Came here for this. Under rated movie.

What third party apps? /s

Makes sense, harder to do as you get older. If you catch it on a sale though and you’re curious I think it scratches the itch unlike D3.

Hard agree with you that D2 was better than D3 in every way. I also bought D2r and played it a bit at launch.

Have you played any D4 yet? As someone who never loved D3 I will say that D4 has been refreshing. I have some low level gripes with it, but overall I am really enjoying it.

Factory jobs do pay living wages. I worked at a Fortune 500 factory in rural AL and the entry level jobs (running the street sweeper inside the factory) started at $28/hr. Operators that took OT would make over $100k/yr. The operators that worked there 20+ years made more money than I did as an engineer.

I’ve worked in factories in California, Ohio, Alabama, and my peers have worked all over (different companies). Factory jobs pay very decent and often have a hard time finding employees.

I had this problem with Cyberpunk and eventually just stopped playing. Every time I’d get a cool new weapon and want to go beat up on some street fighting scrubs only to get my ass kicked.

I prefer difficulty scaling where it’s somewhat linked to areas. Kind of like Diablo 2. So if I’m leveled up and beat Act V I can go back and tear through Andariel runs if I want, but Act V still has some challenging areas. I don’t think the entire world needs to scale as you progress.

I have a very similar relationship with gaming. A similar break for college and a similar resurgence with BotW followed by a similar falling out because of kids haha.

I’ll be honest, it doesn’t feel the same anymore. I don’t think it ever wil again. But I’ll share the things that have come close to getting that feeling back.

1. Online game night with friends - this puts me mentally back in the 90’s staying up late and gaming with friends. It’s more about the company and conversations than the game itself. I try to do this at least once a week.

2. Gaming with my son - he’s 6 and we’ve been able to find a ton of games we love playing together, most notably Nintendo games. He loves all things Mario. We also run through games like Hot Wheels Unleashed, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Lego 2K Drive. Anything with a kid friendly co-op campaign has been fun.

3. Allowing yourself to mentally move on from games once you’re not having fun - I used to have this issue with a mental backlog or feel badly for buying a game and then not beating it. Not sure if you have the same issue. But lately I’ve tried not to put too much pressure on myself to beat a game. If I’m not having fun I move on. Life is too short and game time is too precious to waste it on a game I’m not loving.

Hope this helps. Like I said, I don’t think it’ll ever feel the same, but this has helped it come close for me.

Piss ice is so satisfying. You get to see your stream melt the ice and steam comes off. No splashback. No flushing. Fuck yea, piss ice baby!