I've written in the Desura forum in hopes they take Desura customers more seriously. I shouldn't have bought it until completed.

http://www.desura.com/games/project-zomboid/forum/thread/sun-jdk-fedora-19-64bit-d0cog-project-zomboid-java-version-java-version-170-45-openjdk-runtime-environment-f/#970155 [External Link]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The desire to use FOSS drivers goes beyond political/philosophical, try to report a kernel bug in a tainted kernel, you can't and the reasons are technical. In fact, I don't think open source is more political/philosophical than closed source, that way of thinking is a manipulation to make the former look worse in today's unprincipled society.

I think the AMD CPUs have good value for the money, compared to Intel they are slow for single-threaded loads, fast for multi-threaded. I have an FX8350 CPU, cheaper than Intel, good enough for games and better multi-threaded performance. For most current games, multi-threaded performance isn't important but that may be changing soon with the new engines versions optimized for the new game consoles.

Quoting: sherlockHowever, it seems rather unprofessional for the author of this article to express his personal opinion and satisfaction or lack thereof with a particular brand, which serves no objective purpose other than reinforcing his own buying decisions.

Read everything here as if it was editorials and you'll be fine. I understand you since I find these articles poorly reasoned for editorials, and too subjective (distracting from the main point) for news.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: XBONEWell unfortunately strictly speaking the same technology that is used for DRM can be applied
to prevent modifications to the system and vice versa. If you can prevent modifications to the system
then you can prevent cheating and also malware.

When discussing about DRM often I get the feeling we talk about different things. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, i.e., someone is managing in some way your right to use the software.

When someone says "it doesn't annoy me, so it's not DRM". It's changing the meaning to "something that annoys the user". Annoying the user has never been a goal for DRM, whether it annoys or not depends on the DRM system and the user tolerance.

DRM isn't meant to prevent breaches either, that would be another thing with another name, but it's mixed in to make DRM more appealing to users.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Hamish

Quoting: IvancilloI know that many people like Steam, but I would be happy if publishers didn't have that "possibility" (meaning G.E.M.).

Well yes, which is why I do not use Steam, but it is still important to make the distinction. Not all the features that Steam provides are DRM, or are dependant on it.

Can I download games with a browser? How is having to install games with their software connecting to their service not Digital Rights Management? I mean I wouldn't call it Digital Install Management. I want to download the game and install, update, remove, and repeat again when I want without them managing any part of the process. I don't want to ask someone to buy it for me then make me a copy of the game, supposing that I know that will work. And the same for updates in the foreseeable future. I would definitely buy in Steam if their service was something like HB or Desura (I haven't tried GOG yet). If that's not possible, why not? They would sell more. Why not let the supposedly DRM-free Steam games be really DRM-free?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: MaximBThere was an IAMA with DRM developer.
He says that their job is to make a DRM that will last as long as possible because most of the sales of major titles happen in the first month and than they drastically decline.
So if you have a DRM and can't pirate the game for a month, then you are more likely to buy this game.

Now, I am not supporting DRM in any way, just explaining what the publishers think.

Links to IAMA:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1bzkia/iama_developer_of_drm_systems_and_software/ [External Link]

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ufw0e/i_develop_drm_systems_and_software_activation/ [External Link]

Good reference. From that, I get that DRM is only effective to protect from piracy for a month, but it will bother the legitimate customer for the whole game lifetime. Great thinking.

It also says that in the long term they seek protection for "casual" piracy, i.e., lending the game to a friend. I understand this better but I still don't like DRM anyway and won't buy it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

If they think DRM is good for their business they're right using it. I know it's not good for me, so I'll stay away from it. In my view, DRM makes piracy look good, sometimes law it's not made in the best general interest.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Syder Arcade caught my attention first, I liked this kind of games back in the day. It's good but a bit buggy. In case your system uses a non-english locale you might get visual and gameplay errors. Try running it with the command:
LC_ALL=C ./SyderArcade_Humble.x86

It's the first Unity game I have problems with. I guess it's using locale-aware number parsing functions for reading its data files, nasty. It might be some Unity plugin that is doing it.

Overall, a good and varied bundle. Bridge Constructor and Savant-Ascent are good too and running very well. Haven't tried the others yet.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Companies are all after the money they need to make them profitable, some may seem more ethical than the others but the money is the only thing that matters in the end. Was the original owner better than Facebook? It seems it wasn't.

I look forward to this kind of devices, whether it is through Facebook, or any other company or community project.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

HTML5 sentenced Flash, Adobe executed it and wisely started working on HTML5. I think Youtube keeps Flash mostly because of IE users.

Quoting: mannyhopefully adobe will just adopt openFL or html5 once and for all and drop their closed plugin.

Why? Is that necessary to stop using it?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Hamish

Quoting: philip550cI'm guessing since they are supporting ubuntu/mint that it will be deb files.

I certainly hope not; as Ryan Gordon said in his Steam Dev Days talk, it is never worth the trouble for game developers to actually integrate themselves into distribution's package managers.

Integration would mean getting their packages in the distributions but that's not possible in this case, and I think most distributions don't like the idea. Good installers already exist, and tarballs are awesomely simple to use, why bother themselves and us?

View this comment - View article - View full comments