loobkoob

Does that make Mastodon the godfather of tits?

I don't personally agree that being called a survivor of a crime makes it seem like the crime was inevitable, or that it somehow absolves the abuser of the crime. I think it serves to place more power in the victim's hands and is intended to give them more control over their lives. It can be important for a lot of people's recovery to use empowering language.

This isn't just limited to domestic abuse or sexual violence either; recovery from any kind of long-term trauma - physical, mental or emotional - requires the person to regain a sense of self and a feeling of control over their lives. Someone continuing to define themselves purely as a victim means being a victim will continue to define them - it makes it very difficult to heal fully, and certainly causes it to take a lot longer to heal.

You say you didn't have any choice but to survive, but I think you're perhaps missing the metaphorical sense of the word. It's not just about literally continuing to be alive (although obviously in some cases of abuse that's an important thing to focus on, too, unfortunately), it's about keeping your identity and sense of self, it's about the person you were before the abuse and trauma surviving.

Ultimately, though, I don't think it has to be one or the other, either. You can be, and are, both a victim and a survivor. Both are important. It's important to remember you're a victim, that the crime had a perpetrator who chose their actions and that they should be held responsible for those actions. But it's even more important that you heal, that you don't let that person's choices or actions continue to define you and control your life, and part of that - difficult though it is - requires you to reframe things and cut the perpetrator out of your mind (and obviously your life) entirely. They've done enough damage already, don't let it continue to be about them all this time later. Make it about you, and how you can heal.

Either way, I'm really sorry you've had to experience the abuse you have. I hope things can improve going forward.

Dark really sucks me into a dark damp place

Very few places are darker or damper than Winden!

I know they likely weren't trying to win left-wing people over specifically, I was just trying to explain why centrists are generally disliked by left-wing folks. Them being able to entertain voting for fascists and for generally misery-inducing policies is what makes left-wing people see them as fundamentally not that different from right-wing people. If someone's so strongly against abortion that they're willing to vote for a fascist (or at least seriously consider it) then, for most left-wing people, they're not just trying to achieve a similar positive goal through different methods, but rather they're actively a bad person.

That's not to say if you're left-wing you have to blanket disagree with every single right-wing policy - and I do genuinely think everyone should consider each individual issue on their own merits rather than just adopting the party line - but the overall right-wing package is just so awful that "enlightened" centrists being willing to entertain it are awful by extension.

I do agree with you about left-wing policies being toothless, and I think a lot of left-wingers are lacking in pragmatism - particularly when it comes to achieving their long-term goals and the sacrifices they might need to make to reach that point. Far too many left-wingers are willing to make perfect the enemy of good and end up suffering for it.

Of course, it's difficult when the right-wing are so good at rallying together and unifying different factions in order to get power. A lot of the right-wing's ideology is simply "get into power". Meanwhile, the left-wing is a mish-mash group filled with differing ideologies and factions that unite more out of necessity in order to be politically relevant and competitive with the right-wing than because they necessarily want to be a unified group. I'm not from the US, but I'll use the US Democratic party as an example: the party's overall stance is somewhat centre-right by most countries' standards, but it's also the party die-hard left-wingers have to vote for and support if they want any kind of representation at all. It makes it very difficult for genuine left-wing policies to get pushed through.

In the current political climate, left-wing parties tend to rely on swing voters to get into power, too. So not only do they have to try to appeal to all the varying ideologies of the people who make up and consistently support the party, they also have to try to appeal to the moderates. "Radical" left-wing policies would lose the support of moderates and swing voters, and therefore lose the party their political power. Sticking with the US example: the US' Overton window is so far to the right that real-world left-wing solutions to problems would probably ensure the Democrats don't regain power for years. There needs to be a more gradual shift to the left and a de-escalation before any real changes and solutions can happen.

Basically, a legal US immigrant (with undocumented family members) voted Trump despite feeling that the man was disgusting and disagreeing with him on literally every single issue but one. The one issue they believed in so hard though, that it was enough to vote Trump (in that instance, their line was abortion). If you have a line that you will not cross, then that’s all there is for some people.

"I'm not a fascist but I am willing to vote a fascist into power if it means I can get my way on this single issue" isn't going to win over many left-wing people.

Centrism was a perfectly acceptable position when the left- and right-wing had broadly similar goals - a better society, a healthy economy, a happy population, a somewhat fair society, etc. Different sides might disagree on the methods, but they could find compromises to reached their shared goals.

However, modern day right-wing ideals are totally incompatible with left-wing ones. Many right-wing ideals and policies actively cause suffering and inequality. They enrich corporations and billionaires at the expense of regular people. They harm minority groups. They cause misery. Even if someone isn't actively chanting for the death of minorities in the streets, being willing to enable all that makes them at best ignorant, selfish, and possibly stupid (especially in the case of your Radiolab guy).

I'm not totally against centrism, but centrists - especially in two-party systems - are defining themselves based on both parties. If one of the parties is awful and the centrist is unwilling to distance themselves from them, the centrist deserves the criticism they get.

Fake engine noise is important for safety reasons. If people can't hear cars, there are far more incidents. A lot of time and effort has gone into sound design for electric vehicles so people can hear when they're accelerating, slowing down, etc.

Bud Light was already a joke for being bad.

Yep. GTA 4 came out in 2008 - 15 years ago - and features the beer brand "Pißwasser", which is clearly mocking Budweiser's name and branding - particularly Bud Light's. It's been a joke for a long time.

I think the only way this is avoided as an issue is if the developer sidesteps it by making the sequel fundementally different from the original.

I can agree with that, for the most part. I think having a new story to tell can definitely justify "recycling" mechanics, and a series having a feel and identity that's shared between different entries can be a positive thing. But yeah, if a sequel needs to launch with fewer features/less content then taking a different approach from the previous entry - like Fallout 4 and Dying Light 2 did - can sometimes be a good way to go.

Of course, it can lead to fans of a previous entry feeling alienated by a new release. That isn't always a bad thing if it can find a new audience instead (particularly if you're looking at it from a "number of copies sold" perspective) but it can certainly lead to resentment from (former) fans, as well as people who would potentially like it being put off from buying it because it's a sequel to a game they've not played. Personally, I think it's best if mainline entries in a series (numbered entries, for instance) tend to keep to a somewhat similar style, and experimenting with radically different mechanics in the same world/with the same characters should perhaps be done in spin-offs. But that's more down to managing expectations and marketing than anything else - just slapping a slightly different title on a game can work there.

at least they're not Payday 3 where both the predecessor and sequel scratch the same itch and fight over the same territory

This is very true. I think the big issue Payday 3 has here is that the series' appeal is almost entirely for its gameplay. The "stories" of the heists don't matter too much - they're just "set dressing" for the gameplay - and Payday 3's gameplay isn't radically different enough that it makes up for the drastically reduced amount of content. If you want to play a heisting game, Payday 2 is still the best option (right now) for most people. Maybe Payday 3 will become the better game in time, but right now it doesn't feel like that's the case.

A narrative-driven game doesn't have the same issue - it doesn't feel like those games are fighting for your attention - because, while the mechanics might be the same from game to game, having different stories is enough to set them apart. If the stories in later entries start to feel like they're just retreading the same story beats over and over then it becomes a different matter, of course.

Factorio's 2.0 update does have a paid DLC to go with it, so it'll definitely pay for itself! The free update is going to have the more mechanical balance changes and the quality of life stuff, while the DLC will have the new content (like space platforms, other planets, etc). I agree that it's definitely a good approach for them to take - somewhere between an expansion and a significant enough update/overhaul that they can market it as similar to a sequel. Factorio, especially, is in a state where it certainly doesn't need too significant an overhaul - what's there works very well, and there's no need for them to reinvent the wheel.

Path Of Exile was planning on taking a similar approach with their 4.0 update - a major overhaul/update to the current game, and marketing it as Path Of Exile 2. The plan was to have a new campaign with new playable classes, but to share an endgame with the current game. They've since decided to scrap that approach and make it a full-blown sequel, though, which I think is probably a good approach for them to take. The current game (which I've played an awful lot of and do very much enjoy) has quite a few fundamental design limitations and balance issues and I think giving themselves a tabula rasa without all that mechanical and technical baggage is a good idea.

So I suppose Path Of Exile 2 might well end up being the first example (that comes to my mind) of a sequel that doesn't feel too disappointing in that regard. Of course, that's speculation on my part, but I do think what they've shown of it (there were demos that a lot of people played at their convention earlier this year) and the mechanical deep dives they've done seem promising. I think a lot of the content from the current game - or at least the mechanics for the content - will be brought over to the sequel, too, so I don't think it'll have the issue where it feels like a brand new game that's lacking in content compared to its predecessor that's had 10+ years of live-service content.

But yeah, it feels like if you’re a live service game, you should be having incremental updates to keep the game modern.

Absolutely. The biggest issue I see with this approach is it makes it more and more difficult for new players to find a jumping-on point the longer a game goes and the more content is added to a game, but it's certainly a better approach for the more invested fans. It means the developers need to ensure they avoid the game getting too bloated, too, and to avoid power creep in whatever form that may take for their game. I suppose those are the tradeoffs for not needing to remake everything from scratch for a sequel, though!

I guess, the question is whether this is really a problem

I think this deceptively difficult to answer, and there are quite a few perspectives to consider. Of course, it's easy to argue that if I think, for instance, C:S1 is a great game and I think C:S2 is disappointing, I can just continue to play C:S1 and that's fine, but I think in reality it's a little more complex.

• For audiences, I think anything that reduces the quality of games is a bad thing. If a sequel releases that's worse than its predecessor then, a) it could result in consumers spending money that they later feel is wasted (patient gamers obviously don't suffer here), b) the genre/type of game ends up being seen as a risk by publishers and they stop being willing to invest in more in the future, which could hurt people who would like to see the genre expanded/innovated on further, and c) it means the money's been poured into making the sequel when it could have gone into the predecessor instead which, again, feels bad for fans of the predecessor
• From a publishing point of view, sequels are a great way to get new players on board and to have a big product release with lots of incoming money. If audiences end up looking at sequels with more cynicism because them being disappointing becomes more of a trend, it could certainly become a problem for publishers. If hardcore fans of C:S1 are loudly talking about how disappointing C:S2 is to them, it can certainly turn people against C:S2. The internet loves a hate bandwagon, after all. (Ultimately, I don't care too much for Paradox's bottom line but, broadly speaking, as a consumer, I do want to see companies that make games I like do well so they can continue to create more games I like.)

So generally I'd say: yes, it's bad for games as an art form and as a form of entertainment, both on a micro level (specific games can suffer for it) and on a macro level (the industry can be negatively affected by it).

They're not asking for it to be banned from the instance, or from Lemmy entirely; they just want it to be moderated out of this community.

I'd completely forgotten about the Halo show in general, and now you've just reminded me of Master Cheeks all over again :(

Not only wait for the reviews, but wait for the hype to die down a little.

When Destiny 2 released, the entire playerbase was super positive about it - it fixed everything that was wrong with the first game, they said. After a couple of weeks, some players started mentioning there was no real endgame, nothing to chase because of the fixed loot rolls, etc, and that they felt "done" with the game after 80 hours or so. Everyone else told them to shut up, obviously they were burnt out after playing 80 hours in two or three weeks. And then a couple of weeks later, everyone else started to hit the same point - they had their perfect gear already, they'd done all the content, there was nothing left to see.

Watching a game go from incredibly positive reception to a fairly jaded, luke-warm-at-best reception over the course of ~5 weeks with nothing about the game changing was quite something. And it basically showed me I should wait a few months at minimum for hype to die down and the opinions to settle before I think about buying a game. That said, I'm a patient gamer anyway and usually wait far longer than that anyway, but yeah, I think Destiny 2 perfectly illustrates why you should wait longer for a community consensus.