dragontology

Chili and corn bread. My chili uses beans, but I’m not from Texas, so it’s fine. I use two kinds of beans (pinto, and dark red kidney) and two kinds of meat (ground beef, and hot Italian sausage).

If I wanted to make Texas chili, I wouldn’t use ground meat, I’d use stew beef, and I’d have peppers (Bell and jalapeño) and I’d omit the masa. I could make decent Texas chili, but my regular chili is awesome if you don’t hate beans.

One-Winged Angel. Just the intro, before the Latin. Specifically this version.

The best final boss music to a video game was 29 years ago and has not been topped since. Of course, with the rise of PlayStation and disc-based games (ironically, where Final Fantasy 7 was released and in which form), games became more about the journey than that final fight. There were still “last boss fights,” but they became less the focus and more about the end of the journey. But after beating Sephiroth for the first time, and he sprouts a wing (just the one!) and this song kicks in, and the real fight begins… that’s when you knew you were in some shit. Especially if you reached max level and Sephiroth took literally an hour to beat (I think this was an early anti-cheat thing).

Because they’re not computers, they’re media devices, like Xbox and iPod. They’re not meant to be open.

Yeah, it’s not so much gamerscore as it’s gamer history. So if you look at my gamerscore, the actual number of points doesn’t really matter, but you can see I’ve been gaming on Xbox for like 20 years, I’ve played so many games, you can judge me as a gamer based on what I’ve played and how far I got. It’s not fair to mistreat a person based on gaming preferences, I’m just saying you get a clearer picture. So on mine you’d see a lot of RPGs, action/adventure games, point and click adventures (Dontnod/Telltale stuff), and Metroidvanias. You wouldn’t see many sports games, racing games, or simulation games, and that would tell you things about me as a gamer.

Of course, I’d been playing video games for about 20-25 years before I ever heard the name “Xbox,” but that’s not tracked.

We could get into how achievements are just a stupid collectible for gamers, but are used by Microsoft to monetize anonymized gaming metrics to inform publishers how their games are played. Not all of them care, and this service is part of what Microsoft charges ~30% for, it’s not an extra service. Some do, and most famously to my knowledge, it’s why you didn’t get an evil path in Fallout 4, because an overwhelming majority of Fallout 3 players went for the good karma achievements. Fallout 3 gave you achievements at levels 8, 16, 24, and 30 (the cap), but it also noted your karma level (good, neutral, or evil). And at each level it was like a stupidly overwhelming win for good, so they assumed most players didn’t want the evil option. I mean, they did give you a couple evil factions to work with (the Institute if you were scientifically evil, and the Brotherhood of Steel if you were militarily evil), but ultimately your character is a good person.

She doesn’t have no gamerscore, she has like 1200 because her account was set up like a month ago and she has some token achievements she probably didn’t earn.

It’s not about the amount or how much. Phil Spencer had a lot because he was a gamer and an exec. He was one of us, more or less, he played games and he liked working in gaming. I don’t agree with all of his gaming opinions (in fact, mine are fairly uncommon, so that just comes with the territory).

I have a pretty high amount just because I’ve been gaming since before most people here were born. So I’ve had an Xbox account for something like 20 years. I’ve only really gone after a few achievements. Mostly I just play. Over time, that builds up. I’ve worked longer hours than a lot of people, in jobs most people are too good to do. “Work hard, play hard” may be a cliche, but I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t do recreational drugs, and I don’t engage in extramarital affairs. I’m not a woodworker or a gearhead — gaming is my hobby. It’s what I do to relax at the end of the day, if I have time. If I don’t have time for a more “serious” game on the Xbox, I fire up my Switch and dick around on my Animal Crossing island. I’ve already rolled the credits (several times, long story, AC fans get it) but it’s somehow fun to just run around and talk to animals and catch bugs and shit. Either way, it’s what I do and I’ve been doing it for a long time.

I just think someone who’s been playing games for years would make a better executive of a company’s gaming division than someone who’s never picked up a controller. LOTS of people play games. If someone never games, that says to me they don’t like gaming — and they possibly don’t like gamers. It’s not a good look. Especially juxtaposed with the rise in AI and Microsoft bringing an AI exec in to run Xbox. It’s not a good look at all.

Meanwhile, their biggest competitor is either Linux or UNIX. That is, if you accept that macOS “is UNIX.” It’s been UNIX certified for a couple years now, but it’s UNIX in name only. While Steve Jobs’ NeXTStep was based on UNIX, NeXTStep was also vapourware. Still, it became OS X which became the macOS we know and love (or hate) today. But the truth is, it’s UNIX 3 certified, which is a decades-old certification, and it only just barely makes that. So it’s a thing Mac users brag about. “A UNIX system! I know this!” Jurassic Park meme. And then of course there’s Linux. And of course Windows has the Linux subsystem. Still, non-*nix is going the way of the dodo, just like Win9x did when Microsoft realised WinNT was the future. First with the tranwreck that was WinME, but much more importantly with WinXP. And NT was good, but its time is up (or will be soon).

To literally any Xbox gamer reading this: how do you feel about having a higher Gamerscore than the (new) CEO of Xbox? Rhetorical question. I don’t expect (or have any use for) an answer. Rather, I just want you to think about that. You might not be qualified to be a CEO of anything. But you undoubtedly know more about gaming, and what Xbox players want, than this person who has only recently taken up gaming to say she has (or maybe she has assistants playing on her account for some fake cred).

Mine’s not worth bragging about, but I’m sure it’s over 100k. That used to mean something. Now it just means Xbox has been around for 20 years and you’ve played a lot of games on the platform. Either you platinumed 100 games, or you played a lot more (including Arcade titles which were capped at like 200-250GS, IIRC). I actually only have like five platinums. Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Oblivion, Skyrim… maybe one other? (Bethesda games are easy to platinum.) (Yes I know platinum is a PlayStation term. We all know it means to get all the achievements.)

Achievement I’m proudest of? Rockband 2, Bladder of Steel Award. Complete the “Endless Setlist II” (all 84 songs on the disc!) without pausing or failing at any difficulty other than Easy, on any instrument. I did it on Medium Vocals (easiest way really). Regardless of instrument or difficulty, playing the ESL2 without pausing takes 6 and a half hours. It takes longer if you fail, obviously, but once you fail, you may as well stop, since you’re out of the running for the achievement.

Until AI can game for you, I don’t think Sharma is going to get 100k GS, or do something like the Bladder of Steel Award that requires more than just casual interaction with a software title.

Agreed. I somehow got through 40+ years of pop culture and didn’t have Citizen Kane or Murder on the Orient Express spoiled for me. One is a very old movie. The other was a new movie based on a book, but it’s been made into movies before, I think.

I recently saw a meme that referenced the end (the twist, the final shot) of Citizen Kane. Had I not seen it, I wouldn’t have got the joke, but I wouldn’t have known what I missed.

So yeah, good with spoiler tags/warnings on old media