How about a little fire scarecrow?

The group has since played through a few different titles, spending a chunk of time in Enshrouded, messing around with Palworld for a bit, and even spending some time in WoW Classic Cataclysm before fleeing from the fate of nearly 9 months more of that.  Now we’re working on Guild Wars Reforged with some Project: Gorgon mixed in.

But on Friday night I wasn’t feeling it for either of those.  In Guild Wars I wasn’t even sure which way to go forward and in PG I was leveling up probably my 9th or 10th combat skill… while you were kissing girls I was learning the staff… and kind of feeling like I had slain the same mobs over and over a few too many times, so was looking for something with some exploration.

And few titles give you that sense of world exploration like Valheim does.  So I decided to start a new world to see if that would scratch my Friday night gaming itch.

However, one does not simply walk into Valheim.  You have to create the world, which now involves more parameters than I previously remember.

The March 2026 World Modifier Settings

Some of these were parameters you could set by editing the world settings file previously.  Others, like the portal settings, are new.  You can just straight up set portals to let you use them with previously forbidden items… like metal.

I wasn’t quite ready for a completely passive world or to have zero build cost… though I might change my mind on that one depending how far this goes… but I was also not here for the full on wearing of the hair shirt experience.

On creating the world, I then had to remember how to deal with mods.  I wasn’t going to do without some of those.

I had to go back to my late January 2024 post about mods to recall how to even do mods.  See, I write all this stuff down for a reason!  So I found the Thunderstore app, part of Overwolf, which I still had installed.

While not all of the ones we had before were necessary, there were a couple I wanted.

• Target Portal – Down with paired portals, select which portal you want to land at
• Extra Slots – Gear and food get their own slots, a replacement for Equipment and Quick Slots
• AzuCrafty Boxes – Lets you craft from stuff in nearby storage boxes
• ItemStacks – Bigger stacks of materials so you don’t need so many storage boxes
• MistBeGone – The essential Mistlands mod
• BiggerBoatMapExploRadius – See more from your boat

There were a couple of dead mods from last time around that I was able to replace, but Odin Ships, a mod I paid for, had ceased to be.  The dev got bored and moved on or something.  This is why I try to avoid mods.  I still had the mod, but updates to the game had broken it.  So no special purpose boats this time.

All of which assumes I’ll even play long enough to get to boats or portals or the Mistlands.  But I will confess that Valheim’s boat travel and exploration are a big part of the appear for me.

But first, into the world.  I chose a seed and went in via the same path as always to see what I could see.

It is always a dark and stormy night when you arrive

Once in Hugin and Munin are there to tell you all about what is going on.

Yes bird… not my first time here…

Then it was time to explore a bit… and to find shelter.  The world remains, even in its low resolution rendering, pretty and green in the meadows.

The forest close by

I had to get into the swing of things, finding some rocks and wood on the ground to make that first stone axe.  Then it was harvesting some more to make a hammer to build with and a bow with which to hunt.

The deer hunter returns

The old ways came back to me pretty quickly.  I had to fumble with the hammer UI a bit to remember how to build stuff… though I had decided that, for now, I was going to just live off the land, using structures as I found them as bases for now.

I was also reminded as to how workbenches must be covered and you have to have a campfire near your bed to be able to sleep through the night.  But there was also the comfort mechanic rediscovered and its boost to stamina regeneration.

For a brief bit… about 20 minutes… I decided I was going to play using the controller.  Controllers have been an option for Valheim for a while now.

One of the controller layouts

And then I decided that the controller was more effort than it was worth.  Fiddling with the two analog sticks independently for look and move proved I am a keyboard and mouse person for sure.  I am glad you can play it on your Steam Deck, but that is not for me.

I set about exploring a bit… which is what I was there for really… and found I was pretty close to an altar for Eikthyr, which one uses to summon the first boss.  It was literally visible from the spawn point.  I am in no rush to get to that quite yet.

Then I set out looking for the ocean.  I was tempted by a couple of lakes nearby, but they had no outlet to open water.  The first real building to work on will be on the waterfront, a point of embarkation to set sail from.

I also found that there was some patches of Black Forest not too far away… with the usual characters waiting for me.

Not that guy again

That was on the shore, but I decided to move a bit away from there, not wanting to deal with trolls quite yet.  I found a larger structure further down the way, not too close to the beach, but within site.

I fixed it up a bit, adding a workbench, a bed, a storage box, a campfire, and even a deerskin rug, just to get the comfort level up one more point.

Having a cook out at the new place

From there it is a pretty straight run to the shore and the open water.

The ocean calls

That is where I want to end up eventually, the wide open waves on a boat… preferably the karve, as the raft is a bit ponderous and slow.  I kind of wish Odin Ships was still a thing.  It had an early boat that was better than the raft but not quite the karve.  But I’ll survive.

Right now I am running this all locally.  The group has been to Valheim three times already and right now we’re all kind of spread out.  Three of us our doing a weekly run in Guild Wars.  Potshot and I are still fiddling with Project: Gorgon.  Ula is off in WoW Midnight and may come back and tell us that housing makes it worth figuring out whatever it is retail has become.  And, of course, I am also still playing EVE Online and Pokemon LeafGreen.

With all that going on it might be whiplash to suddenly try to bring back Valheim… though I could be convinced to put it up on a server again.  We’ll see.  It is possible it is just a passing fancy.

I ran through the game, a title designed for the original monochrome Game Boy hardware (I think Pokemon Yellow introduced color if you had a Game Boy Color unit), to see the roots of the series, having only started playing with Pokemon Diamond & Pearl.

In my write up I noted that a lot of what we consider core features of the series were in there from day one.

This year, for the 30th anniversary, Nintendo and Game Freak brought the remakes of the Game Boy Advance remakes of the original Pokemon Red & Green, Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen.

Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen

Not the final titles released in the single screen color format of the GBA (that distinction goes to Pokemon Emerald, the remix of Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire) it was the first of a long series of remakes of earlier titles that has become something of a staple of the series.

There was, at one point, a pattern of a new title, then a combined updated version of those two titles, then a remake, followed by another new title.  That changed up a bit when the series moved to the Switch platform and the series became more of a live service game.  (Though I did get my full nostalgia remake in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Pokemon Shining Pearl.)

Anyway, I dusted off the old Switch Lite… and it had accumulated no small amount of dust since I last played it… got it charged up, figured out my Nintendo store credentials, and got in there and bought a copy of Pokemon LeafGreen… then found out that I couldn’t play until February 27th event though I bought it on the 25th.

Inadvertent pre-order.  But come the weekend I was able to get in and play.

Pokemon LeafGreen version

There was a bit of a preview trying to tell me about the world of Pokemon, the choice of being a boy or girl, picking your rival’s name (from a list, you couldn’t abuse your rival until later versions), and finally a level of parental neglect that really speaks to myself and my fellow Gen Xers.

Not sure my parents even paid that much attention to me

Because that is the essence of Pokemon games; a child in early to mid-adolescence… Ash Ketchum is 10 years old in the anime series while in the games you are usually somewhere between 10 and 16…  wanders away from home with his parent’s semi-acknowledgement, teams up with a guy who calls himself a professor but doesn’t really get into where he may of studied or what academic credentials he might have obtained, to capture wild animals, use them in blood sport competitions, all while fighting a criminal gang and trying to become the champion of the pet combat cartel.

So, you know, a kids game.

I mean, it feels like I could have done that during my childhood with parents that shoved me out the front door in the morning and shouted out at the neighborhood for me to come home for dinner in the evening.  We were all a bit feral back then.

Anyway, I was set for a pure nostalgia tour.  This was 2004 Pokemon, when things had bet settled and the game, in hindsight, was steering into a bit of a rut, something that got poked at with new gimmicks in each generation, new ways to battle other players, and, of course, just more Pokemon.

I went the medium difficulty route by choosing squirtle as my first Pokemon.

Naming him Rocky was a taunt

Going with the fire option feels like easy mode and grass tends to be a chore.  I know there is the whole rock/paper/scissors aspect to the game, but early on at least there are damn few fire Pokemon on the ground, but grass and bug pokemon are everywhere.  And for the water Pokemon, you get a shot at a Pikachu pretty early on to cover you on that front.

I will grant that with the first gym being rock type, water starts off strong.

Brock the rock

But then it is the water gym… where Pikachu came in handy… and then the electric gym, where I stopped a bit to go grab and level up a geodude and an onyx to make sure that didn’t go badly.

Geodude is not bothered by electric attacks

But I am also adopt a balanced party approach to my games. This is what I am currently working with, three gym badges in.

The early game lineup

This is in contrast to my daughter, who always chooses the fire type and then uses it in every battle ever until she has a party with a level 50+ fire time in the front position and then an entourage of much lower level Pokemon tagging along.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily work out for me.  Usually when I hit the final four champions I find out that my party is wrong and I end up going back to catch and level up some missing aspect of the team.

But I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.  Right now I am exploring the game as the remake of the original…which I played ten years ago.

There were definitely some things new to the title with the remake.  When you log back in to the game after a break it does a whole “previously on…” session that shows you what you were up to.

Things I did last session

That is kind of neat.  Certainly not something that was in the original.  But was that in the 2004 version, or was this something added for the Switch version?  I am not sure.

And then there is dealing with the Switch itself.  By default the left shoulder controller button on the unit brings up the game help… was that a thing back in 2004?… which was really annoying because my fingers tended to rest on that spot, so I was constantly bringing up the help file while trying to do something else.

There is actually a setting for that in the game, so I was able to turn change it so it would leave me in peace.  But it was one of those things.  Then there is also exiting the game, which you do not do from the menu in-game that says “exit.”  You have to go to the console main screen via the Home button and quit the game from there.

On the bright side, the Switch does have a button that lets you take screen shots.  I had to go look up how to get at those screen shots.  It turns out you can just hook the Switch up to your PC… though that requires an old school USB to USB-C cable, which I had laying around the house, but I had to go find it.  The whole “everything needs to be USB-C” that the EU has forced on us will work in the long term, but I have 25 years of old style USB devices to deal with still.

My computer, for example, has no USB-C connectors.  We have upgraded some outlets around the house for device charging, but they have old connectors.  So I have had to get the right style cables on my own, as the USB-C to USB-C cables that now come with everything are no use.

Fortunately… sort of… my state issued phone is an Andoid device with a USB-C charging slot, so I have had to solve that problem already.  It has come to the point that I buy cables and choose a specific color to indicate at a glance what connectors it has.  These ones are green.

Once I hunted one of those down I was able to mount the Switch as a drive and copy off the screen shots.

It doesn’t even get a letter…

So it goes.  I am three gyms in and have run into Snorlax sleeping, blocking the route south, so I need to go another direction, find the next gym, and then the flute to awaken him.

Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games

First, of course, we need to see where things stood last time.

Week 9 Scores

Most of that scoreboard is going to change by the end of this post.

So how did things go?

The first message from the league bot landed just after 21:00 local time, or past midnight on the east coast, announcing that WoW Midnight had released.

• World of Warcraft: Midnight has released!
  • [Picked by Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais)]

That was, of course, wrong.  WoW Midnight, depending on your point of view, had either released the week before with early access in full swing for those who could not overcome the FOMO, or was not yet slated to release until 15:00 Pacific time, which was when all the plebes who wouldn’t buy the most expensive package were to be allowed in.

World of Warcraft Midnight

Either way, no score for it yet.

The first score of the week did not land until Monday morning, when Pokemon Pokopia reviews started to land.

• Pokemon Pokopia
  • [Picked by Anthania Interactive (Ula)]
  • Now has a score of 80

That first score… was a bit mid.

Pokemon Pokopia

But things started to look up once more reviews landed.

• Pokemon Pokopia
  • [Picked by Anthania Interactive (Ula)]
  • Score has gone UP from 80.0 to 90.4
• Pokemon Pokopia
  • [Picked by Anthania Interactive (Ula)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 90.4 to 88.0

If 80 was mid, 88 gets you into the realm of pretty damn good.  90 would have been better, but reviewers will have their say.

However, that wasn’t even slated to ship until Thursday and it was still Monday.  There were two titles queued up to launch on Tuesday, Esoteric Ebb and Scott Pilgrim EX.

Esoteric Ebb

The former was the first to get a score, and another good score at that.

• Esoteric Ebb
  • [Picked by TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)]
  • Now has a score of 88.3

Not a bad score at all.  When both of those titles went live that was enough to vault me into first place on the scoreboard.

• Publisher Score Updates
• TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)
  • Score has gone UP from 19.0 to 37.2
  • Moved from 4th place to 1st place
• Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)
  • Moved from 1st place to 2nd place
• S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t)
  • Moved from 2nd place to 3rd place
• Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)
  • Moved from 3rd place to 4th place

We had to wait until Tuesday morning before Scott Pilgrim EX finally got a score.

• Scott Pilgrim EX
  • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
  • Now has a score of 83.4

That is okay.  The average score for the league last year was about 81, so that gets into the above average category.  That also put Shawn on the scoreboard ahead of three others with scores.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)
    • Score has gone UP from 0 to 13.4
    • Moved from 13th place to 6th place
  • Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
    • Moved from 6th place to 7th place
  • Anthania Interactive (Ula)
    • Moved from 7th place to 8th place
  • Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)
    • Moved from 8th place to 9th place

But that situation seemed subject to change by the end of the week, with three titles set to ship on Thursday.  We already had a score for one, Pokemon Pokopia, but when would the next score drop?

Before a new score landed we had an update on Tuesday’s releases.

• Scott Pilgrim EX
  • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 83.4 to 81.9

That put Scott Pilgrim EX into the modest range of scores and was enough to cause a change in the lineup in the close race that was the mid-pack at that point.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
    • Moved from 7th place to 6th place
  • Anthania Interactive (Ula)
    • Moved from 8th place to 7th place
  • Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)
    • Score has gone DOWN from 13.4 to 11.9
    • Moved from 6th place to 8th place

And then it slipped again as more reviews came in.

• Scott Pilgrim EX
  • [Picked by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 82.0 to 80.1

That was not enough to change the lineup however.

Then we got a score from another of the three Thursday releases.

• Planet of Lana II – Children of the Leaf
  • [Picked by Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)]
  • Now has a score of 83.8

A solid mid-pack score for that.

That brought us to late Wednesday night Pacific time when all three of the Thursday launches were declared.

• Planet of Lana II – Children of the Leaf has released!
  • [Picked by Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)]
• Marathon has released!
  • [Picked by Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais)]
• Pokémon Pokopia has released!
  • [Picked by Anthania Interactive (Ula)]

Two of those three had scores, so there was another shuffle in the rankings.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Anthania Interactive (Ula)
    • Score has gone UP from 12.7 to 30.4
    • Moved from 7th place to 4th place
  • Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)
    • Score has gone UP from 14.9 to 29.0
  • Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)
    • Moved from 4th place to 6th place
  • Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
    • Moved from 6th place to 7th place

Then, as we sat around waiting for Marathon or WoW Midnight to get a score, there was a slight shift in the rankings as Ula and Potshot changed positions.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Anthania Interactive (Ula)
    • Moved from 4th place to 3rd place
  • S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t)
    • Moved from 3rd place to 4th place

They remained in close contention for third place… so close that they swapped places again.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t)
    • Moved from 4th place to 3rd place
  • Anthania Interactive (Ula)
    • Moved from 3rd place to 4th place

Going to need some more titles to decide that one.

Then WoW Midnight finally got three reviews on Open Critic and was able to post a score.

• World of Warcraft: Midnight
  • [Picked by Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais)]
  • Now has a score of 84.7

Close to 85 is pretty decent.  However, with only three reviews in play, that score is likely going to see some updates as other sites finally get their reviews up.  The biggest surprise for me was that EuroGamer wasn’t one of the early reviews.  Minimal time in an MMORPG never stopped them before. (And they were one of the earliest reviews for The War Within.)

That got Pallais on the scoreboard at last.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais)
    • Score has gone UP from 0 to 14.7
    • Moved from 10th place to 7th place
  • Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
    • Moved from 7th place to 8th place
  • Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)
    • Moved from 8th place to 9th place
  • Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)
    • Moved from 9th place to 10th place

That only left Marathon waiting for enough reviews to garner a score.  And while the benchmark is three reviews, there are some sites that count and some that do not.  I don’t necessarily want to discount Chicas Gamers and Entertainment Geekly, the first two reviews to show up on Open Critic, but I suspect that they might not be in the tier required.

So we will have to wait for Marathon reviews to show up.  But without it, here are where the scores ended up.

Week 10 Scores

I may have hit first place, but the league still pegs me as a fourth position finisher.

Then there were three bids this week, all uncontested.

• Bids in TAGN League
  • Silent Hill: Townfall
    • Won by S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t) with a bid of $22
  • Outbound
    • Won by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss) with a bid of $4
  • Kena: Scars of Kosmora
    • Won by Anthania Interactive (Ula) with a bid of $16

In addition to that, there were some updates to ship dates:

• Denshattack!
  • [Picked by S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t)]
    • Release date changed from ‘Spring 2026’
      • to ‘Wednesday, June 17, 2026’
• Mixtape
  • [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
    • Release date changed from ‘2026’
      • to ‘Thursday, May 07, 2026’
• Pragmata
  • [Picked by Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)]
    • Release date changed from ‘Friday, April 24, 2026’
      • to ‘Friday, April 17, 2026’.
• Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced
  • [Picked by Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)]
    • Announcement date changed from ‘No Date’
      • to ‘Thursday, March 05, 2026’.
    • Game name changed from Unannounced Assassins Creed: Black Flag Remake
      • to Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced.
    • Estimated release date changed from ‘Unannounced’
      • to ‘TBA’.
    • Tags changed from Unannounced Game
      • to Remake.

I am not sure that Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced is a lock for this year, but at least it has a name.

That left the coming titles looking like this.

Week 11 coming up

We may be waiting for Marathon, but there were already some scores in play for week eleven.

• WWE 2K26
  • [Picked by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)]
  • Now has a score of 83
• WWE 2K26
  • [Picked by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)]
  • Score has gone UP from 83.0 to 85
• WWE 2K26
  • [Picked by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 85.0 to 82.5
• WWE 2K26
  • [Picked by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 83.1 to 81.4
• WWE 2K26
  • [Picked by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)]
  • Score has gone UP from 80.9 to 82.1

That will settle down I am sure.  Then there are three other titles expected to land… plus updates for WoW Midnight I am sure.  It won’t be done at just three reviews.

Related:

• TAGN Fantasy Critic League
• TAGN Discord Server
• Fantasy Critic Site
• Fantasy Critic How to Play
• Fantasy Critic FAQ
• Open Critic Review Site

You can’t visit them.  They do not show up on the map.  And you might never get a chance to explore these new places.  As CCP explained in the patch notes, they may not be for you.

As part of today’s deployment, 53 new systems have been added to the Tranquility database, although they have not yet been added to the game world of New Eden itself. These systems and the region they comprise are not yet accessible to players or visible on the star map and won’t be for a while yet.

This new region of space will eventually form the area where newly created characters take their first steps in EVE Online as part of continued improvements to the New Player Experience (NPE).

While these systems aren’t apparent from within the EVE client we know that inquisitive players would have unearthed their presence through other means and so to temper some speculation we wanted to provide you with this brief explanation.

Over the coming weeks and months as we approach Fanfest and the summer expansion, we will be providing detailed information about our plans for this new area of space.

– EVE Online Dev Team

Part of me thinks this is kind of neat.  New systems are cool, right?  I wonder if they will get their own nebula or something?

Meanwhile, another part of me is emitting an audible groan that they are headed back into the routine of flailing about with the new player experience in order to try an improve their new player retention.

A lot of work hours have been burned trying to solve this problem over the last decade.  It was a big deal back at EVE Fanfest 2014, where this chart showed up.  I wrote a whole post about it back then.

New Player Trajectory – Fanfest 2014

Then, at EVE North, they trotted out this doozy, which I again wrote about.

How many new players log back in as time passes

This is one of those charts that looks dire in a vacuum.  If all you see is this chart and you have absolutely zero data about the industry, free to play games, or how player retention stands industry wide, EVE Online looks like a disaster.

The problem is really that nobody talks about their player retention, especially MMORPGs with a free to play option, because they are all dismal.

I mean, look at that chart above.  HALF of the users who register give up before they even log in!

Almost 90% have given up logging in by day seven.

And 90 days in we have a little over 2% of those who even bothered to log in still sticking with the game.

Absolutely atrocious… and also, pretty normal.

As I have pointed out in the past, while there isn’t a lot of data out there for comparison, that is different that having no data.

SuperData Research, back in 2015 when they were a thing, went to companies to do a study as to what player retention was like.  They don’t say who they got access to or how many companies or genres… the publicly published part was a teaser to get you to buy their full report.

But the public bit has some interesting data all the same.  The first is that player retention gets worse as a game gets older.  So your day one players are more likely to still be logging in a year later than players who shows up at the start of year two, and the retention rate they quote, 2% of users at the 30 day mark… Well, EVE Online seemed to be doing better than that in 2019.

Now, the report also says after a certain point a title starts to get higher quality users, but does not quantify that at all.  So maybe that is why CCP was doing better than the average shown in the study.

Anyway, I am not saying that CCP couldn’t do a better job at bringing new players into the game or even that they could not improve those retention numbers… though I suspect there is little they can do for a 20+ year old PvP spaceship game with an indecipherable UI to move the percentage by very much.

What I am saying is that we’ve watch CCP founder about for more than a decade based on correlations they can see in the data, no doubt assuming causation, making big new game intros, only to throw them away.  I remember CCP Alpha(?)… was that the guy who came from investigating financial crimes to work at CCP?… saying very confidently on stage at Fanfest many years back that they knew how make the intro much better and blah blah blah.

Does he even work there anymore?  I mean, they threw all his work away after trying it.

So color me skeptical that CCP has suddenly unearthed hard data that has led them to this new idea.  This sounds more like somebody’s pet plan, to make a special safe space for new players.  So 58 new systems have arrived in the database, if not quite yet in New Eden.  But they are in the ESI, and have already been mapped out.

The Exordium region for New Players

The source for that map and name are linked at the end of the post.

Of course, there are two obvious dangers with this plan.

The first is that they will create a new player experience that is fun and easy and hold’s the player’s hand… right up until they get kicked out into the real game and find they had been dramatically misled.  That is the old Age of Conan tutorial problem.

And then there is the possibility that CCP won’t kick them out and that new players will just stay there.

Then there are the details… like if you leave can you go back?  What is the gate that will keep people out?  What is the gate that will keep griefers from making new accounts to screw around in this new space?  And, of course, what will players learn in this new bubble that will better equip them than

Also, what happened to the correlation between somebody getting blow up by another player being an indicator that they will stick with the game?  That was a talking point once.  I guess they found that correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation.

All of which is a whole bunch of words about something that isn’t even a thing yet.  But I expect that we’ll have a big reveal about it at Fanfest this year.

Related

• CCP – Patch Notes
• Reddit – 53 New Systems Added to the Game
• Reddit – Mapped the ESI Data for the New Exordium Region
• Reddit – CCP if you’re going to start players in an isolated microcosm…
• Monsi – Mosni’s Exordium Map

• Highguard’s End
  • PC Gamer – Highguard is closing next week
  • The Aftermath – High guard Didn’t Have to Fail
  • Nerdslayer – Death of a Game: Highguard

I went on a bit about Highguard as part of Fantasy Critic League where I had initially picked it in one of my leagues, then dumped it because the vibe was… bad.  It’s demo debut at the Video Game Awards somehow took the chance for some exposure and turned it into a liability and then the attention economy saw it as an easy target so the bros lowered the boom.

The drama got a lot of attention for a bit, then the game released and that did nothing to help the issue.

Highguard Rating: Weak

The game, which launched on January 26th, is now set to shut down on March 12th, giving it just a 45 day run.

• Dimestore Xenophobia about Tencent
  • Eurogamer – Trump administration debates getting Chinese Tencent money out of US gaming
  • PC Gamer – US government reportedly debating whether to force Tencent to give up its US-based game holdings

Isn’t foreign investment in the US good?  I could have sworn I heard Trump say that.  But if we could pay down the national debt with lies and bad faith we would have a budget surplus with this administration.  Instead Republicans will try to bankrupt the country then pretend they care about fiscal responsibility once their out of power.  Same as it always was.

Anyway, I can’t tell if Tencent failed to buy enough of Trump’s crypto bribe coin or if somebody who doesn’t like Tencent bought a bunch of it so they could have a few seconds with the god king to tell him “Tencent bad, China spies!” to harness his inherent racism, but either way Tencent seems to be on the outs without an real validation… aside from the bribery and racism.

I wonder if Tim Sweeney wanted the rest of Epic back so is using his MAGA connections to force them to relinquish their shares in the company at a discount?  Doesn’t seem implausible, though I have no evidence to support the idea other than Tim’s ongoing awful public behavior.

• What? Steam Being Sued Yet Again?
  • Game Developer – New York sues Valve over loot box-driven gambling
  • PC Gamer – New York sues Valve for ‘letting children and adults illegally gamble’ with loot boxes

Did I just post about them getting sued?  Yeah, but this time it is about gambling, not price fixing or imaginary monopolies.

Steam Logo

I dread discussing what constitutes gambling is because there is the actual, legal definition, which varies from state to state here, and then there is what people “feel” is gambling, which is anything that involves any random chance whatsoever and those are not the same thing.

So I can both hate lockboxes and not call up the authorities to complain about gambling.

NY state though… they seem to actually have a point about Valve hosting the marketplace for selling/trading items on Steam where they can obviously get a sense that there is values in play.

That said, there is still no legal way to withdraw money from your Steam account that I know of, so if somebody buys that CS:GO hat from you for a million dollars… you now have a million dollars you can only spend on Steam.  If you cannot cash out your Itchy & Scratchy money, is it really money?  And if it is not real money, is it gambling?

I guess we’ll find out!

• Phil Spencer Out at XBox… and so what?
  • MSFT – Asha Sharma named EVP and CEO, Microsoft Gaming
  • Game Developer – The next Xbox is code named “Project Helix,” will also play PC games

Who cares?  Rich white guy retires to spend the wealth he amassed, most recently through bonuses achieved by firing people in large numbers.  Hardly worthy of note and certainly low on my list for “unfortunate.”  Then again, you never know who you’ll miss until you see their replacement.

In the case of XBox it is Asha Sharma, who is coming over from running the AI operations at Microsoft, which was a huge red “AI Slop incoming!” flag waving in my book.  That put me on my guard, expecting the worst as usual.  What else can one expect in 2026?

Of course, the mouth breather narrative ignored that and went after her for being a girl and not a “REAL” gamer and the usual sort of embarrassing gamer elitist nonsense.  You’re lucky she does actually play video games.  You want more Bobby Kotick?  Because behaving like this is how you get more Bobby Kotick!

Nothing like the Gamergate bozos to make even an AI exec look good by comparison.  And she did announced that XBox hardware wasn’t dead yet.

Public post on March 5, 2026

Granted, that was all likely started under Phil’s watch and the announcement saved for her to give her some cred… but at least it didn’t mention AI.  I’ll take what I can get on that front for now and we’ll see what Project Helix ends up being later.  And what do they mean it will play PC Games?

• Sony Keeping more PlayStation Games as Exclusives
  • Engadget – First-party PlayStation games aren’t coming to PC anymore
  • The Aftermath – It Is Time To Say Goodbye To PlayStation Games Coming To The PC
  • IGN – Sony Returned to Console Exclusivity – Worried That Releasing Games on PC May Hurt Sales of PS5 and Even PS6
  • Polygon – PS5 games aren’t selling well on PC — so Sony is pulling the plug

This one is a bit of an odd duck, if only because the takes has been somewhat mixed, something I tried to capture in my choice of links.

There is just the plain telling, which may cause you to think that Sony is feeling a bit of the Nintendo vibe, which is that what they do best is make consoles and games for those consoles and that they should just focus on that.  Focusing on your core business is one of the two bits of advice a consultant will give you.  (If you are already doing that then they will tell you that you need to diversify… because consultants are mostly interesting in getting paid.)

Then there is the view that porting to PC is cannibalizing PlayStation sales, the idea being that we would all be rushing to buy their hardware if they would just stop letting us run it on our PCs.  I suspect that there is a thread of this running through the decision, but that even Sony knows that cutting off PC sales won’t get people to buy their hardware.  They may just want to reward their loyal followers.  Even that seems legit.

And then there is Polygon who has decided that since everything isn’t a Helldivers II level hit… based entirely on concurrent player counts on Steam… that PC gaming just isn’t worth the effort.  I mean, there is a non-zero chance that this is true, but it seems unlikely that Sony wouldn’t just say that it isn’t worth the invenstment.

But who really knows?  Word is that the PlayStation 6 is a few years out still, so maybe Sony wants to make the brand seem more valuable with unique launches.

• AI, like Crytpo, Fucking Up Hardware Prices
  • CNBC – AI memory is sold out, causing an unprecedented surge in prices
  • Axios – The AI boom could make TVs more expensive
  • NPR – Memory loss: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

I saw an article the other night while reading on the iPad in bed that was suggesting that Nintendo’s Switch 2 might be relegated to mostly first party titles because, of the 12GB of RAM it comes with, only 9GB is available to run games, which may discourage 3rd party developers.

As somebody with a PC with 64GB of RAM, that does not seem like a lot of RAM.

And then the article… I forget where I saw it and haven’t found it again (wait, here it is)… pointed out that while the memory can be expanded through SD cards, these days the AI data center scramble has gone as far as purchasing RAM futures to meet the needs for insatiable AI bubble… so that 2TB SD card that represents a fully upgraded Switch 2 is suddenly very expensive if obtainable at all.

As with crypto before, the greed of the AI billionaires is fucking up things for everybody else all in an effort to shove their pet tech investment down our collective throats for any and all purposes, useful or not.

Well, you can always play at being a VC AI investor with this text game and tell everybody who questions your investment in the whole thing to fuck off to see what it is like.

Every VC ever

I didn’t even need to go to oddball tech and gamer sources for links for this one.  This is mainstream news.

• Tell Me You Didn’t Buy Those Stupid Meta Glasses
  • Futurism – Meta Workers Say They’re Seeing Disturbing Things Through Users’ Smart Glasses
  • Ars Technia – Workers report watching Ray-Ban Meta-shot footage of people using the bathroom
  • Tech Crunch – Meta sued over AI smart glasses’ privacy concerns

Seriously, is this even a surprise that Meta never has a plan to handle privacy?  Zuck is probably peeking in on that while at the office pretending to work.  He has a history of that sort of dipping into people’s privacy.

Also, how stupid is Meta?  Did they not read the brief about that time Google tried this sort of thing back in 2014?  Nobody will ever convince me Zuck is anything but a lucky, petulant man boy.

And so it goes.  Welcome to the weekend.