As expected, President Trump survived his impeachment experience, due to the apparent collusion of his party members in the Senate. Despite a few of them making mouth-noises about how they didn't need to hear any additional testimony or gather any further evidence because they had ample proof that he did what he was accused of, they still voted to acquit him in near-lockstep along party lines. The one exception, on one of the counts against Trump, was Mitt Romney, making him one of the few individuals at the national level of the Republican party who appears to have any semblance of a moral commitment to country above party, or even to holding their own oaths sacred.
I don't recall if I've ever publicly stated this before, but this is ample illustration of the state of decay the Republican party has fallen to, at least at the national level. If you want to call yourself a Republican at this point, don't make any bones about it being for moral reasons, since they've demonstrated just how much morality weighs in their calculus for taking and keeping power. Simply put, if I see somebody claiming to be a Republican on any ballot from here on out, I'm considering that a disqualifying condition... not to say that I'll always vote Democrat, because they have their own issues and, occasionally, somebody comes along who belongs to neither party yet is actually sane, but voting Republican while I have another choice is right out.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Saturday, January 25, 2020
That's Bioshock Infinite down, on to Blue Dragon
Courtesy of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I got through most of Bioshock Infinite, and polished off what I'm willing to play of it last night. I made it to the "final fight" in the game, which, to me, was marred by a pair of game design sins... I mean, I understand, given the story, why they did what they did, but fundamentally shifting the structure of a game in the closing minutes of the final act just doesn't sit well with me. For any of you worried about spoilers for a nearly 8-year-old game, kindly skip the next paragraph.
The story is fun enough, involving both time travel and traversing different alternate histories, but the expected "climax" of facing down the prophet Comstock is rendered inert when you basically bash his brains in on a baptismal font (yeah, this game has a lot of interaction with Christian imagery, as is appropriate for the time period it inhabits). The game could have continued from there basically straight into the post-final-fight story (which I watched courtesy of YouTube... it's quite nice, shows the appropriateness of the game's title, gives the original Bioshock a cameo moment, and reveals that the player and Comstock were the same person, just down different probability paths, making several apparent falsehoods on Comstock's part actually ring true, from a certain point of view). However, that would have lacked "punch", so they decided to throw in an extended raid from the Vox Populi trying to take down the airship you're currently on, where they're targeting a generator of some sort that you have to defend. Sounds standard enough... except that, throughout the game up to that point, they made a point of telling you that you don't have to worry about defending anything but yourself. Heck, I didn't even see the "health bar" for the generator until nearly the end of my first attempt at the raid, as it sat in a corner of the screen that didn't see any similar use up to that point. And of course, when you fail, there's no handy mid-fight checkpoint, it's back to the beginning. They also introduced a new mechanic in the fight, tied to an already-overloaded button on the controller that handles weapon reloads, receiving healing items/ammo from your companion, and asking your companion to effect changes to the battlefield. Two tries was plenty, and I dropped the controller and resorted to YouTube after that to see the ending.
So, all in all, I'm glad I took the time to mostly play through the game. Now it's on to Blue Dragon, a peculiar little JRPG I picked up some years back. As a rule, I'm not a fan of non-tactical turn-based combat, but this title has some peculiarities that interest me. Will it hold my attention, or will I move on? I like my odds, but time will tell.
The story is fun enough, involving both time travel and traversing different alternate histories, but the expected "climax" of facing down the prophet Comstock is rendered inert when you basically bash his brains in on a baptismal font (yeah, this game has a lot of interaction with Christian imagery, as is appropriate for the time period it inhabits). The game could have continued from there basically straight into the post-final-fight story (which I watched courtesy of YouTube... it's quite nice, shows the appropriateness of the game's title, gives the original Bioshock a cameo moment, and reveals that the player and Comstock were the same person, just down different probability paths, making several apparent falsehoods on Comstock's part actually ring true, from a certain point of view). However, that would have lacked "punch", so they decided to throw in an extended raid from the Vox Populi trying to take down the airship you're currently on, where they're targeting a generator of some sort that you have to defend. Sounds standard enough... except that, throughout the game up to that point, they made a point of telling you that you don't have to worry about defending anything but yourself. Heck, I didn't even see the "health bar" for the generator until nearly the end of my first attempt at the raid, as it sat in a corner of the screen that didn't see any similar use up to that point. And of course, when you fail, there's no handy mid-fight checkpoint, it's back to the beginning. They also introduced a new mechanic in the fight, tied to an already-overloaded button on the controller that handles weapon reloads, receiving healing items/ammo from your companion, and asking your companion to effect changes to the battlefield. Two tries was plenty, and I dropped the controller and resorted to YouTube after that to see the ending.
So, all in all, I'm glad I took the time to mostly play through the game. Now it's on to Blue Dragon, a peculiar little JRPG I picked up some years back. As a rule, I'm not a fan of non-tactical turn-based combat, but this title has some peculiarities that interest me. Will it hold my attention, or will I move on? I like my odds, but time will tell.
Sunday, January 19, 2020
2020 video gaming - maybe a year of catch-up
So, first off, sorry to any of you that were expecting useful data from me for Stadia streaming over the month of January. Not long after my last post, I hit a point in Destiny 2 where anything resembling advancement there would have involved grinding through a limited set of activities, and I've had quite enough of that in this sort of game, thank you very much. However, I'm also not feeling the need to yoke myself back up to grind away in Warframe either, and, looking at the schedule of upcoming games, I'm just not seeing anything there to demand my attention any time soon (likely due to the near-future release of the next generation of gaming systems). It's looking a lot like I will actually have the time to play some of those games in my backlog that I've "really wanted to play", but never been able to stick with long-term.
Problem being, of course, that I have a lot of games. I forget who said what exact words, but there's a saying something like "the more options you have, the less likely you are to use any of them." So, the first step is just eliminating large swaths of games outright. In my case, I decided that anything involving a system I would have to go to the trouble of setting up is right out. That leaves me with Stadia, my XBox One, and my PC (well, technically, that also includes my Wii, but that's mainly because it doesn't take up an HDMI port on my TV... and I can't think of anything I've got there that's calling to me). None of the "free" stuff on Stadia currently appeals to me, so that's out. PC, I've got literal hundreds of games to sift through there, so save that for later. XBox, I don't have near as many games for... and those games are split out into current-generation and backwards-compatible games, mostly originally for the XBox 360. With a new generation coming, maybe it's high time to concentrate on those games, play the ones I care about to either completion or no longer caring, then leave them be thereafter.
With that in mind, I started through the collection alphabetically (simplest way to keep track of what I've played/not played, after all), and the first game I came across that I cared remotely about playing was Bioshock Infinite. I bounced off of this game originally (and honestly, pretty much all of the BioShock games) for one main reason - the controls. Each game in this series includes a selection of special powers, activation of which is tied to the left trigger on the controller... which, in proper modern shooters is your zoom/look-down-the-sights button, but here that's mapped to pushing in the right analog stick, of all things. That sort of design choice is all over the controls, making some controls work as expected, others totally foreign, and that design (and the unintended flubs they caused) has made me bounce off this game more than once. However, I've heard good things about all these games, which always brought me back for another go.
So, this time, I committed to enduring and adapting to the controls... and so far, I've been pleasantly surprised. Maybe it's the years in between I've spent playing various shooters, but the pacing and number of enemies is much more manageable now, even with the wacky controls. And now, I've gotten far enough in to get something resembling a reasonable storyline going, for all it includes multiple alternate histories. I think I may be able to play it all the way through this time... and if not, I can at least say I gave it the old college try, and move on without regrets.
Problem being, of course, that I have a lot of games. I forget who said what exact words, but there's a saying something like "the more options you have, the less likely you are to use any of them." So, the first step is just eliminating large swaths of games outright. In my case, I decided that anything involving a system I would have to go to the trouble of setting up is right out. That leaves me with Stadia, my XBox One, and my PC (well, technically, that also includes my Wii, but that's mainly because it doesn't take up an HDMI port on my TV... and I can't think of anything I've got there that's calling to me). None of the "free" stuff on Stadia currently appeals to me, so that's out. PC, I've got literal hundreds of games to sift through there, so save that for later. XBox, I don't have near as many games for... and those games are split out into current-generation and backwards-compatible games, mostly originally for the XBox 360. With a new generation coming, maybe it's high time to concentrate on those games, play the ones I care about to either completion or no longer caring, then leave them be thereafter.
With that in mind, I started through the collection alphabetically (simplest way to keep track of what I've played/not played, after all), and the first game I came across that I cared remotely about playing was Bioshock Infinite. I bounced off of this game originally (and honestly, pretty much all of the BioShock games) for one main reason - the controls. Each game in this series includes a selection of special powers, activation of which is tied to the left trigger on the controller... which, in proper modern shooters is your zoom/look-down-the-sights button, but here that's mapped to pushing in the right analog stick, of all things. That sort of design choice is all over the controls, making some controls work as expected, others totally foreign, and that design (and the unintended flubs they caused) has made me bounce off this game more than once. However, I've heard good things about all these games, which always brought me back for another go.
So, this time, I committed to enduring and adapting to the controls... and so far, I've been pleasantly surprised. Maybe it's the years in between I've spent playing various shooters, but the pacing and number of enemies is much more manageable now, even with the wacky controls. And now, I've gotten far enough in to get something resembling a reasonable storyline going, for all it includes multiple alternate histories. I think I may be able to play it all the way through this time... and if not, I can at least say I gave it the old college try, and move on without regrets.
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Found the nail for the Stadia coffin, its name is Comcast
Well before Google launched Stadia, the naysayers had a variety of reasons why it simply wouldn't work. Latency and lag, data caps, business model, longevity, those and more were paraded out, often with an air of "let this thing crash quickly, so we can get back to our preferred PC/game system reporting." I, on the other hand, took the side of "If anybody can do it, Google can", envisioned the possibilities their setup would enable, and decided it would be worth at least giving it a shot.
My first month with Stadia was basically all I could ask for, but not without some minor issues. In fact, what started out as "might as well play some Destiny 2, since I've basically paid for it" basically turned into "yeah, I could play some Warframe, but I'd rather be playing Destiny 2 right now." All was rosy, until I opened up my email on the day after Christmas.
Waiting in my inbox was an automatic notification that, at some point on Christmas, I had crossed the 90% threshold towards my monthly 1TB data cap. Now, Comcast set that up back in 2015, ostensibly to rein in bitorrenters, but it also just so happens to limit the amount of streaming a household could do if they, say, were cutting cable TV out of their lives. Further, while their online documentation of this cap goes on and on about "fairness", their pricing scheme is anything but. Somehow, they can provide you 1TB (1024GB) of data per month for under $70, but, if you cross that arbitrary line, they will charge you $10 per 50GB thereafter, up to $200... do the math, and that's nearly three times more expensive than your data up to the cap, assuming you use it all each month. Of course, you can avoid this issue by paying for the unlimited option... which just so happens to bring your Internet bill up to what you would have been paying for internet and cable to begin with.
Luckily, Comcast gives you the first two months of overages for free, so I decided to take advantage of that fact to run an experiment. Upon receiving the 90% notification, I dropped my Stadia data rate to the "balanced" plan (1080p streaming). The end result: I only exceeded my data cap by 68GB, which, except for Comcast's forbearance, would have jacked my monthly bill by $20. Doing some math, it appears that my "break-even" point for switching between 4K Stadia and 1080p Stadia is a bit over 70% of the data cap (or just over 19 days through a 31-day month)... so, for January, I'm going to try that and see where it gets me.
Unfortunately, even if that works, I just can't see myself switching back and forth, running the razor edge of having to give Comcast more money on any given month. If I wanted 1080p streaming, I've got a PC with loads of games and a streaming-capable TV already. Beyond that, I know that I'm an odd case in that I'm a bachelor who's a moderate gamer that does a fair bit of reading and some over-the-air TV viewing as well. I could manage the data jump Stadia brings about, but a multi-member household, especially one with kids, would blow their cap in no time, even at the "balanced" data rate. So, basically, the technology's great, but, short of Google somehow convincing Comcast (and other ISPs) to work against their perceived interests, I think you can pretty well write off Stadia at this point... I know I fully intend to cancel my subscription before my trial expires in February.
My first month with Stadia was basically all I could ask for, but not without some minor issues. In fact, what started out as "might as well play some Destiny 2, since I've basically paid for it" basically turned into "yeah, I could play some Warframe, but I'd rather be playing Destiny 2 right now." All was rosy, until I opened up my email on the day after Christmas.
Waiting in my inbox was an automatic notification that, at some point on Christmas, I had crossed the 90% threshold towards my monthly 1TB data cap. Now, Comcast set that up back in 2015, ostensibly to rein in bitorrenters, but it also just so happens to limit the amount of streaming a household could do if they, say, were cutting cable TV out of their lives. Further, while their online documentation of this cap goes on and on about "fairness", their pricing scheme is anything but. Somehow, they can provide you 1TB (1024GB) of data per month for under $70, but, if you cross that arbitrary line, they will charge you $10 per 50GB thereafter, up to $200... do the math, and that's nearly three times more expensive than your data up to the cap, assuming you use it all each month. Of course, you can avoid this issue by paying for the unlimited option... which just so happens to bring your Internet bill up to what you would have been paying for internet and cable to begin with.
Luckily, Comcast gives you the first two months of overages for free, so I decided to take advantage of that fact to run an experiment. Upon receiving the 90% notification, I dropped my Stadia data rate to the "balanced" plan (1080p streaming). The end result: I only exceeded my data cap by 68GB, which, except for Comcast's forbearance, would have jacked my monthly bill by $20. Doing some math, it appears that my "break-even" point for switching between 4K Stadia and 1080p Stadia is a bit over 70% of the data cap (or just over 19 days through a 31-day month)... so, for January, I'm going to try that and see where it gets me.
Unfortunately, even if that works, I just can't see myself switching back and forth, running the razor edge of having to give Comcast more money on any given month. If I wanted 1080p streaming, I've got a PC with loads of games and a streaming-capable TV already. Beyond that, I know that I'm an odd case in that I'm a bachelor who's a moderate gamer that does a fair bit of reading and some over-the-air TV viewing as well. I could manage the data jump Stadia brings about, but a multi-member household, especially one with kids, would blow their cap in no time, even at the "balanced" data rate. So, basically, the technology's great, but, short of Google somehow convincing Comcast (and other ISPs) to work against their perceived interests, I think you can pretty well write off Stadia at this point... I know I fully intend to cancel my subscription before my trial expires in February.
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
It's impeachment time... time to watch the republic crumble.
So, it's finally happened... President Trump has been impeached. On one side, the Democrats (less a few politically vulnerable members) determining, and voting to match that determination, that the President did not just wrong things, but sufficiently wrong that he needs removed from office. On the other side, the Republicans, flying in the face of the evidence on display, determining the opposite, deciding that nothing the President did was all that bad, because those darn Democrats were out to get him from the start. Not, mind you, because he didn't do what he's accused of doing (that I've heard to date at any rate), but because he's their guy, and the other side are just meanies.
That much alone pretty much seals, in my mind, that the Republican party of today is entirely corrupt, and it doesn't speak well for the few Democrats to follow their lead either. I mean, the first article you can maybe argue one way or the other, but the obstruction of congress one is pretty clear cut... and this stage of the process is just deciding something wrong likely happened, then passing it on to the Senate to determine how wrong and what consequences need to take place because of it. Even if the Senate is going to do their best to quickly and quietly dispose of the burden laid at their feet (which is extremely likely, what with a Republican majority and Trump being "their guy"), this was a perfect opportunity for anyone on the Republican side of the house to say "yeah, this is messed up, maybe we should at least consider there might be a problem", but each and every one decided that party solidarity (and the party's support for their re-election) trumped their oath to defend the Constitution.
Assuming the impeachment trial plays out as expected, and the President is exonerated, the remaining year of Trump's first term is likely going to be a cavalcade of further misbehavior, all with a side of "What ya gonna do, impeach me?" thrown in. Then, it's the election... where the Democrats hope they can grab control of the reins of power, but generally not upset the cart too much, lest they lose their corporate backers and/or spawn a wave of militants from the other side. Republicans, on the other hand, are hoping to ride Trump through that election, do even more to enrich themselves and their backers at the expense of the nation, and maybe find out if Trump was really joking when he's suggested staying on for multiple terms. Between the two, it's not a matter of whether the ship stays afloat, just how quickly we get to watch it sink... and, of course, what rises in its place.
That much alone pretty much seals, in my mind, that the Republican party of today is entirely corrupt, and it doesn't speak well for the few Democrats to follow their lead either. I mean, the first article you can maybe argue one way or the other, but the obstruction of congress one is pretty clear cut... and this stage of the process is just deciding something wrong likely happened, then passing it on to the Senate to determine how wrong and what consequences need to take place because of it. Even if the Senate is going to do their best to quickly and quietly dispose of the burden laid at their feet (which is extremely likely, what with a Republican majority and Trump being "their guy"), this was a perfect opportunity for anyone on the Republican side of the house to say "yeah, this is messed up, maybe we should at least consider there might be a problem", but each and every one decided that party solidarity (and the party's support for their re-election) trumped their oath to defend the Constitution.
Assuming the impeachment trial plays out as expected, and the President is exonerated, the remaining year of Trump's first term is likely going to be a cavalcade of further misbehavior, all with a side of "What ya gonna do, impeach me?" thrown in. Then, it's the election... where the Democrats hope they can grab control of the reins of power, but generally not upset the cart too much, lest they lose their corporate backers and/or spawn a wave of militants from the other side. Republicans, on the other hand, are hoping to ride Trump through that election, do even more to enrich themselves and their backers at the expense of the nation, and maybe find out if Trump was really joking when he's suggested staying on for multiple terms. Between the two, it's not a matter of whether the ship stays afloat, just how quickly we get to watch it sink... and, of course, what rises in its place.
Sunday, December 15, 2019
One last look back at BoxThrone
A few months back, I posted about my experiences with ordering from BoxThrone, and, while I've now gotten and am well pleased with the product I ordered, albeit late, there is one bit from that post that warrants looking in on. I noted at the time that their then-current Wave 5 was being offered with a delivery promise of 15DEC19 at the latest. Well, that's today... what's the word from the BoxThrone website?
Well, it's certainly not good news for anybody who was banking on a delivery in time for Christmas. Their pre-order FAQ (today's copy saved courtesy of the Wayback Machine) says their delivery window is now today through the 31st... but it also says the current status of their orders is "On Ocean", which I'm taking to mean that they're all on a container ship somewhere right now, after which they'll have to be unloaded, sent to their distributors, sorted, and finally shipped out to their end users, which doesn't sound feasible in the roughly two weeks until the end of their current delivery window... so, sorry, Wave 5, looks like Christmas is canceled for you.
Of course, in the meantime, they've also accepted orders for a Wave 6 group... I seem to recall getting an email or the "order now for delivery by Valentine's Day", and the current delivery date there says March 7th at the latest, so that'd be another miss. Oh, and they're accepting pre-orders for a Wave 7 group with a May-at-the-latest delivery date (I'm not following up on this one, I've already seen the pattern here). Oh, and of course, there's some poor folks in Wave 4, where the status currently says "Mostly complete".
Yeah, long story short, if you're giving the BoxThrone people money right now and expecting on-time delivery, the evidence doesn't support that in the slightest. I'm even more firmly in the "get back to me when you have stock on hand to sell" camp now.
Well, it's certainly not good news for anybody who was banking on a delivery in time for Christmas. Their pre-order FAQ (today's copy saved courtesy of the Wayback Machine) says their delivery window is now today through the 31st... but it also says the current status of their orders is "On Ocean", which I'm taking to mean that they're all on a container ship somewhere right now, after which they'll have to be unloaded, sent to their distributors, sorted, and finally shipped out to their end users, which doesn't sound feasible in the roughly two weeks until the end of their current delivery window... so, sorry, Wave 5, looks like Christmas is canceled for you.
Of course, in the meantime, they've also accepted orders for a Wave 6 group... I seem to recall getting an email or the "order now for delivery by Valentine's Day", and the current delivery date there says March 7th at the latest, so that'd be another miss. Oh, and they're accepting pre-orders for a Wave 7 group with a May-at-the-latest delivery date (I'm not following up on this one, I've already seen the pattern here). Oh, and of course, there's some poor folks in Wave 4, where the status currently says "Mostly complete".
Yeah, long story short, if you're giving the BoxThrone people money right now and expecting on-time delivery, the evidence doesn't support that in the slightest. I'm even more firmly in the "get back to me when you have stock on hand to sell" camp now.
Saturday, December 7, 2019
Stadia - more nits to pick
Just to be clear, I'm still generally liking what Stadia brings to the gaming table. However, now that I've had the setup for a couple of weeks, I've seen a few more things that might influence whether somebody wanted to give this thing a go.
First, I experienced my first issue with the actual streaming of controls and games. It was only for about 20-30 seconds, but resulted in a sudden loss of screen resolution and some severe control sluggishness. Think like an approaching-full-second response time increase and converting button presses to button holds, that sort of thing. I can only guess it was some momentary networking issue. Since it's only happened to me once in two weeks' play time, I can brush it off as a minor nuisance... but serious competitive players and people inclined to throwing controllers in fits of rage might feel quite differently about such a thing even being a possibility.
Second, since Destiny 2 whines about not having a microphone every time you start the game, I snagged a 3.5mm headset to plug into my Stadia controller (thanks, Woot!). Now, the Stadia controller/ChromeCast combo is obviously the preferred method of play (given that it's the only way, currently, to get a 4K stream), so I expected no problems. However, I experienced pops/crackle on the audio I got through the headset... which, if it were just voicechat audio, that might be one thing, but, at least in Destiny 2, all audio is routed to the headset if it's plugged in, with no option to split it out that I could see. Naturally, I verified the headset itself isn't a problem by plugging it into my Nintendo Switch Lite, where there were no such issues. So, either there's a hardware issue with the Stadia controller's audio jack, or there's an audio processing disparity between the ChromeCast and the Stadia controller, or there's something about audio over WiFi that the Stadia controller isn't properly adapting to. Hopefully, this is something the folks at Google can patch the controller firmware to fix... these days, there are many games where voice chat is nigh on mandatory, and nobody wants to experience their game as if the audio is being transmitted over AM radio.
Finally, there's a potential Stadia store issue. When I fired up Destiny 2 this morning, there was a notification about needing to buy a "Digital Deluxe Edition" before the 10th, if you wanted the coming seasons' contents at 25% off regular price. Of course, if you go to the Stadia app right now, and look through the "All Games" list, there is no such edition listed. So... is this notification intended for all the other Destiny 2 platforms? Or, is Google footing the bill for the next season for Stadia users? Or, is there a new version that should have been on the storefront by now that isn't? I guess we'll see, come the 10th... but any answer that involves "you should have been able to get the thing at a discount, but now you can get it at full price" is going to rankle a lot of already-wary Stadia users.
Well, it'll be interesting to see how things evolve here over the next couple of months. The Destiny 2 pricing question is probably my biggest thing at the moment, since that ties to the value of the eventual $10/month Stadia Pro payout, but I think these are all things that will need to be addressed if they want to be at all competitive once they open their service to the general public for "free".
First, I experienced my first issue with the actual streaming of controls and games. It was only for about 20-30 seconds, but resulted in a sudden loss of screen resolution and some severe control sluggishness. Think like an approaching-full-second response time increase and converting button presses to button holds, that sort of thing. I can only guess it was some momentary networking issue. Since it's only happened to me once in two weeks' play time, I can brush it off as a minor nuisance... but serious competitive players and people inclined to throwing controllers in fits of rage might feel quite differently about such a thing even being a possibility.
Second, since Destiny 2 whines about not having a microphone every time you start the game, I snagged a 3.5mm headset to plug into my Stadia controller (thanks, Woot!). Now, the Stadia controller/ChromeCast combo is obviously the preferred method of play (given that it's the only way, currently, to get a 4K stream), so I expected no problems. However, I experienced pops/crackle on the audio I got through the headset... which, if it were just voicechat audio, that might be one thing, but, at least in Destiny 2, all audio is routed to the headset if it's plugged in, with no option to split it out that I could see. Naturally, I verified the headset itself isn't a problem by plugging it into my Nintendo Switch Lite, where there were no such issues. So, either there's a hardware issue with the Stadia controller's audio jack, or there's an audio processing disparity between the ChromeCast and the Stadia controller, or there's something about audio over WiFi that the Stadia controller isn't properly adapting to. Hopefully, this is something the folks at Google can patch the controller firmware to fix... these days, there are many games where voice chat is nigh on mandatory, and nobody wants to experience their game as if the audio is being transmitted over AM radio.
Finally, there's a potential Stadia store issue. When I fired up Destiny 2 this morning, there was a notification about needing to buy a "Digital Deluxe Edition" before the 10th, if you wanted the coming seasons' contents at 25% off regular price. Of course, if you go to the Stadia app right now, and look through the "All Games" list, there is no such edition listed. So... is this notification intended for all the other Destiny 2 platforms? Or, is Google footing the bill for the next season for Stadia users? Or, is there a new version that should have been on the storefront by now that isn't? I guess we'll see, come the 10th... but any answer that involves "you should have been able to get the thing at a discount, but now you can get it at full price" is going to rankle a lot of already-wary Stadia users.
Well, it'll be interesting to see how things evolve here over the next couple of months. The Destiny 2 pricing question is probably my biggest thing at the moment, since that ties to the value of the eventual $10/month Stadia Pro payout, but I think these are all things that will need to be addressed if they want to be at all competitive once they open their service to the general public for "free".
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