Uncle Mike

It obviously wouldn't be that easy, but I do think the "divest COD" remedy is likely the least effective, if the goal is to somehow ensure everyone gets it. How much of COD's success is the brilliance of the game, and how much is Activision's support sledgehammering it into the public consciousness every year? How much does belonging to that giant behemoth a benefit that you can't replicate outside?

I don't care one jot for COD, so don't really know any of that. But I did see the difference with Destiny inside and outside of Activision, and they really clearly and visibly started struggling to produce the volume of work they needed to do, and generate the income they needed for a good while after they left.

What a fucking crock there from Kotick. Regardless of your views on the merger, him trying to plead that Activision are shit, actually (his final words), and also pretending to be surprised that Sony aren't all that interested in exploring "future opportunities" with a company that's shortly due to be owned by their main competitor and likely see the entire exec team leave seems like not a genuine argument.

Should Sony be investing in loads of deals now to tie up all the Activision content so they end up like they were with Deathloop and Ghostwire? I imagine it wasn't in their plan when they obtained those exclusive deals that everyone knew they'd be on Game Pass exactly a year later. And trying to do that sort of work would quite undermine the Sony argument anyway, wouldn't it? It's weak argument from someone who should be better at this sort of thing? I assume Kotick's quite personally invested in getting the deal through - the price tag seems very generous given 2023's outlook, and presumably he'd be expecting a massive golden goodbye. But it's just a third company (after MS and Sony) all crying in public about how shit and meaningless their companies are from a Zoom call on their gold-plated toilets.

Yes, I had a Chill Clip Aurvandil drop the other day (the other perk is crap and I can't recall, but Chill Clip is obvs desirable.) Presumably the Rhulk Fusion (Deliverance?) can also roll with it? If you were drowning in the Umbral Engrams, you can focus Omolon weapons at the Star Chart and really grind out an Aurvandil that way, but boy would it likely be painful.

18 minutes ago, Hexx said:

What are the seraph crafting weapons considered good to get?

 

Ive got the IK hand canon Disparity, and insane DPS machine gun.

Ikelos submachine gun. For either a Feeding Frenzy/Frenzy roll, or with Voltshot.

Fire and Forget, maybe?

All these weapons are largely optional anyway. We're about to get a presumably sizable new set with Strand synergies and so on. No-one needs to grind anything they don't want to.

I do not have a Bound Presence, sadly. They're quite the rare drop for me.

I think I'm left to acquire Drang (one red bar remaining, so 3 Containments max) and the Arc Linear Fusion from Season of Pirates (Sailspy Pitchglass?) - 2 patterns remaining, so a couple of Expeditions and maybe a Ketchcrash or two to grind the ingredients for that.

Then I've largely gotten everything I think looks worthwhile, at least. As someone who'd skipped a lot of Pirates, I actually found earning the upgrade currency retrospectively really easy - a lot of the sub-requirements in that season had just auto-completed during Seraph, so it almost all just fell out.

I don't think I'd relish going back to the Psi-Ops season at all. Thoughts and Prayers. (Is Thoughts and Prayers already a Destiny gun? It should be.)

The proposed remedies are amazing.

Allow it to go through, but then divest the Call of Duty portions

Allow it to go through, but then divest all of Activision

Allow it to go through, but then divest all of Activision and Blizzard

Block it.

and MS apparently don't want to be held to maintain COD parity by the regulator:

Quote

The regulator states that Microsoft has informed it of its commitments to keep Call of Duty on rival platforms such as PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, and says it would potentially consider this kind of remedy, but that it would prefer a structural solution such as removing Activision from the deal altogether as it requires less ongoing enforcement.

PSN is having issues tonight (we had to quit a Destiny raid because two of our team lost entitlement - they are not the primary user - and it seems the authorisation service is broken) so I'd perhaps try again tomorrow anyway.

3 Containments to buy a focussed red bar, plus first Opulent Key gets a random red bar, plus first Bound Presence too. So it might not be too much of a grind? But yeah.

I don't really think anyone's been personally called out for saying that they'll buy the game. And there certainly were people who took sufficient umbrage at Blizzard's scandals to find Diablo IV a less attractive prospect. 

Yes, that's the default. I suspect that the craftables will turn up somewhere. Maybe the Exotic kiosk?

I really like Tears of Contrition. It makes a great noise.

I think the only gun I don't have from Season of grinding Containment (you're welcome, Nate) are Firefright and Drang. Maybe I'll finish off Drang. But if I'm gonna grind one, I'd guess it's Tarnished Mettle really. I need 4 more red bars to get that done, and I didn't complete enough of the story yet to buy them. Annoying!

3 minutes ago, Nate Dogg III said:

might get an Austringer and Calus Mini Tool while I'm at it. Oh and maybe Bump In The Night as rockets sound like they're going to be pretty dominant in Lightfall and it rolls with Chill Clip. 

Prioritise the Mini-Tool and Bump In The Night over Austringer, I reckon. The Mini-Tool with Incandescent is even more fun than a Voltshot Ikelos.

Just now, Hexx said:

Wait what?

As of this week's hotfix, the red border weapons at the various HELM vendors can all be bought once per day, not once per week. So if you've got the relevant Umbral Energy, it's bonanza time.

I think the game's overdue a mix-up, so I don't mind if Linears take a hit. We're at a point now where there's a few things that just don't really change. There's no reason (other than boredom) for a Titan to every do anything other than a Solar/Loreley build (except in the few cases where you really want Thundercrash,) LFRs are the boss kilers for virtually every boss (except a few where you use Lament,) elemental-triggering SMGs are viable in almost every activity and so on.

I am really enjoying the new "you can buy the red bar focussed weapons every day" regime. Will it be enough to encourage me into Ketchcrash/Expedition to grind the Tarnished Mettle?

Do Wellspring and Dares disappear when Lightfall come out? I might look to see if there's anything there I want.

The goats were the best part.

Yes, it's quite well hidden. It's in the same place you link your account to YouTube, Twitter or Twitch. Sorry I can't be more specific, I did it then turned it off.

20 minutes ago, Sarlaccfood said:

the collection of PS4 games that they’re taking away in May.

Although if you've already "bought" them by then, you don't lose them AFAIK.

I haven't checked the price, but I doubt it (I would guess that's a year of Plus Essential.) What I'd do is check the price of a year of Extra on Sony's website, then buy that amount of PSN credit from ShopTo. You should get 10-15% off via that route.

Unless you're prepared to run an NGO then you can't post on rllmuk.

I wonder when they start to worry about PS Plus numbers dropping. It dropped last time as well, from memory? Presumably they'd make the argument that it might have been artificially high from Covid previously, but for how many years is that a valid excuse?