Archive for February, 2019
Welcome to another episode of STD, a show about a ship called Discovery, which never discovers anything and which is powered by a magic mushroom drive which is capable of going anywhere anytime which is never used to go anywhere. Simply amazing!
Anyway, this time they visit Saru’s village and (at first) they meet one single person in it, which happens to be his sister. Although the entire village only seems to have this one single inhabitant, no one even mentions it, they all act as if this is completely normal. :D Which makes this even weirder, is that in the end they have several extras in makeup and costume. So why would they put ~10 people in makeup and costume and then only use them for one single scene? It would have made much more sense to use them earlier too, so the village wouldn’t have looked completely abandoned.
Discovery however, was back to being a ghost ship again. When Pike and Ash sit in the mess hall, it’s completely empty, they are the only people there… Come to think of it, Discovery has only 5 rooms. Engineering, mess hall, bridge, sickbay and Burnham’s room. Okay, sometimes they are also in the Captain’s ready room or something. Their set seems to be super small in any case. DS9 was like a massive city in comparison.
While on the planet, they also encounter a black slime creature with a spooky voice (hard to understand too), which pretty much looks like Armus, the douche who killed Tasha Yar.
For some reason they also keep showing Saru with his shirt off, who always looks like a plucked chicken, which is kind of gross. :P
Oh and they basically identified the Red Angel as a time traveler in an Iron Man suit. That… really doesn’t limit their options at all, I hope it’s Gene Roddenberry who wants to take revenge for what they did to his Star Trek ideals. :P
If you believe the preview, the constantly referred Spock is actually going to show up in the next episode for realZZZ.
PS: Did the episode ever explain how the black slime monsters managed to develop their advanced technology, when Saru’s people were so dangerous, that they were hunting the black slime to extinction? That whole arc doesn’t sound very plausible. Especially given how easily Saru could destroy their tech using nothing but HIS HANDS…
PPS: As usual, STD 2×06 is synced with The Orville 2×08, who are also visiting the home of a crew member and basically have it be a family episode. :P It is as if they planned this, isn’t it? :P But just like last week, Orville has something unexpected happening at the end. :P It’s almost as if they are trying to make that show good. :P
I didn’t touch Shadow of War before 2019, so I never experienced this loot box drama or whatever it initially had. Thankfully all of it was removed from the game and it’s now what the people wanted it to be in the first place. At least mostly, I guess.
I was always interested, because I thought the Nemesis system was such a cool idea and I was curious to find out in what ways they improved upon it since the first game. Although I don’t want to praise every part of the game and it definitely feels a little bit too grindy here and there, I ended up liking it a lot. It really got me in a mood where I wanted to watch the movies again, which I haven’t seen in over a decade. After finishing the main campaign, the 2 story expansions were a really nice way to say goodbye to this game. They weren’t just more of the same, but actually tried to do something different.
The Eltariel campaign had some orks with more of a personality than what the Nemesis system constantly fired at the player in the main campaign, which I really enjoyed. The light abilities were also well thought out, for something that was only used in such a relatively short campaign. It exceeded my expectations.
Baranor’s campaign maybe surprised me even more, because I didn’t expect much from it, but with his campaign Shadow of Mordor went full Batman (after fighting was already basically the Arkham system). :D Grappling hooks are always fun and being able to gather this arsenal for him was really cool. They also used this opportunity to bring the dwarf from the first game back, I was really shocked to still remember Torvin. :D I also thought it was really great to have these mercenaries to fight with for a change, instead of always orks vs. orks. All this expansion lacked, was Idril. Baranor mentions her once in the beginning, they missed a chance here.
These 2 expansions did so much right, that I now have a hard time to just uninstall the game (the game has like 160 GB on disk, which makes it the biggest game I’ve ever seen). Instead I’m playing with the thought of visiting the main campaign one more time. :)
I’m also wondering if this game marks the end of the Nemesis system, I’ve been dead wrong about it before, when I thought tons of games would steal it. The only game (I know of) that ever “adopted” some very minor elements of it, was XCOM 2 War of the Chosen. It doesn’t look like there is going to be a third Mordor game (with Talion’s story being finished and all), so…
The bard and poet orks deserve a special mention. I really liked these orks, which would play a little song on their guitars or start rhyming before attacking the player. :D It’s just so weird, unexpected and refreshing. btw: It should have been possible to skip the intro every captain gets. I wouldn’t have used it very often, but there are times when 4 captains get their unskippable scenes right after one another and that can be annoying, at the very least if they are even known characters.
Also, Shelob is really Pennywise’s hot sister, right? :P
PS: Whose idea was it to name one of the major characters in the first game Lithariel and another in this one Eltariel? :D I did, of course, not look it up if the original lore is to blame here. :P Shame on you Tolkien, if this is the case. :P
PPS: The ending credits for this game are like an hour long. :D Apparently there were at least 10 times as many people working on this game than the entire movie trilogy. :P But it shows! There is an endless amount of gorgeous art in this game. :) Back when this account still had webspace left, I probably would have added 200 screenshots. :P
These episodes continued to fuel my conspiracy theory/joke, that STD and Orville are syncing up parts of their episodes. In STD 2×05 an old boyfriend shows up again (or 2 actually, if you count Ash) and on Orville 2×07… an old boyfriend showed up again (and on Orville they even manage to put a twist in)! Can this still be coincidence? What’s their game? Are we in the matrix?
What else happened? Not much, other than a demonstration why death scenes are the biggest insults in such shows. Cheap attempts at drama. The next one on STD (I don’t think for a second that they will cut that shit out in the future) will at best get me to roll my eyes. Culber’s death shenanigans are now even dumber than the thing with Saru last week. At least that was just one single scene and done. So space magic brought Culber back, although it’s pretty much just a copy/clone. But who cares. They never wanted to get into any Ash Tyler explanations either. To this day I have no idea if there even ever was a real Ash Tyler or if the Klingons made up that persona entirely and no one at Starfleet ever bothered to check.
These black badges for Section 31 really reminded me of Mass Effect and Cerberus. Cerberus supposedly was this secret/criminal organization that was also hunted by the Earth Alliance (the official government/law inforcement), so Cerberus obviously had their operatives wear a Cerberus logo clearly visible on all their clothing and even the Normandy had this Cerberus logo on it, so everyone could see it from afar, say while docking at the Citadel, which had Earth Alliance forces all over it. So all you really have to do, in order to find out if there are spies anywhere, is to be on the lookout for people wearing big badges and logos saying NSA or CIA or Russian FSB, German BND etc…
And of course they doubled down on this whole STD premise, that Starfleet never could exist without this shadowy organization (they even bring the Admiral back to claim this), doing all their dirty work. All Starfleet captains are just gullible fools (is this why Pike sometimes acts like he’s not that smart? to help this show sell this “Section 31 is necessary” idea?), who get to live in their dream world/bubble, because Section 31 is killing people left and right to make that possible…
PS: I really hated these scenes in the magic mushroom place, where they took their sweet time, slowly discussing everything and everyone’s feelings, while being fully aware the Discovery was about to blow up any second… Totally unprofessional. Good thing Pike was talking earlier about how Starfleet is a promise, leaving no one behind etc… If any of them would have bothered to listen to that, they might have hurried up a bit, instead of accepting that countless crew members might die because of their slow ass stalling.
PPS: When the Emperor comes aboard, Pike uses light-years as a measure of time, instead of its correct use as “a unit of length used to express astronomical distances”. I’m sure they would try to excuse this as being a joke (I don’t think it was meant as a joke) or that Pike in general is stupid, but this is exactly what no one wants to see in a science-fiction show in 2019. It makes everyone who is involved with this show look like a complete idiot (because everyone should have pointed out this mistake).
v10.2 12.12.2018
+Placed a dead dog into Fu Syndicate and filled Kamikaze Zen shelf.
+Made Sheriff laugh when conjuring bats and made them attack less.
+Added console key and all hotkeys to the controls options submenu.
+Fixed details in library level and text and dialogue details too.
+Corrected maximal ammo of flamethrower and made Carson pack stuff.
Made NPCs recognize the death of Misti, Venus, Mercurio and Knox.
Fixed female Tremere hair and sheet warform model, thanks DLLullu.
Restored Gangrels to Masquerade cutscene and added theatre email.
Made male Gangrel not crouch to fit transformation to warform fix.
Fixed Giovanni crypt line artifacts and armored a Venture bridge.
Removed basic discipline changes and restored bump mapping option.
Added a few weapon drop sounds and fidget and upset sound groups.
Removed weird tongue of Sheriff warform model, thanks to Barabbah.
Removed corpses of blood dolls and other NPCs on revisiting maps.
Improved python and loader file compatibility, thanks to Psycho-A.
Made video victim’s model unique and corrected ghoul sound group.
Corrected mirrors and details on several maps, thanks to Psycho-A.
Fixed Milligan’s business card and Dane screenshots, thanks IanW.
v10.2 RC2 9.1.2019
+Prevented exploit of selling books and removed Trip button sound.
+Unlocked Red Spot storage door and repaired beachhouse NPC update.
Modified barber chair with Lily to animate bonds, thanks DLLullu.
Removed copying bin files into main folder and SDK virus triggers.
Made tutorial door open better and removed basic last Jack lines.
v10.2 RC3 21.1.2019
+Updated the Krimeputer log entries on Brian’s and Muddy’s deaths.
+Made Carson remove McGee’s corpse and raised MAC-10 magazine cost.
+Fixed silent Heather dialogue and made warrens ladder accessible.
+Locked a haven door and moved Malcolm’s bribe to Mercurio’s house.
+Repaired problems when revisiting the beachhouse and the warrens.
Removed quest update for Copper and locked Gimble’s door in basic.
Fixed some more wrong Humanity losses and cut off Heather sounds.
Corrected Tommy Dominate reaction and possible poster quest issue.
v10.2 Final 25.01.2019
Fixed Leopold Society cellar ladder and floating towels in basic.
Added way to use all animations for all models, thanks to DDLullu.
https://forums.planetvampire.com/bloodlines-tech-support/unofficial-patch-10-2-released!/
Welcome back, to an entry from a person, who is very embarrassed for all the people who only watch and talk about STD because they are making their money this way. :P
When Rebecca Romijn comes aboard and talks to Black Bolt (okay, who wasn’t in a Marvel movie/show at this point?), they are forced to make this dumb mistake of trying to explain why the Enterprise doesn’t have the technology Discovery has. According to Black Bolt, the holographic system on Enterprise never worked right, which is why he wants it removed. While I hate retcons in general, this actually is even worse, because no ship in the TOS era had such a holographic system, so trying to fix your retcon by saying that the holographic system on Enterprise was removed, still doesn’t explain one bit why also ZERO of the other ships have it. Who writes these scripts? Who makes these decisions, which retcons will be “explained” and which will be ignored? They are not going to explain why the Klingons look differently, are they? If one is completely married to having such a prequel show with several glaring continuity errors, the best thing to do, is to at least shut up about it and to not constantly remind people of it. This baffles me.
I was kinda rooting for Saru to die. Just because I knew he never would. Why are shows still doing this? If Burnham, Tilly or Saru are going to die, it will be in the final season, not before. Zero threat, just dumb. This doesn’t even cover that most characters on this show are so generic/expendable, that no one would miss them. There are really just ~3 characters of note and that’s it. I don’t “care” about any character on this show, besides maybe Tilly and Reno. Everyone else could just drop dead at any time and I’d be completely good with it. Speaking of Reno – after her first appearance in 2×01 I thought she was gone, when she wasn’t in any of the following episodes. It’s super weird how she only now resurfaced, doubly so for the show’s internal logic, because no one had seen her on Discovery for all this time either. Stamets was almost freaked out, by this engineer he had never seen before and who suddenly showed up, seemingly out of nowhere. Where and why did she hide on board all this time? :P Crazy.
The rest of the episode doesn’t seem to deviate much from the Season 2 formula. There is all kinds of confusing stuff going on that doesn’t seem to be very consequential and they mention Spock a lot, of course again without him actually showing up. I sincerely hope by now he will never show up and at some point there’s just going to be a shadow visible for a brief moment and later someone will tell in passing this was Spock’s shadow. :D
btw: I also found it extremely dumb (yes, again) how Stamets and Reno have this alien monster running loose in engineering and never tell anybody (when things get out of hand). Security should have been all over this. Also medical doctors. Why are engineers trying to take care of Tilly instead of available medical staff? They are on Discovery, not on some alien planet without options…
It’s interesting to me how STD has no money for extras. Whenever they are in engineering or sickbay, there are usually only 2-3 people there. And it’s the main cast, not random crew members. Outside of some people sometimes in the corridors or the mess hall maybe, it usually feels like a ghost ship running on a skeleton crew. Other than earlier ST shows, STD never gave me an idea how big Discovery is supposed to be or how many crew members it holds/can hold.
Overall this probably was the worst episode so far this Season. It didn’t feel like they had an idea on what to do, on how to fill the time. It didn’t help that it’s pretty much established by now, that they can only leave the ship for like 2-3 episodes a Season. DS9 was criticized a lot (not by me) because a space station can’t go anywhere, but they visited more places on that show about a stationary outpost, than they are on STD, which obviously is a freaking space ship. I don’t even want to go into the fact, that this particular space ship has a magical drive system which allows it to go ANYWHERE…
PS: You can tell that Jett Reno is cool, simply by the fact that she’s the only one who has her uniform open.
Welcome back to my entries about STD, finally a place where it’s possible to just read it, instead of having to sit through some lengthy podcast or even video! So refreshing! :P
I still don’t know the names of all the people on the bridge. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show like this, that does use the same characters and they have real actors for them, but then don’t ever use them for anything. They are all just glorified extras by now. I’m not sure if this is better or worse, than just having random people instead.
Aaand the mirroring between those 2 shows doesn’t stop: STD (kinda) has a love triangle between Burnham, Ash and L’Rell, while Orville 2×06 has a romance story between Finn and Isaac. Does this count as confirmation by now, that there is COLLUSION going on between these two shows?!?
Random: Orville always has these shots of the ship, flying into the dark unknown that is space, while on Discovery, you could forget they are supposed to be in space.
Last week I was already talking about how STD has not one, not two, but THREE main characters with “visions” right now (sigh)… At least one of them isn’t crazy or on shrooms after all: Tilly. Very conveniently (and stupidly), Tilly’s “vision” shared all the info necessary for Burnham to unravel the entire mystery in her presence. Burnham then sherlocked (or spocked?) the whole enigma in 5 seconds. Tilly only had to sit there and listen (without having any reaction to it). And Stamets got to use a ghost trap from Ghostbusters on Tilly to get the ghost out.
The rest of the ep was just about further defiling what remains of Gene Roddenberry’s idea of Star Trek, by outright demonstrating that the world he dreamed up would never work, which is why there is an omnipresent Section 31 now, led by psychopathic monsters from the mirror universe, which do everything to protect the Federation from the fallacy of its goofy ideals. Act all holy publicly, but in reality it’s all just a front. Great. But I guess at least they wouldn’t linger on that, to rub it in, right? Never mind: Spinoff with Michelle Yeoh confirmed… :P
btw: Isn’t it weird, that the ST show called Discovery, is the only one where they never go discover anything? Let’s not forget, they could have named this however they wanted. Star Trek Misery. Star Trek As the proper license holders we can do whatever the hell we want with it suckers. Star Trek Doom. Star Trek Ragnarok. Star Trek Gehenna. Star Trek Destruction. Star Trek Space Force. Star Trek This show really should have been named after Burnham, since it’s all only about her anyway and the Discovery itself doesn’t even appear before episode 3. Star Trek References. Star Trek Reflections of the Old Trek. Star Trek CBS All Access is desperate. Star Trek I don’t know what do you want from me. Star Trek Blue Shirts. Star Trek I wish this show had better writing, for example writers who would know that words like “bold”, “brave” and “courageous” all essentially mean the same thing and a character who says them directly after each other, as if they were completely different from each other, sounds stupid and not e.g. bold. Star Trek I’m just hoping the Picard show will be much better. Star Trek How did we get here. Star Trek Shrooms. Star Trek Hyperdrive (that’s dumb). Star Trek Maybe the problem isn’t in the title. […]
PS: I’m not amused that they use Spock essentially as a tease for people to watch STD and then he never shows up (so far they have a scene in every episode, that’s supposed to make the viewer think now Spock’s going to show up and then he doesn’t – so the moment he actually does obviously won’t have such a scene). By now I’m wondering in how many episodes he will actually appear. In true STD fashion, it’s all really just about the references, not the substance.
PPS: Prediction, in the final season, if the show gets to run this long, Tilly is going to be the Captain of Discovery (final scene – THE END). :) They seem to have subscribed to the model of swapping the Captain each season, so…
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adrift 