H_Interlinked

Larian is an unusual case. It's indie but it's huge. They aren't funded by or marketing through a bigger publishing company so IMO that's still indie. But they're hundreds of people so not really small, and BG3 can by all means be considered a AAA game because the difference in quality and scale is indistinguishable from AAA published games.

It baffles me how anyone can stand to preorder any game with the market being so oversaturated. There are SO MANY great games on a constant $20 or less sale rotation you'll probably never have a chance to play if you're a full-time working adult. I'm worried about grabbing a highly acclaimed title that's been out for 5 years before it fades into obscurity, and I have to stumble upon a shout-out 3 years later to be reminded of its existence. Not about some stupid launch skin bonus, or OST mp3s you'll never click open.

"Choose" isn't really an accurate term to use in your comment though, is it? Obviously high-realism AAA game graphics are going to come with a high budget outside the realm of possibility for the average indie dev, unless they have some super talented people with a passion for the project working for cheap.

A lot of us are willing to make this concession or adjust expectations for an experience that has great gameplay, soundtrack, story, etc. as easily as reading subtitles to enjoy a foreign film. The imagination can do plenty of the heavy lifting.

Just saw a YouTube vid showcasing a whole damn multiplayer mod. A whole squad rolling up on the area with floating user tags. It looked fun as hell.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon! It's on steam sale for $12 reg version, but I bought the Hero Edition for $14. It has two extra job classes and something else I've forgotten. I'm 4 hours in and it's been a LOT of character and plot set up while just scratching the surface of their turn-based combat. The story is pretty good so far and full of Japan's particular brand of uncanny fringe humor that I'm expecting to snowball as time goes on.

Didn’t think I would have to explain that.

You didn't. You just repeated what the other guy said in different words, haha. I think he's looking for a little more detail. It's an 11yo console and we're not all Nintendo historians.

What else can you expect, when those site redesigns are usually driven by the desire for increased ad revenue. Even idiots who don't know why, will know it somehow sucks more than it used to. Other times it's just a blatant removal of loved features. Funny skit aside, the simpler explanation is enshittification.

I've always used Free ver. of PowerISO to "mount" the disc image to a virtual drive like others mentioned. Anyone who's emulated PlayStation 1/2 games would be very familiar with this format. Otherwise any old software released on CD format you'll probably find as an ISO.

Amen to locked out slsk "sharers". Always hated that, though it honestly feels less common than it did back at its peak popularity as a platform.

The ONLY reason I still use soulseek is weird obscure shit you can't find anywhere else. I'm talking some folk-punk singer songwriter from bumfuck, Indiana who toured the country twice in a 3yr span and disappeared into obscurity by 2008. You won't find that anywhere except local record shops in that town, or slsk in my experience.

Not sure how you mean. Stable Diffusion is the golden standard right now and it's free. You just have to run it locally on your own hardware for the full configurability and features. It's a pretty steep learning curve, and requires a decent, discreet GPU.