Windows 11 was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me as an MS specialist with 20+ years of experience.
Under Windows 10, making a golden image was all you needed to make sure that malware (yes some MS services share the same traits as malware!), bloatware and telemetry were not active, even on major updates (a couple of exceptions but overall that was the case)
Windows 11 no matter what you do, on a major update it will reset to Microsoft’s “recommend” settings even wiping out task scheduler scripts and reg entries. That is malware behaviour and should be treated as such.
Honestly, I know I will sound like a broken record but if you have any value on your privacy, get on Linux. There are distros out there that are very friendly but remember with anything new, there is a learning curve and the steepness is based on how willing you are to learn, don’t be afraid.
Factorio without bitters. The music of desolance, alone on the planet trying to get efficient so you can leave and go home. I don’t know why it is so relaxing, but it is… just having time to plan and build exactly what you had in mind is bliss.
On the other hand if you want some adrenaline, play bitters in deathworld.
As someone who still does LAN weekends with a few friends a couple of times a year, this is a hard one especially if you have 6+ players, however here are my suggestions.
Supreme Commander using the FAF Client - huge scale RTS with up to 16 people in a single map (8v8).
Left4Dead Versus - 8 people go 4v4 so two teams in your case. Dedicated server recommend.
Unreal Tournament 2005/3 - lots of games modes and supports a lot of people but you may need a dedicated server.
Gary’s Mod PropHunt, Bomberman etc - Great sandbox game - can be a bit junky to setup up but excellent if you get it right
Blur - racing game which may be hard to find as it is not being sold anywhere but an excellent multiplayer one
Factorio - way slower pace than any games mentioned, but if you play Deathworld is an adrenaline rush and fun coop. Up to 500 people so 15-16 people is no sweat. Also good for long term goals for continuing play.
Human Fall Flat - funny physics puzzle game up to 4 people. Great for competition as you can make it 4 teams of 4 and have a leaderboard.
Planetside 2 - FPSMMO - epic battles and still very active
That’s a lot of typing already - let me know if you want more suggestions - happy gaming
Bought the game when it came to Steam a couple of years back and put 100 or so hours and uninstalled it feeling that it needs way more content.
Re-installed last week just because without reading the latest update news and boy oh boy was I genuinely surprised to see the combat and new QoS stuff been added. Highly recommend to anyone that has enjoyed Factories and/satisfactory. The build is somewhere in between both.
I would recommend something just outside your area but with a lot of fun movement mechanics.
Warframe It’s an online/instanced 3rd person shoot em up but the movement is the best out there. PvE focused but there are PvP elements too. Very good and long progression but it is grindy.
Titanfall 2 The campaign is single player but one of the best told stories. The movement is just behind Warframe. The online multiplayer is absolutely epic as you get to take out Titans and also call down your own. However, there is quite a lot of cheaters unfortunately which may spoil your experience.
Closer to your request.
Orcs Must Die Fun tower defence with traps and 3rd person action.
Deep Rock Galactic Mining space dwarfs and beer. That is all you need to know.
Gunfire Reborn Roguelike FPS with lota of characters and abilities. The aim is to kill the final boss and then try to do it faster and faster.
Got more if you want to know more, but that will be a very good start.
I got 5k hours in WoW up to Cataclysm and 10k+ how in FFXIV (beta tester from 1.0). I think the story telling of WoW up to WoTLK, was told amazingly well and it had a strong point, but BC was even better. Things rapidly declined from Cataclysm and this is why I never got back, whereas I’ve stuck with FFXIV for 13 years.
Get Mozilla Firefox and add uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and Ghostery plugins.
For over the top action, but a Raspberry Pi with an ethernet port and install PiHole and change your router DNS to the IP address of the PiHole and bask in glory that 99.999% of the crap out there, will not come or go out of your household.
That is utter bull. That is directly saying that we want to make more money for less work! Also have in mind that they will fuck us over as soon as physical copies are gone as they will have no reason to reduce the price if there is no second hand market. And if you think they will keep reducing games to 80%, you need to have better dreams. Look at Nintendo, most games still at their MSRP, and there are physical copies that are literally 1/8 of that MSRP price on the second hand market.
The first ever game of harvest moon was on the switch last year. I repaid the debt by fishing and collecting shells as I couldn’t figure out how to dig as I couldn’t obtain a pickaxe to finish my first ever quest. After 6+ hours of foraging around the staeting area, I realised that if you sleep, the quest progresses and you get the pickaxe… Yea!
Soldier of Fortune. I will remember that whistle darn it!
But I lived through the golden era of arena shooters such as Quake III and UT2K4 which was amazing, but most of all the whole FPS genre was really ramping up to new heights every month back then with HL2/CoD and mods such as Counter Strike, Garry’s Mod and the like.
Rimworld the game that I have over 500 hours and still dont know how to play it but I love it. I heard that the minimum amount of hours to get the game is about 1000 (/s).