u/LastTraintoSector6

There really was no good way to do the cab with windows.

Truthfully, I've wondered about this since watching the original decades ago. But 2049 only accentuated the thought: is there something wrong with humanity - as a collective; as biological lifeforms - within the Bladerunner continuity?

I'll illustrate this with an example: even before the dawn of the industrial revolution, there was a nascent conservation movement. People tend to think of Teddy Roosevelt and America's first national parks as the beginning, but it had started way earlier than that. The first public parks in the U.S. came with the establishment of large urban green spaces (like New York's Central Park in 1858 [though Boston Common is far older]) as an effort to beautify even the most densely-settled spaces. But, in reality, the roots of conservation arguably go all the way back to medieval royal preserves and 'king's forests' - a notion that was expanded-upon by the highly-manicured country estates that came into vogue across Europe during the Renaissance.

Basically, in a nutshell: for close to a thousand years, the most powerful people around have been very concerned with setting aside vast swaths of wild and/or cultivated land because they appreciated the beauty of it. Yes, they were doing it for selfish reasons - but that doesn't diminish the fact that they valued it. As a unit, it's impossible to deny that the vast majority of people like wilderness, wildlands, parks, beaches, deserts, national forests, etc. - we want these things. Almost nobody wants to see them go - even the most extravagantly powerful and/or corrupt amongst us.

But in Bladerunner, it feels like that was just kind of... missing from mankind. Whatever urge that exists within us to preserve beautiful things; to save the natural stuff that is irreplaceable at all cost just... isn't there; was never there. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that many of us IRL would be willing to die to preserve the environment; to keep the planet green. But that form of social indebtedness; feeling like we - as individuals and as a group - owe it to both the planet and future generations to make sure things are largely still verdant just isn't ingrained.

And you can say that about a lot of the social quirks in Bladerunner - from keeping millions of sentient like-humans in bondage, to the moral ambiguity of just letting megacorps control all aspects of law and government, to the virtual extinction of real pets like cats and dogs (can you imagine? Think about how much people love dogs)... part of what's so unnerving about Bladerunner's world isn't just that it looks alien, but that it feels like it's emotionally askew from who we are as a species. It's not a world where "one thing was different," but like 5 million things were different, and in major, major ways.

So, again, do you think there's something wrong with actual humans in Bladerunner? Are they missing something - some core, fundamental set of values - that we have?

I'm going to go with lip balm. I mean, I can't imagine being the survivor and not having something to protect my lips. She must be suffering from just terrible chapping all the time.

"What purpose would it serve, though?"

Well, I did think about that.

One possibility would be to increase the onset time of cabin fever. Because chapped lips are more of a psychological penalty than a physical one (they suck, but they're more annoying than dangerous), using the lip balm might increase how long the survivor could stay "sane" in enclosed spaces. There's presently no item in the game that does this, so lip balm could be that object.

Another possibility would be to give a very slight wind resistance buff, or a slight hypothermia deference buff.

"But that's stupid. It's so small."

A lot of items in the game are like that, though - tea buffs, coffee buffs, etc. There are other factors to consider:

• Being a petroleum-based product, lip balm basically lasts forever, and would likely suffer virtually no decay penalty.
• Lip balm actually burns. It could be, in a pinch, used as a crude fire-starting aid tool. I like items that have dual-uses.
• It weighs virtually nothing. One tube of chapstick clocks in at .28 ounces.

Anyway, that's just the one item that came to mind for me. What's another (NON WEAPON) utility you'd like added?

I'm not trying to come down on one side of this - more just curious. Because... I kind of miss them, and kind of don't.

On the one hand, looking for the old caches gave you a reason to go out in the old world and poke around a bit. Of course, you knew where to look. But if you didn't find the caches in the first couple of spots, it did actually become quite a chore to locate them. And, as that was an "activity," I miss it in that sense.

On the other hand... it absolutely sucked when you accidentally walked past one even when you knew where it was supposed to be. At least with the new system, you can go to the location in, say, Blackrock and it's there every time. Whether or not it's an empty cache is obviously random.

One downside (or upside, depending on how you look at it) of the new system is that you can literally find both stocked bunkers in your first two zones and then simply write off the other four empty ones. So this could be seen as either a benefit or a shitty elimination of an objective, based entirely on how you like to play the game.

Again, I'm not saying I hate the new system or was totally in love with the old one. Just asking: which did you prefer?

And I'm not gloating - it's just fucking awful. I feel absolutely terrible for the dude, because he seems like a good, smart guy, and didn't deserve this run of bad luck.

But he also comes up a lot on the show, as Murray's (former) chosen draft selection. So I anticipate they'll cover it at some juncture this week. It's amazing (in a bad way) that Maye is now the only one of the trio still left standing.

They gotta cut this guy. Missing a 47 yard field goal? It isn't 1990.

Because... we're prying open car trunks with a crowbar... and cutting apart metal shelving units to with a hacksaw. Ripping down a couple of hastily-nailed boards covering a door seems like child's play.

I get the purpose that these structures serve: they're non-spawned buildings; an alternative to having every structure that isn't able to be entered be a burned-out shell. But it's still just bizarre that this is how Hinterland chose to handle it.

Like... this doesn't look like a challenging building to enter for real-life me; that looks like a 5-minute break-in at most. And yet to my character, that's basically Gandalf on Durin's Bridge: YOU SHALL NOT PASS.

So... not spray paint, because obviously that's everywhere.

For me, it's the flashlight. They're fairly rare (bordering on very), almost always significantly damaged, only useful after an aurora (or as an inferior bashing weapon), weigh a ton compared to their utility, and lamp oil (and the metal to repair the lamps) is bordering on an inexhaustible resource. I see no reason to pick these things up, let alone tote them around with me on the off chance I'm without another light source.

There are definitely other items like this. What's a "thanks but no thanks" for you?

I've been seeing this a lot lately, directed at both my posts, and posts by other users. Basically, it appears to be something of a catch-all for "I don't like what you're saying but can't be bothered-to-reply/I can't field an argument against it"... so the 'out' is to dismiss the thread or post out-of-hand as AI generated.

Certain techniques or styles seem to trigger this reaction more than others (the use of bullet points, em-dashes, proper grammar, good spelling, etc.), but these tools/skills existed long before AI was in its infancy, let alone even an idea. Why does AI write like it does? Because it copies clear and cogent works by humans - it pilfered the most clean and well-formatted books, articles, blogs, posts, etc. and regurgitated them.

But to turn around and use those copies to castigate and silence other Redditors feels very self-defeating. I get it: AI sucks; most of us have been adversely impacted by it in some way. But if nobody is allowed to write well anymore; if we have to intentionally screw up our own posts just to be taken seriously as live beings, we've completely lost sight of the ball.

I write. I wrote before AI came along, and I will continue to write in the future. I will not alter my style, syntax, tone, or formatting simply because people have now decided to jump at shadows. But I certainly might reconsider writing on Reddit.

In no particular order:

• The ability to repair more objects. Repairing was added so late in the cycle that many obvious targets were overlooked. This broken door at Bricklayer's Retreat in Blackrock is just one of many examples. We should be able to repair everything from broken cabinetry and furniture to the (small) gaps in wood bridges. We're constantly carrying wood and tools, and have been shown that we know how to use them. 1 + 1 = 2.
• More stackables. I want to be able to consolidate those 0.1 cans of lamp oil (and every other thing like that) into single units - even if that means a slight amount of immersion-breaking by "magically" making them into a jerry can. Similarly, the inability to merge items of slightly-differing durability is an issue the game never attacked. If I choose to, I should be able to lower all of my matches (or whatever) to a set durability level (or perhaps an average of all the stacks) and then heap them into one box.
• Just a few more weapons. Things like a spear (the most obvious implement ever, considering that it's actually in the game files) and a shotgun would be rewarding objects to work towards. Maybe the shotgun could be something that was craftable - that we would have to labor for. And it's not like our character doesn't have the demonstrated ability to do fine work like that - we're crafting freaking ammunition (which, let's be honest, is almost ludicrously precise work that would be far beyond the capability of 99.9% of people in a survival situation). By contrast, building a rudimentary shotgun should be child's play.
• The removal of unnecessary items that represent nothing but a net inconvenience. The most obvious of these is the woodworking tools. I FULLY endorse having the tools be a one-time findable appropriation for the survivor: something you have to acquire. But having them be this permanent 3.3 lb dead weight that I feel obliged to lug any place I move was a silly design. The game is already full of "essentials" that any survivor must bring with them - this particular toolbox (and a few other things like it) are not something we should tote everywhere. Once we learn how to craft a furniture workbench, we should be able to assemble a new one anywhere, and work off of that.
• Fix the fact that you can dump objects on top of one another (so that they violate their own collision boxes), but can't drag them there in the world. Why. WHHHHYYYYY. It's a solo game. If I can just drop a pile of 50 things into a 1x1 foot tile onto the floor, why can't I stack, say, a bunch of crowbars on top of each other manually?

I could go on. And yes, I expect a bunch of these (and maybe all of them) will no longer be an issue in Blackfrost. But I feel like a number of them could have been addressed in TLD before the game was shelved - just a final "here's what we've learned; this will help you in your travels; farewell" update would have gone such a long way more than adding any additional zones (or whatever). And yes, that does mean I would have traded a whole map (maybe not a big map) for QOL improvements while the product was still growing.

Forester's hermitage, Keeper's Pass North.

Set aside the obviousness of being able to either fell trees, or (presumably) cut up firewood faster than a hacksaw permits (which, I can attest, is not fast)... you could pretty easily fashion something like that into an absolutely bitching post-apocalyptic close-quarters self defense weapon. Imagine the expression on what was left of a Wolf's face the first kind you cudgeled them with that thing.

Note that this is not a post about the worst main story period - we discuss that constantly.

I'm just talking about the stand-out most contrived/boring/tedious/terrible chapter overall - what, in your opinion, is the lowest singular episode in the main game.

My vote? Jedi Knight chapter 2. And it's because it has the effect of making both the Jedi and, by extension (because you either grudgingly or enthusiastically go along with it) your character look naive-verging-on-stupid.

The notion of 4 Jedi walking into the Emperor's house to turn him to the light side (with the fallback of killing him) may be the most ludicrous, ham-fisted, and silly plan in the history of the order. I can sort of forgive Tol Braga for massively underestimating the Emperor's power (although, given that he's lived for a thousand years in a galaxy where lifespans rarely exceed 100, there should have been enormous red flags)... but you're going to take him out with 4 Jedi? And your optimistic assessment is that you should first give him a chance to turn away from his evil? No, like, snipe him from 100 yards or set off a bomb? No... just walk up and say "erm, Mr. Bigs? Why are you so evil? And can I interest you in a pamphlet discussing a 9-point plan on how to turn away from your schemes?"

...

Bro.

Even the other Jedi acknowledge that it's basically a suicide mission. But then Satele green-lights it by saying that "any chance of success means we should try." Satele, dear, that's NOT how things work when you're talking about people's lives. A one or two percent (and it probably wasn't even close to that) possibility of success means that 99 percent of the time you're holding a memorial ceremony and contacting relatives. And yet... you think that's the sort of mission you should dispatch your best up-and-coming Jedi on? A one-way ticket to the big force clouds in the sky?

I think it's interesting when games trick or deceive or hoodwink both the player and the MC. But JK chapter 2 is so obviously going to fail. And, as it turns out, that's exactly what happens: you lose. So it's not a twist or anything like it - it's just a slog towards a disaster everyone could see coming. And that makes our character, order, and faction just look... dumb.

And I realize that things like that cost money. But... you'd think the game would have launched with an encounter like that. I mean, we see skeletons of the damned things everywhere; their names are whispered as if they're legendary. It just seems like common sense to have a fight like that in a Star Wars game where Tatooine - if not necessarily everyone's favorite world - is the best-realized planet in the game.

It's just a shame.

^((And yes, I am aware that the Disney-fied Krayt Dragon doesn't look like that. I prefer the classic vision).)

I get the appeal of Taris, both from a symbolic and practical perspective. Obviously, it represents a sore spot for the Republic: arguably their greatest defeat at the hands of the Sith. So in a time of conflict between the two empires, rebuilding it would seem to represent a great symbol of hope and perseverance. Added to this, as a former ecumenopolis, it's safe to assume that Taris lay along well-traveled star lanes, and therefore - being a habitable world - having it rebuilt (at least to an extent) would be sensible for trade and defense interests.

But the Star Wars universe isn't hurting for what Star Trek would call 'M-Class planets' - they're everywhere; a dime a dozen. So it's not as if people must move to Taris to survive; that it must be rebuilt for the sake of the Republic.

Plus, removing all the rusted infrastructure - all of the unsteady, derelict towers, upper-city supports, etc. - would likely be an industrial project that would take hundreds (if not thousands) of years. And this isn't even mentioning the widespread radioactive and otherwise-toxic pockets of pollution. Even from a purely environmental standpoint, there is very little about Taris that would prove welcoming or easy to deal with.

And then, of course, there are the Rakghouls - Star Wars' version of the zombie plague. It isn't like the Rakghouls are some underworld mystery like they were in KotOR - they everywhere on the surface, and constantly claiming new victims. Even a few probes would likely reveal the nature of this threat quickly: that it was a genetic disaster of almost unparalleled scale, and an almighty threat to galactic well-being if it were ever loosed. Glassing Taris would have been a wiser choice than attempting to recolonize it.

And yet... not only does the Republic open the door for people - even regular civilians - to come and essentially live "in the wilds," amongst those very zombies... but they build an open trade port, welcoming ships from all stripes that could conceivably transport the plague anywhere. Even worse, the planet immediately becomes a sirenic device to mad scientists doing mad scientist stuff. Multiple questlines, dailies, and main story plots within SWTOR deal with rogue actors using Taris as a bio warfare laboratory, perverting the Rakghoul plague into ever-worse incarnations, and then (invariably) losing control of it.

The only merciful thing about Taris is that the Empire comes along and spoils the Republic's designs. Granted, they don't do it for practical reasons - really just to piss in the Republic's Cheerios. But the ultimate outcome is the same: destroying the colony, and it the process sparing the galaxy from the resettlement's inevitable consequence - a trillion-plus victim outbreak of the plague.

I don't think there's a similarly dumb decision in SWTOR than what the Republic was doing on Taris. It was the absolute worst scheme imaginable, and it was only thanks to the Empire that its hubris didn't get everyone killed.

This is one of Master Rajivari's followers (well, a vision of one) from the Consular's prologue. I really like the detailing on the hood, shoulders and legs - despite being launch gear, this appears to have decent fidelity (and doesn't look like pleather [like so much of the older items]). Can this "outfit" - or at least the chest, head and legs - be acquired, and anyone know what the pieces would be called?

My vote is Resolute Protector (here mostly modeled by Doc, although the helmet is just a random drop [because the set's headpiece is silly looking - which may partially explain why you don't see it much]).

It's one of the few armors in the game that has any kind of a camouflage pattern - in this case, a splotchy sort of discoloring over the entire thing. It makes for really visually-impactful gear - eye-catching and distinct. But I almost never see anyone wearing it.

What's your vote for an under-appreciated set?

Best cast scenario:

• Malgus successfully steals the stealth fleet.
• Kills the player-character.
• Eliminates the portion of the Dark Council/Imperial officers that are on Ilum.

So coming out of that, Malgus has a pretty sizable military with a significant technological advantage over the remainder of the Empire, and - thanks to his 'soft on aliens' policies - he likely has a position from which to generate inroads with the Republic (potentially at least getting them off his tail, and even possibly forging a temporary alliance to destroy the rest of the Sith Empire [I sort of doubt the Republic would agree, considering Malgus' major role in the Sack of Coruscant, but I don't totally rule a brief alliance out, either]).

Obviously, Valkorian and Zakuul are still out there, so it's impossible to determine how things would go over the long term (although I do think Malgus would be a more capable Emperor than Acina). All I'm saying is: if Malgus had "won" either of those two flashpoints, would he have been able to finish off the rest of the Empire? And would his reforms have, in fact, strengthened the Sith as they moved forward?