Ok Maybe?

New World devs flip flop

 In my And Nope post the news broke that New World would not be introducing the ability to upgrade 590+ randomized epic (purple) gear and the patch note was struck from the record. The patch note has now been unstruck from the record with a few modifications (for now; we are still getting the whole thing it sounds like in the future).

 Yay? Maybe?

 Still some details to hammer out with the statement.  It says OPR gear already does this but last I checked that was only Rusher weapons and not just your random 590+ purple armor or weapons from OPR caches.  War is still a cool kids club; one that really honestly doesn't need any more of a reward than it already gives but I can let this slide.  Invasion reward upgrades are a good deal though; it is honestly getting hard to field invasion defenses.  Gear from gypsum casts is the real big one for this change and I am glad I have 100+ orbs saved up!

 As noted it sounds like they want to bring it to the rest of the pile of junk items in the game (at least the purples) so holding some outside optimism on where this is going.  I for one love the idea.

It's The Little Things That Matter in Battlefield 2042

Ah the little things...

 Battlefield 2042 Season 4 is here and the community is excited about the little things.  Mainly some improvements to minimap scaling.

• Increasing the size of the minimap will no longer also increase the size of the icons.
• Added an option to allow customization of the scale of the minimap icons.
• Added an option for the scale of the minimap icons to scale with the view distance of the minimap (Enabled by Default).
  

 I don't really care but the community is excited: It's finally here!

And Nope

 And just like that the New World development team is back to what I like to call "alternative winning".

This was actually a really exciting change that the developers had not talked about as part of this PTR so we were pleasantly surprised to see the patch note.  This would have given an entirely new spin to purple gear that was 590+ gear score and opened more ways to get best in slot gear.

 It was closest, at least in my mind, to the mystic toilet from Guild Wars 2.  Take some junk, toss it in the toilet (upgrading to 600 GS in New World context), and random chance to get something good out of the deal.  

 I am hoping New World is considering this change and it just needs more time to bake before it is brought to PTR.  This would open another path than crafting to gain best in slot gear.  There is a ton of good 2-perk epic (purple) gear that a player ends up with so it'd be great to be able to upgrade it to 600 at a chance for landing that best-in-slot perfect 3-perk combo.  

 Since the gear binds to you when you upgrade it this would marginally impact the market and for the most part leave crafters unaffected as they'd still be the single path for best-in-slot gear that can be sold/traded.

 With the plan to "shake up" balance every season it can't continue to take a year+ to get best in slot gear.  I have close to 2,000 hours played and I have yet to fill out  an entire set and with Season 1 on the way many of my builds are no longer worth investing in so I am starting over.

 So here's hoping the developers are listening!  Get back to winning already!