Props to the article for listing some of the extensions.

Sure do wish they’d list all that they investigated and publish as a “sells data / doesn’t sell data”

Ooooo, I hadn’t heard about this.

Can you link to more info?

Edit: Nevermind, my lousy google-fu proved adequate.to find this one. Link for the lazy

Can confirm. I got annoyed with it and moved away from Spotify for podcasts a year or two ago. #NoRegrets

Has New Vegas?

That was an aspect, but I think it was how much dumber the AI became. I remember the “conquer everything” objective being doable in the first base game, but your allies act so poorly in the sequel that its basically in doable.

Graphics was in DIRE need of an update on original Mount And Blade. Game came out in ~2010, but the graphics felt like they were early 2000’s.

Sequel did an 8/10 job on bringing those up to the late 2010’s (despite its ~2022 release).

That said, the base game became unwinnable with how impossibly stupid the game AI became. They also tried to build in a “main story” which was busted in multiple fronts and virtually impossible if you ever experienced a party wipe (very common occurrence in the early game).

Even with cheats enabled, my best run at the sequel’s primary objective (conquer the map), I only ever got ~25% of the way there after over 200 hours of game play.

August will mark 10 years of playing Rimworld for me.

Obv its not the only thing I play, but I come back to it every 3-4 months after little breaks. Was the same for Mount and Blade till the sequel came out. The sequel was both such an upgrade and such a downgrade it made it hard to keep interest. It’s been probably 2 years since I booted that up. Maybe I should give it another try.

Oh, yeah, Atari would have been before my time, so don’t feel so bad about not thinking of that one.

I figured it was in reference to the MMO craze dying down, but that felt more like a strong speed bump than a crash.

Second Gaming Crash

Wait, what was the first gaming crash?

Yeah, but the learning curve. I just can’t seem to find a good rhythm with timing (that is: either I’m playing with the dwarves moving and they go crazy too fast, or I’m paused and just don’t feel engaged with them). I def feel Rimworld hits a good comfy zone on this.

C-shites? Not sure who you’re referencing with that.

Yeah, I’ve no idea how I figured it all out, but I remember a steep learning curve.

The big thing for me is finding a rhythm in the gameplay loop and just sitting comfy in it. While I often describe the game as my “war crime simulator” and a “frantic rush from one dumpster fire to the next”, I still find my deepest chill just watching my pawns live their lives farming rice and ranching a herd of boomalope.

Big same. I’m closing in on 10k hours in Rimworld (been playing since 2016) and don’t know if I should be proud or ashamed.

I have heard about them selling search data to bing. While concerning, I don’t think that’s quite the same thing. I get how 4Chan could blow that out of proportion.

I can’t find any sources to corroborate this claim. Can you link some sources?

Can you link any sources on this?

I think that’s my big hesitance to believe it, there just doesn’t seem evidence (besides other commenter mentioning an anecdotal tank man reference).

Looking over their Wikipedia page, DDG looks like they’re reasonably independent.

Why is everyone saying they’re just Bing?

I suppose by places I meant like websites and/or resources (my word choice had room for improvement upon reflection).

And specifically looking for things regarding “what was serfdom really like”.

Like I said, I’d agree that most live a subsistence lifestyle. Its hard to break out of a cycle of poverty, and life isn’t easy for most.

But our lives hardly come with the same restrictions that serfs did. I think we think of our times as worse because they come after a period that (we’re told) was great and prosperous for all, while for serfs, they (probably) had no such cultural mythology. I could hear an argument that there lives were better due to community and simplicity of life or something like that (I don’t know if I’d agree, but I’d probably think there was something to it).

But I also think we’re both looking at a wall and you’re saying its fuchsia while I think its magenta. When its all said and done, the wall is some shade of purple; it seems like we agree that things are bad, that they could be a lot better, and that they should be better.