Latest Comments by Mal
The war of the PC stores is getting ugly, as Metro Exodus becomes a timed Epic Store exclusive
30 Jan 2019 at 2:58 pm UTC
30 Jan 2019 at 2:58 pm UTC
Honestly, from Valve, why even bother? They won't change business model just because of Epic. They know that it doesn't work in the long run. Gabe might just sit quietly and wait The Pirate Bay to do its job.
Which is a shame because a healthy competitor that forces Valve to raise the quality of its ecosystem is very much needed.
Which is a shame because a healthy competitor that forces Valve to raise the quality of its ecosystem is very much needed.
The war of the PC stores is getting ugly, as Metro Exodus becomes a timed Epic Store exclusive
29 Jan 2019 at 6:17 pm UTC Likes: 3
29 Jan 2019 at 6:17 pm UTC Likes: 3
Quoting: Whitewolfe80would you have as many concerns about what epic was doing if Epics store was on linux as a native app and Metro had been confirmed as coming to linuxExclusives are always bad. And if you don't pay the price right on the spot, you certainly will down the line.
The war of the PC stores is getting ugly, as Metro Exodus becomes a timed Epic Store exclusive
29 Jan 2019 at 4:25 pm UTC Likes: 10
29 Jan 2019 at 4:25 pm UTC Likes: 10
Competition is good... for the side that has the power of choice. This is a 3 way relationship. There are markets, there are devs and there are consumers. Steam took competition the consumer friendly way: by investing their share of the cake in better features for the ecosystem and luring customers with these perks. Epic took the opposite way and decided to take away power from consumers and give it to developers instead so these can reap the benefits in term of lower fees. In their fantasies we get the short end of the stick and stay quiet: we pay the same price as before but we say goodbye to chat, forums, workshop, reviews, cloud and so on. But these is what their plans really are: fantasies. When Steam was born the competition was already skewed on consumer choice and there was already a single monopolist player in the on line game market: piracy. Back then devs were very stubborn in ruining their games with awful and broken DRMs with the only practical result that the few people still willing to buy games were actually convinced to play the cracked versions instead because these had less hassles and were more reliable (no always on line or shit like that). So all that Steam had to do to convince people that a game purchased from them was better value for the money than a pirated one was to actually make the purchased game better than the pirated one. And this is how Steam client and its features came to be and and how the golden ages of piracy came to an end. With really nobody complaining. Now Epic thinks it can change the rules of the game and take away the choice from the consumers. If history can still teach us anything, Epic will soon discover the hard way that at the end of the road they have taken waiting for them there is not Valve nor Steam: there is a black galleon flying a Jolly Roger.
Some information on why Wine is not going to be using DXVK
25 Jan 2019 at 4:47 pm UTC Likes: 3
25 Jan 2019 at 4:47 pm UTC Likes: 3
This reminds me of when my employer decided to save a few bucks and ditched Google services for Microsoft ones and spam started to clog my mail box. The cosmic balance had to be preserved somehow. So Outlook filter wisely decided to move some client emails into the spam folder. :D
Darwin Project no longer works in Steam Play, due to Easy Anti-Cheat
14 Jan 2019 at 5:20 pm UTC
14 Jan 2019 at 5:20 pm UTC
Quoting: orochi_kyoThere are more than 3k games with gold status on Protondb, 3000 games you cannot play before without tweaking Wine, others were always unplayable, and you all are whining because a sh!tty Battle Royale game doesnt work, anymore? LOL, cant care less if KIDS are wasting their time playing this cancer called Fortnite, Single player games still have a niche and as I can play those games story or single player modes Im ok with it.Putting aside the fact that (in the free world at least) every game genre has the same dignity, the take away from this post is that any platinum game (including single player games) can become borked overnight if the developer decides to adopt a library that is not wine compatible. And such libraries do not include just the vast majority of anti cheat stuff but also DRM stuff. And if it happens that you bought such former platinum game on the basis that it used to be proton compatible you have no entitlement to get obtain a refund from Valve. It will be interesting to see if Valve will agree to a refund if this ever happens with supported games though.
Single players games are strong yet, because since everyone else in playing Fortnite/PUBG some devs doesnt even try to make multiplayer games anymore, they go single player.
Too much whining, that is why some devs prefer to make WIndows games only, yeah Windows gamers are a bunch of whiners too but at least they are a much bigger market than us.
Darwin Project no longer works in Steam Play, due to Easy Anti-Cheat
13 Jan 2019 at 7:10 pm UTC Likes: 1
13 Jan 2019 at 7:10 pm UTC Likes: 1
It sucks for you but thanks for sharing your experience. I too will never buy non officially supported proton games.
Stellaris MegaCorp expansion and the 2.2 'Le Guin' free update are now both out
19 Dec 2018 at 7:33 pm UTC
19 Dec 2018 at 7:33 pm UTC
Sectors are basically gone. The only function they have is that you can assign a governor to get his bonuses on (well, you can try to use AI and let it develop the planets... but pdx has a horrible history on AI programming and I didn't even try. Given the flame threads on their forum I think you shouldn't either). Just forget about them, turn them off from the map. Only use it late in game when you swim in energy to exploit governor bonus traits (you're no more leader capped, so you can indeed hire 50-60 governors if you can afford it).
The new economy instead is interesting since, as you already figured out, developing a planet is not a matter of mindlessly fill tiles and click the upgrade button. Now buildings consume strategic resources and produce nothing, they only unlock jobs. Jobs that require actual pops before producing something.
So mission accomplished here! Finally you actually have to think what to build and when to build it (and also, what to build first and what to replace it later).
The bad news though is that worlds in 2.2 require this attention consuming babysitting all time long and as you move to later stages of the game managing like 50 or more worlds becomes is an impossible chore. They really need to figure out a sensible way to delegate a competent AI to planet development for later stages of the game.
Which also makes me think that nobody at paradox actually tested the changes for other kind of empires that are not corporations or some kind of pacifists variant. Anything that is not vertical build just get out of hands later in the game for the sheer crazy amount of babysitting you have to do give to planets and their economies. Not to mention the crazy bugs and regression they had for previous paid DLC content like Utopia ascension paths or Synthetic dawn machine empires. Seriously, I warn you here. Don't try ascension paths or machine empire unless you're in for some miserable gaming time. Neither expect interesting rewards from leviathans or DLC events either as before.
And this frankly speaking is a despicable move. The game now is unbalanced when not just plain broken for the majority of empires you can play... except the ones released in the last paid DLC! As it now it seems only mega corps and little more make for a pleasant non micro hell experience. It shouldn't be like that. As a developer you should show respect also for customers that already gave you money, not just customers that still have to. Pdx has very loyal fans. Sometimes some of them sound like zealots more then customers to me. But admittedly I too like their great strategy games so much that I'm fine in forgiving some missteps on their side. But as they continue to expand their customer base I dunno how many of their new, less fanatical customers will be so forgiving.
Now for automatizing planet management for large empires, let's get real: I don't think there is anything quick they can do. Developing good and performing AI is a long trial and error process. It's better if they take their time and do something that works well in 2.3. But I hope that at least they fix up the previous DLCs content in the coming patches because as of now this to me this looks like a gratuitous lack of respect.
The new economy instead is interesting since, as you already figured out, developing a planet is not a matter of mindlessly fill tiles and click the upgrade button. Now buildings consume strategic resources and produce nothing, they only unlock jobs. Jobs that require actual pops before producing something.
So mission accomplished here! Finally you actually have to think what to build and when to build it (and also, what to build first and what to replace it later).
The bad news though is that worlds in 2.2 require this attention consuming babysitting all time long and as you move to later stages of the game managing like 50 or more worlds becomes is an impossible chore. They really need to figure out a sensible way to delegate a competent AI to planet development for later stages of the game.
Which also makes me think that nobody at paradox actually tested the changes for other kind of empires that are not corporations or some kind of pacifists variant. Anything that is not vertical build just get out of hands later in the game for the sheer crazy amount of babysitting you have to do give to planets and their economies. Not to mention the crazy bugs and regression they had for previous paid DLC content like Utopia ascension paths or Synthetic dawn machine empires. Seriously, I warn you here. Don't try ascension paths or machine empire unless you're in for some miserable gaming time. Neither expect interesting rewards from leviathans or DLC events either as before.
And this frankly speaking is a despicable move. The game now is unbalanced when not just plain broken for the majority of empires you can play... except the ones released in the last paid DLC! As it now it seems only mega corps and little more make for a pleasant non micro hell experience. It shouldn't be like that. As a developer you should show respect also for customers that already gave you money, not just customers that still have to. Pdx has very loyal fans. Sometimes some of them sound like zealots more then customers to me. But admittedly I too like their great strategy games so much that I'm fine in forgiving some missteps on their side. But as they continue to expand their customer base I dunno how many of their new, less fanatical customers will be so forgiving.
Now for automatizing planet management for large empires, let's get real: I don't think there is anything quick they can do. Developing good and performing AI is a long trial and error process. It's better if they take their time and do something that works well in 2.3. But I hope that at least they fix up the previous DLCs content in the coming patches because as of now this to me this looks like a gratuitous lack of respect.
Valve have some serious competition, with the Epic Games Store being announced
12 Dec 2018 at 5:51 pm UTC Likes: 1
12 Dec 2018 at 5:51 pm UTC Likes: 1
Ok cool but... what the hell is a "used digital game"?!? A digital game with some scratches on the pixels of the loading screen or the colors of the main character weared down? :D
Stellaris MegaCorp expansion and the 2.2 'Le Guin' free update are now both out
10 Dec 2018 at 11:45 am UTC
10 Dec 2018 at 11:45 am UTC
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'll be able to trade for it--except I can't currently extract any strategic resource to trade with.I'm pretty sure that you can also produce them with jobs by converting basic resources aka minerals/energy/food though ofc harvesting them directly is much cheaper. In other words you won't be stuck to lower tiers if you don't have access to strategic resources.
Stellaris MegaCorp expansion and the 2.2 'Le Guin' free update are now both out
8 Dec 2018 at 4:39 pm UTC Likes: 1
8 Dec 2018 at 4:39 pm UTC Likes: 1
Since I already own Stellaris I gave 2.2 a try. As I imagined this is a very good patch. Finally there is something interesting to do in peace time. Developing your economy is an engaging and interesting activity. You will screw everything up if you don't plan it carefully. I approve it. Ofc there are some adjustments to do but overall it's a very solid rework.
Sadly warfare and diplomacy still remain pretty weak in the game. For the former I don't see much hope given the fact that it was remade in 2.0. But hopefully diplomacy should get a revamp in 2.4 or 2.6. When it happens I think that for me there will be enough stuff to do in peace time to make me forget about the miserable flat chore that is warfare and go back actively play the game. As for now I approve the patch but I will still keep Stellaris on froze and play the other Pdx grand strat games.
Sadly warfare and diplomacy still remain pretty weak in the game. For the former I don't see much hope given the fact that it was remade in 2.0. But hopefully diplomacy should get a revamp in 2.4 or 2.6. When it happens I think that for me there will be enough stuff to do in peace time to make me forget about the miserable flat chore that is warfare and go back actively play the game. As for now I approve the patch but I will still keep Stellaris on froze and play the other Pdx grand strat games.