Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes

I really thought this was going to be more of a creeping death situation for discs on the Playstation. Disc player for the PS6 only as an addon, none at all for the PS7; winding down production near the end of the PS6's lifetime and shutting it down in the first half of the PS7's lifetime. I didn't expect such a "bold" proclamation. But they have a near monopoly in the console market (Nintendo is still relevant but serves a somewhat different market; Xbox makes themself more irrelevant day by day). The consumers can't really protest… Do you want to buy a new console? Well, these are the conditions: only digital games, online gaming access costs money, and … I don't know some other rent-seeking scheme…

I "own" most of my Souls games on Playstation digitally. I bought them that way because it was convenient; I had the console, which cost me a marvelous 0€ (or years of family IT service), and 20€ Bloodborne GOTY seemed like fun. The sad thing is that from the very beginning I never really expected to own them like my many books. I knew that it could be revoked at any moment, close my Playstation account for some spurious reasons, deactivate my games via the internet because of some licensing or some other reason to spite me. What was I going to do in that case? Litigate with what time? With what money? And on the grounds of what laws? But still, it was convenient in the moment.

We need consumer protection in the media landscape, especially in video gaming. I really hope that we will get some, but I'm pessimistic… Stop Killing Games was stopped by the EU Commission due to such blatant lies by lobbyists. And quite frankly, Stop Killing Games is such a milquetoast, basic thing in terms of consumer protections. We actually need much more than that.

My mind paints such a grim potential future for video gaming… You know Nintendo is gonna follow Sony in the digital only sooner or later, just like they did with paying for shitty online service. Also, you know Gabe Newell is not gonna live forever, and one day you are gonna read the headline: "Steam IPO expected to hit…". In a decade or two… maybe you will only be able to rent games, always online; you have to pay a yearly few and -- okay enough about that grim future; it's making me sad.

I do still have hope, mostly because of piracy ☠︎. Someone will always share the newest media; sharing is caring. It's almost as if sharing (media) is an intrinsic human quality… As stupid as game encryption gets, someone will always crack it. Denuvo got cracked via Hypervisor, which is not elegant, but it works. "Proper" cracks of all sorts of games still continue; voices38 makes proper Denuvo cracks, no Hypervisor required. Also, GOG games get shared all around easily, and they don't seem to be going bankrupt. I had some sort of further point here; ah well, media, and especially games, will always be available even if the industry goes in a darker direction.

(Thanks for reading my rambling…)

I'm still addicted to Elden Ring. I started yet another RL1 run. This time with another restriction: I'm keeping every base stat (Vigor, Strength, Endurance, etc.) at 10, with no boosting of these base stats. It's sometimes known as "True Level 1" or "RL1 on stat boosting". This severely limits the weapon selection. Makes you super squishy and nerfs your damage output even more.

It's going well for now… I sped through the linear path to Farum Azula. Morgott was far too easy, seriously - Fromsoft he has too low HP, and Fire Giant was way harder, since I needed to fight him hitless to have enough damage output using the Red-Feathered Branchsword (it's like the Red Tearstone Ring). For now I'm having fun, and I think Any% is going to be manageable, but DLC and Malenia are going to be rough…