Cutter wrote on Nov 25, 2020, 22:44:
What really pisses me off is when you check prices on ITAD and see the game was on sale cheaper at some point on Steam. Aren't prices supposed to go down as - most - things age?

It was cheaper while in early access and its price increased as it got more added.

Other than Amnesia: Rebirth, I'm not sure if I've played any other games released in 2020.

Can we get just the single player part? Can we get it without the bullshit launcher that forces you to jump through a captcha just to play a single player game? No? Well fuck off then.

You can't get it right 100% of the time if you just look before you plug it in. With USB certified cables and devices, the logo always faces up (cables will have a USB logo on them so you can see which way is up). For vertical plugs, I believe the logo is supposed to face the right side. I have seen some cheap/non certified stuff that was upside down or lacked a logo.

I've already pre-ordered a boxed copy of Cyberpunk 2077 from Amazon, I just need a new GPU before it releases. My i7 6700K @ 4.2GHz is being bottlenecked by my GTX 970. It was fine gaming at 1080p (it could run GTA V maxed out @ 1080p), but when my monitor crapped out, I decided to get a 1440p 144Hz display, and the 970 struggles with it. By then, the 10XX GPU's had all been gobbled up by bitcoin miners. I skipped the 20XX because I wasn't impressed by the specs and prices and rumors that the next gen being not far behind, I waited. I wanted to get a 3070, but they sold out too damn fast, and now you can't find any except for scalpers on ebay.

RaZ0r! wrote on Nov 20, 2020, 12:23:
I was one of the suckers that helped fund this and I don't want to play it.

Same here. I don't remember how much, I'm sure I can find it in my PayPal account, but I remember I was supposed to get some physical goodies. I haven't received anything promised, so I wonder what the chances of a refund are. I did install the first "release" thing when it was just a hangar to view ships in, and the ship I bought wasn't available then. I'm not even sure if it's been released, one of the patches broke it, and it wanted to re-downloading 90GB to fix it. I didn't see the need just to look at shit I can't fly, so I uninstalled. I've lost all interest in it now.

WitcherOntheProwl wrote on Nov 12, 2020, 20:47:
Usually wait for a sale. This time I said screw it. I'm running this on a hdd and game has freezing and stutter issues. I will be transferring the game to ssd and check performance then. I do have mods installed. Most likely something could be causing those issues also. Looks like I'll be disabling the mods and check performance on that too.

The last states all had a discount at release, I don't know why they don't have one this time. I just looked at my purchase history and I got them at release for 10-30% off.

Cutter wrote on Nov 12, 2020, 21:09:
I'm done with buying/playing anything from these guys until they start doing seasons and weather in their stuff.

You whine about that every time. Just use a mod already.

Dev wrote on Nov 9, 2020, 14:46:
Or... there's also long hold rechargeables now, Eneloop is the best brand there, can hold 70% charge up to a decade, 85% after 1 year. Making them suitable for remotes and controllers.

It's been over 10 years since I last bought a disposable battery. I bought some of the 1st generation Eneloop Low-Self-Discharge NiMH batteries in AA and AA and a good charger. I later picked up more Duraloops (Duracell branded Eneloops). They're still going strong, while the last of the D-cell alkaline batteries I kept for emergencies corroded in their packaging. I use them in everything, my wireless Xbox 360 controller, remotes, clocks, flash lights, etc. I got some adapters that allow you to put 1-3 AA in a D cell size, which I use in a lantern when the power goes out. As I said, they're the first gen LSD, and are only rated at 2000mAH (800 in AAA). I've seen newer ones with capacities at 2700, but until these stop charging, I have no need for new ones.

Acleacius wrote on Oct 27, 2020, 12:23:
Aren't these the guys (idiots?) that won't even sell, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay? I'm sure GOG could fix it up and remove that nasty drm.
Sounds like a brilliant strategy, don't sell your products the public wants to buy, so you can go broke.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, which includes the remastered Escape from Butcher Bay, was available for a while on GOG. I don't remember why it was removed, but it was also removed from Steam at the same time.

Rhialto wrote on Oct 23, 2020, 12:52:
Nice, goodbye Origin client. Apex was the only game I had using this client.

Don't all of the recent EA releases on Steam still require Origin?

J wrote on Oct 18, 2020, 10:01:
Okay, could someone clarify?

wtf_man replied stating that there's privacy apps and regedit.

Then, later on, MeanJim talks of settings which can turn it off, which jacobvandy and Zanderat1 confirm.

Are the options clear in the settings? Why do privacy apps need to alter something that's in the settings?

Go to the Settings, Update & Security, Windows Update, Advanced options. Turn off "Receive updates for other Microsoft products when you update Windows" and "Restart this device as soon as possible when a restart is required to install an update."

Burrito of Peace wrote on Oct 18, 2020, 12:43:

MeanJim wrote on Oct 18, 2020, 00:23:
I just both Windows and Linux (since '94), and to be fair, dumping hundreds of config files in /etc isn't any less clunky than the Windows registry. It's basically the way Windows 3 did things.

What distro are you running that has "hundreds" of .conf files in /etc? I just checked and the distro on my desktop has 19 (Manjaro). Compare that to a Windows registry entry count. Pretty much everything not Gentoo or Devuan (or some other anachronistic, throwback distro like Devuan) are using systemd which has replaced much of what /etc used to contain. Even so, the amount of systemd unit files is exponentially less than the entries in Windows' registry while also being easy to read and quick to modify if necessary. Then all I have to is restart the service. I don't have to reboot the whole machine.

I'm running Linux Mint 20, and it has over 2000 files in /etc and its sub directories. Not all files that contain settings are .conf files. Then you have the config files in your home directory (.local/, .config/, .whatever). And before you say something like "every file in /etc doesn't need to be edited by the user," neither does every entry in the registry. And you don't have to reboot a Windows machine after editing the registry, just like Linux you can restart system services or restart the program.

I'm not bashing Linux, I'm just being honest. Windows has it's problems, and so does Linux. When software plays by the rules/standards, it's just as easy to find settings in the Windows registry as it is on Linux. When software doesn't play by the rules, then on either system you have to play the "where's that config file" game.

Cutter wrote on Oct 17, 2020, 22:39:

J wrote on Oct 17, 2020, 17:21:
Any Windows 10 champions going to defend this one?

I just got the latest update and I don't have any of that crap except Edge and that's been there since the get go. Look at the comments for that article and most people say the same.

Yeah, I didn't get that on either of my Win10 machines. Also, the title of the article is misleading, no apps were installed on the author's machine, just shortcuts to some MS web apps. There are two options in the settings for updates that any idiot can turn off that disables receiving updates for other MS products and disables automatically restarting, there is no need to edit the registry.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Oct 17, 2020, 22:26:
Weird. My OS never forces a restart nor does it install anything I do not explicitly tell it to. Moreover, I don't have to go in to an anachronistic, clunky "registry" to make it do that. It does it right out of the box.

I just both Windows and Linux (since '94), and to be fair, dumping hundreds of config files in /etc isn't any less clunky than the Windows registry. It's basically the way Windows 3 did things.

Quinn wrote on Oct 14, 2020, 04:59:

MeanJim wrote on Oct 14, 2020, 02:12:

Slick wrote on Oct 13, 2020, 21:50:
So what the fuck am I missing here?

Who is paying to play a SP RPG in an unfinished state? You only get one crack at it.

So you only watch movies and play games once?

No, but you can only experience a first experience once. What he meant was clearly portrayed by his anecdote about the Wolverine movie. How did you misinterpret that?

RPGs are are nothing like movies (at least the good ones). Each play through is a different experience. I've always enjoyed my subsequent play throughs of RPGs as much, sometimes more, than my first.

Slick wrote on Oct 13, 2020, 21:50:
So what the fuck am I missing here?

Who is paying to play a SP RPG in an unfinished state? You only get one crack at it.

So you only watch movies and play games once? Just about every RPG I've ever played, I will play the beginning several times trying out different character builds. I just started PoE2, and I think Steam clocked me at 20+ hours before I even "started" the game (I did the same thing with PoE1). I was importing my PoE1 save, so I was going to play the same character, but with the introduction of sub-classes and multi-classing, I tried a couple of the sub-classes and some multi-class builds. I also tried it in turn-based and real time combat modes.

I'm not buying the EA of BG3, unless it's still for sale when I finish PoE2. I think they said it contains about the first 25 hours of the game, and they've asked people to play through it with different character builds and play styles. That's basically what I do anyway for a "finished" RPG.

ldonyo wrote on Oct 12, 2020, 16:48:
While I don't mind getting a token payment from class action settlements (tuna, RAM, monitors, etc.), I find it difficult to see just how this suit could possibly succeed id Microsoft decides to take it to court. Mechanical parts wear out, period, and the harder someone is on their controller, the faster that controller will wear out. Unless this turns out to be like the capacitor issue from a decade or so ago, there's no way Microsoft should be held liable for controller 'drift'.

RBC (read before commenting):

The class-action claims that the drifting issue is caused by a controller defect related to the potentiometer within the joystick component—the mechanism that translates the physical movement of the thumbstick into movement within software.

It alleges that this component contains a known design flaw related to a grease-like lubricant, which causes resistive material scraped off a curved track to cause unwanted movement without input from the user.

The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft is fully aware of the drifting defect after numerous online complaints received from its customers, and yet “failed to disclose the defect and routinely refuses to repair the controllers without charge when the defect manifests.”

It claims that the plaintiffs’ experiences are not isolated and that “a large volume of consumers have been complaining about stick drift on Xbox One controllers since at least 2014.”

♥♥♥♥ this ♥♥♥♥!

Thermite?

Does no one else find it disturbing that they're collecting this information about an offline, single player game?

I meant to fire it up after it went F2P to see if they'd improved the servers since I quit. When I first started playing I could queue on US East and US West. I'd get 20-30 ping on East and 30-50 on West. Sometime in early 2019 they changed server providers and I went to 50-60 on US East and 80-100 on US West. I quit playing earlier this year because it was hard to get a decent game. During peak hours, whenever there were more than 200K players online, the queue time for a game was long and when I did get a game, everyone on the server was laging, and me or other players would get disconnected. Playing during off peak hours resulted in better server connections, but still long wait times due to lower player count. My rank tanked after several games in a row where a team mate got disconnected resulting in a loss, or I got disconnected, which counts as a forfeit if you can't re-connect.

I wondered if they would have done something prior to going F2P to improve the servers, but apparently not. I checked the Steam forums, and sure enough people were getting an error trying to find games "Call limit reached, try again later."

Go for the eyes Boo! wrote on Sep 24, 2020, 10:07:
The previous Baldur's Gate games had a maximum of 6 total party members, Larian's version only allows for 4. This is inadequate for proper party balance and is a red flag.

Says who? There is no rule in D&D that says parties have to be 6 characters. IIRC, NWN only allowed two NPC companions and NWN2 was four.

Go for the eyes Boo! wrote on Sep 24, 2020, 10:07:
The camera positioning in Divinity Original Sin 2 is also a bit wonky as you can't quite get the angle you want and while you can rotate and pan easily, too often you are at an angle you can't use and must adjust.

That's why they had a key to press to switch to top down view if you needed more precision to target a spell and something was blocking your view.

Go for the eyes Boo! wrote on Sep 24, 2020, 10:07:
Lastly, there is a weird difficulty curve to DOS:2 that the game starts with, somewhat challenging and counter intuitive: You must semi-retreat from the battle to avoid the unfair kill-box that most battles start with.

Unfair? You're a prisoner on a prison island. Your source is muted by the collar and you're wearing rags and have crap equipment. It's meant to be difficult at the start. You remind me of the friends I started a game with that tried fighting everything right off the boat and whining when they got their asses kicked.

Go for the eyes Boo! wrote on Sep 24, 2020, 10:07:
Not to mention action points have no place in a D&D setting.

DOS2 is not D&D. BG3 is not going to have action points.

Go for the eyes Boo! wrote on Sep 24, 2020, 10:07:
I ask myself why did Larian take on this project?

WotC picked Larian to make BG3, and WotC is working with them to make it. Larian didn't just decide to do this on their own.