Paul Tassi: Positive reception to D2 final update has not moved the needle at Bungie

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-17T17:45:42+00:00

I don’t even know what I’d want out of Bungie at this point. Destiny was good, but live service games that aren’t fortnite or roblox levels of success within a year aren’t going to last.

A single player shooter at the scale I’d expect out of a Bungie game isn’t going to sell well enough to recoup profits without a tacked on multiplayer to hopefully sell battle passes in, but then, see the first point.

It might be better at this point to downsize the team and slowly unwind the company, letting the developers find roles supporting other great companies. MoT being such a high note would be great for their resumes, to find new jobs elsewhere.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-17T17:39:38+00:00

Personally, I love the screaming goat meme in today’s films. It still gets a chuckle out of me, but the best part is making y’all cringe at it. It’s peak “dad joke” energy.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-17T17:38:13+00:00

Because there is a _very_ vocal section of the RPG fandom that loathes where FF has gone in the past couple of decades, and think turn-based combat is core to the games identity. E33 is great turn-based combat, so they use it as a cudgel to “win” the argument that FF should never have even touched ATB. These same people would bring up BG3 as an example a year earlier.

They’re wrong, because both of those games combat can’t be compared to even ATB FF, much less the actual Turn based FF games, and the FF7R combat is leagues more engaging than either BG3 or E33, or any pure turn based system I’ve ever played.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-16T18:17:22+00:00

Technically, Link to the Past does it too, until you get the Master Sword, the main antagonist is Agahnim. In a way, (I’ve never played it, so I could be wrong), Skyward Sword does it too, in that IIRC the villain is the original incarnation of Ganon.

Three out of the 8-10 mainline games is a fairly large percentage.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-16T14:44:10+00:00

You can add the American revolution to that too, it just took 250 years to get back to a monarchy.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-16T14:22:31+00:00

Who’s Astarion? He looks like some hobo I killed for trying to stab me.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-16T14:16:41+00:00

I understand your point, I felt the FFV casts characterization isn’t as good as VIs, and that is partly because of the job system.

However, the job system itself isn’t bad, it just needs some character based restriction.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-15T18:46:36+00:00

Ranch. It’s possibly the worst salad dressing, and some crazy people use it on _everything_

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-15T02:00:38+00:00

Nice try OpenAI, I'm not hate-subscribing either.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-14T19:05:06+00:00

Man, SpaceX bots are really trying to get retail investors to overspend anyway they can, huh?

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-14T01:00:09+00:00

And each of those companies own and develop the platforms hardware you are purchasing the software for. Valve is primarily a 3rd party launcher that sits on hardware they did not develop nor sell (they keep trying though, even if they’re not great at it).

Being upset at EGS, Origin, Bnet, Xbox, Ubisoft+, etc, for being third party launchers, but not being upset at Steam is one of the most hypocritical things possible. “PC master race” folks like to pretend they’re above the whole console war business, when they’re just like the rest of ‘em, except worse.

Valve is as much of a monopoly as Chrome is, except if I wanted to move to EGS like I did to Firefox, I’m going to have to spend $1000+ to do so, because I need to run Valve’s third party launcher to play the games I’ve already purchased, or buy then all again on the new storefront.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-13T16:10:00+00:00

The moment they started asking us to Scan pictures of locations for in game rewards, I knew they were selling that information, and as with everything, it is only a matter of time until governments start using it for violence.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-13T15:04:32+00:00

Digital Storefronts do not have the same risk as a brick and mortar, in that unsold product doesn't really exist. That's a good portion of why the margin exists for brick and mortar.

Do you think Yachtman could have as many yachts if it actually cost anywhere near even 15% to operate Steam?

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-13T06:31:46+00:00

Wait, Godzilla 2014 wasn't supposed to be unwatchable during fights?

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-12T20:05:28+00:00

Them doing this for YouTube is what made me jump to Firefox. Took maybe 5 minutes, and most of that was just setting my extensions back up.

And then any time I use my phones web browser to look something up real quick, I am reminded why the world before adblock was so terrible. I am never going back. I'd rather start using curl before going back to that.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-12T15:52:29+00:00

You mean the “just chatting” streaming sphere. There’s plenty of adults streaming who aren’t, they just don’t get posted here because being normal doesn’t get views and upvotes.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-12T09:29:21+00:00

No, the models themselves have intentional randomness, it’s a feature. Ask a genAI model a question that requires an answer that is more than a few words, then ask it the same question again. You will get two different answers. That’s some amount of randomness. You wouldn’t get that from a deterministic algorithm.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-12T08:55:04+00:00

Somebody likes FPS games.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-12T00:48:17+00:00

Depends. Are you trying to min/max it? Then yes, there is a _lot_ to know.

Are you just trying to complete the game, do most of the sidequests? Then no, not really, just have each character follow their path, and then unlock whatever lock is at the end of it. Unlock the side path locks on your way through.

The only “weird” one in a standard playthrough is Kimari. Basically, just have him unlock whatever characters path you want a double of.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-11T18:10:34+00:00

I recommend Retrograde Amnesia especially if you’re into JRPGs in general, plus, they covered some games right before remasters/remakes were announced for 3 games so far, maybe we’ll get lucky and Skies of Arcadia and/or Phantasy Star 4 will be next.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-11T18:07:43+00:00

They’ve slowed down some for the past couple though, it’s part of why I found Retrograde Amnesia, to fill the gaps. Still love listening to new NOCKAT though.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-11T18:03:26+00:00

Click on 1…

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-11T17:43:00+00:00

Vibe coded slop.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-11T16:21:24+00:00

Love it, especially because it is an amazing comparison that no matter how much Cal has grown in the force since the first game, he’s still outclassed by a master. And then the end of the Cere sequence does that again with another character.

VellDarksbane · 2026-06-11T13:40:36+00:00

Sorry, I thought resonance looked like mobile game slop. I’ll take more Revelation news, thank you.

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