JasonM

I mean, fwiw, there's also the fact it's a 128 player tournament draw without even accounting the qualifiers. That's already one of the things that sets it apart from even the masters which save for Wells/Miami are 56 players. It's a monster two week tournament where (as we're seeing right now) big upsets can happen. And I don't feel the WTA slam or the doubles feel any less 'major' despite being 3 set affairs, the tournament itself has that kind of aura where you are near certain you're going to get big upsets and big matchups. But I can see both sides, from a competition standpoint there's definitely merit in having the Grand Slams be 5 set behemoths, but from a spectator's standpoint it feels like a drag more often than not.

Honestly, the best of 5 format is one of the things I least like about watching Grand Slam's. Sure, it tends to create some of the most gripping matches like Federer/Nadal Wimbledon 08, but they also make for some excruciatingly long matches, and even foregone conclusions mean those matches last another 45-60 minutes beyond its expiration date. I prefer best of 3, I find the WTA Slams to be much easier to watch somewhat casually where I can sit down and watch a full match from start to finish. Best of 5's just become a huge investment, and especially on a slam like the AO where the time zone is hell for me, I can't watch any of the matches.

Here's hoping Griekspoor can beat Tsitsipas, but I am not holding my breath

Andy Murray has probably become the most formidable bogey player on the tour in past years, he's an absolute monster for anybody to face in early rounds, and whilst he's been able to work up his stock again after his terrible injuries in years past, he always struggles to get into the second week of any major tournament due to his body not being able to handle it. But watching him in early matches like these, he's still a bonafide top 10 player that can beat near enough anybody that isn't named Alcaraz, Nadal or Djokovic. Just wish that he could really get a deep run in a major tournament to give him a title he deserves, maybe not a Slam but a 500/1000 would be so sweet to see him be able to get. On the Dutch front, sadly Hartono got knocked out in the first round but full props to her for getting into the main draw as a 200+ ranked player on the WTA tour... Meanwhile Van der Zandschulp and Griekspoor won their first round matches, but they will have to face each other in the second round which should be an interesting cagey duel because they've trained together so much in their careers. On the one hand a shame we'll have only one player in the 3rd round, but with how tough these tournaments are, having one guaranteed third round player beats possibly having none.

Also on the topic of hiring staff. I am probably an absolute dingus for not realizing it sooner, but I found out late in FM22's cycle that Fitness and Goalkeeping coaches work for all squads when they're signed on a first team deal. So having a few really great Fit/GK coaches can lift up the entire club whilst still allowing you to fill out the U23/U18 with top notch youth-focused coaches (or in my case, using the U23 to build up talented coaches to a Seniors/U18 level.

"Sure, we unanimously agreed to a 200M entry fee. But we now unanimously agree we didn't expect anybody to be able to hock up the price, so we're unanimously deciding to ignore our own precedent and jack up the price some more" And when they somehow get 600M, they'll probably push it to a billion because they like a round number. This entire thing is just fully establishing that the voting power of the teams need to be heavily curbed because they're detrimental to the actual sport. I can understand protecting (financial) interests, but when after so long of famine they finally get a few reputable clubs to show up, suddenly they're clutching their pearls. Of course, the demands are conveniently only levied to an independent side like Andretti-Cadillac, and not against AUDI or Porsche. The double standards are embarrassing.

Who are you to doubt FC Nottingen.

Wrexham was extremely nervous when they went the man up and the three up. But also full beans to Coventry for trying to fight back from that deficit.

Honestly, if it leads to the season schedule to be extended by a week or maybe two in future seasons, that can only help things in the long term. Also I have zero issues with dropping the pro bowl, it's always been one of the weirder All-Star game kind of affairs because with how physically draining Football is an extra game is just more reasons for injury, and many athletes already forgo playing in the pro bowl for those exact reasons. Could be possibly replaced with a skills competition or some other sort of showcase event on the Friday/Saturday instead, but idk what the logistics would be on that. EDIT: @Chris2K has corrected my notions of the pro bowl.

I don't know if you're interested in 'nationbuilding', but I have always been enamored with the idea of picking up a mid-tier European league and trying to see how far I can get (until I burn out) in putting that nation on the major European stage. Croatia and Serbia tend to be good nations since they regularly produce good talent and have reasonably good registration laws allowing you to import some 'local talent' from beyond too. Austria also could be a good shout, although the small league size is a turnoff. A club like Austria Klagenfurt is interesting though since they never won a league title, but have the biggest stadium in the nation at 32K (Beyond the National Stadium) and some decent facilities, it could be a nice stepping stone to challenge moneybags Red Bull and the old Viennese order of Rapid/Austria Wien. Downside to Austria is the tiny 22 game playing schedule, and just general sense of 'small time' even when you eventually start growing the team and the league (by funneling money into other teams).

Well, technically in the dying hours of 2022. But I have finished my playthrough of Trails in the Sky FC. As far as JRPG's go I really enjoyed it mostly because it was at most a 50-ish game rather than the usual JRPG game that goes 100+ with all the side stuff. And I managed to get most of the side quests bar a few that were hidden and I failed to find. The graphics also appealed to me, kinda like Harvest Moon 64 characters but in a steampunk-ish JRPG instead. Very fun, very enjoyable, and with a whammer of a cliffhanger at the end I have of course picked up the sequel in the GOG sale to continue the fun for another go around.

I watched Glass Onion two days ago and I also repeat the gushing over it, it was absolutely delightful. It was extremely dense, and it took a while to get into the meaty bits, but since most of the mystery was about the setup it of course was genuinely fun to see all those little bits and red herrings that threw you off. The eventual reveal, albeit a bit cheating through unreliable narration, was great. It's hard to really say which one I liked better, though. Glass Onion was grand in every way, by design, seeing it was all about an out of touch tech billionaire having a self-indulgent wank session about his brilliance. But I liked Knives Out's more quaint setting, and more personal stakes. But I think that's where the brilliance of the franchise lies already, they can switch it up from one film to the next. Put in Benoit Blanc, add an ensemble around it, and present a different mystery presented in a different way. The lack of a distinct formula sets it above other whodunits, you go in expecting a mystery but you won't directly know what it'll end up being.

It's too early to tell, but after last night's ridiculous display he definitely is up there... But just in the past two decades alone you had Kobe, LeBron, and Dwight Howard all carrying some woeful clubs to the finals or thereabouts. And there's of course Dirk Nowitzki, who for the longest part of his career had to make do with average talent himself, so it's the Mavericks tradition to give our stars nothing to work with. I honestly feel frustrated for Luka, because of course the historical 60/20/10 performance is in the record books, he literally had to hard carry the team just to stay in the game last night, and did all the work to get them the win. That must be utterly exhausting and frustrating to do, because if you get him a Jason Terry-esque #2 who can carry a part of the load then it'll be much healthier for all. Kristaps was not going to work out with his injury proneness and just mismatched style, and the choice to let Brunson walk is probably going to hurt for a long time. But surely there's got to be somebody that they can bring in that will give win games for the team and not require Luka to be 110% every single night of an 82+ game season?

And despite going nearly double of Andy Cole's record, his average rating is only a 8.14? Just FM things

@Chris2K, the biggest thing you'll run into with Y3 is that it's the roughest game of them all. It was the first step away from the PS2 games and had a bunch of quality of life changes for its time, but it's also the oldest title that hasn't been given a glow up in the form of a Kiwami game. So it's very... uneven and rough. Also it probably has the most bullshit fight AI in any of the games, like having to fight peak Shao Khan with every boss battle, getting blocked constantly and then walloped with mega moves. It'll test your patience, and taking a lower difficulty is not an excessive luxury. Everything combined makes Yakuza 3 a weird middle child compared to all the other games. Yakuza 4 in turn is the first one that feels modern in terms of how it plays, all the different fighting styles and the mix of playable protagonists, it's arguably the point where the franchise really was at its best. Also in my opinion, Yakuza 3 probably has the weakest story, but on the positive side most of the early game takes place outside of Kamurocho in a new area that hasn't been present in 0-YK2, so that'll be a breath of fresh air.

Either him or Bounou. Letting through only one goal (two if you count the own goal from the Group stages) AND stopping Spain in the pennos is an insane effort in its own right.

Honestly I am surprised we've not had a 'long shot era' yet. With players becoming more and more skilled, the long shot often gives a player the most open space to lace one at goal. Kinda like how in the past decade the three point shot has become THE shot in basketball, to the point where near enough everyone needs to be able to shoot one and it's become a game where you either take a dunk/layup or you shoot from behind the arc, and anything in between is sub-optimal. Football has gone the other way, from speculative crosses and shots to (pardon the meme) trying to walk it in. Playing in such a way that it creates an opportunity for a forward to run past the last man to slide one in after a lot of build up play. Although it's clear this world cup that counter football is making its resurgence, with the Netherlands making it into the QF's and the most logical extreme in Morocco having a goal difference of 5-1 (with the one goal against being an Own Goal), it's a new generation of shithouse football with an extreme emphasis on positioning rather than old timey 'clog the box' that good teams can play through. It's honestly what draws me into EC/WC the most, it feels like it's a really nice barometer for the state of Football in terms of what happens on the field.

Decided to watch a compilation of the goals scored in 2002, and it's actually very novel and insightful to see how massively the nature of the game has changed away from "Run and hoof, kick everything at goal" to the heavily skill focused game we have now. Especially compared to now, the defenses then were absolute shambles and even great keepers like Khan, Barthez, and Seaman made some absolutely shocking moves that wouldn't even get you a spot on the bench nowadays let alone starting in the world cup. But it has also made me a bit nostalgic, because it felt a lot more chaotic with so many headers and pot shots going in.

https://www.pcgamer.com/after-spending-20-years-simulating-reality-the-dwarf-fortress-devs-have-to-get-used-to-a-new-one-being-millionaires/ After being developed for free for two decades, the paid version of Dwarf Fortress has sold 160k units in the first 24 hours and hit 300K in only a week of being on Steam. That's on top of the fact that the same game is still available for free on their website, with the only difference that the steam version has a 'modern' UI to streamline things, it's exactly the same game. As someone who has played DF on and off for the past 8 or so years, this is just an amazing result for Zach and Tarn to hit paydirt with an amazing passion project of a game, that will continue to be developed going forward. If anybody hasn't played Dwarf Fortress, you should genuinely check it out. It inspired games like Prison Architect, Rimworld, and Oxygen not Included to a significant degree, and is one of the grandfathers of roguelike and citybuilding that doesn't really have an equal in terms of scope, depth, and just randomness, on top of difficulty.

I'd start with XP and have 98 just incase, but as @John MickClane my experience with XP has been quite good with near enough every game from around 97 and beyond. Including being able to run some notoriously tricky games to get running like Gangsters and Constructor.

I haven't tried MWO due to the aforementioned freemium nature of it, but I am very much big into BattleTech. Have put hundreds of hours into the turn based strategy game, and currently doing a coop career in MW5 with all the dlc. Afterwards will probably start a career mode with mods enabled. How is mwo, I assume it's PvP?

That, but also Livakovic clearly doing his homework and knowing what corner players are likely to pick. For goalies it's all mindgames and homework, and during a clutch shootout most players will go to what they know will work, figure that out and you basically tip the scales in your favor because either you get a chance at it or it forces the player to adjust which increases the chance of them fucking up the kick.

That's the scariest stopper/closer I have ever seen. The fact he chucks two types of trash at such an insanely high level is absolutely wild. On top of having 75 stamina, so he could basically get pulled out of the bullpen with minimal rest.

I suddenly feel like a boomer (despite being a 32yo) at someone mentioning Slade as "Some British band". 🤔

The writing had been on the wall for Mick for a while now, and it became obvious when his deal with Ferrari ended that his relationship with Haas had quickly gotten to the point where the team didn't see value in him. Is it premature, maybe a little, but he struggled a lot and when Magnussen returned it became more evident that he wasn't delivering what Haas wanted. There can even be made something of a case that he came in on his name, but I'd say that's a tad unfair. Hulkenberg, who I absolutely adore as a driver, does not do anything for the future of F1, but Haas has made the decision that in their situation they simply don't want to deal with mercurial youngsters and prefer proven veterans. And Hulk brings that with him. I don't see the man's podium drought ending soon, but good on him for getting back even if one has to wonder what Haas can even offer him, beyond a drive, but maybe that's enough for Hulk. Should be an interesting situation, I expect them to get on, but there's still that simmering beef between KMag and Hulk that has to be addressed properly. Anyways, I expect this to be the end of the road for Mick, he'll get picked up for reserve duties and name value somewhere, but I am hard pressed to see him get another seat unless he get lucky...