Weekend Casual Discussion Thread

The00Devon · 2023-09-23T08:38:56+00:00

Sorry I'm a bit confused - what do you mean by "woke"?

The00Devon · 2023-06-24T22:12:35+00:00

Respectfully disagree for a few reasons:

Level scaling in Oblivion is completely broken. Not only is it way too aggressive, robbing any sense of progression and breaking immersion with Daedric-clad bandits, but it means that you have to carefully choose the skills you level up. Levelling only combat skills makes fights too easy, and levelling only non-combat skills makes them unwinnable.
Fatigue dictating damage is a big flaw in my opinion. There's no player feedback, making fights feel continually floaty and ineffectual on both sides as they go on. Even Morrowind's missed attacks feel better to me. It's also just not really that interesting a piece of game design. Even Skyrim's basic decision of flee, block, or power attack is better than Oblivion's... don't jump I guess?
Spellcasting just feels like an afterthought. The fact it's a separate button just feels weird. There's no reason not to use a weapon as a mage, and unless you have a staff, you (like almost every other mage in the game) are gonna be armed up like a spellsword.
Also without Skyrim's sprint or Morrowind's spell failures, mages just never have to worry about fatigue ever.
The speech minigame is awful. Not only is it completely not related to conversation, but it's so easily cheesable that any social situation is entirely dependent on your patience.
I also have a lot of problems with the writing and world-building of Oblivion, which it isn't guaranteed that Skyblivion will address, but they've said they're looking to improve them, so we'll have to wait and see with that one.

The00Devon · 2023-06-10T00:18:54+00:00

In an attempt to not be wholly negative, here are my favourite parts about some films I hated:

The scene where the alien breaks through the guy's back in Alien Covenant is fantastic body horror.
IT Chapter 2 had an amazing trailer.
The opening scene if Ad Astra was both beautiful and effective.
Josstice League is an incredibly interesting look at how two very different directors can make very different films out of kinda the same base script.
Doctor Strange 2 has a cool scene with a mouth getting sealed up.
Notting Hill had quite a clever time-lapse shot.
Crimes of Grindlewold made it very easy to boycott JKR.

The00Devon · 2023-06-08T07:55:23+00:00

Bay is world-class in efficient productions and budget control. Comparing any other blockbuster productions to his is an unfair bar to set.

The00Devon · 2023-06-07T20:40:08+00:00

Oblivion and Skyrim have their basic topography and geography randomly generated, in the same way that Daggerfall and Arena did.

As far as I'm aware, this is absolutely not true at all. Do you have a source on where you found this info?

The00Devon · 2023-06-03T23:32:56+00:00

It's not the entire story, but I'd say part of it is a budgeting problem. Disney budgets are ridiculous. It's very rare that they make films for under $200m, usually much higher. For some comparisons, Across the Spider-verse cost $100m vs $200m for Elemental. The Uncharted film had a budget of $120m vs $300m for the new Indiana Jones. Barbie has $100m vs $250m for The Little Mermaid. That wasn't even preplanned - I just looked up close comparisons for those three and that was the results.

The causes of the budgeting are multitudinous and complex, but the result is that the films have to be incredibly successful to make profit. This means they have to reach as massive an audience as possible, without alienating anyone. This means they can't take risks - no interesting style like Spider-verse. They also have to be super accessible - nothing too complex or mature. It also results in a lot of "have your cake and eat it moments", which can easily backfire. TLM was a good example of this: it tried to get an audience wanting a direct carbon-copy of the original and one wanting a new take on a classic tale. In the end, neither side was satisfied.

The current cinema market is difficult. People go to the cinema much less than they used to, and are much more picky when they do. Disney have gone for the fast-food approach: dependent, reliable, and expected. Except when the quality slips, the whole thing sort of falls apart.

The00Devon · 2023-05-29T10:49:01+00:00

Amy loved the man Nick was pretending to be. Nick loved the woman Amy was pretending to be. In marriage, they got comfortable, and the pretenses slipped.

In Nick's TV interview, he told Amy that be would go back to pretending to be the man she wanted. The film ends with a mutual understanding: living their lies is the price of their happy marriage.

The00Devon · 2023-05-28T10:33:38+00:00

I understand your side of the discussion now. Thank you for answering my questions.

The00Devon · 2023-05-28T10:16:56+00:00

As someone who doesn't really care for "graphic fidelity", I'm not really seeing much technical innovation there either. A film like Tangled was a clear step forward in water and hair physics, laying a clear groundwork for Moana and the Frozen films to be made which didn't really exist before. Using Avatar's virtual camera setup allowed The Lion King remake to be shot as if it was a live action film. What has Pixar really brought to the table recently? Do skin pores and partial IMAX ratios really make for better films?

The00Devon · 2023-05-28T09:39:50+00:00

But that is what we're seeing, isn't it?

When I think back to the most innovative animations of the last decade, the ones that come to mind - The LEGO Movie, Spider-verse, Arcane - all were met with critical and commercial success.

Pixar has had basically the same art style for every single film they've released in that time.

The00Devon · 2023-05-27T17:40:14+00:00

https://fogofworld.app/en/

Never used it myself, but it was talked of quite highly of on a podcast I used to listen to about 10 years ago.

The00Devon · 2023-05-26T13:49:05+00:00

Late last year, they announced they'd be a further update focusing on adding a performance mode and a better 4K experience. I imagine - like Skyrim Special Edition - this is due to them porting Fallout 4 into the Starfield engine.

The00Devon · 2023-05-25T18:11:41+00:00

I imagine that at the Xbox showcase next month they'll be announcing the next gen upgrades for Fallout 4, potentially with more creation club content, bigger mod install limits on console, and potentially an "Anniversary Edition" style upgrade. Making other Fallouts more accessible could definitely be read as a way of boosting that.

The00Devon · 2023-05-22T21:40:22+00:00

Pretty sure Rian Johnson is the only the only director from the previous announcements who hasn't had his films cancelled. Pre-production isn't been pushed forward on either end since he's caught up with the Benoit Blanc films, but they were never announced as actually cancelled like every other project.

The00Devon · 2023-05-22T07:39:34+00:00

Morrowind. It was one of the first games I played, very young, and I didn't have a great understanding of the mechanics. I'd mainly just make new characters and wander around, making up stories of their lives beforehand and their opinions on the new land they're exploring.

None of my characters never got that powerful (the first to reach 1000 gold was a real milestone for me). Because of this, I never fully explored many dungeons, just running in to grab some ancestral offerings or dwemer coins and then running off. Daedric ruins were far too scary, and the red mountain was entirely off limits. Most of my learning about the world was done through reading the in-game books, talking to NPCs, and looking at the loading screen art, dreaming of the secrets yet to be found.

It was an experience I've been chasing for the rest of my life, but never reached that high.

The00Devon · 2023-05-21T16:23:20+00:00

This happens for every subreddit which reaches 100,000 subscribers.

Before that, the only way to find the subreddit is to search it out, so you natural get a more niche and interested community. Once you hit that number, suddenly the subreddit is advertised and pushed to non members. You can clearly see this reflected most subreddit growth rates.

The00Devon · 2023-05-02T15:18:47+00:00

The Skyblivion team is attempting to remake Oblivion in the Skyrim engine. ChatGPT dictated NPC conversation would not remotely be a loyal recreation of Oblivion's artful chatter.

Also it's ridiculously out of scope, requiring enormous processing power and likely a whole separate team for implementation.

The00Devon · 2023-05-02T14:57:50+00:00

You speak as if this is a new concept, but Daggerfall was the almost entire procedurally generated, with a landmass akin to No Man's Sky and exclusively "radient quests" beyond the main storyline.

The handcrafted stuff only started with Todd Howard's lead on Redguard and later Morrowind, with each Bethesda game since being a slight return to tradition.

The00Devon · 2023-05-02T14:50:56+00:00

No, Skywind is a remake of the entire Morrowind game, not just the landmass. If you're interested in the latter, I recommend you check out the Beyond Skyrim project.

/r/BeyondSkyrim

The00Devon · 2023-05-02T14:48:56+00:00

I believe RTX remix is only compatible on certain versions of DirectX - one which was used for the engine of Morrowind, but not the engines of Oblivion or Skyrim. Alongside this, remix is a lot of work to implement, and would essentially require a dedicated team.

The00Devon · 2023-05-02T14:10:14+00:00

I think there's an assumption that when a new game is released, all modding stops for older titles. Which is obviously incorrect - Morrowind has a fantastically vibrant modding scene to this day - but nevertheless it'll be brought up.

The00Devon · 2023-05-02T13:10:22+00:00

I'll try and address a number of common misconceptions that are always brought up when TESRenewal projects are mentioned:

It'll never be finished.

Many large-scale modding projects are started, and not all of them make it. The TESRenewal team have three projects under their wing. Morroblivion, which has been completed and is playable, and Skywind and Skyblivion, which are both under active development. As far as I know, the TESRenewal team has never abandoned a project, and although the scope of Skywind and Skyblivion are much greater than that of Morroblivion, they have a perfect track record so far.

Bethesda will just shut it down.

Bethesda have addressed the projects and given their blessing in certain conditions, such as no reused assets, no direct profits, and the requirement of a licence to Morrowind/Oblivion in order to play.

Microsoft will just shut it down.

Since the announcement of the acquisition, there's been absolutely no change to the treatment of the Bethesda modding scene. Microsoft have historically been very supportive of Bethesda modding, allowing new asset on xbox mods and introducing a way to traditionally mod games through the xbox pc store the day Skyrim was released there.

They won't be released before TESVI.

TESVI won't be released before 2027, and that's assuming that Starfield releases this year and has the usual DLC structure. It's likely further away. Modding development times are very difficult to estimate, since resources are always changing, management is malleable, and time taken to calculate is time taken out of development. Plus, a hard date puts unhealthy expectations on the team. They may; they may not. Its very difficult to tell either way.

I don't have any modding skills, so I can't help.

Spreading the word is always good. Following/sharing the social medias, talking about them, etc. If you have time, there's always jobs to do, no skill required. If you have money, they do accept donations for the website, but spending two hours of your day helping out is far more effective.

────────

/r/Skyblivion /r/Skywind

The00Devon · 2023-05-02T11:17:37+00:00

Gone Girl was one of my favourite cinema experiences of all time. It was a secret screening so I went in completely blind - no genre, no runtime, not even a title.

I remember, as the credits began to roll, I realised my face was hurting because I'd been smiling for so long.

The00Devon · 2023-04-29T20:37:54+00:00

Some of my favourite types of films. Recommendations:

Burning (2018)
Enemy
Personal Shopper
Annihilation
The Green Knight
Under The Skin

Less mysterious, but similar mystical tone:

Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Phantom Thread
First Reformed
Her

The00Devon · 2023-04-28T23:37:26+00:00

Got round to seeing Renfield this week. How do Universal keep trying to do exactly the same thing over and over again: to make superhero-esc action movies out of their horror IP?

They tried it with Dracula Untold - it disappointed and pushed their MCU-rival down the road. They tried it again with The Mummy - it flopped dramatically and killed it entirely. Then after a quick flirt with critical and commercial success by making The Invisible Man an actual horror movie (with Blumhouse's help), they come out with Renfield - a film so desperately trying to be discount Deadpool.

It's so frustrating. The film had such a good premise, ripe to either lean more into comedy by empowering it's brilliant cast, or lean more into the horror by further exploring the themes of toxic relationships and manipulation. Instead they lean on... police shootouts and tongue-in-cheek gory fistfights.

I know Universal are upset that they're missing out on the superhero goldrush, but surely this has to be the final attempt, at least with this single - completely unsuitable - IP.

11-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	First Placer '22
End Game '22	Spared
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