the strangest feeling when you're playing a game, they say something, and your first response is, 'wait a minute, that's MY thing!'. Unrelated, but Shinkai's new movie came out earlier this month. I'm relieved that I don't feel compelled to go read/watch everything about it. I don't even really feel like going to see it in theatres whenever it comes to the west. Yeah, I loved Your Name, but I don't want any expectations going into this one. Part of what I enjoyed about Your Name was the complete lack of expectation going into it, and while I can't extend exactly the same advantage to the new film, the least I can do is not saddle it with the expectations associated with a 13 dollar movie ticket.
|
|
Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
|
Post by Derman on Jul 31, 2019 13:14:34 GMT -5
I guess it makes sense to try to keep the expectations at minimum, they rarely make anything better. Haven't seen any headlines or comments related to the movie yet, so I don't know how it's been doing this far.
I've been playing FE:3H a bit more, and it's hard to say if I like it or not. The customization is great, and it's fun to make up the worst possible combinations and force characters into roles they were never supposed to be in. Battles themselves are fine, except that they are a bit too easy even on hard. It wouldn't be as easy if I was only using units with their 'weak' skills, but as soon as I throw in one with their favored skills they just slice past every enemy. Still, they fights are decent fun, and the chores between battle are a nice break. The structure kinda feels like a natural evolution of the Fire Emblem formula, if the chores weren't so repetitive and bland.
I went with the red people, mostly because my brothers took the other two houses. I don't regret the choice at all, I think Eldegard is one of the better characters in the game. They also seem to have a very violent approach to how they want to rule the kingdom, which makes for some amusing conversations. They could easily go as generic JRPG villains with how they are "ready to spill innocent blood to become the emperor" etc.
The characters themselves are actually pretty decent, as long as we don't get into support conversations. Oh boy, they can do a full 180 from the previous story scene when it comes to how they treat you. And most support conversations with female characters is subtly going towards romance, no matter what. There was this one character that was too shy/scared to go outside her room, so I figured I'd be the good professor I'm supposed to be and try to make it better. Gave her some stuff and had some conversations with her so I can train her a bit more. I gave her an axe and made her the tankiest unit in my team, and had her on the frontline. Well, every support conversation with her is heavily romantic, and there's no option to really turn her down. She's 16, I don't want anything to do with her, I just want her to get in the frontline and take hits for me. The same happened with a couple of other female characters, and for others I've been afraid to initiate anything.
In general it seems that I'm not actually playing my character. A lot of the times the options are to say the same thing in two different ways, and there's no way to say what I really think about something (a character asks "Are you crying?", well I guess I am now since the only options are "yes" in two different tones). And yea, as you said there's really no reason to not be friends with everyone, and since increasing your support level usually means you can teach them a bit harder you lose a lot by ignoring them. Right now I'm basically being an a**hole to everyone I don't need, and trying my best to not gather a harem while teaching the people I want to use.
Anyway, even though the writing is a mess sometimes (it gets really cliched at times, and has the subtlety of an ice-cream truck) and some of the game mechanics annoy me, I'm still playing it. Maybe it's only because it's a good way to turn off your brain and grind those skill levels a bit higher, while wondering how dumb the writing can get. It's also on switch, so it's easier to pick up while I'm away.
EDIT: also, what's with the option to invite people for tea. It has this flowery frame and some magical effects, and if you do the 'conversation' perfectly you get to basically look at the other character from different angles however you like. The game might've scaled down a bit on the dating sim aspect in some areas, but it definitely hasn't given up completely. Although now I'm curious if it's all just a male protagonist thing that every conversation is so awkward.
|
|