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The corpo dream of having people adhere to the idea of "you will own nothing and you will love it", beyond its sarcastic tone, is failing and I cannot be happier.

MP3 players are having a resurgence. Vynil is king and wired headphones are increasingly popular with gen z as is the whole 2000s aesthetic. AI is also being slowly rejected. The world is learning.

Stream nothing. Own what you consume. Do not let monthly subscriptions consume your financial independence.

I've digressed a bit here but I do thing the future is that of less big business and more small businesses working with each other simply because there will be little to no jobs to be had after corporations outsource everything under the veil of "AI efficiency".

When big tech and every other "big whatever" gets forever contracts with governments around the world they will no longer need regular small consumers like us to rely on for profits and so all of their services will be created to serve none of our needs.

We will learn to provide for ourselves again and trade with each other for products and services since corporations already only exist to generate profit for stakeholders as per their fiduciary duty.

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"A-la-carte game purchases are no longer available."
i searched for in on the dictionary, and the word for it is pretty clear:
steal

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Good to hear all the options they've added for base preservation. But then, none of these band-aids would be required if there was no degradation in the first place.

I get why degradation was useful in this case - it's a shared server, and you build a geographically quite large base over the landscape, so if you're not ever coming back to play the game, it's a pain for the people who are. Hell, on the server I was on, there was one base that was so large, it cut off two fairly vital routes to/from the third area (I forget its name), forcing you to do a run over the worm-sands to get in. They knew what they were doing with that too - total dick move, and a perfect reminder of why I generally can't stand playing any kind of game with the wider internet (get offa ma lawn!).

But in self-hosted instances, they'd better offer the option to simply remove degradation, because it's pointless in a self-hosted instance.

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Just amazing how many four-player co-op games and sequels/DLC there is this year though.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: scratchi

Quoting: pbAll I can see is they announced a bunch of YouTube logos. 😝

Happy to know it's not just me :)

As an extra privacy step, we don't auto-show youtube videos.

And that's great if you ask me. I suppose scratchi and pb might want to take a look at the Cookie Preferences page though.

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Quoting: scratchi

Quoting: pbAll I can see is they announced a bunch of YouTube logos. 😝

Happy to know it's not just me :)

As an extra privacy step, we don't auto-show youtube videos.

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Quoting: pbAll I can see is they announced a bunch of YouTube logos. 😝

Happy to know it's not just me :)

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyThese weird graphics terms are always getting me confused. What the heck is "puppy stacking"? ;)

Iirc, there's a section that the character needs to collect and carry puppies one by one. This probably allows stacking them into the inventory.

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To me it is more exciting to see other source mods ported to Strata Source, especially ones that hit 32 bit limits of the original engine.

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Quoting: Dana SoulyWhat are keyboard AI keys? Is this one button where AI takes over the PC? 🤣

New laptops have copilot key if they have copilot certification thing, I also see galaxy ai button on new samsung keyboards for tablets

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Quoting: EhvisThe question is how much control will you have over the game in a self hosted server? And more importantly, will you be able to disable the EAC requirement on a self hosted server? If so, it would be a major step forward in this game's future preservation and my interest in actually trying it out. Because if I look at the reviews and see multiple instances of people losing all their work because they didn't play for a week removes any interest I might have in the game.

People never lost a base in a week on the main map (Hagga Basin), but there was time when they degraded faster when unpowered (player's mistake or exploit). Weekly wipe is for the Deep Desert (totally separate map), which PvE vs PvP ratio was 10%/90%, then got changed 50%/50% and now will have 2 separate instances, 100% PvE and 10%/90% PvE/PvP. Official ones will probably keep wiping every week.
The post mentions base decay options, but I doubt self-hosting changes preservation because the EAC is on the client, not on the server, which is just a self-hosting of your own Dune world (server cluster). I doubt you'll going to get a separate client for self-hosted server, server discovery will be still hosted by them. You can rent "self-hosted server" from some service provider too, now they just let you run that.

Quoting: ZlopezI originally wanted to try this game, but got discouraged by reading that you need to maintain your buildings otherwise they will just decay over time. So imagine that you go away for 2 weeks and all your work in game is gone. This doesn't sound like a game to me, but like a second job you need to take care of.

That was never the case, on the main map (Hagga Basin), you just needed to keep your base powered, so you had to log in once in 20 or 27 days (depending on which power source you used) and refill the generator with fuel cells. If you turned off all the machines in your base and only kept the shields on, you never needed to go mine more fuel cells because you could fill a storage box with them and just refill the generators manually from there. So, just couple of button presses every 20 or 27 days.
Originally, there was also taxes for larger bases, but these got removed a while back too. Basically, if you used a larger base, you needed to travel to Arrakeen or Harko Village map every 2 or 3 weeks (maybe even 4 weeks, never pushed it that far myself). But nobody forced you to build such big base, so it wasn't really an issue. Nowadays, if you haven't played for 4 weeks, you get generous welcome back packages with free items based on your player level. Also, they added base backup tool a while back for those who wanted to take the time off on the main map (Hagga Basin) or wanted to move to a different Dune world (server cluster).

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Last time I've played, I got stuck at the end of Chapter 1 of the Campaign, cleared whole map and it still didn't count as my victory. Maybe this time it will work?

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Sounds like it might be time for a replay of the first game I bought on Steam. 🙂 (The second video on the store page has a lot of cool shots showing off the new visual effects.)

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Quoting: shimmyI bought Madden on Stadia. Then it closed and I couldn't play it anymore because it closed.

I bought Madden on Luna in January. And now it's either gone or will be available still but with a premium subscription. I guess me and Madden are not going to happen.

How Maddening!

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Quoting: Andy GneissHave I been living under a rock or is this the first time anyone else has heard Amazon Luna even existed?
Apparently it's about 3 years old and it's already being chopped up. That's not encouraging.

I find it encouraging to hear something connected with Amazon is doing badly! 😁

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Quoting: scaineI despise cloud gaming, but I can see that I'm doing my hating from a position of privilege -

I do my hating from a very different position of privilege. My rig is pretty old and was middle of the road when I bought it. But, I don't actually like playing any of the kinds of games that are very demanding on hardware, so it's fine. I'd say the closest I play to pushing the hardware would be . . . Stellaris?

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I played this for several months and thought Dune Awakening was a really fun game! That said, I did not get into the PvP stuff and I finally needed to take a break so, most of my stuff has probably succumb to degradation by now. Looking forward to seeing what they plan for self hosting options! If it's easy enough, I may roll a server for myself and maybe some friends (if I can find any, lol)

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Otp's get phished just as easily as passwords nowadays. Their only advantage is that they can protect against a simple "(educated) guess the password" attack.

Phishing refers to an attacker contacting the victim to trick them into clicking a dodgy link or opening a malware attachment inside a message. Presuming that a victim is successfully phished, i.e. malware is installed, and password credentials are exfiltrated - There is still a massive gap between successful phishing and circumventing the OTP.

To circumvent OTP, you'd also need to steal the OTP key. Often people use OTP from their smartphone, and they scan their computer screens (once) to retrieve the key. The attacker would need access to the phone (to get that key).

As such, the attacker would instead need to implement a man-in-the-middle website masquerading as the victim's Epic store, e.g. by poisoning their DNS. The attacker would have to get the victim to login to the fake site, and during login, steal the OTP values in real time as the victim types it in. That is a lot more work and difficult to succeed than merely stealing email and password, and then scripting automated bulk logins of thousands of user accounts.

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These weird graphics terms are always getting me confused. What the heck is "puppy stacking"? ;)

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I played Cave Story a while back and it was a bit on the buggy side. If the two-player is co-op I could see me and my girlfriend giving this a try as a way for me to finally play this game :-)

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What are keyboard AI keys? Is this one button where AI takes over the PC? 🤣

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As a fierce supporter of the "I want to own what I buy, not rent it" idea, I love cloud gaming services struggling and closing down. I can tolerate them as a niche thing for people having potato PCs, but the idea that studios can literally force us into a subscription-only gaming world needs to leave these executives' heads rather soon.

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Honestly, most of it wasn't my thing. I'd already put The Lift and Alabaster Dawn on my wishlist a while back, so those were known quantities.

What really grabbed my attention was Neverway. Celeste pixel artist and Disasterpeace ST in a dark action sim? Sold!

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I played Alabaster’s Dawn demo a few months ago, it had a lovely style and the gameplay seemed on the right track.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse looks fantastic art-wise. I could tell immediately it was made by a French studio. It’s giving a mix of Dead Cells and Blasphemous vibes. Unfortunately, it also looks like the kind of game I would be terrible at :P

Temtem: Pioneers looks like Nintendo’s next victim...

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Quoting: scaineI suppose they'll have to consider Geforce Now? At least while that's still around.

"Advocates" of subscription bit on re****** side. Normal people, general populous who got (barely afford) low end (sub ~0.5K) PC or even mid range ones (1K+) won't be ditching nice cash (0.1K-0.2K annually, soon more) for subscription. Location important and internet service comes into play too. RAM (hardware) price increase won't drive people to subscribe, just simple BS. People skimping, not double down on spending if things get to expensive.

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I bought Madden on Stadia. Then it closed and I couldn't play it anymore because it closed.

I bought Madden on Luna in January. And now it's either gone or will be available still but with a premium subscription. I guess me and Madden are not going to happen.

Luna was OK-ish:
- game loading time was quite slow
- no IPv6
- no convenient app on Linux/Steam Deck. Browser wrapping is the only way and that also had some issues, e.g. after suspend.

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Quoting: MayeulCDarn, I missed the deadline, I had so much to say :|

The EU is always curious what you've to say about the things that matter to you:
Maybe you want to say something about [laws about electronic invoicing](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14792-Electronic-invoicing-revision-of-EU-rules_en), [the distribution of water](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/17034-EU-water-policy-targeted-revision-of-the-Water-Framework-Directive_en), [police datasharing](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/17213-Police-cooperation-EU-rules-on-the-automated-search-and-exchange-of-biometric-data-with-non-EU-countries_en), [Fraud prevention and KYC laws](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/16893-Revision-of-the-European-Anti-Fraud-Office-OLAF-Regulation_en), [Export controls for dual use goods like chips, encryption tech and cybersecurity tools.](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/17172-Dual-use-export-controls-evaluation-of-the-Dual-Use-Regulation_en)

Edit:
Ooh I found two that're much more juicy.
[Call for you views on the current form of the Cyber resilience act.](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/16959-Draft-Commission-guidance-on-the-Cyber-Resilience-Act_en)
[Call for your view of the current draft act for cross border health data sharing.](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/15594-European-Health-Data-Space-requirements-for-cross-border-exchange-of-personal-health-data-MyHealth@EU-_en)

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Have I been living under a rock or is this the first time anyone else has heard Amazon Luna even existed?
Apparently it's about 3 years old and it's already being chopped up. That's not encouraging.

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Quoting: PoliticsOfStarvingIs it even an accurate way to measure Linux gaming? For the last two years or so, I don't even bother installing steam, I just go straight to heroic.

There is no accurate measure.
The Steam survey is one of the most accurate.
Steam dominates pc gaming enough to be considered a monopolist by the courts and for it to hold coercive power over Apple.
The survey provides enough extra information to see interesting trends including misleading ones(say variations in simplified Chinese. It's clear that if one considers Steam's global market Linux would probably not cross the 3% line, but that the Great Firewall of China distorts the picture).
Interesting here is that there isn't a clear variation visible for any of India's official languages.
[With a 16% adoption rate](https://commandlinux.com/statistics/linux-adoption-rate-by-country/), >1.4billion residents and a government with a track record of fast and hard decisions one would expect an easily spotted trend.
Nothing of the kind.

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I despise cloud gaming, but I can see that I'm doing my hating from a position of privilege - I have a reasonably beefy PC to play demanding games on. How many people have bought demanding games to play on Luna because they don't have that privilege? And now they're out of pocket and out of luck.

I suppose they'll have to consider Geforce Now? At least while that's still around.

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