I recently watched Designated Survivor: 60 Days which I felt was decent on this topic. Spoilers for the first couple of episodes:

But this was 2019, during the Moon Jae-In presidency and the attempts at reconciliation then, so maybe this was just reflective of the political climate at the time.

damn, when did I manage to post that much

I wonder who has the highest posts-to-comments ratio, a true posting warrior who cultivated Inner Post while everyone else was commenting in the megathreads

one of my favorite bits in Freeman’s Mind is him rationalizing the batshit level design as Black Mesa making sure to fully spend its budget

“If we don’t spend a billion dollars one year, then we don’t get a billion dollars the next year. And if we don’t get a billion dollars the next year, then we have to go and spend more money on lobbyists to get the laws changed so that we get our billion dollars the year after that! … in the long run it’s probably faster and cheaper just to build a giant nutcracker, write it off and be done with it.”

Love the Half-Life games, although I definitely prefer 2 over 1. I dunno, I’ve never really got the takes that the games are outdated, I really wish I lived in the world where they were because I’d fucking love to have more games like this, but I really don’t see anything that has surpassed HL2 (I can see it to some extent with HL1), there’s just something about it. Even with the whole boomer shooter trend, most games seem to be taking inspiration from the earlier generation of shooters, few true HL2-style games around.

Black Mesa’s alright, but I really don’t like a lot of the changes that were made. Never understood the On A Rail hate (especially when, like, Residue Processing exists, no way On A Rail is worse than endless fucking conveyor belts), I actually genuinely love all the vehicle segments and wish more games had that “road-trip where you occasionally stop to explore a little or deal with something blocking the path” vibe, Metro: Last Light had its own On A Rail style section and it was pretty good. So that getting cut down was kind of annoying, and Xen I just really don’t like - it drags way worse than the original ever did, that one cable puzzle just comes up again and again, and aesthetically, while the whole space jungle thing is kind of neat (and the “Sauron-eye tower as landmark to indicate how close you are to the end” is really cool, although of course HL2 did that with the Citadel too to some extent, but I just love shit like that, give me less minimaps with objective markers and more massive towers for me to inch towards), the barren wasteland (or really, little pockets of floating mini-wastelands) of the original Xen makes it feel so much more unique, and, well, alien. I’ve had several Black Mesa playthroughs which just fizzle out at that point - maybe the final section is better, but I’ve played through it so few times because my spirit was drained by cable puzzles that I can’t really comment on what happens there.

How about other mods? There’s just so much amazing stuff, HL1 in particular basically has several extra expansion packs thanks to mods - Echoes, Field Intensity and Delta Particles are all amazing and I would pretty much consider them on the level of the actual expansions (maybe even better than Blue Shift, tbh), maybe short of voice acting but that’s understandable for free mods. Plenty of great stuff for HL2 as well.

far better military protection for the people of Canada

PROTECTION FROM WHO, DONALD

I love the random capitalization too, Lumber folks, we’re going to have so much Lumber , more Lumber than you’ve ever seen before

“I see… so that’s what the signal is” is still my favorite bit from this video, I chuckle every time

Possibly, but there are real, meant-for-combat weapons and armors with extensive decorations as well.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/30932

There’s very little information about this specific sword, the only thing I could find was about some connection with some so-called “Black Sea yatagans” (http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=29419)

I think it’s thin wood with a leather covering? Not sure, https://www.saporitisword.com/portfolios/flower-german-dagger/ only mentions the maker of the scabbard but no further details. This other photo has a better view of the inside:

huh, apparently: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/DS-1_Orbital_Battle_Station#Imperial_construction

Star Wars lore really has everything covered, I guess… also what:

The project dragged out over nineteen years as labor union disputes along with the supply and design problems slowed the construction

uh… good on the Empire for still having unions, I guess (do not hand it to 'em for the slavery though)? I love how this project is simultaneously using both slaves and unionized workers

I think the meme was made mostly in response to the “the Rebels were actually evil for blowing it up because of all the innocent workers on board” takes, by the Battle of Yavin there probably weren’t any Wookiee slaves still hanging around

https://xcancel.com/BrianJBerletic/status/1862865293284192720

Regarding Syria:

1. Maintain perspective - as bad as the worst case scenario may seem, Syria had previously been almost entirely overrun before Russia’s intervention in 2015 including fighting in and around Damascus itself;

2. This is going to shape Russia’s calculus regarding Ukraine - clearly any deals made with Western proxies to freeze a conflict toward “peace” will only be used to prepare for more war;

3. Russia/Syria still maintain an advantage in military aviation, taking a heavy toll out on advancing US-backed terrorists - a factor that played heavily in their defeat leading up to the long-standing freeze in the first place;

4. Escalation in Syria is going to stretch Russia, Syria, and Iran, but also the US and its allies;

5. Only time will tell how this plays out, no one should assume one way or the other unless compelling evidence emerges - opensource information only gives part of the picture;

https://xcancel.com/BrianJBerletic/status/1863068727337710071

• be very careful with information coming out. US-backed terrorists use disinformation as a weapon. Believe nothing until it is confirmed;

• That doesn’t mean the situation is not dire, but wait for reliable information before drawing conclusions;

• AGAIN - be VERY careful with “opensource” photos/videos which do not provide a full picture of the situation;

• It is very easy to stage a scene and then post it making claims that do not reflect reality, if the Ukrainians do this, surely US-proxies elsewhere can;

• Do not panic. Much of the US’ success depends on psychologically overwhelming opponents. Panic aids terrorists and their US sponsors;

• Criticizing the Syrian military for withdrawing is easy to do from a comfortable desk chair. Unless you are on the front holding your part of the line, don’t complain about those who are not;

• There are many legitimate reasons why the Syrian army would withdraw from certain areas, just as the Russian army withdrew in 2022 from Kharkov and Kherson, it does not signify the end of the war;

Gotta be Pripyat in Call of Pripyat, it’s maybe a bit too empty, but that adds to the atmosphere to some extent. That’s something I actually really appreciate about CoP, it doesn’t feel the need to throw enemies at you nearly everywhere you go, it’s content to just let you wander around a pretty much empty factory complex and jump at shadows.

Limansk from Clear Sky I like conceptually, but the actual level in-game is mostly a linear shooting gallery, unfortunately. But still, I’m just a sucker for exploring decaying urban environments

https://xcancel.com/ArmchairW/status/1860538358205755641

Remember that Ukraine retains a vested interest in fomenting a wider war, no matter what decisions their sponsors may or may not have made in the matter. Every cope drone raid or jury-rigged Ukrainian ballistic is going to be claimed as Western missiles from now on.

As expected, the huge ATACMS raid from earlier turned into a bunch of cope drones and two unidentified but apparently not very threatening missiles once the smoke cleared. These rumors WILL keep circulating going forward, however.

https://xcancel.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1860510537303441418

@AntonLaGuardia: INDOPACOM commander, Adml Samuel Paparo, says he expects Russia will provide submarine technology to China that will help it to close the gap with the US. Also expects RU to provide missile and sub technology to North Korea. #HFX2024

Biden’s idea of a smart tradeoff: approving/assisting ATACMs missile strikes inside Russia, changing nothing in a lost war…vs pushing Russia to transfer submarine tech to China and N Korea giving them near peer submarine capabilities. He’s just that fucking good.

…

Pro-Ukrainian propaganda is saying … the US is going to reverse engineer it from the scraps at Yuzhmash

???

yes, I’m sure the missiles that vaporized an entire factory complex totally left behind “scraps” what the fuck are these people even on about

(leaving a regular twitter link here since xcancel doesn’t seem to highlight the specific post in a thread properly)

1. Am I missing something obvious, or is the new upvote policy and the motivation for it not in any way explained in this post, or in the proposals post, or anywhere visible? I had to trawl through a bunch of posts to even find out what’s going on, from what I could see, the policy is explained and introduced in this comment, in a now locked thread, in a comm we’ve only had for like 3 weeks, that has a grand total, of, uh, 64 subscribers? Is this what we mean by transparency?

   Like, imagine if someone was, I dunno, hiking in the mountains for the past month, and they suddenly come back to some new moderation policies that will be entirely incomprehensible if you haven’t gone through 10000 comments worth of site lore. I mean, I actually did fucking follow the tanks drama, but I guess I miss like one fucking thread and now I might as well be completely out of the loop.

   For a site where we often tell people to touch grass, we sure as hell seem to expect everyone to be terminally online enough to keep up with our incessant stupidity if they want to have any chance of understanding why any action is being taken.

   ⠀

2. I’m also throwing my hat into the ring as a habitual upvoter. Like, I don’t quite use upvotes as a “read” button, but I definitely don’t think too much about it. I upvote pretty much anyone who responds to one of my posts, unless they say something particularly disagreeable, I dunno, it just feels like… a courtesy somehow? Sometimes people will make some joke or obscure reference that goes completely over my head, and I’ll just sit there and ponder it for a minute… and upvote it anyway

   I dunno, it sounds stupid, but am I expected to treat every button press through a purely rational and analytical lens here? I’m not the site’s fucking UX designer, I’m just a monkey who clicks on things.

   I do use it as a “read” button in exorbitantly long threads (which, you know, we do get a fucking lot of), sometimes I’ll see that a response descends into , upvote it, scroll down to read some other, shorter subthreads, and then come back to finish reading the first one. Now, sometimes I’ll get tired and give up on reading the rest of the thread, and thus obviously not upvote the remaining comments in it, but this isn’t any sort of indication that I agreed with the first few responses and disagreed with the remaining ones, it’s just an indication of where I lost interest and gave up .

   I will also often upvote both sides of an argument too (as long as, again, one side isn’t being particularly disagreeable or impolite, and it should obviously be noted here that the line between “I mildly disagree with this but will still upvote it” and “I definitely won’t upvote this” is inherently vague, arbitrary, and vibes-based, I’m not a Sentiment Analysis algorithm, I’m a human being, with moods, and headaches, and various petty attitudes that I may or may not even be consciously aware of). There isn’t much rhyme or reason to this, the idea of “upvote = agreement/support” is just entirely disconnected from users’ behavior here.

   ⠀

3. I pretty much stay out of struggle session discourse (aside from, occasionally, uh… lurking the threads and silently upvoting the side I agree with , but I guess I’ll have to stop doing that lest I end up backing the losing side in one of those ), this is maybe the first time I’m posting something serious in one, but this is genuinely starting to wear on me, it’s been what, 3 weeks of near-permanent revolution struggle? Every time I see a new pinned thread a sense of dread comes over me, how long is this going to fucking go on for? Can we just like, put a fucking moratorium on policy changes until things calm down a bit?

   ⠀

4. I’ll link a couple of @Frank@hexbear.net’s comments from the past thread, since he’s way more eloquent on this than I’ll ever be, and I’m not sure how many people have even seen that thread (refer to pt. 1): on the inversion of mod/user roles and on discipline requiring trust.

   The last one in particular I will reiterate - discipline requires trust. At this stage, I am not sure if I can reasonably trust the moderation team: the mod statements from the previous drama, the embarrassing “self-crit” of one of those mods that followed, the fact that you made someone an admin with the reasoning of “well, they used to be an admin before!”, said person proceeded to completely mismanage the situation, start randomly handing out bans as some form of humor (?!), and just casually nope out of the mess they created and delete their entire presence here (I don’t care how many times you say “we disagree with her decisions”, the fact that this was allowed to happen in the first place is such a severe lapse in judgement that I don’t even know what to fucking say), the attempt at some kind of Tom Clancy scheme of manipulating other lemmy instances for some reason… given all of this, just this general caliber of decision-making competence on display here, how am I supposed to trust the moderation team to actually pore over individual users posts and upvotes and engage in some kind of internet psychoanalysis in order to discipline them fairly?

   I understand and sympathize that lemmy’s moderation tools are lacking, but that’s not the fault of the users. In fact, the general attitude of a lot of the userbase seems to be broadly critical of this site being a reddit offshoot! Although this is of course difficult to objectively judge (some of this is just ironic “phpBB forums… they don’t make 'em like they used to *sip*” posting, and many users don’t actively comment so their attitude is unknown), the broad popularity of the megathreads does seem to indicate the posters yearn for a different kind of site structure than the one we have. Now, at this stage it’s of course not really an option to just throw the site away and begin anew as something else, but still, being stuck with a shitty website that lacks functionality isn’t something the users should be punished over!

what was the point of the last few weeks?

I stumbled on the OST for the unreleased Jazz Jackrabbit 3 recently, and I keep playing this track every now and again, it’s such a banger. This whole subgenre from Epic Games’ early efforts (and stuff those composers did for other companies) is really cool, I with there more games beyond the Unreals and Deus Ex with that style. This track from Unreal 2 is another great one

The cut Downtown theme from Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, it’s just such a vibe

Fertile Rondo from Bayonetta 3 is also just , great 5th Element vibes

Brain Freeze from Yuri’s Revenge, I miss the “just stick some old movie/TV quotes in” era of electronic music

This track from Descent (this particular recording off a Roland SC-55, I’m pretty sure I originally found it on youtube but it seems like that upload may have been taken down, and a lot of the other ones I could find don’t sound as good)

The whole Neotokyo soundtrack really, just an absolute masterpiece composed for a free mod for some reason. Some standouts: Beacon, Imbrium, Tachi, I just absolutely love the combination of more electronic sounds with strings and piano in a lot of these.

On the more ambient side of things, STALKER has some great ones, Call of Pripyat especially, like the Pripyat theme

it’s difficult to merge that deep simulation system with the capability to do narrative traditional game design

Definitely, games that try this do need to abandon traditional narratives to some extent, which is a big ask for a typical publisher - and unfortunately, the complexity of such systems also puts them out of the reach of indie games which can otherwise afford to be more experimental (although Rain World is supposed to have some pretty amazing AI simulation too) - these kind of projects really have to be AA games, big enough to manage the complexity, but small enough to be allowed to actually do it instead of flattening everything in pursuit of more market share. And the AA side of the industry has unfortunately massively declined.

Space Rangers’ main narrative isn’t really much more than “liberate all star systems and defeat the big boss commanding the enemy” - there’s a bit of detail about the war itself, but it’s mostly revealed in big text boxes, which is moreso lore than narrative I guess. However, it’s still got plenty of stories, thanks to the baffling(ly amazing) decision to just stick like a 100 mini-text-adventure games in as side quests. Get caught by the cops for your piratical crimes and sent to jail? Oh boy, we’ve got a whole text adventure of you having to manage your relations with the prisoners and the guards, choosing who to snitch on, getting into, uh, trained cockroach races (?), ratting out the horrible prison conditions to journalists, and much more! There’s also presidential elections, cooking competitions, just a whole ton of random stuff, I have no idea what they were thinking but it turned out pretty great.

Grand strategy games like Crusader Kings also utilize such dynamic systems to great effect while forsaking typical narrative, but they’re their own niche (and while Paradox does make cool stuff, they do also nickel-and-dime people for like 100 different DLCs per game…)

There’s a neat Russian game series, Space Rangers, which also hit some of those vibes for me.

STALKER early in its development had some marketing blurb about “the AI being able to beat the game without the player”, which is pretty dubious (it may have been sort of technically true at a very early stage when the game didn’t really have much of a story or missions, but it’s definitely not true for the finished product, which does have a more conventional narrative running through the game that you as the player are the driving force of), but in Space Rangers 2 this actually can nearly happen in the lower difficulty modes - you’re not playing as some chosen hero, you’re just a volunteer soldier in a big war, a war which goes on without you - star systems are captured and lost, the military organizes expeditions, technology advances over the course of the game with new weapons and ship models becoming available, and eventually, the AI can indeed whittle the enemy down to pretty much one or two final star systems. It was pretty nifty.

I really wish this whole “simulating deep systems that allow gameplay situations (and maybe even whole stories) to naturally emerge” approach (seen in these games, immersive sims, and I guess to some extent grand strategy games) was more popular, but it is pretty difficult and risky. It’s part of what makes Bethesda’s trajectory even more disappointing - at the time of Oblivion, they were actually exploring some of the same ideas of detailed AI routine simulation as STALKER (just tailored more towards “citizen” NPCs, ones who have homes and jobs and families, and thus routines revolving around that, while STALKER’s guys are more nomadic wanderers getting into hijinks)… but the Radiant AI system didn’t end up going anywhere, it was very jank but instead of trying to further develop it they’ve been progressively cutting it down more and more, and apparently in Starfield there’s not much of it left.

https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1858019192370507904

Wow, looks like Xi was extremely straightforward during his meeting with Biden, probably the most he’s ever officially been in a meeting with a US president.

According to the Chinese readout (https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2024_11_17_755645.shtml) here’s what he told Biden were the 7 “lessons of the past 4 years that need to be remembered”:

1. "There must be correct strategic understanding. The ‘Thucydides Trap’ is not historical destiny, a ‘new Cold War’ cannot and should not be fought, containment of China is unwise, undesirable, and will not succeed."

2. "Words must be trustworthy and actions must be fruitful. A person cannot stand without credibility. China always follows through on its words, but if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another, it is very detrimental to America’s image and damages mutual trust."

3. "Treat each other as equals. In exchanges between two major countries like China and the United States, neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes, nor can they suppress the other based on so-called ‘position of strength,’ let alone deprive the other of legitimate development rights to maintain their own leading position."

4. “Red lines and bottom lines cannot be challenged. As two major countries, China and the United States inevitably have some contradictions and differences, but they cannot harm each other’s core interests, let alone engage in conflict and confrontation. The One China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués are the political foundation of bilateral relations and must be strictly observed. Taiwan issue, democracy and human rights, development path, and development rights are China’s four red lines, which cannot be challenged. These are the most important guardrails and safety nets for China-US relations.”

5. “There should be more dialogue and cooperation. Under current circumstances, the common interests between China and the United States have not decreased but increased. Whether in areas of economy and trade, agriculture, drug control, law enforcement, public health, or in facing global challenges such as climate change and artificial intelligence, as well as international hotspot issues, China-US cooperation is needed. Both sides should extend the list of cooperation, make the cooperation cake bigger, and achieve win-win cooperation.”

6. “Respond to people’s expectations. The development of China-US relations should always focus on the wellbeing of both peoples and gather the strength of both peoples. Both sides should build bridges for personnel exchanges and cultural communication, and also remove interference and obstacles, not artificially create a ‘chilling effect.’”

7. “Demonstrate great power responsibility. China and the United States should always consider the future and destiny of humanity, take responsibility for world peace, provide public goods for the world, and play a positive role in world unity, including engaging in positive interaction, avoiding mutual consumption, and not coercing other countries to take sides.”

Funnily, all this is summarized in the official US readout (https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/readout-of-president-joe-bidens-meeting-with-president-xi-jinping-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-3/) with this short sentence: “The two leaders reviewed the bilateral relationship over the past four years”. Talk about an understatement 😅. The language compared to the readout of the last Xi-Biden meeting in San Francisco one year ago is noticeably more forthright, especially on the U.S.'s lack of trustworthiness (“if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another…”). Looks like he’s getting very frustrated with U.S. duplicity… The 4 red lines he enumerates are also new (not new individually as they’ve each been mentioned before, but packaging them together as “four red lines” and explicitly labeling them as such in a president-level diplomatic readout is new)

…

With the red lines on “Democracy and human rights” and “Development path/system”, it looks like China is effectively telling the U.S. it will not humor them anymore in discussions about its internal system and so-called “human rights”, and that it will consider any U.S. initiative aimed at interfering with China’s internal affairs or otherwise shape China as hostile actions on the same level as Taiwan. This is also clear with Xi telling Biden that “neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes”.

On development rights Xi states that “the Chinese people’s right to development cannot be deprived or ignored” and criticizes how “while all countries have national security needs, the concept shouldn’t be overgeneralized or used as an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression”. He also said that “great power competition should not be the theme of the era; unity and cooperation are needed to overcome difficulties together. 'Decoupling and breaking chains” is not the solution; mutually beneficial cooperation is the path to common development. ‘Small yards with high fences’ is not befitting of great powers."

In other words, he’s telling Biden that he believes the U.S. is attempting to curtail China’s development in the guise of national security, but that this is “an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression” and a red line as China has a fundamental right to develop as any other country. This is all, of course, also signaling to the upcoming Trump administration. The fact these are “red lines” means they’re non-negotiable regardless of who leads the US: he’s telling Trump too that attempts to “reshape” China or restrict its development will be viewed as hostile actions. And the emphasis on US “saying one thing and doing another” also puts the future administration on notice that China will judge the US by its actions rather than its diplomatic statements.

Conclusion: by framing these positions as “lessons learned” from the past four years, Xi is effectively closing the book on one approach to US-China relations - which he’s obviously very critical about - and very clearly signaling to Trump a change is badly needed, particularly around the “4 red lines” and matching words with actions. The language is very confident, telling the U.S. they need to “treat each other as equals” and that they have no “position of strength” anymore. The US readout on this, as usual for the Biden administration, is very illustrative of exactly what Xi is complaining about: a complete disregard for China’s stance on these issues and a refusal to engage with them, or even mention them at all. Not sure that “America first” Trump and the team of China hawks he put together will be much better…