Wanna know which game I last broke my “no pre-orders” rule for?
No Man’s Sky. The game that was a tech demo for the first year or so after release. It’s become a hell of a game since then, but it taught me a valuable lesson and I haven’t bought a game since then.
It’s kinda the natural progression of late stage hypercapitalism though. Used to be that you spent all your money up front, then your sales recouped your investment and hopefully generated you a profit. Once game companies figured out OTA patches they realized that they can push a lot of QA back until after release and use pre-orders and day 1 sales to fund it. Then with DLC they realized that they can sell the untested skeleton of a game up front and use presales and early sales to fund development. The natural progression seems to be the Star Citizen model, where you get huge chunks of your sales up front and use that to determine what you’ll develop and when (if ever) you’ll release it
If charged as a felony, you could be facing a sentence of two to four years in State prison. Regular assault (Penal Code § 240), is always charged as a misdemeanor offense.
The instrument used includes any type of firearm, knife, bat, car, or anything other type of weapon that could produce significant harm to the victim.
In order to prove a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you assaulted another person and you used a deadly weapon or force that would likely result in great bodily injury.
An assault charge does not require that you actually make physical contact with or injure the person.
I have shot and killed a deer with a flintlock gun. They’re not toys or props. He committed assault with a deadly weapon and the whole word is just like “Oh, that’s just wish.com iron man. You know how he is.”
It’s just a wet mouth on a long arm that reaches down to hell
I haven’t read penny arcade in years, but it brings me joy to see that the writing, at least, seems to be right where I left it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a deep crow that needs feeding.
is it impossible to have a balanced conversation about starfield in particular, or does the internet ad economy tend to exclude the middle of every conversation in favor of loud antagonism and engagement bait?
The thing about video games is that they’re a multivariate equation. Fun is a variable, and so is realism. Depending on how much realism there already is, and the nature of it, adding more can also increase the fun but it can also take away from the fun. There’s a reason that even the hardcore simmers who do things like drive pretend trucks across Europe in real time or run pretend air traffic control at pretend airports pay to pretend to do those things instead of getting paid to do them for real.
any game that gives you control over sheathing/holstering your weapon instead of waiting for your character to do it for you
I recently bought red dead 2 and that feature took some getting used to. Especially because the controls are context sensitive and the button that starts a conversation when your gun is holstered is the same button that points that gun at a stranger if it’s out. I’m used to it now and compulsively holster my gun as soon as the shooting seems to be done, but for a while there was a lot of “Howdy partner. Fine weather we’re having ain’t…no wait wait sorry I didn’t mean…ah shit” and suddenly I’m in a shootout with the law and out $50 for my bounty when I just wanted to buy a bottle of whiskey.
I used to like to get gently stoned, fire up GTA 5, put on FlyLo FM in the car and just drive around. My brother and I would sit for hours, and it was basically like we were in a real car. I didn’t drive super fast, took most reasonable precautions against wrecking and killing people. It was just…nice. A sort of cut-rate flow state where the thing I’m doing is something that I have to pay attention to, but not something I’m occupied by to the point of not being able to bs with somebody.
holding the delusion that people are naturally good
Nope! Just recognizing the truth that I, within myself, can be better and that I can accept the idea of being taken advantage of by the occasional bad faith actor in exchange for being able to be part of a broader community of people who do the right thing most of the time.
Cynicism is laziness masquerading as intellectualism. It’s the “step 1: give up!” of philosophies.