What’s wild is that like, Team 5 is still doing great work on Hearthstone. The WoW team seems to have really changed, stuff like their Season of Discovery and their more frequent updates of the modern WoW seems to be going over well. Then, the same company somehow shits out Overwatch 2 and D4? It’s like half of Blizzard has a brain and is listening to it’s developers, and the other half is controlled by C-suite suits who haven’t made a single good decision in an entire decade.

Well you can find items to change your appearance in-game within like an hour or two of playtime, so if the goal was to incentivize use of those items, it’s pretty ineffective.

Just one of many bizarre mysteries surrounding the game.

If what I read is correct, there is a quest involving a spinx in late game that offers an eternal ferrystone. Now maybe I’ve been lied to, but it sounds pretty reasonable and would track with what was added to Dark Arisen. If you really, desperately, for whatever reason want to skip playing like 80% of the game and spend $30 to fast travel everywhere, I guess you could spend it on ferrystones? Nobody should do that though, it completely breaks the flow and atmosphere of the game, and they are meant to be a limited resource in the early game of both Dragon’s Dogma 1 and 2. You can hate that decision all you want, but don’t try to distort facts to fit your own rage. All the microtransactions are pointless and unnecessary.

Edit: I looked back through the Sphinx again, killing it grants you an eternal wakestone. So currently no way to get infinite fast travel, but yes to infinite lives.

Nah, that’d be too useful a feature for Capcom to charge for. All of their microtransactions are always pointless and bizarre to even include.

I think if people knew that you’d eventually unlock infinite fast travel in end-game anyway, maybe people would be less insane? but realistically the whiniest bitching is coming from people who just want to be mad, so trying to add context won’t help.

It’s stupid as hell because the game has legitimate issues with performance and some baffling choices, but everyone’s upset with Capcom for…doing the same thing they’ve done for 5 years without any complaint.

Except having limited access to a resource is from the original game. There’s this lie being sold online that it was an intentional decision for DD2 to try and sell more microtransactions, but limited fast travel is a hallmark of the original Dragon’s Dogma. People are so quick to blind themselves to hatred that they haven’t noticed that Capcom has added completely pointless microtransactions to every one of their games for at least the past 5 years. You can drag them through the coals if you want to over that, and it’s as fair a reason to boycott Capcom games as any, but it’s not a reason to start going after games journalists.

Hooray, they’ve promised the bare minimum! Really still confused how you ship a game in 2024 without the ability to have multiple saves or even just start over if you’re unhappy with your character.

The MTX are a big L. Performance wise I’ve been able to get it running fine on my old graphics card, but npcs in the major towns only pop-in if I’m standing atop them now and it looks like Dark Souls Remastered.

Would be interested to hear if anyone with a cutting edge rig has been able to max it out, I’d imagine the game can be pretty gorgeous.

I saw it as well, they indicated it was going to be something different. Maybe a departure from fantasy rpgs to a different genre? They could try their hands at a cyberpunk or like a psychadelic high fantasy

Almost has to be, right? Take all the success from BG3, put it into new game where you have full creative control, profit?

Maybe I just don’t want a platform controlled by a country actively committing a genocide to be able to shape the narrative around another genocide? Maybe I don’t want to offer a country that kidnaps and retrains dissidents access to data they can use to target foreign dissidents? Maybe I think that a power that actively targets American institutions with cyberattacks on a regular basis shouldn’t also have access to the minds of millions of Americans via an algorithm that is seriously, dangerously addictive?

Like in what world are people seriously coming to the defense of China? What, we suddenly trust a dictatorship that openly and brazenly wants to destabilize Western nations? We trust that ByteDance is very independent and totally cool and doesn’t have to support the CCP at gunpoint at all?

I think people are massively understating the power that control over these platforms offers, and massively overstating the impact they have. Massive protests were successfully organized way before TikTok, they will continue to be organized after it is gone. This isn’t the herald of the end of social media in the U.S. If anything, perhaps a Fediverse alternative could spring up to fill the gap, which is by far the best platform for organizing.

China blocks a lot, lot more than just Facebook, so to try and conflate the two is disingenuous at best and trolling at worst. I’m also very skeptical of this idea that TikTok is the only platform where organization can occur. Maybe this pushes them to the Fediverse, or to more established methods like Telegram, but it’s not going to be this great silencing of young voices.

I’d also like to point out that many of the media sources that are picking up on this as a horrible ban are owned by people who like to sow division like Murdoch, or are affiliated with ByteDance. Checking for unbiased sources is pretty big on a topic like this, and I would absolutely ignore anything posted on TikTok at a minimum.

Agree with the author on a lot of points, but I don’t really think it would have been that hard to explain the choice that Paul is making a little bit better. Just a bit more fighting with Chani, maybe a real empassioned “I chose you!” from Paul, it would not have added too much length to the movie. It seems like Villenue kinda wanted the vagueness, which is a little confusing since a third movie still hasn’t been confirmed by any studio. You can leave off on an unsatisfying cliffhanger when you know you have a movie coming to explain it, so maybe Villenue is just really confident, but this would honestly be one of the weakest adaptations if a third movie doesn’t materialize.

I think there has been talks of adapting the series to TV before, and obv there’s the mini-series which gave it a red hot go, but the answer is usually money.

Also I know it’s the whole “you are not immune to propoganda” meme but look at the reactions to this bill online. If this isn’t proof enough that ByteDance has the tools and ability to push an agenda through their app idk what is, and the U.S. has already had enough problems with foreign interference. If we cannot trust ByteDance not to retaliate against the U.S. when profits are on the line, they probably shouldn’t be trusted with so much control on what our citizens are watching and hearing.

If you’re grasping at straws trying to defend a well known bigot who is publicly proud of her bigotry, it’s time to re-evaluate your life.

Go further, nationalize the MIC. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend the United States doesn’t need to manufacture arms for itself and it’s allies, but we absolutely do not need thousands of useless C-suite middlemen making millions of dollars from the process. Boeing is just the canary in the coal mine, I would not be surprised if other frequent contractors have also significantly decreased their ability to produce useful goods in favor of growing their profit margins. Great for profits, but not exactly what you’re looking for to protect troops.

What feds, Boeing has been the only entity responsible for regulating Boeing for nearly two decades. I’m sure they’ll find themselves not guilty.

Turns out people pay extra money to avoid death, who knew.

No, people who support bigots should go into a closet.