I don't think there's anything at all original in JKR works. Mashing a bunch of fantasy tropes together into an interesting world seems to have worked though. At least, the films are decent.
A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.
To be honest I was shocked when I learned about this stripping of rights when you are imprisoned in the US. It is literally a tool of tyranny to lock people up in order to silence them.
I have encountered this "American social issues transplanted" hand waving a lot in Europe. For example, I know a lot of Swedes who say this about a bunch of casually racist stuff (proclaiming Sweden to be very anti-racist). Meanwhile up north you see a lot of Classic American cars which are often casually emblazoned with Confederate flags and even displayed in proximity to Nazi memorabilia. Down south you have a rising right-wing party support fuelled by fear of immigrants from Africa/Middle East (eg. The non-white ones).
I understand you're trying to educate yourself and that's great, don't take this as dunking on you more, as I feel like you're in the smart minority by trying to learn and reason. It just really bugs me when I hear people say it's a US problem. A lot of Europe is holding a lot of racist views (and in a lot of cases, horrific colonial history) and then turn around to say things like "why are my football players kneeling, BLM is an American issue".
Interesting, I didn't know that about the guns. My info is probably a little bit old because they certainly didn't start off all licenced up and ready to go and there was some debate about it in the community years ago.
FYI: I just downvoted you now because you had already made an edit to insult me for something I didn't do before I even read your comment for the first time. Unhinged.
I'm not sure why you're attacking me, especially when I'm the one saying it's hard to bring a "formula" together into an excellent game.
Surely if I was easily pleased I would just love any attempt at an extraction shooter? Or every single roguelike, maybe? I have no idea why you even decided this about me.
There are a lot of advantages to the SP version though. Zero cheaters, customizablity and loading times cut down to about 1/10th of the time of live are the big ones.
It is, but just because two games follow the same formula for their gameplay loop doesn't mean they will be equally good. There are a LOT of other factors.
You'rr right it has all of them. It's one of the closer attempts, but to me the general feeling is not quite the same.
Tarkov always gave me the same vibe as old DayZ mod. Slow, deliberate, anxiety inducing gameplay where death matters and the gameplay can vary massively from game to game.
By making it a less "hard-core" experience like DMZ, it doesn't feel as high stakes and that tension is less. But that's partially just because of the COD gameplay mechanics.
That feeling is more important than the "formula" posted above.
Basically all of the guns in there are real world manufacturers and models without their names changed and not licensed. Aside from that pretty much every item is a branding rip off with one letter changed. For example "Slickers" bars that look identical to Snickers and "Tarcola", which is a copy paste of a Coke can. Even body armour, bags, cases are all identically modelled on real world products.
Because they are based entirely in Russia and only sell directly through their website, no companies can really come after them. I don't see them starting up legal battles to secure their own IP in the US or EU without a shitstorm coming down on them.
It's absolutely just wordplay so they can scam more money out of consumers. Arguably Arena could be considered DLC also, but that's even more of a seperate mode than this. It sounds like there's now just progression tied to the existing offline raid mode, which is obviously just trying to capitalise on the increasing popularity of SP Tarkov.
I don't think it's really possible for them to shut down SP Tarkov (due to BattleState's immeasurable copyright breaches themselves), so it's wild if anyone actually pays $250 for this.
It is still a pretty great game. I only ever played with the cheapest standard edition and had no problems.
I still do have some regrets about who I have given my money to, but there is no other game quite like it and a lot of industry giants and indies have tried (and are still trying) to emulate it without success.
I don't think there's anything at all original in JKR works. Mashing a bunch of fantasy tropes together into an interesting world seems to have worked though. At least, the films are decent.