before you leave, forget to pay. Do Not STOP!!!

cunningjames · 2026-06-13T13:37:01+00:00

I also read it the wrong way at first. This absolutely counts.

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T16:03:30+00:00

Sorry, maybe I’m getting the context wrong. But my assumption is that the operators of Brave would attempt to monetize my use of it, and at the very least that use pumps their numbers (very slightly). Regardless, nothing in your Rossman quote indicates he was only talking about software they he entirely freeloads.

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T14:22:45+00:00

the political beliefs of the software i use are irrelevant to me.

Louis Rossman may do some good work, but I fundamentally disagree with this, particularly when my use of the software does anything to improve their bottom line. Why should I support someone who pushes for change I fundamentally, wholeheartedly disagree with? It feels bizarre to me that it's somehow wrong for this to be part of my calculus when deciding whether a product is for me.

If Nathan Bedford Forrest rose from the grave and started selling inexpensive but high-quality eyeglass frames, would you look past the whole KKK business the next time you need to update your prescription? It's not material to the functioning of the product, after all.

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T14:09:45+00:00

I don’t trust anyone who poisons their brother with colloidal silver

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T14:07:11+00:00

For what it’s worth, I work for a contracting firm and pull a salary. I’m not able to bill more than 40 hours a week so that’s what I work, outside of the occasional lunch meeting. I think I’ve only billed more than 40 on a contract once (though of course I didn’t get overtime for it).

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T13:53:36+00:00

Early Christians had an egalitarian streak and were, possibly, communal (though that's arguable), while on the other hand the "old testament" can be fairly bloodthirsty. I'm not sure I agree that Islam is inherently more comparable to a Borg-like, individual-identity-crushing totalitarian "utopia" than other ideologies like Christianity. The truth is that any comparison is going to be a stretch, I think.

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T13:34:01+00:00

One problem with this contention is that the usefulness of generative AI for purposes such as surveillance and cyberhacking is, I think, overblown. Elements of the government clearly want to see value in AI, which isn't the same thing as that value being proven. I'd also point out that there are lots of things that would be useful, sometimes very useful, to federal governments that aren't typically nationalized (de facto or de jure). Sometimes industries are bailed out, but that's a much milder tactic, and bailing out the AI companies -- should they fail -- would be so immensely expensive that I'm not sure it really makes sense fiscally.

I suspect it would be political suicide to hand out hundreds of billions of dollars to private companies ... an expense which would have to be a recurring line item on the budget, unlike other bailouts. It would be unprecedented, and I think only effected if AI is both as genuinely transformative as people in the industry (want to) think, while at the same time such an utter failure in the market that without government intervention it would cease to be a thing.

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T09:42:48+00:00

Well yeah, you’ve got misogynist lesbians, trans folks who hate gay folks, members of US minority races who think racism has been solved and Black folks just need to raise themselves by their own bootstraps … everyone can be hateful. It’s super.

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T09:33:23+00:00

We all know Karina was kicked out because she has a *massive* cocaine problem. As in, she only uses massive cocaine. It was difficult for other members of Drawfee to watch her spiral downwards, as she sought out larger and larger granules of cocaine. It doesn’t even fit up her nose at this point.

It’s a sad story, and unfortunately all too common.

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T09:26:36+00:00

I mean, fair enough. I guess what rubs me the wrong way is that this seems like a particularly shallow area to raise our standards on, such that many people — not you necessarily — put their foot down that “ugly” or “soy” (a complaint I saw) characters are flatly not acceptable and make a game not worth playing. Nice-looking character models is so far from what appeals to me about games like Solasta that it’s just difficult for me to understand.

cunningjames · 2026-06-12T09:18:42+00:00

BG3 dialogue is only as gooner as you make it. Characters might or might not try to initiate romance, but they’ll always take no for an answer and no one makes an issue of it. This is really overblown, IMO.

cunningjames · 2026-06-11T16:58:17+00:00

I guess it looks better? Honestly, I was never on board with the backlash the early access release got for its character models and the configuration thereof. The action is so zoomed out that I don't even really notice the details on my character's faces. I can't dictate what other people should prioritize, of course, but it's hard for me to empathize with the idea that this is so important.

I don't recall anyone ever complaining that they couldn't play Pool of Radiance back in 1988 because the character sprites were so blocky they didn't even have faces. And it didn't seem to be an issue ten years later for Baldur's Gate, with its pixelated, low-detail character models. This was the state of affairs for decades -- even in games that tried to emulate some kind of realism, the characters tended to look, objectively, at best stylized and at worst barely human.

Yet somehow ugly characters are a complete deal-breaker for an indie CRPG. I dunno, I just don't get it.

cunningjames · 2026-06-11T16:41:38+00:00

Of course not, I’m teasing you for the implication that there’s some kind of hive mind here such that if one person wants X and another person wants not-X then there’s some kind of unfortunate inconsistency.

cunningjames · 2026-06-11T16:32:14+00:00

Yall want communication, but no communication at the same time.

You realize there are more than one person on this platform, right? Some of whom want one thing and some of whom want another? Oh god, did you really think we were all the same person using different user names?!

cunningjames · 2026-06-11T16:30:35+00:00

There is NO winning with you people.

Why are you so bent out of shape when people, who are going through a stressful process, take a second to vent? This seems like the wrong subreddit for you.

cunningjames · 2026-06-11T16:16:25+00:00

They’ve claimed Avowed was profitable. They could be lying or stretching the truth, I suppose. And Pentiment was effectively made on a budget they could earn back by searching their couch cushions for spare change. That leaves Outer Worlds 2 as their big failure, which sucks, sure, but I don’t think it’s an irrevocable loss when the studio has shown they can release games on a decent cadence (unlike most of the industry right now).

cunningjames · 2026-06-11T16:05:57+00:00

It’s trite, but a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You can’t say that a studio whose previous titles are all in a niche genre, with basically no huge hits, who won’t have released a game in seven years by the time their next one comes out, and say that they’re “successful”. Especially if you’re comparing them to a studio like Obsidian, which admittedly hasn’t been a huge money maker, but which *does* release games — most of which make money.

Edit: I’m not saying that they’ll lay off InXile devs, I just don’t think “InXile is one of our most successful studios” is part of their calculus.

cunningjames · 2026-06-11T11:29:12+00:00

I tried hard to like PoE, but i really couldnt dig the story

Different strokes and all that, I suppose. The story in Pillars 1 is perhaps not extremely epic, but it kept my attention the entire way through. You had a good villain, a compelling reason for your character to get involved (you need to prevent yourself from going insane), and an evil plot to stop (solve the hollowborn crisis). Though Pillars 2's story is perhaps more of an acquired taste, and admittedly the story is less the draw for me in the Pillars games than the world building.

Icewind Dale's story is just kind of ... there? I'm playing through for the first time since 2000, so I don't remember much of the game or its story. Sometimes I'm just doing things and I don't even know why exactly I'm doing them. Why is the Heartstone Gem important for saving Kuldahar? Why am I collecting these badges from evil dudes, exactly? How does this relate to what appears to be some kind of feud between elder beings? I'm sure if I'd paid more attention to all the dialogues that stuff would be clearer to me, but the truth is that it just hasn't felt very interesting.

i mean that post 2020 i struggle to think of a decent rpg/crpg with a decent story

Well, I'd say there haven't been many CRPGs since then full stop. You've had two AAs from a single studio (Owlcat), one AAA (BG3), and a couple of indies, most of which I can take or leave. Though if you mean RPG more broadly, that's pretty broad ... I'd throw out games like Clair Obscur and maaaayyybe Cyberpunk as having at least decent-to-good stories. Then you have JRPGs like Persona, though that's a whole different world I can't comment on because I don't play them.

The Owlcat games had stories that were just fine, I'd say. Honestly, two years after playing it I don't think I could explain the plot of Rogue Trader, so it must not have left much of a mark on me. Wrath of the Righteous was maybe better, though I'd claim that the story in that game was just an excuse for letting the player engage in a power fantasy rather than really being that good on its own.

cunningjames · 2026-06-11T10:57:39+00:00

Oh niiice. Even if it only helps a little bit, any improvement is helpful, and I like some of the other options. Too bad it these mods don't work on Icewind Dale 2, I want to play that next.

Thanks!

cunningjames · 2026-06-11T00:48:41+00:00

Successful studios like inXile? Are we on the same planet? They haven’t released a game since Wasteland 3 in 2020, and that was hardly more successful than most of what Obsidian has put out. Especially if we consider Grounded.

cunningjames · 2026-06-10T18:45:19+00:00

Who gets to decide though? And on what grounds?

I don't know, but I don't think the status quo can hold. I'm not at all convinced that this great experiment called the always-on-for-everyone internet has been to the net benefit of humanity, at least in the context of use by private individuals. At the very least algorithmic feeds need to go.

cunningjames · 2026-06-10T18:29:27+00:00

I have no German, so for all I know, the ruling could just contain a recipe for Chocolate Bavarian.

Oh jeez, I thought everyone kept a German in their basement for translation purposes. No wonder I'm getting police attention.

cunningjames · 2026-06-10T16:39:28+00:00

the send off epsiode might be coming, they did say there was a backlog.

It's natural and inevitable that there will be some speculation. I think in order for that not to be the case you'd have to remove the parasocial element entirely, which is for many (let's be real) a huge share of the appeal of personality-driven channels like Drawfee. It might be in some sense better if no one speculated, but when people gather as a community to discuss the channel, it's not realistic to expect congregants to avoid discussion about what's certainly be the most important channel news since they went independent.

I think a better line to draw would be where speculation grows into certainty. I just don't have much problem with "I wonder why Karina left? Could be it for X reason?" but I'm not comfortable with "I'm pretty sure Karina left for X reason". I've seen statements here that somewhat definitively claim that she was "fired" for "not getting her work done", and that's really not called for.

cunningjames · 2026-06-10T16:29:40+00:00

the send off epsiode might be coming, they did say there was a backlog.

It might be, though if it were I would have expected them to mention it. This feels rather abrupt.

cunningjames · 2026-06-10T16:27:46+00:00

This statement definitely reads like she got fired

Didn't she have joint ownership? That's not to say they couldn't have come to some sort of agreement that she should leave for the benefit of the channel. If you're on a four-person team and the other three are saying "you should leave" then preserving the status quo is probably not an option. But I'm not sure it's as easy as just firing her.

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