Cylusthevirus

Oh it’s not, dead, it’s just changed shape so we don’t immediately recognize it. This, for example, is an ad for about 5 different games.

Notice how the brands were mentioned. Notice how much more palatable this is as a delivery system for that sweet brand awareness. They’re making statements we agree with! They’re demonstrating values that align with our own.

Now look it’s video games so I really don’t mind. This is certainly nicer than what we had in the 90s and 2000s (which were occasionally hilarious but I digress) , but I still want to raise awareness a bit. Larian isn’t the only company that rolls this way. Thing is, they’re probably not even lying, but an executive at a company does media like this for a reason.

This is them “speaking to you.”

deleted by creator

“Immersive Commerce” is the most vomit inducing thing I’ve read today.

He did say he was making Earth, so… yeah?

I think there’s a kernel of truth to it. A poor first impression followed by a subsequent recovery tells us that a game could have been good at launch, but was rushed out for various reasons. This practice of forcing the public to pay to be beta testers for a half finished product should be punished.

And nothing’s going to erase a garbage launch. It will always have been garbage and the shit launch will always be a part of the conversation about the game. Hence why we still talk about it even in games that have recovered.

You can’t patch history.

Might as well score a Steam Deck for the cost of a modern console, and then you’re not paying monthly for multiplayer and premium costs for games and you get mobility in the mix.

Having been involved in one of those wars, from a grunt’s perspective it mostly feels like this:

1. Follow FC to assigned position.
2. Observe slide show because there’s a zillion people in this system and time dilation kicked in.
3. Push butan when told over comms.
4. Explode for some reason.
5. Try to escape in pod, get podded because the UI is hard to use and TiDi makes everything weird.

Or my other favorite experience, ratting for money.

1. Fly expensive ship into system.
2. Target NPC ships in overview, blow them up while orbiting something.
3. Get attacked by pirates which is either one guy multi-boxing 12 ewar frigates or gang of roving pirates nobody bothered to deal with.
4. Lose expensive ship that nullifies somewhere between .5 and 2 hours of boring ratting.

Stealth bombing was pretty fun, I’ll admit. But everything else was a bunch of neat ideas saddled by the most profoundly boring implementations imaginable. It truly is spreadsheets in space, and not just for all the math, but because one of the most important UI elements for the longest time literally was a spreadsheet. And then they did this.

I set out to create a cyber ninja and aside from being unable to source good clothing options, it works as designed. That is to say, on very hard I die if fuck up with more than 2 bad guys around, sandie or no, so that feels right. I think optical camo was over-nerfed, but meh.

But if you combine the air dash, double jump, a katana, a throwing knife, and a few other things, it slaps. You feel very cool indeed when it all comes together.

Hacking feels more dangerous now. The way the hacks work means that when you go hot and start directly damaging your opponents you can’t just wait for everyone to die, esp early on. That said Netrunners are still gods, just gods that occasionally get someone to run at them yelling before they keel over at your feet. And you can still wipe 4 dudes out almost instantly from a long distance away.

Have not tried other routes yet because I hate playing through the beginning.

Now, 11 years later, it looks like the finish line for Squadron 42 may be in sight, although CIG stopped short of announcing a release window.

[Cue Laugh Track]

Frankly I think whether or not V survives is largely a headcanon thing. Maybe you head off into the sunset with the Caldos and find help. Maybe you knock over the space casino and buy yourself something like the Relic with all of your stupid new wealth. Maybe you turn into an AI and become a ghost in the machine.

Or maybe you develop natural charisma and an impressive cock, who knows.

Point is they left it vague and uncertain on purpose in several of the good (ish) endings. I get why, but it always felt kinda cheap to me. But it IS a noir story and those aren’t known for fairy tale endings.

I feel like most of it is private ownership. The minute you enter the CEO/Board of Directors ecosystem with investors to pay and expectations of eternal growth, everything turns to shit.

“Know who should make big decisions about running our software company? Finance lizards, obviously!”

Pretty sure that’s these people, right?

https://i.imgur.com/hVeDn48.png

Edit: Actually this guy signed onto Unity in 2014 Unity was still privately held. It went public in September of 2020. Unity’s founder, David Helgason is still on their board and served as some sort of Senior Executive whatever position at Unity. Dude still has a 4% share of their stock.

So anyway, probably this David Helgason character who hired him. And/or whoever else (including Riccitiello!?) who was on the board at the time.

The relationship between CEOs and boards of directors is so fucked up and incestuous…

In any case and in retrospect, Johnny boy was 100% hired to cue them for up for the eventual IPO and boy did he ever. It’s amazing how fast companies go down hill when they become publicly traded.

YES. MORE.

Edgerunners was a better story than the game, honestly. You’re not missing all that much if you don’t enjoy the gameplay.

The truly horrifying combo is Battlemaster+Gloomstalker+Thief with a couple specific hand crossbows and the sharpshooter feat. All that Dex + 15 AC from Yuan-Ti scale mail they sell at last light means 4 attacks per round each and 20+ AC.

Oh, and stealth, and lockpicking. Astarion? Never heard of him.

Had to use a bonus action for something? Then you’ve got battlemaster ranged moves to fear, trip, or disarm. It’s disgusting.

Lol, one of the two options listed is what I’m using. Need to find something with support for fantasy stuff and if possible, alternative hacking rules. Hamish who wrote it mentioned he wasn’t super happy with how it turned out.

I love that setting, but those mechanics. Ooof. Way too heavy. I actually meant the genre not the system. In reality I’ve been running The Sprawl but I’m looking for a narrative forward cyberpunk game that can accommodate urban fantasy.

The way this CEO operates is absolutely worthy of condemnation and viewing him through the lens of unfeeling cosmic horror is, if anything, a nicer take. But it’s fair to say that people operating at that level of wealth have become detached from and profoundly alien to normal folk.

I don’t think you’re parsing this comic fairly or engaging with its content by labeling it “edgelord violence or insults.”

Pretty much ALL of Hbomb’s substantive examples from the video are from CTRL-ALT-DEL which is like … the worst example imaginable. There’s screenshots of PA’s art, but beyond the one dumb gag about “stake me bro” he never really gets into PA’s writing. ODD, THAT. Because if you actually read Jerry Holkin’s posts, you’ll find a level of writing that puts the lie to the notion that these are idiots making cheap, derivative work. Setting aside the fact that they’ve been doing this so long that they basically defined the genre.

And as an aside, really Harris, web comic artists as targets? You’ve done it, you’ve achieved the epitome of punching down. These and other extremely sane takes from the guy that brought you an almost 2 hour long video on the goddamn Roblox “oof” sound effect.

CEO as cosmic horror is a concept with legs. This’ll spice up my next cyberpunk campaign.