This is really good to see - it was something that was really apparent when I was at university and the snobbery to people that had a Glaswegian, Fife or Highland accent was really prevalent.

I have emailed my MP asking where he expects me to pee when in public, given his party’s support of my urinary leash. Darkly funny for someone with a PhD, published papers, a job - the sort of person that Labour seem to want for their precious GDP and economy - to be needing to email their MP to find out where I am expected to piss.

The ruling is abhorrent and the carve outs which basically forbid trans people from any space like toilets or hospital wards is sickening to the extent I am now looking for jobs in Ireland. The interpretation isn’t even one of forced detransition, it is entirely eliminationist for transgender people while also excluding feminine men and masculine women from shared spaces that are interpreted as single sex. It is the bigoted fantasy of what the worst elements of the evangelical right wanted in the US.

If this doesn’t sit well with you, there is a protest this Saturday in George Square 2pm to 5pm: https://bsky.app/profile/whatthetrans.com/post/3lmyfzhiag22c

I saw that analysis! I’m currently just before the level 95 dungeon and while there are quite a few “speak with Wuk Lamat” quest endings so far, I’m not feeling overwhelmed by it in the slightest. So far, I’m quite enjoying DT but I do think there is a good degree of novelty since it’s not obviously an expansion that hinges massively on the Ascians / Ancients and that’s pretty nice. I do strongly think that is why I enjoyed post-EW and quite liked Zero despite an obviously one dimensional character carried by an angsty hat tilt.

I’m also not at all bothered by Wuk Lamat in terms of character or voice acting. From the outrage online I was anticipating something truly awful and that’s not been the case for me.

Maybe it will all come tumbling down soon though. I’m yet to hit the pacing issues and the equivalent of “Raktika / Trolley / Giant Talos” or “let’s kill all momentum and visit Elpis and by the way this type of time travel is entirely different from what we established previously yay”.

I really do hope the final zone of DT is good though because all the prior ones have been really, really lacklustre imo. I really, really wanted to like Ultima Thule due to the setting and the amazing music but the quest for inspecting the malfunctioning Omnicron really was the signpost that it was only going to get worse…

I have been using Tuta since the start of the year when I decided it was time to remove myself from Big Tech as much as I can. Really highly recommend them!

Christ, what an asshole

Why would an American be mentioning GDPR?

Yes, I was aware though under the impression of improving geospatial and mapping models. There are many ways in which we are now entwined into these systems and so it’s a matter of deciding, on a personal level, what you are comfortable with.

I am certainly not comfortable with the data going to Saudi Arabia where access to such is used for active suppression and harm.

Maybe it was a naive viewpoint at the time, but the climate of 2016 was very different to what it is now.

Yip, absolutely. Which is why I’m moving away from big tech products (one of the reasons I’m on Lemmy!).

Saudi Arabia is considerably worse though for LGBT rights so I don’t think there is any benefit in pushing whataboutism in this case. Both are awful, one is definitively more so.

Location data? Yeah, naively I was since I’d previously been fine with Niantic’s work with Ingress. Hindsight is 20/20 though.

Yes, absolutely, which is why I’m moving away from those services. This just speeds things up in the case of PoGo since Saudi Arabia has has been much, much more blatant and apparent with this in prior years (c.f. The tragic case of Eden Knight).

For myself, it is much more about the ties to Saudi Arabia given that the country and government aren’t all too happy with LGBT people.

Niantic and Google are (were?) not companies with very strong links to the Saudi Arabian government.

I’ve seriously reconsidered how much I use Google in recent months, but Google and Niantic aren’t owned by a government that is incredibly repressive and discriminatory of people like myself.

I’m a level 50 Pokémon Go player, who has played since release day, and that’s the app deleted.

Next up will be requesting removal of my data under GDPR.

I think those are all very fair points and I will definitely keep much of that in mind as I continue working through the expansion.

One thing that I am finding myself really disagree with more experienced FFXIV players on is the job identity and resulting balance. This is very much coloured by coming from Guild Wars 2 which made excellent strides in opening up the ability to perform major roles on all professions but then failed the landing so drastically that despite a plethora of builds being available, most see very little play because of how strong a handful are. Much of the reasons for the poor balance seem to stem from trying too hard to have distinguishing features and different playstyles and I’m not overly keen to go back to that.

FFXIV, from what I’ve played thus far (I am mainly focusing on healers with all at 100 or very high 90s) feels very similar to WoW when I played during WotLK. There are definite differences, but they aren’t considerable.

I do hope that Square Enix manage the very tricky balancing act of adding more flavour and differences without subsequently destroying balance which aside from FRU looks pretty okay? Failing that, I’ll take somewhere that I can play my main in group content without being on the receiving end of a kick because of what I play.

Some of the voice acting is indeed all over the place. Krile is very up and down in quality, Alphinaud sounds like he’s have his first hangover and Thancred is stuck in Metal Gear mode! Urianger and Alisae have been great, I’m enjoying Erenville a lot more in DT and Wuk Lamat’s English VA has been excellent imo.

I think it is the craftable one, but I am not certain.

I have the opposite of main character syndrome when it comes to MMOs. I do not want the world to revolve around my character, so perhaps that is why I am not finding the same faults!

One of the moments that made the Steppe section in Stormblood the best the expansion had to offer until Tsuyu!

I think you have a point about game communities being somewhere to vent. I know I did that so much with Guild Wars 2. There isn’t really anything I feel the need to get super annoyed about with FFXIV yet - the balance is nowhere near as glaringly bad as GW2 or at points when I played WoW and really the biggest sin it has is a lot of boring (but very good for an MMO) story.

I can’t wait for the FF9 references to hit. I loved Eden so much for the callbacks to 8!

I enjoyed the Steppe section but everything else (aside from Lyse doing some fun stuff every now and then) was just not enjoyable in the slightest. Post-Stormblood was really good though imo!