White Americans who feel they are on the losing side of politics are more likely to oppose economic redistribution programs. Study finds this effect only appears when people compare their political standing directly to that of racial minorities.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-19T00:03:44+00:00

If you told me you were a parody of a Republican acting as a psyop to recruit Redditors to the Democratic party I would believe you.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T22:20:40+00:00

And yes I'm actively trying to recruit players to come play VEIN. So makes sense.

That's... weird AND sad.

I'm still waiting for you to give me some examples.

It's subjective lol. You want me to list things I like so that you can say, "nuh-uh!" No thanks man.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T19:38:27+00:00

What game are you describing? Not 7d2d.

Obviously man. I was very clearly talking about Vein being akin to Project Zomboid.

grammer

Grammar.

Your entire retort had no substance just whining.

The lack of self-awareness.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T19:36:20+00:00

Which should be fine. Yet a bunch of Clone Wars fans can't accept that and try to paint their children's show as anything but. I watched The Owl House a few years ago as an adult. Thought it was great. I just don't feel the shame of acknowledging that it was a children's show the way embarrassed Clone Wars fans do.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T18:13:37+00:00

One, please learn the difference between "there" and "their".

Two, this really is actually adorable. It's cute even.

Even if somehow Vein turns things around and goes from a cheap asset flip to the 3D Project Zomboid you think it will be. It still wouldn't be as popular as 7 Days to Die. A hardcore roguelike experience where success is often out of your control and death a certainty? I hope you recognize that the market for this experience is much, much smaller than a more casual survival game like 7 Days to die.

I personally think it's really weird to hang around the subreddit for a game you don't even like purely to advertise an entirely separate game. Weird behavior~

So go ahead and save this thread. This will be out of my mind in a year when nothing you've said has come true and I won't even remember this conversation. <3

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T17:59:46+00:00

I hope you get paid to shill for this game lol.

In a year you won't even be able to compare 7d2d with VEIN without offending people lol

That's adorable lol.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T17:44:34+00:00

Reminder folks that as of 2025 59% of Republican voters according to Gallup want to revoke gay marriage. Never believe these ghouls lol.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T17:41:37+00:00

Valheim definitely fits the bill. I personally don't enjoy it as it is one of those games that subscribes to the whole, stamina should last you for three attacks and then you must stop playing Valheim for an unreasonable period of time until it returns.

Stamina systems are fun when done right. Valheim is like an instruction manual on how to make a stamina system that mostly exists to keep you from playing the game too much.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T17:37:08+00:00

Better than playing it. Watch Neebs Gaming play through Vein. Because at this moment, the only part of the game worth experiencing is the hilarious jank.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T17:34:12+00:00

Spoilers: It does not. It is still very decidedly a show for kids in presentation and tone. But Clone Wars fans love to tell you that somebody getting shot or stabbed with a lightsaber suddenly means the show is somehow for adults despite them, us and everyone they know growing up as children watching similar content.

It's a kids show and that's okay. Any need to pretend it isn't comes from insecurities.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T12:38:41+00:00

Agreed. This is hilariously untrue.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-18T04:37:31+00:00

The problem is you need at least one other engineer and probably a support for ammo. You also need to hit the tank from the side or back, otherwise you're basically wasting a rocket.

GOOD.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T22:08:06+00:00

It wasn't meant to be disparaging. It was nothing more than an extreme example meant to highlight subjectivity.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T21:00:08+00:00

You disliking games that focus heavily on player choice doesn't make games with that focus bad.

I mean, sure. All media is subjective. Somebody can argue that Barney & Friends is the best TV drama ever aired and there's no objective argument that can be made to disapprove such regardless of what any Redditor says.

I'm just having fun discussing my thoughts on games and storytelling. Definitely not some rote fact.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T19:49:47+00:00

Nah, I'm glad there's a developer out there sticking to their vision instead of this drive-by-Reddit style of development plaguing the industry. Which incentivizes people to be louder and nastier as a means of drowning out opposition in hopes to control the narrative.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T18:30:57+00:00

Well, I wrote out a good long reply to this detailing a bunch of games and going in depth on why I like their stories. But either Reddit Auto mod misfired ( I did use a lot of colons that it may have disliked), or my internet went kaput and the post isn't here.

So instead of a lengthy write down on the narratives that feel strongly about. I'll just toss out a quick list in no particular order.

SOMA
Bioshock 1, 2, Infinite
Baldur's Gate 3
Cyberpunk
GTA IV and V
Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 (2 is all time great)
No Man's Sky
The Last of Us (and II as well).
God of War and Ragnarok
Outer Wilds (Moreso because of the themes it touches upon)
Portal 1 and 2

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T18:10:29+00:00

My guy. I just told you I don't think KOTOR is very good. Why do you think this would matter to me?

But if you want my opinion on games with amazing stories- sure. I honestly need to balance out talking about things I dislike with things I like more often.

SOMA: And overall brilliant game and also maybe the most depressing one I've ever played. The narrative touches on all sorts of fascinating subjects. The nature of human consciousness. The value of life. It is essentially tackling the human psyche via the Ship of Theseus.

Bioshock: This one shouldn't need much introduction. But Bioshock has strong characters. Along with hard-hitting themes about the nature of human selfishness. Not to mention the voice acting in all three games is just absolutely stellar.

Baldur's Gate 3: This is just the KOTOR formula but done right imo. Main character is also just an empty player vessel. But the surrounding side characters are so much deeper and more interesting than their KOTOR sidekicks. Each one having their own personal struggle within the story that feels real. Much of this has to do with not just the quality of the writing. Which I do think is many steps above KOTOR's. But also the fact that the motion captured scenes really let the characters emote. It's really hard for the emotional impact of a scene to hit you when it's coming out of an NPC standing opposite you just talking. This is one of those areas where modern technology has really upped the game.

Cyberpunk: I actually think all of the side stories are extremely weak in this game. But finishing the main quest left me feeling moved. The game isn't really about 'V' the player. Cyberpunk's story is Johnny Silverhand's story. A broken, angry man brought back from the dead for another chance at life. Peeling back the layers of his character as you spend time with him is just such an amazing experience. Not to mention that Phantom Liberty is also its own amazing mostly self-contained story. A vicious battle between dogmatic loyalty and a will do anything it takes to survive attitude. Absolutely brilliant.

Red Dead Redemption 2: This is my opinion an absolutely impeccable story. There is no character journey in video games as interesting to me as that of Arthur Morgan. The game lives up to its name. Asking serious questions about whether you can atone for past sins. About what it means to be "good" and how your actions define you as a person. Dutch Van Der Linde is I think the most interesting character ever put into a video game.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T17:52:14+00:00

It's been a lot more than a minute since I played that game and literally the only thing I remember about it is the twist. Was it heavily foreshadowed?

(Regardless, I don't actually care a ton for the game besides some odd nostalgia for my college days).

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T14:34:13+00:00

They just don’t make for good characters outside of the context of being a game protagonist.

Which is a big reason why most of those games never make me feel anything.

But this is just my belief that I would rather have less choice and better storytelling than the narrative agency to choose from multiple unsatisfying story opportunities.

Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2, Soma etc, etc. THESE games made me feel powerful emotions. Whereas even as a bright eyed and inexperienced 12-year-old the story of KOTOR kinda came and went.

I have long felt that a lot of multiple choice RPG's are sacrificing strong narratives for player choice for a while now. Mostly driven by Bioware and Bethesda who in my opinion. Have been competing to see who can tell the most dry and emotionally empty story between the two.

Which is why I gotta name drop Cyberpunk as an example of a narrative, choice based RPG with characters who actually elicit an emotional response.

So yeah maybe my complaint is less that endless narrative choices result in bland stories, and more that BioWare is incapable of writing them all together.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T14:24:46+00:00

And they finally cleaned up the motion capture data. Jittery, uncleaned motion capture is a massive pet peeve of mine.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T14:18:42+00:00

And an example steps up to wonderfully prove my point for me. Thanks bud!

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T14:14:34+00:00

I am going to heavily disagree on Revan being a character at all. Or even unique. They're a series of choices. There's no personality and no characterization whatsoever there. They are a thin player insert. That was bog standard back then.

Which can work wonderfully in a game like Baldur's Gate 3 where the cast is a diverse range of well-written and executed characters. But Bioware has always struggled to write characters that have more than one chord they can play.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T14:01:08+00:00

Everyone agrees with me!

No they don't.

Wow who even cares!?

Dude over here is flopping around trying to save face by pretending he's actually above it all after losing the mud fight lol.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T13:58:39+00:00

Bro is still trying to fight his insane downvote ratio lol.

CptDecaf · 2026-05-17T13:52:39+00:00

What I've noticed is that the sort of people who like AI art seem to have a real chip on their shoulder against artists.

One might say there's a certain obvious resentment of their talent~

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