Canine Blues Arooo posted:

Here's the thing about the ME:A flip flop.

The original Mass Effect Trilogy is looked upon fondly. The games were good. The great majority of people agree that these games are model of effective world-building and character development and the game was very strong because of it. There are certainly pieces of the trilogy that maybe aren't *great*, but what it did well was so strong that things like 'meh' combat at time was nothing but a tiny mark against it. It's important to remember that the writing, the world and the characters are what carried this series and on the back of three games were this was the focus of excellence, they have earned this place where people will give them the benefit of the doubt...until proven wrong of course.

Well, here we are a week out of release, and we have something tangible to touch and the writing doesn't look so hot. If the writing isn't great, then it puts those other things that rely on good writing in jeopardy. We assumed the writing would be at least good because it was really good in the original trilogy. This is called 'evidence'! There was evidence to suggest that ME:A's writing would be strong because the series had good writing in the past. Well, now there is a lot more evidence to suggest that maybe ME:A's writing is actually quite bad. Because of this new evidence, a lot of people are reconsidering their position on the game.

In review:

Past evidence says ME:A will probably be good = People think ME:A will be good.
New evidence suggests that ME:A might not be good = People think ME:A might not be good.

The theme here is Evidence.

See, rational people use evidence to help form opinions. So, when people flip-flopped on ME:A, it's because the evidence changed. That's what it means to be rational.

With Star Citizen, we actually saw a similar thing. Star Citizen was announced and people were excited for it. They extended the benefit of doubt to Croberts and friends and were willing to hand over some cash because there wasn't yet any really strong evidence to suggest it's going to crash and burn. Then, the crazy started piling on. An insane scope. Ship pricing. A lot of promises and not a lot of content over a long period of time. Hyping of tech that's been figured out 10 years previous and still didn't work quite right. Timelines that seem to get extended into eternity. All these things and more are pieces of evidence that suggest that maybe this isn't the dream project people original hoped it would be. It kinda suggested that it might be a train wreck and as more and more of that kind of evidence got piled on, people started doing a rational thing: They asked for refunds. They stopped supporting the game. They lost faith in the project, because there was now a lot of evidence to suggest that CIG isn't going to deliver.

Now, if you aren't a fan of evidence, we have name for you: True Believer.

If you think the Earth is flat, or that chemtrails are evil, or that fluoride is a mind-controlling drug planted in our water by the government, or that Star Citizen will deliver on anything resembling the scope that was promised, then you are a True Believer. You have earned such a label because despite overwhelming evidence, you choose to close your ears and eyes and refuse to acknowledge that evidence, or claim it was placed there by an antagonistic third party, or do mental gymnastics of ever-increasing complexity to prevent the shattering the forgone conclusion your brain has submitted as reality despite that evidence.

So in this really boring post, I hope there is one important take-away: Reconsidering ME:A's potential is a thing a rational human would do. Supporting Star Citizen in TYooL 2017 is a thing an irrational person would do.

most important part of post -- Tax:

MilesK posted:

I've never played a Mass Effect game, but to me the animations look pretty funny. Can I enjoy it as a comedy or is it a serious thing, like the Wing Commander movie?

TrustmeImLegit posted:

They aren't allegations. Several of the top people went to jail for fraud. Chris got away. There was no way as one of the top 3 exec producers for these movies that he didn't know they only had 20% of the budget they should have.

quote:

here is one thing: the money flow... from the vip to the rising star (full amount), rs to ascendant pictures (or other inhouse) 20 %, rest over some other points (for the german tax auhorities) straight to a bank, getting fixed deposit for 10 years. This included an intercompany loan for the safe bed amount, since cr could / would not be able to pay it.
according to some investors, all 3 money movements took place in the same time, so its clear that this was a fixed deal.
cr knows what he does

XK posted:

The investment scheme story still needs work. I'd make an attempt at writing up the easy version myself, but I think I still don't quite get the machinations involved.

TheAgent posted:

investment scams like this are hard to detail, mostly because the scammers make the money very difficult to track

quote:

Affinity fraud almost always involves either a fake investment or an investment where the fraudster lies about important details (such as the risk of loss, the track record of the investment, or the background of the promoter of the scheme)

Fraudsters who carry out affinity scams frequently are (or pretend to be) members of the group they are trying to defraud

neonbregna posted:

Game is actually cool and good though

TheAgent posted:

its already downloaded and I'm gonna play it tomorrow but I have a weird feeling that
its been more than 600 years and its been like 6b years or whatever and you're fighting the last remnants of mankind or something and all the vaults are just old human tech
also I laugh about the animation I can still enjoy it if its good

Daztek posted:

http://i.imgur.com/YQ0ZuH9.gifv

TheAgent posted:

its already downloaded and I'm gonna play it tomorrow but I have a weird feeling that
its been more than 600 years and its been like 6b years or whatever and you're fighting the last remnants of mankind or something and all the vaults are just old human tech
also I laugh about the animation I can still enjoy it if its good

Daztek posted:

http://i.imgur.com/YQ0ZuH9.gifv

RottenK posted:

is star citizen still a worthless scam or are they finally making some sort of a game worth caring about out of fear of their cultist fanbase

RottenK posted:

is star citizen still a worthless scam or are they finally making some sort of a game worth caring about out of fear of their cultist fanbase

Decrepus posted:

Remember when goons thought that CIG's operating costs were 300 billion dollars per month.

Mirificus posted:

Mirificus posted:

Spatial posted:

Speaking of scams, isn't one of Kickstarter's biggest problems that companies will take out high interest short-term loans to pad the funding number and create media attention? Then when the campaign ends and development starts, they run out of money shockingly fast because in reality they only had half the amount they claimed, and backers were only covering interest on the loans plus a small amount of funding.

Very scummy. This means that for many Kickstarters the funding amount is fake. Presumably the higher tier backer rewards too.

Now just imagine what you could do if you didn't even have the accountability of Kickstarter and ran the funding tracker yourself!

Virtual Captain posted:

RSI forums too. Whats left of them I guess. Thought they were shutting down.


-link-

Mirificus posted:

XK posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpUGzAhWYt8

XK posted:

I run Linux on my everyday desktop for the last decade. Let me check.

Oh, none of them. I guess that's why I bought a PS4.