Maelstrom

nerf bayo and I will applaud.

Yeah, I just read that in an article. And that the Beta was pretty much the full game. I think the only thing it didn't have was the full competitive thing available. So there's just the few maps and the few game modes that pretty much play the same. And with no storymode... it's like they're all fighting each other for no reason. There is no goal except for a really short, clunky shoot 'em up.

"Let your anger be as a monkey in a pinata, hiding with the candy hoping the kids don't break through with the stick." - Kung Pow

I think I blame the mainstream hype and excitement for this game that people have in exclaiming that this is a great game already and somehow thing it offers more than battleborn. The only thing overwatch has on battleborn is the way they've presented the character backstories and cutscenes. They're done extremely well. But you know what, none of that translates into the gameplay at all. In the beta, you could unlock one-liners for characters and unlock poses and costume colors... but that's kinda it as far as personality for the characters while in game. The one liners are kind of like a taunt that you can set from a selection of others you unlock from random loot box drops. The poses you get for you character you see only at the end of the match for 5 seconds, and only if you win. And even then, they're scrunched together like the stereotypical sports team photo. In battleborn, every different taunt you unlock has more than one audio dialogue to go with it, adding variety to it every time you use it. When enemy characters are spotted as you move across the map, each character calls out that they see enemies and even have special callouts for specific enemies. For example, I wouln't know Genji had anything to do with the archer if I hadn't seen that cool ass video. They don't say or do a damn thing if they run into each other in battle. But in Battleborn... well, take Marquis. He can spot the enemy as say "Look, the unwashed masses!" or "It's the financially destitute!". If he spots an enemy Isic, he may sometimes say "Us crazy robots should stick together!" or "There's my personal hero, or if he kills a phoebe, he can go a little bit of spiel about having conflicted emotions because by story she is the daughter of his former employer. Or upon killing Rath, he'll make fun of him, saying something isn't there some emo poetry he could be crying into his pillows about." An Oscar Mike might see an enemy Oscar Mike on the field and say he's having an identity crisis (he's a clone trooper like in starwars and there is an entire planet of clones like him). Hell, there's even special character dialogue in story missions based on who you choose to play as. There are lots of nice videos and cinematics for the lore and story and ads for the characters in overwatch... but none of that is in the game so far. And I get the feeling that they'll have specific cutscenes for story missions when the full game comes out but that'll be it. Even the basic units in starcraft games had more character in their varying selection and action dialogue than these Overwatch characters. The beta had better be just a beta, because it is an incredibly bare bones beta, with only short, unsatisfying matches with no actual character to it. As I heard Godot put it, Overwatch characters feel and are treated more like a different weapon loadout than they are characters. So when I hear people are saying Overwatch is clearly better, I have to tell them their fanboyism is showing and it ain't pretty.

I tend to avoid capture a bit because the PvP in that is so direct and if you have teammates who don't know how stay and support in a fight instead of running or always just doing their own thing, it's a lot harder to carry in that mode than in the others. Edit: Also Jory, have look at this dingus. This guy was in lobby with a WF title. But I picked him first. WF is not nearly as simple and easy to use as OM. And he got outperformed not only by everyone else on the team as an OM, the entire enemy team except for 1 out-performed him. Keep in mind that our team got 33 cumulative kills and they had 9 total. And they still did better than him.

I'm not really enamored of the style, but the armored medic aroused my interest.

Because maybe it deserves its own topic and I shouldn't double-post or edit so much in the Quotes thread. All books, whether fiction or non-fiction, are meant to inform. Even the crude, the joking, and the lighthearted entertaining ones have some sort of message or lesson to share. And sometimes, the authors and editors manage to find interesting or eloquent ways to express things. This is the place to share what you have come across. The rest of this post is reserved for me to go back through places like the quotebook to transcribe some of those quotes here and hunt for the bookmarks in my collections. So. Every now and then check here for more quotes being edited in at later dates. Other than that reminder, feel free to add your own explanation of events and context along with your chosen quotes.

Corrin is way too low in that list. Rob and Ike are too low.

There isn't much variety to the gameplay yet, sadly enough. there's really only one way to lay each character, which really only changes very slight based on whether you are attacking or defending. Most everyone dies quickly, so after very brief moments of action, it's very dead- either as you wait to respawn or you wait for the other team to respawn. For a shooter, movement is very slow. Like the quick deaths, it means it takes that much longer between action sessions. I get that it adds value to mobility specials on characters, but it's not really a good action shooter if the fastest most characters can 'go is Sunday stroll through tar'. Character imbalances are pretty obvious so far too. There are a lot of characters that never see use or any decent amount of success. There's a bunch of variety for variety's sake, but the balance was never looked at properly. I should have expected a company that is used to making games where you point and click/press a button for actions and moves to make a shooter that thinks only snipers aim down sights. It feels so bad. It's supposed to be a first person shooter but it feels more like a slow, third person shooter. Like MGS, but that was purposely done to make the shooting feel bad and encourage you to sneak around instead. This looks and feels like it was made primarily for pc and mice. That's the only time this design choice would make sense because -point and click- it wouldn't matter. Explosions/AoE damage. They're done pretty terribly in this game. Explosions like Soldier 76 and Zarya's secondary attacks have neither the splash nor the damage they should have. Visual effects are such that you actually can't see or tell the damage radius at all so you have to pay close attention to foe health bars to see if any part of it hit or not. They both have the trade off of being difficult to aim while traveling slower, without the benefits of either noteworthy damage or damage reach. And the reason to that is the terribly slow speed of everyone's movement. In any other shooter, if your character moved that slow, it would get eaten up by blasts and explosions because they wouldn't be able to escape them. They would be tanks and have ways of blocking or mitigating it. So in this game, explosive shots have the incredibly explosive damage radius of two feet. Just terrible game design, really. Your own health meter is a little too small and out of the way to see clearly, especially in a firefight, when such information is incredibly to decisions such as pushing ahead or peeling off to heal. Also, the absolute lack of stagger or decent damage effect is weird to get used to. It can he hard to tell if I got hit or it really did miss. Other times shit flies straight at me and I'm sure it hit me, so I have to specifically look down to my health as see if anything happened and half the time nothing has. So, characters I played and did well with: Soldier76 Zarya D. Va So yeah, a lot of design choices and mistakes that prove how new the devs are to fps's.

I'm not a wine drinker either. Supposedly there is a difference between dry wine and other wine. I've tried the dry wine, apparently. It tastes bad and dies out your mouth. Hence the 'dry' part, I'd imagine. It is stronger than the other variety of wine, but it sure as hell isn't strong enough to make up for the poor taste. I didn't used to like energy drinks before. I'd only tried red bull. Then I joined the army and my buddies had me try Monster. A significantly improved taste. And chemically effective. For a while at my first duty station, monsters kept me up, going, and alive. But that was after spending a year there, then 9 months deployed, and then coming back to a situation where it really helped. The taste is definitely on the strong, citric side but I wouldn't call it bad. I've tried coffee multiple times in several different forms and could not make myself like it or excuse the taste.

I'm down for castrating donald trump supporters, but what real, rational explanation would you give for trampling on people's rights to believe and/or choose whatever they wish? What does it take to be considered criminal, insane, etc? Actions and beliefs are two separate things. Justification is a tricky business. If it wasn't, racism would either not be a thing anymore or it would be THE thing. Even if you trust yourself to make the right decisions if given ultimate power, how would your successor be chosen and theirs after that in such a way that the answer is clear? Would you simply appoint someone and trust their judgement and continually trust whoever they chose beyond them? Or do you leave specific qualifications behind you. Does that make you a tyrant or a person who strictly listens to the people you govern? Because doesn't the consideratopm of others make you fit to the rule the masses? And what about those times when you feel the masses are being incredibly stupid, such as liking and accepting music by Justin Bieber? seriously, wtf, the dude is a douchebag. But SAO is perfect in every way, you peons. because listening to the masses makes you a democratic/republic leader, even if it is stupid, and forcing beliefs on others, despite the masses, makes you an inconsiderate a-hole dictator with no thought for the happiness and well-being of the masses. because what they want is always well thought out and in their best interests. kappa These people have the freedom to listen to and believe what they want to, and act upon this as they choose, barring certain basic rules against killing for no reason, monopolies, etc. To preserve freedom for yourself, you must preserve it for it for others too, whether you agree with it or not. How often has the masses been correct about a thing? How often have they not? Again, I say unto you whippersnappers... you don't truly understand what it means to have freedom, to preserve it, or to disregard it. Few of you have ever thought... what if you were wrong, and what it would take for the body of people you are ruling, to make you see you are wrong. How do you define the balance. To yourself and to others? Power. Responsibility. Ethics. It is all incredibly complicated.

Double post, but I believe the import of this passage to be relevant and worth another post to bring it attention. "What is the true source of magic? Is one born with it in the blood, as some dogs are born to follow a scent while others are best at herding sheep? Or is it a thing that may be won by any with the determination to learn? Or rather are magics inherent to the stones and waters and earths of the world, so that a child imbibes abilities with the water he drinks or the air he breathes? I ask these questions with no concept of how to discover the answers. Did we know the source, could a wizard of great power be deliberately created by one desiring to do so? Could one breed for magic in a child as one breeds a horse for strength or speed? Or select a babe, and begin instruction before the child could even speak? Or build one's house where one might tap the magic where the earth is richest with it? These questions frighten me that I have almost no desire to pursue the answers, save that if I do not, another may."

tbh, that's all the experience you need. All coffee has the same commonality to it. Like smoking, it's a pretty common habit but it's also pretty damn disgusting.

Except that tea is bitter dirt water also, unless copious amounts of sugar is included. Turd vs turd, tea is clearly the best turd, but that is nothing worth talking about.

You have not followed my train of thought because you haven't really thought through the implications and complications of breeding, genetics, etc. Dog breeding is essentially eugenics in a nutshell: specifically choosing what traits to pass down in a conscientious attempt to make the offspring better for a specific purpose. Fact: many dog breeds, if not most, are plagued with diseases, most of which are genetic in nature. Inbreeding, etc. Clearly, breeding and eugenics can be far more subjective than objective. Sickle cell patients are far more resistant to certain diseases than normal people but it has its own downfalls. Don't you think something a person designed by another could have its own inadvertent downfalls? Have you ever seen the movie Gattaga? Would you willingly and knowingly design the future of humanity to be necessarily susceptible to certain diseases? Did you decide it was worth that risk? Did someone else? What qualifies them to make that decision? When in comes to humanity, what defines a good person, a strong person, a gentle person, a wise person, etc? How much of that is in their genes? How much of that is in the environment of their raising? As a person given leadership, how do you recognize these traits in other persons? You have your own ideas and ideals. Each and every other person has theirs. Who decides who is more correct? How often have we seen an imbalance in people? Socially retarded but scientifically exceptional? And vice versa? Random chance and diversity goes hand in hand. How much do we have to learn before we can decide empirically what are the best and worst genes to have? Hell, I recently saw a movie trailer that hints at this conundrum. It is called The Accountant. Define normal. Define advantageous. Is it absolute or circumstantial? How do you feel about replacing your organic limbs or organs for artificial ones? How much advantage would they need to have for you to consider them. What kind of inherent weaknesses or limitations would they have? If you replace organic mechanisms and senses for mechanical ones, how much importance does genetics have left now? There are a lot of important questions to be asked, to include those I have and have not thought to ask. Do you really think you've thought of everything, every time? Have you never had an expectation come out wrong? There are few absolutes and certainties in life or nature. I highly doubt you have thought of them all. I highly doubt everyone would deem you qualified to make that decision for yourself, much less for anyone else, or everyone else. So many desire power. So few truly understand the kind of responsibility it entails. Or what it would mean to discard that responsibility entirely.

Boobs. /endtopic

I agree. Coffee is dirt water that tastes terrible and bitter. In America, all coffee is filter, whether it is black or not. The grounds would only work to make coffee more bitter and be annoyingly stuck between customer's teeth. Even when it is sweetened to tasted like hot chocolate, it still has that terrible, bitter aftertaste. I drink alcohol, so it is no strange notion to me to drink something for the effects as opposed to the taste. Coffee is not only terrible in taste, but weak in effect as far as caffeination goes. Energy drinks and tea are far more preferable, in an exponential sort of way.