You can always stop trying to distinguish between dreams and reality and just accept whatever you’re experiencing as a sort of superposition of both.

This is what it feels like to grow old.

I don’t think solid state batteries provide as much benefit in smaller devices.

That’s exactly what it feels like to me as well. Just an attempt to grab power to use for himself.

Yeah, but if the campaign was based on the belief that “Trump is the best candidate regardless of who he’s running against” there would never be a need to pivot based on the opponent changing.

Which to me indicates Trump was viewing his 2024 campaign as a grudge match between himself and Biden as opposed to viewing it as a campaign to be elected president of the United States of America.

Like, where’s the strength of conviction? The guy is flailing and it’s embarrassing.

Exactly!

If he felt “forced” to fight Joe in order to win the election it indicates that he doesn’t see himself as a candidate worthy of winning on his own merit.

He’s always the victim.

Okay, I did some stretches and I feel warmed up.

My biggest complaint is that the answer to the question “So, we are forced to spend time and money on fighting crooked Joe Biden?” is “no”.

He wasn’t forced to fight Joe Biden. Instead of attacking Joe he could’ve focused on extolling his own virtues.

I feel like reacting this way indicates that he doesn’t see himself as a candidate worthy of winning the election on his own merit.

lol, I feel like my brain is going to explode if I try to wrap my head around the logic Trump is using to get to this conclusion.

Mystery exists outside of the simple world of “good” and “bad”.

Oh my teammates definitely noticed my mistakes. I picked up someone else’s support weapon after they died and they held me at gunpoint until I figured out how to drop it. It was hilarious and I’m really glad they put up with my incompetence.

Yeah, my brother enjoys the game for the chaos. Whenever I play with him I just roleplay as a super earth zealot, that way regardless of if I’m being sweaty or not everyone gets to have fun for their own reasons.

I’m still learning the game and one of the things I think is really funny is the fact that I play it completely wrong from an “optimal gameplay” perspective. I was in a group with good players who were patient enough to show me the ropes, but I could feel them facepalming whenever I did something stupid. It’s always fun being the self aware new guy when your teammates are willing to put up with your incompetence because they recognize you’re still learning.

I always liked the ergonomics of the N64 controller. The recreation of those ergonomics using the Wiimote+nunchuk was one of my favorite things about the Wii lol

Good luck ever defining “good”.

Yeah, you’d need to be able to see Fallen Destiny in the background.

We need an open source electric car.

Exactly how old are you? Because I remember when my entire Tekken experience was locked behind a $0.25 to $0.50 microtransaction.

People willfully pay for things they enjoy. It’s a fundamental aspect of any economic system. I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time coming to grips with that.

Eh. I was being dismissive of people’s genuine concerns. I didn’t earnestly engage with the topic at hand. I was definitely in the wrong and deserved to get downvoted.

I updated a reply I made to another comment in the thread, and I figure I’ll drop it here as well.

As someone who played Payday 2 and had a ton of discussions with my friends about that game’s ever changing monetization models I feel like the ultimate conclusion I came to was “capitalism is exhausting.” And I mean that in the very literal sense that capitalism will result in the physical, mental, spiritual, and financial exhaustion of everyone who doesn’t hold capital. This is not good, but good things can come from it. As more people start to realize the system is broken more people will want to change it. So I was being dishonest, I actually do have a lot to say about video game monetization models, but generally I think capitalism is a self-correcting problem and if you want to reduce the amount of harm caused by greed the only real option you have is to consume less and convince other like minded people to consume less.

The other thing I have more to say about is Tekken 8. Not the character customization feature, but about the story mode which is possibly the best videogame story I have ever experienced. I won’t bore anyone with the details, but the story in T8 is the conclusion to a multigenerational feud between a grandfather and father, and a father and son. It is the end to what could have been an endless cycle of hate and violence. And this ending is only possible because Jin decides to face his demons, forgive himself, and forgive his enemies.

This lesson in my mind is literally the most important lesson for a person to learn, and so I’m willing to forgive the inclusion of microtransactions of it means that some kid somewhere who is struggling with accepting who they are can play this game and come to the realization and sense of peace that Jin and I did.

My dismissal of the “badness” of microtransactions was a result of a belief in the potential “goodness” of the game overall. Obviously these sorts of moral calculations are all relative, but if anyone wants to talk about this more I would love to.

Right, I understand. I was just expressing my thoughts on the article.

I don’t have a strong opinion regarding game content rating systems, except that I don’t know how to quantify how much “good” they contribute to society.

And I don’t have much to say about video game monetization models, except that companies will always try to use a model that they think provides them with the most benefit.

The most interesting thought this article made me think of was “I wonder what kind of hats I’ll be able to put on Kuma.”

Edit: I’ve been thinking about this a bit more because I do think my dismissive attitude towards microtransactions in general is alarming. My comment was dishonest and flippant.

As someone who played Payday 2 and had a ton of discussions with my friends about their ever changing monetization models I feel like the ultimate conclusion I came to was “capitalism is exhausting.” And I mean that in the very literal sense that capitalism will result in the physical, mental, spiritual, and financial exhaustion of everyone who doesn’t hold capital. This is not good, but good things can come from it. As more people start to realize the system is broken more people will want to change it. So I was being dishonest, I actually do have a lot to say about video game monetization models.

The other thing I have more to say about is Tekken 8. Not the character customization feature, but about the story mode which is possibly the best videogame story I have ever experienced. I won’t bore anyone with the details, but the story in T8 is the conclusion to a multigenerational feud between a grandfather and father, and a father and son. It is the end to what could have been an endless cycle of hate and violence. And this ending is only possible because Jin decides to face his demons, forgive himself, and forgive his enemies.

This lesson in my mind is literally the most important lesson for a person to learn, and so I’m willing to forgive the inclusion of microtransactions of it means that some kid somewhere who is struggling with accepting who they are can play this game and come to the realization and sense of peace that Jin and I did.

And if anyone wants to talk about this more I would love to.

Tekken 8 has done a good enough job with their game and character customization system that I wouldn’t mind spending some extra money for cosmetics I enjoy.