LadyCrimson

Drive, cheap hotel, poor sleep. Hubby in surgery. Maybe couple hours. Sitting in parking lot wondering if Im going yo nap or find a snack. Hopefully drive home tomorrow.

--Borderlands 4 - supposedly about 30 hours played. I think the first large region is the best thing - going into the other two regions the MQ sends you on are a snooze. Gunplay is even better than BL3, exploration ok, they tamed the "loot explosions" a lot (a good thing) and other positives, but it feels more repetitive for some reason (all the fight areas feel the same), loot hunting is meh. The "story" chrs are at least better than BL3 but not by much. --7 Days to Die - 3.0 is now my favorite 1.0+ version. Although the pure cheese of stealth in early 1.0 is still a fave mechanic, ha. But overall, all the options = easy to make the combat/gameplay feel more like A10-A12. More Walking Dead, less sci-fi looter-shooter/zombie-Skyrim wannabe. It was getting to the point where I turned zombies entirely off half the time, and 3.0 (after fiddling) is the first time I like having them on all the time, again, and I play a map far longer. I keep the zombie spawn level to "strongs", increase density of spawns, and none of the sci-fi/weird, bee-spitting, acid-exploding/spitting, bomb tossing or whatever else zombies are allowed to spawn. And no zombie digging. I've been playing it way more than BL4, still.

12:00 - 16-ish is the cat sleeping bag, and it's hilarious. To be fair, if the product was actually very close to like shown, I'd probably want one (but it'd probably be priced more like $500+ then).

*watches that Blade Runner series trailer Either the show is terrible - a "teaser" that is near 2 minutes long isn't always a great sign, imo - or the trailer editor should simply be fired. Lanterns looks a little more promising, from my "tired of superhero universes" perspective. Maybe I just like the "old" guy playing Hal.

Tried that Netflix Little House. I managed about a third or half the first episode, more or less - with my interest was not very engaged - to where there was a super obvious CGI wolf attack scene, and I noped out after that.

BL4 - ---If you like starting new characters from scratch, don't use Player Shared (or something like that). I picked that on 1st chr because I thought it would be like the BadAss ranks of previous BL's. It's not. It's more like a chr-stats NG+. So if you make a new chr that also has player-shared active, you'll start game with increased SDU's already, and all quests the other chr. has done (that give rewards) are marked as done on the new chr. You could still do them, but the rewards are already "claimed." Which is not at all what I wanted re: trying other classes 1st time. And you can't change it later, the choice is perm on the chr. --This would be useful if you want to make new chrs and just rush it to max lvl without having to do all the side stuff, so having one chr. like that would be fine. Just don't choose it on new chrs. unless you want that. I learned there are no other separated maps like before. It's one large world/map, with different regions, or something. Also, supposedly level scaling applies pretty much everywhere. Regions can have higher than you starting-level of enemies (if you get to areas early) but once you match that level, they'll scale with you. Although I'm not sure if this is true in the super starter region or two. And you can pick Easy/Normal/Hard at the start (and change it whenever). There is a TVHM at some point. It's all quite different vs. all 3 previous games. Certain mission/side bosses, you can't endlessly "farm" them, either. You have to pay Moxxi money to replay them, and the cost goes up. Interesting. EDIT: also, Legandary gear really is way more uncommon then in BL2 or BL3. Blues/purples feel about the same.

Ok - played more of BL4, a bit at a time. Still in the first map. I'd say this game "does get better" after the first 2-4 hours. Then ofc as you lvl and get more perks/gear to play with. Mostly, after that prologue and early few missions, where you start to feel like you can go do whatever you want and ignore the main mission for a while. The world design is somewhat denser than previous, in terms of both small/not much to larger bits smushed together. The double-jump and short jump-glide make exploring "what's over/up there" more engaging. The 1st vehicle (a sort of motorcycle I guess) you get drives 100% better than any BL game, although I still have little use for it vs. running. Because of a lot more heights (there's even a zipline system as well as teleport station), snipers seem more fun to use again too. I guess there's a big-bad villain but I keep not caring. Better than BL3's silly plot stuff but still not Handsome Jack. Main problem is I still don't really like any of the playable chrs. Tried 3 of them/their action skills. They're not bad, but don't fit my playstyle, not even the pet-chr. Usually I like at least one a lot. This time around they're all "eh." Also, while exploring is more fun than in BL3, I don't have a sense I'd want to replay it much, like it'd be a 50-100hr game and then over. And that might be ok. But just saying. Early conclusion: it's nowhere near as terrible as reputation might lead one to believe, but it's also not exactly compelling. I actually think in the long run I might prefer it over BL3, but not sure that's saying tons.

I've liked him since Omen 3, although more from Dead Calm, after. Jurassic Park ofc - Hunt From Red October etc. Guess it's that time where most of the then-famous I grew up with, who were typically 12-25 years older than myself, are all going to start appearing here. :/ Life is too short. Ah well.

Is the right to use the IP the same as the right to use the engine (Beth's). Dunno how they worked it out. I don't know how much MS is/feels re: mega-user access re: modding. Especially MS-Store. I picture it being fairly limited plus maybe Steam workshop integration. Maybe they'll go for it tho. As to FNV popularity - well, yes, but that was the Obsidian from 15+ years ago and pre-MS. I'm sure some faith re: Obsidian remains (or at least the hope) but at this point the "it's not the same Obsidian" negativity outlook is also fairly widespread. Could end up a neutral wash re: any hype or early sales.

I think if I was Obsidian, my umbrella fear would be that this changing of things around by MS is their hail mary. eg, they (mostly, kind of) survived this round of MS cuts/restructuring etc, but if this new Fallout game they're being told to make (while canceling the others on top) doesn't hit big, Obs is gone (from MS anyway). I'm not sure if a new Obs-Fallout is going to be the actual marketing/sales success win-button re: the numbers that MS probably envisions/wants. I mean, I'd assume MS wants better than Avowed or Grounded sales and sees this path as the potential avenue for it. As others said, much probably also hinges on how much MS dictate/interfere with an Obs-vision. More big studio slop feeling or more old-school Obs-unique take etc.

Mirror in the Bathroom was great, but the only album of their I bought back then was the one that had this one it. I liked it a lot (the album) And of course, because.

^ It's a heartache, nothing but a heartache.

Hm. Obs doing another Fallout. Well, it's interesting news, if it turns out to be valid/happen. Not sure how interested I am in a possible Fallout: the Avowing (haha). I guess I'm a little dubious whether it would actually feel like a Fallout game - and I don't just mean re: Obs, but, y'know, changing times, what constitutes a "RPG" these days in style/structure/substance development (that I often don't like a lot), all of that. We shall see - could be a fantastic RPG, or more "eh." :D But never know - hopefully it'll be best sliced bread with the creamiest butter and a dab of fave jam! Oh and yeah - if it's fairly and easily moddable (doesn't have to be Creation-mod level) that would help. If it's not, my interest would be low.

I appear to have a webhost problem. The same one I've used for a couple decades more or less. It's complicated. I'm not sure if the hostservice was sold, or if the support email addy I have is still valid, or the owner died and it took forever for them to start shutting things down/notice I even exist, etc. Last contact I had with him was years ago, really. I think I also forgot to ever tell him my email changed when we moved, so my fault there. Anyway, it's all broken in weird ways. So I made a proton email and also tried sending msg from there. No reply at all yet (if it's even going through). Thus I am converting my email stuff to proton addy's (I got a package for 15 of them). Which I only need for online registrations, since I still refuse to give mobile #'s. Not that I really care much by now (I think I can live without image hosting for a while/forever), but PITA, no clue what's going on.

Since he discovered Borderlands 4 will run on his old PC, hubby bought his own copy and I disbanded the Family Group. Neither of us have really played it tho. We both did the tutorial and then I did the first couple quests, where they teach you another new ability (short gliding to reach areas too far for a jump) and how you'll find "safe haven" spots (teleporter, machines, kind of a mini-base in a way). They changed it so ammo/backpack upgrades aren't purchased with general cash anymore, now you get "points" as mission rewards (dunno if there are farmable items for it) and spend those. Nothing about these short early ventures inspires me to play long sessions. I could see myself doing one or two missions at a time, but that's about it. Could feel more "Borderlands-like" at some mid-point tho, who knows. But the backpack/gear/other menu UI still sucks/feels annoying to deal with, which is part of the "I think I'll stop here" sensation.

Via Netflix: shorter kdrama series ---Teach You a Lesson Was expecting a "task force fights school bully issues". Which is what I got, but most of the episodic episodes end with much pontificating about morality, social responsibility re: the episode issue. Fight scenes were not frequent but still entertaining in an anime way. Show deals not just with teen bully vs. teen but affects on teachers, social media, aggressive parents, etc. Odd mix of OTP plea sincere with OTP action/action-comedy. ---Agent Kim Reactivated So Ji Sub vehicle, so I must watch. I guess it's in the Taken genre (father with past/skills, daughter in danger, but a lot more chr. past-multi-military-chasing and side antagonist subplots). 1s episode a lot of setup, then the OTP violence/action starts. Nothing unique, but So Ji Sub always makes such worth a watch. Although, since Mercy For None wasn't too long ago, it's maybe slightly too similar a role. I miss him in drama, or comedy. EDIT: there is some comedy in this one - main chr. has help (vs. solo) and one of them is on the comedy side. Series not fully released yet, so far each episode gets a bit better.

Finally got an appointment/surgery day for hubby, end of month.

That's sorta true of everything retail/entertainment, not just games. I do mostly agree with it, mind - I mean, public likes to save money and get a good deal and hates when prices go up even one mircon ever, vs big companies wanting constant upswing profits (consistent profits not good enough, must go up/expand). And ofc there's the over-spending/inflated budgets of the "big ones." In terms of entitlement specifically, one of my views is that the dev's (or publisher pressure and so on, I really don't know which) has fed too long into the demands vs. sticking to their guns/visions, hoping for more success if they did (understandable) which also contributes to the vanilla feeling of so many releases. With lightning speed social media pressure, the internet in general, Steam/other/instant updates and especially crowd-funding/early access, many games feel like they're made by public committee, which imo is one reason for mass feeling of entitlement. Like giving in to children's demands for candy or toys 24/7 - of course they're going to throw a tantrum if one suddenly stops/they don't get what they want, as well as apply the entitlement even outside of stuff like early access. LATE EDIT: the internet is also (probably, maybe) one of the big reasons why, for at least the near or chronically online, more and more can't seem to just shrug and go "oh well, didn't like that thing/didn't work out, on to the next thing" - instead it festers/constant reminders and turns to some kind of moral outrage. I'm sure I've at least semi-fallen into that state, briefly, a few times, myself. The conflict between PC/game consumer/business is especially bad right now ofc, with a lot of economic factors (hardware, general economy/inflation)

I pretty much agree with him (he's talking about larger big-name publishers/devs). Quarterly report pleasing shareholders models, Covid period breeding more inflated expectations, short sighted decisions. Consumers having gazillions of games and backlogs to choose from vs. spending new/full-price. Consumers being fed up with various things (mass current loss of consumer trust), leading to much more "I'll wait for a year, when it's fixed/done and on sale" which cycles into not getting pleasing quarterly reports for new releases, and so on.

BL4 - surprisingly it runs mostly ok with a lot of lowered settings. So 4k-DLSS ultra performance, some high, some medium, some low (or off if it lets me, doesn't always). Very clearly CPU bound (cpu 70-90%, GPU - 25%) or something, but stable 60, temps fine, VRAM fine, and clarity still looks decent re: BL funky graphic style. The increased/double jump is fun. The inventory UI/graphics suck (too many things look the same while looking for specific items). There's a new infinite heal item you equip that has a cooldown timer - which I suppose is nice, except I think because of that they also increased enemy hit damage and movement speeds. Even more interesting, decided to create a Family Share for 1st time ever, so hubby could see if it would run on his desktop. He wasn't expecting it to - but it does. Even starting at 4k, with no DLSS (some kind of Temporal+generic scaling?) all low etc, 30-45fps but didn't notice any bad stutter/terribad frame-pacing. He could lock it at 30 and play (he's not that picky). He's using a Xeon W-2133 and gtx 1660. Could be some busy areas that would still be fps-tankers tho. No real LAN in BL4 however (so Family Share wouldn't work to co-op, can't both play at same time if Online mode). With all the jumping and grappling now tho, early on feels less like BL and more like a jumping/platform gameplay. Hubby has the week off so I guess I'm not refunding/we'll see if we like it more after 10 hrs (vs. 2-3).

I didn't buy Avowed/Outer Worlds 2 because I never played much of Outerworlds 1 so I figured I'd end up doing the same with those. They all kinda looked the same to me. Not games I'd spend a lot of time with. I don't need games to last forever ala live service (UGH) but I do want it to be something I'll like enough to have tons of replay factor. EDIT: and that's my issue with a lot of "modern" gaming - either they're online/live etc or more and more world/quest etc design aren't very conducive to wanting to replay. The masses apparently want to be able to play their one save forever and ever so the new norm is constant "new content." Kotor2/FO:NV and at least initially, POE1 were mainly the games I liked re: Obsidian. For some reason I did kinda like Dungeon Siege 3 (but once and done, mostly), but I was less jaded back then. ;p They didn't have the luck or game design appeal or whatever else (I guess) of Larian/maybe some others, so not surprising they switched tactics. And ofc now with MS, more general audience appeal notions. I'm glad it seems to so far be working out for them, even if I'm not overly interested in their titles.

For some reason BL4's sale price went down further, to $35ish. So I bought it simply to see how it runs on my desktop/maybe refund. I'm expecting - not terribly well. CPU might be a bottleneck at anything below 4k, too. Unsure. But mostly I came here to express annoyance at (DL) size bloat of some AA/AAA games these days. BL4 is 105GB and even with avg. 75MB speed still gonna be 25-30 minutes. Crimson Desert was over 100GB too. It's becoming more normalized vs. occasional outlier. Even with my fidelity nitpicks at times, I'd rather less micropixel texture, tbh, vs. all this space. I remember being "amazed" that FO:NV was 10gb. In terms of being a gamer, I'm definitely starting to fall into the "ancient retired Warrior/King". It's all too ridiculous. EDIT: also, can Steam at least increase the refund window to 2.5 hours? Games that may have you and your older rig sitting for 10+ minutes compiling shaders etc eats up that time before you can judge anything beyond "does it start when you click Play."

Yeah, Grounded (Grounded 2 slightly less, maybe) seems pretty popular - just a different audience vs. what Obs was originally known for. I often see it mentioned/listed with other popular survival/craft/build/co-op games now, when ppl list such on Steam fora. It's in my current wheelhouse of game genre likes, but I still haven't tried it myself. The setting and youthful chr focus doesn't appeal to me I guess. I mean, I didn't even really like those Honey I shrunk the kids movies. Maybe one day.

I checked just now via my tablet and haven't seen the botcheck-screen yet, vs. constant every click like before.

---Scritchy Scratchy. It was $5.60 and looked like it might be stoopid fun for a few hours. Then ofc, I never fired it up. So I now have a game backlog of --- two. I blame Markiplier. ---Borderlands 4 has gone on sale a couple times now, where it's maybe $40-$45 or something. Each time I ponder for 10 seconds then say "nope, not cheap enough yet." Maybe one day it'll be $24.99. That might be low enough. ---7 Days to Die 3.0 went stable. So I'm still messing with it a bit. It's definitely the version I'd use if I really want zombies on because difficulty is so customizable without 400 .xml edits. But on the other hand, it feels a tad less flexible re: such simple, direct .xml file editing. They changed stuff, hardcoded more stuff etc. I still think I like 1.0/b333 (or even A20/A21) better for that. Also, the new "random better stats" on gear is nice. So you might find an early lvl2 Stone Axe or lvl1 Pistol with more damage or more range or less stamina used than a normal version of it. Makes loot hunting initially a tad more interesting.