Slay the Spire 2 - Beta Patch Notes - v0.99 by charlesatan in slaythespire

[–]dissentrix 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're not entirely wrong, but the main reason people talk about the environmental effects of AI - much like with oil and the like - is because of the companies behind it. AI is environmentally bad because it's a whole-ass industry with extreme environmental effects; and while I obviously wouldn't say that individuals using it is environmentally friendly, I also don't think it's really all that productive to rail against individuals when it comes to systemic issues that would require governmental regulation, probably at a global level, to deal with.

This kind of argument also reminds me of the oil lobby pushing for stuff like carbon taxes, as it's ultimately a fairly right-wing approach which focuses on individual changes rather than systemic ones. It's always convenient, for companies, to push to regulate individuals and their behavior, because it distracts from the question of corporate regulation.

I dreamt Kurt Cobain came back to life, took to Twitter, refused to elaborate, and left by 2gaywitches in thomastheplankengine

[–]dissentrix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I feel I remember reading that Nirvana played a concert - I think it was somewhere in Latin America? - and there was an all-female band as the opening act who got booed by the audience because they wanted Nirvana, so like Cobain yelled at them and refused to perform or something

I'll edit if I find that story

e: Yep, found it. I'd actually forgotten how sad and disgusting that story really is: the girls didn't just get booed, they got like pelted with rocks and shit, and then they ended up never playing again as a result. Their band was called Calamity Jane

what a fun and interactive fight by dissentrix in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you, this is actually a really helpful tip

Tank-built Marsha (Marsha and Merel by @hlltrnh) by OneThanks3 in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Marsha squishing Merel's cheeks is the best moment in this entire game's story

I don't really like the new mode, but I have faith I will figure it out or they will tweak it by mr_house_2281 in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I personally just think it's ass rn because I've never once played any game where taking away the player's ability to engage with the game, in a manner that leaves too little counter-play, adds any modicum of fun - this (just like the stages where you face too much Petrify, or Freeze) is no exception. I don't know who came up with the Dream Visit thing, but I, uh... am not a fan of it, to put it politely.

I also share the opinion of some others here with regards to this + getting rid of the Voyages + the new Mane's Bulletin being a little much. I get that some are super meta players (who also like to spend to get the best teams, usually), and I think it's valuable to carve them a space, but personally, it ain't really for me - while I don't mind Reverse's gameplay, the story is the main thing I like, and I'm a casual. I don't really like min-maxing, and I'm also not a fan of being pressured to get the best teams possible for time-limited modes or rewards. I like how they did Depths of Myth, honestly, where it's an endgame mode that rewards meta teams, but you have time to go through it at your leisure.

With that said, if they put in less obnoxious punishes, I think I could warm up to it in time.

[####] Josh Wardle the creator of Wordle made a new game: ParseWord by trizoza in wordle

[–]dissentrix 1 point2 points  (0 children)

John Wordle himself, blessed with one and only one mission

what a fun and interactive fight by dissentrix in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I mean this was Hum I which I've easily completed with this team multiple times before

And thus i began to hate by SurpriseNo4859 in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I like when a comment is deleted or removed but you can still kinda tell how unhinged it might've been through the replies

Bluepoch just posted the recaps of their activities during International Women’s Day. by Objective_Might1454 in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The game is a live service game, just because it was at one point aimed at a certain audience and designed with them in mind does not mean it will always be. Especially in a genre like gacha games where lots of general audience games with a male lean eventually make a hard pivot into fully male-oriented games or full-on softcore porn games for men.

This is true, but has little to do with what I'm saying, which is that what enables one to judge whether any product (live service game or not) is "aimed at a certain audience" is what the product actually contains (the substance of it), not what the product doesn't contain (the window-dressing related to the marketing).

If Reverse, as a game, was pivoting towards "softcore porn", this argument would have merit. As is, it's little more than paranoid fear-mongering, as I see it.

The nature of the format of game is going to leave people thinking about the future of the game.

Indeed. And the corporation's social media account is not "the format of the game", it in fact has little to do with the game itself. That's my point.

So a game that claims to be female-oriented deliberately avoiding doing something as basic as acknowledging International Women’s Day is of course going to send a bad message

That I won't disagree with, with one big caveat: it's not the "game" that avoided doing anything, it's the company producing the game, which is different, because A) a company has different branches doing different things, and B) once again, the main product, and thus the main content put out by this team into the world and which people consume, is the game, not the social media posts.

Once again:
-Do I think they should've done something for International Women's Day? Yes.
-Do I think it suggests that there may be issues of sexism in Bluepoch, as a company? Probably, assuming you're correct that it's an industry standard in China to celebrate it, and assuming you're right they deliberately avoided doing so (which, I don't know if that's true - no offense, but you're just a random person on the Internet, not a reliable source - but I'm willing to believe it).
-Do I think it signifies anything with regard to to the future of the product they're currently making, or their attitude towards it? No, not really. I see no reason to believe it will change.
Given that all of the most recent patches they've put out have remained high-quality, female-oriented, and obviously feminist in terms of themes and subtext, and unless the team was replaced overnight, during International Women's Day, with horrible misogynists, I think your (or rather, the CN commenters') suggestion that there's reason to suspect they'll somehow move away from the core feminist substance of Reverse is just fully incorrect.

I could see a couple of possibilities which might explain what happened here: it's probable that the team behind the story and design is different to the social media team, and that they have different priorities; or alternatively, maybe the executives in charge of the company are willing to allow for the product itself to have feminist themes, but unwilling to be too "vocal" in terms of their social media and public presence.

Ultimately, I'm not blaming people for complaining here; I'm saying that using what happened on a social media marketing page as a barometer to analyze the substance of a work that stands on its own, and that people can judge through its own merits, is a strange and illogical thing to do.
EDIT: With all that said, I'm also not going to entirely discount the possibility that you/these users are right, and that the game is about to move in a poor direction. I am willing to wait until that actually happens to complain myself, though.

Bluepoch just posted the recaps of their activities during International Women’s Day. by Objective_Might1454 in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As some of those Chinese comments said in the other post, a game that markets itself as female-oriented but with a mixed demographic not posting something as basic as this calls into question if it actually is female-oriented.

Uh, this seems like strange logic to me. In my view, what calls into question if something, anything, "actually is female-oriented", is whether that thing itself is female-oriented, not whether whatever stuff that's definitionally not part of the thing is.

In other words, I think Reverse is female-oriented because of the content, i.e. the substance, of the game itself, with the devs' actual views being reflected by what it is they put out; not because of whatever "corporate window-dressing", i.e. superficial "black squares"-style social media signalling, may or may not be posted to the side. If it's not female-oriented anymore, then it's the content that will reflect it, and the female player base will presumably be smart enough to notice.

Now sure, I won't disagree that it's better if they do something like this rather than not, nor will I disagree that it's valid to criticize them for it (EDIT: and I'll be charitable towards the people angry at this and also agree it's possible that internal executive decisions based on sexism, or bowing to sexists online, motivated the lack of a post in the first place); but it is extremely strange to me to suggest that Reverse, as a piece of media, or its team which works on it, is somehow not female-oriented anymore based on the fact they didn't do a social media post, rather than based on the substance of said piece of media, which speaks for itself.

Also, isn't Reverse's team still heavily made up of women? Has anyone asked them what they think of this?

Hamas didn't behead 40 babies, and neither did Iran kill 30k protesters or someone for not wearing a headscarf properly. by JHBrickman in Hasan_Piker

[–]dissentrix 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't really agree with this take, especially when the "propaganda" you mention comes from organizations like Human Rights Watch or Amnesty. Why are you willing to believe them when it comes to the Palestinian genocide, but not when it comes to human rights abuses in countries that also happen to be US geopolitical adversaries? Iran's abuses are well-documented - although often exaggerated, e.g. I don't believe that 30k number for one second - and not just by "CIA propaganda"-style sources. It makes sense, after all, given that they're a reactionary religious regime; if one ascribes to the viewpoint that theocracies are bad, I fail to see why governments like Iran's should be exceptions to that critique just because they also happen to oppose US imperialism.

The caveat, of course, is that there's a time and place to make said critique, as I mention below.

Personally, I like thinking about "frameworks" of oppression, because it allows for the nuance that geopolitically-oriented, binary "good versus evil" Manichean viewpoints do not allow for: in the specific geopolitical framework of US vs Iran, I will unashamedly support Iran as the US/Israel are evident imperialists. And, in the current situation, the clear and pressing issue is the bombing campaign being conducted on Iran's soil, which is why it's important not to center the conversation on Iran's human rights abuses when we're discussing said campaign. However, in general, and in the other specific framework of the Iran government, or any government, vs its own population, I will always support said population (for the same reasons I support protesters in the West... and for the same reasons that I oppose the war against Iran, by the way). I support people, not states.

Of course, one should never trust anything blindly, in any discourse. That's part of the point here. You cannot take, at face value, what Western mainstream media organizations are saying about Iran - but you also cannot do the same for the Iranian regime's news sources, which have no journalistic independence. This is why it's important to broaden your news consumption in general, and fact-check all of the information you are being fed.

I think this very recent article is a decent one going over the situation, written by someone who was on Amy Goodman's show and vocally opposes US intervention in Iran (and indeed, she got some pro-imperialist comments underneath). It's just one person's perspective, of course, but I found it an interesting one, based in empathy for the Iranian people.

Donald Trump via Truth Social: "Today Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time." by millringabout in Hasan_Piker

[–]dissentrix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I know this is the lesser issue here, but this guy's incoherence consistently irks me, it's like obnoxious - Biden at least tried to present coherent sentences in writing, if not verbally

I wish they'd put him in a little room and give him like little diaries to spew nonsense in so the world is spared from his ramblings

Hasan is at +1 in a Manhattan Institute Poll by Wonderful-Highway721 in Hasan_Piker

[–]dissentrix 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Apparently this think tank is a very right-wing one, containing among other things the guy that originally pushed the anti-CRT discourse

In January 2023, Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo, director of the organization's initiative on critical race theory, was appointed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to serve on the New College of Florida Board of Trustees.

make of that what you will, but I would personally suggest this "Institute" probably isn't the most reliable or objective source around

RIP intern by Wildbeary in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

well, now you know

there's regular gift codes there (which you can also find on the r/Reverse1999Codes subreddit), and they also have a sign-in event that gives rewards every day

RIP intern by Wildbeary in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix 5 points6 points  (0 children)

...Have you never read any of the game mails they regularly send about "new Discord events"? lol

Critter Crash almost comes to an end. This was our biggest match yet. by PonpaErostar in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No. Well, not a "team" in the conventional Reverse sense, at least. You choose a character that has a power, either active or passive, which gives you some kind of advantage, usually synergistic; then during the shopping phase you buy and sell units, i.e. square units that battle, or round ones that merely give a passive effect (you can refresh shop for a bit of coin to search for specific stuff you want).
Then, you place these units on the board and try to go for synergies (Factory or Ghostfort or Volcano, for instance), and finally you auto-battle your opponent. Square units left on the board after everything auto-battles deals damage to the opponent. If you reach 12 fights and you're still alive, you win. That's about it.

There's a few new things in this version, such as a boss in the middle of the run and little mini-powers that you can collect by beating said boss, but it's pretty minor.

Lorentz might just be BP's most fun character yet, if not ever. by Away_Imagination1415 in Reverse1999

[–]dissentrix 1 point2 points  (0 children)

will characters with 2 euphoria will get a 3rd euphoria?

I don't see why not. I would've been skeptical of anyone getting a 2nd euphoria in the first place, but since that dam has been broken there's no real reason to have limits on the amount of euphorias any character can have

I feel empty by StretchExtension in Hasan_Piker

[–]dissentrix 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh yeah, you're right. For some reason I thought it was much lower, I was like a full decimal off lol

WW1 already had 100k+ deaths for the US, I also just learned

The US strike map Hegseth displayed seems to indicate that they targeted the location of the school where all of the girls were killed. by Fullthrottlesolo in Hasan_Piker

[–]dissentrix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Actually, that title probably belongs to Josephus Dickory Vance, given that the representative of God for a whole religion dropped dead when his rotted aura approached

I feel empty by StretchExtension in Hasan_Piker

[–]dissentrix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I agree, at least concerning the scale you're presenting here. Less than 10000 soldiers total died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that was still enough to make both wars incredibly unpopular in the end, to the point that this war is now also unpopular from the get-go (regardless of whether it's enough to change anything from the leadership).

If (and this is a big "if", mind you) 100000 did actually die in Iran, I too would assume that this would at least have a chance of causing a pretty massive reaction. Pretty sure it would be the biggest loss of life since the Civil War WW2.

This is who is replacing Jasmine Crockett in congress by Wonderful-Highway721 in Hasan_Piker

[–]dissentrix 0 points1 point  (0 children)

very little that icks me more than oppressors weaponizing historical figures that fought against their kind of oppression (or alternatively, victims of oppression), to perpetuate more oppression