I don’t know of any other games that fit the niche (I’ve looked as well) that are also good (there’s a mobile game called Exiled Kingdoms that’s pretty good, but it’s a mobile game).

I have found some other games scratch the itch pretty well though. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla actually does for me, even though you’re locked into one character with like 10 unique choices that determine a few different cutscenes. Maybe for me it’s because the world is pretty, the story is (mostly) interesting, it’s close enough to historical accuracy without belaboring the point (like kingdom come), and the way the story is played is kind of in line with what I’d be doing anyway.

But, I do feel your pain and wish we could have a different type of Elder Scrolls that wasn’t just mods.

It’s wild, like people get into things when there is novelty and affordability and then leave when one of those goes away.

My biggest question now is, what will supplant PC building/other super high end stuff? I grew up on Halo and early CoDs, but now that I’m old and suck at video games (particularly online multiplayer), and seeing a huge shift toward battle royale and dark souls style gameplay, I felt like I was long overdue to start reading more/working out more/hiking/etc.

That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of that. That’s actually pretty terrifying to think that you’d have to rent your professional skillset.

Tbh the statistics are pretty great for nuclear.

is this much different than IT guys not knowing how to solder anymore? I started my career learning about individual components and doing math by hand, and shortly after I was told that all we did was swap cards. My job eventually turned into a more or less normal IT job (compared to what it was), and by the time I moved on, we weren’t even using command prompts anymore.

I remember asking one of my instructors about how layer 1 can generate layer 2, and he had an idea, but couldn’t really point at components and give an explanation. One could say that I represent that first step in the death of knowledge due to convenience and optimization, but it hasn’t really negatively affected me outside of curiosity. Even when I’m working on legacy equipment and actually do have to bust out a soldering iron, that’s usually because I’m being cheap and don’t want to buy new cards.

So, this makes me wonder: is it really all that bad if someone can’t sit down and write lines and lines of code, but can understand it well enough to direct AI? I’ve used AI to help me code in some unfamiliar languages and all of the outputs I got were utterly unusable. So, in my anecdote, it didn’t make up for my lack of skill in the slightest.

I say this as someone who taught himself blacksmithing on principle, so it’s not like i’m some techbro or something. Obligatory I think AI is overpromised, but this seems like one of the few things it can actually assist with, assuming the person using it is capable enough to be using it.

Didn’t one of the Clintons do just that, too?