ComradePlatypus

He’s still quietly very pro-Israel but better than Shapiro. Also almost the anti-Vance in terms of appearing like a normal guy.

I’m a bit disappointed it wasn’t Beshear.

He’s term limited out of being governor of Kentucky and is unlikely to be able to win a senate seat there. His Lt Governor, she might have had a boost in her chances (given Beshear won by a slim margin).

A dem governor in Kentucky as we saw with Beshear can mitigate some of the worst transphobia there. Which is why I liked him, even though he was boring Christian moderate (with no doubt a bunch of shitty opinions), the fact he seemed to take every opportunity to unprompted state that the republican transphobia was evil and cruel.

Was that a struggle session I thought it was a nice discussion...holy shit 340 comments!

Me: My understanding is [nuanced take on subject I do know about] but that's just what I read in [multiple good sources]

I'm really jerking Morrowind off today. But that's another thing Morrowind did well. It had multiple redundant fast travels. You want to get to Vivec? You can arrive by boat, by magic or by Silt Stridor.

Also where Fallout 4 was almost getting there. The Brotherhood had the Vertibirds and the Institute had the Relay. The minutemen and the Railroad however were kind of lacking (unless you destroy the brotherhood with them). Like they should have had their own fast travel system too. Like the Railroad has underground tunnels to bypass thing. The Minutmen can transport you by wagon between settlements. Something like that. Especially as it had a survival mode without fast travel.

hat's a really interesting illustration of how weird the fast-travel conversation is, isn't it? like it's an infringement on "realism" if you can magically zap between locations, but a random convenient trapdoor that doesn't have to account for how big the vault map is or the geology of the area is totally accepted

I think could synthesize convenience with realism with smart fast travel. Like in the Mojave Outpost Example. A fast travel option might be asking the NCR garrison at Primm to escort you up. It makes sense it would be uneventful then. Silt Stridors make sense because Morrowind was a functional society and it was just like catching a greyhound bus.

when I fast travel i just think it's a cut in the film and nothing note worthy happens as i normally made a trip. it generally fulfills the believability for a food meter and game time to change. i can accept that not everyone will find that to be enough illusion, but my point is we're all functioning on a level of it, which has a relationship to real world circumstances. real places take hours to get between, it's completely unfeasible for a videogame, so we're all operating on a plane of 'what am i willing to believe'

Because I think it really ties also into what you're fast travelling about. There wasn't really montage in LOTR where Gandalf travelled back and forth from Edoras and Minis Tirith to buy alchemy ingredients from the same two vendors. Which is turn probably more a gameplay problem I guess.

I'm going to keep coming back to Morrowind, but zapping back and forth between Guild halls felt easy and cosmopolitan. Like I can believe this important person would utlize teleporting this way. But then having to go to Dagon Fel or somewhere felt like having to catch a series of connecting flights to the middle of nowhere, it did make it feel like a challenge.

I think the latter is something Bethesda has improved on. Most dungeons have a quick exit. But also, a lot of bases/settlement. Like Vault 88 in fallout 4. The main entrance is in the middle of nowhere in a radioactive quarry with a slow vault door, but you can unlock another exit that is slipping out of a Chemist shop, Northeast of Jaimaca plains.

I'm not anti-fast travel. But I don't like the later Bethesda games version of just clicking on a spot on the map and instantly going there.

I really liked Morrowind, because while it had fast travel, it felt organic and you could play with it a bit. Like it makes sense for a powerful spellcaster to just mark and recall back to their base. Casting Almsivi intervention when you're lost in the wilderness or just finished a dungeon. Zapping instantaneously between cities via mage travel for important political business. Have to travel to an Island you've never been to? Okay time to plan an across land journey by Silt Strider and then boat.

The former means they often scrimp on the little details the later had. Like Skyrim had Wagons from hold and the odd boat. But there's no reason for example that Court mages couldn't teleport you from city to city. Having to have a stop in neutral Whiterun if you wanted to jump from Imperial to Stormcloak territory. Or that wagons couldn't stop at all the little Taverns and villages. That boats could sail you along the coasts to certain spots.

Mainly I'm just disparaging fast travel (the click on a map and instantly appear there version, Fallout actually has fast travel options that are good in the Vertibird and Institue relay). Like you miss the details in the environment layout or people going about there business if you just instantly appear at the mission site.

Probably I think the Couriers did it in Oblivion.

The amazing thing with Fallout 4 Provisioners is you tell them which two places to visit, and they will gowhenever possible via the roads on the map to get there. So, it's more dynamic than this guy walks from point A to B to C and so on.

Yeah I mean something like abducting the Obsidian team via time machine after they've finished New Vegas but before it was released, to make them make a sequel derived from Fallout 4's build.

Yeah, attributes being tied to skills was interesting. I think it should come back for another game, but in a less punishing way.

I've been playing a lot of Fallout 4 lately and honestly there's a lot of under-utilized good stuff in there, that had a better developer like Obsidan had a chance to make another Fallout game, it would have been phenomenal.