Celan

Sure, George. You're working hard blah blah. Now work smart, please. I decided to give BG3 another try. I don't love the combat, but at least the game gives you ways to avoid it. I'm playing a neutral good druid. So far everyone in my party hates me but Gale and Wyll.

@ColonelKillaBee Using that down time at work productively, I see.

It makes sense to capitalize on your IPs, though game devs could get into the same bad habits as Hollywood, regurgitating existing IPs to death and paralyzed from trying anything new.

This shows how game-changing power armor actually is, as opposed to falling apart like tissue paper as in Fallout 4.

HBO is doing a Dunk and Egg series that starts filming in 2024. I'm incapable of being enthusiastic about anything ASoIaF these days, but I did like those stories.

I'm so sorry man. I have fond memories of him trying to eat my big toe.

We also agree on jumping spiders I'm pretty bummed at Starfield. If it had just been Fallout 4 in space, I could have lived with that. Instead they kept the worst of FO4 and sucked out the charm.

I'm abandoning Starfield. I really don't have the will or patience for a game that is full of tedious, randomized, pointless quests in a featureless randomized landscape. I don't blame Pete Hines and Kurt Kuhlmann if they didn't want to play ball with this style of game design.

But the bugginess was well known. The problems in this game are more hidden, so it’s getting less backlash and I don’t know if Bethesda will get the message.

The sad thing is that the fact that this game isn’t nearly as busted as Fallout 76 means that all this tedium and jank was designed. It’s not a bug. I feel this is worse news for Bethesda fandom.

Ring a ding ding, baby. He is quite cute, and I like Elias Toufexis' voice. That's going to have to be some impressive D rest to make me play hundreds of hours like in a normal Bethesda game.

I think it just punctuates the pointlessness of what you're doing. If you have long loading screens on the way to interesting and varied quests, I don't think people would complain about it much. I ignored the reviews because I don't trust reviews, but so far they really are accurate. I thought Zero Punctuation's was pretty spot on, as well. I'll try to soldier on for a while to see if I can turn it around. At this point my main objective is to get into the cowboy's pants.

I am seriously pondering that. This game needs a massive rework. Edit- Steam only allows refunds if you have played less than 2 hours. That wouldn't have gotten me out of the boring ass tutorial.

Nope. It's basically fast travel from objective to objective through slow loading screens. Oh, and that station I went to- there is nothing there other than this one guy who just stands in the same place. So it's not like I can even sell stuff off or talk to NPCs other than to get the quest. It's so pointless. I listened to a bit of Angry Joe's review just to see if I'm missing anything, and he is really spot on about this stuff. He says that a lot feels like it's designed to purposefully waste your time, and it does feel like that. I tried exploring a planet. Hoof it slowly across the planet on foot, get there and the anomaly is "Spire of Rock." That's it. It's a tall rock. Go to another waypoint, it's an "Undiscovered Science Station." Wait for 2 airlocks aka loading screens, and there's some random loot, not even that great. That's it. Scan eight Alien Plant forms to complete fauna research- i'm not even sure what it's for. I haven't joined a faction yet, trying to wait for a reason to do so. I think Centurion said that's where the game shines. I sure as hell hope so. I've used the console but in order to load mods, Nexus tells me I can't use their manager because it's on external SSD. Angry Joe said if you don't have the game on SSD, the loading screens are unbearable. So I'm screwed.

Like, these menus are awful. Bethesda has never been great with UI design but this is out of control. In order to get yet another macguffin quest, I have to go talk to a guy on a station orbiting the planet I'm on. Why the fuck I gotta go there, why can't he give me the quest over comms? So anyway, I open the dial, go to Missions, find the mission I'm currently on, open it to find the objective, press X to go directly there. That puts me on the ship. I have to wait forever for the ship to get close enough to dock. My payload specialist coughs twice. Occasionally you do get companion chatter in the background, or hails that usually lead to ship combat. You can boost to make it a little faster, but that's temporary (like the oxygen thing). When I'm close enough to the station, press X to dock. Wait for a sloooow docking animation. Press X to board. Go in, the guy tells me "go look for the macguffin on this planet." I open the options dial, open Missions, find my mission, open it to find the objective, click X to go directly there, wait for a slooooow landing animation... Come the fuck on, Bethesda.

I have mostly ignored resource grinding. I haven't crafted a single thing or picked up a single mod. Not sure where they are, to be honest. They don't explain the scanning very well. Sort of like how they just dropped in settlement building in FO4 with no tutorial, but that was pretty easy to get into. The design choices are puzzling. There is no land rover. Why the fuck am I going to hoof it across featureless planets to pick up some loot- slowly, due to oxygen restrictions? I haven't tried outpost building yet. Maybe that makes it easier. I'm waiting for a lot of loading screens. A LOT.

Ring a ding ding... RIP Benny. That Black Widow option wouldn't have been the same without Matthew Perry's voice talent. I picked up Starfield last week since I had some extra time at the end of my vacation, and I'm at the CP2077 end game and wanted something different. Let's say... I'm trying to keep an open mind. In many ways it seems like a normal Bethesda game. Lots of familiar stuff. It plays pretty smoothly and the companions are interesting. But it's extremely tedious and the motivation to do anything is pretty thin.

The only problem I have with Capitan's car theft quests is that I wish the ones in the Badlands came from Dakota and benefitted the Aldecaldos. It makes sense since these are Wraith cars and could just be repainted with Caldo sigs. Shit, I'd do that for free.

Maybe Bioshock, but they would just fuck it up.

The wages of car theft in NC are pretty good. And yes, I find the rush pleasantly addictive.

Indeed. All the better for man-handling. Though this is my V's true love, I think.

V with Gorilla Arms

Absolutely. I usually am wearing the cowboy hat and AK bolero. Most of the cybernetics for V aren't cosmetically noticeable. The most noticeable are the gorilla arms but still pretty subtle. "Minimalist" like that one Maelstrom gangoon calls them.

True that. I also love the car stealing quests in the Badlands since you're generally stealing from Wraiths. I just found one where a bunch of them were hanging around after shooting up a truck and Capitan wanted you to steal their car. I hit them with the Contagion + Overheat combo, hid behind the car, and all I saw were limbs and weapons flying straight up in the air, it was hilarious. They are the hardest car combat opponents, as you might expect. They're actually pretty fierce. Makes it all the more fun to grab and dash. Maybe I have a little GTA in me. Just another day in the Badlands.

@The Good Doctor I don't know if you noticed, but after you complete the nomad quests, you see more Militech patrols in the Badlands. Shards say they're staking out the Aldecaldos. So in addition to my recreational wastage of the Wraiths, I eliminate every patrol I see. Waste their peeps, blow their trucks. There's this one gig where you break a prisoner out of Militech jail in the Badlands and Dakota wants you to resolve it "peacefully." I just wait til I get my bonus, then go back and reduce that place to smoking ruins.