My Life As A Gamer: How Not To Fix Your Product Mistakes

This video showcases two big mistake that gaming companies make: Never Own Up To Mistakes, Needless Fucking With The Product.

Games Workshop is a success largely despite its massive fuckups than because they are particularly competent. They aren't. They can't design a ruleset to save their lives, and they have too much Gamma Male ego as a group to just own up to them.

Because Games Workshop has the common gaming company problem of thinking that they have to constantly push things forward even if there is no need, they tried to paper over the ego damage that fixing a long-standing scale issue with their core Space Marine minature product line by messing needlessly with the lore surrounding the Space Marines.

Gamers being, as a class, sensitive to needless change noticed this as such and rightly read GW the Riot Act.

GW, being the typical Gamma-dominated gaming company, doubled-down on the decision and compounded the error by half-assing their move and walking back the promises of the New Thing being flat-out better. Gamers, as a class, being sensitive to bullshit rightly called this out as such and GW again doubled-down.

Now we're here. It's 9th Edition, Primaris are clearly superior to Firstborn across the board, and the inevitable conclusion--the old sculpts being retired and permanently removed from legal tournament play--is now clear to all observers. Needless resentment continues, and GW has learned nothing because like the Imperium it can learn nothing.

How, then, could this have been avoided?

• Be honest about the new Space Marine sculpts. Call them "True Scale", actually make them truly in scale, and openly sunset the old sculpts from sale and tourney play. You will get grumbling, but that will be brief compared to this years-long bitchfest. Don't bullshit your way around your mistakes; own them, and fix them openly.
• Never Advance The Timeline. Do like Harn or Exalted did; fix the end of the lore at a given date. All of your storytelling tie-ins regardless of medium tell stories that start before, and usually end before, that date. Gaming requires a static state over a long period of time to produce a strong gameplay hobby, so confining narrative development to a pre-history that has no impact on actual play guarantees this while reaping all of the business benefits that narrative development allows.
• If you can't be bothered to learn probability or technical writing, then learn how to vet the people you hire to do that for you. Rulesets are so often complete ass because the gaming company failed to work out the math, write the documentation properly, or--as we see with 40K--both. Your bullshit degree that's only good if you're a beneficiary of nepotism simply will not get the job done and you deserve to get bullied trying otherwise.

It's a lot simpler than it looks, both in word and deed, to just treat your audience like grown men and not like children to be coddled. Alas, the common gaming company cannot do that because it's not run by grown men.

My Life In Fandom: More Free & Legal Anime On YouTube

More companies in Japan, or working with them, are getting in on offering stuff on YouTube as free advertising. Below are a couple of playlists from the "Anime! on TMS Official Channel", offering a mix of classic and new shows and films, which you can find here.

As I said, this channel is meant to advertise TMS and the IP it features. This shows more in the playlists for newer titles, which are previews and lead-ins to paid offerings, than in the classic shows. Further, the series playlists are time-gated to release episodes weekly as if they were on TV and thus replicating the original on-air broadcast program scheduling.

That said, it's still free and legal anime streaming and because it's on YouTube chances are good you can watch it on the go. There are other channels out there that are doing the same thing--RetroCrush has been doing this for a while now, and so have parts of Bandai Namco--so I know you'll find something you'll like. (Mecha fans, RetroCrush has a lot of what you want, and if you do Voltron then here's your Dairugger XV playlist.)

The usual caveat of this sort of thing being region-based applies, so don't be surprised if you need a workaround to access this stuff depending on where you are. VPNs are your friend.

And for you folks what dislike the anime, tell you what: hit me up below in the Comments with your live-action channels and sites of choice for free and legal watching, with ONE caveat: Thou Shall Not Promote Hollywood Or Its Satellite/Fellow Travellers (e.g. BBC, ABC, CBC).

Narrative Warfare: It Really Is Just The Flu

About that oh-so-deadly pandemic what people act like it's something out of a Biohazard/Resident Evil game. From Vox Day's blog

Influenza cases in the USA, 2016-2021

2016-2017: 29 million
2017-2018: 45 million
2018-2019: 36 million
2019-2020: 38 million
2020-2021: 0.0015 million

Masks and distancing work.

Actually, they don't. Covid cases in the USA, 2020-2021

2020-2021: 32 million

Ignore the corrupt scientists. There is absolutely no question anymore. Covid is the freaking flu.

Not only that, but it is considerably less lethal than historical flu viruses, including the 1889–1890 Russian flue pandemic, 1918-1919 Spanish flu pandemic, the 1957–1958 Asian flu pandemic, and the 1968-1969 Hong Kong flu pandemic.

In other words, it's a scam and it's always been a scam. Topping it off is the Pfizer announcement yesterday.

Pfizer Inc's CEO says he believes people will 'likely' need a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

During a panel discussion hosted by CNBC in conjunction with CVS Health that aired on Thursday, Albert Bourla said a potential booster shot would be administered six to 12 months of being fully vaccinated.

Bourla added that he thinks it is possible that people will need to be immunized against coronavirus annually.

'There are vaccines that are like polio that one dose is enough...and there are vaccines like flu than you need every year,' he said.

'The Covid virus looks more like the influenza virus than the polio virus.'

To which the Supreme Dark Lord said:

Let's examine the evidence in the philosophical mode of St. Thomas Aquinas:

• It is said by scientists that 85 percent of the matter in the universe is undetectable.
• It is said by scientists that the Arctic has been completely ice-free since 2013.
• It is said by scientists that covid is not the flu.

I answer that: published and peer-reviewed scientody has proven to be less accurate than a coin toss and scientistry is entirely unreliable due to the manner in which it is funded. Further:

• The number of people who have died OF covid is within the normal range of the number of people who die of the flu every year.
• The flu has mysteriously vanished while the number of people who got covid was within the normal range of the number of people who get the flu every year.
• The advocates of the various covid vaccines have already begun to sell the idea of annual covid vaccines to replace annual flu vaccines.
• The neo-liberal world order is showing definite signs of collapse.
• The covid narrative permits governments to significantly expand their powers in a way the flu narrative does not.

Therefore, I conclude: Covid is the flu repackaged and exaggerated for the globalist narrative to provide the Prometheans the ability to more easily manage the transition to the post-neoliberal world order.

Events bear out that the SDL is correct, and an increasing number of people realize this. This is why demand is dropping off, and there's increasing calls from the Usual Suspects in the Whore Media to make it mandatory and thereby use beef-eating legbreakers to slam dissidents to the dirt and shank them with needles.

I have refused to date. Now I have an absolute justification to refuse. This is one of the biggest Narrative Warfare campaigns in recent years, and because it was rushed the flaws were not properly concealed so they're being exposed well ahead of what Globohomo will accept as tolerable.

My Life In Fandom: Congratulations On Breaking $10K, Brian Niemeier!

As of this post, the campaign for Combat Frame XSeed: SS has just over a day to go. It has now reached $10,000 raised, so those 3D sculpts are coming.

I cannot overstate how much of a big deal this is for independent creators. Brian's solid audience support has turned out in droves to support this campaign, and now we see what that support can do when it has a point to rally around.

This is a point that Brian should rightly take pride in, and it is an accomplishment that others should pay attention to because this can be replicated--no Black Swans here--and Brian isn't a petty twat that balks at sharing his success with others. He'll tell you how he did it if you ask him, and you'll see for yourself that you can do it too if you put in the time and do the work.

And if you want in on this before it closes, click on the image below and slip in just before the buzzer to get your ticket to one of the biggest party in independent fiction.

Admin: The Rioting Next Door

As happened as Summer, Sophia Narwitz went to Brooklyn Center last night to catch some of the action first-hand.

I watched streams of this last night, in case the rioting broke out in force again after the looting of the outlet retail mall where Brookdale used to be over the weekend.

Because folks have asked about my safety, I'm posting here in addition to Empire, but this is more personally-focused.

I do not see this getting any wider than in Brooklyn Center, aside from attempts to directly attack the officer involved now that she's been doxxed and reported to flee her home for refuge elsewhere. This is despite this being far closer to my location than last Summer's riots, and the reason is because as the details come out this will run out of steam fast in favor of returned focus on the Chauvin trial as that should reach its conclusion next month.

No, she won't be prosecuted- nevermind going to jail. The police here in Minnesota are a tight-knit bunch, as the Chauvin trial also shows, and once Chauvin walks all focus will be on him and any political will to go after this now-former cop will be gone despite all cries from the professional rioter cohort to do so.

And no, I won't be in any danger so long as I stay home most of the time; the rioters clearly favor soft targets such as retail stores in commercial sectors on major streets, and I am none of that. Unless the rioting strategy seriously makes good on that "We Will Burn the Suburbs" threat and goes into actual residental blocks to burn them out, I'm fine; if they do, then I'm in deep shit.

I don't think they will because the players using the riots need White Shitlib support, and if they attack the suburbs they lose it instantly- along with all the votes and revenue. That's how the political power works here, especially for the Dems that root their support in the Cities and the universities. So long as I avoid stupid risks, I'll be fine for now. That doesn't mean I relax; it means I know the odds given the situation as it is, and watching for changes therein is why I'm up late watching livestreams of the action.

If I sound glib, let's chalk it up to having survived worse and not being scared of things I find far easier to deal with. That's how things are from where I am. I do what I can to mitigate risk.

My Life In Fandom: The Pundit Talks Mythology & How It's (Badly) Used

The RPG Pundit is back, talking mythology and RPGs. Even if you write fiction, he's got good commentary here.

First, there is a game that did a far better job at playable mythology then Dungeons & Dragons: Runequest. It's akin to Pendragon and Paladin in that, like Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer, it's a D100 System with very perishable characters and involved character generation. Mythology is made playable due to putting access to real power behind engagement with setting lore in some fashion or another, often involving the joining of a cult dedicated to a specific mythic figure and celebrating its rites. Want to be a god-king? Got to become The God-King.

Second, it shows a very concrete example of what authors in fantasy and science fiction often complain about: "pagan mythology" is often little more than a combination of Fuck You Dad and really dumb LARPing, sometimes with just enough academic bullshit to rook the rubes. Actual mythology (a) has a very real function and (b) is considerably messier than what mentally ill weirdos with already shakey connections to reality--the common figure pushing this bullshit--think that it really is.

Third, mythology is hard because most people don't consciously comprehend it even if they are affected by it- including academics. The closest they get is its political utility, which is still potent stuff but not the full explanation. They could get it if they had the humility to accept that they can be influenced by it, and thus make the effort to think through what they do.

And until more people get mythology, you'll see this problem persist.

My Life In Fandom: Second Getter Robo Arc Preview

The second teaser for Getter Robo Arc hit over the weekend.

And if you need a primer, here you go.

If you prefer to read over watch, I strongly recommend the manga. Getter Robo Devolution is available on Amazon in English and in print. Other may be online only, or prohibitively expensive. You get some serious hot-blooded shenanigans and outright comic beats, such as Ryouma killing a Dinosaur Empire agent by crushing its skull with his bare fists while yelling "Fuck Dinosaurs!", and you get crazy things like Getter Emperor as a direct but logical consequence of how Getter Rays work.

Seriously, Getter Robo is one of the seminal mecha franchises for a reason, co-equal in importance to Mazinger Z, and you are not fully literate in the mecha genre without being familiar with Getter Robo. It's one of the mainstays of Super Robot Wars for this reason, rarely leaving the lineup. Catching up will keep you busy until Arc premieres in July.