latenightnoir

Agreed, it was a major step forward in terms of mechanical complexity, but I couldn't shake the feeling that everything I saw was made out of plastic, y'know? Cars included.

Oh, I always remove the default upvote:))

And thoroughly agreed, currently playing Dune Awakening. It's been about two weeks since launch. I fell through the map twice (by doing nothing other than using what the game gave me - grappling-hooked to a container in a lab, catapulted me straight through the wall), and keep getting ganked by solo mobs who pin me to walls, because I'm unable to move or dodge. A single enemy. Blocking my movement completely. Not to mention NPCs being displayed as blank templates which load in when you're barely 2m away from them, twitchy directionals, and many other points of minor annoyance, which just add up...

And I'm not dumping on Dune, it's a good game! But it's VERY rough around the edges...

Seriously, even GTA III had a MUCH better defined atmosphere and feel than SA!

And the Riddick games were, indeed, gorgeous! In a grim as hell way, but gorgeous!

Honestly, this wouldn't have been an issue, ever, if we wouldn't have switched to "release fast, fuck quality, crunch ya' plebs!" It's yet another solution for a self-generated problem.

The first F.E.A.R. had excellent dynamic lighting, I'd argue it had the epitome of relevant dynamic lighting. It didn't need to set your GPU on fire for it, it didn't have to sacrifice two thirds of its framerate for it, it had it all figured out. It did need work on textures, but even those looked at least believable due to the lighting system. We really didn't need more than that.

RT is nothing but eye candy and a pointless resource hog meant to sell us GPUs with redundant compute capacities, which don't even guarantee that the game'll run any better! And it's not just RT, it's 4k textures, it's upscaling, it's Ambient Occlusion, all of these things hog resources without any major visual improvement.

Upgraded from a 3060 to a 4080 Super to play STALKER 2 at more than 25 frames per second. Got the GPU, same basic settings, increased the resolution a bit, +10 FPS... Totes worth the money...

Edit: not blaming GSC for it, they're just victims of the AAA disease.

Edit 2: to be clear, my CPU's an i7, so I doubt it had much to do with the STALKER bottleneck, considering it barely reached 60% usage, while my GPU was panting...

Edit 3: while re-reading this, it hit me that I sound like the Luddite Boss, so I need to clarify this for myself more than anyone else: I am not against technological advancement, I want tech in my eyeballs (literally), I am against "advancements" which exist solely as marketing accolades.

Jeesus, I would have immediately exited the call/room/building without saying a thing.

So, we'll get to buy a doll which'll need to be hooked up to a couple of car batteries to have it spew nonsense at our kids?

Edit: or will they go with the less nonsensical but even creepier method of just making the dolls a sender/receiver which talks to a central server? Wouldn't it be cool to know that your child's every word may be recorded (and most certainly used) by a huge Corp?❤️

Now, I'm all for space exploration (it's been my dream ever since I've learnt that space is a thing, alongside being a locomotive), but I think we have significantly more pressing matters than space exploration at the moment.

How 'bout we focus on not destroying our one and only launchpad (which, incidentally, also happens to be the place where, y'know... we all live), and only then start dreaming about ruining others, eh?

Exactly! Thank you! Yes, I realised I've focused too much on Pessimism (guess I'd make for a good defence lawyer! or a poor one, food for thought...) and not the big picture.

Yes! It's about reasonably establishing the risks and actually setting safeguards in place, whereas optimism should be allowed to roam free and dream stuff up! One tempers/uplifts the other!

Warning for crummy poetics: and in the synnergy of the two, Reality is born!:)))

Well, hey, fully valid that I may be biased in a similar way, but in reverse, having been surrounded mostly by people who refuse to see The Darkness even if it's actively slapping them... In either case, I agree with you, it takes a balance between them, as always!

You've actually expressed my point way better than I have, so I guess that bias is at least present in the direction from which I approach expressing the idea:-?

Oooh, I got it now, sorry!

I'm not saying Pessimism can't be taken to the extremes (same as some Optimists believe that Optimism is best, which is arguably why we're still neck-deep in crap, but I digress). I wasn't arguing for that, though, I was arguing for a healthy inclusion of Pessimism in our thought processes, just as we should do with Optimism.

Also, funnily enough, this is exactly why the thought hit me, I was thinking about just how many people oppose Pessimism without even considering its worth, based on generalised preconceptions:))

I honestly don't know which to which "you" you're referring, it's in neither the last, or the second-to-last paragraph. :-?

As far as my tone goes, well... how else could I make a case for Pessimism if not by using at least a quasi-positive tone around it?