forameus

Not who you're replying to, but to me it's this. They use all kinds of psychological tricks to shepherd you towards spending money. It's not gotten quite so bad as something like GTAO, you can still have a fairly decent time with the game without spending a penny, but you are still constantly reminded that you could give them some cash and get to open some packs. Through all the animations they go through when you do open, to the extra ones when you get something good, to limiting the time certain things are available, it's all just the little things to eat away at you and focus your mind on spending to get ahead, or even just some respite. Now I don't necessarily disagree with that part. There's a market, people will spend, but it's similar to where gambling sat before they had to do all the "but of course we're utter c***s" messages at the end of all their adverts. Bookies would quite happily rinse someone until they were a broken addict, as they knew those people would be a decent source of income for them. You've got to get a lot of people coming in and putting the odd accumulator on to equal one guy who simply can't say no. This stuff is hovering around that stage now, as EA know full well that there's people out there providing the vast amount of their income, and they're not just happy about that, they're actively trying to make sure they keep doing it. Some kind of action needs to be taken to regulate things, but I'm not convinced we'll ever see it. EA aren't stupid, they'll have next steps planned already for when it gets cracked down on (personally I'm almost certain we'll eventually see specific players being able to be bought for real money...removes the gambling aspect, keeps profits, but ultimately ruins the game...*shrug* say EA). EDIT: Mr Brightside already replied far more succinctly, and the only bit I'd disagree with on that is the "kids" angle. I don't quite blame EA for this part because kids should never even get to the point where they have the ability to spend real money on FIFA. So many of these stories that come out would've been quickly stopped with some basic parenting. Obviously there's an age cut off to that, and it's not like once you stop being a kid at some arbitrary age you're fair game for this stuff, but it's always a pet peeve to see the frowning parent who was happy to let them have access to a bank account criticising someone else for their own negligence.

Oh don't get me wrong, I think EA are absolutely masters at it. I'd almost say I admired them for it (if it didn't also have the darker, more predatory side). They've built a system where they can put very, very little effort in to keep things stable (and sometimes not even that given the number of issues they have in a live service) and it's essentially a cash machine for them.

Maybe not worth creating a whole new thread, but anyone picked up Ghostwire: Tokyo? I'm a sucker for games modelling real-life locations, so had to get it. Reviews seemed mixed early on, people calling it boring but I'm finding it quite fun. It's utterly batshit mental in a lovely Japanese kind of way. Full of (I assume) references to Japanese cultures and their very deep lore of creatures and ghosts. Shopkeepers being replaced by floating, glowing cats. You can read the minds of animals. Headless schoolchildren try to kick your head off. Slenderman looking fuckers chase you with umbrellas and chuck scenery at you. Looks absolutely wonderful though.

EA are terrific trolls. Their very name is almost used as a slur and a synonym for greedy, microtransaction related shenanigans. Yet they know even if the very product is named that, there'll still be hundreds of thousands queueing up for early access, and hundreds of thousands more waiting on day 1.

Didn't even deserve it's own thread really. Don't think I've ever been less excited for a Wrestlemania since I returned to watching (at 30 ironically, heavy downhill since...) I'm actually surprised at how sparse the card is too, although I suppose we do still have two shows to add shite to it. Night 1 (April 2) No. Matches* Stipulations 1 Becky Lynch (c) vs. Bianca Belair Singles match for the WWE Raw Women's Championship[42] 2 Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio vs. The Miz and Logan Paul Tag team match[43] 3 Drew McIntyre vs. Happy Corbin (with Madcap Moss) Singles match[44] 4 The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs Tag team match for the WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship[45] 5 Charlotte Flair (c) vs. Ronda Rousey Singles match for the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship[46] (c) – refers to the champion(s) heading into the match *Card subject to change Just the five matches for night 1, and I've got to say, I cannot muster much excitement for any of them. Flair/Rousey, maybe, but they've even managed to fumble bringing Rousey back. Lynch/Belair will be a good match, but it's hardly screaming Wrestlemania. I suppose rumour is that Austin/Owens is going to main event in whatever form it takes. Giving it that slot suggests they're planning something big, but could well fall flat. No. Matches* Stipulations 1 Queen Zelina and Carmella (c) vs. Sasha Banks and Naomi vs. Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan vs. Natalya and Shayna Baszler Fatal four-way tag team match for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship[47] 2 Johnny Knoxville vs. Sami Zayn Anything Goes match[48] 3 Pat McAfee vs. Austin Theory Singles match[49] 4 RK-Bro (Randy Orton and Riddle) (c) vs. The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) vs. Alpha Academy (Chad Gable and Otis) Triple threat tag team match for the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship[50] 5 Edge vs. AJ Styles Singles match[51] 6 Brock Lesnar (WWE Champion) vs. Roman Reigns (Universal Champion) (with Paul Heyman) Winner Takes All match to unify the WWE Championship and WWE Universal Championship[52] (c) – refers to the champion(s) heading into the match *Card subject to change Night 2 looks a lot better in comparison, but still not that great. Main event will be great if they manage to get there without exhausting the crowd. I'm probably most looking forward to Knoxville/Zayn, because it'll be just ridiculous shit for about 10 minutes. But again outside that, the best you can hope for is just a good match from Edge/Styles probably. Not much build up, not much in the way of stipulations to add that extra bit of spice, no excitement. I know they've done two nights because it'll be more profitable to them, but I think it definitely has the benefit of easing that pressure on those watching. With pre-show, I think the worst offender pushed past 7 hours (just checked, WM33, 7hours9minutes...f**k sake). That's just not sustainable, so this is a better solution, but you do run the risk of what they've now done twice before and about to for a third time - a really, really unbalanced show. Night 1 looks shite, night 2 looks better. Last year from memory I think night 1 ended up pretty good and 2 fell flat. If they can learn to balance things up and actually build matches on both sides to give an equal experience, it'll be good in future. I'll likely try and watch NXT live as it'll be at 6pm UK time for a change, then watch night 1 on Sunday. No way am I staying up for any of what's been offered.

Rockstar have always fascinated me, or more the reaction to them has. For years now they've probably been just as predatory with microtransactions and the like as EA have, yet one gets all the hate. At least with FIFA you're somewhat able to play for free. As far as I know with GTAO you simply have to pay cash if you want to experience a lot of parts. It's fucking mental.

Couldn't tell you to be honest. I started on PS5 and had an OK time, just thought it was a bit meh. Don't think I ever started it on PS4

I got it at launch and recently went back and started it again, and played it through to completion. I quite enjoyed it to be honest after finding it pretty meh initially. The world is very impressive, but struggling to see too much in it that isn't done just as well elsewhere. And it shouldn't take as long as it did for a game to get to that level. But if you can get it pretty cheap I'd recommend it.

I'm a lot more worried about Wales than I would've been about Austria, particularly playing in Cardiff. And given Bale is unlikely to do much for the next few months other than wait for that game, doubt there's much chance of him getting an injury. If we get there, it's going to be a tremendous occasion, the sort a neutral would be delighted with. I just fear the worst.

Was going to say that once you get down into pot 3/4 territory, you're probably going to be much of a muchness, but going by the idea of pots from Donathan, I would definitely rather be in 3. Although to be fair, pot 4 could still have the likes of Peru/Uruguay/Chile (depending on who finishes 4th and 5th), and will have Cameroon, Tunisia and a young Canada side. It all depends on the luck of the draw. We could go in as 4th seeds and get (I think, unless there's some weird draw procedure) Qatar, Morocco and USA, or go in as 3rd and get France, Germany and Uruguay. But given we're pretty much certain we're 4th, if we make it at all, not much to worry about.

My only memory of Mitch Austin from his time with us was in (correct me if I'm wrong) the Ramsden's Cup Semi. Snatched at a shot late on when there were several people to square to for a tap in, and then spent the rest of the game and post-game with Brian Graham's foot, head, and general fury right up his arse.

Hopefully that's the case. Obviously if it's a choice between going through with a bye and getting put out, you'd take the bye, but the biggest match we've had in Hampden in fucking ages is one you want to see through, not have completely cancelled.

That's it for me. A really weird game where I don't really remember anything really happening, in like proper build-up or the like. First goal just a below average passback that Sneddon decided to f**k up a good 300 times before it was squared. Second I'm not even sure there was a build-up, seems like Moyo just woke up with the ball at his feet like it was the Craggy Island tournament. 3rd was a snapshot from memory, from a corner maybe? Then the fourth is another absolutely horrendous ball back. And not meaning that to be disrespectful to Hamilton, they didn't need to be any good. I could've probably scored today against them. We all could. Embarrassing is right. Couldn't even muster the passion to get sent off correctly when there was the pathetic rammy late on.

I wouldn't say no-one would give a f**k, but when you look back at stuff like the Hardy's returning, it's going to be nowhere near that level. Particularly if all we're going to get - going by the character Rollins is now - is a largely bland babyface character coming in. If he came in and ran over him in a car, or threatened to stab him, that's something. He'll be getting a decent payday though, and can presumably call his own shots on a return. Good luck to him.

The even better wrinkle to that story was that they hadn't imagined that an incredibly popular title needing to always be online miiiiiight just lead to the servers doing their best Ticketmaster impression and completely shitting the bed. Not only were they completely at it with their claims of it being impossible to do any other way, they actually made it impossible to do it that way instead. Magnificent work.

In an interesting turn of events for plucky young promotion CYN, EC3 will be taking to Reddit for an AMA. Well, an Ask Me Anything About CYN really. It's going to be a fucking disaster, isn't it?

I found Lozano to be absolutely fucking useless comparatively. Not sure what was up with him. Might be because he was opposite wee sexy Insigne, who remains fucking incredible. Not a million miles from my team, that one. Unfortunately FIFA's decided to give out the tough love now. Had an absolutely incredible run earlier in the week. Having struggled to make much progress in Rivals and stuck in lower end of division 4, I won 8 on the spin to move up to 3 before the big reset. THen thought f**k it, we'll try this new fangled FUT Champs stuff. Missed out once on the playoffs, but second time around I made it in with a couple of games to spare. Surely Champs itself wouldn't be much different, right? Wrong. It's fucking brutal. Getting absolutely stomped either by people clearly better, or ones spamming shite moves, or a bit of both. At least with the new setup I'll be getting something in reward, but can't see it improving much. EDIT: Got a few wins now, every single one of them given by people forfeiting immediately. Might be in the minority, but I fucking hate that. And 2 quit at 0-0, wasting everyone's time.

I'd say blading in general needs to calm down a bit. I think WWE go too far with it, but it does add a certain bit of excitement when you do see blood in WWE because it's probably been done hardway. Of course that's not the perfect situation, as I think a good blade job can really add to situations, but should be careful not to overdo and desensitise. Like a lot of high spots I guess.

From an actual progression perspective, it's a tough one. I'd be inclined to say Austria as we've already proved we can beat them in Vienna, albeit a potential final is probably going to be a completely different atmosphere to that second gear game we played what seems like 300 years ago. Wales give me the fear. Not because I don't think we can beat them - we absolutely could - but just that feeling that no matter how well we play, it's a derby that we could well f**k up. But...I would fucking love to put them out. Wales by a whisker. Probably because given I won't be travelling for it, I won't need to be in Glasgow watching them celebrate if we do lose.

Do they have a WWE style marketing deal with some hardware store or something? I think every AEW show I've watched has had thumbtacks involved in some way. Cool and all, but surely those kinds of things are better for escalation not just "oh, we've got to do the thumbtacks spot now"

I remember hearing an interview with Riddle around the time he was coming onto WWE's radar and had left MMA for a while. ALthough he still had that stoned drawl, he seemed like quite a switched on guy, talking about how he wanted to be a safe worker and the like and separate the real stuff he could do with the "fake" stuff he was now into. Seems like he's just happy to do whatever he wants regardless of the consequences. Which is working out real well for him now.

I saw the Gargano one, looked more like a miscommunication where they had completely different moves in mind. This one seemed a lot more clear-cut, trying to belly-to-belly a literal fridge of a man and completely failing. Great that it isn't more serious, but still a shiter for him.

Hi, I'm forameus and I'm going to take you through this post. I've put pictures of cars on these menus for no real reason, and then I'm going to talk your arse off about them. I do find the "NPCs" you get seeming a bit like the shite training we have to do at work. Completely made up characters with weird names stuck on shutterstock images discussing whether, when faced with a racist comment, you should either a) join in or b) tell compliance. I wouldn't say it's a terrible experience, can see what they're trying to do, but can't help feeling there was a cleaner way to do it.

I am absolutely fucking shite at this. Absolutely stomping the early races, but that's because I'm in a car that way outstrips anyone else on the grid. There's a fucking camper van for f**k sake. But given the only driving I've done in games has been either open-world style games or Mario Kart/Sonic, fair to say I've not really got the realistic aspect down. Get the feeling that it'll be immensely satisfying once I finally get it there though. And until then, anyone in front is getting fucked into a wall.

I guess UEFA don't want to seem like the bad guys, but there's been little talk about "so what about June?" with regards to whether Ukraine will be able to field a team then. I guess they hope that it's all good and they don't have to make a decision, and didn't really want to say "ok, we'll postpone now, but if you're still fucked in June you're oot". Still though, seems like the most likely outcome unfortunately. I can't imagine everything will just be sorted by then, so I guess for the game to go ahead you're hoping that Ukraine want to send a plane full of footballers out the country in the middle of a war just to play a match at Hampden. Can't imagine there'd be much appetite for that for a number of reasons for any party.