Category Archives: Random

My Take on the Philosophy of Borderlands

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Recently, I stumbled upon a series of books called Pop Classics. The #8 on that series is called Ain’t No Place for a Hero: Borderlands. Since I enjoy the series very much and I do believe it has much to offer in terms of a message (whether intentional or not), I decided to order it. As of this writing, it has not arrived yet, but hopefully it will before I leave for holiday next week (not to worry: I will be moving from an area with no new covid-19 cases in quite some time to another area in a similar position). I plan to read the book and review it, but before I do that, I thought I would write down a few words on the subject, so that I can contrast my opinions with those of the author (Kaitlin Tremblay).

Spoilers.

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Borderlands 3 Doesn’t Care About New Players

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YouTube has been pushing a lot Borderlands lore videos for me lately, so I’ve watched some of them. Everyone hates Ava and the story of the third game in the mainline series sucks. But this got me thinking: What if I hadn’t spent something like 1200 hours playing the previous games when I started this game?

Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers.

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Casting Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel 2 (not that I think it’s actually happening)

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So, Pre-Sequel, which I enjyoed much more than most, had six playable characters, who all have had roles in the other games. We had Athena, who was a major character in the General Knoxx DLC for the original Borderlands, we had Nisha and Wilhelm, Jack’s allies from Borderlands 2, and Fragtrap, the only remaining Claptrap as of Borderlands 2. Later, Aurelia and Timothy were added, who both feature in Borderlands 3. Based on this, who would I like to see if the pre-sequel would receive a sequel? (Which I don’t think it will, as it really was poorly received by the fans.) I’m not necessarily talking about something that happened between second and third games, but a spin-off.

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2018 in gaming (for me)

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It’s time to reflect upon this year.

2018 was a bit of a game changer (pun intended). I made a conscious decision to avoid roleplaying since I had felt a major burnout on that subject. I have been roleplaying for about 25 years so it is a big part of who I am and how I perceive myself. And I have to admit that taking that break has been one of the best ideas I have ever had.

Since roleplaying has been my main way to see my friends I felt that I wanted to fill in that void. And luckily our Guild has a vast number of players willing to play different games.

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One of Those Things I Feel I Shouldn’t Need to Write About: Condescension Towards Women in Gaming

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I was at GP Warsaw last weekend and saw this weird situation, where there was a woman (**gasp**) playing in the match next to ours.

Now, women in GPs aren’t unheard of. They are still – in terms Magic players will understand – Mythic Rares, but they are around. Based on the attitudes of the guy playing with the aforementioned woman, I do really get why many women want to stay out.

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“You are not playing Lovecraft right!”

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After starting Arkham Horror the Card Game I have yet again heard the all too familiar comment about not playing true to the Lovecraft’s vision. So on this post I’m going to discuss my opinions about how Lovecraftian games and the stories linked to Cthulhy Mythos are linked.

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Holiday Gift Guide 2018, part 2

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What is a good gift? Depends on who you are giving the gift to.

For example, if you, for some reason, were buying a gift to me, that’s a hard hurdle to cross, because in general I have enough money to buy what I want, so in order to buy me a gift, you need to come up with something I was not aware of. In general, this is difficult, but some people are able to do it.

My general advice on buying gifts: Keep your eyes open. When you come across something interesting you know someone would like, get it for the next occasion. Or, like me, don’t worry about special occaions and give gifts when you feel like it. With that in mind, here’s some places to start.

(No sponsorhips involved despite some direct links.)

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Holiday Gift Guide 2018

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I could have sworn we have done this numerous times before but all I could find was the Guide from 2014…  Oh well! Here come the recommendations for this year’s holiday season!

(By the way – those recommendations by Aki? They are still relevant. As are the Top 5 Boardgames I listed in February.)

This year I have been working in my local gaming store Puolenkuun Pelit (Tampere) and have quite a bit better grasp of thing I would like to recommend for holiday gifts. I have a few absolute favorites so let’s get them out of the way first. Continue reading →

What does your match win percentage need to be to go infinite on MtG Arena Competitive Draft?

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A clear and concise title.

A draft costs you 1500 gems. You gain more gems by winning enough matches.

winsgems

0-1 0
2 800
3 1500
4 1800
5 2100

You can keep playing until you’ve either won 5 matches or lost two. To win your gems back (and some packs, but you can’t use packs to draft, so that’s not part of going infinite), you need to win 3, so it would seem that you need a win percentage of 60% to go infinite, but it’s not that simple.

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Subcultures of One

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Simon Barrett, the writer of You’re Next and The Guest (and some other movies I would rather not mention), appeared in an episode of re:View to talk about The Guest earlier this year. It’s a half an hour discussion on the film years after it’s release, so it’s not an advertisement, just reflection on it, so if this kind of analysis is your thing or you like small budget movies, you should take a look.

But, in the beginning, he mentions the concept of Subculture of One. A little research tells me that he didn’t come up with the phrase, it has come up here and there, but he was the first source for me on the subject, so let’s run with that.

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