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dogsicle
Oct 23, 2012

Guy Goodbody posted:

If Momoka was the protagonist the show would just be Chihayafuru with Gundams instead of poetry cards

so you're saying my idea is good. thank you

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BizarroAzrael
Apr 6, 2006

"That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."
So why did sad dude not just play online? At least one of his friends did and he evidently set up an account early on but didn't actually play enough to rank up.

Taintrunner
Apr 10, 2017

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

BizarroAzrael posted:

So why did sad dude not just play online? At least one of his friends did and he evidently set up an account early on but didn't actually play enough to rank up.

I guess he was sad his clanmates left him for the hot new thing and afraid it’ll happen again if he found a new crew

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Taintrunner posted:

I guess he was sad his clanmates left him for the hot new thing and afraid it’ll happen again if he found a new crew

Also it sounds like it was a much different/smaller game when he last tried it. It's like trying WoW at launch vs now after a half-dozen expansions.

Not to mention he probably had some hangups from losing his friends in general. They didn't leave him for GBN, they just quit the hobby altogether.

tsob
Sep 26, 2006

Chalalala~

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Not to mention he probably had some hangups from losing his friends in general. They didn't leave him for GBN, they just quit the hobby altogether.

My impression was that they had left the duel game to move on to Gunpla Battle Nexus and I spent a lot of the episode wondering why he didn't just join them, because there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the two in basic terms.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

tsob posted:

My impression was that they had left the duel game to move on to Gunpla Battle Nexus and I spent a lot of the episode wondering why he didn't just join them, because there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the two in basic terms.

If that were the case, then why would the team break apart one-by-one and leave their Gunpla behind?

Sazabi
Feb 15, 2014

A-MA-ZON!!

Neddy Seagoon posted:

If that were the case, then why would the team break apart one-by-one and leave their Gunpla behind?

Because sadelf built those gunpla for him and they wanted to do their own thing.

tsob
Sep 26, 2006

Chalalala~

Sazabi posted:

Because sadelf built those gunpla for him and they wanted to do their own thing.

Yea, that's what I figured too. The physical duel game is obviously more about battle, where the online nexus seems to be more all encompassing so some of them may simply have wanted to do things other than fight and use their own gunpla rather than that guys to do it.

Anyway, if his friends hadn't all migrated to GBN, then why did Nanami specifically mention that the team broke up as the scene shifted from GPD to GBN? And why did his friend say in the dream that his reason for quitting was that times had moved on and GPD was finished? Those things make it sound like his friends all migrated to GBN but he was stuck on GPD for some reason. Otherwise, his friends were basically going "well this one form of gunpla battling is done and another has taken over; gently caress that new one, I'm done with the whole scene". Which makes them all kind of dumb really.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Sazabi posted:

Because sadelf built those gunpla for him and they wanted to do their own thing.

...after being a close-knit team for some time?

Okay, here's a better question; If they just all migrated to GBN, why didn't they do it as a team? There's zero impetus for them to dissolve the group unless they all outright quit one-by-one.

Guy Goodbody
Aug 31, 2016

by Nyc_Tattoo

tsob posted:

Otherwise, his friends were basically going "well this one form of gunpla battling is done and another has taken over; gently caress that new one, I'm done with the whole scene". Which makes them all kind of dumb really.

It might be dumb, but it happens. Like the people who dropped out of tabletop fantasy miniature wargames entirely when Warhammer: Age of Sigmar replaced Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles

tsob
Sep 26, 2006

Chalalala~

Neddy Seagoon posted:

...after being a close-knit team for some time?

Okay, here's a better question; If they just all migrated to GBN, why didn't they do it as a team? There's zero impetus for them to dissolve the group unless they all outright quit one-by-one.

Because each of them took different lengths of time to accept that GPD was on the outs for the new hotness. Kind of hard to migrate as one if no one else is joining you.

Guy Goodbody posted:

It might be dumb, but it happens. Like the people who dropped out of tabletop fantasy miniature wargames entirely when Warhammer: Age of Sigmar replaced Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles

At which point I question why I should sympathise with people who are basically refusing to try something new and vaguely different but ultimately pretty similar to what they loved before? I don't find the new guy's story emotive, because I'm just left wondering why either he or his whole group got broken up because a slight variation on the sport they liked came out. The whole thing seems quite petty. It mostly made me feel bad for Nanami, trying to help her brother break out a quite silly funk.

tsob fucked around with this message at 02:59 on May 9, 2018

Sazabi
Feb 15, 2014

A-MA-ZON!!

tsob posted:

Because each of them took different lengths of time to accept that GPD was on the outs for the new hotness. Kind of hard to migrate as one if no one else is joining you.


At which point I question why I should sympathise with people who are basically refusing to try something new and vaguely different but ultimately pretty similar to what they loved before? I don't find the new guy's story emotive, because I'm just left wondering why either he or his whole group got broken up because a slight variation on the sport they liked came out. The whole thing seems quite petty. It mostly made me feel bad for Nanami, trying to help her brother break out a quite silly funk.

Plus whose to say the team is fully broken. Three of the memebs could have left and found each other again in GBD after a while and reformed as a group. While evil albino and sad elf never fully accepted VR. Plus sadelf came off as the most willing to transfer it just fell apart and now he's sad.

maninthesuit
Jul 13, 2017
Also, they were competing in the big leagues. National and worldwide. With GBN taking over, I wouldn't be surprised if the GPD-tournaments got outright cancelled. Having to start over from proverbial zero is just twisting the knife in the wound.

What I liked about the episode was how it shifted the focus away from the Rikku and co for a bit. While they were still present and active at pushing the miniplot along, the episode was really about introducing the new guy and expanding Nanami beyond 'that lady behind the counter'. I see the displayed models as an earlier and more slow-burn attempt of getting her brother through his troubles. Using the assumption of 'He used to love doing this before and if he really got turned off from it, he'd yell at me over the phone to quit it. Also, good-looking exhibition models sell kits so I can get my bosses to go along with it.'

Perhaps the best part however was that it give us a bit of info on the hooded bad guy. I can see his current antics being because of a degree of bitterness and jealousy. Breaking the new game because people stopped playing the old one, having an obsession with the new top players because they took his spot in the spotlight etc. Having the break decals glitch out everything around them may be a feature rather than a bug.

Speaking of which, I'm noticing a trend between this episode and the previous one. Both Elf and Ninja seem to have a past of being 'betrayed' by their friends, to the point where the latter outright goes "Friendship is a thing that actually exists?!".
They are also both linked to the hooded man who is giving out the mass-diver hacks. Elf as a former comrade, Ninja as her current employer.

So in short, future plot-hooks were established. Now the show needs to use them properly.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

tsob posted:

Because each of them took different lengths of time to accept that GPD was on the outs for the new hotness. Kind of hard to migrate as one if no one else is joining you.

Except they all know eachother in-person. Have they not heard of this handy invention called a phone? Online chat? Or just talking in person about the sweet-hot new virtual MMO?

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

If they're trying to imply a connection to Build Fighters I'm surprised that they didn't try and have Neet guy's group dissolve at the time that plavsky particles were destroyed or whatever for a while there.

Might have explained the creation and rise of GBN to fill in a now unfilled niche, though obviously that would be complicated by the particles being remade by Nils and Caroline, the existence of Try etc.

Yinlock
Oct 22, 2008

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Except they all know eachother in-person. Have they not heard of this handy invention called a phone? Online chat? Or just talking in person about the sweet-hot new virtual MMO?

what do phones or chat have to do with plastic models, it's like you're not even paying attention

Lurking Haro
Oct 27, 2009

Raxivace posted:

If they're trying to imply a connection to Build Fighters I'm surprised that they didn't try and have Neet guy's group dissolve at the time that plavsky particles were destroyed or whatever for a while there.

Might have explained the creation and rise of GBN to fill in a now unfilled niche, though obviously that would be complicated by the particles being remade by Nils and Caroline, the existence of Try etc.

It's sadly not the Build Fighters dimension. The Gunpla Battle machines were hexagon shaped. Any connection would come from Sarah.
Maybe this is the Battle Network version and they went with the Internet instead of robotsreal Gunpla battle.

Kanos
Sep 6, 2006

was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

tsob posted:

At which point I question why I should sympathise with people who are basically refusing to try something new and vaguely different but ultimately pretty similar to what they loved before? I don't find the new guy's story emotive, because I'm just left wondering why either he or his whole group got broken up because a slight variation on the sport they liked came out. The whole thing seems quite petty. It mostly made me feel bad for Nanami, trying to help her brother break out a quite silly funk.

I've literally been part of groups who have broken up to some degree because some members of the group got interested in a new MMO or video game while others prefer the old one so the shared social activity is gone; if that shared social activity was the primary way you spent time with people and it's now gone, it's easy to drift apart because now your interests diverge significantly, and it can be pretty hard to reconnect with those types of hobby friends when you're apart for a long time(years, in the case of sad elf).

You can also see this kind of thing happen with physical hobbies, like if a group that meets constantly to play a particular tabletop game suddenly has an unpopular rules release or something so a couple of people quit and pick up another game instead so they drift apart from the group. It's pretty realistic.

Somebody who gets REALLY invested into one of the "abandoned" hobbies(and sad lad definitely was since he was apparently the team mechanic and built an entire loving crate of gunpla for his teammates and did tune-ups for them) can feel really hurt or betrayed if they're "left behind".

Kanos fucked around with this message at 12:49 on May 9, 2018

Sazabi
Feb 15, 2014

A-MA-ZON!!

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Except they all know eachother in-person. Have they not heard of this handy invention called a phone? Online chat? Or just talking in person about the sweet-hot new virtual MMO?

Except they don't seem to be as good of friends as the sadelf thought. They mostly just hung around waiting for him to build kits so they battle.

How great would it be if the big bad guy was just upset because his builds are crap like riku's so trans-am and other stuff is gated off. Which just makes him mad at the world.

tsob
Sep 26, 2006

Chalalala~

maninthesuit posted:

I see the displayed models as an earlier and more slow-burn attempt of getting her brother through his troubles. Using the assumption of 'He used to love doing this before and if he really got turned off from it, he'd yell at me over the phone to quit it. Also, good-looking exhibition models sell kits so I can get my bosses to go along with it.'

This actually reminds me of another problem I had with the episode: Shahryar says that new guys models display a unique worldview, but every single model of his i can think of (display models, magazine photos, GPD battle data, old figures in the box) are straight builds. Even if they're of an exceptional build quality I can't see how that implies a unique worldview.

It's kind of the same problem with Yuuma in Try. Everyone talked up how talented he was as a builder, but Fumina and Minato's models looked as good as his while obviously being more creative since they weren't fairly straight builds. At least then you could excuse it because build quality is hard to portray in animation, but here they speak to the viewpoint his work espouses and I really can't see how straight builds have any kind of unique viewpoint.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Except they all know eachother in-person. Have they not heard of this handy invention called a phone? Online chat? Or just talking in person about the sweet-hot new virtual MMO?

This question confuses me, because it's equally valid regardless of which of our interpretations you take. Even if they all gave up any Gunpla related activity fullstop then they still know each other and can still contact each other in a myriad of ways. Any shame, anger etc. used to explain reluctance to initiate contact in one scenario is just as valid a reason to refrain from it in the other scenario.

Kanos posted:

I've literally been part of groups who have broken up to some degree because some members of the group got interested in a new MMO or video game while others prefer the old one so the shared social activity is gone; if that shared social activity was the primary way you spent time with people and it's now gone, it's easy to drift apart because now your interests diverge significantly, and it can be pretty hard to reconnect with those types of hobby friends when you're apart for a long time(years, in the case of sad elf).

You can also see this kind of thing happen with physical hobbies, like if a group that meets constantly to play a particular tabletop game suddenly has an unpopular rules release or something so a couple of people quit and pick up another game instead so they drift apart from the group. It's pretty realistic.

Somebody who gets REALLY invested into one of the "abandoned" hobbies(and sad lad definitely was since he was apparently the team mechanic and built an entire loving crate of gunpla for his teammates and did tune-ups for them) can feel really hurt or betrayed if they're "left behind".

See, I can sympathise if the group broke up because all of them got bored of Gunpla or Gunpla fighting and instead wanted to try baseball or competitive laundry or something that was majorly different, even in MMO terms Eve seems vastly different to WoW, but them all drifting to a video game version of the same thing they were doing just doesn't seem to warrant or explain his reaction to me.

The people you mention giving up a tabletop game because of rule changes seem even weirder to me since the old rule set still exists and can still be played even if it's never updated again since updates and competition with outside groups aren't a major part of tabletop games. At least with Gunpla Duelling you could imagine some upset since lack of official support would mean that there'd be much fewer outsiders to play against and opponents are necessary for a duel.

I realize it might be realistic, but that doesn't make it automatically sympathetic because I just can't bring myself to care that he couldn't bear the new variant of a thing he loves when his friends drifted away in favor of it. Even if his friends all left the Gunpla related scene entirely i think the show badly communicated it, because mentioning that they left when GBN came along is just ambiguous. If they'd started to get bored of GBN (with no GBD existing) or something I'd find his situation far more evocative and his feelings of betrayal more sympathetic.

tsob fucked around with this message at 17:04 on May 9, 2018

dogsicle
Oct 23, 2012

his unique worldview is making boring high quality straight builds in a world full of customs and kitbashes

DisDisDis
Dec 22, 2013
boring straight build divers

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012
I dunno, the Galbaldy Rebake is a pretty solid artistic statement.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

tsob posted:

This question confuses me, because it's equally valid regardless of which of our interpretations you take. Even if they all gave up any Gunpla related activity fullstop then they still know each other and can still contact each other in a myriad of ways. Any shame, anger etc. used to explain reluctance to initiate contact in one scenario is just as valid a reason to refrain from it in the other scenario.

Not really, because there's no reason why they wouldn't just go in as a team from the start. That is generally what happens with these kinds of groups; It's either a planned effort to jump in feet-first at launch and do stuff together, or the wheels fall off and everyone just bails because their existing hobby/game of choice is dead. The writing's on the wall for GBD, they're all presumably around the age they're getting out of college and into long-term careers anyway, so the group's just done for most of them.



tsob posted:

It's kind of the same problem with Yuuma in Try. Everyone talked up how talented he was as a builder, but Fumina and Minato's models looked as good as his while obviously being more creative since they weren't fairly straight builds. At least then you could excuse it because build quality is hard to portray in animation, but here they speak to the viewpoint his work espouses and I really can't see how straight builds have any kind of unique viewpoint.

Ahh, Yuuma. "Look, guys, he's the best artistic builder we've ever known!!", they all declare, while two sequential kit upgrades take the form of a new backpack that has identical capabilities to the previous iterations. Truly a master craftsman :allears:.

Sazabi
Feb 15, 2014

A-MA-ZON!!

tsob posted:

This actually reminds me of another problem I had with the episode: Shahryar says that new guys models display a unique worldview, but every single model of his i can think of (display models, magazine photos, GPD battle data, old figures in the box) are straight builds. Even if they're of an exceptional build quality I can't see how that implies a unique worldview.

Shahryar looked at ascreen with Riku and nerd kids gunpla stats and declared they were built with love. Him and Sarah are just pulling this out of their rear end and nobody is gonna call them out on it. Like people claiming the Thor movies have been a character arc for Thor. When it's just a studio trying to make a lot of money and each movie has been trying to copy what's popular at the time. Not crafted with a deep love of Thor lore.

Zedd
Jul 6, 2009

I mean, who would have noticed another madman around here?



Neddy Seagoon posted:

Ahh, Yuuma. "Look, guys, he's the best artistic builder we've ever known!!", they all declare, while two sequential kit upgrades take the form of a new backpack that has identical capabilities to the previous iterations. Truly a master craftsman :allears:.
They could have called it anything but artistic and it would have worked so much better. Yuuma can obviously scratchbuild some cool poo poo but artistic it isn't.

tsob
Sep 26, 2006

Chalalala~

Darth Walrus posted:

I dunno, the Galbaldy Rebake is a pretty solid artistic statement.

It also doesn't exist at the time he made his statement so can't really be used as a cause for it.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Not really, because there's no reason why they wouldn't just go in as a team from the start.

Yea, there is; that each of them might have come to the realisation their favored game is no longer of interest (to themselves or the world at large) at different times. We know from Nanami the group broke up piecemeal rather than all at once, so regardless of whether they all broke up piecemeal to all go to Gunpla Battle Nexus or broke up piecemeal to all pursue entirelt different hobbies it's still plausible to ask why they didn't keep in contact afterwards if they were friends? Shame or anger is a possible explanation in either case.

Sazabi
Feb 15, 2014

A-MA-ZON!!

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Not really, because there's no reason why they wouldn't just go in as a team from the start. That is generally what happens with these kinds of groups; It's either a planned effort to jump in feet-first at launch and do stuff together, or the wheels fall off and everyone just bails because their existing hobby/game of choice is dead. The writing's on the wall for GBD, they're all presumably around the age they're getting out of college and into long-term careers anyway, so the group's just done for most of them.

Do you not have friends who share a hobby with you? Because those aren't the only ways a new game or iteration of a hobby can affect a group. When battlefield shifts between modern, star wars, and WW groups split up, migrate together, fracture into two or more smaller groups, or just drift apart even if they end up playing the same game but start at different times.

We don't know if they were that close to begin with. The bottom line is only mad boy and sad boy really matter. The rest are nobodies.

Guy Goodbody
Aug 31, 2016

by Nyc_Tattoo

tsob posted:

The people you mention giving up a tabletop game because of rule changes seem even weirder to me since the old rule set still exists and can still be played even if it's never updated again since updates and competition with outside groups aren't a major part of tabletop games. At least with Gunpla Duelling you could imagine some upset since lack of official support would mean that there'd be much fewer outsiders to play against and opponents are necessary for a duel.

Updates and competitions are absolutely a major part of tabletop wargames. They aren't just board games, where you buy the box and are good forever. There's a steady stream of new releases and updates. If a new edition comes out that makes your army less good or invalidates a specific play style you had, that sucks, but if they don't continually release new stuff, the game dies. And yeah, there will still be people who keep on playing the old game, but that number will dwindle really fast as people are drawn to living games.

After Warhammer The Game of Fantasy Battlers was replaced with Warhammer: Age of Sigmar there were a ton of people who proclaimed that they would stick with the old Warhammer forever. Now, basically nobody plays it. Because dead games aren't fun

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

tsob posted:

It also doesn't exist at the time he made his statement so can't really be used as a cause for it.


Yea, there is; that each of them might have come to the realisation their favored game is no longer of interest (to themselves or the world at large) at different times. We know from Nanami the group broke up piecemeal rather than all at once, so regardless of whether they all broke up piecemeal to all go to Gunpla Battle Nexus or broke up piecemeal to all pursue entirelt different hobbies it's still plausible to ask why they didn't keep in contact afterwards if they were friends? Shame or anger is a possible explanation in either case.

I think the thing is that the Rebake is supposed to be representative of his private artwork. The straight-builds are mainly commissions he does for other people.

Sazabi
Feb 15, 2014

A-MA-ZON!!

Darth Walrus posted:

I think the thing is that the Rebake is supposed to be representative of his private artwork. The straight-builds are mainly commissions he does for other people.

Eh. Like Guy Tsob said even in magazines he's a straight build guy. When he was making gunpla for his team they were all straight builds. With the only complaint anyone had was stiff shoulders. And we see a whole box of straight builds. Until Galbaldy Rebake sadelf has been nothing but basic. Which kinda sucks. I'd much rather them show off designs that never get a real model like cowboy gundam. Than only put the effort into a handful of designs coordinated with bandai marketing (we have a Leo mold. Let's swap the head and color palette and sell two kits for the price of developing one).

tsob
Sep 26, 2006

Chalalala~

Guy Goodbody posted:

Updates and competitions are absolutely a major part of tabletop wargames. They aren't just board games, where you buy the box and are good forever. There's a steady stream of new releases and updates. If a new edition comes out that makes your army less good or invalidates a specific play style you had, that sucks, but if they don't continually release new stuff, the game dies. And yeah, there will still be people who keep on playing the old game, but that number will dwindle really fast as people are drawn to living games.

After Warhammer The Game of Fantasy Battlers was replaced with Warhammer: Age of Sigmar there were a ton of people who proclaimed that they would stick with the old Warhammer forever. Now, basically nobody plays it. Because dead games aren't fun

You're right; I was mostly thinking of D'n'D and other role playing games when I think about tabletop gaming. Games where even if a given ruleset or edition haven't been officially supported in decades some people still play by it because they prefer how it handles various elements like conflict or character creation.

Sazabi posted:

Eh. Like Guy Tsob said even in magazines he's a straight build guy. When he was making gunpla for his team they were all straight builds. With the only complaint anyone had was stiff shoulders. And we see a whole box of straight builds. Until Galbaldy Rebake sadelf has been nothing but basic. Which kinda sucks. I'd much rather them show off designs that never get a real model like cowboy gundam. Than only put the effort into a handful of designs coordinated with bandai marketing (we have a Leo mold. Let's swap the head and color palette and sell two kits for the price of developing one).

Even putting aside that the one shot we get of him in a magazine with a competition unit is a straight build, I really don't see why his commissioned kits for the Gunpla stores rental units would need to be straight builds. You'd want some of them to be, of course, but it's not a field that would demand it since some people might like more creative units. In fact, I'd think it would help rental sales if anything; since having such creative units would tempt people to go "hey, I think I might try that one off unit I can't just buy" even if they have their own Gunpla already.

KoB
May 1, 2009

drrockso20 posted:

Honestly I thought this episode was pretty boring

I thought it was the most interesting episode yet, and unsurprisingly had the least amount of fake-mmo bullshit. :thunk:

Sazabi
Feb 15, 2014

A-MA-ZON!!

tsob posted:


Even putting aside that the one shot we get of him in a magazine with a competition unit is a straight build, I really don't see why his commissioned kits for the Gunpla stores rental units would need to be straight builds. You'd want some of them to be, of course, but it's not a field that would demand it since some people might like more creative units. In fact, I'd think it would help rental sales if anything; since having such creative units would tempt people to go "hey, I think I might try that one off unit I can't just buy" even if they have their own Gunpla already.

If they were just displays, yeah I'd want a mix of straight/kit bash/ and custom with maybe a full scratch build or two. Cause you wanna show off every skill level and get people buying kits and supplies/ tools. With the rental thing we don't know if renting a gunpla costs anything. We don't Know any of the pay model for GBD. So it could be that rentals are just like samples in an ice cream shop, they cut you off after a week of "trials" without buying something.

It's also easier to have Momo trial a kapool. Go "I like this suit" them a certain pretty lady leading a double life can say. "Cool, we have them in stock. Would you like to buy one? We've even got a beginner pack of the tools you need to make your kapool as well built as the trial version. We also sell paints and other supplies to help make it your own unique gunpla."

My last guess would be. This season has been really lazy about custom designs for non speaking rolls. The first two seasons made a point of at least changing the colors if suits during big free for all brawls. Compare that to the desert episode and everyone is showing off a straight build save the two suits that fight one of them being in the main cast.

AtheistMantis
Oct 5, 2014

Sazabi posted:

So it could be that rentals are just like samples in an ice cream shop, they cut you off after a week of "trials" without buying something.

Holy moly, you gotta tell me how to get to these ice cream shops.

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012
Of course you’re going to want straight-builds as rentals. They’re introductory suits, so you want them to be as recognisable as possible and have the minimum amount of gimmicks so new players can get down to playing the game without reading someone's million-word erotic fanfic disguised as an instruction manual.

Kanos
Sep 6, 2006

was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

tsob posted:

See, I can sympathise if the group broke up because all of them got bored of Gunpla or Gunpla fighting and instead wanted to try baseball or competitive laundry or something that was majorly different, even in MMO terms Eve seems vastly different to WoW, but them all drifting to a video game version of the same thing they were doing just doesn't seem to warrant or explain his reaction to me.

The people you mention giving up a tabletop game because of rule changes seem even weirder to me since the old rule set still exists and can still be played even if it's never updated again since updates and competition with outside groups aren't a major part of tabletop games. At least with Gunpla Duelling you could imagine some upset since lack of official support would mean that there'd be much fewer outsiders to play against and opponents are necessary for a duel.

I realize it might be realistic, but that doesn't make it automatically sympathetic because I just can't bring myself to care that he couldn't bear the new variant of a thing he loves when his friends drifted away in favor of it. Even if his friends all left the Gunpla related scene entirely i think the show badly communicated it, because mentioning that they left when GBN came along is just ambiguous. If they'd started to get bored of GBN (with no GBD existing) or something I'd find his situation far more evocative and his feelings of betrayal more sympathetic.

I've seen groups break up because they all played WoW and then some of them want to play FFXIV and the others don't, and those two games are functionally identical in broad play style and goals with the only fundamental overarching difference being one has a Blizzard art style and one has an anime art style. I've also seen groups break up over what MOBA people are deciding to play or whether or what version of a specific fighting game series people are deciding to play. To be nastily close to what we see in this episode, a Gundam Versus group I was in pretty much broke itself to pieces because parts of it wanted to keep playing the Gundam Versus PS4 game and parts of it wanted to go back to the previous version and play Full Boost on the PS3 due to what to an outsider would be considered relatively minor system changes. As far as I'm aware nobody became a Sad NEET over it but there were definitely some unhappy campers.

It's really loving hard to stick to an old game because lots of people feel really weird about playing a "dead" game that won't ever be updated, revised, balanced, or added on to in an official capacity. As a poster upthread mentioned, when Warhammer Fantasy got killed in favor of the vastly different Age of Sigmar, lots of people swore blind up and down that they'd just keep playing it but nowadays absolutely no one plays it at all because new content and a perception of an active community are huge components in how fun a game can be. Koichi was building for his team to participate in official tournaments. If GPD is dead, those tournaments don't exist anymore.

His friends are shown leaving one by one, not as a group, implying it happened over time. It's easy to see them thinking they can keep their little club going when one or even two of them leaves and then the remainder feeling hurt or betrayed when one of the last holdouts leave. Hell, Hooded Evil Guy is the last silhouette to disappear from the club; it's possible he's just as hurt as Koichi was but instead of becoming a sad NEET he decided to burn it all down instead.

Sazabi
Feb 15, 2014

A-MA-ZON!!

Kanos posted:

It's possible he's just as hurt as Koichi was but instead of becoming a sad NEET he decided to burn it all down instead.

We all agree this is the dumbest/bestest motivation the bad guy could have right?

Also two new units are teased at a current expo. If the runners are all from all kinds of suits but look semi color related so fingers crossed they mashed Seravee, F91, Sinanju and a couple of other kits for the ultimate in tryhard gunpla design. https://www.gundamkitscollection.com/2018/05/gundam-build-divers-top-secret-hg-kits.html?m=1

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
Well, totally called the Momokapool's fighting style.

The battle was fairly one-sided, but for showing off what all the gunpla can do it was still a pretty entertaining watch. Poor Rommel :allears:. The 3d-printed accessory sprues were also really neat.


Bear, bear, bear.

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Taintrunner
Apr 10, 2017

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I thought that episode was fun, I really want that set of Zakus from Team Rommel now.

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