I couldn’t get into it, but I do have several dozen hours on X4 :)

Legendary game, only thing that comes close to M&B Warband as a sandbox IMO (shoutouts to Daggerfall)

Welcome! I came in with the blackout a year or so ago, it’s been fun to see more people show up over the months!

Manny Bothans and Dustin Echoes, the two pillars of Star Wars and Halo lore

Love me some Cave Story!

They were going to implement “harsher” (read: more invasive) anti-cheat at some point, but it never happened as development stalled. Some say the devs are lazy, but I think it’s just the classic feature creep that cripples passion projects with zero oversight. Star Citizen is the highest profile example, although I think the feature creep is part of its appeal to a lot of people. So that might be an imperfect example.

Deep Rock Galactic is still actively developed, so there is hope. An indie titanfall-like is in early development too. If boomer shooters can have a revival, so can classic multiplayer…

I also blame the broken sound update, and the focus on class balance changes over new weapons and maps. Even when they did make new maps, they’d often be overhauling a bad, but fun map into a fine, but generic map (new Basra). Imagine if Valve “fixed” 2fort or Dustbowl. I think it’s that bad, given old Basra’s ridiculous sniper battles were a highlight for me.

Was it unbalanced? Absolutely. But it was stupid fun and something no other game had. The choke point in the middle was just a big mosh pit, but it was so much fun because of how people used proximity chat. Helicoptering over the carnage while someone played 70’s rock over radio was part of why that game went viral.

I know the map isn’t removed from the pool entirely, but it speaks to a design philosophy I personally disagree with. Having a couple “bad” but funny maps are more important than having a bunch of okay generic maps. New Wakistan looks to be making the same mistakes (if it’s ever released).

This ended up being long. I played for a couple hundred hours, so I guess I’m passionate about it :).

There are dozens of us!

If you want to try an FPS, the original Half-Life is amazing (if visually dated), and was designed to ease the player into the experience as opposed to something like Doom or Dusk that throws you into the action without any tutorials. I’m biased though, Half-Life is my favorite FPS of all time lol.

It goes on sale for around $2 regularly, which is a nice bonus. I second the Portal and Stardew recommendations of others too.

Yeah, drm-free storefronts like GOG are the best solution I think. I love Steam and Proton, but if Valve ever goes public that would all change for the worse.

For sure. After I beat Morrowind, I was impressed to find out it’s possible to kill any character and still beat the main quest if you know what you’re doing. Hopefully as indie development continues to grow we’ll start to see games inspired by it.

Project Tamriel and Tamriel Rebuilt will keep me busy in the meantime.

With this character’s death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.

These suggestions rock, I guess my weekend is set!

I mean, it’s more humane than the mermaid farms…