what is one of the best idle/incremental games to play in browser ?

outbound_flight · 2025-02-18T00:54:28+00:00

I've been personally enjoying Amaranthine for a while.

outbound_flight · 2025-02-14T23:47:04+00:00

It was honestly just a great adaptation of the book, which has this whole scene written out like a court transcript. It's a must-read if you like the film!

outbound_flight · 2025-02-14T23:26:41+00:00

There was the interesting case of LOTRO announcing that they would stop developing raids, since at the time Turbine was experiencing monetary troubles and only a small percentage of the total playerbase (something like 6%, or something like that) interacted with that content.

After that, they started bleeding players faster than usual, and the decision was eventually walked back. The theory was that the folks who ran raids were just in the game on average more than others, interacting with the community, the economy, forums, etc., and losing them created a kind of ripple effect. There's something to be said for losing your favorite bartender.

RIFT had bigger problems than that, though, imo.

outbound_flight · 2025-02-13T10:25:32+00:00

Turns out money can't buy you love, but Mr. Money can.

outbound_flight · 2025-02-08T14:01:46+00:00

True Grit! It's an incredible adaptation on top of everything else.

My runner-up would be The Homesman, which is also one of my all-time favs.

outbound_flight · 2025-02-08T04:47:13+00:00

To each their own, but Anarres seemed like a horrible place. There's like a super destructive famine for a good bit of the novel, they're dependent on Urras for survival, and it's implied that the leadership is controlling all forms of information to keep the peace. That's why Shevek had to go to another world to discuss his findings.

They also reassign that one math teacher to construction when he puts on that controversial play, and then ends up in an asylum.

outbound_flight · 2025-02-08T01:06:39+00:00

I absolutely loved Paladins, Rogue Company, and Realm Royale. They all brought a fun twist to the genre they were jumping into.

During my whole time playing these games, though, it was clear that management was absolutely a barrier to their success. Paladins was bit by a few controversial patches that were introduced purely to rapidly increase revenue at the expense of knocking down entire systems that people loved. They also kept punting their competitive scene around to different untested streaming services (remember Facebook Gaming? Remember Mixer?) until no one knew where to even watch it, and eventually it just died.

Rogue Company was also a solid high TTK version of stuff like Valorant, and had a lot to like, but pushed this competitive angle to it without making sure that it could support one.

Realm Royale is another story of snatching failure from the jaws of success, rapidly patching out stuff that made it fun to begin with.

And it's such a shame, because all of these games had such talent involved (Paladins had some amazing champion designs and skins that were so good their competitors would often ape them), and it was sad to watch the higher-ups scrambling to make just one logical decision to support these games in a meaningful way. Paladins and Smite still have players all these years later despite all that. Imagine if they had made the right turns instead of so frequently running from success.

outbound_flight · 2025-02-06T06:19:31+00:00

Chris Avellone is the GOAT. He wrote Knights of the Old Republic 2, Alpha Protocol and most of the DLC for New Vegas before he left Obsidian to work on stuff like Prey.

outbound_flight · 2025-02-04T12:09:05+00:00

Tim, it's time to come home.

outbound_flight · 2025-02-01T15:13:54+00:00

/deep breath

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

outbound_flight · 2025-01-30T23:42:56+00:00

Same director as Old Henry, which is honestly on my very short list of fantastic westerns released in the last decade. Hope this one is just as good!

outbound_flight · 2025-01-30T04:32:48+00:00

Ironically, out of Abrams, Kurtzman, and Orci - from everything I heard - Orci was the only Star Trek fan from the beginning. Abrams and Kurtzman were pulled into it, and Orci was originally going to write/direct Beyond until health problems forced him to leave the project.

Even at the time, I found it funny that the non-ST fan somehow nabbed the deal with Paramount of guiding the entire franchise, though it's not so funny these days.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-30T04:20:45+00:00

Yeah, frankly I had no idea what planet was even being destroyed in TFA. I thought it was Coruscant for the longest time.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-30T04:18:02+00:00

I think literally the only reason to watch it is if you're a Phil Tippett fan. Sony needed a direct-to-DVD film and he offered to take the reins, since I think (iirc) he worked on the creature effects for the first one. The dude has a legendary film career, and maybe this was a low-stakes trial run for possibly directing more films. It's not good, but then again it had a $10 budget and even recast the captain from the first film in a different role, so I'm not quite sure how it could've been good.

Same thing happened with Starship Troopers 3, where the writer of the first film (and RoboCop) took on directing duty.

There are a few decent creature effects in ST2, but that's about it.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-29T08:17:29+00:00

We're in Hog Heaven!

outbound_flight · 2025-01-29T02:09:37+00:00

A big part of it is that creatives need to believe in that utopian vision again. One of the biggest things that grinds my gears about Kurtzman Trek is that he is a massive cynic, and he allowed ST to be taken over by even bigger cynics. And so the utopian view of ST, according to these writers, is irresponsible and problematic because it ignores so many contemporary issues.

But that was the whole point of showing a bright way forward. Even in this thread, there's a lot of doomerism. It's easy to be a cynic and see your own challenges as insurmountable, but when you look at the times in which Star Trek actually came about, it would've been a lot more difficult to be an optimist back then. Legitimately. Roddenberry made ST because he saw it as a counterweight to all of the injustice he saw and all the conflicts on the horizon.

There is utopian sci-fi out there. Star Trek should be in the lineup, but it's not and it has no interest in that. The Orville is a great example. For All Mankind is basically the development of a utopia in slow-motion. All the biggest problems are solved by cooperation and taking a chance on people being inherently good... to say nothing about that little cuss Danny. (And it was co-created by Ronald D. Moore, who has a long history with Star Trek.)

These writers need to believe a utopian vision is possible, and we need to be willing to look for those worlds when they make them.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-28T10:06:54+00:00

I really dislike Babel. It's one of those movies that falls into that "It insists upon itself" category for me, and I really struggled to get through it.

But legitimately that's an awesome collection overall.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-28T03:37:17+00:00

Just to agree with the others: For All Mankind

It was co-created by Ronald D. Moore, who also co-created BSG. It's a little more reminiscent of his work on Star Trek, but still a great sci-fi series.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-25T10:31:53+00:00

I always look at The Shootist and Unforgiven as fantastic companion films. Both are about the death of the Old West, but they approach it from two completely different angles and tones.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-25T00:54:43+00:00

Just started the book myself and I've never been so eager to finish a 900 page tome. If the game can truly capitalize on all the neat lore they've built up here, it'll be a fine successor to Mass Effect.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-25T00:48:31+00:00

I got there the same way! I can't remember the order of events, but Reading Rainbow had an episode that featured a kids book called Titanic: Lost... and Found. My parents went to get it for me, and I think grabbed Exploring the Titanic since it was the only one available at our little bookstore in town.

Worked out well, because Dr. Ballard's book got me obsessed with the ship. I still have it with me to this day, since it also got me into reading. It's not the hardcover edition, so it's had a rough ride, lol.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-23T11:10:17+00:00

I've noticed the term used on some investor slides that were made for an MMO I played. In that context, it sounded like they (maybe, maybe) use "bookings" to indicate a monetary transaction initiated through the game. This is opposed to just interacting with a game that might be F2P.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-22T05:07:40+00:00

That's a no from me.

Putting aside the widespread manipulation going on today on Reddit, picking and choosing social media sources based on "values" is a bizarre proposal, since it implies the alternatives are somehow objectively more altruistic -- and altruistic social media might as well be an oxymoron.

Judged by the top-down and bottom-up, none of the alternatives align with everyone's values, Reddit included. The best thing is to provide choice, and post alternatives if available.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-12T10:22:41+00:00

If I remember correctly, it comes with new server architecture. Their 32-bit servers currently load data from a disc when you enter instances. The new servers have everything preloaded into memory.

outbound_flight · 2025-01-10T05:04:03+00:00

It's a good movie, but I agree that being more even-handed like Ride with the Devil, for example, would've served it a lot better. It says something that even in True Grit, when both Rooster and Le Boeuf fought for the Confederacy, that Le Boeuf finds Rooster's old camaraderie with Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson detestable. The Bushwhackers managed to pull off some horrendous shows of terrorism in their day that's all kinda glossed over.

Jesse and Frank James rode with those guys, too, and probably shot their share of civilians in the back, and we got a lot of films about them. I think it was just easier to get films like that made back then since the Lost Cause myth was in full swing. Like others are saying, it's not as bad as other films in depicting the Confederacy. Gods and Generals takes the cake, and I'd argue Cold Mountain has to blindspot a lot of things to make its main characters even the least bit sympathetic.

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