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A quick history:

- In 2014, the developers at Monolith Productions created Shadow of Mordor, a Tolkien game, where you played as a random ranger (the guys Aragorn ran with for a while) who gains the power to revive from death by Celebrimbor.

- The game featured a brilliant game mechanic called the Nemesis system. If an orc killed you, not only would that orc remember you, they'd be promoted within Sauron's army gaining new abilities and commanding their own squads. If you defeated an orc but failed to kill him, that orc would remember you and seek personal revenge. Some promoted orcs would gain rivalries with others and infighting could occur.

- Shadow of Mordor became famous for the Nemesis system, as players saw the rest of the action game as a distraction from the real game: operating from the shadows to build the career of their favorite orc nemesis and create a true archenemy to have a proper showdown with. Sabotaging other orcs, purposely dying to their nemesis to hone the ultimate enemy, etc.

- Shadow of Mordor was a resounding success. Monolith returned 3 years later with Shadow of War, featuring an even more complex Nemesis system that allowed players to recruit and train their own orc army and even send them to infiltrate Sauron's orc army. Enemy orcs with experience vs the player also start learning the player's habits and attempt to counter them in battle.

- Shadow of War wasn't received as well as Mordor, but the improved Nemesis system carried the game. At the time, many were convinced the Nemesis system would be a major step forward for enemy AI in games when more developers would learn how to replicate it.

- That doesn't happen, because parent company Warner Bros filed a patent for the Nemesis system in 2016, two years after Mordor, and was granted the patent in 2021, making it legally risky for other game developers to attempt to create their own Nemesis system equivalent.

- Instead of funding a third game with the Nemesis system or doing literally anything with the patent, Warner Bros killed Monolith (and two others) on February 25 2025 and canceled their Wonder Woman game. They still keep the patent though.

- they killed Monolith for this

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i have such a low threshold for bullshit now that i'm seconds from telling this woman on the crochet subreddit to leave her husband, even though i know it won't end well for me.

she made him a wool hat and stressed repeatedly to him that it couldn't be machine washed. he washed it anyway, destroying her work. she's trying to play it off like a funny anecdote, how it was sweet how sorry and sad he was in the aftermath, but then let it slip this kind of thing has happened multiple times/continues to happen in their relationship, because he refuses to accept her knowledge as a textile artist and constantly ruins the nice things she makes or buys for either of them. i think he should be killed.

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It recently became department policy to purchase all our animal care supplies online and have them shipped, but my work location (public park) doesn't have a mailbox, so we've been getting things shipped directly to the post office. Today I went to pick up a shipment of several hundred superworms but the postal workers are insisting that it's not possible to have packages shipped directly to the post office. I gave them a tracking number which revealed they were delivered a couple days ago and now they're looking for them. Somewhere in the post office are 500 lost worms.

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ursula k le guin: if confronted directly with the knowledge that society requires suffering to be maintained, would you be capable or willing to abandon the structure and safety for uncertainty, strife, deprivation?

strange and inscrutable people who claim to know how to read: i would simply solve the problem

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this is devastating

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im

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bro LMFAOOOO

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his lips are sealed

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Me reaching what looks suspiciously to be the end of my rope: oobh i got plany off rope

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“do you really wanna be on that medication for the rest of your life :(?” yes actually I would love that. I know what I’m like off it

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MANIFESTING

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it’s okay to be bad at things you enjoy.

it’s okay to draw even if it doesn’t look how you imagined. it’s okay to paint even if it ends up messy. it’s okay if you can’t memorize formulas or do mental math. it’s okay if you can’t describe a scene perfectly with words; or if you can never get your tone just right on stage.

You can do things just to do them and because you enjoy them. You don’t need to be the best ar something to love it. You enjoying it is enough reason to keep doing it. It’s okay

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