I’ve been mulling over this the past few years, having finally kicked the WoW habit in the second year of Shadowlands (approaching ~3 years now)…

…but how often are quests/missions/objectives etc. just a combination of go to x, collect x of y, kill x of y? At a certain point, all of these become generic - right?

I doing think it was an one thing, but more-so a build-up over time - a death of a thousand cuts, if you will:

It was a cultural moment generally, just think back to all of those celebrity commercials (“I’m Mr. T and I’m a Night Elf Mohawk”). All cultural moments pass eventually.

The third expansion (Cataclysm) was quite weak to begin with; coupled with a lack of content in the tail-end of the second (Wrath of the Lich King), which itself was incredible - narratively wrapped up the story that began all the way back in Warcraft 3.

So a lot of people chose that time to bow out of the game, as it required a fair bit of time dedication and seemed like an appropriate time to do so - given the narrative pay-off.

Lastly, the introduction of a number of game tools to automate the group composition process meant that the impact of player reputation on servers was severely diminished. Before then, there players who were toxic (stealing items, intentionally killing the group, failing quests) were infamous on a server.

Once this tool was further opened up to allow for groups to form across multiple servers - the sense of community was shattered as you would have no way to know if the person from another server was good/bad etc. it stopped being about bringing in the individual player, and just getting a body in to fill a role.

As someone who was lucky enough to get to experience those first ~6 years; it truly was lightning in a bottle.

20 years on, I am still friends with a number of those I met in WOW - and an in contact with a few more beyond that!

Unfortunately, it does feel like that sense of community those early years fostered are long gone, save perhaps a blip when Classic first launched.

Who knows when the next game will come along, which will be able to foster such relationships.

If it’s within your budget, grab a Steam Deck and use it in docked Desktop mode. It’s a pretty great introduction into Linux IMO, especially due to the fact that Valve themselves are maintaining the OS, and since it’s running on a fixed hardware platform - most online solutions should be applicable to any problems you may encounter.

Worst case, you don’t like it you can always eBay it off to recoup most of your costs?

It was called Kurushi here in our neck of the woods; and I’m glad I’m not the only person who still intensely remembers that game from a demo disc.

I ended up picking up a mint copy to add to my collection; well worth it IMO.

Ill give you this; it was so bad that it looped all the way around and ended up good despite literally everything.

I definitely enjoyed the hell out of it as a kid, but let’s not pretend that it was anything approaching a faithful adaptation.

It really depends on where you draw the line e in the sand, I suppose?

If you’re not too heavily invested in the game series (so you’re willing to accept retcons/story divergence), and are able to switch your brain off for ~100 minutes you’ve got a decent enough chance that you probably won’t hate it.

More than anything, it just has a lot more in common with the ‘bad old days’ of video game adaptations (live action Mario Bros., anything Uwe Boll touched), than the newer crop of more faithful/reverent adaptations (Sonic, animated Mario etc.).

I have the same feeling after watching this, as I did the Mario movie and the Angry Birds before that…

I’m going to remain skeptical, but somewhat optimistic that this will be relatively watchable and hopefully not a complete dumpster fire like Borderlands…

Have Samsung & Google actually delivered 7 years yet - or is that still just a promise on paper to continue supporting existing products?

Apple for all its faults has at least delivered on this premise.

Indies are honestly the only thing keeping me in this hobby; well that and retro collecting…

A game like Vampire Survivors has given me hundreds of hours of entertainment and value for a fraction of the cost of a single “AAA” game - even factoring in the handful of expansion packs he’s released.

Corporations are beholden to their shareholders, yes - but the issue is more down to the fact that we seem to have forgotten that shareholders have the intellect of a toddler… give them free reign and they’ll eat pure sugar for dinner and then complain about a tummy ache.

The line can still go up by delivering quality experiences (as mentioned elsewhere: BG3, RDR2 & hopefully GTA6); by taking care of your stakeholders (which includes employees and customers), it results in higher long-term returns for everyone.

But again, shareholders are toddlers and the current system is giving them free reign.

Provide me with a complete experience out-of-the-box as an end-user (you know how it should be done, developers - it’s the way things were before the PS3/XBox 360 era), don’t try to nickel & dime me with ‘micro-transactions’ or ‘battle passes’, or scam me with multiple ‘expansions’ every year… and then, and only then, we can talk.

$60 USD in 2000 is worth about $110 now; so there’s room to negotiate - but it needs to be in good faith, and I don’t trust publishers to do so currently.

I’ve been clean since the second year of Shadowlands; Dragonflight was literally the first expansion I hadn’t played at all (I’ve usually played at least a year of every other one before that)…

…can’t lie that I haven’t vicariously followed the goings-on through YouTube videos, and that TWW has seemed quite promising from multiple angles to the point that I have been tempted to.

However, like my initial dabble with Classic (and anything addictive, really) - things don’t hit quite like they used to… and I’d rather leave myself with positive memories, rather than risk getting slapped in the face with cold, hard reality.

I’d love to see a modern take on Cannon Fodder, as well as another entry in the Desert/Urban/Soviet/Nuclear Strike series.

Lastly, there was a very fun demo/mod to Sensible Soccer for the Amiga that set the match between UK and Germany, and replaced the ball with a bomb that would periodically explode and eliminate any nearby players. I’d live to see a modern-day version of this, honestly - just some goofy fun!

…and yes, I am fully aware of just how old this makes me all sound.

In a similar vein to another commenter wanting a pre-Paradise style Burnout; I’d like another NFS:U entry, but honestly am so over ‘open world’ racing games… give me a good ol’ fashioned menu any day of the week!

I liked the ending of FC5, and think that it lead rather well into the subsequent New Dawn expansion pack.

On the other hand, while I also loved FC3 - I couldn’t get into FC4 at all…

I guess we can conclude that Far Cry is just a very strange series that seems to alienate its fans just about as often as it attracts them!

Pretty sure Lord GabeN still holds a grudge against us from that time the ACCC sued Steam over local pricing and consumer protection laws; so we’re very unlikely to ever see local hardware releases.

I ended up getting mine through an eBay seller a year ago - no regrets so far.