Unfortunately the “both sides” narrative comes from both the right and far left (see: lemmygrad).

Except HON was free for over a year, during which time users had full access to the game. The $30 fee was for access to the game after its “official” release in early 2010, but by that point LOL was already the dominant MOBA.

There’s also no pay to win. You pay for more options sooner

That’s… literally pay to win? Paying real money to skip a grind is the definition of pay to win.

until you rank in the top 1% of players, any character will have an equal chance of winning.

I don’t have to be a LOL pro to know that not every champion is balanced equally. And even if the game was perfectly balanced, every individual player’s playstyle will be more suited to certain characters than others.

There’s a certain irony to your earlier statement about players not wanting to pay for a game “they don’t know they’ll enjoy”, and then in the very next paragraph advocate for a format where players have to either grind countless hours in game or pay real money for each new champion.

HON mentioned o7

Great game at its peak, and had a much more unique art style than LOL’s generic knights and hot girls.

Unfortunate it lost out to LOL because LOL went with the freemium model where you could play for free, but had to buy champions. HON was a one-time $30 payment and you get all current and future heroes forever.

Of course gamers would choose the instant gratification option of “free” immediately despite it being literally pay-to-win, instead of the cheaper longterm value option where everyone starts on the same level.

Yeah just look at Russia. Any day now, they’ll break out of their 1000 years of despotism.

Literally orders of magnitude less? Are you not familiar with how proof of work crypto operates? Being energy inefficient is the whole point.

First I don’t know what insults you’re talking about, unless just the act of disagreeing with you is insulting.

Second, I used one expression to make a point, which was that crypto is foundational to the existence of ransomware, specifically on the massive scale it exists today. And then in every subsequent comment I have explained that said point is my main argument. And yet you keep ignoring that point and instead hyper-fixate on some combination of semantic pedantry and perceived victimhood.

My main point was that ransomware is massively facilitated by crypto, but you’re arguing semantics to run interference from addressing that point.

Here’s a simple yes/no question. If crypto disappeared overnight, would the ransomware industry generate even 1% of the net income it makes now?

They didn’t, ransomware pre-bitcoin was basically just regular scams. Not even close to comparable to what goes on today.

That’s a nominally correct answer at best, like the scale of ransomeware then required the target to be in physical reach so you can physically hand off cash or equivalents. North Korea couldn’t extract money from Americans so they had no incentive to do so.

Lol at the crypto shills hiding behind that though. “it always existed so it’s ok” get out of here

Crypto also single-handedly invented ransomware. Like without Crypto, random Russian and North Korean hackers aren’t financially incentivized to target towns, hospitals, small businesses etc. There are legitimate payment processors other than just Visa.

This is why I think Trump and the current admin won’t actually go after Obama. The Democrats sat on legitimate Jan 6th evidence and didn’t do anything.

If the Trump admin arrests Obama on some sham charges, and then the Democrats come back in power, then all bets are off. I think this only happens if Republicans get really desperate. But with all three branches of government under Republican control I don’t think they’re there yet.

Average sports GOAT debate

Bro please point to exactly where in the picture Bill Clinton is being defended.

The entire NY mayor “controversy” has been astronomically blown out of proportion by bad actors. The vast majority of Democratic voters in the rest of the country don’t give a fuck one way or the other. But it looks great for the Republicans if the Democrats are in-fighting, and on Lemmygrad it looks great if the “establishment” Democrats are losing (never mind that Mamdani would get bodied 100x worse than Kamala on a national stage).

Ok. You started with Supreme Court that only ruled on gay marriage because the cowardly legislators we vote on were too scared of or complicit with bigots to actually pass on their own.

You realize Supreme Court justices are still the products of elections, right? People elect Presidents who appoint Supreme Court Justices. Obergefell v. Hodges was a 5-4 decision, so if just one of those Justices was not appointed, then the decision fails.

Obamacare was a heritage foundation policy that the worthless corrupt democrats watered down, but it’s the last thing of any consequence your party passed and you and the rest of the centrists have been coasting on being able to pass republican policy ever since. Great “work”.

It’s funny how you’re trying to hand wave away policy that helps millions of people while the only alternative solution you’re offering is to not vote for the left wing party in a two-party system.

Now tell us how you idolize ICE some more.

Find me one country in the world that does not have a border patrol agency or does not spend money on border enforcement. Valid criticisms of ICE would be pointing out how differently it operates under different party administrations.

I have now realized as I login to this account on my computer instead of phone that this is lemmy.ml post and I’m talking to Tankies. I don’t respect your opinion and think you are a joke so I’m going to stop engaging further. If you live in the US then congratulations on having on zero impact and unquestionably worsening your own life. If you don’t then I assume you are a bot. And in either case to become a Tankie you pretty clearly have failed on quite a few levels in your personal life, so for that you have my condolences.

You just took a clear question/point (1 or 1 million people) and fabricated it into an unrelated and incorrect equivalency (omg what if they’re like Republicans and Democrats???). Realizing now I’ve wasted my time talking to someone who is, respectfully, a joke.

I literally just listed multiple progressive policies the Democrats passed. Still waiting for someone to provide one example of how not voting has helped anyone. Amazing how privileged and dumb your take is, although ultimately I guess it doesn’t matter because you’re basically proud of being completely inconsequential.

Lol bro, go ahead and don’t vote then. Maybe if we let the GOP win all three branches uncontested for the next century and they dismantle education, gerrymander or just outright remove fair elections, and kill the planet with climate change, then people will feel really bad and adopt your politics. It’s worked so many times in the past.

Also there’s a difference between valid criticisms of the Democratic Party and this post which is demonizing them on the same level as the GOP simply because Democrats spent money on their border patrol. As if Obama or Biden were the ones who introduced Alligator Alcatraz.

If you were in the trolley problem and the trolley was headed towards a million people, I can imagine you opting not to pull the lever to switch it to a single person because you won’t act unless there’s a perfect option with zero casualties.

The party whose Supreme Court justices were responsible for all gay rights advancements, always vote to protect abortion rights, passed Obamacare to helps millions of Americans out, vs. a Republican party that has done literally everything in their power to empower their largest donors, and more recently has existed for the sole purpose of enriching the Trump family?

If you can’t see the difference between the two then you’re either being willfully obtuse or you’re a subversive agent for the GOP. My money is on the latter honestly.