The first things that come to mind to me are the so-called “time savers.” Those seem to fit the description of what’s outlined in items I and II. The quest in AC: Odyssey comes to mind where you have to pay the pirate queen 15,000 coin for her help (or whatever they call it in the game). I’d spent most of my money…

Totally. I sort of assumed Xbox would be going the way of Azure anyway because they’re more-or-less the same company. It just seemed suspect to me initially that they’d make a deal with Sony, but I also read this morning that Nintendo is supposedly looking into it too (not sure how that would work, considering the…

What’s not his doing? I’m not sure I put any of Xbox’s failures on him. It wasn’t my intention to, anyway.

That’s a really good point, I hadn’t considered that. But seeing as video game services have a much more limited scope than music suppliers, I guess the question would come down whether the profits from this contract with Sony would outweigh the edge Xbox would receive. At first glance, it seems Sony not having Azure…

That’s definitely the pattern over the last three generations, and that might be what he meant, but that swing has to come from somewhere, and I still believe it comes from a company being concerned about their performance. Sony bombed the PS3 era by thinking their goodwill from the PS2 would carry them through some…

It would be, yeah, but I mean...if that pile of cash is big enough, that may be the smart move. Microsoft fell pretty flat this generation. They either need to swing big for their next console or *gears up for big corporate buzz-phrase* diversify their income revenue streams. It does seem early for that, and I’m…

I can’t imagine a scenario where a company gets trounced in one generation and is then not concerned with getting trounced the next. While I do think it’s a smart move for Phil Spencer to be all “we’re not worried about these units shipped numbers, we’re focused on our customers and making the best product for our…

This is surprising, but also sort of makes sense. If Microsoft thinks they’re going to be trounced in console sales, it could be they’re offering Sony something they don’t have (and may desperately need come the Stadia launch) while profiting off Playstation’s first party and console success in the process.

I think the biggest mark against it is surely the shoddy programming. This game shows every single seam in its stitching. Getting a call from Tucker thanking me for taking care of the camp just minutes after she spoke to me about how I all but abandoned them, for instance. Or when I sleep in bed, then walk over to…

I’m having the same experience. I think Bend did a great job making players feel connected to their bike. Not only is getting your bike in shape tied directly to the main story, making it narratively relevant, the fact that you can only save or fast travel when near the bike means you are always forced to take it into…

I meant more like: if I had an item that was 8% weapon damage, and when I recalibrate it, it was 5% weapon damage, then post patch it would show 8% weapon damage. I wasn’t expecting this (I don’t even know how feasible it would be), but it would’ve been nice.

Based on the changes to the recalibration station, it looks like your gear will be rounded down to 500 and replaced with a “recalibration score.” Your stats themselves won’t go down at all, though.

ETA: I realized I contradicted myself by saying “Why do this, why do that” and then right after that said “It’s understandable why they did that.”

tl;dr: it’s not a matter of wanting less content, so much as how fast the XP bar filled up during the main campaign.

I did find the pre-endgame portion a little too long. Sure, you could blow through the campaign in 15 hours, but in a world this big that is constantly throwing stuff at you, I think most players took detours. That in part is a testament to how interesting the game world is - I wanted to hang around it a while before…

Yeah, that’s about the way I saw it. Although I think for most property owners - particularly businesses - it didn’t matter whether you called it a tax or a fee or whatever, they just saw their cost rising and went “nope.” At the time I was on the board of directors for one of the chambers of commerce in Anne Arundel c…

What was the lie?

Moving the books in the second game did me in last year. I’d played (or tried to play) Shenmue 2 using a Japanese conversion disk when it was originally released for Dreamcast, but it kept crashing. I think I remember getting past the book-carrying part.

I actually hope they dial it back a bit from Odyssey. It was the most exhausting game I’ve ever played. There was so many things going on at once, and to me it felt like it all intruded on each other. I get open world games - especially Ubisoft games - thrive on giving you a big world with lots to do, and I usually…

Not sure about the MHW or Destiny comparisons, but here’s my input: