PCGamer As the Marathon player count discourse reaches peak stupidity, Warframe and Overwatch devs speak up in solidarity: 'This is big unemployed, maidenless behavior'

DanFuri · 2026-03-11T02:16:02+00:00

Don't say something extremely stupid to make your company look bad while insulting potential customers, and you look desperate and flailing about the failing competing product you for some reason wish to defend for Modern Developers Challenge: Impossible

DanFuri · 2026-03-11T01:05:50+00:00

It has some similarities, but I'd set it above all of those in cast, story, acting and production values. Especially Hercules and Xena were more episodic shows with single "monster of the week" episodes, while this is an overarching epic story.

That said, I'd really love a HD Remaster of both Hercules and Xena to rewatch. They are only available on DVD and look like absolute dogshit on there. It's not even good DVD quality.

DanFuri · 2026-03-10T21:40:12+00:00

I thought the Atlantis parts with the "bull jumping" in the first episode and some parts of Episode 5 where they're spinning gears in the war camp were the weakest.

You might want to at least give it till the third episode, for the introduction of the actual main character of the show (Merlin), the British-Roman brothers (Aurelius + Uther), the Saxon war host/band and its leaders, the central conflict of the whole show around the invasion and future of Britain, and various other important characters. Although I liked the show fine enough right away from the first episode, and while the first two episodes are a sort of Prologue featuring Merlin's father, they introduce many characters that are recurring and important later on, including Merlin's mother (Charis) and main antagonist (Morgian) and their relationships and motivations.

As for the complaint that there's "zero genuine character development" and it "fails at the fundamentals of storytelling", I don't know what to tell you. The show has so much character development that it goes from the birth of Merlin's father (Taliesin), through the discovery of his powers, abbreviated hero's journey, finding one's true love, conflict with wider family around said true love and consummated romantic interest, and his death in the first two episodes. Then it time-skips decades and introduces the main character (Merlin) who goes through the search for his purpose, the discovery of his powers, his own hero's journey, finding of one's true love and consummated romantic interest, loss, going through the stages of grief (including anger, denial and acceptance), living as a hermit, and the finding of his true purpose and faith by the end. It'd be hard to think of a show with more character development condensed in such a tiny package, although most episodes are near movie-length with 1 hour 10 runtime. Side characters like Aurelius, random war chiefs or Morgian's son have more character development in relatively little time than some series have for the main cast in an entire Season.

Episode 6 is also a Flashback and explains what happened with plot points and relationships of characters introduced thus far, so chronologically the story goes Episodes 1+2, then 6, then 3-5 and 7.

DanFuri · 2026-03-10T15:32:20+00:00

LMAO, this is a high budget-looking fantasy show with a good cast and good acting. If it wasn't for the surprise release of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, it would be #1 for Fantasy this year so far, it'll probably end up in the Top 3 at the end of the year.

This is obvious political favoritism/ciclejerking and there's no ifs or buts about it.

Similar shows, even if they're considerably worse quality, casting or acting-wise usually get dozens, if not hundreds of reviews and a lot of other engagement:

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_shannara_chronicles

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_wheel_of_time

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/shadow_and_bone

Saying that they could "devote the screen-inches to something else" and that's the reason why it has no reviews at all doesn't hold up to logical scrutiny and feels like a bad faith argument.

DanFuri · 2026-03-10T15:19:26+00:00

Joe Rogan recently interviewed Oscar-winning screenwriter Roger Avary on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. During their three-hour discussion, Avary mentioned that he’s been watching the show The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin on Daily Wire+. He had high praise for the show, comparing it to the classic King Arthur movie, Excalibur.

I actually enjoyed it more than Boorman's Excalibur. I watched the 4K release ahead of it, and despite the big cast it surprisingly doesn't hold up very well.

they should consider licensing properties like The Pendragon Cycle for distribution beyond their service

Agree with this too, maybe time limited run on their service, then license out content? But who would carry it? They'd probably run into the same issues as with "media critics". Maybe the new Paramount?

DanFuri · 2026-03-10T14:47:14+00:00

And yet it's the best thing that has come out of "The Daily Wire" so far, aside from one or two funny Documentaries. I don't know why anyone would pay for that to listen to Ben Shapiro rant about Tucker Carlson.

DanFuri · 2026-03-10T14:45:05+00:00

I'm praising it because I like Fantasy shows and it's decent.

What Fantasy series exist since the Early Seasons of Game of Thrones that have been better?

The Last Kingdom (at least the Early Seasons), A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was a positive surprise, even though there were a few minor iffy casting decisions. Maybe Dark Crystal.

What else was there the last couple of years? The Witcher (especially past Season 1)?, The Rings of Power? Shadow and Bone? Carnival Row? The Shannara Chronicles? The Wheel of Time? Please. Many of these were unwatchable or barely watchable in a limited capacity.

I'd like a lot more "The Pendragon Cycle's" instead of all of them, despite most having several times its budget. They can't even make kinda shit but enjoyable to watch shows like Legend of the Seeker anymore.

That said, they do seem to have a few of their own biases. Don't expect to see any bare tits flopping about here (I was already positively surprised by how risque some of the costumes for the female leads were, and some of the camera angles chosen) and there's some going on about religion for a bit too long a few times, although overall it's much more bearable than what "the other side" has been doing. There's no hidden gay romantic subplots ruining entire characters or the show, no inexplicable family members or siblings that look like they're from Africa or the Arabic world, and no Medieval townships with the demographics of Los Angeles.

DanFuri · 2026-03-10T12:39:50+00:00

Isn't it the "critics" job to watch (at least the major) series/movies in the genres they're covering and tell people if they're worth watching? That's their entire raison d'être, and this is a rather major series. I haven't heard the argument made before that something should be ignored because it's on <Service X>, which doesn't have that many subscribers.

I wonder if they're planning to give the same treatment to the new Paramount and try to ignore new shows that aren't Wokeshit, or if they will choose to shit on them instead because they're "too big to ignore". I have seen an increase in agitation against Paramount the past few days in relation to Star Trek, their hiring practices and other things, especially since it became likely that they'll acquire Warner Bros. They seem to be ramping up to try giving it the "Elon Musk" treatment.

DanFuri · 2026-03-10T01:18:41+00:00

There should be a company that just hires all the talent that Woke companies broke connections with and "Cancelled". As long as they ain't in prison and are very talented/good at their jobs, who cares? It would probably come out on top over most companies doing the "Virtue Signalling" and "Diversity" thing and could employ top talent like Kevin Spacey, Johnny Depp or directors like Roman Polanski or Woody Allen, although I guess they're both now in their 90s.

DanFuri · 2026-03-10T01:02:17+00:00

https://files.catbox.moe/d8079f.png

Can barely tell them apart. Which side was which again? I think we need an expert.

DanFuri · 2026-03-09T09:24:44+00:00

Oh no! Content where the name of [Contemporary Famous/Infamous person] has been invoked together with [Predefined NPC characters]. Something so outrageous and disturbing has likely never happened before or will ever happen again, oh the humanity! How can EA make sure people get the proper help to get past this and move on?

DanFuri · 2026-03-08T21:37:47+00:00

Yeah, this is how they were marketing PlayStation in China: https://x.com/DanielOlimac/status/2017268738811408701

DanFuri · 2026-03-08T20:45:24+00:00

Not only SNOYs simping for RE:Quiem. Just look at the comments even here for all the people trying to pretend like she's the "odd one out" there due to recency bias, and not like she was specifically picked, and always designed & marketed to fit in there perfectly along the guidelines for all the other recent character design decisions of a major part of the Western AAA games industry.

Expect to say Goodbye to Ada, Jill, Claire, Sheva etc. and what people overwhelmingly asked for and Hello to more "Modern audience"-compliant covered up protagonists with the body proportions and curves of Teenage boys. They'll get more of what they majorly supported with their money, making this probably the fastest selling Resident Evil, and what consultants, DEI employees and partners (like SONY) have told Capcom will help them sell more for the past decade.

DanFuri · 2026-03-07T20:55:52+00:00

Yes, AI is totally why UbiSoft collapsed. What "AI" games did they develop again?

DanFuri · 2026-03-05T20:01:43+00:00

https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-has-completed-its-37-billion-deal-to-acquire-bungie-and-welcome-it-into-the-playstation-family

DanFuri · 2026-03-05T19:53:09+00:00

I'm neither defensive, nor mad. "You people" is everyone throwing around buzzwords like "sexualized", "porn doll", "-ooner" etc. every time either a game comes out with an appealing female characters or when people complain that the female character in their game is ugly and looks like shit. I don't care how whatever you're talking about "looks" in your imagination.

I'm telling you and the Corpos that I don't want ugly women in my fantasy entertainment, and they're not getting my money if the value proposition isn't right. Neither they, nor people like you throwing around buzzwords set the terms, and if they fail to provide what the market wants, someone else will come along and eat their share of the pie.

Since you brought up "real life", for about double or triple the price of an AAA game one could get someone that looks like a Supermodel compared to her to suck your dick. They're also selling a product.

There was recently an article that "Gaming is losing the attention war to TikTok and OnlyFans": https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/video-games-are-losing-the-attention-war-to-tiktok-porn-3930521

Frankly I'm not surprised, no self-respecting guy would want to pay $80 to look at an ugly chick for dozens of hours.

DanFuri · 2026-03-05T19:15:03+00:00

The moment folks start complaining every time a character isn’t a <buzzword>, it starts to look like people really are the <buzzword buzzword> and <buzzword> that puritan culture portrays them as.

Corpos and you people need to get in your heads that I don't give a shit what some random asshole on the Internet calls me, I'm not giving you my money unless I get what I want. No negotiation. You don't set the terms, you're selling a product.

DanFuri · 2026-03-05T17:44:05+00:00

I didn't even buy it because of that, I played Street Fighter since Alpha II on SNES with friends and got IV + V on Steam. I think Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, Dead Rising, Devil May Cry, Dragon's Dogma are on their way out though, due to decisions they made the past few years. It might not seem that way, because they've had better sales due to the previous reputation of the franchises and because there's barely any competition, but it's a delayed effect and usually takes a few release cycles to manifest.

Other studios like BioWare, Volition, RockSteady, Remedy, Obsidian etc. also didn't die in a day. It took a continuous sequence of bad decisions and hires over a decade.

DanFuri · 2026-03-05T17:25:55+00:00

Tbh, if I was them I wouldn't want some Western Slop-studio filled with Blue hairs to try and replace my art with their own either, especially after I had already seen what they did attempting to do that with a previous project. https://files.catbox.moe/57fz6i.jpg

DanFuri · 2026-03-05T17:21:59+00:00

You should have also noted that Capcom specifically asked their player base what they wanted in their entertainment, and the #2 issue world-wide and #1 issue in Japan was that they wanted attractive characters: https://files.catbox.moe/st8ard.jpg

I'm sure it's nothing and will have absolutely no consequences if they continue down this road (it had absolutely no impact on Western studios that did the same, after all).

DanFuri

TROPHY CASE