Non-essential and predatory are not mutually exclusive, especially given Blizzard’s history of player manipulation. They have perfected the science of making you want someone that you don’t need.
Haha ok so you’re just one of those people whose understanding of the universe isn’t capable of expanding beyond “this good, that bad”.
I haven’t defended anyone and never intended to. I’m just saying get your comparisons straight. “Hey this game has a bunch of annoying bugs” =/= “Yo this shit is effectively non-functional and empty”.
I’m not downplaying anything, but comparing a dumpster to a dumpster fire and saying they are the same thing is, at best, a little misleading.
The release of Witcher 3 was bad, but it was industry standard bad. Cyberpunk shipped straight up broken and incomplete. It has been fundamentally reworked at least twice since launch.
I don’t think anyone is apologizing for The Witcher 3 at launch, but let’s not pretend they are the same thing. There are more shades than black and white.
That is pretty reductive. Like, it’s a sim. You could describe just about any sim the same way. “You just do this thing to do that thing”. How is this any different from any other game?
I’m not saying it’s the best space game, but I had fun when I played it and it definitely didn’t just feel like I was mining materials just to mine more materials.
Jesus…ok obviously it was technically an option, but it would be suicidal in a time when not everyone had Internet in their homes and those that did had unreliable Internet. Don’t be obtuse. Those limitations are largely not an issue in 2024.
I was playing video games on my homebuilt computer in the 90s. I know exactly what it was like.
DRM is nothing new, we just used to have to keep up with the disk or a Key. If always online was an option back then you can bet your ass game publishers would have implemented it.
It’s extremely popular because it is a well polished Harry Potter game; something the world has been begging for for a long time. It does invoke that sense of magic that the films do so well, so if you’re just looking to get a fresh hit of the Hogwarts world it’s great. There are also a lot of really interesting and well designed characters. Most of all the world, particularly the castle, is beautifully and lovingly crafted.
The game buried beneath all that polish is a pretty basic-ass RPG. It is crammed with filler fetch/find quests. The dialogue system is just another exhaust all options non-system. The combat has some really cool ideas on paper but I personally ended up mostly mashing buttons against one of like 5 generic enemies most of the time. Also the only customization in this RPG is your appearance.
It’s not a bad game by any means, but i wouldn’t say it’s great either.