It feels exactly like Witcher 3 with cars, guns, and less janky combat. There’s a lot of people who think Witcher 3 is the best game ever made. I think CP2077 is better than Witcher 3. Of course, I’m that guy who doesn’t really love Witcher 3.

Of course, my favorite games are Bethesda “collect garbage and shut up” games. I play them for the story (feel like I’m getting judged for reading Playboy now)

This pleb waited a few days and pays $10/mo for a bunch of games, including Starfield. I’m happy enough.

I mostly agree and have been defending it from haters recently myself. But there is one thing in the way of “You can then jump to each dot on the way, look around, scan planets, get hailed by ships, visit places your scans found, etc on your way to your mission… I’m of the opinion thats what Bethesda wants you to do.”

Starfield is a “looter shooter RPG” like other Bethesda games. And like other Bethesda games, your time off-leash is limited by your inventory size, with valuable items dropping that take up to 10% of that or more a piece. Awkwardly, ship storage is just not that incredible, until/unless you either go all-in on outposts or all-in on megaships. Which means you do end up having to stop and go to a city often, probably the one with your next mission goal.

It’s not a huge gripe, but I think Bethesda has always used inventory to drive people back to populated centers to pick up quests.

I could swear I’ve definitely seen transitions happen with no loading screen, just the transition. I am pretty certain the transition is just the start of the loading-screen process.

Ahh. But don’t those animations mask loading processing so you see fewer “spinning wheel” screens? I remember early Skyrim having minute long waits when you entered a door

like you said, no annoying Battle pass, day one DLC etc and other than early access, was there preorder bonuses?

There were some minor cosmetic day 1 bonuses that nobody is losing sleep over not having. Basically, a skin pack for 4 items you get early on in the game’s main story. Unless people are roleplaying heavy, those items are in storage or sold to vendors by the 5 hour mark in the game. I’ve seen some people who wanted pay-to-win or pay-to-pretty bitch because this was miles from it.

The hate just seems odd, I can get the hate for most AAA shit but it seems really misplaced for StarField

Exactly. Bethesda games have never been the bleeding edge for graphics, even when they were the games crushing GPUs (Balmorra@6fps, I’ll never forget you). Nobody is even meaningfully saying that the money was spent on bonuses or moon vacations for the execs or anything, only that what they spent it on was not hyper-realistic graphics. They’ve always been a vast game. That’s where they spend their dev money.

Also, I guess also the cutscenese/animations everywhere, launching ships, docking, landing can get annoying, I understand the complaints about those

Everything is fast travel and loading screens. You’re right. This has been the complaint about every Bethesda game since day 1. I remember loading screens in Daggerfall. Yes, games with different focus and different engines have mastered seamless landing and takeoff. Yes, I’m sure Bethesda could have added that, or faked it. But they made clear a year ago we’d be seeing load screens for those things, so nobody should’ve expected otherwise.

Violent coups always are. They create a power vacuum, and it is NEVER filled with people who want to do nothing but give you free things.

I don’t support capitalism, but thinking guillotines for the rich (even figuratively) are the answer is short-sighted.

My guilty pleasure is to install Morrowind again and commit to replaying it, but to instead do another Skyrim playthrough because I just have more fun for some reason.

There’s something about the newer Bethesda games. I’ll go and install legacy games from other companies all the time for the sense of nostalgia, but despite having beaten almost all of them going back to Arena, if I want a Bethesda game I always end up playing Skyrim or FO4. And now (I presume) Starfield

Yeah, and I don’t get why. We quite literally got exactly what we expected with Starfield, and nobody said we would get anything different. For those of us who enjoy it, we got precisely what we were promised. For those who don’t enjoy it, nobody tried to pretend they were getting something different.

If I have one complaint, they did not manage to brand it as effectively as they branded Fallout (the blonde cartoon, music, etc). But then, they never managed to brand tES that way and we’re all still alive.

My 2c. Isn’t it a breath of fresh air that we got a complete game without $100s in day1 DLC required to make it playable?

There’s this weird balance with businesses. While narcissists and sociopaths make the wealthiest business owners, many successful business owners are merely “unpleasant”.

Look at Musk. If he were competent (and the Twitter thing wasn’t originally just an attempt to manipulate stock prices), the whole “buy and gut” attitude can be quite effective at making money. Dump compliance folks. Dump critical personnel and let them “figure it the fuck out”, etc. I’ve seen businesses run by sociopaths do things like that all the time.

And hell, let’s look at Musk a bit more. Everyone talks about how much money Twitter is losing. Nobody is talking about how much money Musk is losing (or not losing). First, a full 1/3 of the purchase price are loans in Twitter’s name (!!!). That puts Musk on the hook for only $30B directly… which he paid in equity of other companies (making the purchase tax-sheltered).

Burned utterly to the ground (the product and the staff), 2023 might be their first profitable year since 2019 (albeit as a MUCH smaller company), and I’m guessing Musk is collecting a fair chunk of change in salary and bonuses. Ironically, I’m guessing he’s still going to amortize the “losses” as he builds his own ROI.

Yes, a better leader would have created a successful Twitter. And YES, Musk never really wanted to spend that much on it. But I firmly believe he’s taking it to the bank anyway.

And as horrific as most CEO’s are, a lot of them don’t have this type of behavior in them. Which is the other side of the “reason business owners need good workers”. Not every CEO is willing to embrace “profit-focused mass-layoffs”

Just a reminder that in France, it was people like him that were deciding who went to the guillotine. The French Revolution was a win for the bourgiousie against the aristocracy. People constantly refer to it when talking about rich people. But it was a capitalist coup.

Think “modern US Republican Party” and you’ll understand the dynamics of the French Revolution. Wealthy businessmen whipping up the common man to be their front-line. Was capitalism better than aristocracy? Sure. But the situation is different now.

IMO, we really need to find a better point of reference than guillotines

Your reply deserves more time than I have, I’m sorry. I am really grateful for this type of conversation where nobody reduces to name-calling. It’s refreshing after reddit.

But I do want to point to 1 thing. "True I can only theorize, though Obama did proclaim himself to be a progressive through the 2008 campaign with progressives naturally drawn to him as well. " I don’t think that’s actually true.

I used google historical search a couple years back to look at what Obama ACTUALLY campaigned as and proclaimed. Surprisingly, he wasn’t saying a ton of progressive things. He campaigned heavily on words that could be taken multiple ways, but on the issues he seemed fairly conservative. When I pulled up even slightly over, lots of news articles from unbiased (or left-biased) sources referring him to a Party Moderate.

I think the wool was pulled over our eyes, and I go back and forth between thinking he did it, thinking his campaign staff did it, and between thinking our optimism did it.

What’s crazy is that the idiots could’ve likely prevented this in the 2016 GOP primaries if they rank a ranked choice voting system.

I didn’t follow it as closely as I’d like to. Didn’t it go like Primaries usually do, with the bottom-polling candidate trying to step out and redirect their votes towards their favorite… with a lather-rinse-repeat? The final vote was apparently down to 4 candidates. And Trump got more votes than the other 3 combined, nearly 50% of the Primary Votes. RCV doesn’t beat him basically having a majority vote among the field.

This is one of my gaming needs, so I can help with some I’ve used. They don’t require enough focus to break your focus on your show

1. Vampire Survivor - has some things in common with tower defensey, but ultra-addictive
2. Factorio
3. Cultist Simulator (not like anything you asked but worth the checkout)
4. Luck be a Landlord (slay the spirey, but simpler)
5. Mindustry (serious tower-defense vibes here, and FREE)

American Catholics have largely voted Democrat for much of the last century. This flip-flop to voting Republican is relatively recent.

It seems to me to be a bit of a religio-coup. Bishops have some autonomy, and Priests some as well. It’s become increasingly common that both are in opposition to Rome on certain behaviors related to politics, and exactly how strongly they should be pushing people to vote and for what reasons. The dehumanization of Biden (publicly refusing him Eucharist) for his nuanced pro-choice views is in direct contradiction of papal behavior going back at least to the turn of the 20th century. Telling people that in voting, any sin is forgivable except being pro-choice… well, there’s no basis in Canon Law for that attitude.

I live in a very Catholic area, and have a lot of Catholic family. Talking to them, they mention their priests say “you can vote for either party, as long as they’re pro-life”. The Abortion issue is not the only or greatest issue to Rome. It is AN issue, but disagreeing with the Church is generally not going to earn their full enmity unless you are preaching your disagreement. Biden (the target of that local church smear campaign) is absolutely not preaching pro-choice to anyone.

Pope Francis is right to be saying that because American Catholic Leadership has gone WAY astray from what Catholicism allows or mandates of them.

That schism happened with Vatican II. After that point, it seems like Popes have regularly been political instead of doing what they knew was right, because they seem to think slight improvement by the congregation is better than alienating the conservative membership. I think the growth Sedevacantism terrifies them more than anything. The group is clearly heretical by every Catholic doctrine, but so popular you will not see any formal declaration that they are in a state of excommunication.

The thing is, we non-Catholics should be rooting the religion on to shed that craziness. Whether you like religion or not, Catholicism is not going anywhere and a progressive Catholic Church is better than a Regressive Catholic Church.

I think deep down he was frustrated that his hands were tied from enacting more progressive policies

Ultimately, I cannot know what was going on in his mind, so we are theorizing. But here’s my counter-theory. He was frustrated because he believed in bipartisanship, in both parties working together for a better country despite neither getting everything it wanted, and he discovered the other side would literally burn the country down for an edge. I think he was an idealist, but his ideal was “one country, one people” instead of this Plymouth/Jamestown contrast we still seem to represent. To that end, he was willing to sacrifice almost anything, and only started playing hardball when he realized after he gave EVERYTHING, the other side smiled and said “so we’re going to vote against that”.

MAYBE passion like mine has driven them away, but let’s be honest, there’s a reason the crazy uncle who listens to Limbaugh or the latest charlatan runs their mouth and everyone else remains quiet. The loud mouth gets their voice heard and to the detriment of the country, that’s influential.

You’re not wrong. I don’t like that we can’t have successful left-loudmouths. I like to say/think it’s because a large part of the Democratic base is interested in truth and facts, but that doesn’t explain the lazy people who are willing to allow for alt-right nonsense but not leftist discussion.

there has been no progress on abortion and Republicans have only continued to cripple LGBTQ rights as well as obstruct tuition forgiveness

I used to think that Roe being overturned would be the last nail, that Red states would spontaneously turn Blue from people who suddenly realized they were in Gilead. I used to actually think they wouldn’t let their best tool to rally the alt-right go away. And I was right that it hurt them now that people are living in the hell of abortion being illegal, but it hasn’t been the wave I expected. I really hope you’re right, but look at Texas. It was supposed to be purple already, and quickly turning Blue in the next 20 years. And that was before Dobbs. I just don’t see that motion yet. I hope to see it soon.

Overall I view Trump supporters as a lost cause, and I literally cannot count more than 2 people I know who regretted their support for Trump since 2015.

Sad, but true. I swear, there’s a mile-long list for why the Republican party should be failing. And they KNOW it. They hate Trump as much as we do. Coming in to 2016, Republicans were internally talking about looking more moderate because they were afraid they’d alienated too many people. Trump wasn’t supposed to have a chance in the Primary. They’re like a zombie party. Things that would destroy almost any other party in the world are reinvigorating them. Non-stop sex scandals? MORE VOTES.

I agree with quite a few of your points, but not all of them. The biggest disagreement we have is on the nature of Obama.

In his political career, he was always a conservative/moderate. The fact that he seemed to hide his conservativeness in his campaigning suggests he knew progressives might be a fair draw and he needed their vote. Maybe he’s a lifestyle liar, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

As for Trump voters. Yeah. Two counterpoints.

1. Undecided voters are often short-sighted. Hell, most voters are short-sighted. We don’t remember 6 months ago if we’re not repeatedly reminded.
2. Buttery males, Bernie the commie, Hunter’s laptop. Birth Certificate. To someone distanced, the scandals started around 2007 and hasn’t stopped since. It takes actually paying attention to the scandals to realize that they’re not all fake. This is one of the neocon strategies: desensitize us to the evils they cannot hide.

Generally there are a lot of the middle-ground “enlightened centrist,” fence-sitters who have yet to fully commit to a side. These are the people we must reach out to.

1000% agree. But it’s not easy. I look at some of my family members in their formative voting years (19-22). They are uninterested in the left… why? Because they have family who won’t shut up about how bad Trump is. I kid you not. They have analyzed enough to realize it’s true, but then found themselves just not caring to vote because some people are just so damn passionate. Like passion is a bad thing. And it’s not just one or two people. The attitude seems fairly common, and reiterates the “desensitize” thing. The real problem could well be that after this influx of gen y upping the vote out of fear of Trump, we’re going to watch the voting rate plummet again… and we all know what happens when not enough people vote.

Most of the people who voted for Trump knew what he was for and agreed with his platform. That platform was far-right

I can’t speak for everyone. But I knew quite a few Trump voters who clearly did not understand the for-right platform. They thought they voted:

1. Anti-corruption
2. This idea that both parties are the same and here’s someone who actually wants to pull a Perot
3. Saving jobs (he actually dramatically overperformed the labor vote that, while they can be racist, don’t usually run towards the dogwhistle candidate)

This, to me, is similar to a lot of the folks voting for Obama thinking he was actually progressive despite openly being conservative.

In the end, I don’t find much difference between those so incredibly gullible (useful idiots?) enough to fall for the shallow fox news propaganda of far-right extremism

There is a drastic difference between evil people and stupid people, and knowing that is both important for keeping your sanity in a country that elected him, but also politically important for knowing that we’re not just a few votes away from the majority of Americans wanting a fascism.

both lead to the same dangerous logical conclusion

This is true, and why it’s both important that we educate people, and that we work towards a country where campaigns of lies are either illegal or at least made ineffective. The Democrats ran fairly hard on “everything Trump said is a lie” and were able to prove it, and that wasn’t enough.

Besides, I think every far-right extremist at their core is ignorant in themselves.

Sure, but not every fool is a racist. Most of them are “centirsts” or merely uninterested in politics and just want to go on with their lives.

Also fair enough. I acknowledge that the gun question is an incredibly complicated and nuanced one, and I think both extreme sides of it tend to oversimplify it in their own way. I’m definitely with you on that part.

I’ve got a few disagreements on this. I really swore I wouldn’t get into a 2A argument here.

Properly executed defensive carry does not add much volatility

Allegedly. We just don’t have enough school examples to know if that’s really the case.

Making the primary response an assault team that needs to enter and clear the building adds complexity and volatility

Except that (in non-dystopian situations) those assault teams will have dramatically more training. You are correct that breaching is more dangerous. That’s why I pitched a security team stationed inside schools. I don’t agree that, from a tactical point of view, you want that many disparate defenders who are not even part-time trained for that role.

Gun control always results in a ban

There are hundreds of countries that prove this wrong. A supermajority of countries in the world have gun control, and a near unanimity of those countries do not have absolute gun bans. I’m sure you can find a definition for the term “gun ban” where that’s the case (say, if any weapon is banned for any reason, you call it a gun ban), but there seems to be no evidence of a real slippery slope between gun control and gun bans.

The US thankfully has it built into the Constitution as the fundamental right that it is

This is also strictly incorrect, or at least incredibly nuanced. The 2nd Amendment does not add it as a fundamental right at all (Barron v. Baltimore, or merely the laws passed/defended by the very same people who penned and signed the Constitution). The 14th Amendment does add it as a fundamental right based around the Equal Rights clause (specifically, regarding Southern States banning guns from Black Americans and not White Americans). Despite SCOTUS being extremely creative (good and bad) with the 14th Amendment the last 40-50 years in general, there are still teeth to some gun control laws for that very reason. Prejudicial gun control is unconstitutional, but (on strict interpretation, not on how a future SCOTUS would rule) gun control with a defensible reason is not. Non-gun weapons