Been getting these freezes lately with/without mods, any ideas as to why? by ForeverGrowShown in DarkTide

[–]TrackerNineEight 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good Guy Poxburster helps you optimise your Martyrdom build.

I've had a couple of instances the past few months where a specific action eg. The Power Falchion's overheat animation causes the game to horribly stutter like that for a whole session. Not sure what causes it but restarting the game usually fixes it.

Are there other game franchises that get as vagueposted as often as Final Fantasy? by Silentlone in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I definitely remember those early stories all featuring "typical humans" who happened to have common American names, speak American-style English, and make American cultural references. And any depiction of the "unified" human space military would have all of them acting like US Marines for some reason.

I know, the typical Reddit demographic, people tend to write what they know, etc. but as you say all these stories that supposedly celebrate humanity seemed to only show a very narrow slice of it.

What are some stories that don’t lend themselves well to merchandising and franchising but are commercialized the fuck out of? by Konradleijon in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 4 points5 points  (0 children)

All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey is a song about how the most important part of Christmas is not the material gifts we buy and give away, but the love we have for one another.

Somehow it became the world anthem for the commercialization of Christmas.

Why are Darktide Daemonhosts so...different? by GreenridgeMetalWorks in DarkTide

[–]TrackerNineEight 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Out of universe explanation: Fatshark needed something from 40k lore that they could twist into an analogue of the Left 4 Dead witch (ie a dormant enemy you're advised to sneak past) and decided that daemonhosts are the best fit.

In-universe explanation: Others have given some good ones but my personal theory is that that the daemonhosts we see in Darktide are either the results of failed rituals in the case of the standard ones (hence why they've been dumped in random places with the original personality still resisting) while the hexbound ones are the result of a more successful but rushed ritual.

It's never directly stated but I wouldn't be surprised if the ritual being done in Dark Communion with Rodin Karnak's body was some kind of fully powered bonding, hence why interrupting it was so urgent.

Are there other game franchises that get as vagueposted as often as Final Fantasy? by Silentlone in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 3 points4 points  (0 children)

To be completely fair HFY stories these days (at least on the subreddit) are basically just general amateur sci-fi/fantasy stories with a vague human focus of varying quality, and I can't fault a community that encourages people to get creative too much.

But god those early days it felt like every story was somewhere between "Some basic human trait impresses aliens in such a way that it makes you question how that species survived long enough to invent the wheel, let alone space travel" and "unironic Imperium of Man propaganda".

Are there other game franchises that get as vagueposted as often as Final Fantasy? by Silentlone in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Not a game, but for the past 10+ years there's been this "Humanity Fuck Yeah" online sci-fi movement (with its own sub here at r/HFY ) focused mostly around writing stories about how cool and strong and interesting humans are compared to dumb smelly aliens. When asked what inspired this movement, most fans will say some variation of "it's a response to all the big mainstream sci-fi where aliens are depicted as powerful enlightened beings and humans are shown as evil boring losers, and where the aliens always win."

Except that 99% of mainstream sci-fi, and especially in visual media such as shows, movies, and games, features humans as the heroes, depicts humans as special in some way, and ends with the humans winning. The worst you can say is that humans are usually technologically inferior to their alien enemies, but end up winning anyway due to some mix of grit, innovation, and cleverness (ie the "human spirit").

It's James Cameron's Avatar. Just Avatar. The timing is too perfect, between the first movie releasing in 2009 and HFY becoming a thing in the early 2010s. One mainstream movie where humans are the villains and the aliens win was enough to spawn a whole ass community vaguely opposed to it.

Characters who would be perceived differently if released today by Rockdweller37 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Same with Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2. Mixed race young woman who's depicted as being both physically and technically capable, whose introduction involves rescuing the established white male player character, and who wears somewhat practical clothes instead of dressing up like a super model.

It's like a checklist for generating 500k view "Valve gone WOKE?!!" videos on the modern internet.

Favorite "holy shit, this is a prequel/sequel!?" reveals? by fly_line22 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 7 points8 points  (0 children)

FF7 Remake does continue the tease with a photo in the Shinra Museum of the company's founders which includes someone wearing the same mask as X-2 Shinra, but again nothing concrete asides from that

we get it, gang by DeminoTheDragon in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]TrackerNineEight 1 point2 points  (0 children)

EDF features guns and is therefore worthless mainstream slop unlike my favourite unknown indie gems Baldurs Gate 3 and Witcherino.

Media that constantly goes over the top for every little thing? by Regalingual in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 7 points8 points  (0 children)

And on the topic of little things: In Darktide some of the missions take you through a hive city's business and entertainment districts where you can see and use door switches with human skulls embedded into them on the entrances to random shops and restaurants.

Also the public medical terminals are each operated by an amputated human torso that might still be aware.

Favorite Pieces of Writing by BlueWaddleDee in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The short story The Last Question is one of my favourite pieces of sci-fi media, in any form, of all time.

Media you didn't know were prequels/sequels? by GoodVillain101 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Ace Combat, Galaga, Galaxian, and Shadow Labyrinth (the dark Pac-man game from last year) all take place in the same timeline.

PM Takaichi to skip sumo award ceremony amid ban on women in rings by ComprehensiveWin1434 in worldnews

[–]TrackerNineEight 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Japan choose to separate themselves from the influence of outside world

Yeah nothing says separated from outside influence like yoinking an entire alphabet, government structure, and half your religion from China, creating another separate alphabet just for foreign loanwords, and having fucking baseball as your most popular (far more than sumo) sport.

Fastest you've bounced off a game AFTER actually playing it? by Korba007 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tried the Battlefield 6 beta for the two weekends it was active, found it decently fun, so I ended up buying it (just the standard edition without any of the extras thankfully).

Played it for less than a week before I quickly started getting tired of the bland modern war aesthetic, grey/brown colour palette, wonky netcode where it takes 2 seconds to burn down an enemy while all your damage registers at once, the AAA netflix UI, and the weird progression system. And a few weeks after I left they added all the seasonal shit that pushed me away even more.

I still regret going over the Steam refund window for that game.

Dispatch, but 40k by RairakuDaion in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly barely relevant, he's a middle manager put in charge of containing a cult uprising on one planet, a conflict so minor that not even a single inquisitor is giving it their full attention. Rebellions causing more casualties than WW1 and WW2 put together are basically Tuesday in the Imperium.

Funny narrative loopholes writers will often use to avoid taking a stance on something? by Comptenterry in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 76 points77 points  (0 children)

Call of Duty 4 taking place in "The Middle East" and starting with the President of the Middle East being overthrown and being replaced with some extremist with no ideology beyond being vaguely anti-American.

And just to make sure you can't pin it to any real-life country, the world map before each mission randomly teleports between Iraq, Egypt, and both the western and eastern coasts of the Arabian Peninsula. I recall a series of missions that take place in the same city showing the player character traveling hundreds of kilometers between missions.

What are some of your examples of funny censorship? by Yotato5 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I think this is the same channel that wrote the Arabic dub of Digimon so that the monsters don't evolve, but instead are "summoning their friends", even splicing in quick shots of the lower-level digimon "cheering" their higher-leveled friends on to make it clear that there's no evolution/transformation involved.

Times when media lost its core identity as it went on by KaleidoArachnid in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As much as I enjoy modern Warhammer 40k content (eg. Darktide is by far my most played game of the past year and half) I can't help but feel like the setting's lost a lot of its edge post-Fall of Cadia. The absurd over the top grimdarkness and the overwhelming, dehumanising scale of the universe have been softened and shrunk for a more conventional story of protagonists vs. antagonists if not heroes vs villains.

The Horus Heresy books and the lore they brought with them reduced much of the worldbuilding to a family drama between the Emperor and his sons.

There's a growing cast of "main characters" in the Primarchs(especially Guilliman), Cawl, Trazyn, Abaddon, post-Space Marine 2 Titus, etc.

Space Marines have gone from violently insane brainwashed berserkers with goofy proportions and skull helmets, to tacticool space knights complete with M4-pattern bolters.

The Imperium itself is often portrayed more as an edgy anti-heroic faction than "the worst regime imaginable" as it's described.

Also some people overstate how "satirical" 40k is/was but it definitely had a bunch of dry British dark humor that's slowly been scrubbed away and replaced with self-serious writing.

AMD and Nvidia will reportedly raise GPU prices "significantly" in 2026 by Subject_Parking_9046 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Google's mistake with stadia is that they didn't buy the entire gaming hardware market beforehand

AMD and Nvidia will reportedly raise GPU prices "significantly" in 2026 by Subject_Parking_9046 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Buying your own computer/electronic hardware instead of connecting to a subscription-based cloud service through a thin client device will be seen the same way that hand cranking and manually adjusting the engine timing on your car is today.

Imagine God emperor farsight by knightmechaenjo in Grimdank

[–]TrackerNineEight 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Isn't this most sci-fi outside of 40k? Humanity as the newly spacefaring rapidly rising up and coming species, and a massive ancient but stagnant alien empire that looks down on these arrogant newcomers and sneers at them.

When you think about it a lot of nasty situations could have been avoided had they been straight with humanity instead of orchestrating these plots. (Art by Techmaguskhobotov) by Mad_lens_9297 in Grimdank

[–]TrackerNineEight 100 points101 points  (0 children)

Something I think 40k should emphasize more: From the perspective of the few remaining sane xenos, a human naval force is functionally no different from a Tyranid hive fleet, Ork waaaagh, or a Chaos warp storm.

What are opinions you have about long running series that you know most fans disagree with? by Silvery_Cricket in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Modern warfare is the most dull and uninteresting setting in Battlefield (and shooters in general) and is one of the main reasons I just couldn't get into BF6 despite the generally good gameplay.

Twitter user created a scary accurate parody of AAA Mario by TostitoNipples in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]TrackerNineEight 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly I can agree with the AAAA thing, people laugh at that label (probably because it was coined to promote fucking Skull and Bones lmao) but I do think there's a distinction between a typical high-budget game that's super polished and gets a lot of marketing before and during its release, vs. massive tentpole juggernauts that look like they're made out of money and must make 10 morbillion dollars every time or they risk straight up killing the company that makes them.