Belle Sorciere

I've found NWN to be a lot of fun, depending on the quality of the module I'm playing. It's just been so long since the last time I played... Anyway, I have a few good recommendations to start with, at least. Aielund Saga is probably the first thing I'll play.

Rumor, but Dark Souls Remaster?

Neverwinter Nights. Trying to decide which modules to play. Fan-created modules, that is.

Who made an argument that the corporation would suddenly realize its inner flower child? The market will only bear so much screwing before a significant amount of customers jump ship and go other places. ...But let's say the people who buy from EA simply can't help themselves. So what? When they run out of resources to engage in the behavior, they'll stop. Meanwhile, people who believe the product is worth the pricing will buy it. Why should a group of people change that for 'their own good?' Those words, born from the mouth of every tyrant as he stripped more freedoms from the citizenry, are the antithesis of responsibility and freedom. ...And what if it there is abuse? Are the customers defrauded? In that case, there's no need for more regulation. Laws exist. Enforce them. Does the company engage in other types of illegal activity? Does it launder illicit money? Does it fail to pay its workers? Does it charge for a product it doesn't provide? Laws exist to govern these things. Enforce them. I make it a point never to become so personally invested that I'm angry about disputes on message boards. It's unhealthy. ...But too many people buy into the notion that the government is somehow better than the market because it's fairer, or maybe it's more logically designed, or even that it cares more about people. I don't take any of these things for granted. In fact, I doubt them. I'm probably one of the few people who despises net neutrality around here, but from what I can tell at least by following my friends' arguments in favor of NN, the vast vast majority of people who used the internet before went into effect in... 2015? didn't suffer the problems that NN allegedly addressed and the vast majority of those complaining about the change back wouldn't notice the difference if advocacy groups hadn't made such an issue of it. Even then, most of them won't be able to give a single example of something amiss at the change if they aren't spoon fed talking points by those advocacy groups. I know my friends. I love my friends. One of those beloved quirks is that they often make the best decisions for society by simply engaging in self interested behavior without buying into big causes dredged up by others to make issues out of things that will never be perfect, no matter how intrusive the government becomes in our lives. As long as they have enough "whales" they'll continue implementing microtransactions and loot boxes as they have been. Since corporations won't regulate themselves on this matter, they need someone to do it for them. That's where the government comes in. I'm not here to debate with anyone who has a religious fervor about government interference being bad. Such a perspective requires either profound ignorance about the history of government regulations or outright lies about said history. I'm not going to speculate which. I'll just say we're in a much better place now than we were over a century ago because governments have stepped in to regulate commercial excesses.

It's not a question of "allowing" the government to do anything. The way things are going, the industry self-regulates or the government's going to regulate the industry. And that isn't necessarily a bad thing for the government to do. As far as "the market correcting itself", the market doesn't correct itself like that. Corporations don't make decisions based on what's best for consumers so much as what's best for their bottom lines. Hence regulation.

SteamDirect is making me hate Steam more. There's too much literal trash to really be able to find any of the good stuff that isn't triple A or promoted elsewhere. Also, indie developers are saying this too and going to Switch and Xbox instead. I have issues with GOG as well, but none of those issues are with their curation or client.

I wish good stuff floated to the surface, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Indie developers are struggling to stay afloat on Steam and really are going elsewhere - Nintendo Switch, and possibly Xbox One. It's hard to describe just how much shovelware is on Steam, but you have situations like this now.

Also, when I described how lootboxes impact gameplay even if you choose not to buy, I forgot to point out how Star Wars Battlefront 2 is pay to win - people who have spend money are going to have more powerful characters than people who don't. If you play without buying anything then you're going to be at a permanent disadvantage, at least under the original loot box model as presented in beta.

Yeah, that is almost certainly the intended plan. I should clarify that I am not necessarily in favor of government intervention: I just see it as the inevitable end result of what the publishers are doing. Since the publishers are obviously not going to regulate themselves, someone is going to step in and do it for them. I also do not think that government intervention is itself a bad thing, but I'm sure we'll (Americans) get a load of why that is next month when the FCC repeals net neutrality regulations. Unregulated markets are consumer hostile.

It does make you pro lootbox, though. You're advocating for their continued existence, while accusing those who are against them of being Nazis and now pro-slavery. Really, your arguments are hysterical in both senses of the word. Also, do you know why the ESRB and PEGI exist? Do you realize you lost the battle you're trying to fight here over two decades ago? Do you understand what's at stake or are you just calling people Nazis because you don't like what they have to say? Volo isn't FOR loot boxes, he's against gov't stepping in and doing something when instead it should be US the consumer who does something instead. It's not the product, it's who regulating he has a problem with. Look at it another way, would everyone be okay with the instead of all the ruckus that the gov't instead stepped in and said that loot boxes gambling was OK for children? What are people gonna do then, bend over and take it bc they gave the decision making to the govt or do something and chose themselves? The "nanny state" can be a double edged sword in decision making because what it decides then becomes "official" weither we agree or not. I mean hell, why get the govt involved when all ya gotta do is just get the internet to get really loud in it's bitching and moaning and company change to make public happy or go bust when no one buys it. No need for govt to get involved if people can deal with it themselves. Then again, I'm not speaking for Volo and could probably have totally missed the mark. Also I dunno where I am personally with loot boxes. I have no problem with Killing Floor 2 and ESO loot boxes because it's only skins really that's in them, u can still enjoy the game fully without having to buy them. Now doing what EA did and withholding characters/weapons/maps/etc inside a lootbox I wouldn't pay to buy the game at all bc I can't afford and have no desire to play a game that has that. Volourn is defending loot boxes and basically saying that it's fine to put them in games because all people need is self-control to not buy them. Including loot boxes in a game affects the game's design. Take Shadow of War - to get to the true ending cinematic, you have to play through several sieges, and to have a chance of succeeding at those sieges you need orcs. The best, fastest way to get those orcs is to buy them from the endgame store, as grinding them takes a long time. This sequence wouldn't exist, at least not in this form, if loot boxes weren't in the game. The inclusion of loot boxes in games warps them around said loot boxes, resulting in design intended to encourage players to buy loot boxes, which means things like grindy gameplay that you can bypass with loot boxes. Star Wars Battlefront 2 also does this, requiring large amounts of time (as in a couple of thousand hours) to unlock everything, which again warps the gameplay around the presence of loot boxes in order to try to push players into buying them. If Volourn is fine with loot boxes in games (which he appears to be) and his best argument against regulating them is "people should just choose not to buy them" not only is his opinion factually wrong, he's defending the inclusion of loot boxes in games, which makes him all for the inclusion of loot boxes in games, because there's no middle ground here. As far as people objecting to the developers and publishers, they have been. There's been no constructive response other than "the loot box controversy hasn't affected sales" which is demonstrably no longer true, at least in Battlefront 2's case. Some people turned to the government. Now, that doesn't mean that the government will regulate loot boxes, it may mean that organizations like the ESRB step in and update their take on loot boxes so that the government doesn't feel the need to regulate them. The ESRB exists because the game industry was basically told "regulate yourself or the government will regulate you." It's not necessarily a bad thing if this happens again, since the game industry is going hog wild on predatory game design.

Really, what gets me about your argument isn't so much your stance whether you're for lootboxes or against them or for regulation or against it, but that you're accusing people of being Nazis, of being for slavery, if they don't agree with you. Until now I thought the whole "calling people Nazis when they disagree with you" was a straw man and you've thrown that out the window. Maybe, IDK, try to sound more rational, and there'll be room for actual discussion.

It does make you pro lootbox, though. You're advocating for their continued existence, while accusing those who are against them of being Nazis and now pro-slavery. Really, your arguments are hysterical in both senses of the word. Also, do you know why the ESRB and PEGI exist? Do you realize you lost the battle you're trying to fight here over two decades ago? Do you understand what's at stake or are you just calling people Nazis because you don't like what they have to say?

That not liking lootboxes is like believing in power, slavery, and Nazism? That not liking lootboxes is anti-freedom? How hysterical can you get?

Like I said, most fervent and least logical. Is this the best you can muster?

Your defenses of lootboxes and microtransactions are the most fervent and least logical in this thread. So... Orogun01 isn't wrong to point out that you're defending them, on account of you defending them.

I didn't get it at first, but it appeared later. Unfortunately it was even later than that before the items were actually downloaded. Contact support?

Belgium has not announced it will ban lootboxes. One person involved in the investigation opined that this would be the case, but the investigation simply isn't that far along yet.

I mean I've been running NWN on my machines since 2002, but I'll be happy when I can play in 4k and see my character...which I can't do right now.

There are some slight performance reasons for the Pro but it didn't sound like in action it would make a major difference for most users for that alone. But I suppose that depends how picky you are. Slight is a big understatement in terms of performance. I mean, that's not saying it's worth it to get for less than a 4k TV, but you make it sound like a pallid shade of what it actually is.

The quality of Beamdog's work is highly underestimated in this thread. NWN: EE will be great, and functioning better on modern systems is one of the least reasons why.

I got a PS4 Pro recently, but I also got a 4k TV at the same time, so I can't really say whether it's worth it to get it without one. I can't really get into Xbox these days, though. Maybe next gen. Maybe they'll have true exclusives again.

You may say yuck, but I say "At least I'll be able to run it in 4k resolution without a) my character's body turning invisible or b) the camera being so far off center my character doesn't even appear on screen." But then I think people here are unfairly harsh about Beamdog.

I'm not really optimistic about an MMO asking for $25,000.

Store page still exists: http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/72850/ Workshop still exists. Even if Skyrim's store page were removed from Steam, you'd still have Skyrim in your games. Did you look for "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?" rather than just "Skyrim?" I just searched for Skyrim and this is what I got: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=skyrim Weird. I guess I have to search for it directly from my library. Oh well, thanks a bunch. I go put that thing to the downloads! EDIT: weird, it does not show up in the search at all for me. I even searched for the individual dlc's but the search came up with no results. I just went to my library and clicked on the store page from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. If I try to search, I come up with no results for it either, but I got the webpage via google rather than Steam's search tool.

Store page still exists: http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/72850/ Workshop still exists. Even if Skyrim's store page were removed from Steam, you'd still have Skyrim in your games. Did you look for "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?" rather than just "Skyrim?"