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Srice posted:It's a combination of the two. Only thing I can guess is as I said earlier, they were desperately hoping they could ride an outrage marketing boost. Tie everything to cultural stuff, call every single detractor of every kind a 4chins troll whiny Gamer™ and just hope the maelstrom gets eyes on you. Thing is that works for a megacorp who already has reach, it really doesn't for out of nowhere bits like this.
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Aug 2, 2019 15:39
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StealthArcher posted:Only thing I can guess is as I said earlier, they were desperately hoping they could ride an outrage marketing boost. Tie everything to cultural stuff, call every single detractor of every kind a 4chins troll whiny Gamer™ and just hope the maelstrom gets eyes on you. Thing is that works for a megacorp who already has reach, it really doesn't for out of nowhere bits like this. I really hope that's true because I'd rather that attitude is the result of a cynical marketing stunt instead of what they actually believe. Though heck I guess both things can be true.
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Aug 2, 2019 15:45
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I guess this explains to me why I haven't seen a Jim Sterling take in this yet.
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Aug 2, 2019 15:48
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What group are you trying to court with an outrage campaign? Chuds that are too wrapped in a gamer identity? They hate Epic because Valve has spent the better part of a decade tying their brand to PC gaming. Lefty twitter? They hate Epic for being a megacorp with horrible working conditions. I get that “performatively woke” people on the internet try to pass off their consumption of corporate goods as praxis, but boy that’s a line to walk.
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Aug 2, 2019 15:54
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Seems to be trying to a play to the kind to pro-capitalist liberals who scapegoat any kind of problems with capitalism to racism/sexism, all problems with the industry are "entitled baby gamer" problems.
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Aug 2, 2019 16:22
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What amazes about the whole ordeal is that the Ooblets team could have very, very, VERY easily argued for this and could have easily saved themselves a lot of the backlash if they didn't poop out a "WOOOWWWIIIEE A LOT OF PEOPLE SURE GOING TO BE MAD ABOUT THIS, WHAT IF , THEY DIDN'T GET MAD" in the most condescending way possible! For a gaming segment that would have easily understood such a measure.
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Aug 2, 2019 16:29
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Hemingway To Go! posted:Seems to be trying to a play to the kind to pro-capitalist liberals who scapegoat any kind of problems with capitalism to racism/sexism, all problems with the industry are "entitled baby gamer" problems. The real question there is did they honestly think the lanyard demographic was enough to carry them, and then i remember. Epic money, no refunds and no sales statistics. They can claim any outcome to this they want. Though one thing i did notice was a lot of fairly small indie devs and journalists try and all pile on this. It could just be that they're lanyarding it up as usual, but part of me wonders if the results are in for earlier middle finger epic jaunts and despite all claims, the sales just didn't materialize and they desperately want to make epic a bad thing to hate. StealthArcher fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 16:35
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Kunster posted:I guess this explains to me why I haven't seen a Jim Sterling take in this yet. Speak of the devil. https://youtu.be/TriZmvorwxc
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Aug 2, 2019 16:57
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Yeah, they're clearly trying to paint anyone who has a legit complaint as entitled gamer chuds, even when they have perfectly legit complaints like "I literally cannot pay for your game now because Epic doesn't support my currency". Such things have dramatically increased in the years since GG although fortunately most people see straight through it. See also: Riot Games' performative wokeness acting as a blatant deflection from the reveal of horrible working conditions there, or the reaction to that question at Blizzcon about Diablo Immortal.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:06
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didn't notice they said words like "climate change", "marx", "late stage capitalism" to try to justify their money grubbing and arrogance against their customers, especially poor ones, and it wasn't just the liberal "all gamers are chuds" tactics. Extremely, extremely disappointed. I hope the strong backlash against them keeps people from thinking that leftists in general are this hypocritical and scummy.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:15
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This is solid lanyard poo poo.. 100% guarantee these pissants whining about how they can't be questioned on their tone absolutely whined about Sanders 'yelling' in the debates.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:22
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StealthArcher posted:This is solid lanyard poo poo.. As someone who apparently isn't as extremely online as he thought, what does this mean in this context, beyond the bullshit these devs are doing?
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Aug 2, 2019 17:23
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Yeah. I mean, I used to wear a lanyard when I had a proper job and I never tried to sell a game by telling people they should complain about climate change instead
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Aug 2, 2019 17:28
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Hattie Masters posted:As someone who apparently isn't as extremely online as he thought, what does this mean in this context, beyond the bullshit these devs are doing? Self absorbed technocratic Centrists. The kind of person who honestly believes that not only did Clinton run the best campaign did nothing wrong and was the leftest left wing to ever left in the US and Sanders actively undermined her, and nothing at all is wrong with the way things are now aside Trumps vulgarity, and you need a million Numbers Fuckstain asterisks on any social program to prevent the GOP calling it the socialistest socialism to ever Stalin, which the GOP immediately do anyway and then the lanyards decide to move even further right. Better Things Aren't Possible™ the belief system. They get the name from the idiot grift consultants who wear them and act like the bloatheaded imbeciles they are. E: Otherwise known to someone like Kim by the name Blairites.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:30
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StealthArcher posted:Self absorbed technocratic Centrists. The kind of person who honestly believes that not only did Clinton run the best campaign did nothing wrong and was the leftest left wing to ever left in the US and Sanders actively undermined her, and nothing at all is wrong with the way things are now aside Trumps vulgarity, and you need a million Numbers Fuckstain asterisks on any social program to prevent the GOP calling it the socialistest socialism to ever Stalin, which the GOP immediately do anyway and then the lanyards decide to move even further right. Thank you! Blairites makes perfect sense.
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Aug 2, 2019 17:41
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The same people giving Jim a lot of poo poo for a video that doesn't vilify the Ooblet Devs for getting that deal give out the same energy as those people who go to any worker rights or climate related protest hours later and try to get that one photo on the black service worker cleaning it and go "SEE??? SEE??!!!".
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Aug 2, 2019 18:44
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StealthArcher posted:. Ah hah. poo poo eating Scum, gotcha
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Aug 2, 2019 18:56
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Detective No. 27 posted:Speak of the devil. Clickbait, Darksydephil is not in this. Also I think people taking epic exclusives have something else to get out of it: I literally never heard of these games until they become epic exclusive and the poo poo storm happens.
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Aug 2, 2019 19:32
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Outer Wilds, Shakedown Hawaii and Ooblets were gems on the making for quite a few years, but then again I'm somewhat plugged in on the indie game dev scene.
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Aug 2, 2019 20:16
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Huh I had no idea Pirahna was so fraught.i go by their office a couple times a week maybe I should leave a bag of doodoo or some management concepts books or something.
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Aug 2, 2019 20:17
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I tested MWO in it’s early days. It was a fun project, finding all the ways to break it. My favourite remains suicide counting both as a death and a kill, so the entire team killing themselves was the quickest way to win.
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Aug 2, 2019 21:27
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Detective No. 27 posted:Speak of the devil. Holy hell did the thread undersell how badly this was handled. 
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Aug 2, 2019 21:33
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Taintrunner posted:Their entire subreddit seems to have turned against them too. Yikes. Their subreddit hasn't turned against them, it's been invaded by a bunch of harassing dorks from r/gaming and other trash.
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Aug 2, 2019 22:40
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tbh I still am out of the loop on why Epic's store is so terrible and it's kinda hard to find something by just searching around that isn't full of just ranting hyperbole. Like, from what I can sift out it's just...kinda a more clunky store? There seemed to be some 'spyware' talk but it doesn't sound like it's anything more than any other store like Steam uses for purchase tracking and all. Can some one give me a tldr? The devs are being complete wads about this regardless, though.
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Aug 2, 2019 22:46
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What is it with light and wholesome looking games having so much bad blood behind the scenes? I bet there's a game called "Princess Ponypuff meets the Cuddle Bunnies" where the developers have at least one dead staff-member wearing a klan hood stuffed into a freezer.
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Aug 2, 2019 22:50
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Inspector Gesicht posted:What is it with light and wholesome looking games having so much bad blood behind the scenes? I bet there's a game called "Princess Ponypuff meets the Cuddle Bunnies" where the developers have at least one dead staff-member wearing a klan hood stuffed into a freezer. we regret to inform our fans we've had to pause development of Captain Sparkles and the Dream Kittens after our head of design made a shiv and attacked our sound team leader while screaming 'I GIVE LIFE TO YOUR GRUNTS, GREG, I AM THE GOD AND YOU ARE BUT A TOOL'. This event was NOT related to our community manager saying he wants to 'put all the puerto ricans in a rocket ship to mars', that matter is ongoing as he's locked us out of the twitter account. We will not be refunding the KS.
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Aug 2, 2019 22:53
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sexpig by night posted:tbh I still am out of the loop on why Epic's store is so terrible and it's kinda hard to find something by just searching around that isn't full of just ranting hyperbole. Like, from what I can sift out it's just...kinda a more clunky store? There seemed to be some 'spyware' talk but it doesn't sound like it's anything more than any other store like Steam uses for purchase tracking and all. Can some one give me a tldr? You honestly have the long and short of it. It's not a great store (doesn't even have a cart system, bafflingly), but a lot of the stuff people were and are freaking out about was really overblown.
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Aug 2, 2019 22:57
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Arist posted:You honestly have the long and short of it. It's not a great store (doesn't even have a cart system, bafflingly), but a lot of the stuff people were and are freaking out about was really overblown. yea I mean it does sound like a lovely store, I just kinda don't get why 'it's on Epic, gently caress YOU' is the reaction other than 'I don't like having to download like...four different store launchers to play my games' which tbh I do get to a lesser degree.
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Aug 2, 2019 22:59
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The problem with the epic store is that they’re trying to buy themselves into a monopoly it manages to be a worse store and launcher than steam but epic has enough money to buy exclusivity for every game that looks like it’ll be popular the problem is capitalism pure and simple
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Aug 2, 2019 23:18
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watho posted:The problem with the epic store is that they’re trying to buy themselves into a monopoly it manages to be a worse store and launcher than steam but epic has enough money to buy exclusivity for every game that looks like it’ll be popular yea that I agree on but I just don't see these people getting angry about how Steam has functionally become the defacto DRM for PC games in a lot of ways which is exactly that too. Except guys like Jim, who are cool and good, obvs.
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Aug 2, 2019 23:22
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I think the Jim Sterling videos are probably the best reference. But this is what I've picked up. Epic's practices are controversial as they are not really a Steam competitor trying to do anything better than Steam, they're a bunch of already rich guys securing their place in the market by throwing money around, while having a storefront that is so unfeatured that you can only buy one game at a time and if you buy multiple games you'll get locked out of your account. But it's the typical rich person attitude towards business... they already have exclusives so you MUST use their storefront to play them. Apparently when they have a sale they don't do that right either and it makes the devs have to do a price hike to recuperate (1, 2. Along with a bunch of other shady poo poo, including possible security holes. And apparently not taking other currancy besides USD There's no ethical consumption under capitalism, video games are a "luxury good", whatever, but you know. Some people see this poo poo and don't really trust them or want to "have to" download the storefront. Until now, indie games devs have been like "we need the money and we'll release on steam a year later". So people raised questions to the devs and instead got "you're a gamergate chud babyman" and all that, and there are some people supporting the devs statements for whatever reason, I don't get it. Like WAS gamergate what got trump elected or is gaming just a lovely hobby and we shouldn't care about it. If people who say they are leftists are the ones saying "good one on standing up to those
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Aug 2, 2019 23:27
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sexpig by night posted:yea that I agree on but I just don't see these people getting angry about how Steam has functionally become the defacto DRM for PC games in a lot of ways which is exactly that too. Steam hasn't ever stopped anyone else selling their games anywhere else, as far as I know? Except Valve's own games but that seems fair enough really.
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Aug 2, 2019 23:43
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Ooh, SFDebris is apparently going to be reviewing Gravity Falls Season 1 this October. Or at least, all the episodes in the queue (he's also opened up the requests for that again). 
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Aug 2, 2019 23:52
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Something that often doesn't get mentioned is that their launcher was caught explicitly copying the user file out of the Steam directory and parsing it, which contains basically all a user's information like who their friends are, what names they've played under, what games they've been playing, what games you own, and when you last played them, and more. Epic's response was to say that yeah, they do that because they have an option to import Steam friends and it's necessary for that. Absent was an explanation as to why it did this every time the launcher started rather than when you click a button to import your Steam friends. Epic then went on to explain that they chose to custom code a process for copying this file from another program's install folder and encrypting it for their own use rather than use the public Steam API provided explicitly for the purpose of supplying friends data to third-parties was because they didn't want to bundle "third-party libraries" into their software, which is not something you do to access APIs - although significantly using the API would have required user notification and authorisation and would only get them exactly the information they claim they want. The real galling thing is they pretend to not know how APIs work for Steam when they explicitly poached and put in charge a guy whose entire name was built on assembling information and market data using the information freely provided by Steam through its APIs. Oh, and Epic has made it clear that nobody will be getting that same level of information from their store. That alone was enough bad-faith behaviour for me to not want to engage with the store.
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Aug 3, 2019 00:00
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As if we didn't need any more evidence that the copyright system is totally broken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg
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Aug 3, 2019 00:22
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I don't really care if people use the Epic store (or indie devs take the guaranteed cash), but kickstarters advertising Steam keys and then trying to say "nah" or putting up condescending blog posts is bad. I personally don't like the EGS because immediately after I signed up when I thought I might like Fortnite, I had issues with people trying to access my account, so I don't really trust them with a credit card or anything like that.
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Aug 3, 2019 00:40
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sexpig by night posted:yea I mean it does sound like a lovely store, I just kinda don't get why 'it's on Epic, gently caress YOU' is the reaction other than 'I don't like having to download like...four different store launchers to play my games' which tbh I do get to a lesser degree. A lot of the worst behaviour is coming from the same side of the internet that thinks review-bombing games is the ultimate sign of free speech protest. The actual merits (and lack thereof) come down to what others have covered, but I'm going to repeat them all to try and paint a comprehensive picture. The store itself is a really thin product, missing many features that any other online commerce application would consider fundamental, like multi-product purchasing, gifting, "save for later", and support for multiple currencies. It's also a bit of a UI/UX nightmare with excessive "shine", like large animated icons, that make it look pretty at a glance but swamp out useful information that customers would want to have on-hand. The launcher features are also really thin, with middling support for beta branches (easiest for devs to just create a whole second "game" for their beta branch), no cloud saves, and spotty social features/multiplayer. Basically they have a friend's list, instant messaging, Fortnite integration, limited invite-to-game support, and little else. The game library has no sorting options, games are permanently listed in the order you acquired them, and thus Fortnite is anchored to the top of your library for the foreseeable future. With the same excess of "shine" seen everywhere in the app this means that a 1080 monitor can display not quite 9 games at a time (the icons for the bottom 3 are cut off midway). From a business standpoint Epic has been seeking out exclusives in the most aggressive, nigh-predatory manner possible. Rather than cutting early production deals with developers for platform exclusives; thus assuming the risks that go along with that just like Sony, Nintendo, and everyone else do with their 3rd party exclusives; Epic has recently been waiting until the hardest work is more or less done and then throwing wads of "finishing" money at devs for exclusivity. In several cases this means games that had already announced Steam versions and sold Steam keys. This is all exacerbated by the sunk-cost of "all my games are in Steam" multiplied by the exhaustion of years of everyone and their uncle releasing their own storefront/launcher and then leaving them to rot (looking at you, uPlay).
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Aug 3, 2019 01:13
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Also while Valve are definitely not angels in any way, shape, or form Steam has slowly but surely gained a number of genuinely great features that only add value to games available on it. Workshop support alone is huge, but also stuff like the ability to properly set up controller support on any game you want (including the notoriously finicky Dualshock4), extensive social features including user-made guides, and despite claims to the contrary that they're somehow useless, a full suite of review and community stuff for every game. It's abundantly clear that Epic rushed their storefront out and instead of putting any time at all into upgrading it to even basic functionality are just going to keep using the brute force of their warchest to keep buying games away from Steam. (And it is explicitly about buying them away from Steam, not making them Epic exclusive.) A big reason for the friction over the store is that the only significant positives it has are for the devs themselves - a better cut than Steam, guaranteed money from Epic, etc. And while that's great for the devs, consumers haven't seen a single iota of benefit from it beyond A) free games (ignore that they're primarily games that have been free or have gone on deep sale before elsewhere) and B) the aforementioned unannounced, unexplained big sale that lopped a full  off every game in the store, which freaked the very indie devs Epic courted right the gently caress out and effectively devalued their games.Basically Epic has no idea what they're doing and thinks money will eventually fix everything. Also there's the part where they're king poo poo of the mountain when it comes to grossly targeting minors for microtransactions and they abuse their employees in order to churn out those microtransactions. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Aug 3, 2019 |
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Aug 3, 2019 01:21
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Also w/r/t to Ooblets specifically if this Reddit post is worth literally anything (I know) another factor is that the devs are just kinda dumb: https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/cl3yoc/the_developers_behind_ooblets_are_a_textbook/evu45qv/
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Aug 3, 2019 01:39
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Yvonmukluk posted:Ooh, SFDebris is apparently going to be reviewing Gravity Falls Season 1 this October. Or at least, all the episodes in the queue (he's also opened up the requests for that again). Quick, someone with money get him to watch the old Millenium show with Lance Henriksen.
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Aug 3, 2019 02:08
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