CIWS-30

Sad, because I was a fan of them and bought all their games from Saint’s Row 1 all the way to Gat out of Hell (although not in chronological order) and got Agents of Mayhem for free somewhere, but think they’ve made some bad moves lately.

I think it all started going downhill from Agents of Mayhem, and them screwing up with the reboot of Saint’s Row was probably the nail in the coffin. I wish they’d just made Saint’s Row 5 instead, with wacky time travel shenanigans and a more polished set of superpowers.

At the point where they decided to “reboot” to something old school and grittier (TOO old school, imo) they really didn’t get what their fanbase wanted, and what new players who’d only heard of and experienced Saint’s Row 4 would get excited about.

They could’ve probably taken Saint’s Row up to 6 entries if they’d just iterated on the formula from 4 and possibly Gat out of Hell (I wouldn’t know, I got distracted and didn’t play it after I bought it, ironically). Similar to how United Front Games (the developer of Sleeping Dogs) could’ve probably stayed in business if they’d just made Sleeping Dogs 2 instead of that horrible “free to play” multiplayer asset flip of some of the least interesting elements of Sleeping Dogs 1.

Given how modern AAA games are and Bethesda’s recent track history, it’s not negative to be skeptical, it’s smart.

Especially since despite Microsoft watching over them and helping them to have the most “bug free launch in history” it’s still probably going to be a hot mess for weeks to a month after launch. I want to be pleasantly surprised, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

Plus, the recent release of Baldur’s Gate 3 with no microtransactions or season passes, etc. has gotten peoples’ standards up, and given that Microsoft paid a lot of money to buy Bethesda, we’re aware that they’re going to have to make that money back somehow, and will probably give into the temptation to do some really player unfriendly things to do it.

Bethesda’s been going all in on surprisingly expensive microtransactions for really tiny amounts of content, like in Fallout 4 and 76, and it wouldn’t be shocking for them to continue in that direction. People aren’t being mindlessly negative, they’re looking at current and past trends and making an educated guess about the future.

I remember reading about how Kodak tried to block digital cameras (even its own) so as not to compromise their own film business, only to be caught unprepared later on when the digital camera revolution came anyway and then took massive losses.

It’s funny how they build the first.

TLDR: He doesn’t forgive anyone who sins, he forgives those who repent. Repent not meaning “feeling sorry” as many seem to explain, but actually meaning “to turn away” which means changing fundamentally as a human being. From a bad person to a good person.

Someone who doesn’t change and act good most of the time isn’t repentant, so isn’t forgiven. So basically, you prove it with your actions and how you live your life, not with just words only. By this measurement, Republican “Christians” aren’t repentant and so aren’t forgiven.

Not a Christian anymore, but I used to be for a very long time. Sidebar: “You will know a tree by it’s fruit” AKA you’ll know what kind of person someone is by what they do. Anyone who’s even skimmed the bible (especially the new testament) would easily understand that most conservative “christians” aren’t Christian at all, but rather like the Pharisees (phony religious types) that Jesus constantly argued with and condemned.

Other note: Sikhs actually live the way Christian claim to. I could easily make a “hard to swallow pill” meme which said: “Sikhs are better Christians than actual Christians are.”