Awesome news. Asobo once said that A Plague Tale Innocence could be a standalone title and that they did not really have any plans for a sequel so this is the first real exciting surprise reveal of E3 for me.

jdreyer wrote on Jun 11, 2021, 14:27:
Another thing that DCS world needs to overcome is the "one plane is $60" stigma.

I don't think that they need to "overcome" that stigma at all. Flight sim enthusiasts are used to these prices for study level quality aircraft. The best Boeing planes for Microsoft Flight Simulator (and Prepar3d) from PMDG have always cost $130 and more. Some of the jets in DCS World are also more expensive than $60. The new A-10, the F-16 and the F/A-18 are all selling north of $70.
The only stuff that is overpriced with DCS in my opinion are the maps but otoh Eagle Dynamics is once again pretty much following the pricing of scenery for MSFS/XP11/P3D here. Depending on coverage, a price between $35 and $50 is (unfortunately) perfectly normal for decent scenery in the flight sim genre.

Anyway, the DCS planes, their flight models, the avionics and the complex, intricate systems take ages to finish.
An incredible amount of development time, effort and real engineering work is going into these projects. There are also licensing costs. The prices for some modules are high but not unreasonable at all. You can spend hundreds of hours with a single module if you really want to become a good sim pilot. The USAF uses the new A-10 for training. It's that good and accurate.

Flight sim enthusiasts know all this and they are usually people with an attention span much greater than an Ace Combat gamer kiddie. The last thing that DCS needs is cheaper modules and an influx of whiny gamer kiddies who think it'd be way kewl to fly a F-16 only to complain 24/7 that everything is TEH HARD and not fair and that the game SUXX AZZ... culminating in review bombing DCS World into oblivion and causing real harm.
DCS World is a sim for people with a brain, a willingness to actually RTFM and it all requires a lot of patience, study, trial & error, refinement, honing your skills etc.

However, there is good news for the gamer kiddies in so far as Eagle Dynamics is still working on Flaming Cliffs 4 which, like FC3 (a module less enthusiastic people could also play right now), will have one price for a decent variety of much simpler aircraft for a more casual approach to a combat flight sim.

Is this game going to follow the Souls formula, i.e. barely playable on PC without a controller and extra hard to piss off PC gamers even more?

Agent.X7 wrote on Jun 10, 2021, 16:40:
This time we really, really, really, really, really mean it!

Hey MS, remember when you took a bunch of PC games and made them exclusive to XBOX and then let PC gamers have SOME of those games YEARS later? (Halo) Or started a bunch of series on both PC and then XBOX but then fucked over PC gamers by only putting certain entries on XBOX? (Fable, Gears of War) Or "committed" to PC gaming by doing a lazy port of an XBOX interface and jamming it into Windows?

Yeah, you can go blow goats, Phil.

Exactly. This (among many other things) is why MS can not be trusted at all. They still have only one goal in gaming: Xbox. Ever since the plan has failed to brute-force every PC gamer into buying a Xbox they are taking a different approach by forcing Xbox upon the PC platform. Everything on Windows that has to do with gaming is called Xbox. They don't care about the PC at all.
It will be quite interesting to see if the new version of Windows that will be revealed on June 24th will finally let the cat out of the bag with 100% forced UWP walled garden apps. There is a reason why Valve keeps investing in Proton and working on their own consoles. Gabe has sources. He probably knows exactly that MS is up to no good at all when it comes to PC gaming and the future of a relatively (DirectX dominance already is "walled garden lite") open PC platform.

It's not quite summer yet here in the Northern Hemisphere...

The meteorological start of summer is June 1st so it actually is summer already . June 21st is only the calendrical start of summer date.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Jun 7, 2021, 15:34:
I remember playing the original R6 and being blown away by how awesome it was.

The original was decent. Rogue Spear and add-ons was even better. Such awesome memories (the 747 level, Prague Opera House, Kosovo village, New York Museum of Art, Russian dacha, the oil tanker). It was, by far, the pinnacle of the series for me. Rainbow Six 3 (Raven Shield/Athena Sword) was OK but the levels were not nearly as good or memorable as the ones from Rogue Spear. It was pretty unspectacular, boring standard fare.

Lockdown did not exist in my world. I only played the demo and that was enough to tell it was crap. In spite of the negative word of mouth, I ended up liking the R6 Vegas games more than I thought. They were pretty good. Then came Siege which didn't even have a single player campaign anymore. If I were still in my 20s and a Counter-Strike fan then I'd probably be more interested in the competitive multiplayer aspect but nowadays zero interest.

Unfortunately, Siege was super-successful so I would guess that Extraction is going to be another multiplayer fragfest in the exact same vein. Even if it had a campaign I'm not sure I'd be interested with the weird theme this game seems to be following.

TL;DR = R.I.P Rainbow Six

Mr. Tact wrote on Jun 7, 2021, 11:23:
All well and good -- and if accurate, then let's see the numbers.

Here's a number: Intel Water Facility Recycles 1 Billion Gallons . And as I posted earlier: TSMC is reusing nearly 87% of its water. Intel does not seem to publish a percentage number but as we can see from their past and ongoing projects they are very conscious of water consumption and water conservation. Regarding their packaging materials they strive to reach a 95% recycling ratio.

I would generally agree that AZ is a decent choice. The alternative locations up north that were suggested here seem more prone to natural disasters such as wildfires or blizzards or just extreme cold spells that could negatively impact power supply. A loss of power is typically a real bummer for semiconductor fabs since you can usually trash all wafers that were currently in production.
Of course the main reason for AZ for both Intel and TSMC is likely attractive financial conditions but the other reasons that were given also make sense. AZ might become to semiconductors what Austin is to the entertainment industry.

There is another article on Intel/TSMC AZ fabs on ArsTechnica. What I found interesting is that Intel is investing quite heavily in water restoration projects.
I don't know about Intel's water recycling rates but TSMC is already recycling something like 87% of its water in its Taiwan fabs and they have stated that 87% is not the end of the road. They want to improve this even further. That's why water supply isn't such a huge concern overall. Other factors play a role as well (from the Ars article):

But as Forrester research director Glenn O'Donnell told CNBC, chip-fabrication plants are similar to indoor swimming pools—"you need a lot to fill it, but you don't have to add much to keep it going."

[...]

What Arizona lacks in water, it makes up for with overall stability—the state is very seismically stable and does not suffer from hurricanes or wildfires, with low risks of other natural disasters such as tornadoes to boot. Building chip fabs without such guarantees is possible—for example, Intel has a large presence in Oregon—but chip fabricators on the West Coast must take extreme isolation measures, which Arizona plants don't require.

it is almost impossible to imagine the courage it took to storm those beaches

This is very true. If you were in one of the first boats to make landfall, you must have known that there was a very high chance to simply get mowed down by defensive machine gun fire. You had to know that you were essentially cannon fodder paving the way for the 2nd or 3rd row of boats who stood a better chance because of factors like the Germans needing to reload, more targets (less concentrated enemy fire) and overheating enemy weaponry, jams, other technical issues. Everyone who helped liberate Europe from Nazi oppression was a hero but those guys in the first line on the beaches of Normandy deserve an extra layer of respect.

This comment was edited on Jun 6, 2021, 18:43.

fakespyder wrote on Jun 1, 2021, 18:29:
The cynic in me says this is Crytek's way to get even more exclusivity cash from Epic. Although they were smart enough this time to just say PC and not single out a storefront. We'll see.

This whole remaster isn't about the PC anyway. It's about bringing Crysis to the new consoles and making a quick buck. The remaster of the original Crysis on PC was abysmal on release with a missing level that was originally cut from the console versions way back in the day due to performance issues. Crytek didn't even put in the effort to use the original PC version as a blueprint for the PC remaster. They used the console version. How low can you go?
Yes, that level has been added now in a post-release update due to a huge outcry from the fans but it's a huge warning sign for the other remasters in the series. The focus is clearly on consoles. Like, why would Crysis 3 even need a remaster on PC? That game still looks awesome on PC. It's obvious that Crytek is just out for a cash grab targeting the new console gen kiddies. And maybe they are working on a new Crysis for the current gen, too.

Wallshadows wrote on Jun 1, 2021, 19:07:
3400 queue up on Mankrik. Can't wait for the Outland world server to crash and go through it all again while I wait on respawns in between.

Why would you (try to) play on launch day?

WoW is 17 years old ffs and people still queue up on launch day...

Flo wrote on Jun 1, 2021, 11:00:
Curious if this will translate to Xbox Series X/S and PS5 as well.

Yep. Console support has been confirmed as well and that's why FSR will probably be the only upsampling tech at a future date when it is on par with DLSS. We will probably see DLSS only in nVidia-sponsored Gameworks titles once that happens. For nVidia customers I'd say the status quo is win-win since they can freely alternate between FSR and DLSS for the time being.
I doubt that AMD would have open sourced FSR this soon if they were convinced that it is a serious contender for DLSS. It seems more like they are a little late and a little desperate to get devs to use the technology. We'll have to wait for independent reviews but I have a feeling it will take quite a while before this makes it to DLSS 2.0/2.1 quality levels. Open source might help in getting FSR there sooner. We'll just have to wait & see...

fakespyder wrote on May 29, 2021, 18:31:
I'd just go through Uplay or whatever it is called now.

uPlay is called UbiSoft Connect now while the subscription service is called UbiSoft+ instead of uPlay+. The Ultimate edition of Far Cry 6 will only be $14.99 if played via the subscription service. I might go that route if the price takes too long to drop but I'm generally in no rush to play another Far Cry anyway. I'll get it when it's content complete.

Xero wrote on May 29, 2021, 20:16:
Epic exclusive?? Baaaah! I guess I"ll be able to wait until the Steam version drops and hopefully have a new rig by then for "current" generation.

As others have pointed out it is not Epic exclusive. It will be on UbiSoft's own UbiSoft Connect primarily, Epic Games Store secondly. It won't be on Steam after one year or maybe even ever. Ubi have turned their back on Steam completely for the time being. Whether they will return one day like EA or not remains to be seen.

OpticNerve wrote on May 29, 2021, 20:20:
Same applies to EGS-bought Ubisoft games.

Oh? Is that a recent change? You used to be able to just play the game through uPlay (UbiSoft Connect) alone. Well, at least after the first launch which was obviously required to link the game to your UbiSoft account. After that first launch you used to be able to just play it like any uPlay-owned title.

Slashman wrote on May 28, 2021, 14:30:
What the hell did I just witness?

Jehovah?

Bleeder wrote on May 27, 2021, 13:19:
Still waiting for the unreleased 2009 game which looked way better than this.

Good luck with that wait...

I specifically did not ask for this.

Saboth wrote on May 21, 2021, 13:11:
I used to get so excited for this, but these days every other marketplace has games for cheaper throughout the year. Every now and then you'll find a good deal on the Steam sales, but mostly it's the exact same price it was during the last sale, and I swear some games jack up their prices before the sale.

That's why Steam has the points shop now. They know their sales suck but they want you to stay away from all of the other places with better deals so you can earn points for profile fluff by being a loyal Steam purchaser.

HoSpanky wrote on May 21, 2021, 19:28:
How about maybe a new game, instead of remaking the same games?

The Mass Effect Legendary remaster topped the Steam sales charts last week in spite of a $60 price tag. Enough said. Expect many more cash grabs.

Slashman wrote on May 20, 2021, 18:43:
I mean it seems to me that waiting means you get a better game with free DLC (cheaper)...but maybe I'm the crazy one.

This is absolutely true for those of us who can wait. I can. I like buying fully patched complete editions. I don't need to be a day one player. I have a huge backlog so I'm never starved for a game. It happens very rarely that I buy a game on release and usually I only do it when there is no DLC on the horizon and if the game can be expected to be mostly polished.

However, it is my impression that the vast majority of gamers can not wait. I'm not sure what your Steam numbers are supposed to prove. Of course, some people still wait for the Steam version, some people buy the game a second time on Steam, some people do not even know of the EGS per se or its exclusivity deals because they only ever use Steam and don't even care enough to be informed. Games always sell on Steam. Look at the latest Steam Top 10. Number one is Mass Effect Legendary. A $60 remaster of a series you'd think most gamers have probably played by now. The game could easily be bought cheaper outside of Steam. Still it's no. 1 on Steam. It's just the way it is. Steam is big, bordering on a monopoly. Which is non-news.

Burrito of Peace wrote on May 20, 2021, 17:46:
Whatever game might be exclusive to them is surely something someone can live without or wait until the exclusivity ends and they can purchase it from some other, different colored store front.

This is the main problem for the vast majority of gamers: They can NOT simply NOT buy a new shiny and they can NOT wait either. This is where the rage at EGS is coming from in the first place. The vast majority of gamers is an instant satisfaction crowd. With the exclusives, instant satisfaction can only be had by buying a game on EGS. All of this may sound silly to people like you and me who have a level of self control that allows them to easily make a decision to simply wait for broader availability but the vast majority of gamers feel like they are being violently "forced" to buy the game on EGS. Waiting or, God forbid, not buying a new game is not even an option for many people.