Still better than Horse Armor. So no, not Bethesda’s worst DLC.
The difference is that Oblivion wasn’t bad at all. It was terrific. Starfield was trash from the beginning, then delivers a trash DLC. That’s much worse. No improvement.
I’ve heard a lot of concerning things about Pathfinder being way, WAY more complex and challenging than BG3, like absurdly, crazy complex combat and game systems that I’d probably struggle with and bar me from getting really into their game.
To be fair, BG3 is one of the most remarkable games I have ever played. Like ever. I have struggled to find other games like that which I really enjoy. Divinity original sin 2 I haven’t tried yet but I’m tempted to. Just really struggling to find stuff that’s decent and enjoyable I guess
Because Fortnite isn’t on Steam. Super sure if it was, it would have usurped CS for the top spot.
I actually do really enjoy Fortnite, but according to their in-game stats, it’s hit a lull. The other one is minecraft… idk what people do in that game though. Never tried it haha. just seeking something fun and it’s just the same games every single month…
Yes, it’s widely streamed on Twitch, most of them are just chicks doing house builds. It’s pretty much a PC game version of HGTV to build homes with absurd amounts of customization. Most of them don’t even play the game, they just give themselves tons of money and build a “dream home” like some Ikea home builder simulator. Which is fair, btw, I just want to say that… Completely ok if they like that, not to bash them. But it’s not really playing the full extent of the game, building a family and a career and life simulating.
To be fair, that’s always been a reasonable description of games like Sims
I disagree with you here. You’re making it out to be that this is the extent of it, and that’s not true. Sims 3 had a HUGE amount of content aside from Building. There were quests/tasks, lineages for families, hidden objectives, you could wander around your entire city/neighborhood. None of these are possible in Sims 4. Every “neighborhood” has like 5 housing plots. Some have more than that, one of the Vampire ones has literally 4 homes, you can’t scroll over or have your sim walk next door and make a new friend nope. If you/others haven’t played Sims 3, seriously… Go try it, try to 100% it by experiencing all it offers, especially the Future DLC. It’s insane, really. Every S4 DLC by comparison is hollowed out and has like 5 things to do total. Most of the traveling ones, the university ones. They slashed the content in Sims 4 by 75% and kept the price for the DLC the EXACT same. It’s criminal.
Mmhmm, Paralives looks like it’s going to take the world by storm. I’ve been following their development and they’re doing really good things.
Don’t get your hopes up. It never lasts. These small indie studios create something truly insane that’s so fun and incredible, and then big gaming studios like EA come in and ruin everything. A lot of people seem to forget that Maxis, developer of Sims and SimCity, used to be completely independent. EA bought them out and ruined the entire thing, now they basically don’t exist anymore. Who is to say that the developers of Paralives isn’t going to do the same thing? Guarantee they get a stupendous amount of money offered to them and they sell out, and they would be stupid not to. Who wouldn’t sell their franchise for tens of millions and never have to work a day in their life ever again?
This is extremely interesting and in general kind of touches on a point that I heard that’s kind of funny… People are just bored, and all of Good and bad things that we do in this world are a result of that boredom. Gambling, our hobbies, picking up another job. If it cures your boredom there’s nothing wrong with it
We both know that legitimizing the RMT system increased the number of gold buyers and normalized the process
Really? Where is your data to back that up? Games like old school RuneScape and World of Warcraft still have people who buy gold and get banned for it all the time. You’re also conveniently disregarding lots of the benefits of this system. People can now earn currency fully in game to pay for their subscription. Completely for free, and other players are making a choice the purchase the tokens. There’s virtually no pressure in game whatsoever in World of Warcraft that prompts you to purchase them. There’s no pop-ups, no advertisements for tokens at all. This is the least predatory form of microtransaction I have ever seen. Compare this to Destiny, in which you are constantly given currency for free to use in the eververse, and repeatedly going there back and forth being flashed with bullshit items that you’ll never have enough currency to afford.
The addition of real currency to gold trading creates an even more direct pipeline from one’s wallet to in-game gear dice rolls. Guilds selling raid gear is even more common now, and with crafting orders, a whale can spend to reroll secondary stats on crafted gear.
It has literally always been like this. Where have you been? People were selling power leveling runs through stockades back when the game first started. They were selling BOE gear for gold, and that gold was obtained with a credit card through gold selling websites. The introduction of wow tokens just changed the recipient of the money from Gold farmers to Blizzard entertainment. I assure you that most people who are active players of the game are not buying tons of gear with gold that has been obtained through their credit card, and even if they were, it doesn’t affect you at all. The guilds that sell runs through challenging content, they have always been doing that, since the very beginning. I remember back in burning crusade people spamming chat that they would carry you through black temple near the end of the expansion. So there’s not like some new shift towards that. It’s always happens like that. The only thing that has shifted is that now, more than ever, you can play the game on your own and get your own gear. The introduction of solo delves has made it possible to gear up your character completely on your own without any additional help from others
With the way Warcraft is throwing currencies at players now, it’s clear Blizzard has taken more than a few cues from how gacha and other live-service outfits are doing things these days. Plenty of opportunities for ruinous, addictive behavior.
I fully agree with this and they have been ignoring player feedback about it for a while now, it’s completely bullshit how many stupid currencies we have and it almost feels like they are AI generating the game design at this point. Like they are going to chat GPT and asking, “what’s a good way to create an addictive loop of currencies for players?” Because some of them are in your bags, some of them are in the currency pane, some of them are bind on character, bind on account, some of them can be traded and some can’t. It’s utter insanity. Truly ass game design. This is the first time they finally made a shift back to using a single currency for PVE though, the flight stones and valor stones. Kind of like marks of valor back in wrath.
I agree with you, to an extent. I would say it’s a lot more complicated than that with World of Warcraft, which is an MMO, and does not revolve on gambling except in the aspect of random number generated loot. This is probably the majority of looter shooters out there today as well and a large number of other games. Pure chance in just the loot and rewards. Personally, World of Warcraft did not affect me adversely, because I have very strong self-control, and was able to develop very strict limitations for my own personal life which was important in college.
But I think there’s something you’re definitely missing. Sure, while World of Warcraft can be blamed by some people flunking out of college or high school due to its addictive and fun nature, Have you considered the fact that the world we live in is simply so boring that they don’t want to pay attention to those things? Over a 20-year time span since I have graduated, high school and college has not evolved. It’s the same boring ass mess that it was when I went to school. Unnecessary classes, study only for the test and never use that information ever again, very rarely are their projects and when there are, they are silly group projects in which two out of the four members of your group are lazy and don’t want to do a damn thing. You also are faced with constant demoralizing facts thrown at you from the media and the outside world that your college degree won’t help you get a job, you won’t see any student loan relief, the wealthy elites are in positions of power and rising faster in companies than you ever will be… Reality is so disappointing. So I can understand why these people have trouble paying attention in school and want to turn to stuff like World of Warcraft, theme park MMO that has so much fun and enjoyment in it
But when we’re talking about a gacha, This feels so much more insidious. Every aspect of the entire game, not just the loot, is gambling, and you’re gambling with real money. Not your time. In World of Warcraft you don’t get a drop, oh well, try again next time. You still paid $15 for that entire month, so you can try as many times as you want on as many characters as you want. But when you pay 50 bucks for Genshin impact and you get nothing, you know what that money goes towards? Absolutely nothing. You lose that money forever. Now you are mentally afflicted with that, and you’re already considering whether or not you should pay another 50 bucks to try and get it again with the gamblers fallacy in the back of your mind that if I pay another $50 I’m already $50 in, so I have a much better chance of getting it now. It’s sickening