Cethin

Well, usually if it’s from a breaking update or something it’s “saves from previous updates aren’t guaranteed to work with future updates.” They don’t say “fuck you” but they usually also don’t promise to fix it. I agree it’s a business strategy though, but they should be commended for it or their business strategy stops being this.

Yep. I wish more services asked for a nominal fee and just skipped the ads and data harvesting. They don’t make much per user anyway, so just let us pay the few cents directly and skip the bullshit.

Most games don’t support the Steam workshop for modding, nor should they feel the need. Sure, it’s nice to have, but it has a lot of limitations. If you don’t want to deal with the very minimal effort to manually move some files around, that’s on you. No one is forcing you to.

I assume FO London is particularly bad because Bethesda fucked up the game with the update after the show came out, just before London released. I think it’s fairly easy to fix, but you do have to do something for yourself instead of expecting others to do it for you. Again, you can choose to be lazy, but you can’t always get your way if you are. It’s your choice.

The Deck is just a handheld Linux computer. You’ll have to install mods manually, as Nexus doesn’t have a Linux application yet (it’s coming, slowly), but it shouldn’t be too hard. You’ll have to exit Big Picture Mode and then you’ll be on the Linux desktop and can do all the things a Linux computer can.

There should be somewhere that tells you how to install mods manually. It’s probably a folder somewhere that you just extract the files into.

It won’t collapse in the same way because, like you said, we have tons of indies and they have easy access to publishing now. Hopefully the AAA space collapses though. It looks like it’s going that direction. They’ve forgotten why they exist.

They should be portable. I don’t know if they should be stored in the cloud though. Ideally you can open a password database in whatever application you want if you have the database and login information. Not allowing this is inconvenient and doesn’t seriously increase security.

Having them not be portable ensures people use them less frequently. If I couldn’t sync mine between my phone and desktop I probably wouldn’t use it. The way I do it isn’t built into my manager (KeepassDX), but I use Syncthing to keep it up to date on both devices. It’d be better if there was an official option for people bad with technology.

Yeah, it seems like the only reasonable (in their mind) explanations should be it’s either climate change or the wrath of God. Either way, it should indicate they need to do something different.

I’m pretty sure they know what they’re doing better than you. I imagine the mangroves will protect them fairly well from damage, and as long as they have power and their bilge pump is working they shouldn’t sink. The water is probably pretty shallow anyway, so that might not even be possible.

Just don’t play the AAA slop and the file sizes are a lot better.

HDDs will probably always be useful for media storage, where quick access time isn’t required and it isn’t being used constantly. They should die for PCs though.

FO3 did some thing much better than NV. NV is the best written, by far, but it’s different, not better, for gameplay. FO3 was closer to the original games in gameplay. There were a lot more random events while traveling, and they could react with each other in really unique ways. NV essentially removed this. There are a lot of other areas of difference too, but NV always gets remembered as better, and I think that’s largely because the things FO3 did better are systemic, so less noticeable, while NV had better stories, which you have to notice.

You think Planetside blows and you’re asking for Planetside. That’s odd. What don’t you like about it? It’s probably a symptom of what you’re asking for.

(Also, you don’t really seem to know what you’re talking about anyway, because quantum computers aren’t super powerful computers or something. They’re like a GPU. They’re specialized processors that are better at a few specific tasks. Binary CPUs are still probably always going to be what’s used for most computation.)

You say they’re right, but you didn’t counter any opposition. Great input. You do realize that the anti-nuke movement is largely funded by oil companies, right? If they weren’t a good alternative, why would they need to do this? They would just fail regardless. Instead we’ve passed a ton of laws increasing the cost and time to build a nuclear facility to protect them, and then people like you just repeat that it’s too expensive, or that it’s unsafe despite being essentially tied in safety with solar, and better than everything else.

It has many times. It’s cheaper in other nations. The only reason it’s so expensive and takes so long to start in the US is because dirty energy companies have gotten laws passed that make it harder “in the name of safety” or whatever they claim. Most anti-nuke groups are funded by oil companies. Nuclear energy is safe, clean, reliable, produces insignificant waste that is easily managed, and provides a baseline power that other clean sources can’t do alone.

Three mile island has operated for decades safely. It closes in 2019 IIRC due to it being unprofitable, because methane was so cheap. Safety isn’t an issue.

Storage of waste is very simple. It requires a very small area, and most of the waste will be neutral in a very short period of time. The stuff that isn’t is still easy to store safely. We have plenty of solutions available for this. It’s also a non-issue.

Regardless, I agree they need to pay for the cost. If the electricity isn’t going to the people then the people shouldn’t be paying for it. Unless M$ is providing the AI garbage free of charge to the public then they get nothing out of it, and even then it would be of debatable utility.

Edit: After reading this, I’m actually not that upset. The company is valued at $80 billion apparently. There’s very little chance they default on the loan. It’s not like they’re getting the money for free. They’re just getting a loan from the Energy Department. Still, if it’s only for private use then the loan should be handled through private entities. They should go take the loan the banks offer. The only reason they’re taking this one instead is because it’s a better deal. They don’t deserve a better deal if it isn’t in the public interest.

I would say most of the writing is bad. There are a handful of interesting quests, but most aren’t. Then there’s things like the generation ship, which they don’t do anything interesting with, it uses the same technology as the modern ships, and also the quest path to end it is stupid. There’s also so many things that just don’t make sense in the universe it’s set in, and it’s overall just boring.

I agree overall the game is just aggressively average though. It plays fine enough, but it gives no reason to want to play it. It’s not actively painful to play, but it gives no feedback to make anything feel worth doing.

I’m pretty sure intent is part of the laws that exist. If you’re just collating information, I don’t think there’s an issue. When you’re posting that information in a forum to identify the person and send people to harass them, that’s where you usually cross a line. It isn’t the gathering of information that’s important. It’s the intent to cause harm.

$70 is going to be the new normal price for AAA. Prices haven’t increased in decades. I don’t like it, but that’s what it is. It’s not AAAA because of the price, nor is that even a thing.

AAA comes from credit rating scores. It essentially means nearly guaranteed returns. It was used to identify games that need to be stocked for game stores. AAA is going to sell. AA is slightly less but still good. Etc. There is not AAAA credit rating. That was just stupid marketing buzzwords that don’t matter.

The engine isn’t why Starfield sucks. Sure, the constant loading isn’t great but it isn’t the reason there’s nothing fun or interesting to do. It’s also a solvable issue, but they haven’t made the investments they need in the engine.

Starfield is just soulless. The characters are boring, the stories aren’t interesting and don’t let the player choose fun options. The universe is static and nothing matters. There’s just no reason to be involved in the world, so there’s no reason to want to be in it.

They could fix this. I’d say the way they need to go to do so is to stop targeting literally every player. They need to figure out who they’re making the game for and target them. I’m a big sci-fi fan, and I like older Bethesda games. I should have been an easy target for Starfield, but I hated it, not because of the engine but because the stories, characters, and universe weren’t engaging. The engine is an easy target to complain about, but it isn’t what’s holding them back. Indie games can do more with worse engines.

No, sadly I think the design is too new. Morrowind was 22 years ago. It is the direction I’d like to see them go again. A complex world that feels lived in, and actually gives players options to play how they want and figure things out for themselves. The newer boring “design for everyone” approach sucks. There’s no soul and nothing interesting.

FromSoft is somewhat notoriously old-school. Their game design has directly evolved from their older games. Look at King’s Field and then look at Dark Souls. There’s so much similarity. Yeah, ER is more cleaned up with a fuck-ton more money and technology available, but it’s essentially the same design.

Obviously Balder’s Gate 3 is just an evolution of classic RPG design, and it did very well. I’d argue CDPR also has taken classic RPG inspiration more than modern ones. A modern RPG design wouldn’t do half the stuff Cyberpunk did, because it’s not targeting everyone (and no one).

Modern AAA design doesn’t pick a target. Their target is everyone and everything, so they do nothing well. Classic design is knowing who your game is for and making a game for them and not anyone else. Bethesda is doing the former.