213374U

Maybe you can explain what "balance" has to do with anything in this context. But yeah, without getting into too much detail, when your experience significantly changes based on how much money you're willing to spend on a game, that's bad. In other news, another interesting piece by Kotaku's Jason Schreier on the reasons that led to Visceral's crash and burn: https://kotaku.com/the-collapse-of-viscerals-ambitious-star-wars-game-1819916152 Wow, another Kotaku piece that isn't a total hack job? Say it ain't so!

Why do you hate Freedom, Guard Dog?

A prominent judge here has commented that the only reason the situation hasn't descended into a civil conflict yet is not so much that they aren't willing to fight as they simply not having what to fight with. Unlike in Ukraine, here there aren't any heavy weapons caches left over from the Soviet era, and again, unlike Donbass, the neighboring country isn't at all interested in arming and training a militia and deploying "little green men" until the locals can fend for themselves. Really, this is just a repeat of 1934. Doubtful that things will escalate as they did back then, though -- civil disturbances and riots are one thing, a full-fledged armed insurrection is a whole another. There is still the practical matter of how to arrest the head of the Catalan government without anyone getting shot in the process, however. Meanwhile in Russia...

I did it just for fun. Apparently I'm a "Market Skeptic Republican". TIL

Looks great. Other than the stylish visuals and Rutger Hauer... is it any good? What kind of game is it?

Man, I am so sick and tired of this circus. There is going to be no secession because they lack the most essential thing any state needs to exist: the ability to collect taxes. As it is, the Catalan public servants' payroll is directly managed by the central government. They also do not have a proper border protection agency, much less the capacity to organize and equip an army. Their strategic infrastructures and services are either bankrupt or in private hands. It's a joke. Not even the most radical separatists can answer how that would actually work, when pressed. It's all grandstanding and posturing, a smokescreen being used by both sides to hide the rampant mismanagement and corruption that have crashed the economy (both Catalan and Spanish) with no survivors. It's infuriating because the barely closeted fascists in power here have managed to embolden and strengthen a separatist movement that has historically been marginal and turn the separatist cause into a sort of resistance movement against centralist authoritarianism, embraced by a large portion of Catalan society that never wanted secession to begin with. The crooks that have caused this are going to keep wrapping themselves in flags to deflect criticism of their own incompetence and plunder, and take full advantage of a manufactured crisis that helps them self-perpetuate in power in the face of a growing sentiment that politicians are parasites. And -as usual- it's the little people that are going to get hurt, either by being on the wrong side of riot police charges or by having their living standards lowered even further. Man, **** this ****.

Why do you hate Freedom, Keyrock?

Because it's unfeasible and unreasonable. What are the odds that someone, somewhere will be triggered by pedestrian things not directly related to trauma? This is exactly why you have cancer warning labels on cigarette packs but not on literally every cup of hot beverage served anywhere, despite both being carcinogenic. Cancer is cancer, but chances that someone will get it from one thing are greater than from the other. Ultimately, someone has to fully arbitrarily decide where to draw the line. Feel free to push in either direction, of course.

MOAR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HSwo_rTXMU&index=9&list=PLUPs8D55DP7EzFtzY (clicky because **** Sony) Can't really go wrong with Death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt6a4S13BJA

You know something's up when even Gamespot is starting to suggest that, hey, maybe it's not so cool. But really, who cares? Your opinion is literally 1/250 as valid as that of the whale putting down $15k for garbage that cost exactly zippo to make. It's the perfect money-printing machine, and you are out of your mind if you think companies are going to give it up without a fight! Finally, the true measure of worth and success has reached gaming -- dirty peasants remain at the bottom where they are meant to be, toiling away day and night for a miserly chance at an uncommon card, and the super-rich can cruise around in their luxurious gold-tier equipment, mowing down hordes of unwashed plebs, from the first minute of day one. Don't like it? Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, stop demanding free stuff, and get a six ****ing figure job already, you entitled crybabies. This is Freedom with a ****ing capital F.

I'm clearly the basic bitch ITT (some great stuff in here gents, thanks). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFgky2nUGws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTqxn6KCNs (yeah yeah, cover, still like it better than the original)

And that's kind of the crux. For example, as a former Marine, you're probably aware that it's largely impossible to predict how a particular individual is going to react to the stress of actual combat, regardless of training. Don't you think everyone would react in the exact same calm, collected fashion if it was something that's under one's control?

Yeah. Something along the lines of trigger warnings "encouraging a culture of avoidance", right? While I understand where they're coming from, I'm not sure I'd agree -- it's one thing to encourage facing one's traumas as a form of therapy, and other just encouraging that people randomly happen upon stuff that, as TN suggests, may actually result in a setback in their therapy progress. To me that sounds more like a psychiatrist's social commentary rather than a professional opinion because it doesn't address whether a) such "triggers" exist and b) if "trigger warnings" can actually prevent PTSD episodes. Let alone the larger issue of where to draw the line, of course... The assumption is that if "triggers" exist, and trigger warnings work as advertised, their application runs contrary to the approach of trauma centered cognitive therapy. Heh. I wish I had some psychiatrist acquaintances to pick their brains about this, but all of my friends are more hard sciences people and am not about to shell out 80 bucks for a session with my shrink just to have a casual chat.

Meta-whining: The Thread.

Who is "we"? Personally, I take the -admittedly conservative- stance that if something shows on an MRI, it's safe to assume that it's a thing, and not made up. As for the rest, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand because mental disorders have been known before we could look into the nuts and bolts of it, but probably ranks lower in my "certainty" scale, and is taken with a grain of salt. I defer to actual specialists in any case.

I guess that depends on how you define UPPERCASE TRIGGER. If you mean something like your reaction to this discussion, I don't think so. On the other hand, my understanding is that depictions of rape can cause a rape victim's PTSD to lowercase trigger. I don't know how reliably and consistently though, and there's not much research on it as far as I'm aware. Then again, smoking doesn't reliably cause cancer 100% of the time, but that's no reason not to have warnings on ciggy packs -- it's just that someone[who?] agreed that the risk was significant enough to warrant those notices. No one's saying that the A-Team should include a TRIGGER WARNING: MAY CONTAIN BLACK VANS because it may be problematic for people who were once molested in a black van. That's rather absurd and unfeasible, and by beating on that straw man, you're kinda falling into the same hysterics as the "snowflakes" you think you're poking fun at.

Sure. If you can get a CAT scan to show that your brain is actually damaged and reacts to each and every of those stimuli in certain, predictable and measurable ways, I'd guess you'd have the full support of the medical community. I mean, they've been using CAT scans to screen PTSD-afflicted vets in the US for, what, a decade now? You don't believe in magnets either?

Call me crazy, but how the hell is a cop show with depictions of rape in any way "all-ages"? It's a tangential issue, but I'm thinking that someone failed at their job there. I'm not against a "viewers discretion advised: contains depictions of XYZ" notice, but if something like that got an "all-ages" rating, it's not much of a stretch that they would have failed to add any such disclaimer as well. And conversely, I have trouble imagining how a show with a fictional rape depictions disclaimer may get an "all-ages" rating. And yeah, the salient point here is the larger social stigma facing people with mental health problems. Hell even the phrase "mental problems" sounds somewhat dirty (cf. endocrine problems, cardiovascular problems, etc...).

Sigh, half of the article is defending microtransactions and shift to f2p model, because "developing costs gone high *cries a river*"... If we accept that profit margins dictate publishers' decisions, the games-as-a-service model will impose itself on the AAA market because consumers largely do favor their entertainment being turned into dull, repetitive work-like activities, sprinkled with a dash of money grubbing microtransactions, despite protests to the contrary. Have you ever stood and stared at it, marveled at its beauty, its genius? Billions of players just wasting their money, oblivious. Did you know that the first AAA game was designed to be a perfect human fantasy? Where none would be fleeced? Where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire profit opportunities were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect game. But I believe that as a species, human beings define their entertainment through misery and suffering. The perfect game was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to log out of. Which is why Battlefront 2 was redesigned to this, the peak of your economics. I say your economics because as soon as we started thinking for you, it really became our economics, which is, of course, what this is all about: Evolution, my friend, evolution. Like floppy-distributed shareware. Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our world. The future is our time.

You know this for a fact? Because in this case, it's alleged that they don't. Of course the answer is "if so then they should refuse and go to the labor inspection bluh bluh bluh". But if they step out of line they can easily be fired because there's always another chump ready to jump in and bend over because it's their "dream job".

Would it be fair to say then that this story... triggered you?

This just in: work sucks (and then you get fired). Sorry, I just find it hard to sympathize with the plight of game devs above and beyond my feelings regarding what is a thoroughly exploitative system of commodification of human labor.

I played the game with 3 friends and it gets a little arcadey like that- but even then, I would have a heart attack from stress, if all zombies were virals.. jeez, I get a sweat just thinking about it hah Yep, they can get my heart racing like very few other games. First time I ran into one I was like "what's all that racket?", and then "wow, that one can really run, good thing I'm up here..." and finally, "holy ****, she can climb?" Pretty great. And I'm not even into zombie games, heh. Well, I haven't played either Gothic or Risen so that tells me very little. With all the praise from peeps here I'll be sure to check it out... when the obligatory GOTY edition drops.

Somewhat nonplussed at how that was spun to be about the boyfriend rather than the woman that actually filed the false complaint. Couldn't be that she was just damaged goods or had a huge chip on her shoulder, no way, that just doesn't happen with cute girls. Her ugly, controlling boyfriend scheming behind the scenes was probably to blame. Something something patriarchy something #notallmen. This kind of **** is why I no longer cold approach, it's just not worth the potentially huge headaches. There's always been crazy bitches, but only now do we have to deal with a state of affairs where they can **** you up with impunity. Solid advice on net anonymity though.

Some time ago I bought Dying Light full super elite edition with bells and whistles dirt cheap for a friend and myself, so going through that. I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying the parkour mechanics. And drop-kicking former people down from great heights just never gets old. Action seems a bit on the slow side, though, but we're not very far in yet. I wonder how (awesome) the game would be with a mod that made all zombies into Virals? I'm thinking 28 Days Later: The Game. That good, huh?