Seriously. I remember first getting into Deity and realizing it's basically just exploiting intimate knowledge of how the AI works. The actual max difficulty is Prince, where the AI doesn't get bonuses, and it's so terrible at actually pursuing an agenda it's not very challenging.
I am a bit hopeful that VII's decoupling leaders and civs will force the AI to be a bit more generally good. At least make it so you don't know exactly what sort of tactics to use from the first turn you meet it.
I agree, as much as I hate Reddit's leadership and a lot of the toxicity of the hivemind, it will be a long time before anything reaches the level of niche communities it has with a critical mass of users and I miss some of them.
Sometimes you just want to geek out about something small with the 40 people across the planet that actually care about it.
TIOBE is weighted toward languages that have existed for a long time by virtue of counting lines written / skilled engineers etc. but the speed at which Rust is climbing that list is a better indicator. Also, a lot of the languages above it wouldn't be appropriate for anything like a DE.
But you're right, it's hyped, I just think the hype is real.
This is a weird take. Rust is very popular and is the current heir apparent to C for systems level stuff. It's a great choice to start a new DE/toolkit.
As for the rest, you're right the end user doesn't care about the language their graphical app is in, but the developers fielding their bug reports and making fixes/features sure do.
The most recent Hitman games are best in class. Three games worth of levels, rogue-like mode to string them together randomly with random objectives if doing the story again isn't your thing.
I'm excited to see what IO does with the James Bond franchise too. Even if it's just a reskinned Hitman, it'd be worth it.
That trackpad was a game changer for playing KB+M games with a controller, but to be honest sometimes I really miss the right joystick. The trackpad can fake it, but it's not the same.
If they ever do another standalone controller I'd want it to be like a screen-less Deck. Both joysticks and trackpads and a couple more grips.
I think it's a stretch to interpret it as petty when it probably just gave Trip a bit of focus and let his 8 year old nephew shout like "that's my uncle!" or something. Real life astronauts get asked these questions all the time and they're practically deified in our culture.
This better not awaken anything in me...
Surprised to see the opinions on V/VI not being as good. I've played every interation of this game and they all brought something to the table. VI and the districting gameplay added a lot to the game. One unit per tile in V also made combat more tactical than doom stacking around.
The big thing I'd like in a new one is less cheaty AI. It's just so boring that winning on Deity is basically exploiting AI foibles instead of... you know, building a stronger nation on an even keel. At the highest difficulty AI should get no bonuses but still be really good at playing the game.
I recently (2020) played BG1 and 2 with their expansions and on the one hand you're right... But on the other getting the same story with 10x the graphics and some modern QoL would be great. Reaching BG3's massive audience - that isn't all 90s nostalgia gamers - with a story that's new-to-them would really help cement it in the same way BG2 did for BG1.
I don't hate this. Seems like Skydance has less conflict of interest (i.e. alternative franchises) than the Warner Brothers merger talks from December. Remains to be seen if this is a good thing from a Trek point of view but... Could be worse.
I think there are some exceptions. Like Kitfox publishing Dwarf Fortress. Taking weird little indies and giving them an art / usability budget to become more accessible and, in turn, make the OG devs a bunch of money. Nobody loses.