Blas Roca Calederio, born on July 22 in 1908, was a Cuban communist revolutionary and radical journalist. Roca helped lead the 1933 general strike that ousted Gerardo Machado, and served in Fidel Castro's revolutionary government.

Born into a poor family, Roca began working at age eleven, shining shoes. According to Castro, Roca was already a prominent communist organizer in the province of Oriente at 21 years old.

At age 25, Roca helped lead a two week general strike that ousted dictator Gerardo Machado. By 1936, he was head of the Cuban Communist Party and began serving as a politican, helping author the 1940 Cuban Constitution.

Under Roca's leadership, Cuban communists were instrumental in providing an organizational and ideological structure for Castro's revolution, as well as playing a pivotal role using the party's long-standing ties with the Soviet Union to promote increasingly closer ties during the early days of the revolution.

In 1961, Blas Roca, leading a party delegation, presented a Cuban flag to Nikita Khrushchev during a meeting of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Roca served on the first central committee and politburo of the new Communist Party of Cuba, founded in 1965.

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  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    You can get upgrades for the shop vendors during the course of the game that will let you buy as many upgrade stones as you want, except for the very last tier.

    The redditor is right, though. There are specific kinds of dungeons that provide different kinds of upgrade materials - catacombs for gloveworts, mines for smithing stones, and once you know where they are in each region you can go farm them for what you need. The game is structured to give you ways to get the materials you need in a relatively predictable way.

    Plus if you're doing a fresh run you should be able to find everything you need just running through the main areas. The game made things vastly easier than previous games by tying different stat scaling to the whetstone knives and letting you freely change stat scalings whenever you want for no cost, instead of requiring specific, limited upgrade mats like the prior games did.

    This has always been a thing with the souls games. There's a massive amount of information to take in about game systems, item interactions, weird secrets. Going to community websites and wikis to share information and work things out has been part of the experience the whole time. It's one of my favorite things about them. When a new games out there's this enormous community energy to share discoveries, work out the function of different mechanics, piece together lore. It's a thrilling process of investigation that brings people together in a way that goes beyond the in-game experience and it's not something I've found with other games.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        5 months ago

        What is it that compels you to continue playing the game when you so clearly hate all the things that make it weird and unique?

        • AndJusticeForAll [none/use name]
          ·
          5 months ago

          Residual feelings towards how good Dark Souls 1 and Demon's Souls are, even if most of the actual weird and unique aspects of those games are gone and replaced by anti-thought open world drudgery.

    • peppersky [he/him, any]
      ·
      5 months ago

      I have seriously no idea what the problem with upgrade materials in Elden Ring compared to previous from games is supposed to be. If anything it's less obtuse since the areas you find them in are more or less obviously telegraphed. I've replayed the main game from scratch with a friend in preparation for the DLC and am still currently doing my first playthrough of the DLC and I have absolutely zero issues upgrading the weapons I want to upgrade.

      I cannot believe how happy I am that even though I'm the biggest hater around I can still appreciate the singular good videogame that comes out a year, and Elden Ring and the DLC are easily the two good games of 2022 and 2024. True return to form after the completely mediocre Dark Souls sequels.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        Yeah, it's much more straightforward than any prior game. Just regular stones or somber stones + whetstones to attach whatever stat scaling, special damage, and ash you want. No muss, no fuss. Trying to find all the finnicky special stones in DS1 and then not being able to change without great cost was pretty rough.

        Anyway, I got a play date with Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree. And by play date I mean she's been tossing my ass around like a kayak in a hurricane and I seriously fucked up coming in with an all magic damage build. It is funny, though; My magic doesn't do shit to her, and meanwhile I have like two spells and the Carian shield to negate most of her magic, so we're just whiffing at each other until she reminds me that she's like nine feet tall with an equally giant armored horse and can beat the crap out of me with her entirely not magic halberd.

    • AlpineSteakHouse [any]
      ·
      5 months ago

      This has always been a thing with the souls games. There's a massive amount of information to take in about game systems, item interactions, weird secrets. Going to community websites and wikis to share information and work things out has been part of the experience the whole time.

      They went way overboard with Elden Ring. I could upgrade the first weapon I find in DS1 to + 25 and beat the final boss without worrying about anything. In Elden Ring, I could be 30 hours into a playthrough and my main sword swings too slowly to punish a boss so I have to look at the wiki for upgrade materials or alternatively find the weird item which stuns the boss halfway across the map hidden behind an unrelated NPC quest.

      Elden Ring built their bosses around the idea that you have the wiki on hand. "Does this boss have enough openings? Eh who cares they can just respec or find the shackle on the wiki."

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        could be 30 hours into a playthrough and my main sword swings too slowly to punish a boss so I have to look at the wiki for upgrade materials or alternatively find the weird item which stuns the boss halfway across the map hidden behind an unrelated NPC quest.

        what weapon are you using? what boss are you having trouble with? some bosses have pretty obnoxious attack delays that can certainly mess up great club and ultra great sword timing. The shackles are only a mechanic for Mogh and Margaret, and I think that was specifically to help new players deal with Margits first encounter. I remember everyone, including me, bouncing off that fight like ducks off a star destroyer's main shields. From definitely could have made it more clear that players didn't have to go directly to Margit and could explore around Limgrave and Weeping Penninsula.