rimgo

The thing is, even in ME2, the gunplay wasn't very good compared to the state of the art at the time. If what you wanted was gunfights, there were far, far better games to play.

The problem is that the folks who wanted to play ME as an action RPG and folks who are FPS-focused twitch gamers is not great. Whether they gained more than lost is impossible to know though.

For the same reason they couldn't get much lock in to the mobile games to get war assets, it just wasn't a good overlap.

There is a man who really likes driving.

I know this sounds weird, but just because ICE is bad doesn't mean TSA is suddenly good. There's small choice in rotten apples

They're consistently shown to be horrible at their job, have a trend towards thievery, and like most folks of low disposition, there are so many examples of them abusing the little power they've been given. They're basically diet ICE, and that's before you note that 90% of what they do is just pointless security theater that provides zero security.

Have you played the max difficulty levels? You wanna talk about bullet sponging, in ME 2 & 3, you /have/ to hit the guys in the head almost every shot or you will likely run out. You need companions just so you can spam their abilities constantly.

Especially in boss arenas where there's no mechanism to keep feeding the player ammo, it sucks big time if you're either a sniper or a pure solider and lack a good unlimited-use damage power set.

No one was playing the ME series for the gunplay.

The problem is that they wanted to change it from an RPG action-adventure game into an FPS with RPG elements.

This continued with ME3 and Andromeda, the latter of which basically used arena PVP controls for combat.

Also, the game fed you ammo as you used it - EXCEPT in boss arenas where it was limited. On the hardest difficulties, you will run out and need to rely 100% on powers. It sucked. I mean, I 100%ed them, but it was often down to random chance for success.

It always surprises me that with the death of civilization, with a clear lack of hygine options like clean water or manufactured products, and the destruction of cultural expectations, that artists continue to depict wastelanders as wearing 1980's era punk-fetish gear rather than like, super comfy, non-chafing clothing that actually protects against the dominant weather.

I think it says something about these creators that they all adhere to this mad-max aesthetic. Lack of imagination mostly.

I suspect that the layers are there for the same reason we have abstraction layers in software. Sometimes you need to wrap everything in a simplified form so you can keep it all in your head at one time.

It's like a machine that turns input into a summary.

The fact that these machines are currently human and are one of the easiest layers to replace with AI, far easier than individual contributors and WAY more cost effective too, is an interesting thing I'm waiting for people to realize.

That's the dream. Hopefully it's tomorrow.

I'll admit, I hadn't even considered it, but yeah, perfect.

Neat!

I have been put under once and only once, and it was a source of not fear, but anxiety.

In the end, it wasn't a big deal, though I did surprise everyone by jumping up and standing in the middle of the room the very second I came out of it. I was alarmed because I had just lost a big chunk of time and it wasn't like "sleeping time," it was just blinking my eyes and suddenly my body was telling me an hour or two had passed, put me on high alert.

There was a possum on my fence a while back, I wanted to give it some veggies or something so it'd want to stick around, but it ran off when I came back outside :(

One of the most annoying things is that when it comes time to cut headcount, it's usually like 3 management layers above you and at that level, no one has heard or gives a fuck about individual contributors, unless you and your manager have made a perpetual, constant marketing effort to get your name in front of them.

Of the many responsibilities managers have, "advertising their team's individual member's accomplishments" ranks up there with "letting direct reports focus on doing their job"

Seriously, I am going to have to take 2 vacation days at least, and maybe another to recover

#23 Yeah. TNG was super popular. Neither DS9 nor Voyager were /as/ popular, but they were still considered fairly successful and popular.

It's not a bad idea to take a look at rotten tomatoes and look at the audience ratings. The bottom 3 worst are Discovery (34%), Academy (51%), and Picard (57%). The common thread is Kurtzman, who actively craps on cannon, both in universe and on what makes a star trek show (the Roddenberry guidelines).

That's why recent shows noticeably don't feel like Trek.

Bluey's dad is an unrealistic role model to the point of being harmful.

That's not true. They're only turning because they know he's only got a few years left and they can't suckle at his teats anymore, so they need the next thing to ensure they stay elected.

Those are fine issues, and if you can do it by including them in a show in an organic, relatable way, it could help raise awareness and encourage acceptance.

However, if you're pushing it blatantly, to the point where it's fine to ruin the show if you can push the message, then it's as bad as adding "brought to you by Carl's Jr" after every line. It ruins what could be a good show and alienates the audience you're trying to influence.

You've got a respectable top 3. For me, I'd have to say Lower Decks > TNG > Voy > DS9 > TOS. I'm biased for episodic content though.

I think I should give the animated series another chance, but I remember it being just hard to watch. Pregnant pauses between every single line, and despite the freedom of cartoons, they didn't really go big with it when they could have.

As for the recent stuff, bleh. One dimensional characters, crummy scripts, crapping on cannon. Plus shoehorning, bleh

I don't agree with the folks who say DS9 was the best trek, but I see where they're coming from. Me, I prefer the episodic rather than serial and honestly DS9 was like 80% episodic anyway.

But I have problems with folks who think Discovery was a trek show. It was a drama that happened to play out on a star trek-like set, and well, good star trek is dramatic, not a drama.

The switch in focus from action + philosophical musing to melodrama and personal conflict was a shitty one.

You can make "short clay" bricks by just using clay. It will crack and break when dried. Not good for much.

I dunno what the ratio and everything else is, but you need to water it down, strain it, add sand or silt in the right ratio and then include binders.

Didn't Kurtzmann say in an interview that he was trying to subvert everything that was cannon with trek? Apparently that translates to just absolutely shitting on all of the Roddenberry mandates about how to make a trek show because he felt they were holding him back.

Then he goes on to make some CW-era dramas set in a sci fi universe? Picard, Discovery, this drek. It was pretty awful. I'm surprised that Strange New Worlds actually seems pretty good. Hope it continues. Without him.

At least it wasn't as bad as discovery, rated #1
worst trek by rotten tomatoes viewers; 34% and the only one below 50% - Academy was the next with 51%!

It's all Kurtzman's fault. Should have stuck to Gene's model of the star trek universe.

Genocide IS a path to peace if you're killing all the members of one of the sides.

It's really hard to get all of 'em though, and it's probably considered to be immoral as well.

I'm curious what's being pumped in that spits out perfectly blended, pressed clay like that. I mean, if you want the bricks to last you've got to get the mixture right, right?