Quoting: CyrilNow we know a lot of alternatives that don't require any skill at all. Tell me what skills you need to start using communication softwares like Tox or Riot.im for example.

I don't know because until this particular thread, I never even heard of those applications before, and I consider myself generally well versed in most FOSS software. Perhaps I just missed them... but if I missed them, I can virtually promise you, most everyones friends and family have never even heard of them!

Quoting: CyrilTell me how is it difficult to create an account on Mastodon instead of Facebook/Twitter...

Creating an account? Not too hard. Figuring out how to find people to follow, and getting your mind around how federated networks can cause a bit of lag... I can see a good majority not wanting to figure that out.

Quoting: CyrilA lot of people are just lazy, they don't need to be especially a geek guy.

Depends on your definition of lazy, though. How hard is it to change the oil in your car? Yet so many people would rather go to a mechanic and have them do it.

Quoting: CyrilWhen some say "all my friends and my family are on Facebook", in 2019 sure I believe you, but some ~10 years ago, "nobody" was on it, so why did they register at that time?

Because the younger generation was moving to it. The generation coming out of college and realizing MySpace was way too juvenile found this new service that, generally, treated everyone like adults. No glitter bombed pages, just clean, clear pages for information and communication... for friends and (shortly after initial release) family. You could find multiple groups with similar interests without having to sign in to multiple forums (assuming the users even KNEW what forums were).

Sure, all of the core services could be done by others, but let's not bury our heads here... for the filth Facebook has become (corporately), it brought the services people wanted to use into a single place and made them ridiculously easy by the standards of the day.

Quoting: CyrilFacebook has nothing to offer for people, but Facebook profits a lot what people share with it. People who use Facebook are not the clients, they're the product.

I agree that Facebook profits off people and their information and that the 'users' are being exploited.

Quoting: CyrilAnd guess what? Some people are great to find excuses to stay on these services, even when a lot know it's shit, they stay on it.

Again... friends and family. You can call that an excuse all you want, but you can't beat that! Only the young are willing to change, and they try all the things. They don't have years upon years of history with their friends yet, and they don't really care yet about the detailed comings and goings of their adult family. As such, they are the ones most likely to leave Facebook and cause a change... BUT... they're young. They're going to be attracted to the loudest new communication/social system. As great as many of these alternatives are, they have virtually no presence. Most people that find them are the jaded ones that are already sick of the mainstream (for whatever reason). Ultimately, even the young will flock to the service all of their friends are using, and, will probably stay their for the majority of their lives or until their children convince them to move.

(I'm being general here, but I believe this to be the vast majority)

Quoting: CyrilI mean it's not having a perfect solution in 2 seconds, but willing to tend to the best not the worst.
Ah... sorry for the harsh comment. :S:

They aren't harsh comments... and when I'm being particularly flippant about the world, I say much the same, or worse about people (I work in IT... gah! The stupid!) None-the-less, IMHO, to simply call people stupid for using the big named services is, ultimately, reductionist. History and society is far more complicated than "people are just too lazy".

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Quoting: commodore256

Quoting: ObsidianBlkTL;DR Would love to be exclusively decentralized and open services or host my own... but I like to stay social with my friends, and they use Discord, not Mumble, sadly.

This is why this issue persists, apathy. Tell your friends Discord is for Boomers that install spyware.

It has nothing to do with apathy, it has to do with community. If you can't convince your family and/or friends to use these alternate services (and calling them stupid is FAR from effective in doing so), what's the point? Who wants to be in an empty forum or a dead chatroom? People aren't (totally) stupid, but most have neither the skill set, nor time to manage hosting all of their own services, and, for those of us that might, !great!, but your friends are still going to congregate where all of their other friends are, whether that be Discord, Facebook, Twitter, etc, and you're left being a lonely, smug, know-it-all screaming into the wind.

(BTW, when I say 'you' I'm not referring specifically to you)

In the end, host what your friends are willing to switch to or what you personally just want to use, and, for those other services, block what you can and be aware of what content you put up.

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On one hand, I very much understand the misgivings many of 'us' have about services like Discord (facebook, twitter, google, etc). I really would like to control my own content, files, and programs. I left Facebook over a decade ago. I have never joined Twitter. I run my own Mastodon server.

That said... hosting your own stuff is a massive job in and of itself! The cost for all of the storage, networking, and power consumption can grow very quickly! My single Mastodon server costs me $10 a month to host because I don't feel I can host it right from my apartment's network (which I can't upgrade / rewire, obviously). I use Amazon as a place to store the media files for my server and, while I'm running in the free tier, nearly every month I get a warning that I'm close to hitting the cap. All of this, and I'm barely even active on my Mastodon server!

And all of the above is just ONE service!
I'd love to be Sys Admin Master God Uber 1337, but I just don't have the time and resources to host everything (AND keep it all patched perfectly), and I'd venture to say the vast majority of us are in a similar boat.

Finally, even if you hosted ALL your own stuff... who are you going to talk to? Perhaps I'm just the most unlucky son-of-a-bish but none of my friend or family care about security or privacy concerns! Nobody I talk with could really care less about Facebook or Twitter or Google being able to see all of their information! The convenience trumps all of those concerns for them! I could argue the merits of decentralized, open source services until I'm blue in the face, but I can't give a good argument against, "but all of my friends are already on <service here>. They're not going to move, so why should I?"... and, I suppose, I'm stuck asking that same question.

TL;DR Would love to be exclusively decentralized and open services or host my own... but I like to stay social with my friends, and they use Discord, not Mumble, sadly.

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Quoting: SalvatosI disagree. I find them pointless and a waste of money, but the former is precisely why I'm not against their existence as a money-making mechanism.

To each their own, but here's the thing... both back in the day and even today, for some games, we would get expansions/DLCs that added not just a single JPEG image or even a model or two, but whole factions, territories, game mechanics, episodes, etc for the same price or only about double what some of these single item cosmetics are going for. By accepting these cosmetics, we are essentially telling developers/publishers that they can sit on their laurels and produce nearly nothing. In the end, we loose out on content!

Furthermore, if all the Devs/Pubs have to do is placate us with the odd JPEG or model every so often, how do you think that's actually helping the developers? They're not engaged in developing a full product anymore, only the cosmetics... so why should they keep all of their programmers? They only need one or two to patch issues. Why should they keep their all of their artists. They only need enough to put out two or three new cosmetics a month. Sure, you're "supporting" the company, but not the actual people who do the work.

Quoting: SalvatosI find it no worse than commissioning portraits or donating money to a streamer to hear a song of your choice during their show.

At least with a portrait, you are getting art work that is unique to you. That's your portrait and nobody else will ever have the exact same one. Also... you get to keep it forever! You only get to keep your cosmetics for the life of the game servers (which, arguably, is shrinking game upon game).

Quoting: SalvatosThe cost doesn't have to reflect a tangible value.

Again... to each their own

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Quoting: HadBabitsIf it was just the cosmetics I could accept that; they've been going for a while and you need to support the servers and devs, etc, etc. However they also sell DLC cars which have different hitboxes and stats, meaning they directly affect gameplay in a multiplayer game, so that's a bit dodgy.

Either way, getting rid of the predatory randomization is a big step in the right direction, and puts them ahead of a lot ""AAA"" games: I'd give it a solid B :P

Edit: Actually, let's make that a B- for having the gall to put in loot boxes in the first place :whistle:

Just to play devils advocate here...
Cosmetics are not ok, especially at the price points most games sell them for and most especially for a game on a PC... a platform where user content was created! Now, I cannot speak to Rocket League. I don't personally play it, but I have seen how much other games are charging. These days, 5 dollars (us) seems to be the bare minimum for what amounts to a glorified JPEG image. In other games, if you even have access to directly buying items, instead of loot boxes, you could be charged 10 or even 20 dollars (us), once you convert around their 'premium currencies'. At those price points, you can go onto the Unity asset store and buy a model and several JPEG textures and do whatever the hell you want with it!

As far as servers and devs... that statement is a lie (IMHO) perpetuated by the AAA publishers. If the server cost is an issue, then these companies can charge a monthly fee to play the game... old MMO style. The only reasons they don't is, they've discovered they can sucker more people into buying JPEGs. As for the devs... even a successful game raking in millions in in-app purchases is no guarantee for developers. Look at Activision who, after claiming record profits, proceeded to lay off a large chunk of it's work force.

Anyway, that's just my two cents, and, even with all that, I still buy those glorified JPEGs on occasion myself.

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I do really hope Pathea releases the source code, and I really hope some competent people get their hands on it because, honestly, I always liked the idea of Planet Explorers. The game itself always felt jankie, but maybe someone/group can get this game to where it could have been.

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I will be honest... I'm very tempted to subscribe to this.
Has anyone subscribed? Is it a good value for a Linux gamer? (I have no issue playing through WINE, but do prefer native)

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I'm actually playing a little Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind via TES3MP (openMW multiplayer).

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Quoting: TermyI really don't get why not more people are buying there. Especially when most of the games include a steam-key, so missing features of the client don't really count...i ALWAYS look if a game is availiabe on itch...

I love Itch.io! I've participated in a few game jams and plan to do joining more when time permits. I have downloaded and played a number of games from the store (and I love browsing the 'tools' and 'assets' sections, as well)... but... Itch.io is kinda the 'Dollar Store' game store. I only barely heard of Itch.io before joining THIS site and even then, it wasn't until a good year or so later that I said "I keep hearing GOL mention this place, and I trust GOL, so let's take a look at it".

From the Average Joe/Jane Gamer's perspective... Itch.io is an unknown. If Steam was getting shiz for their lack of curation, Itch.io has none at all (as far as I know). There are virtually no AAA games (which is still a major draw, regardless of how shiz the industry has been over the last decade or so). The solid Indie games we love that may also be on Itch.io are buried with all of the graphic novel, dating sim, NES rom, fetish, and (often incomplete) game jam games.

There is ALOT of AMAZING things that can be found on Itch.io... but, I think it'll remain a relative unknown until the AAA industry crashes completely, bringing down Steam, Epic, and all of the other major launchers. Until that time, the only people who will ever know about Itch.io will be small game developers and the odd gamer really looking for something off the beaten path.

That's my opinion, anyway.

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: EhvisCalling this a "Total conversion for Doom 2" is a bit silly. There is not a single thing in this game that can be rendered by the original Doom 2 engine.

Yeah, I think developers need to work out a new way to describe such things. What would you suggest exactly?

I think, technically, GZDoom is more a FPS-focused game engine. As such, this would be more of a "Game built on a retro-fps inspired engine"? Or... "Game using a modernized Doom 2 engine"?

I'm actually curious... is GZDoom free of the original Doom engine source restrictions? That is, could someone make a full game using GZDoom and legally attempt to sell it? I mean, there's Ion Maiden being sold that's based on the old Build engine (Duke 3D), so, there's no reason to think that a game on an old engine isn't a viable sell these days.

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