I’m a little unsure as to how the MCU has avoided this reputation

I’ll go to bat for the original Verbinski trilogy. The second and third installments are certainly uneven, and the flaws people point out are legitimate, but they’re entertaining, and the characters largely have reasonable story arcs.

A person with a lot of hours played is always going to be better than a first-timer, simply because they have that experience.

That’s sad to hear. They’ve added options to start with a closed crew now, so players can set one of those up if they want to control who’s invited. I still have to hop from one crew to another until I find one that seems like a good fit sometimes, though. Over time, I’ve been able to build up a decent list of good…

They seem to have course-corrected this somewhat with the Skeleton Thrones - you only need at least one player from another crew, not a group of five. I was able to do a few of them with a fellow solo slooper.

I think it’s clear that Rare’s vision for the game is one that is a fairly non-traditional social experience, rather than a more standard game that encourages you to focus on increasing your stats, or powering up, or whatever.

It really is a fairly unique experience. I can play it on a fairly casual basis (I’m not interested in the climb to Pirate Legend at all, which probably helps) without worrying about falling behind. I can cruise around by myself or find a group. The stakes are fairly low, but the gameplay is engaging. I can take a day…

after a few days and the majority of people have collected the rewards for doing said event, it is back to business as normal.

No, I don’t need proof. I’m not a fucking judge. Fuck that guy.

I kind of love that you’re the same guy who said, elsewhere in this comments thread,

Contextually (and maybe you know this), Hardwick is a sober alcoholic. From Dykstra’s post, the order for her to abstain from drinking would have been for his benefit, not hers.

So it wasn’t a joke at all. You legitimately hope that these two other guys, who you don’t like, also abused people.

What, exactly, was meant to be funny?

What about an electric kettle? I thought I saw Alton Brown recommend that once. I don’t really do hard-boiled eggs, though, so I wouldn’t really know.

How about we not hope that people have been abused, just to take people you dislike down a peg or two?

I’m a nerd, too, and I think we need to acknowledge the fact that by having a culture that entails being extremely obsessive about types of minutiae creates a breeding ground for toxicity. We don’t have to support it, obviously, but we should acknowledge that it’s part of the culture. We can’t fight it effectively if…

That’s fair - it’s clearly an act. I just thought it was a pretty...refreshing act, I guess. I’d rather see dramatic enthusiasm than dramatic cynicism.

I mean, it’s obviously Hardwick. Besides

he’s not popular, he’s a meme.

Yup, these updates are all free. I didn’t follow the development cycle super closely, but the only potential paid DLC I’ve ever heard about are cosmetic pets...and the devs have said those are on the backburner while they work on the free stuff.