Little things that annoy the hell out of you

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Lander
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Lander »

BIL wrote:Rhetorical music in documentaries. Serious matters speak for themselves and should be presented sans affectation. Not incidentally, the term of scorn "melodrama" literally translates as "drama set to music."

Case in point, that auld favourite the chomo copper is back onscreen once more. As with the late Bill Conradt, an assistant DA who put a moon roof in the back of his head when rumbled - the subject speaks for itself. Position of authority + predator = headfirst into an industrial shredder positioned directly over an incinerator that's rigged up to a leaf blower. Dust, wind, or the nearest civilised equivalent thereof. Adding babby's first frootyloops horror BGM just gives bang-to-rights piggus unearned wriggle-room.
Interesting, I didn't know about the musical etymology of melodrama. Makes a lot of sense in context of the performance arts.

I find TV charity ads suffer similar - almost every serious and noble cause is backed by a soundtrack so melancholic that it flies straight past plucking at your heartstrings and instead uses them to shred out a facemelting Malmsteen solo.
It's a bit self-defeating when you're too busy exclaiming "Oi, gerroff me emotions!" to engage with the underlying message.
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vol.2
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by vol.2 »

I'm always saying this. It's super distracting to me when a movie has music that says "this is way you're supposed to feel;" good movie/tv music accomplishes it's task without being noticed as such. And the appropriate time for the music to be in the forefront is during a sequence that calls for it. For example, a scene that collectively shows you character development like the one in the first Star Wars film when young Luke is staring out over Tatooine and John Williams score is communicating those things to you from Luke which there are no words for.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by XoPachi »

Gonna need certain people to put limits on their alcohol consumption if they can't hold their liquor or are an obnoxious drunk.
Had a small gathering last night with friends. It wasn't a party exactly. Just cracking some cold ones with the boys.

One of them came and immediately just started _heavily_ drinking. He wasn't belligerent and aggressive but he was extremely annoyingly loud. Swore he wasn't drunk but passed out and woke himself up projectile vomitting all over the couch, bathroom, and my bag. This isn't what I'd call common with him but he's had episodes like that before and is the only one I know that has.

Like come on, dude. Learn some restraint by now before you get passed up for invites for your OWN sake.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Lander »

error: gnupg: signature from "Some Asshole <some_asshole@artixlinux.org>" is unknown trust

Having to sink 30 minutes of my weekend into un-softlocking the OS updater because Asshole-san up there got lazy updating his GPG key. Again. That's a paddlin' :x
Though, annoyance aside, it still beats Windows randomly reconfiguring itself every time there's an update.
XoPachi wrote:Gonna need certain people to put limits on their alcohol consumption if they can't hold their liquor or are an obnoxious drunk.
Had a small gathering last night with friends. It wasn't a party exactly. Just cracking some cold ones with the boys.

One of them came and immediately just started _heavily_ drinking. He wasn't belligerent and aggressive but he was extremely annoyingly loud. Swore he wasn't drunk but passed out and woke himself up projectile vomitting all over the couch, bathroom, and my bag. This isn't what I'd call common with him but he's had episodes like that before and is the only one I know that has.

Like come on, dude. Learn some restraint by now before you get passed up for invites for your OWN sake.
Oh, good old old Liability Friend.

Last time I went for friendly hangout drinks, our version of that fella ended up such a mess that he needed a two-man team to help get his shoes on. And a three-man team plus scouting party and thrown-phone-retrieval personnel to deliver him to the bus stop intact :lol:
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vol.2
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by vol.2 »

XoPachi wrote: Like come on, dude. Learn some restraint by now before you get passed up for invites for your OWN sake.
The sad truth is that some people can't do it on their own. Dude actually might need some help. It's a tricky thing though, I seen situations like this come and go, and it can be very difficult to solve something like that amongst friends. There's typically both a drinking problem and a social anxiety problem that are very difficult confront at the same time.

Sometimes, a gentle "dude you need to take it easy," or "hey, slow down a little bit, let's keep things going a little longer," can do the trick though
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drauch
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by drauch »

I had a friend like that. Vomit all over himself, get belligerent, touch girls and shit. Almost died choking on vomit. Crashed his car and send two other drivers to the hospital. Sober though, this guy had problems as well. Eventually just had to tell him to fuck off. Of course everyone tried to help, but there's only so many chances you can give to someone that's an adult before you have to send them on their own way.
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vol.2
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by vol.2 »

Yeah. Pretty much, at a certain point it takes people with special training to manage that. Just being someone's friend doesn't make you qualified to deal with that shit and, in many situations, it ends up in a case of enabling behavior rather than actually helping them
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by orange808 »

Google trying to charge people for machine learning inpainting that's already available as open source software. :lol:

Also, I'm rolling laughing hipster children complaining that new games don't "innovate". Child, little child. You only just realized you're playing essentially the same games with improved visuals? That's adorable, child. :lol:

And, of course, the good old hipster "AAA gamez badz" meme. As if indie shit innovates.

You didn't hit the "passive" button enough times and you killed your friends, because I invented a convenient amnesia plot to carefully craft a "guilt trip" surprise! Wow! So fucking INNOVATIVE! Good fucking job (you wanker). Uh oh. Undertale fan boi flame incoming! So innovative! A NES RPG clone with shit graphics and a guilt trip! Fresh!

Or, there was that time we stole the time mechanic from AAA PoP: Sand of Time and put it in a 2d game. Fresh! Innovation! Braid! Yeah!

Or Stardew Valley. It's Harvest Moon, but newer. Fresh!

World of Goo. Physics based puzzles. It's not like The Incredible Machine at all. Fresh!

Flappy Bird! Atari 2600 Street Racer with one player and worse controls. Fresh!.

Innovation is almost always AAA, child. It's also almost always incremental.
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Mischief Maker
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Mischief Maker »

orange808 wrote:And, of course, the good old hipster "AAA gamez badz" meme. As if indie shit innovates.

[...]

Innovation is almost always AAA, child. It's also almost always incremental.
HARD disagree. Indie games are constantly innovating in wild new ways that AAA games are too timid to try. Here's three off the top of my head:

Drox Operative 2 has you flying, exploring, and outfitting a spaceship with random equipment like a Diablo-style ARPG. Except the procedural world it takes place in is an active Master of Orion-style 4X between AI factions. And your character is a meddler in the style of Dune's Bene Gesserit, who offers their services to the factions as an elite mercenary, but in truth is manipulating the political landscape for the inscrutable purposes of your shadowy Drox guild.

Yoku's Island Express is at first glance a metroidvania where you play a dung beetle rolling a giant marble around a magical island where you've just arrived for your new job as postmaster right when an ancient eldritch horror has attacked the island's patron god and left them mortally wounded. But quickly you realize the game is full of bumpers and flippers that fling your marble around way faster than rolling it by hand and that the game's map is in fact a gigantic pinball table!

Desktop Dungeons takes all the abstract min-maxing decisions of a roguelike RPG from potion management to worshiping at the altar of fickle gods (then betraying them for more advantageous gods) all in the space of a single coffee break with an interface based on Windows' mine-sweeper.

FTL! Hotline Miami! Crypt of the Necrodancer! The list of innovative, sometimes genre-defining indies goes on and on.

And yes, you could decide to define these games in the broadest possible terms to still claim they're derivative, but that cuts both ways. Someone could just as easily describe AAA Prince of Persia as Tomb Raider with fancy save-scumming.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

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Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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orange808
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by orange808 »

It's all incremental, isn't it?

We keep mentioning all these game ideas combined. They're not new ideas, though. The thing for me is I'm old. I played the games that pioneered genres. When someone cribs on those ideas, it's fun. That's true. But, it's the children that didn't experience what came before that misunderstand where all this came from. It's the nature of the beast.

What I said is true. Kids finally getting old enough to realize that everything is incremental. I smile in sympathy, because everything they played was incremental improvement on previous art.

Sack boy takes Racing Construction Set online in a platformer? Definitely a step forward. Not the same innovation as Racing Construction Set itself. Sharing online? Not convenient on the C64, but we did it.

Knocking AAA games is hipster wanker shit, though. I can't take it seriously. I'm a gamer and have been as long as I can remember. I have zero patience for this pretentious posturing. I just want to play the games. I ain't dead yet.

There aren't completely new ideas because people have spent decades thinking about game design. There's only so many wheels you can invent.

Coming up with a ton of intentionally obtuse story elements and art assets to populate your world is imagination, but that's not innovation. Innovation is in gameplay for me. I applaud imagination, because that's basically all we have left to build interesting things.

My only personal issue with many AAA releases is difficulty. The games absolutely must appeal to a wide audience and it's difficult for devs to include experiences for everyone. Although, most games do a great job and setting it to "hard" makes things interesting. You mentioned Tomb Raider. I mourn the loss of the devilish environmental puzzles. They can't be easily throttled with a difficulty setting in the game menu, because they are part of the game design and environment. So, they have been mostly abandoned. Hopefully, they'll make another Portal someday. People accepted the idea when it was the core element--and they didn't have to do a lot of trial and error to understand each environmental puzzle. Portal had a good learning curve. Although, I always enjoyed toying with a "one time" unique puzzle room and learning the rules. Indie games keep niche things like environmental puzzles and shmups alive.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by neorichieb1971 »

I've a self made hyocrite, because I can play any new Resident Evil, Zelda, Silent Hill and just love it.

But I hate AAA titles that are FPS, Halo, New God of War, Last of Us etc, because they are riddled with cut scenes, long story boards where no gameplay happens. I recently watched Bionetta 3 on Switch since a friend brought it round and I swear the first 45 mins had about 3 mins of gameplay, he actually put the controller on the floor. I don't mind if the game keeps you in the realtime gameplay world when the story is happening but I just think AAA means filling the disc with 6 hours of pre rendered BS. I am sure Hollywood is there for a reason there is no need to rob the game of hours of gameplay so you can watch pre rendered story boards. But people like it, so it is what it is.

The indie scene is more creative because they don't spend $20 million dollars on pre rendered cut scenes, actors/actresses, narrators and have the odd bit in between where you press X on 1 interactive asset between talky talk bits. Even AAA bosses are now split into segments where 2 or 3 loads of pre rendered footage shows the beast getting more angry and mutating into the 3rd iteration of the boss fight.

Games should stay in the realtime gameplay environment most of the time. This is why I play the games I play, because they are either shallow in pre rendered footage or eliminate it altogether.

Back in the day of CD based games it was cool to see, but here we are 20+ years on and the PS5 era is full of games that have a "clear the room" gameplay element followed by some pre rendered scene. To me that isn't nextgen or cool anymore, its just disc filler. Even some of the footage i've seen of my favourite franchises like Resident evil have huge segments of walking around in trees down narrow corridors. It looks amazing, but it feels less game than wandering around in areas where you can see quite far, but your limited to walking down a pre rendered path. Its not exacly Hyrule field is it?
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Lander »

My, the orange soda is tangy this week! :lol:

Hating on AAA simply because it's AAA is as nonsensical as holding any view without basis, but doesn't negate the laundry list of justifiable reasons to consider it shitty.
Trend-chasing solid ideas into the ground, innovating primarily in the field of money extraction, posting record-smashing numbers with one hand while inventing excuses to turn the thumbscrews harder with the other, gaslighting the customer base into evangelism in spite of said thumbscrews, and so on ad infinitum.

AAA may have been the innovation leader when the medium was in its developmental phase, having the cash to throw at talent to invent all the stuff its current iteration takes for granted and derives from, but now? Shit's moving further toward a homogenization singularity with every passing year. I want to hear some examples of recent AAA innovation.

And indies are always going to be a mixed bag, even filtering out the more overt trash. Oh, you made another metroidvania with Ikaruga polarity, Team Ladybug? Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor.

But conversely, we wouldn't have Outer Wilds without the indie scene. Sure, it's Majora's Mask in space, which is Groundhog Day in fantasy, which is probably something else in film, but the implementation is fresh enough to be considered innovative in the context of an inherently derivative medium.
neorichieb1971 wrote:I've a self made hyocrite, because I can play any new Resident Evil, Zelda, Silent Hill and just love it.

But I hate AAA titles that are FPS, Halo, New God of War, Last of Us etc, because they are riddled with cut scenes, long story boards where no gameplay happens.
I wouldn't call that hypocritical; much as the industry would like "nobody wants to play those old games" to be true, enjoying video games that aim to be video games doesn't obligate you to also enjoy ones with vogue-y aspirations of being interactive film.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by orange808 »

Games can be art, though. Witness a middle finger.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by drauch »

neorichieb1971 wrote:But I hate AAA titles that are FPS, Halo, New God of War, Last of Us etc,
Hey, 1/3 ain't bad!
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Lander »

YouTube Shorts.

Seeing a new video appear in my feed from one of the analysis lads is usually an occasion for celebration; an hour-or-so long verbal essay on something decently interesting to lean back and listen to at lesiure.

But today? Today you'll take a pair of one-minute long TikTok videos and like it, chump. Blegh. Roughly as satisfying as a single piece of unseasoned popcorn, and about as incisive too.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Udderdude »

Yup, we already complained about Youtube trying to crappily copy Trashtok before. https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.p ... 3#p1490033
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by XoPachi »

On that note, I honestly just...hate the Internet today.
I don't really want to dive deeper into it because I can't astutely articulate the sheer breadth of my grievances with all of it these days. But it's just lame and stupid.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Mischief Maker »

XoPachi wrote:On that note, I honestly just...hate the Internet today.
I don't really want to dive deeper into it because I can't astutely articulate the sheer breadth of my grievances with all of it these days. But it's just lame and stupid.
There's a reason we all still cling to Web 1.0 sites like this.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by neorichieb1971 »

I don't understand the over use of handy cameras in modern movies and TV shows.

Just got done with the last episodes of "Last of Us". A great TV show with millions spent on special effects and sets that have whole cities in a derelict state with abondoned burnt out cars, corpses everywhere, monsters that have more makeup than you can shake a stick at. Yet, the cameraman follows the action and walking scenes by moving the camera around at all times. Its obviously a choice the director makes to do this sort of thing and it has its place, but all the damn time? I mean whoever is holding that camera is doing worse than your average youtuber with a phone.

I pray for more drone shots, at least that thing keeps the image steady.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Mischief Maker »

neorichieb1971 wrote:I don't understand the over use of handy cameras in modern movies and TV shows.
It's meant to produce a sense of unease. The picture is literally unsteady. Bad directors can over rely on them and ruin the effect.

See also: Dutch Angles

Image
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by neorichieb1971 »

Mischief Maker wrote:
neorichieb1971 wrote:I don't understand the over use of handy cameras in modern movies and TV shows.
It's meant to produce a sense of unease. The picture is literally unsteady. Bad directors can over rely on them and ruin the effect.

See also: Dutch Angles

Image

Ok, then Last of Us does that from the beginning until the end. I personally find it distracting and cheap and it is also a weaker composition shot as I believe some of the locales in these shows would do better with the camera farther out like "Stand by me".
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Lander »

Cracking choice of example, MM :lol:

Handicam can be pretty good used right, the classic over-referenced example being Firefly's use of it in low-tech scenes (on the ship, backwater worlds, etc) juxtaposed against image-stabilized dolly / drone style work for high-tech imperial vessels and bases.

Though like anything else, too much is a bad thing. I recall trying to watch Cloverfield with some buddies and us collectively giving up after 15ish minutes of purposefully disorienting camera work.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by BIL »

When the chaps behind SIRENTO HIRU TSUU "went Dutch" on me ( :shock: ), I knew I was being treated to FIVE-STAR CINEMATOGMALY :cool:

Teh moonrunes say "BOTH THESE MAHFUCKAS CRAZY THE CAMERA BE TWISTING UP N SHIET" :shock: Image
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by drauch »

Wow, I never realized how similar parts of Battlefield Earth look like On the Silver Globe!
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Lander »

BIL wrote:When the chaps behind SIRENTO HIRU TSUU "went Dutch" on me ( :shock: ), I knew I was being treated to FIVE-STAR CINEMATOGMALY :cool:
Silent Hill 1's opening alleyway is a monster of an example - not a minute into gameplay and the camera is strapping on its aviator cap to pull off some sweet barrel rolls and crazy ivans :lol:
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by BIL »

If that alleyway were a real location it'd have to be designated a treasure of world cinema Image I remember the demo all too well, and in hindsight, I'm sure it'd have been remembered if that was literally all the game was - bloke chases errant child into dark alleyway and discovers hell on earth. Givin me fookin chills man :shock:
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Mischief Maker »

BIL wrote:If that alleyway were a real location it'd have to be designated a treasure of world cinema Image
Someone hasn't seen Jacob's Ladder (1990):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrxkwIcLG8w
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Vanguard »

orange808 wrote:Innovation is almost always AAA, child. It's also almost always incremental.
What AAA games released in the last 15 years are as innovative as Spelunky, Slay the Spire, Labyrinth of Touhou, Potato Flowers in Full Bloom, or the games Mischief Maker brought up? Sure most indies are copycats but I'm struggling to think of any big budget games that aren't anymore. The best you can hope for are minor gimmicks like Shadow of Mordor's nemesis system. 90% unoriginal is a lot better than 99%. AA games like Demon's Souls can innovate but those are a dying breed.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

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"Rougelike" is the ultimate fucking hipster catch word. It's random. You die lots. You can keep some shit. Other shit you can't. I arbitrarily decided. It's "roguelike"! It's always innovative, because randomized maps weren't a thing in Castle Wolfenstein. Oh wait, they were.

Or that one guy that won't shut up about "permadeath". Claims he played Bioshock on the hardest difficulty and just started over an already painfully long and winding game every time he died. Fuck. Everyone knows you're lying. Who would do that to themselves? Show me a 1CC of Final Fight if you want to impress people.
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Re: Little things that annoy the hell out of you

Post by Mischief Maker »

orange808 wrote:"Rougelike" is the ultimate fucking hipster catch word. It's random. You die lots. You can keep some shit. Other shit you can't. I arbitrarily decided. It's "roguelike"! It's always innovative, because randomized maps weren't a thing in Castle Wolfenstein. Oh wait, they were.
Rogue came out in 1980, Castle Wolfenstein in 1981.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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