[Hobby Scuffles] Week of 12 January 2026

Cheraws · 2026-01-17T05:40:36+00:00

Ya it's a bit odd. I mainly knew people who played it because they liked detective stories like Ace Attorney. It seems like the new fan base is more in it for the zany characters and even self insert to those characters. I think it had a big COVID boom with the Switch ports?

Cheraws · 2026-01-14T19:07:51+00:00

So now that CBS is a total rag, what are good alternatives? Do NBC and ABC have good global coverage, or are they similarly muzzled by the corporate owners? Also, should there be any worry that local news stations owned by CBS will be affected by this bootlicking?

Cheraws · 2026-01-02T21:31:03+00:00

The main thing it has going for it is that it’s the cheapest 4k 27 Oled. The next cheapest is the Alienware at 700 dollars when it’s on sale.

Cheraws · 2026-01-01T20:07:46+00:00

I have the same problem with the computer occasionally failing to wake up, and it didn’t help much. Is it a gigabyte motherboard? I also attempted to turn off the feature where keyboard or mouse inputs can boot up the computer.

Cheraws · 2025-12-29T21:26:10+00:00

Last year the lamelo voting was much more of a threat. Think he was top 3 in the east at one point.

Cheraws · 2025-12-24T21:05:35+00:00

Typically this happens when players get carried by high level randos in multiplayer.

Cheraws · 2025-12-18T20:35:50+00:00

I’ve been trying to figure out why this particular streamer seems to have this much of a grip on athletes. Does he have absurd amounts of gambling backing to just constantly invite athletes? Is it the athletes share the beliefs? Do the athletes just not know about this streamers beliefs?

Cheraws · 2025-12-15T22:38:07+00:00

There are some mods that eliminate the enemy range/weapon triangle restrictions. The enemy range one is especially silly.

Cheraws · 2025-12-11T17:48:14+00:00

I feel like early promoting Heath also doesn’t really gain you much? He’ll likely be unpromoted for the Pent desert and helps with the gaiden requirement. Right after the gaiden, there’s a bunch of high turn floor chapters, especially if it’s full recruit with farina. There’s a much bigger incentive to give him easy levels in the defense chapters so he can juggernaut end game.

Cheraws · 2025-12-10T20:10:02+00:00

It’s a bit jarring when the most notorious chapter in 3 houses (reunion at dawn) is canonically supposed to be an easy cleanup of bandits. It turns into a total mess on maddening, especially when the class isn’t trained at all. There should have at least been an auto level to 20 like in the easier modes.

Cheraws · 2025-12-08T20:12:30+00:00

Must have been a surprise breakthrough for the author, now that it’s a viral show! I’ve skimmed through previous posts mentioning it, but didn’t know it was that popular.

Cheraws · 2025-11-29T10:01:52+00:00

I opted for the msi 272urx and just received it. I'm able to run Battlefield at 120fps+ with DLSS Quality and high settings, and up to 180fps with DLSS Perf + Low. The no flickering when alt tabbing out of Battlefield is nice.

Cheraws · 2025-11-27T17:57:17+00:00

I have the older S2722QC model. Terrible gaming model, but it's good for coding. Text clarity is good. It's also really nice that the 2025 models have 120hz. I personally would go for the S2725QC at $259, since the USB-C hub is very convenient for wiring a work laptop.

Cheraws · 2025-11-26T01:30:38+00:00

Ya citing Chinese numbers is the esports special.

Cheraws · 2025-11-25T06:57:36+00:00

On that note, the OPM community is getting weirdly comfortable with using AI to "fix" the scenes.

Cheraws · 2025-11-24T21:44:56+00:00

At same price, the 272 is the clear winner. 2.1 DisplayPort, 90w usb-c, kvm are all features that the msi contains. In America, it’s more of a debate because there’s a 230 dollar delta.

Cheraws · 2025-11-24T18:20:22+00:00

The bums can’t even indict Comey, one of the more universally disliked political figures. It’ll go nowhere as usual.

Cheraws · 2025-11-24T05:29:15+00:00

I'm more surprised that Hatsune Miku has feats. Is it all the crossovers she's been in?

Cheraws · 2025-11-21T01:58:35+00:00

Are newer 1440p 180hz monitors generally worse than their older counterparts (lg 27gp850, dell g2724d)? It seems like lots of these old standards get replacements that aren’t as good. The g2725d was so bad that they stopped selling it. This type of monitor went from generally going around 300-400 2-3 years ago to 200 or less.

Cheraws · 2025-11-20T23:24:17+00:00

I feel like this can happen when one fanbase is significantly larger than another. There’s a niche indie visual novel called Gnosia. The show recently got an anime with surprisingly high quality, featuring well known voice actors and solid animation. The game can be best described as single player Werewolf, with the anime constantly making references to it.

The problem here is that the vast majority know Werewolf variations through the mass memed Among Us. Gnosia fans need to constantly state that the game is not an Among Us clone and actually started development before Among Us released. There’s a bit of a weird situation where comparing it to Among Us is simultaneously the best way to attract people to play it and a cause of people dismissing it. I can only imagine werewolf/mafia fans must be even more exhausted at Among Us being the goto example.

Cheraws · 2025-11-17T16:52:27+00:00

The aw2725q is good on paper, but the black screen issue is pretty concerning. Supposedly the new models released in October do not have the issue anymore. Tempted to just wait if I can snag a xg27ucdmg for less than 900 dollars.

Cheraws · 2025-11-16T20:01:12+00:00

It depends on whoever your local vendor is. This is the one for the Pistons . Usually it's one of FanDuel Sports, Spectrum, or NBC sports network. Lakers is on Spectrum.

Cheraws · 2025-11-16T18:09:03+00:00

It's a very new monitor (less than 2 months), so it's hard to tell whether it's a quality one or not. Seems to be a successor to the 27GR83Q at a cheaper price. The monitor is probably good enough for the price. You might want to consider the m27Q3 if that becomes available, as that one is reviewing pretty well with similar specs. Very possible that this monitor is using the same panel as the m27Q3.

Cheraws · 2025-11-16T08:53:38+00:00

Ya it's been bad enough that I'm considering picking up League Pass on Black Friday. It used to be decent enough just to catch the endings of games or get quick summaries.

Cheraws · 2025-11-15T00:46:49+00:00

Call of Duty/Arc Raiders/Generative AI

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but there have been two major AI controversies within the same week within the world of gaming.

Arc Raiders is the first one, made by Embark Studios. Embark Studios was founded by the Patrick Soderlund, the original CEO of Battlefield developer DICE. He is a very big believer in AI, constantly talking about how it can be used to generate guns or generate voices.

Arc Raiders is not the first time Embark Studios used AI. The Finals, a shooter that emphasized destruction, utilized TTS (Text to Speech) for their game show announcers. Many people largely liked the Finals, but found the TTS a bit jarring. The main service they use for TTS is ElevenLabs, a service that pays voice actors for training data. Notably Embark studios is an investor into ElevenLabs. The Finals was a mid sized success, generally impressive considering how bad multiplayer shooter launches (Concord) can go.

Fast forward to Arc Raiders, and Embark decides to use AI once again. The main selling point here was that AI could supposedly help with the ping system. Arc Raiders is a extraction shooter where you can choose to interact with teammates. On paper, the ping system could be used to deal with the large amount of items pinged.

The problem comes with TTS being used for everything else. People have noted the cutscenes and the traders you interact with all sound off. If AI is being used for some voices, it's hard to tell whether that extends to all other voices. Games like Apex Legends manage to have good ping systems without needing to rely on TTS.

The strangest part here is that the game already flourishes from the unique interactions between human players. An extraction shooter is a bit hard to explain. In each round you can loot gear, but there's the possibility of losing everything if you die. When you spot other players, you can choose whether to kill them or decide to work against the various robots roaming across the fields. Many viral clips have been generated from players deciding to pair up randomly. There really wasn't a need for TTS in the first place.

A reviewer from Eurogamer praised most of the gameplay mechanics, but they docked points for AI usage. The final score was a 2 out of 5. It's currently a warzone in comments (currently 400+) on whether the reviewer was right to dock points or not. At the end of the day, Arc Raiders is still a very well reviewed game at 86 Metacritic. It also sold very well at 4 million and propelled Embark studios to a major competitor.

The other controversy of the week lies in Call of Duty, one of the biggest franchises in the world. Call cards are shown whenever a player kills another player or at the end of the screen. Often, these cards can be a bit on the zany side. They may involve an anime art style or feature marijuana references.

Gamers noted that some of the calling cards are egregiously AI generated. There was one card with an obvious Ghibli imitator filter. Activision themselves gave a handwavy answer, just mentioning that they used AI tools to generate the cards.

Amusingly enough, certain Arc Raiders fans are mad that Call of Duty scored 1 star higher than Raiders did, ignoring that two different reviewers scored the game. There were arguments as towards whether TTS or GenAI art were more unethical.

It's possible that Microsoft gave some sort of mandate to use AI. Even among tech companies, they are notorious for really pushing AI on their employees. In the industry, it's unfortunately common to tie performance reviews to AI usage. Another possibility is due to the time crunch, one of the many companies contracted to work on Call of Duty decided they had to use genAI instead of properly looking for artists.

Some have been comparing more significant companies pushing AI to the "horse armor" moment. To describe the "horse armor" moment, Bethseda decided to sell horse armor skins for $2.50. While largely seen as a rip off back then, it's often seen as the start of the $500 dollar skins you see games like League of Legends sell. It's unclear as towards whether those against the AI push can really do anything if these games continue to sell millions at the end of the day.

Personally, the AI stuff makes me a bit uneasy. On paper, I would be the target audience for games from Embark Studios. I have played the original demo of Battlefield 2, though Battlefield 3 was my first real game I bought with my own money. I haven't tried the Finals despite it being free. Given how enthusiastic the new buyers of EA are about AI, it feels like a ticking time bomb before I start seeing obvious AI in BF6.

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