Nicktendo

For me it's just a case of not really being too keen on Mario Kart anymore. There is the very occasional time I'll join in, which I think happened a couple of times this year, but I very rarely play it these days. FWIW I think the league is great. I always loved the different themes and think you (and @BowserBasher in your absence) do a great job of running things. It certainly helped me get way, way more mileage out of an MK game than I usually do. I think I'm coming close to 150 hours on the Wii U and Switch version now, and 80% of that is the league over the years. I still try to jump in on Smash when I can on Thursdays and still haven't got tired of playing that. But I think I'd need a new MK game or some new content before I would commit to the league every week.

It had been so long that I actually ended up enjoying Mario 64 a lot, it was a huge hit of nostalgia. However, once I got onto Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride it became absolutely miserable. There's a real lack of finesse to the controls and the pro controller really doesn't allow you much leeway in terms of making small adjustments. It's a shame, but the game is 24 years old, so I guess it's kinda expected. I'd like to give it another go with a N64 pad and see if that stick holds up better. My memory tells me it does.

You just didn't notice this on your tiny 12 inch CRT TV when you played it on the N64 Or later, I suppose because of the 480p output. This is a feature of the original game which has been emphasises by the clean look of the game and the larger screens we use today. I watched a cool video explaining it on YouTube around launch. I'll have a look for it later and try to link it. It essentially comes down to it being necessary to maintain a smooth frame rate.

I agree with the first part of your post. However, that's not what I said - I said discussion is necessary, but that doesn't mean you always have to comment about everything if you don't want to. I prefer to stay away from any kind of discussion surrounding EA because it often feels like shouting into the void. The public backlash to shitty practices is important, but the most effective method is simply not buying the shitty products instead of endlessly complaining online and then buying them on sale anyway. If enough people do that, they'll change their ways. The most effective regulation of loot boxes would have been if everyone simply didn't buy them. That won't happen without campaigns and online commentary, of course, but it more often than not descends into toxic lunacy between warring factions and fan-bases. Hence, why I made my point above about the end-user playing a role. Battlefront II was a perfect example of shareholders mercilessly exploiting players, and because of people needing that Star Wars fix, they didn't care enough to ignore the game. That's the cycle. The shareholders don't give a shit about Star Wars, they just want to use the license to extract as much profit as possible and the players, once again, fell for it hook, line and sinker because they love the franchise. Stupidity. If people want change, they have to start making do without or you're going to start getting a load of suits who don't play games deciding what is allowed and what isn't.

You’re 100% right. It seems to me the past 10-15 years has just been a gradual build up of people online being mad at other people having fun and trying their absolute best to find fault in anything and everything, and now we’re reaching boiling point. It is exhausting. The worst thing for me is the authoritarian nature of these people, from all sides, who think it’s their job to regulate the entire discussion and frame it through their own political lens, to regulate what is and isn’t acceptable, what can and cannot be said, and how other people and businesses choose to operate. I’d be amazed if these people weren’t completely miserable. All they do is complain about everything. Find pleasure in games you still enjoy, there are people who still want to discuss them at that level. You can still ignore the games from the people or devs that you believe have shitty practices without shouting about it from the rooftops. This is why I love the gaming diary thread. It’s just people gushing over what they’re playing without any of the noise. It would be nice if more of the forum were like that. Discussion of other topics is still necessary, but I too wish there was less vitriol and certainly less moral grandstanding.

Sorry, but I just think 3 months of 6-day weeks is not all that bad... We'll have to agree to disagree on this point. Again, agree to disagree, I think it does a lot that hasn't been done. Granted it's not in the best "condition" but they have broken new ground, in my opinion, in terms of world-building and immersion. It's not perfect, but I can see what they're going for an I appreciate it massively. There isn't a need for crunch at all, I agree with you completely. But, as I mentioned in my previous post, both the shareholders and the consumers wanted this game before Christmas. There is fault on both sides here because it shouldn't have been released in this state. People should have been prepared to wait, from both sides, and the developers should have been afforded ample time to finish their project. I will restate again, that this practice is not unique to the gaming industry but one which is prevalent in modern society and will only be addressed when both the shareholders AND the consumers temper their expectations, which is something I, unfortunately, don't see happening any time soon. They are not saving lives, but their work is still held in the same regard as those who save lives. Just like sports icons. They get paid for that sacrifice accordingly. In my book, that means the practice is justified. You may disagree with that from a principled standpoint, and I would agree with you in some respects, but that is the way the world works and I don't see how that will change. Better rested workers definitely work better, but the modern world doesn't respect that principle and divvies out the cash in respect of that. I would argue that removing that the carrot of consumer and shareholder demands will lower the quality of the end product. Ironic position, I know, when considering the state Cyberpunk is in, but ambition can sometimes overshoot the end-product. My overall stance would be that lofty ambitions and almost impossible achievements are infinitely better than a "play it safe" approach. Bad practice is not fine. I don't want people to be overworked, I don't think anyone does, but we should make room in society for those people who are prepared to go the extra mile. I would argue that by allowing people to burn out and pour their heart and soul into something, we ultimately get a better end result. Bad practice should not be "the norm", but regulation against people working themselves to the bone is the wrong approach. Often, it's through that kind of sacrifice that we find the best things in life. I'm thinking Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse here. They paid the ultimate price, but their sacrifice enriched the lives of millions. Who's to say we would have had what they gave us if they had clocked in from 9-5 and accepted a standard wage? Maybe I'm grasping at straws a little here, or embarrassing myself a little, but there is no ying without the yang. You can't have the rainbow without the rain (Brent - loosely paraphrasing D. Parton). I respect them for the reasons I mentioned above. I disagree that they are "made" to do that because, as I said before, they have agency. Yes, it will impact their career, yes, they may not make the rivers of money they would have if they'd stayed on, but Cyberpunk was always going to be the biggest game of the forever. Surely, being a part of that team that created a groundbreaking form of entertainment would be something to take pride in, ala Cobain y Winehouse. Crunch is a failure of management, I'm with you there, but the consumers play a role in that too. I despise the "I want it all and I want it right now" mentality of modern consumerism. The people at the top (under the shareholders) are crunching just as much. Directors and producers. They are ultimately responsible for the end product and will take all of the blame when everything goes tits up. You think they switch off their phones at 5pm and go back to their families? No. They dont. And they are compensated very well for that. So yes, I do think those who are prepared to put their all in and work harder than others should rise to the top. It's not about imposing misery, it's about taking responsibility and pushing the whole team forward. Those that don't want to play along can get off the ride any time they like. Your job should not be "miserable" - and if it is, consider a different line of work. The Brent video was meant as a joke. He's not a villain. He's just trying desperately to be loved and respected and failing miserably (Finchy is the real villain, if anyone is). However, the sentiment is true. I'm going to get a little personal now, so dismiss it as a load of nonsense if you want. Firstly, my Granddad was born in Ireland between the wars. Both of his parents were dead by the time he was 2. His older sister brought him to England and raised him best she could in a shit part of Leeds. He left school at 14 and started working as a mechanic. By the time he was 40, he was managing director of that very same company he'd started at at 14. He managed that because he didn't want his kids to have the same garbage life he'd had and worked his arse off every day to better himself and improve his situation. In a time of few workers rights, and no minimum wage, he did what he needed to do and got rewarded more than adequately for his hard work and long weeks. Fast forward a few years and you get me, this clown. I worked for almost 10 years in various restaurants and got paid minimum wage + tips for the duration. The work was, more often than not, absolutely rotten and with little or no thanks. 40, 50, 60 hour-weeks depending on how high staff turnover was that month. No thanks not only from the staff, but from the shareholders as well. Why? Because of the minimum wage. The minimum wage was a direct incentive for the shareholders to cut labour costs to the absolute bare minimum to make any profit. Luckily, in waiting, you can make a fair bit of cash in tips if you manage to do a good job. But because of the minimum wage, I was usually doing the work of three people, and thus making a fraction of what I should have been in tips, pissing off a lot of customers in the process. What would have been really useful, would have been if there was no minimum wage and we were paid next to nothing as a wage. That way, we could have had adequate staff, ran the restaurant properly, given the clients a much better experience and pocketed a decent amount in tips. Everyone's happy. The minimum wage is not a solution to anything, because all it does it cause more pain for the worker and more profits for the shareholder at the expense of customer satisfaction. Customers now expect the absolute best at the lowest price possible. The idea of a minimum wage is wholly incompatible with that philosophy. So no, people who expect the minimum wage and are not prepared to put in the effort are not cut out for anything and they should absolutely not be paid well for doing the absolute bare minimum. But I digress, that's a whole nother topic. The principle remains the same though, those who are prepared to work hard, usually get rewarded. CDPR is no different in my view. Crunch is everywhere and is a necessary evil of the system we live in. You don't want to crunch? You can still have a middling to decent life, especially if you put time and effort into acquiring some skills and education. It's easier than ever to learn something in 2020. I just don't think it right for people to complain about the work others are prepared to do. Keep your own house in order and let other people worry about themselves.

He is definitely not the villain.

From mid-October I said they were crunched. Before that they weren't and it's been documented countless times. You want nice things, you have to work hard. You want groundbreaking games, you need the devs to put in the work. I wouldn't say 2 months is "extended". There is absolutely no bitterness from my side so I have no idea where you're getting that from. I respect the fact they worked flat out to meet the release date, even if they failed on the base consoles. They will be rewarded for that hard work, as they should be. What I have to do has fuck all with CD Projekt Red. I work long hours because I want to and I do it with pleasure. And rightly so. You want the best of the best to be at the top of the company. Life isn't a game of "everybody wins". The cream always rises to the top. I know it's supposed to be a joke, but it's still true. Why try if you don't want to succeed? Same Brentian principle applies, if they can't cut it, they shouldn't be there. The world isn't all candy canes and rainbows. You get out what you put in. Having said that though, I agree entirely with your final point. There shouldn't be a need for crunch. Unfortunately, the insatiable demands of modern society and consumerism have made crunch inevitable, and maybe it's time people started looking inward before criticising the life choices of others and diminishing the hard work a very select few are prepared to do.

I'm going to come at this from a different angle. The blame for this mess up is solely on the shareholders of CDPR. That I am not willing to excuse in the slightest. The game should have been delayed on PS4 and Xbox One as a minimum. The developers, however, have not had to endure anything like the crunch we've read about from other studios, especially in the USA (Rockstar sticks out). I think they only crunched from October to release and were paid well for it. The developers themselves also stand to make a massive amount of profit from the sales of the game (think it's 10%) of net profit. It was worked out a while ago on Twitter I think that each employee stands to make 45-50,000 euros in bonuses if the game nets 500 million. That's a house in Poland. This whole narrative that the developers are being "forced" into crunch and that it is absolutely life destroying is completely wrong. They earn many, many multiple times the average salary of a typical Polish worker without even considering their bonuses. I am sure if they found the work/life balance untenable they would leave. Polish labour laws are much stricter than say, the USA. I know in the U.K. if you want to work overtime, you have to sign a document from your employer that you are willing to work more than 40 hours per week, otherwise it is illegal. Anyone who crunched most certainly agreed to it. Maybe there was pressure, but there is also great reward. The gaming industry is not the only industry where people have to crunch. Hell, I have to do it some weeks if we have a heavy workload 50 or 60+ hours, seven days a week sometimes, and while it sucks, it's almost always worth it in the end. The day that it isn't is the day that I'll move on and do something else. It's not like game devs don't have transferable skills and a wealth of opportunities at their feet. The thing I find most infuriating about all of this is the supposed lack of agency placed on developers, the idea that working hard and long hours is somehow shameful, frowned upon and without reward. And the corporations that "force" people to do it are somehow "evil" (except EA, they totally are) We used to cherish people with an all-or-nothing work ethic in our society. They are the ones who drive humanity forward. Gaming is an industry where it is almost impossible to find massive success without sacrifice. I would like to think that those devs who aren't up to the job would walk away. If the reward isn't worth it, why wouldn't they just leave? They are not prisoners. Take a job with a better work / life balance, but you will be rewarded in kind. As for the shareholders, they're just short-sighted, which is to be expected I guess. The higher-ups in the dev. team should have said no, but alas, here we are. They've potentially ruined their well-earned reputation (and, to some extent, that of Poland, as @LazyBoy pointed out) for a quick buck. And that is the real shame here. I have enjoyed what I've played of Cyberpunk (7-8 hours) and while it's not as groundbreaking as I thought it would be, it still pushes the genre forward. It could have done with another six months in the oven, for sure, but come the end of next year, I'm hopeful this saga will be in the back of our minds and we'll be able to celebrate what will eventually be a massive achievement. My biggest hope is that it will be a lesson to all studios as we try to balance the almost insurmountable divide between the expectation of shareholders and the expectations of the consumers.

You're right about this. I'm tired of the hate Ole gets from the media. If they win their two games in hand, United will be second. That is a massive improvement over what has been over the past few years. The United games I've seen this season haven't been great (but that's only a couple) and going out of the CL is obviously a massive blow, but you can see that progress is being made. Really hard to call the top 4 this year.

If it is shadow dropped, I'm considering it an early Christmas present to myself. Fingers crossed.

Need to get a final score on what I would have got for predicting this at every race: Pole: Hamilton 1) Hamilton 2) Don't Care 3) Not interested 4) Well I think you will be when I tell you.... 5) I think there's been a rape up there! FL: Hamilton.

Very sad day, and it's extremely unlikely I'll pick up future F1 games given I'm on an EA boycott. Codemasters already have a ton of needless DLC fluff and season passes in the game, but it doesn't affect the gameplay at all. I guess this just means it'll likely get worse. Big shame for the Dirt Rally and GRID games as well, both of which I've enjoyed a ton recently.

Can definitely attest to switching off Film Grain. The game looks heaps better with it switched off. I'm gonna try it without Chromatic Aberration later as it's still a little blurrier than I'd like.

I played for an hour on Steam last night. I've had no issues with the PC version - no bugs, no crashes, everything seems to run fine. I can manage 1080p30 on my PC at medium / high settings and while it's not jaw-dropping (yet) it still looks great and runs without any hiccups. HDR also doesn't seem to be properly calibrated on PC. When I switched it on, I didn't notice that much of a difference, but it definitely isn't "dark and washed out" as Stuwii said, it still looks fairly bright and colourful on my setup. I've started as a Nomad and done the first mission which was fairly straightforward, followed by a pretty decent chase scene and half of the next mission. Really enjoying playing this in first person, the world feels very immersive and interactive.

Looks like I will be buying this then!

Really don't care what Nintendo show us tomorrow, if anything. All my anticipation is for SILKSONG! Please deliver, Team Cherry. It is my #1 anticipated game right now and I need to see more.

Unlocking on Steam in 2 hours. Can't wait!

Thought this was pretty interesting, especially about Hyrule Warriors.

Dunno if anyone has seen the F2 race, but Nikita Mazepin shouldn't be anywhere near F1. His "defence" in that race was a fucking embarrassment. Hope the FIA strip him of his super license after that performance. Only a matter of time before he seriously injures or kills someone.

Pole - Russell P1 - Verstappen P2 - Bottas P3 - Russell P4 - Albon P5 - Perez FL - Verstappen