There are still people so powerful they manage to use Windows XP in this day and age. My intuition says most people will be able to use Windows 10 for at least one more decade with minimal issues, after that it will gradually become trickier, but it will still be usable even in 20-30 years with advanced hacks if humanity doesn’t go extinct by then.

Oh man I love how much I have to manage my inventory in this game.

I’m currently playing Skyrim and I kinda dislike fast travel after Morrowind. It felt more interesting to figure out the best way to quickly travel from point A to point B because that involved mark/recall, mage guild teleports, propylons, silt striders, boats, etc. It was interesting logistics mini puzzle, and some of it you had to plan before traveling somewhere, (like the best place to cast “mark” spell). I guess inventory management can be like that too, it can come in different forms like having to play tetris with inventory slots in systems like Diablo, or balancing carry burden between companions in your party in games like Skyrim, or deciding between extended herbalism bags vs smaller general purpose bags in games like World of Warcraft.

Sure, I sometimes prefer simpler systems too. It depends on what I want to play currently. I’m more trying to say we need all kinds of games. Imo, complexity and flexibility of all those systems, like character stats, perks, inventory, etc - is what makes “RPG” an “RPG”. If you take a bit of it away it becomes an “ARPG” like “soulslikes” and other similar games. If you take even more of it away you get “slasher”, “3d platformer”, etc. I’m a big fan of ARPG and 3d platformers like Spyro or Soul Reaver, but it’s totally different kind of games.

Interface looks very similar to SkyUI 🧐

Those features though, I hope other RPGs consider them carefully:

• You can send items from inventory to your home base with a single click
• Consumables don’t weight anything so you can carry infinite potions

This is just way too casual/reductionist imo. At least make some mechanic that justifies sending items. Like an item teleportation spell or something. Imo it’s okay if some RPGs will be as convenient as this, but asking for every RPG to be like this is just too much.

Taking a break from Junkfood 4, I’m currently going through Chilling Reign - a wintery episode for Heretic. Also, Skyrim.

And this 24$ thing runs games from 21 consoles (including PSX). Here is 13$ thing that plays 7 consoles.

Exactly my thoughts. I can buy real PS1 for 50$ where I live, and there are 25$ chinese retroconsoles that are able to run SNES+GBA+SEGA+Dendy+PS1 games (with bad PS1 performance though).

Last time I played Fortnite it was also like this. It was bots + other weak players like you. It felt quite okay, early in the match you got some easy bot kills and later you had some challenge dealing with actual players of your skill level.

To go the 100% enjoyable route, I need to know more things which naturally put people in this state. I do such things by experiencing them myself, and once they get there I know this is something which would fit in such a work.

Regarding this point, I think one of the most safe and efficient tricks to do this is to keep introducing novelty. If you have a game that has a fairly limited number of distinctive unique things that are introduced quickly and afterwards are simply repeated in different combinations it will less likely have such effect. For example a sandbox that introduces everything in 10h and then 90h you just play around with it will probably not have this effect, it can even become a chore. But a story-driven game which constantly introduces novelty on plot level but also sometimes introduces some new mechanics and content, have big chances to have this effect. In reality it’s more complicated, and there are many dimensions to this like challenge/frustration for example. There are games that use frustration as a tool to some extent to make winning certain fights feel exceptionally rewarding (soulslikes is the most popular example). But if you make it too challenging/frustrating there is a risk that player gives up and leaves in state of frustration which makes it a big failure. This particular thing is high-risk/reward type stuff.

Prey was very addictive to me. I think I beat it rather fast though, because I just couldn’t stop playing.

I played Morrowind multiple times in past, mostly aimlessly, only recently I decided to give it another go and actually focus on main questline. This way I beat Morrowind + Tribunal + Bloodmoon (TES III GOTY edition in Steam) in 96.4 hours. I don’t remember the price but IIRC I got it on sale very cheap. All those hours were very rich and enjoyable. I played with few dozens of visuals improving mods though, used this guide: https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Morrowind_graphics_guide

Now ask about tiktok vs games and about gacha mmos vs other games 😅

Finished Pseudoregalia yesterday. Really a special platformer with iconic goat-bunny-cat lady mc, a lot of gradually unlocked trick moves, parkour puzzles, and zero hand-holding in freely traversable non-linear interconnected game world. It’s only like 10h of gameplay in average, but it’s perfect size for its format really. Not too small to feel really small and not too big for wandering around to become annoying.

To be fair, they were smart enough to get some exposure even without accepting the deal. This is not the first place I see this discussion and some people are definitely going to check their stuff now out of curiosity.

Ah, Harebrained Schemes… I really love Necropolis. Still playing it occasionally. Beat it like 20 times, almost got all achievements. Their other games not my piece of cake though. Wish they made more content for Necropolis, maybe a new DLC.