Good Morning, 2014! #firstworldproblems edition

[Cotigo]

The intrinsic difference there is that Dark Souls is actually a good game and FF13 is actually a terrible one.

[AndrewRogue]

Unemployment sucks, but hey. I accept little victories. Hopefully have some freelance work coming up and stupid fanfic got featured on a major fansite. Woo.

Now I just need some meaningful accomplishments.

[superaielman]

Two wisdom teeth taken out today. Novicane never fully took hold and I took a maximum dosage sooo. Today was bad. Tomorrow's going to be worse because I get the other two out then, and have to deal with work on saturday. (And I can't call out, I'm stuck working regardless)

[DjinnAndTonic]

Bah. I don't know if I could even articulate on NieR properly. Read the LP if you want to hear much more eloquent and in depth scene by scene analyses of why it's a great game. I think for me a lot of my attachment for it came from how the writers used very distinct dialogue choices to characterize the main cast as a reflection of how the power of words and stories as a kind of subtle aesthetic and undercurrent theme in the game and from there I just latched onto all the pieces of the game that branched out of that. Run on sentence because stream of consciousness answer. No time for editing a proper effort post.

[Grefter]

LP from same dude that did the good ones for Drakengard games?  Would check that out.  If I knew I would have this reaction to the game I would have consumed it that same way because I knew I wouldn't like those games, but they make for really fun journal entries.

[Tide]

Dirty FFT Practice. Reset twice from really stupid shit (not getting enough Chemist JP on units. Once for Ramza. One for second Chemist). I really am not sure I want to keep playing this game. Unlike the other speedruns I do, the starts are just so rough and making a single tiny error is all it takes for the entire thing to go up in smoke. Also, I am nowhere near as good as FFT as I am with Wild ARMS so even though I get things, my times are still significantly slower. But since I already submitted this, I guess I am committed. Fuck :|

[Grefter]

submitted it to what

[Tide]

submitted it to what

https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/rpg_limit_break_2015__main_thread.html

This is the schedule
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_0T8klBbAFBn8nbESBut9YiXyDTp-pGnTspNWojLfzU/edit#gid=1623303550

[Anthony Edward Stark]

If nothing else you have to be impressed with the effort they went to in localizing it to the point of changing Nier and Yonah's relation because it was that brother-sister dynamic that is a distinctly Japanese cultural effect.

[Grefter]

I already knew about that yeah.

And Tide, that thing is 6 months in advance if you really don't think you have a good run the people involved will appreciate knowing this far in advance, it gives you or them better time to find a more appropriate game.

Or do you need to find a safer route?  I dunno.  Maybe you need to steal Vancouver Crew for a group play of it (if you live in an alternate dimension where that is actually a thing that could happen).

[Fenrir]

An 8 hour Lunar 2 speedrun sounds like the worst thing. Next to a 40 hours Dragon Quest 7 speedrun?

Anyway Tide is that really that much of a problem since there are two backups? Don't put pressure on yourself.

[Tide]

And Tide, that thing is 6 months in advance if you really don't think you have a good run the people involved will appreciate knowing this far in advance, it gives you or them better time to find a more appropriate game.

I've thought about dropping but there's a few issues with that:
1) The other games I offered are between 5.5 hours to 9.5 hours. Basically I don't think I can give them another game without completely resigning
2) Because I submitted other games, I feel like leaving would make it appear like I'm rage quitting because I didn't get my first choice in (or even second/third, etc).

Past that I *do* want to attend. I'm just finding this entire thing very discouraging because I can't see or feel any improvement. I was going to practice again today, but I just ended up putting it off. And see, that's part of the problem. It's like I'm not enthused about going to do it. When I did Wild ARMS 4 last year, I had a lot more gusto and wasn't so meh to the entire ordeal.

Or do you need to find a safer route?  I dunno.  Maybe you need to steal Vancouver Crew for a group play of it (if you live in an alternate dimension where that is actually a thing that could happen).

The route is pretty optimized so I don't know if the Vancouver group can really help me there. What they can help with if they actually have time is to watch the parts where I don't have much of a script to follow and scrutinize. I mean like when you're forced to take extra math turns, or doing the job grind to open up calculator. Or even Mandalia/Gariland in the beginning less the objectives you need to meet. Like, the route is safe. Its just super easy to forget or miss something and when that happens, you're dead in the water.

An 8 hour Lunar 2 speedrun sounds like the worst thing. Next to a 40 hours Dragon Quest 7 speedrun?

ACTUALLY, Highspirits DID route Dragon Quest 7 and ran it. I believe it was like 17:54:XX or something. I personally don't think Lunar 2 is that good of a choice for a long run myself (my personal vote would've been for FF7 if you wanted more donations/viewers) but they want to try something different. Its just a bit of a shame since I personally feel of course that Wild ARMS 3 is a very cool run and could be that long game. But they already put Wild ARMS 1 in and diversity and all that good jazz.

Anyway Tide is that really that much of a problem since there are two backups? Don't put pressure on yourself.

I guess part of it is the jitters or just over expectations. I mean, you're right Fenrir, in that they don't expect a WR level run (it would be impossible given FFT's opening). But I feel like 4:30:XX should be easily attainable. Why can't I do it? I'm losing like 10+ minutes in Chapter 1, its kinda ridiculous. And I can't really see what I'm doing wrong, which is the further frustrating part.

Just for the record since people may not know what I mean by FFT openings, here are all the ways your run can die and you have no control over it:
- An overly long Orbonne. Dependent on if the 6 guests in that fight act stupidly and do things like cast Blind and Cure 2 when they can just hit things
- An overly long Gariland. Dependent completely on the enemy's side compatability
- Bad starting generics. In particular, getting a low Faith (sub 55) Female Chemist. Also bad are low overall faith on your other units. In addition, it is HIGHLY preferable if the units you have are either neutral/bad/worst comp with Ramza. It is also preferable, if these same units have GOOD/BEST compatability with Delita.
- Ramza with low starting Chemist JP is a death sentence because he gets Chemist JP mainly from spillover
- Algus getting a knockback in Mandalia, which screws up the formation, forcing you to use back up on Delita, which can't be used if your generics have bad/worst compatability with Delita
- The enemies getting a crit on Algus and putting him into Critical, which makes him run away, thus screwing up the formation
- If you are forced to grind in Thieves, getting charmed by one of the male thieves and not having a turn staggered in between is basically GG.
- Having 5-6 enemies on the Calculator grind and multiple of them having bad faith with your Wizards.
- Actually, overall low faith on enemies, which can make Chapter 1 take longer due to needing multiple castings of Bolt 2.

Here are all the stupid ways your run can end if you do something dumb:
- Not getting enough Chemist JP on the female Gariland Chemist
- Not getting enough Chemist JP on Ramza and second Female Chemist by Mandalia Plains
- Not learning Potion/P.down in Chemist
- Not learning Yell/Accumulate like you're supposed to
- Not setting Gained JP Up like you're supposed to
- Not getting the 500 JP needed for Yellcumulate by the end of Mandalia.
- Forgetting to learn things in Black Magic
- Forgetting to equip the proper Skill-set after learning the abilities. This includes: Guts, Math Skill and Item.
- Charging a spell on your guest but the guest has time inbetween to move. 

Other easy ways to screw up your run but these are recoverable:
- Not equipping Delita with Battle Boots before Sand Rat
- Forgetting to strip Delita after Mandalia
- Forgetting to strip Algus of armor but making sure he has a weapon and boots.

The fastest I've ever gotten out of Chapter 1 is about 1:35:XX. I kinda of want to make that sub 1:30:XX, which is very reasonable. For the record, Claude's WR gets out of Chapter by like 1:10:XX, so yeah.

[Grefter]

Is 4 hours 30 mins really enough safety for FFT?  I mean the SDA hosted run is multiple segment and is 4 hours 20 mins... 

Even with an extra 10 minutes that seems an aggressive timing on a volatile game.

[Reiska]

4h30m gives him about 28 minutes leeway compared to the current world record run for the category (SDA's run is way old by now). 

[Fenrir]

ACTUALLY, Highspirits DID route Dragon Quest 7 and ran it. I believe it was like 17:54:XX or something.

Hahahahah

Man I really don't know what to tell you, I've never done speedruns.
There might just be a lot more competition for FFT than other games you're used to speedrunning, because it's a more well known and loved game. Hence, lower times, more insane things expected from speedrunners.

I've gone to your twitch channel but I don't even know how to access your videos there. I just don't know. I feel like an old man using Internet for the first time. What the hell is wrong with Twitch? I can go on torrent sites and often find on a first try the right "download" link among a million fake download links. But I can't go on a Twitch channel and find videos.

[SnowFire]

Fenrir: I have no idea why Twitch hides this, but you have to go and add "/profile" to the end of the URL.  Then you can click on "past broadcasts" and "highlights" from there. You'd THINK there'd be some link to the profile page on the stream page, but if there is, I haven't found it.

Tide: Fenrir said it already, but there are *two backups* for FFT.  You shouldn't feel obligated at all if prepping FFT feels more like work than fun.  And if you do run FFT, then just warn 'em that they're not going to see a WR attempt and add 15 minutes to the estimate.  Worst that happens is they turn you down, and it'll be less stressful, and even if you go over who cares.  Also if you just want to go to the marathon on general principles, then you can always offer to run something else...

Although, looking at the link...  no more Crystals4Life?  What happened, Poxnor just not want to run it again?

- An overly long Orbonne. Dependent on if the 6 guests in that fight act stupidly and do things like cast Blind and Cure 2 when they can just hit things
- An overly long Gariland. Dependent completely on the enemy's side compatability
- Bad starting generics. In particular, getting a low Faith (sub 55) Female Chemist. Also bad are low overall faith on your other units. In addition, it is HIGHLY preferable if the units you have are either neutral/bad/worst comp with Ramza. It is also preferable, if these same units have GOOD/BEST compatability with Delita.
- Ramza with low starting Chemist JP is a death sentence because he gets Chemist JP mainly from spillover

Hey now.  If you're serious about a good time (which I'd argue you shouldn't be, backup strats are interesting & amusing), just have a handy backup save that has good generics & high Chemist JP post-Gariland.  If your marathon-playthrough of it is shenanigans, just load the save and announce you're totally cheating because trashing the run due to bad luck early is lame.  I know this gets done especially for speedruns where part of it is "now, grind for a low-percentage drop" in marathons...   just have a save handy at that point post-drop in case the game refuses to be cooperative.

An 8 hour Lunar 2 speedrun sounds like the worst thing. Next to a 40 hours Dragon Quest 7 speedrun?

Actually, the Lunar 2 speedrun by HighSpirits was done at the recent scrubathon, and was pretty darn amusing.  (There's a link to it over in the stat topic.)  An interesting speedrun to me must have *possibility of failure*, ideally due to relatable things from a normal playthrough of the game - e.g. failing to dodge enemies, screwing up boss fights, and so on.  It also helps if the effort goes into weird-but-powerful strategies rather than glitches.  That's basically how the L2 speedrun rolls - it's kinda cool to see the results of just knowing boss AI really well, and also to watch the party get horribly slaughtered as they fail to run twice in a row after getting caught on the last monster in the dungeon.  See, Jean's Blue Dragon Karate uses the power of the heart and her friends, unlike Shadow Dragon Karate which is just about hurting people at short range, so Jean uses her friends as an invincible corpse wall in the tournament to protect her.  Plot / Gameplay integration!

[Lady Door]

Hey, Grefter, how is Oz at large handling the #SidneySiege? In 'Murica I think we would have already started blaming Obama. (We might actually be doing that for your thing now.)

[Grefter]

The media is all ZOMG TERRARISM AUSTRALIS.  There was a lot of paranoia and misinformation at first (TWO GUNMEN!  UNAFFILIATED GUNMEN!  BOMBS!  SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE IN UNRELATED BUILDING!).  The company I work for has offices near where it went down, they handled it fine.  Stay in doors and keep working like good corporate drones.  When things were under control they were allowed to exit via doors opposite side of the block.

Day after, it is getting spun in some parts of media as ZOMG ISIS even though the (Singular) guy was under an unaffiliated banner and there is a lot of calling it out in the more publicly accountable media. 

There is also "This is our 9/11" style bullshit which is crazy insensitive and stupid.  The actual event fits really close to our last big shooting event which was like 20 years ago.  Single isolated individual lashing out against society.  There is a difference between Martin Bryant and this guy though (Bryant was much quieter and not making demands), but they are both isolated single person incidents at this point.

I suspect the drive is similar to that of your normal shooting in places where they are more common.  There is some cultural differences that isolate it, but also probably a volume of people and availability of opportunity for the situation.

The bogan contingent is of course talking about getting revenge.  This is terrible.

So to answer your question.  Badly.  A little better than I would expect, but still badly.

[Fenrir]

It'll probably get worse Gref.

Fenrir: I have no idea why Twitch hides this, but you have to go and add "/profile" to the end of the URL.  Then you can click on "past broadcasts" and "highlights" from there. You'd THINK there'd be some link to the profile page on the stream page, but if there is, I haven't found it.

Thanks!
And wow what the hell twitch?

[superaielman]

The bogan contingent is of course talking about getting revenge.  This is terrible.

...They're going to send over Gina Rinehart to the middle east?

[Lady Door]

Can't say I'm surprised, sadly.

Saying it's Australia's 9/11 makes me sad. Mostly it's because, since this event doesn't nearly represent the shock and loss of life 9/11 was in the US, the interest in jumping immediately to "world crisis" level makes it seem like Australia's desperate to get in on the terrorism porn sweeping the world. It seems strange to think there are people who wish something terrible would happen to them so they can feel part of the world stage.

Of course, I'm projecting a lot onto them, but I recognize that impulse.

I hate how much lone gunmen affect the sense of security people feel about their safety. Things like the movie theater shooting in Aurora, CO (at the Batman movie), this event in Sydney, the shootings at schools... they're the black swans, things so striking in their inability to fit into the greater picture that they take on much greater significance and size than they truly represent. It's hard for humans not to hone in on the abnormal, but the lengths to which the media goes to whip it up, governments go to appease the unease, the public succumbs to self-feeding loops of fear...

Sucks, mang.

Sorry, I'm American, I couldn't help making it all about me.

I hope it calms down quickly.

[Grefter]

Hey no worries, the type of people that are fetishising it into "our 9/11" are really the types to angle for political leverage, it is definitely not a common sentiment.

The part that bothers me about it is how massively insensitive it is to the actual scale of 9/11, the London bombing and the Spanish ones as well.

I have hopes that it gets handled with some degree of aplomb socially, the #ridewithme thing while seeming to have morphed into slacktivism like it was originally called out not to, but there is a definite voice from that more socially progressive part of Australia there actually being head for a change.

To turn it around on to personal war paths, I notice you specifically don't mention workplace shootings there.  I want to remind you that those happen in the US with far more frequency and have been happening for much longer than school shootings and are powerful enough that the term Going Postal is fairly well recognisable internationally for something that is still thankfully mostly isolated to being an American cultural phenomenon.

As for what happens in the aftermath, last time this happened was when our restrictive gun laws were put into place which while incredibly reactionary I do think has panned out for the best in the long run.  We also had a far more socially progressive Prime Minister at the time (one of the nice things you will hear me say about John Howard) so we will see how things shake down.  I don't think the current government is the best one to see respond to this, but we managed to come out of the early days of planes being shot down in the Ukraine with going to war so hey maybe this will go better than expected as well.

[Lady Door]

As far as I know, most kinds of non-combat shootings in the first world happen in the US. Hooray gun rights. Workplace shootings happen with enough frequency that they end up being line items in a greater news day. The exception was the Fort Mason shooting, which got attention because it involved the military. More specifically, it involved the US Military refusing to pay out medical costs to the victims because it was classed as "workplace violence" and not "terrorism" even though by every definition of the term it was "workplace violence." That, alongside the accused being incarcerated and, as our jail system does, providing him with every benefit at a cost to the state... but that gets into the healthcare nonsense.

I do think the global experience, grim as it is, dealing with these kinds of violence will help stabilise the official reaction to what happened in Sydney. IIRC (which is possibly not true - America didn't cover those as much, for obvious jingoist reasons), London and Madrid handled their tragedies better than we did.

[Clear Tranquil]

*hides debit card*

I really shouldn't browse amazons in the middle of the night when unable to sleep~

Oh yeah that is one spoiled kitty~

[Grefter]

I can second this sentiment for Christmas shopping.  Had to cancel an order for a copy of Persona Q and have an extra copy of Pokemon I have to offload to someone at work because I forgot my 3DS is US and it is region locked.