#rtx

I simply will not entertain the idea of giving my time to a game that would rather look a little bit prettier, maybe, if you really squint at it, than run decently on any machine that costs less than 1000 dollars. Triple A game companies wonder why they're losing market share, but to run the latest Doom game not only is it 70 fucking dollars up front, but you need a super expensive PC or the absolute latest of game consoles. Like at what point will gamers be over this shit? At what point do we insist the base cost of gaming not continue to skyrocket year after year for no real reason.

People complain about games made in unreal or unity looking the same but I can't tell 99% of games running with RTX apart. Is the shortcut really worth it when you end up sacrifice a major component of any games art style, the lighting, and making your game super inaccessible just because of the cost of being able to play to?

And don't hit me with "oh but as games get more graphically intense and larger they get more expensive to-"

Look at the fucking first week sales of games like Mewgenics. People don't care how conventionally good a game looks if it's fun to play. Look at the success and popularity of fucking Cruelty Squad, a game intentionally designed to be as retina violatingly ugly as possible ON PURPOSE, that people still absolutely love. The best selling game of all time is fucking Minecraft.

The only reason the price of developing triple A games has ballooned is because triple A studios want them to. They want their games to be more expensive because then they look more impressive to shareholders. They want their games to be seen as expensive premium products. And at this point I absolutely refuse to entertain it. Back when I had gamepass I played Doom TDA Abit, and honestly? Worst Doom game. It's slow as hell, not very challenging challenging (Doom 2016 is harder and as much as I love that game, that's not a good thing), the guns feel the least satisfying of the entire series (yes I'm including Doom 3), and they added 2010s shovelware ass VEHICLE SECTIONS to their fucking BOOMER SHOOTER.

You know wanna explore new games? Have you played Duke Nukem 3D? It's 5 bucks on Zoom-Platform (a totally DRM free game distributor full of classic PC games) and of you run it in eduke32 or build launcher, it plays like a dream. Still one of the best FPS games ever made. Because good games STAY GOOD. Good games remain extremely fun and enjoyable overtime. They don't magically get worse.

Give the Binding of Isaac a shot if you haven't already. It's my favorite game ever, Repentance is the greatest expansion any game has ever received (I will fucking DIE on that hill), and it's got hundreds of hours of content to sink your teeth into all with progression that feels very natural and remains fun the entire time. It's file size isn't even 10 gigabytes.

Try Fields of Mistria, Gunfire Reborn, Spiral Knights, anything Nightdive Studios have remastered, Selaco, Ion Fury (formerly known as Ion Maiden until they got sued by the band Iron Maiden), finally play subnautica for yourself after all these years watching YouTubers play it, try Bloodstained, my point is... There's SO MANY AMAZING GAMES YOU CAN SPEND YOUR MONEY ON. STOP GIVING TRIPLE A STUDIOS YOUR MONEY UNTIL THEY SHOW ANY OUNCE OF RESPECT FOR YOUR AS A CUSTOMER.

I don't even keep up with Triple A releases anymore. I do not care what EA, or Activision, or Sony, or Xbox, or Nintendo have next up on the docket. Not remotely. There's way to many dev studios who actually give a shit about their players for me to waste my time with the big name assholes nowadays.

Well, to start with, people are really resistant to being corrected on lies at worst or overstatements at best.

Like if nothing else, the Does RWBY Like Women poll was illuminating in how it showed me that a veeeeeery weird myth about Jaune Arc has persisted beyond its true relevancy.

Volume 1 of RWBY features Jaune Arc in the spotlight for… what? Four episodes? The minutes of each adding up to roughly twenty minutes, the length of an average TV episode?

While he was featured in the previous storyline where we are given an eight episode arc introducing us to our eight main protagonists, he was a lot more… ancillary as comic relief. A discount Lavernius Tucker with Felix’s voice if you will.

He's Vomit Boy in episode one. Episode two has him introduced more formally as somebody who helps up Ruby after a bad first impression on Weiss. He later appears more prominently pining over Weiss and catching Pyrrha's attention before falling to bracing himself in being catapulted into the Emerald Forest.

He's bailed out by Pyrrha and it's set up that he's in over his head by not knowing what Aura is or at least wanting to know how it works. An exposition sponge as I heard on fan call it. I could go on but the point is that all signs pointed to a Butt Monkey Ron Stoppable sort who was likely there for cheap laughs.

Amusing enough but I worried if that's all he'd be personally. Lord knows that some movies give the Comic Relief character too much comic relief and, well, not enough character. But after Ruby and Weiss have their leader/lance headbutting, the four episodes that followed reassured me that there'd be more to Jaune than meets the eyes.

But to circle back to the main thesis, it's actually fascinating that the myth of Jaune hijacking the narrative for himself is this pervasive when the offending story in question... is very much a self-contained character piece. It's way less about the wider story involving Ozpin, Roman Torchwick (at the time) and the White Fang.

It has relevance in how Pyrrha starts mentoring Jaune after he deals with Cardin and gets over himself (for now) which trickles down into future stories. Even then, the next story arc right back with Team RWBY with nary a sign of the everyman in question. A story arc that does deal with elements of the main plot, leading directly into Volume 2.

And in Volume 2, Jaune trying to woo Weiss and being ignorant to Pyyrha's advancements was just a subplot scattered in the first half of the story. It very much piggybacks off of Team RWBY's whole deal.

Volume 3 has what I consider to be a reversal of what's been known as Trinity Syndrome.

Namely the sort where a male character goes off the square off with the main villain mano-e-mano after shoving the female character/his love interest away so she won't get hurt. An egrigious example being when the love interest CAN FIGHT and back him up.

However, Pyyrha instead shoves Jaune out of the way after kissing him and goes off to face Cinder in a very fatal battle. It was honestly a brilliant (as much as the term may be disliked these days) subversion of the cliche.

And it’s Ruby who sees her death and gets the trauma induced power up. Jaune only has a scene of angst before that and was the one to call Ruby to have her try and back up the one he just realized he loved.

Jaune from that point on is an Everyman Protagonist who is forced to remember that he’s not THE protagonist. Yet the myth persistently proclaims that he hijacks the narrative from the titular Team RWBY despite only four episodes being wholly dedicated to him and his head space.

How did we get here?

Well… there’s the fact that not everyone finished Volume 1 and that not everybody, well, watched RWBY. And that would be fine on its own. You gave it a shot and it wasn’t your cuppa joe. You saw the trailer but clicked on something else.

I get it. That’s fine. Contrary to popular belief, nobody in the FNDM will really fault you for it. Less fine is when you spread faulty readings of RWBY and from those heavily biased against it no less.

It cannot be emphasized enough that tearing into RWBY is a cottage industry on YouTube. Hbomberguy might have the biggest platform but you’ll find multiple channels with lengthy series on “RWBY bad, here why.” And they are actually amongst the FNDM. They know how the YT Algorithm game is played, how it rewards engagement above all else. And sadly, negativity and rage pay more bills.

It’s why there are few positive videos or at least few that are pushed into the recommendations. Many often borrow the same points from each other born from the V1 days, namely that Jaune is allegedly given favoritism by the writers while we somehow “don’t know who the main girls are.”

From four episodes.

I also think it’s also to do with how it’s not that he actually did steal screentime… so much as many anticipated he would. A lot of shows and movies I grew up with would have strong female characters but any potential they had was hindered by the male lead and his hero’s journey. See the above Trinity Syndrome I referenced.

But Jaune didn’t do that. Even when he was central to an event like his semblance being awakened, it’s a healing/power boost that he gives to others. Weiss getting skewered might’ve brought it out but it lead to her getting back into the fray while he was largely to the sides.

Seems more like he shares screentime if anything.

People cling to these myths despite legit fans actually pointing out, “Hey, that’s not true actually and here’s why,” because that hate being told they are wrong more than being wrong. And because there are many around these who reinforce this “truth,” they feel content with it. No need to challenge it when it “feels” right.

So Jaune Arc stole screentime. Because that’s what “everyone else” is saying. By you need to question popular opinions. You need to realize that sometimes… a fan community is based on lies.