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https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/04/ ... -together/

Enter an email address, Ars sends you a GoG code for the original Witcher game.

derFunkenstein wrote:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/04/ars-and-gog-two-great-tastes-that-go-great-together/

Enter an email address, Ars sends you a GoG code for the original Witcher game.

Thanks! Got a copy.

Thanks. Already have it but maybe the next thing...
First time I visited Ars Technica in quite a while. Have you peoples also reduced your visits since the redesign?

meerkt wrote:

Thanks. Already have it but maybe the next thing...
First time I visited Ars Technica in quite a while. Have you peoples also reduced your visits since the redesign?

I still skim it fairly regularly. I find myself spending less time on it than I used to though, and I ignore the comments threads entirely.

Used to subscribe and be there daily, not for nearly 4 years now. I occasionally click through to it, but yeesh the comments on the articles

On topic, this was one of those links that I clicked through - thanks derFunkenstein, will be interesting to see what the game is like.

So the problem is the comments, not the redesign?

meerkt wrote:

So the problem is the comments, not the redesign?

They're both pieces of the problem, but that doesn't tell the whole story. I mostly stopped reading the comments before the redesign; and while the initial rollout of the redesign was indeed an epic train wreck that had me completely avoiding the site for a while, it got a bit better after they tweaked it.

As noted above, I still visit the site, but less than I used to. I just find much their content less interesting these days; sometimes I'll skim the front page and not find much of interest. Instead of being a great tech site, they've headed down the road to being more of an OK tech, science, and politics news aggregator. If you approach it from that angle, and don't try to compare it to the "classic" Ars, it's not that terrible.

It still has a place in the regular rotation of sites I visit; it just isn't an important part of the daily rotation any more (I skip it some days, and spend less time on the site when I do visit).

meerkt wrote:

So the problem is the comments, not the redesign?

The problem with Ars is that it's not really a tech site anymore, it's a tech-policy site, and pretty far to the left at that... which is especially unhelpful as there is a large contingent of reactionary posters.

It's not a dumpster fire or anything, but it's really gone downhill from the perspective of someone that wants in-depth tech news.

Not that a free game isn't cool and all, but have fun playing it. It's a rough experience.

Vhalidictes wrote:

The problem with Ars is that it's not really a tech site anymore, it's a tech-policy site, and pretty far to the left at that... which is especially unhelpful as there is a large contingent of reactionary posters.

It's not a dumpster fire or anything, but it's really gone downhill from the perspective of someone that wants in-depth tech news.

Yeah, I used to frequent Ars pretty regularly but got bored when tech writing took a backseat to political clickbait. I blame Conde Nast, naturally; stacking a tech site's staff with lots of random humanities majors seems like a thoroughly fashion-mag thing to do. Are any of the old guard even still there?

Anyway, Witcher 1 is an awesome game and I encourage anyone who likes serious business RPGs to check it out. Don't be afraid to play on the lowest difficulty, the scaling is based on hardcore RPG enthusiasts not dirty console peasants. Also, it gets a lot easier once you get to Vizima--much better access to potions, AOE attacks, etc.

I just wish Ars was like it was a very, very long time ago it was primarily about CPUs and such.

Nowadays no one really does that kind of analysis anymore. Real World Tech took up the mantle for a while alongside of lost circuits but both stopped. =\

also FFFFFFFFFFFFF I ONLY FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS LIKE 20 MINUTES AGO

I've already played the game a fair bit, but it was on my dad's copy. I don't have one of my own. ._.

GOG regularly sells Witcher 1 for about two bucks, so anyone who misses this deal will have ample opportunity to pick it up for next to nothing.

NovusBogus wrote:

Yeah, I used to frequent Ars pretty regularly but got bored when tech writing took a backseat to political clickbait. I blame Conde Nast, naturally; stacking a tech site's staff with lots of random humanities majors seems like a thoroughly fashion-mag thing to do. Are any of the old guard even still there?

I hope you're kidding. Kuchera isn't even there any more, and I don't know if I'd consider him "old guard". The suits are still around, but no one else from the early oughties is. It would be nice if the those remaining execs would write something (it would be an improvement over the part-time-fiction-writer current staff), but they're probably in semi-vacation mode at this point.