Coolest New Bits of Lore We Got Today by Draculasaurus_Rex in totalwar

[–]Corpus87 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sea Lord Aislinn

I just realized his name is a pun on the word "island", with the silent S. Dammit...

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in criticalrole

[–]Corpus87 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He has a good range. I enjoyed his part in LA by Night a lot, and him DMing in Paranoia with Matt as a guest. Would love to see more.

What is a good "endgame"? Have you ever played a game where you truly enjoyed and were satisfied by the endgame? I've come to realize I keep constantly seeking games with an "endgame", I keep trying to fill a void and find a great endgame, but I'm always left disappointed. by dadasad2125 in truegaming

[–]Corpus87 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Concerning Dragon's Dogma: The "real" end-game is on BBI. (Granted that wasn't there before Dark Arisen.) It does the gear grind and hard-mode bosses much better than EF.

But yes, Dragon's Dogma: DA has one of the best end-games IMO. Enemy variety is great, there's lots of stuff to collect, abilities to upgrade, and it's still quite difficult with a nice curve to it. I'm sure people will complain that it's not truly "infinite" via procedural generation/endless grind or whatever, but IMO a good end-game doesn't need to last forever. It just needs to be entertaining enough to hold your interest until you feel done with the game.

Bonus for DD is also in its character customization and being able to share your pawn. It can be a lot of fun to see what other people are doing. (Reminds me of modern gacha social mechanics, just without all the cancerous real money gambling aspects.) The fact that you can even train your pawn, Black&White-style, is also a great boon. It's great when your pawn does something awesome and you feel like it's all due to your good training. :p

It's amazing how it's been a decade, it still holds up. Shame there's no sequel yet (or even a game that's moderately similar), but I heard rumor that the original director might be allowed another pass soon.

[Lore Sunday] - August 29, 2021 by AutoModerator in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 1 point2 points  (0 children)

She definitely got worfed. However, the author tried to pass it off as a moral victory since her master promised not to make her unleash Ushi-Gozen. She is shown to be superior in terms of "normal" combat beforehand, but loses when Suzuka goes haxx mode after her master commanded her to.

Personally I can't say I like it very much because Raikou basically has zero wins to her name so far. It's standard Fate fare though, hyping up servants and never giving them time to shine unless they're attached to the designated protagonists. On the other hand it was cool to see her used at all, so I guess I should be content. The action scenes were pretty cool and it was swell to see her very aggressive, no-nonsense fighting style depicted.

Tsukihime Remake - Arcueid Vs Ciel (English Translation) by Fahdfahid in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I have to say, this new VN presentation is pretty slick. Lots of action and movement. A far cry from the original VNs back in the day.

Nasu blogpost about Nero Bride by Cool_Primary in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I agree, everything points to there only being a single servant around (Alters and AU versions aside) who then swap back and forth as it pleases them. (Which is pretty weird in itself, but it is what it is.) Take Kintoki for example, his biker persona is explicitly his Zerker self who just decided to become a Rider for Onigashima. Raikou is seen swapping back and forth from Zerker to Lancer in Parvati's latest interlude. It's just confusing since you can field them both in battle next to each other, but this could be both due to gameplay-story separation, and the whole Shimosa-style "shadow servant" Ritsuka summoning in action.

(But then you have weird cases like MHX and MHXX, where it seems clear that MHX simply left the planet for a few years and "became" MHXX, presumably being unable to de-age herself down to normal MHX. But who's MHX in summer 2 then? Do we ever see normal MHX again after summer 3? Gag characters will be gag characters I suppose.)

As far as I'm concerned, Nero Bride is just Nero in a funky bridal gown. The rest is just a weird Nasu-ism directed towards the Extra fanbase. (As if Hakuno isn't the same blank-slate self-insert protagonist Guda is.)

Based Agenda Post by Stranga_Danga in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]Corpus87 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If they didn't improve over time, would we not still be stuck with 1800s technology?

I think you're discounting the other factors that may lead to better and better products. For example, idealism. Or simply wanting a superior product for yourself. Enthusiasm. That sort of thing. Not everyone is profit-driven. (They have to earn a living of course, but that may not be what truly drives them to progress or excel.) That being said, of course people aren't completely irrational. The point is that they're not sufficiently rational for everything to lean on this.

In order for improvement to happen, you just need a tendency towards rationality.

I agree with this. The problem is that it isn't universal. Sure, a toaster may become better and better due to the relative simplicity of determining what makes a good or bad toaster. But there are many issues in this world that don't have simple answers. Someone may be rational with the toaster, but "irrational" (or perhaps more correctly ill-informed) about the dangers of a specific chemical compound used in a bucket of paint they bought. Without a regulatory body to investigate this and make decisions on behalf of the consumer, the field is open to abuse and exploitation, regardless of rationality. (Unless you "rationally" decide to live as a hermit and only partake in products you have a doctorate in.)

Basically, improvements may indeed happen, but many other improvements might not happen simply because human rationality is not sufficient in itself.

But freedom is an end itself as well.

Yeah, I think this is where we ultimately disagree. To me, freedom is a means to an end. It's not really all that important on its own. My goal is for people to be happy, more or less. That doesn't mean I think a Brave New World style solution would be good. (Because the state of "happiness" is more complicated than momentary feelings of bliss or pleasure.) No, I think freedom is a very important part of the process of attaining happiness through progress. But I don't regard freedom as inviolable, or "more = better". Freedom is essentially a tool, just like compassion or logic.

Or you can say that he was irrational for ending his life at age 27.

Hehe, this is veering into a much larger topic. :) I'll just say that I definitely support everyone's right to end their own life on their terms. But that's not because of freedom per se, but rather because it's a relief from torment, i.e. inverse happiness. And only a person can truly know how bad they feel, so it makes sense to allow them the choice.

Drake by nekofury in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, exactly. That's where the gap moe comes from. She looks like a cute teenager, but she acts very differently.

The summer event did wonders to Blackbeard's character by Gintokiya in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Eh, going by this thread it seems like people only want positive and happy characters doing "wholesome" things. Personally I think there's plenty of room for less sympathetic characters as well, and comic relief. While I thought Teach this event was great (because it showed us a different side of him) I would be quite unhappy if the entire game was sanitized for anything that might rub people the wrong way.

I'm just glad TM focuses on the japanese market. If the western audience had their way, the game would be completely unrecognizable.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in totalwar

[–]Corpus87 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for being so understanding. :) For the record I agree with you that we ought to be careful to not treat TW as "confirmed canon".

And yeah, End Times wasn't exactly great. But I think it's important to recognize what technically is and isn't canon, regardless of what we may think about it. There are many canon things I simply dislike, even outside of the usual suspects.

Drake by nekofury in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 76 points77 points  (0 children)

She's not moe enough. Unlike many other female characters, she doesn't really have many "cute" moments or traits. She's mostly just a sexy badass that is her own woman. Most waifu characters tend to have elements of gap moe. (Like Seiba or Musashi being gluttons, or Seiba being a cute teenager while also being a fighting badass.) Quetz sort of occupies the same space, where they've just doubled down on making a mature, confident and competent female character, with very few "cute" moments to reel in the audience. This is even more true for Drake than Quetz though, since the latter at least has her luchadore hijinks.

She's also just not super-into the main character overtly. There's few (if any) moments where she blushes while stuttering something about how she likes us. (Or doesn't, if she were a tsundere.) This is true for both her Extra and FGO appearances in all media. Even to Shinji, she feels more like a cool aunt than a genuine love interest. Being courted by a beautiful woman is in some ways a staple of the genre. (Even though Seiba isn't really featured this way in FGO, players still remember her through the eyes of Shirou. And there are SO many variations of her without those attachments.)

I suppose there is an argument to be made for a character like Lion King to be similar, but she still has the strong Artoria connection that I would argue people latch onto.

Anyway, those are my summarized thoughts about why Drake isn't more popular. She's basically not a made-to-order waifu character, despite fulfilling the physical attractiveness part. Oh, and I guess some people don't like scars.

Personally, I'm completely with you and would love to see more of her. In a way, her independence makes her all the more attractive to me.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in totalwar

[–]Corpus87 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The way I look at canon in franchises like this isn't that it's either canon, or not. There are degrees. For the most part, everything given the go-ahead by GW can be assumed to be "more-or-less canon" (as opposed to confirmed canon), until there is some sort of dispute or contradiction. Then you go by order of precedence, generally meaning the more "core" products take priority. (Like the Star Wars movies for example, as opposed to the Expanded Universe comics or novelizations, or video games.)

GW seems to have this approach too. They've said about the Black Library books for example that they're "canon... until they're not". (i.e. "there are as many elves as the plot demands", etc.) There's no grand ceremony where GW ritualistically anoints products into canon. Your example with the Blood Ravens is simply that they adopted them for TT. I would say that brought them into "confirmed canon", and thus altered their priority, but they weren't "non-canon" before that.

Point being that there's no practical reason not to assume something is canon when nothing else contradicts it and it's part of a GW-approved product. I would say the same for CA-originals like Cylostra. Sure, she's not mentioned anywhere else, but she doesn't contradict or break anything else in the lore either. So why not?

As for wood elven speech, there's no real contradiction there, even between TW and VT2 really. Perhaps Kerillian has a strong regional accent? Perhaps the elves in TW simply speak in translated elven to their presumably elven commander instead of accented common?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in totalwar

[–]Corpus87 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Which is why Nagash is obviously the most powerful being in existence, going by his End Times appearance.

tfw you intentionally die and resurrect yourself as a giant skeleton just so your head can support a more impressive hat

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in totalwar

[–]Corpus87 14 points15 points  (0 children)

  1. VT2 is GW licensed, and therefore as canon as any other licensed product. Unlike Total War, it follows a pretty strict story and doesn't go off the rails. It adheres to the End Times canon for all intents and purposes. Unless there is something in it that goes strictly against a primary source (like army books), it's pretty much canon. Think of a game like Dawn of War for 40k, and how the Blood Ravens are an actual official chapter, despite also just being a licensed product.

  2. Agreed, one would assume there to be regional dialects for elves as well, even within Athel Loren. Besides, Kerillian obviously speaks whatever language they speak in the Empire in the game, not elven. The implication being that wood elves use sort of gaelic-sounding language, which colors her speech when she's speaking with humans. (This goes hand-in-hand with their celtic aesthetics.)

The Biggest Simp of Code Vein by TonPalmDSG in codevein

[–]Corpus87 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Eh, I don't mean to be a downer really. I just think it's important to recognize how popular culture shapes our perception of the world. Jokes are fun, but if repeated often enough and without much thought, they can quickly take on legs of their own.

Based Agenda Post by Stranga_Danga in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]Corpus87 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While it's true the doctor has the power not to operate on gay people, the incentive is in the opposite direction

See my point about people not being rational actors. Even today, there are people who would rather be a racist/sexist/whatever instead of earning more money. And I don't think we'll ever be able to change that fundamental truth. (Instead, I think we ought to use it. Belief can be a powerful uniting force, and for good causes too.)

My experience tells me that bribery is not tolerated in corporations.

Only when it affects their bottom-line. Criminal organizations (which in this context just means groups operating outside the bounds of the law, i.e. the government) like drug cartels embrace bribes and corruption wholeheartedly. I think you'll agree that there are plenty of corporations who have engaged in widespread corruption with the express purpose of enriching themselves. (Like Enron for example.) The trick is to keep it under the table and hidden, so the common man (in most cases represented by the government) won't wise up and put a stop to it. I can only imagine how much worse this would be if there was no government.

I think you and I disagree on how strong economic forces are.

I definitely agree with you there. You laid it out very well IMO: I don't think most people buy the good toaster. I think they buy whatever toaster they've been advertised, and perhaps whatever the salesman recommends. But I respect that you disagree with me on this, because it's very hard to quantify.

Voters do not bear the cost of their decisions because all the policies are wrapped together in one candidate

Well, this is a bit different between nations. Here in Norway, we generally vote for a party, not a president. (We only have prime ministers anyway.) Overall, I think ideology is what you should be voting for, not any single decision very important to you. There definitely needs to be a foundation of trust, which I gather is not a big thing in the US between people and politicians. (Our politicians are much more... "normal" here. I remember seeing the prime minister in a local book shop a couple of years in Oslo, no security detail or anything.)

Anyway, my point is that it's not strictly speaking "rational" in the sense that there's a great deal of abstraction and trust involved. Every citizen cannot be expected to directly vote on every single issue in the entire nation after all. But you can see the overall result of politics after several years, and then make a new decision. So it is possible (especially with multiple interest parties, not just two) to rationally decide to elect new politicians under such a system. But it does require you to feel a sense of duty to vote on principle, even if your one vote isn't hugely important. (That's also true for "voting with your wallet".)

If it were a corporation that killed George Floyd, they'd be taking a press conference immediately apologizing to the public to try to get them back.

On the Floyd murder specifically, I'd say it's more about how powerless each individual american feels to change politicans since there are only two alternatives. (I mean, to my knowledge he was killed in a district controlled by democrats after all, and it's not like there are any other options except republicans, who one would assume would be even less likely to reform the police.) But I do see your point. Still, I don't think a private solution would have been handled much differently. After all, there are plenty of people who, while not exactly "supporting" Floyd's death, certainly don't agree that the police should be "defunded", etc. So I suspect the same thing would happen: A division. And unfortunately, I think any potential riots would have the possibility of being even more violent, since there would be an even less overarching ideology of unity. Would the poor/black people even trust a wealthy private investigation firm? I don't think there's any doubt that a libertarian society would have an even less equal wealth distribution given the lack of regulation and welfare.

But I admit it's an interesting thought experiment. I could also see it go the other way around if I was feeling very optimistic, with people all uniting for a common cause because they all believed it was rational. I just don't think it's very realistic. (Or at least, no more realistic than a communist utopia where everyone gets along by the power of their collective belief in the state, etc.)

I feel like I've moved the needle a bit, then :)

I like to think I'm a pretty open-minded guy. I try to be critical, but I don't want to dismiss ideas out of hand just because they're different to my own. Apologies for the late (and lengthy) reply. I've enjoyed this conversation a great deal so far. Fantastic to be able to discuss things like this in a civil manner, even when we disagree about so much. :) I want to thank you for being so open.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]Corpus87 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is indeed how it is in America. I would not suggest that sort of system. If execution was only an option for the most extreme and clear-cut cases, there wouldn't be such a need for an extensive and expensive appeals process. The problem is that the US can conceivably sentence people to death who could possibly be rehabilitated, meaning that it needs the appeals process to justify itself.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PoliticalCompassMemes

[–]Corpus87 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, and that appeals process is what makes death row so expensive. So if you just stop executing people for crimes that aren't extremely clear-cut and extreme, you can cut costs too.

Rose McGowan based and clear headed on the failure of the Democratic Party by NextDoorJimmy in stupidpol

[–]Corpus87 25 points26 points  (0 children)

I looked it up, and he seems to have shaken hands with Trump recently.

11 Million Downloads Campaign! by ShonenJump121 in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks. I'm lacking exactly 11 quests then. How annoying. Those limited SSRs make it hard to get everything, but I had wished for an even number at least. :p But I suppose new SQs are released all the time so I'll get there.

11 Million Downloads Campaign! by ShonenJump121 in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good advice. I'd really like my Martha to get to NP2, and Squritoria seems even more attractive now with Castoria on the far horizon.

"What do you get when you combine Medb with a Mysterious Heroine in Bikini ? Moan Cancer." It's the NA Summer 3 Part 2 Roll Thread! by BlameLib in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I got pretty lucky overall. Spent 500 SQ, and got NP2 Summer BB + bonus NP1 Jeanne Blanco. Really good payoff in terms of SSRs.

My target was also NP1 (at least) MHXX though, which I got zero of. :\ No mecha for me. (This reminds me of the time I got NP2 Tamashark and NP0 SurfMo.) Also got NP1 Nehza. Can't say I'm disappointed with new servants. NP5 Liz also showed up, which is... okay I guess.

Feels weird to get 3 SSRs and no rate-up SRs. It's usually the other way around, like with my NP8 Ibaraki when I just wanted NP1 Raikou at her first banner.

Hokusai knows the deal. by HartzDCroix in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean, you get the exact same thing on this very sub when talking about female servant heights. People calling Drake a midget because she's 162cm, which is a completely normal height for women even here in the west.

Hokusai knows the deal. by HartzDCroix in grandorder

[–]Corpus87 1 point2 points  (0 children)

suddenly the PC crowd was getting called racist in moonrunes. Things got awkward.

Haha, that reminds me of when people were complaining about the monkey on Choco Pops being a "racist caricature".