Stick to Civ 5 for now.  If you mainly play single player Civ 6 has even worse AI.  They will annoy every turn.  They will talk shit for no reason or even praise you nonstop.  They will ask for resources constantly and even questionable requests like asking for horses in the industrial and modern era.  Basically you will want to declare war on them just to shut them up.  Don't get me started on the world congress either.  Civ 5 least had some stuff you cared about voting.  Now you'll be forced to vote on a bunch of shit you don't even care about constantly.

Some of the new ideas for 6 are kind of neat but overall its like they dumbed it down yet made it unnecessary complicated with a bunch of shit you don't care about. 

Let's go with the news, shall we?

SALES & DEALS

World War Z has sold almost 2 million copies worldwide, Epic Games Store is its top/best digital platform
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/world-war-z-has-sold-almost-2-million-copies-worldwide-epic-games-store-is-its-top-best-digital-platform/
Saber Interactive has announced that World War Z has sold almost two million copies worldwide on all platforms since its launch, and that the Epic Games Store has exceeded its expectations. The game has sold nearly 700K copies on the Epic Games Store, making it the top/best digital platform for this zombie co-op shooter.
Matthew Karch, CEO of developer Saber Interactive, claimed that the studio always believed that there was a PC market for this game, and that the team was surprised by its PC sales.
>> I have a hard time believing that someone thought that there was no room for this game on PC.

There are two new deals at GOG:

• The Midweek Sale features adventure games up to 75% off for the next 3 days: https://www.gog.com/promo/20190626_midweek_sale
• The game The World Next Door, in any of its editions (and soundtrack too) are 50% off for the next 13 days: https://www.gog.com/promo/20190626_special_promo_the_world_next_door

On the Humble Store, the new Spotlight deal involves three Shantae games, up to 50% off for the next 13 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/promo/shantae-spotlight/

At Fanatical, there are two new deals:

• The new Star Deal is Jackbox Hilarity Pack, 70% off for the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/jackbox-hilarity-pack
• The new Pathfinder Bundle, with 8 games at an awesome 95% discount, will be available for the next 14 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/pathfinder-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

3DMark now supports PCIe 4.0 bandwidth benchmark test, official video demonstration released
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/3dmark-now-supports-pcie-4-0-bandwidth-benchmark-test-official-video-demonstration-released/
UL Benchmarks has announced that the PCIe 4.0 bandwidth benchmark test for 3DMark is now available. According to the team, the 3DMark PCI Express feature test is designed to measure the bandwidth available to your GPU over your computer’s PCI Express interface.

MODS/EMULATORS

Minecraft looks like a next-gen game thanks to Stratum 2K Texture Pack & Ray Tracing Shaders
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/minecraft-looks-like-a-next-gen-game-thanks-to-stratum-2k-texture-pack-ray-tracing-shaders/
YouTube’s member ‘hodilton’ has shared a video, showing off a realistic, high resolution and high quality resource/texture pack for Minecraft with some Ray Tracing effects. The results are mind-blowing and completely transform Minecraft into a current-gen title, full with highly detailed textures and lighting effects.
According to its official page, the Stratum Texture Pack is built with shader compatibility in mind and supports many of high end shader effects, including Parallax Occlusion Mapping, which provides a new layer of depth to surfaces in game, as well as high quality normal and specular maps. Stratum also uses fully Physically Based materials, just like many AAA titles do today.
>> It certainly doesn't look like Minecraft. At all.

First-person exploration mod released for Mass Effect 3, available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/first-person-exploration-mod-released-for-mass-effect-3/
Last week, we informed you about a mod that enabled a first-person mode in Mass Effect 2. And today, modder ‘LordEmil1’ released a similar first-person exploration mod for the third part in the Mass Effect series, Mass Effect 3.
Similarly to the first-person mod in Mass Effect 2, this mod adds an Exploration first-person mode to Mass Effect 3 by changing the default camera position and FOV. The result is pretty cool and will let you explore the game’s environments via a completely different camera viewpoint.
Moreover, this mod does not alter the Combat viewpoint in any way, meaning that both combat and conversations work flawlessly with it. LordEmil1 has previously released an experimental first-person combat mode for Mass Effect 2, so here is hoping that we’ll also get one for Mass Effect 3.
>> Like the Mass Effect 2 mod, this one is also available from Nexus Mods.

GAMING NEWS

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – Official Extended Demo shows off 26 minutes of gameplay footage
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-official-extended-demo-shows-off-26-minutes-of-gameplay-footage/
Electronic Arts and Respawn have just released an extended demo for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, showing 26 minutes of gameplay footage. This video shows more gameplay footage than the previous E3 2019 demo that EA showcased earlier this month, so we strongly suggest watching it.

One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows has been officially announced for the PC
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/one-punch-man-a-hero-nobody-knows-has-been-officially-announced-for-the-pc/
Bandai Namco has just announced the official One Punch Man for current-gen platforms, One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows. In order to celebrate this announcement, the publisher has also released a debut gameplay trailer that you can find below.

Visage, Silent Hills P.T.-inspired psychological horror game, Part 2 releases on July 3rd
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/visage-silent-hills-p-t-inspired-psychological-horror-game-part-2-releases-on-july-3rd/
SadSquare Studio has announced that the second, and final, part of Visage will be released on July 3rd. Visage is a psychological horror game that was heavily inspired by Konami’s cancelled Silent Hills P.T., and we are happy to report that it will be fully released soon.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 Where are those Droidekas? Update releases today, full patch release notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/star-wars-battlefront-2-where-are-those-droidekas-update-releases-today-full-patch-release-notes/
Electronic Arts and DICE have announced that the Where are those Droidekas? update will release on all platforms later today. Furthermore, the teams revealed the full release notes for this upcoming patch which highlights all the improvements, tweaks and fixes that will be coming with it.

Online top-down co-op action RPG, KILLSQUAD, enters Steam Early Access on July 16th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/online-top-down-co-op-action-rpg-killsquad-enters-steam-early-access-on-july-16th/
Novarama has announced that its top-down co-op action RPG, Killsquad, will be coming to Steam Early Access on July 16th. Killsquad is set within a futuristic world that combines a space western style with the top down look and feel of a traditional RPG with fast-paced action.

Black Mesa Xen technical beta phase has been launched, 4K/Ultra screenshots gallery
https://www.dsogaming.com/screenshot-news/black-mesa-xen-technical-beta-phase-has-been-launched-4k-screenshots-gallery/
The Black Mesa team has just launched the technical beta phase for Black Mesa Xen. This beta features three of the six maps that are currently being created for Xen, continuing Gordon’s adventure from the cliffhanger ending of Lambda Core.

Anthem June 25th PTS Update released, adds new animations, improves Cataclysm, adds Seasonal store & more
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/anthem-june-25th-pts-update-released-adds-new-animations-improves-cataclysm-adds-seasonal-store-more/
BioWare has released a brand new update for the PTS of Anthem on the PC. According to the developers, this update contains a number of fixes and changes based on player feedback, as well as a limited version of the Seasonal store and updates to Vara gameplay, VFX and cinematics.

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth – Rise of Azshara free content update available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/world-of-warcraft-battle-for-azeroth-rise-of-azshara-free-content-update-available-for-download/
Blizzard has announced that Rise of Azshara, the next major free content update for World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, is available for download. According to the team, this content update is packed with many new features, including the addition of Essences to the Heart of Azeroth system, two new zones to explore, Nazjatar and Mechagon, Heritage Armor for tauren and gnomes, new Benthic gear, a raid that takes players into the depths of Azshara’s Eternal Palace and much more.

Here is an hour of gameplay footage from the Resident Evil-inspired horror game, DAYMARE 1998
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/here-is-an-hour-of-gameplay-footage-from-the-resident-evil-inspired-horror-game-daymare-1998/
YouTube’s ‘Punish’ has shared a video, showing an hour of gameplay footage from its upcoming horror game, that is heavily inspired by the Resident Evil series, DAYMARE 1998. Daymare: 1998 is based on the cancelled Resident Evil 2 Reborn project, is built on the Unreal Engine 4, and will have the legendary Director of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and planner on the original 1996 Resident Evil, Kazuhiro Aoyama, as its Producer Associate.

Part two of the news:

Risk of Rain 2's Scorched Acres update is out now, and you can be a plant
https://www.pcgamer.com/risk-of-rain-2s-scorched-earth-update-is-out-now-and-you-can-be-a-plant/
The highly-anticipated Scorched Acres update for Risk of Rain 2 is now live, and that means you can take to the inhospitable alien wilderness as a scrappy houseplant named Rex. There's also a new biome, new enemies, and of course new gear to pick up in Hopoo Games' challenging rogue-lite shooter.

Teamfight Tactics open beta goes live in North America tomorrow
https://www.pcgamer.com/teamfight-tactics-open-beta-goes-live-in-north-america-tomorrow/
After a week on the League of Legends PBE, the Dota Auto Chess-inspired Teamfight Tactics will go into full open beta tomorrow, June 26, for players in North America.

Sledgehammer cofounder worries that Modern Warfare courts controversy 'for the sake of headlines'
https://www.pcgamer.com/sledgehammer-cofounder-worries-that-modern-warfare-is-chasing-controversy-for-the-sake-of-headlines/
Michael Condrey headed up EA's Visceral Games studio before leaving, with Visceral partner Glen Schofield, to found Sledgehammer Games in 2009. (...)
In an interview with VentureBeat, Condrey said that the Modern Warfare sub-series in particular is a "tough challenge" because of its contemporary setting. But he expressed deeper concerns that the more "uncomfortable" and "ripped from the headlines" approach of the upcoming Modern Warfare reboot might be going too far.

Solasta: Crown of the Magister promises a deep, D&D-style tactical RPG
https://www.pcgamer.com/solasta-crown-of-the-magister-promises-a-deep-dandd-style-tactical-rpg/
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is a new tactical RPG announced today by Tactical Adventures, a Paris-based developer launched last year by Amplitude Studios co-founder Mathieu Girard. It aims "to bring the true tabletop roleplaying experience to videogames," Girard said in the debut development diary, which also features some brief but very promising clips of pre-alpha gameplay footage.

Aperture Hand Lab is a Portal-based tech demo for the Valve Index VR headset
https://www.pcgamer.com/aperture-hand-lab-is-a-portal-based-tech-demo-for-the-valve-index-vr-headset/
When Valve announced its Index VR headset back in April, it also shared screenshots of Aperture Hand Lab, a tech demo designed to showcase the capabilities of the Index controllers. The controllers are noteworthy because unlike those for other VR headsets, they track individual fingers rather than just clenched-fist hand movements. That tech demo is now available on Steam, if you want to try it for yourself, and you don't even need an Index to play it.

Age of Mythology might be making a comeback soon
https://www.pcgamer.com/age-of-mythology-might-be-making-a-comeback-soon/
Microsoft now has a studio wholly devoted to the Age of Empires series, and is currently working on remastered 'definitive' editions of Age of Empires 2 and 3. Meanwhile, Relic Entertainment is busy creating Age of Empires 4. And now it sounds as though Microsoft may have plans to revive Empires' more fantastical spin-off, Age of Mythology.

Epic Games boss defends exclusivity strategy
https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-boss-defends-exclusivity-strategy/
Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney took to Twitter to defend his company's strategy of securing exclusive distribution rights for games on PC. Sweeney said it's the only viable way to change what he calls the status quo of the games industry and that ultimately, it's good for players.

Seek your memories in gorgeous free puzzler When The Past Was Around
https://www.pcgamer.com/seek-your-memories-in-gorgeous-free-puzzler-when-the-past-was-around/
There's a touch of the Rusty Lake series to handsome, hand-drawn puzzle game When The Past Was Around, which similarly deposits you in a series of rooms that must be investigated, probed, basically clicked to high heaven until you've discovered their myriad secrets.

Yeah, I've tried Civ VI thanks to one of those free to try weekends, and it didn't feel as polished as Civ V. It's one of the reasons to wait for the GOTY edition, to give them time to balance and fix all that doesn't work.

Yea they have a bad habit of releasing base game with features missing from previous entries and then releasing those features on expansions.  The people that bought game when it first came out got screwed for the dlc.  One of top reasons why so many people on steam gave it negative review.  I got the Gold Edition or whatever that included most of the reg dlc and first expansion I believe.  My friend then gifted me the gathering storm dlc. 

Religion is even more annoying now (with a bunch of stupid religious units that the computer loves to spam and if like me just don't really give a shit about religion even though cared about it a little with Civ5 because not so many damn religious units/easier) and not sure if I ever want to go for that victory.  Usually I just play domination games and have all other victory conditions unmarked (unless I just go for the one time achievement of that victory).  Was going for a culture victory in my current game but it might just end up being a domination.

Funny thing about gathering storm is that natural disasters so far in my first few games are a non factor.  It will warn you which tiles will likely flood first (coastal tiles) and the disasters that do happen barely affect shit.  I think the worse I saw was volcano but that was near a cpu city and didn't affect me.  Then you have bs sandstorms and other disasters that don't really appear to do shit.

Basically wait for the GOTY edition which will probably release end of this year or early next year.  Speaking of Xcom2 that you mentioned earlier.  Need to get on that...  I enjoyed Enemy Unknown a lot.

I don't know what the Steam Summer Sale event really is but I made a badge worth 38,000 XP without buying anything, I'll take it :D

Except there is no "break-away" in technology since the new systems will be backwards compatible with old software so I don't see eye to eye with this argument ...

And there's also no guarantee as well that the OS will become more demanding considering we saw a decrease in OS requirements during the middle of 7th and 8th gen ... 

My point still stands in spirit regardless. There's no precedent to rule out an auxiliary processor in a successor ...

Actually, it could stand in full if we take a look at the lines of Nintendo handhelds where they had auxiliary processors for the longest ... 

Considering the PS4 Pro came with an ARM processor it's pretty much a done deal at this point ... 

I could care about the platform branding such as 'PS5', what matters most is the underlying technology since after all the Wii only proved to be an overclocked Gamecube ... 

Downsampling would be a waste of power according to most developers ... 

Majority of shipments currently maybe 4K displays but it's useless since households have a very slow replacement cycle ...

Even with RT cores, it's still a huge performance killer as we see on Turing. I imagine most devs will also want to do their lighting/shadowing effects in RT as much as possible thereby increasing the stress on the hardware. They want more than just RT reflection or RTAO. They'd also like to have RT soft shadows, RTGI, RT transparency/transmittance, RT sub-surface scattering, etc and there's no telling what else ... (most developers will probably blow their ray budget on lighting effects over higher resolutions)

If you're using a low bitrate, why even stream in 4K at all ? 

Sure using a low bitrate is possible but by then you pretty much effectively killed the use case for 4K streaming which was it's higher pristine image quality ... 

Just about the entire world sucks at fixed broadband aside from South Korea or Singapore so it's not just in the US where half the people can't even get 25Mbps on down link! 

Then that's just an implementation detail specific to them. No reason why the encode can't be completely fixed function for even lower CPU overhead ... 

This whole thing about the next gen console CPU performance is overblown and exaggerated. Most developers will go on to target many more materially inferior PC systems in comparison to next gen consoles. What are developers going to do when people like me who have CPUs that are overclocked to the limit and aren't all that old but they determined that it's somehow not good enough to play new games ?! Do you not see how outrageous it is where developers won't target configurations out there of which the vast majority of them have even wrose CPU performance than mine ?

@Bold Well, no because that happens to Nvidia as well with their Tegra series. For instance their K1 chip, which debuted an integrated Kepler GPU was introduced TWO years after the desktop counterparts. For the X1, it took 2 quarters for it to debut after the desktop parts and it was their fastest lead up to an integrated solution by far. Nvidia has only JUST started shipping their Drive PX Xavier boards recently which features the Volta architecture from nearly 2 years ago ... 

It makes absolutely no sense to single out AMD for their slow lead up times on an integrated solution when it's the same for others like Nvidia. There's only so much you can develop in parallel with chip design and integrated graphics isn't one of them ... 

Whatever the issue is you have with your Ryzen 2700U device, you have unrealistic expectations as to how chip development progresses ... (even if AMD wanted a 7nm APU badly for their lineup it can't happen in under 6 months) 

I just want an Alpha Centauri remake... I probably won't even need another Turn Based game again considering I still play that game 20 years later...

CIV 5 is definitely a solid title though, certainly preferring that over Civ 6 right now... And it was the ducks nuts back when I was running triple displays.

We aren't going to agree on these points, so I am just going to leave it as it is.
My approach is simple... We have no evidence either for or against these points, so lets not assert them as factual yet.

You forget that next gen isn't releasing right now, right? It is still over a year away.

And you also haven't forgotten that these consoles are going to be on the market for many years right? We probably won't be starting to talk about their generational replacements until after 2025.

We have no idea how efficient Navi is relative to Turing on an efficiency front, so no point speculating. (It comes to that pesky evidence thing again.)

Because it's not all about bitrate? I expected someone like yourself to have a better understanding of it all.

Broadband speeds is a tricky situation, many outlets are employing dynamic resolutions/bitrates when streaming video, so if someones connection isn't able to maintain 4k, it will drop down... That also means if you want the best you don't miss out either.

Netflix and Amazon have been making some big pushes in 4k content, even mandating the need for video streams to be in 4k for some of their curated stuff.
https://www.indiewire.com/2017/04/netflix-amazon-4k-documentary-1201799403/

So clearly there is a market for 4k.

Tegra isn't targeting the PC market.
And that is also nVidia's cadence.

Intel for example typically releases it's mobile processors ahead of the desktop on a per-architecture basis... Ice Lake for example is coming to mobile first.
And it makes sense... Mobile is actually the larger market.

AMD has had years to plan for a 7nm APU, just like it's desktop efforts, it's not something they would have had to do in under 6 months.
It's also not "my" issues, it's a platform-wide issue that is well documented.

AMD's 2500u/3500u just has less throttling and better temps, allowing it to turbo up more than the 2700u/3700u resulting in better performance in some cases, meaning AMD's 2700u/3700u designs (Or binning... Or both!) were pretty terrible.

It's not as much of an issue on the desktop side... Because despite the desktop Ryzen 3000 series APU's only being 12nm, they have significantly more TDP to ensure they have the room to let the CPU and GPU's breathe... Plus 12nm is a cheap and mature process, so it makes sense to use it on low-end parts.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-3000-zen-2-microarchitecture-7nm,39609.html

There is no RPG spirit other than allowing people to role-play in a way they enjoy. 

I've played pen and paper RPGs, though only AD&D and Marvel.  I think it's time for videogames to move beyond that and find its own path, unless it's a property directly based or connected to something else.  Specifically, developers who pack a game with constricting "systems" often choke off the creativity of the player.  Yes, some people absolutely want their world tightly bound and controlled by highly detailed rule-sets, they want to follow along and let someone else handle the imagination aspect, but I think more people than ever are looking for freedom.  Personally, I don't like the hand-holding, I don't need something like arbitrary karma popups to define my character for me and find it jarring when it contradicts my own ideals.    

The next era of RPGs should be about options, about giving players the tools they need to shape the world they're playing with.  That's something pen and paper has, actually, where groups can decide to alter rules they don't like or discard them completely.  Gaming does have something similar with modding but it's time for developers to look up and see that players want different things and provide them that power from the start.

I'm one of those people who actually like D&D alignment system - sticking to set of rules YOU chose for your CHARACTER, even if they are diametrically opposite of your own beliefs was always fun experience for me...and D&D let's you do it (if you want to), but then it does expect you to follow those rules. Yeah, you can change your alligment or not play in it, but there are consequences...as there should be, IMO.

For my taste, I don't want the choice in RPGs to just be reduced down to chaotic neutral (aka 'free spirit') - and that's what lack of morality/alignment system for character you play looks from my POI.