"I know zero people who play it, so let me into the inside knowledge about it. "

“Hi, my friends and I play it. We’re people. Here’s why we like it.”

“You sound like an ad”.

My brother in Christ, you asked for someone to tell you about the game and then I did - wtf did you think was going to happen. I’m not even really giving it a glowing review. I’m mostly saying there’s not a lot of great competition in the scene right now and this game does enough good to be fun to play. At the cost of free, my poorer friends are happy to play it while we wait for the next paid game we know we want to get.

I’d love to be playing Nightreign but it’s not good enough for them to buy in, and other games like… Oh what’s that extraction shooter by the original Hell Let Loose team… Hunger? That’s not out yet.

Like ya dawg, I like The Finals - I’m a guy on the Internet responding to a comment from a random about the Finals. That’s a pretty safe bet.

My friends and I play it nightly, because it’s a good casual FPS and it has many modes, decent progression. Honestly environment destruction is such a powerful mechanic for making games have variability between matches that it makes each feel unique - like a puzzle even at times.

There’s not a great deal of free games right now that are capturing our attention, we wanted an FPS this month, and there’s been no paid games everyone’s been willing to jump on.

Funny enough we’re waiting on Arc Raiders to drop which is also a game by the studio behind The Finals.

I thought the point was they were in the rafters and therefore wouldn’t die, and then we’re all armed with scoped rifles aimed at the “corrupt” politicians they viewed as a problem they were justified in forcibly removing. All of that feels very accurate to the Riddlers initial plans - kill “the corrupt people in charge” and “sacrifice yourself for the greater good” (by getting captured by the police like the Riddler does).

These were fanatics, they were extremists. In Ironman 3 they were henchmen who came off as mercenaries, people not devote to the cause and their simply to make money. Not that Ironman 3 should really be used as a great example with their use of the 10 rings only to retcon that so like… We’re they henchmen mercs or were they devote ninja soldiers or…? Still, pretty different situation.

Did the Riddler think he was gonna die? Did his henchmen? I didn’t get that vibe. And I think the Riddler was interested in the theatrics of his work from the get go, getting captured, the riddles (obvi lol), etc. I feel like going out on a big bang was always within character. And although he may have started by targeting the corrupt, I think his natural progression towards just targeting the wealthy or the “not like him” made sense. The Riddler killing many people via the flood felt natural to me but maybe I need to rewatch it.

As for his followers, we don’t get a ton of screen time with them but the movie was very effective at evoking the right wing twitch/forum/podcast vibe of a deep dark rabbit hole - so maybe I’m projecting - but I 100% can see random people who think the Riddler’s form of violence is cool or admirable being willing to dehumanize the people in the arena enough to commit mass murder. Idk, it’s the disciple vs the leader dilution of the message or intent. And I’d still argue that the intent was never to improve things or be consistent, it was to make people hurt the way he did and justify it however he could.

Thanks for reading all my shit lol, hopefully you got something out of this :D

I think there’s an interesting conversation to be had here but I’m not certain I’m going to do it justice via text; let me try.

I think what’s happening here (with your comment and actually the other one responding to yours) is the failure to separate the underlying motivation and intent of the Riddler and the Riddler’s mental state or actions.

The Riddler in The Batman stems from inequality and corruption and systemic failures. We can empathize with that concept and we can understand how it drives him to become who he is in the movie. But I think him coming from that place does not necessarily mean he’s “fighting corruption for the ‘little man’” as you said. In fact, I think the movie goes out of its way to show us that he’s less interested in helping people and fixing the system and more interested in hurting people and damaging the system. He kills the corrupt ~judge/politician in the beginning (sorry if I get details wrong or close to right, it’s been a few years and my movie memory isn’t what it used to be) and leaves a boy without his father - or maybe orphans him. He propagates some of the issues that made characters like himself and Batman.

He straps a bomb to a corrupt cop which I’d argue inherently endangers more than just the person “who deserved it”. He firebombs Alfred, an arguably innocent bystander in everything. He plans a partial flooding of the city and the assassination of the mayoral candidate (at least) while riling up extremists to go out and hurt people. He isn’t doing these things to weed out corruption or to help people, he’s doing these things because they make him feel good. He’s hurting the people who “hurt him” but in reality he’s cultivating the same environment that made him.

And I think the movie gives both Batman and Catwoman as counter examples to the Riddlers methods. Catwoman came from a similar background of hardship and systemic failings and instead of specifically violently hurting people, she steals from people to help abused women (and immigrants if I’m remembering correctly). She’s not making the system better but she’s helping people like an Anti-Hero. She’s trying to kill the mob boss like the Riddler does with who he blames, but she’s not cultivating an armed extremist militia and she’s taking care of people she relates to.

The Batman is even more interesting IMHO because he actually falls into the same trap as the Riddler at first, he’s hellbent on hurting bad people to the point that it’s doing more harm than good. Then the climax of the film is realizing he can’t be Vengeance, he can’t be what the Riddler is and what the Riddler promotes in his goons, he has to be Hope™. He has to help people, he lights the flare and leads people to safety.

That’s the central arc of The Batman, going from being interested in vengeance - in the easy solution, in the thing that makes small changes you can justify but that don’t help the people that don’t change the system that may even hurt everyone - to being interested in change, in leading people, in taking care of orphans, in not creating more kids without father’s.

The Riddler may have come from a place of systemic injustice but he was a serial killer interested only in vengeance, he wasn’t robin hood, and he was that way from the beginning of the film. I thought the third act really spelt that out in a way I really enjoyed. I don’t think he was ever protecting people, I think he was always obsessed with hurting the people that hurt him.

Of course, it’s Batman, we need to see Batman dress like a Bat and be a billionaire and justify not doing like… World changing philanthropy with just his money, that’s part of the fantasy unfortunately. But I hope in the sequel we see more of Bruce Wayne being the character I enjoy (and what they’ve set up nicely in this first film) of someone who does what the Batman can’t. Reinstate funding, do public projects, revitalize industry - all that shit real billionaires should do (before funding politicians to tax themselves out of existence) and that provide a real sense of Batman AND Bruce Wayne being heroes.

I’m one of the privileged people to have studied engineering and was able to move to Germany relatively easily (due largely to luck and some good planning). If you qualify for an EU Blue Card that may be an easy path towards a new life outside of the US.

If you are in college or younger it’s easy to start making plans to give you your best chances of success. And if you’re retired, approaching retirement, self-employed, or something akin to a digital nomad you should have less problems moving somewhere close like Canada or Mexico.

Not saying it’s easy, but there are paths. The cool thing about borders and countries is they’re all made up. French people need the same goods and services as Americans (with variation of course) and thus most labor is needed in most places. With declining birth rates nearly everywhere, the smartest countries are opening their borders to immigrants or have been open for a long time.

This is the first time I’ve read someone dislike the second half of the Batman. Kinda shocked to hear it reduced to “Hollywood spectacle” given the clear ties to the movies main themes and character arcs. It also was a nearly-perfect final act for a Batman movie imho with it not revolving around one villain Batman needs to physically beat up like most of the previous films.

Ya sorry, I listed two groups without explaining what the groups meant.

I can see that, but I will point out that even on that front I haven’t run into any issues. But here’s a quick run down of what I’ve played and/or proton said is good vs not.

Works: The Finals, Dota, CSGO, deadlock, Arc Raiders, marvel rivals, overwatch 2 (I don’t play this), rocket League (I haven’t tried on Linux but proton says it’s good), dune (haven’t played), world of tanks (haven’t tried but proton says it’s good),

Doesn’t work: Valorant, fortnite, rainbow six siege, warzone, rust (?), pubg, Apex legends, delta force.

Without running the numbers but looking at the stats page of steam, it’s probably safe to say more than 75% or more of all current players would be unaffected by moving to Linux in terms of compatibility. That’s a little unfair because CSGO does like 10 of these games in player count every day.

The non-steam games probably skew this percentage lower but still, it’s not like the multiplayer or competitive multiplayer scene is dry and vacant on Linux.

Just chiming in as someone who’s relatively new to Linux gaming for anyone curious or on the fence. In the 4 months or so of being on Arch Linux, I have encountered zero games that don’t run despite playing a large variety of games.

I’m not saying they don’t exist, and I’m not saying there aren’t hiccups or bugs out there, but boy is it a lot closer to “completely seamless” than I think most people imagine.

I was just getting this set up, this and the music one, because I want to leave Spotify. Hopefully an alternative solution shows up.

That’s really exciting! If he’s bringing his whole team with him that bodes well for an amazing take on 007. He’s one of my favorite directors, if not #1.

That’s how I felt/feel, but couldn’t/can’t refute a native speaker because I just don’t know enough. Thanks for the comments!

This is definitely something that has left me confused. My past comments have been replied to with the explanation that written German is so precise but verbal German, because of the lack of precise tenses, often leaves me having to make assumptions. I chalk it up to my elementary understanding of German, but you explaining the difference a bit helped me pin point what I mean.

I don’t know if I’d say I’m complaining, and I’m definitely not rating the languages against each other. But to be clear German also has variable pronunciation and loan-in words that are pronounced differently. They also have dialects and I have struggled to get consensus on several language related topics with small groups of native speakers before - so like… It is for sure random in many ways, including pronunciation.

Again, no issue with the language any more or less than others. I personally all wish we could like scientifically conlang our way into a less obtuse communication medium. But I’m also a DM so like of course I would like someone to make a conlang for humanity :D

Much appreciated. I’ll do my best! I want to be here for life, so I need to learn.

As someone learning German right now, I guess it’s hard to argue with relative terms but I find the German language to be built with a ton of traps and abnormalities for seemingly no explicable reason.

For instance we conjugate every verb but we maintain the subject, unlike in Spanish where we would conjugate and drop the subject. I don’t see any reason why we would do that except to make the language less efficient and more obtuse.

That being said, it hasn’t been too hard and I agree with the general sentiment that learning any language is a good hobby to have so I don’t want to discourage anyone.

Genuinely funny comment, thank you.

I’m not debating magnitudes dude. The question is should a functioning society allow for someone to accumulate 12 billion USD in networth? Now answer that same question for 1 billion? Now again for 500 million? Now again for 100 million? Now again for 50 million?

The answer is no. Plain and simple. I don’t care that I’m closer to 100 million than 100 million is to 12 billion, to simplify your point. Idgaf. The reality is neither 100 million nor 12 billion should be allowed. So why are you not advocating for a lower boundary value? You’re saying it’s because we need the 100 millionaires to make this work. I’m saying no we don’t. I’m saying we can get more support from people if we pick a value that actually makes sense. Letting anyone own a 100 million dollars is still letting someone play king to an unbelievably large group of people. That shouldn’t be allowed.

Look it, you can defend them as much as you like, I’m not here to debate the granularity about which hundred millionaire is less awful for remaining a hundred millionaire or judging them individually based on their human woes and vices.

I’m here to say the largest tent pole and the simplest message is constructed by being honest and effective. The honest and effective truth is when someone gets more than some tens of millions, let’s say 20 or 50 if you’re worried about the millionaires, they become a danger to society and to their communities. Any number of billion is so far removed from reality that I don’t think it will actually interest most people. If I had heard that just 6 months ago I would have chalked it up to just another fake effort that won’t change anything. And even if now I see the value of putting aside these nitpicking differences when it comes to the movements overall health, I still feel obligated to say dream bigger.

We don’t need hundred millionaires, we need neighborhoods and family and unions and community and if we have to guns.