I’m going to take a different approach than most of the other comments here: you can’t. Microplastics are in the air and a large chunk of it comes from car tire residue. You’re breathing it, likely right now. Research is still in the early phases and we just don’t know how bad it is yet, both from the proliferation and the impact side of things.

Source is Breaking the Plastic Wave and Overview on the occurrence of microplastics in air.

Ah, there’s the catch and confusion. Not required for single player but required for multi, I guess? Not sure how others play Civ but that’s not gonna affect me. I’ve only ever played these games solo besides a very rare duo game.

It doesn’t. They mentioned there would be a unique skin for Napoleon if you signed up but it didn’t sound required.

I think the distributed nature of Mastodon keeps government control from being an issue. It would be kind of cool as a space for citizens to ask for assistance or air grievances while giving the politicians an officially owned space for things like announcements.

Not really. Most large story DLCs for any Bethesda game require all expansions. I suspect it’s for assets, but I would also just pick the largest use case (and already owning the expansions most certainly is the largest use case) and say it’s a requirement also, so I’m not chasing down edge cases for people all day. Just the rough math of releasing something you have to support afterwards.

Hey, that’s a neat image. I’ve seen other ways of visualizing the popular vote on a map but this one looks wonky as hell and I like it.

I haven’t looked but no way they’re removing perks. They’re too enmeshed into the game design.

Are you under the impression that people donate money to politicians as an investment? For some of us, our sights are on yknow… not letting our country slide into a fascist state. My personal wealth is not as important as that.

They didn’t do one in this case, but I have heard stories of these sorts of malicious actors paying people stateside or elsewhere to take the video interviews. I’ve had to do ID checks on video in recent-ish interviews.

Absolutely! There’s always a tradeoff though and some segment of the gaming population will be turned off, which is fair. I personally love the lonely feeling of NMS.

As someone who felt the same for a long time, it’s partially fixed but partially still that loop. They’ve added a lot of variety to that loop also with the last few updates. It definitely adds a bit of life, not so much on the emotion.

I personally love a monorepo. It has to be managed effectively by the team, but the benefits are great. Most of it boils down to making more effective incentives for maintenance and care for downstream effects because “we all live here”. There are tradeoffs and it’s not for every situation or team though, for certain.

Last year, I did another trilogy playthrough as FemShep while I also happened to be playing Guild Wars 2 as a Sylvari woman. My double take when I realized was pretty funny. Jennifer Hale is supremely talented and she lends an air of gravitas without getting into comical over-acting. She just has a perfect voice for a badass!

This is the second time I’ve seen right wing talking points associated with this game and it’s so pathetic to try and use that to cover over your middling review scores. I mean, you run a business. If you’re not going to self-reflect on why your product didn’t do as well as you thought, not sure you’re being honest with yourself on why your product failed. That same thinking would have been present in the design and development process, preventing their product from ever getting any better. One of those reasons companies even pay lip service to DEI: it genuinely brings fresh perspectives and refines your art and product.

Anyway, I even liked this game. It’s honestly pretty fun and the zombie hordes are relatively unique for the genre. The main character isn’t some right-wing asshole and even comes off as pretty empathetic and kind, if I remember correctly. It just came out at a time of open world oversaturation and played into almost every trope of the time. I think if it came out today, (and they managed to not show their ass online) it would do a lot better. As usual, the right-wing malding is weird on top of being gross and unnecessary.

To be fair, this was the case in my secular(-ish) public school as well and I believe it was there until the early 2000s. The catholic church has many sins (which Squid did a great job laying out above), but I don’t think they, as a group, endorse the concept of corporal punishment like they do with anti-choice practices or the rampant pedophilia. That’s a cultural issue with certain regions of the US.

Lol that’s a fair take. I’m playing it right now to prep for Erdtree, so it’s likely just stuck in my head.

Weird. Subtle signposting is not exactly a new feature, even if this form kind of is? The path of grace in Elden Ring, yellow paint in every first person game with parkour, and the wind in Ghosts of Tsushima all come to mind.

People really don’t understand how many players there are who just don’t care about this stuff. They get none of the gamer rage, they don’t check reddit or lemmy, they’re not watching Twitter to see what the game journos are pissed about. DLC and MTX make buckets of money, even when compared to the profits from most full games, and they’re magnitudes cheaper and easier to develop. They’re not going away as long as they’re bought and they’re going to be bought, I guarantee it. It’s not even a bad thing, per se, as long as the player feels they’ve gotten their money’s worth.

If anyone is looking to return gaming to a pre-“horse armor” state where big DLCs were the only option, you are looking for a fantasy that will never, ever happen. I’ve seen the numbers for some of the orgs I’ve worked for and it’s hilariously skewed toward that stuff. The real answer is to pivot to different games. Embrace indies and games that don’t have MTX. You’re never gonna get the AAAs back in the bottle.

Give me Donkey Kong Country HD you cowards

Not like we aren’t feasting right now anyway. Baldur’s Gate, Pathfinder, Pillars of Eternity, Skald, Wasteland. I would love a Dragon Age spinoff that went back to its roots though.