ToasterToastin'

It's not stopping, either. And it's certainly made me glad I never got around to preordering. Thing is, same thing is same, and it's never going to go back. Either the industry is gonna get so preoccupied with games as a service that people stop caring and it dies, or games are going to turn into an elite pastime, only enjoyable in the Hamptons or something.

There's less duplicate items than before, when a patch reworked the drop sequencing, but they still happen. In fact, somewhat ironically, having less dupes works against the player, since with dupes you at least got a (paltry) amount of currency to buy the one you want. Now, you can't even get that, and instead are forced to unlock pointless spray after pointless spray in your third 3-whites-1-blue box in a row. Blizz knows they can't just give people the option to purchase individual skins with actual money, even at a premium, because that makes the whole gambling aspect moot and less profitable. It's why the original Summer Games drops didn't have a purchaseable option, even with the in-game currency, and why event drops cost 3x more. They only changed their event approach because the outcry was so bad they had to (and because, like Battlefront 2, they could spin it into being the heroes of the story). The only mitigating factor in this scummy practice is the lack of impact on actual play - aside from arguable hitbox/visibility changes, and some custom dialogue depending on the skin, drops don't do anything.

Sad but true. Always gotta push that envelope as far as they can. What's sad is that it's gonna work (not talking about myself; I was going to actually preorder after the old "fix", but this news has effectively dissuaded me yet again, and the fact that I've been dissuaded twice is pretty damn telling) and the cycle begins anew, one step deeper in the shit, until EA/Activision/whoever thinks up the next best nickel and dime and we can sink further in. At least we have old games until the service dies and then we're left with no games. Semi-related, I rediscovered Museum Madness on one of the old abandonware DOS sites and played it for a bit. I remember being terrified of that game as a kid, and I never beat it, so I tried to do it now but then it crashed and I can't be bothered to run through the intro scene or annoying maze puzzle so back into memory it goes.

Nothing permanent, but the BSODs were about bad memory allocations so that was kind of terrifying.

I installed a third monitor today that took me through a few BSODs, 2 system restores, and a multitude of driver installs and uninstalls. Totally worth it. I have an addiction to multi-monitor setups.

Moira hot take, assembled after one game against bots: Somehow, Blizz took what makes Sym terribly annoying and made it even more annoying and powerful. I also don't think I did more than 200 points healing that wasn't self-heals. Her voice is nice though.

Just had a massive roommate debacle that's really making me consider moving out. Also apparently being home about 40% out of a month entitles me to cleaning the bathroom and kitchen that I had 40% of input in (and did last time to boot)

An update to the whole "Star Card Loot Box" thing. While I'd love to give credit where it's due, it's EA, so that's just not possible. In fact, I read this "resolution" as more the original intention - it's still slightly P2W, just less so than originally. I wouldn't be surprised if EA just ramped it up to absurdity, knowing full well they'd be called on it, so their "less extreme" version would be regarded as a godsend and the best thing to happen to gaming since the last best thing. Any other company (though maybe not, since I'd fully expect Activision to pull the same stunt) and I'd regard it positively, but, well, EA. Conspiracy aside, though, this actually makes me interested in the game again, so I guess it worked.

Been working on this tonight. If not for the Dremel being a bit too loud to run at 1 AM, I'd be finishing it tonight - and it's a lot of fun.

I think that's a key reason I've never really loved MMOs, nor really gotten into them. I'm big on story in games, and the "everyone is the chosen one" phenomena pulls me too far out of the story for said story to be enjoyable. There's an argument to be made regarding ensemble-based chosen ones (your typical party, generally oriented around a single class per character) versus singular chosen ones, but all in all I find myself really struggling to get in to a game/story if me and the 100 people with me are all chosen ones.

So, since my laptop of 4 years is finally about ready to bite the dust (and it wasn't even that decent to start with). I currently don't use it for much more than supplementing my desktop, but I do play some mildly-intensive, older 3D games on it - Civilization V comes to mind, which my current laptop struggled with constantly - and would like to keep doing so since this is the laptop I use to play things/do work outside the home. Unfortunately, this usually means that most other budget laptops are also out because of the weird "all or nothing" chasm that exists within the laptop market, with no comfortable middle ground - either the integrated graphics suck and can't run a 10 year old game, or they're super incredible and super expensive. I can navigate creating a desktop from scratch no problem; I've done it thrice. However, managing comparisons between laptops is a whole new, unfamiliar and frankly daunting task. Does anyone have any pointers? Also, pointers on manufacturers.

I'd like the idea of an area denial afterburn, and I've always felt like pyro needed a flamethrower that could "paint" the ground, so this seems pretty cool. But it's never going to see play, because everyone's gonna be using the jetpack.

USA, so I think the UK is out. I also forgot to mention a budget, which is ~$400, so nothing Alienware or Razer, of course. I've found a handful of well-reviewed laptops with decent specs that seem to fit my desires and can do some vidya. I had no idea even budget laptops were robust enough to play modern games, albeit on low - but I have a sweet desktop, so I don't need to worry about the graphics. But, everything I'm seeing that's worthwhile is around $100 over the budget. Again, weird chasm where the units under or at the budget are glorified web browsing machines (which I could just get a Chromebook or even a cheap tablet for) and the units over the budget are over $100 over and do way more than I need, and there's absolutely no middle group. However, I suppose selling my old laptop could make that $100, so I might be able to convince myself to take the plunge. What I'm really, really worried about, though, is buying too soon and missing a killer sale.

I'll vouch for this too, though it's definitely Japanese gacha. I also spend copious amounts of time (and other things *cough*) on Fire Emblem Heroes, but I've long given up on that battle and have accepted my fate. KOTOR (like, the standalone RPG) is another thing that exists on phones, which is honestly pretty weird, but it's a solid game even with mobile controls.

RIP Visceral Games. 'twas only a matter of time before EA needed to remove your department to work on more SPORTS.

So I guess this means I'll get back in to the pool.

something something blown motivator

>implications

The only complaint I have about the scheme is it changing my reply text to light gray on a white background (which is what happens when I edit a post, so I'm used to it)

SoonTM

Woah, hey, blog post. ...I miss the SPUF blog post rundown posts.

Maybe I'll hop in and find out what I've been missing lately. Or maybe I'll forget, in compliance with Valve standards.

I can't believe I got back into Homestuck music.