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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • I like collecting achievements, so if it’s a requirement, I usually do. The last one was Silent Hill 2, which kind of doesn’t count. You start with nothing, and the only difference is that items appear when they weren’t there on the first run. I’ve done the FromSoft Soulsborne games, but Elden Ring had so much content that I had to take a long break before going back. The ones I’ve enjoyed most though are games that have upgrade systems that you can’t complete without a ton of grinding, like Ratchet and Clank (plus NG+ has the RYNO). They just can’t be super-long. I’m probably never replaying Persona 5, just because of the time commitment.







  • Regarding Elden Ring, I would argue it does the sense of exploration better than Hollow Knight, but only by a small degree. For every area, there’s no map at the start, and the entire map’s size is obscured since it only shows what you’ve traveled through. It gets bigger as you go, but it’s still obscured by a fog of war for areas that fit inside the map, but you don’t have a map fragment for. You can see on the map where you can obtain the fragment, but not how to get there. Most times you can just cut a straight line to it, but sometimes it’s a pain.

    All that said, the thing it does better than Hollow Knight for exploration is a limitation of Hollow Knight’s map system. It’s split into different rooms, and each room has finite entrances and exits. Because you fill out the map through exploration, you’re going to know what you have and haven’t found.

    Because Elden Ring gives you the entirety of the map, it’s both helpful and not. You can figure out (mostly) how to get from point A to point B, and you have markers for everywhere you’ve been. There’s two minor issues with that, though. It’s a 2D map for a 3D world, which means you end up with some locations not being properly shown, because they’re underneath cliffs. The second is that the map does almost nothing to show what places of interest there are. You have large buildings shown, but that excludes all the catacombs (dungeon areas) you can visit. There are areas on the map that are right there, but due to the topography you have no idea how to get there. Going by the map alone means you’re going to miss out on a solid amount of the content available.

    It’s because the map is so limiting that it feels so good. You’re able to use it to figure where places are in directional relation, but you still have to look yourself to try and uncover areas. My first run, I prided myself on uncovering everything. I searched high and low, inspected the map to make sure I went to every corner, and really made sure I knew what was out there, and it felt amazing in terms of how much content there was and how much exploration you could do. I started a second run when the DLC came out, and found an area that, somehow, I had entirely missed. It took over a hundred and forty hours of searching, really searching, to get what I thought was complete, and it still wasn’t. It was a fantastic feeling on my second run.

    Hollow Knight’s map is excellent. The gameplay is excellent, the exploration is rewarding and challenging. But the issue it has is that it only has those two dimensions to work with. Elden Ring really works to emphasize that third dimension when scouring for secrets.






  • I genuinely enjoyed Arkham Knight, but those mandatory Batmobile sections are easily the most miserable part of the game. If we had those for an entire game, it might not be too bad, but most of the time you just end up using it to get from point A to point B. If you can put up with being stuck for a bit on those sections, you might enjoy it.

    Its big issue is that it has to follow up on Arkham City. It’s not a bad game by any stretch, but it’s following up to one of the best superhero games out there. If you’re not invested in the story, there’s no harm in dropping it. Play something you’ll have fun with.




  • Even with the added costs of owning the home and upkeep, it’s only equivalent or just above rent, and that’s with the condo association fees and insurance. Even while renting I was stuck paying for utilities. And I’m highly aware that the roof needs replacing, given that we’ve got to replace ours within 5 years.

    But if your point is “owning a home is more expensive than renting when you factor in all extra costs,” I want to again point out that most people are barely able to stay afloat. His point was that anyone can buy a house. Mine is that the money he thinks grows on trees literally does not exist for the majority of people.


  • I’m lucky enough to have been financially able to buy a home. I had help making the down payment, but we’ve now got a 30 year mortgage. My monthly payments are less than what I was paying for rent, less than the average rent in the city by almost a third. I got this place with two above-average incomes, and had the good fortune to get it during the COVID housing and interest rate dip, and I still needed extra help.

    If someone is stuck with renting, they’re likely paying more than they would for a mortgage. They can’t save up the money because they’re already lagging behind, and the housing market isn’t coming down in price, and wages absolutely aren’t keeping pace. No one is saying a house would “lock them down,” they’re pointing out they can never afford it because they can’t even come up with the money to show the bank they can save because they’re already paying above the potential mortgage payments every month.

    But you’re saying they won’t, not can’t, so what should they do to come up with the money? Start selling kidneys? 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and that same link shows 71% have less than $2000 in their savings. So where exactly are people supposed to shit out your hypothetical $30,000?





  • I absolutely appreciate all the work done recently, but I was wondering if there was any chance we could get thumbnails that, when clicked, don’t have ?thumbnail=1500&format=webp appended to them. For some posts, it doesn’t make a difference, but for longer posts, or posts with smaller text, it makes the image blurry unless you click into the post comments, and select the image there. It feels like a needless extra step when trying to open an image.