Gwardinen

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by Gwardinen

  5. Posted

    Huh, really? What about that bundled on Edge browser for Win 10? Might actually start using it for something.

     

    Edit: Alternatively, is there a Windows store app for Netflix that streams at full quality? I never really thought about using such a thing but it might make sense for that reason. 

  8. Posted

    1 hour ago, Merus said:

    I was hedging just in case someone came in with LeGuin or N. K. Jemisin because I haven't read either.

     

    I've only read the first of N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth books, but it definitely immediately falls into the X-Men trap of the "out" group being outrageously dangerous to the point you can't really blame anyone for fearing them. The oppressed people in her book can literally cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions massive enough to cause years to decades of climate change.

  11. Posted

    10 hours ago, TychoCelchuuu said:

    I know you're joking, but because @itsamoose took you seriously, it's worth pointing out that of course there could be no such phrase as "Pyrrhic failure" because that would be redundant - if it's Pyrrhic, it's already a failure.

     

    1 hour ago, Ben X said:

    I wasn't joking as such. I was saying that 'Pyrrhic victory' is not a synonym for failure. And the fact that there is no such thing as a Pyrrhic failure was part of my point - a Pyrrhic victory is a victory otherwise the phrase has no meaning.

     

    Yeah, a pyrrhic victory is definitionally not a failure, it's a victory that comes at a cost so great that it may not have been worth achieving. This isn't wordplay; it completely changes the argument about the film depending on whether you view it as a series of failures or pyrrhic victories.

     

    The clearest example I can think of for this is Poe's arc, particularly the opening battle and Leia's reaction to it. I forget her exact dialogue, but she basically says to him "yes, you succeeded, but at what cost?" He did actually achieve the goal he sought in the battle, but he lost so many people doing so that, in hindsight, it might not have been worth doing. That's a textbook pyrrhic victory. The argument would have been totally different if he'd squandered a bunch of lives only to learn the New Order had recently installed a Turbo Shield+ that made the bombing ineffective.

  14. Posted

    The multiplayer system has been little confusing, so here's the basics as I currently understand them:

    • Everyone who's online is in a "session" with other online players. You can (but don't have to) join quests being prepared or that're underway with other members of your session at the quest board.
    • You can add a passcode to your quest if you don't want anyone in your session from being able to join.
    • Being in a squad (and having that squad selected as your active squad) allows you to join a "squad session" if one exists, or create one if it doesn't. That way everyone in a squad can just choose to drop into the squad session when they login.
    • Joining a squad requires you to be invited into it by the squad leader while in a session with them (no idea why).
    • Expeditions are not joinable in multiplayer in the usual way - the person on the expedition has to first fire a flare and then they become joinable via the SOS menu by anyone who's online (not just members of your session).

     

    Hopefully once we get a decent number of people in the squad we'll just have a lightly active squad session running most of the time, so Thumbs can just casually drop in and out of quests with each other.

  15. Posted

    Hey all, I've started an Idle Thumbs squad on the PS4 version of Monster Hunter World. If you want to be invited, add me on PSN (Gwardinen). Unfortunately the interface is a bit weird and we need to be in the same online session for me to send out invites.  I'll probably keep a squad session up quite a lot while playing, so feel free to join if you're already in the squad!

  16. Posted

    A few people recommended the Orville in the Star Trek thread, and while I was initially sceptical I've ended up enjoying it a lot. It genuinely feels like a successor to TNG-era Star Trek in many ways, and it's fun to have an optimistic sci fi show about adventuring around the galaxy, running into strange problems and unknown cultures again.

     

    The caveat to this show is certainly the humour. It's Seth MacFarlane, so you probably know broadly what you're getting here and how you'll feel about it. What I'll say is that even if you don't generally like his humour, it's not overwhelming here (especially after the first couple of episodes), and is more on the benign office comedy of awkwardness side of things.

     

    Sometimes the writing is a bit on the nose, and the full force alien-species-as-allegories style doesn't necessarily hold up as well as an adult in 2018 as it did when I was a kid in the 90s, but I still genuinely recommend it for the spirit of it. It's about exploring and learning, even if it's sometimes a little pat or oversimplified. It's about a future where humanity, while flawed, is basically good. Turns out I've been wanting to imagine that again.

  17. Posted

    2 hours ago, Roderick said:

    They really went to a place there!

     

     

      Hide contents

    At first I was shocked by how almost comically the alternate universe was constructed, with the single most fascist representation of mankind you could imagine. But the way it plays out (and those super sexy uniforms) is quite interesting! I'm not sure how I feel about Doctor Whatshisname being killed so suddenly, even though he was barely a character to begin with. Did anyone else feel that the reveal that Tyler was a surgically altered Voq could've been way more effectively handled? They were clearly working towards some grand reveal there, in the scene where he and Burnham square off in her chambers, but the whole thing flounders around a bit. Should've been a goosebumps moment, but it's at once foreshadowed too much (you basically guess it either minutes or half an hour before) and then not effectively, pithily unveiled.

     

     

     

    The whole fascist Terran Empire thing has been in many mirror universe episodes across many Star Trek series, and it's never failed to seem undercooked to me. There's never any compelling reason given as to why things ended up that way - it's just a knee-jerk opposite to the tolerant, inclusive Federation. I'm bummed about the Doc too, but maybe Stamets will find a way to resurrect him with mushrooms, or just nick the mirror universe version.


    As for Tyler/Voq, it had no impact on me whatsoever. Part of that is because I'd heard the theory long before they came back from the midseason break (a bunch of fans noticed some switcheroo stuff with the credits for Voq and that kind of thing), and part of it is because, as you say, it somehow manages to be both meanderingly over-foreshadowed and then just sort of boringly revealed. I've been waiting for Voq to become interesting and relevant ever since the start of the season, and even this reintroduction has failed to achieve that.

    On the other hand the reveal at the very end of the Emperor was actually kind of cool!

     

  20. Posted

    9 hours ago, Gormongous said:

     

    And Gwardinen!

     

    I'm not nearly as dormant! I post at least once a month, and I continue to read the forums almost every day because this is my favourite community on the internet by a long stretch.

     

    I think I'm re-evaluating my thoughts on Finn in this film a bit based on some of the talk in this thread. I suspect some of you are being somewhat charitable, but there is definitely an argument that he does have a character arc. Unfortunately (and it genuinely is unfortunately because I really like John Boyega) it's not one I have any investment in. I'm not sure there's a single definitive reason why, but I simply have no investment in Finn as a character.

     

    In contrast, like many of you I quite enjoyed the Rey/Ren interactions and ended up more interested in Kylo Ren than I was in the first film.

  22. Posted

    Anyone have Bridge Crew on PC? It no longer requires VR goggles and is 50% off on Steam right now (and possibly other places too).

     

    I've tried playing via matchmaking but have run into problems with microphones, terrible audio feedback, unintelligible people and teenagers. I feel like this could be a really fun experience with some other Thumbs, so please let me know if anyone of you are up for it!

  23. Posted

    4 hours ago, Jake said:

     

    I think it was 100% her - they said she completed principal photography before she passed - but also I think they applied “digital touch up” to all of her performances, which every blockbuster seems to do to every older actor now, to smooth out their face. Maybe that wasn’t happening, but it really looked like it was. 

     

    Yeah it must have been, because I got the uncanny valley effect every time she was on screen. I would very much like this to stop being a trend, because I find it consistently distracting.

  25. Posted

    9 hours ago, Mington said:

    Fucking bayonetta 3!!!! I need to buy a switch 

     

    thank god they’re supporting the series 

     

    Yeah I thought I'd avoided the need to buy a Switch by playing Breath of the Wild on a friend's Wii U, but with this and Odyssey it's beginning the road to stacking up enough games I can't play elsewhere that I'll probably cave eventually.