Leaderboard

Jagged Alliance 3 is like $35, so go get two copies of that instead of Starfield.

How is the 5 hours spread? Is it in one chunk? Is it many few awesome times spread between 45h of meh?

Hours of gameplay is an imperfect measure of value. I will gladly take 5 hours of awesome over 50 hours of meh.

Will the world ever see such deep and profound dialogue again? On a serious note, it's like something created by ChatGTP years before that was invented...

I now compare it to the price of pizza and the grief my stomach will give me , now that I am over 40 and a late pizza plays hell on my metabolism.

What do you mean, this is radiant ai, it's the future of gaming!

If there's a 36 year old Adrienne Barbeau in the expansion then forget about Panam, I know who I'm hooking up with.

Even if I hadn't been watching the game all the fireworks and car horns would have given the outcome away.

It was a great run by the Heat, but they either had to play perfectly or hope that Denver suddenly stopped playing like how they've been playing this entire post-season, and so Denver gets its first championship. Jokic will undoubtedly (and deservedly) be heralded as the best player in the NBA, I think. Thank god that I don't watch or listen to any sports media, because I'm sure the whole lot of them will be just as obnoxious as they always are.

Absolutely terrible plots, **** writing and 16 times the detail. He'd fit in to a T.

I think it is great when hidden characters get unique dialogue in scenes that aren't specific to them.

Hello! I guess you knew that when you use the Dire Talon (sabre) and enchant it with Wurm Call you will have a 20% chance on crit to summon 3 wurms? Did you also know that if those wurms die they will leave a body hat only disappears after combat ends - unlike the summons that you gain from your abilities (that includes summons from items that give you an active summoning ability like a Whale of a Wand's Fantastic Friends - they will disappear on being killed and leave no body)? I surely didn't. But those wurms' bodies will stay. And wurms are beats... That means that you can consume the body with Flesh Communion. All Corpse Eaters: This can help your Corpse Eater to use their Flesh Communion in every fight - you "only" need to crit often enough and then get a wurm killed. You can do so yourself by attacking it with the weapon itself (there's a chance that you crit and summon another bunch of wurms and so on - there's no hard cap on how many wurms can be on the screen) or by using some friendly-fire spell like Shadowflame or whatever. If you crit a lot (hello Swift Flurry/HBD) you can summon a lot of wurms - and some might end up dead even without your interference because they are just weak. The bodies will be there until combat ends. So nothing speaks against piling up some wurm bodies for later in the fight. Of course this doesn't have to be done by one and the same character. You just need somebody in the party who will crit a lot with Dire Talon in order to prepare a rather monothematic Corpse Eater buffet. I then also tried it with Hel Beckoning (summon Hel Imp on killing spirit) - and this also leaves the body of the imp when he gets killed. But alas: it doesn't work for Flesh Communion. I forgot that Imps are not wilders - they are primordials. And since Flesh Communion only works in kith, wilder and beasts... Off to Essence Interrupter you say? Right! It works, too: If you crit and then kill any enemy and let's say a Xaurip gets summoned (and then killed) - you can consume its body. Same with Ogre Pirates. Unfortunately there's several summons with Essence Interrupter that are neither wilder nor beast (oozes, guls etc.) - so it's not very reliable. Also some of the summons take some time to kill compared to the very weak wurms that Dire Talon gives you. And some summons don't leave a body when killed - like the Boars wouldn't do that for me for example. But still... it can work. I didn't find another suitable item for this interaction - maybe you know one. Anyway - with this you can make the Corpse Eater better in long fights that usually don't have "food" for him. Bringing your own targets for deliverering crits will make it easier (for example Many Lives Skeletons). Don't know yet if it's worth it though - or if it's too fiddly. We'll see...

Sounds more like something you'd get from a vindaloo than a pizza, to be honest. Or a vindaloo pizza, I guess, though I'm fairly sure their creation is mentioned in Revelations.

There is a brief interview with Carrie Patel in XBOX Extended Showcase: Nothing really groundbreaking and most of it was mentioned in written reviews but: 1) there will be returning characters from PoEs (Deadfire especially) - I suppose that would suggest the game takes place after PoE2, though I assumed that to be the case, due to Aedyr invasion of Living Lands being teased in PoE2 DLC3. 2) Narrator from the trailer is Kai one of the first companions you meet 3) You are not a Watcher but have a unique soul connection (?) 4) The game will consist of interconnected open zones - game is similar in size to Kotor2 or OuterWorlds. I wonder if we will have some kind of world map and travel from place to place (ala. PoE1) or will those maps attempt to create more of a feeling of an open world.

If the 5 hours of awesome is all at the beginning that's fine since I can just play those 5 hours and be done with it. If the 5 hours of awesome is at the end and I have to get through 45 hours of meh to get to it, I'll pass. If the 5 hours of awesome is sprinkled in throughout the 50 total hours, for example 10 minutes of awesome, then an hour of meh, 15 minutes of awesome, then another hour of meh, and so on; those nuggets of awesome would probably be enough to get me to keep playing the meh parts. I'd still rather have just 5 hours of pure awesome rather than 50 hours that has a little awesome and a whole lot of meh.

where's Chris

Declaring "Diablo 4 has just ended up being an also-ran of its predecessor a decade too late. " this quickly is interesting. Seems like a pretty thin article too, heh, but that is PCG these days. Really surprised they gave D4 85, all their other articles are on how much the game isn't much to talk about, although one harped on the game having too much grimdark. It's like D3 that, regardless of how the game is, it's making good cash - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/diablo-4-passes-666-million-in-sales-sets-new-blizzard-record/1100-6515145/ Includes MTX though.

Like stomach ache after too much pizza, hours of gameplay are ephemeral. Unlike the living one, who transcends hours of gameplay and will live again On WINGS OF FIRE... No, that's not right... ... ... Will be reborn. That's it! The Living One will be reborn ON WINGS OF FIRE.

It is difficult to get Hawaiian over here. Otherwise 9-15 euros for a normal sized 8 slice pepperoni depending on where you get it (delivery, which delivery, restaurant, which restaurant)

I'm happy to pay $70 for Starfield as I know I will thoroughly enjoy that game and be playing it possibly through the end of my life. Totally worth it. OTOH, it is BG3 that I'll be waiting for 40+% off sale price to buy it. And Avowed (and TOW2) I won't buy at any price unless it comes with a third-person option.

While regional pricing is an issue, especially with the last year Steam guidelines adjustments, waiting for a more bug-free and less expensive versions of the AAA games* seems to be the most reasonable course nowadays (the last 15 or so years). Starfield is also a Bethesda game, which are well-known for their issues on release. *Not applicable to independent developers, they do need support and less likely to attach invasive DRM or exploitative monetisation to their games. --- On another note, I am curious if the Prince of Persia reboot requires the Ubisoft DRM. As is, the game does look interesting, but not outstanding. I guess, I would prefer it to be a separate IP. Also, I think, it would look better with cell-shading, considering the visual style. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/prince-of-persia-the-lost-crown-is-so-much-better-than-it-looks-in-the-reveal-trailer

I lost almost all interest in Starfield after seeing its price on Steam. Almost twice the price of The Outer Worlds and 50% more than BG3. I guess it will go to my wishlist and wait for a nearly impossible 67% or more discount.

Finished the main story of D4 Friday, had to laugh as my game crashed when . Ending was good, leaves threads open for expansions. Now to start the exhaustive grind, working my way through side quests now. Current quest involves the dudes in the trailer way back when, can't believe I didn't match the voice. Did some nightmare dungeons with my friend's OP sorc. those were fun enough, but can't quite say why I prefer D3's GRs instead. Just due to familiarity, I guess

Starfield gameplay:

Skyrim was released 12 years ago. Todd Howard is 52 years old. If TES6 comes out next year (unlikely) and has a runtime of at least 12 years, that means Todd will be 65 years old. So yeah, it could be his last game at Bethesda since he will retire once its run has ended. : >

Hopefully. I can't stand most other CRPGs honestly... because they try way too much to just be DnD. And that results in a clunky "random" system that just feels very "meh" to play. While Pillars just felt as if they managed to perfectly boil down the elements into a great CRPG, smooth, quick, efficent.

If it is like the D:OS 2 system, then you can pickpocket npcs while other party members distract them in a conversation, but they will want to check what you are carrying after they stop talking. The solution was to drop a bag or the stolen items before being asked to show your belongings. If they improve this system, then I'd expect people to get suspicious after too many npcs are robbed and they should at least search the surrounding area to see if you dropped the stolen goods somewhere.

Will he become an admin at loverslab after he leaves Bethesda

Maybe I misunderstood, but I don't think having companions is mandatory? Reckon it'll be more that you *can* have up to two companions with you at once, much like it was with The Outer Worlds.

He did indeed say "very profitable". Well, Obsidian, where is my PoE3? No excuses now.

Yeah, they know it's a well loved feature, and that it helps some people with e.g. motion sickness or what have you for more people than just being able to adjust FOV. The issue with third person for TOW was budgetary, animations for all the various weapons would have to be polished, armor clipping and so on might necessitate changes to assets and so on. I can't see any reason they wouldn't have designed Avowed to use Third Person, since they were much earlier in development and had a publisher who would be more likely to fund a less svelte game design. TOW was trying to escape the "buggy" reputation Obsidian has (personally I think that they get too much flak for that, since they might launch buggy but are rapidly patched.) Cutting "luxury" features, and even entire planets out of the game kept the game trim and easier to maintain. Anything with tens of thousands of lines of dialog among hundreds of characters and a crazy amount of potential quest states is going to have some undiscovered interactions at launch. Once you start coding something more complex than hello world you're gonna have some bugs. Microsoft's QA assistance will help even a more robust game design reach a relatively bug free state at launch I think. And of course, other than graphical glitches, third person cameras don't generally cause bugs per se.

Music evolution in three videos. 80ies original: 2020ies cover: Internet Meme:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/report-ftc-will-file-to-block-microsofts-69b-activision-blizzard-acquisition/