Interesting. The inability to pan and walk around makes it very different. I liked “walking” around in geoguesser until I found a landmark or something, but I never played competitively or obsessively.

Bg1 and 2, Dragon age, and mass effect famously had save imports, so “the only way” doesn’t check out.

The dark souls games are so far removed in time that the previous game is legend, so that’s an option.

For the tv show they also could have, as I said, just set it somewhere and somewhen else. They can have rumors about what’s happening in Vegas, but it’s 20 years ago and you’re in Chicago, so who knows what’s true.

So, yeah, they could’ve done something else and still made a TV show.

What made new Vegas interesting was that it’s not just another kitschy wasteland romp. It’s post-post-apocalypse, and it asks who rebuilds after.

My limited understanding is the TV show nuked the NCR so they could do more wasteland theme park, and not continue that train of thought. But also didn’t just set it somewhere else.

But admittedly I haven’t actually watched it.

But also, again, trying to make a TV show intersect with a video game with multiple endings is a foolish idea. You won’t make everyone happy, and it’s an entirely avoidable problem. They could’ve just set the show in a different part of the world that hasn’t had a game.

I found a pizza place near me that still has like 2010 prices. It’s like a large pie with 5 toppings for $20. Most places are more like $30 now, here (NYC)

I kind of refuse to watch Fallout. Partly because I read they fucked up the NCR. But also Amazon sucks , and Bethesda is kind of creatively bankrupt.

Spoiler for Shadowheart’s story

And for the main plot in act 3, with a certain bhaalspawn.

Annoying, but I get why they didn’t do like a save import from an ancient game.

Related, if they ever make another game in the franchise this show will probably be canon, so it’s not entirely ignorable.

Technically I don’t have to watch it. I don’t have to play any more games in the franchise either. But if I do want to play more games in the franchise, I’ll probably have to deal with the show.

Can we just not do this?

One, not every thing needs to be a whole franchise universe.

Two, the game had a lot of decisions players could make. Collapsing that into a single canon is going to be unsatisfying. It was annoying enough that bg3 made some big decisions about choices from bg2.

Related, if they ever make another game in the franchise this show will probably be canon, so it’s not entirely ignorable.

Three, it’s not even that interesting a setting. It’s pretty Standard Fantasy.

Yeah I don’t really like the model where it starts basic and hard, and each failure makes it a little easier.

Feels like it would be more interesting if you started with high stats, and each successful run you had to remove or lower something. Sure, you won with 200 health but can you win with 100? Hades kind of had this alongside the upgrades as you go.

I didn’t like dead cells or rogue legacy that much because it felt like I would’ve won if I had grinded more, and that’s not what I want.

I feel like games are usually a mix of execution challenges and numbers challenges. In a pure action game or other games without progression (eg: chess) you win or lose from your decisions and input. But in numbers games, you win or lose based on the stats. There’s really no way cloud from the start of the original ff7 can defeat disc 3 bosses. The numbers just aren’t there.

Some rogue-lites feel like they’re trying to be execution games but have a less clear numbers check on top. Doesn’t always work for me.

I do really like the traditional rogue like Crawl: Stone Soup, though. No meta game aside from the occasional player ghost.

Is it like the other ones where it takes several hours until you start finding interesting guns and get cool powers?

I’ve heard this but I haven’t taken the time to find a rom and emulator and get it working (on Linux)

I was going to say diablo4 as well. Diablo1 and 2 were some of my favorite games in my youth, but I just don’t want to give blizzard any more money. Path of exile 1 and 2 are good for the same itch.

Also any console exclusives. Bloodborne? Would love to play. Not buying a console. New Zelda and Mario? Same.

Installed Pop!_os maybe a year ago. It’s been fine.

I couldn’t quite figure out how to make the bg3 mod tools play nice. There’s probably some proton prefix stuff I’d have to do and I gave up before getting too deep.

I bet the next time I want to play a game with mods it’s going to be a bit of a headache.

Other than that, it’s fine. I ran mint for about a year before this, with an interlude of windows 11 that came with the desktop.

I didn’t do all the optional bosses in expedition 33. I finished the plot and was so powered up the story bosses didn’t even get a turn. But fighting the billion hp “dodge 13 hits in a row or die” just wasn’t fun for me.

The thing you need to weigh is the inconvenience of them putting in the effort to become tech savvy. That’s a big inconvenience. So, the inconvenience of dealing with ads and whatnot looks much smaller from their perspective.

Yeah, I can follow the train of thought. They don’t know that like an hour of reading now will save them decades of pain, I guess.

Like, there’s degrees. Learning how to compile Firefox from source with custom changes is way more work than “search: how do I get rid of ads? Search: best adblocker. Click install on ublock.”

Which brings me back to what I was trying to say earlier. People imagine dealing with these problems is way harder than it actually is, so they don’t even look.

Something like this is coming up at work. They’re like “oh it’s going to be like weeks of work to get a linter for our code” and I’m like “it’s fifteen minutes please just let me help you”.

I dunno, a lot of the people in my life that aren’t tech savvy are inconvenienced. The ads pop up and block stuff. But they don’t know how to do anything about it.

I guess it’s easier to just do nothing and suffer than learn what adblock is. It’s easier to use the shitty defaults.

Well that’s fascinating. I’m not sure what to do with this information. Maybe read the study more carefully when I have more time

Many people have a sort of learned helplessness. They don’t really know computer fundamentals, they get scared and stressed so they stop thinking, and then they don’t want to deal with it.

People aren’t rational. They’re emotional.

Capitalism. The rich owner types don’t like this sort of thing, and they have a lot of power. They don’t really have coherent values except “in-group to protect, out-group to bind” and “no one tells me what to do. i tell you what to do.”

Yeah Fallout4 was kind of bad. I played it a lot anyway (sim settlements 2 is pretty good) but the core of it is rotten.