Hell, a suicide squad game that actually properly utilized the suicide squad could have been great.

I should play Skies of Arcadia again.

The original version was the best of the three by far.

Summoned, I take the place that has been prepared for me.

My thoughts from the other thread:

He spent the entire episode of peacefully resisting but refusing to harm another sentient being, even to free himself. He values life to such an extent that he won’t take it unless there is no other option, and he had all the time in the world to attempt to escape.

But Fajo changes the equation when he not only murders someone in cold blood, but makes clear that he will do it again and again if that’s what it takes to get what he wants out of Data. In this situation, Data unemotionally, logically determines that the only moral course of action is to kill him. Not in the heat of the moment, not in immediate self defense, just gunning him down where he stands because he cannot be allowed to continue.

It’s a chilling moment, and I love it. I just wish they hadn’t felt the need to insert that line about the weapon going off by accident. It comes across as a lie, and I think it undermines the episode a little.

My understanding is that it was executive meddling. Apparently there was some disagreement about that scene and a producer insisted that Data wouldn’t kill someone like that, which sounds good in a vacuum but in context makes no sense. Data’s intentions are pretty clear right before he gets transported out, it’s hard to reconcile his actions leading up to the transport with the idea that he wasn’t willing to pull the trigger.

And it’s not like Data never kills people. He carries a phaser for a reason, it’s part of the job. He doesn’t like it (emotion chip shenanigans aside) but he will do what is necessary.

Which, to bring it back around, is part of why this is such an intense scene. A logical being guided by a moral framework that values life looked upon this man and determined that his death was necessary.

So, did Data lie?

Obviously the way he words his statement is vague enough that you can say it isn’t a lie. But even so, I don’t think you can take it at face value. He was clearly getting ready to fire, and the episode had made it abundantly clear why he needed to do it, why he was justified in doing it. It’s a strange point for the script to get hung up on, because the difference between being interrupted before he can pull the trigger vs being interrupted as he is pulling the trigger is pretty much irrelevant.

While I’m fairly certain the original intent behind putting the line in the episode is to gloss over the fact that Data was going to kill someone, I don’t think that’s how it comes across. The performances in the scene make it clear that Data is not just flatly denying that he was firing the weapon, nor do Riker and O’Brien take it as a clear statement of fact.

While I’d rather they never put the line in to begin with, we got the episode that we got. And my interpretation would be that what occurred during transport wasn’t a weapon malfunction,* but rather a change in the moral calculus. Fajo had to be stopped, and the only way Data could do that was to kill him while he had the chance. As soon as the Enterprise arrived and beamed him out, that all changed. Fajo would be captured and face trial, and Data would face him in the cell without hostility.

Riker asked about the weapon discharge with some concern. He and O’Brien don’t know what happened, they don’t have the context for the situation. Data knows they can’t fully understand what happened based on a simple verbal exchange. I think you could almost take his reply as dismissive, a rejection of the line of thinking that’s behind the question. Data will make a full report when the time comes, no need to talk through it all there, and no point in covering it in inadequate detail.

* I would hope that weapons don’t just go off at random during transport. Given how often people beam up and down while wearing a holstered weapon that can potentially vaporize someone, I’d imagine that would cause some pretty nasty situations.

Steam isn’t a monopoly, I can get my games elsewhere (epic, gog, humble store, origin etc). But Steam is dominating the market because it does it better. It offers value and features that others don’t, and it generally hasn’t abused its dominant market position to squeeze the consumer or crush their competitors. The closest thing to enshittification we’ve seen from Steam was them allowing third party DRM and launchers, which isn’t something they wanted, it’s them backing down from a stand-off.

I want competition, but there’s good competition and bad competition. Good competition is what we see from Steam and gog, where they stand out by being good at what they do and giving customers what they want.

For an example of bad competition, just look at streaming sites. We went from everything being on Netflix to everything being divided among dozens of shitty platforms, each of which costs more, and the prices keep going up, especially if you don’t want ads. Nothing was improved for the consumer when Netflix lost its defacto monopoly. Which isn’t to say that Netflix is great, only that the competition for marketshare has only made things worse for the consumer.

I think it’s easy to look at all the bullshit EA and Ubisoft and the like pull now, and imagine that same pattern from streaming playing out in gaming.

They are generating “reviews” which have absolutely no basis in reality, for products they have had 0 interaction with. They are deceiving consumers in order to gain a financial benefit. This is fraud, they belong in prison.

Imagine how quickly search results would improve if shitheads like this were getting sued and arrested on a regular basis.

I definitely want more games like New Vegas. I’m just not sure how much Obsidian wants to go back to Fallout as opposed to doing their own thing. It’s also been a decade and a half, so I’m not sure how much obsidian has changed since then.

My point was that if I was Microsoft, I would want to get a Fallout game out while there is increased interest. Bethesda can get around to making Fallout 5 sometime in the next decade, but in the meantime, I’d have other teams working on other Fallout projects.

These don’t have to all be massive new games that push every conceivable boundary. They just need to be good games that can satisfy audiences who are craving more Fallout. I wouldn’t rush things at the expense of quality, but I would try to plan things with a more narrow scope and efficient design.

For example, I’d probably want to remaster Fallout 1 & 2, as well as 3 and New Vegas. Don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just update them for modern systems, polish them, add some modern conveniences, and maybe a little new content.

Simultaneously, I’d have someone working on a new Fallout game that takes place in a new location, (Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, whatever seems fun). This doesn’t get rushed, but it also gets a limited scope. Solid core gameplay and an interesting setting with good writing.

I’d also be open to something other than an open world rpg. A city builder, a real-time strategy game, an xcom style turn based tactical game with base building, Pokémon but with irradiated mutants, metroidvania in a vault, whatever. As long as there is also a more traditional Fallout game in the works, there’s no reason why you couldn’t also do something weird and different.

Ideally, I would have started work on this stuff as soon as the show got the greenlight. But even if they started right now, that’s still better than waiting for Bethesda.

If they can have something nearly complete to cash in on hype from the show, and something else they can announce that keeps people excited, even if that thing’s another year or two away, that would be perfect. And if not, they can at least get something out while the show is still relevant.

If I’m the guy pitching a Fallout project right now, I’d probably be pointing to Baldur’s Gate 3 as an example of how much desire there is for a quality role-playing game. Quality being the keyword.

“When is Season 2 happening. What are we doing on mobile. What are we doing in [Fallout 76]. What are we doing with this thing. What are we doing with this other thing. And when are these landing. And again if I could snap my fingers and have them all be out and ready I would. But the main thing is how do we deliver these at a high quality level. That is always most important.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that mobile is the first thing he brings up after season 2. But it’s still a terrible indicator.

Honestly, if I was Microsoft, I’d be looking to get a new Fallout game rushed into production immediately. And it probably wouldn’t be Bethesda making it. Not necessarily Fallout 5, but a new game in a new, interesting location. Something that can capitalize on the interest generated by the show, especially if it can come out near the release of season 2.

It’s OK, the AI will allow companies to churn out low effort content for live service games, and the license only has to last until the game ceases to make money and the servers get shut down.

Normally the ones who buy a console at the end of its lifespan are the ones getting the best deal. You have the entire library of games to choose from, and can get all the best games at once. Plus the system will have dropped in price multiple times since it came out, and the older games will cost a fraction of what they did originally. And of course, they’ll have long since addressed any design problems that early models were plagued with.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to go.

He should also be glad that he gets three other things mentioned before anyone brings up that time he did blackface.

I have a similar DNS filter on my router to block ads, particularly on my TV since I can't put ublock on it. It doesn't work while on youtube.com, but any video that's embedded in another site will have ads blocked. So I have a playlist I save videos to from my phone or pc, and my tv has a bookmark for a code testbed that will load the playlist as an embed.

It was still working yesterday, but no idea if that will last.