The new start menu is a huge improvement, the folder integration is well done and the flat look is excellent. I don't really use the start menu but for those that do it will be a welcome addition. Live Tiles were an awesome idea but unfortunately make no sense in a launcher that is manually triggered so the execution never worked. They should've just stuck with widgets, at least those can occupy otherwise static/unused desktop content.

Yeah wow that article is awful. The only thing going for Microsoft right now is Gamepass, their exclusives are tired and they refuse to make the kind of long term investments necessary in studios that Sony has. In the past 2 years they bought up a few software studios and merged another but it remains to be seen if their output is worthwhile.

Gamepass is decent but I'm not buying a Series X just to get 2-3 first party games next gen and a bunch of mid-tier/back catalog stuff. They really gotta bring the games.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Jun 29, 2020, 10:25:
Linux users on Steam: .91%
VR headsets on Steam: 1.92%

A total difference of 1.01%

Much larger as in double the size in a much shorter period of time (20+ years vs less than 5). So yes to me, much larger. Especially impressive considering the challenges involved for VR - extra hardware costs, less software availability and so on.

Until VR hits 40% of the market, it is a niche product that is slowly withering on the vine. Just like the last time...and the time before that.

Nope the data says the opposite, it's been growing considerably. Whether or not it remains a niche forever is anyones guess. Personally I think it will be a profitable niche for quite some time but mainstream success is unlikely without glasses sized hardware and that's years off. And again that's fine, I don't feel personally invested in its success or demise. A lot of fun VR games but its not for everyone and there are many days I get off work and don't feel like wearing the headset. VR is traditional gaming adjacent, its not a "replacement" of console or PC gaming.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Jun 28, 2020, 22:32:

Orogogus wrote on Jun 28, 2020, 22:12:
Why is the bar set so low? It seems to me that most of the big publishers have games with minimum specifications higher than "$600 Walmart laptop with integrated graphics."

As RedEye correctly attributed, hyperbole. The point is that the barrier to entry needs to be low enough for mass adoption. It needs to be plug and go.

Nah. The hardware requirements are actually quite low for many titles, most developers and publishers are keenly aware of system requirements. It's already a much larger niche than Linux users so it's growth rate shows a lot of potential but "mass adoption" will probably never happen because many people simply do not want to strap on a headset to play games. At best VR will be a mid-market thing if the headsets continue shrinking, continue going wireless and we see more maturity on the software side (things like sports titles).

And that's OK. It just needs to profitable to survive. The VR space might only support 1-2 manufacturers eventually and again that's fine. I like playing VR games but I'm not always in the mood for it and it's certainly not for everyone. It's gaming adjacent, not a replacement for anything IMO.

WaltC wrote on Jun 26, 2020, 17:10:
If you say, "You look nice today, Pam," or you ask a female "Would you maybe like to go for a beer after work?"--neither of those is sexual harassment. It's certainly not being "unprofessional." It's called "being social." I don't really care how a female might "interpret" something like that--it doesn't matter to me. Why? Because no man is a mind reader...;) I not only don't know what she is thinking, I can't know what she's thinking--unless, of course, I ask her a question or engage her in polite conversation. If she says, "Get lost buster, ya' bother me!" it's easy enough to take the hint.

Actually either of those is enough to get you into a discussion with HR these days at a modern office if someone complains about it. You wouldn't be terminated if it's a first offense but you would certainly have a chat. And frankly they would have a right to, the fact that some women have been patient with your awkward advances or ill thought out "compliments" doesn't change that. Their appearance is not for you to judge out loud in a work environment, how presumptuous of you to even think that's somehow appropriate. Frankly I don't think you work in an office because your notions of office dynamics seem straight out of a rom-com. And if you did you would have some inkling of how important yet fragile a career is and that some things are not worth risking.

And again there are plenty of ways to meet women that do not involve work. Women are literally everywhere, if you're so chatty and confident I'm sure you will have no issue meeting one outside of the office. Get a hobby or failing that get a dating app. I get it, social responsibility with dating is mostly on men to take chances but a lot has changed in the past 20 years. And work is no longer a smart or "safe" spot to do it for a variety of reasons. Stuff has changed, adapt.

WaltC wrote on Jun 26, 2020, 11:24:
Any game devs who are smart these days will employ security cameras in the work areas as a means of self-defense and as a means of getting to the facts. It's crazy--these days, in some places if you compliment a female or ask her out for coffee or a beer it sometimes brings on complaints of sexual harassment--it's not, of course. Visible cameras would chill most randy employees I would think...;) Also, they'd chill any female employees pondering making a mountain out of a molehill in search of $$$.

Maybe you shouldn't be complimenting a female based on their physical attributes at the workplace or asking them out with romantic intentions unless you're pretty damned sure it will be well received. Maybe you should treat work like work and your personal life like your personal life. The most I will ever do at work is ask a colleague to join a group of us at lunch and always in front of others so it can't be misinterpreted. Women in the workplace aren't seeking lawsuit settlements and a loss of employment, they are looking for a stable income and to be treated professionally. They don't want to be put in the awkward place of having to reject others. I also find if a women is interested, she will let you know and remove all doubt. Regardless, is it worth the risk? To me it isn't. Many of us have established careers at this point in our lives and aren't willing to risk them for the sake of potentially meeting a partner at work.

If dating at the office wasn't a big deal then we wouldn't be discussing this sort of thing right now, look at the news. There's a reason every serious office place has policies on this stuff now.

ShakaUVM wrote on Jun 26, 2020, 02:42:
Blizzard is dead to me. I literally don't give a damn.

Then why devote energy to reading about the game and posting? Let's be honest, all of us would love to see Blizzard make a comeback.

Not a false equivalency at all. If he was drunk, he was unable to consent to sex with her. That's the standard, right? Her charge against him is not that he raped her (in fact, she confirms there was no sex). Her charge is that he wanted to have sex with her while she was drunk. Unless wanting to have sex with someone who doesn't want to have sex with you is sexual assault, the crime he committed was to attempt to have sex with a drunk person (because her drunkenness prevented her from being able to consent). Well, he wasn't able to consent, either, right? He was drunk, correct? I find it very interesting that you would hold him to a different standard than you do her. Must be misogyny... obviously she can't be held to the same standard because she is a woman, right?

Intent matters. Plying someone with drinks on purpose with the express intent of getting them into a situation where they can't consent doesn't mean you can just have a few yourself and get off the hook. This doesn't sound like some isolated misunderstanding involving 2 simultaneously drunk people either.

The race debate is off-topic for this thread and going nowhere productive. Plenty of other opportunities to discuss that lately so let's stick to the allegations here.

jdreyer wrote on Jun 22, 2020, 21:46:
The reason Mixer failed is because everyone hates paid exclusives. If they had just let Ninja and Shroud stream on both platforms so viewers could choose which platform they wanted to watch streams on, it would have been fine.

I disagree good sir. Mixer was an excellent product at its core, offering extremely low latency streaming of 4k content. The issue was their platform integrations were terrible and they didn't do enough to get third party software packages to adopt it. Without that streamers aren't going to show up. Twitch is a glorified IRC server and it makes it incredibly easy to extend, that's part of why streamers love it. Mixer had a half baked API and did no real work with third parties to help improve or extend the chat experience which is an oft ignored but core part of streaming. The paid exclusives helped a bit with numbers bumps but ultimately couldn't keep an audience around because the actual chat portion of Mixer is bad.

HoSpanky wrote on Jun 20, 2020, 21:52:
Every time I've tried Linux, it's been nothing but frustration. I will admit, ZERO of those times was I installing Linux for anything other than a singular purpose, and "checking out a new OS" wasn't that purpose. Every issue wasn't seen as a learning experience, it was seen as an unnecessary roadblock to my goal. Each miserable experience only cemented my opinion that the OS was designed by people who didn't REALLY want their elitist OS to become mainstream. Has that changed? Maybe. How many times do YOU try something that blatantly wasted your time? I'm not really willing to give Linux another shot until there's something that I want VERY badly that only it does. And that that point I'll want to install the OS and beeline for that specific thing, and I'll bet I'll be held up by things hidden behind command lines yet again.

Well I mean, it's a toolbox right? If I'm doing anything in VMs, dev work or admin then generally I'm using Linux or FreeBSD. If I'm PC gaming then it has to be Windows, the best performance and compatibility. If I'm watching TV then I'm generally using Android TV, no other platform comes close on features. Couch gaming? Gotta be a console, my HTPC and even Steam Link doesn't cut it by comparison.

The feeling you're describing is why market share in OS usage has barely moved in decades, the OS wars are pretty much over and most people do not care what underpins their their laptop, desktop, tablet or whatever. And that's OK, people are just using whatever suits their needs as it should be. Just ignore the evangelists/haters and use whatever works for you.

Cutter wrote on Jun 20, 2020, 16:24:
So Tasi, Forbes, and Metacritic are all pro-censorship? They're consumers expressing their displeasure with a product.

No they're not. It's a bunch of whiners who can't express their disgusting personal politics elsewhere and are just using this an opportunity to spread their nonsense. Unless you seriously consider thousands of 0/10 user reviews barely 2 days after the game is released to be valid. Most of them can barely type a coherent sentence. I don't really care if they stay up or get deleted because its just meaningless bullshit but don't give us that ridiculous "derp derp everyone is entitled to their opinion" crap, it's obviously review bombing if you actually bothered to click and read a few.

The rest of my post concerns the topic content from the thread but ok, sorry dscarron for misquoting you.

Yeah I'm going to go with dscarron here and push back a bit. The police deal with violence on a regular basis and have a job with a high degree of civic responsibility, I don't like some of the implications here that their job isn't somehow dangerous or intensely stressful. There are something ridiculous like 10 million arrests every year in the US (a number that's been decreasing by the way), of course some of those are going to result in negative interactions with the police. Of those only 1000 involve death by cop. That's a pretty good ratio for all of the flack that cops get. It's certainly higher than other countries but other countries don't exactly share all of our issues. I've personally seen a friend who couldn't have been a nicer, more empathetic and compassionate person go into policing and become a burned out husk of his former self after 10 years in the force. 10 years of dealing with domestic violence, child abuse, drug users, mental illness, a revolving door justice system and strain on his marriage. By all means criticize the Derek Chauvin's of the world but let's not pretend all cops are like him or that they have an easy job without significant risk. They have to make split second decisions that affect themselves, the person they're interacting with and the general public. Cops are humans and there is no such thing as training that will provide them 100% assurance from making mistakes. The public itself is not blameless here either, a lot of negative interactions with police are a direct result from resisting arrest. You don't get to choose how you're detained, you get to avail yourself of a lawyer who does that for you later on and seeks recompense.

Isolated incidents incite the public and raise awareness which is great but there are larger problems that involve diving into data, understanding why some trends exist and talking about how to solve them. Putting all of the blame on the police is not helpful and won't get us anywhere other than some very awkward legislation that probably doesn't address any of the root problems. I agree with jdreyer that perhaps some of these things need to be specialized within police departments or some sort of external body that accompanies the police. But there are many facets to the issue - poverty, opportunity, police training, demilitarization of some aspects of policing, single parent households and so on. It's an insanely complicated set of problems that is going to take a lot of time, discussion and effort at all levels of government to solve. I don't see how we get there with the current administration and so to me, the solution starts with a more conducive to change federal government.

I removed a few controversial comments here that were offside or quoted other posts that were offside. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you need an explanation.

You actually said rather little on the topic to me. In fact, I find you engaged with others a lot and say the same stuff I say.

I've done nothing but address the topic here, you are the one ignoring every rebuttal and keep retreating to shallow opinions without any basis. And look at that, you did it again. You have utterly failed to address even a single point here. Your opinion is basically "I dont like this thing because I don't believe there is a problem". Nothing wrong with that opinion if you can substantiate it but you obviously cannot and keep trying to change the subject. I am only concerned with this specific fund and effort despite your best effort to gesticulate wildly about systemic racism and offer trite nothings about other minorities, both already addressed even.

We're nothing alike because I actually take the time to lay out my opinion, offer the basis of it, hear what others had to say and then re-evaluate my thoughts based on the facts. Anyways you are clearly wasting my time so I'm done here.

Quinn wrote on Jun 18, 2020, 01:59:

Verno wrote on Jun 17, 2020, 12:10:

I truly get what you're saying. I just don't agree with the idea behind the decision making, and I think I made myself properly clear why that is.

That's OK, no one is asking you to apply for the fund nor give any of your own money as a donation toward it. You've failed to respond to any of the points here and instead offer a vague rebuttal from a third party that has no relation to this discussion. I listened to that podcast as I'm a longtime fan of Sam's but Sam himself acknowledges that the post-racial future is not here yet and probably won't be for quite some time.

After 40 years of existence we have very little minority representation of this specific demographic. A corporation is establishing a fund to attempt to help that. It's entirely harmless and does not affect you, it is only a good thing. Even the exclusion argument doesn't apply because they also have a general fund.

Great that it's a private fund but that doesn't mean everything is automatically fine. It's like a fund for red heads because they are under-represented. It's that obsession with race Sam talks about. No matter the fact the post-racial culture "isn't there yet", this certainly won't help it get there.

Yes it does, you are not the arbiter of what they do with their money. It's an opportunity fund, it's exactly the kind of thing we should be encouraging. They didn't go out and deprive anyone else of anything. They went out, looked at the data and said "this is a really under represented demographic, what can we do about that?".

Anyways I've responded to every single thing you've commented on logically and factually and every time you respond with vague opinionated nonsense or attempt to change the subject. You want to ignore all outside data and opinions and only seek to reinforce your own. You are not making an honest effort to engage in discussion. I've been listening to Sam for a long time and know that he would be the first to encourage you to seek out facts, be informed and come to your own conclusions.

I truly get what you're saying. I just don't agree with the idea behind the decision making, and I think I made myself properly clear why that is.

That's OK, no one is asking you to apply for the fund nor give any of your own money as a donation toward it. You've failed to respond to any of the points here and instead offer a vague rebuttal from a third party that has no relation to this discussion. I listened to that podcast as I'm a longtime fan of Sam's but Sam himself acknowledges that the post-racial future is not here yet and probably won't be for quite some time.

After 40 years of existence we have very little minority representation of this specific demographic. A corporation is establishing a fund to attempt to help that. It's entirely harmless and does not affect you, it is only a good thing. Even the exclusion argument doesn't apply because they also have a general fund.

It's really difficult to get singleplayer stuff greenlit at EA but at least it will have some sort of token SP campaign. The VR support sounds interesting and a space MOBA is something I don't see a lot of. Semi-interested.

Really can't wait for Witcher season 2, they did such a fantastic job with the first series.