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I was of the camp that said that even millions was far too small. This is a war spread out over thousands, if not tens of thousands of star systems. Hell, Venators have crews of ~10,000, and we see multiples go down in a single battle. I wouldn't be surprised if a million clones died on some bad days alone.
Also someone who played through that: I agree.
Nostalgia Rorquals Online have a very rose-tinted view of the time. Sure, there were more ships in space... but a lot of those "ships in space" came in the form of an entire cap fleet landing on your cruiser roam the second you tackled a Rorqual. Fatigue timers and diminishing returns were absolutely needed.
I think the current crop of issues wouldn't be fixed by just going back; they can be traced to other factors, like Citadels encouraging players crowding together.
Have a couple different ones:
Star Wars:: How many Clones were actually in the Clone Army (and, by extension, how large are the setting's armies in general)?
The original wording used in 2003's Attack of the Clones is (perhaps deliberately) ambiguous, so from that point on fans have forever debated this. On the one hand, there's arguments that the visible cloning facilities and formations on-screen suggest literal interpretations of "unit" as "soldier", and armies of a few million at most. On the other hand, fans have also pointed out that a galaxy-spanning conflict being fought by fewer troops than fought in World War 2 is ridiculous, and the casualty figures given would mean the entire clone army had been wiped out many times over - unless "units" can be taken to mean a much larger formation of troops.
Expanded Universe materials (both pre- and post-Disney) have given figures supporting both sides.
Eve Online: Was the game better or worse in the era of "Rorquals online"?
Context is, at that point in the game's history, much of the game's economy was driven by very large mining capital ships - Rorquals - systematically stripping in-universe resources at high speed.
Proponents suggest that the presence of vulnerable ships out in space doing things promoted conflict, and that this induced conflicting player groups to raid each others' territory, creating game content. Detractors argue that Rorquals inevitably existed under the protective umbrella of existing large player groups, meaning only those groups could effectively harvest resources, creating a positive feedback loop where strong alliances got stronger and everyone else got wiped out.
(Personally, my answer is 'both' - but most of it has to do with other game changes besides Rorquals.)
Railfanning: Is coal-fired steam locomotives going away a good or bad thing?
Coal-fired steam is undoubtedly cool. you get the authentic sensations and smoke clouds that oil-firing really doesn't provide. Many who favor it bemoan old coal-fired locomotives being converted to run on oil, sometimes also arguing the locomotives should be preserved as historically used.
On the hand, other fans point out that coal firing creates a very real fire hazard; there have been multiple brush- and forest-fires started or thought to be started by coal-fired locomotives. There's also issues with coal becoming harder to get as use in power generation dwindles, and these fans would prefer to convert to oil rather than not run at all.
Most people just see a steam locomotive and go "Cool!"
Instant Dopamine Machines cause withdrawal when taken away.
Wow. I'm shocked, I tell you. Absolutely shocked and stunned.
I'd be more curious if restricting students to using screens as actual tools - i.e., for specific purposes and tasks, not for broad entertainment - causes similar effects.
I don't think we're the last generation of PC builders. But I do agree with /u/kahjtheundedicated 's comment that it is increasingly going to skew towards very high-end builds.
I think there's a couple reasons for this. The first, of course, is the strangulation of supply causing sharp, sharp price increases. When the entry point for making a "decent" machine starts to sit around $1200+, it's obviously going to turn people away (especially when one of the big points of Build Your Own was once 'it is actually financially better').
But the other is that there is far less of a growing market. People in the 'young-teenager' to 'young adult range' - the point at which they'd once start getting excited over punchy new specs and customizing their computer - are increasingly attached to handheld devices and even the instant gratification of consoles rather than high-spec PC games or the custom built machines to run them.
The opening is one of those things that just sticks with you. Minimalist artwork with just the studio's name and a couple of lines sung gently... then this sick trumpet beat drops and the title flashes in the most 90s way possible.
I've been looking for a decent one, mostly to potentially run a fan in the event of a summer outage. I've actually been surprised how hard it is to find one that will support it at a reasonable price.
Can I tell you a secret?
Nobody is ever 100% for free speech. No one.
Invariably everyone who says they're for "free speech" has a point at which they feel speech should no longer be free - whether it's the classic "yelling fire in a theater" or expressing a viewpoint they feel is actually harmful. And that last bit is kind of the rub: Social media and people being siloized into echo chambers where they're repeatedly told that everything the "right" people say is 100% absolute truth and everything "they" say is dirty horrible lies.
'Free speech' is very difficult to discuss with someone from a different, let alone opposing echo chamber because it's so easy for people to fall into the belief that only their speech should be 'free', but those other peoples' speech is all dangerous and bad, which makes it hard to discuss when speech is actually harmful. It's been very, very eye opening to watch organizations all over the place twist themselves into pretzels to accommodate this.
This. If Kirk has any actual positive quality, I'd say that he's highly adaptable and skilled at 'thinking on his feet'. This gets him out of a whole lot of trouble and lets him play fast and loose with his actions as Captain, but it also means he gets himself into a lot of trouble that a more strategic, less impulsive officer would have avoided in the first place.
It's telling, in my opinion, that the very first thing Starfleet does as soon as the Enterprise gets back home is rotate him off of starship command and give him an administrative position where his decisions can be reviewed, rather than assigning him on a new mission. He only manages to get himself back in command when V'ger is heading straight for Earth, and Starfleet is in "throw the kitchen sink at it" mode.
In 2002, there was a game called Naval Ops: Commander. It's a warship simulator game, with the tweak that you could build your own warships out of an assortment of parts. I don't think I've played it in 20ish years. Definitely more than 15.
Yeah, the Main Hangar (essentially, your 'home screen' once you'd selected a playthrough) Theme is on loop right now. The ending ~10 seconds of it, to be specific.
It's easy to be cynical and just say this is a promotion clinging to nostalgia to sell toys. But man, did I feel something strong.
Also, I really liked that in the earliest sequence, Brown-Haired Kid has vaguely Gundam-colored and shaped clothes, while Black-Haired Kid has vaguely Zaku colors and his hat turned backwards to resemble a mono-eye. I don't know why that little bit stuck out to me, but it really did.