Middle-aged gamer/creative/wiki maintainer
FFXIV, Genshin Impact, Tears of Themis, Rimworld, and more
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  • 2 Posts
  • 30 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • While absolutely too many things are charged for in gaming today (exp boosts? skip potions? cheat armor that was already fully developed at launch? all ways to get your company on my high seas list)… in the specific case where (1) new content is continuously being developed AND (2) the game is not asking for mandatory spending to continue playing (e.g. no expansion pack to purchase, no subscription fees), I don’t think the concept of charging for in-game content at all is abusive.

    If I buy once and then a year later some optional paid cosmetics or other goodies are added, I think that’s permissible. And if I’m in a free to play live service game, I recognize the ongoing dev costs need to get covered somewhere.

    I do vastly prefer those companies that give their games TLC and updates for free, and I’m not saying the standard pricing for optional purchases in the modern market are reasonable. But I think the existence of in-game purchases, if not their current state, can make sense sometimes.






  • People are clamoring around you in a huge chorus of it’s fine just roll with it but frankly, I think your point of view is totally valid. While Larian did a great job making every path a valid way to the ending, you can really only ever lock yourself out of content with your choices.

    Go too far down one of two branching paths? Hope you can pass a big fat skill check or two, or that one companion will bail. Hope you didn’t like that character or want to see more of that content. (Oh, and if you do pass the skill checks, 10 minutes later the companion is like “ugh no it’s fine you were right, forget I ever wanted to go that way even though I’ve been obsessed with it for the last 20 hours” in the name of railroading the character back in line.)

    Get interested in the wrong quest too early? Hope you didn’t want to finish the main side objective in that one area. No no, even though all the characters are still present, you don’t get to finish it. Because we said so. Shoo along to the next place. Go. Get.

    And here’s hoping you don’t get curious about the “evil” path - you lose multiple companions and a whole-ass cast of side characters that are meant to follow you through the game and gain one (1) bit of interesting new content to replace them. Is it still interesting? Absolutely, but it’s a consolation prize compared to how much you lose.

    It took me 3 playthroughs or so before I finally felt like I was on a save where I was having a good 80%+ of the intended experience. And yeah, you can replay it for what you missed, but not everyone has time for that, especially in a game this immense. I know I’ve started it up to make my fourth character about half a dozen times and Alt-F4ed during character creation as soon as I think about going through the parts I’ve thoroughly combed already.

    BG3 is my GOTY by a long shot, but people should have more sympathy for this outlook. There are definitely right paths and wrong paths, and while they all lead to the end, the wrong paths have a lot less to look at and a healthy amount of rubbing your face in the fact that you did stuff in the wrong order (“Perhaps you could have…” ok thanks, narrator).




  • Everyone has given good advice, but I just want to remind you:

    it’s kinda dusty and feels like a bad place for babies

    They evolved to do this without much human intervention in all kinds of outdoor conditions. Have their lives been improved by domestication and human watchfulness, yes, absolutely… but they’ll be okay. A little dust will not be a serious hazard.

    It’s kind of you to care so much.


  • Huh. I guess you’re one of those that waits for people to tell you things in the comments, makes weird extrapolations about it, and jumps to conclusions rather than just clicking the OP link and absorbing the information there?

    How did you even get that from what I said?

    And literally the second tweet the dev made was “they’ve never sent any replies to me” so he’s clearly been trying?

    I’m usually more understanding of people missing information, but it took you more time and effort to jump to these conclusions and write a totally incorrect defense of Epic than it would have to just see that the info is right there.



  • The procedural content especially is, like, antithetical to the formula.

    Agreed; I don’t even understand why procedural generation is popular anymore. It was novel in its first uses, but where devs see convenient shortcuts and marketers see “infinite replayability,” I see “this shit is all going to feel identical after like 5 tries tops.”

    Oh look, it’s the skybox from 3 planets ago with the ruin from 2 planets ago and the enemy selection from 5 planets ago. And I think this might be a new shade of blue in the grass, or is that just the skybox casting a weird hue over everything?

    Much refreshing, very discover, wow.





  • none of the self cleaning ones really work properly, do they?

    Uh, yes they do?

    Or do you neglect your appliances as much as you neglect your animals? They do still require some human intervention to empty their waste, so you still can’t ignore them even if you’re dealing with it less.

    You accepted this responsibility when you took in a cat. I hate it too, no one likes playing in poop. You aren’t special or alone in this. We all find a way to suck it up and get it done because we love our pets, and if you can’t, you aren’t fit to be a pet owner.