Ah, so (at least for the first 10 hours) your character is essentially stuck in that milquetoast middle-road-please-everyone approach? That’s disappointing.

I’d hope that it opens up later and you get a bit more flexibility/feedback in terms of which factions and ideologies you can support and denounce.

That’s exactly my line of thought.

It’d actually be a great move in terms of designing a role-playing narrative where certain morally-tinged decisions are just straight-up mechanically disadvantageous for the player. Your character’s ideals may not line up with what creates the most powerful and popular RPG protagonist.

Pretty much this, though honestly I don’t even mind if I miss content/quests/EXP; oftentimes taking against-the-grain, principled stances against the status quo in real-life doesn’t have any perks other than upholding the principle itself.

If the game goes “yeah, there’s no reason to do this other than narrative…

“You might prevent a tragedy here or there, but as long as there’s a mechanical incentive to acquiesce to formality and political decency, there’s no room for any transformative action.”

Ah, a’ight. The game hasn’t introduced the camera yet so that’s probably why it’s not familiar.

Yeah, admittedly I’m still early in the game so maybe they expand on some of that to make it less dissonant. I just finished File 01 and am at the Headquarters now so that’s what I’m working from now.

Where can you access the database, is it in the menu or is it a location?

*playing a game where we are enslaving sentient creatures through what’s essentially body modification/horror and forcing them to do our bidding, understanding that they would pretty much kill us (their “partner”) the first chance they get if their chains were to ever break*

*uses said forcefully enslaved creature as a…

It depends on what you’re looking for I guess. “Boring and sloppy” to me sounds like commentary on the game’s sense of direction/signposting (or lack thereof) and how it sort of shotguns its content across the entire map for the player to just stumble across.

Things that, for me, makes the game great and interesting…

It depends on what you’re looking for I guess. “Boring and sloppy” to me sounds like commentary on the game’s sense of direction/signposting (or lack thereof) and how it sort of shotguns its content across the entire map for the player to just stumble across.

Things that, for me, makes the game great and interesting…

Also, discuss with your fellow consumers and try to lobby the industry through your purchasing decisions and word-of-mouth, up to and including internet discussion forums :D

What? No, that’s wrong. The point of the article was about harassment and name-calling, not whether or not there was any legitimate criticism at all. Even if I give you that it’s arguable whether or not loot boxes/microtransactions are an issue in the game (I’d disagree but whatever) a major part of SaintHeartwing’s…

Not debunking the idea that it’s cosmetic and optional, it obviously is. What I mean is the idea that publishers should get a pass because it’s only cosmetic/optional, that cosmetic loot boxes aren’t problematic, that it won’t lead to a slippery slope of further loot box nonsense, and that it doesn’t affect the…

Okay, I mean I agree with that. I’m not sure how it applies to the current conversation though.

I’m not having an existential crisis over this, I’m highlighting how microtransactions affect both the marks of the exploitation (i.e. whales) and the other folks like me who find it grating and bad for game design, balance…

Here it is again, the “it’s just cosmetic” thing. We’ve been through this already.

I don’t want to get into a lengthy rant, so I’ll just repost this; Jim’s already laid it out pretty clearly why that’s a sorry excuse:

Haven’t we thoroughly debunked/worked through the whole “it’s only cosmetic/it’s optional” angle with this loot box BS? It creates a gambling economy of have and have-nots, meant to psychologically prey on people with low impulse control with tricks literally taken from slot machines and casinos.

I can’t opt out of…

I’m sure for the people that do it, this falls into a sort of “hate the player not the game” attitude that makes competitive games generally unappealing to me. Similar to stuff like meta-shaming and whatnot, it often feels like toxic behavior and justification thereof is an inherent part of these games :\

I’m sure I’m…

You asked how someone could trust him when he talked about this game, I gave an answer.

I’ll let you ponder on how people can trust Sean about what he says now, while still being upset about half-finished AAA live-service games from major publishers becoming increasingly common.

Sean does say at some point in a video interview that they’ve made it so “everyone is online”, so I’m a bit worried they removed the capability to turn MP off :\

Years of good will and chunky updates after a rough launch, I’d imagine.

Also, your username checks out, haha...