Pay more to play more?

Projektitachi (00:24.804)
What is up everybody? Welcome back to another week of the GZ Chop Chop podcast. I'm your host, Project Hitachi, joined by my good friend and co -host, Warners. And first, before we dive into this week's episode, I know you guys are probably wondering, you're like, hey guys, know, the episodes haven't been coming out weekly over the summer. That's because we've been taking some breaks during the summer. We know you guys are on your vacations. You guys are pretty much in wind down. And so were we, we were taking a couple of breaks here and there. So if the episodes haven't been rolling out every week,

That's why we're trying to get our little vacations in as well. But we can't just let all the good news slide by without talking to you guys. this week, know, corners, one of these is probably going to bother you. The other one is just going to be something I think we both agree on just being complete and utter madness. So we're going to start with the madness first. Mortal Kombat 1 has announced their DLC. Big surprise.

For those who haven't looked yet at it, it is going to cost you a whopping $49 .99 for the base DLC, which is the continuation of the story called Chaos Reigns. And it's going to cost you $59 .99 if you want the story expanded DLC with the combat pack too, which is coming with a female Cyrax and Sektor.

Conan the Barbarian, the T1000, and Ghost Face. Yeah, from that franchise as the Combat 2 pack. I'm not quite sure what Warner Brothers or NetherRealm, whoever was in charge of the pricing on this thing, was thinking by charging a full game price.

For the dlc which I think and and we were talking about this in discord and and bern actually said this too and I agree It really screws over everyone who bought the collector's edition Of mortal combat which was 109 Dollars, which by the way, you can get a discounted price right now. It's on sale if you already have the base game and you want it upgrade, which there's actually no reason because the dlc is not going to be included in that Everyone who spent a hundred dollars on it and if they want to

Projektitachi (02:49.424)
having the optimal experience now Mortal Kombat is running you up to $160 total for the full game. That's insane.

Daniel (02:59.56)
That's gross. That's so gross.

Projektitachi (03:04.848)
Like I can't, we were talking about game prices in the Discord and we're pretty much for the most part in a grants, but at the same time, you know, a little bit split where some of us are kind of like, well, you know, the game prices haven't changed all that much, which when you look at some of the historical prints of Sega and Nintendo, that for the most part is true. Their games were still $69, $59 back in the day and they're still

Well, know, Sega's out, but Nintendo's still pretty consistent. You know, we always talk about, Nintendo's so expensive. Nintendo just doesn't like to do sales, but they're also the only one who's been consistent in their price, almost like they already knew the future before it hit. And then they just stuck there. But I also had said, we don't see the games as being more expensive because the marketing and these

companies behind the developers, the big ones, the old boomers who were trying to make so much money off of gaming, they treat it like taxes. Instead of calling it a fee, how the system is like, well, we'll call it a tax and then we can charge people whatever we want. That's how they're treating games now. Well, instead of giving them the full game, we'll break it up in parts. And then we'll charge you the price you're used to for the skeleton of the game.

And then over the months and years will charge you $30, $10, another $30. And before you realize it, you're thinking, hey, man, you know, this was a full game, but now you've spent upwards to $220 for that one game. We're back in the day. Yes, it was $60, $70, but that was it. That was you spent $60, $70. You had your full game. There was no DLC expansions and whatever. And it really comes down to the debate, I guess,

Are these expansions worth it? Are you really getting more bang for your buck? Or are we just getting a longer drawn out version of what we were already getting back in the early 2000s and 90s and earlier?

Daniel (05:14.76)
What's the story? Like, did they say like what the story was that they'll be releasing for the DLC? Like, what are they actually expanding on?

Projektitachi (05:21.818)
So the story, yes, so the MK1 story is continuing from where MK1 ended. It did end on a cliffhanger where basically, and get this, the multiverse, because everyone's still in the multiverse train, pretty much had their big bow. It was this huge collision and it's going to pick up where Havoc pretty much left it hanging where, you know, big bag Havoc has entered into our timeline.

the new timeline created by Liu Kang, and he's trying to create anarchy across all the known universes in the MK universe. So it's going to pick up where that left off. And it comes out September 24th. So that's right around the corner, which I wish they had said something sooner. Maybe they did, but I didn't see it come across the radar.

I'm like, man, you're telling people like right now, by the way, the DLC is coming next month. and it's going to be 50 bucks. So it's kind of like, I feel like it's pressuring people into buying it without thinking about it. It's like, crap, it's going to come out. I got to buy it. So, you know, a lot of people are probably instinctively hit by and then, you know, $50. I'm like, but that's, that's a whole game. That literally is a whole game. So I'm wondering like how big this DLC is.

Daniel (06:42.378)
$20 more than $20 more in the shadow of the earth tree. And like that felt like an expansion. It felt like a proper expansion, not just DLC. So to sell it for $20 more than that is crazy to me. Because there's no way there's going to be more content.

Projektitachi (06:59.79)
No, I feel, and I've been saying this for a while, I feel that because fighting games have been on a big rise, on a big incline lately, after years of pretty much going under the radar, like the only thing that was keeping fighting games going was the FGC, you know, their EVO. But for the most part, most gamers weren't taking fighting games seriously. It was all about battle royals and shooters.

Well, now everyone's getting has been suffering from battle royal exhaustion. Everyone's a little annoyed and sick and tired of Activision and everything Activision doing. Apex has been letting their fans down. So everyone is starting to gravitate to other PVP -esque games. That pretty much is fighting. That's pretty much what PVP, the pinnacle PVP was. That was how PVP really began. And now it's gotten its rise back and

Unfortunately, like I said, the companies behind these developers are seeing that and now they're jumping on a chance to milk it because you notice wherever the gamers go, the gaming dynamic of that industry changes like fighting games have always had DLC characters. That's nothing new. Like they started that in the mid mid 2000s, but that wasn't as bad. They weren't really charging.

ridiculous amount for it. Like you could get DLC characters for like two dollars before and then if

Daniel (08:32.458)
Yeah, well you could individually just get characters and just add them to your game versus $60 for what, what, three or four characters?

Projektitachi (08:36.942)
Yeah, for like a couple bucks.

Projektitachi (08:41.936)
Yeah, so now they're like, well we'll up it and I mean look at Tekken 8 like Bandai I love you, but $8 for a character?

Daniel (08:49.306)
You know, this is another reason to why I never buy the like, I never buy like the deluxe editions or any special editions of games. I don't, I'm not spending a hundred plus dollars. I think it's insane that anybody does honestly to spend that much on one game. Like, cause it's like what they tend to do across the board is what you said earlier is you don't really get anything out of it. Maybe you get like a scan or you get a couple like headers or something.

and shaders and stuff added, but really you don't get anything for spending an extra 40, 50, $60 on the same game that they sold at base for $60. So I, I, I don't understand why people even fall for that because they always do this and then they turn around and they'll release it. They'll see, and they won't even at the very least release it at a, at a more like a discounted price. If you

already had the hundred or hundred twenty dollar version of the game to begin with. Like I feel like you should at least get a discount for spending that much.

Projektitachi (09:54.81)
And they used to do that. Like if you spent a hundred dollars, whether physical or digital, on the game, it included coverage for like everything. Like at least two years of, you know, DLC was covered. Or if it was a fighting game and you went all the way up, they were like, you had a character pass, you know, for like two years and every character that rolled out, you were good. You didn't have to do anything extra. But Mortal Kombat was like, I think they covered, I think they covered year one.

in the hundred dollar version. And then I don't trust any game now that says year one, because that tells me right there, you're going to milk this. And I was, know, and I said this as well. I was like, one of the reasons it's hard for me to really enjoy fighting games now is every new installment, all of them do it. Street Fighter, Tekken, you know, even the anime as they all do this.

they will charge you for characters you already had in the previous game that you paid for before. Or they'll find out who the favorites are, paywall them in the next version of the game. And it's so funny because we all get excited over it. Like Street Fighter, how many Street Fighters has Akuma been paywalled? When you used to just have to play the game.

and maybe beat it in like on hard or in an uncanny way to just unlock him because he was already in the game. He was just a secret character. I'm like, like what happened to secret character unlocks? Like that was the whole thing. Like, man, I, you know, I got to unlock this character and I get it. Not everybody is skilled enough. Some people, they might be like, well, you know, and I think that's what started a lot of gamers probably were upset

They couldn't get a character because they didn't have the skills or the patience to get that character, but they wanted to use that character. So they created the conundrum of why can't I just buy this character? And then, you know, the industry was like, you know what? That's not a bad idea. Here's an opportunity. Why earn it when you can just pay us for it? And that led us probably to where we are right now, which kind of sucks because

Projektitachi (12:15.176)
Granted, FGC can be super extreme, like it's not the most welcoming community, but for the most part, most of those people, took the time to learn the game, hone the skills, frame data, move cancels, all of that stuff. Combos, ridiculous amounts of dedication so they could get that character just to have someone else come along and just buy that character. And now that's the trend.

where it's like you can't unlock those characters just from gameplay. You have to pay for them. So if your favorite character is not on the main roster, when the game comes out, you already know what that means. They're paywall. They're 100 % paywall. You're going to have to pay to get your favorite character. And if you don't want to do the whole year one pass, then you've got to spend even more to buy individually. And then, yeah, you could be like, well, I'll just buy the character I want. But that's still the feast of purpose.

Like, why should I have to spend $8 at all? What did I buy the game for?

Daniel (13:21.076)
the fighting fighting games are this close to becoming becoming like sports games. And it's the big reason why I don't play sports games is because it kind of I think it's incredibly disgusting that it's the same fucking game every single year. And then they make you pay to have all those extra players back that they might offer from the previous year. And then, you new players, they'll make you pay for that. They do the same thing to sports games now. But with besides

the exception of the fighting game or besides the fighting game, they're just sitting there like, OK, well, we'll milk this for a whole six months. And then at month eight or nine, we'll drop another DLC. And then at year one, we'll have just a whole new version of the game. And that's what fighting games are doing now. They're just putting out characters.

and selling it to you and then within a year or two coming out with another fighting game or the same fighting game like a sequel to that one and they're like okay well you can buy all these again all the characters you just paid for and it's really annoying dude

Projektitachi (14:30.768)
I think they found a way to relive the arcade day highs because they miss people spending $20 at the arcade with the fighting games, whether you were holding your throne or you were taking on challengers. They needed a way to make that money back and home fighting games didn't make them that money because you didn't need to pay anyone.

No one needed to go to arcade. You didn't have to pay anyone. So they had to find a way to still make that money they missed out on because arcades faded away.

Daniel (15:08.722)
I sell you the same exact game every year and make you repay for over half the game.

Projektitachi (15:13.072)
Yeah, now you're spending more than you probably would have spent at the arcade. And the thing is, we are now programmed to think of it like, it's not that bad. was 20 bucks once. I would have spent three times that amount at the arcade. No, you probably wouldn't have. Most of you probably didn't even wouldn't have broken $10 at the arcade. Granted, the economy and times were different. But on average, you might have spent like five bucks for an entire day of entertainment at the arcade because it was rotating and was cycling. Now you're spending

that amount for one character. So you're giving them the amount you would have spent at the arcade and then saw.

So what I tell, I do now, I wait until the game is past its prime, usually like two years, and all that stuff goes on sale. Immediately goes on sale, because they know no one's buying the season passes, the seasons are done. So they put it all on a sale for like 10 bucks, and then you can get everything for like 10 bucks.

Daniel (16:12.746)
I'd be so mad if I found out like I spent $100 on a special version of a game all just for it to go on sale like a month or two later for half the price.

Projektitachi (16:22.144)
Mm -hmm. the not in the fighting game, but the final shape is already on

Daniel (16:31.082)
final shape. right.

Projektitachi (16:32.08)
Final shape for Destiny 2.

$50 at launch. Everyone who paid the $50 upfront pre -ordered blah, It's on sale right now for like, I think like 30 bucks. They've already put it on sale.

Daniel (16:47.21)
You know what's crazy is it being on sale for 30 bucks. I remember Destiny 1. All the DLCs were $15.

Projektitachi (16:55.95)
Yep, I remember that too. Like when the DLCs were announced and coming out, it wasn't that big of a deal. And you were like, all right, cool, you know.

Daniel (16:58.878)
Mm -hmm.

Daniel (17:05.374)
DLCs doubled in price and then they doubled in price again.

Projektitachi (17:08.26)
Yeah, and then they put it on sale a few months a few months later because I think what the final shape launched When did shadow of the archery came out? They were around the same

Daniel (17:19.951)
of yeah like like March I think March or March or April or something or no no June.

Projektitachi (17:25.302)
June, I think it was, yeah, was June, June 21st. The final shape launched like early June. We're not, we are just now getting out of July and it's already on sale. So either people didn't buy the final shape or they got the money they wanted up front and they're trying to bring more people in. So then they put it on sale, but I'm like not even three months and it's already on sale. That is a huge slap in the face to everyone who paid the full price.

huge slap. That's why I can't I don't that's that's why I'm like iffy on on passes and season passes. Sometimes if it's like a new game, like burn got me into you know, the final descendant and I was like, okay, it's I don't mind grindy games because they're good time killers and I was like, you know what? I don't do battle passes a lot. So I was like, hey,

toss 10 bucks at this, because I'll probably never toss 10 bucks at it again. And I got that battle pass, because I don't remember the last time I actually bought a battle pass for anything. But that's also why I drifted away from shooters and stuff. like, one, I don't have that competitive edge that I used to have anymore. And two, they've implemented the FOMO effect in all of the shooters, especially Fortnite. Fortnite is the flagship carrier.

of get this while it's here, it'll never come back again with their skins and costumes. And everyone's like, man, I got to look like Spider -Man. I got to look like Iron Man. got to look like Deadpool Wolverine just came out. I have to look like them in the game. And all it tells me is a lot of you just had, you just really spent that money just to look that I still got the base Fortnite chick skin from when I actually used to play Fortnite and it was fun.

Daniel (19:19.998)
Are they really? Did they really add the Wolverine and Deadpool skins to for - wow that's wild.

Projektitachi (19:24.526)
Yeah, yeah, any new movie that's going to be trending, Fortnite has a skin already set for it. Every time.

Daniel (19:33.074)
It's wild to me that like Fortnite. Obviously, it's mostly kids that play it. It's mostly kids that play it, but they're promoting characters from a popular movie, a popular trendy movie out right now that's rated R and definitely not for kids at all. Like that's just they keep doing that. They like they subtly kind of promote like super not appropriate shit to kids. I don't I don't understand it.

Projektitachi (19:58.575)
yeah.

Daniel (20:00.328)
And everyone's just acting like it's not, like it's just completely cool.

Projektitachi (20:03.918)
Yeah, looking at you, Olympics, but we won't talk about that anyway. Anyway, yeah. Well, Fortnite is trying to be a game for everyone and somehow it's surviving. Because for the most part, I a lot of people don't have time to play.

Daniel (20:08.862)
Jesus Christ.

Projektitachi (20:33.956)
games that required investment in time. And I get it because, you and you can attest to this as well. When I was in the military, I did spend more time playing usually the shooters, the co -op games, because it was easy to just come in from work, sit down. I wanted to game, but I knew I couldn't get in my RPGs because RPGs demanded hours of time. You're not getting a lot done in an hour on an RPG, but I could get like four or five games in a Call of Duty when I came in from work, get my gaming high.

And then call it a day. you know, and because of our society, it's like eat, work, sleep, repeat. So a lot of the reason a lot of these games are thriving and surviving is because most people don't have that allotted time to play other games that don't milk their their wallet, you know, especially most guys they come in, they got family to take care of. Then they might get like an hour. That's if

you know, wife or if it's the if it's the the the the girl, the husband getting all worked out because they're playing the game for longer than 20 minutes. So then they, you know, they they get maybe like an hour to four. And I'm being generous when I say four week to play the game. So there, you know, these companies are taking advantage of that by constantly throwing these.

you know, new maps. these, you know, that's why these games are thriving. So doggone much there. You know, they're milking the people that can only jump in and play for like a good 20, 30 minutes to an hour because since I have more time to be able to play games, I realized I didn't need all that extra stuff because then I started real. I'm like, you know, I have a library. No joke. I have a library of like 700 video games counting all of my video games. And I'm

Okay, if they're throwing all this stuff at this game saying, get this new map, get this new map, I can just go to one of my other 699 video games and fill the time. By the time I think about coming back to this game, all that stuff will be on sale. And I've been killing it with sales lately. I've been getting stuff that was like hundreds of dollars when it came out, you know, like all the DLCs and they knock them down as far as like $10. And I'm like, yeah, I'll

Projektitachi (22:58.096)
I'll just wait. Yeah, sure. The game will be old, but it won't be dead, especially for RPGs. That's a single player experience. I can play that at any time. So I just add it to my library and it's only been 10 bucks as compared to getting it immediately day one for 30, 40 bucks. So I'm probably going to wind up doing that when MK1 they'll probably put it on sale before Christmas. But $50.

That's that's what it don't get me wrong. I like MK. I do I love Mortal Kombat. I like MK one But I cannot justify spending 50. I can't justify spending $60 on a DLC. It's like they saw Activision do it and I knew this was gonna happen. We said it we everyone complained, but no one actually Did anything about it? Everyone was

Daniel (23:37.194)
It's $60.

Projektitachi (23:58.958)
while they were checking out. That was the problem. They were complaining at the point of already paying the money. They were like, darn, this is some bull. How dare they do this? And then the cashier goes, you know, debit or credit. And they're like, you know, debit. And then they walk away with their overpaid DLC and then did nothing else. Like, we knew what it was. The articles were coming out about it and people still paid for

So now you got Warner Bros. They're like, well, shoot, Activision got away with it. Why can't we? And they will. They 100 % will. People will fuss as they're checking

Daniel (24:39.85)
Yeah, and I'm hard pressed to purchase DLCs. I have to actually feel like the game is going to be expanded on for me to spend $40, $50, $60 on a DLC. Otherwise, I just won't get it.

Projektitachi (24:54.704)
Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of games that actually expand with DLCs, our personal favorite Elden Ring Shadow of the Earth Tree. That was a DLC that was 100 % worth it. 100 % DLC that keeps on giving. But unfortunately, I have some bad news for you, sir. Some really heartbreaking, terribly bad news for you. You should have just you should have did the Radon fight when you had the chance.

because they just dropped the

and it's on your favorite spell.

Daniel (25:31.082)
no, they just nerfed the thorns. The thorn and bleed. They didn't nerf that shit for like two years and now in the DLC they're nerfing it. Whatever.

Projektitachi (25:33.486)
Yes, they nerfed it. As of this patch that came

Projektitachi (25:44.677)
of all the things.

Daniel (25:45.638)
I guarantee you it was just invaders complaining on that. That's what it

Projektitachi (25:49.016)
I think that's what it is too. Yeah, well, that and content creators. I won't put this all on invaders because they were using it as well. And I think the crowd of people who got killed by it wasn't as loud. I think this may lean more to content creators because what's one thing you can always see when you type in Elden Ring? OP build, game breaking build, god tier build. This bleed ends it

And after a while, we wind up in the situation that put us in shadow of the Earth tree. First of all, this game is easy. This game will be easy. And then everyone imitates that. And then people who were struggling will start acting like they were gods here and be like, yeah, this game's easy. Yeah, it was easy. And Bandai hears that and they're like, really? So what's everyone using? What's the matter right now? And it was Impenetrable Thorns.

So they were like, okay, so everyone's saying the game's good, the game's easy now, beaten Verdun, he's not that hard. So what happens when you take that away?

Now we'll see. Now we'll see. And even when I was reading the articles, a lot of people writing articles were not a fan of the impenetrable thorns. I don't know if they were invaders or I don't know if they were purists because with the Elden Ring, with the Souls community in general, it's a mixed bag. You got like three, four different angles it could be coming from. You've got the casuals who are just playing it because they love

Then you've got the purists who are like, I've been here since the dawn of man. There's only one way to play a souls game. Then you've got the invader mains who pretty much I want my stuff to be broken, but don't you dare gang up on me and have broken stuff. And then you've got the in -betweens where they're just kind of like, you know, I just kind of like to try a little bit of everything I do, a little invading. I play by myself. I just want to enjoy the game.

Projektitachi (27:56.494)
Whatever everyone else does, that's them have at it. It's your game. So it's hard to tell what may have affected impenetrable thorns. But this case, I think, is probably content creators mainly making busted builds and. And being an impenetrable thorns didn't need that much added to it to make it broken. I think that's where Bandai took an issue, because there's people who've done crazy damage.

like one -shotting, two -shotting Radon, but how they're doing it is a process. They're applying buffs in a specific order to not overwrite each other.

Daniel (28:34.194)
Yeah, that's, that's the thing that I don't like about a lot of patches and RPG games is you're the abilities themselves separately aren't busted. It's like you said, people are utilizing a ton of multiple things in the game, finding out what that equation is and then doing it, which is the point of games like that. You're supposed to find out like stuff that stacks and stuff.

So I feel like it's kind of a slap in the face to nerf like nerf that kind of stuff. Like if one spell is busted and one spell by itself is doing something crazy or one weapon like, yeah, sure. But if you're having to do a chain of events to like get it to practice certain way.

Projektitachi (29:09.71)
Now, they did nerf one of my favorite.

Projektitachi (29:20.258)
Yeah. Well, I mean, Impenetrable Thorns by itself was doing a lot of damage, but you weren't going to hear me complain. I was never going to complain. And most people that tried to use it against us, we kind of saw it coming. So we were like, all right, you're going to be you're going to be spamming with it. We have a response to that. But however, the spell that confused me, I well, I can't say it's confusing, but they they also nerf Miriam's Vanishing. I don't know if that was.

Daniel (29:25.726)
Yeah, it was.

Projektitachi (29:48.598)
So the invincibility window of teleporting, I guess, was too big for PVP. So I don't know if it was a coliseum issue or a host invader, invader to host. But I'm guessing Miriam's Vanishing was becoming a menace because it specifically got nerfed for PVP. The PVP portion, the invincibility window is not as long for the person using Vanishing. So

I'm guessing people that were coming in with quick attacks weren't landing them when someone would vanish and then they couldn't respond. And we all know usually meleeers, they hate spell casters. They call us our filthy spell chukers. So they probably complain when they try to, you know, Rambo a spellcaster only to get Miriam vanished.

And then you're sitting there with your back exposed and you take a common disorder to the back. I guess that would make you kind of But yeah, that one threw me off. was like, Marian's vanishing skin got getting nerf or for PVP. I'm thinking maybe it was more coliseum related. I don't see that being as big of a issue and invasions because it's the whole world. You know, there's the whole world happening around you. So that had to have been a coliseum issue.

Daniel (31:09.884)
Yeah, because I've used it in PVP before and it was okay. There were a couple of times it was helpful, but for the most part, it's not like it was difficult to catch me out of it or anything.

Projektitachi (31:20.686)
Yeah, I think that was a coliseum issue because there's nothing to distract. So the person could just teleport right through you and it could throw off your whole, you know, wombo combo if you had something set up. So, yeah, that was one of the things that they, they nerf, but they didn't just nerf. They buffed. Summons are supposed to have extra health and do more damage now and not be as stupid. So they say.

We will see, but the summons are supposed to be more helpful because I will say in the DLC.

Daniel (31:52.51)
They really did have the summons coming in the DLC. Just their IQ just draw. had never, dude, never seen someone just stand there and watch. I'm like, when did we swatch? When did we swap roles mimic?

Projektitachi (32:03.568)
Tell her the summons were terrible.

Projektitachi (32:09.316)
Yeah, like, some people were saying that they would take they have their mimic and the mimic was still doing work. And I'm

Can I have your mimic then? Because mine acts clueless sometimes in the DLC. We get back to the real, the base game, they're fine.

Daniel (32:26.118)
I've exactly, I've literally had mine just stand there and then just get the crap beat out of it. And I'm just like watching like, fine, I'll do it myself.

Projektitachi (32:33.508)
Yeah, basically it's like, fine, fine. I'll do it myself. So that was some of the things. I didn't go over the entire patch notes, but you guys can look them up for yourself. Just visit the Bandai Namco site. There's specific move patches, palm blast, blind spot, raging beast, savage lion's claw. They had some tweaks. Knight's lightning spear.

They did some tweaks on that. And then they have, course, your general balance and adjustments. They changed a healthy portion of, well, not a healthy part. I'll say small, small portion of the weapons, one of them being euphoria, which is a pain in the butt to get in the first place. So it looks like they buffed it. Actually, it's all been buffed. This is actually really good for you and I, because we both got euphoria, but they increased the holy damage when the weapon has its luster.

decreased how many attacks is required to restore the luster and they increase the duration of the luster. Which I think is fair because that's that's an end game weapon and even at the end game you can totally miss getting it. And then there's still no guarantee that you get it even if you know where it is because there's a lot of platforming and a tough enemy involved. So I think that was a good call to make that weapon more viable.

But yeah, some of the talismans got tweaked and a bunch of ashes of wars got tweaked and some spells. yeah, just visit the Bandai site if you guys want the full breakdown on the Elden Ring patches and all that. But I want to have our final thought here because you and I have both been playing it. How are you feeling about No Man's Sky?

Daniel (34:22.158)
I'm enjoying it's been years and I mean years since I've touched it. But I played we played Star Citizen for a while and Star Citizen was we liked how the technicalities of it and some I want to use a word realism but you know like just more I guess immersiveness with space flight in a game and the way the economy runs and how the how the game works.

Projektitachi (34:42.788)
Yeah, very immersive.

Daniel (34:50.002)
it's pretty cool. My only issue with stars has been was they, when they just work really hard to get like, you know, money and ships and then they just reset it. They wiped the world and I'm not, unless you purchase a ship outright, I just, don't like that. I wish starts to this and would turn away from that a little bit, but it's been years or product to do that. No man's sky. On the other hand, I feel like I got

Projektitachi (35:02.542)
and then they wipe the world.

Daniel (35:19.058)
I get more or less the same treatment as I did. Like it feels similar to Star Citizen, only if I earn ships and fleets and stuff, I'm not going to lose them. And I can't just go buy a ship outright, which I like to. I just don't like in -game purchases. Not a fan of that. It's easy to see why Starfield was such a fucking disaster, because

Because you know, flying in space in that game, because I played the demo and it was ass and flying in space in that games almost it's not the same experience at all as no man's sky. I can't believe no man's sky existed and Microsoft actually thought starfield was somehow better than that. And however, I will say this no man's sky was asked when it came out, which is why

Projektitachi (36:09.946)
Yeah.

Daniel (36:15.946)
I stopped playing it to begin with. just was not really into it. I was like, this is not what I thought it was going to be. I think we all felt the same way. But for no extra cost, really, they turned it around. And now it's a really phenomenal game. As a matter of fact, I think I'd share with you recently that the player base was up by like 500 % in the past few weeks, which I don't know why. This is really random. It's not like.

Projektitachi (36:41.956)
I think it hit like four million.

Daniel (36:43.53)
Yeah, like that. I just thought it was a really random thing to suddenly peak like because the game has been out for like 10 years almost like eight years or something. But yeah, it's as far as like space flight simulator adventure RPG games go like it's definitely the best one right now. And there's no I mean for all we know star filled my pole man no man's sky down the road and do the same thing and change stuff. But it's also Microsoft. So probably not.

Projektitachi (37:13.348)
They do have a DLC coming out. I don't remember the name of it, so we'll see. This will be their first hurdle.

Daniel (37:19.614)
No Man's Sky, because again, it had been so long since I played. They didn't do DLCs, did they? They just did updates.

Projektitachi (37:26.097)
yeah, it was just updates. It was just major updates. Yeah.

Daniel (37:28.286)
And they would just add a ton of stuff to the game with no extra cost. Crazy.

Projektitachi (37:33.614)
Yeah, they just called them updates. They were all like right now we're in a world part one. That's the current update, which means we know there's going to be a part two and they used assets from their upcoming game, Light No Fire, and brought them to No Man's Sky.

So, and every time I think I know everything about the game, I learn that there's other things you can do. And I'm like, okay, this is a space game. This, this is a space game. Now just let me take my star citizenship and bring it to no man's sky. Cause I really like my ship and I just, and then I'll never have to touch star citizen again.

Daniel (38:14.942)
It'd be cool to be able to put certain features and aspects of StarSys and Andomansky together. Like being able to go to planets and mine with miners and stuff, I think that's pretty cool. Being able to haul cargo and stuff, I think that's pretty cool.

Projektitachi (38:27.586)
Yeah, yeah, there's things about

I did there. Yeah, because we had a whole trade route we were doing and we were mining. And then it was like the tension of getting that quantainium to the space station. That was, you know, Star Citizen has I think I would love for them to just do a crossover. But I know Robert Space Industries loves money too much. So that will never happen. Like do like a ship crossover like or something that would be super cool. But, yeah, anyway.

That's all we got for you guys for this episode. Are you getting the Mortal Kombat DLC? Yes, no. What do you think about DLCs? You guys have heard us harp about it so many times, but we love to hear your thoughts. So hit us up on our social medias. Hit us up on our website, gzchopshoppodcast .com. And have you finished Shadow of the Earth Tree? Did you use impenetrable thorns? How do you feel about the buffs and nerfs? All that. We love to hear from you guys. Anyway.

We're out of here. Take care of yourself and each other and we'll catch all of you wonderful people on the next podcast. Later.