Always fun to see all those things happen. And I may as well comment on the individual points.

1. That is always the case, you have to know where to find what you want. It could be better though with more places having access even if all it does it point to steam.
2. Neat!
3. Hehe, suddenly that old wired connection and fast internet don't seem so useless. So many people have been there.
4. Controllers go many ways, mouse and keyboard certainly have a specific learning curve while a controller may be a bit more intuitive. But the keyboard and mouse is always there if you need it.
5. Right... Difficulty is a personal choice and to add a bit of personal story about that. Back when I way a kid and you got to a stupid hard part that you couldn't beat, you tried again until you did beat it. We didn't quit because we didn't really have other games to play so even if it was stupid hard and was bad you kinda had to stick with it. And games back then really got stupid hard. Elden ring looks easy in comparison.
6. Community interaction is nice when it's positive like that. And finding the info that makes it more fun for you always helps. Even if it stops you from discovering some of the smarter things yourself and may even rob you of a surprise.
7. Load times... Nuff said.

Anything that doesn't require high tech still works really well. Don't need to worry about tracking software that tries to sell you something with say a horse or two. And as a bonus you get lots of physical activity as well which is healthy.

Oh man... I remember that time I tried to fix an issue I had with my pre built dell that was out of warranty. Sharp edges to cut your fingers and hands open everywhere. Cramped and really hard to pull apart which meant that you found all the sharp edges in the process. Designed to be hard to repair or upgrade with one thing always leading to the next. So I stopped trying, put it all back together and then it would not boot anymore. Cause for some reason the hard drive was suddenly unusable.

That was the last time I bought a pc and have since built all of them myself.

Indeed that is the case, the way you build community is to make it not fucking optional.

Dungeon finder that gets you into a group and conveniently into that dungeon? Nope, do it yourself by chatting with people and finding a guild, clan, whatever that suits your needs.

Map markers that show you outright where to go and what to do? Nope, figure it out yourself or ask someone who may know.

Allowing crafting to have a good place In the sandbox by making it valuable and requiring several different professions to get to the good stuff? Yes please.

Don't Introduce NPC's that allow you to circumvent the need for other players.

Make it inconvenient to transfer items between your characters on the same account or multiple accounts of the same person. The original mail delay in WoW between characters did exactly that.

Ensure that direct trade is always better than using a big market place.

And that is just off the top of my head. Building good community happens when it's needed and there are consequences for being an ass. Back then you couldn't just find a new group of people on the server you were on. Of you were an ass to everyone you would end up on ignore lists and make your own life so much harder. At the end of the day community only works if there is a need for community.

Du sollst das gleiche denken wie die Regierung auch verdammt! Stell dich nicht so an! Was anderes denken ist eh gefährlich und ungesund und deshalb muss es verboten werden!!!!!!!!11

Da geht es um macht und Machterhalt. Und darum anders denkende rigoros los zu werden anstatt sich tatsächlich mit den Ursachen zu beschäftigen warum manche so denken. Symptom bekämpfung ist eben einfacher als Probleme zu lösen. Und der damit einher gehende Freiheits Verlust fällt wohl genügend nicht auf, ist ihnen nicht bewusst oder ist ihnen egal weil sie genau so denken wie das von der Regierung gewollt ist.

That is what happens when the thing that matters to everyone is to get stuff done and fast. The general difficulty got adjusted to the point where people never have a reason to cooperate in the open world, crafting got relegated to the side lines and is usually not worthwhile enough and even then people would rather have alternative characters that do the few dependencies there are instead of relying on someone else. or there is an NPC that solves that issue outright. Then there are the tools that automate finding a group for the things where you absolutely need a group and you bet no one interacts in those groups... Oh no, it's rush to the end cause everyone got different things to do including so many daily quests. No time for even banter.

You want community? Great, slow down the game and see if that helps. Sure you may loose players that way that liked the pure convenience but if players find that they have time they may just start interacting.

Me personally, well I stopped playing MMOs entirely simply because the magic that was community got killed off exactly like that. Why play in an otherwise boring and dead world when the big promise of the genre is to play in a shared world WITH other players.

So... I rarely if at all consent to spoilers. Most things that got spoiled happened because someone else was too impatient to get there himself and then couldn't keep his mouth shut when it finally came up. Did I regret getting spoiled? Eh, I tend to find most things people get all excited about to be not that exciting or shocking or what have you. I still don't like getting spoiled because it takes the discovery out of the experience and that's what it is all about.

Hoffentlich nicht... Wobei man nicht weiß wer das sonst wird nach dem Wahlausgang.

Well. All I want is more of that thing the first game did. Not some bog standard Ubisoft formula that they have been too afraid to deviate from for so long now.

Sure apparently IIRC Michel ancel was not easy to work with. Not that I would know since I didn't work with that guy. But who knows what is true when said dev left ubi stating that the company sucked now... I suppose the truth is somewhere in between, he didn't want to conform that much to the safe Ubisoft formula and Ubisoft inausted that he did.

Man I remember when they took risks and put out actual good games instead of the same old safe and non risky rehashes that they do now.

Enduring commitment... To whom? Certainly not the franchise, otherwise it wouldn't take that long, absolutely not the players since they keep ignoring what they actually want out of a prequel or sequel for that franchise. The shareholders? Doesn't that kind of require to you know... Release a product? Which more or less only leaves one option. Enduring commitment to not knowing what the heck they are doing.

FDP macht FDP Dinge. Eben auch manchmal etwas sinnvolles.

If you are only ashamed of your actions after you were caught, you are not ashamed of your actions. Grade A trashy behaviour that has no place in the world.