Weeks have passed, and Russia hasn't steamrollered Ukraine yet, which is a pleasant surprise in my book. Sadly, it doesn't seem any other nation has been inspired by Ukraine's resilience to take a more direct hand in thwarting Russia's invasion, relying instead on slow-acting sanctions coupled with weapons shipments to Ukraine to solve the problem. While I understand the desire to not light off World War III, if all that's being accomplished is pushing off that light-off to some other guy's watch, after Russia has consolidated their gains from this invasion, that's not in our long-term interest.
Well, our course is set, and the rantings of one occasional blogger aren't going to change things any time soon. I guess we'll see where things go. I only hope that I'm wrong, and our leaders have cause for the faith they're putting in to their less-directly-confrontational methods.
So, while things degenerate over in Europe, life goes on here in the US, if a bit more expensively and with supply chain disruptions. In my case, that means games, of course.
Destiny 2, I've basically dropped at this point. I have Mass Effect 2 to continue plugging away at if I want shooty things to play, and, for all Destiny 2 is pretty, I just can't see myself doing the freemium "pay us for a year's worth of game at full price up front, then pay a quarterly toll to access more of that game you paid for, and maybe pay us some more for cosmetic items as well" model they've evolved into. Maybe if they end up back on Game Pass so I can justify paying for one of those levels of monetization with the other games that I can check out, I'll give it another go. Otherwise, if I want a pay-as-you-go experience, I have no shortage of such that I can mostly play for free otherwise, such as Warframe and Lost Ark.
Oh, that's right, I haven't said anything about Lost Ark yet. It's a Korean fantasy MMORPG, recently localized for the US, with some good production values and years of content to explore. I rather enjoyed what I've played of it so far, up to the point of getting a pet that hoovers up dropped loot for you (which, I have to say, the starting pet being a white bunny with saddlebags is an excellent choice, if only for the sheer cuteness value). That's where I ran into their monetization model... basically, you can unlock the pet's inventory space (so it's not constantly cluttering up yours with trash), and get some other quality-of-life upgrades as well, for $10 for 30 days - basically, the equivalent of a subscription, which I expect from any MMORPG these days. What I don't expect is for that subscription fee to be per character, not per account. So, basically, if I want to play more Lost Ark, I would have to research what server I wanted to play on long-term, then decide on a character to play exclusively, unless I wanted to start spending way more than I could justify for the amount of play time I have. Even so, the temptation is there... but there are always more games to play, so Lost Ark goes on the "maybe later, maybe never" pile for now.
Enough sad stories about monetization, how about a nice story instead? I've played the Civilization series back since the very first one, and I haven't cared for the direction monetization has gone there at all, what with recent versions having their mechanics chopped up and spread out among multiple packages at a significant per-package price point, then with extra civilizations, leaders, and scenarios further split out and packaged up for sale. That, combined with my dislike for Take-Two Interactive (who changes license agreements on games they purchase), which owns the current publisher for the series, has kept me from buying the most recent version, Civilization VI. That changed when the game went up on Humble Bundle as a "some proceeds go to charity" bundle for $15. Of course, by default, their "portion to charity" was slated to be less than $1 by default, which I found to be a bit offensive, so I swapped things around so the publisher got $1, Humble Bundle got their cut, and the rest went to charity. As for the game itself... yeah, I think I like the changes I've seen so far, and I do want to play more, but this is another game that can be a real time sink, and I've got another one I'm playing that fills that role right now: Elden Ring.
Yeah, as a rule, I don't buy games anywhere near launch date. But, you combine an open world built for exploration, high marks from both critics and regular players, and some leftover Christmas gift money in my store account, and it was all but inevitable I would join in the fray. That said, it's not like I've made major progress in the game so far, and it will likely be even slower going since I'm playing solo, but I've quite enjoyed my time as an undead bandit. I look forward to seeing what I can tease out of the game, and how long I can hold off on looking at all the videos people are posting to be "helpful".
