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I clicked the wrong dialog option and ended up having to fight an entire camp of <no spoilers>. First I panicked when I realized my mistake. Then, knowing I’d saved recently I decided to give it a try. Mid battle I find myself hunched forward anticipating the next move. I pull off some epic shit with water and lightning, they counter with acid puddles, I almost lose to a giant bouncer but I save myself last minute. Somehow, through my panic and adrenaline, I managed to wipe out the entire camp and I am fucking elated.

Not a single person who plays this game walks away without stories to tell. Stories that are completely unique to them, either by choice or mistake. This is what gaming is all about. I don’t understand what sort of horseshit this article is spouting. This game is phenomenal.

I feel like JRPGs completely changed what an RPG video game is. They are watered down compared to the original cRPGs from the 80s and 90s. Then the “westernized” version of JRPGs watered it down even more. The old cRPGs were so big and so complex. OG Baldur’s Gate, yes, but also Wizardry and Ultima too. I enjoyed Dragon Age because I liked the story, but I’d say Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2 are more direct descendants of the old cRPG days (DA 2 & 3 bear no resemblance to cRPGs at all). I think Dragon Age games are good modern RPGs everyone should play but Baldur’s Gate 3, imo, is a proper cRPG straight out of the 80s with 2023 graphics.

I’m so thankful this game is proving to be so popular. Maybe people are discovering (re-discovering) what RPGs used to be, and what makes them so great.

Free speech, as a concept, is the very first thing all fascists turn on people who value freedom. It is that value of freedom that makes the free speech argument so powerful. “How can you love freedom if you don’t even let us speak?” they will say with crocodile tears and false humbleness. And then, they will take full advantage of the fairness and moral treatment they are given to promote their brand of hate. You cannot stop fascism by treating it with fairness. They will not give you the same, and the end goal is to destroy the exact thing you are giving to them. Fascism has to be stopped in its tracks, immediately. If you entertain them in any way that allows them to single with their dog whistles you’ve already lost. And we’ve lost a lot, because our leaders aren’t even bothering to use dog whistles anymore. They’re just stating it outright.

The problem is that the blocking will have to be layers deep. If your instance has defederated from Meta, but is federated with an instance that does federate with Meta, then Meta still has access to all your data through that mutual server. So not only would people have to defederate from Meta, they’d have to defederate with anyone who does federate with Meta. If everyone isn’t on board with this, it’ll cause a huge fracture to form.

Make no mistake: Meta wants to sell your data. They know all it takes is one server to federate with them and they’ve unlocked the entire fediverse to be harvested. I would not be shocked to see large amounts of cash flowing in exchange for federation rights.