Jim Sterling / James "Stephanie" Sterling / James Stanton/Sexton & in memoriam TotalBiscuit (John Bain) - One Gaming Lolcow Thread

[Gloria The Glorious]

I'm almost certain no one is that terrified of spiders, and it's just a joke taken way too far. The earliest I heard of an arachnophobia option was a mod in Skyrim way back in like 2012 that replaced all spider models with a static posed model of a bear. I guess no one stepped out and said "Guys it's a joke, no one cares that much."

There are people legit that terrified of spiders. I've met a few myself. It's not even about them being afraid of dying to them, it's just that they take them completely out of their comfort zone because they seem so unnatural. To them, spiders are like disgusting alien creatures with having way too many legs, a bobbing egg sack, way too many eyes, and hair in the wrong places. It's also usually something childhood related, such as one falling on them as a small child and/or watching a spider-based movie at too young of an age. Things like that can easily carry with you into adulthood.

Personally, I don't know anyone who is that afraid of spiders who bought Grounded because they were "Fuck spiders. Period." But while people here mock Grounded for having that mode (understandably, since there's minimal proof of the game actually being made more accessible beyond journalist claims), would you rather have it be like the Resident Evil 2 Remake where all spiders were removed outright for the same reason? While I believe it to be a pointless feature, I'd much rather have a single option tucked far away in the menus for the 1% than have the core experience compromised for said 1%.

 

[Lightly Buttered Crumpet]

I’m surprised it bit you, tarantulas usually spread their hairs out before biting, and even then they’re extremely docile. You must have really been an asshole

It did flick hairs first (Old Worlds don't - they just bite) but, as I said, I was drunk and it's normally really docile so I just pushed it out of the way and it didn't like it

Anyway, I only mention it because I've now got more reason to be scared of them than most people, since the venom's taken quite a while to fully get through my system and I'm certainly a lot more wary of this particular one, but I still can't come close to imagining a fear of a 2D screen representation of one.
I mean, I'd be pretty fucking scared if a grizzly bear walked up to me (especially since we don't have bears in this country) but would one on a screen freak me out? obviously not

would you rather have it be like the Resident Evil 2 Remake where all spiders were removed outright for the same reason? While I believe it to be a pointless feature, I'd much rather have a single option tucked far away in the menus for the 1% than have the core experience compromised for said 1%.

if those are the only two options, then no, I wouldn't want them removed completely but where do we stop regarding phobias? I know people terrified of frogs and one terrified of sheep. I know another terrified of large objects/buildings (megalophobia) and others scared of the sea. Should we have filters for everything or just tell people to get over it?

I'm scared of obesity so I want Jim to censor himself from his videos.

 

[Shotgun Badger]

When I was in school I knew a girl who had a deep seated fear of bananas. On her behalf I am lobbying Nintendo to remove all mentions of bananas from the next Donkey Kong game and replace them with Sydney Funnel web spiders.

 

[Miles Peterson]

would you rather have it be like the Resident Evil 2 Remake where all spiders were removed outright for the same reason?

Was that ever confirmed? I always assumed it was done because in a game aiming for a highly realistic art style, having one enemy be "giant spider that umbrella made for some reason" was tonally inconsistent.

 

[Gloria The Glorious]

if those are the only two options, then no, I wouldn't want them removed completely but where do we stop regarding phobias? I know people terrified of frogs and one terrified of sheep. I know another terrified of large objects/buildings (megalophobia) and others scared of the sea. Should we have filters for everything or just tell people to get over it?

I'm scared of obesity so I want Jim to censor himself from his videos.

Oh yeah, I would prefer that. I mean more so that I see the "option to make it silly" is a far more reasonable compromise. Since everyone who is willing to face that can do so. Also, at least for now, fear of spiders is unique in that it's fairly common (a little under 1-10 or so on average), so I can understand it.

To keep this related to Jim Sterling (sad, I know), he mentions the idea of "it affecting someone else's game has no reason to upset you if someone else makes that choice" and this is actually a situation where it's fair. Is the issue that there's a single feature for people who are afraid of spiders, or is it that this feature got more press attention than the actual gameplay and story did? No one talks about Grounded beyond the spider ordeal, which really says a lot about the game itself. Fitting, giving no one talked about the Outer Worlds once it outlived it's usefulness as the "fuck Bethesda" purchase.

Was that ever confirmed? I always assumed it was done because in a game aiming for a highly realistic art style, having one enemy be "giant spider that umbrella made for some reason" was tonally inconsistent.

Confirmed? No. But it's not an unreasonable assumption to say that's why they're gone. The game has a highly realistic art style but it's not a realistic game, and making a giant spider just cause they could would be one of the less retarded things Umbrella has done considering their experiments led to literal plant people instead of the [honestly less ridiculous] monster plants of the OG game.

 

[LiquidKid]

It did flick hairs first (Old Worlds don't - they just bite) but, as I said, I was drunk and it's normally really docile so I just pushed it out of the way and it didn't like it

Anyway, I only mention it because I've now got more reason to be scared of them than most people, since the venom's taken quite a while to fully get through my system and I'm certainly a lot more wary of this particular one, but I still can't come close to imagining a fear of a 2D screen representation of one.
I mean, I'd be pretty fucking scared if a grizzly bear walked up to me (especially since we don't have bears in this country) but would one on a screen freak me out? obviously not

If you saw a grizzly bear this time of year, be very afraid as that means it wasn’t hibernating due to starvation and wouldn’t hesitate to attack you.

But during normal seasons a grizzly is usually not going to bother you unless you make yourself a thread to itself or it’s young. Bear attacks are usually the result of bad eyesight which is why making loud noises and backing off slowly usually works.

But yeah, no one is too scared of something that a video game representation of it would make them freak out.

 

[NaviSpider]

Compromises are fine and having these options is always preferable to undermining the base core of the game, but you need to account for the times where those compromises are impossible. What do you do then? I have a friend with a severe phobia of deep water, so he'll never play Subnautica. Question I'd like to pose to Jim is how do you account for this accessibility issue? You can't have Subnautica without having the deep water, and that means some people are going to be extremely apprehensive about playing it. They're missing out but they're missing out on a miserable experience (for them) and there's no way of mitigating that.

The solution is simple, just don't play it. But if we allow that line then Jim's ground for accessibility in games gets pretty shaky, because you can make that answer for pretty much any accesibility issue. There are plenty of games that some people are better off not playing, and tailoring a game to them will change the game itself. If you're too blind, deaf, retarded, a game journo, etc., or if a game is just too hard for you, then you're better off just not playing some things, so don't. Play something else. It's ok.

You can make a similar argument for Soulslike games. The challenge is integral to their entire design, if you compromise on that for people that can't play then you risk diminishing the very thing the game is trying to be. So again we come to our simple solution, just don't play it. Play games that are for you, everyone will get what they want that way.

 

[ZehnBoat]

retarded, a game journo, etc.,

you repeated yourself

but yeah, people need to realize that yes: all video games should be for all people, but no one video game is for everyone

 

[Neet Tokusatsu]

I usually don't like to do the whole 'thing vs thing Japan' routine, but its kind of illuminating that Elden Ring was released with uncompromising difficulty and a near total lack of player handholding that relied on the player to figure out the best routes forward and best way to handle the voluminous threats before them, and later on in the year God of War Ragnarok was released with a comical amount of carefully directing the player to make sure that they never had to activate their brain even once with an extremely on-rails experience where every minor character just tells you exactly what you need to do to proceed. Its night and day, Jim already whined about the fact that Elden Ring doesn't have an explicit easy mode with all the typically retarded arguments around that, will he whine about GOW going a zillion miles in the opposite direction to the point that everybody is posting clips of the most absurd fake QTE events and player being told exactly what to do to proceed at any given time because the developers have absolutely no trust that the player isn't a fucking idiot? I mean GOW is super accessible thanks to all that crap, isn't it?

I've never liked the newer GoW games, since GoW 2018 was released a low of people came out of the woodwork to be like "Oh God of War is finally good now!" "This game is so deep and mature" "This game is nothing like the PS2 titles and that's a good thing", and now GoW Ragnarok seems to be so scripted to the point you only have to walk forward and the game pretty much will play itself, gee no wonder why everyone likes the new direction GoW has taken.

 

[JJLiautaud]

I’m surprised it bit you, tarantulas usually spread their hairs out before biting, and even then they’re extremely docile. You must have really been an asshole



I’d agree with you if it wasn’t an insanely SJW dev team and if every journalist didn’t praise the hell out of the feature.
But I agree, no one Is so terrified of spiders they they can’t play a game. Just like how no one is sSo afraid of dogs that dog hair causes them to accuse you of rape consent accidents

My mom is probably that scared of spiders; she got a spider bite that got a secondary infection so bad she almost died, and she, to this day, cant stand to look at them.

 

[huecoffs02]

I've never liked the newer GoW games, since GoW 2018 was released a low of people came out of the woodwork to be like "Oh God of War is finally good now!" "This game is so deep and mature" "This game is nothing like the PS2 titles and that's a good thing", and now GoW Ragnarok seems to be so scripted to the point you only have to walk forward and the game pretty much will play itself, gee no wonder why everyone likes the new direction GoW has taken.

I hated the "MaTuRe" comments on GOW 2018. Like sure, a dad story is cool and all but I am tired of the shtick about games needing to grow up.

 

[HRT Heisenberg]

To keep this related to Jim Sterling (sad, I know), he mentions the idea of "it affecting someone else's game has no reason to upset you if someone else makes that choice" and this is actually a situation where it's fair. Is the issue that there's a single feature for people who are afraid of spiders, or is it that this feature got more press attention than the actual gameplay and story did? No one talks about Grounded beyond the spider ordeal, which really says a lot about the game itself. Fitting, giving no one talked about the Outer Worlds once it outlived it's usefulness as the "fuck Bethesda" purchase.

What baffles me (and we see this in other woke circles) is the people advocating for change and accessibility spend a lot of time complaining about "accessibility" issues that don't even affect them. Don't get me wrong, people with actual disabilities do come out publicly to ask game developers for small changes to make their experiences in games closer to the average person. Normally I think this guy's takes are pretty dumb but this guy with severe partial blindness made a video where he just wants a change in camera angle in third person games so he can actually see shit. A perfectly reasonable request coming from someone who genuinely just wants to play games.

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I guess that is the key difference, people like Jimbob have lost interest in games a long time ago, but for some reason he still feels like he has a level of authority to stand at a podium (lol) and lecture both the developers and players of a game as to why he's better than everyone else. Pretty much missing the point for asking for accessibility options in the first place by making it about himself rather than the customers, ironic that both him and TB once claimed they were 'customer first' once upon a time.

 

[LiquidKid]

My mom is probably that scared of spider she got a spider bite that got a secondary infection so bad she almost died, and she to this day cant stand to look at them.

Very off topic, but I know a guy who got let out of prison because a spider bit him and he contracted mrsa.

 

[Donuteater]

This is just a minor gripe, but this week's podcast has 3 hosts, as it always does. Jim, Laura and Konrad. Except Konrad doesn't speak for the first 35 minutes, as Jim complains about the sonic fanbase and Laura gushes over the latest shoddy pokemon game. I was beginning to think it was a 2 person show. I'm not shocked the guy is checked out though, it's the same as what happened with Gav.

 

[Oliver Onions]

Everything else aside, how the fuck does something "look like" an asset flip? It either is one or it is not. I'm not really seeing it in the specific argument being made, and most asset flips are completely visually coherent, it's just that there's nothing built onto them beyond the original assets. Because it is an ASSET FLIP.

To be fair to Jim, I know what he means regarding Sonic Frontiers. The hyper-realistic hub environments look heavily at odds with the neon-coloured woodland creatures running around them so it looks like you just dropped Sonic's model in a prefab environment, but that's been a problem with Sonic games going all the way back to Adventure (it was even kind of an issue in Mario Odyssey with New Donk City.)

I think it's just more apparent now because graphics have advanced so much so if you want realistic environments there's really nothing you can do with Sonic's design to make him more detailed without straying into Uncanny Valley horrors like his original movie design.

edit: Hell, one of the most recent popular fad games was full of random assets from different people and even though they didn't go together, not a single soul even noticed. By Jim's logic though, it's an asset flip. Because buying assets to make a game with just never happens.

It's super extra championship edition ironic because Jim's favourite game of the year --a game he even worked on, recently-- is Vampire Survivors, which literally uses palette-swapped Castlevania sprites.

It's interesting that it's not something equivalent, it's got to be something super inoffensive. I sort of get it, but if I was behind that choice I'd just make it something as fearsome.

It's actually pretty patronising that they dumb it down to that extent imo. There are ways to be considerate of people's phobias, disabilities etc without treating them like a braindead child, but that's standard MO for shitlibs. As I've said before they are ironically the most bigoted people you'll ever meet, they just think they're doing it for the right reasons.

would you rather have it be like the Resident Evil 2 Remake where all spiders were removed outright for the same reason?

I'd have rather they kept the spiders and got rid of Mr X, because he scared the shit out of me (at least until I realised how easy it was to manipulate his AI).

This is just a minor gripe, but this week's podcast has 3 hosts, as it always does. Jim, Laura and Konrad. Except Konrad doesn't speak for the first 35 minutes, as Jim complains about the sonic fanbase and Laura gushes over the latest shoddy pokemon game. I was beginning to think it was a 2 person show. I'm not shocked the guy is checked out though, it's the same as what happened with Gav.

I'm quietly confident Konrad is only in it for the money now. I think he's basically Jim's agent and handles all his bookings and stuff, but beyond that he's probably burnt out on being shackled to the dude for more than a decade.

 

[Cap-tan]

I'm quietly confident Konrad is only in it for the money now. I think he's basically Jim's agent and handles all his bookings and stuff, but beyond that he's probably burnt out on being shackled to the dude for more than a decade.

I've got two transgenders and a micro-jew.

I think you're right and heartily believe Kondrad is getting a reasonable paycheck from the tranny-pack. Gavin left because he actually created stuff and was well off by himself. What's Konrad got? He needs to be around to make ends meet but he's clocked out mentally already. Sad to think about but I believe these trannies are gonna drive him to an early grave.

 

[Oliver Onions]

Sad to think about but I believe these trannies are gonna drive him to an early grave.

I think it depends how much contact Jim and Konrad have outside of work. If all he has to do is sit there saying nothing on the podcast (which tbh was always how he was even back in the Podtoid days) and book wrasslin shit/JQ guests for Jim, then cash his paycheck and go home he can probably milk these idiots then walk away clean.

I don't think there's really any dirt on Konrad, himself, that would affect him finding work elsewhere, and being able to manage someone as histrionic and miserable to deal with as Jim might actually work in his favour when looking for new clients.

'I was able to get this fat idiot booked, think what I can do for you!'

 

[Donuteater]

I think it depends how much contact Jim and Konrad have outside of work. If all he has to do is sit there saying nothing on the podcast (which tbh was always how he was even back in the Podtoid days) and book wrasslin shit/JQ guests for Jim, then cash his paycheck and go home he can probably milk these idiots then walk away clean.

I don't think there's really any dirt on Konrad, himself, that would affect him finding work elsewhere, and being able to manage someone as histrionic and miserable to deal with as Jim might actually work in his favour when looking for new clients.

'I was able to get this fat idiot booked, think what I can do for you!'

Konrad isn't as checked out on his other content though. Even Boston's favorite son had him taking control of the show for a bit. I think he's just sick of Jim and Laura.

 

[Oliver Onions]

Konrad isn't as checked out on his other content though. Even Boston's favorite son had him taking control of the show for a bit. I think he's just sick of Jim and Laura.

Probably because dabbing on Jonathan is something anyone can contribute to, but as far as I know Konrad's a pretty normal dude so what could he really contribute to two grown men LARPing as women, screaming incessantly about transphobia?

 

[Moja Zemlja]

I think Conrad's Twitter bio describes him best "Mercenary creative", he almost certainly is only attached to Jim Sterling in anyway because he can keep making money out of half arsedly appearing once a week on a podcast and he can piggyback off Jim's online store to sell his garbage (like LKD does).

Probably because dabbing on Jonathan is something anyone can contribute to, but as far as I know Konrad's a pretty normal dude so what could he really contribute to two grown men LARPing as women, screaming incessantly about transphobia?

I scrolled through his twitter feed and was honestly surprised by how levelheaded he is, I was expecting him being a lefty and attached to Jim Sterling to be pushing out the same kind of room temperature IQ takes as Jim but he's perfectly reasonable.