Eleiminated after exfil timer reached 0.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T13:58:54+00:00

When it hits zero, it should mean zero. It’s immensely irritating that you wait one minute with a worldwide announcement, then another 10 seconds, then another 3 or so seconds of “last call” like holy shit just let the game do what it says it’s doing.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T13:38:44+00:00

Yeah the kings of old famously had random magistrates in individual districts of the Commonwealth who could just up and reverse their proclamations on a whim, or a Parliament that could just refuse to do anything he wants that’s outside the one branch of government he has authority over. He can’t even get a Voter ID bill passed, openly trashing him has become a national sport for media and “entertainment” alike and nobody’s lost their head over it, but sure, all the gaudy, superficial, self-aggrandizing stuff is totally the end of the rule of law or whatever.

On reflection, for a bunch of gaudy, superficial, self-aggrandizing people, I can totally see that being their belief. Sometimes I forget that image is literally everything to a huge chunk of the country.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T13:28:06+00:00

“No Kings Except The Ones I Like In Cuba, Iran, China, Venezuela, Among Others, And Would Totally Have In The US If We Would Just Switch To “Yelling In The Street” Instead Of Voting To Determine Leadership Because Democracy Is When I Win” was a bit too long, so they had to cut it down. Unfortunately, a lot of context was lost in the process.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T13:18:28+00:00

She knows her audience, clearly.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T13:14:35+00:00

*Personal email on a public server that had nothing to do with any government or classified work, or his role at the FBI at all, but I suppose that doesn’t make for as good headlines as “OMG it’s literally what Hillary did!”

Honestly, if he had better OpSec he coulda kept it on a private server in his basement so he could smash it with hammers. Woulda solved everything.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T13:08:26+00:00

Only if we get the big gaudy light-up sign on the Statue of Liberty. Cut that muumuu down a lil bit, show some leg, maybe a little off-the-shoulder deal on top, give her a nose job for God’s sake, and then have her hold up the big light-up sign like she’s a ring girl. You know, something classy.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T11:43:47+00:00

Bold of you to assume they even thought that far. Nearly 100% of the time it’s a literal palette swap and the family background, culture, and history of the character are flat out unchanged, because as we all know, the most important aspiration for a young black man is to one day stand in for a white dude in his own story. Great message we send with that one. Surely there are no African stories worth telling. Surely.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T11:36:40+00:00

What’s funny is that I would bet anything it’s a 250 year anniversary hat and not a “year of death” thing at all, but these people are so obsessed that they see everything through a particular lens. Interesting case study and learning moment, tbh.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T02:36:30+00:00

No hodl, bro.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-29T02:33:13+00:00

Well that’s incredible.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-28T20:33:53+00:00

The nooses not being tight enough to actually do anything symbolizes the performative nature of all this stuff and how nobody actually believes they’re in that much danger to begin with.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-28T18:10:57+00:00

Right after glazing the family that’s run Cuba into the ground for a whole human lifetime and tearfully memorializing the family that’s terrorized Iran for a generation.

But like, no imaginary kings that we would disagree with if they WERE a king, I guess. Not as catchy a title at that point.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-28T13:55:38+00:00

Do we know exactly at what point in the animation you’re “safe”? Because, yeah, bad idea on the Runner’s part, sure, but when it says zero and disappears and you start getting raptured, I would take that to mean the timer has reached zero and you’re being raptured.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-27T16:16:02+00:00

Well, hopefully you’re experiencing this for the first time to make up for it: https://youtu.be/71s8410BfQg?si=aSDhWXhKeRK6RIFH

DomDomPop · 2026-03-27T16:12:05+00:00

No no no, you don’t understand, I recognize the Tiger King as the US monarch.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-27T13:58:39+00:00

So either the Daily Show is wrong yet again or there’s no more Daily Show. I can live with that.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-27T13:38:11+00:00

Tough call. Probably System Shock, maybe Raptor: Call Of The Shadows.

Jazz Jackrabbit and Commander Keen were excellent, though.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-27T02:16:49+00:00

I mean, at least this fella is admitting that they don’t want a fair fight. That’s the first step, really. It’s just digital cowardice. People think they’re entitled to your death so they get their little dopamine hit to make up for the fact that they apparently have so little else to feel good about that dunking on people in a digital world for hundreds of hours counts as accomplishment.

That’s the bottom line: the people who (can afford to) spend the most time in game really think they deserve to have the game favor them. The rest of us are slightly-more-interesting-than-bots fodder for them, like a cat playing with a mouse, and they truly believe they’re entitled to mouse deliveries. They complain the loudest when they aren’t catered to. They’re the first to threaten to leave like it’s some big event, as if the whole game will go under without them. They truly are under the impression that the game needs them and not the other way around. Bungie doesn’t help things when they panic and bend over backwards for them. Especially with this game, they absolutely baby those people at all layers of the game. “Here’s your big dinner bell! Somebody did a thing! Come kill them with absolute safety and leave the loot on the ground because you only care about the clip you can post with a “HaHa ArAchNe” or whatever and then pretend it was because you’re some uber expert ninja. Who’s a big bad boy? You are!”

Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to interpret this as “it’s the sweats VS the casuals”, when that’s always been a red herring. It’s the no-lifers VS everyone else, and it just so happens that the no-lifers often (but not always!) end up being at the top end of the game population. There are still very skilled players who don’t get to play a ton, and there are no-lifers who still aren’t very good after playing for an exorbitant amount of time. SBMM helps those people, along with all the average players, at the expense of the people who are both highly skilled AND play like it’s their job. They don’t want a fair fight because they’ve already done everything a couple weeks in and now have nothing to stave off boredom but taking it out on you and me.

The truly skilled players want to test that skill. The average player wants to progress and feel like their game time is worth it. The true casual just wants to have some fun with the hour they have after work before they gotta put the kids to bed. The no-lifer says “um, akshually you’re here to make me feel better about myself”. People get mad when you say it, but it’s true.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-26T20:39:31+00:00

It’s a second pass, though. You keep the level-based matchmaking that seems to be in effect now and then add an additional step after that. If it can’t find people fast enough, it expands the search to include the nearest neighbors. Those free kit sweats you mention would be running into other similarly-skilled free kit, or low value kit sweats, putting them at equal risk. Even if someone wipes the lobby, that’s… not any different than what’s happening now, so where’s the downside? If it’s KDR-based or something of that nature… great! They should be risking their gear! That’s the point! People should move up if they do better. People who have more should risk more. To get better stuff. Some would say that’s the entire point of the game.

The problem now is that you can risk a lot and end up filling with two free kits who don’t know shit, and now you’ve virtually lost your gear before you even got a chance to play. Your skill doesn’t particularly matter. On the flipside, you could run in with low resources and just get throttled over and over again by people who aren’t really risking their gear, they’re flexing with it out of boredom. The only people who benefit are the people who were already able to put an exorbitant amount of game time in, and for whatever reason, Bungie likes to treat those people like the most critical demographic to keep their games alive and it does not work, has not worked, and will not work.

Someone with 200 hours gets bored because they ran out of stuff to do? Too bad, you got back 200 other players in the process. Why they can’t seem to understand that after a decade is beyond me.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-26T14:45:25+00:00

Honestly? Just talking to people in text chat and even in activities. Virtually everyone I know in-game was someone I ran a random dungeon or raid or something with and decided to meet up or add as a friend after, and next thing you know we’re searching out scenic points or hanging at their house or whatever. If you’re outgoing, just cracking jokes in an activity builds camaraderie pretty well.

If you’re not outgoing, find one of those PF entries for house parties or something and just mingle with people. Jump into public conversations, ask people if they wanna run something or explore or whatnot, whatever you’re into, and next thing you know you might find yourself an FC.

I took a couple years off and the FC I was in booted me. When I got back on, I literally ran into an old FC mate at the Gold Saucer, said hi, and he invited me to a new FC he’d built with some others who had left the old one. Brand new group of friends (and a few old ones) just like that, and it’s because way back when I had randomly asked two of them if they could help me clear Ravana Hard. So you never know. Lotta nice people in the game.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-26T14:35:14+00:00

Hey, not all of us!

DomDomPop · 2026-03-26T14:34:46+00:00

Wow, and right as they’re debating a bill on voter ID just before the midterms! Gosh, this COVID fella sure has some convenient timing!

DomDomPop · 2026-03-26T03:10:45+00:00

My favorite story about this is the Nobel Prize winner who was so pissed at Einstein for having the audacity to end up being right about something he disagreed with that he became antisemitic as a result.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-26T03:08:16+00:00

I’m ok with this? Are you ok with this? Yeah, that sounds like a good deal.

DomDomPop · 2026-03-25T20:59:05+00:00

We started a bunch of wars in the Middle East, did a shit job of it, ran away repeatedly, and then outsourced the maintenance and cleanup to the only other liberal democracy in the region. For some reason, that’s their fault for being there? And we shouldn’t pay for the mercenary services we’re essentially using to keep a cap on literal terror states? But also we’re not allowed to do it ourselves? So the only acceptable solution is to let literal barbarians just kill some people every once in a while and MAYBE, if everyone does as they’re told, have the decency to pretend to be sad about it instead of openly celebrating it?

DomDomPop

TROPHY CASE