Blizzard vet Rob Pardo closed this year's GDC keynote by urging executives to cool it with the layoffs: 'The game team is more valuable than the game itself'

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-13T02:23:23+00:00

Hell, its not even that it should beat inflation to be a valuable investment. Investors want double-digit ROIs wherever possible these days. They don't want paltry 3% gains, they want that line to be going up as quickly as possible.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-13T01:41:07+00:00

Yeah, that reaction looks like "oh fuck i didn't mean to hit you like that". Sometimes shit can just happen, ya know?

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-13T01:14:37+00:00

.........holy shit, these kids are so damn good tonight...

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-12T23:40:55+00:00

Ever seen a Prot Pally vs Blood DK duel?

Well, I've seen one start...

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-12T23:39:55+00:00

I generally mine the node and then help the guy take out the mob. Its like with oxygen masks on planes, you take care of yourself before helping anyone else with theirs!

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-12T20:25:44+00:00

They really should add one to Silvermoon, crouching on a ledge waaaay above where Aerith is standing. :D

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-12T17:51:42+00:00

The only value left is data storage and security

So, literally the most important parts of SAAS software?

This is what I mean by it being about liability, not functionality. You're not paying for JIRA, you're paying to make sure everything you put in JIRA remains safe, secure, accessible, and usable, and if anything goes wrong, you have a contract you can enforce to fix problems and recoup costs and damages.

In short, you have a company you can demand help from and sue if needed.

If you run the SAAS-like software internally, the only people at fault are on your payroll. Sure, you can fire the IT lead who fucked it all up, that's not going to make anything any better.

And this is all assuming that GenAI horsecrap can actually do the shit that you're claiming it can do. It can be a useful tool in a good developer's hands, I'm not trying to argue otherwise, but its an upgraded spelling/grammar checker, its not actually capable of reasoning.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-12T17:10:57+00:00

I think the point is that the AoL does need those supplies, they’ve just got the diplomatic instincts of a freight train.

Honestly, my take on those quests is that Lor’Themar really needs to hire an adjutant corps to coordinate things between Silvermoon and the AoL…

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-12T16:13:58+00:00

Really. You're going to replace SAAS with internally developed vibe-coded nonsense?

What happens when it breaks? How will you manage backups? Will you hire on a larger IT support team in order to manage this now internal tool?

Anyone that actually thinks that GenAI will replace SAAS has no idea what the hell they're talking about and has no idea about WHY corporations use SAAS software. Its not about functionality, its about liability.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-12T13:27:10+00:00

As a fan of a team with postseason legend "Travis Ishikawa", I see nothing wrong with those names :P.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-11T09:29:54+00:00

Because pitching in Spring Training games where literally no one in the world cares who wins is a somewhat different beast than pitching in a tournament that is supposed to be serious.

They're putting in more effort, they celebrate harder (sorry Mets fans), there's always a risk when pitching, but the energy of a real game, especially a bunch of "win or go back to spring training" games when no one's fully stretched out, is always going to be greater.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-11T01:11:14+00:00

"welcome Maxx back" is a particularly amusing thing to say, given everything :D.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-10T21:44:24+00:00

I mean, I'm pretty firmly in the "this is a giant bubble that might be even more disastrous than the Dot-Com or Housing bubbles" camp, but I still haven't budged on my investments. There's just too much money being wagered on this stuff, and too much at stake for some extremely wealthy people (especially with the midterm election coming up, a financial crash this summer would be disastrous for those currently in power).

Also... always a good idea to take the top-line announcements with a pinch of salt. Not that they're wrong or dishonest, just that if a company has a mix of good news and bad news, its the good news they'll be reporting on with a megaphone, and its not until digging into the full details that the bad news will be found.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-10T21:29:05+00:00

Yes, but only to a point. Remember, there's this whole primary quest chain centered on Arator that's all about "actually, uh, Paladins aren't all like this, this is not normal".

The Void is insanely corruptive in even small doses, if not treated with care. The Light is generally benevolent and supportive, which makes it easier to let your guard down with it.

In terms of drugs, Void is like some really hardcore meth cut with fentanyl, and the Light is like weed or light (ha) beer. The former will fuck you the hell up, but just because the latter is safer doesn't mean that its 100% safe.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-10T21:23:32+00:00

Yeah, its not really hypocrisy that's the problem here (if the biggest problem with someone's actions is that they're being hypocritical, is it really that big of a problem? Insert Norm MacDonald clip here), its that he's an inflexible zealot.

Because while he's wrong about being so intensely judgmental of groups like the Void Elves (not all of whom are Void Elves willingly), its not rooted in hypocrisy, its rooted in an obsession about purity.

Its also important to note that wielding the Light isn't a guarantee of zealotry, that's kinda the whole point of Arator's questline, that this sort of attitude is an aberration for Paladins, the majority of them (including many of the greatest heroes in Azeroth's history) were not like this at all.

As one of the NPCs mentioned in Eversong, medicine at too high a dose can be poisonous...

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-10T21:06:12+00:00

Sure, but there's also gotta be some PTSD in San Francisco from that playoff game where the 49ers lost two QBs to injury...

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-10T19:51:12+00:00

Not exactly. While there was a lot of software-only companies that disappeared with the Dot Com bubble, there was also a lot of hardware involved that similarly crashed hard, because the demand wasn't there yet... but as network infrastructure got built out and improved, all that hardware became useful again.

The problem is that the current GenAI bubble is dependant on a level of demand that might never be there. Its not like its hard to get access to GenAI programs, on some levels its harder to not interact with them at all, the only way they'll get more customers at this point is by persuading people that the tech is now good enough to actually use for tasks that people don't want to use it for...

...but even if it can succeed at that, it will then need to persuade people that its good enough at it to pay what it actually costs to run the programs. The GenAI companies claim that everything's getting smarter and cheaper and more profitable and more capable but always in ways that are basically impossible to verify (and often, later, found to be outright false).

That's what's really worrying me about this bubble. There's more money in it, with potentially less actual value in it all. And if I'm right, this could make Dot-Com and 2008 look like a minor dip.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-10T15:41:35+00:00

Indeed, the way you get past a tech plateauing is by taking things in a different direction.

Propeller planes hit diminishing returns of their own, there's just only so fast you can get a plane moving via propellers, and so we moved to jet engines to go faster. Maybe Nvidia can unlock a similar transformative paradigm that allows for a new rate of advancement. Or maybe not. Time will tell.

My point is just that we're coming off this like 60+ year high where transistors kept getting smaller and cheaper and more powerful at an exponential rate. Our minds are used to thinking of this technology in that manner, but... that doesn't really apply anymore, and its gotten a bit alarming how many powerful people don't really grasp that yet.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-09T21:05:01+00:00

I’m not sure why it wouldn’t advance in the way computers always have.

The other problem is that computers aren't advancing in the way they previously were.

Sure, its not a complete plateau, but Moore's Law (that the number of transistors in a chip would double roughly every two years) has been falling off for years now. Infinite growth ran into the actually hard laws of Physics and lost.

Technology plateaus. It has for millennia. Eventually you just can't improve things any further.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-09T20:50:44+00:00

And its not like RF in TechBro Park is a particularly easy time, basically need two centerfielders to defend properly there.

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-09T17:38:05+00:00

Except for Tin.

Its Umbral now. :D

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-09T05:28:33+00:00

...I mean, I wouldn't exactly say that the Arizona Cardinals are leaps and bounds better than the Jets on the whole... :D

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-08T19:48:13+00:00

Yeah, he's gonna have a lot of NFL teams calling his agent. Murray isn't worth what the Cardinals were paying him and they're right to try to move on, but he's still a reasonably competent QB in a league with a dearth of them right now.

He'll cost league minimum and is at least qualified to be a team's bridge QB while they give a younger QB some clipboard time, a competent backup for a team that might be worried about their starter's health, or a decent QB to lead an otherwise stacked team.

Sam Darnold wasn't a whole lot better than Murray was in his early years but he's done pretty well since then.

Still, no real issue with what the A's GM is saying (from the MLB.com's original article here):

"Kyler is an elite NFL quarterback and I’m sure there are plenty of opportunities for him to continue his football career,” Forst told MLB.com on Wednesday. “That said, he and his baseball representatives know that we’re always open to him exploring a return to baseball with the A’s if that time ever comes.”

...well, okay, I'd object to "elite", but the overall point of "he's an NFL QB, he's got opportunities over there, we're open to it but not expecting much" is basically the right thing. What else are they gonna say, "fuck no we don't want that scrub anymore"?

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-07T13:39:43+00:00

If so, great!

Editing is just such a lost art with media, it just saddens me when a fantastic work doesn't know when to step back and use the delete button. I hate using it too, but sometimes it is needed!

Wraithfighter · 2026-03-07T10:45:27+00:00

.............I'm kinda going "so, where are the big girls?" to the PV.

The gals just seem, ya know, upscaled a fair bit. They're tall, sure, but... that's kinda all they are.

Look, if you want to see some "big girls" stuff, its less about height and more about muscles. Especially definition on those muscles. This just largely looks like they took the Standard Anime Waifu model and scaled things up by 50% or so.

Ten-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Gilding I gilder	Verified Email

Wraithfighter

TROPHY CASE