I've asserted this multiple times, it's not even so much that there's too much emphasis on graphics, it's feature creep and gameplay bloat that is more often the problem with a lot of these games.
Where complexity becomes stacked to the brim with so much extra fluff that it quickly becomes more like a job than a game for the player. Especially when that stack comes packed with rather tedious mechanics that really suck out a lot of the fun from the whole experience.
A lot of studios and publishers assume this is what players want, especially if they're aiming to pump up those player numbers to appeal to investors. And admittedly quite a few players players assume this is what they always want too. More features can make a game look more "meaty" and complete, and worth their coin. And in some cases it's a totally fair expectation. But it's not always a fun and practical one in the end.
I think another part of it is how some sorts just can't wrap their heads around why they feel "out of place" in life, and start drinking the Kool-aid because they can't come up with any other answer to their unanswered riddle (and because that's the popular "answer" being pushed by various institutions these days).
Meanwhile, the real answer could be any number of possibilities. Unresolved psychological hangups, lifestyle and habits, health related anomalies, actual brain issues, being a major recluse, etc etc.
And in some cases I wonder if degeneracy might be more of a symptom or an outlet than the outright cause.
It's definitely used by a fair number of ethots, but that only encompasses a small portion of its actual user-base.
Generally, it seems like it's ended up as the "younger hipper" Facebook. While Facebook's more or less reserved for "boomers" now.
Tis a strange and silly place. It certainly has some interesting features, and I "generally" like the UI design, but it has a lot of weird oddities and quirks too.
As for how people seem to use it, I get what you're referring to. On first glance a lot of it looks rather showy and pretentious, and in many cases that's almost all it is for the individual using it.
On the other hand, I think some are using it that way to both present for themselves, and to others, that they're out enjoying a life filled with adventures. Which to some might seem a bit shallow and artificial, but very well might be at least a little meaningful, in the right context. And as with all things, some sorts of people just have to take it an inch further.
Slightly off-topic though, but am I the only one that finds it disjointing with how modern social media and messaging platforms show that messages have been read by the recipient? It's not something I've been used to with almost any form of online communication before.
While Straczynski wrote like... 90% of the episodes iirc, I think he hired some weird, VERY lefty sci-fi writers who ended up being too lazy to write as many scripts as he'd expected them to. I think one was a mega feminist if I remember correctly.
S2-S4 in particular are what make it a glorious ride.
It's kind of funny how part of the reason for the faster and more dramatic pacing is because at one juncture they really thought they were going to get cancelled soon, so Straczynski really wanted to advance the story and get it going.
I imagine that access to the Internet in general has, at least to some extent, had some impact on self reliability with regards to problem solving.
Instead of thinking through possible solutions to try or doing your own research/investigation, it's almost always easier to just run a search to find out how to address things.
Not that I'd say it's a one sided trade-off, because honestly there does come a point to where trying to figure out and investigate everything yourself does become a tedious mess, but it might still come with some price.
Not sure what kind of idiot has been trying to call the shots with her campaign phrases.
The brat thing for example was the most random and pathetic attempt to seem relevant to... I assume zoomer-social media voters? Even though I doubt they were remotely receptive to that nonsense any more than older generations.
I first started seeing this trend pop up in Skyrim modding, with the kinds of modded companions and bodyslide presets people were coming up with.
I just thought it was a bunch of weirdos with a strange fetish, possibly deriving from some popular branch of anime or something. But then after a few years I started seeing it randomly pop up here and there in more mainstream circles.
Based on any number of other "strange" trends that we've seen pop up or expand in just the last decade, I'd say you're probably right, that this has to be yet another weird semi-spontaneous amalgamation produced through social media.
Furry fandom alone is a classic example of how this stuff can spread like an actual contagion. Mankind was ill prepared for a globally accessible Internet.
Afaik, GAMMA and most STALKER mods are on Moddb, not Nexus. It's one of the main reasons GAMMA uses its own installer to streamline the process. If it was on Nexus or the Steam workshop it would've just gone with said host's built-in mod collection approach instead.
Frankly, I'm starting to just get bored with fictional, imaginary, and simulated amusements in general.
And not just because of the drop in quality over the years, but simply me realizing how goofy, wasteful, immaterial, and utterly life consuming it truly is.
Or maybe I've just not been achieving the proper balance. It's all too easy to end up gorging on even a healthy "gourmet" game, to the point to where you've been taking reality for granted.
Conversely, I think Gotham was a step in the right direction too. Expanding into the past and focusing on Gordon's early career, dipping into new unexplored territory while still retaining some of the more classic Batman themes and nostalgia.
Then there's the more recent and awful attempts at making it about something Batman adjacent, but not actually Batman. Where they're quite blatantly positioning characters to take over his role while doing everything they can to belittle and tear down everything about his character, quite clearly reflecting the woke-mindset about everything else in society.
It sometimes takes a while for everyone to reach the proper boiling point. And it's at that point that it just takes one event for everyone to blow their top off at once.
It often has little to do with the significance of the instigating event, compared to past events. It's about how much pressure's been cooking for a while.
And it's added up quite a bit over the years, what with UK police, media, and politicians spending years trying to deflect, gaslight, censor, and propagandize all while never doing anything to address the actual problems that they've been not allowing, but practically inviting.
As for the "floatiness" you describe in UE4/5, that's not necessarily an engine quirk I think so much as a quirk with how game developers will sometimes approach programming their hit detection. Some of these studios tend to be more concerned with basic functionality and stability, and so they'll take safer, faster, over precision and responsiveness.
Admittedly, there may be some aspects with the engine's default configuration for certain things that might play into how "snappy" things feel, but I've not gotten too deeply into investigating it.
There are a couple of areas in the engine I've wondered about though. Namely, the tickrate, and/or something about how animations are handled and processed in relation to character movement and inputs. If there actually was something going on with one of these two areas though, it should be doable to adjust things to be less floaty.
Graphical emphasis goes back to the early days of gaming. The Sega Master System was at least partially advertised for its hardware and rendering capabilities compared to the NES.
Yet at the same time it not only had a much much smaller lineup of games to offer, it didn't have the kind of punch of big, enjoyable, audience pleasing hits like the NES did.
What really changed was probably that the limits for graphical fidelity has slowly moved from being a hardware hurdle, to how much time and work must be invested in producing the assets and art itself.
Plus, because of how much more modern hardware's capable of, you have greater complexities when it comes to applying that art. IE, more and more objects and decor that can be included in a scene, to try to bring it closer in line with what we might see in reality. Which then requires tools (or a fuckton of time) to streamline the process of actually placing all of those objects and decor throughout every scene/map/space in an entire game. It just really adds up.