John_Coomsumer

6 months? You live on the bleeding edge lol, I dont think i update any of my systems until security updates are forcing me to

I am a bit surprised he lasted this long all things considered. He has clearly struggled with his mental health this whole time.

"MM: I’d say True Detective comes up a lot.

KR: Yeah. I mean, we have many different references, and it’s interesting because me and Sam and [art director] Janne [Pulkkinen] and the narrative team, obviously we all have our favourite different media that we like to consume.

But when we were thinking about introducing a new character and we knew that we wanted to have FBI agents investigating these ritualistic serial killings, there were some certain TV shows and movies that we were definitely like “okay, they did this really well”.

So the slow burn nature and the kind of buddy cop scenario that True Detective season one had is there, and those kind of ritualistic serial killings were definitely on our mind."

I think this is a great sign for the atmosphere and writing direction of the game, but a small part of me wants a decently narrow game that actually plays like True Detective. I guess L.A. Noire is as close as we are going to get with the bloating of game budgets we have seen recently, but still. Regardless AW2 is poised to be a good game.

The primary Ukrainian challenge (just an armchair opinion) in this conflict, and particularly with counter offenses, is going to be the preservation of life while still trying to push Russia out. They simply have such a population disadvantage that Russia can afford a massive variety of stupid mistakes and still have advantage. Normally in war you could counter this with more guerilla, more lopsided, more 'underhanded' (what does that even mean in a war where Russia is committing atrocities daily) tactics. But I have a feeling a ton of the weapons and intel being supplied to Ukraine comes with stipulations that restrict almost all of these options.

I wish nothing but the best for them, I hope they can protect their country and their people.

hmmmm I almost exclusively watch Youtube so I will put some of my regulars here with a focus on more positive non-toxic people for you guys in no particular order. they will be a bit reductive for brevity:

Day[9] - top of the list because he seems very well tuned towards what you wrote. a looooooooong time (like 15 years now ?!??) twitch variety gaming streamer, uploads full streams a lot. He constantly takes breaks for long winded rants about game design but honest to god the mans brain is a treasure, the videos always entertain through humor or learning, and ive been watching the guy since justin.tv, so let me tell you he is one of the very few genuinely good people in the space, especially for this long.

Funhaus - mostly tightly edited, almost all comedy focused, and while they use games as a bouncing board for the comedy theyre not often the actual focus of the videos. The cast has rotated through the years for many good reasons, causing changes in humor style but every person on the channel is still extremely funny with a tremendous group chemistry. another 10 year follow for me (if you include inside gaming) which leads me to

Inside Games - mostly focused on gaming news, and LEGIT gaming journalism, with deep dives and fun clown math. This is founded and headed by two of the former Funhaus members who left to return to their roots of the similarly named Inside Gaming, which predates Funhaus. Confusing, i know, but what you need to know is that you can get really concise, funny, good, non-toxic 'Gamer' news about gaming here weekly.

Alanah Games - mixed variety of content, but all focused on gaming. More deep looks at news articles, amazing interviews with voice actors. Alanah was a games journalist and writer for a long time, has a ton of experience and connections, and maintains a positive attitude the whole time. Really smart, and while i dont watch every video, there are definitely a lot that are worth watching. also yes, former Funhaus if you can detect a pattern.

Videogamedunkey - not very positive/non toxic and has had his controversies, but he does always put out very funny gaming content so he deserves a shout out.

Pestily - nearly exclusive tarkov streamer, but he has been branching out to very fun IRL content recently. If you have a mild interest in watching first person shooters, or have played/ do play Escape From Tarkov, hes simply the best for that. Easy to get overwhelmed with how much he uploads across all of his channels but if you can deal with that he is a genuinely good guy with fun interesting content on the regular.

Settled - if you have a mild interest in runescape or have played it extensively, Settled is a wholesome positive guy who plays runescape with truly deranged and extreme restrictions, making every video a true feat of human willpower. He is amazing at explaining things and very funny imo.

Dead or borderline dead channels with an amazing catalog::

Mans1ay3r- very very funny edited voice lines from video games, with manually rigged ragdolls.

Sovietwomble - he uploads so infrequently this is where he lives in my brain. But very funny well edited group gaming content.

Mr. Sark - super funny group content, less tightly edited that womble and never uploads anymore, but ill be damned if i havent watched every single video a few times. Sark is just a good funny neat dude.

Charborg - a lot more niche than the rest here, but Charborg has some true blue insane creative funny stuff. lots of pranks, weird roleplay, garbage garrys mod maps and roblox and Vr chat. a real underbelly of the internet stuff, without getting into the hateful areas.

DanielSL - apparently he streams a lot, but his YT is mostly dead. one of the greatest of all time trolls. calm, never breaks character, devious beyond imagination. He always gets his mark, and his power over other people scares me a bit. Riveting videos, top to bottom in the catalog.

I think the general UI looking nice and modern has a weirdly high impact on people adopting it, because lord knows the actually interfacing of servers and channels is bizarre and takes a while to pick up

Step 1: A backpedal to their roots, openness and FOSS leaning development. Allow reasonably cheap API access that still gives them some money from the AI trawlers but allows 3rd parties to function, stop blasting me with gigantic notification on my mobile browser to use the terrible official app every time I view a thread (or even literally forcing you off the page period if its 'nsfw' content like elden ring threads, apparently??)

Step 2: Focus on genuine usability. The official app is DOG ASS. The "new" reddit experience is a nightmare compared to old reddit. Videos STILL don't load and run properly, after literally 5 or 6 years. Straight up embarrassing stuff for software developers.

Step 3: Take a genuine stance on moderation and content. Either direction; free-for-all where only the clearly illegal is removed, or tightly moderated with global rules. This current system is a completely broken mess, you'll get the_donald literally breeding terrorists in the open for years, but I can't use call another user an "asshole loser" without getting kicked out of a subreddit? I just dont think the weird federalist style subreddit system works all that well. Global, clear, enforced rules.

If they did these things I think I would return. The real crazy thing is that they could do all of these things and still increase profitability. If the official app was actually good, more people would use it, and the massive amount of calls home and data collection it does would be way more profitable. Jump on the bandwagon, make a reddit LLM chat-bot that is fed only on reddit threads, it would probably be genuinely decent. Or at least make reddit search work, you would siphon off a ton of google search traffic. you know. innovate, at all, even a little. The money would come in. But not AS FAST AS POSSIBLE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE I WANT TO SCROOGE MCDUCK THIS SHIT levels, and thats what the ownership and (soon to be) shareholders will push them towards. So none of this will happen, sadly.