Is this game mostly an inventory management game like Divinity Original Sin 2? I tried playing it but I was just clicking around menus 80% of the time.
There are a few notable inventory improvements, but the most important is that BG3 is much less gear/stat dependent than DOS2. You don't have to sweat trading stats for each slot and character building is simpler (no skillbook type of progression beyond wizard spell scrolls, and that's optional). You'll still get engaging, difficult, beatable combat. The inventory is kludgy and there are a lot of items but it's much less important to focus on than DOS.
No lone-wolf mode made me wonder if the game would be too fiddly for me, but there are other ways to streamline combat. Champion fighters, berserker barbarians, non-arcane trickster rogues are mechanically simple subclasses that are fun to play. 5e is forgiving for party composition in a way DOS2 isn't.
This is a well-known criticism of the game though. Even putting rune mgmt and crafting aside, after dinging a new level, you should be hitting up the vendor and upgrading/selling gear so that you can deal with enemies at your new level effectively. And you do that process x4 because you are managing 4 characters. I personally didn't mind the ceremony too much but I can definitely see how some people would be put off by it.
It sounds like this is only about google search. How can that be broken up? Or are they just going to get fined many billions of dollars and they lose their right to being the default search engine on iPhones?
The author is just focusing on this aspect bc that’s this case, but there’s multiple ongoing. E.g. there’s one about monopolistic practices in the online ad business.
Specifically here:
How does Google lock out rivals? Well, it pays $45 billion a year to have distributors refuse to carry its competitor’s products, signing deals with “Apple, LG, Motorola, and Samsung; major U.S. wireless carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon; and browser developers such as Mozilla, Opera, and UCWeb— to secure default status for its general search engine and, in many cases, to specifically prohibit Google’s counterparties from dealing with Google’s competitors.”
That sounds anticompetitive to me. But I understand that proving criminal anticompetitive behavior is extremely difficult under US law, which is why it almost never happens. And companies as large as Google can outpunch regulators on legal spending, paying ex-government lawyers millions per year to work around the rules.
> lose their right to being the default search engine on iPhones?
It would mean they can't PAY apple to make Google the default search engine. Apple would then (in theory) pick whichever search engine is best and not just play ball with Google's lock in. This would therefore enable competition. In theory.
Based on the article it sounds like Apple would default to their _own_ search engine, which they would bundle with their browser, which is the only browser option on their OS, which is the only OS option on their smartphone, the sales of which generate 85% of all profits in the global smartphone sector.
Unclear if Google would still be allowed to default to Google search on their reskinned version of Apple’s browser (branded as “Chrome”, even though it isn’t). But that’s mostly up to Apple, since they write the rules for the App Store, the only way to install software on Apple’s OS. Google might have to maintain their $45bn/year tribute for that privilege.
The absolutism is a bit extreme, but your comparison isn't really fair either. Outside of crypto, we don't regularly see startups get loads of hype and money only to explode so spectacularly that the founders end up in jail.
> Outside of crypto, we don't regularly see startups get loads of hype and money only to explode so spectacularly that the founders end up in jail.
It is already known that the majority of unprofitable startups take tons of VC money and have regularly played the Silicon Valley playbook of 'faking it' until they are caught out in the open [0] [1] [2]. It has gotten so common to the extent where their favourite bank (SVB) went under with all these unprofitable startups crying over payroll when generating little to no revenue with inflated valuations.
We were supposed to learn from that VC pyramid scheme that has caused SVB to collapse which was so seismic that all those unprofitable startups would all have gone bust had capitalism just run its course without government intervention.
There really is no defence for continuing the constant dependence on raising VC money in unprofitable startups for years anymore after over-leveraging and injecting more cash at unjustified valuations in these startups. For this scam to be revealed so late shows how long many startups were able to get away from 'faking it'.
Yes. Moneygram, Circle and Stellar launched and aid program (Stellar Aid) that allows near instant, very low-fee and cross-border P2P payments worldwide to those in need of it. [0]
