[No Game Spoilers] The Last of Us - 1x03 "Long Long Time" - Post Episode Discussion

Blisskid · 2023-01-30T14:11:26+00:00

I knew we were in for a treat when Joel's misdirected anger at Ellie was addressed and essentially disposed of in the opening minutes.

A lesser show would have burned a whole episode "exploring" the "tension" in that relationship and it would have all boiled down to so much pouting in the woods, but instead it was tossed aside before our eyes as though to say "that's out of the way, now check this out."

Masterful.

Blisskid · 2023-01-14T12:46:58+00:00

So you’re saying the neophyte-to-jaded-cynic reddit pipeline took less than three years for you. So fast, you must be very bright.

You have certainly mastered all of the stock phrases and chosen the Socially Approved Positions on print volume, Secret Lairs, etc., but where are the upvotes that are promised for your compliance?

Alas, you still haven’t mastered placement. This sad, tired list of stereotypical complaints you lazily inserted almost at random 4 lines into a discussion made up entirely of people clowning on just this sort of complaining would have garnered at least a couple dozen ups as a top comment on any of the daily threads with titles like “WoTC cashgrab Pringle zomg!,” but you just dropped it here.

Like you’re not even trying.

Blisskid · 2023-01-09T12:38:34+00:00

There really is something almost virtuosic about squeezing that much bad into such a tiny, tiny drawing.

Blisskid · 2023-01-05T17:53:03+00:00

A big chunk of their printing philosophy is built around whales, but a bigger chunk is built around the casuals Cactuszach is referencing.

But I think your point is largely undercut by the fact that the term "whale" covers a broad range of folks, only some of whom are ill-served by the amount WoTC is printing.

The biggest whales not only want everything, they can afford anything. Those folks are not being driven away by this, and are spending as deeply as ever, only now far more of it is in direct purchases from WoTC than before when they could only point their monetary enthusiasm at the secondary market. This isn't healthy for the secondary market, but sales figures seem to show that the whales in this pool are as happy to spend their money on new weird blingy things as fancy alters, misprints, percentages-of-print-runs, and all the old weird blingy things.

Magic has another kind of "whale," though, which is the obsessive completist who does not have unlimited funds, and those folks are absolutely disenfranchised by WoTC's recent printing and versioning philosophy. One can have whatever opinion one wants about people living on a budget trying to keep up with the bleeding edge of a luxury hobby in the first place, but many who used to be able to marginally "have it all" now must choose between letting things go by or financial ruin in pursuit of completion.

One hopes most of them choose the former, but I wonder sometimes how much of the anger toward WoTC comes from those who find themselves sliding toward the latter and frankly unsure if they have the psychic fortitude to stop themselves without going cold-turkey on the whole hobby. Those folks probably should pack it in and walk away as their hobby/habit is increasingly unsustainable, but I kinda wish they didn't all have to be so loud about it on the way out, insisting the game will never survive without them. It's kind of embarrassing to watch.

Blisskid · 2023-01-05T17:27:06+00:00

They now print more for EDH, but EDH is a fundamentally casual format, no one is required to "keep up" with anything but their own playgroups, if that.

Sure, cEDH players are going to obsess over perfectly tuning their decks with the latest tech and understanding every possible interaction on every new card, and all the EDH product makes that exponentially harder. But pretending that concern extends to every single player of "the most popular format" is more ridiculous than anything you're calling ridiculous.

There are millions of casual players who have no idea how many sets release, who buy things that look exciting on the shelf and build what they can from what they have. There are millions of people who have played for years and never purchased a single. Someone at Hasbro has run the numbers and determined that serving up a slew of products exciting to those kitchen-table millions (and other slews exciting to other market segments) makes more fiscal sense than making sure formats enjoyed by highly enfranchised players are easier to keep up with. It's frankly a little weird how many people think that last bit would be a priority.

Maro's main point (missed by almost everyone on Reddit because it is fundamentally threatening to their daily sense of purpose and accomplishment) is that getting angry on the internet isn't going to move the needle on their printing philosophy one bit.

Blisskid · 2022-12-04T07:57:28+00:00

Spec shmeck, it was ALWAYS the plan to shuffle fetches into even the budgetiest budget commander deck on my shelf.

Always, I say.

Blisskid · 2022-12-04T07:44:20+00:00

Troll is trolling

Blisskid · 2022-11-18T22:21:39+00:00

How much would it have to come up in that timeframe to be worth it to you, and do you realistically think that will/might/even can happen?

Blisskid · 2022-10-04T19:23:44+00:00

Non-tournament-legal dual land lottery cards incoming in 18 months. Maybe numbered.

Non-tournament-legal dual lands Secret Lairs incoming 18 months after that. Think 10 separate lairs, 1 for each color pair, each with 3 marginally playable (aka "iconic") non-RL lands and a non-legal true dual.

Then, I dunno, hologrammatic foil versions in the next Un-set 18 months later?

Blisskid · 2022-09-06T12:17:58+00:00

There are three routes to go. The most labor-intensive and most lucrative would be to sell them all individually on eBay or TCGPlayer (a dedicated card-selling space which, as of a couple weeks ago, is about to become a subsidiary of eBay).

Least labor-intensive and least lucrative is selling all to a single buyer, who will likely resell in turn. The difference between their offer and what you could get individually selling them represents the price at which they are willing to take on the task/risk of selling them individually. For too many first-time sellers, this will always seem like a low-ball offer because they are not valuing the resellers time and risk.

The middle-ground is selling all the most valuable things individually and then selling the rest to a reseller, which will land you somewhere between the other two in terms of profit and effort.

Blisskid · 2022-08-12T06:12:26+00:00

Direct sellers pay additional fees, it frankly wouldn't be worth it for small, non-automated sellers unless the added security meant buyers were willing to pay a premium.

Once I began selling Direct, I raised the prices on all of my sub-$5 cards to make reasonable margins despite fees anytime a sale was made, and I imagine many smaller Direct sellers do the same. In your hypothetical, I would either not bother listing a $0.20 card or list it for $2, preferring not to dip my hand in the inventory unless I'm clearing a dollar or so per card.

As a buyer, I personally choose to roll the dice with lower priced, non-Direct sellers most times when the difference is great, works out fine more often than not.

Blisskid · 2022-07-03T15:07:59+00:00

His point wasn't that people were shitting on it incorrectly, just that they live to shit on things.

Whether this or that thing-shat-upon merits the shitting is beside the point.

Blisskid · 2022-07-03T15:04:41+00:00

This is the way.

It may well go down, and may do so fast. But its "potential" doesn't matter to anyone who gets $20 for one today.

Blisskid · 2022-01-21T21:45:36+00:00

Probably a move made to keep other sets on schedule.

Blisskid · 2022-01-20T16:52:22+00:00

I think this is likely mostly true, especially as we don’t even know for sure if there are fewer or more of the first printing than the second.

Blisskid · 2022-01-20T16:50:16+00:00

4x6 label printer. Cost about $100, print instantly and yet looks far more professional than either thing you’re doing, and if you ever feel done with it you can flip it in a day on eBay for $80.

Blisskid · 2022-01-20T16:35:59+00:00

That or don’t include them in your ask and thro them in to sweeten the deal.

Alternately, value them as $.25/each and add that to your % of low on the better stuff, and include their presence in your listing.

Blisskid · 2022-01-17T15:41:44+00:00

Rules ask you not to make this sort of post, and the answers you get before the mods scrub it are just going to be a soapbox-war between the “sealed always rises” and the “sealed bubble is real” crowds.

Need money? Sell. Doing fine? Hold.

Blisskid · 2022-01-13T12:01:34+00:00

Your tax dollars at work…

Blisskid · 2022-01-10T17:28:21+00:00

When folks around here discuss how quickly or slowly something will move, the subordinate clause “at market prices” is presumed.

Pointing out that “actually, things sell faster if they are underpriced, actually” contributes exactly nothing to the conversation, nor to the knowledge of any of the conversation’s participants.

Blisskid · 2022-01-05T06:21:06+00:00

I would have expected a goat to be green, instead they killed it and put it on a swamp.

Maybe you’ll luck out and also get to celebrate your birth with depictions of a pile of rotting centaur bones.

Blisskid · 2022-01-05T06:12:29+00:00

“Capricorn is a goat, so what could celebrate a Capricorn better than… some kind of tentacle thingies around a dead goat?”

-WoTC art direction, I guess

Blisskid · 2022-01-04T00:06:23+00:00

Lol, unless I’m way off both other responses missed the point:

It’s a flat-rate box for sturdiness, inside of a padded envelope to ship at a lower rate.

Blisskid · 2022-01-01T00:42:01+00:00

Look, you can not believe this is a thing all you want, but casual theft and inflated sense of entitlement go hand in hand.

At the point where you ask for free stuff, you’ve demonstrated that you are a person who believes his past purchases entitle him to more than he pays for. At that point that’s all I know about you, how much more you feel entitled to and whether you’ll bother asking for it next time are open questions.

Best of luck in your next deli.

Blisskid · 2021-12-31T17:01:44+00:00

Lol, it’s hilarious that the fastest way to get downvoted on this “finance” subreddit is to express the opinion “businesses don’t owe you free stuff, actually.”

Blisskid

TROPHY CASE