Quoting: HamishI played both the main game and the expansion as the Fighter just for that sweet instant gratification. I do understand the Cleric and Mage classes will grow in power while the Fighter stays mostly flat, but hack and slash for me was the way to go. Especially since I went through most of the game twice. The alternate fire on the Hammer of Retribution served me well enough for range.

I didn't notice an issue with the Fighter in the original game. I think the difficulty curve was a little more forgiving. The first two hack and slash weapons were fine for the Fighter early on and you get the Hammer of Retribution at the right time to handle a lot of ranged enemies.

In the expansion, I find that they throw a lot of enemies with ranged attacks at you early on. And, unless I missed it, I haven't found the Hammer of Retribution yet, even though I just picked up Quietus. I'm currently in the Sump area, and I'm going to have nightmares about swinging my axe with all these Slaughtars firing at me.

By comparison, the Cleric gets the Serpent Staff in the first area, and the Mage' first weapon is good enough to handle everything.

I think in the original game I found the Mage to be a bit harder at the end, because a lot of his weapons are unreliable. Frost Shards seem useless. And his final weapon eats too much ammo.

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I've recently been playing through Hexen using GZDoom and the texture packs.

I remember playing the game as a kid, and never beating it because I got lost and didn't know what to do next. That's the type of thing I usually chalk up to being an impatient and stupid child.

But, no, Hexen was ridiculous. The complexity of the level layouts are taken to the extreme. The level designers absolutely were not afraid to hide important switches and doors in very difficult to locate spots or behind secret walls. And beyond saying that a door opened somewhere, there was usually no indication of what a switch did. I did have to rely on some walkthroughs for Hexen.

I'm playing through Deathkings of the Dark Citadel right now. I just started it, and I'm in the Sump area now. I'm playing through with each class. In the expansion they do put you up against difficult enemies early on. Without a ranged attack, the Fighter class is significantly harder than Cleric or Mage so far.

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Quoting: Para-Glidingthis is a nice game, but without such project, no way to play it today with the original gameplay (swinging the sword with mouse...what a mess)

I loved the swinging weapons with a mouse. I remember being disappointed when Morrowing came out and your attacks were just based on pressing a button and which direction you were moving.

As lame as it was, it sort of made you feel a part of the action. Especially when an enemy came up on you suddenly and you had to swing around in a panic.

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Quoting: JustinWoodTimespinner was a pretty fantastic game, though there were a few spots that felt as though content was cut, which was a shame.

Yeah. Although, I assumed it was more of 'kickstarter overreach'. My impression of the game was that they promised a ton of features in crowd funding, and then had to deliver them all. Which they did, but just didn't make enough game to actually need all those features in a useful way.

They had things like crafting, levelling up the orbs (weapons), and elemental weaknesses, dodge mechanics, etc. But, it didn't really utilize those things. The game was generally easy enough that you could just wail on enemies with any orb type, not worry about enemy weaknesses and tank all the damage you took without dodging, and still win.

If they manage to refine all their mechanics, then the sequel could be a great game.

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I was able to play this using the GOG script available on Lutris: https://lutris.net/games/star-wars-dark-forces/ [External Link]

While it seemed to work, I did run into this Linux bug: Multi monitor setup, mouse looses focus (Linux) #175 [External Link]

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I did a clean install, since I was moving to a newer NVME driver.

Overall, the experience has been good.

One major issue for me is that I'm not getting 165Hz on my monitor. I have a dual screen setup with one monitor 1080@60Hz and another monitor 1440@165Hz. I can tell the animations in Cinnamon are not smooth on my 165Hz screen.

If I disable the 1080@60Hz monitor in xrandr then I can tell the other monitor does 165Hz. So it seems to be a multi-monitor issue.

This appears to be a regression since it was working just fine in Mint 20.3.

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Quoting: randylThis could end being the spiritual successor to Betrayal at Krondor I've always wanted. They have a Discord you can join and chat about the game if you're interested. I've tried the demo and while it's a bit rough (as expected at this stage) it's also quite nice.

I actually liked Return to Krondor. It might have made a difference that I had it first, and played Betrayal after. RtK felt a little unfinished to me, but I still remember with some fondness.

Unfortunately, Return to Krondor is a game that doesn't seem to work well with Wine. Although, it's been a while since I tried it.

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This update seems to have broken the setup for ZDoom games. I think what's happening for me is that the runner no longer respects the settings in the 'Game options' for ZDoom games.

This means that the WAD file and any PWADs are not being read from the game's installation location with Lutris. Instead it is looking directly in the ~/.config/gzdoom folder. This results in none of my ZDoom games launching. As a test, I dropped in my hexen.wad file into ~/.config/gzdoom and now all of my ZDoom games will launch Hexen.

This also results in the runner looking for any savegame folder in the wrong location, and same with the soundfonts.

It does seem that the 'Runner Options' setting for the game works, since it picks up the gzdoom.ini file properly. So with only the hexen.wad file in the ~/.config/gzdoom folder, when I start Doom, it will run Hexen but with my gzdoom.ini setup from Doom.

Anybody else having this problem?

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Quoting: MisterPaytwick

The ruling even notes that references to it were found by a patent examiner by doing a "brief" search on it.

In french, "What the fuck: It was right in front of us, what are we doing?".

Not even surprised, sadly. Just them being assholes.

When you file a patent, you can submit an 'information disclosure statement'. Here is a brief description of what an IDS is. [External Link]

You disclose the prior art that you know of. When the USPTO examines the patent, the patent examiner will search for prior art that might prevent the patent from being allowed. The vast majority of time, the examiner will provide previous US patents or US patent applications as prior art refernces. The examiner is supposed to check the IDS to see if it is relevant prior art.

If the examiner does find prior art references, they give reasons why the application has been rejected, and the attorney can argue or amend the claims so that the patent application does not infringe on the prior art provided by the examiner.

If the patent is allowed, the prior art references in the IDS can be published on the patent (which is shown in this case). The presumption is that the published prior art references do not infringe the patent because the examiner would have checked them.

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Quoting: morphlesI'm team thumb trackball, and unlikely to ever switch to anything :) No need to move hand is super good, also now with mx ergo even hand positions is similar to vertical mouse. And I have no problems with precision, play PoE or WarFork with it without issues. Thumb ball ftw!

Yeah, I use a trackball too. We bought one for our family computer in the early days, and I've stuck with it ever since.

I use the Elecom thumb trackball [External Link].

I have no issues with gaming on a trackball. It's nice to be able to lean back and rest the mouse on my thigh while gaming.

I'm not amazing or anything, but it holds up just fine with aiming for online FPS games.

I'm left-handed, but I use a right-handed trackball. Honestly, using my left hand with the mouse would feel weird to me.

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