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Chitoryu I simultaneously salute you and worry about you for your dedication to Let's Reads of horrible books. Shine bright you crazy diamond.
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Mar 13, 2018 00:56
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quote:like a dream my thirteen-year-old self would have had after bingeing on Pop Rocks and Coke Yeah that sounds like a good backhanded compliment.
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Mar 13, 2018 01:20
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It's been awhile since I tore the book apart, so this might be wrong. I remember that the OASIS company subsidizes the basic rigs at an insanely low cost of five cents or around there. Supposedly, this is all because the founder wanted OASIS to be accessible to everyone. Nevermind that the entirety of it is apparently microtransaction hell. Except where it isn't. You can't go to other "planets," but you can access any number of bulletin boards and instanced private rooms. You're given enough money "to buy a short sword, wooden shield, and leather armor" but trapped on a welcome planet that has nothing to do on it. You don't unlock other planets, you have to pay for transport every time. Unless you get fuckoff rich and can afford your own ship. There's PvP, with death resetting your character. Which means the rich will always prey on the poor. And the poor will never be able to accumulate enough power without some insane injection like the Gunter quest. No I'm not having flashbacks to trying to go through Stranglethorn Vale on a PvP server way back when in Vanilla WoW. It feels like the plot was supposed to originally rely on one evil kid with the backing of IOI. Since the first key is (spoiler alert) on the public school planet, and that is supposed to be accessible only to students. Of course this is handwaved away in typical Clinian fashion. Again I may be misremembering things.
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Mar 13, 2018 21:18
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Solumin posted:I'm still shaking my head at the interaction with the bully. It's juvenile, but not high school juvenile; it's a nerd fantasy of shutting down the bully. And then he just mutes the guy anyway! I gloss over that because it's so banal. And doesn't make any sense. If you mute someone all you're doing is stopping you from hearing them. Any bully worth their digital salt would size the opportunity to mock you as a performance piece so that everyone else would be laughing at you. And because you muted them you wouldn't even be able to counter their bullying. Not that anyone would be listening. Kids are social at school because they are, for lack of a better term, trapped there. We're already starting to see weird socialization patterns forming with access to smart phones at young ages. Imagine a world where anyone could, at any time, go and focus on something elsewhere. A world where hormones are completely borked because every visual representation repeats the porn addiction paradox of being the same and yet better than whatever was viewed thirty seconds ago. The kids in these virtual schools aren't connected by geography. Religion. Social class. Ethnicity. Nationality. Hell I don't even think they necessarily speak the same language (though of course either in OASIS English is the defacto language of trade or it's got some ridiculously capable translation systems). There is nothing tying these kids together in a world where they can simply mute one another. They aren't forced to interact for hours every day. All social activities after school take place off planet so only the thin veneer of social class pairing exists but that's almost wholly independent of school. Ugh.
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Mar 13, 2018 21:39
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Choco1980 posted:wait, if the cave was a "no PVP" zone, how could she shove and punch him? They were the equivalent of emotes, not things that dealt damage. Or more realistically, because Cline is an inconsistent hack.
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Mar 16, 2018 18:35
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Memento posted:Yeah you look at the Secret Finding Discord for WoW, those people are organising and weaponising their efforts to find some insanely obscure poo poo. They might not be finding things that are as complicated as this poo poo, but there's only a few hundred of them doing it with any dedication. There are supposed to be millions of these hunters and some of them have the money of a multi-national corporation behind them. How the gently caress didn't they find it 17 hours after it was announced? Cline should've had it be a madcap race with only kids able to participate due to the first key being on an age locked planet. Have the contest be announced at most weeks before, and the protagonist being a nerd who was "born in le wrong generation" who was obsessed with the 80s. Instead the world makes no sense and trying to make it make sense is rather pointless.
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Mar 16, 2018 18:40
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steinrokkan posted:My only question is In universe it is because Halliday's quest has loving destroyed a generation of culture. Millions of kids and content generators don't see any other avenue out of abject poverty but to pour themselves into the mold of an autistic old man with a raging nostalgia boner.
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Mar 16, 2018 18:52
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Orthodox Rabbit posted:It says a lot about Wade's lack of actual personal character that in the same breath he basically says "Wargames was Halliday's favorite movie. Thus its my favorite movie." In a competently written piece that exchange could be read with a good sense of sarcasm. "Paris was her favorite city. Thus it was mine as well. And if I had to buy a few dozen guide books to learn about my beloved city of lights then who would know?"
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Mar 17, 2018 01:47
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Choco1980 posted:Not going to lie, if I had zero foreknowledge of the story/whatever, that Labyrinth poster would make me pretty excited. Look at all the weird stuff in there. Too bad I'm fairly sure that most of it is probably background or blink and miss it type things. The labyrinth poster is legitimately gorgeous and it's a shame it is wasted on a movie based on this book. Who knows, maybe the movie will defy all odds and be amazing. It'll be a nice poster to have. If only to piss off people when I tell them the movie is better than this dumpster fire of a book.
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Mar 19, 2018 04:12
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Wait. Wade’s mom suffered as an OASIS sex worker... and as soon as he has the option he heads for the Pleasuredome?! Oh. Oh hell. I was grossed out but this is full on squick.
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Mar 22, 2018 05:06
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And I thought TORG gave little thought to how the different realities interacted. Cline again shows he hasn't played a MMO in the past decade. Or even been online. There is no way that the Firefly ship wouldn't be a vanity skin overlaid on a stock ship. Or the X-Wing for that matter. The pissing match that would occur between different license holders over stats and representation would be mind boggling. Honestly, all of the licensed material existing is weird. The idea that it is all materially different is bizarre. And the idea that the uhaul of space* that was the Firefly class is the flagship of Wade's fleet is ridiculous. Though now I am imagining the gatchapon Final Fantasy (record keeper?) with a tiny pixelated Firefly class ship as a banner character and I won't lie it is making me smile. *I like Firefly, but brown coats are weird.
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Mar 23, 2018 00:30
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nerdz posted:I also love how the book spends a huge section describing all the security features he has in his apartment and fails to mention how utterly useless they would be if the ioi just decided to demolish the apartment just like they did at the stacks Spoiler Alert, all that security will never come up again. In a good book, it would be a metaphor for how he's building insane walls between him and the rest of the world during his nostalgia fueled quest. In an okay book it would at least lead to a terse moment where he has to perform some sort of task while an opponent is actively breaking through the barrier. Instead it's weird door porn for people who wish they could poo poo out the world and just stream cartoons from their childhood for the rest of their lives.
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Mar 25, 2018 04:43
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Gorilla Salad posted:Given that the younger Samurai brother got hurled to his death, I honestly thought for sure we'd be seeing some tense moment with the Sixxers trying to get to him given that he went into such insane detail descring his armoured door. Well, let's be entirely honest. Even if the sixers did come and attack Wade's hotel fort his escape would last at most a page. "And then my escape shoot opened beneath me, dropping me and my entire rig into the subterranean garage. My car started automatically, a technological marvel only slightly less advanced than KITT, the one from the hit television show Knight Rider starting David Hasslehoff. Only this was armored with a half inch of steel plating. It was also equipped with a state of the art satellite uplink for my rig. Of course all the interior had been removed. With the auto drive enabled I wouldn't even have to split my attention from fighting the suxorz in the Oasis. If they thought they could distract me with something as trivial as a forty man strike force they were shown to be fools. I chuckled as I was whisked to my second, even more fortified bunker. Silly IOI, I'd always keep a step ahead of them, and I'd always be in another castle. Like Princess Peach from Mario for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Only I didn't need to be rescued by any short italians." Only about a tenth as interesting as that vomit.
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Mar 25, 2018 05:28
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Proteus Jones posted:
The key is to strip any descriptors of actions. And repeat the same sentence transitions. And put everything in past tense, which I can't really do because it is so loving weird. It lays so poorly on the page. Oh god I think I finally understand what passive versus active voice is all about. Is RPO written in passive voice?
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Mar 25, 2018 07:55
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there wolf posted:It's not because I did____ /It was____ are active voice and at least 90% of the book. Honestly thank you for this. Active/passive voice is, to me, like the rules for cricket. I can have them explained a dozen times and still end up without a god damned clue of what is going on.
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Mar 25, 2018 21:57
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quote:At the bottom of the message, I added a short postscript: PS—I think you look even more beautiful in real life. What. The. gently caress.
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Mar 26, 2018 20:59
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There also should've been a time limit. Not only is it a winner take all contest but getting the first key puts you on a timer. In one year you are wiped and banned from the Oasis. Actually, make it once you enter the first gate. The first key & gate is somewhat well known, but in the years since Halliday's death no one has so much as gotten the second key. Hundreds have tried and failed. Hundreds have been barred from the medium of the modern era. Oasis addiction is a real thing, even the most entry level job expects you to access the Oasis, and these people are basically pariahs left to starve. The quest also does weird things to you and your avatar. It makes it so you can't broadcast. You can't even communicate with anyone who isn't on the quest. You're immortal to any player not on the quest, but anyone on the quest is a danger to you no matter how the planet is coded. There are no such things as system enforced alliances, so you're constantly having to judge your allies and that's why Hunters are so paranoid. Normally dying in the Oasis sends you back to wherever you've bound as home, but being on the quest and dying knocks levels off. Make it a commitment so that Wade has to actually have some resolve for it. Have it end with the standard YA twist that he has to turn away from the reward at the end to truly win.
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Mar 26, 2018 21:26
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Plz dun dox me.
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Mar 26, 2018 21:45
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Tunicate posted:his game references are mostly really shallow cuts too All of his references are shallow cuts. It's very rare that any reference wouldn't be a first layer answer on Jeopardy.
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Mar 26, 2018 23:57
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nine-gear crow posted:They did that at the end of .hack//SIGN. The two main characters fell in love in the game world, only to find out later that they were both girls and one of them was playing with a male avatar. So they both went “eh, gently caress it,” and started dating anyway. It's actually really interesting digging into psychological impacta of e-culture and how it relates to LGTBQ relationships. It's way, way over my head objectively speaking but it comes down to a lot of current cultural trend is falling in love with the person and tolerating the body, whereas we usually fall in love with the body and tolerate the person. Tolerate isn't the right word but you follow the concept I hope. I suppose "become comfortable with" is more accurate but still markedly off.
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Mar 27, 2018 20:21
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Milky Moor posted:I only just now found this thread. Have you guys talked about LitRPG fiction? Because that's basically what RPO led to and it's somehow even worse. "I killed a rat. It dropped two gold coins and a rat tail. I needed nineteen more rat tails to finish my quest. I cast fireball at another rat. It dropped two rat tails and 3 coins. I needed seventeen more rat tails to finish my quest" That what you're referring to?
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Mar 28, 2018 00:55
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burial posted:I keep reading “Larry Correia” as “Lady Correia” and my mind then assumes it’s gotta be some high fantasy princess character. I'm glad I'm not the only one.
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Mar 28, 2018 20:39
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Hyrax Attack! posted:I listened to the audiobook and I’d disagree that Wheaton adds anything. He’s passable as a narrator, but is incapable of doing character voices so just reads their dialogue with the disclaimer “I said” or “Max said.” Audiobooks can make a pass of a lot of bad fiction because it is hard to listen critically to an Audiobook. You are unlikely to be giving it full attention, so it becomes a river. No matter how rough a sentence is it passes by quickly. You don't get to go "what the Christ" and stop reading to stare off into space while reevaluating your decision. Similarly you can't pause to really appreciate a truly beautiful passage. I cannot, for the life of me, read the Dresden Files books. No matter how much my ex tried to convince me I simply couldn't. The audiobooks were pleasantly enjoyable as a thing to listen to while driving up and down California.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:26
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Well yeah, but that's the problem. The vast majority of toxic, exclusionary "geeks" are not being intentionally toxic. The whole thing is that he evokes the spectres of the worst of "geekdom" because people like him are where those problems take hold. Bingo. Most people aren't intentionally bad. They base themselves on their community. It's unfortunate that the gamer/nerd community is so exclusionary. Especially to women.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:42
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Halliday couldn't even talk to his nerd not-waifu by her real name, but rather had to use her DnD name? Wow.
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Apr 3, 2018 21:30
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Wheat Loaf posted:
That exchange would've been vastly improved if it had been "I was impressed she had picked up my reference" and leave it as an exercise to the reader. But, and I say this sincerely, Cline is popular because he's such a poo poo tier writer. Most people watched Highlander maybe once, decades ago. They wouldn't catch the reference by itself. By making the reference explicit in the text, the reader will go "Oh Highlander yeah I (vaguely) remember that movie." Then their brain plays a trick. The reader doesn't want to be left out of the loop, so they then "remember" what the reference is referencing and get a false moment of elation. That is what this book is. It's a dopamine drip feed for people whose cultural identity isn't their creation but their consumption. And if wouldn't be as popular if it relied on the reader to be a concious consumer.
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Apr 4, 2018 18:31
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