Don't let the media set the narrative! I am still seeing a lot of commentary published in various financial outlets stating that the 'silver short squeeze has failed' and other such nonsense. Most people just accept what they are told with no critical evaluation process. The initial surge in the price of silver last week was hammered flat with a barrage of paper contract sales. The banks engaged in this scam know that most people only see the spot price movement, and most traders playing the paper game will never call for delivery of physical bullion. So the scam to sell unlimited paper options did the trick in the short term, creating the appearance of a failed breakout and the media shills are doing their thing to support this illusion.
This is a process folks. It will not be resolved in one big day of silver gains, or one week of surging interest. And it will NOT be over after one big counterattack by the banks. We won the first round. Look at the number of new members just on this one forum. Look at the magnitude of interest across the spectrum as retail players are coming to recognize the false paradigm of paper metals that controls the price. The message is getting out on various popular alt-media outlets and this is only the start.
I believe we are headed towards more than 1 million members on this forum alone. I see countless posts from individuals that have bought some bullion and taken it off the market in just the last few days. Collectively this is going to make a big difference. One thing I learned from stacking early on is that my bullion is my personal savings. I may blow through cash in the bank on impulse or even sell some shares in my trading account if I need to get my hands on money. But I do not ever sell an ounce of my bullion stash. And I think that commitment is going on around the world as millions of individuals opt to lock in some wealth that is not going to see the market again anytime soon.
The squeeze is not about forcing over-leveraged banks to shift to a long posture, or close out contracts that were never going to result in silver delivery. The real squeeze is a drive to own physical bullion. There is only so much physical silver supply available at this ridiculous price range. With every bar taken off the market that supply gets further resticted. The fucking banks cannot stop that if the demand from individuals remains strong. In fact, the more the banker crooks play paper games the cheaper it is for the rest of us to buy real metal. The industrial consumers of silver are very much aware of what is going on behind the scenes and they will begin to stockpile inventory if they feel the available supply is threatened. That is when the real squeeze gets underway.
Do not let the media force the narrative. I never see mainstream commentary that points out the obvious banker intervention to suppress the metals. There is never any attempt to report the absurdity of hundreds of millions of ounces of silver contract leverage turning over in a single trading day at the rigged casino. Comex is a handful of banks that have no silver, selling promises to thousands of reckless gamblers that have no intention of buying any silver, and they call it a 'market'. And the media commentary is presented by a cadre of talking heads that could not tell a rock from a baked potato. It has carried on for this long because not enough people were interested in silver to make a difference. I think that is changing. Just buy the fucking metal and wait this out.

I am not Xenonetix, but I am a big fan of his (he has many big fans). Any similarities between him and me are purely coincidental and SHOULD NOT be looked into. Anyway, here are 50 reasons why Xenonetix was the best owner of Everybody Edits and should be given control of the game again.

1. He was the sole creator of NPC's.
   
2. He successfully rebooted the game with Everybody Edits Universe.
   
3. He is a logician and thus a natural leader.
   
4. He is an expert at handling finances.
   
5. He started his own business known as Zendroforce.
   
6. His name is Chris, making him like Benjaminsen.
   
7. All of his staff loved him because he treated them well.
   
8. He always pays his debts, even when Satanya doesn't.
   
9. He was great with the community, even being in an Among Us server with them.
   
10. He loved gaming.
    
11. He is amazing at music and treated the game's musicians with utmost respect.
    
12. Women love him, and he has topped someone's Daddy List before.
    
13. He got Joshua Stone on the development team.
    
14. He made Patreon vlogs.
    
15. He is an amazing human being.
    
16. He is great with mentally unstable minors.
    
17. Minors love him very much.
    
18. He is willing to fight for Everybody Edits.
    
19. https://twitter.com/EE__Universe
    
20. He is always trying to improve.
    
21. His name is not Anna.
    
22. He has experience in teaching.
    
23. He worked for a casino, so he knows how to generate revenue.
    
24. He was there for Everybody Edits when nobody else was.
    
25. He is extremely intelligent.
    
26. The community loved him so much that they made memes about him.
    
27. He defended his staff dating anyone no matter their gender, race, age, or culture.
    
28. SHE TRICKED ME! SHE FUCKING TRICKED ME!
    
29. He never gave up on the game.
    
30. He graciously allowed John to pay to keep the original Everybody Edits up because it was his passion.
    
31. He hired Security-Drone and Minisaurus.
    
32. He enlightens everyone around him.
    
33. He didn't FUCKING DESTROY THE FUCKING GAME HE WORKED FUCKING YEARS ON LIKE SATANYA DID
    
34. He put up with unruly staff members if the community wanted him to and fired others if it didn't want him to.
    
35. He has a very large penis.
    
36. He helped defend the game from multiple hack attempts.
    
37. He introduced amazing new smileys and blocks into the game.
    
38. He is a revolutionary gentleman.
    
39. Everyone loves him.
    
40. SATANYA WHY DID YOU RUIN MY FUCKING LIFE
    
41. He put the game's success over everything else in his life.
    
42. He likes Final Fantasy and Undertale and thus has amazing inspiration for game design.
    
43. He prevented spam on his forums by editing out the spammy parts of messages instead of just deleting said messages.
    
44. He sold the game for way less than it was worth in hopes it would be in good hands.
    
45. SHE FUCKING LIED
    
46. He is not Satanya.
    
47. He is only known by two usernames, Megalamb and Xenonetix.
    
48. Satanya is known by three usernames which is very confusing compared to Xenonetix.
    
49. He has an INTP personality type.
    
50. He puts up with horrible, childish players for the greater good.
    

If people can't see this now, Everybody Edits and all it stood for is truly doomed.

A new day, a new guide.
This is the hardest one of the guides I wanted to make, because the information is never easy to get, which is weird. So please forgive me if I missed some changes, and by all means tell me if I missed any of them or if any of them are incorrect.
Since this list is really long, this guide is going to come in parts, this part covers:

• Valkyrie Profile (PSX) vs Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (PSP vs iOS & Andriod).
  
• Chrono Trigger (SNES) vs Chrono Trigger (PSX vs NDS vs iOS & Andriod vs PC).
  
• Star Ocean 2 (PSX) vs Star Ocean: Second Evolution (PSP) vs PS4 (JP.ver).
  
• The Last Remnant (Xbox360) vs The Last Remnant Remastered (PC vs PS4 & Switch).
  
• Tales of Vesperia (Xbox360) vs Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (PS4/PC/Switch/Xbox One).
  
• Tales of Symphonia (GC) vs Tales of Symphonia (PS2 (JP.ver only) vs PS3/PC).
  
• Skies of Arcadia (DC) vs Skies of Arcadia: Legends (GC).
  
• Person 3 (PS2) vs Persona 3 FES (PS2 (English.ver)) vs Persona 3P (PSP).
  
• Persona 4 (PS2) vs Persona 4 Golden (Vita vs PC).
  
• .hack//G.U (PS2) vs .hack//G.U. Last Recode (PS4/PC).
  
• Final Fantasy 12 (PS2) vs FF 12: International Zodiac Job System PS2 (JP.ver only) vs FF12 Zodiac Age (PS4/PC/Switch/Xbox One).
  
• Rune Factory 4 (3DS) vs Rune Factory 4 Special (Switch).
  

Important Notes:

• This is made for Ports and Enhanced versions, so No Remakes. So this is about differences between the different versions of Chrono Trigger, and not about the differences between FF7 ps1 and FF7 Remake.
  
• The differences are taken from all over the internet, either from official sources, wikis, youtube, and even forums.
  
• I cover all the changes for a game, unless there is too many, in which case I will highlight the ones worth mentioning.
  

~ Valkyrie profile (PSX US.ver): vs Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth PSP vs iOS & Andriod. ~

Valkyrie profile PSX:

Nearly identical to the Japan version but with minor fixes in the menu screen. In the Japanese version, Characters not in the party were unable to change or learn skills nor were they able change or remove equipment. The US version allowed out of party members to change and learn skills as well as change or remove equipment without being added to the party. Also in the Japanese version, Lenneth would unequip all her skills and equipment when switching between sword and bow. The US version 'remembers' the previous setting when switching weaponry and is automatically equipped with the skills and equip. Another improvement over the Japanese version is an improved item sorting option.
There are a few instances of censoring such as Badrach's smoking.

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth PSP:

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth lacks the improvement made in US version. Rather than re-rendering the textures of the dungeon maps, TOSE cropped and upscaled the pre-rendered images to fit the portable console's screen, resulting in severe blurring in some areas. This version also removes the anime opening movie in favor of 3D CGI, animated movie. Certain key story-sequences were animated in the same style as the opening movie and can be viewed at anytime in the Gallery option in the title screen once unlocked in the story. The animated scenes include:

• Opening Movie
• Lenneth's Awakening
• Jelanda's Transformation
• Alicia witnesses Barbarossa's execution
• Lenneth's encounter with the Lord of the Undead
• Lenneth and the Homunculi
• A chance encounter between "Meril" and Lucian
• Lenneth in Weeping Lily Meadow
• Lucian's departure to Valhalla
• Hrist's Awakening
• The Sovereign's Rite
• A Ending

Other big changes are:

• An enhanced version of the original game's localization
• Square Enix cleaned up the original game's English script and additional voice over dialogue for the CG movies was recorded by New Generation Pictures, rather than the original company, TAJ Productions.

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth iOS & Andriod:

This is the PSP version being ported to iOS & Andriod, with the following changes:

• Enhanced graphics such as character portraits. >* Enhanced Text.
• Enhanced UI.
• The option to skip cut-scenes.
• In-app purchases to unlock collectibles
• Ability to turn on auto-battle.

~ Chrono Trigger (SNES): PSX vs NDS vs iOS & Andriod vs PC. ~

Chrono Trigger PSX:

Anime cut scenes created by original character designer Akira Toriyama's Bird Studio and animated by Toei Animation.
A new Extra Mode Option was added that is divided into different categories of viewable extras, that are unlocked as you finish the game, and just as shown in the picture, they are:

• Theater.
• Art Gallery.
• Music Box.
• Tech Showcase.
• Monster Data.
• Boss Data.
• Endings.
• Treasure Map.

Chrono Trigger NDS:

This version includes everything new in the PSX version, and also has big and a long list of changes and additions, which I will try to condense them as much as possible:

• Ability to play using the two screens and the touch screen, or in classic mode through a single screen.
• Added the Arena of Ages: A monster arena where You pick basic monsters and raise them to fight computer and wireless opponents.
• Added the Lost Sanctum: A sidequest during the main game. It consists of two dungeons in two different eras.
• Added the Dimensional Vortex: A extra Dungeon, available after beating the game once and appears in three different eras. Each dungeon is different.
• A lot of New Items.
• New Enemies in the new dungeons, in the form of palette swaps of old enemies.
• One New Ending after finishing the Dimensional Vortex completely.
• New Translation that changes a lot of names form the original version to something more faithful to the Japanese version.

Chrono Trigger iOS & Android:

Both versions initially were based on the NDS version, but later on got an update to make them similar to the PC version.

Chrono Trigger PC:

Everything on the NDS version is present here except there is No Arena of Ages. What they did add however is:

• Auto-Save feature.
• Higher Resolution Graphics and update UI.
• Support for mouse and keyboard controls.
• Remastered sound and music.

~ Star Ocean: The Second Story (PSX): vs Star Ocean: Second Evolution (PSP) vs PS4 (JP.ver). ~

Star Ocean: Second Evolution:

• A New Translation that changes almost everything in the game.
• New voice actors. >* New voiced acted scenes; All major story events now have voice acting.
• New recruitable character: Welch Vineyard.
• New Private Actions and 13 new Endings.
• Unlocking the Galaxy and Universe modes now require defeating a specific number of enemies in a single playthrough rather than unlocking voices in the Voice Collection. >>>* Practically all Combat Skills have been refined, some being removed (such as Cancel, which is now automatically implemented).
• The combat system has been slightly refined, now allowing all melee fighters to perform a 3-hit combo as their normal attack.
• The Super Specialty "Bunny Call" no longer allows the player to "climb" on towns and some terrains. The player now will enter a town upon approaching while in Bunny Form, and can even activate private actions.
• All items in the inventory screen are now depicted as 2D icons instead of the original 3D models.
• Many bugs and glitches have been fixed (most notably the infamous random Cave of Trials screen freeze).
• Ring of Lightspeed (called Slayer Ring in Second Story) now works on Dias Flac.
• New character designs and portraits.
• No magic combo mechanic.
• Crafting animations are now replaced by a still 2D image.

Star Ocean: Second Evolution PS4 JP.ver:

This enhanced version was released only in Japan on the PS4, with enhanced graphics and BGM, and a DLC that helps you with the gameplay.

~ The Last Remnant (Xbox360): vs PC vs PS4 & Switch Remastered. ~

The Last Remnant PC:

This version is only available to purchase in the EU SquareEnix online store as of right now:
Battles:

• Turbo Mode is now available, and can be toggled on or off while giving orders to unions in battle. When on, battles play out at double the speed.
• Crimson Flare, a new Arcana, is now available.
• New formations, such as Eremurus Rain, are now available.
• Enemies hit considerably harder.
• Rare Monsters can have significantly higher HP than their XBOX 360 counterparts.
• Arcana require substantially more AP.
• Unique Arts now require AP.
• Remnant Arts can only be performed by union leader, Weapon Arts now require high union morale.
• Offensive Weapon Arts now increase morale when used.
• Additionally, Arcana and offensive Special Arts now raise morale by a fixed amount.
• Likewise, certain Enemy Arts now lower morale by a fixed amount.
• Wards now affect the entire union.
• Attributes required for formation upgrades are vastly different.
• Healing no longer raises morale, and morale increased by Critical Hits has been dramatically reduced.
• Union morale now fluctuates based on more conditions (IE: taking an action, successfully landing a hit, receiving damage, etc.). In the X360 version, union morale stayed somewhat static, usually changing when being healed, being KO'd/terminated, executing a successful Critical Trigger. It also did not drop to 0 whenever an offensive Special Art was executed, whereas it will do so on the PC.
• Linking additional enemies together does not increase your Battle Rank further than having fought them separately.
• Special commands, such as the use of David's Gae Bolg, are no longer interrupted by being raidlocked by a different union or having targeted enemy union defeated by an ally.
• Allies now have the option to cure a friendly union's Curse status ailment via "Cure them even if it kills them!" command. This command is in the XBOX 360 version as well, but is only available when the union is Enthralled; it will not be available when the union is cursed.

Items:

• Items are color-coded in the PC version, and a new preview feature lets you see what the item looks like in battle.
• You can now toggle between viewing the stats of a weapon or shield and viewing a preview of what it looks like in battle.
• Components and consumables are now categorized.
• Items are now color-coded based on their rarity.
• Creation or customization of some items require fewer components.
• New items available via Blueprint 4.
• Various weapon stats have changed.
• Some very rare monster-specific drops can now be split from monsters (e.g., Godwood Timber, Spiritwood Timber).

Units:

• The leader limit is no longer imposed. Unions can be composed entirely of leader units if the player desires.
• Likewise, soldiers can now be set as union leaders.
• The stat cap has been lifted for all characters to allow a maximum of 255 for each stat.
• The Seven are now recruitable after completing Union of the Golden Chalice Task #70: For Our Lord.
• Rush can now be removed from the active party.
• Khrynia can learn the new Unique Art Dual Snowpetal.
• Arts can be disabled, filtering which skills a unit may use in combat.
• Leaders' requested components are displayed when viewing their stats.
• Leaders' wield style can be changed depending on their equipped weapon.
• Shields now prevent style changes mid-battle.
• The following classes now prevent style changes: Guardian, Scout, Hunter, Wanderer, Thief, Alchemist, all Mystic classes, Vagrant, Mercenary, Aristocrat, Djin, Fortuneteller, Sage and General.
• The experience required to advance Wield Style skills has been reduced, and the experience required to advance Weapon Type skills has been increased.
• Three new classes are now available: Ataraxian, Cleric, and Ninja.
• The Guardian, Fencer, and Warrior classes now require non-sovani wield styles, and are thus not available to Sovani.
• The Gladiator class now requires Power Grip and Wards.
• Hybrid classes (Item+Combat and Mystic+Combat) can now be achieved by units who do not start in one.
• Some leaders now have a different weapon upgrade path, which caused some units to learn new Weapon Arts while others lost theirs.
• Leaders can request weapons that do not coincide with their weapon upgrade path as long as they match their equipped weapon type and size.
• Soldiers can now request weapon drops.
• Some units have had their starting Unit BR level, stats, class, equipment, arts, and hiring wage changed.

Sidequests:

• The completion of At Hatred's End is no longer required in order to activate Things Unchangeable.
• Duke of Ghor now has a … icon when you speak with him between the first, third, and fifth base battles.
• The component requirements in The Assistant have lowered.
• The DLC content is now unlocked differently; the majority of the extra content now requires the completion of certain guild tasks.
• The Leader Extraordinaire guild tasks which required three units of a single class now only require one.
• The Monsterslayer guild tasks require different enemies to be defeated.

New Game Plus and Hard Mode: After the epilogue and credits, you can now save your game. When you're taken back to the main menu, you can load this save to begin a new playthrough that carries over certain elements from your previous playthrough. You will also be given the option to start the new game in Hard Mode.
Miscellaneous:

• The PC version will warn you if you cannot leave an area without a fight.
• Auto Save is now available, which automatically saves after having changed zones or having won a battle.
• Battle Rank is now viewable outside of combat, in the party menu.
• Battle Rank progression has been slowed considerably; it takes more encounters/enemy unions terminated to increase in rank.
• Characters with … icons are now identified with markers on the map.
• Enemies can no longer be respawned by saving and reloading an adjacent area.
• New saving opportunities are now available, such as before the base's boss.
• A warning message is now displayed if you attempt to save your game in an area which you cannot leave until you defeat a boss.
• Mr Diggs's digging animations are now much quicker.
• The loading screens that explained some of the game's mechanics have been disabled.
• Many areas of the game have had their spawn tables altered or repopulated.
• Starting battle music now coincides with starting morale in most battles.
• "Turn the Tide" and "Beat the Odds" now play during the second half instead of after entering Elysion.
• Union highlighting during the selection phase has been toned down (ie: ally unions don't look quite as blue).
• Leaders in reserve no longer gain skills via the Rush only skill grind trick.
• Soldiers now slowly improve their stats in reserves.
• Camera in battle doesn't swing around as wildly anymore.
• Mitra soldiers' idle stances now come in 2 varieties: the one shared by both male and female units and the one exclusive to larger male units, rather than just the "large male mitra" stance.

The Last Remnant Remastered PS4 & Switch:

Based on the PC version, also added:

• Graphics now are in Unreal Engine 4
• A new function to run faster on the overworld.
• Extra save slots.

Yes I am salty about this if you can't tell, since they removed the PC version from steam.

~ Tales of Vesperia (Xbox360): vs PS3 vs Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition vs PS4/PC/Switch/Xbox One. ~

Tales of Vesperia PS3:

• Features full voice acting, nearly twice as much voice work as the original.
• New Characters, including 2 new playable characters: Flynn (permanantly playable now), and Patty Fleur.
• New subplots, skits, and main game quests, and sidequests.
• New mini-games
• New songs
• Remodeled towns and new towns and dungeons.
• New bosses.
• The ability to replay boss fights.
• New 8 Mystic Arts.
• New artes, skills, and equipment.
• New item: the "Artes Ball", which allows an additional eight artes shortcuts to be assigned to the previous eight slots combined with the L1 button, which allows for a maximum of 16 artes
• New character costumes

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive editionvs PS4/PC/Switch/Xbox One:

Based on the PS3 version, it has everything from it and all the DLC included for free, with higher resolution graphics depending on the system.

~ Tales of Symphonia (GC): vs PS2 (JP.ver only) vs PS3/PC. ~

Tales of Symphonia PS2 JP.ver only:

• New animated sequences.
• New Mystic Arts.
• New Unison Arts.
• New Arts for playable characters and enemies.
• New Techniques.
• The frame rate was lowered from 60 frames per second to 30 frames per second.
• New customs.
• The "Synopsis" option in the menu displays newer entries at the top
• The Casino in the game is now actually fully playable with it's own mini-games, and chips to collecet and exchange for items.
• The skits are graphically more dynamic. Portraits get larger or smaller quickly, swing from side to side, shake, and so on.
• New Titles
• More post-battle animations.
• Niflheim dungeon extended and 6 new boss characters, fought in 2 new boss battles.
• Bug Fixes
• New events to help raise affection.
• Includes new side quests, new camera angles on some cutscenes, new animated cutscenes not featured in the GameCube version

Tales of Symphonia PS3/PC:

• More customs.
• Improved character textures and improved some environments.
• Dual-audio support: Japanese and English voiceovers, which neither the PS2 or GameCube versions had
• Cutscenes support voice acting in both languages, but skits only have voice acting in Japanese. If you select English, you will just see the subtitles during skits. This is not a porting issue, as this is just how the GameCube version was.
• While the original GameCube version ran at 60fps, the Japanese PS2 port which the PS3 Chronicles HD version is based off of ran at 30fps. The Steam version can run at 40FPS.
• HD graphics

~ Skies of Arcadia (DC): vs Skies of Arcadia: Legends GC. ~

Skies of Arcadia: Legends GC:

• New Ranks for the Swashbuckler Rating system.
• Random encounters occur less frequently and load considerably faster than the Dreamcast version, and EXP offered per battle is adjusted to compensate.
• Graphically, the game sports mild improvements to character models, most noticeably adding individual fingers to the designs. The modifier volume shadows and (weirdly enough) point-mipmapping from the original release are still present.
• One of the new sidequests available is Bounty Hunting. Sailor's Guilds offer information about each person on the bounty list as they are unlocked through story progression. After reading about them, they can be found in a constant location.
• There are a number of new discoveries to be found.
• Two linked sidequests
• "Pinta Quest" minigame was removed
• DLC comes with the game.

~ Persona 3 (PS2): vs Persona 3 FES PS2 (English.ver) vs P3P PSP. ~

FES PS2 (English.ver):

• A whole additional epilogue has been added, The Answer. This chapter is only available in one difficulty setting, which is supposed to be on par with Persona 3's Hard mode.
• New Personas have been added
• Secret videos of the protagonist's dorm mates have been added to flesh them out.
• Koromaru can now be taken on walks.
• Several of the Social Links have been modified slightly, such as Tanaka being available at a different time
• Several new Quests have been added.
• New costumes can be worn in battle.
• A new event involving Chidori Yoshino was added.
• Naganaki Shrine was completely overhauled.
• A hard mode was added.
• Save data from Persona 3 can be transferred into the game,

P3P PSP:

• The Answer is not included in this verion.
• Added a Female Main Character, so now you can choose between the Male and Female MCs.
• The game lacks 3D environments and character models (outside of Tartarus), all anime cutscenes are gone, the graphics and audio quality were compressed,
• The storyline of the female protagonist features many differences from that of the male protagonist, such as new social interactions as well as Social Links.
• New voiced dialogue.
• Players have the choice of selecting Elizabeth or a male-equivalent named Theodore to be Igor's assistant in the Velvet Room.
• The ability to pick who the protagonist spends the last moments of the game with. This feature is only accessible on a New Cycle
• The Desert of Doors from the Abyss of Time seen in The Answer will still appear, however, in an extra feature known as the Vision Quest. In this mode, the party can fight stronger incarnations of the Full Moon shadow bosses — save for Arcana Magician — and partake in special battles that test the party's abilities. When all of the battles have been successfully met, a second optional boss can be fought: Margaret, Igor's assistant in Persona 4 and guardian of the Desert of Doors in P3P.
• There are now two overworld save points; Aside from the log book in the Iwatodai Dormitory, there is also one on the main character's desk at school.
• In Paulownia Mall, the police station is now the only place where the protagonist can buy equipment and sell items. Aohige Pharmacy is now a buy-only store, and Be Blue V is just a part-time work site and hangout to improve the main character's condition
• From previous versions, two difficulty modes have been added: Beginner and Maniac alongside Easy and Normal in Persona 3 and Hard in Persona 3 FES:
• A new tactic, "Direct," has been added to the game, allowing control of the party members, unlike Persona 3 and Persona 3 FES.
• The "Wait" command is replaced with the "Defense" command, and will decrease the damage and any knockdown effects of the next attack the user suffers.
• The game grants "1 More" to a combatant who attacks multiple enemies not knocking all of them down; the original Persona 3 required all hit enemies to be knocked down for a 1 more.
• Party members who have been knocked down no longer spend the turn by getting up and can act as soon as they stand.
• Upon landing a critical hit or striking an enemy's weakness, party members can follow up with a co-op attack.
• Fusion Spells from the original Persona 3 are now activated from items instead of equipping a persona and selecting it like other spells.
• Allies can now take a fatal blow to the protagonist for them if they are able.
• "Dizzy" has been added as a status effect.
• Returning to the main lobby in Tartarus no longer automatically restores the party, and must now be done for a fee via the save point (this cost varies based on the date in-game and status effects currently inflicted on the party)
• Floors can be directly returned to from the entrance of Tartarus instead of being restricted to the restore point like previous versions.
• "Tired" status no longer is inflicted during Tartarus exploration, and is inflicted to all used party members after leaving (this will only drop to "Good" if the character used was at "Great" during exploration).
• Unlike previous versions, money found by party members when split up will now be given to the protagonist.
• Party members' equipment and status can now be accessed at any time from the pause menu, unlike in previous versions, which required the protagonist to speak to them while exploring Tartarus in order to change their equipment or view their status.
• You can now control Party members directly.
• The protagonists only have access to one weapon type (instead of having access to all weapon types like in P3 and FES); the male protagonist wields one-handed swords, and the female protagonist wields naginatas. As a result, the Skills "Fist Master," "Bow Master," "1hdSwdMaster" and similar skills have all been combined into a single skill called "Weapons Master." Its skill card is called "Phys Boost," and all Personas which had learned a "master" ability (like Cybele with Bow Master) now learn "Weapons Master."
• Personas now have the ability to produce a Skill Card when raised to a specific level. Each card can be used on any Persona to teach them a skill.
• The Inari Sushi in Naganaki Shrine no longer grants random bonuses for item gaining and Tartarus explorations. Instead, it offers to duplicate Skill Cards, which will take 5 days to complete

~ Persona 4 (PS2): vs Persona 4 Golden Vita vs Persona 4 Golden PC. ~

Persona 4 Golden Vita:

• Two new Social Links.
• A New Dungeon.
• A New bad ending.
• New Difficulty levels have been added: Safety/Easy/Normal/Hard/Risky.
• Several new music tracks.
• Additional voice-over dialogue.
• Chie and Teddie have new voice actors in the English version.
• New animated cutscenes.
• More Personas, including new Ultimate Personas for the Investigation Team.
• New areas can be visited.
• New events.
• The protagonist can now explore Inaba in the evening when Dojima is not home.
• The protagonist and his friends now have motorized scooters to explore various areas.
• Costumes are now available to buy at Croco Fur, in Okina City.
• New Garden and Bug Catching features.
• The ability to choose which skills can be inherited by the Persona the protagonist is fusing.
• New scene skipping function
• If the necessary criteria for at least the good ending are fulfilled, daily activities are expanded to February 14, 2012, giving more time for events and social links.
• New epilogue has been added for the True Ending.
• The list of Requests and the Fox' emas have been modified.
• Rise can now assist the Investigation Team in All-Out-Attacks.
• Added Tag Team attacks: two members can team up to perform a united attack.
• Added Cavalry Attacks: Attacks from members of the Investigation Team that are not currently in the party.
• Spell buffs and debuffs can now be used on the same character to prolong the effect
• A new gallery menu has been added: "TV Listings." It displays bonus content unlocked through the main game at any time.
• Floors and chests in dungeons can now reset by changing floors instead of leaving the dungeon and TV world, or visiting another dungeon.

Persona 4 Golden PC:

• Bug fixes
• The game will run at up to 4K resolution with 60FPS+ as opposed to the Vita's 476p resolution and 30FPS target
• Includes dual audio language and multiple text language. The anime cutscenes now also include subtitles
• In the Steam version, the player may customize their difficulty setting at any time, in contrast to the Vita version only letting you do so on New Game Plus.The player may select a preset difficulty setting, or individually alter the following parameters
• The player may select a preset difficulty setting, or individually alter the following parameters.

~ .hack//G.U (PS2): vs .hack//G.U. Last Recode PS4/PC. ~

.hack//G.U. Last Recode PS4/PC:

• A brand new episode titled Vol.4//Reconnection, which takes place a year and three months after the events of Redemption
• HD graphical update for the whole game.
• Ability to restart the battle from the beginning if Haseo dies.
• Movement speed on foot has somewhat increased.
• The item stack size has increased from 50 to 99. The maximum number of item stacks in the inventory has increased from 30 to 90
• Item menu shortcuts and sort features
• When using an item in the field, pressing the X button repeatedly will cause the item to be used again without navigating the menu a second time.
• The maximum number of Chim Spheres and Virus Cores the player can possess has increased from 99 to 999
• Platforms now include the Platform Recovery feature, recovering a large portion of the party's HP and SP. It can only be used once per visit to a field.
• Saku and Bo no longer switch the active player based on their level being even or odd. They can instead be selected as separate options in the Party screen.
• Decreased the probability of allies selling the items the player give them.
• Voice clips for returning characters and NPCs between games have been updated to use the Volume 3 clips from the beginning, except where said clips are unavailable.
• Attack power has been increased and hit stops during attacks have been reduced to speed up the battle tempo.
• Learning weapons proficiency increased and acquired experience points increased.
• Awakening scenes can be skipped using the Option/Start button.
• Some of the really tough enemies have been made a bit easier
• Skeith’s general shot bullet speed has increased during Avatar Battles.
• Enhanced battle balance and game pacing to provide an optimal experience.
• Avatar battles now show a stun gauge over the enemy's head. Red diamonds have been added around attacks meant to be deflected using scythe slashes that are in range.
• Added suspend feature during Avatar battle gameplay.
• In Volume 3, the player is given 22 "Promise" greeting cards, meaning it is possible to do the "Forever in Love" / "Best Wishes" events with all party members in a single playthrough.
• A new Cheat Mode allowing players who want to just enjoy the story to start the game with a large amount of items, best equipment, maximum money and chim spheres, and maximum level and affection for the respective volume.
• Save files from Cheat Mode plays can be converted to the next volumes.
• The videos from “The End of the World” Terminal Disc included with the limited edition PS2 release of Volume 1 are included in the collection
• A New Job Form for Haseo with a new weapon.
• A New Form for Skeith.
• Ovan joins the party.

~ Final Fantasy 12 (PS2): vs FF 12: International Zodiac Job System PS2 (JP.ver only) vs FF12 Zodiac Age PS4/PC/Switch/Xbox One. ~

Final Fantasy 12: International Zodiac Job System PS2 (JP.ver only):

• Addition of a "Zodiac Job System" featuring twelve jobs with individual License Boards corresponding to twelve zodiac signs
• Addition of a 16:9 widescreen mode with menus and HUD at 4:3.
• Addition of three new game modes: Trial Mode/New Game+ Strong Mode/New Game+ Weak Mode.
• Pressing L1 will speed up gameplay. Conversations and events continue to play at normal speed.
• Quickening doesn't consume MP. Now they use their own Mist gauge similarly to Limit Breaks from previous Final Fantasy titles.
• UI Changes.
• Playable characters' starting LP, consumables, gil, gambits, equipment, licenses, and base stats have been modified.
• You have more control over Guests now, they also gain EXP/Item/Gold.
• Many magick spells and technicks have been tweaked, renamed and recategorized.
• Obtaining Quickenings no longer affects max MP and Mist charges do not diminish when MP is consumed (unless the player is affected by a reversed Elixir or Megalixir). The player's MP is also unaffected by the depletion of Mist charges. However, effects that recover the player's MP will also restore Mist charges. One Mist charge is granted each time the amount recovered totals the player's maximum MP. Effects that fully restore a player's MP recover all Mist charges.
• You can now fully control Espers, they also require MP to cast magicks
• Almost all attacks now break the 9999 damage limit from the original by default.
• New items have been added, such as Cura Mote, Bubble Mote, Domaine Calvados, Baltoro Seed, Dark Energy and various Meteorites.
• Bacchus's Wine now has 100% chance of inflicting Berserk (previously it was 50%).
• Several equipment pieces were added, while some available in the original release were removed or tweaked.
• New Weapons added.
• Most shops had their assortments changed. Many weapons are now available from shops earlier because of the job system, and were thus made weaker.
• Treasures respawn by moving just one area away as opposed to two. Treasures were moved around, changed the items they can give, or were removed altogether. The "forbidden chest" concept was removed, that in the original prevented the player from obtaining the Zodiac Spear in Necrohol of Nabudis if they opened a wrong treasure.
• Dark Matter can no longer be acquired from the bazaar, and selling the ingredients needed to make it in the original will result in making the Dark Energy instead. The Dark Energy is an item that does not charge up with Knot of Rust or Devour Soul and always deals 50,000 damage to each enemy in range.
• Treasure chests are now in different locations and contain different items.
• There are more traps throughout the map.

Final Fantasy 12: Zodiac Age PS4/PC/Switch/Xbox One:

• Remastered HD graphical upgrade.
• English and Japanese voices (switch between them in the game configuration).
• Original and newly re-recorded background music (switch between them in the game configuration).
• Auto-save functionality added (game saves automatically when moving to each new screen, excepting boss arenas)
• Improved high-speed mode and improved play time operability during high-speed mode
• Ability to invert both the X and Y camera axes
• The game balance has been overhauled to make it easier.
• Each playable character can have two jobs at once.
• Job Reset function added; talk to Montblanc in the Clan Hall to use.
• The Effect Capacity system that limited spell-casting in the PlayStation 2 versions has been removed.
• Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, and Cure only affect a single target again.
• Espers' HP values have been doubled, but other stats kept the same as in Zodiac Job System.
• The animation for summoning Espers is removed.
• A glitch concerning Dyce's character model has been fixed.
• New Game Plus and New Game Minus are now accessible from the beginning of the game.

~ Rune Factory 4 (3DS): vs Rune Factory 4 Special Switch. ~

Rune Factory 4 Special Switch:

• HD Graphics.
• Newlywed Mode.
• Hell Difficulty.
• Additional Movies.
• Another Episode DLC.
• Swimsuit Day DLC.
• Many Town Events are now prioritized if requirements have been met. This includes Memories, which unlocks the last story arc and the events required for marriage.
• The map has been moved to the main screen and can be removed and resized with the press of a button (the Switch has only one screen) or by using the touch screen icon.
• The teleport spell has been mapped to a dedicated button. It can still be used from the touch screen.
• You can now change the voice acting language between English and Japanese.
• Many bug fixes.

This is just part 1, if you have any suggestions for titles to be in part 2, please post them here.

I have been in the same situtation as you before, I had a chromebook that couldn't run any other games other than browser games. I really wanted to find a good browser mmorpg and so I went to mmos.com and tried almost every single game. Today I want to share with you my favorite browser game by far, this game IS NOT FOR EVERYONE, it's called TORN and it's basically a crime based game in the modern world and you want to basically get strong and rich.
Ammount of time per day: (It's an mmorpg so obviously not in one sitting) I'd say about 10mins every few hours every day, this game rewards players for being active daily for short duration of time rather than playing a very long time in one sitting, then missing a few days.
Difficulty: Simple to understand, hard to master

Pros:

-Highly active game over 20k players playing at the same time on average, 9 servers, huge staff team for a browser game (like 20 people)
-A perfect game to have in the background: while you're doing homework or even watching youtube, it doesn't require full attention AT ALL (ok maybe a little bit at least).
-Althought it looks like there's not much to do there is SO much you can do in this game: join a faction, do faction wars to hold territories, get a job for cash, start a company for extra cash, gamble at the casino, do crimes to earn easy money, organized crimes with faction mates, start selling stuff at your bazar, racing (cars), traveling to other countries to buy stuff there bring it back to for more money, events every month (sometimes more than one per month) such as Christmas town, dog tags, trick or treat, etc (I could go all day)
-Not a single thing you can't buy with in game money (though some items are extremely limited like I believe there is only a total of 149 gold plated AK which is one of the best weapons in the game) and very to none p2w possibility, if you pay in the beginning it will give you a big headstart skipping the annoying part of the game which is being a beginner.

Cons:

-Requires determination and being able to be active almost everyday, missing a day isn't the end of the world but there is a set ammount of things you can do once/set time per day.
-Energy bar: used for things like training your stats at the gym or attacking another player now this is what turns a lot of players away, but trust me IT IS NOT LIKE ENERGY IN MOBILE GAMES, energy auto generates and there's sooo many ways to replenish your energy such as drugs (yes this game has drugs, if you get addicted there is a rehab), energy drinks, using points for energy refills, hotel coupons, etc...
-Text based: also of the main reasons many players doesn't think is appealing, the graphics are not the best but extremely good in my opinion for a text based game, and NO a text based game doesn't mean you're doing to have to read a wall of text every 5 seconds, it means there is no controlable character and might be a bit confusing a first as games with a controlable character are so popular.
-Grown up community: kids are not welcomed in this game, nor are beggars, this game is full of grown ups so DO NOT talk AT ALL in the global chat and starting new threads in forums. I've seen several players complaining how they lost all their cash at the casino (don't gamble btw) and how rigged this game was and he got hospitalized for a very long time, then he kept complaining and got bounties on his head and is now sentenced to be able to play the game for a very long time. On torn, you are nobody when you start, that's why it's fun to grow and to be one day, somebody.
If this game sounds appealing to you or if you're just bored and want to try it out please use my referal link! (I get a little something if you reach level 10), if you're using my referal link I'd be more than pleased to help you in the game and explaining further how the game works and why I find it so fun (it's hard to explain until you start to get addicted, really). Also I need friends :(.
referal link in comments (rules), if you use my referal link we should automatically be friends so just send me a message and I'll gadly help you (I am still a student and have school ^{even though there's a virus going on so why....} so I won't be responding right away but I'll try my best to! Add me on discord at PROFY#6207 if you're super serious about this game! Thank you if you took the time to read all this, I'm impressed lol.

So it seems that WG decided that a fun gamemode can't go without monetization, and they've added "Footlockers" (Read: Lootboxes) for purchase. It is extremely important to note:
You are NOT guaranteed to get your money's worth - In fact, most boxes you open are going to be a BAD VALUE.
These are NOT like the Christmas boxes where there was at minimum equal value in the box as what you paid for it. The Halloween "Footlockers" rely soley on the CHANCE of you getting a Premium tank. WarGaming has not released numbers for the chances to get a Premium tank, but based on all of the unboxing videos / posts I've seen, the chance seems to be around 1 in 25 (4%). In theory, that doesn't seem too bad, with each box also having the ability to be rerolled. However, the actual value of the contents inside is another story.
Let's start with the best "strategy" to get the absolute most out of the boxes.
(Want to read this guide with better formatting? I post all of my content to the NA Forums. This one is hyperlined here)
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Strategy:

To maximize your chance of getting the Premium tanks without ruining the potential value you'd get from them, in theory you should reroll every box that doesn't have a Premium tank once, and once only.
However, since not all of the Premiums are very good, plus there's no guarantee you'll get a Premium tank at all, you should most likely:
Keep:

• 5 credit boosters
• Personal training manual
• 3 days of Premium (reroll if you have plenty of Premium already)
• 350,000 credits (reroll if you're swimming in credits already)

**Reroll:**​

• Everything else that is not a Premium tank.

Do not reroll a box more than once. Each one contains 100 Gold, which is enough to reroll it once without losing more Gold than you "earned". This will prevent you from losing more money than you already would if you don't get Premiums, and will maximize the value you get if you do get Premiums from the boxes.
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Mini-Reviews of all of the Premium Tanks available:

We're going to quickly do a rundown of each of the Premium tanks offered, providing a 0-10 rating and a very quick description of the most notable features of the tank.
T77 Heavy: 7.5/10 [Very Good]
The T77 Heavy is in many ways like a Tier 8 version of the T57 Heavy, except it doesn't have any of the DPM. The T77's gun is unreliable with an extremely long reload. However, it has the ability to unload 1,080 damage within 4 seconds of the first shell, which is absolutely devastating at Tier 8.
The rest of the tank is mediocre all around, with unreliable armor, somewhat poor view range, and somewhat sluggish mobility. However, the mobility is enough to get it in and out of important positions, and allows the gun to work wonders. It's kind of like the Bourrasque in that regard - A very unreliable gun on a mostly underwhelming platform, that works surprisingly well because of the monstrous damage potential. Of course, this tank plays entirely differently in comparison to the Bourrasque, but it's actually a good tank to get from the boxes.
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M4A1 Revalorise: 5/10 [Average]
The tank has definitely suffered hard from powercreep, but its still a reasonably okay tank. The gun is punchy and relatively reliable, and the tank has gun depression to make it work. Everything else about the tank is forgettable, and the armor resembles French bread more than French armor.
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AMX CDA 105: 7/10 [Very Good]
Most people brush the AMX CDA off, but the gun that it has on such a mobile and stealthy platform makes it feel like a very playable version of the Strv S1.
Sure, the Strv S1's gun is even better with even more gun depression, but the Siege Mode mechanic makes it very inflexible and difficult to play on matchups where you can't just sit back and snipe.
The AMX CDA 105 on the other hand, is able to keep contributing to the battle, relocating and even being able to get up close and personal if it needs to.
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STG: 5/10 [Average]
The STG is kind of like the M4A1 Revalorise - A forgettable tank and platform, with a rather solid gun. The STG sacrifices some of the mobility of the M4 to gain armor. It sacrifices the gun depression to get a stealthy low profile. Its shell velocity is traded off for better accuracy.
It's just as average as the M4 Rev is, but offers a different playstyle for the same alpha gun, in case the M4 Rev wasn't quite your cup of tea.
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ELC Even 90: 4/10 [Poor]
If I were to rate this tank objectively, especially with the new equipment that's in the game, the ELC Even 90 offers a level of scouting potential that no other light tank at Tier 8 offers. Such a small, low profile tank, especially with the new equipment, is able to spot tanks from positions that nothing else could, while also having a gun that can hit surprisingly hard if you can get the entire magazine off.
That being said, the gun is... Abysmal. It's one of the worst guns on any Tier 8 tank in the game, and ELC Even 90 players consistently average less damage in the tank, than they would in a Tier 6 tank. The gun is truly horrific, and the tank only works because of the scouting potential, combined with small size with a 660 damage potential magazine.
A good player can make the tank work reasonably well, but as I've said in many previous ELC Even 90 reviews [hyperlinked here], the tank just doesn't have the carry potential that other Tier 8 light tanks do. You're rolling the dice each time you play it whether or not you'll get a map where the tank can work, whether you'll find good light / medium tank players on the enemy team that can counter you, and whether or not your gun will decide to hit a tank 20 meters in front of you.
You might love the tank - A lot of people do... But it's kind of like the Tog II in that regard - It's a giant rolling meme... Or I guess in this case, a tiny go-cart meme. It's not actually good... But it can be fun if you get the right scenario.
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Strv S1: 6/10 [Good]
The Strv S1 as I mentioned earlier, is a less flexible version of the AMX CDA 105, that has a better gun, better camo and better gun depression. That being said, because of the Siege Mode mechanic, in most circumstances the AMX CDA 105 will have more carry potential, and be a far more enjoyable tank to play - On top of making more credits.
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FV4202: 3/10 [Very Bad]
The FV4202 never was a particularly good tank, even when it was a Tier 10 medium, but as a Tier 8 Premium tank in 2020, it is particularly bad. The armor is pretty decent, but the mobility is on the sluggish side, and the gun is just a joke and a half. 1700 DPM for a tank with 230 alpha, and a shockingly unreliable gun (despite what the paper stats would make you believe), is not a good combination. Combine that with poor gun handling on the move, and you're not in for a pleasant experience.
The hull armor is pretty troll, but the turret is pretty easily penetrated by anything with 220mm of pen or more. Using your gun depression helps to some extent, but because the turret is so large, and has so many flat zones, even when you're completely hull-down using all 10 degrees of gun depression, the armor still doesn't hold up as well as you'd hope, and the gun will just disappoint you over and over again.
It is a bad tank, and one of the worst ones in this list.
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T-54 first prototype: 5.5/10 [Average]
The T-54 Prototype is sadly just a worse version of the T-44-100. Everything about the T-54 Prototype is significantly worse with the only exception being the armor, but even the armor is hardly much to write home about.
The turret is still the weakest part of the tank, and having the same shape and size as the T-44-100 turret, with similar armor effectiveness, it defeats the purpose of the T-54 Prototype even moreso.
The only well-armored part of the tank is the hull, but even that only works if the enemy can't shoot down on it using gun depression, and if the enemy has less than the average of 220mm of pen at Tier 8.
It's a decent enough tank, but it's just pointless compared to the T-44-100.
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Hwk 30: 6/10 [Good]
The Hwk 30 isn't particularly great, but it feels in many ways like the RU 251 at Tier 8, which is pretty nice. The gun is solid, the mobility is good and it's reasonably stealthy with great view range.
It just can't compete with the LT-432 or EBR 75, which makes it somewhat pointless to own.
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T92: 4/10 [Bad]
How quickly things have changed, huh? When this tank first came out, I would have told you it's a pretty good light tank. Powercreep has hit this tank hard, and the new equipment only makes it even less relevant than it otherwise would be.
The T92 doesn't really benefit from the new equipment nearly as much as some of the other light tanks do, since it's such a one-trick pony by comparison. It has god-Tier levels of gun handling on the move, but sacrifices a whole lot to get it. The acceleration is great, but a limited top speed really holds it back, and it would be a waste of a Turbocharger in some ways if you chose to go that route.
The tank just doesn't have anything to compete with the best Tier 8 medium tanks, which hurt it far more than other Tier 8 light tanks do. You might still have some fun tanks zipping around and snapping shells in, but just pray you don't find a Lansen C, Progetto 46, or Bourrasque on the enemy team... Because otherwise, they'll be the ones having fun snacking on you.
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IS-6: 4.5/10 [Bad]
2014 called, they want their tank back. While it's true that the IS-6 got a much-needed armor buff that actually makes the armor surprisingly decent for a Tier 8 Heavy (even if we ignore its Pref MM), the gun still is abysmal and holds it back significantly compared to most other Tier 8 heavies.
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T26E4 SuperPershing: 7/10 [Very Good]
Unlike the IS-6, the Super Pershing's armor buff and gun buff brought it right back to being a rather competitive tank. While you do still need to shoot plentiful of APCR to make the most out of it, the armor holds up really well which allows you to let the gun work.
Unlike the IS-6, the Super Pershing's gun is actually pretty good, with good gun depression, decent enough accuracy and aiming times, and reasonable enough gun handling. Combine that with really good APCR pen, and you can not only play like a heavy tank, but you can outplay heavy tanks too.
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Kanonenjagdpanzer 105: 5/10 [Average]
We can see where this is going... Of the 3 105mm Tank Destroyers on this list, the Kanonen is at the bottom of the barrel. The Kanonen may not have to deal with Siege Mode like the Strv S1 does, but it's in many ways worse than the AMX CDA 105 - Which defeats the purpose of playing such a tank. The AMX CDA 105 is a more flexible Strv S1, with many good characteristics to still allow the gun to perform really well.
The Kanonen 105 is very vulernable though with its complete lack of armor and poor gun handling on the move. This makes it much less flexible than the AMX CDA 105, and means it doesn't have the redeeming characteristics it needs to be a viable alternative to the Strv S1. Not to mention, the hp/ton is much worse on the Kanonen, which means it isn't as fast as you might hope, relying mostly on its top speed and traverse speed to get around, not so much its acceleration.
It's definitely not as bad as the Kanonen 90... But that's not saying much, considering just how bad that tank actually was.
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Vk 168.01 (P): 4/10 [Bad]
Apparently we're still calling unskinned tanks a new Premium tank. I thought this was 2020, not 2016 / 2017? Anyway, the VK 168.01 P is an armored tank with a hard hitting gun, that's as slow as a brick house floating through a river of molasses. It's not going anywhere anytime soon, and if you do manage to make it to the battle, your team has probably already lost.
It's just a worse version of the VK 100.01 P, except they're charging you money for it. No thanks.
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Lowe: 8.5/10 [Great]
While I no longer rate the Lowe 10/10 as I used to, it is still a really good tank that still manages to hold up really well in the current meta. The gun is punchy and reliable, the gun depression works really well with very solid turret armor, and the hull is still fairly usable so long as you can hide your lower plate.
The Lowe is a great credit grinder, with decent carry potential. It's not flashy, and it's not the most fun tank, but it works and it works well.
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WZ-120-1G FT: 9/10 [Amazing]
This is one of the few tanks in the Chinese line that actually stands out as being a really good tank. The DPM is insanely good, the armor is surprisingly solid, the tank is really stealthy and low profile, it's pretty quick with an extremely fast traverse speed, and the tank even has view range to go along with it! Not to mention, when you let the gun aim, its accuracy is also pretty decent.
This tank has just about everything you'd want, except for a turret and gun depression, but its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses, and is still one of the best Tier 8 Premium tanks in the game - Especially now with the new equipment providing an Improved Rotation Mechanism. The Improved Rotation Mechanism helps tanks like this a lot, since the gun handling becomes better, aim time becomes better (with the smaller aiming circle) and an already quick-turning tank turns even faster now. It is truly an amazing piece of equipment for a truly amazing tank.
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And there we go, there was a quick rundown of all of the Tier 8 Premium tanks offered in the Footlockers!
Is it worth spending the money? Probably not. It's gambling to the extreme, and unlike the Christmas event, many people will be walking away with next-to-nothing during this event.
The boxes only become worth it if you get one of the Tier 8 Premiums offered, but even then, most of the Premiums just aren't all that good. There are a few shining stars in the mix, but it's mostly a lot of mediocrity.
Unless you have a good amount of disposable income, and you don't own most of the tanks on the list, the boxes simply aren't worth it. And even then, since there's no guarantee of actually getting your money's worth (quite the opposite actually, with most of the boxes being nearly worthless), I would highly advice against buying the boxes.
And while it's true you get 3 keys from the 10 box bundle, that's only 3 battles in the WT auf E110 - It's barely anything worth paying attention to, and doesn't really add any meaningful value to the boxes. These footlockers are completely pointless unless you win a decent Tier 8 Premium tank that you didn't already have, which is a small chance and is entirely casino-style gambling, without any of the fun or experience of being in an actual casino.

I have been in the same situtation as you before, I had a chromebook that couldn't run any other games other than browser games. I really wanted to find a good browser mmorpg and so I went to mmos.com and tried almost every single game. Today I want to share with you my favorite browser game by far, this game IS NOT FOR EVERYONE, it's called TORN and it's basically a crime based game in the modern world and you want to basically get strong and rich.
Ammount of time per day: (It's an mmorpg so obviously not in one sitting) I'd say about 10mins every few hours every day, this game rewards players for being active daily for short duration of time rather than playing a very long time in one sitting, then missing a few days.
Difficulty: Simple to understand, hard to master
Pros:
-Highly active game over 20k players playing at the same time on average, 9 servers, huge staff team for a browser game (like 20 people)
-A perfect game to have in the background: while you're doing homework or even watching youtube, it doesn't require full attention AT ALL (ok maybe a little bit at least).
-Althought it looks like there's not much to do there is SO much you can do in this game: join a faction, do faction wars to hold territories, get a job for cash, start a company for extra cash, gamble at the casino, do crimes to earn easy money, organized crimes with faction mates, start selling stuff at your bazar, racing (cars), traveling to other countries to buy stuff there bring it back to for more money, events every month (sometimes more than one per month) such as Christmas town, dog tags, trick or treat, etc (I could go all day)
-Not a single thing you can't buy with in game money (though some items are extremely limited like I believe there is only a total of 149 gold plated AK which is one of the best weapons in the game) and very to none p2w possibility, if you pay in the beginning it will give you a big headstart skipping the annoying part of the game which is being a beginner.
Cons:
-Requires determination and being able to be active almost everyday, missing a day isn't the end of the world but there is a set ammount of things you can do once/set time per day.
-Energy bar: used for things like training your stats at the gym or attacking another player now this is what turns a lot of players away, but trust me IT IS NOT LIKE ENERGY IN MOBILE GAMES, energy auto generates and there's sooo many ways to replenish your energy such as drugs (yes this game has drugs, if you get addicted there is a rehab), energy drinks, using points for energy refills, hotel coupons, etc...
-Text based: also of the main reasons many players doesn't think is appealing, the graphics are not the best but extremely good in my opinion for a text based game, and NO a text based game doesn't mean you're doing to have to read a wall of text every 5 seconds, it means there is no controlable character and might be a bit confusing a first as games with a controlable character are so popular.
-Grown up community: kids are not welcomed in this game, nor are beggars, this game is full of grown ups so DO NOT talk AT ALL in the global chat and starting new threads in forums. I've seen several players complaining how they lost all their cash at the casino (don't gamble btw) and how rigged this game was and he got hospitalized for a very long time, then he kept complaining and got bounties on his head and is now sentenced to be able to play the game for a very long time. On torn, you are nobody when you start, that's why it's fun to grow and to be one day, somebody.
If this game sounds appealing to you or if you're just bored and want to try it out please use my referal link! (I get a little something if you reach level 10), if you're using my referal link I'd be more than pleased to help you in the game and explaining further how the game works and why I find it so fun (it's hard to explain until you start to get addicted, really). Also I need friends :(.
here is my referal link: https://www.torn.com/2215152 we should automatically be friends so just send me a message and I'll gadly help you (I am still a student and have school even though there's a virus going on so why.... so I won't be responding right away but I'll try my best to! Add me on discord at PROFY#6207 if you're super serious about this game! Thank you if you took the time to read all this, I'm impressed lol.

So this is one of those things I saw posted all the time on here and shrugged it off as I assumed it was just gambling, but it isn't. It takes all the risk out of it and you can make really good money from sign up offers alone, at bookies and casinos. There's no tricks or catches involved either.
I've used Profit Accumulator myself (there are others, OddsMonkey, Team Profit etc), the benefit being a very active forum with up to date offers, reload offers, and guides.
There's also a host of tools after sign up offers from catching extra places at the races, a blackjack calculator, a great oddsmatching tool which links you straight to the bookmakers to use, as well as lots of training videos and guides. Once you've done the first few the rest are a doddle.
If you've got a slightly higher risk tolerance, it's worth doing the casino offers daily too - each post gives an Estimated Value of the offer so you can see what you can look to gain. For example there's an offer on at Virgin Bet right now - wager £100 and gain 100 free spins. Depending on the expected RTP (Return to Player) % you can expect to make nice money from this especially if you hit a bonus round.
If you want low risk, then you can stick to purely doing matched betting using sportsbooks. For the larger sign up offers you'll need more leverage, which you'll get as you build up your money from doing the simple sign up offers.
Then there are reload offers. This is my main thing I do now before working from home every morning, takes 30 minutes to go through the forum find the best new offers posted and do them to earn an extra few hundred or so on average every month.
I'll only post my link for Profit Accumulator as I can really vouch for this if anyone wants to try it. They have a trial offer for £1 currently. You'll make back the £1 and then some in no time, i'm paying for the platinum membership as it's still well worth it after sign up.
Would be good to see what others do with matched betting and casino offers now, what your experiences are, and what the other sites are like. For now though here's the links to Profit Accumulator:
ref
non-ref

[This originally began as a response to FellowHuman007 on his latest post R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and he's the one I'm addressing initially. But as I eclipsed their magical two paragraph post limit, it quickly became apparent that my ideas are all but wasted over there, where they will be ignored and tone-policed into obscurity, so fuck it. It's my absolute honor to post here instead. What follows my initial response to him is a meditation on the meaning of the word "cult".]
I notice you have a penchant for spinning topics in the manner of a journalist or politician. Seems to be your go-to strategy... reframing something in a way that makes it sound more like something your opponent doesn't want to hear. Which is cool, but the thing about spin is that it it doesn't have any substance, and it can easily be spun back.
For example: On two separate occasions, you made mention of the rather important stance we take on our sub against private messages being sent to our contributors of such a nature that would not be allowed publicly on the forum. It's a crucial point for maintaining the integrity of a forum such as ours. It's something we can't prevent from happening in the first place, but we can still discourage the practice by calling it out publicly when it happens.
The way you chose to frame it, for some reason -- twice -- was as an issue of free speech: Oh, we here at MITA are so libertarian that we would never try and restrict anyone's personal communications like they do over there at WB.. If you want to chat at the mods or anyone else here, feel free to do so!
That was cute and all, and it's your right to put things however you want, but it was still an obvious pivot away from the reality of the situation. What if we brought it back to a more neutral conception, and asked it like this: "Is it understandable that a forum which exists as a safe space for people trying to leave a group, would maintain a stance against it's contributors being privately messaged by active members of said group?" I don't think anybody would have a problem saying yes to that, if you were to poll people on the street for example. It sounds like the most reasonable thing in the world.
And what if we even spun the idea into even more unfavorable territory by asking it this way: "Can you understand why an anti-cult message board would have an issue with having its contributors being messaged by members of the the exact cult it exists to denounce?". I think everyone would still be on board with that, including members of the SGI itself, so long as they didn't know it was their group being discussed.
And what if we spun it even further? "Is it reasonable for the mods of an anti-cult forum to be pissed off at the idea of having its contributors -- especially the newest ones who are likely in a very confused and fragile emotional state as they undergo one of the biggest transition periods of their lives -- made easy targets for emotional manipulation by heedless members of the group everyone there is desperate to escape?". I still think most people would say yes to that as well, although at that level of vehemence it would become obvious that I'm doing some spinning of my own, and that I sound a little biased. Would I feel justified in saying it that way? Absolutely, but by the same token, adding too much spin to our ideas takes something away from their believability.
You know, I hear what Andinio is saying, which is that if the basis of our disagreement is going to be one of spin, then it'll never be possible to make any progress. One side says one thing, the other side spins it back. So he makes his appeal to objectivity, in the form of suggesting we stick to some kind of sources, and do "line-by-line readings" in search of something objectively true we can discuss. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense for our purposes over at WB, because we're not a religious discussion board, but I get where he's coming from. We're looking for something objective to say about a subject that is essentially mystical, and also defined by the vagaries of human interaction.
And with so much about this topic being so very subjective and personal (what does it even mean to say that a practice "works", for example), we all would do well to allow that everyone understands the subject a little differently.
But the reason we're not afraid to debate you on any aspect of it, is because we believe that if there is terra firma in this sprawling sociological discussion, we're the ones standing directly on it. The anti-cult side roots all of its arguments in the ethos that individuals are not to blame for the effects of a broken system, which can still have the most beautiful people in the world in it, but be fundamentally flawed or designed in some way to take advantage.
It's like how you can go into a casino and point out all the little ways the place is designed to mess with your mind while also stacking the odds against you. It doesn't mean you still can't go to the casino and have a great time, and some people (relatively few) come out ahead, but the objective truth is that the experience is designed to be unfair.
That's where the "cult" designation comes from, and it doesn't just belong to the SGI, not by a long shot. It can be applied to all sorts of things, like multi-level marketing for example, where the selling of actual merchandise is just a cover for the real product, which is you. It's you they want -- your confidence, your loyalty, your effort, your enthusiasm, your connections and your money.
This is a thought I've had for some time now, which is that the definition of cult is missing something. It's too subjective. If you Google it, you find four definitions, saying that a cult is a group, it's a devoted group, it's religiously devoted to someone or something, and it's sometimes suspect. And that's all we get, which really does us no favors on the anti-cult advocacy side of things, because anyone who wants to defend a group could say that the common usage of the word is as a way of saying "a group I don't like", and they wouldn't be entirely wrong.
I know we have a very sensible 100-point checklist for things a cult does, but that's not quite the same as saying what one is.
What I propose is a fifth aspect to the word "cult", which would be, "any group that has recruitment as its primary purpose". This provides us with a simple criterion by which we could judge something's most fundamental reason for existing, which would exclude things like businesses and public services.
For example, a major sports team is not a cult, because it's a business. Its primary purpose is to make money. The fanbase of said team, however, could be described as a cult, because it exists just to exist.
(Of course this first example also highlights the issue of degree to which someone is devoted to something. The fan who watches the occasional game is perhaps in a different category of fan as those who get tattoos and engage in pregame rituals. There's still subjectivity there in terms of where that line is drawn.)
The department of sanitation in your city? Definitely not a cult. Its job is to pick up trash so we don't die.
Police department? Much tougher call, because so many aspects of it are in fact very fraternal, but not a cult because it fulfills a basic need.
A political governing body? Cult-like, potentially, but ultimately not a cult because it serves many purposes. A political party, however? Very much a cult, since it exists only to recruit people.
As mentioned before, multi-level marketing, for sure, if we make the case that selling of products is secondary to the real activity, which is recruitment. People do make money in pyramid schemes, but they are doing so as a cult.
Labor unions? Professional organizations? Nah. They have stated purposes of their own.
The army? Extremely cult-like, but no, the army is the army.
Street gang? Most definitely.
Government itself? In many respects, no, but a particular regime could be one... Or based on one, as is the case with so many politicians who belong to secret societies, and who put secret oaths ahead of their sworn duties.
How about major religions? Well, it's complicated, because of how interwoven a religion can be with all aspects of society and governance, but ultimately when you strip all that away, we see that religions, in their various forms, exist just to exist. I suppose religion lends itself to cult formation -- perhaps it's the basic template for the cult idea itself -- and it's up to individuals to actualize it or not. Certainly there are many, many cults within each major religion.
Perhaps the answer has something to do with there being different types of cults. Some recruit strangers and some don't. Some are benign or even beneficial, while others aren't. Take a fraternity, for example, or a sorority, or any other kind of secret society that exists. They are all cults, by multiple definitions, but by the same token that's not necessarily a bad thing. There are a lot of people out there, myself included, who would count joining an initiatory society (even one with no real secrets, and whose only real purpose was to drink beer), as one of the most important, defining, and valuable experiences of my entire life.
Which brings us to our friends at the SGI, which is really more of a co-ed fraternity than it is a religion. Much like with multi-level marketing, the ostensible activity -- which in this case would be behaving religiously towards a scroll -- is a cover story for what it really exists to do, which is to grow itself if possible, or at least remain viable. It makes no attempt to even look like it's using its vast financial and human resources for the benefit of anything other than itself, which makes it a very clear-cut example of something that exists only to further its own ends.
The SGI is most definitely a cult, by at least two definitions: that it exists primarily to recruit, and also in how it is a blatantly obvious example of a cult of personality.
And I'm glad I took the long way to get here, o ye who would take umbrage, so now you have some better sense of what I mean by that. There are different types of cults, not all of them are bad. Some are kind of nice. Perhaps even the same group can have levels to it, whereby some people can participate from the outside, while others are fully immersed in the cult aspects. There is a lot of variability within the basic concept.
What ultimately matters about a group, then, is its level of integrity. Is it upfront with people about what it is, or does it hide the essential fact? And does it use manipulative and unfair tactics to control people, or can it remain above that? Does the whole thing run on peer pressure or coercion?
Let's return to the example of a college frat. There are some bad frats out there, for certain, and others that are far more nice to those trying to enter, but what they all are -- in addition to being cults -- is upfront about what is going on. They sit you down at the beginning, once you signal your agreement to join, and explain the basic concept: For the next two-and-a-half months, we are going to make your life a living hell. No one's going to hit you, molest you, or put you in real danger, but you will be worked hard, kept very confused, and generally treated as a second-class citizen. But when it's over, it's over, and you'll be one of us. We do this because it's a hell of a ride, and because it solidifies the bonds within your group while also connecting you with a greater lineage."
And that, my friends -- no matter how uncouth and crazy and downright stupid or mean the next two-and-a-half months would get, is called honesty. The basic premise was never a secret to be discovered later. In that context, we were fully agreeing to be lied to, so that the lies weren't really lies, it was more like an interactive and very dramatic theatrical performance. And you know what? They were right. It was a lot of fun, I made some amazing friendships along the way, pushed myself well outside the comfort zone, and grew. I would do it all again.
But a frat is still a cult, by my own definition, with strong in-group bias, and persistent recruitment pressure. In fact, maybe that's why I never took the real plunge into SGI, is because I already belonged to a cult, and I had a sense for how one operates. Also, I know what hazing is, and I wasn't about to accept any of it from some kid twelve years my junior in a blue tie... especially when I DIDN'T sign up to do free labor, I DIDN'T sign up to be in a cult of personality, and the true nature of the experience is NOT fully explained upfront. You have to figure it out for yourself in the SGI that they are trying to use you and make you spend your social capital, because they aren't honest about it when they are lovebombing you and foisting a scroll upon you.
THAT'S what makes it problematic, is the lack of transparency, coupled with heavy doses of tried-and-true mental manipulation tactics of both a religious and a purely social nature.
I'm not going to pretend my frat ever made any kind of difference in the community. I mean there was that one time we recycled $600 dollars worth of Keystone Light cans to donate to the community center (doing our part!), but it remained pretty much on that token level. That's not what this is about. I'm not saying that a group should be judged by their works, or that a secret society necessarily has any obligation to help random strangers. No, the reason I'm not trying to criticize the SGI based on its complete lack of philanthropic activity (tempting as it is to do so), is because I also wouldn't the converse to be true: I wouldn't want to suggest that a group built on a dishonest premise could somehow be redeemed if it did nice things in the community. A dishonest premise is a dishonest premise, period.
So there you have it. I think the definition of the word cult should first be standardized into a simple yes or no proposition, with considerstion for how the same group can have both inner and outer circles. After that, each cult should be judged on its own merits in terms of transparency -- in other words, do people really know what they're signing up for? I do not think the word should be used in a stigmatizing way, or as a shorthand for "group I don't like", because to do so obscures the truth that cult-like groupings can be found almost anywhere you look in society. It's not so much anti-cult that I think we should be called to be, but rather anti-bad-cult, and the reason I say that is because I think the word should be normalized.
Humans are groupthink animals, much closer to sheep than lions, and the only reason cults work so well as vehicles for profit and power, and are also magnets for so many power-hungry individuals, is because we humans are so easily manipulable using predictable methods. And we're also very good at both policing and deceiving ourselves.
Okay, one more example of what I mean by a dishonest group. So there's this secret society, right? Rather famous and influential one, known for working initiates up this ladder that has 33 levels. I don't belong to it, but I once heard this description of how it works, and it was rather jarring. It starts out in the beginning with a simple phrase: "All we ask is trust", and you take the first set of oaths. Along the way, the oaths get more intense, and you actually start pledging loyalty to various deities. At each level: all we ask is trust. (If anyone ever says that to you, by the way, be highly suspicious). The idea is that the whole thing is building up to something, some kind of total commitment, some kind of act for you to perform, some kind of revelation about who runs the world and which deity is really behind the curtain. Something. And there you are standing in the presence of this huge revelation -- facing down something, perhaps, that if you had known what it was in the beginning, you wouldn't have even considered signing up in the first place -- except now you have the combined weight of having already said "I do" to these people thirty-two frickin times. The ladder is designed like a series of successive traps, such that when the moment comes, you won't be able to say no, even if you want to. So you take the leap of faith...
Do I know if any of that is true, or just a myth? No I do not. The point is that the principle is sound: if you want to get someone to go along with something they wouldn't normally want to, one way to do it is to put that thing behind a series of successive firewalls and make them feel like they're earning it. That's just one trick out of many.
So when we levy criticism at something like the SGI, it's done with an eye for how many of those types of tactics and mental traps does it actually employ? If there were none, and everything were completely transparent, there'd be nothing to criticize. But alas, the tricks are there. Of course it's not full-on black magic that this group is doing (it actually falls into the category known as grey magic, for anyone who's wondering), but there are still things about how it functions that are designed to ensnare.
It could be something as subtle as suggesting that your "karma" will go to shit if you leave, or any other way of taking advantage of people's superstition. As I wrote in my last essay, proselytizing is a suckers game, because it actually works to keep you enmeshed in the group. Giving an "experience" is by its very nature a dishonest act, because it is clearly expected of people to tell a certain kind of story. (When was the last time you heard an experience that said "I started chanting the other day, and then my laptop exploded and my cat ran away." I didn't think so.). Forcing people into leadership roles is an obvious tactic as well, and for many of us it was the reason we got out in the first place. Even the constant pressure to appear happy, including when you don't really that way on the inside, is a very unhealthy place to be and a major emotional trap.
And then it could be something as obvious as when a person feels entitled to send unsolicited messages of emotional guilting to participants on an anti-cult forum. Do you see how ill-mannered that is?
So if we're looking for objectivity in this discussion about psychology and group dynamics, I think it can easily be found by looking for these types of principles operating just under the surface of a group's workings. Then we can ask the basic question of: do people know what they're signing up for, or are they in for some kind of surprise? Perhaps not the easiest question to answer, given that some people seem to very much enjoy what the group has to offer, while others of us have regrets, but that's why there's such a vital need for forums such as this one, where people can give true reports of their real feelings and experiences, free from the social pressures and guilting of active cult members.
Thanks for reading! C U Last Tuesday!
Hai!

The Case of the Missing 40,000 Jerry Nugget Decks: A Detective Story
NB: I first published this article (with pictures) at PlayingCardDecks here.
Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards. The story of the original Jerry's Nugget decks is a fascinating one, and there are many interesting side-stories to explore about along the way. You can read the main story about the Jerry's Nugget decks in my previous article here: The Legendary Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards.
But the full truth still remains somewhat hidden, and there are aspects about the Jerry's Nugget story that even today we can't totally be sure about. And with the passage of time, several juicy tidbits of lore have become attached to this famous deck.
In this article I invite you to join me in a quest to explore another juicy story that has become part of the Jerry's Nugget legend. Is it true that the final stock of 40,000 Jerry's Nugget decks was bought up from the casino by a mysterious overseas buyer? Because this is an oft-repeated part of the story, that you'll hear whispered rumours about across the landscape of the internet. But this a statement of fact or fiction, and is it truth or myth? It could mean that right now someone is potentially sitting on a small fortune of Jerry's Nugget decks worth around $500 a piece. If it's true.
So please put on your Sherlock Holmes trench-coat and deerstalker hat, arm yourself with a good amount of deductive logic and persistence, and join me as we see if we can really get to the bottom of this mystery, and dredge up the truth behind this famed haul of 40,000 decks!

A Secret Stash of 40,000 Decks?

If you are curious - like I am - and do some digging about the story and history of the Jerry's Nugget decks, it won't take you long to stumble across mention of the claim that a stash of the final 40,000 decks of Jerry's Nuggets was bought up in a single swoop, cleaning out the casino's remaining inventory of these prized decks.
The story about some lucky buyer nabbing a final stash of 40,000 decks is circulated quite widely around the internet. Do a Google search for "40,000 Jerry's Nugget" and look at how many hits this gets! Some places that sell the decks even include this in their ad copy. For example, here's the ad copy over at one online retailer, which was selling authentic decks for $525 before they sold out:
Another online retailer says the same. Many reviewers have parroted this information as well, such as this example. So do various sites dedicated to information about playing cards, such as this example.
As far as many people are concerned, this information is more along the lines of "fact" than fiction, and it's become part of the story that everyone accepts. Little wonder that it is often repeated by collectors in discussion forums about playing cards, and that it has given more than just one person a tinge of envy.

Who is the mysterious buyer?

So who is the lucky guy with 40,000 decks of precious Jerry's Nugget decks hidden in his basement or garage? And is the story even true?
Some of the sources for this story seem quite credible. And they also reveal the buyer's name: French magician Dominique Duvivier. One person quotes Jordan Lapping, apparently among the first cardists to get Jerry's Nugget decks and use them for flourishing.
Dominique Duvivier is a French magician who performs and works with his daughter Alexandra, and together they have a high profile in the world of French magic. They are even well known in the circles of international magic, and were featured on the cover of the June 2013 issue of Genii Magazine.
Norwegian magician Allan Hagen has a long-time interest in the Jerry's Nugget decks, and he also mentions Duvivier's purchase of 40,000 Jerry's Nugget decks as apparent fact in something he posted on Reddit in 2015, where he describes his perspective on their rarity and value.
You'll read similar reports in an article published by Ukrainian cardists Alexander and Nikolay about Jerry's Nugget decks in June 2017. Two things are common to all these accounts: the number 40,000 for the haul of decks purchased by the mysterious overseas buyer. And now his name: Dominique Duvivier.
I contacted a number of different sources, including people who had personal connections with some of the key players who were closely involved when Jerry's Nuggets decks first became a fad among magicians and cardists in the late 1990s. One source told me: "Interesting, the name of the European magician - it was a big secret back then. Someone actually told me his name back then, but it was on the proviso that I never publish it. Well, I see it's out of the bag now."

Was Dominique Duvivier the buyer?

But is there any evidence that Dominique Duvivier was really the mystery buyer whose name had been a carefully kept secret for some time at least? It was time for some more detective work. Google brought me to Duvivier's personal website.
It didn't take long to discover that Duvivier does indeed have a real fondness for Jerry's Nuggets Playing Cards. They are everywhere - in his photos, his videos, and his instagram.
Judging by the many French-language comments on his site, it also becomes apparent that Duvivier is highly respected and appreciated in his home country for his magic. It's also evident from reading some of the comments that his Jerry's Nuggets decks are a signature of his performance. Some even consider them to be the equivalent of a Stradivarius that Duvivier uses to perform with as a master magician.
But it was when I checked Duvivier's youtube channel that I found some real gold: Dominique himself performing with Jerry's Nugget cards in this clip. In fact, if you check out his other videos there, you'll find quite a few where he performs magic with Jerry's Nugget playing cards, like this performance from 2014, this more recent ace cutting routine, and this false shuffle. Duvivier has even contributed a Jerry's Nugget themed trick to the magic industry, entitled Jerry's Nuggets Cards in Bag.
You can watch the promo video for this trick in French or English. His daughter Alexandra Duvivier successfully used it to fool Penn and Teller on their show Fool Us. Here's the episode, and some unseen footage.
But just because Dominique Duvivier happens to really, really like Jerry's Nugget playing cards doesn't prove that he bought out a massive stash of the last 40,000 decks from the casino. So this still begs this question: Did any of this even happen? And is there really someone on this planet with a hoard of 40,000 decks, whether it is Dominique Duvivier or anybody else?
One of my favourite photos on Duvivier's site is this one here, with his haul. If that's any indication, surely the legendary haul was starting to seem somewhat plausible. It was time to ask around, and check in with some of the people who were around when the Jerry's Nugget decks first became the rage.
Of the sources I consulted, few could be considered more reliable than Lee Asher. For many people Lee is synonymous with the Jerry's Nugget phenomenon. He also had close connections with the events of the time, and was instrumental in bringing the Jerry's Nuggets into the limelight in the first place, by singing their paises. He was kind enough to respond when I contacted him for comment about Duvivier's alleged haul of 40,000 Jerry's Nugget decks, and Lee bluntly told me the following:
"This is misinformation. There weren't 40k decks left in 1999. We don't even know if Jerry's even printed 40k decks."
Really? Apparently Lee Asher knew Duvivier personally, and he was the very person who first told Duvivier that the casino even had the cards for sale. He also visited his home and shop in Paris many times throughout this period of time. In Lee's words:
"Without a doubt, I NEVER saw 40k of ANY deck there. That's basically nine pallets worth. The house, their magic shop and night club weren't big enough to house these decks. It also seems Duvivier isn't the last one to buy the remaining decks. Jerry's Nugget Casino believes they sold the last case of cards to someone in Japan in 1999."
Well, it seems that the story had to be put to rest. Was this entire story perhaps just a magnificent urban legend after all? And if it was, where does the number of 40,000 decks come from, and how did this story get so much traction that it spread all around the internet, and is accepted unquestionably by so many people? My task had just become a bit harder, but I wasn't going to give up yet. It was time to try to track down where the many websites that quoted this story got the figure of 40,000 from in the first place.

Where does the figure of 40,000 come from?

With some more digging, the oldest article I could find on the subject was by a card collector who has a collection of fine articles on his site, White Knuckle Cards. This particular article dates back to 2009, and is one of the earliest references to the legendary stash of 40,000 decks that I could find.
This particular article seems to be the first time the figure of 40,000 pops up, pre-dating all the more recent mentions of it. And it's not hard to figure out how it spread from there. On 6 August 2015, someone called "Doctor Papa Jones" added these details to Wikipedia's article on Jerry's Nuggets, evidently relying on the White Knuckle Cards article. As a result the Wikipedia article now read as follows: "In 2000, a private collector purchased the remaining stock of 40,000 decks".
So now this "fact" is on Wikipedia and has some real "credibility". In fact, the number 40,000 stays up on Wikipedia for the next five years unchallenged! And that allows it to spread around the internet and go wild. Because where does everyone go when they're looking for reliable, authoritative, and trustworthy information about something? Wikipedia!
Despite the mention of the magical stash of 40,000 decks, Duvivier's name remained out of the spotlight for a further four years. It was simply a mysterious "private collector" who had purchased the big haul. But in 2019, someone connected the dots to Duvivier, and so the Wikipedia article was changed to include his name.
So how did that happen? Well the supporting reference that Doctor Papa Jones included in his 2015 edit was a link to an article by Dan and Dave Buck, dating back to 7 Dec 2011. This article is also no longer available, but can be tracked down with the help of the Internet Archive here. It doesn't give the figure of 40,000 but does drop Duvivier's name.
So the evidence seems to suggest this development: Apparently relying on the White Knuckle Cards article from 2009 as a source, the number 40,000 first embedded itself in the WIkipedia article on Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards in 2015. Slowly the story grew, until somebody finally connected the dots that were hidden in plain sight elsewhere on the internet, and as a result Duvivier's name gets added four years later. Now things are set up for a great story: Mr Duvivier is sitting on a massive stash of 40,000 Jerry's Nuggets in France.
The story gained even more traction as a result of the revived interest in Jerry's Nuggets that inevitably happened when a tribute deck was printed in 2019. It was inevitable that many would rely on Wikipedia as a source, and so the details even ended up being quoted in ad copy for the reprinted decks. What had previously just been a matter of quiet rumour or speculation, was now considered as fact. Oh, the joy of Wikipedia - it has certainly helped promote quite the legend here!
And it doesn't take a genius to see that if this is true, Duvivier could be sitting on a small fortune. At $500 each, 14,000 decks would be worth around $700,000. Naturally a market flooded with them would drop their value. But even if the going price dropped to $100 a piece, that would still value his holdings at over $100,000. Even if he just sold the occasional decks at $500 a pop, this windfall could generate a nice little secondary income. That is, if the legend is true, a fact yet to be proven....

Revising the figure

Because this year, the Wikipedia article was changed. By now of course the (mis)information about Duvivier's haul had gone far and wide, and a lot of potential damage has already been done. But on 25 March 2020 someone called "TheCongressGuy" changed it to read that Duvivier "purchased the remaining stock of 1,500-2000 decks".
Suddenly the number of Duvivier's legendary purchase had been reduced from 40,000 to something around 5% of the size. A figure of 1,500-2000 seems much more likely. So who made the change and what was their source?
I did some more digging and managed to track down TheCongressGuy. He is Kevan Seaney, who describes himself as an "antique playing cards collector, specializing in the Congress 606 brand" and posts here. In February 2020 he wrote here that he'd learned that Duvivier had not purchased 40,000 decks. I was curious, and eventually found the following video that he posted about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2pctAEuiZA
And who was his source that Kevan credits for correcting the previous (mis)information about the number 40,000? If you watch that video, you'll find out that it is none other than the great Lee Asher. Lee Asher isn't just "anyone". He's a playing card expert, and the current president of 52 Plus Joker The American Playing Card Collectors Club. He's the guy who first generated public interest in Jerry's Nugget decks, brought them to the attention of cardists like the Buck twins and Chris Kenner, and was later a purveyor of these icon decks via his website. He's also had personal connections with Duvivier, was the person who informed Duvivier that they were available from the casino, and has personally spent a lot of time with him in Paris.
And Lee Asher is a key person that has helped get real Jerry's Nugget decks into the hands of a new generation today. He's the guy who was instrumental in making a collaboration happen between Jerry's Nugget Casino and Expert Playing Card Company, by suggesting that EPCC get the exclusive licence needed to reprint these iconic decks in 2019, as announced in an official press release here.
It's plain that along with EPCC's Bill Kalush, Lee Asher (pictured below) was singularly responsible for getting an officially licensed Jerry's Nugget deck back into the hands of a new generation and into the collections of those who couldn't afford the massive sticker price of the originals. So if anyone has a passion for the original Jerry's Nuggets, it is Lee Asher. Of anyone in this picture, Lee is the person with the most credibility, and his opinion and perspective should carry a lot of weight.
With Asher as his source, Kevan Seaney points out that 40,000 decks of Jerry's Nugget playing cards is the equivalent of around 8 pallets. That's a massive amount, and would weigh around four tons. And it would take up a tremendous amount of space! Kevan cites Lee Asher as saying (via voice messages in Instagram) that in 1999 Asher told Duvivier that he could get the decks from the casino, and that Duvivier bought around 1,500-2000 decks at the time. Lee subsequently visited his home and store - France's oldest magic shop - in France many times. And according to Asher, there was no way Duvivier had room for 40,000 decks. Kevin also says that Lee Asher pointed out to him that these were technically not the final lot of decks sold by the casino anyway, and that the last decks (a "case" of unknown size) probably went to Japan.
Wow. That really changes things! So based on this apparent "new information" from Lee Asher - who to his credit has apparently been saying this all along - Wikipedia gets a new edit by TheCongressGuy aka Kevin Seaney. The impressive figure of 40,000 is reduced to a much more modest 1500-2000, which is paltry by comparison to the much larger figures circulating the internet, and not nearly as impressive a story. But this is only after Wikipedia has been singing a different tune for five years, so the `damage' has been done, and the story of Duvivier's windfall of 40,000 Jerry's Nuggets is already accepted by most people as a true story.

Duvivier's own story

Suddenly it occurred to me to investigate Duvivier himself. Was this perhaps a line of inquiry that might produce some solid leads and definitive facts? Has the man himself ever commented on all these stories about his legendary haul? Could I find anything directly from the man himself that would shed some light on these legends? In fact, why hadn't I thought of this earlier? Just because nobody else seems to have dug up or reported anything from the man's own mouth, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. I slapped myself for my own foolishness, and headed back to Google.
As it turns out, Duvivier has written about this! But because it's an article in French, it's escaped notice from most people. Since he's popular as a professional magician in France, he not only has his own website, but he also writes his own blog. And sure enough, he's addressed this very topic in a blog article that he wrote in April 2011 under the title "Magiphageuh No 14: Les Jerry's Nugget".
With the help of an online translation tool, we learn this:

"As most of you already know, I only use real "Jerry's Nugget" cards to work with and have been doing so for many years. As these cards happen to be extremely rare to find on the market (I am obviously talking about the original Jerry's Nugget cards and not the recently reprinted ones) and they excite the magical world a lot, I am therefore constantly asked how many I own, how long have I owned them, what deal I made to get them and with whom, why do I have so many cards, why did I choose these specifically, why don't I want to sell them, why, why, eh?! And I hear such amazing stories about myself on these famous "Jerry's Nugget" cards that I decided to speak on the subject myself today."

This sounds very promising! Duvivier then goes on to tell the story about how the Jerry's Nuggets gained their legendary reputation, and the unique qualities they have. In France in the 1970s, American playing cards were quite rarely seen, and Duvivier knew a French pilot commandant called Reyno who loved magic, who would occasionally bring back cards from the US to a small circle of French magicians. At this time even standard Bicycle and Tally Ho decks were prized by these French conjurers, so besides them a Jerry's Nugget deck was considered a real crown jewel.
Over the years Duvivier occasionally got more of the Jerry's Nugget decks, sometimes even an entire case of them at once, especially via his friend Michael Weber, who was his main supplier. We fast forward to 1999, when he finds himself heading to Las Vegas to perform at The Magic Castle. Here's the story in his words, courtesy of an online translation tool:

"In 1999 (if I'm not mistaken) my daughter Alexandra and I were hired to perform for a whole week at Magic Castle and then for a few contracts in Las Vegas. You may think that I had only one idea in mind at the time: a trip to the original casino where my favourite cards were from, Jerry's Nugget! Michael Weber had told me that there were still a few decks for sale there, so as soon as we arrived I immediately asked Philip Varricchio, who had come to pick us up in a limousine, to take us there. He was rather surprised, as we hadn't even put our bags down at the hotel (yes, I'm a fool) and the old Jerry's casino wasn't really known for being a must-see place! So I told him that I wanted to go there to buy Jerry's Nugget cards. According to him it was impossible to get them for the simple reason that they hadn't been around for a long time, but I was so insistent that he finally complied (hey, hey, hey!). When we arrived there, we went to the gift shop of the casino and I asked the salesman if he was selling their decks.
- Yes," he told me, "I have a few.
He shows me a small piece of wall in the back of the store where a hundred decks were on display. I ask about the price. Not even expensive!
- Well, I'll take them," I say (laughs).
And of course I ask if he has more in reserve! Yes, there were about a hundred boxes left (each box containing a large number of cards, 144 decks!). After a little negotiation, the unit price was even lowered to less than $1.
That's it, that's how it happened and that's it. In fact, in all this story, the most difficult, the longest and the most expensive was to get the stock back to France.
Since then, I've been seeing, little by little, the bids going up on these cards in a rather hallucinating way, whereas, of course, that wasn't my initial motivation at all. From the moment I bought the remaining stock, it's as if everyone wanted to own even more! But I just wanted to have enough stock of Jerry's Nugget decks because I'm a card fanatic and these in particular. I use these cards because they're the best cards I know and I've fought like a big man to own enough of them for me (I should mention that I never had a middleman or a partner to buy these cards). Anyone could have done as I did and I don't understand why no one did: you just had to take the trouble to go to this casino, because the cards were available! In any case, now they are all warm and cosy in different safes, which I won't tell you about. They say I'm the person with the most cards in the world, but I have to say I don't care. I know Chris Kenner is the one who planned it, he has a lot of them too. I've been offered golden bridges to sell a few packages, or even my entire stock. I've had some incredible offers over the years. I never intended to create a buzz with these cards: I just use them for my own personal consumption, that's all...because they're my favorite cards."

Probably the key sentence in that account is this, and the best translation seems to be something like this:
"Yes, there were about a hundred boxes left (each box containing a large number of cards, that's 144 decks!)."
The formula is simple: around 100 boxes with 144 decks each. If true, that would mean 100 x 144 = 14,400 decks. Given that this is directly from the horse's mouth, suddenly the story becomes slightly more plausible. So too is his additional statement:
"In all this story, the most difficult, the longest and the most expensive was to get the stock back to France."
That suggests he didn't bring the whole stash to France in one go, which might explain why visitors like Lee Asher and others who saw his home and magic shop never saw any evidence of them. I'm not a French speaker, so I'm happy to be corrected if I'm misunderstanding anything Duvivier has written - by all means check the article for yourself in the original French, to see if I've got it right. But the long and short of it seems to be that Duvivier is saying that what he bought from Las Vegas around 1999 was not a stash of 40,000 Jerry's Nuggets decks, but 14,000 decks.
14,000 is not nearly as impressive a figure. But even though it's only a third of the size of what the legend floating around the internet says, 14,000 decks is still an incredibly impressive haul. Certainly the amount of pictures and videos that show Duvivier performing with Jerry's Nugget cards, seems to suggest that they are very much part of his regular repertoire. It could just be possible, and maybe I've finally found the truth!
Perhaps the most defining photo of all is this one (credited to Zakary Belamy), which shows Duvivier enjoying a bath with his Jerry's Nugget playing cards! Given the value of these playing cards on the market today, some might consider this sacrilege, but it sure suggests he has a large enough supply of Jerry's Nugget cards. At any rate, his collection of them seems large enough that he can even afford to take them to the bath for a photo op along with his favourite yellow rubber ducky.

But is it true?

Was the mystery solved at last? It was time to get back in contact with Lee Asher, and share my findings. But despite the claims of Duvivier in his 2011 article, Lee is not convinced that Duvivier is a credible source. To be fair, this is what Lee Asher has been saying all along, and for years he's been saying that the story about the legendary haul of 40,000 decks wasn't supported by the facts.
Ultimately what this comes down to is: are we going to believe what Duvivier says? For the most part, Duvivier has appeared to have had little interest in setting the record straight, despite the fact that the rumour of him nabbing 40,000 decks persisted as long as it did. And if he does have a large stash, why has he shown little interest in selling any of the decks that he does have, instead being happy to hoard them or use them only for himself? Would he really have spent all the time, energy, and money necessary to ship even 14,000 decks of playing cards across the ocean from the United States to Europe, just for his personal usage, at a time when the street value of these was only a dollar or two a piece? And if he did, where did he put them, and why has nobody ever seen his stash, including those who visited his home?
There are other details about Duvivier's record of events that call aspects of his narrative into question, such as his complete omission of any mention of Lee Asher, who was the one who made him aware of where he could get them. And in those days, the casino gift shop was very small, so is it really reasonable for them to display 100 decks on their back wall, as Duvivier claims in his 2011 article, when they had such little space to work with?
I had some private correspondence with another magician/cardist who has also stayed at Duvivier's house, and that individual expressed similar sentiments. He agreed that there was no evidence of Duvivier ever owning that many decks. Just do the math: 40,000 decks would mean Duvivier could use a brand new deck every single day for more than 100 years before he chewed through a collection of decks that size. Again: very unlikely. If he really did have that many, it would be way more than he could ever use, and surely he would have sold some by now - which he hasn't. This person remains somewhat skeptical, but acknowledges that the figure of 14,000 is a more realistic number that is not beyond the realms of possibility, especially if Duvivier has them locked up in a storage facility in Paris somewhere.
As an educated guess, it seems that there is good reason to cast some suspicion on this story, and there are some aspects about it that seem rather unlikely. Shipping that many decks, at the time only worth a buck or two each at most, all the way from Las Vegas to Paris would be crazy. But a man willing to jump into a bath with a yellow rubber duck and destroy $1000 worth of playing cards in the process strikes me as crazy enough to do it. Perhaps Duvivier's story is true after all.

A final twist

I was now several weeks into my adventures as an investigative journalist, and I was getting ready to wrap up my story and publish it. But there was one final lead that I had not yet explored. If I was really going to try every possible avenue of information, I had to try contacting Dominique Duvivier himself. Why not? Admittedly, the odds of getting a response from someone about his apparent stash of precious Jerry's Nuggets wasn't likely. If there was any truth to the story about his legendary haul, even to some degree, then he's undoubtedly had hundreds of inquiries over the years. Just imagine the long lines of people asking him about his stash, trying to convince him to part with some of it. If yet another email comes in on this subject, he'd probably roll his eyes and press `delete'. He is working full time as a professional magician after all, and has a career to worry about. I couldn't blame him if he was tired of responding to what undoubtedly would be countless messages from prospective buyers.
But I had no intention to buy anything, so as a good amateur journalist, I had to try. It was a long shot, but to my surprise, I got a response from Duvivier the very same day! It wasn't much, but it included one unexpected bombshell - especially after the journey I'd been on so far: "You'll be glad to know that a special article is going to appear in next Genii Magazine. It's called Dominique Duvivier and Jerry's Nugget cards."
I was stunned. Was someone else working on exactly the same story as me, and had they beat me to the punch? Maybe even Duvivier himself? Could it really be true that in little more than two weeks time, the next issue of Genii was scheduled to come out, and would potentially reveal all? Suddenly I knew that I had to wait with publishing my story. In further emails, Dominique was tight-lipped about any more details. At the very least, surely I would have to wait until that issue of Genii was available, and fork out my cash and purchase a subscription in order to read it. I owed it to my readers to explore every last clue, and give them a story that included all the evidence.
So that is what I did. I waited for the July issue to appear online. Digital editions of Genii are released online each month on the 20th of the month. Finally 20th of June rolled around, and I eagerly perused the contents of the latest issue. Nothing. Nothing remotely Duvivier related. Nothing Jerry's Nugget related. Was Duvivier for real? An inquiry with the editor of Genii produced this response: "Not this issue. Coming up." Would it be August or September maybe? Further inquiries produced only silence.
In follow up correspondence with the Frenchman himself, Duvivier told me "I wrote the article myself. It?s quite long." That sounded promising, but it could just be about his love affair with Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards, rather than a "tell all" story about his haul. There still was no guarantee that it would even be published. And I couldn't be sure that it would offer any more information than his blog article from 2011 which already gave his side of the story, or that it would be any more reliable than the version of events he'd provided there. Was it really worth waiting any longer? It was time to share my findings with the world anyway, and I could always provide an addendum to my story if any credible new information appeared.

Final Thoughts

Is this the final word on this subject? No. I've tried to do the best I could based on information available to me, and shared as much as I could with my readers, so that you can form your own conclusions based on the evidence so far. Undoubtedly there are still some missing puzzle pieces, and in future years some new information could come to light that shows that some of my conclusions were misplaced or that puts aspects of this story a slightly different perspective.
Today we are two full decades removed from the time when the original decks first sold out at the Jerry's Nugget casino. And the further removed in time that we come, the harder it becomes to uncover the truth. Memories become murky. As it is nobody at the casino seems to remember the specific details of what happened. At the time they were probably only too glad to get the remaining stock out of their hands, and nobody could have anticipated how these decks would become the famous icons that they are today. Even their chief evangelist Lee Asher has to be somewhat surprised at the turn of events he's produced since first singing their praises some twenty years ago!
So what can we conclude from all of this? Here's some final thoughts that I'll leave you with:
1. Don't believe everything you read on the internet.
Unfortunately, it's a fact of modern life that not everything on the internet is true. And as we've seen, this also applies to sites like Wikipedia. For topics that have a large number of experts or people interested in a particular subject, changing the facts on a Wikipedia article will quickly see the changes being reverted. But with a more niche subject, like Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards, and especially when it concerns circumstantial material that nobody is quite sure about, it's easy for misinformation to enter Wikipedia. And once it's embedded there, eventually the lore spreads and becomes considered as "fact". So it's important to check your sources, and don't take everything you see online as gospel truth - even if it's on Wikipedia.
2. The legend about the stash of 40,000 decks should be put to rest once and for all.
It's a myth, and there simply is no evidence for this claim anywhere. At most, there is the claim from Duvivier himself that he bought up about 14,000 decks. That might be true, but again, we only have his word for this. As a counter-point, there are those like Lee Asher who know Duvivier and have visited him many times, and insist that they never saw any evidence of this. The enormous cost of shipping a large stash like this to Europe already makes it somewhat hard to believe.
There's no doubt that Duvivier is a huge fan of Jerry's Nugget decks, and he appears to own and use them more than most. But in the end, how credible is he? How seriously are you going to take someone who is happy to post a picture of himself in a bath with a rubber duck and playing cards from a Jerry's Nugget deck? Either that means he has far more decks than he knows what to do with, or he is a little loopy. Or perhaps it's a bit of both. You've had an opportunity to read all the evidence for yourself, so you decide.
Either way, we can safely say that there has never been a stash of 40,000 decks, and the jury is out on whether there was even ever a stash one third of this size. But even if the size of the legendary stash turns out to be smaller than first thought, the reputation and magnetism of the Jerry's Nugget decks has only increased in size, and these now iconic decks will remain firmly embedded in playing card lore.
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Update from the writer: After the original publication of this article, Dominique Duvivier personally phoned me on 24 July 2020 to discuss it, and to share his side of this story. He remembers events slightly differently than Lee Asher does. As Duvivier recalls it, his own interest in the Jerry's Nugget decks dates back to the 1970s and 1980s. At that time he was sourcing them from his friend Michael Weber, who along with magicians like Chris Kenner was also interested in these decks. According to Dominique, he only met Lee Asher during his USA tour in 1999, after he had already bought out the remaining stock from the Jerry's Nugget casino. Duvivier confirmed that the figure of 14,000 accurately reflects the approximate number of decks he purchased from the casino at this time. He shipped the majority of these to France by boat, and stored them in a warehouse, intending them to serve as a life-time supply for himself and his family. Look for his story in an upcoming issue of Genii magazine.

I'm new at Reddit and looking back this post became way longer than expected, so hopefully worth the read, my apologies if not. But for sure, there is no doubt a longer version of the movie, and I for one truly believe it would make a major difference in how TROS is perceived, as I’m getting really tired of these, still continuous, media references on how ‘bad’ this movie was. I happen to be one of the many, but less vocal, people that really loved The Rise of Skywalker. Yes, now that it has been analyzed and discussed to death, that ancient Sith knife and how it outlined the death star took some liberties, but it certainly didn’t ruin it for me. The Millenium Falcon light skips were unexpected compared to previous known capabilities, but certainly nothing compared to R2-D2 suddenly flying in the prequels. Palpatine and the thousands of star destroyers definitely could have been explained better, but if I had a real concern it would probably be the pacing, and the lack of downtime between the main characters, which is why I feel an extended version would really enhance the experience and make me and a lot of people even happier. Yes, I realize it was a big thing a couple of months ago with the “secret JJ cut”, but this humble opinion post is more of an equal attempt to argue for why an extended edition would make perfect sense, and equally why the so called general opinion of this epic movie is misplaced, and why it deserves another chance to show its merits. Although I have little doubt that it will become a classic on its own in due time, I firmly believe a longer version would appease some of its more vocal critics, reduce some of its perceived problems, and display its full potential.
Let me start by first saying that I don't believe for a second that there are secret versions, that George Lucas has made his own version, or that there was political, behind the scenes, conspiracies against JJ Abrams by Disney. I know that most of you do not believe that either, but I just wanted to emphasize that this is not that kind of a nutcase viewpoint. What I am 100% sure of though is that an initial 3 hours and 8-minute cut exists. How do I know? Well, the chief editor, MaryAnn Branson, said so in an interview, and she should know. She also said that the movie was never going to be that long, so it could be that this cut is filled with stuff that doesn't make sense or has lots of place holders, but I really don't think so. They obviously filmed so much that a first rough cut, just to get an everything-of-interest-in-there version of the film to start editing, would have been much longer than that. No, this is something they worked on, that made narrative sense, and was a solid initial take but too long, and my feeling is that they felt it was too long from a commercial perspective, as opposed to an artistic. This cut may, for lack of a better word, be 'duff' in that it is too slow in some areas or too repetitive or have other problems and it is most probably also missing many VFX shots. But it would seem to me that in between the 142 min we got, and the 188 min they started from, there is, with some goodwill from Disney, a great extended edition waiting to be released. We also know that John Williams originally produced 135 minutes of score, which indicates a considerably longer movie than 142 minutes compared to previous movies. According to co-writer Chris Terrio it was initially such an extensive scope that it was proposed to split the film in two parts. Admittedly, this discussion probably occurred at a story telling phase before actual filming commenced, but it nonetheless indicates a substantially more ambitious approach based on the written material.
JJ Abrams has said in interviews that he does not want to do it, as once he is finished with a film he is done. I can understand that. He has edited and created a film into an artistic experience with a certain pacing and feel, and it must be exhausting to go back and open that door again. Ending a trilogy is hard in itself but ending a triple trilogy must be close to directorial suicide, and although I would argue the critique is partly a media phenomenon, it clearly didn’t generate the uniformly positive response he was hoping for, or used to from The Force Awakens. Interviews with JJ have also indicated that he was aware of the challenge and that it would take a miracle to unify the fandom after The Last Jedi. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, for example, had some very solid books that were universally acclaimed to rest on. The Marvel Cinematic Universe had even more movies to conclude than Star Wars, but in this case Endgame was not only an ensemble movie, with many of the characters already having had their own stories examined and developed separately, it was also split into two parts with each of the parts over three hours long. In this perspective it is less surprising that many felt The Rise of Skywalker felt a bit rushed, which, together with some plot devices being underdeveloped, seems to be the most common concerns with TROS. There is probably little debate that, if TROS had another year of development, some of the pure story telling devices might have looked different and would have had time for another review.
But more surprising, compared to for example Endgame and Return of the King, is that it was relatively short. A movie of this magnitude, wrapping up something this epic, generational and emotional, is like two movies in one. It must have a story line that allows it to stand on its own, but also allow for some time to say goodbye to the characters and wrap up their individual stories. This was done very well in both Endgame and ROTK, and although TROS displayed fine craftsmanship it could certainly have spent a bit more time here and there. Going from adventure to adventure keeps the audience busy, but the ending becomes more abrupt if you feel there was little to no personal time with the characters. Scenes like Rey building her lightsaber, or Kylo Ren meeting the oracle, does perhaps little for the story itself and certainly pulls down the pacing while making the movie longer (and a lot of viewers most likely don't care or can't stand too long movies), but this is where an extended edition comes in. With an extended edition many of these concerns will fade and feel less significant. Agreed, many times extended editions are pointless and really does not add anything. However, those times it does, such as in Lord of the Rings, which Extended Edition movies were 4 hours long, it truly added nuance and was very gratifying to fans, not to mention sold another truck load of DVDs. An extended edition would generate money for Disney, would renew interest in the canon, and dare I say it would show the fandom that Disney do care.
Let's face it, in contrast to common disdain in certain parts of the fandom, Disney has been a tremendously positive incubator for Star Wars in general. The Force Awakens gave it a renaissance that makes it hard to even remember what it was before, unless we only look at the 40+ year old’s that remember the original trilogy from their childhood, trying to convince their kids that the old movies are much more watchable and fun than Ironman and Captain America. A hard sell I would say. Today's youngsters want to be Rey and Kylo Ren, but Obi-Wan or Count Dooku not so much. Solo was perfectly fine and Rouge One gorgeous, an instant classic. And it is not only the movies. Mandalorian is obviously wonderful, which was almost a no-brainer given Jon Favreau’s Midas' touch, and visiting Galaxy's Edge is a fantastic, surreal experience, and it sure was great to get another season of Clone Wars.
Nonetheless, TROS did have less than stellar reviews, especially compared to the others. Again, personally I loved it, but it comes back to how expectations have been stratospheric on such an epic wrap-up. I'm arguing that TROS suffered more in the general opinion than anything else by being too short, and that an extended edition could help eradicate some of the issues people had. Everybody knew it would always be a challenge to end this, so no matter what, some people would be disappointed. I get it, some things didn't turn out the way expected, or some things were a bit cheesy. I feel the same way. For example, I've always felt that when scenes or monsters occur in muddy darkness, like most of the end battle and the interactions with Palpatine, it is because VFX was either rushed or on a budget or both, and there certainly were an element of that, and I think that is fair. From all interviews I've read, with Brandon, Abrams, the firing of Trevorrow, there is no doubt it was rushed, they had little to no pre-vis and they even did editing on the set in the end. Yes, concerns we have, but guess what, with the possible exception of A New Hope, I've had these concerns and wished some of it was done differently in every each one of these movies. It is of course not rational, as very few things in life are perfect, but more of an expression of how much some of us care about these movies and want them exactly the way we want them. A religion indeed.
I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here, so bear with me, but there is also the elephant in the room, with the dilemma of the trilogy’s middle movie having a slightly rebellious director. Rian Johnson decide to somewhat take the story line astray, and in effect 'back-loaded' the third act with multiple story items to clean up. This is not to say the movie was poorly done or bad in any way, and I know many, especially film critics, thought it introduced interesting twists and was cinematographically beautiful. I think we can all agree on that. However, and this is where it becomes divisive, I would argue that that some of these ‘twists’ were not well thought out in terms of its consequences, and did not follow the original intent and therefore introduced massive damage control for the third act. It is not retroactive continuity if you have an overall story arc, even though not fully fleshed out, and the middle part suddenly gives mixed signals that seems to indicate a sharp turn in direction, which the third act then has to spend time clarifying. We've all heard how this sequel trilogy, just like the original, was intended to be written and formed by each part's director. However, there are also numerous interviews with Kennedy, Abrams, etc that explains that there were story points and milestones that had to be met. Quoted from Kennedy interview: “Colin was at a huge disadvantage not having been a part of Force Awakens and in part of those early conversations because we had a general sense of where the story was going,” Kennedy further said, “Like any development process, it was only in the development that we’re looking at a first draft and realizing that it was perhaps heading in a direction that many of us didn’t feel was really quite where we wanted it to go.” There were similar thoughts expressed after TLJ, which is likely why Disney didn't want the same happening to the final movie which had to wrap it all together. If Kylo Ren for example always was meant to have a redemption arc, it is not hard to understand why Disney felt hesitation continuing with Treverrow, similar to the way Rian Johnson likely did in his movie with some elements (that Disney/LucasFilm for some inconceivable reason let slide). We all know the debate, but I have to go there again with two of the most astonishing examples, not to argue a preference per se (although I have one) but more to show the challenge JJ faced after TLJ.
First, it is true that Luke were a already on the isolated island at the end of The Force Awakens, but that didn't mean he felt the whole Jedi had to end or that he would refuse to come to his sister's aid. And it certainly didn't mean that Luke Skywalker had turned into a person that would even consider killing his sister's child, who was put in his trust, and in his sleep. To me personally, these are unforgivable character assassinations of my childhood hero, and I think JJ felt the same. Listening to the TFA commentary track, when Rey and Luke looks at each other and she reaches him his old lightsaber, Abrams tells us how he loves the expressions on these two actors, and I quote "Luke looks at her and knows what it means, to accept this plea, and to come back to help". How Disney could allow Johnson to instead then let Luke turn his back on her in this moment, rejecting the plea for help in favor of a hermit life, and making the lightsaber handover a slap-stick comedy moment by having him nonchalantly throw it away, is beyond me. No wonder Mark Hamill continued to have strong reservations about this movie in all the interviews he made. He knew his character, and that is not how his character would have behaved.
Second, from a pure logical and story telling aspect it was another cheap trick to circumvent audience expectations by making Rey's parents nobodies. What is the point in that? Johnson have explained it with an interest in exploring what would be the worst that could happen to Rey, comparing it to Luke's father being a dark lord, and in an effort to misguidedly democratizing the force, coming to the conclusion that it would be if her parents were nobodies. Rian, let me explain this for you; Rey is sad that she was left behind and is seeking a belonging, while at the same time desperately wanting to know why. I don't think she for a second cared if her parents were the King and Queen of Naboo or nobodies. Just like George Lucas said himself, these stories rhyme, and I think it was beautiful that she experienced a similar thing as Luke in that her lineage was the worst possible in terms of evil. This is obviously something that is much worse than being a nobody, and it is ridiculous to think that someone like Rey would be disappointed in her parents for not being special or prominent. But regardless, let's just marinate on the term "The Skywalker Saga" and what that indicates. Did Johnson really think that anyone deep down would think it was satisfactory that the original trilogy was about Luke Skywalker, the prequels about Anakin Skywalker and then the sequels about a nobody scavenger girl that gets to enjoy the company, completely unrelated to the bigger picture, of the Skywalkers? It didn't occur for one moment that she would either be or somehow end up a Skywalker, and that this would make more sense? This story was admittedly about Kylo Ren/Ben as well, but it was much more so about Rey. The craftsmanship is wonderful, but this is a director who is obsessed by deflecting expectations, and that desperately wanted to introduce his own take and a clever twist. I'm sorry, but that is just egregious, self-pompous, and utter disrespect for the task given. It is actually easier to come up with plot vehicles that throws everybody off than it is to explain an expected story line in an engaging way. Not everything has to be a detective story. Well, this all became a bit of a rant, but my point is, TROS not only had a story to wrap up, it also had things to clear up that were left confusing from TLJ. Not necessarily retconning, but clear ups, as nothing in TROS really goes against what occurred in TLJ. I really love most of TLJ, and especially now that I can watch it knowing that some of the more questionable choices have been cleared up, but it also fair to say that I like it despite Johnson’s choices, and not because of them. (The casino excursion is still a fast-forward, again sorry, but I like to see one movie at a time. Rose was absolutely great, and I look forward to see Kelly Marie Tran in another movie where she is properly cast, and not shoe-horned in by a director just trying to create his own mark.)
You can't please everybody, but with TROS being the end of the saga, many die-hard fans expressed their feelings and it would seem a fair amount of them in wrath. As I myself loved it, it was initially interesting to read these reactions, and what it was that upset them that I had missed. Yes, this is admittedly not Shakespeare nor Ingmar Bergman, or as Harrison Ford himself said "It aint that kind of movie", but beyond all the usual trolls, and the unfortunate swath of people that somehow are attracted to trolls and their negative spew, there were arguably logical, reasonable, and well informed fans as well that were critical. It was as if many almost seemed to go through the classical stages of grief. They were in denial (where is the real JJ cut?), angry (this is all Kathleen Kennedy's fault), bargaining (Disney will erase the sequels from canon), depression (just going to pretend there were only six movies) and acceptance. Acceptance will take longer for these fans, similar to the way it did with the prequels. I believe an extended edition could not only help appease this part of the fandom, but a longer version now that the story is already known could actually allow them to enjoy it with their guard down, and ease the acceptance that their beloved story indeed has come to an end.
So were people in general really more disappointed with TRoS than, for example, ROTJ, which capped off the original trilogy back in its days? I took the liberty of looking into this. Starting with Rotten Tomatoes and the infamous 51% score. It is to begin with worth noting is that this score reflects the number of critics who were positive vs negative, and is not a rating per se. 240 critics gave a negative review and 250 gave it a positive. What is perhaps more telling is that ROTJ had an average rating among these of 7.23 out of 10 vs 6.27 for TROS among the top critics. Obvious advantage for ROTJ, but the 51% score for TROS is undoubtedly misleading. Looking at the audience exit score ROTJ have a very impressive 94%, but ROTJ is no slouch either with 86%. In fact, it is the same audience score as for The Force Awakens, and twice that of The Last Jedi at 43%. Looking at the actual audience rating, ROTJ comes in at 4.42 vs TROS 4.31, or close to a tie. To balance Rotten Tomatoes I also took a look at IMDB, where ROTJ have a very solid 8.3 and TROS a much more moderate 6.7. I would argue though that the scores for both TLJ and TROS were unproportionally affected by trolls, as 5% of TROS voters gave it a score of 1 out of 10, which basically makes all of these voters outliers on the bell curve. TLJ fared even worse, with 6.9% of voters giving it a 1. Looking instead at the median, i.e. the actual rating most people gave, it was a solid 8 for ROTJ and a 7 for TROS. Only 1% rated ROTJ at a 1. Based purely on comparing these two movies, it is probably also fair to expect the numbers for ROTJ being slightly affected by nostalgia, as obviously IMDB didn't exist at the time. This naturally apply to all pre-IMDB movies, but nonetheless worth noting when comparing sibling movies like this. In summary ROTJ earned a higher score than TROS, but TROS was held in high esteem with high ratings from its audience, and half of its critical reviewers. It fared less well at IMDB, but even its somewhat lower score doesn't reflect the more vocal complainers.
So why did it pull in less money than expected? This one is tougher, as money undoubtedly talks. It certainly wasn’t because of lack of interest. Referencing Wikipedia: "Pre-sale tickets went on sale on October 21, 2019 and the film sold more tickets in their first hour of availability on Atom Tickets than the previous record-holder for ticket sales, Avengers: Endgame. It became Atom Tickets' second-best first-day seller of all-time behind Endgame, selling more than twice the number of tickets as The Last Jedi sold in that same timeframe, while Fandango reported it outsold all previous Star Wars films." So what happened? Again from Wikipedia: "It went on to debut to $177.4 million, which was the third-highest opening ever for a December release and the 12th-best all-time, and it was also noted that Saturday (which saw a 47% drop from Friday's gross) was the busiest shopping day of the year, likely affecting ticket sales." However, wikipedia also notes that: "Deadline Hollywood did write that "we can't ignore" the less than stellar audience exit scores, which could affect the film's legs moving forward." Somewhere here that negativity herd started, and regardless of its motivation, bad word of mouth started to take its toll. For various reasons I had to see it a couple of days after the premiere and people were cheering and applauding in a packed theatre. However, I talked to a friend of mine directly after who asked, "How was it, was it as bad as they say?", which really is telling that something was going on. He went on to see it shortly after and absolutely loved it. I can't count how many reviews or forum comments I've read that said something along the lines that they initially really liked it at the theatre, but the more they read about it they realized it was bad. Besides saying a thing or two about people's strength in their own opinions in this day and age of social media, it is interesting how it almost can become a sport to bring down creative work that has involved thousands of people's hard work, and for what?
I'm going to bring up one professional reviewer as an example, because this critic, Scott Mendelson at Forbes, didn't just review TROS, he went on a personal, almost daily, crusade explaining how much this movie sucks and on so many levels. One has to question the motivation behind this, but a recurring theme was how TROS was blatantly retconning TLJ, something Mendelson apparently could not accept nor watch quietly. Or it could just be that negative articles generates better click bait, and that he gets paid based on viewers. His actual motivation doesn't matter, but googling TROS in the weeks after the premiere was sure to bring up at least one or two of his highly critical articles. He was admittedly not alone, but it is scary how general opinion is formed by what it written on the internet, and especially by well-known publications and their factory contributors that has to produce two or more articles a month with high readership. In comparison you seldom see a positive reviewer exposing this kind of behavior, which skews the perception a regular person's experience trying to figure out which movie would be fun to spend money on. I'm not sure why TROS received this kind of predatorial behavior, because even if we hypothetically assumed the movie was bad, clearly it wasn't so bad that it warranted a hunt. I'm sure analytics experts at Disney have been looking at this for months, but it would appear to me that once social media, with top search hits consisting of these pseudo blog journalists and youtubers, sniff out a possible issue with a highly prominent and exploitable event, such as a major film launch, there is endless click bait fodder to be gained. What is amazing is that this drum beat can even topple the marketing machine from a player like Disney. If people say a movie like TROS is garbage they are clearly not being rational, but for some reason almost politically obsessed to interpret things in black or white. (Come to think of it, perhaps this behavior actually do make perfect sense in our current political environment.) We know that Star Wars is a religion, but it never ceases to surprise to what extent. Toxic behaviors like this shows that the threat comes from within, and that we as fans are our own worst enemies. Of course, at the end of the day people love to categorize their impressions in black or white, good or bad, love or hate and I guess it is somehow easier to live life like that. But should at least more main stream media publications show some restraint in their endless click-baiting? I often enjoy bringing up Star Wars with people and I have yet to meet anyone that didn’t enjoy this movie. I have met a few though that haven’t watched it yet but heard it was bad.
I recently happened to re-watch The Dark Knight Rises, also a trilogy wrap-up, and some of you are undoubtedly thinking, sacrilegious, how can you even compare these! And the point is you can’t, they are very different movies with different restraints. The Nolan trilogy is truly epic and an astounding and dramatic take on the caped crusader, but it was also very dark and serious. Star Wars is much more adventure, it is supposed to be fun, and it is supposed to have stakes, but at the same time being watchable for a younger audience. One really has to keep this in mind. They both evoke strong emotions, but Star Wars has a bit of safety net built-in that Nolan never had to consider. Nolan further didn’t have to consider neither continuity nor an original creator like Lucas. This also brings the leaked script of Duel of the Fates to mind. It is certainly a very interesting script and I would have loved to watch and experience it. But, I can also see why this would have been another Rian Johnson version that neither fully respect nor rhymes with the previous ones. There were scenes and portions in DOTF I kind of wished Abrams would have kept, but it is also understandable that the story had to feel right and fit into his vision. I guess what I’m trying to say is that is not a question of whether TROS could have been a better movie or not. We know it could, as everything could, but by the same token it could also been a lot worse. It has many wonderful parts, and for most of us it was an amazing movie, that pulled in over a billion at the box office. Disney may not need to, but by releasing an extended edition this movie almost gets a second chance, and perhaps give even the most hard-liner critics a chance to re-evaluate their stance.
Perhaps an Extended Edition or Director’s Cut was, and has been, the plan from Disney all along? Something to fill the gap until the next movie or to spice up Disney+? It is certainly odd that we haven't seen any director's commentary, and not a single deleted scene yet. Could it be that these deleted scenes are being saved for a reason? Fingers crossed.