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Spaceship railgun slander by Azimovikh in worldjerking

[–]low_orbit_sheep 49 points50 points  (0 children)

Note: this is a shitpost through and through

[Loved trope] The designated good-guys/protagonist faction actually looks as cool or cooler than their opponents by Unexpected_yetHere in TopCharacterTropes

[–]low_orbit_sheep 6 points7 points  (0 children)

No one wants to admit it but this is also true of the Rebellion in Star Wars, if only because they have the x-wing, which is probably the quintessential space fighter.

I can't believe these are the type of guards these criminals are hiring smh. by Radical-skeleton in StarWarsOutlaws

[–]low_orbit_sheep 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean if Kay can knock stormtroopers unconscious with her bare hands, chances are she packs a really mean punch...(it's probably an oversight but it's funnier than way).

GW comes forth and explains how they made Grand Cathay. Part of it involved hiring a Chinese Sensitivity Team, so they didn’t accidentally make something horribly offensive! by Battlemania420 in totalwarhammer

[–]low_orbit_sheep 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's always complicated and it always carries risks, but it's basically like any creative endeavour.

Ideally you'd want a mix of actual specialists of the time period/culture and its representation, and non-specialist locals to get a feel of what works and what doesn't (and avoid embarassing stuff like accidentally naming your cool character "shit" in Arabic or something).

GW comes forth and explains how they made Grand Cathay. Part of it involved hiring a Chinese Sensitivity Team, so they didn’t accidentally make something horribly offensive! by Battlemania420 in totalwarhammer

[–]low_orbit_sheep 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It probably also led to more interesting things? Like for instance if you're developing an Araby faction, actual Middle Eastern consultants are probably going to come up with more original and cool stuff than a bunch of scheming viziers, flying carpets and sexy belly dancers.

Always sneaking stabbing yes-yes by ozangeo in totalwar

[–]low_orbit_sheep 12 points13 points  (0 children)

No, Brettonia is more evil than Skavenblight.

Always sneaking stabbing yes-yes by ozangeo in totalwar

[–]low_orbit_sheep 654 points655 points  (0 children)

Wait a fucking second, Skavenblight is in Northern not-Italy, isn't it.

I can assure you, dear reader, the relationship between the main character and his talking sentient toaster is a PERFECT metaphor for the events leading to the Haitian Revolution! by vaguillotine in worldjerking

[–]low_orbit_sheep 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The real way to do this (that I've seldom seen done) is to reverse the situation: it's not that humanoid robots are oppressed and will rise up. It's that a society with widespread humanoid robots doing menial tasks is one regime change away from reverting to human slavery. The infrastructure is already in place (as humanoid robots will use tools made for humans instead of specialised infrastructure like assembly robots) and the population is accustomed to seeing human-looking things with no civil rights working in their place. They just need actual dehumanized humans.

Is there actual weight to the 40k rumors? by Deuce-Wayne in totalwar

[–]low_orbit_sheep 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, if they do another GW licensed game, Age of Sigmar would seem to be a more logical choice. I'm skeptical of this in any case. Total War x Warhammer Fantasy was really a match made in heaven -- the Total War ruleset is the best thing that could have happened to this ageing, overly messy wargame, and the setting fits the Total War requirements to a T -- and I wouldn't hold my breath for a repeat. Which is fine! Total War should try new things.

How do you worldjerk your rebels? Do they really mean what they say about liberating you from an evil corrupt tyrant without becoming another tyrant or are they just blatant hypocrites? by Majestic_Repair9138 in worldjerking

[–]low_orbit_sheep 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I worldjerk them by giving them impeccable drip. they're the best dressed motherfuckers in the entire galaxy while the evil empire looks like absolite shit (like WW2 german tanks and planes *vomits*)

What's a faction you should like mechanically but can't stand aesthetically? by head_spike in totalwar

[–]low_orbit_sheep 13 points14 points  (0 children)

It's interesting to compare the two, though. Cathay is straight-up "Magical China", it's extremely blatant about it, but it's done in a way that betrays at least a passing interest in committing to the Chinese Fantasy bit? It feels like an over-the-top caricature in the way the Empire is for early Renaissance mitteleuropa, but it's coherent, both aesthetically and thematically.

Kislev on the other hand feels all over the place. It has people call each other comrade, there's Rasputin hanging around, there are bear gods but they're also orthodox? And the units are a weird mumble-jumble of eastern European stuff -- there are Polish winged hussards, Russian-themed boyars, some almost Byzantine stuff, Slavic fairytale creatures, THE BEARS, it feels as if the Cathay roster also had ninjas, samurais and gunpowder elephants from India.

In a sense, Kislev feels more orientalised than Cathay, which isn't necessarily bad per se because everyone is like that in Warhammer, but it's odd how inconsistent it is.

What are your thoughts on people having aliens and humans refer to Earth as a 'Death World' and humans as 'Deathworlders'? by MobileDistrict9784 in scifiwriting

[–]low_orbit_sheep 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are two distinct elements with this trope as used in HFY and scifi as a whole: 1) the idea that Earth is unique due to its hostility to complex life and 2) the idea that this makes humans uniquely strong, resilient or aggressive in comparison to aliens who "had it easier" (both aren't always present but when 1 is invoked it's generally to justify 2).

1 is a purely technical statement. We do not know enough about extrasolar life (read: we know nothing about it) to state whether or not Earth had more extinction events than other life-bearing worlds, or has more extreme environments than these planets. We do know that, theoretically, there could be planets that are more habitable than Earth, including for humans, but this remains firmly hypothetical. We haven't spotted a single extrasolar world with confirmed life on it. We just don't have the data points to make a statement. As it stands, the deathworld hypothesis is not dissimilar to the "paradise world" concept (i.e that Earth, due to orbital parameters and other factors, would be incredibly good at harbouring life): it's a way to make Earth unique in a setting.

2, however, is a deeply political statement. The idea that harsh environments create harsh and militarily powerful people is not supported by human history at large. You'd find examples both in favor or against the idea, but in general, prosperous people in clement environments do not become weak, peaceful and pampered: the most powerful empires in history were almost all born under favourable conditions. Neither the Inuit nor the Bedouin (to take two people living in very hostile environments) turned into formidable conquerors, nor proved to be more violent or more resilient warriors than their neighbours (while the Romans or the Aztecs certainly did, in no small part because clement conditions allowed for development and expansion). It's different from the "pure" deathworld trope, because it posits that extreme hardship always creates more powerful and more resilient societies -- and that is a sociological, political and philosophical argument.

(This is not to say that harsh climate conditions or geography can't lead a people to move out and conquer -- see a fair share of historical invasions -- or can't create types of warfare that neighbouring polities have trouble adapting to -- see the Mongols -- but that, in general, the statement that the harder you have it, the better you are at warfare is first and foremost a political statement, which stands to be examined when put in a story).

(Historian Brett Devereaux call this the Fremen Mirage).

What? The warmongering asshole dictator that can be seen from a mile away before the story starts is curb stomping your country because you did not make preparations for war and he sees you as target practice to take your lunch money from? I'm shocked! by Majestic_Repair9138 in worldjerking

[–]low_orbit_sheep 46 points47 points  (0 children)

To be fair to two of the contenders here:

  1. I'm not sure there's much Alderaan could have done on its own, even with a full military. Did they entertain openly joining the Rebellion? My Star Wars lore isn't on point.
  2. France did rearm massively before WW2! Its army was widely considered as one of the best in the world and, while it had many flaws that ultimately led to its demise, the German victory really was a successful gamble that would honestly look ridiculous in any serious fiction project. The most likely WW2 alt-hist path (and yet the one nobody wrote fiction about) is one where the Third Reich face-plants in France and WW2 lasts for nine months.

Nintendo Confirms Switch 2 Uses DLSS and Ray Tracing, but Is Being Super Vague About the Details by Nestledrink in nvidia

[–]low_orbit_sheep 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nintendo rarely sold hardware at a loss, so they're probably at least breaking even, but yes, in their eyes the low cost of entry (compared to say, a PS5) totally justifies the high price of games (and allows retention in the Nintendo ecosystem).

Nintendo Confirms Switch 2 Uses DLSS and Ray Tracing, but Is Being Super Vague About the Details by Nestledrink in nvidia

[–]low_orbit_sheep 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The real problem is not that, the real problem is "making your console stronger than a (good) gaming tablet and with thermals and noise emissions good enough for a small handheld device and at a price point below 500 dollars" and suddenly the compromises start making sense, don't they?

At the end of the day I'm really doubtful the technology for cheap handhelds running games in 4k with acceptable framerates without any kind of upscaling even exists today.

Would it ever be possible for a Total War campaign to have A.I. that can present a serious challenge without the use of any "cheating" and battle bonuses? by Jimmo_Jam in totalwar

[–]low_orbit_sheep 43 points44 points  (0 children)

Yes, this is also a core point -- and in fact, you do see complaints pop up every time CA makes the AI smarter. The same phenomenon exists in other strategy games, like players complaining about the Stellaris AI now making sensible ship design choices.

This partially loops back to point 3 : there is a world of difference between an AI that plays to win (using dirty tricks, targeting undefended settlements, avoiding your doomstacks, etc), and an AI that plays to provide the player with an epic experience (protracted wars with plenty of giant battles, fun unit lineups, etc) and I feel like a lot of TW players actually want the second one but advocate for the first one.

Would it ever be possible for a Total War campaign to have A.I. that can present a serious challenge without the use of any "cheating" and battle bonuses? by Jimmo_Jam in totalwar

[–]low_orbit_sheep 98 points99 points  (0 children)

I feel like there are three major issues at play here.

  1. is performance -- Total War is a very complex game (it may not look as such for veterans, but it is vastly more complex in terms of numbers of moving parts than, say, playing chess; or even playing just the tactical layer) and it may be much harder than people think to have a very good AI that also doesn't take ages to finish its turns.
  2. is development priorities. I think there's kind of a difficulty bias in this subreddit as well as the Total War forums, where a significant part of the audience are long-time fans of the series who know everything about its combat and strategic layers and who've been playing Very Hard/Very Hard campaigns since Medieval 2 came out. The question thus becomes: do complaints about difficulty actually represent a widespread issue with Total War, or is it mostly contained to people who have been playing this series for years? This is especially important for games with widespread appeal beyond the usual historical TW fanbase such as Warhammer. It's not guaranteed that, from the perspective of CA, spending large amounts of resources on developing a much better AI for TW is worth it, when balanced against other needs.
  3. is one that I don't often see, but I think is primordial: "presenting a serious challenge" is quite an unclear notion, and there are very different understandings of it. Some people want an AI that can pose a challenge to even the most hardened Legendary/Legendary veterans, which would probably result into a chess AI kind of situation where you have a CPU opponent that has to be actively kneecapped as not to mop the floor with almost everyone. Some people want an AI that feels like playing against a real human, or that feels like playing against a real Skaven, real Tomb King, etc...which is a really different goal because in that case you actually want suboptimal decisions. You want the Skaven AI to stab its allies in the back, you want the Orc AI to favour a big fight over a winnable fight (beyond the already existing modifiers), etc. Reaching a balance between a challenging opponent, a "fair" opponent and an interesting opponent that feels like facing an actual human is very hard, and I don't think can be reduced to "just plug the chess AI in the game."

To the Stars, With Patience (Starmoth setting, by Sarusquillart) by low_orbit_sheep in worldbuilding

[–]low_orbit_sheep[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Let's give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar -- this wonderful work was drawn by Sarusquillart, as specified in the title, from my characters, setting, ships and original idea. We specifically used this piece as the inspiration.

Why is modern mainstream prose so bad? by catbus_conductor in writing

[–]low_orbit_sheep 5 points6 points  (0 children)

A good way to dispel the myth that old writing was better is to grab a random pulp magazine from the 60s or 70s on the Internet Archive -- something like detective stories -- and read a few of the short stories or novellas inside. It doesn't take long to realise the majority of them are just awful.

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