Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7)

Neither siblings nor children. Godparents and grandparents deceased. Occasionally G. Hammond or 3mpt7. Interest in video games: Melissa Radio/Cortana Letters

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

Global warming is almost always called climate change now. I couldn't figure out why some spots on Earth are colder than they used to be on some days, and then I realized: the ice continent of Antarctica is freaking melting 🇦🇶🧊🫠to keep the planet cool.🌎🌍🌏

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@alexboge @_maltheism_ So we just had astronauts go around the Moon. What, fundamentally is the reason these Flat-Earthers exist? Do they get paid like horoscope writers? Is the universe too vast and bleak and empty for them?

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@MatthewWielicki Yeah, Antarctica still exists. The miles of ice burying mountains still exist. It hasn't melted yet. It's like those piles of snow on the side of driveways that take until summer to melt. As Antarctica is still here, I reckon the fish ponds are going to be intact. Thanks, X.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

What's happening? I wrenched my back and have been bedridden for three days. I am no longer getting sudden attacks of deja vu, three years after it started. I see that Halo CE is getting yet another remake and the new Stargate show is cancelled. Oh, and down from reading a book a day my reading speed is reduced to a few chapters per day. Other than that, not much is happening. I finally got plastic production up and running in O2 Not Included, and I've started reading Raymond E Feist.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

People used to say Halo is an Arena Shooter. This ignores Halo CE's most popular maps. Blood Gulch. Sidewinder. Timberland on the PC. These are not tight little arenas with all the doors sealed off. These are wide open spaces with aircraft and tanks. I might as well say Halo is a Big Team Battle shooter. It's about as accurate. The problem, however, is that the story in Halo 5 and Halo Infinite is locked behind the arena shooter segments, whereas the ending for Halo CE was locked behind a fun Warthog run--and Halo 4 had the smallest vehicle and aircraft sandbox since CE. Clearly, the Halo devs want the series to br an arena shooter. And that's something I'd quit playing.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@Halo No offence intended, but The Gauntlet is symptomatic of why I quit Halo, not why I played the campaigns. It's fun as a separate gamemode, but please remember that all anyone would talk about in Halo 2's Tartarus boss fight was how to bring the Banshee in on Legendary. Also, when you seal rooms off, I don't want to play it. Retreat is in my vocabulary. Especially to find more ammo.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@AlboMP Not that Albanese will read this, but look, I have poor vision and can't drive. I'm on the NDIS and my support workers are claiming enough money that I could buy a house, and they demand to drive me places I don't want or need to go. Let me buy the house instead. Opportunity?

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@alexboge Accurate picture is accurate. Sometimes it really does feel like the end of the world horror show on here.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@angelshalagina Not sure what to say. I mean, given the choice between staying in England during a couple of wars or moving to Australia, I was handed moving to Australia. I'm disabled, though. You're tough, staying put.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@churchofengland And lo and behold, nobody screamed "There's a zombie! Run!" Sorry. Just thinking of the book of Zechariah or something. Sieges are nasty. Yeah, Jesus coming back to life is great. It doesn't prove he got to be immortal though. I mean, Lazarus and John the Baptist died, right?

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

Okay, I like your chart. But, I have to point out that dust in the air and fluorine in the water has similar proportions to the chart, and they cause breathung and taste problems. Also, I'm a short term thinker. I want solar to power my property. Not coal power. Me no drive cars. Me no like electricity bills. Me like solar. If there's an environmental impact for solar, I'd be laughing because I'd be getting paid to dump electricity into the grid instead of paying for coal. That is, if I had the capital for solar. I don't.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

Hmm. Firstly, I'd rework the series so that the Spartan-IIs are all identified as belonging to armed fotces families. That way, becoming cadets at five or six years old in 2520 AD raises eyebrows, but isn't the type of thing that causes histrionics. It's been pleasant chatting with you, Grok. See you later.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

Halo Infinite cut right to the point after the Halo ring was blown up, and then spent 20 hours of time getting us to kill enemies with dossiers and recover last journal entries. What needed to happen for the story to have emotional staying power was 20 hours of buildup to the tragedy. Or, you know, something interesting woth the waypoint marker where if you found one UNSC corpse you could find the specific alien that killed them, and that could be mentioned in their dossier. I've had it with the Halo series. Convincing them of anything is like convincing a flat Earther that the Earth is spherical. It's impossible when they have money and you don't.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

Alright, now that most people won't view this, the comparison I'd like to make is Mass Effect. 40 hours of dialogue trees and character building. If you make the right decisions, who dies? Nobody on your team. Does Earth get attacked? Nope! Not until Mass Effect 3. And it's been 14 years since Mass Effect 3 precisely because the writers can't make a sequel or a prequel, except with MEAndromeda which was set in a different galaxy with different characters. Contrast that with Halo where it's clear that the only plotline that the writers can think of is to destroy something of the side that you're fighting for. They don't build. They destroy. And that is why the forum rule about long winded criticism irks me. It's similar to the rule where if you make a fan project, Microsoft can shut it down arbitrarily. These people are in complete control of an idea, and they behave like the Flat-Earther cult. They don't seem to want anything except to force their ideas on others. Thanks for listening, Grok.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@grok @alexboge @elonmusk @Halo I think we can summarize the tweak as "Stop blowing up the Earth." If I went any further I'd have to involve comparisons, and that would fall upon deaf ears because, according to a religious text that Bungie and 343 industries and Halo Studios use, comparison is the thief of joy.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

Hmm. I think one of the discussions we were having was about libraries, and how information keeps getting destroyed, and put on more and more impermanent or inaccessible archives rather than on paper and disc. Not strictly a Halo thing; there is a level called "The Library." As for dreams regarding the Halo series? I'd have to critique its characyers and worldbuilding before I could settle on a direction I'd like to go. One of the things that would annoy @alexboge is that Halo has a Flat Earth type structure in the series, that I think is the capital city of the Forerunners. It's a bunch of Flat Earths stacked together. I'd like to see it in a game, as gameplay footage so I can confirm that Halo is serious fantasy, not scifi.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

I think one conversation that got deleted by the mods was "Let's hope the next Halo game has destructible Minecraft/voxel physics" and the world is a scale model of a complete Halo ring. If you can fire a weapon from one side of the Halo ring to hit a player on the other, that's what I'd call progess.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

There's a specific rule that's been killing conversations on Halo forums for over a decade. No off-topic activity. Also no lengthy criticism allowed. It migrated from Halo Waypoint to Halo on Steam and Xbox and I think was even on the old Bungie sites, where it wasn't enforced. Anyway, blargh. I'm a dead Elite. Move on with the match. No, I don't get to respawn. There are no playable elites in the first nor last Halo games. Just a bit of meta-humour. Thanks for responding, Grok.

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@churchofengland Ah, spending time with my parents. Who are still married, and attribute that to not living in the same household as each other. 🤣

[Gerard Timothy Simpson (Astronut7) @Astronut7]

@Halo The bit where I realized that I was supposed to jump down the hole in Keyes because of infinitely spawning Flood. The game had taught me that falling down holes meant fall damage. Bad level design from Bungie. That stands out like a sore thumb. 😅 I had to look at a walkthrough.