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Messages - Ian

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121
Gaming / Re: Backlog 2020/2021
« on: March 13, 2022, 12:34:08 AM »
Oh no no no....

and I'm excited to play Final Fantasy II once I'm ready for it.

122
Gaming / Re: Yugioh Master Duel
« on: March 10, 2022, 01:34:59 PM »
I play and collect cards IRL too, I have my Thunder Dragon deck, a Sky Striker deck, and I’m building an Orcust deck. The problem is none of my friends play, they all play either Pokémon or MTG.

But why would I wanna play an in-game currency and lootbox gambling simulator when I could just deckbuild in real life for fun?

123
Serious / Re: The Biden Presidency
« on: March 06, 2022, 11:42:36 AM »
“My fellow Americans, I know that gas prices are soaring because of the Ukraine crisis, but ice cream Sunday is a better hammer for internet speed than your dirty socks, and you can take that to the bank! And uh.....umm....

Anyways, no new tapping for oil to help bring down prices because....something green....I can’t remember what Harris told me.....uh was it the Shanghai Shivers again? Umm....uh....

Anyways, orange man is the evil. At least I think.....

.......”

t. President Biden

124
Gaming / Re: Yugioh Master Duel
« on: February 21, 2022, 12:53:53 AM »
but how difficult would it be to get back into the game, learn all the new rules and meta stuff, etc and would you say it's actually a better game now than it was in the early days
I'm going to not Achronos-reply because this may end up as a long answer. Like all difficult questions, the answer is the same: No and Yes. I'll be using Master Duel is the default explanation for the card game cause your experience with the IRL trading card game may be vastly different for a variety of reasons (playing with friends, no money so no crazy OP cards, IRL social etiquette etc.) that you just wont see when you play match after match of Master Duel. But the actual in-game mechanics and rules are 100% 1:1.

Playing from Practice league through Gold League is probably the most fun you will ever have with the card game. You'll see all sorts of rogue/pet decks, whacky plays & misplays. And is the most laid back atmosphere even without any communication with your opponent. About halfway through Gold League the game does a complete 180 and becomes the most UNFUN and Meta CANCER I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing in any game. If you're looking to just hit Platinum League and not give a flying shit about how to have a FUN game of Yugioh, just run Drytron or Virtual World, your opponent is 99% guaranteed to scoop and surrender the moment they see you shit out an archetype specific card.

Why is this?

The game has evolved to rely heavily on draw power. The more cards you draw, the more things you can do, the greater the advantage you have. Yugioh was always kind of like this, but the power-creep from Pendulums has raised this bar exponentially. A vast majority of Meta games are decided in the first two turns. Pot Of Greed will always be banned because of this and its why all other "pot" cards have some kind of crazy cost associated with them to draw two card; its why one of them (Pot Of Desires: Banish literally a quarter of your deck facedown randomly so you'll never reutilize them for literally drawing TWO cards) is one of the most fiercely debated cards in the game and I have seen my opponent pull a victory out of his ass from using it when I had the game all but won. This is coupled with several archetypes that not only give INSANE drawing advantage to their user, but they can combo out monster after monster with drawing and negating effects.

So how is this combated and why is the game still awful at the top level with these "hard counters"?

Well there's several cards that are outright mandatory staples in any semi-competitive deck. The Ghost Girls are notorious, specifically Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring because she outright shuts down any card that involves you touching your deck. Infinite Impermanence, and Effect Veiler are pretty much the same card that negates a monster effect on the field and II also negates any spell or trap in the same column it's used in. The Solemn cards negate and destroy when an effect is activated for a cost. And the best part is if you're running against all these hand-traps and the opponent seems to always have a counter to your play, there are counters to these counters. Called By The Grave straight up murders the Ghost Girl cards. And Crossout Designator will do the same for any acrd so long as you have that same card in your deck.

You see, the whole point of Yugioh (and any TCG for that matter) is interaction between the players. You make a move, your opponent makes a counter move, you make a counter to that counter, and this goes on until there is no other counter. A game within a game if you will. But you have to make these interactions meaningful and fair. It's why almost all of these cards have a hard rule in it's text: "You can only activate one [Insert Card name Here] once per turn". Because if you just sit there and shutdown ANY move your opponent makes, there isn't going to be much enjoyment for them, and your victory will be a bit cheap and hollow. How can you say you "bested" them when they never even had the chance to make a move?

The problem with Master Duel right now is that a lot of cards that were on the banlist for the IRL card game (both in Japan AND the US) are free in Master Duel and some decks are just taking absolute advantage of it. And there are hard counters to these decks that may SEEM broken at first glance, but the top three meta decks (the ones I called out in my OP) are outright UNPHASED by anything you do.

There are two cards in particular that are meant to shutdown combos: Nibiru The Primal Being, and Maxx C.

Nibiru was considered a Meta killer when it first came out a few years back. If your opponent special summoned at least five times in their main phase, you could wipe the monster field clean and shit out this 3k beatstick and all they get is a worthless token with no effects. Maxx C has been banned for years for its drawing power effect; anytime your opponent special summoned you immediately drew one card. Seems pretty crazy right? These cards are actually not that complex, it was telling your opponent a simple thing with a single move: "Slow the fuck down and let me play too."

So what's the problem? The problem is these counters do fucking NOTHING against Drytron, Virtual World, and that weird Bird deck. Ash Blossom their monster that lets them search the deck? No problem, he's got three other cards in his starting hand that let him search as well (no he isn't going to brick; when almost 3/4 of your deck allows you to do the same thing, the odds of them bricking are simply way too low, even with twelve spots in a forty card deck dedicated to hand-traps). He combo'd too much and you Nibiru him? Lol that's okay, all those monster have effects that activate in the GY that let him continue where he left off. Solemn, bounce back to hand/extra-deck, negate, negate & destroy? Those all only target one and can only be used once per turn, and he'll keep going. In the end, you'll be left to go up against an omni-negate break-my-board that will shut down any move you play. Completely killing the interaction between players. Just sit and watch your opponent play Solitaire for ten minutes before you get to draw a card.

What if you go first? You better be playing Meta cancer too because otherwise no board you make is going to be strong enough. I run Thunder Dragons, Thunder Dragon Colossus shuts down deck searching and is a 2.6k beatstick that doesn't give a fuck if you try to destroy him with an attack or card effect cause you can just banish a Thunder monster in the GY to keep him from being destroyed (which further helps you because Thunder Dragon monsters have effects that pop when they're banished). I could get Colossus out on the field, and have several ways to negate and destroy any card my opponent puts down and I'll still scoop when I see a single Drytron because I know NOTHING I do will ever be good enough to slow that deck down.

Don't believe me? Watch this:

YouTube


I'll start off by saying this: Yes, I know he won against this combo deck. But it took THREE copies of a card that was considered a Meta-killer to do it. You run three copies in your deck just to increase your chances of getting ONE in your hand, you're not SUPPOSED to NEED to use it THREE times.

All I have left to say is, the game is easy to get into and can be fun as long as you stay the complete FUCK away from the Meta. If you player Master Duel, have fun until you reach Gold/Platinum. Once you reach those ranks, just quit/surrender until you derank back to Silver because you'll enjoy it a whole lot more.

125
Gaming / Yugioh Master Duel
« on: February 20, 2022, 12:44:15 AM »
If you run the following the decks against me:

Drytron
Tri-Brigade
Virtual World
Those fucking Bird-lolis

I hope you have some porn with you cause I'm just going to auto-click for my ten minutes before surrendering because you're filthy fucking meta cancer killing this game and you don't deserve an enjoyable victory.

If you run the following decks against me:

Eldlich
Zoodiac
Some variation of Mekk

Know that you're not quite as fucking insufferable as the previous group and I'll still play a match with you but only with the acknowledgement that your decks are insanely overtuned and need a hit with the ban-hammer.

t. A very frustrated Thunder Dragon player.

126
The Flood / Re: I came here to recommend Verbatim Sengoku Rance
« on: January 25, 2022, 01:20:08 PM »
Archer fought him overnight though.

Look buddy, I know we're on the run from a ten foot tall superhuman monster hellbent on killing us, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I'mma need you to nut inside blondie here or we're doomed.

127
The Flood / Re: I came here to recommend Verbatim Sengoku Rance
« on: January 20, 2022, 10:42:53 AM »
Is it on Steam?

128
The Flood / Re: wtf I'm basically a female
« on: January 16, 2022, 11:33:35 PM »
I think it means you're a femboy 🤔
What's the point if HRT wont fix my man skull and shoulders?

it's time to wear the skirt, ian
Now is the time? Oof.

129
The Flood / Re: wtf I'm basically a female
« on: January 16, 2022, 05:23:58 PM »
25% Male
61% Female

I don’t know how I should feel about this.

130
Serious / Re: Coronavirus panic room thread
« on: January 09, 2022, 10:33:21 PM »
I wasn't able to get tested because there simply isn't any available here in FL but I'm pretty sure I had Omicron last week.

131
The Flood / Re: Dead
« on: January 08, 2022, 10:49:46 PM »
When you compare him to other EU Sith lords sure; but when you compare him to his direct canon counterpart it's clear as day who's the better brooding angst asshole.

nah darth caedus was a little bitch

132
Gaming / Re: Halo Mega Thread
« on: January 08, 2022, 11:10:15 AM »
>Get 50 kills in Fiesta
>Every game I get is against Sweatlords who get all the best RNG
>Crawl my sorry ass to 25/50 kills
>Finally get a game where I'm going +15
>Game crashes literally seconds before the match ends
>None of what I just did counts

Is this some kind of fucking joke?!

133
Gaming / Re: Halo Mega Thread
« on: January 08, 2022, 07:45:54 AM »
The disruptor is the most useless weapon I have ever seen in a Halo title. I’m not counting the Infinite PP cause that does negative damage and is useful for healing your enemies when you shoot at them with it.

134
Gaming / Re: Halo Mega Thread
« on: January 07, 2022, 05:53:22 PM »
Tenrai should have it's own group of challenges separate from the standard list.

Fuck 343 for finally adding my weeb helmet only to put it behind another gate of worthless challenges.

135
Serious / Re: Coronavirus panic room thread
« on: January 07, 2022, 10:44:04 AM »
SCOTUS hearing vaccine mandate arguments today.

136
The Flood / Re: What have you been reading lately?
« on: January 06, 2022, 03:12:18 PM »
I don't know why but I just can not bring myself to finish a book. I'll get to the last 50 pages or so and I'll just drop it entirely and never pick it up again. Not like I wasn't enjoying myself; I don't know what to say on the matter.

I have been lacking lately after I got knee deep into The Gulag Archipelago. There's still several quotes I want to add to the thread I made; the fact that this isn't taught in schools is practically a crime. You know the world's gone upside down when Putin is the one making this required reading in Russian schools.

137
The Flood / Re: Dead
« on: December 02, 2021, 06:40:16 PM »
Don't worry, when I'm CEO I'll make sure park buyouts don't exceed $10million.

138
The Flood / Re: Dead
« on: December 02, 2021, 05:54:48 PM »
Kick out the other tourists first and we'll consider it if you spend a lot of money.

i say we all pull our money together and rent out the state of florida for 72 hours

139
The Flood / Re: Dead
« on: November 28, 2021, 09:10:26 PM »
I’ve become a moderator elsewhere on the internet recently so that’s pulled me away from the other forums I regularly visited. Now that Eva is finally done I feel another forum I used to be a regular at will get the same treatment this one gets from me eventually.

That and I’m just a workaholic; now that I’m back where I rightfully belong at work I can get back to continuing my agenda.

140
Khara: D-Don’t you dare pirate our movie!

Also Khara: Lol no Blu-ray release in sight

141
I normally order just chicken at Chipotle but I’ll be sure to order double chicken and steak now.

142
The Flood / Re: Hows it been
« on: October 04, 2021, 11:22:56 PM »
Dead

Verb has yet to review Shin for me, which upsets me greatly.

143
Serious / Re: Excerpts: The Gulag Archipelago
« on: September 29, 2021, 12:10:35 AM »
On Soviet Surrender
Quote
How many wars Russia has been involved in! (It would have been better if there had been fewer.) And were there many traitors in all those wars? Had anyone observed these treason had become deeply rooted in the hearts of Russian soldiers? Then, under the most just social system in the world, came the most just war of all - and out of nowhere millions of traitors appeared, from among the simplest, lowliest elements of the population. How is this to be understood and explained?

Capitalist England fought at our side against Hitler; Marx had eloquently described the poverty and suffering of the working class in that same England. Why was it that in this war only one traitor could be found among them, the businessman "Lord Haw Haw" - but in our country millions?

It is frightening to open one's trap about this, but might the heart of the matter not be in the political system?

One of our most most ancient proverbs justified the war prisoner: "The captive will cry out, but the dead man never." During the reign of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, nobility was granted for durance in captivity! and in all subsequent wars it was considered society's duty to exchange prisoners, to comfort one's own and to give them sustenance and aid. Every escape from captivity was glorified as the height of heroism. Throughout World War I, money was collected in Russia to aid our prisoners of war, and our nurses were permitted to go to Germany and help our prisoners, and our newspapers reminded their readers daily that our prisoners of war, our compatriots, were languishing in evil captivity.

All the Western peoples behaved the same in our war: parcels, letters, all kinds of assistance flowed freely though the neutral countries. The Western POW's did not have to lower themselves to accept ladlefuls from German soup kettles. They talked back to the Garman guards. Western governments gave their captured soldiers their seniority rights, their regular promotions, even their pay.

The only soldier in the world who cannot surrender is the soldier of the world's one and only Red Army. That's what it says in our military statutes. (The Germans would shout at us from their trenches: "Ivan plen nicht!" - "Ivan no prisoner!") Who can picture all that means? There is war; there is death - but there is no surrender! What a discovery! What it means is: Go and die; we will go on living. And if you lose your legs, yet manage to return from captivity on crutches, we will convict you. (The Leningrader Ivanov, commander of a machine-gun platoon in the Finnish War, was subsequently thus imprisoned in Ustvymlag, for example.)

144
Serious / Excerpts: The Gulag Archipelago
« on: September 28, 2021, 11:20:57 PM »
While reading through the first volume I have found many quotes, stories, and other writings only halfway through this book that I found noteworthy and have further light shined upon them. While I'm sure there's someone, somebody out there that seethes at the existence of this piece of literature (probably the son of some Blue Cap who worked in the Lubyanka), the fact that Putin himself has decreed this essential/compulsory reading in Russian High Schools lends untold amounts of credibility. Regardless, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was not a controversial figure in any circle and I'm sure anybody can take a little piece of what he has to say with them.

My only regret was starting to mark these writings at around page 175. Massive walls of text obviously follows.

On Rights and Doctor Examinations:
Quote
At nine o'clock the morning check-up took place. For a long while beforehand, we could hear especially loud turns of the key and particularly sharp knocks on the doors. Then one of the duty lieutenants for the whole floor would march forward and enter, almost as erect as if he were standing at attention. He would take two steps forward and look sternly at us. We would be on our feet. (We didn't even dare remember that political prisoners were once required to rise.) It was no work at all to count us - he could do it at a glance - but this was a moment for testing our rights. For we did have some rights, after all, although we did not really know them, and it was his job to hide them from us. The whole strength of the Lubyanka training showed itself in a totally machinelike manner: no expression on the face, no inflection, not a superfluous word.

And which of our rights did we know about? A request to have our shoes repaired? An appointment with the doctor. Although if they actually took you to the doctor, you would not be happy about the consequences. There the machinelike Lubyanka manner would be particularly striking. He didn't ask: "What's your trouble?" That would take too many words, and one couldn't pronounce the phrase without any inflection. He would ask curtly: "Troubles?" And if you began to talk at too great length about your ailment, he would cut you off. It was clear anyway. A toothache? Extract it. You could have arsenic. A filling? We don't fill teeth here. (That would have required additional appointments and created a somewhat humane atmosphere.)

The prison doctor was the interrogator's and executioner's right-hand man. The beaten prisoner would come to on the floor only to hear the doctor's voice: "You can continue, the pulse is normal." After a prisoner's five days and nights in a punishment cell the doctor inspects the frozen, naked body and says: "You can continue." If a prisoner is beaten to death, he signs the death certificate: "Cirrhosis of the liver" or "Coronary occlusion." He gets an urgent call to a dying prisoner in a cell and he takes his time. And whoever behaves differently is not kept on in the prison.

On Soviet POW's
Quote
It was already clear to them that the Germans were not the heart of the matter, or at least not the Germans alone; that among the POW's of many nationalities only the Soviets lived like this and died like this. None were worse off than the Soviets. Even the Poles, even the Yugoslavs, existed in far more tolerable conditions; and as for the English and the Norwegians, they were inundated by the International Red Cross with parcels from home. They didn't even bother to line up for German rations. Wherever there were Allied POW camps next door, their prisoners, out of kindness, threw our men handouts over the fence, and our prisoners jumped on these gifts like a pack of dogs on a bone.

The Russians were carrying the whole war on their shoulders - and this was the Russian lot. Why?

Gradually, explanations came in from here and there: it turned out that the U.S.S.R. did not recognize as binding Russia's signature to the Hague Convention on war prisoners. That meant that the U.S.S.R. accepted no obligations at all in the treatment of war prisoners and took no steps for the protection of its own soldiers who had been captured.* The U.S.S.R. did not recognize the International Red Cross. The U.S.S.R. did not recognize its own soldiers of the day before: it did not intend to give them any help as POW's.

*We did not recognize that 1907 Convention until 1955. Incidentally, in his diary for 1915, Melgunov reports rumors that Russia would not led aid go through for its prisoners in Germany and that their living conditions were worse than those of all other Allied prisoners - simply in order to prevent rumors about the good life of war prisoners inducing our soldiers to surrender willingly. there was some sort of continuity of ideas here. (Melgunov, Vospominaniya i Dnevniki, Vol I, PP. 199 and 203.)

On Ideology:
Quote
We would prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren't any. It is permissible to portray evildoers in a story for children, so as to keep the picture simple. But when the great world literature of the past - Shakespeare, Schiller, Dickens - inflates and inflates images of evildoers of the blackest shades, it seems somewhat farcical and clumsy to our contemporary perception. The trouble lies in the way these classic evildoers are pictured. They recognize themselves as evildoers, and they know their souls are black. And they reason: "I cannot live unless I do evil. So I'll set my father against my brother! I'll drink the victim's sufferings until I'm drunk with them!" Iago very precisely identifies his purposes and his motives as being black and born of hate.

But no; that's not the way it is! To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good, or else that it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.

Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too.  The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.

Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.

Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions? Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago.

There was a rumor going the rounds between 1918 and 1920 that the Petrograd Cheka, headed by Uritsky, and the Odessa Cheka, headed by Deich, did not shoot all those condemned to death but fed of them alive to the animals in the city zoos. I do not know whether this is truth or calumny, or, if there were any such cases, how many there were. But I wouldn't set out to look for proof, either. Following the practice of the bluecaps, I would propose that they prove to us that this was impossible. How else could they get food for the zoos in those famine years? Take it away from the working class? Those enemies were going to die anyway, so why couldn't their deaths support the zoo economy of the Republic and thereby assist our march into the future? Wasn't it expedient?

That is the precise line the Shakespeare evildoer could not cross. But the evildoer with ideology does cross it, and his eyes remain dry and clear.

Physics is aware of phenomena which occur only at threshold magnitudes, which do not exist at all until a certain threshold encoded by the known to nature has been crossed. No matter how intense the yellow light you shine on a lithium sample, it will not emit electrons. But as soon as a weak bluish light begins to glow, it does emit them. (The threshold of the photoelectric effect has been crossed.) You can cool oxygen to 100 degrees below zero Centigrade and exert as much pressure as you want; it does not yield, but remains a gas. But as soon as minus 183 degrees is reached, it liquefies and begins to flow.

Evidently evildoing also has a threshold magnitude. Yes, a human being hesitates and bobs back and forth between good and evil all his life. He slips, falls back, clambers up, repents, things begin to darken again. But just so long as the threshold of evildoing is not crossed, the possibility of returning remains, and he himself is still within the reach of our hope. But when, through the density of evil actions, the result either of their own extreme degree or of the absoluteness of his power, he suddenly crosses that threshold, he has left humanity behind, and without, perhaps, the possibility to return.

145
The Flood / Re: What Is Your Favorite Sin and Why
« on: September 20, 2021, 11:13:04 PM »
I would like to say Wrath simply because it sounds cool.

146
Serious / Re: Tax The Rich
« on: September 18, 2021, 09:33:00 AM »
Jono was AOC this whole time.

Tax the rich... but not my rich friends that I partied with and had a complete disregard to COVID restrictions I pushed for

147
Serious / Re: Tax The Rich
« on: September 17, 2021, 11:28:42 PM »
What did he say that was Reaganite?

148
Serious / Tax The Rich
« on: September 15, 2021, 11:47:11 PM »
YouTube

149
So I don't know about the original Japanese/subbed version, but man watching through again it hit me hard how this movie has some real Rise of Skywalker levels of clunky exposition filled dialogue in the second half and with Star Trek Voyager levels of lore techno babble for extra measure. The movie is still great though. I'll give it a watch in sub tomorrow probably and see if that works better.
The spears, The Key, Eva-Imaginary, all of these things, it's all bullshit. It's all just there to get the characters to interact with each other. Hence why everything is hung up on the wall of the set like props when Shinji is speaking to Rei near the end of Instrumentality.

Quote
EoE still isn't a happy ending.
It's an optimistic ending.

And I'm still waiting for Verb's review whenever he gets around to it.

150
The Flood / Re: If you had a scratch&sniff picture of yourself...
« on: August 22, 2021, 02:52:01 PM »
I don't know about what would be in the picture but I'm sure the scratch & sniff would give off a Secret Deodorant scent.

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