Beamer wrote on May 22, 2022, 15:46:
Oh, right, I wanted to do a brief Steam Deck review. So, here goes, very brief:

Hey Beamer, how legible is the text on the screen?

If any of you folks like Rimworld or Terraria....check out Keplerth. It's XY Terraria with an interface similar to Rimworld.

Early Access, so you are forwarned....but havent seen a significant bug yet.

jdreyer wrote on May 10, 2022, 16:27:
The fact that some prices are lower vs 20 years ago is not an argument that there isn't an anti-competitive aspect to Steam's MFN rule that it stipulates in its contracts.

Agreed? That's essentially my point. If there is true anti-competitive behavior it should be investigated. MFN is pretty common to large retailers across the spectrum....the question is does Valve have a qualifying monopoly? If so, then that should be addressed accordingly.

The red herring of rising costs of retail prices is unrelated.....because it's not true...and because it's a market wide constant as opposed to something specific to Steam, the PC market, or even digital vs brick/mortar.

only developer/publishers who can tell Steam to F off if they don't like the MFN clause are ironically those that have exclusivity contracts with Epic, or dev/publishers with total vertical integration like Blizzard, Riot, etc.

Careful...it's almost like you're saying there is a diverse market available to consumers and publishers....

I'm all for looking into any practices that might drift into the realm of anti-trust violations....but...

“most favored nation” policies for its Steam distribution platform have driven up video game prices across the industry, a federal judge in Seattle ruled.

Is laughable. Adjusting for inflation, base games are cheaper now than they were in the '80's.....and have hundreds of thousands more man hours invested in their development. Publishers have driven up overall prices with DLCs and vanity items.

Sweet mother. This is in about as poor taste as you can get. Edgelords gotta edge.

This scummy snake oil salesman doesn’t deserve the protections provided by bankruptcy.

He's human garbage. The fact that he was one of the key speakers at Jan 6th is a testament to its insanity. Sadly, he and so many others are escaping justice like greased pigs in the name of political expediency.

The Half Elf wrote on Apr 18, 2022, 02:37:
Still wanting to use my Index for a version of Star Trek Bridge Crew with the training wheels removed A mechwarrior game would be nice.

Have you tried Elite Dangerous, yet? That seems like something along what you're describing. I've only used my Index for shooters and a few 'experience' games. I'd like to try a sim or two, but I'd have to rearrange my space a bit.

This article sums up as :

"Aging legacy media still failing miserably in attempts to adapt to changing demographics."

Looking forward to seeing some reviews before I get too excited.

There were plenty of bugs at launch....black mark. The cityscape/traffic AI was poor at best....black mark. The release for last-gen consoles was unforgivable greed and should knock them off all consumers 'prepurchase' list. That said, the game itself was pretty good overall. Most of it has been patched and explains why the reviews have been climbing. There is always room for personal tastes, but the product is at a solid point.

jdreyer wrote on Apr 8, 2022, 15:31:
Tried this in VR, and it was too janky. Maybe I need to retry non-VR.

Definitely give it a go. It's an amazingly immersive experience. There are points where the 'hints' might not be enough (Dark Souls, anyone?) and it's simpler to five minutes of online research to get a nod in the correct direction.

I can't say I was very impressed with Below Zero, though. Once it reached a certain point it felt like an eternity of wandering and fetch quests. No sense of wonder or discovery....

(*glances at inbox that shows 87,899 unread emails and whistles innocently*)

Probably a smart play, but one that has nothing to do with morality. This is very vague on so many fronts....I wonder what the ownership of Lesta Studio looks like?

There was an article a couple of years ago that showed that the RU and EU servers had huge player counts compared to US....but that that the US playerbase was the cash cow that made Wargaming profitable. I don't doubt they'll see revenue drop, but probably much less so than if they kept their operations in Russia and Belarus.

Looking forward to it....but it will take quite a bit of time watching streamers and Let's Play before I pull the trigger. There's like a 30/70 split on the Warhammer IP as to what's worth the time versus what's just trash.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Mar 30, 2022, 01:34:
No Dragonstrike? This is bullshit! No buy!

Holy cow...I'd forgotten about DragonStrike! I may find some time this weekend to go through the storage I have dedicated to old gaming boxes/CDs. Better than a picture album.

Jivaro wrote on Mar 30, 2022, 01:39:
I gotta say...this is the first time I have read anyone refer to skiing as anything less than the cool unique feature of Tribes. I thought it was what gave the game a unique personality.

Oh, by far that became one of the defining characteristics. It doesn't change the fact that :
- It was an engine exploit in T1
- was embraced early by the comp playerbase
- rendered a number of the original maps stalemate snoozefests
- became a 'feature' in T2...and a fair percentage of the top comp players hated T2 because skiing became 'easy' (not to mention guided munitions)
T1 had back and forth over skiing....but it became a ubiquitous characteristic of the game. T2 had back and forth because they tried to balance it. There was no debate over it in Ascend because by that point you had a decade of it being accepted. Personally I think T2 did the smart thing by making it a less spacebar intensive tactic....but they could have balanced it better by implementing some of the Renegades mod into the base game.

Razumen wrote on Mar 29, 2022, 21:27:
Nor did anyone complain about it at the time either. Sounds like you were just a...shazbot at the game.

Yes yes...your penis is massive and age hasn't ravaged that smooth organ between your ears. I played on a T1 comp team as a light/med midfielder. Unless you lived in an echo chamber, there was all sorts of back and forth about whether skiing was detrimental to the game. There isn't an objective correct answer...but the Tribes IP died in the middle of a flourishing class FPS boom.....so take that as you will. It's downfall wasn't entirely due to HiRez's greed.

Didn't Intel just release a new spec to provide 600 watts of power for PCIe?

Everytime I think we're hitting an unsustainable power level someone blows through it like tissuepaper.

Loved Tribes and Tribes 2.......but hated the skiing mechanic. It was a much more balanced game when the heavies had to get transport vehicles to cross a map for an assault. Once skiing was the default, games on maps like Rollercoaster largely became a race to see who could get a couple mortars and a ammo station across the map fastest.... Very monotonous gameplay.

RedEye9 wrote on Mar 21, 2022, 15:57:
Nowhere in the post was it implied that it was scalped to a country that does not have access to the product. I call em like I see em.

That's....disingenuous....at best. You regularly post silly hot takes to get a rise out of people. Kind of like the boy that cried wolf, sometimes it's not clear when you're attempting to call someone out or just trying to stir the pot. So maybe put the bifocals back on or don't immediately jump to such lovely pop labels like...oh....racist... The gratuitous use of words like that have damaged their meaning and given a layer of camouflage to the *actual* racists by blending into the plethora of unbalanced accusations.

(edit : Dammit, all I wanted was to come here and say Elden Ring is totally deserving of the sales. )