This is optional and only happens if you check "Simulate Witcher 2 Save" when creating a new game I believe. Just choose no.
Signfeld
I did not realize this game is being made by KT Racing. Their WRC games were kind of yearly copy/pastes and the last one had around two months of updates before it was abandoned.
I won't dismiss this game yet but it has me a bit worried.
Nope, no microtransactions, not F2P in that sense. Check out the patch notes: https://www.nomanssky.com/2024/02/no-mans-sky-omega-update/
Pop!_OS. I have always loved System76 and have one of their laptops, as well as an HP Dev One that I use as a daily driver. The convenience and tiling system of the DE is the simplest I've used so far and works perfectly. I used to run Arch but I just don't want to deal with it anymore, honestly.
It's true, though. I am very guilty of it. I have gotten better at it but 100% of the time I'd click the comments first no matter what. If it seemed worthy of my attention I'd click the link. If it seemed too far-fetched I'd click the link.
I'm realizing now that it's mostly because I don't want to wait the 0.5 seconds for another page to load (ridiculous on my part) and possibly deal with paywalls.
That's actually really interesting, I had no idea. Do you have a link with the page to that image? It got jpeg'd and I'd like to read more.
Edit: thanks for the links all, really appreciate it.