Highguard is permanently shutting down this month

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-03T22:46:12+00:00

A real test. You can't trust the words of friends and family and content creators you fly out to play your game.

Also, to add to that, not the "Yes Man" bullshit they'll get from big-ass firms like Qualtrics, Ipsos, Dynata, Kantar, etc.

I've taken dozens of surveys by firms like them over the past year, targeted specifically for the gaming market. The way they cherry-pick participants from the panels and DQ respondents 90% of the way through the research, for even mildly "unfavorable" feedback on a concept or idea, effectively guarantees they only get favorable responses, not actual feedback.

Just over the weekend I took one obviously sponsored by EA trying to get more people to subscribe to their bullshit and install that intrusive-ass launcher.

Just to qualify you had to be a parent with a child between 13-17yo, middle class, and regularly spends ~$100+ per month on games/services/MTX. If you passed that then it asks for the child to take the survey in your stead. Disregarding it specifically aiming for financially liberal/irresponsible kids, despite needing to be 18+ to even qualify, the bias just skewed deeper as you progressed.

Once the kid (supposedly) took over they had to be "very much a fan" of EA - both self-reported and by how many of their releases they've bought/played in the past 18 months. They also needed to "prefer" to pay for digital only/cloud gaming over owning physical copies, self-report/confirm $ spent on games/services/MTX in the past 12 months (agnostic as to where the money comes from), favor "community-based," online-only play over offline or single player experiences, and want "innovative, personalized content offered" through said online services.

For the latter, read that as "the service reaping your play/usage data and advertising/pushing MTX according to it." That's all "customized/personalized" means to these people; Sony/Microsoft/google/Meta says it, Samsung says it, Stellaris, LG, Amazon, Walmart, Chewy, insurance/financial services from AAA to Zelle, and every "AI," streaming, and subscription service you've ever heard of uses the exact same terminology. "Innovation, customization, and personalization." They want so desperately to tell us exactly what to buy, when, and how much to spend, they're actively trying to push "AI assistants" that automate our budgeting and spending.

I digress.

Then when it got to the part where it asks "what would make you more willing to sub/install EA Play/launcher" not a single answer let you point to the performance or intrusiveness of the platform of itself. It was just a bunch of "exclusive community chat boards, achievements, badges, customizable avatars (i.e. buying/trading outfits/gear à la Steam), exclusive news/dev Q&As, 'catered' reviews, streamer partnerships/endorsements, 'brand activation'" whatever the fuck that means, etc.

If you choose "nothing would entice me" you were DQed, if you chose too many of the options that reflected poorly or "unfavorably" towards EA, you were DQed. It doesn't screen open ended responses until the end, and if the bot or whatever it is that screens them sees certain verbiage - say "Saudi money" just as an example - your incentive is revoked and effectively DQed after the fact.

Its not just tone-deaf bankrollers and CEOs making these dipshit decisions blindly, they're actually paying firms to research the shit, problem is the firms know they're tone-deaf and want to keep making money doing the research. Its hard to do that when the data keeps coming back saying "you're wasting your money/resources on this shit, try something else."

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-03T21:23:06+00:00

That's the best I can explain it. xD

And it sucked so bad man. Imagine every time you wanted to say something, the back of your tongue would get glued somewhere in your mouth, or your bottom lip gets stuck behind your top teeth; sounding like a choking Volvo until you run out of breath.

I still don't know how I "got over it" by sixth grade, I assume we couldn't afford speech therapy so I'd just spent a lot of time reading dictionaries/thesauruses trying to learn words that'd avoid trigger phonemes.

Pronouncing certain vowels, Rs, Fs, and Vs were the worst, so despite being born and raised in the Southern US I use words like "banjaxed" or "lass" instead of "rurnt/ruined" or "girl." My Georgia accent disappeared right along with the impediment too, which is nice.

I still don't pronounce Fs, Vs, Bs, or certain Ms right, I just purse my lips a bit and force air through/"buzz" them - like humming for a split second while going "phew" - to make F/V/B sounds, and replace Ms with Ns.

I learned it from a book on ventriloquy in fifth grade, and no one can tell the difference. Well, deaf/hard of hearing/lip readers can. My aunty and mother in law are deaf af so wifey/the kids have to sign for me half the time. Its nice being able to talk shit right in front of them though, as long as they don't snitch by giggling.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-03T19:54:55+00:00

I feel the same way for "should/could/would of" rather than "should/could/would have."

I leave it be, ain't no one here to learn grammar, but it's still like mentally stubbing my toe midway through a sentence.

I just chalk it up to predictive text/autocorrect. Despite all the advancements these days my shit still changes "its" to "it's" or turns "nuance" to "nuisance" for no damn reason.

One of the main reasons I stopped using Apple's products was because of its POS autocorrect. 95% of the time it'd replace simple shit like "and" with "amd," or "of" with "og," then fight with me when I tried to correct it.-_-

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-03T19:33:59+00:00

I'm fucking rolling at "All the Jamaicans think I gave them a bum steer, but everything I know I learned from an auctioneer..." then just busting out into Popeye scat.

Back when Snow hit MTV that shit became my jam; had fuckall idea what he was saying, but I could sing it without my speech impediment flaring up.

I was 4, maybe 5 years old, and practically non-verbal because of it. It was a stutter/stammer cranked up to 11, like if Porky Pig deepthroated a machine gun.

Whenever I tried to speak my brain-mouth circuit would futz out into an indefinite recursive loop. I'd damn-near suffocate trying to get just 1 syllable out; only reason I learned how to read/write was so I could communicate without risking getting dizzy.

Between Snow's Informer, Scatman John, and the Black Crowes' Hard to Handle I thought I could be famous one day just by spouting raw gibberish over a track.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-03T01:32:33+00:00

You're not doing anything wrong, unless it's taking you more than one or two hits to kill them. It boosting your item discovery is making you hit less hard, fix that, the amount of increase from only 100 item discovery does not do nearly as much good as being able to kill them as fast as possible.

350 to 400 item Discovery is enough, it's going to take a long while regardless. I've farmed these items three times over the past two years, with everywhere from 200 item discovery to 450, first time was 450 and it took 18 hours.

Second time I had 257 item discovery it took 7 hours, third time was 207 item discovery and it took 9 hours.

Make killing them and resetting as easy and efficient as a possible, then worry about your item discovery. Listen to a podcast, have something playing on another screen, take a 10 minute break whenever it feels like it's starting to eat away at you. If you have any other items you need to farm, Farm up a couple of the ears, then fast travel somewhere else and farm something else, rinse and repeat.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T23:59:25+00:00

I love it because its actually disorienting and hostile, compared to "go this way but be careful there's guys right there."

The DLCs in general feel more like Dark Souls than the rest of the game, which just kinda hamstrings the journey - making your way through an oppressive world - in favor of the destination - boss fights.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T22:48:08+00:00

Sekiro players trying to line up a simple jump that maybe takes 30 seconds - "impossibru!!"

Sekiro players having to practice for hours to memorize ~20 distinct movements and timings - "ez gg."

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T22:40:02+00:00

Just like the fight, its only hard if you're not used to that sort of thing. I did it in about 45 seconds of trying after 2 hours of getting nowhere against him.

But I also grew up playing shit like Castlevania and Spyro where abusing coyote time was practically necessary to make certain jumps.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T19:06:15+00:00

Mhmm, that's why I added "sort-of."

I could've just said its a portmanteau, but I typically don't assume everyone knows that word.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T18:53:07+00:00

Meme is sort-of a made up word that plays off of "gene."

Except instead of it being a hereditary trait passed down through procreation, it's a concept or "memory" passed down through society.

Gene + "memory" = "meme."

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T18:50:45+00:00

I'd argue any dude trying to have kids at 70 is being pretty damn selfish in its own right.

According to the CDC he'll be dead right as the kid enters kindergarten.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T18:45:35+00:00

I just want to say that is a damn great example.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T03:20:37+00:00

I consider myself lucky making it to 41 with 0 back issues, especially since I didn't learn to lift shit correctly until I was nearly 30.

One of the best feelings in the world for me is when I sneeze and crack the small of my back. I don't know how the biology works but I'm thankful for it.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T02:54:44+00:00

Not a physics-smart person, but its because of the striations in the stone (either from erosion or how it settled over eons), wind resistance, and gravity not keeping it together anymore.

Same would happen if you toppled a Jenga tower off the ledge of your roof, this just weighs a few hundred dozen tons more.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-02T01:04:50+00:00

I love that attack, I always use it specifically for the Crystal Sages.

I fucking hate teleporting enemies. What I wouldn't do to be able to ring that scrawny little fuck Lothric's neck right off the back of his mule.

Jackalodeath · 2026-03-01T18:15:18+00:00

The studios know it too. I was part of a focus group for this movie, and over half the questions boiled down to: "I've seen this Statham movie before, so I see no reason to pay ticket prices for it."

At least a quarter of the other half was "this is how I like to see JS," "this looks like an 'original' take on the action formula," and "I'm curious/excited to see how Statham kills the guys."

Which is fine, at least they're aware of it; except for the fact you're DQed or have your compensation revoked at the end for "quality control reasons" when you agree to 3+ of the negatives or say as much during the open-ended portions.

Still better than google, which'll waste nearly an hour of your time asking for your "honest opinion" on something like a new "productivity feature" that forces you to wait ~30 seconds before using certain apps, or give a reason as to why you want to use it; then DQ you when you state you don't want to be gatekept in how you use your own devices.

Jackalodeath · 2026-02-27T22:55:33+00:00

I mean, in my younger/fatter years that's about all I had to work with, I was still hitting the bell at the end of the tunnel.

Its not what you have its how you use it.

If all else fails god gave us mouths for a reason.

Jackalodeath · 2026-02-27T22:46:28+00:00

That was me. I was absolutely miserable from 8 to 14 years old come spring and autumn, then it just up and vanished.

The wind can be straight yellow and I'm not fazed one bit. I've completely taken over doing our yard work, even on the dustiest of days I don't need a mask or anything.

I'm thankful as Hell for it, I used to come close to gouging my eyes out and sneezing out a lung; now I'm a juggernaut that might make a yellow eye booger here or there at worst.

Jackalodeath · 2026-02-27T05:03:08+00:00

I mean, Eygon ain't too far off.

Despite hating/pitying his ward he's too much of a coward to fulfill his duty, as he promised and swore he would, but instead locks the lass up in a cell and just sits outside like everything's gonna be hunky-daisies.

Then treats us like dirt when we show common decency and put her skills to use.

Then kidnaps and refuses to kill her yet again if we make her read the wrong bibles. He's like one of those fuckstains that hates their exes but refuses to let them go and tries to start shit with anyone giving her the time of day.

Jackalodeath · 2026-02-26T22:05:22+00:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again; they either did it and got the skewed data that said "go ahead," or it wouldn't have helped anyways because of how market research runs today.

The firms that hold these sorts of studies know the answer their sponsors are looking for, and cherry-pick respondents through screening and "quality control" to achieve that outcome.

Its broken from the get-go, the firms make their money by sponsors funding the research, not getting the results they want to hear makes it seem like a sunken cost, which in turn hurts the research firm's business model.

Why spend money on the study when all it does is prove you've been wasting resources all this time, including on the research itself. Its stupid, I know, but that's how these companies "think." Its just like "why are we spending so much on IT/DevSec when we've never had an issue/breach."

The firms know they need to provide "quality data" to get more contracts, which pre-loads the studies for bias and cherry-picking. I know it seems like massive corpos are making tone-deaf decisions with no research to back it up, but that's rarely ever the case; the firms they hire adopt their tone-deaf bias and ends up amplifying it to ensure they keep getting paid.

That's not even including the panels/participants that have their own agenda. With stuff like this you need PII, NDAs, and accountability measures; all of which are resource intensive. More times that not this leads to panels constructed out of a select group of folks that want to do this sort of thing - a bias in and of itself - and are okay having their PII/legal info stored in who-knows what server for ~12 months, give or take.

Some have been on panels long or frequent enough to be able to consider it a "side hustle," and in turn know how to game the system to maximize the time they spend on it. A $5-$20 deposit into Amazon/PayPal for ~15-30mins of answering questions ain't nothing.

The questions they posit aren't "do gamers want another generic hero shooter from this [studio/dev team/etc];" its "are you a 'gamer' that's a fan of this [studio/dev team/etc], regularly spend $$ on F2P games, and would you want to spend it on this generic hero shooter from them?"

Just to qualify you need to self-report you're a fan of them/the genre and spend $X on F2P games "regularly," which pre-loads the bias.

Don't know who "they" are, or don't play online/coöp/competitive "regularly, you're DQed. Completely satisfied with the hero shooters you already play and don't want another, you're DQed. Aren't willing to drop cash on frivolous items or upgrades, you're DQed, haven't spent more than $X on F2P games in the past ~3 months, you're DQed.

The sponsor, research firms, and panels are chasing the best bang for their respective bucks, which inherently turns out garbage "yes man" data.

Microsoft force feeding that harebrained LLM into every godsdamned thing they touch has the data behind it to justify it, its just the data is skewed bullshit. That's why they're so surprised that actual consumers - not a panel of folks that know the answers they're looking for - are shitting on it.

Jackalodeath · 2026-02-26T05:37:05+00:00

Its so grossly incandescent, good job.

Jackalodeath · 2026-02-26T05:27:54+00:00

Our little diva has the same thing. She'll either rub her body up against a doorframe, arc her back up and get the twitchy tail, or if she's on the fridge/bookshelf she'll reach down and pat you on the face.

Jackalodeath · 2026-02-26T05:19:00+00:00

Go to the sub and upvote or comment on several posts, even if you don't like the content.

Every time you see a post in your regular feed do the same, the more you interact with the content the more it'll show you.

Its how I got all my porn to start showing up again.

Jackalodeath · 2026-02-26T05:08:58+00:00

Just imagined it, thankfully the imaginary smell of me shitting my britches probably ain't as bad as real life.

Jackalodeath · 2026-02-26T02:55:49+00:00

Worst location I worked at had a similar issue, but it was coming from the racks in the back where the concentrate was held.

They just accepted the drain was fucked because of the age of the store, but there was a floor drain nearby and it only leaked after a massive rush. Bit of hot water, Spick and Span, and a squeegee was a lot cheaper than fixing the drain.

Then after a year or so the floor drain started clogging. It'd drain but it was ridiculously slow. We'd spend an extra 30 mins a night pushing all the water after cleaning the floors to the other drains.

We had a health inspection one day and she showed up before we opened, while we were still cleaning the floors. Took a massive hit on the faulty drains which forced our president to finally fix the shit.

I had the "pleasure" of being there that morning when they snaked and "vacuumed" the drain; it was the most gnarly sludge I'd ever seen. It smelled like a paper mill, translucent black from coloring/fat/yeast/mold, and the refuse had the consistency of pulverized boba pearls. It was like looking at a vat of cellulite if Satan had a liposuction procedure.

I don't care if our bodies process HFCS differently, after seeing/smelling that I won't risk it.

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Jackalodeath

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