As far as I understand, yes, you can play all the existing content in Diablo Immortal without paying. Though you’ll never be able to compete in PvP or the challenge rift leaderboard.

What does deleting anything accomplish? You just want to be an Internet tough guy, I know. I may not have liked the way John approached the topic from the start, but I’ll absolutely agree that Mike doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this. He’s the most honest, kindest person on this site.

Fine, you want to dispense with moralizing and just talk about Diablo Immortal as a mobile game? First off the idea that Blizzard fans aren’t familiar with time gated content is way, way off. WoW was doing time gated content and months-long progression before smart phones were a thing. No, that’s not Diablo, but the…

At least the Star Wars fan circles I pay attention to absolutely adored The Last Jedi. I would argue that it was the new film most made for fans. Besides, I didn’t think it was a secret that it wasn’t exactly Star Wars fans causing the drama. No more than it’s the Marvel fans who hate the MCU Captain Marvel and Ms…

I’m trying to put my finger on what your argument most reminds me of: cryptobro delusions or Republican nihilism.

Destiny and Diablo Immortal is an apples to oranges comparison. Destiny is far more free-to-try than f2p. It’s best looked at as a retail game that costs ~$100/yr, and then you’re on equal footing with everyone.

Path of Exile largely avoids the f2p annoyances and the store stays out of your face. The only thing I’ve ever felt tempted to buy are more tabs, though they give you more than enough base for casual play. The currency one is a big quality of life purchase, I will admit.  It’s still far and away one of the kindest f2p…

In that article he admits the existence of exploitative models and argues that in Pokemon GO it doesn’t confer any in-game advantages.  Taken together, the Diablo article becomes a weird moving of the goalposts.

I used to also say “well I’ve been able to enjoy it without spending money” on games such as Diablo Immortal. However the work of journalists such as Laura Kate Dale and James Stephanie Sterling, along with reading many horror stories over the years, has convinced me that there’s a very real human cost to monetization…

It really does come across as the channel owners trying to punish Nintendo through their communities. “I didn’t take away the soundtracks, Nintendo did,” even though there’s no evidence that Nintendo has been levying the actually damaging copyright strikes in this case.

Oh, you mean after all of Blizzard’s indignation at the initial fan reaction they went ahead and proved us right? This is exactly what we feared that Blizzcon, that the studio we once loved would be reduced to predatory pay-2-win schemes with multiple layers of monetization and premium currency.

Honestly clumsy and awkward is how I’d describe the mechanics themselves. Especially playing it so close to the excellent Nioh 2, Fallen Order just felt bad.  Though I certainly agree on the story and atmosphere.  It’s the only reason I pushed as far as I did.

Oh I’ll agree that normalization is becoming a major problem. I bring it up because I believe awareness today can be vital for one’s well being. As for identifying how narcissistic personality disorder comes to be? We’ve been trying to figure it out for decades. No one can agree other than environment plays a role,…

Yes, playing the victim card is often a tool that a narcissist will employ. Of course they never do anything wrong. However this goes hand-in-hand with what narcissistic behavior is. Everyone has some level of narcissism. It’s a defensive mechanism that generally triggers when one’s self worth is injured. So when…

The article paints the picture of a narcissist. A narcissist doesn’t care about anyone else’s feelings. They generally lack empathy. Everything is about their feelings and what others can do for their feelings because deep down they hate themselves. Everything offensive they say is “just a joke” when called out on it. …

Oh I throw games all the time ignoring good plays. Sometimes I’ll spend the whole match just trying to kill the most challenging/annoying survivor, everyone else can go. DBD is certainly best as a casual experience. Why I took a break when SBMM came around and the meta shifted to camping one-hook kills.

One of the more important tips I would give to new killers is this: it’s okay to break off a chase. Nothing I’ve seen demoralizes an inexperienced killer more than chasing a survivor for minutes on end and never catch them. If a survivor is giving you too much trouble, has too many pallets to throw, or is going to a…

How are early impressions disingenuous? Those are arguably the most important moments of a game. That’s the part that everyone who tries the game will experience.

I got this free from Prime and got maybe 10 hours in before I just wasn’t having fun and put it down. I love the Jedi Knight series, Uncharted, and Metroid Prime, and this game is somehow far lesser than the sum of its parts.  It’s absolutely plodding with bad exploration and combat.

I got this free from Prime and got maybe 10 hours in before I just wasn’t having fun and put it down. I love the…

To try a different approach of explaining it: it’s often about trauma. The human mind will rationalize anything it can to avoid reexperiencing trauma. Receiving medical care is a difficult experience, but in the US we add on one of the most deeply painful of them all: dealing with the insurance companies.