It’s funny how when this was released, people were massively up in arms since it was ‘only cosmetic’ - then we saw what these companies would do with PvP games and P2W microtransactions, so people had to turn around and beg for them to return to being purely cosmetic additions…
I’m 9 books into WoT right now (its good shit) and the overlap between the Dune series is pretty interesting to say the least. Rand -> Paul, Aes Sedai -> Benne Gesserit, Aiel -> Fremen, I mean there’s a dozen more comparisons I could make too. The lack of Turbo Pussies and chair dogs is a let down though.
Definitely a huge overlap but mostly just because these are classic and great tropes from English-language literature. I doubt Dune was a major inspiration for WOT.
Aes Sedai - Bene - Moirai/Weird Sisters Moiraine is literally named after the Moirai
Paul/Rand are regular chosen ones with the foreign savior theme of Lawrence/Heart of Darkness added on for good measure
I had one in my mind for quite a while now. Time to write it down:
A famous-but-secretive order of women pulls the strings of all known civilization. They possess special powers, that allows them to do so, but even more than their powers they rely on their reputation and their vast network of connections. There is an important in-lore reason why the order accepts only women - the powers they use are defined by their gender, and the male version has some terrible aspects to it such that letting a man connect to it will be disastrous.
And yet - the order has a prophecy about a chosen one - a man that will use the power to unify humanity and lead it. For generations, the order’s secret agenda was to track the bloodlines that will lead to his birth, all in order to ensure he is born under their control and guidance.
But as stories go - that doesn’t work out. In the last generation, just before the chosen one is born, a member of the order betrays that goal. The chosen one is born outside the order’s control (though not entirely outside its influence), and grows up training under a master swordsman.
We reach the first book. Boy leaves happily with his big happy community - which, of course, gets attacked and destroyed. Accompanied by a member of the order he manages to escape the massacre , and eventually reach the desert. There they meet up with the Bedouin themed desert nomads. These nomad are very isolated and xenophobic, but of course they eventually accept our protagonist. We learn a few things about them:
While they are known through the world as fearsome warriors, in their past they were pacifists.
Their women can also use the same power the order uses. They just… use it for their own tribe’s businesses instead of interfering with governments.
They also have a prophecy about a chosen one that would lead them. And surprise surprise - it’s the same chosen one the order was going for. What are the odds?
Well, chosen one or not - there is a tradition to be held. So our protagonist goes through their tests, becomes their great chieftain, takes a chieftain’s daughter as his lover (which won’t stop him from marrying a more conventional princess), and goes on to use them to do his chosen one business and take over the entire civilization.
Though you could do an identical meme with Games Workshop and Blizzard. There were so many people back in the day that didn’t know Warhammer 40k had been around for over a decade when StarCraft released.
And then the same thing happened again when Dawn of War was released.
Yeah I was one those who grew up playing StarCraft and was in awe of how balanced the game races are and thought the game and lore was the first of its kind. It was only later that I learned of Warhammer 40k.
Not only Dune. GW ripped off so many franchises it made my head spin when I finally read the Foundation series by Asimov. Let’s just say the Mechanicum wasn’t an original idea.
Just googled their latest 2 releases to compare. Sims 4: For Rent, a cash-grab low-effort Sims DLC, doesn’t have microtransactions while Counterstrike 2 does.
EDIT: Neither does their last full game release, EA Sports WRC. Their upcoming game, F1 24 looks like it’s absolutely riddled with mtx though.
EA has released way more games with no games-as-service stuff in them than Valve in the past decade.
To be fair, EA has released way more games, period. This is across every category. Valve is primarily a digital marketplace company that sometimes makes a game, and has been for a long time.
Also, I didn’t include EA as publisher, because it would drastically change the conversation. It’s not part of Valve’s overall business strategy (again, because they’re primarily a marketplace company now) so it’s not apples to apples. They simply don’t publish externally developed games, because why would they when they run Steam?
EA has a PC storefront as well, though, so technically that is not a difference between the two, but I'm not gonna be disingenuous and pretend the two storefronts are comparable or as much of a priority. And published releases absolutely count, otherwise you'd have to tally each individual EA studio. Valve has published third party games, too. And, in fairness, EA has published Valve games in the past as well.
Either way, by any reasonable metric you choose Valve is at best as deeply invested in MTX and games as a service as EA. Unless you count "how many total games with MTX each has published", because when you make no games you make no MTX, I suppose.
by any reasonable metric you choose Valve is at best as deeply invested in MTX
Completely agree with this. I honestly believe the best apples-to-apples metric is to look at their most popular games and compare the mtx across them, in which case Valve doesn’t exactly come across as good in the comparison.
In terms of publishing, with the exception of Aperture Hand Lab (basically a little tech demo), they haven’t published any third party developer’s game since 2010. For the purposes of this conversation, I think it’s fair to count EA subsidiaries as EA.
When you make no games you make no MTX
Absolutely, this was the counterpoint I was trying to make about the raw “number of games” argument.
EDIT: Oh, I see the misunderstanding! I mean “published” as “financially backed the development, advertising and releasing of the game”, not “published to their storefront”. Same word with multiple meanings can be a major source of misunderstandings.
Yea I feel like this post has some real 2014 energy. There are much bigger problems in the industry right now. 2K absolutely loading their titles with MTX and gambling, the whole mobile industry digging into people’s life savings, Microsoft absolutely eviscerating good studios.
I found them to be the best movies I’ve ever seen. But that’s the great thing about being human, we don’t all have to like the same stuff! It would be wierd if we did.
It looks like it given the symbols used. P for pressure, rho for density etc. u-arrow is definitely a vector field, so it could be fluid flow. Otherwise it could be equally anything described by a vector field, like electromagnetism or gravity but they usually have a lot more E and G involved I think. I used to solve these but then I got a certificate so now I don’t have to.
Irony is, a lot of larger office building thermostats are really only there for display purposes (thermometer), not for control purposes (actually functional).
Often tenants can change the thermostat to whatever they want visually, but in the background it caps at a certain value or doesn’t change the set point at all
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