Robert Santa

@TheEconomist 5.5% is extraordinary? Pensions top 3x that in most European countries.

Hungary spends an extraordinary 5.5% of GDP on child-support measures. Yet in 2025 the birth rate fell to 1.31, with just 72,000 babies born, the fewest on record economist.com/europe/2026/03…

@NikTek But sadly NPCs have no schedules. So you can enter a house at 2 AM and sleep in the empty bed while the “residents” (including kids) talk or play in the dark outside.

As far as I've played, it seems that almost all buildings in Crimson Desert are enterable. This can easily be overlooked, but it really does add so much depth to the open world knowing that you can enter almost every home and explore it if you want to.

@Grummz Player count is good, nearly as good as KCD2's.

Why are so many journalists trying to make Crimson Desert fail? It feels like an all out assault. But player count still goes brrrrrrr.

@RichardHanania I mean immigration running at +500.000 while new housing builds run at +100.000 in a country with real wages being flat for 30 years is hardly gonna make the job of an anti-immigration party tough.

Young men in Spain have gone to the far right. Given that immigration to Spain has caused much fewer problems than elsewhere, this is good indication that it’s not about actual grievances, but young men turn right because they’re just kind of stupid.

@GTASixInfo Quest design and writing is horrendous though.

crazy how mfs see this and still choose fifa

@TheEconomist They did boost TFR for awhile, but now you have a full blown cost of living crisis as Orban has managed the economy horribly. One can argue that with 10-20 p.p. employment gaps, the West’s immigration policies are also not working.

Hungary’s family policies and anti-immigrant ideology are essential to Viktor Orban’s international appeal, particularly to American conservative populists economist.com/europe/2026/03…

@Grummz Nah, KCD2 was wildly popular and was both challenging and open. And, critically, immersive and good.

Yellow paint has absolutely ruined a generation of gamers. So have “movie games” where you push a button to advance.

@LL6400596214516 @videotechuk_ Far worse. In Origins the NPCs would go tend fields by day and sleep by night.

@videotechuk_ Are they better or worse than NPCs in the RPG AC games?

NPCs are very, very static/prop like in Crimson. Quite disappointed. You can interact with them but the main character will not say anything and the NPC will give a few lines of dialogue.

@AlphaCritter69 @videotechuk_ What? W3 NPCs had routines, went to sleep at night, etc

@videotechuk_ Witcher 3 was even worse, there's lots of open world games that do this. at least npcs in Crimson Desert can offer helpful tips about the world.

@Shifty_Coffee Intra-nordic migration (or at least child rearing) seems to be down.

5). In terms of the 21 most important groups of non-Norwegian mothers, Poland remains on-top in 2024, quickly being caught up by Syrian mothers though. With Syrian migration drastically down, it's likely that in 2025 and beyond, Syrian births begin a downward trend.

1). Norway 2025 Thread: Births in Norway in 2025 increased to 55,401. The birth increase was driven by an increase in births to Norwegian origin mothers who increased to 41,892 births, the highest since 2016 and making up 75.62% of all births, the highest % since at least 2014!

@mtnldp @sethsfilmreview Nah, the open world is way more organic. You don’t have 40 cops spawning during quests in a town with 10 houses.

@sethsfilmreview KCD2 is just below RDR2, but not much

Just on the conversation on open worlds: KCD2 has THE most immersive open world of all time. I don’t even think it’s a question.

@OhNoItsAlexx Yet East Asian gamers gave them the lowest scores on Steam.

Crimson Desert is showing the divide between people who have only experienced western modern game design and others who have played a wider breadth of games

@TheGameVerse RDR2 is good on some things but dated in others. For example trees and foliage is starting to show its age (games like KCD2 have better greenery).

Crimson Desert (2026) vs RDR2 (2018)

@ProudBavaria Yeah, KCD or even Assassins Creed this ain’t. Shame, as a few gameplay mechanics seem cool.

Anybody that does not like MMOs will 1,000% bounce off of Crimson Desert. That's the only true summary you need for this game.

@BirthGauge Switzerland is counter-intuitive given the ageing nature of their large non-EU Balkan diaspora. Is a large share of FR/DE/IT migration non-EU born people with FR/DE/IT passports?

The 2024 edition of my table on migrant and non-migrant fertility rates in EU and EFTA countries. While France has the highest TFR overall, Iceland comes at the top if one only considers women born in their country of residence.

@Skorpiooh The age difference between the two crowds was also staggering.

I saw a lot of videos showing the large turnout of Viktor Orban's supporters at yesterday's event, but his opposition rival, Peter Magyar, drew a significantly larger crowd at his rally. The sight speaks for itself.

@honeyscave @nexta_tv Indeed. Tha difference was even larger on the street though.

@nexta_tv Online is not real life, Ukraine is also winning on social media.

Magyar — Orbán: 1:0 in online audience The speech of Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar was watched simultaneously by about 44K viewers on Facebook and up to 87K on YouTube. The broadcast of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán drew around 9–10K on Facebook and roughly 4K on YouTube.

@sciencegirl Finding a spouse you gel with. The dating pool dries up fast and leans towards insecure attachment with time. Also, do not be overly obsessed with self-optimization, it will burn you out eventually.

People in their 40s, what's something people in their 20s don't realize is going to affect them when they age

@derJamesJackson He clearly knows fuck all about Konrad Adenauer.

Spain's foreign minister bashes Merz: “I can’t imagine Merkel or Scholz behaving like this. It corresponds neither to Konrad Adenauer nor to the European values on which this party [the CDU] was founded,” he said. “Now there’s a different leadership with different values.”

@madokamujica The glass is West of Vienna.

optimist: the glass is half full pessimist: the glass is half empty patriotic czech person: the glass is in CENTRAL europe NOT eastern europe