anakin78z

With recent big game releases, it's become obvious that a game is either a resounding success, or complete shit. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground.

Kingdom Come Deliverance II is a ambitious masterpiece, and Avowed is lazy slop. 93% of Steam users recommend KCD2, vs 77% for Avowed.

And maybe this has been an issue for a long time, fed by the need to get viewer numbers on articles and videos, leading to more polarized opinions that give people a reason to pick a side, even if they're never going to play the game.

But as regular people, gamers, Lemmy posters, why are we doing the same? How is it serving us? Are we all influencers in waiting, hoping to up our updoot count and build a following of... dozens?

More than 2/3rds of players of Dragon Age Veilguard recommend the game on Steam. And yet reading the comments here and other places, you'd think that 90% of people who tried the game found it to be, not just bad, but absolute trash, with a small number of people chiming in that they actually enjoyed it.

And game studios are reacting much the same way, and are quick to start layoffs, or shut down all together.

But hey, we don't owe those corporations anything. But, as a community, do we owe it to each other to foster more honest correspondence?

OK, I finally took the plunge on Baldur's Gate 3, and, coming from playing several hundreds of hours of Solasta recently, the first thing I noticed is the lack of a combat grid.

Going back a bit further, my son and I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. We were super pumped for the sequel, but when it finally came out, it kind of fell flat for both of us. Whether or not it's down to this, I don't know, but they also removed the grid.

That game, of course, was an XCom-like. XCom used a grid, but a more recent Firaxis game, Marvel's Midnight Suns, got rid of the grid as well.

To me, all these gridless iterations of classic strategy games just aren't as engaging. I guess they're going for a more immersive rpg type of feel? But to me it seems to sacrifice the strategy aspect, and ultimately, judging based on my hours played, that always ends up being too great a sacrifice. My play time on Marvel's Midnight Suns is less than 10% of Xcom 2, and the same is true for Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope.

I'm sure BG3 is a great game, and I'm sure I'll enjoy the campaign, but so far it's not giving me the 'feels'.

Do you miss grids? Or did they only slow you down?

BP2. I've been in a depressive episode for almost 2 weeks now and I just can't fucking deal right now. I run my own business and I'm ready to fire one client and to tell another to take their project elsewhere. I know, I KNOW I should not be making decisions like this in this state, but I just can't handle it anymore. I basically quit in the middle of a meeting this morning because I couldn't handle another pedantic fucking conversation, and now everyone is messaging me asking if I'm OK, and I'm not. And there's really fun work that I should be focusing on, but I'm too preoccupied with the crap stuff, and I only have like 1/10th of the energy I should have, anyway, so I can barely muster the energy to just exist.

Thanks for reading. Maybe tell me to not screw up my life right now. Or tell me to go for it. I'm good either way.

After having a fantastic squash harvest 2 years ago, last year kind of sucked, and we never figured out why. This year things started great, but then started going south, with plants yellowing and squash wilting. Well apparently there's these asshole moths who lay eggs on the stem, which then produce these little effers that bore into the stem itself and eat the plant from the inside. Cutting into the stems I was able to find and remove a bunch of them. Cutting the stems didn't feel great... I tried to cut along the grain, but had to pretty much cut a chunk out of every plant just so I could even see inside and prod enough to find the squiggly things.

Hoping the plants survive and thrive 🤞. Apparently next year I should get a syringe and inject them with something called BT. I had no idea raising squash required a medical degree 🩺

He gets very excited when we feed him

With the NWSL on break until August 18, the Challenge Cup is moving to a weekend schedule, except for its final game. Here are all the upcoming games:

Friday, 21 July

• 07:00 PM EDT Racing Louisville FC vs Chicago Red Stars
• 10:30 PM EDT Portland Thorns FC vs San Diego Wave FC

Saturday, 22 July

• 07:00 PM EDT North Carolina Courage vs Washington Spirit
• 08:00 PM EDT Kansas City Current vs Houston Dash

Sunday, 23 July

• 07:00 PM EDT Orlando Pride vs NJ/NY Gotham FC

Friday, 28 July

• 07:00 PM EDT Washington Spirit vs NJ/NY Gotham FC
• 10:00 PM EDT OL Reign vs San Diego Wave FC

Saturday, 29 July

• 07:00 PM EDT North Carolina Courage vs Orlando Pride
• 08:00 PM EDT Chicago Red Stars vs Kansas City Current
• 08:30 PM EDT Houston Dash vs Racing Louisville FC
• 10:00 PM EDT Angel City FC vs Portland Thorns FC

Friday, 04 August

• 07:00 PM EDT Orlando Pride vs Washington Spirit
• 08:00 PM EDT Kansas City Current vs Racing Louisville FC

Saturday, 05 August

• 07:30 PM EDT NJ/NY Gotham FC vs North Carolina Courage
• 07:30 PM EDT San Diego Wave FC vs Angel City FC
• 08:00 PM EDT Chicago Red Stars vs Houston Dash

Sunday, 06 August

• 06:00 PM EDT OL Reign vs Portland Thorns FC

Wednesday, 09 August

• 07:30 PM EDT NJ/NY Gotham FC vs Orlando Pride

I should probably see if any of these overlap with world cup games...---