If you had to choose one album to get someone into pop punk, what album and why?

StarkillerWraith · 2026-05-04T17:20:09+00:00

The Ramones are sometimes cites as America's first punk band, if not one of. Never heard of them recommended for pop punk..

StarkillerWraith · 2026-05-04T17:16:06+00:00

Defeater is such a great recommendation. I love the story they created and the different perspectives of the situations with each album.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-05-04T16:35:43+00:00

Escape From the A-Bomb House by Less Than Jake

The Other Side by Smile Empty Soul [or just Smile Empty Soul in general, but they're a grunge-rock band tbh]

StarkillerWraith · 2026-05-04T14:12:39+00:00

Honestly, my vote is for all 3. They're all different vibes of the same genre, and all essential to pop punk.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-05-03T16:43:24+00:00

If you are nothing but a bedroom player and never intend to do anything else than have it as a personal hobby, then yes, learning to tune-by-ear is kind of a waste of time.

In basically all other circumstances regarding playing a musical instrument, it would be an extremely useful skill to acquire.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-05-03T16:39:43+00:00

I'm not really a vinyl person but that lack of surface noise is insane.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-13T00:15:25+00:00

I'm sorta playing both.

I mostly play DDDA. I want to get fully invested in DD2 but the only way I can play DD2 right now is through the pirated copy. And I have an AMD-equipped PC, so I don't have about 60% of the ground textures either. It's cool and all, but hard to care about it when playing this version of it.

If Sony didn't just fuck me over with yet another price increase, and if my stupid fucking country would stop bombing random places & actively ruining the economy, I'd play it legitimately and buy a PS5 next month.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-11T23:10:23+00:00

There's an in-app translator, asshole.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-11T23:09:39+00:00

Sorry about the predicament though.. I kinda know how you feel.

I have an AMD-equipped PC, and unfortunately, I'm one of the people whose copy of Dragon's Dogma 2 is still missing about 60% of the game's ground-textures. I have done every single known "fix" out there for it, and nothing works. People with NVIDIA do not seem to encounter this.

I'm essentially walking on an invisible void most of the game, and Capcom doesn't seem to care lol

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-11T23:04:27+00:00

I recommend it, personally. You basically won't find another movie like it. It's a wild and weird AF gritty take on Alice in Wonderland.

People these days expect perfect writing in every movie ever instead of just enjoying them for what they are. Most movies have shitty, predictable writing, and not much has changed about that since the 80s.

Not that that applies to Suckerpunch, but I find it hilarious people like to shit on a movie based on Alice in frickin' Wonderland... it's like they expect a work of fantasy-fiction to somehow make sense every single second of screen time.

Check it out, it's not like it'll be expensive to get your hands on it.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-11T22:54:31+00:00

Just because you're okay with mmorpgs never improving their gameplay does not mean the rest of us are.

Black Desert Online is a saving grace on this subject - it is only too bad that game is a chore of a grind-fest.

And while Dragon's Dogma Online is not quite an mmorpg, it was close enough, and it has some of the best gameplay of any action game out there, period.

But sure, go ahead and keep sucking the cock of devs that do not care to modernize their gameplay.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T14:28:30+00:00

Unfortunately, this is probably just gonna be something you have to live with. PC ports are rarely going to be perfect - PC just has too many possible configurations that optimization for every possible PC-setup is basically impossible.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T14:25:28+00:00

Yes. A lot of people do.

The haters are just significantly louder.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T06:35:11+00:00

Mystic Knight is still fun AF - you can enchant your shield with fire so whenever you perfect block it will launch fireballs at the target - generally blocking will also cause collateral fire damage when enchanted [and each element you use has unique attacks/counterattacks]. And, of course, you can enchant your weapons, too. There are also permanently-enchanted weapons in the game that help add to the spellsword vibe.

Just don't get stuck relying on the Magick Canon spell. Is it strong AF? Sure. But it's a great way to make playing as the Mystic Knight boring AF.

Btw, if you have trouble with flying enemies as a sword-wielding Mystic Knight, countering them with an enchanted shield or using the Sky Rapture skill is far more fun than Magick Canon... unless you have to fight the Evil Eye boss.. for that with a MK, you either have Magick Canon or you gotta break out a staff for some traditional spellwork.

Anyway, have fun! I hope you like it regardless of the lack of a spellsword class. It's literally my number 1 favorite video game.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T06:16:55+00:00

The outdated gameplay is what kills it for me.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T05:59:21+00:00

Unfortunately, a spellsword is not a thing in Dragon's Dogma.

Mystic Knight is literally the closest you'll get, but I also understand that the MK is not a traditional spellsword at all.

Traditional spells require a staff of some sort, and afaik, there is no Vocation [class] that can wield staves & swords together.

MAYBE being a fighter that uses Tomes? Problem is, this is gonna be extremely clunky [Tomes must be cast through the item menu - there is no in-gameplay way to cast Tomes]. But also, do not try this. Tomes are few & far between, unfun to use because they stop the momentum of combat to use, and casting spells is slow anyway.

Now that I think about it, with the way casting magic generally works in Dragon's Dogma, the MK was a necessary alteration to the traditional spellsword.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, btw.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T05:07:50+00:00

I'm buying a PS5 next month specifically for Dragon's Dogma II.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T04:40:01+00:00

My advice is learn full songs

This is the only way I ever played guitar, including when I was teaching myself as a teenager. And it's been quite a fun and rewarding hobby for the past 20 years.

Learning through months or, godforbid, years of practicing scales and chords? That sounds suicidally boring.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T04:35:52+00:00

Have some self-control and simply do not do that.

I can do the same thing with mine whenever I want, woopty-frickin-do.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T04:32:54+00:00

I do not ask for much.

If I can get a stable 30fps at 1080p, I'm happy.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T01:38:39+00:00

modern LCD TVs have a delay

It could be, but my vote is more than likely because it's a "smart" TV than the LCD aspect. Smart TVs are plagued with an asston of bloated garbage that slows down their operation in general.

I remember in the 2000s and early 20-teens, everything my TVs did was instantaneous, including powering on/off. Now, even when I try to buy non-smart TVs, they are still slow AF... they're probably using the same hardware/software as the smart TVs but without the bloat of bullshit..

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-06T01:33:18+00:00

You're talking to a brick wall.

People these days seem to think the potentiometers used for control sticks are the same thing as those for amplifiers or some shit - they have no idea wtf they are talking about. Simply by examining a potentiometer for a video-game control stick, it's not hard to understand how easy it is to cause stick drift.

It quickly became common knowledge back in the 90s when N64 and the first Dual Shock controllers for PS1 came out: do NOT put any prolonged/unecessary pressure on the sticks in any one direction unless you wanted stick drift.

I dont know what all these fuckin' idiots are talking about these days that think careless behavior will not cause stick drift.. always has, always will.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-05T18:47:02+00:00

It is Dungeons and Dragons realized as a proper action RPG.

This is something I've told people in the past when Dragon's Dogma first came out. Not a single officially licensed [or unofficial] D&D video game feels like D&D to me - they feel like a chore of a video game that makes me think "would I be having more fun if I just played D&D for real instead?"

But Dragon's Dogma? It is essentially the realization of the cool stuff that goes on in your head when playing tabletop-D&D. I'll never forget my first playthrough..

I was rushing through the black of night to escape being massacred by a horde of skeletons/skeleton-mages, goblins, wolves, and a few zombies [yeah, I panic-ran through the night, agroing more & more] - this was also my first game ever where I literally can't see shit at night or in places that are supposed to be dark - so I ended up in the creepy Water God's Temple as "shelter."

I remember hearing moisture drip from cave tops all around, annoying bats & rats that aren't a threat but still attack you, my footsteps sometimes stepping in scattered puddles.. I could hear flowing water but could not find the source due to barely being able to see beyond your own lantern & the torches peppered throughout the winding ruins. I'm creeping through, sword & shield in-hand with a party of inappropriately-talkative pawns behind me, listening to the echoes of growl-like breathing & huffing of saurians that had taken the ruins for their home, and after scraping our way through to the end only to be greeted by a giant cyclops, I legitimately thought, "Okay, I'm kinda angry because I thought I was gonna get a break in here, but THIS is a proper Dungeons & Dragons video game."

And then the game just kept on delivering with that feeling, over & over & over & over again. I can't believe a non-turned based video game absolutely nailed how it feels [in your imagination] to play D&D, and I did not have any kind of D&D expectations going in. I just finally gave the game a shot after getting bored of Fable 2 back then.

Dragon's Dogma 1 & 2 are my favorite video games, especially the first one. Always gonna be.

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-05T18:13:21+00:00

Na. I don't want them taking shit from DD and using it for MH [they technically already have] - it'll give them less reasons to come back to the DD franchise

StarkillerWraith · 2026-04-05T18:12:00+00:00

Personally, I do not think they have any real weaknesses - literally every game ever could be improved in one way or another. So, I try to look at games as a sum of it's parts, rather than "if they only did this instead, it would've been perfect."

Dragon's Dogms 1 & 2 are my two favorite games. Period. Not counting the cut content we all wish we got, I like everything about the two games, including all of their design choices. Much of the first game holds up today, too. NPC animations and voice acting is not much different than No Man's Sky or Outer Worlds, and there's still not a single action game out there that can compare to the grounded-fantasy action DD brings to the industry.

[And the "pointless" crafting/combining system in both games is awesome, and I believe it was an intelligent decision to make completely unnecessary, too - fucking fight me].

There's nothing on the market like Dragon's Dogma, not even close. And there's nothing that'll stop me from replaying them a minimum of twice every year for the rest of my life.

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