redhorsejacket

I really wish there was a companion piece to this article in which all of the alluded to "higher-ups", who are pushing the technology, were afforded the same anonymity and freedom to speak candidly as these employees. The most insightful passage of this article, to me, was the individual who theorized that proponents of AI view game development as a problem to be solved, rather than a valuable process of iteration. Given the opportunity to speak freely, I'm curious if the pro-AI devs/execs would agree with that characterization.

It all depends on how you're defining "influence". As an example, let's look at the first Resident Evil game and it's predecessor, Sweet Home. More people have played or heard of Resident Evil than a movie tie-in game that was never officially released outside Japan. However, a huge amount of RE's DNA (indeed, things that fans will say are necessary to capturing the feel of early RE games) stem from Sweet Home. Hell, RE was initially conceived of as a remake of Sweet Home, until they realized they didn't have the rights. Below is an incomplete list of features from Sweet Home that were incorporated into the first RE.

• inventory management puzzles
• exploring an intricate, cohesive location inhabited by monsters.
• narrative communicated through found notes and cutscenes
• deliberately clunky combat to emphasize player vulnerability
• protagonist characters each have a thing they can do that others can't (presaging Jill's lockpick and Chris's lighter)
• door loading transitions

So, which is the more influential game? The one that popularized all of these concepts, or the one that originated the concepts? I think a case can be made for both, but I lean towards the originator.

Higher fidelity for sure, as one would expect when comparing games released 10 years apart, but idk if it's "better" per se. Of course this is totally subjective, but I feel like there's no style to inZoi, unless we define "generic AI output" as a style.

Thank you for posting explanations in the comments for those of us who are not as up to date on their Roman emperors as good sense would dictate.

Given your parenthetical, I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but I'm gonna dispute that the series of novels about the fractured and imperfect nations of "the West" uniting against an alliance of barbaric monsters and uncivilized men in "the East" is apolitical at all.

Not to mention it's a text which presupposes the divine mandate of kings, which is an explicitly political stance.

Which is not to say any of this is bad, necessarily, though I do think it would be a fun exercise in fan fiction to rewrite Aragorn's arc. Instead of it culminating with him accepting his "birthright" and becoming king, he winds up fucking off back to the woods with his hot elf-wife and telling Gondor to sort their own shit out.

Buy the Divinity games instead. Rewards Larian, doesn't give WOTC/Hasbro shit, and enables the studio to continue to work of stuff they find exciting, rather than becoming chief foremen of the IP mines, along with all of Activision's support studios who do naught but crank out CoD skins nowadays (RIP Raven).

If I remember right, Larian has pretty definitively said they want nothing to do with DnD or BG3 moving forward, to the point that they cancelled DLC plans.

This seems like the thread to ask this question in: are there any Persona fans around here who can help me break through my mental block with P4G?

I don't typically replay narrative games which I've completed. Therefore, in games which offer a NG+ experience (usually under the guise of "you got an ending, now play the game again for the TRUE ending!"), I am inexorably drawn to guides which are designed to allow the player to experience the maximum amount of content on a first playthrough. On the bright side, such guides are in abundance for this game. On the less bright side, playing Persona gives me anxiety now.

Even when I'm intentionally avoiding the guide to lessen that sensation, the knowledge that an optimal path exists, and I'm not following it, is discomfiting. I know this is dumb. We work on it therapy.

Is Persona just not the series for me? How do others deal with some of its quirks?

Will be exploring this on the commute home! My familiarity with the 80s punk scene is almost entirely concentrated on the coasts, so this will be illuminating. Got excited about the zine link you posted too, wish I spoke the language though haha

Thanks for sharing!

I ate the onion.

Funnily enough, from what I'm reading in a cursory search, the more likely culprit for this phenomenon would be the Volkssturm: the last ditch national militia that the Nazis set up in late 1944. By this point, they were scraping the bottom of the barrel to outfit troops (and to find troops to outfit, for that matter). I didn't find anything that confirmed on the historical record that any such event occurred, but it seems more likely than the defenders of Stalingrad being without armaments.

Meh. According to the source you posted, that exchange was simply "my wife found two reports that Apollo Legend committed suicide. If it's true, I will not shed a tear. I will try to suppress a smile or a giggle." Yes, considering Apollo's eventual death, it's shitty, no doubt.

However, according to your source, that was in a private text to an unidentified party, who I presume is affiliated with Mitchell either socially or professionally. It wasn't a public post, and it wasnt directed to Apollo. It doesn't even state that Mitchell hopes that it is true. Just that he's not going to be broken up about it. I've said far more inflammatory shit with regards to the barons of the American insurance industry. Does that mean that I should be found culpable for the death of Brian Thompson? I sure hope not.

Caveat: I only read the source you posted, so perhaps there's wider context I'm missing.