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Mamba219

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Mamba219

317

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@mamba219: I understand duder. I think we all understand. I'm just saying...it's not worth getting depressed over.

Remember that World of Warcraft is a live services game and they brought back the classic flavor because people wanted it. You don't have to give up on media. And, of course, you can always curate and maintain your own collection of favorites. They can't take that away from you! At least until Fahrenheit 451 becomes reality.

That's another book that I loved as a kid that's still widely available!

Haha. I do man. I have something like 1300 old games - been collecting them since 2007, and have pretty much every game I'm interested in from the 5th generation on. Doesn't change the fact that it sucks they're making it hard for others to enjoy some of these titles. Video games are always more fun when you can discuss them with friends.

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Mamba219

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@bigsocrates:

The logical part of me knows you're correct, but the emotional side of me sees and hears what you're saying and wants to swear off all media. Not logical or reasonable by any means, but these moods do crop up. I did not take the casual way many are treating this online well.

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Mamba219

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In a way, this was sort of bound to happen. The fact that digital storefronts require servers and tech support and often have different stores for different platforms means that almost every digital storefront is going to go this way eventually. That said, I can't help but feel like this is the absolute bare minimum they can get away with. As much as people have brought up the Wii Shop's closure in relation to this news, Nintendo handled that a touch better (giving about a year's warning, and stating upfront that re-downloads will be possible (of course, one day those will go, as PS3/PSP/Vita re-downloads will)), and even they didn't handle shutting down particularly gracefully.

I feel like the issue is that a truly good solution (if one is even possible) would be a major investment to design and implement, and would ultimately see little return. At the end of the day, these are businesses, and so long as PR can weather a store closing, they're going to opt to close stores as quickly as possible rather than do "the right thing" for consumers and preservation. But at the same time, the business and delivery side of games has become so messy that I don't know what a "perfect solution" would actually look like. If it were me, I would say that truly preserving a game means offering every version of a game in a way that's reasonably accessible to players. There's some precedent for this, Minecraft on PC already does this (as best it can), but when expanding that to the scale of a major storefront, it would no doubt cost years of time and millions of dollars coordinating, for at best an incredibly small return.

As well, while physical media is great for preserving older generations, it has practically been treated as a shackle these past couple generations, and has become increasingly detached from the reality of the games supposedly on the discs (retail Skyward Sword still has that game-ending save bug, not to mention famous examples like NMS or CP2077.) Even if it were possible to reverse the push to all-digital, that's also a terrible solution, since it would mean sacrificing patches, smaller releases, and ease-of-access in favor of preserving what remains.

Ultimately, it just sucks all around. If I didn't have qualms about buying digital already, I certainly do now. Even with how deep-rooted a digital storefront Steam is, I can't help but look at my library with a bit of hesitance and unease, because no matter how long it takes, all of these games could disappear one day too.

It almost makes me want to sell my entire physical library and Steam account and give up video gaming altogether. I could probably net a cool $50-$60k for it all - at least - and why shouldn't I? It's a hobby that I've loved my whole life, but it seems like these corporations and the weirdos who defend their shitty decisions are dead-set on making everything ephemeral and fleeting. Better make time to play every game that looks interesting RIGHT NOW, as it won't be here in ten years. Only a very select, handpicked few titles will be spared oblivion. It really makes me wonder what even is the point.

It's like, who knows? Will I even be able to share something like Persona 4 with a loved one in 20-30 years? Will my best friend and I have to rely solely on our memories to make dumb Funky Student jokes? Right now I'm feeling like I should just get a head start on that and cash out while this stuff has some value.

This whole situation has been depressing me lately.

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Mamba219

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#4  Edited By Mamba219

I dunno. I thoroughly, unironically enjoy Revenge of the Sith. I think it's a great movie. The prequels are also far more interesting if you watch them from the perspective of The Emperor, their true protagonist. Ian McDiarmid is a master of camp, and his performance, plus the action scenes as you mentioned, lets me get through the admittedly weak dialogue for the rest of the films.

Are they perfect? No. But I'd argue that in many ways they're more entertaining than parts of even the original trilogy. The middle hour of Empire comes to mind. At least, I certainly feel that way about Revenge of the Sith.

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Mamba219

317

Forum Posts

11494

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User Lists: 4

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Mamba219

317

Forum Posts

11494

Wiki Points

11

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

Nice! I think we can safely dub thee: "Master of Hyperbole."

Jokes aside, this does sound like the real deal MMO experience. As someone who dabbled extremely briefly (I think I got to like, level 15) in FFXI around 2003, it's staggering to hear they've more or less just stacked the new expansion content on top of itself without ever going back and balancing the old stuff.

Hope you enjoy Chrono Cross, it's one of my favorites. Thoroughly dumb with its party members, but man does it have a good soundtrack. Probably the best in the history of video games.

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Mamba219

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She's been a good addition to the crew. Definitely a loss for the site. Sad to see her go, but hopefully she's happy where she ends up next!

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Mamba219

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#8  Edited By Mamba219

Playing through Pokemon Red and Blue for the first time since my childhood, going for that complete Pokedex that eluded me back then.

I'll say this: while there are aspects that haven't aged well (inventory, box system, game balance), this game is still really fun if for no other reason than it feels fast. You're not given a long tutorial or interrupted by random character dialogue throughout the game, and with fast text speed you can just motor through it. You constantly feel as though you're making progress, you don't need to grind, and finally I'd go so far as to say it actually has the best story of any Pokemon game.

Yeah, that's right. All this complexity in new Pokemon games just takes away from the real draw of these first games: becoming the best trainer and sticking it to that asshole Rival. By making Legendary Pokemon the focus of more modern Pokemon stories it muddies the waters, and by making the rivals friendly it robs the final bosses of most of these games of any real stakes.

TL;DR, Pokemon Red and Blue may have some old-school jank, but because it never interrupts you, it's still a ton of fun.

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Mamba219

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I can totally understand why you had trouble with these flame puzzles, but I'm finding them extremely gratifying. I realize this is an old thread and you've probably finished this a long time ago, but I hope you ended up finding them as fun as I am.

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Mamba219

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I got Shinjiro, which was amazing. He's my favorite Persona 3 character anyway, so getting him made me laugh so hard.