Gaben lives in New Zealand now right? We could definitely use a commercial where he shows off his Steam Deck. These ones are starting to grow old and the Internet demands that we get a 2024 reboot.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

[quote=based]

Quoting: Cyba.Cowboy

Quoting: Mal[...]

Quoting: JosephLinux is still too hard for the non-technical people to use; it’s better than it was, but not quite there yet.

Ugh. I hate it when people parrot this claim.

Many modern Linux-based operating systems are just as easy to use as a typical Microsoft Windows operating system these days (certain distros could probably even claim they're easier to use!), and one can get by without ever touching Terminal or doing anything unusually "technical"... The option is still there of course, and many Linux users (myself included) prefer to use Terminal and things like that; but in 99% of cases, you can get by just fine without ever going down that path.

What needs to happen is that the Linux Community needs to shakes this "It's so technical most everyday users can't use it" reputation, because it's a reputation that's simply not true anymore.

I've been on Linux for few years now, and I've had harder to fix issues on it than on Windows, such as software/OS slowly breaking every few updates - KDE has a list of issues for me that I can't seem to find peolople talk about (for example I cant switch displays without plasmashell completely breaking and needing to be terminated, or kwin just deciding to eat up all CPU power)
Web driver related problems were especially hell,
Modding games is way harder sometimes (thankfully Nexus might be tackling that slowly), dealing with Wine can still be dependency hell if you decide to run .exes off the net, winetricks is great but the average joe wouldnt want to use that.
Not to mention I've had countless liveCDs suddenly crash on me when left on idle when trying to distrohop, no matter the distro/usb drive/port used.

Dont get me wrong I love Linux and would never go back to Windows even though Ive also had to leave good amount of games and software behind, but I'd say the above can really ruin someone's experience, I'm scared to see how pipewire is set up now on my install lol it started giving me issues as well after a certain system update

I wasn't necessarily talking about linux but of the issue of spyware messing up kernel. You can have that on linux as well, you just need to patch the kernel. But on linux today that requires explicit user approval... which is mainly why gaming spyware doesn't like it.

My point is that sooner or later some global incident will happen on windows, and then it will happen again, since on Windows everybody regularly allow all kind of spyware/junk in the kernel with auto updates, without knowing what is coming in, closed source and purely based on the reputation of the vendor. This is in banking, finance, airport, energy grid, hospitals and whatever else. Sometimes it is even required by law.

It should be obvious to everyone that if a system is built by design so that bad things can happen, they will eventually happen. More so if bad actors can profit from that and have interest into make it happen.

And, for all that I know, now that linux starts to be adopted by many EU public administrations, it can even be they will mandate to have the same shit possible there as well by law. So it might even become a linux issue in the long term.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Ihmo security incidents on windows will keep repeating and sooner or later it will become obvious to the masses as well the dangers of running stuff inside the kernel.

So not today, not tomorrow, but kernel tampering will eventually become a non accceptable practice.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: ElectricPrismthan SC2 was -- which took more liberties and made Terran out to sound like redneck hicks that like country music -- which was offputting.

Uhmmm... no? You need to know that for a long time across sci fi lovers the most loved franchise use to be Firefly. Now that show was a victim of the generalists TV industry in the USA and wasn't renew for a second season. But indeed it was a memorable show.

The SC2 devs saw connection between Raynor situation and the Firefly show (then who knows which one infleced the other, maybe Firefly took from sc1). Both took place in a world where humanity left Earth, both has a setting with 3 powerful central planets where there original colonizing ships landed (in SC that would be Tarsonis, Umoya and Moria), both had a struggle between these central powers and their own "backwater" colonies. There were psi gifted guys, tipically troubled girls. And ofc the main protagonists is guy from a forgotten and abused colony, he used to fight a freedom war against a tirannic power, ultimately lost, and then in the aftermath became a renegade making a life outside the law with a bunch of rebels across the fringe.

Now... I can clearly see that if the original idea was to make Hyperion like the Firefly that was totally lost. Hyperion is a former capital ship, Firefly a small cargo. But as for the overall setting, super advanced core worlds and fringe colonies where the life feels like the old wild west, I can see the connection and having the music recall the Firefly show was appreciated a lot at that time.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I've nothing against heros in campaign or coop. But for competitive I also think they detract rather than increase strategic depth.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Syntax Errorallow me to edit once : curious as we are , just checked both the browser and steam client and the game is not even trending in one of the 5 sections. Its nowhere to be seen.

This game is mostly for RTS fanatics, and most of us already pledged in the crowdsourcing campaign. That means that most of the people playing now on steam, didn't buy a copy on Steam and this is why the game selling stats are low (for Steam is not a trend if people don't buy on Steam).

And then there is the microtransaction drama which also didn't help this game "launch".

With mixed reviews ofc casuals stay away. Money aside, it's not necessarly bad. This is a startup not Blizzard and early access game is truly early access. It's better to expand to less "committed" audience when the game is more polished just to not affect reviews even worse.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

That linux isn't immure to malware and virus is knonwn. That kaspesky is the solution... it's questionable to say the least.

The general advice is to modify your kernel with anything that is not trusted and OSS. Know which repo you add to your apt. That already shuts down the most nasty risks. And we know it well enough... it's the reason why anti cheats refuse to support linux. They cannot spy without some kind of user approval... and they don't want to disclose what kind of spying they do.

Then for the rest (all kind of malicious activities outside kernel that is) it's the same as Windows. Educate your users to not do anything stupid on the web. And to not download snaps and the likes from untrusted sources. Which is easier said that done I suppose. Some antivirus support can definitely help here. But the antivirus itself needs to come from a trusted entity :)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

It's all nice and good but far from the tipping point.

Does anyone have some kind of research/analisys that tries to identify the % at which point the "network effect" will trigger?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

One of the main selling point of Steam, especially with proton, is that it supports games forever. 30 years from now if I get nostlgic I will be able to play a game of today thanks to compatibility lazers and such. But when games demands untrusted networks like Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft to fire up it's a given that those games will be unplayble. Unless the cracks are still around, but that still means hassle on our part. This trend... defeats a lot of the purpose of Steam. And objectively they are worth less dollars than an hypothetical "non third party account" counterpart.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

My issue is not with the DLCs. It's with the renovated push toward pre order, be it with season pass, or subscription or exclusive content. And then there is the annoying thing of pricing, with real prices only being accessible during sales, and new player accessibility even if with real prices.
And this is first because they are a large company now with large shoulders and they don't need cash in advance. Second because they already proved to be more than ready to slash quality in order to shorten delivery cicles and grab quick cash. Their games to often becomes broken with a patch, and this monetization strategy only incentivizes them to continue with this bad behaviour.

To be clear, quality issues weren't to big of a deal in the past, just annoying. They broke the game to release quickly, you roll back to previous patch, and once they figure their shit out, you buy the DLC and play on new patch. I've done it for years and lived happy. Only those who gave in to commercials and bought the DLC blindly would rage out. Then if they took a year to fix it I waited a year and buy the DLC discounted. Everyone was incentized to do things right to maximize both fun and revenues. Classic vote with wallet. But I guess some higherup were not happy with that.

So now with season pass (or subscription, or pre order, whatever) it turns out you already bought something you cannot play. Or that is not fun to play. And since your money is alredy theirs, and they are very russian on their forums when it comes to complaints, the players are only left with venting out with bad reviews on Steam (which is not nice for obvious reasons). Sure with this they get their shareholders happy in the short term. But in the long term is not good for the games (I guess some whitecollar will think that it's not an issue: whe the reputation of the game is broken beyong repeair they will just release Stellaris2 and start over).

If you really like those games, you should understand that it's important to reward them with a purchase only when they do things right (which they are also capable of doing and did many times over), not to buy blindly. They don't deserve that. And you also.

View this comment - View article - View full comments