I've lost a ton of respect for the viewpoints of supposedly wiser, older people that influenced me a lot when I was in my 20s.  The halo they used have has fallen apart with their flaws and failings being revealed more clearly.   As I get older my judgement gets better and I start realizing that- among with their good advice (which I overweighed) they told me a certain amount of lies and misinformation that were too influential because they educated me in these concepts when I was younger and more impressionable.

 

These failings serve as a warning for current practice -in particular problems of mental rigidity, too much narrowmindedness, prejudices disguised as sophisticated argumentation,  outdated knowledge, cognitive aging, etc.  All these facets are united by too much intellectual laziness caused by comfortable living and successes when they were younger.  There is a too great of a tendency to fall back to old ideas that used to work but they haven't updated themselves to keep up with the times.   One should not be fooled by their skills in rhetoric and seemingly great amount of knowledge.

 

I think all young people will eventually have to deal with these problems as they age, and their success in obtaining true wisdom would be in accordance to how successfully they navigate these pitfalls.

 

21 hours ago, Cult Icon said:

https://blog.playstation.com/2020/06/26/the-last-of-us-part-ii-sells-more-than-4-million-copies/

 

These guys at Naughty dogs are good at disguising reality. All the money/skills they didn't invest in storytelling or character development were used in deceptive advertising. That includes: paid reviews, disguised numbers. Here's a more objective truth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStation_4_video_games

^ Also, TLOU 2 is going to be like the last jedi. TLJ sales were good, but it split the fans and damaged the franchise permanently. Naughty Dogs is short-sighted, like Disney was.

The game however, just came out. (June 19th)..

2020 is so good. Such a fascinating year. So much honesty, so much virtue, so much injustice (oh sorry, "justice", I meant "justice".....)

 

 

(BTW, none of these reviewers who work for the mainstream media were paid... No, no, no. It's all "honest" and pure )

 

       

Just now, Cult Icon said:

The game however, just came out.

 

We'll see how it goes. It was helped by the sucess of its predecessor. The game's biggest flaws are storytelling and character development: that's the things that can go unnoticed for the 1st weeks. Then, people will realize it and the knowledge will be passed on. You can already see that the fans are divided.

 

The Witcher 3 started small, but became big, because word of mouth helped it. That's what happens with truly good games. Fraudulent games like TLOU2 will have longlasting harmful effects.

The game is already a success- lol.   Done deal.  I don't know if there will be a sequel, haven't been following the news.  But the Last of US II ended without openings for a sequel.

14 minutes ago, Cult Icon said:

The game is already a success- lol.   Done deal.  I don't know if there will be a sequel, haven't been following the news.  But the Last of US II ended without openings for a sequel.

 

The "deal will be done" if it eventually gets the biggest sales for PS4 which it is not the case now, even if the false advertising tries to say so (it's easy to manipulate the meaning of numbers). They use cognitive shortcuts, a very good marketing strategy (which contrasts with the mediocrity of their game).

 

TLOU2: 4 million. GTA V: 20 million. Big difference. We'll see how it goes in the next week/months.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStation_4_video_games

4 million was reported as of June 21st.  It's June 27th now so sales should be higher.

 

retail $60 x 4,000,000 = $240,000,000 gross.    What was the advertising and development budget?  probably not this much given the budgets of typical AAA games  (I don't follow the Last of US news).  Basically they are turning a big profit and will end the sales cycle with good results.

 

In the United States, publicly traded companies are heavily regulated and their statements and quarter to quarter business activity are heavily monitored/ scrutinized by the analyst community, so their sales numbers cannot be made up routinely like you are implying.   Damage to the credibility of companies will sink their stock prices.

1 hour ago, Enrico_sw said:

Fraudulent games like TLOU2 will have longlasting harmful effects.

 

From my review the game is actually not "fraudulent".  It is a first rate game , high production values (9-9.5 out of 10) outside of a horribly awful story.  A lot of hard work and expense went into make the game- shame for the story.

 

 

48 minutes ago, Cult Icon said:

From my review the game is actually not "fraudulent".  It is a first rate game , high production values (9-9.5 out of 10) outside of a horribly awful story.  A lot of hard work and expense went into make the game- shame for the story.

 

TLOU2 is a story-driven game. If the story is bad in a story-driven game, then the game is bad. BTW, it's fraudulent, because they lied many times to promote the game.

 

Also, the graphics are good, but not much better than RDR2. The gameplay is simplistic (the combat system is super easy, it's ridiculous compared to many games, and I'm not even talking about Sekiro). The weapon system is minimalist.

 

All the reviews (IGN, gamerant, etc.) that say it's a 10/10 and also say there are drawbacks don't make sense. If there are drawbacks, then it's not a 10/10. Journalist put big numbers in order to please Sony and to appear on the cover of the game.

1 hour ago, Cult Icon said:

In the United States, publicly traded companies are heavily regulated and their statements and quarter to quarter business activity are heavily monitored/ scrutinized by the analyst community, so their sales numbers cannot be made up routinely like you are implying.   Damage to the credibility of companies will sink their stock prices.

 

I didn't say that they made up their numbers. I said (proofread it) that they "manipulate the meaning of numbers" and use "cognitive shortcuts". That's very different.

 

They use the right indicators like the sales pace at some particular point in time, they talk about "PS4 exclusive" (which reduces the competition), etc. All these methods are here to influence the audience (and they are legal, but a bit dishonest).

 

Also, they can easily use journalists to pass their messages.

I think you should check out the story of The Last of US 2 once you have the time.  I have posted my comments in the Nightmare thread.  

 

 

On my comments on older people I also find (inspired from listening to Cicero's treatise on Old Age today) that some are really out there to grab the time of younger people and the actions/motives of older people can be indecipherable from that of the young. Eg. They can be content with "influence"- just spreading their ideas.  They know that they'll be dead or senile in 10-30 years so their "legacy" becomes a matter of priority.  So they seek to influence without regard to their own worth or qualities, or whether or not they harm anymore or not.  This type of behavior  is baffling to young people so we don't detect the real motives.

 

IT took me far too long to realize the true implications of this behavior in life. EG the tendency of very old men to seek to be consultants, publish books with their (often) partially outdated thoughts, find young blood to mentor, etc.

 

The cultural stereotype is that this behavior is good and is a form of "giving back" but IRL it is a mix of the good and bad, worse cases being exploitative of young people.

beat me to the punch:

 

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=problematic

 

problematic

A corporate-academic weasel word used mainly by people who sense that something may be oppressive, but don't want to do any actual thinking about what the problem is or why it exists.

20 hours ago, Cult Icon said:

I think you should check out the story of The Last of US 2 once you have the time.  I have posted my comments in the Nightmare thread.  

 

 

Oh, I've seen it and I even played this game at a friend's. He didn't want to hear about the leaks, so he bought the game because he's a huge fan of TLOU part 1. He hated the game. He really did. Mostly because of the way they treated Joel, but also how they changed Ellie.  As for Abby, I'm sure many players will hate playing her.

 

I understand what they tried to do (talking about the spiral of revenge), but they failed. Character development is flawed because it's not trying to earn the viewers, they actually antagonize them (they want to "subvert our expectations" ). Now, such a strategy could work, if it's carefully thought (and it was not). Also, only competent people can manage this, but Naughty Dog is not competent anymore.

^ Honestly, the game's graphics are good, but it's not a revolution. The gameplay is lazy IMHO. I'm playing Remnant: from the ashes, at the moment, and that's what I call a good gameplay.

I wrote my thoughts on the Last of US II story on the other thread.  It is a LGBT version of the traditional anti-hero story.  Instead of the hero's journey- involving straight men or straight women- in the post-apocalytic world somehow Lesbians and transgender are in charge.   Their close compatriots include other lesbians and transgender.   Asians and white males are now supporting characters to the anti-heroes.   There is some race stuff being put in but it looks like the focus is really in sexuality.  The Asians, blacks, hispanics, and white males are comparatively disposable.

 

Structurally the story of Last of US II is rather straightforward and the manipulative set-ups can be seen a mile away.  It's meant to make you think and feel bad.  So if you are homosexual/trans or is a straight person who somehow developed a great sympathy for homosexual and transgender then you could possibly enjoy the story. 

 

The first principles of effective storytelling and screenplay writing (such as in McKnee's Story, Anatomy of a Story, etc.) is that the writing and worldbuilding has to be authentic.   I do not sympathize with lesbians and transgender so I find the story to be extremely fake from the get-go, so it completely pushes me out of the story.  I also can see the emotionally manipulative set ups forming and it makes the story even more fake and unpleasant to watch.

 

There are LGBT types and sympathizers that can really identify and get into the story.  So along with the quality of the gameplay and art, they can legitimately review it and award it a 9-9.5 out of 10.   Being hardcore with social justice and LGBT is the dividing factor with whether one enjoys the game or not.

I agree that the revenge plot is completely unnecessary.  They could have made a LGBT game without making it extremely miserable.

18 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

^ Honestly, the game's graphics are good, but it's not a revolution. The gameplay is lazy IMHO. I'm playing Remnant: from the ashes, at the moment, and that's what I call a good gameplay.

 

 

I think the art, motion capture, animation, and graphics are first class and appropriate to the game.  The gameplay has limited room to evolve, but yeah I can see it getting better.

 

The biggest issue I have is that the physical abilities and extreme killing abilities of a 110 pound crack addict is very repulsive to watch, giving it a "very fake" feel.  Abby of course is disgusting to look at- basically the game's story and characters are generally disgusting.