Howdy folks. Going to be giving Elden Ring another go.

Those of you that know me know that I have a tough time with the genre of "soulsborne" or "soulslike" or what have you. It's not that I don't respect the genre, it's just that I get frustrated by it.

I heard Elden Ring is the more approachable of the series/genre in many ways.

I picked it up on sale a long time ago and didn't quite "get it", so I need some tips.

• What are some easy builds/weapons to focus on? I'm not too concerned with the meta, just give me some general advice like "take two handed swords and then put points into stat a, b, and c" or whatever.
• What is the overall strategy?
• When I played the last Jedi Survivor game, I found myself enjoying the slow, big-swinging stance most. Something about biding my time, playing defense, then waiting for an opening appealed to me. Much mroe so than a quick in and out offensive-focused stance.

Any help appreciated.

I figure I'll give the genre one more go before I chalk it up as "it's just not for me" lol

I pay quarterly with GEICO and it's 350 dollars.

300 a month seems kind of high.

With that said, everything seems to be getting a price hike these days, and often not a small one, either. I was paying about $250 two years ago.

Great news.

here's hoping they work on the campaign and actually make a worthwhile singleplayer experience; seems that good singleplayer campaigns in shooters are a thing of the past now, with some exceptions here and there.

Stoked about it coming to Game Pass; I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to try the COD series from time to time, I just know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't play the online portion enough to warrant purchasing it, even for 10 dollars.

Nah, that would require me debasing myself and playing on console.

I just used a lot of hacks, .ini edits, and trainers 😋

Oh wait...I still do 😁

Yeah I play games to relax, not spend 20 minutes on one area looking for something some developer hid that was too clever for their own good 😋

But I'm also a filthy casual PC pirating son-of-a-gun that plays 10-dollar indie titles on his 10,000-dollar rig, so wtf do I know.

Pffffffffffffffft. Idunno...

Off the top of my head?

• Titanfall game (action)
• Thief game (stealth-action)
• Splinter Cell game (stealth-action)
• Total War: Dune (RTS-TBS)
• Civilization game (TBS)
• Tie Fighter remake/sequel (space sim)
• Independence War 3 (space sim game)

Not getting any of 'em so whatever I'll just wait and see.

Yeah I suppose so. I don't watch a lot of anime but I've seen some gundam and appleseed or whatever the mech shows and movies are, it doesn't really seem too inspired by that.

It was fun, though. Definitely recommend it if you can turn off your brain for a couple hours and just enjoy it. First 1/3 is tough though because J-Lo is unlikeable until her "emotional breakthrough" or whatever you want to call it.

My only hesitation about this is MS's absolutely jackassery when it comes to how they network everything together from a user interface-system-whatever standpoint. I'm not sure what you want to call it but they just seem to be terrible at getting various systems to talk to eachother and work together.

I see this at my job with Teams and Sharepoint and Outlook, and I see this with my games with how things on Gamepass don't mesh with things on Steam (for example, WH40K Darktide users on GP not being able to play with users on Steam and cross-platform not working and shit like that).

If MS can somehow work that out, I'd be fine with this. And I know they're a big evil corporation but honestly they have the talent and resources to do it, I just don't see why they don't.

You're missing one key point, however: going from PC to console is a downgrade; going from console to a not-quite-PC-but-almost experience is a huge upgrade.

This is a smart move, a win-win for the consumer. MS has nothing to lose buy making their console my fluid between being a console and a PC and using different distribution tools (Steam, Game Pass, GoG, etc) to sell games.

The whole myth over PC being user unfriendly or hard to use or unable to use in your living room is long dead and it would be an easy gap to bridge.

TBH I'm not really sure what MS in particular gains from this but in the end so long as they're moving copies of games, selling subscriptions, and getting their hardware out there, it doesn't really matter if it's an xbox or a tablet or a PC or what have you.

I don't think anyone should be panicking, at least. So let's all calm down mmkay?

Look, if I want to argue against my own self-interests and indulge my cognitive dissonance, I'm going to do so, god dammit.

Marvel/DC/etc: "**** YOUR LORE, FANBOY! We do what we want"

Ultimately that's sort of the whole point: it doesn't matter. They can go"Oh this is on Earth-243 where Mr Freeze is actually Mrs. Freeze" and the one we are familiar with is on, idunno, Earth 1. Or whatever, some shit like that lol.

I'm not an avid comic book reader by any means but I do enjoy looking up the lore and stuff and while I do find this specific redesign alienating, it's not exactly the first time (not by a longshot) anyone has done anything like this.

In other words, they can "destroy" a character because there's an entire multiverse of them to destroy. They can, have, and will destroy them. And bring them back. That's part of the beauty of comics!

Losing your mind over it, if you are a fan of comics, sort of indicates you're not really in touch with the idea of them. Losing your mind over this because you think it's a woke agenda indicates you don't really know WTF you're talking about because there's a few decades of comic book lore with all kinds of stuff like this to get you upset about lol.

It's all just petty bullshit at the end of the day and in the end you need to tell yourself to move on. You know why? Because in a week you will have moved on.

The only reason I dislike things like this is because it gives the alt-right ammo to fight their bullshit culture war that doesn't exist anywhere but in their own heads.

*the "royal you", to be clear. I don't mean you specifically lol. Just to be clear.