Skray

They largely are. $70 is becoming the new price point for a new game.

That would require every player even new ones to make very complex loot filters and understand what loot is valuable and not to automate it.

Every item in PoE that is automatically picked up doesn’t take up inventory space (Metamorph organs, Expedition fragments, Sulphite, Azurite). The concept is that players make an active decision of what they’re picking up and that they’re aware of what they have because they made an active decision to pick it up.
It doesn’t take control of their inventory away from the players.

It also feeds into the dopamine loop, when you get an exciting drop you see it on the ground it doesn’t automatically just get sucked into your inventory.

The DLC in all the games are fairly important depending on the DLC/expansion, and there can be a lot of it. DA2 and DAI both integrate well into the story while DAO was kind of built around the idea of side-story mini-adventures so there’s a lot more of them.

DAO Primary story DLC: Warden’s Keep, Stone Prisoner, Return to Ostagar add side quests to the main game and are solid to play.

DAO Standalone campaigns: Leliana’s Song is a prequel focusing on the Leliana party member (you’ll meet her pretty early in DAO although she is missable), Darkspawn Chronicles is an alternate history and not needed although fun, Golems of Amgarrak is a short post-story adventure that’s not that important, Witch Hunt is a post-game story around Morrigan that’s actually pretty important.

Awakening is a full-length expansion and absolutely worth playing, some of the characters you meet here tie into DA2.

DA2: All DLC integrates with the main story and can be played at any time. Legacy is a very important DLC that directly ties into Dragon Age Inquisition.

DAI: All 3 story DLC are fantastic, Jaws of Hakkon, The Descent and Trespasser.
Jaws and Descent are played during the main story as side quests, and Descent has some major lore implications for the world and raises some serious questions about the past and the potential future. Trespasser is a post-game story that directly leads into DA4: Dreadwolf when it comes out.

Also not sure if Gamepass supports this, but you can import your saves forward. For Dragon Age Inquisition you will need to use Dragon Age Keep to recreate your choices to import them into your world state.

2 definitely shows the issue of EA wanting to push the game out in 1.5 years. Many cut corners and a lack of assets with the repetitive maps.
I think it’s the weakest entry in the Dragon Age series, and a lot of it’s negative reception was because it failed to live up to expectations of DAO.

If Dragon Age 2 wasn’t a Dragon Age game, it wouldn’t have gotten the poor reviews it got. As a standalone game it’s actually not bad.

I always recommend playing it, as it directly leads into the story of Inquisition and it has some great characters in it.

Survivor games which are very similar to roguelites can also be an option. Vampire Survivors being the big one. Runs are up to 30 minutes long with permanent unlocks in the form of characters and new power ups or boosts.

Iron Danger.
It’s an indie tactical RPG that’s RTWP similar to other CRPGs. But the main feature of it is being able to rewind time to redo actions if they don’t work out, so combat ends up being similar to a puzzle as you rewind and reposition or try new attacks.
The downside is that it’s linear, and has no items and very little character progression which are what it’s lacking the most compared to a typical CRPG, but it’s an interesting take on the style of combat.

I would third control. I picked it up from the Humble female protagonist bundle and it was fantastic, loved everything about it.
Once you unlock all the powers the combat and exploration really open up, and the game still has a significant bit of story left giving you time to have some fun with them.

Also loved the environmental lore, all the notes and the vids with Dr. Darling are great. Highly recommend the game.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sat on the reddit board for years and was briefly CEO for 8 days.

You may see some people refer to the baseline Skyrim as the AE as when the AE released the SE got baseline upgrades and some creation club content is included by default (fishing, survival mode, Saints and Seducers, and Rare curios) so it has been changed since the SE release.

The paid AE DLC only adds the rest of the creation club content. There are some interesting things in it, but nothing mandatory. You can pick and choose what you want though, so you’re not forced to run the entire pack. Just think of it as a bundle of paid mods that you’ll have to check compatibility to your other mods.

Most, if not all, the RPG labels are insanely broad in a literal sense.

I’ve seem some now refer to CRPG as Classic-RPG rather than Computer-RPG which is much more fitting for the type of game that it is used to describe.
Similarly, ARPG is often used to refer specifically to Diablo-clones, although I’ve seen this usage start falling out of favor.

For in person, we do a lot of Jackbox.
When online, SCP Secret labs has been a favorite. Every few weeks someone will usually want to play and we’ll do a few rounds.

I really enjoy additional armor sets to add variety to the world, specifically sets that look like they belong in Skyrim and match the aesthetic.

Using a combination of the creation club Alternate Armor mods, and Armor Variants Expansion is a favorite of mine.

AVE is similar to the Creation Club Alternate Armors, they’re the same sets with new appearances, so with both combined each type of armor has a lot more variation in what can appear without impacting game balance or the aesthetic.

I’d love a Dragon Age legendary edition similar to what Bioware did with Mass Effect.
Biggest problem is that they used a different engine for all 3 Dragon Age games so it would need a lot more work. Maybe someday.

Oh man Ape Escape. I remember needing to buy a controller with joysticks specifically for it since the default controllers didn’t have them.
It’s crazy how gaming has evolved.

A lot of classic PS1 era games would be great to see remastered, the control schemes can be odd on some, and for many the graphics did not age as gracefully as the more stylized games.

I would love to see a remake/remaster of Brave Fencer Musashi from the PS1.