Video Games Randomness - Prioritize specific game threads!

[Fardaza]

The first time I was able to go into a pyramid it was a "oh, wow" moment and I can't capture that again.

My favorite "oh wow" moment was walking into Durin's Hall for the first time in LOTRO. I couldn't believe the reflections were visible on the polished stone floors! And they changed as you walked through.

I must admit that I still stop and look at that whenever I revisit LOTRO.

[Daehawk]

Ive had so many its not easy singling one out. I continue to have those moments as tech improves the hobby I love so much.

[JetFred]

I started to skip Blackhawk's long post, but it occurred to me that I've been around Gone Gold and then this forum enough years to know it was probably worth reading, so I'm glad I did.

With my particular flavor of clinical OCD, becoming a parent 24 years ago slowly forced me to acknowledge that once the immersion and escapism started draining away with age, I'd be left with the activity of sorting and listing and categorizing, so I often end up playing games that allow my brain to do the thing that scratches the OCD itch best. For example, I got Mini Motorways a few days ago and already played it for more hours than I give far more immersive (and expensive) games. And I've directed my sorting towards my physical movie collection, which ages a little better and is a little cheaper than the game library. As my son is now in med school and married, and my wife and I finally moved to a house with a room converted from a garage that adequately holds my stuff, even she understands and encourages what I'm up to.

I still categorize and list and sometimes even PLAY games, but I've learned not to expect what I used to get out of it. It really only nags at me when a newer, more beautiful and technically impressive game clearly is the kind of thing that would have given me that feeling, but I've mostly learned to forgive myself for not feeling it.

[Kasey Chang]

Random musings about gaming, eh?

I often buy games just because I like the subject, but when it comes to playing, I'm no longer sure I want to spend the time to learn the system, and I often jump back to other "simpler" games. Like JetFred, recently I'm hung up on Mini Motorways, and I'm amazed at all those players who have scored 3000, 5000, even 10000!!!!! I am starting to get better, with more segregation and more creative routing, but it's still a learning process.

I have a bit of OCD myself, as I really want to master/finish a game before going to something else, even if the game is just MOTS and offers little variety. I mainly play the game for the experience, so I don't grind, unless I "have to", and if it gets too hard I look for cheat or trainer. And I do write reviews... LOTS of reviews.

OTOH, I suspect I have a touch of ADHD as well, as I tend to shift my focus to different subjects every few months.

[TheMix]

I'd be left with the activity of sorting and listing and categorizing, so I often end up playing games that allow my brain to do the thing that scratches the OCD itch best.

Sometimes I play Scorpion (solitaire card game) for hours while listening to music. It helps me unwind. I realized that the attraction is taking a complete random mess and create order. It's extremely satisfying. So I definitely understand what you are saying.

[Blackhawk]

I started to skip Blackhawk's long post

I always assume that everyone skips my long posts.

[Madmarcus]

I always assume that everyone skips my long posts.

Now that I'm retired I have no excuse to skip them!

I can see some of the same things in myself but I haven't been able to fully separate aging from merely changing circumstances. I still love big immersive games (FO4, Skyrim/Enderal, AC Odyssey, Solasta ...) when I get into them but I find it harder to sit down and start playing. With the move back to Atlanta my gaming computer is now in the living room instead of in an office or second bedroom. With only two of us in the house I'm very conscious that if I get immersed in a gaming session I'm tuning out my wife. In reality it isn't a big of a change from going into a different room and being on the computer but it feels more like I am making a specific choice to tune her out via headphones.

[hitbyambulance]

Grey Alien Games is one of those very rare situations where i have all their (solitaire) games on different platforms: Fairway Solitaire on Big Fish, Regency Solitaire on Steam, Shadowhand on GOG and now Ancient Enemy on Epic

[Baroquen]

Recently, I'm getting as much enjoyment out of a digital jigsaw puzzle website as I do from my usual rotation of games. For me, it's the same "unwiding" type of mental/game activity that others have mentioned.

[Daehawk]

Recently, I'm getting as much enjoyment out of a digital jigsaw puzzle website as I do from my usual rotation of games. For me, it's the same "unwiding" type of mental/game activity that others have mentioned.

Link?

[Baroquen]

Link?

The one I stumbled on is called jigidi. There may be other sites that do this better, but two things I like about it: 1) Users upload images, so there are puzzles on almost any topic that might interest you (I'm enjoying old comic book covers). And 2) The # of pieces are listed right under the image, so I choose whatever difficulty I want (sometimes the image might be "cut" for different versions/# of pieces.

Nothing revolutionary. Just a little mental exercise that I find relaxing.

[jztemple2]

Nothing revolutionary. Just a little mental exercise that I find relaxing.

Over the years I've tried simpler games on my PC, my iPod Touch and my phone, but I always find myself getting bored quickly. I kidded my wife about this one time, telling her that if a game didn't have logistics rules I couldn't get interested. I think it was when she was tried to get me to play board games socially

[jztemple2]

Funny what will suddenly pop up to inspire me to reinstall a game. We were watching an episode of the old Hawaii Five-O show, "Death Wish on Tantalus Mountain". At one point they are showing Ricardo Montalban driving an old Lamborghini (oddly not a Chrysler with "rich Corinthian leather" ) up this dirt road, supposedly on Tantalus Mountain on Oahu and I say to my wife "That's not Tantalus, I drove that road in Test Drive Unlimited and it didn't look like that!"

So now I'm motivated to reinstall TDU and have a look. Nope, I can't, I had Test Drive Unlimited only on the X360 and I have neither game nor console any more. Is the PC version available? Can't find it on Amazon and besides, who know if it would even run?

Wait! I remember! I do have Test Drive Unlimited 2 on Steam and while the game started off on Ibiza once you had beaten the courses on that island then Oahu was unlocked. So can I still load it on Steam? It's not being sold on Steam anymore but I own it and can install it. So far so good.

Nope, problem. Game won't run without server verification from Eden Games, who long since went out of business. Off to the Steam discussions. I find a link to download the last official patch (not on Steam) and after going through those hoops I can run the game! Wait, no I can't! I need a serial number! Can I use my Steam activation code? Yes I can! Success!

Oh wait, I still can't take a look at Tantalus . While I had beaten the Ibiza map on X360 I hadn't done so on Steam. And besides there aren't any saved games or profiles on my Steam copy. But hey, the game is still kind of fun... maybe I'll keep playing a game I haven't touched in many years . And I'll get back to you on that Tantalus thing...

[coopasonic]

In theory, we'll get a new Test Drive game next year. I can't get too excited about it though.

[jztemple2]

In theory, we'll get a new Test Drive game next year. I can't get too excited about it though.

I've been following the news on that game and the publisher has just released some new videos, but nothing of much substance.

[coopasonic]

Test Drive was my first computer racing game, so I have a bit of a soft spot for them. It was no Hard Drivin' but it was amazing from the perspective of a Pole Position lover.

[Skinypupy]

Shadowhand on GOG and now Ancient Enemy on Epic

Thanks for letting me know these exist. I loved Fairway Solitaire and didn't know there were other versions.

Interestingly, I tried searching "Shadowhand" and nothing came up in Steam. It's tagged with "Visual Novel", a tag I intentionally excluded because I got tired of shovelware anime soft porn games showing up as recommendations.

I would have skipped the Ancient Enemy freebie entirely if you hadn't mentioned it.

[hitbyambulance]

be aware that combat in the latter two titles require a very different strategy than the usual 'clear all the cards from the table' levels!

[Kasey Chang]

As Elite Force II had frustrated me, I decided to jump to... Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, yes, the one using AoE engine. It was quite decent for its time, actually. I am not exactly a superfan of RTS, so I just left difficulty on EASY and try to breeze through the missions.

[jztemple2]

I've found that Test Drive Unlimited 2 will not play nice with my computer, hanging up whenever the map function is called. I tried a bunch of workarounds but ultimately it is just too frustrating.

I've been considering a playthrough of all the Assassin's Creed games, since I have Ubisoft+, but after installing the first game I found that it has various issues with the interface and the tutorial and again, I'm just not up to figuring out all the issues. I thought about AC2, but I've tried replaying that in the past and didn't enjoy it. AC3 I didn't even like the first time. AC4/Black Flag was fun, but I found the open world rather uninspiring. AC Unity had problems for a lot of folks but worked OK for me, just like Cyberpunk 2077, but the story wasn't interesting. I rather liked AC Syndicate, but I've tried replaying it and just couldn't get into it.

So that left Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. The last two have more open combat than I like in an AC game and the game worlds for both weren't as interesting as Origins, so AC Origins is the choice

Turns out I last played the game, all the way through the campaign, in late 2017 so maybe after four and a half years I will be surprised and impressed by some of the things I'll come across. Certainly there's one big change, I now have a much better computer so I've got everything turned up to eleven and I'm still only using about 20% of my available VRAM. It all looks very pretty.

click to enlarge

[jztemple2]

Green Man Gaming has announced that it is now stocking Frontier Development games, including Planet Zoo at 75% off and Planet Coaster at 80% off. GMG is currently holding their summer sale which ends July 29th.

[Daehawk]

So that left Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. The last two have more open combat than I like in an AC game and the game worlds for both weren't as interesting as Origins, so AC Origins is the choice

*snip*
Played one and finished it. Played 2 and didn't. Played 3 and enjoyed it until that mission I took control of the ships for a brief moment. Realized THATS what I want and waited on Black Flag. Totally LOVED it. Have played it 5 times and never finished it once. I just get lost and fade away. Didn't play Unity but did enjoy Syndicate and feel it holds a lot of promise but I dont like lvl'n up 2 separate twins and being thrown across the map with high lvl area between where I started and where it threw me and no way to fast travel..


I Loved Origins when I could finally play it right with a video card. Completed it. Odyssey I loved and was playing it only for 4 days when my wife suffered her life ending stroke. I have never returned to it. It is as I left it still here on my HD. I want to one day. She got it for me so Id enjoy it. One day perhaps,

I played Valhalla until Britain then just stopped. The video card was struggling. Have a better one now. But it also felt so different. Im not sure what to make of it.

[Daehawk]

From the makers of Warframe comes Soulframe. I never got into WF. I tried many times. Not sure why it failed the grab me.

Looks like more Japanese confusion to me. Nice video anyways.

[Sudy]

Today I saw the term "mod piracy" for the first time. For those of you not in the know, there's a creators' rights movement that maintains it's morally wrong and/or illegal to publicly re-host or privately share a mod if the creator has removed it from distribution sites. (And I'm sure it goes deeper than that.) If I recall correctly from gaming news a couple years ago, the issue arose when a modder delisted their mod, but it was still being distributed in a previously compiled mod pack. I also seem to remember something about Nexus Mods refusing to take a mod down? Or perhaps I've got that twisted. I'm not sure if it was the same incident. (Yes, we could google the specifics... but relying on memory like in the olden days is more fun.) I believe this originated in the Skyrim modding community but it's also been a controversial issue in the Fallout 4, Minecraft, and Resident Evil communities to the extent that people are threatened with bans for requesting/offering to share mod files. So the "mod pirates" have moved onto Discord.

My first reaction was that's preposterous. Most mods are free. Gamers have been sharing mod files since the beginning of time. Just because you missed out downloading a cool mod while it was available doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to experience it. At worst, it's a victimless infraction. It's also potentially a preservation issue. But then I considered the other side: I support creators' rights (to a logical extent as far as it protects the little guy; I don't think Disney should be able to extend copyrights indefinitely, etc). Mods may usually be free, but that doesn't mean a tremendous amount of work doesn't go into creating and maintaining them. Creators deserve reasonable control over what happens to the product of their labour. An inaccurate comparison would be, if I missed an Epic Store giveaway because I was in the hospital, it doesn't mean I have a right to pirate the game in question. If we don't support creators and honour their intentions, modding communities may shrink. Mental gymnastics to justify breaking the rules will always exist.

But I still have trouble wrapping my mind around it. It seems incompatible with the philosophies of the internet and gaming communities I grew up with. Despite the corporate/political alarmism, piracy and rights infringement can have a real cost, even if it's not always financial. (And while I think it's a valid argument that the piracy of paid software isn't usually performed by those who can afford it, and that the word of mouth generated by pirates still generally benefits the product, I don't think these factors are as relevant to modders.)

But I'm not a modder. Perhaps you are, and have a different opinion. I'm sure that some proudly release their creation into the wild and accept that it's no longer theirs. But should they have to? There are parallels to be drawn to authorial intent, but that's only part of it. In the modern gaming world of purchasing indefinite licenses to live services, at what point does a community inherit non-paid content that's no longer supported by the author? But that's an ethical question rather than a legal one. Free software still has license agreements. It's just sometimes not in the creator's interest to pursue legal action when they're infringed upon.

[Blackhawk]

Nexus was behind a lot of it. You have the gist of the problem right (from what I recall - I likely have a detail or two wrong), but it wasn't a single mod that kept being distributed - it was any and all mods. Nexus put out a new system that created curated collections of mods, allowing players to simply download a pre-designed, pre-configured 'pack.' Since mods are always being updated, added, and removed, in order to make the system function, they added the aforementioned policy: Once a mod was uploaded, if it was added to a pack, its listing could be removed, but it would still be a part of said pack and would download with it. From Nexus' point of view, it made sense - it was the only way that pre-configured mod packs could ever work. But for the creators, it meant that anything you uploaded you immediately lost control of.

Mod authors remove content for any number of reasons. Sometimes they remove it because they no longer wish to be involved, and they're constantly being contacted for support. I still get contacted periodically with questions about the original version of DarkUI and Xhairs for Oblivion (my only mods that ever went anywhere at 67k and 427k downloads) despite the mod page saying that it has been merged with a different mod and is no longer supported as stand-alone, and the last update for that mod being January 2008.) Or they remove it because they discovered that it is causing a major issue, and they don't want to be responsible for corrupting peoples' saves. Or they remove it because of copyright issues. Or they remove it because they choose to distribute it elsewhere. Or they remove it because the company distributing it is taking a stance or policy position that they disagree with and they don't want to support them with their work anymore.

The single largest mod hosting site telling all authors that they're no longer allowed to do that, at all, ever, for any reason led to a lot of hard feelings. And that led to a lot of authors, especially prolific ones, become very, very sensitive about their rights as creators. Had this happened ten years ago, those same people blowing the bugle would have laughed at the concept. Now, though, they've become extremely protective and cautious.

As an interesting bit, I'm probably responsible for one of the first 'huge', publicly distributed mod packs - the Gone Gold/OO Morrowind Disk. I'd be very hesitant about making something like that now. Not because I feel that it's wrong, per se, but because the authors of the mods would likely object. In my defense, it was never meant to be shared publicly - it was just intended to be passed out among a group of friends, until Deslock wrote about it in a magazine and people started sharing it all over.

[Rumpy]

Kind of reminds me of the issues surrounding the Doom II and Duke 3D mod compilation packs that were sold on CD.

[Sudy]

Kind of reminds me of the issues surrounding the Doom II and Duke 3D mod compilation packs that were sold on CD.

By people other than the creators? If they were free mods, that feels like theft. If it was done by id under some kind of legal but bullshit licensing agreement that's another matter. But we've all seen those "unofficial expansion packs" (with horrendous box art), or at least we used to back in the day.

On the other hand, if I have an infinite supply of dinguses (thus they have no value) and you start gathering them and then sell the dinguses in a market I couldn't or chose not to directly access, shouldn't that be allowed? Someone put in the effort to curate and package the dinguses and front the money for production and do the marketing. They were free mods anyway, right? Out in the wild. Nothing's stopping the creator from doing the same thing.

[Sudy]

Nexus was behind a lot of it. You have the gist of the problem right (from what I recall - I likely have a detail or two wrong), but it wasn't a single mod that kept being distributed - it was any and all mods. Nexus put out a new system that created curated collections of mods, allowing players to simply download a pre-designed, pre-configured 'pack.' Since mods are always being updated, added, and removed, in order to make the system function, they added the aforementioned policy: Once a mod was uploaded, if it was added to a pack, its listing could be removed, but it would still be a part of said pack and would download with it. From Nexus' point of view, it made sense - it was the only way that pre-configured mod packs could ever work. But for the creators, it meant that anything you uploaded you immediately lost control of.

That background adds a lot of context, thanks. I remember it better now. If creators weren't able to opt out, I'd definitely have a problem with it. If it was voluntary and the terms were clear, I would probably take Nexus's side. One creator's actions could invalidate a whole pack.

Mod authors remove content for any number of reasons. Sometimes they remove it because they no longer wish to be involved, and they're constantly being contacted for support. I still get contacted periodically with questions about the original version of DarkUI and Xhairs for Oblivion (my only mods that ever went anywhere at 67k and 427k downloads)....

Holy cow, I forgot about DarkUI. That seems like yesterday. I wasn't aware of Xhairs, but 427k downloads seems incredible. Thank you for your insight and perspective.

[Blackhawk]

Nexus was behind a lot of it. You have the gist of the problem right (from what I recall - I likely have a detail or two wrong), but it wasn't a single mod that kept being distributed - it was any and all mods. Nexus put out a new system that created curated collections of mods, allowing players to simply download a pre-designed, pre-configured 'pack.' Since mods are always being updated, added, and removed, in order to make the system function, they added the aforementioned policy: Once a mod was uploaded, if it was added to a pack, its listing could be removed, but it would still be a part of said pack and would download with it. From Nexus' point of view, it made sense - it was the only way that pre-configured mod packs could ever work. But for the creators, it meant that anything you uploaded you immediately lost control of.

That background adds a lot of context, thanks. I remember it better now. If creators weren't able to opt out, I'd definitely have a problem with it. If it was voluntary and the terms were clear, I would probably take Nexus's side. One creator's actions could invalidate a whole pack.

If I recall (and I may not), they gave authors a grace period after it was announced during which time they could remove their content. After the program went active, though, there was no opting out. There was a lot of hate toward the Nexus over it, although I'm not so certain that I can ascribe ill intent to them. It's more likely that they built a business strategy around something and didn't think through the repercussions until it was too late to back out.

[Kasey Chang]

Not having fun with Galactic Battlegrounds. Even on easy, the game in the big battles starts to drag, esp. due to production. I'm just on the 2nd campaign when I need to take out the Gungans as the Trade Federation, and I can't build the advanced droids. The droids I can build die from the throw energy balls quite quickly, or the air attackers, even when I have anti-air troopers around. I've taken out the two outlying islands and defeated the large navy they had harassing me, but now I've mined just about EVERYTHING possible and now I have to transport enough troops to secure a foothold in enemy territory while I get hit from all sides, air, land and sea attacks, and since resources are finite, and are required to build the more advanced units, once I'm out, I'm out. Done and over.

Decided to play Strike Team Hydra and Strike Team Gladius instead.

[Daehawk]

Kasey have you ever played Empire at War? My wife got it for me many years ago cheap at Walmart .The GOLD pack. Comes with the addon stuff. Or DLC whatever. You might like it .I loved it.


JZ how ya doing in Origins. I loved that game so much. I played it from beginning to end and missed it when I left.

[Kasey Chang]

Been playing Strike Team Hydra and Strike Team Gladius the latter being the improved version of the former.

In STH, you're a marine team (12 different classes, pick 6 members) stationed on the Strike Cruiser Hydra. When the Heavy Cruiser Talwar was ambushed and boarded by the Sethari, you are the closest ship to assist. The fight is on a hex grid, even though the map is still mostly sharp corners due to being ship's interior. It's a turn-based tactical combat a la XCOM but with a few twists. Same cover system, with relatively short ranges (most weapons have range of 8, which is about the run range as well, but some weapons go longer), which is fine for fights in ship interior. As you level up the marines you unlock additional special abilities like area attack, personal cloak, and so on. Fight your way thorugh a 24 mission campaign (not dynamic, just a mission series) then there are additional 20 missions for you to grind through. Production value kinda sucks, but this looks like a small indie team, so it's excusable.

STG is basically STH V1.5, same engine, except this time, you're fighting on a planet (no more tight quarters), there may be friendlies (with sucky AI) and vehicles (that drive right THROUGH you and terrain, at least visually) and the missions are now organized better, where you have to help your forces retain the planet under invasion by the Sethari, then mount a counter-attack. However, the UI is still "mostly" the same. The map's bigger, and you need to move a lot more, but this also highlights the previous game's "action points" system having some problems, so the author did a fundamental change. In STH, AP pool is shared between action and movement. The more you do one thing, the less you can do the other. In STG, they are now decoupled. Even if you use up all of your movement, you still have the full AP pool to do things. While this does compensate for the larger map, so each mission doesn't drag on forever, each mission can easily last a dozen turns or more whereas the tight quarters in STH means missions end usually in like 5 turns (or a lot less).

The main quirk is the "counter attack" mechanic, where each unit has a set number of counter attacks (and if you use AP to activate "guard" skill, it will gain 3 counter attacks even if it started with 0). Some equipment / armor / weapon can add additional counter attacks. Then if during the enemy turn the unit was fired upon by the enemy, it will then return fire, if it has counter attacks remaining. This is "similar" but not the same as the "overwatch" system, as this is triggered by attack, while overwatch is triggered by movement.

The equipment is plentiful, and almost feels a little like Diablo with tons of random stuff given as loot from the mission, or visit the shop and trade up equipment as needed. However, credits are NOT plentiful UNLESS you play on hard or extreme. Unless you find some legendary weapons you can't use (the class restrictions are quite strict) then you sell them and buy weapons that you can use. No sell-back penalty at all (trade in is the same price you paid). So you basically end up trading up weapons and equipment and armor every mission when you can afford it.

TO deal with the range problem, my current tactic is to find range extenders, basically sensor belts and sensor paldrons as well as extended range weapons. You can find up to +4 range weapons or sensors which adds 25-50% range, even double in some cases. And that gives me a lot more tactical flexibility by letting choose the engagement distance. A LOT of enemies are melee only, and every hex I can stay back is better for me.

I've "finished" STH and maybe half through STG.

[jztemple2]

JZ how ya doing in Origins. I loved that game so much. I played it from beginning to end and missed it when I left.

It's a case of "been there, done that". After a few hours I wasn't really enjoying it so I gave up.

And now with AC Rift postponed to later in 2023, I'm thinking I might as well cancel my Ubisoft+ account.

[Kasey Chang]

I find the idea of mod piracy "somewhat" ludicrous. It's a bit of "leaving the gate open so the cows left, then complain when they ended up in someone else's barn".

It's the Internet. Once stuff got out, there are no takebacks (I don't want to share the mod any more) other than issue a demand, and hope people are courteous and delete their copies (and many won't). Sure, you can demand this of websites, like NexusMods, but there are many websites like it, and probably a ton of illegitimate "collections" based on "not quite the latest" versions packaged for download somewhere.

If you publish a mod, you can expect it to be used in all sorts of ways you probably never intended. And unless the whole scene was well designed, like the Node.js repo (npm) or similar libraries, it's impossible to track and update everything everywhere at once.

And we *have* seen cases where npm was either accidentally or intentionally sabotaged. And this is serious software, not game mods, that affects thousands, if not millions of developers around the world. At least one dev created a "poisoned" version that deleted files in Russia only (by IP mask), calling it "protestware". Back in 2019 someone hacked a npm user and uploaded malware contaminated npm module updates. And there was a case where someone intentionally deleted his npm module, but his stuff was used in a ton of other libraries, which all broke. Someone wrote a replacement within 24 hours, but that's still 24 hours where a LOT of people suffered outages for someone's ego got bruised and decided to throw a tantrum (and for npm to allow unpub a module used in gajillion dependencies.

And a bunch of game modders complain about "but it's my creation! I can do whatever I want with it!"

After it got out? Good luck. (slowly shaking head)

EDIT: Maybe add a threshold: after X amount of downloads, or if other mods are dependent on your mod, after X other dependent mods, make it a delayed unpub, like you have to wait 30 days, before the unpub goes through, and in the meanwhile, the stuff remains available, but with a warning: author has intended to pull this mod from distribution, making (X) potentailly unusable. You have X days left to download a copy before it is moved/deleted/made unavailable?

[Blackhawk]

I got completely lost there.

[jztemple2]

JZ how ya doing in Origins. I loved that game so much. I played it from beginning to end and missed it when I left.

It's a case of "been there, done that". After a few hours I wasn't really enjoying it so I gave up.

I lied, I didn't give up on AC Origins. I played some more today after remembering the fundamental rule of AC games, don't just play quest after quest. Instead, wander around, enjoy the scenery, take out some animals for crafting and dry gulch soldiers for fun and profit. Also, and different from AC Valhalla that we're discussing in another thread, in AC Origins you can go around and help out the peasants and the poor folks.

And you get to ride camels. Very cool.

[Daehawk]

Its actually a very good game and stitched together well.

[jztemple2]

I've had a game called Cartel Tycoon on my wishlist for a couple of years and have been following their newsfeed. It's been in Early Access for over a year but I'm trying to swear off games till they hit 1.0 which Cartel Tycoon will do tomorrow. I'm planning on purchasing it today after my refund for another game comes through. I'll start a new thread when I actually have details to post but for now I'll post their latest developer video here.

[Blackhawk]

I just posted this in the Cyberpunk 2077 thread, and decided to move it here as I thought more about it.

I just hit the same point that I've always ended up walking away from this before - shortly after the prologue. I think I know why this time: Overload. Information overload and choice overload, giving birth to decision paralysis. You finish the prologue, and you're completely bombarded. Quests, sidequests, contacts (I can't drive five feet without someone calling me - I got a call to drive 1.2 kilometers, and got called four or five times before I arrived, each with offers for me to keep straight), the map is suddenly packed solid with icons, and any number of other things I'm losing track of. I want to play, I just don't want to spend an afternoon doing research to figure out what to actually do. And when I am in the mood to game, I'm overwhelmed with the urge to go play something else - something that I can actually sit down and play.

And, to be honest, I think I had the same problem with The Witcher 3, which is probably why I never finished it.

Thinking about it more, I'd quickly add Red Dead Redemption to this list.

Looking back a few years, open world games weren't this busy. You'd have your main mission options, and you'd usually unlock a few side quests as you went, either tied to your main mission progression (meet a new main character, get a new set of side missions), and there would be collectibles here and there, with very little progression tied to them. Think about the GTAs, Fallout 3/Vegas/4, Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim, Mass Effect, etc. Lots to do, but it wasn't totally saturated. Now, though, it seems like there can't be a single square inch of map that isn't saturated, and much of the experience points/unlocks are tied behind the extremely repetitive side tasks. They're not all that way - Metro Exodus, for instance, had lots to discover, but gave you breathing room. Some poking around has revealed a term for the newer type that is surprisingly apt: "Ubisoft-likes."

I'm not sure it's a good development, as I have found myself actively avoiding that type of game for a while now, despite them having been one of my favorites.

[TheMix]

I recently decided that I greatly prefer FPS games to TPS games. For some of the same reasons. It seems like so many of the 3rd person games are huge, open-world, with lots going on. Sometimes I just want to dive in and finish something without having to dedicate the next month to it.

I just replayed Metro: Exodus. Basically over the weekend. It was very satisfying.

I've, sadly, been stalled on Days Gone. Which I shouldn't be. I love zombie games. I played Dead Island through at least 5 times. I played Dying Light twice. But I struggle with Days Gone.