In all seriousness this was the only thing I could think of myself and then I had a moment of thought about a dwarf (irl not rpg) having a stalker. It is something that never crossed my mind. Not to say they couldn’t or anything but I could just feel the realization hit.
Anyway, cheers for the actual definition before the brain rot set in too hard.
I quit a couple years ago for good, but my main account on RuneScape was created in classic as a kid. I had about a year and a half of PLAY time on the account, mind you the vast majority of that was back when you had the hard 5 minute afk timer, so that was at least moderately active play. Then if you add my ironman account I have nearly 1/15th of my whole life logged into RuneScape. I don’t regret it, my whole friend group as an adult stem from those friendships I made online during my young teen years. However, as a modern game as much as I have a place for it in my heart, I found I had more of a negative addictive relationship with it. Maybe I always did, but I didn’t feel a negative mental effect at a young age.
I have over 1k hours in The Long Dark and 7 days to die. Around 500 in space engineers, darkest dungeon, binding of Isaac, enter the gungeon, grim dawn, and satisfactory. ~300 hours in ToME4 and Caves of qud each. That’s just steam stuff though, there are a lot of games that I know are up there that aren’t on steam.
I’m sure I have at least similar numbers to 500-1k if not much higher in Diablo 2-3, and I’m sure more than a few thousand in wow though I lost my og account after wotlk because I forgot the details when I quit so I’m really not sure.
GSC made a decision to not sell the game in Russia considering they attacked their home country. It is also a large part of why they were targeted by Russian hackers. Seems weird to ban a game that isn’t allowed to be purchased (I’m aware there is likely going to be ways around it) but to me it just shows how scared Russia is of it potentially doing well. The game doesnt even NEED anti-russian sentiments, its existence IS one.
When we were first learning about it, there were some misconceptions about radioactivity and health. There were even business minded individuals who widely sold it as a miracle cure. This public belief was reinforced by the fact that around that time we discovered hot springs have radioactive elements, (and people have always believed hot springs heal your ailments) which lead to a mass conception radioactivity was actually a miracle cure. A large part of that down fall was when the “Radium Girls” started literally dying because they were told it was totally safe to work with radioactive material, began falling apart and then worked for legal pushback.
I’m not an expert on the matter, so I might be a little off but that is a good overview on why some people have that belief still. As always it’s shitty people looking to make money off of hype. The Radium Girls had a tragic but ultimately fascinating life/story. They would even rub the material on their teeth to glow. Check it out if you’re interested.
I would agree with your last statement, but in the case of Xbox i think it is by design. They already excitedly talk about windows handhelds being the future and its because the console market has almost always been a loss, even back to the Sega selling massively under production cost to try and take ground from Nintendo. Games were always what made the profit.
In the case of Xbox, their business model for a long time has been moving to a live service streaming model, i don’t think they want to be in the console market. If they can move their app on all kinds of devices, they can skip the investment of the console and instead focus on what the real profit driver was all along.
They have some greatest hits too, like repeating that higher education tends to come with a left leaning bias. I don’t think they realize why there is a correlation between education and those politics, but it certainly isn’t what they think it is.
The MTX items are in game, the rumour that you can’t fast travel and stuff blatantly false.
Capcom did some scummy shit, but the reason they(the press) didn’t know is because even now post release the game makes no mention of them.
The limited travel, resurrections, and the currency for pawns were all in the first game and they all feel just as common in my experience.
So fuck Capcom, but the game does deserve the reviews it got imo. However, they also deserve all the backlash they are getting, because they intentionally kept it quiet. They knew players would be upset. It’s gross.
The long dark. The game drips with atmosphere, sleeping when there is a blizzard outside your little cabin is just fantastic. Hearing the snow crunch as you’re exploring, or the haunting sound of wolves howling as they follow you while you’re hauling your latest kill of fresh meat.
The feeling when you come across a rare find that saves your life, like a nice jacket or leggings.
Oh! Once you learn to navigate in a blizzard? You can’t see and it can be so hypnotic. Walking until you find a landmark and adjusting your path, crunching along while the wind howls hoping you find shelter before you die.
The feeling of seeing the Aurora borealis in that gorgeous sky at night?
It all almost makes you forget that you’re probably starving/freezing to death.
I don’t know when the last time you checked is, but I don’t think it’s funny that as early as 1996 Microsoft was successfully sued for nearly 100m for abusing workers as “permatemps”. That isn’t counting their practices of forcing their staff to work extreme hours, avoiding to pay benefits, and just doing just about anything they could to avoid giving their employees a way of “making bank”.
“In 1996, a class action lawsuit was brought against Microsoft representing thousands of current and former employees that had been classified as temporary and freelance. The monetary value of the suit was determined by how much the misclassified employees could have made if they had been correctly classified and been able to participate in Microsoft’s employee stock purchase plan. The case was decided on the basis that the temporary employees had had their jobs defined by Microsoft, worked alongside regular employees doing the same work, and worked for long terms (years, in many cases).”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permatemp#Vizcaino_v._Microsoft
I’ve been saying this to my friends for a good while. I would take it even further than that too.
My prediction has long been that since they were thinking about getting rid of it anyway, and they are shifting focus, that what you predict will happen and that eventually either Xbox will not exist or the Xbox of the future will just be a streaming dongle like the firestick. Just a little app store with controller and you stream all of your games over wifi.
They sell it for dirt cheap and no legit console can compete for basic gaming. Sony will still have a hardcore market, especially with vr and their first party titles, but most of the casual crowd would buy a 50-100 dollar “Xbox” so fast and just pay for game pass. It is a no brainer for Xbox, consoles are always a major loss of money and they don’t want physical media anyway.
Edit: “We have a different vision for the future of gaming. A future where players have a unified experience across devices. A future where players can easily discover a vast array of games with a diverse spectrum of business models. A future where more creators are empowered to realize their creative vision, reach a global audience, unite their communities, and succeed commercially. A future where every screen is an Xbox.”
While they announced new hardware they were real hush on it, just that it would shake up the industry. While I’m sure they would say that regardless and a lot of people say a handheld, either way I don’t think it’s just a console. A handheld would allow exactly my prediction to be possible but it wouldn’t be as cheap.
That quote feels like it nails exactly what I expected though. It might be some time but I do think it will happen and their whole narrative seems to be moving away from Xbox being a console.
I’m an American living in Denmark. Everyone here knows how to drive them even if their current car is automatic. They are becoming more popular, though.
Pretty much as you would suspect. In the late 30s they changed over to manufacturing for the war effort, business was booming for them, turns out war makes a lot of money. Eventually they were making bearings and tools for Germany. Allies found out started targeting their factories and they moved them. Got bombed again after moving.
I don’t see anything wrong with being gay or a pervert. Might just be me but I’d put my money on most people being “perverts” by any definition a delusional prude could come up with. Nothing wrong with coming onto anyone either, actually. I’ve been hit on by men, and while I’m not interested I was flattered. Respecting their response to your flirtation is what matters.
The only real thing that could be an issue in this fever dream of a comment is if he repeatedly did come onto him but I have to say there is no shot I’m going to take anyone with all of your bias seriously. Jobs had a few screws loose and I would be willing to believe that the reason he would turn anything down is because he believed his alternatives would cure him. However I’m also willing to acknowledge my own bias, because I don’t think the man deserves the respect he gets, he seemed to do nothing but take advantage of others around him to get what he wanted.
Step back and ask yourself do you really think that being gay or being a pervert is an issue or are you just told to think it should be? Is it really a thought point you came to on your own? Or maybe when he came out the article you read on it was written by a journalist with homophobic undertones and you internalized the homophobic response, after all it’s going to be easy to do if you already believe that gay = bad.
It can be scary to think for yourself, especially if the people around you do not try to do so and be open minded themselves. You’ll feel lonely and isolated by the people closest to you, I’ve been there and it was hard. I hope you can change for the better and maybe you’ll be a little less miserable, in my experience I grew to be happier and less lonely in the long run.
This single extension is why I’m excited for it myself.
Ah man, I feel like I’m coming down with a video format
Yeah I think you’re right, and it was apparently actually random. The longer it would play a loop the more it would iterate. Such a cool thing to exist
My own feelings on the matter aside (fuck google and all that) this has been something chased after for a long time. The famous composer Raymond Scott dedicated the back end of his life trying to create a machine that did exactly this. Many famous musical creators such as Michael Jackson were fascinated by the machine and wanted to use it. The problem was is he was never “finished”. The machine worked and it could generate music, it’s immensely fascinating in my opinion.
If you want more information in podcast format check out episode 542 of 99% invisible or here https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-4/episode-one-piano-player
They go into the people who opposed Scott and why they did, and also talk about the emotion behind music and the artists, and if it would even work. Because the most fascinating part of it all was that the machine was kind of forgotten and it no longer works. Some currently famous musicians are trying to work together to restore it.
The question then is, if someone created their life’s work and modern musicians spend an immense amount of time restoring the machine, when the machine creates music does that mean no one spent time on it? I enjoy debating the philosophy behind the idea in my head, especially since I have a much more negative view when a modern version of this is done by Google.
I’m an American living in Denmark and have done so for years, I love it here and have no intention of leaving. I’ve heavily considered giving up my citizenship in the US because I have no intention of returning, but I’m not Danish. Sometimes people say “you look Danish!” To me and internally I feel really uncomfortable. I wouldn’t even call myself European, honestly.
However, that’s my opinion, and to be honest musk embraced the American way more than I ever did so he’s probably more American than I am. To each their own.
Unless south Africa is also America he is in fact, not American. I don’t even want to start on all the other asinine things you’ve stated.
Obviously this is just me, but here is a list of the last 5 games I purchased that were not smaller indie titles:
Stalker 2, Elden ring, remnant 2, bg3, dragon’s dogma 2
You could argue that remnant is intended for multiplayer and you could argue that maybe only bg3 and stalker and really narrative driven but the truth is, anymore I tend to buy single player and stream to my friends than I do actually play mp games. The only mp game i was tempted by was Helldivers and I was just too busy at the time.
Anything else are steam deck friendly indie games. I buy a lot of those, and bought a lot even before I had a deck.
In my anecdotal experience, when I see x game is multiplayer, or live service, or just not an experience I can enjoy on my own time I tune it out. For example, I always bought Diablo games but I don’t own 4.
I also immediately think of some other big ones that I opted out of, like Wukong. People fucking love single player games when they are good games. I think the real issue is developing a good game is hard. Developing a game with dark practices and otherwise addicting (but not necessarily fun) gameplay is a much easier way to make uninspired games made by committee.
It’s just easier to point the blame at the market than actually admit that upon self reflection you realized it is best to avoid the hard part of game development.