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Latest Comments by 14
Valve's card game Artifact is still being worked on for a big revamp
28 Mar 2020 at 2:30 pm UTC

Quoting: Kimyrielle
Quoting: 14Usually when people speak in ultimatums, they're exaggerating due to a lazy mind or anger-fueled irrationality.

Needless to say, I disagree with you. But that's fine.
For the most part I would agree with you that absolutes rarely exist, and there's usually an exception or two to every statement one can make. I felt fairly comfortable generalizing in this particular instance though, and still do. The reason for this lies in the very effect the "Free"-to-Play model causes on game design, which makes these games bad by definition.

I will try to explain:

For a Buy-to-Play game, the game design focuses on delivering the best possible experience for the player. There are no secondary concerns for game design - the monetization has already happened.
For a "Free"-to-Play game, monetization has to happen DURING play, and AFTER giving the player access to it. The design no longer focuses on the best possible experience for the player, it focuses on motivating the player to pay up. Which for the F2P side of the industry is habitually done by intentionally making the game boring or tedious after a few hours of playing it, while giving players the opportunity to buy away these nag-mechanics with micro-transactions ("Don't want to wait 100 hours for this cooldown to expire? Just pay $10!").
In short, you can safely say that F2P games are universally designed to suck unless you pay up. It's how these games make you pay when you otherwise would have no reason to.

Now, you might say "But what about vanity and cosmetic items that have no effect on gameplay? Selling these don't make a game suck!"

Unfortunately, it does.

In a B2P game, cosmetic items are earned in-game, by PLAYING it. For many games, getting better-looking gear is the very essence of our motivation to play them in this first place. But with F2P games, you just BUY them. You can't earn the good-looking stuff in game, because it's moved to the cash-store. All you do is swipe your credit card and done! Your character looks great now. The only problem is that moving in-game rewards to a cash-store is that it kills in-game content, because your already great-looking character doesn't have to do any dungeon crawling to become great-looking. Cash-stores, even if cosmetic only, leave game designers with a lot less options to design rewarding and engaging content.

Maybe this helps you to understand why I made my absolute statement the way I did. There is simply no way to make a F2P game NOT suck, because the problem is in the business model itself.
I see your point. I'll even say that I generally agree. But there are exceptions, for me at least. For a CCG, I'm okay with mimicking the physical card game model and charging for booster packs. All board games and card games get repetitive until you add more content. That content costs professional time to create. I also think Dota 2 is completely fun without buying anything. Other than those, nothing else is coming to mind right now, thus why I generally agree.

Help GamingOnLinux beat Coronavirus, join us on Folding@home
21 Mar 2020 at 4:08 pm UTC

Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: 14The 245680 team must be freshly out of the oven because I don't see any stats populated at extremeoverclocking [External Link] yet.
Really, they need to clean up the Team system. I can see no reason for it not to show up. It's listed on my PC for my own folding quite clearly and using the ID I can go back and edit the Team details but it doesn't currently show in public lists.
It's one dude that runs the site. The DB stats report only runs every few hours. I imagine the GoL team will show up less than a day.

Help GamingOnLinux beat Coronavirus, join us on Folding@home
21 Mar 2020 at 2:45 pm UTC Likes: 1

I've been wondering if we should post this here. I've been folding [External Link] on and off for years. Happy to see it promoted!

The 245680 team must be freshly out of the oven because I don't see any stats populated at extremeoverclocking [External Link] yet.

Valve's card game Artifact is still being worked on for a big revamp
21 Mar 2020 at 2:37 pm UTC

Quoting: Kimyrielle
Quoting: 14
Quoting: Kimyrielle
Quoting: rkfgMake it F2P,
100% of all so-called "free"-to-play games suck. As in all of them, no exceptions. Because all of them are designed to suck unless you dump more money into it than you ever would in an actual for-purchase game.
Oh, like Dota 2?

I'm fine with buying a digital card game if I can play a trial mode first. I was too hesitant to put money down on Artifact and so never experienced it. I wish they had a free weekend or a trial mode of some sort. I also think it's OK to charge money for card packs just like Magic (etc) does in the physical world... as long as the game includes a Draft mode!
Not sure which part of "100% no exceptions" wasn't so clear.
Usually when people speak in ultimatums, they're exaggerating due to a lazy mind or anger-fueled irrationality.

Needless to say, I disagree with you. But that's fine.

Valve's card game Artifact is still being worked on for a big revamp
21 Mar 2020 at 4:29 am UTC

Quoting: Kimyrielle
Quoting: rkfgMake it F2P,
100% of all so-called "free"-to-play games suck. As in all of them, no exceptions. Because all of them are designed to suck unless you dump more money into it than you ever would in an actual for-purchase game.
Oh, like Dota 2?

I'm fine with buying a digital card game if I can play a trial mode first. I was too hesitant to put money down on Artifact and so never experienced it. I wish they had a free weekend or a trial mode of some sort. I also think it's OK to charge money for card packs just like Magic (etc) does in the physical world... as long as the game includes a Draft mode!

Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition has a big update out and new story DLC coming soon
20 Mar 2020 at 1:53 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestFor me the biggest issue is the interface scaling. The fonts are simply too small on my resolution (1680x1050) and monitor size (22in). It is literally unplayable unless i play at a much lower resolution.
I just launched the game to see what my settings were at. I play at 1080p. My UI scale is at 1x (surprisingly). But I knew I had changed something to fix the font a long time ago. Turns out it's inside Advanced Video options. You can enable high-resolution font. See if you don't already have that enabled. To me, the game text looks like a system font and not really a custom game font (the game log text, not in the menus).

Fast-paced arcade combat-racing with RC cars 'PocketCars' adds Linux support
19 Mar 2020 at 9:52 pm UTC Likes: 1

Yes, it does make me think of Re-Volt straight away, however I see a problem. The cars look like they act too heavy. Notice how they do not act like lightweight RC cars when they go over bumps and ramps. Real RC cars easily become airborne, which adds to the fun difficulty. If you hit a bump in the middle of a corner, you are going to soar a little bit off course. It does not look like that happens in this game.

Linux hardware vendor System76 will have their own Keyboard out this year
19 Mar 2020 at 1:39 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: TheSHEEEPLeft hand is left of the space key, right hand is right of it....
Standard 10-finger typing.
How the hell would you use the pinky finger for space?

Haven't even seen people who do not type with 10 fingers use their pinky finger to press the space bar.
I read it that way first as well, but that's not what is meant. Pinky usage is a separate point than the space bar length.

The only "problem" I see with a big layout change is I'll have to get two so I don't have to switch back and forth at work and at home. To be honest, I think Tchey's keyboard layout looks more radical and worth trying than the System76 prototype. I agree with the space bar length being too long right now though.

Half-Life: Alyx support for Linux aiming to arrive with Vulkan support post-release
19 Mar 2020 at 1:29 pm UTC Likes: 1

The repositioning mechanic is annoying to watch. And, due to the lack of fluid movement, each corner looks like a new "scene" waiting for you to get in place. I'm not saying it can't be fun, but it might be hard for me to get used to (or ignore). On the flip side, it makes me think of Resident Evil games. RE5 had a stiff feel to it, yet it was grand fun after I got used to it! So, Alyx might just take a lil getting use to. And was that Dead Space style weapon upgrades?

Ubisoft games head to Stadia starting with The Division 2, The Crew 2 and Monopoly
14 Mar 2020 at 2:06 am UTC

[quote=Xpander]
Quoting: 14
Quoting: Xpander[
I knew I'd trigger someone. Looks more like Witcher 1? Have you even played Witcher 1?! Don't be absurd. https://youtu.be/1fUGFmmikn4 [External Link]
That video you linked is probably not running on max settings even, but still ther's a difference.. yeah Witcher 1 comparsion was oversaturated, but the difference really is night and day, i have seen both versions (on PS4 pro and on PC) in real life :)

Here more acurate what the difference is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo5Nh9am3RM [External Link]
Fair enough, except I don't have a 4K setup. Also, when I got Witcher 3, it was not in a playable state on Linux.