Friendship

Same, although to be fair I think the reason TotK got boring was because it was so similar to BotW. Both of them are incredible games but there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Except that’s not what’s happening. They aren’t increasing their FTE headcount, just screwing over their contractors to save a quick buck. Nothing to celebrate here except corporate greed.

Star Citizen, I like to poke my head in every few patches to see how things have progressed. I gotta say, despite what a lot of the naysayers claim, it has become quite a fun game and their development has only sped up since I first started playing. Still, a couple months hiatus every once and a while is worth it.

Fallout 4, I get that this is one of the more controversial choices but while the main storyline was super weak the world design was phenomenal. I love just wandering through the Boston area wastelands uncovering random things and fighting ghouls and bandits.

Something tells me you either haven’t played or haven’t played in the last few builds… The game is playable today, it’s got a long ways to go before it’s finished but it’s very playable and very fun.

100% agreed. Nobody could be blamed for not wanting to relocate for a job and it’s honestly kinda ridiculous in this day and age that they’re requiring them to. Remote work works!

As you mentioned, they didn’t make ESO. Entirely different studios involved in the two games. They probably should have spent some time with the Zenimax developers before trying FO76 though.

Agreed, I’d much rather have no Blizzard than the toxic swamp that it was/is(?). I do wish we could have a Blizzard that designed games more like they used to, but minus the toxic culture though, which is what I’m guessing the above comment was meaning as well.

Well this certainly makes them more bearable at least.

Best: Baldur’s Gate 3, Star Citizen, Hunt Showdown
Worst: Starfield, Star Citizen

The implementation makes all the difference and if the world is just a boring empty place the novelty has already worn off from all the other games in the open world genre that have already done it. That said, games like Minecraft, Valheim, and the latest Legend of Zelda’s leave me with hope that open world games can still be fun.

Minecraft, especially when modded makes for a really fun experience exploring a vast world. I could see a game that leans into the adventuring and finding new dungeons and ruins to explore succeeding provided they make the experience of stumbling across them fun.

One can only hope. That policy has left Valve spinning in circles and accomplishing very little for a long time now.

As with the several times they tried this before, this is a train wreck of an idea for so many reasons. While I do love the idea of mod creators getting to make money doing what they enjoy, from the consumer perspective this is bound to be awful… I don’t want to have to get nickel-and-dimed by what are essentially third party micro-transactions… with no grantee that the product I just bought will even work with the others I bought or that they will continue to be supported if the game gets patched a year later. Not to mention virtually zero quality control, leaving users to trust in reviews, AKA other customers who put their money on the line.

And from the mod development side of things, this is going to make building off other mods a complete mess. Think of how many mods you have installed that have had other mods as requirements to work. Are those mods going to need to be bought by the user too? And are the mod creators going to have to set up some kind of revenue sharing with those dependency mods? What happens if a mod developer uses a free mod as a dependency, is that fair to the other mod creator? Do moders have the rights to request their content not be used by other mods? And if so what does that process look like and who arbitrates it? Having seen this tried before, it makes a mess and long term it will stifle collaboration leading to weaker mods.

Star Citizen. It’s a buggy mess as usual but it’s such a fun mess. Especially the Siege of Orison event going on right now, I’ve had some really amazing emergent gameplay moments come from it that have me very excited for the future of this game.

Saw this while I was in a meeting, working from home is great!

Exactly this, the idea that every viewpoint deserves to be respected and given an equal share of attention is false. Racists, homophobes, ect don’t deserve to be given a platform to spread their views and down votes are one of the more effective tools a community has to limit those kinds of content.

Guildwars 2 is guilty of most of the same things.

I can count the number of times I’ve been put into an empty server on one hand. The game has a pretty dedicated playerbase.

That said, I completely agree with the notion that time restrictions don’t really make sense right now. The game is far too buggy in it’s current state to really make the insurance claim times make sense and the developers seem a little out of touch on that. They have actually tried to increase the wait time several times to massive outcry from the community. I really think they would be better served cutting the grind down a little bit while they iron out the game.

A beautiful example of how teaching someone new knowledge helps everyone!

Honestly even if SQ42 ends up being a great game, it can never live up to the anticipation they’ve built around it at this point. People are expecting something so completely revolutionary that it will be unlike any other game they have played, but the reality is that it won’t be that. Which isn’t to say it can’t be a good or even amazing game, it just won’t be anything different or revolutionary gameplay wise.

I’ve got very minimal interest/expectations for SQ42 and I’m far more interested in Star Citizen which is still a pipe dream (although pretty fun to play in it’s current state too, bugs willing) but has much more potential to offer something different than other games in the genera are doing.

I’m late to the conversation here but this exactly my sentiment as well. We’re still years from seeing any of the things they showed us actually hit servers that we can play on and experience and then years from them being refined enough to not be a buggy mess that requires wipes every couple patches.

I’m vaguely hopeful that the SQ42 announcement will at least mean a few more resources dedicated to developing for the persistent universe as that’s the gameplay I am more interested in but I am also not holding my breath. Feature complete is a pretty vague state for a studio like CI and without a set in stone release date, it doesn’t mean much of anything.