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Mass Effect BioWare Montreal's Mass Effect: Andromeda - where element zero meets trisomy 21

markec

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Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Dead State Project: Eternity Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Really sad when you have to laugh at your own joke because no one else will.

I was laughing at you and your opinion, other people are either too courteous to do the same.

Good to know

You arent helping you know since everything you say is laughable.


Not really, not as raw emotions anyway. Game is about being a superbadass captain, but this particular choice was both to ground the threat and up the stakes, it happened on virmire because after that came the end game, and the story needed to show its teeth.
If they went for cheap "emoshuns" sake, they could have simply killed someone in a cinematic, with no player interaction. But the game framed it as you deciding who dies because it fit the theme of the player being the one in charge. It was suitably well done, like the rest of the story really.

Thats complete and utter nonsense and at this point I will just assume you are trolling me, in which case good job mate.


Oh, im sorry bro. Dont get off your high horse because of me. :lol:

But in case you arent trolling me and you are serious, I apologize for having standards and not thinking that Bioware have master writers.
 

RK47

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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
Yeah as I commented in my LP, the addition of vendor junk item for random drop/container loot is unneeded. Why can't they just have the Andromeda Initiative release funds when you've accomplished certain milestones? It'd make more sense instead of sending you out there to open random boxes strewn about. Oh I forgot, we need to copy Fallout 4 and Bethesda sandbox to be called a great RPG these days. Go. Kill. Loot. Return. Also, 50 junk pick-up limit. Why?

And the 4 mineral type tracking just to craft upgrades demotivated me from doing all these mining/breakdown item chores. How is it fun?
Are the loot even hand placed? I can't tell. I can open a box and get a leather wrapping, another nondescript box can yield a rare Sniper Rifle. This isn't the right way to pace the game's content at all. Everything seems like a desperate attempt to fill the 'empty' large world they're making.
 

Lhynn

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I was laughing at you and your opinion, other people are either too courteous to do the same.
So im too liked for people to gang up on me? :lol:
Thats beyond desperate

Thats complete and utter nonsense and at this point I will just assume you are trolling me, in which case good job mate.
So im wrong but you cant be bothered to make a half coherent argument because what? Either make a point or go away you retard

But in case you arent trolling me and you are serious, I apologize for having standards and not thinking that Bioware have master writers.
Im not calling them master writers, but good job on trying to move the goalpost you retarded twat.
 

J1M

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14,616
Yeah as I commented in my LP, the addition of vendor junk item for random drop/container loot is unneeded. Why can't they just have the Andromeda Initiative release funds when you've accomplished certain milestones? It'd make more sense instead of sending you out there to open random boxes strewn about. Oh I forgot, we need to copy Fallout 4 and Bethesda sandbox to be called a great RPG these days. Go. Kill. Loot. Return. Also, 50 junk pick-up limit. Why?

And the 4 mineral type tracking just to craft upgrades demotivated me from doing all these mining/breakdown item chores. How is it fun?
Are the loot even hand placed? I can't tell. I can open a box and get a leather wrapping, another nondescript box can yield a rare Sniper Rifle. This isn't the right way to pace the game's content at all. Everything seems like a desperate attempt to fill the 'empty' large world they're making.
Junk items don't actually count toward your limit. Because of this, you may want to opt out of selling them until you have the improved bartering perks. Handing out guns is their way of giving you more crafting components, since breaking them down is preferable to selling them. Also for players who do not craft.

The mineral scanning is probably only there because it existed in mass effect 2. You will start to find containers with hundreds of minerals in them, so there is no point in dropping mining drones unless you are after something specific (likely beryllium since it is required for almost everything useful).

PS: I agree that loot is annoying.
 
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vivec

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16gnd08.jpg


:hmmm:

The only way I can think of conversations and the animations as organic, is if I think of them as fertilizer.
 

Infinitron

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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-03-27-mass-effect-andromeda-physical-launch-sales-down-on-me3

Mass Effect Andromeda physical launch sales down on ME3

Mass Effect Andromeda sold fewer physical copies than Mass Effect 3 during its first week on sale in the UK.

149060480886.gif

That's despite an extra day to rack sales up, as well. Andromeda launched here in the UK last Thursday. Mass Effect 3 launched on a Friday, back in March 2012.

But, five years ago, the sales picture was very different. Physical PC copies (the only kind counted by UK numbers company Chart-Track) counted for 10 per cent of Mass Effect 3 launch sales. For Andromeda, physical PC copies counted for just four per cent. Many more will be digital - purchased through EA's Origin service.

Digital sales through console will also make up a much larger share than they did on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 back in 2012 - especially as there was no boxed version of Andromeda's Deluxe Edition.

Reviews painted a disappointing picture of Andromeda last week, which may well have impacted sales. It's something I polled your opinion about last Friday - and while far from scientific the results indicated reviews indeed had a say.

mass-effect-andromeda-physical-launch-sales-down-on-me3-149060554582.png

Elsewhere, Ghost Recon: Wildlands continued to sell strongly, budged down into second place.

Overall, the UK top 10 remains largely unchanged, with PlayStation 4 exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn in fourth behind Lego Worlds, and Nintendo exclusive Zelda: Breath of the Wild in sixth, behind GTA5.

Here's the full top 10:

  1. Mass Effect Andromeda
  2. Ghost Recon Wildlands
  3. Lego Worlds
  4. Horizon
  5. GTA5
  6. Zelda
  7. FIFA 17
  8. Rocket League
  9. COD: IW
  10. Forza Horizon 3
 

Beastro

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the idea of humans being the new kids on the block and tension building up because of their rise

Sorry, I'm downright sick of that in Sci-Fi. I know why that is, most Sci-Fi is Eurocentric in theme and Western civilization is very, very aware of how new it is compared to the rest of human history, it fits right in that Mankind would keep being placed in that role in the genre.

Still, I'd like for a story to turn out that the Ancients/Precursors/Old Ones were in fact Mankind and that we were the first sentient lifeforms to emerge in the universe, the only big issue I could see is telegraphing that by the sheer absence of human beings in the story. About the only one I've thought up that would work would be to have a world of anthropomorphic animals, like Buck O'Hare, that were engineered by man from Earth's other species when it became clear we were the only life in the universe, since furry shit without people doesn't tip people off like it would if it came to full blown aliens.
 
Joined
Mar 12, 2012
Messages
10,861
Leaked footage of ME:A developers presenting the new characters to their board of directors:

ymGZU2A.gif

Loved the old stop motion animated FX in movies they had a disturbing jankiness to them and you also could see the depth in the models as they were real 3d models. I really feel that CGI led to a huge decline in film animations and film itself, as your eye can tell the images aren't really there. It also made creating monsters and explosions too easy and every movie seemed to go over the top with their effects instead of using costumed actors and animatronics. If you look back at alot of the early CGI now it looks really poor.
 
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Stokowski

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Andromeda makes much more sense if you consider Douglas Adams' Golgafrinchams, who regularly exported the useless third of their population through fake colonisation projects.

The 'B' Ark
... "I mean, I couldn't help noticing," said Ford, also taking a sip, "the bodies. In the hold."

"Bodies?" said the Captain in surprise.

Ford paused and thought to himself. Never take anything for granted, he thought. Could it be that the Captain doesn't know he's got fifteen million dead bodies on his ship?

The Captain was nodding cheerfully at him. He also appeared to be playing with a rubber duck.

Ford looked around. Number Two was staring at him in the mirror, but only for an instant: his eyes were constantly on the move. The first officer was just standing there holding the drinks tray and smiling benignly.

"Bodies?" said the Captain again.

Ford licked his lips.

"Yes," he said, "All those dead telephone sanitizers and account executives, you know, down in the hold."

The Captain stared at him. Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed.

"Oh they're not dead," he said, "Good Lord no, no they're frozen. They're going to be revived."

Ford did something he very rarely did. He blinked.

Arthur seemed to come out of a trance.

"You mean you've got a hold full of frozen hairdressers?" he said.

"Oh yes," said the Captain, "Millions of them. Hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, management consultants, you name them. We're going to colonize another planet."

Ford wobbled very slightly.

"Exciting isn't it?" said the Captain.

"What, with that lot?" said Arthur.

"Ah, now don't misunderstand me," said the Captain, "we're just one of the ships in the Ark Fleet. We're the 'B' Ark you see. Sorry, could I just ask you to run a bit more hot water for me?"

Arthur obliged, and a cascade of pink frothy water swirled around the bath. The Captain let out a sigh of pleasure.

"Thank you so much my dear fellow. Do help yourselves to more drinks of course."

Ford tossed down his drink, took the bottle from the first officer's tray and refilled his glass to the top.

"What," he said, "is a 'B' Ark?"

"This is," said the Captain, and swished the foamy water around joyfully with the duck.

"Yes," said Ford, "but ..."

"Well what happened you see was," said the Captain, "our planet, the world from which we have come, was, so to speak, doomed."

"Doomed?"

"Oh yes. So what everyone thought was, let's pack the whole population into some giant spaceships and go and settle on another planet."

Having told this much of his story, he settled back with a satisfied grunt.

"You mean a less doomed one?" prompted Arthur.

"What did you say dear fellow?"

"A less doomed planet. You were going to settle on."

"Are going to settle on, yes. So it was decided to build three ships, you see, three Arks in Space, and ... I'm not boring you am I?"

"No, no," said Ford firmly, "it's fascinating."

"You know it's delightful," reflected the Captain, "to have someone else to talk to for a change."

Number Two's eyes darted feverishly about the room again and then settled back on the mirror, like a pair of flies briefly distracted from their favourite prey of months old meat.

"Trouble with a long journey like this," continued the Captain,"is that you end up just talking to yourself a lot, which gets terribly boring because half the time you know what you're going to say next."

"Only half the time?" asked Arthur in surprise.

The Captain thought for a moment.

"Yes, about half I'd say. Anyway - where's the soap?" He fished around and found it.

"Yes, so anyway," he resumed, "the idea was that into the first ship, the 'A' ship, would go all the brilliant leaders, the scientists, the great artists, you know, all the achievers; and into the third, or 'C' ship, would go all the people who did the actual work, who made things and did things, and then into the `B' ship - that's us - would go everyone else, the middlemen you see."

He smiled happily at them.

"And we were sent off first," he concluded, and hummed a little bathing tune.

The little bathing tune, which had been composed for him by one of his world's most exciting and prolific jingle writer (who was currently asleep in hold thirty-six some nine hundred yards behind them) covered what would otherwise have been an awkward moment of silence. Ford and Arthur shuffled their feet and furiously avoided each other's eyes.

"Er ..." said Arthur after a moment, "what exactly was it that was wrong with your planet then?"

"Oh, it was doomed, as I said," said the Captain, "Apparently it was going to crash into the sun or something. Or maybe it was that the moon was going to crash into us. Something of the kind. Absolutely terrifying prospect whatever it was."

"Oh," said the first officer suddenly, "I thought it was that the planet was going to be invaded by a gigantic swarm of twelve foot piranha bees. Wasn't that it?"

Number Two span around, eyes ablaze with a cold hard light that only comes with the amount of practise he was prepared to put in.

"That's not what I was told!" he hissed, "My commanding officer told me that the entire planet was in imminent danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star goat!"

"Oh really ..." said Ford Prefect.

"Yes! A monstrous creature from the pit of hell with scything teeth ten thousand miles long, breath that would boil oceans, claws that could tear continents from their roots, a thousand eyes that burned like the sun, slavering jaws a million miles across, a monster such as you have never ... never ... ever ..."

"And they made sure they sent you lot off first did they?" inquired Arthur.

"Oh yes," said the Captain, "well everyone said, very nicely I thought, that it was very important for morale to feel that they would be arriving on a planet where they could be sure of a good haircut and where the phones were clean."

"Oh yes," agreed Ford, "I can see that would be very important. And the other ships, er ... they followed on after you did they?"

For a moment the Captain did not answer. He twisted round in his bath and gazed backwards over the huge bulk of the ship towards the bright galactic centre. He squinted into the inconceivable distance.

"Ah. Well it's funny you should say that," he said and allowed himself a slight frown at Ford Prefect, "because curiously enough we haven't heard a peep out of them since we left five years ago ... but they must be behind us somewhere."

He peered off into the distance again.

Ford peered with him and gave a thoughtful frown.

"Unless of course," he said softly, "they were eaten by the goat ..."

"Ah yes ..." said the Captain with a slight hesitancy creeping into his voice, "the goat ..." His eyes passed over the solid shapes of the instruments and computers that lined the bridge. They winked away innocently at him. He stared out at the stars, but none of them said a word. He glanced at his first and second officers, but they seemed lost in their own thoughts for a moment. He glanced at Ford Prefect who raised his eyebrows at him.

"It's a funny thing you know," said the Captain at last, "but now that I actually come to tell the story to someone else ..."
 
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Messages
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Tailoring IIRC at least used to be based on cache history and IP, simply to target ads, tailored search is kind of by product I guess. Anyway, I can think of people browsing reviews and online shops after the release, which could create new trend fast, that might explain it. Timing is interesting, but it would make sense that some party bought a plan earlier, including search engine optimatisation package. If it worked like there's nothing on google. Of course if results are so easily skewed, we may need to use other search engine to get results we need.

This wasn't after release it was pre-release and before the first reviews hit.

I really wouldn't discount Google fiddling with the results or Bioware's marketing department using SEO and negative SEO to kill stories. Certainly is possible, though tinfoil hat without proof.

But yeah, it's probably just the massive avalanche of shill pieces on big gaming sites combined with console tards and forum shills linking to them. Plus the newer news stories are going to push older stories off the page.

I should have taken screenshots really as proof, but I didn't expect every negative article to be replaced en mass, within the space of a couple of hours and they weren't just pushed back to page two either. Though as you both say Bioware or EA could have bought a targeted campaign to appear at a certain time on a certain day, it may not even have been a damage control thing just a pre-planned thing, because my afternoon here is the morning in the US. And it's actually googles business practice to sell the top search results (that's no tinfoil hat stuff, it's their actual business model). I just found it odd that all the negative articles were removed, which were higher on the search results than two articles that were defensive of the game which remained on the front page, one from Kotaku running the typical damage control article, gamers send death, rape threats on twitter (without providing any evidence) targeting poor woman. And another from Forbes which was titled "I believe in Mass Effect."

As you say though I should have really taken a screenshot, but I didn't expect such an obvious sudden change. Also I wasn't the only one to notice it, my friends did too and a few people on the chans.
 
Joined
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Messages
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ME1 was shit, saying otherwise just confirms you having low standards and shit taste. Sorry, but saying it was SF game in sea of fantasy and that it was more competently written then other shitty RPGs does not make it good, only less shitty, but still shit.
Everything is shit

"When I was a little boy, my mother used to sing me a song. It went like this: Life is short, life is shit, and soon it will be over."
 
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Update on the Forbes article...

...Paul Tassii says the article is open for comment and he doesn't see a problem with the articlle:D

Anyway i tried to post again and again with no luck, so just ended up posting on the story below, the comment went through straight away. Basically now Forbes is a paid up EA marketing pamphlet. I gave them room but with the high reviews and positive press they gave the game. Not to mention the twisted goolgle searches (on last friday morning here I typed in Mass Effect Andromeda on google and all I got was articles ripping the animations to shreds, an hour later they all popped out of existance and were replaced by buying options and two glowing Forbes articles on the first page. Forbes is a brothel and Tassi and Kain are whores.
Holy crap... I just tried searching for Mass Effect Andromeda and with exception of few (very few) reviews from usual suspects, there are links to official Mass Effect resources and rest are almost all where to buy it.

In hour your say... if this happened how the hell did they pull it off? No offence but can anyone else verify this?

This is interesting because Google should customises search results. If you clicked lot of links leading to memes, etc. Google should prioritise those results higher in future searches. Other is trend, if trend is towards user generated content, that should show up in every search result somehow.

Basically since the first animations hit harvested from the early access, articles started appearing about the poor quality and showing the clips. More an more of these articles appeared from large gaming magazines in the days before the reviews hit. I searched a few times for mass effect andromeda over a few days, to see the latest news. Anyway I did a search one day in the morning, I think it was the Friday before last and most of the articles mentioned the criticisms, when I searched later they had all been replaced on the front page. By sales offers, positive spin and a Kotaku article accusing people of sexist bullying and death and rape threats, towards one of the animators and other defensive articles that painted the game sympatheticly.

It wasn't because the searches were tailored to my personal searches either as I purge my search history often because of...ahem...reasons:D Also it happened on both computers I use.

I don't think it's any great revelation that google often fiddle their search results for political as well as financial reasons, I just found that it was a bit jarring to change the front page search results all at once.
Tailoring IIRC at least used to be based on cache history and IP, simply to target ads, tailored search is kind of by product I guess. Anyway, I can think of people browsing reviews and online shops after the release, which could create new trend fast, that might explain it. Timing is interesting, but it would make sense that some party bought a plan earlier, including search engine optimatisation package. If it worked like there's nothing on google. Of course if results are so easily skewed, we may need to use other search engine to get results we need.
I really wouldn't discount Google fiddling with the results or Bioware's marketing department using SEO and negative SEO to kill stories. Certainly is possible, though tinfoil hat without proof.

But yeah, it's probably just the massive avalanche of shill pieces on big gaming sites combined with console tards and forum shills linking to them. Plus the newer news stories are going to push older stories off the page.
Yeah, it's just that EA isn't the only publisher out there. Fiddling with results from Google's part... I just don't see how they would benefit from it. Of course we could make a nice tin foil theory about how it could work, running it like racketeering business! :D

But what comes to EA... SEO and negative SEO definitely sure I'm sure is part of the packages. That said, I'm not that sure negative SEO has any influence but middle managers in corporations... if there's 0.1% change it would work and the price is right, they buy it.

You're right EA isn't the only one fiddling the google results. You can too if you have the money! This isn't a lie, a google rep offered my friend, who runs a bathroom supply store, to put him top of the search results in the city if he paid a fee and another fee for doing a shop tour thing for google maps. That is their business practice, it's well known. Besides monetary gain, they often fiddle the results to suit there own personal and political prefrences. The most famous example of this was when they removed 8Chan from the top search results for "8chan," and replaced it with a Wikipedia article, which accuses/implies 8chan are guilty of all kinds of crimes including child pornography. It was no suprise that google invited Anita Sarkesian and Zoe Quinn in to visit them and discuss Cyber Harrasment.

I don't really have too much of a problem with this, after all it's a business and it's their business. And you can always use an alternative. It would be a little more honest if they were open about their operation though and people were made aware of it before trusting their searches.
 

DragoFireheart

all caps, rainbow colors, SOMETHING.
Joined
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Messages
23,731
Imagine if a single fire ant somehow got into your pants, found your dick/clit, and bit it with all of its might.

THAT experience is superior to ME:A.
 

Iznaliu

Arbiter
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Messages
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which accuses/implies 8chan are guilty of all kinds of crimes including child pornography

Some people on 8chan are involved in CP. It is disingenuous to claim otherwise; However, tarring everybody with that brush is a bit extreme, but then again 8chan offers no legitimate advantage over 4chan AFAIK.
 
Joined
Mar 12, 2012
Messages
10,861
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-03-27-mass-effect-andromeda-physical-launch-sales-down-on-me3

Mass Effect Andromeda physical launch sales down on ME3

Mass Effect Andromeda sold fewer physical copies than Mass Effect 3 during its first week on sale in the UK.

149060480886.gif

That's despite an extra day to rack sales up, as well. Andromeda launched here in the UK last Thursday. Mass Effect 3 launched on a Friday, back in March 2012.

But, five years ago, the sales picture was very different. Physical PC copies (the only kind counted by UK numbers company Chart-Track) counted for 10 per cent of Mass Effect 3 launch sales. For Andromeda, physical PC copies counted for just four per cent. Many more will be digital - purchased through EA's Origin service.

Digital sales through console will also make up a much larger share than they did on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 back in 2012 - especially as there was no boxed version of Andromeda's Deluxe Edition.

Reviews painted a disappointing picture of Andromeda last week, which may well have impacted sales. It's something I polled your opinion about last Friday - and while far from scientific the results indicated reviews indeed had a say.

mass-effect-andromeda-physical-launch-sales-down-on-me3-149060554582.png

Elsewhere, Ghost Recon: Wildlands continued to sell strongly, budged down into second place.

Overall, the UK top 10 remains largely unchanged, with PlayStation 4 exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn in fourth behind Lego Worlds, and Nintendo exclusive Zelda: Breath of the Wild in sixth, behind GTA5.

Here's the full top 10:

  1. Mass Effect Andromeda
  2. Ghost Recon Wildlands
  3. Lego Worlds
  4. Horizon
  5. GTA5
  6. Zelda
  7. FIFA 17
  8. Rocket League
  9. COD: IW
  10. Forza Horizon 3

Some articles are trying to spin this as a successful launch because the game went in at number 1. Well no shit a launch week game beats out games that have been out for weeks and in the case of GTA5 a couple of years, if it had done anything other than that, it would have been a catastophy. It's more telling that stores were selling the game at 25% off after only a couple of days and now Origin has cut the price at 27% off. Anyway I guess we'll see if they release the sales figures, if not wait for the second week chart to see if it falls behind those other games.
 
Self-Ejected

vivec

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Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Messages
1,149
Andromeda makes much more sense if you consider Douglas Adams' Golgafrinchams, who regularly exported the useless third of their population through fake colonisation projects.

The 'B' Ark
... "I mean, I couldn't help noticing," said Ford, also taking a sip, "the bodies. In the hold."

"Bodies?" said the Captain in surprise.

Ford paused and thought to himself. Never take anything for granted, he thought. Could it be that the Captain doesn't know he's got fifteen million dead bodies on his ship?

The Captain was nodding cheerfully at him. He also appeared to be playing with a rubber duck.

Ford looked around. Number Two was staring at him in the mirror, but only for an instant: his eyes were constantly on the move. The first officer was just standing there holding the drinks tray and smiling benignly.

"Bodies?" said the Captain again.

Ford licked his lips.

"Yes," he said, "All those dead telephone sanitizers and account executives, you know, down in the hold."

The Captain stared at him. Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed.

"Oh they're not dead," he said, "Good Lord no, no they're frozen. They're going to be revived."

Ford did something he very rarely did. He blinked.

Arthur seemed to come out of a trance.

"You mean you've got a hold full of frozen hairdressers?" he said.

"Oh yes," said the Captain, "Millions of them. Hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, management consultants, you name them. We're going to colonize another planet."

Ford wobbled very slightly.

"Exciting isn't it?" said the Captain.

"What, with that lot?" said Arthur.

"Ah, now don't misunderstand me," said the Captain, "we're just one of the ships in the Ark Fleet. We're the 'B' Ark you see. Sorry, could I just ask you to run a bit more hot water for me?"

Arthur obliged, and a cascade of pink frothy water swirled around the bath. The Captain let out a sigh of pleasure.

"Thank you so much my dear fellow. Do help yourselves to more drinks of course."

Ford tossed down his drink, took the bottle from the first officer's tray and refilled his glass to the top.

"What," he said, "is a 'B' Ark?"

"This is," said the Captain, and swished the foamy water around joyfully with the duck.

"Yes," said Ford, "but ..."

"Well what happened you see was," said the Captain, "our planet, the world from which we have come, was, so to speak, doomed."

"Doomed?"

"Oh yes. So what everyone thought was, let's pack the whole population into some giant spaceships and go and settle on another planet."

Having told this much of his story, he settled back with a satisfied grunt.

"You mean a less doomed one?" prompted Arthur.

"What did you say dear fellow?"

"A less doomed planet. You were going to settle on."

"Are going to settle on, yes. So it was decided to build three ships, you see, three Arks in Space, and ... I'm not boring you am I?"

"No, no," said Ford firmly, "it's fascinating."

"You know it's delightful," reflected the Captain, "to have someone else to talk to for a change."

Number Two's eyes darted feverishly about the room again and then settled back on the mirror, like a pair of flies briefly distracted from their favourite prey of months old meat.

"Trouble with a long journey like this," continued the Captain,"is that you end up just talking to yourself a lot, which gets terribly boring because half the time you know what you're going to say next."

"Only half the time?" asked Arthur in surprise.

The Captain thought for a moment.

"Yes, about half I'd say. Anyway - where's the soap?" He fished around and found it.

"Yes, so anyway," he resumed, "the idea was that into the first ship, the 'A' ship, would go all the brilliant leaders, the scientists, the great artists, you know, all the achievers; and into the third, or 'C' ship, would go all the people who did the actual work, who made things and did things, and then into the `B' ship - that's us - would go everyone else, the middlemen you see."

He smiled happily at them.

"And we were sent off first," he concluded, and hummed a little bathing tune.

The little bathing tune, which had been composed for him by one of his world's most exciting and prolific jingle writer (who was currently asleep in hold thirty-six some nine hundred yards behind them) covered what would otherwise have been an awkward moment of silence. Ford and Arthur shuffled their feet and furiously avoided each other's eyes.

"Er ..." said Arthur after a moment, "what exactly was it that was wrong with your planet then?"

"Oh, it was doomed, as I said," said the Captain, "Apparently it was going to crash into the sun or something. Or maybe it was that the moon was going to crash into us. Something of the kind. Absolutely terrifying prospect whatever it was."

"Oh," said the first officer suddenly, "I thought it was that the planet was going to be invaded by a gigantic swarm of twelve foot piranha bees. Wasn't that it?"

Number Two span around, eyes ablaze with a cold hard light that only comes with the amount of practise he was prepared to put in.

"That's not what I was told!" he hissed, "My commanding officer told me that the entire planet was in imminent danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star goat!"

"Oh really ..." said Ford Prefect.

"Yes! A monstrous creature from the pit of hell with scything teeth ten thousand miles long, breath that would boil oceans, claws that could tear continents from their roots, a thousand eyes that burned like the sun, slavering jaws a million miles across, a monster such as you have never ... never ... ever ..."

"And they made sure they sent you lot off first did they?" inquired Arthur.

"Oh yes," said the Captain, "well everyone said, very nicely I thought, that it was very important for morale to feel that they would be arriving on a planet where they could be sure of a good haircut and where the phones were clean."

"Oh yes," agreed Ford, "I can see that would be very important. And the other ships, er ... they followed on after you did they?"

For a moment the Captain did not answer. He twisted round in his bath and gazed backwards over the huge bulk of the ship towards the bright galactic centre. He squinted into the inconceivable distance.

"Ah. Well it's funny you should say that," he said and allowed himself a slight frown at Ford Prefect, "because curiously enough we haven't heard a peep out of them since we left five years ago ... but they must be behind us somewhere."

He peered off into the distance again.

Ford peered with him and gave a thoughtful frown.

"Unless of course," he said softly, "they were eaten by the goat ..."

"Ah yes ..." said the Captain with a slight hesitancy creeping into his voice, "the goat ..." His eyes passed over the solid shapes of the instruments and computers that lined the bridge. They winked away innocently at him. He stared out at the stars, but none of them said a word. He glanced at his first and second officers, but they seemed lost in their own thoughts for a moment. He glanced at Ford Prefect who raised his eyebrows at him.

"It's a funny thing you know," said the Captain at last, "but now that I actually come to tell the story to someone else ..."
Was about to mention that. yeah, they bunched up all the SJW types and told them to "settle Andromeda" it seems.
 

Blaine

Cis-Het Oppressor
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Grab the Codex by the pussy
Well, they goofed it up.

When you send your undesirables on a "colonization" mission, an android agent should be aboard to lock all man-machine interfaces and program the autopilot to fly the ship into the nearest star once they're past the Oort Cloud.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

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This isn't a lie, a google rep offered my friend, who runs a bathroom supply store, to put him top of the search results in the city if he paid a fee and another fee for doing a shop tour thing for google maps.
lel Eh, it depends on what you are talking about. There are ads that will put you at the top,yes. Also, there are fly-by-night seo & search ad management companies that will come very close to claiming they are google reps when they aren't. That's probably what your friend was talking about.

But no, google isn't going to index your bathroom supply friend at the top of organic search. It'd make their ads redundant and it's also and illegal. FTC guidelines require them to put that little "AD" marking on any sponsored listing.

Unless he's the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, I really doubt Google would waste their time or risk a fine for something like that.
That is their business practice, it's well known.
Nope. I've worked in the industry. Not how it works.
Besides monetary gain, they often fiddle the results to suit there own personal and political prefrences.
Google will de-index sites, yes. Different from fiddling with the results for direct profit.

That said, I really wouldn't put it past them when it isn't for profit. I recall seeing them push Trump's Twitter feed down below 2 rings of News stories - which, of course, were all negative - one time. And if Twitter and FB are willing to do it, you can bet Google is.
 
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Messages
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which accuses/implies 8chan are guilty of all kinds of crimes including child pornography

Some people on 8chan are involved in CP. It is disingenuous to claim otherwise; However, tarring everybody with that brush is a bit extreme, but then again 8chan offers no legitimate advantage over 4chan AFAIK.

I didn't know that, obviously you might get some cretins posting garbage, but I thought the boards banned/moderated that shit. Mind you I usually just look at a few pol/ and v/ threads on there, so God knows what degenarate shit goes on elsewhere.

I guess that's the problem with having anon imageboards as you can't just ban users or moderate what they post before hand.

Anyway my point about googles personal political manipulation of search results still stands as I've seen loads of stuff in the past that matched their agenda bumped up, while other results were bumped off. And it seems like that is just going to get worse soon, with this stupid Democrat excuse that Russian Fake news cost Hillary the election, now they are putting pressure on google and Facebook to remove what they consider to be fake news (and news that they don't like), decided upon by left leaning outlets with agendas and a poor record like Politifact and Snopes.
 
Joined
Mar 12, 2012
Messages
10,861
This isn't a lie, a google rep offered my friend, who runs a bathroom supply store, to put him top of the search results in the city if he paid a fee and another fee for doing a shop tour thing for google maps.
lel Eh, it depends on what you are talking about. There are ads that will put you at the top,yes. Also, there are fly-by-night seo & search ad management companies that will come very close to claiming they are google reps when they aren't. That's probably what your friend was talking about.

But no, google isn't going to index your bathroom supply friend at the top of organic search. It'd make their ads redundant and it's also and illegal. FTC guidelines require them to put that little "AD" marking on any sponsored listing.

Unless he's the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, I really doubt Google would waste their time or risk a fine for something like that.
That is their business practice, it's well known.
Nope. I've worked in the industry. Not how it works.
Besides monetary gain, they often fiddle the results to suit there own personal and political prefrences.
Google will de-index sites, yes. Different from fiddling with the results for direct profit.

That said, I really wouldn't put it past them when it isn't for profit. I recall seeing them push Trump's Twitter feed down below 2 rings of News stories - which, of course, were all negative - one time. And if Twitter and FB are willing to do it, you can bet Google is.

Thanks for clearing that up. So the guy was a contractor working for another company but under googles banner, promising the world, wouldn't be the first time things were outsourced to dodgy contractors who have to make sales, it happens over here all the time. Even the BBC hires firms of bullies to go around and threaten you if you don't have a TV license. They don't even know if you've got a TV or not. I got about a half dozen threatening letters when I was renovating my dads house and there was no one in it.

Still I don't trust that google will be honest in their searches, perhaps they don't explicitly take money from companies for anything but ads, but I'm sure there is more than one way to skin the cat, through outsourcing the dirty work to other companies and playing innocent etc. And like you said if they can de-index sites, dosen't that mean they can de-index sites that are running negative stories on something they are paid to promote?

As I said it was the negative searches that dissapeared on this game all at once, replaced by purchasing options for the game while leaving up the defensive articles.
 

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