What's a "Moral Compass Cricket Thingy"?

[ShiraNoMai]

That actually sounds super fun, Maniak! I hope we get to do it some time

In the meantime, hope you had as good of a birthday as you can during these times, like Moony said. I'm having such an issue this year with dates and I'm unsure if it's because of a lack of physical reminders or being outside to experience time passage...

[Moonface]

So I know you work at Publix but didn't realise you had two jobs until a recent post of yours brought it up. So I'm curious, where's the other job at?

[Maniakkid25]

Aftercare gig at a school. I watch over the second and third graders while they wait to get picked up. Most of them are good kids, even if they never clean up after themselves and a couple refuse to wear their masks for more than 30 minutes at a time. One of them is a little s***, however, but I don't have to deal with that one too much.

[Moonface]

Do you have to clean up whatever mess they make, or do you just have to make sure none of them kill themselves?

[Maniakkid25]

The later. I've been writing them up for leaving their messes, believe it or not, and my boss is like "good boy!"

[Moonface]

So I know you like to rant about various things, and I'm curious. What is something that has made you head desk in annoyance/disappointment/etc. that you didn't go into thinking it would make you react that way?

[Maniakkid25]

*exhales* That's really hard to say. Generally, when I watch or play something, I about know what I'm getting myself into. Data Squad (both thr movie and the game) immediately comes to mind as something I wasn't expecting to hate, but that was so long ago I don't even know if that's really fair. The problem is I don't like risking things when it comes to my entertainment: if I want to do something, I want to know what I'm generally getting myself into. Battleship (the movie) is another, but that's more than a decade as well.

...Hatred? That really crappy twin-stick shooter that caught all sorts of controversy? Maybe Mass Effect 3's ending, but even then, that was just "Why didn't I see this coming?" more than anything. Like, legitimately, I'm struggling to find answers to the question. My memory is often a hazy whirlwind, so picking out moments like that can be like finding a needle in a stack of needles.

[Moonface]

What are your favourite vehicles in the Burnout and Need For Speed games?

[Maniakkid25]

Depends on the game. As far as real world cars go, I don't think it's been featured in a NFS game specifically, but I LOVE the look of the Lexus LFA. That said, IRL, I'm a "function before form" kind of guy, so I tend to gravitate towards either the "best" cars or the most fun (I love drifting cars, after all).

[Moonface]

Since you said you're function before form, did you customize cars much in NFS games that let you customize the cars, or did you just do minimal changes?

[Maniakkid25]

Minimal changes. I focused on performance upgrades first, and then I would worry about the looks (which made Underground 2 SUPER ANNOYING since you are FORCED to upgrade the looks of your car)

[Moonface]

I also hated that you couldn't really switch to a later car in NFSU2 because doing so meant all the money poured into your starting car is wasted going forward and sometimes getting enough money to put a new car together was too hard if you were too far into the game. You can't sell cars either unless your garage is full, so you can't even try to make money on the stuff you don't want anymore.

[Karo]

Have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise?

[Moonface]

Is there a tank that isn't in World of Tanks that you would like to see added?

[Maniakkid25]

HAHAHAHAHA! WHERE DO I START?!

There are many people far more qualified than me on this subject than I am. The game uses armored vehicles from between the 1920s (with one exception) and the 1970s, with the nations being represented all across Eurasia (with several exceptions). US, UK, France, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Italy, USSR, China, and Japan being represented means there's literally around 400 vehicles in the game, most of them being from Germany, USSR, and US (You have no idea how many experimental vehicles those three nations alone had...). So, the pool is honestly kind of full, but that hasn't stopped many, MANY people from designing full trees for every nation under the sun. And this doesn't even include many legendary armored vehicles through history! The Israeli Super Sherman? It's in the game as the Revalorise! Chieftain? Both in Tech Tree and Premium variants! S-tank? We've got three different versions, yo! And yet people are coming up with ideas all the time, to say nothing of the designs Wargaming has outright fabricated (Waifutraktor...). BUT! If I had to pick one, and it had to be a Tank and not just any Armored Vehicle, I suppose the obvious choice is the Israeli Main Battle Tank, the Merkava. But go digging around for tech tree proposals, and you'd be AMAZED at the long history some nations have with the subject!