Community MetaSteam | December 2020 - Empire of Doom

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Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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I'd say it's more my personality than my profession.
I think one does not get to meet people with your personality or job very often. So when you arrived here and suddenly started reviewing the evidence, it did not result in the impression which you were looking for. As far as I am concerned, given your background, I would tend to trust you. Show me the proof in PM. That is a joke, don't!

I missed that part. Double post, I assume.
I edited the post several times. Sorry about that.
 

Gamall Wednesday Ida

Just a loon, apparently.
Dec 4, 2020
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www.youtube.com
I missed that part. Double post, I assume.
You need to understand that the last thing that we would want would be to be featured in a press article, which would bring a massive influx of users, this would put pressure on the moderation system, and we would lose the comfort of having a small community. Plus, we could lose our leakers, or they could lose their jobs, or get fined, or whatever could happen for breaking NDA.

So, try not to look like an undercover journalist or a lawyer trying to sue someone for breaking NDA. :kappa:
I do understand that. I never in my life imagined being mistaken for a lawyer, however.

And I hope an undercover journalist would have better social skills. For their sake.

edit: weird things happened; I double posted this and Wok answered it before it was posted, somehow. Another mystery to investigate I guess; But I'll pass on this one.
 
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Ex-User (119)

Junior Member
Oct 19, 2018
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regarding Bloodborne all I can really say is what I've said many times
I've known of this project since Dec last year.

a first test of my knowledge and what I took part in was in Jan Feb time. a second test happened in march April but I didn't take part in that one ( I was invited to a marvel avengers test that was alot more money compared to the Bloodborne test taking part).

I then took part in another test around September time. another test recently started the beginning of this month aswell.

I have also gone into detail in various things also related and this is where some info went mumbo jumbo and People like Lance entirely misunderstood.

qloc dark souls remastered team is the lead of the project. bluepoint at the early start of this project lent a couple of engineers onto the project to help sort some engine stuff related to things tied to frame rate. ( that is where bluepoint involvement starts and finishes.

the one thing I do not have an answer for and thats for pretty much any leak I do mention is timeframes and or releases. I'm not savvy to that info most of the time. Bloodborne is something I entirely regret even mentioning now because of how rabid so many people have reacted over it and such ( no one here I'm talking in general across other platforms)

Gamall Wednesday Ida

I do want to make one thing perfectly clear I never ever show screens of any said project I'm testing or such things. I also won't ever hand over info as to where I get any of my info from with regards to things I know but not testing. it's one reason I never posted this on era because the info wants to be fact checked thriugh mods etc and if I did that. that would out the info I need to provide into hands of others that could reveal things about me or the person I get some my info in a way that could be absolutely damaging.


most of my leaks will always consist of naming a project n if I know Dev attached to it. relatively rare you will get much more than that unless it's like Bloodborne which I'm testing.
 

Alexandros

MetaMember
Nov 4, 2018
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I'm going to do an "almost too good" for Horizon 4 and say that it has almost too much stuff in it. My map is littered with icons and I already have a lot of cars, from crappy vans to modern supercars. It's not an actual issue, I can navigate the various events just fine, I just miss the slow progression of starting with a slow piece of shit car and working your way up.
 

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
7,110
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Is Grindstone coming to PC sometime or will it be stuck on Apple Arcade and Switch? I have a Switch so I can get it there, but a PC version would be nice too.

This game:

Somehow I thought this was already confirmed for PC, wan't it? at the very least the style is quite similar to another project.

About if it's going to come... well, most of the Apple Arcade exclusives have come to PC at some point, heck, even Where Cards Fall, so I would say it's quite possible.
 

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
7,110
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I only want the one we will most certainly not get (Gravity Rush 2). But it's not like I don't have 5 games to play for every 1 I have time for.
YOU SIR, you have good taste :cat-heart-blob::cat-heart-blob::cat-heart-blob:
 

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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Im one of the few people on the planet who have played and finished Gravity Rush 2. Good game. Feel the first game was better, but the sequel was a good game.
 
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Arc

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Sep 19, 2020
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I found a blog post from the developer of Demoracy 4 that gives a platform split for the game based on the PC store.



Some things to note:
-The pie chart is based on net revenue, so after each respective store's cut.
-The Epic version came out several weeks after the Steam version so it isn't the best direct comparison, but it still did pretty well.
-The developer spent money advertising the Humble Widget version which only takes a 5% charge compared to other stores which would explain the unusually high percentage.

I find this interesting since this is one of the only cases I can remember where a developer actually gave a platform split. It shows, even in the face of increasing competition, Steam is still the biggest player in the PC direct sales market. It also shows Epic is making some headway and the split would have probably been higher if it had released on the same day as Steam and GOG. On the topic of GOG, it's unfortunately a bit player (although it will vary by game, and Cyberpunk will most likely skew more heavily towards GOG). I wish I could find pie charts for games that launched day and date on Steam, EGS and GOG to see what the split is like, but I'm happy to have this information available.
 

Shahem

R7 7800X3D I RTX 4080
Jan 26, 2020
1,261
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regarding Bloodborne all I can really say is what I've said many times
I've known of this project since Dec last year.

a first test of my knowledge and what I took part in was in Jan Feb time. a second test happened in march April but I didn't take part in that one ( I was invited to a marvel avengers test that was alot more money compared to the Bloodborne test taking part).

I then took part in another test around September time. another test recently started the beginning of this month aswell.

I have also gone into detail in various things also related and this is where some info went mumbo jumbo and People like Lance entirely misunderstood.

qloc dark souls remastered team is the lead of the project. bluepoint at the early start of this project lent a couple of engineers onto the project to help sort some engine stuff related to things tied to frame rate. ( that is where bluepoint involvement starts and finishes.

the one thing I do not have an answer for and thats for pretty much any leak I do mention is timeframes and or releases. I'm not savvy to that info most of the time. Bloodborne is something I entirely regret even mentioning now because of how rabid so many people have reacted over it and such ( no one here I'm talking in general across other platforms)

Gamall Wednesday Ida

I do want to make one thing perfectly clear I never ever show screens of any said project I'm testing or such things. I also won't ever hand over info as to where I get any of my info from with regards to things I know but not testing. it's one reason I never posted this on era because the info wants to be fact checked thriugh mods etc and if I did that. that would out the info I need to provide into hands of others that could reveal things about me or the person I get some my info in a way that could be absolutely damaging.


most of my leaks will always consist of naming a project n if I know Dev attached to it. relatively rare you will get much more than that unless it's like Bloodborne which I'm testing.
Again, don't hesitate to tell us what the future holds. I think we all greatly appreciate the risks you take to tell us know of a few things. ;)
No one here will blame you if it does not pan out. Hopefully you'll also be asked to test Demons Soul remake. I imagine it would also be QLOC who would develop the PC version.

It's just video games at the end of the day.
 

Wildebeet

First Stage Hero
Dec 5, 2018
798
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Ah, I see there is a misunderstanding here. I mentioned "needing to earn my bread" as a limiter on the time and energy I am willing to spend on this topic. Instead it seems it was understood as "I need to pressure Queen to earn my bread", which is... the radical opposite.

snipped
Re: Bread. I'm glad to know that. I was hoping this wasn't all for some Bloodborne freelance article. I'm thinking, that's worth, what, a couple hundred dollars? And few would read it? That would be taking bread money too literally.

Re: Pressure. You did come in as the new guy asking for Discord logs or something. It's not the volume of text, it's the level of intrusion (sorta?), the lack of a clear motive, asking for things a bit outside of the social norms here. It's no crime of course but there had been a good deal of WTF-ism in the past few days.

I think you must be a total loon. But a good loon. An affable, dedicated sort of loon, with unrivaled commitment to mouse and keyboard. So maybe even when you're done with your enhanced conversations, you should stick around now and then. The forum has been lively anyhow largely thanks to your antics, I'll give you that.


You need to understand that the last thing that we would want would be to be featured in a press article, which would bring a massive influx of users, this would put pressure on the moderation system, and we would lose the comfort of having a small community. Plus, we could lose our leakers, or they could lose their jobs, or get fined, or whatever could happen for breaking NDA.
Yeah I was thinking along those lines as well, since it wasn't clear what the motivation was. GWI just seems to love Souls. A lot. As for the "leaks" and such that's between others and not my business. 🍿
 
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PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
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Devs are definitely missing out by not having a website presence with a Humble Widget. That 95% is nice. The negative is that your Steam presence drops a bit, but it didn't seem to hurt in this case.
What does the widget do and how would their presence drop?


Here is my hot take on Cyberpunk. The game has issues but some of those can still be fixed and the game can only really go up from here.

On PC people do seem to have some glitches and stuff just like on consoles and such but that doesn't seem to be a huge issue. Even bassd on Steam reviews it is positive overall, compared to other games that have come out and that people feel very mixed about usually have at least mixed reviews and games that are bad across the board have very negative reviews (a recent game with very negative reviews was the VR MoH game which is just a mess and it makes sense now as to the really reason why it's on Steam)



The issue that I have has to do with industry bias, let's be honest most of the "game industry" is in favor of console and such, which to a certain degree makes sense since they do sell a lot and there are a lot of people that play them and such but like I have mentioned before the actual numbers are way smaller than people make them out to be. Very likely CP will sell over 5 million copies on PC alone (and at a very quick speed as well) and if you compare that to PS4 (the current best platform this gen but will be best by N/S at some point) it would have been in the top 15 best selling PS4 games of all time within just 1 week of release !!!! Also N/S wise it would also have been top 15 as well.

Number wise N/S is actually very impressive seeing how Nintendo has multiple games that have sold over 20 million units while PS4 only have 2 ( 1 of which is a SIE game while Nintendo has 3 Nintendo developed games), the nature of the system likely has something to do with that.

Roughly 60% of pre-orders were for PC and the 40% was shared between the 2 consoles so PS4 may have only been 20-30% of sales. There are a number of reasons as to why those numbers were as "low" as they are. Maybe people didn't want to buy those versions since the trailers and all of that were for the PC version of the game and they wanted to see what the console version was like (but I highly highly doubt that was the reason seeing how there are plenty of games that say PC footage and those still manage to sell well on consoles) it's possible that because of the next gen stuff that they were unsure about BC and would have just felt better about ordering it later once they had the next gen consoles and that version of the game. But I do believe that CDPR did say that it would be BC and that it would also get a free next gen upgrade. COVID may have made it where people have to be more thrifty and there for not ideal to buy the game right now when it's hard to get a next gen console.


What I have noticed is that a lot of the people upset over the Last Gen stuff always being up how the game has been in development since 2013 and stuff of that nature and how it was developed specificlly with last gen in mind and stuff like that. But it was not until 2016 when they actually started to make the game. And well by 2016 stuff like the OG last gen consoles are just very old and from what DF have said the game was built with PC and mind and it feels like a PC game with a lot of stuff that can be used In the future.

There are some other games like FFXV and RDR2 that looked very amazing on last gen, they did have some issues but overall the reception was not terrible like it is with CP performance wise (FFXV maybe did get some push back but not CP levels of bad), those games on PC do have some features that PC can make use of stuff and things, but unlike CP it doesn't feel like they wanted to future proof the game even future and add even more stuff on top of that, and while there are some extra stuff in there it's mainly just playing with high fps and a higher resolution (that's what most PC versions really are) but CP does more than that to where it's a night and day difference between PC and last gen consoles especially when it comes to lighting.


Broken PC ports were very common years ago and to a certain degree they still happen but do they get nearly as much coverage as to what happening right now on consoles with CP? Or has the industry really not cared about PC where it doesn't make a big outcry over a broken PC port or would it do something "insensitive" like just say "be happy you even have it" or "just buy it consoles" because right now that's happening with the game. People on PC (myself included) are more or less saying something along those lines but doesn't it go both ways?

I guess the main thing that rubs me the wrong way is when a PC port is broken or something a vast majority of the industry doesn't seem to care but as soon as it involves consoles then it's front page material.


I was going to say some other stuff but more or less it's was stuff that adds on top of this.

Also I guess it really has been a long time since we have had a game that does try to push stuff further than what's currently possible.

In a way I will admit that stuff shown from the PC version can be deceitful to base console players since they are under the assumption that the base versions will for what ever reason look as nice as the trailers, which is very strange. Some people seem to be upset that the crowds are not as populated as in the trailers and such but CDPR never said that the console versions would look like that. Which is a double edge sword people were seeing for assuming that and CDPR were also in the wrong for not informing people (keep expectations down). I guess maybe people on the PS4 are too use to those nice looking SIE game that are made for basically just one console and as we have seen with HZD and Detroit those game are basically hardwired to that system in order to be able to look as nice as they are, HZD as actually hardcoded to just be 30fps which is why the PC version did have some animation issues, the same also applied with Death Stranding where some stuff can't go above 60fps. And with CP CDPR is making multiple versions of the game!!!!! Also SIE likely has a large part in helping those devs with special engineers and stuff?


Also GTA V on PS360 would dip to 20 something fps and people seemed to be okay with it but now that's it's happening here people seem to have issues (but then again people on consoles for a very long time seemed to say that 60fps didn't matter and 30fps was better for the cinematic approach)

Hopefully stuff does get fixed
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
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I guess the main thing that rubs me the wrong way is when a PC port is broken or something a vast majority of the industry doesn't seem to care but as soon as it involves consoles then it's front page material.
That's because consoles are the in the mainstream. That's what a lot of people think about when they hear 'videogames', as computers are largely associated with work and work related activities.

Also, publishers have a nasty tendency of showcasing PC gameplay videos on console annoucements.
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
5,331
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What does the widget do and how would their presence drop?
Sales via the Humble Widget get the developer 95% revenue and the customer a Steam key.
However since it's an outside sale, these keys don't factor as much into Steams visibility/discovery mechanics. Friends don't see this purchase in the activity feeds, it does not count for the best seller lists and the review does not count towards the percentages, so overall Steam will not "promote" the game as much organically.
 

Swenhir

Spaceships!
Apr 18, 2019
3,534
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The thing is, Cyberpunk isn't a broken, glitchy mess at all. It's less buggy than the vast majority of large-scale open world RPGs I've played at launch.
I'm not sure what people expect from a game of this type (I am sure though that at least some of the online outrage is fueled by the performance on last-gen consoles, which is pretty shit and it's fair to point out as a big flaw, but it's neither a bug nor a glitch).

Also, somewhat relatedly, didn't we have a playtracker.net person here? It currently estimates Cyberpunk at 1.4 million players on Steam. That would mean that 76% of all global players were playing it at the same time. On multiple days. Fix your algorithm :p
I play SC. Can confirm. This is a leisurely walk in the park and a joy to play compared to that :p.

I think this is rather people's first encounter with the average AAA rough-on-launch release which, honestly, this somewhat is. It's not Ubi-bad, but it's not fantastic either. It's also probably a lot rougher on consoles.

Also, 23 hours, still no logo, haven't even done the first dual-objective Maelstrom mission. I'm just... doing a lot, but not that :p.
 

Alexandros

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Nov 4, 2018
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That's because consoles are the in the mainstream. That's what a lot of people think about when they hear 'videogames', as computers are largely associated with work and work related activities.

Also, publishers have a nasty tendency of showcasing PC gameplay videos on console annoucements.
I think it has more to do with the fact that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo spend a lot of money on marketing and ads.
 

PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
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I think it has more to do with the fact that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo spend a lot of money on marketing and ads.
And those ads can at times be nice and cool and stuff but they are expensive as hell. SIE has spent well over 2 billion USD In the past on ads. In 2020 SIE has spent more on ads than the other combined, I can't remember how much they spent but it was a lot!!!.

Marketing is very weird especially when you look at stuff like the index. Asides from maybe doing some press stuff Valve has not spent money on advertising the index and yet it kept selling out, meanwhile Oculus kept selling out and stuff a d yet they will still running ads like crazy. I guess you have to keep people staying interested in order to be able to sell your HMD.


By the way Valves marketing (or technically lack there of) is just so strange especially when you compare them to others be that to, other store fronts, be that consoles stuff, be that hardware stuff, or be that game dev stuff (Riot spends a lot of money on ads and stuff and I doubt that Valve does a lot of ads stuff for Dota 2, they actually did do some stuff on Twitter and Instagram for Underlords though)


Imagine not having to spend billion year after year on marketing and more or less having other do it for you.

Sales via the Humble Widget get the developer 95% revenue and the customer a Steam key.
However since it's an outside sale, these keys don't factor as much into Steams visibility/discovery mechanics. Friends don't see this purchase in the activity feeds, it does not count for the best seller lists and the review does not count towards the percentages, so overall Steam will not "promote" the game as much organically.
Oh okay I was aware of that but for some reason I thought it was something else. The steam key thing I know that HB does that but I know that they also do DRM free keys for some games as well so I thought that's what it was.
-------
Maybe I just have not looked too deep into the PS5 but there are a number of things that the XSX can do that I think are pretty cool such as being able to look at your bandwidth usage.

From the looks of it my Xbox is able to download about 7.5GB per hour on average.
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
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Im one of the few people on the planet who have played and finished Gravity Rush 2. Good game. Feel the first game was better, but the sequel was a good game.
I played the first game on PS Vita and liked it a lot. Is the sequel on pc already?
Omg please no 😞
 
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Gamall Wednesday Ida

Just a loon, apparently.
Dec 4, 2020
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Re: Bread. I'm glad to know that. I was hoping this wasn't all for some Bloodborne freelance article. ...there had been a good deal of WTF-ism in the past few days.
There have been some "WTF" moments on my side as well.

I have been thinking about Wok's point about "looking like a lawyer", and now this, and some exchanges about not sharing my conclusions etc suddenly take on another shade; they made no sense to me at the time. Frankly these are hypotheses that would spontaneously never have crossed my mind.

I had anticipated some social awkwardness, but more purely along the lines of the propriety of questioning someone's word at all, not about my motives for doing so.

So some of my answers may be completely off kilter; for instance my "Golden rain Prophet" bit in my answer to Alexandros earlier may not apply at all. (I'm not too happy about it as an argument either for various reasons, so consider it retracted)

I think you must be a total loon. But a good loon. An affable, dedicated sort of loon, with unrivaled commitment to mouse and keyboard. So maybe even when you're done with your enhanced conversations, you should stick around now and then. The forum has been lively anyhow largely thanks to your antics, I'll give you that.
...
GWI just seems to love Souls. A lot.
I don't argue the loon point. (If anything I'd argue "affable")

I am quite committed to M&K Soulskiroborne -- or whatever unhappy Frankenstein of a moniker is currently "hip" for that cluster of games -- but honestly I think the same amount of "antics" may have happened over pretty much anything; I certainly stopped participating in discussions on Wikipedia for that reason.

If you consider the resulting mess "lively" ... hum... I'll take it, though if I stick around, I'd much prefer "calm and boring" to "lively".
 
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Tizoc

Retired, but still Enabling
Oct 11, 2018
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But if phil bought codemasters
All they would.make.is forza :thinking-face:

Anyways that steam review restriction on redeemed keys is bs.
 
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Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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Yeah, people are conflating the bad showing on old consoles (which are 7 year old machines, that had the specs of mid-range laptops when they were released in 2013) with the state of the game overall.
I just hope the dev team can catch some well deserved off-time and then work on patches and DLC in normal pace. But with the state of the gaming industry, I'm not optimistic.



Wait a moment, I need to write a wall of text to analyse this, and "fact checking" it somehow.
It is entirely on CDPR making a game as ambitious as 2077 with 2013 hardware in mind.
And they wanted to release in April, they had 8 months extra time, just imagine the state of the game in April.
Also, the old consoles can't be used as an excuse for the GTAV/CP2077 NPC reaction video (or non-reaction in 2077 case) and the car changing video (cars respawn while looking away).

People give Star citizen shit for the lengthy development time but they at least don't claim they can squeeze the game onto 8 year old hardware and release a beta version as release. Cp2077 needed at least another year.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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I found a blog post from the developer of Demoracy 4 that gives a platform split for the game based on the PC store.



Some things to note:
-The pie chart is based on net revenue, so after each respective store's cut.
-The Epic version came out several weeks after the Steam version so it isn't the best direct comparison, but it still did pretty well.
-The developer spent money advertising the Humble Widget version which only takes a 5% charge compared to other stores which would explain the unusually high percentage.

I find this interesting since this is one of the only cases I can remember where a developer actually gave a platform split. It shows, even in the face of increasing competition, Steam is still the biggest player in the PC direct sales market. It also shows Epic is making some headway and the split would have probably been higher if it had released on the same day as Steam and GOG. On the topic of GOG, it's unfortunately a bit player (although it will vary by game, and Cyberpunk will most likely skew more heavily towards GOG). I wish I could find pie charts for games that launched day and date on Steam, EGS and GOG to see what the split is like, but I'm happy to have this information available.
I am not convinced that it would have made that much of a difference if it released on epic day and date. The EGS version is the cheapest version available (at least in €uroland), the people skipping EGS for all games are massive, which is proven time and time again when (good) games rerelease on Steam after the exclusive period.
And I don't know if applicable in the timeframe of the Democracy 4 release, the 10 buck voucher would make the EGS version 50% off while the lowest it ever got on Steam was 20%
 

Wildebeet

First Stage Hero
Dec 5, 2018
798
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There have been some "WTF" moments on my side as well.

I have been thinking about Wok's point about "looking like a lawyer", and now this, and some exchanges about not sharing my conclusions etc suddenly take on another shade; they made no sense to me at the time. Frankly these are hypotheses that would spontaneously never have crossed my mind.

I had anticipated some social awkwardness, but more purely along the lines of the propriety of questioning someone's word at all, not about my motives for doing so.

So some of my answers may be completely off kilter; for instance my "Golden rain Prophet" bit in my answer to Alexandros earlier may not apply at all. (I'm not too happy about it as an argument either for various reasons, so consider it retracted)


I don't argue the loon point. (If anything I'd argue "affable")

If you consider the resulting mess "lively" ... hum... I'll take it, though if I stick around, I'd much prefer "calm and boring" to "lively".
The loon part was exaggeration, in jest. But it was not a great word choice during a series of misunderstandings. For real though, speaking only on my own behalf, I think you're better understood now and welcome.
 
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