I could see it working as an animated “job of the week” sitcom style show about a team of DRG miners. There’s nothing about DRG that ties it too strongly to the concept though. You could just make a show about space dwarves without any mention of DRG, might even be easier without whatever “lore” the game has in place (I like the game a lot, but if there’s a story I haven’t found it).

Not sure if they had the same issue as me, but maybe. I loved the game, but the last act had the typical crpg feeling of all the possible storylines condensing into a few. Not a major failure, but it really stuck out to me because of how well the rest of the game handled it. They did a phenomenal job of making me feel free to tackle each previous act however I wanted. The world reacted pretty well, and there were a few points I was actually surprised to see characters react specifically to some weird solution I came up with. At the end it felt like my choices mattered much less, and I was on this track of betray/kill one Big Bad or the other with the only difference being who goes first and what flavor of help comes along.

I think this is an issue all crpgs will have (it’s just too much work to have many wildly different endings), but the amount of discussion around BG3 being the new standard for the genre makes the issue stand out. At least for me.

we’ve also seen people who used to spend a considerable amount of money on games stop doing so, because the market doesn’t cater to their preferences.

I have to wonder how significant this is. Anecdotally I agree with it, but I wonder how many people are like me. I used to buy at least a few new/full-price games a year, but now I might buy 1 if the stars align (last two were BG3 and Elden Ring, prior to that I can’t even remember…maybe Deep Rock?). I have more expendable income than I’ve ever had these days and still love to play games as a pastime, but I’m buying fewer games. I 100% attribute that to the shitty practices the industry has picked up, because 9/10 that’s what turns me off from buying a game until it’s 5 bucks on Steam or free on Humble.

Interestingly enough, 2/3 of those are subs I dropped within the last year or so based on a lack of quality/content for what they cost (never bothered with ESPN, NHL games are easy to find). Seems like streaming is starting to collapse a lot quicker than TV did.

How do you know those aren’t far-right cats?

Jokes on them, my limit is wildly low compared to this. Most sports games are worth 20 bucks max at this point, the main content is just reskinned gameplay with updated stats and an unnecessary twist on controls. Its DLC.

They don’t, they just get ready to clutch their pearls and say “well, I never…” when it happens again. These people are from the same stock that let Hitler rise to power, and thought appeasement was the best way to deal with aggressive authoritarians. Anything short of full liberation of Ukraine’s territory only encourages Russian belligerence.

You want to save lives? You make it clear to Russia this kind of shit will only leave them bloodied and empty handed.

There’ve been fantastic CRPGs in the last handful of years. Off the top of my head: Divinity Original Sin 2 (2017), PoE/PoE2(2015/2018), Tyranny(2016), Torment: Tides of Numenera(2017), Pathfinder Kingmaker/WotR(2018/2021), and Disco Elysium¹ (2019).

There’s definitely been a comeback, I feel like I’ve been eating good on that side for a while now.

¹Play this game if you haven’t. It’s so fucking good

can’t use it to coordinate political action against their regime.

That ship sailed a while back when Elon was forced to buy Twitter. Let it burn.