Why bother making a “main product” at all

My guess is legally protecting themselves against potential new laws and regulations, so they have more time to make changes or continue making money if these practices get outlawed.

Why is this exclusive to the mobile market?

It’s not; it exists in computer and console gaming too, just to a lesser extent. As to why, my guess here is that mobile has a lower barrier to entry, and they’re always accessible where a computer or console might not be. There’s probably some sort of “cultural” aspect here too, where it’s already prevalent in mobile so people are more accepting of it, but computer/console gamers had their own culture where this didn’t exist for many decades and so won’t be as accepting.

Late to the party, but I’m mostly playing on Warmane’s servers. Currently switching between Icecrown for the population and quicker levelling, and Icecrown which is much harder and slower with 1x rates.

I started on WoW Hardcore for the permadeath, and Kronos for the full Vanilla experience, but they’re much less populated so they don’t “feel” as much like MMOs, but rather RPGs where you can talk to and join others if you organise to meet up… which is fine of course, and I enjoy them, but I’m preferring the MMO experience right now.

See if something went so far as to significantly change the questing, levelling, dungeons, raids, BGs, etc, I wouldn’t really consider it WoW any more; it’d be a different game in the WoW engine. I think that’s why some people say that WoW Retail and Classic are completely different games now; they feel so different that they kinda are.

But yeah, depends on interpretation and definitions of course. To me, if only the speed of levelling is different, then it’s still WoW, just not “Blizzlike” any more. Where’s the line there? I don’t know exactly, but the 7x exp/drop/rep rates in one of the private servers I’m playing on feels vastly different to the 1x. So 3x would probably still be non-Blizzlike to me, but the game would be close enough to Vanilla that I’d still call it “World of Warcraft”.

It’s funny though, one of my casual gamer friends will play multiple different games of the same genre (eg. Diablo 2, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, and Torchlight 2), and say they’re all basically the same. I’m sure people who are more casual probably wouldn’t notice the difference between Whitemane and Blizz Classic.

Good follow up explainer, cheers.

Personally, I wouldn’t consider something Blizzlike if it has several factors that change the experience, but I guess the definition depends on the individual.

I haven’t played on Whitemane yet, as I’m currently after an experience closer to the original Vanilla -> TBC -> WotLK progression, but Whitemane does look pretty good as a Cataclysm+ prog server. It doesn’t look Blizzlike, which could be a pro or con depending on your personal preference, but it does look like it has a decent population. Quick clarification though; the highest XP rate is 3x, not 4.5x.

Might check this out sometime over the next few months, as I can’t seem to find any other Cataclysm servers with population higher than like 200 lol.

I guess that’s just how F2P goes in games where most content is P2P.

GW2 has actually had remarkably little powercreep compared to other games, but even so, there’s still enough that players without a glider, mounts, elite specs, etc will struggle to keep up.

I wish there was a way for players to reduce their own power in OW in exchange for slightly increased rewards, even if those rewards were account bound. Most players would go for this (I think) and it would reduce how much stuff gets obliterated in seconds without making players feel like they got nerfed.

I have a separate account specifically for self-imposed challenges and semi-RP. I often end up running around in white gear; you know the worst gear you can get, the trash you buy from vendors?

Goddamn does it make the game tough. But goddamn does that difficulty make the game so much fun, much like how OP is describing it.

I wish there was an in-built mode that supported this kind of play.

Haha fair enough.

I agree with what you’re saying, but why do you bold so many words?

That’s basically what the Pixel 7 Pro is over the Pixel 7; it’s just that it also comes with other extras, like another camera.

Not sure why they only managed 14% extra battery in the 7 series though. It’s the smallest jump from their smaller model vs the larger one except for the 6 series. Combine it with the more power hungry display on the Pro, and the already-inefficient chipset on both devices, and you just don’t get the battery life that competitors get.

There’s definitely pros and cons. It looks like there will be some fun stuff, and GW2 is still cheaper than every single other MMO on the market (WoW and ESO+ cost 6x as much as GW2 per year), but it does feel like a lot of content, especially OW, is slowly being invalidated by crazy new mechanics and power creep. I mean, we’ll soon be able to mount up in combat? Death was already pretty meaningless lol; now you’ll never die unless you’re actively trying to.

The combat and exploration is still the best of any MMO on the market though, so yeah, it surprises me how extremely negative some people are about what’s coming.

It isn’t necessary any more, which is why all Pixels since the 4a have had small bezels all the way around. You literally got the last Pixel with a thick forehead.

As to why they’re not all perfectly symmetrical on all phones… I’ve seen a few answers:

• Cost; it’s expensive to shrink the bezel that the display connector is under
• Design style
• Shrinking all as much as possible, which typically leads to the side bezels being thinner than the top and bottom

No rush dude, enjoy your Series X!

I’m new to Lemmy and couldn’t find a way to tag you, so apologies for that! But my reply to Skiptrace was also kind of a reply to you :)

Oh man, please hit me up if you’d like to jump into GW2. One of my favourite things in any game is just adventuring across the land, doing quests, uncovering and discussing characters and lore, slowly improving out items together without worrying about “trading efficiently”, taking on little challenges like Dungeons or bosses, etc.

I’ve also gotten into Raiding lately with other first timers. We literally just go in without reading any guides, no roles assigned, and just try to work out how to get past each encounter/boss together.