MrBrown

Hmm, I'm having no problems. Maybe it's just you?

https://www.videogamer.com/news/baldurs-gate-3-dev-reveals-the-real-reason-the-games-industry-is-in-the-st-right-now/ Looks like we're having this discussion now. (About raising prices) Which, to me, is a sure sign it'll happen.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gta-6-costing-as-much-as-100-could-help-video-game-industry-rebound-in-2025-analyst-says/1100-6528832/ And you people complain about 70...

It's a bit weird, at some point a few years ago, it definitely seemed like they were downsizing resources for the game, with patches becoming sparser and less/smaller DLCs. Then they completely switched their approach, and the game now has two teams working for it, a "custodian" team that creates patches and balance updates (and not just small ones) for existing content, and a team that makes new content for DLCs. I'm not sure how they make money of it. I guess the DLCs sell enough, even after all these years. (I've certainly bought them all :p)

Don't think the writer understood how VI diplomacy and war works, if he constantly ended up being hated by everyone. It's really easy to be friends with almost everyone.

Hive minds have to use claim like everyone else, it's only the genocidals that don't. Fanatic Purifiers, Determined Exterminators, Devouring Swarm or Terravore. And Driven Assimilators I think. But everyone will hate you. Other ways to get a total war casus belli (meaning a war where stuff flips on conquering and not at the end of the war and you don't use claim): build a Colossus, become the Galactic Nemesis. Also you always get total war against genocidals, regardless of your civics (with a few exceptions). In practice, what I (and many others) do is just not go conquering that much until you either get a total war casus belli, or you get huge amounts of influence from vassals.

They tend to fix the biggest bugs relatively quickly, so a month after an update/expansion it's usually safe to play. The massive amounts of DLC has made it full of moving parts though and unbalanced, though. So it can be quite random, and the learning curve is high.

Well, they better hope it turns out good then.

Paradox likes to brand their games "grand strategy", but they're basically 4x games. The claim and war exhaustion systems are weird, but otherwise warring is pretty logical.

Finished Unavowed. It's pretty good, classic point-n-click adventure, but with some choices and branching in the story. And the story was nice. EDIT: Went and bought a bunch of the studios other games.

It was an attempt at a joke about Avowed.

Started Unavowed. Thought I should play the first game before the sequel comes out. Or is it a prequel, I haven't really followed development. https://store.steampowered.com/app/336140/Unavowed/

Done with Mass Effect Andromeda for now. I finished the main story, and around 60% of the other stuff. Other than some technical advancement like graphics, and a more 3D world, the game is lackluster compared to previous MEs in just about all ways. Hard to think of anything that is done better. Mostly not to infuriatingly badly, just boringly. Some of it is issues with polishing/finalizing, but some are more fundamental. I can imagine it being a huge disappointment on release with all the bugs etc.

You can't just get them because they're cute as babies, you have to take care of them when they're adults too.

I'd say Skyrim's intro is pretty short overall, you can just let the starting cinematic run while you go to the toilet or something, and you can just run through the town during the dragon attack. But, I do think alternate starts would really fit open world games. But studios seem to insist on having really linear main quests. I guess it's about pleasing all crowds.