I’ll appreciate that it’s hard to be a devil’s advocate on an argument and provide a nuanced take. But I will say the points made on the Ageless Linux website demonstrate why that’s an issue, primarily around how you’re teaching kids from their first time on the internet to lie. It really doesn’t matter whether this happens through a drivers’ license pic or a DOB selector.
Wait, what? The game is Steam Deck verified. How does it require Windows?
I have a story idea, for a training program for spies.
As an exercise, a trainee is told to enter a poker game, read the expressions of the other attendees, and win the pot. The agency can give them a near unlimited budget, but they’re advised to pull out if things are not going well.
Then, they enter the game, win maybe one hand; but after eight or nine hands it would become increasingly obvious there’s some serious cheating going on, and everyone at the table is in on it except the agent. They would never be allowed to win, and cannot complete their mission.
Maybe some trainees would relent to force to get the cash, which would be arranged to make a splashy headline about “The agency’s brightest caught cheating at poker, attempts to murder club owner!”
The lesson there would be to dispel feelings of invincibility, or pursuit of perfection, by the agent; to get them to accept there will be bad, failing circumstances they need to pull out from. Learning when to fold, and then to walk away from the table, is honestly a pretty important life skill.
“I’ll just hold off on the termination notice until you’ve finished writing it.”
A long time ago, Steam was hated on its release. People just wanted to play Counterstrike and Half-Life 2, and this studio with like three games wanted you to install a launcher and taskbar app for it, and make an online account to play a singleplayer game.
Part of me is baffled and a bit weirded out that we’ll have stories like Injustice, where a kryptonian god rules the world but Batman is STILL insisting on his “Do not kill” rule.
I want to see more heroes that will string up a purse snatcher and give them a stern talking to, but will also end the lives of truly evil people.
“You want my thesis? I hate college!! My thesis is going to be about taking a SHIT up your ASS!”
(Four years later)
“Wow, Mr. Blake! The results of your medical trial were astounding! These are excellent results!”
“Wait…huh?”
One thing I appreciate about the game is the natural enforcement of rules. Usually, in a game we see strict, coded enforcement: You’re not punished for attacking a teammate, you either physically can’t, or you’re removed from the game when it’s demonstrated to be intentional.
In Arc Raiders, if there’s no witnesses, you CAN get away with murdering another player. It comes with risks, for instance people could hear and deduce the situation. I think having that as a possibility actually makes the friendly interactions feel more positive. It’s more of an intentional choice.
There’s perhaps something interesting to say about game design mechanics there - where something exists in the game but is not actively rewarded or encouraged nor punished.
I’m not uniformly opposed to subscriptions as a concept. That almost goes as far as “paying money for products is anti consumer”.
Even when it comes to a smaller sum, I see the attraction to companies: It’s reliable revenue, which makes business and payment of employees more stable.
That said, it relies on the consumer constantly knowing they have the option of leaving without “lock in” persuasion, and the product being decent value. Obviously, we’ve seen hundreds of anti-consumer subscriptions.
There’s certainly been some industry-wide brain drain, especially when it comes to low-level engineering. When you think about the memory-level mastery people exhibited to get things running on the PlayStation 1, it feels incomparable to today.
Those people enjoyed being pioneers and recognized that was the only way to achieve their dream; but they’re also valued so highly today (picture publishers willing to buy out entire other publishers to get hold of a game engine), chances are they will never have a simple job.
Worse, some MBAs don’t even recognize their value; and wrongly believe they can be easily replaced. There’s probably some ecological comparative example where a great oak is central to the ecosystem of a whole country, and a business developer claims “We can bulldoze that for farmland and import fertilizer, right?”
This misses one of the classic “FeMinIsT AgEnDaS”, censoring all of the porn so that nobody can jack off.
It’s just now hitting me, the reason they (faux feminists) target that issue is to create a large faction of frustrated men that hate feminism, hence creating more class warfare.
Is that a frequent concern? I know high spec devices sometimes have issues with ultra framerates or wide monitors, but generally between the Lost Planet and RE Engine Capcom has done pretty well making their own engines.
One guy I still really like to watch hit the perfect stride. He has a real job now, but he occasionally streams based on when he feels like, and has a pretty dedicated, very small, group of followers he feels safe around. He’s fine with ending stream early if there’s no real vibe.
He used to be much bigger, so he has the experience; he’s just fine with downsizing a bit, playing variety games, etc.
When I played Trails in the Sky, I felt a lot of my FF7 nostalgia coming back. It got a remake which has been very faithful to the original; while you start combat with some dodges/swings in the overworld, most fights inevitably come back to turn-based.
This might be too pointed a memory, but I remember trying a demo for that game, and somehow having the basic attacks involve cat-like repetitive swatting from the chibi characters put me way off.
I also want to feel really intrigued and connected with a story to play a JRPG. “Generic lore” doesn’t do it for me.
Dead by Daylight.
The idea evolved out of turning horror games into multiplayer. As balance adjustments were made over time, the horror element was depleted and most of it is based around pathing between obstacles as a slower character, against one very powerful melee-based character.
It’s certainly fun and bearable in its current form, but: The objectives based around “escaping the killer” tend to result in lopsided results (eg, one player that hid and escaped feeling proud, while a very good chaser gets few points since they died). The game is not accessible to players intimidated by horror, and some effects even trigger certain phobias or bodily resistances (eg, The Plague causes some empathetic vomiting issues to some people) Plus, some players taking the killer role sometimes associate a bit too much ego to their result (they do badly in matches, and blame the game, stating “I’m Michael Myers, dropping bits of wood and puny flashlights shouldn’t phase me”)
I tried the demo for this game, and it was a lot of fun. Capcom is one of few that can still get those basic creative formulas out well.
I could be biased towards it for being a fresh IP in a world of remakes. It’s still hard to justify a $70/$80/$9000 price tag but I may be ready for this one.
A games launcher that allows you to log into an Epic account. Supports GOG too.
It mainly exists to make playing on Linux easier but I think it’s available for Windows.
I’ve used them for a bit, but literally never installed their launcher. Heroic saved me from those claims going to waste.
Apologies; didn’t read that far when I saw it. But to be fair, your exact quote was “Requires Windows”, not “Requires Windows or Linux”. You’re sort of the odd one out on macs.