Diddums

I'm not dumb your dumb No im not Yes you are Shut up

I've been following the gaming industry rather closely lately, and there are many things happening. Bungie ditched Activision, BF5 launched with almost no promo and no fanfare, which then proceeded to get smashed to pieces because of the SJW bullshit. It's now full of cheaters and support is lacking. Blizzard, another company which is involved with Activision, paid its staff to leave. Blizzard can't split from Activision as they're a merged entity but it seems that some of those within have decided enough is enough too and will probably start up a new company free of the shackles of Activision. As a die hard Blizzard fan, this makes me happy. Loot boxes have been banned in Belgium, Holland has made the RNG element of loot boxes illegal and two states in Murica (Washington and Hawaii) are reviewing them too, EA lost their lawsuit quite spectacularly which resulted in the removal of loot boxes and the whole Ultimate Team gimmick in Belgium at least with hopefully more countries to follow. Australia is also weighing in on the matter. As someone said in an article I read, this is merely the beginning. The wheels of legislation turn slowly but once its claws start taking hold, we're going to see the whole loot box scene collapse overnight. Black Ops 4's black market only showed its face once the reviews were all in and settled, showing that Activision knows that gamers hate that shit, so they've shown their hand and are probably milking their games for all they can at the moment. On Black Ops 4 you can buy a red dot reticle for a dollar. Yes, a dollar for a red dot, in a game which you've already paid $60 for and will have to pay for all the DLCs as well. Another one of CoD's amazing moves was in WW2 you could only open crates in the social space which meant everyone could see it. Why? So that little Jonny can go running to mommy and ask her for $5 for a loot box. There literally is no other reason, and it's become part of this movement which is slowly forming against this kind of bullshit. (I can't find a source for this atm, saw it in a vid) Looking further back we have more incidents like the Battlefront 2 debacle in which EA managed to piss off two of the most passionate fan clubs in the world: gamers and Star Wars fans. It got to the point where Disney got involved and told EA to wind their neck in (Disney being a whole different bag of evil but that's a thread for another day). Destiny 2's reliance on Eververse when it first released again showed Activision's true face, yet another instance where gamers saw straight through the cloth and got pissed off. Bungie has now parted ways with Activision and naturally the internet is full of theories and bullshit but I personally think that they just got fed up with being squeezed for everything they had and had enough cash to be in the position to tell Activision to fuck off. Over the last few years there's certainly a trend developing towards people getting fed up with microtransactions and loot boxes. Some games do it right, like Fortnite which is free and doesn't restrict anything from the game by not having a season pass or spending any money, yet shows you exactly what you'll earn by buying the season pass. Overwatch treads a fine line for me, in that the limited time events encourage people to buy loot boxes otherwise they'll miss out permanently but then this is a game which gives all its DLC away for free. You can also earn the loot boxes through normal gameplay so it's not all bad. As a whole I think the writing is on the wall. We've hit a turning point in gaming history and crossed a line which can no longer be uncrossed and the big guns know it. It's for this reason we have £20 skins. Not because these devs or publishers think it's worth £20, but because they know their days are numbered and need to eke out every penny they can before their little game collapses like a house of cards. I think what we're seeing with triple A titles at the moment isn't "'let's make a game and make some good money, and fuck all the gamers" like we have seen for the last decade or so, but rather "shit, the're waking up, stop investing anything, make a few shiny bits and charge extra for them, we're getting fucked anyway so we may as well squeeze what we can out of the ones that are still asleep on the way down". For me it's not even the amounts, it's not even the half assed launches, the lack of support or their absolutely spectacular inability to manage damage control, it's the sheer blatantness of it all. The lies, the deceit, the incessant bullshit and straight faces. To gamers, to shareholders, to anyone who looks at them, they just don't give a shit and it's really starting to show. I just hope these guys have enough of a nest egg saved up for when this shit really goes mental, or their kids will be eating loot boxes for Christmas. This channel is pretty good. The guy waffles on a lot and repeats himself in all his vids but this one is worth a watch if you haven't see any of his stuff yet.

Let's cut the bullshit here: It's Destiny with fancy lighting effects and jumpy shit. That's all it is. Bioware know their number's been pulled and unless they blow the shareholders out the water they're fucked, so they've opted to play it safe by doing stuff we've all seen before in one game or another.I can't see myself buying it, or Division 2 for that matter, for no other reason than I'm just fed up with the AAA scene lately. As @crispymorganmentioned elsewhere, it's shareholders first, gamers second. If you look at the bigger picture in gaming, there's a massive shift happening under the surface and the next couple of years is going to be a massacre for EA, Activision and all the other big guns. For too long all they've focussed on is getting more money out of gamers and let the quality slide. Add to this the SJW bullshit (BF5, perfect example) and you're just getting loads of pissed off, angry gamers who are finally saying enough is enough. I downloaded Broforce the other day and it really hit the nail on the head that you don't need to be spending huge chunks of cash to have fun, it really is a £4 game which is immense to play for an hour and put down again. The banning of loot boxes in Belgium and now Holland (with a few states in Murica following suit, Hawaii and another one, can't remember which) marks the start of the end of this predatory bullshit and I for one can't fucking wait to see these publishers fail their shareholders. Enough of the greed, let's have some quality shit again eh?

Good, microtransactions need to die. The theory behind them is decent enough, pay a couple of quid, get something interesting, but as is always the case with these companies, the shareholders go first and fuck the gamers, so we see bullshit like £20 skins (skins for fucks sakes!) in Anthem. If Anthem was free, then fair enough, but it's a fuck-off expensive triple A title which will no doubt come with loads of DLCs and other bullshit. This predatory attitude towards gamers to squeeze us for everything they can and skate by on the absolute minimum in terms of quality needs to go, enough is enough.

I gotta admit, it does look pretty decent. One question though, can you extract any time, or do you have to wait until a specific timeframe? I really need to put my PC together. It's all clean and shiny, nicely laid out on the lounge floor 😕

Neil's dance is one of my favourite film moments of evAr. Rachel / Bottle: I agree with the Cripspeeeeeee, giz a video showing us how it actually works as well. You guys look rather dashing in your fancy dress

We're trying to grow our PC community, @phil bottle @crispymorgan @Greboth @Bluebear and many more are cultivating things quite well, Star Citizen will most likely have a decent uprising this year, 7 days to die, Minecraft, Overwatch and I think we have a few Rocket League players too (Crispy's boy Alex is fucking ridiculous at the game).

This is the most amazing thing in the history of amazing and the history of things. You've been king twat for years. 😎

I have Bo4 on PS4. I am spectacularly shit but you can be your bottom dollar the the skies will be clear at all times. I think I've got you on friends, if not send me a FR. D-i-d-d-u-m-S I even get a UAV once a month or so. #gangsta

RAGE 1: OMG ID SOFTWARE IS DOING ANOTHER GAME, THEY'RE THE GUYS WHO DID ALL THE AMAZEBALLS GAMES OF THE 90S, COMMANDER KEEN, WOLFENSTEIN, DOOM, QUAKE, OMG THIS GAME'S GONNA BE AWESOME! It sucked. I have little hope for this, but time will tell. I really hope it's awesome. I need another awesome game.

Wine? You taking the piss? Lambrini is too much for you, you friend-murdering psycopath Also welcome I guess. You're always welcome obvs. You play anything else on PS4?

Breakfast.

I just completed this quiz. My Score 80/100 My Time 102 seconds

Your mum is a dedicated server.

Not really, it's a lot like Minecraft in that respect. Won't take long to catch up. (although if you want to leave early so you can play with us I'm sure we can accommodate you)

Good to see you bumders pulling your weight around here. Has Leigh shown you where the kettle is yet? I like mine black, strong and sweet. I want it to look me in the eyecand tell me it loves me before I put it in my mouth. But in all seriousness, Leigh has done a superb job lately and I reckon with you guys on the team many more good things will happen. I'm stepping back from the shadows a bit too now that I'm a bit more settled in my job. Congrats folks, welcome aboard and here's to an epic 2019!

Ha! I told you so Dave. It's great fun, even if what you're doing at that point in time feels pointless. Laat night I spent most of the night trying to kill a Christmas dino who just kept mashing my brains in ti the beach. @Greboth joined the valiant war but it was not to be. My first encounter with greebs was actually when I found him in the spawn hut, I gave him a cheeky little clout to alert him to my presence and then spent the next 10 mins outrunning an angry pack of rabid dodos all named Jeff. https://youtu.be/AfIOBLr1NDU Lee's frustration was by far the highlight of the evening, I'll have to see if I've got any of it saved. Dude got killed by everything from starvation to jelly fish to horny dinos. Was good to see @Stretch616 show up again, bout bloody time. Good game, good for a laugh but most importantly, good company.

I'll kick this post off by going straight to the top: Bohemian Rhapsody. This is hands down one of my favourite films of 2018. The fact we went to one of the last screenings and the cinema was crammed is testament to how good this film is. I should say I've never been a Queen fan, mainly due to lack of exposure rather than not liking their music, so the ommissions and additions are wasted on me, but the critics won't shut up about it so if that's your bag, head over to Rotten Tomatoes. The music made the film obviously but the story was ace too. The original band were involved with production and it was evident in how respectful the whole thing was, there was no dirt slinging, Freddie's sexuality was only a small part, it was done very well. 10/10 for me. Bird box, Netflix exclusive, decent psychological thriller, 7/10, nothing to write home about but worth a watch. A Simple Favor, I had really high hopes for this one, hoping it was gonna be another Gone Girl, but they seemed to just lose interest and fuck around towards the end. Could've been an epic and started off strong but the last quarter of the film may as well have been a Goosebumps novel. 5/10.

Oh and I can't stop shitting. I don't even want to know what my arsehole looks like.

I bought Australia Simulator: ERRYTHANG GON' KILL YA tonight. Played about 30 mins before realising I haven't got even the tiniest clue what I'm doing, so retreated to the bath tub to find out some informations. So far: I was attacked by a massive crocodile thing but the bitch couldn't climb rocks so ha! Should've stayed a tadpole. I learned that there is very little gravity in Australia. I found two small lizard things getting giggity. At first I thought it was a bug but then I saw a heart above their heads so hopefully they have a long life together and it's not a one off which will lead to a life of pain and loneliness for their offspring. I battered the fuck out of a dino with my bare hands. It was a dodo but fuck it, I'm taking it. I punched a Bronchosaurus. Dude flipped the script on me and started freaking out. Luckily someone built a lil' hut nearby which provided cover. I survived. Diddums 1, bronco 0. Time to find out what the fuck I'm doing. Will report back at some point.

I just completed this quiz. My Score 60/100 My Time 103 seconds

I just completed this quiz. My Score 0/100 My Time 27 seconds

You're a brave man Mr Bottle, inviting me to your RP server 😂 I'll reinstall later.

Here are my thoughts on the matter: My thoughts on D1 are clear, it started off shit with a shit story and the studio couldn't get their act together so we ended up with a butchered mess which over time and many payments, they managed to mould in to a bit of a decent game. We all enjoyed it, it brought the community together and it was probably the highest FG has ever been in terms of co-operation and parties. Then D2 came out and we naturally all started comparing it to D1 at the end of its life. We admitted that D1 had two extra years of development and progress so we turned a blind eye to the sub-par game we were fed because... you know... Bungie will fix it. The game was a complete mess, but we all tolerated it because we remembered the days when we all played D1 together and that's what we wanted. Yes, we were enjoying it but there was a constant underlying feeling that I was playing a shit game, and only playing it because of the company rather than the quality of the game. Then they started putting out DLCs, and we paid. Then we paid more. Then we paid more. And now we're expected to pay again. On top of this there's Eververse which is yet another cash grab. I wouldn't be surprised if Bungie announced a subscription model at some point. The game itself isn't bad. I enjoy playing it because it's easy, it runs fairly well, it brings the people I enjoy playing with together, but let's not kid ourselves: Compared to some other titles, it's a load of shit. The amount of content on release was fuck all, and they've drip fed us more stuff over time and each time we're expected to pay for it. Fine, yet again I turn a blind eye and pay because I enjoy playing with you lot but there's still that constant, unshakable underlying feeling that I'm giving money to people who don't care about the happiness and satisfaction of their customer base. All they want is money and will do the absolute bare minimum to get it. If that means recycling content? Fine. Same guns as we had in D1? Fine. Same enemies? Fine. Same missions? Fine. They have the audacity to brag about new content all the time when in reality I'd say at least 80% of it is a copy and paste job. I used to write games when I was a wee lad, granted they were more like Snake than Destiny but during that phase I learned a hell of a lot about what goes on behind the scenes. When you start paying attention to the behaviour of bad guys and notice that many of them share the same traits, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they're simply copy and paste jobs with different skins stuck on them. Maybe tweak a bit here, increase the jump a bit there, in the hope that nobody notices but the fact of the matter is that I do notice, and I notice it a lot. The weapons we're all supposed to be so excited about are all copy and paste jobs. The enemies we're supposed to kill are all copy and paste jobs. The missions we do are all the same ones over and over. Bungie figured out that people don't mind grinding so they're milking it, and they're doing a bloody good job. So we're using the same weapons we've been using for 4 years to kill the same enemies we've been killing for 4 years in the same missions we've been doing for 2 years. Sure, they'll add a few multipliers or whatever to make it trickier, or if they're feeling particularly adventurous maybe they'll flip the mission on its head so we do it back to front. Ground breaking stuff. Apart from end game content, their answer to everything is "more bad guys". Every mission. More bad guys. Not "aha, suddenly something new appears for free as a nice gesture towards the community that have spent literally billions on this game" - nope, copy and paste more bad guys. But if you kill them you get a shader. Or a gun you paid for 4 years ago. And that's the thing with Destiny for me and the reason i don't care for it any more. I was in denial for ages telling myself it was a decent game but the constant laziness behind the scenes just got too much for me. The fact that Bungie has the balls to charge people for content that is so sloppily and lazily put together is testament to how stupid and blind us gamers have become, and having now been reminded of what quality game development looks like and how much content you can get for your money thanks to RDR2, I won't be spending another penny on Destiny. They've milked me enough for the absolute minimum effort and content and I'm done with it. I'll still be on for Banana or whatever but I'm not spending any more money on it.

Well that's Destiny for me I think. I tried the gameshare thing with Nutty's account and naturally Bungie says no. So that's that, deleted. I have zero problems paying for good shit and I've given Bungie the benefit of the doubt for years but I genuinely can't see myself spending another penny on it. The copy&paste culture is fucking retarded and expecting us to pay for it even more so.