The question more so than anything will be the price but I get the feeling that it will all be skips.

Intel Alder Lake-N N95 CPU Leaks Out: 4 E-Cores, 4 Threads, Up To 3.1 GHz Clock Speeds

https://wccftech.com/intel-alder-lake-n-n95-cpu-leaks-out-4-e-cores-4-threads-up-to-3-1-ghz-clock-speeds/

RISC-V Architecture To Tackle AMD & Intel x86 Chips With 192 Cores Built on 5nm Process Node

https://wccftech.com/risc-v-architecture-to-tackle-amd-intel-x86-chips-with-192-cores-built-on-5nm-process-node/

Lets do a summary of the state of AMD for the past 6 months

In the CPU side:

They released the 5800X3D in the first half of the year which gave Intel a run for their money in gaming because of the fact that you didn't need to do an expensive platform upgrade to get similar results in gaming averages. But then AMD announced and released Zen 4 which required an expensive platform upgrade while only being 5-10% faster in gaming. While productivity performance was good, the cost of a motherboard with pci-e gen 5 was crazy high along with ddr5 and with GPUs these days supporting more and more productivity apps, we saw poor sales. AMD eventually had to discount zen 4 massively which goofed over early adopters because they were being flanked on both sides by 5800X3D + AM4 and Raptor Lake + Z690. So while not all bad since they are still making money from Zen 3, it's not good when your new product has been sitting on shelves collecting dust not to mention the motherboard companies are likely unhappy.

In the GPU side:

When I got my 4090 and saw the driver crashes and such, I posted the issues I had on my review of it. And I genuinely was starting to believe that perhaps the tables were turning. But with the launch of RDNA 3, I had forgotten that Radeon has an internal slogan that says anything Nvidia can do, we can do worse. When you look at all the driver issues that reviews are experiencing such as black screens, multimonitor issues, slow boot times, crashes, buggy software, VR headsets not working and etc... Yea I'll take Nvidia's driver crashes that got a temp fix by googling and a perm fix within 1-2 weeks over Radeons drivers any day. And that is not to mention all the potential issues surrounding the games. RDNA 3 is likely under-performing in various games against the 4080 but no one should be spending $1000 to be beta testers for a product with the hopes that it will get better. Not to mention, RDNA 3 is pretty inefficient compared to Lovelace and Reference models are likely not to improve too much as they are power limited.

The light at the end of the tunnel:

There is hope however and AMD won't go down without a fight. X3D versions are rumoured to come to both their 8 cores and 16 cores. Motherboard prices will be coming down by the time those get out and the non X3D should continue to get big discounts along with DDR5. Radeon should continue to improve on their drivers and even get a respin to fix hardware bugs on their refresh model. While AMD will continue to have a tough time against Nvidia as full AD102 hasn't come out yet, 2023 will look much better for team red.

GMG NA region has God of War for $25

I would get it but I already have the PS4 ver which I bought for like $15 so I'm gonna wait for the PC version to be at least $20.

First Raid 90th percentiles just came in:

Basically, fuck Warlocks, priests, Mages lol.

Doesn't help that Blizz's president is a Warrior main, so seeing melee classes near the top isn't surprising to me. I fully expect my alt Rogue to get nerfed at some point, and I do hope my Destruction Warlock gets buffed at some point (My main class spec since Vanilla days).

All in all, kinda lopsided, but nothing dire. I don't think I'll be able to raid or do Mythic+ dungeons anyway this expac, since I'm not part of any guild, and I'm getting too old to retain Raid strategies these days. Kinda bummed that crafting professions aren't being balanced for casual folks tho, I mean if not all casuals can get inside the raid, to see important story cutscenes, then at least let them craft some slightly better gear and get to talk to some NPC to see the end-raid cutscene. 

Also I'm happy af that my Derg waifu is coming back this expac:

ngl, Ysera's daughter is growing on me.

The Thursday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

The Epic Store has started its Holiday Sale and will give 1 free game per day. Today it's Bloons TD 6, available for free during the next 24 hours: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/bloons-td-6.

Steam has two new deals:

• Suzerain will be 60% off until December 21: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1207650/Suzerain/
• And Ancestors Legacy gets an 85% discount until the same 21st: https://store.steampowered.com/app/620590/Ancestors_Legacy/

Humble Bundle has another Holiday Encore bundle, this time Sid Meier's Ultimate Collection, with 20 games and DLC to get during 27 hours: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/sid-meiers-ultimate-collection-encore.

Fanatical has a new BYO Holiday Bundle 2022, with 12 titles to choose for your 3, 5 or 7 games bundle: https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-holiday-bundle-2022.

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Resident Evil: Raccoon City in Unreal Engine 5 is an interesting open-world project
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/resident-evil-raccoon-city-in-unreal-engine-5-is-an-interesting-open-world-project/
It’s been a while since our last Unreal Engine 5 fan project, don’t you think? Come on, I know you love them. So, time to fix this with this really cool open-world Resident Evil fan project that will most likely never see the light of day.
Resident Evil: Raccoon City is an Unreal Engine 5 fan project that aims to recreate Raccoon City & the Arklay Forest as an open-world map.
As its creator has pointed out, this isn’t a fan remake of any Resident Evil game. Instead, this project attempts to create a full-sized Raccoon City, which may turn into a free open-world exploration game in the future.
Resident Evil: Raccoon City in Unreal Engine 5 features one million and six hundred thousand square meters for the city, and six million square meters for the Arklay mountains.
>> There's an almost 8 minutes long video.

GAMING NEWS

Hogwarts Legacy gets a second official gameplay showcase 4K video
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/hogwarts-legacy-gets-a-second-official-gameplay-showcase-4k-video/
Warner Bros has released the second Gameplay Showcase 4K video for Hogwarts Legacy. In this video, Warner Bros takes us through a new look at broom flight and traversal, advanced combat, and an introduction to the Room of Requirement.

Gotham Knights December 14th Update released, is 2.4GB, full patch notes
https://www.dsogaming.com/patches/gotham-knights-december-14th-update-released-is-2-4gb-full-patch-notes/
Warner Bros has released a new update for Gotham Knights. The December 14th Update is 2.4GB in size and according to its release notes, it packs several optimizations for performance both GPU & CPU.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty gets an action-oriented gameplay trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/wo-long-fallen-dynasty-gets-an-action-oriented-gameplay-trailer/
KOEI Tecmo has released a new action-packed gameplay trailer for Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. According to its description, players will take on the demon-plagued Three Kingdoms and overcome the odds of deadly combat.

Thursday news, part two:

2K's launcher seems to negatively impact Midnight Suns' performance, but you can turn it off
https://www.pcgamer.com/2ks-launcher-seems-to-negatively-midnight-suns-performance-but-you-can-turn-it-off/
Friends, comrades, fellow fighters for truth and justice, you should turn off the 2K launcher for Marvel's Midnight Suns. Partially because a number of players are reporting meaningful performance gains with the launcher deactivated, but mostly because it's worthless bloatware and, well, why would you leave it on?

Critical Role's Matt Mercer will voice Minsc in Baldur's Gate 3
https://www.pcgamer.com/critical-roles-matt-mercer-will-voice-minsc-in-baldurs-gate-3/
Larian's latest Panel From Hell update has revealed some big changes coming in today's Baldur's Gate 3 update, including the addition of the paladin class, a rise in the level cap, a new "reactions system," and who will be providing the voice of Minsc, the stalwart companion from the original Baldur's Gate games who's returning for BG3.

Epic is delisting almost every Unreal game, but making Unreal Tournament 3 free
https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-is-delisting-almost-every-unreal-game-but-making-unreal-tournament-3-free/
Epic Games announced today that it is switching off "out-of-date online services and servers" for a number of its older games, including the Rock Band and Unreal games, as it moves to exclusive support of Epic Online Services.
Epic's online services SDK originated in Fortnite, and handles everything from basics like friends lists, voice chat, and matchmaking to more developer-focused functionality like inventory and purchase management, game analytics, and support requests. Earlier this year it was expanded to include crossplay support, first with PlayStation and then between Epic and Steam.

You can now pet Geralt's horse in The Witcher 3, and it's about time
https://www.pcgamer.com/you-can-now-pet-geralts-horse-in-the-witcher-3-and-its-about-time/
The Witcher 3's free next-gen patch is out now, and it brings an awful lot to the game in the way of dramatically enhanced graphics, improved gameplay, additional content, and bug fixes. The most important change, though, doesn't appear in the patch notes. You can now pet Roach.
>> Something to try once they fix all the problems that came with the update.

Starfield's faction quests will play more like Skyrim than Fallout 4
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfields-faction-quests-will-play-more-like-skyrim-than-fallout-4/
A central element of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls RPGs is that you, the player, can become the head of virtually every organization in the game. Seriously, if you aren't sitting atop the magic guild, the fighter's guild, the thieves' guild, and the local murder club by the end of the game, were you really even trying?
It sounds like the upcoming sci-fi epic Starfield will take a similar, but slightly more restrained, approach: In the latest Constellation Questions video, lead quest designer Will Shen said players will have the opportunity to explore and influence all the game's factions, but won't necessarily be able to take charge of them.
>> The 6 minutes video is in the article.

Future Dwarf Fortress 'creative mode' will let you sculpt whole worlds, dream up homemade gods
https://www.pcgamer.com/future-dwarf-fortress-creative-mode-will-let-you-sculpt-whole-worlds-create-homemade-gods/
There is a subset of Dwarf Fortress players who don't really play Dwarf Fortress. (...)
They read. They are archeologists who use Dwarf Fortress's procedural generation systems to create a hundred or thousand or 10,000 years of simulated history and then pore over the stories that come from it. I've read paperback fantasy novels less interesting than the worlds Dwarf Fortress snaps into existence with a few megabytes of code and some CPU grunt behind it.
Yet the history Dwarf Fortress can create now is rudimentary next to what Tarn and Zach Adams have planned. Their next huge undertaking, after some remaining upgrades to the Steam version and a few small but vital features, will be a magic and myth system they've been talking about for five years, and dreaming about since jotting down their first notes for Dwarf Fortress 20 years ago.

7900 XTX sometimes has worse performance than 6900 XT in VR gaming in benchmarks

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/zlyyrf/7900_xtx_sometimes_has_worse_performance_than/

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti shows up on Geekbench

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-ti-shows-up-on-geekbench

Right below a 3090 Ti but at what cost is the big question

If you dont mind owning it on Epic game store you can get it for €22.49 with the free 25% coupon applied. Pretty good deal imo.

Further proof that the launch drivers suck. Hopefully AMD will fix them "sooner" rather than later.

Nah I'm good.

If I buy it on PC - I'll get it on Steam.

If I really want to play the game right now, I have it on PS4.