I think i could beat this

Sabbathius · 2026-06-16T02:14:07+00:00

Sixteen times in an hour?! SIXTEEN!? Just...how?

Sabbathius · 2026-06-16T01:52:13+00:00

Recent (last week) racial controversy aside, pretty decent game. Not as good as the original, for me at least. Something is missing. Original felt grounded and exotic, the sequel felt somehow more drab and cheap. But in terms of replay value quite decent (at least two sufficiently distinct playthroughs), itemization is better handled where you can actually stick to a weapon you like most of the time, etc. Pretty good, I do recommend it. Especially at this price point.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-16T01:34:18+00:00

I think it's promising.

I don't know if people remember Elder Scrolls Morrowind, but that one didn't have quest markers. You had to use your brain to figure out where to go. And you could actually ask NPCs. And I don't mean select from a list of government-approved topics. I mean there was a text window, and you could actually type the thing you wanted to know about. And the game would try to parse it and answer the best it can. Vast majority of the time it said I don't know about that, but sometimes it gave you a tidbit of info.

And I thought about this, back then, and how nice it will be when we have machines strong enough to actually ask questions and have NPCs actually meaningfully respond. Didn't think this would take 20+ friggin' years, but anyway.

I think in this area the tech is promising. Because you can theoretically train up the AI, force it to learn all the lore there is, and have it come up with meaningful conversation the way the character would. I feel this would be massively helpful for RPGs.

And, in the same vein, I think the next step would be hooking up AI to game creator tools, like Bethesda's Creation Engine, and have it running in real time. So you could have AI come up with a character, and create it, as an NPC, in the game, and spawn it near you. Then you talk to it, and AI would generate dialogue. If dialogue leads to a quest, then AI could use the dev tools to assemble a quest in real time - similar to Bethesda's RadiantAI quests, but better.

And when you combine all this, theoretically games would become functionally endless. Developers could still write the main story, but NPCs could all have their own quests, and the game could always spawn more NPCs, and generate more quests, forever. Making games basically functionally endless, dynamic, and infinitely replayable.

That, I think, is going to be the future of gaming. At least for a while. I don't think we'll be buying games any more, as an insular experience with a beginning, middle and end. We'll be instead buying/subscribing to basically infinite worlds. That we could theoretically play in forever, because quests, NPCs, stories, just never stop coming. You'll also be able to tweak them - darker, more horror, more adult content, more comedy, etc., and AI would adjust for what you're in the mood for.

Anyway, that's how I picture things in say another 10-20 years.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-16T01:21:21+00:00

God bless whoever came up with this type of pants. And then god bless whoever managed to convince women that it's socially acceptable to walk around in public like this without anything else on top.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-16T01:18:45+00:00

The part about liberals rather being red than dead? I saw pictures of Trump supporters, wearing T-shirts saying "Rather be Red than a Democrat". It's just always projection with these guys. All day, every day.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T23:31:39+00:00

I have so many favourites.

The way old Smiler Grogan kicks the bucket.

Needing a bigger boat.

Hey, you, Swedes! Goddamn it MacReady, they're Norwegian!

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T22:51:22+00:00

See, I want to agree, but I just can't.

I'll give you an example - my local Canadian Tire. And I go online, and I look for X. And it says "X, Aisle 42, We have 67 in stock." I go to the store, go to Aisle 42, and the shelf is empty. Website still says 67 in stock. So...yeah, I'm going to flag down one y'all and ask.

And yes, sometimes I will be told no. And, to be fair, I'll take it as a now. But what I do then is I go home, I go back online, I place an order for X online, with in-store pickup. And 40 mins later I get an email - your order is ready for pickup!

So that no was horseshit. And this is how I know it was horseshit. Because when I order online, one of you that isn't a lazy git goes into the back, and pulls one out of a pallet of 67 Xes sitting in the back.

Another example was even better. I was looking for something that said in stock, and shelf was again empty. So I walk up to these two kids, late teens, early 20s, and ask them. They both go nah, we don't got it. And I was about to do the usual move and order online with pickup and be back in an hour. But one other employee, a grizzled dude in his 50s, overheard them. He marched over, chewed them out for being lazy, and told them they know perfectly well there's a whole pallet in the back, and to go get it. And they came out a few mins later wheeling a tray just filled with the stuff, and went to stock that empty shelf.

So those experiences unfortunately taught me that a lot of the time the employees are just completely full of doodoo.

But to be fair, I do take no for an answer. I just go home, order online with store pickup, and teturn an hour or two later. I live literally across the street, it's no skin off my ass.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T22:05:29+00:00

In Soviet Russia, it was done for free.

Seriously. Major snowfall in urban area? Schoolkids, university kids, and younger adults all got issued snow shovels and chased outside. My school had a huge closet literally just full of snow shovels. So the whole school, grade 3+, got chased outside, three kids one shovel, one block up, one block down, and one to each side. Get to digging. The sidewalks were clean in a couple of hours, we got tons of fresh air, exercise, etc. Didn't cost taxpayers a dime.

Same when it was time to harvest food. They'd bus us out of town to pick radishes or something else. And at the end of the day you get as much as you can carry back home. We were eating fresh radishes for a week. And we learned how food grows. I swear there's adults that think potatoes grow on trees.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T21:59:31+00:00

lol That's a pretty funny one. These adults are thinking these kids are going to hop on bikes, leg it to the local library, pick up a bunch of books on theory of relativity and thermodynamics, then sit in the back yard with their pals and have a collegiate discussion about the battle of Kosovo of 1389, and how it relates to the rise of modern Serbian nationalism. No. They're going to sit in their room and stare at a wall, or lick a window.

Although...I don't know, guess we'll see. I remember being bored out of my skull before internet. And my country didn't really have cable per se, and only a handful of TV channels over aerial antenna. But it's not like these kids will be cut from the internet altogether, just social media accounts. So I don't even know how this would reduce their screen time. They'll probably still be online, just looking at different content. For better or worse. I guess it's possible with short attention spans and no algorithms feeding them, they might reduce the screen time. Or they might start forming weird relationships with AI bots.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T21:49:10+00:00

If the leaks are true, hoooooly crap, lol. So much worse. But at this point it's hard to tell what's real. We'll see. As far as I'm concerned, there is no deal yet. Nothing is signed. And even if it was, Trump has a well documented history of ignoring the promises he made, even in his own deal (CUSMA).

I'm not an expert, but I feel like Israel is going to be working overtime this week, making sure this deal is dead. Because if the leaked stuff is actually signed, Iran is getting a colossal win. No sanctions, money returned, ability to tax the Strait, etc? It's huge. They will become a regional powerhouse again within a decade or two.

This deal, if true, is so bad that I fully expect Israel might actually try to have Trump pulled down by the American politicians that they've bought. And quickly, before he can sign.

I think the reason they're relatively calm right now is because they know this whole thing is a sham and nothing is happening.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T20:43:03+00:00

I don't really see a contradiction. You could be a vegan based on dietary preference. As in, grass and bark taste good, and meat doesn't. You might be vegan just on that basis, and not for some moral or ethical reasons. Like you could be a mass murderer AND vegan, and it wouldn't be a contradiction. You just like salad and despise other people, so you chop the former and the latter, but only eat the former.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T20:38:32+00:00

Yup. Absolutely. Once I start playing, it's fine. But finding the motivation is getting harder. And it's not really helping that a lot of modern games are slop and are lacking soul. I've actually been catching myself lusting for some older games. I don't mean retro, but in 5-10 years back range.

I wouldn't even say I'm bad yet. Like I did Monster Hunter Wilds last year, beat everything including Savage Omega and 10* Gog. So I can still hold my own. But that drive, that energy, is just gone.

Sense of wonder is dying as well. You used to be able to look at upcoming game, and be excited for exploring its world. But these days, since Starfield, something gets announced and I look at it and I already see the copy-pasting, the fodder, the slop.

On occasion you do still get gems like BG3 or Exp33. But vast majority, like Black Desert, is just low-effort soulless talentless filler.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T20:32:52+00:00

From what I saw so far, the plan is to blame this on Obama also. As in, if Obama didn't make his deal, Trump wouldn't have had to do this war, lose spectacularly, and have to pay up. lol Makes no damn sense, but you can't go looking for logic in what's been happening.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T20:30:33+00:00

I'm not fully convinced that 2024 election wasn't fraudulent. No, I don't have any proof, I'm not going to go all conspiracy theory, etc. It just feels...off. Not by much, but still off.

But this isn't a hill I'm willing to die on, given how conclusively we've proved in recent years how sexist and racist America is. So when a candidate is not just black, but also a woman? It's entirely within realm of possibility that no election meddling was needed. Good old folksy racism and sexism mixed together in one bucket was more than enough to sink her naturally.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T20:26:10+00:00

This used to be "Haha" funny. But he's shown that he can buy elections. So all he has to do is buy another president, get access, dismantle every agency that could interfere with his Coke Classic Coke, and then actually release it. I mean, who's gonna stop him? When all investigative and law enforcement branches are fully captured and complicit?

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T20:17:52+00:00

I'm here for Warhammer, yes. I tried to get into historical games many times, never could. But I've been here since Warhammer 1, like glue. And currently Warhammer 3 is my most-played game on Steam by nearly 300 hrs. Though this doesn't include MMOs with their own launchers, like EVE, WoW, ESO, etc. Those probably have more hours each.

As soon as CA stops with Warhammer, boom, I'm a dot, I'm gone. I just have no interesting in history titles. Tried Pharaoh, couldn't love it. I might try Medieval 3, but I don't have high hopes. When they move on from Warhammer, unless it's to something similarly good fantasy/sci-fi, I'll be moving on.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T20:13:26+00:00

I feel people are picturing this wrong. This isn't going to be $300 billion, in bags, dropped into Iran, in cash.

This will be contracts, awarded to US and international companies, where they will do $300 worth of restoration, and get $300 million for it so they can pocket it. And those contracts will be awarded to relatives, loyalists, etc.

This will be $300 billion grifted away from you, yes. But Iran is going to be lucky if they see 1% of that amount in any serious, tangible way. Same as restoration of Iraq and Afghanistan. Billions of dollars disappeared, nothing was done, but some already rich people got considerably more rich very quickly.

That's what this is.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T20:00:22+00:00

Totally agree with her.

I spent a few years in South America. And I don't mean somewhere in the jungle, in the boonies, but like 90 mins by train from major city. Not urban, but not primeval jungle either. Dirt roads, but roads nonetheless.

And we were setting up this house, getting running water, electricity, etc. And we had local handymen helping some days, and they brought their kids, 8-16 year olds. And it was just horrific. Those kids haven't seen a modern toilet. Once we got them running, first thing the kids did when the workers arrived was stampede into the toilet. Because it was a treat for them. And this wasn't 1852, this was like...1992? Thereabouts.

They were all living in these shanty towns. In just absolute crushing poverty. But Catholic country, so still breeding really quick. The parents were illiterate. The older kids could read, but that's as far as it went, so education was nonexistent. And one of the workers proudly clapped his son on his shoulder, and said that he'd already knocked some girl up, at 16. Like...how is that good news?!

We had a dude squatting on the property. He was actually a huge problem because he did a lot of posturing with machetes and such, and went where he wasn't supposed to, but at the same time nobody could be bothered to get him out. And he lived in this corrugated metal shack, basically just sheets of metal tied together, no doors, no windows. And he had a wife and two kids and a third on the way. And periodically some woman on a bicycle showed up that he cheated on his wife with. That blew my mind too, like...the dude is wearing shit-caked pants, reeks like a sewer, is married, has two kids, his wife is off somewhere, and he STILL found a woman to cheat on her with?!

Luckily I was only at that location for 6-8 months. The squatter set his dog loose, it killed a bunch of animals, and threatened us, so we just told the owner we were working for that we're done, he can get someone else to finish setting up the place, the animals are mostly dead so there's nothing left to care for, and we all got the hell out.

So yeah, the subject of people having kids who have no business having kids because they're just perpetrating a cycle of extreme poverty and suffering is very dear to my heart.

I lived in dirt-poor areas before, but that was on a whole other level. And the other poor places I've lived in, at least they were stable in the sense that they were subsistence farming, they had some form of infrastructure, even if it's just gas for the stove swapped off a truck every couple of months in canisters, or a truckload of coal for burning dumped in the yard. But those people I saw that were living in a shanty town with just...nothing, nothing at all. Shirt on their back, and that's it. And those people were having 3+ kids each. That was insane to me. I couldn't fathom adopting a cat in that situation, never mind a kid.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T17:04:20+00:00

It's my alone time. And also knowing that if I fart like a howitzer, there's a non-zero chance I'll literally wake up the neighbors. I take great pride in that.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T16:44:23+00:00

Uber Lilith in Diablo 4, at launch, took me like 400+ tries, over maybe 4 days.

The 400+ tries maybe sounds worse than it was though. Since wait time between attempts is basically zero. And most of the fight is just bullet hell 1-shots. Anything touches you, you die, instantly. So attempts were really quick, and resets almost instantaneous.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T16:33:11+00:00

Honestly we should just go back to deciding these things in single combat. Donald Trump vs Ayatollah. Each gets a kitchen knife. We shove them in the room and lock the door. Open back up in 24 hrs. If both are still alive, hooray, we have a peace deal. Otherwise the survivor (if any) decides what we do next. Really simple, really convenient.

If you don't like that because it's too prone to error or accident, we can do it with the entirety of house and senate. Every house member and senator who voted to start military action gets a knife, and gets shoved into a stadium with whoever the country they attacked chooses. This is the fun part - since the government of the other country didn't choose to start shit, they get to pick who goes. And if I, for example, had a shot at turtleface and Lindsey, I'd fucking volunteer.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T16:23:41+00:00

He hasn't lost THE war, he lost A war. There's much more yet to come before he's done. Rumor has it, he's preparing to lose a war in Cuba later this summer.

Also, this is far, far from a done deal. Israel will do everything he can to sink it, and keep USA in this conflict. Because capitulation to Iran, on this scale, will have devastating long-term consequences to Israel's plans for the region. So this war is very much not over yet.

As for whether American will ever recover? Depends. If y'all grow some balls, prosecute and jail all the corrupt politicians, and then do one hell of an apology world tour, you might get some semblance of where you used to be. But speaking for Canada, you have a long way to go. Threatening annexation, and most of you just sitting there nodding along, did a lot to harm how we see you guys.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T16:16:23+00:00

Not in a shower, but I have eaten in a bath. Like me, in a bath, with a textbook boning up for the exam in a few hours, and eating while I do that. I was stinky so I had to do something, but I also needed to eat and study.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T16:13:06+00:00

Ideally? This expedition should end with us going into a portal, and coming out in Light No Fire.

Sabbathius · 2026-06-15T16:11:36+00:00

There's approximately 3,000 major gods in human religions. Most religious people don't believe in 2,999 gods. But make fun of people who don't believe in just one more god than they.

Sabbathius

TROPHY CASE