TroublesomeTalker

1. And yet almost every single one had a "Buy" button on the purchase page, not a "licence" and I sure as shit didn't sign a damn thing. I act like I own them, and will continue to do so. Half the EULAs contains some illegal bullshit anyway and the "also is any of this invalidates local laws, just ignore that bit" clause is relatively a lot newer than a lot of classic games which I probably do own because of this. With the greatest respect, laws are - effectively - requests when the entire population willfully ignores them.

2. Absolutely true. And this is where I have difficulty with this initiative. I am a heavy collector and patient gamer, I get to stuff years after release. As such I have always avoided heavily on-line stuff so I can use my own schedule, and that's the sticking point here for me. In the current environment where it's easy to see network requirements, and even refund games after testing it seems like this could be handled by vote with your wallet for the most part. However, I take a very different view of the current bait-and-switch of taking games without a hard online requirement and changing the terms in some way after release, and this alone is enough to make me support the movement. Adding launchers, additional account requirements, micro transactions post release should be heavily controlled. If you don't state at release you will be adding MTX - or even DLC honestly - you shouldn't be able too in my mind. It's a different product.

I think the other thing that so many are either too young to remember, or perhaps not technical enough now, but in the 90s, you ran your own game servers, and it was awesome. It was hard back then, someone seemed an ISDN or leased line to handle the traffic and access to a decent PC or server - requirements that are now in reach of everyone with a joke connection, a multi core machine and a docker install. There's no reason this couldn't be handled that way again with the companies monetising "content packs" for the servers and letting communities flourish. But they like the control.

It's going to be interesting seeing the outcome here!

This was the Xbox One release. In the initial announcement it was all online, all the time with fully Digital licening. As you can imagine, uproar followed. This was their reasoning for everyone who couldn't download a few TB of games and updates on the regular. They relented on almost all of their points, but the damage was done.

I'm curious what the 'right' amount of people being supported that makes it magically sustainable. UK pop is close to 70 mil, with half a mil in Leicester (ISH). Let's be generous and say 0.5% of the population gets these PIPs then. Tax Rates are upwards of 40% for some folk, logically we can afford to care for this many people (and more). Hell the massive Social Security bill is always 2/3 pensions. I'd suggest raising the retirement age a year, which would more than cover the discrepancy, but there's some evidence that life expectancy is going to decline in the coming years, which in concert with the raising ages means retirement is going to be a luxury if they aren't careful. Of course the actual solution to this is the same one that never ever gets discussed. Raise wages and increase Tax take, given it's the wagies that actually pay tax, not the massive mega corps. I'd hoped for a visionary take on the Labour party, the focus being Great British Energy to get energy security, followed by a modern farms initiative to get food security. Instead we get the same old shit sandwich we've been being fed for thirty or forty years.

Hard agree. It's wonderful right now. I put the AAAs that I'm interested in on a wishlist for when they get to a reasonable price, and buy the indies on release (because loads of them have demos and I already know it's my bag).

I do not have a ton of sympathy for people lamenting the state of AAA DLC laden micro skinner boxes - because you can always just choose something less abusive.

The sheer variety at the moment is so good.

They can announce $80 dollar games if they want but there's more than a few indies I'd rather give $15-20 too. I may buy it if it gets to $20. Assuming there's nothing else on the indie scene grabbing it first.

Bastion 2 ?

Have you read the news lately? We're just training for the next few years.

Per core. It ain't that low.

40 core dual slotted xeon runs at $60/month? For patches?

I... Don't see the issue here. Let her spend her backhanders standing up a Mastodon instance, and then enjoy it being flooded with lettuce images, gifs and videos, we'll find out exactly how censored it is within hours. It may even last as long as her stint as Prime Minister.

ALVR isn't awful. I needed new hardware and bit the bullet knowing I was likely going to lose VR, but with the hardware upgrade, it's nicer in the new machine (Bazzite, 7900XT) than the old (Win 10, 2080 Super Max Q). Definitely not a drop in replacement yet though.

Now do the same for your shitty AI search that drive me to finally jump to DDG.

I agree with you on Burnout 3. But Paradise has a per street crash mode high score, which while not as good as 3s, is enough to scratch the devastation itch, and it's easily accessed on steam. So I don't think it's fair to say it has no crash mode. Just a vastly inferior one!

And I'm saying it's the same as world. You can drop off the net and play. Private session --> drop connection, play on. Can't say I've ever tried starting it with no network because there's no way in hell it's running on the deck, but you could with MHW, so I wouldn't be surprised if the same rules apply. I will try to remember to check later.

So far, yeah. If it's like World, eventually there's a quest that is just too damn hard to carry alone (Extremoth in Vanilla, I'm looking at you), but if you are not a completionist, sure you can be offline and single player for most of the story line. Actually it looks like offline support is slightly better in this one.

I'm not a total solo hunter, but I am 90% of the time, don't really play with randoms.