loobkoob

I agree completely. Project Zomboid is fantastic - it does a lot of the actual survival stuff really well - but, like you said, once your safehouse is mostly self-sufficient, it largely becomes optional to engage with anything dangerous at all. It doesn't really have any real goals - developer-set or player-set - to keep you going once you've got your survival situation "solved".

And yes! Environmental storytelling would really elevate the game. Even the buildings that aren't clean, tidy places don't really have any personality to them. It feels like a very sterile world that only exists for the player to experience. Of course, a lot of games would benefit from (more) environmental storytelling, but I think PZ is probably one of the games that would benefit most because of the nature of survival sandbox-style games. Creating your own "story" is a large part of the appeal, I think, and having an immersive world to match PZ's immersive survival mechanics would really enable that!

I didn't like hunger, combat, inventory clutter, or linear progression/impractical rewards in MC

I'm definitely with you on this. I think all of these things can be great in other games (yes, even inventory clutter and management!) but they definitely feel more like chores when playing Minecraft. Some mods can help you fix some of these things but, ultimately, they're generally obstacles to my enjoyment in Minecraft (which comes from building, exploring, making ridiculous redstone contraptions, etc.)

(also would've liked contraptions to be better, like easy sticky-piston chaining)

I'd love a blueprint feature like Factorio has! Again, some Minecraft mods do have similar things, but they're definitely not all that fluid to use.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon

I can't actually say I've played it. I do tend to be a fan of roguelikes/roguelites in general, though. It's certainly possible to struggle on bad runs because you got unlucky with items, but a lot of those styles of games let you manipulate the odds in your favour in some way once you know what you're doing. And overcoming poor-quality loot can make for interesting, challenging runs that feel rewarding to win. But the other side of that coin, of course, is that they tend to feel punishing to players who don't understand the workings of the game yet (and who simply don't have the mechanical skill to perform well).

For all the criticisms I have of it, I think The Outer Worlds might have my favourite romance of any video game. And it's not even a romance that features your character! Your companion, Parvati, has a series of "loyalty" missions that essentially involve you setting up a date for her with a woman she has a crush on. And then the date going well. And then it progressing into a relationship. It's such a lovely series of quests.

It works really well because it's not about the player character (and, by extension, the player self-inserting themselves). It means it doesn't need to make you feel a personal connection to the characters. It doesn't need to let you express exactly how you're feeling. You don't get those little "oh, I wouldn't have picked that option if I knew my character would say it like that" moments. Instead, you get to see two characters who are quite literally made for each other interact, so it all feels really natural.

But you still get to be involved. It was you who set them up. It was you who gave Parvati that advice that worked, and who helped her get ready, and who gave her the confidence to go for it. You're not just a bystander; you genuinely feel involved in the whole thing. It avoids a lot of the issues other games have with romance where they're trying too hard to cater to the player, or where the romance feels fairly one-dimensional, while still keeping the player engaged and invested in it working out.

Yep, I'm with you on that. Unfortunately, I think the /r/pics mods are somewhat replaceable. That's not to say they don't do a good job - they definitely do, and I've got nothing but good things to say about how they've handled this last month. But it's a catch-all subreddit without any real sense of community, culture or curation. A new mod team could be brought on and, after a short acclimatisation period, I think the subreddit would probably feel the same as ever.

There are definitely other subreddits that will suffer much more if they have their mod teams replaced because the mods really curate the content - setting posting rules, banning certain topics, removing things that don't fit the culture of the subreddit and that aren't at a high enough quality, etc. Replacement mods simply wouldn't do it in the same way.

The fact that the biggest subreddits are like /r/pics - catch-all subs with somewhat replaceable mod teams - makes it very easy for Reddit to treat this as being less serious than it is for them. Yes, the big subreddits with the most subscribers and the most traffic are catch-all subreddits with somewhat replaceable mod teams, but those aren't why people stay on Reddit. People stay for the curated subreddits, the special-interest subreddits, the niche subreddits. And those are the ones that are far harder to find replacement mod teams for, let alone ones that continue to keep the subs going as they were before.

How Reddit handles this open letter will be quite interesting. There's nothing unreasonable about this letter and its requests. Like you said, if Reddit can address it satisfactorily, there's still a chance things can be smoothed over between Reddit and moderators; a lot of mods don't want to leave the site, after all, and are looking for an excuse to stay - that's why there are still open letters being posted rather than everyone just resigning as moderators right away. But if Reddit doesn't address it, and address it well, I think, because it's so well-written, well-intentioned and reasonable, it will reflect terribly on Reddit and could easily be seen as the final straw by a lot of mods.

I think there's always been a bit of an unspoken understanding between Reddit and its moderators: Reddit provides the platform; moderators get to run their communities as they see fit (as long as they're not doing anything that gets Reddit in trouble). And with this framing, moderation didn't feel like working for Reddit, it felt like working for your community. It was always seen as fair enough if Reddit makes back to money to pay for the platform they're providing. It felt like wins all round: Reddit makes money, moderators get to have somewhere to maintain their communities and shape them as they see fit, users get communities they can join.

It's only now that Reddit's interfering with how moderators run their communities and interact with the platform that people are seeing it as working for Reddit. It doesn't feel like a collaborative effort any more, but rather Reddit just wanting unpaid labourers. The unspoken agreement feels like it's been broken. That doesn't retroactively make all the moderation done in the past count as working for Reddit (even though Reddit obviously benefitted from it), but it does mean that any moderation going forward is something that should be viewed through that lens.

I definitely shared that opinion a few years ago. I found Fallout 4 disappointing, Fallout 76 was a disaster (I've heard people say it's better now, but I still feel like a lot of the design decisions are at odds with Fallout as an IP) and they were making a lot of poor decisions.

But I can't help but be optimistic for Starfield. It's not just the recent presentation that gives me hope; everything I've seen about their approach to it and their design philosophies seems promising to me. I'm sure it'll still have some of that traditional Bethesda jank to it, but I'm more than happy to accept some jank if I get a proper RPG with some good player agency.

That means you've missed out on Andor, which I think is better than any live action Star Wars (including, perhaps controversially, Empire Strikes Back)!

It's mature, deep, detailed, grounded, and very political. The characters and world are built up phenomenally, and it's much more contemplative in its pacing, and it definitely treats its audience as intelligent rather than beating them around the head with obvious exposition. It feels more like an HBO show than your standard Star Wars affair, frankly. And it works as a standalone, too - it's not just yet more Skywalker family drama.

The PC release is usually around two years after the PlayStation release, I believe, so it's quite a while. Microsoft also releases all their games on PC on day one, and has done for several years at this point, so I'm not sure I'd agree that Sony is more dedicated to preserving multiplatform than Microsoft.

I think there are few different things at play here:

• You're in your thirties - the novelty has simply worn off a lot of games. When you're new to the medium, everything is new to you and you're a lot more likely to feel excited about things that other people may already be tired of
• Games are a little more homogenised nowadays. There are certain a lot of fantastic games out there - particularly in the indie and AA space - but a lot of bigger titles tend to lean into catch-all design principles that have been proven to work. When so much money is being invested into AAA games, they can't afford to take risks (and innovation is a risk).
• You may be depressed or just burnt out on gaming. You might not feel depressed in general, but not feeling excited about things you feel you should be excited about is one of the earlier signs of depression. And being burnt out isn't all that uncommon either; video games have a huge amount of variety, but you still need to have other hobbies outside of them. If you're not enjoying any games, there's nothing wrong with just taking a break and focusing on other hobbies.