If the argument is that SM2 is successful because it limited it’s scope to execute a smaller number of features well, I don’t think that holds up. It took on three different types of games and (imho) executed merely okay. What more could they have added? Open world? MMO?

I think the more plausible explanation for the sales is that it’s Warhammer, it’s pretty, and SM1 was good.

Who praised them? But I don’t know what measure we’d use to determine the general reception of this particular feature. Particularly given that almost all video game journalism is mere marketing. So that’s probably not a fruitful point to argue over.

Instead I’ll offer the things that I think earn the competitive multiplayer a poor rating.

• No skill or even experience based match making. Too many games are blowouts because all of the level 1 players were put on one team.
• Teams are static once a match lobby has formed. If the teams are poorly balanced they will continue to be forever. Players can’t even switch voluntarily. The only remedy is to bail on the lobby and hop into a different random one.
• Classes and weapons are poorly balanced. The Bulwark is a key example of a too strong and not fun design. The Assault class, and melee in general is in a pretty poor state (unless you have an infinite defense shield that lets you walk up to people). Many of the weapon options for the classes are almost unusably weak, so class loadouts tend to be very samey. Grenades are spammy and the shock grenade blind duration is not fun.
• Players are randomly assigned Imperial or Chaos marines. But there is basically no character customization for the Chaos marines, while the Imperial marines have 5 or 6 different sets. Either the enemy team should always appear to be Chaos with their NPC style, or they should have included equivalent Chaos customization.
• Players have minimal control over which game modes they play. It’s either 100% random or selecting a single mode. A configurable selection is a common multiplayer feature.
• Map design is bland. This is perhaps a more personal preference, but I find the symmetrical, arcade arenas with no narrative character boring.

Space marine 2 seems like a good example of this.

Single player campaign: mediocre

CoOp missions: mediocre

Competitive multiplayer: poor

Seems like dropping one of those might have allowed the remaining two to earn a “pretty good”

Sure I guess if there’s a fire, or at least believe there’s a fire. Hard to figure out who’s deliberately lying to start shit, and who’s just gullible and vocal on social media.

I think in the context of legislation, interpreting “let pass” to mean “allow to be signed into law” is understandable. But I see you just meant it chronologically.

“let pass”… . is there some major confusion about how presidential vetoes work here, or what do you even mean?

Lmao what is this edge-lord shit?

“Big” is not a negative adjective. “Truck” is not (mostly) an identity or demographic group. You’d have to make up some term like maybe “murder trucks” to get close to an analogy. Would you not suppose that someone who advocated against “murder trucks” thought trucks were bad?

“Crowded” - maybe mildly negative. “Places” - not an identity or demographic.

“Toxic” - Ok. “People” - This hardly seems like an identity or demographic. Maybe if martians start talking about “toxic humans” we’d have an analogy.

And that whole last paragraph is just a straw man.

Let’s consider some real analogies.

“Poisonous Hinduism” “Virulent Femininity” “Malignant Jewishness” “Destructive Liberalism” “Pestilent Blackness” “Dangerous Queerness”

I literally just looked up synonyms for toxic and picked random identity groups. Could you imagine trying to make any of these phrases academic terms?

Seems like this has been in the works for a while https://stateline.org/2024/04/04/after-a-long-slog-climate-change-lawsuits-will-finally-put-big-oil-on-trial/

Doomerism is a vibe. You’re gonna have a hard time talking people down around these parts.

It’s a constitutional amendment that was ruled on. The Constitution applies the same in all states. If it were just Colorado law I think it would be much harder to appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court.

People don’t hate on Epic because their store has content. They hate on Epic because they tried to buy market share with exclusivity deals. Nobody wants PC gaming to turn into the streaming services.

A truly poor analogy. LLMs don’t remove anything from anywhere. They consume no shared resource.

It’s been wild watching people flail about searching for arguments for why LLMs should be stopped. I’m not even saying they shouldn’t, just that I haven’t seen a solid argument for it.

I was curious how often this actually happened and found this other article with some figures.

https://www.iosconews.com/news/state/article_3280a3fa-bc08-54ae-80e1-a92d10aab51b.html

“More than 5,400 minors were married in Michigan between 2000 and 2021, according to the nonprofit Unchained at Last. More than nine in 10 of the minors were girls, with 12 under the age of 16.”

So I guess it was mostly 16 and 17 year olds who now have to wait to 18.

I’m sure that’s not what was in his letter.

If your question is merely about public relations, sure it’s a terrible move. But I think there’s actually a more meaningful question underlying all this furor; what are the limits of friendship or love? What is one supposed to do when someone close does something horrible? Cast them aside? Pretend you never knew them?

Kutcher must have had some idea of the risk he was taking, but he did it anyway. I find that striking. For some people friendships can be like family. I feel like this is an older sentiment that doesn’t find expression often today. Would you find it appalling if Masterson’s mother spoke on behalf of his character, or should she likewise keep her distance?

I don’t know. It all just seems more complicated and tragic than the typical social media mob can process.

It’s hilarious how many different definitions of fascism I see on Lemmy on a given day

Oh good, a petition.

No one is obligated to patronize any business or artist (generally speaking). Obligation isn’t the issue. But it sounds like, yes, you choose not support/patronize artists who have certain opinions you disapprove of.

I’ve seen this sentiment floating around the Internet sometimes, and it always strikes me as very limiting.

You really apply some kind of ideology test when choosing which artist’s work to enjoy?

EDIT: Perhaps this hinges on what you mean by “support”

I mean, it’s an mtx-free, drm-free, full feature game. If BG3 isn’t worth paying for, I don’t know what is.