I'm still awaiting that day FDev lets us travel directly to Sol. So I can find my farm and land my Asp on one of my farm fields. That would make my crossover franchise universe complete.
If anyone wondered why I'm finding AC Valhalla so interesting, perhaps this might explain it..
BRITISH REGIONS WITH HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF VIKING DESCENDANTS
Shetland - 29.2 per cent.
Orkney - 25.2 per cent.
Caithness - 17.5 per cent.
Isle of Man - 12.3 per cent.
Western Isles - 11.3 per cent.
North West Scotland and Inner Hebrides - 9.9 per cent.
Argyll - 5.8 per cent.
Yorkshire - 5.6 per cent.
Where I live is dominated by Norse Viking history (not mine I should add, my DNA is 90% Highland Pictish) Orkney wasn't given back to Scotland by Norway until the 16th century...peacefully
You can't move on this island without tripping over Viking boat burials in practically every field...all the place names are in old Norse and the locals have a Nordic lilt and intonation to their speech.
I have to admit the content this time around is on the light side for the price. Keen went the Exceptional Donkey's Rear Ends this time around. What would've been better? Adding raging dust storms and inclement weather that would compromise ability to operate the new vehicles and carry out new missions.
Regardless, it's in the $5 bin for several new assets/emotes (translation: didn't cost $300+ real life USD to acquire). I personally also want to support the Keen dev as much as possible. So I"m not gonna complain.
It seems with CDPR's upcoming release of CP2077 has caused everyone in the industry to up their game. AA Keen for this latest DLC drop. AAA Rockstar with its MASSIVE upcoming DLC dump for GTAO around the same time. And again with the online update to RDR2 (plus the release of the stand alone ver of RDR2). And quite shockingly FFF grade demoted Bethesda (now hiding under the cloak of M$). With its release of the FREE Steel Dawn BOS DLC yesterday.
That looks magnificent, like all the SE stuff people are posting here. One of these days I really have to put more time into it and start a proper planet-based survival.
Planet Nomad is on Steam sale now for $9 USD. But according to some insightful feedback provided by Mr_August_Grimm posted 4 yrs ago here on this reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengineers/comments/46ldb9
it seemed as though Space Engineers was the superior deal. Also SE apparently continues being the better of the two, as Keen dev has continued to update SE (with the latest released Wasteland DLC couple days ago). Which btw, finally added some long requested fan base blocks for over several years now
Is Planet Nomads a dead game? the last dev blog update to the game was back on Jul 25, 2019. If it isn't, then is there anyone who has played it recently (i.e. since 2019 better yet 2020)? If so, what's your take on this relative to SE and Empyrion Galactic Survival?
And particularly EGS, which has more functionality ever since the dev expanded the EGS universe to be procedurally generated? Is Planet Nomad really worth playing in 2020 given the intense competition from other similar titles? Or NMS/SE which continuously update? Heck, even stretch this to ED with it's upcoming Odyssey space leg/exploration features, in what is a proven single player/MMO exploration experience in yet another procedurally generated universe?
edit: updated to strike Satisfactory. Which after a google check, now turns out that Epic Games Studio has placed an irreversible back door data mining app in the game software. Satisfactory devs took the EGS 1yr exclusivity pill before returning to Steam. But Steve Spaghetti offers an extremely disturbing player review about Epic's anti consumer practices attacking Steam players below. Sort by clikcing the negative review types. Then do a find/search for this player's name. His review should be the 4th one from the top posted on July 13 this year. Reposted his entire review in spoiler below:
I am going to repost what I just wrote on the forums to explain why I STRONGLY recommend that you do not buy this game until data collection is allowed to be fully disabled or full refunds are offered based on the fact that the extent of it was not made publicly known.
tldr: it has been discovered that an absolutely massive amount of data is collected and sent DIRECTLY to Epic Games with no way to opt out. Do NOT buy this game until that is changed. You are giving your data directly to the People'e Republic of China. If you're comfortable with that then buy the game as is.
I had no idea it was to this extent which is not what it indicated on the store front or on the intro screen.
The relationship to Tencent is extremely concerning as well. Given that there's no private industry in the PRC, only priviliges granted by the Standing Committee that are revoked at the first sign of real trouble with absolutely no recourse, this means that the data is very likely being shared with the Chinese government.
It is 100% in line with past actions and known policies of the PRC. There's a reason Huawei has been heavily sanctioned worldwide. When you do business with a Chinese company you are NOT doing business with a private enterprise as is the case in the West, you are doing business with the PRC wearing the mask of a business.
It's completely understandable that given this, people do not want their data shared with Epic. Association with a Chinese company especially with major ones like Tencent comes with enough strings to run your own puppet show on the largest stage possible. There is no reason whatsoever to trust Tim Sweeney when he says that data will not be shared with Tencent. They have massive leverage over him, at any time they could decide to sell the stock and end their relationship with Epic. That would crash the company especially if done in a short amount of time. Tencent will be fine in that scenario, if push comes to shove they will be bailed out by the Standing Committee. Epic won't recover.
The point is that if they want the data, and of course they do because the PRC wants any advantage economically or otherwise, they can easily force Epic to give it to them. Epic has no way to say no when the massive cudgel of PRC economic power is hanging over them like the sword of Damocles.
None of us signed up to be bound by a vast amount of those same strings via Epic. We were told that we could purchase a game made by a company in a country and society that places a premium, generally speaking, on privacy. People expect that the transaction is supposed to END when the purchase is made. I have no problem with voluntary data collection. That is not the case here. It is NOT voluntary, it's baked into simply playing the game. There is no option to opt out. Furthermore this is not simply developers collecting telemetry in order to improve the experience, this is EPIC scraping your game and possibly more for unknown purposes. That is unacceptable.
I for one will be leaving a poor review until one of two policies are implemented by CFS, both of which are entirely reasonable requests:
1. Implement a TRUE method to opt out of ALL data collection, ESPECIALLY data being sent to Epic.
2. Offer a full refund based on refusing to disclose the scale of involuntary data collection if CFS refuses to implement option one.
They do that, we're copacetic. Otherwise its unacceptable and I strongly encourage people to not buy this game. No changes will be made unless we hold companies accountable.
I will end this by saying that Epic isn't special, plenty of other publishers have tried to do this and the community rightly revolted over it. I'm extremely disappointed that this is even an issue but it is one that cannot be ignored.
Edit: To make it clear, if you disagree and want to play the game go ahead. I simply can't ignore all of this.
Good lord. That is a truly terrifying allegation to make. I'll never trust any game title that exits the EGS exclusivity store from this point forwards
Planet Nomad is on Steam sale now for $9 USD. But according to some insightful feedback provided by Mr_August_Grimm posted 4 yrs ago here on this reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengineers/comments/46ldb9
it seemed as though Space Engineers was the superior deal. Also SE apparently continues being the better of the two, as Keen dev has continued to update SE (with the latest released Wasteland DLC couple days ago). Which btw, finally added some long requested fan base blocks for over several years now
Is Planet Nomads a dead game? the last dev blog update to the game was back on Jul 25, 2019. If it isn't, then is there anyone who has played it recently (i.e. since 2019 better yet 2020)? If so, what's your take on this relative to SE and Empyrion Galactic Survival?
And particularly EGS, which has more functionality ever since the dev expanded the EGS universe to be procedurally generated? Is Planet Nomad really worth playing in 2020 given the intense competition from other similar titles? Or NMS/SE which continuously update? Heck, even stretch this to ED with it's upcoming Odyssey space leg/exploration features, in what is a proven single player/MMO exploration experience in yet another procedurally generated universe?
edit: updated to strike Satisfactory. Which after a google check, now turns out that Epic Games Studio has placed an irreversible back door data mining app in the game software. Satisfactory devs took the EGS 1yr exclusivity pill before returning to Steam. But Steve Spaghetti offers an extremely disturbing player review about Epic's anti consumer practices attacking Steam players below. Sort by clikcing the negative review types. Then do a find/search for this player's name. His review should be the 4th one from the top posted on July 13 this year. Reposted his entire review in spoiler below:
I am going to repost what I just wrote on the forums to explain why I STRONGLY recommend that you do not buy this game until data collection is allowed to be fully disabled or full refunds are offered based on the fact that the extent of it was not made publicly known.
tldr: it has been discovered that an absolutely massive amount of data is collected and sent DIRECTLY to Epic Games with no way to opt out. Do NOT buy this game until that is changed. You are giving your data directly to the People'e Republic of China. If you're comfortable with that then buy the game as is.
I had no idea it was to this extent which is not what it indicated on the store front or on the intro screen.
The relationship to Tencent is extremely concerning as well. Given that there's no private industry in the PRC, only priviliges granted by the Standing Committee that are revoked at the first sign of real trouble with absolutely no recourse, this means that the data is very likely being shared with the Chinese government.
It is 100% in line with past actions and known policies of the PRC. There's a reason Huawei has been heavily sanctioned worldwide. When you do business with a Chinese company you are NOT doing business with a private enterprise as is the case in the West, you are doing business with the PRC wearing the mask of a business.
It's completely understandable that given this, people do not want their data shared with Epic. Association with a Chinese company especially with major ones like Tencent comes with enough strings to run your own puppet show on the largest stage possible. There is no reason whatsoever to trust Tim Sweeney when he says that data will not be shared with Tencent. They have massive leverage over him, at any time they could decide to sell the stock and end their relationship with Epic. That would crash the company especially if done in a short amount of time. Tencent will be fine in that scenario, if push comes to shove they will be bailed out by the Standing Committee. Epic won't recover.
The point is that if they want the data, and of course they do because the PRC wants any advantage economically or otherwise, they can easily force Epic to give it to them. Epic has no way to say no when the massive cudgel of PRC economic power is hanging over them like the sword of Damocles.
None of us signed up to be bound by a vast amount of those same strings via Epic. We were told that we could purchase a game made by a company in a country and society that places a premium, generally speaking, on privacy. People expect that the transaction is supposed to END when the purchase is made. I have no problem with voluntary data collection. That is not the case here. It is NOT voluntary, it's baked into simply playing the game. There is no option to opt out. Furthermore this is not simply developers collecting telemetry in order to improve the experience, this is EPIC scraping your game and possibly more for unknown purposes. That is unacceptable.
I for one will be leaving a poor review until one of two policies are implemented by CFS, both of which are entirely reasonable requests:
1. Implement a TRUE method to opt out of ALL data collection, ESPECIALLY data being sent to Epic.
2. Offer a full refund based on refusing to disclose the scale of involuntary data collection if CFS refuses to implement option one.
They do that, we're copacetic. Otherwise its unacceptable and I strongly encourage people to not buy this game. No changes will be made unless we hold companies accountable.
I will end this by saying that Epic isn't special, plenty of other publishers have tried to do this and the community rightly revolted over it. I'm extremely disappointed that this is even an issue but it is one that cannot be ignored.
Edit: To make it clear, if you disagree and want to play the game go ahead. I simply can't ignore all of this.
Good lord. That is a truly terrifying allegation to make. I'll never trust any game title that exits the EGS exclusivity store from this point forwards
Lots of fear, no details.
As I type this in a google browser, logged into some forum that is also owned partially by tencent, Android OS phone by my side.
I watched the semi-finals and the final this afternoon. It was absolutely amazing. The balancing is insanely good, with one of the 3 matches from the final (best of 3) being won on a score like 984 vs 968, with the winning team taking it in the last 20s due to a +2 points per hay bale buff they managed to proc, and the last few bales slowly clawing back the deficit. I went for the memes, I stayed because it was genuinely a great watch.