Hemingway To Go! posted:

Why is that question a thing.
We see nazgul riding demondragons. It's hard to miss.

Max Wilco posted:

From what I remember, quite a few people/shows who were on the Escapist at the time jumped ship right after this guy came on and said this (though the only two I remember are I Hit It With My Axe and Loading Ready Run)

As far as the new Escapist goes, I think trying to steer clear of politics will be a good thing. You might say, "Max, you brain-dead sadsack, it's impossible to be completely apolitical." That's true, but I think while you can point at content and say that it's political in some way, it might not be something that's not hitting on current events or hot-button issues.

Like, someone could write a feature on, I dunno, Ogre Battle or something, discussing the background of the game's development, and the real-world history the developer took inspiration from. It would certainly be political, but depending on the presentation and content, it wouldn't necessarily cause a commotion. Conversely, if someone drafted an article with the subject, "Is Dynasty Warriors' Dong Zhuo the Three Kingdoms version of Trump?", it probably wouldn't make it past the editor.

Then again, if MovieBob's joining up, maybe it'll make a total 180° turn from old-Escapist and turn into a worse version of something like ResetEra.
https://twitter.com/RespectElves/status/1022383529299042304

Puppy Time posted:

I wonder what the Venn diagram looks like of that argument and "How DARE they change She-Ra/Thundercats/Teen Titans?!"

Hemingway To Go! posted:

Why is that question a thing.
We see nazgul riding demondragons. It's hard to miss.

Dapper_Swindler posted:

I think what they mean is just fun dumb game content or weird interesting articles and not have a awful hot take for every thing that happens like polygon where you will have 20 articles asking why ubisoft isn't making their game about scalping trump or how shadow of mordor is bad or some poo poo. if i want introspective critical stuff, i go to waypoint. politics is fine, but learn how to actually write a critical piece and not just pull some hot take out of your rear end for clicks. but like you said, it will probably turn into some weird fuckden like resetera, especially if bobs there.

Max Wilco posted:

You know, I was thinking about the whole "Why didn't they fly the eagles to Mordor" thing a while ago. I remember in one of Spoony's CounterMonkey video, he pointed out how there were orcs archers, and the huge eye of Sauron that would easily intercept an aerial approach to Mordor. I didn't know about the demon dragons (not that well versed in LotR lore), though that does answer my semi-serious retort to that reasoning, which is, "Provided the eagles couldn't fly directly into Mordor with being taken down, why didn't the eagles fly them halfway, so it's not as long of a trip?"

business hammocks posted:

The force?

Max Wilco posted:

Of course, the real answer to both of those questions is just, "If the eagles just flew them there, it wouldn't have made for that interesting of a story."

stillvisions posted:

So this weekend is ConBravo up in Canadaland; it used to be one of the few spots where Channel Awesome folks would venture north of the border, but that well has kinda run dry, so we'll see how it goes with somewhat newer crop. Gaijin Goomba is one of the guests, so that may make for some difficult moments; the con has already said he doesn't want to talk about the suicide (which is understandable) so we'll see how well the crowd is respectful of the elephant in the room that has asked to not be acknowledged. I'm kinda amazed he came at all. I'll say hi to DStecks if I see him at least.

Dapper_Swindler posted:

I think what they mean is just fun dumb game content or weird interesting articles and not have a awful hot take for every thing that happens like polygon where you will have 20 articles asking why ubisoft isn't making their game about scalping trump or how shadow of mordor is bad or some poo poo. if i want introspective critical stuff, i go to waypoint. politics is fine, but learn how to actually write a critical piece and not just pull some hot take out of your rear end for clicks. but like you said, it will probably turn into some weird fuckden like resetera, especially if bobs there.

Max Wilco posted:

You know, I was thinking about the whole "Why didn't they fly the eagles to Mordor" thing a while ago. I remember in one of Spoony's CounterMonkey video, he pointed out how there were orcs archers, and the huge eye of Sauron that would easily intercept an aerial approach to Mordor. I didn't know about the demon dragons (not that well versed in LotR lore), though that does answer my semi-serious retort to that reasoning, which is, "Provided the eagles couldn't fly directly into Mordor with being taken down, why didn't the eagles fly them halfway, so it's not as long of a trip?"

Of course, the real answer to both of those questions is just, "If the eagles just flew them there, it wouldn't have made for that interesting of a story."

Ghostlight posted:

Why didn't the empire blow up all the escape pods being launched from the rebel ship that they knew was carrying the plans for the Death Star just because it didn't have any life signs. Plans don't have life signs, and it's not like they don't have dozens of astromechs on their own spaceship whose entire purpose is to carry around schematics for performing repairs.

Hbomberguy posted:

The fun thing about the escape pods question is that it's actually interesting to really consider. Like, they put that scene in the film. They could have not. But it's there. They want you to know that a few people saw the escape pod go and did not shoot or intercept it. So it's worth thinking about that 'mistake.'

Was it the empire's mistake? Not everyone in every operation is fully briefed on what's happening, what's being looked for, and general misinformation happens all the time, especially in rigid authoritarian structures where people are expected not to think outside the box when given orders that seem weird. Alternatively you have That One Guy making the wrong call. Like, "oh weird, an empty escape pod popped off the old ship we just shot. Huh. Dont bother shooting it that seems wasteful, and we can get docked for wasting ammo."

But you have another alternative. A shitton of people working for the Empire definitely look the other way on all kinds of problems deliberately doing their jobs poorly or hindering the various operations in petty ways, because they simply do not like fascism. This happened in real life. Resistance to the Nazis took place on all fronts. People working for them would frequently design or build stuff wrong, mess up easy repairs, drain necessary resources, do anything to hinder the war effort in ways they could get away with. We probably wouldn't have won if it weren't for the fact that a shitton of unsung heroes stuck in the nazi war machine didn't want the nazis to win either.

If your bosses, who seem perfectly ok with oppressing and killing innocent people, to the point that they built an, ahem, genocide star, were looking for something important on a ship and an escape pod popped off with no life signs, would you really just let the guy shoot it when you could just, like, tell the guy its fine, and hope it causes some trouble, however small? I'd 100% do what that guy did. I empathise with that fuckin captain guy deliberately ordering his subordinate not to shoot the escape pod more than I empathise with most film protagonists.

Once again this is why Rogue One fuckin owns. People spent decades joking / mocking the death star design and how weird it was that you could blow it up so easily. What a colossal obvious mistake slash plot hole that was! And then you meet the guy who designed the death star and he's all like guess what, I snuck in a design flaw so bad it'll blow thing up if you shoot it, vive la resistance fuckers and Mads Mikkelson is basically the personal saviour of peace and justice in the galaxy and he did it by being bad at his job on purpose

Hbomberguy posted:

The fun thing about the escape pods question is that it's actually interesting to really consider. Like, they put that scene in the film. They could have not. But it's there. They want you to know that a few people saw the escape pod go and did not shoot or intercept it. So it's worth thinking about that 'mistake.'

Was it the empire's mistake? Not everyone in every operation is fully briefed on what's happening, what's being looked for, and general misinformation happens all the time, especially in rigid authoritarian structures where people are expected not to think outside the box when given orders that seem weird. Alternatively you have That One Guy making the wrong call. Like, "oh weird, an empty escape pod popped off the old ship we just shot. Huh. Dont bother shooting it that seems wasteful, and we can get docked for wasting ammo."

But you have another alternative. A shitton of people working for the Empire definitely look the other way on all kinds of problems deliberately doing their jobs poorly or hindering the various operations in petty ways, because they simply do not like fascism. This happened in real life. Resistance to the Nazis took place on all fronts. People working for them would frequently design or build stuff wrong, mess up easy repairs, drain necessary resources, do anything to hinder the war effort in ways they could get away with. We probably wouldn't have won if it weren't for the fact that a shitton of unsung heroes stuck in the nazi war machine didn't want the nazis to win either.

If your bosses, who seem perfectly ok with oppressing and killing innocent people, to the point that they built an, ahem, genocide star, were looking for something important on a ship and an escape pod popped off with no life signs, would you really just let the guy shoot it when you could just, like, tell the guy its fine, and hope it causes some trouble, however small? I'd 100% do what that guy did. I empathise with that fuckin captain guy deliberately ordering his subordinate not to shoot the escape pod more than I empathise with most film protagonists.

Once again this is why Rogue One fuckin owns. People spent decades joking / mocking the death star design and how weird it was that you could blow it up so easily. What a colossal obvious mistake slash plot hole that was! And then you meet the guy who designed the death star and he's all like guess what, I snuck in a design flaw so bad it'll blow thing up if you shoot it, vive la resistance fuckers and Mads Mikkelson is basically the personal saviour of peace and justice in the galaxy and he did it by being bad at his job on purpose

Terrible Opinions posted:

hbomb make your video about why the Netflix Deathnote movie is amazing.

Junpei Hyde posted:

hbomb isnt allowed to be right

Ghostlight posted:

I've never had any issue at all with the idea that critical infrastructure like an engine that powers a moon-sized laser platform might require a vent leading to the exterior and is presumed beyond assault due to being fringed with gun batteries and the ability to blow up planets. I found it more manageable than the idea that in fifteen years nobody had ever looked at the schematics of a kidnapped scientist and asked why there was a big pathway leading directly to the fusion reactors complete with a wireframe gif of it being bullseyed like a womp rat.

Arcsquad12 posted:

The Mads Mikkelsen sabotage takes away from the notion of hubris bringing down the Empire. Tarkin's aide even mentions during the trench run that they've realized what the rebels are targeting and why it's a danger but Tarkin is too drat arrogant to believe it's a credible threat. The Imperials should be shutting their pants realizing their design flaw, but instead it's just sabotage.

Kim Justice posted:

Yeah, this is pretty much the ideal. To be honest, it's not like there aren't plenty major game sites that aren't really known for talking about politics/social issues as related to games without being IGN or whatever. Eurogamer for example, or Giantbomb. Even right up to RPS and Destructoid (although they do have a wee bit more, it's still not as much as the big ones). And yet it's not like the stances of these websites are ever really in question either, they don't give any reason for that to be the case.

Notably the journalists who are really attacking the Escapist reboot are basically all of the Kotaku/Polygon/Waypoint crew and it's like ok, sure, whatever, but they are also kind of in a bubble where everything they write has to be politically influenced and really important and all thaat which is fine but it doesn't mean that everyone else has to be that way, or that in doing this the Escapist is going to be some kind of outlier. Of course, if they say all of this then pretty much just drift back to what they've been doing the past few years then, y'know, hey-ho.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Not really. Tarkin seeing it as a triviality still makes it massive hubris on the Empire's part. "Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?!"

Ghostlight posted:

I've never had any issue at all with the idea that critical infrastructure like an engine that powers a moon-sized laser platform might require a vent leading to the exterior and is presumed beyond assault due to being fringed with gun batteries and the ability to blow up planets. I found it more manageable than the idea that in fifteen years nobody had ever looked at the schematics of a kidnapped scientist and asked why there was a big pathway leading directly to the fusion reactors complete with a wireframe gif of it being bullseyed like a womp rat.

MonsieurChoc posted:

The flaw isn't the vent, but how easy it is to make the reactor go critical.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

The vent is a straight shot directly into the main reactor. For a construction that size, that is simply impossible without it being deliberately designed that way specifically for sabotage.

Arcsquad12 posted:

The Mads Mikkelsen sabotage takes away from the notion of hubris bringing down the Empire. Tarkin's aide even mentions during the trench run that they've realized what the rebels are targeting and why it's a danger but Tarkin is too drat arrogant to believe it's a credible threat. The Imperials should be shutting their pants realizing their design flaw, but instead it's just sabotage.

khwarezm posted:

Its like the way in the Expanded Universe every single throwaway character is a secretly a Jedi spy who got into personal combat with Darth Vader and survived or some poo poo.

Arcsquad12 posted:

The Mads Mikkelsen sabotage takes away from the notion of hubris bringing down the Empire. Tarkin's aide even mentions during the trench run that they've realized what the rebels are targeting and why it's a danger but Tarkin is too drat arrogant to believe it's a credible threat. The Imperials should be shutting their pants realizing their design flaw, but instead it's just sabotage.

Hbomberguy posted:

khwarezm posted:

The Mads Mikkelsen did it intentionally thing is such a groaner because of that. It's much more interesting to me that the Empire was still beset by the dullards, incompetence and arrogance that you see with actual superpowers and that little details nobody designing the thing noticed are exploited by underdogs to gently caress them up, but instead they had to go down the route of every little detail in Star Wars having an overly complicated backstory and being part of somebody's master plan so they can stretch as much out of every single thing in the original trilogy as possible.

Its like the way in the Expanded Universe every single throwaway character is a secretly a Jedi spy who got into personal combat with Darth Vader and survived or some poo poo.

Alaois posted:

every thread is the Star Wars thread if you wait long enough