Maybe it’s confirmation bias on my part, and obviously the following is very subjective… but in my opinion there is a significant difference between a adapted series the showrunners care (and like) the material, and where they are just using it as a vehicle.

It’s part of the reason you adapt a book, comic etc in the first place. You inherit its fan base. There are folks who’ll watch it because of what it is, and they want it to succeed; they have favorite characters, arcs, badass moments, whatever they’d love to see depicted. It can elevate the series’ quality even further than it has a right to, just because of that synergy.

For example Ahsoka is not perfect, but damn if you can’t tell the folks who made it liked the cast of characters and their history. They keep making references to their past. It’s written to evolve and progress their storylines, and they’ve definitely made changes compared to Rebels, but those are expected both because it’s set in the future and the different cadence of a live-action work versus an animated series.

Then (and apologies to anyone who likes those, this is just my personal opinion!) I watched Wheel of Time or The Witcher… man. I can’t say the same thing. I don’t know the showrunners liked the original material much at all. They’re using it to tell some other kind of story kind of similar but with different beats, different directions, just… something else.

If they had the talent to write something of their own, and I’m sure they do, just do that, dammit. If it’s good enough then maybe I’ll be a fan of your original new work too.

Anyway. Ahsoka. It’s fun!

@Vulgar-Boy said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

@Pavel Tell that to my Steam deck. Maybe once they apply the patch it totals out to 130g, but the Deck did not want to even try downloading the patch.

I deleted a bunch of Switch roms and put it on my SD card, which ran at around ten thousand degrees during install, but it seems to be good now.

With the disclaimer I don’t have a Steam Deck, my understanding from reading threads on Reddit is basically the hardware should let previous generation games to run well, but there are no promises for triple-A titles tuned for modern machines.

Most likely the next iteration of the platform will run BG3 great but it will struggle with whatever comes out next. A sacrifice of performance on the altar of mobility.

My twenties back.

When I think of a MUSH I think of the fun I used to have, the crowds I used to play with, the themes I enjoyed.

What I am probably really expecting, though, is to still be the person I was at the time with that kind of free time in my hands, the novelty of doing this new thing, and a lack of cynicism which I likely no longer possess.

@Meg said in Baldur’s Gate 3:

also hot take, but playing this game with friends is kind of butt. much funner as a solo game. idk who sold this as a multiplayer game but it’s just not-- fun that way.

Huh. I didn’t even realize BG3 had a multiplayer mode. I’ll need to read up on it.

@Cobalt I am really sorry this happened to you. We only crossed paths over the years sporadically but I still had no idea. I don’t know what to say. I am glad you are in a better place now.

The early years of this hobby were absolutely wild. Everyone was discovering what being ‘online’ meant; games were spawning under every rock and there was no supervision, no precedents or other people’s mistakes to learn from, unchecked anonymity for predators and very few consequences for truly vile behavior.

@Polk said in Comic Games Are Fun!:

Quitting a game is HARD. If you’re the kind of person who’s on a lot, having that window there, talking to people, thinking about the game, working on your character(s), playing, it becomes a part of your life.

Also, aside from the sunk costs factor over your character’s achievements, there is also the cold reality that just because you have had enough, and you want to leave, that doesn’t mean your friends are quite there yet.

So you’re also dealing with fear of missing out and the social exclusion from your tribe of buddies. Hell even if they were to leave (and that’s never a given) who’s to say they’d all go to the same game, or that your new PCs would be associated again?

Once you’re gone, all that is gone too.

@junipersky said in Comic Games Are Fun!:

@Prototart said in Comic Games Are Fun!:

You are politely shown to the door.
Thank you for visiting.
Please return soon.

Someone needs to work on this message. I’m getting mixed signals.

“Please leave immediately. We love you.”

I think it’s pretty clear!

@GF said in TV series, news, recommendations:

I’m probably the weirdo here, but I didn’t want to see more nostalgia. I mean, TNG already had two finales, decades before this new show was ever announced. How many finales does a show need? I wanted new stories and new adventures.

We’re all weirdos here.

Yeah that’s a valid point of view. We can want different things!

My ‘counterpoint’ doesn’t invalidate yours either - if we’re not being nostalgic why not make an original series with different characters instead of reusing Picard, Seven, etc in the first place? But that’s what other Star Trek shows get to do.

I liked having one that looked back and gave me my childhood/early adulthood favorite characters back for a while longer, while the actors are still (mostly ) able to pull it off…

@Rucket said in TV series, news, recommendations:

Picard S3 really is the nostalgia bomb that the show should have been all along. I’m not going to say the plot is the most amazing or anything, but individual character moments to bring the old TNG people together and kind of give some characters resolutions they should have had long ago… that shit has been stellar.

The nostalgia really gets me.

I am kinda shocked they didn’t lean right into it from the start. I don’t and never cared too much for most of the new characters they’ve introduced - and to be clear, that’s not because they weren’t interesting or anything like that.

But I wanted to see Deanna, Riker, Worf and the gang get into debates with Data about what it means to be human again. Maybe play some classical music that’s somehow integral to the plot. Try to engineer the gismo that saves the day. Understand an unfamiliar culture instead of getting in there to fire their phasers at some enemy.

You know, Star Trek shit.

And since in S3 they are giving this to me, I am a happy person.

The third season of The Mandalorian is seriously good.

I love what they did with the show right when I’d expect it to dip in quality or rehash the same themes - but no. It’s stepped up the world-building big time, and constructed a really engaging outlook on what the galaxy ruled by a fledgling New Federation - as well as its parts which are not - are like, and what they feel like.

It’s also done a great job balancing the politics and long-view of where things are going with the shorter adventures those shellheads get to have while they’re at it. Really good stuff.

Also, the guest stars!

@Third-Eye I also think, assuming this does well at the box office - which it definitely seems to be - then that success opens the door for different ‘kinds’ of movies. Same as RPGs themselves can.

So while this was an adventurous, light-hearted movie in its heart there’s no reason they can’t have other parties unrelated to it with grittier plots set in the Forgotten Realms, or which explore different corners of Faerun.

Somewhere there’s a Hasbro exec with dollar-sign-eyes smiling like a fool at the prospect.

Who else has watched the Dungeons and Dragons movie?

Who else loved it? It was funnier and better-paced than it had a right to be! Also I thought they utilized (and partially made fun of) many D&D tropes while they were at it. Great chemistry between the group members, too.

Fuck Keystone Hero in WoW, that’s my achievement for this season.

@Tez The spoiler tag button doesn’t seem to work. I deleted the post instead.

@Solstice Challenge accepted.

I know this stuff happens. I have been told it does, and I believe it. Even so, as a guy-who-games, I’m still shocked each time I see how these things unfold even though - as I understand - are not even rare.

They just never happen to me.

https://i.redd.it/dwqabggr08na1.png

Holy shit dude, what is wrong with you.