forameus

Well that was a load of fucking guff, wasn't it? A couple - at best - solid-to-good matches, but Jeeeeeesus they're struggling with no crowds. No point to anything really, and the only storyline progression given there's no titles was Rollins presumably off to be the World's Crossfittiest Da, and Lana being...something. They even fucked up the latter by jobbing out pretty much everyone else, just so they could give her a moment where she did f**k all. Why not have her stand up to people before that? What's the point? And to top it all off, 30 years of the Undertaker topped off with a confusing and self-indulgent segment. When Flair retired, they did it right, getting everyone together that mattered and making it a heart-warming celebration of the wrestler he was. I know we can't really get that with someone so devoted to his character as Undertaker, but what's the point in bringing out all these wrestlers from the past just for them to stand there with no audience, then disappear, then have Vince come out and be on the edge of tears while looking like someone wearing a Vince skin-suit (badly). And then have what seemed like an hour of Undertaker walking down, around the ring, saying about 10 words, then slowly walking out again? And that not to mention what I assume were the botches with the audio all through the segment. I kept expecting something to happen at the end, even something hinting that maybe we get something with the Fiend, but naw. Just pish. They better have something pretty good planned for RR to WM, because it's been largely fucking meh arguably since Drew won the Rumble in January.

Stakes is the operative word. Its just such an easy fix that would make "brand warfare" actually mean something. Give the brand that wins the 30 spot in the rumble, or opener and maim at Wrestlemania, or a fucking turkey leg for the winners, just SOMETHING.

You're right about that, and it often helps EA. There is pretty much nothing that won't get moaned about on, say, Reddit. Except maybe card designs, which everyone seems to w**k themselves silly over for some reason. But if you moan about everything, it just becomes noise that you end up tuning out, so when they do something that deserves criticism, less are going to listen. Suits them fine. Yeah, the season rewards look pretty uninspiring. Especially because now to get a good coverage and enough XP, and decent rewards, in a week you're probably going to have to play the best chunk of 30 Rivals games, probably about 10 Squad Battles games, anything between 5 and 20 friendlies games (depending if there's a player objective you're interested in), and then maybe some extra Rivals games if there's specific objectives you didn't want to do during the Rivals games that matter. So say we keep that 30, 10, 10 and 10 for those, that's 20 hours a week JUST on playing matches. It's just overwhelming, and not a lot of fun a lot of the time.

I suppose if you look at the Witcher 3, was there ever really anything that revolutionary about the gameplay? It was one of my favourite games of all time, but in hindsight it didn't really do that much special in the gameplay. It was all about the world, the story, and the way things had been put together. So in that sense, the game could still be great. But generally I have to agree. Anything I've seen looks a bit...ordinary. Particularly with the huge amount of hype that's been put behind the game.

CLeared up SBCs from yesterday, and started to see if I had any full squads to complete the League SBCs, but then...what's the point? Hadn't realised how just how shit the rewards were. Ooft.

I thought they'd end up going down a route kind of like that. Have the leagues start at the later times, and have no crowds, then just randomise the point when a vaccine magically gets announced between Christmas 2020 and Summer 2021 or something. Then everything goes back to normal post that. Adds some kind of dynamic nature to things, some kind of interest, and they could still avoid having people actually get Covid (although personally I think that would've been interesting).

Did you know, there's actually one of WWE's big 4 at the weekend? No? Fair enough. Card looks...alright, I guess. Definitely going to be some decent matches in there, but they really don't seem to care too much about it, particularly when in past years they've really leaned into things to deliver largely nonsensical, but at least enjoyable stories around things. Two years ago Becky got her face punted in, last year they used the Saudi debacle to launch NXT into things, and this year they've...had Drew McIntyre say some cross words to Roman Reigns? Once again just seem to be trying desperately to play out the year and hope for crowds in 2021. Spinning their wheels very slowly.

Yeah, I get why they did it and I know they made a conscious decision. Fair enough, even if I don't agree with it. It's purely a personal opinion, as it seemed like going any further would be extremely unpopular with a lot of people. I can understand that viewpoint too, even if I don't reallyget it. I was just looking forward to something a bit different, and now I'm tossing my toys out. Harrumph.

Anyone know if the 5 is better with other bluetooth headphones than the 4 was? Would love to be able to use my very expensive bluetooth headphones without having to be tethered to the controller by the cable I can never find. Would also be nice if they fixed the "sound skips when you press R2" problem that plagued the 4. Picked mine up earlier tonight, haven't managed to switch it on properly (fucking work) so it's just sitting looking like a big fucking b*****d above me. Will probably need a trip to Ikea to get its own fucking unit the fat c**t. EDIT: Sitting here with a big stupit childlike grin on my face, and I've only started AStro's Playroom so far. I know it'll probably end up gimmicky, but the controller stuff is really cool.

You say that, but although it's a really poor decision from our perspective, I expect it's going to count for f**k all. People are angry, but the majority of people are fucking fickle. Black Friday will be along soon, and they'll chuck out a few lightning rounds and 2-for-1 promos, and most will forget about it. Some will still bitch, but they'll continue sinking hours and hours into the game regardless. And what does that end up meaning? EA get away with it. I'm getting less and less urge to play the game as each catastrophic decision comes in though. Basically using it as a mobile game now with the companion app, and will probably continue to do so. I'd say Icon Swaps might be the point I come back, but I dread to think what fuckery they've got planned for that.

No, as far as I know it's just season 1, everything goes back to normal after. The identical seasons part was because that's how FM usually is, nothing really changing outside of the players involved. Been a problem with FM for ages for me, everything just seems so sterile. Was hoping that Covid would at least give one season where things seemed different. Instead we just get a few months of dead time.

Anyone else finding the "Covid" implementation a bit shit now it's actually out? I started as Thistle, and it's just months of dead time just to fit the schedule. There's still crowds (I would've added that in) and no mention of why the leagues are like that. I wouldn't have put Covid in as an injury or anything, but it just seems a bit half-arsed, and a missed opportunity to add a wrinkle you never usually get in endless, identical, soulless seasons.

Doubt you'll see much improvement. I think the rot has very much set in with the game, and people have settled into the pattern that they'll use for the rest of the cycle. People like to talk about there always being an update that ruins things, and although there's probably been tweaks, I expect it's just the point in the game where the majority turn towards the sweatiest tactics. Been taking a break from this, or at least playing matches, just mucking about with SBCs on the app. Think I managed about half of my Rivals games last week, and the rewards were pretty pish for a middling rank (because of course EA are gearing everything towards you putting an abnormal amount of time into the game) so it's just not worth it. I'm not putting 10 hours plus a week into JUST Rivals anymore so I can play my 30 games, not to open a few decent packs and end up discarding 50 duplicates again. I'll play the odd game here and there, but for me EA have fucked it.

They'd rather listen to the knicker-wetters that would rather watch two of the bigger sides pass endlessly between each other and finish 0-0 than a diddy madly swinging at anything that moves. It'll be a big shame if they drop that spot.

To be fair, it really wasn't that important to me to follow up on beyond that post. Why would it be when all it was was someone being pointlessly contrarian and attention seeking?

Has the wee scrote been around since we won?

It's the difference between just putting some distinctly average players together, and putting them together with belief. We watched Northern Ireland enviously as their gang of jobbers went to tournaments and asked how they did it, how they became more than a sum of their parts. Clarke has pretty much achieved that.

Was thinking yesterday when NI still had a chance of going through and we looked like we were too. We wouldn't be the odd ones out again, watching on TV while every other nation went and had a ball. Fucking yass. Last night was brilliant, but the downgrade when bringing on the first three subs was frightening. To be fair though, the subs weren't made purely to try and keep the quality up, they were made to close out the game. McBurnie was brilliant in that role (shame that "ultimate shithouse" seems to be his limit) in previous games, but struggled there. Had we managed to defend one more corner, and McBurnie had managed to get the ball at his feet at any point and actually do what he was supposed to, those subs look a hell of a lot better. They were never meant to play 30 more minutes. I get what you mean, but we've still got players like Armstrong that could come in, Griffiths if he can get a bit of form and fitness up. Fraser if he can stay fit. We have some depth, even if it's nowhere near as deep as we'd hope.

Let's face it, I'd imagine both sides would be up for just not playing the game and having a piss-up instead, but I can't see Clarke letting that set in. Both sides will be on a wave after qualifying, but we really need to keep this going. If we can get one win from the two games, or even better stay unbeaten, we could very well go into the Euros squad announcements having not lost in fucking ages, and being effectively guaranteed a second-chance playoff spot for the next two tournaments. And the best thing is, it doesn't seem in any way like we're waiting for the run to end. We're not blowing teams away, but it's not like we're hanging on either. 4 points from these games, and who knows what we can do?

Absolutely delighted for those that took the chance of having to watch Serbia vs Croatia/Czech Republic in the hope that we'd be there. It would've looked like we stood little chance, and now you'll be watching us at a tournament. I mean, I fucking hate youz too, but you're some bois x

Still doesn't quite feel real, particularly after how utterly deflating that last minute goal was. Serbia were just soooooo pish during the game. Didn't seem to turn up at all, and in the first half they were playing like it was a friendly, just calmly stroking the ball about the back. I worried we'd run ourselves out, but we just grew into the game, and seemed like we needed that one chance. Great wee finish from Christie, and from there it looked like we'd just comfortably see it out. Then one mistake, and from there we looked like the old Scotland. We still defended well, but we'd made our subs to close the game out. McBurnie was utterly hopeless again, and I just couldn't see us do it. But then I forgot we're fucking shit hot at penalties, so not a problem. I've never been so glad for someone to score as McBurnie. If he'd missed, he may as well have left the stadium and disappeared, he'd be done. Mitrovic was never going to score either. Fucking qualified. f**k me.

Forgot we had MM in all the excitement of last night. Cannae wait to see what shite I get out of them.

I always wonder with Steve Clarke how different he is talking to players, because he sounds about as inspiring as a wet lockdown weekend in interviews.

I got to my last pack and saw the usual flare, expected nothing. It was Varane untradeable. Wow, great, that'll be a nice 300k as I replace the tradeable one I bought... Oh no wait, he was the one La Liga player I had that was untradeable. Great. Makes him essentially worth around 10k as SBC fodder if I recover him from quick-sell.

Is that the one where they chuck everyone into a small space and it's just absolute chaos? Has that gotten any better? Remember playing it when it first came out and although it had a certain novelty in the chaos, it just descended into getting murdered by snipers who have much more time to spend on the game.