I oscillate between: “it’s done for the lolz”and “only somebody like this would actually dedicate themselves to cracking denuvo for (almost) free”.

I totally agree that it makes the world more interesting. It’s like if Tom Bombadil had a pegging fetish. The unexplained is needed to add some magic to the world, and if it were to be understood the allure would be lost.

I thinks that’s a really good point. Coming up with a couple at most points of deviation that allow for new technologies.

The premise of the expanse, for example, hyper efficient ship propulsion. It’s not explained how, but this single change allowed for the solar system to be treated as a navigable setting. At least until the alien stuff.

Blindsight was amazing, I really loved that one. It’s not exactly the most sci-fi aspect of it, but I really enjoyed the horror of a human variant that was predatory towards other human variants as an explanation for the vampire myth. Like, imagine being in a cave tending the fire knowing a predator just as human as you could be out there. Shiver inducing.

I’ll check out “revaluation space”, being mentioned alongside “blindsight” is a strong recommendation.

I don’t know where it’s from, sounds almost like something Pratchett would write. I’m fairly certain the Hitchhiker FTL was based off probability.

The bits about the cultural revolution were interesting because I’ve never really seen it depicted by a Chinese person

Agreed, that was interesting. I had to switch to an epub because the audiobook version was a bit too sad though.

the whole premise of the story relies on “technology” too absurd to even dignify with the word magic

Yeah, i was a bit dissatisfied with that. My lack of hard science knowledge probably makes it a lot easier to enjoy these sorts of books tbh. Even then, fucking around with protons was far fetched.

I totally agree, I was just referencing the book.

I did not know about the game theory thing, going to keep that in my pocket.

Dark forest hours, who up?

I hope you’re right, I’m honestly scared of what a near infinite frontier would mean for a hypothetical capitalist society capable of making it to type 1 let alone type 2.

He’s a dumbass grifter who uses geographical determinism and sophistry to tell chuds what they want to hear.

Sword fighting is kinda cool ngl, but yeah the exploitation of migrant workers is fucked up.

Peter Zeihan is triggered by this

It’s a short video of a male chicken of some sort standing on a railing as pouring rain comes down. There isn’t any sound. The comments are making lots of Vegeta jokes.

Yeah it’s a renaissance but …

I see what you mean. perhaps I’m reaching a bit on this, but I’ve never considered RTwP to be a fundamentally necessary aspect of the genre (more a set of conventions that existed during a golden age that are treated as genre). Like, Larian and Owlcat give me huge amounts of hope for rpg games made for ttrpg enjoyers which is kind of how I’ve viewed the spirit of “crpg” as a genre.

pillars

Loved those games

The combat has such beautiful math

This goes above my head, buts sounds like it’s super interesting.

Yeah I’m pretty unsure about those leaks because how do you make mages and warriors and rogues all fun while moving towards action?

That’s partly why I find it exciting. I love it when a studio charges head on against a design challenge. Even if it fails, it’s interesting to examine the why and how afterwards. If it works, they’ve progressed the medium.

saved it to the character file instead of the save file

Diabolical

companions that only follow you on certain playthroughs would be just as cool

Agreed. In BG3 it’s highly likely there is going to be a companion lock of some sort after act 1. We only have ancient dev diaries and some vague hints towards from data mining, but that might actually happen based off what we know so far.

A spinoff game about apostates that deals more directly with blood magic as a central theme would be cool.

I don’t think there’s been an attempt aside from Tyranny to tell a serious story about having a villain protagonist.

This could be an awesome to tell a story of a tragic villain. Like, the character starts as a hunted newly awakened mage who just wanted to be free or something. Have the wise old person character be a blood mage who saves them from the templars and go from there.

Yo, do you remember the name of the case? I want to read up on this.