homicidalrobot

NMS was quite literally a different looking and feeling game with maybe 5% (yes, twenty times less) of the current content and gameplay loops. Everything changed from how long it takes to gather basic resources to what order you get them in, the tutorial was streamlined and the way it picks the planet you start on was changed. There's an unbelievable amount of things to do, to the point that expeditions started existing to give players a more guided experience with fresh regular content. It's truly a far cry from where it launched, even space stations (the most static structures found in most star systems) have been overhauled and the old ones are only around as easter eggs now.

CP2077 integrated a ton of content and features from the most popular mods it had after the Anime update (particularly Vehicle Combat, from which it even took improvements to the way police spawn and act in addition to, yknow, the vehicular combat). Only a few of the core systems changed, mainly quickhacking and the way cybernetic implants are handled (also almost straight up taken from a mod). They did a balance pass on guns and made some of the weapon type features a bit different. If you didn't push too terribly far through the game on release, none of it would seem different really. The locations and behavior of weapons and enemies in general gameplay didn't change much, but access to mobility via implants was made easier (as the separated stores for them were largely equalized and merged) so it's easier for fresh players and people not using guides to finish their "build". Not quite the huge makeover NMS received, but it's definitely different in terms of progression.

While you're probably right to some extent about naysayers decreasing naturally over time, both games now have suspicious steamcharts numbers for being single player experiences. They get an influx of new players regularly in ways other similar titles don't, and it's almost certainly due to the changes in opinion of people who were playing them around their major updates, journalist articles or enthused friends.

TL;DR: No man's sky really did change that much. CP2077 didn't go as far but they've clearly made end user-oriented changes that are uncharacteristic for single player experiences.

Do people genuinely not realize that sony and microsoft had a great data collection source (console gamers) that have largely "aged out"? This new push for account sign-ins is obviously because their user data flow needs a big kick. They used to get data when people bought the game on their own platform, ran it on their own platform, even how many hours their gameplay sessions were individually throughout the week. With a lot of their studios games they had either complete or timed exclusivity to really find out what was driving gamers to game, and beyond that it's a popular commodity and likely a loat or reduced revenue stream.

With helldivers 2, the account controversy sprung up on the back of Helldivers 2's stats page not showing correct numbers for anything (and sometimes being rolled back asynchronously from your currencies and unlocks). Seemed obvious to me at the time they wanted a head count from another source (a sign-in) and probably data beyond that like session time/length. Whatever people are upset about sign-ins over, I don't actually see it articulated much; there are a lot of good reasons to dislike it (potential stoppage of the service causing games to be harder to play like end of service for Games for Windows Live) and I never see them mentioned, just general vitriol for the companies. I don't find the companies sympathetic, but I do find it odd that people just slam it aimlessly everywhere instead of identifying the issues beyond basic understanding of privacy fears.

Are you familiar with the term lobbying and how it shares a bedroom wall with bribery? Individual votes usually matter little to none in the grand scheme of things, and there's next to no evidence that politicians above the local level give a shit about individuals throughout a huge swathe of the US. Governatorial election promises in the southeastern US are almost universally lies about quality of life improvements, from healthcare changes in florida benefitting no one to roadwork that never happens being promised every election cycle in alabama and mississippi. There is a HUGE disconnect between representatives and their constituents in these states, and they're not the only ones.

Realistically, that money is not being used effectively to sway anyone, especially when little is actually used for propaganda, and weak vectors are chosen. Many campaigns are still running on outmoded methods of contact, like outdated lists of people for cold mailing, text messages that wind up in your spam filter, and shock value ads that only serve to annoy and change VERY few minds about anything.

You have a very optimistic outlook on how any politician views a letter or email from a constituent. Within my whole lifetime, I cannot name ONE politician in the US that has changed course over constituent contact. Not for any single thing. That's why someone asked if you were eight years old earlier; most people from 25-40 years of age have, at this point, accepted that the current system does not operate in the way that we were taught in school. Instead, we have this broken system where the cries of the masses enter the void, and MAYBE ONE "representative" echoes them to a person or place where change can begin. The ones that do are decried so unbelievably fast it makes your head spin, and the ones that retain office while doing so are treated like crazy extremists by any media that could inform people of their goals, so there's no hope of popular/uninformed support.

It just struck me as weird. Really strange thing to add in an edit considering the rest of the post, just extremely confusing in context.

Sorry, is this post satire or are you talking about satire you did not recognize? NEVER seen a vegan call breast milk non-vegan and have in fact actually seen more discussion about whether vegans should be breastfeeding children at all, I.e. is it healthy to do so with their diet.

You've put the word debate in quotation marks flippantly like there's an obvious answer, but I'm pretty sure you just misunderstood a conversation rife with sarcasm or taken out of context (or straight up made it up).

Idk dude, just googled "id analytics ssn" and I immediately get a page of results of articles from 2012-15. Could probably just add "as someone else" in scholar for the paper

An ID analytics study showed 40 million united states SSN had more than one name associated with them over a decade ago.

https://risk.lexisnexis.com/cross-industry-fraud-files/docs/financial/LexisNexis-Risk-Solutions-SSN-White-Paper.pdf

Whitepaper from LexisNexis, corporate background check company, explaining avout SSN not being a unique or even really reliable identifier

"I believe it is their opinion,", genius. The irony is frankly uncomfortable.

Anyone able to find the actual published info? The hyperlink in the article leads to another article which also alleges this but also does not provide said documentation. Kind of a low point for NPR to exclusively have other articles in the hyperlinks.

I think you're doing yourself a disservice here by calling these terms esoterica. Political ideologies being clearly defined and understood on a wide scale is not a negative thing. Most of the terms here in this dude's post are talked about as solutions (or status quo) in the current era, all of it should be fresh unless you willfully ignore every single political post on every social media you use.

Way more importantly: You really think the last 20 years were a shining example of public intelligence? Truly? With the denialism, the outright lies that have been signal boosted, the public outrage over hypothetical people and made-up organizations who never existed? How can you justify saying "these terms are esoteric" when they are literally modern? How can you justify this position you're taking where low/no information being the norm needs to be enforced for things to be "normal" for you? You're flippantly dismissing the idea that people could have opinions or motivations you aren't instantly aware of, which is stupid beyond belief.

The entirety of democratic politics is conflicting opinion/value/ideology being weighed by the many. What the hell is the problem with letting people who are informed talk about it in a public space?

Is this copypasta I'm unfamiliar with

Because they have Douyin.