I’ll add some context, as I actually own a Switch 2 and Mario Kart World.
The game is full of “intermission tracks”, where the next race starts at the previous track and you effectively drive to the next track for the first two laps, then complete a single lap of the destination track. For example, in the Mushroom Cup, rather than start the second race at Crown City, you’d instead start at Mario Bros Circuit (the 1st track in the cup), drive to Crown City for two “laps” then complete a single lap of Crown City.
Many people voted Random in online multiplayer instead of picking one of the three interconnecting tracks, because the intermission tracks frankly suck for the most part, and are just straight-line roads. By picking Random, the game would actually pick a completely different course and you’d do a standard 3-lap race, like you would by selecting the course in Time Trial mode.
At least that’s what used to happen, before the latest patch… Now, random actually picks one of the three interconnecting courses, and no longer picks a random course.
To be honest, I think intermission tracks only really work in Free Roam and Knockout Tour. It doesn’t feel innovative to effectively drive to the next racetrack when you still have to wait between race results and loading screens.
Lets cut the fucking bullshit, as you know there’s no filter with me. I’ve always been up front and real with you guys on anything that I can be up front about, and I’m always willing to accept responsibility… which is why I’m here now.
First and foremost I do want to apologize to everyone in my community as well as those close to me, my team, and everyone at Midnight Society Game Studio.
A lot of people have been left in the dark about what happened yesterday with midnight society and I, and we made the painful decision collectively, to have me step down. Our team is full of incredibly talented and good people that have high career ambitions and families and i’d never want jeopardize the culture we have carefully crafted.
Everyone has been wanting to know why I was banned from twitch, but for reasons outside of my control, I was not allowed to say anything for the last several years. Now that two former twitch employees have publicly disclosed the accusations, I can now tell you my side of the story regarding the ban.
Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual. I went through a lengthy arbitration regarding a civil dispute with twitch and that case was resolved by a settlement. Let me be clear, it was not a criminal case against me and no criminal charges have ever been brought against me.
Now, from a moral standpoint I’ll absolutely take responsibility. I should have never entertained these conversations to begin with. That’s on me. That’s on me as an adult, a husband and a father. It should have never happened. I get it. I’m not perfect and I’ll fucking own my shit. This was stupid.
Now, with all this said, don’t get it fucking mistaken, I’ve seen all the remarks and labels being throw around so loosely. Social media is a destruction zone. I’m no fucking predator or pedophile. Are you kidding me? Anyone that truely knows me fucking knows where I stand on those things with those types of people. Fuck that. That’s a different level of disgust that I fucking hate even hearing about. Don’t be labeling me as the worst of the worst with your exaggerations. Get the fuck outta here with that shit.
But I think I’ve said what I needed to say regarding the ban itself. That’s it. That’s why twitch made the decision in 2020.
To my team, community, industry friends that have supported me, I apologize, I wish I could’ve said all this sooner. You guys have always showed me and my family love and support throughout all these years we love you guys like you can’t imagine. I have the fucking best community and circle. If any of this has made you uncomfortable, I get it. You don’t have to support me anymore but just know you have always been greatly appreciated.
But trust me when I say this…to all my haters that live and breath social media with zero real life experience, I don’t give a fuck about you.
Finally, if you’re uncomfortable with this entire statement and think I’m a piece of shit, that’s fine. But I’m not fucking going anywhere. I’m not the same guy that made this mistake all those years ago. I’m taking an extended vacation with my family as mentioned on stream and I’m coming back with a heavy weight off my shoulders.
The Sonic fandom continues to amaze me. For every mountain of lewd fan art and crappy original characters created by fans, you get an incredible fangame that absolutely trumps official efforts from Sega themselves.
Pulling off a kart racer in the Legacy DOOM engine of all things is a seriously impressive feat.
I see Robotnik as an entirely separate character to Eggman. The AOSTH/Mean Bean Machine character was a bumbling idiot, and Robotnik Prime from SATAM/Archie Comics was a brutal overlord.
MapleStory’s problems aren’t just the predatory MTX shit, which got so bad that they actually released a Reboot server that disabled a lot of this stuff, but just overall content bloat.
On top of the 5 core explorer classes (Magician, Thief, Warrior, Bowman and Pirate), there are Cygnus Knights versions of these classes, and 29 overpowered hero classes that are mostly based on the 5 aforementioned class groups
Big Bang streamlined the game excessively and ruined the overall flow of Victoria Island, making it vastly more linear. It also made Ossyria much higher levelled. Whereas for example you could probably survive in Aqua Road as a level 35, it now has a level 80 requirement. One of my characters is stuck near Ariant because they changed the second zone to be a 120 zone.
I’ll wait and see what Nintendo announce, but it’s likely that I’ll be skipping this gen too.
There are very few AAA games that actually interest me right now. I have little reason to get a PS5 and even fewer reasons to buy an Xbox Series console. If hell truly freezes over and the Switch successor turns out to be a far more powerful console with better online capabilities, then I just might buy it.
I’d be more supportive of Valve if Team Fortress 2 wasn’t a dumpster fire to play in 2024. The game is infested with bots that make anything outside of independently moderated community servers unplayable.
Even Counter Strike 2 has dogshit anticheat despite the boasts that VAC Live was a solution that could surpass Vanguard, to the point where the only good competitive experience you can have is to play on FaceIt or ESEA servers with their own ring 0 anticheat solution.
I don’t understand what market the PlayStation Portal was designed for.
You’re basically paying £200 for a DualSense controller MacGyver’d on a tablet screen that can only remote play PS5 games or stream from PSNow. There are both cheaper and better options which support not just Sony’s ecosystem but also other gaming platforms.
Not to mention that cloud gaming in general just sucks.