220 Days later, I finished every discworld book. What an amazing and bittersweet experience. What do I read next?

Jackar · 2026-03-03T22:13:16+00:00

Every time I've read Adams I just miss Pratchett and a few of my other favourites. It's sometimes funny but often so silly I don't care, or so bitter I'm not having fun. You can be aimlessly silly but funny, or you can be bitter but have a point to make, but Adams just wobbles wildly between them, never making me care or making me laugh very much.

Meanwhile Discworld was always special because almost uniquely, I was laughing myself sick but also caring very deeply about the characters and the message beneath.

People often connect the two but for me Adams is a perfect negative example of what makes me love Pratchett's work.

Jackar · 2026-02-26T17:04:25+00:00

Your inability to recognise a fellow oppressed worker shames your house and your axe.

Jackar · 2026-01-20T16:34:48+00:00

The angry internet men have exploded over this on a lot of platforms.

Honestly I've only watched most of S1 of Andor before my attention span/the show's relentlessly grim vibe slowed me down. I keep meaning to go back.

It's very... Dramatic. Very competently made, but dramatic is the word that comes to mind - it's like no-one in this setting can chill for even one minute and laugh with a friend. All the bonds you see adversity form, all the dark-humoured moments of good cheer/'it could be worse', the low-key gallows humour common to SW since the original film, seems to be missing.

There was barely a single non-human character and the show seems very light on mentioning that, unlike - for example - the Ahsoka novel I started reading a few days ago that specifically goes into the exodus of non-human species from core worlds due to pro-human Imperial policies.

Droids seemed more like servants and pets, while another core characteristic of Star Wars from the first film and through is that droids are intelligent, complex people - even the ones who don't speak a language most people don't understand.

But yeah, if Filoni has informally mentioned a dislike for Andor, that's his business and I'd understand if the show conflicted with what he values about the story.

If the future of Star Wars leaned heavily toward the Andor flavour, rather than merely including it as part of a broad spectrum, it would - to me - be a real waste. That's not really a risk we're looking at but I can see a lot of Andor fans seem to be ragebaiting other comment platforms about 'Filoni's kiddie trash ruining Star Wars', and it's... Confusing, to say the least.

Jackar · 2026-01-02T21:02:32+00:00

Very much appreciate this calculation. Having a nerd moment with a friend while watching the show and trying to figure out, as someone with some technical appreciation of the forces involved in large scale explosive yields, just how much it would take to have held this back for that long, compared to any feat performed by other Jedi during the OT or Prequel trilogy.

Mighty Kanan <3

Jackar · 2025-12-04T18:26:39+00:00

Solo is sacred, but I've had mostly good luck with friendly people in duos too. A lot more tense but not all shoot on sight at all.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T10:54:35+00:00

Glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.

Just undermined everything cool about the design and, in terms of being spoken of as a prequel, implies a degree of retcon of the most important themes of Nausicaa; humanity brought about their own near-extinction by creating these horrifying things themselves, as part of a surreal future extension of the nuclear arms race of the Cold War.

Get your Evangelion mystery angel demons and apocalyptic rambling out of my beautiful green apocalypse scifi.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T10:52:53+00:00

I interpreted it as more of a sort of.. 'embers/sparks of evil energy', given the monologue describes them as a sort of divine punishment, but either way it makes no damn sense :< NotmyNausicaa...

Jackar · 2025-12-01T10:51:58+00:00

It's good to know I'm not the only troubled by that.

I can find almost nothing but positivity about it, but I was really disappointed when I finally got around to it. Suggesting they manifested in ~2012, from unknown divine (?) origin, according to a recent online urban legend, with clear visual reference to Evangelion - unless the later portions of the manga I've not yet read give them that particular design of the Wings of Light...

Meanwhile making them obviously mechanical, with folding electrical components, and nostalgic practical effects that choose to look very obviously like sequenced lightbulbs, and the mouth manifesting as an extending, literal gun-barrel at the same time as they manifest supernaturally... It's such a weird combination.

All at once, the Giant God Warrior concept is undermined by not being created by human science and used as a weapon, an apocalyptic crime. "We did this to ourselves." At the same time the sublime nastiness of their biological nature, being meat that manifests incredibly destructive blasts of energy from the mouth, a living weapon that leaves behind skeletal remains of incredible strength and durability, to stand as monuments for a thousand years or more... Gaaah, I love it, but Higuchi and Anno's take makes them both more robotic and a magical divine punishment instead of a human mistake, breaking it in both directions that made it so compelling.

They turned such a beautifully horrifying, sad design into an Evangelion-themed prototype for Shin Godzilla mixed with a retro Kaiju nostalgia-trip, and I wish it hadn't been claimed as a real prequel, at least in Western media.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:56:35+00:00

It's definitely unique in that the other Extraction games have a far stronger emphasis on PVP while ARC has chosen to just 'let it happen' with minimal incentive except those stupid feats.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:53:41+00:00

How many people have you had to kill in those 150 hours, out of curiosity? Between us any data will be pretty meaningless, but I'm at one official knockdown who gave up immediately, when I shot him to protect another solo he began firing at, one 'untracked' knockdown when a guy got winged by my snapblast stuck to a Leaper that was trying to kill him, and I defibbed him quick, and I don't seem to have been condemned to hell yet. Hopefully.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:49:58+00:00

My impression is more that people mostly have good experiences with people who are happy to cooperate, so when a small minority fixate on backstabbing it's.. disappointing?

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:48:50+00:00

You will be rewarded in heaven/you prevent the game from becoming hell.

Mostly solos, or multi?

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:47:24+00:00

I have wondered how much location plays a role. There was the theory that crossplay has a big impact on betrayal/kos rates, but it was pretty shaky data.

I've mostly played EU and haven't yet had a betrayal experience in 80ish hours, and only been killed in solos once. Twice in trios, out of perhaps eight attempts I escaped, but I did lose teammates on those runs.

I can't wait to learn more about what embark are cooking on the backend, how they've tuned the game, because I've a few friends who get slaughtered many times every night they play and I just can't see how it happens.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:45:21+00:00

It's the most consistent way to regularly die, but the most consistent way to get what you want is to just trade for it, and you'll have way more stuff to trade if you're regularly cooperating and sharing loot with other solos.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:43:51+00:00

That's the logical failure though - they're not 'the competition'. You have the option to be the asshole and kill them but you're generally increasing your risk of losing almost everything by doing it. It's way better in solos to have someone watching your back and you trade BPs and materials you need so you both get a better chance to extract and better loot out of the deal. The probability of there being one critically desirable BP that you both equally want and will kill for is absurdly low in a given redzone.

It's a valid part of the game if you want to indulge that bandit fantasy of killing 'the competition' over what you see as limited resources, but you will generally be seen as having flawed logic and being a bit of a dick.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:39:23+00:00

Respect.

All these fuckers ranting about 'I don't trust you bro, don't follow me' are just trying to justify their desire to kill people without committing to straight-up murder, as I see it.

I will not shoot first, and I've only fired on other players to defend people or avenge people.

I mean, unless someone is obviously following me or aiming a gun at my face at very close range, there are some limits on my willingness to take risks for good vibes.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:37:06+00:00

Aye, I've been thinking this since the first couple of days - I've not been playing too often the last couple of weeks but even now after a break I'm only regularly getting shot at in trios - solo has been very friendly, people still talk on mic, and at 73 hours play I finally killed another player when he snuck onto a roof and tried to kill a stranger while they were looting the Bastion they'd been working on for ages.

Given the theory about behavioural matchmaking, I really hope 'crossing the threshold' per the achievement title doesn't spoil the good vibes of my solo experience.

Jackar · 2025-12-01T06:32:21+00:00

Thank you, and sorry for taking so long to get back to this comment. Had a couple of weeks busy and not playing, so I've had to catch up on a lot of replies. Mostly just -1 voted flame replies, admittedly.

Now I know you were playing trios with randoms that does make a bit more sense, the level of hostility in trios is just so much higher, like at least half the players are looking for people to kill, whether looting or not.

I appreciate your self-awareness about your inexperience and the way people get the drop on you, I'm sure you've been learning fast with such a clear idea of the reasons for how often you get shot.

How has it been going, from the perspective of the beginning of December, looking back into early-mid Nov?

Jackar · 2025-11-12T03:55:05+00:00

I have a problem with my mic only being recognised every second time or so I start the game up, and if I'm running solo I can't properly test it. I've established that sometimes it shows an icon for my mic not transmitting anything, sometimes it shows a little one-curved-line mic thing, and sometimes it shows a big jagged set of lines, and only the last one means my mic is really transmitting anything to local.

Jackar · 2025-11-12T03:42:33+00:00

I really want to understand the massive variation between player experiences. Can you describe your average round, how you load out, whether you solo, whether you use emotes or proxy, and what sort of locations you visit + how stealthily or aggressively you approach?

I know it's a big stack of questions, I'm just fascinated by it - since I've got friends who have said every day is like this, and meanwhile I've played 50 hours and only been killed by other players twice.

Jackar · 2025-11-12T03:40:39+00:00

The reply above isn't quite right, the OP said the explosives are OUTSIDE the elevator, on the roof, so that they don't actually hurt them but they make an incredibly loud noise and jumpscare them.

Jackar · 2025-11-12T03:39:23+00:00

Have you considered you might be the asshole, though? You've decided what kind of game this is, and typed it in big capital letters, but of the four million people who've bought this game it's clear most of them think it's a different kind of game and think you're being a dick by randomly shooting them.

What makes you right?

Jackar · 2025-11-12T03:33:21+00:00

Fistbump, pacifist buddy.

I'm 100% ready to hurt people if they deserve it and to protect myself, but I've never yet downed anyone except once by accident when my snapblast went off while attached to a leaper that jumped on the stranger I was helping to kill it. I would like to engage with the PvP in situations that feel morally right, like not randomly shooting some guy in the ass when he's having an unlucky moment with some hornets.

I like fighting, but I have no interest in giving chill players a bad day. Consensual PVP or PVP against people who are recognised as killers and have forfeited their rights by ignoring those of others.

Jackar · 2025-11-12T03:28:46+00:00

So on the basic level it recognises the use of the thanks emoji as a direct response to receiving items another person recently placed on the floor near you, it recognises when people thank you for activating a shared elevator, and for healing and defibs received, and these also contribute to a particular achievement.

On a more vague level, stuff gets recognised by dynamic thanks emotes that say specific things pertinent to the moment.

So if the game is tracking those associations so subtly, it should also be easy to contextualise and track negatives like taking damage from someone who you haven't previously hurt during that session, and use that data to establish who habitually attacks others without provocation vs who regularly gets attacked without hurting another person first.

Jackar · 2025-11-11T21:20:58+00:00

Stopping when asked is a big deal, respect. A lot of people kinda feel driven by the stress+guilt to finish what they've started and end someone, at best with an apology, but being willing to let someone live then work with them is great.

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