#maybe consider gitting gud

[beaft]

apple tv and netflix are tied for most useless streaming service. neither of you will survive the revolution

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

So what you're saying is that if Emmet in Ounce of Prevention had been spat out with even one of their pokemon, everyone else would have been so incredibly screwed. Alternately, if Ingo had fallen with even one, his incredibly overpowered pokemon would have awed and terrified the locals. You go, Ingo, take down those alpha pokemon in one or two hits while the Pearl Clan watches on in confused horror (until, presumably, they show him off as their new warden to the diamond clan in smug satisfaction. Clearly they worship the True Sinnoh if it blessed them with this very strange and polite man with his very well behaved weapon of mass destruction). What a head trip for them it'd be to see something on par with that alpha garchomp not just on their side but also begging to be cuddled

god that's such a fun idea. ludicrously OP men with their beloved pets capable of killing god with a flick of their paw. "on par with" chandelure could just pick the alpha garchomp up with psychic and chuck it to the other side of the mountains. BEGONE WITH YE. nobody understands why wild pokemon don't bother ingo and then they realize it's bc they have a very healthy sense of self-preservation

[fluffypichu876]

If you were to recommend Sekiro to someone, perhaps a Mutual even, how would you go about it?

(I'm always on the roll looking for soulsborne design content, as it is a big topic in the industry, and I am too much of a whimp to play something that openly sadomasochistic xD, but sekiro is the one I'm lest knowledgable about of them all and I'd love a first-hand opinion on it/maybe a reccomend to see if there might be something interesting to try to brave it For, and not just difficulty for difficulty's sake)

That is a GREAT ask, mutual, and I am very glad to answer it to you! (i never miss an opportunity to discuss game design xD)

Well, the game is REALLY good. It's rewarding and it just feels good to play. That's why I recommend it in very simple words, with the small warning that it is, indeed, a difficult game.

But if I was allowed to go into detail on why I love it and recommend it so much...

Sekiro is a very interesting soulsbourne. It follows many traditions of FromSoft's other games, but it also breaks enough of these rules to stand out as a game of its own.

One thing that differs in Sekiro is the very way that you tackle bossfights. Boss design is one of, if not the most important aspect of a soulslike. I have yet to play other soulsbournes, but from what I've heard, in these games there are usually multiple ways of dealing with a tough boss. You can grind and find better equipment to fight them, use cheese strategies, get help from another player (co-op), or just git gud and try to defeat the boss by learning their patterns and relying on pure skill. Each boss is always designed with that in mind, focusing on providing a fair experience to the player no matter which option they choose.

But in Sekiro, there's none of that. No co-op, very little cheese strats, a stat system that requires the defeat of a major boss to increase damage output (by very little), and a EXP system that only grants a few new skills (some of them are very useful though, such as the Mikiri counter). Oh, and you lose EXP when you die.

To beat a boss here, you must rely on pure skill. Git gud, as people say. This skill consists basically of your ability to recognize and correctly counter all the types of enemy attacks. Deflect strikes, dodge grabs, Mikiri-counter thrusts, jump over sweeps and ocassionaly redirect lightning. If you don't understand and properly use these skills, you will not get very far, because every enemy and every boss will demand varying levels of your knowledge about the game, and more importantly your ability to actually use said knowledge. Their very design is based on the player's skill.

It may sound bad, but this focus on pure player skill is exactly what makes this game so compelling and rewarding. When you fight a boss in Sekiro, you are not mastering the bossfight, you are mastering the game itself. Each boss requires the same skills to defeat, consisting of a single core gameplay loop, and extra items or tools are merely extra help and not really necessary to win (with the exception of a few gimmick optional bosses). Master these skills and the whole game becomes much easier to understand and overcome. You'll still die a lot, but you will feel your progress, understand why you died, and become even more confident after every defeat.

Once you beat Lady Butterfly and Genichiro, you have already mastered the game. From now on, you will be just sharpening your skills.

In simple words, Sekiro's definition of getting good is very different from other soulsbourne games. Beating this game is like a personal journey of improvement, in which you aim to improve because you know it's worth it.

The revival mechanic is also very interesting to me. From what I understand, it serves both as a mid-battle breathing room, and as a motivator.

Dying in a bossfight doesn't feel good, and enough deaths can motivate the player to give up, so giving them time to breath and consider their options before reviving and trying again is very nice. It's a period of time used to strategize and reflect what exactly is going wrong. Allowing the player to revive once or twice during a fight doesn't make the game easier, it makes the game fair. The player will not have to repeat a part of the fight that they have already mastered, and will have another opportunity to try and understand what's currently going on. Then, they can carry this new knowledge to the next attempts, making the whole "die and try again" experience much more fluid.

Following this logic, the revival mechanic also serves as a motivator. If the player has good enough base knowledge of a bossfight, giving them a second chance will motivate them to take risks, which leads into the discovery of potentially better strategies. Dying now will not really grant too much of a bad consequence, so why not risk something new? The whole combat system revolves about your agressiveness and lack of hesitation, so a motivator like this is very important.

Sekiro also has stealth mechanics, yipeee!!! Fitting, since you are a shinobi. Stealth here mostly serves as an second option to deal with areas filled to the brim with enemies. Attacking any enemy from behind without their notice will instantly delete an entire healthbar. This means death to most lesser foes. It also helps you deal with mini-bosses who have more than one healthbar.

Having said all of that, Sekiro is an amazing game, and I can't recommend it enough. In my opinion, you don't even have to be too much of a masochist to like this game! I found the whole experience to be pretty fair and rewarding, and not really painful at all (maybe it's just me on that xD). Patience is all that you really need, patience to slowly learn and understand, as if you where learning how to use a sword in real life. After all, that's exactly what you must do to beat this game.

[northwest-cryptid]

Local amnesiac clockman in dystopian city gets hired/abducted by the 12 complete messes based on literature, the lamest badass in the setting and his funny amnesiac daughter. Gets told to give therapy to said messes by looking for branches in ruined scp facilities while occasionally incurring on the wrath of capitalism and the little prince for some reason.

Said total messes are:

Straight up the korean poet Yi Sang because his most known poem had a character named "I"

Autism filled woman who is technically the actual boss of everyone

Woman don quixote

Fucked up japanese artist except her art is violence

Autistic french man with gap moe

Sheltered chinese man with the most fucked up family ever

A brit with a bat named revenge

Fish bisexual obsessed with murdering a metaphorical whale

Mommy Russian with only food and no hindsight in her head

Closeted young man with a fuckload of trauma involving ableist cultists

Straight up fucking Odysseus but in woman

And our ptsd riddled cockroach: Greg

See on one hand I genuinely appreciate the attempt here.

On the other hand this is extremely fandomized and I can't really learn anything from it as a result, especially considering that this covered stuff I already sorta know from just having played through the first major part of the game before having issues with it but more specifically from the fact that it's on the website for the game.

I need to reiterate my first bit here, I genuinely appreciate the attempt and I do not seek to belittle or insult the sender or anyone in question for attempting to enlighten me on the game but hear me out if you will...

All the information provided can be obtained from the website for the game or the first 10 minutes of the game; however it is only partially factual.

I am interested in Limbus Company, the game; not "Limbus Company The Abridged Version As Seen by the Fandom." When people go on and on about character analysis and plot depth and why it's so cool and interesting and deep and fun I want to jump in and engage with them on the narrative and such, but I can't because I'm not: A. Financially well off to Gacha for shit. B. Good enough at the game to get very far. And as a website that talks a lot about accessibility in games I feel like if anyone is going to shoot me down with a "git gud" it'd be kinda dumb, like sir/ma'am/individual of non-specific gender identity; you are on the "games should let you experience the story even if you're bad" website, please sit down.

I was honestly kind of hopeful that I would get some serious answers; and while some people have given me more serious answers than others; a lot of what I get is either specifically the start of the game which ignores/overlooks/doesn't mention the folks Dante is having an encounter with at the start, the fact they can use their clock head powers to turn back time and revive the sinners; or even the fact that they have no idea why any of it can happen. Like no one has even mentioned the whole star thing? I think it was a star? Something like that, anyways that thing was pretty cool and no one talks about it.

What I do often hear is how cooky and ku-ray-zee the main cast of silly little guys is; which I feel massively takes away from who they actually are.

"And our ptsd riddled cockroach: Greg" Alright since I've actually played through the first bit of the game so I know just enough about Gregor's story, why do we summarize a man who literally was a child experiment; who was betrayed by the only parental figure he knew; who was made to kill and murder without understanding of it literally like drugged or some shit to think he was just cutting apples; and who's body literally mutates into a cockroach down to just "lol he's a silly little guy with ptsd" ptsd from what exactly? Oh you mean the fucking Smoke Wars? One of the if not the biggest event in the PM Universe?

Like okay I understand I said "hey maybe don't send me entire documentary style paragraphs of text because my ADHD brain will not let me read them" and that's true, but I also really don't vibe with this whole concept of "this person doesn't know the characters at all so I'm going to call one bisexual, I'm going to call one a mommy, I'm going to call one a ptsd riddled cockroach named greg lol" Like I don't know how much of this is fandom and how much of this is real anymore. I know that some characters in PM's universe ARE LGBT so the idea of one of the Sinners maybe being Bisexual isn't too far fetched, but is that completely fandom interpretation or is it real? I sure as hell don't know when characters like Gregor who have deeper meaningful stories that tie into the world as a whole are boiled down to a one line joke about, I guess his name being Greg?

Like again I have nothing against the person who sent this or anything, I'm sure you meant well and I'm glad you're excited enough about the game that you reached out to me; that's all great and such, but I can't help but need to point out that you're talking to someone who knows almost nothing, but not nothing; about this game

and you're choosing to represent it in such a way that might be factual or might be fandomized and I can't tell the difference when the things I know are fandomized are present or when it mostly consists of jokes.

"Local amnesiac clockman in dystopian city gets hired/abducted by the 12 complete messes based on literature, the lamest badass in the setting and his funny amnesiac daughter."

Kind of not really. Like I'm not even going to get into the fact that technically speaking Dante is a Clock Person not necessarily confirmed Clock Man. I AM however going to get into the fact that they come to Dante's rescue(?) during what is essentially an execution; Dante is going to die and these 12 sinners jump in to fight for them for seemingly some reason we don't get to know yet. Hired is a much better word than abducted in this sense. Don't even get me started on "the lamest badass" because like, that entirely ignores the fact you're talking about who I can only assume is Vergilius AKA The Red Gaze, which is sorta huge considering what we've seen of Color Fixers, and you know; the entirety of the Comic/Light Novel Leviathan released prior to the game. What would a color fixer be doing with the sinners? What is his connection with Dante? Even having read Leviathan these sorts of questions are interesting and they create interest as someone who wants to question and explore the setting and it's themes.

AND I'M SORRY BUT "HIS DAUGHTER"??? Has that been confirmed because I highly doubt that unless there's some dialogue somewhere in the game that shows he adopted her or something, I mean yea he clearly cares about the orphans, but like I don't recall him ever adopting her and if he did I can't tell if you're telling me a fact or a fandom here because of everything else you've stated.

Are you beginning to see the problem here?

I literally have to wave off everything you just told me as no more than "lol silly jokes man lol" and I don't mean to be some asshole about it either but this isn't really going to help anyone get into a game or a story or anything because I don't really KNOW anything about it.

Again I'm not mad, I'm not trying to be rude; I've got nothing against Alex or anything! I appreciate someone taking the time out of their day to send me this but it ultimately doesn't tell me anything I'm just as much in the dark as I was.

This is specifically why it's so hard for me to interact with a lot of larger communities, a lot of the information I want is factual, from the source material; but I'm perhaps not skilled enough at the games to obtain it myself, so I turn to the community for information since people tend to enjoy talking about the things they like, and instead of getting actual information I get in-jokes I don't yet have context for, and fandomization that isn't actually true to the source material.

I understand I may come off a little harsh here, so for that I do apologize if I've come across rude. That being said, please do try to refrain from sending people who know next to nothing about your interests, a ton of fandomized in-jokes they won't understand, it feeds into the misinformation loop. Can you imagine if I went around telling everyone that Charon was Vergil's daughter when in reality he treats her as "something of a daughter" according to the publicly editable and horrible "fandom wiki" which is the only place that I could find information about it.

This isn't the same thing as say a biological daughter, or even an adoptive one. Which could be an interesting plot dynamic. I mean do you guys remember what happened last time a Color Fixer had a kid? Or rather I should say, last time a Color Fixer WAS GOING to have a kid? That was kind of a big deal. It's not really a shocker to learn that the guy who really likes orphans would be nice to the child.

anyways sorry for the lengthy explanation of "this isn't really what I'm looking for" but I've literally spoke on this whole "fandomization of characters bothers me a lot" topic before several times for literally this exact reason.

[amiibo-king]

totk spoilers

this isnt a dig at sidon (and it hurts me to say this bc hes one of my favs and i kno he is doing his best) but am i the only one who finds sidon's ability really clunky to use, to the point of bordering on useless?

like, the one-hit impervious shield is a neat idea, but the fact that it only lasts for a few seconds (and disappears if u swing ur sword at all) almost negates the usefulness of it... and the water slash attack is rly hard to aim correctly—you have to be standing in exactly the right position, and even then, i find the water slash attack often goes off in a completely different direction than i intended. especially considering how quickly the ability expires, i have to aim it REALLY FAST if i want to use it at all, making it even harder to aim properly. add to THAT the fact that the distance it travels + it's general size varies so greatly between different weapons, that actually using it practically, its really hard to predict where it will go and how far. it's especially frustrating when i'm trying to fight mucktaroks because of how quickly they move around, i end up just giving up on using sidon's ability and shooting a splash fruit arrow instead

i never dismiss him (unless im dismissing all the sages at once to tackle a challenge on my own or smth) bc hes still useful in that he helps fight enemies w his spear, but i hardly ever use his ability bc its just... so hard to use that theres basically no point for me

maybe i just need to git gud w it or something but :? i feel like i cant be the only one struggling to use it

[venacoeurva]

What would be Wrens personal opinion on the tribunal? like Seht's death for Vivec's.....questionable past?

It's a mixed bag-- he liked Almalexia a bunch, but could see the writing on the wall pretty quickly. He's also someone who will flip a mental switch if you establish you're going to try to kill him, so he'll just coldly and unfeelingly fight you on that and maybe there'll be feelings about it after, or maybe there isn't. He's used to people turning on him or just making their intent very clear, so he sort of deals with it by going "Oh fuck you then, whatever"

With Vivec, he finds them to be a decent guide but is takes things with a grain of salt, and he's not a person to consider himself a judge jury and executioner regarding past actions considering his job and track record involves manipulating and murder all the time. Not a fan of basically theocratically holding a city hostage nor Vivec's willingness to let imperialism in, though (but he acknowledges with the tribunal losing power it may have been an inevitable move). He doesn't take the Lessons as literal and sees them as more symbolic stories (and as carefully managed propaganda), and is on guard around them since, y'know, the temple also wanted him dead for a while and he will always second-guess if Vivec would be trying to manipulate him for something else. He let them live, but they never saw each other again and he assumes they died (and feels kind of weird about outliving them in a way). They kind of creep him out, though, so he doesn't really fuck around with them at all and does what he needs to then vacates quickly

He straight up hardly cares about the betrayal of Nerevar aside from "oh that happened to me too but I made it out alive, and now I gotta do this stupid prophecy shit. Git gud", so there's not much emotional investment other than L+ratio+asshole move but whatever+sorry all that happened ig+stop involving me

Obvs he never met Sotha Sil (in canon, in ESO he will but yknow that's not character canon), but he didn't feel very inclined to wonder what it would be like to meet him alive. He kind of regarded what little he saw of Clockwork City the way he regards Dwemer ruins: unsettling that there used to be people there but a place built for people is now devoid of them and there's so much he'll never know about it. He figures he wasn't even in his body anymore by the time Almalexia got to him, and whatever his self was stored in is shut down by now so he'll never figure out what his last thoughts were, whenever those actually were.

[themischievousmoose]

I really wanted to love Signalis because the demo was AMAZING, but holy shit the gameplay was just exhausting at a certain point. Limited inventory with no way to expand was obnoxious, and certain “upgrades” (camera, flashlight, whatever) taking up a slot was annoying when, considering you play as a robot, it could just become something that attaches to her?

“but just don’t take (ITEM)” - players shouldn’t be forced to pick and choose to a point of frustration because there’s a million key items they need to use at the same time, lest they keep trudging back and forth. It just feels like a lack of value for a player’s time. I feel like if they expanded the inventory system JUST A LITTLE (maybe 8 slots instead of 6) it would’ve been better than slogging through because I didn’t happen to choose a certain item to bring with me. I know the point of survival horror, okay? But it gets to the point where it just becomes more frustrating than anything else and it really kills any enjoyment. I feel like even Resident Evil, the grandfather of survival horror and inventory management, didn’t dick you around so much.

And like, maybe it wouldn’t piss me off so much if fanboys weren’t so quick to just piss and moan that everyone else sucks because they “want a baby mode for babies.” And, unfortunately, I think some devs (especially if they’re smaller) are too scared to piss off their fanbase to perhaps make their game a little more accessible to certain players. I think the “git gud” mindset works here and there, but losers in their basement just wanna feel good because they accomplish very little and therefore feel a need to try and make others feel bad.

Don’t get me started on the fake ending. I hate when it’s done in a way that seems realistic and just like I had gotten a certain ending. Especially because of the aforementioned slog of gameplay and knowing there’s just more to go and it doesn’t get better in terms of playing. Somehow it soured the game for me. Yes, I know there was some SOOPER DEEP AND SYMBOLIC MEANING for it. It does not change my annoyance.

Also sometimes, as gorgeous as I thought some of the aesthetics were, it seemed like it was there to be as “deep” and “mysterious” as Neon Genesis Evangelion.

THERE I SAID IT! I think the game had some good, but damn it just felt like a chore to play. I was happy when I thought I had just done something wrong and got a bad ending (it was a visually gorgeous scene), but finding out it was a big “GOTCHA” and there was more just made me not want to go back because I was already so tired and done with it all.

[ricstappen]

I think you’ll find that’s not the full quote

"For everyone and even for us last year going down to the wire, that was intense for everybody and so it's never great when the season finishes early. When I've experienced having it finish early in places like Mexico - for you as the one individual, it's great, but for the actual sport it's not spectacular.”

idk considering i’m in the demographic of ‘fan’ I’m perfectly happy that it’s ending 6 races early and also if merc/lewis want another close season maybe they should git gud 🤷🏻‍♀️

[hartshorn-and-isinglass]

Day 41.

The restaurants we wanted to go to yesterday were booked solid by the time we went to make reservations, so our feast got moved to today, and since the only reservation we could get was right as they opened, I had to shift everything early so I could squeeze in cutting my hair before we went. Anyway this is a long way of explaining that I got maybe a little under forty minutes of etudes in before I got interrupted by something else, which is when Beeps decided to creep into the bedroom and doze off and I just had to say "screw it" and keep it moving.

I think I'm mostly apologizing/explaining this to my impatient-ass teenage-self who's wondering when we're going to properly ramp up to git gud. I know some people say they can get away with only a half-hour of practice but like, seriously who are you freaks??? I consider forty minutes the bare fucking minimum for maintaining one's skills, and back when I was young and hungry and unhinged in a slightly different way than I am now I was doing like four to six hours a day so I could catch up with the people who had been playing since they were five. (I just erased an entire paragraph where I went into Rant Mode about the importance of practice; you're welcome.)

Meanwhile in the world of pinky prosthetics: I've been trying to see if I could maybe come up with a way to attach this thing to my middle phalanx instead of my distal phalanx, but it just deadens my grip again. God it is gonna be so difficult to attach something securely to my distal phalanx. I'm actually trying to come up with a shorter design again just to keep this thing from levering itself right off. Ugggggghhh-

I did finally cut a wedge of upholstery foam for my shoulder rest and glue it on. Sawing upholstery foam makes a mess, and the little crumbs of foam have a static charge. I'm going to inhale another credit card's worth of microplastics at this rate... Hopefully the adhesive finishes curing tonight and I can practice on it tomorrow.

[kineticpenguin]

Got called "CAS scum" by a player who died once in a Tiger with no kills and 2 assists, and spent the rest of the match doing pretty much nothing in an Fw 190, only getting 2 airplane kills, neither of which were me.

Seems odd, but then again, I was able to spawn two F4U-4Bs with a pair of thousand pound bombs because I single-handedly killed two Tigers and three weird little Italian guys trying to spawn rush in a full uptier.

(Protip: On Sinai, if you have a fast vehicle with a decent gun like the M18 Hellcat and you're on the north spawning team, make a beeline to the western trail and set up a defensive position. It almost always gets ignored by your team but the enemy team will come hoping for an early game session of roasting marshmallows and making s'mores out of you as you try to leave spawn. You might have to kill them twice before they take the hint).

I mean, yeah. Did I respawn in an extra airplane after killing four players with a mix of bombing and strafing? Yes. But only after I spawned in a tank and got spawn camped by a dude in a premium German heavy. The only dude I killed with the second airplane was him. Revenge CAS? Yeah, but the only reason I spotted him was because of the handily provided "HEY THIS GUY IS SHOOTING INTO YOUR SPAWN" marker the game put on him. Y'know, one of those PanzerBeFuckBagelz. VI things. I think it's safe to say he had it coming.

Hate to say it pal, but maybe consider... git gud?

[boobachu]

Okay so I finally discovered Battle Replays

And I spent the past hour watching all my Kayo Vs from the enemy perspective and I've learned this.

Every single "How the hell did they hit me?!" "What was thaaaat?!?!" "Dude the lag is immense" and "Are they hacking?!" moment you experience, so does everyone else.

That and Dualies are one nudgel away from cheating. Like it's just a get out of jail free card. Maybe if you're playing LAN and there's no lag or connection issues there'd be a way to play around them, but in real gameplay it's just the cheapest shit I've ever seen in a game.

I'd say it'd very super obviously be banned in tournaments due to how RNG it is, but MLGs tend to be kinda weird about what's banned and what's not. "Is it fair?" and "Is it fun?" is never considered when something is tournament banned, only "Does everyone hate this?"

My only question is... why do people still put up with this game?

I originally thought that being victim to lag is rare and some people can go throughout the whole year with little issues.

Tho whenever I bitch about this most people either go "yaaaeeeeep" or a trolly "git gud" or "git better internet"

Which, I did, I upgraded from 250mbpsDL/15mbpsUL to 1gbpsUL/DL and that did fix the "being kicked from the game because of discos" problem. Nothing else tho.

Another theory for why this happened was people purposely trying to throttle by turning on a torrent or something so they'll get the lag spike kills.

Then again

Another thing I've noticed lately is constantly meeting the same people, and they're often Japanese or way more skilled than I or my friends. Which says to me "This game is dead"

Like, maybe matchmaking isn't broken, it's just the game sucked too hard and everyone left except for the salty few.

On the plus side, I almost never get discos now. Tho again I wonder if that's cuz everyone with stuttery internet that works otherwise with every other game and media streaming just abandoned this game.

I dunno, what do y'all think?

[gricean-sphinx]

“I’ve been lost before, and I’m lost again I guess,” caught between the failsafes I recruited to make sure I keep at this and the dread of writing something completely vapid. I’ve been arguing against myself all day: who am I writing for besides myself? Nobody in the whole verse world wide web will be reading this but the people I explicitly asked, and they will forgive a few duds—what if they’re all duds, all the way down? I don’t even know what I’m doing. Like, am I writing a journal?—My life isn’t interesting enough day to day for that sort of thing, really.—Do I want to approach poetry?—Not if I’m actually planning to write every day… maybe once I git gud, but nothing I weave tonight will be ripe for public view—isn’t the point to practice?—Stop scrolling through YouTube; you’re procrastinating.

I considered writing about cat tongues (ever wondered why your cat’s tongue feels like sandpaper?! Their tongues are covered in little keratin spikes, called papillae, which help them keep extra clean and strip every last morsel of meat off bones. My cat licks my face, and every time she is very thorough: she licks my chin and cheeks, she licks around my nose and over my eyebrows, and then she tries my eyelids. And I stay still and take it because I want to soak up all her affection. I anticipate too viscerally how much I will miss this soft, fond pain someday) or writing about the moon (did you know leading theories posit that Luna formed when a proto-planet about the size of Mars collided with the Earth an incomprehensible number of years ago? Our genderfluid satellite used to orbit the Earth much more intimately then, and she continues to very slowly spin away—a little farther each year—as she pulls on the tides and the tides push her back. A familiar song and dance. Don’t worry, though, the sun is “scheduled” to engulf both planet and moon long before Luna will have a chance to try his luck and strike out on his own. You can count on their familiar face to remain a gentle recipient of your mirthful or melancholic howls alike). I guess,

[dualcastimpact]

WoL Question of the Day #34

I'm sure this has gone around before but WOL/OC question: what disciple of the land/hand jobs do you consider canon for your WOL? Is there any special context in their story? Are there some that they like and partake in but maybe aren't very good at? May 1, 2022

All of it — there's a bit in Raginmar's backstory where he basically went off the rails and decided to build and run a farm all by his goddamn self for a while, so he learned a ton of crafting and botany skills and only got better at it when he came to Eorzea.

Mining and fishing are hobbies! He enjoys all the crafting and gathering jobs, but most of them were born out of necessity. He didn't really need to be good at mining or fishing but he likes doing it enough to git gud at it (and also he prefers obtaining his own materials).

[doom-nerdo-666]

Doom fanbase related takes and prespectives

This is just a collection of various observations and some even clash like different perspectives, but there’s a chance that some are unique or unpopular so they’re "hot takes", i guess.

(And after the Brutal Doom post i could also post this)

Once in a while, there’s always someone complaining that "Doom fans have the Same Fucking Jokes" and i always assumed that those complainers were just as "Zoomer" as the ones making the repetitive memes. But more so that the memes themselves (The longer the Icon of Sin, Shooting a hole on the face of Mars, Isabelle, The Demons Are Stuck With You, GIT GUD, When the Doom Music plays, Doot etc) are either very recent or just associated with Eternal/2016. Like, you never see someone say "DOOM MEMES ARE ALL THE FUCKING SAME" and bring up Impse, NEDM, Plutonia jokes, Benellus the God of Shotguns, “Does It Run Doom?”, Dopefish, Repercussions of Evil, IDSPISPOPD, Terry Wads and so on.

DOOMGUYBOT made a video called “Ranking EVERY Doom Joke” and all those jokes were not before Eternal/2016 except maybe Rip and Tear: In a way, they accidentally reveal something about the most popular Doom content/personalities nowadays. The Doom fanbase is now either defined by newcomers or that stuff just gets to be more popular/shared often, almost hiding the actual old blood/guard under the rug (Which makes certain “assertive” behaviors ironic since they’re technically the actual “new kids on the block” and not the other way around)

It’s why i find it ironic when people feared Doomslayer in Fortnite will bring in annoying kids into Doom, because 2016/Eternal were Doom’s return into the mainstream so the main games technically already did that (And the people with this fear in the first place might as well be newcomers themselves).

It explains the discourse around difficulty and Eternal: It’s not just people being bad at their first Doom game; It’s also people being good at their first Doom game and doing that “GIT GUT, GAME JOURNO” attitude that feels like they took it from somewhere. The fact that some of them even go “Boomers can’t beat Eternal because they can’t quicksave” almost enforces this divide of old and new fans. (It's true that older fans have their struggles with Eternal but still; Then there's those that are good because they were good with Quake 3 etc). (Though what if being too good at Quake 3 is why boomers struggle with Eternal? There's a thing called carpal tunnel syndrom and-)

If one were to judge the fanbase by the current content, they’d almost be surprised this series actually existed for almost 30 years, let alone had its fanbase start off as one of the most supportive and diverse modding scenes, making content for a certain engine and even gets to port its games to non-gaming devices. (Probably even before ORIGWAD and DOSDoom). Doom is a series people see as an example of “the one franchise that actually returns to the roots and avoided the sins of other pop culture” but a lot of people into the games may still reveal certain traits/behaviors you could spot elsewhere. You could point out new fans having those "MCU/Consoomer" behaviors or being exposed to "digestable internet content" like basic memes and talentless Youtubers.

The phrase “Doom is Eternal” seems like genius marketing from Slayers Club, but a side effect of making a series “loved by everyone” is that it can easily trample over the “core of the fanbase”; Because otherwise, you’d think the answer to “why is Doom eternal?” would start with something literal like mods and open source code. (And then on r/Doom, the basic memes would have been getting much less upvotes compared to a mod release or a piece of fanart actually being posted by its author or at least noticeably credited/sourced).

Because Doom is a series that, for better or worse, was impacted by the fanbase and there’s aspects about Doom that can be traced back to outside sources. Just consider:

Mods/wads/source ports/etc in general.

Even SnapMap and D3/Eternal mods.

The "speed" association, partially because of Quake or the ALWAYS RUN command (And how boring FPS got during the 7th gen).

Nicknames like Doomguy, Pinky and Unmaker (This one taken from Tom Hall's Doom Bible).

Websites like forums, wad hosting, wikis, documentation.

Fan ports/reverse engineering/PRESERVATION for Doom 64, PS1 and RPG games (The official D64 port has Kaiser from D64EX involved; The one true lost Doom game might be Doom Resurrection, D3 based on-rails shooter for iOS).

FreeDoom and others.

A mobile port by Carmack that used a fork of PrBoom.

SIGIL and unused Doom assets John Romero shared (Until ZeniMax got him to stop).

Final Doom, D2 Master Levels, NRFTL, Unity ports addons and American McGee once making an unofficial map before D2.

Fanmade music remasters and remixes (Even Mick Gordon did some).

Anytime a video/article used fanart or modded screenshots because Doom barely had official art.

Stuff like ripped sprites, assets and models from the games and so on.

Fanart of Doomslayer and Daisy at the Fortress of Doom.

Eternal's official cosplay skin may be based off someone's cosplay that id used as reference and didn't credit.

Doomslayer is not just tied to the RIP AND TEAR comic, but both ironic jokes about Doomguy's power level from 4chan and unironic fanboy meltdowns over Death Battle animating Master Chief defeating Doomguy (And i guess how jealous Doom fans were at Halo).

Memes that are referenced in the games.

Memes and reaction images that are shared, often uncredited.

IDSPISPOPD since it was influenced by a USENET post before the first game was released.

The passage of misinfo/rumors/lies etc like Doomguy not knowing what sex is, Fly Taggart being his "real name, "Doom is keyboard only" but also good/useful shit like how the BFG9000 actually works, how Doomguy and BJ are related, the source of real objects that inspired ingame textures

The kind of mods and assets that explored the original games' setting, as if the fans were interested in "expanding/exploring the Doom universe" before 2016's lore.

The kind of mods with fanservice and crossover stuff like Samsara or MetaDoom (Or even most bloated fan remakes and HD TEXTURES REMASTERED 4K).

Speaking of crossovers, besides mods there's fanart.

Mods based off cut concepts like Doom Delta.

Cacowards i guess.

How fans made a SECOND Wiki to ditch the former, that was under Wikia/Fandom.

Feedback that affected the games, which is also why Eternal has that style of ingame pickups and UI design.

Hissy mascot.

Maybe whether or not id copied Brutal Doom or that fanmade fire Baron to create a similar design in Eternal.

Doom as a series mainly existed for its impact alone and wasn't meant to be a "franchise" like Mario or Final Fantasy. That's another reason to attach fans to such a small series. When even Sakurai himself mentions "Doomguy" as a nickname and makes a joke about ports, that's 2 things that come from somewhere.

It can make discovering the potential outsider origin of the Doomslayer more difficult if nobody ever looks back at fans already doing Chuck Norris-like/copypasta jokes or getting mad over Master Chief and Death Battle; Hell, we’re even past the point people used to think id copied Brutal Doom.

People once were upset over Brutal Doom getting a lot of coverage and its fanbase not touching the vanilla games or other mods but when you look at Isabelle crossovers and other recent memes, it almost feels like a whole different universe where Doom fan content never really revolved around wads and any of the sort. Brutal Doom in general was a weird age where a mod's popularity and reception felt so forced, its fans even begged other modders to make their works compatible with BD and Romero had to REclarify his opinion about the mod. But even BD's hate feels so fake/carried by second hand info because people just go "i heard SgtMark is hated in the community", so the only sincere BD hate is like guys on 4chan posting webm's of BD's stupid bugs while talking about how great Hideous Destructor is. Brutal Doom is like if Yandere Simulator never reached what some would call "lolcow status" because the people hating it fucked up so bad.

It explains why Romero being restricted by ZeniMax from sharing assets of his own games did not get a lot of attention (Besides the fact that this was already a thing going back to 2014); Otherwise, Doom fans would consider giving this the same attention/priority as when Mick Gordon got screwed over by Bethesda. (I mean this because both situations are lame and Romero/Gordon deserve better).

Even then, someone’s presence/start into a series doesn’t translate to how deep they’re into it and there’s also stuff like GGGManlives making FPS videos before Decino yet you can also see how the latter can show more knowledge than the former (Though sometimes there’s reasons for this and to be fair, i heard Decino himself may not like Build Engine games but correct me on this one if possible).

But never forget GGGManlives made a review of the Doom Unity ports and people pointed out huge mistakes like treating GZDoom as vanilla Doom.

In general, the louder/more noticeable fans of something aren’t the most “into it”, no matter how vocal or performative they can be: It’s like how MCU fans don’t care about comic books, console warriors don’t care about older/obscure titles of their company and animation/cartoon fans tend to hyperfixate over Disney/Illumination/Dreamworks etc and won’t recognize a name like “Ralph Bakshi”. Or people that complain "ANIME IS ALL FANSERVICE AND SHOUNEN" and ignore other genres or works.

And i guess if most modern Doom fans are unironic Redditors, someone will point out how some older fans were on a site like SomethingAwful lol.

(At least Doom fans that were on SA ended up finding fun stuff to do, unlike how most SA goons turned out)

I mean, if actual “Doom boomers and wise nerds” aren’t pointing this out, they’re either busy better doing cooler things (Unlike me when i wrote this lol) or somehow don’t feel like challenging those that otherwise have a "lower power level". DoomKid did made a video correcting MidNight (Both representing 2 worlds in the Doom fanbase) and i wonder if we could get more culture shock moments like this.

DoomKid was even polite and calm, so he didn't even sounded mad when he made that video.

Even ignoring the old blood and past history, there’s also a lot more to Eternal fan content than just memes, like people making cool fanmade demons or mods or cool animations in SFM.

And on the subject of people making "anime is temporary, Doom is Eternal": Anime fans in the Doom fanbase are usually the ones behind the best fanart or mods, while those that hate anime tend to only make basic, digestible memes; Plus how John Romero’s favorite game is Chrono Trigger and i’m sure even the new id themselves were inspired by Japanese media when it comes to making the new Doom games.

Even lore kinda applies here because getting into "Doom lore" may not start with stuff about Sentinels or Maykrs; Rather, you'd get info from the old games' instruction manuals, official strategy guides, ingame intermission texts, obscure media like level packs and phone games etc which is how some get to know about the "Blazkowicz family tree" in the first place and even know stuff like "Hell created their own cyberdemons" is retconned in 2016 (And maybe also that the in-universe date of 2022 is from the SNES port manual and stuff like the fake screenshot implying Doomguy is a turbo virgin).

Speaking of LORE: I think Doom's staying power is related to the setting's limited/weird presentation because of how people still argue over what "Doom should be", have their personal interpretations and the amount of fan content that shows a fanmade universe. Same reason why "story doesn't matter" doesn't really reflect on the fanbase as much (Specially because it feels like people only got that from a DidYouKnowGaming video where they brought a quote that even Carmack disagrees a bit with). I also love seeing fanmade redesigns of demons and Doomguy, specially because it's partially to do with how Doom 3 changed Doom's identity and how it pushed that "reinterpretable series" aspect. The idea of how "experimental" Doom can be is also why i tend to have mixed feelings on Doom having an interconnected universe/lore (Specially in hypothetical "IF" situations where the series could get another reboot and it could reinterpretate certain characters or ideas, even if this is because of how many people didn't like TAG2's conclusion). When you really think about it: The problem with Doom movies isn't just replacing the demons with aliens or Doomguy with whatshername but the fact that the settings and visuals don't mimick certain wall textures and barely capture the attention to detail of someone like, i dunno, MarphyBlack?

Something interesting about Doom 64 and it being "the real Doom 3" is how most fans knew the game from fan ports and most people outside the fanbase didn't know about the game, but i honestly think it's because generic/mainstream gaming channel/sites (Dorkly, Watchmojo, DYKG etc) somehow refused to acknowledge the game at all. Yes, the game was obscure in the 90's (Partially because of the FPS genre getting into real 3D and the game being seen as "another Doom port") but it feels like the kind of game that people made it slightly more obscure than it was. D64 being "the real Doom 3" is an interesting thing to think about because, for being a once somewhat unpopular game at the time, you have to wonder whether or not some fans would care if not for the lore aspect of the game (Since it was not made by id themselves and more people were worried over the game lacking an official modern release and not story stuff).

Also weird when people think of Daisy's death as a tragic thing but honestly? Doom being one of the revolutionary violent games in the 90's makes me think that Daisy exists for a dark humor factor. I mean, we're talking about the guys behind Commander Keen, who then made a violent easter egg about that character in the second Wolfenstein map in Doom 2. To id, it probably felt no different from South Park killing off Kenny.

The idea of "all wads are canon" is also weird to me because:

This concept is barely sourced by people saying it, i think it was from some codex in 2016 about Doomguy traveling through time and dimensions but it was vague.

The audience of modern Doom lore is different from that of the people super invested into wads.

There's also the way how people only know about wads/mods as stuff like "SIMPSONS IN DOOM!?" when most Doom fans think of stuff related to the Cacowards or wads/mods as something more sincere and developed.

In general, Doom modding in a way can feel like fanfiction, it contrasts how people want an official crossover of Doom and Halo, because it's something that could be possible in modding and even done in ways that may never happen officially.

I think a reason why nerd hobbies/media have that "brand loyalty/defense" behavior is because it's technically easier than learning more about the subject, because for all the guys defending Disney Star Wars, not many want to be the wiki nerd that writes articles about the canonicity of "water". If modern Doom fans are in that "loud loyal nerd" area, then of course the boomers will fit in that "computer geek" zone because of wads and all.

I guess the thing Youtubers and Twitter "personalities" have over someone like modders is the spread of information and influence, so it makes sense why personalities get in the way of content.

You don't need to ever have made/played a wad to be a Doom fan, of course. At the same time, nobody wants to see a weirdo harass an artist that once drew Doomguy and Isabelle together because they're not interested in wads. I guess the "venn diagram" connecting these 2 sides of the fanbase exists but it also depends on how close the "circles" are to each other (And if other circles exist). (Also, people got tired of Isabelle crossovers but the Pixar Lightyear crossovers felt more forced, like a Disney marketing scheme infiltrating a different series).

Most Doom fans play the main games, with 3 having a “maybe” spot to most people (And consider the differences between the original release and later versions too).

Even then, older fans can also be considered responsible for occasional misinfo or misremembered stuff about Doom. Or literal meme opinions like "Doom is SP, Quake is MP" despite Doom's history with deathmatch and how the Quake arena MP scene is not as alive as Quake singleplayer mapsets. (There's also weird boomer nostalgia favoring stuff like autoaim and limited color palette than stuff like how armor worked). (I guess if Decino ever makes a video explaining how movement in classic Doom actually worked, there will be older fans acting like they never made Doom to be that fast and that "ALWAYS_RUN is more of a zoomer thing").

Depends on how you feel about "anglicized canon" in fanbases.

I also think that modern Doom games are both standouts but they do have a few trends here and there (Even if you don't have to be an annoying nerd about it). This can come to mind when people compare Doom to either SMT, Devil May Cry, Berserk, Warhammer, DarkSiders or MCU when discussing the gameplay, story, aesthetic, setting, tone etc. Some people even go "gameplay is amazing but the story is Reddit". Eternal did have some stupid criticisms against the game, but because of the flow of information and how it works online, i assume the stupidest shit was seen more than some good arguements that were presented better.

Modern Doom was received well enough that even people that tend to be cynical liked it (Even CrowbCat made a positive video about D2016). Whether or not that also means "erm, they have the same opinions as people they'd called Redditors" but again, that's some melvin-ism showing up. The notion that most/new Doom fans can, in fact, be associated with Reddit or Twitter may lead to some statements about the games or audience, like "maybe id really is marketing stuff towards Redditors".

I also think a reason why SOME Doom memes/jokes are lame is because they’re copypasted from other fanbases but it’s more than that: I think people assume "fanbases" are a "template", which is also why you had various Portugal themed Twitter accounts for some franchises (SMT and Xenoblade) and how any series can have a "No context" or "struggle" Twitter; Similar to Tumblr having confession blogs to any series there; The end result is making fanbases less unique and too formulaic. Same thing with "fandom" being Tumblr people with ships, coffee shops AU's and "comfort characters"; Which almost erases shit like lore nerds and "WHO WOULD WIN IN A FIGHT, GOKU OR SUPERMAN?".

What else? I've seen people say Doom fans can be cultist over mild criticism and shit like that (Specially with how Eternal lost against TLOU2 at the VGA's). I wonder if the people that think Doom fans are too loyal are even aware of the older fans: Because otherwise, "you don't even know what a wad is" may or may not be a way to shut some of them up. The thing with this kind of "brand loyalty" behavior is that it feels like a result of corporate nerd culture and feels out of place in Doom because of certain fan activities.

It's the same reason why i think it's dumb when people imply "Doom has an anti-corporate message" because of shit like: How Doom is owned by Zenimax, the existence of Mighty Doom, how content in Eternal like skins is handled, the Denuvo anti-cheat thing, maybe even the lore or merchandise, how older and newer fans behave and their activities, the reason why Carmack even released the original source code, when id made an unofficial Super Mario 3 port, the music and DND plagiarism, the Satanic Panic during the games' release, how Romero is still screwed by ZeniMax, how Mick Gordon was treated, some concept artist doing NFT's and so on.

(It's also really easy to write "corporations bad" stories in media, so they don't really mean an anti-capitalism message when the product itself is still part of that environment)

Meanwhile, the fact that source ports and mods exist is proof that old Doom is not perfect and fans "fixed the games" one way or another. So for all the purists that don't even touch vanilla fan wads, there's people that interpret Doom to their ideal ways, even if some end up liking a modded version of Doom way more than the original.

The quality of Doom fan projects makes me surprised they don't get a lot of "HIRE THIS MAN" reactions like Sonic projects do but i can see why:

Sonic had a lot of "struggling" moments (Even if people exaggerated them) while Doom at the very least had dormancy moments and Doom 4 taking years to be made before it was turned into 2016.

Because Doom was almost defined by its mods and fan culture, people associated fanmade content with Doom as if it was official/canon (Even if it lead to confusion and false information).

Maybe people focused on Sonic fans making "the best fangames" to compensate for the years of cringe culture focusing on the lowest aspects of Sonic fans.

I also think the best parts or most important bits about Doom fans makes drama disappointing, though perhaps what makes the highs of the Doom "community" could even explain stupid shit like when Graf Zahl was pissed at Lilith PK3.

In a way, comparing good content to lame content is like when people compared Vloggers and Lets Players to Newgrounds animators in terms of content quality.

ALSO, Doom may be made to be more "EPIC" than it actually is, specially when it comes to crossovers and power level debates, as if Doom fans don't interact with other media. Because otherwise, the negative reactions to The Ancient Gods part 2 felt like fans realized that "Doom is not as fucking cool as i wanted it to be".

It also reminds me of jokes like "Doom is the most Christian game" because the series is either "90's Heavy Metal Satanic but not really, calm down grandma" or "makes up a bunch of lore to run away from actual references, if anything". With an obscure phone game having a holy water pistol. Otherwise, i think Doom fans should know what Shin Megami Tensei is.

Then again, most new Doom fans used to come from other series (Even if it's slop like Ubisoft open world games or COD) while other fans played enough different games, it explains creativity in some impressive GZDoom mods.

I don't plan to start a war or overly praise specific people, i'm just a messenger who could've been informed better (Feel free to correct me even). I just think Doom boomers should put these Redditors in their fucking pla- i mean educate the new generation, so Doom is in fact Eternal because there's a lot of good things to learn for new fans, let alone other fanbases as well. Doom fans sort of OWNED the series, even if they're not on the same level as Touhou.

If you think these are good opinions and hot takes, feel free to spread them and pretend you made them or not. Just do better research/clarifications than i did, if you're a Youtuber wanting to tackle a topic without Dunning Kruger's syndrom. I should invest in something more interesting like, i don't know, a wad? Spent way too much time on this fucking thing.

Also some stuff i could've added above but felt too lazy to specify where to add:

MyHouse's popularity could lead to another situation where people get into it but barely know about wads, so maybe they could either delve deep into Doom or make up stuff like using "wad" as a filetype name thing like with other creepypastas ("Smile.jpg" etc)

If you ever feel like boycotting Doom over stuff like Mick Gordon's treatment, it's easy because of how impressive and diverse Doom modding is: You can even look at Quake's Slayers Testament mod and pretend a mod is "the real Doom 6" or something.

We could also say nerds are getting less picky/observant over stuff which is why nobody cares if Doomguy ever looks a bit more like Master Chief (And could even explain the reception of the new Mario movie or the RE4 remake, though we still had Demon Souls fans explaining why they disliked the visual changes in the remake).

Speaking of BD hate, i also think Midnight himself will have a similar situation of "hate from uninformed people" where it doesn't come from places like "knowing about the Doom community", "evolution of nerd culture/fanbases", "how internet content works and how it changed" etc. Again why i thought DoomKid was an interesting person to ever interact with him. Otherwise, one could look at other modern Doom e-celebs and make similar judgements.

Anyway as for other posts worth checking:

Brutal Doom focused stuff.

"Things that may've not happen if not for the Doom fanbase".

How "Eternal" is Doom?

[n0maku]

vaguely considering. doing a undertale playthrough stream for the anniversary

i do have quite a bit of analysis and lore in my grubby little hands to talk about but i dunno that i’ll have the right mood/energy to do so? i would like to give the best commentary i can. kinda just been feelin like i’d do an ut stream when the Time is Right but the time might never be quite perfect for me? also... its anniversary time? anniversary time good time no?

thoughts?

[peacevine]

me: hey, this feature’s gotten severely outdated and as a result adds unnecessary difficulty to the game for players reliant on it, could we maybe consider fixing i-

someone, inevitably: uh this has never been a problem for me so there actually is no problem? maybe you should just Git Gud?