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Finished Wavetale. A lovely and concise adventure, though easy and the full price does not quite match the quality. Started Clash - Artefacts of Chaos. At some point, I spent 10 minutes staring at the left buttcheek of a humanoid boar because it was the only "safe" spot and the opponent was KO'ing me in 2 hits. Otherwise, the camera is the greatest foe, especially in group battles, and the dice mini-game feels useless. The invisible walls and the MC inability to vault over thigh-high fences is annoying. The unique aspects of the game are the setting (feels like post-apocalypsis) and the focus on the unarmed combat. The bug with the stances (the game auto-selects the second stance randomly while I explicitly kept it empty because there is only one I am comfortable with) is unpleasant. Still, I am going to try to finish it, though cannot recommend. Got the DLC for Saints Row on the latest Steam sale. The LARP one is fairly funny and fun. The heist one is 3 missions. I've also been trying to finish the optional activities on the map with relative success. The issue with pacing is less noticeable after completing the main story, though there is more fairly similar side quests than in the previous parts (as far as I remember). I still enjoyed the timed races ("Pony Express"), but would have preferred there being 50% less of it.

I have to admit there's a certain amount of grim amusement to be had from Trump now begging other countries to send warships to Hormuz. The combination of the great unilateralist going cap in hand when the going gets tough asking those he's spent the last year insulting to bail him out and all his recent pronouncements about how great things are going- including telling Britain not to send ships as it would be ~"joining a conflict we've already won"- has slightly more than a scintilla of irony. Also probably the closest we're going to get to an admission from Trump that if the USN actually does start trying to escort ships they're going to take losses. He would, of course, far prefer those losses to be from the countries he insulted the dead of less than two months ago.

https://newrepublic.com/post/207749/donald-trump-selling-national-security-briefing-details-fans "In a fundraising email, a Donald Trump–affiliated super PAC offered the highest bidders “unfiltered updates on the threats facing America.”" How can this even be real.

We were friends with China even during the iron curtain. In fact China was smuggling a bunch of stuff for us during the NATO aggression and we gave them the wreckage of the downed stealth bombers to study. Our relations have steadily improved since China turned communist and nowadays we probably have better diplomatic relations with them than we do with Russia.

same waiting for this to be fixed.. i too i hope that this future patch is soon cause its holding back the story comepletly. ive done the rest and am waiting on this fix. i did upvote but i have a gut feeling this might take a while...

Adding my complaint. This is a game-breaker. No Auntie's questline.

Yes, it would be good to have a timeline. I'm now busy modding CP2077, but I'll move on and start another game soon and, when I do, the chances that I'll come back to TOW2 to finish it are slim.

You've obviously never lived in Australia 😂 The same game could be almost 100% more when purchased through Steam, if your geo-location was Australia. I think that was when I decided to get a commercial VPN solution. Also, at the time, there was some heavy censorship in games sold in Australia, because and old law forbidding the selling of 18+/R rated games in the country. Every attempt at repealing the law was met by one religious nutcase individuals veto until he eventually was forced out due to age. Aussies can now buy games with boobs and violence just like most other western countries (except Germany where blood is copper based instead of iron based) Arenanet are bastards too when it comes to their cash shop for Guild Wars 2. The cash shop currency, "Gems", has a price that is the same in Euros and Australian dollars. I.e. the exact opposite of Steam. I can buy x number of "Gems" for either 50 AUD or 50 EUR. Guess what my VPN says on the rare occasion i actually spend money there? Hint, 50 EUR os roughly 80 AUD, so I of course chose to pay 50 AUD instead Edit: A different consequence of regional pricing is the existence of cheap game keys from resellers. They get large shipments of otherwise legit keys redirected to them from low income regions and sell them at a markup to high income regions. The keys are valid, but also means low income regions regularly get deprived of the option of buying legit software at affordable prices

Main character isn't very appealing.

Luke Stephens video mentioned a person in the room that got stuck on a puzzle for like 30 minutes. I guess we know who it was, now. The four preview vids I've seen, my takeaway is: no "yellow paint"/hints on puzzles/you have to use your brain or (non-puzzles) try several things before you figure out something (I say yay, some will hate it), massive amount of controls (combat)/large learning curve for that, but combat is still kinda simple, don't expect sweeping/expansive or multi-options RPG story (I wasn't), good performance is real (relatively speaking for the era), non-main quest stuff is more expansive than MC and varied/discovery-cool or fun. So basically, one of those games where one is probably going to like it a lot, or one is going to find learning/control curves too much/not guided enough etc. The preview I liked the most was the one below - or Luke Stephen's (he claims he got the farthest in the MC/chapt 3), but his yapping style can be a bit annoying and it was extra long. My main concern as always is frustrating (to me) comabt, but eh. I'll risk it this time. I mean, at least I can steal a goat, toss it over my shoulder, and run away with it. Cute. There's apparently eventually some kind of small npc-settlement/animal husbandry stuff.

I used to be able to do it when I was younger, these days I can't. I can still do it when it's just numbers, ie eating all sapient life in the galaxy in Stellaris.

There will be a particle slider so you can turn all that visual noise "off" or have it max. I never got past the intro of TW3 - Garult is not my kind of chr. Might have been another reason, like graphics at the time, but I don't remember. And watching later YT video let's play didn't change my mind so I never tried it again. I think for me Crimson D. looks like the sort of "world" I like to explore, mostly - since I'm not focused on any "RPG" aspect anymore - plus their seeming desire to optimize for native as much as possible (and optimization in general) vs. "just turn on dlss/frame gen". The 2080 rec. requirements these days is pretty decent for big expansive graphic/world games+RT global illumination (even if that's for native 1080/60). I think it started with 32gb system ram req, but then they got it down to 16gb. I like to see that in a dev. Maybe with upscaling and some lowered settings I can run it at "4k" at over 60fps instead of "mostly, kinda 60 fps." Heh. But yeah, gameplay is always the key. Is it interesting/fun, engaging, motivating, is it a decent open world or one of the boring nothingness types etc. We'll see. I'm willing to give it a shot as long as early reviews aren't "crash and burn".

I found out, I could access my old Pathfinder Wrath of the Righeous saved games via GOG cloud. Awesome. Installed the game and relized a lot of time had passed since playing on my lich game 🤔 I remember having a nice editor tool for saved games, but I don't remember what it was called. In hindsight, having a spell caster specializing in scythe combat wasn't such a great idea, but hey, it made perfect sense thematically! Started up a new game as a Magus (arcane rider), but till probably drop it again. It was good as a warm up game though. I might do a second take on the Lich path, but with something different than a sorcerer as the starting class. I wouldn't be surprised if magus is a decent choice for the task Edit: It bugs me a bit, that I have a hard time constantly picking evil choises, even if its a roleplaying character.

One thing that nobody warns you about when you get a job in the gaming industry is just how many meetings there are. There’re daily standups, gate reviews, sprint meetings, post-mortems, sign-offs, bridge meetings, war rooms, and the list goes on and on. But one of the most important meetings is called Triage. It generally occurs on a daily or weekly cadence, depending on what part of the dev cycle you are in. This is where Production, Design, Engineering, and QA get together and discuss the latest bugs. We go over each bug written since the last Triage and decide as a group how important the bug is, who is going to fix it, and when they need to fix it by. There are three main ways that this is measured. Severity: How bad the bug is, in the eyes of the user. Priority: How soon a bug should be fixed. Repro Rate: How hard, or easy, is it to run into the bug? How likely are players to see it? This is usually measured in attempts. For example, a crash bug could happen 100% of the time, or it could only happen under very specific conditions. And one thing that is easy to forget when you’re lost in a sea of bugs, is the scale of the audience. Sure, only 10% of the testers may experience a specific issue. But 8% of the modern AAA audience is hundreds of thousands of players. You would think, with that in mind, anything that affects at least 5% of players would be treated as a serious concern. But what if I told you that while only 0.5% of women are color-blind, 8% of men are? And how many modern games have color-blind filters? The answer is not nearly enough. Accessibility features are about giving players the tools they need to enjoy the game in whichever way works best for them. If you can add color-blind filters (https://colorblindgames.com/2021/03/29/colorblind-gaming-101-the-basics/) that’s roughly 5% more potential sales. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 85% of Americans under 18 play video games at least once a week. That comes out to 205 million players in the US alone. Five percent of which, comes to 8,000,000 people. Multiple that by $60 and we’re talking serious money. So why, in a world where the dollar drives everything, are accessibility features not standard? Why are so many developers leaving so many potential players behind? It would be easy for me to blame big bad CEO’s or shareholders for the problem. But the reality is, it’s not malicious. Like most issues in life, it’s more ignorance than anything else. People just aren’t as informed on the subject as they could be. But that is starting to change. The industry is starting to come around and they are making serious investments in multiple ways. (alt text: Ishihara test was invented to measure color blindness. The image above uses different shades to create the image of Toadstool from Super Mario Bros) source: Obsidian has been leading the way for longer than most. Well before it was “cool” to make accessible games, titles like Pillars of Eternity (2013) were giving players multiple color-blind filters, detailed difficulty options, and a large suite of audio/video settings to let players decide what “good” looks like. Back in 2020 Grounded introduced the Arachnophobia filter. A setting that is now becoming default in many horror/survivor games. Hogwarts Legacy added it, but only after NorskPL released a community mod for the setting. My favorite is actually from the most recent version, Grounded 2. Can you detect the feature? It’s one of the first things you see when you start the game. (alt text: Screenshot of Grounded 2 main menu showing custom face button graphics used to inform the player where on the face the button is located.) Many of you probably pointed to the Accessibility shortcut. And that is a great example of mindful design. How do you expect people to turn on the accessibility features if they need the accessibility features enabled to get to the accessibility features? But that’s not my favorite. My new favorite is the A and Y buttons. Notice what’s different? I bet you Xbox Certification noticed that these are not authorized representations of the face buttons on an Xbox controller. But I love that they saw through the rule to find the intent. Instead of confusing players, these actually provide more information. It’s a tiny change that can have a big impact. Heck, I’m not even color-blind and these helped me after I spent the previous few weeks playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where the A and B buttons are swapped. And that’s the key to accessibility features. Not telling players how to play, but providing the options for them to play how they want to play. And they are not alone. The industry as a whole has finally seen the benefits of expanding their games and tearing down walls. For example: the Entertainment Software Association (a trade association representing the major video game developers and publishers across the industry) recently rolled out their Accessible Games Initiative. They are leading by example and starting with updating their storefronts to include Accessibility Tags. Much like you can browse by genre or feature, now you can filter games by which ones support the accessibility features you care the most about. (alt text: A black background with brightly colored stickers in the shapes of Xbox icons and accessibility products like prosthetic legs, wheelchairs, and seeing eye dogs.) And they are not alone. A whole market is forming around consulting, reviewing, and teaching about accessibility. People are getting together and demanding “Never about us, without us.” From Accessibility Labs, a startup in Tempe, AZ of former QA professionals passionate about Accessibility testing. To Microsoft’s Xbox Accessibility Guidelines, requirements that titles they publish must meet. But Tommy, I’m a developer and I want to do better. How can I make sure everyone is able to enjoy my hard work? Well, I’m glad you asked, imaginary developer person. Because while I’m passionate about the subject, I also acknowledge I’m just as ignorant as most. But together, we can work towards fighting that ignorance, in our own minds, and in others. Even the smallest changes, like the button prompts above, can have a huge impact. Bring on Accessibility experts during your design phase, don’t wait until you’re about to launch. Don’t be like so many others before you that designed fully fleshed out UI’s that rely on a cursor to navigate. Only to find out down the road this is not very accessible for people with fine motor issues. Making these changes during the design phase will save you thousands, if not millions, of dollars down the line. Embrace your lack of knowledge and seek out the experts. There are resources available to developers of all shapes and sizes. Are you a small developer that wants to do better, but just doesn’t know where to start? Support other independent gamers like Accessibility Labs. Have a good idea of what you want to do, but want to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything? Check out Microsoft’s Xbox Accessibility Guidelines. Want to support the effort in other ways? Reach out to AbleGamers, who have been fighting this fight for over 20 years. Enjoy this article and want to know more? Check out Derek Gruber on Seattle Indie’s Accessibility Awareness Month episode. The last thing I want to do is trivialize game and UX design. Accessibility is just one of countless aspects that must be considered when designing a game and it’s UI. What’s most important is that you are making the effort. Instead of asking why you should add an option, ask why you shouldn’t. When in doubt, trust the player to decide what is best for themselves. Not every feature is going to be a home run. But as long as we, as a community, are working towards improving, the rising tide will raise all ships. Sources & Resources Game Developer - Nintendo, Microsoft, EA and others unite to make accessibility messaging a priority Washington Post - Accessibility option in survival game ‘Grounded’ turns my arachnophobia into a thrill Colorblind Games - Colorblind Gaming 101: The Basics Mashable - Video games taught me I was colorblind but it's not always a friendly lesson Nexus Mods - Arachnophobia mode Seattle Indies - Accessibility Awareness Month Interview Series: Steve Saylor and Derek Gruber Able Gamers - Combating Social Isolation Through Play Accessibility Labs Microsoft - Xbox Accessibility Guidelines Entertainment Software Association (ESA) - Entertainment Software Association Introduces the Accessible Games Initiative to Provide Players with Information About Accessibility Features in Video Games