Wanna know which game I last broke my “no pre-orders” rule for?

No Man’s Sky. The game that was a tech demo for the first year or so after release. It’s become a hell of a game since then, but it taught me a valuable lesson and I haven’t bought a game since then.

It’s kinda the natural progression of late stage hypercapitalism though. Used to be that you spent all your money up front, then your sales recouped your investment and hopefully generated you a profit. Once game companies figured out OTA patches they realized that they can push a lot of QA back until after release and use pre-orders and day 1 sales to fund it. Then with DLC they realized that they can sell the untested skeleton of a game up front and use presales and early sales to fund development. The natural progression seems to be the Star Citizen model, where you get huge chunks of your sales up front and use that to determine what you’ll develop and when (if ever) you’ll release it

Sounds like assault with a deadly weapon

If charged as a felony, you could be facing a sentence of two to four years in State prison. Regular assault (Penal Code § 240), is always charged as a misdemeanor offense.

The instrument used includes any type of firearm, knife, bat, car, or anything other type of weapon that could produce significant harm to the victim.

In order to prove a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you assaulted another person and you used a deadly weapon or force that would likely result in great bodily injury.

An assault charge does not require that you actually make physical contact with or injure the person.

https://www.cronisraelsandstark.com/assault-with-deadly-weapon-penal-code-245-a-1#:~:text=Assault with a Deadly Weapon - Penal Code 245(a)(,four%20years%20in%20State%20prison.

If this was in California he is absolutely guilty of assault with a deadly weapon based on what he has admitted to personally.

I have shot and killed a deer with a flintlock gun. They’re not toys or props. He committed assault with a deadly weapon and the whole word is just like “Oh, that’s just wish.com iron man. You know how he is.”

https://www.eurogamer.net/no-cyberpunk-2077-didnt-remove-the-elon-musk-npc-because-he-wasnt-even-in-the-game-to-begin-with

You did not encounter elon, a character based on him, or a character voiced by him in cyberpunk 2077

They told him to get fucked, so one of his chode toadies on xitter started a rumor that they added him to the game and then removed him in a patch.

It’s just a wet mouth on a long arm that reaches down to hell

I haven’t read penny arcade in years, but it brings me joy to see that the writing, at least, seems to be right where I left it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a deep crow that needs feeding.

that’s an intellectually dishonest way of quoting the person that you quote

is it impossible to have a balanced conversation about starfield in particular, or does the internet ad economy tend to exclude the middle of every conversation in favor of loud antagonism and engagement bait?

I gotta be honest this looks like Minecraft construction but even in Minecraft there are ways to sort out and destroy unwanted items

The thing about video games is that they’re a multivariate equation. Fun is a variable, and so is realism. Depending on how much realism there already is, and the nature of it, adding more can also increase the fun but it can also take away from the fun. There’s a reason that even the hardcore simmers who do things like drive pretend trucks across Europe in real time or run pretend air traffic control at pretend airports pay to pretend to do those things instead of getting paid to do them for real.

I’ve been sitting here since 000. This is getting ridiculous.

any game that gives you control over sheathing/holstering your weapon instead of waiting for your character to do it for you

I recently bought red dead 2 and that feature took some getting used to. Especially because the controls are context sensitive and the button that starts a conversation when your gun is holstered is the same button that points that gun at a stranger if it’s out. I’m used to it now and compulsively holster my gun as soon as the shooting seems to be done, but for a while there was a lot of “Howdy partner. Fine weather we’re having ain’t…no wait wait sorry I didn’t mean…ah shit” and suddenly I’m in a shootout with the law and out $50 for my bounty when I just wanted to buy a bottle of whiskey.

I used to like to get gently stoned, fire up GTA 5, put on FlyLo FM in the car and just drive around. My brother and I would sit for hours, and it was basically like we were in a real car. I didn’t drive super fast, took most reasonable precautions against wrecking and killing people. It was just…nice. A sort of cut-rate flow state where the thing I’m doing is something that I have to pay attention to, but not something I’m occupied by to the point of not being able to bs with somebody.

not really, no. this seems like an early dev/bad documentation issue more than an inherent limitation. I ran into this when I was trying to build my own GPS tracker for running: the OS will force your app out of memory if you run it as a normal app, you have to register the app as a service in order for the OS to leave it running in memory when you’re not actively using it. Even then, some OSes will also make you specifically give the app permission to remain running when the phone is locked or another app is on-screen. tldr - what they want to do is doable in a safe way, they just haven’t done it.

runaway global leader for misinformation

I’d really like to see that study if you’ve got it handy

tiktok absolutely already has text-only posting for people who want it.

remember when buying something with money meant you owned it and no one could take it from you?

part of my larval stage as a software nerd just went to wherever it is we all go. thanks for helping me find the path, it’s been rewarding.

I’m an occult nerd and my reddit chat was moderately active with discussions about that. It wasn’t extremely popular, and it never turned into a persistent thing with more than two people, but it seemed like reddit chat was a good way to break the discussion out into a 1 on 1 where appropriate.