Button_Man wrote on Feb 11, 2020, 05:13:
Is it just me... or is that absolutely terrible advice for buying a soundcard? $300, janky specs (123dB SNR - my best RME at work quotes 118dBa). 32bit Audio... for streaming? For something small but good, maybe an Audient iD14?

Meh - I think I'm just grumpy and tired. :).

I've never heard of Audient before, but the iD14 looks quite nice. Personally, if I were to recommend something for streaming, I'd suggest either the Behringer UM2 ($50) or the Focusrite Scarlet ($110). However, if I were to recommend something in that form factor for professional audio work (mixing, voice acting, stuff where audio quality isn't lost by way of stream compression or decompression), I'd suggest the Motu M4 ($220).

Scheherazade wrote on Mar 21, 2019, 12:42:

(Snip)

I am predicting an invasion of everywhere, eventually. Be it tomorrow, or in 500 years.

It's funny to even have to say this. Since the dawn of time till 50 years ago it was a given that every man woman and child just knew. We had a quiet spell thanks to MAD and everyone picking sides with 1st or 2nd world alliances, and people act like war is over for good.

What good were SKS against the US military in vietnam?

Video games and movies give people the wrong impression. Tanks/Planes/etc are few and far between. They can't be everywhere at once, they break down for repair every few days, and need a steady supply of fuel and parts which is a soft target. Individual infantry is what actually holds land.

Either way, I would rather be armed than unarmed.

-scheherazade

What's the point of having a standing army if not to defend the homeland? If I'm expected, as quite a few lunatics in the US have insisted, to be armed as a civilian for purposes of defending my country in the event of an entirely unforeseen invasion which just so happens to land on my doorstep (Red Dawn is a terrible movie but a strangely effective bit of propaganda), then I'm of the opinion that I ought to be paid and trained in the interim at the expense of those expecting such a thing from me; basically, those people are demanding that we all be conscripted into the nebulous concept-group of "A Well-Regulated Militia". Otherwise, I'll be keen to go about life now and to take up the fight if and when this absurd scenario happens to occur.

If you want to be armed to defend the country in times of attack (assuming you are in the US), then join the National Guard or Army Reserve. You can have your guns and your preparedness and I can have some measure of relief that you're not just some idiot with more guns than brain cells or minutes of training. We both win.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Dec 28, 2017, 02:13:
Netflix makes some good stuff; Mindhunters, Travellers, etc.

If that's what you qualify as Netflix's "good stuff," I think we can all safely ignore you opinion on films and television. You, like the critics, are entitled to your opinion. It just happens to be, you know, pretty disingenuous to ding the movie for a lack of subtlety or not enough world-building when it's really God damn clear from the start that it's supposed to be an easily-accessible action-fantasy film.

This guy's dumb as a sack of dirt. He wants to take legal action against the company from whom he's licensing his technology, a company from whom literally anyone can license that same technology, because they made a game in the same subgenre as him. And the 'large amount of royalties' they pay to Epic Games is 5%, same as every other licensee, which does work out to about $1.5M of the about $30M they've made so far. So while it may be a large dollar amount, it's not a high rate, and certainly not unfair for what you receive.

How about we punish people who admit to not putting their best effort into winning in ranked matches? If you want to play casually, go play Quick Play. If you can't play with decent people in Quick Play and still want to play casually, then, well, too bad. Ranked matches in any game should be reserved for people whose driving desire is to win, not to have fun fucking around.

I really do appreciate the fact that Jeff Kaplan seems to take a slow, measured approach to Overwatch's continued development. It's the big difference between Overwatch and a game like League, which screws with thing on a semi-regular basis and in unpredictable ways, seemingly with no regard for the outcome and how it affects player enjoyment.

Creston wrote on Apr 12, 2017, 21:13:
"We didn't like the verdict of the first trial, so we want a new one."

Pretty sure that's the concept behind the appeal, yes...

Really, what Blizzard should do is find a way to support keyboard/mouse from within Overwatch, then integrate all three platforms into the same matchmaking system (at least for unranked at the start, just to make sure things work). If Microsoft or Sony decides to bitch, they (Microsoft and Sony) can shut down Overwatch on their respective consoles... And then have the entire God damn Internet scream at them for being stupid little shits.

That's how you force a product to stop being shit - hackers working for good.

Suppa7 wrote on Oct 12, 2016, 22:02:

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Oct 12, 2016, 21:39:
What? There are already dozens of Rogue-like (that term is really overused and misused by the way) games out there already that have permanent death.


Not to mention most of the new generation RPGs offer hardcore modes with limited saves, etc.

Oh, I see, this guy is a console peasant, who only plays AAA titles.

*Cue PC master race rants.

Things are nowhere near where they once were back in ye old videogame days of the 8, 16 bit and 32 bit eras. Post PS1 there was an orgy of extremely easy cinematic games that we really haven't recovered from. Sure there are lots of REALLY BAD challenging games, but we're talking about the AAA space (the 'real games people care about). There have been only a handful of decent indie games like Faster than light.

Where's games like Freespace 2 for instance?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhAR8rWPluQ

Space games in non-space engines are hard. Like, REALLY hard. Getting Unreal Engine 4 to tolerate impulse-controlled unconstrained three-axis rotation was a pain in the ass, and even then it's temperamental. Getting it to tolerate controls from anything remotely close to an AI buddy/opponent, which has serious trouble with the idea of an impulse-controlled input system, rather than a direct-control input system, is what got me to drop the idea until I have time to fully learn UE4's eccentric system for modelling sensor input, decision-making, and output. And, really, you can't even put out an intro video announcing your project without working AI and fluid controls.

As an Oregonian, I'm rather pissed at the loss of funds, and even more pissed that multiple idiots thought Oracle would do anything but fuck us, but IF we use the new licensing terms with Oracle, we might finally be able to update at least part of our digital infrastructure. I'll be reasonably satisfied with that, as a tax-payer. Well, that, and dragging Oracle's name through the mud, as we have in the court proceedings.

There's the real possibility that Zenimax is going to make the case that John Carmack IS the code, and that him working for ANY company breaks some contractual obligation. That is to say, they might think that they don't have to prove that he stole physical or digital copies of anything, but that it's all in his head, and therefore anything he touches is tainted. It's dirty, it's underhanded, and it's exactly the sort of shit a fucked-up company like Zenimax would try to pull.

Grokk wrote on Jul 14, 2016, 21:29:
Great!! Now we've got politics shitting up the gaming community.

Why couldn't they choose youtube-red instead? Or perhaps redtube, since the government generally wants to just fuck the populace anyway.

And how is this not against Twitch's TOS?

HorrorScope wrote on Jul 10, 2016, 13:40:
I think it has happened again, almost certain and it is one of my fav's here at Blues and probably is the reason why Blue's post Cliffski blogs. For commenter's to mistaken him for Cliffy B.

Which is a shame, because Cliffy B. has done some fantastic work.

To summarize: Democracy has failed, and Cliffski gets less attention than he wants for his shitty games, so he wants other people to pay journalists to be 'professional' and shit on other peoples' work.

You're a real class act, Cliffie-boy. A real class act...

Does it blow up planets? No? How about rocks? Does it at least melt small rocks? Still no?

Then it's not a God damn Death Star.

From the sound of it, the data caps and overage fees were in place before they came out with this plan, and all they're doing is removing an established cap when you purchase TV service. I don't get why everyone thinks they're imposing new caps on people who don't buy TV service. It seems like we've got another serious case of Read The Fucking Article.

For the record, I'm of the opinion that MOST OF THE TIME, data caps are fucking stupid and unnecessary. However, offering to remove data caps for people who purchase TV service probably isn't some maniacal get-rich scheme from Bend Broadband, but rather a way of mitigating some or all of the equally-fucking-stupid costs in running an ISP. I mean, it's not like you can just plug into some giant router somewhere and become an ISP free of cost.

eRe4s3r wrote on Feb 21, 2016, 13:04:
Whenever I see VR marketed as "casual" gaming I laugh, because 800$ isn't ever gonna be "casual" anything.

I'm still hopeful for the $300 Razer OSVR Hacker Kit. Everyone seems to be panning it because, from what I can tell, they've fallen into the crap narrative that Oculus spun for so long about everything HAVING TO BE, no exceptions, the best possible engineering, or everyone would get sick and have headaches and all that garbage.

Maybe it's just me, but have neither the cash for, nor the desire to spend on the most top-notch equipment for the smoothest, most immersive gaming experience possible. When my last graphics card died, I picked up a GTX 960 (shortly after it came out), and while it won't play every single game on ultra-uber-amazing graphics settings at 200+FPS, it does play every game I want to play at settings which are good enough. And that's what's important to remember: Good enough is good enough, and I think the OSVR Hacker Kit will end up being good enough.

Alas, I have about a month left until my big paycheck comes in and I can buy one.

z0dd wrote on Dec 30, 2015, 14:19:
"will", not "won't"

I think what it means is, they're dropping the proprietary API stuff and using the open-source equivalents. Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure OpenJDK is more secure, stable, and efficient, anyway.

Luke wrote on Dec 27, 2015, 14:40:
If MSspytech Win10 says NO it IS needed

Or... We could stop using reg cleaners entirely, not because Microsoft recommends it but because they don't really do jack squat these days. Windows Registry is a database. It's a pretty big one, but it's just a database for storing system-wide settings. Cleaning it out won't make your computer run any faster or stop it from crashing, the two big promises reg cleaners make.

Put another way, if you're educated enough to know what they do, you should already know they're nearly useless and potentially dangerous. If you don't know what they do or how the Windows Registry works, then you don't know enough to use them safely. It's as simple as that.

More terrifying than the idea of Chris Roberts as an expert con-artist with the perfect scheme is the idea that he actually believes, 100%, zero doubt, every statement that he makes. That he believed every single deadline put forward would be met, that he believed each and every budget projection was correct, and that he believes, actively, that if anything goes wrong and Star Citizen tanks, it is absolutely and completely the fault of Derek Smart and those who have sided with him. And you know why that's terrifying?

Because that means that he would have to believe that Star Citizen is some sort of godsend, which would make him some sort of digital-age messiah. It would mean that his entire world view is based around the notion that his GAME is somehow more important than the lives of the people who work for him, more important than a free press, more important than the universal human right to free will. That if we would just stop listening to the media and the haters, we'd all realize just how absolutely amazing and life-changing his creation is, and how it would make all of our lives better for having it.

We kid about the die-hard fans of Star Citizen being a cult, but it's looking more and more like we've got a mentally unstable man with loads of money and an army of cultists, ready to try to force his views down our throats. Where does he go, if and when Star Citizen tanks? And how many people are truly convinced that he's the Truth and the Way?