WTF is up with Hexbear users?

I don't know much about specs. I just find it fascinating that people are actually defending Bethesda in this post. Where's the standard anti-Bethesda fandumb pile on?

Mario games are all right, except for all the platform jumping.

I agree with everything he said. But I've also been saying things like that for thirty years. I remember when Morrowind came out complaining about companies using extra processing for shitty 3D graphics instead of sticking with high quality 2d that works perfectly fine and putting that extra processing power to work on better AI or something.

I think the problem is that better graphics is the one thing they can do that will please a mass audience. Sure, there are plenty of other things they could be doing, but I would bet that each of them has a niche appeal that will have fewer fans to spread the cost among. Thus producers of "AAA" titles pretty much by definition have to pursue that mass audience. The question is when they reach that point of diminishing returns and be becomes more profitable to produce lower cost niche titles for smaller audience. And we also have to factor in that part of that "profit" of pleasing that assumption our society has that anything with niche appeal is necessarily "lower" in status than mass appeal stuff.

I think we are approaching that point, if we haven't already reached it. Indie stuff is becoming more and more popular, and more prevalent. It's just hard to tell because indie stuff tends to target a smaller but more passionate audience. For example, while I am looking forward to trying Starfield out, I may be too busy playing yet more Stardew Valley to buy it right away, and end up grabbing it in a sale. (I haven't even really checked if it'll run on my current gaming laptop.)

I imagine some are genuinely mad about the nudity, I imagine. Remember "video games are for children" and "if a child sees a nipple (let alone a penis!) the apocalypse will begin". Just because gamers are gamers doesn't mean they're not still part of the larger culture.

It all reminds me of the controversy among older TES fans over the lack of nudity in TES3: Morrowind. There was a lot of European vs. American in those threads (and we had a genuinely cross-pond fandom back in those days). Arena and Daggerfall had nudity, and a few of our European posters expressed indignation over the change.

Nintendo does the Nintendo Thing very well, and their fans love them for it. There is a particular niche or the gaming market that is theirs, and theirs alone. If they start trying to please everybody, they may end up pleasing nobody.

Then again, I'm a PC gamer, so it may be I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I used to do pest control. For a while, I worked for a company called Alpha Ecological where my job was to solve customer problems. Then they got bought out by and integrated into Western (Rentokil Global), and my job changed to convincing people who didn't need recurring service to keep paying for recurring service. I tried to keep working there and ultimately had a nervous breakdown. Didn't even quit properly. Just stopped leaving my apartment for a month or so.

Now I drive a truck. Driving is a wonderful job for folks with ASD who don't have any motor impairment.

I take it you're okay?

move where it cannot reach you.

I wasn't going to get involved, but you've touched on my special interest. My question: Where, exactly, would that be? There is no extrinsic margin any more. Hasn't been in North America for over a century, and the rest of the world for at least half a millennium. (And even America's margin came at the expense of people who were already living there.)

Every time I made friends, it was in the context of some kind of common interest group.

In high school, D&D was the leading edge. One guy noticed me reading Lord of The Rings and invited me to play with his group. I met another guy in that group, who lead me to another group where I met a third guy, who lead me to another group that had nothing to do with D&D, but which is where I met a great many of my friends. And my best friend in high school (and for many years afterward) was a mutual friend with that second guy, which we didn't realize until we were comparing previous D&D campaigns and realized they both had the same DM.

The second time I made a lot of friends in my late twenties, it was in the context of an anime fan group. I had gone to a bunch of groups... a hiking group, a Diplomacy board game group, maybe a few others, and the anime group was where I found my social home for several years. The key was that I kept trying different groups until I found one that worked.

How can you be under leveled? Isn't Alduin level scaled?

Origins of Quidditch revealed.