Roleplayer's Off Topic Thread #38

[The Good Doctor]

3 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

But yeah, I remember looking at an IGN article that was titled: "Star Wars fans are going CRAZY EXCITED over the most cameo filled Star Wars episode ever" and I was like "This is supposed to be a good thing" 

I’ve gotten to where cameos, even the better done ones, kinda grate on my nerves.  It’s such a shallow way to generate buzz. 

[BigBossBalrog]

And it means we'll never see Jack Black as a Hutt which would have been ten times better 

[BigBossBalrog]

Well at least Disney is greenlighting more experimental stuff. 

[The Good Doctor]

2 hours ago, BigBossBalrog said:

Well at least Disney is greenlighting more experimental stuff. 

The Force is intrinsic to the universe. A… force. It’s like making a sequel to the Bible about the origin of God. There is no origin! It’s baked into existence!

Man these guys suck. 

Also, I’m convinced by now that the complete and utter humiliation and ruination of Luke Skywalker was just a straight up objective for Disney. What did he accomplish?

Defeat the Empire? Nope. They come back in a few years and he does nothing about it. 

Defeat the Sith? Nope. "Somehow Palpatine returned". Rey finished that job.

Rebuilt the Jedi? He failed his students and they died. And apparently Rey will soon be the one who actually does it.

Stop Thrawn? That’s going to Ahsoka. 

Even the Death Star gets rebuilt bigger and better and blows up five more planets. Poe stops that.

Luke fails at everything, gets really mopey about it, runs away and leaves his sister to deal with the mess, and then dies like a bitch. 

[Centurion]

4 hours ago, BigBossBalrog said:

Disney announced three Star Wars films; one of them is going to be a Rey standalone film. 

You know what would be cool; some mushroom shamba/enlightenment film that has her going on this vision-quest through all these spiritual trials that redeem her character to some extent...but it's probably going to be a fan-service laden shitfest 

Eh…..

[Centurion]

I could care less about Disney Star Wars. It’s just bad juju. I am looking forward to Ahsoka tho, because I like her character and want to see more of her. Yes I think she should have died to Vader, but she didn’t and all of her appearances after haven’t been awful and they’ve actually been pretty good so I’m for it

[The Good Doctor]

Oh yeah, @BigBossBalrog, on the topic of mistreated franchises, I recently learned that CW’s Batwoman had a higher viewer retention rate with 20 episodes than Amazon’s Rings of Power did with 8.

[The Good Doctor]

Wish we could get a series about those badass droid lancers from the 2003 show. 

[BigBossBalrog]

1 hour ago, The Good Doctor said:

Oh yeah, @BigBossBalrog, on the topic of mistreated franchises, I recently learned that CW’s Batwoman had a higher viewer retention rate with 20 episodes than Amazon’s Rings of Power did with 8.

There latest trash heap Arkham Knights did super well in ratings for its first season; so I guess people just like CW dogshit for it's campy insanity 

[The Good Doctor]

12 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

There latest trash heap Arkham Knights did super well in ratings for its first season; so I guess people just like CW dogshit for it's campy insanity 

Batwoman didn’t do well. But it retaining a bigger % of its viewers than a show set in Middle Earth with over twice the episodes is hysterical.  

I’m so proud of my girl.

[Celan]

On 4/6/2023 at 7:58 PM, The Good Doctor said:

Don’t have good memory of North Carolina. I haven’t been there for more than a few days.

Can't recommend NC. The legislature has had a supermajority most of the time I've been here and they can't even cough up constitutional carry or any tax breaks. They're turning all the highways to toll roads and jacking up property taxes. Too many Yankees moving in driving up the housing costs. The tax situation is such that even some businesses are pulling out in favor of other southern states.

I would say that Tennessee or Missouri might be better bets. 

[The Good Doctor]

I finished TLoU. Overall, I’d say it’s okay. Far better than most of the schlock getting made these days, but still a little overhyped. Feels weird that this had the biggest opening of any HBO show ever, considering how fantastic some of their others have been. Rome, Deadwood, True Detective, Sopranos, House of the Dragon, and (Season 1 of) Game of Thrones were much stronger television.

 

The sets and visuals were incredible, with lots of practical effects and on-site filming that makes it seem really visceral and real. Like the winter segments were clearly filmed outdoors in the snow, and you can clearly see how cold the actors are, with their faces turning pink and their breath being visible. Little things like that that you don’t always notice is missing from other stuff, but it goes a long way when you notice it’s there. The infected looked excellent as well.

The action was good. Every confrontation felt tense. It never felt like TWD where the heroes are superhuman, and a single zombie or a guy with a gun could always feel like a threat.

Although I didn’t like how the zombies basically exited the show around the mid-point. I don’t think we see a single one after episode 5 except in two flashbacks. Makes the need for a cure feel even less important, considering the protagonists crossed the entire country and only had one real encounter with them after Boston.

Biggest negative is that I don’t feel like the characters or their connections were as strong as their game counterparts. They were decent enough for a 9 episode tv season, but it really felt like a lot of the most important development got rushed while relatively minor things were given far too much time. Especially with Ellie, who never really seemed to be all that reliant on Joel, defied him constantly, and just seemed to view him more as a helpful buddy than a father, which in turn made his fatherly obsession for her later on come across as a little one-sided and even slightly uncomfortable. 

You could argue that a 20 hour game would obviously have more fleshed out characters than a 10 hour show, but I don’t think that’s a good enough excuse. Joel and Ellie were the heart of the story, but two whole episodes had nothing to do with them, while it wasn’t until episode 4 that they even really started to bond. In the end, it felt like half the season went into bonding them, and that a lot of time was wasted on things that were less important (like the details of how the cannibal and Kansas City rebel groups were living, what Bill and Frank’s lives were like, and Ellie’s stretched out mall adventure).

Not really a dig at the show’s quality so much as my own personal taste, but I was not nearly as big a fan of how much of a softy they made Joel compared to the game, or how Ellie pretty much started as a highly-competent "leader" without as much room for development. I still liked them, but I preferred their game counterparts.

Anyway, next up, I’m finally gonna watch Andor. 

[BigBossBalrog]

Mario apparently is the biggest opening of any animated movie ever too (I think its up to 400 million now); there's going to be a flood gate of video game adaptions 

[The Good Doctor]

35 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

there's going to be a flood gate of video game adaptions 

With the superhero era seemingly fading out, I think this will be the next big thing for movies and TV for a good long while. Hopefully they don’t ruin it.

[BigBossBalrog]

BTW; recently added this to my collection; Been watching the first season and wow; it's crazy how much good writing elevates cheap flying saucers and alien suits  

[TheCzarsHussar]

24 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

BTW; recently added this to my collection; Been watching the first season and wow; it's crazy how much good writing elevates cheap flying saucers and alien suits  

My favorite episode is The Old Man in the Cave. It has such a heavy Fallout vibe going to it, hell just change the date from 1973 to 2087 and it'd be seemless

[BigBossBalrog]

4 minutes ago, TheCzarsHussar said:

My favorite episode is The Old Man in the Cave. It has such a heavy Fallout vibe going to it, hell just change the date from 1973 to 2087 and it'd be seemless

There's a ton of Fallouty stuff, I think it's cause of how much the games took from pulpy American Sci fi horror 

[Centurion]

@The Good Doctor I know you are tired of the enclave, but hear me out. What is Fallout 3 let you side with Colonel Autumn. I’ve watched a couple videos, looked at the dialogue, etc, and Autumn wasn’t really the genocidal idiot that Eden was. He wasn’t the purifier so that he and the Enclave can extert control over the DC Wasteland by controlling the water supply. I’m not saying he was a good guy or that the enclave are an evil faction, but like it would’ve been interesting.

[The Good Doctor]

45 minutes ago, Centurion said:

@The Good Doctor I know you are tired of the enclave, but hear me out. What is Fallout 3 let you side with Colonel Autumn. I’ve watched a couple videos, looked at the dialogue, etc, and Autumn wasn’t really the genocidal idiot that Eden was. He wasn’t the purifier so that he and the Enclave can extert control over the DC Wasteland by controlling the water supply. I’m not saying he was a good guy or that the enclave are an evil faction, but like it would’ve been interesting.

Yeah, he was planning to betray Eden and probably would’ve succeeded if we hadn’t thrown a wrench in things first.

I would’ve much preferred the game’s big choice to be deciding whether to side with the BoS or Autumn’s Enclave, with poisoning the water being an alternate evil ending.

Would probably require the Enclave to bring more to the table in order to reasonably motivate one to side with their father’s killers over the saintly Brotherhood, though.

[BigBossBalrog]

It brought us these badasses (I honestly think this is the coolest power armor design Beth has ever done) 

[TheCzarsHussar]

The cross dressing elf telling me about the alchemist being burned at the stake, who summoned fiery words in the sky in his dying moments.

Me: 'I wonder what cryptic message he left in the-'

Radovid sucks flaccid cock

Me: 'Amazing game.'

[The Good Doctor]

8 minutes ago, TheCzarsHussar said:

The cross dressing elf telling me about the alchemist being burned at the stake, who summoned fiery words in the sky in his dying moments.

Me: 'I wonder what cryptic message he left in the-'

Radovid sucks flaccid cock

Me: 'Amazing game.'

 

[TheCzarsHussar]

What order should I do the main Novigrad quests in? I'm worried I'd sequence break the hell out of things.

[Centurion]

13 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

Yeah, he was planning to betray Eden and probably would’ve succeeded if we hadn’t thrown a wrench in things first.

I would’ve much preferred the game’s big choice to be deciding whether to side with the BoS or Autumn’s Enclave, with poisoning the water being an alternate evil ending.

Would probably require the Enclave to bring more to the table in order to reasonably motivate one to side with their father’s killers over the saintly Brotherhood, though.

Honestly idk what else they could’ve done to make the enclave more appealing honestly. Maybe they could’ve pulled the move where the enclave doesn’t attack you on sight lmao. Make them humanocentric and only attack ghouls and mutants on sight meanwhile fighting the BoS and using propaganda like they already do. Make the BoS focus on the DC ruins while the enclave focuses on the outer wasteland until act of the MQ 

[The Good Doctor]

2 hours ago, Centurion said:

Maybe they could’ve pulled the move where the enclave doesn’t attack you on sight lmao.

Definitely. Make it like Caesar’s Legion where they start out neutral but become hostile after you either attack them or become known for siding with their enemies.

2 hours ago, Centurion said:

Make them humanocentric and only attack ghouls and mutants on sight meanwhile fighting the BoS and using propaganda like they already do.

Would be cool if the game actually played with the philosophical differences between the factions like in New Vegas. Give Lyons, Autumn, and Eden dialogue to explain their points of view and the worlds they hope to create.

 

Lyons is the idealist humanitarian with no ambitions to govern or rule. He tries to see the good in people and trusts the natives to develop on their own with the BoS hanging around to deal with threats, preserve information and technology, and keep the clean water flowing. Downside being that many of the natives are violent raiders and most of the remainder have regressed significantly in terms of education and technology, so his trust in them may be a little misplaced. The BoS will try to help by guiding and teaching what they can, but it is a slow and thankless process that Lyons knows he will not live to see the fruits of. 

Autumn is more cynical about the wastelander natives, seeing them as sad, regressed barbarians who need the Enclave to bring order into their lives. As a lifelong military officer, his idea of order would be more akin to a martial law than the traditional Old World American government. Where Lyons might trust the natives too much, Autumn wouldn’t trust them at all, his thinking being that it will take generations of strict Enclave rule for the people to outgrow their savagery. But outgrow it they will. The firm hand of the Enclave would force order and progress.

Eden would stand for the true American system as intended by the Founding Fathers, with none of the BS that it developed into before the war, no greedy corrupt politicians, no government-backed mega corporations, and no international enemies. A second attempt at the great American experiment, but this time done right. Problem is, his logic matrices have concluded that this can only be achieved by wiping the slate clean of all mutants, raiders, and "dissident squatters" like the BoS and Rivet City who have tried to establish their own "rogue countries" on American soil. And so he plans to poison the water with his modified FEV, kill almost everyone, and signal an "all call" to vaults across the East, ordering any surviving residents to prepare for an Enclave dispatch to arrive at their locations and escort them to D.C. so that they can become the first citizens of the New United States and replace the thousands of natives that he killed.

Additionally, give an alternate 4th option where you side with the Brotherhood and everything plays out the same, except you assist the Outcasts in overthrowing Lyons and restoring the Codex. This results in a similar ending to the Lyons one, except after defeating the Enclave, the BoS will disassociate themselves from the natives, leaving Project Purity to be run exclusively by Rivet City while they focus their efforts entirely on R&D for the trove of Enclave tech that they have secured. They will not go out of their way to deal with raiders or mutants unless they pose a direct threat to the BoS or possess advanced technology, in which case they will be destroyed with extreme prejudice.