Not that I'm happy with 2077's rough launch or making excuses for cdpr... but, maybe it's faded from the collective conscious but Witcher releases sucked pretty hard too until they patched the problems. Not 2077 bad but still real bad.

Mr. Tact wrote on Apr 13, 2021, 13:53:

Nullity wrote on Apr 13, 2021, 12:55:
Admittedly, this kind of thing isn't really in my wheelhouse, so I'm confused... Why does a company that pulls in a much profit as Epic need such a large amount of outside funding, or any funding at all, for that matter?

Basically, because they can. It just gives them more capital to invest in whatever they want to generate more profits. I remember seeing once that GE was taking out a loan so they could use it to make payroll. At the time the rates were so low they could make more money by taking out the loan for payroll and use the payroll money they had for something with a good return on investment. Corporation finances are completely nonsensical compared to personal finances.

Loans, esp low interest loans, are also a good hedge against inflation. With interest rates at where they are today it makes zero sense for any company to not take a loan. Rates can only go up from here and inflation can't be staved off forever with all the money that is being printed.

As for Epic itself... I have a policy against investing in game companies but I'd consider funding Epic because I think they're in a good position right now (also, assuming I had VC money...).

MMX had an online component?! I played that and didn't even know...

Wallshadows wrote on Mar 23, 2021, 19:52:
Sounds like it's behind a bunch of paywalls too.

Perhaps I haven't run into yet but I have seen zero pay walls after a couple of hours. That said, I didn't make it to the point where other colors than the starting color you pick are unlocked.

I don't think the game is that engaging but the mechanics are neat.

Mechanically, it's diablo-esque... you have a map, it has waypoints, there are creatures you fight on the map (but way way waaaaay fewer monsters). Combat seems to be more on arenas that serve as part story and part repeatable set pieces and part loot/xp instanced events.

Combat itself and it's relationship to magic... You start by picking a planeswalker color and you'll get those colors for ...?a while? and they'll introduce new card and mechanics over time. You build a deck of spells. Your active bar is spells from you deck. After you use it new cards cycle up to be used. Spell effects are cool. There's a colored mana mechanic, life mechanic, cooldowns, summons, sorceries. Then enchantments affected the instanced areas (I haven't reached that bit yet). And there are artifacts (like equipment? haven't gotten there yet either). And _actual_ equipment (helm, boots, etc) that you can tweak and level.

Mechanically, it's good. Some things are a bit dodgy (like how waypoints work) but for a beta it's fine. How it holds up thematically is great. Really clever applications of magic to a diablo looter style game.

Is it FUN though...? mmm... it's very meh... for me at least. Try it yourself though, it's open beta. It costs nothing other than waiting for the download to finish.

Silent Bob wrote on Mar 23, 2021, 13:39:
Amazon Games is in it for the long haul. They aren't afraid of making a big investment and they won't get cold feet like Google did with Stadia. That doesn't mean that they'll be successful anytime soon. But early failures like Crucible won't scare them away.

.

This.

I suspect they'll be like Microsoft and Xbox. They're willing to pay the cost of admittance to figure out how to make it work till it works for them.

Good for them! Great game.

Lots of companies do financing rounds. I wouldn't read anything more into it than that. Those making money do it to expand the business. Those losing money do it to keep the business going long enough so they can become cash flow positive. Since Epic is a private company we don't factually know either way how it's doing. Fortnite and Unreal both probably bring in enough to make them very profitable even if they lose money on the store which seems unlikely to me.

I wonder if combat mechanics count as violence and what kind of combat mechanics count.

I imagine somewhere between Mario jumping on a mushroom and Assassin's creed killing hundreds of people by sticking knives in them that there's some demarcation... but where is it?

I'd rather the ones with a better revenue stream. Limited funds means less staff to stay on top of security changes and that field is not cheap to stay on top of.

GothicWizard wrote on Feb 26, 2021, 14:18:
"So, like WordPress without the incredible emphasis on security?"

I hope this is sarcasm because if not either Blue does not read his own news or he has the memory of a goldfish.

It must be because WordPress's security is like a sieve.

Duckduckgo is backed by Bing IIRC. I don't use their search but on mobile I use their browser (which uses their search).

Verno wrote on Feb 8, 2021, 13:03:
I completed my break up with Google in December. Gmail, search, drive etc. The only Google resource I use now is Youtube due to the lack of viable competitors. I don't really miss Google services, DDG search is great these days and self hosted for everything else.

What did you end up moving mail, search, drive, etc to instead?

Kxmode wrote on Jan 28, 2021, 20:58:
However, within a couple of months of launch, it became very evident that Epic was going to employ third-party, anti-consumer exclusivity agreements.

Wait wait wait... are you using a Netflix/Disney model where each streaming service has their own exclusive content as an example and using that as a counterpoint to Epic and Valves exclusives and saying the former is... ¿fine? and the latter is not?

Those coupons happen multiple times per year. At least, they did in 2020.

Jonjonz wrote on Dec 23, 2020, 06:59:
It seems like, starting a few years ago, both Steam and GOG's big holiday sales have been devolving into hawking their newest games with puny discounts and pad that selection out with all the games that are bugged, abandon, or won't work in Win10 (when the store page says it does).

Two games on my wish list came up. They both have been on my wish list for ages, plenty of time for telling reviews to show on Steam. This time I checked the reviews before pulling the trigger, saw scathing reviews, and did not buy them plus took them off my list.

Steam did one thing right this time, now it conveniently has tabs that list the games in the sale by categories like RTS, Open World etc. I did find two titles that I grabbed. They would have been somewhere near the long end of the featured list on the front page, and I rarely scroll down that list very far.

I'm curious what you play. As a heavy gog user on win10 I've never had problems.

Same. Steam stopped having good deals a long time ago. Which is weird because their sale prices compared to GoG are generally better but at least with GoG it's DRM free. Epics, esp if you can combine it with their free coupon is way better. Even ubi's sales are better imho -- course, you also get their 20% off with their promotion program.

Management, the best and worst thing to happen to a company.

Pillars and Tyranny. That's a nice week. Those were good games.

The Half Elf wrote on Nov 19, 2020, 09:49:

jdreyer wrote on Nov 19, 2020, 04:50:
I'm boycotting Amazon, because they are paying Lego for a third party exclusive on their website, and that's uncompetitive and monopolistic. Third party exclusives are uncompetitive and anti-American. I should be able to purchase any product from any vendor. I'm never ordering from Amazon again. It's uncompetitive.

This is sarcasm, in case it wasn't obvious.

Considering they've done it with Toys R Us and Target for years?

O_o

Yeah and most other retailers (I saw an exclusive Harry Potter Barnes and Nobles story the other day). Also, all consoles are the same. They all have their exclusives. Arguably, you should add PC to you ban list too because you can't play all PC games on any console. iOS only work on mac devices. There are plenty of Apple Apps not avail on Google's Play store. You can't access the apple store w/o an apple device. That's exclusivity. Not to mention the Amazon app store and it's exclusives in their app store -- which you're already adding to you ban list so I guess you get that one for free!

The list goes on and on if you're really going to take that stance you'll need to find a nice homestead and farm.

Exclusives, like it or not, are a free market tool that's been used for literally decades.

Many people don't hire based on merit. Many many people... I've known several myself "I don't like hiring <race, sex, look, too old, sound of their voice, etc>". If you think the majority of people hire based on merit you're in a _really_ nice fantasy world but it's not the real world.

I haven't read the interview. I followed Ann briefly on Twitch then stopped. She's pretty toxic herself although she bills herself as fighting the misogynistic online tide (which, to be fair, she does but she's just as toxic just in a more gender neutral way).

Also, as an example of Twitch's "meritocracy", pre BLM they very rarely promoted black streamers on their home page. They do a lot more diverse promotion post BLM. The same can be said for youtube. So... there's your online meritocracy for you. It's not, I imagine, intentional on either company's part pre-BLM. That stuff is often run by AI but an AI as just as biased as the human/data that trains is it so... there you go.